Is evolution a controversial science?

Creationism, Evolution, and other science issues

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McCulloch
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Is evolution a controversial science?

Post #1

Post by McCulloch »

Elsewhere JP Cusick wrote:Both religion and controversial science could be taught in elective College courses where they belong.
He was referring to evolution as controversial science. While there may be quite a number of legitimate controversies within the science of biology regarding evolution, evolution itself is not a controversy at all among biologists.

Question for debate: Is evolution as taught at the high school level, a controversial science? Is there any controversy among currently practicing biologists regarding the basic science behind evolution?
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Re: evolution controversial subject?

Post #191

Post by Danmark »

evilsorcerer1 wrote: while I don't believe in evolution I do think many of the evolution theories are as sound as religious beliefs.... so when people are left with some or many unsound theories they have to sort through all the clutter and try to make a decision; i'd like to know if anyone has anyone has any theories related to population of the earth when humans first inhabited earth? I do recognize a pattern to many things, like all planets are round, yet earth seems to be the only one inhabited;...I also wonder why that is.
I'm sorry to have to tell you, but this post reflects an incredible lack of education. You don't believe in evolution despite the fact the overwhelming support it has among those who have studied the issue.

You equate it with religious beliefs which include all kinds of unsupported nonsense including the obvious creation myth and other religious beliefs that are even more absurd. To answer your question about inhabited planets, a dozen have been found so far and there are probably 60 billion more.
https://www.space.com/21800-alien-plane ... anets.html

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Re: evolution controversial subject?

Post #192

Post by Kenisaw »

evilsorcerer1 wrote: while I don't believe in evolution I do think many of the evolution theories are as sound as religious beliefs.... so when people are left with some or many unsound theories they have to sort through all the clutter and try to make a decision; i'd like to know if anyone has anyone has any theories related to population of the earth when humans first inhabited earth? I do recognize a pattern to many things, like all planets are round, yet earth seems to be the only one inhabited;...I also wonder why that is.
The scientific theory of evolution doesn't have to be "believed" because it has been proven, time and again, to be a valid explanation for how the diversity of life occurred over time.

No one can really say how many planets are inhabited, as we've only landed on one other one in our solar system and can't even be sure exactly how many planets there are orbiting the nearest stars...

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Post #193

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Re: Is evolution a controversial science?

Post #194

Post by Hawkins »

[Replying to post 1 by McCulloch]

It's not about a controversy. It's all about that no one knows clearly what it is.


======
Science is about the prediction of an end-to-end repetition. Science is accurate because it's always about something which can repeat infinitive number of times for humans to observe and most importantly to predict how it repeats to draw a conclusion. The methodology ToE employed is completely different from any other science. This is so simply because it takes millions of years for an end-to-end evolution to possibly repeat itself. We don't have that time to observe and predict how it repeats to draw any scientific conclusion.

If you implicitly claim that a human can be evolved from in the end a single cell organism, then you have to make the single-cell to human process repeats itself infinitive number of times for humans to do enough observations, and most importantly predictions on how this repeats in order to draw a scientific conclusion. That's how each and every single science works.

This is so because humans are creatures of the present. We don't have the capability to reach the past, and we don't have the capability to reach the future. It is because we have no capability to reach the future that if we can correctly and repeatedly predict how a phenomenon repeats itself into the future, we know that we hit a truth in terms of how we make use of a "theory" to predict the repetition. This is the nature of science and why it is accurate. In a nutshell, science is the making use of predictions repeatedly to identify a truth (which can repeat). ToE is a valid hypothesis in suggesting that evolution (from single cell to fully grown) can be a repeating process (of natural selection). However it's not up to the scientific accuracy as long as you can't make it repeat itself (to the extent of infinitive number of times) for the prediction of its repetition to be made correctly and repeatedly.

That said, to me the theory of common ancestry is a joke in concluding that everyone has an invisible common ancestor without knowing who it is. In terms of how things work, the genes are so if you would like that animal to have its appearance and behavior. If you want a chimp to have its current appearance and behavior, you need the genes to be so disregarding whether the genes share anything in common with that of humans. Everything else can be anything, not necessarily be a result of evolution. It can be a result of interbreeding or a mixture of interbreeding and adaptation. The difference between adaption and evolution is that species can be selected by the nature, however this may not be the way how they are brought to their current state from a single cell.

An analogy is that whenever you see someone in uniform sitting in the cockpit of a plane, you draw the conclusion that he's a pilot. This can be true however it's a pure speculation. He's a pilot when he launches and lands a plane from one airport to another repeatedly as we predict. Then he's a pilot. This what science is and how it makes a difference from the pure speculation. Similarly, when you see how nature changes a species to draw the conclusion that nature can drive a single cell to that species, it's a pure speculation. If you can predict repeatedly how a single cell turns into that species without error, only then you have a science!

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Re: Is evolution a controversial science?

Post #195

Post by DeMotts »

[Replying to post 194 by Hawkins]

Do you have an explanation of why chromosome #2 in humans is nearly identical to two chimpanzee chromosomes, complete with vestigial telomeres AND a second (vestigial) centromere, indicating it emerged from a fusion of two chromosomes in a common ancestor?

Further reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromosome_2_(human)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/libra ... 73_47.html

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Re: Is evolution a controversial science?

Post #196

Post by H.sapiens »

DeMotts wrote: [Replying to post 194 by Hawkins]

Do you have an explanation of why chromosome #2 in humans is nearly identical to two chimpanzee chromosomes, complete with vestigial telomeres AND a second (vestigial) centromere, indicating it emerged from a fusion of two chromosomes in a common ancestor?

Further reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromosome_2_(human)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/libra ... 73_47.html
Not to mention a passel of other identical chromosomal features that could only have occurred in both chimps and humans if they shared a rather recent common ancestor.

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Re: Is evolution a controversial science?

Post #197

Post by Neatras »

[Replying to post 196 by H.sapiens]

I'm so tempted to bring up ERVs again, but that may have to wait. I've got another discussion brewing and I want to make sure I put him through the ringer.

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Re: Is evolution a controversial science?

Post #198

Post by bluethread »

H.sapiens wrote:
DeMotts wrote: [Replying to post 194 by Hawkins]

Do you have an explanation of why chromosome #2 in humans is nearly identical to two chimpanzee chromosomes, complete with vestigial telomeres AND a second (vestigial) centromere, indicating it emerged from a fusion of two chromosomes in a common ancestor?

Further reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromosome_2_(human)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/libra ... 73_47.html
Not to mention a passel of other identical chromosomal features that could only have occurred in both chimps and humans if they shared a rather recent common ancestor.
That is based on rational arguments applied to scientifically verified processes. The processes are science, the application of them to human life and the view that something could have only happened a certain way are philosophy.

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Re: Is evolution a controversial science?

Post #199

Post by H.sapiens »

bluethread wrote:
H.sapiens wrote:
DeMotts wrote: [Replying to post 194 by Hawkins]

Do you have an explanation of why chromosome #2 in humans is nearly identical to two chimpanzee chromosomes, complete with vestigial telomeres AND a second (vestigial) centromere, indicating it emerged from a fusion of two chromosomes in a common ancestor?

Further reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromosome_2_(human)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/libra ... 73_47.html
Not to mention a passel of other identical chromosomal features that could only have occurred in both chimps and humans if they shared a rather recent common ancestor.
That is based on rational arguments applied to scientifically verified processes. The processes are science, the application of them to human life and the view that something could have only happened a certain way are philosophy.
You prefer, perhaps, irrational arguments applied to scientifically unverified processes? I don't. In fact, when you understand the dozens of independent lines of evidence that are known, you are left with passing small doubt that it happened in a certain way.

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Re: Is evolution a controversial science?

Post #200

Post by bluethread »

H.sapiens wrote:
You prefer, perhaps, irrational arguments applied to scientifically unverified processes? I don't. In fact, when you understand the dozens of independent lines of evidence that are known, you are left with passing small doubt that it happened in a certain way.
I was not addressing that point. I was just pointing out that evolution is not science, it is philosophy. One can use scientific information to support that philosophy and there may indeed be little doubt your mind and the mind of others that things happened in that way. However, doubt or the lack thereof are not scientific principles, they are philosophical ones.

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