No Captain flash, it is a theory. Seek a dictonary to determine the difference between the two.

Again, since you seem to have problems with this small truth, evolution is -NOT- a fact.

Ah yes, here come the insults.

Thanks for adding so much to this thread.

Hmmm, so the guy is saying "Well i was lying then, but now i'm telling the truth. I was just humoring him."

Sounds like bullshiit to me.

EXACTLY.

Evolution is theory. It may be our best theory, but it's still just theory. I have little doubt that in 100 years we will have very different views on this, and probably almost all, scientific issues.

Had someone tried to advance string theory in 1800, he'd have been called a moron by every scientist alive. Now, all this time later, it is plausible(ish), so it is a relatively sound theory, but it IS NOT FACT.

You enlightened Evolutionists who are convinced Evolution is a 'fact', you go ahead and show me a moment of evolution- where "species A" gives birth to an entirely new, naturally evolved "species B" in a controlled laboratory environment.

I won't hold my breath though, because that has never happened.

PS: And if evolutionary theory is so 100% ironclad sound, why were scientists predictions about the 'base species'(my term, invented just now, i think) on earth so wrong?

They told us that all life evolved from simple sponges. But wait, now they say we evolved from a much more complex sort of jelly fish organism. No one had predicted this. So sponges evolved BACKWARDS? Hmmm.....seems highly problematic to me.

And here's the real kicker: Through DNA cloning and someday soon artificial intelligence in machines, there is already direct empirical evidence that intelligent design eixsts now...and it is a power WE already control.

Hence it could be accurately stated that intelligent design is a fact. Evolution is a theory.

So put that in your primordal stew and munch on it. ;)

Are you serious? You really don't know much about this subject, do you?

Here's a good discussion:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-fact.html

A quote from the article:

"Biologists consider the existence of biological evolution to be a fact. It can be demonstrated today and the historical evidence for its occurrence in the past is overwhelming. However, biologists readily admit that they are less certain of the exact mechanism of evolution; there are several theories of the mechanism of evolution."

The theory of evolution is biologist's scientific explanation for the fact of evolution. Evolution itself is a fact.

That's hilarious. :D

Wow, well thought out post.

1) Show me when evolution has ever predicted, then been empirically observed, and thereby proven, in a laboratory environment. Lacking that it's not fact.

2) Why were scientists completely wrong about the first species they theorize we all evolved from?

3) How did so many species devolve? How did the first life form devolve into a sea sponge, the previously thought first life form?

3) What do you call the deliberate altering of existing species, thereby creating all new sub-species by scientists in a lab? It's sure not evolution. I would call it Intelligent design, by it's very nature.

I await the answers to these simple questions.

There have been many observed instances of speciation.

For instanct, what about the Tragopogon?

"Owenby (1950) demonstrated that two species in this genus were produced by polyploidization from hybrids. He showed that Tragopogon miscellus found in a colony in Moscow, Idaho was produced by hybridization of T. dubius and T. pratensis. He also showed that T. mirus found in a colony near Pullman, Washington was produced by hybridization of T. dubius and T. porrifolius. Evidence from chloroplast DNA suggests that T. mirus has originated independently by hybridization in eastern Washington and western Idaho at least three times (Soltis and Soltis 1989). The same study also shows multiple origins for T. micellus."

From:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html

How many examples do you need? Moses mentioned e. coli earlier in this very thread. Did you not read his posting?

Feel free to answer the rest of my questions while i dig into these claims.

Didn't read every post in both threads, i do readily admit.

And my other questions?

PS: The first thing that jumps out at me in your link is the fact that scientists can't even decide what a new species is, so there are several competing definitions. LOL. But i will read it all.

Another IDiot demanding to be spoon fed science. Go get an education. Your post shows the typical extreme ignorance of science and specifically biological evolution. There have been numerous posts of these (except #2) given and linked on this thread and others, pay attention next time as you obviously are not getting this at Sunday School.
#2 is a relatively recent development and highlights the difficulty due to the immense time scales to fit the current genomic data into a historical cladistic profile. Genomes change with time. Genomes are finite. Therefore, after long enough periods of time, historical genomic "traits" are lost in random genetic noise (this is called saturation). This makes cladistic determination extremely difficult and prone to sampling and calculation errors. You would of course know this already if you studied evolutionary biology.

Right or wrong, what does this have to do with whether or not evolution has occurred? (I personally don't know that we have decided what the "first species" was at this point). Did I miss that?

IMHO, what you're talking about (the whole sea sponge thing) is not accepted as fact. I think it is only a theory. I could be wrong. You seem to be taking a recent clip from the news and extrapolating incorrectly from it.

Again, what does this have to do with whether or not natural evolution has occurred?

Sniper: You have now stated a couple of times that your knowledge of evolution is limited, so why do you seem to speak from authority making sweeping statements that evolution is false?

You're really not debating with Mike or me, but with multiple disciplines of science that have amassed hard evidence over 100 years.

And respectfully, you don't seem to have the depth of knowledge to appreciated the process of the scientific method and the construction of scientific theory and ultimate finding of fact.

So far, ID has not made a single claim or hypothesis which has stood up to the scrutiny of the scientific community. This fact is not because science is closed and afraid of the ID folks, and it is laughable that anyone would think this was the case.

Best,

Kurt

These people are confusing micro and macreo evolution. Changes in species can occur by duplication of genetic information or a (mutation) decrease in genetic information (micro evolution and natural selection) But there has never been one experiment where science has observed a given species completely turn into a new one. Like a bird to fish. (macreoevolution) There is simply no way to account for the new genetic information needed to do so, but keep looking. I think that m21sniper has boxed you guys into a little corner. Your trying so hard to create a new species with your top intelligent scientists just to show that it this would take no intelligence? kind of a conundrum for you guys.

"The literature on observed speciations events is not well organized. I found only a few papers that had an observation of a speciation event as the author's main point (e.g. Weinberg, et al. 1992). In addition, I found only one review that was specifically on this topic (Callaghan 1987). This review cited only four examples of speciation events. Why is there such a seeming lack of interest in reporting observations of speciation events?"

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html

4 reported events is good enough for me.

Point yielded.

My other questions remain.

Typical response from an evolutionist. You do your arguments no credit at all in this manner.

It is a convenient excuse, if nothing else.

I already posted a response citing 4 instances of documented specation(sp?) from the report that was linked. All that with just a 'sunday school' education.

BTW, i do not proscribe to any religion or ideology.

To try and trivialize scientific understanding by saying "such-and-such is only a theory" may I point out some other theories that one might consider:

- Gravity
- Relativity
- Quantum Mechanics

Yes, a theory can be disproven, but to do so requires EVIDENCE - something that the so-called "intelligent design" crowd always manages to somehow avoid producing. . . Curious.

Like that lady in the 80s said, "where's the beef?"

So, when mankind creates the first intelligent 'living' AI machine, what will you call that, if not a direct example of intelligent design?

Frankly, i don't see how you could call cloning anything but intelligent design. It surely doesn't disprove evolution, but it does very much prove that intelligent beings can deliberately manipulate life. That's personally exactly how i would define intelligent design.

And by the way, I am not making sweeping proclimations, i am asking obvious questions. One would think that such an 'educated' lot could easily answer them without insult or vitriol.

But, apparently not.

The rabidity of your collective responses is quite akin to a state of paranoia, to be honest.

Argument from ignorance, argument from incredulity, and a straw-man argument. Pretty well sums up the entire intellectual arsenal of the IDers; nothing but negative arguments.

Of note, the transition from fish to early tetrapod, early tetrapod to pre-avian reptile, and pre-avian reptile to modern bird is well documented in the fossil and genomic record spanning about 300,000,000 years. If it takes "nature" 300,000,000 years to do it, why would you think it is possible to duplicate in the lab?
By the way, there are individuals currently attempting to breed birds back to theropod like dinosaur homologue's.

Since this thread is no longer about the premise of the movie I'm going to bow out and unsubscribe.

The responses you see are not so much as a result of paranoia, but more from the fact that this comes up over and over and over and none of the "anti-evolution" crowd ever comes to the table with any actual knowledge of the subject they so vehemently rail against. It just gets old. Ben Stein fabricates a story and makes a movie (that ID proponents are being discriminated against) and people come out of the woodwork to challenge hundreds of years of scientific endeavor (endeavor that has withstood extreme scrutiny). All this with no real knowledge of the subject and no evidence to back up their claims. Very frustrating.

I suppose you can call cloning "intelligent design" if you like. You could call the design of the Large Hadron Collider "intelligent design" if you want to. I wouldn't argue. As a theory to explain the diversity of life on Earth, however, ID is worthless.

That would about sum it up. Completely pointless to discuss. No (or extremely limited) underlying knowledge of the subject matter at hand and a totally disingenuous process in his retorts. There can be no discourse under those conditions, only blather, huffing, and puffing.

I watched Barry Lyndon this weekend. It wasn't about evolution per se, but you could see the evolution of Kubrick's work. Totally set the stage for Eyes Wide Shut. Do you think aliens might have planted Kubrick as well? Or was he ID?

I think "we", man, will create artificial life and Venter is underway with his projects now. I also believe "we" will create thinking machines.

The proof that humans can manipulate life has been around for a long time; corn and dogs, among many others, come to mind.

But, none of the above further the case for the ID folks as there is clear evidence that life is not designed, but evolved.

The only room for an intelligent designer is pre-big bang. One could argue that some being or beings initiated the big bang or perhaps created a simulation which we are living in ( http://www.simulation-argument.com/ ), but there is no evidence of this either.

Of course the above paragraph does not impact the fact that evolution has occurred and is occurring on Earth. You could argue that evolution is the product of a designer, but again no evidence exists.

Regarding my claim that you are making sweeping generalizations, you said this:

and

These are sweeping generalizations that show you may not clearly understand how theory is defined in the many disciplines of science.


FWIW.

Best,

Kurt