Evolution, why us?

[طالب]

you are making a contradictory statement.

If science is based on observation. Then there is no way to "observe" the past.

Of course there is. For example, the fossil record shows us the past.

You are right that we cannot know everything about the past. But science uses all the observations so far to make theories. We have only observed, thus far, living things come from living things. We have never observed a living thing come from a rock.

That doesn't mean that a en elephant was not born from a rock 40 million years ago, or will not be born from a rock in the next second. But science only makes predictions on what we have observed so far. And we have never observed an elephant being born by a rock, or thin air, we've only observed an elephant being born by a living thing.

We have only observed living things coming from living things. Thus, scientifically we must conclude that it has always been like that. Why? Because we have never seen anything else.

That's how science works. If you one day see an elephant pop out from thin air, then you can use that as evidence.

Science is based on "empirical evidence" that means. If one thing happens ONCE, it can be replicated and done, predictably AGAIN.

GET IT?

Yes, and it is replicated every day. Every day new living things are born. From what? A rock? A non living thing? No, from other living things. We have never observed anything else. That is all the empirical evidence we have.

Do you understand?

[graveyardofempires]

mountain goat you are trying to dodge questions by bringing this ""living thing voming from living thing" no one has disputed that but offcourse you like any other atheist darwinist will resort to thing such as flying spaghetti monster or repeating yourself about living thing not born of a rock.

this means you have no evidence and you have given no evidence and you cant put a claim on science.
this is not science its a total anti intellect trying to divert the question.

[طالب]

you are not listening to yourself when you are talking.
i never claimed that livign things didnt come from living things its your "scientists" who push a theory saying that living things came from non living things.

Again you are talking about the origin of life. It doesn't matter how it all started, what matters is that 3.8 billion years ago there were no human beings, but there were single celled organism. Today there are human beings. Where did they come from, scientifically?

i didnt say single cell organism is not livign thing is said they claim that non living thing changed into single cell organism and than further.
dont take my comment out of context.

I responded to this above. The origin of life doesn't matter. All we care about, for now, is if human beings came from less complex living things or not. Evolution is about how the diversity of species came to be on earth after the single cell organism, not how the non living thing changed into a single cell organism.

human beings came into existance through creation for a purpose and not chance and evolution.

That's exactly my point, this statement is not science! In science you cannot say that a human being came from thin air!

The reason you cannot say it is, that it has never been observed. Science deals with the natural, not the supernatural. That's what makes it science.

Maybe that happened, maybe it did not, science can not say so. All science can say is that we have never observed such a thing, we have only observed living things come from living things. Based on that evidence, human beings came from simple organisms.

Biology books cannot say that Islam says this or Buddhism says that. Biology books have to be scientific which is based on observation, aka the natural world, not the supernatural.

[طالب]

mountain goat you are trying to dodge questions by bringing this ""living thing voming from living thing" no one has disputed that but offcourse you like any other atheist darwinist will resort to thing such as flying spaghetti monster or repeating yourself about living thing not born of a rock.

I'm not dodging any questions, I'm saying you don't need to know how life started to argue the case for evolution!

All you need to know is this:
1. 3.8 billion years ago there living, single celled organisms existed on earth. There were no humans on earth.

2. Today there are humans on earth.

3. Where did those humans come from?

You need to use a scientific explanation. You cannot use religion because that is not science. You need to use observations.

this means you have no evidence and you have given no evidence and you cant put a claim on science.
this is not science its a total anti intellect trying to divert the question.

I have given evidence for my case. I don't need to give evidence on the origin of life because it is irrelevant to my case for evolution.

"evolution concerns itself with the diversity of species once life is established on earth, not with how life first began. So such a question is rather like raising doubts about how steel is made in any argument about how a car engine works."

[graveyardofempires]

Again you are talking about the origin of life. It doesn't matter how it all started, what matters is that 3.8 billion years ago there were no human beings, but there were single celled organism. Today there are human beings. Where did they come from, scientifically?

how is origin of life not important?
how sure are you that it was 3.8 billion and not 3.9 or 3.7?
how do you know there were no human beings?
how in the hell do you know there were single celled organism?

I responded to this above. The origin of life doesn't matter. All we care about, for now, is if human beings came from less complex living things or not.

human beings didnt evolve from "less complex" things,all of these animals existed for a long time and some got extinct others still exist.
they are their own type and didnt evolve from one to toher ,there is no evidence and if that was to happen it would be a catastrophy.
the only thing that can happen is mutation.

That's exactly my point, this statement is not science! In science you cannot say that a human being came from thin air!

what thin air are you talking about?
who said they came from thin air?

The reason you cannot say it because it has never been observed. Science deals with the natural, not the supernatural. That's what makes it science.

who says you are the authority to define science?

Maybe that happened, maybe it did not, science can not say so. All science can say is that we have never observed such a thing, we have only observed living things come from living things. Based on that evidence, human beings came from simple organisms.

what has this got to with evolution theory?
we cannot observe evolution cuz we know it didnt happen and probably will never happen.

does oxygen exist?
does darkness exist?

Biology books cannot say that Islam says this or Buddhism says that. Biology books have to be scientific which is based on observation, aka the natural world, not the supernatural.

if biology books are saying that we evolved from animals and before that from songle cell organisms than i must say its a fraudulant science book and the theory should be re examined before preaching it to the kids.

again you are chatting your way out of it by forms of deceptions.
you either give solid evidence backed by fossile records or a living breathing trnasational form or say that you cant answer my questions.

[طالب]

how is origin of life not important?

Here, I have made a picture for you in order to make it simple:


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

how sure are you that it was 3.8 billion and not 3.9 or 3.7?

Radiometric dating. It doesn't matter if it was 3.7, 3.8 or 3.9. It was billions of years before human beings existed on earth. Do you disagree that the earth is billions of years old? Do you disagree that human beings did not exist on earth 4 billion years ago?

how do you know there were no human beings?

The fossil record. There is not a single fossil of a vertebrate animal, including human beings, dated to 4 billion years ago on earth. There has not been found a fossil of a human being dating to 3 billion years ago either. Or 2 billion, or 1 billion, or 500 million or 300 million years ago.

how in the hell do you know there were single celled organism?

The fossil record shows single celled organisms dating as far back as 3.5 billion years.

human beings didnt evolve from "less complex"

So where did human beings come from? Don't say creation, that is not science. You have to use a scientific, natural explanation.

things,all of these animals existed for a long time and some got extinct others still exist.`they are their own type and didnt evolve from one to toher

Where did they come from then? Did they appear by magic? 3.5 billion years ago there were no vertebrates. Now there are vertebrates. Where did they come from? The scientific explanation is that they must have come from single celled organisms because living things have only been observed to come from living things. Have you observed anything else?

,there is no evidence and if that was to happen it would be a catastrophy.
the only thing that can happen is mutation.

1. Living things come from living things. EVIDENCE: Happens every day. We have never seen anything else.

2. Living things are different from each other. EVIDENCE: Some living things are vertebrates, others are not.

3. Simple animals and plants existed on earth long before complex ones. EVIDENCE: Fossil record shows that invertebrates existed on earth billions of years before vertebrates. Not a single case has been found to deny this

Conclusion: Humans must come from simple organisms. Why? Because living things come from living things.

what thin air are you talking about?
who said they came from thin air?

You said they were created by a creator. That is not science. Why? Because we have never seen the creator, we have never seen an animal been created suddenly by a creator. There are no observations in the natural world of such a thing occuring. Therefore it is not science.

who says you are the authority to define science?

I'm not the one defining it, that's how science works! Science can only talk about the natural world. It cannot talk about miracles, and magic, and God and ghosts. Why? Because we have never seen it. It has never been observed in the modern world. If it was ever observed, YES science could talk about it, but it hasn't that's why science doesn't talk about it.

That's the difference between science and religion, the natural and the supernatural. Don't you understand?

It doesn't mean that those things don't exist. It only means that science can not talk about it because it has never been observed. We are limited, science tries to explain things from what we can observe using our limited senses.

what has this got to with evolution theory?

The theory of evolution is a scientific theory. You cannot include God in a scientific theory.

we cannot observe evolution cuz we know it didnt happen and probably will never happen.

Here is the detailed answer to your objection:

"Others reject the notion of evolution outright (without reference to the argument) with the simple claim that it cannot be true because no one has ever seen a complete transformation of one distinct species into another (e.g., fish to reptiles). There may have been all sorts of minor developments of one species into another distinct but closely related species (an established scientific finding), but without such visual experience of a major transformation, so they say, evolution is just a "theory."

Well, of course evolution is a theory, just as atomic structures, black holes, electricity, relativity, DNA, magnetism, and so on are "just theories." But so what? We do not have direct visual evidence of these things with our own eyes (who has ever seen an electron or a molecule or a gene with the naked eye?). What we do observe, often with the aid of very sophisticated machines, are larger events which we explain as effects of those theoretical components. Most scientific theories involve natural elements that we cannot see. Those who seriously believe that this objection carries any weight need to become more familiar with the nature of scientific enquiry and the meaning of a scientific "proof."

Science does not proceed by demonstrating that certain theories are irrefutably true. It demonstrates by repeated testing that they are not false. The more a theory is confirmed, the stronger the probability that the explanation it offers is correct. This process produces what amounts to the explanation which best fits the facts we have collected (even if the fit is not always complete). And how does such confirmation proceed? There are two main tests. The first is to make a series of predictions based on the theory and then to explore the validity of those predictions. If a prediction holds, the theory has been confirmed; if not, then the theory has been challenged, perhaps even disproved. The second method of confirmation is to see how the theory accounts for new, unexpected discoveries. Can these be explained in terms of the theory? If so, then the theory has been confirmed; if not, then the theory has been challenged or disproved. By these two tests, the theory of evolution is spectacularly successful: it has been confirmed countless times over the past three centuries (at least). It would take only one discovery to discredit the entire theory (e.g., the existence of a mammal fossil in the lowest rock layers). That has never occurred.

This aspect of scientific explanation gives the method its unique power. Unlike some other knowledge claims (like many of those based on scripture), discrediting or disproving a scientific theory does no harm to scientific enquiry itself. Quite the contrary. It forces scientists to come up with a more refined or a different theory which can better account for the anomaly, and hence it strengthens the explanatory power of science and of particular scientific theories, like evolution.

A number of objectors make a case that goes something like this: Here's a problem that evolution has not yet explained in detail to my satisfaction (e.g., origin of life, evolution of a particular animal species or organ). Therefore, the whole theory is clearly wrong or invalid or "merely" a hypothesis. But no rational mind rejects an entire theory just because it is not complete. Physics is just as incomplete as biology (in the sense that there are many basic problems left to explain), yet no one objecting to evolution on these grounds makes similar complaints about Newton's Laws. In fact, every time people drive their cars or ride in a plane they are demonstrating their absolute faith in those laws. To object that because a scientific theory cannot explain everything, it therefore explains nothing makes as much sense as claiming that because someone does not know every word in the English language, nothing he says in English is worth attending to.

What seems clear in such cases is that the thinking process which produces such objections has nothing to do with a reasonable analysis of a scientific argument; it stems from an absolute refusal to accept that argument's conclusions and from a search (often rather desperate) for anything that looks like an apparent justification for such a refusal. One is perfectly free to reject the conclusion of a scientific argument, of course--after all, it is a free country--but to pretend that the incompleteness of some of the explanations offered by the theory is an adequate scientific reason for doing so is erroneous.

Finally, to argue, as some readers do, that just because we haven't found complex vertebrate fossils (including human beings) in the lower strata doesn't mean they are not there and that thus we should not consider evolution valid indicates a complete failure to understand the nature of scientific reasoning. Should we throw out the theory of gravity just because, for all we know, some day a stone dropped out of a window might fly upward?"

does oxygen exist?
does darkness exist?

Yes it does, and we can measure it. We can observe it.

if biology books are saying that we evolved from animals and before that from songle cell organisms than i must say its a fraudulant science book and the theory should be re examined before preaching it to the kids.

Here is another detailed answer:

"Why, many people claim, are scientists not more receptive to creationism. They state that their method invites rival theories, but shut the door on any meaningful discussion. Well, scientists are, in general, very open minded and ready to listen and argue about various theories (although often slow to get involved). But there are two caveats. First, the theory being proposed must be a scientific theory (i.e., capable of producing predictions which can be tested, without any appeals to supernatural causation, and so on). If it is not, then scientists will say that such a claim lies outside of their jurisdiction (i.e., science has no way of assessing the validity or usefulness of the theory). The theory might well be true (whatever that means exactly), but it is not science. This was part of the judge's ruling in the recent (2005) Dover School case which decided that Intelligent Design had no place in the science curriculum (a decision endorsed by the Vatican).

The second caveat is that theory being proposed should not be one which scientists have already discredited, even though the theory might well meet the criteria of a scientific argument. Few scientists, I suspect, would be very interested nowadays in debating whether the sun or the earth is the focal point for our solar system or whether phlogiston is involved in combustion.

Of course, sometimes old theories, once discarded, can make something of a comeback. For example, the inheritance of acquired characteristics, a key element in Lamarck's theory of evolution (and a view shared by Charles Darwin), was rejected in the 19th century after various experiments. However, in recent decades it has appeared again in studies of how environmental factors can affect mutation rates.

When critics complain that scientists are too dogmatic about evolution, they rather miss the point. Within the scientific community there is virtually no argument about evolution as the key metaphor in the development of life of earth, because there is no other scientific theory with the same explanatory power available. The same holds true for theories about our solar system. But I have yet to hear such critics complaining about the fact that Newton's cosmology is too dogmatic and that we need to make room for theories about Elijah's making the sun stand still. The persuasiveness of science arises, after all, because, unlike other systems of understanding the world, it does resolve some issues once and for all."

again you are chatting your way out of it by forms of deceptions.

What deceptions have I given? Please point them out.

you either give solid evidence backed by fossile records or a living breathing trnasational form or say that you cant answer my questions.

Transitional fossils have nothing, whatsoever to do with my argument. Even if there were no transitional fossils my argument would still stand.

Living things come from living things, therefore humans must come from other living things. How the process occured is irrelevant.

[roadrunner]

Here, I have made a picture for you in order to make it simple:


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Could you simplify it down a bit more?

It's far too complicated for him.

[faye]

if everything is supposedly energy isn't that alive. i call that life. a lot of what is called science is speculation that is put forward as fact. how can you say with the evolution theory, we will just start here, mountain goat, and not at the supposed beginning?

[roadrunner]

What he means, I haven't read it all, but what he means I think is that the origin of life (single-celled organisms) is not relevant to evolution.

Evolution is everything that occurs after life originated.

If that's so, then he's of course right.

Though the Muller-Urey theory on the origin of single-celled organisms would be an evolution of life also.

[faye]

well, the faye theory is different, all life is life, whether it be an explosion, a single celled thingy or what the explosion manifested from, which i assume must have been energy. so surely the theory of evolution has to begin at the supposed origin.

[roadrunner]

yes indeed faye. And that's what he's saying in his diagram.

Evolution starts when life starts.

But what caused the origin of life is not necessarily evolution

[Mayana]

How does evolution account for senescence? From a strictly evolutionary perspective, shouldn't natural selection favor those who live longest because they could reproduce most efficiently? Because if it does, then there should be people who live to be 300, 400 years old (Longevity ≠Immortality). Why is it that senescence seems to be a genetically programmed process? In strictly biological terms, why are born just to grow old and die?

[faye]

if a theory is not fitting with what is considered 'science' it is invalidated. a few bones here and there and the possibility that some bones may have disintegrated by now, does not prove the theory to me.
maybe there is magic which created everything but of course that is not science but it is still a possibility. there are many theories about creation and assumptions in the theory of evolution.
the aboriginals in australia believe they were created by the rainbow serpent. who knows, maybe they were but the scientists will tell them they weren't and the creatonists will tell them they weren't but who can prove they were not?

[roadrunner]

How does evolution account for senescence? From a strictly evolutionary perspective, shouldn't natural selection favor those who live longest because they could reproduce most efficiently? Because if it does, then there should be people who live to be 300, 400 years old (Longevity ≠Immortality). Why is it that senescence seems to be a genetically programmed process? In strictly biological terms, why are born just to grow old and die?

Well, take a moth. Moths have been driven by natural selection to blend in with the bark of trees or other forms of camouflage from predators.

Without this ability to blend with their surrounding, they would have a much smaller lifespan.

So evolution has improved its longevity.

As for humans, after reproduction there's not a whole lot of point from an evolutionary point of view. Having humans live longer would only drain resources and not introduce anything better into the gene pool. So perhaps if people were able to live till 400, natural selection would find ways of reducing this value.

[roadrunner]

if a theory is not fitting with what is considered 'science' it is invalidated. a few bones here and there and the possibility that some bones may have disintegrated by now, does not prove the theory to me.
maybe there is magic which created everything but of course that is not science but it is still a possibility. there are many theories about creation and assumptions in the theory of evolution.
the aboriginals in australia believe they were created by the rainbow serpent. who knows, maybe they were but the scientists will tell them they weren't and the creatonists will tell them they weren't but who can prove they were not?

no no no no no. Evolution is a fact. It is unquestionable that it does occur.