Evolution is Unscientific

Faithfulservant said:
Whoa. Are you saying that people of faith are somehow not as educated?
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I wouldn't have taken it that way, but if anybody did say that it would not be accurate. The relationship between religion and education is highly studied and rather nuanced, but for centuries in the West at least and possibly in other parts of the world organized religions were the source for education/learning/libraries/repositories of knowledge...

Religiosity and education - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

History of education - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
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juantoo3 said:
You appear to base your atheism on a great deal of unfounded faith.

Science, all science, is an attempt at Truth, primarily using logic. Science is a form of Truth. But Science is not the be all and end all sum total of Truth, because parts of the universe are illogical.

Love and beauty are not logical, that is why science cannot properly discuss these matters of experience.

Oh, but love is just chemicals in the brain...the exact same chemicals in the exact same places in the brain lit up under reverent prayer...i.e., G!d. If those chemicals in the brain *prove* love, they also prove G!d, unless one's research is duplicitous. Good luck using science to dissect beauty. The closest you will find is animal magnetism, a rather questionable sub-field at arm's length from psychology.

You made the statement as a matter of fact, as if any question is irrelevant. You used Clarke's quote in some effort to silence discussion in smug condescension. That's the problem with know-it-alls, they seldom do.
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I don't disagree with you but I don't really agree with you saying that science is primarily based on logic. Science is an attempt to explain how things work or may have worked, starting from observation, going to a model which would be refined or discarded according to whether it predicts further observations (confirm the model) or not (modify or discard the model). Human science hardy uses any logic, rather generalized patterns that summarise the observations.
 
Aupmanyav said:
Well, your view. In my view there is no soul/spirit and no afterlife. We live only once and our identity completely dissipates after death.
Too factual and harsh view to accept by those who are afraid of their non-existence after death.
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Hope you are correct, if you are not you will have an eternity to think about where you went wrong, same as me.
What do you base your belief on?
I base my belief on the Word of God, the teachings of Jesus Christ who died on the Cross for my sins and rose again... to give me eternal life and not death.
 
Yahweh kid said:
What do you base your belief on? I base my belief on the Word of God, the teachings of Jesus Christ who died on the Cross for my sins and rose again... to give me eternal life and not death. Hope you are correct, if you are not you will have an eternity to think about where you went wrong, same as me.
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Science.
I am satisfied the one life that I got. I would not remember this life even if I am born again. Any life will be a repetition of joys and sorrows. Same thing again. So, how does it matter?
You have doubts, you have worries that you might be wrong and there may be no everlasting stay in heaven (Hotel Capella, Bangkok overlooking the Chao Phraya River) after death. I know there is no such after-life. God and soul are what some humans have conjured up (mostly frauds, some ignorants too). After death, the molecules that constitute your body will disperse in the environment (99% percent of molecules of a human body are water molecules - check that anywhere, so we are basically bags of water).
I have no doubts, no worries.
 
Aupmanyav said:
What is it on which science cannot make a statement (except, at the moment, 'why things at all exist?').
Even there science has theories.
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Theories are just beliefs based on the existing teachings. Much like what is claimed as a weakness of religion.

For current key statements that exist as theories purely, how about:
- The cause of gravity
- The origin of human language
- The ingestion of Archae that changed a prokaryotic lifeform to an eukaryotic one
 
this might be an example of fast macroevolution because from what the article is saying cichlid jaws have changed dramatically in a short period creating different species that are master-of-one or jack-of-all:
The Extraordinary Evolution of Cichlid Fishes

However the example you seem to be asking for in you OP based on one animal changing into another.e.g(fish to cat) does not take place that fast in real life. Most macroevolution research is based on fossil studies because that can show us how changes took place over millions of years. We as humans havent even existed for half a million. And we've only learned writing in the past 5000 years so that when information started to be recorded. It's like asking proof for observation of a apartment building turning from empty plot to finished building in 10 days. Just doesnt happen in that time period.
 
If you are willing to count fossil evidence as 'observable', then here is the record of fish to cat based on it:


  1. Early Fish: The earliest vertebrates were fish, which appeared around 500 million years ago during the Cambrian period
  2. Tetrapods: Around 375 million years ago, some fish evolved into tetrapods, the first vertebrates to move onto land
  3. Synapsids: About 320 million years ago, a group of tetrapods called synapsids emerged. These are the ancestors of mammals
  4. Early Mammals: The first true mammals appeared around 200 million years ago during the late Triassic period
  5. Carnivorans: The order Carnivora, which includes cats, evolved around 60 million years ago
  6. Felidae Family: The family Felidae, which includes modern cats, evolved around 25 million years ago.
So, the transition from early fish to modern cats involved a series of evolutionary changes over approximately 500 million years.
 
Aupmanyav said:
Science has more proof for its theories than what scriptures have for their theories. :)
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A quick search of 'is science the arbiter of everything' brings up the answer: No.

The sciences have their domains. Theology is a science. Metaphysics is a science.

To say that the empirical sciences define all truth and reality is false, and a faith in the empirical sciences eventually answering everything is a fundamentalism – scientism.

So too often this kind of debate – science v religion – is a nonsense because neither party posses an inarguable proof.

All I'm saying is by simply saying 'science' as if that's a slam-dunk answer is scientism. It may be your conviction, it's not mine.

That you don't believe as I do, that I can accept – I hesitate to label you – I'll accept whatever label you prefer. But I can follow the reasoning of your position, and it is a reasonable and rational position.

As is mine.
 
Vasu Devan said:
- The cause of gravity
- The origin of human language
- The ingestion of Archae that changed a prokaryotic lifeform to an eukaryotic one
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Gravity: Work going on.
Speech: What is the problem with that? All animals make noises (with meaning) to communicate with other members of the group.
(Elephants can address individual members when they want rather than the whole group)
Archaea: Where did you get that. Could you give me a link?
 
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Vasu Devan said:
So, the transition from early fish to modern cats involved a series of evolutionary changes over approximately 500 million years.
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Yeah, what is wrong with that? Transition from Archaea to humans took over 3.5 billion years.

Archaea, pro-karyotes and eukaryotes were voracious eaters. They ate whatever they could find. ;)
 
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Thomas said:
A quick search of 'is science the arbiter of everything' brings up the answer: No.
The sciences have their domains. Theology is a science. Metaphysics is a science.
To say that the empirical sciences define all truth and reality is false, and a faith in the empirical sciences eventually answering everything is a fundamentalism – scientism.
So too often this kind of debate – science v religion – is a nonsense because neither party posses an inarguable proof.

That you don't believe as I do, that I can accept – I hesitate to label you – I'll accept whatever label you prefer. But I can follow the reasoning of your position, and it is a reasonable and rational position.
As is mine.
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That is your answer, not mine.
Theology has no evidence.
We have no better tool.
Good science always mentions its limitations.
Thanks for appreciation. My proper label is 'Atheist Advaitist (Believer in non-duality) Hindu'.
Say Muhammad, "For you is your view, and for me is my view" - Surah al-Kafirun
I would not say that. :D
 
Aupmanyav said:
Yeah, what is wrong with that? Transition from Archaea to humans took over 3.5 billion years.

Archaea, pro-karyotes and eukaryotes were voracious eaters. They ate whatever they could find. ;)
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Yes @Aupmanyav they are. But the specific event that caused eukaryotes to evolve.i.e.prokaryotes gulping archaea and becoming buddies with it, has never been observed in the wild and is still not considered empirically proven.

As for origin of human language, there is no proven explanation for it. A child learns a language by listening to other speakers in their youth. So, how did the first speakers know a language? If they don't learn one by the age of 12 or so, they lose the ability to learn any language. This was seen in feral children who were raised by animals in the wild. Some of them learned to make the sounds their parents(wolves/monkeys/bears) made but ones who had been abandoned by parents at later stage while still not being taught language, did not speak human language. It was also very hard to reintegrate them into society once they were found. Their psyche and brain was quite different from a child born and taught in civilization. Language is a psychotechnology that becomes habit if trained early enough. My personal theory used to be that a chieftain of a caveman tribe learned to make sounds and then assigned concepts to them which he trained his followers with. But then, even if one individual learned it to teach others, the others would be untrained adults too and thus having brains that could not learn.....perhaps, angels/aliens were our teachers then? 😂
See this article.

The fish to cat timeline was meant for @SufiPhilosophy , not u. I forgot to put the user ref in the post and this forum doesn't allow us to edit them after a while.

You claim to be an Advaitist but do you believe you are Brahma? Have you actually experienced being The Great Atman? The One Who Is All That Is? I have but I keep my mind open to the reasons for the experience. It was either waking up from my dream of being a mortal being....or a unique brain state that many humans claim to be experiencing now, since Eastern mysticism has become popular in the West. Either way, it was an amazing experience. Coming back to this dream world without being able to wake up for real again has only led to a Dark Night of the Soul. 😭
 
Vasu Devan said:
My personal theory used to be that a chieftain of a caveman tribe learned to make sounds and then assigned concepts to them which he trained his followers with. But then, even if one individual learned it to teach others, the others would be untrained adults too and thus having brains that could not learn.....perhaps, angels/aliens were our teachers then? 😂

You claim to be an Advaitist but do you believe you are Brahma? Have you actually experienced being The Great Atman? The One Who Is All That Is?You have an excellent 'personal' theory. It is ground-breaking and merits a Nobel prize. Why are you keeping it to yourself? Send it to some scientific journal.
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".. language has left no trace in any durable record. Whether any early humans possessed language, or didn’t, .."
May be not, but if Chimps are communicating among themselves, then pre-humans (Homo habilis and Homo erectus) and humans all had language. Science has studied the speech capability of Ardipithecus - Lucy, Australipithecines and pre-humans.

Brahma is a Puranic God in Hinduism. Brahman of Advaita is not necessarily a God, though most Hindus consider it as 'the One', the Great Atman.
If it is considered 'All that is', then it is my Brahman, the substrate of the universe, and this includes humans, animals, vegetation and non-living substances, like it is mentioned in Mandukya Upanishad - 'Sarvam Khalvidam Brahma' (All this here is Brahman). Then there is no question of any individual 'atma'. Everything is that only, 'tat sat'.
 
Aupmanyav said:
".. language has left no trace in any durable record. Whether any early humans possessed language, or didn’t, .."
May be not, but if Chimps are communicating among themselves, then pre-humans (Homo habilis and Homo erectus) and humans all had language. Science has studied the speech capability of Ardipithecus - Lucy, Australipithecines and pre-humans.
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Chimp language is very different from human. Yes, many animals communicate. None like human and the question is origin of human's. Scientists were even able to communicate directly with chimps by teaching them ASL. Still, required a teacher already knowledgeable in the language. So who/what was the first teacher? Also, chimps cannot question their reality. They can only process the present experience even though science believes they have self-consciousness.
Aupmanyav said:
Brahma is a Puranic God in Hinduism. Brahman of Advaita is not necessarily a God, though most Hindus consider it as 'the One', the Great Atman.
If it is considered 'All that is', then it is my Brahman, the substrate of the universe, and this includes humans, animals, vegetation and non-living substances, like it is mentioned in Mandukya Upanishad - 'Sarvam Khalvidam Brahma' (All this here is Brahman). Then there is no question of any individual 'atma'. Everything is that only, 'tat sat'.
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Yeah all who experienced the Oneness stopped believing in a separate God-being. All this reality is my(and everybody else's) dream of our Higher Self. Some of us just had the luck to become lucid in the dream we are all having since going to sleep to forget the pointless reality of being divine with no challenges or purpose. Or so I imagine.
 
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