Kindest Regards gluadys! And many thanks!
gluadys said:
What Darwin presented was indeed a working hypothesis. But there has been so much confirmatory evidence come in through working with this hypothesis that biologists today consider evolution to be a full-fledged operational theory. It explains so much in so many fields of biology and is confirmed by so many lines of evidence that nothing in modern biology makes any sense except in the light of evolution. It is no longer an idea on trial, but the foundational basis of modern biology.
Yes, it is obviously functional and worthwhile, yet I cannot help but feel it is incomplete. A portion of this feeling is intuitive, but based on the anomalies and the lack of address of the spiritual components alluded to earlier. Kind of like the change brought about by Copernicus, Keppler and Galileo in astronomics, or Einsteinian physics superceding Newtonian physics. I do not know that there is a higher level, at this point I can only suspect it, but it is a strong suspicion in my mind.
Yes, you probably have. And perhaps in the classroom as well as in writing? I know that some scientists took the nearly unprecedented step of faulting Richard Dawkins for presenting his atheist assumptions in his scientific writing as if it were an inevitable scientific conclusion.
I have seen a great deal in this forum pertaining to Dawkins, but I have not gotten around to any of his material. Frankly, he sounds to me exactly as the kind of fanatic zealot I most disagree with.
Farther along toward what? This is that assumption again that evolution is some kind of conveyor belt taking species toward a defined goal. Evolution does not have future oriented goals. It is a process of adaptation to present environmental pressures, not a program of progress toward specific achievements.
Very well, yet this then opens the question as to what environmental pressures brought about rational thought and the attendent evidences like tool manufacture and the harnessing of fire, as well as art and more intricate social interaction within the line that became human. Was this a unique instance or influence that circumvented the remainder of the whole of nature?
Yes, and (so far) four sequels. I have read them all. There has to be at least one more to complete the plot. The most recent, Shelters of Stone takes place in the cave shelters of southern France. And believe me, if you want to skip straight to that one, you are missing nothing essential in the story. The whole series is an extended Harlequin Romance set in pre-historic times, so the plot is entirely predictable. The attraction for me is the setting and culture.
I haven't read her work, I generally shy away from novels, although her research methods remind me very much of Louis L'More (?). Different genre, but historically accurate.
...that is just what evolution is. That is why it is so ridiculous to have someone dismiss instances of evolution by saying "Oh that's not evolution. It's only adaptation."
I hear what you are saying, but it is still not gelling in my mind. Obstinancy? I suppose where I am having difficulty reconciling is in seeing a species grow out of a family line into a whole new sphere or realm. Like a lizard becoming a bird, through transitional forms. It doesn't make rational sense to me.
When you have read more in evolutionary science you will see that there is no need to separate the TOE from the rest of scientific endeavour. There is just as much tentativeness, qualifiers and conditions, in standard scientific work on evolution as in any scientific discipline.
In fairness, I am finding that more and more among the genuine researchers. I suppose my gripe is more then with those at the "street" level, those that typically don't really know what they are talking about, just parroting what they want to believe. When that person is in a position of authority with the power to influence, such insistance appears dogmatic.
A quibble with the word "overlooked". Spirit is necessarily excluded from scientific work by the parameters of science. It is not a matter of negligently overlooking it. It is a matter of science being incapable of dealing with it. Science is the study of the natural processes of the physical world. Spirit simply does not fall in its domain of expertise.
Point taken. I was not faulting science per se for overlooking spirit, I realize spirit is not in the traditional parameters. Perhaps that will change in time.
Individual scientists can be very dogmatic about their pet theories. But there are always others who challenge them.
Here, I would quibble, at least on frequent occasion. The hierarchy of authority among academia does hold sway over the accepted fields and directions of study that are continued and encouraged. I have heard of many instances through the years where anomalous findings have been quietly squirreled away and ignored. There may be challenges, but depending who (individual) is being challenged often designates whether that specific challenge (field or direction) even comes to light. This is not confined to evolutionary biology, it is pretty much endemic to science as a whole. Nobody dared challenge Newton openly, as a general example, during his reign over the scientific community.
From the Greek "telos" meaning "end, purpose, goal". Aristotle named teleology as one of the four types of causes. When we make a knife or a wheel for example, we make them for a purpose (to cut, to move). That is their "teleological" cause.
Very well, this fits in with what you said earlier about nature not being on a conveyor belt.
Believers presume God has purposes in mind for God's creations as well. So we ask "Why do we exist? What is my purpose for being?" and create theologies around these questions.
Yes, this is the nature of religion.
A lot of nonsensical questions around evolution arise because the questioner is assuming that changes in species occur in order to move the species toward such a goal.
I can see this, even in some of my own suppositions. Again, we are back to the conveyor belt.
You are certainly welcome to question the assertions and verify for yourself that they can be properly borne out.
Perhaps now the tagline I adopted, Question Authority, makes sense?
Have you read anything by John Polkinghorne? In Belief in an Age of Science he makes much the same point about theology being not unlike scientific exploration. Since he is a scientist turned theologian, he is speaking from experience.
That name had passed by me recently, but no, I haven't read his work.
Good question. The same question arises about acting on the technical possibility of restoring some extinct species (e.g. mammoths).
My favorite line from the movie "Jurassic Park", "Just because we can, doesn't mean we should." -Jeff Goldblum. May I presume you are referring to the frozen Mammoths in Siberia? They raise a rather interesting quandary of their own, being frozen in state.
Sure, as long as you are prepared to hear that pretty much everything you think you know about these topics is mumbo-jumbo. At least anything you have gleaned (knowingly or unwittingly) from creationist sources is.
I printed out some material on carbon dating. From what I've gathered so far, it is not accurate back past a certain period of time, so cannot be used for dating fossils. Apparently it cannot be used for dating certain finds that are "contaminated" by shellfish, which explains something I stumbled on long ago about living mollusks carbon dating to about 2000 years ago. So there are limitations that are not generally described.
I also find it intriguing, that very (
very!) often, two samples from one specimen sent to two independent labs can come back with very different readings. I have seen this a number of times, but it escapes me at the moment exactly where.
As for anomolous fossils, my favorite is the findings at Glen Rose, Texas. I finally made it there in the summer of '99, I went through the state park, as well as the Creation Evidence Museum (Dr. Baugh's foundation), and I took a look for myself at the site to the west of the Park on the private property (I believe it is referred to as the Sanders' site).
Going through the TalkOrigins site, Mr. Lindsay was quite adamant that Dr. Baugh's work was in vain, and went to lengths to dismiss his findings, even calling into question Dr. Baugh's credentials. Such ad hominem attacks are very unnecessary, in my view. Dr. Baugh has surrounded his work with very adequate (albeit sympathetic) support.
I can see where some of the findings might have been enthusiastically misinterpreted, but not the sum total.
Lindsay casually dismisses the tracks on the Sanders' site as bipedal dinosuar. I very much disagree. When I went to the site, I met the man who owns the property, I presume Mr. Sanders. He was elderly then and in frail health, but he was quite generous in allowing me to tour the site.
By the time I got there, the tracks had been exposed to the weather for a number of years, so they were not in fresh condition. However, I walked in the prints, and they matched my feet and stride, so I presume an adolescent. It was very easy to distinguish five distinct toes, as well heel and toe bipedal movement. At one point the stride increased, as though the individual picked up the pace and began to run, before the tracks became lost to view in the bank of the creek. Bipedal dinos have claws on their feet. The prints had no evidence of claws. None, even where the toes sank deep into the "muck." And while it may not be that bipedal dinos dragged their tails, one might think that there might be some evidence of tail dragging incidentally. I saw none. Immediately beside the human tracks, in the exact same strata, were the prints of a juvenile sauropod. From what I could make out, there were at least two, possibly three layers of rock strata that were visually the same laid over top of each other, each about an inch or so thick. It was like several layers of fresh concrete had been laid down at some point in the distant past and these creatures walked through it while still wet.
In the park, perhaps a quarter mile away, in an equivalent strata, was the evidence of a mass migration of dinos of several types, including sauropods and carnivores. The literature also noted the tracks of a flying reptile, as well of several "ancestral" mammals, but I did not knowingly see these. The suaropod and carnivor prints are very easily distinguished by their immense size. I did go into the creek bed and view these as well. Samples were extracted long ago and taken to two "establishment" museums, so the authenticity of the dino tracks is not called into question. The major problem seems to revolve around the human prints, with those with a particular view to support adamantly denying them for what they most evidently are, and even resorting to scurrilous methods to denounce those who claim them accurately. (This is a direct referrence to Lindsay's ad hominem attacks on Dr. Baugh)
TalkOrigins may seem like a great place to gather "objective" information pertaining to the evolution question, and I did gather some interesting info there, but in this I am greatly disappointed with Lindsay's methods and motives. It gives me cause to reconsider his material. At least Morton tries to remain objective without lowering to the point of personal attacks. Besides, his research is much more thorough and in-depth.
