darwin and natural selection...'fact' or 'theory in evolution?'... he wrote a pretty good book but some significant inconsistencies still exist that cannot be explained away...http://www.kheper.net/evolution/Darwinism.htm

Yes...lot of observational evidence to evolution eg all vertebrates with independent mobility...all have a brain at one end, senses to tell what its surround are, associative process to assess all the information in each moment and understand it while using its 'past memory base'...this linked to 'applied intelligence activity' eg achieving life sustaining activity like feeding most effectively...

But great doubts/mysteries of natural selection exist...one of the greatest is intelligence of man itself...as its clear intelligence aids in survival...and if all life forms, including man, started at same original point...then purely on probability man should not be the only life form to such superior intelligence to aid in survival...meaning we should be competing with technology of other evolved advanced intellectual species on earth for survival eg 'toolmaking language formed' bird species...or for that matter shark/crocodiles which one of the longest 'time' existence without significant evolutionary change to intelligence...yeah they are effective predators but we all can use more intelligence and by natural selection it should have happened...otherwise mans intelligence should have stopped after he became a successful predator...

so 'the god factor' still exists and may play an important part to explain all we know currently...

smart money is continuing to applying our logic and reason to 'existence of god' question...as the definite evidence would only occur when body dies and 'soul is freed into afterlife events'...then even blind freddy would know and too late to do anything to 'survival' then...but most importantly open your 'spiritual eye' ie 'eye of energies' as integral to answering any question on god...otherwise your handicap to inquire is severe indeed...its like proving to 'blind from birth' that the colour yellow exists...

Sam

sam said, yes there is plenty which is not understood about evolution (see reida above). but that is neither here nor there. the exact same can be said of any scientific field. this does not change the fact of evolution, any more than modern advances in physics changed the fact of newtonian gravity.

as for the god factor, i'm sorry but i cannot see how that can be part of any scientific explanation. the questions raised by proposing a god are much larger than the questions answered (see sancho above). you can believe in a god, in fact many scientists do, but it's not productive science. in the particular case of intelligent design, it's not only not productive, it's not honest.

bushbasher...I take your point...and accept that evolution is current;y taken as 'fact' by lot of people...and it is to a great extent...people laughed at darwin when he first propounded the theory...I just hope that a broader and open and inquisitive mind is always held with all things we currently accept...lest we fail to correct ourselves when we should...

To god and scientific explanation/productive science...again I take your point it lacks both significantly...but if one expands those limits...as god would come more under interpersonal relationships of man...to question of 'existence of god'...a scientific approach can be used I think...and why not...if one chooses to not just believe but make an inquiry into the very existence so be it...and I for one would be very interested in the process/path the person takes and to where the conclusions lead...

so once more 'facts/truth' are known it may be provable that god does have 'scientific explanation/productive science' factor...who knows...as one may not immediately see the connection between themselves in Australia and a slum dweller in usa...on some thought it strikes me that we both consume the same oxygen...to god its that we both use the same type of energy to drive our fundamental process...

Sam

Bushbasher,
I never accused you of spelling truth with a capital T. I accused you of having the idea that there is some body of knowledge out there, infallible and unquestionable, called ‘scientific truth’. You are still using the phrase in Saturday’s post and now Relda is using it as well. Do you still believe this?

If I ever found the book called “Scientific Truth” it would be quickly out of date because science is in a constant state of revision, always updating its findings. Today’s truth is tomorrow’s outdated fallacy.

You ask me a specific question (see your post from Friday morning) and when I try to answer you say, “Why should I care about your opinion?” (Give a guy a break!)

Relda,
Similarly, you challenged me to offer a more compelling myth (your word) than evolution. Then when I attempt to explain my position, you accuse me of sounding like an evangelist in defending one interpretation. Well, what did you expect?

I still contend there are only two games in town. Either a great intelligence beyond our own created the cosmos, or it created itself. Sancho and Dawkins and others are busy defending the latter (which currently boils down to a version of neo-Darwinism). I prefer the former on the available evidence.

(Perhaps I didn’t explain my “Trojan horse” well enough, but I was referring to your concerns about the ‘social and political program’ involving ‘gender roles’, etc. etc. If you are no longer concerned with these outside issues and just want to stick with the arguments, then that’s fine.)

You say infallible certainty characterises not science but pseudo science. But just before this, you speak of the ‘fact of evolution’ as if it was a certainty. Well, what is it? Is it a certainty? The ‘fact of evolution’ is looking a bit like a tenet of faith.

Yes, creationists (as Christians) find revelation in the Word of God. Their bias is explicit and not hidden. The evolutionists have their own biases, however implicit. Each has a creation myth from which they begin their investigations.

Sancho,
You have not fully understood what I was trying to say regarding history. Yes, we can examine the way bacteria multiply in a petri dish, but that doesn’t directly tell us what happened to particular bacteria a hundred million years ago. If I could change a reptile into a bird in my laboratory, that would be pretty darn impressive, but it wouldn’t prove that reptiles changed into birds millions of years ago. History simply can not be repeated.

For this reason, forensic evidence in a court of law is useful but not sufficient in proving the guilt or otherwise of an accused, as they will be arguing over a theory of history as to what happened in the past. The event cannot be repeated. A jury will have to decide on the balance of probabilities or beyond reasonable doubt.

With the petri dish, I am glad you acknowledge that there does exist a counter-argument, however, you haven’t really grasped what the standard creationist counter-argument is. Going from a single cell animal to a mammal is (as you noted) a totally different kettle of fish to bacterial resistance. The resistant strain of bacteria was already present in the original bacterial population. They have simply survived and multiplied. Nothing new was created, and much new genetic information needs to be added to get to anything like a mammal from a bacterium.

There is not one creationist in the whole world that denies that selection and adaptation are observable phenomena. They just deny that such processes create new genetic information. In the process of speciation, genetic information is shifted around, corrupted or lost, but never added

A better analogy would be to describe the foolish shopkeeper who sells stuff at retail at a price slightly less than he bought it wholesale. He knows he makes a loss on each single sale; however he somehow thinks that he can make it up in volume.

Dan and Sam, you're looking at evolution from a design perspective, as though adaptation is a process which goes in one direction until it arrives at the perfect form - humans.

That's a common misconception. We are not at the apex of a pyramid of life; we are what's left when nature has filtered out the less efficient forms.

Throughout the vast ocean of time that preceded us, there had to be winners and losers. By a chance of billions to one, the genetic code that became us consistently out-competed most others in the environment. But it could have been much different. At countless points throughout history, it might have been a lizard or marsupial that acquired the mutation necessary to survive, instead of mammals. In that case, the dominant species might now be a form of giant intelligent lizard, or a society of echidna-people. Or, more likely, it would still be a wilderness of unintelligent animals, as it has been until the most recent, vanishingly small period of time.

But - and this is important - if we had evolved into bipedal lizards, echidna-men, or creatures with five tentacles, two heads, green hair and horns, religions would still claim that we were created by god, in his, her, or its image.

SAM
> "we should be competing with technology of other evolved advanced intellectual species on earth for survival eg 'toolmaking language formed' bird species"

We had that competition a long time ago, and our ancestors won. There are however, many animals that use tools (mostly our relatives, the apes, but some birds, too). As for language skills, Google "Alex the parrot". There is no clear line between intelligent humans and dumb animals. All of our behavious is present in "lower" creatures, in some form or other.

Regarding the petri dish, yes, the antibiotic-resistant genes were already present. As a previous mutation, they had absolutely no effect on the bacterium's fitness (suitability to its environment). However, once the antibiotic was introduced, those forgotten genes were the difference between life and death.

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