Surprising Number Of Americans Still Don't Believe In Evolution

The terminology that people use often unintentionally identifies their underlying belief system, preferences and prejudices.

Macro/Microevolution terminology was coined in the 1920's but fell out of favor in the scientific community who now discuss evolution in terms of changes in allele frequencies.

The terms Micro/Macro evolution are terms used by Creationists to discuss their Faith based interpretation.

reply to post by ReturnofTheSonOfNothing


For radioactive dating methods used for rocks - you do avoid the fact that starting values are assumed, then praised if they hit on the year mark they are looking for or thrown away if not.

And you also put me up as a straw man, when my argument was 'please don't teach hypotheses and theories as fact, when there isn't 100% evidence for the claims.' It's actions like these that will brainwash a society - to believe that theories are truth, that's not the point of a theory. The point of a theory is to say "hey this MAY be truth, let's explore further" and then to hopefully eventually discover it.

Evolution assumes the intersections in the bush MUST exist because findings are very similar. The only problem is science exists in OBSERVABLE experimentation/observation, while evolution exists on both sides of that fence.

Seeing a virus 'evolve' because we have to keep changing vaccines is not 'evolution'. This could be easily explained by 'natural selection'. The viruses/infections that do not have a resistance to the chemicals being used to combat them will die out, and those that had the resistances already will live on. This could go on a number of times, as we understand the building blocks of life are much more complex than we knew years ago. There is nothing new being added to their genetic properties... The same goes for insects becoming 'resistant' to pesticides... it's those who are already resistant that persist and reproduce.

And to answer what I mean by replicate:
rep·li·cate
verb
ˈrepliˌkāt/
1.
make an exact copy of; reproduce.
"it might be impractical to replicate eastern culture in the west"
synonyms: copy, reproduce, duplicate, recreate, repeat, perform again; More

Cheers

reply to post by Myollinir

For radioactive dating methods used for rocks - you do avoid the fact that starting values are assumed, then praised if they hit on the year mark they are looking for or thrown away if not.

Actually if you look at the links I provided to TalkOrigins, that issue is addressed in Claim CD002.

And you also put me up as a straw man, when my argument was 'please don't teach hypotheses and theories as fact, when there isn't 100% evidence for the claims.' It's actions like these that will brainwash a society - to believe that theories are truth, that's not the point of a theory. The point of a theory is to say "hey this MAY be truth, let's explore further" and then to hopefully eventually discover it

I still think you are mixing up the colloquial and scientific uses of the term 'theory' here.

It's not a best guess or an estimation.

A scientific theory is "a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of facts that have been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment." (definition from Nat Acad Sciences 1999).

In the 170-odd years since the theory of evolution was published, it has not been successfuly falsified even once. Don't you think, if the creationists were right it would have been shown by now?

Evolution assumes the intersections in the bush MUST exist because findings are very similar. The only problem is science exists in OBSERVABLE experimentation/observation, while evolution exists on both sides of that fence.

Seeing a virus 'evolve' because we have to keep changing vaccines is not 'evolution'. This could be easily explained by 'natural selection'. The viruses/infections that do not have a resistance to the chemicals being used to combat them will die out, and those that had the resistances already will live on. This could go on a number of times, as we understand the building blocks of life are much more complex than we knew years ago. There is nothing new being added to their genetic properties... The same goes for insects becoming 'resistant' to pesticides... it's those who are already resistant that persist and reproduce.

I'm glad we can agree on natural selection. I've had creationists try and convince me that it does not exist.

Of course living things change over time, that is obvious. The process you describe is evolution. Of course, you consider it 'microevolution' only.

The difference is only one of scale. As Carl Sagan said in Cosmos, if artificial selection operating over a few thousand years can produce the staggering abundance of forms of domesticated animals we see for example in dogs, imagine what natural selection, operating over billions of years can acheive. The answer is the beauty and diversity of everything we see around us.

The problem here for young earth creationists is they do not accept the time scales involved. For them the world is a mere 6,000 years old. If you don't accept the earth is 4.5 billion years old, you won't accept diversity through evolution over this time period.

And to answer what I mean by replicate:
rep·li·cate
verb
ˈrepliˌkāt/
1.
make an exact copy of; reproduce.
"it might be impractical to replicate eastern culture in the west"
synonyms: copy, reproduce, duplicate, recreate, repeat, perform again; More

I wish people wouldn't do this.

You ask them what they mean by a certain term, so they copy paste you the dictionary definition. That tells me nothing at all. Of course I know the definition of the word.

I'd like to know what you meant, in context of what you said -

Please go ahead and teach this as fact to EVERYONE, because it replicates naturally and we can see it.

So I read that as 'Please go ahead and teach this [microevolultion] as fact, because it replicates naturally... etc'

And in that context the dictionary definition above does not fit in, ie -

'Please go ahead and teach this [microevolultion] as fact, because it 'reproduces' naturally...'

Confusing.

FriedBabelBroccoli
reply to post by ReturnofTheSonOfNothing

 

Wow are you really going to try and play the victim card also?

You were just attacking people for not believing in something that you admit knowing NOTHING about.

I don't think you even care if evolution is correct or not, all you seem capable of doing is attacking the creationists. Your justification is no different than creationists quoting Bible verses as treat scientists and their word like it's scripture.

Summary of the 'macro vs micro evolution' debate (terms I consider entirely arbitrary)

Yet you throw a fit when someone uses the terms . . .

-FBB

edit on 28-1-2014 by FriedBabelBroccoli because: 101

We get it. Your ego is bruised and I won't play your game so your mad.

I understand, I really do. But I suggest you build a bridge and get over it.

reply to post by ReturnofTheSonOfNothing


That's ironic because all you seem to be doing is burning them.


-FBB

reply to post by Myollinir


Just a little more on this "It's just a theory!" meme.

Here is a good run-down given by scientists on what a scientific theory represents =




Layman order of importance -

1. Facts
2. Laws
3. Theories / Hypothesies (considered by many to be on roughly equal footing)


Scientific order of importance -

1. Theory
2. Laws
3. Hypothesies
4. Facts

Facts are the least important thing. They are useful, but on their own they do not constitute much - whereas a scientific theory is the highest rank. It has survived continual testing, has mountains of evidence and has not been falsified.