Question Evolution! 15 questions evolutionists cannot adequately answer

[KaiserElectric]

Hard to say, really. If this thread had come around a year earlier, I would have been able to give a lot more info on the subject. As for the religious news media, I think the scientists claiming the discovery was a different species would have covered their bases, assuming there were any bases to cover. It's not definitive, but it's certainly suspicious. Plus it's difficult to sensationalize a million year old skeleton found on an island somewhere. Not quite as debatable as, say, building a "mosque" on Ground Zero.

 

[Abegweit]

Wish me luck. Like I said, is wasn't talked about much.

It was found sometime within the last year or so, if anyone wants to look for it themselves.

EDIT: It may have been this. According to the article, some scientists are suggesting it is a different species entirely. Yeah.

You will note that the genus in question 'Homo' and it certainly hasn't been hidden. The scientific question has always been whether it is a new species or a microcephalic modern human. It would appear that the proponents of a new species are winning.

 

[KaiserElectric]

You will note that the genus in question 'Homo' and it certainly hasn't been hidden. The scientific question has always been whether it is a new species or a microcephalic modern human. It would appear that the proponents of a new species are winning.

Still doesn't prove much. Scientists prove each other wrong all the time. Only way to know for sure what happened is to build a time machine and go find out for ourselves, really.

 

[kramerfan86]

Still doesn't prove much. Scientists prove each other wrong all the time. Only way to know for sure what happened is to build a time machine and go find out for ourselves, really.

To me that is the key though, scientists regularly keep questioning each other in an attempt to establish what reality is. Even if what we think know ends up being wrong, at least there is a constant attempt to find out what "right" is.

 

[El_Machinae]

Wish me luck. Like I said, is wasn't talked about much.

It was found sometime within the last year or so, if anyone wants to look for it themselves.

EDIT: It may have been this. According to the article, some scientists are suggesting it is a different species entirely. Yeah.

It was certainly not hidden! It was a huge news story, and avidly covered.
We were discussing it on CFC in 2005, IIRC. 2009 had more discussion about it, because 'islandisation' seemed to become more and more likely of an explanation.

 

[Abegweit]

Still doesn't prove much. Scientists prove each other wrong all the time. Only way to know for sure what happened is to build a time machine and go find out for ourselves, really.

The problem here is that it is extremely difficult to believe a species like this could exist. This issue is two-fold.

First the specimens have an incredibly tiny brain for a member of the genus Homo. Even smaller than Australopithines. Despite that, they also seem to have had quite advanced behaviours.

Second, the fossils are found on the wrong side of the Wallace Line which separates Asia from Austronesia. Modern humans only only managed to cross this line after the invention of boats about 50-60 KYA. No other primate ever crossed it. Yet astonishingly this small-brained critter managed the trick.

It is understandable that some scientists would resist the radical implications of this.

But one thing is clear. No one is hiding anything. Simply advancing hypotheses which might explain things. In the end, maybe it's true that an amazingly small-brained species managed to cross the Wallace Line. DNA would resolve that issue but they haven't found any yet.

 

[Glassfan]

This reminds me of why I don't like colleges. "Feel free to question authority, but don't question OUR authority."

That was my experience also. Many of my profs were intolerant of any ideas other that their own. But to be fair, some were very good - like Dach's Stoneman.

As an educated Catholic, I believe in evolution and creation. God did it and science studies how.

I would point out that there are Creationists and there are Intelligent Designers, and they are not the same. Creationists are typically fundamentalist Christians - the literal and unquestioned authority of the Bible as God's revealed truth. On the other hand, Intelligent Designers embrace science, though disagree with Darwinism. The ID guys are themselves mostly scientists. And they seem to be raising an interesting ruckus.

 

[kramerfan86]

I dont necessarily have a problem with intelligent design, it seems reasonable in that it doesnt just bluntly try to ignore science but instead takes science and tries to explain perhaps what is behind it. With that said though I still dont necessarily think it has a place in the classroom. Classroom should simply explain the process of evolution, debates about what caused or created the process should be saved for home IMO simply because anytime you have brought a greater being into it you have exited science and gone into something else.

 

[Glassfan]

I dont necessarily have a problem with intelligent design, it seems reasonable in that it doesnt just bluntly try to ignore science but instead takes science and tries to explain perhaps what is behind it. With that said though I still dont necessarily think it has a place in the classroom. Classroom should simply explain the process of evolution, debates about what caused or created the process should be saved for home IMO simply because anytime you have brought a greater being into it you have exited science and gone into something else.

I agree there's no place for God in the (public) classroom. ID would have to "evolve" (snicker!) into a real scientific discipline before it can be taught. Incidently, the ID guys seldom use the G word at all.

 

[Formaldehyde]

It certainly doesn't have a place in the science classroom because it has no scientific basis. If public schools want to have a course about comparative religion, including the roots of Judaism and Christianity in mythology, I'm all for it. That topic is typically not discussed until college in the US, but I certainly think it should be part of the public education curriculum.

 

[Takhisis]

Why do the Yanks take most political/cultural positions to their extreme?

 

[Glassfan]

It certainly doesn't have a place in the science classroom. If public schools want to have a course about comparative religion, including their roots in mythology, I'm all for it. That topic is typically not discussed until college in the US, but I certainly think it should be part of the public education curriculum.

I'n not trying to defend Intelligent Design, but the information I've read and seen doesn't include any religion - while Creationism certainly does.

 

[Formaldehyde]

There is simply no scientific basis for a supreme being who intelligently designed everything. That is religion not science.

 

[Takhisis]

There is also no scientific basis for denying the existence of said supreme being, Forma. The fact is that, as I and others''ve pointed out before, you can believe in evolution and be very religious anyway.

 

[Formaldehyde]

That is irrelevant. Evolution has a scientific basis. ID does not. As I said, I'm perfectly willing for it to be discussed in a comparative religion course, at least as long as mythology is covered as well. But it certainly doesn't belong in any science classroom.

 

[Glassfan]

There is simply no scientific basis for a supreme being who intelligently designed everything. That is religion not science.

Whenever someone says there is no evidence... - there usually is but they don't accept it. The ID guys look at microbiology for instance, and recognize a bewildering complexity that they believe is statistically improbable, and unlikely by any natural mechanism like natural selection.

Again, I don't actually believe in ID, but it does have evidence and reasoning and is a possible challenge to Darwinism, just like Stephen J. Gould's Punctuated Equilibrium once was. Don't just reject it out of hand.

 

[Formaldehyde]

I'm not rejecting it out of hand. I am merely claiming it has no scientific basis, which it clearly does not.

There is a huge difference between science and philosophy. It used to be quite common to confuse the two. Fortunately, that is no longer the case thanks largely to the scientific method.

 

[Glassfan]

There is a huge difference between science and philosophy.

I agree with you there. In the ID video, Darwin's Dilemma, one speaker, a Professor of the Philosphy of Science, talks about truth. And it reminded me of the Indiana Jones flick where Indy says something like, "Archaeology is a search for the Facts. If you want truth, go down the hall to the philosophy class."

 

[GoodGame]

I have to disagree that science does not have a strong philosophy bent. Not all science is simply the collection and regurgitation of facts, which is what the last to posts imply. But I'm not excusing this thread by that statement, either.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Science really has little to do with the collection and regurgitation of facts. It is a really a matter of making a provable hypothesis and then showing whether or not it is correct or not. If it is lacking those two elements, it really isn't science. It is conjecture.

You can neither prove nor disprove religion and such theories as ID. Hence,they are completely outside the realm of science.

Prior to the advent of the scientific method, it used to be that all science was "natural philosophy". People came up with all sorts of conjecture of why things worked the way they did, and discussed them at length in lieu of creating hypotheses and performing actual experiments to prove or disprove them. Fortunately, things eventually changed.