<p>I'm going to say upfront that I'm ignorant of many things about evolution, so if I say something wrong, feel free to correct me. =)</p>
<p>That said, I think the two theories aren't equivalent. We can see gravity at work from the beginning of an event to its end. Once again, the overused example on this board of the falling ball. I start this by dropping it, and I see it land. Okay. </p>
<p>However, as I said before, I have yet to see any scientist start something in a lab that shows evolution at its start. In fact, curiously enough, my teacher was just talking about it today how it hasn't been done yet. True, there's very strong EVIDENCE for it, but it still hasn't been done in a lab from the start. But for gravity, there's evidence for it AND it has been shown to work.</p>
<p>You are probably right.
I am addressing the question of whether or not we can make truth claims about scientific theories--to the degree that they would by force of the truth discredit, by virtue of their existence, all other possibilities (the essence of the original question).
I agree with all the facts you listed, although none of them is indisputable evidence for evolution. They are consistent with evolution. They may also be consistent with other hypothesis. </p>
<p>The evidence you cited is necessary but not sufficient to claim that evolution rises to the level of truth (the original question posed in this thread).</p>
<p>Is evolution True? was what I believed to be the question that we were addressing.
Not, does evolution explain certain facts of nature?</p>
<p>yeah, fountain. i agree with you that evolution isn't an absolute truth. as history dicates, (and i think this gets at what you are saying), science moves in paradigms. what's true one day just isn't true the next. and who's to know anyway? today, we believe that galileo and copernicus were right. their contemporaries, however, wanted them executed for their scientific beliefs.</p>
<p>but...and here's where i think you might disagree with me, i think if evolution is a presumption so is gravity. by calling them equivalent, i meant they were both unproven theories, not that they were both totally correct.</p>
<p>icymoon, i see where you are coming from too but technically you can't observe gravity from beginning to end either. for gravitational theory to hold, the falling ball must pull the earth just as the earth pulls the ball. we see the ball fall but we never perceive the earth jumping. in physics, we just presume both happen so everything works out. if we didn't, we really would have no idea why things fall.</p>
<p>I loved Brown, Dartmouth was just a bit of a better fit for me...I'm a nature lover. If there would have been a university held in Thoreau's cabin I would have thought I woke up in the highest heaven. Dartmouth was my "golden mean."</p>
<p>fair enough. i tried to convince my brother to come to brown but he claimed the same thing...something about the appalachian trial running through campus and you guys having your own ski way (which i'm not jealous of at all... :) )
you're welcome, all the same</p>
<p>i cant believe we're having this argument 80 years after the scopes monkey trials. Hicks remain hicks no matter the time period. It shows how the south hasnt really changed.</p>
<p>Thanks dcircle, for that review of gravity that I should have remembered from physics. :)</p>
<p>amor, I wasn't talking about changes after time for something that already existed. I believe I was talking about something starting from the beginning.</p>
<p>"i cant believe we're having this argument 80 years after the scopes monkey trials. Hicks remain hicks no matter the time period. It shows how the south hasnt really changed."</p>
<p>2 questions:</p>
<p>First, you're a dumbass.</p>
<p>Second, are you saying that macroevolution (or any unsubstantially-backed theory, for that matter) doesn't deserve to be challenged?</p>
<p>Are you than saying that evolutionary theories (in all their variations) are True?
That in being true, all other explanations should be silenced?
Have you heard of the Inquisition?
Maos cultural revolution?
You may find some inspiration for the enforcement of your political dogma there.</p>
<p>Moreover, the Scopes trial was not about proving evolution to be a fact; It was held to determine whether or not a local community would be able to decide what kind of education it would support with its own tax dollarshow undemocratic of them. It was a political issue, not a scientific one.
Your views, as expressed in your posts, seem to be those of a true believer, not someone who appreciates the scientific method. Im guessing you intend to study politics, not science. You seem to have no patience for those with opposing views (how liberal of you), even stooping to a form of intellectual-geographic cleansing (a milder form of ethnic cleansing) in the South.
Your posts are not only arrogant but foolish. At least dcircle uses facts to support his arguments; the only fact suggested by your posts is that you know how to type.</p>
<p>Icymoon,
I agree with your original posts.
Gravity and Evolution are by no means equivalent theories. Gravity is a mathematical fact. Gravity is proved to be a fact every time something falls (at a calculated rate both, scientifically as in the weight of falling bodies, and intuitively as a baseball player catches a pop-up), every time something is weighed (from fruit in a supermarket to atomic weight), every time a satellite is launched into orbit or a quarterback throws a football to a wide-receiver. That NASA was able to send the land-rover to Mars goes a long way in establishing gravity as a mathematical fact. Nothing of the sort can be stated for the predictive qualities of Evolutionary theory.
Dont be bullied by random facts that suggest but do not prove anything. To use fountains criterion, the evidence to support gravity is not only necessary but sufficient. This cannot be said about evolution. It is in this sense that it is a theory, not a law.
Evolution will have a long way to go before it can be whispered in the same breath as gravity: Maybe someday. Not today.</p>
<p>Fountainsiren,
Reading through this thread, Im glad to know that you will be at Dartmouth and not Brown. I prefer to do research with people who understand what it means to say something is TRUE.
Go big green!</p>
<p>Kalidescope, there's a logical flaw in your argument. You're pointing out a fundamental difference between biology and physics as a whole, not the difference between theory and truth.</p>
<p>Physics has progressed to a point where our "understanding" is quantitative. We write equations so we can predict outcomes. We cannot not only "predict" gravitational effects (and calculate tragectories to send rovers to mars), but energetic effects and atomic nuclear effects that we certainly cannot percieve. But surely several principles of thermodynamics, even the very thermodynamics that allow our rover to escape earth's orbit, are still theoretical.</p>
<p>In biology, we are not ready to treat things quantitatively yet. Not even things as simple as your heart beat. But your heart beating is a directly observable fact. Is your heart beat theory or truth? Are you basing this decision on how precisely you can calculate the next beat, the fact you can observe the beat or something else? There are countless things in biology that we know will happen, can observe, and are still regarded as theories (such as the Frank Starling mechanism).</p>
<p>Where ever you draw the line between theory and truth, evolution and gravitation are on the same side.</p>
<p>wow... hicks do sure get riled up when someone starts talking about uncle cletus being descended from an ape(and not a particularly smart one at that)</p>
<p>I do not mean to demean all southernors. There ARE VERY Intelligent and knowledgable ones out there. I simply mean that those who disregard science blankly for religious reasons are dumb. There does not need to be a conflict between science and religion. Look at Newton and how he reconciled his work with that of the church.</p>
<p>In South, like most of America, school and religion do not mix. Once out of the class room, the subject just escapes through the other ear. Added to this is the strong religious "breeding." Sunday School! Church! Sunday School! Every F U C K I N G sunday....</p>
<p>From time to time, I have tried to defend "Evolution." My paster himself proclaims "evolution is just a theory", when he does not have a clue what a "theory" is. If you publicly support evolution, or even hint at it, you would be strongly opposed by other students and SS* teachers alike. </p>
<p>Overall, it is mostly in the "breeding" and the psycology of the people. Common Scenario: baptised at age of 2 or 3, grow up in chruch, church becomes "second home", and suddenly one day you hear the word "evolution". You run into your shell! Why should you believe in something that will break your known world (or the caged prison)?</p>
<p>"Look at Newton and how he reconciled his work with that of the church."</p>
<p>In response to this, science doesn't have to agree with the chruch! Church has too "solid" of an answer...either my way or high way; either god or satan.....</p>
<p>Ironically, the certanity that the ever changing science provides is too feeble to build your house upon. </p>
<p>"There does not need to be a conflict between science and religion." </p>
<p>haha...where have you been!? This war has been raging for the better part of the organized religions history.</p>
<p>"Added to this is the strong religious "breeding." Sunday School! Church! Sunday School! Every F U C K I N G sunday...."</p>
<p>Oh wow, you seem to have a lot of pent-up anger about religion. It really does matter where you come from, because where I live, everybody is VERY accepting of each person's beliefs. Plenty of people here believe in evolution, and lots of people are religious too. We respect each other, and we definitely don't have the kind of attitude you have towards religion.</p>
<p>"Common Scenario: baptised at age of 2 or 3, grow up in chruch, church becomes "second home", and suddenly one day you hear the word "evolution". You run into your shell! Why should you believe in something that will break your known world (or the caged prison)?"</p>
<p>Hm I don't know about the people you seem to associate with.. but not all religious people are like what you just described above. Most religious people I know are highly educated and intelligent students, who are very well-informed about science (evolution). Not everyone runs into their ummm "shell." In fact, a lot of religious people I know don't run away from it, but rather use it as something to make their religious beliefs even stronger. If you know the arguments running counter to your own beliefs, you will then be able to make your own beliefs stronger. That's what a lot of religious people I know do.</p>
<p>dcircle
Is your heart beat theory or truth?
There is a heart and if upon observation or some other empirical data it is determined to be a beating heart than the truth is you have a beating heart. You can then infer reasons why the heart is beating. For instance, I also feel a heart beating in my chest, or by using the scientific method to suggest the phenomenon of the beating heart. That model would be a theory. The point is not whether or not theories can give us predictive models, but whether or not what they are trying to explain is an objective fact. The observed beating heart is an objective fact. That man should have evolved from lower forms of life, is highly likely, there are scientific models that will predict and describe it, there is biological and archaeological evidence that suggest it, but we are not obligated to except the fact of evolution in the way that we are forced to accept the reality of gravity (without the explanations afforded by varying models). Evolution is a our most accepted model. It does not preclude the possible existence of other models that explain life as such (though not necessarily an evolution of life based on a zero-sum mutation). </p>
<p>To claim that gravity doesnt exist is absurd. To claim that an explanation of it is in error is science. To claim that evolution is false is not absurd, it is just an opinion that goes against the most accepted scientific models of our time (there will likely be differing and better ones in the future, and someone will think we were Neanderthals for accepting the current one as is, or in its totality). See my next post to see why there are implications beyond scientific models:</p>