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Author Topic: Evolution: Fact or Theory?  (Read 24426 times)

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Ishdarian
Evolution: Fact or Theory?
« on: May 16, 2006, 11:03:26 pm »
I just want to clarify before we begin:
This is NOT creation VS. evolution, because that is against the rules.

The question is:
Does evolution itself have enough credible evidence to stand upon and be called fact? Or has enough of the evidence been disproven to show that it is just a theory still being built?
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cpprograms

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Re: Evolution: Fact or Theory?
« Reply #1 on: May 17, 2006, 01:28:25 am »
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I still see it as a theory and while I believe it, I will not enforce that belief on others. Oh and when all else fails, the Flying Spaghetti Monster will save us all! I've been touched by His noodly appendage!
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  • cpprograms
Re: Evolution: Fact or Theory?
« Reply #2 on: May 17, 2006, 01:50:06 am »
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Quote from: Ishdarian on May 16, 2006, 11:03:26 pm
I just want to clarify before we begin:
This is NOT creation VS. evolution, because that is against the rules.

The question is:
Does evolution itself have enough credible evidence to stand upon and be called fact? Or has enough of the evidence been disproven to show that it is just a theory still being built?

Does creationism itself have enough credible evidence to stand upon and be called fact? Or has enough of the evidence been disprovev to show that it is just a theory being built.

I believe in evolution, it seems alot more credible
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Re: Evolution: Fact or Theory?
« Reply #3 on: May 17, 2006, 02:01:29 am »
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Fact and theory.
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2awesome4apossum
Re: Evolution: Fact or Theory?
« Reply #4 on: May 17, 2006, 02:02:33 am »
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Re: Evolution: Fact or Theory?
« Reply #5 on: May 17, 2006, 02:18:42 am »
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Evolution explains why animals of different species can interbreed.  While one may say that the system of taxonomy is founded on an unsure science, it explains why and how species are like they are.

Creationism doesn't address why there are different kinds of similar organisms.  In it, it suggests that God created various organisms.  Why would he create organisms that can reproduce with other organisms to have hybrids who cannot reproduce fertile offspring?  Why would he allow such Illegitimate child organisms to enhabit the Earth?

Evolution explains why and how polar bears are different from grizzlies.  While they can interbreed (there was something about in on LueLinks yesterday), they are different.  Why can they interbreed if they are different organisms.  Why do they look similar?  The answer is quite simple.  Overtime, populations of the ancestoral bear were seperated and developed independently.  If evolution didn't exist, then the bear couldn't survive in a new habitat.  Thus, one of the bear descendent populations would die and there wouldn't be seperate species.  The fact that they can reproduce though suggests they were similar at one time, but overtime they evolved to suit their environments.

Thus, evolution=fact.
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Re: Evolution: Fact or Theory?
« Reply #6 on: May 17, 2006, 02:30:31 am »
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Goodnight's right. Fact and theory.

Evolution as a process: FACT

Evolution of ape to man: THEORY

Evolution is a demonstratable phenomenon that is constantly occuring. With every passing generation of every species, that species will evolve somewhat to adapt to its conditions. In people, the most common occurence is with skin colour. Do you think that it's a fluke that people living in northern, colder regions have light skin, and people living in southern, warmer regions have darker skin? It's not. They're all human, but after thousands/millions of years, the skin colour changed in order to accomodate the conditions. If it's warmer, that usually means that the sun is stronger in that area, so the skin darkens in order to be able to resist being burned. That's by a black guy will rarely get very serious sunburn, but my red-headed, white mom can barely go outside without SPF 45 and a hat without turning red. People from mediterranian are somehwere in between and are sort of light, sort of dark, and get tan in the sunlight. Evolution is basically slow adaptation on a genetic level.

As for evolution of ape to man, that is just a theory. albeit a very supported and likely theory, a theory nonetheless. There have been countless of archeological finds that have proven that early man was in fact somewhat ape-lke and did eventually evolve into what we look like today, but there is no actual proof that we did start as apes. The theory says that some apes in Africa decended from the forested areas (for some reason) into the flat, open plains. Thehy would climb what few trees there were, but once the food ran out they would have to get out and move again. Their inability to run quickly would make them easy prey. Eventually, the apes would learn to try and look over the tall grass, since their hind legs were strong enough to stand for small amounts of time, to see if a predator was coming. They could then run away accordingly. Theoretically, after spending so much time peering over grass on their hind legs, they gained the ability to stand for longer and longer. This would go on until they were always upright. This is why early man appears hunched over. What's missing from this is the crucial "missing link", as it's called, which bridges the transformation from ape to man. Because of what we do know, that theory is very, very likely. Only, it can't be proved since the crucial piece is missing.
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"They say 'Don't sweat the little things!', but in the end, the little things are all that matter..."
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Limey
Re: Evolution: Fact or Theory?
« Reply #7 on: May 17, 2006, 02:34:37 am »
Just a theory.

There are facts to back up the theory, but it is still JUST a theory.
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Re: Evolution: Fact or Theory?
« Reply #8 on: May 17, 2006, 02:39:25 am »
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Human evolution cannot be a clear science because it is impossible to determine the history of man from a man's perspective.  That means that since the only species that has understanding and reason cannot have access to observe its own development and that its development was happening to the would be observer, it cannot be proved.  That is unless something like time travel occurs or a super-civilization light years away that has a super telescope receives light waves off of the Earth that show human development and send a message back to Earth to show them their past; both of which unlikely.

The presense of human evolution in small degrees suggests something more though.  The amount of time humans have been alive predicted by Creationism and the amount of time it takes for a slight evolutionary change suggests that if not, then why didn't more evolution take place?  Humans are still weak in certain environments and are not centiant beings.  Truly, if God made us perfect and in his image, then there would be no reason for evolution, yet it exists, so he either allowed it or he isn't really there, but I don't want to debate his existence.

This is still not to say that humans evolved from apes, but evolved from some ape-like forms.  Fossil records show this.  The most likely thing is that they were somewhat human and that the similarites to modern-man and lesser-apes suggest that man came from ape.  Apes also evolved though, so it is not like we came from the apes of today; they looked different.  So, we could share a very distant ancestor.

Someone should probably edit the swear filter so it doesn't edit inword words like @$$.
« Last Edit: May 17, 2006, 02:48:16 am by 4Sword »
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Re: Evolution: Fact or Theory?
« Reply #9 on: May 17, 2006, 03:09:04 am »
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Yeah... I know... "Ass" was removed from the filter. It made too many problems and I don't want to have to make it check whole words so that it can be censored. That would require I input every permutation of every curse-word, and unpredictable ones like "fanfuckintastic" would be completely missed. So, for now "Ass" is not a curse word.
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"They say 'Don't sweat the little things!', but in the end, the little things are all that matter..."
--Alex2539
Re: Evolution: Fact or Theory?
« Reply #10 on: May 17, 2006, 03:38:31 am »
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Yeah, I always use a religious text as justification for censoring.  So, by basing it on the Bible, ass and damn are acceptable.  Ass is a word that comes up in other words a lot more that any other swear words, so other swear words can be filtered entirely.

On topic though, in Creationism, humans were created in God's image, so they are in that sense to be considered perfect.  In that sense, one could say that there are human races because God's image is not a materialistic identity.  Thus, they can very and yet be from the same thing.  However, evolution is proven in the sense that it happens actively and that it has happened before.  The time it takes to evolve and the fact that we have existed long prior to that time is clear evidence that we evolved from lesser beings.  If we were how we are now, then that suggests that very little evolution takes place and yet it is shown that there has been major events that would prompt evolution and that it has happened.  The amount of evidence in animal evolution is also evidence to drastic evolution can be.  If organisms can evolve to go from sea to land, then is it not even thesible to suggest that a land ape could evolve into a land man.
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Pyru
Re: Evolution: Fact or Theory?
« Reply #11 on: May 17, 2006, 02:28:33 pm »
Heh. "Ass" means "donkey", just in case no-one knew that. <_< >_>

Anyways, it's obvious that evolution is not a theory; we know that it happens in the short term (if you don't believe me, look at paintings over the past few hundred years of horses; not absolute evidence, but painters back then weren't bad at drawing horses, domestic horses are bigger now. Or, even, domestic cats, dogs, whatever. If you wanna try it yourself, it's not that hard. Use something with a short lifespan, like fruitfly).

Historically, it's obvious something happened at some time, and evolution is far more credible and has far more evidence for it (fossils, anyone?) than creationism.
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Re: Evolution: Fact or Theory?
« Reply #12 on: May 17, 2006, 02:33:22 pm »
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its a stupid Theory who beliefs oure grand grand grand grand grandgrandgrand pa was a dot.
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  • daniel-kun
Re: Evolution: Fact or Theory?
« Reply #13 on: May 17, 2006, 02:42:55 pm »
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Quote from: Deku_stick on May 17, 2006, 02:33:22 pm
its a stupid Theory who beliefs oure grand grand grand grand grandgrandgrand pa was a dot.
And thank you for the constructive criticism.

Yes, its a theory, but with facts to support it...in comparison to God the creator of the universe has NO facts to back it up at all...ofcourse, the Bible is all the facts people who believe it need.
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Gilgamesh
Re: Evolution: Fact or Theory?
« Reply #14 on: May 17, 2006, 02:50:26 pm »
This isn't evolution vs creationism, so I'd be more happy if you guys wouldn't immediatly start arguing about that stuff.

I supposrt evolution, simply because it makes sense. Pure proof hasn't been found, simply because it's a process that takes ages. (of course, through breeding experiments, one can easily conclude genetical traits can be passed on) All the fossils and biological similarities between species have been found and proven though. It's pretty damn silly, that if one sees the similarities in a skeleton structure or a genetical DNA string, between (let's say) a certain dinosaur and a certain bird, to simply say it's a coincidence. Lots of fossils clearly show similarities (and improvements) from which one can conclude that they had the same ancestor.
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Re: Evolution: Fact or Theory?
« Reply #15 on: May 17, 2006, 03:06:17 pm »
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Just a stupid theory created for people who don't want to believe there's a god who created everything.

Kleaver Edit: Stop the useles posts that have no backup information whatsoever.

Hyrule_boy edit: Your edit is useless.
« Last Edit: May 17, 2006, 08:18:29 pm by Hyrule_boy »
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aab

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Re: Evolution: Fact or Theory?
« Reply #16 on: May 17, 2006, 04:22:56 pm »
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General evolution is the most possible theory. It tends towards fact, andf is closer to it than anything else due to an incredibly large sum of what would otherwise be rather impossible (tending more towards impossibility even, than evolution tends towards fact) coincidence.
We do physically change: That cannot be denied, due to the changes in average height over some hundreds of years.
Our world and environments change, and thus we and other creatures must change to survive, though history is full of extinctions (I believe we will die out and something even more influencial than us will eventually come along).

2-3 billion years ago (Though isotope dating has a large range of inaccuracy after 70000 years [or so the professors of the History of Earth at my Uni would say]) there was (or rather is no evidence for anything more than) nothing but unicellular organisms, photosynthesising, withought even a nucleus in their cells.
Rocks 2 billion years old and younger contain eukaryotes, cells with a Nucleus, but basically doing the same as the Prokaryotes before them.
Then, after a while they started to do more interesting things.
700 Million year old rock contains evidence of creatures composed of multiple cells. It would be rather sensible, wouldnt you think, to assume that instead of them just popping into existance, that they actually were an 'evolution' on the creatures before them, and that they combined. It goes on, of course.
Yesterday, i had an exam in which i wrote an essay of the stratigraphical relevance of cephalopods general evolution-like pattern.
You would assume on viewing a shelled ammonite in the Devonian period, that when looking at each step 50 or so million years after that and seeing an increasing septum pattern wave frequency, that there was an evolutionary trend there(<edit: a change which increased their structural integrity>)
To assume otherwise would give you the logical credibilty of someone who goes around saying "That picture you took with your camera. Ok its most probable that its really just a picture you took, but WHAT IF, just because its possible within our limited knowledge, that it wasnt, and was in fact taken in a scale model of this universe made by aliens and transferred here?".
What im saying, is the line between fact and theory is non-existant.
Anything can be misproven by something more convincing, at which point, that is what i woulod believe. For now, ill follow evolution as its the most possible thing: Idealism doesnt come into it either; It does come into other beliefs however, hence i make my choice of belief withought the factor of my own desire at influence.
« Last Edit: May 17, 2006, 04:26:00 pm by aab »
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Gilgamesh
Re: Evolution: Fact or Theory?
« Reply #17 on: May 17, 2006, 05:09:15 pm »
Besides, to all you nay-sayers that are inspired by religious belief: Evolution doesn't rule out the existence of superior beings, that did or did not affect the evolution of mankind. We just don't need them anymore. Just like we don't need other gods to explain thunder. (of course, moral and existensial need is something else...)
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Re: Evolution: Fact or Theory?
« Reply #18 on: May 17, 2006, 06:42:40 pm »
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Can we not watch certain things evolve, like things with a short life span, can't remember what insect it was but there are many generations in one human lifetime, 100ds so we can watch them adapt and so on, small changes etc.

I may be wrong, but I am fairly sure I've seen this on TV or in a science lesson got told about it.
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Re: Evolution: Fact or Theory?
« Reply #19 on: May 17, 2006, 07:07:55 pm »
I think some of us are confusing evolution with adaptation. Adaptation is, for example, the changing of a skin colour over time. Evolution is the change from one species to another. I think we agree that humans of different skin colour are still humans. And so far, we've no recorded transition from one species to another.

I'm an evolutionist myself, but I felt that those small points had to be made. I'll contribute properly later.
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