Recently people have been claiming that my arguments defending organized Religion and creation are logical fallacies which is not only unreasonable because Religion doesn't depend solely on logic and empirical evidence but because it is pretty much a cop-out of a actual rebuttal. Just because an argument can possibly be labeled as a logical fallacy doesn't undoubtedly mean it is not a good argument... And logical fallacies can be pointed out in evolutionary theories so how exactly effective and reasonable can you be in attempting to label an opposing argument one also?? Here is an unbiased article that points these and errors out in evolutionary theories without promoting creationist themes or anything at all. So If these exist in Darwinian Evolution how accurate can Evolution as a whole be considered? And I just want to say that I believe much of evolution can be considered 'fact', but there is evidence that in no way can all it be. http://www.tdtone.org/evolution/TDTns.htm (The site further breaks down points and goes into a lot more detail, I suggest you take a look at the entire thing before attempting to debunk it.) If you're going to point out errors in Religion and other theories due to lack of evidence, contrary ideas along with faulty logic and science what's stopping you from pointing them out in the theories of Darwinian Evolution?
Many of these so-called errors are nothing but a misrepresentation (strawman fallacy) of evolution and science. I'm by no means an evolutionary biologist, so I can't deal with all of them without getting a degree first, but the more obvious ones is easily refuted. I'll do them by their numbers, too lazy to quote : 1: Two different concepts, though using the same mechanism. The difference between artificial and natural selection is simply that artificial evolution is when it is forced by another entity (like say how we humans breed dogs and cows). Natural selection is when there is no other entity forcing the breeding. I fail to see that there is no connection as long as the same mechanism is used. That is making a selection of wanted traits. The difference is merely who makes the selection. 2: Post-hoc ergo propter hoc. This fallacy follows the basic format of: A preceded B, therefore A caused B, and therefore assumes cause and effect for two events just because they are temporally related (the latin translates to "after this, therefore because of this"). Evolution do not fall into this fallacy, as there is a relation between cause and effect. We can even study this in detail by examining DNA. The author of this error list write this up as a fallacy due to his/her own fallacious argument from personal incredulity. 4: Not what evolution says. Strawman. Outside influence (like say climate change) can push evolution in new directions, but is not the sole reason of change between generations. 7: Confusing currently unexplained with unexplainable. Also argument from personal incredulity. That we do not yet have a detailed description of the entire evolutionary process, do not mean that evolution do not happen. It means that we do not understand all aspects of it yet. 8: Again, misrepresentation. First it assumes just one "winner", where in reality, a specter of new species can evolve from the same ancestor species. Secondly it assumes we can make specific predicitions where infact what is done is retroactively look at the causation that lead to a certain trait. 10: Again misrepresentation. Nowhere does evolution suggest species should be the most perfect possible in their niche. It is more than sufficient that a species can survive with a reasonable degree of ability to utilize the resources in its environment. Species that don't go extinct. --- And lastly, the two most telling signs this is written by someone without a clue as to what science really is: --- 15: Ofcourse science is naturalistic. That is what makes science such a great tool for understanding nature and gain actual knowledge. If science was to incorporate supernaturalism, it wouldn't any more be science, it would be pseudo-science. You cannot test anything that isn't naturalistic, therefore it is also worthless in the process of figuring out how nature works. Or to put it more succinct: "Goddidit!" is not an explanation, it is a lack of an explanation. 16: Here we get to the meat of the bias and ignorance the author possess. First, evolution don't bother itself with the origin of life, just the change between generations of life. Origin is a matter of bio-chemistry, not evolution. Secondly, whatever philosophies that embrace evolution, does not validate or invalidate the basic truth of evolution. There is no conflict between evolution and a deistic philosophy. There is only conflict if the deism in question promote dogmas that do not consider evolution factual. A religion can promote all kinds of nonsense, from the earth being flat, the sun revolves around the earth and so forth. That still does not change actual facts that contradict the religious dogma. And it most certainly should not lead us to re-evaluate those facts, or ignore them just because they naturalistic in origin.
Sorry about the length of this, but I regard you as a good honest member of GC and I really don't think it's going to help relationships on the baord if we go through another Jonathon scenario. This, you'll be happy to know, is my last word. To my mind (and that of the US judiciary), creationism has already bitten the dust. I don't think it's a good place to start defending creationism and religion by saying: "Religion doesn't depend solely on logic and empirical evidence", it's shooting yourself in the foot, as sadly it's true. As it is the case, you're already saying that you wont believe any rebuttals - in fact, if you stick to your claim above, any time anyone has a counter case, you just need to say that you don't need proof or evidence to believe what you do, so the opposition can never win. However, as Zylark has pointed out, the list above is a distortion of what evolution is - for one thing we've gone way beyond Darwinism in the last 70 years. If we just argue the old claims against it and ignore all the new evidence that shows evolution is correct, then it's really not representative of evolution at all. But the problem is bigger than that. Remember that creaionism is being used to prove the bible's accuracy, and a young earth. An if we dig a bit deeper, we see that the people behind the promotion of creationism are not to be trusted and are not who they say they are. The whole YEC, ICS, ID is bankrolled by people with an agenda, who have changed their stories on the scientific evidence so many times it would make your head spin. Their in-fighting has shown that even they can't agree within themselves what it means to be a creationist. This isn't a simple case of arguing beliefs, but arguing against an organisation that wants to have power within government, education and medicine - and the thing is that you become an unwitting pawn in this, trying to prove their claims for them, when even they say on AIG that they have no proof. I know you are purely interested in this for your own sake, but you can't use discredited 'scientists' to attack evolution, using sites like AIG. To try and nit-pick evolution is just a red-herring, pointing people away fromthe real issues. It would be impossible, truly impossible, to have the continual geological upheavals of meteors, earthquakes and calderas we've had on earth in the 3,000 years that creationists claim. It's also unfeasible that the speed of light has changed significantly in the last 2,000 years, or the half-life of a dozen different isotopes, or that dating methods can't discern between say, 5 million years and 5, 000, or that the genetic record doesn't show that we have had hundreds of generations stretching back tens of thousands of years. If genetics was wrong then much of today's stem cell and genetic medicine - which is provably working and in action right now - would not work either. The nuclear clocks that synchronise satellites wouldn't work, GPS wouldn't work... MelT
Why hello Mr. Strawman! You're everywhere these days! Really. Stop. Or keep going. Im a man of humor.
ughh i try not to get involed in these silly threads but i got a thought. the universe evolves. first we have hydrogen and it condenses into suns and explodes then we get all sorts of new things, helium carbon ect... then it evolves into planets and moons and galaxies. then eventually life, then complex life. after that the universe either grows too big which i believe is the popular theory, or condenses back into a singularity. evolution on a cosmic scale. a virus evolves. put anti bacterial on a virus then you have a resistant strain of virus. evolution on a microscopic scale.
I'm really baked, but I think I got this... So basically he's saying that Darwinism is not the "scientific" explanation that accounts for the origin of life. Darwinism at the very basic level is the assumption that there is some like crazy machine out there cranking out evolutionary mathematics into existence. Like some universal natural selection machine is computing our results. Wouldn't one think that rather than some invisible program that makes us evolve wasn't it within our own body, our own existence to achieve such a result? If you think about it considering Darwinism as scientific fact means you believe in a matrix like existence, or wait, maybe an all-powerful omnipotent creator.
^^ you're close, but well said The point of this thread is to point out certain errors in Evolutionary theory, not to debunk it as a whole. As i stated in the OP it doesn't promote creationist themes. It'd funny how you all accept Evolution blindly yet claim the religious have blind faith... you assume evolution to be all fact yet cannot provide evidence to some 'facts' when they are criticised...Isn't that your arguments against those who oppose all of Evolution? MelT you even said that simply "nit pick" evolution is just red hearing, I fail to see how Evolution is above criticism, If facts of a theory are proven to be wrong, reversed, not exact etc. isn't that reason to believe the whole of the theory could be challenged? Zylark couldn't even form a rebuttal for every error presented. laugh it up, But you guys are going to have to better than this.
Why should I bother with doing them all? There are limits to how much effort I put into arguing against nonsense, and as I said in my post, I'd only do the most obvious. But why don't we flip the question? Why can't you do your own little "debunking" of evolution in your own words, but have to copy paste? I at least am versed enough in the topic to write up the creationist flaws from the top of my head. No copy-pasting needed. It is called critical thinking. But I'll have to agree with Melt. This is just a red herring. This isn't about the science, it's about introducing religion in the class-room. It is politics, more correct, theocratic wannabeism. edit: Oh, and if you insist on being childish in your arguments cannabis, don't be surprised if I follow up by treating you as a child. You might not like that.