Problems with evolution?

[diesel]

The assault on darwinism isn't necessarily religious. Darwin essentially observed a bunch of animals, and how some are better at survival tha others, then he applied this to earth's history and theorized that all living things evolved from simple organic molecules. Scientists are finding it hard to prove the initial stage of this theory, among other things.

[Conservationist]

The assault on darwinism isn't necessarily religious. Darwin essentially observed a bunch of animals, and how some are better at survival tha others, then he applied this to earth's history and theorized that all living things evolved from simple organic molecules. Scientists are finding it hard to prove the initial stage of this theory, among other things.

Well, that's very true. The religious assault on Darwinism isn't even religious; it's people wanting a deliberate personal address of themselves and their role in the universe.

I don't know if "science" will prove much of anything regarding origins for a long, long time. However, it's probable the truth is somewhere in the middle. If out of 300 possible amino acids, 256 of them combine to form either life or structures that attract the necessary ingredients of life, is it deliberate intelligent design or random natural selection? Neither and both, presuming we stop waffling about "intelligent" meaning "smart" as in having a smart thinker behind it.

Regarding likely explanations from a philosophical point of view, Platonist Monism is the only view that makes sense. In that view, you don't have a God; the universe itself is conscious. You also don't have a separate heaven, but a huge open space outside of physical/spacio-temporal reality in which things can persist and exist, albeit not by linear (time-created causal) interaction.

As Plato would say, the pattern is all, and its origin is not in the proximate cause. Personally, I like this idea just because materialism is so goddamn boring and all the proles/peasants/soul-slaves  love it.

[scourge]

The religious assault on Darwinism is not a product of religion so much their preference for having a paternalistic force in the universe which is personal. That part of religion seems to me way too anthropocentric to make sense; then again, I can't disprove it.

The One or First Cause never needed to be some anthromorphic dude we can't see. It isn't 2+2=4 but how or why the equation works. It is just truth or consistency or order as you say. That's God. The All Father authority man was probably to get the people who have difficulty with comprehension (the masses) to just obey the order of things so they stop sliding into anarchy.

[JewishPhysics]

i haven't done much research about this side of the coin, although i know there's a TON of secular scientists who have chosen to reject Darwin.

Flagellum motor is one if i remember right. Such a thing would be too difficult to come into existence by natural selection, considering its compexity.

All alleged instances of 'irreducible complexity' have been disproved / falsified, including that of the bacteria flagellum.  Natural selection is real.  There really is no discussion to be had.

[Veritas]

Until they are able to completely model evolution based on static scientific principles, they haven't really proven it.

Assumptions about the past extend the natural boundaries of science.

[Iron]

The religious assault on Darwinism is not a product of religion so much their preference for having a paternalistic force in the universe which is personal. That part of religion seems to me way too anthropocentric to make sense; then again, I can't disprove it.

The One or First Cause never needed to be some anthromorphic dude we can't see. It isn't 2+2=4 but how or why the equation works. It is just truth or consistency or order as you say. That's God. The All Father authority man was probably to get the people who have difficulty with comprehension (the masses) to just obey the order of things so they stop sliding into anarchy.

Ding!

Foundational reality (consistency, patterns, "why there is something, or even the appearance of something, instead of nothing") is God. The tendency of religious traditions to place a face, or faces, onto that reality serves two functions. The first is, as you pointed out, to make this comprehensible to people with lesser insight, a more emotional approach to the world, or whatever. The second function is to communicate the intimacy we actually have with that foundational reality - we are in it, we are of it, our thoughts are microcosmic mirrors of its thoughts, we are "made in its image", it is our "father", our "lord", our "lover", etc. The point is that this is not something remote, but something pervasive which we participate in.

[Conservationist]

The One or First Cause never needed to be some anthromorphic dude we can't see. It isn't 2+2=4 but how or why the equation works. It is just truth or consistency or order as you say. That's God. The All Father authority man was probably to get the people who have difficulty with comprehension (the masses) to just obey the order of things so they stop sliding into anarchy.

That's very true. Our symbolism ran away from us, in part because we were using Sesame Street style symbols to explain esoteric mysticism to the prole herd.

[JewishPhysics]

Until they are able to completely model evolution based on static scientific principles, they haven't really proven it.

Assumptions about the past extend the natural boundaries of science.

No, it is proven.  Even if we assume you are correct, the structure and nature of DNA are such that, mathematically, evolution must occur.  It would be impossible for it not to.

[scourge]

The second function is to communicate the intimacy we actually have with that foundational reality - we are in it, we are of it, our thoughts are microcosmic mirrors of its thoughts, we are "made in its image", it is our "father", our "lord", our "lover", etc. The point is that this is not something remote, but something pervasive which we participate in.

Metaphysical (not material world versus spiritual world absolute distinct states) dualism I can understand as well. It isn't some alternate place we can go to, because as faithful monists we understand we are already there, but an order of things that is immutable from our perspective. Humans can't make 2+2 not equal 4.

This is the real Other Place Beyond, past the gods which are our own representations for what is eternal and what is immutable for us (seasons, lifecycles, conflict), from the Forms up to the One - all beyond our ability to affect or clearly perceive.

Absolute dualism and bearded ethereal guys in the sky on the other hand makes a prole religion with an inverse Midas Touch that transmutes everything it contacts into lead. We can do better and perhaps should have carried Neoplatonism with representational deities forward instead.

[Chains]

Until they are able to completely model evolution based on static scientific principles, they haven't really proven it.

Assumptions about the past extend the natural boundaries of science.

No, it is proven.  Even if we assume you are correct, the structure and nature of DNA are such that, mathematically, evolution must occur.  It would be impossible for it not to.

Forgive me if this sounds pedantic, but as far as I'm aware, it is impossible to prove anything in physics / chemistry / biology / any other science outside of mathematics or logic. I assume you mean that, under the assumption that our mathematical description of DNA is correct, which ahs been verified by countless simulations / measurements (but not proven), it then follows mathematically that evolution occurs?

[JewishPhysics]

Forgive me if this sounds pedantic, but as far as I'm aware, it is impossible to prove anything in physics / chemistry / biology / any other science outside of mathematics or logic.

Technically you're right, but that's kind of a semantic game.  In science one must always assume that a specific theory could be overturned, but the probability of certain ideas being thrown out is so incredibly low that they are generally just viewed as having been proven.

I assume you mean that, under the assumption that our mathematical description of DNA is correct, which ahs been verified by countless simulations / measurements (but not proven), it then follows mathematically that evolution occurs?

Yes, that's a more formally correct way of putting it.  Thank you.

[Veritas]

Until they are able to completely model evolution based on static scientific principles, they haven't really proven it.

Assumptions about the past extend the natural boundaries of science.

No, it is proven.  Even if we assume you are correct, the structure and nature of DNA are such that, mathematically, evolution must occur.  It would be impossible for it not to.

I have no issue with the science of it. The problem is that inferrences are made based on the data that extend beyond the realm of science, and into Philosophy - yet, this implicit philosophic basis is rarely recognised. You need not be a materialist to see that science has merit. Insofar as science is self-contained, it is proven, it is an analytic discipline, and as a form of analysis it is a wonderful thing. When it becomes synthetic it extends its boundaries - it is no longer science. Religion has never really had a problem with science, whether that of Darwin or Copernicus. The issues come about when the philosophic basis is wrongly altered because of it.

[▓]

Until they are able to completely model evolution based on static scientific principles, they haven't really proven it.

Assumptions about the past extend the natural boundaries of science.

No, it is proven.  Even if we assume you are correct, the structure and nature of DNA are such that, mathematically, evolution must occur.  It would be impossible for it not to.

I have no issue with the science of it. The problem is that inferrences are made based on the data that extend beyond the realm of science, and into Philosophy - yet, this implicit philosophic basis is rarely recognised. You need not be a materialist to see that science has merit. Insofar as science is self-contained, it is proven, it is an analytic discipline, and as a form of analysis it is a wonderful thing. When it becomes synthetic it extends its boundaries - it is no longer science. Religion has never really had a problem with science, whether that of Darwin or Copernicus. The issues come about when the philosophic basis is wrongly altered because of it.

What you have described here is the flaw of the religious/philosophical perspective, not of scientific methods. It is not unexpected that those who are educated in the human sciences (philosophy, theology, social studies, economics etc) will naturally approach science from their own particular discipline.

I think the primary "problem with evolution" is that far fewer people really understand the science behind it than is assumed.

[Veritas]

What you have described here is the flaw of the religious/philosophical perspective, not of scientific methods. It is not unexpected that those who are educated in the human sciences (philosophy, theology, social studies, economics etc) will naturally approach science from their own particular discipline.

I think the primary "problem with evolution" is that far fewer people really understand the science behind it than is assumed.

Yes, and unfortunately the philosophical (and other related aspects) perspective has become so intertwined with the scientific method that the term science has come to mean two distinct things - both a particular method, which makes no claims (besides those needed for the scientific method to be valid) about the nature of reality, and a collection of general views held in common by prominent figures in science, or the general scientific community, or anyone who has chosen to identify their views with science. For example, science is a descriptive discipline, and makes no normative/"ought" claims, yet so many treat scientific facts as though they were moral claims and thus leave the actual moral aspect unspoken. There is a similar issue with metaphysical claims.

The problem with evolution is that too few understand what science even is.

[20145689]

Theory: Things evolve from one creature to the next.

Proof: Absolutely none. If this were true then there would be countless millions of fossils from mammils, insects and so on of an in-between specie.

Conclude: People will believe anything. If something is repeated often enough it becomes fact in the minds of the cattle. See for example; 'global warming', or the 'holocaust', 'personal freedoms' etc.