Defining Evolution

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Every experiment known to man supports the conclusion that life comes from life and not from non-life.

That means that the existence of life today requires that some form of life has always existed. That life has been given the name, God.

I would have thought "life comes from life" could not include a disembodied spirit anywhere in the genealogy. But I guess God has a form though?

If God's a form of life, it's a form of life that has never been anyone's observation (physical organic life that reproduces). Does it seem consistent to you when you want strong empirical evidence but then also talk about an invisible God creating anything?

The thing that gets me about "form" is it suggests something describable, in terms of shape, color, et al.

And life is chemistry. It isn't something magical, but it's still damn cool.

It's no different than the creationist's intelligence argument, that intelligence doesn't simply evolve, it's too complex and mystifying. But all the while they claim this already existing intelligence that just happens to exist.

Honestly I think it's a form of psychosis, for those who have experience with that thing.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Every experiment known to man supports the conclusion that life comes from life and not from non-life.

No, it doesn't.
What sort of experiment would it take to support the positive conclusion that life cannot come from non-life? Seriously, describe this to us.

At best, you might be able to say that every time we observe life, it comes from life ,which is consistent with the assumption that life comes only from life.
But to actually support 'cannot come from non-life,' as a conclusion, would take a very extensive effort to try all the possible imaginable conditions, all the configurations, all the mixes, over all the estimated time.

Maybe it's just beyond you to understand the effort necessary to actually make the conclusion you say science has produced.
'Haven't done it yet' is not positive evidence that we cannot eventually do it.

And, frankly, even if we cannot do it, ever that's still not evidence it did not happen. The same way that if we DO do it, all that establishes is that it was possible. Creating life from non-life by method X does not conclusively prove that X is how life began. just that it's possible.

This conclusion you draw from horribly insufficient evidence just mocks the whole scientific method, much less the efforts in experiments you apparently know fuck-all about.

That means that the existence of life today requires that some form of life has always existed.

No, it doesn't. You haven't proven the negative, so you can't trim off the possibilities.

 

[James Brown]

I agree with rhutchin that the process on the left does not happen.

 

[Malintent]

Are you disputing the observation that "life exists". Is it your position that the assumption that life exists is flawed? Are you even listening to yourself? At some point in Earth's history, life "came to be here". Evolution has nothing to say about that, other than SOMEHOW a god, alien, chemistry, or some other as of yet undiscovered cause made life. the HYPOTHESIS of abiogenisis is nothing you will get a strong argument over... it is not a scientific theory because we do not know enough yet.. no one you should ever trust for scientific knowledge has ever said that.

What we do know is that life comes from life. Life does not spring from non-life (although some people imagine that it could). That leaves God or aliens as the source of life on earth.

Yes, exactly. However, what it eaves us with is an infinite number of possibilities, two of which are aliens and / or a god. Unfortunately, the specific god (I think) you have in mind has indeed been ruled out as a possible option, due to the impossiblity of its existance by its own definition... but that is a discussion for another thread.

So, accepting that evolution, at its very core, says, "life comes from life", and has nothing to say about "life coming from non-life", would it be fair to say that you have no issues whatsoever about the theroy of evolution (which describes the process by which "life from life" diversifies and spreads? If not, what is your issue, then?

 

[Malintent]

OK, it is right here at the seventh word you quoted from the article:



bolding added by me.

That leaves us with this definition: Biological evolution ... is change in the properties of populations of organisms that transcend the lifetime of a single individual.

OK

This is the definition creationists maintain is correct and applied to the animals that came off the ark, it explains that those animals changed (evolved) over time and can account for the animals we observe today. Evolution does not suggest anything more than that.

No, not all creationists. That is like saying that all religionists beleive in the holy ghost. Only some do... a minority, at that.
also, not all creationists are "young earth" (YEC) believers. Those are the ones that beleive the Earth is aproximately 6,000 years old. period. end of story). Evolution shows Earth is MUCH older.

Incorrect definitions of evolution would be the following:

Evolution: The gradual process by which the present diversity of plant and animal life arose from the earliest and most primitive organisms, which is believed to have been continuing for the past 3000 million years.

Which part of this definition is incorrect, in your opinion? The "3000 million years" part? correct. That is not part of the definition of evolution, but is still factually correct. the science behind that is not just in biology, but also archiology, chemistry, ecology, and geology.

Evolution: The doctrine according to which higher forms of life have gradually arisen out of lower.

Yes, that is a totally incorrect definition.

Evolution: The development of a species, organism, or organ from its original or primitive state to its present or specialized state; phylogeny or ontogeny.

Perhaps this is a dubious definition.. too technical for me. Is that why you don't like it either? It requires trust of the experts. Same kind of trust you have when someone tells you that "such in such" is claimed in the bible... since you cannot read sanscrit or ancient hebrew, you have to trust the experts that have translated it into English for you... that is ALOT of trust, since you probably believe that your eternal existance is banking on some person you never met getting every word exactly right... That must be very scarey, unless like most Americans you just behave like Jesus wrote the bible in English himself.

 

[Malintent]

absense of response is acceptance of all premises and conclutions....

But feel free to jump in and correct anything you feel is misrepresented.... but this thread appears to have concluded with:

Science has defined the scientific definition of the Theory of Evolution. The average Joe does not get to redefine the theory and then beat down the redefinition of the theory (that is called constructing a strawman). Just because the common language has another defiition for a word does not put that definition into "fair game" for playing with words to distort the meaning of one thing to reach a desired conclusion.

Resolved.

 

[steve_bnk]

Round and round we go.

To me most simply the theory of evolution is a set interlocking scientific theories that propose the diversity o living things evolved through a combination of mutation from various causes and natural selection.

 

[Underseer]

I define evolution to be a circle that is also a square, therefore, I have proven that evolution does not exist. QEDuh [/creationist]

 

[untermensche]

I don't think this thread is about defining evolution, but defining the scope of present Evolutionary Theory.

I think anyone would accept that it is not a Theory of Everything. It does not explain all things.

 

[Keith&Co.]

I don't think this thread is about defining evolution, but defining the scope of present Evolutionary Theory.

Well, using a definition of the word to attack the scope of the theory, yes.

 

[steve_bnk]

absense of response is acceptance of all premises and conclutions....

But feel free to jump in and correct anything you feel is misrepresented.... but this thread appears to have concluded with:

Science has defined the scientific definition of the Theory of Evolution. The average Joe does not get to redefine the theory and then beat down the redefinition of the theory (that is called constructing a strawman). Just because the common language has another defiition for a word does not put that definition into "fair game" for playing with words to distort the meaning of one thing to reach a desired conclusion.

Resolved.

There is no person or or group that sanctions scientific non-mathematical definitions.

Evolution via mutation and selection as an explanation of biodiversity is a conclusion based on a number of correlated physical theories and observations.

Mutation & Natural Selection = Evolution

From the long history on the old forum creationists will take differences in general discussions by credentialed scientist to try to discredit evolution.

Repeating what others have posted there is no comprehensive theory of evolution that scientifically predicts the detailed genesis from an unknown initial organism or organisms to what we see today.

Mutation and selection ca be demonstrated on a small scale. Bacteria and lactose experiments. It can be seen on a small scale in the natural environment. Pesticide pest tolerant drug resistant bacteria.

I doubt all scientists doing related work all agree on all aspects.

 

[Malintent]

absense of response is acceptance of all premises and conclutions....

But feel free to jump in and correct anything you feel is misrepresented.... but this thread appears to have concluded with:

Science has defined the scientific definition of the Theory of Evolution. The average Joe does not get to redefine the theory and then beat down the redefinition of the theory (that is called constructing a strawman). Just because the common language has another defiition for a word does not put that definition into "fair game" for playing with words to distort the meaning of one thing to reach a desired conclusion.

Resolved.

There is no person or or group that sanctions scientific non-mathematical definitions.

Evolution via mutation and selection as an explanation of biodiversity is a conclusion based on a number of correlated physical theories and observations.

Mutation & Natural Selection = Evolution

From the long history on the old forum creationists will take differences in general discussions by credentialed scientist to try to discredit evolution.

Repeating what others have posted there is no comprehensive theory of evolution that scientifically predicts the detailed genesis from an unknown initial organism or organisms to what we see today.

Mutation and selection ca be demonstrated on a small scale. Bacteria and lactose experiments. It can be seen on a small scale in the natural environment. Pesticide pest tolerant drug resistant bacteria.

I doubt all scientists doing related work all agree on all aspects.

Yes, true. I agree with what you said.. but the "group" that must agree on what the definition of the theory of evolution is, is the group of people having a converation about it. In this case, that is us... and I think we all agree, except the creationist that relies on secondary definitions of words used in casual conversation with which to create strawmen and attempt to draw a picture of "total disagreement" among the scientific body involved.

This is why I wish this community would keep things a bit simpler. Theads of this particular nature can be just a few posts long.

This is an accepted definition for scientific discussion
That is not one

Asked and answered.

Thread closed.

But whatever.. people like to chat and flame.

 

[Underseer]

This article on talk.origins could have been written by a creationist (despite the obligatory slur toward the end).

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-definition.html

It says that "evolution" accounts for change in populations. Thus, evolution explains how the animals that came off the ark of Noah became the diverse number of animals we observe today.

With evolution, you have to have a population in order to change that population.

Evolution does not explain "...the development of a species, organism, or organ from its original or primitive state to its present or specialized state..."

Evolution does not propose a mechanism to take whatever life form originally appeared in the far past and have it evolve into the life we observe today.

This is what I love about creationists.

They all claim to be greater experts than the actual experts, yet repeatedly demonstrate that they don't even understand the basic definitions of the terms that they regularly use.

 

[patchy]

If we start with the animals coming off the ark, evolution works fine in describing how those animals evolved into what we observe today.

And if you start with something that isn't even true, conclusions that flow from it are worthless.

 

[Underseer]

What exactly are creationists fighting against about evolution if they don't know what it is? I think they're saying, I don't know what it is," and so empower themselves to oppose it. What's the mechanism by which a cosmic magician makes things? Ah, Yes, it's a mystery. Genius!

Quite a few arguments used by Christians and Muslims all boil down to "I don't understand how X came to be, therefore I know how X came to be: a magic man created it using magic. Thus, my religion is proven."

 

[William Rea]

This article on talk.origins could have been written by a creationist (despite the obligatory slur toward the end).

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-definition.html

It says that "evolution" accounts for change in populations. Thus, evolution explains how the animals that came off the ark of Noah became the diverse number of animals we observe today.

With evolution, you have to have a population in order to change that population.

Evolution does not explain "...the development of a species, organism, or organ from its original or primitive state to its present or specialized state..."

Evolution does not propose a mechanism to take whatever life form originally appeared in the far past and have it evolve into the life we observe today.

So let me get this straight: hundreds of millions of years aren't enough for evolution to have done its thing, but you genuinely believe that after Noah's flood even more evolution happened in only a few hundred or few thousand years? Interesting.

That's the wonder of Sooperdoopercrevolution.

 

[Kharakov]

There is no person or or group that sanctions scientific non-mathematical definitions.

...
This is why I wish this community would keep things a bit simpler. Theads of this particular nature can be just a few posts long.
...
This is an accepted definition for scientific discussion
....
But whatever.. people like to chat and flame.

That sounds a bit like the creationist view of the word evolution. In other words, they believe that the word "evolution" was created with a specific form, designed by God with perfect form, and does not evolve over time.

Can the word "evolve" evolve over time, or does it do something else if it evolves?

 

[Malintent]

Words evolve. Theories evolve. Ideas evolve... What any particular word, theory, or idea means at any particular time is fairly fixed. What is meant by biological evolution, today, means exactly one thing, and possibly implies a great number of things.

... but.... we do not get to make it up as we go along (I'm not accusing you of that).

 

[Kharakov]

Words evolve. Theories evolve. Ideas evolve... What any particular word, theory, or idea means at any particular time is fairly fixed. What is meant by biological evolution, today, means exactly one thing, and possibly implies a great number of things.

I'd like to mention paperclip maximizers, for the sole purpose to inject a paperclip into this conversation about evolution, which is precisely where a paperclip belongs.

I tend to think that after a conversation dies out because both sides want to be right, and both sides want to treat one another with respect, both sides need to evolve to take the attack to the next level.

Evolution of the conversation on evolution cannot end at consensus, because the concepts involved would then be based on something that does not evolve, and one could not ever prove that evolution did not exist at some point in time, however its existence indicates that something exists, and has always existed, that does not evolve: evolution.

So, does evolution evolve or not? If evolution does not evolve, than you are a creationist who believes in an eternal process.

Note that you cannot claim evolution started at the BB, because you have no proof that it did.

k

 

[Malintent]

All scientific theories are constantly improved upon.. incomplete information is replaced with complete information, etc.. Biological evolution is just another example. If you want to call that "evolution evolving", I can't stop you.. although you would be mixing up terms mid-sentence.
No one claims that biological evolution started at the BB... that is just as silly as suggesting that the Industrial Revolution began sometime during the Jurassic period. for evolution to start, we must first have life. evolution started like YESTERDAY, in the grand scheme of the deep time involved in the forming of our universe... and that 'one day' that was 'yesterday' lasted 100's of millions of years.
Jesus was born at about 11:59PM and 50 seconds 'last night'. It is now about 12:00PM and a few seconds, on that time scale.