TIL from R-Todd Akin that if truely raped women can't get pregnant

Here's a really good place to start:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_evolution

Adaptation is not evolution. Dogs have adapted but all dog breeds can still interbreed (allowing for size restrictions) so they are still the same species. Yes, I know this analogy is rough but I'm not a biologist. Still it hits the important point that you can have adaptation for sure but as long as you are not speciating then it's not true evolution.

I'm with you on larger animals taking longer to evolve and that leads back to my mention of 'needed time'. Worked at at the pace we think it takes to evolve and moving backwards the earth would need something like 10 times longer to genetically account for evolution. Even then you still have to explain things like the Cambrian explosion, the problem of information, and several other key factors.

I have a young-earth buddy and we often talk about this. The one thing that I can't rebut with him is that it's very obvious that the mark of design is everywhere. Life came quickly, packed the earth, left us everything we would need to survive and thrive, and it all could not have (arguably) been done better. Considering the age of our sun there is not that big a window for humanity on the earth and being off by only a blink in geologic time would prevent life from ever starting.

If your going to have a discussion on this you have to make clear the distinction between evolution, and the origin of the species. Evolution is a well established fact recognized by everyone for hundreds of years. Nobody cares about that, and there's no point in even mentioning that. It's the origin of the species that is at issue. The theory that life started from random molecules colliding in the primordial soup.

TWD said:

If your going to have a discussion on this you have to make clear the distinction between evolution, and the origin of the species. Evolution is a well established fact recognized by everyone for hundreds of years. Nobody cares about that, and there's no point in even mentioning that. It's the origin of the species that is at issue. The theory that life started from random molecules colliding in the primordial soup.

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That's not the origin of species. That's Abiogenesis.


And lots of people care about the origin of species and argue against it every day because "intelligent design" claims that a "higher being" created everything "as is" especially man. But hey if you want to come join the rest of your great ape brothers on the side of reason and say this isn't a real argument I won't stop you. You can hop around and fling your poo at christians just like your cousins the chimpanzee who you are 96% genetically identical to.

gopostal said:

No effect is self-explaining.

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I never said they were
please pay attention.

Gravity is a theory because we can measure it, predict it, but we don't know the how or why.

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no.
gravity is the "how."
it's not the "why."

I already explained this...

the problems of information and needed time.

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first of all, I don't know what you mean by the problem of "information."
please elaborate.

secondly, there is no problem of time.
the Earth is old as shit. there was plenty of time. anyone who thinks time is a problem in explaining evolution is an ignorant fool. I'm not sure how else to say it.

TWD said:

I never said anything about science being just a theory. I only stated that it is just as fallible and easy to manipulate as the rest of society.

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Of all the wrong things that have ever been wrong, this is the wrongest. You still do not understand what science is. There is nothing fallible about gathering data and putting it together with other data.

Evolution, for instance, is not an opinion. Evolution is a name we've given to facts that we plainly observed with our own eyes (among other tools). There is no supposition or speculation about it. That is the difference between science and all of your ideas. All of them.

Because as much stuff as you have heard about, you have not grasped even the beginning of what real knowledge is comprised of. You do not grasp the idea that reliable fact is made up of what you can demonstrate, and the rest is guesswork and hearsay.

Sigh.

[m]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMFPe-DwULM[/m]

phil said:

That's not the origin of species. That's Abiogenesis

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To be more concise, Abiogenesis is the leading theory to explain the origin of the species. Creationism is another theory explaining the origin of the species that directly opposes Abiogenesis. I am merely stating that the fact evolution occurs is easily observed fact. Few dispute that.

cryptophreak said:

Of all the wrong things that have ever been wrong, this is the wrongest. You still do not understand what science is. There is nothing fallible about gathering data and putting it together with other data.

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Sure there is. It's humans doing it, and humans are fallible. We make mistakes. Sometimes our methodology is wrong. Sometimes our data is incorrect. Sometimes our conclusions do not match up with the data. Sometimes corrupt individuals manipulate the data to their own ends. Sometimes people just disagree on what the results mean. Sometimes the results just don't reveal the whole truth.

Science is no less prone to corruption and mistakes than any other product of humans.

Sir_Brizz said:

There are honestly very few things in this world that we know completely enough to say they will never be trumped by future scientific findings.

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TWD said:

Science is no less prone to corruption and mistakes than any other product of humans.

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Let's be generous and say that something I might make up out of thin air has a 99.9999% chance of being wrong. If I inject just a little well-collected data into the equation, my chance of getting a right answer becomes much more favorable. If I test my conclusions by experiment, I can even begin relying on them until contradicted. So even if we are bad at science it is still the method by which we should try to find things out, and it should still be the authority. Anything else is dressed-up daydreaming, and leaves us with the same 99.9999% failure rate.

Disparaging science as "no less prone to corruption and mistakes than any other product of humans" is dangerous because it equates science and guesswork in usefulness. That enormous misstep legitimises all sorts of ill-conceived nonsense, and before you know it we've got religion.

Jacks:SmirkingRevenge said:

I never said they were
please pay attention.

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It's hard to have a discussion with you when you constantly use this method of response. Of course you didn't say that because it was my turn to reply. Instead of quoting people and saying "I didn't say that" as an answer you ought to reply to what was said and man up if someone has painted you into a corner.

Jacks:SmirkingRevenge said:

no.
gravity is the "how."
it's not the "why."

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No, you are dead wrong. If I drop my coffee onto my laptop I don't know how OR why gravity did that. I only know it did happen. Therefore I have a result (my fubar'ed lappie), I formulate a theory (it had to be gravity), and only now can I move into testing how and why it happened. Sounds simple but science is at a loss about how gravity really works and why it is so weak compared to say the magnetic forces.

Jacks:SmirkingRevenge said:

I already explained this...
first of all, I don't know what you mean by the problem of "information."
please elaborate.

secondly, there is no problem of time.
the Earth is old as shit. there was plenty of time. anyone who thinks time is a problem in explaining evolution is an ignorant fool. I'm not sure how else to say it.

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A primer on information:
http://www.trueorigin.org/dawkinfo.asp
As a synopsis it says that we have nowhere in nature has information been shown to be actually created. This sounds a bit obtuse but it speaks directly to evolution, which needs to answer this problem.
And just because the earth is "old as shit" doesn't mean the problem of biological evolution isn't germane. Evolution has big holes in it that need to be filled in. Again I don't discount evolution but there are logical inconsistencies to be addressed.

The problem with science is that non-scientists often think they know science.

gopostal said:

Again I don't discount evolution but there are logical inconsistencies to be addressed.

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You haven't demonstrated that at all.

The question of where information comes from doesn't need to be solved to validate basic observations about the natural world. Should I suspend judgement about addition and subtraction until I've learned trigonometry?

I'm the first to advocate skepticism until all the facts are in, but that's not what you're doing. You're stalling by inventing unrelated controversy.

gopostal said:

you ought to reply to what was said and man up if someone has painted you into a corner.

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is English your first language?

I replied exactly to what was said.
you don't have me anywhere near a corner.

keep trying...

No, you are dead wrong. If I drop my coffee onto my laptop I don't know how OR why gravity did that.

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again, gravity is the how.
how did your coffee fall from your hand to your laptop?
gravity. that's how.

now WHY is there gravity? WHY does it work the way that it does?
that's the only real question you could ask.

As a synopsis it says that we have nowhere in nature has information been shown to be actually created. This sounds a bit obtuse but it speaks directly to evolution, which needs to answer this problem.

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you still haven't answered my question.
what is information? define "information."

you mean matter?

We've known how gravity works for a extremely long time. We just don't know why gravity is the reason things act a certain way yet. Actually, it has more to do with what gives something mass than why gravity works. Gravity is just a word given to a easily viewed phenomenon that was later tested extensively and given rules that proved accurate under normal circumstances. The whole Higgs Boson discovery not too long ago is either going to answer this or give us more questions to answer, either way we made progress.

Posting a counterargument from a Creationist blog doesn't really give you much ground to stand on. They can berate scientific theory all day long and even be correct to disagree with somethings, but at the end of the day, they're still trying to prove ridiculous stories that were written in an old book and have no scientific evidence in their corner whatsoever.

Sir_Brizz said:

Don't be ridiculous. There is supposition and speculation about all scientific facts, that's how new facts are discovered.

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They are not 'facts' at that point. They are hypothesis, and that is the point. To even get to the point where something is a 'theory' requires extreme scrutiny and tests.

I just skipped to page 8 and you guys are talking about Evolution? Why?

FuLLBLeeD said:

I just skipped to page 8 and you guys are talking about Evolution? Why?

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maybe you should read the thread instead of skipping around and it would make more sense

FuLLBLeeD said:

I just skipped to page 8 and you guys are talking about Evolution? Why?

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because Romney.