Here is my problem with evolution. First of all, if one generally takes an argument against evolution, it is generally automatically assumed that the person is supporting a pro-creation position. The person might also be assumed to be a hard-core fundamentalist which just isn't true. I'm trying to approach it from a neutral perspective that looks at the available evidence and goes forward from there. I think ever since Sir Thomas Bacon and the scientific model, science has totally excluded "purposeful" design from any model for whatever reason. It just doesn't make sense. In the lower level biology books, the beginning of life is suggested to have developed in a "pool of chemicals" that existed in an electrically charged environment that eventually spit out a primitive one cell organism. The problem with this is that there is no such thing as a "primitive" one cell organism. Even in the most "primitive" one celled organism, you have long DNA ladders that encode for enzymes. You have RNA, t-RNA (which is a connector between the DNA and each of the amino acids, s-RNA, editese enzymes that check that information is split and reformed correctly, etc ... None of these things can pop up alone and support life. You need the storage systems, encoding / decoding systems, translation systems all working simultaneously for just one cell to be able to reproduce. Not even upper level biology books have a clue how this could have taken place -- so in an absence of actual data, holes are filled with "basic Darwinian concepts." The problem is that evolution is currently the "En Vogue" theory in science. What happens when a scientist goes against the science fashion of the day? He or she gets ridiculed and loses support for his or her work from absence of grants, etc. So it is almost like this "very well fabricated story" is perpetuated today because the theory of evolution is so ubiquitous in the scientific community. We can find 500 million year old fossils all over the place yet we can't find any half-million old bridge fossils for man -- or any other animal for that matter? Bullshit! The theory has serious problems, yet it is still taught as fact in highschools. I wish they'd emphasize "theory" more, because evolution seems to be dished out as if it were nothing but pure fact today. This is the same problem as the theory of the big bang. Everything around us -- from the atoms in your body to the buildings in Manhattan and every star in the universe was once in a space the size of the head of a pin? Come on! I understand there is some evidence suggesting an explosion, but isn't that a bit simplistic? Everything rolled up into a mathematical point and suddenly it explodes into a universe? Sounds like something from nothing to me, and that violates thermodynamics. Why can't science just accept the fact that it is ill-equiped to answer questions like this? The scientific model was designed to in such a way to accept the most basic hypothesis that something can be "proven," when it actuality nothing can be proven in the absolute. There is no way that we can say that even the laws of physics or the C constant isn't slowly changing as the universe ages. The premise of science is great, because we understand more about how the world works around us, but I doubt that any process, including the scientific one, will enable us to say with absolute authority that, "this is indeed how such and such works due to these processes that follow laws that are never changing and eternal." I know from my own experience that most information received a posteriori is sufficient for me to function in my environment. Although I may be proven wrong at some point, the human mind is designed to be flexible and adaptive, yet still have the ability to be rigid enough to allow for experience to accumulate in such a way as to allow for a greater understanding of the world. There lies the problem between a posteriori and a priori modes of knowledge. One assumes a basis of discovery from induction that works well in an environment absent of intangible processes within the universe while the other accepts a sort of "fuzziness" to knowledge due to the ultimate realization that we live in a world that can be put under a microscope, but cannot ever be known in the "absolute" sense since the basic initial constituents of all things are most definitely held within a system greater than the one which we are seeking to understand and test within.
For many scientists and many of those who are agnostic or atheist, the philosophy of science boils down to a belief that the conclusions drawn from using the intellect, senses, and logic are the best way to live one's life. The theory of evolution is as you said, a theory. Is it possible? Perhaps, although there is no proof. Yet, why do those who are so adamant about the need for proof so readily accept such science and theories like this as truth? That is a more interesting question in my opinion. While there is little doubt that science has improved the external quality of living, there yet remain serious problems for human beings internally. We see a society where the need for medication for mental illness is on the rise, where self help book sales are always on the best seller list, where stress kills millions, where we have a high percentage of people with alcohol issues, weight issues, half of marriages fail, etc. Clearly something is missing that science does not provide. Why does man have a need to know why he is here on earth, what is his purpose, and what is the best way to reach those answers to those questions. Science does not in itself bring peace of mind or happiness. I often marvel when I am stressed and in a hurry to go somewhere, how happy the illegal aliens on the street corners waiting for work seem. Not a care in the world. Scientific advancement of the physical world is great, but a solution for all of man's problems? Not even close.
aphie, Very well put. It is quite obvious to any educated person that there are major holes in the theory of evolution, at least in its more grandiose versions. So why does the education establishment fight so fiercely to treat it as fact and prevent even the discussion of alternatives? maxpi, Good points as well. The science establishment would like to pretend that anyone questioning this theory are dimwitted rednecks misled by yahoo preachers, but the reality is that many serious intellectuals have made devastating criticisms of it.
Gasp! Sputter! I love your posts, Aphie, but I gotta differ with you on this part of what you said: There is NO comparison between the evidence for the Big Bang and the evidence for Darwinism. The Big Bang actually has evidence! And the Big Bang actually has multiple and diverse lines of evidence. Furthermore, the Big Bang has many widely differing sources of scientific evidence: radioactive aging, "Hubble" calculations, solving Einstein's equations, the cosmic background radiation, star/galaxy compositions, red shift, etc., etc. Let me give you just one common sense argument that doesn't require any astrophysics to show that the universe is about how old they say it is. Neptunian has a half life of about 6 million years and yet it is completely absent from the universe. So we know the universe is at least 500 million years old. On the flip side, we see that we have Uranium. It's existence (I think it's half life is around 450 million years) means that the universe is less than say about 50 billion years. This kind of reasoning holds true across the board for the 40+ radioactive elements found in nature (that aren't naturally produced). With simple logic and examination of the heavens we can peg the universe's age to not be ridiculously young and yet not be ridiculously old either. Then astronomers look into the heavens and notice this: every object that they observe is expanding. The do these calculations in a variety of ways and no matter where or how far back they look, every thing is expanding. (There are actually a few objects close to us that are not, but that is due to gravitational interactions.) Put these two facts together: 1) a universe with a finite age and 2) everything is expanding. What conclusion are astronomers supposed to draw? If you throw in the Cosmic Background Radiation and the compositions of the stars/galaxies, you've got rock solid evidence for the Big Bang. This is in direct contrast to macroevolutionary Darwinism where there is extremely weak fossil and genetic evidence within grossly restrictive time frames.
This can actually be easily shown. Astronomers can look around the universe and observe objects that are relatively young (a few 100 years away) and very, very old (almost 14 billion years). And everywhere they look they can discover what are called hyperfine split spectral lines of hydrogen - I believe it's called the 21 cm line of neutral hydrogen. We know that the frequency shift is dependent on the speed of light. In other words, you can look at the shift and calcuate the speed of light. In short, everywhere that astronomers look around the universe, the speed of light is exactly identical.
Maybe I'm missing the point of what you're saying, but the idea that the universe was "birthed" one way or the other is inescapable. The steady state (i.e. never ending universe) and the reincarnating universe have died grizzly deaths after being utterly disproven. Here is what science has shown: the universe is everywhere less than 15 billion years and nowhere over 15 billion years. Somehow all of this came into existence about 15 billion years ago. Suppose just for a minute that there is a God. Then isn't this exactly what you would expect to see? I argue that you would expect a universe suddenly popping out of "nothing" as you put it. A sudden birth from "nothing" and an exploding universe is only difficult to believe if you toss out the possibility of God.
Like psychology of crowd in stock market that is widely spread and accepted by the vast majority which is just the counterpart of Evolution Theory applied to Stock Market (that's why there are so many researchs based on agents modelling and they just can't prove much more than herd behavior but it is qualitative and not quantitative enough to make prediction and they will NEVER be able to do prediction because it is impossible that agents can accord themselves by "magic" except if thought transmission is admitted and at the speed of light at least hee hee) ... and that I deny with my model