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400,000 year old human DNA found. Evolution questions follow.

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Tablo

Member
Mammoth Jones said:
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Chezzymann

Member
DanteFox said:
Not quite. There's a difference in believing something without scientific evidence and believing in something despite evidence to the contrary. One might have faith that a spouse is loyal. This is subject to change if evidence were presented to the contrary later on. Nonetheless, one still believes that one's spouse will not cheat, even without proof.



Opiate didn't specify creationism and instead proceeded to generalize not only one but all of religion.
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So you're talking about agnostic theism? Or believing in a deity but not claiming it to be 100% true? Because if you're willing to retract a belief that something is true, then you never had faith in that something in the first place. The subject never had faith that his spouse had never cheated if he changes his mind when evidence is presented otherwise. Because faith does not require evidence. He may have believed it to be an extremely possibility, but it wasnt faith.

MajorPain said:
One of the biggest problems with science is that what was once regarded as absolute truth is no longer true because of new data or testing methods. Evolution has never been proven and there always seems to be new data that just creates more questions than answers.
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Science never regards anything as true. It only supports ideas with evidence. Thats why it doesnt require faith. Its agnostic athiesm, not gnostic athiesm.
 
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theJohann

Member
DanteFox said:
Interesting how some people treat science itself almost like a kind of faith. They take time to praise science and denigrate religion preemptively almost as if to make themselves feel better about their beliefs instead of commenting on how interesting the discovery itself is like a normal human being.
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I also find this behaviour strange. Science is simply science; things are believed in when the evidence stays the same, and then obviated when new and contrary evidence appears. To me, science is just a phenomenon, an aspect of society. Those who excessively praise science (even more confusingly when concurrent with an attack on religion) are praising an occurrence and nothing more.

"Look, I let go of an object and it fell to the ground! Gravity and physics are so awesome and proven and therefore better than X"

So what?
 
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Dagobert Duck

Member
So Doc Brown screwed up again and went to far in the past, just to get buried in ancient spain? Send Marty for the rescue and see the bone vanish......

Still fascinating how little we know and how many things there are which we cant explain (yet)
 
M

Mario

Sidhe / PikPok
TheJohann said:
"Look, I let go of an object and it fell to the ground! Gravity and physics are so awesome and proven and therefore better than X"

So what?
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Observations, such as you suggest above, are only a low level step in the scientific method. The objective of the scientific method is to create theories with predictive qualities.

So what you ask?

Scientific theories provide predictive clarity that allow us to develop and extend our abilities as a collective species much more rapidly and with much more efficient consumption of resources than naive trial and error.

For example, 747 airliners would never exist without "science".
 
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theJohann

Member
Mario said:
Observations, such as you suggest above, are only a low level step in the scientific method. The objective of the scientific method is to create theories with predictive qualities.

So what you ask?

Scientific theories provide predictive clarity that allow us to develop and extend our abilities as a collective species much more rapidly and with much more efficient consumption of resources than naive trial and error.

For example, 747 airliners would never exist without "science".
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But I don't disagree with any of that. What I find strange, however, is that people would put science on a pedestal whenever the topic of religion comes up. Nobody is claiming that religion created 747 airliners instead of science. Science and religion are both just societal phenomena, so why should one be "better" than the other?
 
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ZimbAdam

Member
TheJohann said:
But I don't disagree with any of that. What I find strange, however, is that people would put science on a pedestal whenever the topic of religion comes up. Nobody is claiming that religion created 747 airliners instead of science. Science and religion are both just societal phenomena, so why should one be "better" than the other?
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I guess it's down to the whole religion shitting on science for thousands of years thing.
 
Red Mage

Red Mage

Member
CornBurrito said:
How do you reinterpret to make sense of the fact that Genesis states there were land plants before the sun existed?
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Consider that Moses is the author of Genesis. If you view Genesis as being told from the perspective of a vision situated on Earth, then that's when the dense layers of clouds and gases finally allowed the sun, moon, and stars to shine through. Prior to this, you're just getting the lightening and darkening of the sky. That's why Day 4 repeats the same thing Day 1 says.

"And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day"

So, basically, it's the atmosphere being prepared for living creatures, both for breathing and for navigation. This doesn't mean I'm right in my interpretation, but that's just how I've always viewed Genesis.

*Edit* Just to clarify, in the Bible, Heavens refer to the whole universe OR the sky OR both. The Israelites described three Heavens: The Earth's sky, the rest of the universe, and then Heaven as in God's residence. Thus when Paul mentions he was caught up to the Third Heaven, he is clarifying he isn't talking about the sky or space. There, Genesis 1:1 is about the creation of the whole universe. This can be seen to make sense, since God is next seen hoving/brooding over the waters of Earth in Genesis 1:2.

KHarvey16 said:
If it changes you must lose faith in whatever the idea was before you changed it. How can that not be true?
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Because it's not a zero sum game.

Byakuya769 said:
And faith in one discrete idea is not the same as faith in a broad religion, unless you're an absolute literalist. Even then, your literalist interpretation will always be subject to what the "true" translation is.
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Pretty much.
 
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KHarvey16

Member
Red Mage said:
Because it's not a zero sum game.
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Byakuya769 said:
And faith in one discrete idea is not the same as faith in a broad religion, unless you're an absolute literalist. Even then, your literalist interpretation will always be subject to what the "true" translation is.
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Faith in religion means faith in the ideas and ideals that define whatever that religion is. If those things change or are modified you must necessarily lose faith in the previous version of the idea. I don't really know how this is debatable. To change your faith you must lose it in one thing and gain it in another. It's an indisputable consequence of the definition of the word.
 
Red Mage

Red Mage

Member
KHarvey16 said:
Faith in religion means faith in the ideas and ideals that define whatever that religion is. If those things change or are modified you must necessarily lose faith in the previous version of the idea. I don't really know how this is debatable. To change your faith you must lose it in one thing and gain it in another. It's an indisputable consequence of the definition of the word.
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I'm starting to think you're being purposefully obtuse. I do not lose faith in what the Bible says if I change from believing 24 hour days to long periods or eras. I simply change what I understand the Bible to be telling me. The scriptures are the same, it is my understanding that is different. Faith was not lost, it was added to.
 
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KHarvey16

Member
Red Mage said:
I'm starting to think you're being purposefully obtuse. I do not lose faith in what the Bible says if I change from believing 24 hour days to long periods or eras. I simply change what I understand the Bible to be telling me. The scriptures are the same, it is my understanding that is different. Faith was not lost, it was added to.
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Did you have faith that the days referred to in the bible were 24 hours?
 
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KHarvey16

Member
Red Mage said:
No, it was an example.
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Let's make up a hypothetical person then, just for discussion's sake. Last week, this person believed the days referred to in the bible were literally 24 hours long. This person very obviously had faith in this idea. Now, this week he changed his mind and decided the "days" in the bible are not literal days and creation proceeded over the course of some extended period. He no longer has faith that these days were 24 hours. This is not a debatable statement, it is literally true.

The point being you cannot maintain faith AND make changes to your faith based belief structure. In order to consider evidence and modify what you have faith in you must abandon that faith and pick it up again.
 
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Cloud Strife

Member
Damaniel said:
Wrap it up, folks, creationism is confirmed!

No, not really. Sorry, creationists.
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gumby_trucker said:
I thought DNA deteriorated much sooner than 400,000 years.
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I don't think either side will ever be confirmed to be honest.

KHarvey16 said:
Let's make up a hypothetical person then, just for discussion's sake. Last week, this person believed the days referred to in the bible were literally 24 hours long. This person very obviously had faith in this idea. Now, this week he changed his mind and decided the "days" in the bible are not literal days and creation proceeded over the course of some extended period. He no longer has faith that these days were 24 hours. This is not a debatable statement, it is literally true.

The point being you cannot maintain faith AND make changes to your faith based belief structure. In order to consider evidence and modify what you have faith in you must abandon that faith and pick it up again.
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I doubt literal/figurative days are the key elements to any faith considering everything else there. No one can believe anything 100% without any doubt either mentally or physically.
 
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KHarvey16

Member
Cloud Strife said:
I don't think either side will ever be confirmed to be honest.
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The existence of evolution has been confirmed for a very long time. Our explanation, the theory, will never be 100% verified of course.

Cloud Strife said:
I doubt literal/figurative days are the key elements to any faith considering everything else there. No one can believe anything 100% without any doubt either mentally or physically.
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Literal/figurative days are the key element of faith regarding how long creation took.
 
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Cloud Strife

Member
KHarvey16 said:
The existence of evolution has been confirmed for a very long time. Our explanation, the theory, will never be 100% verified of course.



Literal/figurative days are the key element of faith regarding how long creation took.
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It's been confirmed? Depends on your definition.

And not really. There's still the bit of a deity(ies), sin, repentance, an afterlife etc. but I suppose that gets glossed over in debates of how long it all took to begin.
 
S

Sharp

Member
Cloud Strife said:
I don't think either side will ever be confirmed to be honest.



I doubt literal/figurative days are the key elements to any faith considering everything else there. No one can believe anything 100% without any doubt either mentally or physically.
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Evolution has been confirmed essentially to the extent that it is possible. As a game once I tried to come up with an explanation of the observable evidence that was:
* Falsifiable in a reasonable timeframe (So you can't just say "aliens planted evidence to make it look like evolution was happening when it wasn't")
* Doesn't contradict known laws of physics
* Isn't just a restatement of "evolution from a common ancestor" (I defined it more specifically but basically the theory had to make some "interesting" prediction that would differ from what you would predict with evolution, as opposed to supposedly alternate theories like pattern cladistics).

I couldn't do it. Nested hierarchies are really, really hard to explain in any other context.
 
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KHarvey16

Member
Cloud Strife said:
It's been confirmed? Depends on your definition.
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Definition of what? Evolution is, in a slightly simplified way, change over time. We can do this in the lab easily and we observe it in the wild routinely. Fruit fly experiments confirm evolution exists. The theory of evolution is our attempt to explain how and why this occurs.

Cloud Strife said:
And not really. There's still the bit of a deity, sin, repentance, an afterlife etc. but I suppose that gets glossed over in debates of how long it all took to begin.
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The definition of the length of the day was the example brought up. A person relies on faith to determine how long those days were. Whether its 24 hours or 24 million years that is an idea a person has faith in.
 
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Cloud Strife

Member
KHarvey16 said:
Definition of what? Evolution is, in a slightly simplified way, change over time. We can do this in the lab easily and we observe it in the wild routinely. Fruit fly experiments confirm evolution exists. The theory of evolution is our attempt to explain how and why this occurs.



The definition of the length of the day was the example brought up. A person relies on faith to determine how long those days were. Whether its 24 hours or 24 million years that is an idea a person has faith in.
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Yes and that's one definition. It gets a bit trickier when you start comparing it to faith as a competing example of the progenitor of life, both are not without fault is all I'm saying.

And all I'm saying for the second bit is that it is common for most to gloss over how long everything took as it usually isn't an essential part to their faith. I think we're using different definitions of faith here, I'm meaning it as an overall faith in a religion or belief, not for one particular aspect.

Sharp said:
Evolution has been confirmed essentially to the extent that it is possible.
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There is still a lot we don't know and may never truly know about the beginning of time. You may not adhere to a certain religion and their rules/structures/timelines or what-have-you, but it doesn't rule out creationism as a possibility, IMO.
 
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KHarvey16

Member
Cloud Strife said:
Yes and that's one definition. It gets a bit trickier when you start comparing it to faith as a competing example of the progenitor of life, both are not without fault is all I'm saying.
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That isn't "one" definition of evolution, that's the definition! And evolution isn't an explanation of how life began at all. The competing aspects we're discussing here are the abilities of science and faith to change based on evidence. Science can and faith by definition cannot.

Cloud Strife said:
And all I'm saying for the second bit is that it is common for most to gloss over how long everything took as it usually isn't an essential part to their faith. I think we're using different definitions of faith here, I'm meaning it as an overall faith in a religion or belief, not for one particular aspect.
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But "overall faith" is just another way of saying faith in a bunch of individual discreet ideas that add up to religion A or B or C.
 
O

Opiate

Member
Cloud Strife said:
There is still a lot we don't know and may never truly know about the beginning of time.
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This is true, but evolution does not deal with the origin of life, just the evolution of it once life exists. The mechanism of evolution requires death to begin operating. What you are describing is abiogenesis.

You may not adhere to a certain religion and their rules/structures/timelines or what-have-you, but it doesn't rule out creationism as a possibility, IMO.
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I agree, it is absolutely true that we cannot rule out creationism as the cause of abiogenesis, but this is explicitly an argumentum ad ignorantiam. "We don't know, therefore God could have done it" isn't sound reasoning. Given our dearth of knowledge, we can't rule out anything; it is just as plausible to posit that life was generated from a giant vat of chocolate pudding as it is to posit that it was generated by a deity, let alone a specific deity.

This is also often referred to as the God of the Gaps -- anything we don't currently understand scientifically is potentially God's consequence.
 
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Cloud Strife

Member
KHarvey16 said:
That isn't "one" definition of evolution, that's the definition! And evolution isn't an explanation of how life began at all. The competing aspects we're discussing here are the abilities of science and faith to change based on evidence. Science can and faith by definition cannot.



But "overall faith" is just another way of saying faith in a bunch of individual discreet ideas that add up to religion A or B or C.
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Alright, scrap the evolution thing as I don't want to derail this further. All I'm saying is that both Science and Faith can change, a person doesn't lose faith entirely when they doubt/contradict themselves or when they switch it around. Happens all the time.

And what I was saying primarily is that those individual parts are discarded and swapped around as there are some worth more than others. Like I said, someone of "overall faith" would probably pay more attention to praying or something then wrestling internally over a definition of dates.

Opiate said:
This is true, but evolution does not deal with the origin of life, just the evolution of it once life exists. The mechanism of evolution requires death to begin operating. What you are describing is abiogenesis.

Yes, it was what I was referring to and what is commonly referred to as evolution, mistakenly, by a good amount. I mean when some asks, "what do you believe started it all" and someone responds "evolution". There are different definitions of evolution that float around.

I agree, it is absolutely true that we cannot rule out creationism as the cause of abiogenesis, but this is explicitly an argumentum ad ignorantiam. "We don't know, therefore God could have done it" isn't sound reasoning. Given our dearth of knowledge, we can't rule out anything; it is just as plausible to posit that life was generated from a giant vat of chocolate pudding as it is to posit that it was generated by a deity, let alone a specific deity.
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This is what I was getting at.

Whether it's the hand of God(s) or a giant vat of pudding, the possibility still exists regardless of whether it is a logical fallacy or not.

As for the evolution but, I was meaning that people have different definitions of evolution. They define it as how Harvey does, or they define it as an example for the creation of life. It's common for someone to answer "evolution" when asked how they believe life began (at least from what I've experienced).
 
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KHarvey16

Member
Cloud Strife said:
Alright, scrap the evolution thing as I don't want to derail this further. All I'm saying is that both Science and Faith can change, a person doesn't lose faith entirely when they doubt/contradict themselves or when they switch it around. Happens all the time.

And what I was saying primarily is that those individual parts are discarded and swapped around as there are some worth more than others. Like I said, someone of "overall faith" would probably pay more attention to praying or something then wrestling internally over a definition of dates.
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But they didn't maintain faith! If you believe the days were literally 24 hours then you have faith in that. If you change it, you have lost faith in that idea. You might still have faith in the specific definition of god you ascribe to, or faith in heaven existing or faith in the story of Noah or faith in the million other individual facets of a particular religion. You can maintain faith in an infinite number of things simultaneously and call that a religion, but you cannot maintain faith in one of those ideas and change it.
 
C

Cloud Strife

Member
KHarvey16 said:
But they didn't maintain faith! If you believe the days were literally 24 hours then you have faith in that. If you change it, you have lost faith in that idea. You might still have faith in the specific definition of god you ascribe to, or faith in heaven existing or faith in the story of Noah or faith in the million other individual facets of a particular religion. You can maintain faith in an infinite number of things simultaneously and call that a religion, but you cannot maintain faith in one of those ideas and change it.
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That's what I meant when we were using different definitions.

Yes, you can't have faith when you drop it for something else regarding a particular aspect.
 
O

Opiate

Member
Cloud Strife said:
This is what I was getting at.

Whether it's the hand of God(s) or a giant vat of pudding, the possibility still exists regardless of whether it is a logical fallacy or not.
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I agree, and it's not even a logical fallacy to say so. The logical fallacy arrives when people take "technically this is possible" to mean "this is specifically or particularly likely compared to any other alternatives."

That is to say, when faced with an effectively infinite number of equally plausible explanations, people run in to problems when they focus on one specific explanation -- for example, the explanation that God created it, and specifically that the JudeoChristian God created it or specifically that the Norse Gods created it or any other specific God. People start by saying that something is technically possible and then from that suggest it is likely or even definite.

As for the evolution but, I was meaning that people have different definitions of evolution. They define it as how Harvey does, or they define it as an example for the creation of life. It's common for someone to answer "evolution" when asked how they believe life began (at least from what I've experienced).
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Sure, but those definitions are wrong -- or, at best, lacking precision. The definition I gave is the scientifically specific meaning of the term "evolution." For example, a knowledgeable scientist would not refer to the creation of a self-replicating RNA molecule through random electrical stimulation of inert component pieces as "evolution."
 
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