After Darwin, the first phenomenon (changes within an existing species or gene pool) was named "microevolution." There is abundant evidence that changes can occur within existing species, both domestic and wild, so microevolution is uncontroversial.As noted in my original post, new species can be produced. Ergo, macroevolution happens.
The second phenomenon (large-scale changes over geological time) was named "macroevolution," and Darwin's theory that the processes of the former can account for the latter was controversial right from the start. Many biologists during and after Darwin's lifetime have questioned whether the natural counterpart of domestic breeding could do what domestic breeding has never done—namely, produce new species, organs, and body plans.
Then they complain I act as if the universe has been designed for man. Nope. I just think that if, as far as we can tell, a scientific procedure works, then we should use it. That's the only way to deal with the empirical world.
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From major karyotype changes [don't even try to explain the homology between our chromosome 2 and chimps', you'll pull your hair out] to pseudogene redundancies, from refuting the UPB [written in jello, and all statistical idiotic arguments] to showing IC as a bankrupt concept [slides 29-49], it doesn't matter how much you reason with them.
That's why I called it "pearls before swine". At any given point, they can invoke a miracle. That's their prerogative. So why waste your effort?
Those persons who cling desperately to the myths of Genesis will be further and further relegated to scientific ignorance and eventually, I have a feeling that education in America is going to split off the fundies who survive. The fundies who survive the Enlightenment that they've kicked and screamed and clawed against for 200 years will just home-school, and build more communities like those in Utah. That's my little prediction. Because for their children to be allowed to consider that Genesis could be wrong is not an option. And for them to go to a place of learning, that will likely happen.
Religions evolve, though, so we'll have to wait and see. In general, the scary thing is the upturn in fundamentalist thought, even with 1 billion not-anti-science Catholics. I just see the gulf widening. Europe is so different than here. Christians aren't so damn stupid as to deny modern science, and call physicists "gauche". How fucking much hubris can you get? Talk about "the pride of life"!
On that same line of thought, Steve assumes you're a materialist. Are you? Or are you a substance/property dualist, or whatever? I know you a lot better than he does, and I wouldn't presume to know the answer to that question.
Stop wasting your breath on science with these lugs. It's like trying to teach etiquette to troglodytes. Argue religion away, though. I enjoy getting a rise of them ;)
I'll string them out on this a little while longer. See how they respond to citing scientific papers to prove them wrong.
Chris,
Listen to yourself, man. Steve called physicists "gauche", for Jesus & Harry's sake. Do you really think he'll take papers scientifically, when he presupposes that they're already wrong? He wouldn't abandon fealty to Genesis if you showed him a goddamn video shot by aliens of the process of evolution. He'd claim something about the circularity of the metaphysical subjectivity of the experience of indirect realist cartesian dualism...or something.
I meant to say
*...that he'll take scientific papers seriously...
I'm going to string him out for a little while longer--I know damn well they won't be changing their minds, but it'll be fun to watch them squirm.
The scientific method "works" in the sense that any hit or miss system works.
Keep trying until you find something that seems to work...and even then you may be wrong.
It called "affirming the consequent" and is the basis of the vaunted scientific method.
Out prized scientific theories are provisional, as Brian Greene explains on the very first page of The Elegant Universe, for example, "As currently formulated, the theories of relativity and quantum physics can not both be right."
Go figure.
And with evolution, you can always come up with a JUST SO story AFTER the fact to provide an explanation...which evolutionists confuse with "prediction".
I see the same arrogance here that I see in the writings of the Nazi social darwinists and the Stalinist social darwinists. The judeo-christian west still leads the scientific world. Human evolution is a meta-theory only, and it is full of holes, You have never given us a vetted transitional fossil, you cant explain the sudden loss of tool analogs 200,000 years ago, and the list goes on and on. You wont know this I supsect because you are parroting abstracts out of school. As we speak, there are a dozen or so "Anthony Flews" on YOUR side that are about to drop an academic bombshell and completely toss the theory of human evolution as it is currently understood. Good luck chimps!
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