False. Science is not based on faith.

Evolution threads tend to be here because of the 'debate' between creationism and evolution. However, Darwin as a man has nothing to do with religion. This entire thread is off-topic and pointless. I hope it disappears so that we don't have to wade through such irrelevant threads to get to the good stuff.

I'm certainly not above the ocasional low blow thread (I posted the Kent Hovind theis after all) and I certainly think that atheists are fair game for those, but this thread is ridiculous. Whether or not Darwin and his family interbred has absolutely nothing to do with any of his ideas.

Pletho, did you have a point?

We're both correct, DUCY?

Seriously stop posting. You have nothing to offer to anybody here on any topic, other than trolling with "LMFAOOOOO DUDE!!$%!#$%" posts

Here's my secret and it does wonders for the forum

This is the right answer.

Not true. There are varying aspects to science. The two main divisions are what I'll call "hard science" and "natural philosophy".

Natural Philosophy was how science used to be referred to, at least in Newton's day and I believe awhile afterwards. It is philosophy concerning the natural order based on observation, study, etc. But it is philosophy nonetheless. If you think evolution is not partly based on faith, you haven't studied the theory of evolution. I can name you a few fundamental tenets which are not empirically established:

*non-life can produce life
*randomness can produce order
*non-intelligence can lead to intelligence

There have been widely publicized experiments especially for abiogenesis (non-life can produce life), but they've always failed, and this is a fact.

"Hard science" is when you combine Na and Cl and you get salt. It is 2+2 = 4. It is something scientists from every worldview can agree upon because it's fact, it's verifiable in a lab, empirically. Testable, repeatable, verifiable, falsifiable--however you want to put it, that's faithless science.

Everything beyond the empirically provable is at least in part based on faith (unproven assumptions). And, as some philosophers will point out, technically everything is based on faith because there is nothing that can be established without having at least some unproven assumptions, but that's neither here nor there.

I don't know that Darwin as a man doesn't have anything to do with religion, but his theory should be evaluated based on its own merits, not who he was as a man. He was a lawyer and only an amateur biologist, but he could have been totally right. He wasn't, but that's not the point.

I did not know 2 of them were fundamental tenants, I'm not even sure if the other one is a fundamental tenant, but we see the opposite in mathematics and in science.

rather than go in depth about it I'll just link you to an article that explains it.
http://www.frayn.net/evolution/claim6.html

I'm going to look at the other two however.

We have shown with the Miller-Urey experiment with an atmosphere like what the earth used to have, amino acids could have formed. This experiment has been repeated over and over again with the same result.

where is the brightline between non-intelligence and intelligence? If you can answer that I can probably provide you with an explanation.

experiments fail all the time. This only really proves, that we haven't figured it out yet. Thats the great thing about science. Scientists don't say they have all the answers.

We do have things that still suggest the possibility. We have proteins that self replicate.

Ah here we go. Evolution is testable and repeatable, in fact it has been done before many times. It would be very difficult to test on a species that takes a fair amount of time to reproduce, such as mammals or reptiles, but we have done so with fruit flies and with bacteria.

The theory of evolution doesn't care whether non-life can produce life. If you don't know this, then you are probably slightly mistaken as to what evolution actually claims.

The other 2 things you listed don't need to be independently proven. Evolution being true shows them to be true, so why would they need to be proven in advance without evolution?

Those things aren't science? Oh, haha. :|

1) It also alters the atmosphere to one which is TOXIC to said amino acids. How useful.

2) It merely shows that intelligence is required to create life.

Evolution does not require this, nor does it claim anything about it whatsoever.

I know there's a smiley face at the end, but the word 'required' is actually a very incorrect conclusion to draw. I just don't know how much of the sentence and meaning behind it the smiley is supposed to cover.

+1 to what Arouet said.

but more importantly...didn't practically everyone marry their cousin back then? religious or not

So, you think this is some really big reveal? Like, everyone who's ever read anything about Darwin knows the Wedgewood/Darwin family connections.

And everyone who is even slightly educated knows that marrying cousins was not only acceptable but preferable until relatively recently in history when we began to understand the genetic issues.

So, here. Get a copy of The Origin from the library and read it. Everyone should read it just for the Beagle journey - a great fictionalized but fairly accurate life of Darwin.

You know, the death toll amongst his children wasn't at all unusual for his time. In fact, considering how old Emma was when they married, she had a whole passel of kids, they both lived much longer than average lifespans.

You should live so long as to be as fine a Christian as Charles Darwin seemed to be from all reports. I'd like to be half as fine.

incest is best

I suppose this is a proposition of "faith" in the same way that belief in the uniformity of nature or the reliability of empiricism are statements of "faith," but it is one that is necessary for the process of science, and science by definition is not a closed system in this fashion. And in any case, there are only two possibilities:

1. Life has always existed.
2. Life came from non-life by natural processes.

Proposition 1 does not mesh with our evidence. That pretty much leaves 2 as the only option, but 2 (abiogenesis) is also not a necessary proposition for Darwinian evolution, which is a process that describes how life is altered once it is already in existence.

These statements are completely devoid of content. DUCY?

Also not a "hard" scientific statement. DUCY?

Except for that whole part about the axiomatized "first" intelligence.

Enough, move along. Completely off topic to RGT. Thread closed.

^

Not that I don't agree with Zeno's assessment here, I wanted to reopen this thread to gauge what others think that we should do with these sort of threads.

This is clearly just someone taking a shot in a non-clever way and I don't know how any real discussion could come out of this particular OP. Now with that said, I think that there are quite a few threads like this that and want to know if everyone wants me to start locking these. Rizeagainst says this,

Now I am more than happy to start doing away with the RGT trash, but I feel some people won't be too happy. But if we can get a consensus then I will start locking these sorts of threads that start with no content.

To me this just makes it even more impressive he managed to take 2nd place last year.

Tbh if you lock this you might as well lock everything in RGT as basically all threads fall pretty quickly into the endless game of 'no u' that this one has.

Im in favor of not locking any threads. If people want to make fools of themselves im all for it.

If everybody agreed with and to everything that was posted in this forum then we would have no need for moderators, because there would be no discussions, debates, disagreements ect......

This type of a thread keeps moderators working, although I think the subject is HIGHLY relevant to this forum.

The main problem is that ONLY the atheists here do not like their beloved Darwin and his idiotic theories of evolution trashed upon.

But yet they never cease to try and trash God and the things of God.

Enough said........... The last part of this post is directed at the MOD more than you, FYI.

actually, I think the little debate about Faith In Science was meaningful and elevated this thread from the drivel in the OP to something of substance. Usually, it goes the other way around.

Pletho, whether or not Darwin's family inbred has NOTHING to do with his ideas. If you want to trash on the theory of evolution, then do so. But that's not what you did here. The argument: Darwin's family inbred therefore Darwin's Theory of Evolution is bunk is not a valid argument.



Jib:While locking a thread should be used with caution, there are threads that deserve to be locked. This is a thread, for example, that does little but attempts to level a weak insult against a particular scientist who came up with a theory that OP doesn't like. It serves no useful purpose and should be discouraged.

There is no way to put together hard and fast rules for what threads should be locked or what threads should stay open. A mod must use their best judgment and also be willing to listen to protest from the OP who should be allowed to make a case for why the thread should be reopened.

While I hear this, valid debates that stem out of idiotic threads can be continued in their own thread.