No real problem. I just don't think that people would say that common ancestry was false if we did not find that fused chromosome. And I think that it is disingenuous to say otherwise.

This can't be right. Many animals, even some primates, have different numbers of chromosomes. Yet if we're all descended from one common ancestor, obviously chromosomes are lost and gained.

That is confusing. I thought your position was that God made Adam and Eve from the dust of the earth, and that humans are not related to other species. Maybe I just haven't been paying attention.

Well, I agree that the statement was absurd. But I don't by any means think that nobody would have skipped a beat. It would have been very disturbing, and we would have needed to significantly rearrange our systematics, etc. I think it would have been at least as troubling as the discovery that birds came from reptiles (which really pissed off some scientists and made a big splash).

Of course, this wouldn't have falsified evolution, and I do think it's a bit dishonest to say "if this had been different, it would have falsified evolution." Easy to say, now that we know it wasn't different.

I don't think you are understanding the virtual impossibility of just losing an entire chromosome while remaining viable as a species.

So you can't be bothered to learn anything at all about chromosomes and yet you can make the statements you've made in this thread with a straight face?

I don't think this is exactly correct. It would have been considered a remaining problem to explain what happened. It could have been that evolution is incomplete and something else needed to be added, but nothing can change the millions of things that evolution gets correct and anything that replaces it has to look exactly like evolution for many situations.

You forgot the rest of the post that says that a chromosome is essentially just a bunch of genes stuck together. You can't "lose a chromosome" without also losing those genes. I suppose it is theoretically possible in some massively unlikely crossing over catastrophe for a whole chromosome to disassemble and all of it's genes become part of other chromosomes - or some other thing of that sort occur - but you can't just "lose" it as if it disappears.

This is the key point. The creationists who complain about evolution simply don't understand science at all. Evolution happens to be the one random idea they pick out and poorly try to attack.

This is just absurd. The whole point of evolution is all life is related, all came from one common ancestor. COME ON!!!!! Somebody acquire some logic somewhere somehow.

Even though your sentiments make sense on the surface, upon closer inspection, I'm really not at all sure I know where you are coming from.

Science is a systemic method for refining our understanding (or our ability to describe, if you like); that is how the theory of evolution has developed. It did not come into being whole cloth, and then merely sustain 150 years of self-congratulatory back patting. It has come together in bits and pieces. There have been hypotheses under the heading of evolution which have been usurped when new facts came in and contradicted the old understanding.

But it seems to me that what you are claiming has not only to do with serious doubts or lack of a deep understanding of what science is, but also (perhaps inextricably entwined with that) is this idea that scientists can determine what is or is not a scientific fact based on how they feel.

It is one thing to say that you believe strongly that people are biased in favor of the status quo (which is that the theory of evolution is the best theory we have to describe the development and diversity of life as we currently know it), but by claiming that we are being disingenuous on this topic, I can't see any way around it but to assume you are implying that there is 1 or more facts contrary to evolution that atheists and/or biologists have a track record of sweeping under the rug, or denying, or making up fanciful explanations to as a cover up and passing it off as science.

When you make the general claim of "come on, if evolution predicted something, and we discovered something in contradiction to that, you know everyone would just ignore it and find some excuse to keep believing in 'Darwinism,'" it seems a bit like you're going off the deep end into tin foil hat territory, because how can you make this claim unless you see that the world has a track record of doing this kind of thing?

You've made this exact same argument from the other direction: you've claimed that atheists and/or biologists would refuse to believe strong evidence that suggests that god(s) exist. In the same way, you've said those of us who disagree are being disingenuous. But how on earth can you know that, unless again you claim or believe that history is littered with falsifiable hypotheses about the existence of god(s) that scientists have tested, and then buried or denied or twisted the results of such tests to avoid facing the fact that god(s) must exist!

How can you make these claims?

What is the difference in your claims and something along the lines of:

Hey, you're a Christian, how would you react if space aliens came down to Earth and claimed they had invented Christianity, and had video tape of them faking various miracles forging various documents and slipping them into the pertinent cultures?

[The Christian gives ANY ANSWER AT ALL]

No way! You know you wouldn't react that way! You'd find some way of reacting like X or Y or Z instead, and you know it, and you are disingenuous if you deny it.

Fine, this is an elaborate and stupid analogy, but I mean it: on what possible grounds can you claim that everyone is being deceitful when they say that the results speak for themselves, and if the results had come out contrary to what was predicted, it would indicate that something was very wrong -- and while that would not have the power to negate what we already know, it would cause us to have to go back to the drawing board with respect to at least some portions of what we thought we knew!

Or, for that matter, claiming that there is no test for god that is plausible that atheists would accept -- because what the hell are you talking about? You were given a bucket load of "proof" that people here claim they would accept, but you seem to be acting as if there is some non-miracle scientific type of test already within our grasp that we just are refusing to acknowledge. I'm sorry, I don't know a polite and encouraging way to say this, but that just seems like in some fundamental way you aren't understanding that scientists don't get to just decide what is science but have chosen not to scientifically verify god(s). But I digress..

This is correct and is the point Jib's making. No way would this one result have caused anyone to throw out evolution entirely. That's hyperbole at best, on the parts of both Claudius Galenus and Ken Miller. Come on, guys. Between the people on one side saying "nobody would have even noticed" and the people on the other saying "evolution would have been totally ****ed," I'm not sure what anyone is thinking.

Correct, Jib and I have had the same view from the start ITT, i wasn't refering in any way to him when i was talking about people not understanding science.

Ok, there are two issues here.

1. I can't tell what you mean by 'bias.' Cognitive biases can't be changed at all. They're hard-wired into the brain. (Wiki has an extensive list.) Cultural biases, on the other hand, may of course be got rid of completely. So what are you talking about?

2. "Methodological naturalism" is just a useful label. It has no functional effect on scientific practice. This is beyond argument. (Unless scientists assumed a 'supernatural' category, they could not try to avoid it. Obviously they assume no such category; ergo they do not try to avoid it.)

What scientists DO avoid are isolated propositions. Good science spins vast webs of meaning. Compare with, say, Freud. The man had unrivaled imagination and passion. But, in the end, he didn't give us much science. His theories are off in a corner with a stack of cum-stained case histories, doing lines of coke. Nobody can relate to them.

Religious dogmas are unscientific for the same reason as Freudian theory. They doesn't relate to anything else. This has nothing to do with science refusing to grapple with the 'supernatural'.

Also, notice that all educated people today believe many things that sound crazy in isolation. For example: 'solid objects are almost entirely empty space.' If this doesn't defy natural intuition, what does?

To a Medieval peasant, this would be a much less "natural" belief than, say, the existence of Purgatory.

Well, I have definitely changed my views on various things. I do still feel that it is possible for Adam and Eve to have existed. And really we are all "made from dust" in the evolutionary sense anyway, just not directly. As far as humans being related to other animals, currently I do not see any reason believe that this is false. But this is not what I have always believed. But in fairness to me, I have not always known what I know now. I do feel that God made us different as far as consciousness or a soul if you will, and that this was a direct intervention (whether using a natural mechanism or not I don't know), but that it would not have happened on it's own and cannot happen again.

You are right, my words were definitely over the top.

Okay, so when you say "bacterium to baboon" you mean it literally, you aren't denying speciation?

Do you have training as a writer? What authors have you read/re-read the most? There's a spaciousness to your style that I frankly adore, but have no idea how to begin to learn.

Right. I am not saying that it did not happen, I am just questioning the method in which it happened.

And thank you thank you thank you.

I once took a community college course on screen writing. I would not say it influenced my writing, though.

I haven't read anything out of the ordinary. Arrowsmith is my favorite book (but I don't love the ending).

Tell me any time how great my writing is. I am sometimes genuinely shocked at just how much pleasure and satisfaction I get from being praised or admired. And on the other hand, just how deflated and paranoid I can get when I put some effort into something and it goes unnoticed! Paging Dr. Freud...

Haha, np. I'll have to get my hands on some Sinclair Lewis, actually I didn't even know who he was. Oops.

wat?

When you were in school and they taught you what photosynthesis was, I'll bet you didn't think that it couldn't be right because it was God who just decided to paint all the plants green.

Nothing happens without God. But He didn't just make things - He also made processes.

Ah. That seems much more reasonable than what I thought you were saying.

What?

Evolution is a process, selection, random mutation, all part of His process. Leave God in, leave biological evolutionary process in.

Sorry - just a random thought.