Why Is Only "Micro Evolution" Acceptable?

[vhawk01]

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What does "is just a theory" mean to you?

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I understand where you're going. I'm not going down a "the devil put the bones there to confuse us" road. I'm not trying to refute evolution based on the fact that it can't "be observed" either.

It is simply that I don't agree with the evidentiary basis for evolution.

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Thats not where I was going at all. Whenever someone uses the phrase "just a theory" when they are talking about evolution, it is a HUGE red flag. It nearly 100% of the time demonstrates a huge misunderstanding of what science is all about. I was just hoping you'd be able to clarify what you meant by that phrase, and what a "theory" is, to you.

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I know that, in the scientific sense, a theory is something that can't be observed or replicated and the fact that something is classified as a theory (as opposed to a law) has nothing to do with its factual basis.

I don't dispute evolution on the grounds that its classification is "theory." I question the evidence used in formulating it.

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No, that is not what a theory is at all. A theory is an all-encompassing explanation used to try to describe a set of observations. There AREN'T any laws, not any more, they don't use that term any more. You know why? Because its stupid. Nothing should ever be called a law, because it is never possible to test the infinite number of possible conditions. All of these "laws" we have are in fact theories, they are simply theories that have not been falsified for a long time and that almost certainly never will be. But they could be.

A theory is MOST CERTAINLY NOT "something that can't be observed or replicated." Thats almost the exact opposite of a theory. The theory of evolution HAS been observed, many many times. Theories MUST be falsifiable. The Theory of Evolution is falsifiable. These dinosaur bones found among human bones would go a long way towards falsifying it, as long as there was no other reasonable explanation for it.

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What do you mean when you say "observed." Are you referring to small genetic changes via natural selection? That's just common sense but it doesn't prove that humans evolved from plankton over millions of years.

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Lets not get ahead of ourselves. First I'm just trying to establish some common ground. I don't like to argue by having you list all your objections and then me having to try to refute them one by one. What ends up happening is that I DO refute them, or show they are irrelevant, but I end up spending 50 posts "explaining away" and it looks like "I always have an excuse for everything." In other words, its a lose-lose situation for me. Even if I successfully refute every one of your objections, anyone observing (including you) just thinks "Yeah but there we SO MANY, one or two of them are bound to be true, evolution has holes!"

I would much prefer to start from basic principles and common ground and build up from there. Find out where we run into snags, or disagreements, and see if we can resolve them before moving on.

However, if you are just interested in having someone give you a blow-by-blow refutation of your (typical, common) objections, I'd recommend Talk Origins. They have a FAQ with hundreds and hundreds of common creationist arguments and mostly well-thought out, expert rebuttals to all of them.

[oe39]

but you, vhawk01, think:

theory != law
in the case of evolution?

yes/no?

[vhawk01]

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but you, vhawk01, think:

theory != law
in the case of evolution?

yes/no?

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If we still did laws, evolution would probably be a law. Theory is at the top of the heap, and evolution is in the upper half (conservatively, and of course this is a stupid estimation based on nothing since how could you possibly rank this) of most solid, unlikely-to-ever-be-falsified theories in science.

[Mempho]

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What does "is just a theory" mean to you?

[/ QUOTE ]

I understand where you're going. I'm not going down a "the devil put the bones there to confuse us" road. I'm not trying to refute evolution based on the fact that it can't "be observed" either.

It is simply that I don't agree with the evidentiary basis for evolution.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thats not where I was going at all. Whenever someone uses the phrase "just a theory" when they are talking about evolution, it is a HUGE red flag. It nearly 100% of the time demonstrates a huge misunderstanding of what science is all about. I was just hoping you'd be able to clarify what you meant by that phrase, and what a "theory" is, to you.

[/ QUOTE ]

I know that, in the scientific sense, a theory is something that can't be observed or replicated and the fact that something is classified as a theory (as opposed to a law) has nothing to do with its factual basis.

I don't dispute evolution on the grounds that its classification is "theory." I question the evidence used in formulating it.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, that is not what a theory is at all. A theory is an all-encompassing explanation used to try to describe a set of observations. There AREN'T any laws, not any more, they don't use that term any more. You know why? Because its stupid. Nothing should ever be called a law, because it is never possible to test the infinite number of possible conditions. All of these "laws" we have are in fact theories, they are simply theories that have not been falsified for a long time and that almost certainly never will be. But they could be.

A theory is MOST CERTAINLY NOT "something that can't be observed or replicated." Thats almost the exact opposite of a theory. The theory of evolution HAS been observed, many many times. Theories MUST be falsifiable. The Theory of Evolution is falsifiable. These dinosaur bones found among human bones would go a long way towards falsifying it, as long as there was no other reasonable explanation for it.

[/ QUOTE ]

What do you mean when you say "observed." Are you referring to small genetic changes via natural selection? That's just common sense but it doesn't prove that humans evolved from plankton over millions of years.

[/ QUOTE ]

Lets not get ahead of ourselves. First I'm just trying to establish some common ground. I don't like to argue by having you list all your objections and then me having to try to refute them one by one. What ends up happening is that I DO refute them, or show they are irrelevant, but I end up spending 50 posts "explaining away" and it looks like "I always have an excuse for everything." In other words, its a lose-lose situation for me. Even if I successfully refute every one of your objections, anyone observing (including you) just thinks "Yeah but there we SO MANY, one or two of them are bound to be true, evolution has holes!"

I would much prefer to start from basic principles and common ground and build up from there. Find out where we run into snags, or disagreements, and see if we can resolve them before moving on.

However, if you are just interested in having someone give you a blow-by-blow refutation of your (typical, common) objections, I'd recommend Talk Origins. They have a FAQ with hundreds and hundreds of common creationist arguments and mostly well-thought out, expert rebuttals to all of them.

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I'm reading it now.