On Creationism/Evolution in Schools

[Sam1995]

Empirical evidence for God....are you serious?

SB

[Byblos]

Empirical evidence for God....are you serious?

Some would consider philosophy as empirical evidence. And in that case the answer is a resounding YES for empirical evidence for God.

[neo-x]

actually, yes, speaking broadly, the evidence for macro evolution is logicaly inferred, in biology nothing else can explain as much as evolution can.

[Sam1995]

Are there any pieces of evidence which specifically back up the macroevolution theory?

SB

[neo-x]

read biology sam

[Sam1995]

You've clearly already read it, you could just show me.

I've also never met anybody who considers philosophy to be empirical evidence, did the people who you know support that view happen to be mad also?

SB

[Byblos]

I've also never met anybody who considers philosophy to be empirical evidence, did the people who you know support that view happen to be mad also?

You do know that philosophy is the foundation for all sciences, right?

[Sam1995]

I've also never met anybody who considers philosophy to be empirical evidence, did the people who you know support that view happen to be mad also?

You do know that philosophy is the foundation for all sciences, right?

Oh, of course, but, as funny and contradictory as this sounds, the cannot make philosophy empirical because it is purely thought. Science is empirical because it is observable.

SB

[Ivellious]

I'm going to bring up the same thing I did earlier with KBC with you, Sam. No, we have not personally witnessed a millions-of-years-long process of one group of organisms evolving into a completely separate species. The Theory of Evolution is based on a collaboration of various types of evidence (which we can observe) and putting together the best possible explanation for why we see what we see in nature. And, within that frame of thought (science), no one has provided a significant alternative to evolution that can account for what we see today.

Now, tell me, why is that not scientific? Because we can't witness it ourselves? Then do you also believe that the entire scientific fields of archaeology, astronomy, theoretical physics and chemistry, geology, plate tectonic studies, and so on are all unscientific? That they are all based on only religious beliefs? Should we just stop teaching all these things because they aren't science? Absolutely not, in my view. And you might want to tell literally every research school in the country that about half their research being done at the school is BS. All these fields look at the world around us and make logical inferences based on the evidence available, the same way that evolutionary biology does. But I don't hear anyone bashing archaeologists and geologists as being "unscientific" because they haven't witnessed their conclusions firsthand.

[Sam1995]

Macroevolution is one area of the whole topic of evolution, as I'm sure you already know. I don't deny that evolution is science because it is the best explanation for the way in which species have changed over millions of years. My issue with macroevolution is thinking of it as science when there does not seem to be any evidence strong enough to support that viewpoint, variation within species as microevolution is fact, it's science and I totally accept that, I simply have my doubts about macroevolution, maybe that is down to my lack of understanding on the subject, which I will be the first to admit, I certainly won't take being corrected badly, unless it is done in such a way to demean me and make me look silly.

SB

[Kurieuo]

I've also never met anybody who considers philosophy to be empirical evidence, did the people who you know support that view happen to be mad also?

You do know that philosophy is the foundation for all sciences, right?

Oh, of course, but, as funny and contradictory as this sounds, the cannot make philosophy empirical because it is purely thought. Science is empirical because it is observable.

SB

Actually, science - physical sciences - work with empirical data. What is inferred or deduced belongs to logic which is a philosophical affair.

So, if it is the case scientists can infer conclusions based on observed data, then what of theologians who infer from an expanding universe there was a beginning and that such a cause must necessarily be external to our physical world?

[Sam1995]

I've also never met anybody who considers philosophy to be empirical evidence, did the people who you know support that view happen to be mad also?

You do know that philosophy is the foundation for all sciences, right?

Oh, of course, but, as funny and contradictory as this sounds, the cannot make philosophy empirical because it is purely thought. Science is empirical because it is observable.

SB

Actually, science - physical sciences - work with empirical data. What is inferred or deduced belongs to logic which is a philosophical affair.

So, if it is the case scientists can infer conclusions based on observed data, then what of theologians who infer from an expanding universe there was a beginning and that such a cause must necessarily be external to our physical world?

Yes, physical sciences work with empirical data. Logic is a philosophical affair, but that does not make logic empirical, it is simply the thought process that we use to come to scientific conclusions, it si empirical evidence from physical science which provides the proof that what we have thought appears to be true in the real world.

How could the same be with God when God does not contain mere human qualities such as physical features? Sure, we can figure out more about God's creation through logic and scientific discoveries, but does that mean we can find God through empirical evidence alone? Not at all.

SB

[jlay]

read biology sam

Well there you have it Sam.

[Ivellious]

So then, Sam and Kurieuo and anyone else, is my statement about the other sciences that operate similarly to evolutionary biology being false sciences true to you? I'm curious to see if anyone has a response to that.

neo-x wrote:read biology sam



Well there you have it Sam.

As blunt as it sounds, I tend to agree with Neo here. It's awfully silly to say you don't accept something when you don't understand it. Like I said earlier, if someone expects me or someone else on here to explain literally the entire science of evolution then they are crazy. Buy a (legitimate) evolutionary biology textbook or take a course on evolution at a (legitimate) university. I can recommend textbooks.

[Byblos]

So then, Sam and Kurieuo and anyone else, is my statement about the other sciences that operate similarly to evolutionary biology being false sciences true to you? I'm curious to see if anyone has a response to that.

neo-x wrote:read biology sam



Well there you have it Sam.

As blunt as it sounds, I tend to agree with Neo here. It's awfully silly to say you don't accept something when you don't understand it. Like I said earlier, if someone expects me or someone else on here to explain literally the entire science of evolution then they are crazy. Buy a (legitimate) evolutionary biology textbook or take a course on evolution at a (legitimate) university. I can recommend textbooks.

In any other scientific discipline other than biology, the field is wide open for new theories, new discoveries, new research, ideas, grants, etc, etc. Although the big bang model is the prevailing model, you will see plenty of newly proposed theories in astro and theoretical physics for the origin of the universe and beyond. Some theories are taken seriously, others are looked at with suspicion but none are summarily rejected and no scientist is ever ostracized out of the scientific community because of his or her proposed radical theory.

Try that with biology and see what you get. Scientists are terrified of bringing new theories that do not conform to the theory of evolution. They are often laughed right out of the labs, ostracized, their grants are revoked and their careers utterly ruined. That's the problem I have with evolution. Not that it's not the prevailing scientific theory that explains our current biology, it is. My problem with it is with its treatment as a proven fact to the exclusion of anything else, to the point that such a stance is literally stifling new ideas that could very well prove to be game changers in the field of biology.