Is evolution or creation science?

[nebula]

Hey, D-9,

In everything you've said, I still haven't seen you address the OP.

Would you mind doing so, please?

Thanks!

OK, I'm still missing where you addressed the main point, which is about scientists (evolutionists, cosmologists, etc.) interpreting the facts to fit their theory and calling it science?

[nebula]

My main point is that facts must be interpreted, and that's what theories do. Science is more than just data collecting, it is about modeling reality via theories. When you have a model/theory on how a specific phenomena works, you are interpreting the facts through the lens of that model/theory, this is true of all scientific theories.

To expand a little bit on gravity. We observe objects falling to the ground, but why? The theory of gravity is an interpretation of the facts attempting to explain the "why", interpreting that the objects fall to the ground because a force is attracting the two objects, Earth and whatever, based on the mass curving space-time as proposed by Einstein. You can apply the same thing to the moons of Jupiter. It's a fact that they are going around Jupiter, but it is interpreted to be because their mass attracts each other. That is how I look at it anyhow. Anyways, it's getting late and I'm going to stop there. Not sure if that really answered your concern, but I can come back to it tomorrow.

Ok, so what about the next step to the OP's claim?

With evolution/cosmology we're talking about things that we cannot observe, since they happened in the past, so the evidence is a lot more limited.

Would you agree or disagree that pieces of evidence tend to be interpreted in a way that fits into the pre-existing belief, even among evolutionists/cosmologists?

[artsylady]

D9

Maybe I should reword this.

I'll start with the first scenario. As the story goes, the fish, lacking food, grew lungs and legs.

Where is the experimentation part to prove this?

[OldEnglishSheepdog]

As the sun burns through its fuel it shrinks at a measurable rate. Using this rate, you can extrapolate the size of the sun. So even 1 Million years ago, the earth would be incinerate. there negating all possibility of life evolving on the planet.

Uh, no that doesn't work out correctly. Perhaps if you thought the sun, or any star, produced energy from chemical reactions (say combining two hydrogen atoms with an oxygen atom to produce water + energy) that might be the case. However, stars use nuclear fusion which is a much more efficient process.

Actually the sun is shrinking at a measurable rate. As its nuclear fuel is slowly fused into other denser forms of matter. So yes it works. And yes it is and has been measured.

Actually, the size of the sun varies according to a number of cycles. This variation in radius can be as much as 0.015%. See"On the relation between total irradiance and radius variations" by Pap et al.

Hey Sam, how have you been?

[OldEnglishSheepdog]

Please point me to the experimentation part of the equation in any of the scenarios.

For example, if humans and chimps had a common ancestor you would expect to see genetic similarities. One of the true anomalies of science once upon a time was the fact that humans and chimps (including all of the great apes in the chimp category here) have different numbers of chromosomes. Based on evolution, biologists predicted that there was a fusion of the chromosomes since the human-chimp ancestor split. The experiment was data collection of the chromosomal sequence of chimps and humans. A chromosome is a compact molecule of DNA, and at the ends of each chromosome is something called telomeres, a specific repeating DNA fragment, TTAGGG, that keep the chromosome from unraveling. So we should expect to see telomeres in the middle of one of our chromosomes as two of them fused together according to this hypothesis. What was found was that indeed one of our chromosomes has telomeres in the middle of one of our chromosomes, chromosome #2. A successful prediction from evolutionary theory backed up by experimental data.

Hey D-9, I have a question.

We can see that humans and chimps are similar. That's just obvious. Therefore it stands to reason that they would be genetically similar, since our genetic make-up is what we are. It's a given.

So how exactly is this proof of common decent?

If we're similar, and yet there are differences in our number of chromosomes, then that is what helps genetically differentiate us.

If those chromosomes are fused together, then that effects the difference.

How is it not simply affirming the consequent to notice the difference in the number of chromosomes among two genetically similar organisms and identify the difference?

Chromosomes do things. If you have very similar organisms then you'll have very similar designs. Since both organisms function, then the differences will have to be within a reasonable range so the designs will have to be similar enough to enable the organisms to be similar, and different enough to account for the differences.

Let me put it this way.

If a Creationist were to approach the difference between the genetic design of a human and that of a chimp they'd look at the number of chromosomes and notice the difference. Then they'd have to marvel that one of them has the same number of chromosomes as tobacco and think that it was odd that the organisms could be so similarly designed with such a stark difference as the number of chromosomes. To account for that difference they'd probably have to postulate that the design retained the similarities among the chromosomes so they'd have to be similar despite the difference in numbers, so some of them must be fused together to make a valid design.

The account of evolution may satisfy the evidence, but it doesn't mean the evidence confirms evolution, it just simply didn't disconfirm evolution, right?

[OldEnglishSheepdog]

I do not call speciation evolution. You see that then is where the word game goes. You accept speciation, (evolution) so why not the whole deal ( from dino's to birds). You see you are sticking on a word, evolution, and that is why I am saying you speak in word games. Yes I belive in speciation as that is an observed fact. I do not call it evolution as evolution implies changing from one species to an completely different species.

I'm saying I meant to put down the word "speciation" in the previous post, but since I was in a rush my hands typed down "evolution", it was a typing mistake. I did say earlier that, using creationist definitions, that observing microevolution is insufficient to accept macroevolution without other evidence, that is a very reasonable position to take IMHO. It is not word games, fact is that you don't even need speciation for it to be called "evolution", all you need is a change in allele frequencies. However creationism has taken the words used by scientists and changed their definitions to cater to the belief system. So we are starting off with the same words, but use different definitions for these words, I try to accommodate as best I can without completely loosing base with how practicing scientists use the terms. After all we are supposedly discussing a scientific topic.

To say any change is evolution, we see change therefore we see evolution is simply falsely predicated.

Evolution does not require just a change in allele frequency but the capacity for such changes to result in increasing complexity of organisms when left to the raveges of time and unguided natural forces, which in turn accounts for the diversity we see before us.

We all believe in changes, but we don't all believe that those changes can accont for the diversity we see before us over time left to nature, so it's simply untennable to define evolution according to a definition from which evolution simply does not follow. It would be the equivalent to me defining creationism as any unobserved change, and since most changes are not admittedly not observed by scientistst then creationism is a fact.

Semantically, it's putting the conversation in the bag without paying for it.

[Isaiah 6:8]

I need to be away for the most part for a while. I do not have the ti e or energy for proper responses also the main reason I started this thread was to state my opinion not so much defend it.

[nebula]

But look at how the scientific method works.

How was the scientific method used to determine the formation of our solar system?

How was the scientific method used to interpret the fossil record?

The scientific method requires experimentation.

Please inform me of the experiments that were done.

[nebula]

The scientific method, though, involves experimentation. That's my point. They don't teach any "observation method" in schools. Now why is that?

But even still, when you are looking for evidence to support an idea, one tends to try to fit the evidence into their idea. So their "match" may be a working fit, but it is possible to be the wrong fit. But no one notices because their world view isn't shaken.

There are still scientists who want Pluto to be reclassified as a planet.

[nebula]

There is a whole upper-level course on observational methods in astronomy at my university, which I will probably take eventually, so they do teach observational methods in school.

Why only at the upper level?

While experimentation is part of the scientific method, not everything in science or even within the scientific method revolves around an experiment. So just saying that it's not an experiment is not a valid criticism of why something isn't science.

That is why predictions are important. If you can make predictions about new phenomena and what you find based on your model, that increases the level of support for that model/theory and reduces the chances that your model is wrong. Science doesn't work in absolutes.

You are still avoiding the issue of the tendency to interpret the evidence to fit the pre-assumption.