I'm Confused on Darwins Theory?

CRR

2014-03-09 14:43:15 UTC

It depends on you definition of evolution. I think Kerkut summed it up pretty well in 1960 and the situation hasn't changed.

“There is a theory which states that many living animals can be observed over the course of time to undergo changes so that new species are formed. This can be called the ‘Special Theory of Evolution’ and can be demonstrated in certain cases by experiments. On the other hand there is the theory that all the living forms in the world have arisen from a single source which itself came from an inorganic form. This theory can be called the ‘General Theory of Evolution’ and the evidence that supports it is not sufficiently strong to allow us to consider it as anything more than a working hypothesis. It is not clear whether the changes that bring about speciation are of the same nature as those that brought about the development of new phyla. The answer will be found in future experimental work and not by the dogmatic assertions that the General Theory of Evolution must be correct because there is nothing else that will satisfactorily take its place.”

—Kerkut, G.A. (1927–2004), Implications of Evolution, Pergamon, Oxford, UK, p. 157, 1960 (available online in the Public Domain at ia600409.us.archive.org/23/items/implicationsofev00kerk/implicationsofev00kerk.pdf).

I.e microevolution is accepted as fact based on the evidence; macroevolution is a hypothesis.

andymanec

2014-03-10 13:56:34 UTC

As usual, CRR is lying to you (and also has a weird obsession with Kerkut - as if quoting out-of-context questions that were unanswered 54 years ago somehow casts doubt on our modern understanding). There is no differentiation between macro and microevolution, beyond scale. They're the exact same mechanism. Arguing that microevolution can exist, but macroevolution is impossible is saying that small changes can't add up to large ones - like saying that a person can take a step forward, but that no matter how many steps they take, they can never walk a mile.

But I digress. On to your question.

You're confusing the common-use definition of the word "theory" with it's original, scientific meaning. In everyday use, it refers to an untested idea. In science, it's a comprehensive explanation of something. It's a model that can be used to make predictions, and can be tested. It ties together lots of evidence, observations, and laws, into one big explanation. Another way of thinking about it is that observations and laws are the "what" and theories are the "how" and "why".

So is it a fact or a theory? Both. It's a fact, in that evolution happens. Species adapt to their environments. It happens in the lab, and in nature, and you have to ignore a sizeable chunk of reality to believe otherwise. The theory, though, explains how evolution works, how species evolved through history, and how they might evolve in the future. The theory is always being refined, as we gather more evidence and gain a better understanding of how it works. The two are equally valid, just different in scope. It's like the difference between knowing "a car's engine makes it move" and having a small library full of automotive engineering textbooks. Both are true, but only one of them could really be called a single fact.

Luke

2014-03-13 13:21:54 UTC

@raisemeup

It looks like you may have a hard time understanding speciation. If you take any type of evolution class in college you will learn speciation can occur through multiple mechanisms (geographic barriers, physical barriers, time barriers). However, you first need know what a species is. There is not an agreement for what a species is. However, most will agree that different species do not reproduce, if they reproduce they do not produce viable offspring, or the offspring themselves are not able to produce viable offspring. For example, a donkey and a horse can mate to produce a mule. However, mules are not fertile. Therefore, donkeys and horses are separate species. Now, with bacteria it is a little different. They do not have intercourse. So, species are determined by genetic differences, particularly in 16S rRNA. Now, even this gets a bit complicated because many different species of bacteria can still exchange genes through what is called horizontal gene transfer. Here are some experiments previously performed that deal with speciation.

http://www.darwinwasright.org/observations_speciation.html

Don't worry, there are many more I can find as well if you need them. The last article you posted was a joke. First, the article was clearly from a biased website (with sections for intelligent design and "faith and science". If you show me an article that was published in a reviewed scientific journal I will be a little more impressed. Second, what is posted in the article is mostly true and depicts nothing wrong with Lenski's experiment. It just has a small paragraph at the end that criticizes Lenski for no reason. raisemeup-"Lenski's experiment do nothing but break, degrade or tweak pre-existing genes and add no information necessary to create new machinery." Of course, the odds and statistics show that this is the way it typically happens. For example, it was evolutionary advantageous for Vitamin C genes to be mutated. Why? because most primates come from the tropics where there is a lot of fruit with Vit C. Producing extra proteins to produce vit C would have wasted the organism's energy. Therefore, those who still produced vit C died out. Now, as for new genes, they are also produced be tweaking pre-existing genes. Evidence shows most genes were duplicated first and then tweaked this is how new genes typically form. This is why it is possible to study how different genes are related to each other and when they formed. Our genomes also expand by transposons and viruses. Did you know 8% of the human genome was inserted by viruses? Any "misinterpretation of facts" that you mentioned is typically by people who don't know enough about science and biology. If you are going to critique a scientific theory which has been tested for over a hundred years then you at least need to know enough about the subject.

Now, as for fact and theories, all of evolution is composed of theories. All of science is theory. Scientist never talk about facts (or they shouldn't). However, you also need to know what a theory is. All theories have been tested (people have attempted to falsify them). This process of experimenting and testing for theories instead of just excepting them is what makes science so useful. Now, some theories are stronger than others. This is just something you need to be aware of. For example, science might say there is a theory that the earth revolves around the sun. Of course, this may be wrong. The earth could be surrounded by a bubble that creates an optical illusion. However, based on all the data gathered and what people have seen, there is very, very, very strong evidence that the earth revolves around the sun. This is the same with all of science. This is also the same with evolution. Here is an article I showed earlier

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2014/02/evolution-in-real-time/

I could probably find his work in a published scientific journal. However, the Harvard gazette will probably do. Now, almost all of evolution has been highly tested. This includes test by crazy bible fanatics in the 1800s who would probably risk there lives to disprove Darwin's theory of evolution. Did it happen? Did even one of them succeed? No. This is because the data humans have gathered and the tests they have performed showed them this this is the way stuff works (or it at least appears this is the way it works (bubble illusion earth)). If there was data that truly went against evolution and tipped the evidence scale then it would be published in a scientific journal and it would be a huge deal because many bible people would care about it. You need to understand that science doesn't care about the opinions of people and it doesn't care about how people "Think" the world works. Science just cares about how the world actually works (or at least what evidence shows about how the world works).

Einstein: "God does not play dice"

Bohr: "Don't tell god what to do"

raisemeup

2014-03-12 20:37:30 UTC

As usual, andymanec is lying to you (and also has a weird obsession of denying any scientists who disagree with him). He presents a misleading and deceptive analogy between micro and macro “evolution” (both terms being coined by evolutionists). Consider steps along a plane being small changes to a KIND of living thing. You can take a few steps to change a wolf into a dog of similar size or you can walk a mile to change it into a Chihuahua. However, no matter how far you walk, you are NOT going to be able to walk to the moon, are you! Consider walking to the moon the change from a dog into an elephant (a different KIND of animal). It’s NEVER going to happen. Just because you can take small steps, does NOT mean you can walk anywhere!

In similar fashion, just because we see variations in the original created kinds, does NOT mean that one kind can change into another. There is a vast collection of scientific experiments that have demonstrated conclusively the inability of mutations to ADD information to the genome necessary to create anything novel which is required by evolution.

He is also being deceptive in his characterization of evolution as “fact” AND “theory”. Please use your own logic and understanding here and don’t allow yourself to be fooled. It is IMPOSSIBLE for the SAME THING to be both a fact AND a theory. It is like saying it is possible for something to be both round and square at the same time. That’s also not going to happen. Adaptation of species to their environment is a FACT which has been observed, first predicted by creation scientists before Darwin and an essential part of creation theory. The theory of evolution on the other hand, is only a theory because Darwin called it a theory. A “theory” can be any speculative hypothesis which is at best what evolution is.

Morningfox

2014-03-09 14:35:57 UTC

In science, "theory" means an explanation of observed facts. We don't observe evolution, we observe individual animals and plants (living or fossils). At the same time, some explanations are so good, so useful in predicting future observations, that we can say that the explanation itself is also a fact.