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Yes, everything. If you can’t understand the difference between the regular everyday usage of the word, “Theory” and the different way it’s used, as in, “Scientific Theory”, then you miss the very beginning.

Yet, with all the evidence of evolution, you prefer to believe in a magical, mystical God, who “shimmered” things into being. An invisible, supernatural being who appears as a burning plant or a dove (why not an eagle or a peacock – at least they look pretty?).

Look, there are bones in the ground, where did they come from? That is the very first question.

Considering the discovery of the bones of thousands of different dinosaurs all over the world, some being enormous, and the lack of any mention in the Bible, and the fact that man’s bones, or even the bones of large mammals are never found with these creatures remains, doesn’t that give some slight indication that we came after????

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I meant “origins” in the same sense Darwin meant it in “origin of Species.”

It is also not a “set of hypothetical statements.” All of the scientific disciplines that you rightly recognize as science contribute knowledge about how organisms are affected by their genetics, their environments and changes in those environments.

They do indeed. But they do not confirm any of the hypothetical statements in the Theory of Evolution because no one has yet been able to generate a testable hyothesis from the statements that could be exercised in an appropriate scientific discipline. A major case in point: HOX genes. Let me quote you what the discoverer of HOX genes (Mike Levine) said about his discovery: “ED LEWIS had worked for 30 years on different homeotic mutations, he published very little during this period of time, and then all at once, in five of the most densely packed pages I’ve ever seen, out came this unifying theory, as to how these garish mutations could control the blueprint of an organism, and it’s phenomenal. In trying to understand what controlled the process of development, he had worked on the very mutations that had fascinated me – mutations like Antennapedia, where legs somehow appeared on the fly’s head. It was as if major pieces of the fly’s body plan had been mis-programmed. He had seen how the fly’s embryo forms into segments, into body sections. His breeding experiments showed that there were eight of these sections and that they persisted into the adult fly. He saw, too, that his mis-programmed mutations always recurred precisely, without variation. With such precision he wondered whether the mutations involved only single genes. Could it be that there were eight master genes controlling each of eight body sections? He called these control genes Homeotic, or Hox genes. This idea of 8 master control genes, was radical stuff. He was proposing a hierarchy. Go after the most powerful ones, these Hox or Homeotic genes, and then you might have a handle on the whole mystery of what shapes an organism.
I can’t tell you how many times we must have read that paper, I mean it was almost like scholars of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Among the various things that you’ll find in that paper, which for me is the equivalent in the field of sort of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity is the notion that there is a special class of genes, regulatory genes, that control the development of the embryo, that act in limited regions of space in the embryo, to control its blueprint, that’s radical, at, at that point genes were mainly thought of as static entities which controlled our height and eye colour and, and, here’s Lewis saying there are also genes, not many of ‘em, special groups that control the basic embryo. That’s powerful.”

Now do you see any mention of the Theory of Evolution guiding this research? In fact, the findings are so strongly suggestive of design that the discoverer falls back on design and programming terms to communicate what he found.

Evolution is not itself a single scientific discipline, but it is also not a guess. We observe it happening on a small scale (the emergence of antibiotic-resistant microbes is evolution in action) and we see its footprints on a large scale in the fossil record and geological strata.

We certainly see species adaptation (I prefer the less loaded term) and extiction. There is no doubt of that. I am unaware of fossil data that confirms the Theory of Evolution. In fact, the fossil record suffers from a dearth of data that supports it.

The science of genetics, which emerged after Darwin, has only confirmed his observations and provided a better understanding of how the factors he observed act upon organisms.

It does nothing of the sort. It shows how organisms maintain and reproduce themselves. It also shows that many protein-coding and non-protein-coding regions are conserved across species. Both of these findings are consistent with designed organisms (think about it–if you have a nail or screw that works really well in maintaining a given structures, why not use it in all structures? See the HOX gene quotes above.

I do not know why you say that RDean and I are conflating anything. We are the ones pointing out that ‘why’ is philosophy/theology, not science.

Because you inferred from my statement that I know “WHY?” somehow precluded my considering evolution. It has not.

As a Deist, my answer to ‘why’ is that Nature’s God chose to create, but it would be hubris to pretend to know his reasons. However, I have the humility to acknowledge that this is a faith statement and not anything I could provide evidence for.

Thank you for your answer. I trust that your answer to “WHY?” does not impact your desire to know “HOW?” I only ask the same courtesy from you.

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Gee, not me. I will take a wild guess and say the following (if the soft tissue specimen has not deteriorated too far):

1. They will discover cells containing chromosomes.
2. The chromosomes will contain long strands of DNA.
3. The DNA will containg protein-coding sequences and non-protein coding sequences.
4. They will discover a variation of Cytochrome-C
5. They will find that the DNA shares a lot of similarities and near-identities with other members of the animal kingdom.
6. They will demonstrate yet again that the genetic code of all living things is directly analogous to a magnificently complex, self-replicating, self-maintaining computer that gives such a strong sense of language and design that they will use terms like messenger, translation, stop codes, codons, etc.

Did I miss anything?

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Like I said, “determined ignorance”. There is a great site called, “Your one stop source for information on evolution. The page below is titled: “Lines of evidence: The science of evolution”

Yes, Indeed it is. Unfortunately, “Truth in Labeling” does not apply to the web site does it? Did you notice that just below that erroneous title is the phrase, “At the heart of evolutionary theory is the basic idea that life has existed for billions of years and has changed over time [Emphasis Mine]”

And did you notice that just below that, it states, “Overwhelming evidence supports this fact [Emphasis Mine].

Now a non-critial, biased reader might conclude that Evolution is a science from the title, but what would he/she do with the appearance of “theory” in the next line. Being a really sloppy reader, he/she might further conclude from the third line that “evolution is a fact.”. Of course, everyone on this blog would realize immediately that the word, fact refers to the statement that, “…life has existed for billions of years and has changed over time.” Of course, some people would quibble and state that the term “life” is ambiguous since the modern Phyla have existed less than 1 Billion years and only single celled critters have existed for “billions of years.”

Obviously, the site is not very precise in its use of terms. Pity.

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Depends on what you mean by “origins.” Evolution has nothing to do with the ultimate origin of life. It does, however, have everything to do with the forces that shape and change life over time and, therefore, the origin of individual species.

It is also not a “set of hypothetical statements.” All of the scientific disciplines that you rightly recognize as science contribute knowledge about how organisms are affected by their genetics, their environments and changes in those environments.

Evolution is not itself a single scientific discipline, but it is also not a guess. We observe it happening on a small scale (the emergence of antibiotic-resistant microbes is evolution in action) and we see its footprints on a large scale in the fossil record and geological strata. The science of genetics, which emerged after Darwin, has only confirmed his observations and provided a better understanding of how the factors he observed act upon organisms.

Dr. Dave at #90: Evolutionary Theory stands or falls on the data–which at present is not very supportive.

So you keep saying. What data are you talking about? The data as I understand it is very supportive.

Do you have an answer to “WHY?” If so, I would be interested in hearing it.

I do not know why you say that RDean and I are conflating anything. We are the ones pointing out that ‘why’ is philosophy/theology, not science.

As a Deist, my answer to ‘why’ is that Nature’s God chose to create, but it would be hubris to pretend to know his reasons. However, I have the humility to acknowledge that this is a faith statement and not anything I could provide evidence for.

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1. What’s there?

2. How does it work?

3. How did it come to be this way? (Not it’s “origin”, but how it evolved)

Notice there is no “WHY”???? Science doesn’t care about “why”. That is philosophy. Get it? “Why” is philosophy!!!! How can you argue science and no nothing about it? How is that possible? Is it self-confidence?

#92: could only bring Honor and Glory to the creator.

This is mysticism and the occult. It is NOT science. There is NO science in “supernatural”. None, zip, zilch. Get it? No science in “spirituality”.

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Actually, knowing “WHY?” is pretty much independent of knowing “HOW?” That is why Augustine and Acquinus could so strongly advocate seeking to know “HOW?” since it would glorify God to think His thoughts after Him. They and all Christian scientists (the great one’s of history as well as the present ones) believed, as I do, that learning “HOW?” could only bring Honor and Glory to the creator.

I am getting the strong sense that RDEAN and STEVEG have real difficulty separating questions of “HOW?” and “WHY?” Is that the case with you as well?

Out of curiosity, what is your answer to “WHY?” I seem to be asking that of a lot of you tonight.

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Like I said, “determined ignorance”. There is a great site called, “Your one stop source for information on evolution. The page below is titled: “Lines of evidence: The science of evolution”

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0_0_0/lines_01

Determined ignorance. Ignorance by any means. Click your heels together three times and say, “I will not learn, I will not learn”. Maybe you will end up in Oz.

You know what? Just go to the main site:

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evohome.html

Which was put together by the University of California Museum of Paleontology. Check out what they teach.

How can we expect to teach our children when this type of determined ignorance are fighting education at every turn????

On the science channel, right now, there is a show called, “The greatest scientific discoveries of 2007″. One of the discoveries was enough soft tissue from a 68 million year old T-Rex, they could create a genetic map. I wonder where it led them????

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