Professional Soldiers ® - Is evolution proven science or theory

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- - Is evolution proven science or theory (http://www.professionalsoldiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=42020)

Quote:

Originally Posted by PSM (Post 540511)

No argument, there, but religion is faith-based where science sells itself as certainty-based, hence the "consensus of scientists" and "settled science" slap-down in the argument against human-caused global warming.

Both systems want to control your behavior, but which is being used by government to actually do it?

Pat

Controlling behavior is controlling behavior. F--- em all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sinjefe (Post 540512)

Controlling behavior is controlling behavior. F--- em all.

Good thing you never joined the Army. Oh, wait... ;)

Pat

Quote:

Originally Posted by PSM (Post 540560)

Good thing you never joined the Army. Oh, wait... ;)

Pat

Are you SURE he joined and maybe wasn't drafted ????

:munchin

It kind of grew on me over time.

Kinda like a fungus .... :D :munchin

I'm currently rereading Pierre Boulle's Planet of the Apes - damn that Haristas.

And so it goes...

Richard

Quote:

Originally Posted by Broadsword2004 (Post 540579)

And after enough periods of gradual change, you can end up with something that looks totally different.

What I meant by "immediately" is: the change must be beneficial at that point in time for it to be naturally selected.
A random change can't plan on how it might be beneficial hundreds of generations later (that would be ID, not evolution).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Broadsword2004 (Post 540579)

That's assuming that the leg/wing was needed for the creature to survive.

I confess.
I assumed that survival was quite necessary.

Are you suggesting that random variation over successive generations produces half-leg/half-wing creatures that are somehow more fit that full-legged or full-winged creatures?
(See SnT's link under "special pleadings")

Where is the fossil record of all of these intermediate forms?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Broadsword2004 (Post 540596)

Sure, but if said change is beneficial and continues to be beneficial for generation after generation, and develops more and more over generations, then you can see a large development of it over a long period of time.

Your example though is one of a massive evolutionary change very quickly, which doesn't happen. My point is that certain changes in life forms can occur where the change unto itself is not necessary for the creature's survival, but just something that can aid it better in surviving, and thus be passed on and over-time develop. For a half-leg-half-wing variation to develop would mean that the creature is capable of surviving that way plenty fine.

But a leg would not just start to turn into a wing where it becomes half-and-half via one variation. Such a change would take many generations. Thus for the leg to continue changing to a wing would mean that the creature is fully capable of surviving with this gradual adaption and that the change was continuing because the more the leg became a wing, the more beneficial it was to the creature for survival.

There is no fossil record of successive creatures going from a leg to a wing.
They have legs, or wings; not something going from one to the next.

Still not sure how any of the stages in between would render the creature more fit.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Broadsword2004 (Post 540602)

I'm not arguing that there is, was just using that for the sake of example, as that is the example you gave. I do not myself see how going from a leg to a wing could be beneficial. My point was that IF something like that happened, then it would mean that there was some kind of benefit to the life form.

Natural selection: If a change has benefit, then it will be kept.
A implies B.

"If something like that happened" (was kept).
"Then it would mean it had benefit."

B, therefore A.
This is just affirming the consequent.

<edit>
This is a common way of slipping in an assumption (something like that happened - B) and hiding it within an accepted implication (natural selection - A implies B).
At its root, it's just begging the question.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Broadsword2004 (Post 540612)

Not sure what you are getting at here. The discussion here is over natural selection. If a change is beneficial, it will be kept. If fossils show a life form changed over time in a certain way, then it would mean that the change was somehow beneficial.

You just did it again.
"If a life form changed over time in a certain way"

This is an assumption.
Assuming it is true doesn't make it true.

There is nothing wrong with having arguments which assume evolution (so long as the consequent is potentially falsifiable).
In this case the argument pretends to be equivalent with natural selection, but it is not.