Evolution

That and it also suggests that feathers/wings would have to be "of use" to occur. Since there are many flightless birds, and many species that would have their lives immeasurably improved if they could fly but can't, I don't see how it's of any relevance to the physical facts. As ever, it miscasts evolution as just another designer.

 

Some people may flip a coin to decide who to vote for. That does not mean that there is no reason to vote for one rather than the other. Even if all the evidence for evolution was purely circumstantial, there would still be a lot of it, and a lot more than I've seen advanced for any other theory.

 

No, no such suggestion is being made, both feathers and wings have uses even if they're not being used for flight.

The argument is that during the "millions of years" that would be needed to develop those wings and feathers through evolution, those very developing wings would make the animal less fit for survival and thus the animal would not have survived long enough to develop wings.

 

No one is talking about flipping a coin to decide, except maybe you.

There are reasons to vote either way, as has been pointed out, whether you agree with them or not.

Also I've never denied that there appears to be a lot of evidence for evolution but it wouldn't be the first time that a scientific theory appeared to have a lot of evidence for it but turned out to be untrue.

 

But how was it proven to be untrue?

 

How was what proven untrue?

 

The scientific theories you were referring to in your previous posts.

 

Probably in as many ways as something can be proven untrue.

 

I would think that more often than not when a scientific theory is proven wrong it is replaced with yet another scientific theory,

Can you sight some examples of modern scientific theories that were well accepted and as you put it in your previous post "had a lot of evidence" that have since been proven wrong?

 

I don't want to steal OWB's thunder, but continuous creation comes to mind. A few decades ago, it was the leading theory of cosmology, with Fred Hoyle as its primary proponent, but now Big Bang has taken over. Depsning how "modern" we're talking, until Einstein's theory of relativity, Newtonian physics was accepted as the cat's meow of science. It's still useful in ordinary contexts, but is no longer considered valid as general theory.

 

But saying there is no designer is an equal metaphysical jump as saying there is a designer.

The world, in its complexity, is observably complex. To say it is the word of unguided natural processes, or some sort of designed process (whether evolution or six-day creation) requires moving beyond the observable evidence into a metaphysical discussion.

 

Hey! Give me my thunder back, you...you thunder stealer you.

I was thinking of Newtonian physics myself.

 

I didn't actually say that there's no designer. I just said that the theory of evolution does not include one. So the fact that a mutation is not "useful" is no reason for it not to happen, any more than the fact that a mutation is "useful" would mean that we'd expect it.

I don't think it's an "equal metaphysical jump" (if that's what it sounds like) to say that a designer does not seem necessary to explain the world. It is not an assertion that there is no god, just that, if there is one, he's either lacking in imagination or lazy enough to create by process rather than my detailed design.

I don't really see how. Just observing that the world is complicated does not seem like reason enough for me to assume that a design is in place. Ever untangled a big box of Christmas lights? It looks complex, but that doesn't mean any intelligent agency made it that way.

I don't buy that the world is complex, to be honest.

 

I see the argument, but I do not believe that it matters. Unless a mutation actively hampers an organism's ability to reproduce (rather than to survive), it will not necessarily be bred out.

I don't really see how developing "proto-wings" would have such a massive impact on an organism's ability to procreate that we could assume it would not be passed on (and so would require another theory to explain why animals do indeed appear to have been developing wings over the millennia).

 

Have you ever denied blowing doubt out of all proportion to oppose theories? I lose track.

 

I didn't mean to sound as polemical as I may have come across.

I guess the thrust of my argument is that Dawkins' "blind watchmaker" and others' tinkering personal deity are equally based on faith and reason.

To continue your Christmas lights analogy, if we are just given the tangled mess, and we can use all of our scientific and mathematical knowledge to understand what movements the wire went through to come like that...unless we make a metaphysical jump (that is to rely on faith) we don't know if someone tangled it, or if it just happened. We all use faith, and reason (differently) to come to our conclusions.

 

Yep. We evolved from a amoeba, to a fish, to a lizard, to a monkey, to a caveman, to what we are today. That's crap. I'm sorry for my language but it's just ridiculous. God created everything that will ever be here. Now, yes. Things have disappeared because of extinction. I know this. Everyone does. And yeah, there are idiot scientists out there that made inbreed things like the liger (a lion and tiger combined). And yeah that's possible to happen in nature, like the mule (horse and donkey) and that's okay. But if God wanted a liger he'd make it so himself. So no. I think evolution and the big band for that matter is the atheist version of Genesis chapters 1-2

 

Isn't it possible God created the universe and from its beginning loaded it with the Laws that will lead to humans through an evolutionary process?

 

Isn't it possible that we don't understand all the laws of the universe yet and it could of in some way naturally created itself?

 

It was evolution that came up with “survival of the fittest” not me.

As for hampering an organism’s ability to reproduce that too has been discussed and hybrids show a definite hampering of ability to reproduce.

If developing "proto-wings" would mean that the animal does not survive, I think that would put a crimp in it’s ability to procreate. I don’t see any Dodos around any more and they definitely had the ability to procreate.