Well, I'm glad to see that this can be a dispassionate discussion! Exclamations like yours cannot dismiss criticism of what is, finally, only a theory.
When advocates of pure TOE can demonstrate repeatedly, under identical conditions, in a variety of locations and times, the competition among complex organic and inorganic compounds leading to viable primitive life, then I will say that TOE absent everthing else is science. Until then, begging to introduce immense spans of time as the deus ex machina of a materialist theory is the same thing as saying "The gods did it!"
The inadequacies of TOE as an explanation of origins of life, which seem to be forgotten when it is taught, must be mentioned even as the truths of TOE are explained. Otherwise, education is incomplete and limited by secularist and materialist prejudices and opinion.
We wouldn't want that, would we?
Any teacher who spoke about the *failure* of evolution to explain the origins of life should be fired. They would either be amazingly incompetent or liars. The ToE has never been concerned with life's origins, any more than the Theory of Universal Gravity attempts to explain the origins of matter or the Germ Theory attempts to explain the origin of germs. And we know that you know better. Why must you therefore make things up?
You might wish to explain why the icons of intelligent design -- Behe and Denton -- have accepted evolution as a fact, including common descent. There is no position among people educated in science that does not accept common descent, even among the critics of Darwinian evolution.
Haven't seen you around geezer. You obviously haven't been corrected yet on your mistaken definition of "theory". It does not mean "guess" as non-scientists assume. It the context of evolution, it is an explanation of how things work. As in the "Theory of Gravity", or "Music Theory", or "Nuclear Theory". Evolution is both a scientific theory, because it explains how things work, and an observed fact, because it does in fact occur, as even ID proponents have begun to acknowledge when they get under oath at trial.
When advocates of pure TOE can demonstrate repeatedly, under identical conditions, in a variety of locations and times, the competition among complex organic and inorganic compounds leading to viable primitive life
Obviously you have also not been corrected on your mistaken conflation of various hypothesis of how the first life came to be, vs. how species arose via evolution theory. The two are utterly unconnected. Whether the first life form was "planted" by God or a space alien, or arose via abiogensis is irrelevant to the observed fact that evolution occurs and is the cause of the various species.
Now you know these things, and you can either dispute them with me (in which case you will continue to be wrong), or you can move on to other issues regarding evolution. It will be interesting to see if you bring these issues up in later threads.
One hears the loud scrape of the creationist moving the goalposts. You started with the claim that the ToE's position within science is being eroded over time as new evidence comes in. When this was pointed out as absolutely flat-out false, you "defended" it by citing what it would supposedly take to overcome your personal incredulity. This in itself is shifty behavior.
Worse, your new defense trench is a risible strawman of evolutionary mechanisms in an arena (abiogenesis) in which they do not apply.
You're stinking up the joint.
Darwinism cannot explain scientifically the origins of life.
Drammach's Post #7:
Darwins TOE does not even attempt to explain the origins of life..I am sure you know that full well, but continue to misrepresent TOE at every opportunity..
Your Post #11:
When advocates of pure TOE can demonstrate repeatedly, under identical conditions, in a variety of locations and times, the competition among complex organic and inorganic compounds leading to viable primitive life, then I will say that TOE absent everthing else is science. Until then, begging to introduce immense spans of time as the deus ex machina of a materialist theory is the same thing as saying "The gods did it!"The inadequacies of TOE as an explanation of origins of life, which seem to be forgotten when it is taught, must be mentioned even as the truths of TOE are explained. Otherwise, education is incomplete and limited by secularist and materialist prejudices and opinion.
Why do you keep harping on the origins of life when evolution talks about change in life? A definition from the web provides a good example: "In the life sciences, evolution is a change in the traits of living organisms over generations, including the emergence of new species."
Can you say strawman, boys and girls? I knew you could!
You are not real clear on your definitions I see. The theory of gravity will always remain "the theory of gravity" no matter how much evidence is accumulated. BTW, there is more evidence supporting evolution than there is gravity. This may help:
Let me post my own example of gravity:
A little history here:
Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation
“Every object in the universe attracts every other object with a force directed along the line of centers for the two objects that is proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the separation between the two objects.”
F=Gm1m2/r2
Where:
F equals the gravitational force between two objects
m1 equals the mass of the first object
m2 equals the mass of the second object
R equals the distance between the objects
G equals the universal constant of gravitation = (6.6726 )* 10-11 N*m2/kg2 (which is still being refined and tested today)
(BTW this is a simple form of the equation and is only applied to point sources. Usually it is expressed as a vector equation)
Even though it works well for most practical purposes, this formulation has problems.
A few of the problems are:
It shows the change is gravitational force is transmitted instantaneously (Violates C), assumes an absolute space and time (this contradicts Special Relativity), etc.
Enter Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity
In 1915 Einstein developed a new theory of gravity called General Relativity.
A number of experiments showed this theory explained some of the problems with the classical Newtonian model. However, this theory like all others is still being explored and tested.
From an NSF abstract:
“As with all scientific knowledge, a theory can be refined or even replaced by an alternative theory in light of new and compelling evidence. The geocentric theory that the sun revolves around the earth was replaced by the heliocentric theory of the earth's rotation on its axis and revolution around the sun. However, ideas are not referred to as "theories" in science unless they are supported by bodies of evidence that make their subsequent abandonment very unlikely. When a theory is supported by as much evidence as evolution, it is held with a very high degree of confidence.
In science, the word "hypothesis" conveys the tentativeness inherent in the common use of the word "theory.' A hypothesis is a testable statement about the natural world. Through experiment and observation, hypotheses can be supported or rejected. At the earliest level of understanding, hypotheses can be used to construct more complex inferences and explanations. Like "theory," the word "fact" has a different meaning in science than it does in common usage. A scientific fact is an observation that has been confirmed over and over. However, observations are gathered by our senses, which can never be trusted entirely. Observations also can change with better technologies or with better ways of looking at data. For example, it was held as a scientific fact for many years that human cells have 24 pairs of chromosomes, until improved techniques of microscopy revealed that they actually have 23. Ironically, facts in science often are more susceptible to change than theories, which is one reason why the word "fact" is not much used in science.
Finally, "laws" in science are typically descriptions of how the physical world behaves under certain circumstances. For example, the laws of motion describe how objects move when subjected to certain forces. These laws can be very useful in supporting hypotheses and theories, but like all elements of science they can be altered with new information and observations.
Those who oppose the teaching of evolution often say that evolution should be taught as a "theory, not as a fact." This statement confuses the common use of these words with the scientific use. In science, theories do not turn into facts through the accumulation of evidence. Rather, theories are the end points of science. They are understandings that develop from extensive observation, experimentation, and creative reflection. They incorporate a large body of scientific facts, laws, tested hypotheses, and logical inferences. In this sense, evolution is one of the strongest and most useful scientific theories we have.
Here is another nice page of what a theory is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory
"In common usage a theory is often viewed as little more than a guess or a hypothesis. But in science and generally in academic usage, a theory is much more than that. A theory is an established paradigm that explains all or many of the data we have and offers valid predictions that can be tested. In science, a theory can never be proven true, because we can never assume we know all there is to know. Instead, theories remain standing until they are disproven, at which point they are thrown out altogether or modified slightly.
Theories start out with empirical observations such as “sometimes water turns into ice.” At some point, there is a need or curiosity to find out why this is, which leads to a theoretical/scientific phase. In scientific theories, this then leads to research, in combination with auxiliary and other hypotheses (see scientific method), which may then eventually lead to a theory. Some scientific theories (such as the theory of gravity) are so widely accepted that they are often seen as laws. This, however, rests on a mistaken assumption of what theories and laws are. Theories and laws are not rungs in a ladder of truth, but different sets of data. A law is a general statement based on observations."
For Laws:
"A well-known example is that of Newton's law of gravity: while it describes the world accurately for most pertinent observations, such as of the movements of astronomical objects in the solar system, it was found to be inaccurate when applied to extremely large masses or velocities. Einstein's theory of general relativity, however, accurately handles gravitational interactions at those extreme conditions, in addition to the range covered by Newton's law. Newton's formula for gravity is still used in most circumstances, as an easier-to-calculate approximation of gravitational law. A similar relationship exists between Maxwell's equations and the theory of quantum electrodynamics; there are several such cases. This suggests the (unanswered) question of whether there are any ultimately true physical laws, or whether they are all just cases where our sensory and rational apparatus have generated mathematically simple approximations, valid within the range of normal human experience, to unobtainable true formulas."
When people who don't know what science is will admit that the TOE absent everything else is science, that will make all the difference. Perhaps you've missed the scientific explanations in places like books, magazines, and monographs, or maybe the billion or so posts to this forum that point out that the origin of life has nothing to do with the origin of species, and that the Theory of Evolution is about the origin of species. However, if you insist that all theories fail because they doesn't address matters outside their own scope, please name a scientific theory that doesn't fail.
Until then, begging to introduce immense spans of time as the deus ex machina of a materialist theory is the same thing as saying "The gods did it!"
As long as you ignore, say, all the evidence.
The inadequacies of TOE as an explanation of origins of life, which seem to be forgotten when it is taught, must be mentioned even as the truths of TOE are explained. Otherwise, education is incomplete and limited by secularist and materialist prejudices and opinion.
Glad to know that your objections to the TOE are entirely scientific, and have nothing whatever to do with your religion. Please go back, aaaaaaall the way to the beginning of this post, to read how the TOE does not address the origins of life.