I’d just like to make a plea to anyone responding to this particular comment.
If Richard isn’t getting his facts straight here, please respond simply by stating what evidence exists that addresses this specific point, and citing your sources. Try to avoid name calling or ad hominem attacks in the process.
I was just thinking how cool a system is it that birds could evolve from dinosaurs, totally counterintuitively. Given that, it shouldn’t be any more surprising that some have come to God because of evolution as @St.Roymond has related, like some have come to God because of big bang cosmology.
I read it like three years ago, so I have no idea where.
But really it wouldn’t go against evolutionary principles, because it would broaden the genetic input from just the alpha to others. The alpha would still dominate tremendously, but others would get a contribution in.
Sorry, that one is by no means proven, in fact, that is probably the most disputed nonfact. It cannot be proven. DNA comparisons are not empiracle fact they are conclusions.that are coroboration at best to common ancestry. They are not empiracle proof and the conclusion is not a fact.
Richard
There are few things that are more controversial in evangelical circles than common ancestry of humans and animals. There are few things that are less controversial everywhere else.
Of course DNA comparisons are empirical! They are carried out by observation, experiment and measurement. To claim that DNA comparisons are not empirical is to claim that geneticists do not do what they say that they do, in other words, it is to accuse them of lying. If you’re going to do that, you need to provide credible evidence to that effect, otherwise you’re just promoting conspiracy theories.
As for them being a “nonfact,” can you come up with a credible explanation other than common ancestry as to how the human genome and the chimp genome could contain two hundred thousand endogenous retroviruses in exactly the same places?
In any case, even if the evidence really were ambiguous on this matter, it is still something that is investigated by observation, experiment and measurement. This being the case, whether it is true or not, it is still a mechanical aspect of evolution and not a philosophical one.
The inputs for a parsimony analysis are “Here are the input sequences.”, “Here are the observed relative likelihoods of each basic type of mutation.”, “Group thing by what takes the lowest number of changes.”, and nothing else.
Nope.
Observtions are empiracoe. What you conclude or infer is not
Richard
That tree is observable data. Data that consists of “Which of these are most similar to each other?”; if it were a phylogram, it would also contain “How many changes are required at each step?”
Even science does not claim the certainty that is displyed on this forum. Whatever happened to the maxim
Scientists do not conclude, they only observe.
Science is not the god that is proclaimed here. It does not control creation or the thoughts of those created. I do not have to bow down to it, you, or anyone ese. It is not immutable. Evolution is not a fact outside scientific terminology. (even in sceintific terminology)
The only reason people do not question evolution is that they do not care! It does not affect them. It means absolutely nothing.in terms of living day to day. But it does matter to Christians. it is a shame that some of the Christians here do not seem understand this.
Richard
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But why should the alpha care about others having genetic input and why should the alpha “want” to waste its own energy feeding and raising another’s offspring when it could easily be raising its own offspring? That is the part that is against natural selection principles. “dominance” has no evolutionary benefit per se, except insofar as it translates into one’s increased reproduction. All that makes me suspicious of the story.
This was my opening gambit. It would appear that it is not (just) evolution but science itself that is worshipped and obeyed.
On this forum science is immutabe. You cannot argue with it or its findings (esecially if you are not a qualified scientist) You must bow down and accept…
Sorry, That authority belongs to God and God alone.
Science is supposed to help us understand creation but instead it is being used to brow beat insult and control what is believed or allowed to be believed.
I really am getting tired of beeing told what I must learn or understand.
Richard
Scientists draw conclusions all the time. It’s a large part of their job.
Now answer the whole thing instead of taking one line out of context.
Richard
If you insist…
I can only speak for myself about the certainty I display. I’m a scientist and I try to express the degree of certainty that I have in conclusions drawn within my own field of expertise. Since I am inclined to be unusually skeptical (compared to other scientists) about the certainty of my conclusions, you can take my certainty as a conservative reflection of what a typical scientist in the field would say.
I’ve never heard that maxim. It appears to have been coined by someone who doesn’t understand science.
No one has proclaimed science to be a god here – you’re making groundless accusations against others because you disagree with them.
I have no idea what this means.
Again, no one has suggested that you do any bowing.
Evolution is a fact in the ordinary sense of something that’s so well established that we can treat it as true. That doesn’t apply to everything about evolution but it does apply to the common descent of all animals, for example. You are completely free to disagree about the validity of evolution, but you’re not free to accuse me of making evolution a god just because I accept the scientific consensus in my own field.
Evolutionary biologists (among many other biologists) care quite a bit about evolution. We are also thoroughly convinced that common descent is true.
Some of us Christians here have spent decades both learning about evolution in depth and thinking about its relationship to Christian faith.
Tell that to… (Those who keep badgering me)
This is the basic definitin of the scientific method. it does not mention conclusions
It starts with a hypothesis…
There is no need to go into the differendces between hypothesis and conclusions. Suffice it to say, not matter what science does or does not “conclude” about evolution it is only still a hypothesis because there is not enough empiracle data to complete the feedback loop and make it a law… Evolution is only a theory because there is no scientific alternative
That is not the scientific method in any shape or form.
I think that was the whole point of this thread. To argue that point. But it was never actually addressed, just side tracked
Transferred authority?
Is that scientific? I have been told that because science understands gravity it must understand evolution. That is just garbage. They are not the same, eeven if they are both scientific. The disciplines and subjects of science are not philosophically the same (But it seems you do not need to understand philosophy to be a sicentist.)
Look I am not having a go at you specifically. But…
That statment is not scientific inasmuch as it is not an observable fact, or even a series of confirmed hypothesis. It is unprovbable.
The only way that statement can be considered true is if science is God and decreed it so.
Richard
(Moderator edit)
By that logic, police speed traps are not empirical because the speed they record is not an observation, but a conclusion or inference from it. IANAL but good luck getting that to stand up in court.
(Mod edit)
Are not science. They are about civil law. Civil law does not coerespond to scientific disciplines.
I repeat
a comparison is observable. How you interpret what you see is not.(ie that it somehow proves heredity) It is a hypothesis at best and it cannot be confirmed or ratified by any other observations. All you can do is repeat the same (or comparable) observations.
Stop knitpicking
Richard
At least I’m not the only one who has issues with replying to nonsense. 
Yes I think I need to ask the moderators to pardon my Latin.
Not to mention false accusations. And is that Latin related to @St.Roymond’s Latin for borscht?
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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