Waffuru Wrote:I don't understand the complaint on the fossil record... you know how rare it is for fossilization to even occur? It often requires a natural disaster and that also usually results in gaps of time between fossils. It's not like every animal that died left a fossil for us to find, and even then we've found a very limited number of these fossils. Most animals that die are subject to scavengers and decay leaving nothing to be fossilized.

Rem-13 Wrote:That's how its supposed to work but there are plenty of scientists who treat 'established' theories and such as religious doctrine. Challenging conventional wisdom is seen as career suicide. The scientific community is pretty brutal in its inner politics. Its not as inflexible as Catholicism obviously, but then Religion is not in the business of flexibility.

Rod Hardwood Wrote:wish i could find a link to this, but google fails me.

Rod Hardwood Wrote:not that i blame all of it. hard sciences like mathematics are straight-forward. applied sciences (engineering, chemistry, etc) are softer, but it's still results-based. evolutionary biology seems as much philosophy as anything else, and the position "im right and UR STOOPID DERPA DURR" is not helping.

Rod Hardwood Wrote:it's the only thing we have that elevates discussion of long-term evolutionary theory above pure philosophy.

Rod Hardwood Wrote:it's the only thing we have that elevates discussion of long-term evolutionary theory above pure philosophy.

Josh Wrote:Because it's probably not true, or you heard it from an ID website.

Quote: All science is results based, it's not like there is a cabal of evolutionary biologists sitting around deciding that Evolution is the best way to corrupt society.

They support evolution theory because it's useful, and explains a lot of things about biochemistry, genetics, and biology. It provides predictive capabilities.

Ashe Wrote:Well yeah, that... and the looking at the dna code of every animal in taxidermy records and seeing precisely where each change took place.

This is actually why if, for some reason, someone ever actually discovered a unicorn or mermaid, the entire species record would be immediately rendered useless until it could be rebuilt, because it would be branching specific changes that occurred independently from deeper down two paths.

Also, we see evolution at work commonly with things like medicines, bacteria, and insects growing resistant over generations to things like pesticides. We even see things like microorganisms that feed on oil and have very short and quickly reproductive lifespans thriving in an environment covered in oil (say our Gulf) and thus increasing in numbers a lot (as evolution would dictate, regarding those with the traits to survive an environmental change thriving while others die out). These organisms have been around feeding off the tiny amounts of oil that leaks from natural cracks in the surface, but they really boomed in the Gulf recently.

Rod Hardwood Wrote:nah, i found the thing years ago when i was still interested in this stuff. if the website that had it still exists, i can't find it because websites are growing at an explosive rate and i can't remember enough details of the groups, names, etc to put into a search engine.

Rod Hardwood Wrote:way2overreact.

Rod Hardwood Wrote:but we don't have much genetic code from extinct, fossilized creatures. it's improving but it doesn't replace the need for a fossil record.

Josh Wrote::/

Quote: It's not overreacting, it's an attempt to keep science from being dumbed down or distorted by religion. Religion deals with the supernatural, so science has nothing to say about it, but in the same Vein religion needs to mind it's business about science.

Maybe god did do it, science isn't refuting that. All it's saying is that whatever happened, this is how it happened.

Quote: I believe he's talking about currently living creatures, as in how Humans and Great Apes share a large amount of DNA, and even one of our chromosomes is a fused form of two chromosomes found in apes.

Also that all animals share some DNA in common which would make sense if we all evolved from a singular creature.

Rod Hardwood Wrote:it's the only thing we have that elevates discussion of long-term evolutionary theory above pure philosophy.

Jarka Wrote:Hate: The nearest Wal*Mart is 20 minutes away. No moleskin for me.

I'll just vag up and pop it beforehand.