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Would a living Dinosaur disprove Evolution?
- Thread starter Papa Lazarou
- Start date
A stable environment can help remove a species' need to evolve, but it's not a prerequisite. For a species to survive and stop evolving, it's offspring needs to be successful (reproduce) using the same features as the parent. Eg, if one of the offspring have bigger teeth, and that creature is more successful than it's siblings, then the species will evolve to have bigger teeth. But if variants of offspring are not more successful, the species won't evolve. It doesn't prove anything.
At the risk of going off on a serious tangent here. I think you make an interesting point about science versus religion, but I am not sure I agree that science does get an easy ride. There is a vast amount of psuedo-science, whether it is used to justify miracle anti-ageing creams, or to support some half cock political theory. There is more than enough evidence to give science a bad name.
Specific to this forum though there is a prevailing strong anti-religion sentiment and whilst I classify myself as an atheist, I think I have seen enough variations on "The world would be a better place if religion had never been invented". If you can not take some inspiration from the massive body of buildings, art, literature, philosophy and song produced in the name of god(s) then you have to have a completely closed mind and never contemplate, how we came to be here or why.
This. As a person with a science degree, it really annoys me when these creationist idiots say "Well, evolution is just a theory, it's not a fact." Numpties - they just don't understand the terminology.
Papa Lazarou
Living in a De Zerbi wonderland
- Thread starter
- #45
The likes of Simon Singh, Adam Rutherford and especially Dr Ben Goldacre do a great job in highlighting pseudo science and quackery wherever it may reside.
Buzzer
Languidly Clinical
- Oct 1, 2006
- 26,121
Therein lies my own in-built prejudice. I had a few physics professors who taught me that scientists never state anything as 'fact'.
It isn't. A few nutty creationists doesn't mean you can't believe in a god.
Science is constantly scrutinised, that's the basis of science. I'll take a look at your link.
Is it really popular belief that scientist know where the universe came from? That's news to me. I thought all scientists accept that they can't prove a god doesn't exist. What they do prove, is that the events claimed in the bible are not correct, not that there can be no god.
If I saw a video where two ****wits claimed to prove that there could be no god, I'd treat them with the same contempt that I treat those in the video in the first post.
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Bold Seagull
strong and stable with me, or...
The data is fact. The theory is 99% proven. That's enough fact for me. And I have a BSc (Hons)!
Biologists would no doubt contest that biological evolution is a fact, as you say the observable data can be considered conclusive. The mechanisms for evolution however are still very much theories.
Just the same could be said for universal gravity, it would appear to be a fact, however it does remain just a theory.
Buzzer
Languidly Clinical
- Oct 1, 2006
- 26,121
I meant by the public, not by peer review. Take this thread started by Papa Lazarou and he quite rightly points out there's lots of stuff out there about bad science but you'll be hard pushed to find him or anyone else mention it let alone start a thread about it but there's often a religion thread where everyone piles in trying to outdo each other with their religion put-downs/sarcastic comments. I take on board fully that it's easier to discredit a creationist than a quack scientist but as the article I linked to shows, there are bestselling books out there doing as much damage to science as creationism does to religion.
Or indeed be agnostic and maybe not in this thread but definitely on this forum in the past, I've seen people say that all religion is mental on the basis of some weird cult or other. Science doesn't and can never prove if there is a God or not.
Buzzer
Languidly Clinical
- Oct 1, 2006
- 26,121
As way of an example, this from the BBC, no less - "In this clip, scientist Professor Richard Dawkins explains that the age of the universe is believed to be 14 billion years and no one knows exactly what happened at the Big Bang. He explains that physicists believe that there is no such thing as 'before' this event, precluding the existence of God."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/the-big-bang-a-scientists-view/444.html
The Big Bang Theory does nothing of the sort as that earlier quote from Hawking shows. That isn't even what Dawkins says in the clip either but it's this sort of bad science that seems rarely to get challenged and/or corrected and consequently becomes 'general knowledge'.
It's been written by enough scientists for the author of the article I linked to, to have to make the point that he asked various Nobel laureates what they thought.
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Papa Lazarou
Living in a De Zerbi wonderland
- Thread starter
- #51
[MENTION=5200]Buzzer[/MENTION] Quoting Richard Dawkins, the arch-athiest is always going to provide an extreme pointing view. He really does give a sh#t who he upsets in his quest for rational though; which I'll hasten to add, he applies to both religious and secular subjects. I guess the anti-religion rants are more high profile.
Buzzer
Languidly Clinical
- Oct 1, 2006
- 26,121
Are you typing that with your feet?
Papa Lazarou
Living in a De Zerbi wonderland
- Thread starter
- #53
On your other point, it does depend where you read as to whether you are exposed to the quackery debunking of the good people I mentioned earlier.
Singh and Goldacre have both written best selling books on the subject, and I think both write for a national paper covering the same stuff.
Plus, religious numpties making up bollox to support an archaic world view is much easier to dismantle.
Singh and Goldacre have both written best selling books on the subject, and I think both write for a national paper covering the same stuff.
Plus, religious numpties making up bollox to support an archaic world view is much easier to dismantle.
Papa Lazarou
Living in a De Zerbi wonderland
- Thread starter
- #54
Er, no, on my phone, on a train.
Norman Potting
Well-known member
Thinking about the original thread title surely the correct response is "no, because he would eat anyone who disagreed". Assuming he wasn't a herbivore of course.
Papa Lazarou
Living in a De Zerbi wonderland
- Thread starter
- #56
But I see what you mean. Poor quality control there. Sorry
Buzzer
Languidly Clinical
- Oct 1, 2006
- 26,121
Pseudo-science isn't science though, is it?
The problem is that the religions do tend to be mental. That doesn't mean that there wasn't/isn't a creator, and when people post that they believe that there is a creator, but they don't know anything about that creator, then I don't think they get much grief. But when people say that they believe every bullsh*t word of their chosen religion, they're making a fool of themselves, and the *******s like me can't help but take the piss.
He isn't saying that there is proof that god doesn't exist. He's saying that physicists say that there was nothing before the big bang. He says that you may just as well say the big bang just happened as say that god just happened - ie, the suggestion that there was nothing before the big bang is not proof that god does exist.
As above, he hasn't said it is proof that god doesn't exist, and the Hawking quotes in this thread doesn't show anything new.
Curious Orange
Punxsatawney Phil
Advertising waffle! My wife (a chemical engineer for a major household goods manufacturer) is a right pain to sit through the adverts with, as she scoffs at all the dubious claims that her company's competitors make about their products (eg "90% of women say product X works!", when only 100 were actually surveyed and there therefore isn't a statistically relevant data set to back the claim) when her company goes to the bother of doing proper scientific trials before making a claim.
I'm not sure how the above is relevant to the topic, other than to highlight that nonsense can be talked without there being any connection to any particular religion.