Stephen Jay Gould, "Evolution as Fact and Theory"

[PoliticalChic]

Funny right wingers want to use "science" to prove "mysticism" is REAL.

Pssst....deanie.....this topic is way over your head.

So sorry to have distracted your attention from the 24-hour cartoon network.

It's a sad state of affairs when you can learn more about science from the Cartoon Network than you can from listening to Right Wingnut Master Debators.

Now deanie....you'd be so very much more informed if you learned your science from me.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Hey, OP!


Earlier I wrote:
"Now then.....how about we move on to the more significant question....why folks like you are so intimately wedded to a false doctrine?


There is an answer beyond psychosis......


If you don't understand the reason.....ask me nicely and I will OP that which will set you free: the truth."




Don't you want to ask me to write said OP?

It would move you toward rectitude....

...just sayin'....

 

[jwoodie]

I'd rather be a Master Debater than a Whiny Namecaller.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Darwinism is a sub-cult within the destitute religion of Atheism, which justifies its existence solely by criticizing other belief systems. This thread is a perfect example: Rather than explaining their belief in gradual speciation, Darwinists merely attack anyone who disagrees with them. I suspect that, within their covens, little or no dissent is tolerated.

I suspect you don't read many scientific journals if you think there is no dissent or infighting. Evolution is accepted, but the mechanisms are up for debate. I understand that among the cdesign proponentists there can be no dissent, after all the Big Book of Bronze Age Mythology by Magical Sky Daddy is what it is and your talking points are pre-approved by the DiscoTute, but among scientists there is plenty of infighting, only without the burning of witches.

This is great:
"Evolution is accepted, but the mechanisms are up for debate."


So.....actually, what are you accepting?


George Simpson, another eminent evolutionist, wrote in 1964 that “the book called The Origin of Species is not really on that subject.”
(Mayr and Simpson are quoted by Francis Hitching, The Neck of the Giraffe: Where Darwin Went Wrong, p. 105.)

 

[PoliticalChic]

Darwinism is a sub-cult within the destitute religion of Atheism, which justifies its existence solely by criticizing other belief systems. This thread is a perfect example: Rather than explaining their belief in gradual speciation, Darwinists merely attack anyone who disagrees with them. I suspect that, within their covens, little or no dissent is tolerated.

I suspect you don't read many scientific journals if you think there is no dissent or infighting. Evolution is accepted, but the mechanisms are up for debate. I understand that among the cdesign proponentists there can be no dissent, after all the Big Book of Bronze Age Mythology by Magical Sky Daddy is what it is and your talking points are pre-approved by the DiscoTute, but among scientists there is plenty of infighting, only without the burning of witches.

"...your talking points are pre-approved by the DiscoTute, but among scientists there is plenty of infighting, only without the burning of witches."


Of course, the very opposite is true.

Here....let me prove that:



The following details the fate of any scientist who dares to buck the orthodoxy.
a. “ Richard Sternberg, a research associate at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington. The holder of two Ph.D.s in biology, Mr. Sternberg was until recently the managing editor of a nominally independent journal published at the museum, Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, where he exercised final editorial authority. The August issue …included an atypical article, "The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories." Here was trouble.

b. …the first peer-reviewed article to appear in a technical biology journal laying out the evidential case for Intelligent Design. According to ID theory, certain features of living organisms …are better explained by an unspecified designing intelligence than by an undirected natural process like random mutation and natural selection.

c. Mr. Sternberg's … future as a researcher is in jeopardy …He has been penalized by the museum's Department of Zoology, his religious and political beliefs questioned…. "I'm spending my time trying to figure out how to salvage a scientific career."




d. Stephen Meyer, who holds a Cambridge University doctorate in the philosophy of biology. In the article, he cites biologists and paleontologists critical of certain aspects of Darwinism -- mainstream scientists at places like the University of Chicago, Yale, Cambridge and Oxford.

e. He points, for example, to the Cambrian explosion 530 million years ago, when between 19 and 34 animal phyla (body plans) sprang into existence. He argues that, relying on only the Darwinian mechanism, there was not enough time for the necessary genetic "information" to be generated. ID, he believes, offers a better explanation.

f. …it was indeed subject to peer review, the gold standard of academic science. Not that such review saved Mr. Sternberg from infamy. Soon after the article appeared, Hans Sues -- the museum's No. 2 senior scientist -- denounced it to colleagues and then sent a widely forwarded e-mail calling it "unscientific garbage." the chairman of the Zoology Department, Jonathan Coddington, called Mr. Sternberg's supervisor.

According to Mr. Sternberg's OSC complaint: "First, he asked whether Sternberg was a religious fundamentalist. She told him no. Coddington then asked if Sternberg was affiliated with or belonged to any religious organization....He then asked where Sternberg stood politically; ...he asked, 'Is he a right-winger? What is his political affiliation?'" The supervisor (who did not return my phone messages) recounted the conversation to Mr. Sternberg, who also quotes her observing: "There are Christians here, but they keep their heads down."

g. Worries about being perceived as "religious" spread at the museum. One curator, who generally confirmed the conversation when I spoke to him, told Mr. Sternberg about a gathering where he offered a Jewish prayer for a colleague about to retire. The curator fretted: "So now they're going to think that I'm a religious person, and that's not a good thing at the museum."





h. The Biological Society of Washington released a vaguely ecclesiastical statement regretting its association with the article. It did not address its arguments but denied its orthodoxy, citing a resolution of the American Association for the Advancement of Science that defined ID as, by its very nature, unscientific.

i. Critics of ID have long argued that the theory was unscientific because it had not been put forward in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Now that it has, they argue that it shouldn't have been because it's unscientific. They banish certain ideas from certain venues as if by holy writ, and brand heretics too. In any case, the heretic here is Mr. Meyer, a fellow at Seattle's Discovery Institute, not Mr. Sternberg, who isn't himself an advocate of Intelligent Design.




j. Darwinism, by contrast, is an essential ingredient in secularism, that aggressive, quasi-religious faith without a deity. The Sternberg case seems, in many ways, an instance of one religion persecuting a rival, demanding loyalty from anyone who enters one of its churches -- like the National Museum of Natural History.” The Branding of a Heretic - WSJ.com



Great, huh?

And you say "...but among scientists there is plenty of infighting, only without the burning of witches."


Right.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Funny right wingers want to use "science" to prove "mysticism" is REAL.

Pssst....deanie.....this topic is way over your head.

So sorry to have distracted your attention from the 24-hour cartoon network.

It's a sad state of affairs when you can learn more about science from the Cartoon Network than you can from listening to Right Wingnut Master Debators.

Can you explain to me how a flying squirrel evolved into a bat?

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Ever see a 'flying' squirrel?

Uh huh

Bats evolved from squirrels?

When did that squirrel develop echolocation because its the ability to both create the pitch and the ears to pick it up.

Which squirrels use echolocation

Sheesh, ever the dingbat. No, bats and squirrels are both rodents. And the present squirrel has no need for the echolocation, but I am willing to bet, has the basic genetics to develop that ability should future conditions and chance push the squirrels descendents in that direction.

Why did bats need to evolve echolocation? And again, it's not like growing nose hairs, there are a number of organs that all have to "evolve" simultaneously for it to work

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Ever see a 'flying' squirrel?

Uh huh

Bats evolved from squirrels?

When did that squirrel develop echolocation because its the ability to both create the pitch and the ears to pick it up.

Which squirrels use echolocation

Sheesh, ever the dingbat. No, bats and squirrels are both rodents. And the present squirrel has no need for the echolocation, but I am willing to bet, has the basic genetics to develop that ability should future conditions and chance push the squirrels descendents in that direction.

For my next trick -- echolocation

 

[PoliticalChic]

Ever see a 'flying' squirrel?

Uh huh

Bats evolved from squirrels?

When did that squirrel develop echolocation because its the ability to both create the pitch and the ears to pick it up.

Which squirrels use echolocation

Sheesh, ever the dingbat. No, bats and squirrels are both rodents. And the present squirrel has no need for the echolocation, but I am willing to bet, has the basic genetics to develop that ability should future conditions and chance push the squirrels descendents in that direction.

"...bats and squirrels are both rodents."

Actually, not.

1. Bats are not rodents, although many people think of them as mice with wings, and indeed, the members of the genus Myotis (including the common Little Brown Bat, Myotis lucifugus) are called mouse-eared bats. But they only have one pup per year (a few have twins or up to four), and live twelve toothirty or more years, depending on the species. Bats are so unique that they have been placed in their own order, Order Chiroptera, meaning "hand-wing".
Bats & Evolution - Survival of the Created

2. ... of the squirrel family, Sciuridae, which belongs to the order Rodentia, the rodents.
Squirrels (Family Sciuridae)



Now, while you have made a factual error, as shown above....the following is a major error in concept:

"And the present squirrel has no need for the echolocation, but I am willing to bet, has the basic genetics to develop that ability should future conditions and chance push the squirrels descendents (sic) in that direction."

The idea that organisms develop functions based on need, known as LaMarckian theory, has long been discarded by science.

"Lamarck is best known for his Theory of Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics, first presented in 1801 ...: If an organism changes during life in order to adapt to its environment, those changes are passed on to its offspring. He said that change is made by what the organisms want or need"
Evolution



Rocks....you really shouldn't pretend any knowledge of science.

Just tryin' to help you.

 

[abu afak]

Let's be clear PoliticalChic..
You are DISHONESTLY using Out of context quote snippets to make False claim.
Further, you got them from some Unsourced website/Plagiarized their use for that purpose. Quotes can be Generic but NOT when used in a specific way/gathering/order/etc.
You are Unable to discuss anything in your own words: in Every post goofily using then same disingenuous uncontexted quotes. You are NOT conversant on evolution at all.

In any Case, RIP PoliticalChic BS.

Evolution as Fact and Theory
by Stephen Jay Gould
StephenJayGould.org
Stephen Jay Gould, "Evolution as Fact and Theory" 1994

"...The rise of creationism is politics, pure and simple; it represents one issue (and by no means the major concern) of the resurgent evangelical right. Arguments that seemed Kooky just a decade ago have reentered the mainstream.

The basic attack of modern creationists falls apart on two general counts before we even reach the supposed factual details of their assault against evolution.
First, they play upon a vernacular misunderstanding of the word "theory" to convey the false impression that we evolutionists are covering up the rotten core of our edifice.
Second, they misuse a popular philosophy of science to argue that they are behaving scientifically in attacking evolution. Yet the same philosophy demonstrates that their own belief is not science, and that "scientific creationism" is a meaningless and self-contradictory phrase, an example of what Orwell called "newspeak."

In the American vernacular, "theory" often means "imperfect fact"....

Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact.

[.......]
Yet amidst all this turmoil No biologist has been lead to doubt the Fact that evolution occurred; we are debating How it happened. We are all trying to explain the same thing: the tree of evolutionary descent linking all organisms by ties of genealogy.
Creationists pervert and caricature this debate by conveniently neglecting the common conviction that underlies it,
and by Falsely suggesting that evolutionists now doubt the very phenomenon we are struggling to understand.
[......]
The entire creationist program includes little more than a rhetorical attempt to falsify evolution by presenting SUPPOSED Contradictions among its supporters.
[......]

`

PoliticalChic continues her DISHONEST and Misleading OUT-of-Context Quote snippets.
She is UNABLE to debate anything.
She is Mum/completely Ignorant save for posting/Plagiarizing goofy 'quotes' from a creationist website.
and adding Retarded extra vertical spacing for the illusion of more content.
`

 

[rdean]

There is NO evidence that one species of mammals has ever evolved into an entirely different species. Much less 2 or more. The ONLY evidence of evolution is within a species.

Right wingers have this new pseudo scientific idea, similar to "irreducible complexity", called "kinds". A lion is a "kind" of a cat and a tiger is a "kind" of a cat so that's why they can have offspring.

I think Republicans are a "kind" of a tard, but then, I'm not a scientist. Course, neither are they.

 

[abu afak]

Let's be clear PoliticalChic..
You are DISHONESTLY using Out of context quote snippets to make False claim.
Further, you got them from some Unsourced website/Plagiarized their use for that purpose. Quotes can be Generic but NOT when used in a specific way/gathering/order/etc.
You are Unable to discuss anything in your own words: in Every post goofily using then same disingenuous uncontexted quotes. You are NOT conversant on evolution at all.

In any Case, RIP PoliticalChic BS.

Evolution as Fact and Theory
by Stephen Jay Gould
StephenJayGould.org
Stephen Jay Gould, "Evolution as Fact and Theory" 1994

"...The rise of creationism is politics, pure and simple; it represents one issue (and by no means the major concern) of the resurgent evangelical right. Arguments that seemed Kooky just a decade ago have reentered the mainstream.

The basic attack of modern creationists falls apart on two general counts before we even reach the supposed factual details of their assault against evolution.
First, they play upon a vernacular misunderstanding of the word "theory" to convey the false impression that we evolutionists are covering up the rotten core of our edifice.
Second, they misuse a popular philosophy of science to argue that they are behaving scientifically in attacking evolution. Yet the same philosophy demonstrates that their own belief is not science, and that "scientific creationism" is a meaningless and self-contradictory phrase, an example of what Orwell called "newspeak."

In the American vernacular, "theory" often means "imperfect fact"—part of a hierarchy of confidence running downhill from fact to theory to hypothesis to guess. Thus creationists can (and do) argue: evolution is "only" a theory, and intense debate now rages about many aspects of the theory. If evolution is less than a fact, and scientists can't even make up their minds about the theory, then what confidence can we have in it? Indeed, President Reagan echoed this argument before an evangelical group in Dallas when he said (in what I devoutly hope was campaign rhetoric): "Well, it is a theory. It is a scientific theory only, and it has in recent years been challenged in the world of science—that is, not believed in the scientific community to be as infallible as it once was."

Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts do not go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from apelike ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other, yet to be discovered.

Moreover, "fact" does not mean "absolute certainty." The final proofs of logic and mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and achieve certainty only because they are not about the empirical world. Evolutionists make no claim for perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack us for a style of argument that they themselves favor). In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.

Evolutionists have been clear about this distinction between fact and theory from the very beginning, if only because we have always acknowledged how far we are from completely understanding the mechanisms (theory) by which evolution (fact) occurred. Darwin continually emphasized the difference between his two great and separate accomplishments: establishing the fact of evolution, and proposing a theory—natural selection—to explain the mechanism of evolution. He wrote in The Descent of Man: "I had two distinct objects in view; firstly, to show that species had not been separately created, and secondly, that natural selection had been the chief agent of change. . . . Hence if I have erred in . . . having exaggerated its [natural selection's] power . . . I have at least, as I hope, done good service in aiding to overthrow the dogma of separate creations."
[.......]
Yet amidst all this turmoil No biologist has been lead to doubt the Fact that evolution occurred; we are debating How it happened. We are all trying to explain the same thing: the tree of evolutionary descent linking all organisms by ties of genealogy. Creationists pervert and caricature this debate by conveniently neglecting the common conviction that underlies it, and by Falsely suggesting that evolutionists now doubt the very phenomenon we are struggling to understand.
[......]
The entire creationist program includes little more than a rhetorical attempt to falsify evolution by presenting Supposed contradictions among its supporters.
[......]

`

1. Be clear: nothing I ever do is dishonest.
2. This is exactly the debate I wanted to initiate, because it exposes the fallacy of Darwinian evolution.
As several posters have stated there is zero evidence of speciation.
3. Both Darwin and Gould admitted same.
a. "[]THE ABRUPT manner in which whole groups of species suddenly appear in certain formations, has been urged by several palæontologists[/B]—for instance, by Agassiz, Pictet, and Sedgwick—as a fatal objection to the belief in the transmutation of species. If numerous species, belonging to the same genera or families, have really started into life at once, the fact would be fatal to the theory of evolution[/] through natural selection." Darwin, "On The Origin of Species," p.302

Wow.....Charles Darwin said that the sudden appearance of species would be "[] the fact would be fatal to the theory of evolution."[/]
[]Darwin.
Then there is the quotation that you are so afraid of, you pretend that it doesn't exist.....

b. "The history of most fossil species includes two features particularly inconsistent with gradualism: 1. Stasis. Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear; morphological change is usually limited and directionless. 2. Sudden appearance. In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and “fully formed.”
Stephen Jay Gould
"The Episodic Nature of Evolutionary Change", p. 182
....and found here:
Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology

Wow....Darwinism's fatal flaw documented!
"...[].a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and “fully formed."[/B]
[Gould[/B]
So.....are they being 'dishonest' .....or are you?

Now then.....how about we move on to the more significant question....why folks like you are so intimately wedded to a false doctrine?

There is an answer beyond psychosis......

If you don't understand the reason.....ask me nicely and I will OP that which will set you free: the truth.

You KNOW full well that Gould HIMSELF believes in Darwinian evolution and obviously Punctuated Equilibrium does NOT contradict it.

"sudden" in geologic terms could be Tens/Hundreds of Thousands, or even a Million of Years. It is NOT a creation event.

GOULD Himself:

"..Yet amidst all this turmoil No biologist has been lead to doubt the Fact that evolution occurred; we are debating How it happened.
We are all trying to explain the same thing: the tree of Evolutionary descent linking all organisms by ties of genealogy.

Creationists Pervert and Caricature this debate by conveniently neglecting the common conviction that underlies it, and by Falsely suggesting that evolutionists now doubt the very phenomenon we are struggling to understand.
[......]
The entire Creationist program includes Little more than a rhetorical attempt to Falsify evolution by presenting Supposed Contradictions among its supporters.

Despite this YOU use/ABUSE Gould as supporting you.
You know this, I have posted it often, yet You still LIE and Mislead.

Your posts are [always] Intentionally DISHONEST in this respect.
You try to jump on Uncontexted, Seemingly contradictory, snippets that are NOT so.
YOU LIE Hourly.
YOU MISLEAD in the name of Christ/Religion.
If there is a god he would be Appalled at your persistently Dishonest posts.


(EDIT and as always, I edited PoliticalThic's post to Sane single or double spacing from her Retarded 3/4/5/6 Vertical line Gaps meant to try and HOG/SPAM/BURY more of the board. Similar motive to her Repetitive string topics.)

`

 

[Smilodonfatalis]

There is NO evidence that one species of mammals has ever evolved into an entirely different species. Much less 2 or more. The ONLY evidence of evolution is within a species.

Wrong. There is plenty of cladistic and genetic evidence that species of mammals have evolved into other species of mammals.

You are simply ignorant of this evidence.

29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: The Scientific Case for Common Descent

 

[S.J.]

There is NO evidence that one species of mammals has ever evolved into an entirely different species. Much less 2 or more. The ONLY evidence of evolution is within a species.

Wrong. There is plenty of cladistic and genetic evidence that species of mammals have evolved into other species of mammals.

You are simply ignorant of this evidence.

29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: The Scientific Case for Common Descent

There is absolutely none.

 

[Smilodonfatalis]

There is NO evidence that one species of mammals has ever evolved into an entirely different species. Much less 2 or more. The ONLY evidence of evolution is within a species.

Wrong. There is plenty of cladistic and genetic evidence that species of mammals have evolved into other species of mammals.

You are simply ignorant of this evidence.

29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: The Scientific Case for Common Descent

There is absolutely none.

The fossil record is not evidence?

 

[S.J.]

Wrong. There is plenty of cladistic and genetic evidence that species of mammals have evolved into other species of mammals.

You are simply ignorant of this evidence.

29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: The Scientific Case for Common Descent

There is absolutely none.

The fossil record is not evidence?

No. It's speculation.

 

[Smilodonfatalis]

There is absolutely none.

The fossil record is not evidence?

No. It's speculation.

You can say you don't believe what the fossil record tells us. You can even say it's not proof.

But if you claim the fossil record is not evidence, you are telling a ridiculous falsehood. If there was no evidence as you falsely claim, there would be no Theory of Evolution.

The fossil record alone is enough evidence to support the Theory of Evolution which is the fundamental basis of all biological science. It's accepted as evidence by 99.99% of professional biologists.

Has God fooled the near unanimous consensus of scientists worldwide?

 

[abu afak]

Oh boy, another claim that the "theory" of evolution is fact, without having to prove anything.

No I didn't.

There is absolutely none.

No. It's speculation.

And THAT Ladies and gentlemen is the sum total of TROLL S.J.'s contribution to this string and demonstrates his knowledge of this and all other science topics. -0-

Hey buddy.. WTF are you doing here is all you can do is say "no"?
`

 

[S.J.]

The fossil record is not evidence?

No. It's speculation.

You can say you don't believe what the fossil record tells us. You can even say it's not proof.

But if you claim the fossil record is not evidence, you are telling a ridiculous falsehood. If there was no evidence as you falsely claim, there would be no Theory of Evolution.

The fossil record alone is enough evidence to support the Theory of Evolution which is the fundamental basis of all biological science. It's accepted as evidence by 99.99% of professional biologists.

Has God fooled the near unanimous consensus of scientists worldwide?

When you have some proof let me know. Until then, it's speculation.

 

[S.J.]

Oh boy, another claim that the "theory" of evolution is fact, without having to prove anything.

No I didn't.

There is absolutely none.

No. It's speculation.

And THAT Ladies and gentlemen is the sum total of TROLL S.J.'s contribution to this string and demonstrates his knowledge of this and all other science topics. -0-

Hey buddy.. WTF are you doing here is all you can do is say "no"?
`

Where's your proof, asshole? Post it or STFU.