Stephen Jay Gould, "Evolution as Fact and Theory"

[abu afak]

Here is Stephen J. Gould, Marxist, pretty much throwing Darwin under the bus.

““Paleontologists have paid an enormous price for Darwin’s argument. We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life’s history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we almost never see the very process we profess to study. …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.’” (Gould, Stephen J. The Panda’s Thumb, 1980, p. 181-182.).'" (Gould, Stephen J. The Panda's Thumb, 1980, p. 181-182)

Is this quote accurate, true, and correct?

I jammed it down your lying throat, huh?

SJ Gould is a 100% Evolutionist.
He disagrees with perfect 'gradualism' and he himself (with Eldrege) Tweaked Evolution with 'Punctuated Equilibrium.' Saying that it may oft move much more quickly.
This would of course be TRUE/Logical if there were ie, large geologic/climate events/etc.

You are also, and most crucially, trying to Discredit Evolution by Nitpicking Darwin WITH GOULD.
Exactly the DISHONEST PLOY Gould wrote about above!

GOULD BELIEVED IN EVOLUTION 100%.

You cannot debate me.
You're both wrong and Not semantically clever enough.
You are a DISHONEST and Brainwashed Creationist Cultist Spammer and 7/11 Adventist.
You need to be detoxed with years of therapy/real education.

BTW BIMBO: Being a "Marxist" (or a Fascist) (or Democrat) doesn't make science correct or incorrect.
It's just another of your STUPID Smear attempts.

Have a nice page.
This one is now mine too.
Now YOU "Jam it down your throat". (for the usual $5)

`

 

[PoliticalChic]

Here is Stephen J. Gould, Marxist, pretty much throwing Darwin under the bus.

““Paleontologists have paid an enormous price for Darwin’s argument. We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life’s history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we almost never see the very process we profess to study. …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.’” (Gould, Stephen J. The Panda’s Thumb, 1980, p. 181-182.).'" (Gould, Stephen J. The Panda's Thumb, 1980, p. 181-182)

Is this quote accurate, true, and correct?

I jammed it down your lying throat, huh?

SJ Gould is a 100% Evolutionist.
He disagrees with perfect 'gradualism' and he himself (with Eldrege) Tweaked Evolution with 'Punctuated Equilibrium.' Saying that it may oft move much more quickly.
This would of course be TRUE/Logical if there were ie, large geologic/climate events/etc.

You are also, and most crucially, trying to Discredit Evolution by Nitpicking Darwin WITH GOULD.
Exactly the DISHONEST PLOY Gould wrote about above!

GOULD BELIEVED IN EVOLUTION 100%.

You cannot debate me.
You're both wrong and Not semantically clever enough.
You are a DISHONEST and Brainwashed Creationist Cultist Spammer and 7/11 Adventist.
You need to be detoxed with years of therapy/real education.

BTW BIMBO: Being a "Marxist" (or a Fascist) (or Democrat) doesn't make science correct or incorrect.
It's just another of your STUPID Smear attempts.

Have a nice page.
This one is now mine too.
Now YOU "Jam it down your throat". (for the usual $5)

`

Why sugar-coat it: you’re not capable of an intelligent response. All of your posts reek of ignorance. How about you provide another one, just to prove it.

Write soon so I can smack you around some more.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

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

The Theory of Evolution is the most robust and well supported scientific theory in history. Just because you have never cracked a science book and haven't seen the evidence does not mean it does not exist.

 

[abu afak]

Why sugar-coat it: you’re not capable of an intelligent response. All of your posts reek of ignorance. How about you provide another one, just to prove it.

Write soon so I can smack you around some more.

I hardly sugar coated it.. I regularly call you the Liar for Jesus you are.
And thanks for the old bump opportunity.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

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

The Theory of Evolution is the most robust and well supported scientific theory in history. Just because you have never cracked a science book and haven't seen the evidence does not mean it does not exist.

Why hasn't intelligent life "evolved" on Europa or Venus?

 

[abu afak]

Why hasn't intelligent life "evolved" on Europa or Venus?

God was extremely limited in resources/talent apparently?

`

 

[Ringtone]

When we finish with why evolution is a lie, our next topic will be why the Sun really goes around the Earth, and that topic will be followed by a presentation entitled "The Four Humours & You: How to Keep in Balance for Fun, Profit, & Health." Make sure you stay to the end when we discuss how dental cavities are caused by tiny worms.

I have a better idea!

Let's discuss why you believe metaphysical naturalism, on which the fanciful hypothesis of evolution is predicated, is necessarily true. Then we can discuss how you, not God, tricked yourself into interpreting the available evidence per the gratuitous insertion of an apriority that circularly begs the question and axiomatically yields the mathematical monstrosity of a biological history entailing an evolutionary branching and transmutational process of speciation from a common ancestry.

Then we can transparently perceive the actual reason that biologists of the evolutionary hypothesis believe it to be true, that is, because they presuppose their interpretation of the available evidence in their premise as they observe that adaptive radiation occurs and that the paleontological record entails the chronologically sequential appearances of species of a generally increasing complexity and variety over geological time.

The gratuitous apriority is not observed. It's an assumption and scientifically unfalsifiable.

Hocus Pocus

Make sure you stay to the end when I show you the potentiality that has never occurred to you in all of your unexamined life, namely, that biological history entails a series of creative events per a systematically upgraded and transcribed genetic motif of common design imbued by God to adaptively radiate per the mechanisms of natural selection, genetic mutation, genetic drift, and genetic flow over geological time.

Bonus points if you should suddenly have the epiphany that the available evidence would actually be similar, although a cyclically limited range of adaptive radiation to the taxonomic level of genus is all we actually observe. The putative evolutionary branching and transmutational speciation from a common ancestry is not and cannot be observed. Not now, not ever!

 

[Ringtone]

The fossils of Karoo.

Prove what, precisely?

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

When we finish with why evolution is a lie, our next topic will be why the Sun really goes around the Earth, and that topic will be followed by a presentation entitled "The Four Humours & You: How to Keep in Balance for Fun, Profit, & Health." Make sure you stay to the end when we discuss how dental cavities are caused by tiny worms.

I have a better idea!

Let's discuss why you believe metaphysical naturalism, on which the fanciful hypothesis of evolution is predicated, is necessarily true. Then we can discuss how you, not God, tricked yourself into interpreting the available evidence per the gratuitous insertion of an apriority that circularly begs the question and axiomatically yields the mathematical monstrosity of a biological history entailing an evolutionary branching and transmutational process of speciation from a common ancestry.

Then we can transparently perceive the actual reason that biologists of the evolutionary hypothesis believe it to be true, that is, because they presuppose their interpretation of the available evidence in their premise as they observe that adaptive radiation occurs and that the paleontological record entails the chronologically sequential appearances of species of a generally increasing complexity and variety over geological time.

The gratuitous apriority is not observed. It's an assumption and scientifically unfalsifiable.

Hocus Pocus

Make sure you stay to the end when I show you the potentiality that has never occurred to you in all of your unexamined life, namely, that biological history entails a series of creative events per a systematically upgraded and transcribed genetic motif of common design imbued by God to adaptively radiate per the mechanisms of natural selection, genetic mutation, genetic drift, and genetic flow over geological time.

Bonus points if you should suddenly have the epiphany that the available evidence would actually be similar, although a cyclically limited range of adaptive radiation to the taxonomic level of genus is all we actually observe. The putative evolutionary branching and transmutational speciation from a common ancestry is not and cannot be observed. Not now, not ever!

An even better idea: we just continue to ignore you denier freaks as we have for decades.

 

[Ringtone]

scientific theory
scientific theory
a theory that can be tested and potentially disproved; failure to disprove or refute it increases confidence in it, but it cannot be considered as proven.

Does NOT contradict what I said, but is DISHONEST Cherry-Picking on your part
FILTHY DISHONESTY
Google "Scientific theory"
scientific theory - Google Search

First up: Wiki

A scientific theory is a Well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of facts that have been repeatedly Confirmed through observation and experiment. Such fact-supported theories are not "guesses" but reliable accounts of the real world.​

Scientific theory - Wikipedia​

Scientific theory - Wikipedia​

Sciam:

"Just a Theory": 7 Misused Science Words​

​

​

Theories do Not, and don't have to be, Proven to be FACT.​

Proofs are only for math.​

Most Statements of Fact are not "Proven."​

​

Mindless, cut-and-paste slogan speak which has absolutely nothing to do with the pertinent issue.

Meanwhile back to issue: Stephen Jay Gould, "Evolution as Fact and Theory"

 

[Hollie]

When we finish with why evolution is a lie, our next topic will be why the Sun really goes around the Earth, and that topic will be followed by a presentation entitled "The Four Humours & You: How to Keep in Balance for Fun, Profit, & Health." Make sure you stay to the end when we discuss how dental cavities are caused by tiny worms.

I have a better idea!

Let's discuss why you believe metaphysical naturalism, on which the fanciful hypothesis of evolution is predicated, is necessarily true. Then we can discuss how you, not God, tricked yourself into interpreting the available evidence per the gratuitous insertion of an apriority that circularly begs the question and axiomatically yields the mathematical monstrosity of a biological history entailing an evolutionary branching and transmutational process of speciation from a common ancestry.

Then we can transparently perceive the actual reason that biologists of the evolutionary hypothesis believe it to be true, that is, because they presuppose their interpretation of the available evidence in their premise as they observe that adaptive radiation occurs and that the paleontological record entails the chronologically sequential appearances of species of a generally increasing complexity and variety over geological time.

The gratuitous apriority is not observed. It's an assumption and scientifically unfalsifiable.

Hocus Pocus

Make sure you stay to the end when I show you the potentiality that has never occurred to you in all of your unexamined life, namely, that biological history entails a series of creative events per a systematically upgraded and transcribed genetic motif of common design imbued by God to adaptively radiate per the mechanisms of natural selection, genetic mutation, genetic drift, and genetic flow over geological time.

Bonus points if you should suddenly have the epiphany that the available evidence would actually be similar, although a cyclically limited range of adaptive radiation to the taxonomic level of genus is all we actually observe. The putative evolutionary branching and transmutational speciation from a common ancestry is not and cannot be observed. Not now, not ever!

There’s no need for “belief” in Metaphysical naturalism. Natural phenomenon (as opposed to your nonsensical supernatural phenomena) is all humanity has evidence for.

Tell us about “supernatural naturalism”. Provide some examples and supporting data. Show us the magic.

 

[Ringtone]

Ridiculous. Saying someone on the internet that is not true is quite easy. And as easily ignored as the abject ignorance it is.


"The voice of intelligence is drowned out by the roar of fear. It is ignored by the voice of desire. It is contradicted by the voice of shame. It is biased by hate and extinguished by anger. Most of all it is silenced by ignorance." - Karl A. Menninger -

What's ridiculous is your blind faith in naturalism.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

6WUOTE="Ringtone, post: 26328294, member: 72504"]

scientific theory
scientific theory
a theory that can be tested and potentially disproved; failure to disprove or refute it increases confidence in it, but it cannot be considered as proven.

Does NOT contradict what I said, but is DISHONEST Cherry-Picking on your part
FILTHY DISHONESTY
Google "Scientific theory"
scientific theory - Google Search

First up: Wiki

A scientific theory is a Well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of facts that have been repeatedly Confirmed through observation and experiment. Such fact-supported theories are not "guesses" but reliable accounts of the real world.​

Scientific theory - Wikipedia​

Scientific theory - Wikipedia​

Sciam:

"Just a Theory": 7 Misused Science Words​

​

​

Theories do Not, and don't have to be, Proven to be FACT.​

Proofs are only for math.​

Most Statements of Fact are not "Proven."​

​

Mindless, cut-and-paste slogan speak which has absolutely nothing to do with the pertinent issue.

Meanwhile back to issue: Stephen Jay Gould, "Evolution as Fact and Theory"
[/QUOTE]
Yep, evolution is both a scientific theory and a fact.

 

[Ringtone]

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

Presumably, RetiredGySgt's observation goes to the absurdity of speciation above the genus level of taxonomy and the fact that we do not and cannot observe speciation beyond the cyclically limited range of adaptive radiation. He is absolutely right!

And you are utterly unaware of why you actually believe evolution is true.

 

[Ringtone]

Look, everybody, Hollie actually said "supernatural naturalism." You just can't make this degree of stupidity up. LOL!

 

[Hollie]

Look, everybody, Hollie actually said "supernatural naturalism." You just can't make this degree of stupidity up. LOL!

Actually, your limitations are rather graphically depicted. Such slogans as "metaphysical naturalism" is a retreat by ID'iot creationists to their tactics of denigrating the reason and rationing of science.

If ID'iot creationers have any evidence of their supernatural realms inhabited by supernatural gods (the supernatural natural), present your evidence.

Thanks

I'll be waiting for evidence of your various gods in their heavenly realms, dressed in nightgowns while fat, naked babies playing harps cruise through the clouds.

 

[Hollie]

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

Presumably, RetiredGySgt's observation goes to the absurdity of speciation above the genus level of taxonomy and the fact that we do not and cannot observe speciation beyond the cyclically limited range of adaptive radiation. He is absolutely right!

And you are utterly unaware of why you actually believe evolution is true.

You make the typical mistakes that are typically made among the typical hyper-religious types. There is no belief required for the discipines of science such as biological evolution. The fact of biological evolution is a conclusion that derives from facts and supporting evidence. There is no requirement for belief that specied evolve. That’s a proven fact. The reason and rationality of science rejects the need for magic and supernaturalism that is a function of belief in gods.

Unfortunately, you enter a science discussion with no training in science. Your time spent at the Jimmy Swaggert Academy has left you ill-prepared to discuss science matters.

“Theories” do not gain currency in any scientific field merely because they “suit our belief.” We have specific tools that allow us to discriminate between good theories and bad ones. And science is the single most powerful and productive human enterprise in the history of our species only because these tools actually work. While never providing “proof,” they demonstrably move us incrementally towards objective truth. If they did not, then science would not have changed our world as it has, for better or worse.

You clearly are lacking in terms of understanding definitions used in science. You don’t understand the most basic precepts of speciation. That’s not surprising as the fundie ministries you use as the sources of your cutting and pasting have a predefined agenda that is announced by the “Statement of Faith” that is common to the various fundie ministries.

1. Observed Instances of Speciation

2. Some More Observed Speciation Events

3. CB910: New species

4. This is real science.......not religionism.

Why you imagine your ignorant and unschooled comments are some sort of challenge to evolution is not clear to me. The mechanisms for speciation are very well understood, and can even be observed to be occurring today. Take for example "ring species" such as the salamanders of the genus Ensatina, or (more well known) the circumpolar gulls of the genus Larus.

The range of these gulls forms a ring around the North Pole. The Herring Gull, which lives primarily in Great Britain, can hybridize with the American Herring Gull (living in North America), which can also interbreed with the Vega or East Siberian Herring Gull, the western subspecies of which, Birula's Gull, can hybridize with Heuglin's gull, which in turn can interbreed with the Siberian Lesser Black-backed Gull (all four of these live across the north of Siberia). The last is the eastern representative of the Lesser Black-backed Gulls back in northwestern Europe, including Great Britain. However, the Lesser Black-backed Gulls and Herring Gull are sufficiently different that they cannot interbreed; thus the group of gulls forms a continuum except in Europe where the two lineages meet.

This means of course that the two populations in Europe are different species (just as H. ergaster and H. sapiens are different species). Yet there is genetic continuity between them. In the case of the gulls, that continuity still exists in living gulls. In the case of humans, the intermediates are extinct.

It is factually false to claim that there are no intermediate forms between the listed species. Between H. ergaster and H. sapiens there is an intermediate species called H. heidelbergensis. As evolution would predict, the earliest heidelbergensis resemble ergaster more than they do sapiens, while the later heidelbergensis more resemble sapiens. as a result, the dividing line between the species is largely arbitrary, based more on age and location than any specific Rubicon of morphology. There is, in fact, an almost unbroken series of intermediate fossils between modern man and the earliest representatives of our genus back to H. habilis. And given the fact that evolution is a local phenomenon, it is no surprise to discover (contrary to ID’iot creationer screeching) that several of these species overlapped in time.

And you are aware of why you launch yourself into drooling tirades aimed at science; you despise what you don't understand and science is a direct refutation to your belief in magic and supernaturalism

 

[abu afak]

The truth is people weren't taught human evolution. Human evolution isn't a fact. Even Darwin didn't say that. Furthermore, there is no valid evidence for a common ancestor. That kills it right there. And who wants to be a monkey's uncle like you? Are you hairy, eat bananas, sh*t in the jungle, and walk on fours?

abu afak

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.
[......]

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Why hasn't intelligent life "evolved" on Europa or Venus?

How do you know it didn't? What about evolution says it should have?

 

[abu afak]

How do you know it didn't? What about evolution says it should have?

CrusaderFrank also denies AGW with nonsense one-line trolls.
Science porks his belief system so he tries to discredit it everywhere.

`