Is evolution a fact?

[Sherlock Holmes]

There is a growing tendency to refer to the theory of evolution as not a theory at all, but a fact.

This has permeated the literature more and more over the past few decades and is now taken for granted by many people, it is now quite acceptable even in scholarly discourse to describe evolution as a fact.

Here is an article devoted to this, it strives to justify this label, here are some quotes:

"It is a fact, beyond all reasonable dispute, that if you trace your ancestry and your dog’s ancestry backwards you’ll eventually hit a common ancestor".

and

"It is a fact, beyond reasonable dispute, that when you eat fish and chips you are eating distant cousin fish and even more distant cousin potato".

and

"Let’s dump it and talk frankly of evolution as a fact, from which it would be perverse to hold assent".

Richard Dawkins is also on record in this regard:

“Evolution is a fact. Beyond reasonable doubt, beyond serious doubt, beyond sane, informed, intelligent doubt, beyond doubt evolution is a fact".

Can a fact ever be questioned? Well it seems not, note the qualification we see in these quotes "beyond reasonable dispute" (it would be unreasonable to dispute it) and "would be perverse to [with]hold assent" (it would be perversion to dispute it) and "beyond sane doubt" and "beyond informed doubt".

Clearly in the minds of these writers only an unreasonable person, a perverse person, an uninformed, unintelligent person would dispute evolution.

The effect of this is of course to discourage dissent, if one did ever find a reason to dispute evolution then one could not express that because only a perverse, uninformed idiot would ever do that!

Welcome to Kafkaesque world that evolution has grown into, claiming to be science it is dogma. When dissent is discouraged then truth is trampled, when the edicts of those in authority ("the experts") prevent the free expression of ideas then truth is trampled.

This is the real perversion, the unwillingness to be open to question, the insistence that one must agree to be regarded as intelligent, the obsession with eliminating doubt.

This is why I abandoned atheism and later evolution, it is based on fear, fear of disagreeing, fear of questioning, this is not science this is exactly how Galileo was treated, human nature has not changed, just the cloak that it drapes itself in.

 

[RabidAlpaca]

It is a fact, every bit as much of a fact that the earth is round, it revolves around the sun, it's billions of years old, and that germs, gravity and electrons exist. There are literal mountains of evidence that prove evolution beyond any shadow of a doubt. It would be unreasonable for you to throw yourself off of a building because you don't believe gravity exists and this is no different.

You argue otherwise not based on some kind of evidence you have, but because you desperately and psychologically need your personal philosophy to be true and you feel threatened. The science is real, it's directly verifiable, and if you feel you have evidence that's it's all a scam, publish your findings, have them peer reviewed then collect your fame, fortune and Nobel prize. What's stopping you?

 

[watsup]

Stephen Jay Gould says that evolution is a scientific fact. Sherlock days it's not. Who to believe?
That one is easy.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

It is a fact, every bit as much of a fact that the earth is round, it revolves around the sun, it's billions of years old, and that germs, gravity and electrons exist. There are literal mountains of evidence that prove evolution beyond any shadow of a doubt. It would be unreasonable for you to throw yourself off of a building because you don't believe gravity exists and this is no different.

This is absurd, you are referring to simple observations (shape of the globe, age of the earth, existence of electrons) not purported processes that span billions of years.

I would no more jump off a roof than eat food contaminated with botulism, I can see gravity is real and I can see that botulism is real.

All you can see is what we can observe, yes organisms reproduce, yes sometime there are mutations, yes different organisms seem to have common gene sequences in their genome, yes I can see fossils etc - these are the facts, these are what you can claim to be facts, the conclusions drawn from those facts based upon myriad assumptions are not to be elevated to the status of facts.

You argue otherwise not based on some kind of evidence you have, but because you desperately and psychologically need your personal philosophy to be true and you feel threatened.

This is an ad-hominem argument, which is a fallacy, my motivation - whatever it may be - is not what you should be discussing, instead you need to regard the truth or falsity of any propositions I make and the validity of any reasoning based upon them.

The science is real, it's directly verifiable, and if you feel you have evidence that's it's all a scam, publish your findings, have them peer reviewed then collect your fame, fortune and Nobel prize. What's stopping you?

I have no issue with science, facts or verifiable hypotheses based upon these.

My issue is with conjecture and supposition when its elevated to the status of an unquestionable truth.

 

[beefheart]

Yes, it is.

 

[watsup]

This is absurd, you are referring to simple observations (shape of the globe, age of the earth, existence of electrons) not purported processes that span billions of years.

I would no more jump off a roof than eat food contaminated with botulism, I can see gravity is real and I can see that botulism is real.

All you can see is what we can observe, yes organisms reproduce, yes sometime there are mutations, yes different organisms seem to have common gene sequences in their genome, yes I can see fossils etc - these are the facts, these are what you can claim to be facts, the conclusions drawn from those facts based upon myriad assumptions are not to be elevated to the status of facts.



This is an ad-hominem argument, which is a fallacy, my motivation - whatever it may be - is not what you should be discussing, instead you need to regard the truth or falsity of any propositions I make and the validity of any reasoning based upon them.



I have no issue with science, facts or verifiable hypotheses based upon these.

My issue is with conjecture and supposition when its elevated to the status of an unquestionable truth.

Sherlock telling others not or do ad hom. *L*

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

No it isn't.

 

[Slavister]

This is absurd, you are referring to simple observations (... age of the earth ...) not purported processes that span billions of years.

I am glad you could simply observe Earth age, and apparently you agreed that it's billions of years old but disagreed that it spans billions of years.

 

[Geoist]

There is a growing tendency to refer to the theory of evolution as not a theory at all, but a fact.

It is as much a theory as gravity is a theory.

 

[ASHES]

Don't overthink it. The fact of evolution is the observed phenomena that species change over time. That is indisputable, even YEC's have to concede that fact. The theory of evolution explains the mechanisms that cause the changes. That's all.

 

[Irredentist]

There is a growing tendency to refer to the theory of evolution as not a theory at all, but a fact.

This has permeated the literature more and more over the past few decades and is now taken for granted by many people, it is now quite acceptable even in scholarly discourse to describe evolution as a fact.

Here is an article devoted to this, it strives to justify this label, here are some quotes:



and



and



Richard Dawkins is also on record in this regard:



Can a fact ever be questioned? Well it seems not, note the qualification we see in these quotes "beyond reasonable dispute" (it would be unreasonable to dispute it) and "would be perverse to [with]hold assent" (it would be perversion to dispute it) and "beyond sane doubt" and "beyond informed doubt".

Clearly in the minds of these writers only an unreasonable person, a perverse person, an uninformed, unintelligent person would dispute evolution.

The effect of this is of course to discourage dissent, if one did ever find a reason to dispute evolution then one could not express that because only a perverse, uninformed idiot would ever do that!

Welcome to Kafkaesque world that evolution has grown into, claiming to be science it is dogma. When dissent is discouraged then truth is trampled, when the edicts of those in authority ("the experts") prevent the free expression of ideas then truth is trampled.

This is the real perversion, the unwillingness to be open to question, the insistence that one must agree to be regarded as intelligent, the obsession with eliminating doubt.

This is why I abandoned atheism and later evolution, it is based on fear, fear of disagreeing, fear of questioning, this is not science this is exactly how Galileo was treated, human nature has not changed, just the cloak that it drapes itself in.

New ideas which challenge our contemporary understanding of the world are always treated with suspicion, if for no other reason than they are not already widely believed.

In that sense, you are correct that humans do tend to treat modern scientific theories as dogma, right up until the point that they are proven false.

However, at this point in time, there is no alternative theory which can viably explain the phenomena we currently attribute to evolution, and natural selection.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

I am glad you could simply observe Earth age, and apparently you agreed that it's billions of years old but disagreed that it spans billions of years.

You need to re-read what I wrote.

Claiming the earth is several billion years old requires very basic chronological data, like radioactive isotopes, their half life and so on, pretty basic mathematics is all that is.

Claiming hugely complex self repairing machines with genomic complexity in the 30,000 gene range comprised of some 3,000,000,000 base pairs coding for possibly 400,000 different protein molecules some of which are actually knotted (like a rope is knotted) in very complex ways, arose through the basic laws of physics over billions of years from simple single celled life is a very different kind of claim altogether.

Few people I discuss this with have even the slightest idea of what we're even discussing, this may help:

 

[distraff]

There is a growing tendency to refer to the theory of evolution as not a theory at all, but a fact.

This has permeated the literature more and more over the past few decades and is now taken for granted by many people, it is now quite acceptable even in scholarly discourse to describe evolution as a fact.

Here is an article devoted to this, it strives to justify this label, here are some quotes:



and



and



Richard Dawkins is also on record in this regard:



Can a fact ever be questioned? Well it seems not, note the qualification we see in these quotes "beyond reasonable dispute" (it would be unreasonable to dispute it) and "would be perverse to [with]hold assent" (it would be perversion to dispute it) and "beyond sane doubt" and "beyond informed doubt".

Clearly in the minds of these writers only an unreasonable person, a perverse person, an uninformed, unintelligent person would dispute evolution.

The effect of this is of course to discourage dissent, if one did ever find a reason to dispute evolution then one could not express that because only a perverse, uninformed idiot would ever do that!

Welcome to Kafkaesque world that evolution has grown into, claiming to be science it is dogma. When dissent is discouraged then truth is trampled, when the edicts of those in authority ("the experts") prevent the free expression of ideas then truth is trampled.

This is the real perversion, the unwillingness to be open to question, the insistence that one must agree to be regarded as intelligent, the obsession with eliminating doubt.

This is why I abandoned atheism and later evolution, it is based on fear, fear of disagreeing, fear of questioning, this is not science this is exactly how Galileo was treated, human nature has not changed, just the cloak that it drapes itself in.

Something can be both a theory and a fact. For example atomic theory is a theory but the existence of atoms is a fact. The theory of gravity is a theory but gravity is also a fact. The theory of evolution is a theory but it is a fact it happened. We can literally so detailed fossil records of it happening step by step.

 

[Slavister]

You need to re-read what I wrote.

Claiming the earth is several billion years old requires very basic chronological data, like radioactive isotopes, their half life and so on, pretty basic mathematics is all that is.

Claiming hugely complex self repairing machines with genomic complexity in the 30,000 gene range comprised of some 3,000,000,000 base pairs coding for possibly 400,000 different protein molecules some of which are actually knotted (like a rope is knotted) in very complex ways, arose through the basic laws of physics over billions of years from simple single celled life is a very different kind of claim altogether.

Few people I discuss this with have even the slightest idea of what we're even discussing, this may help:

Alright, that was a good post. However, just like with Earth age you extrapolate half life of isotopes for material you believe has always been here, the same way we have a ton of evidence of how evolution progressed from earlier organisms to the more complex ones with a lot of chronological links between them. Do you know for sure the material has not arrived to Earth later on? Do you know for sure isotopes half life was not different a billion years ago?

At the end of the day, we have experts trained in very specialized areas, and until we have a new extremely strong consensus among scientific experts on how we came to be, this might as well be treated as a fact.

 

[roughdraft274]

There is a growing tendency to refer to the theory of evolution as not a theory at all, but a fact.

This has permeated the literature more and more over the past few decades and is now taken for granted by many people, it is now quite acceptable even in scholarly discourse to describe evolution as a fact.

Here is an article devoted to this, it strives to justify this label, here are some quotes:



and



and



Richard Dawkins is also on record in this regard:



Can a fact ever be questioned? Well it seems not, note the qualification we see in these quotes "beyond reasonable dispute" (it would be unreasonable to dispute it) and "would be perverse to [with]hold assent" (it would be perversion to dispute it) and "beyond sane doubt" and "beyond informed doubt".

Clearly in the minds of these writers only an unreasonable person, a perverse person, an uninformed, unintelligent person would dispute evolution.

The effect of this is of course to discourage dissent, if one did ever find a reason to dispute evolution then one could not express that because only a perverse, uninformed idiot would ever do that!

Welcome to Kafkaesque world that evolution has grown into, claiming to be science it is dogma. When dissent is discouraged then truth is trampled, when the edicts of those in authority ("the experts") prevent the free expression of ideas then truth is trampled.

This is the real perversion, the unwillingness to be open to question, the insistence that one must agree to be regarded as intelligent, the obsession with eliminating doubt.

This is why I abandoned atheism and later evolution, it is based on fear, fear of disagreeing, fear of questioning, this is not science this is exactly how Galileo was treated, human nature has not changed, just the cloak that it drapes itself in.

If anyone wants to dispute evolution they need only present evidence against it. People might not like it at first, but if you present real actual evidence or proof that evolution isn't true, you will win. Evolution isn't considered fact because a bunch of mean scientists decided so, or because a bunch of atheists hate your god. It's considered a fact because of the mountains of evidence we have piled up and because it has stood up to decades of scientific inquiry, is backed by innumerable experiments and research and it has allowed us to make prediction after prediction about the world with alot of success.

 

[distraff]

Alright, that was a good post. However, just like with Earth age you extrapolate half life of isotopes for material you believe has always been here, the same way we have a ton of evidence of how evolution progressed from earlier organisms to the more complex ones with a lot of chronological links between them. Do you know for sure the material has not arrived to Earth later on? Do you know for sure isotopes half life was not different a billion years ago?

At the end of the day, we have experts trained in very specialized areas, and until we have a new extremely strong consensus among scientific experts on how we came to be, this might as well be treated as a fact.

I'll answer this one. If the material was on earth later on, then it will be younger than the age of the earth. So we know the earth is at least that age. But when you date enough old rocks, eventually you will find the oldest ones and won't be able to find any much older.

If the decay rates of isotopes was faster in the past, like much faster, that would have huge atomic and chemical implications for our planet. I'm not sure life would do very well when stuff is unstable and more radioactive. If you have evidence this happened, then by all means present it.

We have also dated the oldest rocks through numerous independent dating methods of the independent decay of very different types of elements, and they come out to the same age: 4.5 billion years. Its pretty improbable that very different types of elements had the decay rates changed in such a way as to make their dates all line up so well.

The Age of the Earth

 

[distraff]

You need to re-read what I wrote.

Claiming the earth is several billion years old requires very basic chronological data, like radioactive isotopes, their half life and so on, pretty basic mathematics is all that is.

Claiming hugely complex self repairing machines with genomic complexity in the 30,000 gene range comprised of some 3,000,000,000 base pairs coding for possibly 400,000 different protein molecules some of which are actually knotted (like a rope is knotted) in very complex ways, arose through the basic laws of physics over billions of years from simple single celled life is a very different kind of claim altogether.

Few people I discuss this with have even the slightest idea of what we're even discussing, this may help:

Hugely complex machines can gradually evolve over massive periods of times because natural selection selects good mutations that build these machines slowly from generation to generation. You can see the evolution in the fossil record. You can see layer upon layer separated by millions of years. Each one has somewhat different animals from the one below. The ones at the bottom have the simplest animals, and the higher you go you find more and more complex animals. We find this ordered fossil record that matches the family tree relationship in our DNA. We also have transitional fossils for humans, land animals, mammals, birds, whales, and horses.

 

[Manc Skipper]

Stephen Jay Gould says that evolution is a scientific fact. Sherlock days it's not. Who to believe?
That one is easy.

You mentioned Gould and reminded me of the word he used that describes Holmes' position. Perverse.

"
“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.”

 

[watsup]

You mentioned Gould and reminded me of the word he used that describes Holmes' position. Perverse.

"
“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.”

Hahaha......

 

[watsup]

Thus far:
Evolution is a scientific fact: 10 chatters
Not: one chatter.
Evolutionary biologists: Evolution is a scientific fact.

 

[Dragonfly]

This is why I abandoned atheism and later evolution, it is based on fear,

Not sure what kind of "atheist" you were, but quite obviously you were doing it wrong.

 

[devildavid]

An entire thread wasting time due to either the misunderstanding or the deliberate disregard of what it means to be a scientific theory.

 

[watsup]

Not sure what kind of "atheist" you were, but quite obviously you were doing it wrong.

*L*

 

[Slavister]

I'll answer this one. If the material was on earth later on, then it will be younger than the age of the earth.

Not necessarily. a 10 billion year old rock can crash into a 2-billion old Earth. So if you happen to measure that rock and find it's 10 billion years old, it does not mean Earth is.

If the decay rates of isotopes was faster in the past, like much faster, that would have huge atomic and chemical implications for our planet. I'm not sure life would do very well when stuff is unstable and more radioactive. If you have evidence this happened, then by all means present it.

If it had millions or billions of years to slow down, who is to say it would have any negative effect on our life

We have also dated the oldest rocks through numerous independent dating methods of the independent decay of very different types of elements ...

I believe in science. I was just pointing out that OP's idea of saying other parts of science are fact but evolution is not does not make sense to me because all parts of science make various assumptions, but they all DO seem reasonable to me... until there is evidence to the contrary

 

[distraff]

Not necessarily. a 10 billion year old rock can crash into a 2-billion old Earth. So if you happen to measure that rock and find it's 10 billion years old, it does not mean Earth is.

Yeah, but that will be a rare event. The vast majority of rocks on the earth aren't ancient asteroids. So its very unlikely that all these oldest rocks are being dated in the 4 + billion year old range.

If it had millions or billions of years to slow down, who is to say it would have any negative effect on our life

The slowdown is irrelevant. What matter is if the rate of decay was thousands of times higher in the past than it was now, that is thousands of times more radiation and I'm not even sure what other consequences there are. If you want to propose the decay rate was much higher, you need to explain how its possible for atomic forces to change like that, and predict the physical consquences of that, and look at old layers to see if those predictions are verified. If you can't then your theory is speculative.

I believe in science. I was just pointing out that OP's idea of saying other parts of science are fact but evolution is not does not make sense to me because all parts of science make various assumptions, but they all DO seem reasonable to me... until there is evidence to the contrary

But as I showed with the rate of decay, its not really an assumption. If it had changed radically, we should find evidence of that. Also we wouldn't have independent dating methods coming out with the same rate. These so-called "assumptions" aren't assumptions at all.