Evolution: The Scientific Evidence

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by Jwb52z

"Let's not tell the general public anything that we don't absolutely have to until the social development is at a level where a release of a discovery won't cause problems.

... and who do you think should make that decision?

It has to be someone who understands the scientific discovery.

It has to be someone who can reliably predict what effect an announcement of the scientific discovery will have on the general public and on social development.

It has to be someone who can determine (a) the current "level" of social development, and (b) the "level" of social development at which the release of the discovery won't cause problems.

Do there exist any human beings who can fill that role? If so, who?

You can have societal progression without having to tell them specific things to learn to accept or forced to accept. You can teach a child how to be responsible, but you don't give them anymore responsibility than they are ready for or more than they can handle.

So, you view society as a sort of child? Who's the parent?

Scientists, by their nature and their chosen work, can handle things without problems in that area that the general public is not as likely to be able to cope with just because it's found to be true.

So, scientists, "by their nature and their chosen work", are qualified to fulfill the roles I listed above? So scientists are the "parents" of society?

Then why don't you trust scientists to determine whether or not to announce their discoveries, as they do now and always have done?

You teach a child by giving them responsibilities as time goes by, not by forcing them to adapt every time something changes.

I think your child analogy is not helpful in regard to announcement of scientific discoveries once we start analyzing the practical considerations. As a cute or poetic overview, it's okay, but not more. I suggest that you re-work your argument.

It's like this, "Let's deal with what's on our plate that is already a controversy and get that ironed out before we have to deal with the next thing that will be a problem".

Who determines whether a current controversy has been adequately dealt-with or ironed-out?

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by mfgoode

The evolutionists can stick to their science which requires facts and proof
The religionists may have their Faith and beliefs. These are two separate air tight compartments.

Millions of religious people also accept and understand evolution.

Some people posting in this forum (e.g., me) may be both "evolutionist" and nonreligious, but that doesn't mean that no one else can be both religious and accepting of evolution.

But more than that lets ask ourselves where are we heading. Im not thinking of a billion years but just say a few years when we will be dead.

In the future, evolution will continue to operate just as it has been all along. For thousands of years human beings have been adding a tiny fraction of conscious mutation, breeding, and selection of plants and animals to the random mutations and natural selection that have continued to operate, and their conscious intervention may increase in the future, but that doesn't invalidate any evolutionary theory.

I have asked the question to the evolutionists and so far they have side stepped the issue, in this thread anyway.

What's really happened earlier is that you've set up a "straw man" by pretending that if evolutionists can't answer a question which is outside the scope of evolution, then evolution is wrong. That's a rhetorical trick, not any kind of disproof.

My straight forward question; What happens after death?

Well, the body starts decaying, which is a matter of medicine and physiology rather than evolution. Is that what you meant?

Or if you meant to ask what happens in a spiritual context -- well, that's not in the scope of evolution either, any more than it's in the scope of the mathematics of arithmetic or in the scope of the art of basketweaving. So don't pretend that responses to that question have anything to do with evolution.

We've repeatedly told you that evolution is part of science, not of religion. Do you accept that?

I give myself at the most ten years to live. Have they got a message for me?

What kind of message do you want?

Evolution is part of science, not of religion.

Is there any hope of an after life

Evolution is part of science, not of religion.

Should I give up in life as defeated or strive to better an after life?

Evolution is part of science, not of religion.

[jinydu]

And I think the child analogy is misleading. Children have built-in biological instructions to grow and develop more cognitive abilities (albeit with the loss of others, such as the ability to rapidly learn a new language). And while society may be willing to accept some new ideas with time, it may also vehemently reject previous ideas. What evidence do you really have that society will be any better in 10 generations? 100? 1000?

[Jwb52z]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

... and who do you think should make that decision?

It has to be someone who understands the scientific discovery.

It has to be someone who can reliably predict what effect an announcement of the scientific discovery will have on the general public and on social development.

It has to be someone who can determine (a) the current "level" of social development, and (b) the "level" of social development at which the release of the discovery won't cause problems.

Do there exist any human beings who can fill that role? If so, who?

So, you view society as a sort of child? Who's the parent?

It's clearly no single person. I would sort of suggest a council made up of people qualified to make decisions in each facet of the questions you pose. I would, maybe sometimes begrudgingly, accept such a body put into effect to decide such things.

So, scientists, "by their nature and their chosen work", are qualified to fulfill the roles I listed above? So scientists are the "parents" of society?

No, I think it's more like scientists could be considered the teenagers who can handle more than the rest of society, but as scientists are human, they're hopefully not past the point where nothing will bother them.

Then why don't you trust scientists to determine whether or not to announce their discoveries, as they do now and always have done?

Well, I answered that above.

I think your child analogy is not helpful in regard to announcement of scientific discoveries once we start analyzing the practical considerations. As a cute or poetic overview, it's okay, but not more. I suggest that you re-work your argument.

The analogy of a child was the closest thing I could think of to express what I meant without having to go into possibly insulting territory of people who think they are ready to handle things when they really are not and they don't find out until it's too late and bad things happen to them. I hope you can see why I chose the child analogy instead.

Who determines whether a current controversy has been adequately dealt-with or ironed-out?

I don't think this is about "who", but "when". The "when" is at such a time when the issue itself is no longer seen as something to give a second thought to so people are indifferent to it existing or not so they won't necessarily care anymore or something wholely disregarded by humanity or a specific society.

[S485122]

Originally Posted by mfgoode

My straight forward question; What happens after death? What does Darwin and his honchos say ?

I do not know what honchos are and don't want to research it now.
I do not know if I would define myself as an evolutionist, because I would have to define myself as a gravitationist, general-relativitionist and so many other things pertaining to our knowledge of the word.

But I can answer your question: after my death I will cease to exist as a being. Of course there will be some remains for a time: flesh, bones... Just the same thing as what happens to all (other) animals in the christian religion. As Joshua Bar Youssouf said "you are dust and will return to dust". And I have seen this view expressed by others in this and other threads ("does god exist", "abortion...", ...

[Jwb52z]

Originally Posted by jinydu

And I think the child analogy is misleading. Children have built-in biological instructions to grow and develop more cognitive abilities (albeit with the loss of others, such as the ability to rapidly learn a new language). And while society may be willing to accept some new ideas with time, it may also vehemently reject previous ideas. What evidence do you really have that society will be any better in 10 generations? 100? 1000?

It's not exactly that I have evidence for such betterment, but I simplly can't imagine any significant likelyhood that society go to Hell in a handbasket either. I think history itself proves that progress is made overall, even with setbacks so far.

[S485122]

Originally Posted by Jwb52z

It's clearly no single person. I would sort of suggest a council made up of people qualified to make decisions in each facet of the questions you pose. I would, maybe sometimes begrudgingly, accept such a body put into effect to decide such things.

A dictatorship of the few: an oligarchy. Who would appoint those people because how could unqualified people decide who is qualified? And who will control those qualified people?

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by mfgoode

I have asked the question to the evolutionists and so far they have side stepped the issue, in this thread anyway.

In what way have the evolutionists sidestepped anything? They've merely pointed out that science, by its very nature, deals with verifiable facts. That's not sidestepping ... on the other hand saying "God exists, and my proof inevitably rests on circular reasoning, but you can't prove me wrong, therefore I'm right" -- now that's sidestepping.

My straight forward question; What happens after death?

My straightforward answer: based on known science, you stay dead, but your progeny (if you have any) carry your genes, and perhaps also some of your personal values and ideas, forward.

I give myself at the most ten years to live. Have they got a message for me?

Try to make the most of them.

Is there any hope of an after life or am I going to end up like the monkey who fell off a tree and left his whatnots behind on a branch with enough HIV to contaminate the world long after he has become a fossil?

Based on known science, there is no afterlife except of the indirect kind described above. No clue what your HIV-related rant is about ... anyway, monkeys don't catch HIV, they have a closely related virus, SIV, which they've co-evolved with long enough (unlike humans and HIV) so that it does not harm them anymore. HIV most likely started when a human killed an SIV-carrying monkey for meat, caught the virus, and it began to mutate in his body, eventually leading to the emergence of HIV as we know it. This is well-understood evolutionary biology, which also predicts that in a couple of hundreds or thousands of generations (even in the absence of modern medicine), humans will have acquired natural resistance to HIV.

Should I give up in life as defeated or strive to better an after life?

Entirely up to you. If you are a person who doesnt believe in an afterlife, though, it certainly might lend a certain urgency to one's pursuits in (this) life, which an afterlifer might lack. But given the number of deeply religious people who have spent their lives striving and achieved great things, it would seem foolish to overgeneralize on this point. A similar issue arises n the question of "should we seek justice in this life or the next?"

[Jwb52z]

Originally Posted by Jacob Visser

A dictatorship of the few: an oligarchy. Who would appoint those people because how could unqualified people decide who is qualified? And who will control those qualified people?

Well, I would assume, under my idea, that the President would still exist. I would trust that position to oversee the group in most respects. They wouldn't be appointed, exactly. It would be more like a presidential mandate to each group to have to pick/choose/vote on etc a person to best be in the specific position in the group.

[jinydu]

Originally Posted by Jwb52z

It's not exactly that I have evidence for such betterment, but I simplly can't imagine any significant likelyhood that society go to Hell in a handbasket either. I think history itself proves that progress is made overall, even with setbacks so far.

Progress and decline are not the only two possibilities for a society. There is a third possibility, namely what you call stagnation; I think it is the most accurate description of what really happens.

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by Jwb52z

Well, I would assume, under my idea, that the President would still exist. I would trust that position to oversee the group in most respects. They wouldn't be appointed, exactly. It would be more like a presidential mandate to each group to have to pick/choose/vote on etc a person to best be in the specific position in the group.

Actually, I prefer a slightly different kind of governance, which is perhaps best described by way of the following smashing scene from a famous documentary:

Scene 3

[thud] [King Arthur music] [thud thud thud] [King Arthur music stops]
ARTHUR: Old woman!
DENNIS: Man!
ARTHUR: Man. Sorry. What knight lives in that castle over there?
DENNIS: I'm thirty-seven.
ARTHUR: I-- what?
DENNIS: I'm thirty-seven. I'm not old.
ARTHUR: Well, I can't just call you 'Man'.
DENNIS: Well, you could say 'Dennis'.
ARTHUR: Well, I didn't know you were called 'Dennis'.
DENNIS: Well, you didn't bother to find out, did you?
ARTHUR: [Peasants] I did say 'sorry' about the 'old woman', but from the behind you looked--
DENNIS: What I object to is that you automatically treat me like an inferior!
ARTHUR: Well, I am King!
DENNIS: Oh, King, eh, very nice. And how d'you get that, eh? By exploiting the workers! By 'anging on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society. If there's ever going to be any progress with the--
WOMAN : Dennis, there's some lovely filth down here. Oh! How d'you do?
ARTHUR: How do you do, good lady? I am Arthur, King of the Britons. Who's castle is that?
WOMAN : King of the who?
ARTHUR: The Britons.
WOMAN : Who are the Britons?
ARTHUR: Well, we all are. We are all Britons, and I am your king.
WOMAN : I didn't know we had a king. I thought we were an autonomous collective.
DENNIS: You're fooling yourself. We're living in a dictatorship: a self-perpetuating autocracy in which the working classes--
WOMAN : Oh, there you go bringing class into it again.
DENNIS: That's what it's all about. If only people would hear of--
ARTHUR: Please! Please, good people. I am in haste. Who lives in that castle?
WOMAN : No one lives there.
ARTHUR: Then who is your lord?
WOMAN : We don't have a lord.
ARTHUR: What?
DENNIS: I told you. We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week,...
ARTHUR: Yes.
DENNIS: ...but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting...
ARTHUR: Yes, I see.
DENNIS: ...by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs,...
[Arthur represses Dennis]
ARTHUR: Be quiet!
DENNIS: ...but by a two-thirds majority in the case of more major--
ARTHUR: Be quiet! I order you to be quiet!
WOMAN : Order, eh? Who does he think he is? Heh.
ARTHUR: I am your king!
WOMAN : Well, I didn't vote for you.
ARTHUR: You don't vote for kings.
WOMAN : Well, how did you become King, then?
ARTHUR: The Lady of the Lake,... [angels sing] ...her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water signifying by Divine Providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. [singing stops] That is why I am your king!
DENNIS: Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
ARTHUR: Be quiet!
DENNIS: Well, but you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!
ARTHUR: Shut up!
DENNIS: I mean, if I went 'round saying I was an emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!
ARTHUR: Shut up, will you? Shut up!
DENNIS: Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system.
ARTHUR: Shut up!
DENNIS: Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help! Help! I'm being repressed!
ARTHUR: Bloody peasant!
DENNIS: Oh, what a give-away. Did you hear that? Did you hear that, eh? That's what I'm on about. Did you see him repressing me? You saw it, didn't you?