Posted by Coach on May 12, 1998 at 14:49:33:
In Reply to: Observations that demand an explanation posted by Chris on April 24, 1998 at 10:24:48:
: : Well, I will first start by saying that I do not believe in evolution if it means that all life on this planet came from the same original lifeform. All these arguments that I hear are of thing I classify as adaption. All things adapt to their enviroment and yes, some things do change slightly for the better, but the belief that we all came from a single cell lifeform, COME ON. Only the strong survive and that is why things change slightly as time goes on. If these things such as "evolution" did accur from a single cell organism, it would have taken literaly Trillions of years for all the diversified types of life forms today. Scientists have already said how old the world is, and it is NOT trillions of years old. Well my argument has come to a close.
: : Steve Forbes
: : Phd. Biological Science, OSU
: So is your name Brian, or is it Steve? Do you have a PhD in Biological Science, or some other educational background?
: Since you don't "believe" that all life on earth shares a common ancestor, I'm wondering how you explain something I deal with on an almost daily basis. I am a graduate student, working on a PhD in biology. The model I currently use is the mouse pituitary. This is not an isolated model standing on its own out in left field as one might think--no biological model can be. When an interesting protein is found in the mouse brain, one can safely assume that identical or closely related proteins will be found in other biological models: zebrafish, nematode worms, sea urchins, fruit flies, yeasts, and of course even in humans. This expectation can be satisfied by searching a gene or protein database for these cousin-molecules. Some small differences will be found, yet they are graded differences: mice are biochemically more similar to humans, mice and humans are more similar to zebrafish, etc. Why else would someone use a model like a mouse brain? It would be trivial if its principles could not be applied to other organizms (and ultimately to medical research). What I have described is data. These are facts. Evolution explains this data--it provides a mechanism that can be tested and reproduced in the laboratory. Since you don't "believe" in the evolutionary explanation for the phenomenon I have described, what alternate explanation do you offer?
Similarities are found, especially at the molecular level, in most living things on the Earth. These similarities are possible evidence for Speciation, but one must ask are they conclusive or could there be asternative explanations? It really is a matter of the Chicken and the Egg. Did all life evolve from one or a few common simple forms, thus having similar biochemical characteristics? Or was life designed to exist under a certain set of conditions, therefore making certain biochemical similarities a necessity? Scientifically only one answer can be investigated...the evolutionary one. Since Science can only deal with natural phenomena, the second option (a Designer not part of nature/Supernatural) cannot be spoken to. This, however, does not preclude the second possibility from being true.
Science cannot investigate many things which we assume are true. In fact, Science as we now know it can only investigate natural phenomena in a very limited area of the Universe, and ASSUMES that the rest of the Universe acts and reacts the same way. Science cannot investigate Truth, for what experiment confirms or denies Truth. In fact, there are no Truths in Science, just theories and data that lead to conclusions which are never 100% certain. I say this to say that Science, while being a wonderful tool, is not the only method for obtaining information that humans use. Your arguments assume that if one explanation can be investigated Scientifically and one cannot that the Scientifically valid one is the superior argument. I believe this to be a faulty premise. The biggest scientific problem with the theory of evolution
is that it Cannot be experimentally verified. Evidences for and against can be found, but unless we are able in the future to find a virgin planet and observe it for several billion years we will never be able to experimentally show if it is a good theory or not. Your argument that it is valid because it is the only theory we have reminds me of the 19th Century British Physicists who proclaimed that all the Physical properties of the Universe had been discovered, Science had only to work out the specific details to understand everything. 25 years later a few rebels like Planck, Heisenberg, and Einstein felt differently. "In the land of the blind the one eyed man may be King", but the one eyed man is not to smart if he doesn't swivel his head when he tries to cross the road. If Science comes up with a theory and then can only
support it with indirect and secondary evidence, then it is valid for other theories to be propounded. evolution is a good case of this, but there have been others.