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Forums - General Discussion - Do You Accept Evolution as a Fact?

 

Do you believe in evolution?

Yes 657 75.69%
 
Mostly, some things are questionable. 74 8.53%
 
No 99 11.41%
 
Not really, but some could be true. 38 4.38%
 
Total:868
LivingMetal said:
theprof00 said:

How would you explain that dogs and wolves can sometimes interbreed despite being 2 different species

Because they are similar enough as animals.  But I also mentioned in an early post that "species" was a classification developed by man.  And like anything man made, it's subject to revision/correction.

Indeed. Species is something that humans invented, we can't give a clear definition to it. Therefore, your argument that a species can't evolve into anotherspecies doesn't make sense.



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LivingMetal said:
SvennoJ said:

There are plenty flighless birds, frogs start out as fish, caterpillars become butterflies. All species share a lot of the same DNA. DNA for a wing is very similar to DNA for a fins or a limb. There are plenty species that don't neatly fit into kindergarten classification. Species definition is a problem onto itself as there are no neat boundaries. For example Mesodinium chamaeleon crosses the boundary between plants and animals.

But they are still birds.  Was a frog really a fish, and did that "fish" matured into something else rather than a frog? And many insect are born as larve.  And there are similarities in regards to DNA.  That's doesn't mean I can sprout wings. 

Well there's a chance your kids can be born with a tail, fused mermaid legs or webbed fingers and/or toes. There's no more advantage to that nowadays so those mutations (or rather switches) are going nowhere. Currently humans are mostly breeding for low IQ :p

Over time your ancestors can sprout wings. The human species will need to shrink a lot first, a long period of nuclear winter or global warming exciction event should suffice to shrink species. Webbed arms can become advantageous to increase jump distance by gliding (like certain squirrels in the Amazon) Flight already evolved 4 seperate time before https://www.scienceworld.ca/blog/evolution-flight so get rid of civilization (works against evolution), make it very hard to survive, wait serveral hundred million years and increase the oxygen content a bit to favor high energetic actions.



LivingMetal said:
Peh said:

This is evolution. Why are people still ignorant about it?

It is evolution, but it's still a dog. 

If you expect it to breed something completely new which fails to be categorized as a dog, then you do not understand evolution.



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Evolution as been proven. Maybe there are missing links to explain exactly where humans are coming from, so that one is still out for debate.
But evolution of species in general? It's a fact, every living thing on the planet is in constant evolution ,a species that can't evolve is a dead species.



potato_hamster said:
TheLastStarFighter said:

There's a lot of poor English on here. Evolution is not a fact, it's a theory. It will always be a theory by definition.

And to "believe" in something is to take it as truth.

So those saying they don't believe in it, it's not a theory it's fact just don't understand the meaning of the words they are using.

The correct answer is simply, yes, I believe in evolution.

A scientific "theory" is not the same as the common vernacular of "theory". It is not an idea. It doesn't require belief to accept it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory

Look, there's a section in there written specifically for people like you :)

So, if you're going to claim people don't understand the meaning of the words they are using, perhaps you should understand them yourself.

Sigh.  You seem confused and you need to read it yourself aparently.  Posters saying "It's not a theory, it's a fact" do not understand the meaning of scientific theory.  And you do not understand the meaning of believe, which is simply again, "taken to be true".

To say "I belive in the evolution theory" is to say "I take evolution, which has been tested over time enough to be scientifically proven, to be true".  To say it doen't take "belief" and "it's fact not theory" is to not understand the meaning of the words.  And that actually includes you, as you don't understand the meaning of believe.  That's natural, as people often use the word incorrectly today as a substitute for believing without facts.  It's from the Bible line where Jesus says "Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe".  As a result, people often include the two ideas together these days, but the "believing" part and the "not seen" part are actually not connected.  Believing simply means to take as truth.



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Peh said:
Rogerioandrade said:
I wouldn´t use the word "believe" in this case......

I´d say that I do think that evolution happened someway but I´m not so sure that it happened exactly the way we are taught a school or how Darwin proposed. After all, it´s not called a "scientific theory" by chance or for no reason.

And I say that being a Christian that - and here I may use that word - believe that creationism and evolutionary thought are not opposite at all. In fact, they´re have a lot of things in common, much more than most people think

Which are?

One uses the scientific method and the other one faith.

They couldn't be even more far from each other.

TheLastStarFighter said:

There's a lot of poor English on here. Evolution is not a fact, it's a theory. It will always be a theory by definition.

And to "believe" in something is to take it as truth.

So those saying they don't believe in it, it's not a theory it's fact just don't understand the meaning of the words they are using.

The correct answer is simply, yes, I believe in evolution.

LOL

Poor english? You sure about that? Because in science a theory has a different definition than a normal theory. Look it up: Scientific theory. Evolution is a fact. Saying otherwise is pure ignorance.

Double LOL.  Did you even read what I said?  Someone saying "It's not a theory, it's a fact" do not understand the meaning of "theory" as used in science.  They are essentially saying "It's not a proven idea with lots of reasearch over a prolonged period of time, it's a fact".  Actual scientists generally steer away from the word "fact" - and other absolutes - as it implies closed-mindedness.  Evolution is very, very, very likely true, but as a scientific community we will continue to research it and find things we don't yet understand.



Yes. You can even see in a human embryo at 4 weeks or so that the fetus has a small tail which it discards as the pregnancy goes along. This is why your "tail bone" is called your "tail bone".

There's no reason for things like that to happen if we're a unique, completely unconnected singular species.



Starfighter, what you're both saying is correct in a way. Neither of you are wrong.
Evolution is fact.
Evolution is also theory.
The problem, is that the English language uses theory in a different way. The whole problem would be solved of the word theory was replaced by the word explanation.
The explanation of evolution is the only thing we cannot fully explain. Theories are constantly evolving in order to include more info, but they are rarely significantly changed in meaning.
It's true that scientists use theory in a non-constant way, but it doesn't make it less factual.
For example, let's make a situation where there is a "theory of alphabet" which would say the alphabet is a series of symbols that represent sounds commonly found in english vocal range, and used to convey those words in a published format.
If one day we were able to convert letters into colors, the "theory of alphabet" might have to be altered to cover a non-publicated or audible format.
It doesn't mean the alphabet isn't there plain for anyone to see, it just means that there is more to explain "why" the alphabet is what it is.

Maybe a dull example, but the quickest I could think of off the top of my head.

For further reference, look up the evolving theory of gravity, with research done by a recent scientist that might alter the definition slightly in order to account for dark matter.



TheLastStarFighter said:
Peh said:

Which are?

One uses the scientific method and the other one faith.

They couldn't be even more far from each other.

LOL

Poor english? You sure about that? Because in science a theory has a different definition than a normal theory. Look it up: Scientific theory. Evolution is a fact. Saying otherwise is pure ignorance.

Double LOL.  Did you even read what I said?  Someone saying "It's not a theory, it's a fact" do not understand the meaning of "theory" as used in science.  They are essentially saying "It's not a proven idea with lots of reasearch over a prolonged period of time, it's a fact".  Actual scientists generally steer away from the word "fact" - and other absolutes - as it implies closed-mindedness.  Evolution is very, very, very likely true, but as a scientific community we will continue to research it and find things we don't yet understand.

Triple LOL. Did you read what a scientific theory is? Do you actually know what a fact is? 

Fact:

.
1. something that actually exists; reality; truth:
2. something known to exist or to havehappened:
You observe something, you make a hypothesis, you test it, make more hypotheses and go to a scientific theory if you gained enough evidence. Thus you make predictions and more tests until all answers and more evidences are found. Last step is making a law. 


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theprof00 said:
Starfighter, what you're both saying is correct in a way. Neither of you are wrong.
Evolution is fact.
Evolution is also theory.
The problem, is that the English language uses theory in a different way. The whole problem would be solved of the word theory was replaced by the word explanation.
The explanation of evolution is the only thing we cannot fully explain. Theories are constantly evolving in order to include more info, but they are rarely significantly changed in meaning.
It's true that scientists use theory in a non-constant way, but it doesn't make it less factual.
For example, let's make a situation where there is a "theory of alphabet" which would say the alphabet is a series of symbols that represent sounds commonly found in english vocal range, and used to convey those words in a published format.
If one day we were able to convert letters into colors, the "theory of alphabet" might have to be altered to cover a non-publicated or audible format.
It doesn't mean the alphabet isn't there plain for anyone to see, it just means that there is more to explain "why" the alphabet is what it is.

Maybe a dull example, but the quickest I could think of off the top of my head.

For further reference, look up the evolving theory of gravity, with research done by a recent scientist that might alter the definition slightly in order to account for dark matter.

That's not correct, and your example is ironically a good one.  Evolution is not a fact, because it is not indisputable.  There have been silly people that have said dinosaur bones were put in the ground to tempt us.  This is extremely likely to not be true, but since none of us were there to see the bones get in the ground, we can't say, indisputably, that it didn't happen.  And scientists, such as myself, keep an open mind to all options, no matter how ridiculous.  And that's why we use the term scientific theory.  It is accepted as truth, but like most scientific observations of our natural world, is not and likely never will be, indisputable. 

 

The term "fact" should be reserved for human-defined concepts or observations in nature that have been 100% observed.  The alphabet, for example, is a human created idea. We don't have a theory to describe it, because it was created by us. We defined what it is.  The alphabet starts with "A".  This is a fact, because it's human creators decided this was to be.

 

Until we talk to whoever made evolution, or develop a time machine to observe its beginnings through to its end, it will remain a scientific theory which means it's really, really, really likely true, and what people are trying to say when they say it's not a theory, it's a fact. They just don't understand what theory means.