Barbarian observes:
You're confusing evolution, with religious beliefs people have about it. There is no more "theistic" and "atheistic" evolution then there is "theistic" and "atheistic" gravity.
Your views of evolution seem to be in the minority.
Nope. Even guys like Dawkins admit that evolutionary theory can't deny or confirm God.
Encyclopedia article:
"Darwin did two things: He showed that evolution was a fact contradicting literal interpretations of Scriptural legends of creation and that its cause, natural selection, was automatic with no room for divine guidance or design."The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th Edition, "The Theory of Evolution," 1986, Vol. 18, p. 996.
Well, let's take a look...
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.
Charles Darwin, last sentence of
The Origin of Species
Surprise. Do you see now, why I warned you about getting science information from non-science sources?
"Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion—a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality. . . . Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today."Ruse, Michael, "Saving Darwinism from the Darwinians," National Post (May 13, 2000), p. B-3.
Ruse is a philosopher, not a scientist. And his is a minority opinion, even among philosophers. So that does you no good at all.
Barbarian observes:
“as Hall showed, random mutation and natural selection together is not a chance process.â€
But all the atheistic scientists I know would agree with Hall.
Can you show us that information?
Sure...
Natural selection is quintessentially non-random, yet it is lamentably often miscalled random. This one mistake underlies much of the skeptical backlash against evolution. Chance cannot explain life. Design is as bad an explanation as chance because it raises bigger questions than it answers. Evolution by natural selection is the only workable theory ever proposed that is capable of explaining life, and it does so brilliantly.
Richard Dawkins
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18725171.500
Scientists have shown that beneficial mutations do occur to produce brand new alleles (variants of genes) that improve an organism's chances of survival in a particular environment. Natural selection has been demonstrated to increase the frequency of these alleles in a population.
http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoMutations.html
The theory, an integration of the work of Charles Darwin (natural selection) and Gregor Mendel (genetics), encompassed the biological processes of gene mutation and recombination, changes in the structure and function of chromosomes, reproductive isolation, and natural selection. Mayr presented his ideas in the seminal book Systematics and the Origin of Species (1942).
The work of Ronald Fisher (who developed the required mathematical language and The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection),[3] J.B.S. Haldane (who introduced the concept of the "cost" of natural selection),[48] Sewall Wright (who elucidated the nature of selection and adaptation),[49] Theodosius Dobzhansky (who established the idea that mutation, by creating genetic diversity, supplied the raw material for natural selection:
Barbarian observes:
That's how it's taught everywhere. And "random" in science, means what it means in mathematics.
No offense, but you can't know how its taught everywhere.
I do. As you see, it's what biologist know about it.
For instance my biology teachers taught chance + time = spontaneous generation. chance + time= evolution.
I think you got it wrong. Can you give me some substantiation for that claim?
Can you define random for us please.
Relating to a type of circumstance or event that is described by a probability distribution.
They define “random chance†different from us. I think the majority of students are being taught wrong, not that the theory is wrong, but that their definition of “random chance†is wrong.
Nope. Same as everyone else. "Random" in "random mutations" means that the mutations come in a random manner, and not in response to need. This was demonstrated by Luria and Delbruck, whose separate investigations earned them a joint Nobel.
We need to define of "random" and "chance".
See above.
This is what I was taught it meant in school:
".. it necessarily follows that chance alone is at the source of every innovation.... Pure chance, absolutely free but blind, at the very root of the stupendous edifice of evolution."Jacques Monod, Chance and Necessity (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971), pp. 112-113.
Monod has it wrong. Because most innovations are the result of a number of mutations over a number of generations. So only a certain number of such mutations will be preserved to be further modified the next generation.
And of course, that process cannot be random, since it's determined by natural selection.
It's sad some are out for money. What about a professor of biology, what would motivate him to repudiate his own work?
Religious objections to the evidence.
a. “And let us dispose of a common misconception. The complete transmutation of even one animal species into a different species has never been directly observed either in the laboratory or in the field.†Dean H. Kenyon (Professor of Biology, San Francisco State University), affidavit presented to the U.S. Supreme Court, No. 85–1513, Brief of Appellants, prepared under the direction of William J. Guste Jr., Attorney General of the State of Louisiana
Well, let's take a look...
Drosophila Miranda, a New Species
Th. Dobzhansky
Genetics. 1935 July; 20(4): 377–391.
It's a landmark article in biological literature. I'm stunned that Kenyon never heard of it. Or more likely, he redefined "speciation" to exclude any that happens so fast that humans can observe it. Even organizations like the Institute for Creation Research (which has advocated the idea that new species, genera, and families have evolved) and "Answers in Genesis" now admit the fact of speciation.
I believe the quote was "complete transformation of one animal species into a different species"
The weasel words "complete transformation" was the giveaway. Speciation is never like that. It's always a modification of an existing species to make a new one. Kenyon was trying to waffle himself around the evidence by redefining speciation.
I don't see how shuffling up fruit fly genes to the point of reproductive isolation doesn't prove moose can transform into a deer,
A moose, technically, is a deer. It's just a big one, and all the changes from smaller deer are allometric. Deer antlers increase relatively with absolute size. Very small deer may even lack antlers. Bigger deer have relatively big antlers, and moose have huge ones, relative to their size. The truly gigantic Irish Elk had even larger ones.
they're still fruit flies.
And moose are still deer. Genetically and morphologically, fruit flies vary much more than deer.
