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Hey guys,
You call yourself skeptics, which is great, but I haven't heard you guys bag evolution, why?
If it is real, lets see some scientific proof on one of your upcoming shows.
Looking forward to that.
JB.
"Bag" evolution? Penn and Teller are skeptics, not retards.
Evolution has been proven to enough of a degree that it is accepted by anyone who deserves to call themselves scientists. While we are constantly learning more about the little nuances explaining exactly how it works, the general theory has stood up to constant efforts to disprove it.
hi paul,
Was the swearing just for effect?
It certainly does not prove what you are ascerting to be true, but is in effect a fairy tale. Who ever heard of a mineral turning into a living thing?
Do you know how complex a single cell is? Just for your information, it is not a blob of goo, which is what Darwin considered it to be.
If you are truly wanting to know the truth, I can give you a list of Phd scientists both living and deceased who do not believe in evolution.
"Just for your information, it is not a blob of goo, which is what Darwin considered it to be."
I don't think that anyone here would consider Darwin to be 100% correct. He laid out the framework, and others after him added to it as their studies provided information that improved on it.
"If you are truly wanting to know the truth, I can give you a list of Phd scientists both living and deceased who do not believe in evolution."
I'm pretty convinced of the truth already, that of course, being the theory of evolution. Having said that, if you have any atheists on your list, I'd be curious to know who they are. For some reason, I don't trust "scientists" with imaginary friends.
What body of science?
Firstly it is impossible to use the scientific theory on matters of the creation of the earth, because it cannot be tested in the lab.All you can do is assume, which evolutionists are highly proficient at.
More importantly, even todays evolutionists do not believe Darwin's theory as he described it. It is still called evolution but is vastly different to the original writings.
As a matter of fact, theories believed a couple of years ago are now changed or completely disregarded.
Some science!!
I have read all your replies and it is quite clear to me that you have absolutely no understanding of evolution or even science. You are also fond of argumentum ad verecundiam.
Learn something about science and evolution and I'll consider discussing it with you.
That's how science works! You come up with a theory, test it, and modify it if parts of it are incorrect. Repeat as much as possible and keep learning new stuff.
Even those retards in Vatican City change their minds when faced with overwhelming scientific evidence. In the 1980s, they finally admitted that the Earth goes around the Sun. Basically, your options are to go by a collection of books that can be demonstrated to be full of logical and scientific fallacies, or to allow your thought to progress along with the rest of the universe.
--PRW
"More importantly, even todays evolutionists do not believe Darwin's theory as he described it. It is still called evolution but is vastly different to the original writings.
As a matter of fact, theories believed a couple of years ago are now changed or completely disregarded.
Some science!!"
1. a person who questions the validity or authenticity of something purporting to be factual.
2. a person who maintains a doubting attitude, as toward values, plans, statements, or the character of others.
While fundamentally one should doubt evolution there is a difference between pop skepticism and the skepticism that is represented in this definition.
Real skepticism is outside the range of most people who are pop skeptics because real skepticism doubts everything, even the flow of time and the senses that they themselves have, while pop skepticism doesn't doubt time and their senses or reality as we know it which leads to not doubting things that can be scientifically proven... such as evolution which we can see happening on an every day basis and further we can see the progression of creatures one becoming another over time.
This is why pop skeptics don't refute evolution... because the facts support it.
On the other hand...pop skeptics generally don't accept anything in the bibles, spiritual, mystical, mythological, UFOs, or any other number of things that science is looking into that are supported by limited facts the overwhelming evidence does not support a majority of what is reported within these which skews any chance of most of it ever be taken anything but as a joke.
For example in the bible there is "the flood" which seems unrealistic, but in just about every culture on earth records some sort of flood and there is proof of a huge flood, but the extent and the facts surrounding it are not believable and change between cultures. Because it is part of a mythology it's generally looked at skeptically even though it probably did happen based on scientific fact.
In other words...they are biased towards sensible world that does not include things that are not skewed by unreal things.
You say 'facts' prove it.
Are these real facts or pop facts, which as one evolutionist put it, it does not matter that we do not tell the truth, as LONG AS WE GET OUR MESSAGE ACROSS.
These are the types of statements that made my alarm bells ring and turned me from evolution.
By the way, you do not have to be religious to not believe evolution, you just need to be wanting to seek the truth.
There is more proof for evolution than there is for just about any other scientific theory out there. Not only is there proof but we can see it directly without any sort of bones or dna or just about anything else. You can show it in what is a child's science fair project.
If you do not accept evolution you do not accept just about any scientific theory out there as with the amount of proof that evolution has and your saying that is not enough then you are saying all things that we take as proof in all science which is based on the logic that the senses do not lie to us (at least not when we are in a coherent state) is in no way true and nothing can be accepted as accurate.
While this view is alright for radical doubt and for pure philosophy playing with metaphysics it is just not good to apply it to the general reality which we live in.
"P&T have already done a great episode on Creationism. You can't exactly criticize creationism and then turn around and criticize evolution."
There are actually no rules in what you can be skeptical of, or what you can actually criticize. Real skepticism imo is questioning everything that is controversial.
However, as i mentioned a couple posts ago, evolutionism as a thesis has no place as antithesis to creationism, because one is science and the other myth. Same as creationism having no real place in schools.
There needs to be a movement of people seriously concerned for the future of falsifiability i'm afraid, as it is being so badly misrepresented today e.g. A) the sane vs. B) the insane. I'm sorry, but this is not how science works as the antithesis to a sane thesis has to at least be rationally plausible. Otherwise you are cheating and it's not really science at all, rather intellectual dishonesty.
There is truth in your words little tiger, but then they cannot go and call themselves skeptics and also believe in a religion like evolution.
I call it a religion because it is faith based with facts that are based on assumption rather than the scientific method.
Thanks
Well, the title of the show is Bullshit. The purpose is to expose the bullshit inherent in certain institutions, practices, or ideas. Why the hell would they then go against the premise of the show and use it to prove that evolution is true?
And while they’re at it, why don’t they bag that nonsense called “gravity”…
Seriously. Evolution is just as much proven fact as the laws of gravity – there’s absolutely zero controversy, except by religious folk. Any student who has bred a dozen generations of fruit flies knows evolution is real. Now, the stuff about the very beginnings of evolution – whether we evolved from pre-RNA material, etc. – that stuff is a bit more in the air. But the basic laws of evolution are not up for debate, unless you want to debate whether 1+1 really equals 2.
You make a few asinine comments Sage, lets look at the briefly.
Gravity- I can go and test that now, using the scientific method.
Evolution- Sorry, cannot be tested using the scientific method.
You say there is zero controversy. You have proven yourself unreliable and prone to error as this discussion has shown. If you want the names of Phd scientists who agree with me, I can supply that as well.
Thanks for the humor, I haven't laughed so much in a long time, if you cannot prove or explain the very beginnings how can you be so sure of the latter parts? Taking your example of maths, if I cannot explain or prove that 1+1 = 13, how can I then say my theory is proven and my basic premise is not up for debate but there are a few things up in the air which we can look at later.
I'm continually amazed at how critical thinkers time and time again set evolution against creationism as if it's some sound contrast.
Creationism is a myth that starts with "God created the heavens and the earth". Evolutionism is cherry-picker's convenience store that almost always begins with life millions of years after we know it already existed.
In real scientific applications falsifiability cannot take an observed and provable theory like evolution as it's presented today and set it against a myth like Creationism. It's like trying to debunk atheism with scientology or find fairness in setting 14th century English knights against Britain's 21rst century Special Air Service. There's just so many things wrong with this you have to be braindamaged to perpetuate it.
What needs to be debunked is this idea that Charles Darwin somehow discovered natural selection, another convenience store myth.
Now that i think of it P&T probably could do a whole show on the bullshit surrounding evolution, but then again they are two of the biggest purveyors of it today, so why would they?
"In real scientific applications falsifiability cannot take an observed and provable theory like evolution as it's presented today and set it against a myth like Creationism."
Not true. You see, creationism comes in two forms.
1) The idea that evolution is simply wrong. There is no merit to it, and god created everything literally as is described in the bible.
It's perfectly rational and scientific to set those two beliefs against each other, because there's something testable there. If Creationism is true, then evolution cannot be true, you can derive testable implications which confirm evolution and deny creationism of that form. And it's been done time and time again.
2) There's another notion of creationism that "god" guided evolution's hand or created the world to grow into what it is via evolution.
Which is basically just evolution with an ad-hoc hypothesis attached on it. Follow occam's razor, and you end up with creationism being bullshit either way from a scientific viewpoint.
"Not true. You see, creationism comes in two forms."
Creationism is NOT testable and evolution is, hence my point that one that does not belong with the other in any application of falsifiability. Simply put, you are wrong!
" If Creationism is true..."
If a frog had wings...
" Follow occam's razor, and you end up with creationism being bullshit either way from a scientific viewpoint."
Good job, now you can just subtract creationism from the equation altogether. See how easy that works?
The only thing close to sanity in your comments riserrock is that Darwin didn't think up natural selection. Actually, he didn't even think up evolution either, the ancient Greeks did a long time before Darwin.
"In real scientific applications falsifiability cannot take an observed and provable theory like evolution as it's presented today...."
What drugs you on man?
The reason why Penn & Teller invoked evolution in their show about Creationism is because there are public schools that make Creationism part of their science curriculum.
There are public schools governed by school boards consisting of self-righteous, Bible-thumping, small-minded morons (who say they're qualified to run the schools because they have 5 children in the school district) who know absolutely nothing about science but try to discredit evolution by teaching Creationism.
The science of evolution does not exist to discredit Creationism, but Creationism does exist as an attempt to discredit evolution. They are tied together for that reason alone.
Hence, there is no reason for Penn & Teller to address evolution outside of that context. Clearly, P&T are siding with evolution and I would lose all respect for them if they behaved otherwise.
"The science of evolution does not exist to discredit Creationism, but Creationism does exist as an attempt to discredit evolution. They are tied together for that reason alone."
You know, you're right. The group of creationsists you mentioned do largely work to discredit evolution. I'm guessing they do it to mainly save the last bit of ground they have left from eroding away. But they do no doubt attempt to discredit evolution in doing so.
However... (real big however here) this should not lead believers of evolution to jump on the same bandwagon turning the testable theory of evolution into polemic evolutionism. Those pro-evolution in ideaology should lead by example, take the high ground and not perpetuate this stupid human infighting. Which i believe cannot come from a place of pure science, rather clouded emotion; disdain, disgust, spite etc. If evolution is sound, which i believe it is, then leave the myth of creation to die on the vine. Or, if it continues to bear some fruit -- simply don't eat it!
Finding soundness in comparing these two ideas from the evolutionary standpoint i'm afraid is ultimately going to end up eroding the understanding of evolution itself.
How employers of this knee-jerk combat tactic don't see this is, is beyond me.
The issue can be put to rest, except for those that simply enjoy the arguing.
1. creationism is not a science, it's belief. Pushing it as science is laughable and the proverbial lipstick on a pig.
2. resistance to evolution theory (and science education, etc) originated with hillbilly fundamentalists, who were brought into the political tent by Ronald Reagan; the low point being Reagan's denunciation of Darwin at Liberty University circa 1981.
3. Many theologians don't have an issue with evolution. One, Teilhard de Chardin, even ran with it, in a surrealistic way.
4. The scene today is not really about evolution and its credibility. It's about evangelical fundamentalists wanting to control public classrooms and stop science they don't like.
Lets draw up 2 groups one that believes evolution, this includes you and the second group that does NOT believe evolution.
In the NON believers group you can put me, as well as these people.
James Joule, Louise Pasteur, Joseph Lister, Wilbur and Orville Wright, Wernher von Braun, Isaac Newton, Blaise Pascal, Walter Reed, Jonathan Sarfarti, etc.
This in no way is an exhaustive list.
Do you still believe a person has to have brain damage to believe in evolution?
It looks like the opposite may apply.These people listed are/ were very intelligent people who by their work helped advanced society to where we are today.
"Hey guys,
You call yourself skeptics, which is great, but I haven't heard you guys bag evolution, why?"
Because it is real.
"If it is real, lets see some scientific proof on one of your upcoming shows."
The show is called "Bullshit," not "Scientific Proof". The chaif aim of the show is to uncover beliefs that are *false*, which evolution certainly is not.
As others have pointed out, they did touch on the topic on their "Creationism" episode.
Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002)
American paleontologist, interpreter of science
We are here because one odd group of fishes had a peculiar fin anatomy that could transform into legs for terrestrial creatures; because the earth never froze entirely during an ice age; because a small and tenuous species, arising in Africa a quarter of a million years ago, has managed, so far, to survive by hook and by crook. We may yearn for a higher answer -- but none exists.
-- Stephen Jay Gould, Life magazine, December 1988, from James A Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief
... a fortuitous cosmic afterthought.
-- Stephen Jay Gould, describing the evolution of human life on this planet, quoted from Conrad Goeringer, "Stephen Gould Dies, Premier Defender Of Evolution" (May 21, 2002)
History includes too much chaos, or extremely sensitive dependence on minute and unmeasurable differences in initial conditions, leading to massively divergent outcomes based on tiny and unknowable disparities in starting points. And history includes too much contingency, or shaping of present results by long chains of unpredictable antecedent states, rather than immediate determination by timeless laws of nature.
Homo Sapiens did not appear on the earth, just a geologic second ago, because evolutionary theory predicts such an outcome based on themes of progress and increasing neural complexity. Humans arose, rather, as a fortuitous and contingent outcome of thousands of linked events, any one of which could have occurred differently and sent history on an alternative pathway that would not have led to consciousness.
-- Stephen Jay Gould, from: "The Evolution of Life on Earth," Scientific American (October, 1994): pp. 85-86
... no compelling data to support its anachronistic social Darwinism.
-- Stephen Jay Gould, attacking the book The Bell Curve for advancing racially charged theories, in his savage review of the book for The New Yorker, in John Nichols, "Gould Was a Scientist for the People" (The Capital Times: May 30, 2002)
The fundamentalists, by knowing the answers before they start [examining evolution], and then forcing nature into the straitjacket of their discredited preconceptions, lie outside the domain of science -- or of any honest intellectual inquiry.
-- Stephen Jay Gould, Bully for Brontosaurus, 1990, from James A Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief
Why get excited over this latest episode in the long, sad history of American anti-intellectualism? Let me suggest that, as patriotic Americans, we should cringe in embarrassment that, at the dawn of a new, technological millennium, a jurisdiction in our heartland has opted to suppress one of the greatest triumphs of human discovery.
-- Stephen Jay Gould, responding to the Kansas School Board's decision, under pressure from Christian funadamentalists, to remove mention of evolution from all public school science curricula, in "Dorothy, it's really Oz," Time Magazine, August 23, 1999
... a local, indigenous, American bizarre-ity.
-- Stephen Jay Gould, describing Christian creationism, quoted from Conrad Goeringer, "Stephen Gould Dies, Premier Defender Of Evolution" (May 21, 2002)
Creation science has not entered the curriculum for a reason so simple and so basic that we often forget to mention it: because it is false, and because good teachers understand exactly why it is false. What could be more destructive of that most fragile yet most precious commodity in our entire intellectual heritage -- good teaching -- than a bill forcing honorable teachers to sully their sacred trust by granting equal treatment to a doctrine not only known to be false, but calculated to undermine any general understanding of science as an enterprise?
-- Stephen Jay Gould, The Skeptical Inquirer, quoted from About.com
The argument that the literal story of Genesis can qualify as science collapses on three major grounds: the creationists' need to invoke miracles in order to compress the events of the earth's history into the biblical span of a few thousand years; their unwillingness to abandon claims clearly disproved, including the assertion that all fossils are products of Noah's flood; and their reliance upon distortion, misquote, half-quote, and citation out of context to characterize the ideas of their opponents.
-- Stephen Jay Gould, "The Verdict on Creationism," The Skeptical Inquirer, Winter 1987-88, p. 186, quoted from About.com
In candid moments, leading creationists will admit that the miraculous character of origin and destruction precludes a scientific understanding. Morris writes (and Judge Overton quotes): "God was there when it happened. We were not there.... Therefore, we are completely limited to what God has seen fit to tell us, and this information is in His written Word."
-- Stephen Jay Gould, "Creationism: Genesis vs. Geology" Science and Creationism, p. 130 (1984), quoted from Internet Infidels
Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered.
-- Stephen Jay Gould, "Evolution as Fact and Theory" Science and Creationism, p. 118 (1984), quoted from Internet Infidels
The board transported its jurisdiction to a never-never land where a Dorothy of the new millennium might exclaim: "They still call it Kansas, but I don't think we're in the real world anymore."
-- Stephen Jay Gould, responding to the Kansas School Board's decision, under pressure from Christian funadamentalists, to remove mention of evolution from all public school science curricula, in John Nichols, "Gould Was a Scientist for the People" (The Capital Times: May 30, 2002)
The basic formulation, or bare-bones mechanics, of natural selection is a disarmingly simple argument, based on three undeniable facts (overproduction of offspring, variation, and heritability) and one syllogistic inference (natural selection, or the claim that organisms enjoying differential reproductive success will, on average, be those variants that are fortuitously better adapted to changing local environments, and that these variants will then pass their favored traits to offspring by inheritance).
-- Stephen Jay Gould, to which he adds, in a footnote referenced immediately following the first parenthesis: "Two of these three ranked as 'folk wisdom' in Darwin's day and needed no further justification -- variation and inheritance (the mechanism of inheritance remained unknown, but its factuality could scarcely be doubted). Only the principle that all organisms produce more offspring than can possibly survive -- superfecundity, in Darwin's lovely term -- ran counter to popular assumptions about nature's benevolence, and required Darwin's specific defense in the Origin." Quoted from his, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (2002), chapter 1, "Defining and Revising the Structure of Evolutionary Theory," p. 13.
Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists -- whether through design or stupidity, I do not know -- as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. The punctuations occur at the level of species; directional trends (on the staircase model) are rife at the higher level of transitions within major groups.
-- Stephen Jay Gould, "Evolution as Fact and Theory" Science and Creationism, p. 124 (1984), quoted from Internet Infidels
Debate is an art form. It is about the winning of arguments. It is not about the discovery of truth. There are certain rules and procedures to debate that really have nothing to do with establishing fact--which they are very good at. Some of those rules are: never say anything positive about your own position because it can be attacked, but chip away at what appear to be the weaknesses in your opponent's position. They are good at that. I don't think I could beat the creationists at debate. I can tie them. But in courtrooms they are terrible, because in courtrooms you cannot give speeches. In a courtroom you have to answer direct questions about the positive status of your belief. We destroyed them in Arkansas. On the second day of the two-week trial we had our victory party!
-- Stephen Jay Gould, after the Arkansas creationism trial, quoted by Michael Shermer in the round-up of his April, 2004, debate against Kent Hovind
When people learn no tools of judgment and merely follow their hopes, the seeds of political manipulation are sown.
-- Stephen Jay Gould, quoted from About.com
A documentary on the attack on evolution by groups like the Discovery Institute and the Kansas School Board, all of which is built on a foundation of sand.
