Mutations, bad not good (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, July 25, 2011, 13:40 (4870 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

TONY: I believe in a UI. For me, when talking about the very beginning of things, despite what mechanics are studied, the word 'instituted' is for fitting, as regardless of the mechanics I see it a matter of design. -That's fine, but I trust you are aware of the pot-and-kettle syndrome when you criticize evolutionists for their assumptions.-TONY: We must define the term [species] because it puts everything else into perspective. I have read countless articles where researchers arbitrarily say a creature evolved one innovation or another, or that their common ancestor did this or that. This is pure assumption, which is bad enough. What's worse though, is the insidious effect that this has on the minds of people reading their papers. Using phrases like those constantly and doggedly impress the idea that these things are fact, when in fact, they are not.
 
I agree with you totally, but such assumptions will be made by the evolutionary dogmatists, whether or not you can come up with an acceptable definition of "species" (and you can't, because no-one can). As for the effects of such statements, again I am in complete agreement with you, but would point out that they are no less assumptive and no less insidious than the equally dogmatic statements made by religious "experts", sometimes with the most disastrous consequences. In this context, I call out with Mercutio from my exalted position on the fence: "a plague o' both your houses!" -TONY: The answer to these fundamental question will not change what we call a coyote and the wolf, but it will change whether we call the canine and the ursine species cousins.-My argument was the reverse of this: whether we call canines and ursines cousins and/or "species" will not change the answers to the fundamental questions.
 
I proposed that we define evolution as "the process by which living organisms have developed from earlier forms."
 
TONY: My problem is with the phrase 'from earlier forms'. It, like my own failed attempt, is impossibly vague and includes hypotheses that have not been proven, like speciation/common ancestry.
 
Evolution is the theory of common ancestry, regardless of how you define "species", but let's try again, and let me be more precise about what we are defining: "The Theory of Evolution is the hypothesis that all living organisms have developed from earlier forms of life." And before Matt leaps in (I have truly missed your leaps, Matt), let me repeat that his scientific definition of theory as "a theory that has been repeatedly verified by experiment" does not apply to evolution, since no-one has ever verified by experiment the claim that chimps and humans have a common ancestor, let alone that over billions of years bacteria can evolve into humans. His and my own acceptance of this theory as the best explanation we have still doesn't make it anything other than an unproven hypothesis, and any attempt to make evolution synonymous with the tried-and-tested, well documented process of Natural Selection ... whereby those plants and creatures best adapted to the prevailing environment are most likely to survive ... is a distortion and a misrepresentation of the Theory of Evolution.