More fuel to the Psychoreligionology fire

[IronUnkind]

"But in this day and age, if a legitimate "real challenge" to an aspect of evolutionary theory is discovered, someone will write it up for publication in a journal. Bet on it, even if you have to lay odds."

http://www.discovery.org/scripts/vie...ew&id=2177

[MaxPower]

I bet all these quotes are from Yankee fans.

I'm sure these books are dumbed down, but for a layman like myself they are interesting.

If you know of anything else on evolution written for a mass audience, I'd like a recommendation.

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
I bet all these quotes are from Yankee fans.

I'm sure these books are dumbed down, but for a layman like myself they are interesting.

If you know of anything else on evolution written for a mass audience, I'd like a recommendation.

[/ QUOTE ]

Try Richard Dawkins. He seems to have made it his life work to explain evolution to the interested layman. 'The Blind Watchmaker' was his first and a bit of a classic.

chez

[kalooki45]

This is a little off track--but speaking of good science books for laymen, my personal fave this year is "The Elegant Universe" by Brian Greene.
I'm sort of a theoretical physics groupie, but I don't have enough math to understand it mathematically (as it should be understood)--so I have to wait for someone who can translate it into English..lol
Greene does this brilliantly! He takes you right through Relativity to String Theory--currently the absolute NUTS in physics (at least on the fascination scale).
Give it a read sometime!

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
Therefore I wonder in what way you are able to deduce that what is observed is indeed reinforcement for the evolution theory, and how it implies that there has been growth in the evolution of the organism and not merely alteration.


[/ QUOTE ]

Alteration is evolution by definition. Evolution doesn't have to fit a results-oriented eventual goal. Goals are man-made ideas. Evolution sometimes produces changes that don't matter much, or produces disasters, or produces altered organisms whose survivability is greatly increased in some circumstances, but then the world changes and those circumstances no longer exist, and the species vanishes. Does that mean evolution did not happen in those cases?

[kalooki45]

I liked Augustine's comments..thanks for posting that!

I personally am a Bible-believing Christian (and I think "idol-worship" goes WAY too far [img]/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img]), but I don't necessarily see a conflict between the two--Bible and Evolution.
We all know that the Catholic Church persecuted people who said the Earth was round..but it was because they had misinterpreted the Bible--nowhere does the Bible say the earth is flat!
I think the Bible will stand up--and will be reinterpreted in the light of new scientific discoveries.
I find it interesting that in Genesis, where you get the description of the Creation--the ORDER of creation is the same one science describes!
1. Light
2. Atmosphere and a watery environment
3. Land
4. Vegetation
5. Visible stars (atmosphere clearing)
6. Creatures living in the water, then birds
7. Mammals
8. Man

Now the Bible isn't meant to be a science text--but I think the order is rather amazing-- pre-dating Darwin by many thousands of years.
We all need to be careful what we read into it--especially if we want to be taken seriously!

[Leroy Soesman]

But in that way the evidence you find might be interpreted as support for a degeneration theory as well (which could be that we are created perfectly and then degenerate or what ever through change).

What my question is actually about is that an organism can adapt to it's surroundings without getting more complex. How do you find support for the type of change that supports the notion that it is possible for an organism to become more complex over time.

I've heard Maurile talk about speciation being observed in a laboratory setting, but I'd like some further elaboration.

The closest thing I can think of is a laboratory setting that had digital block beings with simple brains and dna compete for food in a digital environment, and as time progressed they developed into creatures that bare extreme resemblence to what is found in nature, however this was ofcourse created by a human and was inspired by nature. So that doesn't do it for me yet.

Please keep it coming.

[Leroy Soesman]

A friend of mine is a MS in Physics. he says that the math easily becomes very abstract and that the implications of physics in practise is much better learned without the confusing math.
To quote him:

"I learned more about Physics from the popular science books, than from the study itself"

[kalooki45]

I feel better then! (not much, but a little)
Apropos of that--TRUE STORY [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

My viola teacher was Max Aronoff (now dec.)--member of the Curtis String Quartet. They were hired to play a recital at Princeton, where Einstein was then in residence.
Einstein was an amateur violinist--LOVED it! He and a Prof. friend of his asked if they could play for the Quartet, and get some pointers.
Well, you don't turn down Einstein, so he and his friend trotted out a duet they'd been working on in their spare time, and Einstein promptly got lost! lol
His friend turns on him and shouts "EINSTEIN! Can't you COUNT?!?"
THe quartet is now trying hard not to dissolve into shrieks of hilarity, when Einstein retorts,
"Well, YOU scratch!"
they lost it... [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Leroy Soesman]

lol! It is known that Einstein wasn't that good at math during his highschool period, and presumably not at all. To come to his E = MC2 he used simple math, the pythagorean theorem! Or so I've been told.