Debate Topic

[Maelstrom]

youve got to punch harder for it to work

Falcon Punch.

[Sebastian]

Reposting here for convenience:

warning, no TL;DR

I told myself I wasn't going to debate this
I really did

This is true for evolution only in the sense that nothing can truly be proven. From an epistemological standpoint, everything that we know or remember has the potential of being fabricated, an illusion. Our mental tools that we use to remember what we ate for dinner last night are just as potentially fallible as the tools we use to discern what organisms lived when in our past, and how they developed over time. There are only two main differences. The first is that the claim that I ate mac and cheese last night challenges nobody's religious beliefs (that I know of). The second is that scientists are required to take their observations in stride, and so are only able to say what is likeliest, based on what we observe. Based on what I observe, it is likeliest that I ate mac and cheese last night, as that is what I remember. Even though it's theoretically possible that everything I remember is part of an elaborate simulation that started at this very moment, and even though I could potentially have a severe memory disorder, these are not things I can question, as I will very likely never have an answer affirming or denying these things. Therefore, I can say "I ate mac and cheese for dinner last night."

Evolution, however, has the potential to be falsified. That is, according to almost the entire scientific community, a definitive property of science. If there is no discovery that could be made, in our natural, observable world, to disprove an idea, it is not science. There are, theoretically, discoveries that could be made to disprove or alter our current understanding of evolution. They have not been made, and so we consider evolution to be fact until proven otherwise. Creationism cannot be considered on this plane, because it cannot be disproven. We can never make an observation proving it to be false, because its entire premise is that things happen beyond our perception. And it could be true! Just as much as Pastafarianism, the belief that everything was created by a giant spaghetti monster in the sky, can be considered objectively true. Within this plane of existence, though, we can make no observations affirming or denying either of these ideas, whereas we can for evolution. Therefore, it's a false equivalence to say that both evolutionary theory and creationism cannotBecause while this is TECHNICALLY true, it's based on the same premise as the statement "I may or may not have eaten mac and cheese last night". We should not doubt our senses, as they are the one thing that we can trust more than anything else.

I've actually convinced somebody of evolution before. Granted, it was in conjunction with a biology course leading to him actually understanding evolution, but he changed his mind nonetheless.

First of all, aren't the two kind of the same thing? I'd suggest replacing "worldviews" with "observable facts", but that'd require you to accept that this debate is, and should be, entirely based upon observable facts. Second, if opinions and worldviews can truly be considered separate, then I feel fairly confident in saying that mine are independent from one another in this case. I am a confirmed Methodist Christian. I go to church on a regular basis, have thoroughly read much of the Bible, and plan to give my children the same options in their upbringing as my parents have given me. My non-literal interpretation of the Bible can still be considered Christian just as much as different sects' interpretations can still be considered so. I do not have an "anti-religion" worldview, as some would designate my side of the discussion. I just refuse to argue for fact what can never be represented as so.

I realize that this may not be what you meant by the distinction between opinion and worldview, but it's a false sentiment that's constantly perpetuated by creationists, and I just wanted to get that rant off of my chest.

According to our current understanding, it is a long and gradual process involving a series of "microevolutions", as you describe them, in which organisms, whose randomly acquired traits (through both mutations and genetic recombination) are most suited to allow them to survive and reproduce in their environment, do so. Those with traits less suited to do so, die without reproducing. The two of these things happen on a constant basis, with each generation of each species, until a population becomes so phenotypically different from its ancestors that it is now considered a different species (this, by the way, is not always all that different). It is not, as you imply, a magical process by which organisms of vastly different traits are rapidly changed into one another. We do not argue that we descended from monkeys, nor from cats, nor from frogs, nor from amoebas for that matter (there are many other varieties of single-cellular organisms that exist/have existed!). We did, however, at some point within the long, long history of our world (significantly longer than 6,000 years!) share a common ancestor with each of these organisms, some more recently than others. Any further questions you have about the actual workings of evolution, I would have you direct to your biology teacher as soon as you are lucky enough to have one. Hopefully in this class, you will gain a great enough understanding of evolution to accept it as the best explanation we currently have for why and how organisms came to be the way they are. If not, I can only hope that the trait of willful ignorance is selected out of our population sooner, rather than later.

[close]

Also:
What you just described is not an impossible situation. It is merely an unlikely situation. The distinction between these two things is critical. It is already a miracle of nature that our planet has been able to sustain life. Literally every other planet that we have observed, out of a shitton of planets, has not been shown to do that. Chalk that up to what you will, be it God preferring us over the rest of this infinite expanse of stuff he's created, or just the statistical fact that, given a near-infinite amount of occurrences within just as many conditions, an untrained monkey could type out Shakespearean plays, word for word, on a typewriter. We are already a metaphorical alphabet among a sea of failed letters. Now, this pre-existing alphabet is what has allowed for the development of our language or dictionary of species. Is it likely that things would have panned out exactly the way that they did? Well, no. It could have gone down so many other ways, but as "time" tends to work out, one of those ways has to end up happening, eventually. The fact that we have evolution at all, however, was (and is) actually a very likely occurrence based on the conditions in which it began (and persists)! Just as random objects placed into a blender will either stay (relatively) intact or be destroyed depending on their physical properties, so too did random living things either survive/reproduce (and therefore pass on their genes, along with whatever products of mutation/genetic recombination led to their success) or die before reproduction, forever exiling their uniqueness from the gene pool.

Wow....you outta be a journalist or something.
About the age of the Earth, which I think is around 6,000 years, could NOT even scientifically be in the millions. Ok so the Sun is getting about 5 feet smaller every hour. Using that reasoning, Just a few million years ago the sun would of been so big that the Earth would of been burned to a crisp and all Life erraticated. Same principle can apply to the Moon. The Moon is very slowly moving away from the Earth (I forget how slow.....) Again if you turn back the clock about a few million years, the Moon would have been to close to the Earth and the Moon's Gravity being to great that the Earth would be swallowed up by water from the giant waves the gravity produced.

Falcon Punch.

lol

[MaestroUGC]

So how long until the mods with actual power step in?

[Maelstrom]

I don't know where you get your info. The main problem with a young earth scenario is the radiocarbon dating. Granted, it's not that accurate, and the numbers may be inflated, but they point to an earth older than 6,000 years. You don't really have a rebuttal to that, at least, not yet.

[Maelstrom]

So how long until the mods with actual power step in?

When disaster happens. The derail was successful until mlf ruined it.....

[Sebastian]

When disaster happens. The derail was successful until mlf ruined it.....

Yes, I dont want this locked....


Any ideas for a more interesting debate?
I was thinking what you said earlier maelstrom was good. Any ideas for the poll?

[Maelstrom]

I was thinking what you said earlier maelstrom was good. Any ideas for the poll?

You don't need to plan for debates. They just happen.

Topic: Metroid Prime is the only good FPS.

[Sebastian]

You don't need to plan for debates. They just happen.

Topic: Metroid Prime is the only good FPS.

True.....but Im still putting a poll.
Forgive me.....but whats FPS?

[Sebastian]

but whats FPS?

First Person Shooter right?

[blueflower999]

Yes, first person shooter. Or frames per second.

[Dude]

Ugfjfjfjfuufhfjfufj

[Sebastian]

Ugfjfjfjfuufhfjfufj

Huh?

[Dude]

The whole situation was so "ugh" it needed a new sound.

[mikey]

How about only people who actually know how to properly format a debate get to post in a debate topic

[Sebastian]

How about only people who actually know how to properly format a debate get to post in a debate topic

Whatever.....I dont really think anyone is even interested in doing debates anyway.