h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

You should read the backlog, salaams (?) - I believe that's been covered (the difference between theory and belief)

OH DEAR! Sorry.

"Evolution was merely a theory with no factual evidence."

Sorry for the obtuse response. The above statement struck me as really funny. Especially the use of past tense!

I'm a grad student working on a PhD in evolutionary genetics. I work with this phantom factual evidence all day every day. Then someone comes along and confidently states that evolution was this unsubstantiated passing fad from long ago it strikes me as very funny.

Oh, by the way. You're wrong.

Ste

Yeah, it's the whole, hypothesis + evidence = theory, most people mean hypothetical when they say theoretical.

Ste, with all due respect, The past tense refers to when the ideology was created hence in that respect Evolution WAS a theory with no factual evidence, in other words evolution was a theory generated by Charles Darwin.
Theoretical - refers to something that exists without practice/physical.
Are you saying Stu that men generated from Apes, if so I hope you will wait for my journal with eager anticipation. Mr PHd.

I disagree with Darwinism, what are your views on Darwin.

i'll speak to y'all 2morro.

Darwin's evidence WAS from fossil evidence/geology. Darwin's evidence WAS also from living species (voyage of the Beagle).

Whether you choose to believe that evidence or not is immaterial. Darwin did have scientific evidence to back up his theory of natural selection, and that is fact.

Theoretical does not mean what you say it means. From the OED, a scientific theory means this:
"A systematic statement of the general principles or laws of some branch of mathematics; a set of theorems forming a connected system"

I'm saying that humans share a common ancester with apes. There is a key difference there.

What in particular about Darwin? He was one of the greatest thinkers in science...

Ste

<>

Oooo, cutting blow there, Ste.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, Mr PhD, but aren't humans actually apes (not generated from)? Aren't chimpanzees and bonobos the closest relatives to humans? The point being that we are *their* closest relatives.


az

'Those who cavalierly reject the Theory of Evolution, as not adequately supported by facts, seem quite to forget that their own theory is supported by no facts at all.'

Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)

*Stepping *very* carefully to try and avoid giving offence.*

salaams2u,
Please don't think I'm pre-judging *you*, but I have seen quite a few evolution debates on h2g2, and they often seem to take on similar forms, which aren't always helpful for communication.

What often seems to happen is that someone who believes evolution is wrong will quote some external authority "Professor XXXX says evolution is wrong..." in defence of their argument, and not fully explain what their argument really is.
Unfortunately, there are *some* anti-evolution books and websites around which distort facts in support of their argument, sometimes deliberately. The books/websites may seem plausible, and do mislead many people, but are not scientifically defensible.

Often in h2g2 debates, *many* different people reply in defence of evolution, which can make it hard to follow the conversation, and particularly hard to reply to. Maybe if people try and avoid reinforcing already-made points, it might help?

*Sometimes*, people arguing against evolution seem to have learned most of what they know from someone else arguing against it, and don't have a complete picture. Though they are arguing honestly, they may be arguing against something which isn't actually part of evolutionary theory.

Possibly it's best if a debate starts off by everyone describing what they consider evolutionary theory to claim, and then get on to attacking or defending tose claims once there is some agreement on what they actually are.

"Oooo, cutting blow there, Ste."
Yeah man, especially as I don't actually have a PhD. Yet.

Humans are homonids. So are the great apes. That is where we link. I think taxonomically-speaking we're not apes, but that is probably down to humans traditionally not liking to be seen as just another animal. "We're special right?". Essentially, we are big-headed hairless apes.

Both chimp species are our closest relative. Those two are *very* recently diverged. I'm not sure about your point, it works both ways...

Ste

Evolutionary Theory = variation in heritable traits between individuals + differential reproduction due to those heritable traits


Seems pretty simple and obvious.

I'm not sure what my point was either, Ste. Something about that chimpanzees could be man's closest relative (without the relationship being a close one) but given that the divergence of chimps, men, gorillas is more recent than the divergence of, say, orangutans and gibbons, how would you justify the classification of humans as being from a different family to the other apes?


az

ps
Noggin helped me form that last question bit - I'd sputtered it out to him, possibly not quite making sense. But he knew what I meant and then helped me put it into words that you would probably understand better.

Like bloody Harun Yahya books, their science is a bit twisted in some places, thermodynamics disproves evolution? Er no it doesn't prove of disprove evolution as it really has nothing to do with evolution science at all.

I have a particuler dislike towards those books as he made a typo and said that the verse from the qur'an was from sura 15 when it was actually from 16 and i pointed this out to them in an e mail and they did not even reply or anything.

If they can't even get the sura from the Qur'an right then how are they supposed to get anything else right as thats a simple cut paste operation......

Hey Ste I read some where that mankind 'supossidly' evolved from marsupials rather than the distinct ape species. Is this accurate or was it just another silly story published in a science mag. Or did it mean that they are saying that human and apes evolved from marsupials and humans branched away from apes at tht point in time?(I say supposidly as some of you know because though i am interested in the subject I am not really that concerner about which is right evolution or creation, as we are here now and the how is not really that important to me).

Oh and Potholer I agree with you, it is defenetly wise fr some one to start of by saying what they think evolution is before they start throwing facts, as it may avoid the usual path or bad language and insults that follows these threads.

Ta Ta

Officially we are, taxonomicaly, Homo Sapiens-Sapiens although as any taxonomist worth their salt will admit we should be Pan, not Homo

Yes anhaga. Very much so.

az,

I think it's a leftover of old-school antrocentric classification of animals. We are more similar to chimps and gorillas than orangutans are to gibbons. But we're the one making the rules up and we like to think we're different. I think we're apes.

It really doesn't practically matter how we are classified, science just tends to get on with stuff nevertheless. *shrug*

Ste

Hi Rik,

I would be highly surprised if we came from marsupials. They are evolutionary off-shoots independantly evolved in the isolation of the Australian continent.

We don't have any marsupial characterisitics (pouches, etc), and there is a bunch of evidence we evolved out of Africa.



Ste

Thats what i thought. No idea where they got that idea from.

*any taxonomist worth their salt will admit we should be Pan, not Homo*

Just popping in to confirm this. The only reason we classify ourselves in a seperate genus from chimps is anthropocentism - any other two species that were so similar would be classified as congeneric.

Congeneric, there's a word of the day for you.