Is Evolution a Theory or a Fact..?

You do understand that the name of this particular board is "creation vs evolution", do you not..?
What exactly were you expecting to be discussed on a creation vs evolution board..?
The debate between light and dark beers..?

 

I'm not dodging the issues..
I'm separating them into their proper categories.
The Bible is a spiritual book.. Not a science text..
As someone famously said, "the Bible is about the rock of ages, NOT the ages of rocks.."
The concept of sin is a spiritual issue.. Not a scientific one.
If someone chooses to use the Bible as a resource for the historical and cultural concept of sin, they are of course perfectly free to do so.. But sin isn't a science.. I cannot put sin in a test tube, and break it down into its periodic elements.
Allow the Bible to teach its moral lessons, while allowing science to uncover the mechanisms by which the universe operates.
They are 2 entirely different fields of study.

 

I did no such thing.. YOU did..
I simply laid out the evidence that shows we evolved..
YOU guys brought up the Bible.. My original post makes no mention of the Bible at all..

There are people here who cannot reconcile their beliefs in an inerrant Bible with the scientific evidence at hand..
Thats not me bringing the Bible in.. thats YOU guys..
I'd be perfectly happy to discuss purely the scientific evidence on this issue, but people on this board seem determined to bring the Bible into the discussion as those the Bible has some scientific tests conducted on the matter..

 

What you are looking for there is NOT speciation.
In evolution, cats wont simply become dogs.. If that ever happened, Evolution would be disproved.
Such a transition bridging dog and cat would take much longer than a human lifespan.
In an evolutionary scenario, dogs and cats will instead share a common 4 limbed mammal ancestor.
And we should see animals that share characteristics of both dogs and cats in nature that bridge the anatomical gap.
.. Oh, like say a hyena..

 

[QUOTE="davidtaylorjr, post: 2558752, member: 14683"
Proper science verifies the Bible. They go hand in hand. They are not as separate as you try to claim"?[/QUOTE]

"proper science"..? What exactly is "proper science"..?
Its not sciences job to verify your interpretation of the Bible.. Its sciences job to test natural explanations for observed phenomena.
That quote from you above strongly suggests that your position is that if the science disproves YOUR interpretation of scripture, then by default, the SCIENCE has to be wrong..
Sorry, but that's NOT how science works.. Proper or otherwise.

 

No, we are NOT looking at evidence from a preconceived viewpoint.
Evolution was never the "preconceived viewpoint". Creationism was..
Evolution just spent several centuries EARNING its status as the now accepted viewpoint.
No one embraced evolution because it was "preconceived"..
People were dragged against their preconceived creationist views, kicking and screaming to the inevitable validity of evolution because 2 centuries of testing confirmed its validity.

As for the creation of the universe..?
The currently accepted cause of our universe is the Big bang that occurred about 13.7 billion years ago based on the data collected from NASA's WMAP space probe that spent over a decade in space taking readings for NASA..
Now, as for what caused the BB..? Unknown.. and perhaps unknowable.. (since the expansion itself may have wiped out the evidence necessary to make a proper conclusion)
However, even if some entity was responsible for the BB..?
That still would not alter the mountains of evidence we have for a 4.5 billion year old earth, or the evolution of life over that time.

 

OK, now you're just being silly.
You desire to reject ANY science that goes against "scripture", even if your interpretation of that scripture is the minority interpretation..? Should we go back to teaching a flat earth and geocentrism, since some Christians interpret the Bible to say that too...?
Now, as for "it has been for the last century"
Since it wasnt accepted prior to 1859s publication of Origin of Species, then it certainly coundn't be the "preconceived viewpoint".
So how then did it come to dominance.? Certainly NOT be being preconceived to be correct..
It came to dominance based on the EVIDENCE.. Thus it had to EARN its place at the top..
To claim that evolution hasn't "earned" its place requires you to ignore the evidence from every earth and life science field we have..
Now, YOU may think the evidence is "flimsy", but the entire planets science community does NOT..
Try going to court on a rape charge, and attempt to convince the judge in the case that the DNA evidence against you is "flimsy".. see how far you get.. lol
And YES.. testing has CONFIRMED macroevolution..
The test results were published in all the relevant genomic journals about 15 years ago once the USA completed its genome mapping tests.

 

But here's the problem. He seems to want to have his cake and eat it too..
If a person reads the Bible, interprets the passages to mean that the earth is young, and evolution never happened, he can certainly find ways to justify that interpretation and then believe it. But such a belief is entirely religious.. Thats NOT "science".
In contrast, if we conduct several centuries of science tests that show that the earth isn't young, & that show evolution does in fact occur, then that person must then make a choice.. Either accept the evidence, and embrace the science...
Or, Reject the evidence, and maintain their belief based on their interpretations of their religious texts..
But what they cannot do is claim the science isn't "proper" just because it shows their religious interpretations are wrong.
It appears that they feel a need to justify their religious beliefs with scientific evidence (apparently because they know that science carries a lot of weight in society), but at the same time they desire to dismiss entire fields of science when it shows that what they believe cannot possibly be true... Which simply isn't going to fly in a scientific discussion.

 

No, you do NOT look at the same evidence i do.. You look at distortiosn of the evidence which is what creationists HAVE to do if they desire to continue to accept concepts like a young planet or the poofing of all life fully formed as it is now 6000 years ago.
As for "what evidence do we have for evolution..? Surely you jest.
We have been digging up fossils of extinct life for centuries.. And what has become obvious to even the most ardent skeptic is that the fossils are buried in a very distinct ORDER.. And that order can ONLY be explained by evolution.
Single celled life arises billions of years in the past, multicellular life doesn't show up in the record for over a billion years later.
Simple fishes don't arise till the cambrian era, amphibians come on the scene around 375 million years ago.. Reptiles around 300 million years ago, and mammals not until around 200 million years ago.. Humans don't come around till the last couple of hundred thousand years (which is very recent geologically). And in between each group, we have transitional fossils showing the changes from one lineage to another.
Now, NOTHING other than evolution can explain this order of fossils and their transitions..
This order is so well established in fact, that it can make very precise predictions as to what fossils WILL be found in certain strata, and what fossils will NEVER be found in certain strata..
It was this very testable process that allowed paleontologists to discover tiktaalik in arctic Canada in 375 million year old deposits.. How do you think they knew not only where to look, but at what geologic depth the fossil would be in.?
Its this precise ability to PREDICT nature that makes evolution so well evidenced.

Now, as for "there is not 100% agreement on evolution.. That's a bit of a misnomer.. I can find scientists that think aliens built the pyramids, or that Bigfoot lives in Mississippi, but that doesn't mean that such claims are accepted as valid.
The truth of the matter is that ALL peer reviewed science journals, ALL Universities that educate PhD classes in Geology Paleontology, and other evolution related subjects accept evolution, and ALL Science Organizations do as well.
In 2005 during the Dover intelligent design trial in PA, the judge made a very specific point of mentioning that NO SCIENCE Organization anywhere accepts the creationist position.. So that's as 100% as you will ever get..

As for proof of common ancestry..? You'll need an understanding of genetics.
Just as we can take DNA from a parent and a child, test them side by side, and prove they are related, we can also take DNA from different species, test them side by side, and prove they too are related.
DNA testing is based on well established and tested laws of Mendelian genetic inheritance.
So if we humans share common ancestry as evolution claims we do, then we humans should share not only the same DNA as other primates, but also things like mutated non functional pseudogenes in both genomes. And we should also share things like endogenous retrovirus insertions which invade genomes during the process of fertilization and reproduction.
So here too, evolution can make VERY TESTABLE PREDICTIONS..
"If common ancestry is true then the human species should share these very distinct DNA markers with our chimpanzee evolutionary relatives.." and if we don't, then evolution has serious problem..
Well, we tested this exact scenario over a decade ago, and just as evolution predicted, we share all these genetic markers with our chimpanzee cousins..
This is DNA proof of common ancestry..
Now, do you know of any other scientifically tested and verified way for an organism like a human or a chimpanzee to obtain its DNA other than inheritance..? NO..? Then our shared common ancestry is confirmed..
Which is one of the reasons Dr Francis Collins who mapped the genome was so clear on the matter.