Its an amazing universe we live in when even blatant stupidity has to become more and more complex just to stay alive.

If some kind of “kurzweilian singularity” ever did come to pass I’d be all in favour of uploading as many creationist minds as possible into the “matrix” with us just for the entertainment value

I have heard this argument before, that atheism is just another religion, to which i must say
“truth does not demand belief. scientists do not join hands every sunday, singing ‘yes, gravity is real! I will have faith! i will be strong! i believe in my heart that what goes up, up, up, must come down, amen! if they did that we would think they were pretty insecure about it.”

you, anon, do not care about science, if you did you would know more about science and the latest discoveries and evidence in support of the “theories” and would not be calling it a religion. Que ad homonym attack…you intellectually lazy moron.

people need to “actually” learn what the theories are and the evidence supporting them instead of just “assuming” that they “know” what the theories are. I’m fairly certain that if a test were conducted on peoples understanding of evolution those who deny its validity would fail miserably, due to the fact that they do not fully understand the theory.

Anybody have pointers?

You are correct that when one approaches, especially from a western cultural perspective evolution, this is often what one sees. One of the big uphill battles we have in evolutionary biology is that so many people (including many of my pointy headed colleagues) keep talking about how this is all very simple. It ins’t. Simple understandings of evolution almost always butt up against important and damaging fallacies.

Let me help you out of this intellectually hard problem with a suggestion that will get you part way there if you take it seriously: In retrospect, evolution always looks goal directed. Yet is it impossible to predict the future of evolutionary scenarios beyond the first iteration (and even the first iteration is difficult).

Think about the last five moves in a professional chess game. Very rarely are those predicted but one can take a retrospective look and see why they happened. Now, instead of a chess game, which is really quite simple, consider a very complex ecosystem. Yes, it always looks like one should have seen it coming (where “it” is an ecological change, speciation, whatever) but one can rarely describe the details (though often the trends) of the future.

One specific argument I have heard is that the eyeball is too complex to be created via genetic variation in 2^30 years.

How about this argument: The earth can’t be more than a few thousand years old because given the rate at which it cools, it would be very cold (i.e., no magma or lava) by now if it was older than, say, 20,000.

That argument was made by Lord Kelvin in the 19th century and he was absolutely correct. His argument went like this:

H = T(H-l)

Roughly paraphrased, the heat of the earth is the prior heat of the earth minus the loss over a given time interval across time. I’ve left all the subs and details off the equation, and T() is a function, not multiplication.

The argument you refer to is roughly characterized as:

N = T(rn) ; N > N(e)

Where N is the total number of evolutonary steps to get a functioning organ, r is the rate of change, n is the novel component of function, and T is our time function again. N of E is the number of mutations possible given the most rapid rate of mutation possible for the age of the earth. N is greater than N(e) therefore N (the eye) can’t exist given current evolutionary theory.

If you were my student, I’d ask you to write a two pager expanding on this but since you probably aren’t I’ll give you this: Kelvin did not know the rate of heat loss because he did not correctly characterize the source of heat (in the solar system). He didn’t know about nuclear decay, for instance. He had a number of basic facts of physics and geology wrong, but he had the process correct. New facts eventually came along and his assertion was demonstrated to be incorrect.

IN the case of the eye or other complex features, we often hear creationists telling us that there is not enough time for the evolution to occur but we see ZERO science on what the rate of change is. Zero. That is the most important part of the argument, yet it is glossed over.

And so now you understand:

And if there is no sound explaination for some details exist it seems only logical (if not scientific) to me that the weaknesses of evolution be expressed in textbooks.

should be rewritten that it is only logical, and scientific that there is a weakness in the creationist argument. And, furthermore, the argument is not only weak, but utterly obviously weak, and this weakness has been pointed out again and again yet is not addressed. This brings us to yet another logical conclusion (that may not be scientific): The creationists are making their shit up, lying, and slimily avoiding the truth.

But I kept reading and saw a reference to a point Dawkins made in ‘Climbing Mount Improbable’. A better example, instead of two words is the creation of a spider web, where there is no goal except to make a web that catches flies (through trial and error).

The point at which I am stuck is that this spider/spider web has a purpose. Maybe this idea is not ‘scientific’ and more existential. But it seems like a tough place to move from.

Anybody have pointers?
(probably not the best place for some of these questions)

Yes, Darwin brought that up himself, as a possible objection to his theory– so that people would test it. And, guess what– when they tested it, they found that there wasn’t any contradiction to the theory of evolution.

If you really want to understand this, read Richard Dawkins’s “The Blind Watchmaker,” so you have some understanding of cumulative selection. If you’re really a computer guy, you should be able to write your own “weasel” program to prove cumulative selection works.

Of course, if you’re not willing to read anything except lies from creationist bunko artists, then you’ll never be able to see why scientists consider “descent with modification” (as Darwin called evolution) a proven fact. There isn’t a united plot in science suppressing creationism; there’s plenty of disagreement between scientists. But the disagreement is all about the timing and mechanisms of evolution. *Everything* scientists have learned in the 151 years since the Origin of Species was first published has supported and extended the theory of evolution. The modern theory of evolution is better supported than the theory of gravity!

Creationism has nothing to offer but lies, lies, and more lies. That’s why no sensible, responsible parent wants creationism taught to innocent children. And no responsible citizen wants tax dollars wasted on promoting creationist fraud.

If you don’t want to take the trouble to learn about evolution, you don’t have to. But if you want to continue to spout off on a topic on which you are obviously completely ignorant, don’t turn around and get upset when you get called a moron. (Or, if you do get upset, how about directing your anger at the creationist con artists who deliberately mislead you, instead of at the honest scientists who try to set you straight?)

And if there is no sound explaination for some details exist it seems only logical (if not scientific) to me that the weaknesses of evolution be expressed in textbooks. An abundance of one side of an argument seems too much like propaganda.

Limits can be appropriate. I don’t want my children taught “God did it so there is no reason to ask further” in science classes – and that is entirely the message that intelligent design (or creationism, same beast) does. I want them to learn to think, to question, and succeed.
If they choose to study religion in an academic setting, where the context can be made clear, the limitations respected, that too is fine.
In short: there is nothing relating to creationism/Intelligent design that belongs in any science class; those who support inserting it are working against improving education.

This is plainly false. I’m going to assume that you are merely ignorant as opposed to a liar, since you would have to be a pretty bold liar to pass off something which is wrong in every aspect off as fact.

First, the theory has advanced. Many things which were thought true in the past have been proven to be false, just as many things which were ill-explained or not explained at all in Darwin’s day have been explained.

Second, we have observed organisms evolving in lab settings as in the wild. Drug resistant tuberculosis, for example, did not exist in the past. In labs scientists have done innumerable experiments on fruit flies and have demonstrated the flies evolving to best fit their environments.

Third, the theory itself has “advanced” across the globe and is now known everywhere on Earth.

I could go on, but there are more points I want to make regarding the rest of your message.

stephen @13 “…it still remains a theory because there is no evidence that it is true…”

Every time I see a comment like this I curse the English language for including homonyms. From http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory :

“In everyday speech, the word “theory” is used as a “best guess”. In modern science, a scientific theory is a tested and expanded hypothesis that explains many experiments and fits ideas together in a framework. If anyone finds a case where all or part of a scientific theory is false, then that theory is either changed or thrown out.”

You see, the main difference between a scientific theory and a regular theory is that a scientific theory requires evidence. Lots and lots of evidence. A regular theory could more accurately be called a hypothesis, in other words a guess. Scientific theories are not guesses!

As for the evidence bit? You are either ignorant or a bad liar. There are literal mountains of evidence. You could wallpaper every house in China with all of the evidence. Every year, thousands of peer-reviewed papers are published, each adding more and more evidence.

Frankly, for your sake, I hope you’re just ignorant. It’s a lot easier to become educated than it is to learn how to lie properly.

stephen @13 “if you trust that the universe came about by random chance you put your faith in astronomically bad odds and call it “fact.””

I could choose to bypass this entirely based on the fact that it has nothing to do with evolution, but I’m feeling generous. Just because something is unlikely to occur does not mean that it cannot occur. Case in point, lotteries. It is highly unlikely that any specific ticket will win the prize, but nevertheless someone still wins every time.

Similarly, given enough time even “astronomically bad odds” will occur. You’re probably familiar with the “million monkeys at a million typewriters” saying. This is the same thing.

stephen @13 “…all the while you disregard the facts that are clearly presented in front of you in the fossil record, thermodynamics, etc…”

Earth is not a closed system, so the thermodynamics argument is invalid. As for the fossil thing, I’m unfamiliar with the argument so I’ll have to let it slide.

stephen @13 “…the best answer to the question is that nobody knows for sure but the evidence strongly points to a being that supersedes space and time creating the universe and world as we know it to be…”

What evidence, exactly? I hate to be snippy like that, but seriously, what evidence? Besides, this is a discussion of evolution, not how the universe was created.

It doesn’t matter in the slightest how the universe came to be. It doesn’t even matter how Earth was formed. This is about biological evolution, a topic which has nothing to do with physics.

stephen @13 “…natural selection was never a necessary process by the indication of the fossil record, therefore making darwin’s theory patently false as it pertains to reality.”

I… you know what? I’ve had a long night at my boring graveyard shift job, I’m tired, and I can’t be bothered to give a really excellent reply to this last point.

Suffice it to say that even if your fossil record nonsense has anything at all to do with natural selection, a process which has been observed time and again by scientists of all creeds, colours, and countries, it wouldn’t kill the theory of evolution. Small bits of scientific theories are proven to be wrong all the time. That doesn’t mean the entire theory is wrong, just that it needs to change to accommodate the new information.