Is Evolution a science or a faith?

[FatAndFaithless]

I love how the OP ignored my long post.

Okay, I have a bone to pick with you. What the fuck is that dog-hyena thing wagging his tail in your signature? It's adorable and I want one.

[Sejanus]

I love how the OP ignored my long post.

I would hate that. Also, your avatar is hilarious.

[ignoramus]

Lately, I've watched a shitload of videos on evolution of eyes, skin, poison, flight, etc.
Sounds very convincing! Even the religious sponsored docos can be made to "sound " logical" if you have a reason to ignore the scientifically reviewed stuff.

I just want to know who will the govt go to for advice on travelling to mars!
The religious "Intelligent Designers" or the hard working high tech companies?

If so why?
Apparently and evidently, the " Intelligent Designers" are only good at "Intelligent" Deception of the highest order.

Ask yourself, what real world benefits has ID been responsible for?
I mean "in this life". Not tomorrow's! Tomorrow never comes!

[Anomalocaris]

I love how the OP ignored my long post.

He is here to adore the sound of his own words, not to discover why other people might speak different words than his.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Sometimes, obtuseness is intentional.

The intentionality of it is a bit worrying...

Actually, when I learn it's intentional, it's easy: <plonk>

[Esquilax]

This indeed a real trouble because you are disregarding real specialists in the field. About 90% of palaentologists are absolutely not comfortable to state that fossil record is the evidence for evolution. I have given quotes of few eminent palaentologists in my main article that you have overlooked.

I don't think that's true, and I'm certainly not willing to take your word for it after your performance thus far, especially not with regards to quotes, because you have quote mined shamelessly and dishonestly whenever it suits you so far, and then never retracted those outright lies even when asked. Citations please, or this claim will be summarily rejected.

What's really funny, Harris, is that it took me all of five seconds to find the Paleontoloical Society's statement on evolution. This is an organization that has been around for over a century, has member paleontologists from over forty countries, and their first sentence response is "Evolution is both a scientific fact and a scientific theory." They were willing to say that in the opening line: why should I believe you, a known liar, on what paleontologists believe, over actual paleontologists?

I am not telling what you think; I am trying to show what you are doing. Although you are trying to disguise your FAITH in evolution by using scientific notions, nevertheless the fact is that Evolution and Natural selection are your gods. Only difference between you and ancient pagans is you don’t have idols of evolution and Natural selection for the purpose of worship.

"I'm not telling you what you think... but here's what you think!" Harris, I'm not even going to indulge this drivel with a response. You don't get to climb into my head and tell me that I worship this or that, it's not your place and it makes you look like more of an arrogant imbecile than you already seem to be. I accept evolution is true because I have literally seen it happen, right in front of my eyes, multiple times. There's no need to worship, no idols, just a simple acceptance of a scientific fact, the same way you accept that the sky is blue. Don't be an idiot.

“Evolution can turn dinosaurs into birds, apes into humans, and amphibious mammals into whales.”
Live science
http://www.livescience.com/474-controver...works.html

Not over one generation, though. Do you actually believe that it would happen over a single generation?

It's actually really suspicious how reluctant you are to tell us what you think evolution is. I think you know you're being dishonest here.

Thanks for pointing at that. That response was a Mumbo jumbo. I don’t even know how to response because I absolutely did not understand what he had written there. See! I am not shy to show I have not understood.

Passive aggressive little shitwizard.

For example, we experience the feeling of love, which no material science can define. You cannot reject the concept of love no matter how materialistic your mind is. These immaterial feelings have a very profound impact on your personality where they actually structure your behaviour.

What are you talking about? We can show you love on a CAT scan: it's a physiological process with distinct neurochemical signatures, easily definable by science. Your ignorance of the subject you purport to know everything about really is stunning.

Yes, dear! I am listening you with all of my devotions. It is, perhaps, on the contrary that you are the one who is not trying to understand what point I am making.
Regardless what differences evolution and abiogenesis have, evolution is dependent over abiogenesis. Without having abiogenesis at the root level, the whole structure of evolution has simply no meaning. You always need a foundation for a building. You cannot raise a building if you do not have a foundation in first place. I hope I have made my point clear this time. Theory of Evolution is wrong right from its root level. In fact it has no roots at all.

Harris, I've mentioned this before, but god could have created life, and it would still be evolving. Abiogenesis is its own theory, and while if it turns out to be correct then evolution would be connected to it, it need not be for evolution to happen. Regardless of how life got here, it is still evolving. What you're saying makes no sense (unsurprisingly, by now).

Just as I can’t judge your mind similarly you can’t be confident what the minds of other people have in them. You know your feelings exactly and you are capable to disguise them for others for whatever reason. Most of the historic and pre-historic records show that overwhelming majority of people in all times were inclined towards the concept of God or Deity, which is a clear proof that concept of God is embedded into our conscience by nature.

And the Piraha tribe shows the exact opposite. Hell, I myself am evidence of the exact opposite: I never was a believer, my entire life. If your only response is to tell me that I really do believe and am just hiding it, then my response back will be nothing more than a hearty fuck you.

You are saying that somehow a living cell appeared on earth with its entire DNA code embedded on its nucleus and evolution was standing somewhere nearby waiting for its maturity to marry with her and spread tremendous variety of life forms all over the planet. I am hearing that joke on daily basis. In your efforts to educate me, you are missing all of my common-sense points!

No, that's not what I'm saying. Thank you for the strawman. Very honest.

My argument is why people are confident on how the first life form looked like. Why people think it was the cell and not something complex? No matter whatever was the first life form, how evolution got it right? Is evolution something, which is some, built in quality (something like DNA code) or is it some external force? In any case, evolution is not an intelligent force and this makes the things even worse.

Evolution is built in: our replication processes inherently make mistakes during the replication itself, genetic transcription errors called mutations that are the driving force of evolution. It's not an intelligent process, but natural selection- the simple fact that organisms that mutate exist in physical space- kills off those with harmful mutations and promote the genetic spread of beneficial ones.

You would know this, if you'd bothered to learn about what you were talking about before you disagreed with it.

So for this reason I am saying that abiogenesis and evolution are interrelated concepts. Evolution depends on the first life cell which abiogenesis trying to explain why and how it came into existence.

I shouldn't have to tell you that creationism also attempts to explain why and how the first life came into existence. Now, I don't happen to accept creationism myself, but if god, any god, did create life, that life would still be evolving. Evolution and abiogenesis are not related concepts.

I am against the idea of developing whole theory over mere conjectures.

Evolution, however, is based on a large number of differing lines of evidence and predictions that come together to form a level of evidentiary support that is more well grounded than most any other theory in science.

Not I but you have not looked at my response. That response is still there and waiting for you.

Could you link to it? Because I just looked through the thread, and you haven't responded to it there.

For me evolution is your FAITH

But what do you actually think it is?

What he said I heard. It is simple as that. Dawkins is a scientist and he cannot deny facts in the air no matter how much he hates those facts (ID)

Yes but Dawkins later spoke out on his blog and said that he didn't believe what you said he did, and that Stein manipulatively edited his response to make him look foolish. Do you therefore admit that you were wrong when you claimed Dawkins believes aliens created life, given that you have words from the man himself that indicate otherwise?

“There is no God,” it is a BELIEF. You like it or not but this is the truth. You can’t run away by saying it is a lack of Belief. You believe in the non-existence of God without any doubt.

But that's not what the majority of the atheists you've been talking to here believe. You could just ask us, rather than constructing dishonest strawmen and assuming you know what's in our heads better than we do.

[Cyberman]

WTF is this, Harris's personal Facebook wall or something?

However, that's not even the point. My question to you was in response to your contention that atheists believe "God" doesn't exist. My position is I lack the belief that the character does exist. Now the ball is in your court.

“There is no God,” it is a BELIEF. You like it or not but this is the truth. You can’t run away by saying it is a lack of Belief. You believe in the non-existence of God without any doubt.

Nope - it's not that I have the belief that "God" does not exist - I do not have the belief that "God" does exist. It's the difference between saying I don't believe the coin came down head and saying I believe it came down tails. Please stop telling me and others what we believe. It's astonishingly arrogant.

Please quote a single post of mine in which I ever said anything approaching this.

For the sake of argument, if I grant that you never said that ATHEISM IS NOT A FAITH. Can I then take it that you are saying ATHEISM IS IN FACT A FAITH?

Of course you can... if you don't mind me reporting you for deliberate misquoting.

[Duke Guilmon]

I love how the OP ignored my long post.

I hate how I miss you and I wish you posted here more

How's my little brother doing? You good?

Very good.

[Bad Wolf]

Ignorance overload! WoW, Harris is one of those people I would like to take into a university biology lab and show him in person, exactly what is wrong with what he thinks. No hiding behind texts, no deflecting and ignoring points. Wait wait, uni lab may be too advanced, how about a high school lab.
And BTW fresh water and salt water do mix, if that were false we would see a halocline in the ocean.

[pocaracas]

And BTW fresh water and salt water do mix, if that were false we would see a halocline in the ocean.

Halocline requires special conditions to happen.
Nothing in the qur'an mentions those conditions... it just mentions that such a thing happens... but in a very imprecise way which reminds me of Aristotle's projectiles: