Jesuis -
You ask if I am playing "Devil's Advocate." I am not. While I am not as personally invested in either side of the argument (between the atheists and the religionists), yet I am most certainly on my own path of learning what I can of Life and its origins as well as its possible future potentials beyond this mortal existence. In most cases, a "devil's advocate" generally finds his primary motivation and pleasure in simply creating intellectual chaos with no real personal involvement or concern for the issues raised. Such is not my situation.
However, it is quite obvious that you are very much invested in the Darwinian side, though you have done little else but simply tow the "party line" in regurgitating that found in wikipedia articles and other sources that parrot Darwinian "orthodoxy." And I have learned through great experience that arguing with a "true believer," whether religious or non-religious, is not very productive. After all, a "true believer" is not interested in stepping outside the box of his indoctrination and thinking beyond such; he is simply interested in promoting the dogmae of his belief system as supported by his "scriptures." And should such prove insufficient to convince the "unfaithful" and bring them back in line, there usually follows a restating of such "scripture" and then a calling into question the intelligence of the "non-believer." This was well exemplified by you when you recently responded to a poster who pointed out one of my previous questions and was then told that, while he might have read the "book," he apparently had failed to understand it. You then simply restated the same dogma, used your dog breed example again, claimed this was applicable to one species "evolving" into a new and higher species and left it at that.
Of course, the obvious fallacy of your dog-breed explanation (as with all Darwinist explanations for its fantastical claims) is that it attempts to explain a claimed process of near-infinite complexity using an analogy that is taken entirely out of context and of such a simple genetic level of complexity that has absolutely nothing to do with the creation of a new and more advanced species.
To put my own analogy into the mix, such an example is about as relevant as were I to claim that because a dollar can be monetarily re-expressed as 2 $.50-cent coins, 4 quarters, 10 dimes, 100 pennies, and any of thousands of other coin combinations (as with your dog breeds), that this explains how ... according to my brand-new, Darwinist-based, Monetary Evolution Theory ... given enough time a One Dollar Bill could just as "magically" transform itself into a One Hundred Dollar Bill.
This is, in effect, what Evolution attempts to claim biologically. Almost makes the Catholic doctrine of trans-substantiation seem pedestrian by comparison, now doesn't it? (No offense to Catholic beliefs intended.)
Despite your attempts, I and many others have read the Darwinian "books" and quite well understood them. And what we have understood is that they fail to answer any of the deeper questions or resolve any of the obvious paradoxes.
I have brought up in entries here only three such that the Darwinian view simply cannot begin to answer:
1. The how and why of flight (no such needed for continued survival of any species... period);
2. The thousands of examples in Nature of necessary symbiosis between vastly different species [e.g., bees and flowers] that would have necessitated exactly synchronistic evolutionary change within the same generation of such vastly divergent species for both to have survived; and
3. Environmental changes that would motivate such necessary "evolutionary" changes for survival occurring too fast for any such evolutionary changes to "catch up" in time to benefit the organism before such would result in extinction.
As Darwinism cannot overcome such simple challenges, Darwinists such as yourself tend to then end the discussion of the issues at hand and instead revert back to recitation of Darwinist doctrine usually coupled with condescensions of those for whom such were understandably insufficient.
Rather reminds me of the die-hard Bible thumper who states "Where the Bible speaks, we speak. And where it is silent, we are also silent." While such a view works well for the die-hard dogmatist, it is antithetical to the scientist.
But, before I get into further discussion of the ironic philosophical similarity between Darwinists and Religionists, I wished to quickly answer your previous counters to my earlier posts.
More "Complex" Equals Greater Survival?
You claimed that Evolution does not tend to result in more advanced species, yet stated in the same paragraph that making such more "adaptable" meant that they also "tend(ed) to be more complex":
"...the lesser adaptable species become extinct and that as a result the remaining creatures tend to be more complex or adaptable."
The obvious rebuttal to this is to simply point out that, in fact, biologically speaking... the reverse is more often the case: the less complex the organism, the more adaptable it is and the greater its chances for survival no matter the extremes of Nature. Single-celled and similarly simple organisms have lived on Earth for millions upon millions of years... far longer than the more "complex" organisms and far longer than Homo Sapiens, too... even according to Darwinism. Such simple organisms have likewise been found to be thriving in the harshest of environments with no problem whatsoever... and with no apparent evolutionary "need" to become more complicated even after all those many millions of years.
To take this one step further... Same goes for those lifeforms that have gills instead of lungs, fins instead of limbs... all such have thrived and, according to Evolution, existed on this planet far longer than those more "complex" species that breathe air and walk/run on land.. much less those that somehow "magically" developed out of thin air the aerodynamically designed capacity for flight. So... if gills and fins have always sufficed for life to flourish... why lungs and limbs, much less wings?
These are logical and quite reasonable questions any layperson can formulate and for which Darwinism has no convincing logical answers... kinda like religion.
In fact, when actually examined, Darwinism seems to have much more in common with religion than it does with actual science.
Darwinism... Science, or not?
According to Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, the definition of science is "knowledge attained through study or practice," or "knowledge covering general truths of the operation of general laws, esp. as obtained and tested through scientific method [and] concerned with the physical world."
- http://www.sciencemadesimple.com/science-definition.html
Hmmm... let's examine this and see how much the Theory of Evolution ascribes to this definition, shall we?
I noticed that your avatar appears to be a portrait of Sir Isaac Newton. Okay, let's start with him. The science of Physics contains numerous laws, formulae, and means by which all such were and are able to be tested and proven. Newton developed the first three key Laws of Motion that formed the foundation of Physics during the Renaissance Period and continue to be applicable even in the modern age of Einstein, Hawking, etc., both of whom built more and more expansive laws upon the foundations of Newton. And then, such were then able to be tested and improved upon during the other key phase of scientific inquiry: experimentation.
The same can be said for all other areas of legitimate science (e.g., chemistry, biology, geology, astronomy, thermodynamics): all of these likewise are founded upon the establishment of hypotheses that through experimentation (both physical and mathematical) that result ultimately in the establishment of Theories and the Laws that govern them.
So... what are the "Laws of Evolution" that define and explain its operation, such as can be found in all other legitimate sciences? Name them if you would be so kind.
Where are the experiments (either physical or mathematical) that validate and/or prove such "Laws"?
Without both of these... you cannot call it science.
"But," you might well argue, "Evolution is not something that can be observed or experimented with given the thousands and even millions of years involved."
While this is true, yet there are many actual sciences that regularly deal with equally great time periods, astronomy being only one, in which still experimentation, observation, and mathematical extrapolation has proven remarkably verifiable evidences for current theories, the "Big Bang" Theory being only one of these. Thus, this is a cop out, frankly.
The "Theory of Evolution" has no Laws, no mathematical or formulaic evidences, and no experiments that validate its primary principles that one species "evolves" into another... period. Nor can it provide any such that even begin to resolve the MANY contradictions within the theory to explain even the most basic of paradoxes and quandries of which I have named only a few.
Thus, it is not a true "science."
Darwinism ... as Religion?
Your assertion that Darwinists are not all atheists is correct... but such was not what I said. What I said was that Darwinism is "atheistic by nature," and such is absolutely true... which is why most Darwinists are atheists and why statistically all atheists are Darwinists. After all, if no "Intelligent Design" is needed (come now... let's employ at least a modicum of logic here), then there is no need for an "Intelligent Designer," now is there? Thus, no need to seek that which does not exist.
Thus, for Atheists... Darwinism is as much their religion as Catholicism, Protestantism, Mormonism, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc., are for non-atheists (i.e., Theists).
To quote one of the greater sages of our Post-Modern Age: "-Ism's in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an -ism, he should believe in himself." - Ferris Bueller
In Summation... *Whew!*
As the "Theory" of Evolution has no Laws, has no mathematical proofs of same, and cannot even be in the least experimented or observed beyond simple variations within species yet never beyond such (which inter-species "shifts" form the founding principle of actual "Evolution"), then in my view any logical person must conclude that Darwinism is not a science and, indeed, has far more in common with religion.
And like Catholicism used to be, today Darwinism rules in our schools and in government and in science in much the same manner as the only permitted "dogma" of explaining the origins of life, of species, and thus of our existence and purposes for same. Today... despite its many and myriad failings in explaining even the simple questions such as I have posited here... only Evolution has exclusive monopoly over the exact same questions and concerns as religion once did. And only Darwinist disciples are permitted to preach its doctrines and dogmae from the pedagogical pulpits (as the "Father of American Education," John Dewey, Darwinist Extraordinaire, so aptly put it) of and inside its sponsored "temples" of learning, nationwide.
And as a result, our youth are emerging therefrom just as indoctrinated and unable to think for themselves on such matters as were the rosary-reciting and genuflecting "pious" school children of Galileo's time.
By the by... as you might recall, Galileo was also considered a "Devil's Advocate"... literally. ;)
- Upir'
