@ Fasces - ''So you right, natural selection doesn't mean evolution will cause a better species, just one more suitable for its supposed environment. ''

Yes absolutely correct, will you join me in stamping on the absurdity next time it is proposed in the forum?
I think that a lot of the trouble stems from misunderstandings such as this, wouldn't you agree?

At some future point, not distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break will then be rendered wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as at present between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.
The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. Charles Darwin.

Paraphrasing the abstract:
Study 1 - drunk people tend to conservatism
Study 2 - people preoccupied with something else tend to conservatism
Study 3 - people with no time to think tend to conservatism
Study 4 - people who don't think tend to conservatism

How does this in any way support conservative views?

"Hell of a start. What have we learned since then?"
That there have only been 2 good presidents (Reagan and Clinton) and most people on both the left and the right are fucktards.

"I love LBJ just saying. I was tickled when Obama compared Romney to Goldwater lol. "
LBJ wasn't a good president, the only good think he did was pass the civil rights acts in the 60s, of which he was initially opposed to.

Goldwater was misunderstand, most of his constituents when he was elected to the senate were black, however he opposed a civil rights act in the senate in 1964, despite supporting all the previous ones. That one nay vote was blown out of proportion and for the first time in history the minorities voted for the Democrats instead of the Republicans, and act that has been repeated in every election since. (I don't mean minorities in a racist way, just that LBJ supporting the civil rights act (despite opposing previous ones) and one republican voting Nay on behalf of his constituents was the defining moment in the that election for minority voters).

That pretty much defined the left and the right socially, with the racist southerners now voting Republican, and the tolerant northerners voting Democrat.

"Yes absolutely correct, will you join me in stamping on the absurdity next time it is proposed in the forum? "
It depends if I am in the mood to troll

"I think that a lot of the trouble stems from misunderstandings such as this, wouldn't you agree?"
As well as the media. Lots of movies/tv shows with social Darwinism creating 'better' 'evolved' species. Etc.

"
At some future point, not distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break will then be rendered wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as at present between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.
The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. Charles Darwin. "
Wait, what? I think I lost you.

"Paraphrasing the abstract:
Study 1 - drunk people tend to conservatism
Study 2 - people preoccupied with something else tend to conservatism
Study 3 - people with no time to think tend to conservatism
Study 4 - people who don't think tend to conservatism

How does this in any way support conservative views? "
People who are drunk, preoccupied, with no time and not thinking are also more likely to tell the truth then those who aren't.

So it can be argued that naturally people are more conservative and many liberals are actually closet conservatives who only pretend to be liberal.

I get drunk all the time, and when I'm drunk I don't get stupider, I just stop thinking things through, talk a lot etc.

@ SunZi,

I'll give you props for actually reading, or at least skimming, the article. However, depending on who you are asking the question of, you may have completely missed the point of the thread which was, simply because a study says something about the results it produced, and a third party uses that statement to make a point, doesn't mean that third party's point is valid simply because they referenced a study, regardless of the study's validity/usefulness/etc..

@ fulhamish/Fasces:
As someone who finds the theory of evolution as the best description for the origins of life/variety of species rather lacking, I must say it is refreshing to see that you view natural selection this way. Too often I encounter rather uninformed proponents of evolution as the explanation of the origin of life who adamantly believe that natural selection is always producing better, more capable specimens, while the evidence points rather as you have stated Fasces toward producing "one more suitable for its supposed environment."

@ Leif: ''evolution as the explanation of the origin of life''

Let me thoroughly reassure you that anyone who says something like this has absolutely no scientific knowledge at all to bring to bear to this particular matter. It is rubbish, but despite that has almost become part of the accepted paradigm.

@ ful

Thanks for that. Now I know where you stand. Anything I have to say has absolutely no scientific merit in your eyes. It feels good to be outright marginalized. The possibility of alternate views doesn't even exist in your mind. Glad to year you have such an open inquisitive scientific mind. Glad to know you consider yourself so much more enlightened than me.

Since when has evolution as the explanation for the origin of life been moved from the category of "theory" to "proven fact"? Did I miss the NASA time machine that brought back footage of the first organisms appearing from non-living material?

I've been all over this issue looking for just a shred of plausibility (let alone such a smoking gun) for the "life from nothing" yarn that has been propped up under the label "scientific theory".

But I digress, so returning to a point related to the intent of this thread. The scientific community can't publish a paper without addressing what ramifications their findings have on this "golden boy" theory of "life exists because of a mistake". The result is a tangled web of "evidence" for a theory, supported by a butt-load of studies, experiments, and journals full of results that have nothing to do with actual evidence for evolution as the explanation of the origins of life, because the purpose of the study/experiment/journal article was completely unrelated to the theory of evolution (let alone origins), but couldn't get published without ascribing some remote implication of their results to the holy grail of "enlightened" scientific thought.

It's attitudes like this with no room for questioning of any kind that remind me of events like say, i dunno, maybe Galileo and the Pope, and centuries of dark ages where people lost their heads for questioning the status quo, and flat earth theories that paralyze scientific thought for generations.

Let's just categorically deny any other possibility might have a shred of merit (despite the idea behind the scientific method being one of inquiry to find out physical "truth", whatever the hell that is.)

year = hear*

lets not start this evolution is just a theory game again (evolution is as much of a fact as the theory of gravity)

However in any case Leif does have a point: blindly agreeing with anything, and citing scientific studies doesn't make them right.

And the irony is by blindly agreeing that science has merit, you're no longer following the scientific method making anything you believe go against your core belief.

However if you want proof that something can come from nothing, I would suggest reading Stephen Hawkings 'The Grand Design'.

Although it doesn't go into biology it still explains why god wasn't needed for the big bang and how science will eventually be able to answer any question we currently have.

@ Fasces, I'll have to check into that book by Hawking, sounds like a good read, and I'm curious what he has to say. How dense is the physics? Since I'm in the middle of writing my thesis in electrical engineering right now, I'm not just chomping at the bit to dive into a heavy scientific book, so it may have to wait.

As far as the theory of evolution goes, I won't press the issue too deeply here as it's not that relevant to my thread.

I will say the theory of evolution in many parts (mutations/natural selection/etc.) is empirically verifiable, testable, and repeatable; but as a description of what has already happened in terms of origins of life, it is at best currently unknown whether it is repeatable or empirically verifiable or not. Thus for a description of the origins of life, the theory of evolution is sorely lacking when compared to the theory of gravity.

When it comes to what did happen, we can examine what physical record we do have access to, but beyond that, any 'theory' here is more on the level of a 'plausible story' based on a set of given assumptions and the evidence available. Thus from this viewpoint, evolution as an explanation for the origins of life is then simply a 'plausible story' that is based on the assumption that the natural world is all there is and only natural causes exist/have any merit in studying. By giving the theory of evolution (as applied to the origins question) status as a full fledged theory like gravity, science is done a great disservice. Likewise, I claim intelligent design's claim of a designer who "created" life to be nothing more than a plausible "story" (not theory) given the assumption that the natural world may not be all there is and that supernatural causes may be worth considering. Thus intelligent design does not have merit as a purely 'scientific' approach (being more a study of the underpinning assumptions on which scientific study could be based), but it can provide an explanation that is equally viable to a "theory" applied inappropriately to something that science is at least for the foreseeable future and potentially never able to study because of it's narrow starting assumptions.

Anyways, I'm really curious how Hawking gets to the point that science will be able to answer any question we currently have. I've never seen that very successfully done before.

"Fasces, I'll have to check into that book by Hawking, sounds like a good read, and I'm curious what he has to say. How dense is the physics? Since I'm in the middle of writing my thesis in electrical engineering right now, I'm not just chomping at the bit to dive into a heavy scientific book, so it may have to wait."
I actually haven't read it, a friend recommended it to me and so now I am recommending it to you :P (so if its a disappointment blame him, lol)

Hawking a disappointment? that's borderline sacrilege right there Fasces...

http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=3141

I think we must differentiate between the origin of life and the origin of the universe. Both are questions on which the theorey of natural selection by heridity (or evolution, if you prefer) can have absolutely nothing to say.

@ smeck, thank you for the reference. The last paragraph is rather good in particular.

"...have to admit that the kind of pseudo-science going on here and being promoted in this book isn’t obviously any better than the faith-based explanations of how the world works favored by conventional religions."

I agree fulhamish, that last paragraph was basically my point. If Hawking resorts to M-theory which is rather a flimsy theory as theories go in the science world, and of sorts a 'cop out', how is that sort of thinking considered pure and unadulterated science at its top form?

Shouldn't that be relegated to a "different (but no less important) level" of pseudo science that is more related to the philosophical and fundamental underpinning assumptions involved as I admit intelligent design should be along with evolutionary theories on the origins of life? If it isn't good science, why does it deserve the "science" label?

good link smeck, now I want to read hawking's book even more..