The problem is not that there are no loopholes. Its that to attack most cutting edge science in any kind of meaningful way you must be a professional yourself. Trust me the professionals DO attack ALL the loopholes with more vigor then you can imagine. The reason? Its simple, world wide fame and prestige. Any scientist that proves wrong an established theory by attacking a "loophole" would gain a Nobel Prize for their effort.

Evolutionary biologist have a direct vested interest in chopping off the misinformation espoused by creationist. To me there is no such thing as an evolutionist. There is no cult of evolution, just a group of people smart enough to understand the overwhelming evidence in support of the theory.

Attacking religious texts are easy, and beneath all the evolutionary biologists I know, they simply don't care.

Dude, I don't want to bust your bubble here but that isn't exactly how science works, and every scientific theory or law has loopholes, loose ends, and assumptions built into it. It is the nature of any philosophic argument and a scientific proof is simply and modernized and selected philosophical proof based on an approved standard for sufficient data and a specific logical framework called the scientific method. That does not make it bulletproof.

The professionals, hehehe, I am one. While I was finishing my thesis on Black Hole Theory in college I was hit with the cruel reality of how the "scientific" world thinks. There is a very unique scenario that comes up when a star is about to collapse beyond an event horizon which I called the critical density. It was never investigated in the lifetime of blackhole theory because no other "scientist" ever had the foresight to look at their math and say "something's not right here." This critical density idea stops the collapse of a black hole, so technically, they can never form from a collapsing star, at least not to the point of being a "true", textbook black hole. It's obvious, and my mathematics is very clear and in order and on display at SIUE, but my instructor specifically told me not to publish it and not to make a big deal about it because "you don't smack the work of the worlds legendary physicists"

That's how your "scientists" think. As far as the Nobel Prize, you don't get that for punching holes either. You get it for creating.

Let me stop before I go on a rant about evo. biologists.

Seems to me that the problem lies, not in science, but in your instructor. If scientists through history didn't question the work of those before them, science would never advance.

I am skeptical this ever happened, nice anecdote.



Great point and so even if it DID happen, and your not just having some fun making up an anecdote to support your claim of "how science works" then this appears to be a singular issue in a totally different field of study . . . I can prove science is not just some good ole boys club, I actually have evidence . . . do you?

If I was you I would have sought out a referee at a reputable paper.

Your story sounds familiar, I think I shall research this story of yours, I seem to remember someone solved that particular knowledge bottleneck.

Also are you seriously saying that the bacteria flagellum is some kind of unknown? Or an irreducibly complex problem for evolution?

I take it you didn't really watch any of the videos . . .

PS: if you want to be believable cite some reputable sources with links to papers, otherwise I will remain skeptical . . . not that you, or I really care . . right?

Just realized that there was some confusion on this line...

loopholes in scientific theory are rarely attacked with the same tenacity as religious texts.


I'm talking about in debate forums by people who are discussing from a distance, rather than being part of the research problem. Average Joe Schmoes who like bashing the opposing viewpoint. When someone props a religious viewpoint on a topic, it gets torn apart down to the syntax. "scientific" viewpoints tend to just be accepted by the masses. I had no right to rant, I didn't read your point clearly enough.

As for scientists tending to bury new ideas, it happens all the time. Physics tends to have the least of it but occassionally it will still rear its ugly head in QM and Astro- especially. Also in astronomy. Most people would probably be thrown off if they actually knew how vaugue most astronomy numbers are. Numbers are good in astronomy if they are within a few powers of 10 of the actual value. Not exactly precision measurements, this is why there is so much disagreement over the age of the universe.

All in all though, physics isn't bad, Biology gets very opinionated and noticing that a species is in the wrong place (genus, family, etc) can take years and decades to resolve and is not really an approved behaviour.

Same goes with Archeology. You still have professors and top notch people insisting that Kafre built the Sphynx even though it has been known for a long time that he simply replaced the head of it with his own face after it was already constructed. (Or at least that is the theory for now until it changes again)

Keeping scientific theories up to date is sometimes impossible because there is rarely one theory that is agreed on by all scientists, including evolution. Just because Darwin's survival of the fittest theory for evolution is popular at the moment doesn't make it right. There is one theory that evolution happens quickly and without warning which explains why some of these "missing link" scenarios come up, but the mechanism is not as easy to digest. Another theory is that animals have the ability to change DNA while still living as a matter of will power, and yes there is DNA research to back it up. That leaves open the possibility that Evolution can happen within a few generations to create a new species.


"
Also are you seriously saying that the bacteria flagellum is some kind of unknown? Or an irreducibly complex problem for evolution?
"

Not a complex problem, but a critical problem. A cell is the most basic type of lifeform and the easiest to mutate and "evolve" if you will. But nobody can seem to find a good mechanism that is repeatable, like a cell species evolving to have better transportation. This is just one example from a barrage of such questions. Others are, how do you get from no eyes to eyes, an eye is a complex organ that it would seem would have to evolve over a very long time. Same question, what is the mechanism that makes an eye come into existence? Wings are easy to figure out, eyes, ears, etc are not so easy.
The bigger problem, as I said is going from single celled organisms to multicelled organisms. Science has no answer and for evolution theory to be complete, you need an answer to this question. Another gap is protein soup->living cells. The proteins can be formed chemically, no problem, but arranging them into cells requires something more.


"
If I was you I would have sought out a referee at a reputable paper.

Your story sounds familiar, I think I shall research this story of yours, I seem to remember someone solved that particular knowledge bottleneck.
"

No bottleneck, it's a deductive conclusion from the mathematics. The math predicts it perfectly but most people can't think in time/space very easily or visuallize things like density distributions and their effect on spacetime, and that is where it's hiding. You don't even really need to work the math out, its basic.

The reasons there was no "stir" on my part, other than being a bit surprised, are many but here are the biggies. In physics, if it doesn't offer something useful and measurable, then it's not worth publishing. My little blip does not change the way we need to look for black holes at all b/c in the grand scheme, a nearly collapsed BH looks exactly the same and behaves exactly the same as an all the way collapsed BH. No need to modify the telescopes. The only useful thing it offers is insight and truth and it gets rid of that bloody question about Rosen Bridges, not to mention Poincare (Can't remember if this is how you spell his name) diagrams for space travel. So why criticise approval of said nasty paper by Einstein when all he was trying to do was help some kid get his Ph.D? That is their argument.

I love hearing people talk about scientists as if they are these perfect people that never make mistakes and are free of personal bias. Yea right. Most of them are just a bunch of posers like everyone else. Only a few good ones in the bunch, just as you have in any other field, but people give them nearly godlike qualities. The other bad assumption people make is that Scientists are all on the same page. We aren't. We disagree with eachother all the time. But the disagreements between good scientists with open minds are friendly and they result in new experiments to try and figure out what's right and what's not.

It's the work of the debbil

Lewis Black - The Devil's Handiwork...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kps4IKAnEWQ

Memory is a little hazy, thinking about that day. I was going on about that Einstein-Rosen paper and what a load of crap it was that day after reading it several times. It was probably more my snide comments about the paper jumping to conclusions and comming up with fairytale theories about what a negative sqare root means that Dr. Swami was trying to shut me up about, and he had a good point. For the purpose of this discussion though same difference, paper written by famous guy is wrong, and you're not supposed to correct his conclusion jumping habbit.

Strong evidence tends to get someone attention. It can take years, even decades, but good strong evidence doesn't go away. The scientific community will eventually listen if your right.

Some fields of science are more empirical and objective then others, yes . . . very true.

Bump for Eljay or anyone who thinks he has a point.

This is totally false. People can say anything on an Internet forum, but it often has no validity.

Every scientist is chomping at the bit to poke a hole in the work of another scientist. Skepticism is what makes science work. If you can blow a hole in a scientific theory and make it stick you will the Nobel Prize, get lots of money and publicity, and also win some fame in scientific history.

The idea that scientific theorys aren't being attacked by other scientists is absolutely false.

Moreover, what's to compare with religious texts? Religious texts have been proven to be false on so many levels there's nothing left to attack.

The Abrahamic religions are all based on a stupid egotistical God who lusts for blood sacrifices and is chomping at the bit to cast decent people into hell just because they disagree with religious bigots. The religion is clearly a manmade farce.

It's basically a copy of Greek mythology and a myriad of other related mythologies from the mediteranean region. Even the religious clergy had to fess up to this, they depend on using Satan as the "Evil Demon" who created all the previous false mythologies just to throw mankind off from the truth.

How silly is that. A God that DEPENDS upon a demon to make sense?

Moroever, the Abraham religions hold mankind responsible for bringing 'sin' (imperfect and death) into the world. In fact those doctrines even claim that plants didn't grow thorns until the fall of man.

Well, the FACT of the matter is that we know now that death, disease, natural disasters, and thorny plants existed LONG BEFORE mankind ever came onto the scene on planet Earth.

The authors of the Abrahamic texts are caught in bold-faced lies!

Besides what kind of a God would be a male chauvinist pig? That was a blatant clue right there that these story were written by male chauvinist men.

The authors of those religious texts have denounced themselves by shooting themsleves in their own feet. No scientific knowledge required.

Also, look at Christianity. They have God being so DESPERATE that he has to have himself (or his son who isn't truly seperate from him) nailed to a pole to beat this Satan and Save mankind from sin.

This is a picture of a DESPERATE God. Clearly not an all-powerful God who is in control of anything.

The story is as absurd as it gets. Anyone who would buy into such a story has no business even discussing scientific matters because they clearly can't even begin to have a sense of what even makes sense.

To believe in the Abraham religions a person must completely forfiet any sense of rationality, including accepting that God himself is totally irrational and driven almost entirely by ego and a desperate war against a fallen angel that he has absolutely no control over.

Such a God, even if it did exist would be so lame it would be highly questionable if it should even be called a "God". It solves all it's problems with violence and desperate methods.

It's utterly absurd.

We'd be far better off if atheism is true than to have been created by such a jealous egotistical idiot as described by the Mediterranean religious folklores. Such a God would be totally untrustworthy. In many cases it wouldn't be any better than the Satan its supposedly at war with. In fact, according to the book of Job the biblical God gambles with Satan. Obviously the biblical God has something to PROVE to Satan!

The story is absurd in its own right. Period. No need for science to even discuss it. It would be like discussing Alice in Wonderland, or Humpty Dumpty. Most people have already recoginzed the absurdity of Greek Mythology. Well the rest of Mediterranean mythology truly isn't all that different. The God of Abraham isn't much different from Zeus at all. It's the SAME old mythology told with a few different twists.

Yet most people wouldn't give Greek Mythology the time of day. Why they give the God of Abraham any more consideration is beyond me. The stories are equally as absurd, inconsistent, and conflicting even within their own claims.

If there is some kind of supreme being it most certainly doesn't have anything to do with ancient religious texts that were written by a bunch of male chauvinist idiots.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnzmxeZJeho
Evolution summed up in two minutes.

Religion--Taught for thousands upon thousands of years.

Evolution--Theorized for the most part of the 20th century.

It is always easier to form an idea or a theory, you base the creation of it off evidence you have gathered. Now, belief, that is an entirely different beast...people believe in some of the most ridiculous things (Jim Jones, Charles Manson, Warren Jeffs, among many others), belief is not something changed over-night.

Unfortunately this is precisely the way that many people have been taught to believe. They have been taught that evolution is "just a theory".

Clearly all ideas begin as "theories". But it's incorrect to believe that this is all they can ever be. At one time it was 'just a theory' that maybe the Earth might not be at the center of the universe. But it soon became recognized as the truth.

The same is true of evolution. It started out as an idea, but soon became recognized as truth for many reasons. Fossil records being the most obvious. But then cosomology also contributed by independently discovering that the Earth is actually 4.5 billion years old rather than a mere 6,000. Now, we not only understand the biological evolution of humans, but we also understand the cosmic evolution of the very solar system, the stars, the elements, and even the universe itself.

It's amazing what we are able to actually learn from the universe.

Evolution might also be in question if all we had were fossil records, but in addition to that we understand how genetics works. We understand DNA, and how things can and do evolve.

So not only do we have all sorts of observational evidence that evolution is true, we even understand the mechanisms through which it works.

To suggest today that evolution is "just a theory" is truly insane. Yet this is a lie that religious people try very hard to perpetuate. And it most certainly is a lie. The evidence for evolution and our understanding of how it works goes far beyond mere theories. This would like like claiming that it's still 'just a theory' that the Earth is not the center of the universe. That would actually be an outright lie. And the same holds true for evolution. It's truly a farce to claim that it's "just a theory", yet this is what many people have been taught to believe and continue to support, all in favor of supporting a religion that has all of humanity fallen from grace from their creator. A religion that has absolutely no evidence whatsoever to back it up.

The proof of evolution isn't sound yet, it is close. But it isn't %100, it still has holes in it. Personally I think religion is more of a theory than evolution, as evolution has far more provable facts but it is still not %100, solidly proven.

Considering that we as animals in this universe know a fraction of what we need to know. Evolution is the closest thing we have to fact on how we got here. It is evident in all organisms on this planet so to consider it has been happening all along is an easy deduction.

The only battle there is with creationism and evolution doesn't have an iota to do with facts, it is tradition and beliefs.

The idea of "proving" something that is not a mathematical statement is misguided.

Scientific theories are not about proving themselves.


You have facts, these are objective verifiable things.

You can join together facts and use testing to illuminate processes, or use technology to watch processes unfold.

When you have a theory of how all these facts, and processes, and testable things come together, then you have theory.

There very well may be multiple theories on a given process or sets of processes.

If any new facts arise that contradict the theory, then its in big trouble. Which ever theory stands the test of time with usually thousands of facts that all support it, we start to trust it to a certain degree based on how accurate it can make predictions.


What is amazing about theories like evolution, is that they connect other scientific fields, this is why they are called unifying.

A strong theory is based on facts, a unifying theory takes the facts from separate independently verified fields of research, so this would be exponentially stronger.

So not only does evolution jive with the data uncovered in its field by evolutionary biologists but nearly a dozen other fields some not even biological fields of study.

Id say that evolution is a fact. The details of how evolution occur is the only part that has been in debate for roughly a 100 years.

The scientific community has long since put this one to bed.

I think sperm cells may evolve

Solidly proven to whom?

How much evidence does a person demand before accepting that something is true? As far as I'm concerned the evidence for evolution is overwhelming. There is absoultely no evidence that refutes it.

What I find truly strange is that the people who seem to demand so much proof are the religious folks who perfer to believe in an ancient mythology that has absolutely no evidence whatsoever for its claims of divine interventions. Not only does it lack any proof for any of those claims, but the doctrine itself is truly silly with resepct to what it claims. It's supposed to be about an all-powerful, all-wise God that does extremely stupid things and extremely desperate things as well. It's a self-conflicting story without even going outside of the main plot. Even if it were true it would still necessarily be about a seriously flawed God which flies in the face of what it claims God is supposed to be like. It's a self-conflicting story.

At least evolution doesn't conflict with itself.

Draconians evolved from dinosaurs millions of years ago

I believe we all evolve to some degree, but from monkeys or some animal, no, however would like to point out evoloution from monkeys to us has not been proven.