You can assume things, even if there's "evidence" that supports your assumption. If it's not empirically proven, it's mere assumption even if it's logically supported by facts. That doesn't make the assumption itself a fact. You say you differentiate it, then don't even differentiate it. Nice job.
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I believe the word you're looking for is deduction. But let's give an example, a man is found with a knife in his chest, and on this knife are the fingerprints of another person. Now according to you, concluding the second man stabbed the first is a wild assumption, because it cannot be empirically proven, we are merely assuming with facts. But anyone with an iota of reason would instead realise that such a conclusion is in fact more than likely true and that therefore the second man, without doubt, should face prison. The man with the knife in the chest is the fossil record evidencing animals with noticeable similarities, the fingerprints on the knife belong to small scale adaption observable in the world today. The conclusion? Evolution, clear as day.
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Edited by Coker: 4/9/2015 3:50:46 AMThe assumption in your example is not that the finger prints match, that's empirically true. But you're assuming he wasn't set up, that the finger prints were planted there. There's literally a thousand plausible scenarios you can get from the evidence, but you're arrogant, or rather naive enough to assume there's only one conclusion to the scene. You can never deduce for certainty what had actually occurred. You say, "look a bat has five fingers, a human has five fingers! Therefur we share the same ancestor! Derpity derp derp!" Or "a banana has half the dna as human, therfur we have same grandpa! Durpity durp dirp!" (no offense intended) These may seem like logical "deductions", but there's a thousand other possible deductions one can get from the facts. You pretend like it's black and white. You presume evolution is true, then look at the evidence to then support your preconcived beliefs, which is not how empirical science works. But you can believe with all your heart in those assumptions, or "deductions", all you want, I will stay open minded to other plausible deductions.
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The whole point of the example has missed you apparently. The whole point is everything points to evolution, just as it points to the second man being the murderer. Sure, it isn't set in stone but nothing is, even causation itself can be pulled into question so that is a meaningless road to travel. All the evidence on the table points to evolution, like, blatantly. This is why almost the entire scientific and academic community consider it factual, because it makes so much bloody sense. I mean seriously, if you know better than them, go ahead and publish a paper, you will be world famous if you're right. But if course you aren't, you are simply unable to comprehend what are, in reality, very basic concepts. I'm sorry to be so blunt but at this point you seem to be the one who cannot understand evolution, not evolution being a "retarded" (to use your terminology) assumption. That's not to mention that your own replacement theory was so ridiculously flawed even you left it by the wayside at first challenge.
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No, you only think all the evidence points to evolution because you're completely closed off to alternatives. Yes, there are alternatives, crazy... i know. There's plenty of geologists, archeologists, biologists, who have different deductions of the facts. Like I said, you can believe whole heartedly in your assumptions all you want, they're decent assumptions, but I will remain open minded to other plausible explanations and theories of the facts we have.
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Your open mindedness instead appears as rejection of a clear conclusion - for whatever reason. If you can present me with anything more convincing I will happily read it and, if it has merit, consider it more deeply. But in all my years I haven't seen one come close, and every scientist I have spoken to, even the religious ones, thought evolution to be true.
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Clear? Far from it.
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Again, the clarity is well acknowledged by most, the issue seems to be with your vision.
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The issue is your dogmatic bias on your preconceived beliefs. I will remain open-minded, you're free to be close-minded from other alternatives tho.
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No other alternatives have been presented. Unless you count your own, but that was total garbage. If someone were to present a convincing argument I would listen, for some reason you mistake your illogical rejection of evolution as open mindedness, when it is simply folly. You call it a bias, but the pieces fit, even if you don't want them to.
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Edited by Coker: 4/9/2015 4:25:43 AMYour dogmatic bias and close-mindedness is showing. It's amazing just how religiously assumptions can be held by self-proclaimed intellectuals.
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You have presented only one alternative, and it was pulled apart rather simply. Otherwise all I am doing is defending something which, by all accounts, seems to be true yet you decide that instead of attacking the idea or presenting alternatives you will accuse the speaker of a dogma, for reasons unknown. Even for you, this is getting incredibly weak, it's basically a "no u" at this point, responding with the ol "you're close minded with that dogmatic bias of yours. Also, faith and empiricism, did I forget any of my buzzwords?" In fact, it appears you are the close minded one here, rejecting evolution despite the host of logic and evidence presented here, without supplying any alternative thought or other method at all (again discounting that mess from early on).
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There's nothing factual about darwinian microbe to man evolution, sorry. You can believe in whatever religion you want, but I prefer to stick to what can be empirically proven, not assumption.
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There's only so much I can explain it until the weakest link is not evolution, but you. Have you ever considered why it has become the mainstream in science? Why anyone who's worth anything considers it the truth? Why you, an uneducated layman (in terms of biology) presumes to know more than the majority people who have dedicated themselves to this science? Does it not seem like, instead of everyone else not getting it, the one who's missing the mark is you? Now, you'll probably throw in some "appeal to authority" response or whatever, but I just want you to consider why it might be that almost all the specialists think you're wrong, but you think you're right (and hell, it's less that you disagree with the intricacies and more that you simply cannot fathom how a lot of small changes result in a large one, which honestly isn't that complex an idea).
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Edited by Coker: 4/9/2015 3:26:54 PMAll the scientists used to think the world was flat and that the earth was the center of the Universe. Your majority opinion argument means nothing. As we advance more in science, the more improbable evolution becomes. Every day, we discover more and more inexplainable holes in the religion of evolution, and it's a dying belief. There's plenty of archeologists, biologists, geologists, etc, who don't buy into the evolutionary religion.
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You keep saying there are holes but you fail to point any out. In fact, the opposite of your assertion is true. Scientific discoveries have [i]strengthened[/i] evolution, and it all comes down to one all important thing. Genetics. Advances in the study of genetics have shown how genes are passed down through descent and how these generic changes can lead to a change of state, or change of species. The perfect example of modern day genetic adaption, at lightning pace, would be the AIDS crisis, wherein HIV-1 and HIV-2 differ enough to be considered different 'species' so to speak. But then you're more interested in larger evolution, right? From land animal to whale, seems ridiculous? Well, not if you trace the adaption from creatures like the famous ambulocetus, who spent a lot of time submerged yet could still walk dry land, to a proto-whale such as basilosaurus, who still retained small back legs despite being entirely sea-bound. The evolution of whales is a good example of that which you describe as "retarded", and evidences such change can, and does, happen. And genetics and the study of viruses now give genuine empirical backing to Darwin's initial observations of flying fish, that may well evolve to away from the ocean, and swimming bears that he famously said were "almost like a whale", to which he received great mockery in the 19th century, though modern day science has reassessed this attitude. We can conclude that, contrary to your baseless opinion, the 21st century only supports evolution even more than what the Origin of the Species offered in the 19th, with the study of genetics and AIDS granting us a modern day vision of natural selection at work, at a pace fast enough for us to see in a lifetime.