Evolutionists Start In The Middle

Evolutionists seem to have answers about what is in the middle and the near present, but no firm answers about the Beginning. They start with an environment that already exists and try to show that from an existing set, new selected sets evolve. They have no solution to the beginnings. The evolutionist starts his explanations several billions of years after the formation of the earth and in a universe much like the universe we see today.

The study of evolution is not concerned with beginnings, so this statement "evolutionist start in the beginning" seems tautological. In the context of the theory and law of evolution, beginnings are not interesting. Beginnings are central to the study of abiogenesis, of course, but that is a separate problem and evolutionary theory has no need of it.

Did I say "evolutionist start in the beginning"? I thought I said "Evolutionists start in the middle". (of Evolution -implied)

"evolutionary theory has no need of it" (study of beginnings). Is this a contradiction of my statement "they start with an environment that already exists"?

What then did Charles Darwin mean by the word Origin as used in the title of his work "The Origin of Species"? I take it to mean "beginning". (of species)

Creationists start in the middle. Who/what made God?

This page could probably benefit from a definition of who or what a "Evolutionist" is supposed to be.

To get a wide range of opinions and definitions you might try: http://web.archive.org/web/20040520021116/http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=definition+Evolutionist&btnG=Google+Search

Then insert your choice, or your own definition here: ...

I don't understand why this is a problem. If an "evolutionist" is someone who's concerned with evolution of life, and there was no life for the first few billion years of the universe, what would you expect him to say about that period of time? -- GeorgePaci

I would not expect the evolutionist to have anything to say about beginnings, other than postulations, and theoretical statements. He can only start with illustrations of life existing on an isolated Pacific Island some 150 or so years ago, (which is more like the present than the middle), and then suppose explanations from that point backward, toward the beginnings.

Even though SETI has been active for several generations and the search has now expanded to include the computing power of many thousands of computers working in parallel, no results showing intelligent communicating life have yet been discovered and revealed. Does this indicate life does not exist elsewhere? I think not. But it does prove how hard it is to communicate. (And the point of this paragraph is?) "it does prove how hard it is to communicate" to those who are listening in the wrong places for intelligent communication

''See also:

 * FermiParadox - or Why aliens haven't landed yet
 * GodGoo - some perhaps, nano-technology and other postulations
 * RainbowGoo
 * SearchForIntraTerrestrialIntelligence''

This wiki is an example of a NobleExperiment which also started in the middle of the communicating history of mankind. We, as computer users, do not know yet where it will go. But we do know that it was started by WardCunningham, and the pages have grown to nearly 20000 in February of 2002. I think we can say that an evolution has begun, and that other wikis have been spawned, however we can identify a beginning and a beginner, a project beginning and an architect. This is unlike the evolutionists, who argue from postulates that exclude an architect and an IntelligentDesign.

Ward didn't invent the world wide web, or the perl interpreter that runs his wiki script, or computers per se, or the internet, or electrical and telephonic transmission, or any of the centuries of industrial stuff that precurses wiki. Nor is he responsible for the content of wiki, which has evolved according to WhyWikiWorks, rather than by his intent. In fact he's responsible for little more than a few hundred lines of perl script, and the maintenance and upkeep of the server supporting same. In short, he's merely one cog in the great evolving apparatus that supports such a silly suggestion as the one you've made here. Which is that he Started in the Middle; he started with an already developed environment, with well established rules, and fashioned a technique for communication and collaboration for the sharing of ideas and concepts among thousands of participants via an easily learned and applied method, allowing both you and I to agree or differ. - You have reinforced the point quite well!

But you have made it, and this page is evolving from it. It appears so. Does that make you some kind of deity? No. Or are you yourself just a small cog in its evolution? Yes.

Evolutionists do not identify their evolving universe with a beginning and a beginner, they start in the middle, like a new wiki user logging on in January 2002, who tries to identify how the Wiki is changed and how one participates.

Evolutionists identify their evolving universe with all manner of things - they don't come in some one-size-fits-all package. Some have religions they use to account for beginnings. Others don't. Some extremely silly ones, such as yours-truly, prefer to place their faith in BigOmega, regarding the petty deities of mainstream religions as rather too milquetoast for credibility.

See first and preferably: ScientificMethod

(I am not sure how this applies to theories, Is not the Scientific method one which relies on proofs, rather than just espoused theories? Do you have a proof for Evolution?, can you give the pattern and the experimental method you prescribe for an experiment that can be duplicated?)

Actually, no the scientific method does not rely on proofs.

It relies on empirical observations, from which theories that explain those observations are developed. A good theory makes predictions about things that have not yet been tested. So experiments are performed to confirm or deny those predictions. If the predictions are confirmed, we keep the theory and try to confirm even more of its predictions. The more predictions that are confirmed, the more we tend to believe the theory is true. If the predictions are not confirmed, we either modify or discard the theory.

Nowhere in this process does "proof" enter into it. There are simply theories that we believe, to varying degrees, to be useful. Science doesn't say "This is absolutely true". That is the realm of religion. It says "We have evidence to suggest this is true".

You are asking the wrong people. Evolution does not attempt to explain the origin of the Universe - just the origin of life on Earth. Evolution needs only to postulate the existence of Earth as it was formed from the gas cloud.

Cosmologists are the ones who need to explain how the Universe started.

This confirms the title of this page - EvolutionistsStartInTheMiddle! This is not a BadThing, for every good theory must have a beginning point, but the problem is that when Evolutionists, starting at this point and looking backward, postulate what "might have been", or what "probably was", or what "seems reasonable to assume occurred", they abandon the scientific method. If the stories and postulations in textbooks and on popular Tv, magazines, news articles, and yes even "scholarly journals" would qualify as not being "factual", the stipulations so often put forward would not have the assumed posture of being "fact". What is observed from the middle point (which is where we have facts, such as the fossil record), when not fraudulent (as has happened on occasion in the past), which can have scientific and general acceptance as "proven", or "demonstrated". It is not honest however to utilize postulations about the past as being factual in the presentation of scenarios in the near present. I believe we will learn more about how the genetic code is transmitted and how things can and do change in the next 50 years than all the textbooks have had to say about it to this date. But let us be honest about what happened before recorded history.

I suggest that you need to review some more of the information - there are plenty of web sites that can explain that the process that biologists, anthropologists, and geologists use to confirm their theories - it's quite in line with the scientific method. You also need to separate the scientific literature from the popular literature - pop lit has no peer review, and also needs to sell its issues, so it can easily veer off the factual line.

Are you implying the Scientific Literature, theories subject to peer review, does not have proponents 180 degrees opposed to one another, and have supported their theories with the very same method? And that the theories based on that "support" do not change when "fact" proves the theory so based to be incorrect?

Can you give an example of a theory with some or all of those characteristics in current debate? Many of the most vociferous debates are over minutiae - which specific fossil is slightly older than another, etc. If that is so, it would imply that experts cannot even agree about a scientific method for dating of physical evidence, let alone postulations, not based on physical evidence! And so knowledge about what experts (subject to peer review) can agree upon is reduced to a range of dates for fossils? Absolutely not - disagreement about some minutiae, where the evidence may be equivocal, is not disagreement about all, and generally is a sign that investigations are progressing, rather than failing.

Would you also say that historians start in the middle because they start at the beginning of human history instead of the beginning of the universe? Yes, I would definitely say that historians start in the middle because they start only at the beginning of discernible, factually supportable history. Also, anthropologists go backward from the middle to the beginning of human artifacts. And then there's psychologists, who go beyond even the beginning of human consciousness. Does this page have a point? A subject? A poorly articulated idea? Or is it just like the WikiWikiSandbox where veterans can pretend they're newbies?

Does this page have a point? -> Initially and Evolutionarily, Yes!

A subject? The page title -> EvolutionistsStartInTheMiddle That's not a subject or a question, it's an unfinished thought. Like "I think that car" or "Captain Kirk is very". Way back, I started to respond to this page, but then I asked myself: respond to what? But you did respond, even though your two illustrations do not match. I responded only to explain why I can't respond. That's not a substantive response.

The PageName? syntax is Subject, Predicate, Object. Who (Evolutionists), What (start), Where (in the Middle). It is not (in the Middle of) which is a completely different thought and would be incomplete. Well, I'm sorry but 'in the middle' is not an object but a shortcut for precisely 'in the middle of x' where x is mutually understood. In this case, it is not so understood. The same criticism applies to other purely abstract concepts like 'freedom' (from what?) and 'ability' (to what?).

The same can be said for any positional statements which include such concepts as "beginning", "end", "center", "middle", "start", etc. As far as understanding what it is in the "middle" of - is indicated in the introductory paragraph: Evolutionists seem to have answers about what is in the middle and the near present, but no firm answers about the Beginning. They start with an environment that already exists and try to show that from an existing set, new selected sets evolve. They have no solution to the beginnings. The evolutionist starts his explanations several billions of years after the formation of the earth and in a universe much like the universe we see today.

A poorly articulated idea? -> The ideas flow from the participants, who employ all sorts of articulations, some to the point, some against the point, and some making unrelated points. While others insert hyperlinks to what they think the point should be! There is no single idea to give this page any coherence. The title of this page doesn't express any self-contained idea. If you refactored the tangential ideas here to their own pages, you'd be left with nothing at all.

Or is it just like the WikiWikiSandbox where veterans can pretend they're newbies? I don't think veterans play around in the WikiWikiSandbox, or that they would stoop to pretend at a station below their abilities. Do you know some who do?

Dull debate. Why be so critical of the status quo without putting forward a plausible scientific alternative?

It is not a criticism, it is a statement! The title of the page is not "My theory of Evolution" or "Alternatives to Evolution", or even "Evolutionist are dead wrong", It is a simply the declaration: "EvolutionistsStartInTheMiddle" if the debate is dull, it is because no one has come up with a point illustrating that they start anywhere else!

'You're right. The statement as given is not a criticism. It is a tautology. Which implies that there is no possibility of useful discussion of this particular statement.''

Evolution and tautology -- http://web.archive.org/web/20040520021116/http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolphil/tautology.html This link suggests a misunderstanding of the above. Evolution itself is *not* a tautology. What is a tautology is the statement EvolutionistsStartInTheMiddle. Which is part of why this page is in such a muddle. I think the original poster is trying, and so far failing, to make a point. I am sure something interesting could come of it with a bit more thought about what exactly that point is. Refactor, perhaps with a better page name?

By that argument, cosmologists, historians, etc also start in the middle - after all, they could be fooled by clever con-artists forging artifacts. Police also - after all, they do not see the crime committed, so perhaps all the evidence was planted... sheesh.

I did not make the statement "based on planted evidence" or introduce the idea that they are "fooled". Most evolutionists are far to intelligent to fall for clever tricks, or planted evidence. They have merely made observations of what they see, and have postulated and theorized about what may have led to what they see. It is true about cosmologists, historians, and for that matter any discipline practiced by humankind which investigates and theorizes about what was before now. Some of what they theorize can be based on scientific or historic evidence, while some is based on supposition and postulations. I have no argument with fact. But supposition and postulation alone, is not fact, and should not be offered nor treated as fact.

Creationism: The belief that God is too stupid to create a Universe where life can spontaneously arise. -- PhlIp

I'm a skeptic, Can you prove:

That Creationism is a belief That God exists That God has knowledge That it is stupid to create a Universe That the universe created should have life That life in a created universe should spontaneously arise

This page was intended to illustrate and demonstrate where Evolutionists begin their search, and to emphasize that theories should be taken as theories and facts as fact.

Well, there is part of your problem: Evolution refers to both fact and theory (and for that matter 'law' in the scientific sense). Evolutionary theory is a body of scientific work that aims to describe the observed facts of evolution. This has nothing to do with abiogenesis or cosmology, any more than, say, fluid mechanics. Pointing out that evolutionary theory doesn't cover everything is not interesting, as pointed out above this is a tautology. What is there to illustrate or demonstrate; unless you are completely ignorant of the nature of evolutionary science, you will already understand this. Of course, this is one of those areas that seems to attract a lot of commentary including that of people completely incompetent to do so due to exactly this sort of ignorance. If it was that problem you were trying to address, I don't believe this page will be effective.

I do not have a problem with fact or theory. I do however separate and distinguish between them. I do not think that doing so places me among the "completely incompetent" nor that it is a "sort of ignorance". To throw fact and theory together into a "body of scientific work" and then present that body of work as "observed facts" borders on intellectual dishonesty.

But nobody is doing that, so I don't know what you're complaint is. I am sure you could find an ignorant 'evolution believer' who will say nonsensical things about it, just like you can find an ignorant 'evolution disbeliever'. The opinions and statements of these people are irrelevant to the topic though. You can always find someone willing, even eager, to expound on a subject they know nothing about.

Again, what is there to illustrate or demonstrate? Evolutionary theory comes from the application of the scientific method to a body of observed facts and evidence. This is how science works. Some of the theory is contentious, some of it is generally accepted, and some of it is so solid it would take a mountain of evidence to shift it. Laypeople rarely take the time to understand which is which, and so there is a poor signal to noise ratio in most lay discussions about evolution. You say you are not ignorant of evolutionary theory and science; I was certainly not claiming that you were. What I was emphasizing was that there are a number of related issues that are *only* contentious with the ignorant, and these flames are often fanned by completely incompetent commentators. This was not an accusation of yourself, but an observation of where this subject often leads.

You say above that this page is intended to "...illustrate and demonstrate where Evolutionists begin their search,..."; I'm not sure what you mean by *search*, but there is perhaps value (though Wiki may not be the place) in yet another outline of what is and what is not the subject of evolutionary science, if only because this blindingly obvious fact seems to be missed by many in their rush to say something about the subject. You then go on to talk about "...theories should be taken as theories and facts as fact.", again we are veering into tautology. That is usually a good sign that a thought has not been really developed before it was stated. So, lets try again. What is it *really* that you are trying to say? Do you have a problem with the fact of evolution? the theory of evolution? perhaps the scientific method? Or is it more with your perception of the *presentation* of the theory? Does your difficulty lie with the popular press more than the biologists? What is it, exactly, you are skirting around on this page?

You (assuming this is the same poster) are repeating yourself. As is stated above, nobody does that. At least, this is not what evolutionary biologists do, which is who I suppose is meant by "Evolutionists", or did you have someone else in mind? Yes, I include others, see:

I believe that the evolutionists and anthropolgists are "searching" for truth, The "search" for a body of facts and evidence do not present problems for evolutionists, or any other serious enquirer, it is only when the facts and evidence are assembled with explanations and interpretations, which can only be characterized as "theoretical", that the body of work becomes a mixture where the distinction between theory, facts and evidence allows a less rigorous testing of the "truth". That is why I earlier stated:

To throw fact and theory together into a "body of scientific work" and then present that body of work as "observed facts" borders on intellectual dishonesty.

Ok, that may well be your belief. It is not, however, how science works. I'm not talking about some sort of hokey 'this is the scientific method' idea you might feed highschool kids, I'm talking about the real deal. I have to assume that in evolutionary biology (which is not my area of expertise) there are the same problems as in areas of science I have observed more closely. This means there are missteps, false starts, and politics. There are people who won't let go of bad ideas, and good ideas that are resisted for far longer than they should be. In other words, science is done by humans.

The funny thing is, it doesn't seem to matter. Slowly, sometimes glacially, progress is made. Reasonable, intelligent people with expertise become convinced by the weight of evidence and we move forward. It is not important if theories are 'true' in some platonic sense. Good theories are the ones that do the best job of explaining the evidence. New evidence can demand new theories, or improvement of old ones. However, as the amount of evidence in agreement with a theory grows, the likelihood of its being completely overturned becomes smaller. Consider Newton's law of gravitation. We know that it is wrong, in some sense, but it is still a very good law, applicable over a huge range of situations. It can't be 'true' but it is very useful, and it isn't going anywhere.

The theory of evolution is in a similar state. There is a vast amount of both direct and indirect evidence that is best describe by evolutionary process. Hence we have what may even be called the law of evolution. These systems are, however, very comp,titlepagelex and much is not understood. There is much disagreement about some details, and there will continue to be so. You will easily find biologists who fundamentally agree on the broad sweep of evolution, arguing for decades about the details. This *is* how science works. You will also find a few who want to dump the whole thing. There aren't many, and while there dissenting opinion is not important to the overall agreement of the biological sciences that evolution is the key theory, it is important that they can exist. Who knows, like Einstein improving on gravitation, someone may come along and radically shake up biology. If they do, however, the new theory will agree very well with the old in the predictions about current data - it would have to, to be any good.

So what are we left with? There is a mountain of evidence about the development of biological systems over time. In a general sense, the theory of evolution is the best theory we have to describe the processes that resulted in this evidence. How 'best' is it? Well, nothing else is even on the radar today. So for a competing theory to be successful, it will take a lot of work and some compelling results. In a more specific sense, there are many, many details about biological systems and evolution that are not well understood. There will be arguing for decades and probably centuries about these details. It is vital to understand that this argument in no way weakens the position of evolutionary theory, it makes it stronger. Why? Because each testing like this that is survived and surpassed adds to the strength of conviction that we are heading in a good direction.

Now I have all of this on very good authority, but I certainly won't ask you to take that as given. The only way to really understand anything in science is to get as close to the primary sources as you can. Don't read others impressions of what evolutionary biologists are doing, read their own words. If you can afford the time to get yourself up to speed, read some of the key papers.

You mean like "Clock of Ages" in which biologist TomJohnson recalls: "At its most extreme, we were accused of fraud", when fifteen years ago he and DavidFriedman??, then at the UniversityOfCaliforniaIrvine??, announced a a result that contradicted everything biologist thought they knew about ageing and lifespan. (NewScientist, Technology Weekly 20030419, page 27) Extension of their findings, which involved nematode worms, was made to mammals by French researchers. (Is this close enough or current science? ) The article saya further: The way evolution works makes it impossible for us to have genes that control how long we live - or does it? It may be time for a major rethink. GarryHamilton.

From some of the commentary on this page, a bit of reading on the background of science might be useful also. Your statement To throw fact and theory together into a "body of scientific work" and then present that body of work as "observed facts"... doesn't make much sense. Scientists don't do this, in the sense that you have written. There is, however, always a cycling of ideas (perhaps within the same person, perhaps not) between analysis of data, and theorizing about how this may have come to be. Theory doesn't live well without data; untestable theories are necessarily of lower rank. The act of discussing these things together is not in any way presenting theory as 'observed fact'. Something you should keep in mind is that scientists present scientific works for each other, not for lay observers, media, or anyone else. They therefore assume a context for the audience which may be missing for an outsider. This can be confusing at first, but a minimal knowledge of an area of study should allow you to easily separate the solid from the contentious, the key ideas from details, and get an idea of what is going on.

Scientific pedagogy outside of science is a separate issue, but that doesn't seem to be what you are talking about....

I have no argument with scientists and scientific findings. These are things discovered in the now. Scientists are continuously revising their theories based on what they discover as fact, theorists seem to hold on to, protect, and conserve their theories.

The "best" theory on the start of evolution these days is that some chance event created a replicator. There are some who think the first replicators were made of crystal.

Anyway, the theory goes that this replicator came into being, started replicating itself, and when its local environment was saturated, small replicating errors that gave the eventual replicant phenotype advantages in terms of getting more resources (or whatever, as long as the result was more offspring) meant that type of replicant started taking over. Etc etc.

Which pretty much describes the process of evolution - human, dinosaur, or the bacteria in your body reacting to antibiotics.

RichardDawkins has a pretty good description of this in TheBlindWatchmaker??.

-- SteveConover

"But nobody is doing that" - ''(To throw fact and theory together into a "body of scientific work" and then present that body of work as "observed facts" borders on intellectual dishonesty)

If nobody is doing that, then should I disregard the following statement offered above, to mean fact and theory are not in a "body of work"?

"Evolution refers to both fact and theory (and for that matter 'law' in the scientific sense). Evolutionary theory is a body of scientific work that aims to describe the observed facts of evolution."

Even if the paths to biogenesis are currently a mystery, the "Default Is Not God".

The only people who use the term "evolutionist" are creationists who are ignorant of and/or opposed to science. This page should be deleted.

See: GolemProject EvolutionByNaturalSelection