And actually, I had a lecturer who spent some of his time researching the theory of panspermia, I actually fail to see how panspermia/evolution have anything to do with each other. Evolution says nothing about the origins of life.

But anyway, I haven’t gone as far to have read anything about anarchism, but you know, I’ve see the media reports about it, all those scary people smashing windows and wearing black. Life’s too short for me to read up on it, but instead of trying to be neutral I’ll form an opinion based on what the news channels say. Just like you did with Dawkins.

And SMI2LE means “Space Migration Intelligence Life Extension” – the preconditions for getting out of this gravity well and into the cosmos (the first part is conditional on the second and third parts in the theory). Here’s the theory – http://www.rawilsonfans.com/articles/SFR23.htm and here are some contemporary pointers: Space Migration: http://www.virgingalactic.com/ Information Doubling (approaching intelligence squared): http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/2010-data-doubling-every-11-hours/4497 Life Extension: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp=45651848&#null

I did specifically say ‘any objection you can make to it can either be refuted or if not then scientists will take it seriously and investigate.’ It is not restrictive to scientific investigation to accept evolution, what would be restrictive is to continue to accept it in the light of new evidence suggesting otherwise. In the same way that it would be restrictive not to accept that the world is round when studying plate tectonics. You could say you are willing to accept evidence showing the world isn’t round, but it really would be ridiculous to go around saying accepting the world is round is restrictive to scientific investigation. Look at your quote in another context ‘The world being round, appears to me, and most scientists, to offer the best explanation for why you can set sail from the UK and end up back where you started’. What is the point in saying that? You may as well just say ‘The world is round’.

I am happy to expose any logical fallacies from the other side, which I believe I did with your egg example. You stated that science could not answer the question, but I showed it can, it was a logical fallacy from you to assume that the molecular properties of an egg could not lead it to having uses in cooking whilst also being useful to the developing chick.

So you believe that humans may be evolving towards something? Or all species? What is your evidence for this? The one making the claim must back it up with evidence. There is evidence for evolution by natural selection. There is evidence for evolution by sexual selection. There is evidence that neutral mutations can be important (mutations which have neither a beneficial or negative effect on the organism). I see no evidence that evolution is heading towards a goal, but if you provide some I would be happy to consider it. It is a waste of everyone’s time to propose something, and just sit on the fence without either a) trying to gather evidence for your hypothesis or b) showing what evidence there is.

I could equally claim that evolution has been caused by fairies directing the process from the Magical Faraway Tree, but that would that add nothing to the discussion unless I had some evidence of a) fairies and b) the Magical Faraway Tree. Would it be useful to spend my time trying to find out if fairies or the Magical Faraway tree have something to do with evolution? No, because there is no evidence that either exist. If some evidence comes to light that one does exist, maybe then it would be useful to spend time looking for their role in evolution. Is it therefore useful to try and find out if a ‘creator’ ‘alien’ ‘other intelligent being’ had something to do with evolution without ANY evidence of their existence?

There are plenty of debates being had in the theory of evolution, why not learn some more about those rather than discussing claims made without evidence? (I did a google search in SM12LE and found nothing so I’m not too sure what you’re talking about)

Here are some examples of genuine debates within the field of evolution which I have picked out of this weeks issue of Journal of Evolutionary Biology:
How did social insects such as bees and ants evolve?
How are some parasites able to influence the behaviour of their hosts?
What is the advantages of an insect being specially adapted to a specific plant, rather than being more generalist?

Scientists should be able to spend their time explaining to people their research (you do pay for them with your taxes), not constantly defending evolution against unsubstantiated attacks. And yes, I include your ‘There are problems with the current theory of evolution’ as an unsubstantiated attack because really you just feel uneasy about Dawkins going around calling a fact a fact.

I’d quibble with the comparison with gravity – the fact is that something makes things fall towards the planet. What that is has changed completely over time – Einstein completely changed what gravity was – the effect was the same, but the explanation was completely different.

Evolution as a process – that mutations in organic beings in some cases catch on and become new types of organic beings – is well established, well verified with no credible falsification. Why this is happening – well there’s more room to theorise – SM12LE (which is one theory that we’re evolving towards something).

Your final argument scares me about as much as the creationists. To argue that everyone must accept the dominant ideas because, to question them will help the crazies is unacceptable and anti-science. Science and religion are two different things, the former is the extent of what we know at this point and should be taught as such, the latter is a range of stuff written down a long time ago and has nothing to do with science.

Excessive certainty is dangerous, it’s restrictive and it can restrict truly open scientific investigation. It’s no different to what Darwin himself faced. When I was growing up, Pluto was a planet. Now it’s not. Pluto hasn’t changed, just the way we refer to it. If it had been explained when I was growing up that Pluto appeared to astronomers to be a planet and, upon further and better examination, it no longer appears to be so, it would have been more honest.

Try saying out loud: “Evolution appears to me, and to most scientists, to offer the best explanation for the development of life on this planet and no better explanation has so far presented itself to me.” You won’t win an argument by saying something must be accepted because it’s true, you win by showing it’s the best explanation there currently is and exposing the logical fallacies of the other side. That works best when the other side is certain they’re right. It works slightly less well when the other side is being deliberately provocative and making a stupid argument for effect.

You could make similar claims about anything proven by science e.g ‘There are problems with the current theory the world is flat’. I deliberately use such an over the top example, because refuting evolution is on the same level. Yes, you could say that you can never know anything to be true, but evolution is as much a fact as the world being flat. Neither can be proven under your definition. I am still open to information to prove to me that the world isn’t flat, but it is unhelpful to everyone to argue that it is not truth.

The challenge from the religious right has polarised things with evolution. However, even without it, evolution would still be regarded as fact. We are just more loud in saying it. The same as we would be loud about the world being round if there was suddenly a challenge from the religious right that it was flat. How loud we shout it doesn’t change it from being a fact.

In physics, there is no speculation about the fact of gravity. In biology, there is no speculation about the fact of evolution. There is however speculation about the process of evolution, e.g how important is natural selection, how important is sexual selection, how important are neutral mutations? This speculation is important, and interesting, and is something that I am currently studying. Biologists do speculate, that is why we have jobs

Why is it accepting evolution as a fact important? Here are a few examples of fields where taking into account evolution can make a difference:
- Conservation
- Vaccination development
- Drug resistance research
- Understanding genetic disease
- Food security
Without our understanding of evolution, we would not be able to develop as good conservation strategies. Without using evolutionary theory, it can lead to catastrophic consequences. If you are interested, you could read this short article http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/genetic-drift-bottleneck-effect-and-the-case-1118

I may be arguing from a completely different viewpoint to you, but I do argue that the viewpoint you are arguing from is unhelpful. It is also dangerous to state things like ‘There are problems with the current theory of evolution’. A scary amount of people in the US believe exactly that, and unlike with you, they believe that literally. The reason it is dangerous, is because in the US they have serious arguments over whether to teach creationism in schools. That would lead to a serious lack of science education in the USA. That then in turn harms us all, especially as the biological sciences are becoming more and more important as our world changes. It IS helpful to argue about religion using science in this case, because it does cross over, and the religion side of things IS wrong. I would argue that you cannot have an understanding of biology without evolution, it underpins everything.

To be fair, you’re arguing from a completely different point of view to me. You’re arguing from the absolutely correct scientific point of view, which I completely support. My argument is basically with the philosophers of science (in which category I’d place Hitchens and Dawkins when they are attempting to argue about religion using science) and my response echoes Feyerabend’s idea of an anarchist theory of knowledge.

My fundamental point is that what you’re arguing is correct in scientific terms – verified information that has not been falsified, but is open to being so – correct? This is not truth, nor should it be argued as such. On the same logic, religion is not science and should not be argued as such. Thus creationism of any sort should not be part of any science education.

However, it’s interesting that, in physics, speculation is the norm and theoretical physics is a fairly well respected aspect. But, in terms of biology, it all seems (at least publicly) to be much more defensive, the challenge from the religious right appears to have polarised things too much and the theoretical speculation is left to the world of science fiction or non-mainstream work such as that of Robert Anton Wilson and the likes (cf SMI2LE).

We are a product of evolution, we are trying to describe the petri dish from the inside. What we know may well be all there is to know, but we can’t be certain. Speculating about other possible explanations should not just be the province of religious people and creative writers.