How well accepted is it that the fossil record shows definite jumps?

From what I gather, the “gaps” in the fossil record are replete, and in fact there are relatively few fossils that show truly “transitional” types of species — hominids or otherwise.

Personally, I am happy to accept the general idea of evolution — that is, that species develop step-by-step over geologic time. But as I understand it, there are some problems with this idea as well. For example, the odds for the emergence of certain complex bio-molecular structures that could only have formed simultaneously are so remote as to be almost impossible. Yet these structures exist everywhere within all sorts of living creatures. It’s the molecular equivalent of a windstorm accidentally assembling a house from foundation to roof from dead logs and bark. Calling on bland “randomness” to solve such unlikely riddles is not very intellectually satisfying.

I don’t think anyone really knows what’s going on. Maybe it’s God, or the Collective Unconscious, or some kind of Jungian Synchronicity, or “Gene-Will”, or space aliens, or the black monolith from 2001: a space odyssey, or something else entirely that we haven’t thought of. The point is: no one in science is allowed to ask the question– much less speculate on an answer.

Science as an institution has given up asking such questions, and mainstream scientists — especially those in academia — have willfully buried their collective heads in the sand on apparently philosophical grounds.

Ok, I understand that the multiverse theory makes improbable things probable.

But this still doesn’t answer the following. In this universe, the one in which the fossil record shows a jump from an ape-like creature to a human-like (or something like this) what would we see watching the movie? A monkey giving birth to the first human infant? Humans spontaneously arising out of clay? Aliens porting them here? (Right, that one’s taken.)

How well accepted is it that the fossil record shows definite jumps?

“How did they come about?” Are there any theories that have been put forth?

There are two alternative theories to explain the rise of life on Earth. The first — championed by both Sir Fred Hoyle and Nobel prize winning DNA co-discoverer Francis Crick (among others) — is the concept of “Panspermia“. The idea here is that life originated in another location in the universe, and was brought to earth as a kind of pre-developed “seed”. Crick believes this seeding was done intentionally by an advanced extraterrestrial civilization.

The other leading contender to explain away the probabilities problem is the Many-Worlds Interpretation of the universe. This idea is supported by many famous scientists, including the late Richard Feynman and I dare say most other leading cosmologists nowadays.

The idea here is that from the moment of the Big Bang, all particles in the universe journey through space and time along every possible path from beginning to end. As living beings, we are able to observe only ONE outcome for each combination of particles; but the implicit assumption is that there are also a multiplicity of YOUs, each of which lives and observes within one of these multitudes of different universes.

Many people think that the famous Double Slit Experiment infers the existence of the Multiverse, and allows us to get a quick glimpse of those universes that are closest to ours in spacetime.

Oxford physicist David Deutsch may have actually proven the existence of the multiverse as of last fall.

The multiverse helps us explain the improbable rise of life on Earth because, in a multiverse in which every possible condition comes to pass, it is therefore natural for improbable things like life and evolution to occur.

My own take on this is that if the multiverse really does describe the objective condition of the universe, then Professor Tipler’s Omega Point Theory proves that God is a natural outcome of at least some universes — and that makes God a mathematical reality for ALL universes.

For the past few decades we have permitted higher education to become polluted with women studies courses that ultimately defy reason and logic, the very basis of scientific methods. The popular notion is that math and science are phalocentic disciplines ill suited to the feminine way of knowing is commonly accepted. Ultimately, we as a society have through a democratic political process promoted women to god status in direct contradiction to religious teachings.

The current evolution verses intelligent design debate is little other than an ideological war between feminism and orthodox religion. To feminist, an intelligent designer places them in an unacceptable secondary status to a higher power. They are the bearers of life itself and they rule by feminine feelings and anyone that suggest otherwise must be silenced.

“Here is a student group putting on a dedication to a famous scientist. Now here’s a wall of text explaining why CREATIONISM IS BETTER that has nothing to do with the original topic and is a thinly veiled attempt to push my agenda.”

By your flawed logic, for what it’s worth, Paganism is right and correct since it’s been around longer than all the other world religions, and sure you can come up with psuedoscience about everything.

Religion is a matter of FAITH, which is believing for the sake of believing. Science is a matter of FACT, which is accepting a theory as true only after intense testing and proving it.

You also don’t just get to say “My theory is valid because you can’t prove it wrong!!” either.

Swing and a miss.

Darwinian evolution offers no explanation as to how random chemical reactions occurred to create larger and larger molecules necessary to create the fist life form. Without an intelligent designer, evolution could never have occurred. Why is so hard for modern society to accept an unknown intelligent designer and evolution? They are not mutually exclusive unless one takes fundamental religious teachings as an absolute literal account of the creation of man.

We live in a world where media and politics have established consensus science. Fortunately, there is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s a consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus.

Check Michael Crichton’s speech “Aliens Cause Global Warming” ( http://www.crichton-official.com/speech-alienscauseglobalwarming.html ) Crichton makes an excellent argument of how consensus politics and science are dangerously intertwined.

and therefore it is not reasonable to teach it outside a church

I agree that it is not reasonable to teach ID in a science classroom, or most other public school classes either. Science classrooms because of the controversy regarding whether ID is in fact science and other public school classrooms because By current definitions, doing so apparently “establishes a religion”

However, I have to point out that the first amendment is effectual everywhere in the US. Thus, street corners are a permissible place to teach ID; private homes are a permissible place to teach ID; Places of business are permissible places to teach ID (with the permission of the landowner or leaseholder).

Moreover, I wonder if there are not other things taught outside churches which don’t hew to a strict definition of the term “science”. Marxism and socialism spring immediately to mind.

Absolutely! If the Discovery Institute’s “scientists” ever come up with any actual “scientific evidence,” it would be reasonable.

But in the meantime, intelligent design creationism has no hypotheses, no test, and no science – and therefore it is not reasonable to teach it outside a church.

1. Scientists welcome the search for evidence in regards to the possibility of Intelligent Design, as they welcome the search for virtually anything.

Alex, I don’t think this is even true. You might want to consider the matter of Guillermo Gonzalez as a case in point. There’s also a very interesting interview with a systems biologist named Luman Wing. He tells an interesting story of a biology professor whose career “tanked” the moment he fell off the Darwinist reservation.

The soon to be released documentary, “Expelled: The Movie” will explore numerous cases in which scientists who have questioned Darwinian dogma have been systematically denied their academic freedom.

As far my uncle the ape is concerned, I don’t think that’s the issue. Obviously some kind of evolution has taken place over the aeons since the formation of the Earth. The real issue has to do with the probability that complex biological systems as we see today could have evolved “randomly” within a period of 3.5 billion years. Scientists who understand this issue (eg., Fred Hoyle) know that dogmatic adherence to “random mutation and natural selection” just doesn’t work as a credible model for the emergence and development of life on Earth.

2. No, science is not board enough to allow for “all” theories of human orgins. For example, it will not allow the idea of a pan-dimensional pink Zeus with unlimited magical powers, who is determined to hide himself, to be a theory. How could such a theory be proven? It will not permit pseudo-scientific theories either. Science will only allow “scientific” theories, based on evidence, data, and verified hypotheses.

3. The meaning of the word “theory” in science is different from the vernacular. Intelligent design is not a “scientific theory,” like the theory of gravity or atomic theory, it is a “hunch theory.” We cannot teach the hunch theory of Intelligent Design using scientific evidence, because no scientific evidence for Intellifent design exists. The scientific evidence for evolution is support by nearly every branch in science (biology, geology, radiometrics, paleontology, genetics, anthropolgy, and so on) in scientific universities and museums worldwide.

>The theory of evolution has only existed since the 19th century. >Christianity has existed for over 2,000 and Judaism, longer still. What do >you think?
How long or short an idea exists does not make it any more true. The idea the Earth was flat existed longer and before Christianity and Judism, but it doesn’t make it true. It is scientific evidence that leads credance to an idea, not how long it has surivived.

>I guess that makes sense if you also believe your uncle was a monkey.
No one who understands evolution thinks their uncle was a monkey. We shared a common ancestor in the DISTANT past. We also shared a common ancestor with plants, fungi, bacteria, sharks..every living thing on Earth. Read about evolution.