Originally posted by Shrike
Dark matter has been detected, you know.
MACHOs are one - MAssive Compact Halo Ojects. Brown dwarves that form a halo around our galaxy.
Other forms of dark matter include intergalactic hydrogen clouds, rogue black holes, etc. Possibly exotic matter but there's no known way to detect that yet so the existence or not of exotic matter is still a theory.
Don't give 'Dark Matter' mystical properties, like one pound of it being as heavy as ten thousand pounds of normal matter.
What do you suggest instead of evolution then?
When has it been detected? It has been theorized to exist--the whole prinicple behind dark matter is that it can't be detected. Science uses dark matter as a scapegoat, blaming all inconsistancies on it.
I do believe that evolution is possible, however I am careful to doubt it. All of our knowledge of the physical world points to the decay of systems, not the synthesis of systems. While I believe micro (an organism as an already complex system may adapt) I am slow to believe macro
as currently theorized.
Originally posted by StratComm
Saying it is a theory is true. Saying that it is a far-fetched theory, on the other hand, isn't. It's been a mainstay of life-sciences for over 100 years, so that fact alone has to tell you it's plausable and a lot more likely than anything else that has been suggested. Everything from those bone structures you are talking about to DNA analysis, everything that has come out of the study of biology supports some form of evolution theory. It may not fit Darwinian theory, sure, but that's not the gold standard of evolutionary theory by any means. There are literally mountains of solid evidence that support evolution.
Could you point me to any evidence that supports macro-evolution?
The problem with macro-evolution is that it does not explain species-to-species development, its intended goal. The root of this issue rests in the transistion between a single-celled organism to a many-celled organism. How do the cells know how to specialize? Since not one specialized cell can exist on it own, how would it not be killed off by other cells as it transforms into something useless? Surely any
mutation would not yield an immediate result of success. How does the eye develop in conjunction with the brain, the brain with the heart, the heart with the tissue of the artery and blood itself? This kind of synthesis of system from within a system is completely unheard of in the natural world.
The whole fallacy of evolution as a understanding of the creation of life (the cell--not the evolution of it) is the idea of decay. The cell itself is a living thing, in truth the basis of all biological theory.
However, biology claims that all life comes from cells, and can only come from the cell. A creature is not alive unless it consists of the smallest instance of life--the cell. How then, does one create a cell? How do chemicals come together instantaneously to create a stable system that can act on its own volition? THIS is the problem of evolution, something many refuse to touch.
To solve this we must solve this question: what is life? How is it defined? What gives man the ability to think and recognize his existance? The cell is no different. In a small measure,
however small, it recoginzes its own existance. It responds to its enviroment for its own betterment. How do chemicals reach this stage?
Evidence of this I would love to see.
MHO.
~Beowulf
