Is evolution really a fact?

According to the Bible, anyone who denies the existence of God is a fool. Why, then, are so many people, including some Christians, willing to accept that evolutionary scientists are unbiased interpreters of scientific data.Creation is by definition "supernatural." God, and the supernatural, cannot be observed or tested (so the argument goes), therefore Creation and/or Intelligent Design cannot be considered a science. As a result, all data is filtered through the preconceived, presupposed, and pre-accepted theory of evolution, without alternate explanations being considered.However, the origin of the universe and the origin of life cannot be tested or observed. Both Creation and evolution are faith-based systems when they speak of origins.If Creation is true, then there is a Creator to Whom we are accountable. Evolution is an enabler for atheism. Evolution gives atheists a basis for explaining how life exists apart from a Creator God. Evolution denies the need for a God to be involved in the universe. Evolution is the “creation theory” for the “religion” of atheism. According to the Bible, the choice is clear. We can believe the Word of our omnipotent and omniscient God, or we can believe the illogically biased, "scientific" explanations of fools.

Cosmic evolution: No such thing. Creationists deliberately try to equate the Big Bang theory with Evolution, despite the fact that they are in two entirely different fields of science. In this case, cosmology and biology.

Chemical evolution: No such thing, and once again a deliberate conflation of two entirely different fields. As before, cosmology and biology.

Stellar and Planetary Evolution: No such thing. Again with the deliberate conflation. This is the field of astronomy, not biology.

Organic Evolution: Again no such thing. The fields confused here are abiogenesis (chemistry) and biology. The two overlap, but they are not the same thing.

Macroevolution: Creationists invented this word to describe the transformation from one species to another. There is no such thing. There is only "evolution".

Microevolution: See above.

The reality: Evolution is the process by which life forms change over time through mutation and natural selection. That's it. Period. Nothing about stars, planets, or life from non-life. The ToE deals exclusively with life that is already present. If you want to challenge abiogenesis, the Big Bang, or the rest, then address your query to the proper fields.

Tell me...if you move an inch at a time, can you eventually cover a mile? That is how speciation occurs...little by little, small changes over time adding up...usually when one group of a species is isolated in some way from the rest.

@The Big Best Deal:

If the origins of life are based in divine creation, then no, they cannot be tested. If, however, they are based in natural processes, then they can be tested. Of course, at this time evolutionary theory hasn't discovered the origins of life, but there is evidence.

Of particular interest is the discovery of the potential for the natural formation of RNA. This is conspicuous because it is dependent upon a type of common sea clay which binds to certain amino acids, forming RNA while also allowing it to pass through lipid membranes.

As you may already know, evidence points to the origins of life at sea by virtue of the fact that if you look far back enough, you'll find that all animals were aquatic. RNA is a component found in all living cells. And biological processes on the cellular level are dependent upon the ability of chemicals to pass through lipid membranes. So it is significant that a common sea clay could be involved in the natural formation of RNA while simultaneously possessing the ability to pass through lipid membranes.

This is not proof of the origins of life, but it's almost certainly a step toward it. Evolutionary theory is full of such evidence. For example, the fact that fully aquatic mammals, unlike fish, have hip and leg bones. This is highly suggestive that these aquatic mammals once possessed the ability to walk on two legs. What other possible purpose could their be for these animals having skeletal systems more similar to land mammals than to the fish they bear a closer outward resemblance to?

Creationists usually fall back on the idea of the "missing link". Yet even when shown the missing link (for instance, dinosaurs which could fly, were covered in feathers, had hollow bones, and looked more or less like birds) they deny it.

Again, all of this does not mean that evolution currently has all the answers. But that's why it's a theory. It's a strong theory with mountains of evidence to back it, yet there are plenty of unanswered questions at this point.

You need to be corrected. Evolution has many definitions, like the progression of something simple to something more complex.

However, in the study of evolutionary science, that rule does not always apply.

For example, there are more genes (chromosomes) in a grain of rice than there are in a human being.

Its important to understand what evolution is when it comes to talking about origins of species. It does not include the study of cosmology or astronomy. Nor is evolution the study to try and explain something out of nothing.

In very simple terms, evolution only covers observable life and the study of the evidence of life before us and a means to explain where a species came from. Whether extinct or alive today.

Cosmology describes a science to explain the universe which does include only what we have discovered now. Which is the big bang, and it's logical to assume that we don't fill the holes with god just because we haven't found the next answer or answers, yet.

Don't be afraid that because the earth is no longer flat that you have to give up your religion. You don't. You just have to catch up to the reality of the 21st Century and adapt by reading non religious web sites for a while. Because I see clearly, you got that from a fundamentalist Christian web site and this is not what they teach at major universities for one to obtain their PhD.

"Chemical evolution" is a fact - we have observed the formation of elements in stars.

"Stellar and planetary evolution" are facts - we have observed stars forming and stars "dying", we have observed planerary accretion discs around stars.

Biological evolution is a fact - we have observed species changing and we have observed new species separating from existing species.

The Theory of Evolution (comonly called just "evolution") is an explanation of the observed facts of biological evolution. So it can be said to be both a fact and a theory.

Your first 3 items are not part of the Theory of Evolution, they fall under fields of physics and cosmology. The 4th is Abiogenesis, agan a different field of study.

"cosmic" and "organic" are supported by the evidence that we can see although we have not observed the events taking place.

You are downright wrong about the first four.

Biological evolution is an observable process in living organisms where offspring are not identical to their parents but have slight differences which will affect their probability of going on to reproduce.

This, in conjunction with spatial or temporal isolation, can lead to a single population diverging into two which are incapable of interbreeding.

To claim that this is impossible is akin to claiming that no matter how many far you moved one centimetre at a time, you could never end up a kilometre from your initial position.

O.o....

You just stuck evolution after completely different theories, people say that a lot of biological evolution is fact (that encompasses microevolution mainly which convientiently you've left out).

Organic evolution is actually abiogenesis, which is what you guys should be targeting instead of evolution.

Macro and micro evolution are about biological evolution which is what everyone whines about.

All the rest have to do with physics.

Now, can you please ask a question where I don't have to start from pre-school.

I don't believe people state Evolution is a fact.

I firmly believe most people, principally

the atheists who post here, accept Evolution as a theory, but a very well researched theory and one that has stood the test of time and is almost certainly correct.

There is Einstein's Theory of Relativity and Newton's Theory of Gravity, which people accept as being accurate, but as with all things scientific, cannot be proved beyond a shadow of doubt.

Surely Creationism is a theory too, but I know which theory I believe is the more feasible.

If by "kinds" you mean species, then we refer to micro and macro evolution. All the Theory of Evolution refers to is how species differentiate from one another. It doesn't refer to the Big Bang. It doesn't refer to nuclear fusion. It doesn't refer to nebulae. It doesn't refer to the formation of organic chemical compounds.

In scientific usage, a theory does not mean an unsubstantiated guess or hunch, as it can in everyday speech. A theory is a logically self-consistent model or framework for describing the behavior of a related set of natural or social phenomena. It originates from or is supported by rigorous observations in the natural world, or by experimental evidence . In this sense, a theory is a systematic and formalized expression of all previous observations, and is predictive, logical, and testable. In principle, scientific theories are always tentative, and subject to corrections, inclusion in a yet wider theory, or succession.

-wikipedia

To give an example, I could show you the fossil record, or genetic similarities between related species. You would likely "refute" me by pointing out holes in the fossil record in Darwin's time, ignoring 150 years of discoveries since then, and treating a theory like the first time it is proposed it will or should look at it will after more evidence has been gathered. Alternately you might point out that people are genetically related to bananas, to which I would say yes, but we are far more related to chimps than bananas, and our relation to bananas genetically only lends weight to the claim that all life is descended from a single primordial ancestor.

@Chic Chick: Congratulations! Now you get to discover why people laugh at creationists!

"Personally the chances of all of this falling together from chaos is 1-64 power. 1 in 1+64 zeros."

#1 you get these numbers where? I think you pulled them out of nowhere. #2 (I'm assuming the hyphen means "to the") 1 to the 64th power is still just one. 1x1 or one to the second power is one, and that pattern goes on forever. #3 1 in 1^64 is not the same as 1^64. It's it's inverse.

"The chances of this type of perfection evolving is less than zero not even a probability."

According to you, the probability of evolution falling into place is one to the sixty-fourth power, or one. A probability of one means that it definately happened. Alternately, you mean 1 in 1^64, which, I admit would be a really small number that you gave me citing no source. However, that number is still above zero. It's a very small positive number, and though if you understood calculus you could argue that the limit might be zero, supposing we knew what equation (if any) you used to arrive at this figure, zero is equal to zero. Zero is not less than zero, as you claim.

"Logic should tell any intelligent person that everything built has a builder and the proof of the builder is the building."

Let's ignore the fact that even if I personally have never spoken to the designer of a building, someone else has. That's what proves the builder. The plans filed at city hall and signed by the builder whom we've seen exists and the corresponding building built by the plans prove the builder. Logic tells me that you don't know what logic, probability, exponent, mathematical notation,positive and negative numbers, the mathematical concept of "zero," the number one, or the Theory of Evolution mean.

@mothernatureisgod: you claim that man was born on the 6th day that lasted 1000 years on an Earth that is 5 or 6 thousand years old according to your young Earth creationism. okay, so how does that fit with the 5 or6 thousand years of history you claim is recorded in the Bible? Mankind, by your "logic," could at best be one thousand years old, where God has yet to rest thus refuting everything written in your magic book after Genesis chapter 2 verse 1. And another creationist attempt to logicks was failed, and it was good.

Your talking about completely different fields of study, separating micro-/macro-evolution concepts from evolution theory, and it's abiogenesis not "organic evolution".

Evolution theory is not a fact, it as proposed explanation of the variation of species supported by facts. It is named a theory because there are no facts which disprove the theory, and all known facts support the theory.

It's a fact like gravity is a fact.

Evolution generally refers to biological evolution, and the micro/macro is an arbitrary division of scope of study. There is no clear dividing line since there is no mechanism limiting change.

This is a typical Creationist fallacy -- divide an entity and then lump in a series of unrelated entities, then attack the group.