[gallo]

Quote by: LOGAN Just what is "empirical" about the "idea" of evolution? Empirical by definition is evidence based on "observation" and experiment RATHER THAN THEORY.

Obviously you haven't bothered to make any effort to learn what you are talking about before you speak. The theories of evolution are, in fact, explanations for empirical observations. If you don't believe it, just read "On The Origin Of Species". You will find that Darwin goes to great length to explain the empirical observations upon which he based his theories.

If evolution was indeed based upon empirical evidence, we would have the LAW OF EVOLUTION.

If you had bothered to learn what science is and how it works, you would know that scientific laws are part of the empirical observations upon which the theories are built. In science, theories do not grow up to become laws. A scientific theory is not in the slightest a guess. Scientific theories are statements the express those things about our universe of which we are most sure.

There are, by the way, several scientific laws that are part of the evidence from which the theories of evolution have been formulated. For example, the law of independent assortment and the laws of dominance in genetics. In population genetics there is the Hardy-Weinberg law.

For any evidence to be considered empirical it must be observed and reproducible in experimentation.

Not quite. Empirical means that it can be observed by the senses, not that it is either reproducible by experiment. The repeating and experiment are part of the philosophy of science but are not part of empiricism.

Where has anything ever been observed "evolving" from one species into another in nature?

Strains of Drosophila that were obtained from a single source cannot interbreed, either with each other or with the source population. New species. European herring gulls interbreed with Icelandic, Greenland, and North American herring gulls. North American herring gulls are a single population from east coast to Alaska, where they interbreed with Vega's herring gull from Siberia. That gull interbreeds with Birula's gull than interbreeds with Heuglin's gull that interbreeds with the Siberian lesser black-backed gull that interbreeds with the lesser black-backed gull in Europe. The European herring gull and the lesser black-backed gull are the extremes of a single, huge, continuously interbreeding population that encircles the North Pole. European herring gulls and lesser black-backed gulls do not interbreed even though they share a common range and a common food source. They are separate species.

Environmental adaptation contained and confined within any single species is not evolution.

Actually, that depends on what you mean by environmental adaptation. Usually, creationists have no real idea of what they are talking about and just sling about words that they have picked up from some preacher. The point is that evolution is, in fact, by the definition used by evolutionary biologists, adaptive changes in the genetic makeup of a population.

And what experiment is found to be reproducible that in fact concludes one species has evolved into another?

The breeding of domestic animals. Happens all the time.

Evolution is not based upon empirical evidence. It is based upon theory and interpretation of fossil remains and wrongly applied factors of individual species having the ability to adapt to their environment.

And you learned this how? Since I have spent so many years studying evolutionary biology, I wonder how it is that you have come to know that. I never had a clue that what you say was true. Surely you can give me some evidence or direct me to some published science that makes that clear. I was had the understanding that the theories of evolution were built from the evidence through hypothesis, prediction, and experimentation. That's how I've always seen it done. And if evolutionary theory is based on the interpretation of fossils (i.e., observation), isn't that exactly the opposite of saying that it is based on a theory? And what does it mean to say that "evolution" is based on a theory? Do you mean that the observations of evolution wouldn't happen if we didn't have a theory about them? Wouldn't it be nice if you made an effort to learn the basics of what you claim to oppose before you spoke? You make yourself look foolish when you speak without knowledge, i.e., from ignorance.

If micro adaptation were not valid, the first virus that man was exposed to would have automatically made extinct mankind. Thus adaptation is not an evolutionary trait but an inherent fact of all life.

And you learned this how? What is "micro adaptation?" Does that mean that there is something called "pico adaptation?" or "nano adaptation?" or "mega adaptation?" or "macro adaptation?" Please define the types of "adaptation" and tell us specifically the difference between them, and why that difference is not merely one of perception or religiously motivated nonsense. Further, are you asserting that the common cold could have made mankind extinct? Please present the evidence for that strange claim. Also, is there no difference between changes acquired by an individual organism over a life time and the heritable changes that populations undergo over generations? Please explain the difference and why or why not.

A theory, no matter what kind of spin one wishes to place upon it is still only an idea and not a fact.

But we are talking about science. Don't you think you should learn what scientists mean by the word before you make such pronouncements and reveal your ignorance? In science, a theory is a set of statements and principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena. In science, theories have been repeatedly tested by experimentation and are used to make predictions about natural phenomena. Scientific theories have wide acceptance among scientists. For example, over 99% of biologists and geologists accept the theories of evolution as the best explanations for the observations. About 97% of all scientists (i.e., people who actually have degrees in a field of science from accredited universities) also accept the theories of evolution.

How can anyone define the origins of life when life itself has never been successfully defined?

That's nonsense. It has been successfully defined several times. The problem is that there are so many different opinions about what is important. Besides, I thought you were talking about evolution. Are you so uneducated about the topic that you don't even know that evolution does not deal with the origin of life?

Life has never been successfully reproduced in experimentation, as no one can explain the force that indeed produces life.

Correction. Two viruses have been constructed by assembling sequences of bases, sugars and phosphates. The viruses worked. Also, an artificial bacteria has also been constructed by similar sequencing. The bacteria was alive and reproduced.

Just what force can take a group of organic cells that are inert and animate such?

Chemistry?

And once animation ceases, just where indeed does this force go?

You haven't shown that any such force exists.

It must be energy, and energy cannot be destroyed only altered.

OK. So what is your point?

'when man has the capacity to explain this, the origin of this force would be self defined.

But you haven't demonstrated the existance of this force yet.

As of today, there is no substance known to exist in the universe that can create life, thus it must be gestated on the subatomic level....a field indeed that man knows very little about.

Was that bit of gobbly-gook meaningful to you? See about about the artificial construction of a living organism.

But, we are expected to accept some theory as to how man's life has evolved without any consideration whatsoever about the gestation of that life?

What? What does this have to do with what you were talking about before. What makes you think that we don't know anything about human gestation? Again, we were talking about evolution and not the origin of life, human or other wise.

There are in fact just to many gaps left unbridged along the evolutionary trial based upon theory for it to be actually considered as even based upon empirical evidence.

And you have an answer that actually explains anything? I bet not. Is you answer that a magical, invisible being poofed some dirt into existance from nothing and them made some mud that came alive?

Please tell us about some of these gaps and why they are a problem for the 150 years of accumulated scientific knowledge. Please explain why any single gap would be so important that it would invalidate all of the accumulated empirical evidence upon which the theories of biological evolution are based.

Go and learn something first. I can suggest some books for you to read.