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Comment by gizi | Hacker News Reader

Creationism has obviously no foundation in science but neither has evolutionism. Where are the repeatable experiments required in order to be able to look for counterexamples for evolutionism? Has anybody ever "evolved" a species from another? If yes, how can we repeat that experiment? It is clear that evolutionism has no scientific status either.

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You don't understand what evolution is. It really a name, and needs no proof.

Basically, there are a few known facts: (1) organisms die, (2) organisms reproduce, (3) the offspring are different from each other and from the parents, (4) the differences are more or less random, (5) dying is not random but a consequence of external forces, and (6) external forces are relatively constant. From these facts, it logically follows that over generations (or ofganisms reproducing ans dying), the living organisms will become more and more adapted to the environment. To avoid this long and detailed explanation, we just call this process evolution.

It's completely the same as e.g. the word "evaporate" - instead of saying that kinetic energy causes H2O molecules to become more and more excited, and slowly breaks the H bonds between molecules, so that they can move freely inspace (gas), we just say "water evaporates".

If it needs no proof, it is not science either, and that was exactly the point I was making.

You don't know much about evolution, it seems

Go look up what kind of people use the word "evolutionism" and you might not be surprised.

You didn't respond to any of the main points listed in the second paragraph. Would you say you can't find experiments for points (1) to (4)?

Does point (5) needs any experiments? While point (6) just needs a more extensive definition.

These 6 points are giving you the proof that you are asking for evolution to be proven in a scientific method.

Edit: fixed typos.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_evolution

They may indeed try to evolve a species out of another. In all examples in your link, they stay within the same species, however. There is simply no convincing experiment in which they evolve one species out of another. It does not exist.

"Species" is an artificial distinction that human biologists use to make it easier to talk about what's going on. There is no objective distinction between species. The idea that the universe somehow permits evolution within a species but does not permit evolution from one species to another is nonsensical, on roughly the same level as thinking that it's possible to walk one mile but not possible to walk ten miles.

Indeed, the first problem starts already with just the title of that notorious book: On the origin of species. What exactly is a species? If we cannot etch a reasonable definition for that term in stone, then all statements that make use of that term are questionable, on that basis alone. Evolutionism then becomes a theory about things that we cannot define that evolve into other things that we cannot define ... How could that ever be science?

And another post that shows more clearly that you don't know much about what evolution is

Are you seriously attempting to discredit evolution as a science based on one word in the title of a single book?

You don't need a definition of "species" to understand or work with evolution.

The E.coli long-term evolution experiment:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_exp...

Hm, let's check wikipedia,

"Evolutionism was a common 19th century belief that organisms inherently improve themselves through progressive inherited change over time, and increase in complexity through evolution. The belief went on to include cultural evolution and social evolution."

And more to the point:

"In modern times, the term evolution is widely used, but the terms evolutionism and evolutionist are seldom used in the scientific community to refer to the biological discipline as the term is considered both redundant and anachronistic, though it has been used by creationists in discussing the creation-evolution controversy. Apart from the use of the word by creationists, it is also often used by theists to imply a worldview that is essentially naturalistic."

You are not correct. Evolution have been observed in nature and artificially reproduced many many times. Just look at dogs. Separate species of fruit flies have been evolved in a laboratory setting.

Can you produce a link to a repeatable experiment in which one species is being "evolved" from another?

Sure: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evo_45

An experiment must be conducted in a controlled environment. Merely staring at iguanas that they found on an island, does not constitute an experiment. What are the inputs, the outputs and the function that they have unleashed during their experiment in order to transform input into output? Furthermore, into what did they try to transform their iguanas? Into cats or dogs?

> Field experiments are so named in order to draw a contrast with laboratory experiments, which enforce scientific control by testing a hypothesis in the artificial and highly controlled setting of a laboratory. Often used in the social sciences, and especially in economic analyses of education and health interventions, field experiments have the advantage that outcomes are observed in a natural setting rather than in a contrived laboratory environment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_experiment

It sounds too much like you are requesting an exemption from the governing anti-alchemy policy that you would like to see suspended -- as a matter of exception -- in order to let through the gates some questionable things that we should not qualify as science. Just staring at things during a 'field experiment' will never be science. You must modify them, and we should be able to repeat your modifications. So, no thanks but no. No exemption.

Not sure what you are getting at, field observations are an important part of many sciences like biology, geology, meteorology etc. Just as an example, if you want to study animal behavior it is much more valid to study it in the natural habitat than in an artificially created environment. Sure, lab experiments area also used in these sciences, but they are really complementary to the field observations.

In any case, your comment about evolving iguanas into cats and dogs indicate that you have a strange idea about about how evolution works. If a bad teacher gave you some wrong ideas then I can understand you skepticism. But you should probably try to understand evolution first before trying to criticize the theory as unscientific.

A laboratory experiment on fruit flies is also described a bit further down the page.

Lenski experiment

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