Does Evolution provide a complete process for human evolution without making any assumptions?

Question

or leaps of faith?

Why does every question have to be making a point? I'm just asking.

I said nothing of the Universe. I'm asking about the Evolution of Man from a common ancestor of apes. Nothing more, nothing less. Pretend this was a question on a quiz.

Answer 1

There is nothing in any science or any understanding of anything that does not make assumptions.

If this is supposed to be a critique of evolution, you're holding it to an impossible standard. If this is supposed to reduce evolution to the level of creationism, you're ignoring the mountain of evidence for evolution, the fact that creationism is nothing more than a large collection of lies, and the fact that our knowledge of the world is not ever certain.

If you want knowledge to be without assumptions, you can't have any knowledge.

If you acknowledge the assumptions that you're making, as science does, you spell out exactly what assumptions are needed to accept a theory. The assumptions that support evolution are quite reasonable ones, and if you're prepared to reject them, you're going to reject science in general. Are you prepared to do that?

Answer 2

There are always assumptions. You assume that the sun will come up tomorrow. You do not know 100.0% that it will. Almost 100% but not exactly 100%.

However, it does not take a leap of faith to say that the sun will continue to shine for the next 24 hours, and that the Earth will continue to spin and that dawn will happen tomorrow morning.

Ther are some assumptions in evolutionary theory, but they are not leaps of faith that the creationists would have you believe, but ones based on good and verified science.

The theory of evolution has made way to many correct predictions for it not to be 99% right.

Answer 3

It is what it is - if humans have evolved to the point that we can extend our lives more and control disease, then that is all part of evolution. However, I don't see how we can truly evolve as a species any further considering how large the gene pool is. Evolution happens over long periods where mutations have a chance to propagate, and with so many genes in the pool, any mutations that are beneficial will not have a significant impact on the population as a whole.

Answer 4

Every field of pursuit has to make some fundamental 'assumptions', though I would disagree with the term 'assumption'.

All epistemeologies have basic axioms that are simply accepted for the sake of building knowledge. The axioms are not necessarily held as being true -- simply accepted as such as a basis of consequence.

Science operates on three basic axioms:
1.) Math & logic are correct in so far as proven from zeroth-order logic.
2.) All observables operate by laws which can be expressed mathematically.
3.) Any non-observables (supernaturals, hypernaturals, etc...) do not affect observables in any way.

All three of these can be shown to cause an impossibility of knowing if they are not true. So they're fairly good axioms to work with.

But, by definition of 'axiom', they're unprovable, all the same.

Answer 5

I think believing in the "big bang" would be the only real leap of faith in that sense, only because there isn't the same kind of evidence as there is for Evolution. However, it IS the most likely theory so I'll stick with it.

Answer 6

Science makes no "leaps of faith" but instead assumptions which are then tested repeatedly. Any assumptions made are clearly postulated as such and then put to the test until proved or disproved. Then new assumptions are made to build on the previously proven ones.

Religion, by comparison, postulates everything as fact and attempts to prove nothing. It must be taken on faith, thus leading its followers like sheep.

Answer 7

No, but then again, you can't give me the complete process for the internet running on your computer, from start to finish, posting your question on Y!A. I can give you much of it because of my degree and technical expertise, but that's because I've studied it. Even then, I can't tell you the exact path and every host computer your connection goes through before it reaches Y!A, but I can prove that it does indeed take a path and give you the steps it takes. Evolution is the same way.

Answer 8

It starts with the assumption that life was already on the planet, and builds from there.

Other than that, it is as complete as the fossil record will allow at this time.

That is not a leap of faith, that is following a logical conclusion, and waiting for more information.

Answer 9

No... of course it doesn't. By asking this question, though, you reveal that you do not understand what the 'Theory of Evolution' IS.

First of all, evolution is strictly a biological science. It has nothing whatsoever to do with or to say about the origins of the universe or the world. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the origins of life. It has only to do with changes to the genetic makeup of populations of organisms, over time. If you want know what the current scientific thinking is on the origins of life, go look up 'abiogenesis'.

Scientific theories are not just 'ideas', as the scientifically illiterate seem to regard them. Theories occupy a higher stratum of importance in science than do mere facts... theories EXPLAIN facts. The 'theory of evolution' provides an explanatory framework for the OBSERVED FACT of changes to the genetic makeup of populations of organisms, over time. The mechanisms that has been identified... AND OBSERVED... to account for and explain those changes are 'genetic drift' (statistical variations in allele frequency), and genetic mutations (random), operated on by 'natural selection' (NOT random). In other words, the non-random survival of randomly varying replicators.

None of that is in dispute among REAL scientists. It represents a consistent body of scientific fact, extending back almost 150 years, which is well supported by genetics and by the fossil record. There has never been anything found to refute it.

As in all science, there are frequent quibbles pertaining to specific details of specific instances... but that is simply how science works. None of this has ever thrown the least shadow of doubt upon the theory itself. And in science, 'theory' is not just 'an idea', as it is in common parlance. In science, a theory is a proposed description, explanation, or model of the manner of interaction of a set of natural phenomena, capable of predicting future occurrences or observations of the same kind, and capable of being tested through experiment or otherwise falsified through empirical observation. Evolution is 'falsifiable'... but in almost 150 years, it NEVER HAS been falsified. As far as 'theories' go, evolution is about the most successful one we've got.

The people who venomously dispute evolution are generally those whose livelihood depends on having large flocks of ignorant believers (sheeple) who do not question what they are told. If those sheeple were to actually begin to think for themselves, and investigate the scientific facts with an open and critical mind, they would at some point begin to realize things like "Hey... this idea that the earth and humans were created over 6 days somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago is absolute codswallop. The Universe is around 13.7 billion years old, and the earth is around 4.7 billion years old." Or: "Wow... look at that... there is absolutely no evidence in the geological record that there was ever a world-wide flood... and there is plenty of evidence that there was not."

Answer 10

The absolute forensic record of human evolution is written in our genome. Fossil evidence and comparative morphology offer many clues about hominid evolution, but the details are in the molecular basis of our nucleotide sequences, which we are just now beginning to decipher. Less than 2% of our nucleotide sequences are actually involved in protein production (genes). Of the rest, some is junk DNA while much (75%) appears organized in deactivated genes or pseudogenes. These genes are now the subject of study by a consortium of researchers (Project Encode) which is finding that much are chunks of deactivated genes from species ancestral to hominids. Understanding these "fossilized genes" holds much promise, not only for clearly understanding the details of human evolution, but for medical therapy. For instance, the genes that control spinal tissue regeneration in the Mexican salamander exist in fossilized form in humans (humans and amphibians share a common ancestor 300 million years ago). By learning what nucleobase sequences need to be changed, it should be possible to reactivate these genes in humans, providing a cure for spinal cord injury.