39% of Americans Believe in Evolution

[jet_porkins]

Explain ERVs.

Educate me.

 

[CyberPitz]

Oh, so 61% of Americans are still idiots?

Gotcha.

 

[PvtRyan]

Educate me.

ERVs (Endogenous retroviruses) are basically (inactive) viruses within our DNA that at some point infected one of your ancestors (in the germ cells so they would be transmitted onto offspring) and now are endogenous to our DNA. I think about 10% of our DNA consists of these kinds of 'viruses'. Now, the interesting thing is that they insert themselves at a random location in our DNA. And when we look at for example the great apes, they have a lot of the same ERVs that we do, in the same relative 'point' in their DNA. Now, the odds of this happening for even one ERV is very small (one in billions), yet there are many examples. Using ERVs, you can piece together a tree of ancestry, and even give time estimates of where a species split off into two. If a species share an ERV at the same location, this can only be explained by them having a common ancestor.

Now, I love this argument since you either force the other to admit they don't know what it is (discrediting any claim about the truth of evolution by them) or you force them to admit they can't explain ERVs in any way except common ancestry.

 

[Escaep]

While I don't accept we came from monkeys, I do believe the earth has been around a lot longer than what the "7 days" Bible story literally claims.

The 7 days explained in Genesis were not literal 24 hour days.

 

[Solaris]

I absolutely love it when people say "It's just a theory" over here.

That phrase should result in an automatic ban.

 

[nurizeko]

The 7 days explained in Genesis were not literal 24 hour days.

A day is a day, resorting to semantics and personal beliefs do not invalidate this.



But to be fair, Earth days have changed, in the beginning they used to be shorter.

 

[Escaep]

A day is a day, resorting to semantics and personal beliefs do not invalidate this.



But to be fair, Earth days have changed, in the beginning they used to be shorter.

As described in Genesis they were not 24 hours days.

 

[bbson john]

So guys like Adam lived almost a thousand years. So it is either Adam lived hundreds million of years, or each day consists of hundreds million of years.

 

[Dan]

Isn't a SRS with a sample over 40 too close to a normal distribution so that it doesn't really matter?

Of course, I've only taken introductory Statistics classes, but I think a thousand is enough, provided that the sample is completely random.

3% error bar is calculated based on a normal distribution. I didn't check the confidence level, but the standard is usually 95% which means that with a 95% probability, the true mean is within 3% of the sample mean.

A 3% confidence interval with that mean and population means that there was a standard deviation of around 50% depending on how they rounded the numbers. This seems like a pretty big spread to me.

 

[Absinthe]

As described in Genesis they were not 24 hours days.

Then why call it a day?

I mean, we're talking about the enduring testament handed down from God to last all eternity. Surely he could envision a future where this makes absolutely no ****ing sense.

 

[swan_song1973]

that cant be right.

 

[Sledgehammer]

Nothing, except mathematics, can be proven. Instead you can disprove every alternative.

So yes, it is still a theory. However, it's a goddamn well-proven theory, and refusing to believe it, is similar to claiming the moon is made of cheese. Actually, claiming the moon is cheese is a far better argument, as you actually give an alternative option instead of just being a moronic naysayer.

If we ever finish our crusade against religion, anybody wanna continue with nationalism?

 

[The Monkey]

Wow. Leaving your country because it's gone to the dogs, rather than trying to make it better. Real patriotic that would be of him.

"Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious."
- Oscar Wilde

 

[Afnopo]

36% of people on the forum have played Half-Life 2.

 

[Stigmata]

Nothing, except mathematics, can be proven. Instead you can disprove every alternative.

So yes, it is still a theory. However, it's a goddamn well-proven theory, and refusing to believe it, is similar to claiming the moon is made of cheese. Actually, claiming the moon is cheese is a far better argument, as you actually give an alternative option instead of just being a moronic naysayer.

If we ever finish our crusade against religion, anybody wanna continue with nationalism?

Yes I do.

Also, technically mathematics cannot be proven. Even though it's the most fundamental method we have of understanding the universe, it's really just a flawed system of interpretation. Infinity, dividing by zero, negative square roots, and other things are bugs in our current implementation of numbers - just like "lack of negative values" was a bug in Roman numerals. Plus, you can't prove the consistency of a system from within the system itself.

 

[Raziaar]

Isn't gravity a theory too? ****ing nonsensical gravitational theory getting in the way of what I truly believe. That the overwhelming lure of the devil is drawing us closer to him perpetually in the depths of hell at the center of the earth!

 

[Dan]

Yes I do.

Also, technically mathematics cannot be proven. Even though it's the most fundamental method we have of understanding the universe, it's really just a flawed system of interpretation. Infinity, dividing by zero, negative square roots, and other things are bugs in our current implementation of numbers - just like "lack of negative values" was a bug in Roman numerals. Plus, you can't prove the consistency of a system from within the system itself.

Haha, this is soooo wrong.

 

[15357]

3% error bar is calculated based on a normal distribution. I didn't check the confidence level, but the standard is usually 95% which means that with a 95% probability, the true mean is within 3% of the sample mean.

Um.. no.

It says right at the front of the chapter on confidence levels that you can't say that something has a 95% probability of being within an interval.....

Instead, you can say, "we are 95% confident" (whatever the **** that means)

"95% of all possible samples of this size will be within 3% of this mean."

Or whatever. Of course, I may be wrong, but that's me for you.

A 3% confidence interval with that mean and population means that there was a standard deviation of around 50% depending on how they rounded the numbers. This seems like a pretty big spread to me.

I thought that didn't actually matter? Of course, having slept through most of the confidence interval section, only to wake up at Chi^2, I wouldn't know too much. :E

Nothing, except mathematics, can be proven. Instead you can disprove every alternative.

So yes, it is still a theory. However, it's a goddamn well-proven theory, and refusing to believe it, is similar to claiming the moon is made of cheese. Actually, claiming the moon is cheese is a far better argument, as you actually give an alternative option instead of just being a moronic naysayer.

You can't exactly disprove God, an omnipresent and all-powerful being outside of our universe.

Though, I don't really care.

If we ever finish our crusade against religion, anybody wanna continue with nationalism?

No.

I want to be able to cling to my illogical thoughts of superiority.

 

[bbson john]

The existence of god is never being proved. It doesn't matter whether one can disprove god. God just cannot be proven, and is very likely that it doesn't exist.

 

[Adabiviak]

While I don't accept we came from monkeys, I do believe the earth has been around a lot longer than what the "7 days" Bible story literally claims.

Who said we came from monkeys? Not evolution - I've only heard that from people who don't understand evolution.

 

[jet_porkins]

Who said we came from monkeys? Not evolution - I've only heard that from people who don't understand evolution.

It was a slightly jocular over-generalization, but I hope I got my point across.

The 7 days explained in Genesis were not literal 24 hour days.

I never disagreed, I was simply making a statement to the anti-religious who only look at the literally-worded 7 days.

 

[Llama]

It was a slightly jocular over-generalization, but I hope I got my point across.

Humans did not evolve from monkeys or apes, just so you know.

I never disagreed, I was simply making a statement to the anti-religious who only look at the literally-worded 7 days.

Because a book that requires it's subscribers to follow it to the letter would just be filled with pointless and flawed semantics, amirite?

You'd have thought an all powerful god could have written things in a more clear and concise fashion.

 

[Mr Stabby]

To be fair, God didn't write the King James Bible.

 

[Stigmata]

To be truly fair, humans wrote every version of the Bible.

 

[Sledgehammer]

You can't exactly disprove God, an omnipresent and all-powerful being outside of our universe.

Which is why it's an invalid argument. Approaching a such concept as God scientifically, is nonsense. The only valid way to use God in a scientific argument, is, in my opinion, neurology. Of course, religious people are strong opponents of that sort of neurology.

 

[Atomic_Piggy]

While I don't accept we came from monkeys, I do believe the earth has been around a lot longer than what the "7 days" Bible story literally claims.

I need a facepalm pic.

So if you don't believe in evolution, or creationism, what the hell do you believe? That the world just popped out of thin air?

 

[Sledgehammer]

I always liked how it happened in the old Egyptian mythology. Re (or Ra) masturbated and somehow his seeds turned into the whole world, and his sons and daughters. That's way more awesome than Christianity.

 

[sixteenth]

I always liked how it happened in the old Egyptian mythology. Re (or Ra) masturbated and somehow his seeds turned into the whole world, and his sons and daughters. That's way more awesome than Christianity.

That'd be an awesome last scene to some low budget pron.

 

[The Monkey]

Which is why it's an invalid argument. Approaching a such concept as God scientifically, is nonsense. The only valid way to use God in a scientific argument, is, in my opinion, neurology. Of course, religious people are strong opponents of that sort of neurology.

God was never a scientific concept, it's a theological and philosophical. Although the concept of it does have ramification that would appear to contradict certain empirical discoveries in the natural sciences, that could easily be dismissed by claiming that religious texts such as the bible should be seen as allegories. Thus, God, even in its biblical form, can never be disproved by science, as it's supporters can always claim that its stories (the Garden of Eden, Noah's Ark etc.) all should be seen as allegories.

 

[Stigmata]

Haha, this is soooo wrong.

So our number system is perfect, then?

 

[Solaris]

So our number system is perfect, then?

What do you mean?

How can any number system be perfect? That would imply it is describing something. But a number system only describes the conclusions that can be drawn, from the exioms, upoun which is based.

 

[theotherguy]

Who said we came from monkeys? Not evolution - I've only heard that from people who don't understand evolution.

I think that's a bit underhanded. Sure, we didn't come from modern monkeys, but we and monkeys share a distant, common ancestor that probably resembled a lemur, or some other monkey-like mammal. Further, humans and modern apes share a fairly recent common ancestor (that was probably very ape-like), and humans and chimps share an even more recent common ancestor (that was probably very chimp-like).

EDIT: The point being, if we were to examine our distant ancestors, we would classify the older ones as monkeys, the more recent ones as apes, and the most recent ones as homonids...which is exactly what we do. Therefore, we did evolve from monkeys, and from apes, just not from modern monkeys or apes. Further, we would have evolved from the common ancestor of monkeys and all other mammals, and the common ancestor of that mammal with all other vertebrates, the ancestor of that vertebrate with all chordates, the ancestor of that chordate with all other multicellular animals, and so on....

 

[Sheepo]

There's no way this can be right.

 

[Kase]

lol awsome

 

[Kula Meenur]

Not really all that suprising.

 

[Sheepo]

You'd have thought an all powerful god could have written things in a more clear and concise fashion.

"God works in mysterious ways" is an even bigger religious back up card than "Let he who is without sin".

Edit: And I still think that this is ****ing impossible.

 

[Stigmata]

What do you mean?

How can any number system be perfect? That would imply it is describing something. But a number system only describes the conclusions that can be drawn, from the exioms, upoun which is based.

Which was kind of my point. Either mathematics is perfect or it's not. Since there are numerous examples of flaws in our number system, it cannot be considered perfect. And our number system is the result of several millenia of step-by-step development and conceptualisation, all of which had more and bigger flaws (i.e. lack of negatives, lack of zero, concept of multiplication) than our positional base-10 system - flaws which our system fixed, or at least glossed over.

I don't know why Dan had a problem with what I said.

 

[Sulkdodds]

But the question arises as to what can possibly constitute a 'flaw' if the system isn't describing something: what's 'wrong'? In what sense is it 'deficient'? The system defines its own rules and then works by them, and because of that you can prove something in maths - in most circumstances 2+2=4 is an analytic truth. Of course, I don't know anything about maths at all.

 

[Solaris]

Which was kind of my point. Either mathematics is perfect or it's not. Since there are numerous examples of flaws in our number system, it cannot be considered perfect. And our number system is the result of several millenia of step-by-step development and conceptualisation, all of which had more and bigger flaws (i.e. lack of negatives, lack of zero, concept of multiplication) than our positional base-10 systems - flaws which our system fixed, or at least glossed over.

I don't know why Dan had a problem with what I said.

Your second sentence is nonsensical.

There are no examples of flaws in our number system.
Our axioms are consistent, by which I mean you can never prove 1=2. You cannot make mathematical proofs, from the axioms which result in a contradiction. That is as perfect as any number system can be. Godels Incompleteness theorem states that all number systems based on any axioms will always result in truths that unprovable, and an infinite number of things that can be proved.

So perhaps no system can ever be perfect; but I don't think that means it is flawed.

 

[Stigmata]

Perhaps not. "Flawed" might be the wrong word too. But there are things that math could do better and, implications of my word choice aside, that's the core of my point.