Thread:Nixeu/@comment-226878-20141116063152/@comment-4148373-20141206202826

Okay, yeah no. I never got to respond, so this ain't over yet. Sorry I haven't gotten on, I've been busy with school. Given my own personal medical issues, it takes a lot out of me. So, in response:

I'm also probably going to be a generalist rather than a specialist (I like to study EVERYTHING) and I DO believe in natural selection, and will until something that disproves it in some way comes along. Also, there is quite a bit of proof for changes in physiology by selection. Anyone who breeds animals can tell you that. Hell, there was an interesting experiment done in Russia with foxes. They selected and bred the most friendly foxes of one group...and the most unfriendly in another. The friendly group started to have piebald fur, they actually started to have shorter and more curly tails, even losing some vertebrae, I believe. Now, it's possible these traits were being unconsciously associated with 'friendliness' on the scientist's end, but they still started to occur. So physical changes can manifest even over living memory, if selection is controlled. There's no reason to think that same wouldn't happen with isolated populations in the wild. Island gigantism or dwarfism is well documented, as are various changes between dogs and wolves. The structure of bacteria is extremely variable, it's why you should get a flu vaccine every year, since they change so rapidly.

But that aside...damn. I actually kinda feel sorry for you, Mercen. You come off as cynical and like who doesn't trust anything or anyone. I don't know if that's just what I'm seeing, but it's what I'm seeing. If you are completely relying on total proof to believe something...you will be waiting a long time.

I wonder why people have the views on scientists they do. A good scientist is not excited when their hypothesis, theory, or even belief is accurate...what excites a scientist is being ''wrong. ''My dad was so excited when his hypothesis for his doctorate actually started to look like it was completely wrong, like, the opposite of what he expected, because it meant he'd get to have a better understanding of how things actually worked. Hell, the discovery of the Higgs Boson was actually a big blow to the physics community...because it was pretty much exactly what they'd expected. It furthered their knowledge of the universe by very little, behaving roughly how they thought it would. So, should some theory far superior to natural selection come along, I'll figure that it's correct, and hopefully enjoy what new ideas and creations that can be  derived from it.

More than that, nothing can be proven totally true. Everything relies on a base set of assumptions. No one says the earth is proven to be 5 million+ years old. But the evidence against it is slim to non-existant/flawed, so we figure it's probably not. Nothing proves that the Egyptians built the Pyramids rather than aliens, either. Or that the Pyramids exist. Maybe they're a mass hallucination or a hologram. Your argument is a really bad one. Given what you've said, convincing you of anything is hopeless, including my existance. Maybe I'm just a figment of your (or possibly a Space Butterfly's) imagination.