G'day Sam,
Off Topic Somewhat
I read through this thread and am a bit of a loss to see how it relates to your query about Global Warming.
My old science teacher said nothing could be proven to a certainty. Philosophy suggests that you can only prove one thing "That I think". Not that anyone else thinks, just that you can prove that you think.
But science makes some basic assumptions. A line and a point can meet only once or not at all. Parallel lines never meet.
But there are a number of theories that have fairly overwhelming evidence in support of them and it is funny that the word "theory" seems to get used to suggest that the theory may not be valid or a "fact" within the limits of human thought.
The earth revolves around the sun. Maybe it doesn't but the evidence is overwhelming that it does. Is that a fact or a theory. Probably more importantly, is it a theory that can be currently challenged based on the evidence or body of knowledge that currently exists.
I always love evolution arguments because the "theory" doesn't conform to the bible or other religious texts. You end up with the arguments such as "How long was the first day?", "Who were Cain and Abel's wives?". Fun but irrelevent. Take out the religious arguments and what is the counter argument to evolution?
I remember a fundamentalist preacher that said that the chance of man being evolved from single cell organisms was the same as blowing up a junk yard and creating a fully functual jumbo jet. He even had a very very large number that he used against this happening. Me, I don't believe that there is any chance at all of blowing up a junk yard and creating a jumbo jet. It is not an incredibly unlikely event. It is just not possible. But the fact that life may have been extremely long odds just means that we beat those odds. Nice thought, if you ask me. I also rather like the thought that Einstein suggested that in an infinite universe with infinite alternative universes then any finite probability must occur, an infinite number of times. The less likely the probability the longer the frequency between the occurrences but otherwise it is still infinite. Doesn't sit all that well with the big bang theory but you can't have everything.
Fossils are incredibly rare. That sounds strange considering that I live in an area where I can find marine fossils in my backyard. But the rarity is not related to the fact that fossils can be found all over the place, only that fossils only manage to be created in exceptional circumstances and that they last is fairly amazing in itself.
So that rarity means there are huge gaps in the records. Fossils or impressions that include such things as skin or feathers are rarer still. The gaps do not "prove" that evolution theory is defective, only the nature of how fossils are formed and just how rare they are.
There are several fossils of dinosaurs that are birds or birds that are dinosaurs, most from China. There are creatures that have feathers and glide and there are creatures that don't have feathers but fly. There are often gaps in fossil records in the tens of millions of years. So?
Evolution may be called a theory but it has a huge body of evidence that supports it. Arguments in the detail of what was around and when are not the same as arguments that throw any doubt on the theory itself.
More two cents worth, probably worth less than two cents, but hey this is purely an opinion forum where not science is going to be able to establish that God exists or doesn't exist. Faith, is the belief in something in the absence of absolute proof. That's what makes it faith.
Regards
Richard
