gimme an example. (i love this blog and can't let it go)

truer vs truthiness.

The idea that something could be "more true" is oxymoronic. Something is either true or it isn't. If anything has ever been the truth then it is always the truth. Unless, of course, something changes (ex. saying "The World Trade Center towers exist in New York City" would no longer be a true statement).

But if we say that something is true and then learn some new fact that is contradictory to what we originally thought, then the original "truth" is proven false. It is not just false from then on, it was always false.

For example, when it was believed that the Earth was the center of the universe people built mechanical models that explained the retrograde motion of the planets in the sky. They may have made some sense at the time, but they were always wrong. The Sun has always been at the center of our solar system whether we believed it or not.

see, with your examples pertaining to our solar system and the sun, you're making my point for me.

today what we think is true will be outdone by something the future. does that make what you so steadily believe to be true like the big bang, false?

You are trying to say that specific things we now believe -- such as the Big Bang -- will be proven false given time, yet other things -- such as evolution -- you seem to believe to be true whole-heartedly, judging from some of your comments above. How do you choose which well-established facts to reject?

By the way, there is more evidence for the Big Bang than for evolution. We have physical evidence of the Big Bang (cosmic background radiation, universal expansion, red shift, etc). Macroevolution only has homology on its side (the fact that different animals all kinda look like each other).

haha it does look a bit christian, haha but it can also look non- christian as well. :)

You are trying to say that specific things we now believe -- such as the Big Bang -- will be proven false given time, yet other things -- such as evolution -- you seem to believe to be true whole-heartedly, judging from some of your comments above

yes. i do lean towards evolution in so much as that, all species tend to evolve within their lifetime due to certain factors in environment and genetic capabilities. and to say all animals kinda look at eachother is BEYOND ridiculous. how does a seahorse look like porcupine? and it's always intriguing to me where scientists find certain types of animals. it's like they were placed there because they fit into that specific environmental niche.

anyway, everything is in constant motion. is the beginning even that important?

i try not to think of the beginning and end, because i agree with shirtflirt. its not like it matters anyway. time could be one big continous loop just different things take place each time for all i know

I didn't mean that everything is similar to everything else. I meant that nearly everything is similar to at least one other thing, and so it is generally assumed that they are related through some common ancestry. Similarity is the only basis for this assumption. That's a leap in logic due to a gap in the evidence. And that's why evolution is still labeled a theory.

Just because thinking about the beginning is difficult doesn't mean it isn't worth thinking about. I think there are few things as important as trying to answer the question of origin.

the beginning, if it remains a mystery, is still the beginning. you speak of gaps in evidence within animals and yet, you seem hesitant to apply that same idea to our universe.
and yeah, thinking more about our science, our science is quite fallable. we have to accept that. science has been around. they used science to determine a flat earth, a theory of the earth as center of the universe, and as we know, these two theories were proven false. i am not ready to throw everything into today's science based on the fact that it's 'better' than it was. science is only examining pieces that can be examined BY SCIENCE. what about things that we cannot measure yet?

i wish it were a christian shirt. id love to see some christian designs up on here. (i love jesus)

There aren't any gaps are far as knowing that there was a beginning. Many scientists would love for there to have been no beginning (Einstein included), but there is just too much concrete evidence to deny it any longer. Of course, some always will deny it. Some deny the holocaust, moon landings, and the fact that George Washington was the first president of the USA, too.

A physicist once proposed the "Banana Oil Theory of the Sun". He proposed that the Sun was made out of pure banana oil, and calculated how much it consisted of and how long it would burn before running out. His theory was proposed as a joke, intended to point out that -- at the time -- scientists just didn't know enough to make any logical conclusions about how the Sun worked. The atom had not yet been discovered, much less atomic fusion.

Scientists know when they are making a logical leap in many cases. That's why no scientist pretends to be able to explain how life originated or how the universe came into being. The Big Bang and evolution only attempt to explain what happened after the universe and life came into existence.

i think you misread my post as i was responding to an earlier post of yours. the gaps were referencing how animals look similar/different, en masse. things like the holocaust and george washington being our first president, imo are irrefutable. but that doesn't mean someone out there won't try to refute it. moon landings? well, i'll save my opinions on those.

i get your point about the banana oil theory of the sun, too. i'd say the big bang is slightly less reidiculous than that theory, but potentially plausible. thing is, i'm ok with not knowing. i don't know many people are and so, they believe science to be The Truth.

Does this thing actually need to have some meaning?????
I mean, really, look at the title. I'm sure it's been mentioned before, but the picture is of a butterfly standing on a sharp thron. Something no-one on this blog could do without either breaking it or hurting themself. There's no hidden meaning in it. It's pretty obvious, really. Maybe there might be a lesson to learn in taking notice of things we take for granted...

spotted, that may be true. and i'm not saying it's not.
the conversation here decided to take another turn and that's just what it is.
it's a great design only because it's spawned a lot of debate.

To start, I'd just like to offer my opinion on the shirt. I haven't read the entire thread yet, so I'm not sure if it's been covered, but I think the whole idea for it comes directly from the title. Sharp is relative in a way that a tangle of thorns for us, which can cause injury and would be painful to rest on, can be a nice spot for a butterfly.

By the way, there is more evidence for the Big Bang than for evolution. We have physical evidence of the Big Bang (cosmic background radiation, universal expansion, red shift, etc). Macroevolution only has homology on its side (the fact that different animals all kinda look like each other).

I'd also like to make a note on this point. We don't base anything in evolutionary theory on the fact that animals looks like each other. Convergence, the idea that organisms will come to resemble each other when exposed to similar environments, is a refuted idea for evolutionary links. Molecular biology has come a long way, we now base all evolutionary ancestry on genomes and molecular clocks. Comparisons between things like mitchondrial and ribosmal DNA are used, as well as intron sequence within the genome, not the idea that animals look the same so they must be related. Evolutionary theory, I'd say, is established to a degree of believabilty far beyond that of the creation of the Universe. Then again, evolution is one of my main foci, universal creation is not.

Another note I forgot to include, with the origin of life. Modern science has actually determined that in a reducing atmosphere, such as one that would be present before organisms came about on this planet, would be perfectly capable of generating proteins essential for life. This has been simulated in the lab using a simple apparatus. So scientists are actually quite confident in offering theories for the origin of life on this planet.

That's a leap in logic due to a gap in the evidence. And that's why evolution is still labeled a theory.

Sorry to overload this with my posts, just need to make another point regarding the concept of theory. Arguing that evolution isn't thought to be a solid fact because it's labeled a theory is another common misconception. If you take a quantum physics class or an advanced chemisty class in Unveristy, how's it labeled? Usually with theory in the title. In scientific terms, a theory in a collection of unverisally accepted laws condensed under a central title to make it both accessible and amalgamate it under a single heading. This is what is refered to as a theory. We could go through and label a class on Quantum physics, or write a paper on it, and have every law known to the study in the title, or we can call it Quantum Theory to collect it. This idea of theory is accepted in the scientific community.