How To Refute Phoebe On Evolution

Remember the scene when Ross and Phoebe argued about the evolution, and Ross got trap by Phoebe’s argument?

Ross&Phoebe argued on evolution and gravity – picture from terryfriends.tripod.com

Ross couldn’t response to what Phoebe said something about even science could go wrong after many years, the example Phoebe gave was that our earth was believed to be flat but turned out to be spherical, her point is science could be wrong in a way and there is a chance that the evolution is all inaccurate. At that very moment, Ross as a paleontologist and a doctor who worked at museum couldn’t figure something out to refute P’s insistence.

Before I continue, I should claim I am a big fan of Friends and love the six boys and girls equally. but I have to say when I watched this particular scene, I was in a kind of angry and embarrassed, and a little sad. How so? The angry part of emotion was for Phoebe, the embarrass feeling was for Ross, and the tiny sad sentiment is for the human’s stupid. Besides, I don’t know what the editors’ thoughts, I mean why they even shot this story between R’s and P’s, they tried to reveal something or not, I really don’t have a clue, whatsoever, shame on Ross and pity to Phoebe.

What do I mean by that? First of all, you must clear about Ross and Phoebe are not real person, second, Ross as a scientist guy didn’t how to respond is really unexpected, third, Phoebe literally was uneducated and lacked of critical thinking.

OK, enough for chit-chat, here is the answer corresponding to this post’s title:

• Science is a common knowledge of every human beings, what you observe, ask, think, prove and so on are all the way you seek for the ultimate truth, and that’s science. Science is not fancy stuff we create, but as a connatural information and methods about the universe and is really not dependent on only humans.
• Science is a knowledge that can be proved and also can be disapproved over time, part of them. Because the major science can not be wrong, otherwise we can not make any computers or cell phones out, not to mention those successful manned spaceship and landing on moon.
• Evolution as a part of science, created by Darwin, is a theory of describing how human formed in the past and the possibility of future development. This theory was not just there out of blue, instead it took the biologist dozens of years to form it gradually and eventually came with a whole system, via observing the birds in different islands, collecting archaeology bones and fossils and thinking.
• There is a methodology called inference to the best explanation, the name indicates the cases that some of phenomenons and mechanisms that current sciences and technologies can not explain. Be that as it may, we have to try thinking and arguing about those unexplained and even unexplored things, or we should stop all human activities. So with that being said, we choose the best explanation as our major study direction, then to prove it, to use it for explaining existed and unknown things, to connect it to other subjects.
• So evolution is our first choice other than anything else, because it is partly a whole system with some reliable evidences and arguments, that makes more sense to us instead of just giving a simple assumption.
• And there biologists keep working and studying, they found more and more evidences to evolution and so as the gaining of reliability over time. And of course there might be tiny flaws inside the theory, but scientists can fix them and refine them, even replace them, but not the whole system. This works for all the science, like relativity theory and quantum mechanics.

After you read all the list items, if you are smart, you already know how to refute Phoebe. So where Phoebe was wrong?

1. The example per se, the change view of earth sharp is just the improvement of science’s view rather than science can not work at all, not to say the spirit of methodology science is using.
2. There is one thing that is eternal, that is logic, and with the gaining of experience and knowledge, we can be more and more precise on some very basic level of fundamental. At the age of ignorance, it is not a big deal that even the smartest guy think earth is flat, purely because they are lack of enough knowledge, and with that insufficient, they hardly can prove anything. So it is not a good example and argument.
3. Phoebe was lack of thinking ability, she did not even think this thing through then just jump to conclusion, maybe it is not her fault, I mean, she barely had attended school and finished the education, she lived in street during the important time of a teenage who shall be at school. So basically in my opinion, she got a bad influence from streets and her broken family.

Why Ross was stumbled? The reasons I can think of are:

1. First, Ross was a geek, not a speaker. He could not debate with the girl who once lived in streets.
2. Ross was tripped into a logical error, and he knew but failure to say it out.
3. The writer’s intention, maybe they were also the same type of Phoebe, no offense. But it also could be bazinga or ironic way of expressing something that most of people are foolish. It makes me think of the quote from Albert Einstein: “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.“

This is a personal post to express my feelings on this special scene, not try to assault anyone rather speak the right things out, for the right people. I don’t expect to convince anyone too, but true things should not be unsung and even be killed by wrong things. Anyway, Friends is a great show, I am a big fan. Ross may not be a perfect guy, but he is a good pal. Check the best moments of Ross on YouTube.

Response to Bone of Contention