NationStates Jolt Archive

Ok this has appeared as a side track on a few posts recently but I want to get some really thought out opinions, or scratch that, information on this. What evidence do people think they have that evolution is an incorrect theory. If you have any bring it, but be prepared to be shot down. BTW this thread is a product of the Jack Chick thread.

firstly... theres a diff between adaptation and evolution... adaptation is when a species adapts to their enviroment, and becomes a new breed... evolution is when a species changes into another species. now with that said i'd like to bring up a little piece of evidence scientists use to prove evolution. They have a chart... at the top of the chart is a dog this is the first dog and all other dogs spawned from it. on the rest of the chart is teh different breeds of dog that spawned from the original. wolves... poodles... foxes... golden retreivers... all on the chart. One thing though... i don't see any elephants... or cats... or monkeys... i just see dogs. This chart proves adaptation and breeding methods.. but does not prove evolution.

secondly... people believe we evolved from monkeys. A evolution is supposed to be an upgrade... yet we don't have fur a handy little thing to keep you warm. We don't have talls... something highly useful (its like a 3rd hand but wiht no fingers). We don't have the great tree climbing abilities. So how can this be evolution? Some people say we got knowledge from evolution... so we lost very handy useful things... and we got knowledge? So does that mean that to evolve you have to trade in some of you current traits for different ones?

Most people disagree with evolution because they don't understand it... a lot of people think that it changes from one species to another in one generation or something similar to that. Last time I had to argue about this, the other person was saying how the species of animals now are the same species as they were thousands of years ago... that chickens then are the same as chickens are now.

firstly... theres a diff between adaptation and evolution... adaptation is when a species adapts to their enviroment, and becomes a new breed... evolution is when a species changes into another species. now with that said i'd like to bring up a little piece of evidence scientists use to prove evolution. They have a chart... at the top of the chart is a dog this is the first dog and all other dogs spawned from it. on the rest of the chart is teh different breeds of dog that spawned from the original. wolves... poodles... foxes... golden retreivers... all on the chart.


You were on the right track as they all belong to the same genus.

One thing though... i don't see any elephants... or cats... or monkeys... i just see dogs. This chart proves adaptation and breeding methods.. but does not prove evolution.

wrongo bongo. Evolution or probably in your case eviloution has never said you can take a rock and make a horse. Or as you pointed out, take a dog and get an elephant.

Next argument!

yes but i don't see what the first dog turned into? i just see little adaptations of it... and rocks aren't living things therefor they can't evolve.

Cebat- evolution is a series of different things. After a long time those little things add up to a lot, and eventually enough to were the new animal is no longer capable of mating with the original kind of animal, making it a new species.

heh@ this thread :P

Cebat- evolution is a series of different things. After a long time those little things add up to a lot, and eventually enough to were the new animal is no longer capable of mating with the original kind of animal, making it a new species.

prove it

read "The Origin of Species"

Thats just the definition of evolution by the way... that the changes add up... and if you don't accept that then you don't understand dna very well and need a biology class or two.

read "The Origin of Species"


it on the internet?

secondly... people believe we evolved from monkeys. A evolution is supposed to be an upgrade... yet we don't have fur a handy little thing to keep you warm. We don't have talls... something highly useful (its like a 3rd hand but wiht no fingers). We don't have the great tree climbing abilities. So how can this be evolution? Some people say we got knowledge from evolution... so we lost very handy useful things... and we got knowledge? So does that mean that to evolve you have to trade in some of you current traits for different ones?

I think you are doing a great job at illlustrating the basic misconceptions by so many of the theories presented.

At best, monkeys and us may share an ancestor, however even that has not necessarily been postulated. We certainly did not evolve from monkeys given that we are both present-day species. Your argument would neccessitate the belief that the monkeys of today represented a genetic line that failed to evolve at all over the same time as we did. The theory does not subscribe to that thought at all.

Even if you were to assume that all primates descended from a single specimen, your very argument that our lack of a tail represents an impossibility is shot to hell by the fact that not all currently existing primates have prehensile tails or good climbing ability.

secondly... people believe we evolved from monkeys. A evolution is supposed to be an upgrade... yet we don't have fur a handy little thing to keep you warm. We don't have talls... something highly useful (its like a 3rd hand but wiht no fingers). We don't have the great tree climbing abilities. So how can this be evolution? Some people say we got knowledge from evolution... so we lost very handy useful things... and we got knowledge? So does that mean that to evolve you have to trade in some of you current traits for different ones?

Except no one claims we came from monkeys.

Human evolution theory claims we share a common ancestor with chimps and bonobos.

They adapted for their situation, we for ours. Where pre-humans lived changed from trees to scrub, so those members who stood upright survived to breed. Standing upright with opposable thumbs left our hands free to use tools, (allowing us to make clothes, lessening our need for fur)which made our brains have to get bigger, either the cause of or the result of us having smaller jaws, bigger brains meant better tools and better language, language let us share our ideas with the next generation...

Now do you have a clue as to how it happened?

It's the book by Charles Darwin... if you can find it on the internet then have fun.

if the human race contenues to evolve, in a million years or so we will only have 4 toes on each foot. possibly only 4 fingers too.

k, i like your arguements and i see that you have a point... and maybe i should read the Darwin book. Yep and since i'm out of arguements against evolution... i'm done.


Later

if the human race contenues to evolve, in a million years or so we will only have 4 toes on each foot. possibly only 4 fingers too.

Not likely, people with four toes are no more or less likely to breed then the rest of us.

if the human race contenues to evolve, in a million years or so we will only have 4 toes on each foot. possibly only 4 fingers too.

The human species won't further evolve... We now change our enivironment enough to where it doesn't matter what attributes we have, just so long as we are not sterile. That's why sickle cell enemia and other genetic disorders exist. We will probobly end up with diffences with race mixing and concentrated inbreeding, but for the most part we aren't going to be changing all that much.

if the human race contenues to evolve, in a million years or so we will only have 4 toes on each foot. possibly only 4 fingers too.

Not likely, people with four toes are no more or less likely to breed then the rest of us.

no, but they will slowly disapear. the pinky toe and fingers are about the most useless... tools i guess is the right word... on the human body. i read it in scienticic american awhile ago.

secondly... people believe we evolved from monkeys. A evolution is supposed to be an upgrade... yet we don't have fur a handy little thing to keep you warm. We don't have talls... something highly useful (its like a 3rd hand but wiht no fingers). We don't have the great tree climbing abilities. So how can this be evolution? Some people say we got knowledge from evolution... so we lost very handy useful things... and we got knowledge? So does that mean that to evolve you have to trade in some of you current traits for different ones?
1. Humans likely originated in central Africa. Africa tends to be warm. Our ancestors, being more plains dwellers than tree dwellers, tended to be out in the sun more. Fur wasn't needed to stay as warm.

2. Our ancestors developed an upright posture. Tails and upright postures don't mix well. (The primary purpose of a tail to balance a forward hunched posture. If the posture is not forward hunched, the tail is un-needed.)

3. We didn't "evolve" from chimps. More accurately, we evolved simultaneously. Human's originated from a different species of primate than modern chimps did.
Same with all other damned animals.
Your "charts" are simply only sections of the whole, that show when the "dogs" became a distinct group. If you look back before that "first dog" you'll find other mammals, and connections to seemingly seperate groups.

4. As our ancestors walked upright, they found various uses for their hands. Such as picking up sticks and stones. These early tools were handy for hunting and defense. Furthermore, by working with other pre-humans weilding sticks and stones, they improved their chances of survival. The more social they were, the better their chances of survival.
Such socialization led to cooperation, cooperation to the need for better organization and more developed brains, brains to intelligence, Etc.

I am one of those silly Catholics that actualy are pro-evolution, so I don't disagree with it. *watches everyone burn me for heresy* Perfectly logical in my opinion, human ideals can evolve over thousands of years, culture, society, etc, so why not can any other living thing?

secondly... people believe we evolved from monkeys.

Eww Primates! Right up my ally!

We didn't evolve directly from monkeys. We are basically apes(chimp, gorilla, Orangutan, Bonobo, Gibbons, Siamangs(the last two are called lessor apes).

A evolution is supposed to be an upgrade...


Evolution is not always an upgrade. Take Cycle Cell(sp?), before the Europeans "changed" africa, there were regions where this diesease was benefitial as the odd shaped bloods withstood maleria.

yet we don't have fur a handy little thing to keep you warm.

Is fur really a benefit? Does that serve you well in the desert? The fact we lost the fur and our brains evolved enough to figure out fire and clothing..... ;)


We don't have talls... something highly useful (its like a 3rd hand but wiht no fingers).

Remember Residuals? We have a tail bone? What purpose does it serve? Also the other apes doen't have prehensal tails as well.


We don't have the great tree climbing abilities.

Really? I might have to tell that to my niece who seems to scale trees quite well! ;)

So how can this be evolution? Some people say we got knowledge from evolution... so we lost very handy useful things... and we got knowledge? So does that mean that to evolve you have to trade in some of you current traits for different ones?



Well even in the world of primates, not everybody is a great climber. The Orangutans climb, but they really don't travel around well. Kind of swing the branch until they can reach the other branch.

As to trading? No that is not how it works. You don't get a larger brain and loose fur? Or do you? How big is the whale brain? Wait a minute how big was the dinosaur brain?

Finally, the stuff you call useful can be argued. Having little or no fur pretty much makes it easy for us to exist in every climate. Monkeys have fur but can they exist in antartica? A generalised argument but I think you should get the point?

k, i like your arguements and i see that you have a point... and maybe i should read the Darwin book. Yep and since i'm out of arguements against evolution... i'm done.


Later

If you really want your mind to explode, you might also wander by www.talkorgins.org

;)

no, but they will slowly disapear. the pinky toe and fingers are about the most useless... tools i guess is the right word... on the human body. i read it in scienticic american awhile ago.

Why should they disappear though? : our appendix serves no function now, but remains as a vestigal organ. The useless is not driven to disappear, only that which is a handicap to reproduction and survival.

Cebat:

Glad you are willing to at least listen. Let me address some of your points. Some were already addressed by others, but I want to grab this all at once. Also, realize that this is a long posts, other replies before this one but after I started it probably share a lot of content with this.

Firstly, the chart doesn't even prove adaptation...it just demonstrates it. But that is merely semantics, I think you understood the concept. If you wanted to see an elephant, you would have to take the dog at the top (the "top dog" ;)) and extend his family line backward until you got to a common ancestor...and elephog or something. I use the word tongue in cheek, of course, it wouldn't look like a cross between and elephant and a dog, but it would probably have most of the common characteristics, i.e. both are four-legged, have short and fairly useless tails, have teeth of some sort, etc.. In the same way as the dog adapted to different breeds, this proto-quadruped adapted into elephants and dogs. The mechanics of how and why are described by things like Natural Selection, but it really is no different from the adaptation that you quoted, just on a larger scale.

people believe we evolved from monkeys.

Common misconception, this is like saying people believe poodles adapted from golden retrievers. What they actually suggest is the poodles and golden retrievers all come from a common dog ancestor.

A evolution is supposed to be an upgrade...

No, this is not necessarily true. An evolution is what survives. This is the most fit thing for its environment. Human beings do not need to be good climbers, so good climbers don't reproduce any more often than others, whereas humans need to have at least one kidney to survive, hence we keep the kidneys and lose the climbing, while gaining smarts since that helps us to survive. Evolution is not necessarily an improvement, it just tends toward improvement in your current environment.

Some people say we got knowledge from evolution...

I'm not sure who says that...perhaps you mean intelligence?

Random mutation will tend to eliminate abilities that you have but don't use to survive and reproduce. Evolution will encourage the development of those abilities that you do use. A tail acting as a third hand really wasn't necessary for humans to become very dominant. Besides, our common ape ancestors also don't have prehensile tails...the monkeys are further from us. Apes to humans is like dog to wolf, monkeys to humans is like dog to cat, in many ways (I'm unsure of the exact taxonomical equivalence).

Edited to add: well, I tried with the quote feature, anyway :(

no, but they will slowly disapear. the pinky toe and fingers are about the most useless... tools i guess is the right word... on the human body. i read it in scienticic american awhile ago.

Why should they disappear though? : our appendix serves no function now, but remains as a vestigal organ. The useless is not driven to disappear, only that which is a handicap to reproduction and survival.

ya, they said that too. but its taking longer because we still have meat in our diets. thats what the appendix is for, helping digest pretiens in meat.
i think.

I have read somewhere that people's pinky toes are evolving off of them... and I believe it too.
When I was little, I'd give my friends and their families pedicures and I saw some incredibly tiny pinky toes.
Mine included.

We see examples of evolution constantly... I don't see why it's so objectionable either.

I went to a fundamentalist baptist school for 9 years though, and even saying "evolution" or "darwin" was a giant taboo. They wouldn't even teach evolution. :roll: :roll:
My parents taught me, then I learned it in biology.

Ahh well.. all good now.

no, but they will slowly disapear. the pinky toe and fingers are about the most useless... tools i guess is the right word... on the human body. i read it in scienticic american awhile ago.

Why should they disappear though? : our appendix serves no function now, but remains as a vestigal organ. The useless is not driven to disappear, only that which is a handicap to reproduction and survival.

ya, they said that too. but its taking longer because we still have meat in our diets. thats what the appendix is for, helping digest pretiens in meat.
i think.
The appendix is attached to the large intestine, which mainly deals with waste products. I don't think it helps digest much.
Infact, I'm pretty sure it has scientists baffled, as it serves no real purpose. It just sits there and sometimes gets inflammed.

no, but they will slowly disapear. the pinky toe and fingers are about the most useless... tools i guess is the right word... on the human body. i read it in scienticic american awhile ago.

Why should they disappear though? : our appendix serves no function now, but remains as a vestigal organ. The useless is not driven to disappear, only that which is a handicap to reproduction and survival.

ya, they said that too. but its taking longer because we still have meat in our diets. thats what the appendix is for, helping digest pretiens in meat.
i think.
The appendix is attached to the large intestine, which mainly deals with waste products. I don't think it helps digest much.
Infact, I'm pretty sure it has scientists baffled, as it serves no real purpose. It just sits there and sometimes gets inflammed.

well im stumped then. just relaying what i read.

if you cut off your pinky toes you would have a hard time walking, they help with balance you know... Just because it's use is subtle doesn't mean its useless altogether. :wink:

The appendix help digest un-cooked meat, I believe. Either that or plants; but it was somewhere among those lines. It's very vestigal, anyway.

There's a great book called The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris that explains some of the peculiarities in humans. It's a highly controversial book, but it makes a lot of sense. The short short version is that it puts forward the "Aquatic Ape" theory. (At least i think it's that book. i've read several on the subject and sometimes i can't keep them all straight) That is, shortly after Humans branched off from Chimps we had an aquatic ancestor. Fur is really good insulation in the air (as well as a good protector against the sun) but it's horrible in water, and hence we have a much larger body-fat ratio than other land mamals (we kept the hair on our heads 'cause the head stuck up out of the water). Also, what hair we do have is streamlined such that it points in the direction that water generally flows off the body. If we were aquatic, we probably had a fish-heavy diet. Fish contains a lot of fatty acids that promote brain development, hence the reason we have large and complex brains. Our aquatic ancestor was probably primarily a wader, so we have an upright posture in order to go further into the water. Finally (for now, since i don't remember everything in the book) babies can swim at birth. Many infants swim before they walk, and those that don't generally don't because most people think this isn't true. Anyway, just thought that was an interesting tidbit i'd throw out there to try to explain one theory on why we're so unique.

I am so proud of the anti-evolutionists for not yet using God as a counterexample/argument. It's so commendable that this thread hasn't slowly evolved into an argument over God's existence. I myself believe whole-heartedly in God, but, as Dick York (portraying Scopes in Inherit the Wind) put it, "I want people to realize life is a miracle that took more than seven days." Well done to everyone that has posted, way to keep it civil.

another good book that i've read about evolution is The Beak of the Finch by Jonathan Weiner. It contains the story of field experiments conducted on Darwin's finches (the twenty or so speices of finches in the Galapagos) that actually shows evolutionary processes first-hand (granted, the changes are incredibly minute and what changes one year might be changed back the next. such is the pace of evolution)

There's a great book called The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris that explains some of the peculiarities in humans. It's a highly controversial book, but it makes a lot of sense. The short short version is that it puts forward the "Aquatic Ape" theory. (At least i think it's that book. i've read several on the subject and sometimes i can't keep them all straight) That is, shortly after Humans branched off from Chimps we had an aquatic ancestor. Fur is really good insulation in the air (as well as a good protector against the sun) but it's horrible in water, and hence we have a much larger body-fat ratio than other land mamals (we kept the hair on our heads 'cause the head stuck up out of the water). Also, what hair we do have is streamlined such that it points in the direction that water generally flows off the body. If we were aquatic, we probably had a fish-heavy diet. Fish contains a lot of fatty acids that promote brain development, hence the reason we have large and complex brains. Our aquatic ancestor was probably primarily a wader, so we have an upright posture in order to go further into the water. Finally (for now, since i don't remember everything in the book) babies can swim at birth. Many infants swim before they walk, and those that don't generally don't because most people think this isn't true. Anyway, just thought that was an interesting tidbit i'd throw out there to try to explain one theory on why we're so unique.

Ive seen this book at my library a while back, I wanted to rent it, but I didnt have my card. When I came back I couldn't find it... I was reading through it for a while in the library and it was very interesting.

The appendix help digest un-cooked meat, I believe. Either that or plants; but it was somewhere among those lines. It's very vestigal, anyway.

ya, thats it. raw meat.

I read somewhere about certain things that evolution cant explain. Like there is a type of bird that migrates from Alaska to Hawaii every year, and the bird doesnt have enough body fat to make the entire journey by itself, so by instinct the birds fly in a V shape to reduce wind resistance. So the bird gets to hawaii with only like one ounce of extra fat. How can this be explained, how does the bird know that it should fly in a V shape to get there? The second one was the giraffe, its heart is so big and its blood pressure is so high that when it bends down to drink, it would die if it didnt have valves in the neck to slow down the blood to the brain. How do the valves evolve? How did the first giraffe bend down to drink if it didnt have the valves?

I am just saying that evolution can explain alot of things, I dont think it can explain everything.

I read somewhere about certain things that evolution cant explain. Like there is a type of bird that migrates from Alaska to Hawaii every year, and the bird doesnt have enough body fat to make the entire journey by itself, so by instinct the birds fly in a V shape to reduce wind resistance. So the bird gets to hawaii with only like one ounce of extra fat. How can this be explained, how does the bird know that it should fly in a V shape to get there? The second one was the giraffe, its heart is so big and its blood pressure is so high that when it bends down to drink, it would die if it didnt have valves in the neck to slow down the blood to the brain. How do the valves evolve? How did the first giraffe bend down to drink if it didnt have the valves?

I am just saying that evolution can explain alot of things, I dont think it can explain everything.

certianly many did die. the ones that didn't are the ones that passed on that "information." the birds that for whatever reason just happened to fly in a v-shape arrived in hawaii, while those that didn't plumetted into the ocean somewhere and died. as for the giraffe, the valves and the neck evolved at the same time. giraffes that could eat leaves off the tops of trees had a better and more plenitful food source than those that didn't, so they survived and the shorter necks died. at the same time, those with some mutation that gave them a predisposition to valves didn't die when they bent down, those without the mutation did die.

read "The Origin of Species"


it on the internet?

No, you might actually have to go (gasp) read a book!

You might also take a good biology course.

I am one of those silly Catholics that actualy are pro-evolution, so I don't disagree with it. *watches everyone burn me for heresy* Perfectly logical in my opinion, human ideals can evolve over thousands of years, culture, society, etc, so why not can any other living thing?

actually, the Roman Catholic Church accepts the theory of evolution and believes that much of the bible (especially the Old Testament (especially Genesis)) is metaphorical and should not be accepted literally.

secondly... people believe we evolved from monkeys. A evolution is supposed to be an upgrade... yet we don't have fur a handy little thing to keep you warm. We don't have talls... something highly useful (its like a 3rd hand but wiht no fingers). We don't have the great tree climbing abilities. So how can this be evolution? Some people say we got knowledge from evolution... so we lost very handy useful things... and we got knowledge? So does that mean that to evolve you have to trade in some of you current traits for different ones?

We evolved from a common ancestor. Different thing. (And we have fossils from many of those early primates)

We do have fur.. you have just as much body hair as a chimp. On us, it tends to be a bit finer in most places. You do have the bones to support a tail (the coccyx), and some humans are still born with them.

No, we can't climb trees, but we are much better on flat ground than our cousins. Because of our stance, we can see farther, for example. What we got was a large forebrain, dextrous hands, and excellent vision. We not only can use tools, but make them.

Take penguins. They are birds, but can't fly. Instead, they have evolved to be incredible swimmers over millions of years. You can see the same adaptations in man.. over the fossil record, it was the homonids with thge larger brains and better hands that thrived.

I'm not wanting to spitefully overthrow the pro-evolution feeling in this post, but I feel that maybe Cebat could do with someone else on his/her side.
I have a few specific contentions with the theory of evolution. Some of these will not easily be accepted by many of you, as they relate to irreconcilable contradictions between neo-Darwinism and the New Testament (getting bogged down in the poetry or literality of the creation account in Genesis is probably not helpful here), and I know this'll upset some who wanted all mention of God left out of this discussion.

My other concerns are more scientific in nature. The main problem with the theory of evolution is that it is not possible to observe evolution between kinds taking place. I accept the concept of natural selection (as shown by the peppered moths of Industrial Revolution England), and even the formation of new species that cannot produce fertile offspring without breeding only within their new species, but the fossil record has colossal gaps in it, precisely in the areas needed to show the transitions between fish and amphibians, amphibians and reptiles, reptiles and mammals, you name it, it's missing. I don't think the human fossil record is any better, with several examples having been triumphally shown, only to be dismissed as frauds.
As for methods of dating fossils and the age of the universe, they all rely on assumptions, such as the constancy of the speed of light (currently being challenged by some physicists), constant levels of mutagenic radiation in the pre-historic era, and constant levels of carbon-14 in life on earth throughout its history. Fossils are often dated from the rock layer they are found in, and the rock layers are dated from the fossils in them! Some petrified trees have been found in a vertical position, implying the bottom of the tree is millions of years older than the top!

What I'm suggesting is that creationism has made some intellectual advances since Darwin's time, just as Darwinism has, and that you make sure you are comparing the best current versions of both theories, rather than cutting-edge post-DNA evolutionary theory with 19th century creationism. Science should not be about dogma, but a humble search for truth, and the scientific method can only go so far in its search for truth.

Ok I have some more " technical imposibilities" First off it has been proved that evolution being true is 1 in 1 followed by 300 0's, while something "all pwerful" creating it is significantly lower.

Ok I have some more " technical imposibilities" First off it has been proved that evolution being true is 1 in 1 followed by 300 0's, while something "all pwerful" creating it is significantly lower.

Seeing how evolution takes millions of years to happen, don't you think at the rate that the moon is moving away from us that in the begging the moon was either in the pacific ocean or like a pimple on earth.

For all the chemicals that came from " rained upon rocks" for thousands of years even millions, they still could not produce the exact 20 amino acids to make the most basic cell

firstly... theres a diff between adaptation and evolution... adaptation is when a species adapts to their enviroment, and becomes a new breed... evolution is when a species changes into another species.

There are different definitions of "adaptation" of which at least one constitututes a part of evolution. This is one of them.

When a species adapts to its environment it changes - this at least you admit. Unfortunately you fall into the old creationist pitfall of arguing that speciation is unprovable - despite the fact that the term "species" is difficult to define at best; individual species sometimes near-impossible to define between because so many animals are so similar to each other, because speciation is such a gradual process.

What you fail to recognise is the scale through which "adaptation" can change an animal over billions of years - all of the variance of dogs has happened in one million years, tops, and many millions of canine species and sub species have been lost in the mean time. The first domesticated dogs of 15,000 years ago were more akin to the Australian dingo than the contemporary Yorkshire Terrier, and earlier to that they were more akin to wolves. You already unknowingly admit evolution through acknowledging such a definition of "adaptation", you just fail to grasp its scale.

A evolution is supposed to be an upgrade... yet we don't have fur a handy little thing to keep you warm.

Why would we need fur when we can create our own clothing? And why is fur such a great thing? It attracts numerous parasites, for example. Thus losing our hair may have been a response to our developing our own, easy to keep clean clothing (or at least easy to throw away) and get rid of the parasites which afflicted our ancestors.

We don't have talls... something highly useful (its like a 3rd hand but wiht no fingers). We don't have the great tree climbing abilities.

A prehensile tail is rendered pretty much redundant for upright walkers and can become an encumberance to knucklewalkers, who may have been forced to the ground by a lack of food in the treetops, or just about any similar pressures.

So does that mean that to evolve you have to trade in some of you current traits for different ones?

Sometimes, but not necessarily.

The main problem with the theory of evolution is that it is not possible to observe evolution between kinds taking place.

"Observing" doesn't mean "seeing," though that talkorigins.org site posted earlier includes a few examples of directly witnessed speciation. Observation includes the notation of any evidence. Transtionary fossils (those which form a mosaic of physiological components between earlier species and more recent ones,) are rife. Ironically a couple of the transitions you cite as examples of having many missing fossils are actually some of the best examples of evolution in the fossil record - I suggest, for example, that you do a bit of research in the skull development of mammal-like reptiles from Sphenacodon to Hadrocodium (other factors involved are pretty damn interesting too, such as the gradually straightening gait.) The same can be said of fish to amphibians; numerous fish such as Ichthyostega and Acanthostega show evidence of spine and limbs strengthening, in Ichthyostega's case also with the development of digits and in both exists the beginnings of the ability to support itself on land, albeit not for very long periods of time. Furthermore, boom (http://home.entouch.net/dmd/transit.htm).

Rather helpfully, the other example you cite of no clear change - amphibians to reptiles - exists because the two groupings are so similar that it would be almost impossible to distinguish between the two anyway, and certainly not from fossils. Transitionary fossils are difficult at best to establish between these two because there is almost no clear gap between the two to begin with - which I'd argue rather helpfully argues in the favour of gradual evolution.

You didn't pick upon reptiles to birds but I'll mention early birds such as Archaeopteryx which share many reptile traits (indeed it was originally mistaken for a Compsognathus fossil); horses display a gradual change (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/horses/), as do hominids (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/), both fossil records detailing some of the most complete and beautiful examples of evolution taking place. One of the most amusing evidences I've found for this sort of thing is that despite creationists trying to pidgeon hole these animals into a "kind" they never seem able to agree where to stick them; beautiful evidence of their being so-called missing links. :D

As for methods of dating fossils and the age of the universe, they all rely on assumptions,

Huh. And here I thought that the nucleii of molecules were so well protected that the decay constant of radioactive material doesn't change, a well established theory. I also thought that dating methods' amazing ability to consistently agree with each other and other methods, such as tree ring counting and coral reef growth rates, would have led to their being more readily accepted over several decades of being proven consistently right by biologists, geologists and physicists; apparently not.

constant levels of carbon-14 in life on earth throughout its history

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it (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind/howgood-c14.html) doesn't ( http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD011_1.html).

Some petrified trees have been found in a vertical position, implying the bottom of the tree is millions of years older than the top!

And some of these fossils have been found with their roots intact, showing how sediment built up gradually around the trees.

such as the constancy of the speed of light

In a local vaccuum. Important to remember, that.

What I'm suggesting is that creationism has made some intellectual advances

No, it hasn't. All of the points you've raised have been disproven for rather a few decades; that tree example you brought up, for example, was answered a century ago - by a creationist. Young Earth Creationism - Creationism itself - makes no predictions, it forms no theories, it describes nothing but is content to throw far more questions at us than answers. The beginning of the universe and its continuation can be described without invoking God; He as an idea is useless, outdated and unhelpful to our furtherance as a species. The only reason it still exists is, basically, the American public, steadfast in ignoring its scientists and relying on faith rather than proper scientific study.

As for the super communo chap, he's relating the same old disproven stuff. [url]www.talkorigins.org old bean, answers all your questions.

i'd like to bring up a little piece of evidence scientists use to prove evolution. They have a chart... at the top of the chart is a dog this is the first dog and all other dogs spawned from it. on the rest of the chart is teh different breeds of dog that spawned from the original. wolves... poodles... foxes... golden retreivers... all on the chart. One thing though... i don't see any elephants... or cats... or monkeys... i just see dogs.

That's cause you've seen the part of the chart that refers to dogs. Similar charts have been drawn for primates, mammals (including primates), vertibrates (including mammals), and for all life (though that chart doesn't go into much detail, as it would be a bit difficult to draw a chart with hundreds of millions of species on...).

Ok I have some more " technical imposibilities" First off it has been proved that evolution being true is 1 in 1 followed by 300 0's, while something "all pwerful" creating it is significantly lower.

ok who "proved" that then?
Seeing how evolution takes millions of years to happen, don't you think at the rate that the moon is moving away from us that in the begging the moon was either in the pacific ocean or like a pimple on earth.

i didnt know the moon was moving away from us (linky?) but if it is, what makes you think it has always been going at a constant rate?


For all the chemicals that came from " rained upon rocks" for thousands of years even millions, they still could not produce the exact 20 amino acids to make the most basic cell

are you talking about meteorites here? they didnt form the amino acids, they formed on their own.

secondly... people believe we evolved from monkeys. A evolution is supposed to be an upgrade... yet we don't have fur a handy little thing to keep you warm.

Fur attracts lice, clothes are far better as you can change them. Also, we evolved in Africa - at day it's hot and at night we could huddle round a fire.

We don't have talls... something highly useful (its like a 3rd hand but wiht no fingers).

Tails are useful when you're swinging from trees. Like chimpanzees, we're groun- based, so don't bother with them.

We don't have the great tree climbing abilities.

That's because we specialised for the ground - it's a little difficult to hunt up in the trees...

So does that mean that to evolve you have to trade in some of you current traits for different ones?

Sometimes - many extra features require extra energy (both to grow and maintain), so if a new useful feature is difficult to support, it's better to evolve away a nearly useless old one.

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if the human race contenues to evolve, in a million years or so we will only have 4 toes on each foot. possibly only 4 fingers too.

Some tribes already only have two toes on each foot. We don't need separate toes any more - just a bendy bit at the end of the foot to be used for balance (like having all the toes joined together). Fingers, on the other hand (no pun intended), are very useful - it'll be more difficult to type if some went missing...

k, i like your arguements and i see that you have a point... and maybe i should read the Darwin book. Yep and since i'm out of arguements against evolution... i'm done.

Try 'The Blind Watchmaker' by Richard Dawkins. It's the best introduction to and defence of the theory of evolution I've ever read.

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Why do I think evolution is wrong? WHAT???!?!?

I support evolution; the title for this thread was flamebait from the start. I'll return in a year with a *detailed* pro-evolutionary argument since I'm takin Bio H over the next yr

The human species won't further evolve... We now change our enivironment enough to where it doesn't matter what attributes we have, just so long as we are not sterile. That's why sickle cell enemia and other genetic disorders exist.

If I remember correctly, the mutation that causes sickle cell aenemia also gives a greater resistance to malaria.

And we haven't stopped evolving yet - for example, Europeans have a greater tolerance of alcohol than Asians, as it Europeans have had it destroying their livers for far longer...

I read somewhere about certain things that evolution cant explain. Like there is a type of bird that migrates from Alaska to Hawaii every year, and the bird doesnt have enough body fat to make the entire journey by itself, so by instinct the birds fly in a V shape to reduce wind resistance. So the bird gets to hawaii with only like one ounce of extra fat. How can this be explained, how does the bird know that it should fly in a V shape to get there?

This evolved before birds started migrating such long distances - birds that migrate short distances also save energy by flying in the v-formation - this gives them advantages when it comes to mating (fighting rivals and so on), so the trait evoled.

The second one was the giraffe, its heart is so big and its blood pressure is so high that when it bends down to drink, it would die if it didnt have valves in the neck to slow down the blood to the brain. How do the valves evolve? How did the first giraffe bend down to drink if it didnt have the valves?

This is called co-evolution - the neck evolved at the same time as the values, not one after the other. Evolution is gradual - the concept of 'the first giraffe' doesn't make sense.

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Reactivists (and other wonderers-about-evolution-cum-creationists),

I’m going to address the points you specifically noted in your post, though if I stay awake long enough and you or another creationist posts something both civil and intellectually honest, I will try to suggest some more evidence or at least places you can go and look at the evidence for yourself. Sometimes I’m not very diplomatic, so let me apologize in advance – I will confess now that I am impressed with the civility and tone of your post. In my experience, these arguments go south very very quickly. I’ve found it’s useless arguing these points very long with Christians as they generally come back at some point with scripture (which is not science) along the lines of Acts 5:29 “Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.” If the bible is going to be your final authority for all things scientific, then we should stop right here as the bible asserts that the earth is at the center of the universe among other basic rules of biblical physics, biology, geology etc. which we know not to be true. If it’s any consolation, St. Augustine counseled Christians never to talk with their Arabic (and other non-Christian) neighbors as their new-fangled technologies – notably mathematics and astronomy – (more than the differences between their basic theologies) were considered threats to Christian thought.
So. First of all, your assertion that there are no transitional fossils in the record is patently false. In fact, there are so many examples in the fossil record of both gradualism and punctuated equilibrium that they would be cumbersome to list. (Gradualism is the idea of evolution that you suggested in your post: an organism will slowly change over time. Punctuated equilibrium considers that a large population after a geological event will suddenly become very much smaller in an isolated area, thereby allowing a mutation to run rapidly through the entire isolated population causing distinct speciation). Gradualism can be seen in the fossil record of plankton in all the world’s oceans. Small changes over time can be readily identified in the foraminifera Globigerinoides trilobus and Orbulina universa [Pearson et al. 1997], and the diatom Rhizosolenia [Miller 1999, 44-45]. Transitional fossils are also well represented among Phacops trilobites, mesonychids and whales and precompsognathids or coelurosaurs and birds. Indeed, the transition between australopithecines and other early hominids and homo sapiens is gradual enough and fine enough that it’s difficult to know where to draw the line between them. To read more about these developments, you can check out:

Hunt, Kathleen, 1994-1997. Transitional vertebrate fossils FAQ. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html

Thompson, Tim, 1999. On creation science and transitional fossils. http://www.tim-thompson.com/trans-fossils.html

Miller, Keith B., n.d., Taxonomy, transitional forms, and the fossil record. http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/Miller.html

Patterson, Bob, 2002. Transitional fossil species and modes of speciation. http://www.origins.tv/darwin/transitionals.htm

You also made the assertion that new species are currently forming but not creating fertile offspring. I assume you are referring to the husbandry of animals which creates mules, burros ligers, (and hysterically, with cloning and genetic manipulation, spider goats). This is not speciation. This is husbandry. One of the fundamental rules of describing a species taxonomically is that it should be able to reproduce. Therefore, a mule is not a new species, it’s just a hybrid: the sterile product from the union of a donkey and a horse.

As to hoaxes, Piltdown Man was a disappointing failure for science. That it was a hoax is not in doubt, certainly Peking Man is still considered by some to be an unfortunate hoax, though the jury’s still out on him. The difference between science and creationism, however, is that after forty years of labouring under a misconception, science finally caught and rectified its mistake. Piltdown is no longer considered a hominid fossil, it is not being used as evidence of evolution and has been exposed for the prank it was. Creationists, unfortunately, continue trot out their hoaxes long after they’ve been exposed as such: Malachite Man, the Calaveras Skull and the Paluxy footprints have been decisively exposed as frauds and hoaxes but I defy you to find a creationist book, pamphlet or website that acknowledges that. You can read more about Piltdown and the creationist hoaxes here:

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC001.html

You stated (in reference to determining the age of the universe and dating fossils), that these methods rely on assumptions. Of course this is true and this would probably be a good place to discuss the difference between a theory and a scientific theory. You might have a hunch about something and refer to that hunch or guess in conversation as a theory. This is perfectly acceptable in your everyday life, but a scientific theory is not the same thing. This leads to all sorts of confusions for creationists – I honestly don’t know why. A scientific theory must be subjected to rigorous testing. The test results have to be observable and replicable (which is to say that I should be able to conduct the same experiments you are conducting and experience similar results – we may interpret the data differently, but the results should essentially be the same). Some scientific theories you’ve probably heard of include the theory of gravity and chaos theory. They may be incomplete and we may discover something new about them every time we test them, but essentially these theories, like evolution, have the best answers for the information we have. The difference between science and creationism is that as we find out more about the theories we postulate and test, we update our information and revise our theories. Creationism, by definition, starts with an agenda and all facts have to be bent in order to fit its presuppositions. It is never revised to fit the facts because it’s assumptions begin with faith rather than science…that agenda makes creationism suspect to a thinking person from the first. Now, having said all that, it is true that over the hundred-some years since the speed of light was first calculated accurately, it seems to have gotten very very slightly faster – but not so much faster that the speed of light can’t still be considered constant – after all, the instrumentation used to measure the speed of light improved a thousand-fold in that hundred years and the most recent calculations of the speed of light did not. The change can be fully attributed to the changes and improvements in instrumentation.

So I checked back in on the forum and saw someone else addressed carbon dating so I won’t for the time being. Incidentally, it was suggested that Cebat should go and read Origins before he talks about evolution – personally, I think this is a terrible idea…it’s one of the most important books of the last hundred and fifty years and reads like the white pages. If he or anyone else wants to read it for free online, Darwin’s complete (and I mean complete – every pamphlet, the whole deal) works are online at Project Gutenberg:

http://www.gutenberg.net/cgi-bin/search/t9.cgi?author=darwin&title=&subject=&ntes=&whole=yes&language=&filetype=&class_lc=

Finally, you have asserted that Science can only go so far in its search for truth. I suppose that’s true – as long as there are bright curious people in the world science will advance our knowledge of the world and ourselves. Scientists will try to describe and discover, explore and (unfortunately) exploit all it can. But it will change to accommodate every truth (and what the hell is truth, anyway), it will try to explain every anomaly, it will ultimately find new ways for us to understand our dearly held beliefs…because that is the nature of science. Long after the best data and the simplest explanation for that data has us engaged in a new controversy and debate the creationists will still be flogging the same old horse. You see, creationists don’t search for truth – they look for scientific facts that will allow them to rationalize the beliefs they started with. That’s not science – That’s magic. That’s what illusionists do; they take basic scientific principles, bend them to their use and present these illusions to all watching as an incredible feat of magic.

I borrowed heavily (read stole shamelessly) from Talkorigins.org…it’s a good site, go check it out for yourself. And read some reputable science – some guys who don’t have an agenda – that creationist stuff isn’t worth the cyberspace its printed on…

Good Morning

Oh…as a postscript, I hate that whole man-from-monkeys thing. We share a common ancestor with primates, other great apes. Man didn’t come from monkeys – we’re not even particularly close relatives…like brachiopods and clams…and brachiopods just don’t taste that great with butter and garlic.

Kharstein may have said everything I was trying to say far more succinctly and elegantly than I did - managed to get it all posted a lot sooner too. ::sigh:: I should have gone to bed after all...

Double post, look down.

The problem with the "missing link" and "Transitional" fossils that people demand is that it's very hard to convince people of the "transitional" part, say, from... let's say, Fish A to a different but related Fish B (On the level of Australopithecus to Humans for change), is a vague spectrum- IF YOU HAD ALL OF THE FOSSILS, you can see parts are different than others if you take 10 or so main samples in a row, but it blends in if show with all of them put in a line.

Let's represent Fish A --> Fish B with the primary and secondary colors (in rainbow order, purple to red). [Edit, Note- This will be gradual evolution, because punctuated doesn't work with my highly symbolic example.]

Fish B is the very last shade of red, and Fish A is the first shade of purple on the chart-

People demand a missing link between A and B. Scientists, assuming they have the fossil and it ever gets figured out, show whatever is represented by "Yellow-Green" on this spectrum. People who don't believe in evolution demand something inbetween "Red" "Yellow-Green" and "Purple". Scientists show "Orange" and "Blue", assuming the fossil record is intact there. People who don't believe in evolution demand to see... And so on.

Plus you add in the fact that quite a few of the species on the Rainbow Evolution Parable (tm) are probably missing from the records, gaps begin to show, and it becomes extremely easy to say- "Evolution can't explain the jump from Red-Orange to Orange" and use that as disproof.

Add to the fact that many people feel that God and Evolution (or in extreme cases, Science) are incompatable...

That's my belief on why so many people don't believe or understand* evolution, anyway. Sorry if that was a little vague, my extended metaphors tend to do that.

*To all of you, me neither. Evolution involves just about every field of science I can think of and I understand very few of the actual mechanics.

Triple post, look down.

Double post, second post deleted.

"Can you disprove evolution?"

Kharstein may have said everything I was trying to say far more succinctly and elegantly than I did

I was rather thinking the reverse, myself :D

secondly... people believe we evolved from monkeys. A evolution is supposed to be an upgrade... yet we don't have fur a handy little thing to keep you warm. We don't have talls... something highly useful (its like a 3rd hand but wiht no fingers). We don't have the great tree climbing abilities. So how can this be evolution? Some people say we got knowledge from evolution... so we lost very handy useful things... and we got knowledge? So does that mean that to evolve you have to trade in some of you current traits for different ones?

The theory of evolution puts forth the premise that modern humans and modern apes evolved from a common "apelike" ancestor. No where does the text invoke the term monkey. To clearify, evolution is the result of successful adaptations to the environment. Many adaptations have lead to extinctions. Species that successfully adapt to changes in the environment are said to have evolved from more primitive species that may not be as well adapted to the environment. Whether the adpatations occur slowly over several generations or quickly in a punctuated equilibrium event, new species evolve from old species through the successful adaptation to environmental factors.

Would you be attracted to someone with only three fingers? No, such a trait would fail to be passed on, at least not very often. As a result, we would continue to have four fingers since there are neglegible benefits to three fingers.

-----------------------------------------
"Beside him is a beautiful androgyne called SWITCH, aiming a large gun at Neo."--Script of The Matrix (I love The Matrix, but that is still funny.)
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://img63.photobucket.com/albums/v193/eddy_the_great/steatopygia.jpg

Hey Lelita, I think in some other thread you had mentioned something about humanity becoming transhumans sometime in the future. If this was you (sorry if I mistook you for something you didnt say), then could you please elaborate upon the concept of a 'transhuman'?

Hey Lelita, I think in some other thread you had mentioned something about humanity becoming transhumans sometime in the future. If this was you (sorry if I mistook you for something you didnt say), then could you please elaborate upon the concept of a 'transhuman'?

It's basically the view that humanity is a limitation and that uploading or some similar practice to have immortality, superintelligence, etc. would be beneficial. There's more to it, but that's it in a nutshell.

-----------------------------------------
"Beside him is a beautiful androgyne called SWITCH, aiming a large gun at Neo."--Script of The Matrix (I love The Matrix, but that is still funny.)
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://img63.photobucket.com/albums/v193/eddy_the_great/steatopygia.jpg

evolution. myth. why? simple. where are all the missing links? not just the man-ape, but all of them. You should be able to find in the fossil record a steady progression from each species to the next in a steady gradient. Guess what? You cant. You find: clear, discrete seperations of species, no links.

Conclusion: either all the fossils are on another planet and none of us originated on earth.....or eveolution (as currently accepted, taught and understood) is WRONG.

also: why is a theory taught as fact? especially an unprovable theory? what about the other various theorys concerning the origin of the species?

examples:
creationism-- (i forget the other name offhand so i use the one with religious connotations)-- ie, some higher power or intelelgence or something made us, not random natural forces

cellular-automata -- each cell in your body contains the data to make a complete you (ie: DNA). its just a matter of what triggers in an individual cell to make it become heart tissue, brain tissue or skin, etc. Cellular-automata works the similar way: all the programing for any potential species is there, its just a matter of triggers and precedents.

both of those two theories could account for the discrete and distinct species seperation in the fossil record (which by the way, Darwin himself admitted was a flaw in his theory; he wrote about this flaw in his own book about eveloution, a whole chapter dedicated to the problems of his theory!!), and for the apparent lack of measurable species change since man has been recording history (1000bc or more).

Adapation, survival of the fittest, yes those occur and can be seen (a freak mutation of a 3 legged deer will be caught and eaten very quick; flies growing hair in cold climates, yet their offspring being hairless is born in a warm one).

But man from apes from dogs from lizards and toads etc etc all coming from single cell bacteria via random mutations that might or might not improve the species, and those random "good" mutations happening to breed together beget offspring, all occuring in the space of 3 billion years (earth 4bil old, life est begin around 3bil mark)?oreven the 13billion mark that some scientists now put forth? no way. the sheer possible number of interactions and possibilities just o thedifferent DNA combinations and the different chromosome counts, let alone the odds of the "good" ones breeding together makes it an impossbility.

and again: where are all teh failed mutations?
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history lesson: at the time Darwin wrote his theory, the concept of gradualism had become very popular in scientific circles. "we cant see it occuring, but we know it is, so its scale must be so large we cant see it easily". The main area this occured was Geology and like fields. And it works and is accurate there (note: some people are now challenging the slow and steady views of geology and tectonic shifting). But the other possibility that exists when "we cant see it occuring" is that....its simply not occuring.

Cebat- evolution is a series of different things. After a long time those little things add up to a lot, and eventually enough to were the new animal is no longer capable of mating with the original kind of animal, making it a new species.

prove it

Hey, what was that other question that this could be included into?

*thinks*

Ah, thats right, no one will prove that "God" exists! But ofcourse, you can't prove it either, you are just asking for proof for something you easily could read up on yourself :roll:

This is by far the most civil discussion I've seen on evolution in a public forum. Congratulations to everyone! :D

Chreationism is terrible science and it's silly for Christians to deny the evidence of evolution. It's clear that there are and have been changes to animal populations over the eons and that the world is not six thousand years old and was not created in six days. Denying the evidence the earth itself provides is untrue to the wisdom expressed by King David:

The heavens are telling of the glory of God;
And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.
Day to day pours forth speech,
And night to night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words;
Their voice is not heard.
Their line has gone out through all the earth,
And their utterances to the end of the world.
Psalm 19:1-4a

Instead of making fools of ourselves by trying to explain away the evidence before our eyes, the question that should be discussed is "what conclusions do these facts lead us to?" I'm very comfortable with the fact that they do not lead us away from God.

Most non-scientists who discuss evolution, as in this forum, make claims that no real scientist would make. For example, several posts stated something along the lines of "evolution proves God does not exist" or "since we can explain the birth and development of the universe and life in strictly material terms, the idea of God is outdated". Neither of these conclusions, though, can be drawn from our current evidence and understanding of the cosmos or the history of life.

First, science can no more disprove the existence of God than it can prove it. Second, the fact that lifeforms have and continue to evolve does not necessarily mean that there is not a Creator. Evolution has much to say about the change and development of species but has virtually nothing to say about the emergence of life.

When a real scientist discusses what conclusions about God can be drawn from evolutionary theory they shrug and think it's a silly question. For the most part, their work is based on the premise that there is no God. They recognize that science can not yet speak to the origin of life and when pressed on the issue spiral into a bit of circular reasoning: we know the universe and life developed by purely material means so eventually we will know enough to explain how that is possible. At least that's been my experience with the faculty I've talked with and lectures I've attended in my 11 years of working at a university.

And when you think about it, there's an element of faith in that. :wink:

if the human race contenues to evolve, in a million years or so we will only have 4 toes on each foot. possibly only 4 fingers too.

I doubt it, since almost all higher animals (reptiles, mammals, etc.) have five digits on each limb. Yeah sloths. But what has a sloth ever done for me?

evolution. myth. why? simple. where are all the missing links? not just the man-ape, but all of them. You should be able to find in the fossil record a steady progression from each species to the next in a steady gradient. Guess what? You cant. You find: clear, discrete seperations of species, no links.

Conclusion: either all the fossils are on another planet and none of us originated on earth.....or eveolution (as currently accepted, taught and understood) is WRONG.

Or maybe fossils aren't neatly arranged in a line under the ground, and we haven't found all of them yet.
Maybe some of these links didn't produce many fossils, either because their remains didnt last or because they werent a link for very long.

Anyway; "Your theory about gravity does not explain why there are no pink unicorns, therefor it is wrong."

evolution. myth. why? simple. where are all the missing links? not just the man-ape, but all of them. You should be able to find in the fossil record a steady progression from each species to the next in a steady gradient. Guess what? You cant. You find: clear, discrete seperations of species, no links.

Actually, if you look into taxonomy, you can see the traits in common and how they might have split. As for where each species is in the gradient - do you really think every single organism that ever lived and then died left fossils? Be serious for a minute and realize that the probabliity of being fossilized is very low in the first place. On top of that, we haven't found every single fossil that was every formed. So, no, you would not see every single step in the fossil record.

also: why is a theory taught as fact? especially an unprovable theory? what about the other various theorys concerning the origin of the species?

It isn't, people like you just can't seem to handle it. Evolution is taught as theory - but as the best scientific explanation we have (which it is).

examples:
creationism-- (i forget the other name offhand so i use the one with religious connotations)-- ie, some higher power or intelelgence or something made us, not random natural forces

The idea that everything was created by an all-powerful being is usually mentioned as something that some people believe. However, creationism is not science and therefore mentioning is about all you're going to get in a science classroom.

cellular-automata -- each cell in your body contains the data to make a complete you (ie: DNA). its just a matter of what triggers in an individual cell to make it become heart tissue, brain tissue or skin, etc. Cellular-automata works the similar way: all the programing for any potential species is there, its just a matter of triggers and precedents.

You find me where all that information is programmed in every single organism, and I'll start modifying my views. Otherwise, it's just another idea with no evidence.

both of those two theories could account for the discrete and distinct species seperation in the fossil record

Except for the lack of evidence, that is.

and for the apparent lack of measurable species change since man has been recording history (1000bc or more).

There are two different species of mouse on either side of the Rocky Mountains that may have evolved in that time period, I'm not sure. In 1000 BC, there wasn't a worldwide science organization - in fact, most civilization didn't think there was any part of the world they couldn't reach by land or a short time by sea. So who knows what happened up until people began worldwide communication? On top of that, we have seen changes in bacteria in the time we have been recording - which makes sense because they multiply much faster and will thus evolve much faster than more complicated species.

Adapation, survival of the fittest, yes those occur and can be seen (a freak mutation of a 3 legged deer will be caught and eaten very quick;

So you admit the possiblity of mutation, but can't extrapolate that idea out to changes over time? Not to mention the fact that you only allow for mutations that harm the organism, but do not allow for those that may improve the species. Suppose that same deer had a random mutation that gave it an enhanced sense of smell...

But man from apes from dogs from lizards and toads etc etc all coming from single cell bacteria via random mutations that might or might not improve the species, and those random "good" mutations happening to breed together beget offspring, all occuring in the space of 3 billion years (earth 4bil old, life est begin around 3bil mark)?oreven the 13billion mark that some scientists now put forth? no way. the sheer possible number of interactions and possibilities just o thedifferent DNA combinations and the different chromosome counts, let alone the odds of the "good" ones breeding together makes it an impossbility.

First of all, the good mutations eventually breeding together makes perfect sense. Those organisms were more suited to their environment and thus more likely to breed than the rest. This is very easily demonstrated in bacteria cultures performed with antibiotics. While those with a mutation making them resistant were a very small population at first, after antibiotics are added, these are the only ones that survive and manage to reproduce. Thus, by the time culture is finished, all bacteria have the mutation.

As for the shear number of possibilities, you are right - there are a lot of possibilities. But you are assuming that there was a specific end that was *meant* to happen. Remember, the majority of mutations don't do anything. Many are harmful and some are helpful. But it is random. Why do humans have a gene that allows some of them to roll their tongues and other to not? Randomness. That could have just as easily been a mutation that caused some people to have longer tongues.

and again: where are all teh failed mutations?

Um.....dead, mostly. Just like your deer example.

When a real scientist discusses what conclusions about God can be drawn from evolutionary theory they shrug and think it's a silly question. For the most part, their work is based on the premise that there is no God. They recognize that science can not yet speak to the origin of life and when pressed on the issue spiral into a bit of circular reasoning: we know the universe and life developed by purely material means so eventually we will know enough to explain how that is possible.

Or, some of us say "I believe on faith that God exists and created the universe. However, I have seen no scientific evidence either to support this claim or refute it. Thus, I do not claim my belief to be science."

Coming from a biochemist...

We have substantial proof that micro-evolution exists. Some species bacteria change their structure to accomodate certain changes in their environments. All the micro-evolutionary changes are a strong starting point for macro-evolution.

Similarities in genetic structure have been seen through out many different species of animals. This is the same DNA evidence that can tell you whether you are your father's/mother's/grandfather's/uncle's relative.

Different species have similar, traceable DNA structures, which link them to each other at a certain time period, just like I could link you to your grandfather.

So, evolution? Is it correct? Oh yes, it is quite correct. IF you don't beleive in DNA evidence, sorry, but you are wrong. IF you don't beleive in evolution in general, I suggest reading Biochemistry, by Voet and Voet. It's very technical, but it pretty much lays out the basics of genetics and DNA. You can't argue with cold hard science.

Evolution, evil-lution... whatever. Read a science book that isn't written by a non-technical author with slanted views.

Coming from a biochemist...

We have substantial proof that micro-evolution exists. Some species bacteria change their structure to accomodate certain changes in their environments. All the micro-evolutionary changes are a strong starting point for macro-evolution.

Similarities in genetic structure have been seen through out many different species of animals. This is the same DNA evidence that can tell you whether you are your father's/mother's/grandfather's/uncle's relative.

Different species have similar, traceable DNA structures, which link them to each other at a certain time period, just like I could link you to your grandfather.

So, evolution? Is it correct? Oh yes, it is quite correct. IF you don't beleive in DNA evidence, sorry, but you are wrong. IF you don't beleive in evolution in general, I suggest reading Biochemistry, by Voet and Voet. It's very technical, but it pretty much lays out the basics of genetics and DNA. You can't argue with cold hard science.

Evolution, evil-lution... whatever. Read a science book that isn't written by a non-technical author with slanted views.

Ok... about "missing links"... soooo many things wrong with that creationist argument. Here are a few:

First and foremost, the conditions under which fossils form are rare. Of all the species that have ever existed on earth, only a fraction were ever preserved as fossils. We are never going to have a generation by generation record of evolution, because many many of those species were never preserved. Only extremely stable species that lived tens of thousands of years (at the very least) are likely to be found in the fossil record.

Other issues there: since all we get in the fossil record are bones (usually), it can be hard to differentiate between species, where the skeletal differences might not be all that large, but the muscular or organic changes might be significant. Also, scientist often group similiar fossils under a single species name, for this very reason.
In addition, Stephen Jay Gould posited the possibility of puntuated equilibrium... the idea that for long period, species might be totally stable, and only at times of extreme stress (say, climactic change, the arrival of a new predator, the advent of a new virus) are species forced to evolve or die. So that would really decrease the chance of finding any of the "missing links" because the amount of time a given "transitional form" might exist is miniscule, geologically speaking.

As has already been written, no matter how small the difference between to species we already have fossils for, creationists still demand to know what came between.

Anyone who asks how a scientific theory could be taught as fact clearly doesn't understand what a SCIENTIFIC theory is. Neither creationism nor cellular-automata are scientific theories, because they fail to have any provable and/or falsifiable basis in science.

And where are the failed mutants? Jesus, man... failed mutations survive one generation, if at all. You think you're going to see many fossils for those?

It's funny how they assumed that people with three fingers would be more successful. Let's look at this scenario:

Man: You have only three fingers. Call me shallow but that isn't attractive.
Woman with three fingers: But I use 0.1 less J of energy a day because I don't have to support two extra fingers.

-----------------------------------------
"Beside him is a beautiful androgyne called SWITCH, aiming a large gun at Neo."--Script of The Matrix (I love The Matrix, but that is still funny.)
Free your mind! (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/comanarchism/whatis_toc.html)
I like big butts!
http://img63.photobucket.com/albums/v193/eddy_the_great/steatopygia.jpg

When a real scientist discusses what conclusions about God can be drawn from evolutionary theory they shrug and think it's a silly question. For the most part, their work is based on the premise that there is no God. They recognize that science can not yet speak to the origin of life and when pressed on the issue spiral into a bit of circular reasoning: we know the universe and life developed by purely material means so eventually we will know enough to explain how that is possible.

Or, some of us say "I believe on faith that God exists and created the universe. However, I have seen no scientific evidence either to support this claim or refute it. Thus, I do not claim my belief to be science."

My view is the same and that's really my point. Conclusions about faith based on science and conclusions about science based on faith are both very questionable. Your view is an honest one, I believe. The circular reasoning I've described, though, is common among scientists and is not recognized for the statement of faith that it is.

Ok this has appeared as a side track on a few posts recently but I want to get some really thought out opinions, or scratch that, information on this. What evidence do people think they have that evolution is an incorrect theory. If you have any bring it, but be prepared to be shot down. BTW this thread is a product of the Jack Chick thread.

Ok, I didn’t read all the posts, but you asked for information disproving evolution so…

Evolution revolves around natural selection and mutations. Natural selection is the process in which organisms with traits better suited to the environment tend to have more offspring than other members of their population. These organisms therefore have a greater chance of passing on their genes to the next generation than the others. The favorable genes increase in frequency from generation to generation, while the less favorable ones virtually disappear. Through this process, the following generations of that population will be more and more practical and adapted to their environment, but their gene pool will be more limited.

Darwin thought that natural selection would create new traits, and eventually, new species. That is not true. Natural selection only weeds out the less adapted creatures and genes. It can only select among pre-existing traits; it cannot create new ones. It is a process that only deletes genetic information; it cannot create new information, as required by the evolutionary theory. Natural selection has never been known to create new species.

Ok. Mutations. Every organism has DNA. DNA is the genetic blueprint for all living things, containing all the instructions for “building” the organism. Mutations change the DNA of an organism. They either delete or rearrange the DNA. Think of DNA as a book…a really really complex instruction book. :) A mutation would rip out or scramble a page or section of the book. Mutations are very rare, usually damaging the organism. They often limit the organism’s ability to reproduce, and therefore the ability for it to pass on its defective, mutant - genes to the following generation.

For evolution (evolution, not adaption) to occur, new information must be added to the DNA of a creature. Mutations NEVER provide new DNA. They only delete, garble up, or duplicate already existing information. Evolutionists have been breeding the housefly for decades now, and have documented thousands of mutations. Yet not one of them has been beneficial, or added new information. They have gotten flies with deformed wings and eyes, but never anything helpful. For a mutation to even come close to starting to create a new species, new DNA must be added. This has never happened.

Ok…one more thing. Whenever a mutant organism is born, which is far from the norm, it is less fit to survive than its relatives, and so natural selection takes care to delete his genes from the gene pool. In this way, whenever a mutation might begin the process of changing one creature into another, much before it could become a new species, it would die because of being a less fit member of his original species. Natural selection works against evolution.

So yeah that is why I do not believe in evolution. There are too many holes in the theory.

No, you can have additive (where the DNA/RNA copying adds a amino acid) error in translation/duplication of DNA.

So yeah that is why I do not believe in evolution. There are too many holes in the theory.

Yes, there are many holes in the theory of evolution, although most scientist don't debate whether evolution happened, that's a fact, but how it happened. That's where the holes are.

And besides, what other theory serves better than evolution to explain the gradual changes in fossil records over time? "A great dude came with a magic wand, said some magic words and puff! here we all are"? Are there no holes in that theory?

Pretty good stuff until the author goes into the "Truth" part of his articles.

http://darwinismrefuted.com/

It's funny how they assumed that people with three fingers would be more successful. Let's look at this scenario:

Man: You have only three fingers. Call me shallow but that isn't attractive.
Woman with three fingers: But I use 0.1 less J of energy a day because I don't have to support two extra fingers.

Man(later that night): Oh wow, that feels... weird?
Woman: Well they work just fine for me, get the hell out!!! :evil:

It's funny how they assumed that people with three fingers would be more successful. Let's look at this scenario:

Man: You have only three fingers. Call me shallow but that isn't attractive.
Woman with three fingers: But I use 0.1 less J of energy a day because I don't have to support two extra fingers.

Man(later that night): Oh wow, that feels... weird?
Woman: Well they work just fine for me, get the hell out!!! :evil:

So, evolution? Is it correct? Oh yes, it is quite correct. IF you don't beleive in DNA evidence, sorry, but you are wrong. IF you don't beleive in evolution in general, I suggest reading Biochemistry, by Voet and Voet. It's very technical, but it pretty much lays out the basics of genetics and DNA. You can't argue with cold hard science.

Hey! I have that book! hehe, ok end of off topic post. =)

Here's an odd little fact not many people now. Before Darwin died he said he didn't believe in evolution it was interesting but no it wouldnt work. THis may be because he became a Christian later in his life

Darwin thought that natural selection would create new traits, and eventually, new species. That is not true. Natural selection only weeds out the less adapted creatures and genes. It can only select among pre-existing traits; it cannot create new ones. It is a process that only deletes genetic information; it cannot create new information, as required by the evolutionary theory. Natural selection has never been known to create new species.

Actually, if you think about it, you can get new species this way. Suppose a small population of a species well adapted to life in grassy plains is isolated in a more arid area. This could happen due to earthquake or migration or whatever. Now, the organisms in the more arid area are in a different type of environment and different traits get selected for. Over lots and lots of generations, these two different populations can become different species.

You are right that natural selection doesn't create new traits. However, to discuss natural selection in view of evolution, you cannot separate it from mutation.

Ok. Mutations. Every organism has DNA. DNA is the genetic blueprint for all living things, containing all the instructions for “building” the organism. Mutations change the DNA of an organism. They either delete or rearrange the DNA. Think of DNA as a book…a really really complex instruction book. :) A mutation would rip out or scramble a page or section of the book. Mutations are very rare, usually damaging the organism. They often limit the organism’s ability to reproduce, and therefore the ability for it to pass on its defective, mutant -genes to the following generation.

Actually, random mutations usually have little to no effect on the organism. Others are damaging, and occasionally some are beneficial.

For evolution (evolution, not adaption) to occur, new information must be added to the DNA of a creature. Mutations NEVER provide new DNA. They only delete, garble up, or duplicate already existing information.

In what universe is duplication not creating something? Think about it this way, if you duplicate a gene, you now have two, right? Then, if one changes randomly, no big deal. After all, you still have one that works just fine. So, if over lots and lots and lots of iterations, that extra gene turns into something else that ends up helping the offspring, this is good.

Evolutionists have been breeding the housefly for decades now, and have documented thousands of mutations. Yet not one of them has been beneficial, or added new information. They have gotten flies with deformed wings and eyes, but never anything helpful. For a mutation to even come close to starting to create a new species, new DNA must be added. This has never happened.

What you meant to say was that scientists haven't seen this happen in houseflies that they bred over the course of a few decades. (They have, however, seen it occur in bacteria, which multiply much faster).

Ok…one more thing. Whenever a mutant organism is born, which is far from the norm, it is less fit to survive than its relatives, and so natural selection takes care to delete his genes from the gene pool.

Again, this is not necessarily true. A mutation might give an organism a leg-up on its peers. For instance, a mutation that increased an organism's hearing or sense of smell might protect it from predators better, thus allowing it to reproduce more often.

In this way, whenever a mutation might begin the process of changing one creature into another, much before it could become a new species, it would die because of being a less fit member of his original species. Natural selection works against evolution.

Patently false.

So yeah that is why I do not believe in evolution. There are too many holes in the theory.

No one disputes that there are holes in the theory (although you have yet to really point any out.) That's why it is an ever-changing theory that is still up for discussion.

Ok, I didn't really fancy quoting that long post by Leylsh but I think you've got some strange ideas about evolution and natural selection.
Natural selection is by definition the process by which animals within a population adapt to survive.
Evolution is the process by which individual populations adapt away from each other in order to survive in their specific conditions.

Natural selection occurs within populations and evolution occurs between populations.

It is ridiculus to say that evolution does not happen as, for the horse for example there are no missing links and a gradual change in its form has been observed over time. Different populations from the same genus (Equus) created the horse, donkey and zebra to mention but a few.

I'm doing a zoology degree and trust me, I know what I'm talking about.

Ok, I didn’t read all the posts, but you asked for information disproving evolution so…

Evolution revolves around natural selection and mutations. Natural selection is the process in which organisms with traits better suited to the environment tend to have more offspring than other members of their population. These organisms therefore have a greater chance of passing on their genes to the next generation than the others. The favorable genes increase in frequency from generation to generation, while the less favorable ones virtually disappear. Through this process, the following generations of that population will be more and more practical and adapted to their environment, but their gene pool will be more limited.

Darwin thought that natural selection would create new traits, and eventually, new species. That is not true. Natural selection only weeds out the less adapted creatures and genes. It can only select among pre-existing traits; it cannot create new ones. It is a process that only deletes genetic information; it cannot create new information, as required by the evolutionary theory. Natural selection has never been known to create new species.

Ok. Mutations. Every organism has DNA. DNA is the genetic blueprint for all living things, containing all the instructions for “building” the organism. Mutations change the DNA of an organism. They either delete or rearrange the DNA. Think of DNA as a book…a really really complex instruction book. J A mutation would rip out or scramble a page or section of the book. Mutations are very rare, usually damaging the organism. They often limit the organism’s ability to reproduce, and therefore the ability for it to pass on its defective, mutant - genes to the following generation.

For evolution (evolution, not adaption) to occur, new information must be added to the DNA of a creature. Mutations NEVER provide new DNA. They only delete, garble up, or duplicate already existing information. Evolutionists have been breeding the housefly for decades now, and have documented thousands of mutations. Yet not one of them has been beneficial, or added new information. They have gotten flies with deformed wings and eyes, but never anything helpful. For a mutation to even come close to starting to create a new species, new DNA must be added. This has never happened.

Ok…one more thing. Whenever a mutant organism is born, which is far from the norm, it is less fit to survive than its relatives, and so natural selection takes care to delete his genes from the gene pool. In this way, whenever a mutation might begin the process of changing one creature into another, much before it could become a new species, it would die because of being a less fit member of his original species. Natural selection works against evolution.

So yeah that is why I do not believe in evolution. There are too many holes in the theory.

First, familiarize yourself with the work of 1930s scientists George Beadle and Edward Tatum. From their work arrived our present-day one gene-one polypeptide hypothesis. Many people talk and talk about mutations at the genetic level without considering the effects during translation (protein synthesis) and post-translation.

In the most basic terms, your body and its functions are controlled by proteins (also may be referred to as polypeptides). Proteins are responsible for cells receiving signals, providing structure and support, breaking down compounds, catalyzing creation of new compounds, etc.--the vast majority of everything. You have some sort of genetic problem? More than likely it's because your body is producing too much of a certain protein or not enough of another protein to carry out normal functions.

Now, having observed this, we can take a step back and return to your gene and mutation problem. Genes are basically the "instruction manual" for proteins. However, there are only four types of available nucleic acids that make up your genetic code: adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine. (There's a fourth type called uracil, but for the sake of sanity, I won't discuss uracil and RNA directly in my argument.) A sequence of three nucleic acids (called a codon) will determine the production of a particular protein. For example, the codon adenine-thymine-guanine will code for the protein methionine. Looking at it in basic terms, your DNA is basically a long strand of different codons, different instructions for different proteins.

You say mutations never provide new DNA. This is true from a certain perspective, because no new nucleic acids besides the present four have been created and incorporated into DNA, from what has been presently observed. However, you misunderstand mutation. The "new DNA" is not "new nucleic acids" but "different arrangements of nucleic acids" that produce "different proteins." In other words, it's faulty to term a mutation as new DNA. You're right in that a mutation will delete, switch around, or mix up nucleic acids in DNA. However, the mutation is only really important at the protein/polypeptide level. The "new information" is manifested in the form of different proteins that are produced from normal proteins (again, back to analogies: think of DNA as an instruction manual and protein as the actual people putting a machine together. What you physically observe are the proteins). Does the altered DNA program for a different protein than it normally would? Does the altered DNA make a nonsense codon that will not program for any protein at all? Etc.

It then becomes a problem (or solution) for the entire organism. Just because of some faulty DNA segments caused by mutations, an individual may not be able to produce enough proteins that would break down lipids in brain cells--resulting in eventual death from Tay-Sachs disease.

Secondly, you shouldn't jump to conclusions about natural selection, especially in the fly mutation experiments. Everyone is assuming that our environment remains a constant. This is completely false. The only reason natural selection exists is because the environment is ever-changing. Just because humans are the boss right now doesn't mean some environmental change won't put us at a disadvantage to other species in the future. For example, consider the archaebacteria. These microbial organisms are amazing. They thrive in the worst conditions that no other species on the planet would dare to inhabit, even humans: lava flows, boiling hot springs, the arctic, high salinity-low oxygen lakes, etc.

All species are best adapted to their individual environments. It's true to some extent that humans have innovation and invention on their side, but how long would you survive in the arctic without a coat and any materials to create one compared to a polar bear?

Since the environment is ever-changing, how can you term a mutation as always negative? It is absolutely false to term a mutation negative in general. You can say, "This mutation is negative given present conditions and environment." In other circumstances, perhaps that mutation would be advantageous. Take sickle-cell anemia, for example. Sure, it has terrible effects which can lead to brain damage and kill you. However, sickle-cell anemia DOES provide an advantage: individuals who possess the disease or are carriers of the disease are IMMUNE to malaria. Sickle-cell anemia is most common among those of African descent because it was an advantageous trait in a part of the world where malaria was prevalent. This "faulty mutation" is now being explored by scientists for the possibility of developing a cure to malaria.

Anyway, just my two cents.

Here's an odd little fact not many people now. Before Darwin died he said he didn't believe in evolution it was interesting but no it wouldnt work. THis may be because he became a Christian later in his life

Yes, many people don't know that because it's false-

1. Darwin did not recant on his bed, according to people who spent their time with him in his last days- that story came from Lady Hope who claimed to have visited Darwin, but his daughter, who was there during the whole time, never saw her.
2. So what? Einstein himself can say he doesn't believe in relativity and it's still the dominant physics model!
*


*As paraphrased from TalkOrigin's index of creationist claims [CG001: Darwin recanted]

I'm going to interject a little idea of my own here...

All you Christians go off how God started the universe, and all us evolutionists say evolution disproves God... well, what if God, whatever God he was, started the world one way, and let it evolve as it's own course? It's the same principal as free will. :P

Just jutting in a tangent...

I'm going to interject a little idea of my own here...

All you Christians go off how God started the universe, and all us evolutionists say evolution disproves God... well, what if God, whatever God he was, started the world one way, and let it evolve as it's own course? It's the same principal as free will. :P

Just jutting in a tangent...

You have just bascially described the belief of most of the people I know. A lot of people think that God started the universe and evolution was God's method of getting things the way they are now. How silly is it to say that an omniscient being couldn't calculate all the probabilities and know what would evolve over time?

I'm going to interject a little idea of my own here...

All you Christians go off how God started the universe, and all us evolutionists say evolution disproves God... well, what if God, whatever God he was, started the world one way, and let it evolve as it's own course? It's the same principal as free will. :P

Just jutting in a tangent...

You have just bascially described the belief of most of the people I know. A lot of people think that God started the universe and evolution was God's method of getting things the way they are now. How silly is it to say that an omniscient being couldn't calculate all the probabilities and know what would evolve over time?

Not silly at all, since as an omnipotent being God already knows what he's going to do- so before he even thinks of a universe he knows he will and knows how it will turn out.

Or something. Omnipotence is a confusing business....

Edit- and he also doesn't have to think about making a universe because he knows everything he could possibly think before he thinks it- so before he gets the idea of making a universe, he knew everything about making a universe and how it'll turn out. But since he knew all that, he didn't need to think about it anyway. Ow, my head....

Here's an odd little fact not many people now. Before Darwin died he said he didn't believe in evolution it was interesting but no it wouldnt work. THis may be because he became a Christian later in his life

Yes, many people don't know that because it's false-

1. Darwin did not recant on his bed, according to people who spent their time with him in his last days- that story came from Lady Hope who claimed to have visited Darwin, but his daughter, who was there during the whole time, never saw her.
2. So what? Einstein himself can say he doesn't believe in relativity and it's still the dominant physics model!
*


*As paraphrased from TalkOrigin's index of creationist claims [CG001: Darwin recanted]

To add on. He was a Christian before he wrote his books. He had problems with presenting his ideas as it conflicted with his religious beliefs, but he knew others were working on them as well. He spent a great deal of time to try and make them a bullet proof as possible. It was not until Wallace was going to publish a similar idea that made him rush forth and publish.

To add onto the statements already made, regarding the compelling but ultimately misleading argument regarding the impossibility of incrementing DNA (and thereby increasing complexity, or altering fundemental structure):
For most higher life on our planet, evolution is not so much a matter of qualities as quantities. Let us look, for example, at vertebrates, a certain segment of the animal population. All of these creatures have eyes, bones, muscle, skin, organs, some form of skin coverage... or they evolved from something that did. From there, it isn't hard to posit a common ancestor for say... a lizard and a mole rat. Both have four legs, a tail, eyes, a mouth, and roughly equivalent internal organs. Mole rats have hair (though very little) while lizards have scales, but nothing was "added" to either one. The genes for skin covering just quantified in different ways. On the lizard, they broadened and potentially thickened. In the mole rat, virtually the opposite. I could go through nearly every trait they have, but that would be a waste of time.

Point is, the only "leaps", the only increases in features (say... photosensitive areas, rigid structure) happen at the very bottom of the evolutionary ladder, in single-cell, and few-celled organisms, which are, by their simplicity, number, and malleability, the most capable of radical addition.

So I posit that most evolutionary change is not the result of mutation, as such, but rather positive variability within a species that increases to such a degree that the egg of one member can no longer recognize the sperm of another.

An interesting side note: Lions and tigers can interbreed. There is, in fact, such a thing as a liger (though it is rare, for obvious reasons). (Same story with horses and donkeys. That's what a mule is... a hybrid.) Neither species can, however, interbreed with any other know cat species. Does this indicate that the lion and the tiger have a common ancestor? Well yes, pretty clearly. But there are different species... can there be any serious doubt about that? If you accept both of these things to be true, that lions and tigers have a common ancestor, and that lions and tigers are different species, it is clear that somewhere along the line a new species was created via differentiation.

There have been a good number of posts about the relative attractiveness of the four-fingered hand (incidentally, humans are not evolving a four-fingered hand, four-toed foot, or indeed evolving at all...it would take a catastrophic event to decrease human populations sufficiently and force what's left into profound isolation before any new trait could conceivably travel through a gene pool and result in an observable instance of human speciation). Four fingered hands though, have not been barriers to successful reproduction by the Simpsons, the Flintstones or the Jetsons. Therefore I would postulate that four-fingered hands are not the trait to watch for in a biological/genetic/evolutionary context; this continued bashing of the four-fingered must be exposed for the bigoted narrow-minded thinking it is and brought immediately to an end.

It is ridiculus to say that evolution does not happen as, for the horse for example there are no missing links and a gradual change in its form has been observed over time. Different populations from the same genus (Equus) created the horse, donkey and zebra to mention but a few.

I'm doing a zoology degree and trust me, I know what I'm talking about.

Of course things adapt and evolve. Like all the different species of cats, for example. However, a cat has never, and will never change into an kangaroo, no matter how many trillions of years pass.
And I really dont care what degree you have. :wink:

although most scientist don't debate whether evolution happened, that's a fact, but how it happened. That's where the holes are.


That is simply not true. There are nearly, if not as many scientists who oppose evolution as those who support it. Evolution is not a fact, but a theory.

Of course things adapt and evolve. Like all the different species of cats, for example. However, a cat has never, and will never change into an kangaroo, no matter how many trillions of years pass.


no, it wouldn't, and evolution doesn't claim that it would. what's your point?


And I really dont care what degree you have. :wink:
the education level of a person is relavent to discussions like this one. you, for example, seem to hold many misconceptions about evolutionary theory that are common in people who have not studied within the field of biology. while you certainly shouldn't take any person's word for it, i would advise you to engage in further research on the subject to clear up some of these points.

although most scientist don't debate whether evolution happened, that's a fact, but how it happened. That's where the holes are.


That is simply not true. There are nearly, if not as many scientists who oppose evolution as those who support it. Evolution is not a fact, but a theory.

actually, the current numbers show that only 5% of scientists do not support evolutionary theory. over half of scientists believe God had no role whatsoever in the development of humans, and the remaining percentage believe that Man has developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process.

according to a recent study by Gallup, "By one count there are some 700 scientists with respectable academic credentials (out of a total of 480,000 U.S. earth and life scientists) who give credence to creation-science..." that would make the support for creation science among those branches of science who deal with the earth and its life forms at about 0.14%.

check your facts.

Actually, if you think about it, you can get new species this way. Suppose a small population of a species well adapted to life in grassy plains is isolated in a more arid area. This could happen due to earthquake or migration or whatever. Now, the organisms in the more arid area are in a different type of environment and different traits get selected for. Over lots and lots of generations, these two different populations can become different species.

I dont get you here. i only see one population...unless the "organisms" are a different species than the first species. Clarify please? (heheh i cant debate with you unless i understand what your saying.)

Actually, random mutations usually have little to no effect on the organism. Others are damaging, and occasionally some are beneficial.

All mutations are random...it is like sticking a small metal rod into a fine Swiss watch. You can't expect it to be helpful. Mutations always have an effect, usually harmful.

In what universe is duplication not creating something? Think about it this way, if you duplicate a gene, you now have two, right? Then, if one changes randomly, no big deal. After all, you still have one that works just fine. So, if over lots and lots and lots of iterations, that extra gene turns into something else that ends up helping the offspring, this is good.

I didn't say duplicating something is not creating something. I said duplicating something is not adding NEW information. Having new information added during mutations is an essential part of evolution...a part that doesnt happen.

What you meant to say was that scientists haven't seen this happen in houseflies that they bred over the course of a few decades. (They have, however, seen it occur in bacteria, which multiply much faster).

I know what i meant to say, and i said it. Flies have an average life span of 21 days. Do you relize how many generations of flies a scientist can breed over the couse several decades?

Again, this is not necessarily true. A mutation might give an organism a leg-up on its peers. For instance, a mutation that increased an organism's hearing or sense of smell might protect it from predators better, thus allowing it to reproduce more often.

But mutations do not increase an organism's senses or its anything. They only mess up or delete what DNA information is already there..they DO NOT add NEW information, especially the type required for senses to be increased. (somehow i feel like i'm repeating myself...)

evolution. myth. why? simple. where are all the missing links?

We don't have all of them, but contrary to creationist belief flying in the face of evidence, we do actually have quiet a jolly lot of them. These missing links are called "hominids", and it would probably pay for you to do a bit of research on them.

also: why is a theory taught as fact?

In science...all fields outside of mathematics and philosophy, really, there is no such thing as "absolute proof." Rather, ideas are created in order to describe observations. We craft hypothesise and then test these hypothesise in order to determine the reason for *some* of these observations and then try to break the mathetmatics of said hypothesis down into the known fundamental mathematical principles for this particular field. Once this has been done the hypothesis, if it hasn't already been disproven by earlier works, becomes more grounded and will start to circulate the scientific community - undergo severe and strict analysis to check if the results of the experiment are reproducable or have already been falsified. As more evidence grows, and the idea becomes fundamental to the way of thinking in a particular field, this hypothesis becomes a "theory." Theory in scientific jargon does not mean idea or notion. It means that it as close to fact as is humanly possible. Gravity, equations of motion, thermodynamics, and evolution are all, as best as human kind can refer to such things in the physical universe, facts, though such a word carries such philisophical baggage that it should probably be avoided. Which is why anyone claiming that evolution is "just a theory" has absolutely no idea what they're talking about.

To lead on to your next point, that it is "unprovable"; evolution has more than enough evidence to indicate beyond reasonable doubt that it is the case. 140 years worth of evidence which all points in the same direction, with Creationists - laymen, mainly - constantly sounding out the death knell of the theory even as more and more scientists came to adopt it, even as America became the last bastion of die-hard entrenchment against truth with an ignorant public defending Christian young Earth creationism against its scientists.

To summarise: shh.

what about the other various theorys concerning the origin of the species?

Well, they all tend towards being rubbish and untestable ideas with ad hoc hypothesises constructed in order to never actually have to predict anything. Except for the Flood part of creationism, and young earth creationism, both of which are demonstrably untrue.

Darwin thought that natural selection would create new traits, and eventually, new species.

I'd genuinely like to see a quote pertaining to that, since Darwin himself never used the term "natural selection". Or "survival of the fittest" for that matter.

Mutations are very rare, usually damaging the organism.

Actually, mutations are extremely common, though tend to be mild in consequence - most mutations are of fairly neutral consequence, some are bad for an organism, and some are beneficial. It is the accumulation of these "some" good ones over billions of years that leads to diversity - billions of years, kiddo, and remember that apes' ancestors became upright walking non-arboreal idiots in two and a half million years, and that all of the species of dog and bear came from the same genus one million years ago. Look at the way you're not a clone of your parents - look at the way that human kind has gradually been getting taller, unexplainable purely due to diet improvements. Look at the fact that speciation has been seen to occur - seen, if fairly neat fossil records which eloquently describe the general transitions don't do it for you - in pests' resistance to pesticides such as DDT. Look at how different species of tern can interbreed, that the definition of a species is hard for anyone to apply strictly and definitively, that even creationists can't decide which hominids are supposed to be human and which ape despite their claiming constantly that animals are distinct kinds.

For evolution (evolution, not adaption) to occur, new information must be added to the DNA of a creature. Mutations NEVER provide new DNA. They only delete, garble up,

"Garble up" as you so eloquently put it, is adding new DNA - a unicellular life form, for instance, has developed from human cancer cells. Og, and duplicating existing information would similarly create new alleles - you've again, unwittingly admitted to believing in evolution.

Incidentally, I think you confused "housefly" with "fruitfly". And beneficial speciation most certainly (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html) been seen to occur (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/speciation.html). As for the adding of new genetic diversity, you might want to take a pop at reading this (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-intro-to-biology.html). Bloody long but interesting in places.

There are nearly, if not as many scientists who oppose evolution as those who support it. Evolution is not a fact, but a theory.

No idea where you got this idea from but it's simply untrue, and was rather humorously disproved via the Steve project (which showed that the number of scientists named Steve who believe in evolution are about equal in number to half of the number of total scientists who believe in creationism.) But to take a rather less nastily satirical tact, a number of surveys of which this was one (http://wiki.cotch.net/wiki.phtml?title=Many_current_scientists_reject_evolution) have proven that this seriously, hilariously isn't the case - there's another one on religious tolerance.org. Furthermore a number of the creationists at the forefront of their "field" have either no qualifications or lied about them (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/credentials.html). They're preachers searching for a way to kill a theory because of their own blind faith in an idea the rest of the world abandoned when it became clear that God was no longer needed as a crutch and that evolution describes what we observe so neatly.

Ive got a question, and I apologise if it has already been covered..
Just because people may choose to believe in the Evolution theory, does that then mean that you 'don't' believe in God? Does it have to be one of those situations where it's 'one or the other' or do you think people are entitled to have mixed views?

Ive got a question, and I apologise if it has already been covered..
Just because people may choose to believe in the Evolution theory, does that then mean that you 'don't' believe in God? Does it have to be one of those situations where it's 'one or the other' or do you think people are entitled to have mixed views?

Some people have mixed views, personally I think deities are pretty silly concepts.

Ive got a question, and I apologise if it has already been covered..
Just because people may choose to believe in the Evolution theory, does that then mean that you 'don't' believe in God?

You can believe in God and evolution, certainly. Why would evolution disprove God? Evolution itself doesn't describe how animals came about in the first place, or how the universe came to be formed, it simply describes the development of animal populations and the mechanisms by which they happen. Many scientists, in America particularly, happen to be theists (many are Christian, too,) and hold evolution to be true.

Furthermore God really can't be proven or disproven due to the lack of definitive evidence either way - God is an ad hoc hypothesis-backed idea which doesn't describe anything because the model argues that God can do anything, making Him utterly indescribable by science...or any other human method. So yeah, feel free to believe in Him, or Her, or Them, you just can't really ever expect to have evidence for Him.

Well thats fair enough, you're entitled to your opinion...

Im believe strongly in God and Christianity, but I also believe in the Evolutionary theory.. there are some people which view it as an 'either/or' situation..

Actually, if you think about it, you can get new species this way. Suppose a small population of a species well adapted to life in grassy plains is isolated in a more arid area. This could happen due to earthquake or migration or whatever. Now, the organisms in the more arid area are in a different type of environment and different traits get selected for. Over lots and lots of generations, these two different populations can become different species.

I dont get you here. i only see one population...unless the "organisms" are a different species than the first species. Clarify please? (heheh i cant debate with you unless i understand what your saying.)

OK, sure. I said a small population moves to an arid area. The rest stays in the grassy area. They change differently. See two populations now??

See, if I have 400 mice that live in a big grassy area and 100 of them get isolated away from the rest in an arid area, I now have two populations. One of them has 300 grassy area mice and the other has 100 arid area mice. Now the grassy mice are already pretty well suited for their environment, so they don't change much.
But the mice who are stranded in the desert need different features. They need to retain more water and have better ways to stay cool and maybe a different coloration might help. So now the mice that happen to retain more water live longer and get to reproduce more. The mice that are sandy colored also live longer and reproduce more. Thus, the desert population becomes different from the grassy population.

Over a really, really long time, you get two different species of mouse. One of them blends in well in the grassy area, doesn't have to retain water, and lives in little nests in the grass. The other blends in well in the desert, burrows underground during the day and has mechanisms to stay cool, and retains a lot of water.

Understand now?


All mutations are random...it is like sticking a small metal rod into a fine Swiss watch. You can't expect it to be helpful. Mutations always have an effect, usually harmful.

Absolutely, positively wrong again. Most mutations involve a change in a single nucleotide. Because it takes three nucleotides to code for one amino acid, and most amino acids have more than one three-nucleotide code, often a nucleotide can be changed and have no effect on the protein sequence. Even more often, the amino acid is changed, but to another very similar amino acid. This can mean no change in protein function, especially if that particular amino acid is not in an integral part of the protein. It is also possible that the amino acid switch actually makes the protein better at doing its job. Study up on a little biochemistry and then try again.

[I didn't say duplicating something is not creating something. I said duplicating something is not adding NEW information. Having new information added during mutations is an essential part of evolution...a part that doesnt happen.

Except you ignored completely the rest of what I said. If you have a duplicate of a gene, that duplicate is not necessary to the survival of the organism, which means random changes in the duplicate won't cause harmful effects. Over many, many random mutations which can cause many, many amino acid changes, a whole new protein can develop. Did you know that the human body uses many types of globin in many different ways and each of these are only a few amino acids apart? There are fetal hemoglobin, hemoglobin, myoglobin, etc, etc. Each is very similar, but with a slight differences in affinity for oxygen. There is evidence that each formed from the same original gene, duplicated and then mutated.

[I know what i meant to say, and i said it. Flies have an average life span of 21 days. Do you relize how many generations of flies a scientist can breed over the couse several decades?

Do you realize how many generations it would take to see a significant difference, especially in the completely controlled atmosphere of the lab, where lab animals are generally chosen because of their similarities?

[But mutations do not increase an organism's senses or its anything. They only mess up or delete what DNA information is already there..they DO NOT add NEW information, especially the type required for senses to be increased. (somehow i feel like i'm repeating myself...)

Actually, they can. Just like the hemoglobin example above. It is very possible that a single amino acid change can cause a protein to be more potent in doing its job. Thus, a mutation in a sensory protein could cause an increase in senses. You don't necessarily have to add new information, you just have to change a single piece of the code. Again, read up on a little biochemistry and then try again to pretend like you actually have a clue what you are talking about. (You are repeating yourself, but only because you obviously have nothing important to say...)

Well thats fair enough, you're entitled to your opinion...

Im believe strongly in God and Christianity, but I also believe in the Evolutionary theory.. there are some people which view it as an 'either/or' situation..

In the mid to late 90's, the Vatican produced a paper stating that evolution was indeed present and the process did not preclude the existence of God. In fact, many theories about the origin of the universe simply offer possible explainations for the beginning of existence. These theories do not preclude the existence of God. Keep in mind, we do not know the exaact mechanism, if one exists, as to the origin of all existence. The Bible was written in parables that would be easy for the common man to understand. Keep in mind, at the time of its writing, human knowlegde and thought was only beginning to blossum into complexity. Prior to this, we were largely concerned with survival and mating.

Well thats fair enough, you're entitled to your opinion...

Im believe strongly in God and Christianity, but I also believe in the Evolutionary theory.. there are some people which view it as an 'either/or' situation..

In the mid to late 90's, the Vatican produced a paper stating that evolution was indeed present and the process did not preclude the existence of God. In fact, many theories about the origin of the universe simply offer possible explainations for the beginning of existence. These theories do not preclude the existence of God. Keep in mind, we do not know the exaact mechanism, if one exists, as to the origin of all existence. The Bible was written in parables that would be easy for the common man to understand. Keep in mind, at the time of its writing, human knowlegde and thought was only beginning to blossum into complexity. Prior to this, we were largely concerned with survival and mating.

I like evolution. The theory is useful in breeding animals, genetic engineering, and computer programming. If the creationist theory was useful we'd be using that in improving animals, programming etc...

As a religious person who believes in evolution, you need to see that they are not mutualy exclusive. You can support both. If you right wingers who say that creation is the only way actually belive this, you need to look below your bible and see that maybe their is more to evolution than you see.

Ive got a question, and I apologise if it has already been covered..
Just because people may choose to believe in the Evolution theory, does that then mean that you 'don't' believe in God? Does it have to be one of those situations where it's 'one or the other' or do you think people are entitled to have mixed views?

No, it is possible to believe in God and in Evolution. However, if you believe in Evolution, you do not believe the Bible, which is God's Word. Genesis quite clearly covers the whole beginning of the world thing...

No, it is possible to believe in God and in Evolution. However, if you believe in Evolution, you do not believe the Bible, which is God's Word. Genesis quite clearly covers the whole beginning of the world thing...

Except of course for the fact that Genesis is obviously in parable form. In fact, there are two, count them, two separate creation stories in Genesis. In one, God creates humankind and creates them male and female before he makes any other animals. In the other, God creates all the other animals and then at the end makes one male (Adam) who he later makes a female for. Now, unless you have no rationality whatsoever, you cannot possibly believe that both happened exactly like that. This is besides the fact that scholars have concluded that the two creation stories in Genesis were written by two different authors!

So, yes, you can believe in the Bible and in Evolution - but only if you have the ability to think for yourself. Much of the Bible is based in true events, and much of it is metaphorical. We didn't get an indexed list, so interpreting it is a matter of faith. For those of us who come from scientific backgrounds, we realize that faith steps up where knowledge leaves off - those things that cannot be explained. Our interpretations are thus somewhat mediated by our knowledge. For those who follow what their preacher tells them out of blind faith, well, whatever.

DP

Ive got a question, and I apologise if it has already been covered..
Just because people may choose to believe in the Evolution theory, does that then mean that you 'don't' believe in God? Does it have to be one of those situations where it's 'one or the other' or do you think people are entitled to have mixed views?

No, it is possible to believe in God and in Evolution. However, if you believe in Evolution, you do not believe the Bible, which is God's Word. Genesis quite clearly covers the whole beginning of the world thing...
Ah yes of course, the old "Bible is Fact and infallible" argument... I know it well...

Listen, I’m Catholic, Religious, and goto church on Sundays; I’m also extremely versed on science and theories. Shoot I read up on things ranging from the newest biological experiments to theories in Quantum Mechanics. So I think I have a fair place on which to stand to make the following arguments.

Anyone who says you have to believe in either Evolution or the Bible is blowing bull. The Bible is not and has never been ABSOULTE TRUTH. The Pope has repeatedly said:

“It is the word of God as written by the hand of man”

And let me tell you, man is QUITE Fallible. Now then, what do I believe? I believe in Evolution through God, yes… The two CAN Coexist, I also believe in the ‘Message’ of the bible, that doesn’t mean I take everything in it as absolute truth. You would be crazy to do so. Scholars will tell you that about 32% of the Bible Directly Contradicts itself!

See, I never get why some people are so scared of Science. You get a lot of fundamentalists (and Lord knows I have seen plenty around NS) who say things like Science is trying to kill God. Or Science seeks to disprove God. What are you smoking? Understanding the fundamental nature of the Cosmos, things from Black holes to Super String physics would only bring us closer to the Creator!

Now then, I hope the purely Scientifics out there are not offended by my mixing of Religion and Science, I am merely trying to offer a view of how the two CAN Coexist together.

I hope many of you can be mature enough to see the benefits of brining two factions together in ‘Science AND Religion’ instead of ‘Science OR Religion’

So… Who wants to be first to say what a ‘Heathen’ I am?

The main proof that evolution is wrong is the continued existence of fundamentalists.

Ive got a question, and I apologise if it has already been covered..
Just because people may choose to believe in the Evolution theory, does that then mean that you 'don't' believe in God? Does it have to be one of those situations where it's 'one or the other' or do you think people are entitled to have mixed views?

No, it is possible to believe in God and in Evolution. However, if you believe in Evolution, you do not believe the Bible, which is God's Word. Genesis quite clearly covers the whole beginning of the world thing...

How clear is it to say that each of God's days lasted 24 terrestrial hours? A day on Earth is defined as the time that it takes for the planet to revolve once on its axis relative to the sun. According to Genesis, the sun itself did not exist until the fourth "day". Elsewhere in the Bible it is stated that a day to God mught be 1000 years to man, and a day to man might be 1000 years to God.

It is certainly possible to believe in Genesis and in evolution at the same time. A day to God could be a BILLION years, or it could be a plankt second. And if it took a billion or more years to creat life from dust, what's wrong with that from an evolutionary standpoint? Inorganic to organic, dust to flesh, only the time scale is different and it is God's time scale which we cannot compare to out own.

The only thing in the Genesis story that truly defies science is Eve being made from Adam's rib, and that is in only one of the two versions of human creation found in that book. And anyway, who says God doesn't have access to cloning and sex-altering genetic technology ;)

Dempublicents wrote:

"Except of course for the fact that Genesis is obviously in parable form. In fact, there are two, count them, two separate creation stories in Genesis. In one, God creates humankind and creates them male and female before he makes any other animals. In the other, God creates all the other animals and then at the end makes one male (Adam) who he later makes a female for. Now, unless you have no rationality whatsoever, you cannot possibly believe that both happened exactly like that."

Then I wrote:

If you consider that the flood essentially destroyed creation (certainly all of the world's people outside of Noah's immediate family)...well...then you have another creation story in Genesis. Brings the count up to three creation stories in Genesis, I reckon.

I'm also not sure that there's anything obvious about Genesis being in parable form. It is what it is - there's certainly a rabid, politicized, vocal group of people in the U.S. who take Genesis and all the rest of the bible as literal truth (literal history, cosmology, astronomy etc etc).

The main proof that evolution is wrong is the continued existence of fundamentalists.

You're assuming that open-mindedness or education is somehow an evolutionary advantage.
This is very far from being obvious.

In practice, there is a strong pattern where the more educated people are, the less kids they tend to have, which makes them clear losers from an evolutionary standpoint, since their genes tend to get lost.

If we hadn't started full-scale human genome manipulations, this evolutionary fact would have eventually slowed down human progress significantly, to the point where technology would have become indistiguishable from magic to most people.
Fortunately, we are now pretty much guaranteed that in a few generations, each of our genes will be hand-picked by a select group of People Who Know Best, and that mere thought helps me sleep at night.

So.. When will NationState add a new state type dubbed "Eugenic Utopia"?

Well sorry everyone. I was away for a while and I come back to see all these posts on my little topic. I thank all of the scientific minded people for doing my job for me and I thank everyone for keeping this a civilized scientific discussion.

For all the uneducated people who continue to try to poke holes in a rock-solid theory like evolution, I say keep trying. Meanwhile the rest of us will contribute to man's knowledge and understanding of the universe.

As for whether science and faith can coexist at the same time, I do believe that they can. I do, however, think that we should not dilute one with the other and vice versa. Keep religion in its place and keep science in its place. Science cannot tell you how to find inner peace or give you guidelines for living a good life and being a good person. Religion, by the same token, cannot speak on the underlying forces that drive the universe that we live in. As a man of science, Religion plays no part in my research. Although, science plays no part in my meditation.

Lastly, a few of you had mentioned the origin of life and when evolution began. The best theory that we have as of now is as follows (I will try to make it as brief as possible). Scientists have been able to recreate amino acids in the laboratory using conditions that existed on the prebiotic earth. RNA was the first macromolecule that could replicate itself and code for protiens. The first organisms likely used RNA in somewhat the same fasion that they use protiens today and indeed RNA is still used as an enzyme in some instances. Eventually proteins replaced RNA as the workhorses of biochemical processes. Later DNA evolved and RNA was relegated to its modern role.

I'm glad that there are people that agree that religion and science can co-exist..

I am in now way a scientist, but I definately agree with scientific theories, and am a firm believer in religion.. people have to take into account that at the time when the bible was first written, aswell as a belief,it would have been written based on the views and opinions of those writting it... as the times change over the years, the way the bible has been written has aswell...

I love discussions on this sort of thing. Used to be into physics but now I'm an artist.. would've been a physicist but I'm not smart enough, I understand just about everything but cant do the equations or remember tiny details.. I've got a lot of wisdom, little intelligence I guess.

Anyway, I wanted to say something that I kept thinking in response to a lot of peoples posts but I haven't had time to read all seven pages, so forgive me if someone's said this before;

Its the whole 'evolution is an upgrade' thing. The example I'll use is the transition of the feet we had as ape-like creatures and the feet we have now, i.e. we used to have a thumb on our feet (dont know whether it was opposable or not) and we dont now. I read a website once that said that according to evolution this doesn't make sense because why would we evolve to lose something useful?

Evolution is basically mutation right? an animal has a mutation and if that mutation allows them to survive more easily they breed more and so more of this animal are born with the mutation, same as their mother/father.

When apes had to start surviving in plains rather than trees the 'feet with thumbs' were difficult to move quickly across ground with, they thumbs are not needed any longer to hold onto objects. The feet we have now are like shock-absorbant pads that allow us to run quickly without damaging bone and muscle. Simplified -> apes would've mutated a shock-absorbing foot instead of a thumb-foot, and the shock absorbant foot is the one we kept because it allowed animals to survive more easily than the thumb foot.

Also, I love some of the stuff my teacher discussed with me in physics.. like the similarities between many religious descriptions of how the universe came to be (the only one I can think of from the top of my head is genesis in the bible) and the scientific theories of the big bang and all that. Dont let the single example fool you, we really did look at 4 or so religious examples, I just cant remember them. The main difference was that in the big bang everything happened in a few seconds or less (I forget) but the relgious examples of creation lasted over longer periods of time.

Yeah,this idea that perhaps we havnt 'evolved' (as in to improve our chances of survival) is wrong... another stage of our evolution was our ability to think and so because of this we were able to survive,and therefore the characteristics from apes (eg,a tail) were no longer needed......

(by the way, I apologise if this has already been discussed....)

Science has a lot to do with exact measurements. Exact, precise, if not concise. So how can Science "believe" the random chance that the Universe knocked around and became its current state? Shouldn't Science believe that a higher being had created the Universe with exactness and precision?

Why on earth to people do people bother commenting on this matter. Evolution happens and nobody can do anything about it.

Why on earth to people do people bother commenting on this matter. Evolution happens and nobody can do anything about it.

People debate on stupider stuff. I'm not going to sit around and wait for things to happen.

---Post deleted by NationStates Moderators---

It is certainly possible to believe in Genesis and in evolution at the same time.

Yes, but you'd have to ignore the order in which "types" came, (the order in which Genesis claims contradicts the fossil record) and ignoring evidence is silly.

Science has a lot to do with exact measurements. Exact, precise, if not concise. So how can Science "believe" the random chance that the Universe knocked around and became its current state? Shouldn't Science believe that a higher being had created the Universe with exactness and precision?

No, because, as a rule of thumb, entities are not to be multiplied without necessity: i.e., you don't try to explain things by merely postulating other things which cause them. Because then you have to postulate yet more things which cause the things which cause the things which... and so on. One interesting feature of the universe seems to be an organising principle, where complexity can arise apparently spontaneously out of disorder. Now, you could claim that this organising principle is God, or evidence of God: but you could equally claim that it's the result of random chance originating at the Big Bang, i.e. we just happen to exist in a universe with the right sets of physical laws which allow for complexity. If we didn't, then we wouldn't be here to wonder where all the complexity came from. There is no need to assume some outside entity, whose existence would then require further explanation itself.

The existence or non-existence of God is outside science. It's an untestable hypothesis, and therefore immune to scientific criticism or validation.

It is certainly possible to believe in Genesis and in evolution at the same time.

Yes, but to do so you'd have to ignore the order in which "types" came, (the order in which Genesis claims contradicts the fossil record,) and the vast differences in time between them forming (ie., God's day may be several million years, but why does his day's length fluctuate so much?) and you'd have to listen to that stuff about the sun and moon and stars being created in order to light our world, rather than our planet forming and cooling after the sun. And ignoring evidence is silly.

Evolution doesn't happen everywhere, just look at the bible belt. It's hard for them to beleive in something that they haven't experienced in the last couple of thousand years.

It is certainly possible to believe in Genesis and in evolution at the same time.

Yes, but to do so you'd have to ignore the order in which "types" came, (the order in which Genesis claims contradicts the fossil record,) and the vast differences in time between them forming (ie., God's day may be several million years, but why does his day's length fluctuate so much?) and you'd have to listen to that stuff about the sun and moon and stars being created in order to light our world, rather than our planet forming and cooling after the sun. And ignoring evidence is silly.

Unless you see it for what it is, a metaphorical explanation of how people who existed before the theories of big bang or evolution were formed thought the Earth was formed. IN the long run, the important part is that God created it and knew that people would form.

Saying that you have to explain those things is like saying no one should talk about Aesop's fables because foxes don't really talk.

Saying that you have to explain those things is like saying no one should talk about Aesop's fables because foxes don't really talk.

the problem is that precious few people are able to take the Bible with the same sense of perspective as fables...after all, you don't see people worshiping an imaginary talking fox because the Book of Aesop claims it exists.

I have not read the whole thread but this has probably not been discussed, why don't many christians belive in evolution?

Evolution is something that according to our science and knowledge is perfectly logical, but as christians belive that world is like 7000 years old most of them say that they refuse to accept it? Why? That the evolution only have had 7000 years when it needs millions to develop a new species doesn't mean that it doesn't exist, or do it?

I have not read the whole thread but this has probably not been discussed, why don't many christians belive in evolution?

Evolution is something that according to our science and knowledge is perfectly logical, but as christians belive that world is like 7000 years old most of them say that they refuse to accept it? Why? That the evolution only have had 7000 years when it needs millions to develop a new species doesn't mean that it doesn't exist, or do it?

Just so you know, some Christians do accept evolution. I am not one of them. Also, evolution is not perfectly logical, it actually lacks several key elements (you can probably find at least a couple of those in previous posts, so look there.. plus i dont feel like getting in to that again.. :) ).

Most of the Christians I know do not accept evolution for a couple reasons.
1. Scientific evidence... enough said. (again i'd rather not start on that debate again...)
2. The Bible. (The Bible is the 'Holy Book' or basis of Christianity) I know some people believe that God used evolution to create the world, but if you believe the Bible is the literal word of God then Genesis clears that up. Personally, I believe that when God says "a day" He means 24 hours. I believe this because it is and has been tradition for a very very long time to make the Sabboth..(Sunday, or Saturday in some cultures) a day of rest and a day to go to church etc. In Genesis, it says that God created everything in 6 days, then on the seventh day rested. If "a day" were several thousand years, I dont think the tradition of resting on Sunday would have started. Also, God gives a detailed account of when and how he created everything, and it is in an order that evolutionists would laugh at.
3. Common Sense. Hold on, bear with me on this one. Look outside. (Now i live in the country so maybe my view is different from yours), but i see beatiful budding trees and flowers and grass under a blue sky and well i see a no parking sign but that doesnt count. Can you truely say that you believe everything happened by chance? The Earth just happened to form at the exact distance from the sun to create temperatures that would sustain life...Earth's atmosphere formed...somehow. The earth just happened to rotate around the sun, never getting to close or to far away from it. Many different climates just happened to form, which somehow led to the formation of bacteria, which eventually..after a long long time, created everything elese you see on earth. From the most intricate caterpillar to the most enourmous dinasour. I could say more...think about the human body, it has Alot of different parts and organs, but they all work together to allow you to function. Not one is missing. And all this began by some chance collision that happened to have all the right chemicals to start 'evolution'?

That, i think, is why most Christians do not accept evolution. I am sure that other, individual Christians have more and different reasons, but i think the ones listed above are the basics. :)

3. Common Sense. Hold on, bear with me on this one. Look outside. (Now i live in the country so maybe my view is different from yours), but i see beatiful budding trees and flowers and grass under a blue sky and well i see a no parking sign but that doesnt count. Can you truely say that you believe everything happened by chance? The Earth just happened to form at the exact distance from the sun to create temperatures that would sustain life...Earth's atmosphere formed...somehow. The earth just happened to rotate around the sun, never getting to close or to far away from it. Many different climates just happened to form, which somehow led to the formation of bacteria, which eventually..after a long long time, created everything elese you see on earth. From the most intricate caterpillar to the most enourmous dinasour. I could say more...think about the human body, it has Alot of different parts and organs, but they all work together to allow you to function. Not one is missing. And all this began by some chance collision that happened to have all the right chemicals to start 'evolution'?

That, i think, is why most Christians do not accept evolution. I am sure that other, individual Christians have more and different reasons, but i think the ones listed above are the basics. :)

you're right, most Christians who don't believe in evolution share this view. and they make as little sense as you.

yes, all the beauty you see is the way it is by chance. organisms adapt to their environment, and if that environment was different the organisms would be too; the only reason there is life as we know it on Earth rather than on Venus is because Earth has the necessary characteristics for allowing life to develop and Venus does not. our Earth has shaped the life that developed on it, and you can see that plainly even if you don't believe in macroevolution; just look at transplanted species that adapt and begin to look very different when you move them.

the reason you have a hard time grasping this idea is that you are thinking of it in the typically backwards way of an anti-evolution diest: you assume that the human race and other life we know was intended to develop the way it has, rather than seeing that we only exist in the form we do because of the way history played out. you talk about how unlikely it is for humans to be created through blind chance, but the chance wasn't blind. we developed as we did because the universe developed as it did, and if things had been different so would we. it's not like the universe was trying to make us and just got lucky, it's more that the universe was going about its business and we were a happy coincidence of forces.

saying that common sense argues against evolution is extremely arrogant of you, by the way; the common sense of many other people doesn't lead them to that conclusion, especially since most people include recorded data as part of their basis for common sense conclusions. true, macro evolution cannot be proven with current data, but any biology student can observe, firsthand, microevolution. so don't insult other people by implying that they are not using sense by supporting the theory of evolution.

By chance, eh. Well if you do, as you say you do believe in life as a product of chance here is the odds that this chance of life occurred.

Ahem... Life as you know it would occur once out of every 10 to the 400,000th power times. Iv'e put that in my calculator in my computer, after it reaches 10 to the 69th power you get error.

This all according to a Buddhist mathematician. By the way classical Buddhism is basically atheism.

Now I personally would rather believe the, as Arthur Schlesinger calls them, "mystic prophets of the absolute" than take those odds.

By chance, eh. Well if you do, as you say you do believe in life as a product of chance here is the odds that this chance of life occurred.

Ahem... Life as you know it would occur once out of every 10 to the 400,000th power times. Iv'e put that in my calculator in my computer, after it reaches 10 to the 69th power you get error.

This all according to a Buddhist mathematician. By the way classical Buddhism is basically atheism.

Now I personally would rather believe the, as Arthur Schlesinger calls them, "mystic prophets of the absolute" than take those odds.

Going back for a moment to the original post, I believe that the only potential issue with the theory of evolution is that the number of coordinated mutations necessary to create certain common body parts is staggering. A mutation which gave an animal non-functioning eyes would be a disadvantage and that animal would die out. Similarly an animal with the brain capacity to understand the inputs of an eye would die out from the disadvantage of needing to feed that area of the brain without being able to use it. The two would have to mutate together in the same individual, which is extremely unlikely. For that matter, the first single celled organisms are extremely complex and the idea that they could be spontaneously generated is almost silly.

Intelligent design is no less reasonable than spontaneous generation or an eternal univer model but is treated as impossible by much of the scientific community because it matches, at least vaguely with the ideas of religious people, who have often been at odds with the scientific community. Admittedly there is not a universal animosity between scientists and religious people, and there are many people who are both, but conflicts do exist, and many scientists are unwilling to accept anything that a religious person claims as truth whether it is reasonable and even probable or not.

Our Earth wrote:

“I believe that the only potential issue with the theory of evolution is that the number of coordinated mutations necessary to create certain common body parts is staggering. A mutation which gave an animal non-functioning eyes would be a disadvantage and that animal would die out. Similarly an animal with the brain capacity to understand the inputs of an eye would die out from the disadvantage of needing to feed that area of the brain without being able to use it.”

Many creationists like to talk about the eyes and speculate about what use a half-formed eye would be to its possessor. You might consider the possibility that you, yourself, have half-formed eyes. You have a blind spot on your retina where “God” wired your brain to your eye incorrectly. Your photoreceptors are aimed backwards into your brain instead of outwards to where, you know, the light is. These are fundamental design flaws which should be considered blasphemous by any true Christian to have assigned them to an intelligent creator.

You can’t see as far as a hawk; nor can you see polarized light like a bee. You can’t see underwater like a whale or a fish. You can’t see infrared like a wasp. Your range of sight isn’t as extensive as a deer or a bird or any other organism with its eyes on the sides of its head. You can’t manipulate your eyes on stalks like snails or chameleon do. Neither can your body reabsorb the nutrients in your eyes during long periods of darkness as some simple forms of multi-cellular life do. You can’t see in the dark as well as a cat. So your eyes aren't particularly useful compared to many organisms. On the other hand, a hawk's peripheral vision isn't as good as yours; some reptiles have no eyelids and dogs are colour blind...however do they cope without all of the functions your eyes have? Everywhere you look in nature there are half-formed eyes - which is to say, eyes in various stages of evolution. In point of fact, you can see the eye in all of its stages of evolutionary development all around you and, indeed, possess a pair of those half-formed eyes for yourself.

Our Earth went on to write:

“Intelligent design is no less reasonable than spontaneous generation or an eternal univer[se] model but is treated as impossible by much of the scientific community because it matches, at least vaguely with the ideas of religious people, who have often been at odds with the scientific community.”

I hate to do this, but I have to go to work. I hate cutting and pasting an answer to this almost as much as I hate reading that someone didn’t bother to read the whole thread, but, what the hell, they’re going to jump right in and contribute their poorly considered foolishness regardless, so let me apologize upfront. The following can be found at Talkorigins.com:

· The terms used in design theory [Intelligent Design Theory or ID] aren't defined. "Design", in design theory, has nothing to do with "design" as it is normally understood. Design is defined in terms of an agent purposely arranging something, but such a concept appears nowhere in the process of distinguishing design in the sense of "intelligent design." Dembski defines design in terms of what it is not (known regularity and chance), making intelligent design an argument from incredulity; he never says what design is.

A solution to a problem must address the parameters of the problem, or it is just irrelevant hand-waving. Any theory about design must somehow address the agent and purpose, or it is not really about design. No "intelligent design" theorist has ever included agent or purpose in any attempt at a scientific theory of design, and some explicitly say they cannot be included [Dembski 2002, 313]. Thus, even if "intelligent design" theory were able to prove design, it would mean practically nothing; it would certainly say nothing whatsoever about design in the usual sense.

Irreducible complexity also fails as science because it, too, is an argument from incredulity that has nothing to do with design.

· "Intelligent design" is subjective. Even in Dembski's mathematically intricate formulation, the specification of specified complexity can be determined after the fact, making "specification" a subjective concept. Dembski now talks of "apparent specified complexity" vs. "actual specified complexity," of which only the latter indicates design. However, it is impossible to distinguish between the two in principle. [Elsberry n.d.]

· "Intelligent design" implies results that are contrary to common sense. Spider webs apparently meet the standards of specified complexity, which implies that spiders are intelligent. One could instead claim that the complexity was designed into the spider and its abilities. But If that claim is made, one might just as well claim that the spider's designer was not intelligent, but was intelligently designed, or maybe it was the spider's designer's designer which was intelligent. Thus, either spiders are intelligent, or intelligent design theory reduces to a weak Deism where all design might have entered into the universe only once at the beginning, or terms like "specified complexity" have no useful definition.

Finally, I would like to point out that Leylsh’s argument about common sense makes absolutely no sense. Common sense tells us that the sun rises and sets – in fact, the earth rotates around the sun (and I would like to point out here that no one has ever gone out into space far enough to sit and watch this happen…we know this from inferring it from the best scientific evidence we have available). Common sense tells us that the earth is flat: the Greeks knew this wasn’t so two thousand years ago. However, the first scientific evidence that would have been any use to the creationists didn’t appear until 1961 when the first photographs of the earth from outer space came back to us (Of course those photos were probably faked, liked the moon landing and the holocaust). Using shadows, the curvature of the earth and the horizon as evidence of a spherical earth are too close to scientific mysticism to be useful for most creationists. Common sense cannot account for atoms (after all, no one has ever seen a proton), but I'd encourage you to ask the people of Hiroshima or Nagasaki what they think about atomic theory. Common sense tells us that the continents aren’t moving…in fact it goes directly against my common sense to believe that the surface of the earth is spinning at a thousand miles an hour as we careen through the solar system – that doesn’t make it any less true. Indeed, so much of our perception of everyday life is counter intuitive. Reality (however you choose to define it) is frequently contrary to perception. Often enough, in fact, that making an argument against science using common sense as your linch pin comes awfully close to an insult to any thinking person. Tsk tsk Leylsh.

First, I reformatted the post a little bit for ease of understanding. Second, I'd like to say that I am nominally atheist, agnostic at most and that my speculations on cosmogony are just that, speculations, not pronouncements. And please pardon my spelling/typing, I type quickly without proof reading and I couldn't spell to save my life.

I believe that the only potential issue with the theory of evolution is that the number of coordinated mutations necessary to create certain common body parts is staggering. A mutation which gave an animal non-functioning eyes would be a disadvantage and that animal would die out. Similarly an animal with the brain capacity to understand the inputs of an eye would die out from the disadvantage of needing to feed that area of the brain without being able to use it.

Many creationists like to talk about the eyes and speculate about what use a half-formed eye would be to its possessor. You might consider the possibility that you, yourself, have half-formed eyes. You have a blind spot on your retina where “God” wired your brain to your eye incorrectly. Your photoreceptors are aimed backwards into your brain instead of outwards to where, you know, the light is. These are fundamental design flaws which should be considered blasphemous by any true Christian to have assigned them to an intelligent creator.

You jumped to a bunch of conclusions in there based on nothing at all. I made no mention of God or Christianity, and many Christians, to use your example, have to problem with "design flaws" in the works of God because they are still considered the work of the divine.

You can’t see as far as a hawk; nor can you see polarized light like a bee. You can’t see underwater like a whale or a fish. You can’t see infrared like a wasp. Your range of sight isn’t as extensive as a deer or a bird or any other organism with its eyes on the sides of its head. You can’t manipulate your eyes on stalks like snails or chameleon do. Neither can your body reabsorb the nutrients in your eyes during long periods of darkness as some simple forms of multi-cellular life do. You can’t see in the dark as well as a cat. In point of fact, you can see the eye in all of its stages of evolutionary development all around you and, indeed, possess a pair of those half-formed eyes for yourself.

This is a bit silly. There are many animals with different levels of ability in the use of their eyes, certainly, but you cannot argue that all stages of the evolution of the eye are represented. You don't see anything with non-functioning eyes, and there really aren't any animals with eyes worse than humans without some compensating sense as with bats. Also, I can see polarized light as well as anyone, in fact, so can you. All that polarization does is cut some of the light out; it does not change the light in any way. It's also important to note that humans can in fact see under water quite well, though with less clarity in murkier water (though that seems pretty straightforward to me).

Do you find it interesting at all that humans consider themselves the most evolved and dominant life-form on the planet and yet we have by far the worst set of sense of any animal? The answer is simple, humans use more of their brain power on thinking and less on perceiving. The reason that human sight and hearing and smell are less effective than those of other animals is because we are less dependent on those senses for our survival than other animals, while we are extremely dependent on our ability to reason. The existence of many different specializations of the eye does nothing to support the idea of evolution, and if anything supports intelligent design because of the incredible variety.

Intelligent design is no less reasonable than spontaneous generation or an eternal univer[se] model but is treated as impossible by much of the scientific community because it matches, at least vaguely with the ideas of religious people, who have often been at odds with the scientific community.”

I hate to do this, but I have to go to work. I hate cutting and pasting an answer to this almost as much as I hate reading that someone didn’t bother to read the whole thread, but, what the hell, they’re going to jump right in and contribute their poorly considered foolishness regardless, so let me apologize upfront. The following can be found at Talkorigins.com:

I like how you cleverly slipped some personal attacks in there, truly the sign of a gifted thinker and debater. I did not read the entire thread because it was eight pages long when I found it and I have limitted time in my day and much to do.

The terms used in design theory [Intelligent Design Theory or ID] aren't defined. "Design", in design theory, has nothing to do with "design" as it is normally understood. Design is defined in terms of an agent purposely arranging something, but such a concept appears nowhere in the process of distinguishing design in the sense of "intelligent design." Dembski defines design in terms of what it is not (known regularity and chance), making intelligent design an argument from incredulity; he never says what design is.

A solution to a problem must address the parameters of the problem, or it is just irrelevant hand-waving. Any theory about design must somehow address the agent and purpose, or it is not really about design. No "intelligent design" theorist has ever included agent or purpose in any attempt at a scientific theory of design, and some explicitly say they cannot be included [Dembski 2002, 313]. Thus, even if "intelligent design" theory were able to prove design, it would mean practically nothing; it would certainly say nothing whatsoever about design in the usual sense.

Irreducible complexity also fails as science because it, too, is an argument from incredulity that has nothing to do with design.

· "Intelligent design" is subjective. Even in Dembski's mathematically intricate formulation, the specification of specified complexity can be determined after the fact, making "specification" a subjective concept. Dembski now talks of "apparent specified complexity" vs. "actual specified complexity," of which only the latter indicates design. However, it is impossible to distinguish between the two in principle. [Elsberry n.d.]

· "Intelligent design" implies results that are contrary to common sense. Spider webs apparently meet the standards of specified complexity, which implies that spiders are intelligent. One could instead claim that the complexity was designed into the spider and its abilities. But If that claim is made, one might just as well claim that the spider's designer was not intelligent, but was intelligently designed, or maybe it was the spider's designer's designer which was intelligent. Thus, either spiders are intelligent, or intelligent design theory reduces to a weak Deism where all design might have entered into the universe only once at the beginning, or terms like "specified complexity" have no useful definition.

Finally, I would like to point out that Leylsh’s argument about common sense makes absolutely no sense. Common sense tells us that the sun rises and sets – in fact, the earth rotates around the sun (and I would like to point out here that no one has ever gone out into space far enough to sit and watch this happen…we know this from inferring it from the best scientific evidence we have available). Common sense tells us that the earth is flat: the Greeks knew this wasn’t so two thousand years ago. However, the first scientific evidence that would have been any use to the creationists didn’t appear until 1961 when the first photographs of the earth from outer space came back to us. Using shadows, the curvature of the earth and the horizon as evidence of a round earth are too close to scientific mysticism to be useful for most creationists. Common sense cannot account for atoms (after all, no one has ever seen a proton), but I'd encourage you to ask the people of Hiroshima or Nagasaki what they think about atomic theory. Common sense tells us that the continents aren’t moving…in fact it goes directly against my common sense to believe that the surface of the earth is spinning at a thousand miles an hour as we careen through the solar system – that doesn’t make it any less true. Indeed, so much of our perception of everyday life is counter intuitive and contrary to perception that making an argument against science using common sense comes awfully close to an insult to any thinking person. Tsk tsk Leylsh.

Well that's pretty much just an attack on the language of the intelligent design theory, and has little if anything to do with the theory itself, though it does pose some interesting questions. With regards to the issue of the meaning of design I'll not say anything because it is essentially off topic, but I will say that whoever came up with the name "intelligent design" to match the theory of an intelligent creative force did not need to create a semantically incontrovertable phrase to maintain the power of the actual body of the theory. With regards to the spider and the idea that the spider, or it's creator, or it's creator's creator, is intelligent, the existence of Von Neumann's Catastrophe of the Infinite Regress is old and not particularlly scary. When dealing with meta-physics and cosmogony one must accept that there is at least one absolute in the universe, that being the existence of an eternal universe or an eternal creator (could also read eternal catalyst). Fundamentally spontaneous generation is absurd so an eternal element of the universe is needed. The idea that the universe is eternal is neither more nor less possible or believable than the idea that there is an eternal creative force behind the universe.

Also, using quotes that don't have anything to do with what the person you're talking to said isn't really great. I'll read whatever you quote here and respond to it, but the fact that this person from Talkorigins.com was able to (in their mind at least) debunk the ideas of these other thinkers has little if anything to do with what I've said considering that my ideas are seperate and unique from those of Dembsky or Leylsh and considering that Dembsky and Leylsh cannot be considered as valid speakers for all with regards to the theory of intelligent design.

By chance, eh. Well if you do, as you say you do believe in life as a product of chance here is the odds that this chance of life occurred.

Ahem... Life as you know it would occur once out of every 10 to the 400,000th power times. Iv'e put that in my calculator in my computer, after it reaches 10 to the 69th power you get error.

This all according to a Buddhist mathematician. By the way classical Buddhism is basically atheism.

Now I personally would rather believe the, as Arthur Schlesinger calls them, "mystic prophets of the absolute" than take those odds.

*sigh* please actually read my post. for one thing, nobody can possibly calculate the actual odds of humanity evolving because we don't know all the variables, so you can't just punch it into your calculator. but even if you could, and did, who cares? read my post, i already explained why your line of thinking is looking at the problem backwards.

you don't have to take ANY odds...the fact that we exist shows what outcome happened. it's like this: what are the odds that your parents' DNA would combine exactly the way they did to form you exactly the way you are? i won't go into the genetics of it, but they are pretty huge odds, and even Vegas wouldn't take that kind of bet. yet here you are...because, by chance, that's how it turned out. if something had been slightly different then you would be slightly different, and if something had been hugely different you might never have come to be in your present form. does that mean it's impossible for you to exist, or for chance to have brought you about? hell no. you are living proof that it is possible.

Science has a lot to do with exact measurements. Exact, precise, if not concise. So how can Science "believe" the random chance that the Universe knocked around and became its current state? Shouldn't Science believe that a higher being had created the Universe with exactness and precision?

No, because, as a rule of thumb, entities are not to be multiplied without necessity: i.e., you don't try to explain things by merely postulating other things which cause them. Because then you have to postulate yet more things which cause the things which cause the things which... and so on. One interesting feature of the universe seems to be an organising principle, where complexity can arise apparently spontaneously out of disorder. Now, you could claim that this organising principle is God, or evidence of God: but you could equally claim that it's the result of random chance originating at the Big Bang, i.e. we just happen to exist in a universe with the right sets of physical laws which allow for complexity. If we didn't, then we wouldn't be here to wonder where all the complexity came from. There is no need to assume some outside entity, whose existence would then require further explanation itself.

The existence or non-existence of God is outside science. It's an untestable hypothesis, and therefore immune to scientific criticism or validation.

Still, how can something come out of nothing? The Big Bang originated because "nothing" reacted with "nothing", so "something" was born? That is what intrigues me the most.

If the world is as unstable and dynamic as the evolutionists claim, how can scientific laws be established? Constant variables must be assumed for laws to be valid. Scientific laws has no place in a constantly evolving and changing physical world. The strongest explanation would rather be someone, or something, built the Universe as stable as it can be and so scientific laws can be established.

Science is always trying to "disprove" God. Science cannot say how God can exist. However, rather than saying that "God does not exist because Science cannot prove it", another possibility would be "Science cannot prove the existence of God because God is above Science". That's as valid as the first statement, isn't it? Therefore you can't just discount God from Science simply because Science cannot prove it. It just shows how incapable Man is to comprehend the greatness of God.

By chance, eh. Well if you do, as you say you do believe in life as a product of chance here is the odds that this chance of life occurred.

Ahem... Life as you know it would occur once out of every 10 to the 400,000th power times. Iv'e put that in my calculator in my computer, after it reaches 10 to the 69th power you get error.

This all according to a Buddhist mathematician. By the way classical Buddhism is basically atheism.

Now I personally would rather believe the, as Arthur Schlesinger calls them, "mystic prophets of the absolute" than take those odds.

*sigh* please actually read my post. for one thing, nobody can possibly calculate the actual odds of humanity evolving because we don't know all the variables, so you can't just punch it into your calculator. but even if you could, and did, who cares? read my post, i already explained why your line of thinking is looking at the problem backwards.

you don't have to take ANY odds...the fact that we exist shows what outcome happened. it's like this: what are the odds that your parents' DNA would combine exactly the way they did to form you exactly the way you are? i won't go into the genetics of it, but they are pretty huge odds, and even Vegas wouldn't take that kind of bet. yet here you are...because, by chance, that's how it turned out. if something had been slightly different then you would be slightly different, and if something had been hugely different you might never have come to be in your present form. does that mean it's impossible for you to exist, or for chance to have brought you about? hell no. you are living proof that it is possible.

First off, those aren't my numbers, those are a educated atheistic mathematicians numbers. As for the accuracy of those numbers, who knows, there certainly is a lot of wiggle room.

As for your biology lesson, I could simply say that (and I know this isn't the point of the thread) God willed me to be born exactly the way I am. Therefore the odds are 1 to 1. But that would be cheap.

Still, how can something come out of nothing? The Big Bang originated because "nothing" reacted with "nothing", so "something" was born? That is what intrigues me the most.

If the world is as unstable and dynamic as the evolutionists claim, how can scientific laws be established? Constant variables must be assumed for laws to be valid. Scientific laws has no place in a constantly evolving and changing physical world.

Science is always trying to "disprove" God.

Something coming from nothing is no less a problem when you add God into the equation. Where did God come from? If God doesn't need a prior cause, why does the universe? Regardless, the strength of science comes from its willingness to have unanswered questions, rather than plugging its holes with magical explanations. Zeus doesn't cause the lightening, and the mystery surrounding the universe's origins does NOT in and of itself prove God.

There is no such thing as a scientific law. Everything is relative. That's what Einstein was on about. Scientific "laws" are simply scientific theories (and I'm not going to explain again the difference between a hypothesis and a scientific theory) that have been so well established that it we have absolutely every reason to believe they will never be challenged. But even the big ones (gravity, thermodynamics) are not above the possibility of disproof, if truly compelling evidence should come to light. And certainly in the biological sciences, trying to establish anything like a law is well nigh impossible. Life doesn't always behave in predictable patterns. And a predictable pattern is vital to the establishment of a scientific "law" (which is really still just a theory).

And good science, unlike religion, does not start with the opinion, then set out to prove it right. Good science asks "Is this true or false?", not "How can I prove that this is false?" The latter is totally contrary to the spirit of science. No scientist ever has or probably ever will establish the non-existence of God. God is not a testable hypothesis. Now, many scientists (though certainly not all) are atheists. Often, this is because He seems superfluous to them in a scientifically ordered universe. But that is a personal opinion, not a scientific conclusion. And no respectable scientist would ever consider publishing a scientific paper on God's non-existence, because no evidence could ever be sufficient.

question...one of the laws of Thermodynamicts(Typo im guessing) states that an object let alone by itself will get worse not better. Now the Theory of evolution states that every organism is getting better...one more question...Reptiles and amphimians were around before the primates or the "missing link". So how come we dont have highly advanced lizard populace running around?

question...one of the laws of Thermodynamicts(Typo im guessing) states that an object let alone by itself will get worse not better. Now the Theory of evolution states that every organism is getting better...one more question...Reptiles and amphimians were around before the primates or the "missing link". So how come we dont have highly advanced lizard populace running around?

Ok... the theory of evolution does NOT state that everything is getting better. Science rarely uses the words "better" and "worse" in fact. Evolution simply states that those organisms that are best suited to their environment will have the highest rate of survival, and so species will over time come to take on a form that is beneficial in a particular environment. Eventually the change becomes great enough that the new form can no longer interbreed with the old, and it is a new species.
The idea you're trying to apply is entropy, which says that, left alone, matter will tend towards a simpler and more chaotic form. Which is true. But life doesn't LEAVE matter alone. And you cannot take entropy, which refers to matter decay, and apply it to entire species. It doesn't work. Entropy isn't about species. It is partical physics.

As for super-intelligent lizards, the answer is a two-parter: Mammals are dominant on earth because we were better equipped than lizards during the last ice age. Large warmblooded animals survive much better than large cold-blooded ones; and lizards never developed great intelligence before that because they never needed to. Evolution only occurs because the environment puts stress on a species to change or die. Dinosaurs did just fine for millions of years without much brainpower. They didn't need it, so it didn't develop. Clearly, people don't have the natural defenses that dinosaurs had, so we either had to improve or get out of the game. So we improved.
It has also been hypothesized that internal temperature control (warm blood) may be vital to a creatures ability to develop higher brain activities.

I think the term your looking for that applies to evolution is "successfull". Better or worse are subjective terms, when a mutation is more successfull in dealing with it's environment than the form it mutated from, it usually surplants the earlier form. Thats evolution in it's simplest form.

Finally, I would like to point out that Leylsh’s argument about common sense makes absolutely no sense. Common sense tells us that the sun rises and sets – in fact, the earth rotates around the sun (and I would like to point out here that no one has ever gone out into space far enough to sit and watch this happen…we know this from inferring it from the best scientific evidence we have available). Common sense tells us that the earth is flat: the Greeks knew this wasn’t so two thousand years ago. However, the first scientific evidence that would have been any use to the creationists didn’t appear until 1961 when the first photographs of the earth from outer space came back to us (Of course those photos were probably faked, liked the moon landing and the holocaust).

Oh come on! You dont need pictures of earth from space to understand the complexity of nature. The Holocaust happened. And the moon landing! To say that they didnt is nuts! It completly ruins you arugment, as there are thousands of Holocaust survivors still living today. I mean...HELLO? Ever been to the US national Holocaust museum? The moon landing didnt happen..well thats new and interesting news..yeah right!


Using shadows, the curvature of the earth and the horizon as evidence of a spherical earth are too close to scientific mysticism to be useful for most creationists. Common sense cannot account for atoms (after all, no one has ever seen a proton), but I'd encourage you to ask the people of Hiroshima or Nagasaki what they think about atomic theory. Common sense tells us that the continents aren’t moving…in fact it goes directly against my common sense to believe that the surface of the earth is spinning at a thousand miles an hour as we careen through the solar system – that doesn’t make it any less true. Indeed, so much of our perception of everyday life is counter intuitive. Reality (however you choose to define it) is frequently contrary to perception. Often enough, in fact, that making an argument against science using common sense as your linch pin comes awfully close to an insult to any thinking person. Tsk tsk Leylsh.

Common sense does not replace commonly known facts~proven facts~ about science. You cannot pretend it does. And oh yeah, I'm sorry if i insulted any thinking person...i didnt mean to. :roll:

Saying that you have to explain those things is like saying no one should talk about Aesop's fables because foxes don't really talk.

the problem is that precious few people are able to take the Bible with the
same sense of perspective as fables...after all, you don't see people
worshiping an imaginary talking fox because the Book of Aesop claims it exists.

Don't get me wrong here. I know you'll disagree, but I do find quite a bit of truth in the Bible and I don't see the whole thing as merely fables. And I do believe in God, although not just because the Bible says so. But there is a huge difference between truth with a capital T (as in "everything has to be literal") and truth. I believe that there is some historical fact in the Bible, but that a great deal of it is meant to be metaphorical. And I use both logic and faith to determine which parts are which.

The difference is, that unlike the more fundamentalist Christians, I apply
logic as well as faith to my reading of the Bible. Where something directly
contradicts faith in a loving God, I see it as part of a society that believed
they were doing the right thing but were not infallible (ie stoning of women who were raped because they weren't able to get saved, genocide in the OT, etc). Where something is directly contradictory to science, I also see it as being the understanding of an infallible person who didn't know how things work (ie the "sun standing still in the sky" or the creation of Eve from Adam's rib). And finally, where the Bible directly contradicts itself either in principle (love thy neighboor vs. go commit genocide) or in historical "fact" (the first vs. the second creation story) I use faith in determining which part is correct or view the story as being metaphorical.

Because Genesis contradicts itself directly, I know that it is not historical Truth. I also know there is scientific evidence that is contrary to the Genesis story that people like to pretend is the only one because they listen to what others say instead of actually reading. But that doesn't automatically make me believe that God doesn't exist. It just means that I believe God created the system that resulted in evolution.

Oh come on! You dont need pictures of earth from space to understand the complexity of nature. The Holocaust happened. And the moon landing! To say that they didnt is nuts! It completly ruins you arugment, as there are thousands of Holocaust survivors still living today. I mean...HELLO? Ever been to the US national Holocaust museum? The moon landing didnt happen..well thats new and interesting news..yeah right!

Ok, I could be completley off base here, but I'm pretty sure they were being sarcastic. And I'm equally sure you missed it completely. I think the point was that the same people who argue against evolution often claim that those two things were faked. Got it now?

Common sense does not replace commonly known facts~proven facts~ about science. You cannot pretend it does. And oh yeah, I'm sorry if i insulted any thinking person...i didnt mean to. :roll:

You mean commonly known facts about science like random mutation? That's not what you said before...

So lets talk about evolution and chance.
Those opposed to evolution often cite the "what are the chances that all of these things could just happen to occur... that our planet has the right conditions for life, that life should just happen to lead to intelligence and complexity, that WE should be that intelligent, complex life?"
Well, think of it this way: life began in the form of self-repeating amino acids... molecular chains that, by their nature, cause copies of themselves to form. That is really the biggest leap in all of evolution. And laboratory studies have shown that these amino acids are almost bound to occur in conditions resembling those of young Earth. (I'll try to find the source if you really want it. It was written about in Time several years ago). So anyway, from there on out, it is just a matter of competition. Amino acids that have some advantage (say they use more common elements, or they duplicate more efficiently) are going to become more common. Amino acid strings that become long enough and complicated enough may have advantages in size and mobility, or may be able to use smaller amino acids as "food"...adding them whole to their structure. On and on... soon animo acids grow so large and complex that they are no longer amino acids at all, but rather single celled organisms.
Same sort of thing happens again. Larger, more efficient, more complex lifeforms have the advantage, and so they increase in number.
Multi-cellular life...
Vertebrates...
Mammals...
Humans... (skipping a lot of steps there. Proving a point, not wasting space). (And not implying that humans are some how the END product of evolution... we're just another successful animal.)
What I'm saying is, evolution isn't one chance out of billions. Given certain circumstances, it is quite possible, if not likely, if not nearly inevitable.
So why this planet? So why human beings? So why ME? What are the chances that any given planet can support life as we know it? Not good. What are the chances that humans specifically would evolve? Not good. What are the chances that I, out of all the possible people who might have existed, came to be born? Not good. Not good at all.
But think of it this way: given that life coming to exist under certain conditions is likely, existence isn't roulette, it is a lottery. Chances are lousy that any one planet, any one species, and one individual will exist. But the chance that SOME planet, that SOME species, that SOME individual will exist is nearly 100%. If it wasn't you, if it wasn't us, if it wasn't here, it would be someone else, something else, somewhere else. So just look at your existence, as a human, on a planet that supports life as one long string of lottery wins. Congratulations. You're very lucky. The odds are hideously against you, but SOMEONE had to win...

So lets talk about evolution and chance.
Those opposed to evolution often cite the "what are the chances that all of these things could just happen to occur... that our planet has the right conditions for life, that life should just happen to lead to intelligence and complexity, that WE should be that intelligent, complex life?"
Well, think of it this way: life began in the form of self-repeating amino acids... molecular chains that, by their nature, cause copies of themselves to form. That is really the biggest leap in all of evolution. And laboratory studies have shown that these amino acids are almost bound to occur in conditions resembling those of young Earth. (I'll try to find the source if you really want it. It was written about in Time several years ago). So anyway, from there on out, it is just a matter of competition. Amino acids that have some advantage (say they use more common elements, or they duplicate more efficiently) are going to become more common. Amino acid strings that become long enough and complicated enough may have advantages in size and mobility, or may be able to use smaller amino acids as "food"...adding them whole to their structure. On and on... soon animo acids grow so large and complex that they are no longer amino acids at all, but rather single celled organisms.
Same sort of thing happens again. Larger, more efficient, more complex lifeforms have the advantage, and so they increase in number.
Multi-cellular life...
Vertebrates...
Mammals...
Humans... (skipping a lot of steps there. Proving a point, not wasting space). (And not implying that humans are some how the END product of evolution... we're just another successful animal.)
What I'm saying is, evolution isn't one chance out of billions. Given certain circumstances, it is quite possible, if not likely, if not nearly inevitable.
So why this planet? So why human beings? So why ME? What are the chances that any given planet can support life as we know it? Not good. What are the chances that humans specifically would evolve? Not good. What are the chances that I, out of all the possible people who might have existed, came to be born? Not good. Not good at all.
But think of it this way: given that life coming to exist under certain conditions is likely, existence isn't roulette, it is a lottery. Chances are lousy that any one planet, any one species, and one individual will exist. But the chance that SOME planet, that SOME species, that SOME individual will exist is nearly 100%. If it wasn't you, if it wasn't us, if it wasn't here, it would be someone else, something else, somewhere else. So just look at your existence, as a human, on a planet that supports life as one long string of lottery wins. Congratulations. You're very lucky. The odds are hideously against you, but SOMEONE had to win...

But think of it this way: given that life coming to exist under certain conditions is likely, existence isn't roulette, it is a lottery. Chances are lousy that any one planet, any one species, and one individual will exist. But the chance that SOME planet, that SOME species, that SOME individual will exist is nearly 100%. If it wasn't you, if it wasn't us, if it wasn't here, it would be someone else, something else, somewhere else. So just look at your existence, as a human, on a planet that supports life as one long string of lottery wins. Congratulations. You're very lucky. The odds are hideously against you, but SOMEONE had to win...

Another problem I see with the "what are the odds?" argument is that it kind of assumes that the God they are proposing can't figure out evolution. I know some people do try to say evolution disproves God or whatever, but there are many who believe that evolution is God's mechanism of creation. Now, take the idea of an all-knowing supreme being. Such a being could calculate for all of the possible variables and basically predict the future, knowing what would happen by chance at the end of things. Thus, an all-knowing creator could begin the mechanisms of evolution with all the right variables to end up in humans if it so desired. I think the problem is that many people can't understand the concept so they assume their God can't either.

But think of it this way: given that life coming to exist under certain conditions is likely, existence isn't roulette, it is a lottery. Chances are lousy that any one planet, any one species, and one individual will exist. But the chance that SOME planet, that SOME species, that SOME individual will exist is nearly 100%. If it wasn't you, if it wasn't us, if it wasn't here, it would be someone else, something else, somewhere else. So just look at your existence, as a human, on a planet that supports life as one long string of lottery wins. Congratulations. You're very lucky. The odds are hideously against you, but SOMEONE had to win...

Another problem I see with the "what are the odds?" argument is that it kind of assumes that the God they are proposing can't figure out evolution. I know some people do try to say evolution disproves God or whatever, but there are many who believe that evolution is God's mechanism of creation. Now, take the idea of an all-knowing supreme being. Such a being could calculate for all of the possible variables and basically predict the future, knowing what would happen by chance at the end of things. Thus, an all-knowing creator could begin the mechanisms of evolution with all the right variables to end up in humans if it so desired. I think the problem is that many people can't understand the concept so they assume their God can't either.

it's wrong because so sayeth jesus!

it's wrong because so sayeth jesus!

Jesus was great... it is Christians I can't stand. Jesus never knocked evolution.

But seriously, I can stand Christians. Most of them are very nice.

But seriously seriously, I get that the post was sarcastic.

secondly... people believe we evolved from monkeys. A evolution is supposed to be an upgrade... yet we don't have fur a handy little thing to keep you warm. We don't have talls... something highly useful (its like a 3rd hand but wiht no fingers). We don't have the great tree climbing abilities. So how can this be evolution? Some people say we got knowledge from evolution... so we lost very handy useful things... and we got knowledge? So does that mean that to evolve you have to trade in some of you current traits for different ones?

no cebat its cause people decided to get lazy; an effect from our right side of the brain(creativity ect.). Our right side was mosty developed because of surpluses and extra time. This is what influnced the renaissance; because europe was beginning better government and trade. But to get back to the whole evolution thing. I heard once from a priest at my granpas funeral that scientists say that there are two things that make humans different from the others in the animal kingdom; our respect for the dead and our ability to change our environment to us, not us to the environment. Through the millions of years the homo hibalis, homo erectus and homo sapien have learned what works easily and what doesn't. To them it was survival; to get it done the easiest and fastest you can with the best results...efficientcy. Thats what it boils down to; Man became efficient so fast that his relaxing time became a prize. We all want to be lazy, but back to adaptation. When we change our environment, shelter for example, whe spark in our brain to be passed down to other species that we dont need to be waterproof or have hair to keep warm; other things do it for us. The neanderthals learned to farm with the homo sapiens(im not confuesed they are different). Now they dont need to know what plants are good to find and pick their fruits, now they harvest them. Now they can stay in one place and not spend time travelling to find more food and they can build shelter and loose these traits. When was the last time you needed a 3rd hand or more speed? Maybe its cause your ancestors decided to be lazy. If we werent so dependent on our inventions over the years there wouldnt be such inability to do things. I think we should use those things as a quick fix for big problems not all the time. Think about a million years from now we might just be like the aliens you always would see on t.v. Skinny with a big head, sure we could compute and have effiecient machines but anyone could beat the cr*p out of them.

For that matter, the first single celled organisms are extremely complex and the idea that they could be spontaneously generated is almost silly.

The first single-celled organisms have been extinct for millions of years. You have no idea how complex they were, neither do you know the mechanism by which they were generated, therefore your conclusion is invalid.

it's wrong because so sayeth jesus!

Jesus was great... it is Christians I can't stand. Jesus never knocked evolution.

But seriously, I can stand Christians. Most of them are very nice.

But seriously seriously, I get that the post was sarcastic.

hold on now, ask any knowlageable christian. Or ask my religion teacher, every roman catholic official like the pope ect. says the bible is not meant to be literal. The porpose is what we learn not how we are taught it. The bible says people were 700 years old, not very possible right? But the point was that the man was old and therefore wise. The point was the man was very wise from very old age and he followed gods will. Its like parables by jesus.

Now i am "roman catholic" according to my parents and go to a private school, but i am not religious.

For that matter, the first single celled organisms are extremely complex and the idea that they could be spontaneously generated is almost silly.

The first single-celled organisms have been extinct for millions of years. You have no idea how complex they were, neither do you know the mechanism by which they were generated, therefore your conclusion is invalid.

Ok, to be fair... not necessarily so. Archaebacteria (may be spelling that wrong) are so called because they are believed to resemble early single-celled life on our planet. Also, the very fact of single-celled life implies a certain complexity. Even the very simplest cells have several features... a cell border (in some cases a wall), a means of taking in nourishment, a means of processing that nourishment, and a means whereby to reproduce. And each of those depends on a set of simpler features.

Fortunately, the idea that single-celled life was generated spontaneously IS silly, and not a tenet of evolution. As covered in my post above, single-celled life comes out of a complication of amino acids (over long periods of time), not some spontaneous genesis. That would be creationism.

Single celled organisms are complex, in the absolute sense, and we have only gotten more complex by leaps and bounds since. Not a series of mutations but mainly a series of selective cultivation (only the hairiest elephant [ancestors] at the start of the last ice age, becoming, generation by generation, wooly mammoths).

If you're looking for something like an intermediate form between life and non-life, by the way, look at viruses. That is exactly what they are. They're not technically alive (because they do not reproduce themselves), but they sure seem that way.

hold on now, ask any knowlageable christian. Or ask my religion teacher, every roman catholic official like the pope ect. says the bible is not meant to be literal. The porpose is what we learn not how we are taught it. The bible says people were 700 years old, not very possible right? But the point was that the man was old and therefore wise. The point was the man was very wise from very old age and he followed gods will. Its like parables by jesus.

Now i am "roman catholic" according to my parents and go to a private school, but i am not religious.

Yeah, I meant it when I said I like most Christians. I was joking around. And I do agree there are lots of good lessons in there. In fact, if you eliminate the Gospel according to Paul, the New Testament is a pretty solid (and relatively miracle free) guide to good living.

With the exception of a lot of what Paul wrote (over rated, biased, patriarchal, and the list goes on), I have to agree that the New Testament is filled with good stuff.
I am not a Christian, however I've spent most of my life being one. Although Jesus's teachings are right on, a lot of the time.. also, he never once claimed that he was "dying for our sins", or to "cleanse us from our sins", or any of that. I think that's just a guilt-trap the church threw in... But that's another topic.
But his preachings of ways of living are incredible. After studying a number of religions, a lot of what he says matches up with big ideas in others. There are many similiarities to what he taught and to what is taught in Islam and Buddhism.. although each differ in their own ways as well.

It makes me wonder... maybe it's these remaining truths that we should really focus on?

But yeah... those teachings are gorgeous.

Sorry for the thread hijack right there, however.

As far as evolution goes, I have no qualms with it. I'm sure the theories will continue to be revised, though, because I don't think it's totally bulletproof yet.

Who cares? If somone finds value in creation let them. Personally, I can't stand all the fanciful imaginings of the religiously motivated, but hey they have the right to whatever their minds can concieve. Frankly, I rather like the idea of evolution. It's better than say the theory that God created all animals perfect at creation. This was a rather short sighted and flawed argument circulating during the time of Darwin. Since we can easily look at records of past animals who have adapted to fill new niches in nature. Especially animals we have seen adapting to the environments artificially created by Human occupation of an area. Evolution is a concept that argues that things change over time to meet the struggle of new changes in the environment. If people want to say that doesn't happen. Great! You can ignore the observations and bury your head in the sand.

The sad point of this thread is to give legitamacy to a set of religious criteria for living. The scientist that explore nature to find the mechinism of the natural world aren't out to prove or disprove the existance of God. So why does it matter so much that evolution is a pretty compelling look at our natural world. Does the religious community have to have control of everyones life ie. Public education because deep down they are insecure about their beliefs. People associate evolution with an Athiesm. I find that sad. Athiest support evolution as a concept because it is the only good widely accepted observation/interpretation of available data that doesn't require belief in divine will.

My final thought here is this: When religion trys to co-op science in an attempt to dup the masses into believing in faith by puting new names on old ideas that sound "scientific". I get sick inside. Instead of being honest, Christian Science bastardizes the honor of the scientific process into psuedo belief system that gives people false assumptions and false conclusions in order to legitimize the belief that some God created the world and how. I've personally had to listen to family members spout the same jibberish jargon they read on some paphlet or they heard from some pudit from the Focus on the Family Organization. They pointed out a lot of flaws in human knowledge but they never offered any competing dialogue other than "if evolution is wrong. God must have done it." Duuuh I'll take reams of data and scientific inquiry over that tidbit of inane babble any day.

Evolution and Nature is far more exciting and awe inspiring than some crappy judeo-christian deity any day of the week. Go team science!

It's ironic that at one time the church was the seat of advanced learning. Nowadays it seems regressive while it grasps at straws.

It's ironic that at one time the church was the seat of advanced learning. Nowadays it seems regressive while it grasps at straws.
On Radio 4 today it said that the Church of England is re-introducing Heresy Trials! Welcome to the loving, inclusive and progressive Church of the 21st century!

"hold on now, ask any knowlageable christian. Or ask my religion teacher, every roman catholic official like the pope ect. says the bible is not meant to be literal. The porpose is what we learn not how we are taught it. The bible says people were 700 years old, not very possible right? But the point was that the man was old and therefore wise. The point was the man was very wise from very old age and he followed gods will. Its like parables by jesus."



But the fact is is that after supposedly the "Great Flood" the water and all destroyed one of the atmosheric layers back in the old days. It was meant for sustaining life longer so that is why you dont see 700 year olds walking down the street

It's ironic that at one time the church was the seat of advanced learning. Nowadays it seems regressive while it grasps at straws.
On Radio 4 today it said that the Church of England is re-introducing Heresy Trials! Welcome to the loving, inclusive and progressive Church of the 21st century!

0_o

It's ironic that at one time the church was the seat of advanced learning. Nowadays it seems regressive while it grasps at straws.
On Radio 4 today it said that the Church of England is re-introducing Heresy Trials! Welcome to the loving, inclusive and progressive Church of the 21st century!

0_o

I'll link it in a new thread, so as to not hi-jack this one.

Another problem I see with the "what are the odds?" argument is that it kind of assumes that the God they are proposing can't figure out evolution. I know some people do try to say evolution disproves God or whatever, but there are many who believe that evolution is God's mechanism of creation. Now, take the idea of an all-knowing supreme being. Such a being could calculate for all of the possible variables and basically predict the future, knowing what would happen by chance at the end of things. Thus, an all-knowing creator could begin the mechanisms of evolution with all the right variables to end up in humans if it so desired.

I think the problem is that many people can't understand the concept so they assume their God can't either.

I’ll try this post again :)

The thing is, if God did exist and tried to calculate the percentages when he created everything, there would still be just a chance that humans would evolve. One important thing about evolution is that the mutations are random. So, if there was no interference by God, then humans would still have evolved by chance. He could calculate the chance exactly, but we would still be a chance event.

The only real way to ensure that we existed in the future would be for God to nudge the system to make the “right” choice every so often. But that seems more complicated then just having it be random chance all the way.


Little extension...
If you say God could predict chance, then you’re basically saying God could predict every thought/action of everything on the planet before they even existed. Plus, he could predict movements of things in everyone’s cells. It kinda leads to nothing being random ever.

Another problem I see with the "what are the odds?" argument is that it kind of assumes that the God they are proposing can't figure out evolution. I know some people do try to say evolution disproves God or whatever, but there are many who believe that evolution is God's mechanism of creation. Now, take the idea of an all-knowing supreme being. Such a being could calculate for all of the possible variables and basically predict the future, knowing what would happen by chance at the end of things. Thus, an all-knowing creator could begin the mechanisms of evolution with all the right variables to end up in humans if it so desired.

I think the problem is that many people can't understand the concept so they assume their God can't either.

I’ll try this post again :)

The thing is, if God did exist and tried to calculate the percentages when he created everything, there would still be just a chance that humans would evolve. One important thing about evolution is that the mutations are random. So, if there was no interference by God, then humans would still have evolved by chance. He could calculate the chance exactly, but we would still be a chance event.

The only real way to ensure that we existed in the future would be for God to nudge the system to make the “right” choice every so often. But that seems more complicated then just having it be random chance all the way.


Little extension...
If you say God could predict chance, then you’re basically saying God could predict every thought/action of everything on the planet before they even existed. Plus, he could predict movements of things in everyone’s cells. It kinda leads to nothing being random ever.

The thing is, if God did exist and tried to calculate the percentages when he created everything, there would still be just a chance that humans would evolve. One important thing about evolution is that the mutations are random. So, if there was no interference by God, then humans would still have evolved by chance. He could calculate the chance exactly, but we would still be a chance event.

The only real way to ensure that we existed in the future would be for God to nudge the system to make the “right” choice every so often. But that seems more complicated then just having it be random chance all the way.

Little extension...
If you say God could predict chance, then you’re basically saying God could predict every thought/action of everything on the planet before they even existed. Plus, he could predict movements of things in everyone’s cells. It kinda leads to nothing being random ever.

Right. As I said above, the chances that humans specifically would evolve, weren't very good. But something was bound evolve, and lucky for us, it was us.
And if you believe in an omnipotent, omniscient God, there is no reason to imagine that he doesn't have both the power and the intelligence to work out even the most detailed evolutionary calculations, and make things work out the way He wants. And yeah, the logical extension of the idea that God knows everything and can do anything is that absolutely nothing is ever by chance, because if God didn't like something, He could see it coming and change it. (And if he doesn't change it, He has no right to complain).

Ok, I could be completley off base here, but I'm pretty sure they were being sarcastic. And I'm equally sure you missed it completely. I think the point was that the same people who argue against evolution often claim that those two things were faked. Got it now?

OooKay, if that was the case, I apologize to Mercer and McDowell, but if it wasn't, then I do not, since they both undoubtedly happened.



You mean commonly known facts about science like random mutation? That's not what you said before...

I never said mutations didnt happen, i merely stated that mutations which added new, helpful information have never happened.

The thing is, if God did exist and tried to calculate the percentages when he created everything, there would still be just a chance that humans would evolve. One important thing about evolution is that the mutations are random.

So, if there was no interference by God, then humans would still have evolved by chance. He could calculate the chance exactly, but we would still be a chance event.

Not really. If you know all of the possible variables (which an all-
knowing being would), you can effectively predict the future. You are thinking about how human beings can calculate for randomness, but remember that we do not know every variable and cannot possibly conceive of every possibility. An all-knowing being could.

The only real way to ensure that we existed in the future would be for God to nudge the system to make the “right” choice every so often. But that seems more complicated then just having it be random chance all the way.

Not if, as above, God is all-knowing and set it up to run correctly from the
very beginning with all the proper variables.

Little extension...
If you say God could predict chance, then you’re basically saying God could predict every thought/action of everything on the planet before they even existed. Plus, he could predict movements of things in everyone’s cells. It kinda leads to nothing being random ever.

It is still random, just known. For instance, I know that a certain percentage of cells grown in culture develop chromosomal defects. If I knew all the variables that go into causing that, I could pinpoint exactly which cell at which point in development. This doesn't make it any less random.
And most people who believe in an all-powerful, all-knowing God do believe God knows every thought/action of everything on the planet forever. Otherwise, God wouldn't be all-powerful and all-knowing.

look at yourself. if you have taken a biology class, or even thought of what a complex creation you are, it is impossible to believe that you are an accident.

molecules wouldnt randomly organize themselves into proteins. or if they did, they would not have life. more than proteins are necessary for one cell. a cell would not accidentally happen. if it did, it would die or be destroyed by oxidation or any number of other things before it could reproduce once, let alone mutate.

how would an organism suddenly start mutating into different genders? it would require countless mutations, and take a long time, and in that time some mutations would make it unable to reproduce. thats impossible.

one of the misconceptions about evolution is that it is one big theory. there are two types: microevolution and macroevolution. microevolution is perfectly reasonable. birds have genes for their wing length. if a mutation happens and the wing length increases, and it is favorable, a microevolution has occurred.

dinosaurs have a frickin lot of genes, but none of them are genes for feathers. dinosaurs dont turn into birds, because a mutation would not suddenly happen that gives them all the extra dna they need for feathers or wings.

entropy is a LAW of thermodynamics. it says that everything moves from order to disorder. evolution completely defies this. it just isnt possible.

entropy is a LAW of thermodynamics. it says that everything moves from order to disorder. evolution completely defies this. it just isnt possible.

I started a long diatribe about this but lost it with the server timing out. Here is a quick and simple explanation from talkorgins.org on why this claim is wrong.

This shows more a misconception about thermodynamics than about evolution. The second law of thermodynamics says, "No process is possible in which the sole result is the transfer of energy from a cooler to a hotter body." [Atkins, 1984, The Second Law, pg. 25] Now you may be scratching your head wondering what this has to do with evolution. The confusion arises when the 2nd law is phrased in another equivalent way, "The entropy of a closed system cannot decrease." Entropy is an indication of unusable energy and often (but not always!) corresponds to intuitive notions of disorder or randomness. Creationists thus misinterpret the 2nd law to say that things invariably progress from order to disorder.

However, they neglect the fact that life is not a closed system. The sun provides more than enough energy to drive things. If a mature tomato plant can have more usable energy than the seed it grew from, why should anyone expect that the next generation of tomatoes can't have more usable energy still? Creationists sometimes try to get around this by claiming that the information carried by living things lets them create order. However, not only is life irrelevant to the 2nd law, but order from disorder is common in nonliving systems, too. Snowflakes, sand dunes, tornadoes, stalactites, graded river beds, and lightning are just a few examples of order coming from disorder in nature; none require an intelligent program to achieve that order. In any nontrivial system with lots of energy flowing through it, you are almost certain to find order arising somewhere in the system. If order from disorder is supposed to violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics, why is it ubiquitous in nature?

The thermodynamics argument against evolution displays a misconception about evolution as well as about thermodynamics, since a clear understanding of how evolution works should reveal major flaws in the argument. Evolution says that organisms reproduce with only small changes between generations (after their own kind, so to speak). For example, animals might have appendages which are longer or shorter, thicker or flatter, lighter or darker than their parents. Occasionally, a change might be on the order of having four or six fingers instead of five. Once the differences appear, the theory of evolution calls for differential reproductive success. For example, maybe the animals with longer appendages survive to have more offspring than short-appendaged ones. All of these processes can be observed today. They obviously don't violate any physical laws.

look at yourself. if you have taken a biology class, or even thought of what a complex creation you are, it is impossible to believe that you are an accident.

molecules wouldnt randomly organize themselves into proteins. or if they did, they would not have life. more than proteins are necessary for one cell. a cell would not accidentally happen. if it did, it would die or be destroyed by oxidation or any number of other things before it could reproduce once, let alone mutate.

how would an organism suddenly start mutating into different genders? it would require countless mutations, and take a long time, and in that time some mutations would make it unable to reproduce. thats impossible.

one of the misconceptions about evolution is that it is one big theory. there are two types: microevolution and macroevolution. microevolution is perfectly reasonable. birds have genes for their wing length. if a mutation happens and the wing length increases, and it is favorable, a microevolution has occurred.

dinosaurs have a frickin lot of genes, but none of them are genes for feathers. dinosaurs dont turn into birds, because a mutation would not suddenly happen that gives them all the extra dna they need for feathers or wings.

entropy is a LAW of thermodynamics. it says that everything moves from order to disorder. evolution completely defies this. it just isnt possible.

Disregarding the entropy bit, I have some problems with this. I can believe I have resulted from random chance without any need for a God or something guiding my evolution from little tiny particles.

A couple of places you discuss that mutations can’t suddenly happen and produce large scale changes in organisms. Mutations (as pointed out earlier in this thread) don’t have to produce any change at all, and even when they do, it’s changing ONE protein. Now I grant you that some proteins are really important and can affect a person, but those mutations usually lead to premature death, not enhanced life. The point of evolution is that the mutations would build up and layer on top of each other until you had an organism with traits (new combos of proteins) that weren’t possible in the same species many generations previous. Yes, it takes countless mutations to create complex traits, and yes the majority of mutations that are occurring are harmful. But that doesn’t mean it couldn’t have happened.

For example, the gender evolution. That’s actually something you can create an explanation for. If you say everyone started out creating equal gametes, where they were the same size and took the same energy to construct, then if one organism “cheated” and created a gamete of a slightly smaller size, then when paired with a normal gamete, the offspring would be a little smaller, but possible could survive. If that worked, then the cheating organism could make more gametes, and if more offspring survived, then it would have spread it’s genes more.

The problem comes when the new offspring that create gametes that are smaller come in contact with themselves and create gametes. Maybe their offspring would survive, maybe not. But there would still be the larger gamete makers present. Basically, once the paths diverged enough, it would just be a runaway to where the sperm is basically a sack to hold the DNA and the egg contains all the nutrients and cellular material that the new offspring will need to develop.

(I don’t know if that made sense, hopefully it did :))

i have read the "Origins Of Spicies" and i can't find anything wrong with it. some of it is proven but some of it is just logic.

Something coming from nothing is no less a problem when you add God into the equation. Where did God come from? If God doesn't need a prior cause, why does the universe? Regardless, the strength of science comes from its willingness to have unanswered questions, rather than plugging its holes with magical explanations. Zeus doesn't cause the lightening, and the mystery surrounding the universe's origins does NOT in and of itself prove God.

There is no such thing as a scientific law. Everything is relative. That's what Einstein was on about. Scientific "laws" are simply scientific theories (and I'm not going to explain again the difference between a hypothesis and a scientific theory) that have been so well established that it we have absolutely every reason to believe they will never be challenged. But even the big ones (gravity, thermodynamics) are not above the possibility of disproof, if truly compelling evidence should come to light. And certainly in the biological sciences, trying to establish anything like a law is well nigh impossible. Life doesn't always behave in predictable patterns. And a predictable pattern is vital to the establishment of a scientific "law" (which is really still just a theory).

And good science, unlike religion, does not start with the opinion, then set out to prove it right. Good science asks "Is this true or false?", not "How can I prove that this is false?" The latter is totally contrary to the spirit of science. No scientist ever has or probably ever will establish the non-existence of God. God is not a testable hypothesis. Now, many scientists (though certainly not all) are atheists. Often, this is because He seems superfluous to them in a scientifically ordered universe. But that is a personal opinion, not a scientific conclusion. And no respectable scientist would ever consider publishing a scientific paper on God's non-existence, because no evidence could ever be sufficient.

God's there because God's there. He doesn't need to be made because He is THE origin. You can't physically "prove" the existence of God because religion is subjective. Personally, I feel the existence of God in my life, but apparently that's not the case for you.

But don't you get it? Currently billions of things are subject to Earth's gravity. Whether it's a law or not, that's simply not possible under evolution because evolution claims that the Universe is constantly changing.

The origin of the Universe may never be found, simply because there are no direct, historical records of the event. The closest you can get is Creationism in the Bible, and maybe some myths and legends in ancient civilisations. Those records never claim evolution - not because they weren't smart enough to do so, but maybe because evolution never happened.

Something coming from nothing is no less a problem when you add God into the equation. Where did God come from? If God doesn't need a prior cause, why does the universe? Regardless, the strength of science comes from its willingness to have unanswered questions, rather than plugging its holes with magical explanations. Zeus doesn't cause the lightening, and the mystery surrounding the universe's origins does NOT in and of itself prove God.

There is no such thing as a scientific law. Everything is relative. That's what Einstein was on about. Scientific "laws" are simply scientific theories (and I'm not going to explain again the difference between a hypothesis and a scientific theory) that have been so well established that it we have absolutely every reason to believe they will never be challenged. But even the big ones (gravity, thermodynamics) are not above the possibility of disproof, if truly compelling evidence should come to light. And certainly in the biological sciences, trying to establish anything like a law is well nigh impossible. Life doesn't always behave in predictable patterns. And a predictable pattern is vital to the establishment of a scientific "law" (which is really still just a theory).

And good science, unlike religion, does not start with the opinion, then set out to prove it right. Good science asks "Is this true or false?", not "How can I prove that this is false?" The latter is totally contrary to the spirit of science. No scientist ever has or probably ever will establish the non-existence of God. God is not a testable hypothesis. Now, many scientists (though certainly not all) are atheists. Often, this is because He seems superfluous to them in a scientifically ordered universe. But that is a personal opinion, not a scientific conclusion. And no respectable scientist would ever consider publishing a scientific paper on God's non-existence, because no evidence could ever be sufficient.

God's there because God's there. He doesn't need to be made because He is THE origin. You can't physically "prove" the existence of God because religion is subjective. Personally, I feel the existence of God in my life, but apparently that's not the case for you.

But don't you get it? Currently billions of things are subject to Earth's gravity. Whether it's a law or not, that's simply not possible under evolution because evolution claims that the Universe is constantly changing.

The origin of the Universe may never be found, simply because there are no direct, historical records of the event. The closest you can get is Creationism in the Bible, and maybe some myths and legends in ancient civilisations. Those records never claim evolution - not because they weren't smart enough to do so, but maybe because evolution never happened.

or they just didnt know about it

or they just didnt know about it

Come come. We can assume that prehistoric people passed down stories by mouth, then finally getting to write them down. How can it be that none of these stories suggest evolution? As far as the stories I've read it was always creation by a higher being.

or they just didnt know about it

Come come. We can assume that prehistoric people passed down stories by mouth, then finally getting to write them down. How can it be that none of these stories suggest evolution? As far as the stories I've read it was always creation by a higher being.

they didnt know. they attempted to explain. they came up with spirits and gods

or they just didnt know about it

Come come. We can assume that prehistoric people passed down stories by mouth, then finally getting to write them down. How can it be that none of these stories suggest evolution? As far as the stories I've read it was always creation by a higher being.

they didnt know. they attempted to explain. they came up with spirits and gods
unanimously? mind you, there was not one, not ONE ancient, classical AND medieval civilisation that was athiest.

or they just didnt know about it

Come come. We can assume that prehistoric people passed down stories by mouth, then finally getting to write them down. How can it be that none of these stories suggest evolution? As far as the stories I've read it was always creation by a higher being.

they didnt know. they attempted to explain. they came up with spirits and gods
unanimously? mind you, there was not one, not ONE ancient, classical AND medieval civilisation that was athiest.

science :p

science :p

And in many of the old civilisations, science was a big thing. Many of today's tools were inventions from the past, for example paper from China, the wheel from Mesopotamia, cement from rome etc.
Yet they were religious societies. Can science co-exist with God? Of course.

science :p

And in many of the old civilisations, science was a big thing. Many of today's tools were inventions from the past, for example paper from China, the wheel from Mesopotamia, cement from rome etc.
Yet they were religious societies. Can science co-exist with God? Of course.

like they didnt have telescopes. and computers.

secondly... people believe we evolved from monkeys. A evolution is supposed to be an upgrade... yet we don't have fur a handy little thing to keep you warm. We don't have talls... something highly useful (its like a 3rd hand but wiht no fingers). We don't have the great tree climbing abilities. So how can this be evolution? Some people say we got knowledge from evolution... so we lost very handy useful things... and we got knowledge? So does that mean that to evolve you have to trade in some of you current traits for different ones?

We don't have fur because we developed the ability to don furs and this progressed to clothe making.

We don't have great tree climbing abilities (tho I don't think we are too bad) because we learned to use weapons and had no need to use trees for protection.

We don't have tails because we don't need to be in the trees....but we do have an opposable thumb, which is great for just about everything.

science :p

And in many of the old civilisations, science was a big thing. Many of today's tools were inventions from the past, for example paper from China, the wheel from Mesopotamia, cement from rome etc.
Yet they were religious societies. Can science co-exist with God? Of course.

like they didnt have telescopes. and computers.

now how telescopes and computers reject the existence of God and Creation I don't know...

science :p

And in many of the old civilisations, science was a big thing. Many of today's tools were inventions from the past, for example paper from China, the wheel from Mesopotamia, cement from rome etc.
Yet they were religious societies. Can science co-exist with God? Of course.

like they didnt have telescopes. and computers.

now how telescopes and computers reject the existence of God and Creation I don't know...

nothing can actually disprove or prove the existence of god :P

The key to evolution is not only the traits you see, but the DNA you don't see. Meiosis and conception lead to a little thing called mutation, one of the key factors in evolution. Changes in DNA affect the traits we see. So suddenly we have a primate with an S-curve in its spine. As at this point we are coming down from the trees, abandoning our arboreal lifestyle, the S-curve is an advantage, so the primates with it survive to procreate, while the ones without it, don't.

Advantages lead to survival, but say a mutation occurs which doesn't give an advantage, but doesn't give a disadvantage either? Say, shortening of the tail? Since our lovely groud dwelling primates are no longer brachiating, they don't need the tail. So it is no disadvantage to lose it, so they survive to procreate, creating more short-tailed, and perhaps eventually tail-less primates. Also in this way, a tail might hinder running, and so it would be a disadvantage, and the tailed primates might not be able to efficiently run from predators. So they die. And don't make tailed babies.

Evolution isn't "oh i think i'll grow some flippers now so i can swim". It more like "haha, look at that freak with the flippers, oh sh*t i am drowning, help me flipper-boy!"

So people have been talking about residual organs, right? Yeah, evidence of evolution. Fossils. Evidence of evolution. Similarities in DNA and protein structures? Evidence of evolution. Similarities in skeletal structures? Yep. Evidence of evolution.

When was the last time you looked at some embryos? I bet you couldn't tell the difference between a dog and a human at that stage. Yup, they're pretty much identical, gills and all. This similarity in development? Evidence of evolution.

And finally I'd just like to say something about the sickle cell talk that was going on a bit back. One sickle cell gene prevents malaria. Two sickle cell genes gives sickle cell anemia, causing death. No sickle cell genes leaves you open to malaria, which in some places leads to death. Somewhere along the line, the sickle cell gene became useful, due to malaria. This is why it has persisted. Evidence of evolution? I think so.
Sickle cell genetic makeups looks kinda like this:
Two people have one sickle cell gene (a), and one normal gene (A).
Aa x Aa gives 1/4 aa (sickle cell anemia = die)
1/4 AA (malaria = die)
1/2 Aa (resistance to malaria = survive to procreate.)

Hooray for studies of human biology, which allow me to tell you that evolution is quite obvious if you actually know your facts.

The key to evolution is not only the traits you see, but the DNA you don't see. Meiosis and conception lead to a little thing called mutation, one of the key factors in evolution. Changes in DNA affect the traits we see. So suddenly we have a primate with an S-curve in its spine. As at this point we are coming down from the trees, abandoning our arboreal lifestyle, the S-curve is an advantage, so the primates with it survive to procreate, while the ones without it, don't.

Advantages lead to survival, but say a mutation occurs which doesn't give an advantage, but doesn't give a disadvantage either? Say, shortening of the tail? Since our lovely groud dwelling primates are no longer brachiating, they don't need the tail. So it is no disadvantage to lose it, so they survive to procreate, creating more short-tailed, and perhaps eventually tail-less primates. Also in this way, a tail might hinder running, and so it would be a disadvantage, and the tailed primates might not be able to efficiently run from predators. So they die. And don't make tailed babies.

Evolution isn't "oh i think i'll grow some flippers now so i can swim". It more like "haha, look at that freak with the flippers, oh sh*t i am drowning, help me flipper-boy!"

So people have been talking about residual organs, right? Yeah, evidence of evolution. Fossils. Evidence of evolution. Similarities in DNA and protein structures? Evidence of evolution. Similarities in skeletal structures? Yep. Evidence of evolution.

When was the last time you looked at some embryos? I bet you couldn't tell the difference between a dog and a human at that stage. Yup, they're pretty much identical, gills and all. This similarity in development? Evidence of evolution.

And finally I'd just like to say something about the sickle cell talk that was going on a bit back. One sickle cell gene prevents malaria. Two sickle cell genes gives sickle cell anemia, causing death. No sickle cell genes leaves you open to malaria, which in some places leads to death. Somewhere along the line, the sickle cell gene became useful, due to malaria. This is why it has persisted. Evidence of evolution? I think so.
Sickle cell genetic makeups looks kinda like this:
Two people have one sickle cell gene (a), and one normal gene (A).
Aa x Aa gives 1/4 aa (sickle cell anemia = die)
1/4 AA (malaria = die)
1/2 Aa (resistance to malaria = survive to procreate.)

Hooray for studies of human biology, which allow me to tell you that evolution is quite obvious if you actually know your facts.

But don't you get it? Currently billions of things are subject to Earth's gravity. Whether it's a law or not, that's simply not possible under evolution because evolution claims that the Universe is constantly changing.


wow, i don't know which you misunderstood worse, evolution or gravity.

first of all, evolution deals with living systems on the planet earth, not with actions of all systems everywhere in the universe. second, evolution most certainly does NOT claim that those systems are constantly changing; if an evolutionarily stable solution is found, and no mutations arrise that will uproot it, then a system will remain constant for huge periods of time. for instance, crocodiles are essentially unchanged from the form they had during the time of the dinosaurs, and evolution is not stumped or mystified by that in the least.

third, even IF evolution claimed what you say it does (which it does not), the fact that there is a constant law to the universe wouldn't stop things from constantly changing. to use an odd parallel, there has been a law against murder in human civilizations for millenia...does that mean our civilizations haven't changed, or been constantly developing and morphing? hell no.



The origin of the Universe may never be found, simply because there are no direct, historical records of the event. The closest you can get is Creationism in the Bible, and maybe some myths and legends in ancient civilisations. Those records never claim evolution - not because they weren't smart enough to do so, but maybe because evolution never happened.

i think it's cute how you put the Bible so high but shrudge off the countless religious texts that have been around for thousands of years longer and are held holy by millions more people :). but moving on...

the people back in the day were smart enough to understand the idea of evolution, but they didn't have the reasons to think about it. for one, there is no evidence that rigorous archeology was practiced by early civilizations. for another, intrenched religion stopped people from even asking many of the questions that led to the theory of evolution; you don't bother asking a question if you are sure the priest already told you the answer, after all. for another, until sophisticated long-distance travel was possible, people simply could do research on biological systems in the way that Darwin and others have done while studying evolution.

and for another, it simply didn't occur to anybody for some reason. after all, those early civilizations didn't realize that the earth goes about the sun, but that doesn't mean that they were right all along.

my bad, double post.

nothing can actually disprove or prove the existence of god :P

Fair enough. Religion is a subjective subject, really.

It all comes down to the treatment of and understanding of evidence. Human evolution (like human-sourced climate change) is not proven. However, the evidence we have accumulated over time is strongly suggestive in favour of an evolutionary theory (the same applies to human-sourced climate change). Evidence for creationism is very much weaker; however, by their very nature, creationists are taking this 'truth' on faith. We evolutionists (clumsy term, sorry) should respect this as faith is a fundamental part of the religious psyche.

Too often we find politicians and other groups making decisions on these issues that they are not qualified to make. Scientists are the people we should listen to. If a majority of scientists report that evidence favours evolution and climate change due to human activity, then that's what our shools should be teaching. Make reference to other theories, highlight potential flaws and make students aware of religious positions etc, but concentrate on the facts we have at our disposal.

With the origins of the universe we have a somewhat different situation. Was it created by a higher power? We will never know unless informed by the creator themselves.

I'll offer my own amendment to The Atheist Reality's position (which, ironically, is agnostic, not atheist):

God's existence can be proven but never disproven.

Your title assumes that we all believe that evolution is wrong...

This is a bit silly. There are many animals with different levels of ability in the use of their eyes, certainly, but you cannot argue that all stages of the evolution of the eye are represented.

You can actually, because they are represented even by living specimens. The evolution of the eye has been described in some detail multiple times over the past century, and I suggest you read the book Climbing Mount Improbable by Richard Dawkins (who's jolly good for explaining evolution to laymen, but you should probably ignore him when he goes off about religion and philosophy,) or alternatively our old friend talk origins (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/vision.html) details the biology of it all, though given how most anti-science proponents have ignored every single evidence contrary to their beliefs I doubt you'll read either. Charles Darwin himself actually spent a few pages describing the possible ways in which the eye could have evolved from light sensitive patches of skin, then with star fish having these light sensitive cells sunk into depressions with a flap of transparent skin over them somewhat acting as lenses, and so on, and surprisingly he wasn't far off.

You don't see anything with non-functioning eyes,

You do, actually, in some kinds of cave weta and other cave dwelling mini beasties (such as this kick ass traslucent lobster thingy which looks blinking awesome,) and some blind deep sea and cave fish, but that's neither here nor there; these are vestigial organs, (thus again showing evidence for evolution,) not part of history of, say, mankind's eye's evolution.

and there really aren't any animals with eyes worse than humans

Most animals have "worse" eyes than we do. Bats, dogs, cats, ruminant animals, insects' compound eyes, rodents, molluscs, and so on.

Do you find it interesting at all that humans consider themselves the most evolved and dominant life-form on the planet

No, I'd expect it, since people are proud and stupid.

The reason that human sight and hearing and smell are less effective than those of other animals

Depends what you mean by "less effective". Our sense of smell may not be as powerful as, say, a dog's, but then because we have so many nerves in our noses we're more likely to detect that a piece of meat is rotten than a dog is.

The existence of many different specializations of the eye does nothing to support the idea of evolution, and if anything supports intelligent design because of the incredible variety.

No, actually. The incredible variance of the different kinds of eye is supplemented by extremely subtle and indistinct variations of eye, which to a massive extent supports evolution as being a largely gradual process and discounts the discreet, different kinds idea touted by creationists and other anti-scientists.

You know, I've actually discounted this argument in some form or other three or four times in this debate with extremely calm, reasonable language, and I'm wondering why the heck anti-scientists refuse to recognise when they have been proven wrong. Which leads to my next point...

Of complexity and random chance:

Evolution has never been called random by any legitimate scientist with good reason. Even without the selecting (ie. certainly not random) factor of natural selection, mutation itself has never been random, and earlier in this debate I posted an explanation (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-intro-to-biology.html) of evolution I thought would be interesting for people genuinely interested in discovering which theory they were actually trying to debunk actually was. I was wrong, apparently.

Sorry for being harsh but in this very thread we have many in the anti-science lot ignoring every single iota of evidence to the contrary of their faith position, ignoring every single post which discredits their claims, and it indicates a distinct and offensive lack of respect for the other debaters. Bottle and the other reasonable lot (I almost called the fact they were mainly evolutionists a coincidence...sigh,) have been evaluating and critiquing every point against evolution, and we've been forced to repost the same arguments purely because our points were ignored in order for the anti-science proponents to tout out the same believed magic bullet arguments again and again.

If one needs to remain aloof and ignorant of the rest of the world, of what has been observed and catalogued and the reasons for scientists' interpretations of facts in certain ways in order in order to believe something then perhaps one should re-evaluate the reasons for their choosing that belief. Yes, well done, you believe something for no reason.

I'm out.

Nothing else makes sense to saying evolution is a reality
North Lorne are known as having a firm grip on Reality

The World is a Big Place Room for All :) :D :lol: :roll: :twisted: :evil: 8)

Well it seems that people keep posting the same arguments for evolution and the anti-scientists refuse to listen. If they were really interested in learning they would go to talkorigins or read one of the suggested books but instead they choose to keep their minds closed. If they don't buy the amount of evidence that has been amassed to date, they never will. So like I said before the rest of us will keep contributing to man's knowledge and you can keep seeing the world through a filter.

bump

Well it seems that people keep posting the same arguments for evolution and the anti-scientists refuse to listen. If they were really interested in learning they would go to talkorigins or read one of the suggested books but instead they choose to keep their minds closed. If they don't buy the amount of evidence that has been amassed to date, they never will. So like I said before the rest of us will keep contributing to man's knowledge and you can keep seeing the world through a filter.
Yes because science is always open to new ideas where they challenge the accepted norm. Steven Hawkins found it easy to get everyone to believe him didn't he? He even states that his theories leave room for god. The scientific community is renown for it's ability to close ranks and close it's minds to new ideas, until they are bludgeoned with enough evidence to sink a battle ship. So don't get all high and mighty with the god squad!
Some of them might be closed to new ideas but the same is true for believers in evolution, at that is what it is, belief not faith but belief.

I say refer to Ross in Friends.

Fair enough. Scientists are human too, and usually, paradigm shifts occur in science not because everyone has been converted, but because the detractors simply die off after a while. Individual scientists often dedicate their entire lives to a single position on a single issue, and will fight for it fiercely, even in the face of overwhelming evidence.
But this too serves science. It means that science isn't rocked by just any new idea that comes along. Any new idea must face the same rigorous, community-wide scrutiny that most of the old ideas have faced. It means that if science accepts a new idea, it is because the idea has been proven, through trial by fire, to be scientific. And sure, there are some showboaters... say, Hawking, Einstein... who seemed to just float their ideas out there and have them instantly accepted by the community. But that isn't so much true. Of course, they are given the respect their records dictate. But while the public may quickly glom onto their ideas, the scientific community is still hard at work trying to disprove them IN THE NAME OF SCIENCE. The Theory of Relativity, while widely accepted as fact, is still being held up, every year, to rigorous scientific tests aimed at discovering any chinks in its armor.
Religion, on the other hand, is not seeking to disprove itself. Rather the contrary.

But science start from a point where they assume everything can be explained and eventualy known. Not saying this isn't so but is a hell of an assumption to make. The God Squad on the other hand start from a point where they assume not everything can be known or understood and some things are beyond the understanding of man.
So from those two stand points it is very hard to find common ground.
What is objectionable to those on the side lines is when one side uses thier system of measurement on the other and says it doesn't fit with our assumptions so must be wrong. When in fact it will be a very long time before either sides base assumption can be proved. Mind if the God Squad is right you only have to die to find out. :)

That's an interesting perspective and a fine point.
Totally unsurprisingly, I only agree up to a point. There are things that science, in all likelihood, will never know. Certainly a lot more things that are centuries if not millenia off yet.
But when a scientist (a good one) comes upon a question he can't answer, he says "I don't know." He might posit a few conjectures, offer a hypothesis or two, but he never claims to know a thing until he (or she) can establish strong evidence for it. And science doesn't stop looking for answers until he/she finds them.
The religious approach to such problems seems to be (from my perspective) to say, "Well, we can't explain that. So it is God's doing, and that is sufficient." Which is fine. Not everyone is the curious sort. If you believe in God, I expect that everything IS God's doing. Nothing wrong with that.
My problem comes in when something has been explained by rigorous application of reason, and people cling to a religious perspective that says "God did it, and therefore reason is wrong." Scientific progress has been plagued by this kind of thinking for as long as science has existed. And eventually, when a thing has been proven which such clarity and simplicity that it is self-contradictory to argue against it, religion finally says, "Well, ok... that chapter was allegorical... BUT THE REST OF THEM ARE LITERAL!" And so on to the next fight.

Now, maybe my argument is flawed by the very biases and assumptions that you mention, Nian. I'd like to hear more on your thinking on this, as I clearly am stuck in one viewpoint, and would truly like to "get" the other. Preferably before I have to find out by dying... :)

heh@ this thread :P

My sentiments exactly. Let the anti-evolutionists talk til they're blue in the face about how evolution is wrong, yet they can't prove their creationism with anything beyond faith. Faith is belief without proof. Not too much weight in that argument.


Greywollffe has spoken...

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Warlock's Sanctuary (http://www.angelfire.com/realm2/tomwarlock/)

Let the anti-evolutionists talk til they're blue in the face about how evolution is wrong, yet they can't prove their creationism with anything beyond faith. Faith is belief without proof. Not too much weight in that argument. Realistically, though, evolution is filled with just as many holes. I am not a creationist but I realise that both sides have no common ground and both are really only using faith and a few convenient facts to push a theory. That's why evolution is still being studied and has changed often as a theory ("stepped evolution", "gradual evolution", "parallel evolution", "breakpoint evolution", "sudden evolution", etc.). So far, no one idea about evolution explains the complexity that is the state of living. That is why creationism serves a purpose with an explanation that, so far, far more descriptive and constant than science has proposed.

Arg. I give up. I'm not even going to try to explain the difference between incomplete data and inconsistence with physical law.

and I suggest you read the book Climbing Mount Improbable by Richard Dawkins (who's jolly good for explaining evolution to laymen, but you should probably ignore him when he goes off about religion and philosophy,

:O How dare you? Just because he explains what the implications of science are on our beliefs that we held before we had scientific method. I support him. He takes claims by people who claim their claim is based on some scientific reasoning, or has some scientific basis (usually by bastardising scientific terminology) and destroys their argument using scientific method (such as people who believe crystals cure with 'energies' and that mumbo jumbo). As he says, their is no such thing as 'alternative medicine'. There is medicine (something that cures you) and alternative to medicine. As soon as you can prove that an 'alternative medicine' actually works, it is simply medicine. Until then, it is just poking crystals. There's nothing wrong with defending scientific method. If someone claims something to be true about something in biology, physics or chemistry, then they either prove it, or face his wrath (which, of course, is based on the universal sceintific method so is pretty hard to prove flawed). If you claim that your medicine works, try it in double blind studies. If that proves that it works- congratulations, you've got medicine.

I hate people for attacking Dawkins simply because he's not afraid to offend people by saying that their supposed scientific truth which forms their religious or philosophical belief is, frankly, bollocks.
As he said, "By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out."



A scientist works through the medium of science. It is hypocritical for touchy feely scientists to approach religion with a less attentive eye and sharp brain than they would science. By the same token, it is wrong that the religious demand nothing more than faith to support their beliefs, but nothing less than total proof to support science.
I echo him by saying " I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world"

I recommend anyone who is unsure about the constant science/religion arguments on this forum to read "A Prayer to My Daughter" from the Devils Chaplain.


As the great man himself says-
"Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence."

That's an interesting perspective and a fine point.
Totally unsurprisingly, I only agree up to a point. There are things that science, in all likelihood, will never know. Certainly a lot more things that are centuries if not millenia off yet.
But when a scientist (a good one) comes upon a question he can't answer, he says "I don't know." He might posit a few conjectures, offer a hypothesis or two, but he never claims to know a thing until he (or she) can establish strong evidence for it. And science doesn't stop looking for answers until he/she finds them.
The religious approach to such problems seems to be (from my perspective) to say, "Well, we can't explain that. So it is God's doing, and that is sufficient." Which is fine. Not everyone is the curious sort. If you believe in God, I expect that everything IS God's doing. Nothing wrong with that.
My problem comes in when something has been explained by rigorous application of reason, and people cling to a religious perspective that says "God did it, and therefore reason is wrong." Scientific progress has been plagued by this kind of thinking for as long as science has existed. And eventually, when a thing has been proven which such clarity and simplicity that it is self-contradictory to argue against it, religion finally says, "Well, ok... that chapter was allegorical... BUT THE REST OF THEM ARE LITERAL!" And so on to the next fight.

Now, maybe my argument is flawed by the very biases and assumptions that you mention, Nian. I'd like to hear more on your thinking on this, as I clearly am stuck in one viewpoint, and would truly like to "get" the other. Preferably before I have to find out by dying... :)
It comes down to being completly open minded. Hard and I'm not saying I'm there yet as I'm pretty sure of some of my opinions (not always based in fact).
Science has got to accept that religion COULD be right, there may be an entity that 'sat down' and laid down all the rules, put quarks in there for fun etc. It also must accept that all it knows may fit now but be completly wrong. If they don't then they aren't really scienetists. God squaders on the other hand don't because they never claim to be opne minded or open to change.
The thing is, they can't be sure that all they believe is as god or who ever intended as it has been subject to the same process of filtering and human intervention. They have to have alot of trust on those that came before them.
So in effect I'm saying you might both be right or wrong or any combination of the two.
But I'm happy to think there may be a god and that much of what science says is so sounds reasonable based on the other bits of science that are also reasonable... so it gets complicated again and I should refrain from posting after a lunch time visit to the pub.

This is a bit silly. There are many animals with different levels of ability in the use of their eyes, certainly, but you cannot argue that all stages of the evolution of the eye are represented.

You can actually, because they are represented even by living specimens. The evolution of the eye has been described in some detail multiple times over the past century, and I suggest you read the book Climbing Mount Improbable by Richard Dawkins (who's jolly good for explaining evolution to laymen, but you should probably ignore him when he goes off about religion and philosophy,) or alternatively our old friend talk origins (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/vision.html) details the biology of it all, though given how most anti-science proponents have ignored every single evidence contrary to their beliefs I doubt you'll read either. Charles Darwin himself actually spent a few pages describing the possible ways in which the eye could have evolved from light sensitive patches of skin, then with star fish having these light sensitive cells sunk into depressions with a flap of transparent skin over them somewhat acting as lenses, and so on, and surprisingly he wasn't far off.

I'm presenting an oversimplified version of my position because I'm basically just making it up as I go along. I'm playing devil's advocate, if you will. In general I find evolution to be reasonablely in keeping with my own experiences. I'd like to say that I resent the implication that I am in any way "anti-science." I'm the son of a scientist and one myself and I don't need you insult me or generalizing based on your experiences with other people putting forth the same position as myself.

and there really aren't any animals with eyes worse than humans

Most animals have "worse" eyes than we do. Bats, dogs, cats, ruminant animals, insects' compound eyes, rodents, molluscs, and so on.

Human eyes are relatively insensitive, even when compared with many of the animals you named. The only major advantage humans have over those animals is color vision, but the necessity of color processing limits humans' ability to percieve textures. Also, there are bats with far more sensitive eyes than humans and even many birds. Dogs and cats, because of their high concentration of rods can see well at night while humans cannot. Insects can see a wider field of view than humans and molluscs hardly move and do not really need eyes to guide them.

Do you find it interesting at all that humans consider themselves the most evolved and dominant life-form on the planet

No, I'd expect it, since people are proud and stupid.

Fair enough, especially considering that I can't remember the point I was trying to make there.

The reason that human sight and hearing and smell are less effective than those of other animals

Depends what you mean by "less effective". Our sense of smell may not be as powerful as, say, a dog's, but then because we have so many nerves in our noses we're more likely to detect that a piece of meat is rotten than a dog is.

I don't believe that that is true. It seems to me that a dog would be able to distinguish between a piece of meat that would harm it by being rotten and a piece of fresh meat with relative ease. What I mean by "less effective" is that human olfactory centers cannot process as many different molecules as those of, for instance, dogs.

The existence of many different specializations of the eye does nothing to support the idea of evolution, and if anything supports intelligent design because of the incredible variety.

No, actually. The incredible variance of the different kinds of eye is supplemented by extremely subtle and indistinct variations of eye, which to a massive extent supports evolution as being a largely gradual process and discounts the discreet, different kinds idea touted by creationists and other anti-scientists.

You know, I've actually discounted this argument in some form or other three or four times in this debate with extremely calm, reasonable language, and I'm wondering why the heck anti-scientists refuse to recognise when they have been proven wrong. Which leads to my next point...

Again I must implore you not to steriotype. I am not an "anti-scientist" and have at no point presented a view which is in any way contrary to the disciplines of science or the scientific method. A scientists first duty is to attempt to discover the truth, if that means considering the possibility of creation then scientists must consider it.

Sorry for being harsh but in this very thread we have many in the anti-science lot ignoring every single iota of evidence to the contrary of their faith position, ignoring every single post which discredits their claims, and it indicates a distinct and offensive lack of respect for the other debaters. Bottle and the other reasonable lot (I almost called the fact they were mainly evolutionists a coincidence...sigh,) have been evaluating and critiquing every point against evolution, and we've been forced to repost the same arguments purely because our points were ignored in order for the anti-science proponents to tout out the same believed magic bullet arguments again and again.

I suppose, perhaps erroniously that you don't need to hear this again, but you've got to stop with the "anti-science." I'd also like to briefly note that I've not ignored anything you've said and that in fact I've never seen anything you've posted before this and have therefor had no opportunity to ignore you.

If one needs to remain aloof and ignorant of the rest of the world, of what has been observed and catalogued and the reasons for scientists' interpretations of facts in certain ways in order in order to believe something then perhaps one should re-evaluate the reasons for their choosing that belief. Yes, well done, you believe something for no reason.

I'm out.

Who is this "you" you're speaking to? I don't believe anything for no reason. At this point, having far too little information on the subject I can't say that I honestly believe anything one way or the other.

I feel that this is a good time to delve briefly into the concept of paradigms. Every person operates from one paradigm or another. Your paradigm, as relates to this discussion, is that evolution is unquestionably correct and that any attempt to discredit it must be presented by an anti-scientific idiot. Unfortunately the paradigms of the people you've been discussing with aren't much better. Most of the people who agree with you are similarly inclined, and most of the people who've disagreed with you labor under the misimpression that anyone who proposes evolution against creation must be an anti-God idiot. In the end neither side gets anywhere because no one is willing to take a step back and observe themselves and their paradigms to see if they actually match the facts they are presented with. I do not claim to be perfect in this respect, but I do try to avoid creating paradigms that will trap me into thinking one way and one way only. Interestingly enough, it's paradigms that lead to prejudices and steriotyping most often. If you look back over my posts you'll notice that I didn't say anything that fit within a strict defition of being "anti-science" or even truly anti-evolution, but because you have a deeply engrained paradigm regarding your dealings with people who "disagree" with you (or at least on first glance seem to) you failed to see that and responded as though you were speaking to a person who fit your steriotypical ideal perfectly, when truly no one fits it entirely, and many who you think fit it well don't fit at all.

Long story short, think before you speak.

evolution is wrong wrong wrong

why do we need so much change? why cant things just stay the same?

i say LET'S OUTLAW EVOLUTION

what good has it done us lately?

where will it end up?? just heads and genitals??

STOP IT NOW BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!!

Now THERE is an anti-evolution stance I can get behind. Stop evolution now! Let's never evolve again! I'd hate to think what humans could do to this planet if they were even more advanced.

Why is it that whenever I post something and people reply and I reply back those people seem to disappear off the face of the imaginary planet?

Why is it that whenever I post something and people reply and I reply back those people seem to disappear off the face of the imaginary planet?

Theo-scientic politics aside, I feel for you. Its like being the knight that no one will engage. You make a point, and no one will take up an argument. You can't say you lost, but you don't get the satisfaction of winning either. I would respond to your last post, but it was pretty specicially geared towards a specific post.

I hope you don't count me among those who are blindly clinging to a dogma (I'd like to think I've made a good case for my perspective), but I can't blame you if you do, I'm pretty steadfastly evolutionist. I don't necessarily debate most of the points you made in your last post, but I don't feel they present any especial threat to the idea of evolution. If you feel they do, I'd be happy to further discuss. If you consider yourself neutral, then I let it stand.

Um...just so you know, people are no longer evolving. Also, anyone that does not believe in evolution is seriously misinformed and should seek immediate education.

Thanir,
Yes, humans are not currently macro-evolving, due to a lack of environmental pressures. Take a joke.
Please don't post an unsubstantiated, redundant, uncontributive post ever again. Those damned Creationists have made plenty of arguments. Either respond to one or make one of your own but don't just judge people. You are sooo not helping.

Why is it that whenever I post something and people reply and I reply back those people seem to disappear off the face of the imaginary planet?
itching for an intelligent debate? can't find much here, can you? :lol: