Evolution and Creationism

[Scrappy Jenks]

Originally posted by Quintus Valerius@Oct 26 2004, 03:26 PM
He's got God on his side. So no matter how convincing your arguments are he'll never believe, because that would simply be the "devil" tempting him.

Sometimes I feel we haven't made it out of the Dark Ages yet!

A party shall come to stone you tomorrow. If you resist you will be sent to a lower level of Hell.

[Lord Phoenix]

My Views on Evolution, the Universe, et alii:

1. Evolution is real. There is no credible evidence against it, and plenty for it. It is only logical that creatures based on DNA/RNA evolve.

2. Humans are the most advanced species on the planet. We are through specialized generalization. We are biologically extremely specialized, something which would usually confine a species to a special niche which, if destroyed, so to would the species die out. However, we biologically specialized in our brains. This is both a curse and a blessing. It is a curse in that physically we suck. We have exceedingly long gestation periods for our size, almost all of which is dedicated to growing the brain, exceedingly long infancy and juvinility, most of which is dedicated to learning. We are weak, slow, and have no real physical natural defenses to speak of. We are physically adapted only to temperate climates.

However, no pain, no gain. Our biologically specialized brains allow us to be the best generalists ever. Better than cockroaches. With our brainpower we can make our own ways of improving our strength(tools like levers, pulleys, etc.), speed(riding horses, cars, etc.), and can make our own defenses. We can live and flourish in any climate on earth due to technology such as houses and clothing and keep our children safe and free from disease. This means that we start off growing in population slowly, and then boom, we spread quickly. In fact, I'd say that at this point, the only thing that could kill us off completely would be the complete annihilation of the Earth. Given a few hundred more years, even that won't be capable of stopping us.

By the way, we don't exactly come from apes per se, but from their relatives. Usually when a new species evolves from a species, the old one dies out. Only time that doesn't happen really is when the new species comes about through a population of the old species which is in a new place which doesn't fit its old niche and is in isolation from the rest of its kind.

3. God. Science has never said that there is no God. In fact, any good scientist would tell you that its entirely possible since it can neither be proven nor disproven. However, I can tell you this: If there is one, God would neither be omnipotent nor omniscient. In fact, the very idea of omniscience would render God impotent as God would be bound to do what God already knows God is going to do and everything else in the universe would also be bound to do what God knows its going to do. Omniscience renders everything impotent. Besides, theres that old question "Can God make a rock so big that even God can't move it?" which, either way you answer, God either can't move the rock or he can't make the rock that he can't move which can also be rephrased "Does God know how to make a rock so big that even God doesn't know how to move it?" Needless to say, infinity doesn't work very well outside of numbers as its almost always easily disproven. Stephen Hawking said recently that with the way physics is looking, the only place for a God would be to set down the initial rules which the universe acts by, in other words, the only place for a God is in the creation of physics.

4. The Universe. The theory as to its creation changes often. Right now its looking as if the "big bang" theory isn't quite correct. Some say that it has always existed, that the universe is cyclical in that it expands in a big bang and then contracts back into the little ball in the big crunch and then expands again in another big bang. Or perhaps it continues to expand til everything is uniform, and then something else happens that restarts the process. Or maybe its a one shot deal. With current technology and understanding of physics its hard to tell for sure, but thats why its all theory. Recent discoveries such as the gradual speeding up of the "constant" speed of light over time since the beginning of the current universe really throws a few wrenches in the work. String theory is also offering quite a few new views on the beginnings of the current universe. One of the main problems is that we have no way of knowing what, if anything, existed before the beginning of the current universe. I personally think its probably been around forever, and just keeps recycling itself over and over again. The current universe is definatly old, I think the number is about 12-14 billion years, and the Earth is definatly about 4-5 billion years old.

By the way, you know how that number of a 6000 year old universe/earth came about right? Some guy went through the bible and counted all the "begats" and did a timeline based on that back to Adam.

[Erik]

Originally posted by Manji@Oct 25 2004, 08:14 AM
I have yet to see people sharing my theory: that there is a God and he created a multiplicity of things and that primordial cell too. I think that if God is indeed the "great architect" he wouldn't make things as they are per se but rather create the building blocks and watch them evolve. Well, I'm not talking about the christian god or the muslim god, I'm talking about an higher force....
Oh well.... getting too serious....must say..........................BOOBIES!!!!

I must say Boobies too, and evolution doesn't prove there is no God. I don't understand why religious people make such a problem of evolution, they just as well make a big point about the theory of relativity or the atomic theory....

Like: "you scientist are all wrong! there are no atoms, it's not in the bible, how can there be atoms???"

Originally posted by Lord Rahl@Sep 17 2004, 10:35 PM
ok, here is the evolution topic...for those of u from the God topic, keep going on whatever u were "debating", and for those who are new, just post away!

somebody help me! I can barely post right now. At the top of the page, it sometimes says I'm logged in and at other time says nothing. I can quote the first post of "evolution" thread but not any other page. A page come up saying "error," you must log in.

Originally posted by Scrappy Jenks+Oct 26 2004, 03:09 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td> (Scrappy Jenks @ Oct 26 2004, 03:09 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteBegin-Quintus Valerius@Oct 26 2004, 03:26 PM
He's got God on his side. So no matter how convincing your arguments are he'll never believe, because that would simply be the "devil" tempting him.

Sometimes I feel we haven't made it out of the Dark Ages yet!

A party shall come to stone you tomorrow. If you resist you will be sent to a lower level of Hell.[/b][/quote]
For some reason, when I go to quote pheonix it says this menu has been disabled. Oh well.

Anyways, pheonix says that there is no credible evidence against it and tons for it. Unfortunate for you, you've been spoon fed the old principles of Darwinian revolution. Many of which are being challenged to such an extent that it takes a substancial amount of faith to believe in their validity. Now, for you, pheonix, to say there is no credible evidence for evolution means you have been reading your 10th grade bio book and nothing else. Your idea of evolution (Darwinian) has largely been reduced or transformed to one of the following. 1-a less random mutation coupled w/ natural selection (less Darwinian), 2- a sort of rapid evolution whereby the advent of sight caused a burst of change, 3) the accepting of an intelligent designer, 4- not really evolutionary, but either one accepting that molecular biology shows we desend from one women and therfore Biblical creation, or that there were humans before her (The Seven Daughters of Eve).

Since I don't feel like writing a book right now, I'll just give some of many pieces of evidence that take the feet out from under evolution.

1) The geological column-the poster child of evolution, shows "rock hard data" of the eras of the earth. Its maker and evolutionists/Darwinists claim that the method of dating is absolute. The only method of absolute dating is radioactive dating. Too bad, however, sedimentary rocks, the only rocks containign fossils contain no radioactive material ( a few acceptions, none of which were used to date). They used comparative dating, but they want to call it absolute. What else is absolute. What should we believe now.

2) I've mentioned it before, but the probability that a protein containing 100 amino acids spontaneously forms as one in 10^65. Random combos, almost all of which help nada with construction of living things.

3) GO look at your bio book pheonix. Or go buy one. They show you all the nice pictures of evolving horses, birds, you name they have it. Nope. No transitional species showing evolution in progress between 2 species of evolution has ever been found. WORST OF ALL---EVEN DARWINISTS CANNOT NOT FIND REMAINS/FOSSILS THAT SHOW OUR PARENTING SPECIES. LUCIE THE APE WAS ADMITTED TO BE A FORGERY. PARADED AROUND IN THE MEDIA WHEN FOUND. Using our DNA, molecular biologists have found we have no relation to the neanderthal. Similar to the pony situation--after reproduction it has an uneven number chromosome+cannot reproduce. Even if repro. occured, could not have survived. In fact, Asia was not inhabited by humans until 50,00 years after existence in Africa. And Eur. another 50,000 years (fighting with neanderthal). Differences in creativity are prevalent in human paintings vs. neanderthal crudeness.

THere U Go!!!! Some, not even near all opposing evo. evidence. Go read books 4 more info. Even pro-evo. books cannot say something did happen.

[Rand Al Thor]

Nope. No transitional species showing evolution in progress between 2 species of evolution has ever been found. WORST OF ALL---EVEN DARWINISTS CANNOT NOT FIND REMAINS/FOSSILS THAT SHOW OUR PARENTING SPECIES.

Like I posted 4 times before:

Sahelanthropus tchadensis

This species was named in July 2002 from fossils discovered in Chad in Central Africa (Brunet et al. 2002, Wood 2002). It is the oldest known hominid or near-hominid species, dated at between 6 and 7 million years old. This species is known from a nearly complete cranium nicknamed Toumai, and a number of fragmentary lower jaws and teeth. The skull has a very small brain size of approximately 350 cc. It is not known whether it was bipedal. S. tchadensis has many primitive apelike features, such as the small brainsize, along with others, such as the brow ridges and small canine teeth, which are characteristic of later hominids. This mixture, along with the fact that it comes from around the time when the hominids are thought to have diverged from chimpanzees, suggests it is close to the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees.




Homo habilis (or Homo rudolfensis)

Discovered by Bernard Ngeneo in 1972 at Koobi Fora in Kenya (Leakey, 1973). Estimated age is 1.9 million years. This is the most complete habilis skull known. Its brain size is 750 cc, large for habilis. It was originally dated at nearly 3 million years old, a figure that caused much confusion as at the time it was older than any known australopithecines, from whom habilis had supposedly descended. A lively debate over the dating of 1470 ensued (Lewin, 1987; Johanson and Edey, 1981; Lubenow, 1992). The braincase is surprisingly modern in many respects, much less robust than any australopithecine skull, and also without the robustness and large brow ridges typical of Homo erectus. The face, in contrast, is extremely large and robust.
In the last few years, an increasing number of scientists have been classifying this skull as Homo rudolfensis. If 1470 is related to the newly-discovered fossil WT 40000 (Kenyanthropus platyops) to which it has some resemblances, it may eventually be reassigned to the genus Kenyanthropus.


"Pithecanthropus VIII", Homo erectus


Discovered by Sastrohamidjojo Sartono in 1969 at Sangiran on Java. This consists of a fairly complete cranium, with a brain size of about 1000 cc. It is the most complete erectus fossil from Java. This skull is very robust, with a slightly projecting face and huge flaring cheekbones. It has been thought to be about 800,000 years old, but a recent dating has given a much older figure of nearly 1.7 million years. If the older date is correct, it means Homo erectus migrated out of Africa much earlier than previously thought.



Homo georgicus


Discovered in 2001 at Dmanisi in Georgia. Estimated age is 1.8 million years. It consisted of a mostly complete skull, including a lower jaw (D2735) belonging to the same individual. (Vekua et al. 2002, Balter and Gibbons 2002) At around 600 cc, this is the smallest and most primitive hominid skull ever discovered outside of Africa. This skull and two others discovered nearby form a near-perfect transition between H. habilis and ergaster.



"Rhodesian Man",Homo sapiens

Discovered by a laborer in 1921 at Broken Hill in Northern Rhodesia (now Kabwe in Zambia) (Woodward 1921). This was a complete cranium that was very robust, with large brow ridges and a receding forehead. Estimated age is between 200,000 and 125,000 years. The brain size was about 1280.


"Tautavel Man", Homo sapiens

Discovered at Arago in southern France in 1971 by Henry de Lumley. Estimated age is 400,000 years. The fossil consists of a fairly complete face, with 5 molar teeth and part of the braincase. The brain size was about 1150 cc. The skull contains a mixture of features from archaic Homo sapiens and Homo erectus, to which it is sometimes assigned.

"Old Man", Homo sapiens neanderthalensis

Discovered by Amedee and Jean Bouyssonie in 1908 near La-Chapelle-aux-Saints in France. It is about 50,000 years old, with a brain size of 1620 cc.This specimen was between about 30 and 40 when he died, but had a healed broken rib, severe arthritis of the hip, lower neck, back and shoulders, and had lost most of his molar teeth. The fact that he survived as long as he did indicates that Neandertals must have had a complex social structure.



Homo sapiens sapiens (modern)

Discovered by workmen in 1868 at Cro-Magnon in France. Estimated age is 30,000 years. The site yielded skeletons of 5 buried individuals, along with stone tools, carved reindeer antlers, ivory pendants, and shells. The Cro-Magnons lived in Europe between 35,000 and 10,000 years ago. They are virtually identical to modern man, being tall and muscular and slightly more robust than most modern humans. They were skilled hunters, toolmakers and artists famous for the cave art at places such as Lascaux, Chauvet, and Altamira.

The geological column-the poster child of evolution, shows "rock hard data" of the eras of the earth. Its maker and evolutionists/Darwinists claim that the method of dating is absolute.

Who said that ANY method of dating was absolute?

2) I've mentioned it before, but the probability that a protein containing 100 amino acids spontaneously forms as one in 10^65. Random combos, almost all of which help nada with construction of living things.

This has nothing to do with Evolution.

[Scrappy Jenks]

By the way, freerpublic, most of us havent been spoon fed Darwinism. If you notice those of us arguing for evolution have been using the Modern Synthetic Theory of evolution in our explanations

Anybody who believes in creationism, is ignorant. That is all.

[Manji]

Anyone willing to be "absolute" about anything is ignorant. Believing in evolution is a matter of logic, believing in god (in any of it's forms/religions/beliefs) is a matter of faith, which by itself is most of the times far far away from logic.

[Manji]

Anyone willing to be "absolute" about anything is ignorant. Believing in evolution is a matter of logic, believing in god (in any of it's forms/religions/beliefs) is a matter of faith, which by itself is most of the times far far away from logic.

[ZaPPPa]

Originally posted by www.freerepublic.com@Oct 26 2004, 10:39 PM

1)They used comparative dating, but they want to call it absolute.

2) I've mentioned it before, but the probability that a protein containing 100 amino acids spontaneously forms as one in 10^65. Random combos, almost all of which help nada with construction of living things.

3) No transitional species showing evolution in progress between 2 species of evolution has ever been found.

Questions/Answers to your questions:

1) How does this 'take the feet out from under evolution'? This does not disprove anything

2) How does this 'take the feet out from under evolution'? First of all, this has to do with the origin of life, not evolution. Second of all... How many of the right molecules do you think the earth contains? How many billion years did those molecules have time to produce random results? Get it??? Think outside your limited 6000 year view of the world. You have a 1% chance of rolling a 1 on a 100-sided dice. Roll it a few thousand times and you're sure to roll a 1 at least once... Again, it does not disprove anything.

3) Sigh.. No, you won't find a species that is the exact middle of an elephant and a frog. And yes, if after a long time a new species will not be able to reproduce with their ancestors. Any biologist will tell you that is absolutely nothing to get excited about and it, again, does not disprove evolution.
As an example: Can a Chihuahua mate with a Dobermann? No. Does this mean God created these two sub-species and they were not bred by humans? No.

Evolution is all around you in a forced state. Go to your nearest dog breeder and see for yourself. I have had Discus fish for years and you don't even want to know how many variations exist of those fish.

Yet again, these answers are typical uninformed jabs at evolution from spoon-fed creationalists who do not feel like proving creationalism, but just trying to disprove evolutionalism. Even if they succeed it still does not mean that creationalism is proven, so I don't understand why they bother doing it at all. No evolutionalism does not equal creationalism.

[Dr Zoidberg]

Originally posted by glorfindel87@Sep 18 2004, 09:47 AM
Why are there no transitional forms?

There are plenty of transitional forms, even in humans. Many people are now being born without an apendix, as the human body has EVOLVED beyond the need for it. Eyesight is becoming less acute in the Western world, as the need for good, long distance sight as been reduced by the amount of time spent inside, looking at screens only a few feet away.

Transitional forms are there, the differences are subtle, thats all.

[aves]

First of all I am neither for nor against micro-evolution, but I wish to examine some things about macro-evolution *pope*

This has nothing to do with Evolution.

Everything to do... if life cannot spontanously begin, if the building blocks cannot be constructed on their own, then the first life form had to created not evolved. If the first life form cannot exist (because not only must the right proteins form, they must also been the right ones to spawn life, AND they must survive for generations to even begin to have the hope of becoming more sophisticated life forms). Logic would dictate that if to survive, life would need to be created that more than just the first basic amino acids could be created

Being born without someting or the decline of eyesight is a degenerative mutation (not to mention the eyesight data that you are refering to is not at birth but at adulthood, that's unuse not altering DNA)... the opposite of evolution (which is the movement towards, not away, more sophisticated life). Now going from bony flippers to bipedal legs is evolution

And BTW selective breeding is neither micro nor macro evolution

Think outside your limited 6000 year view of the world. You have a 1% chance of rolling a 1 on a 100-sided dice. Roll it a few thousand times and you're sure to roll a 1 at least once

While we are throwing around "think outside your box" statements. Here is one... that statistical possibility of an explosion in a parts heep of 10 cars (all parts present) creating a useable vechile is 1 in 10^74... so by your "logic" set off enough explosions enough times and it will happen? To simply allow infinite time to make something possible is not logical evidence... that's why there is the old saying "infinite apes on infinite typewriters will eventually type the complete works of Shakespeare with stage directions"


The statisical probablilty of a mammal evolving from straight a protein soup requires sexoctingentillion years for it become statisically possible (not probable).

@Manji-- Anyone willing to be "absolute" about anything is ignorant. Believing in evolution is a matter of logic, believing in god (in any of it's forms/religions/beliefs) is a matter of faith, which by itself is most of the times far far away from logic.

Sorry Manji (Cheers mate : ), but how is the above not an "absolute" statement on your part? But you are correct in stating "believing in evolution" instead of "acknowledging evolution"

EDIT: I would like to state that I am a little extremely sorry if anything I have typed sounds preachy or like a personal attack (I am sure to some that it does), but rather than edit the above, I just apologize

[al306849]

This thread is funny. :devil I thought creationists had died out long ago. They certainly have in Australia (I've never met one).
The amount of flawed logic spewing out of the creationists is scary.

[wall]

You guys might be interested in a new discovery published today in Nature. I seems unlikely this one's a hoax. Flores Man

[Dr Zoidberg]

Aves mate, I think you've missed the point of the thread. As numerous people have already stated, we are not discussing how life started, but once it was here how as it changed. Who knows how life began? That very well could require some sort of faith-based belief. However, we DO KNOW once it was here, how it has changed over time.

[Scrappy Jenks]

Originally posted by wall@Oct 29 2004, 03:42 AM
You guys might be interested in a new discovery published today in Nature. I seems unlikely this one's a hoax. Flores Man

Acutally its very likely this isnt a new species. We actually just dicussed this in my Physical Anthropology class. My professor is an expert on skeletal abnormalities among human ancestors and he says that this "hobbit"'s skull is just like that of a microcephalic (their brain doesnt grow enough so their craniums are really small but everything else is normal size). He showed us a microcephalics skull adn told us to note how it matched up with the description of the "hobbit" skull in the article. It was eerie. He also explains the small body very well. On islands, there is a trend towards dwarfing or at least miniturization (sp?) so is likely that the bodies shrunk to match the size of the heads over time. He noted some other sketchy things in the paper but Im tired and dont feel like going into details. I can give them later if you want. The basic point is that this is probably a population of isolated short, microcephalic humans.

[aves]

I just saw creation being attacked (and some fighting back in odd ways) and truthfully I wanted to throw out my opinion on the whole evolution thing...

Then I noticed dog breeding, and appendixs (not sure this is the plural form : ) being used as examples of evolution, which IMHO they are not... and I do believe in some aspects of micro-evolution.

Thirdly the whole "logic" of the expanding timelines to make things possible really annoys me, someone else brought it into play, so I went after it.

And being a historian I cannot believe in the 6,000 year old earth so please do not lump me in with that crowd.

Also I don't agree that we "do know... how it has changed" we just know that it has changed (and once again I exclude any example of micro-evolution that does not generate a new species).

[ZaPPPa]

If you say 'there's a chance of 1 in 10^74' you are implying that there is a chance. Therefore my logic is rock solid. (although in your example I can be 100% sure there isn't because parts will fly outwards in an explosion and they will always scatter (depending on where the charge is placed of course)).

Breeding is most definately directly linked to evolution and can be used as an example. The only difference is unnatural selection as opposed to natural selection. Other than that everything else is the same. Instead of the mutant with the highest chance of survival being to the one become most prolific, the mutant with the (for example) most beautiful color or pattern will be picked to breed again. In nature this would probably give the mutant a smaller chance of survival, but the principle is the same. Please explain what exactly makes this not a good example for evolution because millions of biologists will be very interested in hearing your argument. The thing is that humans have only been breeding dogs intensively for 500 years which is nothing compared to how long nature has been 'breeding' her species.

You are confusing the origin of life with evolution and that is a serious problem if you want to continue this discussion.

[aves]

Breeding dogs (the breeding I was refering to, not survival of the fittest) is not evolution (macro-evolution, what seems to be the topic of choice here) because no new species is being created... all you are doing playing with dominant and recessive genes. That's why two different breeds of dog can have an offspring, but a cow and horse can't (of course some genus can reproduce, but then their offspring cannot reproduce, so they wouldn't factor into evolution). This discussion (unless I am horribly mistaken, and if so I apologize) is about evolution... the creation of a new species from an old. Unless you don't believe that a new species can come from an old, and therefore do not believe in evolution. Never did I say anything about mutation not being part of evolution, merely selective breeding (read what I wrote)

Changes in qualities (such as fur color, height, etc) are micro-evolution and is not what you and Zoidberg seem to be targeting. Macroevolution is small rat like creature to man. When you talk about macroevolution you bring in creationism vs evolution... and therefore enter into a discussion at to the origin of life. I'm sorry you don't want to discuss the origin of life, but apparantly others do (welcome to the nature of a forum).

Here's a little quote from a college textbook:

"Microevolution refers to small-scale changes in gene frequencies in a population over a few generations. These changes may be due to several processes: mutation, gene flow, genetic drift, as well as natural selection. Population genetics is the branch of biology that provides the mathematical structure for the study of the process of microevolution. Biologists distinguish between microevolution and macroevolution, which refers to large-scale changes in gene frequencies in a population over a long period of time (and may culminate in the evolution of new species)."

I am not confused about the difference between the origin of life and evolution, I was merely adding onto the discussion that you and freerepublic were having (thus the term "thread")