Creationism vs Evolution

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
182

[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Gambit_Lost wrote:
Varqanir wrote:

I don’t see why an intelligent person who believes in God can’t just take the position that macroevolution is the method God has chosen to proliferate life. This position would neither deny faith in a creator, nor ignore the preponderance of evidence supporting evolution.

HERETIC!

In this world there are splitters, and there are lumpers. I happen to like lumping better than splitting. I have never understood what an unquestioning, dogmatic belief in every last detail of a Bronze Age creation myth has to do with spiritual enlightenment, but I see no reason that an intelligent mind couldn’t accommodate both a belief in a higher being and an understanding of scientific fact.

Einstein was a Jew, and a rather clever fellow, as I understand it. I wonder if he believed, without question, in the creation myth of his people.[/quote]

[quote]pushharder wrote:
DrSkeptix wrote:

…You choose to ignore my primary contention: where is the observation that falsifies evolutionary theory?..

Doc, let’s switch things around a bit. Where is the observation that falsifies creation theory?

[/quote]

Double quoting here.

The Answer to Pushharder’s question is “the ether wind.”
As Varqanir knows, among Einstein’s chief accomplishments was studied self-promotion, and his thoughts on God and Life were carefully framed for his prospective audiences.

But Einstein was also pleased with the Michaelsen experiments which proved–yes proved–that there was no ether in the vacuum of space, overturning a notion of the great 19th century electromagnetic physicists. If it could not be detected, if it had no measurable effect, than why include it in any speculation? Occam’s razor. There is no need for an ether wind.
It is true that Einstein recanted, briefly, later in 1950’s–he needed the ether wind, or the “cosmologic constant” to fix his general theory. It didn’t work.

–

So, the ID is like the ether wind. Its effects cannot be measured, it cannot be found, it is only speculated to exist because of a vacuum of understanding. It is singularly unnecessary to a theory which explains far more and does so with elegance and concision. (Dear Occam again.) Why elevate ignorance of an answer to the status of a special unseen force? It is far better to answer the “how?” with a “I don’t know, but let’s see.”

183

[quote]IrishSteel wrote:So Darwin’s title - “ORIGIN of the Species” was a mistake? j/k

All your doing is proving my point - species evolution fits your narrow little definition very well - but as we have been discussing the theory of evolution, it is not discussed in a vacuum - it encompasses an entire lineage of scientific explanations that seek to support it.

You cannot have inter-species evolution if all of the species appeared independently of each other - so in order to support species evolution, you would need to prove that species did not appear independently, thus you HAVE TO go to the very first appearance of life and explain its progression from first appearance to its current stage THUS, . . . follow carefully . . . you have to explain the origin of life in order to be able to have evolution!! Tu DUH![/quote]

…no i don’t because, and read carefully; species only appear to appear independently of eachother. I’ll explain:

…it’s a numbers game. When a genetic mutation benefits one member of an existing species so it can succesfully breed and survive a change in it’s environment, the first generations of that genetic mutation consist of a few animals. These first of the new breed, that have physical similarities with the original species, die and get lost in the sands of time…

…but the new genotype continues to breed and spread and adapt, and over time millions of animals walk the earth, as a separate species! All these animals die and some of them are found as fossils by us, giving us the impression that they appeared as an independent species. See what happened there?

…when you track back those lineages to common ancestors, as shown conclusively by anthropologists, way WAY back to single cell organisms, you’d see that, indeed, life crawled from the primeordial soup and, through random mutation, adapted to changes in the invironment…

…i do think that there are 2 questions that confuse the issue, because, altough they are similar, these 2 ask for a different answer. When Darwin spoke about the origins of life, i think he meant how life evolved from their humble beginnings into the complex forms we experience now, as us. Religion ask about the origin of life in terms of metaphysics: what caused life itself?

…the first question can be answered: life evolved from the base molecules into amino acids into single cell organisms into more complex forms through random genetic mutation that happened to give the organism the edge over his peers…

…the second question, altough i feel can’t be answered, i’ll happily concede that god did it. Now, this is a lot of typing, so make your answer a good one or i’ll go watch a movie or something…

185

[quote]pushharder wrote:
DrSkeptix wrote:
…
Why elevate ignorance of an answer to the staus of a special unseen force? It is far better to answer the “how?” with a “I don’t know, but let’s see.”

Don’t forget your last statement. It could come back to haunt you.[/quote]

This is called honesty; strangely, something I have never feared.

186

it is all presuposition and untestable despite peoples claims of testability.

190

If man come from monkeys, How come monkeys are still around?

(lol, I think I took this from a pic)

It always make me laugh when people want to destroy the theory of evolution, pointing out it’s ‘‘flaws’’ then claiming that god made the world in 7 days like they say in the book.

We all know you want to believe in God with all your soul.We know that if the faith that God exist get away everything for you will fall apart. How shall I put this, you know, that ‘‘What the fuck?’’ feeling. But people, they don’t ‘‘believe’’ in Evolution, it is scientific theory and it’s made out of intelligence and logic.

Anyway, we can’t argue with you, and even if it was as clear as 1+1=2 you’ll still wouldn’t want to accept it. You just can’t, or everything will fall apart for you.

You can’t. It’s like a mind blockage or something. The problem with all this shit is that living in your own little disney world you don’t realise all the shit you are doing to the real, ugly world.

191

And, I forgot, You’ll make LOT of effort trying to destroy this theory. very very very much effort. Because all your will and your soul wants to believe that god exist.

192

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Let’s get one thing straight, Jab. Macroevolution is not change or adaptation within a species. The moths example was one of microevolution. You should know this. When you advance that feeble example to try an make your point you come up way short and you discredit yourself.

I am an avid microevolutionist. We can see it. We can test it. We can prove it happens. We can safely call it “fact”.

You can hypothesize that micro and macro are the same thing and to do so you ask for eons of time. Unobservable eons. If you try and test it in the here and now you fail. Miserably, hopelessly fail. It is not a fact and it can’t even make it from hypothesis to theory.

I understand why you do it. It’s all you’ve got. The alternative is hideous to you. So where you moan and groan about the scientific method quite a bit you hide from it, in fact you must hide from it, when it comes to macroevolution - the generally accepted definition for transitions above the genus and/or order levels.

You can’t even show it in the fossil record. You CAN show evidences of extinct species in the fossil record but not clear, observable transitions between orders or families.[/quote]

Actually you’re right, the moths aren’t an example, I plead tiredness based confusion and having to right an assignment at the same time.

It’s the definition of macroevolution that confused me at the time (although I’m not sure why it did now). The definition is; change that happens at or above the species level.

Regardless, what you are doing is classic creationist spin; you appear to be suggesting that the all evolution that has been observed is micro and the rest which cannot be observed is macro.

Macroevolution by talking about species level or above and can make claims which we can test; for example if we are more closely related to chimpanzees than gorillas, or to use the example from here; Macroevolution: Its definition, Philosophy and History if weasels are more closely related to red pandas than bears are. These claims are falsifiable and testable. You’ve heard of the tree of life? Well every time we learn the relatedness of one species to another we are testing and confirming macroevolution; change at or above the species level.

I don’t defend evolution because “it’s all I’ve got”. I defend it because I care about what’s true. I would just as easily defend another explanation if it had as much supporting evidence. I’m perfectly ok with knowing that I will die one day and that’s it. I know you might find this hard to believe, but the knowledge that this is all I get is actually what keeps me going, not anything to do with science. Science just makes it more beautiful along the way.

193

[quote]pushharder wrote:
For instance, to employ Occam’s Razor, which in a nutshell suggests “choose the simple explanation”, as a weapon in this intellectual battle goes beyond the pale.

Choose an axiom that cries out for simplicity to defend a hypothesis that is so convoluted and tenuous? Really? You honestly want to whip that one out?
[/quote]

On what basis would you ascribe to me hypocrisy?
la Rochefoucault: “Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue.”
Find my vice, s’il vous plait.

–
On the razor: the ID would need to violate it tens of thousands of times, to explain the non-randomness of the sequence of 35,000 enzymes of the different phyla, or to explain why there are three structural types of flagella among the different phyla of bacteria (see prior pointless thread). And on and on. To call upon divine intervention in each instance is improbable and violates the rule, “choose the simple explanation,” not once but many times over.

Does not such a description of the ID’s activities trivialize It? (No hypocrisy implied.)

194

[quote]miroku333 wrote:
however I’m presently at work, and need to get back to my scheduled whoring of the thread killer thread :([/quote]

:open_mouth:

195

[quote]ephrem wrote:
IrishSteel wrote:So Darwin’s title - “ORIGIN of the Species” was a mistake? j/k

All your doing is proving my point - species evolution fits your narrow little definition very well - but as we have been discussing the theory of evolution, it is not discussed in a vacuum - it encompasses an entire lineage of scientific explanations that seek to support it.

You cannot have inter-species evolution if all of the species appeared independently of each other - so in order to support species evolution, you would need to prove that species did not appear independently, thus you HAVE TO go to the very first appearance of life and explain its progression from first appearance to its current stage THUS, . . . follow carefully . . . you have to explain the origin of life in order to be able to have evolution!! Tu DUH!

…no i don’t because, and read carefully; species only appear to appear independently of eachother. I’ll explain:

…it’s a numbers game. When a genetic mutation benefits one member of an existing species so it can succesfully breed and survive a change in it’s environment, the first generations of that genetic mutation consist of a few animals. These first of the new breed, that have physical similarities with the original species, die and get lost in the sands of time…

…but the new genotype continues to breed and spread and adapt, and over time millions of animals walk the earth, as a separate species! All these animals die and some of them are found as fossils by us, giving us the impression that they appeared as an independent species. See what happened there?

…when you track back those lineages to common ancestors, as shown conclusively by anthropologists, way WAY back to single cell organisms, you’d see that, indeed, life crawled from the primeordial soup and, through random mutation, adapted to changes in the invironment…

…i do think that there are 2 questions that confuse the issue, because, altough they are similar, these 2 ask for a different answer. When Darwin spoke about the origins of life, i think he meant how life evolved from their humble beginnings into the complex forms we experience now, as us. Religion ask about the origin of life in terms of metaphysics: what caused life itself?

…the first question can be answered: life evolved from the base molecules into amino acids into single cell organisms into more complex forms through random genetic mutation that happened to give the organism the edge over his peers…

…the second question, altough i feel can’t be answered, i’ll happily concede that god did it. Now, this is a lot of typing, so make your answer a good one or i’ll go watch a movie or something…

[/quote]

but you just proved my point once again . . . you have an explanation of evolution that has to include the origin of life on the planet . . . . soooo, back to my first point, evolution trys to answer all of the questions about life except the why, creationists (or ID’ers) accept a Why and look for the how, what, where when.

My point in this whole discussion was to counter your comment about non-evolutionists simply accepting that “God did it” and ceasing any intellectual or scientific inquiry. This is not the case - God gives us a why and we are then free from any restraint in finding the how.

Evolutionists on the other negate one posible answer and then craft every answer in ways that support their pre-supposition that negates any super-natural influence on the physical universe.

Who’s is more intellectually dishonest- the mind open to any and all possibilities or the one closed to all but their narrowed view?

196

[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:
pushharder wrote:
For instance, to employ Occam’s Razor, which in a nutshell suggests “choose the simple explanation”, as a weapon in this intellectual battle goes beyond the pale.

Choose an axiom that cries out for simplicity to defend a hypothesis that is so convoluted and tenuous? Really? You honestly want to whip that one out?

On what basis would you ascribe to me hypocrisy?
la Rochefoucault: “Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue.”
Find my vice, s’il vous plait.
[/quote]

If you go with one of the classic seven it is either envy or pride.

197

[quote]IrishSteel wrote: but you just proved my point once again . . . you have an explanation of evolution that has to include the origin of life on the planet . . . . soooo, back to my first point, evolution trys to answer all of the questions about life except the why, creationists (or ID’ers) accept a Why and look for the how, what, where when.

My point in this whole discussion was to counter your comment about non-evolutionists simply accepting that “God did it” and ceasing any intellectual or scientific inquiry. This is not the case - God gives us a why and we are then free from any restraint in finding the how.[/quote]

…and yet, creationists do little to futher scientific progress in that area, beside attributing the wonders of the universe to god, because they don’t follow the correct scientific procedures [see the cartoon earlier in this thread]…

[quote]Evolutionists on the other negate one posible answer and then craft every answer in ways that support their pre-supposition that negates any super-natural influence on the physical universe.

Who’s is more intellectually dishonest- the mind open to any and all possibilities or the one closed to all but their narrowed view?[/quote]

…your one possible answer is negated because it’s make-belief, fairy tales, bronze age myth and scientific unsound reasoning. It is far from intellectually dishonest to ignore something that has nothing to do with the field of science. That is calling a brainsurgeon intellectually dishonest when he ignores the art of cheese making in regards to his profession. It’s just utter nonsense…

…no matter how you try to spin this, whatever science does, it should have no influence on your beliefs. Science and religious beliefs are divided by a casm of immense proportions, and it should stay that way. Or perhaps you’re just afraid science is going to prove you wrong…

198

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Doc, I honestly can’t get over the “elegance and concision” remark so I’m not going to leave it alone just yet. I’m going to whack you with it a bit more. (We’re still friends even though I’m giving you a beating with it)

There can be nothing much cruder and more imprecise than modern evolutionary theory. It is a flimsy model of thought and its gaping truck-sized holes are held together with vast amounts of speculation - FAITH - that dirty, smelly word, faith.

It’s almost comical, maybe sad is a better word, to hear intelligent folks describe it as established fact.[/quote]

Tons of evidence with some gaps and holes that are still unobserved, but EXPLAINED by the theory is still a lot better than magic.

199

[quote]pushharder wrote:
For instance, to employ Occam’s Razor, which in a nutshell suggests “choose the simple explanation”, as a weapon in this intellectual battle goes beyond the pale.

Choose an axiom that cries out for simplicity to defend a hypothesis that is so convoluted and tenuous? Really? You honestly want to whip that one out?
[/quote]

You’re really bringing out Occam’s razor?

What’s less complicated: Evolution and natural selection working over BILLIONS of years, or magic that defies every law of the natural world as facilitated by a supernatural being?

200

[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
Who’s is more intellectually dishonest- the mind open to any and all possibilities or the one closed to all but their narrowed view?[/quote]

Are you implying that your mind is open to the possibility that the origin of the universe, the earth, and humanity might have been something other than the sequence of events described in Genesis 1?