Is the Theory of Evolution on the ropes?

[Nemesis 1]

What's the point of even living life if you think there is nothing to look forward to at the end?

While lets just suppose that the kingdom of God is inside of you and all about you and the kingdom of God is here now and you do not comprehind this . Surely you will know death.
Stop being controlled by your overseerers. Find self . I told you guys a few times . I am a 100% pure socialist . But thats not possiable until the overseerers are destroyed.
If the kingdom of God is in you and all about you and you are living in it . Who has a right to a bigger share than any other ? NONE!

 

[Zenmervolt]

Um, this may be a shock to you, but if the Universe and Life was indeed created, do you think It/He/She whatever would fall within the same limitations as what It/He/She created?

Whatever created the Universe and or Life, had to be something of immense power and intelligence, the likes of which you and I cannot even begin to fathom.

So you're OK with some unknown/unknowable "creator" being uncaused, but the idea that the universe/life was "uncaused" causes you to glitch? That's not consistent. If this "intelligent designer" can be uncaused, then there's absolutely no reason why the universe/life couldn't also be uncaused. Effectively, this argument boils down to, "The universe is far too complex to have 'just happened,' therefore an intelligent designer, who is far more complex than the universe, must exist and have 'just happened.'" It's not consistent.

All you've done is pushed the question mark one step further back (while simultaneously giving up on ever understanding that question mark). Intellectually, all you've done is effectively say, "I'm lazy and I don't want to think too hard, so I'll just say that the reason is impossible to understand and then go have a beer."

I can accept that there are things out there that I will never understand, and that there are many things that are simply beyond me.

You on the other hand, think you are capable of understanding everything....which is why you think the Creator has to have some kind of natural explanation..

Actually, no, I don't think that I'm "capable of understanding everything." I do, however, think that, given sufficient (i.e. infinite) time, science is capable of understanding everything. Not one person in this thread has said that they, personally, as an individual, are capable of understanding everything; the misconception of scientific affirmation as individual hubris is nothing more than a figment of your imagination. It is not a thing that actually happened.

ZV

 

[Iron Woode]

There has to be a higher power and there may be good evidence for evolution, but the Torah holds at least some truth to it. I'm neither Jewish nor Christian, but nothing in the Torah has been successfully refuted. People look at the Old Testament in the Christian bible, and do successfully refute it, but that's because it has been changed from the original (i.e., the Torah).

what kind of foolish statement is this?

give us some examples of "nothing has been refuted"? Sounds like a another strawman argument.

 

[zinfamous]

Georges Lemaître, (1894-1966), Belgian cosmologist, Catholic priest, and father of the Big Bang theory.

According to the Big Bang theory, the expansion of the observable universe began with the explosion of a single particle at a definite point in time. This startling idea first appeared in scientific form in 1931, in a paper by Georges Lemaître, a Belgian cosmologist and Catholic priest. The theory, accepted by nearly all astronomers today, was a radical departure from scientific orthodoxy in the 1930s. Many astronomers at the time were still uncomfortable with the idea that the universe is expanding. That the entire observable universe of galaxies began with a bang seemed preposterous.

Lemaître was born in 1894 in Charleroi, Belgium. As a young man he was attracted to both science and theology, but World War I interrupted his studies (he served as an artillery officer and witnessed the first poison gas attack in history). After the war, Lemaître studied theoretical physics, and in 1923 was ordained as an abbé. The following year, he pursued his scientific studies with the distinguished English astronomer Arthur Eddington, who regarded him as “a very brilliant student, wonderfully quick and clear-sighted, and of great mathematical ability.” Lemaître then went on to America, where he visited most of the major centers of astronomical research. Later, he received his Ph.D. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

http://www.amnh.org/education/resources/rfl/web/essaybooks/cosmic/p_lemaitre.html

Darwin was on his way to the priesthood.

what's your point?

 

[FelixDeCat]

Darwin was on his way to the priesthood.

what's your point?

He wanted to dismiss faith in God thinking it was incongruent with sceintific persuits. His post was an answer to Red Squirrel who mentioned the The Big Bang theory, created by someone who not only believed in God but served as a member of clergy.

You dont have to be an atheist to be a scientist.

Dr. Pizza helped to add a little clarity by separating one theory from another and mentioning that not all Christians disagree with evolution.

Evolution makes sense to me because I think it is a process God uses to control life. Of course nothing is ever simple for some and they want to spend their days on this topic, which is interesting, but I have other things to do right now, like enjoying this beautiful God given 79 degree breezy day (only our 3rd day under 100 degrees in the last 60+ days)!

See you in a few hours as Im going bike riding, again.

 

[busydude]

Evolution makes sense to me because I think it is a process God uses to control life.

By referring to 'god' you actually mean nature?

 

[mattpegher]

He wanted to dismiss faith in God thinking it was incongruent with sceintific persuits. His post was an answer to Red Squirrel who mentioned the The Big Bang theory, created by someone who not only believed in God but served as a member of clergy.

You dont have to be an atheist to be a scientist.

Dr. Pizza helped to add a little clarity by separating one theory from another and mentioning that not all Christians disagree with evolution.

Evolution makes sense to me because I think it is a process God uses to control life. Of course nothing is ever simple for some and they want to spend their days on this topic, which is interesting, but I have other things to do right now, like enjoying this beautiful God given 79 degree breezy day (only our 3rd day under 100 degrees in the last 60+ days)!

See you in a few hours as Im going bike riding, again.

I agree. Although my current thoughts on theism are in flux. From a purely metaphysical thought process, it is irrational to think that an omnipotent god would not be able to design and predict the outcome his actions such that the laws of physics would eventually lead to the level of complexity that is life, and human evolution. It is therefore illogical to assume that such a being would need to break his own laws to produce any desired effect. Also, it would be illogical to assume that he would need to "adjust" his creation as this god would also be defined as omniscient including temporal events.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

That's a flawed analogy. There is nothing to lose by believing in God. If by chance it's all false, then it does not matter what I believed in, whatever I'm destined to go when I die will happen. However, if God does exist and the Bible is true, then there is a lot to lose by not believing.

This is why so many people think of the religious as simple-minded and credulous: by-and-large they are.

What you have suggested above is a plain non-sequitur because it assumes a false dichotomy -- namely, that the only two possibilities are the Christian religious dogma is true, or no religions are true. The problem is that it baselessly excludes a literally infinite number of alternative possibilities like The Evil Genius/Brain in Vat/Matrix hypothesis. It could very well be that this existence is specifically set up to test how gullible each one of us is, and there is in fact punishment for those that believe falsely in the Christian god. You do not know that this is not the case, but it is totally assumed impossible by your argument.

Believing in the big bang takes as much faith as God. The fact that nothing bumped into nothing and ended up creating life and a whole universe is quite far fetched when trying to think 100% scientifically.

That isn't what the big bang proposes.

Matter can't be created from nothing, and even if it could, there would need to be some kind of force to initiate it, but if no matter exists to begin with, then where is this force even going to come from?

I defy you to present any reputable cosmologist who would affirm a belief that there was ever a point when "nothing" existed. Indeed all the current cosmological models I can think of right now do not propose an absolute beginning to existence, and rather treat the big bang as a point of origin for our local patch of space-time, which itself exists within a larger manifold that has no beginning.

Either way, I could not care less what people chose to believe in, but it just pisses me off when people bash someone because they don't believe the same thing.

We bash people that believe things based on false understandings of reality, and as well we should.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

What's the point of even living life if you think there is nothing to look forward to at the end?

I am an atheist, and I do not think "there is nothing to look forward to at the end." I'll stipulate that my beliefs are uncommon to say the least, but the point is that your claim does not strictly hold in a universe without a god.

 

[mattpegher]

I defy you to present any reputable cosmologist who would affirm a belief that there was ever a point when "nothing" existed. Indeed all the current cosmological models I can think of right now do not propose an absolute beginning to existence, and rather treat the big bang as a point of origin for our local patch of space-time, which itself exists within a larger manifold that has no beginning.

.

Actually, Hawkings' current theory is that there is no time before the big bang. A concept that I jus dont understand as yet. He states that time space are connected such that the math does not predict anything prior to the big bang. It seems that time is alterred in the early moments after the big bang such that time itself may not exist prior. I will admit that this confuses the hell out of me but if time and space are not independent it may be possible. - ouch it give me a headache.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Will it's expansion be asymptotic - reaching an equilibrium?

Just picking nits, but the point of an asymptotic trajectory of entropy in the universe is that it doesn't reach equilibrium, but approaches it forever. There is of course some serious doubt that "total entropy of the universe" is even a meaningful measurement since it is possible that the the total energy of the universe is infinite.

 

[Nemesis 1]

We bash people that believe things based on false understandings of reality, and as well we should.

Really. Please tell us the reality of the climate as of late. If you don't know than how can you bash someone who puts forth an idea as the cause of this change . I am 60 so don't try and say it hasn't changed.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Actually, Hawkings' current theory is that there is no time before the big bang. A concept that I jus dont understand as yet. He states that time space are connected such that the math does not predict anything prior to the big bang. It seems that time is alterred in the early moments after the big bang such that time itself may not exist prior. I will admit that this confuses the hell out of me but if time and space are not independent it may be possible. - ouch it give me a headache.

This is more of a semantical issue. In multiverse cosmology, for example, the dimensions of space-time can begin at the big bang, but these exist "within" a larger multidimensional manifold. As a consequence, we cannot make statements of things existing "before space-time" since "before" is a temporal reference in itself, but that does not mean that "outside" (also inaccurate, being a spatial reference) the dimensions of space-time things exist like p-branes. Really, at this level only the mathematics can describe the models accurately since our very language has certain root assumptions about space-time built into it.

 

[dmcowen674]

No such thing as Evolution as evidenced in here.

 

[Darwin333]

I know what a theory is. But as I said in my post, despite the "theory" in evolution, many in Scientific circles still seem to regard it as factual, and they defend it as such with incredible zeal, and have strong prejudice against any other attempts to explain how Life on Earth became the way it is...

The attacks on intelligent design show exactly that. Most of the rebuttals to Behe's arguements that I read, weren't even real rebuttals. They just side stepped or grossly misrepresented the hard issues rather than tackling them head on.

Would you also like to refute the Theory of gravity.

And I don't think that any true scientist or even a person truly interested in science would have strong prejudices against a competing theory if it had a reasonable amount of science and evidence to back it up. ID is NOT a scientific theory, even though its supporters like to claim it is, and that is why it is attacked.

Edit: Also I do not believe that the Theory of Evolution attempts to explain the beginning of life (one of your main points). It simply attempts to explain how life has changed once it began.

 

[Iron Woode]

You think that's a child down there? Don' be fooled. She's a Little Sister now. Someone went and turned a sweet baby girl into a monster. Whatever you thought about right and wrong on the surface, doesn't count for much down in Rapture. Those Little Sisters carry Adam, the genetic material that keeps all the wheels in Rapture turning. Everybody wants it, everybody needs it.

 

[Todd33]

And for the last time, I am NOT A CREATIONIST! And if you think Intelligent Design has anything to do with Creationism, then you are ignorant.

Sorry, one is just a repackaged version of the other with the same money, actors and lies. You are either lying or just ignorant.

 

[mattpegher]

To reitterate, the "theory" of intelligent design assumes the premise that humans show evidence in our anatomy and physiology of an intelligent design.

!! We do not. !!

Our design is not intelligent. No creator would design us this way, to many flaws both physiologically (esp neurochemically) and anatomically (nerve distribution). All show evidence of design flaws created by modifiing previous models. Useless code. Dormant genes for protiens that we no longer need. Vestigial organs.

But most importantly, it is illogical that a omnipotent god would need to design anything other than the rules of physics. Job done.

 

[Darwin333]

Um, this may be a shock to you, but if the Universe and Life was indeed created, do you think It/He/She whatever would fall within the same limitations as what It/He/She created?

Whatever created the Universe and or Life, had to be something of immense power and intelligence, the likes of which you and I cannot even begin to fathom.

Or said another way, a God. I am honestly curious as to what you believe the difference between ID and creationism is.

I can accept that there are things out there that I will never understand, and that there are many things that are simply beyond me.

Could it be at least AS possible that the evolution of the bacterial flagellum happens to be one of those things beyond your grasp (and for the moment sciences as well)? At one point the sun was worshiped because it was, at the time, beyond the grasp of man.

 

[Modelworks]

Science of the current time always claims it always has the answers and what it says is correct until proven otherwise and that is good and bad in different ways. When someone can prove causality doesn't have to have a beginning I will be really really impressed. Until then I will have to believe that someone, something, sometime had to start it all.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

To reitterate, the "theory" of intelligent design assumes the premise that humans show evidence in our anatomy and physiology of an intelligent design.

I'm nit picking again, but personally I wouldn't dignify intelligent design by calling it a theory, even if you put "theory" in quotations.

Our design is not intelligent. No creator would design us this way, to many flaws both physiologically (esp neurochemically) and anatomically (nerve distribution). All show evidence of design flaws created by modifiing previous models. Useless code. Dormant genes for protiens that we no longer need. Vestigial organs.

The reason that intelligent design is not a theory isn't strictly because there is no evidence of design, but because the proponents are utterly incapable of describing the methods of alleged design for the subjects they attempt to analyze. Want to shut up an ID-er? Ask him how biological organisms were designed. He'll have nothing for you.

 

[Darwin333]

OK, so if my points were addressed convincingly, has any Scientist ever demonstrated mutation as being capable of creating a new species in a lab?

What about the presence of information in DNA? Does Dawkins have an answer to that?

If these things are as concrete as you believe, where is the hard evidence?

I demand the same standards be applied to ID. So please, show me the hard evidence that ID does in fact exist. And before you even try, simply because you or even we as a species can not understand something is not, I repeat NOT, evidence of an uberpowerful creator (that may or may not go by the name of God).

Seems to me that in order for ID to meet the same requirements that you demand of Evolution you must show concrete proof of the designer. Who he/she/it is, where they came from, why they designed us, where they went, why can't I have a beer with one of them, did they leave behind any Stargates and if so where are they, etc....

 

[Modelworks]

T

But most importantly, it is illogical that a omnipotent god would need to design anything other than the rules of physics. Job done.

Nowhere in any religion does a God ever say he is omnipotent, that is something that mankind labeled a God as being. Most Gods refer to themselves as being the start of something or being knowledgeable but never omnipotent.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

When someone can prove causality doesn't have to have a beginning I will be really really impressed.

Um... causality doesn't have to have a beginning. There's nothing contradictory or incoherent about an infinite regress of causes. Infinite ordered sets with no least element are handled easily in set theory.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Nowhere in any religion does a God ever say he is omnipotent, that is something that mankind labeled a God as being. Most Gods refer to themselves as being the start of something or being knowledgeable but never omnipotent.

When Jesus said "With God, all things are possible," did he really mean just some things, then?