You can adapt to an inverted view by wearing inverting prisms for a week or so. Even though youre looking at the world "upside down" you could function just as you do now.
You can adapt to an inverted view by wearing inverting prisms for a week or so. Even though youre looking at the world "upside down" you could function just as you do now.
this was definitely a cut and paste from one of his feel good sites that assures him evolution is not true, how about some real thought, i really get a kick out of these threats because you simply ask the same questions over and over again in each threat without offering evidence supporting you alternative theory,
you evidence of ID is simplyt he fact that not enough evidence exists today to say evolution is fact, you point out things in evolution theory that simply are not known yet, or are questioned still, as fact that you are right
lack of study in any aspect of evolution does not negate it as a theory, and it surely does not prove anything about ID, which is not even a scientific theory, because its not testable and must be accepted at face value, just like religion/faith
Before we continue, I'd like to mention that a "theory" is simply a concept with scientific backing. It would be considered a "theory" if I said that the sky is blue during the daytime in most places; most non-LA natives can verify this quite easily. The HIV-3 (a.k.a. AIDS) virus has shown how evolution works; it's evolving very fast, too. (In 150 million years, I would'nt be surprised if it ruled the earth if it keeps up its current rate.)
Cerb
Elite Member
- Aug 26, 2000
- 17,484
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And in this context, every mention of the word evolution, especially used as Evolution (when we're not too lazy), refers to the Theory of Evolution.
Creationism (specifically, the Young Earth variety) isn't at variance with the evolution of Blues and Classical music to Heavy Metal.
Yep, this thread is meant for the theory of evolution, but it is clear that some people don't understand the difference. I'm sure some people are using the term "evolution" and referring to the theory of evolution (because that's what the thread is about) however others don't seem to understand the difference and hence aren't gearing their arguments at the theory itself. There is evolution itself, and then there is the theory of how evolution works, which is what this thread is about.
Stunt
Diamond Member
- Jul 17, 2002
- 9,717
- 2
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The argument tends to turn into religion/creationism vs. science/evolution (like it has above).
You are correct in saying evolution doesn't explain creation at all, this is why the two arguments COULD be totally independent of each other pending such ideas as; not taking the bible literally, the truth is not in Christianity but some other belief system with a creator and the like.
As is the reason why I chose to create this thread. I actually didn't expect as many people as did to choose the top answer to the poll question. After all, how could a theory be absolute fact, when tomorrow another modification to the theory may arise as our knowledge of the human genome increases. Although I generally believe in evolution as a theory, I believe there are many in-between steps that need to be explained by scientists in further detail in order for it to be accepted by me as absolute truth. I have little doubt that in our lifetimes, these in-between steps will be further illuminated by molecular biologists, biochemists, and other scientists. I guarantee that all of us will be surprised at least once more before it's all figured out.
I like how Stunt pointed out that Evolution and Creationism can be mutually exclusive and how other posters have also pointed out that each of the two actually serve different purposes. Evolution embodies our need to explain the complexities of the observable world around us. Creationism is meant to give meaning to why we are here. Neither, IMO, have to be necessarily wrong for the other to be truth.
Thanks everyone!
shira
Diamond Member
- Jan 12, 2005
- 9,500
- 6
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Perhaps if you had worded your choices more carefully you would have gotten fewer "absolute truth" responses. I chose the "Pretty much . . ." choice, not because I fully agreed with it but because I don't believe anything is "absolutte fact". I don't have problems with ANY aspect of the current theory, but I was forced to choose between "some aspects are questionable" and "absolute fact". I can understand how many individuals may have felt forced into answering "absolute truth".
A better second choice would have been, "I believe in the theory of evolution, but like all other scientific theories, it will undergo modification as our knowledge increases"
I'll bet you would have gotten a lot fewer "absolute truth" votes if you had offered that choice.
More on the eye:
***** From Dr. Alan Hayward (a British physicist), Creation and Evolution: Rethinking the Evidence from Science and the Bible, Minneapolis, Minnesota: Bethany House Publishers, Bethany House Edition, 1995, pp. 38-39:
When I first came across the title of a book, Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution, I assumed it was a piece of creationist propaganda. But I could hardly have been more wrong. It was the proceedings of a high-level international conference, where some of the world's greatest Darwinists and a number of mathematicians met to discuss whether Darwinism made mathematical sense.
The mathematicians present were not merely eminent in their own fields. They were invited because of their specialist knowledge of biology, many of them having done mathematical research related to one of the life sciences. Even so, the conference proceedings make rather sad reading. The two groups seemed unable to find much common ground: instead, they kept restating their opposing points of view.
A good illustration of this occurs on p. 29. Dr. S. M. Ulam had just given a paper where he showed, mathematically, that it seemed virtually impossible for the eye to have evolved in a Darwinian fashion. Now he was facing a barrage of criticism from the evolutionists. One of these, Sir Peter Medawar, complained:
I think the way you have treated this is a curious inversion of what would normally be a scientific process of reasoning. It is, indeed, a fact that the eye has evolved; and, as Waddington says, the fact that is had done so shows that this [Ulam's] formulation is, I think, a mistaken one.
This remark is pure Alice Through the Looking Glass. Ulam had produced mathematical evidence that the eye could not have evolved by random mutations and natural selection. Medawar retorted that it was a fact that the eye had evolved, and therefore Ulam simply must have got his sums wrong!
The extraordinary thing is that the evolutionist Medawar even accused Ulam of "a curious inversion of what would normally be a scientific process of reasoning." Medawar's reaction was like that of a man who had been standing on his head for so long that he thought the rest of the world was the wrong way up.
Another prominent evolutionist, Dr. Ernst Mayr, was equally irrational. He dismissed Ulam's mathematics by saying:
Somehow or other by adjusting these figures we will come out all right. We are comforted by knowing that evolution has occurred. (Page 30)
"Knowing," indeed!
Throughout the conference this sort of situation recurred. The Darwinists took as their starting point that their opinion was fact. "Please don't confuse us with your evidence," was their entrenched attitude.
Perhaps the most impressive argument of all was that raised by Professor Murray Eden, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, on page 9. He pointed out that the human genes contain about a billion nucleotides. (A nucleotide is the smallest unit of information in our genes --like a letter in a chemical alphabet. Groups of nucleotides convey messages to the developing embryo: messages such as "This white rat shall have pink eyes" or "This child shall be left-handed like its Dad.") He went on to show that, however you made the calculations, you ended up with the same conclusion: the length of time life has been on earth was not nearly long enough for all those nucleotides--all that information--to have been generated by chance mutations.
***** From Dr. Alan Hayward (a British physicist), Creation and Evolution: Rethinking the Evidence from Science and the Bible, Minneapolis, Minnesota: Bethany House Publishers, Bethany House Edition, 1995, pp. 38-39:
When I first came across the title of a book, Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution, I assumed it was a piece of creationist propaganda. But I could hardly have been more wrong. It was the proceedings of a high-level international conference, where some of the world's greatest Darwinists and a number of mathematicians met to discuss whether Darwinism made mathematical sense.
The mathematicians present were not merely eminent in their own fields. They were invited because of their specialist knowledge of biology, many of them having done mathematical research related to one of the life sciences. Even so, the conference proceedings make rather sad reading. The two groups seemed unable to find much common ground: instead, they kept restating their opposing points of view.
A good illustration of this occurs on p. 29. Dr. S. M. Ulam had just given a paper where he showed, mathematically, that it seemed virtually impossible for the eye to have evolved in a Darwinian fashion. Now he was facing a barrage of criticism from the evolutionists. One of these, Sir Peter Medawar, complained:
I think the way you have treated this is a curious inversion of what would normally be a scientific process of reasoning. It is, indeed, a fact that the eye has evolved; and, as Waddington says, the fact that is had done so shows that this [Ulam's] formulation is, I think, a mistaken one.
This remark is pure Alice Through the Looking Glass. Ulam had produced mathematical evidence that the eye could not have evolved by random mutations and natural selection. Medawar retorted that it was a fact that the eye had evolved, and therefore Ulam simply must have got his sums wrong!
The extraordinary thing is that the evolutionist Medawar even accused Ulam of "a curious inversion of what would normally be a scientific process of reasoning." Medawar's reaction was like that of a man who had been standing on his head for so long that he thought the rest of the world was the wrong way up.
Another prominent evolutionist, Dr. Ernst Mayr, was equally irrational. He dismissed Ulam's mathematics by saying:
Somehow or other by adjusting these figures we will come out all right. We are comforted by knowing that evolution has occurred. (Page 30)
"Knowing," indeed!
Throughout the conference this sort of situation recurred. The Darwinists took as their starting point that their opinion was fact. "Please don't confuse us with your evidence," was their entrenched attitude.
Perhaps the most impressive argument of all was that raised by Professor Murray Eden, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, on page 9. He pointed out that the human genes contain about a billion nucleotides. (A nucleotide is the smallest unit of information in our genes --like a letter in a chemical alphabet. Groups of nucleotides convey messages to the developing embryo: messages such as "This white rat shall have pink eyes" or "This child shall be left-handed like its Dad.") He went on to show that, however you made the calculations, you ended up with the same conclusion: the length of time life has been on earth was not nearly long enough for all those nucleotides--all that information--to have been generated by chance mutations.
***** From Roger Oakland and Caryl Matrisciana, The Evolution Conspiracy, Eugene, Oregon: Harvest House Publishers, 1991, pp. 90-91:
The human eye is another remarkable system. As you are reading this page, light is reflected from the page to your eyes. The light then passes through an opening in the eye called the pupil. The size of the opening, and thus the amount of light allowed to pass through the pupil, is controlled by muscles in the iris. The iris closes down in bright light and opens up when the light becomes dim. The light then passes through a lens. Muscles within the eye control the shape of the lens, focusing the image that you are viewing onto a light-sensitive screenlike retina at the back of the eyeball. Cells in the retina convert the light energy into an electrical stimulus which is then transferred to the brain. The brain then records the information the eye has perceived, and it is stored there for as long as you live.
A video system, engineered by the design of man, functions in very much the same way as the eye. . . . No one would ever suggest that a video system is the product of random processes of chance over millions of years of time. Yet the eye, which is far more complex, is commonly attributed to the process of evolution--even though Charles Darwin himself said, "To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree."
Often evolutionists will argue that it takes a series of mutations or mistakes in the genetic code to develop higher orders of complexity. Given long periods of time and random chance events major changes can supposedly occur in an organism. But no one has ever been able to explain how this "hit and miss" process could create complex organs like lungs, hearts, or kidneys. How would the immune system come into existence gradually over millions of years of time? It is obvious that creatures with such highly specialized structures essential for survival could not manage to exist while these structures and functions were evolving.
The human eye is another remarkable system. As you are reading this page, light is reflected from the page to your eyes. The light then passes through an opening in the eye called the pupil. The size of the opening, and thus the amount of light allowed to pass through the pupil, is controlled by muscles in the iris. The iris closes down in bright light and opens up when the light becomes dim. The light then passes through a lens. Muscles within the eye control the shape of the lens, focusing the image that you are viewing onto a light-sensitive screenlike retina at the back of the eyeball. Cells in the retina convert the light energy into an electrical stimulus which is then transferred to the brain. The brain then records the information the eye has perceived, and it is stored there for as long as you live.
A video system, engineered by the design of man, functions in very much the same way as the eye. . . . No one would ever suggest that a video system is the product of random processes of chance over millions of years of time. Yet the eye, which is far more complex, is commonly attributed to the process of evolution--even though Charles Darwin himself said, "To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree."
Often evolutionists will argue that it takes a series of mutations or mistakes in the genetic code to develop higher orders of complexity. Given long periods of time and random chance events major changes can supposedly occur in an organism. But no one has ever been able to explain how this "hit and miss" process could create complex organs like lungs, hearts, or kidneys. How would the immune system come into existence gradually over millions of years of time? It is obvious that creatures with such highly specialized structures essential for survival could not manage to exist while these structures and functions were evolving.
The answer is none of the above.
There are about 1070 atoms in the observable universe. There are only 1090 seconds in the 15 billion years generally said to be the age of the universe. The probability of spontaneously forming the smallest replicating protein molecule by chance is 1 in 10450. The probability of spontaneously forming proteins and DNA for the smallest self-replicating entity is 1 in 10167,626. The probability of a simple living cell reassembling itself under ideal natural conditions if all components were present but chemical bonds were broken is 1 in 10100,000,000,000. Mathematicians consider any event with a probability of less than 1 in 1050 to have a zero probability, i.e. to be impossible regardless of how much time is available.
Originally posted by: dmcowen674
So in a nutshell are you trying to use science to prove god only created us???
The scientific evidence points to a designer.
shira
Diamond Member
- Jan 12, 2005
- 9,500
- 6
- 81
How is it that when you are again and again provided with answers to your insufferable questions, you just ignore them and post the same questions again and again, as if you hadn't been provided with an answer?
The obvious conclusion is that you're not interested in any answer that contradicts your locked-in-concrete ideology.
This lastest post of yours once again demonstrates that you have not even the most rudimentary knowledge of mathematics. You write
"There are about 1070 atoms in the observable universe."
Even a grade-school student would recognize the absurdity of that statement. There are approximately 6,000,000,000,000,000,000 (that's six sextillion) atoms in even a grain of sand, you moron.
The fact that you don't recognize how absurd a number like "1070" is shows you are nothing more than a shell, a puppet, a recording machine that repeats words and numbers that are nothing more than syllables, without meaning or reason.
You're obviously not familiar with the elemetary mathematical concept of exponents, as in 10^70. Perhaps that number is what you meant.
But even more absurdly, you post "probabilities" of this and that without bothering to show the pedigree of those figures.
If I wrote, "92.4% of all evangelical Christians are clinicially depressed. That proves that evangelical Christianity should be abandoned."
Would you accept that 92.4% figure and agree with my conclusion. Or would you ask me where that number came from?
Where do YOUR probabilities come from? Show me their deriviation. Show me that those probabilities are widely accepted as correct figures.
Why am I even wasting my time. It's clear the "Riprorin method" is as follows:
1) Find web site that claims to refute some "anti-God" notion.
2) Scan web site for sections to quote. Do not attempt to actually understand anything.
3) Quote sections on AT P&N. Do not bother actually reading own post for clarity and typos.
4) When presented with challenge, do not actually attempt to understand what is being said. Instead, puppet back pat phrases - no actual understanding required: "Show me how oxygen can produce life in a reductive environment?"
5) Repeat 1 through 4 ad-infinitum.
You're going to ignore the MEANING this post just like you ignore anything else that challenges your ideology. You are hopelessly, willfully ignorant. You have no interest in obtaining knowlege. You have no interest in understanding what others write. You're sole motivation is pushing the evangelical message. You are immune from rational argumentation.
I pity your children.
Edited to summarize the Riprorin methodolgy.
It isn't about changing Rip's mind but about showing others who may venture into these threads that his ideas are absurd. Many people are confused by the notion that so many doubt evolution and they begin to wonder themselves. It is important to show that those who doubt do so out of a commitment to a narrow form of Christian fundamentalism, not out of a commitment to God or truth. All that is required for evil to triumph if for good people to do nothing, and saying you can't teach pigs to fly can lead to doing nothing. Desperate liars have great vigor and need to be opposed vigorously to expose their desperation so that foggier minds can at last see it.
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