Creation vs. Evolution

[kjb]

If the Earth was designed for observation of the cosmos, we wouldn't need the Hubble space telescope, let alone the next several generations that will replace it.

Short of living under the surface like Morlocks or with perpetual cloudcover like Venus, I'd be hard put to say how it could be harder to accurately observe the cosmos than from the platform of Earth.

I understand what your saying but that is what the authors contend. I can't explain it quite like they do but when I read (about 2 years ago) it may a lot of sense.

 

[Pako]

To be a point of observation, one would think that the Earth would be located in the center of the universe to accomplish this. Pretty bold thinking, I know God has a plan and purpose and even created us in His own image, but still....the Center of the universe? I find that hard to believe but realize it is a persons creative thinking at work, but I haven't read the book so maybe he makes some valid points.

 

[kjb]

Let me use Duke's example of the Venus if the atmosphere on was similar to that of Venus we would not be able to osberve the stars the way do now. Sure we might still be able to the radio telescopes and such. But it wouldn't be the same as it is now.

 

[Danoff]

Let me use Duke's example of the Venus if the atmosphere on was similar to that of Venus we would not be able to osberve the stars the way do now. Sure we might still be able to the radio telescopes and such. But it wouldn't be the same as it is now.

If the atmosphere on this planet was like Venus, we wouldn't have developed on this planet because of the sulfuric acid rain and the led-melting temperatures.

 

[ledhed]

If the atmosphere on this planet was like Venus, we wouldn't have developed on this planet because of the sulfuric acid rain and the led-melting temperatures.

But if the right conditions existed subsurface ..a biosphere beneath the crust ...all the elements needed do exist .

Then the morlocks could be looking at US right now through thier version of a sub surface multi lock shieled Morlock telescope and wondering if we all look like food .

space kake ...is .....mmmmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmm GOOD .

 

[FoolKiller]

If the atmosphere on this planet was like Venus, we wouldn't have developed on this planet because of the sulfuric acid rain and the led-melting temperatures.

Or we would have just developed in a different form that can withstand those conditions and would find Earth's conditions unable to sustain life, as we know it.

You are such an atmospherist!

 

[Danoff]

Or we would have just developed in a different form that can withstand those conditions and would find Earth's conditions unable to sustain life, as we know it.

You are such an atmospherist!

We still don't know what kinds of conditions are required for life. We've explored so little - even in our own solar system - that we simply don't know if life will ever arise in conditions like the ones on Venus.

 

[FoolKiller]

We still don't know what kinds of conditions are required for life. We've explored so little - even in our own solar system - that we simply don't know if life will ever arise in conditions like the ones on Venus.

This is why it always worries me when I hear scientists talking about looking for planets with the proper conditions to sustain life. It has a very, "we are the pinnacle of evolution and the best there is" kind of attitude to it.

 

[UnoMOTO]

We still don't know what kinds of conditions are required for life. We've explored so little - even in our own solar system - that we simply don't know if life will ever arise in conditions like the ones on Venus.

Has it been discussed in here what constitutes "life"?

 

[Danoff]

Has it been discussed in here what constitutes "life"?

What do you mean? The biological requirements for something to be life are as follows:

1. Homeostasis: Regulation of the internal environment to maintain a constant state; for example, sweating to cool off.

2. Organization: Being composed of one or more cells, which are the basic units of life.

3. Metabolism: Production of energy by converting nonliving material into cellular components (synthesis) and decomposing organic matter (catalysis). Living things require energy to maintain internal organization (homeostasis) and to produce the other phenomena associated with life.

4. Growth: Maintenance of a higher rate of synthesis than catalysis. A growing organism increases in size in all of its parts, rather than simply accumulating matter. The particular species begins to multiply and expand as the evolution continues to flourish.

5. Adaptation: The ability to change over a period of time in response to the environment. This ability is fundamental to the process of evolution and is determined by the organism's heredity as well as the composition of metabolized substances, and external factors present.

6. Response to stimuli: A response can take many forms, from the contraction of a unicellular organism when touched to complex reactions involving all the senses of higher animals. A response is often expressed by motion, for example, the leaves of a plant turning toward the sun or an animal chasing its prey.

7. Reproduction: The ability to produce new organisms. Reproduction can be the division of one cell to form two new cells. Usually the term is applied to the production of a new individual (either asexually, from a single parent organism, or sexually, from at least two differing parent organisms), although strictly speaking it also describes the production of new cells in the process of growth.

 

[UnoMOTO]

What do you mean? The biological requirements for something to be life are as follows:

Wouldn't all that have the definition of life on earth? Are you looking for what "life" is compaired to what you see on earth? Are scientist expanding the definition as they explore? I am not asking these in sense that I am going to debate it with you, I am just curious of what you all are doing?

 

[Danoff]

Wouldn't all that have the definition of life on earth? Are you looking for what "life" is compaired to what you see on earth? Are scientist expanding the definition as they explore? I am not asking these in sense that I am going to debate it with you, I am just curious of what you all are doing?

At the moment, that definition properly separates what we consider to be alive from what we consider to be dead. That being said, it's possible that we could find something that doesn't fit one of those criteria, yet exhibits enough life-like characteristics that we want to re-evaluate.

At the moment (and this is always the answer with science), that's the best definition we have.

 

[UnoMOTO]

At the moment, that definition properly separates what we consider to be alive from what we consider to be dead. That being said, it's possible that we could find something that doesn't fit one of those criteria, yet exhibits enough life-like characteristics that we want to re-evaluate.

At the moment (and this is always the answer with science), that's the best definition we have.

I saw that hubble has seen exploding volcanos on one of jupiters moons. By comparison...you think that earth was once just exploding valcanos. Life evolved from there. Why don't scientist condsider that the potential for life on that moon?

 

[Duke]

We still don't know what kinds of conditions are required for life. We've explored so little - even in our own solar system - that we simply don't know if life will ever arise in conditions like the ones on Venus.

There is a species of undersea worm that lives at depths of several thousand feet, near crust vents which distribute highly acidic jets of mineral-laden, superheated water. These worms feed off the organic compounds ejected by the vents.

They grow to be about an inch in diameter and about 4-6 feet long. They live their entire lives in close proximity to the vents, head in, tail out. They're under thousands of PSI of water pressure. Given the intense cold of the seawater at those depths, the worms spend their lives with a temperature gradient of approximately 250°C between their head and their tail!

If life can evolve to suit these conditions, life can evolve to suit nearly anything.

 

[Famine]

I saw that hubble has seen exploding volcanos on one of jupiters moons. By comparison...you think that earth was once just exploding valcanos. Life evolved from there. Why don't scientist condsider that the potential for life on that moon?

We do. Earth-like life is possible on a number of bodies in our own Solar System - but none is without their Achilles' Heels.

Io - the moon to which you refer - has volcanic activity because of tidal interactions with Europa, Ganymede and Jupiter itself, generating colossal heat and changing the size of Io by up to 2%. Jupiter has an hyooooowge magnetic field which Io impacts upon, creating massive amounts of electricity, ripping ionised gas from Io's atmosphere, generating ginormous amounts ultraviolet and radio-wave radiation. Io gets pulled all over the place and irradiated - not a good start for life.

Europa is a good bet too. Frozen surface probably hides a liquid water (one of the prerequisites for known life) ocean, induced magnetic field from Jupiter protecting it from Solar radiation and tidal influence from Jupiter generates some decent heat.

 

[Danoff]

...and now we have Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons - which the Cassini project recently discovered venting subsurface water into space. Enceladus could be one of the best chances we have in the solar system to find life.

Also there's mars, which has frozen water. It's possible that we could find sub-surface life on Mars, or at least fossilized life that used to exist from a time when Mars once had liquid water. We just need to dig.

And we could always find Duke's worms on Venus. But we don't have any evidence that water exists on Venus. We also don't know how specific the conditions need to be for the very beginnings of life to form. It's true that once life has gotten started, it suits itself to lots of harsh environments. But how specific are the conditions necessary to start life from what amounts to a bunch of dead stuff? We still don't know.

 

[Pako]

All this talk of evolution reminds me once again that all things evolving come from something that already is. At some point, something needed to be created in order for it to evolve in the first place. Where creation stops, evolution begins. What is so unfathomable about that?

 

[Danoff]

At some point, something needed to be created in order for it to evolve in the first place.

That's an assumption, fundamentally. Yes, something has to exist. But in order for things to exist, they don't necessarily have to be "created" by something else. And if they are, you're left wondering "what created that?".

The only answer left at the end of a string of "then what created that?" questions is that it exists because it must. That's it. I think at some point we will find a mathematical explanation for why the universe must exist. Not that it was created by something else, just that it's a consequence of nothingness.

So what do you think created God Pako?

 

[Pako]

Posted previously in this thread.

But if you don't believe in God, then you are left wondering, or just accepting the 'fact' that you just don't know because of the limitations of our current sciences. We have been given a glimpse into who God is by what Christ taught us while He walked the Earth. The God Jesus talked about, the Father, is the same deity that is said to be the Alpha and the Omega. It's in the Bible that you so quickly discredit. Again I ask, Where creation stops, evolution begins. What is so unfathomable about that?

 

[Danoff]

But if you don't believe in God, then you are left wondering, or just accepting the 'fact' that you just don't know because of the limitations of our current sciences.

Yup. That's the standard I hold knowledge to.

We have been given a glimpse into who God is by what Christ taught us while He walked the Earth. The God Jesus talked about, the Father, is the same deity that is said to be the Alpha and the Omega. It's in the Bible that you so quickly discredit.

The default state is "discredited". I'll give something credit when I start to see evidence and reason.

Again I ask, Where creation stops, evolution begins. What is so unfathomable about that?

Creation doesn't necessarily start.

 

[Pako]

Yup. That's the standard I hold knowledge to.



The default state is "discredited". I'll give something credit when I start to see evidence and reason.



Creation doesn't necessarily start.

But you have been given evidence and reason of Christ's existence yet you choose to "discredit" that in your own mind. Just like all the variety of life on earth came from the same sludge through the process of evolution. What you call evidence, I call guess work. I don't buy it. So here we are looking at each other in the face saying that what we believe is the right belief, although you will say that you don't believe in anything....., which is your own belief in and of itself I suppose.

 

[Danoff]

But you have been given evidence and reason of Christ's existence yet you choose to "discredit" that in your own mind.

If the evidence you're talking about is the bible... the default state for the bible is discredited. I need evidence that the bible is correct.

 

[wfooshee]

Got busy yesterday, come back this afternoon, and WOW! Couple hundred posts.

Couple of thoughts. Going back to opinion, I feel it's criminal to teach opinion as fact. Teaching something with the qualification "many people believe. . ." is almost as bad, because that gives the teacher leeway to emphasize his or her own beliefs, in tone of voice if nothing else.

But it's VITAL to teach kids how to arrive at an opinion and to defend it.

So the follow up I have to this is that right now Evolution is strongly supported by the current evidence we have. It is a great explanation no doubt (I strongly believed it till just a year ago) but the fact is it has the potentiol to be wrong. Something could come up later that tosses a wrench into the whole theory, which could lead to redoing this or that. Stuff like that has happened with other theories before, just look at theories regarding how electromagnetic radiation works.

Giving up an accepted point of view because something else "might" come along is ludicrous. You can't abandon something that fits all the known evidence just because different evidence "might" be out there waiting to be discovered. The scientific method absolutely allows for new evidence to change a theory. It's the job of scientists to question, to try to disprove, to try to break a theory, find some other plausible possible explanation that fits the facts. And no one scientist can say "This is how it is!" It's a community, and the community accepts or rejects the theory as stated, based on the known observation.

And while Columbus probably didn't understand electromagnetic radiation very well, we have a pretty good handle on it these days.

Also doesn't evolution violate the Law o Entropy(3rd Law of Thermodynamics)? Doesn't it state systems go from ordered to disordered?

As answered already, that's closed systems, systems with no energy input. Living creatures in their environments have so many sources of energy that such a question should never have come up, although people who like to sound "educated" (myself included, perhaps at the top of the list) like to throw things out that they think are plausible, although they haven't the faintest understanding of the conditions required for their question. This is not directed at you, it's directed at whoever wrote the thing you read that in.

Misuse of scientific "law" is such a common error (dare I say it?) especially by Creationists, that it's almost funny. I encountered this in my high school Physics class, first exposure to statics and the coefficient of friction, where we were taught that surface area is irrelevant to the force required to move an object across a surface. The question always comes up, "What about wide tires on race cars? They have more friction." The answer to that (not given by the teacher, because she was a moron) is that no, they don't. They have more traction (than a narrower tire), not more friction, as tires rolling on a surface are a dynamic event, not a static problem. The question about tires does not apply, because the subject was statics. Same way the question about entropy does not apply, because living systems have an intake of energy.

Let me use Duke's example of the Venus if the atmosphere on was similar to that of Venus we would not be able to osberve the stars the way do now. Sure we might still be able to the radio telescopes and such. But it wouldn't be the same as it is now.

If all we saw above us were clouds, it would never have occurred to us that anything else was out there. Point telescopes to the sky? Why? Cosmology as a science would not exist, until and unless someone actually had an aircraft capable of climbing through and above the clouds, no small feat for a Venusian surface dweller. But I can only imagine the response when he comes back and says, "Hey, there's other stuff out there!" Probably similar to this very debate in this thread! Find and read the story "Nightfall" by Isaac Asimov for a similar speculative possibility.

 

[Pako]

If the evidence you're talking about is the bible... the default state for the bible is discredited. I need evidence that the bible is correct.

The time and life of Christ is documents and accepted by both religious and secular groups. Of course, the religious say he was God or a Great Prophet according to some, while the secular groups (because they don't believe such stories of grandeurs) that Christ must have been just a good man. I would suspect that if Christ were alive today and performed such acts and miracles that right in front of you that you still wouldn't believe, but would caulk it up to some kind of trickery or falsehood. Maybe I'm reading too much into your character. What do you think? If you were standing there when Christ healed people, raised people from the dead, raised himself from the dead, would you believe then?

 

[Famine]

If you were standing there when Christ healed people, raised people from the dead, raised himself from the dead, would you believe then?

He's not as good as David Blaine.


Anyway, I thought that Christ did heal people and raise them from the dead, even today...

 

[Azuremen]

Giving up an accepted point of view because something else "might" come along is ludicrous. You can't abandon something that fits all the known evidence just because different evidence "might" be out there waiting to be discovered. The scientific method absolutely allows for new evidence to change a theory. It's the job of scientists to question, to try to disprove, to try to break a theory, find some other plausible possible explanation that fits the facts. And no one scientist can say "This is how it is!" It's a community, and the community accepts or rejects the theory as stated, based on the known observation.

And while Columbus probably didn't understand electromagnetic radiation very well, we have a pretty good handle on it these days.

Indeed, and you mistook what I was saying as well. What I am saying is just because evidence currently works for evolution does not exclude other possiblities, like creation.

And our understanding of how things work in the universe is still very piece meal. We still don't have a GUT, we still are confused as heck on gravity last I checked, and now we find things going faster than light and so on.

Basically, the idea of creationism cannot be proven wrong and evolution cannot be "proved" correct. But the same goes the other way as well.. you cannot disprove evolution and you cannot prove creationism. Only difference is scientists need proof to believe evolution, while people of faith need to no evidence of creationism, as thats kind of the idea of faith.

 

[ledhed]

I have to go raise the dead in philadelphia...they are called republicans...that support casey..

You may have better success with your dead guys .👍

 

[wfooshee]

Indeed, and you mistook what I was saying as well. What I am saying is just because evidence currently works for evolution does not exclude other possiblities, like creation.

And our understanding of how things work in the universe is still very piece meal. We still don't have a GUT, we still are confused as heck on gravity last I checked, and now we find things going faster than light and so on.

Basically, the idea of creationism cannot be proven wrong and evolution cannot be "proved" correct. But the same goes the other way as well.. you cannot disprove evolution and you cannot prove creationism. Only difference is scientists need proof to believe evolution, while people of faith need to no evidence of creationism, as thats kind of the idea of faith.

Perhaps I did read something you didn't quite say. It sounded like you said you dropped your acceptance of evolution as a valid theory because it can't be proven, or that new evidence might arise to challenge the theory, and that's what I responded to.

There is no shortage of evidence to support the theory of evolution as we understand it today. Indeed, the theory was valid before the discovery of DNA. Hereditary characteristics were observable without an understanding of the molecule that carries that heredity. Being able to compare the DNA of related species confirms many previous observations, perhaps re-arranges others. The correction of errors does not invalidate the entire process; it validates it, makes it more correct, just like your example of electromagnetic radiation. Of course we changed our theories as we learned the physics involved. That's what science is about.

As for not being able to prove evolution or Creationism, that's weak. Science is not about proving. (Geometry, on the other hand. . . . ) Science is about matching hypotheses to evidence and repeatable observation, presenting findings to the community for review, and coming up with theories that are supported by the observation.

Creationism, being the notion that the world and universe we know was done up in 6 days, everything just like we see it now, is most definitely absolutely NOT supported by any physical evidence anyone can find. As far as I'm concerned, it IS disproven. The evidence DOES exclude the Creation story as a valid literal history. The only support for it is the faith of believers in the literal word-for-word interpretation of a set of writings that are considered sacred, thus unquestionable. These tales were written by people who had no concept of the things being considered, people who, as I have said before, had an understanding of science equivalent to a cave man's. Their ideas were that we were the supreme earthly life form, the Earth was the center of the Universe, and all of it was made for our plunder. Pretty easy to get believers if that's what you teach. Especially if you teach that such plunder extends to the non-believers around you (for example, the prior occupants of Canaan.)

If you teach, instead, that we are an accident of chemistry on an insignificant rock flying around some second-rate star in a remote corner of some galaxy with nothing of interest anywhere else around, well, that gets kind of hard to swallow for people who are used to being master of all they survey. There is not a single group, tribe, nation or family of any size who doesn't believe deep down that they are the Chosen Ones, all others are condemned, and this self-centered arrogance is the root of all the world's troubles. EVERY conflict in history is because somebody thought they were better, more entitled, than somebody else, and it stinks.

Getting back to the science side, everything we see in genes, observed heredity, the fossil record, stange animals in small closed environments (Galapagos, Australia, etc,) and similarities in existing species, is accounted for in our present theory of evolution. Missing links are not enough to say the whole thing is bunk, but that seems to be the major objection. "Well, yeah, everything you say fits, as far as it goes, but it's incomplete. I'll stay with my 'wishing-makes-it-so' system, thanks."

 

[Danoff]

Good post wfooshee,

I like the observation of DNA confirming the theory. In general, new data fits right in with what we expect to see from evolutoin - and that's as good as it gets with science. It's when you have to start making exceptions for new data that things get ugly - but that isn't done with evolution.

If you teach, instead, that we are an accident of chemistry

This is dangerous. I know that you're making an entirely different point, about how evolution is less comforting to accept than religio, and it's very true. But life is not an accident. Life is an evetuality in a universe with enough rolls of the dice that everything comes up eventually. With as many rocks circling as many stars circling as many galaxies as we have in the universe, the odds of life occuring on one of them (that they'll someday name and call home and think of in an extra special way) goes to 1.

 

[wfooshee]

This is dangerous. I know that you're making an entirely different point, about how evolution is less comforting to accept than religio, and it's very true. But life is not an accident. Life is an evetuality in a universe with enough rolls of the dice that everything comes up eventually. With as many rocks circling as many stars circling as many galaxies as we have in the universe, the odds of life occuring on one of them (that they'll someday name and call home and think of in an extra special way) goes to 1.

The phrase was an intentional use of the Creationist argument that there's no conceivable way we could have happened by random chance.

As you say, life per se is an inevitability given the availability of ingredients and conditions. The biology we are part of, on the other hand, is the result of a specific sequence of possibilities. A volcano here, an asteroid there, who knows?