Creation vs. Evolution

[Danoff]

But it does require trust to at least some degree.

Are you telling me that when I double down at the blackjack table it requires trust? Am I trusting others not to hit me when I drive on the freeway? No. I'm hoping they don't hit me. I'm rolling the dice, knowing that if I roll them often enough I will almost certainly get hit.

Do you trust the vending machine to give you your soda when you put your money in, or do you hope it does and roll the dice? Do you trust your mechanic to fix the car properly or do you hope he does and roll the dice?

 

[Swift]

Are you telling me that when I double down at the blackjack table it requires trust? Am I trusting others not to hit me when I drive on the freeway? No. I'm hoping they don't hit me. I'm rolling the dice, knowing that if I roll them often enough I will almost certainly get hit.

Do you trust the vending machine to give you your soda when you put your money in, or do you hope it does and roll the dice? Do you trust your mechanic to fix the car properly or do you hope he does and roll the dice?

There's trust, then there's faith. Faith is an unwaivering belief in whatever.
You trust yourself when driving, you trust that the odds may be in your favor when playing blackjack and so on.

I'm not talking about "It's going to happen the way I want it" kind of mindset. I simply mean you trust that your immediate actions will produce the results you have in mind.

 

[Famine]

In the dark ages it was "believed" that the Earth was flat, and sailing too far to sea you would fall off the edge. Where to? I've not seen that specified.

The World Turtle, Great A'Tuin.

But I digress. It should be noted that as far back as the Babylonians, the world was perceived as a sphere. Anyone living by the sea could see the curvature of the Earth. Aristotle knew it was a sphere. Eratosthenes calculated the Earth's circumference - to within a tolerance of 1% - in 250BC. Not even the Bible ever refers to the Earth as flat or disc-like (though only through a bit of contextual translation chicanery could one make the case that it refers to it as a sphere).

In medieval times it was "believed" that the Earth was the center of all things, and the sky was a sphere that contained everything. The sun, moon, planets, etc. moved around in this space, somehow.

Ptolemy was mainly to blame for this, along with Aristotle. But Aristarchos proposed a heliocentric model back in about 280BC (along with the first real recognition of the fact that the Sun is much larger than the Earth, though his numbers were out a little) - Aristotle's theory was just too widespread (he was kind of the philosopher's pin-up) and prevailed for quite a lot of the next couple of millennia. Copernicus is often credited with the theory, but Aristarchus got there first...


But you're right to say that the knowledge (scientia) passed along was modified to fit new and additional information, even if not always accepted by the mainstream until some time later.

 

[Danoff]

There's trust, then there's faith. Faith is an unwaivering belief in whatever.
You trust yourself when driving, you trust that the odds may be in your favor when playing blackjack and so on.

I'm not talking about "It's going to happen the way I want it" kind of mindset. I simply mean you trust that your immediate actions will produce the results you have in mind.

It depends on how you use the word trust. Again I put the casino example to you. That's action without trust. It's action based on hope alone.

 

[Swift]

It depends on how you use the word trust. Again I put the casino example to you. That's action without trust. It's action based on hope alone.

And probabilities that can be observed.

 

[wfooshee]

The World Turtle, Great A'Tuin.

But I digress. It should be noted that as far back as the Babylonians, the world was perceived as a sphere. Anyone living by the sea could see the curvature of the Earth. Aristotle knew it was a sphere. Eratosthenes calculated the Earth's circumference - to within a tolerance of 1% - in 250BC. Not even the Bible ever refers to the Earth as flat or disc-like (though only through a bit of contextual translation chicanery could one make the case that it refers to it as a sphere).



Ptolemy was mainly to blame for this, along with Aristotle. But Aristarchos proposed a heliocentric model back in about 280BC (along with the first real recognition of the fact that the Sun is much larger than the Earth, though his numbers were out a little) - Aristotle's theory was just too widespread (he was kind of the philosopher's pin-up) and prevailed for quite a lot of the next couple of millennia. Copernicus is often credited with the theory, but Aristarchus got there first...


But you're right to say that the knowledge (scientia) passed along was modified to fit new and additional information, even if not always accepted by the mainstream until some time later.

Is that how the turtle (and the elephants) eat - explorers falling over the edge? You're right in your facts (of course), and I know you understand that my post was to point out how belief becomes a blindfold. I could have said "European civilization" in my post.

[JUVENILE MODE]Yet I must point out that you've used two spellings for Aristarchos, and the second one is a different person. I know exactly who you meant, and what your point is, I just had to sort of be childish and say you made a mistake, or a typo, or something. There's not much opportunity for that. [/JUVENILE MODE]

 

[Famine]

Yeah, well you're a towel.

 

[SuperCobraJet]

OK, even if that were true, what is wrong with that? All of the evidence from the natural world points towards evolution and away from intelligent design. Whether I, you or anyone else believes the facts doesn't change those facts. That's why I said that believing in gravity (for example) is moot... one's opinions or beliefs are irrelevant in the broader context.


Depends what you're talking about when you refer to origins... Origin of life from first principles? The jury is still well and truly out there. But the origin of Mankind? The jury has returned it's verdict - Mankind has evolved from more humble beginnings. The human species was certainly not among the first living things ever to exist on Earth, and for that there is so much evidence that it is almost beyond belief that anyone would still argue against it.... but that is precisely what Creationists do. I accept that the greater issue of absolute origins will remain mysterious for some time to come, but Creationists should atleast accept that, on the origin of our species only, the Biblical account as written in Genesis is plain wrong... the 'evidence' put forth to support Creationist claims of a young Earth and, more specifically, of a young Earth co-habitted by humans and dinosaurs simulatenously, is so laughably flawed that it is scarcely any wonder why people don't take any of it seriously....

Here is an example of Creationist logic which constitutes 'evidence' for dinosaur and man cohabitation...
"Man exists now. Crocodiles exist now. Crocodiles existed at the same time as Dinosaurs. Therefore, Man existed at the same time as Dinosaurs."... that's a real example (abbreviated) from Answers In Genesis...

I think it worthy for clarification here to note that both science and the Bible indicate the presence of the earth and some life form prior to the advent of man.

I believe commonalities amoung species points to Intelligent design just as an artists paintings with commonalities of style, use of color, etc. point to him as the artist.

I believe you are stretching a bit on that last one, since crocodiles are still with us and dinosaurs are not.

 

[UnoMOTO]

In the dark ages it was "believed" that the Earth was flat, and sailing too far to sea you would fall off the edge. Where to? I've not seen that specified.

In medieval times it was "believed" that the Earth was the center of all things, and the sky was a sphere that contained everything. The sun, moon, planets, etc. moved around in this space, somehow.

Both were wrong. As science advanced to present evidence contrary to "beliefs," those presenting the science were scorned, ridiculed, imprisoned, and suppressed by whatever means were available.

Yet NOBODY in the Creationist camp sees any parallel??!??!?!?!!?? They stick to their "beliefs" despite the overwhelming evidence.

Us and our creationist ideas doesn't really coincide with the formation of the universe. The bible doesn't specify anything about stars, planets, supernovas, black holes or anything outside our blue ball. All of that was left up to us to find out with our "free will". We have been given the choice to believe the world is flat or not. That will not determine our place in etirnity.

I see a an overwhelming evidence of inteligent design. I don't think that our perfectly balanced eco system was formed by trial and error over millions of years. It is my opinion that life would have died off before it could have evolved to live through things like meteor blasts or an ice age. I would think that after each of these or similar events happened life would have vertually had to start all over. When you think about it this way I must say the odds are against it. Logical or not?

 

[Danoff]

I think it worthy for clarification here to note that both science and the Bible indicate the presence of the earth and some life form prior to the advent of man.

So you're saying that on the 5th day God created animals. On the 6th day, god killed the dinosaurs (because he saw that it was bad) and created man. Is that right?

 

[Swift]

So you're saying that on the 5th day God created animals. On the 6th day, god killed the dinosaurs (because he saw that it was bad) and created man. Is that right?

Is there proof that man and dinosaurs were on the planet at the same time?

 

[Danoff]

Is there proof that man and dinosaurs were on the planet at the same time?

No, there is proof that they were NOT on the planet at the same time.

 

[UnoMOTO]

So you're saying that on the 5th day God created animals. On the 6th day, god killed the dinosaurs (because he saw that it was bad) and created man. Is that right?

So your saying that a meteor killed all the dinosaurs? but the crocodiles are direct decendents of dinosaurs. If it killed the dinosaurs...tell me what actually did servive. If you say the only thing to die was the big fat slow ones I say "bunk". Most everything would have died and evolution would have had to start all over again. Thus the croc re-evolving from scratch Not dinosaurs. logical or not?

 

[Danoff]

So your saying that a meteor killed all the dinosaurs? but the crocodiles are direct decendents of dinosaurs. If it killed the dinosaurs...tell me what actually did servive. If you say the only thing to die was the big fat slow ones I say "bunk". Most everything would have died and evolution would have had to start all over again. Thus the croc re-evolving from scratch Not dinosaurs. logical or not?

Not.

The dinos that died did so largely because of oxygen content, temperature, and changes in available food. Lots of animals managed to survive that, especially the ones that didn't rely so much on an oxygen rich atmosphere (I think, I'm not a biologist afterall).

Let me re-iterate one critical point here. LOTS of animals survived the dino extinction. Nature did not have to start from scratch.

 

[UnoMOTO]

Not.

The dinos that died did so largely because of oxygen content, temperature, and changes in available food. Lots of animals managed to survive that, especially the ones that didn't rely so much on an oxygen rich atmosphere (I think, I'm not a biologist afterall).

Let me re-iterate one critical point here. LOTS of animals survived the dino extinction. Nature did not have to start from scratch.

All just theory. Unless you were there to observe you can't possibly know what the oxygen content was. Dinos breath oxygen and crocs breath oxygen. Thats why we have a hard time following you. You pick and choose theories to fit your line of thinking. Isn't nearly everything on the planet relying on oxygen even all aquatic animals. Deprive the earth of oxygen and nearly everything dies. Think of how an eco system works. No sun = no plants, no plants = no oxygen so on and so forth.

 

[Sage]

So your saying that a meteor killed all the dinosaurs? but the crocodiles are direct decendents of dinosaurs. If it killed the dinosaurs...tell me what actually did servive. If you say the only thing to die was the big fat slow ones I say "bunk". Most everything would have died and evolution would have had to start all over again. Thus the croc re-evolving from scratch Not dinosaurs. logical or not?

Not at all.

A field mouse requires far far fewer resources than a 30-foot-tall reptile. Thus, if many resources are depleted, the mouse is far far more likely to survive than the dinosaur.

A crocodile is (was) considerably smaller than many dinosaurs. Same difference.

 

[Swift]

No, there is proof that they were NOT on the planet at the same time.

Ok, so why is your scenario such an impossibility?

 

[UnoMOTO]

Not at all.

A field mouse requires far far fewer resources than a 30-foot-tall reptile. Thus, if many resources are depleted, the mouse is far far more likely to survive than the dinosaur.

A crocodile is (was) considerably smaller than many dinosaurs. Same difference.

As I am not a scientist give me a range of existing animals and their percentage of oxygen needed to maintain. Does an elephant need for example 20% oxygen to live and a mouse only need 10% oxygen to live?

 

[ledhed]

All just theory. Unless you were there to observe you can't possibly know what the oxygen content was. Dinos breath oxygen and crocs breath oxygen. Thats why we have a hard time following you. You pick and choose theories to fit your line of thinking. Isn't nearly everything on the planet relying on oxygen even all aquatic animals. Deprive the earth of oxygen and nearly everything dies. Think of how an eco system works. No sun = no plants, no plants = no oxygen so on and so forth.

No you are wrong. You can anylize samples of the soil and rock and other materials from that era and get an almost 100 percent accurate reading on what the conditions where durring that time period. Much the same way we anylize soil samples from MARS and the MOON.


As far as dino's and men existing at the same time ...dinosaurs were dead for eons before even the first fossil was found of anthing resembling pre man...never mind Homo sapien.

 

[SuperCobraJet]

Here's my order of operations:

1. Define the question
2. Gather information and resources
3. Form hypothesis
4. Perform experiment and collect data
5. Analyze data
6. Interpret data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypotheses
7. Publish results

Notice the lack of the word "believe" in there. Once again, I submit that action does not require belief or faith. When you place a bet at vegas, you do not "believe" you will win, you "hope" you will win. That is one (of many) example of action without faith/belief.

Action without beleif is life. You drive home knowing you could get into an accident. You eat knowing it could kill you. You buy something from amazon.com knowing that your credit card could get stolen. You cross the street knowing you could get hit. There are thousands upon thousands of actions you take every day, all of which are based on evidence, none of which are based upon certainty.

So basically, drop the whole "action requires belief" nonsense.

I have admitted a person can act without believing.
There are two exceptions and I think you are one of them.
I hope you are not betting in Las Vegas based on evidence.
Contrary to what you are saying you are placing some belief in the odds of winning even though they are stacked considerably against you. People buy lottery tickets for the same reason.

Let me give you an example of what I have been trying to get you to see. This is also why I asked you about polling this argument.
In your examples of driving and flying when someone is killed in an accident, it is the obvious given or reasonable presumption by all that they believed they would have survived or they would not have under taken the journey.

With regaurd to the exception, I think you are one in that you can pass from 1 or 2 to 5 sincerely believing you are still at 1 or 2.

 

[Sage]

As I am not a scientist give me a range of existing animals and their percentage of oxygen needed to maintain. Does an elephant need for example 20% oxygen to live and a mouse only need 10% oxygen to live?

I never said anything about oxygen, although that could be one factor, amongst many. Notice I said “resources” – food, water, light, shelter, nutrients, even symbiotic relationships.

 

[ledhed]

Climate changes alone could account for mass extictions of animals and the food they eat to survive. Think food chain . Plus being REPTILES they are MUCH more succeptable to climate effects than mammals.

 

[SuperCobraJet]

So you're saying that on the 5th day God created animals. On the 6th day, god killed the dinosaurs (because he saw that it was bad) and created man. Is that right?

As far as I can tell, it appears likely that God did not want them included in the arrangement. That is just a guess.
However if you don't like something God did you can take it up with him, but most likely he will answer you along the same lines as he did Job.

 

[UnoMOTO]

I never said anything about oxygen, although that could be one factor, amongst many. Notice I said “resources” – food, water, light, shelter, nutrients, even symbiotic relationships.

Ah...then you did not understand where my conversation with danoff was going. He said may have died due to oxgyen content. I was responding to that.

No you are wrong. You can anylize samples of the soil and rock and other mayerials from that era and get an almost 100 percent accurate reading on what the conditions where durring that time period. Much the same way we anylize soil samples from MARS and the MOON.

That is not a perfect science per the ability to think your looking at rock that is 250 million years old. Good science but not conclusive.

 

[Famine]

So your saying that a meteor killed all the dinosaurs?

We're not totally sure what killed the dinosaurs - it looks like an horrific combination of events, including two separate meteor strikes.

but the crocodiles are direct decendents of dinosaurs.

Depends what you mean by "dinosaurs", "descendants" and "direct".

We're at levels of understanding again.

Crocodile species were contemporaries of the dinosaurs - that is, there was a common dinosaur/crocodile ancestor which predated both groups and both groups coexisted. The dinosaur species are ancestors of other groups though - birds, for example - and other species which coexisted with dinosaurs have been found alive and well (like the coelacanth).

If it killed the dinosaurs...tell me what actually did servive.

Everything you see today - or at least the ancestors of everything you see today.

If you say the only thing to die was the big fat slow ones I say "bunk".

No - quite a few big fat fast ones died too. But, without any evidence to the contrary (or indeed any at all), why would you say "bunk"?

Most everything would have died and evolution would have had to start all over again. Thus the croc re-evolving from scratch Not dinosaurs. logical or not?

Not - crocodiles didn't evolve from dinosaurs.

About 30% of all species died in the extinction event we're talking about. Less than 1 in 3.

The reason why "big fat" animals suffer so badly in extinction events is a bit obvious if you think about it.

Big animals are usually top consumers - predators or massive, massive herbivores. They need food and there aren't many of them compared to the food they eat. Like one cat eats lots of mice and fish, or one cow eats lots of grass.

If you remove, by extinction, a food species, everything that eats it, and everything that eats them (and so on) suffers, simply through lack of food and competition for that food.

Unless you were there to observe you can't possibly know what the oxygen content was.

Yeah, because we can't analyse anything that isn't directly contemporary...

You pick and choose theories to fit your line of thinking.

Ironic, and we're back to levels of understanding again.

Isn't nearly everything on the planet relying on oxygen even all aquatic animals. Deprive the earth of oxygen and nearly everything dies.

Key words underlined. The Earth has suffered worse extinction events than the one that accounted for the dinos.

 

[wfooshee]

I don't think that our perfectly balanced eco system was formed by trial and error over millions of years. It is my opinion that life would have died off before it could have evolved to live through things like meteor blasts or an ice age. I would think that after each of these or similar events happened life would have vertually had to start all over. When you think about it this way I must say the odds are against it. Logical or not?

The "perfectly balanced ecosystem" was formed by trial and error over millions of years precisely because successful life forms survive in their niches, unsuccessful ones do not. Predators don't outweigh prey, because if they did, they would themselves die of for lack of food. Life forms which may be easy prey will produce large numbers of offspring each generation, because if they did not, the species would disappear. If it's cold, then furry, fat creatures thrive. If it's hot, then creatures who can shed heat survive. All by chance.

As for meteor blasts or ice ages, life does start over, for all intents and purposes. That's why these are called "extinction events." A new set of species comes out of the event successfully, and what was there before may have been wiped out. And there was not a single "dinosaur extinction" from an asteroid, the creatures we know as dinosaurs went through at least 2 extinction events prior to that cataclysm.

Yeah, well you're a towel.

Accepted.

 

[Danoff]

As I am not a scientist give me a range of existing animals and their percentage of oxygen needed to maintain. Does an elephant need for example 20% oxygen to live and a mouse only need 10% oxygen to live?

Plants consume C02, so they wouldn't die. Basically all of the kingdoms except animalia would be ok. Some anmials require more oxygen in the air than others. Some animals have lungs that are capable of extracting oxygen form the air better than others. They have adapted to get different amounts of energy from different places. Dinos were extremely dependent on an oxygen rich atmosphere. Those levels plummeted around the time of the extinction (from what we can tell from soil/ice samples). This allowed animals that didn't use their lungs as much to thrive in their place. Sage has already pointed out that this gives rise to mammals - which started from your basic rodent.

That's one factor in extinction. There are other factors - like the one famine pointed out about food chain disruptions. Then there's the one ledhed pointed out about climate change and how cold blooded animals which are unable to regulate body temperature could be seriously affected.

The bottom line is that many animals survived the extinction for various biological reasons - the (ancestors of the) croc was one of them.

I have admitted a person can act without believing.
There are two exceptions and I think you are one of them.
I hope you are not betting in Las Vegas based on evidence.
Contrary to what you are saying you are placing some belief in the odds of winning even though they are stacked considerably against you. People buy lottery tickets for the same reason.

Let me give you an example of what I have been trying to get you to see. This is also why I asked you about polling this argument.
In your examples of driving and flying when someone is killed in an accident, it is the obvious given or reasonable presumption by all that they believed they would have survived or they would not have under taken the journey.

With regaurd to the exception, I think you are one in that you can pass from 1 or 2 to 5 sincerely believing you are still at 1 or 2.

I don't follow you at all here. I'll say this - action is usually a response to stimuli. There are many kinds of stimuli that humans act upon.

As far as I can tell, it appears likely that God did not want them included in the arrangement. That is just a guess.
However if you don't like something God did you can take it up with him, but most likely he will answer you along the same lines as he did Job.

My issue is that it isn't written in the bible. God killed dinos on day 5, but nobody bothered writing it down. Why is that? (Hint: Because people didn't know about dinos when the bible was written)

 

[SuperCobraJet]

I don't follow you at all here. I'll say this - action is usually a response to stimuli. There are many kinds of stimuli that humans act upon.

As hard as it is for me to conjure, I truly believe you don't, or you won't.
Just for fun, certain stimuli can complete the sequence in a nano second.

My issue is that it isn't written in the bible. God killed dinos on day 5, but nobody bothered writing it down. Why is that? (Hint: Because people didn't know about dinos when the bible was written)

Believe what you like on this, I don't think it is of consequence either way.

 

[Danoff]

Believe what you like on this, I don't think it is of consequence either way.

No? No biggie that the bible doesn't mention dinosaurs? Doesn't make the whole thing seem a bit contrived to you? Maybe they forgot to mention evolution as well.

 

[Famine]

Believe what you like on this, I don't think it is of consequence either way.

No? No biggie that the bible doesn't mention dinosaurs? Doesn't make the whole thing seem a bit contrived to you? Maybe they forgot to mention evolution as well.

Yes - that is one astonishing statement...