boiltheocean
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Creation vs. Evolution
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Wow after 6000 post's, who's winning this debate? It has too much back story for me to catch up on...
Let me have a quick guess...
Evolutionists... sure it can't be proved to the opposition (Creationists) to a level of certainty that appeases them, but parts can. Furthermore it keeps changing as we know more or fill in gaps of knowledge... (the fire that Creationists use against it being true)
Creationists... however in reality can't prove anything to the opposition (Evolutionists) because before they can 'see' the truth they need to believe... which is completely the premise of how it started... and remained relatively constant... (the fire Evolutionists use against it being true)
Anyhow...
I like to have fun with the religo's sometimes in saying "what they follow is a cult... Sure it's an acceptable cult now, but a cult nonetheless."
Just before they try to defend it, I say...
"Look if I come up with 'The Theory According To Me (My Religion)' and in a years time I have 1000 people living and believing it, it's screaming 'cult'. But if my teachings/preaching is followed 2000 years later by 1.5 billion people, it's considered a 'religion' and is acceptable because it's stood the test of time. But in reality it's still a cult"
(When I'm real mean I ask if I could call mine Catholicism or whatever they are...)
I love the look on some of faces when they their brain sub-consciously thinks and associates the analogy to christianity.
Good luck on the next 6000 posts.
Let me have a quick guess...
Evolutionists... sure it can't be proved to the opposition (Creationists) to a level of certainty that appeases them, but parts can. Furthermore it keeps changing as we know more or fill in gaps of knowledge... (the fire that Creationists use against it being true)
Creationists... however in reality can't prove anything to the opposition (Evolutionists) because before they can 'see' the truth they need to believe... which is completely the premise of how it started... and remained relatively constant... (the fire Evolutionists use against it being true)
Anyhow...
I like to have fun with the religo's sometimes in saying "what they follow is a cult... Sure it's an acceptable cult now, but a cult nonetheless."
Just before they try to defend it, I say...
"Look if I come up with 'The Theory According To Me (My Religion)' and in a years time I have 1000 people living and believing it, it's screaming 'cult'. But if my teachings/preaching is followed 2000 years later by 1.5 billion people, it's considered a 'religion' and is acceptable because it's stood the test of time. But in reality it's still a cult"
(When I'm real mean I ask if I could call mine Catholicism or whatever they are...)
I love the look on some of faces when they their brain sub-consciously thinks and associates the analogy to christianity.
Good luck on the next 6000 posts.
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Note that this was post #6006. Coincidence? I think not...
Think we'll actually get to #6666?
Post #666:
You see, this is how the Bible is written. People just make things up whenever they like. Does it say it was discarded? An angel told me that they used the wood to make houses...quick write that down.
Oh and the ark is meant to be boat shaped isn't it...not Barn shapedI think you'd need a bigger one...are you telling me it took Noah 120 years to build a barn
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As chance would have it, an article in today's Guardian newspaper happens to discuss this very issue... regarding a teacher who was rebuked for calling creationism "superstitious nonsense", a judge has ruled that this type of comment is unconstitutional. The judge suggests that "teachers may not systematically disparage religious beliefs in class. They should deal with ID, or creationism by saying it's religion, not science, and so cannot be taught in schools. They may not go on to say that it's pernicious nonsense because it's religion and not science".
Perhaps this is a sensible approach to take in this thread also - rather than merely insulting those who hold opposing views, it is better to simply point out that those who believe the Earth to be 6000 years old are wrong...
Perhaps this is a sensible approach to take in this thread also - rather than merely insulting those who hold opposing views, it is better to simply point out that those who believe the Earth to be 6000 years old are wrong...
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I never posted in this thread and have no time to read all the many pages that it has. Anyway, I did some random reading and I found that, for some reason, people tend to associate the belief in creationism with the belief in God. And the belief in Evolution with the denial of the existence of God.
So, my two cents will be about that. I firmly believe in the existence of God, and I also firmly believe in Evolution as a scientific theory about how the Universe we know was formed, how Earth showed up in it, how life showed up on Earth and how the species evolved (some dissapeared) until this day.
Adding to this, I should say that I am Catholic, live in a mostly catholic country and have never experienced such a debate here, even among catholics (and socially this is clearly a non-issue, even when there are several debates about faith and everything related to it).
So, to be fair, I even find somewhat amusing that people mix these two beliefs (God and Creationism). I guess (without being sure) that this must be more a problem in the countries where christians are mainly from protestant churches, maybe those still go for a more "literal" reading of the bible (don't know about what muslims think).
In fact, I just searched ( to be sure) if at the highest level of the catholic church the acceptance of evolution is a problem and in this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_and_the_Roman_Catholic_Church
I found that the current Pope wrote this, when he was still Cardinal Ratzinger (and, mind you, the president of the Commission and head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, so not a "rogue priest"):
So, my two cents will be about that. I firmly believe in the existence of God, and I also firmly believe in Evolution as a scientific theory about how the Universe we know was formed, how Earth showed up in it, how life showed up on Earth and how the species evolved (some dissapeared) until this day.
Adding to this, I should say that I am Catholic, live in a mostly catholic country and have never experienced such a debate here, even among catholics (and socially this is clearly a non-issue, even when there are several debates about faith and everything related to it).
So, to be fair, I even find somewhat amusing that people mix these two beliefs (God and Creationism). I guess (without being sure) that this must be more a problem in the countries where christians are mainly from protestant churches, maybe those still go for a more "literal" reading of the bible (don't know about what muslims think).
In fact, I just searched ( to be sure) if at the highest level of the catholic church the acceptance of evolution is a problem and in this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_and_the_Roman_Catholic_Church
I found that the current Pope wrote this, when he was still Cardinal Ratzinger (and, mind you, the president of the Commission and head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, so not a "rogue priest"):
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I wouldn't say it was more conclusive, but if it has DNA, then it can give us insight into evolution. Fortunately, every form of life - animals, plants, insects, algae, bacteria, archaea etc. - possess DNA, and are used in studies of evolution... the advent of genetics allows us, for the first time, to look at all living things in the same way. Before genetics, comparisons between species were hard to make, since comparisons were based on similarities between physical characteristics - bone structure, body shape/size, etc., but for obvious reasons, comparisons between distantly related species were very difficult. Genetics has changed all that. It is now relatively easy to directly compare species that are vastly different in almost every way, and yet the results of genetic comparisons across the living world are sometimes startling - who would have thought that humans and mice share ~97% similarity in their functional DNA?Mark T
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For those interested, I read an interesting review, published in February this year, on the current status of evolution theory in the light of recent advances due to the vast amount of data from genomic analyses, and some of the conclusions were quite surprising for a non-expert like myself. The review itself is a rather collosal (and mostly technical) 24 pages, so I must confess I didn't read alot of it, but the conclusions are helpfully summarised at the end, and they emphasise some key points and help to clarify some misconceptions that are still widely held, even among scientists in relevant fields... anyway, here's what the conclusions say: (Proposition in blue, Current Status in green)
- The material for evolution is provided, primarily, by random, heritable variation
True. The repertoire of relevant random changes greatly expanded to include duplication of genes, genome regions, and entire genomes; loss of genes and, generally, genetic material; HGT (horizontal gene transfer) including massive gene flux in cases of endosymbiosis; invasion of mobile selfish elements and recruitment of sequences from them; and more
- Fixation of (rare) beneficial changes by natural selection is the main driving force of evolution that, generally, produces increasingly complex adaptive features of organisms; hence progress as a general trend in evolution
False. Natural (positive) selection is an important factor of evolution but is only one of several fundamental forces and is not quantitatively dominant; neutral processes combined with purifying selection dominate evolution. Genomic complexity, probably evolved as a ‘genomic syndrome’ cause by weak purifying selection in small population and not as an adaptation. There is no consistent trend towards increasing complexity in evolution, and the notion of evolutionary progress is unwarranted
- The variations fixed by natural selection are ‘infinitesimally small’. Evolution adheres to gradualism
False. Even single gene duplications and HGT of single genes are by no means ‘infinitesimally small’ let alone deletion or acquisition of larger regions, genome rearrangements, whole-genome duplication, and most dramatically, endosymbiosis. Gradualism is not the principal regime of evolution
- Uniformitarianism: evolutionary processes remained, largely, the same throughout the evolution of life
Largely, true. However, the earliest stages of evolution (pre-LUCA; Last Universal Common Ancestor), probably, involved distinct processes not involved in subsequent, ‘normal’ evolution. Major transition in evolution like the origin of eukaryotes could be brought about by (effectively) unique events such as endosymbiosis
- The entire evolution of life can be depicted as a single ‘big tree’
False. The discovery of the fundamental contributions of HGT and mobile genetic elements to genome evolution invalidate the TOL (Tree Of Life) concept in its original sense. However, trees remain essential templates to represent evolution of individual genes and many phases of evolution in groups of relatively close organisms. The possibility of salvaging the TOL as a central trend of evolution remains
- All extant cellular life forms descend from very few, and probably, one ancestral form (LUCA)
True. Comparative genomics leaves no doubt of the common ancestry of cellular life. However, it also yields indications that LUCA(S) might have been very different from modern cells
From this, it is quite apparent that evolution doesn't merely benefit "good" traits or is even dominated by the tendency to preserve good genes (positive selection), but rather is dominated by neutral selection and getting rid of defective genes (negative selection), with positive selection also playing an important role simulatenously. That all of these processes can now be observed and quantified directly by genomic analyses means that our understanding of how evolution happens - what it does and how it does it - is becoming clearer by the day.
Many of the fundamental processes of evolution are not apparent on the scale of the individual, and operate on the population level - hence the evolution of an entire species is largely indifferent to the minutae of individual battles for survival. Our understanding of evolution is further complicated by the fact that we are conscious, intelligent, decision-making creatures who have predetermined goals, responsibilities and a sense of purpose. It is in our nature to presume that everything does too, including the fundamental natural processes of evolution - but the reality is apparently quite different.
Will our intelligence and our ability to manipulate genetics allow us to interfere with the (until now) entirely blind, natural (and amoral) processes of evolution? I think so - but only to a limited extent, not least because that same intelligence that allows us to tinker with genetics also instils us with things such as ethics and moral responsibility. In other words, I have no doubt that we could alter the course of evolution, but that we either shouldn't or won't because of our own requirements (both ethically and evolutionarily).
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I'm not saying that is not what EA11R believes, i don't know.
But i'm quite sure that's not what he wrote...
Anyway, to return to the thread, i don't understand why institutes like the "Discovery Institute" are in such high regard with many "creationists"..
Below a mirror from DonExodus2's video (taken down by a false DMCA claim from the before mentioned institute.
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A scientific theory is commonly misunderstood by the general public and often mistaken for hypothesis.
Gravity and Evoloution are both Theory, this doesn't mean they are guesses or assumptions, rather a theory is a collection of relevant facts and observations and explainations. Theories are subject to change and updating, much like we don't fully understand evolution, we don't fully understand Gravity either.
So by saying something is just a theory doesn't invalidate its value or factual base, rather the opposite.
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Both are both.
It's not a 'theory' that humans are very closely related to chimpanzees - it's a fact. It's not a 'theory' that humans are closely related to mice - it's a fact too. It's not a 'theory' that humans are distantly related to E. coli - but that's a fact as well. However, suggesting that every extant species shares a common ancestry is a theory - but it's a theory that is so well supported by observable facts that the theory itself is also considered a fact.
It's not a 'theory' that humans are very closely related to chimpanzees - it's a fact. It's not a 'theory' that humans are closely related to mice - it's a fact too. It's not a 'theory' that humans are distantly related to E. coli - but that's a fact as well. However, suggesting that every extant species shares a common ancestry is a theory - but it's a theory that is so well supported by observable facts that the theory itself is also considered a fact.
