Creation vs. Evolution

[niky]

Why is there a distinction? The mechanisms are the same, the effects are the same. Even down to the genetic level. Like I said: There is no difference at all between micro-evolution and macro-evolution. None at all. They both document traits that are passed on from parent to child. Traits in successful parents are passed on, and can be tracked at both the physical level and the genetic level.

Science is aggressively seeking answers. Of course, you're looking at it the wrong way. They haven't decided on the culprit. Evolution is not a person or a movement. It's simply a description of an observed process. In other words, in your criminal case, when police say "evolution has taken place", they mean the "victim has been murdered", and all that's left is to find out why and how it happened.

Saying: "Maybe it wasn't evolution."

is like saying:

"Maybe there wasn't a murder. Maybe this corpse appeared out of thin air and dropped onto the carpet below."

But...the elephants, horses and dogs (I'm assuming you're talking about domesticated animals...although, the elephants are really all that domesticated) are all the result of human breeding. A better word for it would be "tampering."

Horses really haven't come all that far from the mustangs. In fact, the Mustang Reintroduction Program is going extremely well.

Mustangs are hardly the oldest breed/species of horse.

Dogs are the only real specie that's seen significant "evolutionary" change. And, again, it's not really evolution. You also answered your first question of "How long do you think evolution takes" with, "these species have evolved since man's been around."

Evolved, yes. Speciated, as in completely and utterly unable to mate with related species... not yet. Horses diverged from zebra around 4-5 million years ago.

I'm just not sure if you can count domesticated animals as "evolution" since it was the human race that domesticated them and ultimately changed them. Which, if that is evolution, then that should show you the impact man-kind has on the evolutionary change. I mean, if we can cause animals to evolve to become our obedient pets, then...that would more support the Christian creation story where God gives us dominion over the animals and the land. He gave us power to change and evolve them to suit our needs. Maybe the dinosaurs evolved into birds because we didn't like dinosaurs being the top of the food chain.

Why would it support Creation? And we could have hardly had a hand in the death of the Dinosaurs, since humans weren't around sixty five million years ago.

Evolution doesn't care who or what decides upon which members of a species reproduces. It only states that those members that reproduce, for whatever reason (look up the concept "Survival of the Tastiest"...) will pass on their traits.

Also....we really don't know how old the earth is. I've already said this. There isn't any accurate to tell how old it is, either. Carbon-14 dating is incredibly inaccurate and is dependent upon a lot of variables. Fossils would also probably be the most inaccurate candidates for carbon dating because to fossilize something requires a lot of sediment laid down really fast. And there's no way to tell how much carbon-14 was added or taken away from the fossil in the process. I think it would be interesting to develop away to test fossilization to determine how much it effects the carbon dating process.

Scientists don't pull numbers out of thin air, but consider the environment in which the fossil was found, in which it was created and the rock strata where it was found in assessing the accuracy of carbon-dating. While we could be off by a couple of mega-years on some of the oldest fossils, there's little chance a fossil dated at over a hundred million years old, found in rock layers of that time, is really just a few thousand years old.

The carbon-dating process isn't only used on fossils, but is also used to date historical artifacts, and can be quite accurate, as such.

I have two questions about evolution:
1. How was the first life form able to reproduce? Why did it not just live and die? Was there lots of life forms before the first life form that could reproduce that came into existence?
2. Why are we conscious? Why don't we just work like primitive computers? Wouldn't that be more successful, and more crucially, simpler?
(Okay, there are a few questions here, but they are all related two the two points.)

And just to make it clear, I'm not asking this to try to disprove evolution, I just want to understand.

1. Are we sure the first life form was the first life form, or merely the first to reproduce? As said... replicating molecules existed before replicating cells.

2. How sure are you we aren't simple? How sure are we that our apparent complexity and consciousness isn't merely an artefact of the biological processes that make up our being?

There are already successful organisms that are relatively simple. Bacteria. Organisms that aren't successful at all die out. Organisms that are only successful in a limited sense must either become more successful or die out. Thus they develop new strategies of survival. Can't compete with all the other bacteria? Start eating other bacteria. Can't survive because you're being eaten? Become more mobile. Start living in colonies. Start living in mega-colonies. As a colony, start dividing work amongst components. These components for locomotion, these for eating, these for communication... etcetera... etcetera... until you get to us.

We're the misfits that weren't strong enough, weren't fast enough, weren't vicious enough, so we had to become smarter to survive. Along the way, we developed something called language, and intelligence.

(Of course, there's the whole catastrophism thing... extinction events like the asteroid that killed off all life bigger than rats during the Cretaceous... the Ice Age... cosmic radiation... but then, again... Evolution is blind... whoever survives, survives, for whatever reason they do so.)

The consciousness part... that's a mystery. But we're pretty sure that other animals have a form of consciousness and some really ancient ones even have intelligence (octopii and squid), but knowing where it exactly started is something we can't do until we know what it is in us that creates it.

 

[wfooshee]

So evolution is essentially random?

Yes.

Pull your favorite book from your shelf. The book is a "species" and the readers are the "environment." Rip the pages out and run them through a good copier. You now have another copy of the book. Think of it as having reproduced. Now copy the copy. Yet another identical copy of the book. If your copier is good enough, you can produce several copies of copies without introducing enough error to make the book a different book. Eventually, though, your copies of copies wil degenerate into meaningless light and dark patterns on the pages coming out of the machine. The readership has no use for this junk. The randomness did not produce a successful mutation, and the line ends, not producing anything that can withstand the environment.

Now suppose one of those early copies changed a period to a comma, just by having a bit of toner stick to the drum in the copier. The rest of the book is identical, but a punctuation mark changed, changing the reading of a sentence, maybe altering the whole idea being presented. It might be something the readership appreciates and encourages, thus a "successful" mutation. Even though it was a random copying error.

You can't say that the book "adapted," but you can say that the change was successful and preferred in the environment.

But...that makes less sense than "Holy crap, if I could just take to the air, I could get away from this thing." After, all that is how adaptation works. The body says "Hey, if I do this, then it would make my job easier and I would use less energy." Which is why a cowboy's legs will become bowed, or a pitcher's arm curved, or a guitarists chord fingers become long and callused.

Completely misunderstanding adaptation as it applies to evolution.

A cowboy's legs become bowed because of the time he spends in the saddle. It's not a genetic trait that he passes to his children. That means it's not an adaptation. It's simply a result of forces on his skeleton in the conditions he works in.

Same things for calluses on a guitarist's fingers. They are not a genetic trait that is passed hereditarily. He doesn't produce a gene for hard skin on his fingers, and his babies are born with hard fingertips. thus, not an adaptation. He already has a gene (or set of genes) that allows his skin to harden under the abuse it receives on the strings.

You simply cannot consciously produce some trait in yourself that can be inherited by your children.

Many pages back I gave the example of a species of mouse in a sandy environment. Most of the mice were sandy-colored, giving them camouflage in their environment. Every once in a while a black mouse gets born, but because it stands out, some hawk snaps it up and its genes for black go away. Then a volcano erupts and covers the land with lava. All those sand-colored mice become easy pickings for the hawks, but the occasional and rare black mouse has no trouble hiding. Pretty soon, all the mice are black, simply because those are the ones that survive.

That is adaptation. Not a single mouse decided to be black instead of sand. Not a single mouse changed from sand to black. But the species changed, due to a change in the environment, and what before had been a useless and undesirable trait was suddenly the winning way of life. A genetic difference that was hereditary became a useful difference to certain individuals who had it, and those are the ones that survived.

 

[SuperShouden]

5 Years for "slow" fossilization. If a meteorite or a massive flood or even a supervolcanic eruption occurred, then 1, it could essentially put fossils in a pocket. (I read somewhere that there is an international, single sedimentary layer that has no time fluctuations. Meaning, that whatever caused it was a global disaster and it is in this sedimentary layer or below it, that we find about 80% of fossils.) 2. fossils would form much faster than 5 years. We know this because there are a couple of fossil groupings that are found in layers of volcanic ash from pyroclastic flows. (Yellowstone as left it's mark a few times.) The ONLY way for fossils to form is a LOT of sediment laid down REALLY REALLY fast. A volcanic eruption, meteorite impact, a massive tsunami (like a continent sized tsunami)....all these fit the bill for forces powerful enough to create fossils.

Remember also, how WRONG scientists have been in the past. An couple of examples. Scientists STILL tell us that the massive stalactites and stalagmites take hundreds of thousands of years to form, but the truth is the rate at which they form is entirely based on the amount of sediment laid down and how fast it's put there. One can make a small stalactite/stalagmite it a few hours with a simple experiment and there are warehouses and old sheds with large stalactites and stalagmites in them.

Example 2: They say that ice layers form every year like tree rings, but when a WWII bomber was uncovered in Alaska, it had hundreds of layers of ice on it. And when they asked the inuits about it, they said a layer of ice is formed every hot and cold cycle. So...in theory a new layer of ice could form every day or so. And the rate at which the ice layers form would be pretty hard to calculate.

And domesticated dogs have only been around for a few thousand years. If it only took that long to form all those breeds, that would suggest that Evolution moves faster than we think, as well....Unless we somehow possess the power to "speed up" evolution.



wfooshee, and there comes the evolution as a machine analogy, again. For evolution to work, I don't think you can think of it as a machine 'cause machines can break down and they can be destroyed. By thinking of it as a machine, it would be accurate to say that we humans have effectively broken that machine.

Of course, I don't know how else to think of it, but...still.

Fast stalactite formation example: This is the Bunker Building abandoned since 1964. In only 47 years, stalactites large and solid enough to hold metal doors open have formed.
http://adamspictureblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/buckner-building.html

 

[wfooshee]

wfooshee, and there comes the evolution as a machine analogy, again. For evolution to work, I don't think you can think of it as a machine 'cause machines can break down and they can be destroyed. By thinking of it as a machine, it would be accurate to say that we humans have effectively broken that machine.

Not trying to make evolution a mechanical process, just trying to illustrate the randomness. Reproduction is a copy process. Code contained in a really cool molecule gets copied into another similar molecule. Once in a while that copy is imperfect. Once in an even greater while that imperfection is an advantage.

And domesticated dogs have only been around for a few thousand years. If it only took that long to form all those breeds, that would suggest that Evolution moves faster than we think, as well....Unless we somehow possess the power to "speed up" evolution.

There is no evolution involved in breeding of domestic dogs. No new species have been produced, nor have any old species been rendered extinct. Do not confuse breed with species. Every single dog on the planet, from tiny chihuahua to monstrous great dane, is the same species.

 

[niky]

Yup. We haven't speciated dog breeds... yet. Would probably take a hell of a long time, barring some random chance encoding error. Or, you could do it by dangerously interbreeding tiny populations of dogs over dozens (hundreds) of generations, to create enough genomic errors so that they can no longer interbreed with other dogs. However, with the care that most dog breeders nowadays are taking to prevent dangerous interbreeding, the chances of that happening any time soon are slim.

-----

Carbon dating is not stalactites or ice-rings, and it has been tested to work out on many samples (given you take into account vulcanism) within historic times to a great degree of accuracy. As to how accurate it is for prehistoric times, the degree of error is not high enough to invalidate fossil evidence. At all.

Don't know where you're going with that one.

 

[SuperShouden]

There is no evolution involved in breeding of domestic dogs. No new species have been produced, nor have any old species been rendered extinct. Do not confuse breed with species. Every single dog on the planet, from tiny chihuahua to monstrous great dane, is the same species.

Canis lupus familiaris is the domestic dog. More commonly known more simply as Canis familiaris....without the wolf tie in. Several new species have been produced. We just like to pretend that we haven't created THOUSANDS of species of dogs and cats. A dog is not a wolf and a wolf is not a dog. A simple study of behavior and skeletal structure will prove this point. (An example: a wolf has a high pain tolerance and a low abuse tolerance, whereas a dog has a high abuse tolerance and a low pain tolerance.) Just like a Horse is not a zebra and a persian cat is not a lion. (granted the domestic cat and domestic horse have probably been around much much longer than the domestic dog, but...the point is still there.)

While dogs and wolves are breed-able, so are horses and zebras and cats and servals. (And the domestic serval cat can be bred. It is not sterile.) That doesn't mean that they are one in the same specie.

And...How is breeding not evolution? Isn't that what evolution is all about? Breeding and coming up with new traits? We humans figured this out and thats how we have lots of cat and dog breeds. We say, this specie and this specie had these traits, let's combine them.

Oh...and there HAVE been completely different species created. Like hairless Sphynx cat. (1966) That would be how evolution works, right? Through genetic mutation. (That is essentially the process. A genetic mutation occurs and it either helps the animal or hurts it. We, humans, apparently have mutated a highly developed brain and power over our fellow animals. Quite a lucky mutation, I'd say.)

Also...with evolution, there can be no such thing as souls or ghosts...and we humans are absolutely no different at all from the rest of the animal kingdom, other than the fact that we just happened to get hit with a lucky stick and developed very unevolutionary things like consciences and a need for happiness and joy and sexual desire. Emotions would also not be very "Evolutionary" because they would just get in the way of natural selection. Emotions would ruin evolution, really. I would think that if we evolution were to exist, we'd still be in caves.


EDIT: Niky...I'm sorry, but, if something is millions of years old or just simply pre-historic, there's not anyway for us to know how accurate or dating system is at that point. Especially, if it's a million years old. If it's that old, SOOOOOO many things could have occurred to change the carbon date or whatever they're using now. Hell, for all we know the earth could have been destroyed and reformed in that amount of time. (I also seriously doubt even a fossil could actually survive a million years. Simply because there are just WAY to many variables. And even if one happened to, it would probably be extremely deteriorated and probably not give up any accurate information. And I KNOW the DNA we're collecting from fossilized dino skin couldn't have survived for that long. I would say, at the most fossilized skeleton would be a couple hundred thousand years. And that's probably pushing it.)

And we know that aren't their dino bones found in the ash from the last Yellowstone Eruption which was about 14,000 years ago?

I'm not saying that the earth is younger than a million years, I'm just saying if it is that old, there's no way of knowing.

 

[noisiaturismo]

If God created everything in 7 days, including animals and humans, the dinosaurs either extinct really fast, or just later, meaning they already killed the humans.

 

[niky]

Canis lupus familiaris is the domestic dog. More commonly known more simply as Canis familiaris....without the wolf tie in. Several new species have been produced. We just like to pretend that we haven't created THOUSANDS of species of dogs and cats. A dog is not a wolf and a wolf is not a dog. A simple study of behavior and skeletal structure will prove this point. (An example: a wolf has a high pain tolerance and a low abuse tolerance, whereas a dog has a high abuse tolerance and a low pain tolerance.) Just like a Horse is not a zebra and a persian cat is not a lion. (granted the domestic cat and domestic horse have probably been around much much longer than the domestic dog, but...the point is still there.)

Pay attention. Breed is not species. For a type of animal to be considered a species, it would have to be unable to mate with similar species. All domestic cats can mate with and produce non-sterile offspring with all other domestic cats. All dogs can mate with and produce non-sterile offspring with all other domestic dogs... and wolves...

While dogs and wolves are breed-able, so are horses and zebras and cats and servals. (And the domestic serval cat can be bred. It is not sterile.) That doesn't mean that they are one in the same specie.

Read previous post about zebras. Zebra is a species. Horse is a species. A Zebrule isn't, and can't reproduce.

And...How is breeding not evolution? Isn't that what evolution is all about? Breeding and coming up with new traits? We humans figured this out and thats how we have lots of cat and dog breeds. We say, this specie and this specie had these traits, let's combine them.

Has anybody said it wasn't? The main point of distinction missing is a breed is not a species.

Oh...and there HAVE been completely different species created. Like hairless Sphynx cat. (1966) That would be how evolution works, right? Through genetic mutation. (That is essentially the process. A genetic mutation occurs and it either helps the animal or hurts it. We, humans, apparently have mutated a highly developed brain and power over our fellow animals. Quite a lucky mutation, I'd say.)

Hairless cat. Breed.

Also...with evolution, there can be no such thing as souls or ghosts...and we humans are absolutely no different at all from the rest of the animal kingdom, other than the fact that we just happened to get hit with a lucky stick and developed very unevolutionary things like consciences and a need for happiness and joy and sexual desire. Emotions would also not be very "Evolutionary" because they would just get in the way of natural selection. Emotions would ruin evolution, really. I would think that if we evolution were to exist, we'd still be in caves.

Evolution says nothing about souls. Or ghosts. It doesn't care what happens to you after you die. It only cares that you reproduce.

EDIT: Niky...I'm sorry, but, if something is millions of years old or just simply pre-historic, there's not anyway for us to know how accurate or dating system is at that point. Especially, if it's a million years old. If it's that old, SOOOOOO many things could have occurred to change the carbon date or whatever they're using now. Hell, for all we know the earth could have been destroyed and reformed in that amount of time. (I also seriously doubt even a fossil could actually survive a million years. Simply because there are just WAY to many variables. And even if one happened to, it would probably be extremely deteriorated and probably not give up any accurate information. And I KNOW the DNA we're collecting from fossilized dino skin couldn't have survived for that long. I would say, at the most fossilized skeleton would be a couple hundred thousand years. And that's probably pushing it.)

How much do you know about carbon dating? And how much do you know about fossils and how long they survive?

A fossil is not always organic. Hell... Most fossils are about as organic as a block of granite. Fossils are usually imprints, cast in mineral or rock. And last I looked, rocks last a loooooooooooooong time. The only thing that changes is that once a fossil is exposed, it starts to lose definition. That's why we actually have to dig for fossils, because those that have been exposed to the elements for too long are weathered till there's no identifiable structure left. That's also why some of the best fossils ever found have been found in rock quarries (including the famous Archaeopteryx fossil, complete with feather imprints).

-

If the Earth has been destroyed and reformed in the last million years, there's no evidence of it. Anywhere.

And we know that aren't their dino bones found in the ash from the last Yellowstone Eruption which was about 14,000 years ago?

[needs citation] (no, I'm not kidding. You really do need to cite your sources, because you've made dozens of erroneous claims in the past few pages alone).

I'm not saying that the earth is younger than a million years, I'm just saying if it is that old, there's no way of knowing.

Not if you don't actually accept any of the evidence provided, no. And there's more to that evidence than simple Carbon 14 dating.

 

[BobK]

And yes, I understand the 98% represents the order...but...as you pointed out, most things have a 90%+ similar DNA sequence with humans...If you're going by DNA sequences, then one would have to argue that EVERYTHING is related to everything else in some way.

Yes, you'd be quite correct to argue that EVERYTHING is related to everything else in some way.

I don't know....every time I step back and look at the whole evolutionary picture, there just doesn't really seem to be a way to put humans in there without screwing up everything else. Also, there hasn't really been an evolutionary change in anything in a very long time....not since we homo-sapians rose to power. (Unless you count the human race wiping out several species an evolutionary change.)

Again, evolution is not goal-directed. Humans can't 'screw up' evolution. Wiping out a species is part of evolution, and it doesn't matter if its because humans killed them off or a giant meteor killed them off or simply the only lake where they lived dried up.


Someone mentioned ATP earlier in this thread, pointing out that 1) the process using ATP is quite complicated and 2) all living things use it. This would be because once the first organisms developed the process (from similar but less efficient processes) they were so successful that they displaced all other organisms using the older energy process.

 

[dylansan]

There was some discussion of abiogenesis earlier so I thought I'd post this:


At 3:45 the video details how life could have began from the early environment on Earth. And even if that's not exactly what happened, the point is that life could have arisen without being created. I can't believe we live in a time when reality is less believable than magic.

 

[Strittan]

I can't believe we live in a time when reality is less believable than magic.

I definitely agree.

 

[Exorcet]

Simply because there are just WAY to many variables.

This is why there are way so many scientists, and way so many fields in science. A great deal of variables have been dealt with.

At this point, we can't know exactly what happened to every fossil with second to second resolution, but through the use of scientific knowledge as a whole (more than Carbon dating) we can rule out a huge number of possibilities and determine the most like possibilities.

Emotions would also not be very "Evolutionary" because they would just get in the way of natural selection. Emotions would ruin evolution, really.

Hypothetical no emotions case:
People live alone in caves and don't interact with each other. There is a low probability of finding mates, or surviving in general.

Hypothetical emotions case:
People live together in communities, and help each other survive, which keeps the population numerous and healthy. It's easy to find mates and since everyone is in the same place, members of the population can choose the best males/females to mate with instead of just relying on pure luck like in the no emotions case.

 

[Zoom!Zoom!]

There was some discussion of abiogenesis earlier so I thought I'd post this:


At 3:45 the video details how life could have began from the early environment on Earth. And even if that's not exactly what happened, the point is that life could have arisen without being created. I can't believe we live in a time when reality is less believable than magic.

That's the point that has to be proven. (the same that eyes could have evolved over 40 times) So far all you have is a fairy tale you-tube video. Just because the Coyote falls off a cliff then gets up to goes after Roadrunner again doesn't prove it's can happen in reality.

 

[Exorcet]

fairy tale you-tube video

You missed the entire point of the video. It's not going to take you back in time to watch the first time a bunch of molecules came together to form life, it gives you information that lets you narrow down the possibilities as to what did happen. It supported itself with facts, and the maker of the video claimed that it was based on more thorough professional analysis, which one can probably look up.

To call it a fairy tale is insane. What happened in the video is what happened on Earth to a high probability.

To compare it to a cartoon is insanity.

 

[Zoom!Zoom!]

You missed the entire point of the video. It's not going to take you back in time to watch the first time a bunch of molecules came together to form life, it gives you information that lets you narrow down the possibilities as to what did happen. It supported itself with facts, and the maker of the video claimed that it was based on more thorough professional analysis, which one can probably look up.

To call it a fairy tale is insane. What happened in the video is what happened on Earth to a high probability.

To compare it to a cartoon is insanity.

Even OOL researchers know videos like this is bogus. Even if you try to make origin of life as simple as baking a cake but the problem is nature doesn't go out of it's way to make sure the measurement of ingredients are right and mixed then put in the oven at a set temperature then taken out at a given time.
Another example a OOL researcher gives it you can take the laws of nature and imagine with a enough time nature playing 18 holes of golf yet it still ridiculous to think nature would go out of it's way to do so.

 

[Exorcet]

nature doesn't go out of it's way to make sure the measurement of ingredients are right and mixed then put in the oven at a set temperature then taken out at a given time.

Which is why it took billions of years and only happened on one planet in the neighborhood.

 

[Negrumir]

Why I'm even posting here; I don't know. lol
First off, I'm one of those people who ticks you off because I never really provide any hard evidence. Well that's because I'm not a scientist, nor do I really care that much about it. I could no easier provide evidence for any theory than I could for any other.

That said, I am a Christian, and thus believe in Creation.
Not to say Evolution doesn't have any merit in my mind. I believe it's not that hard for an all-powerful being to give some form of adaptability to His creations. That also being said, I do not believe evolution operates to the extent it is said to.

If God created everything in 7 days, including animals and humans, the dinosaurs either extinct really fast, or just later, meaning they already killed the humans.

My theory.

In the beginning, since there was no sin or death; animals didn't eat each other. Then came sin and death. Some animals were probably extinct before the flood. That's a pretty simple explanation.

But there were probably plenty of animals that made it on to the Ark, that we've never seen. Fairy tales of Knights killing dragons? Yeah, they might actually be true. Perhaps the last remaining dinosaurs were killed off during that time period.

Don't take that as any proposed theory though, I'm just saying what I think.


Overall, my personal opinion on this is as follows.
Creation Science really shouldn't be used to to attempt to prove itself as a theory, rather it is simply us studying God's creation. To be able to take any evidence submitted for the theory, one must factor in God and how some things He does simply can't be understood. He is God after all and we're not, there's a reason He created the universe and we didn't.

I also don't think that Creationism as a scientific theory can be proved. If it could be proved, there would be no requirement for faith of any kind.
Ephesians 2:8 "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God."
Bold part is "trough faith," meaning there must be faith in order for there to be salvation.

 

[Zoom!Zoom!]

Which is why it took billions of years and only happened on one planet in the neighborhood.

What exactly took billions of years and exactly what happen? Who would disagee once on Earth there were no physical life and now they are?

 

[Strittan]

Overall, my personal opinion on this is as follows.
Creation Science really shouldn't be used to to attempt to prove itself as a theory, rather it is simply us studying God's creation. To be able to take any evidence submitted for the theory, one must factor in God and how some things He does simply can't be understood. He is God after all and we're not, there's a reason He created the universe and we didn't.

This is one of the things I find hilarious about creationists. That you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. There is no such thing as "Creation Science", because creation has zero to do with science.

I also don't think that Creationism as a scientific theory can be proved. If it could be proved, there would be no requirement for faith of any kind.

The reason why it can't be proved is because it's not a scientific theory to begin with.

You're right about one thing though. If there is proof there is no need for faith, which is why I'm an atheist. Because evolution can be proved, and creation can not.

What exactly took billions of years...

To get from zero to where we are now.

... and exactly what happen?

Animals and humans.

 

[Exorcet]

What exactly took billions of years and exactly what happen?

This
[/QUOTE]once on Earth there were no physical life and now they are?[/QUOTE]
Or more precisely, what was shown in the video.

 

[Zoom!Zoom!]

This
once on Earth there were no physical life and now they are?
Or more precisely, what was shown in the video.

Again a you-tube video is not proof of anything. If this guy really had something going he would have gotten the Noble prize by now.

 

[Exorcet]

Again a you-tube video is not proof of anything. If this guy really had something going he would have gotten the Noble prize by now.

I'll repeat, the video maker took his information from someone else.

Someone else who happened to receive a Nobel Prize 2 years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_W._Szostak
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2009/

 

[dylansan]

Everything that happened in the video is physically possible in real life. Genetic mutations happen, sometimes they have positive effects on a creature, and are carried on. The video doesn't prove anything about what happened, but it does prove that the evolution of the eye could have happened. It's only refuting the claim that many people make that the eye "couldn't have evolved." Well, it very easily could have by those steps above.

And Richard Dawkins has recieved awards for his work, though he tends not to do so much research as writing, public lectures, documentaries, and other media to teach people about these concepts:

Dawkins was awarded a Doctor of Science by the University of Oxford in 1989. He holds honorary doctorates in science from the University of Huddersfield, University of Westminster, Durham University,[156] the University of Hull, the University of Antwerp, and the University of Oslo,[157] and honorary doctorates from the University of Aberdeen,[158] Open University, the Vrije Universiteit Brussel,[7] and the University of Valencia.[159] He also holds honorary doctorates of letters from the University of St Andrews and the Australian National University (HonLittD, 1996), and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1997 and the Royal Society in 2001.[7] He is one of the patrons of the Oxford University Scientific Society.

In 1987 Dawkins received a Royal Society of Literature award and a Los Angeles Times Literary Prize for his book, The Blind Watchmaker. In the same year, he received a Sci. Tech Prize for Best Television Documentary Science Programme of the Year, for the BBC Horizon episode The Blind Watchmaker.[7]

His other awards have included the Zoological Society of London Silver Medal (1989), Finlay innovation award (1990), the Michael Faraday Award (1990), the Nakayama Prize (1994), the American Humanist Association's Humanist of the Year Award (1996), the fifth International Cosmos Prize (1997), the Kistler Prize (2001), the Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Republic (2001), the Bicentennial Kelvin Medal of The Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow (2002)[7] and the Nierenberg Prize for Science in the Public Interest (2009).[160]

Dawkins topped Prospect magazine's 2004 list of the top 100 public British intellectuals, as decided by the readers, receiving twice as many votes as the runner-up.[161][162] He has been short-listed as a candidate in their 2008 follow-up poll.[163] In 2005 the Hamburg-based Alfred Toepfer Foundation awarded him its Shakespeare Prize in recognition of his "concise and accessible presentation of scientific knowledge". He won the Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing about Science for 2006 and the Galaxy British Book Awards Author of the Year Award for 2007.[164] In the same year, he was listed by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2007,[165] and he was ranked 20th in The Daily Telegraph's 2007 list of 100 greatest living geniuses.[166] He was awarded the Deschner Award, named after German anti-clerical author Karlheinz Deschner.[167]

Since 2003, the Atheist Alliance International has awarded a prize during its annual conference, honouring an outstanding atheist whose work has done most to raise public awareness of atheism during that year. It is known as the Richard Dawkins Award, in honour of Dawkins' own work.[168]

In February 2010 he was named to the Freedom From Religion Foundation's Honorary Board of distinguished achievers.[169]

 

[Zoom!Zoom!]

I'll repeat, the video maker took his information from someone else.

Someone else who happened to receive a Nobel Prize 2 years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_W._Szostak
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2009/

'He was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, along with Elizabeth Blackburn and Carol W. Greider, for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres."
Ok but that's two separate things.

 

[Zoom!Zoom!]

Everything that happened in the video is physically possible in real life. Genetic mutations happen, sometimes they have positive effects on a creature, and are carried on. The video doesn't prove anything about what happened, but it does prove that the evolution of the eye could have happened. It's only refuting the claim that many people make that the eye "couldn't have evolved." Well, it very easily could have by those steps above.

And Richard Dawkins has recieved awards for his work, though he tends not to do so much research as writing, public lectures, documentaries, and other media to teach people about these concepts:

You know there a huge difference in making an eyeball video and actually coming up with the very complex proteins that actually make up the eye.
This is just wishful thinking and nothing to do with reality. This explanation might have been good enough 150 years ago but with today's knowledge it's a fairy tale.

 

[dylansan]

Are you really arguing that information cannot possibly be right unless the person who discovered it has a nobel prize?

Can you name for me someone who's won a Nobel Prize for a creationist discovery?

 

[Zoom!Zoom!]

Are you really arguing that information cannot possibly be right unless the person who discovered it has a nobel prize?

Can you name for me someone who's won a Nobel Prize for a creationist discovery?

The discovery of solving the origins of life or the origins of the eye (not just the eyeball) would be so huge and you think that person wouldn't get a Noble prize for that discovery?

 

[dylansan]

Yeah, that person probably would get a Nobel Prize, but as has been pointed out to you multiple times, no one's claimed to discover the exact way the eye evolved. The video just shows one way it could have happened.

But on the subject, don't you think if someone figured out the origin of all life on the planet, and everything else in the universe, that would be worthy of some type of award? Unfortunately, no one has come up with a convincing answer to that problem...

 

[Zoom!Zoom!]

The fossil record doesn't even support that video. (Not that the fossil record is very reliable since it is rewritten all the time.)

 

[Rich S]

This is one of the things I find hilarious about creationists. That you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. There is no such thing as "Creation Science", because creation has zero to do with science.

The reason why it can't be proved is because it's not a scientific theory to begin with.

You're right about one thing though. If there is proof there is no need for faith, which is why I'm an atheist. Because evolution can be proved, and creation can not.

All good points.... Anybody who picks up a bible and starts reading can blatantly see that the stories are.....

Here's my favorite quote as of recently from the bible belt:

"The average age of the patriarchs from creation to the Flood, excluding Enoch and Lamech, was 912 years old."- Creation Worldview Ministries

totally serious, their not kidding. They believe it. Anybody who tunes into televangelism....I'll stop there.