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Nor does any theory, for that matter. Gravity is a theory, but no one in their sane mind denies it exists.
What gets me is those people who choose not to believe in evolution, yet they use products developed by research of evolution everday- antibiotics, for example. New ones are developed each year to destroy bacteri's ever-adapting mutations.
This was a very well put together question. Well, evolution seems to be so tricky considering all of the facts that have already been brought up that it is hard to find a position to address first because it seems no matter which way you slice it the bottom line IMO, is going to be has it been kick started by a creator, an intelligent design, or is it all by chance.
For me as I consider the question, or statements set forth, I would like to know the motive behind the question, perhaps I over looked it, but my critical thinking skills are not up to par today. Is the question, set around the idea that evolution according to any particular argument is true, or is it according to bits and peaces of many arguments which may or may not coincide with one another?According to the theory of the thread starter, what is your position on the origin of man, did he evolve from a cosmic blob, apes or what?
Adieu
The reason I created this thread is to facilitate discussion between people like myself, a strong atheist and "educated to a high degree in science"
"I have a very strong grasp of evolution from an ecological and genetic background and I have read for hours on the internet trying to find valid criticism
of evolution from any background. I have found some but they aren't anything like what I hear on this website or on other websites I have participated
in."
I am not being sarcastic, or at least not trying to be, but over about the last decade, more and more scientist, Nobel Pries winners, chemist, zoologist from the most diversified fields and studies are showing less support for evolution than in the last 150 years of the evolutionary argument.
Science has advanced so far to be able to draw a much clearer picture of possibilities and improbabilities in the realm of evolution that evolution is now a bit of a religion in its self, demanding the need for faith in its theory's when it is all said and done, that is as strong as faith in any religious belief. Ok, for now I will leave these and they are just a few points that are widely known and discussed in the world of science and creation/evolution. Hopefully I will pick the thread up tomorrow and check back in with some other points.
1. Darwin, relied on evidence that was not yet available in his day to promote portions of his argument, and that is the medimorfasising of species over the history of the world. The problem is that now, with the substantial store house of fossils we have access to now show that there is no concluding evidence of transforming stages that changed a species beyond its DNA mapping layout. With the meariod of fossils we now have available to us, we should be able to put together the evolution of man like a puzzle, but now it is more inconclusive than ever.
2. I didn't want to ruin this by trying to put it in my own words, but I can attempt if this doesn't get the point across, "There is a gigantic gap between one celled microorganisms and the highly complex invertebrates such as trilobites, brachiopods, corals, and jellyfish. The
proposed 100 million year evolutionary transition between invertebrates and vertebrates which would have involved billions of transition forms is completely
missing. The supposed 30 million year advance from fishes to amphibians is totally nonexistent. The coelacanth was one sited as an intermediate, but instead
of being extinct for millions of years it was found very much alive in 1938. No transitional forms between amphibians and the altogether different reptiles
have been found. No transitional links between reptiles and mammals. No evolutionary links between reptiles and birds. Archaeopteryx was once acclaimed
as such but has since been acknowledged by paleontologists to have been a true bird. A strong flier in fact." "
3. "No links between ape and man. The highly publicized fossil hominids cited to demonstrate human evolution are actually fossils of extinct apes or humans,
or in some cases neither. Ramapithecus was jaw fragments of an ape. Lucy was no more than a variety of pigmy chimpanzee. Nebraska Man turned out to be
a pig's tooth. Java Man turned out to be the knee bone of an extinct elephant. Piltdown Man, viewed in stately museums and the subject of 500 doctoral
dissertations was a hoax. It was the jawbone of an ape that died only 50 years previously. The teeth were filed down and the bones were discolored to conceal
their true identity. Neanderthal Man is now classed as fully human. The individual initially evaluated had a vitamin D deficiency causing rickets."
Sources for both can be found at historical.benabraham.com/html/evolution_as_science.html
I reposted the quotes above simply because they are facts and not opinions, so I was not trying to regurgitate an already put forth argument, just some little facts that seem easy enough to understand.
As glib and quick the statements above may be, they are some of the facts that many evolutionary arguments, studies and beliefs have found there origin in, and unfortunately they are just simply scientifically false.
If someone would spend say 10 minutes on this sight historical.benabraham.com/html/evolution_as_science.html that it only took me about five minutes to find, I think that it can be a valuable resource. I have studied the argument before, and realize the current status of the evolutionary argument is so questionable that I new just by searching certain key words that I could find abundant information, and it is so widely available that this is one of those things that is kind of dead in the water before it has a chance to float IMO if you just study both sides of the argument by informed and educated people on both sides you may feel like you have been living in the dark ages in regards to the newer ideas and discoveries on evolution.
I herd this point made by a Nobel Pries winner several years ago and it may not mean that much to the average listener, but once you learn the level of intelligence that is possessed by some of these people you start to consider and ponder their statements. Well, this professor who is not a Christian, rather one of the most brilliant atheist to date, had made the point that with the over one million chemical changes taking place in one cell every single second, that the time it would take to evolve into the simplest life form we know, let alone the complex workings of something like the human eye, would take so long that it couldn't even be a probability, the years that it would take are in the trillions, and after a certain amount of years it becomes an impossibility to have these molecules and atoms miraculously come together in such a fashion and then evolve into the most intricate and complex life forms imaginable. Even now your basic run of the mill scientist will admit that there isn't even time in our estimated time of history for evolution as we define it to have taken place.
Well, I am a little tired and have ranted on enough, will check you guys in the morning. Hope I didn't boar to many or irritate to many with my shalow chatter.
Adieu
reproduction happens through sex, where different cells are mingled together and miraculously create life. sex happens between organisms that have similar genetic makeups, and when a favorable change occurs in that makeup it is passed on and survives in a species. survival of the fittest also dictates what happens to asexual reproducers, though to a lesser degree because evolution only happens at the rate allowed by differences created by imperfect asexual reproductions.
if you define evolution on much broader terms you arrive upon a different definition: change over time. anything can evolve, it just depends how you look at it and how open of a mind youre willing to have. a rock will change shape over time as it is eroded by wind. thus evolution is applicable to all matter, living and nonliving. living matter, however, has the ability to withstand outside forces and to create its own sort of internal change by which it can gain an advantage over the environment - called adaptation. adaptation would not be possible without the existance of reproduction and the law of survival of the fittest. the thing most fit to survive is the thing that will survive, always. so it doesnt matter if you (as a small piece in the gigantic mosaic of life) end up dying, as long as you have the chance to reproduce.
think of life as independent of the rest of the earth, but still a part of it and living on earth. it is only independent because it is different and new, and it is still a part of it and living on it because thats where it came from somehow. think of life only in terms of whether or not it exists. life exists now, and because it exists now and apparently has a desire to continue existing it will always be willing to change and adapt as needed. one thing, however, that life will not give up is the ability to reproduce. because if life were to give up this trait, it would cease living when one generation of it was eliminated. but life already has this trait and it is this trait alone that is keeping it going. (of course one could say that it helps when an organism takes care of itself as well as its reproduction, but they are both concepts dealing with permanating life - feed yourself today so that you will create your child tomorrow)
someone fiddles around with some new idea they have that maybe will allow them to fly. this idea, once attempted, fails and causes permanent damage to the creative mind behind it. but that is ok for the human race because behold! you can create a child and tell them not to do it. you can explain to your child where you went wrong, and then let them have a go at life. the same thing happens to the other kingdoms of animals.
one thing that most people dont know is that humans evolved to have brains that fold upon themselves, creating more surface area which in turn creates more chance for neuron activity. the human brain contains over 100 billion neurons and each one has the "chance" to "choose" a connection from over 10,000 connections surrounding it. humans have also evolved to be able to handle tools more readily - we are able to stand and balance with two limbs, freeing up use of our arms (complete with opposable thumbs) to handle things with. something happened to our throats that allowed us to differentiate emitted sounds on command, allowing communication to occur between us. the greatest technological achievements of 15,000 years ago among whatever humans lived on the earth are STILL the greatest achievements that any species on the planet has come to produce. one pool of thought actually believes that they have proven that homo sapiens (different from other species in the "homo" genus) originated in northern africa 200,000 - 250,000 years ago. this is long enough ago, they believe, that it would have been during a time when the sahara was much wetter and (though still a desert) livable.
there is a sort of ladder that life has climbed throughout the ages as it has evolved. it started with bacteria, went to worms and crustaceans and all sorts of other stuff that i dont have any idea about. eventually it went to insects, fish, lizards, birds, mammals, and humans. taking the brains of these animals and putting them in order yields an obvious progression. animals are getting smarter and smarter, and humans are the "cream of the crop".
hum
dont know what ive been talking about
cheers
I ndo not think that fossil records is the biggest supporter of evolution. It would be the discovery of genetics which fits immaculately with his theory. Within genetics one man, his name escapes me, has created a tree of much of the life on earth.
he used the ribosomal RNA (rRNA) which exists in every organism on the planet and tracked it's mutations. I believe this map, which I will cite later, is the best evidence. It shows how life split into kingdoms and several “trees” of evolution continued
I think the jump from single celled organism to multi-celled organisms isn’t that big. One small mutation which stops the cell form completely dividing would yield a two celled organism. This jump is much smaller, I think, to the jump from inorganic to organic molecules.
And yes bluebear that is the best criticism I have heard, that evolution couldn’t have occurred that fast. This criticism is only to darwin’s theory which I admit is not perfect (no theory is) I will look into that, do you have any links?
The thing is, his theory is very good. This means it explains an enormous body of data, of which, most was discovered after he died like genetics. There are something’s it doesn’t explain which does go to show it isn’t perfect and yes someone will devise a theory which properly explains more of the data. Maybe this has happened. If it did we can assume that It wouldn’t be as big of a deal as darwin’s.
I am just checking back in, and I will re post later on when I have more time.
If you read any of the link that I posted in my second post it will address some of Darwin's theories, but not in a formal criticism.
Adieu
Alot of informed people here but I had a though on evolution vs the bible. I understand and firmly believe that life is always in the process of evolution. The thing is that in the bible they say god created man (adam and eve) so most people believe this statement is contradictory to the evolution theory. I'm no bible reader but I've come to a though that maybe this sentence as to be read in a spiritual way. Maybe all this sentence means is that god gave man the ability to think, use is reason.
In other terms, god did not create a human like magic and bang theres a guy and bang there a boy...the process of evolution is there but while that evolution was in process in a certain point we (humans) inherit the power to think! that is maybe gods creation...gods will
or im totally wrong
in either case this is a very good topic and very interesting people here
no it didn’t live. But this is not synthesizing proteins. The experiment showed that proteins would spontaneously be created in the environment of early earth. This is a huge leap towards life which has been proven.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jake Martinez
I can see that you do not understand the importance this has. Unlike you, I am not sure if we can actually synthesize any proteins as organic molecules are very difficult to create. Until 1828 when urea was created it was thought that you couldn’t create any organic molecules outside an organism. If you are buying a “synthesized” organic compound they it was probably created by genetically modified bacteria.
I disagree. This is not faith. Faith is irrational. Faith is defined as “belief that is not based on proof” For instance someone could have “faith” that science will cure their disease b4 they die.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jake Martinez
Science gives the best possible answer and explanation available given the information. I believe that you are putting Faith in your religion. A believe in creationism is not supported by the information, it is not the most logical or believable explanation.
One is choosing between
1) basing your believe on as much information as one can get
2) basing your believe on what you’ve been told
now which one requires faith?
well it doesn’t fall like that. I believe this is Newton’s law of gravity, correct? Anyhoo for 1 all of his laws are wrong. This is an approximation of the speed an object would have and it’s pretty close for elevations less than a few km.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jake Martinez
well any relationship can be described by an equation. Any. So why wouldn’t we be able to describe natural relationships.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jake Martinez
You must understand that the “random chance” part of evolution really only applies to the creation of alleles and genes. A world created by evolution would not be random at ALL, there is no reason to think that it would be.
I don’t follow some of what you put but I think that’s because I wasn’t clear.
By spontaneous generation I mean the protein was created through a spontaneous reaction. I am not talking about that theory, I am not familiar with that theory.
The protein didn’t come out of nowhere. They mimicked early earth. So they put some CO2, N, C, probably some other shit. These molecules spontaneously reacted and created the protein. No matter appearing out of nowhere.
The reaction could have been this:
O2+C2+H5+N-->NH3CH2CHO2
(saying this is spontaneous means that it will proceed in the direction indicated by the arrow)
This reaction always exists. But if it is not spontaneous it will no occur. The environmental conditions of early earth make this spontaneous.
I don’t worry too much about after death. What happens will happen and I cant change that. But, I currently believe that the brain and mind die together. Lights out, like a computer when you shut it off.
I agree. Everyone puts their faith in something. I put mine in God. We are debating the unknown. I would prefer to die cause I know the change is coming, but it's more needful for me to remain in the flesh and live out my appointed days. Can't wait to live in a place where there's fullness of joy. If you truly believe that you will be improving your life you wouldn't mind going either.