Evolution vs. Creationism

[bamabake]

still eagerly awaiting your presentation of such evidence in a comprehensively evidence-accounting-for theory.

Like the one you presented no less.

 

[bayoutider]

sorry it's all doubled up. tried to fix it.

There is a glitch in the system. Typing these long replies with multiple copy and pastes cause the glitch to pop up.

Please, until the glitch can be repaired by the site owner, will everyone refrain from writing a novel and dissecting other posts like a biology frog.

 

[blackumbrella]

Like the one you presented no less.

yes exactly like that. we're waiting.

 

[CrimsonNan]

There is a glitch in the system. Typing these long replies with multiple copy and pastes cause the glitch to pop up.

Please, until the glitch can be repaired by the site owner, will everyone refrain from writing a novel and dissecting other posts like a biology frog.

Thank you Bayou! But aren't you fearful for your life having said that? Some of us have been slapped around pretty hard for saying basically the same thing.
:biggrin: :eek2:

 

[bayoutider]

Thank you Bayou! But aren't you fearful for your life having said that? Some of us have been slapped around pretty hard for saying basically the same thing.
:biggrin: :eek2:

The only person that I fear on tidefans is Brett.

 

[Tide and True]

TT I would say Sc@## you but that would be below the line. As I said to BU, I will indeed post. You and he still have the burden of proof . You act as though you have presented something revolutionary in this thread that makes evolution obvious. Pure nonsense. Furthermore, I didnt make an excuse. I just told you the situation. I dont see anyone else here really trying to rebut all of this silly pap you guys tout as fact. So i wil get to it when I damn well feel like it. Meantime, go reread the pap you posted, go and try and find some evidence to support your premise. As for posting here and there, that is not "busy posting elswhere" the way you imply. The second I start in on this topic it will go back and forth and when I have the time and energy to do it I will. I am surprised I have been this patient . BL wore me out one time so bad I swore I would not get into these long debates. Here I am again however.

I tried to play nice, Bake. I said I was interested in -- and would consider seriously -- any evidence you had to offer. You even complimented me on my tone, remember? But at some point in that thread it became painfully apparent that only Blackumbrella and I were exposing our ideas -- be they right or wrong -- to public scrutiny. You, on the other hand, elected to slink back and play armchair sniper. I don't respect that. So go ahead and pretend I've impugned your integrity: it will give you one more excuse not to participate.

 

[Tide and True]

As an observer of this discussion, I think that you, sir, have been challenged to provide evidence of your position, and for that I eagerly await. As a matter of fact, I've waited for many years.

Apparently you're not familiar with the initial thread (in which BU and I offered a great deal of physical evidence -- i.e. the fossil record, etc.). Besides, these are strange grounds for an argument, don't you think? One side is assumed the "default truth" a prior while the other must prove itself beyond all doubt?

Shouldn't BOTH theories be subject to the same scientific scrutiny?

 

[Piglet]

That's just it, Tide&True--they should NOT be subjected to equal scrutiny.

Creationism is FAITH. It's the word of God, and as such it is beyond proof. If you're a Christian, you have to take it at face value.

Evolution and other theories are SCIENCE, and as such, you "prove" their likelihood by the scientific method, and other man-made "rules" which to God are nothing more than a silly game, but which to scientists, really matter because it's all they've got.

There you have it. The city of God and the city of Man. You just now helped me to figure out why I don't have a problem accepting both theories, depending on which "city" I'm in at the time.

Thanks, T&T. And to think, something useful actually got said here. Is that allowed?

 

[wisten]

Okay.. to make this short to avoid another case of the "doubles", my points on a couple of things:

nope. inorganic conditions which reliably produce organic compounds can be simulated by high schoolers

No argument presented. Organic compounds do not equate to life. Water is an organic compound so is carbon. So there goes THAT arguement.

..the genesis stuff..

As I mentioned in my original post, the original hebrew language was vastly inferior to modern languages especially in terms of descriptiveness. As far as heavens coming before the earth, makes sence for outter space to be there before you start hanging stars and planets around like ornaments. It's a matter of translation and faith.

The gist of my point is summed up with Intelligent Design. I beleive in many tenets of evolution, though I believe God is the designer and architect.

 

[blackumbrella]

That's just it, Tide&True--they should NOT be subjected to equal scrutiny.

Creationism is FAITH. It's the word of God, and as such it is beyond proof. If you're a Christian, you have to take it at face value.

Evolution and other theories are SCIENCE, and as such, you "prove" their likelihood by the scientific method, and other man-made "rules" which to God are nothing more than a silly game, but which to scientists, really matter because it's all they've got.

There you have it. The city of God and the city of Man. You just now helped me to figure out why I don't have a problem accepting both theories, depending on which "city" I'm in at the time.

Thanks, T&T. And to think, something useful actually got said here. Is that allowed?

yes but when evolution is scrutinized on scientific grounds, as has been attempted here, and an alternative explanation proposed, it stands to reason that the challenger should be prepared to have his alternative explanation exposed to the same scrutiny.

 

[blackumbrella]

No argument presented. Organic compounds do not equate to life. Water is an organic compound so is carbon. So there goes THAT arguement.

please operationally define what you mean by 'life' so that we can see if we can't meet the criteria

As I mentioned in my original post, the original hebrew language was vastly inferior to modern languages especially in terms of descriptiveness. As far as heavens coming before the earth, makes sence for outter space to be there before you start hanging stars and planets around like ornaments. It's a matter of translation and faith.

what are you saying? that this creation narrative is completely figurative? your comment about the heavens coming before the earth indicates to me that you think at least some points of the narrative are to be understood as literally true. if so, which parts? i guess none of the impossible ones i mentioned earlier.

The gist of my point is summed up with Intelligent Design. I beleive in many tenets of evolution, though I believe God is the designer and architect.

sure. there's no reason why the ideas have to be exclusive. so why the thread title "evolution vs. creationism"? where do you see them at odds?

 

[wisten]

please operationally define what you mean by 'life' so that we can see if we can't meet the criteria

MOTION -- does it seem to move under its own power? Does it move
with some discernible purpose? (Toward food, away from heat, etc)

REPRODUCTION -- does it have some way of making more of itself,
either through sexual reproduction or by budding or fissioning in
some way?

CONSUMPTION -- does it eat or drink? Does it take in nutrients
in one way or another in order to survive, grow, and eventually
multiply?

GROWTH -- does the organism develop over time, increase in
complexity, until it reaches a mature stage?

STIMULUS RESPONSE -- does the organism respond to external
stimuli, i.e. has a nervous system of some sort to detect
external conditions?

To qualify as a living thing, an organism must in one way or
another meet each of those criteria. After all, crystals grow
in solution, and take on more material from the surrounding
solution in order to do so, but do not respond neurologically
if you poke them with a pin. Of course, you don't often see
mature Ponderosa pines strolling down Fifth Avenue either, so
the criteria are open to interpretation. Plants move through
growth, except in special cases like the Venus flytrap; most
plants follow the sun through a complex system which floods the
side of the plant shaded from the sun with water, swelling the
shaded side and causing the plant to lean toward the sun.

Even when all the criteria are met, it may be difficult to
determine if something is alive or not. Take a virus. It is
a strand of either DNA or RNA, and cannot move on its own
power. Yet when it attaches itself to a receptive host, it
inserts itself into the cell and forces the host to make more
of the virus, a clear reproductive plan. It utilizes the host's
cellular processes to do so, in a sense taking in "nutrients"
in order to survive and multiply. In some cases, exterior
conditions cause the virus to integrate itself into the host DNA,
in order to hide until conditions are better to reproduce, showing
a response to external stimuli. Is it alive?

Please read more about this at your local library.

I would be very much interested to learn what high school students had life randomly evolve as no part of a scientific experiment.

what are you saying? that this creation0D
the criteria are open to interpretation. Plants move through
growth, except in special cases like the Venus flytrap; most
plants follow the sun through a complex system which floods the
side of the plant shaded from the sun with water, swelling the
shaded side and causing the plant to lean toward the sun.

Even when all the criteria are met, it may be difficult to
determine if something is alive or not. Take a virus. It is
a strand of either DNA or RNA, and cannot move on its own
power. Yet when it attaches itself to a receptive host, it
inserts itself into the cell and forces the host to make more
of the virus, a clear reproductive plan. It utilizes the host's
cellular processes to do so, in a sense taking in "nutrients"
in order to survive and multiply. In some cases, exterior
conditions cause the virus to integrate itself into the host DNA,
in order to hide until conditions are better to reproduce, showing
a response to external stimuli. Is it alive?

Please read more about this at your local library.

I would be very much interested to learn what high school students had life randomly evolve as no part of a scientific experiment.

what are you saying? that this creation narrative is completely figurative?

I am saying that we humans are prone to mis-understandings. Have you ever played a game as a child where you sat in a line and one person whispered a statement to the other? The end result was far from the first. Or listened to the testimony of three eye witnesses to the same event, and each story is very similar with marked differences? The Hebrew leaves a lot to be desired as a language, and my point with you zoned in on your depiction of an English translation and wanted to base your discussion on that premise. You are wrong, and you have evidenced that by your focus on a microism of understanding and interpetation.

 

[wisten]

there's no reason why the ideas have to be exclusive. so why the thread title "evolution vs. creationism"? where do you see them at odds?

I do not. But in the previous thread it was you who were so adamant about who is right and who is wrong.

 

[Tide and True]

I do not. But in the previous thread it was you who were so adamant about who is right and who is wrong.

Here are BU’s words from the previous thread: “what we're really talking about is two very different views, one metaphysical, one physical, each with its own accompanying logic.” Here are mine: “No amount of [scientific] evidence will alter your position. That's because [creationism] is based on faith, not reason.” But Bamabake and NYBamaFan -- and now apparently you -- are unwilling to concede this point. Instead, you all have tried to argue that creationism is the better SCIENTIFIC theory. Clearly it’s not. Yet that doesn’t mean that religious explanations have no value. As articles of faith, they represent (as one of my favorite scholars called them) “myths to live by” –- i.e. they give meaning to our lives. But they do NOT empirically reflect what we know about the physical universe. To suggest otherwise is to ignore the evidence.

 

[blackumbrella]

i’m curious about how you arrive at these criteria. so far as I know defining life is still a very sticky issue among experts, with folks like mayr, de duve, and crick all disagreeing. for instance there are some obvious problems with the criteria you mention. motion—most brain cells don’t move, rods and cones don’t move. reproduction—again, brain cells don’t reproduce, neither do mules. certainly they’re alive. as far as i know, early earth atmospheric conditions have been replicated in labs, from these conditions amino acids have been synthesized. of course, amino acids are the building blocks of rna and proteins, which are building blocks for more and more complex structures. this is about the extent of my knowledge on prebiotic evolution, so if you take issue with any of these steps or steps i’m missing, please go into detail in explaining the concepts.

I am saying that we humans are prone to mis-understandings. Have you ever played a game as a child where you sat in a line and one person whispered a statement to the other? The end result was far from the first. Or listened to the testimony of three eye witnesses to the same event, and each story is very similar with marked differences? The Hebrew leaves a lot to be desired as a language, and my point with you zoned in on your depiction of an English translation and wanted to base your discussion on that premise. You are wrong, and you have evidenced that by your focus on a microism of understanding and interpetation.

i understand that language evolves over time like any other complex system.
you presented the genesis narrative as a point of debate but still haven't clarified your position. dou you think: it to be taken as a literal account of how the earth and universe came into being, divinely preserved through the ages and translations? or, it is figurative language?--and if so, has it always been, or has it become figurative bc of the pressures of time and translation? my take is that it's no different than any other creation myth and if any part of it meshes with the empirical evidence, it's purely by accident. and moreover, that not much of it meshes with the empirical evidence.

 

[Ramah Jamah]

Well you touched on the real rebut to evolution. It is intellegent design. There is VASTLY more proof of that than the notion that we all came from slime that suddenly decided to evolve to survive. There is VASTLY more eveidence to suport ID than such a silly notion. The absence of reason wafts about te theory of evolution like a rotten pre-slime fish.

How do we know that God was not the hand behind evolution? Why is it that God cannot be considered a factor in evolution. Look, I am going to put this plainly. Every religion has a Genesis story. Genesis was written to explain our origins because no one could understand what our origins were. I always like to use the example of John 3:8 "The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
Well we do know where the wind comes from (heating and cooling of the Earth) but back then they did not. So Jesus uses the wind to make a point. Same with evolution and the story of Genesis.

 

[Bamalaw92]

How do we know that God was not the hand behind evolution? Why is it that God cannot be considered a factor in evolution. Look, I am going to put this plainly. Every religion has a Genesis story. Genesis was written to explain our origins because no one could understand what our origins were. I always like to use the example of John 3:8 "The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
Well we do know where the wind comes from (heating and cooling of the Earth) but back then they did not. So Jesus uses the wind to make a point. Same with evolution and the story of Genesis.

You explained what causes the wind, but not precisely where it comes from nor where it is going Evolution as a theory does not explain what started it all or what existed before everything began.

 

[blackumbrella]

i ran across a good article in the new discover magazine that touches and expands on some of the topics from our discussion as well as introducing a few more, stuff like: how do extremely complex organs like eyes evolve? why are species so diverse when it stands to reason that one extremely 'fit' species might have outcompeted all the rest? what's the deal with altruism? what're the benefits of sex v. asex? what is life on other planets for a thousand, alex? it's a short and very readable article the gist of which is a bunch of computer scientists, biologists, and philosophers, have been working with a program that runs simulations of evolutionary processes. if you subscribe to discover you can get the whole thing at:

discover

if not, here's the pdf from msu(spartans not dawgs):

msu

and here's the lab where you can get more info or even download the software and grow your very own seamonkeys:

cal tech

 

[BAMARICH]

While I have neither...

The time or energy to read this entire discussion on another thread, I would like to add one thing to your discussions. One of the greatest problems that believers in creationism have to deal with is the "age of the earth." Because the earth has been "aged" in one sense or another, we automatically assume that the earth would be "that age." BIBLICAL FACT: Adam and animals were created fully grown (not created with an age of "1 day"). Therefore, it's very possible that other substances were created "fully grown" (or aged) also. In addition to this, since "aging the earth" is a relatively new process (has not been around for 5 or more centuries), we cannot ever presisely determine an "age of any substance." Just like human beings, "growth" in substances may be greater at some times in life than at other times. IMO, Satan has done a marvelous job in undermining God in the minds of many once more.

 

[jthomas666]

Just to stir things up a bit . . .

I ran across this article on CNN.com.