Creation vs. Evolution poll II

[Booger]

ArisSlatr:

Do you know that lesser animals only see in black and white, and that some animals dont have eyes. Evolution is a concept of nessesity, as a species developes over millions of years, they’re bodies adapt. Giraffes with longer necks get more food, and in turn survive, viruses need to grow to survive, such as HIV. People have “evolved” a trait where they and their children can’t use penicillin. It no longer works. Evolution can be benificial or harmful, but if its harmful the creature dies out, obviously!

Great post! The only thing I have to take issue with is the giraffe thing. In my textbook for Evolutionary Biology, Evolutionary Analysis, Third Edition amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0131018590/ref=wl_it_dp/102-0898739-6599348?%5Fencoding=UTF8&coliid=I1DEWY17JE4Q7W&colid=1SYEVDB8PCWXQ
there is a chapter that mentions a study about the giraffe neck. As it turns out, the giraffes observed did not care to try and reach for the tallest parts of the trees, but rather the middle/lower part of the trees. Giraffes with different lengths of necks all ate from the same part of the tree even if that meant reaching down to eat. However, it also turns out the female giraffes prefer males with long necks, because they are more effective in courtship battles against other males, especially those with shorter necks. So the long neck length may be due to sexual selection rather than the traditional natural selection idea for obtaining food in high places. I don’t own the book anymore, so I can’t give out more specifics.

Also something interesting about HIV from the same book. There are different strains of the virus that affect their hosts differently. One strain will cause host death faster than the other strain. The faster killing strain also reproduces more but is less efficient at spreading than the slow killing strain. The idea is that the host with the slower killing strain typically has fewer partners, so then even though this strain reproduces less, it is more efficient at spreading and has to keep its host alive longer so it will get more chances to spread, even though the chances are few. The other strain reproduces itself very effectively and will get plenty of chances to infect new hosts, so it doesn’t really matter if the host dies because chances are, it *will *spread to new hosts.

 

[Alberich]

Edwin Taraba:

Unless an evolutionist can personally cause a life form to come into existence out of nothing, or even pre-existent non-living chemicals, and then cause it to evolve into various species through mutation and natural selection he has no scientific basis to support his philosophical story about the origin of life.

With all due respect, I think this is the silliest argument I have heard yet. Would you tell a meteorologist that, until he can make a hurricane, meteorology is not a real science? Would you tell a physicsist that, until he can produce a muon from nothing, he studies a pseudo-science? Would you tell a chemist that, unless he can produce gold out of thin air, he isn’t a real scientist? Would you tell a Christian that, until he could produce God at the snap of his fingers, you wouldn’t believe in Christianity?

Fred

 

[PhilVaz]

Alber << Would you tell a Christian that, until he could produce God at the snap of his fingers, you wouldn’t believe in Christianity? >>

Edwin does have a point that for someone who rejects God, then ultimately everything came from nothing. Contemporary physics and astronomy asserts the Big Bang was the universe coming into existence – all matter, space, and time being created about 15-20 billion years ago (God and the New Physics by Paul Davies and his other books discuss this).

Evolution is the study of life after its here, not the origin of the universe (cosmology) or the origin of first life. There have been experiments though trying to “reproduce” the conditions for first life, the Miller-Urey studies. Jonathan Wells criticizes this as an “icon” of evolution, and the NCSE responds…

Phil P

 

[Alberich]

PhilVaz:

Alber << Would you tell a Christian that, until he could produce God at the snap of his fingers, you wouldn’t believe in Christianity? >>

Edwin does have a point that for someone who rejects God, then ultimately everything came from nothing. Contemporary physics and astronomy asserts the Big Bang was the universe coming into existence – all matter, space, and time being created about 15-20 billion years ago (God and the New Physics by Paul Davies and his other books discuss this).

Phil P

Hi Phil,

Sure, he does have a point. The only problem with the point that he makes is that it is internally inconsistent with his own approach to belief. I would feel much more comfortable if he had said something along the lines of “You evolutionists say you have all this proof of evolution, but all I see is a bunch of hand-waving couched in jargon.” Or, alternatively, if he simply doesn’t believe that the evidence supplied is real, but rather some made-up baloney (balogna?) created as part of a vast atheist conspiracy. I just don’t feel–logically, and as a Catholic–that it is the best idea in the world to say, “If you can’t produce the subject of your study/belief at the snap of your fingers, then it must not exist.”

Cheers,
Fred

 

[PhilVaz]

Alber << Or, alternatively, if he simply doesn’t believe that the evidence supplied is real, but rather some made-up baloney (balogna?) created as part of a vast atheist conspiracy. >>

It’s “baloney.” That’s the view probably of a lot of folks who vote against evolution. It seems Edwin has bought into that also, “to do science well you have to be an atheist.” Edwin mentioned Philip Johnson’s books earlier, the lawyer who has made this a major part of his “case” against evolution, what he calls a bias of metaphysical/philosophical naturalism as a worldview in science. Anyway, good thread, I see you majored in biology so maybe you can add much…

Phil P

 

[Alberich]

PhilVaz:

Anyway, good thread, I see you majored in biology so maybe you can add much…

Phil P

Agreed, as to the good thread part. So far as the biology goes…it’s been awhile! Sad, but if I don’t stay current, I get swept behind pretty quickly! All the same, a lot of the work and study that I did was genetics and evolution, and I can’t help but think that anybody that’s seen the evidence for evolution that I have would have no trouble accepting it for as valid a theory as anything else is science.

Then again, perhaps some of the YECs do scientists a favor. Much like anti-Catholics keep the Catholic apologetics sharp, perhaps scientists, when they notice them at all, use the YECs as a spur to keep their work strong and honest.

Peace,
Fred

 

[ArisSlatr]

That has to be one of the best things Ive ever heard. No one is perfect, and not everyone can get everything. There has to be an argument for people to want to keep proving things.

Props to that statement!

 

[Paine_inyurneck]

JesusIsTheWay:

I have to believe in Creation and I couldn’t consider myself a Christian if I did otherwise…

Which is why some Christians do not understand the scientific method. Bias. Preconcieved notions based on Genesis.
Remember what Paul said about fables and geneologies:
*'Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so do."
*
Stick to what is important. Christ , everthing He said, and nothing else other than what He said.
Also the scientific method helps us to… (1 Thessalonians 5:21) “Prove all things; hold fast to what is good”. Amen!
“Some” Deists love some of the teachings of the NT and I am one of them.

JesusIsTheWay:

And in my own personal research, I have found more evidence to support creation than evolution. I will not go into this though as I have seen this go off to an unresolved tangent.

Its statements like this that make us free thinkers paranoid of organized religion. free thinkers like to “think” instead of just taking someones word whenever possible. We like to be trusted to come to an honest conclusion based on the evidence provided. And I believe many Christains feel the same way. God did give us all a brain. How about a little trust and share what you know through your personal research of evolution theory and creation hypothesis. What is the difference between a theory and an hypothesis? This is not an attack on creation science. An hypothesis can become theory. yes? yes. God bless the scientists that finally do the hard work required to make creation hypothesis into a -->scientific<-- theory.

 

[ArisSlatr]

The problem is that creation scientists have used very incorrent figures. The second law of thermodynamics is not violated. There are transitional fossils. On top of this there are plenty of simple ways to explain the world without a god.

Unfortunetly people have to realize science and life isn’t simple. People who dont understand life science usually have a hard time comprehending how the process of life can begin.

I hate the idea of their not being a god, Im not a christian anymore, and I’d like to believe the idea of it being real. It’s just there is too much evidence against it.

And one more question, there is no mention of micro-evolution! Why not, that is the old earth concept. Macro-evolution is rather limiting. Asking creation vs. macro evolution is like asking oranges vs. yellow apples.

 

[Oolon_Colluphid]

Working my way through unanswered stuff gradually…
Chris W:

If I understand Oolon’s point correctly, he is saying that from his perspective (which he presents as relying only on his evaluation of scientific empirical data) he concludes that if there is a God, then God must be an incompetant fool or a sadist, for he sees an apparent lack of intelligent design in some aspects of nature (or a deliberate intent on causing misery).

Correct. However, this only, only, refers to a literal creator god, a hands-on designer. A god that used evolution as his means of creation is not the target of, and is unaffected by, my analysis.

While this is an offensive statement, especially on a Christian web-site

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/images/smilies/boohoo.gif

and it does show the true personal impact of the theory of evolution,

Only if you want a literal designer. If there is a literal designer, it is one to be strenuously avoided. Because, it is clearly neither omniscient nor omnibenevolent, and therefore not the usual Christian god. It’s closer to something out of Lovecraft.

his statement has shed some more light on the Evolution versus Christianity debate.

No. Only on the evolution vs creationism debate. Whilst I personally, myself, don’t understand how it is possible to accept the scientific method (and the crucial role of evidence in it) while believing in gods, I have no quarrel with those who can manage this double-think.

And since this debate is not about my beliefs, but rather about the validity of evolution and literal creation, I shall not comment on it further.

 

[Oolon_Colluphid]

buffalo:

Oolon Colluphid:

Are you really sure you want to accuse your god of designing things? Things like Wuchereria bancrofti

and Leishmania species? Things like the female hyaena’s reproductive system, lesbian lizards, the recurrent laryngeal nerve, and our extensor coccygis muscle… to name but a few?
Unconvincing.

How so?

This proves nothing.

It demonstrates lousy and nasty designs now present. The question is, how did they get here?

It only proves degeneration. God permits this.

LOL! You don’t seem to have grasped those examples. The lifecycles of parasites are amazingly intricate; their adaptations to their hosts exquisite. They are just the sorts of intricacy and adaptation that, when encountered in things like eyes, are used as examples of the hand of the designer. So, if not evolution, who did design this intricacy and adaptation? Is the Devil a designer of living things now as well? Is ‘degeneration’ to be credited with design capabilities too?

Please explain how ‘degeneration’ can re-route a nerve, and still have it function.

Please explain how ‘degeneration’ can produce a small muscle (the extensor coccygis) that cannot do anything, because the bones it would move are a fused lump.

Please explain how ‘degeneration’ can invert a retina, and still have it work so well that creationists deny there’s even a problem.

If ‘degeneration’ is a mechanism that explains these things, please elaborate on the workings of this mechanism.

I am sure glad we who believe have a better place to go.

Is that a threat, or Pascal’s Wager?

(cont…)

 

[Oolon_Colluphid]

Based on your links you are postulating that God would design a perfect world.

Not necessarily. But if the designer is as described (very clever), the one thing the hypothesis does not predict is poor designs. Quite the opposite: it specifically predicts that we mere humans should not be able to spot any blatant design flaws. But we can.

Take birds and bats. Bats (all of them, however many ‘kinds’ that is) all have the typical mammalian tidal respiratory system. Birds have a through-flow system. All of them.

And the through-flow system is massively, measurably, much more efficient than the tidal one, since it does not mix ‘used’ air with fresh.

If the designer had a blank slate for each ‘kind’, why did he not give the through-flow system to bats? The Argument from Design claims that designs fit function because the designer intended it to. What are we to then make of designs that do not fit the function?

What exactly is it about the pipistrelle (say) lifestyle, compared to, say, the nightjar’s, that means they deserved vastly suboptimal lungs?

It’s not that their lungs aren’t good: it is that the designer knew of a better system for small flying insectivores. But he did not use it wherever it was appropriate. No, he kept it within one group, whether suitable or not; and used a less efficient system in another group, again whether suitable or not. Thus we have flying things (bats), fast runners (cheetahs), long-distance runners (wolves)… and sloths, and the pinnacle of his purpose, us humans… all with demonstrably less efficient lungs than those of birds. All birds: nightjars, albatrosses… and kiwis and penguins.

Perhaps it’s fair enough that dormice should have a tidal system. Please explain why cheetahs and bats have it.

(And if it’s due to ‘degeneration’, again please explain how this degeneration can turn one system into the other.)

He is the only perfection. Everything else is a subset of this.

I see your set theory is suspect too. For a subset of perfection has to be perfect too, else the superset is no longer as described.

This world is a trial for us, not paradise.

So, like, he did create parasites?

TTFN, Oolon

 

[Oolon_Colluphid]

SwordofLight:

You people need to watch

“Amazing creatures that defy evolution”

It is narrated by a former evolutionary professor who now believes evolution is impossible, and shows you through individual animals.

If God made the clever stuff, who made the stupid stuff?

 

[Oolon_Colluphid]

Christian5:

Hehe, LOL, Woo Hoo!!! Your funny Oolong!

My funny what? And my name does not refer to some sort of tea, so no ‘g’.

Umm, I do believe in evolution guys, I have numerous books on it, as well as creationists books. But none can seem to prove evolution without a dought!

Nothing in science is ever proven. This is because we are not defining the world beforehand, but instead trying to find out what it’s like. So because we do not know everything about every corner of the universe – we do not have every piece of evidence – we have to make do with the closest approximation to the truth that we can manage, based on all the evidence we do have, and any more we can gather.

Science does not deal in certainty… but that doesn’t mean that its conclusions, though tentative, are vague or ‘uncertain’. They are as certain as we can be in the circumstances.

I want to see clear proof of it yet no one can give.

Of course not. But if we realise that, and instead take a slightly softer approach – what does the evidence suggest? – then it unequivocally suggests that evolution is correct.

May I ask what would constitute sufficient ‘proof’ for you? Why do things like the telomere sequences in our chromosome 2, the presence of an extensor coccygis muscle, the existence of things like the Nariokotome Boy 15K fossil, and the nested hierarchies of homologies in nature (not merely similarities, but the pattern of similarities, like the lung ventilation systems above), and so on… why are they insufficient to tentatively ‘prove’ evolution?

Not even you Oolong.

Tell me what *would * satisfy you.

Evolution (God’s unseen creating in action) is awesome. I want to see the clear proof of it.

And fossil whales with legs doesn’t do it for you? The fact that evolution even unto speciation is an observed phenomenon doesn’t cut it? Just what do you require?

(cont…)

 

[buffalo]

I have a puzzle that consists of 10,000 pieces. But I only have 1% of the puzzle pieces to use. I pick and place them where I think it is logical and makes sense they belong. Alas, I believe I have a picture of ???. It’s anybody’s guess but some of us could definitely agree that we have a picture of !!!.

 

[Oolon_Colluphid]

Any remark I make to a 6 day literalist, he in returns has a response I cannot beat.

Your own lack of knowledge (or skill in countering rhetoric, which is just as useful) does not make evolution invalid.

Alot of them have PH.Ds in colledge education.

Heh. Yeah, that’s the problem. There’s plenty of them who are PhDs in education, or hydrodymanics, or engineering. Rather fewer of them have degrees in anything relevant.

I mean there not all unscientific.

Apart from creation being inherently unscientific, you mean…

I’de love to see you debate against Mr. Gish or Mr. Ham!

I’ll happily take them on, in writing. I am not fool enough to be verbally steamrollered by a Gish Gallop though.

I’m still searching for the clear proof of evolution.

Name it.

From biology to geology etc. no one can offer clear-cut proof to put to silent the creationists.

Proof proof proof… how much evidence constitutes proof?

Come on guys show it so these guys will go away and just preach theology instead of fantasy creation (6 day literalist).

Given that DNA patterns are copied down generations, even into separated lineages, I’d have thought shared retroviral insertions are pretty good ‘proof’. The point is, of course, that creationists will not accept any evidence that contradicts their warped idea of faith. So it doesn’t matter what we show them, they will be unmoved (though they can be nimble enough on their toes when it comes to shifting the goalposts).

No one disputes Copernicus anymore, so let no one dispute Darwin.

Most people don’t. Those who do are ignorant (no shame in that, but arguing from such a position is not terribly bright), liars (‘lying for Jesus’, I think it’s called), or insane. And their induction is not so much slothful as stone dead.

Show it, please! On her knees begging

You show me yours, I’ll show you mine. To wit:

I’m still waiting for you to explain which of the “many ‘supposed’ missing links have been reclassified as extinct apes or fully human”, and by whom.

And to cite examples of the “WIDE range of hommid fossils that show up in the wrong time period (of evolution)”.

And to tell me what’s wrong with the two critiques of Lubenow I linked.

For someone who says “I do believe in evolution guys”, you sure sound like a creationist.

TTFN, Oolon

 

[Oolon_Colluphid]

buffalo:

I have a puzzle that consists of 10,000 pieces. But I only have 1% of the puzzle pieces to use. I pick and place them where I think it is logical and makes sense they belong. Alas, I believe I have a picture of ???. It’s anybody’s guess but some of us could definitely agree that we have a picture of !!!.

So we’ve got 100 random pieces. We place them on the table. There’s a bit of what looks like a beak. Another looks like the webbing on a foot. A few others seem to be feathers. Another suggests the beak is more accurately a bill. Yet another, a strange one at first, seems to be part of a speech bubble including “ack”.

You seem to be saying that if only we had the lot, what we’d really see is an elephant.

 

[buffalo]

We have to infer the rest because we don’t have the lot. However, the completed puzzle may yield a different picture than we were hoping.

 

[Oolon_Colluphid]

buffalo:

We have to infer the rest because we don’t have the lot. However, the completed puzzle may yield a different picture than we were hoping.

Of course it might. But meanwhile, what are we to make of all the bits that look, not like the elephant it really is, but a duck? The more duck pieces we find – and we do keep finding duck-like pieces – the more likely it is that it really is a duck.

In other words, any explanation that suggests it’s really an elephant has to explain all the duck pieces.

Any explanation that suggests evolution is not actually true must explain all the evolution-shaped pieces. God the deceiver, anyone? If God has gone to the trouble of making everything look like evolution, shouldn’t we do him the courtesy of accepting that?

 

[buffalo]

Well I am glad that you can admit that you are not sure what the final picture might be. But you seem a tad bit overconfident of what you expect as we look through the current lens of time.

Now God and reason cannot be at odds. Because he is truth and cannot deceive or be deceived. So what he reveals is truth. What we think we see may be quite different.