Creationish Vs Evolutionism? BE POLITE!

[Modifier]

That this thing called evolution happens in nature all around us all the time is undeniable. The "evolution" of antibiotic-resistance in bacteria is an obvious example.

It's an example of devolution/loss, not evolution,
Read this:
http://www.gawaher.com/topic/740302-bacterial-antibiotic-resistence-example-of-evolution/

 

[JSMcustoms]

I do have to say, that yes when i read that it made me smile. God asked ( allowed?) the earth to bring forth plants, and it did. The Earth has power, and that's Biblical.

That's exactly how I interpret this, though it's admittedly a bit different from the way some choose to.

 

[Insipid Moniker]

Saying something is 'too complicated to evolve' is also a conceit of faith. Do we know each mechanism could not be useful on it's own? If we don't the safe answer is exactly what you said, 'I don't know', not as you're saying 'ait couldn't have!'

 

[Dave Behrens]

To sum up my personal belief;

- Neither science nor religion "KNOWS" anything, simply a compilation of "bits" of "evidence", and a massive load of blind faith, blended with ignorance and arrogance

- Most "science" has become a religion of sorts to people i.e. global warming

- The longer you live the more you (should) realize that you know less

- We are all insignificant in the scope of the earth let alone the universe

- It is fear of being that insignificance that fuel religious beliefs in science or god/s, because people need "reasons"

- While I may come to my own conclusions about some things, ultimately I don't care because I don't know, can't know, and have zero control over the universe

 

[Gollnick]

Saying something is 'too complicated to evolve' is also a conceit of faith. Do we know each mechanism could not be useful on it's own? If we don't the safe answer is exactly what you said, 'I don't know', not as you're saying 'ait couldn't have!'

You are absolutely correct.

But it all boils down to: we don't know one way or the other. And neither way can be proven.

Even though this is a discussion of science and of faith, there is a legal concept which we can consider here: reasonable doubt. In one case, the defendant was heard to threaten the murder victim before his body was found. But the defendant has surveillance video of him leaving the building in a huff; the same video shows the deceased still very much alive. The defendant says that he drove the next town over and went through the drive through and got dinner at a fast food place and found a parking lot and ate his dinner before driving home. He has a time-stamped receipt for the dinner, but the clerk says he can't remember all the people who come through the drive through. What do you think? Is there reasonable doubt? Probably.

But what if that video had captured the defendant stabbing the victim and leaving him in a pool of blood on the floor? The defendant claims that it was not him. It was his long-lost twin brother. No, his birth certificate does not record him as a twin, but that, he says, is an error in the records. His late mother told him once that his twin brother was stolen from her at birth. And now that guy in the video must be his lost twin come back to frame him for this horrible murder. What do you think? Is that a reasonable explaination? Is there reasonable doubt here?

So which explaination of the spider's intricate web-weaving anatomy is more reasonable? That it all came to be together at once? Or that they evolved one-at-a-time in an additive process and that each one has some separate advantage that has has been lost in time, which we don't know but must have been there? There is conceivable reason to doubt either explaination. But which one suffers from more reasonable doubt?

 

[Insipid Moniker]

Gollnick, I agree, but we also must apply that to the ideas surrounding that example. Which theory is best supported by the available evidence? Which theory makes fewer and smaller assumptions with it's explanations? Even within the example we have to ask questions about each piece of the mechanism, could each piece be useful on it's own without the others?

 

[Ken44]

Evolution is proven.
I don't wish to discuss what I believe because at times I'm not even sure.
But I will never believe anyone will burn for internity after they die.

 

[Trent Rock]

Agnostic
I lean towards Panspermia

Panspermia proposes that life forms that can survive the effects of space, such as extremophiles, become trapped in debris that is ejected into space after collisions between planets that harbor life and Small Solar System Bodies (SSSB). Bacteria may travel dormant for an extended amount of time before colliding randomly with other planets or intermingling with protoplanetary disks. If met with ideal conditions on a new planet's surfaces, the bacteria become active and the process of evolution begins. Panspermia is not meant to address how life began, just the method that may cause its sustenance.[3][citation needed]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia

I chose OTHER.....

 

[Mal2]

I don't believe there is any contradiction between Christianity and science. If God is truly omnipotent, he could have "created" any way he chose. The Bible is written by humans. Try explaining evolution to a BC human that doesn't likely even know the shape of the earth. Organized religion is obviously dangerous but it is also a product of man. I believe there is something above man and have no trouble naming it God but if a human tells me anything about what God wants and how I should believe or act; count me a skeptic. Having studied the Koran and the old and new testaments; I believe the words of Christ come closest to describing the "right" way to live.

 

[liamstrain]

Creation and Evolution deal with different things... abiogenesis - the origin of life, isn't explained by Evolution. It is still under investigation. Everything that happened after the first simple amino acids were formed though, is covered by evolution and is very well supported by science. Man and every other living thing evolved over the past billion years from those origins, whatever their root cause turns out to be.

The same thing goes for the origin of the observable universe. Nobody knows what caused the big bang, whether it was a quantum bubble in a multiverse, whether its an infinite loop of expansion and contraction, or whether some god breathed it into being (that has other questions it needs to answer, of course). But - what we do know is that the big bang happened. And everything else flows from that, and is very well documented and explained.

So, regarding the origin of the universe and the origin of life, currently, nobody knows. Anyone who tells you they do, is selling something (or deserve a nobel prize if they can actually support it). BUT everything that happened *after* the big bang (milliseconds after), and after the origin of life on this planet (sometime in the late 3rd billion years after our planet was formed), is explained by scientific facts, observations and evidence, and is not up for serious debate.

People can believe what they wish about how people should live their lives, and what happens when they die, or if some being offers them purpose - but they are not entitled to their own facts about the nature of our universe.

 

[JustAFleshWound]

Some of you seem to not understand the difference between micro-evolution and macro-evolution; allow me to enlighten you.

Microevolution- The theory that natural selection can, over time, take an organism and transform into a more specialized species of that organism

Macroevolution- The hypothesis that processes similar to those at work in microevolution can, over eons of time, transform an organism into a completely different kind of organism

Microevolution is also known as Adaptation. Microevolution is a well documented phenomena that practically no one disputes.
Macroevolution is an unproven hypothesis at best.

 

[Gollnick]

Gollnick, I agree, but we also must apply that to the ideas surrounding that example. Which theory is best supported by the available evidence? Which theory makes fewer and smaller assumptions with it's explanations? Even within the example we have to ask questions about each piece of the mechanism, could each piece be useful on it's own without the others?

You are correct again. But that's my point: neither theory can be proven. Evolution as the source of all diversity of life can not be proven. And intelligent design and creation can't be proven either. Neither can be proven to the legal standard of beyond-a-reasonable-doubt, but that standard is much much lower than the standard that true science demands to declare something proven-law. So, to insist that one must absolutely be true and the other is absolutely false is not scientific; that is necessarily religion. And yes, "science" can become your religion. Notice that I put science in quotes there; true science refuses to be religion.

Science -- true science -- often uses ideas that are not proven laws. Einstein's Theory is not proven law and yet science uses it often and to great results. Only about a year ago or so, a prestigious and well-respected lab made some measurements and observed some particles moving faster than the speed of light which is impossible under Einstein's Theory. And the whole physics community paused to ask the question: could Einstein be wrong? That possibility was readily considered because the physicists know that Einstein's Theory is unproven, that it could be wrong. It turns out that this famous and prestigious lab forgot to properly plug in an important piece of equipment and their data, not Einstein, was wrong. Science -- true science -- can use a theory to great effect even while acknowledging that it may ultimately be wrong.

Scientists like Einstein's Theory. But few if any would fight to his own death for it. So why are some people who call themselves scientists so passionate about the Theory of Evolution that they will fight to their own death for it? That kind of faith -- and that is the word that has to be used -- goes beyond science and becomes a religion of its own.

 

[liamstrain]

Some of you seem to not understand the difference between micro-evolution and macro-evolution; allow me to enlighten you.

Microevolution- The theory that natural selection can, over time, take an organism and transform into a more specialized species of that organism

Macroevolution- The hypothesis that processes similar to those at work in microevolution can, over eons of time, transform an organism into a completely different kind of organism

Microevolution is also known as Adaptation. Microevolution is a well documented phenomena that practically no one disputes.
Macroevolution is an unproven hypothesis at best.

Macro evolution is just lots of micro evolution. There is no distinction. Change over time. Give it enough time, and enough pressures to change and it happens. It is very well documented, and considered a fact, not a hypothesis. There are many thousands of solid evidences, both in DNA analysis, and in the fossil record. Even in living species, the phenomena of the "ring species" demonstrates it very well (as do the italian wall lizards).

But that's my point: neither theory can be proven. Evolution as the source of all diversity of life can not be proven.

It has been proven. Over and over again. Abiogenesis (the spark, the origin of life) is still up for debate (but there are some very good working models for it too).

 

[Gollnick]

True science and true scientists realize and accept that there are limits to human knowledge and understanding. The libraries are not yet full and it's not time yet to close the journals and shutter the labs. The questions of the origin of the universe, of life, of all diversity of life... these are questions to which true scientists readily answer: we don't know; we're still working on that.

This is a knife forum. We like to talk about steel. It's a common material. Man has made and used it for thousands of years. And it's become a very important material for mankind. But there's a lot that metallurgists and physicist and chemists don't know about steel. If you went back in time just a couple of generations, before the invention of X-ray crystallography and scanning electron microscopes and nuclear magnetic spectrometry you find that the list of things unknown about steel was much much longer. But science still doesn't know all that there is to know about something as simple and common as steel. The metallurgists won't let you padlock their section of the library because they know that they still have a lot to add to it. And yet some people want to close the section of the library about the origins of life and of all diversity because they think they have it all figured out.

 

[stabman]

I Eyeballs, for example, could not have evolved.

Actually, they most certainly can.
There is quite a bit of good info out there about the steps along the way, with even photosensitive spots giving a slight survival advantage.
It's all out there and handily spelled out.

As to WHY anything exists at all, speculation continues.
(my personal theory is that the universe exists so I can buy and collect knives)

 

[JustAFleshWound]

Macro evolution is just lots of micro evolution. There is no distinction. Change over time. Give it enough time, and enough pressures to change and it happens. It is very well documented, and considered a fact, not a hypothesis. There are many thousands of solid evidences, both in DNA analysis, and in the fossil record. Even in living species, the phenomena of the "ring species" demonstrates it very well (as do the italian wall lizards).

You're missing something here, friend. Microevolution is a slight change in the cells of an organism, not the structure of the organism!

Macroevolution is not considered a fact, it is still considered a hypothesis. Perhaps you are not familiar with the scientific method?

 

[liamstrain]

You are mistaking the word Theory for hypothesis. See the end of your method chart - we are currently in the "test theory - pass many" stage of things.

There is no distinction between macro and micro evolution. There is only evolution. Again see the italian wall lizards for a good example going on right now. Or ring species. Your so called "macro-evolution" is going on all the time, and is very well documented fact.

 

[JustAFleshWound]

You are mistaking the word Theory for hypothesis. See the end of your method chart - we are currently in the "test theory - pass many" stage of things.

There is no distinction between macro and micro evolution. There is only evolution. Again see the italian wall lizards for a good example going on right now. Or ring species. Your so called "macro-evolution" is going on all the time, and is very well documented fact.

No I am not. It is still a hypothesis. Tell me of five experiments that have been conducted and seemingly "proved" evolution and I will agree with you that it is in the theory stage.

 

[Insipid Moniker]

No I am not. It is still a hypothesis. Tell me of five experiments that have been conducted and seemingly "proved" evolution and I will agree with you that it is in the theory stage.

Meaningless question. Experiments aren't an attempt to prove a theory, if correctly done they are an attempt to disprove it. So just show where it has been disproven.

 

[liamstrain]

A better resource than I can be, the Talk Origins 29+ evidences for Macroevolution Page. (note - they use the term here to specifically argue those who try to make the distinction between micro and macro - these deal only with what is covered under most uses of the macro term).

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/