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If it's September, it's time for creationism in schools. That's how some would like it, anyway.
Sure, evolution is the linchpin of modern biology, explaining everything from antibiotic resistance in bacteria to the progression of species found in the fossil record.
That didn't stop Republican vice presidential nominee, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, from expressing the idea that creationism—the biblical notion that God created Earth and its life forms a few thousand years ago–should get equal footing with evolution in public school science classes. "Teach both," she said during a 2006 televised gubernatorial debate. "You know, don't be afraid of information."
She isn't the only one who feels that way. In the past, proponents of creationism have tried to sell it as "creation science" or "intelligent design"—the idea that life is too complex to have evolved without divine intervention. But after a landmark legal setback in Pennsylvania (teaching intelligent design in the public schools was found to violate the constitutionally mandated separation of church and state), creationists have retooled their approach. This year's buzzwords were "academic freedom" and "strengths and weaknesses".
Lawmakers in several states drew inspiration from a petition published in February by the Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based group promoting intelligent design. The petition argued that teachers should not be penalized for "objectively presenting the scientific strengths and weaknesses of Darwinian theory" and students should be allowed to express their views on those same strengths and weaknesses.
Creationists chalked up a notable win with this approach in Louisiana, where Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal in June signed into law the Louisiana Science Education Act. Similar bills were introduced this year in Florida, Missouri, Michigan, South Carolina and Alabama.
In Texas, the state school board is one vote short of approving new educational standards in March that allow a curriculum that highlights the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolution. It's all part of a gradual rhetorical shift away from talking about creationism and intelligent design toward casting doubt on evolution, says Joshua Rosenau, spokesperson for the National Center for Science Education in Oakland, Calif.
"They have this idea," he says, "that it's a zero-sum game, so anything you can do to knock evolution down actually promotes creationism without having to say the word."
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213 Comments
Add CommentI was interested in science as a high school student and was firmly convinced of the truth of evolution. In college I was handed a creationist pamplet and was angered at the rediculous claims. I looked them up and was surprised to find that though exagerated they had some basis. I am not a creationist but I have discovered that evolutionist are just as likely to lie and deceive when it suits thier agenda. They seem to take on the same characteristics as religious fundamentalist.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat a lame and poorly written article (and boring). I'd seriously get no better than a "C+" if I submitted this in my high school honors English class. It the author trying to portray this as a news article or as an editorial? By the way, does SciAm really think it's necessary to toss in a few jabs at candidates in their "scientific" articles, like the rest of the mainstream media? Just stick to the science stuff - I get enough politics everywhere else...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this(Open cheek, insert tongue) - between the religious nuts over here trying to force Bible study into science class, and the reglious nuts over there trying to tell us that girls shouldn't be allowed to go to school, the space aliens are NEVER gonna think we're advanced enough intellectually to share their super-duper-future technology with us!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOK, but seriously - this is a real problem. I'm all for discussing the strenghts and weaknesses of Darwinism. Any respectable evolutionary biologist would probably agree (not that I am an evolutionary biologist). That's the way that science works. But implying that any flaw in Darwinism and evolution as it's understood today is implicitly supporting the idea of intellegent design is just, well, UNINTELLIGENT! Evolution and creationism are not opposite sides of the same coin. It's not one or the other. Evolution is a scientific theory, based in scientific study and analysis that has been tested and challanged. Creationism is a load of illogical bunk with no basis in anything other than the Bible, and I'm sorry to all those Christians out there but there's just NO PROOF that the Bible conains one lick of truth (even though it does contain a lot of wisdom - but wisdom and knowledge are VERY DIFFERENT THINGS). This issue should have been put to rest when we discovered that, regardless of what God told the Pope, the Earth moves around the Sun, and not the other way around. But I guess some people just can't let go of their rediculous fantasies.
In short - if you Believe, that's great: religion is a wonderful way to find meaning in your daily life. But keep your religion out of my science class. Cause if you don't, God help me, I'm bringing science to church on Sunday. And my biology textbook has got about 5 pounds on your Bible...
I think that this article makes an interesting point,which is that many people assume that Creationism (or some variant thereof) is the default source for explanations of our origins if evolution can be discredited...and, indeed, people do appear to think this way in my experience. We live in a Christian culture and most of us have been raised to be Christian, so, emotionally, it is our default and safe position. But, in fact, there is no other rational explanation for the 'creation' of life than evolution. Even if evolution were disproved, that would simply mean that we wouldn't know how we came exist today. The absence of a scientific explanation would not give one ounce of weight to religion-based conjecture, such as the idea of Intelligent Design.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat's up with US schools?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWho are the teachers that will agree to teach such a misleading approach?
Or are even the teachers illiterate?
When will esoterics, tarot players, witchcrafters claim their places?
Trojan99, The difference being that science is testable. If you question someone’s results you can do the experiments yourself. Religion is not testable, so when someone preaches violence and hate in the name of god there is no way to test this. How do you know what is or isn’t the will of god? One can find cases in the bible where god not only condones mass murder but participates in it. As is clear today, the bible can be used to justify all sorts of horrific acts from mass murder, child molestation, to genocide. There is no “process” within religion to correct these behaviours. Do scientists make mistakes? Yes, they are people, people make mistakes. That is why we have science. When scientists make mistakes who finds and corrects them? Other scientists. Science is self correcting. When religious groups make mistakes who finds them? Scientists. Religious groups consistently refuse to adapt to new realities. They have a tradition of censoring information that contradicts their dogma and torturing and murdering dissenters. When Einstein challenged classical physics with his theory of relativity he wasn’t censored, tortured or murdered, he was celebrated. To me that is a significant difference between religion and science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe need to start a list of things we must ban from education. Mark Twain is "out" because he uses words we no longer consider appropriate. Creationism or ID is disallowed because, I assume like our Declaration of Independence (also under attack) it refers to a higher authority. Palin is attacked because of this and I suppose next up is Obama since when asked when does a baby get human rights he says that that is "above my pay grade". I wonder just what he meant by that? If we elect Obama how do we explain to our children that ID is disallowed because it implies a belief in God when a President Obama comes right out and indicates he too believes in God?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHooray for ignorance!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am sorry, but you can believe in God and/or be a Christian and NOT believe in intelligent design. I mean the Bible was written by men and Christianity was developed by the Romans to control the population. You would really need to be a Bible literalist to believe in ID or creationism (and that is a pretty extreme view). It is completely religious based, and therefore it is unconstitutional to propose anything otherwise. I can't believe it is OK to be running for office and completely ignore what science has accepted ages ago.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think you definately need to believe in ID to be a Christian. You don't need to believe evolution is false and that the world is only 6000 years old, but ID doesn't require those beliefs. The type of ID that many people believe in does require those beliefs, but it is not a necessary component of ID. ID simply says that God made all the stuff, not when he made it or how he made it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBTW I am a staunch atheist...who was taught evolution AND intelligent design in Catholic school (decided to reject the ID part of the teaching obviously). I don't see how you could be Christian and not believe that God created the world, it would be a very very strange brand of Christianity.
Joshua is right about the "zero-sum game". It was called the "two model approach" back when religious antievolution went by the labels "scientific creationism" and "creation science". The logic, such as it was, was that there was either creation or there was evolution, so anything that tended to make evolution more unlikely counted as something that made creation more likely. "Intelligent design" creationism used "two model" thinking, and that even was noted in the 2005 decision in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District case. The current labels, "strengths and weaknesses" and "academic freedom", are entirely premised on "two model" thinking.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJoshua is right about the "zero-sum game". It was called the "two model approach" back when religious antievolution went by the labels "scientific creationism" and "creation science". The logic, such as it was, was that there was either creation or there was evolution, so anything that tended to make evolution more unlikely counted as something that made creation more likely. "Intelligent design" creationism used "two model" thinking, and that even was noted in the 2005 decision in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District case. The current labels, "strengths and weaknesses" and "academic freedom", are entirely premised on "two model" thinking.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor those who believes in Intelligent Design, please answer this question: If the life forms can only be the product of some intelligent been, then who created this intelligent been, and then who created the creator of our creator, so on and so forth. Eventually you will have to reach a conclusion that one creator at the end of this chain just came about on its own. And that proves it's eminently possible for life to form from lifelessness.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy can't both views live together.. I've long held the belief that God or a Higher Being created us but who is to say how long that creation takes? Or even what form it takes? It could be intelligent design that we evolve because we are not in development where we are intended to be yet? Perhaps the creation part was the spark of life, left to develop to whatever ends it goes to? I just think both sides tend to belittle the other. Creationists tend to just pass off science as a waste of time since we are somehow preordained to be what we are - that somehow once created we are done. On the other hand evolutionists cannot see beyond biological causes when in fact they are about as close to cracking how life began/exists as I am to figuring out tomorrow night's lottery numbers. To assume that God does not exist or didn't play some role in our being or that science and faith are mutually exclusive is pretty myopic.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlay nice... I think if you believe in truth then you must believe that the merit of the argument will prevail.. teach both and let the students decide. Ignorance is also fear. Both sides "fear" that their view will be stifled, both show ignorance by not accepting that truths may or do exist in both views.
It could very well be that one supports the other. It was religion that stifled science but it was also religion that in the end supported it. Some of the greatest scientific breakthroughs have come from the USA which arguably is one of the more religious countries in the world. Men of faith have also made excellent scientists as well. That couldn't have happened if many people of religion here weren't also comfortable with their belief that God directs our destinies. Searching for truth should be the goal for both sides and perhaps one day one will actually prove out the other?
I agree with one poster that politics has no relevance in this article and it's clearly a cheap shot disguised as a science article. The quickest way to turn off people to your view is to expand the debate beyond the topic.. this author did just that - shamefully. Science and politics don't mix.
Whether you believe in Darwinism (one of the few isms in science), Creationism or Intelligent Design, JR Minkel has produced a particularly poor article for a scientific journal. There are a wide range of beliefs that are collected under the heading of Creationism, and Minkel has taken examples of the most unlikely, held them up against the pure light of Darwinism (which has problems of its own) and ridiculed the Creationism and all who espouse it (of course not forgetting to throw in a little political dig). Is this really up to SI standards? Dont you think that an adult should review Minkels work before it gets published to the world?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"You know, don't be afraid of information."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat about mis-information? Could this be why we dont see a lot of politicians turned scientists
You are off topic. This isn't about Obama or Palin. This article is about Creationism being taught in the classroom. This argument, unfortunately, existed well before either of these politicians were in the news.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswhat i was referring to was the inadequacy of people to filter out information from mis-information. Creationism/ID isn't information, it is an idea. We should not be afraid of it, and we should also not let real information be compromised by it
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisto append to that, scientists have done real work to gather and sort out information having to support/refute the theory of evolution. No real info is being gathered when ID is being supported from the political side and not the scientific side.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this. . . with Palin, it's much worse a disease than ID.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this** Welcome to The Handmaid's Tale , America **
McCain is a dupe. Now hes just along for a ride into the abyss of fundamentalist political ideology, dominionism.
Palin comes "wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross." She is exactly the gender traitor dominionists need to create the xian Iran of their dreams, under xian imams, xian thugs, and their corporate overlords.
Have you ever read or ever viewed The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood? A one sentence synopsis: In a dystopicly polluted right-wing religious tyranny, a young woman is put in sexual slavery on account of her now rare fertility. IMDb.com/title/tt0099731
Atwood depicts a society in which women have been stripped of all rights in a fragment of a failed America, known as Gilead, a country controlled by christian fundamentalist terrorists.
Obama PACs should buy The Handmaid's Tale, novel and DVD, by the box load and hand copies to every media person they know. Get TV outlets to broadcast it. If necessary buy time to show The Handmaids Tale in critical markets.
Palin emerges as a puritanical atavism directly from Atwoods dystopia. She belongs to a possible future we must avert.
To counter your assertion though, evolutionary biology doesn't look beyond biological causes because it can't. It can only look at what it can test, theorize and prove via experimentation. Science in and of itself does not say anything about a supreme being. All science says is that at our present level of knowledge it is not possible to prove or disprove a supreme being. Were scientists trying to inject theories and experiments into religious classes I think there would be just as much backlash from those who are attempting to do the same with science classes. The two can exist. But unless creationism or intelligent design is ready to go through rigourous testing, experimentation, theorizing and evaluation by scientific peers it is disingenuous to call it a science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe outcry against teaching "creationism" in science class is not that people are afraid of information, but rather that "creationism" has no place in a science class at all. Simply put, "Creationism" or "Intelligence Design", or whatever name its proponent choose to hid it under, is NOT A SCIENTIFIC THEORY as they claims. For an idea to be called a Scientific Theory, it has to be provable, or at least in theory capable of been proved. You can not prove or disprove the existense of GOD, so the idea that "GOD created life" is not science. If you say our creator is not GOD, but another intelligent life, then if life form is so complex that it requires a creator, then who created the creator? That simply could not answered by creationism. Any supposed "theory" that has a hole as big as that do not even worth a second look.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell said. With that, maybe we should consider giving ID a seperate class, not labeled science. For the fun of it we can label it, oh...religious. And since we are going ahead and giving it a seperate class, lets go ahead and give it a whole sperate school. We shall call this new place church.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy are so many uneducated people confused? The difference between the usage of the word "theory". In science the word means scientific idea that is well tested but not provable due to the nature of the idea. Then the layman's version of the word "theory" which is the same way ID uses it; something that is untested and unproven, ie, just an idea. Radically different definitions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy personal opinion is that just because evolutionary specifics can't be explained in 30 seconds leads most religious people to proclaim it is not possible. Sure, the eye IS really complex, but despite ID claims, we know exactly how it evolved, I just can't explain it in two sentences. Furthermore, you need a sh*tload of background knowledge to get through advance evolutionary science.
I don't understand why so many think that evolutionism and creationism are mutually exclusive. Given that we have an (arguably) infinitely large universe and an infinite timeframe for evolution to occur, why can't God be the product of evolution who has then taken some control of the universe? If evolution occurs on a universal scale, why would it not eventually produce an omnipotent being?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAmen! Can I get a witness!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe problem with ID is that people stop thinking because "GOD DID IT". In the extreme one has a Theocracy much like the middle ages when the world went to sleep for a thousand years. Look at Iran today. The infrastructure is falling apart because no one knows how to repair or build. They have huge oil reservers but must import 40% of its refined gasoline!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Republican and creationist campaign spin, which the media is uncritically accepting, is that Palin would have had to something undefined in order to have "pushed" teaching creationism in Alaskan public schools. They're getting away with it because it takes a minute to pause and think about what a state's chief executive would have to do in order to promote teaching creationism. All she had to do was voice her support for it, of which she did a more than adequate job. Once they have the green light, teachers and school administrators inclined to teach creationism will know what to do. Yes, Palin absolutely did "push" teaching creationism. Will someone please straighten out the jackasses in the media who are saying that she didn't.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJesus, that's so fucking gross. It hurts me to be an american legally, even if I don't live there anymore.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSorry, but you can't create the universe that created you. If God intellegently designed the universe (remember, this isn't JUST about evolution - evolution vs creationism is just the latest battle between religion and science) then he could not have evolved within it...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you're suggesting that that the being(s) that so many humans worship as God are actually space aliens, you're debating in the wrong forum
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf Evolution is a theory, why can't we include another theory, Creation Theory, into classroom ? Why do you have to insist that students have to leave out Creationism ? Being an open-minded guy, aren't you contradicting yourself ? If a theory is made up of observations, I don't see a problem of having someone observing the world and coming up with a conclusion that it is too complex to not be created. Also, does evolutionary theory has holes ? You bet...so why can't we have an alternative answer ? We seem to have an alternative answer in every other areas, why not this?
Reply | Report Abuse
Oh, for Pete's sake! This is so pathetic...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAbout 40% of public school students end junior high without being proficient in reading or basic math. 40% !
And you're arguing over creationism/evolutionism? Really?
No wonder most significant talent in the US is imported...
Because ID is not science, no matter how much you wish to disguise it as such. It is not testable, lacks evidence and is not even coherent.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEvolution does not cut it? That doesn't mean you should throw logic out the window and settle with what's left, if what's left does not even qualify as science.
As a kid they MENTIONED in school that "some people believe God created the world" and so on, along with other current and ancient mythologies. But that was never taight as if it was science. The definition of science is very clear; do you even know it? Look it up.
Evolution is science and ID is creationism...... Hmmm. Not very original ID is based on information theory, probability, mathematics, biology and other elements generally used by practitioners of science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInformation theory is based on probability theory and statistics established by Claude E Shannon with a classic paper "A Mathematical Theory of Communication" in 1948.
In essence it states that information comes from a mind and can be conveyed through many mediums. Ex: pen & paper, Toner and paper, electronic bits by computer, etc. Information can be simple & unspecified or complex and specified.
If a monkey began typing on a typewriter the result would be simple unspecified letters that would convey no information. Let us suppose that a person would type a message in English such as " I like vanilla ice cream and it must be cold before I will eat it.." This information would be specific and complex containing 64 letters including spaces. Based on probability this could not have occurred by chance.
Try to imagine dust, wind, rain over a long period of time bringing the elements of paper and ink together. Imagine that the same elements accidentally without direction, create a white paper with the black message in English "I like vanilla ice cream and it must be cold before I will eat it." It is reasonable to assume that most of us would say there is not enough time in the universe for this to occur by accident.
In fact it would be less complex for a Shakespearean play to accidentally be printed on accidentally formed paper then for the information in DNA to be created in a living cell that directs the creation of even the smallest animal on earth. Imagine the information in the DNA that creates a thinking human being from a single cell that is formed by a pleasurable interaction between two adult human beings. That single cell results in the creation of trillions of additional cells each having a duplicate copy of the DNA information found in that first cell.
Compare the above to the data that supports undirected accidental combination of chemical materials that might be combined by inclement weather and a lightning strike.That is the kind of just so stories put out by the followers of the Darwinian religion. The idea that ID is religious does not speak well of you knowledge of ID. I have read a huge volume of literature and have found that the Darwinian proof of macro-evolution is either fraudulent or just so stories made up to sound good. Read the real definition of ID. Darwinism is in real trouble, get over it.
The word "both" as in "both sides" is completely disingenuous; it deliberately implies that there is a single, valid, alternate theory. There are thousands of alternatives to the theory of evolution, and intelligent design is no better or worse than any of them...and not one of those alternatives has produced a single testable prediction. Without a testable prediction, any "theory" is just hand-waiving; it's philosophy or art or religion, not science. Intelligent design is a marvelous topic for a philosophy or religion class, and has been consistently taught in both, long before the buzz-phrase "intelligent design" was coined. (In philosophy, it's called the "teleological argument," and was popularized by William Paley (1743-1805).) By contrast, the theory of evolution has given birth to countless testable predictions that have been continuously verified, and which form the basis of all modern biology and medicine. So while it's fine (even admirable) to ask teachers to help students explore ways in which scientific theories are still being developed, and to look at competing scientific theories when there are several, that is not at all what's going on here. If it were, ID proponents would be asking us to debate "both" sides of subatomic particle theory, or "both" sides of basic chemistry theory, too. No one in their right mind is pushing for that, and there's a good reason why not.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thistam_sang:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"If Evolution is a theory, why can't we include another theory, Creation Theory, into classroom ? Why do you have to insist that students have to leave out Creationism ? Being an open-minded guy, aren't you contradicting yourself ?"
Well a theory IS tested, ID has not been (there is nothing to test, it involves religous belief). There needs to be a cut-off for random theories. If you allow in ID, you need to allow in the Speghetti-Monster Theory (wikipedia it). Evolution has gone through rigorous testing, and teaching the theory of evolution is presenting all the facts that have been laid out over the past hundrended or so years. I imagine if there is any sort of real data supporting or disproving ID, scientists will jump all over it and study it...the sad fact, is there just isn't any. Scientists aren't tied to evolution because they want to be, its because that is the best data we have.
tfagan:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisyou are just as guilty as you'd like to make people out to be. you cannot compare the laws of nature to creating a play. What's to say over BILLIONS of years that if you were randomly typing, the laws of nature, should they pick "the best possible story" [natural selection] that the billions and billions of itterations of random typing would soon start to form, RANDOMLY, into a story, base on natural selection.
-tsdafoi turns into: "tiasfkalds" and "to sadlfjaslkjf".
-natural selection picks "to sadlfjaslkjf", because it is, naturally, the better choice.
-"to sadlfjaslkf", over millions of iterations, can turn into "to sadsflkjsfda;j" or possibly "to bsdkljfsaoif"....and can possibly over time turn into "to be or not to be" over millions of picky iterations.
evolution isn't like random typing. RANDOM is a necessary part of moving forward, but selection is more important.
I always find it interesting how creationists only call for discussing the flaws of evolution, while criticism of creationism is off limits.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have a copy of "Of Pandas and People", and it seems like at least one fallacy or misconception on each page. It might make an interesting class to just go through such a book and contrast the creationist theory of evolution with the scientific theory of evolution. Once you eliminate the misconceptions, misquotes, misrepresentations, and misinformation about evolution, there is little left to the creationist version!
Sorry tfagan, those arguments are old and quite simply idiotic. It just demonstrates that you have no concept of the theory of evolution. Not surprising as I.D. and its proponents count on the ignorance of the general population to spread their dogma.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is true that if, by example, I was thinking of a 10 digit number and asked you to guess what it was, it might take you many years to find the result (odds 1/9,999,999,999). But that is not how evolution works! First, there is no predetermined end state that evolution needs to create from nothing. That's a trick you religious people are trying to convince us that god did. “Natural selection is a process causing heritable traits that are helpful for survival and reproduction to become more common in a population, and harmful traits to become more rare.” This is a slow and incremental process. It is not necessary for evolution to invent an eye in 7 days. Cells that are more sensitive to light are a good start. Over time structures that are better at collecting and focusing light will emerge. So, back to my number guessing example, if instead of having to guess the entire 10 digit number at once, you where told each time you got one of the digits correct it would take you much less time to find the result (odds 1/100).
But all this information is easy to find for anyone interested. The fact that you would bring up such ridiculous arguments shows that you are not interested in the truth but rather in perpetuating your faith. This has also been clearly stated by the I.D. group. The true purpose of I.D. is to get religion back into the public school system. The fact that you and your group would lie and deceive in order to do this truly demonstrates the depth of your “Christian values”. There must have been fine print on the ten commandments stating, “ignore in case of inconvenience.”
Religion is like smoking, it’s not a very clever thing to do but in a free society you have the right to do all sorts of stupid things. However you don’t have the right to force this on others. So keep I.D. where it belongs, in your homes and churches.
Trojan99,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHave you ever visited talkorigins.org?
I hate to admit it but I agree. and I am a very liberal, scientist of faith. acceptor of evolution. This is NOT up to SciAm standards.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is so easy to crush ID, one wonders what is holding your back. Oil money?
-Mark Farmer
Winterville, GA
This is not the place for political commentary, but the "creation science" or "intelligent design"the idea that life is too complex to have evolved without divine intervention suggests that government leadership should not be left in the hands of creationists since life is too complex without the understanding of some religious hack.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEvolutionist? What's that? If you had graduated from highschool, which seems doubtful, you might understand what scientists do and why they virtually all regard creationism as superstitious nonsense.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@ tfagan-
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou say "The idea that ID is religious does not speak well of your knowledge of ID."
Please enlighten us. If ID has nothing to do with religion, who exactly do you propose might be the "intelligent designer"?
Given that you believe it implausible that a bacterium could arise through natural evolution, do you think it's more likely that an intelligent designer arose through spontaneous generation?
The Sci-Am article says,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this--"In Texas, the state school board is one vote short of approving new educational standards in March that allow a curriculum that highlights the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolution "--
That is a lie -- the "strengths and weaknesses" language has already been in the Texas science standards for 20 years or more.
The evidences for changes through time and common descent are strong, but the evidence that all of evolution was driven solely by random genetic variation and natural selection is non-existent. Why can't evolution theory just be viewed as a sort of imaginary or hokey idea that might be partially or wholly untrue but is nonetheless useful in organizing and conceptualizing biology? Engineers, for example, are comfortable about using ideas that are not intuitively correct or accurate, for example, the use of complex-plane vectors in the analysis of AC circuits.
Judge Jones is an anti-intellectual pseudo-intellectual whose infamous Dover decision has been blocking and discouraging debate about evolution. He arrogantly assumes to know all the answers to difficult questions that have perplexed generations of scientists and philosophers. It is only an unfortunate coincidence that the Constitution's establishment clause can be misused to attack criticisms of evolution, and I doubt that Thomas Jefferson and the other Founders would approve of such misuse. The evolution controversy should be declared to be non-justiciable.
There is a logistical problem here which I 'm sure is the same in the USA as in my country, Australia, namely that while there is no obvious principled or philosophical objection to debating issues in various curriculum areas, the number of topics which might be open to debate is simply to great to be handled in the available time. Science teachers could potentially be saddled with the problem of using precious class time to punctiliously recapitulate any number of long invalidated misconceptions which our ancestors have had recourse to in the absence of better knowledge over several thousand years of civilisation. How many curriculum hours should be devoted to demonstrating that the earth is not flat or that there is no such substance as phlogiston? The urgency of the problems currently facing human populations, and for the solution of which the world needs highly educated and focused scientists, simply does not favour encouraging phony time-consuming debates. If the goal is to encourage vital critical thinking, there are many more productive ways to do so within the tight school curriculum.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswow, I'm a bit surprised by the comments here. But I shouldn't when I read an article aimed at attracting people to the website.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe debate here is not about biology or religion, but about sociology. Religion is taught in most countries. In some schools, prayers and gospel are part of the cursus.
Frankly, who cares about how the world was created? Personally, I'm convinced we this planet is circus created by cheeky aliens, and we keep entertaining them with our struggling...
What's insane is that in this battle for power, the battlefield is our children.
there is only one country in the world that has this debate . USA universally stupid assoles When you hear politicians say god is an american, and those religous nuts believe it , then you guys have some serious problems. USA is a melting pot of haves and have nots if you are gods chosen one then how come america isn't a utopia does he not say ye shall reap what he sews actually you yanks get what you deserve but for gods sake just keep it because no one else wants it
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthere is only one country in the world that has this debate . USA universally stupid assoles When you hear politicians say god is an american, and those religous nuts believe it , then you guys have some serious problems. USA is a melting pot of haves and have nots if you are gods chosen one then how come america isn't a utopia does he not say ye shall reap what he sews actually you yanks get what you deserve but for gods sake just keep it because no one else wants it
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe problem about creationism is that some of it's principles inherently unfalsifiable, and therefore creationism not scientific. Other principles are demonstrably false, so we can scientifically say that creationism is at least partially incorrect.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEducation must be about science. If you want to learn about religion, you can do it scientifically (eg a degree in theology) or non-scientifically (eg in a religious institute).
It is extremely important not to mix these two. Creationism as discourse is interesting to give in classes, but it should not be presented as truth of reality.
The problem about creationism is that some of it's principles inherently unfalsifiable, and therefore creationism not scientific. Other principles are demonstrably false, so we can scientifically say that creationism is at least partially incorrect.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEducation must be about science. If you want to learn about religion, you can do it scientifically (eg a degree in theology) or non-scientifically (eg in a religious institute).
It is extremely important not to mix these two. Creationism as discourse is interesting to give in classes, but it should not be presented as truth of reality.
I continued to be amazed how both sides of this fence push themselves and their opponents to the extreme opposite sides. Creation theory does not in itself suggest anything about religion, nor does intelligent design. Forget God, forget Christianity, Islam or any other man-made religion. It's not about evolution which has nothing to do with creation. Evolution is a proved fact, move on. But and this is a BIG but, we have no idea how life gets started and it does seem highly improbably. While we can deny design because we can't find proof we also have no proof that there is not some stacking of the cards in favor of life. Why can we seriously talk about infinite parallel universes, multiple dimensions, and string theory which are no less fantastic than some "design" behind the universe. I don't think there is any harm in talking about that possibility. But BOTH sides constantly push it into the realm of "God" and religion and evolution, which are all different subjects. I see no harm in discussion of the unproven concept of a universe with some unspecified purpose any more than discussing parallel universes for which we also have no proof. Science should be willing to contemplate anything unproven. Where is the true objectiveness? We talk about science someday possibly creating a "big bang" in laboratory and if that can be discusssed might we not also discuss controlling that experiment, adding in some pre-arraged factors, and if we did wouldn't that necessate an intelligent design? See - and we never even had to bring up God or any other myths.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI can read scientific debate on how we may someday create a "big bang" in a laboratory. And if we could do that might we also be able to control some of the parameters of the experiment. Wouldn't that then be a universe with some intelligent design? Both sides of this debate always get on the subject of God, religion, and evolution. None of which necessarily have anything to do with ID. Evolution is a fact, religions are made made philosophy. However we have NO idea how to create life. We have no proof on how such a fantastic thing could come to be. We also have no proof of multiple universes, 11 dimensions, or string theory, but we are willing to discuss these items which are no less fantastic than ID. I see no harm in discussing ID as a possible way that the cards could be stacked in favor of life. The problem is that both sides of this argument are either people who hate the concept of God and those that are religiously fanatical and so BOTH sides drag in "God". A real scientist should set on the fence and look at the known facts objectively. ID does NOT immediately bring in God or the Bible or any other philosophy. ID merely suggest that since life is so different and so improbable, and so unknown it may be somehow woven in the fabric of the universe. It's no more fantastic than an infinite number of universes in which one happened to have the improbable happen. While evolution is a fact, how life gets started is still a mystery that we are a long ways from solving and until we do we should allow intelligent debate and ID is at least as intelligent as infinite universes in infinite dimensions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI really can't believe that some are actually trying to defend teaching a RELIGIOUS belief in a SCIENCE class. Teach ID in philosophy if you must.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTHE SUPERIORITY OF INTELLIGENT DESIGN:-------------
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGod created the man first, then, after a period of observation, he saw the need to create the woman. We can see here a sequential creation model. The new form of life is based on the predecessor, with subsequent new features.--------------------------------
Back to the beginning, God created an original life form in the sea. After keen observation, he could create a new life form (based on information gained from creating the previous form) with additional features, that not preventing the previous creature (also functional) from existing within its natural environment. Gradually, God could design fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals then humans.---------------------------------------
Led to this point, we can formulate ID view of "evolution": the life form "evolves" in mind of God, only to appear in the next stage, already fully designed. This can explain both the visible pattern linking creatures and the notable gaps in between.------------------------------
To illustrate, let us consider the aviation history. In specialised museums, an observer can trace out a pattern from the gradually sophisticated planes, though each plane would significantly differ from the other. Similarly, from the pattern wherein creatures find themselves, we infer a gradual design process.
R Schmidt you really didn't reply to my comment but simply went on a rant about the difference between science and religion. Much of what you said about both was half-truth. Yes religion because it is a faith based approach to truth can and has led to abuse but in most cases you are talking about a fringe element that makes a lot of noise but doesn't represent their faith. Not all scientist are honest and fair minded either. To some evolution is more a religion than a scientific theory and they defend it with the same vicious attacks that fringe elements defend their religious beliefs. I am only asking for honestly in what is presented. My disillusionment with the science community as a young adult was because I had been taught through high school biology text things that were known to be untrue or only partially true by the scientific community at the time the text books were written. To say that scientists only act on the facts is simply untrue like all of us their prejudices drive much of their life. The most prejudiced people in the world are scientists and reporters because they pride themselves so much on their objectivity that they are blind to their prejudice
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe may as well teach that angels are pushing the Earth! Sure science is required to constantly assume that you may be wrong, so far as the evidence shows it to be so. Like many others have stated, there is not one piece of evidence supporting creationism, not one and I defy anyone on this Earth (or otherwise) to present it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell if we're starting to teach ID in science class now, I'd like to submit several thousands of creation stories to teach. I would also like to throw in a few I made up.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf anyone neglects to teach any of those creation "theories" they obviously must favor certain religions over others and should be canned.
Also if we're throwing out the scientific method, I'll just have to go around teaching all the children I meet about the Good Lord Satan (or whatever story comes to mind). I mean whose going to tell me I'm wrong, they can't prove it!
Well if we're starting to teach ID in science class now, I'd like to submit several thousands of creation stories to teach. I would also like to throw in a few I made up.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf anyone neglects to teach any of those creation "theories" they obviously must favor certain religions over others and should be canned.
Also if we're throwing out the scientific method, I'll just have to go around teaching all the children I meet about the Good Lord Satan (or whatever story comes to mind). I mean whose going to tell me I'm wrong, they can't prove it!
THE SUPERIORITY OF INTELLIGENT DESIGN:------------------------
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat could prove to computers the existence of programmers, if not the presence of immaterial programs? Similarly, our immaterial thinking abilities is the fingerprint from a spiritual world.
Creationism, and Intelligent Design, are uniquely American concepts, that barely rate a mention in Europe, Australia, or Asia. Why? Are we any less intelligent, or less capable of critical thinking? No, it is simply because we dont accept the Christian-centric, or more to the point, Evangelical-Centric view of life. Creationism is an American concept designed to promote an American view of the world, and sorry folks, you are seriously in the minority. The rest of us simply do not agree with you. Testable constructs are a more reliable way of building understanding of the world around us than a bunch of wishful ideas that rest solely on a USA-Centric idea of Faith.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere they go again. Dumbing us down some more. Let those who believe in creatism keep their faith to themselves. Do not force others to their belief.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf it weren't for the concept of Emergence, I think that Intelligent Design proponents would have a stronger case. As it stands, they completely, and deliberately disregard this phenomenon. You need go no further than Wikipedia to get a basic description of the effect:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"... emergence is the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions." (Wikipedia)
Basically, given a set of fundamental agent types and a given set of all the possible, and simple, interactions that can occur between these agent types; if you examine a large number of these agents macroscopically, undergoing these simple interactions, you will observe properties, behaviors, and complexity which cannot be strictly inferred from the set of basic constituents and interactions.
Consider the computer from which you are reading this comment, if you dissect the computer down to its most fundamental elements, all you have are 1s and 0s, (arbitrarily representing TRUE and FALSE), and their most fundamental interactions (operations): AND, OR, and NOT. (All other binary logic operations are derived from these three basic operations). There is no way that any mathematician can infer from these basic operations the modern personal computer, or the incredible possibilities of software that we all take for granted.
But, this is not just a man-made phenomenon. DNA is made of just a handful of constituents, the ones most commonly known are: Guanine, Cytosine, Adenine, and Thymine. There are more fundamental constituents and scientists are still ferreting out all the possible interactions. But, if you study these basic elements (on their own), I cannot see how you can infer that a living organism will emerge. And yet, it does. From these very same molecules emerge mice, men, trees, and fish.
Proponents of ID may concede that emergence is the mechanism of Intelligent Design. If so, how could they reject evolution at the same time?
Now RDH, creationism is banned from schools specifically because it constitutes an establishment of religion. This is against the first amendment of the constitution. It has nothing to do with the declaration of independence. Candidates stating their religious views on telivision does not constitute an establishment of religion. It would only be considered an establishment if the government OFFICIALLY supported a religious doctrine, which is certainly the case with school boards teaching creationism.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOf course we should also teach the strengths and weaknesses of modern atomic theory. I've seen lots of intermediate (missing link) fossils that support evolution, but nobody has ever seen an atom. Sure, we see computer images of bumpy surfaces, but that just proves surfaces are bumpy. We need to give equal time in High School Chemistry class to the four-element (earth, water, fire and air) theory. Personally, I tend to believe the modified 5-element theory that include Quintessence or the life element.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy stop at Chemistry? Physics, Geology and Astronomy have some obvious flaws acording to Creationists. Andromeda can't bee 2 miilion light years away if the universe is only 6004 years old. Anyone who has been to Devils Tower Wyoming can see how obvious is is that a great bear chased seven sister to the top of a mountain and tried to claw its way up to get them. They in turn jumped into the Sky to wink down at us as the Pleiades. Of course, when we give all of these "theories" equal time, the rest of the world will be blasting the American society and our economy down the tubes. How patriotic is that?
Belief in ID is not necessarily a requirement of Christianity. If you are a litteralist, then yes, you must believe that God created everything. However, many believe that the bible is more like a poetic representation of higher truth spoke to a largely uneducated, uninformed, and ignorant time. In other words, ID can be more like the story of the stork delivering babies that is told to many young people as an alternative to the truth, which they may not be able to understand yet.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm still fascinated by the way people can still believe the obvious "stork stories" of the bible, even when it's refuted by hard scientific fact.
Additionally, evolution doesn't say anything about how all the "stuff" appeared, that's left to other theories. Evolution is a process that happens to existing life. It is entirely possible that a creationist can believe that God created the world and set it in motion. Life needed to be able to adapt to the changing world around it, and it does. If I where a religious person, I would attest that to the foresight, wisdom, and intelligence of the creator, not an attack on him.
I had better stop there before I stop rambling. This is a very heated topic... very easy to get carried away. I'm sure each of us could write a 20 page report on this stuff. @.@
To the guy who's all up in arms about String Theory, multiple-dimensions, and parallel universes. Guess what? That IS science. Elsewhere on this very web site there are several articles about the Large Hadron Collider, built specifically to test the very hypotheses you mention, among others.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOnce again, what is "Creation THEORY," as so prominently labeled here? What does it propose about the details of the nature of life for which we can then search for proof?
Are there holes and weaknesses in our knowledge of life? Well, yeah; why do you think there are so many biologists, geneticists, ecologists, and other scientists out there? But, all the research they've ever done, all the tests they've ever run, all the observations they have ever made, have served only to strengthen and expand the theory of evolution.
Cheers
Creationism in the classroom is a dangerous precedent, when Evolution is a fact.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDangerous Ideas are those that impair reality and its truth against the laws of the universe. Here, the idea of God on the one side, and Evolution through Natural Selection on the other. Both are flawed, where reality is much more dynamic.
The creationists try to escape reality and truth through propaganda and brainwashing. The Darwinian Evolutionists can only find an impossibility of life against its design.
Both provide the personal impairment of man and his place in nature.
Roy D. Schickedanz
Refuting Charles Darwin in the case of Lifes Responsive Design
Say what you want about Creationism is "testable" or not, but when it comes to explaining why we are here, Evolution isn't testable either. In 1000000000 years, no scientist would know what comes before the 1st matter, what is existence, the state of nothingness, or even knowledge itself. Tell me, how can you test what is knowledge ? Ok that's a hard one. How about what is infinity anyway ? That's a hard one. Let just say, what is the biggest object, maybe the universe ? But kinda think of it, biggest does not exist if we can measure it...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet's just say humans are limited knowledge/ability creature. No matter how advanced we are, we will reach the limit of our understanding of the world. Just like a dog will reach its limit compared to a human's mind. To fully and better understand the world, we cannot ignore "untestable" reasoning. Reasoning can be an instinctive thought or through theology. By the way, theology is a somewhat scientific way adopted by Creationism; to those that that keep saying Creationism is just faith.
Anyway, if people want to learn Creation Theory why not let them. If Evolution is right, it will be right. Personally, I think evolution is part of creation.
For ways to fight this --- effectively --- see book
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOur Almost Impossible Universe:
Why the laws of nature make the existence of humans
extraordinarily unlikely
R. Mirman
and blog
randomabsurdities.wordpress.com
For effective ways to fight ID see book
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOur Almost Impossible Universe:
Why the laws of nature make the existence of humans
extraordinarily unlikely
R. Mirman
and blog
randomabsurdities.wordpress.com
A little of both. Also, don't forget to mention the aliens that influenced early cultures around the world. One of them may have dropped the hint of an omnipotent diety and the idea caught on. In different cultures, the single diety has a different name and different origin, but the same basic idea. Except Mohammed, who was a farce.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEvolution is definitely valid. It happens every day around us. Creationism was a way to explain to early, stupid (low/no IQ) man how things got started.
A little of both. Also, don't forget to mention the aliens that influenced early cultures around the world. One of them may have dropped the hint of an omnipotent diety and the idea caught on. In different cultures, the single diety has a different name and different origin, but the same basic idea. Except Mohammed, who was a farce.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEvolution is definitely valid. It happens every day around us. Creationism was a way to explain to early, stupid (low/no IQ) man how things got started.
The short answer is that Evolution is *anything but* random - but is not 'designed' by any 'intelligence'. Those who cling to this false dichotomy are ignoring the fundamental component of natural selection, the effect of selective pressures on genetic populations. The modification of a population's DNA gene pool in response to changing environmental conditions is observable and testable - and has been extensively observed and tested.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis can then be back-traced through both genetic and physical (fossil) evidence that demonstrates the gradual evolution of modern species from common ancestral lines.
'Intelligent Design' is a revised 'God of the Gaps' philosophy...which means every new discovery makes the God ID posits that much smaller.
Besides, everyone knows that the universe was created when Marduk caught Tiamat in his net and cut her in half with a lightning bolt, placing half of her as earth and half as sky. Make sure Ea and Apsu get equal time with Creationism when you 'intelligently design' your divinity.
Oh, I forgot...you're only interested in the modern Christian Bible stories, not the much older stories those were based on.
I'll stick with the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
This is the 21th century. Belief in jealous anthropomorphic deities and dogmas of control should have perished during the Enlightenment. This does not rule out the possibility of a higher consciousness that may permeate the universe and beyond, but having just arrived at being self aware microbes, we're not likely to discover it with the Higg's boson or a larger machine. Allow each to connect with that consciousness in his or her own way. It may be why we're here.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReligion is the "science" in ancient time when people didn't have the power to explain thing scientificlly as we do. Religion is the ancient science. So we shouldn't judge an ancient thing by today's viewpoint.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTrojan99, are you calling the catholic church a fringe element? So the dark ages and inquisition where just a couple of freaks letting off a little steam? I guess the U.S. army’s troubles in Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan can be attributed to only a handful of Islamic fundamentalists. These groups aren’t “abusing” biblical teachings, they are following them. They can find just as much justification in the bible for their actions as the person who donates his/her time to charity. That is the point! There is no formal process to derive a consistent set of rules from the bible. Actually, the process that most people use is called, “confirmation bias”. All you need to do is find a passage that either states directly that your evil deeds are part of god’s plan or twist some vague passage so that it kinda sounds like god is on your side. Ignore everything else.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe conspiracy of the scientific community to stifle dissenting views is one often sited by the religious community. It is complete B.S. No scientist every made a name for him/herself by claiming, "Nothing new here! No point in studying it any further. My Phd thesis will just be entitled, ‘ditto what Newton said’". Scientists become great scientists by discovering something new and revolutionary. It is true that people can be passionate about their pet hypothesis but who cares? What a person thinks about their own work is irrelevant. That's why we have pier review. Saying science is flawed because scientists make mistakes is like saying the criminal justice system is flawed because people commit crimes. The purpose of science is to cut through human failings and get to the truth by defining a process for interrogating the universe.
Contrary to what you believe, I have heard scientists suddenly change their entire perspective on a subject when presented with new compelling evidence, even when it goes against their lifetime’s work. I have never seen a religious person even consider a point that contradicts their beliefs. You don’t know science, and you don’t seem to know any scientists. Making up villains doesn’t make them real.
In science, the process is unchangeable. It’s the answers that change as new information is discovered. In religion, the answers never change so it’s the process that must change to provide the desired results.
P.S. You want honesty? Admit you have no idea what you are talking about and read a book on evolution, "On the Origin of Species" is a good start.
Hi!: I guess that the confrontation creationism/evolutionism is mainly,if not exclusively American and linked to the luteran free examen and adherence to sacred text wording. In the education I got, the question was addressed in a simple way: God creates living things including mankind, but he used earth or ground to build it, a ground that himself created and in which he may have acted thru mecanisms created also. We must not forget that evolution, and reproduction, and consequently, sex, are a direct consequence of the existence of death, and the Bible states clearly that "death entered the worl by the envy of devil". Anyway, theological issues have few space in a scientific magazine, as God�s interventions can be deducted, but are no subject of experimental science, for reason of superiority of the "subject" respective to the scientist. Regards
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCreationism/evolutionism is a tipical if not exclusive American discussion, probably linked to the Luteran free exam and adherence to sacred text wording. In the education I got, the issue is solved easily: God created everything, including the mechanisms ruling creation. Man was made from ground, and ground may probably mean anything already existant, for example a primate. Creationism takes also into account the existence of death, that is the cause of evolution, reproduction and thus sex, by stating that "death entered the world because of the envy of devil". The problem inside is that this is not experimental science but theology, a knowledge that has the inherent feature that its subject is above and will never be reduced to object by the scientist, as God is above men.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReading this forum, it's funny that the people who accused creationists as hardheads are actually the ones that are about to grab a gun and shoot the person who has anything to do with religion. Why such anger ?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnyway, the people who don't believe in God, will not. And the people who do, will continue to do so. Billions of people, from world leaders to geniuses to successful businessmen to entertainers, are believers.
At the end of the day, the atheists will only accept what they see as answers. For us, we believe in reasoning. Reasoning should be objective and should include science, but not exclusively, because humans have limited potentials. If Evolution is correct, then it's not a contradiction, but part of creation. The limit of science won't go beyond the tangibles. If we want to search the ends of the whys and hows, science cannot and will not answer. Knowledge is a gift to us believers, we have to use it objectively. Science, on the other hand, will never be able to explain what is knowledge and why knowledge exists.
I would never send my children to a school that had a program as rediculous as creationism. This what happens when you have C and D students running the country, it produces a population that emulates stupidity. I'm not talking down to religious people, but it should be common sense that religion is a leg that people stand on to keep faith. To have an entity to look towards to motivate themselves to live a good life. Religion is simply a primitive government. It was used to rule a body of people, that used ploys such as heaven and hell to scare people into doing what the church wanted. Instances such as with the Holy Roman empire should show these people that religion is just as corrupt as todays politics. Science is not trying to get rid of what ever people use as a guide to live a good life. Science Is a study of life and what we experience.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would never send my children to a school that had a program as rediculous as creationism. This what happens when you have C and D students running the country, it produces a population that emulates stupidity. I'm not talking down to religious people, but it should be common sense that religion is a leg that people stand on to keep faith. To have an entity to look towards to motivate themselves to live a good life. Religion is simply a primitive government. It was used to rule a body of people, that used ploys such as heaven and hell to scare people into doing what the church wanted. Instances such as with the Holy Roman empire should show these people that religion is just as corrupt as todays politics. Science is not trying to get rid of what ever people use as a guide to live a good life. Science Is a study of life and what we experience.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOur impairment in the Evolutionary question and controversy comes from our own ability to look and face reality. Similarly Galileo faced with earth and sun orientation and movement against the established church and Pope.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat becomes apparent Evolution and Religion are incomparable.
Religion must always be considered an organic cult drawing upon tradition and dogma.
Religion nonetheless is a well establish Strategy of Life pointing 180 degrees from life itself, and arise out man’s own insecurity that he is and what he is (Hybrid Pan Chimpanzee in the ascent to be Homo sapiens. Life can only add. Something becomes rudimentary through usage and non-usage).
The organic discontent has had the greatest impact upon man’s being. In fact, man has created God in Man’s own image.
Religion is built upon lie which is in itself a sin. It is coupled with a plagiarism in claiming something it has nothing to do with.
How such a structure and edifice has survived has lent itself with a strategy of life, where man needs a case and cause not easily explained.
Roy D. Schickedanz
Refuting Charles Darwin in the case of Life”s Responsive Design
Visualizer, look like you have to get your passport ready because the country you're living in has christian presidents, a Constitution made by theists, and a history full of references to God, exactly as a "nation under God". Have you ever thought that your basic rights were more or less influenced by Christianity. What about the abolishment of segregation, slavery, women rights, etc...where it was won by a simple phrase that all "men are created equal".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBy the way, Creationism is not religion. We are not talking about religion. Ok, so let's talk about religion. Eventhough, religion is run by men and has its flaws, you cannot dismiss the positives it has on humans, even your own. Imagine what would your children be watching on TV if there isn't any moral influences that brought about the likes of Disney Channel, Nicks, "family" programs. Heck, if there aren't any religions, they might be doing something like any other animals would do. So, religion has its negatives but be thankful to the structure it brought to the society. We are different from all other creatures in our values, conducts because they are build upon religion. We don't want to be like animals. With anything, there are positives and negatives. We have to take the positives and build upon them. Such as in Creationism, we have to acknowlege that it has its purpose in that science cannot explain.
Turning now to the Darwinian position as expressed by the thirty-eight Nobel Laureates Initiative issue on September 9, 2005, to the Kansas State Board of Education under The Elie Wiesel Foundation For Humanity stating “Logically derived from confirmed evidence, evolution is understood to be the result of an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection.”
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is no confirmed evidence as stated. How such a group of scientists got hooked to such a statement is beyond reasonable comprehension. Such a statement and position is absurd, wondering how such could possibly work.
Evolution and its core component, Life and Living find all organic Life as Responsive Design, where life’s protocol is form follows function. Homebox motif easily confirms such structuring.
The main function of life is fueling. It operates in terms of had and sustained through pleasure and reward.
All life is cognitive.
The Carbon Dioxide life fuels in place, sending roots into the soil for water and nutrients and shoots into atmosphere of Earth to acquire necessary sunlight for food manufacturing.
The Oxygen engine which man is included, must seek carbohydrates and water. Here, cognition is ever linked to mobility needing to understand where it is at in terms of Position A, and what is needed is at Position B.
All life swims in it s fuel tank, having a fuel tank mentality. This is how life operates at 24/7.
Darwinian Evolutionists are bound to have a crash landing with their current concept of life.
Roy D. Schickedanz
Refuting Charles Darwin in the case of Life’s Responsive Design
Turning now to the Darwinian position as expressed by the thirty-eight Nobel Laureates Initiative issue on September 9, 2005, to the Kansas State Board of Education under The Elie Wiesel Foundation For Humanity stating “Logically derived from confirmed evidence, evolution is understood to be the result of an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection.”
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is no confirmed evidence as stated. How such a group of scientists got hooked to such a statement is beyond reasonable comprehension. Such a statement and position is absurd, wondering how such could possibly work.
Evolution and its core component, Life and Living find all organic Life as Responsive Design, where life’s protocol is form follows function. Homebox motif easily confirms such structuring.
The main function of life is fueling. It operates in terms of had and sustained through pleasure and reward.
All life is cognitive.
The Carbon Dioxide life fuels in place, sending roots into the soil for water and nutrients and shoots into atmosphere of Earth to acquire necessary sunlight for food manufacturing.
The Oxygen engine which man is included, must seek carbohydrates and water. Here, cognition is ever linked to mobility needing to understand where it is at in terms of Position A, and what is needed is at Position B.
All life swims in it s fuel tank, having a fuel tank mentality. This is how life operates at 24/7.
Darwinian Evolutionists are bound to have a crash landing with their current concept of life.
Roy D. Schickedanz
Refuting Charles Darwin in the case of Life’s Responsive Design
To Tam Sang
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour position on my post has nothing to do with my message. I mearly stated that I wouldn't send my kids to learn something so incorrect that It should be talked about on Cartoon Network. I want my children to have strong sharp minds. I never down played religion when it comes to morals. If you refer to my previous post, I stated that It is a very good guide to living a well fitted life. I saw on the news, a demonstrations of creationist teachers. On Fox there was a special, A trip was taken ti a musuem. The instructors were brain washing children into thinking that fossils are only art, and that scientist fabricated evolution as entertainment purposes. I understand that religious people, who view christianity as more than just a guide to moral living, want creationism in classrooms to place their views others "athiests". Just as I've recognized and respect religious people, they should respect I. No disrespect, however I don't need a mental entity to worship in order to live a just and moral life. I can motivate myself to excel in life without the aid of group prayer, or sunday tides. Some people can not ,and they feel comfortable in placing their lives in the hands of others. Thats fine, but they shouldn't force those practices on others. Faith and reality can not mix. It will, and is causing reduction in intelligence, and confidence. It also supports and promotes relience on others.
Would it suprise anyone that the Bible actually says that the earth is round and that it is hanging in space upon nothing? See Isaiah 40:22 and Job 26:7. I have a couple of questions. If all life evolved from a single cell gaining ever more complexity, then how do you explain the Cambrian explosion in the fossile record where almost all of the Phyla of animals appear at once? If we humans evolved from apes, the why are the apes still on the earth?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPoliticians sometimes would better remain silent and appear follish than to speak and remove all doubts. Science in school, God in churches. Politics has no place in a scientific publication...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisboth are true, insofar Genesis is an allegorical account of man's consciousness being confined to the 'material' world (ie the commonly observable features 'external' to our being. Evolution and all the other discoveries of science fit into the broad scheme outlined in biblical accounts. As a fundamental Christian I can believe Christ rose from the dead because of what quantum physics tells us about the relationship of matter and our consciousness,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would like to say that all this religious discussion is fascinating but for
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisan "ordinary"person,difficult to understand.
It seems to me that if you face the plain facts of our existence,Life, The Universe,Every- thing we know,is Finite. This means there had to be a beginning.Also there must be an end.According to every law that man can understand,nothing can be permanent!
If this is accepted,without some form of eternity,Please explain where everything came from.(not to mention WHY).
If there is no Creator,who must be Eternal;How come we are all here to question everything.
I cannot understand all these "intelligent" people do not seem to grasp
these obvious facts.
Why is it so terrible to accept that we are more than meaningless bits of matter existing without reason and with no purpose.
If we have no faith in anything except what we can see,we are without doubt the most sad and desolate creatures.
I would rather put my faith in a Creator than the pathetic fumblings of
so called intelligent scientists.(Sorry).
Gerald Housden.
PS-There is more evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ,
Than any other man who ever lived .This is not religion:This is Fact.
Bob 65, before criticizing something you should really try to understand it. Learning about evolution from a religious pamphlet doesn’t count. “Cambrian explosion …almost all the phyla of animals appear at once”, 1st - you do realise we are talking geological time here not people time? It is not suggesting something ridiculous like all this happened in six days. 2nd, it is questionable if there even was an explosion as new fossil evidence indicates much of the evolution began in the Pre-Cambrian. Finally your comment, “if we humans evolved from apes, why are the apes still on earth?” What this sentence says is, “I have absolutely no clue what I am talking about because I have never read a word about evolution that wasn’t written by a creationist group!”
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEvolution means that organisms adapt to their environments. An adapted organism is one whose genetic components make it more likely for them to reproduce. So, if an organism is adapted to their environment and their environment doesn’t change, then neither will they. One of the major drivers of speciation is geography. When species are split geographically as when animals migrate into new environments or continents drift apart, the mutations that occur in the separated populations cause the genes to “drift” so that if the distinct groups of animals where to be reintroduced the mismatches in the DNA would cause catastrophic failures in development, i.e. no viable offspring. One hypothesis as to what separated the common ancestor of Homo sapiens, Chimpanzees and Bonobos into separate populations is the formation of the Great Rift Valley approx. 7 mya. Ecologically speaking, the area west of the valley remained very much as it was before the valley’s formation, jungle. But the area east of the valley changed, becoming savannah. The population east of the valley therefore had to literally, come down out of the trees, as Jungle gave way to grasslands. East of the valley we find fossils of proto-hominids and true hominids but not west of the valley. What’s more is that the valley’s formation occurs around the same time as the divergence of humans and chimps.
Argument is an important part of science but please be informed. It is never advisable to have someone who disagrees with a theory explain the theory (see, “straw man fallacy”). If you chose not to be informed, fine. But don’t bother arguing about it then. You’ll just end up looking like an idiot. And that’s not good for you or your cause.
OscarH, I don’t understand, you say that “everything we know is finite” but then go on to say that god is eternal. So, therefore everything is not necessarily finite. So if some things can be infinite why couldn’t it be the universe or meta-universe? Still don’t see where god is needed here. If you are really interested in how it all started, read about Quantum Mechanics, Relativity and Cosmology. Incidentally, this is some of the stuff the LHC will be working on.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou ask the question, “why”, as in, why was everything created. Why generally implies intention or purpose as opposed to, what caused such ‘n such. So why is it that people always ask, why, even when talking about apparently random phenomenon? Because it is important for our survival to understand why people do the things they do. By understanding intentions we can avoid conflict and interact in ways that will help us get what we need to survive. But not everything has intentions or purpose. Still, asking the question doesn’t hurt so our brains have evolved to ask, why, but not selectively. For natural phenomenon there is no why, only cause and effect.
The rest of your comment follows a common thread. God exists because, “I really, really like the idea that there is a god that loves me; that gives my life meaning; that will reunite me with my loved ones once we die; that hands out justice; that thinks I am special…” I personally really, really, like the idea of me being 6 foot tall, 180 pounds, rich and irresistible to women. Wishing doesn’t make it so. Believe me I know! I hate the idea that when I die, I’m gone; that many wrong doers go unpunished; that I am an average person, on an average planet, spinning around an average star, in an average galaxy, in a large, slowly freezing universe. But, being delusional won’t make the situation any better.
P.S. There is more evidence for the existence of JC, than any other man who ever lived? That is now the stupidest thing I’ve read on this forum. I think there are a lot of people alive today that think there is more evidence for their own existence than JC's. Besides, many fictional characters are based on real life people but that doesn’t mean the stories about them are true. Many stories about JC are clearly plagiarized, stolen from other religions and simply inconsistent. Not what I would call great evidence.
An interesting debate, if looked at properly. While the idea that our planet, all it's native fauna were "created" in a period of 7 days might be easier to get the head around for some, the notion of a big bang leading to the formation of mass, which leads to the formation of stars, which leads to the formation of OTHER stars, which leads to the formation of planets -- and so and so on - you know where I'm going with that - is tough for an even larger segment of the population to wrap their heads around.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHowever -- what if all those little "strings" of energy that make up mass have a collective conscience and have "designed" this visible universe, building it, evolving it to whatever is in our/their(for lack of a better subjective term), admittedly unknowable destiny, for their own unknown purpose? What if every single atom in our observable cosmos is part of an almost infinitely giant living thing?
Guess that would make us all little itty-bitty organs of some sort, on the one hand -- or little pieces of "God", on the other... Or maybe just dust...
Is that STILL "creationism" or "intelligent design"? Or maybe evolution IS the design....
Cynical, the debate is part of the design
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCynical1 I think what it is, is a really bad acid trip. Strings form a collective consciousness shaping the universe with a purpose? What are strings brains (not branes) made of? Stringlette neurons? Congratulations on making the creationists look sane. Making up crazy crap is great for science fiction (and stoner parties) but it needs to be a little more grounded in reality to be a serious hypothesis. The universe simply doesn't need a creator just as a rock doesn’t need a person to move it. Natural processes work just fine. Trying to find a way to stick a creator in through the use of pseudo-science or heavy drug use does not create a more elegant theory. More entertaining maybe...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJesus, deliver me from your followers!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMr. Schmidt,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have no purpose in proving creationists sane or insane(sanity is just an arbitrary reference point, anyway) I did not say energy strings (read any articles on string theory) HAVE a collective conscience, I merely asked what IF they did. I mean - what if the whole universe full of them-there strings make up a giant living creature? And our conscienceness within it it is part of it's whole awakening self awareness?
It's part of that old maxim - an OPEN mind is the one working properly. As far as the acid trips? Well, I was a teenager in the late 60's -- you take it from there...
Understand that I do not take the position that we are created. Trust me, I was the one thrown out of church school for questioning their teachings on our origin.
I LOVE the whole evolutionary concept and believe in the reality of it. But evolution (to evolve) does imply a goal of some sort, doesn't it? And aren't goals a product of an organizing process? Which then leads us to question WHAT might be doing the organizing? And since our universe is a product of complete randomness ("flipping a coin a million times" metaphor inserted here), the odds of our being here (actually, of ANY thing being here) are not all that good. Dang, I need to take a statistics class to learn how to calculate what the actual odds might be, I guess... Or spend a little time with Jimmy the Greek in Vegas...
Wait - just figured it out - for every single physical process that has occured since the very beginning of time (another arbitrary reference point, actually), the result of going forward to what we see now is 50-50. That makes for quite a LOT of 50-50 processes happening since then, I might add.
I guess, what I am saying with all the above (I know, I know... making a short story long), Is that what does it matter where we came from or how? We are here now with an infinite number things to learn and observe and the intellect(?) to process them. The scientific process is how we absorb that infinity(Crap -- does the fact that it is infinite mean we are going to have to do this FOREVER?).
Anyway... The REAL question is -- what are we going to DO with it? I'll bet "we'll continue to evolve even more" is the correct answer...;-) Maybe we haven't evolved enough(yet) to know what the cosmic gumbo bowl bring to the surface.
Chuck
(What if - "design" is just a synonym for "evolve" (or vice versa)?
PS - read another article on Sci-Am page about evolving market complexity and the author's previous works on evolving biologic complexity.
Oh -- and one more thing - what if this "reality" is also nothing more than another arbitrary reference point?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot that I would actually know.... Come see me in about a thousand more lifetimes and maybe then we can rationally(or IRrationally - both sides of the same coin - what does it matter?) discuss all the infinite little details more intelligently(?).
For example?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCan you give me an example of what you mean by this statement that, "evolutionist are just as likely to lie and deceive when it suits their agenda"?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAny evolutionist that used deception would not be received by the scientific community. So, I'm curious as to what lies and deceptions you are referring.
You think politics are unrelated to science? The never have been, and they never will be.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOver 70% of Europeans believe in evolution, and over half of Americans believe in creationism.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI can remember when the World looked up to America. Now anyone who travels abroad knows that's no longer the case. I wonder why?
No doubt, we are headed for head on head crash concerning evolution and creationism, placing our real understanding of life in jeopardy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere, science must win. It is the correct explanation and we cannot educate by gallup poll.
To both Creationists and Darwinian Evolutionists , Life hides nothing.
The mysteries faith will remain mysteries as religion and God are manifestations of mans mind.
It is confirmed that man is only species that has a thing called God.
The Bible and God cannot exist separate reinforcing a belief and understanding of life.
Roy D. Schickedanz
Refuting Charles Darwin in the case of Lifes Responsive Design
No doubt, we are headed for head on head crash concerning evolution and creationism, placing our real understanding of life in jeopardy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere, science must win. It is the correct explanation and we cannot educate by gallup poll.
To both Creationists” and Darwinian Evolutionists”, Life hides nothing.
The mysteries faith will remain mysteries as religion and God are manifestations of man’s mind.
It is confirmed that man is only species that has a thing called God.
The Bible and God cannot exist separate reinforcing a belief and understanding of life.
Roy D. Schickedanz
Refuting Charles Darwin in the case of Life’s Responsive Design
Explore Evolution, the newest propaganda weapon in the arsenal of The Discovery Institute, presents a very one-sided debate by using a good defensive for a good offense. Here, the Intelligent Design advocates despite their case being flawed present their attack and manifesto against Darwinian Evolution, which is equally flawed in its construct. Nonetheless, Evolution is a fact.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMaking no attempt to disguise their effort and being lead by a senior fellow of the said institute. They need only to marshal others in cause as jury and experts. Here, we find the other authors with their curricula vitae to match their objective effort.
Explore Evolution helps the Intelligent Design advocates in their case before the court of public opinion by debasing Darwinian Evolution and winning the so-called debate by default.
Explore Evolution, as a textbook, should be viewed as nothing more than propaganda disguised as an open and fair advocacy of concern.
The textbook should be rejected out of hand. There is no debate.
Dangerous Ideas are those that impair reality and its truth against the laws of the universe. Here, the idea of God on the one side, and Evolution through Natural Selection on the other. Both are flawed, where reality is much more dynamic.
The creationists try to escape reality and truth through propaganda and brainwashing. The Darwinian Evolutionists can only find an impossibility of life against its design.
Both provide the personal impairment of man and his place in nature.
Roy D. Schickedanz
Refuting Charles Darwin in the case of Life’s Responsive Design
I have not commented on the Intelligent Design advocates, as their understanding of life is quite open ended trying to win their argument and point through public debate and not the real issues of life and living.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere, I have strongly attacked the publishing of Explore Evolution:
Explore Evolution, the newest propaganda weapon in the arsenal of The Discovery Institute, presents a very one-sided debate by using a good defensive for a good offense. Here, the Intelligent Design advocates despite their case being flawed present their attack and manifesto against Darwinian Evolution, which is equally flawed in its construct.
Nonetheless, Evolution is a fact.
Making no attempt to disguise their effort and being lead by a senior fellow of the said institute. They need only to marshal others in cause as jury and experts. Here, we find the other authors with their curricula vitae to match their objective effort.
Explore Evolution helps the Intelligent Design advocates in their case before the court of public opinion by debasing Darwinian Evolution and winning the so-called debate by default.
Explore Evolution, as a textbook, should be viewed as nothing more than propaganda disguised as an open and fair advocacy of concern.
The textbook should be rejected out of hand. There is no debate.
Dangerous Ideas are those that impair reality and its truth against the laws of the universe. Here, the idea of God on the one side, and Evolution through Natural Selection on the other. Both are flawed, where reality is much more dynamic.
The creationists try to escape reality and truth through propaganda and brainwashing. The Darwinian Evolutionists can only find an impossibility of life against its design.
Both provide the personal impairment of man and his place in nature.
Roy D. Schickedanz
Refuting Charles Darwin in the case of Life’s Responsive Design
With reference to VVV above ["But, in fact, there is no other rational explanation for the 'creation' of life than evolution. Even if evolution were disproved, that would simply mean that we wouldn't know how we came exist today."], two points:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1) This assumes that "rational" is equivalent to "naturalistic." In other words, the only explanations you are willing to entertain are those that exclude anything outside the material, natural, physical world.
2) The statement highlights a very real problem: evolution cannot be disproved. It is inherently unfalsifiable. The position is defined in such elastic terms, that no matter what evidence appears in the future, it can be embraced within the theory. Of course, any other theory of origins is going to be exactly the same. It is a useful exercise to make a list of hypothetical evidences that would falsify evolutionary theory should they appear. Useful in highlighting evolution's unfalsifiability.
Evolution and creationism are only words. There is no way that science can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the earth and all its living things evolved. It,s just their best guess. To say they can look back in history billions of years and tell what happened is just plain not true. But, hey, they make millions and millions of dollars on the backs of tax payers so they are not about to stop. Creationism is like evolutionism in that creationists can't tell beyond a shadow of a doubt that the heavens and earth was created. One big difference is that creationist get their funding from people who willingly give as opposed to spending tax dollars of the people who don't have a say in where the money is going. In the long run it dosen't matter who's right or who,s wrong. As for me I'll choose to believe in the creation of everything. Afterall what harm is there in believing in God? It could come in handy someday.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGawd, I love this existential - where do we come from, where are going, how di we get here, who/what are we, what is our purpose - crap... All anyone is really discovering is the fear of their own mortality - what happens when we die, yada, yada, yada...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn my perception, evolutionists should more accurately described as historians, piecing together what we see in the fossil record in an attempt
to accurately describe our rise to the top of the food chain (we're not, as evidenced by the story of starving bears killing and eating two guards at a Russian mine...:-)) They are non-fiction documentarians.
Creationists are more like fiction writers, utilizing leaps of faith to come to a satisfactory conclusion to their "masterpiece".
Both claim superior knowledge of where we came from and where we might be headed(Personally, I favour the evolution theory as it indicates we continue to become more).
However i spy dichotomies in both sides;
To the evolution theorists - you can all agree that the ability of abstract thought evolved, so -- is the concept of "leaps of faith" part of that evolution? Haven't some advances in science been based in flashes of insight?
To the creation theorists - we were created by a God, with this great superior intellect with the ability to catalog, organize, record and rationalize the world around us. Why create this planet and universe with all it's tantalizing bread crumbs and mysteries to confound us, at all?
Either question will just give rise to others (if we are the thinkers we THINK we are), on and on into the far distant future(unless the LHC really DOES create a black hole that swallows the earth - hmmmmmm....).
THAT would end the discussion pretty definitvely...;-)
Anyway, "Infinite randomness equals infinite reality" so the answer to Life and God and Everything really IS 42 (Personally, I think it is 37, inasmuch as I may have a discovered a calculating glitch in the 7th dimension computational array, 18th dark matter sub-level, approximately 7 billion years ago...)
As quoted below is why I take anti-anxiety medication. I'm not sure how to get past such stupidity. Any suggestions? What happens anymore if you have half a brain? I don't have a TV, that helps, but for the love of God, they're everywhere and reproducing so quickly...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisprentice price said:
Evolution and creationism are only words. There is no way that science can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the earth and all its living things evolved. It,s just their best guess. To say they can look back in history billions of years and tell what happened is just plain not true. But, hey, they make millions and millions of dollars on the backs of tax payers so they are not about to stop. Creationism is like evolutionism in that creationists can't tell beyond a shadow of a doubt that the heavens and earth was created. One big difference is that creationist get their funding from people who willingly give as opposed to spending tax dollars of the people who don't have a say in where the money is going. In the long run it dosen't matter who's right or who,s wrong. As for me I'll choose to believe in the creation of everything. Afterall what harm is there in believing in God? It could come in handy someday.
AMEN!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisagenthucky at 12:46 PM on 09/10/08
Well said. With that, maybe we should consider giving ID a seperate class, not labeled science. For the fun of it we can label it, oh...religious. And since we are going ahead and giving it a seperate class, lets go ahead and give it a whole sperate school. We shall call this new place church.
I'm not terribly clever, yet I totally get evolution. So, I don't think it's stupidity, I think it's fear.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy else embrace religion? It's "safe". After all, we've been practicing region since we were practically monkeys.
proadventurer at 01:00 PM on 09/10/08
Why are so many uneducated people confused? The difference between the usage of the word "theory". In science the word means scientific idea that is well tested but not provable due to the nature of the idea. Then the layman's version of the word "theory" which is the same way ID uses it; something that is untested and unproven, ie, just an idea. Radically different definitions.
My personal opinion is that just because evolutionary specifics can't be explained in 30 seconds leads most religious people to proclaim it is not possible. Sure, the eye IS really complex, but despite ID claims, we know exactly how it evolved, I just can't explain it in two sentences. Furthermore, you need a sh*tload of background knowledge to get through advance evolutionary science.
OMFG
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo painful! Tam, if you're listening, you're a tard. I'm sorry, I can no longer hold back... You're just dumb.
You cling to God, I'll cling to science. Somehow I think you'll live longer in blissful ignorance. That proves to me there is no God.
tam_sang at 02:06 PM on 09/10/08
If Evolution is a theory, why can't we include another theory, Creation Theory, into classroom ? Why do you have to insist that students have to leave out Creationism ? Being an open-minded guy, aren't you contradicting yourself ? If a theory is made up of observations, I don't see a problem of having someone observing the world and coming up with a conclusion that it is too complex to not be created. Also, does evolutionary theory has holes ? You bet...so why can't we have an alternative answer ? We seem to have an alternative answer in every other areas, why not this?
Next year is the 200th anniversary year for Charles Darwin’s birthday, and 15th anniversary for publish of Origin of Species.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Redactive Hybris of Darwinian Evolution
One gets the impression that Charles Darwin invented Evolution versus the understanding of life. The main tenant is Natural Selection, yet to be defined.
Here, adaptive diversity happened earlier and has now stopped awaiting activation and renewal. In addition, chance and random represents its melody of playing. This fickle state of affairs finds the basic arguments by the creationists against a viable and workable window of life’s diversity and change. It gives them the open expression of naming a God as a consummate creator of all things in terms of an Intelligent Design.
Each side entrenches themselves in their own arguments, finding life and living as an act of some miracle. But the two major life engines, the carbon dioxide and oxygen move into the future as a work-in-progress.
The Discovery Institute’s Evolution News & Views (ENV) has nothing to do with Evolution, news and views are subject to anti-evolution.
To say other one needs only to monitor the website and stories published. It is none other promoted propaganda.
Roy D. Schickedanz
Refuting Charles Darwin in the case of Life’s Responsive Design
@tam_sang
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"If Evolution is a theory, why can't we include another theory, Creation Theory, into classroom ?"
Pseudoscience is not "another theory." It is bogus, rubbish, and has no place in any credible institution for learning. Shall we teach astrology as an alternate to Astronomy? Numerology as an alternate to Calculus?
"Why do you have to insist that students have to leave out Creationism ? Being an open-minded guy, aren't you contradicting yourself ?"
Being open minded is like being hospitable in your house. You don't let in every vagrant that roams the streets and knocks on your door. Being open minded means you can inspect an idea and objectively accept or reject that idea. Being "open-minded" doesn't make you automatically right and being "close-minded" doesn't make you automatically wrong.
"If a theory is made up of observations, I don't see a problem of having someone observing the world and coming up with a conclusion that it is too complex to not be created."
So you are fine with someone looking at a math problem and going, "it is too complex to solve" and everyone else nods their heads and ignores this complex problem....
"Also, does evolutionary theory has holes ? You bet...
Everyone agrees here.
"so why can't we have an alternative answer ? We seem to have an alternative answer in every other areas, why not this?"
The alternate answer MUST be in the realm of what is natural NOT in the paranormal or supernatural. You must combat Science with Science.
Life is the most active and the most powerful agent in the universe. All of earth has been brought to you by organic life.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisToday, we are so fortunate that there are new online tools for research and deciphering of life. Moving into the 21st century we will not only have the Tree of Life but the Encyclopedia of Life, now being developed.
Our grounding and knowledge can only grow.
We are fortunate that life is a Responsive Design, opening up all avenues of possibilities for life and ourselves. The engine that we possess can be made almost perpetual.
Moving into that Responsive Design, we seek the greater understanding of the surface sensitivity of life itself. This sensitivity has given rise to change and its diversity along with its persuasive stability.
An Open Letter to Man
At earth’s horizon some 4 million years ago set the ascent of the Pan chimpanzee to be Homo sapiens, Man, in an Evolutionary-Jump, finding a bipedal mobility, which would fate generations to come to a new consciousness through enlarge brain propagating unspeakable possibilities. Here, Africa became not only the birthplace and breeding ground, avoiding extinction; but arose racism. Body hair, previously use for protection, was eliminated and facial features for sight and expressions were transformed altering the monkey body and face forever, favoring dominance with the use of the hand and language beyond all imagination. Thus, the new rules of survival and living forced the pre-modern man in a new consciousness in reality.
Homo sapiens were not unique achieving bipedal mobility. The Neanderthal achieved similar ability, remaining archaic in form to the end. But the scattered populations could not avert its own extinction. What caused the distress in replication can only be speculated. Maybe, a poor set of Strategies in its nomadic life and reinventing solutions for constant problems, making replication an issue always in questioned.
The moral sense of man is nonetheless the collective will of a given society, of a given civilization, and of a given epoch of history that have shaped men’s lives in terms of a projected determination. Done in the name of the common good and spirited in living. A moral sense of life is graded in idealisms, and not least hope. Hope of what has been done today, and the possibility of a better tomorrow. Here, lies the legacy of creative life. Thus, reality is made known to some conscious element and we can point our finger toward the sky; something grandeur has happened and we all are apart of it! Thus, our destiny as a result of the Big Bang, an unprecedented cosmic event, was set into motion. Your being is your inspiration, and vice versa, your inspiration is your being.
Roy D. Schickedanz
Refuting Charles Darwin in the case of Life’s Responsive Design
To Jane Goodall who will be visiting the United States this fall,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWorking on Responsive Design which all life is, we need only to work out those Strategies of Life, that external component of Life and Living, the core component of Evolution as a game plan. Here, the combined SOLs formulate the Specific Environmental Evolvement (SEE) how a species sees and responds to reality.
The good news life is a Responsive Design; it is a work-in-progress.
But the element of time is the biggest problem and concern. You have stated we have about thirty years before facing the extinction of the Pan Chimpanzee.
You must also remember extinction is a basic front end problem versus a backend, both represent stress in replication. A hybrid from a variant lacks numbers therefore must face window of extinction for lack of numbers. This certainly means there are many new variants as hybrid that never truly making it.
Change doesn’t mean success; species have to redevelop their strategies of life formulating their Specific Environmental Evolvement.
You can say Life and Living is shows 2/3 while 1/3 is DNA, and RNA workings.
Here, again organic life’s protocol is form follows function, where the main function is fueling. The operating principle is pleasure and reward, where all life swims in its fuel tank, having a fuel tank mentality. Life can only add!
The most important thing tretapods was doing was changing their fuel tank, water to the atmosphere of the earth, gills to lungs.
The target of life is being persuasively stable, operating in terms of had and sustained.
As Responsive Design you have a chance in saving the Pan chimpanzee
Roy D. Schickedanz
I like to think I have a good understanding of evolution and I also have a detailed understanding of christian beliefs/philosophies. Nature is amoral I am convinced of this and anyone who seriously looks at the natural world is reaching in deep to think the natural disasters that claim untold millions of human lives happen for a purpose.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe random processes of evolution do not in anyway appear to be intentional. I have considered both sides of the argument for many years hoping to find a fault with evolution so I could believe in the simple christain philosophy I wanted to believe in. I cannot in good faith say there is a fault with the theroy of evolution. It does have very severe consequences for the standard monotheistic beliefs. Complexity theory seems to offer the possibility that maybe the universe and the life we see may have come about because life is what happens when something like this type of universe is set into motion. The watchmaker God of monotheistic origin may be an inaccurate way of looking at a creator God. How about a baker God? The ingredients placed into a specific mold and the natural processes let loose to do what they do....namely evolve life forms best fitted to the mold which is the universe? This does mean that there is no interference from the baker once the ingredients are mixed then set in the pan to cook.
The reality of evolution is evident. The consequences of a purely random process of nature leading to the evolution of the human mind do make us look at the fundamental beliefs of the monotheistic religions. Does this purely random process that led to our being here today mean that the creation story is myth? yes. Does it mean there is no God? no.
Is it possible to believe in the intervention of YHWH in humanties early development and also believe we evolved by means of purely random processes? YES.
The Ascent of Man
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe bipedal first steps of our Eve herald a new dawn and day in the conquest of life on earth in the continual sage of cumulative and additive qualities of Life in its outreach in terms of form follows function and function follows form as a Responsive Design.
Today, notions continued to persist of a different history and story for Homo sapiens, where change despite Evolutionary Jumps cutting through time is very, very slow seeking an overall stability. Why such notion of man still persist leads to wonder that man enjoys such myth, hiding the true facts like wearing clothing hides man as an animal, claiming a more exulted pedigree, being made in the image of a God.
The exact scenario is speculative at best, never exactly knowing the why, the how, and not least, when. We do know it happened, giving meaning to our own existence and reality.
The dawn of man fell upon an African Day, in an African week, upon African month and year. The backdrop was the intense heat, persuaded by the sounds that made Africa, Africa. Here echoing across the land and fronting the idea of being and life, moving in so many ways deliberately and sometimes often in a lazy fashion. The tranquility of a particular moment could be quickly changed into the drama of life. Nonetheless, it would be the replay of yesterday’s actions with today’s possibilities.
Whether by birth defeat or accident of fate, a female Pan chimpanzee as result of injurious forelimbs had to fend on the plains of Africa, unable to get back into the trees. Commanding existence and setting fate and motion, Life and Living moves by collectively effort of what works.
Our Eve, not knowing to be our Eve, secured her existence, where her concerns were her concerns bringing daily issues and needs, never really relieving the task of being and living.
She and her babies, confirming her existence and her bipedal mobility and theirs through imitation sought to hold their own, rendering their today’s with tomorrow’s possibilities, adjusting and adapting, changing and stabilizing in their reach in form follows function. Continual and daily usage was driving those subtle forms of change. Close up all seemed insignificant as if nothing was happening. Life poses that type of picture. Life looked like itself from the day before.
Changed can only be measure by distant and time, enhance by numbers. As the numbers grow so does the correctness of the strategies of life in securing needs and wants, signaling the qualified risks and dangers were properly checked and acknowledged.
Man from an Evolutionary Jump of walking and running bipedal moved to make the necessary changes, first legs and arms would received their proper stabilization and form. The hairy body against the intense heat of the day and means of perspiring finding its aquatic habit of cooling eliminated that hair exposing its own nakedness adding to modern form and its complete arrival when the face was dramatically redesigned, fronting new issues of gender.
No doubt, the female lead the way making her more attractive and desirable. Always leading, but never being acknowledged for this essential key role in man’s development. The male, that partner, had a bigger ego to conquer, never letting anybody to forget his status, and his aggressiveness.
Though our story began with our Eve, in many ways her own contribution, the bipedal mobility becomes insignificant against the greater story to be had later. Here, the modern form would be reach; the family unit organized and recognized the use of fire and cooking food, talking and speaking along with language, and not least wearing clothing, hiding man as an animal. All these things were accomplished, through Evolutionary Jumps cutting through time, and Responsive Changes over the longer period.
Homo sapiens absorbed those changes, making the total difference from our Eve to now, 1.6, dramatically conquering the whole earth for its kind.
It all began going bipedal and ending through the radiation out of Africa into the world at large.
Going bipedal didn’t guarantee success as we have seen in the Neanderthals, who equally achieve such mobility. Here, that bipedal of running and walking was achieved near the Eurasian land bridge, leaving Africa in a much more archaic condition, never resolving the necessary strategies of life to overcome replication issues that would lead to its own extinction.
Here, the longer stay in Africa foster Homo sapiens the necessary changes in terms of its modern form and success in its radiation into the world. Someday, what will be shown that the Homo sapiens went bipedal long before the Neanderthals because change is very, very slow.
Hunter-gatherer techniques helped developed speech and then language, helping man to avoid reinventing the world. It may have been the greatest single most developmental change for life.
Equally, along the same lines was wearing clothing hiding man as an animal.
Additional Notes & Glossary of Terms
Life is a Responsive Design
Ascent
Since life can only add, all hybrids from variant specie must be considered an ascent from the variant.
Hybrid
Directional change of a variant, changing form and new strategies of life. Becomes a variant when sufficient numbers avoiding front-end problem of extinction window.
Variant and specie
Where form has complete stabilized against its Strategies of Life evoking Specific Environmental Evolvement, how specie sees and responds to reality.
Had and Sustained
Life’s technique in reinforcing what works against what doesn’t
Chance and Random
Used by the Darwinian Evolutionists to prop up their position explaining change, despite having issues of staying power and how a stay bullet would have affirmative and answer for a specific target. Used to help support Natural Selection without any explanation.
Natural Section
It is another prop of the Darwinian Evolutionists to say everything about nothing.
Pan Chimpanzee.
The story of man is singular in nature, being the ascent of the Pan Chimpanzee, our immediate predecessor. The 1.6 difference was absorbed by the hybrid in becoming.
Neanderthal
The Neanderthal represents another primate going bipedal exiting through the Eurasian land bridge into Europe and Asia, remaining archaic in form, and ending in its own extinction, never developing such strategies of life to succeed fronting replication distress. Neanderthals had nothing to do with Homo sapiens
Change
Change is made through the mechanism of Life’s Optimum Selectivity and Sensitivity, which is specie specific and works in terms of pleasure and reward, becoming confirmed by usage and collective will. Can be either Evolutionary Jump or Responsive Changes.
Change relates to function or impairment to function and stabilized through usage.
Common Ancestor
Darwinian Evolutionist’s jargon that has the same reality as the creationist’s mysteries of faith pointing to some elusive past.
Evolutionary Jump represents cutting through time, fronting different directional change. Confirmation comes through collective will in supporting Specific Environmental Evolvement. Exponents are external based on supporting Life’s needs and wants, reducing all risks.
Evolutionary Jump represents impediment provoking a directional change supported by collective will surmount extinction for lack of numbers.
Life is a Responsive Design fronting form follows function.
Life comes into the world on a blank slate.
Change is open ended.
Which came first, the chicken or the egg? The answer is the chicken, where startup must be referenced.
Fossil is an inadequate specie record for lack of numbers along with an accurate and proper history. It can only substantial a specie at given moment in time.
There is no rate of change.
Random and chance are not operative, fronting staying power.
Life is Additive, Cumulative, and Continuous (ACC) it can only add. Usage pronouns rudimentary, seeking its disappearance.
Roy D. Schickedanz
Refuting Charles Darwin in the case of Life’s Responsive Design
Peg,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisremember what happens to bread after it is finished baking...
Tomorrow, I will listen to a lecture at the Chicago Field Museum by Dr. Ian Tatersall, the Curator at American Museum of Natural History, being sponsor by the Leakey Foundation, who has brought us so many great lectures here in Chicago.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn the Question and Answer section I hope to ask: “What will be the 21st century legacy concerning Evolution? And how will it be played out?”
Such talk’s points out so many unsung heroes working daily like Dr. Oliver Rieppel, Deeply Scaly Project, at the Field Museum, or Dr. Neil Shubin who I had serious discussion about biology on Harper in Hyde Park, Illinois, leading me to ask: Which came first the Chicken or the Egg?
Often I have had personal differences, but this relates to our understanding of Life and Evolution.
Working on Evolution and its core component Life and Living, I have no affirmative to Darwin Evolution and in that regard I have had a greater freedom in the undertaking the deciphering of Life and Living.
To the Darwinian Evolutionists, Evolution is a dog and pony show.
To the Pegs of our world such religious overtones are unwarranted.
Discussion here in the online opportunity provided by Scientific American is how we are to approach Evolution, especially in the classroom.
Roy D. Schickedanz
Be extremely sceptical of any claim by any pamplet (creationist or evolutionist) You can absolutely be sure that any pamplet will direct you to sites designed to support their agenda. I have followed more than 30 claims by creationism both supporting there claims and trying to disprove evolution theory. If you follow them checking every "scientific" claim. I guarantee you will find that every "scientific" fact they claim is in fact not scientific at all. They use data that is so out of date its unbelievable, ignore any other factors that may affect the data, make so many assumptions.,use logic that I have heard 5 year olds use, do not accept any criticism of their "evidence" , and then present this as "scientific fact" . Creationists do not bother submitting their "scientific" evidence to scientific journals for criticism as other scientists HAVE to do. They say that this is because of bias against them. If you check you will find that they have not even tried submitting papers to ANY internationally recognised journal in 10's of years. Please go back and check where you believe creationism has "some basis" then I think you will find it doesn't. Please do the same with evolution theory, but in both cases use scientific evidence published all over the place, not the "rubbish" put forward as fact by creationists. If you still believe the same then by all means carry on.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLets try to get some actual science into the argument.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLets start with some facts
Fact 1 Fossils exist. - There are thousands in exhibits around the world.
Creationists "prove" that none can be more than - pick any number between 4000 and 150000 years old.
Do they do this by trying to date the actual fossils - answer NO. They "prove" that the earth cannot be more than ?????? years old using "scientific" methods, THEREFORE the fossils cannot be more than ?????years old.
I challenge any creationist organisation especially one of the "research" foundations (who incedently have millions of dollars of income supposedly spent on "research"), to sponsor this experiment to be carried out by them
Collect as many fossil samples you like from an untainted site. There must be hundreds of such in Montana or elsewhere in the world (The samples should in the same layer or close to.)
Give 1/2 you samples to non-creatist recognised organisations (geologist, paelentologist,whatever you like) to date, Take the remaining samples and date them yourself by whetever means you chose.
(Remember - following the SCIENTIFIC method you have to PROVE the dates of the fossils (Scientific studies MUST show the basis of the result, any assumptions, any calculations, any other factors which may infuence the result and how they have been taken into account -,I expect yours to do the same), or MUST justify WHY you cannot. Its no good saying that the earth cannot be more than ?????? years old THEREFORE the fossils must be less than ?????? years old
Put ALL the UNEDITED data from ALL participants (with their credentials) on a site, the address publically advertised in say 2 national newspapers in say USA , CANADA, ENGLAND, FRANCE, GERMANY(we dont want it lost in the bowels of some creationist publication do we) for ANYONE to comment on and review. PUBLISH ALL the responses and let the public decide.
Its PUT UP OR SHUT UP time if you are supposed to be "SCIENTIFIC research" organisations
REMEMBER EVEN IF YOU COULD "PROVE" THE WORLD WAS ONLY 10 MINUTES OLD WOULD NOT "PROVE" CREATION.
TO "PROVE" CREATION SCIENTIFICALLY YOU WOULD HAVE TO PROVE THERE WAS NO OTHER POSSIBLE EXPLANATIONS.
THERE COULD BE ANOTHER AS YET UNDREAMED OF EXPLANATION FOR THE WORLD
Regarding "THATGUY"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have never seen anyone waffle (waffle --- to talk endlessly to no particular purpose) so much and say so little as he (she?) does
To OSCARHONEY
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt seems to me that if you face the plain facts of our existence,Life, The Universe,Every- thing we know,is Finite.
This says an awful lot
Every-Thing we know , is finite
For a start - Knowledge may or may not be finite.
200 years ago we KNEW that molecules could not be divided, until we discovered the atom
Then we KNEW the atom could not be divided., until we discovered the electron, neutron and proton,
Then we found that these were made up of further smaller particles.
so on and so on. That is the essence of science. Knowledge does not stand still . Certainly in a few years some of what we KNOW today will be updated.
Where do you get the idea that we KNOW the universe is FINITE. As far as I know NOBODY KNOWS for certain whether it is or isn't
Why do you believe a creator MUST be eternal.
You ask why intelligent people do not grasp what you say as FACT. Perhaps because we believe they are BELIEFS not FACTS.
Just because YOU believe them does not make them facts
I could ask you the same questions -
Why do you not believe what I have said is FACT ?
Why is it hard to accept that we are no more than meaningless bits of matter existing without reason and with no purpose.
You can believe in whatever or whoever you like., but as you imply you are not "intelligent" how on earth would you know the status of "so called scientists" and what they do are "pathetic fumblings" or not. Would you not be better leaving it to "intelligent" scientists to make these judgements
To MIRWIN, 9/13/08
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBelieve in whatever you want. "As a fundamental Christian I can believe Christ rose from the dead because of what quantum physics tells us about the relationship of matter and our consciousness,"
Believe in what you want, but quantum mechanics deals with particles and their interaction at the sub atomic level. It has nothing to say about matter (by this I assume you mean matter at the atomic an above levels).
or consciousness (bilogical sciences) . Quantum mechanics has implications in these sciences but itself has nothing to say about them. It is up to these sciences to decide what these implications are
Regarding THATGUY
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHas anyone worked out what he has been saying. If so could you please paraphase it and post.
At first site it looks like its been through a translation program. I manage to understand an odd sentence here and there but the remainder baffles me
please explain how "evolutionists" lie. What part of the established theory seems to be an intentional attempt to deceive?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlease remember that from a historical perspective. Religion has been lying for a couple thousand years while science has been seeking truth.
Obama has enough common sense to realize that ID belongs in theology class while evolution is actually science. No one is saying ID can't be taught. It's simply not science!!!! Furthermore, McCain represent the hubris which is rampant in most religious arguments. He presumes to know when life begins while Obama answers intelligently.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf god evolved and then took control of the universe. Then he or she needs to be impeached.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour argument is entirely philosophical. Just because you choos to avoid literal interpreatation for your modified symbolic interpretation does not make your view correct. I am sure that if we read a Dr. Seuss book, would could find symbolism for creation. Which illustrates the flaw with such an approach to explaining our physical reality. ie human existence
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGet over it. God alone created the world and the universe. Face the facts, the evidence of creation is infront of you everyday. Those "miracles" that happen yeah that God too. Go to church, get some sence nocked into you. Evolution is simply a theory for those who refuse to belive in God or have nothing else to believe in. Science has no part in creation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGet over it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe big bang created the universe, gravity created the world, evolution created life.
Face the facts, the evidence of evolution is in front of you everyday.
"miracles" do not happen.
Get a dictionary, get some spelling knocked into you. Creationism is simply meaningless drivel for those with no idea of science and need something to believe in.
Creationism has no part in science
The fact remains that Evolution still has the most basic of problems. The origin of life, and how it all began.Faith is on both sides of this debate. Faith to believe God was involved, faith to believe chance was involved. The evolutionary assumption about the beginning of life has never been scientifically observed. In fact the geologic time scale only appears in textbooks.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe last thing we "religious nuts" want to do is force a "Bible Study" on school children. Evolution is STILL a theory, and as much as this or any other pro-evolution website wants to say that it is the same as the theory of gravity is misleading at best. Gravity can be observed, life coming from non-life has not been observed and has not been reproduced in a lab. Even the experiment done in the 50's by Miller? was woefully ineffective. The explanations given for the start of life are at best a religion all their own. ANY TIME a scientist says "we think" that is a religious statement, and I already have a religion. As for your knowledge of the Bible, I would suggest you study up on the historical accurasy of the New and Old Testement. Not all Christians are Catholic, and not all Catholics are Christians. Just because a college biology says its so, does not mean that it is a hard fact. How many times has "Sceince" changed it's mind? I would estimate some of the evidences put forth in the book you now own have been revised or debunked. If not Evolution then what? If we did not evolve tell me the other coins in the pocket.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMJKNOXVILLE
Go Vols
I say go for creationism on united states classrooms!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat way, once your country goes on full scale cultural, scientific, economic and ethical decline it can set an example for the rest of the world on what "not to do".
Part of the problem is that it is easy to reject a complex theory that is explained in layman's terms. The true depth and scope of Evolution is so solid and firm that it is as close to scientific fact as any scientist is willing to claim.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thismjknocksville, the Theory of Gravitational Attraction is not as simple as Newton's Laws. When you say Evolution is just a theory, and you say it isn't like the theory of gravity, you belittle the massive amount of work that has been done to build the Theory of Evolution by thousands of scientists over fifteen decades. If there was any chance that the whole thing is wrong, it would have been discussed to death by now. There is no overwhelming evidence against Evolution, there is no movement against it by biologists. It is as much truth as the Theory of Gravitational Attraction.
It seems clear to me that you do not comprehend the scientific definition of a theory.
Faultline
Evolution states decent with modification. There has been massive amonuts of work on both sides. There are still some real issues with Evolution. In the animal kingdom, there are animals which are Evolution has no answer for. Have you looked at the complexity of a feather versus the complexity of a reptilian scale? It would take more than Evolution to bridge the two by modifcation. How solid is a theory that can not explain nor show in any lab how a one celled organisim came about from non living matter. Amino Acids, Protiens whatever you want to say started life, and that question alone would be enough to make anyone skeptical. You can observe the effects of gravity and observe Newton's Law. You can observe MICRO evolution, what you can not observe is a MACRO evoltion. Would you be willing to consider a growing list of scientists who do not think Evolution is a solid scientific theory?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thismjknoxville wrote:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"There has been massive amonuts of work on both sides. "
No, only one side has massive amounts of work done, unless your standard definition of 'massive amounts' is very very low. There is no comparison to the work done on Evolution to the 'work' done on Creationism.
"There are still some real issues with Evolution."
Scientists debate many of the particular details in Evolution, but there is no debate about whether Evolution is happening. All the 'issues' you mention involve the precise details of Evolution.
"In the animal kingdom, there are animals which are Evolution has no answer for."
Name one.
"Have you looked at the complexity of a feather versus the complexity of a reptilian scale? It would take more than Evolution to bridge the two by modifcation."
It takes more than Evolution, yes, to get from scale to feather. It takes lots of time. Tens of millions of years.
"How solid is a theory that can not explain nor show in any lab how a one celled organisim came about from non living matter."
Evolution does not intend to describe how life started from inanimate matter. You can't deny Evolution is happening simply because we haven't figured out how it got started.
<PASSAGE OMITTED>
"You can observe MICRO evolution, what you can not observe is a MACRO evoltion."
Both are driven by the same exact mechanisms. So to affirm one and deny the other is folly. They are the same. Mutations give rise to new traits which are more likely to be passed on to new generations and larger populations if the traits are helpful, and less likely to be passed on if they are harmful. Harmful and unhelpful traits disappear because the inheritor of them are less likely to survive long enough to have offspring. After enough modifications have occured, a new species is distinctive in the population.
You know, part of the problem here is that there is no clear definition of what exactly separates two closely related species. How much difference do you need? Evolution is a slow and gradual process and there is a lot of gray area between one species and another. All species are always evolving, it can't be stopped.
"Would you be willing to consider a growing list of scientists who do not think Evolution is a solid scientific theory?"
Of more importance to me is what the scientists have to say and is what they say accurate?
Have something to present in support of an alternate theory? Or are you just going to hack at Evolution with trifles and hogwash?
You state research done for creation is "very low", have you compared the two sides or are you assuming what your Biology text books and Professors are telling you. I would say you are correct that more work has been done on Evolution, however the ID movement (which I have issues with) and Creation Science movement have done substantial documented research.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou state "There is no debate whether Evolution is happening." If you mean micro, we agree. Macro is being debated still. For you to say that there no debate, assumes only sceintists with a Evolution world view have no debate. There are many scientists who do not agree with Evolution. Just because a Evolutionary Scientist says "there is no debate" does not make it so.
Animals: Giraffe - how does Evolution explain the blood circulation to brain?
Bombardier Beetle - How does that animal evolve its defense mechanism?
Woodpecker - Can Evolution explain the complexities of this unique animals tounge?
Start with these and get back to me.
The bench marks of scientific research are being able to observe and test what is actually being given as fact. Any statement that Evolution does not attempt to define how life began is asinine. It is easier for you and others to skip this issue and move to the basic life form already established than to admit that the beginning of your theory is the most non scientific "hogwash". Why do Evolutionists like to skip this important topic????
Mutations- Sceince has said that information only decreases when passed from generation to generation. Study mutation rates, how many benefical mutations occur in relation to harmful? The Geologic Time Scale in your Biology book and in your college classrooms is only found in books and imaginations. I believe the "gray area" you speak of may be the holes between the fish and the amphibian? The gaps in the fossils are still gaps. That is why we (YEC) dont get nervous when a new fossil is found. Give it time and there will some explanation as to what particular species is should be categorized under. It never fails. How many National Geographic articles have been revised? I would say the "gray" you speak of is more like a black hole.
Okay if teachers are to teach ID than why not teach religious studies in Biology because that is really what you are doing. I am the first person to want to protect your right to worship as you want but do not force it on me as fact in a high school Biology class with tax payer money. I think you would be hard pressed to find a scientist that believes in ID and not evolution. Lets put it this way, teaching ID in schools is like going to a minister when you have a brain tumor that needs to be removed. The minister can give you relief with prayer but to remove the tumor you need a surgeon that has studied and knows science. Id is like asking a minister to give scientific theory and ignoring the research and testing by scientist. Are we all to ignore what has been accepted as the scientific standard for years and years? What about the Muslim, Jewish, and Buddist students in our public schools? Can Creationism be taught and not offend them since it is a Christain literal view of the Bible?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am training to be a teacher in Texas and in my class this topic came up today. Most people stood up and said that evolution was a lie and ID was correct. Fortunatly none of the people that stood up and said that are going to be science teachers ! What a shock they know little about science! One them actually said we should never ask why because it is not allowed by God. Never ask why about anything sure seems to be one big requirement of belief in ID a far as I can tell. So these are the people that will teach your kids. I am scared.
Any "Scientific" statement that begins with "We/I think/believe" is a faith based statement. There is no science in that statement. As much as I would love to come to the conclusion that we all came from common ancestors, there are still the same missing links, the same claims to the geologic time scale that has yet to be found, and the same scientists who look at the same fossils we do and think all we see and know today came from NOTHING!!!!!! and we creationist? are the foolish ones?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thismjknoxville, you have it wrong. I can begin any statement with "We believe, think, or feel" and it is not neccesarily a faith based statement. I believe that the Earth is round because it fits the scientific evidence we have concerning the nature of our planet. That's perfectly scientific. The REASONS behind the belief are what make a statement based in science or based in faith.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd I'll get around to your questions about the animals you mentioned. I've been on vacation all week. But first I'd like to know exactly why you think that these animals, the giraffe, the woodpecker, and the bombardier beetle, cannot be explained by Evolution. If it is simply because you believe that they could not have evolved purely by chance and therefore an intelligent designer must have created them, then let me know.
Faultline
No, I believe that the characteristics in the giraffe's neck could not have evolved over time. It all had to be there at one time or no giraffes. I have read Michael Behe's book "Darwin's Black Box" and though some of what he said is wrong, the irrecducible complexity of some animals is a problem for evolution. In my humble opinion, I hope the reason we exist on this Earth is more than just years and years of evolution. How depressing. The Bombardier Beetle shoot smoke out of it thorax as a defense mechanism, the internal parts have to be there all at one time or no beetle. Study the woodpeckers tounge, how that bird swallows with out kililing itself is hard for any evolutionist to explain.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat I meant by the we think or i believe statement was this: when a scientist says "we think the animal is 1000000 million years old, that is a faith statement. That is the scientist personal belief. Any statement where belief is involved is faith. The Earth being round can be observed, something from nothing is not observable even in a lab, nor are animals changing into to other animals, nor is the geologic time scale.
I appreciate your input, and hope you had a great vacation!! I look forward to your answers on the animals. I think you will find it interesting. You are a great American, as Sean Hannity would say.
No one ever said the giraffe developed a long neck in one step. Evolution explains that the process is slow and gradual. "Gradual" in this sense means "one step at a time" and not just slow.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn a geopgraphic area, all animals compete for food. Some animals were tall enough to reach the lower leaves of the plants, and these animals had access to a food source other, shorter animals did not have. Over time, natural selection would select for animals that had longer necks one small step at a time until over thousands of generations a new species evolved with a slightly longer neck.
Back with more in a flash.
Faultline
Granted the neck formation is another issue, i am concerned with Evolution's answer for the circulation flow to and from the brain. The issue of neck formation would be another problem entirely. Where are the intermediate fossils for the giraffe?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI appreciate your willingness to research, if you would like me to do the same, i would gladly do so!!
What makes you think that an animal can evolve only one trait at a time? Why can the blood pressure gradually raise from one species to another as the neck is lengthening?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBear in mind that no one is claiming that one day a "cow" gave birth to a "cow" with a freakishly long neck that could not survive because blood didn't reach its brain. That's exactly what natural selection is for. It weeds out bad combinations of traits as well as single bad traits.
So if a species of mammal has a long enough neck to reach the lower portion of a tree and gain access to a food source untapped by other competing species, then it has an edge. Over time, those with longer necks within the same species will produce more offspring because they had more food. Once you've moved to a new species with longer necks, because of natural selection the ones with slightly higher blood pressure will be more likely to survive.
Furthermore, "High blood pressure" is not a negative trait, and is relative to species. What is dangerously high for humans is too low for giraffes. Their blood pressure helps give them the competitive advantage they need to find a food source other herbivores can't reach.
Evolution does not rely on one trait changing at a time. One trait need not be fully in place before another begins evolving. The Theory allows for multiple traits to evolve side by side in little baby steps together over thousands of generations to create new combinations of traits that give an advantage for survival.
Evolution is also not a random process. Creationists who want to attack it claim that no random process can result in a complex species such as Homo Sapiens. But biologists never claim that Evolution is random. Evolution is guided by the natural force of natural selection.
Here's an example. What are the odds of rolling ten six-sided dice and getting all sixes? Slim, but you get to roll as many times as you want. You'll eventually do it but it will take many many long hours, probably days. Now enter a selection process. Let's call it natural selection (the name just came to me). If two or more dice are sixes, you get to keep them and re-roll the rest. You'll have all sixes come up that way in short order.
To reiterate, Evolution is not random, so don't call it random. Giraffes and bombardier beetles can evolve the traits that help them survive in tiny steps over thousands of generations as multiple traits evolve in tandem.
Any evidence for ID yet? Or are you just going to poke feebly at Evolution?
F
What fossil evidence do you have for the evolution of the giraffe? Not speculation or animated drawings of what we should find, but a real fossil found that could be considered an intermediate? Show me the fossils!! I dont mean disrespect, but the reason you or any other scientist cant, is because they dont exist.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen looking at the giraffe's blood flow there are valves located all the way up that control the amount of blood that reaches the brain not to mention blood pressure monitoring devices. Lets "suppose" that the valve located nearest the brain releases blood to the brain, with out the use of the "sponge like" material located just under the base of the brain. If that material does not exist from day one, the animal does not survive a drink of water, or raising his head to eat leaves off a tree. The giraffe would suffer an aneurysm each and every time. That is a crucial to survival.
Natural Selection: A process in nature in which organisms processing certian genotypic characteristics that make them better adjusted to an environment tend to survive, reproduce, increase in number or frequency, and therfore are able to transmit and perpetuate their essential genotypic quailities to succeeding generations.
What other animals do we see that have any characteristics anywhere similar to the giraffe? Again, where are the fossils? The best explanination Evolution has to offer is Punctuated Equilibrium (a miracle/ God).
If we want to meaningfully debate Evolution, let us start at the beginning. How does life come from non-life? I would hate to poke feebly at such a well documented fact of the observable testable ways this can happen. Poking feebly at Evolution, if by that you mean, I dont accept the assertions and assumptions made by Evolution, then YES. If you mean that raising legitimate questions to those who do believe in Evolution, and getting "just because we dont know does not mean it did not happen" or "God does not exist in Science" answer" as a response, then YES again. I respect your viewpoint, please give me the same courtesy.
From: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional/part2c.html
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDocumented Giraffe species in Chronological order:
Climacoceras (very earliest Miocene)
Canthumeryx (also very early Miocene)
Paleomeryx (early Miocene)
Palaeotragus (early Miocene)
Samotherium (late Miocene)
Okapia (one species is still alive, the okapi, essentially a living Miocene short-necked giraffe)
Giraffa (Pliocene), the modern long-necked giraffe.
Fossils for these creatures do exist. Although there are gaps, and there always will be, a complete fossil record is not required. If we find transitionary forms for 75% of species, what evidence is there to suggest that the remaining 25% were formed spontaneously through Intelligent Design.
Your argument that Evolution is falsified because a giraffe could not evolve the circulatory structures it needs to support a long neck would be right if Evolution requred sudden new structures appearing due to mutations. It does not require that all new traits and biological structures evolve from a sudden mutation.
The mutations that occur in nature that lead to evolution are miniscule and come from a blending of parental traits (no sexual reproduction creates offspring that is a perfect clone of its parents, so there is variation right from the start) and through mistakes in the genetic code during cellular mitosis. A single mutation or combination of parental genetic traits does not mean that an animal is born with two new vertebrae and the tissues needed to keep blood in the brain. Rather, it is a minor alteration that could help or hurt the animal's chance to reproduce and thereby pass the new traits into a new generation. Over time, unhelpful traits are lost and helpful ones stack up from one generation to the next until you do have a new species with a new biological structure.
Your argument is a Strawman fallacy. You misrepresent the case of Evolution and then defeat said misrepresentation. To reiterate, Evolution proceeds very gradually in small steps. A mutation does not act like an on/off switch for a sudden new body structure, it takes many of them over many thousands of generations to form.
You also asked about the question of how life formed from nothing. Honestly the question is irrelevant, and an answer is not required to support Evolutionary theory, for however it got started, there has been buttloads of evolving since then.
Have something to present in support of an alternate theory? Because all you are doing so far is attacking Evolution.
Would not the beginning of life be a problem for Evolutionists since the existence of God has to be abolished or rendered unprovable, untestable, unobservable? I will research the animals you listed. My attack of Evolution are legitimate questions that need answers if we are going to teach this as fact.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe fact is I do believe in God, and I believe there is suffcient evidence in Creation. The strawman argument you present is any and all adaptations, speciation, ...etc has to have a earthly cause. However, why is the scientific community so willing to accept a theory where the beginning is the biggest problem. You may say Evolution does not concern itself with the issue of the beginning of life. Then how does Evolution start? Where was the starting point? Science will not allow God, so what is left?
Just because I dont accept Evolution as fact as you indicate you do, does not mean that the animals I presented you are any less a challenge to explain from a scientific standpoint.
Is is easy to start with a micro organism already formed, and devise a hypothesis from there. The issues for Evolution is the missing intermediates (half devoloped legs, fins, eyes, hooves,....etc), species with characteristics that are not common to any ancestor, and the Beginning of life. There must be a starting point. This universe is in a state of decline, and the galaxies prior to us ( if big bang is true) are in decline. What is the starting point for your theory? That is a very legitimate question, and should not be ignored because the defintion of Evolution chooses not to deal with it.
Buttloads of evolving scince, Show me the fossils where the horse has a half developed hoof 4-3-2-the common hoof we see today. Show me under a electron microscope with magnification how scales have any chance of becoming a feather? The design is completely different.
As I said earlier, I will look into the animals listed above, it may take me a day or to, because of work.
The short answer:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe study of how life began is a separate discipline in the field of biology. The term is called Abiogenesis and some work has been done in the field. But it is perfectly sensible to study the Evolution of species without knowing how it all began. Evolution and Abiogenesis are related in that they are both studies under the science of biology.
Oh, and God does not have to be proven or disproven in order for science to study Evolution. By definition, a religious belief is faith-based and therefore needs no scientific proof. Indeed, the existence of God is, by default, unprovable, untestable, and onobserved.
And stop asking for more and more transitional forms. The fossil record is incomplete and will never be otherwise. Creationists continue to claim missing links exist no matter how many are found. Let's say we have species A and species G. For many decades, scientists search and finally find species D which has traits of both. It is a transitional species. Before it was found, Creationists claim there was a missing link between them. Now that D is found, they claim missing links exist between A and D, and between D and G. They'll never be satisfied.
Have something to present in support of an alternate theory? Because all you are doing so far is continuing to attack Evolution. If you disprove Evolution (not likely) you still have done nothing... absolute zero... to prove Creationism. Creationism is not the default winner if Evolution loses.
Faultline
I have given you some evidences for intelligent design, of which I am not a fan of. The intermediate fossils I am speaking of are all complete. There are no fossils found that I am aware of that show where an aniamal has a partially developed wing, hoof, foot, what have you. It is not the links that have been found, its that they are completely formed. Realize that some of the suggested links you see in textbooks and Biology books are someones guesstimation at what that animal may have looked like, when all that was found was a leg bone or a tooth. That itself requires fatih, because they think!!! this is what the species may have looked like.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere are some other issues to consider in support of an Intelligent Creator.
1. How do you explain morality? Who determines right and wrong? If there is not outside force or person with a stadard then the events of 9/11 are a matter of opinion as to who was right? It is your opinion vs mine vs everyone else. Evolutionists can be moral, but the standard is your problem.
2. What do you with the person of Jesus?
3. How does Evolution explain language development?
4. How does Bing Bang or any theory explain the percise of the postition and tilt of the our planet?
Your statement about if Evolution is not true, then this does not necessitate a creator? What other options are there besides variations of more Evolutionary theory? I dont understand that argument.
Realize this, ANY TIME a scientist says "We think" "We believe" that is also a statement of faith. Any belief that is unproven, untestable, and unobservable is a statement of faith. I already have one, I dont need theirs.
How do evolution explain a rock formation in (i will get the exact location) in the Grand Canyon where at tree is found to be in 3? different strata making that tree millions of years old?
DNA is a problem for Evolution, not Creation, in terms of information being lost over the millions and billions of years.
I am in the process of looking at the animals you gave me. I am working some long hours!!! YAWN
And I told you that the fossil record is incomplete and never will be complete. A complete fossil record is not necessary to support evolution.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour so-called issues that support an intelligent creator are nothing substantive. They mostly attack Evolution or are just vague theological questions that have nothing to do with Evolution.
Point at a time:
#1: Morality is a societal issue that is tied to ethics and is not a part of the study of biological Evolution.
#2: Quoting you: "What do you with the person of Jesus?"
Huh? What? I don't understand this statement.
#3: Language development became an advantage when animals began to hunt in packs to attack larger game that requires coordination. Even wolves have a primitive form of language. An animal with the ability to communicate more complex ideas is going to be more successful in surviving when primitive nomdic societies began.
#4: We're not talking about the Big Bang, that's another Theory.
Not one of these points requires me or any scientist to prove there is no God. You have some hang up about this point. That in order to prove Evolution or the Big Bang Theory, we have to prove there is no God.
Get this straight. Evolution does not require a God, but it does not require that there is NO God, either. It is a moot point. Intelligent Design is the idea that requires that requires a supernatural creator.
So I do not need to prove there is no intelligent creator. YOU have to provide evidence that there is an intelligent creator and so far you have not. None of these four points is evidence for a creator.
I repeat: Have something to present in support of an alternate theory? Because all you are doing so far is continuing to attack Evolution. If you disprove Evolution (not likely) you still have done nothing... absolute zero... to prove Creationism. Creationism is not the default winner if Evolution loses.
Faultline
Morality has to have an absolute or it is no moral. It is the opinion of the person evaluating the situation. If morals are determined by society, then you nor I can say with any certainty that murder, rape, or any other crime (and I do believe these are horrible crimes) are wrong. It would be up to the persons involved. This is part of the Evolution arguement. What molecule or atom defines morality in your Evolutionary model? Just because it is not addressed in your Biology book does not mean the point is invalid. Just who in society would decides the ethic or standard? Therfore there would have to be by logic a moral law giver who is above the law and a perfect example of what the stands for. If not, then it is a coin toss as to who is right.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisShow me a fossil in the fossil record where you find partially developed wing or hoof? Just because you say the record will never be complete does not escape the fact that key pieces are missing? A complete fossil record is not required, however the missing fossils are the exact fossils that Evolution needs to show simple things as horse evolution, bird evolution, not to mention the issues you have when you consider the physical implications of a common ancestor to humans.
Your statement regarding the elimination of Evolution does not dictate Creation. What other options do you have? Explain what other options are there, besides other quasi -Evolutionary theories?
You want to discount how life came to be, if you cant explain that issue, then how in the ----- did Evolution begin? That is a huge huge issue. You expect me to accept as a scientific fact the claims of Evolution when the beginning of life is a biological issue. The fact that you feel that issue is not relevant is frightening. Why do you as an Evolutionist? want to avoid or place this component in another category.
You have not addressed the DNA issue.
Why do you say I bring nothing to my side of the arguement. I have asked you about animals for which design is certain. The beetle I gave you could not have evolved! The woodpecker's tounge and its functions could not have evolved.
How Science (instead of Evolution) explain the percision of the Earth in relation to the sun? You are willing to say that just happend? It has been proven that a movement of one inch in either direction on its orbit was catastrophe to all life.
My issue with Evolution is starts with the assumptions made from the beginning.
And yes Evolution does require the non existence of God.
Scientists want to excuse God out of the process.
Actually, Evolution has nothing to do with morality and it is not part of this theory. The presence or absence of a moral code of conduct has nothing to do with Evolution. Just as Evolutionary Theory does not require a creator (nor does it require a creator be nonexistant), it is not neccessary to have a moral code (or the absence of one) to show that species have evolved over time.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat makes you think Evolutionary Theory has to explain morality? It really has nothing to do with morality. If you really want to discuss it, morality is a creation of society and the moral center will vary from one culture to another. We can always find a culture, either present today or in the past, when murder was considered right and just. For instance, the ancient Aztecs practiced human sacrifice and the Catholic Church did not. It was acceptable by the morality of one society and not by the other. Therefore, moral values are relative and there is no absolute.
Since this is a sociological issue and not a biological Evolution issue, we should probably lay it to rest and get on with something more substantive to the thread. If you like, you can have the last word on the issue of moral absolutes. It doesn't matter because nothing is going to make me believe in moral absolutes anyway.
Back to your argument. You state that there is no way that the Theory of Evolution can explain bombardier beetle and its defense mechanism, or the woodpecker and its tongue. If you're right, it would be evidence against Evolution, but not evidence for Intelligent Design.
First of all, you're assuming the existence of a creator just because you can't understand how these creatures came to be. Second of all, just because you can't understand how they evolved, it doesn't mean that scientists don't know how they evolved. Third of all, you automatically assume that if Evolution is wrong, Creation must be right and that is totally illogical. Creationism is not the default winner if Evolution is somehow proven wrong.
And once again, Evolution is the study of how species change over time, not the theory of how life began. These are two different fields of science. The Theory of Evolution does not require knowing how life began to explain how species change over time.
But I'll bite. What is it about the bombardier beetle's chemical defense and the woodpecker's tongue that make them impossible to have evolved?
Faultline
Are you absolutely sure there are no absolutes?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI will get back to you later next week. Very busy at work.
Think long and hard about answering this question, even though it does not relate to science.
Again, would tell me what other grand possibilities exist for speciation if Evolution is not true?
And how close are the other answers you provide, going to give some quasi evolutionary theory? You say with such confidence that if ???? Evolution is not true then God or whoever still may have no influence on speciation. Help me understand that statement.
Woodpeckers peck into a tree to find food. First between each peck, they open their eyes, look aim and fire their beak again with percision. That is an amazing adaptation in and of itself. 2. The amount of force with which they assert on a tree or ? is enough to cause brain damage to the bird. The reason it doesnt is beause the design of their skull. 3. Once they reach the inner part of a tree, they penetrate the tree, they stick their toung out to grab insects.. the glands in the toung start secreting a glue like fluid to enable the bird to keep the insects he touches with his tounge. Well when the woodpecker swallows, he should die from swallowing glue down his throat and into his esophagus. Well he doesnt because at the moment he swallows, his throat produces a solvent which dilutes the "glue" allowing him to swallow and digest without issue. That my friend does not evolve, that is design. How in the world does that feature evolve? It is either there or not there. What is the common ancestor for the woodpecker. Not to mention the tounge wraping around the top of its brain back through its neck and out through the beak. Where is that found in the fossil record? There are no animals with these features. The woodpecker is a shining example of God's hand in such a small beautiful bird. One other interesting point about the woodpecker, brain surgeons study the woodpecker's skull to help address traumatic brain injuries in hospitals. That is pretty interesting, would you agree. I will get you the beetle info later this week. In fact I will give many animals that confound the Evolutionary theory. Is that poking feebly or is that evidence for creation / design?
I mispelled tongue at least twice, forgive me, working late and typing fast.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisForget morality. On to our discussion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is not up to me to describe other theories of the origin of species. In fact, there are none. If you want to present a theory, then get to it. Attacking Evolution is not the same as presenting a theory. You don't create a new theory by way of destroying an old one. By contrast, you create a new theory IN ORDER to supplant an old one.
Your argument seems to be that since the bird's method of finding food is intricate, complicated, and requires a series of traits that work together, that it is impossible for Evolution to have produced this species because if you remove one feature of this system, the whole method will not work. If I'm right in describing your idea, you are presenting the concept of irreduceable complexity. You presented a claim: "That my friend does not evolve, that is design."
Before I answer, please read this and tell me if I have your argument right. I don't want to misrepresent your point of view.
But keep in mind that you are still not presenting an alternative theory. The simple claim that "It is too complex, so it has to be design" is an assumption based on the absence of knowledge of how the event(s) in question really did happen.
Faultline
You have to admit the absolute question is good huh?I am not trying to supplant anything. I gave you an example of how something as simple as a woodpecker causes some to ask: Could this bird evolve and what would that look like. I am not trying to create a new theory. I believe in God, and he created everything. That is my theory.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen I raise questions regarding Evolution, it because I have suffcient evidence to look at animals (species) and see how Evolution does not answer the most pathophysiological questions in this bird and other animals.
"It is not up to me to descibe other theoies", you brought this up. You stated in past discussions if evolution is found incorrect, then it does not necessitate a creator or designer. I am asking you what then is there? What I was looking for was some other theory similar to Evolution which is what you are left with.
Yes, the complexity of animals (woodpeckers, beetles, giraffes) and I can go on, do present problems. Forget these, look at one microscpoic one celled organisim, that is a complex structure, and it must have ALL parts to function.
Design of God is my theory!!! If God did not do it, and Evolution did not do it, What did? You seem to ignore that question or act as if you should not be required to address it.
Are you absolutely sure Evolution happened? Hows that?
You are a Great American (I think, if you live in America)
Your woodpecker question is really only a question if you're willing to accept an answer. If you are not open to receive an answer, then there is no point in discussion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe woodpecker's tongue is not all that unusual. In fact, it depends on which woodpecker species you're talking about. There are many, not just one. The tongue of most animals is largely muscular and anchors to a forked-shaped bit of bone and cartilage called the hyoid. Your hyoid's points can be felt at the uppermost part of your throat. Bird tongues (not just woodpecker tongues) are not primarily muscle, but are formed around an extended hyoid that extends to the tip of the bird tongue.
From:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/woodpecker/woodpecker.html
"The Y- shaped hyoid apparatus of birds, however, extends all the way to the tip of their tongues. The fork in the "Y" sits just in front of the throat, and it is in this area that most of the muscles of the hyoid attach. Two long structures, the "horns" of the hyoid, grow backwards from this area and provide insertion sites for protractor muscles which originate on the lower jaw.The hyoid horns of some species of woodpeckers are quite startling in appearance, as they can grow all the way up to the top of the head and, in some species, grow around the eye socket, or even extend into the nasal cavity."
The appearance of a common structure in different species, like the hyoid, is evidence of a shared ancestry. The hyoid is adapted for use by each species based on its needs for survival in its environment. The woodpecker tongue is just a longer version of the same tongue found in other birds because this family of specie evolved a means to locate a food source unreachable by competitors.
And I see no reason why the bird would die if it swallowed the fluids produced by its glands. This is a sticky saliva, not industrial epoxy. The term "glue" doesn't really apply. Other animals use a tongue coated in sticky mucous in order to catch insect prey. Frogs and anteaters have also evolved this trait.
More to come...
Your argument that it (the woodpecker's traits) is too complex a "set" of features would be valid if Evolutionary Theory were somehow restricted to the idea that all the traits have to appear fully formed all at once. This claim is a misconception about Evolution that is used as a Strawman for Intelligent Design pushers to knock down and claim victory.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFollow the reasoning. Some birds eat insects. Birds, like any other living thing, populate an area and compete with one another for food. Since food is not an infinite resource, some birds must seek food in hard to reach places.
How about those termites that inhabit rotten logs? Some birds will seek them out. If some of these birds (within the same species) have a slightly more narrow beak than others or a slightly longer tongue than others, they might have a better chance at poking holes in soft, rotten wood and reaching the bugs.
Keep in mind that there is normal variation in all offspring. Your nose (beak) is a similar, but different, shape than that of either of your parents. So it follows that not all birds are going to have the same size and shape beak even if they are the same species. They are not perfect clones of one another.
So the ones who find access to a few more bugs get to eat more and are more likely to survive. These will produce more offspring with similar traits. The next generation will face the same challenges, and will be comprised of birds with slightly more narrow beaks and slightly longer tongues. The difference is too miniscule in each generation to measure, but over a couple of thousand generations the differences will be more pronounced.
The process is accelerated in times when the easy food is scarce and there is more food under soft wood. Over time, you'll develop a new species adapted to reach insects under soft, rotten wood.
At the same exact time, there can be other features evolving. The tongues that have more mucous catch more insects, but only for the birds that are seeking insects under soft, rotten wood. Birds that are born with stickier mucous get more food, leave more offspring, replace the ones with less sticky mucous and so on. This all happens simultaneously with the evolution of other features.
To be continued.
Please abandon the notion that I dont accept your answsers. I do accept your answers, I just think differently. I am only questioning Evolution because I think the implications of teahing this to children goes far beyond the molecules to man hypothesis. As much as you dont want to discuss the any issues accept common ancestory and missing links, I think there is a much broader arguement that needs to take place. Questions regarding morality are central. I know that is uncomfortable to you because it would involve looking broad base at this theory.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere is another question: Evolution states that reptiles are the ancestors of birds. Has science located a transitional form / missing link of creature who is somewhere between warm and cold blooded and a has some combination of semi dense bones, as birds have hollow and reptiles have dense bones. Most scientists now believe that Archaeopteryx classifies as a bird.
Listen, if you think we have come to an impass and want to discontinue this thread, I understand. I am learning from you as I hope you are from me. It is up to you. Once things slow down at work, research will resume on my end.
Another example of God's hand, just study amino acids and how it what miracle of science it would take for amino acids to form a protien by random chance.
How does Evolution explain the Geko's ability to walk across glass. When looked at under a microscope, you will see intelligence in the design of that marvelous creature.
These questions "attacking" evolution as you put it are legitimate. They do indicate an alternative theory, a designer or God.
How does Natural Selection address the loss of DNA information from species to species?
These are questions that need answers. As much as you want to shun the issue of the beginning of life, I would advise you to study that one area, because if that did not happen, your theory is DEAD. You would have to conclude that an outside froce or intelligence started the process, unless you can tell what other possible theories exist to explain this one time event. Which you have not responded to that question either. Have you ever asked yourself why this has not happened again?
I wasn't finished.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe longer tongues are better for getting food. Also, Evolution makes no claim that a set of genes suddenly shifted from making the tongue a normal bird tongue to a long bird tongue. It happens in imperceptable steps over the course of a half million years or so.
Keep in mind what I said about the woodpecker's tongue. It holds the same basic structure of all other bird tongues but it is longer. Since it is longer, it has to be stored somewhere in the head, so while the species is adapting a longer tongue, it is adapting the unique cranial structures to contain it when not in use. This is fully in line with Evolutionary Theory, traits that evolve in tandem with other traits.
Some birds that are evolving (over thousands of generations of Natural Selection) the traits they need to pick up more bugs, i.e. the longer tongue and sharper, narrow beak and the sticky mucous are going to be forced in times of food shortages to seek food where others can't. Whereas many of these early woodpeckers will have to rely on finding insects in soft, rotten wood or underneath loose bits of bark, others will try to peck holes in slightly harder wood. Not all rotten wood is created equal.
Those that can peck through tougher wood will get more food. Thus, the traits that aid them in making holes in wood will help them survive, find more food, produce more offspring, and their numbers will slowly begin to replace their less adapted cousins. If an early woodpecker is born with a little extra cartilage in his skull, it can hammer harder without hurting itself.
So ALL AT THE SAME TIME and OVER A HALF MILLION YEARS OR SO (just a random number I picked) these birds are evolving a longer tongue, a sharper beak, sticky mucous and the enzymes needed to weaken the adhesion.
Next, some facts about woodpeckers that you might not have known.
Woodpeckers are not all the same. There are many species of birds that attack insects under wood. Not all of them have evolved the same set of traits.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe woodpeckers, wrynecks, and piculets are all in the same family containing over 100 species of birds that peck. Some woodpecker species have the absurdly long tongue that grows backward into the sinus cavity or into the upper reaches of the cranium. Others don't. Some use their adaptations in different ways.
The Sapsucker, genus Saphyrapicus, contains four distinct species of birds that drill tiny holes in fresh wood then drink the sap, along with insects trapped in it. This birds needs no extended tongue, yet it is clearly a member of the family of Picidae containing all woodpeckers.
From: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/woodpecker/woodpecker.html
"The wrynecks and piculets, members of the woodpecker family which look something like a cross between songbirds and woodpeckers, have many woodpecker-like adaptations, such as long tongues. However, they do not possess stiff tail-feathers or certain other hammering specializations. They are thought to be similar to the ancestral species of today's specialized woodpeckers."
The wrynecks and piculets use their sharp beaks and long tongues to probe for insects underneath tree bark and in hard to reach places.
All of this is evidence of common descent of these birds. Not all of them evolved in the exact same way, they 'branched out' each seeking a method of finding food that helped it survive in its Evolutionary niche.
So the idea that they are too complex to Evolve is folly. The process is much more complex than the Creationists' Strawman version that they knock down.
Now if you'd like to discuss any of this, please read the article on the link provided
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/woodpecker/woodpecker.html
and tell me what parts of it you refute. It is a good example of how Evolution produces a wide variety of species using Natural Selection over time.
Faultline
Oh! I missed this question that you asked. Although it was probably for the best that I finished my woodpecker family explanation, first.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere's what mjknoxville asked, imbedded in the rest of your post:
"How does Natural Selection address the loss of DNA information from species to species?"
The same way that natural selection selects for traits that helps animals find more food and avoid hazards. All DNA is subject to mutational errors when being copied, and all DNA is subject to variant combinations the offspring's DNA that it receives from the parents (involved in sexual reproduction).
Good mutations and good combinations, ones that help the organism find food or avoid death from hazards, are going to be selected for. Bad mutations and combinations are going to be selected against. Traits that have little to no bearing on survival are in the mix as well, but still they have a stake in natural selection.
You see, small mutations cause breakdowns in the DNA chain for useless traits. Since these traits are not helping survival, they are not being selected for. Enough breakdowns cause the trait to begin to disappear.
Honestly, I didn't research this one. I used what I know of the concept of natural selection to reach this conclusion. If anyone has a better description, please holler it out.
ahem, Roll Tide!
Faultline
Well it is only fitting that you are an Alabama Fan, GO VOLS!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am working some long hours, and will respond later. Is there an assumption in Evolution in the mating habits of species? by that does Evoluotion assume that the only species evolving with better DNA and traits to further their existence, mated with like species?
If you look at the talk origins website they do address abiogensis, and the answer just what I thought. The author goes in great lengths to describe how existing amino acids would form proteins, but at the end, no clue ast to how it all started. It is still being studied.
Oh I love doing this!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thismjknoxville, you said "Most scientists now believe that Archaeopteryx classifies as a bird."
Excuse me, but who are these "most scientists?" Creationists are fond of using this phrase. "Most scientists" are in debate over whether or not Evolution is real... blah blah... they repeat it again and again hoping that a lie repeated enough times will become the truth.
Don't buy it. Creationists are never able to produce a majority of scientists who doubt Evolution.
So let's have them. Who are they? If most scientists think that Archaeopteryx is a bird and not a reptile with feathers, where have they stated these beliefs?
Names, titles of articles, journal names, and dates of publication, please. If "most scientists" believe it, and there are literally millions in the world, you should have no problem coming up with tons of articles because that would mean that at least 51% of these millions of scientists are publishing their findings to support your statement.
But we're off subject. I just noticed that little stab at Archaeopteryx and decided I had to respond immediately. You were supposed to read the article I presented to you on the woodpecker, piculets, and wrynecks and tell me what in there you refute as evidence for Evolution.
While you're at it, got any evidence that supports Creation? Questioning Evolution does not support Creation by God.
Faultline
I did read the article. I see that it addressed the beak and the tongue. Yawn!! I must tell you that I am reading it again because my reading of it was a bit hurried.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI hate to bring a up a lie that has become a truth, but what about a scale becoming a feather? What about a dense boned cold blooded animal becoming a warm blooded hollow boned animal? not to mention the "not part of Evolution discussion" abiogenesis.
I will provide you links to scientists who believe the Archaeopteryx is a bird. I only responded because I was up late as I am tonight writing a paper for a graduate class that I am taking.
Would not a negative for Evolution be a positive for Creation?
You want to say that Evolution is not the only way, what other ways are there besides another quasi evolutionary theory? If the answer does not lie in the physcial realm, then where the heck does it lie? That is a question that maybe a scientist could answer for me. That is not meant as an insult, but you may not know. You seem highly educated, even if you are a Bama fan. (Joke) haha
Go Vols!!!
mjknoxville: "Would not a negative for Evolution be a positive for Creation?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo! No! No! Absolutely not! Creationism is not the winner by default if Evolution is proven false. You cannot claim that evidence against something is evidence for the opposite. That is totally illogical.
Waiting patiently.
Faultline
What other options are there? Martians, God, What? You say this and have no other options.....????
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm not required to provide alternatives to Evolution. I firmly believe in Evolution. Since you don't, your job is to provide evidence of an alternative.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo level of argument against Evolution is the equivalent of evidence FOR any alternatives. Logic and science--- and common sense for that matter--- just don't work that way. Before Creationism can become the standard model for natural science the proponents of it have a lot of work to do. First of all, providing a model would be nice. Evolution already has one, and the research has already been done to support it. Creationism has no unified model and no evidence.
Faultline
How many dinosaur species have been found that have feathers?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFaultline
You tell me, remember Evolution claims that birds ancestors of dinosaurs, I believe the common thought is they are from the Therapod line.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere is a quote from no less that the late Stephen Gould saying that the missing links are still missing.
The fossil record with its abrupt transitions offers no support for gradual change &. He proposes instead that evolution occurs in jumps by the rare success of those hopeful monsters. He was one of the leading Evolutionary Biologists until his death. I find it interesting.
Here is another:
In 2001, Ernst Mayr wrote: "Wherever we look at the living biota & discontinuities are overwhelmingly frequent&The discontinuities are even more striking in the fossil record. New species usually appear in the fossil record suddenly, not connected with their ancestors by a series of intermediates." Indeed it is common knowledge among paleontologists that the fossil record generally lacks plausible candidates for transitional forms. Critical thinkers would surely want to know about this evidence.
But wait there is more:
In a slightly different metaphor using the tree of life, the late Stephen J. Gould, America's most famous evolutionist, confirms this. He stated, "The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils. I wish in no way to impugn the potential validity of gradualism. I wish only to point out that it was never seen in the rocks
Conclusion: Event the people backing the "theory" see problems.
Working on your list for the Archaeoptryx. Scientific American has even backed away from this as proof as early as 2003.
Go Vols!!!
Here is a comment from that article"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this‘How did these incredibly strong, wonderfully lightweight, amazingly intricate appendages evolve? … Although evolutionary theory provides a robust explanation for the appearance of minor variations in the size and shape of creatures and their component parts, it does not yet give as much guidance for understanding the emergence of entirely new structures, including digits, limbs, eyes and feathers.’
Here is the notes from AIG commentary on it:
Under a barrage of attacks from creationists, Scientific American has published a 10-page cover story admitting the need to abandon old dogmas about dinosaur-to-bird evolution. They just don’t work.
Instead, in a surprising article entitled ‘Which came first, the feather or the bird?’ (by Richard Prum and Alan Brush, March 2003, pp. 84–93), the authors propose a ‘new paradigm’ to help answer the vexing questions about bird evolution.
How dare us Creationists challenge this overwhelmingly assured fact of Science????? Shame on us?
When science cant prove bird to dinosaur to bird evolution one way, move on to another, and another, and another....
You're still not providing any evidence for Creationism. You're too busy attacking Evolution, which does not advance your cause.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisArchaeopteryx is classified as a primitive bird because of certain defining traits that all birds have. But it has many more traits that belong with reptilian morphology.
Archaeopteryx bird traits:
•long external nostrils.
•quadrate and quadratojugal (two jaw bones) not sutured together.
•palatine bones that have three extensions.
•all teeth lacking serrations.
•large lateral furrows in top rear body of the vertebrae.
Reptile-like features:
•no bill
•teeth on premaxilla and maxilla bones
•nasal opening far forward, separated from the eye by a large preorbital fenestra (hole)
•neck attached to skull from the rear
•center of cervical vertebrae that have simple concave articular facets
•long bony tail; no pygostyle
•ribs slender, without joints or uncinate processes, and not articulated with the sternum
•sacrum that occupies six vertebrae
•small thoracic girdle
•metacarpals free (except third metacarpal), wrist hand joint flexible
•claws on three unfused digits
•pelvic girdle and femur joint shaped like those of archosaurs in many details
•bones of pelvis unfused
(Chiappe 2002; Norell and Clarke 2001)
Did you know that Velociraptor had feathers? As early as 75 million years ago, dinosaurs with feathers were actually present. And Velociraptor was not the first. Neither was Archaeopteryx.
Faultline
DESIGN and Complexity, here is another quote from a scientist!!! who have problems with their own beliefs (p.s. I am not attacking Evolution, I am using the scientists in the field who you read and rely on)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Evolution is not a fraud being perpetrated upon the public, but it is a theory that has far too many problems to be treated as something that everyone is obliged to believe in on pain of being classified as a fool, as if it were the claim that the earth goes around the sun. Its credibility will continue to wane (or wax) with additional developments in biology over the coming years, but the absolute prerequisite for solving this intellectual puzzle is for free debate on the issue to be permitted again. I am quite happy to change my position if new facts come out, and I urge my readers that this is the only rational view."
"The first big problem with evolution is that the fossil record increasingly does not, honestly viewed, support it, a fact that famous Prof. Steven Jay Gould of Harvard has described as "the trade secret of paleontology." Evolutionary theory claims that there once existed a whole series of successive forms of the various organisms alive today. These supposedly changed by infinitesimal amounts with each generation as they evolved into the present varieties, so the fossil record should show these gradual changes. But it doesnt. Instead, it shows the sudden emergence of new species out of nowhere, fully complete with all their characteristics and not changing over time. It is almost entirely devoid of forms that can plausibly be identified as intermediates between older and newer ones. This is popularly known as the "missing link" problem, and it is massively systematic across different species and time periods. Worse, this problem is getting worse, not better, as more fossils are discovered, as the new fossils just resemble those already found and dont fill in the gaps. In Darwin's day, it was easy to claim that the fossils were there but had not been discovered. Problem is, we now have hundreds of thousands of well-catalogued fossils, from all continents and geologic eras, and we still haven't found these intermediate forms."
by Robert Locke http://www.godandscience.org/evolution/locke.htmlThe Scientific Case Against Evolution
Go Vols
By the way, Design implicates a designer. Creation screams of a creator. What other theories are there besides these, you seem not to want to answer this question. If not secular/humanistic and not divine/providential? what is left???? please enlighten me.
Have you looked at the similarities between the ostrich ?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd yes, I have read talk origins articles concerning the matter. Read the conclusion, very interesting????
Here some other quotes for you (again from scientists!!! who still believe this theory / fact???)
Fred Hoyle (British astrophysicist): "A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question."
Paul Davies (British astrophysicist): "There is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all....It seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature’s numbers to make the Universe....The impression of design is overwhelming".
Alan Sandage (winner of the Crawford prize in astronomy): "I find it quite improbable that such order came out of chaos. There has to be some organizing principle. God to me is a mystery but is the explanation for the miracle of existence, why there is something instead of nothing."
Now I know, They probably were having a bad day and considered strawman arguments over a cold brew. Even the guys making this stuff up are now the ones using our strawman arguements against Evolution. So are these gentlemen now in the same league as a ID or creationist?
Here are some more for your reading pleasure:
Vera Kistiakowsky (MIT physicist): "The exquisite order displayed by our scientific understanding of the physical world calls for the divine."
Stephen Hawking (British astrophysicist): "Then we shall… be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason - for then we would know the mind of God."
Arthur L. Schawlow (Professor of Physics at Stanford University, 1981 Nobel Prize in physics): "It seems to me that when confronted with the marvels of life and the universe, one must ask why and not just how. The only possible answers are religious. . . . I find a need for God in the universe and in my own life."
Dont you hate when Science admits design?
Go Vols!
You call that evidence? I call it poetry. These guys are not having a bad day, they are enjoying a moment of poetry. These quotes are not evidence of Creation by God. Scientists aren't robots, they are human. And sometimes they sit back in awe at the way things turned out in the universe, even if they know the nuts and bolts of it. They can still enjoy the beauty of a spiral galaxy or an orchid while understanding the physical principles of how it came to be. In fact, the religious scientist believes that God made the physical laws that built the universe as we know it, but that He still used these physical laws that we are capable of understanding.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou're still not providing evidence for Creationism, you're providing opinions of scientists in a poetic moment. This does not mean that they believe that Evolution or the Big Bang are false. You don't have to be an atheist to be a scientist.
mjknoxville: "Have you looked at the similarities between the ostrich?"
Between the ostrich and what? We need another noun to compare similarities.
From what I understand of the Biblical literalist Creationism idea, 6,000 to 10,000 years ago God made the Earth in six literal 24 hour days from nothing. All life was made at that time. That is, all living things were made from the mind of God, all at the same time, all fully formed with no direct lineage as to how one evolved from another. A horse just looks like a donkey, they are not related.
Then along came this flood from a 40 day rain that covered the entire Earth and killed off all the animals who couldn't swim unless they were in this wooden boat.
Now, is that the belief system you are operating from? This is what I gather as the Biblical Literalist point of view. I've encountered a few people who believe that the book of Genesis is an accurate description of natural science. They believe that the Bible is total fact, to the word, to the comma, no exceptions. For instance, to interpret the "Six Day Creation Event" as six geological eras is to deny that the Bible is literal truth, and therefore you are not faithful to God.
If you throw in with this crowd, a simple "yes" will do. If not, give me your version of Creation. Until now, you're just trying to attack Evolution and have only provided some poetic moments of pure faith and opinion from scientists in place of evidence for God. Time to take a stand and defend it.
Faultline
P.S. It is just too easy to claim to have provided evidence for something when you haven't specifically stated what you're supposed to be arguing for. Get specific, don't be vague, don't waffle. You might think I already know your position, but until you state it specifically, I really don't. Creationists can't even get together on the age of the Earth. There are several versions that come from Creationism. Which one is yours?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAhem... Roll Tide!
Faultline
yes, 6 literal 24 hour days for creation, 40 day flood, 6000 year old Earth, and compare the ostrich to the reptilian features of the archaeopteryx
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGod is soveriegn and is the cause for everything.
Poetry? Reaching are we.... You are dedicated to your cause. That is useful information to know that Stephen Gould is a poet, Hawking what writer of poetry, I will look to see these poets in my sons Biology book in later years. I am sure that is where I will find it?
Is the design of the giraffe's neck (how the heart pumps blood up and down the neck, the valves in the neck,...) the swallowing mechanism in the woodpecker, the formation of a simple protien from amino acids, the design of our universe and the particular placement of the Earth on its axis, the fossil record and many many missing links (horse, no 3.5 of 2.5 hoofed horses found) the nonesistent link between therapods and some birds (switching from cold blooded to warm blooded is highly scientifically unlikely and unprovable and untestable) ,.... any more??? I can go on,
Answer this: What other theories are there if Creation is not the default to Evolution?
To clear up, Intelligent Design does not specifiy the designer, which I have issues with.
Ahem, Go Big Orange
Unrelated, whats the attitude down there regarding the wins being taken away from Shula's days? all we hear is what ESPN reports. We are having our own issues right now.
Food for thought; an appeal to reason:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA quote from G. K. Chesterton's "THE EVERLASTING MAN".
I. The Man in the Cave
Far away in some strange constellation in skies infinitely remote, there is a small star, which astronomers may some day discover. At least I could never observe in the faces or demeanour of most astronomers or men of science any evidence that they have discovered it; though as a matter of fact they were walking about on it all the time. It is a star that brings forth out of itself very strange plants and very strange animals; and none stranger than the men of science. That at least is the way in which I should begin a history of the world, if I had to follow the scientific custom of beginning with an account of the astronomical universe. I should try to see even this earth from the outside, not by the hackneyed insistence of its relative position to the sun, but by some imaginative effort to conceive its remote position for the dehumanised spectator. Only I do not believe in being dehumanised in order to study humanity. I do not believe in dwelling upon the distances that are supposed to dwarf the world; I think there is even something a trifle vulgar about this idea of trying to rebuke spirit by size. And as the first idea is not feasible, that of making the earth a strange planet so as to make it significant, I will not stoop to the other trick of making it a small planet in order to make it insignificant. I would rather insist that we do not even know that it is a planet at all, in the sense in which we know that it is a place; and a very extraordinary place too. That is the note which I wish to strike from the first, if not in the astronomical, then in some more familiar fashion.
One of my first journalistic adventures, or misadventures, concerned a comment on Grant Allen, who had written a book about the Evolution of the Idea of God. I happened to remark that it would be much more interesting if God wrote a book about the evolution of the idea of Grant Allen. And I remember that the editor objected to my remark on the ground that it was blasphemous; which naturally amused me not a little. For the joke of it was, of course, that it never occurred to him to notice the title of the book itself, which really was blasphemous; for it was, when translated into English, 'I will show you how this nonsensical notion that there is God grew up among men.' My remark was strictly pious and proper confessing the divine purpose even in its most seemingly dark or meaningless manifestations. In that hour I learned many things, including the fact that there is something purely acoustic in much of that agnostic sort of reverence. The editor had not seen the point, because in the title of the book the long word came at the beginning and the short word at the end; whereas in my comments the short word came at the beginning and gave him a sort of shock. I have noticed that if you put a word like God into the same sentence with a word like dog, these abrupt and angular words affect people like pistol-shots. Whether you say that God made the dog or the dog made God does not seem to matter; that is only one of the sterile disputations of the too subtle theologians. But so long as you begin with a long word like evolution the rest will roll harmlessly past; very probably the editor had not read the whole of the title, for it is rather a long title and he was rather a busy man.
But this little incident has always lingered in my mind as a sort of parable. Most modern histories of mankind begin with the word evolution, and with a rather wordy exposition of evolution, for much the same reason that operated in this case. There is something slow and soothing and gradual about the word and even about the idea. As a matter of fact, it is not, touching these primary things, a very practical word or a very profitable idea. Nobody can imagine how nothing could turn into something. Nobody can get an inch nearer to it by explaining how something could turn into something else. It is really far more logical to start by saying 'In the beginning God created heaven and earth' even if you only mean 'In the beginning some unthinkable power began some unthinkable process.' For God is by its nature a name of mystery, and nobody ever supposed that man could imagine how a world was created any more than he could create one. But evolution really is mistaken for explanation. It has the fatal quality of leaving on many minds the impression that they do understand it and everything else; just as many of them live under a sort of illusion that they have read the Origin of Species.
But this notion of something smooth and slow, like the ascent of a slope, is a great part of the illusion. It is an illogicality as well as an illusion; for slowness has really nothing to do with the question. An event is not any more intrinsically intelligible or unintelligible because of the pace at which it moves. For a man who does not believe in a miracle, a slow miracle would be just as incredible as a swift one. The Greek witch may have turned sailors to swine with a stroke of the wand. But to see a naval gentleman of our acquaintance looking a little more like a pig every day, till he ended with four trotters and a curly tail, would not be any more soothing. It might be rather more creepy and uncanny. The medieval wizard may have flown through the air from the top of a tower; but to see an old gentleman walking through the air, in a leisurely and lounging manner, would still seem to call for some explanation. Yet there runs through all the rationalistic treatment of history this curious and confused idea that difficulty is avoided, or even mystery eliminated, by dwelling on mere delay or on something dilatory in the processes of things. There will be something to be said upon particular examples elsewhere; the question here is the false atmosphere of facility and ease given by the mere suggestion of going slow; the sort of comfort that might be given to a nervous old woman travelling for the first time in a motor-car.
Okay good. What scientific evidence can you provide that supports the claim that all life on Earth was created in full body 6,000 years ago?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFaultline
Food for thought:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn 1997 an eight-year research project was started to investigate the age of the earth. The group was called the RATE group (Radioisotopes and the Age of The Earth). The team of scientists included:
Larry Vardiman, PhD Atmospheric Science
Russell Humphreys, PhD Physics
Eugene Chaffin, PhD Physics
John Baumgardner, PhD Geophysics
Donald DeYoung, PhD Physics
Steven Austin, PhD Geology
Andrew Snelling, PhD Geology
Steven Boyd, PhD Hebraic and Cognate Studies
The objective was to gather data commonly ignored or censored by evolutionary standards of dating. The scientists reviewed the assumptions and procedures used in estimating the ages of rocks and fossils. The results of the carbon-14 dating demonstrated serious problems for long geologic ages. For example, a series of fossilized wood samples that conventionally have been dated according to their host strata to be from Tertiary to Permian (40-250 million years old) all yielded significant, detectable levels of carbon-14 that would conventionally equate to only 30,000-45,000 years “ages” for the original trees.8 Similarly, a survey of the conventional radiocarbon journals resulted in more than forty examples of supposedly ancient organic materials, including limestones, that contained carbon-14, as reported by leading laboratories.9
Samples were then taken from ten different coal layers that, according to evolutionists, represent different time periods in the geologic column (Cenozoic, Mesozoic, and Paleozoic). The RATE group obtained these ten coal samples from the U.S. Department of Energy Coal Sample Bank, from samples collected from major coalfields across the United States. The chosen coal samples, which dated millions to hundreds of millions of years old based on standard evolution time estimates, all contained measurable amounts of 14C. In all cases, careful precautions were taken to eliminate any possibility of contamination from other sources. Samples, in all three “time periods”, displayed significant amounts of 14C. This is a significant discovery. Since the half-life of 14C is relatively short (5,730 years), there should be no detectable 14C left after about 100,000 years. The average 14C estimated age for all the layers from these three time periods was approximately 50,000 years. However, using a more realistic pre-Flood 14C /12C ratio reduces that age to about 5,000 years.
These results indicate that the entire geologic column is less than 100,000 years old—and could be much younger. This confirms the Bible and challenges the evolutionary idea of long geologic ages.
Because the lifetime of C-14 is so brief, these AMS [Accelerator Mass Spectrometer] measurements pose an obvious challenge to the standard geological timescale that assigns millions to hundreds of millions of years to this part of the rock layer.10
Another noteworthy observation from the RATE group was the amount of 14C found in diamonds. Secular scientists have estimated the ages of diamonds to be millions to billions of years old using other radiometric dating methods. These methods are also based on questionable assumptions and are discussed elsewhere11. Because of their hardness, diamonds (the hardest known substance) are extremely resistant to contamination through chemical exchange. Since diamonds are considered to be so old by evolutionary standards, finding any 14C in them would be strong support for a recent creation.
The RATE group analyzed twelve diamond samples for possible carbon-14 content. Similar to the coal results, all twelve diamond samples contained detectable, but lower levels of 14C. These findings are powerful evidence that coal and diamonds cannot be the millions or billions of years old that evolutionists claim. Indeed, these RATE findings of detectable 14C in diamonds have been confirmed independently.12 Carbon-14 found in fossils at all layers of the geologic column, in coal and in diamonds, is evidence which confirms the biblical timescale of thousands of years and not billions.
Because of C-14’s short half-life, such a finding would argue that carbon and probably the entire physical earth as well must have a recent origin.13
Yet another G. K. Chesterton bombshell presented to a candid world:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDoubts About Darwinism
by G. K. Chesterton
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally published in The Illustrated London News, 17th July 1920
(Source: G. K. Chesterton, Collected Works, Volume XXXII,
The Illustrated London News 1920-1922,
Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1989. Pages 55-59.)
Since objections have been raised against remarks of mine, here and elsewhere, on the subject of science and the system of evolution, I feel it may be fair to acknowledge them here by explaining my meaning more fully. To begin with, of course, I am confronted with a very reasonable retort that I know nothing about the subject. I am not a biologist; I am not even the most amateur sort of naturalist. There is a not unnatural disposition to remark on this fact, when I use phrases indicating that the Darwinian idea has suffered defeat. It is true, and it would be equally true if I ventured to throw out the suggestion that the Kaiser has suffered a defeat. If I were to insinuate that the armies of the German Empire were ultimately out-manoeuvred and forced to a surrender, it might be said that I was wholly ignorant of the technical strategy of soldiering, and did not know what half the manoeuvres meant; and this would be perfectly true. I am sorry to say that I was unable to be a soldier; and I am very glad to say that I refused to be a critic of the details of soldiering. Or again, if I dared to hint that there is now a rather difficult financial situation, that prices are rather high and housing rather hard, I might be reminded that I am not an expert in financial matters; that I am not a professor of political economy, or even a close student of political economy. And this also would be quite true. I am sorry to say I am not an economist; and I very glad I am not a financier. But these cases alone will be sufficient to suggest, to anybody of the smallest commonsense, that there is a fallacy somewhere in the simple argument that only an expert in detail can perceive that there is a difficulty, or declare that there is a defeat.
Now, I will roughly arrange in order the facts of common knowledge that seem to me to support my conclusions as a matter of common-sense. First of all, there is something that will be very suggestive to anybody with a sense of human nature; I mean the tone of the Darwinians themselves. We may well begin with the first and greatest of the Darwinians. Huxley said, in his later years, that Darwin's suggestion had never been shown to be inconsistent with any new discovery; and anybody acquainted with the atmosphere will be struck by the singular note of negation in that. When Huxley began to write, he certainly expected that, by the end of his life, Darwin' suggestion would have been confirmed by a crowd of positive discoveries. Now nobody talks of it at present as a settled scientific law. Even the critic who complained of my own remark called Darwinism a "hypothesis," and admitted that it had been "profoundly modified." And he added the very singular and significant phrase: that the Darwinian hypotheses was still "that most sound at bottom." If anyone does not hear the negative note in that, I think he does not know the sound of human voice. In short, this Darwinian is already on the defensive, as even Huxley, at an earlier stage and in a lesser degree, was already on the defensive. There is evidently, at least, a subconscious disappointment that the hypothesis is still a hypothesis at all. Putting aside the positive points made against it, it ought long ago to have had a hundred positive points made for it. The one out of that hundred which Huxley did try to make, the genealogy of the horse, will be found on examination to be singularly slender and shaky. My concern for the moment, however, is only with a certain controversial tone; the tone of a gentleman who remarked to me, in a stoic and almost tragic voice: "I am the Last Darwinian." I do not for a moment suggest that these Darwinians are no longer Darwinians. But if this is how the Darwinians talk while they are still Darwinians, how do you suppose the anti-Darwinians are talking?
Next I will take another suggestion. I will take the instances selected in order to expound the hypothesis, by those who are still content to expound it. There is always a conscious or unconscious effort of selection. And it is by no means a Natural Selection. It is generally, in spite of the phrase that is their motto, a very unnatural selection. The simple and natural thing to do, if you think you can explain biological variations, is to explain the variations where they are most obviously varied. If you were explaining to a child, for instance, you would take things like the horn of the rhinoceros or the hump of the dromedary. In fact, you would give a correct and scientific version of the "Just-So Stories." And so they would, if they had anything more correct and scientific than the "Just-So Stories." But these horns and humps, these high outstanding features of variation, are exactly the things that are generally not chosen for examples, and not explained by this universal explanation. And the truth is that it is very often precisely these obvious things that the explanation cannot explain. In almost every case it may be noticed that the exponent, consciously or unconsciously, selects one single and special case of his own, as Huxley selected the horse; the one case in which he thinks, or hopes, that the hypothesis really WILL hold water.
Thus Mr. H. G. Wells, in his wonderfully interesting and valuable "Outline of History," takes one unnaturally simplified case of the growing of fur, or the change of the color of fur. He then implies that all other cases of natural selection are of the same kind. But they are not of the same kind, but of an exceedingly different and even opposite kind. If fur protects from cold, the longer fur will be a protection in the stronger cold. But any fur will be a protection in any cold. Any fur will be better than no fur; any fur will serve some of the purposes of fur. But it is not certain that any horn is better than no horn; it is very far from certain that any hump is better than no hump. It is very far from obvious that the first rudimentary suggestion of a horn, the first faint thickening which might lead through countless generations to the growth of a horn, would be of any particular use as a horn. And we must suppose, on the Darwinian hypothesis, that the hornless animal reached his horn through unthinkable gradations of what were, for all practical purposes, hornless animal. Why should one rhinoceros be so benevolent a Futurist as to start an improvement that could only help some much later rhinoceros to survive? And why on earth should its mere foreshadowing help the earlier rhinoceros to survive? This thesis can only explain variations when they discreetly refrain from varying very much. To the real riddles that arrest the eye, it has no answer that can satisfy the intelligence. For any child or man with his eyes open, I imagine, there is no creature that really calls for an answer, like a living riddle, so clearly as the bat. But if you will call up the Darwinian vision, of thousands of intermediary creatures with webbed feet that are not yet wings, their survival will seem incredible. A mouse can run, and survive; and a flitter-mouse can fly, and survive. But a creature that cannot yet fly, and can no longer run, ought obviously to have perished, by the very Darwinian doctrine which has to assume that he survived.
There are many other signs of this confession of failure, for which I have hardly left myself space. There is a chorus of Continental doubts; there is a multitude of destructive criticisms with which alone I could fill this article, even from my own very loose and general reading. But I will add a third reason of the same more general sort. The Darwinians have this mark of fighters for a lost cause, that they are perpetually appealing to sentiment and to authority. Put your bat or your rhinoceros simply and innocently as a child might put them, before the Darwinian, and he will answer by an appeal to authority. He will probably answer with the names of various German professors; he will not answer with any ordinary English words, explaining the point at issue. God condescended to argue with Job, but the last Darwinian will not condescend to argue with you. He will inform you of your ignorance; he will not enlighten your ignorance.
And I will add this point of merely personal experience of humanity: when men have a real explanation they explain it, eagerly and copiously and in common speech, as Huxley freely gave it when he thought he had it. When they have no explanation to offer, they give short dignified replies, disdainful of the ignorance of the multitude.
=== End ==
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Up to G.K.Chesterton's Works on the Web.
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Last modified: 30th October 2006
Martin Ward, Software Technology Research Lab, De Montfort University, Leicester.
Email: martin@gkc.org.uk
(Faultline strikes a match to provide light after massive walls of text rose from nowhere, blocking out the sunlight.)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOkay, I believe all of this is irrelevant to my question, including your article about carbon dating methods, mjknoxville. Maybe my little three lines of text got lost in the article forest. So I'll ask again.
What scientific evidence can you provide that supports the claim that all life on Earth was created in full body 6,000 years ago?
I'll put a pin in your article on carbon dating and get back to it later. I have some things to say about it, but I'll need to find a flashlight and some time to gather a little data.
Faultline
mjknoxville... Okay, I'll make it simple (simpler). Can you provide any evidence that all life was created all at the same time, in full body form. Forget about the time frame. It doesn't matter if it was six, six thousand, six million or six billion years ago.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJust provide some evidence that all life was created at the same time in full body form from nothing. Then we might have something to talk about.
Faultline
Faultline for your consideration, ahem Go Vols
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGravity is roughly 1039 times weaker than electromagnetism. If gravity had been merely 1033 times weaker than electromagnetism, stars would be a billion times less massive and would burn a million times faster. Leslie, page 5.
The nuclear weak force is 1028 times the strength of gravity. Had the weak force been slightly weaker, all the hydrogen in the universe would have been turned to helium (making water impossible, for example). Leslie, page 24. Leslie got this information from P.C. W. Davies, 1980 (Other Worlds), pp. 176-177.
"A stronger nuclear strong force (by as little as 2 percent) would have prevented the formation of protons, --yielding a universe without atoms. Decreasing it by 5 percent would have given us a universe without stars." Leslie, page 4, quoting Hawking, Physics Bulleting: Cambridge, vol. 32, 1980, pp 9-10.
The charges of the electron and proton have been measured in the laboratory and have been found to be precisely equal and opposite. Were it not for this fact the resulting imbalance would force every object in the universe--our bodies, trees, planets, rocks, stars, to explode violently. The Universe would consist solely of a uniform and tenuous mixture not so very different from air. There would be nothing else. Greenstein's "The Symbiotic Universe."
The very nature of water--so vital to life--is something of a mystery. Unique among the molecules water is lighter in its solid form than its liquid form: Ice floats. If it did not, the oceans would freeze from the bottom up and Earth would be covered with solid ice. This property is traceable to unique properties of the hydrogen atom. Leslie, p 30, quoting Barrow and Tipler pp 143-144. CF Debtys Wilkinson, Our Universes (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), pp 171-172.
The synthesis of carbon--the vital core of all organic molecules--on a significant scale involves what scientists view as an astonishing coincidence in the ratio of the strong force to electromagnetism. This ratio makes it possible for carbon-12 to reach an excited state of exactly 7.65 MeV at the temperature typical of the center of stars, which creates a resonance involving helium-4. beryllium-8 and carbon-12--allowing the necessary binding to take place during a tiny window of opportunity 10-17 seconds long." Wilkinson, pp 181-183. See also John Gribbon and Martin Rees, Cosmic Coincidences (New York: Bantam, 1989 pp. 243-247.
A remarkable feature of the Universe is its emptiness. Stars are extraordinarily distant from one another. However, were it not for these vast reaches of empty space, violent collisions between stars would be so frequent as to render the Universe uninhabitable. The yet more frequent near misses would detach planets from their orbits around their suns, flinging them off into interstellar space where they would quickly cool to hundreds of degrees below zero. Greenstein's, "The Symbiotic Universe.
What's this about magnetism? I asked you for evidence that all life was created at the same time in their current forms. You're avoiding my question.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFaultline
No, I am working on it. Just thought this info is good for proof of a Creator.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSpeaking of avoiding questions, What other alternatives are there if Evolution is not true, and Creation is not true?
What other alternatives are there?
The answer to your question is "I don't know." But that does not mean that none exist. You cannot claim there are only two possibilities simply because no one can think of a third.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn fact, there are no known scientific alternatives to Evolution. That is how solid the theory is. Creationism has nowhere near the foundation of Evolution and all the attempts so far to build it are weak at best.
So I don't know what other possibilities exist. But I deny anyone's ability to claim there are only two. That is completely illogical and the result of ignorance.
But anyway, I'm not going to stray from the main subject at hand. What evidence do you have that all creatures in their current form were created all at once?
Faultline
Faultline, lets go with this:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1. Comets in our solar system, most scientist agree that most comets have a a life of 10,000 years, and some are losing material still. If Evolution is true, and the Earth and all around it are Billions of years old, why do we still have comets? Why are they present and seen in the sky even today. Please do not use the Oort Cloud theory as it has been disproven.
2. Jupiter is cooling off still. If our system is Billions of years old, should it not be cold by now.
3. The moon is slowly moving away from us about an inch a year, with the Earth being BILLIONS of years old, why is the moon still around? How close was this moon only 1.4 Billion years ago? It would have been touching, ride the waves man!!!
4. The Earth rotation is slowing down, with the the Earth being BILLIONS???? of years old how fast was it going to start with and who could survive the speed, days and nights would have been quick.
5. Saturns rings are expanding away? where would they be if the Universe is BILLIONS and BILLIONS and BILLIONS of years old?
6. Explain Super Novas with the average star life of 30 years? and why are there less than 300 Super Novas? Should be more than a 100 million or more.
7. Oil, how does Evolution explain why we still find large deposits of Oil if the Earth is billions of years old. The pressure holding the Oil under ground can only stand so much before it is forced to the surface (not to mention the amount of years of pressure 20,000 PSI).
Just something to chew on for a billion years or so and wonder why our Universe screams of a young age. Next we will discuss the trees found that are supposedly billions of years old??? I would like to buy one. We will also revisit Carbon Dating and talk about the deserts and the North and South Poles. You up for it?
Ahem, Go Vols
Mark
This is the first of three answers regarding your question of proof of a young Earth.
Oh, one more thing, If the Big Bang is true, why is the matter not evenly distributed? Who or what caused the Bang? and why does nothing produce something again in this crazy world???
Lets face it, any suggestion made to the Earth being Billions of years old is at best conjecture.
This is all goofy stuff that is elementary creationist tripe. You're ignoring my question.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat evidence do you have that all creatures -- in their current form, including all the extinct ones -- were created all at once?
Faultline
But since you're not likely to produce any evidence that all fully formed species were created all at the same time...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJust for kicks...
1. Who disproved the Oort Cloud hypothesis? Surely this has been done in writing, and not just rumor. Name, date, publication journal title, if you please.
2. Jupiter radiates more heat than it receives from the sun. It isn't cooling, it is generating heat.
3. You can do basic math, right? The moon is about 250,000 miles apart and getting farther at one inch per year. Rewind time. Rounding up to be generous,1 inch per year comes to 16 miles in one million years. 16 miles in one million years equals 16,000 miles in one billion years. 16,000 miles is 6.4% of its current distance, so a billion years ago, it wasn't even 7% closer. 3 billion years ago, it was 20% closer. That's still 200,000 miles away three billion years ago.
4. More math. Use a calculator. The Earth's rotation slows at .005 seconds "per year, per year". This means that each year is .005 seconds shorter than the last year (not that each day is shorter by .005 seconds every year). Rewind time 4.6 billion years and you get a 14-hour day. Hold on tight.
5. You know, I've never heard the claim that Saturn's rings are expanding and I don't know at what rate. I'd venture to say that the misunderstanding is similar to claims of #4 or #5. Saturn's rings are pretty damn big right now. They're almost 600,000 miles in diameter, 20 times the diameter of our planet.
6. I didn't know stars had an average life of 30 years. Oh wait, I think you made a mistake. I found an article saying that supernovae occur about every 40 years (+/- 10 years) in our galaxy. Well, the remnants don't stick around forever. They fade like any explosion. Further, large amounts of dust and gas in our galaxy tend to block off great portions of our deep space viewing arc, and will hide many supernovae and their remnants from us.
7. Not all oil has been in the Earth for 4 billion years. Some of it has only been there for a few hundred million or so. Much oil is trapped below nonporus rock of considerable strength in geologically stable areas. So it goes nowhere. Oil in shallow pools may have arrived from prehistoric earthquakes that forced it there.
I'm not interested in going any further with this argument if it includes more crap like this. You didn't even do the basic math to discover that #4 (the Moon's recession) is a load of b/s. You could have done that yourself, but you chose not to.
Why?
From Nasa, do this count?????
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGet your facts straight about Jupiter!
Jupiter is still losing the heat produced when it became a planet. Most astronomers believe that the sun, the planets, and all the other bodies in the solar system formed from a spinning cloud of gas and dust. The gravitation of the gas and dust particles packed them together into dense clouds and solid chunks of material. By about 4.6 billion years ago, the material had squeezed together to form the various bodies in the solar system. The compression of material produced heat. So much heat was produced when Jupiter formed that the planet still radiates about twice as much heat into space as it receives from sunlight
http://www.nasa.gov/worldbook/jupiter_worldbook.html
I will have a quote for you from Carl Sagan (has to be your hero) regarding the Oort cloud.
Billions and Billions and Billions and Billions ......
From the late Carl Sagan:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMany scientific papers are written each year about the Oort Cloud, its properties, its origin, its evolution. Yet there is not yet a shred of direct observational evidence for its existence"
From the book "Comets" page 201 1985
I am sure this is just poetry or prose right?
More on the Oort Cloud, or more poetry, as you like to say that some scientist are just pondering the universe. I am sure he meant to say that the Oort cloud really is good science, he just could not find the poetic inspiration to say so?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSince it cannot be detected, the Oort cloud is not a scientific concept. This is not bad science, but non-science masquerading as science
Danny Faulkner, Ph.D. Astronomy, Technical Journal, More Problems for the Oort Comet Cloud , 2001, p. 11.
I am working on the rest of your rebuttals as well keep my promise to have you explain a million and billion year old tree(s).
On the Nasa comment, Iwould beg to differ on their timeline.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA couple of other facts to check out, if you can find where science has observed a star forming let me know. We would still have more SuperNovas than what we have now if the Solar System is 4.6 Billion years? old. The notion of action in other systems is not relevant to our discussion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI also have statements from Evolutionary believing scientists who question the validity of the Big Bang or something similar to it, would you like to read that "poetry" as well?
The reason I use poetry is of an earlier comment you made about statements by the late Jay Gould.
Science or Belief?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor several years after receiving my science degree I was challenged to produce any (even ONE) physically demonstrable (testable) example sufficient to qualify Darwinian evolution as a well tested "scientific" hypothesis worthy of being qualified as a "scientific theory".
After more that two years of diligent search, including many requests to established evolutionary believers, NO such evidence was provided ... and further investigation ultimately brought me to seriously question undirected, natural biological evolution. Does anyone out there know of any such "testable" (or even mathematical) evidence that mutation and natural selection can produce any new basic organ or structure in a living organism (faster than they are degraded or destroyed) as postulated and required by Darwinism? If not, does this not make evolution an "untested" hypothesis rather than a proper "scientific" theory?
The popular media often portrays the creation vs. evolution debate as science vs. religion, with creation being religious and evolution being scientific. In an ironic twist, it's the creationists who have a solid empirical basis for their theory, while the evolutionists are left clinging to their convictions by faith.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisconversechica
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"In an ironic twist, it's the creationists who have a solid empirical basis for their theory"
According to my dictionary "empirical" is almost the opposite of "scientific" . So I would say you are totally correct here. Except that in the scientific world "theory" has a specific meaning,something with an "empirical basis" is the antithesis of a scientific theory.
Wordsmith
" Does anyone out there know of any such "testable" (or even mathematical) evidence that mutation and natural selection can produce any new basic organ or structure in a living organism (faster than they are degraded or destroyed) as postulated and required by Darwinism? If not, does this not make evolution an "untested" hypothesis rather than a proper "scientific" theory? "
"faster than they are degraded or destroyed"
I fail to see the relevence of this. or your statement in general.
Are you sayng that "mutations and natural selection" must take place in a living organism , and before the organism dies ?
A science degree and you believe this to be a scientific premise. ?
Doesn't say much for your college.
mjknoxville
"A couple of other facts to check out, if you can find where science has observed a star forming let me know."
Where are these facts ?
"We would still have more SuperNovas than what we have now if the Solar System is 4.6 Billion years? old. "
Why ? - What has the age of the solar system got to do with the production of sypernovae ?
(No facts so far)
"The notion of action in other systems is not relevant to our discussion. "
(still no factsr)
"I also have statements from Evolutionary believing scientists who question the validity of the Big Bang or something similar to it"
What has belief in evolution got to do with the big bang.?
What exactly do you mean by "question the validity of "
Do you mean they believe it didn't happen or what ?
Several scientists who believe in evolution have questioned the big bang.
Some believed in the "steady state" of the universe
My question is - SO what?
So I fail to see the "couple of facts" you want us to check out.
re your post 7/15
Briefly
1) "most scientist agree comets have a life of 10000 years" - rubbish
"Why are they present and seen in the sky even today"
Why have you assumed that they are no longer being produced.?
.
2. Jupiter is cooling off still. If our system is Billions of years old, should it not be cold by now.
Why do you think it should be cold? Have you not heard of Boyles law. (compress gases they become hotter). Have you any idea how many comets/asteroids/meteors have crashed into it, all adding their energy ?(I haven't)
3. The moon is slowly moving away from us about an inch a year, with the Earth being BILLIONS of years old, why is the moon still around? How close was this moon only 1.4 Billion years ago? It would have been touching, ride the waves man!!!
Pathetic - you cant even use a calculator
And you make assumptions - Who says the moon has ALWAYS orbited the earth?
4. "The Earth rotation is slowing down, with the the Earth being BILLIONS???? of years old how fast was it going to start with and who could survive the speed, days and nights would have been quick."
You are saying the earth is young because of earths rotation ?. YOU supply YOUR figures and prove it.
5. "Saturns rings are expanding away? "
So what.?
6. " Explain Super Novas with the average star life of 30 years? and why are there less than 300 Super Novas? "
300 - You mean we have, observed, or are observing 300 ? Whats that ? - over how many years ?. How many do YOU expect to see/ year ?
"Should be more than a 100 million or more."
Again - what do you mean ?- That we should be able to see 100 million AT THIS TIME, or what?
Why should there be 100 million or more, or is this just a random number ?
Lets fact it there is mountains of evidence that the world is billions of years old
IF YOU want to contest this age then by all means present YOUR evidence.
By all means bring up C14 dating or whatever dating method you wish
Lets face it, any suggestion made to the Earth being thousands of years old is at best rubbish.
mjknoxville
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJust read a long post you made 6/19 re C14 dating
Very interesting - but stupid
A half life c6000 ( fro C14) years means after 60000 years only 1/1000 of original c14 would remain
After 150000 years only 3 MILLIONTHS of 1% of the original C14 would remain
After 210000 years only 3 BILLIONTHS of 1% of the original would remain
You would have to have a LOT of carbon to be able to measure accurately to 1 part in 300 BILLION, This is far beyond the accuracy of ANY measuring system, and we haven't got even close to 1 millions years old.
( Trying to carry out any measurements is like trying to measure microseconds using a sand eggtimer. ANY answer you get is meaningless.)
To try to measure age of ANYTHING with an age even SUSPECTED of being older than 60000 years using C14 dating is a waste of time and proves NOTHING. except that whoever is doing so is an idiot.
"Food for thought" you said
You sure didn't think about it.
I echo Faultlines question
"What scientific evidence can you provide that supports the claim that all life on Earth was created in full body 6,000 years ago?
Are you saying that you believe that the universe was created 6,000 years ago?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat I really wanted to say (to any creationist that believes the universe was created 6,000 years ago) is that why would a god that has existed forever wait until just 6,000 years ago to create the universe - ie this planet, and Mankind, and all other life-forms, etc? And if - as I assume creationists agree - Man is the only species capable of (potentially) believing in god, would that god wait all of eternity up until 6,000 years ago to create Man?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI should just add that I know quite a few people that believe in 'God' (mostly from a spiritual perspective as opposed to a religious perspective), but none of them believe in the biblical version of creation, and they know it is just allegorical. In fact, most of them don't have any time for the bible, full stop.
I'll always remember when I was about fifteen or so and starting to think about 'the world, the universe and everything', my Grandmother telling me about one of her sisters who was a real religious fanatic who prayed every day and went to church several times a week and read the bible all the time - and this is the key point - thought/believed that anyone and everyone who DIDN'T (pray every day and go to church regularly, etc) was evil and damned and would go to hell. Talk about hypocricy! But it seems to me that the fundamentalists - the creationists - are well on their way to saying the same about the evolutionists. Scary!
easy. believe that this god fellow is merely watching the creation of the universe and toiling with unsuspecting womens' wombs when they least expect it. :) hehe i'm an atheist.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOkay so there is no scientific evidence that intelligent design happened or that this god fellow even exists. My quarrell with this is that if we can't prove the guy that supposedly created the universe exists, or how he did it from a scientific standpoint, how can we teach it scientifically? I mean did he summon subatomic particles to create the elements and then place them together to create things or was it more like a bewitched brand of creation where he wiggled his nose? If everything else in the science classroom is based on knowing exactly how things work at the most basic level, then the theory of intelligent design should have to stand up to the same standards and it cannot. And if for some reason we agree to teach this nonsense that the intellectually inferior and logically illiterate theists believe to be true, then why should we not also suggest Greek mythology's creation story, and any other creation story ever written? They are just as likely to be true as the christian creation story. I only wish this was a more current topic :).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisalmost doesn't count :)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo me it is clear that "objectively presenting the scientific strengths and weaknesses of Darwinian theory" is blatantly reasonable, scientific and educationally sound.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe "self correcting" aspect of science that is very prevalant in these comments is brought about by QUESTIONING existing thinking.
What is the problem of questioning or looking skeptically at evolution? If the evidence is as rock solid as we are led to believe it will speak for itself.
I am disturbed by the lack of critical examination of evolution. Consider the following quote.
“Much of the vast neo-Darwinian literature is distressingly uncritical.
The possibility that anything is seriously amiss with Darwin's account of evolution is hardly considered.
Such dissent as there is often relies on theistic premises which Darwinists rightly say have no place in the evaluation of scientific theories. So onlookers are left with the impression that there is little or nothing about Darwin's theory to which a scientific naturalist could reasonably object.
The methodological scepticism that characterises most areas of scientific discourse seems strikingly absent when Darwinism is the topic.”
New Scientist: Survival of the fittest theory: Darwinism's limits
03 February 2010 by Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini
I don't understand this panic about evolution, why is everyone so worried, is public consensus so important to evolutionists that it colours research?. This would not happen in any other branch of science, truth is truth, no matter what the populace thinks or believes. All this anxiety and fearmongering is placing doubts in peoples minds, unless the evidence for evolution is so weak we need to be afraid. Ultimately the truth will reveal itself as was the case when we actually took photographic images of this planet from space, disproving once and for all that the planet was flat.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBig bang is creation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm an Italian high school student, so, first of all, you have to forgive me if my English is not quite good...anyway, I'd like to participate to this debate, because I've found it very interesting.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm an atheist person, so I don't support the Creationism theory at all. I don't know exactly how your school work, but in my country we can choose if attending or not Religion lessons. Even if, in my opinion, everybody is free to believe in what he wants, I think it's impossible to teach ID as the truth: We should consider that, nowadays, we live in multiethnic cities/countries, so, we mustn't forget that Christian religion is not the only one in the world!!
I want to end up remembering that if we can fight several diseases, if we can save human life - sure- is not about religion...
It's sad that some Christians are so ignorant and egotistical. I'm a Christian, but I believe in evolution and creation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo, that's not contradictory. It's all in the interpretation. Too many interpret the Bible one way and automatically treat their interpretation as "truth," rather than the Bible. To them, there interpretation is the Bible.
Ego gets in the way. But ego is an equal-opportunity destroyer. It gets scientists too, and too often. As a scientist, it dismays me to see ridicule creep into a discussion. Such subjective and self-indulgent behavior is destructive on both sides of any discussion. "Clovis first" is only one example of behavior unbecoming of a scientist.
I hate the idea of one faction of Christianity creating a ruling body that tells everyone else what to think and how to think it. We've had too many hundreds of years of this already. That the Texas school board could rewrite America's textbooks with a creep toward Creationism I find appalling.
The solution may be far simpler than most realize. My own exegetical research has turned up a biblical timeline compatible with those of science. Even the date for Noah's Flood (whatever that metaphorical or actual event represents), 27,970 BC, points to a very logical reason for the Flood. A reason (a crime) that was cured by the Flood.
Even the new date for Adam is compatible with the current age of humanity (200,000 years).
If more members of the Texas school board were to buy into such a timeline and were to practice good Christian humility, we wouldn't have this problem. But swallowing ego isn't easy. Changing beliefs is difficult when ego is attached to them.
Rod Martin, Jr.
Cebu, Philippines, by way of Texas
http://www.the-Love-of-God.com
http://www.GenesisCode.net