+1 for Evolution!

[sharpies]

Funny, I always thought that evolution must have started on a Wednesday or Thursday, you know you get past the shithole that is Monday & then the okayness that is Tuesday until by the middle of the week, things are starting to look up, nobody ever starts a major project on a Friday, so yep, Wednesday or Thursday.

Oh yeah, by the way, can you just show me where my immortal soul is, after all it might be good to know if I have an accident & need to lose some internal organs - hate for the doctor to accidently remove my immortal soul.

Allan

 

[BreakfastSurreal]

I believe in Intelligent Design theory.

 

[Scooter]

Your soul is what makes the difference between your living body now and your boy after you die. Of course when your heart stops pounding and all other vital organs cease to work then of course you die and your soul, which is your body's animating principle, will leave you. Your next question would be where does it go. That's a long one and I will post on it when I have a free afternoon.

 

[sharpies]

I don't want to know where my soul goes when I die - besides my soul now belongs to Lemon (just like everyone else on Offtopicz, unless, of course you crossed your fingers every time you read one of his replies) - I want to know where my soul is now!

Allan

 

[Peter Parka]

Never understood all that soul floating off to heaven stuff.:confused If you see an old woman struggling with her shopping and say "poor old soul" are you talking about the bit of her that floats off somewhere? No, you are talking about her physical being!

 

[IntruderLS1]

This debate is one of choice of faith. Nothing more. Christians and intelligent design people have faith that God is the creator. Atheists have faith that the universe began in a multitude of ways except via a creator.

There is arguably equal scientific proof for both camps of faith. I find it interesting that a 2000 year old document cannot be disproved by modern science. The oldest book of the Bible even describes a round earth hanging in space.

Nobody ever talks much about the missing link anymore, and I find that interesting. People have this image of the missing link being one guy who lived millions of years ago who was half monkey, half man. But the reality is that there should be far more skeletal remains of "missing links" than of current animals and humans. All the mammals that have lived and died over 60 million years would I'm sure be a larger number than are currently alive.

There have been university and medical studies on prayers. Several reputable scientific groups have come to the conclusion that for an "unknown reason" individuals who are prayed over recover more quickly than those who are not. Studies have been done with and without placebo.

It makes for interesting reading if anybody is interested.

 

[Sneakiecat]

Nobody ever talks much about the missing link anymore, and I find that interesting. People have this image of the missing link being one guy who lived millions of years ago who was half monkey, half man. But the reality is that there should be far more skeletal remains of "missing links" than of current animals and humans. All the mammals that have lived and died over 60 million years would I'm sure be a larger number than are currently alive.

Sure, there would be plenty of fossil evidence if every animal or human died in a location that help preserve them. It's quite difficult to make a fossil so it's not that hard to think that they wouldn't just be hanging out in the open or buried a few feet under the ground.

 

[Scooter]

In my view, science completely wipes away the requirement for a God, so there can't be both. I know that there are a lot of scientists who say that God started the ball rolling & then sat back watching & guiding but I'm not buying it.

I must admit I cannot understand how you can pick & choose bits out of the Bible that you like & say I believe in these, but I don't believe in the other bits. Either the Bible is the word of God & therefore all of it is holy or it is not the word of God & therefore complete & utter crap.

Allan

From the above qoute: there are a lot of scientists who say that God started the ball rolling and then sat back watching and guiding... That could be true.

Good point Allan, you're right about the Bible... all true or all not true. Truth or fiction. I believe that it is all truth.

 

[IntruderLS1]

Sure, there would be plenty of fossil evidence if every animal or human died in a location that help preserve them. It's quite difficult to make a fossil so it's not that hard to think that they wouldn't just be hanging out in the open or buried a few feet under the ground.

Very true, but now tell me the odds of the fossils that do remain ALL being of an identifiable species?

Do only fully evolved mamals die in fossile friendly mud? :tongue:

 

[Chimera]

Very true, but now tell me the odds of the fossils that do remain ALL being of an identifiable species?

I am hopeful you are kidding here.....but just in case. The fossils found are all unidentified, until placed into a designated family through investigation and classification. This process is essentially what the science is all about in the first place, and is one of the foundations of Evolutionary Theory.

Do only fully evolved mamals die in fossile friendly mud? :tongue:

There are no "Fully Evolved" mammals, as this would be counter-intuative to the very premis of Evolution in the first place. Indeed, we as humans are not fully evolved, and never will be unless the species becomes extinct. I might recommend a bit more study on the basics of anthropology, and perhaps Paleontology before you try to debunk something you are unfamiliar with.

 

[sharpies]

Evolutionary scientists gave up looking for "missing links" over 20 years ago. It is now known that animals did not evolve in straight lines (like that old drawing showing a fish emerging from the sea & developing into man) but in branches that lead to many variations - the fittest branch surviving.

There was a time when there may have been as many as 10 or 12 species of primate all vying for survival with our branch ending up the winner.

Even if there was a God, the evidence would suggest that he started this universe with a giant bang & then created life so that Man would eventually win out. (Please do not take this as an indication that I have changed sides, I am merely pointing out the obvious).

Allan

 

[IntruderLS1]

I might recommend a bit more study on the basics of anthropology, and perhaps Paleontology before you try to debunk something you are unfamiliar with.

<McBaine Laugh>

Am I to understand that you are current on modern paleontology? I'm a history and technologies guy myself, and do not claim to be an expert in this field. I have spent a reasonable amount of time in study to satisfy my own curiosity though.

There are a few different ways to frame an argument. You can start small and easy to understand, or you can go full force, and attempt to overwhelm your partner with terminology. I prefer to start small, and then mix in more advanced ideas as the conversation proceeds.

I am not trying to "debunk" anything. Any attempt on either side will never work. Science will drop the bomb of "We don't have all the data," and Religion will drop the bomb "You have to have faith." I am simply trying to expose people to the problems with the "Scientific" point of view.

Another interesting observation I would make is that the theory being pushed into our schools about evolution has changed many times over the years, as more problems become known. Creationism has remained constant for thousands of years, and from a scientific standpoint, is a model that fits everything we can observe. Hostility to creationism is at it's very core an intentional closing of ones eyes to science. It is a theory that is ruled out simply because it is not understood. Scientists love to speak of the barbaric ways of religion, but how often are Scientists ostracized for challenging current thinking, only to be proven correct later?

 

[Sneakiecat]

Very true, but now tell me the odds of the fossils that do remain ALL being of an identifiable species?

Do only fully evolved mamals die in fossile friendly mud? :tongue:

Other than the fact that there are no fully evolved animals/people/whatever, yeah, they're the only ones.

I'm not sure what you mean by the first sentense though. Clarification please?

 

[IntruderLS1]

What I meant, was that the fossils we find are the last of the 'evolutionary line' before extinction. We don't find the earlier models.

Fossile research has a thousand interesting little twists supporting both camps of thought. My understanding of creationsism is that they rely heavily on fossils for their arguments as well.

 

[Sneakiecat]

Look at dinosaurs and the different eras. The Triassic dinos were ancestors of the Jurassic dinos which were the ancestors of Cretaceous dinos. We have fossils from each era, each went extinct, and the evoultionary line continued for quite a few. The australopithecus is thought to be ancestors of us, which would not make it the end on the line, and we have fossils of them.

 

[IntruderLS1]

Alright, well I'm not going to spend hours debating what has been debated endlessly for 150 years. I revert to my original post. You can hold onto your faith in chance and time, while I will hold onto my faith of a greater being.

Nobody gets the "proof" until they die. At that time, we'll all see that religion was right, or we'll simply cease to exist.

I personally am very comfortable with that.

 

[Nightflight]

Too good to not share:

"There is no direct, laboratory test that can prove that smoking causes cancer. After all, how could investigators design a direct experiment to evaluate smoking’s effect on lung cancer? They would have to give one group real cigarettes, another group fake cigarettes, and see which ones develop cancer. Ethical problems of giving known carcinogens to humans aside, the study would be a logistical nightmare. (What is a fake cigarette anyway?)

Nevertheless, epidemiologists have amassed an extremely large body of knowledge demonstrating the health risks of smoking.

They have carried out cohort studies and observed that a large proportion of smokers develop lung cancer. They have carried out case-control studies where large proportions of people with lung cancer were found to have smoked. One population-based study tracked the incidence of smoking and lung cancer over time and found that the data of the latter mirrored that of the former but displaced 30 years behind.

With studies like these, even without a direct experiment, doctors can say unequivocally that smoking causes lung cancer.

The application to evolution theory is obvious. Critics of evolution are quick to point out that scientists cannot use direct experiments to prove evolution. Knowing that evolution supposedly happened over eons and calling for controlled duplication of speciation in the laboratory, these people have congratulated themselves, confident that scientists could never carry out such a direct experiment. And, of course, we can’t. But, if we put the same restrictions on what makes valid evidence, we also can’t say that smoking causes lung cancer.

Fact is, science uses many different types of studies besides direct experiments to establish evidence. No one has seen a quark, yet we can infer their existence by observing collisions between subatomic particles. Even without witnesses, people are often convicted of crimes based on inferential, after-the-fact evidence. Neither has anyone duplicated radical speciation in the lab. But whoever calls evolution invalid just because no such direct experiment has yet been performed in a laboratory should
probably go smoke a cigarette."

 

[IntruderLS1]

That is an excellent argument Night. It's got all the right elements. Like every other argument on both sides of this debate though, it can be worked around fairly easily.

Cause and effect can be observed and patterns can be picked out, but every theory we arrive on is only based on the working model we have developed. Sometimes that model has flaws that don't present themselves until later.

When man believed that the Earth was flat, and everything in the sky revolved around us, it was a powerful science. There was proof all around us, and it was easy for anybody to see. You could build a little model out of sticks to show a 10 year old how it worked. If you went against the traditional scientific wisdom, you were basically an idiot because the science was so sound.

Evolution is a strong theory, but its model isn't even fully developed yet. I find it a tad insulting that there is such contempt on the science side of the argument for a group of people that do not blindly put their faith in this incomplete idea.

What can ya do though? The sun will rise in the morning, rain will still be wet, and the debate will continue.

 

[sharpies]

I agree that the evolutionary model is not perfect & I don't think that you will find anyone who says it is but there is at this point no other alternative that fits the evidence as it stands.

Creationists have tried for years to prove their theories & not one of them can stand up to good science. In fact I give the Intelligent Design people some credit for trying to disprove evolution by trying to find something that is completely formed & therefore has no evolutionary tie in. Unfortunately they could only find one example out of the millions of animals alive & that was of a microscopic creature, it was eventually shown that they had messed up there as well. These theories were from some of the best non-evolutionist scientists alive.

So I guess it's easy to sit there & say that evolution is crap but not so easy to come up with an alternative that fits even some of the facts.

Allan

 

[IntruderLS1]

I'm not sure exactly what you're talking about, but I trust that you've done your homework and aren't just making it up.

This is an argument that will have no end, so there isn't any point in continuing. Nobody is going to be saved religiosly here, and nobody is going to walk away from the church based on what is said here.

So I guess it's easy to sit there & say that evolution is crap but not so easy to come up with an alternative that fits even some of the facts.

The only other thing I have to add, is that intelligent design is an alternate that fits all of the facts, all of the time. Christians get tied up in the "new Earth" / "old Earth" thing (which science has been very good at keying in on), but that is an argument of oppinion, not scripture. It's easy for us (believers) to think scientists are close minded, because there is a refusal to believe a theory that cannot be disprooved. But when we're honest with ourselves, we're not willing to look at other ideas either. We have the same argument for the same reasons (faith), we're just on different sides of the question.