Creation/Evolution Debate? God/noGod Debate? Not sure what to call it.
keweworkshop
Member Posts: 377
@StusApps First let me apologize for the length of my response. If you do not choose to read it, well I can't blame you! I know your time is valuable. This is in response to one or two of your posts from the other thread. I don't know how to bring your quotes over from the other thread, or if that is even possible. So this is just a continuation of our conversation. Which I am enjoying by the way!
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Comments
Hole 1. Our genes. For evolution to be possible you need new information added to the genome. But what we observe in science is that information only comes from information. I can’t have had black hair if my mother or father did not pass on to me the gene for black hair. I got my genetic information from my parents, who got their information from their parents and so on backward through the generations to the beginning of time. Where did the first people get their information? God makes sense here. Starting from some singled cell organism and gaining enough information over time to become a human seems like silly fantasy to me. That is not how it works. I have yet to see one real scientific example of new information spontaneously coming into being. The only argument I ever hear or read about, and it falls way short, is mutations. But that is only the shuffling around of genetic information that is already there. There needs to be new information for a new species to arise, not duplicated or corrupted information. Which also begs the question, Where does information come from? Even if you believed that all life started out as a single organism, where did that organism get its genetic information? Because of what we observe in science, information coming from information, God makes sense here. How can random processes produce order?
Hole 2. Read Darwin’s own words,
“If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find no such case.”
What about the cell? It used to be called a simple cell in Darwin’s day but now we know it is anything but simple. With advances in our technology we can now see parts of the cell that Darwin didn’t even know existed. Can the cell be formed by numerous successive slight modifications? I saw a scientist, Michael Behe, talking about one part of the cell, the bacterial flagellum, which is a motor in the cell and has like 40 parts, all of which are necessary to make it function. He stated that it was irreducible complex and that it could in no way have come into existence by numerous, successive, slight modifications. He is not a believer and has looked for an evolutionary explanation to this, without success. It is not just the cell, I have seen and read many examples of this, the eyeball, the reproductive system, a chicken egg (seriously), scientists systematically going through and showing how it is not possible for these things to have come into existence through numerous slight modifications. God fits here again.
Hole 3. And I will stop with this because it is turning into a book, so sorry!
I listened to a scientist speak, again not a Christian, speak about the lack of evidence to the theory of evolution. I can’t remember his name. He said that he did some loose calculations about the number of modifications one species say a fish (I can’t remember the exact example) to a bird. He came up with about 50,000 modifications. If evolution has been happening for billions or trillions of years, the amount of fossil evidence should be staggering, with each species needing 50,000 changes to get to the next species. What do we have? You have fish fossils. You have bird fossils. And a very few pittance of fossils that some may say are transitional fossils and even those are debated. There should be overwhelming amounts of transitional fossils. There is not.
If you read all of this. I commend you! I truly do apologize for the length. I am not skilled at writing to the point I guess. It is like that Mark Twain quote, “I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”
These are just 3 areas of a 1000 that I question. Science certainly does not prove or disprove God in a test tube, I believe it supports the existence of God. I do believe it does disprove evolution. It is an outdated theory.
**Are we allowed religious discussion in the miscellaneous forum? Jon suggested that religious discussion had no place on the forums at all.**
I'm an ordained minister, and I still don't think that these forums is a place for religious discussion or politics, but that's just my opinion. There are other forums for such type of things all over the internet.
I wanted to respond to when rodh100 said this...
"I will pray for you that you see the truth and someday become a christian."
Now, I'm an Orthodox Jew; but I think we should all get something straight... I do not 'pray for my gentile friends in hope that they will "see the truth" and become Jewish.'
I feel like everyone has their own beliefs & we should all respect each other for that. The reason why God does not show himself to some, is because those people were brought up that way, in disbelief of a god, and most likely they don't want to change something that they have experienced since birth, & we should all listen to what they have to say, but not argue upon 'which religion is right'.
We all think our own religion is right, because that's the way we were brought up! It's the way we know life!
But, for a person to 'pray' for another person to 'find the true meaning of life' & become another religion, is not proper.
Just my opinion on the topic
I love to talk about this stuff by the way! I personally find it fun to chat with people of how they take there perspective on life, & I think it should be discussed. If anyone wants to chat with me of how Judaism works, pm me
By the way, I don't think scientific evidence has holes, I think the interpretation of scientific facts through evolution has holes.
Just thought I would keep it humorous before it gets ugly and catty
---Credit due to johnpapiomitis, who showed me this video
But this one I have heard many times and is easily answered.
First thing to understand is that fossilisation is an extremely rare process. Scientists can't prove the exact numbers but it is considered to be a 1 in many millions chance. It also depends on the type of species and how prone it's living habits would be with it being in a position to be fossilised. Given our extremely limited excavation of the earth's surface we are very lucky to have found any fossil representatives of some of the major evolutionary transitions.
Creationists often argue that there should be more and that it proves somehow that evolution isn't true. That's silly as our current fossil record is actually quite representative over the course of evolution. Yes, we'll find more transitional steps in time but we'll never have all 50000 modifications between a fish and a bird. We have a very limited number of them that have been found.
Here is an analogy:
- I have a set of numbers from 1 - 1000
- I pick just 3 numbers at random and give them to an observer. They get 34, 148 and 603
- Does that prove to the observer the existence of the number 500? No, it doesn't, the sample size is too small to prove anything conclusively.
- If I give him 10 more numbers (but still no 500) does it prove it?
- It doesn't but by looking at the set of numbers he now has he might be able to start to interpolate what might be missing.
- The comparison to god and creationism would then be for the observer to say that with the lack of evidence that the other numbers simply don't exist and all the numbers are just the same as the ones he already has.
It's much like that with the fossil record but which hugely bigger numbers. Take the chance of fossilisation occurring, multiply that by the tiny fraction of the earth's surface we've dug up and you will get at astronomically small chance of finding anything. And we have found a number of fossils that can be measured in the thousands. We have discovered fossil remains of an infinitesimally small percentage of the number of species (let alone organisms) that ever existed.
Did you know we have only got about 2000 good dinosaur skeletons in museums around the entire world. That from a genus that would have numbered in the many hundreds of billions. A new dinosaur is named about every 7 weeks.
I found a wonderful point for religious people. Saying that the fossil record somehow disproves evolution is like the Angel Gabriel descending from the sky and people saying "Well that doesn't prove that anything, where's Uriel?".
Does that address Hole 3?
Most animals and plants decay yes, agreed. But, if one believes in trillions of years that should be more than enough time to have ample fossils form since they form quickly. And since we have been digging for over 150 years shouldn't we have found some? I am not asking for all 50,000 transitions. One would be nice. One real one, not one that is debated where some scientists claim it is and some claim it isn't. I have seen it too many times where I read or hear "Yes! We found the missing link" then in a month, a year, 5 years, whatever, it gets debunked. I admit, I am skeptical.
You say the current fossil record is representative of evolution. I say where? Which fossils? There may only be 2000 full skeletons but there are millions of fossils found.
I just did a search on transitional fossils since I admit, it has been a few years since I have been up on the research. Some say yes, they are all over the place, some say no, there is none. Some scientists even disagree about what the word transitional means. Ahh, my brain is fried, it's 1:30am I need to go to bed. Thanks for the chat.
Thank you for addressing hole 3. Your thoughts were well put. I just can't agree that the lack of fossil evidence will eventually work itself out.
So then as 'hole 3' has been looked at from an evolutionary point of view I would be interested in hearing the other side of just that point.
- How do creationists (particularly young earth ones) justify a fossil record that shows a trend towards a change in the nature of creatures?
- How come there are no ancient fossils of some of the bigger creatures living today? Why no lion or giraffe fossils found with the dinosaurs?
- (slightly off topic) Do people really believe that Noah assembled 2 of every species on earth and put them on a big wooden boat?
Being a Muslim - I can only give the perspective of a Muslim:
Proof of the Existence of a superior power:
As for your first question, are you referring to natural selection? I agree that species change over time. We can observe it. Darwin observed it in the finches. I do not agree that species change into other species. The reason that there can be changes within a species is the massive, staggering, amounts of genetic information we have. Natural selection never produces new information but usually a loss of genetic information. Evolution requires new information.
Question 2 Don’t know. I didn’t know that lion or giraffe fossils were missing.
Question 3. lol yes people believe it. Although Noah didn’t assemble them, the animals came to him, Gen 6:20. And because of natural selection, Noah only needed a few dog kinds, not hundreds, a few elephant kinds, a few cat kinds and so on. He did not take millions of species of animals on, more like 12,000-16,000 thousand. Plenty of room the ark. The animals exited the art, started to breed, natural selection and speciation occurred as they started to spread out and voilà, many different breeds and species arise of the same kind. I pair of elephants can produce 15 million offspring in 500 years, according to Darwin. Plenty of time to populate after the flood, plenty of time for different species of the kinds to arise.
Now on a more serious note, I'd like to adress your second "hole" in the swiss cheese of evolution. Now please don't call me a muenster, because I'm not trying to make you feel bleu. In fact, I hope you feel gouda. I want you to bree happy. That's enough. I need to get directly to my point. There's no time to cheddar (chatter) on. So here goes.
I don't know everything about this issue, and I won't pretend I do. But a few summers ago, I took a 3 week crash course on biomedicine at nerd camp. There, we talked a lot about evolution and cell structures, and one thing we talked about was the origin of the mitochondria, the energy producing part of the cell. Basically, the mitochondria wasn't always in cells, obviously, but instead came about in all likelihood when one bacteria "ate" another freestanding bacteria. The absorbed bacteria was very similar to the mitochondria in cells nowadays. Then, through a process called endosymbiosis, the first cell starts to use the eaten cell for its own benefit, until eventually, the new eaten cell is a part of the cell itself, and can then pass down its genetic information to the next generations of cells. There are some alternative theories, but this is the most well accepted one.
I hope you can see that through this and other processes, in addition, of course, to genetic mutations, this second hole can be plugged up.
My point is, that genetic mutations definitely do play a huge role in evolution, but it isn't provolone in the task of organisms over time.
If any artists here havarti comments about mistakes in my science (it's been awhile since I first learned about it) just post them here. I'm sure there will be some sharp cheddar-ing amongst the developers.
I'm done.
asymptoteell
I just want to jump in here really quick to say that you have a somewhat outdated perspective on evolution. You're clinging to aspects long surpassed by modern sciences. I'm no educator, so I won't attempt to go on long winded rants to try to explain to you the fact's that you're missing.
Fossils are not the be all end all proof to evolution and frankly Darwin isn't the be all end all to the theory thereof.
However, the theory of evolution is so well developed now that it's hardly a theory, we actually know more about evolution than we do gravity, believe it or not.
I would suggest you fire up the Google machine and do your research, evolution is only contested by those suffering from cognitive dissonance. It's almost like debating whether or not the Earth is flat.
I agree, Darwin’s theory is outdated. And there have arisen many alterations of his theory, as there should be.
I get told that a lot, that I should just believe it and stop questioning it. And basically that I am stupid for questioning. Well, I may be stupid, but to just stop questioning is dangerous. And since there are plenty of questions unanswered, I will keep searching.
I also disagree that we know more about it than gravity. We may have more theories and hypothesis about evolution than gravity but as far as cold hard facts, nope.
It is not like arguing that the Earth is flat. I can prove to you that the Earth is a sphere with the technology we have today, I could even show you picture. Evolution can not be tested. The only thing I know of that can be shown is mico-evolution, which is totally different than maco-evolution. The jump from mico to maco is just a theory and can not be tested. Mico-evolution (natural selection) is a fact than we can observe today. Maco-evolution is not observable.
As for your statements,
"Basically, the mitochondria wasn't always in cells, obviously..."
I don't see how that can be proven when we were not around trillions of years ago to see the cells. That is like me saying obviously the flying spaghetti monster had yellow eyes a billion years ago. It is just a guess. "It came about in all likelihood..." more guesses. I am not saying it is wrong to guess, of course not. Guess away, we need to! But it certainly does not give any concrete answers. For me, just more questions! As with the endosymbiosis theory you wrote about, the process of passing the genetic information from the eaten cell into the other cell has many questions in itself such as, how does the cell evolve to have the needed pathways for the information to go back and forth? Where does the information for the transport pathways come from? Besides that, where did those cells who were eating each other even come from? Where did their information come from? Mutations can’t explain it away because they never produce new information.
I know my terminology is probably wrong as I only have a lay understanding of science. And now I am ducking out of this discussion as it has taken up way too much of my time. I have really enjoyed reading all of everyone’s arguments and defenses. I shall give you all the last words. Lets go make apps! (or you can keep it going if you wish, but I need to get back to my app!)
Why are theists so worried about evolution? Are they threatened by it?
Why not try a different approach?
Let's look at a probability: The probability of god is equal to the probability that the universe is run by Colin the Gigantic Intergalactic Lobster. Neither can be proved or disproved. Physical evidence exists for neither.
Is it delusional to believe in Colin? Yes of course. If it is delusional to believe in Colin, then so must it be delusional to believe in god.
If you believe in god, then you would have to acknowledge the possible existence of Colin, on a par with god. Or neither can exist.
Thereby, Colin and god are either equally real, or equally preposterous.
Anyway, can't stop, it's almost time for midnight prayers at the church of the holy crustacean.
""You are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike." - Zork temp domain http://spidergriffin.wix.com/alphaghostapps