Do you accept the theory of evolution?

[childeroland]

The evidence pretty much says differently, I believe. Ultimately, all life on Earth can be traced back to eukaryotes, and before that to prokaryote-like cells.

 

[superpower]

Well I read the last page so heres my question for both evolutionists and creationists.

Can both ever harmoniously exist together? Why or why not?

Like someone said even the Vatican accepted the possibility of aliens. Though I'm not sure how that would prove or disprove either belief. Regardless, my point is how faith has and continues to adjust its mindset and they, in the case of aliens, will do this with no proof, truth, fact, or whatever word you want to use, to back up the belief.

However most in the scientific community, I think, would demand hard evidence. This I find interesting because theoretical science has nothing over faith. There is no hard evidence.

In that I end up classifying evolutionists right with the creationists. One thinks they are the center of the universe and the other thinks they're so intelligent they discovered the center of the universe. Both are quite self satisfying belief systems if you ask me.

I'll stand at this. A creator could have created a big bang and this big bang could have been the start that brought us to where we are today, evolution and all. Evolution does exist the question is to what degree. A loving "God" also left a message to try and help us have a good life and teach right from wrong the
question is to what extent is "God" a supernatural being that created the Heavens and the Earth.

 

[NateHevens]

Okay... I'm gonna step back and breathe, first.

For the record, the argument you're making is not new.

Well I read the last page so heres my question for both evolutionists and creationists.

Can both ever harmoniously exist together? Why or why not?

Depends. How do you define "Creationism"? If you define it as most Creationists define it, then no. They are hopelessly opposed.

Like someone said even the Vatican accepted the possibility of aliens. Though I'm not sure how that would prove or disprove either belief. Regardless, my point is how faith has and continues to adjust its mindset and they, in the case of aliens, will do this with no proof, truth, fact, or whatever word you want to use, to back up the belief.

Which is quite fascinating, especially when you consider that they insist that faith is immutable and unchanging.

However most in the scientific community, I think, would demand hard evidence. This I find interesting because theoretical science has nothing over faith. There is no hard evidence.

What do mean by this? Do you mean there's no hard evidence of faith?

I mean... all believers have faith, so that's pretty strong evidence that it exists...

Or did you mean something else?

In that I end up classifying evolutionists right with the creationists. One thinks they are the center of the universe and the other thinks they're so intelligent they discovered the center of the universe. Both are quite self satisfying belief systems if you ask me.

Um... no.

Just...

No.

Evolution is not. A. Faith.

I really am getting sick and tired of repeating this.

Evolution is science. Pure, unadulterated science. The amount of evidence for evolution is staggering in its abundance. Evolution is quite literally the most well-evidenced theory in all of science. In fact, I don't think it's possible for a scientific theory to be more well-evidenced than evolution.

And what's more, every single day quite literally brings us more evidence.

The only reason it's not called the Fact of Evolution is because scientists are humble, and always leave open the extraordinarily slim chance that we might find the fossil of a modern rabbit in the pre-Cambrian... or something like that.

I'll stand at this. A creator could have created a big bang and this big bang could have been the start that brought us to where we are today, evolution and all.

Maybe. You just need to find evidence for this god.

Evolution does exist the question is to what degree.

The question's been answered. Just look at the evidence.

A loving "God" also left a message to try and help us have a good life and teach right from wrong

Where?

I seriously hope you aren't talking about the Bible, because...

*shudders*

 

[Thundercrack85]

The probability of aliens existing is very high (I was going to say astronomically high). The Catholic Church actually accepts evolution. Albeit evolution guided by God. A memo not everyone seems to have gotten (outside the Vatican, anyway).

Evolution is no longer debated within the scientific community. It's been observed, and documented. And proven through genetics.

Evolution is not a belief system. Unless you consider gravity to be a belief system (maybe you do).

Well, Nate is more of a science guy than I am. But to answer your question, no.

 

[superpower]

Okay... I'm gonna step back and breathe, first.

For the record, the argument you're making is not new.



Depends. How do you define "Creationism"? If you define it as most Creationists define it, then no. They are hopelessly opposed.



Which is quite fascinating, especially when you consider that they insist that faith is immutable and unchanging.



What do mean by this? Do you mean there's no hard evidence of faith?

I mean... all believers have faith, so that's pretty strong evidence that it exists...

Or did you mean something else?



Um... no.

Just...

No.

Evolution is not. A. Faith.

I really am getting sick and tired of repeating this.

Evolution is science. Pure, unadulterated science. The amount of evidence for evolution is staggering in its abundance. Evolution is quite literally the most well-evidenced theory in all of science. In fact, I don't think it's possible for a scientific theory to be more well-evidenced than evolution.

And what's more, every single day quite literally brings us more evidence.

The only reason it's not called the Fact of Evolution is because scientists are humble, and always leave open the extraordinarily slim chance that we might find the fossil of a modern rabbit in the pre-Cambrian... or something like that.



Maybe. You just need to find evidence for this god.



The question's been answered. Just look at the evidence.



Where?

I seriously hope you aren't talking about the Bible, because...

*shudders*

Wow. I want to cry. I just typed this whole thing about fact and what it takes to put ones mind at ease when it comes to resonable doubt. Wow.

Short end of the long of it was this basic question. What, for you, is the most compelling peice of evidence for evolution being the end all and be all for life?

I'm not against evoulution, as I said before, I just have not seen the evidence that puts my resonable doubt at ease.

To me, like the theory of relativity, it is theory still because we can not completely fufill the critera of evidence. There is a difference between law and theory. Law is testable and true. Theory is a conclusion based on a logical train of thought made from an establishing observation but it can't be tested.

?? I'm open to the fact that my entire post is off. Yes I declare ignorance. My favorite quote is "The only thing I know is that I know nothing"

I'm open to the fact that you may have information that I do not. At the end of the day a human is merely the culmination of that individuals experience.


Peace

 

[jmc]

I suggest people read The God Delusion.

 

[Boy Scout]

I'm one of the (rare?) Christians who believe in evolution. Or at least I acknowledge that it's probably what went down.

 

[superpower]

The probability of aliens existing is very high (I was going to say astronomically high). The Catholic Church actually accepts evolution. Albeit evolution guided by God. A memo not everyone seems to have gotten (outside the Vatican, anyway).

Evolution is no longer debated within the scientific community. It's been observed, and documented. And proven through genetics.

Evolution is not a belief system. Unless you consider gravity to be a belief system (maybe you do).

Well, Nate is more of a science guy than I am. But to answer your question, no.

When it comes to things like God, evolution, or aliens I need substantial evidence. Not high probability. I get what youre saying though and I dont dismiss anything that has substantial evidence. I have enough evidence to accept evolution but no evidence has been presented to say that is it, for sure no doubt.

When did evoulution make this jump to truth? I have been in a science class room within the last five years and non of my profs branded theories as truth. Quite the opposite. I'm esspecially thinking of one of my chem profs his class was out there. Have you ever gone into M theory or string Theory? Out there stuff and it still carries the same theory title as evolution.

My biggest question is this.. Evolution is about making a species better adapted for its servival. This being the case why have animals not evolved a big enough brain so they can inovate and build better homes?
Why is the human body still so frail when our brains are so advanced? Maybe Nate can answer that if he is more the science buff.

Do I consider gravity a belief system? Not if your discussing the fact of what must go up must come down. However if you meant the theory of how it works? Its been a while since I talked about it to an educated person and even he was only a high scool physics teacher buddy, then yes I have to put it to belief. Largely because of the type of data that these things are based on. It just doesn't ease my doubt.

 

[superpower]

I suggest people read The God Delusion.

Brief rundown on what it says?

 

[jmc]

Brief rundown on what it says?

''In The God Delusion, Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that belief in a personal god qualifies as a delusion, which he defines as a persistent false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence. ''

The author also makes the point that if a higher power does exists it would have to be in and of itself of such complexity that something would have had to create it, ie what created the 'creator'.

 

[superpower]

I'm one of the (rare?) Christians who believe in evolution. Or at least I acknowledge that it's probably what went down.

I'm with you. I see no reason to think it must be either or.

 

[childeroland]

It isn't true that a theory can't be tested. It has been tested and found to provide a framework explaining all or most of the current evidence in a comprehensive and consistent manner--that's why it's a theory. A scientific law is a statement based on repeated observation that describes some aspect of nature, always applies under the same conditions, and implies a causal relationship between its elements.Theories provide an explanation of phenomena or mechanism thereof, which is not a law. Evolution is a theory because of the overwhelming evidence, far more than high probability.

I guess one of the best books on evolution might be What Evolution Is, by Ernst Mayr. The Rough Guide to Evolution, by Mark Pallan is good also. Any of Dawkins' books will do. Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters, by Donald Prothero is decent also. Carl Zimmer's books are also pretty great.

 

[raybia]

A theory is NOT a guess. Theories are supported by a large body of empirical data. Theories are established by observation or experiment. Theories contain facts. Also, laws are not above theories.

This link explains theories and laws http://science.kennesaw.edu/~rmatson/3380theory.html

This link summarizes how the word theory is used in science http://www.notjustatheory.com

Here are a number of posts in this thread that cover what the word theory means.

http://forums.superherohype.com/showpost.php?p=22868227&postcount=4

http://forums.superherohype.com/showpost.php?p=22868747&postcount=37

http://forums.superherohype.com/showpost.php?p=22868961&postcount=51

http://forums.superherohype.com/showpost.php?p=22869267&postcount=64

Apparently, only 40% of Americans accept the theory of evolution. Creation museums receive a great amount of funding and politicians constantly try to push legislation that would put creationism on equal footing with evolution in classrooms.

I'm interested to see what the dynamic here is. I'd like to see why people believe or don't believe, what they believe instead, and the reasoning behind it.

Do you have any interesting stories on discussions you've had relating to the topic, perhaps with teachers or people in class or whatever?

Post your thoughts!

I do believe in evolution but I'm more interested in human mental evolution than the physical. I also believe in a Creator that is the cause of the Universe and everything in it.

 

[superpower]

''In The God Delusion, Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that belief in a personal god qualifies as a delusion, which he defines as a persistent false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence. ''

The author also makes the point that if a higher power does exists it would have to be in and of itself of such complexity that something would have had to create it, ie what created the 'creator'.

Thanks. That sounds right up my ally.

 

[superpower]

It isn't true that a theory can't be tested. It has been tested and found to provide a framework explaining all or most of the current evidence in a comprehensive and consistent manner--that's why it's a theory. A scientific law is a statement based on repeated observation that describes some aspect of nature, always applies under the same conditions, and implies a causal relationship between its elements.Theories provide an explanation of phenomena or mechanism thereof, which is not a law. Evolution is a theory because of the overwhelming evidence, far more than high probability.

I guess one of the best books on evolution might be What Evolution Is, by Ernst Mayr. The Rough Guide to Evolution, by Mark Pallan is good also. Any of Dawkins' books will do. Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters, by Donald Prothero is decent also. Carl Zimmer's books are also pretty great.

Thanks for the reply.

How though, and again pardon my ignorance, has evolution been tested?

Last I heard it was all based on observation then through "probably or possibly" other observations are strung together and the theory unfolds. But a test? That I havn't heard of.

Ill def look into those books. Thanks for posting them.

 

[childeroland]

There are a lot of examples of observed evolution, for example, industrial melanism in the peppered moth, the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, observed speciation in fruit flies and mosquitoes. A 20 year study mapped evolutionary changes in E.coli bacteria. The Italian wall lizard has been observed to evolve rapidly in the Mediterraneans. Similar genetic evidence connects the hippo to whales, humans to the rest of the hominids. Changes in brown aloe lizards because of evolutionary pressures have been observed and tested in control experiments and changes in allele frequencies because of evolutionary processes over time in a variety of animal populations are documented (the moth being one example, the wall and brown aloe lizards another).

 

[Thundercrack85]

Why would you not accept evolution? I mean, it would be one thing if there was some kind of compelling alternative, but there isn't.

Why do you think we have wisdom teeth? Why else would there be countless older, humans, and hominid fossils lying around? What else can account for that? And if that doesn't do it for you (which it should), there's the genetics. We can actually see how we changed over the eons.

Evolution isn't guided. At least not intelligently. We adapt, or we die. …a lot of species don't adapt quickly enough, and die.

 

[Piper Maru]

9th Foundational Falsehood of Creationism

Listing just a handful of the myriad transitional species we've found, and that creationists insist do not exist or somehow still don't count.

[YT]Qfoje7jVJpU&feature[/YT]

AronRa

 

[Shemtov]

Okay... I'm gonna step back and breathe, first.










I seriously hope you aren't talking about the Bible, because...

*shudders*

Can you please post your exact problems with the Bible?

 

[superpower]

There are a lot of examples of observed evolution, for example, industrial melanism in the peppered moth, the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, observed speciation in fruit flies and mosquitoes. A 20 year study mapped evolutionary changes in E.coli bacteria. The Italian wall lizard has been observed to evolve rapidly in the Mediterraneans. Similar genetic evidence connects the hippo to whales, humans to the rest of the hominids. Changes in brown aloe lizards because of evolutionary pressures have been observed and tested in control experiments and changes in allele frequencies because of evolutionary processes over time in a variety of animal populations are documented (the moth being one example, the wall and brown aloe lizards another).

I'll have to look into a couple of those. Deffinitly interesting.

As for the bacteria, it really feels like forced evolution brought on by the widespread miss use of antibiotics.

I also wonder how random mutation fits in. Does it fit in?

And after watching the video below heres another question. According to the video we have pretty much mapped out this tree of life, much pun intended, and if I'm correct it stated that there was this pretty nice flow from single sell to us.

If evolution is about increasing the odds of survival via genetic adaptation then why are we not a culmination of the strongest characteristics of those previous stepping stones?

Example, yes the obvious lizards ability to regen.

Lame? Maybe but awsome because spidey just came out.

 

[jmc]

Can you please post your exact problems with the Bible?

A lot of it has been written by false authors claiming to be people they weren't. I recommend a book called Forged, it's by a guy who was a former Evangelical Christian who went searching for the 'truth', he went as far as learning ancient languages in order to properly study the original scrolled text, only problem is the more research he did the more he found out how much BS is in the Bible and how much of it was written by certain people trying to instill their own ideologies into Christian teaching and falsely attributing the words to the actual apostles. Things like the modern interpretations of the book of revelations only happening in the last 500 or so years.

 

[GreenKToo]

I'm not sure. For me at least, if evolution occurs, then it had/has to be guided...
I mean really, how can something change/grow into what it needs without being guided to that point in the first place. how would it know what it exactly needed?

And as for the big bang, something can't come from nothing. something caused mass to come into being, and forced the big bang...

Maybe aliens created us, maybe it was some sort of God. I don't know, but I don't believe we were an accident.

I'm openminded enough to listen to all evidence and decide.

 

[childeroland]

I'll have to look into a couple of those. Deffinitly interesting.

As for the bacteria, it really feels like forced evolution brought on by the widespread miss use of antibiotics.

I also wonder how random mutation fits in. Does it fit in?

And after watching the video below heres another question. According to the video we have pretty much mapped out this tree of life, much pun intended, and if I'm correct it stated that there was this pretty nice flow from single sell to us.

If evolution is about increasing the odds of survival via genetic adaptation then why are we not a culmination of the strongest characteristics of those previous stepping stones?

Example, yes the obvious lizards ability to regen.

Lame? Maybe but awsome because spidey just came out.

From what I understand, random mutations are caused by the inevitable errors that crop up through the generations. Like mutations in general, they can involve large sections of a chromosome becoming duplicated, which can introduce extra copies of a gene into a genomic sequence. These copies of genes are needed for new genes to evolve.

New strains of E. coli evolve through the natural biological processes. I suppose our attempts to destroy them select out certain variants while others survive, but I don't want to suggest that those processes can be triggered by forced environmental pressures also. I'm still very shaky on the relationship between genes and their environment and I don't want to fall into the teleological fallacy--that is, suggest that evolution has an end-goal, a purposeful design.

Evolution is not a progression from inferior to superior organisms, and it also does not necessarily result in a species becoming more complex. In fact, populations can evolve to become simpler.

 

[Shemtov]

A lot of it has been written by false authors claiming to be people they weren't. I recommend a book called Forged, it's by a guy who was a former Evangelical Christian who went searching for the 'truth', he went as far as learning ancient languages in order to properly study the original scrolled text, only problem is the more research he did the more he found out how much BS is in the Bible and how much of it was written by certain people trying to instill their own ideologies into Christian teaching and falsely attributing the words to the actual apostles. Things like the modern interpretations of the book of revelations only happening in the last 500 or so years.

Well, as I'm Jewish, I'm not talking about "The New Testament".

 

[childeroland]

A lot of it has been written by false authors claiming to be people they weren't. I recommend a book called Forged, it's by a guy who was a former Evangelical Christian who went searching for the 'truth', he went as far as learning ancient languages in order to properly study the original scrolled text, only problem is the more research he did the more he found out how much BS is in the Bible and how much of it was written by certain people trying to instill their own ideologies into Christian teaching and falsely attributing the words to the actual apostles. Things like the modern interpretations of the book of revelations only happening in the last 500 or so years.

The book by Bart D. Ehrman?