Christian viewpoint on origin of life
MheathXX
would say that it took billions of years to get to this point.
I can go along with the fact that over time things can happen. Time
is a mindless machine that marches on without our approval.
But how did life get started, differentiate and get to where it is
today?
I just don't think it is answerable.
Lets go back to that first pool of life. Where lightning, or whatever
the spark was, first hit just right to create that jolt of life.
Okay, we have some type of organic compound sitting there in a pool
and it is showing some type of electric activity of "supposed" life.
I would assume this is where it would have to happen. With something
simple and basic. I mean, lightning didn't strike and create a fish
did it?
Well, with this simple organic compound (OC from here on out) how did
differtiation occur?
First, did it already have ANY complexity of a single cell? Doesn't a
cell need a massive complex order of activity in order to survive?
What about all of it's organelles that are needed in order to survive?
Did they just magically appear? What about all the processes of the
processes? What about RNA and DNA and the simple starches that are
needed to fuel the process of life? How did the DNA and RNA evolvle?
What about the millions of correct orders that are needed for the DNA,
RNA and organelles of this supposed cell?
Evolution is mindless, right? It has no direction or pulse. So how
in the world could a simple mindless OC "know" that it needed anything
else than what it already had? It is just sitting there and due to
some outside "survival of the fittest" force it figures it should get
the building blocks of MY LORD, anything? What could it know or
fathom that it needed?
And lets say that for some reason a "survival of the fittest type
situation" did occur. Lets say there is a drought or something. I
don't know. What will happen to this mindless little OC now? How
could it "know" to do anything?
The odds of something like a simple OC somehow differentiating into
what we presently see is next to nothing. ZERO in my eyes.
I mean the odds of first the conditions being just right for it to
happen have to be a zillion to one. So lets say that over the past 5
billion years, we hit the right number in the zillion to one odds and
the spark of life has occured with a simple OC. Now what are the odds
that this OC would even begin to be in the right place at the right
time to take on new compounds? Another zillion to one probably. Then
to maintain a consistent environment in order for it to sit there for
a billion years and take on more chemicals and compounds in order to
evolve more. Which is unfathomly likely for the environment as we
know it today changes all the time. Plus what are the odds that this
OC is in the right place where it won't freeze or dehydrate or
whatever? Another zillion to one odds there too. Then what are the
odds after all of this that this OC would "know" what it needed next
to survive? And where do the blue prints of these organs and
organelles come from? Where did the compounds that make them up come
from?
How did the eye or the blueprints for an eye become available? How
did an OC know that it would need one. The eye is an EXTREMELY
complex organ that has billions of cells or building blocks. How was
it formed in the early stages of life? There is no telling how many
millions of different building blocks make up the simplest rods and
cones of an eye and how did they come about? How did the simplest
OC's know that they needed them or how to produce them? What are the
odds that over time this great organ would be produced? How did this
OC know that it needed reflections of light that had to be
retransmitted into the organs of the eye that had to be sent to the
brain for reoranization in order to produce an image? How could it
know that it needed all this and what are the odds of it coming
together?
I have racked my brain over these things and have tried to find
answers, but there just aren't any. The odds of life springing into
what it is today just do not seem comprehensable. There are just too
many zillions upon zillions upon zillions of different species, organs
and compounds that make up life to say that it just came from some
mindless OC billions of years ago. It was mindless and had no
direction.
Lets don't even go into the lungs and other stuff and how they came
about. And how they were made perfect for our ability to survive for
thousands of years.
Zillions of more building blocks to ponder.
It just seems to me that there is no other explanation for the current
state of life than that God was the creator of life. It is more
plausible and more likely and more easily proved. He created each
organism (and might have started with single cells) and gave it it's
uniqueness and DNA or building blocks then they grew and developed. I
believe that he started possibbly with creating for example a male and
female squirrel. Or he made thousands of them. Whatever. Then they
had the chance to live. Did evolution occur with them over time? You
bet. But it was microevolution. Not macro. Dogs have been around
for years but we have NEVER seen one evolve into a different species.
There are different breeds of dogs just like there are different races
of humans. Big, small, white, black, fat, skinny, 3 foot tall, 8 foot
tall, big head, little head.....and we pass those genes to our
offspring just like dogs and cats do. There is no indication of human
macroevolution. Yeah we might be getting a little taller and losing
some hair, but we are still men adn women, right?
The fossil record is full of fully created animals. There appear to
be many transistional fossils to supposedly support macroevolution.
But who is to say that it is just similar species that appear to be
transitional. Just like man and the ape. We are somewhat similar but
are different species. And if we evolved from ape to man, then what
happened to all the apes. What was the reason for the survival of the
fittest. Why did we evolve from apes? It just isn't answerable. And
what are the odds of a new species coming about? For example lets say
back a million years ago, there were a group of apes. They have sat
around and micro evolved for 2 thousands year. They have gotten a
little taller and stronger through darwanism...their hair has gotten
darker due to being in the sun year round and they have passed this to
their offspring. Well why in the world or how in the world could they
evolve to being a human being due to these environmental changes? I
just don't know. Nobody can be sure. And what are the environmental
changes that took place and how long did they last. Surely not for a
million years. Are their any species alive right now that are
transitional to apes and humans so that we can take a look? There are
some similarities of men and apes but there are HUGE DIFFERENCES TOO.
There should be tons of fossil evidence or living evidence of
transitional specials over millions of years of evolution. From ape a
to b to c to d to e over millions of years.
Since apes are still alive and running around, where are all there
cousins and transitional species that should be around too. Were just
blocks of animals just executed millions of years ago? If we evolved
from apes and apes from chimps where are all the cousins of them that
should be around? I mean we have a chimp an ape and man but nothing
in between. Who was to say that just the chimp the ape and man were
to survive? Where are all our cousins and not to mention the millions
of cousins of other supposed evolved species?
And while talking about apes what about the millions of other species
that are running around? Where are all there cousins and transitional
buddies. Surely over millions of years they just didnt dissapear did
they? What are the odds of that happening. There should be a living
record of the evolution of species you would think. There should be a
chimp, chimp a, chimp b, chimp c.....then ape a, b, c, d, and so on to
humans? Where are all these examples. Where are all the fossil
evidences of them? Why did the current ape just get to survive and
apes abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz of the transitional process not
survive and where is all the fossil evidence?
Instead we have fossil records of man and some early men. Some with
some very questionable hype such as Nebraska man. Nothing in between
to show the millions of different shapes and looks that man took on
over the millions of years of evolution. Just a man, some apes and
some chimps. Really not much in between.
It just doesn't add up.
It easier to prove that God in his great intelligence and wisdom
created everything and "KNEW" what they needed to survive. He knew
what organs and organelles they needed and provided them. He gave
them all pretty much the same chance to survive. However he gave man
the supremecy of all creatures on the earth, thus giving him a special
INTELLECT, that NO OTHER species has. Other species can learn and
reason to an extent but not like man.
I believe I can prove God exists but that is an entirely other subject
that can be argued later.
Evolution is much like religion. It is based on faith, really.
Nothing more. Science has facts and studies but no true factual
evidence of macroevolution. We also have facts and studies that prove
God existed. And to be honest more than evolution for we have
recorded writings of what was seen and heard 3 thousand years ago.
Unlike evolution which occured billions of supposed years ago. Nobody
saw it nobody wrote about it.
I look at it this way: 1) If you believe that God does not exist, so
be it. But if you are wrong then when you die, you go to Hell. If
you are right, you turn to dust or go whereever you think you go 2)
If you believe that God does exist and try to learn of his truths, so
be it. If you are wrong, well, you just turn to dust and it is over.
If you are right and have honestly believed in God, searched for his
truth, found Jesus, then you have the gift of everlasting life.
I like my chances of trying to find God and taking that route,
therefore if I'm wrong I only risk the act of turning to dust. The
other way, I burn in Hell and I don't like that approach.
I myself believe in God. Believe that Jesus is the only way to
everlasting life and feel that it has had a direct effect on my life.
My proof is in my own direct physical witnessed proof. I have studied
many different religions and have found not one that makes as much
sense as Christianity.
And don't go down the path that Christianity has been the root of war
and bloodshed because I believe that it has not. People have killed
in the name of Christianity but a disciple of Jesus Christ knows that
he said "Blessed are the peace makers!". The best example of a person
killing that said they were Christian was Hitler.
Now my final statement on that is that NOONE knows if a man is a
Christian. Only God knows that. Hitler might have been a Christian
but what Im saying is that his acts were not Christianlike for Jesus
said not to do those things. "Blessed are the peacemakers".
All Im saying is that it only makes sense.
Whew........
Eric Gill
@posting.google.com:
<snip>
> All Im saying is that it only makes sense.
And in so doing, you repeat a long line of fallacies, just-so non-arguments
and possibly out and out falsehoods.
Why?
John H
"MheathXX" <mhea...@excite.com> wrote in message
news:c3d9dd2.04031...@posting.google.com...
<massive snippage>
You're saying you find it hard to believe that life could have started
billions of years ago from some form of protolife, but you think it makes
MORE logical sense that an infinitely complex being can spring forth fully
omnipotent and omniscient from nothing? Lets not try logic here, OK,
faith-boy?
AC
Richard S. Crawford
<snip nonsensical garbage>
Please, don't anyone fall into the trap of thinking that this moron
represents any version of Christianity besides his own. Just because he
can't think doesn't mean that there aren't Christians who can.
Dan Ensign
> How in the world did life evolve to it's present state? Many on here
> would say that it took billions of years to get to this point.
Billions of years, differential reproductive success, and isolated
populations, basically.
> I can go along with the fact that over time things can happen. Time
> is a mindless machine that marches on without our approval.
>
> But how did life get started, differentiate and get to where it is
> today?
>
> I just don't think it is answerable.
To be sure, I don't think it's answerable, either. Of course, that
doesn't mean that people can't test hypotheses (RNA world, Sydney Foxes
proteinoids, etc.) about what might have happened to start life. I just
don't think we'll ever get a satisfactory scientific answer to this
question, although the complementary religious explanation may be quite
satisfactory. Perhaps someday we'll get lucky and stumble across a
planet where life is just forming, and have the presence of mind not to
mess it up, but I doubt it.
> Lets go back to that first pool of life. Where lightning, or whatever
> the spark was, first hit just right to create that jolt of life.
Yeah, you can be pretty sure that that's *not* how it happened. Life is
so ill-defined at some levels that you wouldn't be able to say, "Life
did not exist here before that point; after that event, it did exist."
> Okay, we have some type of organic compound sitting there in a pool
> and it is showing some type of electric activity of "supposed" life.
My fairly educated guess would be that you'd need *lots* of different
kinds of organic compounds, which are in a system not at thermodynamic
equilibrium. Just a solution of some organic molecule wouldn't seem
sufficient.
> I would assume this is where it would have to happen. With something
> simple and basic. I mean, lightning didn't strike and create a fish
> did it?
No, of course not.
> Well, with this simple organic compound (OC from here on out) how did
> differtiation occur?
>
> First, did it already have ANY complexity of a single cell? Doesn't a
> cell need a massive complex order of activity in order to survive?
> What about all of it's organelles that are needed in order to survive?
> Did they just magically appear? What about all the processes of the
> processes? What about RNA and DNA and the simple starches that are
> needed to fuel the process of life? How did the DNA and RNA evolvle?
> What about the millions of correct orders that are needed for the DNA,
> RNA and organelles of this supposed cell?
>
> Evolution is mindless, right? It has no direction or pulse. So how
> in the world could a simple mindless OC "know" that it needed anything
> else than what it already had? It is just sitting there and due to
> some outside "survival of the fittest" force it figures it should get
> the building blocks of MY LORD, anything? What could it know or
> fathom that it needed?
>
> And lets say that for some reason a "survival of the fittest type
> situation" did occur. Lets say there is a drought or something. I
> don't know. What will happen to this mindless little OC now? How
> could it "know" to do anything?
>
> The odds of something like a simple OC somehow differentiating into
> what we presently see is next to nothing. ZERO in my eyes.
What you seem to be asking above is, how could one organic compound
evolve to more complex forms? The answer: it couldn't. One molecule
cannot mutate or be selected in the manner we ordinarily think of when
we're talking about evolution. However, if some primitive replicative
system had some means to transmit information across generations (i.e.,
if it had heredity) then you could expect evolution to occur.
As far as the 'complex' molecules such as DNA forming, well, that IS a
big problem for scientific studies on the origin of life. Not a
"problem" as in, it could not have happened, but a "problem" as in an
active area of thought and research.
> I mean the odds of first the conditions being just right for it to
> happen have to be a zillion to one. So lets say that over the past 5
> billion years, we hit the right number in the zillion to one odds and
> the spark of life has occured with a simple OC. Now what are the odds
> that this OC would even begin to be in the right place at the right
> time to take on new compounds? Another zillion to one probably. Then
> to maintain a consistent environment in order for it to sit there for
> a billion years and take on more chemicals and compounds in order to
> evolve more. Which is unfathomly likely for the environment as we
> know it today changes all the time. Plus what are the odds that this
> OC is in the right place where it won't freeze or dehydrate or
> whatever? Another zillion to one odds there too. Then what are the
> odds after all of this that this OC would "know" what it needed next
> to survive? And where do the blue prints of these organs and
> organelles come from? Where did the compounds that make them up come
> from?
Your use of the word "zillion" ... not very informative. You could just
say "very unlikely" and get the same effect, or even estimate a real
number (even "zero" if you really think that's the probability of life
forming on a planet like the early Earth).
Personally, I agree: the probability of life forming on a planet like
the early Earth should be very low. That is not a scientific opinion,
but just some intuition mixed in with a little incredulity, and
skepticism at claims like, "It looks like life *will* form whenever the
conditions are right," as if we can tell that life occurs on many
planets in the universe. (Then again, there may be good reasons for
such opinions that I don't know about.) My feeling is, the probability
is low, but the universe is really big, so life happened on *one* planet
that I can think of.
> How did the eye or the blueprints for an eye become available? How
> did an OC know that it would need one. The eye is an EXTREMELY
> complex organ that has billions of cells or building blocks. How was
> it formed in the early stages of life? There is no telling how many
> millions of different building blocks make up the simplest rods and
> cones of an eye and how did they come about? How did the simplest
> OC's know that they needed them or how to produce them? What are the
> odds that over time this great organ would be produced? How did this
> OC know that it needed reflections of light that had to be
> retransmitted into the organs of the eye that had to be sent to the
> brain for reoranization in order to produce an image? How could it
> know that it needed all this and what are the odds of it coming
> together?
Of course, just an organic molecule could not form an eye. That's a
very different question from, "Could the decendants of simple organisms,
given a great deal of time, produce vertebrate eyes?" But if you have a
system of heredity with mutation, and differential reproductive success,
then it should be easy for evolution to create more complex structures.
The rods and cones themselves would be "descended" from similar, more
simple cells, in more simple organism.
As far as the odds of an eye being produced, if you have metazoa (an
animal of many cells) which would gain some sort of benefit from
detecting light, then that metazoan might aquire it (after all, there
are lots of ways in organic chemistry to detect light). If one animal
had a better way to detect light than the rest of the animals in its
population, then the genes controlling detection of light might be
selected for -- if the advantage was great, then we can be confident
that such an advantage would be selected for. The better-adapted
light-detection system then overtakes the population and the original
light-detection system goes extinct. Repeat the process over and over,
and in the rare instances that mutations occur which give some advantage
(which may also involve an increase in complexity), the alleles caused
by those mutations would spread through the population, and make the
less effective alleles (the product of previous mutations) go extinct.
> I have racked my brain over these things and have tried to find
> answers, but there just aren't any. The odds of life springing into
> what it is today just do not seem comprehensable. There are just too
> many zillions upon zillions upon zillions of different species, organs
> and compounds that make up life to say that it just came from some
> mindless OC billions of years ago. It was mindless and had no
> direction.
>
> Lets don't even go into the lungs and other stuff and how they came
> about. And how they were made perfect for our ability to survive for
> thousands of years.
> Zillions of more building blocks to ponder.
>
> It just seems to me that there is no other explanation for the current
> state of life than that God was the creator of life.
Aha! a very interesting idea.
> It is more
> plausible and more likely and more easily proved.
I don't know that *any* religious explanation can be "proved," not even
in the sense of "proving" something in science. Would it not be more
accurate to say that you believe God created life because you have
faith?
However, there is a big problem with your statement that God creating
life is more plausible than the scientific explanations available. The
problem is: these are not mutually exclusive. You know from your faith
that God created; now, the question becomes, *how* did God create?
Perhaps he poofed an early cell into existence, and allowed or helped
that evolve into a great variety of organims, including human beings who
are able to worship him. Or he may have set up the conditions on the
early Earth to create a cell spontaneously, following the rules of
chemistry, the way most researchers in abiogenesis think it happened.
> He created each
> organism (and might have started with single cells) and gave it it's
> uniqueness and DNA or building blocks then they grew and developed. I
> believe that he started possibbly with creating for example a male and
> female squirrel. Or he made thousands of them. Whatever. Then they
> had the chance to live.
The evidence contradicts this position; the organisms we know of today
seem to be related by common descent. In other words, squirrels have
the same ancestor as dogs, if you go back far enough in time.
> Did evolution occur with them over time? You
> bet. But it was microevolution. Not macro.
Seen many squirrel fossils? If not, how do you know that macroevolution
did not occur in the squirrel lineage. It seems to me that since there
are many species of squirrel, then macroevolution must have occurred.
Give modern-day squirrels a million years or so, and some speciees may
evolve into something you wouldn't recognize today. Of course, they may
not change very much at all; we know that some groups of animals
(turtles, crocodilians, coelecanths) have not changed very much in a
long, long time. Other organisms have changed a great deal -- for
example, if I understand correctly what paleontologists believe, a group
of reptiles closely related to crocodilians evolved into dinosaurs
gradually over millions of years, which in turn gave rise to birds over
many more millions of years. The other dinosaurs, of course, went
extinct.
> Dogs have been around
> for years but we have NEVER seen one evolve into a different species.
You might reasonably call chihuahuas and great danes different species
-- what is the likelihood that these two animals will produce offspring?
On the other hand, you seem to expect dogs to become, say, cats, after a
few million years. You should not expect that. All animals descended
from dogs will be dogs, although if they change enough, they won't be
recognizable as dogs. In the same way, birds, since they are descended
from dinosaurs, are still dinosaurs, even though they may look quite
different on the surface.
> There are different breeds of dogs just like there are different races
> of humans. Big, small, white, black, fat, skinny, 3 foot tall, 8 foot
> tall, big head, little head.....and we pass those genes to our
> offspring just like dogs and cats do. There is no indication of human
> macroevolution.
No, there isn't; humans are genetically a very small species, and the
chances of human groups becoming reproductively isolated so as to form a
new species are very slim right now.
> Yeah we might be getting a little taller and losing
> some hair, but we are still men adn women, right?
Yes! The Delta-32 CCR5 allele is also increasing in frequency, and the
allele for sickle-cell anemia is being preserved in some human
populations because if confers resistance to malaria.
And, furthermore, all descendants of humans will always be humans. If a
speciation event occurs (say, for instance, that there is a population
of humans sent to Mars which is reproductively isolated from the Earth
for long enough), then there will be two species of humans. Continue
the process under differing environmental conditions, and you might not
recognize the descendants as humans, even though they still are, even
though you may not realize right away that birds are still dinosaurs,
even though they look different.
> The fossil record is full of fully created animals.
What is a "fully created animal"? All organisms which ever existed were
adapted to their environments, or they went extinct.
> There appear to
> be many transistional fossils to supposedly support macroevolution.
> But who is to say that it is just similar species that appear to be
> transitional.
This is a very good question. The fact that some fossil species appear
to be transitional is but one part of the process of convincing
ourselves that they are actually transitional. Genetic data is very
helpful; for example, analyzing mitochondrial DNA from Neanderthals, in
comparison with the same stretch of DNA in humans and chimps suggest
that humans and Neanderthals are the same genetic distance from chimps,
but are closer to one another than they are to chimps.
Sometimes, we're not sure what is a transitional species, and we have a
hard time figuring out the family tree for a group of species; for
instance, apes. This is what makes paleontology a lively and
interesting field.
Just like man and the ape. We are somewhat similar but
> are different species. And if we evolved from ape to man, then what
> happened to all the apes.
The other apes went extinct, or their ancestors are living today as
humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, etc. There are a great many hominid
fossils known, and paleontologists spend a great deal of effort trying
to convince themselves that new finds are new species or members of old
species. The reason we think that some groups of fossils we find are
different species is that they exhibit, statistically, characteristics
which are different from those in populations of modern apes: for
instance, we might examine the position of the foramen magnum in a group
of fossils; we might measure the skull capacity; and we'll measure any
other characteristic we can to get an idea for what that group of
organisms was like. If the measurements turn out to be statistically
different from modern ape populations, and from other fossil groups,
then we can be reasonably sure that they are a different species. (This
is the same way you might determine if two modern groups of animals are
actually one species -- by examining morphological and genetic
characteristics.)
> What was the reason for the survival of the
> fittest.
?? Organisms with more reproductive fitness will leave more offspring.
If an organism posesses some advantage, then that organism will be more
fit in the biological sense.
> Why did we evolve from apes? It just isn't answerable.
You're right, that question is not answerable. However, parts of the
question, "How did we evolve from earlier apes?" might be answerable.
> And
> what are the odds of a new species coming about?
New species come about all the time, so I'd say the odds are very good.
Of course, it takes longer for new species to form from big organisms
(like humans and other apes) than for a small species (say, _Drosophila_
species, _Arabidopsis_ species, for example).
>For example lets say
> back a million years ago, there were a group of apes. They have sat
> around and micro evolved for 2 thousands year. They have gotten a
> little taller and stronger through darwanism...their hair has gotten
> darker due to being in the sun year round and they have passed this to
> their offspring.
Wait a minute here; be very careful. Traits acquired from the
environment are not heritable. Better to say, alleles for darker hair
existed in an ancient population, and because the darker hair was more
fit for the environment than lighter hair, that the darker-haired people
left more offspring and the lighter hair became less frequent in the
population. (I don't know if this actually happened, but at least it
better reflects known evolutionary mechanisms.)
> Well why in the world or how in the world could they
> evolve to being a human being due to these environmental changes? I
> just don't know. Nobody can be sure.
You're absolutely right, nobody can be sure. That doesn't mean that we
can't have plausible explanations for what we observe.
Again, though, it was not the environmental changes alone that caused
the evolution of humans. Mutations occur independently of the
environment; occaisionally, the mutation will make the organism better
suited to the environment so as to allow it to leave more offspring than
other members of the population. The environment does change, but the
only effect this has on evolution is in determining which alleles are
the fitter ones.
> And what are the environmental
> changes that took place and how long did they last. Surely not for a
> million years.
We know that environments change; just look at tree rings and ice cores.
> Are their any species alive right now that are
> transitional to apes and humans so that we can take a look?
Nope. Why would you expect there to be? Evolutionary biology certainly
doesn't.
> There are
> some similarities of men and apes but there are HUGE DIFFERENCES TOO.
Not so huge. When you compare the same character across many groups,
the human characteristics tend to be closest to the chimp
characteristics. This occurs with both morphological and genetic data.
> There should be tons of fossil evidence or living evidence of
> transitional specials over millions of years of evolution. From ape a
> to b to c to d to e over millions of years.
Like I said, we have many hominid fossils which are good candidates for
the descent of humans from a common ancestor with chimpanzees. It is
certain that these hominids shared the same common ancestor; they look
more like humans and chimpanzees than any other orgnanisms, and we have
genetic data from Neanderthals, at least.
> Since apes are still alive and running around, where are all there
> cousins and transitional species that should be around too. Were just
> blocks of animals just executed millions of years ago? If we evolved
> from apes and apes from chimps where are all the cousins of them that
> should be around? I mean we have a chimp an ape and man but nothing
> in between. Who was to say that just the chimp the ape and man were
> to survive? Where are all our cousins and not to mention the millions
> of cousins of other supposed evolved species?
These cousins, etc. you think should be around, should not be around.
If they were, that would be a HUGE problem for the theory of evolution.
The other species which share a common ancestor with chimps and humans
are either extinct (or else they would be additional species in the
group alive today) or they are our direct ancestors, or they are the
direct ancestors of chimps.
> And while talking about apes what about the millions of other species
> that are running around? Where are all there cousins and transitional
> buddies. Surely over millions of years they just didnt dissapear did
> they? What are the odds of that happening. There should be a living
> record of the evolution of species you would think. There should be a
> chimp, chimp a, chimp b, chimp c.....then ape a, b, c, d, and so on to
> humans? Where are all these examples. Where are all the fossil
> evidences of them? Why did the current ape just get to survive and
> apes abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz of the transitional process not
> survive and where is all the fossil evidence?
Not "chimp a, chimp b," etc., but "hominid a, hominid b," etc. It seems
that we have fossils from a great many of these transitional forms,
though it is impossible to have them all.
Again, the tranisitional forms are either ancestors of living species,
or they went extinct (because there are only two modern species in the
humans-chimps group).
>
> Instead we have fossil records of man and some early men. Some with
> some very questionable hype such as Nebraska man.
"Nebraska Man" was a kind of pig, and not a hominid at all. The name
was an unfortunate result of someone being too excited about their data
(human teeth look a lot like pig teeth; the discoverer jumped to an
unwarranted conclusion because he really wanted there to be fossil
hominids in North America).
> Nothing in between
> to show the millions of different shapes and looks that man took on
> over the millions of years of evolution. Just a man, some apes and
> some chimps. Really not much in between.
Are you kidding? There is *lots* of indication of the "different shapes
and looks" of human beings over the last few million years! Our
foreheads used to slope, and our foramen magnums used to be pointed more
to the back, for starters.
> It just doesn't add up.
>
> It easier to prove that God in his great intelligence and wisdom
> created everything and "KNEW" what they needed to survive. He knew
> what organs and organelles they needed and provided them. He gave
> them all pretty much the same chance to survive. However he gave man
> the supremecy of all creatures on the earth, thus giving him a special
> INTELLECT, that NO OTHER species has. Other species can learn and
> reason to an extent but not like man.
I don't think that the positions "God created" and "evolution occurred"
are mutually exclusive. Like I said before, if you know by faith that
God created, what's the problem in finding out *how* the creation
occurred?
> I believe I can prove God exists but that is an entirely other subject
> that can be argued later.
>
> Evolution is much like religion. It is based on faith, really.
> Nothing more. Science has facts and studies but no true factual
> evidence of macroevolution.
We do have evidence of macroevolution; we can observe it occurring
today, for one thing. The fossil record is consistent with a pattern of
macroevolution. Genetic data is *very* convincing, and what's more, it
agrees with the fossil data.
> We also have facts and studies that prove
> God existed.
Really? Where? I thought that this was a matter of faith, not proof.
> And to be honest more than evolution for we have
> recorded writings of what was seen and heard 3 thousand years ago.
> Unlike evolution which occured billions of supposed years ago. Nobody
> saw it nobody wrote about it.
But it left physical evidence, which anyone can observe and arrive at
the same result, if all of the evidence is considered together.
Furthermore, why are "eye-witnesses" more convincing that physical
evidence? In a courtroom, eye-witnesses are known to be unreliable,
whereas physical evidence is very believable. The problem is that
eye-witnesses often contradict one another, but the physical evidence
never contradicts itself.
> I look at it this way: 1) If you believe that God does not exist, so
> be it. But if you are wrong then when you die, you go to Hell. If
> you are right, you turn to dust or go whereever you think you go 2)
> If you believe that God does exist and try to learn of his truths, so
> be it. If you are wrong, well, you just turn to dust and it is over.
> If you are right and have honestly believed in God, searched for his
> truth, found Jesus, then you have the gift of everlasting life.
Okay. I'd say that's a really bad reason to have faith, but if it does
the trick for you, then I can't argue.
> I like my chances of trying to find God and taking that route,
> therefore if I'm wrong I only risk the act of turning to dust. The
> other way, I burn in Hell and I don't like that approach.
Again, that seems like the wrong reason to love God.
> I myself believe in God. Believe that Jesus is the only way to
> everlasting life and feel that it has had a direct effect on my life.
> My proof is in my own direct physical witnessed proof. I have studied
> many different religions and have found not one that makes as much
> sense as Christianity.
>
> And don't go down the path that Christianity has been the root of war
> and bloodshed because I believe that it has not. People have killed
> in the name of Christianity but a disciple of Jesus Christ knows that
> he said "Blessed are the peace makers!". The best example of a person
> killing that said they were Christian was Hitler.
>
> Now my final statement on that is that NOONE knows if a man is a
> Christian. Only God knows that. Hitler might have been a Christian ...
I doubt very much that Hitler was a Christian, but you're probably
right, no one but God could know that.
> ... but what Im saying is that his acts were not Christianlike for Jesus
> said not to do those things. "Blessed are the peacemakers".
>
> All Im saying is that it only makes sense.
>
> Whew........
Once again, let me say that believing that God created is not exclusive
to believing evolution occurred. I can't remember where I got this
from, but someone said, "God wrote the Bible; God also wrote the rocks."
That is, there is truth in the Bible, and in the stories of creation.
There is also truth in the physical evidence; it might show us *how* God
did the creating. A geologist (a creationist!) of the Royal Physical
Society of London, Adam Sedgwick, once said:
"Moral and physical truth may partake of a common essence, but as far as
we are concerned, their foundations are independent, and have not one
common element. And in the narrations of a great fatal catastrophe, ...
there is not a word to justify us in looking to any mere physical
monuments as the intelligible records of that event..."
[qtd in http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/apr02.html ]
What Rev. Sedgwick is saying is that the physical evidence says there
was never a catastrophic flood in world history. However, his faith in
the truth of that story (not in its historicity, but in its *truth*) was
not shaken: moral truth versus physical truth.
--
Dan Ensign
Eric Root
MheathXX wrote:
>
(snip)
Down to this point this long-winded diatribe had nothing to do with Cristianity
>
> I myself believe in God. Believe that Jesus is the only way to
> everlasting life and feel that it has had a direct effect on my life.
> My proof is in my own direct physical witnessed proof. I have studied
> many different religions and have found not one that makes as much
> sense as Christianity.
>
Well, they do make as much sense as Christianity, just say Christianity suits
you better.
>
> And don't go down the path that Christianity has been the root of war
> and bloodshed because I believe that it has not. People have killed
> in the name of Christianity but a disciple of Jesus Christ knows that
> he said "Blessed are the peace makers!".
>
and he didn't say "bear false witness against science," "be bigoted," or
"you'll go to Hell if you aren't as simple-minded absolutist who thinks it's
possible for a book to be magically totally true."
>
> Now my final statement on that is that NOONE knows if a man is a
> Christian. Only God knows that. Hitler might have been a Christian
> but what Im saying is that his acts were not Christianlike for Jesus
> said not to do those things. "Blessed are the peacemakers".
>
Fundamentalists especially don't know who is a Christian and who isn't.
Remember the parable of the Good Samaritan.
Dana Tweedy
> would say that it took billions of years to get to this point.
>
> I can go along with the fact that over time things can happen. Time
> is a mindless machine that marches on without our approval.
>
> But how did life get started, differentiate and get to where it is
> today?
Those are three separate questions.
>
> I just don't think it is answerable.
>
> Lets go back to that first pool of life. Where lightning, or whatever
> the spark was, first hit just right to create that jolt of life.
Nope, that's wrong. No one claims that how life began. It's a common
misconception, so don't feel bad.
>
> Okay, we have some type of organic compound sitting there in a pool
> and it is showing some type of electric activity of "supposed" life.
Again, a common misconception of how life began. No modern hypotheses of
abiogenesis suggest it was an instantaneous event.
>
> I would assume this is where it would have to happen. With something
> simple and basic. I mean, lightning didn't strike and create a fish
> did it?
Nope.
>
> Well, with this simple organic compound (OC from here on out) how did
> differtiation occur?
Through biochemical reactions.
>
> First, did it already have ANY complexity of a single cell? Doesn't a
> cell need a massive complex order of activity in order to survive?
No.
> What about all of it's organelles that are needed in order to survive?
Organelles are not necessary. Bacteria today live quite well without them.
> Did they just magically appear?
Not likely.
> What about all the processes of the
> processes?
What about them?
> What about RNA and DNA and the simple starches that are
> needed to fuel the process of life?
Google on the term "RNA world".
> How did the DNA and RNA evolvle?
Through mutation and natural selection.
> What about the millions of correct orders that are needed for the DNA,
> RNA and organelles of this supposed cell?
They came much later.
>
> Evolution is mindless, right? It has no direction or pulse. So how
> in the world could a simple mindless OC "know" that it needed anything
> else than what it already had?
It didn't. The other items were added later.
> It is just sitting there and due to
> some outside "survival of the fittest" force it figures it should get
> the building blocks of MY LORD, anything? What could it know or
> fathom that it needed?
It didn't. Individuals don't evolve. Evolution happens in populations.
>
> And lets say that for some reason a "survival of the fittest type
> situation" did occur. Lets say there is a drought or something. I
> don't know. What will happen to this mindless little OC now? How
> could it "know" to do anything?
I didn't. Those who could survive did, those who didn't died.
>
> The odds of something like a simple OC somehow differentiating into
> what we presently see is next to nothing. ZERO in my eyes.
argument from incredulity. What method did you use to calculate those odds?
>
> I mean the odds of first the conditions being just right for it to
> happen have to be a zillion to one.
Again, how did you come to reach that figure? What makes you think it was
an instantaneous event?
> So lets say that over the past 5
> billion years, we hit the right number in the zillion to one odds and
> the spark of life has occured with a simple OC. Now what are the odds
> that this OC would even begin to be in the right place at the right
> time to take on new compounds? Another zillion to one probably.
Please show your math.
> Then
> to maintain a consistent environment in order for it to sit there for
> a billion years and take on more chemicals and compounds in order to
> evolve more. Which is unfathomly likely for the environment as we
> know it today changes all the time. Plus what are the odds that this
> OC is in the right place where it won't freeze or dehydrate or
> whatever? Another zillion to one odds there too.
Please show your math.
Then what are the
> odds after all of this that this OC would "know" what it needed next
> to survive? And where do the blue prints of these organs and
> organelles come from? Where did the compounds that make them up come
> from?
Why would they need blueprints?
>
> How did the eye or the blueprints for an eye become available?
Why would the eye need blueprints? "The eye" has evovled independently
numerous times, in different linages.
> How
> did an OC know that it would need one.
It didn't. However, ability to sense light has obvious advantages.
> The eye is an EXTREMELY
> complex organ that has billions of cells or building blocks. How was
> it formed in the early stages of life?
Through many steps.
> There is no telling how many
> millions of different building blocks make up the simplest rods and
> cones of an eye and how did they come about?
Through mutation and selection.
> How did the simplest
> OC's know that they needed them or how to produce them
They didn't.
> What are the
> odds that over time this great organ would be produced?
1/1, since we know it happened.
>How did this
> OC know that it needed reflections of light that had to be
> retransmitted into the organs of the eye that had to be sent to the
> brain for reoranization in order to produce an image?
It didn't.
> How could it
> know that it needed all this and what are the odds of it coming
> together?
It didn't
>
> I have racked my brain over these things and have tried to find
> answers, but there just aren't any.
Sure there are. Instead of 'racking your brain', why not read some
literature on the matter, from those who have studied the matter?
http://www.origins.tv/darwin/eyes.htm
http://www.karger.com/gazette/64/fernald/art_1_0.htm
> The odds of life springing into
> what it is today just do not seem comprehensable.
Who said that life sprung into what it is today?
> There are just too
> many zillions upon zillions upon zillions of different species, organs
> and compounds that make up life to say that it just came from some
> mindless OC billions of years ago. It was mindless and had no
> direction.
Natural selection gives direction.
>
> Lets don't even go into the lungs and other stuff and how they came
> about. And how they were made perfect for our ability to survive for
> thousands of years.
> Zillions of more building blocks to ponder.
More argument from incredulity. What makes you think that any of our
organs are are "pefect"?
>
> It just seems to me that there is no other explanation for the current
> state of life than that God was the creator of life.
Others who have studied the matter disagree.
> It is more
> plausible and more likely and more easily proved. He created each
> organism (and might have started with single cells) and gave it it's
> uniqueness and DNA or building blocks then they grew and developed.
What evidence do you present to support that assertion?
> I
> believe that he started possibbly with creating for example a male and
> female squirrel. Or he made thousands of them. Whatever. Then they
> had the chance to live. Did evolution occur with them over time? You
> bet. But it was microevolution. Not macro.
Please tell us what you feel is the differerence between the two.
> Dogs have been around
> for years but we have NEVER seen one evolve into a different species.
Why should we?
> There are different breeds of dogs just like there are different races
> of humans. Big, small, white, black, fat, skinny, 3 foot tall, 8 foot
> tall, big head, little head.....and we pass those genes to our
> offspring just like dogs and cats do. There is no indication of human
> macroevolution. Yeah we might be getting a little taller and losing
> some hair, but we are still men adn women, right?
What do you think macroevolution is?
>
> The fossil record is full of fully created animals.
Why would there be less than "fully created" animals in the fossil record?
> There appear to
> be many transistional fossils to supposedly support macroevolution.
> But who is to say that it is just similar species that appear to be
> transitional.
If it appears transitional, why isn't it?
> Just like man and the ape. We are somewhat similar but
> are different species. And if we evolved from ape to man, then what
> happened to all the apes.
Why should anything have happened to the apes? Just becase one species
splits off from a population, that doesn't mean all the other populations
must go extinct.
> What was the reason for the survival of the
> fittest. Why did we evolve from apes?
Why not? Evolution does not have a 'why', it just happens.
> It just isn't answerable.
Sure it is, you just don't like the answers.
> And
> what are the odds of a new species coming about?
That depends on too many factors to give a simple answer. In populations
that are in the process of speciation, the odds would be 1/1.
For example lets say
> back a million years ago, there were a group of apes. They have sat
> around and micro evolved for 2 thousands year. They have gotten a
> little taller and stronger through darwanism...their hair has gotten
> darker due to being in the sun year round and they have passed this to
> their offspring. Well why in the world or how in the world could they
> evolve to being a human being due to these environmental changes?
If they were getting "taller and stronger", with darker hair, then they
wouldn't evolve into human beings. Humans are weaker than their surviving
ape cousins, and they have less hair, not darker hair. Human evolution
appears to be the result of the savannah becoming drier, and speciation of
woodland apes, into savannah dwellers. Upright posture appears to have
evolved before anything else in human linage. Humans evolved a larger
brain, and more intelligence over the generations as an adaptive survival
strategy, just like other animals evolved adaptive survival strategies.
> I
> just don't know. Nobody can be sure. And what are the environmental
> changes that took place and how long did they last. Surely not for a
> million years.
Why not?
> Are their any species alive right now that are
> transitional to apes and humans so that we can take a look?
Why should there be? As you said before, evolution is mindless, and has no
goal. Humans are not the goal of evolution. We do have plenty of fossils
of transitional species between other apes and modern humans. Why should we
need living species?
There are
> some similarities of men and apes but there are HUGE DIFFERENCES TOO.
How "HUGE" is huge? The differences between modern apes and modern humans
are much less than between other closely related living species. For
example Wolves and foxes, African and Indian elephants, Seals and Sea Lions.
etc.
> There should be tons of fossil evidence or living evidence of
> transitional specials over millions of years of evolution. From ape a
> to b to c to d to e over millions of years.
Fortunately, there is tons of fossil evidence of just such a transition.
>
> Since apes are still alive and running around, where are all there
> cousins and transitional species that should be around too.
Extinct. 10 million years ago, there were much more species of apes than
alive today.
>Were just
> blocks of animals just executed millions of years ago? If we evolved
> from apes and apes from chimps where are all the cousins of them that
> should be around?
Extinct. We do have their fossils.
I mean we have a chimp an ape and man but nothing
> in between.
No, we have many fossil species between them.
> Who was to say that just the chimp the ape and man were
> to survive? Where are all our cousins and not to mention the millions
> of cousins of other supposed evolved species?
Extinct. It just so happened that chimps, gorillas, Organs, gibbons, and
humans are the only surviving species of ape we have today. If any of our
ancestors had gone extinct, then it would be just the chimps, gorillas,
orangs, and gibbons.
>
> And while talking about apes what about the millions of other species
> that are running around? Where are all there cousins and transitional
> buddies.
There are millions of other species running around. Many many more species
are extinct.
Surely over millions of years they just didnt dissapear did
> they? What are the odds of that happening.
1/1
There should be a living
> record of the evolution of species you would think. There should be a
> chimp, chimp a, chimp b, chimp c.....then ape a, b, c, d, and so on to
> humans?
Why should there be? There is Chimp A (common chimps) Chimp B (bonobos) and
Chimp C (humans). Why should there be others?
Where are all these examples. Where are all the fossil
> evidences of them?
Still in the rocks. It's highly unlikely that chimps, who live in jungle
areas, where few, if any remains last long enough to become fossilized, will
leave many fossils.
> Why did the current ape just get to survive and
> apes abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz of the transitional process not
> survive and where is all the fossil evidence?
Current apes survived because they got lucky. The others went extinct. We
do have fossil evidence of much of the transitional process.
>
> Instead we have fossil records of man and some early men. Some with
> some very questionable hype such as Nebraska man.
"Nebraska Man" only existed as a Creationist strawman. It was never
accepted as a hominid ancestor, and no scientist has mentioned it since the
early 1920's when it was revealed to be a simple identification error.
> Nothing in between
> to show the millions of different shapes and looks that man took on
> over the millions of years of evolution. Just a man, some apes and
> some chimps. Really not much in between.
Humans are a species of Chimp. There aren't that many forms between the
two, and we have many of the fossil steps already.
>
> It just doesn't add up.
No, it does add up. You simply have been misinformed.
>
> It easier to prove that God in his great intelligence and wisdom
> created everything and "KNEW" what they needed to survive. He knew
> what organs and organelles they needed and provided them. He gave
> them all pretty much the same chance to survive. However he gave man
> the supremecy of all creatures on the earth, thus giving him a special
> INTELLECT, that NO OTHER species has. Other species can learn and
> reason to an extent but not like man.
Present the evidence of God then.
>
> I believe I can prove God exists but that is an entirely other subject
> that can be argued later.
What evidence do you have.
>
> Evolution is much like religion. It is based on faith, really.
No, it's a scientific theory, based on evidence.
> Nothing more. Science has facts and studies but no true factual
> evidence of macroevolution.
Macroevolution has been observed. What more factual evidence do you need?
> We also have facts and studies that prove
> God existed.
Such as?
> And to be honest more than evolution for we have
> recorded writings of what was seen and heard 3 thousand years ago.
> Unlike evolution which occured billions of supposed years ago. Nobody
> saw it nobody wrote about it.
The "recorded writings" of the Bible do not match the physical evidence, and
evolution has been observed happening today.
>
> I look at it this way: 1) If you believe that God does not exist, so
> be it. But if you are wrong then when you die, you go to Hell. If
> you are right, you turn to dust or go whereever you think you go 2)
> If you believe that God does exist and try to learn of his truths, so
> be it. If you are wrong, well, you just turn to dust and it is over.
> If you are right and have honestly believed in God, searched for his
> truth, found Jesus, then you have the gift of everlasting life.
Pascals wager raises it's head again.
>
> I like my chances of trying to find God and taking that route,
> therefore if I'm wrong I only risk the act of turning to dust. The
> other way, I burn in Hell and I don't like that approach.
>
> I myself believe in God. Believe that Jesus is the only way to
> everlasting life and feel that it has had a direct effect on my life.
> My proof is in my own direct physical witnessed proof. I have studied
> many different religions and have found not one that makes as much
> sense as Christianity.
Unlikely.
>
> And don't go down the path that Christianity has been the root of war
> and bloodshed because I believe that it has not. People have killed
> in the name of Christianity but a disciple of Jesus Christ knows that
> he said "Blessed are the peace makers!". The best example of a person
> killing that said they were Christian was Hitler.
>
> Now my final statement on that is that NOONE knows if a man is a
> Christian. Only God knows that. Hitler might have been a Christian
> but what Im saying is that his acts were not Christianlike for Jesus
> said not to do those things. "Blessed are the peacemakers".
>
> All Im saying is that it only makes sense.
No, not really.
>
> Whew........
Passing that load of crap must have hurt.
DJT
>
Abner Mintz
>>> All Im saying is that it only makes sense.
Eric Gill <eric...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> And in so doing, you repeat a long line of fallacies, just-so
>> non-arguments and possibly out and out falsehoods.
AC <mightym...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> And what does any of it have to do with Christianity?
At the risk of being offensive ... Eric Gill *did* mention
'a long line of fallacies, just-so non-arguments and possibly
out and out falsehoods'. That's what MheathXX's brand of
Christianity generally sums up to. :)
Noctiluca
(Friday, things are slow, no self control. Ah, what the hell, hello
early happy hour)
> How in the world did life evolve to it's present state? Many on here
> would say that it took billions of years to get to this point.
I can 壮plain that. Many here drug, and do drinks, I mean...
> I can go along with the fact that over time things can happen. Time
> is a mindless machine that marches on without our approval.
Sometimes simply reading a post can seem endless.
> But how did life get started, differentiate and get to where it is
> today?
> I just don't think it is answerable.
Yet I have this hunch that somewhere near the end of your post you'll
answer it anyway.
> Lets go back to that first pool of life. Where lightning, or whatever
> the spark was, first hit just right to create that jolt of life.
Shouldn't I hear *flashback* harp arpeggios?
Anyway, go ahead.
> Okay, we have some type of organic compound sitting there in a pool
> and it is showing some type of electric activity of "supposed" life.
...of some type, right, go on...
> I would assume this is where it would have to happen. With something
> simple and basic. I mean, lightning didn't strike and create a fish
> did it?
Depends, what did it strike?
Seriously though, it's pretty much understood among biologists that
one lightning strike cannot create anything above the complexity level
of a flatworm. You need at least 3 strikes for a fish. What would you
guess for a man? Well, no, not a zillion but at least one pretty
active and powerful thunderstorm.
> Well, with this simple organic compound (OC from here on out) how did
> differtiation occur?
Oh boy, I live in Orange County and I can see already I'm going to be
really confused. Maybe another drink...
> First, did it already have ANY complexity of a single cell?
Yes
> Doesn't a cell need a massive complex order of activity in order to survive?
Depends on what you mean by "doesn't, cell, need, massive, complex,
order, activity, order(uh oh), and survive."
> What about all of it's organelles that are needed in order to survive?
> Did they just magically appear?
Yes...no...can I have a do-over?
> What about all the processes of the processes?
They proceeded to proceed.
> What about RNA and DNA and the simple starches that are
> needed to fuel the process of life? How did the DNA and RNA evolvle?
Okay, thanks a lot. Now I'll be walking around all day trying to get
that sticky sound-bite out of my head, "evolvle, evolvel, eeevollvall"
> What about the millions of correct orders that are needed for the DNA,
> RNA and organelles of this supposed cell?
If they're not filled in time I'd ask for my money back.
> Evolution is mindless, right?
You need to ask someone who isn't the product of mindless processes.
> It has no direction or pulse.
Or rosy glow.
> So how in the world could a simple mindless OC "know" that it needed anything
> else than what it already had?
> It is just sitting there and due to some outside "survival of the fittest"
> force it figures it should get the building blocks of MY LORD, anything?
Whoa, what was that, an attack of something? An epiphany? You need to
warn us before you let go in the middle of a sentence like that.
> What could it know or fathom that it needed?
> And lets say that for some reason a "survival of the fittest type
> situation" did occur. Lets say there is a drought or something. I
> don't know. What will happen to this mindless little OC now?
He'll steal water from Northern California, like he always does.
> How could it "know" to do anything?
> The odds of something like a simple OC somehow differentiating into
> what we presently see is next to nothing. ZERO in my eyes.
Well then CASE CLOSED. Another beer? Don't mind if I do. (hiccup)
> I mean the odds of first the conditions being just right for it to
> happen have to be a zillion to one.
At least.
> So lets say that over the past 5
> billion years, we hit the right number in the zillion to one odds and
> the spark of life has occured with a simple OC. Now what are the odds
> that this OC would even begin to be in the right place at the right
> time to take on new compounds? Another zillion to one probably. Then
> to maintain a consistent environment in order for it to sit there for
> a billion years and take on more chemicals and compounds in order to
> evolve more. Which is unfathomly likely for the environment as we
> know it today changes all the time. Plus what are the odds that this
> OC is in the right place where it won't freeze or dehydrate or
> whatever?
Wait! Don't tell me. I can get this one...um...a zillion to one,
right!?
> Another zillion to one odds there too.
Score!
> Then what are the
> odds after all of this that this OC would "know" what it needed next
> to survive? And where do the blue prints of these organs and
> organelles come from? Where did the compounds that make them up come
> from?
Y'know, it's all starting to seem rather, well, unfathomly.
> How did the eye or the blueprints for an eye become available? How
> did an OC know that it would need one.
I think I get your point here. After all, how could it look at the
blueprint IF IT DIDN'T HAVE AN EYE!
> The eye is an EXTREMELY
> complex organ that has billions of cells or building blocks. How was
> it formed in the early stages of life? There is no telling how many
> millions of different building blocks make up the simplest rods and
> cones of an eye
Zillions, maybe more.
> and how did they come about? How did the simplest
> OC's know that they needed them or how to produce them? What are the
> odds that over time this great organ would be produced?
A zillion, zillion, zillion to one? (burp)
> How did this
> OC know that it needed reflections of light that had to be
> retransmitted into the organs of the eye that had to be sent to the
> brain for reoranization in order to produce an image? How could it
> know that it needed all this and what are the odds of it coming
> together?
(Staring into the bottle, "I bet there's a zzzzillion teensy bubbles
in there") I'm sorry, I wasn't listening.
> I have racked my brain over these things and have tried to find
> answers, but there just aren't any.
Then that settles it, I guess.
> The odds of life springing into
> what it is today just do not seem comprehensable. There are just too
> many zillions upon zillions upon zillions of different species, organs
> and compounds that make up life to say that it just came from some
> mindless OC billions of years ago. It was mindless and had no
> direction.
And got lost somewhere on the 405? (hiccup, giggle) Sorry.
> Lets don't even go into the lungs and other stuff and how they came
> about. And how they were made perfect for our ability to survive for
> thousands of years.
> Zillions of more building blocks to ponder.
Well, let's get to it, time's marching on (and without my approval,
I'll have you know).
> It just seems to me that there is no other explanation for the current
> state of life than that God was the creator of life. It is more
> plausible and more likely and more easily proved.
And easy is what we're looking for, to hell with accurate.
> He created each
> organism (and might have started with single cells) and gave it it's
> uniqueness and DNA or building blocks then they grew and developed.
Either I'm a bit potted or you're not really bothering with grammar.
> I believe that he started possibbly with creating for example a male and
> female squirrel. Or he made thousands of them.
Ah, yes, "Squirrel Theory." I hear it's all the rage in academic
circles.
> Whatever. Then they
> had the chance to live.
Without which *being* would just be boring.
> Did evolution occur with them over time? You
> bet. But it was microevolution. Not macro. Dogs have been around
> for years but we have NEVER seen one evolve into a different species.
> There are different breeds of dogs just like there are different races
> of humans. Big, small, white, black, fat, skinny, 3 foot tall, 8 foot
> tall, big head, little head.....
...even kids with chicken pox love hot dogs, ar...Okay, I'll pay
attention, I promise.
> and we pass those genes to our
> offspring just like dogs and cats do. There is no indication of human
> macroevolution. Yeah we might be getting a little taller and losing
> some hair, but we are still men adn women, right?
Damn right (hitches up pants), "no, no, mine was a light beer, I'm
watching my weight"
> The fossil record is full of fully created animals. There appear to
> be many transistional fossils to supposedly support macroevolution.
> But who is to say that it is just similar species that appear to be
> transitional. Just like man and the ape. We are somewhat similar but
> are different species.
As any ape will be quick to point out.
> And if we evolved from ape to man, then what
> happened to all the apes. What was the reason for the survival of the
> fittest.
Fitness?
> Why did we evolve from apes?
They were the only ones that would have us?
> It just isn't answerable.
Obviously not by me.
> And
> what are the odds of a new species coming about?
Oh, boy, here we go again.
> For example lets say
> back a million years ago, there were a group of apes. They have sat
> around and micro evolved for 2 thousands year. They have gotten a
> little taller and stronger through darwanism...their hair has gotten
> darker due to being in the sun year round and they have passed this to
> their offspring.
Along with a killer jump serve.
> Well why in the world or how in the world could they
> evolve to being a human being due to these environmental changes?
Because the physiological prerequisite for being human is having dark
hair, everyone knows that (well, except for those blonde sub-humans).
Sheesh, take a class.
> I just don't know. Nobody can be sure. And what are the environmental
> changes that took place and how long did they last. Surely not for a
> million years. Are their any species alive right now that are
> transitional to apes and humans so that we can take a look?
Yes. Bigfeet. (Bigfoots?)
> There are
> some similarities of men and apes but there are HUGE DIFFERENCES TOO.
> There should be tons of fossil evidence or living evidence of
> transitional specials over millions of years of evolution. From ape a
> to b to c to d to e over millions of years.
Hmm...are you sure you've done all of your homework on this?
> Since apes are still alive and running around, where are all there
> cousins and transitional species that should be around too.
Right now? Probably in Cabo.
> Were just
> blocks of animals just executed millions of years ago?
Don't worry, that koult never happen.
> If we evolved
> from apes and apes from chimps where are all the cousins of them that
> should be around? I mean we have a chimp an ape and man but nothing
> in between. Who was to say that just the chimp the ape and man were
> to survive? Where are all our cousins and not to mention the millions
> of cousins of other supposed evolved species?
For that matter, where are my ancestors, all of them, every one?
> And while talking about apes what about the millions of other species
> that are running around?
> Where are all there cousins and transitional
> buddies. Surely over millions of years they just didnt dissapear did
> they? What are the odds of that happening.
Everybody...?
> There should be a living
> record of the evolution of species you would think.
I'm still working on trying to make sure I never die. First things
first.
> There should be a
> chimp, chimp a, chimp b, chimp c.....
> then ape a, b, c, d, and so on to
> humans? Where are all these examples. Where are all the fossil
> evidences of them? Why did the current ape just get to survive and
> apes abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
There you go again. That's scary, man. Was that a nursery school song
flashback or just a random bit of glossola...gloslol...nevermind.
> of the transitional process not
> survive and where is all the fossil evidence?
> Instead we have fossil records of man and some early men. Some with
> some very questionable hype such as Nebraska man. Nothing in between
> to show the millions of different shapes and looks that man took on
> over the millions of years of evolution. Just a man, some apes and
> some chimps. Really not much in between.
Again, have you, y'know, checked into this at all?
> It just doesn't add up.
Depends on the sum you're expecting.
> It easier to prove that God in his great intelligence and wisdom
> created everything and "KNEW" what they needed to survive. He knew
> what organs and organelles they needed and provided them. He gave
> them all pretty much the same chance to survive. However he gave man
> the supremecy of all creatures on the earth, thus giving him a special
> INTELLECT, that NO OTHER species has. Other species can learn and
> reason to an extent but not like man.
This post being incontrovertible proof of that.
> I believe I can prove God exists but that is an entirely other subject
> that can be argued later.
I promise I'll believe in god if you just wait to argue it until after
I'm dead.
> Evolution is much like religion. It is based on faith, really.
> Nothing more. Science has facts and studies but no true factual
> evidence of macroevolution. We also have facts and studies that prove
> God existed. And to be honest more than evolution for we have
> recorded writings of what was seen and heard 3 thousand years ago.
> Unlike evolution which occured billions of supposed years ago. Nobody
> saw it nobody wrote about it.
Nobody knows the trouble ah seen...(hiccup), umm, what?
> I look at it this way: 1) If you believe that God does not exist, so
> be it. But if you are wrong then when you die, you go to Hell. If
> you are right, you turn to dust or go whereever you think you go 2)
> If you believe that God does exist and try to learn of his truths, so
> be it. If you are wrong, well, you just turn to dust and it is over.
> If you are right and have honestly believed in God, searched for his
> truth, found Jesus, then you have the gift of everlasting life.
> I like my chances of trying to find God and taking that route,
> therefore if I'm wrong I only risk the act of turning to dust. The
> other way, I burn in Hell and I don't like that approach.
Hey, that's, umm, that's Pascal's Lager, right? ("I'll have another!")
> I myself believe in God. Believe that Jesus is the only way to
> everlasting life and feel that it has had a direct effect on my life.
> My proof is in my own direct physical witnessed proof.
Which proves it (proof-wise).
> I have studied
> many different religions and have found not one that makes as much
> sense as Christianity.
This post being incontrovertible proof of that.
> And don't go down the path that Christianity has been the root of war
> and bloodshed because I believe that it has not. People have killed
> In the name of Christianity but a disciple of Jesus Christ knows that
> he said "Blessed are the peace makers!".
Cheesemakers?
> The best example of a person
> killing that said they were Christian was Hitler.
Wait a minute. (whispers) Are you a double-agent? Don't worry, I won't
blow it (shhhhhh!).
> Now my final statement on that is that NOONE knows if a man is a
> Christian. Only God knows that. Hitler might have been a Christian
> but what Im saying is that his acts were not Christianlike for Jesus
> said not to do those things. "Blessed are the peacemakers".
> All Im saying is that it only makes sense.
And that's saying something, that is. Yessiree that's saying
something.
(hiccup)
Umm, were you saying something?
> Whew........
Gary Bohn
"AC" <mightym...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:slrnc5m9ll.17c....@alder.alberni.net...
It makes absolutely no sense that ... Poof! 'ghod' just appeared and he then
figured he needed something to molest so .. Poof! he made life. If you want
something to make sense, stop believing in all the magical crap, use a bit
of logic and really learn about evolution rather than that strawman your
buddies are filling you with.
Hey, we evolved a ration brain for a reason, try using it.
TANSTAAFL
Gary
Stanley Friesen
>How in the world did life evolve to it's present state? Many on here
>would say that it took billions of years to get to this point.
>
>I can go along with the fact that over time things can happen. Time
>is a mindless machine that marches on without our approval.
>
>But how did life get started, differentiate and get to where it is
>today?
>
>I just don't think it is answerable.
This depends on what you mean by "answerable". Scientists are well on
the way to discovering the mechanisms by which it occurred.
However, you seem to be making the error that just because there is a
scientific explanation for a process, God had nothing to do with it.
But God is the ruler of nature, and he can work through nature as easily
as through miracles.
>
>Lets go back to that first pool of life. Where lightning, or whatever
>the spark was, first hit just right to create that jolt of life.
>
This is such a bogus straw-man of what scientists propose as to be
almost a joke. Life did *not* arise in any *single* event, all at once.
It formed gradually, over many millions of years. There is no sharp,
clear dividing line between what is alive and what is not.
>Okay, we have some type of organic compound sitting there in a pool
>and it is showing some type of electric activity of "supposed" life.
Electrical activity is not particularly a part of the definition of
life.
>
>I would assume this is where it would have to happen. With something
>simple and basic. I mean, lightning didn't strike and create a fish
>did it?
It didn't strike and create *anything*. Life didn't appear "poof" out
of nowhere.
The peace of God be with you.
Stanley Friesen
Patrick James
(in article <c3d9dd2.04031...@posting.google.com>):
> How in the world did life evolve to it's present state?
over a long period of time.
> Many on here
> would say that it took billions of years to get to this point.
that's what the evidence says. Can you point to evidences which:
1 points to some other conclusion
2 explains everything current theory does
3 disproves current theory?
Note that that's 'evidence', not opinion. Put up or shut up.
>
> I can go along with the fact that over time things can happen. Time
> is a mindless machine that marches on without our approval.
poetic.
>
> But how did life get started,
no-one knows. Insufficient data at this time to come to a scientific
conclusion.
> differentiate and get to where it is
> today?
Different environments.
>
> I just don't think it is answerable.
Your problem, not mine.
>
> Lets go back to that first pool of life. Where lightning, or whatever
> the spark was, first hit just right to create that jolt of life.
No-one knows how it worked. Insufficient data.
>
> Okay, we have some type of organic compound sitting there in a pool
> and it is showing some type of electric activity of "supposed" life.
You're making a non-argument against a position no-one takes.
>
> I would assume this is where it would have to happen. With something
> simple and basic. I mean, lightning didn't strike and create a fish
> did it?
Why would you think that a fish is 'simple and basic'?
>
> Well, with this simple organic compound (OC from here on out) how did
> differtiation occur?
Hint: there are lots and lots and lots of different chemicals.
>
> First, did it already have ANY complexity of a single cell?
No.
> Doesn't a
> cell need a massive complex order of activity in order to survive?
No.
> What about all of it's organelles that are needed in order to survive?
Not needed for simple cells. There are examples of single-cell life alive
_today_ which don't have 'em.
> Did they just magically appear?
No.
> What about all the processes of the
> processes?
I suspect that you have no idea what you're babbling about. I _know_ that I
have no idea what you're babbling about.
> What about RNA and DNA and the simple starches that are
> needed to fuel the process of life?
you're kidding me, right? Didn't you do _any_ research before posting this
trash?
Of course not...
> How did the DNA and RNA evolvle?
over time.
> What about the millions of correct orders that are needed for the DNA,
> RNA and organelles of this supposed cell?
See above. They aren't needed. You have no idea what the hell you're talking
about.
>
> Evolution is mindless, right?
yes.
> It has no direction or pulse. So how
> in the world could a simple mindless OC "know" that it needed anything
> else than what it already had?
it didn't.
> It is just sitting there and due to
> some outside "survival of the fittest" force it figures it should get
> the building blocks of MY LORD, anything? What could it know or
> fathom that it needed?
You're anthromorphising a natural process. Evolutionary forces don't think.
>
> And lets say that for some reason a "survival of the fittest type
> situation" did occur. Lets say there is a drought or something. I
> don't know. What will happen to this mindless little OC now? How
> could it "know" to do anything?
It lives or it dies. If the change is severe enough, almost everything dies.
This has been seen in, for example, the major extinction event at the end of
the dinosaur era.
>
> The odds of something like a simple OC somehow differentiating into
> what we presently see is next to nothing. ZERO in my eyes.
1 who cares about your opinion?
2 how did you calculate the odds? Be specific.
>
> I mean the odds of first the conditions being just right for it to
> happen have to be a zillion to one. So lets say that over the past 5
> billion years, we hit the right number in the zillion to one odds and
> the spark of life has occured with a simple OC. Now what are the odds
> that this OC would even begin to be in the right place at the right
> time to take on new compounds? Another zillion to one probably. Then
> to maintain a consistent environment in order for it to sit there for
> a billion years and take on more chemicals and compounds in order to
> evolve more.
Where are you getting the experimental data to support the above?
> Which is unfathomly likely for the environment as we
> know it today changes all the time. Plus what are the odds that this
> OC is in the right place where it won't freeze or dehydrate or
> whatever? Another zillion to one odds there too. Then what are the
> odds after all of this that this OC would "know" what it needed next
> to survive? And where do the blue prints of these organs and
> organelles come from? Where did the compounds that make them up come
> from?
Chemicals.
>
> How did the eye or the blueprints for an eye become available?
Which eye? The basic vertebrate eye, with all its faults? You _do_ know that
squid, for example, have eyes which are both different from those of
vertebrates and _superior_ to them in many ways? There are at least three
different types of invertebrate eyes, not counting things like eyespots on
unicellular creatures. Which 'eye' are you talking about?
> How
> did an OC know that it would need one.
It didn't.
> The eye is an EXTREMELY
> complex organ that has billions of cells or building blocks. How was
> it formed in the early stages of life? There is no telling how many
> millions of different building blocks make up the simplest rods and
> cones of an eye and how did they come about?
step by step.
> How did the simplest
> OC's know that they needed them or how to produce them? What are the
> odds that over time this great organ would be produced? How did this
> OC know that it needed reflections of light that had to be
> retransmitted into the organs of the eye that had to be sent to the
> brain for reoranization in order to produce an image? How could it
> know that it needed all this and what are the odds of it coming
> together?
1.0. some animals have eyes, therefore this occurred.
Other examples of electromagnetic spectrum sensing equipment include the
heat-sensing pits common on some animals (rattlesnakes, for example) and the
active electromagnetic field systems common with others (electric rays, for
example) and neither of which are found in humans... but both of which would
be useful. Evoluntionary forces can and do explain why rattlesnakes and rays
can do things humans can't... despite their obvious utility. Can you?
>
> I have racked my brain over these things and have tried to find
> answers, but there just aren't any.
Others haven't found it so hard to do.
<http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB921_1.html>
<http://www.aps.org/units/dbp/newsletter/jun02.pdf > (594 kb PDF, you'll need
Acrobat or something which can handle PDFs to read.)
> The odds of life springing into
> what it is today just do not seem comprehensable.
Which is why id didn't happen that way.
> There are just too
> many zillions upon zillions upon zillions of different species, organs
> and compounds that make up life to say that it just came from some
> mindless OC billions of years ago. It was mindless and had no
> direction.
Yes, and so?
>
> Lets don't even go into the lungs and other stuff and how they came
> about. And how they were made perfect for our ability to survive for
> thousands of years.
> Zillions of more building blocks to ponder.
You _do_ know that lungs were originally the swim bladders of fish, don't
you? Fish did not use them to breath, originally...
>
> It just seems to me that there is no other explanation for the current
> state of life than that God was the creator of life.
only to idiots.
> It is more
> plausible and more likely and more easily proved.
present your proof.
> He created each
> organism (and might have started with single cells) and gave it it's
> uniqueness and DNA or building blocks then they grew and developed. I
> believe that he started possibbly with creating for example a male and
> female squirrel. Or he made thousands of them. Whatever. Then they
> had the chance to live. Did evolution occur with them over time? You
> bet. But it was microevolution. Not macro. Dogs have been around
> for years but we have NEVER seen one evolve into a different species.
insufficient time. You simply don't get the time scale necessary.
> There are different breeds of dogs just like there are different races
> of humans. Big, small, white, black, fat, skinny, 3 foot tall, 8 foot
> tall, big head, little head.....and we pass those genes to our
> offspring just like dogs and cats do. There is no indication of human
> macroevolution. Yeah we might be getting a little taller and losing
> some hair, but we are still men adn women, right?
>
> The fossil record is full of fully created animals. There appear to
> be many transistional fossils to supposedly support macroevolution.
> But who is to say that it is just similar species that appear to be
> transitional. Just like man and the ape. We are somewhat similar but
> are different species. And if we evolved from ape to man, then what
> happened to all the apes.
The same thing which happened to all the cats which _didn't_ evolve into
tigers.
snip rest, I'm tired of this crap.
--
Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes
"Rev Dr" Lenny Flank
MheathXX wrote:
<snipped>
I'm curious --- why would the "Christian viewpoint on the origin of
life" be any different from, say, the Buddhist or the Muslim or the
Zoroastrian viewpoint? Is the "Christian viewpoint on the density of
uranium" any different from the Buddhist or Muslim or Zoroastrian? is
the "Christian viewpoint on the chemistry of carbon atoms" any different
than the Buddhist or Muslim or Zoroastrian?
Why on earth should "Christian" science be any different than any other
science?
===============================================
Lenny Flank
"There are no loose threads in the web of life"
Creation "Science" Debunked:
http://www.geocities.com/lflank
DebunkCreation Email list:
http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/DebunkCreation
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John Thompson
<snip arguments against evolution answered by others>
> I look at it this way: 1) If you believe that God does not exist, so
> be it. But if you are wrong then when you die, you go to Hell. If
> you are right, you turn to dust or go whereever you think you go 2)
> If you believe that God does exist and try to learn of his truths, so
> be it. If you are wrong, well, you just turn to dust and it is over.
> If you are right and have honestly believed in God, searched for his
> truth, found Jesus, then you have the gift of everlasting life.God
>
You claim there are only 2 possibilities, but actually the
possibilities are limitless. Here are just a few.
3) God exists and sends you to Hell for rejecting His prophet
Mohammed.
4) God exists and sends you to Hell for thinking you can learn more
about Him from some old legends than from studying His creation.
5) God exists but doesn't care whether people believe in Him, judging
them by some other criteria.
6) God exists but doesn't judge people in any way. The future of you
soul depends on what He needs it for at the time and is unaffected by
anything you have ever done or could do.
Etc.
> And don't go down the path that Christianity has been the root of war
> and bloodshed because I believe that it has not. People have killed
> in the name of Christianity but a disciple of Jesus Christ knows that
> he said "Blessed are the peace makers!". The best example of a person
> killing that said they were Christian was Hitler.
>
> Now my final statement on that is that NOONE knows if a man is a
> Christian. Only God knows that. Hitler might have been a Christian
> but what Im saying is that his acts were not Christianlike for Jesus
> said not to do those things. "Blessed are the peacemakers".
>
Many creationists posting here are willing to pass judgment on others.
I am glad to see that you do not do that, and commend you for it. I am
not a Christian myself, but I have great respect for those who try to
follow the teachings of "Blessed are the peacemakers" and "Judge not
lest ye be judged". Belief in these ideas, under any name, will help
any person to bring out the best in their humanity.
> All Im saying is that it only makes sense.
>
> Whew........
I hope that you will seriously consider the responses that some others
have given to your questions relating to evolution. There are many
Christians who find no conflict between modern science and their
faith.
John
Chris Thompson
news:1gawn3f.14o5rv51bnf6feN%abner...@earthlink.net:
Let's give this guy the benefit of the doubt. It sure didn't read like he
was acting like CotPT or laurieappieton doing a cut and paste. Maybe he IS
open to a response. You out there, MHeath? Or are you gonna make me look
silly?
Chris
MheathXX
For now I agree with micro evolution and not the macro thing. That
is, at this point.
MheathXX
Your faith against mine. Evolution on the macro level cannot 100%
objectively be proven.
MheathXX
when thinking of the grand scale of incredible complex beings we have
present today, it only makes sense that something supernatural, albeit
God, created it all.
your form of thinking and faith in evolution is far more unlikely.
anthat is all it is, faith. macroevolution is not 100% objectively
proven.
Ernest Major
<mhea...@excite.com> writes
>
>Your faith against mine. Evolution on the macro level cannot 100%
>objectively be proven.
>
solipsism can't be eliminated. However common descent is supported by
literally millions of facts.
--
alias Ernest Major
One fool can ask more questions than a thousand wise men can answer,
One liar can spread more falsehoods than a thousand honest men can correct,
One kook can create more nonsense than a thousand sane men can debunk
"Rev Dr" Lenny Flank
Why does Behe think that all life evolved from a common ancestor. Why
does Behe think that humans are evolved from apelike primates. Is Behe
just another god-hating atheist?
You DO know who Behe is, right . . . . .?
"Rev Dr" Lenny Flank
MheathXX wrote:
> For now I agree with micro evolution and not the macro thing. That
> is, at this point.
>
And we should care what you think on the matter because . . . . . . ?
Abner Mintz
> Your faith against mine. Evolution on the macro level cannot 100%
> objectively be proven.
Nothing can - but the theory of evolution as it actually is (rather
than the usual straw men created by people who don't understand it
or who want to misrepresent it) is supported by an awful lot of
evidence. It's not faith - it's acknowledging what the scientists
have actually found and how they have actually modelled it makes
enough sense to be giving provisional acceptance.
Eric Gill
news:c3d9dd2.04032...@posting.google.com:
> "John H" <chand...@yahoo.com (mung)> wrote in message
> news:<oEF6c.26223$QC7....@newssvr29.news.prodigy.com>...
>> "MheathXX" <mhea...@excite.com> wrote in message
>> news:c3d9dd2.04031...@posting.google.com...
>> <massive snippage>
>> You're saying you find it hard to believe that life could have
>> started billions of years ago from some form of protolife, but you
>> think it makes MORE logical sense that an infinitely complex being
>> can spring forth fully omnipotent and omniscient from nothing? Lets
>> not try logic here, OK, faith-boy?
>
> when thinking of the grand scale of incredible complex beings we have
> present today, it only makes sense that something supernatural, albeit
> God, created it all.
So - to explain how complex life forms arise you invent an infinately
complex being and claim this is better than searching for the truth.
Ah.
I sort of figured "just lying" was the answer to my question, but one hopes
for better. Tsk.
<snip>
Eric Gill
news:c3d9dd2.04032...@posting.google.com:
Speciation? Since that's been observed, the "faith" required is of a
completely different beast than your favorite mythology.
Are you ever going to answer my question?
Hiero5ant
""Rev Dr" Lenny Flank" <lflank...@ij.net> wrote in message
news:405c8b3e$1...@corp.newsgroups.com...
>
>
> MheathXX wrote:
>
> > For now I agree with micro evolution and not the macro thing. That
> > is, at this point.
> >
>
>
>
> And we should care what you think on the matter because . . . . . . ?
Because he is attempting to inform people as to his beliefs so they do
not misunderstand him.
Please, save your macro's for when he starts making faith based claims,
but not before then.
MheathXX
Do you believe in God?
Dr.GH
> mhea...@excite.com (MheathXX) wrote in message news:<c3d9dd2.04031...@posting.google.com>...
>
> (Friday, things are slow, no self control. Ah, what the hell, hello
> early happy hour)
>
> (hiccup)
>
> Umm, were you saying something?
>
> > Whew........
Oh man that was funny. I made the mistake of joining you in a brew
while I read along. Does beer hurt keyboards?
Eric Gill
John H
> "John H" <chand...@yahoo.com (mung)> wrote in message
news:<oEF6c.26223$QC7....@newssvr29.news.prodigy.com>...
> > "MheathXX" <mhea...@excite.com> wrote in message
> > news:c3d9dd2.04031...@posting.google.com...
> > <massive snippage>
> > You're saying you find it hard to believe that life could have started
> > billions of years ago from some form of protolife, but you think it
makes
> > MORE logical sense that an infinitely complex being can spring forth
fully
> > omnipotent and omniscient from nothing? Lets not try logic here, OK,
> > faith-boy?
>
> when thinking of the grand scale of incredible complex beings we have
> present today, it only makes sense that something supernatural, albeit
> God, created it all.
No it doesn't! Why does it make sense to have a god create everything? Who
created this god? Why can't the world be the byproduct of some supreme pink
fluffy bunny and all of us are just the microbes crawling around a ball of
cosmic dung? That makes a much sense as claiming some infinitely complex
being deciding he wants to make imperfect creations for the heck of it. Are
you telling me you want to be some Being's hobby?
>
> your form of thinking and faith in evolution is far more unlikely.
Yes, it's backed by facts and theories, I'm sure that's far more illogical
than just assuming everything was created by this immense being with nothing
better to do.
> anthat is all it is, faith. macroevolution is not 100% objectively
> proven.
Nothing is ever 100% proven. What's your point? That you'd rather ignore
facts and logic than admit that there might be other reasons why we exist
other than God?
Give me an objectively perfect proof that God exist then, and you win this
argument.
john
Patrick James
(in article <c3d9dd2.04032...@posting.google.com>):
why is that relevant?
John H
"Dr.GH" <gary...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:37245bbf.04032...@posting.google.com...
No, I think beer on keyboards make the computer come alive. Coffee is bad
for keyboards, though.
>
Dana Tweedy
> > Let's give this guy the benefit of the doubt. It sure didn't read like
he
> > was acting like CotPT or laurieappieton doing a cut and paste. Maybe he
IS
> > open to a response. You out there, MHeath? Or are you gonna make me
look
> > silly?
> >
> > Chris
>
>
> Do you believe in God?
I can't speak for Chris, but I believe in God, and I accept evolutionary
theory. I don't see the two as being mutually exclusive. Could you
explain why God could not have used evolution as the method he created?
DJT
AC
MheathXX <mhea...@excite.com> wrote:
> "John H" <chand...@yahoo.com (mung)> wrote in message news:<oEF6c.26223$QC7....@newssvr29.news.prodigy.com>...
>> "MheathXX" <mhea...@excite.com> wrote in message
>> news:c3d9dd2.04031...@posting.google.com...
>> <massive snippage>
>> You're saying you find it hard to believe that life could have started
>> billions of years ago from some form of protolife, but you think it makes
>> MORE logical sense that an infinitely complex being can spring forth fully
>> omnipotent and omniscient from nothing? Lets not try logic here, OK,
>> faith-boy?
>
> when thinking of the grand scale of incredible complex beings we have
> present today, it only makes sense that something supernatural, albeit
> God, created it all.
If incredibly complex beings require creators, then that sure presents a
problem for your deity.
>
> your form of thinking and faith in evolution is far more unlikely.
> anthat is all it is, faith. macroevolution is not 100% objectively
> proven.
Clearly you don't understand science. Macroevolution has been observed.
Now unless you're going to demand that we accept that scientists fabricate
or imagine, then I suggest that you have just demonstrated a good deal of
ignorance.
Beyond which, science doesn't prove anything.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
Frank J
> would say that it took billions of years to get to this point.
Yes, but it may have taken only a few million, perhaps much less to
get from a life-free earth to one teeming with Precambrian life.
>
> I can go along with the fact that over time things can happen. Time
> is a mindless machine that marches on without our approval.
Science can never say that time is a mindless machine. It may march on
without our (H, sapiens) approval, but perhaps God approves.
>
> But how did life get started, differentiate and get to where it is
> today?
Get started: abiogenesis. Exactly how abiogenesis occurred is mostly a
mystery, but we're inching toward answers. We can say *when* it
occurred with some confidence: ~3.8 billion years ago.
The differentiate part is called evolution, There is only one general
theory of evolution (with some monor disagreements, which is normal in
science). There could be other theories of evolution, but these have
been falsified, as are non-evolutionary theories.
>
> I just don't think it is answerable.
Nothing is completely answerable, but the "it" is at least least two
very different questions.
>
> Lets go back to that first pool of life. Where lightning, or whatever
> the spark was, first hit just right to create that jolt of life.
>
> Okay, we have some type of organic compound sitting there in a pool
> and it is showing some type of electric activity of "supposed" life.
>
> I would assume this is where it would have to happen. With something
> simple and basic. I mean, lightning didn't strike and create a fish
> did it?
No. see: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob.html
(snip wandering speculation)
>
> Evolution is mindless, right?
We don't know that.
> It has no direction or pulse.
It has a direction "away from" not necessarily "towards," as in a
final goal. What do you mean by "pulse?"
> So how
> in the world could a simple mindless OC "know" that it needed anything
> else than what it already had?
Although the phrase "self-organization" is often used, it's just a
figure of speech.
> It is just sitting there and due to
> some outside "survival of the fittest" force it figures it should get
> the building blocks of MY LORD, anything? What could it know or
> fathom that it needed?
>
> And lets say that for some reason a "survival of the fittest type
> situation" did occur. Lets say there is a drought or something. I
> don't know. What will happen to this mindless little OC now? How
> could it "know" to do anything?
>
> The odds of something like a simple OC somehow differentiating into
> what we presently see is next to nothing. ZERO in my eyes.
Maybe in your eyes, which are looking increasingly blind with each
sentence. Do you at least see that you are mistaking abiogenesis for
evolution?
(snip)
> I have racked my brain over these things and have tried to find
> answers, but there just aren't any. The odds of life springing into
> what it is today just do not seem comprehensable.
Which supports evolution compared to the "independent abiogenesis"
(IA)alternatives implied by most anti-evolutionists. What's really
incomprehensable
is that life originated millions or more times as anti-evolutionists
imply.
(snip zillions of misunderstandings)
>
> It just seems to me that there is no other explanation for the current
> state of life than that God was the creator of life.
OK, but *how* did God create life? As I said, we know when, but
scientists are still working on how. As for the diversification of
life He used evolution. If you think another theory of evolution, or a
non-evolutionary theory, such as the independent abiogenesis scenario
I mentioned, then the God part is irrelevent. But one wonders how
someone who misunderstands the one theory we have so thorougly will
ever be able to convince the experts in the field that another theory
is better.
> It is more
> plausible and more likely and more easily proved. He created each
> organism (and might have started with single cells) and gave it it's
> uniqueness and DNA or building blocks then they grew and developed. I
> believe that he started possibbly with creating for example a male and
> female squirrel.
This is a new one! Why squirrels?
> Or he made thousands of them. Whatever. Then they
> had the chance to live. Did evolution occur with them over time? You
> bet. But it was microevolution. Not macro.
Ding! ding! ding! You gave it away with that one. Nice try!
(snip)
> darwanism
What took you so long??
(snip)
> Nebraska man.
Gotta have that one!
> Evolution is much like religion.
No. but your "Darwinism" is.
(snip)
> I myself believe in God.
So do I.
> Believe that Jesus is the only way to
> everlasting life and feel that it has had a direct effect on my life.
Here we disagree, but that has nothing to do with our disagreements on
the science. Many devout Christians accept evolution and consider it
bearing false witness to misrepresent it as you do.
> My proof is in my own direct physical witnessed proof.
Did you witness the squirrels doing it?
(snip)
> Now my final statement on that is that NOONE knows if a man is a
> Christian. Only God knows that.
Believe it or not, I agree, and I just posted something to that effect
the other day. For all I know, you could be an atheist.
(snip)
You let me down, though. I was hoping for some of the old bogus
young-earth arguments. If that means that you are an OEC, perhaps you
can debate YECs instead of misrepresenting science.
Gary Bohn
TANSTAAFL
Gary
Rodjk
Yep...give him the benefit of the doubt...
Feeling silly yet?
Rodjk #613
mel turner
[and speaking of too long...]
In article <c3d9dd2.04031...@posting.google.com>,
mhea...@excite.com [MheathXX] wrote...
By "Christian viewpoint on origin of life" do you mean to speak for
Christians in general, or just yourself, who happens to be a Christian?
[I see there is a considerable posting history, so he's not a Loki
poster or a hit-n-run one-time troll]
Oh, and welcome to t.o.. Seen the FAQs?
http://www.talkorigins.org/
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/outline.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-qa.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-mustread.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-misconceptions.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-evolution.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-intro-to-biology.html
http://evolution.mbdojo.com/evolution-for-beginners.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/other-links-gensci.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/other-links.html#evolution
http://evolution.berkeley.edu
>How in the world did life evolve to it's present state? Many on here
>would say that it took billions of years to get to this point.
And a great many of those are Christians. At least they say they are
[& who are you to say they aren't?]
>I can go along with the fact that over time things can happen. Time
>is a mindless machine that marches on without our approval.
>
>But how did life get started, differentiate and get to where it is
>today?
That's at least two separate questions. However the very first life
may have started [we probably won't know too much about it, but then
scientists do have many ideas], it will have evolved ever since. Of
course, many "theistic evolutionists" will believe that a god of some
sort was behind it all.
>I just don't think it is answerable.
Yet, or in principle? If you think it's unanswerable, why prefer
whatever answer you prefer?
>Lets go back to that first pool of life. Where lightning, or whatever
>the spark was, first hit just right to create that jolt of life.
Frankenstein? It's a movie. I doubt anyone thinks abiogenesis
involved lightning or electric sparks [other than perhaps as one
way to cook up some chemical precursors].
>Okay, we have some type of organic compound sitting there in a pool
>and it is showing some type of electric activity of "supposed" life.
Again with the electricity. Do you really think life is electrical
in nature? It's chemistry.
>I would assume this is where it would have to happen. With something
>simple and basic. I mean, lightning didn't strike and create a fish
>did it?
Or even a cell. Abiogenesis researchers will generally think a long
process of pre-biotic evolution would have preceded the first cells
as we know them.
>Well, with this simple organic compound (OC from here on out) how did
>differtiation occur?
What do you mean by "differtiation"? Biologists tend to speak of
"differentiation" in connection with multicellular organisms. The first
prebiotic self-replicating systems wouldn't even have cells, let alone
be differentiated into many separate cell types.
>First, did it already have ANY complexity of a single cell? Doesn't a
>cell need a massive complex order of activity in order to survive?
Yes, life wouldn't have started as modern cells.
>What about all of it's organelles that are needed in order to survive?
Which ones? Do you think all modern cells have all the same organelles?
Hint: what organelles do bacteria lack that eukaryotic cells have?
> Did they just magically appear?
That'd be the creationist version.
What about all the processes of the
>processes? What about RNA and DNA and the simple starches that are
>needed to fuel the process of life?
Starches? You've betrayed a bit of biochemical ignorance. Starches are
just one form of complex storage carbohydrates.
>How did the DNA and RNA evolvle?
From some sort of earlier precursor systems? Would you like to know
more about the scientific investigations of such questions? Somehow
I doubt it.
>What about the millions of correct orders that are needed for the DNA,
>RNA and organelles of this supposed cell?
How do you tell how many "correct orders" are needed?
>Evolution is mindless, right? It has no direction or pulse. So how
>in the world could a simple mindless OC "know" that it needed anything
>else than what it already had?
How does a puddle "know" how to fit into its basin so perfectly? What
are the odds that this could happen just by chance?
>It is just sitting there and due to
>some outside "survival of the fittest" force
"Outside"? And "survival of the fittest" is something of a strawman
slogan. It's more about "differential reproductive success". Those
combinations of heritable factors that happen to reproduce a bit
better in a given environment will naturally tend to become more
common in future generations. It's not such a difficult concept.
it figures it should get
>the building blocks of MY LORD, anything? What could it know or
>fathom that it needed?
Why do you think that evolutionary processes need to "know" anything
at all to work, any more than a puddle needs to "know" about the shape
of its basin, or a mixture of rocks, gravel and sand that's becoming
sorted out has to "know" anything about the series of sieves they're
passing through?
>And lets say that for some reason a "survival of the fittest type
>situation" did occur.
A situation that must automatically occur whenever there are some sort
of imperfectly self-replicating thingies.
>Lets say there is a drought or something. I
>don't know.
Yes, you don't. [okay, sorry, that was snarky]
>What will happen to this mindless little OC now? How
>could it "know" to do anything?
Why would it have to "know" anything? Genetic variants that happen to
reproduce themselves a bit better than others in the current
environmental conditions will automatically tend to become more common
in later generations of the "population". That's called "evolution by
natural selection".
>The odds of something like a simple OC somehow differentiating into
>what we presently see is next to nothing. ZERO in my eyes.
What you're arguing is called the "argument from incredulity". Whether
something is "ZERO in your eyes" or not likely carries very little
weight with anybody else, until you can explain why it should be ZERO
in their eyes too..
>I mean the odds of first the conditions being just right for it to
>happen have to be a zillion to one.
Show us your calculations of these odds.
So lets say that over the past 5
>billion years, we hit the right number in the zillion to one odds and
>the spark of life has occured with a simple OC.
Sparks again?
Now what are the odds
>that this OC would even begin to be in the right place at the right
>time to take on new compounds?
"Take on new compounds"?
>Another zillion to one probably.
Again, let's see your calculations.
Then
>to maintain a consistent environment in order for it to sit there for
>a billion years and take on more chemicals and compounds in order to
>evolve more. Which is unfathomly likely for the environment as we
>know it today changes all the time.
Really? When's the last time that the deep sea ocean floors were dry?
Were whatever environments were needed for the natural formation of
the first life ever likely to disappear completely worldwide? Wouldn't
any such claims require a detailed, well-understood model for the
natural formation of life>
Plus what are the odds that this
>OC is in the right place where it won't freeze or dehydrate or
>whatever? Another zillion to one odds there too.
Yet again, let's see your wonderfully detailed calculations. Anyway,
all you've done so far is make incredulous noises about abiogenesis,
with accompanying handwaving. Nothing about biological evolution,
which really only enters the picture with life of some sort already
existing.
>Then what are the
>odds after all of this that this OC would "know" what it needed next
>to survive?
Who says anything had to "know" anything?
>And where do the blue prints of these organs and
>organelles come from? Where did the compounds that make them up come
>from?
You really don't want there to be answers to any of these questions,
do you?
>How did the eye or the blueprints for an eye become available?
Eyes came about a very, very, very long time after life as we know it
already existed.
How
>did an OC know that it would need one.
A prebiotic organic chemical didn't need one.
The eye is an EXTREMELY
>complex organ that has billions of cells or building blocks.
Not always. There are many organisms today with very simple eyes.
Would you like to learn about them? You could, if you cared to [try
an introductory invertebrate zoology text]
How was
>it formed in the early stages of life?
It wasn't, unless you mean the early stages of embryonic life of
modern species with eyes.
There is no telling how many
>millions of different building blocks make up the simplest rods and
>cones of an eye and how did they come about?
How did they come about? They evolved.
>How did the simplest
>OC's know that they needed them or how to produce them?
Simple "organic compounds" don't need eyes and don't have them. Some
unicellular organisms have simple "eyespots", and many groups of
multicellular animals have evolved true eyes of various sorts.
What are the
>odds that over time this great organ would be produced?
In hindsight, the odds were 100%. Eyes of various different sorts were
produced independently in several different lineages of multicellular
animals.
How did this
>OC know that it needed reflections of light that had to be
>retransmitted into the organs of the eye that had to be sent to the
>brain for reoranization in order to produce an image?
Again, why do you think that evolving things need to "know" anything
about the process of evolution, or vice-versa?
How could it
>know that it needed all this and what are the odds of it coming
>together?
>
>I have racked my brain over these things and have tried to find
>answers, but there just aren't any. The odds of life springing into
>what it is today just do not seem comprehensable.
Speaking strictly for yourself, of course. So, why do you think that
"what it is today" is the only acceptable "target" for the evolutionary
history of life on earth? What if there are a very large number of
possible "right" answers?
There are just too
>many zillions upon zillions upon zillions of different species,
[How many zeros are in a "zillion"?]
organs
>and compounds that make up life to say that it just came from some
>mindless OC billions of years ago. It was mindless and had no
>direction.
So what? Why would the evolutionary process need a mind or a direction?
Conversely, why not join all the many "theistic evolutionists" who may
often simply think that God was behind any "mind" and "direction"
requirements the evolutionary history of life might have had?
>Lets don't even go into the lungs and other stuff and how they came
>about.
Why not? We know quite a bit how they came about.
?And how they were made perfect for our ability to survive for
>thousands of years.
Really? Most of us don't manage 100 years.
>Zillions of more building blocks to ponder.
"Are you pondering what I'm pondering"?
>It just seems to me that there is no other explanation for the current
>state of life than that God was the creator of life.
So, how did God learn how to create life? What are the odds that just
by chance he'd know about all those zillions and zillions of things
he'd have to create?
It is more
>plausible and more likely and more easily proved.
How is it "plausible", and how can it be "proved"?
>He created each organism
Each individual organism, or each species? Or, do you like many
creationists think there are "kinds" containing many species of
organisms that descended from created common ancestors?
>(and might have started with single cells)
You mean, he might have created the first cells, and let them
evolve from there? That's perhaps a popular idea with"theistic
evolutionists"
>and gave it it's
>uniqueness and DNA or building blocks then they grew and developed.
But organisms aren't so unique. They share lots of similarities in
patterns that seem to strongly indicate evolutionary relationships.
I
>believe that he started possibbly with creating for example a male and
>female squirrel.
But there are many different species of squirrels. Were they all
created separately, or did they descend from a common squirrel
ancestor type? How can you tell if they were or weren't?
>Or he made thousands of them. Whatever.
"Whatever"? That seems a tad dismissive. Don't you want to know more?
How can we tell if squirrels were created as one pair or thousands,
one species or many separate species? If you don't care about those
details, why be so insistent that he couldn't have created the first
life and let it evolve ever since? How can we learn any details about
the creation process. You said something about "proof", so presumably
you have some evidence that can be studied. What is it?
>Then they
>had the chance to live. Did evolution occur with them over time? You
>bet. But it was microevolution. Not macro.
Do you even know the difference? Most creationists misuse the terms:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/macroevolution.html
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/hosted_sites/paleonet/paleo21/mevolution.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
>Dogs have been around
>for years but we have NEVER seen one evolve into a different species.
Really? Are you sure that a dachshund or a Pekinese is really still
the "same species" as a wild gray wolf? After all, that's what the
first dog breeders had to start with. If a stray chihuahua ran into a
timber wolf, do you suppose they'd mate successfully, or would the
wolf just have a snack?
>There are different breeds of dogs just like there are different races
>of humans. Big, small, white, black, fat, skinny, 3 foot tall, 8 foot
>tall, big head, little head.....and we pass those genes to our
>offspring just like dogs and cats do. There is no indication of human
>macroevolution.
Modern humans are all one species, yes. But there were several extinct
human species known as fossils, so there evidently was indeed some
human "macroevolution":
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/
>Yeah we might be getting a little taller and losing
>some hair, but we are still men adn women, right?
And we're still primates and still mammals and still vertebrates and
still multicellular animals and still eukaryotes.
>The fossil record is full of fully created animals.
Really? What would a partially created animal look like?
[snipped here for length; to be continued]
cheers
mel turner
In article <c3d9dd2.04031...@posting.google.com>,
mhea...@excite.com [MheathXX] wrote...
[previous snipped; see other post]
There appear to
>be many transistional fossils to supposedly support macroevolution.
Not just appear to be, are.
>But who is to say that it is just similar species that appear to be
>transitional.
Why wouldn't evolutionary transitionals be similar species to the
things they're transitional between?
> Just like man and the ape.
"The ape"? Which? There are several different living species of
[non-human] "apes". [Arguably, humans are really just another ape
species.]
>We are somewhat similar but
>are different species.
Yes, we are. And? Gorillas and chimps are also similar but are
different species. Common chimps and pygmy chimps [bonobos] are
also similar but different species. Humans and all [other] apes
are similar but different species. This sort of thing is well
explained by the evolutionary common descent of humans and
[the other] apes.
>nd if we evolved from ape to man, then what
>happened to all the apes.
If "white" North Americans descended from European immigrants,
why are there still people in Europe today? Got any living
cousins? [Besides the apes, that is]
>What was the reason for the survival of the
>fittest. Why did we evolve from apes? It just isn't answerable.
Sure it is. Why did you and any cousins you might have descend from
your grandparents? Why did gorillas and chimps and orangutans descend
from their common ancestor, if you believe in an inclusive "ape-kind"?
>And what are the odds of a new species coming about?
100%? It's constantly happening. It's observed to happen.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/speciation.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-research.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
For example lets say
>back a million years ago, there were a group of apes. They have sat
>around and micro evolved for 2 thousands year. They have gotten a
>little taller and stronger through darwanism... their hair has gotten
>darker due to being in the sun year round and they have passed this to
>their offspring.
You don't seem to understand either heredity or "Darwinism".
>Well why in the world or how in the world could they
>evolve to being a human being due to these environmental changes?
Why should any environmental changes be required? All it needs is for
one lineage of early apes to change in a particular direction
[increased bipedality, and increased tool use, perhaps]
>I just don't know.
Yes, you undoubtedly don't. But why would that lack of knowledge
impose any limitations on reality?
>Nobody can be sure. And what are the environmental
>changes that took place and how long did they last.
Who says environmental changes are required? But suggestive
environmental changes did in fact occur at the appropriate places
and times in Africa, and there is plenty of evidence for it.
>Surely not for a million years.
Don't call me Shirley, and of course changes can occur on
millions-of-years timescales. Why not?
Are their any species alive right now that are
>transitional to apes and humans so that we can take a look?
Why would you expect common ancestors to still be alive?
They last existed millions of years ago. Their descendants do
still exist, but they've changed.
There are
>some similarities of men and apes but there are HUGE DIFFERENCES TOO.
Like? And why would the existence of allegedly "huge" differences
rule out our common ancestry? Changes happen.
>There should be tons of fossil evidence or living evidence of
>transitional specials over millions of years of evolution.
Who says there isn't evidence? The evidence is throughout
comparative biology.
From ape a
>to b to c to d to e over millions of years.
Like:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/
http://www.handprint.com/LS/ANC/evol.html
>Since apes are still alive and running around,
And we humans are one of them.
where are all there
>cousins and transitional species that should be around too.
Really? Then where are your living ancestors from the 15th century?
If you and your cousins are around today, then so should your
grandparents and great-grandparents and great-to-the-tenth-power
grandparents. Right?
Were just
>blocks of animals just executed millions of years ago? If we evolved
>from apes and apes from chimps
You've again let slip some really serious ignorance. Chimpanzees _are_
apes. In fact, they [and bonobos] are the apes that are the closest
living relatives to humans. And we are their closest relatives [we're
closer than either chimps or humans are to gorillas].
where are all the cousins of them that
>should be around?
False premise. Nobody but you says all the early apes should be around.
Extinctions happen.
I mean we have a chimp an ape and man but nothing
>in between.
Like say, the fossil australopithecines? We have their bones, so we
know a considerable variety of in-between "ape-men" really did exist.
>Who was to say that just the chimp the ape and man were
>to survive?
Does anyone have to "say", or is this another odd presumption like the
idea that evolution needs to "know" things? Look at a forest. The
trees are producing millions of seeds each year for many years, but
there are only a few new saplings becoming established trees. Does
someone have to "say" which seeds will make it and which don't? Or,
look at the gradual transition from a bushy oak sapling to a mature
old tree. Did someone have to "say" which of the little twigs on the
young tree would become established as the major limbs of the old
tree? No. Evolution works a lot like that.
>Where are all our cousins and not to mention the millions
>of cousins of other supposed evolved species?
We do have a few surviving cousins [the (other) living apes]. We also
have a number of extinct cousins that we do know about [we have found
their skeletal remains]. Where did you get the odd idea that species
can't go extinct?
>And while talking about apes what about the millions of other species
>that are running around?
What about them?
>Where are all there cousins and transitional
>buddies.
What makes you think we don't have such transitionals? We do, for
a great many of them:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html
>Surely over millions of years they just didnt dissapear did
>they?
Some may still have living representatives, others are known as
fossils.
>What are the odds of that happening.
Tell us, and show us the calculations?
There should be a living
>record of the evolution of species you would think.
A living record? No, why would you think there should be any such
thing?
There should be a
>chimp, chimp a, chimp b, chimp c.....then ape a, b, c, d, and so on to
>humans? Where are all these examples.
A bunch of them are fossils in museums. The rest may be extinct without
known fossils as yet. Why is that a problem?
>Instead we have fossil records of man and some early men. Some with
>some very questionable hype such as Nebraska man.
The questionable hype re:"Nebraska Man" seems to be by creationists.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/a_nebraska.html
http://www.execpc.com/~jwolf/hesper2.txt
http://www.cincinnatiskeptics.org/blurbs/nebraska-man.html
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=D_gN2.474%245I1.284376%40ralph.vnet.net
Nothing in between
>to show the millions of different shapes and looks that man took on
Millions?
>over the millions of years of evolution.
>Just a man, some apes and
>some chimps. Really not much in between.
Since you don't even know that chimps _are_ apes, your knowledge of
what we do or don't know about fossil transitional hominids probably
shouldn't be trusted very far. As it happens, you're mistaken. We do
have a bunch of things "in between".
>It just doesn't add up.
Yes, your arguments such as they are don't.
>It easier to prove that God in his great intelligence and wisdom
>created everything and "KNEW" what they needed to survive.
Really? How would you "prove" that? How did God ever learn about what
organisms would need to survive, if no organisms had ever existed
before he created them? If you say that he always would have known
everything, "What are the odds of that happening?"
>He knew
>what organs and organelles they needed and provided them.
How did he know, and how exactly did this "providing" process work?
How can you tell that it didn't involve natural evolution?
You said something about proof?
He gave
>them all pretty much the same chance to survive.
If an omnipotent God gave everything the same chance to survive,
then how come so many kinds of things are extinct?
However he gave man
>the supremecy of all creatures on the earth, thus giving him a special
>INTELLECT, that NO OTHER species has.
Except for dolphins and [other] apes, who may come pretty close?
>Other species can learn and reason to an extent but not like man.
And so we use our reason and try to learn about the world. And if the
evidence says that organisms including humans evolved from common
ancestors?
>I believe I can prove God exists but that is an entirely other subject
>that can be argued later.
That sounds interesting. But can you prove that God didn't use
natural evolution as his chosen means for creating life's diversity?
>Evolution is much like religion. It is based on faith, really.
No, it's based on evidence, not faith.
>Nothing more. Science has facts and studies but no true factual
>evidence of macroevolution.
You seem to have no idea what science has or hasn't.
>We also have facts and studies that prove
>God existed.
"Existed", past tense? That sounds a bit heretical...
>And to be honest more than evolution for we have
>recorded writings of what was seen and heard 3 thousand years ago.
Or is that hearsay? Where do these writings say that they are supposed
to be interpreted literally and simplistically?
>Unlike evolution which occured billions of supposed years ago. Nobody
>saw it nobody wrote about it.
Ah, but who exactly saw your supposed three thousand year old writings
actually being written? Where are the witnesses to the existence of
your witnesses?
>I look at it this way: 1) If you believe that God does not exist, so
>be it. But if you are wrong then when you die, you go to Hell.
Why? That seems rather a petty requirement for an omnipotent God to
impose. Why not just give an extra gold star to the believers and
let everybody in to heaven?
If
>you are right, you turn to dust or go whereever you think you go 2)
>If you believe that God does exist and try to learn of his truths, so
>be it.
And what of all those devout theists who nevertheless fully accept
the findings of evolutionary science?
Aren't you making a false dichotomy, or erecting a strawman that
evolution is necessarily about atheism?
> If you are wrong, well, you just turn to dust and it is over.
Naah. What if there is a god, but it turns out it's not the one that
you happen to believe in? Your beliefs and prayers are just making
him madder and madder...
What if this non-yours god tolerates disbelief, but is utterly
enraged by believers in any other gods [a classic reply to the
usual version of Pascal's Wager]
>If you are right and have honestly believed in God, searched for his
>truth, found Jesus, then you have the gift of everlasting life.
Is that the only reason to believe? Fear of death? If the story didn't
involve an afterlife, would you believe it? Or, would you volunteer to
give up your everlasting afterlife, if that act somehow served God's
purposes?
>I like my chances of trying to find God and taking that route,
>therefore if I'm wrong I only risk the act of turning to dust. The
>other way, I burn in Hell and I don't like that approach.
That still seems a tad petty for an omnipotent God. Why not just
rehabilitate all the sinners instead?
How about a response to the idea that if there actually was an
omnipotent, omniscient, omni-benevolent God that really wanted
everybody to believe in Him, then of course everybody would?
>I myself believe in God.
Fine. So do many "evolutionists".
Believe that Jesus is the only way to
>everlasting life and feel that it has had a direct effect on my life.
>My proof is in my own direct physical witnessed proof.
Is this "proof" something that you can show to others?
>I have studied
>many different religions and have found not one that makes as much
>sense as Christianity.
To you, of course. Did you notice that you've changed the subject?
Whether or not your particular religion is the correct one seems to
have little to say about whether or not organisms have evolved, or
whether or not the first life could have arisen naturally.
>And don't go down the path that Christianity has been the root of war
>and bloodshed because I believe that it has not. People have killed
>in the name of Christianity but a disciple of Jesus Christ knows that
>he said "Blessed are the peace makers!".
D'OH! I thought that was "cheese makers".
>The best example of a person
>killing that said they were Christian was Hitler.
Not Torquemada or G. W. Bush?
>Now my final statement on that is that NOONE knows if a man is a
>Christian.
Or if one is not one?
>Only God knows that. Hitler might have been a Christian
>but what Im saying is that his acts were not Christianlike for Jesus
>said not to do those things. "Blessed are the peacemakers".
So, then Bush is in trouble?
>All Im saying is that it only makes sense.
To you, of course. Others may disagree, including other Christians.
>Whew........
Indeed.
cheers
Stanley Friesen
>Your faith against mine. Evolution on the macro level cannot 100%
>objectively be proven.
And you think macroevolution contradicts Christianity, *how* exactly?
The peace of God be with you.
Stanley Friesen
Patrick James
(in article <g98r509eqhh91klf2...@4ax.com>):
I'd like to know the answer to that, too.
Chris Thompson
news:c3d9dd2.04032...@posting.google.com:
Is that a requirement for having a discussion with you?
Chris
Frank J
> MheathXX wrote:
> > "John H" <chand...@yahoo.com (mung)> wrote in message news:<oEF6c.26223$QC7....@newssvr29.news.prodigy.com>...
> >
> >>"MheathXX" <mhea...@excite.com> wrote in message
> >>news:c3d9dd2.04031...@posting.google.com...
> >><massive snippage>
> >>You're saying you find it hard to believe that life could have started
> >>billions of years ago from some form of protolife, but you think it makes
> >>MORE logical sense that an infinitely complex being can spring forth fully
> >>omnipotent and omniscient from nothing? Lets not try logic here, OK,
> >>faith-boy?
> >
> >
> > when thinking of the grand scale of incredible complex beings we have
> > present today, it only makes sense that something supernatural, albeit
> > God, created it all.
> >
> > your form of thinking and faith in evolution is far more unlikely.
> > anthat is all it is, faith. macroevolution is not 100% objectively
> > proven.
> >
>
>
> Why does Behe think that all life evolved from a common ancestor. Why
> does Behe think that humans are evolved from apelike primates. Is Behe
> just another god-hating atheist?
>
> You DO know who Behe is, right . . . . .?
This is where the Behe namedroppers who try to pretend that he denies
common descent, or even supports a young-earth, usually change the
subject, because they realize that they are dealing with someone who
is on to the charade. On this newgroup that ususlly means that they
simply don't respond.
Frank J
(snip)
>
> For now I agree with micro evolution and not the macro thing. That
> is, at this point.
Where, exactly, do you separate micro from macro? Species, genera,
etc? (hint: professional anti-evolutionists disagree among themselves,
so they often evade this question). And how do you think the
non-evolutonary changes occur? By saltation, front loading, or
independent abiogenesis? Since you took pains to say how improbable
abiogenesis was, do you rule out independent abiogenesis, and admit at
least common descent, or are you just trying to have it both ways?
Without using weasel words like "common design," please explain the
nested hierarchies.
(snip)
Frank J
Yes, but I'm not so sure you do. You could be simply tragically
misinformed. But most people construct an argument like yours, with
all the essesntial sound bites, are just bearing false witness.
Noctiluca
Lite beer's okay. In fact I think that's what's in some of those
contact sprays.
Thanks for your comments. I noticed others are taking pains to treat
this guy nicely. That's usually my approach as well but this post was
just such an egregious collection of nonsensical cliches that I
couldn't bring myself to be nice.
robert
John Wilkins
> mhea...@excite.com (MheathXX) wrote:
> >Your faith against mine. Evolution on the macro level cannot 100%
> >objectively be proven.
>
> And you think macroevolution contradicts Christianity, *how* exactly?
After the resurrection, Jesus was still just a mammal?
>
> The peace of God be with you.
>
> Stanley Friesen
--
John Wilkins
john...@wilkins.id.au http://www.wilkins.id.au
"Men mark it when they hit, but do not mark it when they miss"
- Francis Bacon
MheathXX
No, let me move on.
Have you EVER seen a greatly designed machine that did not have a
creator? If so, let me hear of it.
Mike
MheathXX
To an extent I agree with you. I believe God could have created the
species. And I believe in microevolution within a species. But there
has never been 100% objective proof of a man coming from an ape.
If so, there should be several intermediate types of apeman that have
survived over the years. There are NONE. There should be some forms
of ape abcde or ghijklmn or xyz and then man. There might be some
gaps where certain ape species became extinct but not the gaps we see
today.
And if man was the exception then every other type of species should
have transitionals running around all over the place too.
We are talking supposed millions of years here.
MheathXX
> mhea...@excite.com (MheathXX) wrote in news:c3d9dd2.0403190813.7fdef1a6
> @posting.google.com:
>
> <snip>
>
> > All Im saying is that it only makes sense.
>
> and possibly out and out falsehoods.
>
I'll ask this ?.....have you EVER seen a great design without a creator?
Patrick James
(in article <c3d9dd2.04032...@posting.google.com>):
> "Dana Tweedy" <twe...@cvn.net> wrote in message
> news:<8r57c.1297$V66...@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net>...
>> "MheathXX" <mhea...@excite.com> wrote in message
>> news:c3d9dd2.04032...@posting.google.com...
>> snipping
>>
>>>> Let's give this guy the benefit of the doubt. It sure didn't read like
>> he
>>>> was acting like CotPT or laurieappieton doing a cut and paste. Maybe he
>> IS
>>>> open to a response. You out there, MHeath? Or are you gonna make me
>> look
>>>> silly?
>>>>
>>>> Chris
>>>
>>>
>>> Do you believe in God?
>>
>>
>> I can't speak for Chris, but I believe in God, and I accept evolutionary
>> theory. I don't see the two as being mutually exclusive. Could you
>> explain why God could not have used evolution as the method he created?
>>
>> DJT
>
> To an extent I agree with you. I believe God could have created the
> species. And I believe in microevolution within a species. But there
> has never been 100% objective proof of a man coming from an ape.
>
> If so, there should be several intermediate types of apeman that have
> survived over the years. There are NONE.
Let's see... H. hab., H. erect., the assorted piths... Geez. They don't
exist? How odd.
> There should be some forms
> of ape abcde or ghijklmn or xyz and then man.
Explain further, pray.
> There might be some
> gaps where certain ape species became extinct but not the gaps we see
> today.
And why is this? Please explain in detail what you think the 'gaps' should
look like, and why the data we have is insufficient. Don't forget to show why
your opinion is better than that of professionals in the field.
>
> And if man was the exception then every other type of species should
> have transitionals running around all over the place too.
I suspect that you really don't have a clue. Hint: there are, alive today,
snakes with the remnants of pelvises and other leg structures. There are
fossils of whales with legs. there are fossils of assorted ancestral
carnivores showing the linage of each of the major mammalian land carnivore
groups alive today. There are fossils of ancestral crocodilians, turtles,
etc... There are fish which walk on land, today. (Walking catfish,
mudskippers, etc...) There are birds with, well, fingers. (Hoatzins) Exactly
what do need, anyway?
>
> We are talking supposed millions of years here.
>
thousands of millions, actually.
Dana Tweedy
Humans are apes, so why do you need "100% objective proof". Why isn't
99.9995% good enough? At what point does "microevolution within a species"
become macroevolution?
>
> If so, there should be several intermediate types of apeman that have
> survived over the years.
There are. We have the fossils of those intermediate species. The did
survive over the years, they just haven't survived to the present.
> There are NONE.
No, there are many. They just happened to have gone extinct before the
present day. Homo Erectus existed until just a half million years ago, and
Neanderthals until just 30,000 years ago. Why should there be any other
surviving homonid species?
> There should be some forms
> of ape abcde or ghijklmn or xyz and then man. There might be some
> gaps where certain ape species became extinct but not the gaps we see
> today.
What "gaps" so you imagine there are? We have a pretty clear picture of
hominid evolution up to almost 6 million years ago. At that point it
becomes very difficult to distinguish between hominds and other ape species.
>
> And if man was the exception then every other type of species should
> have transitionals running around all over the place too.
They do. We have thousands of transitional fossils. Why do you think
exisitng species should have transitional froms "running around"?
>
> We are talking supposed millions of years here.
Yes, and most species only last a few million years. There's no reason to
suspect that every transitional species still have living members today.
DJT
Abner Mintz
> Have you EVER seen a greatly designed machine that did not have a
> creator? If so, let me hear of it.
This argument involves a very interesting logical flaw, but
I'm not sure of the name of it. Perhaps it is a variant of
the circular argument?
Your argument is as follows: there exists functional complex
things that we have created, and there exist functional complex
things that we have not created. Since we can create functional
complex things, you argue that someone else must have created
the other functional complex things ... but that does not logically
follow. You could use similar reasoning to argue for the Grim
Reaper by arguing that since men cause some deaths, someone else
must cause all other deaths ... or argue for Thor on the ground
that since men make some electricity, someone else must make all
other electricity.
Have you EVER seen a death that was not caused by a person? Or
electricity that was not caused by a person? If so, let me
hear of it ... and your argument falls apart. If not, then you
must also believe in the Grim Reaper and Thor ... in fact, you
must also believe that every single thing that anyone can do,
every supposedly natural occurence of such is also caused by a
person. Right?
As far as I know, every plant and animal is a creatorless
machine, as is every star in the sky and a great many other
things as well. Unless you can show me evidence that such
things are created instead of just hand-waving and
equivocation?
Chris Thompson
I am afraid your question is inherently contradictory. If a machine is
designed, and it exists, it perforce has a creator.
But in reality, I am afraid you are basing your argument on two logical
fallacies. The first is the argument from incredulity. Because you do
now see how something could have happened, does not automatically
disqualfy it from having happened.
The second is the argument from perfection. You claim above that there
are greatly designed machines. I assume you are referring to organisms.
But organisms are constructed willy-nilly, and they are often victims
of slipshod design. If you have ever had a backache, you know what I
mean. And that sort of idiotic design is seen *all*through*nature*.
Examples of perfection are few and far between. What we see much, much
more often is a slapdash construction from materials at hand. I can
give you an example much closer to home (for me):
A few months ago I walked through my kitchen, and spied the platter of
steak on the counter. Like any good Merkin, I grabbed a piece of red
meat and tossed it into my mouth. That sucker sailed into my trachea
like it had eyes. The only reason I am typing this is, I threw myself
against the counter with my fists lodged in my solar plexus, popping the
dead bovine into orbit.
What _idiot_ would put the opening to the breathing passage right next
to the opening that both solid and liquid nutrients move through? There
is absolutely _no_ logical reason for them to be near one another,
except that the happened to fall out that way. Even worse, when you
look down there, you see that the food actually has to pass OVER the
glottis (the opening to the windpipe). All that's stopping a torrent of
material from going down there is a half-assed little flap of tissue
called the epiglottis. That is jury-rigged design- NOT intelligent
design- if I ever saw it. "Uh-oh, we really screwed the pooch on this
one, guys, let's get some tissue and cover that hole, ok?" Any
half-competent engineer would safeguard against choking hazards more
efficiently.
So no, I do not think organisms are intelligently designed. I think we
have what our ancestors happened to have, and we simply make do with it-
or we don't, in which case, the problem solves itself.
Chris
Dana Tweedy
Yes.
> If so, let me hear of it.
Paul Raymont on Leibnitz on Machines
http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Mode/ModeRaym.htm
Some naturally occuring machines:
Hurricane David
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/huricane/wdavid.htm
Animal Cell
http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/A/AnimalCells.html
Plant Cell
http://www.life.uiuc.edu/plantbio/cell/
Prokaryote Cell
http://www.botany.uwc.ac.za/mirrors/MIT-bio/bio/cb/prok_euk.html
Tornado
http://www.noaa.gov/tornadoes.html
Ocean Currents
http://earth.usc.edu/~stott/Catalina/Oceans.html
Old Faithful Geyser
http://www.nps.gov/yell/oldfaithfulcam.htm
DJT
Stanley Friesen
>To an extent I agree with you. I believe God could have created the
>species. And I believe in microevolution within a species. But there
>has never been 100% objective proof of a man coming from an ape.
There is not 100% objective proof that gravity is a real phenomenon, or
that the Earth orbits the Sun.
There is however, overwhelming reason to believe all three things are
accurate descriptions of the real world.
>
>If so, there should be several intermediate types of apeman that have
>survived over the years.
Why? Do you *really* think _Homo sapiens_ would tolerate a real
competitor?
Dana Tweedy
Yes. "Design" can occur by non-directed processes. Examples:
Salt Crystals
http://www.reachoutmichigan.org/funexperiments/quick/hyperchem/saltcrystals.html
Alum Crystals
http://rockhoundingar.com/pebblepups/growcryst.html
Snow Flakes
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/
Natural designs also show signs of being "jury rigged", and not the manner
an intentional designer would have used:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/jury-rigged.html
Also, please read:
http://web.mit.edu/lking/www/writing/design.html
DJT
Stanley Friesen
>On Sun, 21 Mar 2004 21:43:50 -0500, MheathXX wrote
>(in article <c3d9dd2.04032...@posting.google.com>):
>> To an extent I agree with you. I believe God could have created the
>> species. And I believe in microevolution within a species. But there
>> has never been 100% objective proof of a man coming from an ape.
>>
>> If so, there should be several intermediate types of apeman that have
>> survived over the years. There are NONE.
>
>Let's see... H. hab., H. erect., the assorted piths... Geez. They don't
>exist? How odd.
From the wording, I think he means *extant* intermediates. Of course,
if they existed he would want extant intermediates between *those* and
full humans.
Eric Gill
news:c3d9dd2.04032...@posting.google.com:
> Eric Gill <eric...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:<Xns94B16D152D4F0...@24.93.44.119>...
>> mhea...@excite.com (MheathXX) wrote in
>> news:c3d9dd2.0403190813.7fdef1a6 @posting.google.com:
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>> > All Im saying is that it only makes sense.
>>
>> And in so doing, you repeat a long line of fallacies, just-so
>> non-arguments and possibly out and out falsehoods.
>>
>> Why?
>
>
> I'll ask this ?
You already have.
Are you ever going to *answer*?
<snip>
AC
MheathXX <mhea...@excite.com> wrote:
> "Dana Tweedy" <twe...@cvn.net> wrote in message news:<8r57c.1297$V66...@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net>...
>> "MheathXX" <mhea...@excite.com> wrote in message
>> news:c3d9dd2.04032...@posting.google.com...
>> snipping
>>
>> > > Let's give this guy the benefit of the doubt. It sure didn't read like
>> he
>> > > was acting like CotPT or laurieappieton doing a cut and paste. Maybe he
>> IS
>> > > open to a response. You out there, MHeath? Or are you gonna make me
>> look
>> > > silly?
>> > >
>> > > Chris
>> >
>> >
>> > Do you believe in God?
>>
>>
>> I can't speak for Chris, but I believe in God, and I accept evolutionary
>> theory. I don't see the two as being mutually exclusive. Could you
>> explain why God could not have used evolution as the method he created?
>>
>> DJT
>
> To an extent I agree with you. I believe God could have created the
> species. And I believe in microevolution within a species. But there
> has never been 100% objective proof of a man coming from an ape.
What is "100% objective proof" and what does it have to do with science?
Perhaps you should consider the possibility, very obvious to me, that you
in fact don't have a real grasp on how science works.
>
> If so, there should be several intermediate types of apeman that have
> survived over the years. There are NONE. There should be some forms
> of ape abcde or ghijklmn or xyz and then man. There might be some
> gaps where certain ape species became extinct but not the gaps we see
> today.
What gaps? The human evolutionary record is rather well-stocked. Various
australopithecines, H. habilis, H. erectus, various H. sapiens. One major
hominid offshoot survived to possibly even just 30,000 years ago.
>
> And if man was the exception then every other type of species should
> have transitionals running around all over the place too.
>
> We are talking supposed millions of years here.
And we have fossils all along the way. It seems to me that you actually
have no idea how evolution works or what we know about hominid evolution.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
AC
Take your salt shaker, pour the salt out. Getting a decent magnifying
glass. Are you saying that those crystals are designed?
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
Michael Siemon
mhea...@excite.com (MheathXX) wrote:
....
> To an extent I agree with you. I believe God could have created the
> species. And I believe in microevolution within a species. But there
> has never been 100% objective proof of a man coming from an ape.
It is not clear what you are claiming. It is 100% objectively _true_
that humans _are_ apes: every characteristic that distinguishes apes
from non-apes is shared by humans. If you are obsessing over humans
being different from the _other_ apes, well consider that each of
the _other_ apes is also different from the rest in its own way.
But it is still obscure what you _think_ about this stuff. You say:
> If so, there should be several intermediate types of apeman that have
> survived over the years. There are NONE.
What do you mean by this? There are indeed _lots_ of non-human[*]
apes in our known ancestry or closely related lines of descent. None
of these survives to the present -- do you think that they should
have? Why?
---
[*] some are "hominids", sharing some of our distinctive innovations
in the ape line. If _you_ encountered one, I suspect you'd classify
it as "non-human". Even our very close cousins, the Neandertals, are
usually perceived as "ape men", though that may be an overreaction,
and we haven't got any living examples to use to test the range of
perceptions on this...
---
Do you (suffering one of the standard confusions) think that the
intermediates should be "half-way between man and gorilla" or
some such nonsense? If so, why? That is _not_ what evolution
implies. Rather, each of these known intermediates is more like
the common ape ancestor than we are. That ancestor is not much
like a gorilla or a chimpanzee, or not in any of the ways that
make these apes "recognizable" as apes distinct from each other --
they have their _own_ lineage of "descent with modification"
from our common ancestor.
Do you think that there should be lots of branches on the tree
that are "in between" humans and gorillas? Again, if so, why?
That is also not particularly expectable in evolutionary terms.
In some cases of lineages with huge numbers of species, such a
pattern may obtain -- but the primate lineage is pretty sparse,
and there is no reason for that to be an issue.
> There should be some forms
> of ape abcde or ghijklmn or xyz and then man. There might be some
> gaps where certain ape species became extinct but not the gaps we see
> today.
Give an explicit account of "the gaps we see today" and why the
known intermediates "don't count" -- is this a case where everytime
we discover a new intermediate the Creationist cries: "Aha! Now
there are _TWO_ gaps where before there was only one."
>
> And if man was the exception then every other type of species should
> have transitionals running around all over the place too.
You _really_ haven't got a _clue_ what is expected on the basis of
evolutionary theory, do you? Almost every conceivable pattern of
sparse vs. bushy, jerky vs. continuous, etc. kind of evolutionary
pattern is not only seen, but seen in huge numbers of cases. Biology
is like that. You might find it fascinating to actually _learn_
some. At least, you would if you were truly interested in God's
creation, as opposed to silly human dogmas.
>
> We are talking supposed millions of years here.
Billions. Stop obsessing about some late-comer apes, and look at
ALL of life. And learn some humility -- it _is_ one of the major
Christian virtues, you know, unlike the spouting of ignorant crap
about things you know nothing about, which is merely a popular
blood-sport in certain circles of self-proclaimed "Christians."
Daniel Harper
Perhaps we should name this search for fossil types to be "Zeno's
Transitionals".
> The peace of God be with you.
>
> Stanley Friesen
--
"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor'and 'hate your enemy.'
But I say to you, love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you, that
you may be like your Father in heaven, since he causes the sun to rise on
the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous."
(Matthew 5:43-45, New English Translation)
--Daniel Harper
(Change terra to earth for email)
Richard Forrest
How about a badly designed machine? Like the vertebrate eye? Or the human spine?
Are they evidence of an incompetent designer?
RF
Dave
You are being silly. Even today tribal warfare is common and it is
absurd to think that any rival species would have been allowed to
live. As a species we are vicious. Your complaint that there isn't
"100 objective proof" of man's evolution is silly. Do you apply this
same requirement to your other beliefs? There is far more evidence of
man's evolutionary past than there is for Jesus or Mohammad or Buddha,
so I guess you must have long ago abandoned those beliefs. The
yammering over transitional fossils is stupid. Do you understand that
fossils are rare? That they only occur extremely infrequently. This
means that almost all dead animals rot away. Only a tiny few turn into
fossils. Now do you understand population growth? You understand
exponential curves? You understand how many field mice can be created
in one year from one pair? You understand boom and bust cycles? Do you
understand that evolution acts most strongly on stressed populations?
Dying populations? Do you understand that because of the population
difference fossils are only going to record the boom cycles?
God may exist, may have set everything in motion, but who can believe
he would fumble around in the manner described in the Bible? Or maybe
Jesus was indeed who he said he was, but "original sin" was merely the
brutal, vicious, necessary task of surviving, over the eons, to
evolve, to claw our way up.
"Rev Dr" Lenny Flank
MheathXX wrote:
Yep. I saw the face of Jesus in a tortilla once.
"Rev Dr" Lenny Flank
MheathXX wrote:
> Have you EVER seen a greatly designed machine that did not have a
> creator? If so, let me hear of it.
>
God.
If you disagree, tell me who designed God.
Hiero5ant
Define "design".
Define "creator".
If you mean these words in the way that is not trivially tautologous,
then yes, yes I have, and so have you.
I picked up my cat (now three years old) as a stray kitten. I did not
witness her being born. So I do not have "100% objective proof" (whatever
that's supposed to mean) that she in fact came from the ordinary and
well-understood processes of fertilization, ontogeny, birth, etc. She
*could* (in the sense of it being not logically impossible) have been formed
by microscopic robots from Venus as an experiment that escaped; she *could*
(in the sense of it being not logically impossible) have been whipped up
spontaneously from her constituent molecules by a tornado in a junkyard; she
*could* (in the sense of it being not logically impossible) have been
miraculously "poofed" into existence by an invisible Hebrew who lives in the
clouds and takes a keen interest in what people in Massachusetts do with
their genitals.
But you know what? I think it's a pretty darn safe inference that her
magnificent design involved no Venusian Robots, no fortuitous Tornadoes, and
no Invisible Designer. I think it came about by the ordinary process of a
mommy cat and a daddy cat doing the wild thing. And I think you agree with
me on this point.
So yes, I rather think I have seen a great design without a creator --
unless you want to define "two cats having sex" as "The Creator", in which
case those folks at the Discovery Institute are in even deeper theological
hot water than I thought...
Don McIntosh
Your comments here brought to mind a letter I read recently from Brian
McLaren to Chuck Colson, which in turn brought to mind a number of
your comments to me on another subject (examining creationist motives)
- including references to "postmodernism" as hyperbole, allusions to
ideological extremism, and the perceived need to defend a concept
thought to have been battered as a straw man. McLaren is an "emergent"
evangelical, but I thought you would appreciate his sincere yet
occasionally sardonic self-effacing style. Like you, he strikes me as
one who is too intelligent to be entirely modest, yet too modest to
overplay his own intelligence:
http://www.anewkindofchristian.com/archives/000018.html
Having a penchant for sarcasm myself, I feel a bit like the boy who
cried wolf, but...the above is meant to be a sincere compliment. :-)
> robert
Noctiluca
(Good to see you back)
I truly do. It was a pleasure to read his letter. It brought home
several points, one of which being that I'm probably flinging around
the word *postmodernism* without adequate understanding of what it
really means. My use in the past has been predicated on those books
I've read that have dealt with postmodernism as it relates to science,
things like neo-feminist problems with male generated empirical truth
and extreme positions of postmodern African-Americans that suggest
nearly all cultural and technological practice derives from ancient
Africa. This has led me to, in some cases, use the word as a synonym
for pseudo-science. My use is also based on reading books such as
Fashionable Nonsense, from which I've drawn a more reasonable "all
truth and reality is relative" meaning. (I also have a tendency to
apply it in situations where I think an argument is being made by
someone who is covering up a lack of content with verbiage) In any
case it's clear to me I use it rather indiscriminately and should
change this behavior.
Back to McLaren. It's especially edifying to read something from a
Christian, or a member of any other organized religion, who doesn't
take his faith for granted. I love the fact that he's willing to sort
of let it roll around inside his head and look at it from various
perspectives. Do you have any idea about his views on science and
evolution? I'd be interested in reading them.
> Like you, he strikes me as
> one who is too intelligent to be entirely modest, yet too modest to
> overplay his own intelligence:
That's entirely too generous but I thank you all the same. I do,
however, think his line about lacking enough humility to realize how
unqualified he is does go a long way toward describing me.
> http://www.anewkindofchristian.com/archives/000018.html
>
>
> Having a penchant for sarcasm myself, I feel a bit like the boy who
> cried wolf, but...the above is meant to be a sincere compliment. :-)
Not to get slobbery here, but you know of my respect for you as well.
robert
Pithecanthropus Erectus
> I have racked my brain over these things and have tried to find
> answers, but there just aren't any.
I think this is your problem. Why torture yourself trying to figure
thsi out without taking the time to learn from people that have actually
studied the matter?
The odds of life springing into
> what it is today just do not seem comprehensable. There are just too
> many zillions upon zillions upon zillions of different species, organs
> and compounds that make up life to say that it just came from some
> mindless OC billions of years ago. It was mindless and had no
> direction.
But it works and we can see it in action. The origin of life may never
be discovered. IT DOESN'T MATTER in re the theory of evolution.
>
> Lets don't even go into the lungs and other stuff and how they came
> about. And how they were made perfect for our ability to survive for
> thousands of years.
> Zillions of more building blocks to ponder.
>
> It just seems to me that there is no other explanation for the current
> state of life than that God was the creator of life. It is more
> plausible and more likely and more easily proved. He created each
> organism (and might have started with single cells) and gave it it's
> uniqueness and DNA or building blocks then they grew and developed. I
> believe that he started possibbly with creating for example a male and
> female squirrel. Or he made thousands of them. Whatever. Then they
> had the chance to live. Did evolution occur with them over time? You
> bet. But it was microevolution. Not macro. Dogs have been around
> for years but we have NEVER seen one evolve into a different species.
Wolves and dogs, dogs and wolves. Would you say they are the same
"kind" or not? Over 70,000 years since the domestication of the wolf as
dog, but which was aboard the Ark? Or were both?
> There are different breeds of dogs just like there are different races
> of humans. Big, small, white, black, fat, skinny, 3 foot tall, 8 foot
> tall, big head, little head.....and we pass those genes to our
> offspring just like dogs and cats do. There is no indication of human
> macroevolution. Yeah we might be getting a little taller and losing
> some hair, but we are still men adn women, right?
>
> The fossil record is full of fully created animals. There appear to
> be many transistional fossils to supposedly support macroevolution.
> But who is to say that it is just similar species that appear to be
> transitional. Just like man and the ape. We are somewhat similar but
> are different species. And if we evolved from ape to man, then what
> happened to all the apes. What was the reason for the survival of the
> fittest. Why did we evolve from apes?
We didn't - we are apes. We just have less hair.
It just isn't answerable. And
> what are the odds of a new species coming about? For example lets say
> back a million years ago, there were a group of apes. They have sat
> around and micro evolved for 2 thousands year. They have gotten a
> little taller and stronger through darwanism...their hair has gotten
> darker due to being in the sun year round and they have passed this to
> their offspring. Well why in the world or how in the world could they
> evolve to being a human being due to these environmental changes? I
> just don't know. Nobody can be sure. And what are the environmental
> changes that took place and how long did they last. Surely not for a
> million years. Are their any species alive right now that are
> transitional to apes and humans so that we can take a look? There are
> some similarities of men and apes but there are HUGE DIFFERENCES TOO.
> There should be tons of fossil evidence or living evidence of
> transitional specials over millions of years of evolution. From ape a
> to b to c to d to e over millions of years.
>
> Since apes are still alive and running around, where are all there
> cousins and transitional species that should be around too. Were just
> blocks of animals just executed millions of years ago? If we evolved
> from apes and apes from chimps where are all the cousins of them that
> should be around?
Extinct.
I mean we have a chimp an ape and man but nothing
> in between. Who was to say that just the chimp the ape and man were
> to survive? Where are all our cousins and not to mention the millions
> of cousins of other supposed evolved species?
>
> And while talking about apes what about the millions of other species
> that are running around? Where are all there cousins and transitional
> buddies. Surely over millions of years they just didnt dissapear did
> they? What are the odds of that happening. There should be a living
> record of the evolution of species you would think. There should be a
> chimp, chimp a, chimp b, chimp c.....then ape a, b, c, d, and so on to
> humans?
wrong - we are apes. Call us Ape E, if you must. We are apes.
Where are all these examples. Where are all the fossil
> evidences of them? Why did the current ape just get to survive and
> apes abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz of the transitional process not
> survive and where is all the fossil evidence?
>
> Instead we have fossil records of man and some early men. Some with
> some very questionable hype such as Nebraska man. Nothing in between
> to show the millions of different shapes and looks that man took on
> over the millions of years of evolution. Just a man, some apes and
> some chimps. Really not much in between.
>
> It just doesn't add up.
Perhaps your calculator needs some fresh batteries?
>
> It easier to prove that God in his great intelligence and wisdom
> created everything and "KNEW" what they needed to survive.
Well, let's get Flank on your ass:
What is the theory of creation? How is it proven? How is it demonstrated?
--
I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not
understanding the world.
Richard Dawkins
MheathXX
Maybe I should not use the word "greatly" in my question. I might
should have said "have you ever seen a machine that works, that does
not have a creator?"
My tv doesn't work very well at times, but I would never question the
fact that someone created it. Knew what parts surely went where and
why they would be needed.
AC
MheathXX <mhea...@excite.com> wrote:
>
> Maybe I should not use the word "greatly" in my question. I might
> should have said "have you ever seen a machine that works, that does
> not have a creator?"
>
> My tv doesn't work very well at times, but I would never question the
> fact that someone created it. Knew what parts surely went where and
> why they would be needed.
The analogy fails. Machines do not reproduce. Cells are not machines.
Humans are not machines.
It's very simple. Evolution predicts that populations which change over
time. New structures are inevitably modifications of existing structures.
In this context, something like our spines and knees, modified from primates
who largely walked on all fours makes sense. Pushing farther back, the
vertebrate eye can be put in the context that the common ancestor of
vertebrates had visual sense organs, and ours, flaws and all, is a modified
form of that. New structures are, in a way, an illusion of time. Taking a
modern organism and an ancestor 100 million years old, we might see novel
structure, but looking at intermediates we see simply the modification of
existing structures.
So my wife's bad knees, due to a particularly flawed design, make sense
because her ape-like ancestors did not, originally, walk on two legs.
Evolutionary pressures selected for bipedalism, but only had the existing
structures in the knees, spine and musculature, and that was the raw
materials which hominids evolved with.
How could invoking a designer explain this? In fact, how could invoking a
designer (which I'm assuming here is secret code for your deity) explain
anything? Or, to put it another way, what couldn't your designer theory not
explain? Is there any observation that would falsify your designer theory?
This may sound silly to you, but this is key. This is the very heart of the
matter. Evolutionary theory could be falsified if we found a population
where one generation walked on all fours, and then the next generation
suddenly was dancing about on two legs, with knees and spine well designed
for bipedalism. Such instaneous appearance of novel structures of this kind
would be pretty darn hard to explain. Thus we have a way we can falsify
evolution.
So I'll restate the question. Since you insist that somehow a designer is
involved in the development of living organisms, what predictions does it
make? How could we go about falsifying it? What would disprove your
designer's involvement?
We can even go farther. How did your designer actually design and create
life? What methods were used? We can take a cue here from sciences where
intelligent designers are actually studied; such as forensics and
archaeology. In these sciences, we can collect data and using various
techniques make predictions how actions are done or structures are made.
Can we apply the same sort of methodology to your designer?
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
Victor Eijkhout
> How in the world did life evolve to it's present state?
I'd say apostrophe's have been evolving into a symbiotic relationship
with the letter "s". You hardly seen "s" without an apostrophe before
it.
V.
--
email: lastname at cs utk edu
homepage: cs utk edu tilde lastname
"Rev Dr" Lenny Flank
AC wrote:
<snip>
> So I'll restate the question. Since you insist that somehow a designer is
> involved in the development of living organisms, what predictions does it
> make? How could we go about falsifying it? What would disprove your
> designer's involvement?
>
> We can even go farther. How did your designer actually design and create
> life? What methods were used? We can take a cue here from sciences where
> intelligent designers are actually studied; such as forensics and
> archaeology. In these sciences, we can collect data and using various
> techniques make predictions how actions are done or structures are made.
> Can we apply the same sort of methodology to your designer?
>
Indeed, our fundie friend seems quite unaware that even if we grant the
existence of a designer, that does not mean evolution is wrong. after
all, Behe, one of the founders of ID "theory", accepts that all life is
evolved from a common ancestor, and that hu,mans are evolved from
apelike primates.
MheathXX
> On Tue, 23 Mar 2004 04:03:26 +0000 (UTC),
> MheathXX <mhea...@excite.com> wrote:
> >
> > Maybe I should not use the word "greatly" in my question. I might
> > should have said "have you ever seen a machine that works, that does
> > not have a creator?"
> >
> > My tv doesn't work very well at times, but I would never question the
> > fact that someone created it. Knew what parts surely went where and
> > why they would be needed.
>
> The analogy fails. Machines do not reproduce. Cells are not machines.
> Humans are not machines.
Incorrect....
And it is not merely an analogy so much that it is a fact. There is
not a single machine or "thing" that functions that does not have a
designer.
Especially anything with even the tiniest fraction of complexity.
Even the mouse trap has a designer.
The machine or thing or device does not have to be perfect. That is
not the purpose of my statement. The purpose is the fact that it has
a designer.
The very computer that you use to write these messgaes is not perfect
but you surely would NEVER question the fact that it had a designer.
Would you?
The human body is not a perfect design in some respects (all based on
relativity I would assume) but nonetheless it is a design. It has
functions and it works.
From a scientists point of view I would assume he or she could state
that as in relation to observed facts in this world, all things that
appear to have design outside of nature have a designer.
Can you name or produce something that actually functions that does
not have a designer? That isnt naturally occuring? If you can, it is
extremely rare in occurence and probably insignificant.
I can name you probably a billion or so machines or objects that have
a designer.
Probably a trillion.
My proof and facts outweigh yours.
The proof points back to a designer, God, who made all.
When was the last time, nature created anything as minutely complex
(simple to us) as a mouse trap? Nothing exists in nature beyond what
it can simply produce and can easily be identified and verified.
AC
> AC <mightym...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<slrnc5vfs4.3f8....@alder.alberni.net>...
>> On Tue, 23 Mar 2004 04:03:26 +0000 (UTC),
>> MheathXX <mhea...@excite.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > Maybe I should not use the word "greatly" in my question. I might
>> > should have said "have you ever seen a machine that works, that does
>> > not have a creator?"
>> >
>> > My tv doesn't work very well at times, but I would never question the
>> > fact that someone created it. Knew what parts surely went where and
>> > why they would be needed.
>>
>> The analogy fails. Machines do not reproduce. Cells are not machines.
>> Humans are not machines.
>
> Incorrect....
I don't think so. I look at my car. I look at me. There may be similar
features but I am not a machine.
>
> And it is not merely an analogy so much that it is a fact. There is
> not a single machine or "thing" that functions that does not have a
> designer.
Again, your analogy is false. Living organisms are not machines.
>
> Especially anything with even the tiniest fraction of complexity.
Crystals have complexity. Are you claiming they're designed?
>
> Even the mouse trap has a designer.
Living organisms aren't mousetraps. Your analogy is false.
>
> The machine or thing or device does not have to be perfect. That is
> not the purpose of my statement. The purpose is the fact that it has
> a designer.
>
> The very computer that you use to write these messgaes is not perfect
> but you surely would NEVER question the fact that it had a designer.
> Would you?
I am not a computer. My computer is not a living organism. Your analogy
fails.
>
> The human body is not a perfect design in some respects (all based on
> relativity I would assume) but nonetheless it is a design. It has
> functions and it works.
Functions do not indicate design.
>
> From a scientists point of view I would assume he or she could state
> that as in relation to observed facts in this world, all things that
> appear to have design outside of nature have a designer.
Except that living organisms aren't machines and do not have the appearances
of design.
>
> Can you name or produce something that actually functions that does
> not have a designer? That isnt naturally occuring? If you can, it is
> extremely rare in occurence and probably insignificant.
Ah I see. So even if I produce examples you will handwave them away. Can
we say inflexible preconceptions/
>
> I can name you probably a billion or so machines or objects that have
> a designer.
>
> Probably a trillion.
>
> My proof and facts outweigh yours.
Science doesn't prove things, and living organisms aren't machines.
>
> The proof points back to a designer, God, who made all.
Science doesn't prove things, and science cannot deal with omnipotent
designers. How would you falsify your deity?
>
> When was the last time, nature created anything as minutely complex
> (simple to us) as a mouse trap? Nothing exists in nature beyond what
> it can simply produce and can easily be identified and verified.
I'd say ice crystals are incredibly complex. Our weather is even more
complex. Complexity does not equal design, unless you are of the opinion
that your deity micromanages the universe.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
Don McIntosh
(Thanks!)
> I truly do. It was a pleasure to read his letter. It brought home
> several points, one of which being that I'm probably flinging around
> the word *postmodernism* without adequate understanding of what it
> really means. My use in the past has been predicated on those books
> I've read that have dealt with postmodernism as it relates to science,
> things like neo-feminist problems with male generated empirical truth
> and extreme positions of postmodern African-Americans that suggest
> nearly all cultural and technological practice derives from ancient
> Africa. This has led me to, in some cases, use the word as a synonym
> for pseudo-science. My use is also based on reading books such as
> Fashionable Nonsense, from which I've drawn a more reasonable "all
> truth and reality is relative" meaning. (I also have a tendency to
> apply it in situations where I think an argument is being made by
> someone who is covering up a lack of content with verbiage) In any
> case it's clear to me I use it rather indiscriminately and should
> change this behavior.
I wouldn't worry about it, as "postmodernism" is one of those terms
that just seems to lend itself to rhetorical (ideological?)
elasticity. Indeed, you are the one who first called me on this. As
far as having to apply it to correct a problem of verbiage against
substance: Anyone who honestly takes the time and trouble to actually
read what you're saying (i.e., the content of it) will eventually
address more or less what it is....you're saying. Everyone else is
probably determined to misunderstand. I recall Richard Dawkins making
similar remarks of "reductionism": There's the mundane, rather
harmless regular old reductionism, then there's the evil caricature,
"baby-eating reductionism."
> Back to McLaren. It's especially edifying to read something from a
> Christian, or a member of any other organized religion, who doesn't
> take his faith for granted. I love the fact that he's willing to sort
> of let it roll around inside his head and look at it from various
> perspectives. Do you have any idea about his views on science and
> evolution? I'd be interested in reading them.
You may be surprised - or from what you've noted already, perhaps not
surprised at all. An English rather than theology major at Maryland
who slipped in to pastoral ministry "through the back door," McLaren
made the Galapagos Islands the backdrop for a novel in which
creation/evolution is apparently (I haven't read it yet) a central
theme. The protagonist, Neil Edward Oliver (or "Neo"), is described in
reviews as a preacher-turned-science teacher who embraces a thoroughly
theological interpretation of Genesis, in deference to contemporary
science. Of course, I wouldn't agree that Genesis can rightly be
interpreted in an historical vacuum - in which case fundy Hittite
Library conspiracies would rank right up there with atheist Paluxy
fossil footprint cover-ups..... But then you were asking about
McLaren's views, weren't you? ;-)
It may be a challenging/troubling/encouraging (depending on
perspective) sign of the times that McLaren's book has received
moderately favorable reviews in evangelical and even fundamentalist
circles:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/books/features/bookwk/030414.html
http://www.abpnews.com/abpnews/story.cfm?newsId=3587
> > Like you, he strikes me as
> > one who is too intelligent to be entirely modest, yet too modest to
> > overplay his own intelligence:
>
> That's entirely too generous but I thank you all the same. I do,
> however, think his line about lacking enough humility to realize how
> unqualified he is does go a long way toward describing me.
That particular line was actually one of a handful that got me to
thinking about some of your own statements, so I'm not surprised it
stuck with you.
My own favorite comment, strictly for social-psychological thought
provocation value: "You're against their supposed denial of truth in
the interest of self-indulgence, and they're against your apparent
monopolization of truth in the interest of political domination, and
you've convinced some of the rest of us that you're both at least
partly right about each other."
"Rev Dr" Lenny Flank
MheathXX wrote:
That's nice. Why does Behe, the guy who first produced the mousetrap
analogy that you seem to love so much, think that (1) life evolved froma
common acnestor through common descent, and (2) humans are evolved
from apelike primates?
Here, let me quote Behe's own words for you:
Intelligent Design Is Not Creationism
Response to "Not (Just) in Kansas Anymore" by Eugenie C. Scott, Science
(May 2000)
Michael J. Behe
Science Online
July 7, 2000
Scott refers to me as an intelligent design "creationist," even though I
clearly write in my book Darwin's Black Box (which Scott cites) that I
am not a creationist and have no reason to doubt common descent. In
fact, my own views fit quite comfortably with the 40% of scientists that
Scott acknowledges think "evolution occurred, but was guided by God."
From "Darwin's Black Box"
Evolution is a controversial topic, so it is necessary to address a few
basic questions at the beginning of the book. Many people think that
questioning Darwinian evolution must be equivalent to espousing
creationism. As commonly understood, creationism involves belief in an
earth formed only about ten thousand years ago, an interpretation of the
Bible that is still very popular. For the record, I have no reason to
doubt that the universe is the billions of years old that physicists say
it is. Further, I find the idea of common descent (that all organisms
share a common ancestor) fairly convincing, and have no particular
reason to doubt it. (p. 5)
From "Darwin's Black Box"
"I believe the evidence strongly supports common descent." (p.176)
"I dispute the mechanism of natural selection, not common descent." in
Reply to My Critics, Biology and Philosophy 16, p697, 2001.
Christianity Today, August 12th 2002
"A Nuclear Bomb" For Evolution?: Critics of Darwinism say skull's
discovery isn't all it's cracked up to be
by Todd Hertz
Behe said ID is "several levels of biology removed from the hominid
versus chimp distinction." The point of contention between evolution and
intelligent design is whether design or chance guided human
development?not how humans developed.
"Darwin's claim to fame was not so much that he thought that organisms
might have evolved from common ancestors," Behe said. "Other people had
put forward other theories but had always invoked guiding intelligence.
His main point was that it might happen by chance."
Darwin's Black Box, Reviewed by Kenneth R. Miller
(as published in Creation / Evolution Volume 16: pp, 36-40 [1996])
Perhaps the single most stunning thing about Darwin's Black Box, Michael
Behe's "Biochemical Challenge to Evolution," is the amount of territory
that its author concedes to Darwinism. As tempted as they might be to
pick up this book in their own defense, "scientific creationists" should
think twice about enlisting an ally who has concluded that the Earth is
several billion years old, that evolutionary biology has had "much
success in accounting for the patterns of life we see around us (1),"
that evolution accounts for the appearance of new organisms including
antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and who is convinced that all organisms
share a "common ancestor." In plain language, this means that Michael
Behe and I share an evolutionary view of the natural history of the
Earth and the meaning of the fossil record; namely, that present-day
organisms have been produced by a process of descent with modification
from their ancient ancestors. Behe is clear, firm, and consistent on
this point. For example, when Michael and I engaged in debate at the
1995 meeting of the American Scientific Affiliation, I argued that the
100% match of DNA sequences in the pseudogene region of beta-globin was
proof that humans and gorillas shared a recent common ancestor. To my
surprise, Behe said that he shared that view, and had no problem with
the notion of common ancestry. Creationists who believe that Behe is on
their side should proceed with caution - he states very clearly that
evolution can produce new species, and that human beings are one of
those species.
But hey, there is no need to take my word for it what Behe's opinion is
about common descent, human evolution, and young-earth creationists.
You can write to him and ASK HIM YOURSELF, just like I did. His email
address is: mj...@lehigh.edu . Write to him. Ask him. Tell us what
answer you get.
Hiero5ant
This is just a preliminary, but it's very important:
Are you now, or have you ever been, "Philosopher7"?
"MheathXX" <mhea...@excite.com> wrote in message
news:c3d9dd2.04032...@posting.google.com...
> AC <mightym...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:<slrnc5vfs4.3f8....@alder.alberni.net>...
> > On Tue, 23 Mar 2004 04:03:26 +0000 (UTC),
> > MheathXX <mhea...@excite.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Maybe I should not use the word "greatly" in my question. I might
> > > should have said "have you ever seen a machine that works, that does
> > > not have a creator?"
> > >
> > > My tv doesn't work very well at times, but I would never question the
> > > fact that someone created it. Knew what parts surely went where and
> > > why they would be needed.
> >
> > The analogy fails. Machines do not reproduce. Cells are not machines.
> > Humans are not machines.
>
> Incorrect....
Machines *do* reproduce?
> And it is not merely an analogy so much that it is a fact. There is
> not a single machine or "thing" that functions that does not have a
> designer.
This is bald assertion and raw question-begging on your part, and I'm
calling you on it.
Can you explain in your own words what the fallacy of Begging the
Question is, and why fallacies are bad?
> Especially anything with even the tiniest fraction of complexity.
Define 'complexity'
> Even the mouse trap has a designer.
We know.
> The machine or thing or device does not have to be perfect. That is
> not the purpose of my statement. The purpose is the fact that it has
> a designer.
We know for a fact that humans design mousetraps because we *see*
humans designing mousetraps.
We know for a fact that cats are not designed because we see catfucking
producing baby cats.
> The very computer that you use to write these messgaes is not perfect
> but you surely would NEVER question the fact that it had a designer.
> Would you?
We know for a fact that humans design computers because we *see* humans
designing computers.
We know for a fact that cats are not designed because we see catfucking
producing baby cats.
> The human body is not a perfect design in some respects (all based on
> relativity I would assume) but nonetheless it is a design. It has
> functions and it works.
So you have no trouble accepting the fact that the designer is clearly
not omnipotent, omnisiscient, or omnibenevolent?
Do you know what a modus tollens is?
> From a scientists point of view I would assume he or she could state
> that as in relation to observed facts in this world, all things that
> appear to have design outside of nature have a designer.
>
> Can you name or produce something that actually functions that does
> not have a designer?
It's called a cat. And a lilac bush. And a paramecium. and an aardvark.
and...
> That isnt naturally occuring? If you can, it is
> extremely rare in occurence and probably insignificant.
All life on earth is "insignificant"?
> I can name you probably a billion or so machines or objects that have
> a designer.
>
> Probably a trillion.
>
> My proof and facts outweigh yours.
Please explain, in your own words, what is wrong with the following
argument structure:
1) Some x's are y's.
2) Therefore all x's are y's.
Now please explain how what you wrote above is not an example of this
structure.
> The proof points back to a designer, God, who made all.
Do you know what a modus tollens is?
> When was the last time, nature created anything as minutely complex
> (simple to us) as a mouse trap?
The last time there was cat-sex.
AC
>> (simple to us) as a mouse trap?
>
> The last time there was cat-sex.
--
Aaron Clausen
mightym...@hotmail.com
Noctiluca
I think this is quite an apt metaphor. Especially valuable in that
it's likely to be those hurling the charge of postmodern who are, in
turn, being accused of reductionism.
> > Back to McLaren. It's especially edifying to read something from a
> > Christian, or a member of any other organized religion, who doesn't
> > take his faith for granted. I love the fact that he's willing to sort
> > of let it roll around inside his head and look at it from various
> > perspectives. Do you have any idea about his views on science and
> > evolution? I'd be interested in reading them.
>
>
> You may be surprised - or from what you've noted already, perhaps not
> surprised at all. An English rather than theology major at Maryland
> who slipped in to pastoral ministry "through the back door," McLaren
> made the Galapagos Islands the backdrop for a novel in which
> creation/evolution is apparently (I haven't read it yet) a central
> theme. The protagonist, Neil Edward Oliver (or "Neo"), is described in
> reviews as a preacher-turned-science teacher who embraces a thoroughly
> theological interpretation of Genesis, in deference to contemporary
> science. Of course, I wouldn't agree that Genesis can rightly be
> interpreted in an historical vacuum - in which case fundy Hittite
> Library conspiracies would rank right up there with atheist Paluxy
> fossil footprint cover-ups..... But then you were asking about
> McLaren's views, weren't you? ;-)
>
> It may be a challenging/troubling/encouraging (depending on
> perspective) sign of the times that McLaren's book has received
> moderately favorable reviews in evangelical and even fundamentalist
> circles:
I haven't read the reviews yet but the idea doesn't bother me too
much. Heck, there are many levels on which one can enjoy a book and
nobody ever said fundies don't appreciate a good story.
It sounds like fun. I'm gonna go out and look for it.
> http://www.christianitytoday.com/books/features/bookwk/030414.html
>
> http://www.abpnews.com/abpnews/story.cfm?newsId=3587
>
>
> > > Like you, he strikes me as
> > > one who is too intelligent to be entirely modest, yet too modest to
> > > overplay his own intelligence:
> >
> > That's entirely too generous but I thank you all the same. I do,
> > however, think his line about lacking enough humility to realize how
> > unqualified he is does go a long way toward describing me.
>
>
> That particular line was actually one of a handful that got me to
> thinking about some of your own statements, so I'm not surprised it
> stuck with you.
>
> My own favorite comment, strictly for social-psychological thought
> provocation value: "You're against their supposed denial of truth in
> the interest of self-indulgence, and they're against your apparent
> monopolization of truth in the interest of political domination, and
> you've convinced some of the rest of us that you're both at least
> partly right about each other."
Yes, I liked that as well. This is a guy who is more interested in
achieving an understanding than a rhetorical victory.
MheathXX
> On Wed, 24 Mar 2004 04:17:02 +0000 (UTC),
> MheathXX <mhea...@excite.com> wrote:
> > AC <mightym...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<slrnc5vfs4.3f8....@alder.alberni.net>...
> >> On Tue, 23 Mar 2004 04:03:26 +0000 (UTC),
> >> MheathXX <mhea...@excite.com> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > Maybe I should not use the word "greatly" in my question. I might
> >> > should have said "have you ever seen a machine that works, that does
> >> > not have a creator?"
> >> >
> >> > My tv doesn't work very well at times, but I would never question the
> >> > fact that someone created it. Knew what parts surely went where and
> >> > why they would be needed.
> >>
> >> The analogy fails. Machines do not reproduce. Cells are not machines.
> >> Humans are not machines.
I am not comparing just machines to a human, I am comparing the fact
that they are of DESIGN.
Life is of DESIGN.
And as stated, there is more than enough evidence to prove that 99.9%
of all things that have some basic design can be proven to be the
product of a designer. Human beings are just a part of all of the
design that there is in the Universe.
Crystals can EASILY be proven to be the design of natural causes.
(Indirectly the by product of God's kingdom).
Accordingly, things that are of DESIGN can easily be proven to have a
designer.
Through test, observation and the good ole scientific method.
And as I have mentioned above an ice crystal can be proven over and
over to the result of a natural cause whereas an IGLOO can be proven
to be the product of a designer.
Chris Thompson
You are absolutely correct that sometimes, badly designed machines are
created. I owned a Renault Alliance, as a matter of fact.
However, are you ascribing poor design to an omniscient, omnipotent
being? Would such a being do that to its creations? A god would not
seem to be laboring under cost constraints, it seems to me.
Chris
Chris Thompson
news:406037f4$1...@corp.newsgroups.com:
>
>
> AC wrote:
>
> <snip>
>> So I'll restate the question. Since you insist that somehow a
>> designer is involved in the development of living organisms, what
>> predictions does it make? How could we go about falsifying it? What
>> would disprove your designer's involvement?
>>
>> We can even go farther. How did your designer actually design and
>> create life? What methods were used? We can take a cue here from
>> sciences where intelligent designers are actually studied; such as
>> forensics and archaeology. In these sciences, we can collect data
>> and using various techniques make predictions how actions are done or
>> structures are made. Can we apply the same sort of methodology to
>> your designer?
>>
>
>
> Indeed, our fundie friend seems quite unaware that even if we grant
> the existence of a designer, that does not mean evolution is wrong.
> after all, Behe, one of the founders of ID "theory", accepts that all
> life is evolved from a common ancestor, and that hu,mans are evolved
> from apelike primates.
>
Lenny, I am not totally sure MHeath is a fundie. He seems a lot more
reasonable than that.
Chris
Chris Thompson
Ah, I should also have said, thank you for engaging in a worthwhile
discussion. You have shown yourself to be a distinct cut above the
usual crowd of drive-by posters we get here, or those like David Ford
who abandons threads, or CotPT who just seems to post his own brand of
vitrioloc bigotry and hate.
Thanks, MHeath.
Chris
Patrick James
(in article <slrnc63bmn.3ns....@alder.alberni.net>):
>>> When was the last time, nature created anything as minutely complex
>>> (simple to us) as a mouse trap?
>>
>> The last time there was cat-sex.
>
>
<cough> Ye olde original ball-bearing mousetrap? </cough>
Now _that's_ IC!
--
Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes
Eric Gill
> AC <mightym...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:<slrnc625l2.3h0....@alder.alberni.net>...
>> On Wed, 24 Mar 2004 04:17:02 +0000 (UTC),
>> MheathXX <mhea...@excite.com> wrote:
>> > AC <mightym...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>> > news:<slrnc5vfs4.3f8....@alder.alberni.net>...
>> >> On Tue, 23 Mar 2004 04:03:26 +0000 (UTC),
>> >> MheathXX <mhea...@excite.com> wrote:
>> >> >
>> >> > Maybe I should not use the word "greatly" in my question. I
>> >> > might should have said "have you ever seen a machine that works,
>> >> > that does not have a creator?"
>> >> >
>> >> > My tv doesn't work very well at times, but I would never
>> >> > question the fact that someone created it. Knew what parts
>> >> > surely went where and why they would be needed.
>> >>
>> >> The analogy fails. Machines do not reproduce. Cells are not
>> >> machines. Humans are not machines.
>
> I am not comparing just machines to a human,
No. But you are comparing machines to humans without supporting your
case.
> I am comparing the fact
> that they are of DESIGN.
>
> Life is of DESIGN.
>
> And as stated, there is more than enough evidence to prove that 99.9%
> of all things that have some basic design can be proven to be the
> product of a designer. Human beings are just a part of all of the
> design that there is in the Universe.
>
> Crystals can EASILY be proven to be the design of natural causes.
> (Indirectly the by product of God's kingdom).
IOW, you are presuming your conclusions.
Please stop claiming you have evidence to support this, then - since you
obviously do not.
> Accordingly, things that are of DESIGN can easily be proven to have a
> designer.
Humans.
Prove it, then.
> Through test, observation and the good ole scientific method.
Any day, now.
<snip>
"Rev Dr" Lenny Flank
Chris Thompson wrote:
Perhaps. But he has STILL not responded to my question as to why
"Christian viewpoint" on science would be any different form any OTHER
viewpoint on science . . . . .
He also has still not responded to my question about why Behe accepts
all of evolution, including the descent of humans from apelike primates.
Even if I accept MHeath's assertion that God -- er, I mean, An Unknown
Intelligent Designer -- designed the universe (I am after all not an
atheist), it STILL does not follow that evolution is wrong. In whcih
case MHeath would either preaching to the choir or just pissing in the
wind. . . . .
How about it, my perhaps-non-fundie friend ------- why does Behe accept
all of eovlution, and how does the existence of a designer mean
evolution isn't every bit as correct as gravity or plate tectonics.
Please be as specific as possible.
I won't bother to ask you for a scientific theory of intelligent design
that can be tested using the scientific method, since it's already a
foregone conclusion that you don't have one (and neither does Behe).
"Rev Dr" Lenny Flank
MheathXX wrote:
>
> Maybe I should not use the word "greatly" in my question. I might
> should have said "have you ever seen a machine that works, that does
> not have a creator?"
>
> My tv doesn't work very well at times, but I would never question the
> fact that someone created it. Knew what parts surely went where and
> why they would be needed.
>
So your designer is an incompetent (or at best barely competent) idiot .
. . . .? Isn't that blasphemy of some sort?
Would you mind demonstrating that there is just one designer, and not,
say, ten or fifty or a whole herd of them?
After that, can you demonstrate that the one designer is YOUR god and
not, say, Zeus or allah or Wakan Tanka or Amaterasu Omikami or Quetzalcoatl?
And after THAT, would you mind telling me what designed the designer,
and how you know?
Thanks in advance.
Dana Tweedy
> > >> The analogy fails. Machines do not reproduce. Cells are not
machines.
> > >> Humans are not machines.
>
> I am not comparing just machines to a human, I am comparing the fact
> that they are of DESIGN.
It's been shown to you that "design" does not always require an intelligent,
purposeful designer.
>
> Life is of DESIGN.
Or, it simply appears that way.
>
> And as stated, there is more than enough evidence to prove that 99.9%
> of all things that have some basic design can be proven to be the
> product of a designer. Human beings are just a part of all of the
> design that there is in the Universe.
Or, maybe just look that way, to we humans who tend to see patterns. Ever
watch clouds? Were the patterns in the clouds designed?
>
> Crystals can EASILY be proven to be the design of natural causes.
> (Indirectly the by product of God's kingdom).
Likewise, humans beings can easily be shown to be the result of natural
causes.
>
> Accordingly, things that are of DESIGN can easily be proven to have a
> designer.
How so? Pick up two rocks. Can you tell me which one is designed, and
which isn't?
>
> Through test, observation and the good ole scientific method.
There has been no confirmed observations of human beings coming into
existance, except by purely natural processes. Exactly how do you propose
to test the claim that humans are designed by a supernatural designer?
>
>
>
snipping
> > I'd say ice crystals are incredibly complex. Our weather is even more
> > complex. Complexity does not equal design, unless you are of the
opinion
> > that your deity micromanages the universe.
>
> And as I have mentioned above an ice crystal can be proven over and
> over to the result of a natural cause whereas an IGLOO can be proven
> to be the product of a designer.
That's because we know that igloos are designed by human beings. We have
examples of them being built by humans, and so it's most likely to infer
that any igloo you see is a designed artifact. However that doesn't mean
that any object we see must have a designer. A naturally formed snow cave
serves the exact same function as an igloo. All you can really say is if
you know it's designed, then you can infer a designer.
DJT
"Rev Dr" Lenny Flank
MheathXX wrote:
> Accordingly, things that are of DESIGN can easily be proven to have a
> designer.
>
> Through test, observation and the good ole scientific method.
>
Show me how to apply the scientific method to "detecting design".
Let's take a specific example: Humans and chimps share nearly all of
their DNA, including some very specific broken genes. I take it your
claim is "they were designed that way" -- if you have a different
explanation, please present it (Behe, for instance, has a different
explanation -- he says humans and chimps evolved from a common ancestor).
How do we test your hypothesis. Let's take your
hypothesis and put it through the scientific method,
shall we?
1. Observe some aspect of the universe.
OK, so we observe that humans and chimps share
unique genetic markers, including a fused
chromosome (with all the appropriate doubled
centromeres and telomeres), and a broken vitamin C
gene.
2. Invent a tentative description, called a hypothesis,
that is consistent with what you have observed.
OK, your proposed hypothesis is "an intelligent
designer used a common design to produce both
chimps and humans, and that common design
included placing the signs of a fused chromosome,
and a broken vitamin C gene in both products."
3. Use the hypothesis to make predictions.
Here is your chance to shine. What
predictions can we make from your hypothesis. If an
Intelligent Designer used a common design to
produce both chimps and humans, then we would
also expect to see . . . . . . . . . . . .?
Fill in the blank.
And, to better help us test your hypothesis, it's most
useful to point out some negative predictions ---
things which, if found, would FALSIFY your
hypothesis and demonstrate conclusively that your
hypothesis is wrong. So, then --- if we find (fill in the
blank here), then the "common design"
hypothesis would have to be rejected.
4. Test those predictions by experiments or further
observations and modify the hypothesis in the light
of your results.
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until there are no
discrepancies between theory and experiment
and/or observation.
Well, we seem to be sort of stuck on step 3.
Help us out here. Give us some testible predictions
from your hypothesis. Tell us how to go about
testing them.
Or, would you rather than we just skip steps 3,4 and
5, and just take your religious word for it that your
hypothesis must be true. Is that, after all, what ID is
all about?
Take note here --- there are NO limits
imposed here on the nature of your predictions,
other than the simple ones indicated by steps 3,4
and 5 (whatever predictions you make must be
testible by experiments or further observations.) You
are entirely free to invoke whatever deities or
supernatural causes that you like, in whatever
number you like, so long as you follow along to steps
3,4 and 5 and tell us how we can test these deities
or causes using experiment or further observation.
Want to tell us that the Good Witch Glenda used her
magic non-naturalistic staff to POP these genetic
sequences into both chimps and humans? Fine ---
just tell us what experiment or observation we can
perform to test that. Want to tell us that God didn't
like humans very much and therefore decided to
design us with broken vitamin C genes? Hey, works
for me -- just as soon as you tell us what experiment
or observation we can perform to test it. Feel entirely
and totally free to use all the supernaturalistic
causes that you like. Just tell us what
experiment or observation we can perform to test
your predictions.
Let's throw methodological
materialism right out the window. Gone. Bye-bye.
Everything's fair game now. Ghosts, spirits,
demons, devils, cosmic enlightenment, elves, pixies,
magic star goats, whatever god-thing you like. Feel
free to include and invoke all of them. As many as
you need. Show us all how to apply the scientific
method to whatever non-naturalistic science you
choose to invoke in order to subject your hypothesis
"genetic similarities between chimps and humans
are the product of a common design" to the scientific
method.
I await with bated breath.
Or is your religious opinion the best you can come up with . . . . . is
there after all no science anywhere in ID "theory" ?
Hiero5ant
> > >> > My tv doesn't work very well at times, but I would never question
the
> > >> > fact that someone created it. Knew what parts surely went where
and
> > >> > why they would be needed.
> > >>
> > >> The analogy fails. Machines do not reproduce. Cells are not
machines.
> > >> Humans are not machines.
>
> I am not comparing just machines to a human, I am comparing the fact
> that they are of DESIGN.
>
> Life is of DESIGN.
Life is NOT OF DESIGN.
See how easy it is to make bald assertions in ALL CAPS WITHOUT
PRESENTING A SHRED OF EVIDENCE OR ARGUMENT? IT'S ALMOST AS THOUGH IT WAS
INSULTING TO THE READERS' INTELLIGENCE.
> And as stated, there is more than enough evidence to prove that 99.9%
> of all things that have some basic design can be proven to be the
> product of a designer.
Ok.
Enought beating around the bush.
Show us this evidence.
Not bald assertion in ALL CAPS.
I want evidence. Remember that I was not the one who first demanded
evidence; you were the one who affirmatively made the assertion.
> Human beings are just a part of all of the
> design that there is in the Universe.
>
> Crystals can EASILY be proven to be the design of natural causes.
> (Indirectly the by product of God's kingdom).
Living organisms can EASILY be proven to be the design of natural
causes.
(PS I LOVE CAPS and ASSERTIONS WITHOUT EVIDENCE)
> Accordingly, things that are of DESIGN can easily be proven to have a
> designer.
No one argues this point.
> Through test, observation and the good ole scientific method.
<snip>
Ok, I'll call.
Prove it.
You say it will be "easy".
I'm sure our resident Rev. Dr. Flank would be especially interested in
hearing about this Scientific Theory of Creation. Indeed, people have been
asking for it since back in the day when talk.origins was net.origins.
Before you begin, though, you need to ask yourself this question: what
makes you think *you* have the Scientific Theory of Creation that not a
single usenet poster in over two decades, nor a single fellow at the
Discovery Institute, nor the combined "efforts" of YEC's in the past half
century have been able to provide?
Think carefully before you answer.
"Rev Dr" Lenny Flank
Hiero5ant wrote:
> I'm sure our resident Rev. Dr. Flank would be especially interested in
> hearing about this Scientific Theory of Creation.
Yes, I would.
I would also like to know why MHeath's particular religious opinions are
any more authoritative than mine or my next door neighbor's or my car
mechanic's or the kid who delivers my pizzas. Whta is the source of
MHeath's religious authority.
Alas, I long ago gave up on ever receiving any intelligible answers to
these questions form any creationist. <sigh>
Therion Ware
On Thu, 25 Mar 2004 13:25:23 +0000 (UTC) in talk.origins, "Rev Dr"
Lenny Flank ("\"Rev Dr\" Lenny Flank" <lflank...@ij.net>) said,
directing the reply to talk.origins
>
>
>Hiero5ant wrote:
>
>> I'm sure our resident Rev. Dr. Flank would be especially interested in
>> hearing about this Scientific Theory of Creation.
>
>
>
>
>Yes, I would.
>
>
>I would also like to know why MHeath's particular religious opinions are
>any more authoritative than mine or my next door neighbor's or my car
>mechanic's or the kid who delivers my pizzas. Whta is the source of
>MHeath's religious authority.
>
>
>
>Alas, I long ago gave up on ever receiving any intelligible answers to
>these questions form any creationist. <sigh>
But what fun it is trying...!
--
"Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You."
- Attrib: Pauline Reage.
Inexpensive VHS & other video to CD/DVD conversion?
See: <http://www.Video2CD.com>. 35.00 gets your video on DVD.
all posts to this email address are automatically deleted without being read.
** atheist poster child #1 ** #442.
Chris Thompson
Correct on all points )
>
> How about it, my perhaps-non-fundie friend ------- why does Behe
> accept all of eovlution, and how does the existence of a designer mean
> evolution isn't every bit as correct as gravity or plate tectonics.
> Please be as specific as possible.
All good questions.
Chris
(snip)
--
"Curiousity is not a theological virtue."
---Lois McMaster Bujold
"Rev Dr" Lenny Flank
And none will be answered.
MheathXX
Prove what?
I can prove whether or not an object has a designer. How hard is
that.
Can I prove that man is the object of a designer? I believe I can.
Is that what we are debating? No. We are debating the theory of
evolution.
And the point I am making is that nothing exists naturally that has
any complexity beyond what basic structure nature can provide.
Snowflakes might seem complex but they are nothing compared to a mouse
trap and the thought and design that goes into it. Crystals are mere
shapes that are formed by basic natural processes. Nature has NEVER
produced a mouse trap or anything close to it. Nothing close.
Therefore it is almost ludicrous to believe in a theory that states
life and its complexity came about by the processes of nature.
Especially when we have observed natural causes for thousands of years
and have NEVER seen it produce anything other than it's own basic
structure. And that is all it has produced, structure. That is it's
nature (no pun intended, ha!) So how man was created I believe points
more in the direction of a creator rather than random natural
processes.
Eric Gill
Trivially easy, for known artifacts. Apparently not nearly as easy when
you assert life is such.
> Can I prove that man is the object of a designer? I believe I can.
So you keep saying. When are you going to get around to it?
> Is that what we are debating? No. We are debating the theory of
> evolution.
This assertion is one of your main points. Establishing it true is
therefore a substantial part of said debate, and it's been demanded of
you many times
Ergo, it's past time to do so.
> And the point I am making is that nothing exists naturally that has
> any complexity beyond what basic structure nature can provide.
> Snowflakes might seem complex but they are nothing compared to a mouse
> trap and the thought and design that goes into it. Crystals are mere
> shapes that are formed by basic natural processes. Nature has NEVER
> produced a mouse trap or anything close to it. Nothing close.
Besides life, of course.
Presupposing that it could not have occurred naturally or have evolved is
not evidence that it could not have occurred naturally or evolved.
> Therefore it is almost ludicrous to believe in a theory that states
> life and its complexity came about by the processes of nature.
Is the sun less or more complex than
> Especially when we have observed natural causes for thousands of years
> and have NEVER seen it produce anything other than it's own basic
> structure. And that is all it has produced, structure. That is it's
> nature (no pun intended, ha!) So how man was created I believe points
> more in the direction of a creator rather than random natural
> processes.
...do you have anything better than an appeal to personal incredulity?
Yes or no?
Dana Tweedy
> > > Accordingly, things that are of DESIGN can easily be proven to have a
> > > designer.
> >
> > Humans.
> >
> > Prove it, then.
>
> Prove what?
Prove that things that appear to be designed have a designer.
>
> I can prove whether or not an object has a designer. How hard is
> that.
Can you? Ok, lets see how well you do:
Designed or Not Designed?
http://www.flavinscorner.com/dolmen.htm
http://www.microscopyu.com/galleries/phasecontrast/images/ctenoidpositivelarge.jpg
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~thompson/objects.html
>
> Can I prove that man is the object of a designer? I believe I can.
> Is that what we are debating? No. We are debating the theory of
> evolution.
>
> And the point I am making is that nothing exists naturally that has
> any complexity beyond what basic structure nature can provide.
Nature can provide quite a lot of "basic structure".
> Snowflakes might seem complex but they are nothing compared to a mouse
> trap and the thought and design that goes into it. Crystals are mere
> shapes that are formed by basic natural processes. Nature has NEVER
> produced a mouse trap or anything close to it. Nothing close.
Really? I beg to differ:
http://www.ortongardens.com/images/venus%20fly%20trap.jpg
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/750000/images/_751069_plant150a.jpg
>
> Therefore it is almost ludicrous to believe in a theory that states
> life and its complexity came about by the processes of nature.
You are selling nature short.
> Especially when we have observed natural causes for thousands of years
> and have NEVER seen it produce anything other than it's own basic
> structure.
Actually, nature has produced some pretty damn complex structures. Where
have you been?
> And that is all it has produced, structure. That is it's
> nature (no pun intended, ha!) So how man was created I believe points
> more in the direction of a creator rather than random natural
> processes.
Evolution is not a "random" process.
DJT