is evolution the cause or just a symptom

[nkfey...@yahoo.com]

It postulate that evoltion happeing under the forces of natural
selection
is not the cause of the creations that we see. On the other hand it
is
only a result, or symptom of the process of creation.

I will be glad to demonstrate that to any interested persons.

-- nkf

[Drafterman]

I'm interested. Please demonstrate.

[Caleb Freeman]

   Although I am a creationist, I do not fully reject evolution. Evolution is not bad.  It simply means change over time.  There is indeed natural selection.  Toads with longer legs will survive while those with shorter legs will die off as prey.  The genetic information is there to produce longer or shorter legs though.  Nothing had to evolve from something to toad.  The toads stayed toads. This is an example of microevolution and it does not conflict with the creationist view.  The problem is macro evolution where fish evolve into anphibians and then reptiles, mammals and birds come along.  That is not biblical or scientific.  Scientifically things break down and decay over time.  This can be observed. Also things go from order to chaos, so how logical is it for more complex creatures to evolve from less complex ones with new genetic information?  It doesn't happen.  Some given examples that try to support macroevolution are simply microevolution examples like the toad one above.

[Drafterman]

There is a whole host of misinformation here.

 

First: "The genetic information is there to produce longer or shorter legs though.  Nothing had to evolve from something to toad.  The toads stayed toads. This is an example of microevolution and it does not conflict with the creationist view.  The problem is macro evolution where fish evolve into anphibians and then reptiles, mammals and birds come along."

 

Mutations can add, change and remove genetic information from DNA. Through this process, DNA can incorporate novel traits.

 

Second: "That is not biblical or scientific."

 

Whether or not it is biblical is irrelevant. That the Bible does not support "macro-evolution" is no more relevant than if the Lord of the Rings does. I put "macro-evolution" in quotes because the underlying process that produces what is referred to as "micro" and "macro-evolution" is the same. The only difference are the net effects that process can have when applied enough times. That's it. If you accept micro-evolution then you accept the underlying process. If you accept the underlying process then, logically, you need to accept that, when applied enough times it can result in the more drastic changes referred to as "macro-evolution". To accept one, but reject the other is equivilant to saying that you can add 1 to 1 enough times to reach 10, but not enough times to reach 1 billion.

 

Third: " Scientifically things break down and decay over time.  This can be observed. Also things go from order to chaos, so how logical is it for more complex creatures to evolve from less complex ones with new genetic information?  It doesn't happen.  Some given examples that try to support macroevolution are simply microevolution examples like the toad one above. "

 

This is the oft quoted gross misunderstanding of the second law of thermodynamics. It certainly does not say that "things break down and decay over time" or that "things go from order to chaos". In certain environments and for certain audiences it may be acceptable to reduce it to "things go from order to chaos". Acceptable environments would be those where the actual, technical meaning of thermodynamics is significant (that is, not when discussing evolution) and acceptable audiences would be individuals that have yet to obtain a high-school level physics education.

 

The fact of the matter is that, scientifically, things can go from chaos to order and can build up and grow in complexity. What the 2nd law says is that entropy will increase IN A CLOSED SYSTEM. The Earth is not a closed system, as it is bombarded with copious amounts of energy every second that is more than enough to fuel processes that result in a decrease in entropy.

 

If it indeed was a scientific law that "things go from order to chaos" then we could hardly discuss the issue as computers would not function. (Computer memory is order from chaos).

[Trevis]

I think that you are slightly confused in your argument.

For instance, in the case of the frogs, it is misleading to think that
the genetic information was already there for them to have long or
short legs. Rather, through mutations (which are random), different
changes take place. So, say you have one frog that has two babies.
One has short legs like the mother frog, while the other's dna mutates
to provide it with longer legs. Since these longer legs help the frog
jump higher to avoid danger and catch it's food, it has a higher
chance of surviving. Thus, it will live on and reproduce, giving it's
children long-leg genes rather than short-leg. Over multiple frog
generations, this gene will become dominant, which is how natural
selection works.

In the case for macroevolution, it is nothing more than microevolution
over a longer period of time. For instance, sticking with the frog
scenario, frogs are amphibians. Amphibians evolved slowly, over
hundreds of thousands if not millions of years from yours truly,
fish. This accounts for why they still have gills, spend a majority
of their lives in water, and lay eggs in water. Some fish slowly
began to aqcuire legs and the ability to be out of water for a short
time. This was advantageous to them because their prey could not
follow them. For this reason they had a better survival rate than
their peers who could not leave the water. However, there were still
disadvantages to living on land. They could not breathe there, their
food was in the water, and their skin was not able to retain water.
This is how reptiles came about. They aqcuired the ability to breathe
air, grew leathery water-tight skin or scales, and began feeding out
of the water.

In this way you can see that over a long long time, countless
microevolutionary steps can lead to a macroevolutionary change. The
same is true for all other species, including life as we know it from
single celled organisms. Furthermore, while all things decay and
break down over time, elegance can still come from disorder. This can
be seen through studying fractals and randomness. In these examples,
order breaks down into choas which gives rise to complexity and
elegance. It was in this way that our universe was shaped. Big bang!
All particles spread out at a constant rate in all directions. Mass
was uniform. At least on the macro scale. However, due to quantum
mechanics, there were small perturbations to this uniformity, some
molecules were slightly closer or farther away from each other.
Gravity caused these molecules to attract each other and fuse
together. This process continued so that small perturbations
propogated upwards, into large clumps of mass which attracted
surrounding mass. This allowed for the creation of planets, stars,
solar systems, galaxies, superclusters, etc....

Finally, to say that something is not true because it does not make
sense biblically and scientifically is simply not rational. This is
because the majority of the bible does not make sense scientifically.
Thus it requires faith to believe. Faith to believe that god
performed miracles and they weren't simply the stories of men. Faith
to believed that this religion came directly from god and that it
didn't evolve from earlier religions as is indicated by historical and
sociological research. Faith to believe that god created us rather
than the courage to confront the fact that we may not be so special or
meaningful. Faith to believe that god exists at all.

On Aug 25, 11:59 am, Caleb Freeman <chesspeace...@gmail.com> wrote:
>    Although I am a creationist, I do not fully reject evolution. Evolution
> is not bad.  It simply means change over time.  There is indeed natural
> selection.  Toads with longer legs will survive while those with shorter
> legs will die off as prey.  The genetic information is there to produce
> longer or shorter legs though.  Nothing had to evolve from something to
> toad.  The toads stayed toads. This is an example of microevolution and it
> does not conflict with the creationist view.  The problem is macro evolution
> where fish evolve into anphibians and then reptiles, mammals and birds come
> along.  That is not biblical or scientific.  Scientifically things break
> down and decay over time.  This can be observed. Also things go from order
> to chaos, so how logical is it for more complex creatures to evolve from
> less complex ones with new genetic information?  It doesn't happen.  Some
> given examples that try to support macroevolution are simply microevolution
> examples like the toad one above.
>
>
>
> On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 5:54 AM, Drafterman <drafter...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I'm interested. Please demonstrate.
>

> > On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 7:17 PM, nkfeyne...@yahoo.com <
> > nkfeyne...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >> It postulate that evoltion happeing under the forces of natural
> >> selection
> >> is not the cause of the creations that we see.  On the other hand it
> >> is
> >> only a result, or symptom of the process of creation.
>
> >> I will be glad to demonstrate that to any interested persons.
>

> >> -- nkf- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Minstrel_Krampf]

On Aug 25, 11:59 am, Caleb Freeman <chesspeace...@gmail.com> wrote:

>    Although I am a creationist, I do not fully reject evolution. Evolution
> is not bad.  It simply means change over time.  There is indeed natural
> selection.  Toads with longer legs will survive while those with shorter
> legs will die off as prey.  The genetic information is there to produce
> longer or shorter legs though.  Nothing had to evolve from something to
> toad.  The toads stayed toads. This is an example of microevolution and it
> does not conflict with the creationist view.

Your explanation of micro-evolution is too simplistic and does not
reflect what modern science describes. I suggest you read up on the
subject a bit more -- try Wikipedia or an other non-biased source.
Creationist websites have a strong tendency to distort or oversimplify
the subject beyond recognition, which is evident in your description.

> The problem is macro evolution
> where fish evolve into anphibians and then reptiles, mammals and birds come
> along. That is not biblical or scientific.

My guess is that your understanding of macro evolution is as distorted
and badly understood as your understanding of micro evolution. The
evidence in the fossil record and from modern observation is clear. If
micro evolution occurs (which even most creationists agree, it does),
then macro-evolution must occur, because it's simply more minute
changes over a longer time. You can't say that only micro-evolution
occurs but macro evolution doesn't, because you would be ignoring the
evidence.

> Scientifically things break
> down and decay over time.  This can be observed. Also things go from order
> to chaos, so how logical is it for more complex creatures to evolve from
> less complex ones with new genetic information?  It doesn't happen.

You're wrong. Although it's true that things break down over time, it
is also true that other things build up over time. Take plate
techtonics, for example. Though we can all agree that erosion tears
down mountains over time, it is also true that at the same time, new
mountains are being made as we write. The Hymalayas, for example, have
been growing since we have been measuring them. Mt. Everest gets
taller every year by tiny fractions of an inch. IN the world of
observed science, things have mostly been observed going from simple,
less complex to more complex over time. If you can agree that an ice
crystal is more complex than a drop of water, then you have to admit
that chaos-to-complex is real, since ice crystals and snow flakes are
just ordinary drops of water which, as temperature drops naturally,
form into complex shapes.

In biology, complexity arises out of simplicity as a rule, and as an
observed fact. Creationists like to simply deny this, in spite of it
being observed and well documented.

> Some
> given examples that try to support macroevolution are simply microevolution
> examples like the toad one above.

Your examples show a generally poor understanding of science, which
was probably the result of looking at creationist propaganda. The sad
fact about creationism is that it is so far from actual science that
creationists are sort of a laughing stock in the science world. They
have never contributed to our knowledge of science, and do nothing but
confuse people about otherwise well understood scientific concepts.