Evolution: Fact Or Fiction

Whats your religion?

Atheist	39.3%	[ 1138 ]
Protestant	16.9%	[ 489 ]
Catholic	14.1%	[ 407 ]
Hindu	1.3%	[ 37 ]
Muslim	1.8%	[ 53 ]
Jew	2.3%	[ 67 ]
Buddhist	5.1%	[ 149 ]
Greek Orthodox	0.7%	[ 21 ]
Pagan	14.2%	[ 412 ]
Egyptian	4.2%	[ 122 ]
Total Votes:			[ 2895 ]

[dragonmatt5]

Jyohan

Master SBK

i just noticed that the OP hasn't posted in 3 yrs. So, why is this thread still continuing when there's a million others like it on the ED?

Because this thread is stupidly funny. Reading unintelligent things can be quite entertaining.

...or because it was meant to be a joint project from the start and though the OP doesn't post, there are still plenty of regulars in the thread doing the same thing the OP would.

[Master Crimsonthorne]

Ok a few questions for any bible thumpers.

1)Is there ANY scientific proof of god? Please post your examples.

2)Do you think that two human beings could really concieve the entire population of earth, whites, blacks, chinese, indians etc. Things like that don't happen when two of the same genepools are combined overe and over again.

3)Do you know what evolution is? When you say it means that monkeys turned into humans you are terribly mistaken. It means that people and animals can change over time, and those changes will affect how they survive, and the next generation will be composed of the children of those who did survive, and thus natural selection, which will change every population of any life. This isn't pokemon, things dont change species in a brilliant flash of light, but you make it seem that way so it is just as preposterous as a "god" actually existing. Saying that evolution can't happen is also saying we are all 100% alike, that humans from all time periods (and other animals too) have the same hair color, the same type of nose, the same birthmark, and the exact same genetics. It's also saying that natural selection is impossible, that if someone were born with a severe defect in their leg, they would still be able to hunt, to walk, to run from that tiger over there...

If you're still rooted to your biblical beleifs, let me shed a little light on WHY.
It's a basic psychological concept called denial. If something goes against what you are bound to by fear or loyalty, or freiindship, sometimes you just wall it out of that puny head of yours, refusing to listen to anything that even resembles it in the future. In my quest to discover why the religious people I have met, heard from, seen, or heard of, ALL HAVE THIS rooted deep in their mind, I realized that before you know what science is, the first time you hear that word, you have it drilled deep into your head every sunday that it is evil. The same is with non-believers. You may have never met one before, but that sunday school tells every 5-year old that comes in that they are evil. If you ask, some of the nicest people you KNOW may turn out to be athiasts, as happened with me and many, many others. But you never learn that what you were first taught is wrong.

[Biot-Savart Law]

Master Crimsonthorne

1)Is there ANY scientific proof of god? Please post your examples.

This seems like a silly question.

[Zombie Survival 101]

Master Crimsonthorne

2)Do you think that two human beings could really concieve the entire population of earth, whites, blacks, chinese, indians etc. Things like that don't happen when two of the same genepools are combined overe and over again.

woah, wait a minute. in order to accept this argument, you need to believe that there is a difference between micro and macro evolution OTHER than time it takes to complete each stage, when this isn't true.think about it, before humans or other complex lifeforms, there was no such thing as skin color. they had to evolve from somewhere.

I am not a creationist. I accept all the evidence for evolution, but I'm just saying that this really isn't a valid argument.

[Exoth XIII]

Zombie Survival 101

Master Crimsonthorne

2)Do you think that two human beings could really concieve the entire population of earth, whites, blacks, chinese, indians etc. Things like that don't happen when two of the same genepools are combined overe and over again.

woah, wait a minute. in order to accept this argument, you need to believe that there is a difference between micro and macro evolution OTHER than time it takes to complete each stage, when this isn't true.think about it, before humans or other complex lifeforms, there was no such thing as skin color. they had to evolve from somewhere.

I am not a creationist. I accept all the evidence for evolution, but I'm just saying that this really isn't a valid argument.

No, that is a valid argument. Micro and macro evolution don't even factor into it. Consider, for example, the cheetah. Some time before recorded history, it went through a 10,000 cheetah wide population bottleneck. Now, tens of thousands of years later, all cheetahs are practically clones of one another. There isn't enough genetic variance for evolution to really get going, that's why cheetah's are unable to respond to diseases and the like, which is why they're endangered. Microevolution, in this case, isn't really taking place, so yeah, that does stop macroevolution. Imagine this effect, but with two people. Better yet, since there's so few organisms, you'd get some of the more delightful aspects of inbreeding, like the population being plagued with the expression of normally recessive genes.
In short, his argument was valid, but it certainly wasn't the ONLY argument to be posited against a two person population bottleneck.

[Strife Saverem]

FromFirstToLast_Rock

Hey heart
I used to believe that Humans evolved from Apes. That all life came from single celled Organisms called Amoebas.
Now I believe that god created us all, and the bible is fact.
I just wanted to know your opinions out there. Try to back up your idea... mrgreen

you made yourself dumb

[IronySandwich]

jiarrah

Evolution is a theory.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIm2H0ksawg
Here's 8 minutes of education on what the word theory means (because you obviously need it).

jiarrah

The theory of gravity is a very delicate subject with many pros and cons. Your belief/disbelief in gravity can be decided upon by rigorous research of both the good points and the bad points.

I made a couple of minor changes to these sentences that in no way changes the logic contained within them. See if you can spot the fallacies now.

jiarrah

I attended a Jesuit (Roman Catholic) institution where the
theory of evolution was not taught.

Well gee, I guess since you never had any education on the subject, that makes your opinion far better than all the people who have spent decades studying it.

jiarrah

It is up to you to decide whether
or not the facts are adequately supported.

There's this funny little thing about facts, they don't care what your opinion is.

[Cuicatl]

I'm actually very religious and believe in all sorts of supernatural stuff most people just don't believe in. I'm not even going to bother trying to prove these things to people, since I really don't give a flying ******** what anyone else's religious beliefs are. I'm not trying to save anyone. That's wasted breath and spit to me.

I keep my religious beliefs separate from science. Science is a different system to me. Meaning, I see the world as 2 or maybe more realms. The stuff that can be proven by science, and the stuff that cannot be. These are my religious beliefs though, and I'm simply explaining HOW I can keep those two together in my mind. I'm not telling anyone to think this way, not to think that this is proven by science because it is not. Religiously, I believe that other entities can control the physical word (meaning they're behind what happens, but it goes through the proven processes, even spanning billions of years). Meaning, I don't believe one day a god-form magically formed the earth out of nowhere. The Big Bang and chemical processes had to occur so the Earth we know today was formed over billions of years.

Can I scientifically prove a god-form was behind this? Absolutely not, so I don't claim that my belief is scientific.

Ok, as for creation stories or myths, I believe that people explained the world in those ways since they did not have the technology to research, investigate, and understand what we do now.

Now to the good scientific stuff!

I can see the effects of evolution every day. It is a theory, but a theory in science has a lot of proof behind it, meaning it isn't something scientists pulled out of their a** simply to upset the religious people. Mutations keep happening all over the world. Whether these mutations lead to evolution, depends on whether these mutations work out in a certain time and environment, and whether the carriers of these mutations can effectively breed and attract sexual mates. Our bodies didn't go one day "Oh, cool, I'll develop more melanin to live in the African sun."

Monkeys did not change into humans one nice day. Monkeys and humans had a common ancestor. Then mutations came along, and then species branched off, more mutations, more branching, then we get humans and monkeys.

[Zombie Survival 101]

Exoth XIII

Zombie Survival 101

Master Crimsonthorne

2)Do you think that two human beings could really concieve the entire population of earth, whites, blacks, chinese, indians etc. Things like that don't happen when two of the same genepools are combined overe and over again.

woah, wait a minute. in order to accept this argument, you need to believe that there is a difference between micro and macro evolution OTHER than time it takes to complete each stage, when this isn't true.think about it, before humans or other complex lifeforms, there was no such thing as skin color. they had to evolve from somewhere.

I am not a creationist. I accept all the evidence for evolution, but I'm just saying that this really isn't a valid argument.

No, that is a valid argument. Micro and macro evolution don't even factor into it. Consider, for example, the cheetah. Some time before recorded history, it went through a 10,000 cheetah wide population bottleneck. Now, tens of thousands of years later, all cheetahs are practically clones of one another. There isn't enough genetic variance for evolution to really get going, that's why cheetah's are unable to respond to diseases and the like, which is why they're endangered. Microevolution, in this case, isn't really taking place, so yeah, that does stop macroevolution. Imagine this effect, but with two people. Better yet, since there's so few organisms, you'd get some of the more delightful aspects of inbreeding, like the population being plagued with the expression of normally recessive genes.
In short, his argument was valid, but it certainly wasn't the ONLY argument to be posited against a two person population bottleneck.

ah, my mistake. thanks for pointing that out.

[Shaviv]

If we assume the creationist viewpoint is true,

Why were the creatures created in many parts of the world that were colonized as recently as 1500 years ago so badly designed as to be wholly and completely unable to live alongside humans?

[SMS-VF-25 ACE Ichimaru]

Theres no evolution , its just a list of creatures that Chuck Norris lets live.

[Lucky~9~Lives]

1n1n1n1n11

Also, I'd love to know how a butterfly, which starts as a non-flying creature, could know how to fly after metamorphosis. Where does this information come from telling them to fly?

They experiment and learn i.e. it isn't necessarily innate?

[Shaviv]

1n1n1n1n11

Alright, I can see how a population in a species may (through genetic change and mutations) become a different species. I can see how a different species could be created.

However, It's a system that can never work to create every species we see, in the water, on land and in air.

It's not only mathematical improbability, complexity in their bodies, etc,

Irreducible complexity is false, by the way; the crystallins that form eye lenses are almost identical to the crystallins in the cells of the inner ear, worth noting. A simple creature with a pinhole eye with no lens, arising due to mutation in a population that has only cup-eyes, can see better than its peers. In a population where creatures only have eyespots, a cup-eye grants selective advantage. And in a population where creatures have no eyes, eyespots offer selective advantage. This is not a complicated subject, so the fact that you present irreducible complexity as fact suggests to me that someone has been feeding you falsehoods. But the world is full of perfectly good information (much of it written in magazines like Scientific American, or Science) which you can, and should, avail yourself of. Try your local academic library - hell, try your local public library to start.

Quote:

but there are huge gaps in the fossil record.

The gaps aren't that huge, in fact. Or... which ones are you thinking of, precisely? Yes, they do exist, I won't deny that...

See, what you're doing here is the logical equivalent of getting up in court and saying to the jury, "It's true that there is a lot of evidence pointing to the guilt of my client in the victim's stabbing death, but the case isn't completely bulletproof, which means that the victim could just as easily have been impaled by a unicorn."

That's a hardcore logical fallacy. That goes beyond fallacy and becomes phallacy, which is to say, you look like a colossal d**k.

Quote:

Also, I'd love to know how a butterfly, which starts as a non-flying creature, could know how to fly after metamorphosis. Where does this information come from telling them to fly?

Well, the immediate answer is: it's genetic. Now, how do the genes actually tell cells what to do in such an orderly manner that caterpillar turns into butterfly? Well, there's an entire branch of biological science devoted to this kind of question. It's called developmental biology and it has an official peer-reviewed journal by the same name. Why don't you go down to your local academic library and see if they have some back-issues?

[Lucky~9~Lives]

Shaviv

That's a hardcore logical fallacy. That goes beyond fallacy and becomes phallacy, which is to say, you look like a colossal d**k.

xd