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 ]

[Paradise is Lost]

I feel that evolution exists, and that God created it. I feel that not everything in the bible has to be taken in a literal text, and I interpret it as an I would a writing. I feel that perhaps the 'days' in which each living organism was created was perhaps to represent a great time period of evolution, beginning with Pre Cambrian time as the 'first day', and ending with the evolution of man and 'rest' representing time for our personal growth from the caveman time.

[Vryko Lakas]

Doubting Didymus

בראשית היה הדבר והדבר היה את האלהים ואלהים היה הדבר

I've looked at many links that gave speciation. None of them were convincible. They documented mutations, but no new species.

והאור האיר בחשך והחשך לא השיגו

You don't have the knowledge or expertise to make that judgment. In fact, your prejudices dictate that you WILL NOT give them a fair shake, even if you knew enough to critique them competently (which you don't). Why doesn't your incredulity hold any weight? Because you do not know nearly as much about biology as the vast body of professionals who write these papers and offer their evidence for the review of their peers. You have nothing special over them which allows you to make superior insights into the creatures they study, not your Christianity (many of the most ardent "evolutionists" are also Christians) and certainly not your lack of education or attitude of shutting your ears to sources that disagree with your own preconceived opinion.
Science does not care that Doubting Didymus is unconvinced, though. The preponderance of evidence is enough to assure virtually all biologists of every race, nationality, creed, sex, or political background that what they're seeing is indisputably evolution in action. Next to the consensus of the experts who have to deal with this every day, you'll have to excuse me for dismissing your ignorant and presumptuous hand-waving as just that.

Your hubris is almost funny, except that it's shameful. It's a disgrace to the people who raised you, it's a disgrace to the Church that brought you up, and it's an affront to God that you say you know His own Creation well enough to judge using nothing but your own ignorance, protected from assail by facts, how it must be and ignore the parts of it you don't agree with.
I'm going to recommend once more that you quit spewing out your willful incomprehension and disgracing Christianity to the world.

[Wobbel]

[subjective] Creation is for people who flunked biology. [/subjective]

[Reniefuwa]

Doubting Didymus

Reniefuwa

Doubting Didymus

I've looked at many links that gave speciation. None of them were convincible. They documented mutations, but no new species.

והאור האיר בחשך והחשך לא השיגו

Hmmm....I would like to establish something. Do you accept natural selection as a real, observable process in the world today?

בראשית היה הדבר והדבר היה את האלהים ואלהים היה הדבר

I accept the possibility of it. I've seen many cases of species adapting. But they still are the same species.

והאור האיר בחשך והחשך לא השיגו

Ok, when you say they are still the same species, do you mean in the sense of "this is still an orange-striped tabby housecat" or "this is still a housecat"?

[Reniefuwa]

Another question for you, Didymus: In your own words, what are fossils?

[Jacques Sparrow]

Vryko Lakas

Doubting Didymus

בראשית היה הדבר והדבר היה את האלהים ואלהים היה הדבר

I've looked at many links that gave speciation. None of them were convincible. They documented mutations, but no new species.

והאור האיר בחשך והחשך לא השיגו

You don't have the knowledge or expertise to make that judgment. In fact, your prejudices dictate that you WILL NOT give them a fair shake, even if you knew enough to critique them competently (which you don't). Why doesn't your incredulity hold any weight? Because you do not know nearly as much about biology as the vast body of professionals who write these papers and offer their evidence for the review of their peers. You have nothing special over them which allows you to make superior insights into the creatures they study, not your Christianity (many of the most ardent "evolutionists" are also Christians) and certainly not your lack of education or attitude of shutting your ears to sources that disagree with your own preconceived opinion.
Science does not care that Doubting Didymus is unconvinced, though. The preponderance of evidence is enough to assure virtually all biologists of every race, nationality, creed, sex, or political background that what they're seeing is indisputably evolution in action. Next to the consensus of the experts who have to deal with this every day, you'll have to excuse me for dismissing your ignorant and presumptuous hand-waving as just that.

Your hubris is almost funny, except that it's shameful. It's a disgrace to the people who raised you, it's a disgrace to the Church that brought you up, and it's an affront to God that you say you know His own Creation well enough to judge using nothing but your own ignorance, protected from assail by facts, how it must be and ignore the parts of it you don't agree with.
I'm going to recommend once more that you quit spewing out your willful incomprehension and disgracing Christianity to the world.

בראשית היה הדבר והדבר היה את האלהים ואלהים היה הדבר

What's with this "better-than-you" stuff. Yes, I'm not a scientist, but neither are you.

You know, if you evolutionists were just a little bit friendlier, creationists would be a lot easier to convince. People like Richard Dawkins don't help either.

Quote:

Another question for you, Didymus: In your own words, what are fossils?

Preserved remains of organisms from the past.

והאור האיר בחשך והחשך לא השיגו

[viper232]

Doubting Didymus

Mei tsuki7

I still can't believe that people still think evolution isn't real. To me that's like saying gravity doesn't exist. It is a fundamental scientific theory just like gravity. Let me put this simpler. Creationism is false. Deal with it.

בראשית היה הדבר והדבר היה את האלהים ואלהים היה הדבר

I take an apple, and drop it. Hey, it falls. There must be some kind of force that draws it to the ground.

Evolution on the other hand, we couldn't observe as simply as that. The process takes way too long.

והאור האיר בחשך והחשך לא השיגו

... Yay, more ignorance. You know you never actually answered my questions. I really would like you to. They are rather important.

Here's a tidbit for you, "I take an apple, and drop it. Hey, it falls. There must be some kind of force that draws it to the ground" is WRONG. We really can't observe it as simply as that because there isn't a "force" drawing it to the ground... the system is working nothing like that. The cool thing is though that only on distances and timescales that are very hard for us to observe can we really see massive effects. Sure we can see tiny amounts of gravitational lensing using our own sun, but to really observe the phenomenon you have to use light that's been traveling for millions of years and undergone massive gravitational interactions.

We can see simple speciation with things like the London underground mosquito, but much like gravity, the theory shows its true colors and its true applicability on distances and timescales beyond that of a single human lifespan. And even better, the evidence to support evolution is far more rock solid than gravity, physicists have a damn hard time dealing with gravity because there is no quantum picture of it.

The scientific reasoning for gravity is far more speculative than the scientific reasoning for evolution... yet you clearly accept gravity. The real reason you don't accept evolution but accept gravity isn't because "The process takes way too long", I mean hell, the Italian Wall Lizards grew new cecal valves in the span of like 60 years, it was a well documented rapid evolution event... no, the reason you don't accept evolution is because it contradicts your incredibly narrow theology and yet you don't understand how gravity would. (Gravity, oddly enough would invalidate a 6000 year old earth... you need to deny gravity to accept a young earth but you yourself haven't said "I believe in a young earth" yet)

It's not that the evidence isn't there, it's that you simply don't want to accept the evidence. Also, I'll have you know that none of us are biased in confirming evolution. I don't want to be related to you any more than I want to be related to a worm, but the evidence dictates I am so I conform to the evidence. We would all LOVE a chance to show evolution to be false, because a Nobel Prize waits for us if we do. Scientists gain fame by invalidating currently established theories... we don't gain everlasting fame by confirming what we already know.

Edit: For those who don't know that the system works nothing like "There must be some kind of force that draws it to the ground", gravity is described by general relativity. In General Relativity objects travel to maximize proper time, on paths called "geodesics". With a force, or acceleration, you have less proper time, as you're undergoing time dilation, so objects in orbit would not be maximizing their proper time if gravity was a force, the trick came from realizing "hey wait, gravity isn't a force at all... it's just the result of how we move through space-time". In other words, large masses bend space-time so that the geodesic paths take on a new shape, this results in the phenomenon we perceive as gravity but it's nothing like a standard force. Sure it could be modeled simply with Newtonian mechanics that would consider it a force, but as we all should know by now, Newtonian mechanics is a trivially simple case that hardly shows what's really going on, and even more important, newton himself realized the inherent problems in the action at a distance that his physics modeled.

[Vryko Lakas]

Doubting Didymus

What's with this "better-than-you" stuff. Yes, I'm not a scientist, but neither are you.

I'm not a better person than you, but my knowledge of science is better than yours, at least on this subject, even if I'm not a scientist by trade.
I try to share the benefits of my knowledge with other people where I can; the more knowledgeable the world's people, the more likely we'll all be to start solving our collective problems. Literacy, a love of learning and desire for knowledge, and an informed citizenry are all necessary (but not sufficient) components to a healthy democracy, and the democracy (the least worst form of government we have yet devised) happens to be the system for the country in which I live. Here's how it works: Anti-science becomes counter-productiveness more often than not. Skepticism is best when it is applied with reasonable doubt, not irrational selective deafness. A mind that is open to being informed and admitting when it's in error is preferable to a mind so sure of its own preconceived notions that it ignores contradictory evidence. These are the balances between those who seek and value the truth and those who superficially pretend to the truth but do not value it or look for it. Which sort do you think makes for a better temporal world, with less suffering and more progress? It's not just secular society that reaps the benefits, it's also the planet of which we're all stewards. We have a responsibility, not just to ourselves but to Creation to find the best approximations of the truth about this world and act accordingly, not shut our ears and eyes and pretend we already know what's what, evidence be damned.

Quote:

You know, if you evolutionists were just a little bit friendlier, creationists would be a lot easier to convince. People like Richard Dawkins don't help either.

If you anti-evolutionists wouldn't be so incredibly (and in your case, intentionally) dense, people would have less ammo to use against Christianity. I've explained this plainly enough; your ignorance and pride makes the religion look bad.

[Reniefuwa]

Doubting Didymus

Quote:

Another question for you, Didymus: In your own words, what are fossils?

Preserved remains of organisms from the past.

Okies. Just establishing a sort of "base line" of knowledge for you. (I was a bit afraid that you would say fossils were placed by God to test our faith; I'm not sure if anyone has claimed that, but you can't be too sure, I've discovered).

[kheese]

Quote:

You know, if you evolutionists were just a little bit friendlier, creationists would be a lot easier to convince. People like Richard Dawkins don't help either.

Because creationists are super-friendly and tolerant? Yeah I'm sure. And evolutionist? What the hell is that supposed to be? There's no religion for evolution, its been proved many times. We're not trying to convince you to join some little cult, we're just telling you that your denying logic. Richard Dawkins is a hero. Now go watch some aronra and thunderf00t.

[viper232]

Vryko Lakas

Quote:

You know, if you evolutionists were just a little bit friendlier, creationists would be a lot easier to convince. People like Richard Dawkins don't help either.

If you anti-evolutionists wouldn't be so incredibly (and in your case, intentionally) dense, people would have less ammo to use against Christianity. I've explained this plainly enough; your ignorance and pride makes the religion look bad.

Hell even the TERM "evolutionist" makes people like him look bad. What are we "tectonicists", "relativityists" and "quantumists" too?

[Jacques Sparrow]

Quote:

I try to share the benefits of my knowledge with other people where I can; the more knowledgeable the world's people, the more likely we'll all be to start solving our collective problems.

You can do that without calling everyone who doesn't agree with you dumb.

Quote:

Literacy, a love of learning and desire for knowledge, and an informed citizenry are all necessary (but not sufficient) components to a healthy democracy, and the democracy (the least worst form of government we have yet devised) happens to be the system for the country in which I live. Here's how it works: Anti-science becomes counter-productiveness more often than not.

And the Protestant groups who have YEC as a dogma?

Quote:

Skepticism is best when it is applied with reasonable doubt, not irrational selective deafness. A mind that is open to being informed and admitting when it's in error is preferable to a mind so sure of its own preconceived notions that it ignores contradictory evidence. These are the balances between those who seek and value the truth and those who superficially pretend to the truth but do not value it or look for it. Which sort do you think makes for a better temporal world, with less suffering and more progress? It's not just secular society that reaps the benefits, it's also the planet of which we're all stewards. We have a responsibility, not just to ourselves but to Creation to find the best approximations of the truth about this world and act accordingly, not shut our ears and eyes and pretend we already know what's what, evidence be damned.

Now tell me, suppose that evolution is 100% confirmed to be true, why do we need to know it, what benefit do we have from it?

Quote:

Because creationists are super-friendly and tolerant? Yeah I'm sure. And evolutionist? What the hell is that supposed to be? There's no religion for evolution, its been proved many times. We're not trying to convince you to join some little cult, we're just telling you that your denying logic. Richard Dawkins is a hero. Now go watch some aronra and thunderf00t.

בראשית היה הדבר והדבר היה את האלהים ואלהים היה הדבר

I know that not all Creationists are friendly, but I have yet to meet a Evolutionist who is friendly. What you say, is like saying Scientists don't exist, because there is no religion of science.

And Richard Dawkins, no offence, but if I followed the theory of evolution, I'd be ashamed of him. And I don't know Anonra, and I have heard of thunderfoot before.

והאור האיר בחשך והחשך לא השיגו

[Jacques Sparrow]

viper232

Vryko Lakas

Quote:

You know, if you evolutionists were just a little bit friendlier, creationists would be a lot easier to convince. People like Richard Dawkins don't help either.

If you anti-evolutionists wouldn't be so incredibly (and in your case, intentionally) dense, people would have less ammo to use against Christianity. I've explained this plainly enough; your ignorance and pride makes the religion look bad.

Hell even the TERM "evolutionist" makes people like him look bad. What are we "tectonicists", "relativityists" and "quantumists" too?

בראשית היה הדבר והדבר היה את האלהים ואלהים היה הדבר

What are "scientists"?

והאור האיר בחשך והחשך לא השיגו

[Ross Mohan]

I feel the evidence is overwhelming on the hand of science and evolution over creationism.

But that's not to say possible, that the big bang was part of the master plan and that life on earth was created by a higher power to evolve and live.

So I'll give intelligent design a chance in the idea that something intelligent guided and created the micro-organisms that later evolved... because, how did those one celled creatures form? what created those one celled thins that evolved into US?

That's where I feel the creationism idea fits into the world, not the whole Adam and Eve Idea.

[viper232]

Doubting Didymus

viper232

Vryko Lakas

Quote:

You know, if you evolutionists were just a little bit friendlier, creationists would be a lot easier to convince. People like Richard Dawkins don't help either.

If you anti-evolutionists wouldn't be so incredibly (and in your case, intentionally) dense, people would have less ammo to use against Christianity. I've explained this plainly enough; your ignorance and pride makes the religion look bad.

Hell even the TERM "evolutionist" makes people like him look bad. What are we "tectonicists", "relativityists" and "quantumists" too?

בראשית היה הדבר והדבר היה את האלהים ואלהים היה הדבר

What are "scientists"?

והאור האיר בחשך והחשך לא השיגו

One who studies the sciences. But by that logic it would be "biologists", one who studies biology, of which the theory of evolution is simply a part of. Or a physicist, of which general relativity is simply a part of. There is no "evolutionist" just like there is no "relativitist".

Edit:
And you STILL have yet to answer my questions on the previous page. They are not irrelevant you know... how transparent do you want your intellectual dishonesty to be?