Creation and Evolution

Post Reply New Topic

I just saw problems with his description of evolutionary theory, attempted to correct them. Just continued trying to do so. Victory, in such a discussion, is gaining a fuller understanding of one another and one another's views. It's primarily a win-win/lose-lose situation.

To say that there are only two states, existence and non-existence, is not equivalent to saying that we either must always have existed or do not truly exist now. Nothing about the definition of "state" in this sense (unless Boolean logic uses a particular specialised sense of the word "state") requires a state to be permanent (compare the use of the word in the context of gaseous, liquid and solid states. Could you explain the premises of this logic further? Nevertheless these concepts are interesting.

One thing about Aspergers -- when they get an idea, it hard to change it. This thread put me back on antidepressants.

A true statement (about victory consisting in both sides increasing their understanding of one another and of different views). At least true in my opinion, which is certainly not infallible, so feel free to debate Griff's post, but it seems to be a reasonable position to me, offering hope that discussion between people holding opposed points of view, whether it leads to modification on either side or only to an agreement to disagree, can be a productive and informative experience.

To believe something as iccredibly complex as DNA formed randomly out of a chemical soup requires a heck of a lot of wishful thinking. The odds of a single amino acid forming without instruction is mathmatically impossible let alone having that amino acid bond with other amino acids in the correct sequence to produce a protien that is of any use is more impossible still! It's like a volcanoe errupting and forming an ancient greek city out of the ash and debrees.

Scientists still don't have an answer about how DNA formed, In my opinion DNA is everything, if you can't explain how it formed randomly out of nothing, the theory falls apart. How can anything evolve without DNA? Answer: It can't.

This subject should not even be up for discussion. The mastery of empirical truth is inevitable, enduring and undeniable.

Silly rabbit. Witnessing is an act of giving and sharing. You came to take something away.

They can't. They can posit possible routes by which it may have come into being, but they can't actually verify any of them without fossil evidence. Even fossil evidence, under the circumstances, would be a bit tricky to examine, and the room for error is great. However, it can be determined from understanding the natural chemical processes the circumstances under which the formation of DNA or a like molecule would have been inevitable. I don't know one way or the other whether they've found a process that is so likely, but they were working on one last time I checked.

The current theory is that it actually originated from simpler molecules. In fact, the molecules of which DNA is composed are really pretty simple and common. You'd just need a backbone of alternating sugar and phosphate groups and simple nucleotides. What we're not clear on yet is the details as to how this happens in common chemistry. Understanding this may lead to the possibility of manufacturing human tissues that are actually sturdier than the original samples and even the reversal of the aging process. This would be a few hundred years down the road, of course, for even innovations that are all but ready for production stay in the testing process for decades sometimes. By then, hopefully, we'll have matured enough as a species to bear the immense weight of moral responsibility such a breakthrough would impose.

It didn't, though, unless molecules pop into existence at random. What actually would have happened was a lengthy and complex set of chemical processes that would only have taken place in the complete absence of life.

Wrong. DNA could evolve from more simplistic molecules, simply because, in organic chemistry, any molecule that exists is capable of being formed under some set of circumstances or other, so you are reduced to probabilistic statements. Even the most improbable event thinkable, however, must certainly have occurred if it is undeniable that it must have, and the only question remaining is as to how. The only things that we can actually empiracally research are the organic molecules which we are familiar with, and some theories are looking increasingly promising. Once again, however, it remains almost completely unverifiable as to whether this was actually what occurred on Earth. There could always be some other process that we didn't bother to contemplate due to problems with probability or our own lack of imagination. You see, even if we find an incredibly simple, likely route by which life would have come into play, there is always the possibility that the actual route it took was something that only ever happens in the entire universe in the lifetimes of a thousand suns.

If subjects become closed for discussion, then the advance of empirical science, which revises hypotheses in the light of fresh evidence (e.g. Newtonian and Einsteinian physics) philosophical pursuit of truth, and religion alike shall be brought to a standstill. And empirical truth is hardly so simple as that and clearly it is quite capable of being denied, however obstinate such a denial may at times be or appear. "Inevitable" also seems a dubious adjective; that a certain theory should become the prevailing one is by no means so assured, save in hindsight; nor can its retention be taken for granted. If its truth is firmly asserted, then however futile discussion might appear with those persisting in denial, discussion must be considered a necessity.

Heh....there's nothing like a good arguementie.

Timeframes

Yeah it is hard to imagine a human being formed through evolution's slow process in a day or a week. But how long would it take ? I am sure (hope) we can agree that if you look at a family then you can see that children have variations of their parents genes, so we can agree on a mechanism ... but how long would it have taken for this slow process to produce a human ... 100 years, 1000, years ? 1 000 000 years ? What do you reckon, a billion years (1000 0000 000)?

Well evolution is supposed to have taken 4 Billion Years to produce humans. That's a mightly long time. I think it is long enough.

Anyone who believes in Creation is saying I won't use my brain for this, I will just switch it off when we talk abou this subject. Yeah you can blather on about how you can't disprove la la la la ... you can't disprove that a giant hippo doesn't live in the centre of the moon either, but I bet you don't believe that - because your brain is switched on.

I don't ever switch my brain off, why do you ?

The problem with both creation and evolution is that there adherents are both religious nutjobs. The problem is people are so weak minded they cannot seperate "Creation" from "religion" nor evolution from "naturalism"

The fact is you could have divinely decreed evolution
Or secular theory of creation

For the most part the Cretion/evo debate is just culture wars masqurading as rational argument, I have met few people in my life that have the mental capacity to see that... because things evolve does not mean there is no creator, WE WILL be creators in the future and I'm sure then and only then will our creations be able to do an UNBIASED analysis of the genesis of humanity in whether they are a constructed race or a purely evolved race, because scientifically there MUST BE an objective way to tell "natural" from "construct", or else we could never distinguish a car or any kind of technology from its components. Think about how almost all knowledge people come into contact with is 2nd hand, "someone else said, some book said, some teacher said" have you been to space? No you've seen pictures. H

As far as I'm concerned people were justified believing in higher powers or teleological explanations, and even today the STILL ARE even if they are misguided and attribute it to some barbarian holy texts fictional god, anyone says that the below image does at least inspire thought about it being demonstration of engineering knowledge and scientific knowhow is living in their own mental dark age.

The below is what exists in E. Coli bacteria, people like to think of "bacteria" as bug like but they are much more like a machine.

I would be interested to hear how adherents to evolution are religious nutjobs. They are just rational.

The choice is not evolution/creation but rational vs mad. I don't care where the evidence points (to evolution, to a God, to whatever) ... I only care that evidence is used.

I'm interested in hearing about Secular Creationism

Evolution, creation, you can believe whatever you want. You can also believe that the sun revolves around the Earth if you want to, that's fine with me. But keep it out of our schools if it has no basis in fact. Personally, I think evolution is based in fact, and there's plenty of evidence to support it. But there's no evidence to support creation, so why should we even humor the creationist lobby by giving them an equal share?

This comic pretty much sums up my views on the issue.

Alchemy was and astrology still is, based upon faulty premises, each a hypothesis subsequently to prove untennable (there are considerably more than five elements, and astrology depends upon apparent movements of the heavenly bodies, in accordance with Ptolemaic rather than Copernican astronomy, respectively). Nevertheless, the methods of conducting experiments and certain equipment for chemistry, and a motivator for astronomical observations are positive effects. Not particularly relevant to this debate I admit. Actually the same empirical evidence is going to be read to support points of view arrived at before hand due to authorities; while one rests upon the empirical observations of others and another upon a claimed divine revelation, these will or at least may, have reversed quantities of weight depending upon the position held.

Last edited by AlexandertheSolitary on 15 May 2007, 7:39 am, edited 1 time in total.