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I'm sorry. Could you first show where you got your idea of evolution. No one said a bird is going to evolve into a non-bird in a single generation, or even a small number. You appear to be using a definition of evolution invented by Creationists.

Evolution is this, in simplest terms:

The genetic makeup of a population changes over time.

That's it. That being said, there are numerous examples of speciation:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html

But before you get into that, I actually urge you to actually go and read some literature on evolution by biologists, so you don't come on Internet forums and look like an idiot. The questions you've asked suggest you actually have not even the slightest idea what evolution is.

One thing worth noting, evolution does not disprove in god, nor does the existence of a god disprove evolution. The majority of people in the world, who believe in evolution, are religious, and the majority of the people in the world who are religious, believe in evolution.

The biggest fact remains, evolution makes predictive claims, and they turn out right. Scientists have created new species, anticipated the changes that virus's will make, etc... The age of the universe and earth, have both been calculated from dozens of different methods and sources, and all of the different methods, still come up with nearly the exact same age. If a God created the world, he either used the big bang and evolution as tools, Or he instantly poofed things into existence with natural laws in place specifically designed to make things look like they have been running on such a process. Roughly the equivalent of making a slow moving car, 75% of the way onto a track, and going out of the way to build tire tracks to the first 75% to give people the idea that it is still moving. We have thousands of fossils, of what would be called transitional forms. If the creationists arguements are using the flood as a possibility to explain why the extremely rare process of fossilization has happened so many times, then they need to account for the fact that the pyramids of egypt etc... were made roughly 200 years after the supposed flood. Is there a rational explanation for how the human population got large enough to populate the entire country of egypt in addition to enough countries for them to take slaves from. Rabbits can't populate fast enough to pull that one off, let alone humans.

Evolution is not assumed true because the scientists do not believe in god. Evolution is a fact because there is mounds of evidence and predictions that it has succesfully made, and no competing theories have been able to make any succesful predictions.

If religion never existed, if darwin never existed, evolution would be recreated. There is as much evidence backing the theory of evolution, as the theory of gravity, atomic theory, or the theory of relativity. Evolution vs God isn't an either or question, they could both be true, or they can both be false. As you mentioned however, God as defined by christians, cannot fall into the category of science. by definition or at least believed definition, humans can never and will never be able to invent a tool to detect or measure God. God will never act in a way that can be predicted or tested. So bottom line, god isn't and can't be part of science. So why on earth can there be a case to teach the existance of god, in a science class.

The thing is the science has been discussed, evolutionary theory has been up for peer review for 150 years. Virtually every creationist arguement ever posed is either untestable, or outright debunked. Any claim you can find on the creationist side, is almost certainly going to be on this list. http://talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html An explanation that can't be tested, and contains no predictive capabilities is useless scientifically. Science is about figuring out how things work, and what can be predicted from them. Evolutionary theory has assisted us in everything from breeding specific animals, to making vaccines etc... Why do we need a new flu shot every year, because the flu virus evolves. Scientists have replicated in the lab virtually every step, from changing of one species to another, to changing one category of creature to another (mostly among smaller animals with shorter lifecycles, as obviously attempting a creature that takes years to reach maturity, cannot go through generations in a reasonable time).

Evolution is a fact and a theory. That evolution happens is a fact. The theory of evolution explains all the mechanisms of how that all comes about.

First, you need to pick some creationist claim of mine,

Of yours? Nice of you trying to rewrite history. You didn't make a claim for yourself, you made a claim for ALL of creationism. So, in that spirit, here's a list of a hell of a lot of creationist claims that have been debunked: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html I must have read through this list five times. I've also looked up the sources of information for some of them.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/astronomy/distance.html

This ring began to glow about a year after the supernova explosion, when the light from the explosion reached it. Hence we know that the diameter of the ring is about two light years, and by measuring its angular diameter in the sky, the distance to the supernova was determined to be approximately 169,000 light years.

Unless somehow the speed of light is magnitudes different at that part of the universe AND the other measurement methods are wrong.

Of course in theory God could have created the Universe 6000 years ago. Or even yesterday. But from what we observe of the universe, it is much older than that. In the same way a scientist can create a universe simulation that's billions of years old from the perspective of the stuff in the simulation but 5 minutes old from the perspective of the scientist.

There is not much point trying to figure out how old the universe is from the perspective of outside the universe.

FWIW I'm a Christian and in my opinion Christians who get too obsessed with creationism are actually getting close to heresy. To be a Christian, believing and following Jesus is core/mandatory. The thief/robber who was crucified along with Jesus certainly didn't have to do or believe in much else to be saved. Same goes for the others whose sins Jesus forgave. Therefore creationism (and many of the other things Christians foolishly fixate on) is not core. So any Christian claiming that it's a mandatory/core part of Christianity, would be spreading heresy. And distracting people from the things Jesus cared/taught about.

Not just that. The speed of light is slow. Many of the stars and galaxies we see are further than 6000 light years away. That is assuming the Cepheid and other methods actually work (which is likely).

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/astronomy/distance.html

This ring began to glow about a year after the supernova explosion, when the light from the explosion reached it. Hence we know that the diameter of the ring is about two light years, and by measuring its angular diameter in the sky, the distance to the supernova was determined to be approximately 169,000 light years.

Since most of your response refers to the the Talk Origins' article Observed Instances of Speciation, I will post a summarized response from Specious Speciation: The Myth of Observed Large-Scale Evolutionary Change:

- Not one of the examples studied documents the origin of large-scale biological change.
- The vast majority of the examples do not even show the production of new species, where a "species" is defined by the standard definition of a "reproductively isolated population."
- Only one single example in the FAQ shows the production of a new plant species via hybridization and polyploidy, but this example does not entail significant biological change.
- Only one of the examples purports to document the production of a reproductively isolated population of animals -- however this example is overturned by a later study not mentioned in the FAQ.
- Thus, not a single bona fide example of speciation in animals -- e.g. the establishment of a completely reproductively isolated population -- was found.

I believe what I do about evolution because I see EVIDENCE that no evolution-supporting fossil record exists.

I'm assuming you don't mean "evidence that no fossil record of any sort exists" (if you do mean that, I'd like to see that evidence!), and therefore that you mean "evidence that the fossil record doesn't support evolution". If so, please check your evidence here and here, for example.

I believe what I do about evolution because I see EVIDENCE that no evolution-supporting fossil record exists.

I'm assuming you don't mean "evidence that no fossil record of any sort exists" (if you do mean that, I'd like to see that evidence!), and therefore that you mean "evidence that the fossil record doesn't support evolution". If so, please check your evidence here and here, for example.

2. Computers have shown that the neat evolutionary trees that get drawn up are in fact based on imaginary relations of similarity and difference that owe more to the human mind's tendency to perceive patterns than to the raw biological data.

...and physics is the study of frictionless elephants whose mass can be ignored. Are those "neat evolutionary trees" trees actually used by biologists or are they simplifed examples given in popular accounts?

4. ...the evolution of present-day organisms from their supposed ancestors are in fact highly conjectural if not downright false. ... And even the emergence of one species from another has never been directly observed by science.

Not so.

5. ...(Evolution) remains incapable of explaining how anything could evolve that doesn't make biological sense when incomplete. The wings of birds are the classic example: what good is half of one?

Well, at least you didn't dredge up the eye here.... Presumably you don't mean "half of one", you mean "something halfway towards one", well, then....

7. The data used to support evolution are neither experiments nor repeatable, nor can they be, since the origin of species on earth was a unique event.

"The origin of species on earth" is a process, not an event. Yes, evolutionary biology, like geology, is a "historical" science, so it makes "retrodictions", but....

2. Computers have shown that the neat evolutionary trees that get drawn up are in fact based on imaginary relations of similarity and difference that owe more to the human mind's tendency to perceive patterns than to the raw biological data.

...and physics is the study of frictionless elephants whose mass can be ignored. Are those "neat evolutionary trees" trees actually used by biologists or are they simplifed examples given in popular accounts?

4. ...the evolution of present-day organisms from their supposed ancestors are in fact highly conjectural if not downright false. ... And even the emergence of one species from another has never been directly observed by science.

Not so.

5. ...(Evolution) remains incapable of explaining how anything could evolve that doesn't make biological sense when incomplete. The wings of birds are the classic example: what good is half of one?

Well, at least you didn't dredge up the eye here.... Presumably you don't mean "half of one", you mean "something halfway towards one", well, then....

7. The data used to support evolution are neither experiments nor repeatable, nor can they be, since the origin of species on earth was a unique event.

"The origin of species on earth" is a process, not an event. Yes, evolutionary biology, like geology, is a "historical" science, so it makes "retrodictions", but....

2. Computers have shown that the neat evolutionary trees that get drawn up are in fact based on imaginary relations of similarity and difference that owe more to the human mind's tendency to perceive patterns than to the raw biological data.

...and physics is the study of frictionless elephants whose mass can be ignored. Are those "neat evolutionary trees" trees actually used by biologists or are they simplifed examples given in popular accounts?

4. ...the evolution of present-day organisms from their supposed ancestors are in fact highly conjectural if not downright false. ... And even the emergence of one species from another has never been directly observed by science.

Not so.

5. ...(Evolution) remains incapable of explaining how anything could evolve that doesn't make biological sense when incomplete. The wings of birds are the classic example: what good is half of one?

Well, at least you didn't dredge up the eye here.... Presumably you don't mean "half of one", you mean "something halfway towards one", well, then....

7. The data used to support evolution are neither experiments nor repeatable, nor can they be, since the origin of species on earth was a unique event.

"The origin of species on earth" is a process, not an event. Yes, evolutionary biology, like geology, is a "historical" science, so it makes "retrodictions", but....

When you say evolution is already proven please give a reference to such evidence. I'm ready and willing to listen.

See Talk origins; in particular 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution

When you say evolution is already proven please give a reference to such evidence. I'm ready and willing to listen.

See Talk origins; in particular 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution

Speciation, including speciation that leads to mutual infertility, has been observed. Besides, the whole concept of speciation is far more complex than you seem to understand. You can have two different species that can still reproduce with each other.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html

It wouldn't have been DNA; DNA is too complicated and has problems replicating without a bunch of machinery. RNA is one possibility, though I personally have the feel that it is too complicated as well. One example of a hypothesed simpler pathway is Cairn-Smith's Clay hypothesis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis#Clay_hypothesis) though experiments indicate that clay crystals likely aren't stable enough to work for this purpose. However, there only needs to be some kind of material with the right properties, and then evolution rapidly creates variation and more advanced structures. (For more on abiogenesis, you may want to see the nice talk.origins FAQ at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/originoflife.html)

Agreed. I'm waiting for the state of Tennessee to now pass a law making sure all priests extend their preaches to include all the "controversies" (and, of course, include the appropriate naturalistic explanation of this). You know, because there aren't specific places to teach specific things.

Protip: Science != Religion; Science education != Religious education.

But there has never been a single documented case of a genus changing due to evolution, that I'm aware of. Not one. It can't be shown experimentally. Dogs have dog babies. Cats have cat babies. Etc. Etc. Etc.

"I've never seen a tectonic plate move... therefore, tectonic plates are immobile."

I guess we should also teach the controversies in Geology classes. I mean... all these phenomena cannot possibly occur... I've never seen them.

*facepalm*

I don't care what your pre-conceptions are, science is supposed to embrace and seriously consider all theories.

Young-Earth creationism was considered. For the whole of scientific history, up until the late 1800s when the gathering evidence finally made it impossible for geologists to take the idea seriously.

"Intelligent Design" has also been considered, and so far it has failed the tests. Every proposed example of "irreducible complexity", for example, has been conclusively shown not to be - the bacterial flagellum, the clotting cascade, the vertebrate immune system, and so forth. Cdesign proponentsists" can't even coherently define the 'information' they think living things display.

That's why we say that creationism and ID are not science.

I don't care what your pre-conceptions are, science is supposed to embrace and seriously consider all theories.

Young-Earth creationism was considered. For the whole of scientific history, up until the late 1800s when the gathering evidence finally made it impossible for geologists to take the idea seriously.

"Intelligent Design" has also been considered, and so far it has failed the tests. Every proposed example of "irreducible complexity", for example, has been conclusively shown not to be - the bacterial flagellum, the clotting cascade, the vertebrate immune system, and so forth. Cdesign proponentsists" can't even coherently define the 'information' they think living things display.

That's why we say that creationism and ID are not science.

While everyone is talking about the moon, I once read about a creationist explanation about it and I was wondering how does the recession compare?
Is the math correct? That the moon would be in the Roche limit in only 1.3 GA?

http://creation.com/the-moons-recession-and-age

I'll accept your plea that you're not trolling. The math (apparently from Deyoung 1990) is not incorrect, but it's meaningless as it's based on the wrong assumption that tidal dissipation and deformation is constant over time, which has been refuted by strong paleontological evidence. The recession rate of the moon has in fact increased over time. Even if the article you're linking to were not flawed to the extent that it ignores research from the last 35+ years, the argument "Science seems to not agree on this, therefore God" is also obviously false.

Sorry I am not trolling, I am just curious about the math presented in that article. Is that formula correct? or are there any mistakes?

Depends on how you define "mistakes". Deyoung obviously has an agenda, and knew fully well that he was wrong when he wrote his article. It was no mistake, but it is deliberately misleading. It saddens me when Creationists try to invalidate large bodies of scientific evidence to justify their beliefs in a particular creation myth.

For a summary of why the science is not wrong either, this article seems to sum it up nicely. Look for the headings "The Paleontological Evidence" and "The Creationist Arguments".

For example, how do you know that radioactive decay rates have been constant throughout time, one of the presumptions built into the dating of fossils?

Because we can see it in supernovae billions of years old:

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CF/CF210.html

If species evolved from one to another over millions of years we would find millions of transitions in the fossil record. But... we haven't.

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC200_1.html

Next!

Are you so insanely literal that you cannot see that legends and myths sometimes DO contain a grain of truth at their cores?

No, where do I say that? There are lots of flood traditions around the world, most of them in areas where people see smaller floods regularly. The Egyptians you mention, for instance, observe yearly flooding of the Nile. I'm not sure why I bother, but: *You* mentioned Noah's Flood (not flood myths in general), and *you* linked to a pseudoscientific (at best) explanation for it in the same post. One does not need impacts to explain where flood myths originate. One does, however, need a pretty dramatic and implausible event to explain the Deluge.

My gripe is with people who seek to prove that their favourite myth is not a myth by basically trying to invalidate all other research in the fields, in a way attacking and undermining science itself. It's just as bad as any other creationist "science". Note that I infer that it is such from other sources than the group itself. They do not state it directly, but they are widely quoted on creationist websites as a defence of a literal interpretation of the Bible, in addition to everything I mentioned in my earlier post. .

"Noah's Flood" was "world-wide" only from the perspective of a very narrow slice of the "world"

Most Biblical literalists don't agree with you, see third paragraph here. Besides, it's a myth.

Oh, and I got the duration of the mythical Deluge wrong. It apparently lasted for closer to a year, the forty days I mentioned where just somewhat rainy. As if anyone cares :)

This view (that Adam's children intermarried) is supported by mainstream genetics - 'mitochondrial Eve' is the term for the _single_ common female ancestor for all humans

Not quite. She is the most-recent common ancestor of all humans alive on Earth today with respect to matrilineal descent -- which is subtly but importantly different, and in no way supports ancient Hebrew mythology about people being made from clay. Details at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/mitoeve.html

I notice that your defense of evolution consists of an ad hominem attack, and not a reasoned argument.

Because the people I have encountered who argue in good faith against the theory of evolution are exceedingly rare. As in none.

It always comes down to, is "People are too complicated to have come from evolution". And that's the end of it. There must be a god because. Just because. And the more it's painted as "intelligent design" rather than evolution, the less good faith is involved.

For example, the challenge to evolution (I'm using the broadest sense of the word here) is that there's not a mechanism that can get the job done. That an eyeball won't spontaneously arise out of a jar of chemicals which make up the eyeball. It's the "Evolution is like expecting a pile of small parts to form themselves into a watch", argument, which of course, shows a complete lack of understanding of the mechanisms which are at work. It sounds truthy, so it's good enough.

So, the intelligent design people say there is no mechanism by which evolution can have happened, by which life could have evolved on Earth, yet they add, "Without the intervention of an intelligent designer". For which, of course, no mechanism is even posited, much less actually evident. It's like arguing with my older sister when I was a kid, and she'd say, "Because I said so...just...because".

Then there's the assertion that any serious paper that challenged evolution could never get published because it would kill the career of anybody who tried to publish such a paper or who acted as editor on such a paper. This is an argument that is only made by non-scientists. It ignores the mindset of scientists and the desire to show up conventional wisdom. The evidence for this is all the papers that have been rejected. No indication that these papers were faulty for dozens of reasons that would have gotten them rejected even if they had agreed with evolution theory.

I once attended an "intelligent design" conference at my institution. These guys were given all the consideration any serious scientific group would get. I went to the proceedings for two days. The papers tended to be mostly of the "theory of everything" types done by people who were not even biologists. There was a mechanical engineer. There was an archaeologist. There were, of course, two theologians. I went to those proceedings with a friend, who happens to be a Jesuit geologist. He told me they were cranks, one and all. They were billed as the "best evidence" for intelligent design and the "flaws" of evolution, but they were knuckleheads. If you're in the sciences, I'm sure you know the type. A guy who worked in a field all his life and then in his sixties decides he's come up with some ground-breaking work in a completely different field. I actually know personally a chemist who spend the last 15 years of his life trying to publish an 1100-page refutation of Einstein. It would be like me, someone trained in critical theory, literary theory, deciding that I've written the definitive refutation of Euler or Newton's Optics.

I normally see a reference to: http://www.talkorigins.org/ at this point in the conversation, which is a delightful collection of...

I have no interest in a Usenet mutual masturbation forum, thanks very much.

I notice that your defense of evolution consists of an ad hominem attack, and not a reasoned argument. Why?

I normally see a reference to: http://www.talkorigins.org/ at this point in the conversation, which is a delightful collection of all the fallacies in evolution. See if you can spot the error in each argument! (There are often more than one.)

> As far as I know no one has created a model of the earth to test global warming or bred a large number of animals to create a new species.

No-one that is, apart from those that have. There have been a fairly large number of the latter, both observing and inducing speciation in plants and animals.

There are plenty of earth models for climatic and other purposes. It's clearly not practical to make physical models, so we have to make do with software ones which don't have such practical constraints. Their accuracy can be tested by seeing if older data can be used to predict more recent data (hindcasting), for example can data gathered from 1900 to 1960 in a given model be used to predict what the conditions were like in the 1960s? If they do, then you might consider some of that model's future predictions trustworthy too. This technique is used to test models of individual parts of an overall climate model, such as temperature changes, cloud actions, El Niño events, gas mixtures etc. Generally these models will only ever get better as research improves and computing power increases. Still, they are an approximation (as all models necessarily are), but as the IPCC said: "Despite such uncertainties, however, models are unanimous in their prediction of substantial climate warming under greenhouse gas increases". More info.

Why not actually read something on the subject, before you make yourself look like a moron:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

Don't you feel the least bit foolish? I mean, it's pretty clear you have no idea what science is, what the evidence for evolution is, and worst of all, you're so fucking pathetic you don't even have the intellectual curiousity to go out and look it up. You're a prime example of the kind of proudly ignorant pseudo-skeptic who makes the most ludicrous, moronic pronouncements without the least sense of irony.

no one has ever even observed a full evolution from one species to the next.

WRONG

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html#part5

Hmm. I seem to recall a semi-recent article on the first recorded observation of natural (as opposed to human-induced) speciation in an animal, but annoyingly I can't find it. However, if evidence of the evolution of plants and insects is sufficient, I direct you to http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html#part5 and http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/speciation.html which lists some observed speciation events.

Hmm. I seem to recall a semi-recent article on the first recorded observation of natural (as opposed to human-induced) speciation in an animal, but annoyingly I can't find it. However, if evidence of the evolution of plants and insects is sufficient, I direct you to http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html#part5 and http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/speciation.html which lists some observed speciation events.

Neither Scalia nor Thomas can be "most activist" or even activist at all; both are well known for quoting historical sources as the basis for their decisions.

Neither the Institute for Creation Research nor Answers in Genesis can be "most activist" or even activist at all; both are well known for quoting historical evolutionist sources as the basis for disproving evolutionist dogma.

> Neither Scalia nor Thomas can be "most activist" or even activist at all; both are well known for quoting historical sources as the basis for their decisions.

Neither the Institute for Creation Research or Answers in Genesis can be "most activist" or even activist at all; both are well known for quoting historical evolutionist sources as the basis for uncovering the evolutionists frauds.

The problem with discussions like this are the definitions are written in water. I see a lot of people in the thread tossing words around with obvious assumptions built in which often are not true. What exactly is an evolutionist or a creationist?

I believe in creationism: I don't think evolution as we understand it is sufficient to explain life. Creationism can be observed: I've created things, and given time humans will learn to create life. If we can create life, why can't some other being have done it?

Likewise I believe in evolution: I don't believe creationism explains life as we understand it, and I believe it is fundamentally dishonest to deny the nature of things, and evolution is clearly a part of life. Some religions fanatics claim to have a high respect for God's creation, but how can they if they deny one of its fundamental properties?

Here's something that blows the creationist’s mind: vestigial organs/parts. If a creator independently designed each organism, then lots of stuff that shouldn't be there somehow made it into the finished product. This excellent article explains it better than I could: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/jury-rigged.html

I don't see this as valid. Yes I know some people believe in an absolute form of creationism where every single species was custom made by God. Likewise there are a lot of people who believe evolution fully explains it. Both positions are laughably ridiculous.

Why can't a created organism have changed over time? Evolution obviously happens, we know that for a fact. So occasionally a created organism undergoes changes. Its creator anticipated it would need to change so it has a mechanism for handling that. Sometimes those changes are not perfect, or perhaps we just don't fully understand them. Why is that some kind of conflict between evolution and creationism?

I'm not trying to prove anything here, just pointing out that this isn't a valid argument one way or the other. Its interesting and a worthwhile exploration, but hardly proof of anything.

Creationists also have a hard time talking their way around the massive problems with Noah's flood: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html

The problem is in taking things in the Bible literally. You can't even do that with scientific papers. Its a basic trait of human nature that we exaggerate and modify our stories. Its part of human storytelling, and in spite of what would appear to be a horrible error rate, its been shown to be highly effective and a major part of our ability to survive.

I've seen scientific papers become tangled messes, often highly syncretic, in very short time periods. We seem to accept that without question and yet, we give the Bible grief for the same thing and its thousands of years old and far more prone to alteration. Why the double standard?

Why can't the Noah story be true? Science tells us that there was at least one huge flood during the time period historians believe the biblical story coincides with. It wasn't the world, that idea is obviously ridiculous. However, certainly there were some ancients who thought that the area flooded was the whole world, and might have used a word to say that. Fast forward a few millenia and the story is distorted a bit, but does that mean its totally wrong? What if "the world" in the story is the area flooded when the Black Sea was created/expanded?

Yes there are problems with the story, but most of them can be explained by fairly normal and expected alterations in a story over time, and science if anything is helping us find the truth of these old stories, rather than disprove them totally.

The problem with discussions like this are the definitions are written in water. I see a lot of people in the thread tossing words around with obvious assumptions built in which often are not true. What exactly is an evolutionist or a creationist?

I believe in creationism: I don't think evolution as we understand it is sufficient to explain life. Creationism can be observed: I've created things, and given time humans will learn to create life. If we can create life, why can't some other being have done it?

Likewise I believe in evolution: I don't believe creationism explains life as we understand it, and I believe it is fundamentally dishonest to deny the nature of things, and evolution is clearly a part of life. Some religions fanatics claim to have a high respect for God's creation, but how can they if they deny one of its fundamental properties?

Here's something that blows the creationist’s mind: vestigial organs/parts. If a creator independently designed each organism, then lots of stuff that shouldn't be there somehow made it into the finished product. This excellent article explains it better than I could: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/jury-rigged.html

I don't see this as valid. Yes I know some people believe in an absolute form of creationism where every single species was custom made by God. Likewise there are a lot of people who believe evolution fully explains it. Both positions are laughably ridiculous.

Why can't a created organism have changed over time? Evolution obviously happens, we know that for a fact. So occasionally a created organism undergoes changes. Its creator anticipated it would need to change so it has a mechanism for handling that. Sometimes those changes are not perfect, or perhaps we just don't fully understand them. Why is that some kind of conflict between evolution and creationism?

I'm not trying to prove anything here, just pointing out that this isn't a valid argument one way or the other. Its interesting and a worthwhile exploration, but hardly proof of anything.

Creationists also have a hard time talking their way around the massive problems with Noah's flood: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html

The problem is in taking things in the Bible literally. You can't even do that with scientific papers. Its a basic trait of human nature that we exaggerate and modify our stories. Its part of human storytelling, and in spite of what would appear to be a horrible error rate, its been shown to be highly effective and a major part of our ability to survive.

I've seen scientific papers become tangled messes, often highly syncretic, in very short time periods. We seem to accept that without question and yet, we give the Bible grief for the same thing and its thousands of years old and far more prone to alteration. Why the double standard?

Why can't the Noah story be true? Science tells us that there was at least one huge flood during the time period historians believe the biblical story coincides with. It wasn't the world, that idea is obviously ridiculous. However, certainly there were some ancients who thought that the area flooded was the whole world, and might have used a word to say that. Fast forward a few millenia and the story is distorted a bit, but does that mean its totally wrong? What if "the world" in the story is the area flooded when the Black Sea was created/expanded?

Yes there are problems with the story, but most of them can be explained by fairly normal and expected alterations in a story over time, and science if anything is helping us find the truth of these old stories, rather than disprove them totally.

Here's something that blows the creationist’s mind: vestigial organs/parts. If a creator independently designed each organism, then lots of stuff that shouldn't be there somehow made it into the finished product. This excellent article explains it better than I could: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/jury-rigged.html

So you've never copy-pasted code before and just commented out the parts you didn't need?

Creationists also have a hard time talking their way around the massive problems with Noah's flood: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html

Really? You need a page to explain it? I always thought it'd be a ton easier:

Look: Noah took in all the animals. Let's just accept that point. But what about all the plants? Not many of the plants we have around today would survive 40 days submerged. So either they evolved after the flood (say hi to evolution) or the bible forgets to mention a second creation (the holy book incomplete?) or it's all a big pile of nonsense.

Here's something that blows the creationist’s mind: vestigial organs/parts. If a creator independently designed each organism, then lots of stuff that shouldn't be there somehow made it into the finished product. This excellent article explains it better than I could: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/jury-rigged.html

Creationists also have a hard time talking their way around the massive problems with Noah's flood: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html

Full disclosure: I used to be a born again christian, (these days I consider myself an agnostic... I don't really know if there's a god or not) but sites like these really opened my eyes. Most people only believe because they are told the same things over and over again from childhood and free thought is discouraged. I don't know if ministers/seminaries are ignorant of the true history of Christianity or if they are aware and simply covering it up to maintain control over people. Bible "study" is simply re-indoctrinating yourself over and over. Once something happens in your life to make you start questioning what you've been told, your whole worldview inevitably falls apart. It's only a matter of time.

Here's something that blows the creationist’s mind: vestigial organs/parts. If a creator independently designed each organism, then lots of stuff that shouldn't be there somehow made it into the finished product. This excellent article explains it better than I could: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/jury-rigged.html

Creationists also have a hard time talking their way around the massive problems with Noah's flood: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html

Full disclosure: I used to be a born again christian, (these days I consider myself an agnostic... I don't really know if there's a god or not) but sites like these really opened my eyes. Most people only believe because they are told the same things over and over again from childhood and free thought is discouraged. I don't know if ministers/seminaries are ignorant of the true history of Christianity or if they are aware and simply covering it up to maintain control over people. Bible "study" is simply re-indoctrinating yourself over and over. Once something happens in your life to make you start questioning what you've been told, your whole worldview inevitably falls apart. It's only a matter of time.

>> And Evolution is still a theory because fossil can only prove a species existed not that it turned into another. That can't be proven empirically.

Gravity is still a theory, too.

Speciation has been observed, but I'll concede the point that it hasn't been observed in dinosaurs.

Look up the history of 'nebraska man'. 1 tooth and they extrapolated a whole species.

I did look it up, on Talk.Origins and it's a pretty bad example. If you take "they extrapolated a whole species" to mean "a prominent paleontologist identified the tooth as an ape tooth" and "an artist painted a rendition for a popular news periodical of a possible species the tooth came from," then sure.

Most of the controversy lies in the idea that beneficial genetic information can be somehow added through random mutations etc over millions of years. A fantastical narrative is spun around that which sounds great but has no more evidence to support it in the fossil record than the story of a global flood.

The only controversy around that comes from ignorant people with no understanding of modern biology or paleontology. There's nothing fantastical about it at all.

Most of the controversy lies in the idea that beneficial genetic information can be somehow added through random mutations etc over millions of years. A fantastical narrative is spun around that which sounds great but has no more evidence to support it in the fossil record than the story of a global flood.

The only controversy around that comes from ignorant people with no understanding of modern biology or paleontology. There's nothing fantastical about it at all.

Most of the controversy lies in the idea that beneficial genetic information can be somehow added through random mutations etc over millions of years. A fantastical narrative is spun around that which sounds great but has no more evidence to support it in the fossil record than the story of a global flood.

The only controversy around that comes from ignorant people with no understanding of modern biology or paleontology. There's nothing fantastical about it at all.

Most of the controversy lies in the idea that beneficial genetic information can be somehow added through random mutations etc over millions of years. A fantastical narrative is spun around that which sounds great but has no more evidence to support it in the fossil record than the story of a global flood.

The only controversy around that comes from ignorant people with no understanding of modern biology or paleontology. There's nothing fantastical about it at all.

I can't see how any amount of time can make something possible.

Yes, you've made that clear, hence the book recommendations.

If you extract back, the theory suggests chemical evolution of a "simple" cell. which even the simplest known living organism has 482 protein coding genes are required to be wholly operational for life to begin.

Now you're talking about abiogenesis, which is not part of evolutionary theory. Evolution deals with how the diversity of life that we see came about. It doesn't deal with how life first began on the planet. There are theories for that as well, though.

just a quick search of that site and i can quote this: which is the odds chemically of just 100 amino acids where the simplest known is 480 proteins.

what is the probability of getting just 100 amino acids lined up in a functional manner? Since there are 20 different amino acids involved, it is (1/20)100, which is 10^130. To try to get this in perspective, there are about 10^80 fundamental particles (electrons, etc) in the universe. If every one of those particles were an experiment at getting the right sequence with all the correct amino acids present, every microsecond of 15 billion years, that amounts to 4.7 x 10^103 experiments. We are still 10^27 experiments short of getting an even chance of it happening. In other words, this is IMPOSSIBLE!

I would appreciate it if you would look into sites that offer an actual scientific perspective rather than the illusion of such a perspective. It's easy to lie with statistics, especially when you cherry-pick your facts. The site you linked seems to be full of straw-man arguments and other fallacies that misrepresent the scientific position. Most of the positions taken have been addressed, and these distortions are pointed out.

I can't see how any amount of time can make something possible.

Yes, you've made that clear, hence the book recommendations.

If you extract back, the theory suggests chemical evolution of a "simple" cell. which even the simplest known living organism has 482 protein coding genes are required to be wholly operational for life to begin.

Now you're talking about abiogenesis, which is not part of evolutionary theory. Evolution deals with how the diversity of life that we see came about. It doesn't deal with how life first began on the planet. There are theories for that as well, though.

just a quick search of that site and i can quote this: which is the odds chemically of just 100 amino acids where the simplest known is 480 proteins.

what is the probability of getting just 100 amino acids lined up in a functional manner? Since there are 20 different amino acids involved, it is (1/20)100, which is 10^130. To try to get this in perspective, there are about 10^80 fundamental particles (electrons, etc) in the universe. If every one of those particles were an experiment at getting the right sequence with all the correct amino acids present, every microsecond of 15 billion years, that amounts to 4.7 x 10^103 experiments. We are still 10^27 experiments short of getting an even chance of it happening. In other words, this is IMPOSSIBLE!

I would appreciate it if you would look into sites that offer an actual scientific perspective rather than the illusion of such a perspective. It's easy to lie with statistics, especially when you cherry-pick your facts. The site you linked seems to be full of straw-man arguments and other fallacies that misrepresent the scientific position. Most of the positions taken have been addressed, and these distortions are pointed out.

I can't see how any amount of time can make something possible.

Yes, you've made that clear, hence the book recommendations.

If you extract back, the theory suggests chemical evolution of a "simple" cell. which even the simplest known living organism has 482 protein coding genes are required to be wholly operational for life to begin.

Now you're talking about abiogenesis, which is not part of evolutionary theory. Evolution deals with how the diversity of life that we see came about. It doesn't deal with how life first began on the planet. There are theories for that as well, though.

just a quick search of that site and i can quote this: which is the odds chemically of just 100 amino acids where the simplest known is 480 proteins.

what is the probability of getting just 100 amino acids lined up in a functional manner? Since there are 20 different amino acids involved, it is (1/20)100, which is 10^130. To try to get this in perspective, there are about 10^80 fundamental particles (electrons, etc) in the universe. If every one of those particles were an experiment at getting the right sequence with all the correct amino acids present, every microsecond of 15 billion years, that amounts to 4.7 x 10^103 experiments. We are still 10^27 experiments short of getting an even chance of it happening. In other words, this is IMPOSSIBLE!

I would appreciate it if you would look into sites that offer an actual scientific perspective rather than the illusion of such a perspective. It's easy to lie with statistics, especially when you cherry-pick your facts. The site you linked seems to be full of straw-man arguments and other fallacies that misrepresent the scientific position. Most of the positions taken have been addressed, and these distortions are pointed out.

it seems that it should be possible to teach Microevolution( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microevolution [wikipedia.org] ) which we've seen in the lab, without adding in a bunch about Macroevolution which we *can't* prove...

So, follow your Wikipedia link. You'll find that Wikipedia also defines Macroevolution as "evolution on a scale of separated gene pools.[1] Macroevolutionary studies focus on change that occurs at or above the level of species..."

In other words, if speciation happens, macroevolution happens. And speciation happens. We have observed that.

Did *you* see personally see fish evolve into something else?

Awhile back, I remember reading about why Amazon S3 went down.

Ok, first of all: Do you believe Amazon? I'm guessing that on reading this story, you, like the rest of us, tentatively accept it as true. Unless you have good reason to believe otherwise, Amazon would know -- they're certainly the best equipped to know. So if you're not willing to dig deeper, it seems reasonable to trust the experts when it comes to evolution, also.

But how does Amazon know?

I could speculate. I could re-read the article and see what I come up with. But I think we can both be pretty confident that none of them personally saw the bit flip, to the extent that such a thing can be seen. In fact, I'd even hazard a guess that no one was even aware that it had happened until the service started to drop.

Please, if you learn anything from this exchange, never use that argument again. The other arguments you've made could fairly be called ignorance, and you do even have some good points. But this is stupidity. We don't apply "did you personally see" as a restriction for almost anything else we believe, especially when it comes to matters of religion. There are reasonable standards of evidence. If I personally saw it happen, that'd be sufficient, but it sure as hell isn't necessary.

Now, don't mistake this for thinking I mean that Creationism is a better option - it isn't.

Well, it's not an option. Let's start with that. It is not and never has been science, and does not belong in a science classroom.

OTOH, I'm all for comparative religion.

But there are other options out there, like evolution through punctuated equalibriam versus gradual change.

First of all, these aren't "other options" to macroevolution. They are both theories of macroevolution. And I've got no problem if a science teacher wants to talk about the real scientific controversies -- things like this -- rather than manufactured public-opinion controversies.

But more importantly: We don't need to teach the entire discipline, especially all its esoteric controversies, in a high school biology class. In high school physics, it's really enough to cover Newton's laws of motion. It'd be cool if you can talk about things like relativity, but you want to cover the Newtonian stuff first, even if it's technically "wrong" now -- it's still relevant and useful, and approximately correct in almost every situation where they'd care. Similarly, understanding the basic concepts of evolution, including natural selection, speciation, and the evolutionary tree, is still useful and relevant regardless of whether you accept gradualism or punctuated equilibrium.

an argument that what we see in small scale must translate linearly to large scale and vise-versa.

Actually, that's kind of backwards -- ideas of evolution were proposed, and natural selection was suggested as a mechanism after the fact. But sure, we can go this way, too -- we see selection and spe