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Human Genome Confirms Evolution
xpccx writes "Here is a very interesting article at MSNBC by Arthur Caplan, Ph.D., director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He states that "The genome reveals, indisputably and beyond any serious doubt, that Darwin was right - mankind evolved over a long period of time from primitive animal ancestors. Our genes show that scientific creationism cannot be true." This is arguable but should spark quite a debate." Even Kansas agrees.
And that he created us in his own image (thats what the bible says)
Fortunately, this does not contradict the principle of evolution. We know, from common sense and genetic study, that humans evolved from bacteria. We know from the authors of the bible, that God created Adam in his image. Therefore, we can conclude that Adam was a bacteria and God's image like a bacteria. Michaelangelo's painting is all wrong -- the chapel's ceiling should have shown a wise, fatherly looking bacteria and a young naive bacteria, dramatically reaching toward one another with their cilia.
Of course, we may later learn more about where the bacteria came from, and learn that God's true image is something more primative, a proto-bacteria, or a clump of amino acids that happen to have a replicating feature. But of course, these were created from some non-replicating amino-acids before being hit by a cosmic ray, and those acids came from simpler chemicals.
In the end, creationism and reductionist science will harmoniously agree that God is a quark or something, and that the original subatomic particles (nay, the very first particle to have existed) was created in God's Image. We have the Good Book's incontrovertibly undeniable authority, combined with scientific reason, to thank for giving us this terribly important and useful insight.
It makes me feel special to know, that somewhere in the grand universe, a benevolent all-knowing quark, with a great creative scheme that we humans can only speculate about, and omnipotent irresistable power, is listening to my prayers.
Hold the phone here :)
:) )
;)
While some of your criticisms are indeed valid, there are some misconceptions that I want to clear up while I have the time.
1. Too many people do not make the distinction between "evolution" and the concept of "biological evolution by selection pressure". People who seek to disprove the second idea tend to abstract it to the first idea and then attack it on the grounds of the necessary ambiguity that exists around the ideas of the initial formation of the universe. If you want to attack evolution, please don't attack the Big Bang and then conclude that biological evolution is garbage.
2. Another misconception concerns the idea of the intermediate form. Probably the biggest fallacy concerning this idea is the conception of the "missing link"; that is to say, if humans came from chimpanzees, then we sould be able to find an organism that looks half homo sapien, half chimpanzee. This will simply not happen. Biological evolution is not a linear enterprise. Let me explain what I mean.
Your conception of evolution is like this:
chimp --> INTERMEDIARY --> homo sapien
However, this is not the case. Instead, think of it as like a family tree.
INTERMEDIARY --> chimp
|
|-> homo sapiens
(sorry for the poor tree
The point is that chimps and humans shared a common ANCESTOR. There is no species that's directly between the chimp and the human. Missing links don't exist, only common ancestors.
3. I don't believe the distinction between macroevolution and microevolution is justified. This point is harder to explain, but I will try my best.
If I read you correctly, macroevolution produces new species and microevolution produces variations between species.
** I had a nice looking, visually descriptive continuum here, but the lameness filter got it **
Say that the above continuums represent relative genetic diversity. The area in brackets represent the genetic range where one individual can successfully produce offspring with another individual. Therefore, in your view, microevolution can produce the variation within species A, but macroevolution makes no sense, because it is illogical to posit that incrememtal changes in species A can produce a species B that can't reproduce with members of the species of its parents.
(told ya the explanation would be ugly, didn't I?)
Now, look at it like this:
** the lameness filter is lame **
Now, here is what is interesting. The above continuum represents what current theory would predict. Now, recognize that "microevolution" within species A could produce individuals with the characteristics of species B, and so on. However, go down to the bottom. The continuua of species A and species E have no overlap. THEREFORE, A and E COULD NOT INTERBREED. According to current definitions of species within binomial nomenclature, A and E are different species. Congratulations, you not have "macroevolution", which came to be as a direct consequence of successive cycles of "microevolution". Problem solved.
I do have more to say to you; it seems that you have a skeptical, scientific mind, yet you have not know enough information to be able to make a completely rational evaluation of the theories and ideas in question at this time. If you would like to further discuss these issues with me, I would be happy to engage you in further conversation. You may contact me at inquis@SPAMIZBAD.hushmail.com.
As always, I invite discussion.
-inq, posting anonymously because it's his right
That said, many of these lab reports used single or multiple "observations" to prove the thing being tested. That is, the assumption was made by the student that the appearance of the phenomenon was proof of the truth of the hypothesis. It was amazing how many people came in believing this nonesense.
Scientific experimentation never ever proves anything. It can disprove only (the proof side involves checking on all possible permutations of things, and that is not possible in times long compared to the age of the universe). Hence, what one needs to investigate are the predictions of a theory. This was the other thing that students got wrong. A theory is a hypothesis, an idea, that makes predictions. If the theory does not make testable predictions, it is not a scientific theory. If you cannot objectively test an idea's predictions, how can you possibly assess the validity of the idea?
"Scientific Creationism" makes no predictions. It is an attempt to codify a system of beliefs into a particular language. As such, it is not a scientific theory. If it made testable predictions (say structural predictions on the form of proteins in similar organisms) then it would be testable and therefore falsafiable.
And that is the difference. Evolution, or rather, evolution-like theories, which make specific predictions are testable and falsafiable. If you find sufficient evidence that can convince a skeptical group of unbiased investigators that there is a disparity between the prediction and the observation, then you may rightly claim that the theory (or one area/mechanism) is false. The flip side of this is that if you find no such evidence, then your results are consistent with the theories predictions. One of the other more important aspects is that even if one particular mechanism in the theory is found not to be correct, it may not invalidate the entire theory, rather just that mechanism. From this, people build on existing theories with new theories that can explain the observations, and make more predictions. So even if Darwin's orginal mechanisms are not quite right, the latest proposed ones fit the data even better than before, and make testable predictions that are being looked at as we speak.
Compare this to a biblical dogma derived "theory" which makes no testable predictions, provides no method of falsification, and generally does not allow room for disagreement. "Scientific Creationism" is not science (as it fails the testable hypothesis portion of the requirement for a theory). It is dogma. In a new set of clothes. Do not be fooled.
All our genes are belong to Darwin.
That "even Kansas agrees" bit seems almost tantamount to Bill Gates saying, in 2004 or so "That Linux 2.6 kernel, it's grrreat!"
Alex Bischoff
---
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
Speciation has been observed. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/speciation.html gives several instances. Of course, what you're calling for is not speciation, but something else which will not happen on human timescales, so you may as well go away unsatisfied.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
You may be interested to know that the book Principia Mathematica by Russel and Whithead, a book which defined our system of mathematics from bare logic, took 211 pages before it got to the point where it could construct '1+1=2'.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
No, religion doesn't ask anything, it simply tells and expects blind unwavering faith from the masses. There is no questioning the faith.
Python
Python
I've always wanted to confront one of those phony preachers that show up on college campuses and accuse him of blasphemy whenhe goes into his creationist tirade?
:)
Seriously: he, the creature, is attempting to limit the power of the Creator by placing limits on how He can Create. Just plain blasphemous . . .
but so far, my better judgment has stopped me
The only form of creationism I know involves an omnipotent creator. Such a creater can obviously do anything (that's omnipotent for you), including faking evidence of evolution. However, any theory requiring an omnipotent creator is unscientific, as it can never be disproved. One requirement for a scientific theory is that is falsifable, i.e. it is possible to design an experiment with a possible outcome that would disprove the theory.
Which makes me wonder, what is this "scientific creationism" thing? Creationism without an creator? Or just another abuse o fthe word scientific?
Note that "scientific" does not mean "true". A theory can be scientific and false, or unscientific and true.
God, being able to create the universe, must be even more complex than it, so his existence is even more incredible than its existance.
--
Quantum theory claims that things pop in and out of existance constantly, everywhere around us. So the universe itself might very well have popped up just like that, as a consequence of the laws of quantum mechanics.
Now, where those laws come from, that's a really good question. Maybe they themselves are God? That's Spinoza's (and Einstein's) view, basically. In that view, scientists are the ultimate theologicians because they study God.
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"Evolution: A natural force for creating 'higher' beings from 'lower' beings. "
Well, I don't know what Darwin himself thought, but I (and I consider myself a Neo-Darwinian) don't see it that way at all. Evolution fills ecological niches -- there's no concept of "higher" and "lower". Lichen is as much a result of Darwinian evolution, and a success, as mankind is.
However, I don't think mapping the genome did anything to "vindicate" Darwin -- his ideas have been vindicated for a long time, to anyone willing to stop taking things on faith, and look at the evidence.
--
The evidence in the michocondria (sp?) indicates that the current human population can be traced back to between 1-3 female ancestors, which doesn't openly contradict anything in the Bible.
Second, the Bible (as currently exists) was always intended to be a HOWTO-Live guide and not a detailed history. On that basis, as the original poster noted, science and Christianity are orthogonal to each other and therefore one cannot falsify or contradict the other.
Thirdly, the "absolute" literal interpretation of the Bible does seem to be a relatively recent thing. The early Celtic Church, for example, based most of it's teachings around pre-existing fairy stories that were adapted as needed.
(Jesus, himself, is portrayed in the Bible as a guy who was more interested in story imagery than in teaching a History 101.)
IMHO, the Church's changing attitude is not so much hypocritical ('cos that's where they started from). But, rather, during their literalist, absolutist phase, they were guilty of "heresy" and "blasphemy". (Which is kind-of ironic!)
Last, but not least, the "truth" of the Bible depends on how you choose to define "truth". If you mean "the events recorded are 100% accurate", then probably no historic record on Earth is "true".
If, on the other hand, you mean "the events recorded are symbolic of the state of the culture at that time, and it's spiritual integrity", then you're talking a whole different language.
There again, if you mean "the events recorded are the remnants of verbal history that got written down after several major disasters, and where the writing itself was subject to a whole series of disasters, leaving For any Church to proclaim that they're right and anyone else is wrong is: (a) in violation of their own teachings, (b) stupid (given how little is left), and (c) ignorant (given that spiritual and physical matters really have very little to do with each other).
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
There is no point in trying to convince the "non-believers". The issue has been settled for so many years that the only people who even think of it as an issue are the ones who have religious objections. Religious objections are, by definition, not in the domain of science, and no scientist need waste their time answering them.
-Mars
First of all....if there is a god, it would be sexless, so in all theory, you know nothing of what would constitute a supreme being...
It makes sense that a God would be sexless, since there's only one (no reproduction). It doesn't follow that such a God would be genderless.
and as far as "scientific" perhaps, you would have to think outside the box to put "science" and "god" in the same sentence.
True. Same with "Science" and "Person" in the same sentence, and for the same reason. Ditto "history" and "science".
why would a supreme being be the pinnacle of creation? Of Life?...is it not a common theme in stories that the created eventually become as powerful or evolve to the same level as their creator?
A supreme being could by definition NOT be the pinnacle of creation -- if it were the pinnacle of creation, then something must have created it, and it therefore could not be supreme. A supreme being is outside of creation.
A God, in addition, to being outside of creation, is uncreated and infinite. Finite cannot possibly grow to become infinite.
Furthermore, a supreme being would have no reason to create different living things at once...no, instead they would create the environment that would be conducive to the creation of living things...
Quaint speculation, but hardly interesting.
which brings us, are humans going to eventually "play god"? in a way we already do, but we will, and rightfully so, be able to create life from nothing...because being able to do so is in a way the created having the same powers as the creator...the pinnacle of evolution..
To create life from nothing you have to first create a universe. At that point you would be a supreme being -- even a god. But not a God, unless you find a way to become infinite with respect to that universe. If so, you do become God for that universe. But not for the one you started in... That would require revolution, not evolution.
-Billy (random philosophy)
Hmm. From what Ive heard, creationism is fundamentally rooted in the concepts of a recent creation or at least a seperate creation. In otherwords, either humans were created, (along with the rest of the world) 7000 years ago, or humans were created seperately from the other animals-- which may or may not have "evolved" from "lower" organisms. But then again, I don't subscribe to a creationist viewpoint.
There have been many attemts to compare whole genomes-- and, in fact, you are likely to see such articles grace many a scientific journal. I'm not sure when a chimpanzee genome will be released-- the logistics of such a study are rather daunting. But rest assured, such a genome will eventually be published.
Creationist: We have the Bible, so creationism must be true!
Article: We have the genome, so evolution must be true!
See any difference? I sure don't. Articles like this with no scientific proof whatsoever are nothing but an embarrassment to those who believe in evolution. This guy shows a marked bitterness towards creationists for being "unscientific," and yet he's fallen into exactly the same trap.
As for which I believe in, I do in fact believe in evolution. But honestly, when someone claims to be a scientist, they should be scientific about things, not like this.
----------
This is a very well-written and interesting editorial... but it's not a scientific article.
Dr. Caplan does an excellent job of pontificating his viewpoint - that Darwin was right and "all those who thump their bible and say there is no proof" are wrong; he very clearly and concisely tells us that the proof of evolution is in our genes, and that every scientist worth his/her salt agrees that there is no other explanation other than Darwinian evolution.
However, not once does he lay out the proof of which he speaks. Whether Dr. Caplan's viewpoint is correct or not, this article is nothing more than an emotionally persuasive argument with no scientific credibility whatsoever. It's well and good to say that there is undeniable evidence of Darwinian evolution in the human genome - that's what most people have been hoping for, searching for; but if such a sweeping statement is going to be made, especially to the rather scientifically ignorant masses that MSNBC and other mainstream media outlets serve, then it must be backed up by the actual evidence in question, lest we fall into the trap of believing a Big Lie that simply gets repeated enough times.
Science is detailed observation of the natural world, and this article offers no such observations, only emotionalism. I would greatly enjoy reading a scientific paper on this subject.
Science just has the annoying habit of being based on observation. Religions could probably make more headway if they followed suit and reflected the observable world, instead of asking us to ignore what we see and take someone's word for it from a few thousand years ago.
Regarding evolution not falsifiable: I'm an armchair scientist, as opposed to a real scientist who knows what the fuck he's talking about, but it'd seem to me that to make something falsifiable, you have to come up with a list of things someone can look for, that if found, make the hypothesis (evolution) false.
Two problems I see right away with this. First, we're always learning more about evolution - so what looks like a showstopping discovery today (punctuated equilibrium) may be part of the theory tomorrow. Which to anyone seeking to falsify evolution, probably looks like "those darn sneaky evolutionists will just explain away anything that looks like it might sink their boat."
The other problem is that I suspect it IS kinda hard to write falsification statements for something so deeply rooted in observation. What can you do? You'd end up saying stuff like, if evolution isn't true, then we wouldn't expect to find animals appearing to be related in a treelike structure to each other. We DO find animals appearing to be related in such a way that they can be drawn on a family tree. Therefore the falsification statement sounds... flippant, like circular reasoning. But how else do you approach it? The 'proof' of evolution is in the observation - that's what started the theory after all. So to falsify evolution ENTIRELY you'd have to falsify the observation - you'd have to say animals that look similar, really aren't, you'd have to say the fossil record does not reflect age, etc.
But imagine for a moment that they caught an animal that looks exactly like the fish-crab hybrid from Phantom Menace. Such a thing WOULD falsify evolution - assuming it wasn't a) mimicry, it only LOOKS half crustacean, b) a hoax, or c) a genetic experiment by humans, this creature would represent the undoing of the 'family tree' concept by combining the fully formed features of two ORDERS of animal in a way that could only be explained by throwing out the rules of genetics as we know them. I use this fictitious animal because our current knowledge says that crabs and fish are not closely related and with literal mountains of proof to back this up - scientists would be unable to make this creature work as a "common ancestor", unlike such missing links as Archaeopteryx. Were such an animal found, it would cast serious doubts on the mechanism of evolution - it would be about as close as you can get to falsification.
~ radiographite: art by john shepard
Macroevolution (development of more complex organisms from simpler ones): sorry, not proven. First, there are no 'intermediate' forms found. Every single one is complete and functional. Darwinism states that evolution is a gradual process, taking millions of years. Hence, almost 100% of fossils should be intermediate forms, with clear links. The links are missing.
Why can't an intermediate form be complete and functional? I thought one of the tenets of evolutionary biology was that EVERY intermediate form had to be complete and functional - it has to function as an animal just well enough to reproduce and make another one just like itself.
Indeed I think a case can be made that ALL lifeforms are 'transitional' - those that have hit the plateau simply haven't had any pressure put on them that might make mutational changes come in handy, yet. Look at something like the coelacanth, with what look like primitive transitional legs - to the coelacanth they aren't transitional, it makes excellent use of them so they're "complete". What happens is that that coelacanth's grandson might have longer 'fins' that give it some sort of edge - so its children have an easier time finding food than the ones with shorter fins, who must either move away (and find a niche) or die off. Which is exactly what happened: some of them got better and moved away, others found a spot in Madagascar where they could survive without needing to evolve much.
We call lifeforms 'transitional' only because of our perspective - we've already seen things that evolved from them.
~ radiographite: art by john shepard
OK, I'm just a hobbyist and my brain is on order from Neptune while I battle a nasty cold, but here's my shot at them. Someone else could probably do better.
:-)
Where has macro evolution ever been observed? What's the mechanism for getting new complexity such as new vital organs? How, for example, could a caterpillar evolve into a butterfly?
Some guesses regarding vital organs:
- Simpler animals don't need nearly as many moving parts as humans have. Hearts, etc. aren't needed in a tiny seagoing animal that can absorb nutrients directly into every cell without needing a bloodstream.
- Organs wouldn't just spring fully formed into existence - they would evolve from simpler structures, or from each other.
- The heart is just a muscle. Imagine a tiny heartless animal - but one with musculature (someone help me out and name an example, I'm sure there are examples in the deep ocean - a jellyfish maybe?) - due to a genetic accident a muscle ends up wrapped around a tube where oxygenated blood travels from one end of the animal to the other. Voila - a heart.
- The brain is even simpler - a bunch of nerve cells accumulated at one end of the body, and it would simply get more complex over time.
- Lungs: cells that transcribe O2 and CO2 all end up in the same place, and over generations get optimized into a more efficient shape. Also see above about muscles.
- 'Filter' organs like kidneys: again, cells in the right place. A cell that can produce an enzyme to do something useful might well be useful if not connected to the right places - but once it mutates to be connected, it'll stay there through successive generations.
- Eyes - a single light-sensitive cell. Another cell appears next to it and you have resolution. A blob of gelatin forms on top of it and you have a lens. LIVING examples of just about all stages of this lineage are known.
Simple organs become more complex ones. The trick is getting the simple organ started.
Where are the billions of transitional fossils that should be there if your theory is right? Billions! Not a handful of questionable transitions. Why don't we see a reasonably smooth continuum among all living creatures, or in the fossil record, or both?
Everything that dies doesn't automatically fossilize. There WILL be gaps - huge ones - because only some tiny fraction of all SPECIES that have ever lived would be represented by individuals that happened to die in a spot conducive to fossilization.
Who are the evolutionary ancestors of the insects? The evolutionary tree that's in the textbook: where's its trunk and where are its branches?
Insects don't fossilize all that well. See above.
What evidence is there that information, such as that in DNA, could ever assemble itself? What about the 4000 books of coded information that are in a tiny part of each of your 100 trillion cells? If astronomers received an intelligent radio signal from some distant galaxy, most people would conclude that it came from an intelligent source. Why then doesn't the vast information sequence in the DNA molecule of just a bacteria also imply an intelligent source?
Most of that DNA sequence is junk - which implies a random source, or an intelligent source that leaves scrap materials in the finished product.
How could organs as complicated as the eye or the ear or the brain of even a tiny bird ever come about by chance or natural processes? How could a bacterial motor evolve?
From simple to complex. For an eye all you need is one light-sensing cell - anything that happens to mutate near it later will probably help it. Same with the ear - probably started with the same touch-sensitive cells that currently allow deaf people to feel low frequencies.
The brain of a tiny bird? Made of the same stuff as the brain of an earthworm. Only its size is different - and the complexity therein is a consequence of its size. Study how the brain works and this will make more sense than my ramblings.
If the solar system evolved, why do three planets spin backwards? Why do at least 6 moons revolve backwards?
Um... I wasn't aware the allele frequency of planetary populations changed over time, or that any reputable scientist ever said they did. Planets don't evolve.
The planets and moons that spin and revolve backwards were probably struck by large objects - stray moons, asteroids, or some such.
Why do we have comets if the solar system is billions of years old?
Because the processes that make a solar system didn't stop billions of years ago?
Where did all the helium go?
Since I don't know what this refers to, I'll guess: into the sun?
How did sexual reproduction evolve?
I don't know.
If the big bang occurred, where did all the information around us and in us come from? Has an explosion ever produced order? Or as Sir Isaac Newton said, "Who wound up the clock?"
Tunguska, 1908, made a random forest into a nice neat radial array of logs. Or is that not the kind of order you're looking for?
Creation science has yet to explain where God came from, so I suppose if we can't accept any theory that hasn't been explained ALL the way back, then no belief system will ever be valid. At any rate, evolutionary biology doesn't deal with the Big Bang - you want Quantum Physics 101, next door.
Why do so many of the earth's ancient cultures have flood legends?
Because floods are a natural occurrence? And this is a silly question anyway - wouldn't all the earth's ancient cultures be descendants of Noah and his family, and thus have a nearly complete version of the Biblical flood in their legends instead of just 'there was a great flood the year that so-and-so was king'?
Why don't the Chinese, with an 8000 year recorded history, mention having done time on the Ark?
Where did matter come from? What about space, time, energy, and even the laws of physics?
Dunno. You want Quantum Physics 101, next door.
How did the first living cell begin? That's a greater miracle than for a bacteria to evolve to a man. How did that first cell reproduce?
Maybe life isn't the miracle you think it is. What's a virus, after all, but the halfway point between living and dead. Not that bacteria would have evolved from virii (at least not as we know them today, since a virus can't reproduce on its own), but the concept is still there - a primitive thing made of DNA and RNA and simple proteins, that in the presence of enough of the compounds it's made out of, makes two of itself through a chemical process.
Just before life appeared, did the atmosphere have oxygen or did it not have oxygen?
Life doesn't depend on an oxygen-rich atmosphere. Before life appeared - and probably for a long time after - the atmosphere would probably have been something like ammonia.
Why aren't meteorites found in supposedly old rocks?
They'd have been destroyed or reshapen by the forces that laid down the old rocks, perhaps?
If it takes intelligence to make an arrowhead, why doesn't it take vastly more intelligence to create a human? Do you really believe that hydrogen will turn into people if you wait long enough?
It doesn't take intelligence to make a snowflake, a much more complex device than an arrowhead.
Which came first, DNA or the proteins needed by DNA--which can only be produced by DNA?
Ain't nothing magical about those proteins.
Can you name one reasonable hypothesis on how the moon got there--any hypothesis that is consistent with all the data? Why aren't students told the scientific reasons for rejecting all the evolutionary theories for the moon's origin?
I see we're back to analyzing the genetic properties of planetary bodies again. I dunno - the moon could be left over from the formation of the solar system, like most moons, or it could be accumulated from debris from a massive impact into Earth early in its existence. It could be a captured moon from elsewhere in the solar system. The processes that made the planets of the solar system - namely, GRAVITY - also made littler planets too, planets that by being just far enough out from the sun, would have found themselves pulled into orbit around planets.
That the moon orbits with one side always facing Earth sorta hints that it wasn't captured, but formed in place from debris already orbiting Earth. Something like an early impact on Earth throwing up a huge amount of debris into orbit, maybe looking something like Saturn's rings but even larger - and over time, this spinning ring would have accumulated into a solid body.
Why won't qualified evolutionists enter into a written, scientific debate ?
It's been tried. Why won't qualified creationists participate in such a debate without eventually resorting to "God works in mysterious ways" when cornered?
Left out the bit about all of Earth's geologic features being explainable by the Flood, because their 77 pages of well-written refutations can be sent running home with one silly heretical question: Where did all the water GO?
Ordinarily I wouldn't waste the bandwidth, since my karma's already at 50, but what the heck.
~ radiographite: art by john shepard
...against scientific creationism does not mean that scientific creationism is, in fact, right.
Note that Caplan (who has said much more interesting things than this: see, for instance, his interview on cloning on the Charlie Rose Show) may not be actually saying as much as some people are assuming he's saying. He specifically states that the Human Genome Project results disprove "scientific creationism," not creationism. Since "scientific creationsim" refers to a specific movement, it is entirely possible they have made statements and predictions which are contradicted by this new evidence. He goes on, however, to imply that the new evidence proves something more broad about creationism in general, which is clearly false.
I believe that the best arguments against scientific creationism are not scientific arguments, but moral and religious arguments. I will offer two below: one theological and one practical.
My theological argument is based on the fact that I believe in a God of truth. If God created the world 4,000 years ago or so, then he created it as if it had existed for billions of years and as if life evolved slowly over time. Thus he is a God of deceit. Since it is more important to me that God be truth than that He created the universe a few thousand years ago, I choose to believe that those who believe the Bible says the universe was created (relatively) recently are wrong. Note that, even if I chose to believe that God was deliberately deceiving me, I would still have to decide whether I should accept that deception as what He wants me to believe.
When I go to the Bible to see what it says, I find that the statements there are vague and contradictory. It is not at all clear that the 7-day creation story is to be taken literally. There are other places where creation appears to take place over a long period of time.
I also note that my belief that God is truth is not unambigously supported in the Bible. While there are several places where "God is truth" is clearly indicated, Jeremiah just as clearly says that he saw God lie to other prophets in order to trick Ahab into an ill-starred battle. The belief on which I found this theological argument is a belief and nothing more. But I think it is preferable to the alternative.
We have seen other times when religious communities believed just as strongly as the creationists that the Bible said things which in the end proved to be untrue. An obvious example was the geocentrism on which many scientists were persecuted during the Copernican revolution and beyond. Today we do not believe that the Bible says the earth is the center of the universe, and it clearly is not. I suspect someday we will see virtually universal agreement that the Bible does not say anything one way or the other about evolution or about Darwinism. And I suspect we will find the current debate as quaint and silly as we now view the torture and excommunication of those who suggested the sun was at the center of our solar system.
This historical perspective leads me to my second argument against scientific creationism: the practical argument.
As a practical matter, it seems like the goal of Christians should be to generally encourage belief in God and to avoid things which discourage belief. I believe this is the central tenet of evangelism, that we should emulate the life of Christ, the Evangelist.
Observing history, it is clear to me that the Copernican revolution did some damage to belief in Western Europe not because Copernicus sought to sow disbelief but because the assumption of the church was that he would. By tying belief to a doctrine which was not in fact clearly indicated by scripture, the church ensured that (when the evidence came in supporting the heliocentric model) the community of Christianity was damaged far beyond what it would have been had it not taken such a dogmatic stand.
It seems to me that, as a practical matter, we Christians have a moral obligation to avoid taking a stand on evolution which will be as damaging to our community as was anti-Copernican dogma.
And it should be made clear this is, in fact, what most Christians believe. The vocal minority of scientific creationists may get the most press. But surveys show that many, if not most, people who believe in God (again a majority) also believe in evolution. Remember that Darwin was trained as a minister and never believed he was attacking the Bible or belief in God.
Indeed, the head of the public effort to decode the human genome, Francis Collins, is very open about his Christianity and his belief that genomics do not in any way threaten God. Here is a quote from him:
Eternal vigilance only works if you look in every direction.
The "theory of evolution" has more proof than the "theory of quantum physics" does. That machine you just used to type in this nonsense on was designed to work assumming the "theory of quantum physics" was true. I can't believe you paid money for it, considering how unlikely in your mind it was that it would work!
However if creationists are religious, they should know that they are violating god's will! It is pretty obvious that god wants us to believe in evolutions.
Think about it: the earth was created with a vast mass of evidence that evolution happened. If everything God does is for a purpose, what is the purpose of this? Obviously God wants us to believe in evolution. Who knows what the punishment is for failing Him and questioning the very things he created? The creationists better watch it, they may be going to hell...
I'm glad we can finally know for sure that Aristotle's earth-centered model was wrong.
Jamie McCarthy
Jamie McCarthy
jamie.mccarthy.vg
Err, no. All science is based on the idea that all scientific theories must be able to be tested, that nothing is provable, only disprovable, and that if a theory is disproved, then it must be modified or abandoned. I'm really paraphrasing here, but that's the gist of it.
When we achieved sentience (and how that happened is wide open to debate), we took control of our own evolution, so to speak.
Confronted with climactic change, other species would migrate to new climes, evolve to cope with the change, or crawl into a corner and die. Not us. We invented the plow, agriculture, and the calendar. That way we knew how to plant, what to plant, and when to do it. And in doing so, we survived and prospered. Rather than evolving our physiology through multiple generations of breeding, we evolved our skill set.
The reason we progressed so quickly is that sentience and intellect are vastly more flexible than selective breeding. Changing your physiology takes hundreds of generations. Changing your mind takes but a moment.
Now that we have completed the Genome Project, it will be interesting to see if we seize ultimate control over our evolution, and risk tweaking our genetic code. Some would say such manipulation is "unnatural." But since we are ourselves creatures of nature, it could be argued that such manipulation is perfectly natural. The creature is evolving by directing selection at itself; the result is that it will either naturally delete itself, or that it will survive and prosper.
The biggest risk from such exploration is our chronic lack of forward-thinking. ("I need water; I'll build a dam here. Oh dear, this standing pool of water I've created is breeding mosquitos and infecting everyone with malaria.") As such, since it is our own lot we wish to improve by such tinkering, I would Modestly Propose that all genetic experimentation take place on live human subjects. This would tend to strongly encourage experimenters to think things through to the necessary degree before undertaking anything.
This also tends to suggest that, at least initially, the safest forms of human genetic tinkering are those which are purely cosmetic in nature (prettier eyes, straighter teeth, etc.). While this may seem trite, which do you think would be the wiser creation on this tiny resource-starved planet: People with rainbow-colored irises, or a normally-breeding uber-human living to 160 years and immune to nearly all disease?
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
We used to think the earth was flat -- We know it's round, now ...
We used to think the universe revolved around us -- We know the world revolves around the sun, which revolves around the center of the galaxy, etc
So... When you really think about it, No we were not Created.
This is a non-sequitor of extreme magnitude.
How does anything you said have anything to do with your conclusion? All you said was "we used to think something, but oops, we were wrong." What exactly does that prove? That stuff we think now might turn up to be wrong? No kidding.
How, pray tell, does the roundness of the earth have anything to do with whether it, or us, were Created?
I'm not going to bother with a long disclaimer about what I particularly believe, but it isn't strict 6000-year creationism. Not that you did anything to make me that way.
By the way, the word you are looking for is "bigot". And remember, it's not only someone else who is the bigot when they don't listen to you. It's a two way street, and it annoys the piss out of me when someone with the current "in" belief system calls anyone who disagrees with them a bigot.
The enemies of Democracy are
Yeah, and this annoys me somewhat. You will never be able to get these people to see your point of view.
They have faith in God, and thats all they need. The fact that the rest of us thinks its silly at best, and ludicrous at worst seems inconsequential to them.
Please distinguish between the "Bible-thumping zealots" and people who actually practice the tenets of Christianity while at the same time taking a reasonable viewpoint. By "reasonable" I do not mean "scientifically mainstream", however. The fact that living things change over time is quite plainly true. The fact that all DNA is constructed from the same basic building blocks is also true. The revelation that a fraction of the former estimates for human DNA are actually relevant is interesting, but ultimately it doesn't prove anything along the lines of "we are descended from bacteria". The fact that we may have genetic sequences in common with bacteria is not in itself proof; we're also composed in part from minerals like iron, and I see nobody suggesting that human beings evolved from rock. Shared components do not in and of themselves prove ancestry.
Nothing worth doing is worth doing today.
Christianity is a mighty fine death religion.
Which is ironic, because I'm pretty sure that there are several things that are undoubtedly true about Christ's goals during his later years:
- to reform the Jewish religion (not abolish it, and not to create a new religion).
- to get people to be nice to each other (not to punish each other with threats of damnation).
- to get people to worship god (not to worship his own self).
Instead, what happened is that his reforms were hijacked by Paul, who founded a new religion based on the worship of the dead man, and got really self-righteous about being mean to people.
I'm pretty sure "Christianity" is the antithesis of what Christ wanted.
Feel free to counterargue this, but please don't resort to flaming me on a personal level. That ain't nice, and it certainly ain't Christian. (If you're not Christian, and you do flame me, please explain why!)
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Nah, I don't believe that the essay is correct.
I'm pretty sure the Jesus story is constructed of wholecloth. I figure there was a fellow running around about 2000 years ago who tried to implement reform in the Jewish church, and was killed for it.
And I figure the story has been embellished to the point of myth. Which is where the essay you refer to does quite well: it points out a bunch of myths that were used to embellish the Christ story.
And in the end, I'm believe that Christianity is not at all what the original reformist agitator had intended to accomplish.
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If DNA is god's signature, then all we need is his credit card number. And behold, let there be sixteen-way xeon systems! And the users did rejoice, and did feast upon the CPU cycles.
Your missing the point entirely.
Faith is belief *without* any evidence at all. This is nearly the same meaning as the word "irrational".
Science demands evidence before stating something. Unless you're using a different dictionary than the rest of humanity, accepting something *with* evidence cannot by any stretch of the language be called faith.
It's very simple. If I am not being clear, please consult your nearest dictionary.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Evolution is NOT a theory.
Evolution is a fact. All life is evolved from other life forms. That much was obvious even in the 1800's.
The debate in scientific circles is how this evolution happened. Did animals evolve through process A, or process B? Those theories are confirmed or falsified all the time.
Hope this clears things up for you.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Scott played Bryan. He's the one who had his faith shaken and he died in the courtroom. I know that in the real trial, Darrow (the lawyer) ripped Bryan's testimony up, and the Judge had to stop the line of questioning. I don't know if Bryan actually collapsed in the courtroom though.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
You and the other person who replied to me are completely misunderstanding me.
:-)
Evolution is a fact. Species change from one form to another over time. Speciation has been observed at least twice, both in the laboratory and in the wild. No one disputes that evolution occurs.
There is a theory about how evolution occurs: It is called "The Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection". That theory has a great deal of support. There is another theory out there. It is called "The Theory of Evolution through Acquired Characteristics." Otherwise known as Lamarkian Evolution. Lamarkian evolution does NOT have any support at all, and the theory is not favored by anybody now.
Get it?
1) Evolution is an observed fact.
2) Scientists have come up with theories to explain the fact of evolution.
3) The Theory of Evolution through Natural Selection is the currently supported theory.
4) The Theory of Evolution through Acquired Characterists is not favored anymore.
5) Both theories described evolution. Both theories were about the fact that species change over time. One theory proved useful, one did not.
I hope that was more clear this time. As you can see, I am right.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Pretty good summary, but you are missing some up to date information. Everything started with a Big Bang Actually, many people are now thinking that everything starting with a big expansion. There is no singularity. See supersymmetry and string/M theory. Spontaneous formation The SanteFe institute is doing some wonderful research on complex systems and organization. They have a number of theories and experiements which show how this can happen in a straightforward manner. Autocatalytic sets are the main interest here. magine an explosion. Stuff goes in all directions, approx. the same speed. Because in case of Big Bang, there's nothing to hit, the matter would fly in all directions forever, without hitting anything and without stopping, without forming anything. To particles cannot collide if they have the same speed. A nice thought, but your mising the effects of quantum mechanics, relativity, and forces in general. We do these types of tests all the time in particle accelerators and they show how all sorts of odd things happen when subatomic particles interact. Once you have atoms, gravity and chemistry / fusion kick into play. Generation of more complex chemical compounds. Not proven. Generation of amino-acids from the elements in primordial soup is chemically impossible. Nope, they have made amino acids in recreated environments similar to the primordial soup. However, the more recent more accepted theory is that these complex chemical seeds cam from space. They have found complex organic molecules, including amino acids, in space. They do and can form in a wide variety of places. Abiogenesis True, but there is very attractive research on this as well. See the autocatalytic sets above. Also, there are a number of simple aminoacid type chemicals when combined form a structure amazingly similar to a cell membrane. But i digress... Macroevolution(development of more complex organisms from simpler ones): sorry, not proven. First, there are no 'intermediate' forms found. Every single one is complete and functional. Darwinism states that evolution is a gradual process, taking millions of years. Hence, almost 100% of fossils should be intermediate forms, with clear links. The links are missing. There is a growing body of evidence that evolution is *not* a linear process, but has distinct jumps from organism to organism, feature to feature. Similar to the way quantum of energy is not a continuum, but a finite jump. This has to do with autocatalytic sets, so see those again. Also, the process would be similar to various adaptations occuring in stealth mode in an orgism, until a critical mass is reached, and the trait spontaneouly minifests. The details are many and very interesting, so I would encourage you to check them out.
Is how I find the article. Whether or not you believe in evolution, it seems quite unacceptable to me for a scientist/journalist to make bold and provacative claims about how the now-completely-mapped human genetic code proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that his religion is the right one after all (I say this because the article seems to make clear to me that evolution is his religion), and then not explain it with one shred of evidence!
Gee, I'm glad your religion does not ever make such profound assumptions!
I get offended when religious fanatics attempt to remove evltion from school curriculmn entirely. I get a bit miffed when they call all scientific reasearch, evidence, and effort into learning our ourigins complete and utter fiction with no justification.
Perhaps you need to take a look in the mirror and see the kind of prejudices you hold against any type of scientific evidience that does not agree with your assumptions.
but you can't prove that God doesn't exist to those who have experienced Him.
Which god are you referring to? There are thousands of thousands of religions with all sorts of gods.
As long as you dont mean to imply that only your god of your religion is true, then I dont have any beef with your self induced relationship with this psuedo-being.
I get really annoyed at people in any religion saying theirs is the only one thats true! Surprise! Everyone thinks their religion is true. But that doesn't make any of them right.
God is not a programmer, he is a comedian.
Enjoy the humor that is the human condition.
I see no proof in this article. All I see is a report about some scientist claiming to have found the truth.
That's right. The proof is not in the article, it would take far to long to explain it all. Read the research. See how common genes have travelled the various paths among organisms and the stepwise refinement introduced in species.
If you want to learn the truth you have to look for it! Scientific understandinf does not come through prayer (like faith).
But the only scientific evidence he has is that some bacteria DNA is found.
Whoah, where did you pull that out of? Have you not been paying attention to the human genome project? We have a ton of genes sequenced for a ton of species. This is not all based on a single bacterium!
Get educated man!
This article is not the proof, it is about the proof, which is from a large volume of genetic information from the humand genome, and many many other species, including the lowly bacteria, which comprise a complete tapestry of evoltionary history among a large group of species.
Before dismissing things offhand because they challenge your faith, try reading the deatils, and actually checking out the research refered to in the article. There is a surprising amount of work that has been done which most people overlook.
Perhaps because it is far easier to pray and have faith in god, than it is to work and toil with intellectually chalenging conecepts to understand the mysteries of life.
You absolutely, possitively (in science) CANNOT get something from nothing.
Apparently you have not heard of quantum mechanics. We get a ton of matter created and destroyed at random for nothing. Go look up hawking radiation for starters...
No, but the source of hawking radiation is the fact that matter and anti-matter spontaneously form for no reason, and at random all the time. Like magic.
I BELIEVE that God created everything.
Do you beleive this because you want to, or because of cold hard evidence presented to you?
Evidence for evolution: 122,345,566 pieces of evidence.
Evidence for creationism, aka GOD: 1 billion people attesting their faith.
Hmmm.. which one seems more logical. A large cult of fanatics? Or maybe reprodcuble, logical scientific fat... Hard choice!
Sorry, the Pope hasn't advocated biblical creationism ever. The Roman Catholic Church has embraced evolution from very early on.
m l
http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~newman/sci-faith.ht
Read all about it.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
"Evolution as a concept like logic and math" is an analogue to "the 'glass onion theory of the universe' as a concept like logic and math" or "the 'Genesis account of creation' as a concept like logic or math" basically invites a Kuhnian paradigm shift -- because we see the world through a given paradigm, we are forced to interpret everything we see as fitting in to that paradigm, rendering all our theories useless when that paradigm is supplanted.
If we really wanted to get into the Philosophy of Science on this debate (which, I believe, is valuable), we ought to break out the underdeterminists. :-)
I still maintain that the evolutionists who choose to debate the "scientific creationists" not only sink to the creationists' level, but below -- the creationists *never* go ad hominem....
My point remains that speciation via natural selection is not observable and not falsifiable. Furthermore, I still maintain that evolutionists, rather than acknowledge their intellectually and scientifically shaky ground, resort to the same sort of mindless dogmatism, irrationality, and name-calling that they accuse the creationists of. Those who claim that science is borne of observation need to recall that the Greek pantheon of deities was borne of observation, as well (cf. Hesiod).
In any case, it's not every day that I get the honor of a rebuttal from a legend. :-)
The real reason why evolution is not science, though, is visible in the last paragraph of your reply -- one can replace "speciation" and its relatives with "correct predictions" and its ilk; and "evolution" with "astrology", and the last paragraph will be just as sensical as it is now.
Theories predict a "why". Evolutionists merely have a "what" -- and their "what" depends on their perceptions, which are heavily influenced by their unfalsifiable "why" -- their "what" may or may not even be correct. I sense that publishing a paper against the fossil record would have similar consequences for a modern scientist as Copernicus' rejection of Ptolemaic astronomy had for many before Copernicus.
Read Popper; also read Carl Hempel's _Philosophy of Natural Science_.
Some kinds of astrology cannot be falsified scientifically, and neither can evolution. As a result, either theory is science. Falsifiability is what we are concerned with, not truth or falsity. A false theory can still be a scientific theory, but a non-falsifiable theory is pseudoscience.
Since natural selection is a theory about why the world came to seem to a believer in natural selection as it does, it is not falsifiable, unless we can observe the entire process by which the world came to be that way. Falsifying the believer's perception of the world is irrelevant to falsifying the hypothesis, since another, equally non-scientific hypothesis could be proposed about the newly-accepted state of the world.
The point is not that evolution is wrong, only that evolution is not scientific, and that to believe in evolution is as irrational as to believe in any other theory of first causes.
I strongly suggest you read some philosophy of science before continuing in this discussion.
I will say that evolution is one of the better explanations we have today, but phlogiston was once the best explanation we had for combustion. Evolution is not falsifiable -- even if it were, no amount of science can disprove a mystical, revealed truth.
I guess I could also bring Nietzsche and Wittgenstein's views of "science as a religion, flawed like all the others" into the fray, but I fear I will catch enough heat for this.
It will be interesting to see how unique human
DNA is. The next "highest" animals fully sequenced
have been a a worm and a fly.
The lab mouse DNA should be published later this year
and will make and interesting comparison.
At the time of Darwin and Huxley there
were no known fossils between apes and humans.
However, now there are dozens of hominoid
supspecies going back continuously for six
million years.
In fact there are too many "missing links".
The issue is sorting out likely ancestors versus
side branches.
Science is perpetual doubting,
sorting out what is supported and what isn't.
Scientific theories have changed considerably
during my lifetime and will continue,
yet that is the way I choose to "know" things.
Just in the last month, the genome theory made
considerable adjustments. First, humans have
a smallish number of genes, a quarter of previously
believed. Second, we may not be able to discover
all the genes due to their complexity. There are
introna and exons, poly-expression of several to thousands
of different proteins per gene.
I would not doubt if ideas change significantly again in a few years.
Umm no, its actually a theory. Thats why they call it the Theory of Evolution.
It has not been proven and mostlikely will never be proven. I believe its true as well as most of the other free thinkers in this world. This does not mean its fact.
No matter what side of the issue you're on, this article offered nothing to decide the matter. It didn't even look like it was trying to convince a non-believer, just a bluff to try to sound superior to "those who thump their bibles." (I just did a Google search on Caplan, it seems like that's his standard level of dialogue when he's censoring or chastizing a Christian point of view.) Why would a neutral person think that mapping the human genome decides the matter definitively? If it does, Caplan didn't even come close to showing that. And this clown actually gets paid to teach students?
Cheers,
and of course many believe this and almost nobody has a problem with it. But make no mistake - there's a very vocal sect which insists on a literal 6 days, and demands it be taught in public schools.
Vidi, Vici, Veni
I just can't read that without being reminded of Dr. Beverly Crusher's amazing leap of logic: "If there's nothing wrong with me, there must be something wrong with the universe."
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- A, B, and C have a sequence of introns that are similar to each other, but A's sequence is more like B's than like C's.
- A and B live on the same island, far away from C.
- The habitat for A is more like C's than like B's.
- A's anatomy is more like C's than like B's.
An evolutionary biologist can explain this constellation of facts very simply: A and B have a common ancestor-species that became geographically separated from C's ancestor-species, and "convergent evolution" led A and C to develop similar forms to solve similar problems in their respective habitats.How would a "scientific creationist" explain why the arrangement of introns corresponds more closely with the species' geography than with their morphology? (Before you say that A and B have an ancestor-"kind" that walked out of Noah's Ark after the Flood, read the Problems With a Global Flood FAQ.)
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Of course, you could argue that an Intelligent Designer created all these species in an apparently jury-rigged fashion for a different purpose, but what is that purpose?
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You can just as easily apply this answer to the previous question, namely that the universe or a metauniverse which in some sense contains our universe has always existed. No God required.
Absolutely!
Then you get a God that does stuff with purpose and intent versus a metauniverse with some 'physics' that generates universes. Of course these can be bound to equivalence as well, so we could in effect say our religion is a theory of the physics of the metauniverse.
I don't see how these can be made equivalent. My point is that the existence of a metauniverse is a possibility we can't logically ignore, and if it did exist, would have consequences for some of the questions we have about our universe. Of course, we can't currently prove the existence of a metauniverse.
But a metauniverse that took sentient action in our universe, for example parting the Red Sea for Moses, is impossible to explain by any normal model of physics.
But I agree, there's no reason that Judeo-Christianity should reject the idea of metauniverses out of hand, unless they wish to continue arguing an anthropocentric point of view which might suggest that there can be only one universe, the one which contains us.
Well, I guess we're arguing about the likely or possible properties of a metauniverse. My point is simply that it's possible to logically distinguish between "simple" metauniverses, which merely exist as a substrate of some kind on/in which universes form (and may always have existed); and more complex metaverses, which might be indistinguishable from a God. Occam's Razor, while not exactly a natural law, would fall on the side of simpler metaverses.
Actually, 'normal' physics even has a window to bind through via quantum probabilities. Spooky action at a distance and omni-presence are not really that far apart without more evidence.
But the difference is sentience. Even assuming we don't find good explanations for spooky action at a distance, as far as we know it happens the same way every time, so we can assume there's some physical law we don't understand. But an active omni-presence that makes changes as "it" sees fit - perhaps depending on which humans are praying and what they're praying about - requires a major departure from what we understand as science or physics, and basically requires a conversion to the standard kiss-God's-ass mentality of the religious.
The latter view requires more evidence, in this universe, to be able to accept it from a scientific point of view. So my position is that a non-Godlike metaverse is possible, and not contraindicated by the evidence, whereas there's no evidentiary support (scientifically speaking) for a God-like metaverse.
Fun argument though, thanks!
It came from natural processes which followed physical laws: the coalescing of a gas cloud which was the remnant of earlier stellar explosions and thus contained sufficient heavy elements to form planets.
The point is this: that the existence of a big bang, which from our perspective "created" the universe, doesn't necessarily mean that the universe was created in the sense that we intuitively tend to think of. As such, the apparent appearance of "the beginning of time" doesn't necessarily raise the question of what went before.
There's always going to be a fundamental issue here which may never be resolved: at some level, we reach a point where no amount of observation, testing, or theorizing is going to yield any further information. At that point, all we can do is speculate about what lies beyond, as has been happening in this thread. However, simply because we don't have sufficient information to explain something, doesn't require the invention of an omnipotent being capable of explaining anything. As I've said elsewhere, that's a huge cop-out, logically speaking.
but we basicly agree and are now simply negotiating definitions of different sample points among the possiblity space.
Well, yeah, except one end of that possibility space includes "God", but to get to that part of the space requires as high an evidentiary standard as any other postulate. Scientifically, we need repeatable experiments (or even experiments that should be repeatable, but aren't) or consistent mathematical/theoretical proposals to give some support for the existence of a God-like entity, whether conceived of as a metauniverse or not.
My wording "'not contraindicated' and 'no evidentiary support'" was poorly chosen, so I'll rephrase it: all the existing evidence points to is that it is possible that there may exist something beyond the 4-dimensional universe we perceive. In other words, the evidence suggests that a valid answer may lie in the possibility space we're talking about. However, since we currently have no way of further refining this postulate, we can only speculate about it.
Making claims about its properties that go beyond what we have direct evidence for isn't logical or scientific. All we can really say about its properties is that it would need to have spatial characteristics that dimensionally go beyond the 4D spacetime we're familiar with it. We can then propose mathematical models that seem consistent in order to describe the possibilities, and there are quite a few of these, although we have no certain way of choosing between them. But attributing sentience to it just seems to have no basis, and not even any relevance unless we have evidence to support it.
This brief summary describes Hawking & Hartle's proposal for a no-boundary universe, in which the issue of what happened before the big bang is taken care of with some neat mathematics. The bottom line is that the progression of time from the big bang as a "beginning" is just something we perceive from within the universe - looked at from an appropriate conceptual/mathematical perspective, there's no problem.
In this model, what happened before the big bang is a little analogous to the problem of "where does all the water go that falls off the edge of the horizon?" was when we believed the earth was flat. The imagined problem disappeared once we comprehended the larger structure.
That's a very, well, Catholic point of view. Christianity does not offer one the freedom to choose to interpret a section of the Bible as "folklore." In Christianity, bible == word of god == truth. So, unfortunately, I don't see a good way for true, fundamental Christianity and Evolution to co-exist that peacefully.
You, sir, have a very narrow view of Christianity. Catholics *are* Christians.
Evolution and Christianity are not incompatible. Evolution and your type of Biblical Inerrantism are.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
There are a great many traditions and organizations that fall under the generic label "Christian". These groups disagree on many points of doctrine, but they all lay claim the the Bible and to represent the faith of the original disciples.
Christians do not always fall into such neat categories such as Catholic and Protetant. Roman Catholics are the largest such group in the world. There are various national churches that could be described as Orthodox -- Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Coptic, etc. There is an international communion of Anglican Churches that trace their tradition to the established Church of England. Among "Protestants" there are Lutherans, various forms of Calvinism such as Presbyterianism, Baptists and the Reformed churches. In the US, there are a large number of non-denominational churches which may or may not have national organizations.
Some of these groups have a very literal approach to the Bible, but not all do. Anglicanism, for example, allows a certain amount of freedom in doctrine and does not confine its members to specific dogma.
Your roommate sounds like an Evangelical Protestant.
I am an Anglican. I don't use the King James Version because, while it was originally trnaslated by the Church of England, its language is so archaic as to obscure the meaning of the text to modern readers. I accept Evolution and all Scientific theories for what they are -- explanations of observable and verifiable phenenoma. So it's clear, from my point of view, that one can be Christian while not rejecting reason and the things that we observe in the Universe.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
Dateline Vatican City(11:46 am) Pope-"Damn; What Were We Thinking"
In response to irrefutable proof that Darwinian evolution, not Creation, led to the existance of human life on planet Earth, Pope John Paul II is apparently looking for something else to do with his time. The Pope was reportedly "shocked and depressed" by the unimpeachable proof that Creation never really happened. The pontiff was quoted saying "Damn. So that Darwin guy that has been giving us trouble for all these years was right, huh? Wow. What were we thinking. Oh well. I guess we don't need a church now or anything. Time to look for new employment." John Paul plans to post a resume to popular job-hunting site Monster.com within the week.
The Pope is the spiritual leader of the so-called Catholic church, one of the world's leading organizations dedicated to spewing outdated, patently false beliefs.
--jwriney
PBLCs (PBLC) have there beliefs and will stick to them. We could find ETs and they would come up with a way to relate it to Genesis.
Since I link to the PBLC node above, let me also throw in a plug for an anti-literal world view Things creationists hate.
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Alas, when the author claims that "Our genes show that scientific creationism cannot be true", he grossly underestimates the ability of "scientific" creationists to ignore facts that conflict with (their interpretation of) divine revelation.
If you ever decide you want a quick synopsis of the creationist mode of thought, drop over to talk.origins and look a the asinine arguments and lame rhetorical tricks that creation advocates use over and over again, ever failing to address the actual evidence that is brought up to refute their claims.
You can also find out a lot about creationists and evolution by reading some of the FAQs at talkorigins.org.
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
And the easter egg is a pop-up that says
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I agree. It's a standard practice of "scienticians" to jump the gun and apply findings way beyond what logical conclusions can be drawn. For example, here's one argument:
1) Fundamentalist Christians believe the universe was created in 7 days.
2) Science proves it is more like 10 billion years.
3) Therefore, God doesn't exist.
They take jumps such as those that are just as laughable as they call us Christians. Now, I'm not a "fundamentalist", and believe science is the pursuit of examining the miracle of God's creation. If we share 90% of the DNA of all other living beings, that proves that we share 90% of the DNA of other living beings, NOTHING else!
Why make such an illogical jump to "prove Darwin" or whatever that means?
There are many different views Christians have on Creation. Some, in fact, believe in what is called "evolutionary creation". These "findings" certainly don't disprove Creation, because creation is about the "why", not the "how".
-Mike
--- witty signature
Science asks: How ???
Religion asks: Why ???
And now, I'll sit back, and await the flames from both the pure-science fanatics and the pure-religion fanatics. . .
Everything is not based on faith... Take my word for it.
"It's overkill, of course. But you can never have too much overkill." - Anonymous Slashdot Coward
So if you're not a creationist, and you don't believe in evolution, just out of curiosity, what do you believe?
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really doesn't prove that whoever wrote the bible knew the earth was spherical. In fact, if this translation is to be believed, they thought it was flat -- just like a circle. There are some who argue that the hebrew word used can also be translated as sphere, though it seems clear by the imagery used that a circle is meant -- if a sphere were meant they probably wouldn't have referred to the heavens as being spread out like a tent.
At any rate, there are plenty of other passages that clearly imply that the writer(s) of the bible believed the earth was flat. Check out Daniel 4:10-11:
and Matthew 4:8:
In order for a tree to be visible "to the extremity of the whole earth" in the first passage, or to be able to see "all the kingdoms of the world" in the second, the world would have to be flat.
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
To play Devil's Advocate:
I took a Darwin class in college and debated the issue Darwin VS God, where I interviewed a Catholic priest as a primary source, as well, as read through some Church documents. From what I gathered and remember, the Church states, God began the process of creating humans (The presence of a soul in humans separates man/woman from animals). In other words, he didn't say "Hocus Pocus, I am going to pull Adam and Eve from my magical hat." The "process of creation" could be something quite similar to Darwin's evolution theory. The Biblical tale of Adam and Eve should be interpreted as "folklore". So this story doesn't fully address nor fulfill "Creation vs. Evolution" debate in the present day. God and Darwin can be both correct.
-- ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space!
The problem with this is that there's a difference between evolution and adaption. There is a hell of a lot of evidence for adaption out there, and I've known Jehovah's Witnesses, for example, who have acknowledged adaption as fact.
Evolution, on the other hand, involves one species becoming a totally different species. Because of the time frames involved, it's extremely difficult to find examples. Yes, it's just an extension of the same principle, but it's certainly not evidence of evolution.
The other point of note, and something that's bound to come up in centuries to come, is that most of these group argue that we didn't eveolve, not that it's not possible for us to evolve.
Once you get to that stage, given that the only evidence we have of pre-historic life is in fossil or similar form, it becomes pretty much impossible to argue your point.
Noims.
This is not the greatest sig in the world. This is just a tribute.
Speaking as someone who was raised in a very bible-oriented "Christian" home, I can say this won't change any minds.
Yes, this may be a more impressive "proof" than the fossil record. But it still doesn't stand up to the unwavering faith these people have in their bibles.
The belief that their god created everything as part of his master plan doesn't really depend on implementation. Why are our genes the wacky way they are? Well, for the same reason dinosaurs walked the earth for so long only to die out -- because their god wanted it that way, and made it that way.
There isn't a fact out there that can challenge their beliefs. That's the whole point of faith, isn't it?
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You seem to be misusing Occam's Razor.
Now, I'm not going to go into the wider argument here. Hoever, you seem to place rather more faith in Occam's Razor than it warrants.
It is a way of establishing _probability_, not _truth_. It's also very definitely limited, as with any information system, in that it can't help you get a complete answer if you don't have all the data.
We may see this way that the Darwin-based theory is more probable (note the distinction - few modern evolutionary scientists would accept Darwin as true now, the game has moved on) - but that's all we have. We can't say it's definitely right.
We can all think of instances in our lives where something has happened for a monumentally improbable reason. That doesn't mean they didn't happen the way they did...
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
I mean, God could have been one half-assed programmer.
--
Bush's assertion: there ought to be limits to freedom
They aren't really in competition: science relies on the repeatable experiment as its' basis, and religion relies on articles of faith as its' basis. It's not that they're incompatible, it's that they're asking totally different questions.
Scientists say that life evolved slowly over billions of years. Christian Fundamentalists say that living things were created whole, in a week, some 6000 years ago. (Yes, that means they deny the existence of dinosaurs, too.) I'd call that incompatible.
Cheers,
IT
Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.
All the DNA evidence in the world can't disprove "scientific creationism." In fact, nothing can disprove scientific creationism. It's unfalsifiable, and therefore there's nothing "scientific" about it. A creationist could simply say that God chose to create us with DNA containing similar components from other living things. And who are we to question His choice? Maybe these virtually identical strands of DNA are God's creative signature -- his way of demonstrating that all life is connected to its Creator. I don't believe it, but hey, you can't disprove it.
Cheers,
IT
Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.
Account for my English it's my second language. Don't pick on words.
Some background:
First, I think we all agree that solid science relies on facts (or, emperical data) and comes up with a plausible hypothesis to try to explain their relationships (like, cause and effect, interdependence etc) and once the hypothesis is shown to predict relyably the outcome of a certain process, the law is stated with a theory to support it (that is, a 'law' simply states how things shoud work - 'unsupported body falls until it meets the ground' and a 'theory' explains the mechanism). So, we have the distinction between 'facts', 'hypothesis', 'law' and 'theory' layed out here.
Clear minded science, obviously, should look at evidence first and form a theory basing on that.
'Facts', in turn, is something which can be observed and repeated.
So, on to the topic: here's how the evolution theory roughly goes:
Correct me if I'm wrong on this outline (well that was a rough one anyway).
An interesting observation: there is no factual prove of any of these steps having taken place . (the obligatory disclaimer: read before you flame).
Well here were few suspicions about the theory of evolution which so many hold as fact today. I tried to show that every step is taken on faith and is not proven scientifically (e.g. with facts) but instead explained away with more theories or ignored.
The suggestion is to rather have no theory at all than a lousy one, which is based solely on naturalistic world view of most of scientific community and s.c. 'public'. The fact that 'we are here after all' does not prove evolution yet.
I invite discussion.
__________________________________________
God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ --1Thes5:9
Man: God, what is a million years to you?
God: It is like a second.
Man: God, what is a million dollars to you?
God: It is like a penny.
Man: God, can I have a penny?
God: Sure, in a second.
--
+&x
A creationist could simply say that God chose to create us with DNA containing similar components from other living things.
Right. If God wants to make our DNA look like monkeys, there's nothing to stop him. If God wants to plant dinosaur fossils even if they never existed, then that's within the power of the concept of God. If God controls reality, physics, etc.. then any attempts to prove anything while residing in that framework are futile. Theres nothing to suggest that God didn't use the process of evolution to create Man, working at whatever speed he likes.
The analogy I like to use is that of root and an unprivileged user. Any attempts by a normal user to draw a conclusion about root by reading the logs are doomed to failure. Root can modify the logs.
There is no other way to explain the jerry-rigged nature of the genes that control key aspects of our development.
Scientific Creationism: The belief that a powerful being created the universe, the Earth and mankind through natural forces.
Evolution: A natural force for creating 'higher' beings from 'lower' beings.
How is anything proved/disproved here? This doesn't even proved Fundamentalist wrong. If a great power conciously created the world with dinosaur bones in the ground in such a way that they appear to be millions of years old, what to stop 'it' from funging some genetic data? At most, you can say that this is indirect data supporting the conclusion that mankind is a product of evolution (which is the only type of data we'll ever get until someone discovers time travel, BTW).
OTOH, don't argue with anyone who needs more evidence than what currently exist that evolution is the best explanation for why the Earth's biosphere is in its current condition. It's just not worth the pain and frustration.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
As evolutionary theory itself makes an enormous number of claims that are neither testable of falsifiable, I believe your argument fails.
s .htm, plus many more. The truth may not be so clear-cut as you think...
Too many people are too quick to dismiss one side or the other on the basis of "religion".
The fact is that this entire area of inquiry is full of VERY hard qustions, and there are extremely valid SCIENTIFIC reasons to doubt much of what passes for evolutionary gospel in today's scintific circles.
I recommend a few of the following articles from uber-hacker Do-While Jones' excellent web site, if you're open-minded enough to really analyze the facts as we see them presented in the real world:
Problems with the Origin of Mammals
Radioactive Dating Methods (PartI, Radiocarbon) This series explains the fallacies that underlie several dating methods, including several quite possibly invalid assumptions that are "taken on faith" by the evolutionist scientists.)
Radioactive Dating Methods, (Part II, Potassium-Argon, Rubidium-Strontium, and Isochron methods, with similar observations to above about the underlying assumptions.
A great expose about the bias that permeates evolutionary thinking and the genuinely bad science that has resulted, and is now accepted as in the evolutionary truth. This is a shocker for those of you that think science is squarely on te side of evolution.
All of these articles can be found at the index to Do-While Jones' excellent web archive of his scienceagainstevolution.org newsletter, Disclosure (see sig below, or http://www.scienceagainstevolution.org/newsletter
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
In a nutshell, this proves the existence of God. The very act of presupposing these axioms to be true implies the existence of objective truth.
We've got hundreds of very good (or at least, logical) philosophers over the past two hundred years that have shown that if objective truth exists, then God must exist. Since they reject the notion of God, they then (corretly from a logical point of view) work backwards to prove that there is no objective truth, resulting a the slew of postmodernist humanist philosophies that fly in the face of common sense and observed reality. But they DO manage to deny the existence of God...
An easy (but certainly oversimplistic) example of this might be Douglas Jones' now-moderately-famous article about how the assumption of a Christian worldview is implicit in something as simple and innocuous as going to the store and buying milk.
There are *always* underlying assumptions - scientists that deny this are fooling themselves, and philosophers have acknowledged this to be true for thousands of years, so to claim otherwise is simply ignorance...
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
Thad
The Bolachek Journals
They sort of have, I remember seeing it on a nature program some time ago. Not completely, obviously, but our closest relatives are closer to us than you might imagine. The statistical percentage of correlation isn't just high, it was staggeringly close, above 99.99%.
Of course, as the article pointed out, we aren't that far from shrubs either. So maybe that's not a great measuring stick anyway. Using DNA shifts I mean.
The reason my be a lot of DNA is left in there and "shut off" using "switches" in the helix. So there is the code to make you an successful jellyfish species, but it's just included, not actually used, like functions that are never called, only defined.
To your point: When you say rapid, I say check again. Truth is... we didn't evolve that much. We just got a few really good tricks in release Ape 1.01 with patches, the basic design was finished long ago.
I'll concede, the extra features are great, but actual DNA change wise? Not much. It's my understanding you're dealing with a single eight character line of code in Win 2K for our closest relative ( an ape, but I forget which species ). But I'm not an expert in the field.
And it's also my understanding that more than a few lines and you'd be a camel, or possibly a lumpfish. Go figure.
The story, I'm afraid, was completely useless. "This proves evolution!" they say. "These discoveries are the end of the argument!" they trumpet. But the story doesn't really explain HOW this result marks the end of creationism. Anyone seen a good scientific paper on this yet, or must we wait until they get published? Before alienating millions of fundamentalist Christians, it'd be nice to have the facts....
This is known as punctuated equilibrium. The idea is that unless some major environmental change happens, speciation never occurs. This wonderful theory makes evolution impossible to disprove, much like most religious beliefs.
We can't observe speciation occuring? That just means that we aren't in a critical point in evolution. Until we observe speciation it is unproven. It's funny how religion is criticized for being a belief in something unproven, unobserved, and defiantly undisprovable and evolution is not.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Um, no. "Evolution" means that the genetic makeup of a population changes over time. This is a fact as much as gravity is a fact.
That's adaptation. Darwinian evolution was a theory that attempted to explain the source of different species as being based on natural selection of random variations. The key here is that adaptation must be inherited and must lead to new species.
So far, we've seen inherited adapation, but we have not seen any fundamentally new species occur. At the scale of simple asexual creatures, it is difficult to define whether or not a variation is a new species of not. However, in sexually reproducing creatures, you can define the species line as whether or not two creatures can breed a non-sterile child. For example, lions and tigers can breed, but the child will be sterile.
We have seen extreme variation within a single species, such as the domesticated dog. However, all breeds of dog can be cross-bred. (Some crosses will have extreme difficulty surviving in the womb due to size differences, but they are not impossible.) We have not, however, seen evidence of new, incompatible species being created. Domestic and wild turkeys can still breed. This is what we have not observed, the creation of a new species.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Oh, but in many ways it is a religious belief.
The very fact that we share proteins and cellular structures in common with bacteria dictates that we must share genes in common with them. We've long known, for example, that mouse biochemistry is very similar to our own. Logically, we must share a great majority of genes with them. That the tools used to make similar structures are similar in no way denies divine creation of these things.
We have long known that we would share much in common with other creatures. I don't think any scientific creationist has ever denied this. Why should God use more complex tools to create life when so much of it is reusable? Perhaps as a software developer, I see the inherent need for reuse of code whenever possible that others might not. All this shows is that evolution would have had to do less work to get to the point that complex life has gotten to. It is in no way the smoking gun that proves the theory.
Let us remember what so many in the scientific establishment attempt to deny: evolution is nothing but a theory. It is a good one, and it is the only one that makes sense if you posit the lack of existance of a creating force. However the fanatical willingness to overlook flaws in the model is just as much a matter of religious (atheist) dogma as some of the twisted logic of some of its opponents.
The problem comes when one puts their faith in the belief that there is no God. Rather than accept the possibility that they are wrong and respect the beliefs of others, dedicated evolutionists will attempt to push their doctrine as fact, much as this author has done.
In truth, these people will hold their doctrine of evolution to less standards of proof than they would hold a religious man's beliefs. Though as religious man is treated a fool for believing in a being that he has never observed, evolution, which has never been observed, is not treated as rigorously. In fact, when confronted with gaps in the fossil records, evolutionists countered with the puncuated equilibrium theory. This theory holds that the reason for the gaps is that evolution suddenly happens across all species for a short period of time and then stops for millions of years. Brilliant! Now, if we cannot observe evolution it is not disproven because it may never happen in our lifetimes, or, indeed, in the lifetime of all of human civilization.
This gleeful "slam dunk" article that revels in taunting an evolutionist philosophical rivals is one of the worst examples of athiest zealotry that I've seen. In his rush to say, "I told you so," the author misses the simple fact that a divine creator could've used common tools in the creation of life just as easily as random luck. This is no proof, and this antagonistic little chestbeating is not worthy to be called news. Until we can see evolution definitively happen in a higher life form, we cannot accept the theory of evolution as proven no matter what other incidental evidence encourages support of the theory.
(Incidentally, I'm a theistic evolutionist. I believe very strongly that evolution is true, but that it was guided by a divine plan. However, as someone who does not assume that there is no God, I have no turned a blind eye to flaws in evolutionist doctine. I believe that they will be plugged one day, but I am not willing to outright dismiss the idea that evolution is the only possibility.)
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
The point is that basic logic can show us that some of the evolutionary leaps required cannot take place unless many, many components change at the exact instant.
The only people to claim that evolution makes "leaps" are creationists. Punctuated equilibrium is about as close as we get to "leaps", and even then it's a matter of things happening relatively fast - on the evolutionary timescale of millions of years.
The major factors that creationists overlook to support this argument are:
1) The component features of our body CO-EVOLVE to become interdependent
2) Fully developed body structures get co-opted for alternate purposes under changing environmental conditions (e.g. gills turning into ears), whales evolving to leave the water, then go back in.
The typical creationist argument is something simplistic like saying what good are wings without feathers or vice versa, when the many possible answers to such questions are obvious, and in some cases the fossil record is even complete enough to tell us what the sequence of development was, and therefore suggest what the original functions were.
It's well documented that we can predict things like eye color and hereditary diseases from genes, and they way these genes combine when we mate (with dominant GENETIC traits prevailing), further proves that darwinian evolution primarily does occur at the level of genes, even notwithstanding their interdependent actions. Presumably there are also chemical reasons why gene markers exist - because the chemisty dicates that those are the points where "cut and paste" mutations are going to occur.
The evidence points to the fact that genes are indeed the level at which mutations occur, and natural selection operates, and so the onus is on us to understand how this can be given the interaction of genes, rather than to say that it can't be so!
Where did matter come from? It didnt' just appear one day on it's own, it had to be created. What was the driving force behind absolute nothing? Evolution? Heh, I don't think so.
Matter is all the time being created out of nothing and then disappearing - it's going on all around us all the time. Nothing mysterious about that - it's basic quantum physics.
The best theory for the creation of our universe is the expansion theory under which the universe started out as one of these "out of nothing" quantum blips, but then kept on expanding rather than disappeared, due to well understood basic physics.
Don't blame me if your own lack of knowledge leads you to jump to incorrect conclusions.
You want evidence supporting evolution? What are you looking to prove - it's not so much a theory as a simple observation that "the fittest survive". Q: If two things compete, which one wins? A: The "fitter" one (where "fitter" is defined as being the one which wins the most competitions!). Do you find that contentious?
What has changed since Darwins time is that we have discovered DNA and genetics. Darwin just made the survival of the fittest and hence evolution through competition observation - he didn't have a clue how this could actually work, but we now know. The existance of DNA and genetics is a discovery, not a theory.
Finally, if you really want to see DNA based evolution in action, then go to any research lab and see generations of flies or mice behave exactly as predicted.
There is nothing to prove about the "theory" of evolution - it's just the way things provably are - it's not a theory.
It sounds to me that you are not thinking this through. Matter is being created and destroyed all around us because...drumroll...there is matter here for it to do so.
No... quantum theory allows for matter to be created out of nothing. It's the law of conservation of energy which states that matter/energy can't be created/destroyed - only mutated - but that's a "law" of classical physics (i.e. more a law of statistics than anything else). At the quantum level there's no such restriction, but the the PROBABILITY of matter getting created out of nothing is vanishingly small as the amount of matter under consideration increases and the amount of time it "stays existed" increases. Expansion theory takes it from there.
You appear to be confusing "matter/energy" with the underlying quantum reality which is something that presumably always existed (even before the universe did). Time as such started with the big bang, so any notion of anything "before" then having to have a start or beginning would be wrong.
Don't blame me if your own lack of knowledge leads you to jump to incorrect conclusions.
Why do you insult my intelligence, I don't yours?
I wasn't insulting your intelligence - I was just pointing out that your common sense arguments of it not being possible to create matter out of nothing are wrong. It may be hard to comprehend, but quantum physics is probably the most successful theory ever - we may not understand it (maybe never will), but it predicts experimental outcomes with 100% accuracy.
There is no evidence PROVING evolution, just adaptation. Adaptation goes on all around us. Evolution is a myth, conjecture, a theory, dare I say a belief again.
Adaptation and evolution are the same thing. Two animals are considered to be different species if they can't mate and produce fertile offspring (and therefore their DNA will diverge as it no longer can combine). If a genetic mutation caused a lion to have stripes then it's still be a lion, but if it altered it's sperm so it could no longer breed with other lions then it'd be a new species. Call it adaptaion if you will, but it's still evolution - new species getting created.
If you have separated pockets of animals of the same species, then over time they are almost *certain* to diverge to the point where they can no longer interbreed! That's why different continents have different animals, yet if you know when plate tectonics caused the formerly joined contitents to divide and look for earlier fossils, then they will be the same.
Show me a timelapse of a fruitfly evolving into a mouse and I will show you evolution. Oh, that can't happen?
You're confused; that's like saying we're evolved from apes, when in fact the correct way to say it is that we have common ancestor with apes.
Fruit flies and mice are current day species, so the likely hood of one evolving into the other (i.e. evolution "reinventing" the mouse as an adaptation of the fruitfly) is unlikely. What is likely, and pretty much inevitable is that the fruitfly and mouse will both continue to evlolve, and in a few million years both may have spawned a number of new species.
You may believe in small "adaptive" changes, but find it hard to believe that genetic mutation can result in large/dramatic change, but you only have to look at things like two headed sheep or six fingered people to realize that large change can happen even in a single generation given the right mutation.
Well, science doesn't disprove anything (other than it's own theories). If god, or the hand of god, appears in a physics lab then theories will have to adapt to that reality, but so far the world appears to be 100% explicable by the combination of quantum theory and general relativity, hopefully soon to be combined into string theory. That's it - nothing else required to explain ANY other phenomena! All other scientific theories are higher level ones which are nothing more than convenience.
;-)
So, if there is a "god", while science may not be able to (or be trying to) disprove him/it, it certainly appears to have no need for him/it either. Given a world who's every content and behaviour can be predicted by science, where is there room for a god? It's a pretty wierd god that doesn't leave a single trace of its existence.
Finally, I did *not* say there was matter/energy existing before the universe - I said there was a quantum field - a bubbling field of probabalistic math and wierdness than not even the theory's creators claim to understand.
If you believe in god, then presumably you believe god always existed (else who created god), so you accept that there are some things (well, ONE thing) that has no beginning, but simply is and always was. My view is that the quantum field is and always was. Maybe this is my god.
The difference though, is that my god not only has rules, but we know the rules, and can predict what'll happen as a result of them. Pretty nifty, eh? Bet you can't do that with your god!
Just a note on Biblical descriptions of humanity. When God created man, he created us perfect. Yes that's right, humanity was perfect in every way. In order to let Adam and Eve know that they did have moral bounds that they had to stay within, God made the tree of the knowledge of good and bad. And you know the rest. (tree, satan, snake, fruit, eat). Anyway, their punishment was that they would no longer be perfect and live forever.
(by the way, other genetic studies have proven that humans should be able to live forever, and that the only thing that makes us grow old and die are telomeres which are attached to the end of DNA strands. Studies also show that telomeres are sort of stuck on to the end more like a code patch than a part of the strand)
Adam and Eve slowly drifted away from perfection and eventually died. However humanity didn't go from perfection to our condition over night. No according to biblical accounts, humanity continued to live lifespans of up to 965 years old (Methusela). Humans also had near perfect brains for a long time which sheds light on stuff like pyramids, etc. The bible also says that there was a time when God said "OK thats enough" and he limited humans to 70 or 80 years on average.
I submit that the genetic evidence does not indicate evolution, but devolution. Our genetic code has been unmaintained for over 6,000 years, and has slowly degenerated into our screwed up selves.
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Opportunities multiply as they are seized. --Sun-Tzu
did you even read the linked article in the original slashdot story? The article stated that human genes seem to be far to haphazard to have been created. "Jury-rigged" was even mentioned. That is the genetic evidence i was talking about.
the bible can be easily backed up by science. There are passages that speak of the "circle of the earth" thousands of years older than columbus or magellan. There have also been hundreds of archaological finds that prove the Bible's validity and age. As far as accuracy goes, for a long time there was practically a whole religeon formed around copying the Bible exactly. These guys invented the checksum, they had logs of the exact number of words and letters in each book and chapter of the Bible.
If I weren't at a place where I cant get to my library, i could dig up quotes from immenent scientists and mathemeticians such as Freeman Dyson, Sir Fred Hoyle, even Stephen Hawking has hinted at it. More and more scientists are starting to agree that the universe and life had to have a designer and creator.
one mathemetician (i think it was Hoyle) said that the odds against life arising spontaneously and evolving into what we know today, are greater than the total number of atoms in the universe to 1.
hehe, i love research
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Opportunities multiply as they are seized. --Sun-Tzu
By the time the Roman state got around to noticing the Christian church and decided to embrace it (after first trying to persecute it out of existence), most of the major disputes over what was to be considered "orthodox Christianity" had long been settled, including the Gnostic question.
Your point of view is still too narrow. That's probably not your fault, since of course vocal, intolerant minorities get more coverage and tend to shape one's opinion.
But I don't know any Protestant Christians who are uncomfortable applying to word "Protestant" to themselves. Very few of the Protestants I know would make a categorical claim that Catholics are not Christians. And most of the Christians I know, of any stripe, acknowledge that beyond a few core doctrines about the nature of Christ and salvation (and therefore what it means to be Christian), any disputes are dwarfed by our common bond of following Christ.
Now perhaps I'm among unusually enlighted Christians, but most of them are what you would call "fundamentalists".
> You can't beat ignorance with arrogance
/. that
But I guess it's still OK to try.
> there are plenty of people even within
> still want to believe in the tooth
> fairy/santa/god nonsense their parents fed them
> when they were kids
Most of the Christian students and grad students I happen to know around CMU are children of non-Christian parents. So don't jump to conclusions.
This is why I don't follow any particular religion, but am not an atheist. You simply cannot prove the existance, or non-existance, of an immaterial being.
Best Slashdot Co
Yep, that's pretty much my belief.
Best Slashdot Co
So, maybe the universe was created yesterday by a god who implanted memories in all of us. Or maybe I am just a brain in a jar being stimulated by electrical impulses. All I know for sure is that I exist (Je pense, donc je suis, thanks to Descartes). But what is the point of considering these possibilities when they are not in any way measurable and don't affect our experience in any way? If there is a god that is responsible for creation of the universe, it's not around any more, in any meaningful way. If it were currently influencing the universe, we could measure the effect, and the god's presence would be clear.
So the point... Sure, maybe a god caused the big bang. But who gives a damn? If it's true (which I don't believe it is), the god also provided quite a lot of evidence against its own existence and gave us the intelligence to find it. So it doesn't want us... screw it.
Ah, the argument from incredulity. Not very persuasive.--
You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
So then that would make companies who are trying to patent genes both criminal and blasphemous ;)
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
-Omar
Nor can I disprove that God didn't create the whole universe (including this Slashdot post, and my memories of my life up to and including the moment when I clicked "reply") out of whole cloth fifteen seconds ago.
In science, the burden of proof lies on the person or group making the claim.
If it's not falsifiable (i.e. if it's impossible to find data that disproves the theory), it's not science.
It's quite possible to find evidence that would disprove evolution. Regrettably, much of the evidence for "Scientific" Creationism has already been falsified.
Evolution remains the most likely explanation for the origin of life. What's important in the MSNBC article is that genomics has discovered additional evidence (unrelated to rock-dating techniques) that supports the evolutionary theory.
Yup. As someone who's reverse-engineered code from raw assembler dumps, I'm struck by the similarities I see in molecular/computational biology.
Oftentimes, you get "dead wood" in a hex dump, bytes that aren't used by anything. As you grok more and more of the code, you find that it's not junk after all - it's a data stash read by a linked list, for instance.
I've got a standing bet with a cow orker that a good chunk of that "junk DNA" is just data for which we haven't found the code that reads it yet.
(On the other hand, since DNA isn't hand-tuned assembly, it's quite plausible that there are huge portions of space that contain "whatever stuff was in RAM at assembly-time half a billion years ago" and are neither executed nor read as data by any active code.)
The most exciting things I've read about the assembly-language:DNA mapping are the papers where you see things like "the bacterium can survive with only 300 of its 500 genes working". Then you see the catchphrase "when disabled one at a time".
This sounds remarkably like the technique I learned as "filling the code with water and seeing where it leaks" - stuff a data stash full of 0xFF and if you see white blocks on the screen where there used to be airplanes, you've found the graphics. Replace a subroutine with a "Return" instruction and if the airplanes disappear, you've found the routine that displays them. Fill too much stuff with 0xFF or return-out too many subroutines and you crash hard and reboot ;-)
It also says that the earth has corners (and thus must be a polygon) _and_ a disc.
A reference for such arguements can be found
at http://www.talkorigins.org which links to almost all of the falks of the talk.origins newsgroup.
---
RobK
Myddrin
Well, the "Creation Scientists" declare
the bible to be literally true.... so
we just follow their own claim and point
out that according to the bible
the value of pi is exactly 3, a bat is a bird
and all insects have 4 legs.
It's all documented on the site I list above. A truely interesting site.
---
RobK
Myddrin
Carl Sagan's book (not the movie, which IMHO blew) "Contact" ends with the protagonist searching for 'numinous' evidence; the aliens have hinted that encoded in the deep structure of the universe there are hints that it has been created artificially.
IIRC she finds that if you search out in the trillions of decimal places of pi, all of a sudden the seemingly psuedorandom numbers stop and a sequence of ones and zeros starts, which when lined up in a square, paint a rasterised circle. That's a pretty neat idea of an easter egg.
Of course, now that you've given them the idea, all those people who like to search for clues in the Torah will start searching DNA for hidden messages from god. Most of them will find what they're looking for because statistically all short strings will exist in a much longer one.
However, it would be literaly mind blowing if something unmistakable, like a straight forward representation of the equations that solve the grand unified field problem were found nestled amongst the junk DNA I'm carrying around.
That would settle the issue rather decisively.
yes. Hence my argument that the Torah seekers always find what they are looking for, because they are searching for short strings.
however, in general, using an alphabet with X characters, to find a specific string of length M in a [random] string of length N+M is of likelyhood
P = 1 - (1 - X^(-M))^N
(that was much prettier before the lameness filter kicked in. Does anyone think that the lameness filter does more good than harm? I doubt this)
Is that right? Now, my math skill are kinda stuck.
I don't know how to evaluate the likelyhood of finding, say, 10^6 specific binary numbers (to represent a circle a-la Sagan) in a string 10^12 bits long.
You are right tho, that since pi is irrational, all strings of finite length MUST exist somewhere in its representation, so for Sagan to use this as a means of easter-egging, you'd have to encounter the message at a meaningful index. Then you'd have to calculate the probability of this happening randomly.
The human genome is finite, so eggs could be alot smaller and still be statistically significant.
Actually, they think that a lot of the "junk DNA" started out as places where viruses inserted their genes into ours to reproduce. Our defenses then inactivated the viral genes but they stuck around as dead weight. Since they weren't doing anything, they were free to mutate, eventually turning into pretty much nothing but noise.
Not all of them appear to be noise. Sometimes the virus mechanisms were converted to other uses by the cell - especially the DNA editing mechanisms.
For instance, many grasses have such an apparent viral reminant: A "hopping gene" that activates when the grass is under stress. This is apparently the leftover of a RNA->DNA virus that would reproduce with the host's cells until the host was in trouble, then "loop out" to try to escape the dying cell and infect others (a common viral trick).
In the grasses, what happens is: when the plant is stressed the gene starts hopping around the plant's genome, making little mutations as it does so. On one hand it means the plant is less robust because it tends to lose cells when under stress. But on the other hand, when the plant is growing near an "edge" of its eco-niche it experiences an increase in mutation rate. One of its offspring may be better adapted to the now-modified niche, or able to colonize another. When times are good the grasses heredity is stable, when bad it tries to change to fit.
As individuals the extra mutation rate under stress is a loss. But as a (set of) species this is such an enormus evolutionary gain that most current grasses have the mechanism, having been better able to evolve out of failing niches and into new ones. The fact that is only activates under stress means the grasses can remain stable and strong in a niche they fit, while still producing a high enough mutation rate to "tune in" to new niches as they become available.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Sorry, but the genetic code is much more like bare assembly than a high level language. Each assembly instruction(base triplet) is translated directly into one machine code instruction (amino acid).
Agreed that it's more like an assembler than a high-level language. But remember that assemblers historically have had much more powerful macro and conditional assembly/compilation features than high level languages. The situation with C and its related assemblers (with a rather low-powered preprocessor on the HIGH level language and usually none on the related assembler) is a reversal of the typical situation when assemblers were in heavy use.
OTOH, there are some interesting aspects to the whole intron-exon structure.
Depending on which promoter activates the gene, the spliceosome, which chops out the introns, can splice the gene differently.
Some genes actually carry more exons than will be coded into a particular protein and will cut different ones of them out under different circumstances. The result is that a single gene can code for a small family of closely related proteins, or if you want to put it that way that a single protein can have several sequence variants.
So in addition to comment removal it has conditional assembly on a small namespace of global variables. ("-Dfoo" + "#ifdef foo", etc.).
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Why, when faced with biological processes that seem to work in the same manner [as human-created assembly languages], do we feel the need to deny a creator?
For starters, because a "Creator" doesn't explain the origin - just pushes it back an additional level. Who (or what) created the "Creator"? Who (or what) created THAT?
Where does the series end? THERE you have something that WASN'T created by a "creator". So by insisting on one or more intermediate steps you're just making the explanation more complicated without explaining the root cause.
Given that you need either a backward-in-time causality loop or a non-Creator explanation for the start of everything, can you get from the non-Creator origin to us without an intermediate Creator?
If you can, then you can try to figure out how to distinguish the cases. Or you can just assume the simpler explanation until something shows up that seems to require the complication.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
A fellow I once worked with wondered:
There is a LOT of "non-coding" chunks of DNA (called "introns") mixed in between and within the genes, that get edited out between the copy into RNA and the actual production of the protein.
Could those be the comments?
And if so, do they qualify as "holy writ"?
(And I wonder: Is the mechanism that edits them out the preprocessor? Can it expand macros?)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
An infallible omnicient God (as generally postulated by the monotheists) should be able to figure out in advance an ideal design and just impelemnt it. So the only way to reconcile the observed tight fit to evolution with the hypothesis of such a God as creator is "he wanted it that way".
But what if the creator was something more fallible. Say a hacker. Or an engineering team. (Angels?) Or a series of engineering teams over a long period, such as you find in an industry. (Think "automobiles".)
Such projects are very cut-and-try, make mistakes, re-use previous workable designs with minor changes. It isn't for nothing that people refer to "the evolution" of aircraft, or trains, or warships. How WOULD you distinguish them - especially if they take place in an "intellectual property" enviornment that would limit transfer of designs from one line to another.
Of course you won't find the "Scientific Creationists" postulating a fallible God or long-term teams of fallible angels. But it makes for interesting speculation. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
To say that Kansas agrees with the statement that the Genome undeniably proves evolution is, well, a statement without any fact backing it up.
-bugg
> This says exactly the opposite.
So? Anyone can spin news. Try giving a *reason* why it's the oposite.
> After all, Darwin himself stated that his theory would be invalid if there were complexity found at the cellular level.
Is that relevant? Darwin wrote his theory in 1859, about 100 years before DNA was discovered. Very little was known about cells then, and the theory of evolution has well, evolved into somethigna lot stronger since then.
Try reading a modern neo-darwinist. such as Dawkins or Dennett. They don't take that approach.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
All those people who believe the earth is less then 10,000 years old, please SHOW me the scripture where you are inferring that.
Please read the orginal hebrew of Gen 1:2 paying close attention to the Hebrew words of hayah, tohuw and bohuw.
i.e.
http://reluctant-messenger.com/creation.htm
--
"Science explains the HOW. Religion explains the WHY."
If one were to actually read The Origin of Species, he or she would learn that Darwin believed that all creatures evolved together from more primitive versions of themselves, not that humans evolved from monkeys who evolved from lesser creatures.
True, Darwin did not say that humans evolved from apes in his most famous work, The Origin of Species, but in 1871, he wrote a little book called The Descent of Man. It was in this book that he proposed the theory that humans evolved from the great apes.
This is completely tangential to the thrust of his argument, of course. There are a lot of odd genomic features which can yet be argues both pro (look at all the junk! how could that be designed in?) and anti (general complexity: all our genes appear to interact in many more ways than previously thought) evolution. The jury's still out, and forever will be: remember the 'fake dinosaur skeletons' that the mice were building into the Earth Mark II in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? There's no scientific argument that says that the same thing might not be done by an onmipotent God (once one has assumed the existence of such God -- but here our argument becomes circular).
In any case, the article author's "descended from bacteria" claim is a grossly inaccurate canard.
[
First of all, I don't understand the desire to prove Creationism impossible.
The response to all those who thump their bible and say there is no proof, no test and no evidence in support of evolution is, "The proof is right here, in our genes."
Thump their bible?
The genome reveals, indisputably and beyond any serious doubt, that Darwin was right -- mankind evolved over a long period of time from primitive animal ancestors.
Indisputably and beyond serious doubt?
Regardless, it's rather easy to prove that it is possible that God created the universe.
Let's assume for a moment that God did create the universe.
Boom - there's the Earth. Now, if we take the Bible at face value, the claim is that everything happened within a span of six days. So God didn't really have time to wait billions of years for Earth to become habitable - he would have had to create it already habitable.
Boom - there's Adam. Again, God didn't sit around for 30 years and wait for Adam to become fully-grown. Adam was supposedly created as an adult. I'm sure by every scientific standard, Adam would appear to be 30 years old.
So which came first - the chicken or the egg? Well according to the Bible, it would be the chicken. God didn't create eggs and then wait for them to be hatched.
It's rather possible that God, if there is one, created the universe with an "apparent age." Furthermore, it's impossible to prove that there isn't a God, and that God didn't create the universe based on specific rules.
Assuming God did create the universe, and he did so in six days, then Adam was born with hairy armpits and a full bank of sperm. If you and I were to see him a day or two after creation, it would appear to us that he must have gone through puberty.
It's a rather simple argument that obviously does not attempt to prove God's existence, but to disprove any claim that God's existence is impossible.
What if I gave you three dollars? How much? Thr-- four dollars? Keep talking, I'm listening.
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Nicotine free Amish .sig.
We have seen microevolution in such cases as antibiotic-resistant bacteria, but we have never seen one species evolve into a sexually incompatible one. Microevolution is provably factual, macroevolution is not.
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Nicotine free Amish .sig.
Indeed, in retrospect, the reality of fundamentalist Christianity was largely an attempt by a biologically rural ethnics to survive urbanization. For these (my) people the environment had grown increasingly hostile to their real evolutionary psychological needs as recent immgrants to the cities. So, far from denying Darwinian theory, I see fundamentalist Christians as living it. Indeed, they are "pro-Darwin" in the sense that their practice actually tends to support fertility rates that are equal to or above replacement -- unlike the rural-heritage adherents to the more secular religions of modern urbanization such as Freudianism, Marxism and Political Correctness.
If you have a bunch of memes being broadcast into the rearing environments of particular ethnic groups that are effectively sterilizing them, it is incredibly cruel, to the point of genocidal, to hold against members of those ethnic groups any "irrationality" to which they may adhere in order to innoculate themselves against those biologically toxic memes. In this respect I think Christian Fundamentalists have gotten a monsterously "bad rap" -- especially in the last few decades.
Seastead this.
Ok, I'm a Christian and a scientist and I would like to point that I do think evolution could have happened.
However, I would like to point something out which I think people usually fail to take into account. If we take as red for a moment that there is an almighty, all powerful God who created the universe. And that he created us in his own image (thats what the bible says). Well, I have a sense of humor so I think that God probably does to.
Given all of this, what is to stop God having created us the way he did, and then leaving a couple of "jokes" for us to fall for? I could just imagine him laughing... ha, you guys have got it sooooo wrong!
But as I said I actually think that evolution is correct, but is it really "proved" (can you actually prove something which you can't observe and recreate? and even then is it proved?) does knowing that we evolved actually help? Where did the whole universe come from? - the big bang? Well what created the big bang? Don't forget the ask the next question... I found that it led me to God. I find believeing that we are only here because of random chance impossible to believe, just look at the work around us - it's incredible, I can't believe it wasn't designed by God.
If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, let'em go, because, man, they're gone.
Just because a doctor says "Creationism is wrong, Evolution is right, and I have proof" is not a valid publication. Sure, I could just as easily have said "Evolution is wrong, Creationism is right" in the same exact story, and it would have held as much merit. The key point here is that the story offers absolutely none of the proof that he's touting. Perhaps when I read a publication on his specific findings, I can merit this as something other than a single MSNBC reporter with a specific agenda (what, reporters have personal agendas?).
As it stands now, I am unimpressed by someone having a degree as making them an ultimate authority. A PhD does not equal infallibility, as I repeatedly find out while I attend school and reach for my own PhD. Oh for the day when I have it, and suckers will believe whatever I tell them just because I'm a PhD. "I have a doctorate in finance, so you're required to forefeit all your finances to me, I have proof!" "Der, ok, that must be the case 'cause you're so smart."
Are you moderating me down because you disagree with what I say, or because I make an invalid point?
Slay a dragon... over lunch!
They say that evolution is the *only* explanation for what we have. Explanation to what? Where can we find a better in-depth look at this?
I'm not trying to argue, i'm trying to better educate myself. And i hope that i can defend evolution if i get more details
Mike Roberto
- GAIM: MicroBerto
Berto
I think another thing to point is that the word "theory" is very poorly percieved by the nonscientific community. When most people think of "theory" they are actually thinking of "hypothesis", which is an idea that doesn't have much (or any) evidence to support it. The scientific definition of theory is that it's an idea that has a great deal of evidence to support it and has yet to be disproven. Many many things we take as "fact" are actually labeled as "theory" by science because they can't be totally proven.
The use of the term Scientifc Creationism is an obvious sham, and it also sticks it to science in one of its weak areas: the general public's ignorance. By saying that "It's just a theory" is just a choice to totally ignore how science works, which is a very sad thing.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
Darwin didn't fully understand his own theory because he didn't have any idea how any of his changes were made. The best he had to go with were major phenotypic changes such as a bird's color or a turtle's shell size. He didn't have any idea how these things were coded nor how they were expressed. As such, his statement of invalidity was wrong.
Complexity is one of the natural byproducts of evolution. Random mutations occur (this is a proven fact) and these changes often express something as a phenotype. As a result, anything you can possibly imagine tends to happen because it occurs randomly. Random changes produce complexity, that's why turbulence is such an impossible problem for fluid dynamicists: because it spontaneously occurs at the molecular level producing conmplex behaviors at the aggregate level. In other words: complexity happens naturally. This happens in living systems too, and as random changes aggregate they form more complex sytems. Bacteria spontaneously evolve from putting a bunch of the right chemicals in a naturally occuring sack. Bacteria evolve sacks within sacks and incorporate other bacteria to help them. Then they start sticking together and sharing their resources and suddenly we have protists. These cells start specializing their functions and influencing each other and suddenly we have complexity. All this happens spontaneously.
It's not a single simple change that occurs to cause a new species. It's a ton of unrelated simple changes that aggregate to form new structures. If the changes don't work (i.e. broken gene) the organism dies and nature moves on. If it does something, then it keeps on doing it. That's why we have so many different and complex levels of gene regulation.
So your claim that the smaller than estimated number of genes is bad news for evolutionists is a load of garbage because things like post-transcriptional gene regulation can lead to a whole host of different proteins by modification of RNA, the protein, or even the DNA itself (as in immunoglobins). Plus, there are plenty of proteins that serve multiple functions, such as hormones. All this spells out a great deal of complexity which, as I've already shown you, is a natural feature of evolution. Maybe you should take your "Geeks4Christ" argument re-read it, then compare it to some actual scientific literature. The paper on the human genome just published in Nature is particularly good, I recommend it highly.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
Well, it's a kludged and hacked solution not because there's preassure to keep the genome short, but because just about everything that can evolve does, and if it works then it stays there. This includes random kludges as well as some elegant stuff.
;-).
The human genome is big. Really big. And most of it is garbage... non-coding sequences and such. This is direct evidence that there's no evolutionary preassure to keep the genome short. This doesn't mean there's preassure to keep it long either, because viruses and bacteria are incredibly prolific and they have short genomes. It's been argued that the advantage (and I think this is only one advantage) for a longer genome like ours is that it provides a ton of raw material for stuff to happen. Most of it won't work, but occasionally something will. And it's kept. Now it might not be the prettiest functionality out there, but then again there's no brain that's working logically on it like with code (whether or not there's a brain at all working on it is a whole other bag of worms
Evolution is random. I think that the fact that genetic algorithms come up with this stuff is an incredibly good point (I've been meaning to check those things out forever) and that this is simply how things work.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
"Eric Lander of the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Mass., said that if you look at our genome it is clear that "evolution ... must make new genes from old parts.""
;-)
If this is so, combine the fact that race is not recorded in the genes: If evolution didn't create races, then what did? We certainly can't stem from the same primate Adam and Eve. Where's Missing Link these days?
It appears to me that evolution would automatically tend to simplify genes as much as possible. Basically so that a simple mutation of a gene could lead to a simple change in attribute of the individual. However, you can't switch race this way and it makes you wonder. Because emmigration and climate changes are nothing new under the sun..
I'd love to hear someone who knows about the subject explain this to me, in a calm and mellow voice
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Or, as Devo said, "God made man, but the monkey supplied the glue." I know it's been said, but you can't disprove something based on faith.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
I'm not sure whether you understand the term "theory." Einsteinian relativity is a theory. Maxwellian quantum mechanics is theory. A theory is a hypothesis which has been proposed and scientifically tested. They are considered reliable until disproven.
Maxwellian quantum mechanics: Hmmm, WTF is that? I studied physics for 6 years and never heard of such a thing.
While such constructs as the big-bang theory have been calculated and tested and refined, macroevolution
Define macroevolution. How is it different from microevolution?
as such has not been scientifically proven or even proven to be plausible. As of now, no plausible method for speciation (the separation of one species into two) has been proposed, and not one single instance of it has ever been documented.
Ummm, check out:
Observed Instances of Speciation
and
Some More Observed Speciation Events
Decades of concerted efforts to create new species from fruit flies, for instance, have been completely unable to do so--and this was guided as opposed to the chaotic forces of nature.
See the links above
Yet Another Web Site
But the LORD GOD looked upon his credit report and was wroth. HE looked down upon the sleeping earth and saw that man was corrupted by the might of his bandwith, and pron flowed freely among the systems. And the LORD GOD called upon his credit card company and cancelled the card number and woe unto he who used it after said date. Meanwhile, not less than a swallows flight away, Saint Atalark snuck a hand greande from the arsenal of the great black beast of AARGH. Then saint Atalark raised up the hand grenade on high and said "O LORD bless this thy hand grenade, that it may blow thine enemies into tiny bits, in thy mercy." And the lord did grinand blessed the hand grenade. And the people feasted upon the lambs, and the sloths, and the orangutangs, and the breakfast cereals, and the fruit bats....
So we have as many genes as a corn plant. So our genome matches 99% of the genome of an arangatang. Here's something to chew on:
Two tall buildings in downtown Minneapolis are probably made of 95% of the same material, mainly, steel, concrete, glass, and a little bit of plaster. Yet, they are designed differently, have different shapes, and different functions.
So nature found "instructions" that worked well to create different animals. The same digestive juice that works in a dog would probably work in a human, so why not leave the instructions there on how to make it for the both of them?
Granted, what they found supports their claim, but it doesn't completely eliminate all others.
To your maker, you resemble an earthworm.
Nothing new here, nothing solved, get back to work.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I hate being called ignorant for believing in God, and other maters of faith which can neither be proved or disproved. Funny though, that you would advocate the devil.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
When someone say's "So you're agnostic?" they may just mean to understand your point of view, not necessarily put you into a box with other people they have met in the past.
Feeling labeled because there's a word to describe a facet of your perspective on life may be misjudging the word.
Evan - needs to hit preview before submitting
This says exactly the opposite.
--
--
If code was hard to write, it should be hard to read
Err, that would be a polyhedron, Dave
Rich
I believe in evolution. I agree that the results presented here are independently corroborating evidence of evolution. However, the article does not present a single piece of evidence that invalidates the theory of Creationism. The author hypocritically takes the same tone as one of the bible-thumping zealots he derides.
Check out Darwin's Black Box. Its a book on evolution written by a biochemist.
He puts forth the idea that there is a certain "irreducable complexity" to many complex systems. This means that the system doesn't function unless all parts are present. He argues that many of the leaps in evolution couldn't have happened without some type of creationary controller.
For instance, a bicycle factory(bad example) is producing bikes. Over time it mutates and starts producing bikes with engine blocks stuck to the side. A few million years later it starts making bikes with engine blocks and gas tanks. (It would have gone out of business long ago, nature is very conservative with energy). A few million later it gets a piston... etc.. etc..
The point is that basic logic can show us that some of the evolutionary leaps required cannot take place unless many, many components change at the exact instant. He argues that this points us towards intelligent design, yet science has already outlawed the idea of God. "It can't be intelligent design because God does not exist!". Its funny how alot of scientists sound like regular Jerry Fallwels on this issue.
As a Christian, I can say that the idea of God isn't supposed to make sense to us. God says "My ways aren't your ways", and that Christianity is "Foolishness" to our natural selves.
Check out this book by Francis Schaeffer on the consequences of an atheistic world view. Its very scary and I'd figure alot of slashdotters would enjoy it.
Its interesting that we, as slashdotters, value freedom so highly, yet we reject God. Well, I have yet to see an atheistic society that respects individual anything. They shouldn't! Given that worldview, only the success of the species matters.
http://www.masturbateforpeace.com/
You are correct, sir.
You can never disprove the theory of a deity for two simple reasons:
A)God is an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent "thing" - therefore, theists have the luxury of making shit up as they go along. "Hey." they say, "God works in mysterious ways." I've always loved that one. Evolution is a perfect case in point: How many "christians" do you know that actually believe the world is only 5,000-6,000 years old? They don't have to believe that because some dickhead ruined my life 2,000 years ago by saying that we don't have a clue as to what god is or does, so we should all just shut the hell up and give our tythe like nice little zealots.
B)In philosophical terms, you can never truly prove or dispove anything (e.g. "woah, man, what if we're all, like, just living, like, in like, someone's dream dude...and like, when they wake up, we all die and shit!")
Of course, we can say that, as for concept B: get a clue people! we have to just accept certain things to make progress. Hume proved that we can't assume that fundamentals like gravity will continue to exist, and that you could walk off a tall building and expect to float with just about as much certainty as you would expect to fall - but you don't see many people other that stock brokers for dot-com's testing that idea much.
as for concept A? Let's just put it this way: No, we can't prove that there isn't a god with 100% certainty. But, at some point, christians begin to look pretty fucking dumb when *fact* after *fact* rooted in their theology gets torn to pieces faster than a clan member trying to buy a used stereo in harlem.
As for myself, i believe that the universe was created by 10,000ft tall invisible lizard people who roam the earth like a benevolent fucking Godzilla. Hey, you can't prove they don't exist!
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
Of course we don't actually need a complete genome to tell that evolution has happened. People have been doing cross-species genetic comparisons for years as a way of looking at evolution. There are some genes that have been sequenced in hundreds or even thousands of different organisms, and they show exactly the same kinds of differences that you'd expect based on neo-Darwinism. Similarities are greatest between organisms that were generally believed to be similar already- human myoglobin is identical to that from chimpanzees but is slightly different from that of mice, for instance. Genes that have critical roles in sustaining life undergo evolution more slowly than ones that are less important, so basic structural proteins like actin are very highly conserved and less critical ones like hemoglobin are less conserved. Within a given gene family, changes that have no effect on function, like those that don't actually change which amino acid is coded for, are more common than ones that do change function. Conservative changes, which result in changing an amino acid to a similar one, are more common than radical one that change an amino acid into a totally different one. Changes in unimportant regions are more common than ones in critical regions. The behavior is so well understood that it's been used as the basis for "molecular clocks" that can tell how long ago species diverged by differences in critical genes.
This is so obvious to anyone who's looking at information like this that it's pretty much impossible to deny. It's staring you right in the face every time you look at the data. The genome is nice because it shows things working at an organism level, but crushingly clear molecular evidence of evolution has been available for quite some time.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
I thought that the current prevaling scientific view was the evoloutionary changes tend to cluster around major climatic events like ice ages, major volcanic eruptions, and metior impacts. Mass extinctions followed by rapid speciation of the survivors as they spread out and fill vacant ecological niches seem to be the rule rather than the exception. (There are exceptions, like sharks and alligators)
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
As I understand it, the current official Catholic party line is that the Big Bang corresponds to the moment when God said "let there be light". Of course, the modern Catholic church (mostly) subscribes to an allegorical, rather than a literal word-for-word interpretation of the Gospel. I could be wrong; I havn't been a practicing Catholic for the last 18 years.
Also, the reason Evoloution is a "theory" and not a "law" is that it cannot be expressed in precise mathematical terms (like, for example, Ohm's Law or the first law of thermodynamics). Evoloutionary theory describes a general process rather than a specific mechanism. We can describe the mechanisms of evoloution in general terms, but it can't (currently) be expressed in a mathmatically provable manner.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
Well, I think most people are right when they say that it won't change the minds of the hard-core creationers, but think about it this way... Would it be possible with this evidence to change it from the "Theory of Evolution" to the "Law of Evolution"? That one word would make for such a powerful rhetorical shift that I doubt that creationists could possibly hold on to the meager strip of credibility they have now with the less educated...
--
Feminism is the wild notion that women are human beings.
And tomorrow they're going to tell us the earth is round - shea right.
I've heard people use the first pictures taken of earth from space as the final proof that the earth is round. Like evolution, most people believed in it, it was just sort of the last nail in the coffin...
--
As Science progresses, the theories which scientists propose tend to become more and more complex, and in the process more and more difficult for your average layman to even remotely understand. Things like moon landings, or that the earth is round, are things that are relatively easy to prove to even someone who doesn't want to learn.
The only person a geneticist can convince about this proof of evolution is another geneticist, or some equally smart person. The only way a layman can ever understand evolutions in terms of the human genome is to "Take this respectable genetecist's word for it." Now suppose this layman is an obstinate Christian... At least with people in the flat earth society you can slap their faces with photographs taken from the space station! Few people are too dumb to understand pictures... But what would a geneticist do?
There are limits to how much the scientific community can communicate with the general public, and I think the theory of evolution is the greatest example of this. The masses are generally too dumb to understand it, and if they don't want to, they will use their own inability to understand as proof that "nobody could ever prove evolution to me".
Damn straight.
On the bright side, smart peoples understanding of the universe continues to progress, more or less unhindered by idiots. I'm very happy that we've got one more big piece of the puzzle of understanding how the universe works!
For what it's worth. Darwin's ideas were not particularly new -- about 9000 years ealier ancient farmers already figured out that they can control phenotypes of subsequent generations of crops by careful selection of seed (the notion of artificial pollenation evaded them, however). Prior to Darwin, various monks had made "evolution-like" musings regarding man and the great apes (generally asserting deevolution towards the ape).
What really earned Darwin the spotlight was three-fold: his book was widely circulated, the subject matter was really hot for the time, and he was a Christian minister. The combination pushed his book into the "classics" category -- I think irregardless of his very keen observations and clear accounting of them.
For what it's worth... The process of natural selection isn't very disputable since it's a fundamental tool in various aspects of industrial and convservation biology as well as medicine. It's only recently though that we've begun to see the depth of the molecular basis for this selection and the biochemical interplay between organism and the environment. It's clear from modern genomics that evolution (at the molecular level) is not always as slow and deliberate as Darwin might have thought -- nor is fitness as simple as he first described.
I think it's a stretch to say man and apes (or all other mammals, for that matter) are not somehow related -- but whether that's by design or blind luck (and certain physical rules) doesn't really seem to present itself with any testable hypotheses. Personally, I like to think there's a creator, that Genesis is an allegorical synopsis of the descent of man, and that bickering over whether or not man descended from a lesser life form totally misses the point of both the scientific enquiry and the theological significance of the biblical account of creation. The bible means to tell you're beholden to the forces that made the universe for your very existence -- it's not a HOWTO on creating the universe. Imagine how inaccessible the bible would be if it started from probabilistic quantum mattery-energy discussion up through diagramming complex biological systems and beyond. Even if it did, nothing of philosophical significance would come of it -- and that's what the Bible quite specifically exists to provide.
I found some questions here. Click on the word ?Evolution on the left. There are some questions in there I can't answer. Maybe some of you can.
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Everytime slashdot wants to push the "1000 comments" record, it posts an Evolution story. And a good measure of editorial comment to boot. (1 measure = 1 sentance).
Daniel
Here are a few falsifiable predictions, off the top of my head ... forgive me for not giving more, but IANAB:
The above are just three examples of predictions from modern biology; if any one of them were not observed, the evolutionary basis of modern biology would be disproven.....all of them have been observed in both the lab and in the wild. I am unaware of any physical evidence that contradicts the current basic theory.
This doesnt totaly disprove religion, even though common sense does. I know lots of bible thumpers that believe in evolution. Religion tends to evolve itself. It evolves its story to fit the scientific facts of the day.
Good post! The news about 'only 30,000' was brought here (in the Netherlands) as a victory, as in 'now it will be much easier to read & understand the genome). I believe it's a bit of a setback. There's now more to be sought in emergent & material properties and mathematical functions. And that's up till now not a widely researched field.
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Well, to start with there isn't going to be exactly one gene per 'property', something which scientist always thought. In general, there's now the same amount of complexity with a lesser amount of variables. To reach that complexity, there must also be other processes at work; it's these processes (material properties, mathematical functions) that will take some time to figure out! (sorry, no links)
How to make a sig
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Our genes show that scientific creationism cannot be true. The response to all those who thump their bible and say there is no proof, no test and no evidence in support of evolution is, "The proof is right here, in our genes."
I see no proof in this article. All I see is a report about some scientist claiming to have found the truth.
In fact, based on the tone of the headline("Darwin vindicated!") and the low-class crack("...all those who thump their bible...") I'd say this "impartial" scientist has a serious chip on his shoulder.
Now, someone please show me the actual proof that we have evolved from bacteria and were not created in God's image. I am far from convinced - however I have had several profound religious experiences. I am not ignorant or close-minded. I don't go around saying the world is 6,000 years old. However, a basic tenent of my belief(a belief based on experiencing God) is that we are unique in this universe and are created in His image. If someone could prove to me beyond a doubt my belief is false I would change it, as I value the truth above all.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
"I don't believe it, but hey, you can't disprove it."
Well, if you feel so strongly about science, and you acknowledge that this theory can't be disproven, then why do you feel so confident that it's not true?
It is a reality that we can't know whether the world "actually" evolved over millions of years, or whether it was created in the space of seven days to look as if it had evolved. This throws people for a loop if they put blind faith in logic, or seek logical, scientific explanations for everything.
I don't go to church, but I don't worship pure logic, either. Truth lies, as Hayek observed, "between instinct and reason." Deal with it.
When people use bad arguments in the service of evolution, they legitimise the use of bad arguments, and that can only help one side ....
-- the most controversial site on the Web
You "assume" that your senses are giving you accurate information; you "assume" that you actually exist in some physical form are are not a simulation (a'la the Matrix) or the dream of a sleeping butterfly somewhere. Absurd, maybe, but it doesn't change the fact that all of this "evidence" is only as good as the assumptions they're built upon.
As someone best put it, "Everyting you prove with these axioms are true within the logical structure defined by the axsioms."
All truths (proofs, facts, etc) are built on faith (assumptions, axsioms, etc).
If you don't have anything nice to say, say it often.
- Ed the Sock
Now, this doesn't mean that you can't move science along. Agree on the basic principals (i.e. the universe does indeed exist and acts the way we observe it) and you can build up proofs and truths based on those assumptions. But you take on faith that the universe does indeed exist and acts in the way you observe it.
You must be one of the people ripe for conversion to religion, if you think everything is based on faith.
Thanks... needed a good chuckle.
If you don't have anything nice to say, say it often.
- Ed the Sock
I'm not trying to debunk science here, you are correct about science doing fairly well based on those axioms (universe exists, etc), but am merely trying to point out that those that love to ridicule other for "faiths" (beliefs, whatever you want to call it) are simply stone throwers in glass houses.
As for the Universal Truths. If you find them, how do you know that they are the Universal Truths?
As for faith not requiring reason, maybe it is a problem of semantics, but reason def. does need a starting point (call it axiom, faith, assumption, etc). "Reason" (logic) is like directions. The "Faith" (axiom) is the starting point. "Truth" (facts) are the result.
For example. Take geometry. Start with the same axioms that Euclid did (which he based on his observations of the real world), use some logic and you arrive at "Parallel lines never intersect." Now, tweak those axioms a little, apply the same rules of logic and all of the sudden "Parallel lines do intersect". Different starting points, same directions, different endpoint."
Take a look at Newton. He came up with a way of describing gravity that fit with all of his observations. Along came Einstein and showed that Newton had it all wrong. Newton found a damn good approximation for the way bodies interact on Earth, but still not the correct thing. Has Einstein got it correct? Probably not. So what is scientific "fact" is also based on assumptions backed up by whatever empirical evidence we have at hand.
The reason I put more of my faith in science is because science usually does do a pretty good job of continually evaluating what it knows and tweaks (or overhauls) what its assumptions are about our universe (assuming it exists ;).
If you don't have anything nice to say, say it often.
- Ed the Sock
Actually, I claimed no such thing. I simply stated all truth is based on assumption (faith, whatever you want to call it).
If you insist that something like physics are based on an assumption, then where is it? Reliance on your senses is not an assumption.
Sure it is. To use the bad stoner joke: how do you know the colour green looks to you as the colour green looks to me? How do you know that the way you process (and therefor interpret) those senses does not differ from the way others do? This may seem like a small, stupid argument, but you assume that your senses accurately portray the world to you.
Now, get a bunch of people together to agree on some basic assumptions ("hey, there seems to be big bad universe out there and we appear to sense it in roughly the same way") and let the fun begin. "Science" is simply using what you observe and some logic to make sense of the world. Newton did it with gravity. Made some observations, took some measurements and came up with some theories and equations that appeared to explain the phenomena he was observing. And he was wrong. Is that bad? Not at all. Newton's work ended up being pretty damn useful (and still is) because the theories and equations turned out to be pretty good approximations. But Einstein came alone and showed that they were flat out wrong.
Now, has Einstein gotten it right? I doubt it. Like Newton he's probably done the best that he could with all of the information that he has along with some new assumptions about how the universe works. No doubt at some point someone else is going to come along and say "Damn, close but no banana" and come up with something better. And that is the nature of science.
The point of this thread was not to somehow claim that science was a bunch o' crap. It was merely a follow-up to one of the many "creationist have it wrong because they base it on faith while we have it right because we base it on facts." My point was that "facts" (theories, whatever) are defined by the basic assumptions we make. And while you can take those assumptions to (IMO) different (sometimes ludicrous) extremes: i.e. there is a supreme being who created the earth and the heavens, I am nothing more than a simulation running in a very large computer, etc., science is in no way any different. For every common genetic thread you show in every species someone who believes that there is a Supreme Being who created the world in seven days will just say "God put it there to test us." You can debate, argue, cajole, and/or scream at each other, go through various "reasonings" to show the other what your getting at, it will all be for naught, because at a very basic level you "believe" different things.
If you don't have anything nice to say, say it often.
- Ed the Sock
Name me one thing that is fact that does not require any amount of assumption. Just one.
If you don't have anything nice to say, say it often.
- Ed the Sock
This is the second time you've brought up the definition of faith. At what point have I claimed the definition was anything different? My argument is at the most basic root of anything is an assumption (Something taken for granted or accepted as true without proof. Close enough to Faith I believe to use interchangeably). What material proof do you have that your senses are accurate? What material proof do you have that the world around you does indeed work in the way that you perceive it? What material proof do you have the world even exists? I assume you perceive to be able to touch it, smell it, interact with it, etc. But what material proof do you have that you're simply not dreaming the whole thing, or delusional? My contention: none. You merely assume so.
Does that make me a nihilist? I think not. I never claimed that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated. That's the equivalent of a Euclidean geometrist pouting and saying "that's it, I'm taking my ball home" when Gauss and Bolyai buggered with Euclid's fifth postulate. Values are not baseless, but are defined within the system in which they exist. Which is, at its root, based on assumption.
If you don't have anything nice to say, say it often.
- Ed the Sock
This is called Microevolution, as opposed to Macroevolution. The cow's didn't grow wings to evade a hostile environment.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
You are absolutely right that this is really only "evidence" of man's evolution to those who were already convinced of the theory's soundness. Critics of Darwinism have already dismissed much more compelling evidence than this, so I seriously doubt that this discovery will persuade them.
On the other hand, genetic similarities which do not correlate with traits like appearance do lend much more credibility to the theory that man shares common ancestors with other primates.
(It does not neccessarilly follow, from this evidence alone, that it happened slowly over a prolonged time. There is growing popularity around the theory that many of evolution's most radical mutations happened in quick bursts, with long periods of little or no change in between, rather than the steady march of slow and subtle changes.)
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Creationism can't be proved wrong just as it can't be proved that there are no yellow and green spotted crows; the supporters will always claim the proof is just around the corner and that you'll just have to keep looking. Eventually any rational person gives up and says "this is a load of bollocks" and then gets flamed by the ones who still believe that the proof is still out there somewhere.
Just leave them to keep looking for their non-existant crow/god; making stupid statements like this from a scientist just makes religious people feel vindicated in rejecting rational thought.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
"Darwin was right - mankind evolved over a long period of time from primitive animal ancestors" Too bad that's not Darwin's theory of evolution. If one were to actually read The Origin of Species, he or she would learn that Darwin believed that all creatures evolved together from more primitive versions of themselves, not that humans evolved from monkeys who evolved from lesser creatures. That is the common misconception about the theory of evolution.
This does not logically follow. I could make an arguement about this, but I submit for you consideration this essay found at this site, which says it all much better than I could come up with at a moments notice. It is a poetry site BTW, and not particularly political in nature, although opinions are expressed.
Television Science: the Year of the Circuit
I keep hearing authorities on public radio applying logic to who and what we are that, if applied to a TV set, might run as follows: Though tradition claims that there is life beyond this TV set, a life that continues after its demise --actual living beings who create these moving pictures, the TV set being only a means of presenting them to others --we know, scientifically, that this cannot be the case. Here is the evidence:
1. Obviously, nothing of the life you see on a TV set can survive the demise of the TV set. Proof: destroy a TV set. It contains no more life, nor ever will again.
2. Evidence is mounting that the TV set is the SOURCE of the pictures you see on its screen. They are all created within the "brain" of the TV set. For example, if you sever this wire, the pictures vanish. If you sever THIS one, the picture lose their vertical hold. If you cut THAT one, they lose horizontal hold. If you destroy that part, they fade. If you destroy THAT part, the sound vanishes. And so forth. By disabling one or another component to see what it controls, scientists, daily, are clarifying the ways in which the various parts of the TV set contribute to the creation of its pictures. (Tube or not tube?)
3. Where sets are faulty (electrical brain imbalances), we can't cure them, but we CAN keep them operating. For example, when we jolt this set by attaching a power line to this part here, we don't get the correct picture back, but notice how the screen flares up, all brilliant white? See? We can keep it happy.
Our scientists -- never has more intelligence been exerted to propound greater stupidity. When a body dies, a body dies; therefore there is no soul. Huh? When you mess up part of a brain, the person becomes incapable of telling one face from another. Therefore the person IS his brain. So let's see: If I'm using brains and nerves to communicate via a body, and you can mess up my communication lines by messing up the body, I don't exist? If you can cut the brake linings on a car so that the brakes don't work, this proves that there's no driver?
The only point being , we need to be careful in our logic when it cones to these things.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
But the "scientific" creationists will still contend that it's still the theory of evolution...
Some folks probably will still try to use that as some sort of argument. Funny that they never make that point about the theory of universal gravitation.
-- dR.fuZZo
Actually, we really aren't. We're a secular nation. The constitution has no mention of god or christianity. Most of the "pilgrims" were here for trade and not for "religious freedom". And "under god" in the pledge of allegiance and "in god we trust" on paper money did not appear until the 50's during McCarthyism (remember the *other* witch-hunt).
Read: http://www.ffrf.org/nontracts/xian.html
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
If Americans school start having to teach Judaic/Christian creationism, that would of course mean they ought to teach Hindu creationism, Jainist creationism, Nordic teutonic pagan creationism, Gallo-Roman creationism, & Celtic creationism too, etc, etc, etc. Afterall we can't descriminate in favour of one or 2 religions in particullar.
No, because the USA is, conceptually, a melting pot. The best that every culture of immigrants has to offer is seamlessly assimilated into the American culture. Where else can you buy pizza, tacos and beef on weck in the same restaurant?
This applies to religion, too. If schools were to teach religion, it would probably be the one with the greatest quantity of highly vocal, organized and ardent supporters. Bible-thumping creationist southern Baptists. Ugh.
However, at least it alleviates the equivalent confusion which exists in Canada:
Canada embraces "multiculturalism", which means that you maintain your culture and traditions when you immigrate. This experiment has so far resulted in a place where petty squabbles abound: can a Seikh RCMP officer wear a turban? Should a Ugandan immigrant drive around in a car that he's been able to afford *only* because of opportunities granted to him by his new country, with a bumper sticker that says "I Love Uganda" in the trademark rainbow-foil?
Finally, is it right that Tamil warfare occurs in two parts of the world, Sri Lanka, and 5 minutes down the street from my house?
This is all divisive. To use the Sri Lankan example, if a couple of immigrants bump into each other about as far from their native land as you can possibly get without leaving the atmosphere, wouldn't you expect that they could get along, and put the bee-ess behind them? If they can't do that, what are the hopes that Canada's large populations of Iranian and Iraqi refugees could ever get along?
If Canada ever went to war with China, whose side would Markham be on?
Frankly, I really don't care what color someone's skin is. I think man has advanced beyond that point now; the only people who care about that are skinheads and other extremists. And Canada needs immigrants to sustain its economy. My concern, and frustration, is when literally hundreds of cultures, with mutually exclusive traditions, are thrust together in an experiment with very dangerous potential. And one where loyalty and patriotism aren't demanded or required of Canada's new Canadians.
One where, in fact, lawsuits have been won on the basis that since Canada is a multicultural society, you can't encourage patriotism, since it's exclusive of the non-Canadian cultures that make up the country.
In other words, Canadians are having their own laws used against them to erode the traditional images of the RCMP officer, the beer-swilling bilingual hockey player, the lumberjack in the snow. And it's not being replaced with anything solid or concrete that promotes a national identity.
My family has traced back its family tree to Nova Scotia in 1753. My family was part of Canada long before it was Canada. And yet, this is yet another one of the many reasons that I yearn to move to the United States, at least partially for the solidarity and strength of a patriotism that the Canadian government seems more interested in eroding than encouraging.
At least in the United States, everyone pulls together on the 4th of July. That happens less and less here every Canada Day.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
If someone calls themselves a Christian but attempts to destroy someone, do you really think they are a Christian?
Fred Phelps seems to think so:
www.godhatesfags.com
I'm so glad that religion is there to provide mankind with such a perfectly correct, rational and loving moral compass.
(Actually, I'm happier with the idea of scientific proof of evolution, since, by extension, it proves the bible wrong, and therefore sets the stage for defamation lawsuits against all the world's bible-thumping invisible-man-watching-me rubes.)
I'm so glad that the Catholic Church is running around telling people not to use condoms in places like Uganda.
This is a modern equivalent to the smallpox-infested blankets. You really should read your history books someday.
Religion is the single most dangerous invention of mankind, and it serves only to comfort those simple enough to believe in it.
Finally, you work in the technology field. I visited your website.
Technology, lest you be confused, is merely the application of science.
Science, in case you didn't know, has always been scorned and beaten down by religion.
Yet, science, while not perfect, has greatly advanced the human condition, and is the root cause of far less of the world's wars than religion.
So, how is it that you can reconcile your position as a religious individual with your career which is made possible by science, the greatest enemy of your faith?
It seems to me that the two are mutually exclusive, and yet it apparently poses no problem to you.
Thrall me with your acumen, for you are apparently wiser than I.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
so don't assume that everyone who attends services SOMEWHERE can instantly be branded a clueless lemming.
Believing that there's an invisible being staring down at you all the time is rationale enough to be branded clueless. Even certifiable.
And since it's a social thing, and lemmings tend to be social, I think it *is* rather apropos.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
So I am an extremist because I am concerned because all of the IT managers above me are White even though Houston Texas is ~25% Hispanic and ~20% Black?
Probably, yes.
What does that tell you? So Hispanics and Blacks aren't very interested in careers in the IT field. What do you want to do, start discriminating against white people because they're the only ones who apparently get into the field?
Fine. As a white person, I'm concerned that there aren't many white people in the NBA. Let's put affirmative action in place there!
Don't give me some baloney about lack of fiscal opportunity, either. I'm sure that it wouldn't be very tough for a little kid in the projects to get his hands on an old 486 if he tried. My parents didn't get a computer until I bought them a Pentium 166 several years ago, and yet, despite being a high school dropout, I managed to work my way up to an engineering and IT administration position at one of the biggest airports in North America.
Oh yeah, and I did it all myself, without government or social support. I worked my ass off.
Actually the refreshing lack of "patriotism" is why I would like to move to a more progressive country like Canada...Great! If we look even remotely similar, we could pull a passport swap, and not have to worry about those nasty immigration procedures. I'm sure we'd both be happier and therefore more useful to our adopted lands.
I'm 6'4", 175lbs, dark brown hair and eyes. I can suntan pretty dark, too. I'm not really swarthy, but I can pull it off if I need to.
As for "progressive", yeah, if you define socialism as progressive even though it promotes laziness, I suppose Canada is progressive.
I bet you've never been here, have you?
Yet, as a Slashdot contributor and reader, you're probably in the IT field, and probably quite affluent. Betcha just can't wait to see what taxes here are like. Or the lesser opportunity because fewer companies will locate here because of the high taxes.
And ya know, $100,000,000 of Canadian taxpayers' money went to Nortel last year. And does every year. Since Canada has about 1/10th the tax base of the United States, you figure that one out.
Isn't Nortel a private company and supposed to survive on its own?
Apparently, our definitions of "progressive" are divergent at best.
Ha ha ha! That is a good one. Actually the Whites in the U.S. are the ones that "celebrate" the 4th of July. To minorities it is just another day off from work.Hmmmm... Probably has something to do with George Double-Ya's Texas. I've done The Fourth in Manhattan, DC, Chicago, Detroit, Buffalo. The party seems to involve most every race.
African Americans are pissed off at being kidnapped and sold into slavery by White people.How about sold to Europeans by their African ancestors?
Yes, slavery was wrong. No, the Europeans shouldn't have done it. And no, it shouldn't have been allowed to continue for as long as it did.
So, speaking as a white person, I'm sorry.
But it's not my fault. It's not my father's fault. Or my grandfather's fault. Or my great grandfather's fault. In fact, like most caucasions in North America (and my family has been in North America since 1753), my family has never owned slaves.
So, like most white people, I think I have a right to be pissed off for people throwing slavery back in my face.
Native American are pissed off that they almost got exterminated by White people in a genocidal war.The Micmacs, Algonquins and Iroquois can definitely be mad at my ancestors for that.
Chicanos are pissed off at the fact that our land got stolen from us by White people.Like California? Texas? Hell, the whole southwest?
Didn't they lose a war there?
Fine, then. As a Canadian, and therefore a subject of the British throne, the nasty colonists who won the Revolutionary War stole land that should belong to Her Majesty.
I guess Hitler should be mad that after claiming half of Europe for Germany, that he had it "stolen" from him by war.
Or, coming from my Anglo-Saxon roots, I'm really pissed off that the Romans stole France from the Celtics.
Similarily, did that land belong to the Chicanos, or didn't it belong to the Mayans, Incans and Aztecs? You know, Hispanics are not native to Mexico. So, you're complaining that land that your people stole from the aboriginals only 300 years earlier has been stolen?
Heheh. I'd be grateful. I'm sure that you have far more opportunity in Texas than you would in Mexico. Based on US Border Patrol activities in that area, it seems that lots of other Chicanos feel differently from you.
Gimme a break. You spout sheer idiocy.
Please read some U.S. history before moving here. We have enough ignorant people here as it stands...Rest assured, I have.
And you'd do well to get a realistic viewpoint and an understanding of world history.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
I'm with you, like 1,000 %. :)
Faith is not only invalid during scientific inquiry, but involves (typically) circular reasoning so that any assertion is self-proving.
I do not have a signature
Thank you for using bold face type. Your assertions are much more believable now that you've indicated that you're emphatic about them. :)
I do not have a signature
I agree completely.
I also feel that way about gravity, but it simply is not provably, a priori true. Sure, planets seem to rotate around the sun because all particles with mass are mutually attracted, but the reality is that this is the simple order of things, as Azathoth and the Outer Gods created. There is no evidence against this claim.
If anyone can give me concrete proof of gravity, I will eat my hat.
Now, I have to check the mitocloria count in my processor, my computer is behaving slowly. It is probably either that of a disturbance in the force.
Roundness of the earth (Isaiah 40:22)
Almost infinite extent of the sidereal universe (Isaiah 55:9)
Law of conservation of mass and energy (II Peter 3:7)
Hydrologic cycle (Ecclesiastes 1:7)
Vast number of stars (Jeremiah 33:22)
Law of increasing entropy (Psalm 102:25-27)
Paramount importance of blood in life processes (Leviticus 17:11)
Atmospheric circulation (Ecclesiastes 1:6)
Gravitational field (Job 26:7)
--
' Ore stabit fortis a fine placet ore stat '
- found on a park bench
' Ore stabit fortis a fine placet ore stat '
- found on a park bench
That's just one of the "no one"s, "no other"s, and "no doubt"s that permeate this article. Without taking positions for or against, it's hard to take the above quote as a compelling argument that the human genome proves evolution as the sole cause for humanity's origin. Methinks the writer is just a teensy bit biased.
Of course, so is Slashdot. "Kansas agrees" because their original reason for removing Darwin from the curriculum was flawed, according to the linked article, not because they read this guy and came to the abrupt conclusion that There Is No God.
He's what Catholic's would call a Protestant, but he would never call himself that. It's a term invented by one group to describe another, and not the one they choose themselves. It's kind of like maid vs. house cleaner, or housewife vs. home maker, or mailman vs. letter-carrier, if we were talking about sex roles instead of religion.
One philosopher who studied religion made the assertion that terms only have meaning within their context (any philo. or religious study majors help me out with names/facts). In other words, you can't define these terms, only determine what the speaker means by them.
For instance, many religions that stem from Jesus Christ have a ceremony with bread and wine, that becomes (in their words) the Body and Blood of Christ. For the Catholic Church, officially, this means the bread and wine maintain the form of bread and wine (still provides nourishment, you could get slightly drunk, etc.), but it's essence is now the Body and Blood of Christ. To make a (possibly heretical) comparision, remember those Disney films where a man is transformed into a shaggy dog? The dog has all the form of a dog, but is the human in essence. Now, take away even the intellect of the man, and you are left with a dog in all things, except that it has a human soul. Try Occam's razor on that!!! (Who ever said Occam was right?)
Anyway, that's a fairly complex explaination. If you ask the average Catholic, they may believe that it is just symobolic, or that it now has a new form (my mom once told me you couldn't catch germs drinking from the common cup, which I seriously doubt). Others may not even have thought about it much. Go outside of Roman Catholicism, into other Catholic or "Christian" religions, and you'll get even more answers for what "Body and Blood" means.
Those that call themselves "Christians" usually mean "True Christians", as opposed to other groups, like Roman Catholics, that (in their opinion) don't worship Christ, but instead a corrupt, earthly organization (the Roman Catholic Church). While American Catholics identify themselves as Catholic (often dropping the "Roman" part), they will also identify themselves as Christian. Protestant is a term that only makes sense in Catholic/Protestant relationships, and is mainly used by Catholics to describe the Christians.
Fully confused? Good. Not much of it makes sense, and only a few have studied the actual theological differences. The rest are mostly fighting based on "our group is better than yours", or on "common sense" (the sum of the things you learned up to age 18).
If you want to really probe the differences, start asking about terms like being "saved", "Baptised", and start the old "Faith vs. Good Works" debate,. or the "literal vs. figurative" interpretations of the bible, or what it means to say the bible was "inspired by God/ Holy Spirit". Check out sites like Jack Chick's, for some Christian Propaganda/Ministering Aids, and search for criticism of his claims. If you are interested in what Catholics belive, go to the source: there is a copy of the Catechism on the Vatican's web site, which includes what all Catholic's should believe (not that all do). Have fun, there's a lot of info out there. Even if you are an atheist, you have to deal with religious people every day, and it's better to take the higher ground, to understand them, rather than to hate them because they are different (as the religous right does to various groups, or liberals do to the religous right).
Occasionally, I do call them fundamentialist Christians, but more often, I just call 'em "fundies". Makes them sound like more fun, doesn't it?
DISCLAIMER: I am not a Creationist (let alone a Christian).
The human genome proves nothing. The basics of Creationism state that some omnipotent being (God) created the universe. If this Being did this, then there is no reason he couldn't have setup our genetics in such a way as to supposedly lend credit to such an argument. Proof schmoof.
What nobody refuses to explore is how humans evolved so rapidly in comparison with all other species. It would be interested for someone to take the genome project, map out the genome of our closest 'ancestor' in the animal kingdom, and see what is different and why. I would be fascinated to find out the answers behind this, and I would be interested to hear an account of what caused the rapid evolution of humans. Trying to use science to disprove the unprovable is absolutely ridiculous, however, and people need to stop wasting their time.
-wd
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mercenary albino programmer for hire
"question = (to) ? be : !be;" --Shakespeare
Where did the whole universe come from? - the big bang? Well what created the big bang? Don't forget the ask the next question... I found that it led me to God
And what created God?
If you're going to say something had to create the Big Bang, then you must logically say something had to create your "God."
Why don't you just relent and agree that humans do not have the cognitive power to understand the creation of the universe beyond the big bang?
It's like asking a termite what built the house it lives on... do you think they believe in God or in Humans?
-thomas
"And like that
Why? Evolution is a myth...er...theory. Therefore it is not true, it is unproven. He BELIEVES that evolution is true. I BELIEVE that God created everything. This is a common mistake or misconception from scientists and anti-christian nazis. Scientists are supposed to be open to any possibility, not BELIEVE dispraportionately one way or another.
Who told you this nonsense? Scientists BELIEVE something is true, that is they believe something disproportionately over other alternatives, when it has more credible evidence in its favor.
On the other hand, religious people believe something based on what other people tell them, with no rationality. Which is why they call it 'faith'.
Evolution is a theory. Has everyone forgotten what the word 'theory' means? If you have, go get a dictionary, please.
Yes, and the truth scale goes something like this:
LAW -> THEORY -> BELIEF
We know where Evolution falls... where does yours fall?
"And like that
Scientific Creationism is merely a name given to right-wing bible-thumping zealots who wish schools in our country to not educate our children. See, most reasonable people, even those who believe in some sort of creation story, feel that evolution does actually happen. In fact, there is a popular, middle-of-the-road school of thought that would claim that the whole ball of wax, as it were, came into being via the hand of God, creating blue-green algae all those millenia ago, and then He (or She or It) took a hands off approach and let things get on with things. Frankly, I find this to be the scientific equivalent of being an agnostic. I find it easy to reconcile the two accounts: one is a religious story, meant to provide a direction to moral development, and the other is a scientific investigation, which has no moral to it's story, and is not meant to be believed blindly (emphasis on blind). In practice, the two should have no effect on one another. They don't for me.
Now back to the bible-belt zealots: unsatisfied with miseducating their own children to the nature of science, they want our schools to not teach evolution. But that's stupid. And dangerous. That way, you end up with presidents like Ronald Reagan who go on national television and say, "Well, it's just a theory," when asked about teaching evolution in the schools. So, most schools, at least those outside of Dixie (the South, to those of you in other countries that don't have to deal with this crap), say, "Sorry, no, we're teaching evolution and that's that." So, to muddy the waters (which is what zealots do, be they green or white-sheeted), the thumpers introduce this counter-intuitive bullshit called Scientific Creationism. The word scientific is used in this case to confuse and cajole the unwashed masses who can't tell the difference, kind of like calling Buzz Lightyear the ultimate in playtime fun. But really, it's just religion in a lab coat, so that the government won't notice they're violating the separation of church and state by forcing this steaming load of non-scientific lies down the throat of children, be they christian, muslim, jew or whatever. So, yes, it's just another abuse of the word scientific. A dangerous one at that. If I wanted my children (not that I have any yet, and this kind of thing is not making me want to have any) to learn about creationism, I'd send them to Sunday School to be indoctrinated.
Anyway, even the Pope says that evolution is more than a hypothesis (the link here is the only one I could find where the pontiff's statement was not followed by still more irrational, counter-intuitive, rabid drivelling by the religious right).
In short, my friend, be glad you live in Denmark.
Do not touch -Willie
That's an interesting point, since I've heard the same said about naturalistic evolution: There are not falsifiable predictions made regarding evolutionary theory, and thus evolution cannot be considered a usable theory. In effect your posted your key question to the creationism side, so allow me to ask my question:
"Regarding the study of life and its genesis and development, are what are the falsifiable predictions?"
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D. Fischer
ShoutingMan.com
"The Allmighty made men and women genetically similar to other animals to throw us off the scent. He knew about the concept of biology millions of years before the field of study began and planted little clues here and there to make believing in Him all the more difficult."
Praise the Lord and pass the blindfolds
Okay, don't get me wrong; I believe in evolution. But did anyone else notice that this MSNBC story contains no actual scientific facts to back up his argument? This article is bereft of content, and contains nothing but the same chest-thumping the author despises from the creation crowd. (or something)
"Extremism in defense of liberty is more fun."
Instead you should just state, "Evolution is a fact". Human beings, in thier short time of recorded history have seen cows in Australia evolve to the enviroment, virii and bacteria evolve to resist drugs, new breeds of dogs and cats appear, et al. There is NO disputing the fact of evolution. Now if you want to suggest human evolved from other primates, you'll have some resistence, but once its explained that Evolution is a fact, it's not that hard to see it happening.
Burn Hollywood Burn
Given both the evolution theory and the creation allegory are so undeniably true, some people have researched how these two interact to give the overall result of humanity. This link has the details.
Does my bum look big in this?
EVERYTHING is based on faith. Study logic and mathematics for any amount of time and you realize that all proofs are based on assumptions (just another word for faith).
Er, no. Faith is a belief that doesn't rest on logical proof or material evidence. Duh.
Does my bum look big in this?
Perhaps you ought to read this talk.origins FAQ. Evolution is a fact, and the observable processes which we label 'evolution' right now will continue to occur, be true and obserable, even if we ditch Darwin's theory of why it happens.
It's like, dismissing the heliocentric solar system idea doesn't stop the sun coming up every morning.
Does my bum look big in this?
I simply stated all truth is based on assumption (faith, whatever you want to call it).
Call it what you want, but you can't call anything based on physical evidence 'faith'. Faith is *defined* as the lack of logic and the lack of physical evidence. My point was that "facts" (theories, whatever) are defined by the basic assumptions we make.
You may hold that claim about "facts", but not theories. You really need a dictionary. You need one badly. A theory is some supposition about the world that can accurately predict physical evidence. Facts don't have to predict anything.
Now to my point again. FAITH is BELIEF which is NOT BASED ON LOGIC and NOT BASED ON PHYSICAL EVIDENCE. Using faith as the basis for a "fact" or even a theory is to state that your fact or theory is not based on physical evidence and not based on logic. Thanks for playing.
Does my bum look big in this?
Name me one thing that is fact that does not require any amount of assumption. Just one.
One fact is that, at this moment in time, the entry for "faith" at dictionary.com (2nd meaning) is "Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence". It does not require any assumption to state this fact.
If you want to try and validate that fact, you'll need certain pre-requisites like an internet connection, understanding of the english language (which you seem to lack), and you might even need the assumption that the page hasn't changed by the time you read it. I can't help you on that; my brain is being taken out of the jar it's in for cleaning, so I'll cease to exist for a short period of time. In the meantime, you could help yourself by reading up on nihilism and other stuff on epistemology.
Does my bum look big in this?
My argument is at the most basic root of anything is an assumption (Something taken for granted or accepted as true without proof. Close enough to Faith I believe to use interchangeably).
*sigh*. You batter the same old argument that's been raging for centuries. Theologists do not base their arguments on material evidence. Scientists only base their arguments on material evidence. When the two clash, the theologists hypocritically accuse the scientists of lacking evidence. The argument goes that because nothing evidence can be known to be 100%, it is therefore wrong to base any judgements on evidence, and instead work in cloud-cuckoo land with 0% accurate evidence. This is the essense of faith - lack of evidence, lack of logic. However, science does not claim that evidence is 100% accurate, in fact they generally work out their margin of error as a matter of course.
This all boils down to the subjective vs objective argument. For example, let's have 100 people look at an alledged tree in a forest. 99 subjectively percieve the tree, but one person does not. Is the tree there? It is 99% likely that the tree is there. It depends on the levels of skepticism and pedantry, but it would generally be agreed that the objective viewpoint is that the tree is there, even though all evidence was collected subjectively. That's enough to convince scientists, but anything less than 100% is not going to convince a fundamentalist theologian, who would rather believe the 0% accurate claims of his religion.
But what material proof do you have that you're simply not dreaming the whole thing, or delusional? My contention: none. You merely assume so.
Why stop there? Are you just a brain in a jar?.
Does my bum look big in this?
All truth (facts, whatever) are derived from assumptions (beliefs, faith, whatever)
OK, OK! Enough! All human knowledge of truth are [sic] derived from human assumptions. Fine. This is pretty much the definition of "subjective". We can't step outside ourselves and objectively perceive reality. It's such a barrier, philosophers have even argued the case for there being no objective reality. After all, we can't prove it exists, can we? Everything we humans do is subjective in some way or another, and we can't even speculate on there being an objective reality outside our subjective perception of it, because to do that would be subjective!
As you can see, this debate rages into a black hole, because saying there is no objective reality is also subjective. People who go around claiming this continually are nihilists, but I'm quite happy to believe you just want the point shown, you're not like some reincarnation of Nietzsche.
So, by stating this, have you cleverly pulled the rug from under science? No! Actually, hang on, I'll just address this part of your post at the same time:
> Scientists only base their arguments on material evidence.
Actually, scientist use material evidence to bolter theories. A scientist does not on material evidence alone prove anything. It is important, but not the only thing.
I said they base their arguments on material evidence. If you can call assumption 'faith', I can call theories and debates 'arguments'. So, how does science beat the objectivity barrier? Well, through smoke and mirrors. First, we gather huge amounts of material evidence through the previously discussed collective subjectivism. Next, we form a hypothesis based around that evidence that makes a conjecture about the objective existence, and uses this logically to make predictions about the subjective reality. Therefore, we can prove with the rules of logic that both the objective statements lead from the subjective evidence, and that the subjective predictions are an accurate conclusion of the objective statements. Then, we test the hypothesis with collective subjectivism. Should the prediction correlate with the evidence, then bingo! We've made a valid claim about objective reality!
I apologise if you thought I was calling you a creationist fundamentalist. You're sharing the same argument, but clearly not the same beliefs (you would have mentioned the satanism of evolution by now if you were a fundie). I would call you a nihilist if you persisted in your argument and tried to argue that science is futile, but you're not at that stage yet.
But anyway, as a scientific atheist who believes in evolution, I wouldn't going around saying "science is basically just faith". It's more a diplomatic gesture, to respect the huge amount of effort science goes to in gathering evidence, analysing it, hypothesising and testing, just to provide a more stable bedrock for understanding the world. Remember "faith" implies no evidence and no logic. It would be unfair to call the whole lot "faith", just because there are things we can't test directly and perfectly. Even 1% accuracy is preferable to 0% accuracy.
Does my bum look big in this?
While these discoveries may rule out _creationism_ as most people know it (that is, God just plopping Adam 'n Eve in the garden, which in theological terms, is considered to be part of the literal interpretation camp of creationism) it does not rule out creationism completely. Who is to say God didn't brew the primodial stew to set the whole evolutionary process in motion. Even Christian scientists who don't subscribe to the literal interpretation of the Genesis story believe that there is hard scientific fact that backs evolutionary theory (check out Michael Behe's _Darwin's Black Box_). While there are still holes in evolutionary theory (such as the development of our eyes...read Behe's book to find out why), the concepts still hold scientific weight.
Truth is, any Christian who says that evolution isn't possible with God needs to rethink her theology...last time I checked, the God of the Bible is omnipotent, meaning he can do as he pleases.
Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent. --Ludwig Wittgenstein
Just to prove my point, what if this had been an opinion piece asserting that the human genome findings supported creationism? Would all those who support evolution suddenly decide that creationism is correct? Of course not, for it would only be an opinion piece and we would say his opinion is wrong, let's see the scientific data instead.
Next week I'm going to post to MSNBC an opinion piece that asserts that the universe is actually a few thousand light years in diameter, but looks much bigger because of the use of strategically-placed mirrors. Trust me, my opinion piece will absolutely, positively prove the point, even without the use of messy scientific facts...
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Private Essayist
This is, however, one of the many topics that researchers have simply been too eager to come to a conclusion on. (Especially on the principle that science is much like a religion, and many religions innately work to disprove other religions.) They may be absolutely right, and I think they are. But, one thing we've learned in the history of science is that there is always another way of looking at problems or even solutions. I'm not discounting that evidence of evolution lies in our genes. But this sentence: "There is, as the scientists who cracked the genome all agreed, no other possible explanation." is vaguely disturbing. There *must* be conflict and debate amongst scientists for the correct ideas to be hammered out.
Discovery is not a group of people sitting around, patting eachother on the backs, congratulating one another on being right. Of course then again, I'm not a molecular biologist. I have not read the hard facts on this conclusion. Maybe it's so blatantly obvious that this post is just plain stupid. :-)
God --> DNA --> bacteria --> fish --> mammals --> Human
But is this statement made in defense of religion and opposition to science? You'll notice that this recent discovery says nothing about religion. It tells us that evolution is fact, not theory. I don't know why you're getting upset. :-)
"God and Darwin can be both correct."
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So let's say we have two theories. One is some form of Darwinism, the other is identical but ALSO says "God started the process", "wound the clock", "put in the magic soul bits" or whatever. Unless the second theory is explaining some observation that the first isn't explaining, Occam's Razor demands we take the first theory as true. Otherwise, God is just cluttering up a perfectly workable theory.
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"I am a creationist myself..."
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"Macroevolution, on the other hand, has not been persuasively presented to me, so I'm withholding judgment on the physical origin of life until someone from either camp can make a reasonable argument."
You are withholding judgement by being a creationist? Or are you saying you are a creationist but you are withholding judgement on the details? If the latter, can you please lay out the "supporting evidence" that persuaded you to become a creationist?
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I haven't read Darwin directly, but I have read neo-darwinists like Dawkins. This is not at all how it's explained, even in the "What Darwin Said versus What We Think Now" sections. Please provide some quotes (with page numbers) supporting your view. If you cannot, I will have to ask Rob to donate your ill-gotten karma points to charity.1 346238&mode=thread
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I read the book flap at the library and it sounded great. I brought it home to read and gave up after 100-200 pages. The science side of the story had taken maybe two steps, the "modern angst" side had filled up the rest. Maybe it would make a good short story....1 346238&mode=thread
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....I can't help myself.
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You say you are a Xian. You say that the reason you are a creationist is that you are a Xian. It's not clear what "this" refers to in "This, however, is a personal belief and cannot be scientifically proven or disproven...", but it sounds like it refers to creationism, at least indirectly, so you admit that creationism is non-scientific.
Then you say that you are willing to be persuaded that evolution is true if it can be demonstrated, presumably displacing your creationst beliefs at the same time. But since you say your current beliefs can't be disproven, just what kind of proof would be sufficient?
And back to my original question: What "supporting evidence" persuaded you that creationism was true? Except for the first few verses of the Bible Xianity is mute on the topic. Are you saying you are a biblical literalist? If so, how were you able to break away on the Big Bang topic?
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Damn! You rock! These links are pure gold. I was going to say "that oughta shut 'im up"...then I realized that if he was rational, we wouldn't be having this conversation.1 346238&mode=thread
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"Creationism in my mind at least stays fixed...Evolution seems unstable and follows the latest scientific fads..."
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You know why that is? Because creationism doesn't make falsifiable and/or testable claims. I mean, honestly, if your theory is "God said 'so mote it be' and here we are" just what kind of evidence COULD force a change? Fossils? "God put 'em there." Genome? "God did it."
Evolution hasn't changed it's broad structure in 150 years. The details have been modified as theories have been proven wrong.
It's like that joke: The University accountant is complaining about the high cost of running some fo the departments. The mathematics professor pipes up and says "all WE really need is chalk and erasers for doing proofs." The philosophy (or in this case, theology) professor says "all WE need is chalk".
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I was going to post the very same thing.
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I might also add, to be fair, that this doesn't prove evolution "indisputably" either. For one thing, nothing can be proved "indisputably". For another, evolution is a theory about history--using facts about the present alone isn't necessarily conclusive.
All that said, I fully support evolution (and, more specifically, natural selection)--but I also doubt any True Disbelievers will be swayed by this evidence.
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Okay, this is where you start to look like a troll. Paul was self-righteous about being mean to people before he began evangelizing Christianity
Okay, a troll? Where do you get that? Paul clearly didn't know christ the man existed, as he never mentions him in his writings. Also, look closer at how Paul beats himself up in Romans ch7. I quote: "but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members" He continues on, degrading himself and how he must yield to god. The last time I ever witnessed a self denial like this was in witnessing men who refused to accept the fact that they were gay.
So, let me see..., Paul never mentions christ, all gospels come during or after Paul's life, and Paul is a Jew with a terrible self image caused by his anger over being something he doesn't want to be/can't accept being. Who is your 'christ' again? Sounds like the imagination of a man seeking redemption from himself.
There you go. You wanted a 'troll'. I have given you an interpretation of your bible that fits your description of a 'troll'.
Think about it.
They stuck me in an institution, said it was the only solution, to...protect me from the enemy, myself
Scientists: No amount of physical evidence, mathematical formulae, or deductive reasoning will ever be able to PROVE that we were or were not created by God, Allah, YWEH, etc. There were no eye witnesses, and just because you have a theory that fits current evidence does not mean that theory is correct. I'm hearing more and more legitimate scientists discuss the idea of panspermia, which was scoffed at as little as 10 years ago. Do not worship your data. Do not worship your theories.
Christians: If you truly beleive in God, then the most importaint thing for you to worry about is "Love one another". No amount of arguing about the geneology of the species will bring new followers to the church, nor will it improve the condition of your fellow man. Worship your God, not your dogma.
"Sudy the moon, not the finger pointing at it"
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.
First of all....if there is a god, it would be sexless, so in all theory, you know nothing of what would constitute a supreme being...
...4 billions to them is a "blink" in a way...
and as far as "scientific" perhaps, you would have to think outside the box to put "science" and "god" in the same sentence.
why would a supreme being be the pinnacle of creation? Of Life?...is it not a common theme in stories that the created eventually become as powerful or evolve to the same level as their creator?
Furthermore, a supreme being would have no reason to create different living things at once...no, instead they would create the environment that would be conducive to the creation of living things...
because lets face it, 4 billions years is a long time from our perspective because our lifespans are short...but a supreme being has not concept of time as they would "probably" never actually age in the physical sense and being immortal, would not be concerned with the passage of time.
which brings us, are humans going to eventually "play god"? in a way we already do, but we will, and rightfully so, be able to create life from nothing...because being able to do so is in a way the created having the same powers as the creator...the pinnacle of evolution..
Don't get your hopes up that the "scientific" creationists will have the sense to close up shop - theirs is not a desire to find the truth, but to believe that they have it already. These data will not be some kind of silver bullet to cure willful ignorance.
Ignoring the creationsists for a minute, data from the genome map will require rethinking of some of our earlier conclusions, not least of all those about the basic functioning of genes - with only 30,000, synergy and emergent properties are will become radically more important, and related branches of mathematics will probably see new interest.
Where's Buckminster Fuller when you need him?
OK,
- B
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http://www.bradheintz.com/
- updated
But maybe it could be because they can't spin it...
nahhhh...
Dissolve... Resolve... Evolve...
I am amazed at the ignorance, and more importantly the arrogance, of people on both sides of this.
When it comes down to it, people are scared, beyond measure, about what happens to them when they die. Sure, anyone in our church (yes, I attend on an occassional basis -- schedule defined by me) will tell you "I'm not scared... I know where I'm going" but nearly every one of those people are scared, too. The few that are truly happy and comfortable don't feel the need to vehemently prove their *faith* to other people.
I consider myself to be a fairly scientific person. I try to evaluate things with an open mind. I accept that evolution probably does occur and we have some pretty convincing slumped-over caveman skeletons that show some amazing evolution in a short time. I also don't remember dinosaurs getting mentioned in any good book (no brontasaurus or wooly mammoth on any ark that size, either). However, I would probably have heard some pretty convincing aruements that the worls was flat and that maggots spontaniously appear in rotten food, too, had I lived earlier and listened to the amazing scientists then.
Nobody can absolutely prove the existence of a god nor can they provide absolute proof that one does not exist. There's nothing wrong with that, but to assume that you absolutely know God's will or the secret of life, based on either a gene or a book, is ridiculous.
My recommendation to both sides is to keep an open mind and realize that if you could prove faith it would cease to be faith.
All that this proves is that Carolus Linnaeus was right when he classified humans as primates along with monkeys and gorillas. This apparently completely uninformed commentary ignores the "Bible-thumper" response that of course the gene sequences would be similar--the body of a human is quite similar to that of a chimp. The assembly instructions for a Suburban would look a lot like those of a Durango. (Note that I am arguing neither for nor against Darwinistic evolution, simply saying that this article is mostly irrelevant.)
I'm not sure whether you understand the term "theory." Einsteinian relativity is a theory. Maxwellian quantum mechanics is theory. A theory is a hypothesis which has been proposed and scientifically tested. They are considered reliable until disproven.
While such constructs as the big-bang theory have been calculated and tested and refined, macroevolution as such has not been scientifically proven or even proven to be plausible. As of now, no plausible method for speciation (the separation of one species into two) has been proposed, and not one single instance of it has ever been documented. Decades of concerted efforts to create new species from fruit flies, for instance, have been completely unable to do so--and this was guided as opposed to the chaotic forces of nature.
Everyting you prove with these axioms are true within the logical structure defined by the axsioms.
Some of these logical struktures have proven very handy when describing natural phenomenom.
Unfortunately, in this case it's the unwashed judges who are supposed to be confused. The 'scientific' bit came about mainly because creationists found that they couldn't force the government to teach Creationism in its raw biblical form (that pesky church and state thing.) So the argument was codified into a 'scientific' argument. The science is dubious, and ignores mountains of evidence to the contrary; but unlike, say Euclidian Geometry, there's no way to prove that evolution theory is correct. The creation-science chimera stands a much better chance of going under the church/state radar, and at least claiming equal time in American schools.
And tomorrow they're going to tell us the earth is round - shea right.
Bottom line a true creationist doesn't need any genetic proof of their belief. The belive that God created it and that is sufficient for them. To the ones that seek proof, they view such similarities as "a mark of ownership". They would say well since God created the animals, and everything else, the same building blocks were used here, so sure there are simularities. Most creationist feel evolutionist use evolution as a way to dispell the idea of a diety(with the acknowledgement of a diety you then have to make a decision as to what you will do with it.) SIDE NOTE: After reading the kansas article, nothing there inplied that the State education board used the Genome study in their decision.
Razzious Domini
Razzious Domini
I could be a GREAT KARMA WHORE if I could just shed the few morals I have left.
- it almost seems like religion's answer is more credible because at least it is consistent.
What value does consistancy have when you keep giving the same thoughtless answers?
Religon's Answer: God
Religon's Answer: God
ad nausum
What would religon's answer be for why light travels at one speed and not another? - GOD made it so?
There is no meaning behind those answers. At least science tries to explain something based on fact, religon requires you to make that 'leap-of faith' from the get-go. Science gives you something to build on.
I am not saying a agree with the journalist's point about Evolution being proven. There realy was not any facts to back that up in the article, but don't discount science because it isn't giving you the answer right now.
nparr