The Eye: Evolution versus Creationism

Sox2 writes "SciScoop is running a story about researchers in Germany who claim to have solved the "mystery" surrounding the evolution of the mamalian eye. The work, published in Science, goes some way to answering the issues raised in the "intelligent design" debate that has become the mainstay of creationist thinking."

Comments

Darwin got it right...

[Space cowboy]

The article is essentially saying 'we found the smoking gun'; that light-sensitive cells originated within the brain, and migrated slowly outwards to form eyes. Ergo, the famous Darwin reasoning 'any form of eye is an evolutionary advantage, and therefore given even a truly-awful eye you would expect it to develop over time into something useful' is at least plausible. Evolution at work within a large-enough population.

I remember reading in 'PCW' back when I was at school (20 years or so ago :-) of a graphical demonstration (written in Mac Basic) of the evolution of an eye lens, using statistical population approximation to demonstrate that once even a slight advantage is gained, the population moves towards a better and better eye. It drew the lens on the screen as it was being calculated iteration by iteration - fascinating stuff. I ported it to my Atari XL/Turbo Basic - Macs were a little out of my price range :-)

Simon

Re:Darwin got it right...

[NardofDoom]

To paraphrase: "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king."

Re:Darwin got it right...

[pixelpusher220]

Actually it proves Darwin's theory...

As you said the 'animal' with poor vision and smell is at a disadvantage and more likely to be killed by a predator. So now in the remaining population the 'mutations' giving better sight or sense of smell will reproduce more in comparison as the weak 'animals' have been culled from the herd as it were.

If you're talking about just one individual yes it's contradictory as they can't reproduce, but rarely are entire species wiped out quickly enough to stop the mutations from having a positive effect. (ignoring our own human influences on nature of course!)

Re:Darwin got it right...

[Bohnanza]

Then we have some being with lousy sight AND lousy sense of smell. Ergo, again by Darwin's theory, natural selection should cause that being to cease to exist.

Darwin said no such thing. Darwin's theory only dictates that the fittest will survive. Organisms are in competition on numerous levels. There is no reason to believe that such an intermediate creature would not be superior in some important ways to its competitors.

Re:Darwin got it right...

[Space cowboy]

That's not a counter-argument... I'm not even sure where to start...

No species evolves in a vacuum, and evolution (effectively) is constantly trying to find the most advantage for the species within a given environment. Even laying aside the argument that just because one thing is increased doesn't mean another is decreased (some creatures have good sight, good smell, and good hearing, for example), it is the environment, not the species that dictates what path evolution takes a species.

Consider a massively pungent environment, where all smells are rendered undetectable against the background within a metre or so. If you hunt over large distance, your species will likely only use smell for identification within social groups. Sight, hearing, maybe sonic radar, whatever will become far more important, and therefore more prominent to your species.

Consider the opposite - a constantly foggy environment. Here sight (unless you evolve a radio-sense) will be pretty useless, smell and hearing will take control.

The real world is neither of the above extremes, but given the prey and lifestyle of any given species, it is highly unlikely to ever result in a *real* stagnation in evolution. Even if so (hah!) there is more to it than just evolution at work - if you read Stuart Kauffman's 'The origins of order' (and you manage to finish it, which took me a few tries), he derives theories that both place limits on what evolution can acheive, and shows how jumps can be made from the stable state to a worse or better state across fitness landscapes.

People think that apes/chimpanzees/whatever are less evolved than humans, which is rubbish. People are more intelligent, but apes are just as evolved - a human wouldn't survive anywhere near as long as a great ape in the ape's natural habitat. Evolution and environment go hand in hand.

Simon.

Re:Darwin got it right...

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Recession of traits is not part of the theory of natural selection.

I would also like to point out that nose size has NOT BEARING AT ALL on how sensitive the sense of smell is. There are rodents that put our noses to shame.

What natural selection DOES say is that as traits are not used anymore, a mutation that impairs them is not bred out of the population. That is why we still have vestigal organs like the appendix and tonsils. There are other mammals that still use those organs, but humans don't.

(On a side note, the part of the human brain that should respond to pherimones stopped working eons ago. Unlike most mammals, we communicate sexual arousal through blushing, so color vision has largely replaced musk. Yes, we can still smell the pherimone, but that smell doesn't trigger that part of the brain anymore. Don't think we communicate sexual arousal through color? Why do women color their cheeks with makeup?.)

Re:Darwin got it right...

[BWJones]

The other thing to remember is that the human eye is NOT the most advanced eye in the animal kingdom. We essentially have three channels of vision for perception of our world, red, green and blue, whereas other organisms such as many fish, turtles and birds have much more advanced retinas (and complex) that our own. For example, the turtle likely sees in at least seven channels of vision, perceiving a world we could never hope to imagine.

Oh, and here is another fact: In the zebrafish, despite their retinas being much more complex and sophisticated than ours, can repair their retinas from damage whereas we are currently screwed if our retinas go bad.

IAAVS (I am a vision scientist), and neuroscientist.

Re:Darwin got it right...

[E_elven]

This nuance is very important.

Evolution* isn't trying anything. It simply happens.

End of message.

[*] Evolution is a prevalent, beneficial mutation. Specifically, a mutation simply happens.

Re:Darwin got it right...

[gosand]

To paraphrase: "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king."

The Pope has one eye?

Re:Darwin got it right...

[tundog]

Now that you mention the three channels of vision, it reminds me on an article I read in Red Herring sometime back about a mutant gene that shows up in some women that that gives them 4 channels of vision. It allows the ones lucky enough to have it to have a much sharper perception of color tones - ironically, most that have it aren't even aware that they see the world any different than the rest of us. Do a google on tetrachromatic women.

The Red Herring article is here but you need to give up your first born to read it.

Re:Darwin got it right...

[BWJones]

All mammalian retinas are "inverted" as well as many other organisms. This seems backwards from a developmental perspective, but when you realize the anatomy and physiology of the retina is designed around a high metabolic load system, it makes more sense. The retina has one of the highest metabolic requirements/mass in the body and all that metabolic machinery requires some mechanism to supply nutrients and remove wastes. This is the function of the RPE and vascular choroid. So, you make the retina essentially transparent and flip the bits with the highest metabolic requirements over to face the tissues that would be very difficult to make transparent and you have a reasonable solution.

Re:Darwin got it right...

[BranMan]

Could be that our eye's evolution was halted by our acquiring intelligence - remove evolutionary preasure and features stagnate. IIRC, the skunk has really bad eyesight - since everything leaves it alone and it only eats plants it had no reason to evolve better eyesight.

If we ever do get into genetic manipulation, I hope that is one area given serious work. We depend much more on our eyes than ever before (though not for survival per se) in our society. I for one would love to see in seven channels of vision - and have eyes that can repair their own damage.

Re:Darwin got it right...

[BWJones]

wouldn't it be more accurate to say that humans have four channels of vision

You are somewhat correct. Given the general audience here on Slashdot, I "tuned" my comments a bit to make them more clear discussion. Photopic and mesopic are words commonly used in vision science, but are not words the general populace is familiar with. As for your point about humans seeing with four channels, this is somewhat complicated by the fact that cones "piggy back" on the existing rod based system so one does not have true segregation of signals. Mammals evolved cones later than rods and integrated them into the existing rod based pathways.

Also, isn't it somewhat misleading to describe the cone channels as red, green, and blue channels when in fact the peaks of their sensitivity curves are closer to what we would call yellow-green, green-yellow, and blue, IIRC? Or is referring to them as red-green-blue channels standard usage in the field in spite of that?

Most folks in the vision community, even the psychophysics folks use red, green and blue for their nomenclature, but everybody does know about the spectral properties of the pigments. As an interesting aside, the pigment in rods is actually blue-green.

I've heard rumors that a small number of human females may be tetrachromats -- i.e., actually possess 4 distinct cone variants -- but I'm not aware of any peer-reviewed studies of this supposed phenomenon. Do any exist to your knowledge?

I have seen a few posters at ARVO, and I believe there might have been a paper in Nature some time ago talking about it, but I am not really familiar with that literature.

Finally, regarding retinal regeneration, the current issue of New Scientist discusses some successful early experiments in which implantation of retinal material from aborted fetuses helped restore vision in adult humans.

Much of the vision restoration literature has been lacking in definitive proof of vision restoration. It turns out that the problem of evaluation of vision is harder than it seems. That said, I believe there are some good potential biological approaches to rescuing vision, possibly involving stem cells, but I have my own ideas about that and am not talking just yet..... :-)

Re:Darwin got it right...

[alexo]

> Now that you mention the three channels of vision, it reminds me on an
> article I read in Red Herring sometime back about a mutant gene that shows up
> in some women that that gives them 4 channels of vision. It allows the ones
> lucky enough to have it to have a much sharper perception of color tones -
> ironically, most that have it aren't even aware that they see the world any
> different than the rest of us. Do a google on tetrachromatic women.
>
> The Red Herring article is here but you need to give up your first born to
> read it.

However, you also have to read the Green Herring and the Blue Herring to get the complete picture.

Re:Darwin got it right...

[B2382F29]

However, you also have to read the Green Herring and the Blue Herring to get the complete picture.

Oh, and the fourth Herring... it is about tetrachromacy after all.

Re:Darwin got it right...

[ozbird]

That would explain women's fashion:
F: "I can't wear that - emerald was last year's colour. This year it's teal."
M: "Huh? They're both green..."
[whack!]

Re:Darwin got it right...

[DunbarTheInept]

Evolution leads to local maximas, not global maximas. That's why there so many different kinds of animal. If an eye develops that works, even if in a backward way, it will tend to stay that way if there's a hard evolutionary "ditch" to get over in flipping it around (i.e. there is a global maximum nearby, but the curve goes through a dip before it gets there, so locally evolution favors not going in that direction.)

Re:Darwin got it right...

[Minna Kirai]

We only need three colors to form all other colors in the visible spectrum provided the colors are processed correctly.

That question is meaningless, because your premise is either circular, or flat-out wrong, depending on the definition of "color" used.

If "color" means those things humans call colors, then then it's a truism: we can see everything we can see, because that's what we can see.

But the number of potential colors is unlimited, even within the visual spectrum. The colors we percieve are actually superimposed photonic waveforms produced when light reflects off a surface. (or is emitted by radiation, etc).

If you understand auditory perception, that can be a helpful analogy: although sound is really a 1-dimensional quantity (air pressure varying over time), the variations happen too fast to be tracked directly. So the ear canal contains receptors sensitive to different frequencies of pulsation, which are combined in your brain to make hearing.

Photons are even faster and less plausible to measure individually, so receptors trigger off of different wavelengths, and combine them visually. There's no physical reason for an RGB breakdown; that's just the number of colors which turned out to be most helpful for mammalls to evolve.

So the most advanced vision would seem to be that which employs the fewest detectors to represent the full range of the visible spectrum

And is the most advanced computer the one that uses the fewest symbols to represent the full range of possible data? Of course not. There's a reason we don't just use ASCII / VT100 terminals, and there's an even better reason why the Altair's binary lightbulb display was so quickly obseleted.

Let it begin

[Anonymous Coward]

Since this story is just an invitation for a huge flamewar, I thought I'd ask a few follup questions:

What's your favorite Linux distribution? Why?

Does anyone you know still run Windows?

What religion are you?

Vi or emacs?

Mac users: all gay?

How do you feel about abortion?

Which U.S. presidential candidate do you support?

Was the war in Iraq justified?

Just some food for thought.

Re: Let it begin

[Black Parrot]

> What religion are you?

> Vi or emacs?

Looks like you got an accidental line break in there.

This won't change their minds...

[garcia]

Scientist Kristin Tessmar-Raible provided the crucial evidence to support Arendt's hypothesis. With the help of EMBL researcher Heidi Snyman, she determined the molecular fingerprint of the cells in the worm's brain. She found an opsin, a light-sensitive molecule, in the worm that strikingly resembled the opsin in the vertebrate rods and cones. "When I saw this vertebrate-type molecule active in the cells of the Playtnereis brain - it was clear that these cells and the vertebrate rods and cones shared a molecular fingerprint. This was concrete evidence of common evolutionary origin. We had finally solved one of the big mysteries in human eye evolution."

Well, I understand that for this article they probably spoke in very simplistic terms but the phrase "strikingly resembled" doesn't exactly equate to "concrete evidence". This certainly won't quell the arguments from the creationists either as there just isn't enough evidence to prove that the "supreme being" didn't plan this all along...

Re:This won't change their minds...

[Bearpaw]

I picked up a copy of Wired the other day. (First time in years.) It had an interesting cover story on the people and strategies behind "intelligent design".

Re:This won't change their minds...

[Alci12]

Hmm As though 'evidence' has anything to do with the creationism argument. If you really 'believe' in creationism you will always think that there isn't enough evidence. As each argument is knowcked down another just springs up in its place. Hmm is it time to study the evolution in creationist explanations over the ages?

Re:This won't change their minds...

[Nopal]

And that's exactly why the whole creationism/evolution debate is pointless: You can never prove or disprove that one didn't precede the other. An argument can easily be made that God created all of it's creatures through evolution. To wit, that God created evolution.

It's kind of like science proving that God is not real. The effort is meant to fail because science cannot deal with God because it isn't designed to. On the other side, religion cannot, for the most part, deal with science because religion rests on a premise of faith which is by definition, unprovable belief.

When both sides are not even supposed to have common ground on which to argue, the creationist/evolutionist debate is a non-sequitur on both sides.

Re:This won't change their minds...

[jfengel]

Since the "God planned it all along" argument is non-falsifiable, those promoting it will never have reason to abandon it.

Non-falsifiability means that it's useless from a scientific point of view. A useful scientific theory must make predictions; if those predictions turn out to be wrong, then you discard the theory. You almost never know anything 100% certainly in science, but falsifiability lets you know 100% for certain when something is wrong. Lack of falsifiability means that it makes no predictions and is therefore useless. I can assume that it's true, or that it's false, but that doesn't change what I expect to happen in the world.

Intelligent design arguments are not necessarily non-falsifiable. They predict the existence of features which could not have evolved. The eye was one such feature, but this discovery tends to refute that. There are others, such as mitochondria, which are basically a challenge to evolutionary theory that says, "Show me how that could have evolved".

(Not to mention that God himself could, someday, speak from the sky, cause plagues of locusts, and generally prove his existence in the scientific sense. His reasons for not doing so remain obscure to me, but then, by definition they would.)

Personally, I believe that if there were an intelligent designer we wouldn't have to search so hard for evidence. An intelligent designer had many, many options; if we're not descended from ape-like species, then it was unnecessarily parsimonious of that designer to make us so extraordinarily similar, down the the levels of individual bones and individual nucleic acids. Those pieces of evidence that claim to falsify evolution are few and far between and it generally seems possible to find the refutations for them, given time either to piece out the genetics or the necessarily gap-ridden fossil record.

But that won't change the minds of anybody who believes a non-falsifiable theory in the first place. They don't place the same priority that I do on predictive powers of theories. They're more interested in the moral implications, and will disregard any theory that denies their morality, no matter how much closer it comes to "truth" in the scientific sense. It's just not something they care about.

It's not my cup of tea, and of course I'm upset when they try to force on me a version of truth that I can prove is wrong (using a version of "proof" that they don't accept but which has proven very useful for developing things like toaster ovens and rocket ships). Especially when that version of truth contradicts my moral beliefs. But without even a single point of overlap between us there appears to be no rational place to resolve that. It must be an article of faith. If you wish your faith to contradict perceived reaility, or to make no statements whatever about perceived reality, then I will certainly outcompete you in the building of toaster-ovens and rocket ships, but that may not matter.

Re:This won't change their minds...

[adamjaskie]

Exactly. Only one group can be right, and it is obvious which one. Earth was created approximately 5700 years ago. The planets, sun and stars revolve around it, and it is flat. Fossils were put there by God to make us question our faith. Only the truely faithful will be saved on the judgement day, in -4 years.

Re:This won't change their minds...

[G. W. Bush Junior]

And that's exactly why the whole creationism/evolution debate is pointless: You can never prove or disprove that one didn't precede the other. An argument can easily be made that God created all of it's creatures through evolution. To wit, that God created evolution.

Actually that's not quite what the creationism/evolution debate is about. Creationists are deluded people that think that what they do is science - the real point of the debate is to make these people understand that, yes, it is possible that they are right, but science is falsifiable - creationism is not. Ergo creationism has nothnig to do with science.

What these people have done is simply fill a hole that the creationists claimed couldn't be filled... that is of course interesting, but since creationism is not falsifiable it doesn't actually move anything.

Stories like this, where real scientists attack the claims made by creationists, are in my view a little dangerous... on one hand it tackles a relevant scientific question, but on the other hand the creationists might think that they are being taken serious as scientist, making them even more adamant in their delusion.

Re:This won't change their minds...

[jilles]

You are probably right. Historically, fundamentalists have shown great resistance to any kind of scientific evidence, facts etc. There is no scientific proof they are wrong. It's just that there's no scientific proof that they are right either.

The latter is more relevant (for a scientist) because science is about disproving hypotheses until you run out of ways to do so or until they are proven irrelevant.

Creationism, being a slightly rediculous hyphothesis to begin with, clearly falls in the latter category: it is an irrelevant theory because it has been carefully constructed to support what the bible says instead of what we observe in scientific research. Worse, it is constantly being adjusted (as we learn more) by so called creationists to convince non scientists that it is in fact a scientifically sound theory. Some of these creationists even have scientific careers though I wouldn't trust many of them to pull off something like cloning a sheep.

Creationists derive their legitimacy from the very thing they are arguing against: science. They have their own little journals, professors, they take part in bonafide research projects and it can be quite hard to see the difference for non scientists. However, science has nothing to do with believes other than proving that what you believe is not supported by facts. Don't show you are right but demonstrate that you have done everything to prove your hypothesis wrong and maybe a scientist will believe you.

Science provides loads of facts and means to observe facts. Only if you ignore those facts, creationism makes sense. Scientific theories have to be consistent with everything we observe.

The creationist hyphothesis posed here was that because there are two different types of eyes in nature they cannot have the same ancestor (which from a darwinistic point of view is convenient rather than necessary). The motivation for this hypothesis comes not from any facts which need explaining but from the notion that something as complex as the eye must have been invented rather than evolved. This notion developed itself as creationsists were examining darwinian predictions which seemed so improbable that they would support the overall hypothesis that in fact darwinism is nonsense.

By showing that in fact there was a creature which at least had the building blocks for constructing both types of eyes, this hyphothesis has been proven wrong. Either the observation that there was such a creature is wrong or the hyphothesis is wrong. Both facts cannot be right at the same time. Case closed for the scientists.

Of course it is tempting (for a non creationist) to extrapolate the conclusion that in fact creatinism itself is nonsense (rather than darwinism). It's certainly true that many other creationist myths have been disproven in a similar way. However, as creationists are likely to point out: the observation could be wrong as well. And even if it's right it is all part of a bigger plan. Creationists never run out of explanations, no matter what the facts are.

Re:This won't change their minds...

[jludwig]

Non-falsifiability means that it's useless from a scientific point of view.

I used to hold this view very near and dear until I read a little about Bayesian statistics (the same stuff that makes your spam filter work). The problem is (and this is also brought up in the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainence) is that there is an infinite number of potentially valid hypothesis if one simply operates from this falsifiability standpoint, and therefore objective scientific progress is impossible.

Instead, all reason (scientific or religious) involves a prior subjective probability, a "hunch" if you will, against whichs one checks the validity of a experiment. In other words, scientists ask P(u|x), that is, what is probability of the truth "u" given the observation "x" which one can easily show depends strongly on your initial prior belief in what "u" should be. As you observe more "x", you become better able to judge the probability of "u" being true. Fundamentalists have a prior probability distribution of 1 and therefore even in the Bayesian approach will never reject "u". They are simply a limiting case of the scientific method, and most science falls in somewhere in the spectrum on this sliding scale, but science is by no means objective.

Re:This won't change their minds...

[roman_mir]

I just read the whole thing and I find it highly disturbing. The article brings up many good points, probably the most important point is that the scientific community should not take creationists lightly, these people are dangerous. Not only do they have a desire to strengthen support for their believes through an education system and they are gaining ground, but they are doing it in an insidious manner that leaves a layman with perception that both sides are equal in their scientific background and both sides use rigorous analysis and peer review of their theories.

The main point is that ID generates a discourse where traditional creationists fail to do that. Discourse in itself is the danger. There should not be discourse on a pretence level field, there is no level field.

ID does not stand up to the scientific rigor, analysis and review. The point is that to win 'hearts and minds' of average population it does not have to. It just has to create polemic, hot air and nothing else.

I am tired of people telling me that I should have 'an open mind' for the possibility of the supernatural. I have an open mind. When you provide examples, collect data, create theory, test theory against data and provide statistically sound results that your theory supports the reality and when you publish your findings so that the rest of us can do the same thing on our own. Then I will accept your version of reality. Until then my mind is just that - open for a scientific process.

Re:This won't change their minds...

[t35t0r]

Religion only relies on faith if you're talking about christianity, islam, judaism and other western religions that expect you to believe something just because someone or some book said it was the truth.

If you do some research on the philosophical basis of eastern religions especially on the concepts of maya, karma, vedas etc then you can see that these require not faith, but simply the act of living that will reveal the truth. This is why eastern religions are more in accordance with science (e.g. quantum physics) thus you don't have these creationism vs evolution conflicts.

Re:This won't change their minds...

[Darby]

but faith is not, by definition, unprovable belief. Rather it is belief based on reasonably strong evidence of the reliability of what one is believing in, at least in a Christian understanding of what faith is.

That's a nice thought, but it just isn't true.
See, you go from talking about how the bible's observations of human nature match up to reality, how *some* of the historical facts match up etc, which is fine as far as it goes. You proceed to ignore the things in the bible that don't match up, the things that are blatantly palgiarized from other older sources, and somehow, magically conclude that there is a god who is so loving that in order to convince himself not to torture us for acting in a manner consistent with the way he created us that he should torture and murder his own son?

If you don't see that there is a tremendous blind leap there, then you are beyond rationality.

Heck, most mythologies match the historical period in which they were relevant to a decent degree.

Are you saying that Zeus, Odin, and all the rest of the gods that have ever been written about are real as well?

If so, then fine.
If not, then the only difference is that you have actively chosen to believe one over the other.

That is why it is an unprovable belief.
There is no "evidence" whatsoever.
Unless, that is, The Iliad is evidence of the existence of Zeus, Appolo, and the rest of the Greek Pantheon.

Evolution vs. Creationism

[einhverfr]

What is this "Creationism" program? And will it run on Linux?

BTW, I am not sure that evolution is incompatible with the idea of "intelligent design" as long as one is careful about defining intelligent design....

Re:Evolution vs. Creationism

[zechariahs]

Maybe evolution is the "intelligent design." I just have a hard time believing that evolution gave us, the human race, our start. I think we were created and evolution was allowed to take its course so we can adapt to our environment. Assuming we were created maybe god knew we were going to fuck up our planet and we needed a mechanism to survive those changes.

Re:Evolution vs. Creationism

[bmj]

BTW, I am not sure that evolution is incompatible with the idea of "intelligent design" as long as one is careful about defining intelligent design....

I agree. Most molecular biologists who are in the intelligent design camp are not against "micro-evolution", but are instead against "macro-evolution" -- primodial soup-type theories of genesis of life.

I think that unless you're a strict, seven day creationist, you at least have to have an open mind about evolution. And if you're still against micro-evolution, you're just a Luddite.

Re:Evolution vs. Creationism

[micromoog]

Strictly speaking, "Luddite" is reserved for people opposed to technology, not science. I believe the word you're looking for is "Republican". *ducks*

Re:Evolution vs. Creationism

[bmj]

Strictly speaking, "Luddite" is reserved for people opposed to technology, not science. I believe the word you're looking for is "Republican". *ducks*

Allow me to split hairs ;-). Would this level of scientific research be available without technology?

*ducks*

Re:Evolution vs. Creationism

[theparanoidcynic]

I don't think many ludites read /. That would be . . . . odd. ;)

Re:Evolution vs. Creationism

[truthsearch]

Here's a very good article from Wired about the debate between evolution and intelligent design. It was the cover story for Oct. One big question: is intelligent design Christian creationism repackaged as weak science?

Re:Evolution vs. Creationism

[Dimensio]

I agree. Most molecular biologists who are in the intelligent design camp are not against "micro-evolution", but are instead against "macro-evolution" -- primodial soup-type theories of genesis of life

Evolution theory does not cover the ultimate origins of life. The ultimate origins of life is a matter not in any way addressed by evolution, "macro" or otherwise. This is a common Creationist misconception, but they repeat it anyway because ignorance of the facts is no barrier for them.

Re:Evolution vs. Creationism

[Mr. No Skills]

Maybe the "intellegent design" was the balance of matter to make an atom work, and now he sits back to see what happens. Why would God waste his time with all that detail work on DNA and eyeballs?

I have a hard time believing any person can even imagine what God is trying to do, and an even harder time thinking that man could be his crowning acheivement.

In some ways, "creationists" are trying to hijack the "intellegent design" theories as a back door to getting creationism taught in schools (since their God could be one of the possible designers). But, strictly speaking, intellegent design theory is the exploration of those evolutionary black boxes regardless of who put us here.

And, we all know we got here due to meddling by Q anyway.

Re:Evolution vs. Creationism

[pixelpusher220]

I respect your view point on creationism vs evolution. I'm happily on the Darwin side myself. I'm also happy to hear about creation theories that don't boil down to 'because that's the way it is'. I find it fascinating that science is proving that parts of the biblical texts actually did occur; or at least likely occured similarly to what's been passed down over the ages.

May I suggest you think about why the ID folk only want *their* Intelligent Designs taught in schools? I think we really should be teaching Native American Indian creation theories as well, perhaps the Aborginal (sp?) from Austraila as well if they're really interested in true teaching of non-Darwin based reasons as to 'why we're here'. And if you really want to see the sparks fly, suggest the teachings of the Koran (and I have no idea what these are or if they are diff from Christian type concepts...but my guess is the 'supporters' of ID would have a huge problem with this just on concept)

"concrete evidence"

[akaina]

"When I saw this vertebrate-type molecule active in the cells of the Playtnereis brain - it was clear that these cells and the vertebrate rods and cones shared a molecular fingerprint. This was concrete evidence of common evolutionary origin. We had finally solved one of the big mysteries in human eye evolution."

Can someone explain how this information is conclusive?

Re:"concrete evidence"

[stevelinton]

Concrete and conclusive are different words. Scientists have long surmised (since Darwin himself, in fact) that the eye evolved from a very crude light-dark sensor by way of various kinds of primitive eye. Now we actually see common chemistry between an existing primitive light-dark sensor and the vertebrate eye. This provides concrete (ie real) evidence to support this view. It is not conclusive (the same chemistry could conceivably have evolved independently), but they don't say it is.

Verses?

[NardofDoom]

Evolution verses Creationism? So evolution is quoting creationism?

Oh, you mean "versus." Now I get it.

Arguing with a creationist

[Anonymous Coward]

This doesnt matter.

Have you ever tried to have a reasoned debate with a creationist? It doesnt work. Their entire belief structure is based on rhetoric, falsehoods, and a book written two thousand years ago, that has gone through several revisions by whoever was in power at the time.

Then these people pick and choose which parts to believe in based on how it fits their situation.

IE, god created the world, but that whole thing about stoning disobedient children we can ignore.

WTF?

I have, honestly, tried to have an intellectual debate with a creationist. It was an exersize in futility.

These are completly unreasonable people, and trying to make an argument with reason will be lost on them, no matter how much scientific backing it has.

This willful ignorance is destroying america.

Im bitter, can you tell?

Re:Arguing with a creationist

[ximor_iksivich]

And don't you think that the same can be said the other way around as well? The point is that humans are opinionated creatures. Anyone telling someone 'You beliefs are wrong' is going to be met with a cold stare. Even the scientific community is no exception. Tell someone 'Einstein was wrong' and you would probably get beaten badly even before you say a word about evidence. This is how things are. It takes a lot of courage to accept something contrary to you belief. Think about it.

Re:Arguing with a creationist

[garcia]

This willful ignorance is destroying america.

While I am not a creationist and I agree that they are typically difficult to deal with I have to say that your quote above is less than intelligent.

Creationism (and the general belief in the Bible word for word) has been around for centuries. Yeah, the Bible has caused war, death, etc, all against its supposed teachings, yet the human race somehow survived.

I have a feeling that America will survive this round of Church/State integration as well.

Re:Arguing with a creationist

[bludstone]

Go look at what has happened to education in public schools in the past 10 years and get back to me.

I have nothing against organized religion.

I do have something against organized religion preaching in direct contradiction to accepted science, while providing no evidence to the contrary, other then "its in this book, so you cant teach the obvious, accepted science."

Re:Arguing with a creationist

[Anonymous Coward]

the bible (NIV, KJV, RSV, etc.) is, and will always be translated from the earliest manuscripts possible, which, for the New Testament date back to 50-60AD. there is no historical evidence for the Bible changing over the years.

Re:Arguing with a creationist

[Hatta]

They just do not believe we evolved from a 1 cell orginism in a pool of muck. To a monkey to a human. The problem with both sides. There is ALOT of gaping wholes in everyones theories.

Just because we can't explain it doesn't mean god did it. Every natural phenomenon was once explained by saying "(a) god did it", we now have scientific explanations for most of those. There's no reason to resort to magical explanations just because we don't have the answer yet.

Re:Arguing with a creationist

[Swamii]

There is nothing in the Christian or Jewish bibles about stoning disobedient children.

In the Old Testament, you have the Law, what Jews call the Torah and Christians call the Pentateuch. In those 5 books (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Numbers), Moses gave the people laws by which to live there lives (don't murder, steal, covet, love God and love your neighbore). Additionally, some laws found in those books are not politically correct in the current day and age (men should not sleep with other men, not to fornicate, not to have sex with animals).

Many of these laws had stern consequences, some would say even Draconian consequences. (i.e. stoning a woman who cheated on her husband)

Christians believe that the punishment of these laws are no longer valid, because of Christ's death which covers our sins. This is evidenced in Christ's own forgiving of the woman who cheated (when he said, "he who is without sin should throw the first stone").

Most Jews believe these laws and punishments are still valid, but they have no secular law to enforce them.

Both Jews and Christians believe that these laws were given by God to Moses, in order to establish an absolute moral standard, hence giving the people a lawful and ordered society in which to live.

Re:Arguing with a creationist

[Moby Cock]

Except it has been compiled very selectively. There are many apocryphal books of gospel that have been 'decreed' heresy without much explanation as to why. and these books give a very different view of the proto-christian community in Palestine at the time of Jesus.

Having said that, the argument you make is a little misleading in other ways. The creationism part of the bible is in the Old Testament which is the "Jewish" part of the bible and was written before the ministry of Jesus.

Re:Arguing with a creationist

[EddieBurkett]

Until either side can prove that the world and everything in it existed five minutes ago, and that myself and the world weren't just spontaneously created with my "memory" fully intact, then this debate is endless.

It would be nice though if the creationsists at least admitted that regardless of how things "actually" happened, there seems to be a pattern of evolution within the fossil record. Even if the world was only created in seven days, this puzzle was also created in the process, so why not try to solve it?

Re:Arguing with a creationist

[DrXym]

a) Evolution is a fact as well as theory. Evolution can be observed and thus it is a fact. There are certainly areas of disagreement and uncertainty within the (vast) field, but nothing comes even remotely close to displacing or disproving evolution. Nothing. Not one bit.

b) Creationists don't have a theory. Spouting 'god did it', or resorting to dubious pseudo-scientific rhetoric is no subsitute for evidence. You need evidence to form a theory.

Re:Arguing with a creationist

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell someone 'Einstein was wrong' and you would probably get beaten badly even before you say a word about evidence.

This is entirely wrong. If you say that 'Einstein was wrong' and then show just how you came to this conclusion, you could well overturn a lot of physics. In science, this doesn't get you beaten, this gets you recognition and accolades! This is how it is in evolutionary biology as well. If you manage to use evidence to make your case, you have contributed to our understanding of the universe. It's what science is all about.

You must understand that science is not some sort of competing religion. Luther was branded a heretic for challenging the Church. On the other hand, Planck and complany were branded geniuses for challenging classical mechamics.

Re:Arguing with a creationist

[Theatetus]

Intelligent design/creationism/etc are NOT taught in Public schools

They are in some. And in most schools the faculty is too terrified of the fundies to teach evolution at all -- witness the fact that if you ask most high school students, they'll think evolution means "man descended from monkeys". And in fact they can't even tell you the difference between a monkey and an ape.

What bugs me is not that parents with religious conviction are trying to have a say in the education of their children -- I'm for that. What bugs me is that people who cannot define the word "allele" have the gall to spout their opinions on evolutionary biology and demand their arguments be treated as having equal weight with scientific conclusions. That would be like me going to a church and saying "you know, I've never really read Ezekial but we need to stop using it in scripture readings because I've heard it contradicts my field, comparitive linguistics."

I don't think that the simple fact that schools are too scared to teach the theory of evolution is what breaks our schools. But, it is part of a larger trend of religious conservatives fighting tooth and nail against intellectualism in general. And that is what's killing our schools.

Re:Arguing with a creationist

[Hatta]

And in the same vein, just because we can explain it doesn't mean God didn't do it. Every natural phenomenon was once explained by saying "(a) god did it", we now have scientific explanations for most of those. There's no reason to resort to atheism just because we understand the natural process for some things.

One doesn't "resort to atheism" The default position is the one with the fewest assumptions. If phenomena can be explained equally well with and without the assumption of an omniscient being, then the intellectually honest will hold the latter position.

However you do have a point with your first statment. Just because we know that E=Mc^2 doesn't mean that we know why E=Mc^2. and you can push that back as far as you like. The question "why are the laws of physics the way they are" clearly cannot be answered with the laws of physics. However a "God" that fills this, and only this, role is dramatically different from that of any religion except perhaps taoism. That explanation is also question begging, since one may just as well ask "who created god", and "Why did god choose these laws of physics". "I don't know" is the only real answer to any of these questions.

In my mind, theism holds a place next to solipsism. You cannot disprove it, but it doesn't really get you anywhere interesting either.

Re:Arguing with a creationist

[NaugaHunter]

Really? Did you skip Deuteronomy?

21:18: If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them:
21:19: Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place;
21:20: And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.
21:21: And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.

Or, in logo-illustrated form for the biblical-language-challenged.

Re:Arguing with a creationist

[Digz]

Acts 10

There was confusion about this in the early Church. St. Peter had a vision from God which showed him that ceremonial cleanliness (and in general the distinction between Jew and Gentile) had been mitigated through Christ. Read up on the history of the Judaizers to get a better feel for this struggle in the early Church.

Re:Arguing with a creationist

[Swamii]

True, however, a requirement to that specific law is that the son can only be stoned if he is belligerent and a drunkard, and only at the parent's request. You'd be hard-pressed to find a drunk 4 year old, even in Biblical times. :-)

Re:Arguing with a creationist

[NaugaHunter]

Ignoring whether or not ancient Israel only allowed adults to drink, or whether or not that was added in a later translation, let's have some verses that aren't actually stoning but aren't too child-friendly:

Kings 2: Call a prophet bald, be eaten by bears
2:23: And he (Elijah) went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.
2:24: And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.

Psalms: Why hit them with stones, when you can hit them against stones?
137:9: Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.

Isaiah: But be sure to let the dads watch! Or at least blame them.
13:15: Every one that is found shall be thrust through; and every one that is joined unto them shall fall by the sword.
13:16: Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled, and their wives ravished.
---
14:21: Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers; that they do not rise, nor possess the land, nor fill the face of the world with cities.

You can split hairs about how it's done all you want. The fact remains that the old testament details a vengeful god, just like all of the farming tribes had around 1000-800 BCE. There are quite a few bits and pieces that go against a modern, civilized society. Well, a society not founded on religious fanaticism anyway; these kinds of things fit right in with radical Islamics.

Re:Arguing with a creationist

[Swamii]

Do you think the book of Psalms advocates the killing of children by bashing them against stones? Are you arguing that Elijah simply hated children? Perhaps Isaiah was trying to slaughter the children of the world via the hand of God? :-)

A more honest answer would reveal that the verses cited were taken out of context to purposely convey a negative meaning. Surely, if one were to curse a man of God as great as Elijah, God would curse that person ("I will bless those that bless you, and curse those that curse you"). And more certainly, those that fight against righteous people will be put down ("Greater is He that is in you than those in the world. No weapon formed against you will prosper.")

When asked about children, Christ responded, "Let the children come to Me, for the kindom of God belongs to them." And when asked what were the greatest commandments in all the Torah, Jesus responded by saying the greatest two are to love the Lord and love your neighbore. To me, that doesn't sound like a vengeful God.

Lets just get a few things out of the way,

[arcite]

Creationism is a myth.

Evolution is a fact of life.

Deal with it.

if we know 1 thing about evolution

[Anonymous Coward]

It's that creationism arguments will evolve as well

Intelligent design?

[cmburns69]

Intelligent design? That's soo 1700s! ...

Actually, I'm a proponent of the theory.. And while I'm not an expert on the official "intelligent design" theory, I think it's completely compatible with evolution.. (eg. evolution is the way the design is achieved).

Re:Intelligent design?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody has a problem with intelligent design as a philosophy or religion.

The problem is that's it's faith, i.e. you just believe it with no basis in provable (or testable) fact. It's the same as believing the Bible, just a little more rational because there's nothing that proves it's not true.

The problem is when people try to masquerade it as science. "I don't understand how this can happen, ergo 'God' did it." is not science, it's faith.

Re:Intelligent design?

[Smidge204]

I've heard this quite a bit. It always seems to me that this is a way to salvage creationism, so one can acknowledge the scientific evidence and still not have to concede that maybe they were mistaken in their belief...

So I'd like to ask; Now that the role of (insert favorite deity here) has been reduced to such an abstraction, what purpose does he/she/it serve in the process, other than maintaining compatibility with what you were taught to believe as a child? At what point does chemistry become divine influence?

I mean, if you believe in creation, that's fine. If you believe in evolution, that's also fine. What does this hybrid belief offer other than a weak compatibility between religion and science?
=Smidge=

Re:Intelligent design?

[Derek Pomery]

bzzt.
ID is a codeword for creationism. It claims there are aspects of biology which cannot be explained through evolution, thus requiring... "intelligent design"
This is different from theological schools that integrate god and evolution, of which you are presumably a proponent (as are most sane theologies).

Most arguments in ID nowdays center around the concept of "irreducibly complex" biological components.
Some examples.
The blood clotting cascade.
The human eye.
DNA replication.

Most of the time they argue this while blithely ignoring a myriad of simpler intermediate processes in nature (Darwin himself pointed out that if you look at snails alone you can see almost every form of eye from primitive light sensing cells up to a complex focusing lens like our own) as well as the fact that components that are mutually dependant now may have evolved so without having been so in the past (the blood clotting cascade in humans versus lobsters for example, evidence that simpler clotting mechanisms were refined, and the components becoming inextricably linked - like hummingbird beaks and deep-throated flowers).

In short, it is their usual lack of imagination combined with a poorly concealed agenda of creationism.
One amusing thing is how they try to explain these "irreducibly complex" mechanisms in a biological framework.
A primitive cell created by some being that had all these mechanisms they clcaim required design. The cell had templates for blood clotting, eyes...
This massive cell then, presumably, differentiated into the current lifeforms who lost all this extra information.

Re:Intelligent design?

[Decaff]

Actually, I'm a proponent of the theory.. And while I'm not an expert on the official "intelligent design" theory, I think it's completely compatible with evolution.

Its not compatible. The problem for 'intelligent design' is that much of the design is very unintelligent. For example, the design of the mammalian eye is awful - the nerves are in the wrong place, meaning we have blind spots. (If design were intelligent, we would have eyes like octopuses, which are far better). The are plenty of other examples of extremely bad design. Evolution is not about what's good; it's what's better than the competition.

Re:Intelligent design?

[RsG]

Actually, you've hit on one of the biggest problems in getting people to accept evolutionary biology. The "ick" factor.

I've only ever discussed the matter with one creationist (I'm Canadian; we don't have as many as the 'States). As far as I can tell, the major resistance to evolution among much of the public is that it's humiliating to think that we have such humble, slimy origins. If it were just a matter of scripture, then why does the big bang theory, which blatanty contradicts their bible, not get nearly as much opposition? Blind faith is only half the problem.

The other half of the problem is that we keep getting knocked away from the center of the universe. Earth was the center of the solar system before Galileo, we were created in the image of god before Darwin. People (especially religious fundamentalists) are prideful creatures, and the thought that we are not special is humbling. Evolution not only demonstrates this fact, it drives it home by showing the mechanism behind our existance to be grossly humiliating. Primordial goop? Ick! Natural selection amounts to a genetic lottery that favours the opportunists and kills off the rest. And don't even get them started on apes and pre-human hominids.

I remember asking the creationist in question why god would equip humans with an appendix, tailbone and wisdom teeth. The fact of the matter is that we are only greasy organic meatbag humans, intelligent animals, and that's a hard pill to swallow for many people.

Re:Intelligent design?

[Dyolf Knip]

As far as I can tell, the major resistance to evolution among much of the public is that it's humiliating to think that we have such humble, slimy origins.

And that just slays me. I watched the PBS special on Evolution and found it absolutely fascinating, even though I'd already known most of the stuff presented. To me, the process of evolution is a marvelous process, combining the grace of life in nature with the savagery of survival and competition in a harsh universe, all written on a tapestry 3 billion years long, just aching to be read. On a long enough time scale, morphology flows like water. It is a process that is beautiful beyond compare.

To say that humble origins detract from the end result is ludicrous. A painting is nothing but a canvas, paint, and the proverbial blood, sweat & tears, but it is no less a work of art for it.

History versus theory

[Henry V .009]

While the evolution of the eye has never been that much of a theoretical puzzle--there have been lots of plausible theories--this discovery moves us a little away from the realm of theory and into the realm of historical detail.

What effect will it have on the creation/evolution debate? The same effect that all the other mounds of evidence in favor of evolution have so far had on the debate.

Re:History versus theory

[jc42]

True, but the eye is pretty much the Big One.

Yeah, but this is pretty much because the (mammalian) eye is soft tissue that doesn't fossilize well. So it has long been a "mystery". The religious folks are really just arguing that "Scientists don't have any evidence about how our eye evolved, so it must have been a miracle." Anything not preserved in the fossil record can be used in this sort of fallacious argument.

On the other hand, you can read an interesting scientific story of the past few years by googling for "brittle-star eye". This is about a group of starfish, not mammals, but it's a case where we can see the early stages of a functional eye. The evolution has happened in the past million years or so. It's a nice case where the animals don't have a very good eye, with resolution of several degrees, but it's better than what their relatives have. Comparing the brittle stars with other starfish shows clearly how this eye is evolving.

In a few more hundreds of millions of years, when the descendants of the brittle stars are having their scientific revolution, they will probably have lots of fossil evidence showing how their advanced eye developed, and their religious people will have to use other arguments against evolution by natural selection. And they'll probably insist that those strange ancient creatures with internal skeletons couldn't have had vision, because their fossils don't show anything like the compound eye that all advanced species use.

(There's another interesting recently-developed sort of "eye" in the pit vipers, giving them a sort of pinhole camera that works in the infrared. But that's harder to find by googling.)

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Face It

[oroshana]

Except evolutionists have some basis in reality. Also, they do not rule out that the process of evolution is as some deity intended. They are just describing a mechanism, not a supreme plan.

Mirror here

[alienfluid]

Here's the mirror

Why Verses?

[bkruiser]

Why couldn't God have created Evolution? This is the most plausible solution. The two ideas are not diametrically opposed.

Re:Why Verses?

[sgant]

You're thinking logically...stop it.

But what Creationists believe is that God did the 7 days and he rested bit...then the Adam and Eve bit (so we can get "original sin" in there right off the bat) and that the Earth is really only 10,000 years old.

If they wish to believe this, that is their choice. As is the choice of the people that say the Earth is flat, and that we didn't really go to the Moon. These people are totally and completely free to believe this, to talk about it and to argue about it. Free speech and all that. I bow to them. I respect them. They're standing up for what they believe and that's fine.

But when they start putting this non-sense in my sons school books, then we've got a problem. They argue that children should be getting both sides so they can choose which to believe. Well, this is about science, not beliefs.

Then the Creationists, if they succeed in gaining a foothold into school science books shouldn't have a problem with other Creation theories. Like the Hindu and Buddists views on creation. Right? They shouldn't have a problem with that...right? What about Native American folklore? They should throw that all in the science books also...so that the children can decide for themselves which is right. But no, sorry...it's only the Judeo/Christian creation their only interested in.

Pot...meet kettle.

Re:Why Verses?

[superyooser]

Because there are many contradictions between the two ideologies.

1. Bible: God is the Creator of all things. (Genesis 1)
Evolution: Natural chance processes can account for the existence of all things.

2. Bible: World created in six days. (Genesis 1) These must be literal days; see #23.
Evolution: World evolved over the aeons.

3. Bible: Creation is completed (Genesis 2:3)
Evolution: Creative processes continuing.

4. Bible: Oceans before land. (Genesis 1:2)
Evolution: Land before oceans.

5. Bible: First life on land. (Genesis 1:11)
Evolution: Life began in the oceans.

6. Bible: First life was land plants. (Genesis 1:11)
Evolution: Marine organisms evolved first.

7. Bible: Earth before sun and stars. (Genesis 1:14-19)
Evolution: Sun and stars before earth.

8. Bible: Fruit trees before fishes. (Genesis 1:11,20,21)
Evolution: All fishes before fruit trees.

9. Bible: All stars made on the fourth day. (Genesis 1:16)
Evolution: Stars evolved at various times.

10. Bible: Birds and fishes created on the fifth day. (Genesis 1:20,21)
Evolution: Fishes evolved over hundreds of millions of years before birds appeared.

11. Bible: Birds before insects. (Genesis 1:20-31; Leviticus 11)
Evolution: Insects before birds.

12. Bible: Whales before reptiles. (Genesis 1:20-31)
Evolution: Reptiles before whales.

13. Bible: Birds before reptiles. (Genesis 1:20-31)
Evolution: Reptiles before birds.

14. Bible: Man before rain. (Genesis 2:5)
Evolution: Rain before man.

15. Bible: Man before woman. (Genesis 2:21-22)
Evolution: Woman before man. (by genetics).

16. Bible: Light before the sun. (Genesis 1:3-19)
Evolution: Sun before any light (on earth).

17. Bible: Plants before the sun. (Genesis 1:11-19)
Evolution: Sun before any plants.

18. Bible: Abundance and variety of marine life appeared all at once. (Genesis 1:20-21)
Evolution: Marine life gradually developed from a primitive organic blob.

19. Bible: Man's body created from the dust of the earth. (Genesis 2:7)
Evolution: Man evolved from monkeys.

20. Bible: Man exercised dominion over all organisms. (Genesis 1:28)
Evolution: Most organisms extinct before man evolved.

21. Bible: Man originally a vegetarian. (Genesis 1:29)
Evolution: Man originally a meat-eater.

22. Bible: Fixed and distinct kinds (Genesis 1:11,12,21,24,25; 1 Corinthians 15:38-39), although speciation does occur.
Evolution: Life forms in a continual state of flux.

23. Bible: Man's sin is the cause of death. (Romans 5:12)
Evolution: Struggle and death existent log before the evolution of man.

inside-out vs outside-in

[Traa]

Religion and science don't mix very well in my opinion. Beneath the typical flaming contests there lies a fundamental difference. I kind of look at it as the "outside-in" thinkers vs the "inside-out" thinkers. Religion is based on the Fact that God exists and that he/she is behind the way things happen. Non-religious thinkers (or those religious who keep religion out of their science) start with a meta science philosophy and build up their scientific knowledge based on observation, deduction and extrapolation. The meta science typically tells them not to predict things that can't be proven. The two philosophies are incompatible at the meta level. No matter how loud you scream, we will not settle the argument at the discussion level.

DISCLAIMER: this is just my $0.02

Re: inside-out vs outside-in

[Black Parrot]

The actual difference is that creationists take their personal beliefs as axiomatic and work from there, whereas scientists use observables to winnow out which beliefs are true and which aren't.

Re:inside-out vs outside-in

[Alomex]

An innovation: proof by bold tagging. Why are we so positive god exists? because Traa wrote it in bold letters.... Ah I see know. I'm convinced, Allah does exist!

What's the Big Fuss

[brandonp]

I graduated from a Catholic High School a few year back and one of the Priests said it best,

'Who are we to say how God created or didn't create the World. God could've could've chosen to create the creatures in 7 days or God could've chosen to create the creatures in the world with evolution'

I really don't see the big fuss, whether God created the world one way or another, it doesn't affect the core basis of my beliefs. This has little to do with morality and my day to day life.

It does turn out to be a lively debate that can go on for hours between two opinionated people. And my guess is that those two people usually care more about looking smarter than the other, than they care about their beliefs and Morality.

Brandon Petersen
Get Firefox!

Re:What's the Big Fuss

[Speare]

God could've could've chosen to create the creatures in 7 days or God could've chosen to create the creatures in the world with evolution'

Personally, if I feel I must marry the evidence to the faith, I believe the following:

• one of God's days is much longer than one of our days
• the Bible said God made the world in six days, with man last, and rested on a seventh,
• the Bible also says there's some thousand-year span of peace and calm before the world as we know it is finished,
• so we are currently still in Day Six, the day of Man.

I've read through some of the Baptist curriculum for home-schooled kids, and it's really offensive. They deride science and scientists with things like "how could a crocodile suddenly turn into a chicken?" (To point out what they see as fallacies in believing in evolution when faced with various periods of accelerated changes in "evidence.") I feel, if God wanted a croc to be a chicken, who is stopping Him? There's no reason God needed to make everything at once, as they exist today. Maybe He's enjoying shifting the genetic makeup over time. There's really no reason for the religious types to be so patently offensive to scientists who just want to answer the big questions of How, not Why.

Re:What's the Big Fuss

[Dr_LHA]

Or my other favorite:
"Ahh... moon... and earth... it's beautiful. You know... if I start this moon spinning like this... and the earth movement like this... they will never get to see the other side! Lets see them explain how that just 'happened to occure'" :}

Here you're showing the trouble that most people who "debunk" science show, ignorance of the facts.

Its called "Tidal Locking"

e.g: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_locking

Read that and understand why the same side of the Moon always faces the Earth.

Re:What's the Big Fuss

[npsimons]

I really don't see the big fuss, whether God created the world one way or another, it doesn't affect the core basis of my beliefs. This has little to do with morality and my day to day life.

The big fuss is that it still remains true that as a set of cognitive beliefs about the existence of God in any recognizable sense continuous with the great systems of the past, religious doctrines constitute a speculative hypothesis of an extremely low order of probability. Ergo, some of us don't believe in god because it's highly unlikely that he (she? it?) exists. Some would go so far as to say god _doesn't_ exist, but absence of proof is not proof of absence. As long as you (religionists) are willing to leave me alone, and not try to validate your beliefs via specious reasoning (ie, creation "science"), then there's no fuss. It's when people try forcing their beliefs on me and tell me that their way is the one true way that I start to get a little indignant.

Re:What's the Big Fuss

[centauri]

It's the "God of the Gaps" problem. God is used to fill in the gaps in knowledge, but as knowledge increases God's gap gets smaller and smaller. He can't even hide behind evolution anymore, as it's possible that the development of complex organic processes on a world like earth is inevitable. Really all God has left is the creation of the Universe, as we're currently unable to test that sort of process. However, even if we never answer that mystery, we have answered (and will answer) so many others that it seems rather unlikely that God's responsible for that one.

Re:What's the Big Fuss

[nine-times]

The problem comes because some people believe that the bible is the word of god and, I guess, should therefore be correct. Look at the trouble that Gallileo ran into for merely running with the notion that the planets revolve around the sun.

Well, the problem often comes not with the fact, but how you think of them. What's "true" and "correct" often depends on more interpretation that people tend to think.

Take your example. Ancient people thought the Sun went around the Earth, right? Well, some of them understood the possibility that it was the Earth that was in motion, but chose not to view it that way, possibly (and this requires some interpretation) because it wasn't a useful way of looking at it. But all that changed when Gallileo and Capernicus and Newton slowly revealed the true motions of the sun and the Earth and the planets, right? Well, no, because general relativity brings us back into saying, "It just depends on how you look at it. If you take the Earth as stationary, then yes, the sun goes around the Earth."

So, does the "truth" of evolution prove that god did not create mankind? I call up Spinoza here, who raised the question, "Even if god makes a rainbow, isn't the rainbow still light passing through water droplets? Does that make it any less 'made by god'?"

Ah, but you bring up the book of Genesis, and say evolution being true would make the Bible "incorrect". That only follows if the Bible was meant to be a scientific record, and not a spiritual one. True, there are fundamentalists who fail to understand the distinction, but really, let's not talk about them.

Criticizing the bible for not being a science text-book is like criticizing a radio personality (who you've never seen) for (possibly) being ugly, criticizing the Daily Show for not being hard-hitting news, or criticizing a Dostoevsky novel for not being a movie. Things are usually not good at being what they aren't meant to be. Even a perfect hammer, made by god, might not make a good screwdriver.

Re:What's the Big Fuss

[dfj225]

I think what you said is true. I don't see why my belief in God has to conflict with my views on science. After all, humans were created in the image of God, so why would it seem unreasonable that he would give us the intelligence to understand some of the methods that He created to make the world work? I don't think any of us know enough about God and the way He works to rule out evolution or any other theory as a way for Him to have created humanity.

To me, how humanity was created is just a minor detail in the grand scheme of things...as long as I understand that it was through God's will and not by accident.

As far as the eye is concerned, I don't see this study as concrete fact that the human eye was indeed a result of evolution. I still find it hard to believe that something so complex and exact would be the result of random, accidental mutations...but then again I am not completely closed to this being a possibility. I would stil like to see more evidence before it is considered a fact. And even if another study does prove the evolution of the human eye, I don't really see how that precludes intelligent design. For instance many of us here write code...if you analyzed code from an abstract, nieve level you might be surprised that all code is made of the same simple elements (such as ints, floats, different loops, simple logic, etc.). Why would something designed by God be any different? If I was going to engineer an eye and had already created something similar but less advanced, I would probably start with the less advanced eye as a base for my design and change or improve it as necessary. To me, something like evolution -- the improvement of an existing design -- is very intelligent.

I guess what this all boils down to is me viewing science as insight into the mind of God. After all, if you believe that God created humans then you must believe that God created our minds with the knowledge that we would one day figure out how very complex systems on Earth function. So why would He give us so much intelligence if it conflicts with the idea of Him existing?

Re:What's the Big Fuss

[Digz]

The history of Galileo and the Church is widely misunderstood.

http://www.catholic.net/rcc/Periodicals/Issues/Gal ileoAffair.html

Re:What's the Big Fuss

[Prune]

In other words, unlike the theories that describe the evolving state of the planet in naturalistic terms, creation myths fail by having no practical or observational consequences, nor a method to be checked. By the way, you ask for proof, yet you are the one claiming there is something (God), so the burden of proof lies on you. Of course, you cannot prove it. But science does not claim to prove there is not God, either.

Re:What's the Big Fuss

[Moofie]

Er, mules are the sterile offspring between donkeys and horses. They are not an evolutionary forebear of anything.

There is a huge amount science doesn't know, surely. But science has a proven, successful framework of learning new stuff, of expanding our world view and better comprehending the universe that we live in.

I happen to believe that the universe was created by a loving God, who cares for me personally, and who likes it when I try to understand His creation. That is an article of faith: It is not open to scientific rebuttal. Science is irrelevant to my faith. There is room in my faith for science. "God did it" is not a satisfactory answer for "Why are things this way?".

Why is this so contentious?

Um...

[mitchus]

I thought Dawkins basically pulverised the "intelligent design" thesis in his "Climbing mount improbable". Maybe I didn't read it right.

No entry found for mamalian.

[drinkypoo]

From the story submission:

evolution of the mamalian eye

Did you mean mammalian?

Honestly, if you're not going to edit, why call yourselves editors?

Re:No entry found for mamalian.

[Gramie2]

Honestly, if you're not going to edit, why call yourselves editors?

You're new around here, aren't you?

Re:No entry found for mamalian.

[drinkypoo]

Who's calling themselves editors? The Slashdot rulers have never claimed to be editors or journalists.

FAQ: Do editors moderate?

Guess what? They're all called editors.

Interesting article, but /. headline is a troll

[Stephen Williams]

The article is an interesting report about a new biological discovery which provides evidence of the evolution of the eye. However, creationism is not mentioned at all; looks to me as if the submitter is trying to start an argument for no reason.

-Stephen

Human Eye is Flawed

[Anonymous Coward]

Creationists often point to the human eye as something so perfect that only a divine being could have planned it. However, the human eye is far from perfect. The detached retina model is a serious flaw which can oftentimes lead to total vision loss. Other animals, such as squid, have a significantly more advanced model completely impervious to these problems.

If the human eye is evidence of creationism then it can only be evidence of a flawed creator.

Re:Human Eye is Flawed

[cmpalmer]

Detached retinas, appendicitis, cancer, male nipples, and premature balding are all due to Original Sin. If Adam and Eve had obeyed God, we would all have perfect bodies.

This is, of course, intended to be sarcasm (although I have heard a close variation of this exact arguement from fundamentalist acquaintances).

Re:Human Eye is Flawed

[TomorrowPlusX]

YES.

Not to mention other flaws such as our esophagus, which shares an entry point with the windpipe, allowing for easy choking.

Or our appendix, which is unused and causes all sorts of problems in modern man.

Or our wisdom teeth, which don't fit anymore and need to be removed surgically in many people.

Or our knees which fail way too easily.

Or our backs which are too fragile and don't self repair well enough ( e.g., spinal cords ).

All these things SCREAM to me of an evolutionary process which selected for beings which could get around in an energetically cheaply fashion, well enough to have a few children before the parts fail. This is good for evolution and population. This is terrible for the individual who suffers for it.

This tells me that "god" is more interested in overpopulation than the success and happiness of the individual.

Re:Face It

[eviloverlordx]

This is the typical 'reasoning' that creationists use to justify their attacks on evolution. The problems comes in places like Delaware, where people actually believe this line of reasoning. It comes from a terrible lack of real science education in this country. You don't see this sort of nonsense in Europe or the more develped countries in Asia, where they have better education systems.

What absurd arrogance

[Exmet Paff Daxx]

Displayed by both sides. Science is the quest to determine how our Universe operates. But if a God/Creator exists, and is all powerful, then our Universe could have been - actually, must have been - "intelligently designed". If science is currently discovering that evolution is the mechanism by which this occurs, discovering that mankind was created by putting a rock in play about a sun with just the right mixture of gasses and stability in it and letting the laws of Physics do their work, then so be it. Evolution is hardly a refutation of religion, and "Creationism" is the pathetic blithering of men who have read their Bible incorrectly.

Einstein rejected more than one theory on the premise that no God would have designed the proposed system - and he was right more often than not. Religion and science are hardly incompatible, except to those of rigid thinking.

What I find most interesting about this...

[DeepHurtn!]

...is that there is anyone who still takes Creationism seriously. Some of my American friends tell me it's still a big issue in education in some states, which I find mind-boggling...

The evidence for evolution is overwhelming. This doesn't mean you need to become an athiest, though -- although I am one, I don't see the difficulty in conceiving evolution as merely a tool of your creator. If (a) god(s) wanted to create a planet with life on it, why couldn't they work through natural processes that they themselves set in motion? How does that challenge anyone's faith?

Re:What I find most interesting about this...

[Spyky]

I don't see the difficulty in conceiving evolution as merely a tool of your creator

How does that challenge anyone's faith?

Some evangelical christians (not uncommon in the US) believe that the bible is the literal word of god. Therefore to say that life evolved over millions of years is in direct conflict with phrases in the bible that say god created the earth in 7 days.

Basically, there is really no arguing with such people. They believe the bible is the word of god because it says that it is the word of god. When faced with (il-)logic like that, you obviously can't use logic to change their opinions.

Hope this explains the beliefs of some Americans.

-Spyky

Re:What I find most interesting about this...

[bstadil]

...is that there is anyone who still takes Creationism seriously

Same people that thinks Bush has done a great job. Saved us from EvilDoers (does this sound like a bible term), made the economy strong and healthy, protected the environment, left no child behind .....

If you have faith it doen't matter what reality is out there, it's a closed-loop system.

Re:What I find most interesting about this...

[Idarubicin]

Saved us from EvilDoers (does this sound like a bible term)...

Actually, I've always thought it rather sounded like a comic book term.

Seemed like he was talking down to Americans and the rest of the world. Perhaps he was trying to put it in terms simple enough that we--or he--could understand. Team America (fanfare) will protect the world from evildoers. Shades of meaning and nuance should never sully a good foreign policy, after all.

Oh, and what happened to the rest of the Axis of Evil? And where's bin Laden these days?

tell the entire story of our evolution over time.

[dpilot]

But there are those who insist that the Earth was created "with age" 6000 years ago, and that fossils, etc, are a diversionary trap for the unfaithful. The same arguments can be made about this work, or anything done with molecular fingerprinting. (or any other technique, for that matter.)

Wearing the right blinders, it will be obvious that your road is the only correct one, and that all else is distractions. There are those who will make the same assertion against scientists, claiming that there are "science blinders" that restrict their vision. While I won't disagree that there are scientists who wear blinders, I would argue that the basic premise of science is to remove the blinders. The facts will guide you, and a scientist is always supposed to be ready to modify or discard a theory if disproven by facts.

I spent a little time with google and "neocon" (and a few other terms, some independent of "neocon") this weekend, and came to an interesting conclusion: Neocon philosophy is *never* wrong. Any mistakes happen because the philosophy was not put into practice vigorously enough. In other words, they compromised too much, and if they'd been sufficiently uncompromising they would have succeeded. Rather a disturbing world view, IMHO. Of course, this is the result of an hour or so on the Web, and my view can be modified by facts.

Richard Dawkins goes in depth in his book

[xutopia]

Climbing Mount Improbable. He explains the eye, differences in eyes in different species (not only mammals) and shows that the evidence "out there" points us rather towards a no design or random design rather than a creationist view.

It's what made me go from agnostic to atheist. We just use the concept of God whenever we reach personal limits. Time and time again we use God to explain things and we're proven wrong. Me becoming an atheist came after seeing one too many arguments in favor of the God is a coping mecanism rather than truth.

Re:Richard Dawkins goes in depth in his book

[rjh]

[Please don't view anything in this post as trying to show you the 'error of your ways' or any such nonsense. I'm just trying to show that even theologians are irritated by the same things.]

What you're talking about is a well-known heresy: in theological circles it's called the God of the Gaps Fallacy. Priests, ministers, rabbis, imams and pretty much everyone else with formal theological training despises the God of the Gaps, with solid theological reasoning. If we use God to fill in the gaps in human understanding, then to advance in human knowledge is to diminish God's majesty--and that is simply not allowed to occur. That means we have only two choices: we can either not advance human knowledge and let God live in those gaps, or else we can not put God in those gaps in the first place.

Of those two choices, we can't do the first: not just because it's the natural state of knowledge to progress, but because it's heretical to think that God should fit into the world where we want Him to fit. It turns God into a false idol, something we create for our own convenience, and that's major heresy.

Unfortunately, for all the sincere and educated theologians out there, there's an Al Sharpton or another self-appointed minister without theological training who says "no, no! Science is the work of the Devil!"

[sighs] God, you know I love you. But some of your followers are cause to make me doubt your existence, to say nothing of your wisdom.

Re:Richard Dawkins goes in depth in his book

[din]

"It's what made me go from agnostic to atheist. We just use the concept of God whenever we reach personal limits. Time and time again we use God to explain things and we're proven wrong." (emphasis added)

I'll bite. And in response to the bolded selection of your text, I'd argue that what you felt then was your soul seeking the safety and truth of God; after you felt more stable you left that safety of your own volition because you felt silly believing in that sort of stuff.

And I'll clarify my position too, I am a Christian with creationist beliefs. Oh I like science too, God gave me a brain and the desire to understand. Fortunately he also gave me the good sense to know that both religion and science applied in tandem can serve a far greater purpose than either one applied alone.

And as an aside, yes, Einstein did say it better.
http://en.thinkexist.com/quotation/science_without _religion_is_lame-religion_without/15560.html

You say that you have become an athiest as a coping mechanism, I find that incredible. To me, that is tantamount to confessing that you swam out to sea to escape the life rafts. Have you actually listened to reasonable and practical people explain the belief structure? And I mean listened, not debated, I mean tried to understand, not tried to formulate counterpoints.

I guess it just doesn't seem to add up. I have found ridiculing the belief in God to be an extremely popular activity among the "Intelligentsia." And these are the very people who decry plebians as irrational and suggest that their choices are selected after an incomplete evaluation of all possible solutions. Perhaps you can help me understand this duality of belief, this unmentioned understanding that God can be summarily dismissed, but all other decisions and actions should be subjected to great scrutiny.

So then I pose this to you, how can you rule out the possibility of God, how can you decide that He does not exist when there is precious little evidence to support your belief, and what evidence there is (on either side) hasn't been completely (or, perhaps, even slightly) reviewed by you.

Re:Richard Dawkins goes in depth in his book

[Control Group]

Atheism is equivalently irrational to theism. When someone postulates the existence of an unprovable being, claiming you know that being doesn't exist is the same as claiming you know it does: "knowledge" based on faith.

Agnosticism makes perfect sense, since God as proposed by all major religions is defined as beyond proof (hence faith). Under those circumstances, saying "I don't know" is the only purely rational response.

Atheism, however, is a religion. Its adherents cling to the unprovable belief that there is no God just as vehemently as the religious cling to the unprovable belief that there is.

Re:Richard Dawkins goes in depth in his book

[xutopia]

I find it annoying how so many agnostics feel superior because atheist and religious people believe something which they cannot prove. This in no way takes away from someone who is agnostic for the good reasons (it is reasonable with what he knows to not take any idea fully).

I for one am atheist. I am convinced that God is a fallacy. Sure I cannot disprove God's existence but then again I cannot prove to a 4 year old kid that there are no invisible spirits haunting his bedroom at night. However I have strong reasons to believe that God is a virus-like memetic complex. We've used God to explain the sun (it was his eye, in ancient egyptian mythology and in more recent Christian beliefs). We used Him to put ourselves at the center of the universe (error committed by christians, muslims and Jews). We've used Him to make ourselves more important than all other species (error commited especially by Jews and Christians, don't know about Moslems). Every single time God comes in to explain our great design and how wonderful we are and how loved and important we are. The evidence points to a universe that couldn't care less about us. When go from a believer to knowing more about the universe, evolution and science we realize that the universe couldn't care less about us and that good or bad are human constructs.

If I take into account all of that I have strong reasons to believe that God is a fallacy we cling on to because of our limits. When we cannot explain something we use God, when we don't want to face hard questions we use God. It is time we stop using Him.

Re:Richard Dawkins goes in depth in his book

[hanssprudel]

No "atheist" means "not a believer", rather than, as you claim, "a believer in nothing". An atheist rejects the idea of religious belief entirely, and judges the world according to reason rather than dogma.

If anybody wants a good discussion of this, they should read this remarkable interview with Douglas Adams (which is also printed in "A Salmon of Doubt").

For an atheist belief does not enter into the picture. If asked whether there is a god, he will most probably answer, as Adams does, that he is convinced that there isn't. It requires neither belief, faith, nor dogma to be convinced about something you cannot know for sure (you cannot know ANYTHING for sure).

Natural Selection

[jamis]

Ahh... natural selection at work...

The creationism website has been slashdotted.

That's all the proof *I* needed! Go Darwin!

no, just the creationists

[squarefish]

MC Hawkins says:

Fuck The Creationists

Trash Talk
Ah yeah, here we go again!
Damn! This is some funky shit that I be laying down on your ass.
This one goes out to all my homey's working in the field of
evolutionary science.
Check it!

Verse 1
Fuck the damn creationists, those bunch of dumb-ass bitches,
every time I think of them my trigger finger itches.
They want to have their bullshit, taught in public class,
Stephen J. Gould should put his foot right up their ass.
Noah and his ark, Adam and his Eve,
straight up fairy stories even children don't believe.
I'm not saying there's no god, that's not for me to say,
all I'm saying is the Earth was not made in a day.

Chorus
Fuck, fuck, fuck,
fuck the Creationists.

Trash Talk
Break it down.
Ah damn, this is a funky jam!
I'm about ready to kick this bitch back in.
Check it.

Verse 2
Fuck the damn creationists I say it with authority,
because kicking their punk asses be me paramount priority.
Them wack-ass bitches say, "evolution's just a theory",
they best step off, them brainless fools, I'll give them cause to fear me.
The cosmos is expanding every second, every day,
but their minds are shrinking as they close their eyes and pray.
They call their bullshit science like the word could give them cred,
if them bitches be scientists then cap me in the head.

Chorus

Trash Talk
Bass!
Bring that shit in!
Ah yeah, that's right, fuck them all motherfuckers.
Fucking punk ass creationists trying to set scientific thought back 400 years.
Fuck that!
If them superstitious motherfuckers want to have that kind of party,
I'm going to put my dick in the mashed potatoes.
Fucking creationists.
Fuck them.

Re:Face It

[DrXym]

By which you mean they feel quite affronted that religious dogma masquerading as bad science should be taught alongside a scientific fact. Is it any wonder?

No, it won't

[sonamchauhan]

When facts like this keep popping up...

Family trees share roots in 1415BC

Everyone alive today is descended from one person who lived about 3500 years ago, probably in Asia, a study has found.
American researchers created elaborate mathematical models
...
The results are published in the journal Nature.

[Link to article. (free subscription required]

This article supports what the Bible says about all humans descending from Noah in Asia (i.e. Noah's ark settled in Armenia after a global flood about 4200 years ago.)

Re:No, it won't

[NardofDoom]

If Jesus himself came back with Stephen J. Gould and told them all that they're idiots and evolution is the best theory, they wouldn't believe it.

Re:No, it won't

[Gilgaron]

Sure, but you get a different common ancestor depending on what gene cluster you pick, which is to be expected.

It is an easy thing to misunderstand genetics and think that, say, Mitochondrial Eve could have been Eve of the Bible, but thinking so would betray a lack of understanding about what these mathematical common ancestors mean.

Mathematically you can back-calculate that since you have two parents, and 4 grandparents and so on, that pretty soon you'd outnumber the past population, meaning everyone is inter-related. Picking different genes you can find out how long ago the common ancestor for that gene was, but it does not tell you that the common ancestor was the only human at that time.

You and your siblings share common ancestry through your parents, but there are plenty of the rest of us around.

Re:No, it won't

[zerblat]

Heh, you didn't read the article you linked, did you? All this shows is that people have traveled and mixed their genes. It doesn't mean that all genes originate from the same individual, only that we all have some of that person's genes.

Oh, and take another look at the Tasmania example at the end of the article.

Re: No, it won't

[Black Parrot]

> Everyone alive today is descended from one person who lived about 3500 years ago, probably in Asia, a study has found.

> This article supports what the Bible says about all humans descending from Noah in Asia (i.e. Noah's ark settled in Armenia after a global flood about 4200 years ago.)

4200 - 3500 = ?

Didn't you notice that your own account allows the MRCA to be more recent than the origin of the species?

BTW, if you're ever in a bookstore you should thumb through a historical atlas and see what kind of cool stuff was happening on our planet 4200 years ago.

Re:No, it won't

[los furtive]

Nice try, but you're ignoring some of the facts that are plainly visible on the first page of that article.

First of all, they tracked the possible movement and breeding of people for the past 20,000 years. How did they do that if man only goes back 6,400 years?

Secondly, it was an average date that went back to 1415BC. What do they mean by average? Well, the example they give is that Tasmianians were isolated from the Australian coast for the past 12,000 years (so there's yet another example of a group that goes back further than 6,400 years) but today there are no remaining Tasmaninians without some European or mainland Australian ancestry. The 12,000 years gets averaged out by the relationship with Europeans/Australians.

This is one of the reasons why creationism is a flawed belief, you can't just go ignoring facts and believe that all you need is a small subset to prove your point.

If you want to enlighten yourself, go read a Richard Dawkings book (I recomment Climbing Mount Improbable although others would point to the Blind Watchmaker) and maybe you'll have a better understanding of how weak an argument creationism really is.

Re:No, it won't

[Rikurzhen]

Actually, the paper says that their mathematical model suggest that everyone alive today SHARES A SINGLE ANCESTOR who lived about 3500 years ago. Not that he's our only ancestor from that time.

Re:No, it won't

[smallpaul]

That isn't true. There was a time when theists believed that the sun revolved around the earth and they were dissuaded of this view by overwhelming evidence to the contrary. It probably took a long time for the evidence to become so compelling that no thinking person could dispute it. So it is with evolution. Don't give up.

Re:No, it won't

[sonamchauhan]

To save me some effort, I'll just quote a response I made in another discussion a similar question.

Here's the old discussion, with links to the three papers mentioned below:

Hello -

> They are due to a purely theoretical bottleneck looking backwards up the tree of life.

I understand you consider mEve and YAdam theoretical - but remember, in the absence of an eyewitness to this, this is a *hypothesis* put forward to fit the bottlenecking data (and perhaps, it does fit the data).

But the data fits another hypothesis too: What if the bottlenecking is not theoretical, but real? i.e. There really *was* a single Adam and a single Eve. This hypethesis fits the genetic bottlenecking data too. Also, there is also an "eyewitness" account being claimed here -- God's word in the Bible. How do we examine the trustworthiness of this account?

Consider the implications of the 3 papers from the posting:

Paper #1) Danish and Middle East population could have diverged 4,500 years ago
----> Fits with the Biblical description of human dispersion occuring after the flood (around 4,500 years ago as well).

Paper #2) 20 times faster observed mtDNA Mutation Rate
----> Genetic bottlenecking can be approximately just 150,000/20 = 7,500 years old. Fits Biblical description of "bottlenecking" down to Noah's family 5,000 years ago

Paper #3) 1 male root lineage / 3 sub-lineages / only 1 of these 3 has 7 sub-sub-lineages that populate the world outside of Middle East and Africa.
----> Remarkable fit with Biblical story of Noah, his 3 sons, and the 7 descendants of only one of the 3 sons ("Japeth") populate the rest of world. The other 2 sons and their descendants populate the Middle East and Africa.

Re:No, it won't

[duguk]

If Jesus himself came back with Stephen J. Gould and told them all that they're idiots and evolution is the best theory, they wouldn't believe it.

Do you really think Jesus is going to come back after what happened last time?

Re:No, it won't

[hey!]

Dude, Jesus is the one political philosopher the findamentalists in the "Christian" right least listen to.

Luke 6:27 - 6:29

But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you,

Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.

And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloak forbid not to take thy coat also.

Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again.

Haven't seen too much of the spirit of charity on display in the latest election, have we?

Re:No, it won't

[sonamchauhan]

Oh, and take another look at the Tasmania example at the end of the article.

Which says:

People in Tasmania were one group who may have been completely isolated from mainland Australia from 12,000 years ago until 1803, due to the flooding of Bass Strait. This did not affect the results, because "today there are no remaining native Tasmanians without some European or mainland Australian ancestry".

The article authors are simply trying to resolve a difficulty with another theory which states Tasmanians were isolated for 12000 years. If all humans descended from one man who lived about 3500 years ago, how could Tasmanians - who supposedly were isolated 12000 years - be descended from him too? So they conjecture that interbreeding with Europeans in the last 200 years has modified Tasmanians genetic data to look like the rest of the world's. This lets their conclusions not dispute the 12000 year isolation theory.

You said: "It doesn't mean that all genes originate from the same individual, ".

It does.

See quote below from an article called "The Human Family Tree: 10 Adams and 18 Eves" in the NY Times (free subscription required)


The human genome is turning out to be a rich new archive for historians and prehistorians ...
Population geneticists believe that the ancestral human population was very small -- a mere 2,000 breeding individuals ...
But the family tree based on human mitochondrial DNA does not trace back to the thousand women in this ancestral population.
The tree is rooted in a single individual, the mitochondrial Eve, because all the other lineages fell extinct. ...
The same is true of the Y chromosome tree, a consequence of the fact that in each generation some men will have no children, or only daughters,
This ancestral human population lived somewhere in Africa, geneticists believe, and started to split up some time after 144,000 years ago, give or take 10,000 years, the inferred time at which both the mitochondrial and Y chromosome trees make their first branches. ...
The tree is rooted in a single Y chromosomal Adam, and has 10 principal branches, Dr. Cavalli-Sforza reports. ...

Re: No, it won't

[sonamchauhan]

Answer: 4200-3500 = [acceptable scientific error]

Prior to the new 3500 years figure, the earlier figure for our common genetic ancestors was about 150,000 years.

Back in 2003, I posted this pointing out how that 150000 figure needs drastic downward revision (to be divided by 20) given:...

"Evolutionary Genetics tries to estimate how 'old' our current species is by dividing the number of mutations observed in a specific DNA region with the estimated mutation rate. The generally accepted figure is around 150,000 years, but..."

A high observed substitution rate in the human mitochondrial DNA control region.
Nat Genet. 1998 Feb;18(2):109-10.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ent rez/query.fcgi?cmd= Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9090380&dopt=Abstract
-----
The rate and pattern of sequence substitutions in the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region (CR) is of central importance to studies of human evolution and to forensic identity testing. ...We compared DNA sequences ... an empirical rate of 1/33 generations, or 2.5/site/Myr. This is roughly twenty-fold higher than estimates derived from phylogenetic analyses. This disparity cannot be accounted for simply by substitutions at mutational hot spots, suggesting additional factors that produce the discrepancy between very near-term and ...

The link also contains other evidence including this paper which indicates the Danish population divered from populations in the middle east around 4500 years ago

Using rare mutations to estimate population divergence times: A maximum likelihood approach
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, Vol. 95, pp. 15452–15457, December 1998
http://www.rannala.org/papers/PNAS98.pdf
-- ---
In this paper we propose a method to estimate
by maximum likelihood the divergence time between two populations,...

When applied to three cystic fibrosis mutations, the estimatorRD
could not exclude a very recent time of divergence among three
Mediterranean populations. On the other hand, the divergence
time between these populations and the Danish population was
estimated to be, on the average, 4,500 or 15,000 years, assuming
or not a selective advantage for cystic fibrosis carriers, respectively.
------

This study indicates a selective advantage for Cystic fibrosis carriers (see mean number of offspring of Cystic fibrosis families v/s control families)

What is an MCRA?

Re:No, it won't

[LMariachi]

Not to mention Matthew 6:5-6

And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

Re:No, it won't

[JeanPaulBob]

Haven't seen too much of the spirit of charity on display in the latest election, have we?

When you choose not to do something--act spitefully--how do you put it on display?

If you see five people speaking angrily, there may be a thousand restraining themselves.

Re:No, it won't

[tehdaemon]

Sorry, but very often, when a new theory replaces an old one, the reason is not that the people were convinced by the compelling evidence. It is because those who held to the old theory got old and died, and those who took their place believed the new theory.

This happens far too often, for both religion and science. I suspect that the grandparent post was right. A lot of them would not believe, even if god came and told them so. Remember, god did that once. And his people for the most part still don't believe 2000 years later.

The "mamalian" eye & the "cephalopod" eye...

[turnstyle]

Another interesting detail to note is that cephalopods (octopus, cuttlefish, squid) have complex eyes too.

But they're mollusks, which means they branched off at something like a clam.

So, it's interesting wonder how they wound up with eyes too.

Re:Cue anti-religious, hate-filled rants

[Pxtl]

Agreed. Tolerance goes both ways people. Religious right folk have just learned to ignore reasoned arguments after having too much anti-religious vitriol spewed at them. So correct or not, angry rants are counterproductive.

Besides that, people are too quick to paint all religious folk with the same brush. My wife is an Anglican, and believes that "Christian science" and literalism are ideological suicide. Faith is faith - whether a Christian-concept God exists or not, there will be no proof, no evidence, real-world implication that it exists... and an abrupt "creation" doesn't seem subtle enough for that. The universe shuold be taken at face value, and religion applied to wonder about what exists outside of it.

I don't believe in intelligent design

[roman_mir]

and I create software for living. Even designing a relatively simple distributed transaction mechanism is difficult. Designing a computer that will not overheat and die if the fan breaks is difficult. There cannot be intelligence powerful enough to design what we call the universe and all the things within it. It makes much more sense that the universe is an NDA where things can just happen at random given enough time than to imagine a grand design behind it. People who believe in the 'grand design' just don't get how difficult it is to design simple things. Forget the eye.

It is just unbelievable that in some places schools are not allowed to teach Darwinism but they can teach creationism.

The Doctrine of Creation versus Creationism

[zombiepopper]

I am reminded of a quote from Saint Augustine when I see this issue come to a head.

"Whenever I hear a brother Christian talk in such a way as to show that he is ignorant of these scientific matters and confuses one thing with another, I listen with patience to his theories and think it no harm to him provided that he holds no beliefs unworthy of you, O Lord, who are the Creator of them all. The danger lies in thinking that such knowledge is part and parcel of what he must believe to save his soul and in presuming to make obstinate declarations about things of which he knows nothing."

The doctrine of Creation, that God made the world and called it "Good", is not incompatible with a Darwinian understanding of how our bodies came to be and how life on this planet has become so diverse. Scientism versus Creationism is never going to go anywhere. Creationists should, however, listen to the science.

Both sides have it wrong

[HeghmoH]

Both sides in this Evolution v Creationism flamefest have it totally wrong.

The creationists are wrong because they misunderstand their own religion. The key factor in religion is faith. It is not necessary to prove that God exists. In fact, that's missing the entire point. A true religious person will take the existence of God on faith, and will neither need nor desire to prove His existence.

The evolutionists are wrong because there is no reason to try to prove that creationists are wrong. Doing all of this work just to show that somebody's imaginary friend didn't create life seems a bit strange.

Re:Both sides have it wrong

[raytracer]

It would seem to be a bit presumptuous to tell someone else that they don't understand their religion. Their religion is just that: their religion. They do not misunderstand it: they define it.

Additionally, there is a reason to show that creationists are wrong: they are wrong. Personally, I don't feel comfortable in allowing national policy to be set by those who feel that nature exists solely for the exploitation of humans and should be used up before the imminent second coming.

Let's consult THE book...

[NotQuiteReal]

...the dictionary, that is.

faith: Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.

unreasonable: Not governed by reason.

Oddly, they don't show up as synonyms of each other. Why is that?

Definitions shamelessly cut-n-paste from dictionary.com

Face It

[dabadab]

How got this rated "Insightful"?

The idea of the evolution is of a scientific one. It is continously checked against new findings, modified, refined and is open to scientific rebate.
Creationism is something that some people dreamt up and is pretty much based on only two thing: "because the Bible says so" and "it is highly unlikely" (well, try telling a lottery winner, that because it was utterly unlikely to win, he, in fact, did not win), and it is unlikely, because they think it is).
Yeah, no difference, right?

Re:The "mamalian" eye & the "cephalopod" eye..

[Ithika]

I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong ... but I learnt somewhere that not only are octopus eyes as complex as human eyes they are actually better "designed" since they do not have blind spots. I've always thought that was as compelling argument as any against creationism. God may think you're the bees knees, but he gave the good eyes to the celaphopods...

Re:tell the entire story of our evolution over tim

[dprust]

When I read the story, I didn't even think about the religious aspect. I'm a devout Christian and evolution is just another one of God's miracles to me. I don't see why Creationism and Evolution are not compatible. After all, God did create Adam from the Earth. God is the master of code-reuse! :-) We can physically be made of the same stuff as all of the other creatures and still be spiritually distinct.

But this isn't the point of the story, really; we've already seen evidence of links between our bodies and behaviors to other creatures. This story just shows that the rods and cones in our eyes developed from certain types of brain cells. It isn't a religious discussion.

Pointless to Discuss

[Anonymous Coward]

Either you believe in supernatural phenomena or you don't. If you do believe, then all bets are off. There's no reason to discuss evidence or logic of any kind, as the guy upstairs could change the gamerules on you at any time.

For example, as a fun trick he might instantly create the world with trillions of fossils and fill outer space with countless photons all hinting that the universe is old and higher life evolved from lower life, then reserve the actual truth to a 20th-generation copy of one particular enigmatic book out of a selection of dozens of similar but false enigmatic books. If that's the case, then reality is so bizarre that there's no use arguing; clearly the world would be a minefield of false evidence and logical traps.

When did beer-goggles invented?

[NotQuiteReal]

Have you seen the way some of those proto-humans looked?

Their eyesight must have been bad!

Re:Why Talk Creationism?

[Dixie_Flatline]

Y'see, and the watch on the beach argument is something that I find really sad. I'd LOVE to think that it just appeared on the beach, or was somehow the product of a weird series of natural events. Creationism is so dull. The thought that there's someone pulling strings and making things is much less interesting to me than everything happening 'naturally'. Where's the wonder? Where's the discovery?

(I also believe in evolution and a natural universe because it makes more sense scientifically, and I think that all the arguments that Creationists have are bunk. But that's just me.)

So what...

[cmpalmer]

Personally, I love reading articles like this, but I always have the depressing thought that *nothing* researchers can do will change creationist thinking.

If someone were to create a time machine or "past viewer" so we could watch the entire history of the planet at any accelerated rate we wanted and trace the evolution of all life, it might change the mind of 10% of the True Believers. The rest would consider it to be a deceiving tool of Satan.

It wasn't proven

[millahtime]

OK, I know I will get bashed for this but it still wasn't proven

They showed that through modern methods they believe this is what happened. A hypothesis. They have not seen it actually occur or any stages of it occuring. It is one thing to put a hypothesis together but another to see it in action.

I would be interested to see if there are different stages of this hypothesis occuring anywhere.

Re:It wasn't proven

[dprust]

Great point! Much of our science is based on these hypotheses being taken for fact, particularly in the field of theoretical physics. Humans need to know, even when they don't!

Re:It wasn't proven

[grannyknot]

A hypothesis. They have not seen it actually occur or any stages of it occuring.

It's not so much a hypothesis as it is supporting evidence for evolution. Evolution makes the hypothesis that a complex structure like the eye can't come from nowhere, and since there are a bunch of animals with eyes out there, that there's probably a common ancestry.

What the researchers have found is that an organism that essentially stopped evolving a long time ago has photosensitive areas (read: extremely primitive eyes) that use extremely similar molecules as our eyes. This doesn't lead to any new hypothesis, but it does support the hypothesis that eyes evolved.

It's very similar to looking at the similar genetics and body chemistry of apes. Any animal that is 1% different from us is probably very closely related.

Finally, science never 'proves' anything. There's lots of supporting evidence for things like relativity, evolution, quantum physics, etc., but they've never been (and can never be) proven to be true. They work very well right now, but there may be a theory or method that comes along to usurp them (much like relativity usurped Newtonian physics in describing motion).

Re:It wasn't proven

[AdrainB]

Religion can't be proved and it's taken as fact by many people.

Re:It wasn't proven

[AdrainB]

That's a sucker's argument. You can't prove a negative. I can say that there are such things as purple unicorns. You can say prove it. I say just because no one has ever seen one doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Until you search every inch of the earth you can't say with 100% certainty that they don't exist. Several parts of the bible have been shown to be inaccurate but people still take is as 100% true.

Why this is good for Christians

[QuantumFTL]

Speaking as a lifelong Christian, I'd have to say things like this are fantastic. Why? Well, there's two kinds of things in the bible, things that are meant to be taken literally (plainly stated commands which are repeated as themes) and things which are to be taken figuratively (stories which contain valuable lessons for us). I think there is this false thinking in the church that evolution somehow destroys the "need" for God to exist, or changes the fact that humans are special and unique.

Honestly, the mechanics of the system are unimporant to religion - if God created the universe to be one where we'd develop, that's equivilent to creating us directly. It's kinda like creating a pile of logs and then lighting them on fire is basically equivilient to creating a pile of logs which are on fire. There's still things in this universe which are arbitrary and important for life (6 fundamental constants) which, unless we have some way of exploring outside of this universe, are likely going to always be a mystery. Maybe it was an accident (but that's require an infinite number of universes, which is hardly a simple answer) or maybe it was on purpose (which requires an infinite being of some sort outside our universe, also not simple).

I used to be a creationist, until I studied biology, evolution, and cosmology in detail. Then I realized that the arguments that had swayed me as a kid really didn't logically add up. I think that Creationism is dangerous in the sense that it widens the gap between Christianity and science/mainstream culture. This is bad because Christianity is about spreading a message of Love and Hope, and when scientists who spend their entire lives devoted to figuring out the secrets of life are alienated and ridiculed, it's hard for Christians to come off as anything but narrowminded fools. I know a lot of fundamentalist Christians (and in some ways I am fundamentalist, with a lower case f) and it's not narrowmindedness, it's the fact that science, especially evolution, has become so abstract, and so based on mathematical concepts you need a degree or two to understand, that the scientists might as well be saying random mumbo jumbo to these people. These people have no reason to trust the scientists (especially when these same scientists ridicule their faith, as many Humanists tend to do, especially on places such as slashdot) because they cannot understand them. And honestly, I'm just as wary of those who, for no particular reason, just seem to believe that Science will solve everything, and is the end all and be all of truth, as I am of those who have little faith in it. Science is just empiricism. It's a collection of ideas that happen to work, at least as far as we can test.

I for one like to think we're here for a reason. And I think that God gave us this universe full of beauty to explore and gave us the ability to try and understand it. And shouldn't we use that?

Cheers,
Justin

Re:tell the entire story of our evolution over tim

[Anonymous Coward]

But there are those who insist that the Earth was created "with age" 6000 years ago, and that fossils, etc, are a diversionary trap for the unfaithful.

Of course, this could be true. It could also be true that the universe was created last Thursday and that all appearances of age, including fossils memories, are simply manufactured. The problem with this view (Omphalism) is that it's unfalsifiable. There is no observable consequence to distinguish a universe that's actually old from one that simply has the appearance of age or even from a universe even older than our estimates that's been altered to look young for that matter. And even if we could somehow be sure that the universe was created with the appearance of age, then it simply doesn't tell us anything new. The supposition doesn't help us explain or predict any new observations.

Frequently Encountered Criticisms

[vivin]

I recommend this site: http://vuletic.com/hume/cefec/ It has a bunch of commonly used creationist arguments and rebuttals to them.

Re:Frequently Encountered Criticisms

[balster neb]

You shouldn't miss good old http://www.talkorigins.org/. Great site on the whole issue. Basically a bunch of comprehensive rebuttals to all the standard creationist arguments.

Re:Frequently Encountered Criticisms

[CaptainAvatar]

Here's the theory for you!

Re:Huh???

[RealAlaskan]

There are two very interesting questions behind this story:

1) ``How did things get to be this way?'' and
2) ``Why are things this way?'', or ``Who made it so?''.

Evolution is a very plausible answer to the first question. Creationism is a very plausible answer to the second. Since there isn't any great overlap between the two questions, there isn't any strong reason to think that the two answers are mutually exculsive.

Science is concerned with the first question, because that is the question which can be given an objective answer from verifiable facts. The scientific method just doesn't lend itself to the second question.

The sooner the religious nutcases on the science side quit picking on creationism, and the sooner the religous nutcases on the religious side quit picking on evolution, the better off we'll all be. Unfortunately, since there's a lot of religious nutcases on both sides of the issue, that probably won't happen.

1) It all happened by an infinite number of rolls of the dice.
2) God loaded the dice.

There you have one Christian fundamentalist's opinion.

Re:Face It

[centauri]

If you mean they hold to it doggedly and often take the words of books and authority instead of working it out for themselves, I'd say you're right. A lot of people take a lot of science on faith. However, they don't have to. If they disagree with anything scientific they hear or read, they can go and test it themselves until they're satisfied one way or the other. They don't even need expensive equipment for a lot of the work.

With evolution, it's not always easy to go out and dig up some bones, but anyone who's curious enough can learn about genetics and heredity, and test the principles of biology and zoology on which evolution rests.

Creationists and other people of faith have no choice but to take the word of some book or some person (who's taking someone else's word) that the tenents of a particulat faith are true. If they disagree with something, they have no recourse except to go to (or start) another religion or to give up religion altogehter.

Re:Food for thought..

[trigeek]

That would be fine, but the big question comes down to "what do we teach the children in school?" Do we teach them evolution? Intelligent design? These are debates that happened this year in Texas (and several other states) Do the evolutionists want the future scientists of America to believe in intelligent design? No. Do the intelligent designsists want the future theologians (it would be foolish to call them scientists, since they don't follow the basic tenets of science) of America to believe in evolution? No. There lies the deadlock, and the reason this debate matters.

There is a major difference

[DG]

The root problem here is that the two camps are separated by a fundimental, unbridgable divide:

- For a Scientist, Truth is discovered/uncovered by a rigourous process of interacting with the world. Theories are postulated, they are tested with experimentation, and the Big Picture slowly resolves itself.

- For a Diest, Truth was dictated to humanity by some sort of Supreme Being, where it is recorded in some sort of Holy Work. That work contains the literal Word of God, which is de facto Truth. Anything that gainsays this Word is by definition, Untruth, and the gainsayers themselves are Diabolically motivated and must be opposed.

So with one camp, we have a tradition of skepticism, of viewing the picture of Truth as incomplete, and requiring rigourous human effort to complete the bigger picture.

With the other, there is a tradition of "faith" (a nicer way of saying "believe what we tell you or face the consequences"), of viewing the Picture of Truth as complete and well-defined, and requiring Humanity to fall in line and stop believing the Lies of the Devil.

There is absolutely no intellectual common ground here. This goes beyond just simple human stubborness (an attribute common to both the Scientist and the Deist). A Scientist, used to having to "prove" his position (a core feature of the scientific method) cannot "prove" anything to someone who refutes the use of logic in discovering truth in the first place!

The bottom line here is that Scientists cannot convert Deists via force of argument - you might as well argue with a plant.

DG

Re:There is a major difference

[Rostin]

I think you are unfortunately correct about the thinking of some people, particularly most modern skeptics (like you, it appears) and "fundamentalists."

The more traditional (and superior, imo) view acknowledges God as the creator of the universe as well as the author of the scriptures. The scriptures are the ultimate authority, but they don't speak exhaustively, and our understanding of what they say isn't perfect. Christians should listen to scientists (who "read" God's "other book") when considering topics about which scientists may legitimately speak.

P.S. You probably mean "theist," not "deist."

Re:Please stop.

[seanellis]

It's all OK until:

- Someone else's religious beliefs get in the way of teaching my kids proper science.
- Someone else's beliefs mean my taxes are spent on quack treatments such as homeopathy and therapeutic touch instead of stuff that actually works.
- Someone else's beliefs prevent me from conceiving a child, or choosing not to conceive a child.
- Someone else's beliefs are used to determine funding for the scientific and medical research that may one day save my life.
- Someone else's beliefs are prominent in the election of the leader of the world's most powerful economic and military force.

At this point, someone else's beliefs very concretely become my concern, and I reserve my right to disagree with them and oppose them if necessary.

Before people lumping all creationists together...

[Belisarivs]

While they can be roughly broken down between old-earth creationists and young-earth creationists, the talk.origins FAQ contains a more verbose breakdown of the community.

Re:Finally First

[PudriK]

Except often ideas are evolved, too. For example, Einstein's Relativity built upon the work of Lorentz, Poincaire, and a host of others. He took concepts that were already half-way developed and made the mental leap that made them coherent.

Re:tell the entire story of our evolution over tim

[TheWanderingHermit]

Of course, this could be true. It could also be true that the universe was created last Thursday

Oh, great! It had to be a Thursday! I never could quite get the hang of Thursdays.

Re:Food for thought..

[smooth wombat]

Remember, Evolution (as well as Creation) are both Theories (the Theory of Evolution).

Stop it. Creationism is not a theory in the classical sense. It cannot be proven that a supreme being exists or does not exist therefore it cannot be a testable theory.

Evolution, however, can be and is continually being tested as evidenced by this story.

Constantly repeating an untruth won't eventually make it a truth.

but I'm not going to argue it with someone that doesn't hold the same belief as I do.

That's the problem. You have a belief which is unsubstantiated by the facts at hand.

I can believe I'm the King of San Francisco. Does it make it so?

Re:Please stop.

[jabber-admin]

Perhaps some should read "What's the Matter with Kansas?" which looks into the reasons that the midwest is so conservative. Yes, faith has a lot to do with it, but there also is a rebellion against those ('snobs on the coasts') who dismiss them as uneducated, ignorant bible thumpers.

Who is an "Evolutionist" anyway?

[vivin]

At the very least, a person who believes in Evolution, or a person who argues for Evolution.

However creationists seem to believe that there is this huge group of Evolutionists -- like it is some organized camp with some sort of agenda. The fact of the matter is that there isn't anything like it. Evolution gets validated through studies done in different biological fields. There is no concerted effort, just validation. I frequently hear the argument "You evolutionists are zealots! You are out to undermine faith!" or something stupid of that nature. There is no evolutionist camp.

Another thing to remember is that creationists only attack evolution and never come up with an alternative explanation other than "God did it". They frequently like to attack scientific studies and claim that there is a bias against them and that they are never taken seriously. Has any creationist every put out a scientific paper?

Christianity v. Science in the late 19th century

[theMerovingian]

The late 19th century was a time of great philosophical and theological upheaval. This period was also one of the critical defining moments in natural science as a discipline. Geologists and biologists began to observe the earth more effectively and with greater rigor. Scientists began to assert the validity of their observational and experimental procedures as being concrete and repeatable. They began to see beyond Aquinas and the Scholastic tradition, and to make new conjectures about the chronology and functional characteristics of our planet.

What do these new scientific discoveries have to do with religion on a theoretical level? Who were some of the key players, and what did they do (if anything) to stimulate the 'conflict'? What did Christians think at the time? What did scientists think?

Gregor Mendel, Nicholas Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, and Francis Bacon are names synonymous with the scientific revolution and the enlightenment. These men are famous scientists, astronomers, and thinkers who are in large part responsible for propagating the modern intellectual culture. In addition to being men of such intellectual merit, however, one more similarity exists between them that is often overlooked. Gregor Mendel not only discovered the essential principles of genotype and phenotype, but was also a Catholic monk. His experiments were conducted in the bean patch of his Augustinian monastery. Copernicus was the first to accurately portray a heliocentric universe, but he also held the office of canon in his cathedral chapter. Galileo, although often troubled in his work by reactionary church polity, made a well thought-out attempt to reconcile his new scientific discoveries with the Christian faith. Francis Bacon made sweeping pronouncements about how science should be carried out, and played a pivotal role in formulating our modern scientific culture. In his writings, Bacon addressed the need for God, and His role in the life of an intellectual community (Moore 1986, p. 322). The Baconian Compromise has influenced many generations of thinkers and scientists, and this understanding is still widely held today by many in form if not in name.

Christianity is often viewed as being opposed to science. In order to determine whether or not the conflict exists in fact, it is important to go beyond cultural ideas and stereotypes. It is necessary to look at the historical records of both the scientific community and the historical account of Christianity, the Bible.

Owen Chadwick, a notable church historian, found it to be important to discern the difference "between science when it was against religion and the scientists when they were against religion" (Lindberg 1986, pg.7). The general consensus among historians is that two texts have set the present tone for the hostility between the scientific community and the Christian faith.

John William Draper, in 1874, wrote a History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science. Draper, the son of a Methodist minister, was highly successful with this book, in which he applied the traditional forms of Christianity to a new doctrine of science and metaphysics. In the preface, he pointedly stated that, "The history of science is not a mere record of isolated discoveries; it is a narrative of the conflict of two contending powers, the expansive force of the human intellect on one side, and the compression arising from traditionary faith and human interests on the other" (Draper 1874, p. vi). He frequently makes allusions to the battle of good, as human intellect, versus evil, as faith. He refers to the previous period in Europe as "intellectual night... passing away... into daybreak". These themes are reminiscent of passages in both the Old and New Testaments, such as 2 Samuel 22:29 "the Lord turns my darkness into light", Psalms 112:4 "even in darkness light dawns", John 1:5 "the light shines in darkness", and 2 Corinthians 6:14 "What fellowship can light have with darkness?". Donald Fleming, Draper's biographer, descr

Re:Why Talk Creationism?

[nine-times]

...but I'm not sure why creationism got dragged into it. [...snip...] For the most part, people decide what they want to believe, then go looking for evidence. Not the other way around.

See? You answered your own question. Creationism got dragged into it because the scientists went looking for proof of what they wanted to believe, that creationists are wrong.

Re:Face It

[Fnkmaster]

Wrong. At least assuming you mean scientists and other intelligent individuals. The reasons that the average person believes what they believe are not relevant to this discussion.

As for scientists, their view on evolution is usually founded in the scientific method and falsifiability.

I don't think any scientist will tell you that the theory of evolution is complete or proven in every aspect - as with most facets of biology, it's complex, and the data we have is essentially a partial, but extensive, set of samples. The problem with Creationists is that they fail to separate articles of faith ('God is the ultimate creator of the world' - a statement that is not incompatible with falsifiable observations) and science ('the world is 5000 years old' - there is no evidence to support this and many other such claims).

Obviously, it's a complicated fray, and some of the Intelligent Design people make less outlandish claims, and instead try to attack the theory of evolution by finding exceptions or outliers. Unfortunately, they often selectively ignore important research and evidence, and have mostly been debunked (yes, I've read some of this stuff by these people out of curiousity to see how they presented their arguments, and I wasn't very impressed).

Most of the arguments, at a basic level, are elucidated quite well on the talk.origins FAQ. Strangely, the site doesn't read like religious mantra to me.

Re:tell the entire story of our evolution over tim

[Corporal Dan]

Neocon philosophy is *never* wrong. Any mistakes happen because the philosophy was not put into practice vigorously enough.

Sounds exactly like the excuses my professors gave me for why socialism/communism failed...

Re:tell the entire story of our evolution over tim

[WoodenRobot]

I don't see why Creationism and Evolution are not compatible.

...And neither does the Pope, so you're in good company. I'm not a theist, but evolution does seem to be one of the more impressive phenomena in the universe - and saying God couldn't do it that way is just... dumb, really.

What's up with all the misunderstanding?

[AxemRed]

It seems like an aweful lot of people on here have a really low view of creationists. Many people are assuming that all Christian creationists believe that God created the world in 7 days, 10000 years ago. That's just as ignorant and uninformed as saying that all geeks are fat or all black Americans eat fried chicken. Almost all mainsteam Christian groups believe that the whole "7 days" thing is a metaphor. Only a small percentage of people take it to be literal.

Re:What's up with all the misunderstanding?

[TomorrowPlusX]

True. But those people are very loud about their credo. Plus, they tend to try make PUBLIC schools teach children their RELIGIOUS credo as if it were legitimate science, with legitimate science being sidelined as merely one of many opinions.

I think many people here would have less problems with creationists if they weren't so damn evil about it.

yes, you heard me: evil. I think it's evil to trick children into believing this stuff. If you want your kids to learn creationism, fine -- teach them: yourself. But it's not the public school system's business to do so. Schools should teach things outside of religion -- e.g. math, history, language, science.

I'm not going to try to forcibly teach your kids and everybody's kids that the earth is flat, or that vampires are real, or that visual basic is the One True Language, just because I happen to believe it is the case. I will make my own children ignorant and incapable of critical thought, not yours.

Re:What's up with all the misunderstanding?

[radish]

Are you saying that an Atheist cannot have morals? Are you saying that I, as an Atheist, cannot differentiate between right and wrong?

Do you not see what an absurd thing that is to say?

I base my morals on my beliefs. On what I believe is right and wrong. Murder is bad, speeding is also (although less) bad. I don't remember reading anything in the Bible about speeding. Does that mean it's OK for Christians?

Does what I just said make any sense? No, of course not. Everyone has their own moral code, where they get it from varies, but to say that someone can't have one because they do no believe in God is rubbish.

Re:Lets just get a few things out of the way,

[Concerned Onlooker]

Creationism is a myth.

Now, hold on a minute. The poster should not have gotten modded flamebait for this. Religious ideas of creation are myths, but people get so touchy about it because it their myth. What about the myth of earlier cultures who believed that a god created a giant turtle and that the world is riding on the back of it? Perfectly valid as long as you're going to ignore scientific reasoning and evidence.

There's nothing wrong with myths, by the way. They just have no place in the rational part of our world.

Re:tell the entire story of our evolution over tim

[Coos]

there are those who insist that the Earth was created "with age" 6000 years ago, and that fossils, etc, are a diversionary trap for the unfaithful

This view has been referred to as "Last Tuesdayism". If God could have created the world with built in lies in the geological record (and everywhere else that refuting evidence for young earth creationism can be found), She could equally have created us with lies built in to our memories - the world was in fact created last Tuesday, and all our memories of, say, series one of Buffy, are lies told to us by our deity.

A completely irrefutable argument, but one that completely fails as a hypothesis in the scientific sense, because it is irrefutable: it could apply equally to every possible instant from now backwards... Oh, and it also requires that you beleive in a God who has perpetrated the biggest lie ever! I prefer to think that any possible deity would look favourably on me using the best mental tools I've got to form the most consistent picture from the information I'm given...

Arguing Religion with Philosophers

[eutychus_awakes]

When the Apostle Paul traveled to Corinth to spread the Gospel, he had just come from Athens where he attempted to "convince" the people that Jesus Christ is God's Son using reasoning, scripture, apologetics - you name it. The Bible goes on to tell us that maybe one or two people in all of Athens believed. You see, the place was the world center for reason, philosophy, science, etc., and we all know how difficult it is to argue with someone for whom the argument itself is more than half the fun. Paul changed his tactics in Corinth, however, which resulted in the founding of one of the great churches. This is documented below:

1 Corinthians Chapter 2

When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.

We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as it is written:

"No eye has seen,
no ear has heard,
no mind has conceived
what God has prepared for those who love him" -- but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.

The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment:

"For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ.

Each must make up his own mind who Christ is, and what He's done for them. After that, we'll all sit around the throne in Heaven and talk with God like neighbors around the '67 Mustang --"So, THAT'S how you supercharged the intake." -- "So, THAT'S how you micro-mechanically sequenced the RNA to replicate the DNA so that the photo-sensitive proteins in the eye would transfer from one generation to the next."

why don't we have more eyes?

[lashi]

While I do believe in evolution, I have always wondered why certain things are the way they are. For example, why don't we have more eyes? No mamals have more than 2 eyes. Surely having eyes on the back of the head would be a great advantage in avoiding predators.

Ok, let's not go that far then. Why don't we have a wider field of vision? Some creatures like deers have almost 360 degree of vision.

Ok, I understand the importance of viewing depth, how about ears, why don't we have larger ears? Surely it would help to hear each other and predators better.

I confess I sucked at biology but I just wonder about this stuff sometimes.

Re:The "mamalian" eye & the "cephalopod" eye..

[Decaff]

Functionally, your eyes are good as they have to be to fulfill your role in the vast scheme of things.

Actually, no. Human eyes have blind spots, which would not be present if the eyes were better designed. Cephalopod eyes evolved independently, and don't have blind spots. Their eyes are very good indeed, and can see a wide range of colours (Octopuses and Squid hunt using binocular vision).

Re:tell the entire story of our evolution over tim

[fyngyrz]

No, no. See, your memories of not getting the hang of Thursdays are not real because the universe was only created last Thursday. So the message of the Thursday Genesis scripture is that you can be who you want to be, do you see? With your knowledge that the world is really only a week and a few days old, you know that all the things you thought you did wrong, you didn't! It's all false memories! You're FREE! It's all about Original Non-Sin Due To Thursday-ish-ness! Praise Be!

Now, repeat after me:

Yea, though I walk through the valley of Friday, I shall fear no Weekend, for a hot chick is with me; My Rod and My Staff, they comfort me, especially when rubbed the right way; Thou preparest a table on which I may lay down my chick in the presence of mine video camera; thou annointest my chick with water-soluble lube, yea, even as her cups overflow. Surely lewdness and merriment shall follow me all the days of my life, perhaps even unto next Thursday, when the World Will End, and I shall dwell in the house of lewdness for ever, and ever. Ah, man.

Genetic diversity

[sonamchauhan]

You asked:
Didn't Noah's sons include his daughters-in-law in the Arc? If he had daughters, did they bring their husbands?

Where did that genetic diversity go?

Noah had three sons. Noah, his wife, and his sons and thier wives, were the only humans beings who entered the ark. The Bible records a male genetic bottleneck 4200 years ago -- i.e. all the males in the ark were descendants of Noah.

The following quote is from a NY times article about an interesting genetic study from a few years ago. It speaks about how the male lineage began to descend, referring quaintly to the Y-chromosome originator of the lineage as 'Adam' (could more correctly be 'Noah'). Note how it talks about three sub-lineages:

Of these sons of Adam, the first three (designated I, II and III) are found almost exclusively in Africa. Son III's lineage migrated to Asia and begat sons IV-X, who spread through the rest of the world ...

This is shown clearly by this figure(NY Times subscription may be required).

In other words, the Y-Chromosome ancestor was:
- A single male chromosomal ancestor
- With three descendant male lineages
- The third male lineage had seven sub-lineages
- These seven sub-lineages from the third lineage populate all the world except the Middle East and Africa.

The Bible says the same thing:
- We are all descended from a single male ancestor - Noah
- Noah had three male descendants
- One of the three sons, Japeth, had seven sons
- The Japeth lineage (his seven sons and their descendants) populated all the world except the Middle East and Africa.

Re:Genetic diversity

[Yunzil]

In other words, the Y-Chromosome ancestor was:

You are overstating the importance of the Y-chromosome "Adam" (and the mitochondrial "Eve"). Yes, our Y-chromosomes all come from one man and all our mitochondrial DNA comes from one woman... but so what? Indications are that these two people were separated by vast spans of time, and anyway: what about the rest of the genome?

Also, just because all our Y-chromosomes come from one man does NOT mean that was the only man around at the time. It just means that his lineage is the only one that survived until the present. Read this.

The scarey thing is...

[QuasiRob]

...your current president believes in all this religious stuff!

Lets hope he isnt the current president for much longer.

Mind you, our prime minister seems to dabble in it as well.

Bah, all these cultists running major governments, no wonder theres so many wars.

Re:tell the entire story of our evolution over tim

[cens0r]

socialism seems to be working in northern europe just fine.

Doesn't Scale Well

[PetoskeyGuy]

To paraphrase again...
"In the land of the X eyed, the X+1 eyed man is king."

I believe in most cultures it would be more like
"In the land of the X eyed, the X+1 eyed man is a freak".

Or perhaps
"In the land of the X eyed, the X+1 eyed man is king where x = 0"

Re:Doesn't Scale Well

[bobbuck]

To paraphrase again... "In the land of the X eyed, the X+1 eyed man is king."

I believe in most cultures it would be more like "In the land of the X eyed, the X+1 eyed man is a freak".

Or perhaps "In the land of the X eyed, the X+1 eyed man is king where x = 0"

Isn't this the start of the old joke about do you pick the girl with X eyes, (X+1) eyes, or (X-1) eyes, and the answer is the one with the biggest tits?

Dawkins made a prediction

[jmichaelg]

Dawkins described the likely evolution of the eye as a progression from a heat sensitive patch of skin to a pit as found on pit vipers to a camera obscura peephole to a rudimentary lens to keep the camera obscura clean. The final step in Dawkin's speculated path would have been the eye. When I read his path it made sense but at the time, I figured, without the creatures Dawkins was merely speculating.

The pit viper was already known so that wasn't hard. However, about 5 years after I read Dawkin's speculation, some oceanographers brought up some blind shrimp that had heat sensitive patches on their topside. The shrimp apparently use the ability to "see" heat to find smokers which provide the energy basis of the food chain at the bottom of the ocean.

Anyone know of a creature that uses a camera obscura for an eye?

Next stop: Bombardier Beetle

[5n3ak3rp1mp]

My favorite creationist example of something that looks like it had to have been "by design" is the explosive defense of the bombardier beetle. It takes 3 simultaneous ingredients to make it work, and having all their production and injection systems arise simultaneously by chance seems to be highly unlikely.

Meanwhile, I think it's pretty obvious to anyone who bothers to think about it that any eye (or photosensitive cell) is better than no eye, and that better eyes are more likely to survive. In other words, every feature we possess was advantageous in its lesser forms also.

Re:Next stop: Bombardier Beetle

[raytracer]

My favorite creationist example of something that looks like it had to have been "by design" is the explosive defense of the bombardier beetle. It takes 3 simultaneous ingredients to make it work, and having all their production and injection systems arise simultaneously by chance seems to be highly unlikely.

Of course one is left with the job of explaining precisely why God needed to create a beetle which shoots corrosive chemicals from its abdomen.

For more information on the bombardier beetle, try checking out the talk.origins FAQ on the subject.

Re:Why does everyone think 6 days???

[Edie O'Teditor]

days are used FIGURATIVELY, often representing decades, or even centuries or millenia.

Are you a project manager, by any chance?

Object Oriented Programming or Spaghetti Code

[PortHaven]

Object Oriented Programming or Spaghetti Code

The debate of Evolution vs ID(Intelligent Design or Influence) is really one of programming philosophy.

Please read the following quote:

"She found an opsin, a light-sensitive molecule, in the worm that strikingly resembled the opsin in the vertebrate rods and cones....This was concrete evidence of common evolutionary origin."

The following statement claims that said discovery is de-facto proof of evolutionary origin. But in truth, it is not. It could be applied as evidence for support. But as there are other simple explanations it cannot be used as proof.

To me, evolution is "spaghetti" code. Is the world written sloppily or is there a framework? are there functions?

One could look at the above example in the quote and assume that it is proof that said molecular arrangement originated in worm and was carried thru to vertebrates as they evolved and got more complex.

However, there is a simple explanation, code re-use. In an Object Oriented model of programming one writes functions that perform a particular task. One later writes functions that call other functions/routines to accomplish a large task.

So the thought of ID, explains the above discoveries equally well. Both the worm and the vertebrates include some of the same function libraries. So such a development philosophy easily offers another rational for the observed phenomen. Thus I do not see this as some 'concrete evidence'.

In fact, code-reusage and modular development also explains the instances where scientists state that there is code in the DNA for primitive functions we do not use.

Might I ask how many programmers use a "library". I know in my first C++ class we had to import a library for which to utilize certain functions. Furthermore, I know that I did NOT use all those functions. So how can we look at such code and claim those as arguments for random development and than go to our bosses and expect a paycheck for our labor?

Just some food for thought

- The Saj

Re:The "mamalian" eye & the "cephalopod" eye..

[AdrainB]

Had it ever occured to you that the reason cephalopods have better eyes is that Cthulhu created the earth?

Definitions: Get your belief out of my facts

[Scrameustache]

Religion is based on the Fact that God exists

Main Entry: fact
Pronunciation: 'fakt
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin factum, from neuter of factus, past participle of facere

4 a : something that has actual existence b : an actual occurrence
5 : a piece of information presented as having objective reality

or

Main Entry: belief
Pronunciation: b&-'lEf
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English beleave, probably alteration of Old English gelEafa, from ge-, associative prefix + lEafa; akin to Old English lyfan
1 : a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing
2 : something believed; especially : a tenet or body of tenets held by a group
3 : conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon especially when based on examination of evidence
synonyms BELIEF, FAITH,

"God exists" is a belief, not a fact.
No matter how much you believe it, it doesn't make it a fact.

Re:tell the entire story of our evolution over tim

[WindBourne]

There are other ways to look at religion, but this view currently holds sway in the US and elsewhere. The few, silent, rational Christians such as yourself are likely to end up burnt at the stake with us atheists.

Personally, I do not think it is just a few silent christians. I think that it is the majority of America. I see that the fundamentalists are more akin to the 1980's moral majority, 1990's Al Qaeda, the 1930's German nazi party, or the 1900's USSR communist party. That is, just a small group with a very vocal opinion carry a message of their own choosing. The vast majority of people really just want to live and enjoy life. They are not concerned with changing it. These aforementioned groups are all small, but ....

M$ is killing evolution

[lNxUnDeRdOg]

since humans are still "evolving" isn't M$ killing evolution, since it's making ppl dumber. We will be a race of point and clickers and M$ will be the great evolutionary god......all worship billy gates.....

Re:tell the entire story of our evolution over tim

[EvilTwinSkippy]

I would also like to point out that scripture is mum on the mechanics of how God worked, and continues to work. For a creationist to blabber on about his or her theory, and try to back it up with scripture in the face of contravening facts, is blasphemy.

The scriptures are ambigious in many areas. It is not the place of a man to fill in the details with opinion. Did Judas hang himself, or did he jump over a cliff? Depends on which Gospel you consult. Did Christ point to the crowds or the Scribes in his famous "you brood of vipers" line? Depends on which Gospel you consult. What were Christ's last words? Considering that none of the Apostles were there, whatever is recorded in the Gospel is a secondhand telling. And even there, it depends on which Gospel you consult.

Ambiguity is just something you have to get used to folks. Fundimentalism, or even a strict interpretation of the scripture, isn't even supported by scripture.

"All scripture (is) given by inspiration of God, and (is) profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." 2 Timothy, 3:16

You can't quote a single passage of the Bible, without considering what other passages might have to say.

Nowhere in the Bible does it state that the Universe started on any particular day. Nor does it state how man was created, save that God formed us from Dust. Exactly what is meant by that? Was it literally from dirt molecules? Or figuratively, say from a more lowely form of life? Are we reading what the ancient Hebrews understood, or merely the best translation into the written word that their language allowed.

I'm ranting, but I definetly agree with you on all points.

--Sean

6K nonsense

[samjam]

Non-creationists rarely take the trouble to understand creationism any more than they think they need for a superficial debunking and therefore do the whole world a dis-server.

Many christians also fail to study their own sources.

6 thousand years is supposed to be the approximate time since Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden of eden and made mortal.

There is NOTHING in the bible to indicate
1) how long they were in the garden of eden as immortals before this point
[hence 6k is rubbish]

2) nothing PLAIN about how long each of the six creative periods ("days") were or even if they were the same length of time as eachother.

All I've done here is show that the parents posts debunking is groundless.

Creationists don't all believe the same things, and that grouping them together and debunking some combined creationist idea may not be equivalent to debunking any particular creationist idea at all.

For instance I believe in God and the creation account as given in Genesis - buts a pretty brief account, heh? Not rich on the details. I also believe God is a perfect glorified man with a physical body. But then again many humanists hope that man will one day be perfect and immortal, and have the power to create worlds. Whats wrong with saying it has already happened?

Sam

This is all a waste of time!

[huge colin]

Intelligent design implies a designer.

If the evidence for the existence of this designer consists only of circumstantial evidence such as the "brilliance" or "elegance" of a biological mechanism (for example), then the existence of the designer has not been conclusively proven. Direct physical evidence is required.

History indicates that religions survive and gain popularity if they can stand up to extreme scrutiny. Religions that cannot stand up to scrutiny die out. This results in the common "God works in mysterious ways" explanation being used as an all-purpose response to the questioning of skeptics. (Unfortunately for the religious proponents, using 'God' in that explanation represents an unproven assumption -- the existence of a god.)

Because modern religions must be able to explain their way out of any absurd scenario, god has, by definition, become undetectable by any scientific means. (If god were detectable, the necessary experiment would be conducted, and god would be found to not exist. This is not acceptable for the religions that require a supreme being.)

A completely undetectable supreme being is exactly equivalent to no supreme being at all.

Suck on that.

--Colin

Re:A couple of questions about your Christianity

[wes33]

you are not reading the bible metaphorically enough. When it speaks of God creating the archetypal Adam and Eve that is metaphor for the creation of baryons and leptons.

Original sin is simply a metaphorical way to talk abou the primordial disparity between matter and anti-matter with which the universe has been stuck since early after its inception.

The Jesus story is a metaphorical reference to the time when electrons coupled with matter, and the universe became clear to light.

I think the bible is amazing :)

Re:tell the entire story of our evolution over tim

[dgatwood]

I always saw Genesis in terms of a joke a priest once told back in Tennessee. It went something like this:

Man: Lord, how long is a million years to you?
God: Only a minute.

Man: Lord, how much is a million dollars to you?
God: Only a penny.

Man: Lord, can I have a million dollars?
God: In a minute.

It is naive of us to believe that Genesis is to be interpreted as literal fact, in much the same way that it is naive of us to believe that anything so transcribed, translated, and retranslated by fallible men is the infallible word of God.

Further, it is naive to assume that someone several thousand years ago could have understood evolution if God had described it to him/her. Jesus spoke in parables as a way of boiling complex issues down to a simple metaphorical truth. It seems perfectly consistent to assume that Genesis is similar: God taking a very complicated subject (for the time period) and distilling it to its very essence so that primitive minds could understand.

Creation versus evolution is not inherently a conflict except for those weak in faith. A faith that cannot be challenged---that cannot accept the possibility that it might have gotten some details wrong---is not true faith. True faith must grow, change, sometimes even die entirely to be reborn anew in a stronger, more vibrant form. That's what the Bible says, but some people forget this and angrily defend the exact words of the Bible as God's absolute truth, thus refusing to allow their faith to be tested. A faith untested cannot be strong, for it is in being tested that our faith becomes deeper than a superficial understanding of God.

God did not come to this Earth thousands of years ago never to return. He did not abandon us. He works in our lives every day, whether we're scientists or random church-goers. Does it not, therefore, stand to reason that evolution might be a new truth that God has revealed to us? Not all new truths are heresy. Earth is not flat. The Sun does not revolve around Earth. Women and men are equal. God created the world in billions of years. No difference.

That said, I could be wrong, but so could everyone else---and that is the point.

Re: inside-out vs outside-in-Faith-based seeing.

[Black Parrot]

> is assumes that everything that's important is observable.

Yes [and no]. If you assume there are hidden agents that affect everything that happens, you can't do any science at all. (Or religion either; see further below.)

But the issue isn't whether science can aspire to omniscience, but rather which is the better guide to reality: what we see, or what our ancestors told us.

[The "and no" is because we don't actually assume that everything important is observable, e.g. the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and all the immense challenges for science that follow from it. But I bracket this because I don't think it's what you meant.]

> Kind of a faith in itself (to see is to believe).

Certainly there's a philosophical problem with it, but we rely on it just to make it through the day. How do you know you're taking your morning leak in the john instead of wetting the bed? How do you know you're eating breakfast instead of jumping off a cliff?

Also, such an appeal to nihilism is pretty useless as a support for keeping creationism in the ring. How do you know the bible really exists, or if it does, how do you know it says what the letters on the page look like they say?

Maybe you do

[Gene77]

We just use the concept of God whenever we reach personal limits.

Some people do, some people do not. The generalization doesn't hold.

God is generally portrayed as a "coping mechanism" by atheists, within my personal experience (others may differ). Putting aside religious people trying to sell something, most of the rest of us deal with the reality that Life with God is more complex and often more difficult than Life without God. There is no "coping" for me.

Re:A couple of questions about your Christianity

[Control Group]

You are misrepresenting Christianity. I say this as a Catholic who accepts science wholeheartedly.

Your first point, that one cannot be "born" Christian is, technically, true. After all, a newborn can't meaningfully be anything in terms of philosophy or religion. However, if one has been raised Christian for one's entire life, "lifelong" Christian is a perfectly good description of it. In Catholicism, at least, you are expected to make a conscious choice after reaching adulthood (or some reasonable facsimile thereof) to continue being Catholic, but that doesn't mean you weren't Catholic growing up. This is similar in the other Christian faiths with which I am familiar, and I assume in most, if not all, of them.

I don't mean to give offense, but had your second point not been surrounded by what seems to be reasoned text, I would call troll. Your statement that Christianity and Evolution are fundamentally incompatible is simply ridiculous. You are equating "Christianity" with "literal belief in the Bible as written," which is, quite plainly, false. There are Christian faiths, of course, which do subscribe to a strict-to-the-word belief in the Bible, but most do not.

The belief that man is fundamentally flawed and therefore can (and does) succumb to temptation does not rest upon the (patently false - after all, who did Cain marry?) strictest interpretation of the Bible. It rests solely upon the observation that man is flawed, and does sin. To reconcile this with a perfect creator (the "problem of evil") is a non-trivial philosophical task, but that's a different issue, and doesn't conflict with evolution whatsoever.

At its root, Christianity is simply the belief that there is a God who created everything (one way or another), and that His son, Jesus, died to redeem man of his sins after explaining how people should behave.

Everything else is added trappings and expansions (and, as a Catholic, let me tell you that various flavors add a lot of trappings and expansions). Some of those, such as strict intepretation of the Bible, do conflict directly with macro evolution. Others, such as the Assumption, don't.

In any event, in no way is Christianity fundamentally opposed to macro evolution. Strict interpretation is, but not Christianity.

Re:tell the entire story of our evolution over tim

[wavedeform]

We are all Devo:
"God made man, but he used a monkey to do it"

Re:tell the entire story of our evolution over tim

[glsunder]

Most christians don't have a problem. However, the number of fundamentalists is growing in the USA, and they are a problem. They prey on people who can't deal with the real world, have never learned any critcal thinking skills or developed any form of skepticism. These are people who claim to be persecuted in the USA, they are victims, and their religious groups give them a sense of community. They are members of a cult, and one that is rapidly growing with people who can't deal with modern society. In return, the leaders of this cult make millions of dollars and get tremendous political power.

This leads to another problem, non-christians think that the fundies represent all christians, that all christians are fascist-like who would murder anyone who disagrees with them. Of course, that affects all religions -- a segment will always use it to prey on the weak minded.

Re:tell the entire story of our evolution over tim

[bloggins02]

Ummm, I'm an atheist, but I live in the fundamentalist bible-belt of the world, so I think I can give you two pretty good reasons why biblical literalists cannot accept evolution:

1) The bible is the literal, breathed, inerrant Word of God. For this to be the case (so the argument goes), the stories of creation in Genesis cannot be mere alegory, they must be literally true. Otherwise, who's to say what else is not literally true. Yes, I realize that this is a weak argument.

The second, and IMHO, MUCH stronger argument is the following:

2) Fundamentalists believe in a literal heaven where you go to live after you die. That's not metaphorical. They also believe that non-believers literally go to a hell after they die, which is also not metaphorical. In fundamentalist Protestantism, the only thing that will get you into heaven is belief in Christ. That's it. End of story. But the fundamentalists have to explain WHY this is (in other words, if I live my life in a good way, why do I still go to hell if I'm not christian?). Here's why (again, so the argument goes):

- God is perfect. So perfect, in fact, that He must not allow imperfection in his sight. To avoid this, all those who are not perfect go to a place without God (Hell) and so will not be in His site.

- The fall introduced evil into the world. In so doing, God's creation (Mankind) was made evil. That's ALL of his creation, not just the original "evil doers" (that would be Adam and Eve). As the new testament says "All fall short of the glory of God." And "Man's best deeds are but dirty rags." So basically, since you are inherently imperfect (hence away from God, or "sinful" technically) there is nothing you could possibly do to earn your way to heaven. Woo hoo! We're all going to hell!

- But, what if God made a sacrifice to atone for the fall on behalf of all mankind? The argument is that Jesus did this. In so doing, whomever would accept that Christ did this for him would basically have their own sins atoned for by Christ Himself (who was also God), so that when that person stood before God in Heaven, God would see the atonement of Christ (himself) instead of that person's sins. Hence, heaven is possible, but only for believers.

There's protestant theology in a nutshell. Now, here's where creationism comes in (again, so the argument goes):

If there was no literal first man and woman, then there was no talking snake to tempt them into eating an apple. If that didn't happen, there was no literal fall (the fall had to be by CHOICE, protestants don't accept that God just made humans imperfect from the start). If there was no literal fall, then mankind is not in need of redemption. If there is no need for redemption, there is no need for Christ. This would basically invalidate protestant Christianity.

Usually this combined with the first argument about biblical literalism ensures that it will indeed be a cold day in Hell before protestants can reconcile their beliefs with mainstream science.

Just thought you'd like to know. Christians, feel free to correct me if any of the details are wrong.

Re:tell the entire story of our evolution over tim

[dustinbarbour]

Neocon is not a term used by those described as being so. So, obviously, your time spent on Google was wasted as you are asure to only have received one side of the story. You conspiracy theorists blow my mind.. really.

the fucking sorry state of American "thinking"

[Anonymous Coward]

The fucking sorry state of America is such that religious morons think that they can invade every aspect of society with "religion", including scientific thinking.

It is such a fucking sorry state that one must argue evolution *all over again*, because morons refuse hard evidence. We are back in the middle ages, when someone takes the Bible literally.

What a drawback. Would this be the beginning of the end for the great U.S., a nation that thrived on independent thinking and scientific investigations brought on by the great influx of immigrant brains post WW-II? I guess so...

What developed the West, what set it apart from the rest, was *science*, not religion.

In that respect, religious rednecks are very much like the fundamentalist muslims they fear and loathe so much.

Re:the fucking sorry state of American "thinking"

[eno2001]

Damn! And I just had mod points yesterday. The parent certainly deserves a +5 Insightful. While, I don't hold anyone's particular belief system in contempt, I do think it's unproductive to try and shoehorn the world into your particular way of thinking. The bible is a nice book with some guidelines for living. Some of those guidelines are good, others are WAY OFF BASE. It's not so much a history but more of a text based version of the telephone game. Use your heads people. This is about science and completely exclusive of religion. These guys didn't say , "god doesn't exist". They said, "Oh look! There is a similariy between rods and cones and the light sensitive brain cells of lower creatures".

Re:the fucking sorry state of American "thinking"

[bbtom]

Damn right. That reminds me of my first day in Ethics (I'm a phil student) where the teacher stated up front that...
1. I'm a Christian.
2. The Bible is about the most useless piece of crap for drawing moral conclusions from.

I've just read Stephen Jay Gould's Rock of Ages book, which proposes the NOMA theory - non-overlapping magisteria. This is precisely what you are stating. Science deals with some questions and religion deals with other questions. Of course, if you are not religious, there are also ways of looking at those questions.

Also, it's worth checking out Michael Ruse's "Can a Darwinian be a Christian?" where he looks in more detail and states quite emphatically that Yes, Darwinism and Christianity are completely compatible.

Re:the fucking sorry state of American "thinking"

[ryanmfw]

Is this a problem with America or with religious rednecks? Is it America's fault that some arrogant jerks decided to abuse what America so gratiously gave them, their freedom? Those people are sad, not America. America has it's problems, but this is not one of them. This is what makes America great, but unfortunately could tear it down.

Re:the fucking sorry state of American "thinking"

[OzRoy]

"What developed the West, what set it apart from the rest, was *science*, not religion."

Actually I would say it was the other way round. Religon has always been the "power" in western society. The Church has always dictated the direction of thinking and belief. If something doesn't agree with their rules they persecute it. Galileo for example.

Eastern culture has always been based more on spiritual guidelines than hard doctrine and made many technilogical advances long before western society.

Re:the fucking sorry state of American "thinking"

[Colonel Cholling]

Eastern culture has always been based more on spiritual guidelines than hard doctrine and made many technilogical advances long before western society.

I think you're buying into broad cultural stereotypes about "Western" and "Eastern" culture which don't hold up to close scrutiny. First of all, there is no line between East and West. Those cultures we consider Western have had extensive cultural interaction with those we call Eastern: Buddhism, for example, was influenced to a large degree by "Western" philosophy as far back as the first century C.E., when a syncretic "Greco-Buddhism" emerged in central Asia; likewise, early Christian mysticism borrowed from Hindu religious practices. There's not even any clear consensus as to who is Western and who is Eastern: Islam is considered "Eastern" by Christians and "Western" by Hindus, and in the Balkans various religious and ethnic groups have seen Russia's influence as an example of both the "decadent West" and the "primitive East."

As for the claim that "hard doctrines" are easier to find in the West than in the East, history disagrees. China gave us both the extremely rigid social organization of Confucianism and the easygoing individualism of Taoism, at times recognizing both doctrines simultaneously; while here in the "West" we've seen everything from Catholics to Wiccans, businessmen to hippies.

noooo......

[phyruxus]

>>If there was concrete evidence that we were all created from God, there'd be scientists denying the fact.

You seem to have a misperception of scientists' motives. If there was concrete evidence of God creating the universe, that evidence would be used by scientists to better understand reality. You're confusing science with atheism. BTW, scientists have a tendency toward agnosticism, not atheism.

I find it frustrating that religious people (which by your post I suppose you are one, that or badly misinformed about science) think that because they base their worldview on faith, that everyone else does as well. Some of us are perfectly happy admitting that there are things which we do not yet know, and striving to find out in due time.

Your statement is also ironic, seeing that science is constantly challenged/attacked by the religious, who refuse to accept things because they are worried about implications for their beliefs.

To really consider the relation between the science and religion, there's some homework to do. Philosophically speaking, God can not be proved nor disproved. David Hume showed that all proofs of God beg the question of God's existence. That means they're circular proofs; they prove nothing. Similarly, when you're discussing a being/force which can by definition "do anything", it's child's play to refute any assertion based on faith; if someone says that God doesn't exist because of observation X, the retort is that God wants it that way, and is hiding.

If religious people want 100% of the population to believe in God, I have two suggestions: 1) Stop trying to assert that science is untrue on the basis of your personal beliefs. 2) Stop using your social identity as an excuse to do things which are clearly prohibited in your own code of conduct.

This still leaves the religious more "wiggle room" than I would like; but I think we can agree that we'd all get along better if we are considerate of each other's beliefs. And frankly, I have as much right to believe that physical reality has no cause but itself as others do to believe that physical reality must have a cause other than itself because nothing causes itself, therefore it's cause must be God, which has no cause because God has no cause but itself.

When Galileo concluded that the earth must go around the sun, it wasn't because he wanted to disprove God or destroy religion; it was because he observed reality. Galileo didn't attack the church; the church attacked Galileo. When Darwin published the Origin of the species, it wasn't his way of casting doubt on God or religion; it was his theory as to why animals are the way they are. Again, Darwin didn't attack the church, the church attacked Darwin.

What bothers me more than anything is that people who use faith to explain everything seem to have the least understanding of the nature of the spirit and the debate which they wish to participate in. Religion's value is in its charge to its followers to do the RIGHT thing. To help the weak and poor. To repay a wrong with a right. To love and forgive instead of hating and avenging. Religion also has speculative answers to questions which once were considered unanswerable. Now that some of those answers are proving to be *ahem* inexact, *certain* people are very upset. Instead of keeping their cool, they attack the messenger, and everyone who doesn't agree with them. The US is very backward, philosophically, in many places, and this is perpetuated by conservatives for political reasons. Liberals don't want to take your religion away people... we just want the same freedom you take for granted; to believe as we will and live as we choose. Evangelists have missed something here; that their right to swing their fist stops at my nose. You don't want schools teaching that God doesn't exist.. well guess what, they don't address that issue at all. We don't want *you* forcing us to live your lifestyle. You think you're "saving" people. But if atheists were to go around "saving" people from

Linux fork

[hey]

Cristian Widnows has CreateProcess() but scientific Linux's processes always evolve from other processes with fork().

Re:tell the entire story of our evolution over tim

[jorleif]

I agree that stating that God couldn't is utterly stupid, however the question is on whether evolution occured or not. That question is definitely within the domain of science and not religion.

These discussions reach absurd proportions, someone finds that the cells in a living fossil are very similar to those in a part of the human eye and suddenly it is possible to somehow evolve a complete human eye, lenses and all, just like that.

Yes, this is a valuable contribution, but claiming it shows how human vision evolved is about as absurd as claiming that tea cups show how beer containers evolved because they are similar in some ways.

It could also be pointed out that most parts of the really interesting parts of human vision aren't in the eyes themselves but in the brain.

Re:The Religion of Science

[oneiron]

Very true... Which religion is more beneficial to the progress of our species, and further, our planet? That's the question, I think, that should guide us to our chosen dogma. Dogma seems unavoidable. It seems we would benefit from a wide adoption of a dogma that might, eventually, eradicate itself. Science is linked too strongly to commercialism. Creationism and other extreme ideologies seem ludditish... I tend to think that it lies somewhere in between Buddhism and Science. Taoism is probably the closest approximation that has been explored fully. Vedanta is great, but the mystical aspects can be hard to swallow for many.

Communism is the same way

[HBI]

Marxist true believers to this day say that the Soviets failed because they didn't implement 'true' communism, ditto for their former satellites. China is a complete perversion of the Marxist ethic.

If the right person or people came along, with the right level of moral conviction, the system would work. At least its champions say so.

It's human nature to believe such things.

Re:Face It

[Dyolf Knip]

Is evolution really a fact?

Yes.

Has it been observed in the amazing way that evolutionists describe it to have happened?

Yes. Speciation has been observed, in the lab and in the wild.

Why should they feel affronted, regardless of whether Creationists are right or wrong?

For the same reason a geography teacher is affronted when parents come in demanding they teach that the earth is flat. The same reason that Jews don't really like people who claim the Holocaust never happened. The same reason psychics never win the lottery, or at least with no more regularity than the rest of us. These people are simply wrong (and demonstrably so), and they use the most asinine arguments to support their ridiculously stupid stances.

If Creationists are just a bunch of blind religious zealots, why not ignore them?

Because they won't ignore the rest of us and leave their foolishness at home. Because they go to school boards, they go to governors, they go to Congress demanding in no uncertain terms that their favorite brand of nonsense be taught as fact to everyone else's children. Because students that _are_ taught ID are in for a rude awakening if and when they go to college where there's none of this "Aww, evolution is _just_ a theory" foolishness.

Re:That is frightening and sad.

[guidryp]

It is like America is entering a new dark age.

How can America be competetive in Biological sciences (any science) if these groups succeed in destroying even Scientific Method in America.

ID == Creationism. This is backdooring religion into the Curriculum.

This is the divisive issue in America today. It is religious society vs secular society. It seems that Secular society is on the wane and religious is on the rise. Somewhere Osama is smiling because this is certainly the outcome he wants for the world.

If some of scriptures wrong, why not all of it?

[GunFodder]

I think the reason why fundamentalism continues to enjoy strong support is that acknowledging flaws in your scriptures of choice is a slippery slope. If there are a few passages that are just plain wrong then the validity of the entire work is challenged.

One might argue that the spirit of work is the important part. In that case it would be prudent to distill the various scriptures into a pamphlet with the essentials; a higher power, Golden Rule, etc. This would enjoy much broader support. But I guess a lot of people enjoy taking a stand on stuff like a 6000 year old Earth, homophobia, contraception, submissive women, and other obsolete mores of ages past.

Re:If some of scriptures wrong, why not all of it?

[Zenzilla]

10? George Carlin got it down to 2:

Don't be dishonest to the bestower of the nookie.
Don't kill anybody usless they pray to a different invisible man in the sky than you do.

Not a big deal? WTF?

[awhite]

Some of the posts on this thread disturb me. They imply that people aren't taking intelligent design (ID) seriously enough as a threat to science. The posts say that maybe ID is compatible with science after all: maybe it only applies to speciation; or maybe a god started things off at a certain point, and evolution took over from there; or if you interpret "day" to be some indeterminate length of time, maybe you can make the bible's creation story match facts (hint: you can't -- the creation story has plants appearing before the sun, for example).

The point is not whether it's possible to somehow reconcile ID with fact if you try hard enough. The point is that ID is being presented as a science, when it is clearly nothing of the sort. Are there unanswered questions in evolution? Of course. But saying "god did it" answers a small mystery with an enormous, or even completely unknowable one (god). It explains nothing, and encourages intellectual laziness. If we accepted "science" like this, we'd all still think thunder was the sound the gods make when they're angry.

I don't care if people choose to believe in god or ID based on faith; that's their right. What terrifies me is when it is presented as science -- especially in our schools. There is absolutely no doubt about it: if it weren't for the fact that ID puts a pseudo-scientific face on a certain demonstrably false and contradictory "holy" book, and the fact that proponents of that book fund ID well, it would have long since been thrown out as crackpot nonsense. Instead, it is being accepted by some school districts as science. Teaching ID as science undermines our entire theory of knowledge.

So discoveries like this possible explanation for the eye are important! They can potentially narrow the gaps in our scientific knowledge, which is the only attack against "god of the gaps" arguments like ID (the fact that ID is almost impossible to completely falsify is another big "tell" that it is not scientific).

p.s. [political rant]
Defending science is especially important with Bush in the white house. This is a man who says the "jury is still out" on evolution. This is an administration that approves a National Park Service booklet saying that the Grand Canyon was caused by Noah's flood. This is an administration with the worst environmental and scientific record in recent memory.
[/political rant]

"Imperfect" eyes would still be very useful...

[patniemeyer]

I often like to point out that even with my eyelids closed (which I think most people would grant is an imperfect eye) I can still determine if it's night or day and figure out roughly where in the sky the sun is. With that information I could not only decide the best time to sleep/wake, but over time determine my lattitude or the coming of the change of seasons. Not to mention flinching if something big jumps right in front of me.

Imperfect eyes would still be very useful.

Pat

Perhaps...

[cr0sh]

...they are both wrong and right at the same time?

Seems paradoxical - but it really isn't. First off, let me state that I consider myself to be a recent transhumanist convert. The way to this conclusion was long and arduous, but upon reviewing the evidence, it seems clear that something is selecting for increasing levels of intelligence in the universe. We are not the pinnacle, not by a longshot. Our machines, however...

Both of these camps need to do some reading: Dyson's "Darwin Among the Machines" would be a good place to start. Kelly's "Out of Control" should be on the list, along with Johnson's "Emergence". Also, Albert-Laszlo Barabasi's "Linked". Finally, Drexler's "Engines of Creation" and Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science".

There are few other texts which could be recommended, but the titles to these will be run across in the above reading. Careful reading of all of these texts will reveal something that we are only beginning to understand, the basics of which is that complexity arises from simplicity (namely, simple algorithms and UTM-like mechanisms), that feedback is a necessary part of the equation, whether it is evolution or development of conciousness, and that networks (of all kinds - chemical, electrical, social, etc) play a central part.

All of this (mainly in the human/machine symbiosis) seems to be leading, via combinitorial exponentialism (ie, exponential increases in power in one area translating into further exponential increases in other areas, which feedback onto prior areas, etc) to what has been declared the "technological singularity".

Of all of this, I have only read one dissenting opinion (not that there aren't others - but I have yet to have them pointed out) - that of Lanier's. While his theory is interesting - that software has not made the same strides as hardware, and that since it is still fragile, it is not likely to lead to a singularity - his thinking seems like that of a top-down AI researcher: that such leaps will come from complex software.

If you only look at it from the macro level of current software, one can easily see that such software is nowhere near capable. However, we know that complexity can arise from simple instructions: oOur own DNA points out that this is the case. Wolfram's experiments also lends credence to the idea of simple algorithms producing complex results. This is the direction that software and hardware will have to take in order to continue the trend toward singularity, a very "bottom-up" approach. Our own universe may be the result of such processing:

Are we merely software running in an emulator we call the Universe?

No one knows, and no one can know. We are inside the system, we can't be objective to determine the truth (assuming there is such thing as "truth"). A bottom up approach to software is what is needed. We are only beginning to take steps in that direction. Much of the problems with this research has been lack of understanding over "top-down" vs. "bottom-up", thus the "bottom-up" researchers get lumped in with the "top-down" failures, and funding is lost or otherwise not invested properly. We need more investigation on neural nets, particularly large hardware based systems - even if the current electronics would fill a building or more. We did it with serial Von Neumann architechture machines, we do it today with parallel processing supercomputers. We should be doing it today with neural networks...

The whole creationism vs. evolution is a tiresome debate. On the surface, one seems to favor over the other. But when you really start looking into it - it seems like there is a driving force - most like, a vastly distributed UTM driving all of the possible outcomes in the universe, with perhaps quantum particles making up the interacting "bits", which has been running simple algorithms over a very long time span. We are only beginning to touch these levels, only beginning to understand this stuff.

Of course, all of

Re:Here is the fuss

[Rirath.com]

> The fuss is that some people read "God's book" with a literal eye. The bigger fuss is that the strongest nation on earth is now led by one of those people.

Indeed, that is the problem with the debate. First off, there IS difference between Creationist and Christian. Secondly, there is a big difference between the 'literal type', hardcore, Christian types and the rest of us. Many hardcore Christians and Creationists see the bible as 100% PURE UNCHANGEABLE FACT, and nothing will -ever- change their idea of that. (I've had this debate a few times.) Some still believe the world is flat, I hear. Something about a mountain one can climb and see everything. Seek out the article 'Things Creationists Hate' online.

These Creationists can not comprehend or won't even attempt to comprehend that one's faith, one's idea of faith, can evolve and change over time -just like science does-, and not be some kind of infidel heathen. Yes folks, it's possible to not believe every word of the Bible, but merely take it as a well meaning guide, and still have true faith! It's not all or nothing, Creationist or Atheist.

I believe strongly in science, but I also have strong faith. To me, the bible is simply man's understanding of faith and religion a few thousand years ago. It is a wonderful tool, but believing it word per word as infailable law is every bit as far off in my opinion just as if a scientist were insisting that the scientific theory of two thousand years ago is still 100% accurate today. There is absolutely no reason why a logical person's understanding of their faith can't grow with their understanding of the world.

Needless to say, this too is unacceptable by the 100% crowd. I'm considered some kind of fake Christian by closed minded friends, just because my views are willing to grow and change. I'd rather not have my views limited to the understanding, politics, and stories printed in a series of books ages ago, or told to me by a church. Faith sure seems rather weak to me if you need a book or a church to tell you it's true in order to believe in it.

But folks, the alternative to Creationist thinking is -not- only atheism. I see too many friends put off by the narrow mindedness of religion and giving up on it. One can be both religious, and open minded. They are not mutually exclusive in any way, no matter how many people decide that they are.

Re:tell the entire story of our evolution over tim

[xyleen]

"All scripture (is) given by inspiration of God, and (is) profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." 2 Timothy, 3:16

This sounds a lot like those "all characters in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to an actual person is unintended and completely unintentional.
The Testament's own CYA

A Question of Emphasis

[Aguila]

First, let me state that I believe in evolution, both macro and micro-evolution. However, I do not believe in Darwinism or Creationism. Second, let me state that I believe in the Big Bang. I also believe that God created the universe. I find no contradiction between any of these beliefs, nor do I find any contradiction between my life as a scientist (B.S. Chemistry, B.S. Physics, pursuing PhD), and my life as a Christian (Roman Catholic).

The key to being able to reconcile all these viewpoints is that as a Roman Catholic, I believe in the Bible as an inspired work, but read it in context. The Bible was not written as a scientific textbook, nor as a book on geography, but as a guidebook for faith and morality. Using it as a scientific textbook is about at rational as using a freshman biology book as a latin grammar book. Certainly, there will be some latin in the biology book, and you might be able to figure out a few of the rules of latin, but how much? There may also be some mistakes in the latin, especially in interfacing latin words into english sentences. Does this mean that it is a bad biology textbook? No! It means that for some reason (perhaps the high cost of textbooks), you're trying to avoid getting yourself a proper latin textbook. The book of Tobit provides a good example of where the Bible clearly is not written as a geography textbook. Throughout the book the distance between two points that were several weeks walk apart in real life was referred to and treated as a couple days journey. That does not bother me in the least, because the Book of Tobit was not written to teach me about geography, but about God. If you wish to tell me that the book of Genesis is a good proof that the Bible is not an accurate physics or biology textbook, I'd be the first to agree. Where I draw the line, though, is when people try to claim that the Bible is a bad physics or biology textbook, since it is not a physics or biology textbook.

I believe in the inerrancy of the Bible... in teaching about God, about morality, etc, but would never use it as a physics textbook. I accept the teachings of Genesis, that God created man in his image... I have no problem with people who believe in evolution, micro or macro, as I do too. I do, however, have a problem with those who then attempt to use evolution as a proof against the existence of God. Why does evolution disprove the existence of God? I can accept that science can disprove strict creationism (world 6000 years old), but how does it disprove the existence of God? How does evolution disprove that God created man in his likeness? There remain plenty of ways to do this. First, even a few non-random changes of an apparently random event could alter the evolutionary path tremendously. Second, God created the universe, and the laws of the universe. Why not create evolution in such a way that it would head in the direction He intended? Finally, what does it mean to be in the image of God? If evolution results in humans gaining a set of wings, I wouldn't be forced to say that we are no longer in God's image. (I'd probably be to busy doing aerial acrobatics to be discussing it, but that's beside the point.) To be made in the image of God has to deal more with the fact that we are not creatures purely of the flesh, but also of the spirit... that we have an immortal soul, and make choices. Here, science actually supports the existence of something it cannot explain. Science, by definition, requires that given the same set of inputs you receive a given output (or probability distribution if you've learned quantum). There is no such thing as a choice, or free will. Yet, even without knowing you, I would be willing to bet that you believe that you make choices every day, in fact our whole society is based on the belief that people's actions are their own choices. While I do not know your moral code, I know you must have one. Yet, if our every action were predetermined based on internal chemistry, all actions must be morally neutral, there can be no right or wrong. So, since you

Re:tell the entire story of our evolution over tim

[JamesP]

Of course!!

If christians can see that the Bible is more of a "legend" than pure reality, they would see that evolution (and the big bang, etc) would have been the most "smart" way to create the universe, not taking care of it piece by piece.

But they're so attached to the Bible they take it at face-value...

Re:tell the entire story of our evolution over tim

[Rostin]

I would also like to point out that scripture is mum on the mechanics of how God worked, and continues to work.

One important thing for both Christians and others to understand about "creationism" is that the "common sense" or "literalistic" interpretation many/most modern day conservative evangelicals/fundamentalists apply to the creation narrative is a newcomer to Christianity.

Prior to the early 1900s, many conservative theologians (most notably, B.B. Warfield) had no problem with evolution.

See "Fit Bodies, Fat Minds" by Os Guiness or "The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind" by Mark Noll for examinations of when and why American Christians took a turn in this direction.

For further reading

[Digz]

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08537a.htm

How is that?

[khasim]

Scientists that throw out the idea of any "god" figure performing an intelligent design on our planet just because they can make theories that fit the extremely limited view of time we have makes the scientists even MORE at fault than the religous people that ignore all of sciences facts.

Why is that?

The core of science cannot refer or rely upon a God figure who magically imposes his will upon the universe.

It is nothing but hypocrisy to claim you are doing everything scientifically and provide your theories as facts and automatically dismiss the theories of any other argument.

Learn what "hypocrisy" means. Again, the core of science cannot refer or rely upon magic.

If the omnipotent God that I believe in as a Christian decided to make the world in 7 days I don't see ANY evidence in any scientific journal that says or even implies it is impossible. Yet daily scientists rebuke religious types as "uninformed radicalists".

By definition, if it is an "omnipotent God", then nothing is "impossible".

Yet it is also 100% useless to refer or rely upon that in science. Science depends upon reproducible events. Miracles are not reproducible. Act of God are not reproducible.

Makes me think of a talk one professor of mine had in an archaeological discussion. Have you ever heard of an ancient civilization being dug up and the researchers finding a children's doll? Now we all know that kids must have played over the ages. Yet because scientists must place a meaning on everything and often preconceive that meaning we end up with hundreds of thousands of "statues" to this or that God when in reality a bunch of them were the prehistoric version of a cabbage-patch-kid.

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ug 02/sund/dreamgirl/preind.html

Some did have religious links, but others seem to have been toys for children. Archaeologists have been digging up toys for years.

Re:tell the entire story of our evolution over tim

[grammar fascist]

Your details are correct.

If there was no literal first man and woman, then there was no talking snake to tempt them into eating an apple. If that didn't happen, there was no literal fall (the fall had to be by CHOICE, protestants don't accept that God just made humans imperfect from the start). If there was no literal fall, then mankind is not in need of redemption. If there is no need for redemption, there is no need for Christ. This would basically invalidate protestant Christianity.

You've left out one important point: your #2 argument hinges on this paragraph, but this paragraph depends necessarily on #1 (the Word of God in the Bible is inerrant and literal). It's not actually a stronger argument, because it depends on the first, weaker one.

Here's the problem. Fundamentalist Christianity rejects the idea of continuing revelation from God through any single source. Prophets - as they were understood in the Bible - don't come around anymore, as a matter of doctrine. The only thing left they have to base their faith in is the Bible. It's their only witness of Christ. If parts of it can be allegorical, Christ himself doesn't really have to have existed, and there goes the religion.

So #1 actually exists out of necessity. That's where the circular arguments come from ("the Bible is literally true because the Bible says so [in our interpretation]", etc., etc.) - it's because they haven't actually got anything better.

I'm LDS, and I go to BYU. In this school - which is run basically by my church - we actually don't have a problem with evolution at all. We even (gasp) teach it. Why? We believe that God still speaks through a single source, and we have more than one witness of Christ. The idea that parts of the Bible might be allegorical or severely watered-down for the people of the time doesn't bother us at all.

Re:The "mamalian" eye & the "cephalopod" eye..

[mdielmann]

Has it ever occurred to you that the reason cephalopods have better eyes is that they didn't have porn?

"Origin of Species" not "Origin of _the_ species"

[mikemacd]

Darwins work did not have the word "the" in the title. The full title is: "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life".

It a very important point to be aware of. It greatly affects the meaning of the title.

That work discusses how it is that species develop. There is virtualy no reference to humans in it as would be inferred by a title which referenced "The Species".

Here is a link to a copy of that work:

http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/t he-origin-of-species/

Simple Thinking

[novakane007]

I was listening to NPR this morning and they were doing a spot on the Constitution candidate running for president. His speech to a 12th grade school class was borderline embarrassing. He was pushing for evolution to be banned from schools and said, "These people want you to believe that your great grand-daddy was a small drop of goop, your grand daddy was a fish and your daddy was a chimp."
Creationism is simple thinking for complex problems. A lot of people are frightened by the idea that some things can't be explained. In ancient Rome they blamed floods and earthquakes on Poseidon. Science later told us that these are explainable natural events, not the work of Gods. Science has given us answers to many of the questions about our world that used to be associated to gods. There are a few really tough questions left that scientists are making some headway on like, "What are we made of?" Which is being understood through particle physics and quantum theory. "Why are we here?" That's a tough and fundamentally esoteric question that I don't think anyone could agree on... and here is where religion comes in. I don't have a problem with religion itself, but I'm uneasy with it because it breeds fundamentalism, hatred and mistrust. A great number of our wars in history have been about, "My god is better than your god." Again, a product of simple thinking. The funniest part is that at the most basic level all religions agree on the same things, love, trust and harmony between man. Often these values are upheld, but more and more people are straying from the basic ideas of what religion was indeed to teach us.

Octopus eye vs human eye

[ihsu]

This argument is pretty old, and not very impressive. Refer to http://www.trueorigin.org/retina.asp for details. Use some critical thinking. It's really helpful! (this goes for both evolutionists and creationists)

Ignore Creationism

[{tele}machus_*1]

Scientists should not be spending their time attempting to discredit creationists. Any attempt to answer creationists on their own ground merely adds credence to their beliefs.

Science is not a belief. Science follows the scientific method. Accepted principles in science can be independently verified by testing and re-testing hypotheses using the scientific method.

Science is also not static, and it does not offer any guarantee that today's conclusions will match tomorrow's conclusions. While creationists attempt to cite this uncertainty as a weakness, it is one of science's greatest strengths. There is no place for dogma in science. Whereas, religion (and creationism as a sub-part of religion) is rife with dogma and the need to suppress intellectual curiousity.

Creationists deliberately misconstrue statements by various scientists and scientific conclusions in order to paint those statement and conclusions as "beliefs" rather than the results of the scientific method. Except creationists are not true scientists, because they come to the table with a hypothesis, the truth of which they are highly invested in proving. That is not the scientific method, because they do not approach their hypothesis with neutrality. Therefore, they find exactly the answers they seek. That is not science.

you forgot

[bmajik]

about those that will think "that's the way it panned out because thats how God meant for it to pan out", irrespective of what happened.

There isn't a required scientific discrepancy between modern science and biblical christianity. (It's up to christians to resolve such questions as 'were those 7 24 hr days or 7 god days that it took to make stuff?')

You'll find very few fundamentalist christians get upset about discussions of subatomic particles because discoveries in subatomic theory are never used by anti-christians as the foundation for a "see, you stupid christians were wrong!" argument. Macro-evolution and even micro-evolution are unfortuneately often used exactly for this purpose.

The notion that earth based life forms are related and seem to have differentiated themselves from others in discoverable, explainable ways seems reasonable to me. I mean, if i were a deity and wanted to "make world", i'd use lots of shared libraries :)

"the scientists" are at least as guilty as the hardcore creationists in the antagonism that has lead to the cultural divide in america. "science", where it appears to contradict traditional christian thinking, is the new religion for a sub-society that hates traditional religious thought.

Strictly speaking, science has never been "right" about anything - the scientific process merely produces output ("knowledge") that asymptotically approaches "truth" as our observational techniques become more advanced.

I mean, consider that newton thought his laws of motion adequately described mechanics. This theory broke down in some scenarios, requiring the relativistic theories accounting for time/mass/distance expansion/contraction. Special relativity wasn't sufficient to explain photolovaics and that problem led to the thinking of quantum mechanics.

I sincerely hope that after 3 groundbraking world-view changes on just the basic rules governing how things _move_, in _only_ 400 years, nobody thinkgs that we are now at the end-destination of scientific thought, and that we completely understand mechanics, and there will be no more refinements to our understanding of mechanics.

I thought so.

It is perfectly acceptable to me to accept scientific progress as learning about the incredible universe that was engineered for us by God, the "designer" if you will :)

Infact, it used to be the case that the worlds best scientific minds were strong thelogians as well, and studied under the context of discerning how God's universe operated.

You should be suspicious of scientific "progress" that is touted as being contradictory to Christianity.

Let the Christians figure out how to reconcile what is observed in nature and what they think their biblical understanding is.

Let the scientists concentrate on making the best possible observations and the best possible theories to explain them.

That will leave just the pundits - the real people causing the rift between science and religion.

Re:tell the entire story of our evolution over tim

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, a pretty good summary of Protestant thought, but with one fundamental error:

If there was no literal fall, then mankind is not in need of redemption. If there is no need for redemption, there is no need for Christ. This would basically invalidate protestant Christianity.

This isn't a particularly Protestant view. It might be more Catholic. I don't know, I'm not Catholic. Protestant thought is more along the line that Adam introduced mortality, i.e., death, into the world. Christ's resurrection enabled all men to be resurrected and live forever.

1 Cor. 15:
[20] But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.
[21] For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
[22] For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

This is the impact of Adam and Eve on humanity today. So to need a resurrection and therefore a Christ, one need only believe that mankind is mortal, not in a literal Adam and Eve, though most Protestants do believe in a literal Adam and Eve.

That "all fall short of the glory of God" refers not to some stain handed down by Adam and Eve, but rather to our own mistakes and shortcomings, as is evident by looking at the correct quote in the Bible:

Romans 3:
[23] For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

Exactly how one overcomes past mistakes and corruption (sin) to justify oneself to God is hotly debated among Christian sects, but all do believe that a belief in Christ and an appeal to Him is required. Christian thought requires a literal belief in the divinity of Jesus, and in his death and resurrection, not necessarily in a literal creation story.

For my part, it makes no sense to try and drum up a controversy between evolution and creation. Evolution deals with how creation was accomplished, something not well documented in scripture, and creation deals with who did the creating, something not addressed by evolution theory. Whether God waved a magic wand or just set up the laws and circumstances that would lead to human existence makes no difference to me as a Christian. The important thing for me to know is that God did it, that he has a plan, and that I am a part of that plan.

Politics, not belief

[Tony]

I never said they weren't wrong, just that there's no point. From a scientist's point of view, you are simply arguing science against someone's fantasies. Why would you work so hard to dispel someone's fantasy land just because it's wrong?

There is a large grass-roots movement within the US to teach "intelligent design" side-by-side with evolution as a competing theory. Although ID makes no direct reference to God, or even to creation, the concept is a dressed-up creationism. (How can you have intelligent design without some form of intelligence?)

Even the ones that need proof so badly are acting on faith, and you can't disprove someone's faith. If you're trying to get them to change their minds, this is the wrong approach.

I agree completely. The idea isn't to change minds, although it would be helpful if people used a modicum of sense in their beliefs. The idea is to politically block the teaching of a non-science in science class.

I think this debate goes a long way to prove the fundamentallist nature of the US. Intelligent Design cannot be disproven, and so isn't even science. Yet there is a huge political push to teach it side-by-side with evolution, as a competing theory. I agree that there are holes in evolution, but the basic concept of evolution by natural selection has withstood every possible test thrown at it.

As natural selection works on phenotype variance within a population (and not on individuals), the holes in evolution are the general mechanism through which the genotype varies. The crude concept of "mutation" covers this variance, but the mechanisms of mutation aren't well-understood. It's not just a matter of stray particles striking a strand of DNA, or random recombination through sexual reproduction.

Because we don't understand it all yet, there is a huge gap in our knowledge that allows people to say, "God does it." Just like ancient maps with "Here be dragons" scrawled across unknown areas, those with religious beliefs apply their belief to everything that is unknown. This pushes many of them to teach everyone else that "God does it." That's fine in a relgious setting, but taught as knowledge, it is unacceptable. To present it as scientific is downright dishonest.

Anyway, that is the point of these scientific exercises. Not only does it add to our body of knowledge, but helps fill in the blanks in which people have previously written in flowing script, "God works here, in mysterious ways."

Re:Politics, not belief

[jsebrech]

Just like ancient maps with "Here be dragons" scrawled across unknown areas, those with religious beliefs apply their belief to everything that is unknown.

That's why some people mockingly call Him "the God of the gaps." What a lot of people who fight so hard to bring religion to non-religious regions of life don't seem to realise is that they are taking a huge gamble. The one guarantee you have to be free to hold the religion of your choice is that society doesn't consider you a treath, and so has no reason to be offended by your religion. As soon as you start to behave in a way that most people consider harmful (like insisting in teaching religious dogma in public schools), your religious freedom becomes heavily undermined.

Ofcourse, I've heard it argued that the religious people who do this have such weak religions that they require the religious persecution and the fight to hold on to their faith despite all their doubts and trials.

No, I don't see that.

[khasim]

Well, we're armchair generals here. All the hard work is done by the scientists and this is really their statement. If we accept their statement that there are three lineages, we should also be willing to accept their statements that the 3 lineages converge to one.

No. It is very possible that the person doing the research has a bias and will present the information in such a way as to reinforce that bias. From the material presented, there isn't any reason to link the original 3 lines to 1.

I'm simply pointing out similarities between their data and the Biblical record.

Yep. And that is your bias. Because having a single link supports your bias, you don't see anything wrong with it.

Whereas I look at the information and ask why they are linked.

It indicates human migration. When tribe A settles in an area, they share common DNA and mutations. But if tribe A.1 "branches off" from tribe A to migrate somewhere else, the only common DNA between A and A.1 is up until the point they branched.

Incorrect. Unless there are other people to breed with there, they should have the same DNA as the original tribe.

That was their whole point about using "mitochondrial DNA" for the female tracking.

From the article:

Mitochondria, which live inside human cells but outside the nucleus, escape the shuffling of genes that occurs between generations and are passed unchanged from mother to children.

"unchanged". Then.

In principle, all people should have the same string of DNA letters in their mitochondria. In practice, mitochondrial DNA has steadily accumulated changes over the centuries because of copying errors and radiation damage.

So why is are there so few changes and those changes only happen when migrating to a new geographic region (aside from the afore mentioned 3-become-1)?

In other words, 2 of Eve's 3 original lines have been 100% resistant to change over all the years. While 1 of the 3 has undergone change after change after change after change, but only when moving to new locations.

Rather, it appears that they are charting sections of the DNA code, and placing an arbitrary limit on what constitutes a "new" "line" and tracing back these "lines" to support their bias.

Population geneticists believe that the ancestral human population was very small -- a mere 2,000 breeding individuals, according to a calculation published last December. But the family tree based on human mitochondrial DNA does not trace back to the thousand women in this ancestral population. The tree is rooted in a single individual, the mitochondrial Eve, because all the other lineages fell extinct.

Yet it then goes to branch 3 times. To me, that indicates at least 3 individuals, not the one. Unless they can dig up the original and the 3 daughters.

I find it interesting that they seem to indicate that the original 1,000 women would have 1,000 different sets of mitochondrial DNA.

Which gets back to bias. If you take the religious point of view, then believing in 1 Eve is easy.

If you take the evolutionary bias, then believing that those 1,000 women could all have the same mitochondrial DNA is easy. They are all descended from the same stock and there was inter-breeding.

Which would also support my belief that they aren't talking exact matches but are imposing an arbitrary limit on what constitutes a "line".

Re:No, I don't see that.

[sonamchauhan]

I said: "It indicates human migration. When tribe A settles in an area, they share common DNA and mutations. But if tribe A.1 "branches off" from tribe A to migrate somewhere else, the only common DNA between A and A.1 is up until the point they branched."

You said: "Incorrect. Unless there are other people to breed with there, they should have the same DNA as the original tribe."

I say: No!

Once there is no more mixing of 'A' and 'A.1' because 'A.1' has migrated away, their DNA lineages _would_ diverge, even if A.1 bred exclusively among _themselves_. This is because the mutations that A.1 accumulates will have almost no means of being transmitted back to A. And the mutations that A accumulates after A.1 brached off have few ways of being transmitted to A.1.

Your own bias is clouding your thoughts. If you can't accept that 3 braches converge to 1 original, what makes you accept 7 branches converge to one of the 3?

It's obvious also that the research underlying the article done by scientists who _agree_ with mainstream genetic and evolutionary theory, not with a earth created 5000 years ago as stated in the Bible.

From a different perspective..

[gillbates]

Faith and science are not necessarily opposed to each other, though a lot of atheists would like to think they are.

The problem I see is that atheists attempt to pervert science into "proving" that there is no God, as if the techniques of science are somehow suited to grappling with the metaphysical.

The other problem I see is that fundamentalist Christians are denying their faith in God. God - not science - is supposed to be the truth, but if your arguments for faith rest on scientific proofs, then you've supplanted God with Science as the ultimate arbiter of truth. Which is just self-defeating. If God is truth, and He said He created the world in seven days, then He did. End of story. Chasing after "scientific" proofs of Biblical stories only shows one's faith to rest not in God, but in science.

And then comes science. In the discovery of the marvels of our universe, we come to realize that it is ordered - the hallmark of a creative genius. No, it doesn't prove God exists - if it did, science (or logic), rather than God, would be the ultimate truth. It isn't. Not to say science doesn't serve a useful purpose - it does; but rather that it is a tentative explanation of nature. From a logical standpoint, science doesn't prove anything, but rather explains it.

And those who try to base their religion on science only show themselves to be foolish - whether they are the atheists using evolution to bolster their naturalist beliefs, or fundamentals using flawed reasoning to bolster their creastionist ones. In fact, I'd say that both camps have done more damage to the reputation of science than all of the scientific scandals in history (cold fusion, California's fictitious elements, etc...)

Faith is something that one discovers apart from science. And we all look like fools when we attempt to use the scientific method to "prove" what we suspect to be true about God. No amount of scientific proof will ever bring an atheist to salvation, nor will it convince a true believer that God doesn't exist.

Re:tell the entire story of our evolution over tim

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Actually no. Paul was writing in response to a question about what are the most important parts of the scriptures to teach. In essence his answer was: All of it.

Keep in mind that when Paul refers to the scriptures, he isn't talking about the Bible. That didn't come about until centuries after his death. He was referring to a library of religious teachings that spanned the texts of the ancient Hebrews, to the writings of contemporaneous Prophets.

Our modern Bible is a fraction of the material they were working with back then. Many of the omissions are editorial. But there are those scholars that say that politics went into the selection, or omission, of several texts into the Canon.

1950 encyclical Humani Generis

[michaelmalak]

Why not quote the original document (covered by papal infallibility):

36. For these reasons the Teaching Authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions, on the part of men experienced in both fields, take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter - for the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God. [...]

37. [...] For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is no no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own.

The Cliff Notes version of what Catholics are required to believe about evolution:

• Maybe our bodies came from evolution (under God's will), but God Himself creates our immortal souls [at conception].
• There was a first man and a first woman, whom we call Adam and Eve, who committed the first sin.

Re:tell the entire story of our evolution over tim

[meiocyte]

I'm an atheist, and I don't think they are compatible. The main problem with the compatibilist attitude is this: evolution is a blind, mechanical process. There's no need for an agent like a god to do anything; evolution just happens on its own! It doesn't need a god to mutate genes, or put pressure on prey to see their predators better, or urge the lions to catch the slow gazelles, etc. Saying "god did it that way", is to arbitrarily stick a god in the background, where he somehow "endorses" the process of evolution..but there's nothing to do there (besides give believers their security, presumably). In just the same way, you don't need to postulate a shoelace gnome who keeps everybody's shoelaces tied (but uses the mechanism of friction to do it).

You have to look at the motivation of people like the pope when they say these things. They're smart enough to realize that evolution is an incontrovertible fact, but they don't want to give up their religion. So what else are they going to say?

The nautilus

[Tony]

The nautilus has only a peephole for an eye. It is fundamentally just a camera obscura.

Re:tell the entire story of our evolution over tim

[WoodenRobot]

Or maybe God uses metaphors so you can understand him better. Or the Bible is the wrong version of what God did.

There's two options you left out, and I'm sure there are plenty more. Try thinking a bit more laterally and less literally.

Re:tell the entire story of our evolution over tim

[EvilTwinSkippy]

While we are on that topic, the idea that Alcohol and drugs are somehow evil unto themselves is a wholly artificial dogma, propogated by the Temperence movement.

It is hiliarious to hear their explaination of Christ's first miracle (turning water into wine), and the beverage that is part of the rite of communion (wine). They claim that in the ancient tongue that "Wine" meant a strong grape beverage. Never mind that no such word exists, nor that the effects of said beverages are also described quite accurately in the scriptures.

Blaaaaagh.

[Fantastic Lad]

Is the Sky Red or Green?

This is THE idiot argument of the century. Nobody is right because the question is broken.

Religion is the tool of darkness and control.

Science fulfills the same function because it has been over-populated with borderline autistic practitioners who have deliberately turned off their intuitive powers through a form of virtual self-lobotomy in a knee-jerk reaction to the fact that Organized Religion is Insane. --Which is like refusing to play D&D because one kid jumps in front of a subway train yelling, "Black Dragon!"

Now everybody be quiet put your heads down until recess. Sheesh.

-FL

Re:tell the entire story of our evolution over tim

[IdahoEv]

I agree that stating that God couldn't is utterly stupid, however the question is on whether evolution occured or not.

This statement shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the term "evolution". In the biological sense, evolution is a process, not an event. One debates whether a process occurs and whether an event occurred.

I can and do study (and thereby demonstrate the existence of) evolution every day in my research. These days, evolutionary scientists seek to understand and characterize the properties and mathematics of the process of evolution. We observe and characterize it, day in and day out.

The phrase "...whether or not evolution occurred..." is not even lexically coherent. It's equivalent to "whether or not oxidation occurred" or "whether or not gravitation occurred". If someone wants to debate the existence of the process, feel free. But creationists gave up that lane of attack decades ago in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence. They pretend that the difference is now a debate between "microevolution" and "macroevolution" - a distiction which does not exist and cannot be defined.

If instead you want to debate whether the dual processes of evolution and speciation have led, over the course of several billion years, to the particular phylogeny biological species which currently inhabit the Earth, feel free. At that point, we're out of the realm of strict science (meaning the scientific method) and into the realm of observation, speculation, and logical argument because we can't, of course, conduct a controlled experiment.

But for goodness' sake, at least please take the time to understand the terms about which you're debating.

Science is practiced by people

[Tony]

Science is merely an epistomology based on rationalism. It is by far the most successful epistomogy in widespread use today.

The flaw in science is not the scientific method. Rather, science is flawed in spite of the scientific method. Science if flawed the same way every human endeavor is flawed: it's run by humans.

It's difficult to topple an existing scientific belief, but it happens. The same way quantum physics displaced the prevalent Newtonian physics, evidence for something other than evolution would receive widespread critisism, but as a new generation of scientists replace the old guard, the new evidence (and the accompanying hypothesis) would become accepted as canon.

This study is all cool and everything. But modern science has made up it's mind, so don't fool yourself into thinking you'll hear all sides of evolution/darwinism from religion or science.

Modern science hasn't made up its mind; modern scientists have made up their mind. Incorrect theories will topple as evidence mounts against them. Within science, dogma grows old and dies. New theories replace old all the time. Sometimes it just seems to take a long time-- often, a professional lifetime.

So far, there isn't even a logical hypothesis to compete against evolution via natural selection, so there's very little "mind" to make up. Until there is a logical, scientifically-verifiable counter hypothesis, there's very little room for debate.

Now, within the framework of evolution via natural selection, there's a lot of room for debate.

Re:tell the entire story of our evolution over tim

[WoodenRobot]

Of course evolution can be guided, as can be seen with reference to domesticated dogs, for example.

Re:The "mammalian" eye & the "cephalopod" eye.

[IdahoEv]

I learnt somewhere that not only are octopus eyes as complex as human eyes they are actually better "designed" since they do not have blind spots.

This is quite right. The difference is simple: the photoreceptors all have to feed into a neural network for processing, and then the outputs of that neural network are connected by axons (wires, basically) that run down into the optical nerve to transmit the information from the brain.

The cephalopod retina does this the way you'd expect: photoreceptors up front receiving the light, neural network behind it, axonal connections behind that.

The eye in all chordate (spinal-cord bearing, i.e. mammals, birds, reptiles) organisms is built the other way around: the photoreceptors are at the back of the retina, with the neural net in front of them and the axonal network in front of that. Before light reaches your photoreceptors, it has to pass through several layers of cells. Your "blind spot" is the area right on top of the optical nerve where the axons go back through the whole layered structure, taking up the room that might otherwise be used for photoreceptors. Take a look at the photo on the wikipedia page about the retina. In that cross-section of the retina, the light comes in from the left.

From an engineering point of view, it's totally retarted. But evolved organisms have this kind of kludge all the time, because once you have a structure locked in, it's really hard to get away from it by mutation. You could concieve of a series of organisms with a few mutations at a time where by the end the structure of the retina was reversed and they had better eyes. BUT, the organisms in the middle of the series would probably be blind so you'd never get to the end.

Another fantastic example is the fact that our lungs are above and in front of our stomach, but our nose is above our mouth. This requires our air-path and food-path to cross each other, opening the possibility of choking to death. How stupid is that?
But the number and combination of mutations required to restructure the entire neck and jaw so that your trachea could be behind your throat ... just too unlikely.

Particularly things like body-plan order that happen early in development tend to get really locked in by evolution. This is why we can see so many "bad engineering decisions" in biological organisms.

Re:tell the entire story of our evolution over tim

[0x12d3]

We've finally evolved beyond Tim?

Greater Humanity 1
Tim 0

Re:tell the entire story of our evolution over tim

[dwlovell]

I dont think the argument historically is about Creationism vs Evolution. It is more about the implications of all the theories that go along with Evolution and how they differ from the Biblical view.

ie;
- Old earth view -> Some Christians believe this
- Natural Selection -> Pretty much accepted by anyone who has an education, Christian or Atheist or other.

The place where the two crowds split is with respect to what is "created". A lot of evolutionists believe in the "Big Bang Theory". The bible says that God created the heavens and the earth as well as man and woman from him. This would contradict the idea that God would create gases that might later evolve into living creatures. If God did not create us directly, I think the Bible would say so. Some Deists might see the garden of eden as symbolism and see the possibility of the Big Bang Theory coexisting with creation, but that would just be a faith-based opinion just like any other religious belief.

So to sum it up for me:
- I am a Christian
- I believe in natural selection/altruism as a built-in mechanism for purifying and strengthening the gene pool
- I believe in a short-aged earth, but if proof were found that the earth were millions of years old, it would not invalidate my faith, it would simply be a different scientific viewpoint of how the earth progressed after eden.
- I believe God made the earth and humans based on scientific laws and those laws allow us to exercise free will. (ie: those trapped in a world they dont understand and attribute everything to "magic" is not free will. By giving us science and natural laws, we can better understand his creation and his design.)

I respect you if you do not believe in a god or have a different religion. I lose repect when people say religion is incompatible with science.

Thanks,
David

Re:tell the entire story of our evolution over tim

[bbtom]

Exactly.

Rule one: get a good commentary. Preferably access to a few of them.
Rule two: get some good translations.

As much as evolutionists bitch about creationists taking them out of context, that's nothing when compared with the possibilities of mis-quoting and mis-interpreting the Bible.

Re:Mandatory comment: Evolution != (neo)Darwinism

[IdntUnknwn]

Actually Darwin's theory *was* natural selection. Evolution was already believed beforehand by a large number of scientists, the problem was that the mechanism by which evolution occured was not known. One example of this is Lamarckian evolution, which was postulated many years before Darwin came around. Thus, the idea of evolution was already in place, and all Darwin was doing was arguing the mechanism by which it occured, natural selection.

I happen to disagree with you when you say that natural selection is wrong. There is indeed a large amount of proof showing that natural selection does take place. Simple experiment: take a petri dish of bacteria, load with antibiotics. There will be some bacteria that will survive to reproduce. Viola! Thats the basis of natural selection. How was that wrong?

Where's your evidence stating that nothing has proven natural selection to take place?

Pimping Evolution

[--daz--]

I'd like to make a point that's slightly related to this topic.

First let me say that I don't preclude the possibility of macro evolution. It certainly could've happened and would not be incompatible with the Torah. It seems that Kool-Aid Evolution Scientists have gotten themselves into a logical pickle with the Big Bang. Precluding God precludes Big Bang because if there is a singular event to start the universe, there must've been a cause. The logical trail always ends up with an uncaused cause, an uncreated creator, etc.

What I'm frustrated about, is that modern scientists (most of them, not all), rule out religion at the outset. Don't even give it the slightest possibility. They then next move on to other things. This seems silly. Granted, scientists are frustrated by things they can't explain, or that aren't adequately defined/explained, so I can understand their natural tendency away from religion, but to absolutely rule it out is folly. It's akin to those scientists around the time of Newton who simply ruled out his theories because... well... no one knows why, because that's just what they've always thought.

As a scientific theory, Evolution is pretty poor. It inadequately defines the problem and presents no real solution. There is no evidence yet to suggest macro evolution actually occurs.

There seems to be a core of anti-religion scientists who accept Evolution as The One True Answer despite tons of evidence to the contrary. In fact, the blind acceptance of Evolution is a religion in and of itself. It takes far more faith to believe in Evolution then in Judaism or Christianity. Seriously! There's a lot more physical, scientific, logical, and forensic evidence to support that Jesus rose from the dead then there is to support that macro evolution has occured even once.

Certainly there must be other explanations (even non-religious ones) that scientists can explore. It seems they are so committed now to evolution, that they will not abandon it no matter how bad it becomes.

This is sad because science cannot progress under these thick-headed circumstances. Trying to prove another group wrong is a bad way to conduct scientific research. There should be a focus and goal on persuing the Truth, whereever it may be found. I think that some scientists are unwilling to consider the possibility that there is a God and he did create the universe.

Skepticism is one thing, and it's very healthy and productive, but outright sticking your head in the sand accomplishes nothing for anyone.

If you're a scientist or academic researcher, I implore you, please look honestly and objectively at the junk science that so far surrounds Evolution and try to come up with another theory that is more plausible and is verifiable with evidence and research. You may actually find out Evolution is the right answer, or you may not. Just please stop blindly accepting Evolution simply because you don't want to give some type of sophmoric victory to the Jews/Christians.

Re:Pimping Evolution

[gilliboo]

"There's a lot more physical, scientific,
logical, and forensic evidence to support that
Jesus rose from the dead then there is to
support that macro evolution has occured even
once."

Are you serious.... physical,scientific and logical, evidence that a man rose from the dead, how many years ago! I'm going to resist the temptation to to dispute that claim outright and ask you to put your money where your mouth is. Show me!

As for your claim that most scientists reject the possibility of religion outright, that may be true, but only because science is based on following logical progressions from one proven step to the next until an answer is reached. Not faith that some previously accepted notion (read: religion)is true. If it's true, let science proove it. You NEVER start a proof by assuming what you're trying to prove is true.... makes no sense.

Science only tries to move the ball forward one yard at a time, and whenever it seems to be at a stand still, in step the religous folk and say "see... after this it must be God". Sorry... that's not proof! If you don't need proof fine, but I do. I have never accepted anything on blind faith in my life and never will.

An accidental thanks, perhaps?

[WgT2]

"If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident too. If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents - the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else's. But if their thoughts - i.e., of Materialism and Astronomy - are merely accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give me a correct account of all the other accidents. It's like expecting that the accidental shape taken by the splash when you upset a milk-jug should give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset."

-- C.S. Lewis

Re:An accidental thanks, perhaps?

[hunterx11]

Regardless of whether you believe in determinism when it comes to the human mind, I don't think anyone would debate that the physical world affects our minds (for example, we have senses). Astronomy is not the result of a thousand monkeys typing randomly in a room, it is the result of observation. Here he is using "accidental" to mean "without a purpose." However, such "accidents" are not non-causal. I suppose it's an "accident" that we don't believe that the moon is made of cheese. This, however, does not invalidate the validity our knowledge that the moon is not made of cheese.

Re:An accidental thanks, perhaps?

[Squiffy]

That argument is completely daft. We are able to think critically regardless of how that ability came about. The Scientific Method works, whether or not it's an accident.

Those who question the efficacy of the Scientific Method seem to be overlooking Schroedinger's equation, the Standard Model, modern medicine, weather forecasts, landing a frickin' space probe on *Mars*...please.

Re:tell the entire story of our evolution over tim

[Kazoo the Clown]

Years ago, Richard Dawkins pointed out that 1) simple light sensitivity is an advantage over none at all, as (for example) if a predator is swimming over you it may mess with the light source at which point you might decide to "freeze" or hide, 2) that some simple light sensitive cells in a small depression can confer some directionality sensitivity which is better than not having any, 3) larger depressions with more cells are even better at it, 4) a depression that becomes a "pore" can confer some level of pinhole-camera vision, and a 5) pore that fills with mucus can provide further improvements over that. Each of these steps have more useful light sensitive mechanisms over the previous step, and with EACH of them, there are examples of actual animals in nature who have such features.

There's no "poof" here at all, that suddenly we've "magically" figured it all out--, multiple progressive incremental scenarios exist and it's not new news. All that is new here is a specific detail has been filled in.

creationism vs. evolution

[VanillaCoke420]

Creationism is not based on science.
Evolution is a real part of a real science field - biology.

There is nothing to discuss regarding this particular so-called "controversy".

Re:creationism vs. evolution

[Aeolusz]

Biology is a real science. I can say, I have a theory, I think that cameleons skin adapt to the colour of their surroundings. I can then prove that this is true by taking 100 chameleons and observing that their skin changes color.

I can then say, their skin changes because the chemicals in their skin react to UV rays in sun (or something like that..) I can prove that by observing that the skin won't change in the absence of UV light and I can find out which chemicals are in chameleons' skin, and try an experiment to see if I can make color change on my own.

But, science stops when I say, ok, now I believe that chameleons evolved to have this ability to change color because I can not set up an experiment to prove it. I cannot observe the changes and I cannot repeat the changes. Therefore, it is not true science.

Of course, the ability to prove something is not absolutely related to its repeatability. Historical study is a prime example of that. I can't "scientifically" prove that Julius Caesar even existed. But, I can use the evidence of literature, archaeology and the like to be pretty certain about it.

So, in the case of the eye, the scientists have proven that we have certain materials in the brain that are light sensitive and that these kind of materials could have possibly, over millions of year developed into eyes. This creates a certain degree of possibility that it could have happened, but, it in no way scientifically proves that it did.

argument # CB310 -Snopes for creationist arguments

[geekotourist]

If anyone tries to bring up the bombardier beetle, or any of a very large number of hackneyed old arguments (including ones which even even the creationists say to not use), the index of Creationist arguments is a great place to start. It is like Snopes for these arguments.

And there it is, argument CB310, a standard argument from incredulity on this beetle and how it could have come into being.

US Creationists

[solanum]

Why is that creationists only have this kind of influence in the US? Sure they exist in the rest of the world, but there isn't any other western nation that would take this debate seriously. Even on Slashdot, I have never seen so much misquoted crap. Presumably it's something to do with the education system?

Ah yes, CS Lewis.

[Ayanami Rei]

The great literary mind, and great Apologist.

Karma to burn, I'll keep defending religion ;)

[Control Group]

As I'm sure you were sure, I was raised by a Catholic family. I was also raised by two Catholics who each have a graduate degree in chemistry (one a Ph.D. in analytical chemistry, one an MS in organic). Personally, I have a BS in computer science (and a complete lack of sufficient ambition to pursue a postgrad degree...but I digress). I don't say this as some sort of bragging, but to try and explain that in no way do I wish to diminish or disagree with the scientific method, scientific thought, or empiricism. I consider myself both rational and logical (of course, who doesn't?), as well as at least reasonably intelligent.

As such, I look around at a universe which not only contains no evidence of God, but also appears more and more to be entirely explicable absent God. The further we push the bounds of human thought, the clearer it becomes that God need not exist for the universe to make sense.

Anyone who argues with that statement is demonstrably wrong.

And yet, despite that, I still believe in God. Yes, it's possible that I'm an unwilling victim of indoctrination, and cannot help but think this way. I wouldn't know.

On the other hand, it's also possible that I simply believe that there is a purpose in the incredible beauty and wonder that the universe reveals to us with every discovery. I can marvel at the incredible - almost literally - elegance of a system wherein a very few fundamental particles introduced in sufficient quantity, along with (I believe) a few simple rules (which we have yet to tease out of the universe's structure, but I which I believe exist) have necessarily formed the universe as we perceive it. Not because someone tinkered to make it work, but because the very nature of the system demanded it.

To me, the universe is awe-inspring. As a programmer, I know the difficulties in setting up a complex system such that it does anything interesting whatsoever. The fact that the universe not only exists as it does, but that it has to, and that it all sprang from such a comparatively simple set of basic "settings," as it were, is humbling in the extreme. Even more impressive, to me, is that the system is complex enough to give rise to a subset of the system capable of analyzing the system itself.

And that is God. I don't appeal to God because I don't know what happened to start the universe. I appeal to God because the universe is beautiful, and it wouldn't have to be. Have you read Just Six Numbers, by any chance? If you haven't, I recommend it, it's an excellent book. Even if not, I assume you're familiar with the idea that there are a few fundamental numbers that "just are," and because of those numbers, the universe as it is exists. The fact that those numbers are what they are is equally likely to be sheer happy chance as it is to be divine intervention, as far as we are able to determine.

Personally, I prefer to thank God that the universe is than to thank an odds-against roll of the dice. But it's those sorts of things that are God - not the unknown, but the unknowable. God is the one who set the initial conditions, knowing what would result. God is the one who knows the position and vector of every particle in the universe.

God is not, in my view, and explanation for anything. He can't be. We are expected to explain the universe on our own, it's why we're reasoning creatures.

I'm rambling and disjoint, and I apologize. I'm trying to explain the ineffable...and I'm at work.

What it comes down to is that I have ultimate faith in science to explain the how of anything, given enough time. I have no faith in science to provide a why for anything, regardless of time. Science provides ever-more-accurate representations of what is. Religion, however, attempts to provide a reason for what is.

Of course, it's easy to believe that there is no reason, that it's all pure chance. But that's the point - that is a belief, and is unrelated to science. To me, the belief that creation has no reason is no m

Re:tell the entire story of our evolution over tim

[mark-t]

Evolution doesn't explain the origin of dimensions (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc). It also doesn't explain the origin of time itself.

Correct... Evolution only attempts to explain how we go here from the stuff that was already here, not how the stuff got here in the first place. That's another area of study completely, which brings us to your second point....

The Big Bang theory (and other origination theories) doesnt explain the origination of the origination. For example, what brought the large matter in the Big Bang theory into existence? Also, what made the circumstance that brought the matter into existence? Something cannot exist without a predecessor, if it is on a linear time scale.

This argument doesn't hold any merit for the premise of God creating the universe, as it leaves the question open of who created God. And if God could have always been, why couldn't whatever phenomenon which ultimately led to the big bang have always been?

whats the purpose of the pleasure during intercourse? Why orgasms?

This one is prety simple... if human beings weren't stimulated by pleasure during sex, we wouldn't actually _have_ sex (or at least not nearly as often)... the human race would have died out ages ago and we wouldn't even be having this discussion.

According to the Big Bang origination theory, if matter was sent flying in all directions, then the formation of planets and solar systems would be very difficult, first because of the inability for the matter to slow down in space and generate orbital patterns, and second of all for celestial bodies to develop multiple types of orbits, including even reverse ones, going against the force that propelled the matter (naturally the matter would form an orbit in the general direction of the force applied by the bang). If other bodies became attracted by gravity to other bodies, then a thrust force would be needed to create an orbit; instead they would collide. Gravity alone would not solve this problem, since for an orbit to be created a downward gravitational pull is needed PLUS a tangential velocity across the surface so that the object ends up in an eternal fall. Since an explosion sends an object moving at a single velocity, massive velocity changes (without colliding into other objects) is impossible.

This would only apply if the big bang were an outwward explosion in only the visible dimensions. Try this one on... the big bang pushed all objects outward along a dimension that we recognize as time. This is why there is no spatial "center" of the universe... the center would actually be a point in the distant past, not a point in 3 dimensional space. Further, objects actually _are_ moving away from eachother (commensurate with the premise that the universe is expanding). It just so happens that gravity is able to overcome that motion from time to time enough to be able to form large blocks of coherent matter.

Since the moon is slowly moving away from the Earth, the moon would be defying the force that originally placed it in the orbit; an argument normally can't be made against, that since in order for that outward velocity to be natural, the moon would've needed to have been formed near the vertical asymptote distance from the Earth, and would need to be thrust outward in a logarithmic fashion.

Actually all that it really means is that the moon's orbit was never really stable to begin with,

Before the first moon landing, scientists estimated there to be over 10+ feet of dust on the moon, and calculated the dust to be 1 inch every 10,000 years, making it about extremely deep (based on the evolution time scale). They gave it large landing pads and added features to help when the ship sank into the dust. When the ship finally landed on the moon, the amount of dust found was a little over half an inch, proving an age of about 6,

Creationists performing a service for evo theory?

[Colonel Panic]

There's a lot of Creationist bashing going on here. But maybe we can view the two sides in a different light. Perhaps we can view the two sides as being locked in a co-evolutionary system.

Darwin posited his theory which was generally rejected by the religious. Later Creationists 'evolved' their ideas in a more 'scientific' direction by raising problems with the theory. They sometimes raise legitimate questions which deserve an answer.

Evolutionists then had to work harder to 'evolve' their theory to answer the Creationist's critique.

Now we have the ID (Intelligent Design) school raising objections to the theory. The evolution of the eye has been a longstanding question (as in "how could natural selection account for the development of the eye"). And now the evolution side has come up with perhaps a more complete answer.

Really, I'm not sure why there is so much antagonism toward Creationists (at least the ones that try to posit well-reasoned, thought out questions - yes, they may be in the minority). In some sense aren't the Creationists helping the Evolutionists to hone their theory? If everyone agreed with the theory, and nobody questioned it, how would the theory develop and improve?

Maybe instead of a "how dare you question evolution!" sort of an attitude, the evolutionists should thank thoughtful Creationists (or even just doubters of evolution who are not Creationists) for playing some part in the development of the theory.

Re:tell the entire story of our evolution over tim

[Tyreth]

But for goodness' sake, at least please take the time to understand the terms about which you're debating.

This is unfair, since the blurring of terms is as much the fault of evolutionists as it is creationists. Creationists have in the past used the terms micro and macro evolution to distinguish, which are now avoided because they imply that they are the same thing with longer time. Another way to distinguish is to use the title "Darwinist".

You are right that natural selection plays on us all the time, performing selection of beneficial traits and creating new species. The great issue is the question of common ancestry - whether all living things share a common ancestor or not. That is what creationists dispute, and that is what is commonly called "the theory of evolution" - shortened to evolution. Creationists do not deny natural selection, they just observe it from a different angle. So what do you think the theory of evolution that includes common ancestry should be called?

To use terminology that distinguishes between elements of this debate more accurate would help the creationists, because proof for each step would need to be provided by Darwinists - rather than just demonstrating proof for one definition of 'evolution' and then claiming that all aspects are thus justified.

I've wondered about this:

[RandyOo]

You said...
"That is why we still have vestigal organs like the appendix and tonsils. There are other mammals that still use those organs, but humans don't."

I'm just wondering: what are these other animals using them for? And how can you be so sure that we humans don't use them? My understanding was that the tonsils function as a part of the immune system, constantly sampling new pathogens in order to generate an immune response.

"Yes, we can still smell the pherimone, but that smell doesn't trigger that part of the brain anymore."

How can you be so sure about this? Did you know that women that live together in close quarters for long periods of time eventually share the same menstrual cycle? How do you explain that?

Re:tell the entire story of our evolution over tim

[Solilok]

Does this all mean that before jesus came, everybody went straight to hell after death?
Just curious

Re:The "mammalian" eye trumps "cephalopod" eye.

[Smegoid]

From an engineering point of view, it's totally retarted. But evolved organisms have this kind of kludge all the time, because once you have a structure locked in, it's really hard to get away from it by mutation.

This has been a favorite example of imperfect evolution over intelligent design for ages. Dawkins made a big to do about it in 1986 and everyone pretty much took him to his word. The fact is that it's false. The cephalopod retina doesn't have the same cellular constraints on it as ours do. It is true that the vertebrate retina, unlike that of cephalopods, places the photoreceptors at the back of the retina underneath nerve fibers and blood vessels which can cast shadows on the photoreceptors below. Furthermore the photoreceptors themselves are inverted, such that the photosensitive end is pointed away from incoming light.

An intelligent retina design, it is said, would place the photoreceptors at the very top of the retina with blood vessels and nerves below. With limited facts such an arrangement makes intuitive sense, after al the eye's prime function is the capture and transduction of light. However this argument ignores the basic cellular biology of vertebrate photoreceptors.

Transduction of light into a neural signal depends upon disc shaped structures in the outer end of the photoreceptor cell. These discs contain the photopigment whose breakdown by incoming light is at the very root of the transduction process (ie: light to nerve impulse). As the photopigment in these discs is broken down by incoming light to generate the neural signal, the discs themselves must be quickly shed and renewed. This function is accomplished by the retinal pigment epithelium which holds the photoreceptors in place and recycles their shed discs while supplying them with the necessary nutrients to regenerate more discs.

A cephalopod retina organization would restrict photoreceptor's ability to quickly regenerate discs of photopigment, causing frequent photoreceptor bleaching and ultimately reducing visual acuity under strong light (ie: daylight). Furthermore shed opaque photopigment discs would float above photoreceptors and impede light much more than the mostly transparent nerve fibers and occasional blood vessel that currently sit above the photoreceptors.

Such an organization does leave vertebrate with a blind spot were the optic nerve is collected and projected back into the CNS. This spot lies away from the fovea and as such it's effect on vision is negligible. Particularly in vertebrates whose visual fields overlap (ie: eyes at the front, not sides of our heads).

So our retinal design is in fact the best design given that our photoreceptors have to remain embedded in the retinal epithelium.

Re:tell the entire story of our evolution over tim

[gewalker]

Actually, in the Greek language, oinos (wine) was the word used to describe both alchoholic and non-alchoholic version. There is no separate word in Koine (common) Greek of the time. Same think in Hebrew too.

Often, you can tell from context which was referred too, sometimes you can't

The effects of drinking wine to drunkeness are described in several places in the Bible. There are also other references to wine that are obviously non-alchoholic.

To be more precise, the Bible does not ever condemn the drinking of wine (oinos), but it does condemn drunkeness in most situations as well as strong drink. Dunkeness in the form of anethesia is specifically recommended in at least one passage.

It is amazing how many people that claim to be Christians (not to impune their motives) are in fact quite ignorant of what the book says. One would expect non-Christians to be generally ignorant of the Bible, but if you claim to base your life on it, you ought to at least know something about it.

Re:You don't get it! (-:

[Airline_Sickness_Bag]

The earth is not an isolated system. Just like a refrigerator is not an isolated system - both have an outside source of energy - in the earths case, the sun.

Or don't you believe in refrigerators?

The Grass is Greener: The Other Side

[JesusTrance]

To start off, it is incorrect to say that creationism was beaten off by overwhelming evidence. If there were any "overwhelming evidence" for evolution, there wouldn't be a debate right now...

The phenomenon of creationism's lag in decades past was due to overwhelming propaganda - not sheer scientific reasoning. All of the evolutionary evidence of yesteryear that students were nursed off of has now fallen by the wayside. Piltdown Man. Nebraska Man. Java Man. Heidelburg Man. Neanderthal Man. Cro-Magnon Man. All of these have been shown to be relics of the past - composed of scattered fragments of skeletons: sadly some even hoaxes (Heidelburg Man was 'scientifically' constructed from an extinct pig's tooth). Carbon dating has been shown to be way off - even in known cases (Live penguins at 900 years old). Ernst Heckel's embryonic drawings were faked (even his contemporaries knew this - and he got in trouble for it). The Miller experiment no longer holds up when under scrutiny (the gasses he used are no longer believed to be present in earth's early atmosphere, and when 'correct' gasses are used, the experiment yields cyanide and formaldehyde: key elements in embalming fluid.) Even Archaeopteryx is no longer accepted as a transitional fossil. As Alan Feduccia, the world's leading expert on birds, said: "[Archaeopteryx] is a bird, a perching bird. And no amount of "paleobabble" is going to change that." So to say that overwhelming evidence drove creationism away is to be intellectually dishonest. The 'science' part of science just happens to be catching up, that's all.

Secondly, a demonstrable difference between microevolution and macroevolution can be shown. In fact, there are actually six definitions of evolution, to be precise. They are:

Cosmic- Big Bang
Chemical- all elements evolve from H and He
Stellar- stars form
Organic- primordial soup
Macro- ape changes to man
Micro- slight variations within a kind

Only the very last, microevolution, is scientific by definition. The rest are theories that cannot be tested or proven in normal laboratory science. They are part of what is know as Origins Science - the study of today's universe as to determine what has happened in the past to cause us to be here.

Finally, as to the eye article, the fact that the mechanisms for light-sensitive cells exist in worms does not therefore mean we evolved from worms. The latter is simply the evolutionary interpretation of the facts. In truth, this data could also be interpreted as common design. Just as GMC puts the same lug-nuts on several vehicles which did not necessarily evolve from each other, an Intelligent Designer could have created different creatures using the same mechanisms to perform the same function. You see, there's a difference between the fact, and the interpretation of the facts, based on one's worldview. The latter is simply the creationist interpretation.

What the scientists did not do is solve once and for all evolution's problem with the eye. They may have found similar structures, but they have yet to propose how such a system could have arisen by chance. The fact is, the eye is nearly an irreducibly complex system - if any of its parts are missing, it is useless. The challenge is to explain how something like that - a complex network of interlocking systems - could evolve via Darwinian evolution. For anyone who doubts the biochemical complexity of the human eye, I would highly recommend Michael J. Behe's "Darwin's Black Box." The fact is, the conceptual evolution of how the human eye might have evolved is plausible. The actual physical process of getting there is much more difficult.

As to the posts about the nonexistence of good creationist literature and argumentation out there, I humbly point you to:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/ - Check out their Technical Journal (TJ)

no, you're not quite understanding this

[cascadingstylesheet]

Science is not a belief. Science follows the scientific method. Accepted principles in science can be independently verified by testing and re-testing hypotheses using the scientific method.

Yes, that is true of *science*. Historical "science", however, doesn't satisfy those characteristics. Measure the percentage of a radioactive decay child in a sample, sure, that's science. Imagine what the original percentage of the parent radioisotope was, to "prove" how old the sample is, that isn't the same process.

Both evolutionists and (technically inclined) creationists use theories to fit data (the *same* data) to a worldview. For evolutionists, that worldview is the absence of a Creator. This means that extremely improbable events need to have happened (and the very first self-reproducing cell must have been an *event*, not a "process"), so the only way to even make that remotely plausible is very, very long periods of time. But the long periods are required by the worldview, not the data.

The use of science to explain a worldview *is*, to use your terminology in this context, a belief.

And now, a parody of your words:

Except evolutionists are not true scientists, because they come to the table with a hypothesis, the truth of which they are highly invested in proving(1). That is not the scientific method, because they do not approach their hypothesis with neutrality. Therefore, they find exactly the answers they seek. That is not science.

(1) That there is no Creator, and only currently observed natural processes operating over immense ages can be allowed to explain the complexity of life and the universe.

Common misconception...

[gillbates]

No, science is not religion. But naturalism - the philosophy that states that everything can be explained in terms of the natural univers - is a psuedo-religion of sorts, and it finds particularly strong support among atheists and scientists. So you will often find proponents of naturalism using science to bolster their religious convictions, which often has the effect of blurring the distinction between science and religion.

The other is based on total ignorance and acceptance of something without questioning any of it.

As trollish as this might sound, I see this line of reasoning often repeated, so I think I should respond to it. Religion, especially Christianity, is based on both man's experiences and divine revelation. It is not merely the unquestioned acceptance of some nice fantasies. Divine revelation is truthful by definition (if it's not true, it didn't come from the one who is the truth). Contrast this with science in which axioms initially thought true can prove false with greater observation and understanding. One can never know with any degree of acceptable certainty if a scientific theory is true; one can know the observations, but continued observation could disprove earlier theories.

Now this is all fine and good when it comes to material things. Generally speaking, science provides a safe way to bet. But when it comes to things such as eternal destiny, the uncertainty of the scientific method is far from reassuring. Yes, I can trust a physicist to predict the Moon's orbit, but no, I wouldn't trust the same physicist with my eternal destiny.

Now as for man's experiences. Christianity arose from the largest body of scientific data ever assembled - namely, the Bible and the Magisterium of the Catholic Church. This body of data far exceeds that of any other discipline - God has been the subject of more study than any other subject throughout history. Nor is reason contrary to faith - in fact, it is the light of reason which causes us to believe. Anyone who disagrees would do well to read Descarte, who found a reason to believe in God without ever mentioning a Bible verse.

We do not accept Christianity without question. Every mature Christian that I've known has, at some point, questioned their belief. And we always come back to the same place - that God does exist. To think otherwise would require simply ignoring some profound evidence:

• Every major culture has had a concept of God, even those far isolated from each other.
• The oldest manuscripts mankind possess are of a religious nature. If God does not exist, why do 40 centuries of human thought (and history) insist otherwise? What was their fatal error in reasoning that prevented them from seeing the (supposed) truth?
• Many of us have personally experienced small miracles - things that science simply could not explain. When one experiences a small miracle, the Gospel account of healing blind men presents no logical problem; it is simply God doing in a bigger way what he has already done in our own lives.

Granted, you might not be convinced of God's existence from what I've just written, but at least you should gather that religion, and Christianity in particular, is not opposed to reason. Rather, it is our faith and our reason working together which lead us to believe in God.