Evolution

[magma]

I'm a creationist...but I'm not sure where I stand on whether evolution is real or not. I mean, a fish can't wait millions of years to develop gills can it? It would die before reproduction...thats one reason I feel iffy about the theory.

In all likelyhood, life evolved in the water. Early life would've absorbed oxygen from the surrounding area, that then develops into very crude gills as things start to move around... it's the leap to breathing AIR that's the difficult one, but we can see plenty of "missing link" animals on the shoreline. Lots of shore-living fish can breath awkwardly for small amounts of time when looking for mates or food on muddy beaches.

Evolution is very tricky to ever "prove", but the weight of information is slowly starting to make it very difficult to find any other explaination.

Of course, a "God"could've set the rules and either kicked off cellular biology or the entire universe... but he's still an addition to the story and seems more difficult to prove than evolution; he's certainly not disproved by the theory, but he's also not at all required for it.

Peace.

[bRRRz]

When the Bible says that the world was created in 6 days, I believe that it may not be utilizing the word 'day' the same way as we commonly do. A day might be defined as a very long period of time.

Oh when will you christians just stop cherrypicking the things you believe and don't believe that are in the bible just because they're uncomfortably stupid by todays modern standards.

[snypadub]

Wow! I post it, go to sleep and by the time I wake up it is three pages long.
I'm not going to address everything all at once because that would take up the best part of my day.
To start with I shall discuss the evolving from rocks thing.

In the beginning the earth was void. Or near enough.
It rained on the rocks for millions of years.
From the rocks (after the rain) came the pre-biotic soup. From the soup came life.


Some more questions:

Who did the first organism capable of reproduction, reproduce with?

Why is the big fuck off burly dog BM described, an evolutionary being? She described exactly what I stated I believed in in my OP. I know adaptation happens (like the butterflies) There are millions of kinds of butterfly but they are all still the same species.

I just want to challenge you guys to watch 15 minutes of this bloke.
You can scoff, argue, whatever but try and watch at least 15 minutes.



course you can watch more but 15 minutes should be enough to give you some insight.

He has done a bunch of these seminars, each one covering a different topic in absolute detail. He really goes in to the science.


EDIT: In light of the above post, I don't cherry pick at all. I believe the bible is the infallible word of God.

[Mr Hyde]

[magma]

Wow! I post it, go to sleep and by the time I wake up it is three pages long.
I'm not going to address everything all at once because that would take up the best part of my day.
To start with I shall discuss the evolving from rocks thing.

In the beginning the earth was void. Or near enough.
It rained on the rocks for millions of years.
From the rocks (after the rain) came the pre-biotic soup. From the soup came life.

Best guesses and fossil evidence suggest that life probably first evolved around underwater volcanos and sulphur stacks. It most certainly didn't rain on rocks and then magically appear. There wasn't a big storm that filled up the seas... we have rain because of the oceans, not the other way around.

Some more questions:

Who did the first organism capable of reproduction, reproduce with?

Itself. The first organisms that reproduced reproduced in the same way that the most basic organisms do today - division. Quite a few "higher" species today, including many amphibians can reproduce with themselves.

Why is the big fuck off burly dog BM described, an evolutionary being? She described exactly what I stated I believed in in my OP. I know adaptation happens (like the butterflies) There are millions of kinds of butterfly but they are all still the same species.

Butterflies have differentiation like humans or dogs (or indeed, like most species - we're all made up of an awful lot of variable genes). If two "similar" humans reproduce, they'll produce similar offspring (skin colour etc). Butterflies can't mate with moths though, which are extremely similar, but remote enough to not be genetically compatible... like you can't mate with Chimps or probably couldn't with Australopithecus.

Essentially, if you're talking about gaps of a few (or a few hundred) generations then you're likely to be the same species (e.g. racial differentiation in humans), but eventually you reach a splitting point and you don't share enough of the same genes to make a full set of chromosones with your partner and can't have a baby. In humans this probably takes hundreds of thousands of years - you could certainly have mated with the humans that were walking the earth 200,000 years ago... though they didn't start behaving like humans you'd relate to for another 150,000 years at least.

Time is VERY important to take into account. The earth is very old indeed and modern humanity is very young indeed.

[noam]

I believe the bible is the infallible word of God.

then what are you attempting to start a debate on??

you believe, you dont know

you ask questions and answer none

[magma]

EDIT: In light of the above post, I don't cherry pick at all. I believe the bible is the infallible word of God.

Have you read it? Even the Bible doesn't consider itself the infallible word of God (apart from sections of the Old Testament anyway)... it is quite openly written by humans who are recounting their experiences of God. None of it was written by Jesus... most by his friends (or his friends children).

This isn't an attempted dig... the Bible isn't like the Qu'ran or Torah (or even Joseph Smith's Mormon teachings) that were handed directly from God... it's very much an anthology of human thoughts and experiences relating to God. A sort of Haynes manual to Christian spirituality.

[bRRRz]

In light of the above post, I don't cherry pick at all. I believe the bible is the infallible word of God.

Every christian is cherrypicking because the bible is filled with an incredible amount of contradictions.

[badger]

and the bible itself was cherry picked out of a selection of texts to suit the purposes of the compilers

apocrypha anyone?

for that reason, as well as what magma said, to truly believe the bible is the infallible word of god is pretty ignorant. whether or not the original teachings actually happened or not; the bible is quite clearly extremely influenced by man not only in its original interpretations and writing but also in the way it's been put together and (mis)translated over the years

[magma]

and the bible itself was cherry picked out of a selection of texts to suit the purposes of the compilers

Being a Christian and sticking to the Bible is like being a Dubstepper and only ever listening to tunes signed to a single label.

Translation is important too, like you said. As a crude experiment, synapdub, try putting any phrase into Babelfish, translating it into another language and then back into the original... it will have changed somewhat and may even mean something totally different.

If you're not reading the original Hebrew texts and weren't taught Hebrew by someone from the 3rd Century, you're not even getting the exact message that the original human intended, let alone the God he was trying to explain. Making your own interpretations is the only option... any talk of infallibility would have been far-fetched even by about the 5th Century... just look at the arguments we have over the intention of Shakespeare's english after only 400 years... try a foreign (and dead) language used 2000 years ago...

[Dub_freak]

[bRRRz]

Life is so fascinating!

[kay]

..more like...

gills developed as the most efficient variation on gas permeable skin...

Everyone knows that for functions relating to surface area...
the more surface area revealed - the more effective...

ripples in the skin - probably a result of an accidental concentration of capillary growth
increases oxygen absorbtion...TWO FOLD

because of the extra capillaries in conjunction with the increased surface area...

- thus making the ripple skinned creature GREATLY more successful at respiration...
animal gets faster - better at feeding and escaping...and thus mating

That could possibly be the most excellent post you have ever made BM

As to proof of evolution, just look at me. I'm clearly a step along the evolutionary path.

If the Bible were the infallible word of God, who is purported to be THE omnipotent being responsible for everything in the universe and everything that happens, it would not have been allowed to contain discrepancies or inconsistencies. God may exist, but he/she/it sure didn't write the Bible. Don't lay that mess at he/she/it's feet/divine contraption for standing on.

[bright maroon]

Only issue is that this doesn't really apply to evolution of a species. She was conditioned to be that way. Her genetics remain untouched. If she reproduces, this "conditioning" will not automatically pass down to her children.

You know - I understand this...

but what I was thinking...and what I thought was most amazing about the story...
was that her metabolism changed - that is an internal chemical situation...

So - If you think in terms of changes to dna being a result of damage...

wouldn't an internal chemistry shift be a prime catalyst..


I know that it takes millions of years and repeated mutations for
that kind of species changing - genetic break to stick...
but I don't find evolution as a concept, to be that far fetched...

[bright maroon]

..but seriously though...

blue bejeweled aliens could come down...
and do surgeries on unsuspecting sleeping people as far as I know...

I just read alot.

[noam]

shit you done a mix BM

[Genevieve]

From a wolf to a shitzu (not sure on spelling there) there are tonnes of, 'kinds' of canine but only the one species.

'Kind' is not a designation within nature.

This is T.rex according to linnaen nomenclature;

Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Superorder: Dinosauria
Order: Saurischia
Suborder: Theropoda
Family: †Tyrannosauridae
Tribe: †Tyrannosaurini
Osborn, 1906
Genus: †Tyrannosaurus
Osborn, 1905
Species: †T. rex

They skipped a whole lot, but 'kind' does not exist. A canine is a apart of the familly called 'Canidae'. 'Kind' can be used as ANY arbitrary natural grouping. There's different kinds of canines, different kinds of dogs, different kinds of mammals.. You could say that wolves and dogs are kinds of canines and you can say that felines and caninas are both types of carnivores or mammals or vertebrates.

Secondly, this is all irrelevant because these are human interpretations of nature. It doesn't matter what we 'call' them.[/quote] It's all arbitrary. Using human interpretation as a basis for natural occurences doesn't work because, basically, 'kinds' of animals only exist because we as humans decided to call them that, so you're arguing from the wrong direction.

I find it difficult to believe we all come from rocks (Evolutionists: This is what you believe),

This is a fallacy Hovind is known for, but no one thinks they come from rocks. We do agree that.. yeah, the Earth is composed of rocks and those sediments were what held the water, but your argument implies that we evolved from rocks. So you're deliberately distorting the argument. These 'rocks' could've been bowls of plastic or cartboard plates for all we know.

Creationism makes much more sense both logically speaking and the evidence is stronger.

Circular reasoning.

Macro evolution has never been observed by science.

Yes it has, through genetics and the fossil records. By the way, there's no difference between 'micro' and 'macro' evolution. They're both the exact same thing.

However, speciation the way you're implying has never been observed directly the way that gravity has never been observed. We only see the results of gravity (brick falls down) the way we only see the results of evolution (fossil record + descendants or genetic information).

A genetic mutation is the loss of information and not the gaining of new genetic information.

A genetic information can be anything from the loss to the gaining to the re-application of information.

Science has never observed an organ in a state of transition, they are always fully formed.

Fully formed for that particular purpose, yes, you're right, but that's because evolution doesn't predict the future or purpose. An animal doesn't think to itself 'gee wiz, I wish I had arms right now' and waits 10 million years for them to evolve. An animal that doesn't have anything even remotely resemlbing arms won't suddenly have any benefit for them because it doesn't live under evolutionary pressures that could favor arms.

What we do see is that organs that used to be used for one purpose, being adapted to work for a different purpose. Legs in the ancestors of whales were used for walking, then for swimming and then for coppulation and now the pelvis serves the purpose of muscle attachments. If the purpose wasn't there, it wouldn't exist.


You can believe whatever you want, though. I respect your choice. I'm just into evolution.

[aKsa]

Creationism is a huge pile of reeking bullshit.

[wormcode]

I believe in only one type of evolution, micro evolution.

Scientists who are experts in this field make no distinction on micro/macro evolution. Evolution is evolution is evolution. You believe in evolution.

Re: "I find it difficult to believe we all come from rocks (Evolutionists: This is what you believe)"

What? Are you talking about panspermia/exogenesis? If so, it's not FROM rocks, but rather simple organisms that arrived on meteors and evolved over time (extremophiles). These are real, and it would make perfect sense for this to happen sooner or later.

Even the Vatican mafia has approved of evolution.

[Genevieve]

I believe in only one type of evolution, micro evolution.

Scientists who are experts in this field make no distinction on micro/macro evolution. Evolution is evolution is evolution. You believe in evolution.

Re: "I find it difficult to believe we all come from rocks (Evolutionists: This is what you believe)"

What? Are you talking about panspermia/exogenesis? If so, it's not FROM rocks, but rather simple organisms that arrived on meteors and evolved over time (extremophiles). These are real, and it would make perfect sense for this to happen sooner or later.

Even the Vatican mafia has approved of evolution.

Naw, he based that on an argument that Kent Hovind made. According to him, we believe that we come from a rock because water rained on the rocks and because we evolved in water, we evolved from a rock.. or something.