Evolution or creation?

[Garnate]

lube?

I'll just use his tears.

 

[butters]

I'll just use his tears.

cue dolf fappage

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Ok, what evolved? What was evolutions impulse?

You cant answer the question. So the issue is political.

 

[DesEsseintes]

Ok, what evolved? What was evolutions impulse?

You cant answer the question. So the issue is political.

Of course we can answer the question. All life forms evolve, though it is not always expressed phenotypically - a great deal of evolution is, as far as we can tell, neutral. If you mean how did evolution start, it was certainly a simpler form - something like viral RNA rather than the DNA evolved by bacteria and eukaryotes, which is far too complex to have arisen except after a long evolution of its own.

As for what started the whole shebang - there is nothing especially difficult about that, and we are learning more all the time. Proteins aren't particularly difficult - heritability doesn't even need to be living (look at crystals, for example), and given that the planet was around for approximately 700 million years before we think life got started there was plenty of time for even very unlikely circumstances to obtain. The world was a funny old superheated soup of acids and gases back then, with plentiful electrical storms to spice things up. All sorts of things might have happened, and perhaps did, before life seemed to settle on DNA as its code of choice.

None of that is political, unless you like to believe that facts are an evil liberal trick.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Of course we can answer the question. All life forms evolve, though it is not always expressed phenotypically - a great deal of evolution is, as far as we can tell, neutral. If you mean how did evolution start, it was certainly a simpler form - something like viral RNA rather than the DNA evolved by bacteria and eukaryotes, which is far too complex to have arisen except after a long evolution of its own.

As for what started the whole shebang - there is nothing especially difficult about that, and we are learning more all the time. Proteins aren't particularly difficult - heritability doesn't even need to be living (look at crystals, for example), and given that the planet was around for approximately 700 million years before we think life got started there was plenty of time for even very unlikely circumstances to obtain. The world was a funny old superheated soup of acids and gases back then, with plentiful electrical storms to spice things up. All sorts of things might have happened, and perhaps did, before life seemed to settle on DNA as its code of choice.

None of that is political, unless you like to believe that facts are an evil liberal trick.

I simply ask WHAT DISTURBED THE STATUS QUO, and you cant answer the question. No one has a clue. For things to evolve there must be a start someplace. I mean, I stipulate many things are predisposed to change what I don't know is what changed initially.

I imagine a form of transmission we're ignorant of, like when 19th century scientists scratched their skulls about micro-biology. They had no idea of germs and such.

 

[phrodeau]

I simply ask WHAT DISTURBED THE STATUS QUO, and you cant answer the question. No one has a clue. For things to evolve there must be a start someplace. I mean, I stipulate many things are predisposed to change what I don't know is what changed initially.

I imagine a form of transmission we're ignorant of, like when 19th century scientists scratched their skulls about micro-biology. They had no idea of germs and such.

There's no such thing as a status quo with evolution. They have opposite meanings, you know.

 

[Bob_Bytchin]

I simply ask WHAT DISTURBED THE STATUS QUO, and you cant answer the question. No one has a clue. For things to evolve there must be a start someplace. I mean, I stipulate many things are predisposed to change what I don't know is what changed initially.

I imagine a form of transmission we're ignorant of, like when 19th century scientists scratched their skulls about micro-biology. They had no idea of germs and such.

If a vast sea of randomly occuring simple amino acids found a way after millions of years to coalesce into simple proteins and those simple proteins had millions of years of random mixing, it not hard to postulate that they used plentiful carbon, hydrogen, and simple sugars to create either RNA or DNA. There was no status quo. There were just eons of random chances, plentiful resources, and plenty of near misses.

This is far easier to accept than some being who came from nowhere, some being who always has been, some being who is painted as magnanimous yet shows plenty of malevolence when dealing with the very beings he created, who is infallible and has a grand plan yet is nothing but a big fuck up.

 

[Garnate]

If a vast sea of randomly occuring simple amino acids found a way after millions of years to coalesce into simple proteins and those simple proteins had millions of years of random mixing, it not hard to postulate that they used plentiful carbon, hydrogen, and simple sugars to create either RNA or DNA. There was no status quo. There were just eons of random chances, plentiful resources, and plenty of near misses.

This is far easier to accept than some being who came from nowhere, some being who always has been, some being who is painted as magnanimous yet shows plenty of malevolence when dealing with the very beings he created, who is infallible and has a grand plan yet is nothing but a big fuck up.

Am I the only one who read this with a shocked look on their face? It's like Homer Simpson (well, a much funnier version of Homer) stood up and belted this out.

Impressive, sir.

 

[CandiCame]

Am I the only one who read this with a shocked look on their face? It's like Homer Simpson (well, a much funnier version of Homer) stood up and belted this out.

Impressive, sir.

There was a Simpsons opening like that.

 

[Que]

There's no such thing as a status quo with evolution. They have opposite meanings, you know.

No they don't. Evolution can act on the status quo or not depending on whether or not evolving improves survivability or the ability to exploit a resource. Sometimes a given adaptation is just right for a time or a region. You do not have to have either stasis in all things at all times or continual change.

Status quo is a state. Evolution is a means to change that state. They are not even close to antonyms.

The entire debate is academic. A way for good little liberal art majors who suck at science and math to punch their little "I'm smarter than backwater bible belt freaks" card.

No amount of prayer or evolutionary processes is going to make a meaningful difference in living life as we know it on planet earth in our lifetime. Nothing we are doing now is intended to make humans any more sentient as a species. Quite the reverse, in fact.

1/2 the "I hate all religion" crowd is also is in the "I hate GMO" crowd never mind that EVERY thing you put in your cake hole has been genetically modified by either nature, or more often man and man's influence.

We can splice fish genes into rice, but we cannot yet make a cat a dog.

 

[phrodeau]

No they don't. Evolution can act on the status quo or not depending on whether or not evolving improves survivability or the ability to exploit a resource. Sometimes a given adaptation is just right for a time or a region. You do not have to have either stasis in all things at all times or continual change.

Status quo is a state. Evolution is a means to change that state. They are not even close to antonyms.

The entire debate is academic. A way for good little liberal art majors who suck at science and math to punch their little "I'm smarter than backwater bible belt freaks" card.

No amount of prayer or evolutionary processes is going to make a meaningful difference in living life as we know it on planet earth in our lifetime. Nothing we are doing now is intended to make humans any more sentient as a species. Quite the reverse, in fact.

1/2 the "I hate all religion" crowd is also is in the "I hate GMO" crowd never mind that EVERY thing you put in your cake hole has been genetically modified by either nature, or more often man and man's influence.

We can splice fish genes into rice, but we cannot yet make a cat a dog.

Evolution is not "a means to change that state", evolution is the change.

There is no evidence that any species evolved so that they could fit a niche. Variability within species led to some individuals fitting a niche, then reproducing.

 

[Que]

Evolution is not "a means to change that state", evolution is the change.

There is no evidence that any species evolved so that they could fit a niche. Variability within species led to some individuals fitting a niche, then reproducing.

Evolution is not "the change" it is the means or method for the change.

There is no direct evidence of any evolution from one specie to another whether or not there was a niche to fill.

Nice job supporting creationism.

 

[DesEsseintes]

There is no direct evidence of any evolution from one specie to another whether or not there was a niche to fill.

Mind-boggling. Do you understand that we don't classify fossils into sub-species? In other words, every fossil that has ever been discovered has been placed into a species - sometimes as the only species in its genus or even family. Therefore by definition we don't have fossil evidence of transitional species, but only because every individual is transitional, and we fit them in as best we can to the nearest species.

In a non-trivial sense, there is enormous evidence of evolution in the lab (bacteria, Drosophila, etc), and outside it. There are many classic, beautiful examples of forms we subsequently recognize as transitional between one major group and another - Archaeopteryx being perhaps the most famous. But of course they weren't 'transitional' at the time. They were too busy making a living.

 

[Que]

Mind-boggling. Do you understand that we don't classify fossils into sub-species? In other words, every fossil that has ever been discovered has been placed into a species - sometimes as the only species in its genus or even family. Therefore by definition we don't have fossil evidence of transitional species, but only because every individual is transitional, and we fit them in as best we can to the nearest species.

In a non-trivial sense, there is enormous evidence of evolution in the lab (bacteria, Drosophila, etc), and outside it. There are many classic, beautiful examples of forms we subsequently recognize as transitional between one major group and another - Archaeopteryx being perhaps the most famous. But of course they weren't 'transitional' at the time. They were too busy making a living.

I meant genus.

There are species thought to bridge a genus to another, but a lot of missing links

Biology is a long time ago for me... I defer to your more substantive knowledge. My point being we are not going to sit in a field and watch a even a cat become a dog in our lifetimes.

Viruses evolve from one flue season to the next but none of these micro changes are apt to cause theological palpitations. The sort of theological arguments the thread is meant to address is not science.

I think it clumsy but I know actual scientists who happen to belong of one religion or another that understand the Earth is not 6,000 years old, and all present day species did not fit on an ark in that time period. They believe in a Creator and assume that He would have to follow natural laws including such things as the propagation of light and sound. And that there was some sort of orderly guidance of life through natural principles. God, in theory, does not divide by zero.

I am waiting for Phrodeau to start a thread. Evolution continues... (which it does. just not on the scale of our lifetimes)

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Evolution is not "the change" it is the means or method for the change.

There is no direct evidence of any evolution from one specie to another whether or not there was a niche to fill.

Nice job supporting creationism.

Evolution is change, dear; natural selection or lamarkian influences or mutations are the methodology.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

If a vast sea of randomly occuring simple amino acids found a way after millions of years to coalesce into simple proteins and those simple proteins had millions of years of random mixing, it not hard to postulate that they used plentiful carbon, hydrogen, and simple sugars to create either RNA or DNA. There was no status quo. There were just eons of random chances, plentiful resources, and plenty of near misses.

This is far easier to accept than some being who came from nowhere, some being who always has been, some being who is painted as magnanimous yet shows plenty of malevolence when dealing with the very beings he created, who is infallible and has a grand plan yet is nothing but a big fuck up.

Still doesn't account for the initial impulse. Stuff forms from random collisions of matter capable of interaction, but it doesn't account for the kinetic energy that got things moving. We know the effect, whats the cause?

 

[DesEsseintes]

Stuff forms from random collisions of matter capable of interaction, but it doesn't account for the kinetic energy that got things moving.

Um...you know that shiny yellow thing in the sky?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Um...you know that shiny yellow thing in the sky?

Just admit you don't know, either.

 

[jackdaw]

I believe in God

I dont believe in evolution... because evolution is fact and doesn't require faith

I can be very wrong about God.. but I cant be wrong about evolution

Beware though: faith is not only a religious concept – far from it

Even to know something requires faith, since you are trusting that what you 'know' is true . . .

 

[about_average]

God, in theory, does not divide by zero.

Why not? If God is omnipotent he certainly can. There's no reason he must abide by natural laws.
Or maybe he's doesn't divide by zero in order to test our faith.

 

[Lovelynice]

There is no scientific proof gods do not exist.

- and no proof that they don't either..... how do you define what a “god” is anyway?

Could be that we're living in a cosmic hologram virtual reality... nobody knows... no proof either way...

The LOGICAL choice is to be agnostic and simply admit “We Do Not Know AND Can NEVER Know!”

There are qualities of this universe that have to be just right for life or matter to exist at all.

So.... coincidentally it just “happened” to be right for us

MAGIC in other words

But then again the universe contains all that was, is and will be.

We don't know this for sure, and probably will never know. There could be other universes, there could be other realities, other dimensions....

we do NOT know

In quantum physics you cannot get a zero probability, there is always a chance something can happen.

That's only theory

For all you and I actually 'know', it could also be wrong and as stupidly ignorant as the theory of the infinitely elastic ether.... Nothing in science stays fixed, theories are dropped and replaced, and they're all just “Good Enough” guesses that seem to work well enough but never explain everything.

Add in the possibility of multiple universes and life can arise and evolve on it's own.

We have no actual proof of other universes either..... it's just more myth-making... nobody has ever travelled to another universe or another parallel reality and proved it exists.

In the beginning the universe was a timeless singularity.

This crap is no better, no more valid, than the stuff in Genesis “First there was Darkness....”

It's more reliance on MAGIC thinking, the idea being “Give me one miracle, and I can explain the rest” - but you need to accept that first impossibility – which is still IMPOSSIBLE and unproven

 

[CandiCame]

Um...you know that shiny yellow thing in the sky?

Ok that made me giggle.