[Kerrigan]

Missing Link: Scientists In New York Unveil Fossil Of Lemur Monkey Hailed As Man's Earliest Ancestor | World News | Sky News

The search for a direct connection between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom has taken 200 years - but it was presented to the world today at a special news conference in New York.

The discovery of the 95%-complete 'lemur monkey' - dubbed Ida - is described by experts as the "eighth wonder of the world".

They say its impact on the world of palaeontology will be "somewhat like an asteroid falling down to Earth".

This is pretty fascinating. Perhaps this will put us further down the path to having more physical evidence with which to explain the many unknowns of human evolution.

It also kind of puts things into perspective when you think that each one of us here was descended from a lemur!

[Kerrigan]

(obligatory lemur pic)

[Shaddim]

Damn, he really does look like my uncle Jim.

[Dakar V]

Finally, God disproven.
(I keed, but that's where we're headed and this thread isn't getting enough action anyway)

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by Dakar V 

Finally, God disproven.

No, God put the lemur there to test your faith.

[shifuimam]

Next up: Scientists discover the actual missing links that show conclusive and irrefutable evidence that every living being on earth evolved from the same lifeless puddle of sludge.

[Dakar V]

Next up, scientists discover rollseyes are totally lame.

[sek929]

Then at 10pm, religious types prove the universe and all life was made in by a big dude wearing a white robe.

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by sek929 

Then at 10pm, religious types prove the universe and all life was made in by a big dude wearing a white robe.

Followed by a special broadcast. "The Bible: It's True Because It Says It's True."

[Dakar V]

Hey, you don't get to join in the fun, Christian!

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Next up: Scientists discover the actual missing links that show conclusive and irrefutable evidence that every living being on earth evolved from the same lifeless puddle of sludge.

Biology News: RNA world easier to make

Yup.

John Sutherland and his colleagues from the University of Manchester, UK, created a ribonucleotide, a building block of RNA, from simple chemicals under conditions that might have existed on the early Earth.

[Face Ache]

The news that we're descended from lemmings doesn't surprise me.

Oh, lemurs!


Meet great¹⁰⁰⁰ grandad.

[Kerrigan]

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by olePigeon 

Biology News: RNA world easier to make

Yup.

"Might" is a big modifier there - "might" means "not irrefutable and conclusive".

There are still massive gaps in the theory of evolution. By "massive" I mean "billions of years of evolution that have yet to be accounted for". It's one damn big step from a meaningless puddle of goo to what human beings are today. Personally, I couldn't possibly believe that life became this complex through nothing but meaningless, random, chaotic chance. It seems to me that the complexities in nature, had they come to be through random chance, would take quadrillions of years...not a few measly billion. Call me a fundie or a nutbag if you want, but there's still a hell of a lot of faith, assumption, and guesswork that comes with believing that evolution is the only possible explanation for how life (particularly sentient life) came to exist as we know it today.

Also: please spare me all the BS like "the peppered moth proves evolution" or whatever else is going to come from the rest of you. No scientist to date has been able to recreate the process of macroevolution. As in, we have not been able to artificially create complex life forms from nothing. Trouble is, if it takes a billion years for a handful of molecules to become a protein, we're not going to be able to conclusively prove it. Regardless of what you want to think or believe, evolution requires just about as much faith as believing in Biblical creation or the much fuzzier "Intelligent Design". Christians have found evidence in science and nature that God created the universe and all objects and life within it. Evolutionists have found evidence in science and nature that it was all by chance. Both theories require faith in the unknown, the unexplained, and the unknowable in order to be accepted.

[moonmonkey]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

"Might" is a big modifier there - "might" means "not irrefutable and conclusive".

There are still massive gaps in the theory of evolution. By "massive" I mean "billions of years of evolution that have yet to be accounted for". It's one damn big step from a meaningless puddle of goo to what human beings are today. Personally, I couldn't possibly believe that life became this complex through nothing but meaningless, random, chaotic chance. It seems to me that the complexities in nature, had they come to be through random chance, would take quadrillions of years...not a few measly billion. Call me a fundie or a nutbag if you want, but there's still a hell of a lot of faith, assumption, and guesswork that comes with believing that evolution is the only possible explanation for how life (particularly sentient life) came to exist as we know it today.

Also: please spare me all the BS like "the peppered moth proves evolution" or whatever else is going to come from the rest of you. No scientist to date has been able to recreate the process of macroevolution. As in, we have not been able to artificially create complex life forms from nothing. Trouble is, if it takes a billion years for a handful of molecules to become a protein, we're not going to be able to conclusively prove it. Regardless of what you want to think or believe, evolution requires just about as much faith as believing in Biblical creation or the much fuzzier "Intelligent Design". Christians have found evidence in science and nature that God created the universe and all objects and life within it. Evolutionists have found evidence in science and nature that it was all by chance. Both theories require faith in the unknown, the unexplained, and the unknowable in order to be accepted.

But one theory (the one without the big flood and the unlimited fish) is much more likely than the other, no?

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

No scientist to date has been able to recreate the process of macroevolution. As in, we have not been able to artificially create complex life forms from nothing.

It would help immensely if you knew what you were talking about, then perhaps we could form some sort of reasonable argument. There is no such thing as macroevolution. Complex organisms do not appear out of nothing, and the theory of evolution doesn't claim otherwise.

Scientists have directly observed the process of evolution. "Macroevolution" as proposed by creationists and intelligent design proponents was one of the processes observed in the linked study.

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Trouble is, if it takes a billion years for a handful of molecules to become a protein, we're not going to be able to conclusively prove it.

I don't mean to sound condescending, but you have no idea what you're talking about.

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Regardless of what you want to think or believe, evolution requires just about as much faith as believing in Biblical creation or the much fuzzier "Intelligent Design".

Please, please, please, look into what is required for a scientific theory. Evolution has absolutely nothing to do with what people want to believe or have faith in. It has nothing to do with Biblical creation and/or Intelligent Design simply by the method required to develop the theory.

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Christians have found evidence in science and nature that God created the universe and all objects and life within it.

There is zero evidence by virtue of God not being a testable component.

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Evolutionists have found evidence in science and nature that it was all by chance. Both theories require faith in the unknown, the unexplained, and the unknowable in order to be accepted.

No. Scientific Theory does not allow for faith.

What I can't wrap my brain around is that you are arguing against the exact same principles used to develop the theory of evolution that were used to develop the computer you're typing on to argue on an internet forum.

I would suggest you read up on Galileo Galilei. You might have heard of him. He was a devout Catholic who was persecuted because of his scientific theories. Just before he was lured into a trap by the Vatican so they could imprison him, Galileo proposed something that I hope you'll consider: There are two truths to this universe. There is the truth of what we see, feel, hear, and taste; then there is the truth of the Bible. You can not have two truths if they are contradictory, it is fundamentally impossible. Science is the manual to understanding the universe, the Bible is the manual to understanding how to save your soul.

Evolution does not invalidate God any more than gravity or general relativity.

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by olePigeon 

There is no such thing as macroevolution.

Allow me to clarify my use of the terms "macroevolution" and "microevolution":

Macroevolution: changes that create one class from an entirely different class (fish to amphibian).

Microevolution: changes within a species (the peppered moth example, different breeds of horses or cats or dogs or snakes).

There is quite a difference between the two concepts.

Your article is interesting, to say the least - but again, there are huge steps that are unaccounted for. Like how drastically different, distinct classes of animals came from the same single source. That's the part that does require faith.

Not to mention that the bacteria in the article was grown in a strictly controlled lab environment...which doesn't at all mimic the actual environment, atmosphere, and climate of the earth billions of years ago. It would be like claiming that a premature baby can survive at home by pointing to a baby that survived in a closely monitored and controlled neonatal intensive care unit.

Also, unless I read it wrong, this article suggests that a single mutation in a single type of bacteria took twenty years to evolve. Twenty years for a single mutation divided by the estimated 4.5 billion year age of the earth is only...225,000,000 mutations. That seems pretty damn small for the number of mutations required to go from lifelessness to a single-celled organism to, say, Albert Einstein. Obviously, that's assuming that no other mutations occurred during those twenty years...but at the same time, wouldn't you think that quadrillions of mutations would be required (and, remember, they're happening randomly and in an uncontrolled and many times hostile environment) to get from then to now?

I don't mean to sound condescending, but you have no idea what you're talking about.

The point that I was making was the the biggest jumps in evolution - you know, like a fish sprouting legs or a snake growing a pair of wings - can't be observed, because the length of time required for such changes to randomly occur is much longer than the human lifespan. Therefore, there are parts of it that, while they can be postulated, they cannot be irrefutably proven.

Can you, beyond any shadow of possible doubt, prove that life came to be the way that Darwin supposed it did?

We can't prove it. Period. You can hypothesize all you want, but evolution is not fact. Evolution is a theory. There are many parts of it that are unproven, and there are many parts of it that, since nobody can live billions of years to observe it (and can't go back in time to when it all supposedly started), cannot be proven.

Yes, evolution requires faith in the unknown. Evolution requires that you accept that which cannot be proven.

This is like atheists claiming they don't believe in anything or have no faith. Trouble is, it takes faith to believe beyond any doubt that God unquestionably doesn't exist...since the lack of the existence of a higher power can't be irrefutably proven.

You should sit through a biology class at a non-denominational Christian high school sometime. They don't engage in some kind of crazy indoctrination. Scientists in the Christian world have done extensive research to find natural evidence of both Creation and the existence of God - and they have, to those who accept their findings (just like evolutionists find proof of evolution to those who accept the finding of scientists who support evolution).

I don't know enough about this particular topic to go much further on it - lucky you. But let me at least make one final point:

I have a much bigger problem with people who insist that evolution is the only possible way that life could have begun on this planet. It is incredibly naive and self-serving to assume that us piddly humans have already figured out the answers to the unknowable, and that it's impossible that we could be wrong. Believe in evolution - that's fine - but accept the flat-out fact that evolution cannot be wholly proven, and that there are many elements of it that do rely on the acceptance of the unknown and the unknowable.

Evolutionists are, for the most part, convinced that they couldn't possibly be wrong. That bothers me. A lot. There's a shitload about the universe left to be discovered - hell, there's at least another thousand years of scientific research left before we completely understand and document how the human brain functions. It's pretty goddamn naive to say that we figured it out already, and anyone who disagrees is willfully ignorant, uneducated, or otherwise flat-out wrong.

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by moonmonkey 

But one theory (the one without the big flood and the unlimited fish) is much more likely than the other, no?

In my limited capacity of understanding, no. It seems incredibly unlikely and almost mathematically impossible that the complexity of life on this planet (in both plant and animal life) could possibly have come into existence by utter meaningless, random, and chaotic chance.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Allow me to clarify my use of the terms "macroevolution" and "microevolution":

Macroevolution: changes that create one class from an entirely different class (fish to amphibian).

Microevolution: changes within a species (the peppered moth example, different breeds of horses or cats or dogs or snakes).

There is quite a difference between the two concepts.

There is none, at all.



That is like claiming that there is quite a difference between the flashlight in your pocket, and the floodlights illuminating a football field.

There is absolutely none, except for the scale.


Evolution does not distinguish "macroevolution" and "microevolution". Creationists and would-be hocus-pocus-acts use these terms as though they meant different things in order to claim that there are processes explained by the concept, and processes that aren't.

That's just ignorant hogwash spilled to confuse people like you who have no clue.

[Kerrigan]

Edited for succinctness:

I think the very fact that this ugly rat-looking animal evolved into something that could build rocket ships and conceive of quantum physics is sufficient evidence by itself that there is a divine presence. You don't have to resort to pseudo-science to bridge the gap between the metaphysical world and the scientific world.

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by Kerrigan 

I don't see what is inherently contradictory with the scientific explanation of creation and the notion of god.

My feelings exactly. The bible also doesn't explain how gravity, planetary orbits and quantum mechanics work, yet somehow creationists don't take issue with those areas of science. If anything, I find it more impressive that a being created a process that allows life to adapt to changes in the environment than the idea that a being snapped it's fingers and "poof" - life, same forever, never changing.

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

There is none, at all.

Would different terms help, then? Adaptation versus evolution. A moth adapted to its surroundings. It did not become a different insect. It stayed a moth. There is way more to the theory of evolution than adaptation.

Originally Posted by Kerrigan 

I don't see what is inherently contradictory with the scientific explanation of creation and the notion of god.

The story of Genesis makes it clear that god created animals first, and only after that did he create mankind. If you believe in god, then I don't see why it would be so far-fetched to think that this creation episode stretched out over billions of years.

I mean, he probably got very bored after the dinosaurs went extinct and figured, "I might as well turn this ugly little lemur thing and mold him in my image, such that in 50 million years this thing will be building space shuttles, formulating quantum physics, and doing things that previously only I had been capable of conceiving."

Maybe.

But, if you believe in God and the Bible and what the Bible has to say about the scientifically impossible things God did, is it so far-fetched to say that evolution might be wrong?

I don't believe in evolution the way that evolutionists describe it - a bunch of meaningless random chance events that somehow managed to create sentient life without any sort of supernatural intervention. That seems ridiculous to me.

I'm also not a new-Earth Creationist (someone who believes the universe was created in exactly seven twenty-four hour periods). I fully accept that it's almost entirely certain the planet is as old as scientists believe it is. What I don't accept is that it is wholly impossible that Darwin was wrong, our findings are being interpreted incorrectly, and things simply didn't happen the way we think they did.

It's cliche, but the world though the Earth was flat until Christopher Columbus ventured into the Western Hemisphere - and that was less than six hundred years ago. It's pretty ignorant, IMO, to say that our theories couldn't possibly be wrong, and that there isn't another possible explanation

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak 

My feelings exactly. The bible also doesn't explain how gravity, planetary orbits and quantum mechanics work, yet somehow creationists don't take issue with those areas of science. If anything, I find it more impressive that a being created a process that allows life to adapt to changes in the environment than the idea that a being snapped it's fingers and "poof" - life, same forever, never changing.

The issue that Christians have with evolution that doesn't exist with other scientific theories and laws comes down to what the Bible says about mankind - which is that God created us in His image, to be set apart from other life on Earth. To say that we evolved from non-sentient life forms takes away a lot of the meaning of that "in His image" concept.

Another problem many Christians have with evolution is that it suggests that the inception of life must have happened in some way that is within the sphere of human comprehension. The more we learn about the universe, the more we become convinced that we will eventually be able to know everything about the universe. Humans ultimately want to be god-like - why else do you think that you-can-become-a-god religions and dogmas have been so appealing to us throughout history? We want to be able to have all the answers - or, at the very least, believe that we will find all the answers.

I have a real hard time buying that evolution happened the way that evolutionists say it happened - that we all came from the same puddle of sludge, and that it was all random. On the other hand, do I believe that God created the 600+ species of primates in existence today as-is? No. It makes complete logical sense that He created a handful, and let adaptation take over from there.

See, I accept that I could be wrong. We can't prove creation, we can't prove intelligent design, and we can't prove evolution. We can find evidence of all three in the universe, if we choose to do so - but I can at least freely admit and accept that I can't be certain I'm right. It just seems like the anti-dogma crowd (atheists and evolutionists) have a very hard time applying that concept to themselves.

I should also add, as a side thought - there's a lot of assumption that goes into evolution when it gets more complex. How did all the systems necessary for even basic life manage to evolve (randomly and in less than 4.5 billion years) at the same rate in quality enough conditions that life was able to be sustained? Think about it - nearly every animal on the planet uses cellular respiration to produce energy, which means that a circulatory system and a respiratory system would have had to mutate simultaneously and long enough to sustain life in order to procreate so that the evolutionary process could continue - and that doesn't even take into account how the muscular and skeletal systems evolved at the same rate as the nervous system and the brain so that complex movement could be accomplished.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Can you, beyond any shadow of possible doubt, prove that life came to be the way that Darwin supposed it did?

Darwin didn't discuss the origins of life, he only proposed how life evolved to be the way it is. In that context I can say with relative certainty that, yes, life came to be the way Darwin proposed.

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

You can hypothesize all you want, but evolution is not fact. Evolution is a theory.

Yes, it's a theory. I hope you took my advice and read up on what's required to form a scientific theory. I'm not sure how else to put this. You're arguing that Earth is the center of the universe and that space is perfect, crystalline celestial spheres.

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

There are many parts of it that are unproven, and there are many parts of it that, since nobody can live billions of years to observe it (and can't go back in time to when it all supposedly started), cannot be proven.

Fossilized evidence and radio dating allows us a unique glimpse into the past, billions of years. DNA evidence allows us a direct comparison of species hundreds of thousands of years old. You don't need to wait billions of years to observe evolution, as I already showed you with the link I provided.

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Yes, evolution requires faith in the unknown. Evolution requires that you accept that which cannot be proven.

No, it doesn't. You've managed to completely ignore absolutely everything I just stated about the principles of scientific theory. Science does not deal with faith or require you to accept something that can not be proven; that is the exact opposite of what is required.

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Scientists in the Christian world have done extensive research to find natural evidence of both Creation and the existence of God - and they have, to those who accept their findings (just like evolutionists find proof of evolution to those who accept the finding of scientists who support evolution).

Absolutely, completely, 100%, wrong. A scientific theory, if you had bothered to read what it is, requires that the theory may be falsifiable; more to the point, that new evidence can show that it may be wrong.

You can not show one way or another that God, magic teapots, or invisible pink unicorns have any affect on evolution or any other aspect of the universe. That makes whatever your Christian Scientists are doing unfalsifiable. That also means that whatever evidence related to God that they think they've uncovered is completely and utterly not comparable to any evidence provided in regards to the theory of evolution.

Christian Scientists (the organization, not Scientists who happen to be Christians) have made zero meaningful contributions to the scientific community. Zero. Nothing.

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

I have a much bigger problem with people who insist that evolution is the only possible way that life could have begun on this planet.

No one insists that. You're confusing origins of life with evolution. Evolution does not explain the origins of life, only the process by which life came to be what it is today.

The origins of life is very debatable. There are many, many theories as to the origins of life on this planet. The primordial soup and the link I provided earlier is only one of the theories. It does support the possibility that life started al by chance, but we're also finding out that more complex organisms can survive in deep space without any protection from the elements. Life could have come from an extraterrestrial source (comet, meteor, etc.) in what's called panspermia.

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

It is incredibly naive and self-serving to assume that us piddly humans have already figured out the answers to the unknowable, and that it's impossible that we could be wrong.

I agree, and so does 99.99% of the scientific community. It's not knowing the answers to everything that drives us. If we knew everything already, the universe would be one really boring place.

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Believe in evolution - that's fine - but accept the flat-out fact that evolution cannot be wholly proven, and that there are many elements of it that do rely on the acceptance of the unknown and the unknowable.

I don't believe in evolution. Belief has absolutely nothing to do with it. However, I am relatively certain that evolution explains the process by which we came to be the way we are. Given the current evidence, it is the most likely answer.

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by olePigeon 

Christian Scientists (the organization, not Scientists who happen to be Christians) have made zero meaningful contributions to the scientific community. Zero. Nothing.

Where in the world did you get Christian Science from what I said? Church of Christ, Scientist is a Western cult. I wasn't talking about them. I was talking about people in the scientific community who are Christians.

I can see how evolution could explain some of the process. We are a long way from explaining how the incredibly complex systems in any living being came into existence. You might be able to get from a fish to an amphibian to a mammal to an ape to a human, but that's a long, long way off from explaining how single-celled organisms mutated complex internal organs and necessary systems at the same rate with enough success to continue sustaining life long enough to procreate. That part just hasn't been explained.

Originally Posted by olePigeon 

I don't believe in evolution. Belief has absolutely nothing to do with it. However, I am relatively certain that evolution explains the process by which we came to be the way we are. Given the current evidence, it is the most likely answer.

I disagree. It's probably stupid of me to quote the Bible here, but I'm going to do it anyway:

Originally Posted by Hebrews 11:1

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

Or, if it makes you feel better, Wiktionary:

Belief: Mental acceptance of a claim as truth.

Believe: To accept that someone is telling the truth, to accept as true, to consider likely.

And Webster's Unabridged:

Faith: Belief; the assent of the mind to the truth of what is declared by another, resting solely and implicitly on his authority and veracity; reliance on testimony.

You accept others' research as proof of evolution, the origin of life, etc. You consider that it's likely and true that Darwinian evolution is an accurate depiction of how life came to be as it is today.

Yes, it does require belief. It seems that "theory" is a misnomer when it comes to evolution.

In fact, you asked me to look up what a scientific theory is. If we go by Wiktionary:

A coherent statement or set of statements that attempts to explain observed phenomena.

Well, we haven't actually observed evolution to the extent that evolutionists claim it's occurred, so I can't say that this definition really fits.

A logical structure that enables one to deduce the possible results of every experiment that falls within its purview (scope).

Again - that doesn't fit to me, either. We can't create experiments of every facet of evolution, can we?

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

In the sciences generally, a scientific theory (the same as an empirical theory) is constructed from elementary theorems that consist in empirical data (data that are produced by experiment or observation) about observable phenomena. A scientific theory is used as a plausible general principle or body of principles offered to explain a phenomenon.

That's just it - there are enormous gaps in evolution. The jump from amino acid to human is enormous. The jump from amino acid to single-celled organism is pretty big, too. We can't observe it. It's a phenomenon that happened so long ago that there isn't really conclusive evidence for it. Maybe we should start calling it "The Assumption of Evolution" rather than "The Theory of Evolution"?

[Wiskedjak]

Exactly. The theory of evolution says *nothing* about the origin of life; it only proposes a theory to explain how species can change over time by adapting to their environment.

Some people have extrapolated evolutionary theory to an extreme and developed theories on the origin of life (the humans-from-sludge concept), but that is not the theory of evolution. If someone proposed that life were brought here on spaceships by aliens, you wouldn't stop believing in the ability to travel from one planet to another, would you?

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by Dakar V 

Hey, you don't get to join in the fun, Christian!

This is the true meaning of religious persecution: Not being allowed to mock my own faith.

[design219]

just because

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Macroevolution: changes that create one class from an entirely different class (fish to amphibian).

Microevolution: changes within a species (the peppered moth example, different breeds of horses or cats or dogs or snakes).

There is quite a difference between the two concepts.

There isn't any difference. You're trying to make a distinction between two identical processes. There's no such thing as macro- or microevolution. Dogs and horses were bread for specific features. The features people wanted most were kept, allowed to survive, and bread with other animals with like features where those features were passed on to their offspring. Instead of nature killing off animals with deficient features and allowing animals with features that benefited their survival to live and procreate, humans dictated which animals lived and which features they valued.

By the process of natural selection, animals with features that benefited survival lived to pass on those features to their offspring. Those features became more exaggerated and important to the animal as it used those features to survive. If being able to stay out of water for extended periods of time benefited an aquatic animal, allowing it to live and reproduce, its offspring would inherit those benefits. The longer the animal could stay out of the water, the higher the chances of its survival. "Fish became amphibians" when the features best suited for survival became genetically inheritable to all offspring.

A prehistoric amphibian shares characteristics of both modern amphibians and fish in the same way that that prehistoric lemur shares characteristics of prosimians, apes, and monkeys.

So like I said, there's no such thing as macroevolution. It doesn't exist because there's no distinction to be made.

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Your article is interesting, to say the least - but again, there are huge steps that are unaccounted for. Like how drastically different, distinct classes of animals came from the same single source.

The article just showed you exactly what you were asking. At some point one of organisms developed a genetic mutation that allowed it to metabolize citrate. You then had two completely different species of Escherichia coli. If the conditions of the bacterium environment changed, you would most likely see other characteristics develop. Now you have three different species of Escherichia coli, two of which evolved from a single source. That right there is exactly the same thing as a fish "suddenly" being able to breath air and being called an amphibian. In terms of the bacteria, it was the equivalent of 35,000 generations.

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Not to mention that the bacteria in the article was grown in a strictly controlled lab environment...which doesn't at all mimic the actual environment, atmosphere, and climate of the earth billions of years ago. It would be like claiming that a premature baby can survive at home by pointing to a baby that survived in a closely monitored and controlled neonatal intensive care unit.

It doesn't have to mimic the environment from billions of years ago. The purpose of the experiment was to demonstrate how an array of seemingly different species can develop from a single source, your so-called "macroevolution." We know that an organism can evolve to best suit its given environment. It can evolve in a way to ensure that it will survive and pass those features on to its descendants. If the conditions of the environment were to change, we now know that some organisms will be able to adapt and continue to live on; spreading those beneficial characteristics onto its offsprings.

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Also, unless I read it wrong, this article suggests that a single mutation in a single type of bacteria took twenty years to evolve. Twenty years for a single mutation divided by the estimated 4.5 billion year age of the earth is only...225,000,000 mutations. That seems pretty damn small for the number of mutations required to go from lifelessness to a single-celled organism to, say, Albert Einstein.

You didn't read it wrong, you just have the scale wrong. Bacteria multiply by the second. The genetic changes are more rapid and easier to discern. That's over 31 million mutations per year, or 139 quadrillion (a million-billion) mutations.

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Obviously, that's assuming that no other mutations occurred during those twenty years...

That's sort of the point.

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

but at the same time, wouldn't you think that quadrillions of mutations would be required (and, remember, they're happening randomly and in an uncontrolled and many times hostile environment) to get from then to now?

Yes. Funny you should pull a quadrillion out of the air, because that's precisely what they observed in the experiment.

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

The point that I was making was the the biggest jumps in evolution - you know, like a fish sprouting legs or a snake growing a pair of wings - can't be observed, because the length of time required for such changes to randomly occur is much longer than the human lifespan.

But there are fish with legs and there are fish with wings. There are fish that walk and fish that fly. We can observe it because we just saw bacteria "suddenly" be able to consume citrate. That's the equivalent of you growing wings and flying away.

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Evolutionists are, for the most part, convinced that they couldn't possibly be wrong.

No, they're convinced it's the most probable answer given the overwhelming evidence. No credible scientists would ever state that it is 100% correct. When Einstein was working with General Relativity, he started to notice that the laws we thought we knew about the universe completely broke down at the subatomic level. Special Relativity is a set of theorems that help explain what happens when the normal laws don't apply. Though the process by which a conclusion is often reached in science may be different than mathematics, the concept is the same and often overlap. Evolution will, for lack of a better term, evolve as more evidence is discovered and our understanding of how it works increases. A hundred years from now we may look back and think that how we understood evolution during the year 2000 as completely laughable, but only because we discovered new evidence that pointed to a different possible conclusion.

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

There's a shitload about the universe left to be discovered - hell, there's at least another thousand years of scientific research left before we completely understand and document how the human brain functions. It's pretty goddamn naive to say that we figured it out already, and anyone who disagrees is willfully ignorant, uneducated, or otherwise flat-out wrong.

I agree 100%. However, I think you have a very big misunderstanding about the scientific process if that's what you think of scientists and research in general. No one is trying to disprove God or His involvement in the universe, it's just that the universe as we know it and understand works just as well without Him; even if HIs involvement is invisible to us.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Where in the world did you get Christian Science from what I said? Church of Christ, Scientist is a Western cult. I wasn't talking about them. I was talking about people in the scientific community who are Christians.

I thought you meant that scientists were working to validate God's involvement in the universe. I understand fully well that a lot of people believe that evolution is merely a single tool in a tool chest by which God shapes the universe. I have no problem with that.

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

I disagree. It's probably stupid of me to quote the Bible here, but I'm going to do it anyway:

Relative certainty is not the same thing as faith. The truth of the statement is only as relevant as the evidence provides. You believe that Christ is the son of God, if somehow some scientist provided evidence that Christ wasn't the son of God, would you change your mind? I'd wager no, because it's at odds with your religious texts.

If some scientist provides evidence that turns evolution completely 180 degrees, my certainty as to the likelihood of evolution as I understood it being the most plausible explanation would also change.

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

You accept others' research as proof of evolution, the origin of life, etc. You consider that it's likely and true that Darwinian evolution is an accurate depiction of how life came to be as it is today.

Not likely and true, just likely. Truth is relative to the availability of evidence.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Would different terms help, then?

No, they wouldn't, except if you're intent upon muddying the issue.

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Adaptation versus evolution. A moth adapted to its surroundings. It did not become a different insect. It stayed a moth. There is way more to the theory of evolution than adaptation.

They aren't the same thing.

Adaptation is a process driven by natural selection.

It's one of the ways evolution works.

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

I don't believe in evolution the way that evolutionists describe it - a bunch of meaningless random chance events that somehow managed to create sentient life without any sort of supernatural intervention. That seems ridiculous to me.

It is.

There is nothing random about selection.

Liken it, if you will, to a sculpture: The potential is a block of stone with seemingly random patterns and faults within it.

Whether these patterns and faults truly ARE random, or whether they were put there by some Deity, is *completely* irrelevant to the mechanism at work carving the final sculpture out of that block of stone.

The sculpture will work and the material will hold up in those cases where the faults and random patterns align with pressure from the chisel. In those where they don't, the sculpture will fail.

If you apply the chisel to millions of blocks of stone in completely random ways, some of those blocks will succeed, and the VAST majority will fail.

But those that succeed will succeed for very clear reasons: The random pressure from the chisel happened to coincide exactly with the randomly present potential in the material.


In other words, potential and selective forces may be random, but those results that turn up successful most definitely AREN'T.

This is rather difficult to get your head around, but failing to do so is the fundamental failing of all "intelligent design" proponents.

Of course evolution is an absurd idea if you intentionally misrepresent it.



This, however, is the point where everything that can be said, has probably been said, and anything further will be pointless regurgitation around endless misrepresentations, so I'll just bow out here.

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Would different terms help, then? Adaptation versus evolution. A moth adapted to its surroundings. It did not become a different insect. It stayed a moth. There is way more to the theory of evolution than adaptation.

Adaption is evolution on a shorter time-scale.

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

But, if you believe in God and the Bible and what the Bible has to say about the scientifically impossible things God did, is it so far-fetched to say that evolution might be wrong?

It's not about whether the theory of evolution might be wrong.
There is no better alternative to evolution beyond unprovable superstition. In science, theories are supplanted for two reasons: (1) there is evidence directly contradicting theory and it's not possible to extend the existing theory to accommodate the new evidence. Or (2) a better theory comes along that is falsifiable and you're able to make the same predictions.

It's plainly obvious that your main beef with the theory of evolution is that you think (like Einstein) that God doesn't play dice. That the world could not have evolved from random events. The simple objection would be that nature doesn't care what we humans prefer the world to be. There are plenty of people, including scientists, that do not like the inherent randomness in the world of quantum mechanics (only the probability distribution has a deterministic evolution) -- but that's the way it seems to be as you can tell from experiment.

The same here. You prefer that it was `God's plan' to let the universe evolve to this point (no pun intended) and in your opinion there is no room for randomness. However, you're missing several things here even within your interpretation: even though on the microscopic scale there is randomness (e. g. genetic mutations), on the large scale, everything is deterministic (= non-random) again (with probability 100 %). There are plenty of examples like that: e. g. going from statistical mechanics (essentially random) to describe a gas to thermodynamics (deterministic/non-random).

[moonmonkey]

what he said.

[Railroader]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

It's cliche, but the world though the Earth was flat until Christopher Columbus ventured into the Western Hemisphere - and that was less than six hundred years ago. It's pretty ignorant, IMO, to say that our theories couldn't possibly be wrong, and that there isn't another possible explanation

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

It's cliche, but the world though the Earth was flat until Christopher Columbus ventured into the Western Hemisphere - and that was less than six hundred years ago. It's pretty ignorant, IMO, to say that our theories couldn't possibly be wrong, and that there isn't another possible explanation

Do you know *why* the world thought the Earth was flat?

(hint: it had nothing to do with science)

[Mrjinglesusa]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

It's cliche, but the world though the Earth was flat until Christopher Columbus ventured into the Western Hemisphere - and that was less than six hundred years ago. It's pretty ignorant, IMO, to say that our theories couldn't possibly be wrong, and that there isn't another possible explanation

Actually, it's pretty ignorant to think that the world thought the earth was flat until Columbus ventured into the Western Hemisphere less than 600 years ago. Educated peoples, hundreds of years BC, had believed the earth was not flat.

Around 330 BCE, Aristotle provided observational evidence for the spherical Earth, noting that travelers going south see southern constellations rise higher above the horizon.

Writing around 10 BCE, the Greek geographer Strabo cited various phenomena observed at sea as suggesting that the Earth was spherical.

Etc., etc., etc., etc.

Flat Earth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[olePigeon]

Eratosthenes estimated the circumference of the Earth to an error of less than 1% ... in 240 BCE.

Ancient Egyptians knew the world was round since 1500 BCE. They knew this because when they sailed ships, ships off in the distance were below the horizon. They disappeared. As they got closer they appeared to be rising from the sea. This happens because of the curvature of the planet. It wasn't just the Egyptians that figured this out, it's believed that many sea fairing cultures would have picked up on this phenomenon.

[design219]

Originally Posted by olePigeon 

BCE

How long before someone climbs onto that?

[Chongo]

hmmmm....

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by design219 

How long before someone climbs onto that?

Is the term "Common Era" un-PC? I thought it was standard reference in modern theology?

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

Is the term "Common Era" un-PC? I thought it was standard reference in modern theology?

It represents a removal of religion from society, opposed by the same people that support "Under God" in the pledge and "In God We Trust" on our coinage.

[Railroader]

I like to refer to it as "Before Christ's Existence", just to tick everyone off.

[Railroader]

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak 

Do you know *why* the world thought the Earth was flat?

(hint: it had nothing to do with science)

Actually, it did. Scientists said so at the time.

[ThinkInsane]

I think it's about time this thread goes to its new home, where it can be happy and frolic in the fields and whatnot.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by Railroader 

Actually, it did. Scientists said so at the time.

Because they would be murdered by the local bishops if they said otherwise.

[Warren Pease]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

I don't believe in evolution the way that evolutionists describe it - a bunch of meaningless random chance events that somehow managed to create sentient life without any sort of supernatural intervention. That seems ridiculous to me.

This is the third time you've written meaningless (yes, i see it's part of a mantra you repeat) but really, you should be saying meaningful, at the risk of misrepresenting evolution.

[Dakar V]

I'm guessing meaningless refers more to the feeling left for some if you admit we were random chance, rather than some divine plan.

[olePigeon]

I find it hard to believe that Carrot Top is apart of a divine plan.

[Railroader]

Originally Posted by olePigeon 

Because they would be murdered by the local bishops if they said otherwise.

You are a bit confused. The Catholic Church believed in geocentric (and later the heliocentric) model of the universe. And for a long time persecuted anyone who thought otherwise.

However, early Christians knew the Earth was round - Flat Earth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by Railroader 

You are a bit confused. The Catholic Church believed in geocentric (and later the heliocentric) model of the universe. And for a long time persecuted anyone who thought otherwise.

Right, except they were about a thousand years behind everyone else when they were still murdering people.