Topic: 22 Messages From Creationists To People Who Believe In Evolution - page 5. (Read 18771 times)

Can you show any proof for an alternate theory?

There is plenty of proof, but you choose to ignore it.

Go by retroviruses for example.

Retroviruses reproduce by altering the DNA of a cell, adding their own code to the host cells code.

If an retrovirus alters a sperm cell, there is a change that part of it's code becomes part of a species general code. This happened so often in our evolution, that early 8% of our code are remains of retroviruses.

This remains, except some very few newer ones are also at the exact same location and from the same virus in the code of chimps, which proofs that humans and chimps have a common ancestor that must have been infected by this virus.

And this goes for all species, the closer related, the more of this retrovirus traces they share.

Earlier in a thread I linked to a study that observed E. coli evolving into salmonella. I would call that physical evidence.

Your cartoons, although cute, have still failed to show a shred of physical evidence.  And I dont buy the "relatively small population size, the rapid pace of change, and their isolated location" caused the "lack of preservation."

But to sum up your cartoons, you are saying:  over the course of 100 million years, a small amount of a species ran away from the others like them, then mutated into a better or even new species, and then re-incorporated and caused their old friends to go extinct?

And please, that little graph on the bottom about single celled organisms proves nothing.  Please tell me you can find something better than that.  I just don't buy the idea that over hundreds of millions of years, and that of 8 million or so species, none have left evidence that they all came from a common ancestor.

I don't dispute that there is plenty of so called "horizontal variation" within species, but there just is no physical evidence to back evolution as it is stated.  There is plenty of MONEY behind evolution, propagating its theories and assumption and guesses, but sorry there is no hard evidence.

It would seem that "good" and "evil" (in a sense of "positive" and "negative" or even "creative" and "destructive") must exist for there to be one important third component - a choice. For there to be a choice those two opposites need to be equal in size, but then the paradox is, that having a choice tilts the table towards "positive" because having a choice is a "good" thing.

Thus choice is as far as creation can go in terms of growing its destructive part. Once the two parts are equal, the choice is born and the whole thing becomes again slightly more positive. It would oscillate around this boundary indefinitely.

To the question of where diseases come from, it becomes apparent, that they are simply a reflection of the choices between "creative" and "destructive" made along the way.

The paradox is essential to understanding our existence, because that's the thing that sets everything in motion. As paradox cannot settle either way, it must oscillate indefinitely and that makes it a perpetual push-pull engine of creation. That is why the nature of existence is vibratory, every little particle out there is always in motion. The whole Universe oscillates around the fringe of the paradox and what you see around you is a shape of that fringe.

Ever wonder that what is good to me isn't necessarily good to you and vice-versa? Two Godly persons can be one thanking God and the other blaming the Devil over the very same event.
Perfection never existed, good doesn't exist without evil.

Every "good and perfect gift" comes from God and the world was good before sin entered it.  I see the world with that perspective.

Why is your go to explanation for everything you like god did it and everything you hate satan did it?  Don't you see that's just silly?

Science is based on facts, not what you wish to be true.  Science doesn't discard facts because they make the world "Seem a bit hopeless".  Can you imagine where we'd be if they did? 

1)  To me, the major problem with the peer review system it that it prevents grant funding for anything that isn't backed by academia, e.g. the hobbyist genius who fucks with explosives in his methlab and sent his cat on a round trip to outer space.  Consequently, this leads to 'business' science in which the vast majority of grant money is funneled to corporations and product research.  Basically, keeping the peer-review system as the staple for scientific progress is a good way to ensure that progress happens slowly.

2)  Not even "life as we know it." All it's about is adaptation and the mechanisms that cause it.  One of the reasons for this is that a theory on the evolution of specific species requires a good definition of species.  The problem is that there's currently no known (at least, I've never seen it) definition of species that includes every single living thing, without exception.  My personal opinion is that the best definition of species is "the offspring of the same species."  For example, I am human because I have two human parents.  Science has yet to figure out a way to model a theory of species on top of evolution.

3)  No, you always have theories in science.  The only proof in science is 'proof within a margin of error'.  A sound math proof or a logical tautology contains no margin of error.

4)  Science makes assumptions it can't even study via its own methods.  And, interestingly, every scientific theory ever produced contains assumptions; this is self-evident because of the statistical margin of error I mentioned in point #3.

5)  Science itself is simply a theory about knowledge acquisition.  Any discipline is such a theory, but they range in scope.  Philosophy is the most broad and it provides the tools necessary to analyze both abstract and empirical information.  Mathematics and physics represent the abstract and empirical descendants of philosophy.  Math then branches off into other abstract disciplines (e.g. geometry, calculus, trigonometry, etc.), and physics branches into other empirical disciplines (e.g. biology, chemistry, anthropology, etc.).  

Becomes accepted -> by the peer review system and here is important to put a note that it may become accepted as viable theory, not yet as factual data.
The theory of evolution goes around the development of the species until what we know today, it's not about the "origin of life" itself but "life as we know it" if you prefer.
You can have strong evidences without empirical evidence, but you won't get out of the theory realm unless you can prove it empirically. And still, science isn't meant to assume something to be true beyond contest, even the most proved thing can be being analyzed by the wrong prism and therefore providing false results. "Truth beyond contest" that's what the religious Dogma is for.

Referring to bolded sections:

1) Stone cold for empirical study; useless for abstract study.

2) Peer-review is great...

3) ...ad-populum is not.  The peer-review system is the scientific community's greatest asset, and largest weakness.

4) The theory of evolution has basically nothing to do with the origin of life on Earth.

5) You can have proof without empirical evidence -- that's what philosophy and math are all about.  Don't fall victim to false dichotomies.

OMFG  
plz RKO...

The worrying part of those questions is to see that Creationists still lack any basic sense of what Science is.
Science isn't a belief system, up to deal with philosophical non-sense, such as "why are there sunsets" or to cast dogmatic "truths" based on deities.
Science is a stone cold system where one must assume to not know what isn't yet known, and of that you can formulate theories and have them challenged by the community until it becomes accepted as theory, a theory which isn't anywhere nearly assumed as "truth" as any Creationist does about that Adam and Eve thing.

Obviously Evolution has evidences, such as fossils, Creationism lacks any form of evidence at all but a rotten book that must be assumed as "true" because itself says it is "true".
Under the scientific view Creationism and Evolution are two theories about the origin of life where one of them is more accepted due to evidences provided and the other is just a plain load of magical bullshit.

Easy: "Punctuated Equilibrium"

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/VIIA1bPunctuated.shtml


Again, a quick Google search will turn up the current scientific theory as well as the ranting and ravings of butthurt creationists.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_water_on_Earth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_Early_Earth

Thank you for seeing that I am not all "crazy."  

Referring to comments about "non-material" aspects of a human, etc....

...Another word for "non-material" is "abstract," and a close relative of "abstract" is "mental."  An abstract or mental component *must* exist in order to facilitate communication -- information is absolutely unintelligible unless there is something to process that information in an intelligible way, such as a mind.

It's an unsound leap to state that the material world exists and could exist independent of all minds because there would be nothing intelligible about the leftover information so as to even allow it to be described as material or existent.  

BitChick has some valid points, and even a few downright compelling arguments that are too easily dismissed by this crowd.  While I don't agree with all ideas she has put forth, I'd encourage some of her critics to refuse the impulse to dismiss all of her ideas as invalid.  Seriously, blasting Creationists seems to have become the dumb scientist's favorite joke.  I think that many of you simply believe that one or several false statements renders all of her arguments invalid.  That's stupid.

I'm still awaiting your logical explanation of stasis in the fossil record:
Stasis: Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear; morphological change is usually limited and directionless.

As well as how you think abiogenesis came about only for that one exception to "start life"

It only came back to "preaching" because someone else brought up the question of God allowing sickness in the world and I shared my viewpoint.

"Religion" is sometimes "forced" by people in the world, unfortunately, but God never forces Himself on anyone.  If he "forced" himself we would not have the choice to accept or reject Him and you, obviously, have that choice.

Now we are back to preaching (which is where this always ends up).

The bullshit does not smell any better now than it did forty some odd years ago when the attempt was made to force feed to me at the age of eight.

Your god is a manifestation of your own imagination and this existence is both your heaven and your hell.  Holding out for something better on the "other side" is wasting the only life you are going to have with any degree of certainty.