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  #91 (permalink)  
Old 12-17-2004, 09:15 AM
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Default not true

"1) Darwin predicted that many fossils would be found that would show transitional life-forms. These have not been found. In fact, there is a complete and systematic lack of transitional life-forms (i.e., "missing links") between the various kinds of life in the fossil record. "


a simple biology class would tell you that genetics cab provide for a rapid "evolution."

People have had a hand in "evolving" hundreds of kinds of dogs by mating to produce differences. All of the skeletal remains of the various dogs would seem to mean that they are vastly different but we know they are not.

Who knows how man "evolved" - it could have happened that two species of cave people got together to create a new one. We see this everyday.

Religious fanatics would cringe at the idea that Adam and Eve were cavemen (unless,of course, they had blues eyes and blonde hair even though it is 100% likely they came from Africa.)
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  #92 (permalink)  
Old 12-17-2004, 09:59 AM
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Some have suggested that God left us with choices or free will. God can let a child die from cancer or disease because he is "out of the picture."

This is hypocritical with the teachings that He is always with us and guiding us - besides would a just and good God let an innocent child suffer?
It is not hypocritical and in fact that is not how most Christians feel (that he is "out of the picture"). I'm not sure where you learn about Christian teachings, but wherever it is your source is deeply flawed. This world is fallen and there is disease, evil people, etc etc. I won't get into the details because chances are you won't understand it based on your post.

Quote:
This is a major problem for the clergy and if you've ever been to a funeral for a child you hear silly things like, "God needed more angels" or "God took his only son so he knows how you feel." - crazy stuff that flies in the face of teachings.
I've been to several funerals unfortunately and have never heard "God needed more angels" or anything equivalent. Not ever, not once. And "God took his only soon so he knows how you feel" does not fly in the face of teachings. This alone is basis for how clueless you are on this subject.
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  #93 (permalink)  
Old 12-17-2004, 10:21 AM
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Default Crucial

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Originally Posted by crucial-fiction";p=&quot View Post
I love these creationist/evolutionist debates.

Main reason I put my stock in evolution is because it is conclusions based on known and observed facts.

whereas creation is a conclusion which looks for facts to support it.
crucial fiction hits it out of the park.
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Old 12-17-2004, 10:25 AM
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Default He does?

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Originally Posted by FrankCapua";p=&quot View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by crucial-fiction";p=&quot View Post
I love these creationist/evolutionist debates.

Main reason I put my stock in evolution is because it is conclusions based on known and observed facts.

whereas creation is a conclusion which looks for facts to support it.
crucial fiction hits it out of the park.
Brainwashing...one doesn't have to believe in creationism or be a christian fundamentalist to question evolution...there are huge holes in that theory, and whenever you mention them all you can get in return is a critique of christianity by a non-christian...sad
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Old 12-17-2004, 06:30 PM
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Default Interesting points

Quote:
Originally Posted by Deathby";p=&quot View Post
This is all so WRONG!
1) Total lack of transitional forms
No there are heaps of transitional forms. There are also a lot of missing links, which you seem to be referring to. We haven't found a ape-man yet, but we've found austrolopithusus (sp?)...
For 15 years, Solly Lord Zuckerman, a distinguished British anatomist led a team that examined Australopithecine fossils, monkeys, apes and man. His conclusion was that Australopithecines were not ancestral to man, nor habitually walked upright. Yet this creature plays a key role in evolutionary explanation of origins.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Deathby";p=&quot View Post
...and homo erectus so we're half-way there.
There is no clear boundary between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens. Below the neck, Homo erectus and Homo sapiens are virtually identical.
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Archaopteryx is a half-dinosaur half bird. I know someone will say that other half-birds have been found in China and proven to be false, but archaeopteryx has been scrutinised by hundreds of devout scientists trying to prove its falsity.
Archaeopteryx is NOT half-dinosaur, half bird. Here is an interesting article on the University of Berkeley website...
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/avians.html
Also many scientists are starting to question Archaeopteryx...
Quote:
Despite the popularity of the dinosaurian origin of birds, many ornithologists and physiologists, in particular, have had tremendous difficulty with the theory because of a huge and growing body of contrary evidence and the fact that a ground-up origin of avian flight is considered a near biophysical impossibility. -- Alan Feduccia, The Origin and Evolution of Birds
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Originally Posted by Deathby";p=&quot View Post
There is also a reason for this lack of transitional forms you massively blow out of proportion. There have been 6 billion years since life first formed. Things get destroyed over time.
And yet we've found so many ancient fossils intact, but no transitional ones. Odd coincidence, don't you think?
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Originally Posted by Deathby";p=&quot View Post
There are still existing transitional forms, such as a cross between a worm (annelids) and an insect.
Which species are you referring to?

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Originally Posted by Deathby";p=&quot View Post
And in additional to fossilised transitional lifeforms there is a giant tree diagram of species, genera, families, orders etc that show approximately what evolved from what. Explain that away.
Tree diagrams? Hardly solid evidence. Tree diagrams only represent a best guess of how species are related to other species. In fact, scientists are constantly changing them and re-classifying species as they gather new data. You would be hard pressed to find two biologists who completely agree on a given diagram. Remember, that's one reason why Evolution is still just a theory.

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Originally Posted by Deathby";p=&quot View Post
2) Sudden explosion of life
There is a theory about the Cambrian Explosion. During that period life had recently learned to have sex rather than breed by self-replication. That means that genes could be swapped around allowing major changes. Before sexual reproduction, self-replication meant that the same genes were duplicated over and over pretty much unless a mistake was made (which would have been rare).
Since life was henceforth mostly single-cellular, in a few million years a lot of new niches were exploited that couldn't before and a lot were newly created. It took a while for life to recreate the balance it had before sexual reproduction.
This is an argument of molecular evolutionists. However, it is improbable for a new gene to evolve by this manner. Molecular biologists have calculated that the mutation rate is between one per million and one per billion per nucleotide per generation. Even molecular evolutionists admit that partially new genes en route to evolving fully functional new genes (called incipient genes) have no selection value in evolution and are not preserved , so only fully formed genes could be selected.

Personally I like what Darwin had to say about the Cambrian Explosion...
Quote:
The abrupt manner in which whole groups of species suddenly appear in certain formations, has been urged by several palaeontologists—for instance, by Agassiz, Pictet, and Sedgwick—as a fatal objection to the belief in the transmutation of species. If numerous species, belonging to the same genera or families, have really started into life at once, the fact would be fatal to the theory of evolution through natural selection.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Deathby";p=&quot View Post
3)Mathematical probability against evolution
I've never heard of this, but I'll try and refute it anyway. We've also calculate the chances of any life whatsoever forming at all. Very low. And your flair for dramatic exaggeration is showing again. I'm fairly certain what you mean is that science has shown that the exact way life has turned out is very low, because there are so many other ways it could have turned out. I know one of the major arguments once was that only God could have created the human eye because it was so complex. I believe someone created a mathematical computer program that showed that something similar to a human could develop from the simple eyespots that exist in amoeba, using tiny little steps, each of which would have made evolutionary sense.
Someone once "proved" that if you had a team of monkeys working around the clock banging randomly on typewriters, that after billions of years, one of them would eventually type The Complete Works of Williams Shakespeare with no spelling or punctuation errors. This nonsense has since been discredited. This is the kind of mathematical probability we're talking about.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Deathby";p=&quot View Post
4) Evolutionary mechanism in cells cannot be explained and we cannot explain how life can be created from non-life.
What do you mean by evolutionary mechanism? Genetics is very well understood.
I mean by what mechanism does a new trait orginally appear in a chromosome. How is this trait "chosen" (for lack of a better word)?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Deathby";p=&quot View Post
Bottom-feeders such as the Mexican handfish maybe? that lived closer to the shore would eventually want to eat the food available closer and closer to the shore (at least some of them) then they'd need stronger legs to reach their food more easily. And then some of them might go for the food already on the land. And use their elgs to get that food. There. How a tuna became a frog.
Great theory. But until you find the transitional fossil that proves this, that is all it remains - a theory. And in my humble opinion, if such a fossil was going to be found, it probably would have been found already. The oldest known frogs, salamanders and cæcilians are very similar to their living descendants.
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  #96 (permalink)  
Old 12-17-2004, 09:38 PM
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Default "This world is fallen and there is disease,"

nice try - doesn't work - major flaw wth the literal teachings when innocents are involved.

try again.



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Old 12-17-2004, 10:13 PM
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Default No transitional forms? That's bullocks

I have said we haven't found the human-ape link yet. Australopithecines are not that link, they are a slight branch-off from the missing link to us.

You still insist upon the fact we have found no transitional forms. How precisely do you define a transitional form? Archaeopteryx has feathers and looks like deinonychus, as your link says. I'm afraid I don't know the name of the half-worm half-insect, but I'll try and find out. But I'll list a few more transitional forms- ferns are half-way between algae and vascular plants.

And one of the good things about science is we accept when we are wrong. That is why people are questioning parts of evolution. I don't think anyone has found the slightest bit of evidence that the concept of evolution itself is flawed. And kaladrew, you're right, the most common form of evolution right now is "punctuated equilibrium" I seem to have forgotten to mention it. It basically says that evolution occurs very slowly, but sometimes acts in giant spurts when there is some kind of catalyst, such as an extinction level event.

The proof that monkeys could type out Shakespeare was much more akin to your argument than mine. He used mathematical probability, as did you. The program found steps that would improve the eyespot over time and become a human eye. Each of those steps could be shown to be advantageous from an evolutionary point of view.

Your molecular argument stumbles me however, I know relatively little about the specifics of biochemistry, only general facts. I don't doubt that you're right, we are missing a lot of knowledge about the world around us.


And one new point. You say we've found a lot of fossils, but no transitional forms. Now we all know that we've found fossils of animals that don't exist today and we haven't found fossils of some animals that exist today. So where do these animals which exist today come from? They either evolved or were created right? But if they were created how did they appear? Did an ancient human just walk along and have a herd of cows just pop into existance in front of him?
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  #98 (permalink)  
Old 12-18-2004, 07:50 AM
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Default Yes, I pretty much summed it up...

Quote:
Originally Posted by pinniped";p=&quot View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by FrankCapua";p=&quot View Post
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Originally Posted by crucial-fiction";p=&quot View Post
I love these creationist/evolutionist debates.

Main reason I put my stock in evolution is because it is conclusions based on known and observed facts.

whereas creation is a conclusion which looks for facts to support it.
crucial fiction hits it out of the park.
Brainwashing...one doesn't have to believe in creationism or be a christian fundamentalist to question evolution...there are huge holes in that theory, and whenever you mention them all you can get in return is a critique of christianity by a non-christian...sad
Creationism, 'scientific' creationism, 'intelligent design theorists' all that nonsense is propaganda put forth by hardline Christian groups that want to inject thier religion into our childrens science classes.

All that that I previously stated IS NOT science nor will it EVER be science. It's all due to the fact that for these hard line christians (notice I'm using the hard liner/extreme christian example here. Not most everyday moderates.) they already have all of thier conclusions on how EVERYTHING was, is and should be. Yup that's right the bible. Then they go out and say that they're right because they have a 'fact' that supports what the bible says. That is not science.

I don't care who has questions about evolutions. Hell I have questions that can't be directly answered so that's all well and good.

But what I won't do is sit idly by while some religous extremist tries to inject his set of stories, and myths into the public education system as science.

This argument has stood COUTNLESS tests by the Supreme Court of the United States no matter what these wackos want to call it, creationism, scientific creationism, intelligent design theory...they're all just christian myths trying to be pushed on public school children as science and it's wrong.

ok bye
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Old 12-18-2004, 08:57 AM
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Default .

Many people of many different religions or no religion question the theory of evolution. A Christian does not have to disprove evolution in order to be a Christian. The two are not mutually exclusive. Many people think that evolution makes no sense without the guidance of a higher power. You seem to think that anyone who does not believe in evolution is a Christian. However, evolutionists often do feel the need to disprove creationism. Is it possible to disprove either theory?

Most of the arguments as to what to include in science classes are put forth in order to teach all the theories of the origins of mankind as theories and not facts. A Christian, Muslim, Jew would hardly enjoy their children being taught that there is no God. Even religious extremists don't try to have the Bible taught as fact in public schools. But, there are plenty of Christian haters who will try to teach that it is fiction.
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Old 12-18-2004, 02:27 PM
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Default you're proving my point

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Originally Posted by crucial-fiction";p=&quot View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by pinniped";p=&quot View Post
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Originally Posted by FrankCapua";p=&quot View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by crucial-fiction";p=&quot View Post
I love these creationist/evolutionist debates.

Main reason I put my stock in evolution is because it is conclusions based on known and observed facts.

whereas creation is a conclusion which looks for facts to support it.
crucial fiction hits it out of the park.
Brainwashing...one doesn't have to believe in creationism or be a christian fundamentalist to question evolution...there are huge holes in that theory, and whenever you mention them all you can get in return is a critique of christianity by a non-christian...sad
Creationism, 'scientific' creationism, 'intelligent design theorists' all that nonsense is propaganda put forth by hardline Christian groups that want to inject thier religion into our childrens science classes.

All that that I previously stated IS NOT science nor will it EVER be science. It's all due to the fact that for these hard line christians (notice I'm using the hard liner/extreme christian example here. Not most everyday moderates.) they already have all of thier conclusions on how EVERYTHING was, is and should be. Yup that's right the bible. Then they go out and say that they're right because they have a 'fact' that supports what the bible says. That is not science.

I don't care who has questions about evolutions. Hell I have questions that can't be directly answered so that's all well and good.

But what I won't do is sit idly by while some religous extremist tries to inject his set of stories, and myths into the public education system as science.

This argument has stood COUTNLESS tests by the Supreme Court of the United States no matter what these wackos want to call it, creationism, scientific creationism, intelligent design theory...they're all just christian myths trying to be pushed on public school children as science and it's wrong.

ok bye
Way to go, instead of DEFENDING evolution, which is what this thread is about (see title), you attack christianity.

Try if you can to seperate the two issues. The fact that you aren't a christian and don't like christians for whatever reason or don't believe in their theories, that isn't the issue. That is often the way this silly debate is played out, but try to focus on the real issue of whether evolution has any merit.

I'm waitin'
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