evolution, where is the evidence???!!! I see none

Originally posted by Slicky1313
The Astral City... its nice uve been using yer brain here, about the stars and stuff. yes, when I first thought of the stars, I was just like, yeah, it only makes sense that a star 20M light years away is at least 20M years old. but, low and behold, If God we to have made the stars in place with the light already on the earth, then thats still not a valid assumtion for claiming the earth is millions of years old. so, when God made sun and earth, God put the light beam of sun already on earth, instead of sitting around waiting 8 minutes for it to hit earth.
And see how everyone always assumes religions without evolution, when infact God doesnt have to be associated with religions, just God.

So that means that you worship a god who's a liar.

There's more than just star light; there's rock formation and thousands of other little details. Yes, I hear the "created with the appearance of age" argument but it boils down to either you can trust that the universe was born with a set of rules and obeyed them throughout time OR that the universe has changeable rules made up by some sort of cosmic deity or deities and that you might possibly one day find that pink unicorns had showed up and were stampeding through Central Park.

Originally posted by mattison0922

Originally posted by instar

the eyes of the cave fish are actually a loss of function and IMO, don't represent evolution. Evolution's difficulties are not overcome by describing a loss of function.

"imo" being the operative keywords my freind, many would disagree !

IMO, may be operative, but that's the scientist in me. While 'many' may disagree with my views, 'many' don't have Ph.D.'s in Molecular Biology, and 'many' haven't made 'origins' research their personal hobby for nearly a decade. I am completely comfortable standing in opposition to the 'many,' as I would say I am better informed about this particular topic than 99.99% of the world.

So you're saying you have a PhD in Molecular Biology? Really?

What was your diss on? And why do you think Molec would give you a better handle on evolution than, say, paleontology?

So you're saying you have a PhD in Molecular Biology? Really?

What was your diss on? And why do you think Molec would give you a better handle on evolution than, say, paleontology?

Yep, believe it or not, Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Bio. My dissertation was concerned with the biophysical properties, the thermodynamic properties, and the enzyme mechanism of the biological rotary motor enzyme F1FO ATP Synthase.

My molecular background certainly gives me a different perspective on evolution than does paleontology. I feel I have a better grasp of the actual mechanisms by which genetic change can occur and have a pretty detailed understanding of proposed mechanisms of genetic change and diversification. In addition to this, as I said, 'origins' research has been my most significant intellectual hobby for sometime now. My early years in biology were spent as a member of 'the Church of Dawkins.' Certain aspects of evolutionary theory are undeniable, ie: altering of allele frequencies in a population due to selective pressure. Certainly adaptation and loss of function are well documented, however, IMO, the basis of evolutionary and NeoDarwinian theories are inadequate to describe the origin of complex biological systems like photosynthesis, electron transport, intercellular signalling, etc.

I just wanted to say that reading the comments here has made me become a new member. So thank you for that.

What I can't understand is the constant fighting about whether or not evolution or Creationism is correct. I am a Catholic, have been all my life, and until I was a ittle older, I never even knew that people had such a hard time accepting evolution with God as the maker.

Evolution is like the blueprints for God's design. God works in mysterious ways, and I believe we are now beginning to unravel some of those mysteries. You have to remeber that the books of the Bible were written in a time of ignorance. No one would have understood or believed if Genesis was written with man and chimp evolving from a common ancestor, that Earth has been around for billions of years...... Genesis was written in a way for the people of those times to understand. Isn't it funny how Genesis depicts the seven days of creation in juxtaposition to the modern ideas of how evoltion came about? Why is it so hard to believe in both?

I believe that Darwin's only mistake is that he did not give God the credit. But then again, in science, one does not mention an unprovable phenomena.

I have looked into Carbon 14 dating, and this is what the science books say is used to date dino's back millions of years

wrong, you should of payed attention to simple junior science class. You obviously know the limited half life for dating based on Carbon-14 isotopes, which is true. Scientists dont use carbon-14 dating when going back further, they used other dating methods such as the Rubidium-Strontium method among others.

Observe :

n the rubidium-strontium method, rubidium-87 decays with a half-life of 48.8 billion years to strontium-87. Strontium has several other isotopes that are stable and do not decay. The ratio of strontium-87 to one of the other stable isotopes, say strontium-86, increases over time as more rubidium-87 turns to strontium-87. But when the rock first cools, all parts of the rock have the same strontium-87/strontium-86 ratio because the isotopes were mixed in the magma. At the same time, some of the minerals in the rock have a higher rubidium/strontium ratio than others. Rubidium has a larger atomic diameter than strontium, so rubidium does not fit into the crystal structure of some minerals as well as others.

So with a half-life of 48.8 BILLION years, the radiometric clock of rubidium-strontium is more than enough to cover a few hundred million years. Actually scientists are positive rubidium-strontium and other similar dating methods suited for different rocks are at least 95% accurate in around 3.5 billion years. Also scientists can use stratigraphy and relative dating methods to appropriate the approximate age of the source rock.

they say we came from monkeys, but that is scientifically impossible

How is it scientifically impossible??? evidence please? the evidence actually shows that it is possible, genetic mutation is possible and our near identical DNA shows that we are related to monkeys.

And if we evolved from an ape like type animal, why isnt it still evolving now?

well we are actually, just not as fast as you would like it I guess. Really big changes can take millions of years. If you want something that supports that we are evolving and changing I suppose you could look at how our avg height and body size is larger than that compared to the romans has changed over the past few thousand years.

nd just for a simple celled organsim its self to pop up from the "soup" that was eternal in the universe, the figures are so astronomically high

well this has been proven for decades to chemically be possible. If you can recall your simple science classes again, you will remember the urey-miller experiment.

Here's a link : Urey-Miller Experiment

evolution is not a science, but a theory

wrong again. You just don't seem to remember those science classes do you??? do you know the difference between a hypothesis and a theory in the world of science??

A hypothesis is an attempt to explain something by observing it and that can be proven with further study and evidence.

A scientific theory on the other hand, has overwhelming REAL WORLD evidence, data and arguments to back it up, so much so that it is very hard to disprove it. If the evidence still continues to mount for the theory, it will become the universally accepted theory in the world of science until someone can absolutely disbunk and disprove it.

Its been over a century since Darwin proposed his theory. The reason its still around because no-one has been able to absolutely prove that the theory is wrong and come up with a better one.

A scientific theory has a lot more facts and evidence than the bible or religion will ever have.

If we evolved from our ape ancestors, ther should be literally thousands of fossils since the chances of anything evolving from an ape to human is so slim, millions and billions (and even more) of half ape/man fossils should be here

once again you just dont pay attention in science class do you? The conditions for fossilisation must be so perfect and right, or there will be no fossils at all. The chances for most biomass and bones to fossilise is insignificant and minute. That's why there is not skulls everywhere.

evolution just doesnt add up, its a lot of faith to belive in that bologna

Evolution is the best we got and the facts and data we have overwhelmingly supports it. Theories aren't based on faith, they are based on evidence and facts. It doesnt take a lot of faith, it takes a lot of evidence and fact for the theory of evolution to be around.

What takes a lot of faith is religion.

thanks,
drfunk


[edit on 6-5-2005 by drfunk]

[edit on 6-5-2005 by drfunk]

lol just noticed how old this thread was. anyway, this guy was really uninformed.

He didnt even know that the big bang theory is one that was first come up with by a catholic priest

I just wanted to explain why there are so few fossils that indicate man and chimp evolved from a common ancestor.

First of all, in order for the formation and the preservation of a fossil to occur, an organism must be buried under conditions that slow or even prevent the natural process of decay, which is more of a random occurence. I mean, have you ever produced a fossil? I haven't. All of the animals I have seen dead are decaying.

Now, for a species to evolve or change dramatically, that group of organisms must be small enough where a genetic change has a good chance of becoming predominant in the population. Things are mutating all the time, however, if that individual lives in say New York City, that mutation will not overtake and change the whole city even if that person is somehow better adapted in some way.

Mutations need to occur in SMALL populations in order for them to successfully change the gene pool of a population.

A classic example of this is the small island they found a few decades back in the middle of some lake(sorry can't remeber the name). Well, this island was isolated from civilization basically, and when scientists found this place, they saw that almost every family if not every family had a member with Huntington's Disease. Huntington's disease is a rare genetic disease that shows up in about 1 in 20,000 live births.

Since this group of people were isolated, they interbred with one another. They just didn't have a large variety of partners to choose from. So, Huntington's disease was passed on to the offspring which they passed to their offspring. SMALL POPULATION=THE CHANCE FOR CHANGE

Back to the subject of fossils. So, mutations that changed species would have had to occur in small polulations of our ancestors in order for them to have a lasting effect. But, small numbers really reduces the chances that an organism will happen to be in the right coditions to fossilize. There's a statistics question for ya.

To say that since we don't have evidence thru fossil records that evolution is correct makes evolution incorrect is not right(thought I was going to write "correct" there didn't you? hehe) Hope that clears that up.

By the way, I am an avid believer of evolution and am also a strict Catholic. So I don't want you to think I am an athiest pushing for evolution. I am a Catholic pushing for the poissiblity of both evolution and God.

The bible has as much fact as it does pizza.

ANyways, since the ignorants have been out lately making post after post about how science/facts/real world are wrong and the imaginary fairy land is right, here is a great site.

www.xenophilia.com...

Anyways, what I don't get is they say invisable people smack you for eating meat on a friday, I say invisable people eat your socks, why you lose them when you do laundry, yet I am wrong and they are right. I have proof, do a load of laundry, and say after the 10th load you will have at least one sock missing/with holes in it.(didn't like the taste so threw it back) I have an actual experiment almost anyone can do to prove my invisable Pebble People, yet no one takes them seriously.

The bible has as much fact as it does pizza.

Then go ahead and disprove one thing in the Bible. I dare anyone.
Stating opinion does not disprove anything.

Ok, earth flat, wrong, earth center of the universe, wrong, earth 6,000 years old, wrong, all mighty powerful invisable people that live in the clouds, wrong. Need anymore?

Ok, earth flat, wrong, earth center of the universe, wrong, earth 6,000 years old, wrong, all mighty powerful invisable people that live in the clouds, wrong. Need anymore?

How exactly do you know the Earth is not 6000 years old? Science has not proven anything beyond the shadow of a doubt.

Originally posted by deesw

Ok, earth flat, wrong, earth center of the universe, wrong, earth 6,000 years old, wrong, all mighty powerful invisable people that live in the clouds, wrong. Need anymore?

How exactly do you know the Earth is not 6000 years old? Science has not proven anything beyond the shadow of a doubt.

Ok, The bible does nat say the earth is flat and all that other stuff.....It may have mentioned it as a metaphor or something...nothing more

But come on man......there is no doubting that the world is far more than 6000 years old. To believe otherwise is crazyiness

I mean just look at ancient civilizations they're old andwhat about "PANGEA". The land masses were clearly once all one big piece...hell just look at damn globe....common sense would dictate!!!

It takes more than 6000 years for land to move as far as it has.......And that's coming from a christian

[edit on 8/5/2005 by SportyMB]

But come on man......there is no doubting that the world is far more than 6000 years old. To believe otherwise is crazyiness

Where is common sense in anything you have said?
I don't understand how anyone can find any truth in evolution. It is a flawed THEORY. I was not created by accident. My life does actually have purpose. To insinuate that we were all created by accident takes away something from our humanity. We have no further goal beyond this body.
It seems to me that it takes far more faith to believe in a flawed THEORY than to believe in the truths in the BIBLE on creationism.

Evolution basically states that something is until something better takes it's place. That electrical current and water vapor just accidently created microorganisms, they accidently grew fins and learned locomotion, then they accidently grew legs and walked out of the water, then they decided to become intelligent. That's a whole lot of accidents.

The definition of religon is "Head shoved so far up bum they will never see the light of day again."

The Definition of Common Sense is "Gee, that doesn't make sense, BS!"

SO Common Sense and Religon are like oil and water, a Jew and a Palestinian, a christian and a gay/jew/mauslim/woman/black/hispanic/asian/buddist/hindu/wiccan/athiest/smart person/anything else that uses it's brain.

Earth is flat according to the bible. Satan showed Jesus the entire planet from one point, not possible on a round earth, only possible on a flat earth.

You have no proof of anything. hell, bible so wrong that it says there were hebrew slaves in Egypt when there were none. Wait, science/reality/history say there was no Hebrew Slave in Egypt, so must be wrong.

I love using this list, whoever made it was great. I mean, do you know how many christians have had their head explode from all the blood rushing to it as they start screaming "SATAN! KILL! SATAN! Blablalablablalalalablalabla" BOOM! Mainly number 3 applies to deesw and any other christian.

Top Ten Signs You're a Fundamentalist Christian
10 - You vigorously deny the existence of thousands of gods claimed by other religions, but feel outraged when someone denies the existence of yours.

9 - You feel insulted and "dehumanized" when scientists say that people evolved from other life forms, but you have no problem with the Biblical claim that we were created from dirt.

8 - You laugh at polytheists, but you have no problem believing in a Triune God.

7 - Your face turns purple when you hear of the "atrocities" attributed to Allah, but you don't even flinch when hearing about how God/Jehovah slaughtered all the babies of Egypt in "Exodus" and ordered the elimination of entire ethnic groups in "Joshua" including women, children, and trees!

6 - You laugh at Hindu beliefs that deify humans, and Greek claims about gods sleeping with women, but you have no problem believing that the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, who then gave birth to a man-god who got killed, came back to life and then ascended into the sky.

5 - You are willing to spend your life looking for little loopholes in the scientifically established age of Earth (few billion years), but you find nothing wrong with believing dates recorded by Bronze Age tribesmen sitting in their tents and guessing that Earth is a few generations old.

4 - You believe that the entire population of this planet with the exception of those who share your beliefs -- though excluding those in all rival sects - will spend Eternity in an infinite Hell of Suffering. And yet consider your religion the most "tolerant" and "loving."

3 - While modern science, history, geology, biology, and physics have failed to convince you otherwise, some idiot rolling around on the floor speaking in "tongues" may be all the evidence you need to "prove" Christianity.

2 - You define 0.01% as a "high success rate" when it comes to answered prayers. You consider that to be evidence that prayer works. And you think that the remaining 99.99% FAILURE was simply the will of God.

1 - You actually know a lot less than many atheists and agnostics do about the Bible, Christianity, and church history - but still call yourself a Christian.

*Added link for quote*

[edit on 12-5-2005 by dbates]

[align=center]1 - You actually know a lot less than many atheists and agnostics do about the Bible, Christianity, and church history - but still call yourself a Christian.

I'll stand up to the most educated atheist and quote my BIBLE. You take what you want out of the BIBLE. You twist it and pervert it to make anything out of it that you want.
Satan did not show Jesus the entire Earth as a flat plane. Be real for a second. There are some things in the BIBLE that are metaphoric. Do you really think a physical beast will stand up out of the ocean? I promise you, any scientist will have a harder time disproving the BIBLE than I could debunking evolution. Nothing about evolution has ever been proven. Things in the BIBLE are proven every year. They have unearthed a temple with the words Pontius Pilate, they have discovered Noah's Ark. Battles have been fought for centuries over Christianity. Fought for a reason.
Jesus is who he says he is, and it stings to people like you.
No war has ever been fought over evolution or science. Why? Because they do not matter. The condition of your soul when he returns is what matters.

Just ask all the people killed by the church. "Gee, earth is round." Dead. "Gee, earth isn't the center." Dead. Just ask the millions dead. They would wipe out entire cities to make sure no one who knew the truth lived.

TO JAMES THE LESSER AND DEESW:

Now, why are you two arguing about this? You both claim that what you say is right, and what the other says is wrong, flat out wrong. Well, how can you prove it with certainty either way?

Before I get started, I do want to say that I am a Catholic and believe in evolution. Oh my, now isn't that strange........ Yes, and I see the sides of both arguments, and it is so funny that most people just don't seem to consider that both theories (or call them beliefs) may be correct. *gasp*, did I go too far there?

To this theory that the world is only 6000 years old, well I just cannot understand that. The way this 6000 number came up is by counting the seven days of creation as just 7 days.
Well, why couldn't those "days" have been millions or even billions of years? Why are we making it seem that God's sense of time and man's sense of time are the same?

AND ISN'T IT FUNNY THAT IN GENESIS, THE SEVEN DAYS OF CREATION MATCH UP SO DARN WELL TO THE MODERN IDEA OF HOW EVOLUTION OCCURED!?!? This was something written 1000s of years ago, way way before Darwin ever came out with his theories on natural selection , yet they match up. CAN"T ANYONE SEE THAT!!!!??????? argggg, phht phhtt phht.

To deesw, ever think that evolution, although many say was random, wasn't and was just God's plan? And how do we truly know God's plan anyways? To say we understand God and know how he created and why he created everything, well...........


I have heard soooo many theories on the dinosaurs. Some really crack me up. One was that man and the dinosaurs lived at the same time. Another that God put the dinosaurs here to keep us amused. now, why hasn't any fundamentalist Christain ever come up with the idea that mayber, the dinosaurs are here case the world is really really old and they lived a long time ago, before man.


I think that the main problem with admitting that evoltuion is correct is that it takes the lime light away from us humans. It is just so nice and uplifting to think that we are separate from every other organism. We are special. We are unique. God made us in his image.

Well, we are not separate. All of the same natural laws apply to us just as they do to all other organisms. But God did make us special now didn't he? He gave us a free will, the ability to THINK and discover.

I know that the thirst for knowledge really pits people against one another. But why? Tolerance of another's beliefs is a very admirable quality, don't you think.

(I do hate it when people flat out tell me my beliefs are wrong though cause HOW DO YOU KNOW? I have a friend who is a fundamentalist Christian and a friend who is an athiest, and I just can't seem to get what either of them are thinking. I can't sit here and tell anyone is wrong based on my own limited knowledge.)

To James the lesser, there have been quite a few wars out there that have not been fought for religion, but for greeed. Now which is worse, fighting for what you believe in, what you love, or fighting for the want of more more more?

And if God and Satan are indeed real, I don't see any problem with Satan showing Jesus the whole world. Why couldn't Satan have the power to give Jesus super high power vision to see the whole world in one glance? Doesn't mean the world is flat, just means that they have super powers we don't have.... heh heh heh

I do not see anything in the Bible that ever dictated that the world was flat, that we were the center of the universe. We said the world was flat to distinguish between heaven and hell, we put ourselves in the center of the universe.

And our lack of admitting that hey, maybe we were wrong persecuted people like Galileo, and hey, he was right. It is really wrong to hold onto something so tightly that you become blind to everything else aroound you.

As my final note (yes I am almost done) James, if you don't believe in God, then just take a look at something as simple as a leaf. The complexity and the beauty of something all around us. SOMETHING had to have helped that along. And if that doesn't do anything for ya, where the hell did we come from. Science will never be able to explain that one cause how can something come from nothing. Impossible, ridiculous, absurd. Yet, that is what happened. We have no point of origin. God is that power, that force, that will that allowed us to be. You don't have to think of God as the old man with the flowing white beard you know.

OOKAY, I NEED A FREAKIN DRINK. HAHA. YOU KNOW WHAT I AM DOING RIGHT NOW, I AM STUDYING EVOLUTIONARY THEORIES FOR CELLULAR AND MOLECULAR BIO. BA HAHAHAHA BA HAHAHAHAH

Originally posted by seraph5
YOU KNOW WHAT I AM DOING RIGHT NOW, I AM STUDYING EVOLUTIONARY THEORIES FOR CELLULAR AND MOLECULAR BIO.

It's a great science. The more you learn, the more your realize the complexity (as you said in your post). It was my field of study for a number of years and religion aside, there isn't nearly enough in any of those textbooks to establish evolution as a valid theory. That was my understanding. I think Mattison0922 has a very clear understanding and has some very, very facinating things to say about it. He's gotten my 'way above' vote a number of times.

Here's another in-depth thread titled: Creationist Confusion
www.abovetopsecret.com...



[edit on 12-5-2005 by saint4God]

There really is no right or wrong in this arguement. That is what I have come to conclude upon all the topics, all the debates, and all the books I have read. But there is one key factor separating the two theories: Logic. Creationists (Chirstians, Jews) claim of an earth made in 6 days on which the last day of the week God made man. This seems rather ubsurd. It took man many years of research just to stave off a virus (flu) that almost without a doubt proves the theory of evolution. That is unless we have anyone who can tell us how these viruses continually penetrate our man made defence systems? Maybe the work of the devil one would say?


Another key factor which has greatly hendered the evolutionist claim and science itself is the Christian Dark Ages in Europe. There are many well known scientist who made at the time what seemed like 'absurd' claims about earth and about man. Shortly thereafter Christianity has taken almost everypath imginable to mold these new scientific finds into their own doctorine.

What turned me away from being a life long Catholic was the fact that Moses spoke to a burning bush. Yeah, well...I'm sorry, but my parents always told me drugs were bad but Moses talking to a burning bush was sign form God. I thought, who is crazier.

I'll take the Catch-22 approach when it comes to dealing with hardcore Christian zealots about evolution vs creation.

Well, except he never existed. According to the real world there never were any Jewish/Hebrew slaves. Yep, according to history/science/facts/real world, no hebrew slaves. No evidence, written or archeology wise. Egypt was huge on the writting thing, and a few hundred thousand slaves leaving would have been written about. Yet nope, none. Also, a few hundred thousand slaves wandering the desert would have left evidence behind, but none is there. So, throw out Exodus completely.

If the bible is soooooo wrong on that, how the hell can it be right on anything else? Not to mention the world flood that never happened. Or the whole flat earth that the church killed people for, along with center.

Or Earth 6,000 years old. BS!!!!! Sorry, but not true. All christians have is chanting "KILL KILL KILL, RAPE RAPE RAPE, KILL KILL KILL, RAPE RAPE RAPE." while scientists have evidence. Hell, Oil, Fossils, real world, all prove it to be BS.

Or when christians use something wrong. Carbon Dating 14 is not used for dating something millions of years old by scientists, only something that is around 300-10,000 years old. But what do christians do? They CD-14 a snail or something and get some messed up answer and use this to prove that science/real world wrong.

Fine, I have a scale that says max weight 30 pounds, for weighing mail stuff like books. So, I am going to use christian illogic to prove the scale doesn't work. I am going to smash it with a sledgehammer, and when the scale doesn't tell me how many pounds of force I hit it with, I will prove all weighing scales are wrong. Makes Sense? No? Good, cause it doesn't.