Creation vs Evolution is pointless.

reply to post by Truent2

I said according to genesis, not the new testament.

reply to post by Truent2


If that story is true or not it hardly matters. Scientists do not blindly take the word of Darwin as people take the bible. Very different. In science everything claimed by Darwin has to be checked. More information is added. More information is checked. Experiments are done. Darwin lived in a day when DNA was unknown. Information from that new line of research has to be compared to other lines of evidence.

What I find weird about the story is that Darwin was not wondering if evolution existed. Evolution is a fact. Darwin had a theory to explain the fact of evolution. So your tale sounds like one of those lies I hear creationist lecturers tell people.

reply to post by Dragiero


There is a whole field of research called:
Experimental evolution

reply to post by Quest


Creationism was set up as a scientific proposition as an alternative scientific explanation to evolution - it is utter garbage and as such will always be met with profound objections.

On the other hand - science has no problem with Genesis in the bible which is what creationism is trying REPOSITION as a scientific proposition called creationism -

THATS THE ISSUE.

reply to post by Dragiero

How is the idea of something being created an uneducated opinion, and does the same go for evolution? If not then how can you test evolution?

Please review the link I have supplied several times in this thread now: 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution.

That page contains all the ammunition you need. There are several dozen examples of tests that can be carried out to test evolution and falsify it if it fails.

If you refuse to study the answers given to you, please stop asking the question. You are relatively new here, you wouldn't want to get a reputation as a troll would you?

reply to post by Dragiero

Logic and rationality!?!? Are you telling me that the unimaginable complexity of DNA can be altered from one species to another by the mere enviroment!?!

Nope. We are saying that the environment favors individuals that possess reproductive advantages over their siblings. That is natural selection.

A beetle that has a mutation that allows him to swim will survive to populate the swamp when the beaver dam floods it. Beetles that don't swim won't survive in the flooded swamp, though they may continue to thrive over the hill. You now have two varieties of beetles, closely related, but different.

And it only took one generation for the separation to happen. Little changes like that over many generations and eventually you have different beetle species. Continue that over several millennia and you can get huge differences.

That is all there is to it. It really isn't complicated at all.

Originally posted by rhinoceros

Originally posted by spy66
No that is just according to your own view. And your view is all wrong.

And its wrong because you dont care and you have put no effort into even trying to understand any of it.

How is my view wrong? It clearly states that in the beginning when God was about to start the magic stuff Earth already existed (as waste and void).

PS. I'll not argue this particular issue further as it's pointless. It's like arguing where Santa Claus lives (Korvatunturi btw is the place).

PPS. Quoting King James version is plain wrong as the text has mutated. If you want to quote bible you need to go for literal translations.

It's the same with New Testament stuff as this mighty interesting article about Jesus explains.

Here's a nice quote from it:

“Son of God,” and may merely be Aramaic for “folks like us.”

[edit on 24-5-2010 by rhinoceros]

That is why Genesis don't make sense to you. Because you don't understand what you read. You wont grasp this until you understand what you read. And that is why you don't want to argue this.

This is just ridiculous. I've never seen a group so intent on ignoring logic... in the name of logic.

All of you are focused on intentionally missing the forest for the trees. The the mathematical probabilities of pure evolution are somewhere on the lines of chances of filling a massive bowl the size of texas 3 feet deep with gold coins, randomly placing one red coin in that mix, blind folding you, than telling to you go pick one coin and one coin only.... and you find the red one.

Why on earth do you insist to believe the ridiculous improbability of that yet call anyone who thinks there was an intelligent force behind this as the stupid ones?

People like you will fall for anything as long as it is not God. I'm beginning to think you're force feeding yourselves into a certain belief because of the possible implications of admitting otherwise.

I'm still shaking with laughter at the proposition that people who believe in a creator are the "naive" ones while people who believe in the most improbable cosmic accident of existance are the "enlightened" ones.

This whole thing reminds me of the Emporor has no cloths. You've so convinced yourself that there is no God that you're oblivious to the evidence that is all around you.

Just one more quick question - why we humans have the monopoly on the ability to reason and deduce? Why can we actually transgress above the instinct of flight or fight ... BUT NO OTHER LIFE ON EARTH gets that capacity... just us?

More magic goo cocktails over the last couple hundred million years? Surely if it were survival of the fittest... SOMETHING else would have been able to figure out civilization... ?

I don't deal in myth, I deal in the probabilities and logic (real logic, not blinder logic) of the world. To believe in no creator (as stated before and ignored by most of you conveniently) is to have more blind faith in someone else's theory and shockingly fragile math.

Hell, if you'll take that as evidence, then why not take the temple remains in Jerusalem, or the world wide flood stories from ancient societies, or wood remains they think they found on the mountain in Turkey, or the Tigris and Euphrates rivers as "evidence".

You are asking for concrete evidence in a being that has said "you have to just trust and believe"

Guess when ants know humans exist? When we step on them. Other than that - they've got no perception of us... but that doesn't make us any less real. Use the part of your brain that's able to actually think outside the box.

reply to post by gncnew

The the mathematical probabilities of pure evolution are somewhere on the lines of chances of ...

This is the sort of nonsense tossed out by creationist lecturers when they lie to their audiences.

I've heard these outrageous lies myself because I have been to creationist lectures and heard what they say. And I love the way you used the qualifier "pure".

Tell you what. You brought up the analogy so why don't you show us the math. Tell us how you arrived at this value. You were able to make a long post of ridicule based on the odds so why don't you show us how you arrived at the odds. Please show us.

Originally posted by gncnew
I'm still shaking with laughter at the proposition that people who believe in a creator are the "naive" ones while people who believe in the most improbable cosmic accident of existance are the "enlightened" ones.

The most ultimate improbable thing ever is a conscious being that creates Universes among other things. How can you not see this?

[edit on 25-5-2010 by rhinoceros]

reply to post by stereologist



Here you go, I did this in one click.. pretty impressed with myself actually


Mathmatical Probabilities of Evolution Explained

Here's just a couple of gems from here:

Based upon mathematics, if you believe in “evolution,” you posses a much greater faith than I do as a Christian. In fact, your faith must near almost infinite proportions. Before going on, it might be better to first explore what exactly faith is. Faith: 1. The idea that something can be made true, merely by wishing it to be so. 2. The proposition that something is true, even if there is no evidence to support it. 3. The belief that something is true, in spite of evidence to the contrary. "Faith is something you believe that nobody in his right mind would believe." -- Archie Bunker

What are the odds that you can flip heads on a penny 12 million times in a row without tails coming up? The answer is .5 to the 12 millionth power. Which could also be stated as 10 to the 3 million 600’Th power (1 with 3,600,000 zeroes after it).

These are the same odds that E Coli developed 12,000,000 right-handed nucleotides by chance without one left handed nucleotide being added. The building blocks of DNA and proteins are molecules, which can exist, in both right and left-handed forms. This is called "chirality." The best result that experiments have shown has been a 3/7 chance. Meaning; from one nucleotide to the next there is a 3/7 chance that it will be the same hand as the previous nucleotide. ...

A little more:

Consider this. To win a state lottery you have about 1 chance in ten million (10 to the 7’th power). The odds of winning the state lottery every single week of your life from age 18 to age 99 is 1 chance in 4.6 x 10 to the 29, 120’th power. Therefore, the odds of winning the state lottery every week consecutively for eighty years is more likely than the spontaneous generation of just the proteins of an amoeba.

In his calculations, Hoyle assumed that the primordial soup consisted only of left-handed amino acids. Hoyle knew that if the soup consisted of equal portions of right and left-handed amino acids, then the mathematical probability of the origin of pure left-handed proteins would be exactly zero.

One more, cuz it's fun!

Harold Morowitz, a Yale University physicist, has made a more realistic estimate for spontaneous generation. Morowitz imagined a broth of living bacteria that were super-heated so that all the complex chemicals were broken down into their basic building blocks. After cooling the mixture, he concluded that the odds of a single bacterium re-assembling by chance are one in 10 to the 100 billionth power. This number is so large that it would require several thousand blank books just to write it out. To put this number into perspective, it is more likely that you and your entire extended family would win the state lottery every week for a million years than for a bacterium to form by chance.

Just some more quick links that were not as good as the first one:
Formula for improbability of Evolution
To debunk your debunk
Excerpts from the book "A Closer Look at the Evidence"

Are we good, or do you need more "facts" since basic reasoning isn't enough?

reply to post by gncnew


You seriously use earthage.com as a credible source?

Look at what kind of other gems they have on that site...most of their reasoning is 100% false, a lie, and/or not based on any facts.

Thus, we’re putting this discussion (you can still read articles on evolution) on the back burner until they … you know, actually have science behind them we can discuss. If anyone has actual science for those foundational principles, please leave a comment so we can research them (please cite the journal/book/research paper, experiments, results, people involved, and dates so it’s easier to look up).

Philosophy might be interesting, but it’s not science.

AHAHAHAHAHAHA, so they're criticizing evolution with all its evidence...yet chose to believe something that has ZERO facts or proof without questioning. What a bunch of hypocrites...

[edit on 25-5-2010 by MrXYZ]

reply to post by gncnew


Do you see the problem with these pathetic attempts at odds? Probaly not.

The reason the web page author is a liar is that they post odds that have nothing to do with the way evolution works. I don't think that this was a mistake. I believe that the author was smart enough to understand that what they posted was a lie. I'm not surprised it's the same thing I've heard at creationist lectures.

You quoted from the website.
1. A quote from a tv character.
2. A calculation about independent events
3. A statement that says what evolution is not about - pure randomness

Not a good site.

The next quote:
1. An odds calcualtion that is erroneously compared to a biological structure
2. Some claim about conditions that are known NOT to exist

And finally the last quote deals with abiogenesis, not evolution.

Here are the problems in a nutshell:
1. Handedness is a nucleotide property. Handedness leads to a preference of the same handedness
See Blackmond 2001 for details.
2. To claim that the chance for handedness is 50-50 is a lie. That has been known since the 1950s.
3. The assumption that the nucleotides are independently random is a lie.

So the explanation for your Texas coin claim is the same as these I bet - calculations that have nothing to do with evolution or how it works.

Giving life a hand

I think something both creationists and evolutionists can agree on is that life in itself is nothing short of a miracle,a wonder,something that should be respected and not taken for granted.


Regards to all

reply to post by gncnew

Harold Morowitz, a Yale University physicist, has made a more realistic estimate for spontaneous generation.

And spontaneous generation is relevant because?

Science does not accept spontaneous generation as a valid hypothesis and hasn't for over 300 years. Way to be current. Why does a mathematician's mind games have anything to do with your argument against science.

From Wikipedia: Spontaneous Generation

The last great proponent, as experimentation began to transform science, was Jan Baptist van Helmont (1580–1644). He used experimental techniques, most famously growing a willow for five years and showing it increased mass while the soil showed a trivial decrease in comparison. As the process of photosynthesis was not understood, he attributed the increase of mass to the absorption of water.[19] His notes also describe a recipe for mice (a piece of soiled cloth plus wheat for 21 days) and scorpions (basil, placed between two bricks and left in sunlight). His notes suggest he may even have done these things.[20]

Where Aristotle held that the embryo was formed by a coagulation in the uterus, William Harvey's dissection of deer showed that there was no visible embryo during the first month.[6] Although his work predated the microscope, this led him to suggest that life came from invisible eggs. In the frontispiece of his book Exercitationes de Generatione Animalium (Essays on the Generation of Animals), he made an expression of biogenesis: "omnia ex ovo" (everything from eggs).[12]
Illustration of the Swan-necked bottle used in Pasteur's experiments to disprove spontaneous generation

The ancient beliefs were subjected to testing. In 1668, Francesco Redi challenged the idea that maggots arose spontaneously from rotting meat. In the first major experiment to challenge spontaneous generation, he placed meat in a variety of sealed, open, and partially covered containers.[21] Realizing that the sealed containers were deprived of air, he used "fine Naples veil", and observed no worm on the meat, but they appeared on the cloth.[22]

In 1745, John Needham performed a series of experiments on boiled broths. Believing that boiling would kill all living things, he showed that when sealed right after boiling, the broths would cloud, allowing the belief in spontaneous generation to persist. His studies were rigorously scrutinized by his peers and many of them agreed.[21]

Lazzaro Spallanzani modified the Needham experiment in 1768, attempting to exclude the possibility of introducing a contaminating factor between boiling and sealing. His technique involved boiling the broth in a sealed container with the air partially evacuated to prevent explosions. Although he did not see growth, the exclusion of air left the question of whether air was an essential factor in spontaneous generation.[21]

In 1837, Charles Cagniard de la Tour, a physicist, and Theodor Schwann, one of the founders of cell theory, published their independent discovery of yeast in alcoholic fermentation. They used the microscope to examine foam left over from the process of brewing beer. Where Leeuwenhoek described "small spheroid globules", they observed yeast cells undergo cell division. Fermentation would not occur when sterile air or pure oxygen was introduced if yeast were not present. This suggested that airborne microorganisms, not spontaneous generation, was responsible.[23]

Louis Pasteur's 1859 experiment put the question to rest. He boiled a meat broth in a flask that had a long neck which curved downward, like a goose. The idea being that the bend in the neck prevented any particles from reaching the broth, while still allowing the free flow of air. The flask remained free of growth for an extended period. When the flask was turned so that particles could fall down the bends, the broth became quickly clouded.

reply to post by gncnew

All of you are focused on intentionally missing the forest for the trees. The the mathematical probabilities of pure evolution are somewhere on the lines of chances of filling a massive bowl the size of texas 3 feet deep with gold coins, randomly placing one red coin in that mix, blind folding you, than telling to you go pick one coin and one coin only.... and you find the red one.

You are neither a mathemetician or a scientist.

Also, do you know what the odds of magical creation being true are? Zero. Because magic does not exist AND evolution has been proven the source of bio-diversity.

Why on earth do you insist to believe the ridiculous improbability of that yet call anyone who thinks there was an intelligent force behind this as the stupid ones?

Because Evolution is DIRECTLY OBSERVED and is a theory proven so well that there are no competing scientific theories. The reason intelligent design is seen as stupid is because

1) It is not a science.

2) It attempts to undermine known scientific fact by spreading lies about evolution.

3) It is based upon the prospect of magical creation via a supernatural being.

4) It is religiously biased

That's just four of the many many many reasons why science cannot legitimately look at Creationist claims. You see Evolution is based on evidence and Creationism on faith without evidence, one is science and one is religion therefore they aren't even on the same level.

Even those scientists who belong to a religion are willing to admit their creation myths are metaphorical not literal and that since the evidence points to Evolution and ONLY evolution that any supernatural being must have used NATURAL means (Evolution) to cause bio-diversity.

I'm still shaking with laughter at the proposition that people who believe in a creator are the "naive" ones while people who believe in the most improbable cosmic accident of existance are the "enlightened" ones.

Show one instance in which science studied something and determined it to be supernatural. Everything we study has a natural explanation. Following the EVIDENCE to a conclusion based on FACTS is not naive, however conjuring up a giant sky Daddy to fill in the gaps in your intelligence IS.

I don't deal in myth, I deal in the probabilities and logic (real logic, not blinder logic) of the world. To believe in no creator (as stated before and ignored by most of you conveniently) is to have more blind faith in someone else's theory and shockingly fragile math.

This is actually an attack on atheism and abiogenesis NOT Evolution. Scientists CAN ONLY GO ON EVIDENCE they cannot go on faith. No matter how little we know about how abiogenesis happened we cannot give up and slap a GOD DID IT LABEL on, that is not how science works.

You are asking for concrete evidence in a being that has said "you have to just trust and believe"

Sorry but no God has ever said anything to my knowledge. Oh yeah there's lots of books and religious texts written by men that say blind ignorant faith is what we should go on... but to my knowledge God has not said anything like that and remains quite silent on the subject of his own existence.

God is the manifestation of faith, not the other way around.

I could have faith that the universe was created by a giant immortal intergalactic lobster called Colin. It's no more/less possible or believable than the christian god.

So faith is an ass because it cannot be proven which faith has validity. My faith in Colin is equal to a believer's faith in god. Unless of course someone has an argument which disproves the creation of the universe by Colin in favour of god, of course....!

Why do we keep discussing the whole C vs E issue? Creationism is just such bunkum. How about an alternative?: The universe was created by my pet cat, discuss.

[edit on 5/25/2010 by mithrawept]

I was thinking about this matter of odds and it occurred to me that showing people how poorly odds are understood that I should simply make up an odds claim that people know is false even if the reason it is false cannot be picked out.

Consider the last Super Bowl. This sporting event involved two teams. One of the teams was the Saints. They were given a 1 in 3 chance of winning by Vegas. That was definitely odds against success. But before the game around 2 million people placed bets for the Saints to win.

What are the chances that all of these bets were right?

Lets see that's (1/3) raised to the 2 million power which is an amazing number! The odds of that many people picking the winning team is 1 or a 1 followed by 954242 zeroes. The chances of that happening are less than finding one particular electron in the known universe.

It is easy to come up with nonsense numbers that have no meaning and are based on bad application of simple math. Creationists shamelessly do this all of the time.

On my crackberry so forgive any typos please.

You asked for explanations of the mathematical probabilities - I gave it to u.

So u attack the source (not the content) and then say. "meaningless numbers.."

What the heck... If I knew this was a discussion in circular logic I would have just asked "who's on first".

And for the record - u all seem to have a religious death grip on your certainty.. Hell I'm just saying there is possibly something else...

I'm secure in what I feel - ya'll seem to be getting defensive. "Creationism" isn't a debate of how species developed.. That's evolution. Creationism is saying where the building blocks came from...

That was my original poi t long ago. But whatever.

reply to post by gncnew

Creationism is saying where the building blocks came from...

That is your own assertion of course, most Creationists do argue against Evolution.

Hell I'm just saying there is possibly something else...

Not if every single scientist is to be believed. To my knowledge there isn't a single legitimate scientist who rejects Evolution, it is a stronger theory than most scientific theories (even stronger than Relativity or Gravity).

So if there is a God involved than he/she/it has done everything in their power to create via natural process without leaving evidence of their presence. If such is the case than there is nothing to be gained by believing in this deity and no evidence to support those beliefs.