Creationists: What exactly is your problem...

with evolution?

Yes, I know I was being a bit deceptive, but I'd like to attract a lot more readers to this thread and if making it look more provocative does this, then let me be provocative.

So creationists, exactly what problems do you have with evolution?

Does it conflict with your belief in a deity? I don't understand how it could.
Is the science not enough for you?
Do you not understand it?

What's your reason for not accepting the scientific fact of evolutionary biology?

Good question. I have always wondered why evolution and creationism had to be mutualy exclusive. I think its because most creationists take the bible literaly. My question to creationists is why cant the bible be taken as metephores? Why must it be word for word literal?

I was just reading a great article on Atheist wiki. It discussed why we can't win an argument with them in a sarcastic way.
atheistwiki.wikispaces.com...

As a former believer in "creationism" as it is defined, I can offer the following.

They are taught that the earth was created in seven literal days, including the creatures upon it, and all that exists.
Supposedly God had all these creatures in mind already, and whipped them up out of thin air, as he did man. Why he chose to use a rib from man to create woman and not dust I'm not sure or either don't remember the answer I received because I'm sure I've asked it. To state that evolution had any part in it (to them) means that we came from monkeys, which contradicts the creation from dust, and because it's a contradiction to the Bible, means that it came from SATAN. Nevermind all of the evidence. That was planted by satan to deceive.
Of all the christians I've spoken to, none have had much to say regarding dinosaurs. A fabrication, I've been told.

I had one guy tell me that before the original sin in the garden of eden that ALL animals and creatures were herbivores. Lions, tigers, wolves, bears, spiders, sharks were all vegetarians. It seems that mankinds fall in the garden brought about it's own evolutionary and creationist effect, giving some animals sharp teeth, claws, and redesigning their digestive tract to deal with meat instead of plants. This apparantly also gave spiders & snakes venom and fangs along with the knowledge of how to use it.

IMO, there is a force guiding creation that operates beyond blind chance. I believe that it operates according to the laws of physics, not magic, and is only visible when you look at life in a timeline of large chunks - say a quarter million years. But this is jumping subject...another thread perhaps.

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


the concept of creating a lifeform that can evolve??

to many that concept is bad?? how, id like to know also...

it is probably a mechanism is human thought, a trigger/firewall, type thing.. they want to be bible thumpers, but in the back of their head reasoning keeps telling them the whole bible thing is hooey

Keep in mind that the type of creationist who believes the Earth was created in literally 7 days and is 6000 years old is a very small, but vocal, minority. I appreciate this question and I've often wondered the same thing about people.

Personally, scientific fact simply doesn't get in the way of my belief in God. I'll tell you why.

(I realize this isn't evolution)
The big bang. In many ancient religions, and in Christianity, the beginning of everything is the act of God speaking his name. I can't think of a more beautiful metaphor for something like the big bang.

If you think of the Adam Eve story as a parable it becomes a lot more logical. It's a very, very old tradition to have the first humans set up in a "perfect" place, only to fall. You can see this in even Roman mythology. So if you want to get all new-agey, perhaps at one point humans really did live in harmony with nature and somehow wanted for very little (like Enkidu in the Epic of Gilgamesh) and then we discovered something, like lust for power or whatever, and fell. I don't really believe in the idea of a single man and woman starting it all.

Evolution doesn't really conflict with that. Maybe it's just me but I don't really see it as a missing spoke in this wheel. I mean, we can see it happening around us; everything in nature is constantly adapting and changing to survive.


So in short, there are some Christians who believe in crazy things which make the rest of them look retarded. It's a stereotype. Would you think I'm racist if I said that all black women were loud and dressed in clothes that are too small and liked fried chicken? yes you would. So why is it ok to do that to a different group of people?

I'm not asking you, per-se, it's more rhetorical.


Also, what the guy above me said:
"IMO, there is a force guiding creation that operates beyond blind chance. I believe that it operates according to the laws of physics, not magic, and is only visible when you look at life in a timeline of large chunks"

My problem with evolution is:

Evolution is an untestable theory hence it is not science but rather philosophy.

Genes are comprised of nucleatides. It is possible to define species mathematically as being sets of vectors where each vector component represents one of the 4 nucleatides.
Thus a set of vectors can be used to describe individual species. However at this point in time no mathematical certainty exists where one species stops and becomes another species. Thus evolution is ill defined. As Lord Kelvin said if you can't put a number to a phenomenon then you don't have knowledge.

Evolution implies gradual change. When did single cell animals become multi-celled? Where is the link between single cell and multi-celled. I have had college biology classes and for the life of me I can't ever remember hearing about 2 celled animals or 3 celled animals or a 10,000 celled animal. Life seems to evolve from single celled entities to a 'multi-millions of cells" entity where each cell is organic to various and complex functions of the whole body That is not a gradual change.

Evolution implies that members of one species can give birth to a genetically radical offspring; to an entirely different species. This is akin to believing that a chicken will lay an egg and a duck will hatch from that egg.

I am not religious. I do not believe in creationism, although creationism has just as much logic going for it as evolution does. It takes just as great a leap of faith to be an athiest as it does to be superstitious. This debate is just a war of dogmas. I prefer to keep my mind open. Maybe there is a third alternative that one has yet to think of??

T

reply to post by Deuteronomy 23:13


Well you simply don't know anything about evolution. Evolution is not a theory! It's a fact!
The Darwinian theory of the evolution draws negative attention because it discredits creation as a possible cause of existence. If there was no creation, there is no creator.
www.notjustatheory.com...
humanorigins.si.edu...
humanorigins.si.edu...
www.uwgb.edu...
wiki.cotch.net...
evolution.berkeley.edu...
I have a hard believing you're not religious while you have a Bible verse as your SN.
You do know various religions copied from one another?
www.livescience.com...
www.usbible.com...

reply to post by madnessinmysoul

Im agnostic but was raised Christian. In the beginning God had two jobs for humans 1 take care of the garden 2 be fruitful and multiply. In my opinion God wanted us to live as one with our environment were to take only what we needed and we were to give when ever we could. I think humans did this for perhaps hundreds of thousands of years. Then enter the neolithic when we changed everything we went from being hunter gatherers to establishing permanent farms and settlements. I think this was the sin, the beginning of our greed and pride.

I think evolution is from God like any father would be proud to watch there offspring grow and learn to become more than what they started off as. I think the reason for us as a species in establishing farms was based in fear instead of trusting in God to provide what we needed for survival. This first sin lead to many others.

Once we sinned God changed a few things. He made childbirth painful and dangerous for women he cursed the snake to crawl on its belly, could these be the first signs of evolution?

I feel we were offered two paths to choose 1 the path we choose has lead us to where we are at and 2 if we would have stayed on the course we were on before the neolithic our society and culture would resemble the Navee from the movie avatar.....

This ability to grow or evolve could be the reason Lucifer hated us so much?

Just a thought.

reply to post by TheKnave


How many sheeple do you know of that go and get reinforcement of that single belief, once a week, for years upon years?

The half alien guy that continually gets fantastical reinforcement from YT.

Scientific results are "unknown" by by the masses.

Example One: This probably didn't make the evening news www.nature.com...

I'd say for most it originally comes from indoctrination and faulty information. They're raised in a Christian family all their life and they hear these people, either at church or on TV saying that a good Christian knows that evolution is wrong and goes against God's word. So, wanting to be a good Christian they believe this and it gets ingrained into them.

As for why they continue to believe its wrong even after they've been shown the facts, it's simple psychology. If somebody has believed in something for so long that it has become a part of them they are going to defend it no matter what. In fact when presented with facts that disprove their beliefs they will defend it even more vehemently.

I'm an atheist but I actually know some creationist who believe that evolution is possible through the works of God.

Originally posted by Deuteronomy 23:13
My problem with evolution is:

Evolution is an untestable theory hence it is not science but rather philosophy.

Genes are comprised of nucleatides. It is possible to define species mathematically as being sets of vectors where each vector component represents one of the 4 nucleatides.
Thus a set of vectors can be used to describe individual species. However at this point in time no mathematical certainty exists where one species stops and becomes another species. Thus evolution is ill defined. As Lord Kelvin said if you can't put a number to a phenomenon then you don't have knowledge.

Evolution implies gradual change. When did single cell animals become multi-celled? Where is the link between single cell and multi-celled. I have had college biology classes and for the life of me I can't ever remember hearing about 2 celled animals or 3 celled animals or a 10,000 celled animal. Life seems to evolve from single celled entities to a 'multi-millions of cells" entity where each cell is organic to various and complex functions of the whole body That is not a gradual change.

Evolution implies that members of one species can give birth to a genetically radical offspring; to an entirely different species. This is akin to believing that a chicken will lay an egg and a duck will hatch from that egg.

I am not religious. I do not believe in creationism, although creationism has just as much logic going for it as evolution does. It takes just as great a leap of faith to be an athiest as it does to be superstitious. This debate is just a war of dogmas. I prefer to keep my mind open. Maybe there is a third alternative that one has yet to think of??

T

I have to agree with Romantic_Rebel, if you believe this then you do not understand evolution. micro evolution has been proven 100%. In a closed lab study researches observed bacteria over the course of 20 years actually evolved to do something it never did before. www.newscientist.com...
One point you do mention that is kind of a mystery to science is micro to macro evolution. We don't know how it happened exactly. Which just means there might be more to evolution than what we know. But I think we have a good understanding on it.

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


Um i would just like to point out that there is no "scientific fact" (as you put it) in evolutionary biology.
Evolution is a theory and it is pushed as fact and it is pushed onto people more then some Christians push the Bible on people.

Bottom line is (as you can see below) it is nothing more then a religion.

reply to post by GunzCoty


How is it not a fact? It has been observed both in the lab and in nature, both "micro" and speciation. The theory of evolution is not about the whether or not evolution occurs or not, because that is an indisputable fact. The theoretical part of evolution is in regards to the mechanism through which evolution occurs.

The theory of evolution has been proven scientifically, but just like any concept in science, that doesn't mean evolution as a whole is a complete theory. There's always a bigger picture.

I just posted positive proof of micro evolution...its not a theory anymore. Get over it.

reply to post by Xcalibur254


Remember adaptation is not evolution.
Show me 1 species that evolved from another and do it step by step with facts only.
You can't it has never been done and as far as humans go we have archaeological evidence to show "modern" humans here more then a million years old.

And the theory of evolution says humans are no more then 250,000 years old (max) yet on yahoo news they say they found tools and such that are 500,000 years old.

Hey i believed in evolution at one time until i studied it and ancient history and the taboo ancient history.

reply to post by GunzCoty


Actually adaptation is evolution and we have seen one species evolve into another. Feel free to peruse this FAQ and the linked articles as they do a much better job than I could explaining and clearing up misconceptions about evolution.

reply to post by Deuteronomy 23:13

Originally posted by Deuteronomy 23:13
My problem with evolution is:

Evolution is an untestable theory hence it is not science but rather philosophy.

...except when it has been tested. Talk Origins has plenty of examples of times where science has specifically tested evolutionary theory or observed the predictions it has made being fulfilled.

Genes are comprised of nucleatides. It is possible to define species mathematically as being sets of vectors where each vector component represents one of the 4 nucleatides.
Thus a set of vectors can be used to describe individual species.

Um...what? I'm sorry, I don't understand what you're specifically talking about.

However at this point in time no mathematical certainty exists where one species stops and becomes another species. Thus evolution is ill defined. As Lord Kelvin said if you can't put a number to a phenomenon then you don't have knowledge.

You don't mathematically prove things in biology. That's like trying to use a ruler to weigh an elephant, you're using the wrong tools.

With regard to where one species begins and another ends, there's a reason for that. Every form is a transitional form. Typically the way to define a species is that two members of the species can breed and produce viable offspring which can reproduce in turn (barring the occasional cases of members of the species that are born unable to reproduce due to birth defect). Thus the coyote, dog, and wolf are all the same species though they do not appear to be so.

Evolution implies gradual change. When did single cell animals become multi-celled? Where is the link between single cell and multi-celled. I have had college biology classes and for the life of me I can't ever remember hearing about 2 celled animals or 3 celled animals or a 10,000 celled animal. Life seems to evolve from single celled entities to a 'multi-millions of cells" entity where each cell is organic to various and complex functions of the whole body That is not a gradual change.

I'm not sure about the claim and I'm not personally a biology person, but I'll look into it and see what I can find. I won't be able to come up with something soon as I don't have all the time in the world.

What I do know is that there are clusters and colonies of cells that number in the hundreds and thousands. It could possibly be because the sustainability of a 2 cell system is infinitely more complex than the sustainability of a 1000 cell system. I don't know, but it's the best answer I have right now.

Evolution implies that members of one species can give birth to a genetically radical offspring; to an entirely different species. This is akin to believing that a chicken will lay an egg and a duck will hatch from that egg.

You went from a really good question to a really bad statement. It's more like believing that a group of chickens could live near water, then the ones with less water adaptation would die and not reproduce. The ones that survived and reproduced would then give birth to the same species and the process would continue until several hundred/thousand generations later you get an organism that would be considered radically different from the one that proceeded it but would possibly still be considered genetically compatible, though not necessarily able to produce viable offspring with their ancestors. Eventually they could be duck-like, but nobody in the biological community would ever say that one living organism could ever evolve into another organism that is currently alive without there being some ridiculous amount of selective pressure. You would have to create an artificial selection situation for that to happen, and even then it probably wouldn't work.

I am not religious. I do not believe in creationism, although creationism has just as much logic going for it as evolution does.

I don't see how it does, could you explain how?

It takes just as great a leap of faith to be an athiest as it does to be superstitious.

I don't see anyone talking about atheism here. I explicitly stated...and why do I always have to say this in evolution threads?...that god and evolution coexist.

This debate is just a war of dogmas.

No, it's a science vs. not-science debate.

I prefer to keep my mind open.

I do too, but only when there's an actual and viable alternative. If someone is telling me I should maybe paint my roof white to increase energy efficiency, I listen intently and see if they have any numbers to back it up. But if they say I should draw a magical unicorn on my roof and that it'll give me great blessings I tend to ignore them unless they have sound reasoning behind it.

Maybe there is a third alternative that one has yet to think of??

Saying that there might be a 'third alternative' isn't a very scientific way to do things. Science goes with what best supports

reply to post by GunzCoty

Originally posted by GunzCoty
Um i would just like to point out that there is no "scientific fact" (as you put it) in evolutionary biology.

Counterpoint: All the scientific fact of evolution in one convenient and easy to understand place

Evolution is a theory and it is pushed as fact and it is pushed onto people more then some Christians push the Bible on people.

Here are some other theories:
Gravity
Cellular biology
Germs
Circuits
Signal Analysis
Plate tectonics
Acoustics
Relativity (physics)

All of which apply to your everyday life.

When something is a 'theory' in science it is a fact that can be applied. A 'theory' can produce testable predictions, something that evolution does all the time (and you can see in the link I provided above).

It isn't really 'pushed' on people anymore than the theory of relativity is. The science speaks for it.

Bottom line is (as you can see below) it is nothing more then a religion.

You're referring to your sig which states (quite ignorantly) that 'evolutionists' have a religion. For one thing, I've already addressed that ignorant term. I'm not a 'circuitist' by using this computer, neither are you. I'm not an 'acousticist' for having a TV that applies acoustic theory in its speaker system. I'm not a 'germist' for taking an antibiotic and neither are you.
It's a scientific theory. There's plenty of proof. I'm not going to hold your hand and prove the whole thing to you, but it's all in the link I gave you above.