saltfish

Anyone want to attempt to disprove Creation?



-SF

Ustwo

As a theory sure.

I can find no proof of a devine creation, therefore as a scientific theory it does not hold up.

If you would like to provide such evidence I will be happy to examine it.

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Bossnass

I think that what CSflim meant that Evolution is 'not just a theory', but that it is currently a well understood, accepted, and thus far not scientifically refuted Theory.

As far as the dog argument is concerned, I'm not sure how you are contradicting it. Speciation, as I understand it, is not a direct result of combining two existing species. It is beginning with one species, putting this same species in different environments and having different traits produced. This leads to sub-species, and eventually different species altogether. When these traits aren't huge, then the species can still produce viable offspring (wolves and german shepards, for example). When these species are divergent enough, or their combination will result in a genetic inconsistency (as has been tested and shown with mules), then the offspring are not viable. It is clear that horses and donkeys are related- as I understand it this means they at one time shared a common ancestor.

Many dog breeds can produce viable offspring, many can't. However all dog breeds are technically the same species, albeit with many sub-species. The common understanding is that all 'dogs' were domesticated from early wolves, and after enough domestication had enough traits differing to be classified as a separate species. In this case, sub-species of dogs qualify to be different species (and essentially are by modern dichotomy). Thus, a greyhound and a shitzu are species that can reproduce within their sub-species but certainly can't reproduce with each other; both sub-species have developed from a common ancestor as a direct result of human involvement.

CSflim

I have already explained my views on this.
To claim "Evolution is only a theory" does not constitute an argument. See my reasoning above.

The definition of "species" is not a very strong one. Much of Darwin's Origin of Species is spent explaining how nature simply dpesn't fall into the categories that we design for them. Nature doesn't care about the words we use to describe it, it just is.

As a result "speices" and "speciation", are difficult to pin down.
The most common "working model" defnition of a species is:
Two creatures who cannot produce viable offspring with each other, belong to different species.
(viable meaning...that creature itself being capable of reproduction)

So to your question "Were you saying that they were so simply because they could not reproduce?", I answer YES, because that is the definiton of a species.

For a more in depth look at the meanings of such words, take a look at that first link I provided.

So, in other words....
a) different breeds of dogs, who cannot produce viable offspring, are actually members of a "different species". They will eaither be unable to reproduce, or anything that they do give birth to will be too deformed to be able to reproduce.

b) Donkeys are a different spcies of animal from mules, because they cannot create viable offspring.

Yes! I provided two links, each of which give dozens of examples of observed speciation.

I chose the example of dogs because it is a well known one. However it happens to be a bit of a messy one. (X can mate with Y which can mate with Z, but X can't mate with Z). But if you don't like it, there's plenty more.

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Thagrastay

As I said before- there are plenty of facts to disprove evolution, but evolution does not allow these into their paradigm and it merely closes ranks and closets its ideas until it can shift gears with a new spin, or talks a bit louder and with more force over you so that you must then stop civil discourse altogether, and then they feel they have gained the day.
Evolution is nothing more than a religion, csfilm. There is no shame in admitting that.
I will nominat you and Lebell for pontiff and bishop, if you would like as well and this can be your very own order, then!

Evolution is no more a science than the tarot or tea leaves, because the ones making the interpretations are also the ones hiding behind the mirrors and teaching the classes.

Was it Marx, Lenin or Trotsky who said: "Give me one generation and I'll change the world"?

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tecoyah

Perhaps we need to understand the term theory-

A scientific theory is almost exactly what you have been attempting to express here. No theorist will tell you they have everything correct, as that would be a "law" not a theory. The theory of evolution is a work in progress, and this thread is an attempt to "disprove" this theory.
We will never disprove anything with opinion, this will only lead to personal speculation. A serious attempt to shed light on the weaknesses of a theory will entail factual discrepancies proclaimed by said theory.
As far as the tea leaves and tarot jab, I think you may be pushing your distaste for the theory a bit too far, as there is quite a bit of evidence, thus far, to back up the theory.

This is more of what I am looking for in this thread-

Does evolution truly explain the diversity of lifeforms in existance, or do we need some other force to account for this?

Does evolution explain the reasoning behind extinction, or does the earth itself (god) create species failure?

Can Any one explanation encompass the complicated and intricate functions of "life" and the changes creatures have shown over time?

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Ustwo

Its quite possible to believe in evolution and god. The two are not mutually exclusive. I know it means you have to ignore one of the more fanciful tales in the bible, but since over time the bible has been changed, added to and had parts removed by men, perhaps you can just maybe think that one bit isn't literal.

Time to get out of the dark ages.

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Lebell

I'm not sure why my name was drug into this, but to argue that evolution is a "religion" is silly.

And as was mentioned by others, belief in evolution as the mechanism for the development of life (science) and belief in God are not mutually exclusive.

One of the most concise articles dealing with creationists and the arguments they make can be found on line at Scientific American:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?art...49809EC588EEDF

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Yakk

So, are you going to actually read the posts that disagreed with you, where they provide evidence of specification, and possibly argue against their points?

Or are you just going to repeat yourself, louder?

Are you going to provide
then listen to the arguements against those facts, or are you going to talk
? Because the post above is just talking loudly, and ignoring the points and content brought forward.

Possibly it is against your religious beliefs to look at the evidence on evolution and arguements logically and rationally? Ie, if it is an article of faith that whatever you call "evolution" is a lie, then any evidence brought forward won't matter to you: you value your faith more than you value rational thought.

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Fibrosa

Please name one fact that disproves evolution. Keep in mind, it must be a fact, not a strawman or a distortion.

Actually by saying that, not only are you admitting an ignorance of the theory of evolution, but also of the definition of religion.

All this reveals is, again, a general ignorance of evolution and of science. Perhaps you should get back into school and pay attention in science class.

CSflim

Show me the money!
I'd love to hear such facts...as long as they are
a)true and
b)relevant.

some common arguments:
Evolution is a theory: Irrelevant
Evolution has never been observed: false
Speciation has never been directly observed: false and irrelvenat
Evolution violates thermodynamics: completely false.
etc.

If anything stops civil discourse it is when people close their ears and minds, and sink into flat out denial. "La la la...can't hear you"

Please, define these words for me:
Science
Religion

Is it a religion to believe that the earth revolves around the sun?
Is it a religion that things fall down not up?
what is not religion?

"Evolution is no more a science than the tarot or tea leaves"...please give me an example of something that actually is science, and explain explictly how it is fundamentally different from evolution.

This is the very reason why such arguments tend to go around in circles. Because creationists refuse to address any of the points made. You claim that evolution is unfalsifiable, I made a long post explaining PLENTY of ways in which evolution could be falsifed. Please address these points, and show how I am wrong, rather than simply re-stating your argument in different words (which as you can see, is the response that I have come to predict...see my last post on page1).

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Mantus

It seems to me that the biggest problem with discussions about evolution is the strange notion that creationism is its rival theory. Creationism is not a theory, it is not logical nor based on direct evidence and it is certainly not evolution’s rival. Hence creationism has no place in a logical debate concerning the evolutionary hypothesis.

iman

Disprove Evolution?

I can't disprove it, but I can point to some problems (I haven't read much literature on this topic, so much of my criticism may be easily explained away):

As I understand it, the theory of Evolution states that random traits that spring up in species are supposed to be reinforced because they are either 1) beneficial for the survival of the individual mutant or 2) help the mutant to reproduce somehow.

Take the example of a bird's wing. I don't suppose that a fully formed, functional wing would have sprung out of a wingless animal. A little stub of a wing must have grown first. Now, how could a little stubby wing-thingie be at all beneficial to the survival of the animal? Or, how could it make the animal reproduce easier - be attractive? Evolutionists could explain these examples only by sticking to their guns and saying "Well, a stubby wing-thingie MUST have been beneficial to the animal, or the animal wouldn't have survived!!" But that's just saying that evolution is true because the theory of evolution is true. Likewise if wings formed from long appendages spreading out somehow. You could construct some sort of story about gliding animals with flabby-assed arms developing into winged animals, but unless you're really wedded to your account and really want it to work out, you'll probably see that flabby arms probably wouldn't be a good thing or help animals glide.

Sticking to birds - lots and lots of traits must have concurrently evolved in order to make a bird: hollow bones, feathers, wings (probably more). Now, all of these traits seem to work well together (hollow bones make the bird light so it can fly using wings and feathers), but none of the traits seem to be beneficial unless they're paired with the other ones. Quick, name a non-bird with feathers? You mean feathers didn't "stick" as a trait? Okay, maybe the hollow bones came first - name a non-flying animal with hollow bones? Okay, so that doesn't seem to be very beneficial by itself, except as something to help you fly. Wings? Same idea.

I'm not a creationist (not even a Christian/Jew/Muslim), and I don't believe in that shite, but there does seem to be a conspicuous order to the way parts of an organism work together. I know, evolution tries to explain this by saying that the reason the parts work so well is that those traits stuck over time. Step back for a minute and think about something as complex as the eye. Soooo many things have to work in perfect order for an eye to work - how the hell could something like that have evolved the way Darwin says things evolve?

I'm not saying "evolution" is wrong. Of course things evolve. I'm saying Darwin's way of explaining evolution has some problems as far as I'm concerned. I'm happy to be proved wrong, though.

Ustwo

You picked a bad example.

The evolution of the wing and birds is a very hot topic in biology and there is a LOT of evidence.

Wings didn't start out stubby, they were arms/forelegs.

Feathers didn't start out for flight (note not all birds fly) but for insulation and perhaps coloration.

What you had were small, feathered reptiles, which we now think evolved into birds. There are MANY fossils of missing bird/dinosaur links.

Archaeopteryx, the 'first' bird.



A VERY early feathered, non-flying dinosaur

[/IMG]

A better drawing of the above


Figure 2 Protarchaeopteryx robusta. a, Outline of the specimen shown in Fig. 1a. b, Outline of the left dentary teeth shown in Fig. 1b. c, Drawing of the front of the jaws, showing the large size of the premaxillary teeth compared with maxillary and dentary ones. Abbreviations: Co, coracoid; d, dentary; F, femur; f, feathers; Fib, fibula; Fu, furcula; H, humerus; m, maxilla; P, pubis; pm, premaxilla; R, radius; S, scapula; St, sternal plate; T, tibia; U, ulna. Numbers represent tooth positions from front to back.

There are more flaws with your argument, but I think you get the picture.

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rsl12

also: evolution has already produced a gliding mammal (flying squirrels),
and who's to say in a few more eons that flying mammals won't develop out of them as they develop lighter bones, faster metabolism, etc etc?

as far as 'non-birds with feathers' go, name any non-flying bird. they feathers' usefulness is not for flight, but insulation in that case.

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Lebell

We already have flying mammals.

They are called bats.

And a great example of convergent evolution when compaired to birds.

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rsl12

oh yeah, duh....

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brianna

iman: you might want to read the article that Lebell linked -- it address your concerns pretty thoroughly

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?ar...E49809EC588EEDF

CSflim

Well, actually some creationists, completely straight faced, make the claim that god planted those fossils under the ground. Dinosaurs never actually lived. They are just a cruel trick played on us by god.

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asaris

Well, I doubt they'd say 'cruel trick'. Probably more 'test of faith'. Sometimes the two look awfully similar...

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iman

I guess I picked exactly the examples discussed in Lebell's link: the evolution of birds and the complexity of the eye. What are the chances of that?

Anyways, thanks for correcting me. But I still think something's fishy about how neatly parts of organisms seem to fit together.

By the way, some of the examples from Lebell's link could be interpreted as *supporting* intelligent design - like the stuff about the 13-letter word and how something as complex as that could be "randomly" generated quite simply w/ the help of a selection mechanism. But that couldn't be the way selection "naturally" (without a designer) works in organisms. If there's a fixed goal (a certain 13-letter word / a certain organism - man, maybe??) that's being selected for there's your intelligent design right there. The "hand of god" made things such that over time organisms were perfected so that eventually God was able to create a living being in His image, yada, yada, yada. An evolutionist couldn't use that 13-letter-word argument except against the most hardcore of creationists. An IDer *could* use that against evolutionists, though. I thought that was pretty funny.

tecoyah

Ostrich, Kiwi, Emu...to name but a few. Birds today use feathers for insulation, as well as flying. Most arctic birds would never survive without down. And most of us have a coat or sleeping bag filled with it as well.

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Ustwo

He wasn't asking you to name them, he ment think of one and thats one that uses them for insulation.

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Yakk

The interesting part is, whenever people look hard enough at one of those problems, a consistent answer is waiting to be found.

The timescales involved in evolution are huge. All of those well put together critters are the results of millions upon millions of years of evolution. Millions of years is a long time.

*nod*. Just as when a scientist calculates how gravity works, they roll balls down slopes in controlled environments.

It doesn't mean that the controlled environment caused the ball to roll down the slope. It means it is easier to measure and experiment with when you are in a controlled environment.

Yes, if a human designs an experiment, the experiment is a result of intelligent design.

We know that intelligence can guide evolution. This fact does not mean that intelligence is nessicary for evolution to occur.

I mean, set up a gradiant of antibiotics in a petri dish. Insert a bunch of bacteria into the less-deadly half, and feed regularly. The bacterea will evolve to survive the antibiotics. Now, is there some sort of energy field that comes from the intelligence directing the experiment that makes it only work if an intelligence where directing it?

Unless you are asserting that, the equivilent thing would happen if no intelligence caused the situation to occur. So the experiment shows evolution, not intelligent design causes evolution.

Show how the "hand of god" is nessicary to explain the fossil record? Explanations that don't demand god get involved exist, and stand up pretty well. You could claim that aliens modified our DNA, but that isn't nessicary to explain anything either.

Yes, god is consistent with evolution. God is not nessicary to explain human life. God is not nessicary to explain the motions of the heavens. God is not nessicary to explain Thunderstorms. God is not nessicary to explain weather.

God is consistent with all of the above, but is not nessicary. The only reason I can think of objecting to science showing God is unnessicary to explain things is a lack of faith: they think they need evidence of the existance of God, that Faith is not enough.

It demonstrates how easy incremental change is. It doesn't show much, I agree.

It could be used by a dunderhead. =p Natural evolutionists don't disagree intelligence can harness evolution and direct it. The 13 word example is just an example of that.

IDers DENY the possiblity that Natural evolution could result in specification and account for the fossil record. For them to use the 13 letter word arguement as a weapon, they'd have to show how it provides evidence against non-intelligence directed evolution...

Natural evolutionists do not deny that intelligence can use evolution.

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iman

Yakk,

That was all really interesting, but I think you've missed my point - which was pretty small.

Nobody [well, nobody with eyes and a brain] would deny your bacteria example. Nobody says that just because a scientist sets up an experiment to study gravity, gravity only exists in lab conditions.

Maybe you didn't actually read the article Lebell linked to (by the way, the link posted by brianna doesn't work. You have to go back to Lebell's post).

The 13-letter word argument tries to show how a selection mechanism that "harnesses" chance could produce something as complex as proteins/DNA/cells/human beings. ID'ers have, apparently, used the argument before that a million monkeys each typing one word per second would take up to 79,000 years to come up with a single 13-letter word. So how could something as complex as a protein, with all those amino acids that have to be in a particluar sequence and particluar shape, have arisen by chance? And that's just *one* protein out of thousands (millions? billions? I don't reallly know), and we haven't even gotten to DNA yet, not to mention RNA, mRNA . . .

To counter this, the smarties at Scientific American have asked us dummies to consider the analogy of coming up with a 13-letter word using the selection-mechanism I described in the last post.

What I'm saying is that the selection mechanism mentioned in the article - generating sequences of 13 letters, and preserving the ones in the right place - works to explain INTELLIGENT evolution, not natural evolution. Yes, you're right - believing in natural evolution does not mean that all evolution is non-intelligent. But evolution must be, at bottom, non-intelligent. How the hell do the guys at SA think they can argue against ID by coming up with a selection mechanism that depends on intelligence?

The argument does not support natural selection over intelligent design.

You wrote that:

"Natural evolutionists don't disagree intelligence can harness evolution and direct it."

Well, I never said they did. The 13-letter word argument does not directly refute natural selection. But natural evolutionists need something more - they need to say that, at bottom, there is no intellegence that directs evolution. IDers, I'm guessing, would be fine having evolutionists show how they can make things easily evolve the way they want in experimental settings - that's *intelligent* design. Natural evolutionists have the further problem of proving how evolution takes place outside of experimental settings.

"IDers DENY the possiblity that Natural evolution could result in specification and account for the fossil record. For them to use the 13 letter word arguement as a weapon, they'd have to show how it provides evidence against non-intelligence directed evolution..."

Here's how an IDer could use the 13-letter word argument as a weapon: If the sorts of mechanisms behind evolution are like those selecting for certain words, then evolution is intelligent. If you Natural evolutionists cannot come up with mechanisms that aren't, at bottom, dependent on intelligence then you are just IDers in disguise.

[please note that I'm just addressing THIS argument for natural selection - the 13-letter word argument. Most of the stuff from Lebell's link was pretty convincing. I just thought they were pretty dumb to include this particular argument]

Tophat665

Jesus Horses! They're called Jesus Horses! I know dinosaurs and man can live together. Haven't you ever watched "Land of the Lost" or "The Flintstones."

(For those of you taking this argument seriously, why? If you haven't figured out that creationism is a crock by high school, you're not going to. If you have, well, don't feed the creationists. It just encourages them.)

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John Henry

This argument is self-contradictory. Essentialy, if we break it down, you seem to be saying:

1) The universe displays complexity, such as intelligent beings.
2) Complexity requires intelligent design.
3) The universe must have been designed by an intelligent being.

That's fine as it stands, but it's self-negating. By your argument that anything as complex as an intelligent being must have been created by another intelligent being, the same goes for God and whatever created him and whatever created that, so on ad infinitum. Do you really think tht something as complex as the universe couldn't come into existence spontaneously, but something complex enough to create it could.

Maybe there is an infinite string of ever more complex Gods who all created each other. Or perhaps it's more likely that they all loop round in a big mobius strip that starts and ends with us creating God.

Also, there is an intelligent race of sea-dwellers. They're called 'dolphins'. If you prefer, there are also 'giant squid' and probably some other freaky clever things down at the bottom of the abbys. If you mean, why don't all other intelligent creatures look and behave like humans in every respect, there are two reasons for that:

1) If they did, we wouldn't know they were a different race anyway, because they would look and behave just like humans.

2) Why should they? Other species evolve to adapt to their own environment and there's more than one way to skin a cat.

To quote one of the 20th centurie's fgreatest philosophers, the dear departed Douglas Adams

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sprocket

Consider this.. This analogy takes into account that there are resources for all possible combinations of all the ingeredients. If for example a million monkeys were typing at typewriters with only the 15 keys on them, it would take considerably less time for that combination of letters to be produced.

I take the argument they make a different way. In the context I understood it, it wholly supports their agurments.

You are looking at it as if the 13 letter word is analogous to a predifined result that evolution produced from a blueprint designed by some mysterious intelligence. Think about it like this: each of the 13 letters represents a trait in an organism that will benifit its survival. A million of these organisms might produce thousands upon thousands of random genetic mutations. On their own, these mutations dont enhance the organisms chance of survival; but a combination of 13 out of the thousands of mutations do. The mutations are random, but a combination of them help the organism survive, so those mutations get passed on. The other useless combinations of mutations fade away because of natural selection.

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Tophat665

For everyone who argues that it seems incredible that random chance could have produced us, think about it. Only that series of events from the big bang forward could have produced us. If it had happened differently, we wouldn't be arguing about it. We will never know about the vast majority of times that things went differently elsewhere, and it's entirely possible that they never happened near enough to the same anywhere that we will be able to loacte within the life of our species to produce another species that would ask these questions.

So the intelligent design thing is a spurious argument. So the chances against us happening are one in a gazillion. So what? The universe has a gazillon gaziliion chances, and if one of them hadn't come up with us, then the point is moot.

I'd be really careful about taking scentific advice from folks who thought the world was a flat place at the center of the universe, which is exactly what you are doing if you take Genesis as word for word literal.

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Yakk

And, my point it, unless you think 'intelligence' causes this mystical field to envelope all that it causes, tainting it and making it behave differently, the fact that an intelligence designed the experiment doesn't imply anything.

Yes, like I said, a dunderhead IDer could use the 13-letter arguement as a weapon against evolution. And yes, many IDers are dunderheads.

But, there are selection mechanisms that do not depend on intelligence. Sexual selection. Natural selection. Both are selection mechanisms. As is "stop when the letter matches the word we want". Just another selection mechanism.

Just because a particular selection mechanism we test in an experiment is intelligently designed, says absolutely nothing about other selection mechanisms.

Neither sexual nor natural selection require an overarching intelligence guilding them or saying where the destination will be in order to select.

The arguement you are claiming the IDers would use is basically:
A is "intelligently designed".
A is "a selection mechanism".
B is "a selection mechanism".
thus
B is "intelligently designed".

which is a laughable logic error.

The 13-letter word arguement is not a proof that natural selection must occur. Just because it does not imply the entire result seeked, doesn't mean it undermines the case. It is an easy to grasp example of evolution whose properties you can play with inthe comfort of your own napkin.

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