Animals appearing whole - ie anti-evolution

General reply to those who cant read


Yes ive read and understand

I know the scales involved

Not the point

And third times a charm

Night.

originally posted by: Barcs

originally posted by: Bilk22
The point I was making is, people with considered high intellect can and do believe in a higher being and/or higher order and similarly believe that this, our world and out universe, wasn't just the product of a "big bang" and it somehow fell into place. That there was a grand design and something we cannot comprehend, was and is responsible for it. Their intellect cannot accept there was "happenstance" and randomness to the magnificence they are witness to.

If that was difficult to gain from my posts then I don't know what else to say.

That is an appeal to authority and completely irrelevant, not to mention you are attempting to generalize all of their beliefs about the universe and big bang and what they mean by god. They have faith in something that is completely independent from science. It has nothing to do with their intellect not accepting happenstance or randomness. It is personal faith.

Here are the numbers when you look at the majority of scientists:

www.pewforum.org...

Believe in god:

General public: 83%
Scientists: 33%

Are atheists or agnostics:

General public: 4%
Scientists: 28%

Sorry, but if anything, the more intelligent individuals are incredibly more likely to not believe in god. Now don't get me wrong, that doesn't prove that intelligent folks cannot believe in god. Many do, but that is their faith, which is independent from the science. Isolating astronauts doesn't prove your point.

Yea a completely false argument.


"I'm not crazy! This one smart guy believes it too!"

originally posted by: Barcs

originally posted by: Bilk22
The point I was making is, people with considered high intellect can and do believe in a higher being and/or higher order and similarly believe that this, our world and out universe, wasn't just the product of a "big bang" and it somehow fell into place. That there was a grand design and something we cannot comprehend, was and is responsible for it. Their intellect cannot accept there was "happenstance" and randomness to the magnificence they are witness to.

If that was difficult to gain from my posts then I don't know what else to say.

That is an appeal to authority and completely irrelevant, not to mention you are attempting to generalize all of their beliefs about the universe and big bang and what they mean by god. They have faith in something that is completely independent from science. It has nothing to do with their intellect not accepting happenstance or randomness. It is personal faith.

Here are the numbers when you look at the majority of scientists:

www.pewforum.org...

Believe in god:

General public: 83%
Scientists: 33%

Are atheists or agnostics:

General public: 4%
Scientists: 28%

Sorry, but if anything, the more intelligent individuals are incredibly more likely to not believe in god. Now don't get me wrong, that doesn't prove that intelligent folks cannot believe in god. Many do, but that is their faith, which is independent from the science. Isolating astronauts doesn't prove your point.

You similarly seem to be "appealing to authority" to make your point with your survey In addition, you somehow believe that the scientists that believe, separate their beliefs from their science. I'm not claiming they do or they don't, but how would you know if they do or don't? Was that in the survey?

Oh hey look, there's more scientists that believe than do not

a reply to: Bilk22

An appeal to authority is when one makes an off-topic appeal to someone's credentials so support an unrelated position. Quoting a survey is not an "appeal to authority".

originally posted by: GetHyped
a reply to: Bilk22

An appeal to authority is when one makes an off-topic appeal to someone's credentials so support an unrelated position. Quoting a survey is not an "appeal to authority".

I beg to differ, The survey was clear that they polled scientists specifically and he used that as his argument as I did. It was exactly the same. Unfortunately the poll suggests that more scientists believe than do not.

a reply to: Bilk22

It's important to note that this fallacy should not be used to dismiss the claims of experts, or scientific consensus. Appeals to authority are not valid arguments, but nor is it reasonable to disregard the claims of experts who have a demonstrated depth of knowledge unless one has a similar level of understanding and/or access to empirical evidence. However it is, entirely possible that the opinion of a person or institution of authority is wrong; therefore the authority that such a person or institution holds does not have any intrinsic bearing upon whether their claims are true or not.

yourlogicalfallacyis.com...

How is quoting an objective source to support the claim that religious belief is inversely proportional to education an appeal to authority fallacy?

a reply to: Krazysh0t

What say you on the subject of unexplored areas of the planet. For instance,
we have only explored 5% of the ocean. Meaning there are millions of species left to be discovered. Does that mean they were not here before we will discover them? That they have just popped into existence because we've just discovered them? No and No. They have just yet to be discovered.

originally posted by: Bilk22
You similarly seem to be "appealing to authority" to make your point with your survey

In addition, you somehow believe that the scientists that believe, separate their beliefs from their science. I'm not claiming they do or they don't, but how would you know if they do or don't? Was that in the survey?

If they don't separate their beliefs from the science then they are terrible scientists. One of the requirements of being a scientist is to be unbiased and ignore anything that isn't backed by objective evidence when working on their research and experiments. You were attempting to pigeonhole their beliefs.

I wasn't appealing to authority because I wasn't saying that it proves anything. I was posting it to show that the other numbers were off and that your premise about lots of smarter people believing in god was wrong.

I didn't claim to know what scientists believe when it comes to personal faith. You were the one describing them not agreeing with happenstance or randomness, and suggesting that they don't agree with materialistic principles.

originally posted by: PageLC14
a reply to: Krazysh0t

What say you on the subject of unexplored areas of the planet. For instance,
we have only explored 5% of the ocean. Meaning there are millions of species left to be discovered. Does that mean they were not here before we will discover them? That they have just popped into existence because we've just discovered them? No and No. They have just yet to be discovered.

What say I to what? I'm in agreement with that. Also keep in mind that discovering an animal versus discovering its origins is a different story. I believe in evolution is pretty much true. Therefore I believe that evolution created all the animals and as we discover more we will be further validated in that truth. But you should be posing that question to someone who doesn't believe in evolution, because frankly I have no idea how an animal would appear on the planet if evolution isn't true and is what I'm trying to get at with this thread. It is clear that many evolution denying Christians haven't thought about it because their answers are highly lacking and make little sense.

a reply to: Another_Nut

If you understand all this then what is your point? Sorry I'm late to this party, but I read through the comments since you first posted about this on the last page. If you understand that these new findings DON'T invalidate long-term radiometric dating and in fact evidence leads to believe that we will get more accurate dates now, what are you trying to get at? It's not like with these new findings that we have to completely scrap any and all radiometric dates of the earth and fossils. In fact, it'll be the opposite. The range of years that radiometric dating gives us will be narrower, but they will still be in the same time frames. In other words if something was dated back 100 million to 200 million years ago before this evidence came out, now they will be dated 125 million to 175 million years ago or something like that. You've done nothing to further any point that radiometric dating is invalid.

a reply to: Krazysh0t


Sorry if I came off sounding a little dull. I'll admit I don't know much when it comes to evolution.
I was raised Southern Baptist. Thankfully, I'm much more open minded than most others with my background.

I am just trying to get a better understanding of the subject of evolution vs. creationism.

a reply to: PageLC14

Well in regards to the debate of evolution vs creationism, it is mostly evolution deniers that insist that there is even a debate. Scientists (or rather anyone who understands that evolution is real) don't think there is a debate at all and this is settled already. The problem is that creationists who take a literal look at the bible (too literal in this case) have counted the lineages written about in the bible and have dated the "history" of the world back 6000 years. This naturally conflicts with mountains of scientific evidence to the contrary. Evolution is just the tip of the iceberg in that conflict but it is pretty much the go to thing that these young-earthers try to pick apart. The tactics they use to do this are full of fallacies, assumptions, misconceptions about evolution, and lies. However, the purpose of this thread was to put all the aside and concede, "Hey maybe you're right," now assuming that, start explaining things from your perspective. As can be seen over the last 18 pages, they really don't have a response to that or have explanation that doesn't make sense.

As for evolution itself. It is the change of time of organisms into something else. Evolution starts with the premise that life already exists (so don't let anyone tell you that it explains the creation of life), which consequently another reason why the debate of evolution vs creationism shouldn't exist. What happens is that as a species reproduces, every now and then a mutation occurs in its DNA. This mutation may or may not be beneficial to its survival. If the mutation doesn't flat out hinder its ability to live, then it'll probably be passed onto its children. You'll notice that this previous sentence doesn't just include only beneficial mutations, but also ones that do absolutely nothing for or against the animals survival (that's not to say that later it could further mutate in one of these directions). This is another misconception that evolution deniers like to harp on, that only beneficial mutations survive. The mutation, if it gets passed on, will continue to propagate throughout the species, especially if it helps it live longer. Eventually other mutations will appear in children that go through the same process. These mutations start to build on each other and slowly, over a LONG time, the organism changes into a completely new organism. For example, the Tyrannosaurus Rex didn't go extinct, it evolved into the modern day chicken. There is more to it, but that is the basic gist of it. If you are further curious, I can give you links or explain somethings that you may not understand more clearly.

One thing you may notice about that explanation, it makes ZERO mention about whether god exists or not. So anyone who tells you that evolution denies the existence of god is blowing smoke. Both could technically exist with god being the answer to the question why and evolution being the answer to the question how. Strangely evolution deniers cannot wrap their heads around this concept and fall back on the literal word of the bible.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Both could technically exist with god being the answer to the question why and evolution being the answer to the question how.

Honestly, never would have even considered that until now. But like I said I was raised Southern Baptist so of course I never would have. A thought like that would send me straight to hell.

a reply to: PageLC14

Yes it is a perfectly sound way to go about things if you want to remain a Christian but at the same time understand that evolution is true. Personally, I don't make assumptions so that's why I'm not a Christian anymore (God's existence is an assumption there is no proof for or against him), but until scientists can answer the why part of the question to existence, I can't call you wrong about a belief in God. I just say that I don't know though.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: PageLC14

but until scientists can answer the why part of the question to existence, I can't call you wrong about a belief in God. I just say that I don't know though.

Which is when you get the response, "See then you don't know, therefore, my opinion on creationism is just as valid as the theory of evolution." Then the merry-go-round begins again...... lol

a reply to: Cypress

Well if they want to fill in blanks with their own assumptions, that's ok with me. It's when those assumptions start interfering with established science that I start to have problems.

The English scientific community have started to voice a support for the theory of a`punctuated equilibrium`. This shows that they are not comfortable with the speed limits imposed on biological processes from other disciplines. If we do not know the speed of creation/change then I see no reason to believe that a very fast creative process could not have existed. I have little experience of chemistry conducted in a lab, but I know from everyday common occurrences how quickly reactions can take place.

a reply to: happytoexist

Howdy,

You seem to have some confusion about this evolution thing. Let's start with the simplest misconception. Although biological organisms are essentially based in chemistry, chemistry is not biology. I've known plenty (okay, at least one) of inorganic chemists without the slightest clue as to what DNA does or how it works. (Real example, sad state of affairs...) That said, biological processes are not purely chemical anyway, so chemistry is merely a "part" of evolutionary theory.

Now for the more confusing things... Yes, there appear to be some "sudden" changes of species in the fossil record. I say "sudden" (like this in quotation marks) because it is geologically sudden, as in on a timescale of 4.5 billion years, it would be sudden. For a biologist, for the average human, it would still be a rather slow process. That said, there certainly seem to be cases in the fossil record where organisms persist throughout large chunks of geologic time, changing seemingly little.

This has led to some speculation and debate among certain prominent evolutionary biologists and paleontologists. Some believe the "sudden" changes that could be explained by punctuated equilibrium are nothing more than gradual change elsewhere and migration of the species to a new (the observed) area. Others believe it is truly "rapid" change.

Either way, both models have their place and both models explain certain speciation events better than the others. In reality, there is a spectrum of ranges of change over time. Surely you did not believe that evolutionary biologists limited themselves to either very slow or very fast. It would be like me asking if you wanted 1 drop of water or 100 gallons of water to drink today. Nature doesn't work at the extremes very often.

So, really, scientists know pretty well what changes occur over what periods of time (that's as simple as observing the fossil record), but it is harder to say why and under what conditions (although you can get clues of paleoclimate by the strata of rock).

Perhaps, though, I am misinterpreting you based on a misinterpretation of your own. If you would kindly post your sources of information, I'd gladly look over them.

For some basic reading on punctuated equilibrium and phyletic gradualism...
en.wikipedia.org...
en.wikipedia.org...

Sincere regards,
Hydeman

a reply to: hydeman11

Thanks for the reply.

I agree that chemistry is not strictly biology but...

If the sciences are to give a complete picture of creation/change would the order be-physics,chemistry,biology.?....each with orders of complexity that at first glance appear irreconcilable but are in fact reducible.

Could it be that our necessity for the demarcation of the subjects, to aid our understanding of this complex conundrum, have in our minds become too real.? serving only to create a cloud in-front of reality. And making such a theory as mentioned above less likely.

Geological time-scales place limits on what can be said of the evolutionary processes, is this not a dubious claim.? considering the differing opinions found in the study of geology itself.

If special circumstances have existed in the past, a point supported by some of the Bio/Evo community, and defended quite strongly I would say considering the status of the theory. The question arises how special could these events be.? are they unique or do they have a frequency etc. Are the normal processes that we measure today of any use when talking about the possibility and nature of such an event.?

Is what the Op asks impossible.? To me the very mention of time-scales opens the door for such a line of questioning.Can complexity be accomplished at such a pace.? ...well a scientist will say no.!! until shown otherwise, and then not without a struggle.

I have no sources other than a general browse of the available info and recent television productions.

I myself have an interest in the philosophy/history of science and the ideology of the scientific method.

Sorry for not sticking strictly between the lines but I am a big picture kind of person.

thanks

a reply to: happytoexist

Howdy,

Always happy to give my two cents. Perhaps too happy to do it.

If you wish to understand everything, then yes, I agree that all sciences play together. If you wish to understand speciation, really you only need biology (which makes use of some organic chemistry). The point I was trying to make was that studying one science (chemistry) does not make one an authority on another (biology).

It would like studying geology and claiming you knew about astrophysics because you had studied geology. Maybe that's very vaguely true, perhaps there is some overlap, but it is hardly significant if I want to understand a specific thing. For example, geology is fine if all I want to do is map layers of folded strata, and although relevant, I don't need any astrophysics in anything more than a broad sense.

To go back to evolution, you don't need a solid understanding of theoretical physics to see that organisms reproduce with variation. You don't even need a solid understanding of DNA/genetics (as evidenced by Darwin's hypotheses...). Certainly it helps refine the model, makes it better, but these theories can often stand well on the merits of their own fields' work.

That said, I do think that ever more narrow specialties in fields of science drive people further from the big picture, but that's what's left to discover and learn. Not much to be done about that.

The geological timescale doesn't really limit evolution, as evolution is a result of conditions, not time... (I'm afraid I might have to ask for clarification here.) If you are asking why I am referring to geologic time, it's simply because there is a difference between what geologists consider rapid and what biologists consider rapid. When you tell me that speciation took place over the course of 10,000 years, that's very quick. (Despite bacteria being able to do it in a human lifetime...) When you say 1 million years, that might be about the average lifespan of a "complex" species. If you say something has existed (changed, obviously) for 500 million years, that's pretty slow. See, to a biologist who is thinking only on human timescales, this might all seem like slow speciation, especially when compared to bacteria.

Again, can I get some clarification on what you mean by that? And the differing opinions in geology? (Geology is almost wholly unconcerned by evolution.)

Of what special circumstances are you speaking? The heightened oxygen levels in the Carboniferous? The plantless landscapes of the Cambrian (which certainly affected sediment deposition...)? The very hot Earth of the Pre-Cambrian? The Earth has always had unique conditions. Polar ice caps are unique conditions. The climate of an area of land is not constant over geologic time. Just look at how much limestone is currently under places that are not currently tropical/sub-tropical shallow marine environments. In fact, these changes in paleoenvironment almost assuredly caused some of the speciation we see in the fossil record (I'm thinking specifically of trilobites after the middle Devonian. Ohio,NY,PA,Oklohoma, and Morocco all have similar trilobites in the middle Devonian with some divergence afterward...)

I like the big picture too, but you can't construct it all at once. I do apologize for not quite understanding some of your questions. If you'd clarify them, perhaps I can better answer you?

Sincere regards,
Hydeman