Can Evolution be proven? or is it just a theory/religion?

Just to close out my overly lengthy post, let me point out that a scientist by the name of J. Craig Venter has, in fact, created life in a test tube, only a very simple virus to be sure, but life none-the-less.

He "Created" life? Ha! This boast reminds me of a joke I've read before. I could go into depth disputing the irrelevance of what Venter has done but why, when a simple joke will work just fine?

One day a group of scientists got together and decided that man had come a long way and no longer needed God. So they picked one scientist to go and tell Him that they were done with Him. The scientist walked up to God and said, “God, we've decided that we no longer need you. We’re to the point that we can clone people and do many miraculous things, so why don’t you just go on and mind your own business?”

God listened very patiently and kindly to the man. After the scientist was done talking, God said, “Very well, how about this? Let’s say we have a man-making contest.”
To which the scientist replied, “Okay, we can handle that!”
“But,” God added, “we’re going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam.”
The scientist said, “Sure, no problem” and bent down and grabbed himself a handful of dirt.
God looked at him and said, “No, no, no. You go get your own dirt.”

If I take the pieces from several GM cars and re-arrange them and sell them as my car, what happens? I get sued for copy-right infringement. This is pretty much what Venter is doing in your example. Venter's study is the equivalent of putting a seed in the dirt and watering it. He's just setting up a good condition for pre-existing matter. People can't create anything. They just work with what's already here.

[edit on 26-6-2005 by dbates]

Originally posted by dbates

Just to close out my overly lengthy post, let me point out that a scientist by the name of J. Craig Venter has, in fact, created life in a test tube, only a very simple virus to be sure, but life none-the-less.

He "Created" life? Ha! This boast reminds me of a joke I've read before. I could go into depth disputing the irrelevance of what Venter has done but why, when a simple joke will work just fine?

One day a group of scientists got together and decided that man had come a long way and no longer needed God. So they picked one scientist to go and tell Him that they were done with Him. The scientist walked up to God and said, “God, we've decided that we no longer need you. We’re to the point that we can clone people and do many miraculous things, so why don’t you just go on and mind your own business?”

God listened very patiently and kindly to the man. After the scientist was done talking, God said, “Very well, how about this? Let’s say we have a man-making contest.”
To which the scientist replied, “Okay, we can handle that!”
“But,” God added, “we’re going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam.”
The scientist said, “Sure, no problem” and bent down and grabbed himself a handful of dirt.
God looked at him and said, “No, no, no. You go get your own dirt.”

If I take the pieces from several GM cars and re-arrange them and sell them as my car, what happens? I get sued for copy-right infringement. This is pretty much what Venter is doing in your example. Venter's study is the equivalent of putting a seed in the dirt and watering it. He's just setting up a good condition for pre-existing matter. People can't create anything. They just work with what's already here.

[edit on 26-6-2005 by dbates]

That kind of posts really put things back in perspective Dbates.

There is so much to respond to... I don't know where to begin. I'll just keep this post short, I think. This thread is wayward with logical fallacy, circular reasoning, ignorance of previous posts and accepted facts, and it is just generally not an informative or intelligent discussion.

This thread is largely focused on verbiage, such as "religion," "creation," "proof," and "evolution." "Expert" continues to assert that evolutionary science is a religion. I could again delve into the semantical definitions of the word "religion," as I have done with the words "proof" and "theory," but I think that the only person who could benefit from such an examination, Expert999, would ignore it as he has ignored so many other posts in his thread. However, I will throw this out there -

Expert999, you are an atheist. You are an atheist 1,000 times over.

Atheist -
One who disbelieves or denies the existence of God or gods

I imagine you disbelieve in Hinduism, Islam, Amita Buddhism, Animism, several other sects of Christianity, Greek Gods, Norse Gods, etc. You deny the existence of all of these Gods, and so you are an atheist just like any other. The only difference between you and somebody who disbelieves in all Gods is the belief in one single God.

What I am about to say is ad hominous, but I can't help myself. I feel as though Expert999 is like a kid who plugs his ears and says "LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" Whenever someone is trying to inspire reason in him.

Venter's virus cannot be downplayed by an analogous joke. To do so is to ignore its implications. Researchers under Venter created a synthetic genome, based on a pre-existing one, inserted it into a cell, and the cell began reproducing as a human-engineered life product. This is just the beginning, however, of this science.

Creation of life? No, but remember that it only took two weeks to do this. Judging by the rate of expansion, which is occuring at the speed of light, scientists agree that the universe is 10 to 15 billion years old. Earth is about 4.5 billion years old. Two weeks.

I think that Expert999 and perhaps some others here would be more at home discussing questions such as this on another forum, one more dedicated to scientific/religious debates. There are scores of them out there. You will likely find me on one of them.

Zip

the speed of light is a theory, no one knows that it travels at the same rate through all space and time. in fact they proved that it slows down when it enters the atmosphere.

and I am not an athiest, I believe in the God of the bible. that is a God and I believe that he is the true God. half of the gods in other religions are ones that are limited by physical limits, the reason I chose this God was becuase he is not limited by time space or matter, which makes him infinite.

now of course this is what I believe, but evolution is the exact opposite.
and you have to believe evolution in order for it to be true in your mind. its not fact. its a theory, and a theory that cannot be proven so it requires faith to make it true in your mind. thats what makes it religious. im sorry that you are the god of your little universe, thats actually a pretty scarry though.

I believe that you are wrong about that statement calling me an atheist. when actually I am entirley theistic.

its too bad you have to try to put me down to make yourself look good.

if you ever look at the research done by this scientist, he had to use life in order to conduce his experiment. he used a living cell.
thats not evolution, thats using what you alreay have.

if I stuck a frog in a blender and turned it on, its still a frog, or at least the materials, but are you going to tell me that the cells that are still alive can put that frog back together? yeah right.

he used a non-living thing (virus) and inserted in into a living thing (cell)

Originally posted by expert999
the speed of light is a theory, no one knows that it travels at the same rate through all space and time. in fact they proved that it slows down when it enters the atmosphere.

From the Terms and Conditions of this site:

1.) You will not post any material that is knowingly false, misleading, or inaccurate.


Stop doing this expert999.

If you choose to believe everything you read that supports your views, that's fine.

But stop posting misleading, inaccurate, and false things.

I have faith that a pizza will be delivered in less than 30 minutes, but that is by no means a religion for me.

I do apologize for poking fun at you.

Zip

Originally posted by expert999
he used a non-living thing (virus) and inserted in into a living thing (cell)

The genome map was completely synthetic. He inserted it into a dead cell.

Zip

Originally posted by LeftBehind

Originally posted by expert999
the speed of light is a theory, no one knows that it travels at the same rate through all space and time. in fact they proved that it slows down when it enters the atmosphere.

From the Terms and Conditions of this site:

1.) You will not post any material that is knowingly false, misleading, or inaccurate.


Stop doing this expert999.

Can we stick with the subject and please stop picking on poor expert999. He/she actually has quite a few good post in this thread. You'd be better off doing a bit of research before screaming about his well-researched post. It seems that the knowledge that the speed of light can be slowed down has been around since 1850.

Yes. Light is slowed down in transparent media such as air, water and glass. The ratio by which it is slowed is called the refractive index of the medium and is always greater than one.* This was discovered by Jean Foucault in 1850.

Now unless you have an actual real complaint about another member, then just stick to the subject please.

Ok, I guess you are right dbates, we have no idea what the speed of light is.


It's ok to lie about science to make yourself look better.


I stand corrected.

Originally posted by Expert999.

there is not enough salt in the ocean to cover millions or billions of years, nor is there enough sediments at the bottom of the ocean to cover for billions or millions of years.



the moon is leaving us. of you go back 150 million years approx. the moon would be almost touching the earth.




it would take a galaxy about 10,000 years to totally lose its spiral shape.


I dont know if I told you this before, but human footprints has been found with dinosaur tracks.


the geologic collumn does not exist.




well look that up. last time I checked the earth was spinning at about 6,000 miles per hour at the equator. everyone knows that the earth is slowing down. thats why we have leap year and leap second. I learned this when i was like 12.

All of the above are blatantly false.


But I guess if you believe them it's ok.

Dinasour footprints with human foot prints.
I've personally seen what looks very much like human and dinosaur footprints in Glen Rose TX. There is debate about the prints being human, but you can't really swing it either way. From seeing them in person I'd say they were human footprints. The prints are shaped and spaced like a person made them.

The moon's orbit.

Measurements show that the Moon is receding from Earth at a rate of about 3.8 centimeters per year.

Sediment in the Ocean.
True there's not enough sediment to account for billions of years, but this could be explained away by ice-ages, ocean upheaval, or even a world devoid of oceans for a period of time. This one could go either way.

*Yawn* I suppose that there were more points you made, but should I dig into these as well. You didn't make any effort into disproving these theories, other than to state that they are false so who am I to believe? I'm not taking sides, just saying that if you want to make a point, then back it up. Hey for all we know, anything is possible. The whole universe could just be a holographic illusion.

JTL,
Again, if you actually attepmted to post something of use and pertaining to a thread instead of these obvious attacks that you constanly make towards those of any faith, then maybe, just maybe, you would not receive a u2u or warning and people would actually listen to what you had to say.
Since you seem to be completely incapable of making a post that contains numerous inflammatory remarks towards those of any faith then, anything that you may actually post will continue to be ignored due to your rantings overshadowing everything.
If I or any others on this forum were to post such flaming posts as you do then we also would receive warnings etc. It is not that you are an aethist or agnostic or any other belief or non-belief that you abscribe to.
If you do not have anything of pertainance to contribute to a thread either to prove or disprove the topic of the thread, then you do not have to post, you do not even have to read it if it is so against what your personal beliefs are.

Let's get back on topic please. Flaming will be dealt with nice and harshly by moi.

Mark Isaak
Calling the theory of evolution "only a theory" is, strictly speaking, true, but the idea it tries to convey is completely wrong. The argument rests on a confusion between what "theory" means in informal usage and in a scientific context. A theory, in the scientific sense, is "a coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation for a class of phenomena" [Random House American College Dictionary]. The term does not imply tentativeness or lack of certainty. Generally speaking, scientific theories differ from scientific laws only in that laws can be expressed more tersely. Being a theory implies self-consistency, agreement with observations, and usefulness. (Creationism fails to be a theory mainly because of the last point; it makes few or no specific claims about what we would expect to find, so it can't be used for anything. When it does make falsifiable predictions, they prove to be false.)

I like that quote - it puts everything in perspective with regards to the word "theory," the scientific process, and the goals of science and religion.

The essential elements of the scientific method are iterations and recursions of the following four steps:

Characterization
Hypothesis (a theoretical, hypothetical explanation)
Prediction (logical deduction from the hypothesis)
Experiment (test of all of the above)
This can be called the hypothetico-deductive method. These activities do not describe all that scientists do (see below). The 4-step method described above is often used in education. Teachers using inquiry as a teaching method sometimes teach a slightly modified version of the scientific method in which "Question" is substituted for Observation.

Science is a social activity. The process is subject to evaluation by the scientists directly involved, or by the scientific community, at any or every stage. A scientist's theory or proposal is accepted only after it has become known to others (usually via publication, ideally peer reviewed publication) and criticised.

That was from WikiPedia entry for the Scientific Method.

Here is a quote from one Solidsquid of the Atheist Network:

Also, the theories, hypotheses, and experiments are all open to repeatability and peer review. This allows the scientific community or anyone else to evaluate the information and validate it themselves if they are so inclined. Scientific journals assist in the peer review process as well as repeatability by following the APA publication format of stating the experiment, the methods, discussion of findings and the conclusion reached by the researchers along with a synopsis called an abstract.

Theories and hypotheses are open to peer review regardless of the religion or lack thereof of the peer. Christians can and do scientifically question and adjust theories and hypotheses all the time. Remember, also, that since the bible is undoubtedly open to interpretation due to its often times abstract nature, the makeup of the Christian community is as varied as the rest of the world's religious followers - for instance, there are Creationist Evolutionists and whatnot.

The scientific method is not an exclusively Godless Savage device - it is open to anybody in the world to use.

Evolution can be disproven. Has it been disproven? No. Let's take a look at this quote from Scientific American:

3. Evolution is unscientific, because it is not testable or falsifiable. It makes claims about events that were not observed and can never be re-created.

This blanket dismissal of evolution ignores important distinctions that divide the field into at least two broad areas: microevolution and macroevolution. Microevolution looks at changes within species over time--changes that may be preludes to speciation, the origin of new species. Macroevolution studies how taxonomic groups above the level of species change. Its evidence draws frequently from the fossil record and DNA comparisons to reconstruct how various organisms may be related.

These days even most creationists acknowledge that microevolution has been upheld by tests in the laboratory (as in studies of cells, plants and fruit flies) and in the field (as in Grant's studies of evolving beak shapes among Galápagos finches). Natural selection and other mechanisms--such as chromosomal changes, symbiosis and hybridization--can drive profound changes in populations over time.

The historical nature of macroevolutionary study involves inference from fossils and DNA rather than direct observation. Yet in the historical sciences (which include astronomy, geology and archaeology, as well as evolutionary biology), hypotheses can still be tested by checking whether they accord with physical evidence and whether they lead to verifiable predictions about future discoveries. For instance, evolution implies that between the earliest-known ancestors of humans (roughly five million years old) and the appearance of anatomically modern humans (about 100,000 years ago), one should find a succession of hominid creatures with features progressively less apelike and more modern, which is indeed what the fossil record shows. But one should not--and does not--find modern human fossils embedded in strata from the Jurassic period (144 million years ago). Evolutionary biology routinely makes predictions far more refined and precise than this, and researchers test them constantly.

Evolution could be disproved in other ways, too. If we could document the spontaneous generation of just one complex life-form from inanimate matter, then at least a few creatures seen in the fossil record might have originated this way. If superintelligent aliens appeared and claimed credit for creating life on earth (or even particular species), the purely evolutionary explanation would be cast in doubt. But no one has yet produced such evidence.

It should be noted that the idea of falsifiability as the defining characteristic of science originated with philosopher Karl Popper in the 1930s. More recent elaborations on his thinking have expanded the narrowest interpretation of his principle precisely because it would eliminate too many branches of clearly scientific endeavor.

In answer to one of the most common creationist questions ever asked of the scientific comunity, here is another quote from Scientific American:

7. Evolution cannot explain how life first appeared on earth.

The origin of life remains very much a mystery, but biochemists have learned about how primitive nucleic acids, amino acids and other building blocks of life could have formed and organized themselves into self-replicating, self-sustaining units, laying the foundation for cellular biochemistry. Astrochemical analyses hint that quantities of these compounds might have originated in space and fallen to earth in comets, a scenario that may solve the problem of how those constituents arose under the conditions that prevailed when our planet was young.

Creationists sometimes try to invalidate all of evolution by pointing to science's current inability to explain the origin of life. But even if life on earth turned out to have a nonevolutionary origin (for instance, if aliens introduced the first cells billions of years ago), evolution since then would be robustly confirmed by countless microevolutionary and macroevolutionary studies.

I have a lot of information about fossils, but I really like this quick summary here.

Pojcta and Springer wrote:
In the mid-1600's, about 200 years before Darwin published his theory of evolution, the Danish scientist Nicholas Steno found that it was possible to establish the order in which layered rocks were deposited.

...in any sequence of undisturbed layered rocks, a given bed must be older than any bed on top of it. This Principle of Superposition is fundamental to understanding the age of rocks; at any one place it indicates the relative age of the rock layers and of the fossils they contain.

If we begin at the present and examine older and older layers of rock, we will arrive at a level where no human fossils are found. If we continue backward in time, we successively come to layers where no fossils of birds are present, no mammals, no reptiles, no four-footed animals, no fishes, no shells, and no members of the animal kingdom. These concepts are summarized in the general principle called the Law of Fossil Succession. (14-15).

More on relative dating:

Jurmain, Nelson, Kilgore and Trevathan wrote:
Another method of dating is fluorine analysis, which only applies to bones. Bones in the earth are exposed to the seepage of groundwater that usually contains fluorine. The longer a bone lies in the earth, the more fluorine it will incorporate during the fossilization process. Therefore, bones deposited at the same time in the same location should contain the same amount of fluorine. (234)

I've got to go for now, but in summary, I would like to say this.

We have a lot of scientific theory. We have a lot of scientific information. We have made a lot of inferences that make sense. We don't have all of the answers yet, but we have substantially more answers than somebody who says that the Earth was made in 6 days by a person in the clouds "speaking it" into existence. Being a close-minded Christian or a close-minded Science Guy, in either case, your close-mindedness will defeat you.

Zip

Dbates that site you posted said that the moon is moving away the earth at 3.8 cm a year.


Expert999 said that 150 million years ago the moon and the earth were almost touching.


Lets see 150 million times 3.8 cm equals 570 million cm.


The moon is now 385,000 kilometers away.

150 million years ago it was 5700km closer if it constantly moves away at 3.8cm a year.


380,000 km away is not "almost touching".


If you want to debate, that's fine, but don't talk down to me if you can't even do the math.

Proving evolution is like taking the best case of ghost stories and all kinds of scientists come in and try to prove it and even call in the ghost busters, but the ghost busters cant prove it either so they all just say it is real but they are probably chasing wind and one day will feel stupid for convincing themselves of a fairy-tale so vast.
It is a good tale-I mean dinosaurs into birds into blah blah-but seriously since a kid ive always thought, "Hey, now this is the dumbest thing ive ever heard".

Edit:Add-on: Evolution is man-made theory like time to try and look at the world around them and convince themselves God didnt create. After this they can now feel better and do whatever damn thing they want but one day they will be sorry.(Darwin repented and go google it im not linking)
BTW: Darwin was probably high or on some opium and more than likely drunk....seriously back then people didnt care.

[edit on 26-6-2005 by Wisdumb]

Speaking of fairy tales, Lady Hope told a great one about Darwin repenting.


I listened to you and looked it up.

www.apologeticspress.org...

Did Darwin repent? Did he become a believer in God, or a Christian? The answer to both questions is a resounding no. Creationists and Christians do themselves no favor by circulating, even if inadvertently through good intentions, stories such as these that ultimately are without foundation.

There are many threads on this site covering these arguments, do we really need a new thread every month that completely ignores all the previous debate?


www.abovetopsecret.com...
www.abovetopsecret.com...
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by LeftBehind
Expert999 said that 150 million years ago the moon and the earth were almost touching.

No, no. The actual quote is

I didn't even mention the moon. that would have been pretty close to earth about 150 million years ago. close to enough to cause the water on earth to drown everything on earth twice a day.

No one ever said that they were almost touching. Just that they were closer. I think that the moon being 5700km closer would cause some seriously strong/high tides. Of course we don't know if the rate of ascension is constant or has sped up, but it's not the worst argument I've ever heard.

But LB, nowhere in the bible does it say god created math, so math is EVIL!

Edited here by SimonGray for unncessary commentary.

Wait, I am not a sheep ready to be raped by the shepard........

Anyways, I love christians, they make it so easy for smart people to get at them.

"Why are all Islamic people bad?" Because less then 1% did something bad on 9/11! "Well, 4% of priests rape little boys(25,000+) so all priests are rapists?"

Edited here by SimonGray for unncessary commentary.

"Why are witches bad?" Because we said so! "So, I say you are bad, does that mean you are bad?"

Edited here by SimonGray for unncessary commentary.

"Why do you hate the real world so much? Why is reality such a threat to you?" Because it proves the bible is nothing more then a crutch for the ignorant.

Edited here by SimonGray for unncessary commentary.

"Why is the theory of gravity real but the theory of evolution wrong?" Because the moon is trillions of miles farther away then it was before. Because speed of light isn't known. Because the earth is flat.

Edited here by SimonGray for unncessary commentary.

See, so much fun. If they were any easier to get at it wouldn't be fun. But since right now it is just about 3% harder to get to them then it is to steal candy from a baby, it is fun.

It is even more funny that they think the cross is so holy but Witchcraft is evil, yet that is where the cross came from, well, Druids, a Celtic Symbol. They think they came up with a World Flood story, yet every town/city near a body of water has a flood story. They think they came up with the son of god, but then say Greek Religon is evil for having son of gods, and daughters of gods. They say poly religons are evil, but have one themself. When pointed out, they snap and kill everyone in a 2 mile radius.

Further posts that require editing by myself in this particular topic will result in a post ban on that specific user's account until further notice or permanently, at my discretion.

[edit on 26-6-2005 by SimonGray]

Originally posted by dbates

Originally posted by LeftBehind
Expert999 said that 150 million years ago the moon and the earth were almost touching.

No, no. The actual quote is

I didn't even mention the moon. that would have been pretty close to earth about 150 million years ago. close to enough to cause the water on earth to drown everything on earth twice a day.

No one ever said that they were almost touching. Just that they were closer.

Dbates, please actually read the thread before jumping to conclusions.

Page 2, 17th post down.

Originally posted by Expert999the moon is leaving us. of you go back 150 million years approx. the moon would be almost touching the earth. and everything on earth would be covered with water, evolutionist say that dinosaurs lived millions of years ago.

BTW, the onus of proof is on the person making the outrageous claims.

If I started a thread saying that the earth was flat, I would have to prove it, not make other people prove me wrong, especially if I just ignored whatever evidence I disagreed with.