Creationism and Evolution Debate

posted on September 23rd, 2010, 8:15 am

http://75.125.60.6/~creatio1/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=35

Tell me where the science is!

posted on September 23rd, 2010, 8:43 am

Its the monkey - typewriter method...if you wait long enough the chances are good that he might write something of value.

Actually that has been argued over as well.  Some analysis show that a very large amount of monkeys (forget the amount) would require more time than exists in the known universe to produce even a single sentence of Shakespeare through random chance.

The good news for evolution is one does not prove or falsify the other (so it confuses me why both sides use this as an argument).  While it seems that letters making words parallel the creation of DNA there are some significant differences.

For example, letters can be combined in any order without problem, even if what you produce is garbage.  Atoms cannot.  Only certain combinations can form molecules.  To extend this to the typewriter analogy you would have to introduce the rules that apply to the English language such as "q" never repeats, no letter appears more than twice in a row, etc.

Another issue relates to scale.  It has to be accepted than an infinite of monkey could reproduce Shakespeare and you could argue that it could happen with t almost equal to zero, because when dealing with infinity things get very strange.  However, we know there are not infinite atoms on the earth to make molecules with so we can of course discard that... but and this is one thing that people often don't consider I believe, is that the randomlike combination of atoms into molecules did not just happen on Earth.  It happens today on countless planets throughout the universe and was happening since planets started forming.  

Most planets are presumably not suitable for the development of terrestrial life (we should keep our minds open to the possibility of life evolving in very different circumstances), but with certainty Earth is not the only planet in the universe, or even our galaxy where conditions for life to arise spontaneously are or as possible (assuming it is possible at all).  This gives us a much larger base for life to randomly occur than would be based on just our planet.

However, the perhaps most damning argument relates to creationists tend to get stuck with the idea that we had atoms that randomly combined to produce life... and this is the problem.  They didn't.  There were many steps.  Atoms combined in the early conditions of earth to form amino acids.  This has been proven to be possible in a number of experiements.  20 base amino acids are all that are required to form life and experiments have generated more than these base 20.  It has further been shown that amino acids combine to form proteins.  This is not mysterious.  This is just pure chemistry, nothing to do with life, yet.

The point which is still fuzzy, and open to inquiry and skepticism by creationists is how those proteins combined to form the predecessors of DNA and what the exact intermediate steps were.  We have a gap in our theory... and this is where the creationists are best attacking and interposing god.... at least until we figure out what the missing steps were and then we can push god out of these gaps as well.

posted on September 23rd, 2010, 9:06 am

Ok, so I actually have to say something.  It is beyond my power to sit these debates out(Myles you can stand down ).

your already an engisn. how much further can i bust you? maybe i'll promote a particularly stupid ensign above you so you are the lowest, hmmmm which ensign is stupid enough to embarass you....

harry kim. now lieutenant junior grade.

see what i had to do >:(

u forced me to promote that fool. may the great spaghetti god save us all.

posted on September 23rd, 2010, 9:58 am

Regarding any 'evidence' of evolution, here's one.  I, and many more people like me, were born without wisdom teeth.  I'm not talking about how babies are born with no teeth.  I'm talking I never had them, never grew them, and thus, never needed to have them removed.  It's still not the average amongst the human race, but it's not remotely unheard of.

My father had wisdom teeth, as did my mother, and all four of my grandparents...and they all had to have a dentist remove them.  I was spared that because my DNA didn't tell my body to grow them at all.

posted on September 23rd, 2010, 10:48 am

HAHA this is funny because of this example I understand now that mutation results in 'information loss'...wisdom is gone for you because of the malicious evolution 

posted on September 23rd, 2010, 10:57 am

Mutation can result in a lot of weird shit, and its not always a loss (extra limb, third nipple, second head).  Don't worry though, i'm sure the creationists have an explanation.  Possibly god is punishing the mutants' parents because one of them sinned or something, but don't worry because god loves us and forgives us. 

posted on September 23rd, 2010, 12:41 pm

Tell me where the science is!

Also Pictured Above:  This entire discussion.

Attachments

posted on September 23rd, 2010, 12:48 pm

And, the probability of life being on that planet is so low, that you are more likely to run out of molecules in the universe hundreds or thousands of times before finding a single living cell.

If that number was writen in a line where the numbers are 1 micron acros it would probably go ferther than hundreds of thousands of universes.

[loki_999]

posted on September 23rd, 2010, 1:22 pm

Last edited by loki_999 on September 23rd, 2010, 1:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.

posted on September 23rd, 2010, 2:05 pm

Don't take the Cat's name in vain Loki!

posted on September 23rd, 2010, 3:28 pm

your already an engisn. how much further can i bust you? maybe i'll promote a particularly stupid ensign above you so you are the lowest, hmmmm which ensign is stupid enough to embarass you....

harry kim. now lieutenant junior grade.

see what i had to do >:(

u forced me to promote that fool. may the great spaghetti god save us all.

Fail.  I actually like Voyager.


Loki, I have to agree with Redshirt.  The points you are making seem to consider this an unintelligible debate, and we are not worthy of such a thing as a intellectual debate.  You treat every argument with an attitude which states your opinion is greater than everyone's, not equal, and there is no place for such a thing in debate.  So there!

Soo elitist.   Mal would agree.

Now, jokes asside.(though it was in part, serious )

I agree with what you said erlier.  We must agree to disagree.   I have been saying this from the beginning.  These debates are pointless unless the sides are open enough to agree on any points, and in the case of Forum debates about serious topics, it is just not gonna happen.

Mutation can result in a lot of weird shit, and its not always a loss (extra limb, third nipple, second head).  Don't worry though, i'm sure the creationists have an explanation.  Possibly god is punishing the mutants' parents because one of them sinned or something, but don't worry because god loves us and forgives us. 

Its funny you should mention that, because I was just thinking of a verse in , oh that ebil Bible!!!  you have read the Bible, so these verses should be familiar to you.
Romans 8:28
or for the OT
Jeremiah 29:11

These do not to say that you won't be physically harmed, or bad things won't happen, because they do, but that All things work out according to His plan.

And nowhere does it say that the son is punished for the sins of the father in the Bible. Infact, in both the NT and the OT it quotes "Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their fathers; each is to die for his own sins."

Of course, death was not the punishment in the NT, and in the OT they were given the ability to give sacrifices to get out of such a harsh punishment.


Now that we are in Doctrinal debate, lets talk about the OT God, versus the NT God.  

You state that the God of the OT is a Genocidal...Well you use very unprofessional words.  The only case of Genocide he comitted was the Flood, for which there is great amounts of evidence, but there was also a promise that nothing like it would happen again.  God, the creator of man, has the right to destroy his creations at any time.  Instead, he chose to start from scratch, from a man who choose to accept God, rather than cast him out.  God Loved his people, so he punished them many times in the OT.  Would you say that Parents who spank their children, or ground them do not Love their children?  No, of course not!  They do it because they love.

Because you were the one who brought up Genocide, and this is the only case of true genocide in the Bible, through direct act of God, then it is the only example I am using.

In the NT, you have the simplicity of John 3:16.  though you have already accepted that God is loving in this part of the Bible, you forget that is is here that he Condemns Sinners to Hell, and sacrifices his own son to pay for those who accept his gift.

So yes, God is both the God of love, and the God of wrath.  The two testaments do not contradict each other, but build upon each other.  The first has many prophecies and lays out laws, where as the second fulfills many of the prophecies, and shows how to go about following those laws, and how to apply them.  

If you need more clarification, I would be happy to obliged.  Of course, you don't, because you are probably laughing to yourself at the silliness of all this right? I mean, common, how could the God of love, wipe out his own people, and allow them to kill his son, who was for some reason, human.



Oh yeah, Augustine! Sorry I forgot.  I actually read that in a book, but here is a link to a short biography, and at the bottom is a list of his works.

http://www.suite101.com/content/st-augustine-a82916

The book I was reading was called. The Consequences of Ideas  If you want, you should read the chapter on him.  For a philosophy book, I found it very interesting.(they are usually so dry... )

posted on September 23rd, 2010, 4:43 pm

Gotcha!    Its dangerous to start using the bible to make points because just about everything in the bible is contradicted somewhere else in the bible.  The line of David - 2 versions.  Story of creation - 2 versions.  Even incest is approved of sometimes (or at least God looked the other way) (Exodus 6, Genesis 17 and 20).  Maybe you remember Lot?  Another of God's favourites.  Read Genesis 19:31 onwards... daughters get him drunk, sleep with him, and have his children.  No mention of divine retribution!

And nowhere does it say that the son is punished for the sins of the father in the Bible. Infact, in both the NT and the OT it quotes "Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their fathers; each is to die for his own sins."

Its also quite hot on punishing children especially sons, for the sins of the father:
Exodus 20:5 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=exodus%2020:5&version=NIV
Also repeated in Deuteronomy 5:9
Exodus 34:7 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=exodus%2034:7&version=NIV
and also pretty much the same in Numbers 14:18 and Isiah 14:21.
And the poor bastards (as in the proper meaning of the word) have no chance according to Deuteronomy 23:2, and this includes the bastards children unto the 10th generation!  Imagine that, your mother is raped by a solider and this condemns you and your children for 10 generations!

The only case of Genocide he comitted was the Flood, for which there is great amounts of evidence, but there was also a promise that nothing like it would happen again.  

God loves Genocide.  Using the New International version, but the different versions have more or less the same.

Samuel said to Saul, "I am the one the LORD sent to anoint you king over his people Israel; so listen now to the message from the LORD.  This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.' "

It goes on more, especially good is where Samuel bawls out Saul for not following God's instructions to the letter because he left some cattle alive.  And Saul then gets all upset because he believes he has sinned by not following the letter of the Lord.

God, the creator of man, has the right to destroy his creations at any time.  Instead, he chose to start from scratch, from a man who choose to accept God, rather than cast him out.  God Loved his people, so he punished them many times in the OT.  Would you say that Parents who spank their children, or ground them do not Love their children?  

And you like that?  So parents have the right to destroy their creations?  I very rarely lay a hand on my children and when i do i get a tongue lashing from my wife on the topic of child psychology and explains how I should have resolved the situation.  My kids respond very well usually to explanations of why what they have done is wrong.  Its hard to be a parent and very hard to be a good parent. 

Oh yeah, Augustine! Sorry I forgot.  I actually read that in a book, but here is a link to a short biography, and at the bottom is a list of his works.

http://www.suite101.com/content/st-augustine-a82916

Thanks for that, i've bookmarked it and will take a look soon.

posted on September 26th, 2010, 6:30 am

Well, I'm getting pretty busy with programming classes so I need to bow out of this thread.  Although coming back, it seems it's already dying on its own.

Hopefully I can make my final rebuttals "softly," and not force you guys into rebuttals.  At least, that's what I'm going to attempt.

Drrr, thanks for debating honestly.

If I told you that there is a brain in my head simply because I can feel it, you could return that I have never observed a situation in which my head did not have a brain in it.  This does not prevent me from bringing further evidence, postulating that were there no brain in my head, I could not think and thus there must be a brain in my head.

In the same way, if a person states "god is everywhere," they cannot use a direct observation as proof, but that fact does NOT affect other methods of investigation.  It only prevents a 100% proof of god, which we all already know is impossible.  An argument that god is LIKELY or that god is POSSIBLE isn't hindered at all by the fact that we cannot know anything about his appearance to the five senses.

Now, I "read some crap on the internet" and you "did some research," so I wanted to respect you by reading the article you linked to, "Natural Selection for Least Action."  I admit that the actual equations were sometimes over my head, but with my college physics and calculus I was able to grasp the significance of his presentation.  Although I wonder if you read it as well?

The article spends almost its entirety making a painstaking (but actually quite interesting) multifaceted definition of the Second Law of Dynamics.  In the simplest of paraphrases, its argument went like this:

1. "Like water in a tank, if you introduce a high energy system to a low energy system, energy will pour from one into the other until they are equal."  This is true, and very well explained in the paper.

2. "If you observe this system from a physics point of view, you can effectively point to an invisible force that does whatever is necessary to push the energy from the high side of the tank to the low."  This is fascinating, and also true.

3. "If you continually pour energy into a low system, this imaginary (but still effective) force will do whatever is most efficient to raise the energy of the system."  The math agrees with this, although the author admits that the final result is by no means defined, and can be chaotic.

4. "Earth is one such system, and the sun continually adds energy.  Thus it will happen that events that increase the energy and complexity of the system are sure to happen, such as the advent and evolution of life."

5. "Although the abstract description of evolution provided by the statistical physics results in a holistic view of nature, it is unarmed to say specifically how energy transduction mechanisms, i.e. species, have emerged." (Direct quote)

The key flaws (as I see them) in this theory are such:

First, the earth as a system is NOT simply receiving energy.  It is clear from our studies of the universe that the near-zero energy system around us, "space," causes dissipation of energy at the same time the sun introduces it.  I believe simple math would show that this system has a net loss of energy, rather than a net gain.

Second, the paper uses the rather strong hypothesis that life increases the energy of a system, and that every single link in the evolutionary chain created slightly higher energy.  The paper also admits that the individual mechanics used by the "driving force of entropy" are all unknown.  And they would need to be many.

This paper is akin to a person in New York telling his son that their lost toy boat can come back to that exact spot because the wind blows prevailingly to the west.  Yes it can, and yes the wind is a factor in that, but it's by no means conclusive.

It's a beautifully cited paper, don't get me wrong, and it produces a necessary piece of the puzzle for evolution science.  But it's not supporting evidence in the practical sense of the word.  It seems to me that by the title, the author wants people to THINK it's supporting evidence of evolution though, which means he is advertising it as something it is not.

As for loki's post about the Bible...don't go there.  Just don't.  Contradictions in the Bible are a myth, people take delicate contexts and twist them every way they can but at the end of the day, if you read it the way it was meant, it never contradicts itself.  But there's no way you're going to believe that so we must disagree and avoid the subject.

The things you cite as cruelty certainly appear to be just that, out of context.  I freely admit, when I read those parts of the Bible I believe that there was a greater purpose behind it, that I am unaware of.  I trust in something I cannot see and cannot prove exists, in order to read something that seems wrong to me and believe that it was not wrong.  But in that context it isn't all nonsense: do you know how many people today argue that bastards should be euthanized? (or aborted, same thing)  If the Israelites wanted to protect themselves they had to kill the men, if they left the women they would suffer, if they left the children they would starve.  God knew it was the most merciful thing to do, but to make absolutely sure the Israelites understood how tragic it was, he ordered them to also slaughter the animals and destroy all the plunder they could have gotten.  He refused them the spoils of war to make a point that it was not a thing to celebrate.  When Saul disobeyed him, God cursed him and sent his prophet to shout about it and make sure they got the message.

While this may seem naive and illogical to you, it's how I read the Bible.  Keep in mind that when YOU read the Bible, you have a strong bias to believe that people made it up, plus the starting belief that as a person reading a book, you understand the ethical situation more than the people (and deity) that were there.  If you start out with that attitude, you can find horror in a significant percent of all the books ever written.

posted on September 26th, 2010, 7:34 am

Tryptic, thanks for the response, but please, take the stuff that i raised about the bible and put yourself in the same situation.

Let's say, God is real.  God orders you to kill an entire people along with their children.  You need to kill the children so they won't "suffer".

You would do this?  Or would you give God the middle finger?

What about all the other things in the bible that god clearly commands? 

Children who curse their mother or father - death
adulterers - death
gays - death
sleeping with your daughter in law - death

In fact, God is really hot on the death penalty for a whole range of things.

posted on September 26th, 2010, 11:40 am

First, the earth as a system is NOT simply receiving energy.  It is clear from our studies of the universe that the near-zero energy system around us, "space," causes dissipation of energy at the same time the sun introduces it.  I believe simple math would show that this system has a net loss of energy, rather than a net gain.

So you claim that the Earth-system has a net loss of energy? How that? What kind of energy are your referring to - heat, radiation?

Anyway the matter might be difficult...lets stick with something easy...I recently read about three strong scientific evidences for evolution:

1. Fossils -> you claim there are "problems" with measured age of them.

2. Genetics -> can't remember you talked about this.

3. Live evidence

Here we go. Live evidence for evolution can be found by doing experiments with e.g. bacteria. You can find out how they will adept in certain environments e.g. becoming resistant against antibiotics. How do creationists explain this behavior without using evolution? Remember, its live! You can watch with your own eyes how it happens.