something something evolution something something

[pyrochild]

Rant: There's a lot of conflict in being a biology major and a Christian... I'm going to a state university, so I'm constantly being fed things I don't believe, particularly when it comes to the origin of life on earth. Evolution is absolutely foolish in my opinion. They expect me to believe that life came about because a pool of slime got struck by lightning and formed proteins? Or that the only reason I'm alive today is because x number of Giga-years ago some proteobacteria decided to climb inside a eukaryotic cell and form mitochondria? The similarities in nature aren't evidence of a common ancestor: they are evidence of a common Creator. It's easier for me to believe that God created everything we see than to believe that it all came about by chance.

Seriously?

I'm just going to assume you're trolling, because otherwise I will cry at humanity.

[Daniels]

Sorry Pyro. Not trolling. I'll have to buy you a box of tissues.

[Ego Eram Reputo]

Life evolves.  It adapts.  "Only the strong survive" & all that.  To hold contrary views is just being contrary.

 

So if we have established that life evolves it is unbelievable (to me) that you can't rewind this evolution to it's natural origin.

 

They expect me to believe that life came about because a pool of slime got struck by lightning and formed proteins?

 

That's got to be more likely than "God just wanted it - and so it came to pass".

 

 

In a slightly oblique aside, believing in evolution is not at odds with Christian beliefs.

 

[Pixey]

Only two things in life are certain:  Death & Taxes ................. but, hang on a minute .... I've been hearing some folks don't pay taxes. 

 

That only leaves one thing certain     

[pdnnoob]

@Daniels Don't try to start discussions about evolution vs christianity on the internet. I learned the hard way after 40 pages of fruitless argument with people that never seemed to read the whole argument. I know you just wanted to rant, but even the possibility of such a discussion can cause so much angst that even the nicest forums get turned un-nice. Let's keep paint.net nice ok?

@pyro ...and it's comments like that that tend to start above mentioned issues...but you're pyro, so we all know you're really made of soft, dry, not-stinky socks on the inside

[Daniels]

@Daniels... Let's keep paint.net nice ok?

Sure thing pal. Post edited. Let's hope it ends here I wasn't intending to start a discussion, but of course, things happen.

Edited March 1, 2013 by Daniels

[Kemaru]

The problem with debate, online and "real", is that people always seem to start attacking ad hominem at some point -- it hardly ever stays civil...

Edited March 1, 2013 by Kemaru

[Ego Eram Reputo]

I thought we were being all grown up about this inflammatory topic

[Daniels]

I am. By avoiding unnecessary conflict. But if you'd like, we can continue.

 

Side note: I will admit that my post was rather inflammatory. It was late, so I did not use as much discretion as I should have. I could have said the exact same in less abrasive terms.

[Ego Eram Reputo]

Adult, considered discussion is permitted.  Continue

[Noswad]

Life evolves.  It adapts.  "Only the strong survive" & all that.  To hold contrary views is just being contrary.

 

So if we have established that life evolves it is unbelievable (to me) that you can't rewind this evolution to it's natural origin.

 

 

That's got to be more likely than "God just wanted it - and so it came to pass".

 

 

In a slightly oblique aside, believing in evolution is not at odds with Christian beliefs.

Life does "adapt" life does not "evolve" if someone from Florida goes to Canada, they will adapt to the cold.

 

As for "That's got to be more likely than 'God just wanted it - and so it came to pass'."  I'll give you some examples.. 1. Dinosaur bones. If dinosaurs lived millions of billions of years ago, then why have their bones not rotted? Because they were only there a couple thousand years. 2. Fish bones on top of Mount Everest. How the heck did fish get on MOUNT EVEREST!?!? The great flood. 3. The Earth could only POSSIBLY be a few thousand years old. The sun loses TWO whole feet in diameter every hour if the Earth had existed for millions of years, the sun would have been so large that the oceans would have boiled and there would be no water on Earth. and last but not least.. 4. The Bible was written years before scientists thought the Earth was round did they not? Well, in the Bible, it specifically states that the Earth was ROUND. Here is a link to the verse since I doubt you have a Bible.. http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+40%3A22&version=KJV

 

As for that telephone picture.. 

[blackpenny]

Life does "adapt" life does not "evolve" if someone from Florida goes to Canada, they will adapt to the cold.

...by spending the winter in Florida. Even people who were born here do that.

[Noswad]

...by spending the winter in Florida. Even people who were born here do that.

Exactly. Humans and animals are ever adapting, but they never evolve.

[Mike Ryan]

4. The Bible was written years before scientists thought the Earth was round did they not?

Rant: I absolutely hate that children are taught this in school. No, Christopher Columbus did not prove the Earth was round. I can go into great lengths about this, but I'll keep it short: early biographies of Christopher Columbus brought this myth into play because they wanted it to seem like Christians of the Middle Ages were just so stupid living in mud. We've known the Earth was round way before The Bible tells us Jesus came to this Earth. Eratosthenes, a Greek philosopher, was even able to measure the circumference of the Earth within a 5% margin of error in 280 B.C.E.! Please, I beg you to read instead of taking for granted what you've been told throughout your life. The truth is out there: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_Flat_Earth

 

Edit: How did I end up in the Evolution thread? Oh well, life goes on.

[Rubrica]

I don't wish to ensnare myself in this debate too deeply, and I shan't make my own views on the matter explicit because there is no need to do so, but allow me to play the devil's advocate:

1. What you think of as dinosaur bones are not actually, for the most part, dinosaur bones. Rather, they are the footprint that dinosaur bones left behind. Imagine you take some wet clay, and press a bone into it. Then some more wet clay gets put on top, and more, and more, and then wait millions of years until the bone has rotted. Will the hole in the clay disappear? Of course not; embedded deep beneath the surface is a bone-shaped hole - a mould, if you will. When scientists find this mould, they can then use it to figure out what the bone that made it would have looked like, even if it is long since gone.

2. I'm afraid I know a little less about geology than I do about moulds and casts, but my understanding is that there are certain geological processes, such as continental drift and plates and subsidence and uplift, which easily explain this apparent anomaly. As I said, I don't really know much in this topic, but the Internet is at your command should you wish to find out more for yourself - for example, tectonic uplift.

3. You assume that the Sun's rate of shrinkage has remained constant throughout history. As this page states (though admittedly, that is obviously a heavily biased source, but you will find, with some effort, more reasonable sites stating the same thing), that is akin to seeing the tide go out and assuming that it had been going out for all of time, and always at the same rate. We cannot tell for certain exactly what the Sun has done over its lifetime, but it could very well be the case that it has shrunk and expanded in a manner which permits the existence of the Earth. Again, however, this is not a matter on which I am particularly well-informed.

4. I will happily admit that, of these four topics, Bible quotes is the topic of which I know the least. However, I see this as being a case of the Bible being interpreted by different people in different ways. While you take Isaiah 40:22 to mean that the Earth is round, other people have taken it to mean that the Earth is a disc, on which God looks from above. Others still have used it as evidence that the Bible states that the Earth is flat, as a circle is not the same thing as a sphere. Which view you agree with is immaterial; the fact is that one can never claim one's own interpretation of scripture to be the objectively true one.

5. With regard to that picture, I suggest you do some light reading into genetics. In particular, look into Mendelian inheritance; it states the following:

Assume a flower has two alleles, both of which make it white - we will represent this with the genetic code 'ww'. Assume another flower has two alleles, both of which make it brown - we will represent this with the genetic code 'bb'. Now, e offspring of these two flowers will all be a different colour - pink, let's say. This is because they will definitely get a 'w' allele from one parent and a 'b' allele from the other. This gives the new offspring flowers the alleles 'bw'.

When we get to the second generation however, this is more confusing. Assume we have two 'bw' flowers. What colour will their offspring be? Let us represent this in a table:

X | b | w

------------

b | bb | bw

------------

w | bw | ww

It is possible that the offspring will inherit a brown allele and a white allele, making them pink, 'bw' flowers; there is a 50% chance of this happening. However, there is also a 25% chance that the flower will inherit a 'b' allele from each parent flower - so it will be brown, even though its parents were both pink. The same thing applies for the 'w' allele; there is a 25% chance the flower will be white. Now, imagine that we are talking about human genetics and hair colour, as opposed to flower genetics and petal colour. The same logic applies; a child can have a completely different hair colour to both of their parents, given the right conditions.

I should just like to finish this post by stating that I am not attacking you personally, or your views - and, as I said, I am merely playing the devil's advocate here. For all you know, I could be a Christian like yourself - or I could be an atheist, or a Jew, or a Muslim, or anything else. Does it really matter? All that matters is the pursuit of knowledge - and in this, it is essential that we listen to and try to understand the viewpoints of others. That last point is crucial; you do not have to agree with the counterpoints I have posted here, but you will be much better off if you can understand why some other people do.

Edited March 2, 2013 by Rubrica

[Daniels]

I will point out that I do think that some aspects of natural selection do exist. Intraspecial selection is very real. I disagree with most of what Darwin says, but I'm going to illustrate this point with one of his observations.  Yes. I did say that. Anyway. In his observations of the finches on the Galapagos Islands, he noticed that certain birds had certain shaped beaks depending on the diet that was available for them. This makes sense, because if the birds cannot eat what is around them, they will die, thus removing their genes from the pool and allowing for the genes that work to come out.

However, I do not believe that this type of variation in genes could allow a reptile to evolve into a bird.

 

BTW, Mike Ryan, Isaiah was written appx. 700 BC.

 

Noswad: I'm glad I'm not alone on the Christian side of the argument, but keep it civil. Or say something so controversial this thread gets locked and dies. Preferably the first. (But I won't complain if it gets locked. I'm not an agitator. I promise.)

Edited March 2, 2013 by Daniels

[Ego Eram Reputo]

@Noswad: Have a bible. No need to take that tone.

Yes you can adapt to the cold. This does not explain skin color for example. Which persists irrespective of the conditions which created the (largely racial) toning.

The sun is billions of years old. Just like the stars and the earth. This is a scientific fact. How do we know? Because that's where the elements are formed. That's right, our components were formed from hydrogen and helium inside stars.

[Noswad]

5. With regard to that picture, I suggest you do some light reading into genetics. In particular, look into Mendelian inheritance; it states the following:

 

Assume a flower has two alleles, both of which make it white - we will represent this with the genetic code 'ww'. Assume another flower has two alleles, both of which make it brown - we will represent this with the genetic code 'bb'. Now, e offspring of these two flowers will all be a different colour - pink, let's say. This is because they will definitely get a 'w' allele from one parent and a 'b' allele from the other. This gives the new offspring flowers the alleles 'bw'.

When we get to the second generation however, this is more confusing. Assume we have two 'bw' flowers. What colour will their offspring be? Let us represent this in a table:

X | b | w

------------

b | bb | bw

------------

w | bw | ww

It is possible that the offspring will inherit a brown allele and a white allele, making them pink, 'bw' flowers; there is a 50% chance of this happening. However, there is also a 25% chance that the flower will inherit a 'b' allele from each parent flower - so it will be brown, even though its parents were both pink. The same thing applies for the 'w' allele; there is a 25% chance the flower will be white. Now, imagine that we are talking about human genetics and hair colour, as opposed to flower genetics and petal colour. The same logic applies; a child can have a completely different hair colour to both of their parents, given the right conditions.

I agree with about everything. I was simply giving some possible reasons. After all, evolution is also simply a theory.

 

As for that picture, I have studied genes and alleles in school, and I understand pretty well how they work. I was simply countering the "our ancestors had tails" thing. Maybe there the cord allele mixed with the cordless allele and the cordless one was given to the child.  

 

@Welsh, I'm sorry if that sounded rude, I get rather touchy when I reply to things like this. I'll keep cooled off if we continue to debate.

 

@Dan, I agree about the beak thing, though my views on it differ slightly. And, yes, I will keep it civil. Like I said, I get touchy on subjects like this, but I'll keep it down from now on.

[Noswad]

@Noswad: Have a bible. No need to take that tone.

Yes you can adapt to the cold. This does not explain skin color for example. Which persists irrespective of the conditions which created the (largely racial) toning.

The sun is billions of years old. Just like the stars and the earth. This is a scientific fact.

I know, I shouldn't have said that.

 

As for skin color, I believe Noah's sons each had wives of a different tribe (or whatever you wanna call it) and that the "allele" thing we were talking about happened, then again and again until you have many different skin colors.

 

As for the earth, sun, stars, ect being so old, that is just something I won't accept due to my beliefs and studies on this subject.

[Ego Eram Reputo]

Chandrasekar (sp?) Sequence is graph of the lives of stars. Science backs this. We do know roughly how long they take to form, lifespan and how they die.

No wait. The graph is called something else. I forget. Chandrasekar Limit is the size stars have to be to go nova when they die.

[Daniels]

@Dan, I agree about the beak thing, though my views on it differ slightly. And, yes, I will keep it civil. Like I said, I get touchy on subjects like this, but I'll keep it down from now on.

I'm not trying to keep you from speaking your mind. I'm doing the same thing myself. So what is your stance on the bird beaks?

 

Yes you can adapt to the cold. This does not explain skin color for example. Which persists irrespective of the conditions which created the (largely racial) toning.

The sun is billions of years old. Just like the stars and the earth. This is a scientific fact. How do we know? Because that's where the elements are formed. That's right, our components were formed from hydrogen and helium inside stars.

I can explain a Christian's standpoint on the skin color thing. I personally believe that God created the first man with the genetic potential for every single race on the planet. When the Tower of Babel incident happened, people began to group with those with a common language and spread out. People who moved to Africa developed more melanin than those who moved to China, therefore the difference in pigment. These melanin needs were passed on genetically to offspring, ruling out differing melanin levels. This genetic difference is still around today.

Edit: Noah happened after the Tower of Babel, but the same principle still applies. Each son of Noah's went a different way. One to Europe, one to Africa, and one to Asia and the Americas.

 

About the age of the earth: How long do you think people have been on earth?

Edited March 2, 2013 by Daniels

[Ego Eram Reputo]

Me or Noswad?

I have this feeling that Noswad will have a figure in the thousands of years. I believe much longer than that but cannot really put a figure on it. 60 thousand? Humans spread from Africa throughout the earth so I feels many many thousands of years must be involved.

Can a creationist explain Neanderthals? We are not evolved from them, nor were they from us. Two separate species. A prototype?

[Daniels]

Me or Noswad?

I have this feeling that Noswad will have a figure in the thousands of years. I believe much longer than that but cannot really put a figure on it. 60 thousand? Humans spread from Africa throughout the earth so I feels many many thousands of years must be involved.

Can a creationist explain Neanderthals? We are not evolved from them, nor were they from us. Two separate species. A prototype?

I will also have a figure in the thousands of years. Around six thousand to be exact. This comes from a joint Bible/secular history analysis. I also take the age of the earth to be 6 thousand years from this same source. I believe God created the first man and woman. You can follow the genealogies from there (which most include years) as far as you want, but only going to Abraham is necessary. From there, you can pick it up with secular history. Abraham came from the city of Ur. I believe most history books have dates for when that city was around.

 

About neanderthals: I believe they were regular old Homo sapiens. I don't know about you, but I've seen people today that look like science's portrayal of what a Neanderthal looks like. It simply comes down to the differences in the way people look.

Edited March 2, 2013 by Daniels

[Ego Eram Reputo]

Carbon dating shows many artifacts to be much older than 6000 years. Dinosaurs for e.g. Thus Carbon Dating is as wrong as our theory of formation of stars, right?

DNA testing shows us Neanderthals were another species. Similar but not the same.

[Daniels]

I am a man of science; however, I don't believe carbon dating to be an accurate means of determining age. I've even had a chemistry professor (at my secular, non-Christian, State funded university) who would agree.

 

I can't argue against your second statement because I do not know enough about that particular study. But would you agree that they are still human? Genes change. I am learning currently about an experiment with E. coli in which twelve samples are being studied. Somewhere along the line, one of those samples developed the ability to utilize citrate, where normally, E.coli can't utilize citrate. It was caused by a small mutation in DNA that allowed for the citrate utilization mutation to occur. But that bacteria is still E. coli, even though the genes are slightly different.

Edited March 2, 2013 by Daniels