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Post by {joy the hideous new girl} on Aug 9, 2007 19:57:28 GMT -5
Allan, we discussed this. Support your opinion or GTFO.
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Post by ghostie on Aug 10, 2007 10:36:25 GMT -5
I AM stating my opinion. My opinion is that this is a poorly argued debate. At this point, as much as I would like to get into the debate, the only response I can expect is another illogical rebuttal. Since the point of debate is persuasion, that makes my participation a fruitless exercise.
I'm sure that my attitude is very annoying, but I have just as much right to post what I do on this thread as you do to say "Creationism is poo" So I would appreciate it if you'd stop it with the "GTFO". Thanks.
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Post by {joy the hideous new girl} on Aug 10, 2007 20:25:56 GMT -5
I don't really see what's illogical about anyone's reasoning, but I'd really appreciate if you'd tell us where our errors are. I don't see why you have to be so arrogant and condescending all the time.
I was saying "Creationism is poo" for emphasis. I'll rephrase: "Creationism is not very likely due to overwhelming scientific evidence (fossil records, Darwin's observations, etc.) but evolution does have many holes in it."
Happy?
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Web
Full Member
hi
Posts: 374
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Post by Web on Aug 10, 2007 21:37:49 GMT -5
just sayin... WTH does evalution have to do with new york?
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Post by kathleensamazing on Aug 10, 2007 21:40:36 GMT -5
that is a VERY good point! lol
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Post by {joy the hideous new girl} on Aug 10, 2007 21:50:55 GMT -5
Um... dude, there are other discussions here besides those about New York.
That's how most forums work.
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Post by kathleensamazing on Aug 10, 2007 21:52:12 GMT -5
lol, i was jk but your right lol
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maria
New Member
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Post by maria on Aug 11, 2007 0:47:52 GMT -5
If this board was only about New York, nobody would be here except for Ebola... BACK TO EVOLUTION
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Post by ghostie on Aug 11, 2007 11:18:40 GMT -5
Fine. FINE! You asked for it.
Okay, so let's start at the beginning (a very good place to start). The theory of evolution requires one very important component to kick it off-abiogenesis (life arising from non-life). Without this, there is no material to evolve in the first place.
Now, experiments done literally centuries ago confirmed that spontaneous generation of life was entirely impossible, yet the scientific community chooses to accept it. Think about it: A hunk of rock hurtling through space around a star, containing various simple elements and chemicals, is supposed to somehow produce life? This sort of random convergence cannot happen. The favorite argument used by evolutionists is a simple repeat of the gambler's fallacy: "Well, with a big enough universe and enough time for it to happen, it HAS to happen eventually, right?" Not necessarily. The universe has only existed for 15 billion years, so this produces a very limited timespan for abiogenesis to occur. Also, the first few eons or so of the universe's existence were far too violent and chaotic for a PLANET, much less one capable of supporting life, to form. Now, the only way FOR an inhabitable biosphere to form (a planet), there must be an abundance of heavy elements to form the planet's structure. In addition, very specific chemicals are required for life to exist, and those chemicals happen to be very rare in the universe. It turns out that the only place where all the requirements for life occur is in the remnants of a VERY specific type of supernova. This new star system must also be placed VERY specifically in its home galaxy (too far in and the gravitational "tidal" forces tear orbits apart, too far out and there's just not enough energy to work with). Now, the star which forms from these remnants must also be a VERY specific type of star (a yellow dwarf), and the planet in question must have a particularly stable orbit at a very specific distance from its star. The planet now must have an abundance of very specific elements and a sustained atmosphere. The planet must also be a very specific mass and have a strong electromagnetic field. The planet's atmosphere must also contain ozone.
So, assuming we actually DO have a planet which meets these requirements, we now have a VERY narrow window (cosmologically speaking) for life to develop. The sheer probability stacked against such a convergence is astronomical, but any statistician must agree that the probability is easily within the realm of statistical impossibility. So now we're looking at a random assembly of chemicals in a "primordial soup", whose existence is entirely unsupported, and we expect it to spontaneously converge into an organism capable of sustaining itself AND reproducing. Even the simplest form of life imaginable is insanely complex (so complex that we cannot hope to ever synthesize even a single-celled organism), yet the evolutionist insists that it came about by chance. It's like (prepare for a cliche argument) a tornado sweeping through a junkyard and assembling a fully functional Boeing 747 from the pieces.
That's it for this post. My next mini-essay will be about THE PROCESS.
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Post by {joy the hideous new girl} on Aug 11, 2007 11:25:48 GMT -5
I love you, Allan. For serious. Right now I want to tie up Maria and elope with you.
I'll answer when I'm done writing about stupid freaking Ben Franklin.
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Post by ghostie on Aug 12, 2007 0:25:49 GMT -5
Alright, so now let's talk about the process of evolution itself.
The theory of evolution states that, by process of natural selection (survival of the fittest), the strongest members of a population survive while the weaker die, and the strong continue to grow stronger (and develop further) as the weak are left behind. The question of "survival of the fittest" is indisputable (though "survival of the quickest to reproduce" may be more accurate), but the issue appears when one considers the transformation of one species into another. There are, obviously, limits to how far natural selection can take a population. Natural selection ONLY eliminates the weak: it does not create anything stronger or better than what was there to begin with. So natural selection by itself is unsatisfactory. What it needs is some mechanism that produces NEW material. The answer of the modern evolutionist: MUTATION. Mutation is the only process by which the gene pool can "get something new", as it were. The only problem is that mutation is 100% random. It occurs when, say, a freeflying particle collides with a cell, knocking something out of whack with its DNA. (this is, incidentally, why mutation just adores radiation) DNA is a VERY complicated thing, and it has to be right for the cell it governs to function. Almost all mutations result in the death of the affected cell, but very occasionally the cell lives on after the mutation in question. This cell is usually incapable of reproducing and dies off anyway, but on the off chance that it DOES reproduce, you get either A) a wart if you're lucky or B) cancer. In the case of a congenital mutation (those on which evolution is based), this almost always results in the death of the creature in question. We call mutations like these congenital heart defects, or the conspicuous absence of important organs. If the organism survives, it almost always is rendered sterile, so there's no chance of passing that gene along. On the rare occasion that neither death nor infertility is the result of mutation, the creature is now debilitated in some way, like not having fingers or being autistic or being paralyzed from the neck down. In fact, there is no real case of a truly beneficial mutation (and don't even think about bringing up antibiotic-resistant viruses. Those are not the result of mutation, they were members of the virus population to begin with.) The closest thing to a beneficial mutation I can think of is sickle-cell anemia causing the unfortunate anemic to be immune to malaria. Of course, he still has sickle-cell anemia...
And even if a mutation resulting in net gain DID occur, this is still a far cry from changing species, adding organs, or changing chromosomes. A fruit fly with a beneficial mutation is still a fruit fly.
So the very mechanism which drives evolution is shaky at best. Relying on mutation to bring about beneficial change is like grabbing a copy of Encyclopedia Britannica from 1950 and hoping to correct all its errors and upgrade it to Encyclopedia Britannica 2007 by randomly replacing letters over billions of years. In fact, it's almost EXACTLY like that, just replace words with base pairs.
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Post by ghostie on Aug 12, 2007 13:09:23 GMT -5
And now for part three: HISTORY!
To start off with, I've always had a problem with evolution being classified as a science. It's really more of a history. But that's beside the point.
What I want to talk about is the reason one would believe evolution: HISTORY! Even if evolution was a proven, perfectly valid and possible theory, we have no reason to believe that it actually HAPPENED without evidence to support it. In cosmology, we have proven that wormholes are possible phenomena, but we also acknowledge that no wormholes probably exist. Now, since evolution can never be directly observed, the only way to support evolutionary theory is with the good ol' fossil record.
Joy made a remark which specifically stated that the fossil record supports evolution, and this is simply not true. The fossil record gives us a glimpse of many creatures, a large number of which are now extinct, but these creatures are all quite DISTINCT. Were the theory of gradual evolution true, one would expect to find the fossils of animals perfectly blending from one species to another, but we find no such thing. We find multiple samples of various creatures, but we do not find the continuous, steady change predicted by Darwinian evolution.
As for so-called "missing links" - suppose that a paleontologist in 10 million years starts digging around. Now, in his day, the kangaroo and frog are extinct, but rabbits are all over the place. He digs around and finds the leg bone of a baby kangaroo. He is very excited, especially when he digs a little further down and locates the leg bone of a frog. He is ecstatic because, upon comparison with the leg bones of rabbits, he determines that the two leg bones must be "missing links" in the evolutionary development of rabbits. He is, of course, mistaken, but modern paleontologists do the same time. Many times, and entire new species (especially among the hominids) is named based off of a single tooth, arm bone, or finger. In fact, there has not been a single complete "missing link" skeleton ever found. We have no problem finding remarkably intact skeletons of dinosaurs, but our primitive ancestors apparently had a habit of falling apart after they died.
Another issue that I have with the accepted evolutionary model is its sense of purpose. It's certainly a coincidence that, through the entire history of human evolution, completely RANDOM mutations produce such purposeful and linear results. The spine ALWAYS straightens, the forehead ALWAYS moves forward, the brain ALWAYS grows. This isn't randomness at all! Random mutation should produce a succession of creatures that vary in all aspects all over the board, but the accepted time line of evolution shows nature progressing as though it were TRYING to produce plant and animal life as we see them today, taking the most direct route possible from primitive to modern. This is a contradiction with the theory behind evolution in the first place (and is, by the way, unsupported by the fossil record).
The so-called "support" for evolutionary theory in the fossil record is simply a hodgepodge of bones that have been assembled to look like a progression (complete with gross overstatements of exactly how accurate it all is). Scientists like to present an image of themselves as knowing everything, but the true scientist is the one who realizes that he still has everything left to learn. We have no idea what color a velociraptor was, but the museum and science book will certainly never admit that. What else do scientists, eager to be able to explain it all, fudge a bit on to appear more complete? A perfect example is, as I mentioned before, the presentation of "skeletons" of various missing links and whatnot. What they never tell you up front is that they imagined more than half of the bones you see, as all they found was a femur, two fingers, a rib, and what looks like the top of a skull.
I am by no means bashing the work of scientists. I greatly respect them and know that they have a great deal of knowledge in their fields, but I simply must question the findings and practices of some.
And so concludes part three of my evolutionary rant. Have fun reading. Or...ignoring...
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maria
New Member
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Post by maria on Aug 12, 2007 14:41:22 GMT -5
Well what do you think of the birds Darwin found on the Galapagos?
There was a species of bird that wast the same but had different beaks because they lived in two different parts of the island with two different kinds of prey.
One had beaks for cracking nuts, and the other had beaks for penetrating a large bug... What do you think of that?
I think that study supported something about mutation... something adjusting to it's environment.
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Post by {joy the hideous new girl} on Aug 12, 2007 19:43:24 GMT -5
Just popping in to add some irrefutable creationism arguments, more irrefutable than Allan's, I'll even say.
How can anyone beleive we evolved from monkeys heres a few questions for people who beleive that
1.If we did evolve from monkeys then how come babies arent born monkeys
2.Even Darwin said his theories were wrong before he died so why do you still believe them
3.do you really not believe the bible it says we were created in seven days not millions of years
4.how come we cant speak monkey
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Post by ghostie on Aug 12, 2007 20:24:11 GMT -5
Ummm...I hope you're joking, Maria...Darwin didn't even know what the word mutation MEANT. All that proved was natural selection, NOT adaptation or beneficial mutation. Mutation is a CHANGE in genetic structure, natural selection (which is what occurred on the Galapagos islands and I entirely support as fact) simply chooses the best of the gene pool that is already there. Those birds didn't mutate, they just inherited traits from their parents that all birds of their species could have received.
Oh, and Joy: LOL!
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