Bacteria evolve in lab over 20 years

Evolution in action?

Who ever claimed it does lead to 'the best possible outcome'? Evolution tends to be adapting to past generation's selection and so on, but it's not some sort of 'conscious process' so much in that always the best options are chosen at all. Also, all this really proves is that it's all about possibilities and that mutations in certain sequences happen to open different evolutionary doors.

I am assuming however that the conditions for all generations and the 12 root-colonies were just about the same, so it does make sense that mutations that are less predictable in nature started to define the outcome at some point making sure there would be a greater variation when compared to the other 'branches' of the 12 root-colonies they started out with.

In other words chance inevitably had more influence on the entire outcome, than say normal selection through more selective conditions. I'm still convinced that having more or less the same conditions will result in more or less the same evolution, however the conditions need to be pretty selective for it to have a greater impact than mere 'mutational chance (&change)'.

Evolution:-The process that enables one species to develop from a completely different species. Like dinosaurs into birds

Adaptation:- The process that enables a species to develop new traits. Like white moths into black moths.

What species does the article begin with.....e-coli
What species does the article conclude with..e-coli

This article does not disproove evolution
but neither does it proove it

To claim that this is proof of anything more than
adaptation within a single species
is twisting the evidence to fit your belief

The fact that it took 31,500 generations to get even
that far, in a relatively simple organaism,
just increases the doubts that I have for
evolution being reality

You are mixing up words with phenomenas, aren't you?

(This doesn't mean that I think that this is a prove of evolution. I'm not sure whether a theory needs a prove, its task is to give a simplified model of reality, not a copy of reality, which helps to organize and sort scientific observations, and helps actions of the society and gives predictable results within certain constrains. And therefor evolution does a great job.)

What do you think?
That everything can change completely in a few days?
Evolution is as far as i know/think nothing really "planned" it occurs when copying genetic material. since cells do not use a 100% save system there are always some rare mistakes which lead in an even more unlikely case to a better version of the cell or maybe at first to an even worse version which maybe gets better with a few other mutations.
Well this is what we simulate in GA's but in reality it is a lot slower because in addition we have external factors because one good cell may die in coincidence and the other way round. So it will take really long for one change in one cell to "spread" in the population.

So it is all very likely that most of the good evolutionary developments died but it is a little more likely that the bad developments die.
so over a huge time period and many "tries" you will get a better population.
it is just like the stuff we made in maths some years ago. if you roll a dice around 10 times it seems as if it is not like all sides of it have the same chance to be the upper side but after a huge number of tries you will see that the chances get more and more stable and that's just how it is with evolution. you may get fast to your wanted result or maybe not. but all in all it is a straight continuing process.

Really not much math needed. When you have 31000 generations of bacteria adapting to a new diet, you are not seeing much change. Certainly no where needed, if you consider the gestation periods of larger animals, like the dinosaurs, and the massive changes which allegedly occurred...I actually just think it is humorous.

Let me rephrase things. If you have gestation periods similar to dinosaurs, take an elephants' for example, 22 months. Then you have 31000 generations(of course with no lab controlled environment)31000*22=682000; 682000/12 months=56,833 years to make a change in diet?To change the assimilation of 1 protein(if thats indeed what is being alleged) Oh thats right, what am I thinking?, there is_no_rate_of_evolution anywhere...why? Because there is no evolution. If you had evolution, you would have a rate of change because evolution = change. You also might need to know what proteins would have needed to be changed,which this article gives no indication.

Also the 20 year period (which you titled the thread)seems suspect,healthy e-coli can divide every 30 minutes. Something tells me that there are a lot of conditions and generations which were omitted.Just basic calculating 30 * 31000=930000; 930000/60 min = 15500; 15500/24hrs=645 645/365 days=1.7 years. Thinking about the reproduction rates of ecoli brings the conclusions of these massive massive numbers of them if conditions were optimal. Of course most of them die quickly or the whole earth would be quickly blanketed by them with 24 hours.

Nothing about this rate and these numbers seem plausible to me, so my guess is there is some sort of screw up with these experiments. they probably have some strange hybrid in their population, there are a lot of strange and undiscovered bacteria, and there is a lot about ecoli dna codes we dont know, they might have had the ability to digest this stuff inherent in thier existing genome.

A strange hybrid is the most likely possibility. Bacteria are everywhere. The likelyhood of some other species creeping into the line in a 20 year period is extremely high. Scientists cannot even identify some bacteria because others come in and take over before they can make a distinction. That happens all the time when dealing with extremophiles.

Some of these morons are getting funded so they have to show SOME results to keep their money coming in, so they have to show some results even faulty results to keep their meal ticket.

Also this citrate metabolism is not a beneficial mutation, so its not evolution at all, its de-volution.

What drives you here? Did they gain this ability by loosing some gens?

No, I never hinted at anything of the sort. You are putting words into my post that simply are not there.
What I did say is that I doubt that evolution (one species evolving into another entirely different species)
is possible in an infinite number of generations.

In the context of the article
I suspect that every new generation of e-coli will will always be recognizable as e-coli.
I suspect that it will never become something that is not e-coli

My point with the number of generations is that thats a lot of generations to get that far and its still easily recognised as e-coli. So to get to a new bacteria is some number that i would not be able to write down (presuming it would ever happen). If thats what it takes for a relatively simple organism then how many more would it take for a dinosaur to become a bird.
Actually, all I am really saying is that to state that the article shows proof of evolution
is to stretch the evidence to fit your belief.
It happens this way with all "supposed" evidence for evolution that I have seen.

For example Pine cones have spirals that radiate in the same direction as snail shells.
Is this evidence that snails may have evolved from pine cones? It is if you follow the logic
of many evolutionary "proofs"!

I really don't know whether evolution is truth or not but I am not convinced by
"proofs" such as these. I am conviced that species adapt to their environment.




Am I? In what way?
Is that not the definition of evolution and adaptation
in the context of living organisms?

A moth adapts to its evironment and gradually changes from white to black
but it is still the same species of moth. That is what I classify as adaptation.
Over time dinosaurs scales become feathers and its arms become wings and
its bones become less dense and eventually it is no longer a dinosaur but a bird.
That is what I classify as evolution.
Am I on the wrong track here?
I always thought that that is what the THEORY of evolution was all about.

I differ here in believing that adaptation and evolution are not the same thing.



Sure, it certainly does that but If I said to you that creation is a THEORY would you apply that same rule?
I think the theory of creation also has many, valid "Scientifically" observable evidences in its favor, that it helps the actions of society and gives predictable results within certain constraints.

Here is just one "Scientifically" observable evidence
If archaeologists can pick up a stone and say, see the way its been chipped and worked to form this nice edge, designed as a cutting tool by ancient man. If they can conclude that the rocks shape shows evidence of design and therefore there must be a maker.
How can they then turn around and mock creationists for expressing that very same principle. That principle is either valid, or, it is not valid.
I see exquisite design in everything, all around me. I am forced to conclude that there IS a maker for what I believe to be a far stronger reason than the archeologist had.
If evidence of design prooves the rocks shape had a maker then the infinitely superior evidence of design in the universe and everything it it also prooves a maker.


How can anyone say that the THEORY of evolution dosn't need absolute proof to be believable and
then mock and insult the intelligence of a creationist for not needing absolute proof for believing in the principle of design necessitates a designer and a maker? Why dosn't the principle of "Seeing is believing" apply to evolution also?

Sorry not actually directing the "mock and insult" bit at you, it's more a general statement of observation.
Not that it worries me either, I see things the way I do and for the reasons that I have and if anyone thinks I am stupid for it then good.
I just see that many evolutionists will believe anything that a scientist tells them and not apply the same critical thinking that they encourage creationists to do.

That's just plain old circular reasoning. I agree with you on the protein thing, but obviously this whole thing came about a bit unexpected.



The rate at which evolution takes place isn't constant. It makes perfect sense that a large being like a dinosaur takes a couple of million years to change 'into' a new species, just like it makes sense that a couple of 'cells' in a lab only take a few years adapting to their environment. Apparently there must have been conditions that forced a change.



As far as I know they did extensive research on this. I doubt they knew exactly what had to change to cause a certain feature to become 'active' though, so it wouldn't really matter that much.



Which actually says more about evolution happening around us than you'd think. A lot of researchers think the extremophiles are the key to figuring out what happened in some of the earliest moments of the evolution of life.



Good point, but in this case I don't think results were distorted.



A change is a change... the overall outcome is evolution. It doesn't have to be beneficial for it to be part of evolution,

Cheers

Well please forgive me because the last post here came from a very jumbled mind late at night, school has been making me insane lately so I apologize if some things were not making sense, I realize that there was not much organization in there.

Right, I think I just phrased it wrong, my mind was just jumping around. There would be no change rate if we had no idea which proteins had changed, I can understand how you might call that circular reasoning.

The scientists in this article are trying very hard to find out what happened in the 20000th generation. Right now it is still experimental. Saying this is 'evolution before our very eyes' is a bait and switch tactic from the media.


I know that the rate isnt constant between species, but to date, and I have looked extensively and queried extensively, I have never found any kind of reliable rate of macroevolution. Not just an overall rate of all species, but not a rate for any species.

Why is that significant? Because evolution(at least Darwinist evolution) supposedly occurs as a result of the change of resources which occur as a result of the environment changes. So the cause is constant, but the alleged effect is random. Which doesn't make any sense to me.

No? So maybe you will place a pregnant woman 5 hrs a day under a radiation machine and see what kind of evolution happens when she has the child?

Evolution has to cause a change in a species which will cause it to become more suited for its environment. It has to cause a better chance of survival of the soecies and it's offspring. I dont think that this adaptation in ecoli could be catagorized as a beneficial mutation, but maybe Im misunderstanding something.

No, I just doubt that the gained ability to metabolize citrate is going to help the species survive. And I dont know how they gained the ability. But there really is too much left out of the article to form a healthy hypothesis.

Also according to the article, they_dont_know what happened. The citrate-processing ability may be due to the activation of a latent function. Thats why I posed so many alternatives. You should always look at alternative solutions and possibilities when you dont know something specifically.

agreed, completely.

Radiation may sound dangerous and deadly and it is, but it's also what can cause mutations. Mutations are part of evolution, whether beneficial, deadly or neither doesn't really matter that much. A hazardous mutation might clean a population of a certain species from a previous genetic problem. Whether a mutation ultimately is positive or negative is often quite difficult to tell because of the gradual nature of evolution itself.



True and I agree with you, but don't forget the media always has a strong tendency to exaggerate things like this. It works both ways and is why you can find articles or even headlines in newspapers saying the 'biblical flood' in the vicinity of Israel has been proven and similarly stretched and far fetched conclusions.



Again I do agree with you, but science works a lot with best-guesses and interpretations of results when such 'accidents' happen. It makes sense not to rule out other less probably events for sure though,

Cheers

If the ability to metabolize citrate is a property that makes a difference to similar species, it actually has been proven by those species that it is an advantage that helps to survive under certain conditions.


I don't think that 20 years of scientific evaluations, if they are worth the word 'scientific', can be presented in such a small article.

Although, I agree that the article gives not enough information to show why this is a prove of evolution.

Interesting article but 'evolutionary innovation has unfurled right in front of researchers' eyes'?

They speak of evolution as if it's a 100% proven fact. It's not even a scientific Law! And it can't ever be because all the data must agree with a theory to make it a law, and if even one little shred of information doesn't, the law is nullified.On that note Creationism cannot be PROVEN either.

What it boils down to then is choosing which idea you want to believe. I for one prefer a loving and forgiving God.

Edit:
By the way, love the writing dalerna...very poetic.

In my opinion it is definetly a logical consequence. Since it is proven that there are changes in the genetic material (and not only there btw) and because of those changes the species will die (faster) or have a better life.

I think there can't be any doubts at this point so far.
And that is evolution.
Of course if you believe in something non physical in cells or whatever which can't be changed you can't change one species into an other.
But i don't believe that something like this exists so evolution makes sense to me.

Heh heh. thats great! Your are going to make them angry about your use of the words fact and law, but I understand what you mean. It is not certain, it is not observable, noone should be think that it true with any measure of certainty.

No amount of semantic wrangling is going to make people believe that evolution is true, no matter how much of a vacuum word 'theory' happens to be.

Any theory has to rest on evidence, plain and simple. even if its 'only facts', any theory needs concrete facts to be believed, and evolution has no factual basis.

I am happy that Im not the only crazy creationist around here. God bless!

Is it not even a scientific law ?

This argument against evolutionism reminds me a cartoon, published on a scientific magazine some years ago

Two neadherthal men, Einstone and Simplestone, are watching the moon

Einstone : The moon must be much like our earth
Simplestone : Are you sure ?
Einstone : Well..apparently there are mountains and valleys
Simplestone : Why does it shine ,then ?
Einstone : Well ..It should reflects the light of the sun
Simplestone : Are you sure ? Why does it turn from yellow into red ?
Einstone : Well...I dont know
Simplestone : You see..it is just a theory
The moon is made of cheese
Einstone : Of Cheese ? are you sure ?
Simplestone : Of course, I am
It is what the wizard of our village said

A pretty much perfect analogy. There's more of evolution that can be readily observed than you'd think, pieces of the puzzle, but still,

Cheers

Not only

Fundamentalista are hyper critic vs some actual flaw of evolutionism but they do not hesitate to accept any absurdities of creationism
Men and dino's living together
Fossils created by the devil
and many others amenities like that

Consider this point

Either evolutionis is true or creationism is true
There is not a third alternative, at least I dont see it
Driven evolutionism is of course just a version of evolutionism

The validity of evolutionism can be simply proved by exclusion

Right. Because it makes much more sense to believe that matter created itself and then evolved into a dinosaur.

I have considered this point ages ago and I agree with it 100%. Therefore in the absence of evidence of evolution or an origin of matter we must conclude that it was created. Good thinking. You have it upside down though.

Probably you did not get my point

Maybe , evolutionism can not be proved beyond any reasonable doubt
It is ridicoulus to expect that this theory may have the same evidence as the physical laws
The point is that creationism can be refuted beyond any reasonable doubt
Since there are two only alternatives , evolutionism is the true theory




You mixed up two topics a) the existance of matter b) the existance of life

the former is not a mistery any more for modern physics
According to the Heisemberg's principle of indetermination " the existance " is a natural state
It seems a paradox but the "non existance" needs a destructor rather than " the existance " a creator "
Obviusly it is not an intuitive claim but it is supported by lab evidences

The latter is still a mistery since nobody can explain how a bulk of molecules can turn into a living organism
The mere chance is definitly excluded even taking into account milion years and bilion stars
I ask you a question
Given for granted assumption a) Suppose that in a near future scientists can create in lab,living organisms
Would you change your mind ?

I got your point. What makes you think that you got MY point?

No, they are not mixed up. You need matter to exist before you can determine that matter has decided to become alive. You cannot have a word without letter, you cannot have organic molecules without carbon. You cannot have carbon life forms without matter.

Right. I understand your point, the problem is that you dont understand MY point. There are only 2 alternatives therefore in the absence of proof of one, the other must exist. Dont be so arrogant as to think that I cant understand you. Your point is simple, I just disagree with it. I think that you are 100% wrong. It is 100% inverted from the truth.

Its absolutely ridiculous that anyone would actually consider this as a possibility, it is completely non-sensical.I will ask you this:

WHERE_DID_THE_MATTER_COME_FROM?


I can explain easily. God created life as we know it. He created the major phyla and imprinted within them the dna code to adapt to a variety of environments.


Or suppose you die and see God for yourself. Would that change YOUR mind?

Typical reaction of creationist
I saw a discussion between Dawkins and an evangelist
Not even an evidence to support his opinion , just an accuse " Dont be arrogant mr Dawkins !"

You got My point ? no doubt about it
The point is that you did not answer
Are you seriously claim that Dino's and men have lived together in the eden ?
If you believe in creationism you must believe it as well as thousand others absurdities



I already told you where it comes from
The principle of indetermination
By the way it is called "principle" but it is actually a law which can be demostrated both in theory and in lab



See the cartoon




Yes I would
I understand it is an embarassing question but it is far away from being a theoratical question
Bio engineering is definitly very close to create life in lab
What kind of explanation would you provide in this case ?

Sure i would. But honestly i haven't seen a single evidence for the existance of any god. That's why it's called faith, it's not provable, just faith. And so is creationism. It's based on faith, not facts.

I could also believe in the holy flowerpot, and say the earth is made by composting everything to its right shape. Prove me wrong. Haa, you can't, it's my faith. And no matter what you say, it was the holy flowerpot and composting that made the earth, plants and animals, including humans

There is unfortunately no fact that would point in the direction of creationism or in the direction of my holy flowerpot.

There are tons of proveable facts that points into the direction of evolution though. This bacteria thingie here is just one. One of the most obvious things is the animals that made Darwin develop its evolution theory. The Darwin finch. You can even see one of this finch species divide into two subspecies at the moment.

Or just think about domestic animals. Breed is also evolution. A chihuahua or a poodle is pretty different from a wolf. And this evolution even happened in the timeframe creationists thinks the earth exists. Initial description of poodle happened in end of 19th century. When there is no evolution, how could a poodle happen? A wolf with black hair, okay, but ow does a poodle fit to the creationistic theory of no evolution?

Yes there were humans involved. But breed follows the same evolutionary principles: mutation and selection.

Otherwise known as the principle of : "You dont have a clue where it came from."

Its not embarassing for me at all, as I have said, I am in college now, I had biology as a major before I switched to math, plus I have studied biology extensively on my own. I know_what_it_takes to have this discussion, do you?

What is your definition of "creating life in the lab"? Do you even know what your asking? Are you talking about something as complex as e-coli, being a eukaryote with reproductive ability?

When you say that bioengineering is close to doing it now, what, specifically are you referring to? Hopefully not those sacks of phospholipids we have been hearing about.


Other than that I can tell that you have an extreme bias against faith and Christianity and I am not interested in flame wars and arguments, I have a lot more important things to do. Thank you.

Well I wasnt talking to you. But I guess you want to be in some kind of flame war even though Im pretty sure you dont even know your own theory. therefore you can go fly a kite, Im not interested in haveing this discussion with you.

I dont mind having these discussions with you guys, but if your gonna be jerks you can forget me spending one millisecond of my precious time with you.

Flame war? Nope. I thought this is a normal discussion. It was all about arguments. Which you are not willing to discuss it seems ^^

Anyways. When this goes into a flamewar then count me out.

After studying bio and math why dont you switch also to physics ?



A little arrogant, isnt'it? no problem
You really dont know that bio engineers are already able to create microrganism capable of performing specific task ?
For the time being they get started from existing DNA and other cell components but the microorganism is a brand new one

P.S.

No news about dino's and men living togheter ?

I am taking physics also, but my major is math/computer science. I am only interested in Newtonian physics as it applies to real-life motion laws. Only as they apply to games, because I want to be a GAME_PROGRAMMER! Can you believe it!! And here I am on a game_programming_forum! What a cooincidence!

I never_said_they_did. What you are doing is projecting the beliefs of every creationist you hate upon me. I am different from other creationists, we are all different, we dont all believe the same way.

No I really dont. Where is your source?

So, dont tell that others are telling nonsense if you dont even know what they are talking about



I can not hate creationits, you can not find any creationist in the old Europe
Anyway what about your personal interpretation about dino's and men ?



J Craig Venter, one of the pioneer in sequencing human genome has recentlty transplanted a fraction of a genome of one bacteria into an other species with the aim of creating a new specie of "cleaning" bacteria

By the way, this probably is an interesting read for some people here: http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/l/locke/john/l81u/B4.15.html

Just thought I'd share the link,

Cheers

Nitro

Since I have access to this PC on weekend only I can not wait for your answer
A part from the dino's, assuming that in the near future s Mr Venter or an other scientiss will create a syntetic form of life
You will claim that :

a) I give it up
Life is nothing else than a combination of atoms
b) This is true for low form of life only.
Human coscience entail the existence of soul
c) God is present also in Mr Venters's lab
d) Mr Venters has a deal with the devil or , maybe , he is the devil

I dont really want to argue about anymore for now Alberto, I'll catch up with you later perhaps. I dont think you would like the answers I give you anyway. Have a good week and try to get yourself pc to access! jk. Have fun.

Quoting PHeMoX.

Thank you.

excerpt:

there are two kinds of evolution, i.e. Macroevolution and microevolution. Macroevolution (one species mutating into a different, more advanced species) is an unproven theory. Microevolution (take the acricle about the bacteria) is where one organism in a species gains/loses a trait due to tiny differences in genetic code when reproduced. Microevolution is a scientifically proven Law but no matter how much time you give it, N generations later, it will still be the same organism. Not a new species.



Since you say the mere chance is excluded how was life supposedly started billions of years ago? even now scientists cannot create life, I seriously doubt anyone/anything could back then. Unless that anyone was an intelligent, supernatural being.
And no, even if scientists could create life in a test tube, that doesn't prove Evolution. If decades of research up until now, and (supposing it possible) decades more for scientists to succeed, how could mere chance string all the exact chemicals together in the exact amounts in the exact place all at the same time all of a sudden? Take for amino acids in proteins as an example. The simplest protein in life is Ribonuclease and is comprised of a sequence of 124 amino acids. The order of the amino acids is EXACT. Any kind of change in the order/type of amino acids in the protein would nullify it. It just plain would not work. How could all the necessary amino acids needed for all the different proteins manditory for even the simplest single-celled organism all jumble together in the correct order, place and time? And that's a simple protein. The average protein is comprised of several thousand amino acids all in order!



How does the cartoon relate to TriNitroToluene's statement? In this case it is certainly right to say "don't be so arrogant." You think you're completely backed by science and that we're relying on 'village wizards' telling us legends myths? These are not myths. The Bible has not been proven true in all parts, but it certainly has not been proven false either. Some parts have been proven true, (the ark existed for example) and some parts havn't (i.e. Moses separating the Red Sea). Understand both sides of the debate before joining in yourself.



Have you even looked for evidence? Or are you like everyone else who brushes away any slight hint and God saying it will be disproved later by science.



Now you're just making fun, not actually contributing to this discussion.



What makes you think we believe a chihuahua came from a wolf? God created different types of dog. Perhaps a medium-sized dog, through breeding with other dog types could result in a slightly smaller offspring. Perhaps a few generations later the hair color, curl etc. changed, resulting in the chihuahua. Like I said above, microevolution resulting in new types of a certain organism is a proven scientific law, but no matter how much time goes by, the offspring will still be a dog.



It may be a brand new one but again it's just microevolution helped along by scientists. They use existing DNA from existing organisms. In essence all they are doing is a form of cross-breeding. It's a new type of organism but it's traits come from it's 'parents'



Anyway, after replying to the above I would like to add one more thing.

A comparison of some organism's cytochrome C structure:

Cytochrome C
comparison between a
lamprey eel and
others
____________________
|Organism | %diff |
|-----------------|
|Horse | 15% |
|Pigeron | 18$ |
|Turtle | 18% |
|Carp | 12% |


Cytochrome C
comparison between
a carp and
others
____________________
|Organism | %diff |
|-----------------|
|Horse | 13% |
|Pigeron | 14$ |
|Turtle | 13% |
|Lamprey | 12% |


Cytochrome C
comparison between
a pigeon and
others
____________________
|Organism | %diff |
|-----------------|
|Horse | 11% |
|Carp | 14$ |
|Turtle | 8% |
|Lamprey | 18% |


Cytochrome C
comparison between
a horse and
others
____________________
|Organism | %diff |
|-----------------|
|Pigeon | 11%|
|Turtle | 11$|
|Carp | 13%|
|Lamprey | 15%|

Cytochrome C is a protein which takes part in cellular metabolism. I won't go into the details, but every species' cytochrome C is slightly different since every species requires it to do slightly different things. Now if a single-cell evolved into a fish and the fish into a frog and the frog into a reptile etc. the cytochrome C of the fish would be similar to the frog, the cytochrome C of the frog similar to the reptile and so on. The above tables show that it's simply not the case. Evolution would say the eel came first, then the fish then the amphibians then reptiles then birds then horses. If that were so the eel's genetic code would be similar to the fish, the fish similar to the frog, the frog's similar to the reptile and the reptile similar to the bird and the bird similar to the horse. The table shows the eel is most similar to the carp, but then the next similar organism is the horse and is equally similar to the turtle and the pigeon. How would you explain that? It's clear from this information that the Theory of Evolution has some big obsticles to overcome before you can even think about making it a scientific law.




Agreed. Except that "the validity of Creationism can be simply proved by exclusiton."

Something I forgot to Add:

Even the position of the sun reletive to the earth is exact. If the sun was as little as 2% closer to the earth, we would get too much solar heat and the earth would be a DESERT wasteland. If it was as little as 2% farther away, we wouldn't get enough solar heat and the earth would be an ICY wasteland. This seaks volumes for the fact that the universe has a designer.

A hail to the holy flowerpot. Life is made by composting. Prove me wrong



Err, the poodle was first mentioned in end of 19th century. It is not godmade. But the result of mutation and selection. When there is no evolution then there is also no change. The Poodle is change compared to the previous dog races. A subspecies, and that is a poodle, it is a subspecies of dogs, always the start of a new species. That's where separation starts. The bodysize and shape leads to other habit of eating and living. A chihuahua is surely not able to sucessfully hunt a deer. And surely not able to carry childs from a great dane. Here the evolution has still reached the sexual barrer that divides the races. And that is macroevolution, right?

To say it is still a dog is true. It is also true that it is a mammal, or an animal. To say it is not evolution is simply false.

Everytime when there was no consensus between faith and science the science won in the end. Because provable facts are provable, faith not.

The catholic church said earth is flat. We now have the consensus that the earth is round. Too much provable facts pointed in that direction. And finally the catholic church couldn't longer ignore it and agreed that the earth is round. That in this point the bible is wrong - that was in 2001. The catholic church says there is no evolution. Well. Too much provable facts points in the evolution direction. Just a matter of time until the church also agrees in this point



The chance that you win in a lottery is let's say 30.000.000 to 1. And you nevertheless have dozens of winners every week. The sum of solar systems in just this galaxy is around 300 billion. And that is just one galaxy

where does the bible say the earth is flat?

julz

I couldn't agree more with said,



What about it mentioning 4 corners? What about the texts being very vague about what's really meant? I really don't think a round earth has corners... By the way, it's a bit stupid to repeat the same arguments over and over just because we disagree on the interpretation of text.

I think we should be able to agree though that the Bible by far isn't specific enough about Earth for us to simply assume it clearly says the Earth is round. Judged by our history, the egg of Columbus and what not I pretty much doubt the Bible's interpretation has stayed the same through time on this subject. Especially because going by some historic texts it weren't sailors who warned for falling of the edge of the world,

Cheers

i'm not arguing that it says the earth is round. i'm saying that it doesn't say it's flat. i don't know where it describes four corners, but either way that was (and still is) a common way to describe a vast travel or something similar.

all too often we see presumptuous anti-creationists making fairytale claims on behalf of the bible in order to say it's wrong.

and they claim to be the more logical side.

julz

This is just one of many mentionings of the four corners of the earth. Four corners.

Has a sphere four corners? Can you tell me which geometric shape has four corners?

do you really take that to mean the earth has four corners? or that he'll "gather together the dispersed of Judah from [all over] the earth"?

i didn't ask where four corners of the earth are mentioned. where does the bible authoritatively teach that the earth has four corners?

julz

The bible teaches nothing. The bible gets interpreted by religious people. And they teach the interpreted content then. And dependand of their mood the content points in different directions.

But some stuff is written this clear that there is nearly no room for interpretation. You still have not answered my question. What geometric shape has four corners?

a tetrahedron or a quadrilateral.

my pillow has four corners as well.

julz

Why do you think they've chosen 'corners' here when they could have simply used the Hebrew word for 'all over'. I'm aware that Kanaph ís often translated as 'extremities', but it changes nothing as extremities is just another word for saying 'ends'.

To me and many scholars it's quite obvious they wrote this down as if they thought the earth had boundaries, where in reality it's a sphere that has no boundaries.

Perhaps the sea had no relevance in this case, perhaps they meant the boundaries of land (not earth) you can live on, but fact is the text isn't specific enough about what's really meant here.

Also, other parts of the Bible do not clarify that earth is believed to be a sphere either, quite the contrary;



A circle? A curtain? A tent? At best this a the description of a flat circular surface with half a sphere (of the sky above) on top.



'The Creator of the extremities of the earth'... sounds like the entire earth was meant after all.



and



If a text doesn't clarify what is meant with whatever shape it would mention, it still doesn't really mean anything. For example your pillow example shows that even though it may have four corners, how the three dimensional space was thought to be the earth is still open for debate so to speak as it isn't clarified. The upper part of the pillow may be a representation of the sky instead of earth itself.

It has little to do with presumptions and a lot to do with texts not being specific enough to really determine the world view. In my opinion it is very unlikely that they thought the earth was spherical.



Well, if I'm not mistaken the position of the sun relative to the earth is not constant though, sometimes it's closer to the sun, sometimes it's further away.

Cheers

I did not say it was Godmade. Neither did I say it was not a product of evolution. And yes, a chihuahua/great dane mix is possible. The reason you never hear about it is that because of the difference in size, they would have trouble mating. Google it.
As I said, that's microevolution taking place not macroevolution. The chihuahua is still a dog.



Instead of simply saying there's proof for evolution, why don't you post it. And yes, the Catholic church was ignorant in those times and dislikes change very much. But then it was called a 'church' but it's actions/beliefs could hardly be called Christian. It was a political organization using the name of Christ.



How then do you get a solar system with an EXACTLY correct distance from the sun/other planets, an EXACT ratio of gases forming the atmosphere with little to no toxic gases, an EXACT ratio of land and water (the simple fact that it HAS water in its liquid state is one thing that sets Earth apart from other planets), and that had the EXACT chemicals in the EXACT same place at the EXACT same time in the EXACT quantities with EXACTLY zero 'wrong' chemicals that would ruin the reaction. It simply is not possible. Think about it: I said in my previous post that the average protein has several thousands of amino acids, and one single cell needs more than one of each protein to funciton properly. How could thousands of amino acids join together in the correct order, and then do so agin a few seconds later? How could this happen with all the diverse numbers of proteins needed for life?



No it's not specific enough to assume it clearly says the Earth is round. It's not specific enought to assume it clearly says the Earth is flat either. Either way, 'from the four corners of the Earth' means from all parts of the Earth. It's a simple metaphore written so people from the present and from history could understand it.



Couldn't agree with you more.



Now about the atmosphere as mentioned above. Earth's atmosphere is comprised of: 78% Nitrogen, 21% Oxygen and 1% other gases (carbon dioxide, oxone etc etc. As it turns out, that's a perfect combination to sustain life. Breathing excess amounts of oxygen for long times can result in lung injuries and chest pains, and since oxygen is flammable, for every 1% increase of oxygen levels in the atmosphere, there's a 70% added chance of forest fires happening. This is not much of a problem however, simce the oxygen levels have been diluted wiht nitrogen. This is good, because most gases are toxic to humans and animals however nitrogen is extremely unreactive, so however much we inhale with each breath, it doesn't react with our bodies in any way.



In that case, Darwin's finches teach nothing, they were just interpreted by Darwin according to his mood. And then he taught others according to his mood at the time.



Yes they did think the earth was flat. But again that's not the point of the text.



Do you have ANY idea what a metaphore is?

Of course, but my point is it makes no sense as a metaphor when they would indeed have known the earth is spherical and not a flat surface with a spherical sky on top.

The text in my opinion, even as a metaphor, seems to describe nothing but a flat earth,

Cheers

In modern day speech we also refer to the ends of the earth. They are called "poles."

And the four corners couldnt possibly be referring to a cubic shape, for a cube has 8 corners.

No, the 'four corners' could mean the same as 'four corners' used elsewhere in the Bible:

Ex 25:12 description of the ark

These 4 corners are more directional then the actual corners of the ark because the ark had 8 corners, these corners refer to the sides in between the 8 corners. Which if you have a projection on a rectangle you actually have four corners.



This image of course has four corners which is what the Bible was talking about: in short, the four directions.

And the language is not even antiquitated. We use North, south, east and west in our daily communications.

The circle that the Bible was referring to was probably the equator.

But there was indeeed evidence that the ancient civilizations knew about the planets shape, and even the solar system:



In this sumerian tablet you can see in the top left corner a sun sphere surrounded by 11 planets, the same number we have:

Mercury
Venus
Earth
Mars
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune

and 3 dwarf planets::
Pluto
Ceres
2003 UB313


The 12th one you see on the tablet is the legendary nibiru. Note that the guy sitting on the throne in the tablet, if you straighten him out he is much taller than the other guys, this corresponds with the Bible teachings of:

No. They didnt know that the earth was a sphere, but God knew. But the references to the "ends of the earth" and the "four corners" still retain their inspired meanings, regardless of the shape of the earth. They simply refer to the four directions.

At least we agree now that it makes sense to assume that the authors of the Bible did not know.

So... the only reason the text makes some sort of sense now, is because we've changed it's original most likely interpretation.

If God meant wind directions, why didn't he said so? Being more specific in this case would clarify a lot. I take it in all his wisdom "God" decided it would be best for the people to stay ignorant a little bit longer or something?

I think it's a classic example of knowledge that got lost and was discovered/reinvented on a later date again. After all, the Sumerians knew a lot about earth, stars and so on, so did the Egyptians. I'm quite sure the shepherds of Israel simply didn't understand when they tried to copy the texts as in the Sumerian myths there's a lot more information about moving stars and the rebirth of the sun and so on,

Cheers

It has been posted a hundrets times now. Fossils is a proof for example. When did they live? The darwin finch is a proof and not a mood. It is fact, it exists. You can observate them. My poodle example is still a proof at least for me.

There is absolutely no proof for the existance of god. No fingerprint, no trousers, nothing. You still have to believe in his existance. Means there is also no proof for the earth is godmade and just a few thousand years old. Not a single one.

Thousands of provable facts exists about Evolution theory. And nobody was yet able to disprove it. Nobody. Saying it is not true is not disproving it.

Let's throw in a few new arguments. How do creationists explain the existance of rudiments? When there is no evolution why does a whale have degenerated feet bones then?

Or how do you explain that sometimes the fly drosophila is born with four wings instead two? Hey, that's mutation

How does the continental drift fit to creationism?

again, i'm not claiming the bible teaches a spherical world. i'm saying that the bible teaches neither, and that it doesn't matter, as opposed to Tiles' argument that Christianity's full of rubbish because to be true Christians we must think the earth is flat.

here's another way to look at "from the four corners of the earth": is it talking about what's specifically at each of those four corners, or what's between them? the purpose of the illustration is what's between the corners, not at them. it's not uncommon for people to describe exploring to "the ends of the earth". does the earth have ends? no.

furthermore, a flat circular earth wouldn't have corners either. you're arguing that the authors of the bible presume to teach the shape of the earth, and i'm saying they don't care what the earth looks like. which do you really think it is given that inconsistency?

and again, that was clearly an illustration. it's simply saying that God spread the heavens over all the earth.

i can't believe people would actually argue that the bible's authors teach that the earth is flat based on illustrations and ridiculously common expressions.

julz

EDIT:
who ever said there's no mutation? no micro-evolution?

and what's wrong with continental drift and creationism?

nothing.

Yes, but the Earth has a reletively circular orbit, not an elliptical one. Due to the extreme distances then (it takes 8 minutes just for the first light of day to reach Earth) there's less than 1% change during the course of the orbit. Even that 1% has major changes however, that's how we get summer/winter. Imagine if the Earth was closer to the sun we would hav everlasting summer of the most extreme desert kind. The sime goes vice verca.



No they did not know. They probably thought the Earth was flat, but here the Bible doesn't teach the Earth is flat. It simply uses a metaphore, the same one a modern author would use in a sentance like "he searched the ends of the Earth for th lost treasure..." It means "the entire Earth."



Take note that they're called Darwin's finches. Not Darwin's finch and some-bird-that-evolved-from-finches. They are all still finches. No macroevolution took place.
As for the poodle example, that goes to show man's stubbornness. I disprove something you say supports evolution, but you still hold on to it as 'proof'. And you call yourselves scientific?



Don't be absurd. Do you really think God would have fingerprints? Trousers? Do you think He's a huamn? Just goes to show how little you understand what you are talking about. But yes, you still have to have faith that He exists. But frankly, you need more faith to believe in the series of coincidences called Evolution.



You quote your teacher "evolution is a proven fact" but do you know for yourself what the proofs are and if they're logical? Or did you just hop on the evolution bandwagon. And yes, people have disproven it before. What do you think I'm doing now? Also don't assume I'm trying to disprove it simply by saying it's not true. I'm giving scientific facts.



I'm not sure what rudiments are. They're unused organs correct?



Whales do not have degenerated foot bones. See quote below.

Quoting the New York Times:


It's not a foot, it's what looks like a hind limb. And if it had anything to do with Evolution whales would either a)lost the limb due to evolving or b) still have the hind limb, but evolve it away later. That is not the case.
I'm constantly repeating myself in saying 'that is not the case'. It never is.



I don't see how it relate to creationism or evolution in any way.


Now that I've answered everything you've thrown at me (I'll talk about rudiments when I learn more about them) why don't you guys start? Before yakking on about Evolution being true exiplain the below form an evolutionary standpoint.

--From my prev. posts--

1. How do you explain the amino acids I talked about?

2. How do you explain the similarities/differences between species' cytochrome C?
Note: cytochrome C is used as an example because it exists in all species.

3. How can you believe the extreme coincidences evolution teaches, even if billions of years were involved? (Even Earth's age is debatable actually)

--New stuff--

4. Watch the video below:


Do you really think the ability to do this kind of thing just happened?

5. Even if the first living organisms came about by chance (I'm not saying they did), say the fish slowly evolves into the frog. For one thing, with what could the frog mate? It couldn't. How then could the frog species continue to reproduce? And while the frog was trying to figure that out the fishes would multiply like crazy, with no natural predators, no fisherman, sharks etc. There would be billions of fish to one frog. That would also be the case if the frog evolved into a reptile. There would be billions of frogs (goodness knows how many fish there would be now) to one reptile. That would go on and on and the Earth would simply not be able to support all those animals.

6. The fundamental parts of an animal's DNA that define it as that animal never change. The physical/mental diversity we see today in humans and certain animals is due to the fact that certain code that determines eyecolor, haircolor, height weight, bone density and so on can be changed during the reproductive process when the chromosomes split with cell division, not mutation. Mutation can change those fundamental parts of the DNA but that code is very intricately set up. ANY kind of change, even if minor, results in a deformed, short-living organism (even then it is still the same animal). I cannot find one single example where mutation has resulted in anything good. How do you evolutionists explain that?

7. If I asked you if something as reletively simple as a 1980 MS-DOS computer could come about by the materials coming together in the right place, you would call me a madman. Even a single-celled bacteria is many times more complex than even a modern computer, and yet you believe it simply happened?

8. Another common feature in nature is symbiosis. a for of symbiosis is mutualism where two or more animals are mutually helpful. One instance of mutualism is between the Oriental Sweetlips and the Blue-Streak Wrasse. The sweetlips is one of the many fish that have teeth. Teeth however need to be cleaned or they will rot. The Blue-Streak Wrasse is a tiny fish that actually swims into the mouth of the sweetlips and starts eating the gunk off its teeth. Without the blue-sreak wrasse the sweetlips would lose its teeth and thus the ability to feed, and so go die out. The blue-streak wrasse is very tiny so it can't find its own food, but relies on the sweetlips. One can not exist without the other but together they can.
How could the oriental sweetlips evolve teeth and the blue-streak wrasse evolve the instinct to swim into a bigger fish's mouth without fear, BOTH at the same time? It's not possible.
That's the kind of supposed 'coincidences' that will be Evolution's downfall. They are not coincidences at all. They are obvious indications of an intelligent being who came up with a well thought-out plan.

@PS3: just thought i'd say before the anti-creationists jump in -- summer and winter have to do with the tilt of the earth, not the earth's slightly elliptical orbit.

julz

*Jump*



LOL. Okay. But i hope you agree at least that the earth is round. Not this sure anymore

You don't have disproven my arguments. You have twisted it and you have ignored the parts that doesn't fit to your point of view.

Continental drift is another proof that the earth is a few billion years old. America fits perfectly to Africa. Shape, stonetype, fossils. They were once one piece. Well. You can measure how fast the continents drifts. And by that you can calculate back to the point when America was unioned with Africa. It may surprise you, but the result is a bit more than a few thousand years. Doesn't really fit to the Genesis



I cannot, you have left vital parts of that theory out. You just show the parts that fits to your point of view. That's why i couldn't answer to this argument, that's why i have left it out. I miss the whole story.

But even when you would be true at that point, it may in the worst case proof parts of the evoltion theory wrong. Which would make it necessary to rewrite it. And it would be fixed then. Scientic theorys are not static like a holy word. They evolute from the good to the better. They got rewritten when parts of it gets proven wrong.



Well, coincindence happens coincindental. What is there to believe? I know it happened. I can see the species around me. Shall we kill all lottery winners now to proof your argument true that there is no coincidence? Shall we kill all mathmagicians? Evil men they are ...



Depends of what you mean with just happened. It evoluted to that point. There was not nothing, then genius. Even this guy needed to learn to play his instrument. And even his instrument evoluted from the first instruments to this fiddle. Even a melody is a process of evolution. Classical music is a enhanced product of earlier medieval music. And earlier medieval music a product of even older and simpler melodys. You can follow how it has become more complex over the ages.

This example here is more a proof for evolution



What are you talking about here? There is not just one species evoluting. And there is not just one age where all happens at once. Well, yeah, you are indeed in trouble to explain it with just a few thousand years of age for the whole world.

You miss a whole chapter of earth changes, comet impacts, that more than once nearly the whole life died. You miss whole fossil series of not longer missing links that shows how a species evoluted. Chapters that are written in stone. Provable. Measurable.

Every aquaristic knows the mudskipper. The missing link between fish and land animal. And everybody that has seen an embryo before already has seen where humans comes from, evolutionwise. At least i wonder why a lung breather needs amniotic fluid.



Again a mixture of facts, half true things and wrong things.

Even the first sentence is wrong. Every bisexual reproduction is change. You mix genes, you don't reproduce them one by one as you would do with a bacteria. Which by the way perfectly fits to the original topic. Bacterias are indeed made that the code gets copied one to one. But now it has changed under the eyes of scientists. Not deformed, fully functional. There is your example

Scientists were possible to turn on a gene to give a worm the ten times higher life span. It's a mutation, it is not deformed, fully functional, and lives longer. There is your next example

I could go on with what i have started. There are thousands of facts waiting. Ignoring the facts or twisting them doesn't make them less valid.

Give me just ONE provable fact that the earth is just a few thousand years old. One's enough. Then i may go on with the discussion. As it is now it simply makes no sense. All that happens here is twisting words and facts so that they finally fits to throw evolution theory to death. Which doesn't automatically make the Genesis true by the way.

Time to quote Galileo Galilei at that place. The earth IS moving.

I am glad you corrected that, anybody can make incorrect statements, none of us are completely correct all the time. But that dosn't nullify the point.
It all boils down to evidence of design. To reject the conclusion that arises from this undeniable design is to reject the very foundation of the conclusions reached in many branches of science.

Here is another difficulty that I have with evolution.
For evolution to be true (I am not saying it is or it isn't. I simply don't believe it)
For evolution to be true, that would mean that in-animate elements/compounds came together somehow to form amino acids. Those amino acids somehow came together to form proteins. Many different varieties of proteins somehow came togeter to form the first living organism. The so called "simple cell". If ever there was a gross understatement its that one. "The simple cell".

Anyway, I digress.
I cannot logically comprehend any other way that varies too much from that sequence of events. Further, that process must have taken some considerable amount of time.
Everything that I know and understand about chemistry (I am not a chemist, but it is an interrest) says that is impossible.

Science has proven that it is possible to randomly produce amino acids, yes.
But those amino acids are quickly broken down again by ultraviolet light.
Evolutionary theorist try to overcome that difficulty by placing the amino acids into water. A "biological soup" as it were.

It is a scientifically observable fact that water is a destroyer of more complex chemicals, let alone amino acids. Amino acids would simply not hold their structure long enough to form proteins and if amino acids wouldn't survive long enough then proteins would have absolutely no chance.

Single celled organisms can and do survive in water, how?
The have a protective membrane to keep the water out.
What is that protective membrane made from?
Proteins! what are proteins made from? Amino acids!

The only way that we know that amino acids can be assembled into proteins is in the cells of living organisms. They are just too complex to come about in any other way.

Now we have a chicken and egg problem.
You need a cell to make proteins
You need proteins to make the protective membrane to surround the cell so it can assemble amino acids to make proteins to make more cells.
So which came first. The cell or the protein.
Can't have been the protein because it can't exist outside of a living cell.
Can't have been the cell because you need proteins to make the cell.

There is only one answer that I can think of. Please correct me if I am wrong.
The answer. Both the proteins and the cell came into existence in the same millisecond.

Sorry guys, I have extreme difficulty in beliving in anything but creation.
I am just an average guy of average intelligence but I have spent 35 years deeply considering this issue (I am 53). I was not always a creationist. In fact I used to be an evolutionist. As I stated earlier, I am forced to conclude, there is a creator. I accept the possibilty that I am wrong. I believe it is simply impossible to absolutely proove creation. But I can tell you that I have seen nothing here to re convert me back to evolution.
A house without solid foundations simply cannot stand.

Creation is proven to me by exclusion
Evolution can't be true so it must be creation

As told, the evolution doesn't happen one by one. Evolution happens at the same time. Think about a bloom where every insect has access to. Now think about variations. That one bloom has a smaller shape so that one insect race has better access than another. Now think that this insect race can do the job of pollination best. Means the blooms with smaller size gets polled most. Doesn't that lead to the whole population of this plant becomes smaller blooms then?

Let's have a look at your sweetlip. Not cultivated teeth not automatically rot. But obviously cultivated teeth lives longer. And so does its holder. Which means a fish with cultivated teeth has an advantage against a fish with not cultivated teeth. I can just imagine how it started that one fish cleans the teeth of another. But it started at one point. Maybe with eating parasites, then specialize to the teeth. And i can see how it works now. Both fishes benefit. Surviving of the fittest at that point. And again i can see evolution, not a god at work. No need for a big brother at no point



Tons of evidences for Evolution theory. NO evidence for creation. Not a single one. Okay, you won

So I take it that you dont see design in living organisms or the way the universe works?
Or that the existence of proteins is impossible outside of the cell?

Those are honest questions, I am not trying to be smart with you.
As I said I used to be an evolutionist so I understand the arguments, I do.
Im no longer convinced by them however. I see it as smoke and mirrors....sorry

I orriginally posted into this thread to make the point that to state that the article is a proof for evolution is to grossly overstate what the evidence shows. Regardless of how much evidence anyone else claims, for or against evolution/creation, that statement, I feel is still true. It prooves adaptation (or micro evolution as another poster called it).....Yes. But it prooves evolution.....No way.
In a court of law it would be called circumstantial evidence and thrown out.
Not that a court of law is always correct, but the point remains, it is not proof.
By the way, good to see you here Tiles, I see you have returned as I have (at least for now, probably forever)

why wonder? look it up on wikipedia

julz

Also, for the record, I, like many creationists, do not believe that the earth was created in a few thousand years. Yes some do, but some do not. If the fact that some creationists believe that the earth was created in a few thousand and that turns out to be wrong means that everyone who believes in creation is wrong. Then that must apply to evolutionists also because not all evolutionists believe the same thing. In fact, many evolutionists believe that a creator started it all and evolution took over, and some of them making that statement are infinitely smarter and well known than I am.

Welcome back too

I really wish the guy would finish his manual and provide a few more useful scripting examples. Impossible to use it at the moment ...



Why should that be impossible? It is possible. It has been proven by experiments afaik.



No. I don't see design. Some things are too obviously grown together. Some things are so complex, no designer would make it this complicated. Some things so obviously unnecessary and just to explain by evolution, like the appendix. No i don't see a designer at work from my angle of view.

What i see is that most of the things the bible tells us about how the earth has been made has been disproven by facts. What i see is that most of those facts points in the evolution direction instead. When there is no evolution then there is no change. But there is obviously change.

Micro and macro evolution. Hmm, for me one undividable thing. Micro evolution can be shown and proven by facts. So this one cannot be discussed away. What's unfortunately impossible to show is the macro evolution at work. This would need several thousands years. And we obviously are not able to observe such a timespan by ourselves. Facts that proves macro evolution are fossils therefore. Which are simply ignored by creationists because they don't fit to their theory. Or shown at similar species at isolated parts like islands. After a specific point they reach the point of sexual barrer, and cannot longer have childs with each other. And that's what divides species. Also simply ignored.

I don't even say the evolution theory is in all its aspects true as it is now. There are gaps. There are parts that needs closer explanation. But creationism is obviously much wronger than the evolution theory. Lots of facts points into the direction of evolution, not a single one in direction of creationism.
It may even happen that somebody completely disproves the evolution theory in the future. But it is at the moment the theory that makes most sense when we take all facts into account.

The main thing that bothers me in connection with creationism is that disproving parts of the evolution theory should automatically disprove the whole theory and automatically lead to prove the creationism theory as true. When an object is not green then it is not automatically red. When a leaf falls down the tree it doesn't mean the tree doesn't exist anymore.

But that is what creationism stands for. They don't understand (or even really disprove an aspect, hey, they can of course be right with it) a single aspect of the theory, so it is wrong, so whole evolution is wrong, so the creationism is right. Which leads to Bible is right, science wrong in general. There is just god, and the earth just a few thousand years old. Those guys even fake facts. Like quoting Darwin in a way that says exactly the opposite of what Darwin says in the whole statement. This is so obviously a step towards back to medieval, so obviously a last try to get the authority about the view of the world back. You must be blind not to see it.

I don't want to take away your faith. Keep it.

But faith should stay faith, and science should stay science. Disprove and prove a theory by facts. Not by faith

But that is what I thought I did. I didn't think I used faith anywhere in what I said. All available scientific knowledge/evidence/experiments that I have seen on the subject shows that it is impossible for proteins to exist for extended periods of time outside of a living cell. They are quickly broken down into simpler compounds. Is that not what decay is?

Is that not a fact? anyone?
What have you seen that shows that it is possible?





hmm, interesting that you do not see design in nature. Most documentaries dealing with nature from respected evolutionists seem to mention the word often enough.


Oh and fossils are another interrest of mine as is science (and history) in general. Has been since i was 13
So to say I ignore the fossil record is simply untrue. Yes I know, I have too many interrests.
A true jack of all trades and a master of none.
The point is however, that I am not the uneducated buffoon that evolutionists like to pass creationists off as.
And neither are a lot of other creationists that I have seen and/or heard, both famous and infamous.
Not talking about religionists here, that's another subject altogether.

In fact, I am going to go out on a limb here and say that in my (limited) experience
you are more likely to find a critical thinker in a creationist that an evolutionist.

Evolutionists tend to dogmatically adhere to what they learn't at school
and consider anyone who dosn't agree as a fool who listens to priests.
Because a scientist says its true then it must be true.

To be fair, I have also heard what I consider to be absolute garbage from creationists also.
But hey, I could be wrong in both counts. All I can do is weigh up what I see and go with my instincts.

That's quite a stretch. I think we also disagree on how it does matter. After all plenty of things are supposedly interpreted literally. Don't forget that Tiles already said that the Bible teaches nothing. With all due respect, basically that's quite right as it's totally dependent on ones interpretation of the vagueness.



Such expressions are obviously remnant of ancient times and can have many meanings, in case of sailors and navigators they simply meant 'out of reach', in early times not knowing that the earth didn't quite has ends the way they thought.

Back in the day it wasn't that strange to think of earth as something with ends at all. In their view the earth does have ends, either because landmasses stop where the seas start, but also because they weren't fully aware about the entire earth so 'ends of the earth' would also mean 'out of reach' or 'never been there' more or less.



I agree that there's an inconsistency, but that's part of the whole point. It shows that it doesn't teach a spherical earth. It shows that it's inconsistent and it shows that they thought the earth was flat in my opinion.

I already explained that at best the description sounds like a flat circular earth with half a sphere on top as sky. I never said it makes perfect sense regardless of the inconsistencies in the bible.

Cheers

Ah, okay, so how does fossils fit into the theory that the earth is just a few thousand years old? Ah, wait, you said you don't believe in that part of creationism. Okay, then, how comes that you can see evolution happen at fossils?



Huh? Who digs for facts? And who relies at a book?



I think the same from creationists. For creationists just the bible exists. Who cares about facts. Bible states it, then it must be true



Totally agree, from my angle of view of course. In my case my insticts tell me that there is something wrong with the bible way

yes, but Tiles first said that the Catholic church had to admit the church was round and therefore "the bible is wrong". it can't be "wrong" if it's too vague to figure out exactly what it means.

if the bible described a "sea of people" would we have to take it as an ocean composed of people, or a large crowd? you can't expect anyone to take it that literally.

this vagueness you associate with the entire bible shows exactly how little you've read of it.

that's what i'm saying. it's just an expression. do you think anyone who read those passages soon after it was written thought that it meant "the earth has four corners"? of course not.
how many times do i have to say it doesn't teach a spherical earth? it doesn't teach that the earth has any shape. the inconsistency shows they didn't presume to know the shape of the earth, and instead were using imagery. if this discussion was with native-english speakers it would've been over long ago.

"the corners of the earth" is as ancient an expression as "the ends of the earth", and describes vastness, not geography.

"the circle of the earth" allows readers (especially readers who have no idea what shape the earth is) to imagine how God has dominion over it in its entirety and created the heavens to surround it and cover it. it's a huge stretch to imagine someone reading either of those passages and saying "this is a teaching about the earth's shape".

in a time when the idea of a spherical earth is simply ridiculous (no concept of gravity), would it have been helpful to describe the earth as a sphere in any of those images?

ultimately, whether you agree with those arguments or not, you cannot say the bible teaches a flat earth and does not teach anything.

julz

It is you who keeps bringing faith and the bible into the discussion you and I are having. Search my posts, I have not tried to use either as evidence.

I have presented to you a fact, proteins cannot exist outside of a living cell.
I ask you for facts that show otherwise.
You come back at me and say you search for facts and I believe a book.
Gross misrepresentation just like the theory you hold to


It dosn't and I never said it did, again gross misrepresentation of my words.

The fossil record teaches me that life forms suddenly appear and the ones that go extinct suddenly dissappear.
The fossil record teaches me that every life form that has survived until our day has done so virtually unchanged.

I just want to get back to what I have been trying to say.
And whichever side of the fence you sit on this is true.

There is, as yet not, one fact that proves one viewpoint over the other. All evidence presented in an attempt to proove one side or the other is nothing more than circumsantial evidence. All evidence presented in an attempt to disproove the other is nothing more than circumstantial evidence.

I see design in nature and I see life starting without assistance as impossible.
This is all circumstantial evidence....yes.
I have reached my conclusion without reference to any religious book and or person.

I have based that on what I can see/read/research/investigate/contemplate for myself.
I have not seen anything in science (so far) that is reserchable/investigatable that shows absolutely that my conclusion from the above is wrong.
Nothing more than circumstantial evidence that is open to interpretation either way and highly suspect due to scientist being paid to get results.
And far too many lucky accidents for chance to be the cause.

Tiles, you can disagree with my conclusion but don't accuse me of believing it because the bible tells me so. I think I have proven that is not true.
Shoot me down based on what I have said not on some perception you have of people who believe in creation

I just jumped in because somebody else started to mention god as a fact

And not every answer from me was meant in your direction.

It is not my goal to shoot anybody down by the way. We lead a discussion here. Not a war.

And of course do i accept when somebody has another opinion than i have.


Ah, sorry, have overlooked to answer that question. My fault.

I thought this proteine thingie is proven by the experiment of Stanley Miller? Isn't a proteine made of amino acids?


Earth did have millions of years to go through all possible combinations. Which must have leaded to the first cell. Else we wouldn't be here. But okay, that's just my interpretation



Hmm, i see a snapshot with every fossil. Not every chain is filled with examples. There are still lots of missing links. But there are enough examples where the chain is full enough to give a first rough picture.

Putting them in order shows me a sauropode without feathers, a sauropode with feathers, a first bird with still teeth, a bird. You can follow how it changes from one to another.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fossil_birds#Basal_Aves_.28extinct.29

And what's even nicer, you can follow this evolution that is represented by fossils even in how a bird embryo grows. They show rudimentary teeth at one point for example before it turns into a beak

Putting them in order i see something like a seacow, i see something like a whale with degenerated feet, see the backfeet become smaller and smaller and the frontfeet become fins, and i see a whale where the degenerated backfeet are nearly gone. I see a land animal become a ocean animal here. You can follow how it changes from one to another.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_Cetaceans

Putting them together i see a horse evolute, i see how feet becomes hoofs. They change sizewise and shapewise from a foot with pad and claw down to current hoofs. With all their steps between. It's not that there were just feet, and from one moment to another hoofs. I see evolution in all their steps happen.

Putting them in order i see the different subspecies of homo. I see the brain grow, i see how the frontpart becomes bigger and bigger over the time with every evolutionary step.

I see change where you see not connected jumps. I see evolution

A donkey and a horse can have childs. But this childs are infertile. This is one live example of evolution where the species are still close enough to have childs, but not longer close enough to mix again. Evolution that happens now.

Nope, it's wrong because it's vague. It's simply far too easy to just accept vagueness over specifics when people interpret texts in whatever way they like. Besides.. how can it be true or truth if it doesn't really clarify anything?



Not at all, it shows how easy religious people disregard that fact as if it's not important. I know what metaphors are and yes the Bible also has far more obvious ones, but in fact the Bible is só full of them that it's actually impossible to really take anything literally. Taking one thing literally because it happens to fit your world view and taking another thing as 'just a metaphor' is just being selective.

You still don't seem to understand the point of all this though. Because from a linguistic point of view the whole 'four corners of the earth' example shows what happens when we treat the Bible like you do and just interpret away. Again, I never said that this must be the one and only interpretation, but I did say that 'at best' it's an indication of what people thought of earth. Expressions or not, those words were chosen for a reason, a lot of the expressions common to us now were based on older texts... that doesn't mean the original text must carry the same metaphorical image at all. Basically in reality you are being closed-minded here, it has nothing to do with English not being my native language. In fact, we have similar expressions in Dutch, but that's not the point.

Cheers

Further insight into the four corners. If you look at the greek word for corner in the following verse(Johns vison of revelation):



The greek word is gonia, and it means corner or quarter.
Quarter makes much more sense than corner in this verse because when talking about the four winds of the earth, the Bible is probably referring to the major winds, northeast and southeast trades as well as the westerlies and polar easterlies.

As I was trying to illuminate before, the original Bible authors couldnt possibly have been referring to the four corners of a cuboid shape. Why didnt anyone reply to me earlier I dont know. Maybe I just didnt give enough reasons for a flame war.



Phemox, I am ashamed of you that being an upcoming archeologist, and therefore supposedly acquainted with human history and anthropology, that you would so doggedly persist in assuming that the original Bible authors did not know that the earth was a sphere without providing alternatives. If you are so sure that they did NOT view the earth as a sphere, how do know exactly WHAT these verses refer to? Do you assume that they believed it was a cuboid? (see attached image) And if you do, what proof do you have of it? So why dont you provide alternatives? If you were as scientifically minded as you would present yourself here, and us Christians should all believe that we are delusional fanatics, maybe you would care to tell us what the world view of all the Biblical authors was?

My contention is that if you are not able to provide a theory of your own, then you really have no business nor credentials in attempting to critic these passages of the Bible.

I conclude that most of these "Bible skepticism" threads are really masks for people who hate God and Christianity, and cannot come to terms with the larger philosophical issues of death and misfortune.

Psychologically speaking most people need something to tear down when their lives dont go right, so they choose God and Christianity because they cant understand how God would have let them down...

Well I think instead of trying a psychological analysis why other people dont have the same opinion as you, there is probably an easier explanation why most assume that the Bible talked about a flat earth.

First, the idea of a spherical earth came up in Greece about 300 BC. Until then, the earth was described as flat in all written records that are known so far.

Second, Genesis 1: "And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament."

There are many similar passages in the Bible. "Under" and "above" in space only makes sense when you assume a flat earth, and a fixed gravity direction. A spherical earth obviously doesn't have an "under" direction - it's the same from all sides.

Interesting theory, but I think it is definitely wrong. The reason why I can use such a strong word as 'definitely' is because of the following verse. I have thought about it extensively before and I even showed jcl how he was wrong in thinking that the firmamnet was a solid. He has probably chosen to forget that time though

In case anyone needs the reference, the verse you gave was genesis 1:6-7, if you look at the next_verse, genesis 1:8 you see:



So God called the firmament heaven. So therefore the firmament is not solid land at all. It is the troposphere. Have you ever wondered why clouds filled with very heavy h20 do not fall? It is because they are kept up by rising air currents in the troposphere.

So therefore the waters 'above the firmament' are waters in the clouds, the waters 'below the firmament' are the waters of the seas.

As far as the words 'above' and 'below' of course those words are used, we also use those words today as we look at clouds above us. Of course those clouds are not really above us, because we are only located relative to other planets, the word above is really meaningless in an infinite universe.So God was just using vernacular which would be understood by people, he wasnt interested in teaching the principles of relativity and we would not understand His science if He told us anyway. Discovering it is our job.

Good thinkinng Tobias, but sometimes we should look at further possibilities in order to understand.

Think rationally, how could God allow birds to fly in solid firmamnet? Look at the next verse...


Why not Tobias? Is [psychology not science? I mean no insult against Phemox but I come to no other conclusion when people are refusing to look at alternatives. There are many people who have OBVIOUS animosity and hatred and mocking towards God and Christians. You tell me why if it is not for psychological reasons..

Also as a side note, before the flood the troposphere would have much thicker because it prevented the rainbow from being seen, it also was thicker to keep free radicals from aging people and accounts for the longer lives of the early humans. There are many possibilities that can be explored by people who have open minds. Biologists often wonder why things got so big (like dinos and trees and insects) this thicker atmosphere would have cuased different conditions for life, it would have been warmer....just many things

What about the sunmerian texts and the tablets I showed in this thread? The ancients thought these giants came from outer space..nibiru

Sometimes it looks like religious people hate science, but there's a lot of ignorance on both sides. Scientists that know little about religion and vice versa. Often debates lead to nothing because of bias, big egos and close mindedness.

The larger philosophical issues of death and misfortune certainly make me think about my own life even though to some extent the agnostic side of me is indifferent about it all. There's no frustration about it.

Don't forget that to me it makes as much sense that after I die the lights go out and nothing happens, as to you it makes sense that you'll arrive in heaven.



Perhaps it's not meant personally, but I am as open minded as I can be on the subject. I definitely do not hate religion, but to some extent people have all reason to.

Life, and my life is no exception, is something with ups and downs, I don't blame anyone but myself for my own mistakes, hating upon something just to feel better is definitely not me.



It's all good, but I don't think I am refusing to look at alternatives. In fact I'm probably more interested in religion than most people are. I've had many discussions with people that believed in something because their parents had raised them as Catholic, Christian and so on. Very interesting, but at the same time it can be quite unbelievable when people say 'I believe simply because my parents do so too'.

Obviously there's a psychological thing going on, children trust their parents. Their teachings are almost holy to them.

The first time this gets a little dent is when the parents explain Santa isn't real, but along the way many children raised with religion will find out about 'the alternatives' as well. There's far more to it than just a Bible with compelling and interesting stories.

Furthermore, as this might seem like mocking, I am convinced there has been a development of religions over time, usually following the same successful process of borrowing from popular religions and adding/changing things unless they prove to be making the religion unpopular. To me it seems obvious it was designed to influence and control people through human psychology. I don't consider that idea 'hating on religion', but perhaps you feel different about it.

Cheers

Im just stating that soon you will be an archeologist, at that point you are no longer a guy on a game forum, archeologists are a sort of scientist, and you should be willing to look a facts completely if you are going to be a scientist. Im not interested in that type of science for the reason that it is too full of opinion, but you have to sort through texts,legends, stories, ruins, coins, languages, etc. to arrive at a theory. So therefore I am surprised that you would so easily come to some of the conclusions you seem to arrive at too quickly.

Now here I have every_place_in_the_Bible where 'four corners' is used to describe a locality,as an archeologist I would assume you would be interested in Biblical things because the texts describe writings from centuries ago. Please read carefully:







OK. So these texts were written by 3 different authors, Isaiah and Ezekial lived around the same time but were not contemporaries, but John(rev) lived in about 60 AD. Each one describes the four corners of a land mass. However, look closely at the Ezekial reference:



Here he is talking about the land of Israel as having 4 corners, did the land of israel have four corners? No. So the reference to four corners in this context simply means the 4 cardinal directions, or is just a loose colloqial term to reference the area of a locality.

Thats all. I hope you understand this point.

So anyway I didnt want to insult you, but if your are going to paint a picture of you being on the 'rational side' while Christians are on the 'space cowboy' side, I can understand you desiring to use the scientific method, and use your mind and research for finding things out. I wish more people would have your kind of patient curiosity. I also understnad how sometimes it can be difficult to try to be scientific when you are surrounded by people who believe in an invisible God.

there's absolutely nothing wrong with the concept of it being an expression, and like i said, if it is taken literally then the verse is talking about gathering God's people from four different places (each of which is a corner), though clearly the intended meaning is 'from all over the earth'. it's a huge stretch to take that expression literally, no matter what the context. please open your mind to this.

this argument is stupid. it all started with Tiles saying the Catholics had to admit the bible was wrong about something which it turns out the bible doesn't say. you can't argue in favour of the bible's vagueness: if the bible appears vague about the shape of the earth it's because it doesn't matter. the bible is clear on things that do matter.

i'm not a Christian just because of my parents. i'm a Christian because God answers my prayers. i'm a Christian because being a Christian if there's no God is far better than being an atheist if the Christian God is real. i'm a Christian because i see lots of wisdom in God's Word, and my life is good as a direct result of its application to my life.

i'm a Christian because no one has anything to gain by fooling me into believing it, except that i'm a better and happier person. forget the Catholic church -- a distortion of Christianity that makes the 'godly' rich at the expense of lay-people -- and consider biblical Christianity, and no one gets any material gain from making others Christians.

your view of religion as a method of control has to stop when it gets to true Christianity, otherwise you're being closed-minded.

julz

I will check into the links that you provide and come back. But I will say a couple of things in response for now.
It was Millers experiments that I was alluding to when I said that it has been proven that it is possible for amino acids to form randomly. However, there are a couple of extra points that go along with those experiments that are generally ignored. I don't remember precicely but this is the basic idea.

1) Miller had to carefully setup that experiment so that once the amino acids formed they could be removed and protected. Why? Because because left in the water these amino acids rapidly breakdown into simpler compounds. Exposed to the atmosphere produces the same result. So, the real world aggressively works against amino acids existing long enough to form proteins let alone cells. Interresting experiment but not proof of the method by which cells came into existence.

2) If indeed this is a model of the real event that enabled cells to form, then, I have to ask, what part of the real event does Miller, himself, portray?

3) Not sure about this (I definitely could be wrong) but isnn't methane produced by living organisms? Hmmmm, I think I might do some research on that one

With the donkey horse producing a mule example. I draw the opposite conclusion.
As closely related as they are, I see two species that are so far apart genetically that it is impossible for them to "evolve" any further.
The same thing happens with a chicken and a turkey.
So the conclusion that I draw from those examples is that genetics itself works against "evolution". Genetics itself ensures that a species cannot "evolve" into something entirely different.

Now to the fossil sequences and the "remnant" parts you mentioned. Yep I have seen those too. They were one of the things that caused me to believe evolution orriginally.
However as you say, there are missing links. There are so many "missing links" in fact, that there are probably as many differnt versions of the sequence as there are missing links. This shows that is by no means certain. Definitely not certain enough to treat them as absolute facts. Again all very facinating of course but I find it about as convincing as my earlier example. Snails evolved from pine cones.

Well, I'm off to check your links, you never know, you might have something I haven't seen...Always willing to dig into facts....lol

The first thing I notice. You linked to wikipedia.
Great site, I use it all the time. But how many times have you heard, You must be extremely carefull about placeing too much faith in anything you read there.

Anyway
First few lines I see are full of "likelies" and "suspecteds" and "highly controversials".
I see lots of hand drawings of various animals.
I see illustrations of backfeet becomming smaller and smaller.
I see nothing more than I have seen a thousand times before.
Come to think of it, judging by all the previously visited links I see, I HAVE seen it a thousand times before.

Were is the "real evidence" this is nothing more than people presenting their imaginative naration and artistic skill.
There might be something in some of it but how can you tell what is real and what is not? How is this observable evidence? How is this digging into solid reliable facts?

Come on now, we are in a game engine forum. We do that sort of thing to our models all the time.

1) Hmm, Miller tried to reproduce one specific scenario that not longer exists on earth. In weeks or months, without knowing what exactly it was. Earth had millions and millions of years and lots of locations for that same scenario

2) A snapshot if this specific step, to produce more complex molecules, is possible. And it was.

3) Life forms produces lots of stuff. Some produces methane, yes. Have lost the track though for what this is interesting, sorry

Hmm, methane hydrate is in the discussion to have caused one of the mass dyings in the past. Is that what you mean?

There are and were millions and millions of species. So what's so dramatic when we haven't found all pieces yet? It's more a wonder that we found so much fossils until now. We don't really search for a long time.

For the mule example, i wish we could live a bit longer. There will come the time when a donkey and a horse isn't longer able to have childs, i am sure. Mmh, how do you explain that they can even have childs when there are just completely separated species? That should be impossible then.

In the end, i see that we will not find a consent here. We both interprete the facts in totally different ways. Nevertheless interesting discussion

Sorry, I probably wasn't clear enough with the Methane. My point is this.
If Methane comes, only from living oganisms, then Millers experiment requires the pre-existence of life in order for the experiment to work in the first place.

That is, if I am correct that living organisms are the only source of methane.
I am not at all sure that I am correct here.


But now we have left the realm of real and observable evidence and entered the realm of human imagination.
Dosn't necessarily meant that what you are saying is wrong, but it is not based on real observable evidence.
My saying that amino acids and proteins cannot exist outside of the cell is based on real observable evidence
Dosn't necessarily mean it is right but if I am to rely solely on real and observable evidence and ignore fairytales
then which is more likely to be fairytale.

You cannot. You don't really exist. You are just my imagination

Just kidding ^^

Shall we really start at that point? What exists and what not?

Why do you trust myths that are written in an old book that was written by some religious fanatics? But not a stone that you can hold in your hand, something where you can make your own picture?

I linked to Wikipedia because i cannot link to articles of Encyclopedia Britannica. Nor can i send you the real fossils personally. Sorry that the Wiki just provides hand drawn pictures. You can google for every single mentioned species though to find the real fossils. Then make your own picture

But you will not. You still have your fixed picture. And that's okay. As told, we will never have a consensus here

I agree that we will not reach consensus here. It is not possible because there is no conclusive evidence either way ... yet.
Which has been my main point all the way.
We choose what we want to believe, on both sides.

And there we go with the bible again. I have given lots of reasons why I choose to believe what I believe.
And all of those reasons come from observable science, not the bible.

Methane is a really simple chemical molecule made of carbon and hydrogen. Ch4. Where there is carbon and hydrogen there is also methane around. As a proof that it doesn't just need life to produce methane, methane can be found in our solar system. At the Saturn moon Titan for example. And this moon surely doesn't have life. Much too cold. But okay, maybe this moon also doesn't exist. Or the measurement was wrong. Or i just tell you a fairytale here. Nothing's for sure

Yes you are correct Methane is found on titan.
I did say I was't sure if that was correct.

I stand corrected

and you are taking my statements out of context.
I did not say that nothing is for sure.
I said how can you tell what is real and what is not on the site that is known as wikipeadia
Big difference

Hmm, we should stop with cross posting ^^



Yes and no. A fossil is something you can take into your hand. This is nothing to believe. It is there. Trouble starts with the interpretation of this fact then.

We both just knows a very small piece of what a scientist knows. He has spent years of just learning facts. Point still is, when you think you are able to disproof the evolution theory, why don't you do it then? A scientic theory is open to everybody, it's no dogma. Tell the scientists your facts, convince them

EDIT: sorry when i have put your statement out of context. MY point is that then there is nothing sure

Wikipedia is really a special case. It sometimes contains wrong things. That`s true. So you really have to be careful with it sometimes. My fault when you don't accept my links then. But as told, you can google for further informations outside of Wiki. And it is at least to 95% correct

I think we finally found something upon which we can reach a consensus.



I don't need to, there are enough scientists already doing it. I would rather try and make games
and I don't think anyone can disproove evolution.
I just know you cant prove it either

O wait, these scientists don't believe in evolution. They mustn't be real scientists

and now we go round in circles. It was certainly interresting and fun

Yup, consensus here



Don't worry, when they are real scientists then they can proof their theory with facts

And yes, still is fun

You see, we can reach many consensus's, for that is what I have been saying all along. (What is plural of consensus???)

We differ in how forcefully we acknowledge it.
I have seen the scientific method for evolution at work.

Sure, not all of it is like the following but large parts of it are.

They find a small spliter of bone.
They examine, draw it, model it and anything else they can do to preserve it.
They carbon date it.
They get a team of experts together and discuss/argue about what it might be part of.
They use its age and what they believe what sorts of animals would be possible
From all of this data that they have extracted from their knowledge (their mind) they reconstruct the bone that the splinter might have come from. From that bone they reconstruct the skeletal framework that the animal might have been based on. From the skeleton they reconstruct what the body of the animal would have been and the way it would have looked. Then they place it into an environment and show how it lived, what it ate, who its enemies were and even how it died.

Notice how my presentation changed from "might have" at the start to "would have" in the middle and then definite statements at the end. That's exactly how the documentary goes. It starts out with what might have been and ends up with what definitely was.

Granted, their guesses are educated guesses but I wonder how many of these educated guesses are based on similar previous reconstructions. Meanwhile, drawings of this animal make it into the public sector and get slotted into evolutionary chains and presented as proven fact when in reality it all comes fom a tiny tiny little fragment of bone.

Another group of scientist will take fossil evidence of two species that they suspect to be related via evolution. And they go through a similar exercise as the first.
They discuss the steps that might have occured in its evolution from one to the other.
They look at totally unrelated animals to see what parts of the skelleton they can use to get from one to the other.
They make drawings of the proposed evolutionary process
Finaly they reconstruct the animals that led from one to the other.

Again these drawings make it into the public sector and inserted into evolutionary chains and used as evidence.
It is totally overlooked that these are drawings because there is actually no real fossil evidence for those intermediate steps.
In my view evolution takes a relatively small base of hard core evidence
and fills in the vast plethora of missing links (more like gaping holes) with
supposition and imagination and then uses those "derived facts" as though they are real.

Open to interpretation? Now there's an understatement.
I'm am not trying to proove that its not true, to you.
If you choose to accept it that's fine I cannot say you are wrong.

That is not how it works. First is the idea, correct. The first rough theory. But then comes the proof. What facts speaks for it, what facts against it. Where can i find more facts for or against it. How does that whole thing fit into what.

You label the previous knowledge wrong? And so the results that are based at it? But you overlook that even this previous knowledge has gone through the same procedure of proof and disproof. When a stone always falls down then there is a really big chance that there is gravity. So there is the theory of gravity. And now it gets tested. With models, with calculations, with everything that is able to proof or disproof this theory. That's how science works. Provable facts is what counts. And not imaginary things, might have or would have. Scientists doesn't conjure up a god out of their hat. When there is a doubt then they go on with proving the thing. When there is a chance to dive even deeper then they do.

An unproven theory will not survive very long. A theory that gets disproved even shorter. And even proven theorys are always under testing and changing when there are new facts. That is the difference between faith and science. Science doesn't say something is true, it tries to find out what is true

Hey, it was a scientist that said the earth circles around the sun

I think what makes it so hard to listen and trust to nowadays scientists is the fact that they live in their own world now. A normal guy isn't really longer able to understand what they are talking about. Not without closer explanation.



And here i totally disagree. You might ignore it, but the fossil evidences are there. It's your interpretation that differs here.

Again, when the species have noting to do with each other, how comes that we can find all the evolutionary steps drawn in stone? How comes that we can see all the steps from a sauropode to a bird for example?

Why when there is no change was just primitive live at the beginning, and more and more complex live towards nowadays? Wouldn't your world view of no change and intelligent design lead to the fact that the allocation of this fossils happens random across the ages? How does that fit to the order they show? Why no TRex at the age of 500 million years but just very primitive species? Why no Homo Sapiens at that point? Why no flowering plants at that point? Why no TRex nowadays?
Why when there is no evolution was science able to create something like a family tree? With all the fossils at the right places? In evolutionary order? Millions and millions of them, and not one that doesn't fit? Provable by everyone that is willing to?

Sorry, but that all points for me in the direction of evolution, not intelligent design

Well yeah, but Archeology isn't really as exact as it pretends to be though. A lot is opinion- and consensus-based, especially when it comes to theories related to social and other less tangible issues even when it concerns sites with plenty of archaeological information. Take the Meso-American area and all the colorful theories about Mayas, Aztecs, the Olmec and so on. Sure there's evidence that supports these theories, but at times biased assumptions are made.



Well yes you are right it probably looks like I jump to conclusions with bias here, however the 'four corner' thing is mainly a translation-related thing. The (probably original?) Hebrew word definitely means 'extremities' among many other things. It could be 'corners', but having 4 of them may also be an indication for wind directions.

For me it was more a matter of showing a different theory as a lot of people interpret these texts differently. To be honest I don't really know what the 'correct' translation ánd interpretation should be in this case, a lot of things can make sense.



Sounds like a description of the sky to me. Who's to say they think the four winds also come from the four corners of the earth? I'm probably biased again, but there's more interpretations possible here.

It's not like it must mean only one thing anyways. Just think of the 'Gods', 'spirit', 'beings' issue of the same nature. Sometimes the translations make you wonder what was meant, that's all I'm saying.

Cheers

Well, I think it is rather evident

Einstone proposes a non intuitive theory but based on evidences
Simplestone is happy about a superficial explanation
A round shaped yellow object could actually be a piece of cheese, at a first glance
Einstone admits that his theory is not complete, nevertheless he is right

The theory of creation is definitly intuitive but science is based on evidences
Intuition and common sense can be deceiving

This can make sense
The " punctual evolutionism " by S.Gould is something similar

However it is hard for me to beleive in a sequence of : creation - deluge -creation - deluge - creation...
But is is even harder for me to figure out a God, as " trials and errors " designer

Whatsoever you must refute a litteral interpretation of the Bible

This is good stuff, lots of healty debate


Tons of evidences for Evolution theory.

Well, is that true?
Lets see....Now I am going to count on the bible for supportive evidence.
well at least as many of them as I can call to mind as I write this.
I don't want to be quoting a myriad of bible texts at you so I wil paraphrase them.

1) The bible describes a sequence of events that lead up to the appearance of man.
- In essence, science agrees with this sequence.
Science goes into a lot more detail, the bible is not a science textbook.

2) The bible describes the earth as a single landmass surrounded by water.
- Science also agrees that the earth was once a single land mass surrounded by water

3) The bibles tells of Adam and Eve and how all mankind came from them.
- Science also agrees that we are all genetically related to each other.

4) The Bible tells how we were created to live forever and that at some stage there will be a cure for ageing and death.
- Science also agrees that there may soon be a drug that will enable us to stay younger for longer and live longer and who knows, maybe even forever.

5) The bible describes a blanket of water that surrounded the earth producing mild climate conditions.
- Science has made mention of a layer of water in the outer later of its atmosphere. Science also agrees that the eaths climate was once more mild and even.

6) The bible describes a flood where the blanket of water surrounding the earth fell to earth.
- The layer of water surrounding the earth mentioned by science is gone. Where did it go?

7) The bible tells of a man and his family that survived the flood
- Almost every race of man living on earth have a flood story remarkably like it. Maybe ALL of them are based on a real event.

8) The bible states that all mankind alive on earth today are descendents of Noahs 3 sons and their wives.
- All races of mankind alive on earth today are variations of 3 base races.Mongoloid,Negroid and Caucasian.

9) We can conclude then that all languages are derivatives of the language spoken by Noah and his family.
- Linguistic scientists have traced all languages back to a single language orriginating from.....guess where?

10) The bible made mention of a race that for a long long time was denied they ever existed.
- Acheoligists relatively recently discovered the Assyrians exactly where the bible said they were.

11) The bible descibes many many peoples and places.
- Archeologists have confirmed the existence of these people and places.
Many of which were discovered using the bible as a roadmap.

I could go on but thats enough.
All circumstantial and open to interpretation! YES....it is
But

I don't believe you.

No human can proove creation to any of you.
But creation can be prooven and you cannot understand the proof.

A human being has two basic needs.
His physical needs and his spiritual needs
Mankind was not created to exist apart from his creator.
He was created to have a personal relationship with God.
Anyone who truely nourishes and and feeds his spiritual side, knows that God exists.

Jesus said, If you are truely my disciplels, THEN you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.

This is something that someone who denies his spiritual NEED can simply never understand.

If my confidence in knowing the truth comes accross as arrogant to you then I am sorry, I do not wish to be arrogant. But by the same token I will not allow my confidence to be erroded by half baked truths from mere imperfect error prone man regardles of how intelligent they claim they are.

If you have a problem with my confidence then I suggest you take it up with your maker. He will help you to see the truth if you really want him to.

Let's start with this one:



Why does Bible not mention aboriginies, why does the bible not mention chinese people, why does the bible not mention native americans? They are all human. The bible cannot mention them because the bible is manmade. And the people at that time period did not know about their existence.

That also explains why the bible mentions so many places and people. It is simple: they have really exist. The bible is an interesting book when it comes to archaeological facts. Lots of real facts gots written into it. The bible also mixes lots of ancient myths in the Genesis by the way. Myths that contains one or two grains of truth.

There are indeed text passages that can be proven by archaeology. But that doesn't mean that the rest of the bible is true. It is a religious book made to convince people to believe. And it collects everything to do so.

An example.

"I believe in the holy flowerpot, it is the one and only composter.
The earth is round.
Composting is the only way earth could be made."

It contains one sentence of truth. But that doesn't make the whole statement true, right?



This all is your interpretation. Not a single evidence. Give me the facts please

Hmm, just one ...



The Universe is made of water? Now how cool is that
And again an under and upper. The universe has three dimensions ...
This is a world picture of an ancient civilization. I think science has a different picture here nowadays ...

Fact is that the closer you look the more it turns out that the bible shows a picture of the world that is 5000-2000 years old. Like extreme patriarchat, slavery, etc. . Or places and people that are well known in that time period, but nothing else. It fits perfectly into this age. But doesn't longer fit into our time. The old men forgot to adjust the story again as they did before ...



A human being has more needs than that. It has also the need to know the truth. Give a human a riddle and he/she will try everything to solve it.

I have not seen a god yet, nor anything that points into an existance of a god. I have seen religious people doing insulting, violence and killing in the name of a god though. With words, with weapons. And they all say they know the truth, that they are the truth.



Turn off your brain and believe? I use my brain instead and rely at facts



Okay, i am a moron because i don't believe but search the truth. I can live with that. I will not allow to think old religious men for me. I think by myself. I am used to it



The bible is made of half baked truths. It is fixed in that state it had before 2000 years and unchangeable. Well, yeah, translations, the milleniums and some adjustments did a few changings. But that's basically it. Science searches for facts and tries to fill the gaps. It is alive and in constant movement. When a theory turns out to be untrue then it gots removed.

Again, when you think you can disprove the evolution theory then do so. Nobel price is waiting for you and for everybody else that is able to

Faith has to be faith and science has to stay science. Faith ends where knowledge starts.

Just for fun ...



Noah and his ark? Has somebody ever calculated how big the Noah's ark should have been just to carry all species of europe? There is not enough wood at the whole planet. Even when we let static out here so that Noah is able to build such a big ark. Yup, very true that story it seems ...

For the flood story, yes, could be true. Bible has collected lots of myths. And science has found more than one place where a flood cataclysm could have happened to a specific area. But that still doesn't proof the existance of a god. Just the existance of a flood cataclysm.



Explain to me. Two humans, Noah and his wife. Out of one race. Mmh, sounds like evolution to me to make three races out of them

Hmm, two persons only. Okay, three kids. So maybe the wife of Noah, err. Anyways. Tell me, what happens when you mix the same genes of a cow species again and again? Oh, wait, Noah even just carried one pair of each species ...



How big must a brain be to carry just the informations of a normal human life? Eternity is a bit longer than 500 years. There will never be a cure for death. No clue which scientist said that. But whoever said it, he was proveable wrong.

just thought i'd jump in here -- each of Noah's sons had their wife with them on the ark.

julz

Thanks for the correction

Would still be a pretty small gene pool not just for the humans but also for the animals ...

If evolution were true then the first forms of life would have had a very small gene pool as would each new species that evolved....wouldn't they?
It would have taken many generations to expand the gene pool, I feel.

Besides, a small gene pool is only a problem when you take God out of the picture. As the author of genes I am sure he would have been able to overcome that small problem.

Sure this doesn't work in two weeks with two individual bisexual liveforms. You still miss the time frame in which evolution happens.

Yes it has taken many many generations to expand the gene pool. What about having zillions and zillions of single individual liveforms in one cubic metre of ocean water? That's a bit more than two. And what about hundrets of millions of years? That's a bit more than fivethousand years. When you look at the fossils it really tooked a long long time until there was a bit more variation. It really started when there was enough oxygene, produced by cyanobacterias. The first cyanobacterias dates back into 3.5-3.8 billion years, in the Precambrian.

The origial thread topic here is another small proof of what happened. Micro evolution. First separations, first specialization, and on we go with macro evolution.

What you overlook is that with bacterias and protozoal liveforms a small gene pool absolutely doesn't matter. It would be enough to have just one. Because they don't mix genes. They reproduce by cell division, copying the genetic material 1:1. Sometime this reproduction is not exactly 1:1. Which leads to variations. But it mainly keeps the genes 1:1. That's why it takes a long time to see evolution happen here. Honestly a bit surprising that it happened so fast at the coli bacterias from the original topic.

Bisexual reproduction came much much later. And here the gene pool pretty much matters. Bisexual reproduction also evolutes much faster. Because it mixes genes, and doesn't just copy it.

That's of course not what the bible or any other holy book tells you. Bible is not even close to the facts at no point. Because it represents the knowledge of before 5000-2000 years. They didn't know the facts, they didn't have the scientic methods we have nowadays. They needed to introduce deities to explain the world. Because they lacked of knowledge. Ooh, a thunderstorm. Must be an angry god. We cannot explain it with something else. So there came a god of sun, a god of fire, a god of ... . And finally it all turned into one god for everything.

But i don't want to argue here with you if your god exists or not. Keep your faith. Believe. I don't mind. As long as you don't want to burn me down as a sorcerer as your religion did before with scientists.



Ah, okay. Tell that the malformed animals that were born out of endogamy. Every farmer can tell you that you better don't do that. This small problem is not even allowed to happen you say here


I think i said it before. Faith ends where knowledge starts.

Quoting Tiles.

Religion doesn't kill people.
Science doesn't kill people.
People kill people.
Thus, the solution to people...is people.
(?mob?)


Does the fault lie with ideas and concepts which are inert otherwise, or instead, with the human beings which actually committed the acts?
The root evil might always be some other side, some other label, and never the embedded inherent flaw which itself fuels conflict and disdain.
Perhaps, it is easy to look into the past and see darkness, ignorance, and primitive brutality. Those in the future may do the same.

Quoting Tiles.

An argument ends where the truth of uncertainty begins...(and other such bullsh!t) (none of which is directed specifically at Tiles).

So why o why doesn't God jump in and save those countless amounts of species that went extinct? I guess he loses interest in his creation pretty fast for someone that's allegedly immortal.



I'm sure people will find some kind of other excuse to kill eachother, but I do think religion often makes things worse. Just look at Africa, the Middle-east and so on.

Perhaps science makes things worse looking at the weapon industry, but I'm sure these people would try to kill eachother with sticks and stones if they wouldn't have access to Ak74s, grenades, knifes and what more,

Cheers

Good question.....I don't know!



Maybe...but I can see other possibilities.
Depends on whether you mean the ones that went extinct before mans rebellion against God or the ones that went extinct after.

If before, perhaps they served their purpose in the preparation of the earth for us?
If after, then that is likely to be our fault.


THE GENE POOL
So its possible for evolution to have a small gene pool without Gods assistance.
But its not possible for the flood survivors to have a small gene pool with Gods assistance.

I see...
I am now meant to believe that the horse, for example, could have a small gene pool when it first evolved from whatever it evolved from and over a long period of time the horse gene pool would grow large enough for there to be no problems.

But I'm not allowed to believe that God could ensure that the small gene pool would not have any bad effects until the gene pool grew large enough.

You can believe what you want.
I personally believe that everything is made by composting. My own holy book says so. A hail to the holy flowerpot. You can even see the single plies in the earth. Have a look at a compost heap, look ath the plies there. Nearly identical. That is the proof for composting. The holy flowerpot exists. Your bible is wrong, mine is true. My god is much bigger than yours

But knowing is better than believing.

Is there a fact proving Evolution true? Not just one. A ton. Is there a big consensus around the world that the Evolution theory is true? Yes. Was somebody be able to disproof the evolution theory in the last 150 years? Nope.

Is there a fact proving that the Genesis is true? Not a single one. Is there a consensus around the world that the world is made by a god as described in the Genesis? Nope, not longer. Just a small amount of creationists still do so. And tries to get back the power. Was somebody able to disproof the Genesis as really happened? Yes. Nearly every point of the Genesis gots disproven by science. Water everywhere, and god then separated ... . And that shall be true? With nowadays knowledge in the neck? Please! How dumb do you think humans are?



You are not meant to believe. That's the whole point. Science is knowing, not believing.

It is Facts what counts. When a theory gets proven by facts then this theory becomes true. When a theory gets disproven by facts then this theory becomes false. Evolution has been proven by lots of facts. And is the best theory at the moment.

What small gene pool? Who sais that bisexual evolution steps starts with small gene pools, with just a handful individuals? It normally starts with populations, not individuals. It starts with a big gene pool. A river can separate two parts of a landscape and so two populations, or a continent drifts away. Or the whole species stretches across a this big area that the single populations looses contact. Different food supply, climate and time will do the rest then. Or the climate changes in general so that the whole population has to adapt to it. Or another species comes in the way. I just say Aga. Or bunny. Or rat. Or ...



There are fossils. There are facts. There are the natural laws. So for the first question, yes, it is possible. But as told, normally it is a big gene pool, not a small one.

There is not a single proof for an ark. There is not a single proof for a worldwide flood. When it would have been worldwide, where is the water gone? The ark must have been so big that the whole wood of the whole world wouldn't have been enough to build it. Static would have destroyed the ark anyways, too heavy. But even when not, it would have taken thousands of years to collect all the wood for the ark. And thousands of years to just put every species at its place, even when they would have waited in front of the ark. Picking just the mammal species would mean that we would have died off with just one male and one female of every species. Every farmer can tell you that.

So for the second question: Nope, impossible. Even with help of a god. It would have to break too much natural laws for that. Which speaks against the almightiness of your god anyways. When it is almighty then it just needed to snip with the fingers, no need for a flood ...

As a sidequestion, what about the free will in Sodom and Ghomorra? Pretty inconsequent and changeable your god it seems

And the story with the ark is just one of many that is provable wrong. You don't even have to be a scientist here. This stuff is myth stuff. Not facts. There may be small grain of truth here and there. But that's basically it. And surely not at such things like the universe is made of water.

Again i have to repeat myself. When you think that you have found facts to disprove the evolution theory then do so. Nobel price is waiting. And lots of money.

But even when you could, this doesn't automatically say the Bible, and especially the Genesis is true.

I don't think it matters, as either way, those 'innocent' species went extinct and we, the 'rebellious' humans, still survive. That's kind of strange.





Well, there's no such thing as flood survivors when it comes to a global flood, geological research shows it never happened. Still, assuming there was a flood, even just a small or local one, that could definitely decimate a species. That flood could cause a harsh natural selection because of the (sudden) change in environment or the species might (temporarily or not) migrate elsewhere.



You're allowed to believe anything, but when it comes to evidence that can be tested, there is nothing that suggests a God must have intervened. I'm not saying it's not a possibility, but in my opinion it's definitely the most unlikely option of all,

Cheers

Just to throw a spanner in the works for both of you, heres my two cents worth.
(BTW I have faith in evolution, but I dont deny God, I just dont have enough proof yet)

Believers: If all the species of animals were saved on the ark during the
flood, how did the ones that lived over-seas get TO the ark, swim? And how
did they get back home? Treading water while the water was high would be easier.

Athiests: Evolution is very hit or miss dont you agree? So is any TOOL when
its weilder is not paying attention. But evolution would be a very useful
tool to an entity in the process of creating a man....

According to the bible (and science) there was only one land mass, so no swimming was required because there were none that lived overseas.
As for after...perhaps it was the water that started the continental drift in the first place?
Of course the bible and science disagree greatly, on when there was only one land mass, supercontinent.

I think I said it before!
Scientists assemble thousands of facts and then use common sense and imagination to string (mold) these facts together into the theory of evolution.
Which is why there are many branches that have been shown to be wrong. Common Sense and imagination are prone to error.
I do not deny the thousands of facts, I do not deny the "real" fossils.
I deny the "interpretation" of them as evidence of evolution.

Scientist: Here we have this fossil and now that fossil shows how this creature evolved into that creature.
Me: But this fossil looks nothing like that fossil.
Scientist: I know, but that's just because we haven't found the fossils that definitely proove it yet
But you can trust me....they exist. In the meantime, here are some drawings that show how they evolved
Me: Hmm I don't think I will trust you thanks, I have seen you prooven wrong too many times before
I've even seen you caught out in deliberate lies.

And there were of course also no rivers ...

One last question, because there are at no point the plants mentioned. What happens to landplants when they are under salt water (i assume it was salt water, because the oceans are of salt water) for a week or two?



There was at one point a super continent. But before there was divided land masses and after there was divided land masses.

Pangea, the latest super continent, dates back into 300 - 150 million years bc. There are no human fossils found in that age, not even mammals ...

I would pretty well say they differ a bit

Imagination. You say that as if science is just another religion. No. Scientists are no high priests of a religion. Imagination comes in place to interprete and/or interpolate the facts, not to make facts. Every idea, every theory has to be based and to be proofed by facts.
Introducing imaginary facts and/or faking the facts is a thing of religion, not science.

Ah, OK... I dont know my bible well enough to know the world was a
supercontinent at the time of the flood. By bad assumption.

Yes that is what happens.
While the gene pool is small, there are 'a lot' of non-viable freaks and stillbirths,
which is acceptable in animals, and the species will survive and improve with
the death of every non-breeding mutant, but us humans get upset by it. Which is why
incest is illegal in so many countries, that gene-pool is a lot too small.


So what, there was only one Ark, we just havent found it yet.
Just as there was only one asteroid that killed the dinosaurs, and look how long it took to find
its crater, ie the gulf of mexico.

Firstly, theres no proof to be found on the DRY part of the world, and we havent checked the wet part.
Secondly, the bible (probably) says 'worldwide' flood, which is different to
'planetwide' flood. Check a dictionary for World and you'll find something
like "A part of the earth and its inhabitants as known at a given period in history".
So World meant "everything we know of", thats different to planetwide.

Who is the say that the flood needed more water? Land can sink, and anyone on it
would be shouting "FLOOD!!", not "SUBSIDENCE!!".
AND, who is to say that the 'land' that the Ark landed on wasnt newly created
by God so his refugees could have a clean start, or even just old sea-bed that
had risen from the depths.

It has been pointed out to me that the world was a single continent/supercontinent then. OK.
Seeing as the bible wont be using the word supercontinent, two possibilities spring to mind.
1> The landmass that everyone lived on wasnt the only one, just the only one anyone knew of.
So it didnt likely have as many animal species as we know of now. So a smaller Ark is managable.
2> If the world consisted of only one landmass, there would not have needed to be
so many species to fill all the ecological niches, so smaller Ark once again.
Once it landed, each species had very small gene pools, and lots of land to fill,
so as they multiplied, the species would have diversified greatly due to evolution and mutation.
Thereby giving rise to the many species we know now.


Side question Delerna, if you believe in God and all his wonders, do you need
to believe the he kept small gene pools clean? After all, if 'He' is running
the show, then Genetics is just science's, possibly faulty interpretation
of what 'He' is doing. Faulty because "For no man can know the mind of god..."

Which realistically means the story of a "global" flood couldn't possibly have been about the period back when the super-continent Pangaea existed... after all, if humans would have gone extinct back then or better yet survived such a flood in a Noah's Ark type boat, then we would have found fossils either way.

And assuming there are fossils but we haven't found them yet, then there is of course the problem of a huge hiatus when it comes to the first human fossils compared to the time of Pangaea. Not to mention how the authors of the Bible could possibly know of such things.

By the way, there really has been extensive research done all over the world when it comes to the global flood story. Every time geologists found some clues of a possible flood, it always turns out to have been local floods. Sometimes bigger ones, think tsunamis, but all of them leave quite distinct marks in geological layers. A huge global flood would have been visible in geological layers for sure, especially as in good conditions even slight rise and lowering of sea level can be traced back in the layers.

On one hand it makes no sense to rule out the possibility of a worldwide flood, but on the other hand without exception all the evidence so far points in a very different direction.

Ahh and another something quite important, when it comes to simple fluid dynamics, it would take a really tremendous force of vibration, sudden change in temperature and pressure to be able to cause such a literal global flood. Quite unlikely that something like that would remain totally unnoticed by geologists that study geological layers all around the globe,

Cheers

Hmm. Could be. But it is most likely that the whole Noah story is based at the story of a farmer and his farm animals. And the flood was just something very local, and the Ark was a normal fisher boat. That would make most sense in case it ever happened at all. Religions tends to blow up storys to make them more interesting so that they can use it for their purposes. Ooh, look, a sign, a wonder. Now look how powerful our god is ...

What counts in the end are facts. No ark found yet, no proof for that story to be true. It's the opposite, all the facts points away from that story

Noah's Ark seems to be moderately unrelated to microorganisms and 'their' ability to harness human power.
Quoting Tiles.

If that's the case, other than savoring effortless victory over the argument, why bother with the topic at all?

Quoting PHeMoX.

If 'we' put 'our' minds to it as a species, keep a positive attitude, and try, try again, 'we' should be able to pull it off.

Untrue, depending on what you mean with the 'wet part', there has been research done on sea floors to figure out more about geology. The sea is huge though, so of course not everything has been researched to the fullest yet. In time they will, but if there would have been a worldwide flood, they probably would already found clues.



Sorry, but that's back paddling at best. Worldwide can be global just the same.

I DO think they must have meant local floods though, as those occurred a lot in that area. But the whole idea of how a wooden massive boat allegedly 'saved mankind' is a far more modern interpretation that simply makes no sense.



You don't need more water, you'll need less land, higher sea level and more importantly enough motion that could cause all this. In case you're wondering, you will never get a flood, especially a global flood, when nothing happens.

As for more water, that's probably not even needed as quite a lot of land lies beneath the sea level, but even then there's probably enough water already,



So true, but I guess they can be very stubborn when it comes to the evidence. The whole split-the-sea story can't possibly be true either, same goes for certain other stories or aspects of the Biblical stories...

Cheers

Noah's ark is just one very clear example i have picked to disproof the Genesis. There's not enough space here to went through every single item of the Genesis here. Especially when i look at how long we stay just at this item at the moment ^^

It's still all about what is true here. Genesis or Evolution. Bible or Science. Faith or knowledge. Normally clear who wins in such a case. A hail to the holy flowerpot ^^

No, I don't, I don't know and I don't feel a great need to know. And mabe genetics is based on "faulty interpretation"? (I actually don't believe that, but it wouldn't be the first time now would it?)

I think we can all agree that science is largely assemling facts and then using logic,common scence, derived knowledge and imagination in an attempt to make sense of those facts. I think we also can all agree that logic,common scence, derived knowledge and imagination are tools that are just as prone to error, misrepresentation and bare faced lies as they are to the discovery of truth.

No, i was merely attempting to highlight the double standard that evolution having a small gene pool is nothing to be concerned about, but the flood story could't possibly be true because the gene pool was too small.
Double standards like this are common in discussions such as this one (from both sides of the fence).

That the shape of a stone is obviously designed for a specific function and it is too intricately designed for it to have occurred from chance events. That is enough evidence to say the stones shape had a maker.

Yet if you use the same agument for God.
Proteins are obviously designed for a specific function as is the living cell and this design is too intricate to have occurred from chance events.
I get told that:-
I have turned my brain off.
The obvious design in the rocks shape IS evidence of a maker.
The obvious design in protein and cells IS NOT evidence of a maker.
It's perfectly feasable that the cell is the result of random events

Well, the cells design is astronomically superior to the rocks shape, so if the design in cells is not evidence then neither is the design in the rocks shape.
You can't have it both ways, either intricate design IS evidence of a maker OR it is not evidence of a maker
Notice, I say evidence here and not proof.

I would like to take the opportunity here to restate that I don't abdolutely dis-believe evolution. I am un-sure, I choose not to believe it, but I am un-sure. I do object when interpretation of facts is presented as though evolution has been prooven. It is all nothing more than interpretation and there are other interpretations even from other scientists.

I do not know, let alone understand the techniques used to age rocks. So I cannot comment. I have however, no problem with rock being of that age, or that there no human or mamal fossils in that age.

On the subject of carbon dating I do know a little
My understanding is this (in simplistic terms)

1) There are two forms of carbon in the environment in a known ratio
2) One of those forms of carbon is radio active and decays back to the non-radio active form, at a known and constant rate.
3) Living organisms also have these two forms of carbon in the same ratio up untill the point they died.
4) By measuring the ratio of these two carbons of a dead organism, we can calculate how long ago they died.
5) As measuring tecniques improve so does the accuracy of the calculation.

Cool, and this has been definitely proven to work .... I agree, yes it has.

My concern with it is the assumption that the ratio has always been the same as it is today. If, the ratio 10,000 years ago was half of what it is today then things that died 10,000 years ago would appear to have died 20,000 years ago.
Conversely it the ratio was double then it would appear to have died only 5,000 years ago.

Since the ratio between the two carbons is dependent on the amount of ultraviolet light entering the atmosphere this is a very real problem, it is one of the things scientists are trying to determine by drilling ice cores, has the ratio changed over time? Indeed, has the ratio oscillated over time? That would be worse because it would mean that it would become impossible to carbon date anything because you would have to know exactly when it died in order to know which starting point to apply.

Thats the problem with science, it can only interpret the facts based on current knowledge and if there is anything that evolves it is definitely "current knowledge".
So, unless you believe as one scientist I have heard, "Science is dead, we now know everything", then there is no firm ground for you stand on while you make your absolute assertions that your beliefs are based on "solid evidence"

Double standards? Did you even read my answer? Nope, not likely. I said evolution happens normally at populations, not individuums.

But even when we would talk about a small gene pool, there is a difference between a minimum gene pool of let's at least say 100 individuums to let the species survive, and the told two from the bible. Species with a gene pool below 100 individuums has a very high chance to die off. We can follow that at the moment at too much species every day. And you want to tell me that ALL species survived with just TWO of them?



Weird point of view. The problem is at your end. Science takes at least the facts into account. While faith just presents fairy tales. Science searches for truth. They present what they find. When they would find a proof for a god then they would present it. Faith digs for henchman. And uses the worst tricks to get them. Up to murder. Fear and fright are the weapons of faith. Truth the weapon of science. So who is to trust?



Again, i disagree here. When a thousand facts points into one direction, and not a single one in another direction, then i choose the direction in which the facts points. No need to introduce an imaginary ghost. Even more when every new found fact fits perfectly and points in the same direction.

And no, having facts doesn't mean to have errors and misinterpretations in the first place. It means in the first place to have facts. Proovable stuff. No matter how hard you try to twist and discredit them. Facts stays facts.

You trust a 2000 years old book. A single book. Written by a few humans. Based at fairy tales and myths from before 2000 years. An age that is fullfilled with gods and myths and fairy tales. But you distrust whole libraries, written by millions of humans, full of today knowledge and myriades of proovable facts. Sorry, but from my angle of view your brain must be turned off. They have really catched you

Hmm, again i can see in your argumentation to proof Bible, myths and fairy tales true by trying to disprove science and facts. And again, saying the evolution theory is wrong doesn't automatically mean the bible is right.

Facts please.

Easy. Use the drifting speed of continents, and then date back. You don't even need to age the rocks for that.

While at it, when a aging method for rocks says this stone is 200 million years old AND the continental drift says the same AND radio carbon method says the same AND the layering of the stones says the same, THEN it is very likely that this rock is 200 million years old. And when NO fact points in another direction, then it is very unlikely that this rock is just a few thousand years old.

You still miss the masses of facts and evidences that nowadays exists to prove or disprove something. Same ratio than between one book and library over library i would say

You don't feel a great need to know? That explains your scary lack of basic knowledge. But you say you can disprove libraries over libraries full of knowledge. How when you don't even know what they say?

You say the interpretation is faulty. But you don't even know the "interpretation" nor all the facts that leaded to this interpretation. You know small fragments. You twist this fragments. And say that is the proof that evolution is wrong. Good job.

I for myself have been in a quarry before. I have seen fossils in the layers. Evolution theory fits perfectly into what i have seen with my own eyes, with what i have held in my own hands.

There is not a single proof for the theory that time was faster or slower in the past, that the ratio has changed. Facts please.

What is true is that the time runs slower when you come close to light speed. Or in gravity fields. Measurable with the satelites that rotates around the earth. Here the time goes a bit slower, speaking of a milifraction of a milisecond. But there is no negative gravity. And so no way to speed up life on earth in such a dramatic manner to win thousands of years. There would be the theorethical way to slow it down in such a dramatic manner to win thousands of years. But the gravity/acceleration would kill all life then.

Nonlinear time, absolute to the universe, would not work. The whole physics would fall apart, chemical processes stop working. Because all is bound to energy, mass and time, it is bound to E=Mc². And this means the time has to be constant, linear. Because else you would change the light speed constant, and the formula quits working.

Ah, who cares about a formula you mean? Well, what happens to an atom that looses constantly energy? It will fall apart into radiation. What happens to an atom that gets constantly energy? It will heaten up. Up to the point where it becomes a plasma. Neither radiation nor plasma are really healthy for life. But this will happen when E becomes unequal Mass and time².

Nope, just letting things run faster or slower doesn't work without smashing the Universe into pieces.

Let's just for fun think about this case from another angle that could workaround the E=Mc² problem. Let faster or slower time happen relative to the universe. The whole universe becomes faster or slower, not just the content. So the life would also live faster or slower, dependand to the whole system. Then in the end they would have always lived the same time, no matter if they were in the faster episode or in the slower. Because it happened relative to the whole system. Which means it happens for the viewer linear, not nonlinear. There wouldn't be a difference

Nope, there is no nonlinear time. No matter from which angle you look. Time has to be linear. Else the Universe would disappear, it would break the causality.

Hmm, yeah, you can also distrust everything and everybody. But that is no solution.

In the end when a thrown stone comes down again, and this again and again, then there is a high chance that there is gravity. Okay, i am wrong, it is a god up there that throws the stone back