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Evolution or Creation

Discussion in 'Archive: The Senate Floor' started by The Gatherer, Oct 28, 2001.

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  1. TPMrules23

    TPMrules23 Jedi Knight star 5

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    Apr 10, 2000
    People need to widen their scopes a little. These changes don't occur during our insignificant 70 year life spans. We are talking about time period well beyond the compacity for humans as self-centered as they are to even come close to appreciating or understanding.
     
  2. StarFire

    StarFire Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Oct 31, 2001
    Okay . . . man comes from monkeys? And monkeys come from random clusterings of dust? Hmm . . . even if this was plausible (which it isn't), where did the dust come from?

    My question: since when is evolution science? Lets look at how evolution "works": daddy monkey and mommy monkey get together and "know" each other (see--I read the Bible! ;)). A little baby monkey is born over a certain span of months. This monkey doesn't have leopard fangs or anything. It's a normal, up-in-the-trees monkey. How "Man" comes from this, I'll never know . . .
    But then, you say, that this monkey chanced to have this tooth that was a quarter-inch longer than those of his genetic relatives. This, through constant conflicts, allowed him to defeat his opponents in territorial conflicts. The babe monkies flock to his doorstep. Say that he and his offspring (who are all magically big-toothed) continue to spawn new, strangely-genetically-mutated-for-their-own-benefit offspring. These monkeys soon grow up, make babies, die,(etc.) and eventually the breed calls themselves "human" and builds skyscrapers. That's reasoning behind evolution, albeit somewhat simplified.
    Now: where the heck are the remains of these quarter-bigger toothed monkeys? And THEIR quarter-bigger tooth offspring? Not to mention the thousands of chanced genetic mutations that must have taken place to change monkeys into men. Hellfire, there must be MILLIONS of bodies! HUNDREDS of millions if you count all the genetic mutations that must inevitably have gone awry.
    I hate to say this (OK, I don't ;)), but not a single body of this kind has been found. Sure, different species have been found. But of the hundreds of millions of alleged (and aptly named) "missing links", not even ONE in-between? Pfff.

    And there SHOULD be hundreds, thousands, if not millions or billions. Why? Because it's ludicrous to assume that all of humanity sprang from a single monkey-man ancestor. There had to be HUNDREDS of them. One would just die. Two would breed with each other creating genetic DEFECTS as their children did that thang. So they'd actually grow weaker. And if it was a simple advantage, such as a bigger tooth, that allowed them to dominate, then that advantage, and more, might well be lost with the inbreeding.
    I don't claim to know the answer to life and the universe, but I refuse to even consider this one, 'cause it's just too, umm . . . unproven?
    BTW, marking Evolution with the respectful term "theory" isn't right. A theory is something that's been tested and is true, in all likelihood.
     
  3. TPMrules23

    TPMrules23 Jedi Knight star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 10, 2000
    Read a biology book. Just because you don't know how it works doesn't mean its not right. Remember how people thought it was crazy not to think the world was flat? Or how Galileo was persecuted? There are plenty of examples. Religion and mythology attempts to answer the unexplainable, and always has, but once the unexplainable becomes explainable, you have to let go.
     
  4. DESERTJEDI

    DESERTJEDI Jedi Master star 4

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    May 18, 2001
    Wouldn't you think that its ludicrous to think we all came from adam and eve?

    You basically just talked about religion. Ins't religion all theory. Not to start and argument but thats what I gathered from your post. You just described creation.

    Your arguing with yourself. Think about it.
     
  5. StarFire

    StarFire Jedi Padawan star 4

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    Oct 31, 2001
    Although this is an Evolution vs. Creation thread, I'm admittedly going off-topic by posting what I posted. That's because I don't proscribe to the orthodox Christian interpretation of the beginnings of life :)
    Adam and Eve is akin to Evolution, in that neither can be proven to have taken place.
    However, (even though I don't), I would sooner believe the literal Biblical account of creation than evolution, because what evolutionists claim to be there isn't there (the "still-missing link"), and Creationists don't claim much at all (so I can't disprove it).
    Both are (EDIT: somewhat) unbelievable on a logical level, but Evolution has proven itself to be so much more unbelievable by virtue of there being no missing links (EDIT: which have been claimed to be easy to find), whereas creation is more believable because no one has disproved it (mostly because it's all a matter of faith, and one can only disprove facts).
     
  6. DESERTJEDI

    DESERTJEDI Jedi Master star 4

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    May 18, 2001
    Read information about darwin's studies on the galapagos islands in tha pacific. It doesn't prove evolution, but its basically where the theories came from. Also evolution isn't just for human species. its with every living thing and for the most part there are no "missing links" in those species. only seems to be in ours.
     
  7. StarFire

    StarFire Jedi Padawan star 4

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    Oct 31, 2001
    That doesn't make it any less of a gaping flaw in the theory, one which Darwin himself wrote about.
    BTW, what are these "no-longer-missing links" you speak of for animals?
     
  8. DESERTJEDI

    DESERTJEDI Jedi Master star 4

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    May 18, 2001
    Multiple links between birds and dinosaurs, the many links to different types of dinosaurs between millions and millions of years. ferns to modern plants. its all over the place.
     
  9. StuartBurton

    StuartBurton Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Mar 11, 1999
    This really reminds me of the EU/Cannon debates in the movie forums!

    Master Ben, I think you are entirely wrong in your assuptions about the evidence presented by Baby Sith. Some of it doesn't even involve science - just common sense. If every year a new layer of sediment is layed down by a river then logic dictates that you can count those layers to determine how long that process has been taking place. I'm sorry if that evidence contradicts your beliefs but that's the way it is.

    On a slightly different note, a belief in God (which incidently is NOT the topic of this thread) does not mean you enjoy life or have more hope than an unbeliever. I for one get enough joy and hope from those I love.
     
  10. StarFire

    StarFire Jedi Padawan star 4

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    Oct 31, 2001
    DESERTJEDI: Your saying so isn't evidence. I could just as easily say they don't exist and be done with it.
     
  11. DESERTJEDI

    DESERTJEDI Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 18, 2001
    Then I could say the same about religious creation.
     
  12. StarFire

    StarFire Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Oct 31, 2001
    No, because I never said it was. I offered no proof which was so just because I said it.

    Anyhoo, you guys are all cool! Long live Star Wars!
     
  13. JediGaladriel

    JediGaladriel Manager Emeritus star 5 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 3, 1999
    I think one mistake people make is assuming that by calling evolution "science," people are saying that it's absolutely factual, and therefore if they show one thing that doesn't work, it's all bunk. Science is a process (the scientific method), not a set of never-changing facts. It's the process by which ideas are systematically tested, and rigorous attempts are made to disprove them at every step. In order for something to be scientific at all, it has to be open to this kind of testing.

    Alchemy was completely non-factual, but it did have the beginnings of science (chemistry, particularly). Philosophy may be completely true, but there's no way to scientifically prove it. "Scientific" is a morally neutral term.

    Creation isn't science because pretty much by definition, it's not something that can be tested. Once you get into ideas like "God created thousands of layers of mud," then you're into an area that's beyond an ability to disprove it, because there's no test that could be performed to prove that those layers weren't deliberately created at different ages.

    Is evolution scientific? Can it be disproved? That's the salient question, I think. There are a lot of little things we've been able to see -- changes in migrating species, the height increase among humans and so on -- but is there any test that could be performed to disprove evolution? Scientists? What say ye? How would a person vigorously test evolution, and what kind of result would return a negative?
     
  14. Jeremyguy

    Jeremyguy Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 11, 1998
    Backing up a little...could someone explain "young earth creationism" a bit for me? I seem to have missed something somewhere. I understand basically that young earth creationists believe that the world is a few thousand years old. Where does this belief come from? What are some other tenets of "young earth creationism"?

    Doesn't need to be a long answer...just enough to give me a basic idea so I know what's going on. Thanks.
     
  15. epic

    epic Ex Mod star 8 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jul 4, 1999
    I think young earth creationists are those who take the Bible completley literally, and using the time lines found within it, it works out to be about 6000 years old. (Adam -- Abraham: 2000 years, Abraham -- Jesus: 2000 years, Jesus -- present day: 2001 years)

    While the Genesis account in the bible, and it's stating of "days" could mean millions of years, because we don't know what type of "time" God was working in, young earth creationists take it as a literal, 24 hour day. I think.

    That's a rough idea, and I might have it wrong, but I think it's something along those lines. If I'm wrong, someone speak up.
     
  16. Jeremyguy

    Jeremyguy Jedi Padawan star 4

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    Sep 11, 1998
    Okay, so if one believes that the earth is 6000 years old, and God created dinosaur fossils but that dinosaurs never actually lived...then isn't that saying that God is lying to us? By this line of reasoning, He is giving us strong evidence of the existence of something that never existed.
     
  17. B.J. Zanzibar

    B.J. Zanzibar Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Sep 7, 1999
    The definition of evolution is exactly this: the change in allele frequencies over time. (An allele is simply a variation of a particular gene.) All you would have to do to falsify it is to conduct an experiment that shows allele frequencies do not, in fact, change over time. You might take a population of bacteria, nematodes, or fruit flies, species whose genetics are well-understood, then determine allele frequencies before and after applying selective pressure. For example, say you have a population of bacteria with a certain percentage of individuals that metabolize a kind of nutrient more efficiently than others. If evolution did not happen, you would expect that, after applying the nutrient and waiting a few generations, the percentage of individuals with the metabolic advantage would remain the same as before.
     
  18. JediGaladriel

    JediGaladriel Manager Emeritus star 5 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 3, 1999
    Cool! (Sorry, this is where I must come out and say I'm much more in sympathy with science, because I find it unbearably fun.)

    Has it been done much? I'd love to see the experiment...
     
  19. B.J. Zanzibar

    B.J. Zanzibar Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Sep 7, 1999
    Experiments very much like this are performed several thousand times a day. It's the kind of thing biology majors do in their freshman labs.
     
  20. sith_chick

    sith_chick Guest

    Creation doesn't explain everyday observations but evolution does, doesn't that give evolution more credit?

    Starfire: Where did the dust come from? So glad you asked this question 'cos I studied it last week.

    There's this thing called "the Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle" which kinda works like this:

    If you take say 5 cents from your mother's purse you have heaps of time to replace it before she notices but if you take a million dollars you have about a nano second to replace it before she notices. It's the same sort of thing with electrons, but for electrons the uncertainty lies in the time and position cordinates of the electron ie. if you know to a high degree of accuracy where an electron is you cannot know to a high degree of accuracy when it was there and vice versa and so this leads to the possiblity that in the early Universe matter and anti matter pairs just popped (Actually, energy changed into matter, E=mc^2) into being and were stoped from annilating each other by inflation ie. they were pulled away from each other really quickly. And so we have matter.

    If anyone can explain this better please do!

     
  21. Double_Sting

    Double_Sting Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Mar 18, 2001
    I would also have to say that I would be pro-evolution in this debate.

    The fatal flaw with Creationism is this. What if I don't believe in the Bible? I am not a Catholic, but I did go to Catholic school for 8 years (because the other schools here were horrible) and so I do know quite a bit about it and the Bible.

    If someone believes the Bible is not actually 'the word of God' or 'will of God' (I don't remember the exact term), then how are they suppossed to believe in Creationism? If it is part of the Bible then they are going to dismiss it on the fact that they don't believe in the Bible.

    So now let's isolate just the creationism portion from the Bible.

    Now we present this to some other non-Bible believers. Assume they have no idea where it came from and they don't identify it as part of the Bible. Is there any way that they can be convinced that it can be true?

    No, it will be dismissed as a kids fairy tale or something of the sort. Because there is no proof to back it up. Creationism holds no credence by itself. It only works in the context of the Bible and faith in the Bible.

    And as stated above, not everybody believes in the Bible and quite frankly, there is no way to prove that it is the 'word of God'. That is something that it is taken on faith by believers. And that is why evolution has a much higher likelihood of being correct than creationism.


    ps- This is not an anti-Bible, Catholisicm bashing post in any way.
     
  22. Kitt327

    Kitt327 Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 23, 2000
    While the Genesis account in the bible, and it's stating of "days" could mean millions of years, because we don't know what type of "time" God was working in, young earth creationists take it as a literal, 24 hour day. I think.

    I've always found this the most difficult thing to understand about young earth creationism. There is little evidence that the term 'day' used in Genesis is supposed to mean 24hrs.

    For a start, the original word could mean any length of time.

    The other point is that a 'day' to us is the time the earth takes to turn once on it's axis. In biblical days they might have considered a day the time from sunrise to sunrise.

    However, in Genesis, the sun isn't created until the fourth 'day'. You can't have 24 hour days before there is a sun.

    In Genesis, earth already exists before the creation, and the first thing created is light.

    I mean, I realize people didn't know all that science back then, but I refuse to believe they were stupid enough to have light and days created before the sun. To me, this is strong evidence they were not writing in a literal sense.
     
  23. Humble extra

    Humble extra Jedi Youngling star 5

    Registered:
    Jun 12, 1999
    i always thought skin colouration was an elegant proof of evolution, or did your god also think we needed a multiplicity of colours for asethetic purposes?

    and animal breeding too........different breeds of dog can still breed with pretty much all other types of dog, even though they physically differ substantially, goats can breed with sheep, horses with donkies.....its amazing what animal breeders have done to certain species over the last thousands of years

    a problem i personally have with (some forms of) creationism is that it, to me anyway seems to imply that the human form is perfect, or at least pretty damm good, which strikes me as sort a arrogant, GO HUMANITY type of thing.....
     
  24. Jeremyguy

    Jeremyguy Jedi Padawan star 4

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    Sep 11, 1998
    "a problem i personally have with (some forms of) creationism is that it, to me anyway seems to imply that the human form is perfect, or at least pretty damm good, which strikes me as sort a arrogant, GO HUMANITY type of thing....."

    No offense, Humble extra, but I found this statement rather amusing. Perhaps just the way you phrased it. Made me think of horses saying, "GO HORSES," or rabbits saying, "GO RABBITS." :)
     
  25. Dark_Jedi_Jar-Jar

    Dark_Jedi_Jar-Jar Jedi Youngling star 1

    Registered:
    Nov 13, 2001
    I vote for BOTH. God DID create humans, by manipulating our ancestors' DNA, our physical imbodiment of creation, for Humans to emerge. We still are evolving, the physical creation of US.
     
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