Serious Evolution/Creation debate

[Pappy777]

Are you implying that it is scientifically possible to contain 2 members of every single species on the planet on a wooden boat roughly half the size of the titanic, while keeping each and every one alive for over a year?

2 of every original created "kind" yes. That would be closer to the family level thus reducing total number of animals needed by quite a sizeable amount.

 

[mattj]

If it's possible to keep A amount of animals alive in a Zoo of B dimensions for C amount of time, why would it be "quote-unquote-impossible" to keep D amount of animals alive in an Ark of E dimensions for F amount of time? Unlikely? Sure. You choose to not believe it? Fine. Impossible? I don't see why it would be "impossible".

But then, how is that even a reasonable objection to the Bible's account Flood? It's saying, "Sure God communicates supernaturally with Noah and supernaturally causes an unprecedented flood, but hey, there's no way Noah could have fit the ancestors of every current species on a boat of X dimensions for Y amount of time." I'm not even sure it requires a normal, understandable explanation. I can see how it could have a simple, understandable explanation. Hamm is building a replica down south as we speak. But even if Hamm could build an ark and show, "Here's where each ancestor would have stayed, and here's where you would have kept the food, and here were the living quarters for humans" and it would all look fairly reasonable, I don't see why it would require such an explanation.

 

[Adamant Zoroark]

When I was young, and they brought up the idea of vestigial organs in middle school, the idea seriously bothered me. Look at the appendix. Look at hip bones in snakes and whales. They obviously don't serve a purpose. Why would a creator put them there? Can't you see how they are evidence that at one point, a long time ago, these species needed these organs, but have since changed so significantly that those organs aren't necessary any more? It really made me question what I was taught, (which is never a bad thing, though often uncomfortable), and for some time doubt the Bible's creation account.

However, today I'm convinced that vestigial organs don't exist.

Your appendix example has already been addressed. I don't know about you, but as a hunter and outdoorsman I use those muscles to tune my ears without having to turn my body so that seems like a rather odd example to bring up. You didn't mention hip bones, but that was a pretty common one that had a large impact on my youth, so this recent story making the rounds in the news was interesting to me personally. Name another allegedly useless body part in any organism. I'll gladly link you to someone explaining why said organ is still useful.

I find it amusing that you would accuse creationists of ignoring evidence that contradicts your point. Claims have been made for nigh on 150 years now that this or that allegedly vestigial organ supports the theory of evolution. But just like your famous appendix example, and just like the famous whale hip bone example I was confronted with as a youth, every single time someone says "this organ doesn't serve a purpose" someone discovers that it does.

Who is ignoring evidence in this particular case?

You seemed to have ignored the tailbone (coccyx) example. Just based on that example alone, that would be a remnant of when our ancestors had tails. However, we don't have tails (though there are cases of humans being born with tails) so isn't that an example of a vestigial structure?

Also, I don't think you understand what a vestigial structure even is. It's simply a structure in the body that, through the process of evolution, has lost most or all of its original function. It doesn't have to lose ALL OF IT to count as a vestigial structure, so going back to the appendix example, even taking into account the proposed function of the appendix as being a safe house for beneficial bacteria that assist in recovery from diarrhea, the appendix still counts as a vestigial organ in that it has lost most of its original function. Also, I don't know about you, but those muscles that wiggle your ears, I can't wiggle them near enough to tune my ears. And does Darwin's tubercule even have any use at all? I'm pretty sure it doesn't.

Vestigial organs do exist, whether you believe in them or not, and whether or not the appendix actually is one.

 

[Pappy777]

Just so it's been said, I'm a creationist, and I have many objections to the most common theories involving evolution, but I disagree with 99% of what was said in the OP and the way it was said and the way the topic was approached. We are not all Ken Hamm.

Out of curiosity could you elaborate on what exactly you disagree with? And I didn't mean to sound like a Ken clone, this was kinda rushed if that explains my presentation a little.

 

[Tomahawk]

Who is ignoring evidence in this particular case?

That is not evidence for creationism though, that is just a slight decrease in evidence for disproving creationism.

Also, saying there are absolutely no vestigial organs is just ignorant.

 

[mattj]

@Adamant Zoroark

You seemed to have ignored the tailbone (coccyx) example. Just based on that example alone, that would be a remnant of when our ancestors had tails. However, we don't have tails (though there are cases of humans being born with tails) so isn't that an example of a vestigial structure?

Nah. I definitely didn't ignore it. I'm not willing to sit here all night and for you and others to post examples of alleged vestigial structures, and for me to spend all night googling "X still serves a purpose" and c/p'ing it here. I'll do this last one for you. The rest, you'll have to google it yourself. If you don't, that's your loss because literally all you have to type in the search bar is "____ still serves a purpose" and you'll see why it is a part of Z organism's body.

though it still serves some secondary functions, such as being an attachment point for muscles

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_vestigiality#Coccyx

Here's the disagreement between our two camps:

You look at an organ, like our coccyx here, and see a shrunken organ that serves little to no purpose. We look at the coccyx and see an organ that serves a verifiable purpose. The evidence isn't the problem. It's the assumptions that are in your minds and the assumptions that are in our minds when we look at said evidence that is the source of our disagreement. A coccyx alone doesn't "prove" that humans used to have a tail. It's entirely possible, (though you can feel free to write it off), that our Creator created our ancestors with a coccyx in order to give our booty muscles something to hang onto. It also doesn't "prove" that the God of the Bible created us. It's just a structure. But it is your presuppositions that give rise to the idea that the coccyx is a shrunken tail. Not the coccyx itself.

@Tomahawk

That is not evidence for creationism though, that is just a slight decrease in evidence for disproving creationism.

Also, saying there are absolutely no vestigial organs is just ignorant.

How many times would it take, for you to point out specific examples of alleged vestigial organs, and for anyone to demonstrate how each example you provide serves vital functions and there's no evidence that they were anything other than what they are, how many times would it take before your opinion of vestigial structures would come into question?

For me, it was quite a while ago. People have pointed me toward whale and snake hips, appendixes, molars, tailbones, etc, etc, etc, and every time I look into it, even people who wholeheartedly believe in evolution admit that each structure does play an important role and that there is no evidence that each structure was anything other than what it currently is.

Call me ignorant if you want. I'm the one questioning your camp's claims and doing the research. You're the one reading "Well... they say on r/atheism that it's vestigial... Okay..."

@Pappy777

Out of curiosity could you elaborate on what exactly you disagree with? And I didn't mean to sound like a Ken clone, this was kinda rushed if that explains my presentation a little.

I really don't mean you any offense.

I can see you don't post here often. For a subject that I care about to some degree, the shortness, and as you point out rushedness of the OP kind of irked me. Plus, while I really do admire Hamm for the countless time he has poured into the debate, and while I get what he's saying and don't necessarily even disagree, I think his "observational science vs historical science" point doesn't serve much of a purpose in the debate and is fairly unnecessary, as it's effect on Nye and his followers (that is, no effect at all whatsoever, i'm not even they heard him or something) shows.

I think our approaches to this subject might be from fairly different angles. While I'm what most would call a fairly fundamentalist, literalist, Bible thumping holy roller, I don't see why the Bible even needs to be brought up. For me, convincing a person of the Bible's account of creation is unnecessary. My job is to introduce them to Jesus and they'll make their own decisions. The Word itself will have an effect on them, just reading it. It can argue for itself. But I'm all for calling out these blowhards who make claims that are misleading or outright false, like "science has proven the Bible to be wrong" or "science has proven evolution to be true" or such nonsense. I'll argue against that most any time.

spoiler tags to not clutter the thread up

 

[KM]

mattj

I'm not well versed in evolution, other than that it's what I've been taught and what makes sense to me. However, I was under the impression that there were a few things that even creationists struggle to reconcile.

The one I'll focus on is radioactive decay and carbon dating. Although C14 has a relatively short half-life of 5700-something years, there are radioactive elements with far longer half-lives - and these are often used to date historical artifacts, archaeological discoveries, etc. How does creationism account for this? I've seen some creationist dogma that attempts to discredit C14 dating in particular because it's ineffective for things older than a couple of tens of thousands of years, but implicit in this seems to be the acknowledgement that the world is older than ~6000 years old, as creationism would necessarily have us believe.

Thousands of artifacts and bones have been dated by scientists to millions of years in the past. Even if you purport that the methods used to date these were incredibly fallible to the point where they misrepresent by a factor of a thousand, doesn't this distortion also necessarily have to have occurred to biblical artifacts like the dead sea scrolls that have been dated as "~1500-2000 years old" by the very same methods?

 

[Wishy]

When I was young, and they brought up the idea of vestigial organs in middle school, the idea seriously bothered me. Look at the appendix. Look at hip bones in snakes and whales. They obviously don't serve a purpose. Why would a creator put them there? Can't you see how they are evidence that at one point, a long time ago, these species needed these organs, but have since changed so significantly that those organs aren't necessary any more? It really made me question what I was taught, (which is never a bad thing, though often uncomfortable), and for some time doubt the Bible's creation account.

However, today I'm convinced that vestigial organs don't exist.

Your appendix example has already been addressed. I don't know about you, but as a hunter and outdoorsman I use those muscles to tune my ears without having to turn my body so that seems like a rather odd example to bring up. You didn't mention hip bones, but that was a pretty common one that had a large impact on my youth, so this recent story making the rounds in the news was interesting to me personally. Name another allegedly useless body part in any organism. I'll gladly link you to someone explaining why said organ is still useful.

I find it amusing that you would accuse creationists of ignoring evidence that contradicts your point. Claims have been made for nigh on 150 years now that this or that allegedly vestigial organ supports the theory of evolution. But just like your famous appendix example, and just like the famous whale hip bone example I was confronted with as a youth, every single time someone says "this organ doesn't serve a purpose" someone discovers that it does.

Who is ignoring evidence in this particular case?

It's true many vestigial organs are not truly purposeless, but some whales having penile muscles that attach to their degenerate pelvis isn't proof that the bones that make up the pelvic girdle always and only served that singular purpose. It's not completely unreasonable to think that the pelvic muscles adopted a new function (since that's actually where that research was pointing). Vestigial organs represent an atrophied state of an organ with usually an altered function from the original, which may be a reason for why vestigial organs seem to persist. Also, who knows, the ancestral state may have always had multiple important functions beyond the typical function of the girdle.

"This organ is still useful" =/= "This organ always and only served this one function, and has never changed in morphology or function ever". Vestigial organs being not as useless as first assumed is not really evidence of what you hope it is evidence for.

Also this doesn't explain atavism of hind limbs in cetaceans which has been well(?) documented, why cetacean embryos have hindlimb buds that disappear during development, or the many land-to-water transitioning fossils discovered, or the molecular analysis that says that cetaceans are related to artiodactyls...

 

[Deck Knight]

The problem with arguing with creationists is that they can just ignore evidence or make ridiculous claims. Fossils? Planted by Satan to deceive people. Radioactive dating? They don't understand it so it doesn't matter.

If there are any strict creationists here, hello Deck Knight , one of my questions to you is that do you believe that species change and the changes can be heritable? Are all the species on earth atm created by god or have new species been created?

I'm not a strict creationist. I've said it before.

When you're done burning fields of strawmen, let me know. Some of us still adhere to standards of debate.

Repost of my actual position:

God is infinitely powerful, erego he is capable of authoring all naturally observable mechanisms. Science is merely the study of those mechanisms caused by The First Cause, The Uncaused Cause. Whether dust is a metaphor for everything God created or specifically what we now call dust, there is no particular reason man could not have arisen out of macro-evolution and been breathed into divinely by God at a later point. The only thing Biblically important is Orginal Sin and the Fall of Man from The Garden. Insofar as that, things change *drastically* after The Fall, and as we're entirely within the realm of the supernatural, the laws regarding Adam and Eve's abilities before The Fall are entirely unknown and entirely unknowable.

The Flood is in its own other category, given it creates a natural chokepoint for humanity. I'm more of the mind The Flood was a regional event rather than an entirely global event, and may even have been allegorical rather than literal.

Specifically regarding your questions regarding species:

No one has ever documented a change from one species into another. What seems more likely is that a species becomes divided by a cataclysmic event or schism which causes a significant geographic or environmental change, and adaptation naturally progresses. The only reason we have different "species" is because we're classifying the same sort of organism across lengths of time spanning tens of generations, such that a Velociraptor and a Hawk are only different "species" in the sense that if both were alive presently they would be unable to breed with each other. "Species" is really more the human imposition of a classification than an inherent characteristic.

 

[macle]

Did you even read the original post? Fossils are from the global flood, burying life rapidly which is why fossils are well preserved, and why you don't find "transitional forms". Radioactive dating uses circular reasoning. Say a glass of water is half full, knowing the rate it goes down from evaporation one can date when the glass was filled. But what if the glass was filled to a point much lower than you assume? Or what if someone took a drink at one point? See where I'm going with this?

We found some transitional forms like Archaeopteryx. Though for the glass part, if it was filled lower, wouldn't the end point be lower? Also how does one remove radioactivity from a substance? (though really can that happen? I'm not incredible knowledgeable about radioactivity, someone pm me the answer)

And to your question: God created original "kinds" which is close to (but not limited to) the family classification level. These"kinds" were the ones brought on the Ark and through natural selection became all the species you see today. What alot of people don't know is the idea of natural selection originated from a creationist to explain what I just explained with the different kinds, natural and artificial selection both have been observed to mutate or eliminate genetic code causing the change we can observe. It has never been observed to add information to the genetic code which is required for evolution, but it has been observed to cause a loss of information. Which is how you get a poodle from a wolf (does that seem like beneficial change to you? )

I maybe wrong but you seem to believe that all adaptations (according to evolution) are optimal, which is not the case.

Well like I keep saying the evidences are the same for both historical sciences, it's the bias on what the person believes to be true that dictates the interpretation. And the majority is not always correct, this is a testable and provable fact. And quite contrary to what you think, teaching creationism is illegal in United States public schools, so that was most likely a private or home school.

The basis against teaching creationism in public schools is a matter of separation of church and government and that if creationism was taught, then so should every other religious approach on how the world was created, which would be like 6 months worth of material to cover and teacher don't have time.

God is infinitely powerful, erego he is capable of authoring all naturally observable mechanisms. Science is merely the study of those mechanisms caused by The First Cause, The Uncaused Cause. Whether dust is a metaphor for everything God created or specifically what we now call dust, there is no particular reason man could not have arisen out of macro-evolution and been breathed into divinely by God at a later point. The only thing Biblically important is Orginal Sin and the Fall of Man from The Garden. Insofar as that, things change *drastically* after The Fall, and as we're entirely within the realm of the supernatural, the laws regarding Adam and Eve's abilities before The Fall are entirely unknown and entirely unknowable.

cool so we are on the same page.

Specifically regarding your questions regarding species:

No one has ever documented a change from one species into another. What seems more likely is that a species becomes divided by a cataclysmic event or schism which causes a significant geographic or environmental change, and adaptation naturally progresses. The only reason we have different "species" is because we're classifying the same sort of organism across lengths of time spanning tens of generations, such that a Velociraptor and a Hawk are only different "species" in the sense that if both were alive presently they would be unable to breed with each other. "Species" is really more the human imposition of a classification than an inherent characteristic.

I entirely agree with most of this. Species is a hard thing to grasp since there are no real species, its just a human man classification especially when the general rule that 2 different species can't breed together is often broken. I guess more i think about it, the more loaded my question was. Though its nearly impossible to document speciation unless its a multiple generation of experimentors experiment on a species with short generations.

To clarify something, I'm not against evolution / natural selection with a guiding hand from god. I'm against the strict creationism.

 

[Cresselia~~]

Are you implying that it is scientifically possible to contain 2 members of every single species on the planet on a wooden boat roughly half the size of the titanic, while keeping each and every one alive for over a year?

I don't think it's possible.

However, think about this:
The bible never said that God only created 2 of each kind.
It only described the process of God creating Adam and Eve, but it never said that God did not create other humans.
And it never said that the other animals are only created in 2's.

If you are referring to Noah's ark...
The "world" in Noah's ark probably doesn't mean the entire planet. It probably refers to the land that was known to the Jews at that period of time.

But keep in mind:
Modern theology does not believe that Genesis was written by Moses.
In the original text, 3 distinct styles of writing had been recognized, and it is said that Genesis was originally from 3 different books.
Some branches of Genesis dated back to Babylon texts and Greek texts.
So the book of Genesis shouldn't have been in the Bible at all.

However, if you want to argue against evolution in a scientific manner, it is also possible.
There are many dents in the theory of evolution, and many mysteries that have not been explained.
Evolution is actually not as concrete as most non-biologists believe.
For example, "How did they know how to have sex?".
"When identifying a common ancestor, should the common ancestor have more genes in the genome, or less genes?" (I refer to the debate of whether amphibians originate from Lungfish or the Coelecanth, which is a current heated debate)
"What exactly should we look for when identifying the common ancestor?"
"How long does it take one species to change into another species due to geographical constrictions?"

Yet it violates this law of science, life cannot come from non life. Where did the matter come from? Something would of had to come from nothing at some point in time naturally. And matter cannot be created or destroyed in a natural setting, while creation would be a supernatural event, involving an infinite God not bound by any natural laws as we are.

One word: Abiogenesis.
Google the definition of it.
To elaborate-- prions are sequences of proteins that can simulate the effect of viruses.
Prions are very near towards viruses, and viruses are near towards living.
There have been many debates towards whether viruses are living organisms.

So abiogenesis is possible.

The problem with arguing with creationists is that they can just ignore evidence or make ridiculous claims. Fossils? Planted by Satan to deceive people. Radioactive dating? They don't understand it so it doesn't matter.

If there are any strict creationists here, hello Deck Knight , one of my questions to you is that do you believe that species change and the changes can be heritable? Are all the species on earth atm created by god or have new species been created?

Of course species can change from time to time.
Not even the bible said anything about God created species and let them stay there.

 

[mattj]

Kitten Milk

That's another thing Hamm and I disagree on. I see no reason to limit the age of the Earth to ~6,000 years. I wholeheartedly believe what the Bible plainly says, but there is no verse that plainly states "the Earth was created X years ago." I understand where thay idea came from, but it is the assumption of men and not something plainly stated in the Bible. And there are hermenuetical issues that I have with the way they came to their conclusions. I have no reason to doubt that the Earth is relatively old. But on the same hand I'm not convinced that in 50 years it will still be commonly accepted that our universe is exactly 14 billion years old, or whatever number they've pulled out of a hat this time (I say that in jest but I swear to god new discoveries are made all the time and this suggests it's 14 and this suggests it's 14.5 but then they discover mature looking galaxies at 13 billion light years, so I'm not very interested in anyone's claim of any precise number at this point).

 

[Dubby]

Everyone needs to calm their e-boners and be more logical and accepting of other people's opinions. As a creationist, I find it extremely disrespectful when people claim I am a "science hater" for not believing in evolution. Science doesn't revolve around evolution people.

 

[drifblim70]

What's the motivation for challenging Evolutionists (as Creationists call them)? I ask because it obviously takes a lot of philosophical effort to get we Evolutionists to express support for a Creationism without evolution. Are there improvements in standards of living or other politics that could obviously take place if we changed our minds toward a "God has made the substance of the universe, down to every detail" viewpoint? Are you trying to save our souls, or else save the souls of the weak minds that "Evolutionists" try to "spread" this deceptive or ignorant theory to, before we're punished by fire and brimstone for disagreeing with the insistence of logical necessity for an active Creator?

On the other side of the coin, basically, from the Evolutionist standpoint, when we try to convince Creationists of evolutionary theory's logical soundness and historical / present explanatory power, we're either defending against attempts to arbitrarily (as we perceive it) "water down" scientific arguments so as to avoid offending people's feelings of how they think the world had ought to be (purposefully and sensibly built by God), or we're trying to help you the Creationist to stop wasting intellectual effort and time protecting the interests of an unnecessary, imaginary (we think), supernatural concept. From our standpoint, "God" ends up being spoken of as a mental stop-gap for any mystery science hasn't yet explained in simple-enough logical terms, and that makes us question why God even deserves any respect at all.

If God did exist, then the standard Creationist theory (is this incorrect?) goes that He would be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent. He would already know of your doubt of Him (knowing everything about what He's created) and He wouldn't much care about it (being all-Good and thus fair) unless you were somehow doing great damage to His design by refusing to see His creative touches. So why not exhibit bravery, which He would prize, by abandoning Him as a crutch?

I mean no disrespect to those who do still want a God. The scientific mode is supposed to be to interrogate all axioms, however sacred. So live and let live, and please decide yourself.

P.S. sorry for conflating agreement with evolutionary theory with atheism in the above. I took the questions that step further.

 

[Ash Borer]

Kitten Milk
But on the same hand I'm not convinced that in 50 years it will still be commonly accepted that our universe is exactly 14 billion years old, or whatever number they've pulled out of a hat this time (I say that in jest but I swear to god new discoveries are made all the time and this suggests it's 14 and this suggests it's 14.5 but then they discover mature looking galaxies at 13 billion light years, so I'm not very interested in anyone's claim of any precise number at this point).

lol excuse me? Hubble's law has been used to estimate the universe's age for decades and every single measurement done has corroborated with ~13.8. Just last year the planck prode took accurate measurements of hubble's constant.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_universe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_(spacecraft)#2013_data_release

 

[Codraroll]

A couple of questions here:

- Why does such debates always end up as a question of "Evolution is true" and "the Christian god created it all"? We have some eighteen hundred religions to choose from, most of which having at least a semi-adequate explanation on how the world supposedly was created, and once you go into the "gods can lift the laws of nature as it suits them" line of reasoning, all of them become equally valid. Heck, even Arceism has a global flood happening at some point, so even the "flood geologists" (a term insulting to the scientific field of geology) should need to examine several theories as to who or what brought on all the water. As has been shown plenty of times throughout history, humans are extremely good at making up false explanations for things they don't understand (see: conspiracy theories, or those 1799 religions apart from your own), so some pretty solid evidence should be considered before you take any sort of religion more truthfully than others. As Tim Minchin put it, "...what are the odds/ that of history's endless parade of gods/ that the god you just happened to be taught to believe in/ is the actual one..."

 

[whistle]

i always thought creation vs evolution is one of the most unproductive debates anyone can have online. at least this thread has been interesting to see how people on both sides phrase their arguments. i will never agree with any part of creationism but i can respect the way some of you have come to that view.

anyways, the point of this post: is it too much to ask for some proper citations? with this much discussion of biology/geology and no sources there is no way to know if anyone is just pulling shit out of their ass, or unknowingly regurgitating someone elses vomit as truth.

The trick is they have to be life sustaining, only levorotatory amino acids can make up the proteins that sustains life, any dextrorotatory amino acids present and that's going to make it quite complicated, and by that I mean impossible, for anything living to come about. And its been attempted to prove it possible, but failed. Not to mention the initial conditions necessary to create these amino acids naturally would in turn destroy them fairly quickly.

i know this point is so tangential that it does not really even relate to the original debate, but i thought of some cool stuff while reading it so i thought i would share. mirror image enzymes and substrates can be made chemically, and may be just as active on each other as the natural enantiomers. i suppose there is something interesting to be said about the fact that there are basically two libraries of biological peptides/proteins with very low overlap and it just so happens that life uses almost exclusively one of them. i'm sure both sides of the debate can spin this into support for their own side though :adam:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1604320
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22927390

edit: hey who got rid of the cool custom emotes

 

[Photo]

Peoplr who claimed that life can't be made from chemicals the last page should really check out the infamous Miller and Eurey experiment where complex proteins and all of the 20 amino acids were created from simple molecules under the conditions of early earth. That shit is pretty conclusive.

Also, not believing in vestigial parts is really quite ignorant (not meant to offend, more the literal sense of the word than any colluqialism). There are hundreds of examples such as approx. 1/13 having a second moveable joint in the middle of their feet (not ball) which clearly became less favourable to supporting the feet when we became bipedal.

And yes doubting that all the predecesors to every known living thing could fit on an ark is pretty valid criticism lol. I'm not too versed in this but does this include extinct organisms, water only inhabitants (it would make sense no obv but the phrasing) and the sheer amount of insects?

Look at the phyla presence relationship and you might get where I'm going:

 

[Phione]

2 of every original created "kind" yes. That would be closer to the family level thus reducing total number of animals needed by quite a sizeable amount.

Okay, no. Two of each animal would NOT be enough to repopulate. If two humans were left on Earth, and they were a boy and a girl, the human race would be wiped out. The reason being that sure, they can have children, and now what? Those children are FORCED TO INBREED. Soon, you get genetic defects and sterility. The human race is not back on its feet. It is dying.

If only two of every group are there, and you argue against evolution, how did subspecies and variations appear?

And for your argument of no transitional forms, scientists have discovered plenty. We have discovered many transitional forms between us and other apes, from Homo erectus to Homo neanderthalensis. We have also dscovered a bipedal, small omnivorous lizard that later grew and is widely believed to be the ancestor of dinosaurs. We have discovered hairy, warm-blooded reptiles that were almost certainly the bridge between lizards and mammals. Transitional forms do exist.

 

[Soul Fly]

I find this thread funny, and people throwing around half baked science and sharpshooting scientific ambiguities here "in support" more so (not the few people sharing cool stuff though... some of these links are awesome).

Let me explain how a 'debate' works.

1. BOTH sides are grounded in rational, verifiable facts (Hence creating legitimate grounds for conflict).
2. One side will not choose to disregard hard compelling in-your-face evidence at convenience.
3. It's helpful if none of the sides are based on myths.

Though I'm perfectly fine with some blindly devout person choosing to hold his own belief and all that jazz, some of them seem rather keen to enforce their personal belief on other people, especially children, and campaign for some damaging education policy reforms.

I mean dude, it's cool you believe a holy hand came down from the skies and chemistry'd us into existence (one of the more realistic stories out there), but if you're gonna enforce that on others (and ignore the everything on top of that) then that's just being a dick.

======

To sum up all the cringe in one video and tell you why such a 'debate' can never take place:

[Celebrated Naturalist Scientist Richard Dawkins, interviewing Creationist Advocate Wendy Wright]
======

PS: Just because science hasn't found a conclusive answer yet, doesn't mean your fairy tale is right either, it just means we don't know enough at this moment. That's a classic case of black-or-white fallacy.
There might be some internal irresolution about some-few fundamental molecular mechanisms of the process, but that doesn't 'disprove' evolution (or prove creationism), because as a whole it's an indisputable fact. While Creationism still only has a few old books on its side of the aisle, and that's really the end of any 'debate' on that matter.

Go on folks.

 

[capefeather]

I'm mainly responding to the OP in this post, but there are elements of responding to other posts.

It is my observation that criticisms of evolution stem from a grave misunderstanding of evolution, and this thread has not convinced me otherwise. A few points I want to make:

1. Don't "believe" evolution. In fact, don't "believe" anything!

By all means, criticize, ask questions, and test claims out for yourself - but do so in a fair an unbiased way. This is actually harder to do than people often assume. Our biology afflicts us with deep-seated cognitive biases that cause us to believe things and then notice only evidence that confirms our beliefs, no matter how hard we try. The only way to fight this - and it must be fought, if you want to seek truth - is constant introspection. Attack yourself as often as possible, and go after your most cherished beliefs. See if they stand up to the most brutal attacks, and if they don't, change your mind. Theories about reality are not inherently "religions" and are not the property of any religious or political group. The word "evolutionist" shouldn't even be used, as it's merely a rhetorical device. There are no "evolutionists", only scientists.

2. The distinction between theory and experiment

Experiments find data (what you call "observational science"), and theories are attempts to communicate the data precisely (what you call "historical science"). So what does it even mean to call a theory observable, repeatable or testable? Those terms are applied to experiment, not theory.

3. God is not a good theory.

God has no explanatory power because it has no precisely defined properties. A theory is not something you make up and then try to confirm, but a description of what you've already discovered about reality. The problem with God is that you can keep making excuses to brush off any skeptical inquiry. Using this, you can make any number of arbitrary claims. You can even throw the word "infinity" around as if it's a magic word that solves all the issues with your claims. This point is a prerequisite for the following ones.

4. "Transitional fossils" and "vestigial organs" are horrible topics to counterargue evolutionary theory with.

The fact is, no matter how many fossils are found, you can always claim that there are no "transitional fossils". You can always ask, "Well, what happened in between?" This mode of inquiry is designed to impose an infinitely high standard on evolutionary theory. Even if we could somehow clone and catalogue every living thing that ever existed, it would still never convince you. That's not debate. That's stubbornness and bullying.

The same thing happens with vestigial organs. The theory of evolution does not prescribe "purpose" to anything. Any "purpose" we ascribe to anything is of our own making, and of course we can make up arbitrary explanations. Seriously, do you guys not feel embarrassed when your modes of reasoning are compared to those of teenage fanfic writers?

5. The Bible does not make "scientific" claims or predictions.

I'm going to sound like a broken record at some point... The Bible makes vague claims and some of them happen to be right. Some claims are so vague that they pretty much have to be right. That's not very impressive. You don't make a theory aiming to force it to be right. You make a theory to test it against the evidence, if anything trying to prove it wrong.

6. A creationist physicist did something useful? Who cares?

I don't know if you noticed, but being an expert in one field does not automatically make you an expert in another. Your field might give you some advantages, but you still have to do the work. Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers are both biologists, but I'd trust neither of them on the topic of sociology.

P.S. Honestly, I kind of find this whole discussion preposterous because the vast majority of criticisms of evolution are entirely off-topic. "Debates" on evolution are anything but, and they always end up not talking about the actual theory at all. Straw manning poorly understood details doesn't happen in any honest scientific discussion I know. It seems if you want to actually talk about evolution itself, you have to leave creationism out of it. Like this thread.

P.P.S.

The age of the Earth (as well as the universe) are restricted to be far far less than what is required of evolution. An example would be that if the universe was older than 100,000 years there would be no comets left, they would all of died by now. And while evolutionary scientists have dreamt up theories on how to get around this problem, there is not a shred of evidence for the leading theories. Also diamonds have proven the age of the Earth to be younger than they say, given the decay rate of radiocarbon there would be none left after a couple hundred thousand years. Yet we find significant amounts in diamonds (supposedly billions of years old) and fossils that are said to be millions of years.

No idea where you're getting all this from, mate...

Some highly recommended reading/viewing:
Evolution: It's a Thing - Crash Course Biology #20
Irreducible complexity cut down to size
AronRa's YouTube channel
Evolution of the eye
An Alien God
Religion's Claim to be Non-Disprovable
Think Like Reality
Ten percent of brain myth
Tyre, Lebanon
Belief in Belief
Does the Universe Need God?
The main point is not to say something against belief in a God (though many of the links are from atheists), but to try to explain various things like evolution and how a successful, useful theory works, as well as debunking some of the false stuff that's been said.

 

[Bass]

I have no interest in engaging in any sort of "debate" regarding evolution but I will leave Prof. Farnsworth's take on the matter.

 

[Cherub Agent]

http://www.cracked.com/article_19213_7-animals-that-are-evolving-right-before-our-eyes.html

I don't see how you can ignore this. If humanity, in its short stint of existing in this world, can already see animals evolving right in front of us, then surely you'll be able to appreciate evolution as a whole. I'll just list the first example:

It's becoming more and more common for elephants to not have tusks. And tusks are certainly not vestigial, as they are used to defend themselves from predators, during mating and for gathering food. However, elephants see humans poaching them for ivory as a far greater threat than missing out on these things, and so are starting to evolve without tusks. Sad as hell that that's neccessary for them but that's off topic

Evolution is adaptation, just on a much greater scale.

 

[Cresselia~~]

Seriously, people who believe that the book of Genesis is literal needs to read up more modern theology stuff.

Firstly, the book of Genesis has always been more of a metaphore, rather than literal.
"God created the world in 6 days" is more like 6 periods rather than 6 literal days-- simple question: How do you define what "a day" is before the planet Earth was created anyway?

Secondly, modern theology suggests, the book of Genesis is not strictly of Jewish tradition. It consists of 3 different writing styles and modern theology believe that it comprises of Babylonian, and Greek mythology. It is a huge mistake to include it in the bible anyway. It shouldn't have been in the bible.
This is very important, that's why I have to post this issue twice.

If you base your belief on God solely by a book, then your "faith" is nothing but superstition.

For those who believe that Genesis was literal, often back up with the quote "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be." (Timothy 3:16~17)

However, the Greek word for "God-breathe" had only appeared once and the bible, and never appeared in any other Greek text-- no one exactly knows what that Greek word means. They GUESSED it should mean God-breathe.

Secondly, what did Paul mean by "Scripture"? Precisely, which "scripture" did he mean?
His "scripture" does not refer to the modern day bible! Why would it refer to the modern day bible?
It's ridiculous!

=============

You know, some Christians still believe in this old, outdated things and neglect science despite of all the evidence science had brought up.
And it's so difficult to enlighten them.
It really makes me sick. VERY sick, in fact. *Rolls eyes*

No offense, if you are Christian but do not pay attention to Greek texts, or worse still, only read the bible in one language...
You are going nowhere.

 

[atomicllamas]

The thing I hate about these debates is that creationists always say, "This part of evolution doesn't work, therefore creationism," when this is a huge logical leap. Lets just hypothetically assume evolution is made up (it isn't), what proof is there of creationism? What experiments can be done to prove creationism? Creationism isn't even falsifiable so I don't get why people would even imply its on equal footing with evolution (it's philosophy, not science which is why it has no place being taught in American science classes). Why is the religious view that god created man as is, any more realistic than the idea that a giant space unicorn shit out the world with Homo sapiens as we are now? Both views are logically possible, but both lack evidence or even the ability to be tested, so what's the point in even suggesting that is how they occurred. Basically every creationist position boils down to god of the gaps, which is not something I can respect. If you replace every I don't know with god, then every discovery makes your god less relevant.