Rejecting evolution with science...

[DJ...]

One cannot accept both evolution and a creator.

Until you've explained yourself, that's simply a false dichotomy used to reject one or the other on no logical grounds whatsoever...

 

[Unhappy1]

It's more about being incompatible, not about one proving the other wrong.

Well then you clearly haven't been following our debate. I suggest you go back and read again.

One cannot accept both evolution and a creator.

Rubbish.

 

[HapticSimian]

It's more about being incompatible, not about one proving the other wrong.
One cannot accept both evolution and a creator.

One certainly can accept evolution and believe in the existence of a creator; millions do.

 

[Sherbang]

One certainly can accept evolution and believe in the existence of a creator; millions do.

Yes, millions also claim to be 'pro-life' while supporting the death sentence - just because people believe in contradictory ideas doesn't make them compatible with each other. One cannot honestly accept both evolution and the existence of creator ala religion. Obviously you could create your own 'definition' of a creator, one which is compatible with evolution, but the creator as depicted by the worlds religions is not compatible with evolution

 

[HapticSimian]

Yes, millions also claim to be 'pro-life' while supporting the death sentence - just because people believe in contradictory ideas doesn't make them compatible with each other. One cannot honestly accept both evolution and the existence of creator ala religion. Obviously you could create your own 'definition' of a creator, one which is compatible with evolution, but the creator as depicted by the worlds religions is not compatible with evolution

This is one of those instances where you are simply wrong; you could concede that, or you could continue arguing something which simple observation shows to be fallacious, thereby making yourself look an idiot.

Good gods man, different flavours of the same religions don't even reliably depict the same type of creator.

 

[Sherbang]

Until you've explained yourself, that's simply a false dichotomy used to reject one or the other on no logical grounds whatsoever...

Science convincingly supports evolution by natural selection and biology, as a science, cannot be understood without accepting evolution by natural selection. Darwin showed how humans descended from ancestors by a combination of random variation and natural selection. It shows that any specific outcome of the human species, or any species, came about by chance and natural selection - not divine purpose. This fact alone is fundamentally destructive to what every religion teaches about humanity.

 

[Sherbang]

This is one of those instances where you are simply wrong; you could concede that, or you could continue arguing something which simple observation shows to be fallacious, thereby making yourself look an idiot.

Good gods man, different flavours of the same religions don't even reliably depict the same type of creator.

:wtf: Simply telling me I'm wrong doesn't make me wrong. All religions that depict a creator of any sort depict an original creator of life and people - that's why he is called a creator. Evolution has no place for a creator, thus the two ideas are not compatible.

 

[Swa]

Prize.*

See nylon eating bacteria.

/back on ignore...

See reply here. Also it's about your assertion of allegedly seeing new species. Flavobacterium "evolving" into Flavobacterium is not an example of speciation.

Sad thing is the the poor child's probably slow-minded enough to view being ignored by multiple people as some sort of victory.

You view continually ignoring the arguments as a victory? That is the epitome of slow minded.

He has probably already convinced himself that we all ignore him because he makes such good points and has decimated the theory of evolution with his scientific genius.

If the shoe fits...

Are you able to put several pieces of information together? Seems like it is extremely difficult for you.

It fully explains why it took long for people to develop. Smaller and isolated populations means fewer people to come up with new ideas and fewer people to share the knowledge with. Once the population reaches a critical mass the sharing of knowledge becomes easier and more inventions are made per given time. i.e. progress becomes exponential as we can see even to this day.

It doesn't explain a thing and only makes more of the same kind of assumptions we so regularly see with evolution. So you have a population that can't advance because they're too small and they can't get larger before advancing. That presents a circulatory problem for you. There's no reason to assume that a population of intelligent humans would not advance for 45,000+ years when the opposite is much more likely.

Also would you explain the dark ages. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages
1000 years of hardly any progress. We have a few hundred million people and according to you, people were so intelligent that they wouldn't have regressed for such a long time.

I presume this is the actual link you meant: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages_(historiography)
The term dark age is a misnomer. The period which was actually much shorter, only a few hundred years at most, wasn't a period where all information was lost or where there was no development. It only looks "dark" in contrast to our own. The same way we don't classify the period from 1500 to 1800 as dark ages the people from this period would not classify the period before 1400 as dark ages. For this reason many scholars have abandoned and indeed criticised the term. The printing press actually hail from just after this supposed dark age and is actually seen by some as ending the dark ages. It was developed from knowledge and other inventions from this supposed dark age.

What is the point of it in any case? It didn't result in complete regression of humanity and such a period wouldn't necessarily last for a hundred times longer. History is full of short periods of little advancement or even regression but the cultures from these periods came out of it unscathed most of the time. You are assuming that such a period if it existed would last for a tremendously long time and it doesn't even lend support for the idea that humans would not invent proper communication skills during that time.

As for your rock story, you should become an archaeologist since you seem to know a lot about the field.

Ekstasis, sincere question: Have you any idea what went wrong in your life that robbed you of the ability to understand that there are degrees of certainty? Yes, one can make any assumption one chooses to, but the value of that assumption is determined by the volume of evidence found to corroborate it.

Evolution keels over then.

I also see others who act directly opposite to what you state above, wanting to turn every. single. thing. into some sign or fingerprint of a creator when they very well aren't. I say this not in reference to the metaphysical [-]depths you've plumbed[/-] heights you've reached of course, but in reference to those who want to turn every pattern and every constant into a sign of creation.

Oh yeah? Take a look at SaiyanZ's rock "tools."

On the other hand, just about any person I've met who claims a major incompatibility between religion and evolution has been a believer driven by religious belief (which is why, I think, there is this notion that 'evolutionists' view evolution as a religion, as the only framework these people have to work with is their own very broken one).

Or you just can't see it's religion. The real problem is people forcing science to make claims it can't make in order to justify their own position of faith. You say that "evolution explains the diversity of life without a need for a creator." Science can't even make that claim. Science can only examine natural laws within the confines of those laws. It can't make a determination on whether a creator is needed for those laws or not. If you make the claim that a creator isn't needed it's not a science based claim but your own faith based claim. It seems a favorite pastime around these parts to ridicule people that believe in a young earth. I know of a nuclear physicist that's a YEC. People are astonished, "well how can that be?" Well it's because this person knows dating methods are reliant on decay rates being constant. Science doesn't determine that they actually are. You would like to call this belief ignorant but it's equally ignorant to believe that they are. It's not scientific to believe so but based on blind faith. The conflict is thus only with your brand of "science" but real science and religion are completely compatible with each other.

 

[HapticSimian]

Science convincingly supports evolution by natural selection and biology, as a science, cannot be understood without accepting evolution by natural selection. Darwin showed how humans descended from ancestors by a combination of random variation and natural selection. It shows that any specific outcome of the human species, or any species, came about by chance and natural selection - not divine purpose. This fact alone is fundamentally destructive to what every religion teaches about humanity.

For that to have any substance you're going to need to show how one differentiates any single sequence of events derived by chance from any single sequence of manipulated events.

:wtf: Simply telling me I'm wrong doesn't make me wrong. All religions that depict a creator of any sort depict an original creator of life and people - that's why he is called a creator. Evolution has no place for a creator, thus the two ideas are not compatible.

:wtf: right back at you. I'm not simply telling you; I'm telling you to look around you at the multitudes of people who have reconciled the two. Certainly an argument can be made that any concept of a compatible creator might be considerably more vague and distant than the god of the desert, but the two concepts most assuredly aren't incompatible in principle.

You're talking nonsense.

 

[copacetic]

Or you just can't see it's religion. The real problem is people forcing science to make claims it can't make in order to justify their own position of faith. You say that "evolution explains the diversity of life without a need for a creator." Science can't even make that claim. Science can only examine natural laws within the confines of those laws. It can't make a determination on whether a creator is needed for those laws or not. If you make the claim that a creator isn't needed it's not a science based claim but your own faith based claim. It seems a favorite pastime around these parts to ridicule people that believe in a young earth. I know of a nuclear physicist that's a YEC. People are astonished, "well how can that be?" Well it's because this person knows dating methods are reliant on decay rates being constant. Science doesn't determine that they actually are. You would like to call this belief ignorant but it's equally ignorant to believe that they are. It's not scientific to believe so but based on blind faith. The conflict is thus only with your brand of "science" but real science and religion are completely compatible with each other.

I just want to be clear that saying there is no need for a creator, is not the same as saying there is not a creator.

I don't see the need for one, and my understanding of the natural world makes this a perfectly sensible choice.

If you, as a believer, thinks this is incorrect, then by all means, bring your evidence to the table. Fighting evolution though, and believing the earth is a couple thousand years old? That is simple bat****-insanity and ignorance, fueled purely by religion.

 

[Unhappy1]

Yes, millions also claim to be 'pro-life' while supporting the death sentence - just because people believe in contradictory ideas doesn't make them compatible with each other. One cannot honestly accept both evolution and the existence of creator ala religion. Obviously you could create your own 'definition' of a creator, one which is compatible with evolution, but the creator as depicted by the worlds religions is not compatible with evolution

What in the world are you talking about , all that has to be done is not believe in the creation story literally and instead regard scriptural creation as allegories and metaphors.

 

[Sherbang]

What in the world are you talking about , all that has to be done is not believe in the creation story literally and instead regard scriptural creation as allegories and metaphors.

So then where does religion come in to it. You can't claim to be christian and claim god is a metaphor and doesn't actually exist.

 

[Swa]

Quit pretending they're compatible.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_big_idea/2005/08/evolution_vs_religion.html


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/victor-stenger/evolution-and-religion_b_1945083.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin's_Dangerous_Idea

Explain again how evolution is compatible with religion?

Joelus, it's only the pseudoscience in this part of the woods that is incompatible with religion. That's because it is itself a religion. Here's what true science says about evolution:

• Mutations happen. It does not say mutations are random or not random.
• Some mutations carry on while others become extinct. There is no determination that only beneficial mutations carry on.
• There is selection but no determination if it is natural or not or perhaps pure chance or not. The term "survival of the fittest" is not empirically testable because it is just a tautology.
• Science examines evolution from the assumption of common descent. It does not determine common descent true but merely examines an evolutionary pattern from this perspective. If common descent is not true the pattern is a false one and the result of something else.

Don't be fooled by the claims of these religious nutcases. They like to make remarks out of ignorance that God is only there to fit gaps that are getting smaller and smaller. No the gaps are not getting smaller they are merely being shifted further up. Science has not explained God away as a requirement for everything.

 

[Sherbang]

For that to have any substance you're going to need to show how one differentiates any single sequence of events derived by chance from any single sequence of manipulated events.



:wtf: right back at you. I'm not simply telling you; I'm telling you to look around you at the multitudes of people who have reconciled the two. Certainly an argument can be made that any concept of a compatible creator might be considerably more vague and distant than the god of the desert, but the two concepts most assuredly aren't incompatible in principle.

You're talking nonsense.

I think we're talking at cross purposes here.
I maintain the two conceptual models of reality (evolution by natural selection and evolution by creator or designer) are incompatible with each other. I am not saying that people can't and don't simultaneously accept contradictory and incompatible ideas (as you know by my sig). We do, because we're not totally rational beings.

You say multitudes of people have reconciled the two - I don't think so - I think they simultaneously hold the two and keep them separate in their thinking and their lives. When they pray to god the creator they don't let pesky ideas like natural selection bother them and when they do science and study evolution they put god aside. The 2 are not only incompatible they are blatantly contradictory. The fact that people hold 2 contradictory ideas at the same time does not mean they have reconciled them or that there is no contradiction or that the ideas are compatible - they are not and people often end up experiencing cognitive dissonance which leads to one of the two ideas being dropped.

 

[Techne]

Quite a lot of information here for me to sift through so forgive me if im wrong. This all seems to be a debate about the compatibility of science and religion and nothing to do with evolution falsifying religious beliefs.

Let me give you a few examples that I tend to come across quite a lot.
1) Evolution negates the religious belief of original sin and Adam and Eve.
2) Evolutionary science somehow makes God superfluous.
3) Evolutionary science shows that evolution is purposeless process or that evolution is a random process and that this is incompatible with various religious beliefs.
4) Junk DNA or vestigial structures or other examples of “bad design” shows that evolution is true and that this somehow incompatible with various religious beliefs.

1) Jerry Coyne seems to think there is some sort of slam dunk argument. I have come across many people that shares this nonsense.
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress...doff-between-science-and-faith-and-a-contest/
2) I think I have seen this one in this thread and other quite a few times on MyBB and many other places. Again, it is nonsense and sad abuse of science.
3) Larry Moran and various people on this forum argue for this view. Again, nonsense. Evolutionary theory does not say evolution is purposeless or random.
http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2009/03/richard-dawkins-on-purpose.html
4) This is probably a favourite among people who abuse science to argue against various religious beliefs.

Joelus also pointed out a few articles by people that try to abuse science to make it incompatible with religion and he himself also is of the opinion that one cannot accept evolution and a Creator.

So I would say that this is quite a widespread misconception that is spread by new atheists and others.

 

[murraybiscuit]

So then where does religion come in to it. You can't claim to be christian and claim god is a metaphor and doesn't actually exist.

there's different gaps god can be squeezed into depending on the question at hand.
adopt a pantheist/panentheist approach to obviate problems with immanence/transcendence.
recruit thomism and you no longer have to worry about determinism, original sin or evolution.
there's no need to adopt an all-or-nothing approach here - just trim your cloth to fit.

 

[HapticSimian]

This thread's ganna get punted to PD soon...

 

[Unhappy1]

So then where does religion come in to it. You can't claim to be christian and claim god is a metaphor and doesn't actually exist.

Are you assuming that there is only one type of christian and all christians interpret the bible in the exact same way :wtf:

This thread's ganna get punted to PD soon...

Should have been there from the very first post , as per my prediction.

 

[HapticSimian]

Let me give you a few examples that I tend to come across quite a lot.
1) Evolution negates the religious belief of original sin and Adam and Eve.
2) Evolutionary science somehow makes God superfluous.
3) Evolutionary science shows that evolution is purposeless process or that evolution is a random process and that this is incompatible with various religious beliefs.
4) Junk DNA or vestigial structures or other examples of “bad design” shows that evolution is true and that this somehow incompatible with various religious beliefs.

...

Just for fun:

1. Doesn't negate it, but does create the need for some very questionable rationalisations.
2. (Possibly) superfluous I'd say. To make an absolute judgement we'd need knowledge we likely won't ever possess.
3. It is incompatible with various religious beliefs, but not universally so.
4. Just incompatible with special creation and ID; rabbits that need to eat their own poop in order to properly digest their food constitute pretty poor if not downright stupid design.

 

[Sherbang]

there's different gaps god can be squeezed into depending on the question at hand.
adopt a pantheist/panentheist approach to obviate problems with immanence/transcendence.
recruit thomism and you no longer have to worry about determinism, original sin or evolution.
there's no need to adopt an all-or-nothing approach here - just trim your cloth to fit.

This is a nice example of cognitive dissonance leading to modification of ideas.
Pantheism dilutes the concept of god to such an extent it's no longer recognisable as god.
As Dawkins said - Pantheism is just "sexed-up atheism."
It's exactly because the idea of a creator god and evolution by natural selection are contradictory that leads to cognitive dissonance that one has to modify one of the ideas until it's no longer recognisable and can thus relieve the dissonance between the 2 ideas