Evolution? Intelligent design?

[Solstis]

Maximus, you're proposing the academic branch of Intelligent Design. This is not what ravenous parents are trying to get to replace Evolution in schools.

It basically dilutes from "There may be a purpose" to "God did it, shut-up."

Also, what's all this crap about Humans being the only species to rape and pillage the planet?

Dinosaurs were jerks.

[Randomness]

These two theories are just that.

Theories.

For all we know, we're metaphoric fish in a fish bowl.

Evolution has been obsevered to actually occur and is documented, at least in the modern timeframe. An example would be drug-resistant strains of bacteria. (Not that it proves all life originated through evolution, it just means the process is ongoing in the present day)

[BlackRose]

Something one must note about both theories is that, evolution is a scientific one and Intellegent design is a theological one.

The two are converging, if you ask me. Creation theory has always been about explaining the most basic of units. It used to be that the most fundamental units that people thought in were whole organisms (a man, an animal, etc...) and thus a pretty fantastic explanation was needed to fill in the gap between nothing and something. "Science" could be defined generally as closing that gap, a function it has performed pretty damn well. We know know about a few very small and simple bits making up everything else, and we're on the way to figuring out what makes them up as well. More importantly, we know the rules that things seem to follow in our four fundamental forces; work progresses on unifying them into one.

But even if we end up with a single fundamental unit of everything, it's still something not nothing. And if there's a unified rule to explain the interaction of all matter, where did that rule come from?

I certainly don't know, I don't think I or anyone else really can know. But the world's always changin'.

[Shattered_weasel]

From one of my favorite sites (Fundies say the Darndest Things)

http://www.fstdt.com/fundies/comments.aspx?q=37015

[Sinue_v2]

So there was some "common ancestor" X amount of years ago. One third of them evolved into monkeys, one third into humans, and the other third turned into not a living thing, but a fruit, of which the other two thirds eat...


...Yeah, that makes sense.

Perhaps a visual aid would help you. The study of Taxonomy (grouping creatures by their shared distinguishing characteristics) even in modern animals shows a wonderful roadmap of evolution, and it is consistent with the evidence for evolution in both Paleontology and Genetics. Indeed, Evolution has succeeded wonderfully as an explanation for all sorts of biological phenomena and brings multiple differing biological fields of study together as a grand unifying theory.



Aron has about 13 videos in his Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism series, and I really suggest that anyone who's interested should take a look. Also, DonExodus has some excellent videos on the subject of how evolution works and a concise overview of the evidence for it.

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_lis...9F146277A3EDFD

I thought the purpose of science was to ask questions, not to ignore them. As such, I believe that a person capable of independent thought should have the right to be taught both theories and based on their own conclusions choose which to have favor in.

Blitz, that's fine and dandy when the subject matter is actually still in contention. However, Evolution is not. It's spent the last 150 years in the wringer of the peer-review literature and it has stood the test of time. Creationism/ID has not, and it has been discarded. Yes, it is good to question things in science - but the problem is that Creationism hasn't passed the test of peer review to qualify it as a contender. There's comparatively no research, no models, no evidence, and no way for application of the theory to help better our understanding of our world. It's not even falsifiable, which means it's not even science.

Further, it doesn't even make sense to let the uneducated make decisions on what they should be taught in a science class - when the proposed contender isn't even science at all! Is it alright for a medical student to ignore Germ Theory and instead insist on being taught about blood letting, the four humors, and cranial drills? Would you want that kind of a doctor operating on you?

Personally, I have no problems with creationism being taught in school. Just not in the science class room, and not as part of a mandatory curriculum. As well as having the full gamut of creationist theories presented... not just ID, Genesis, Aliens, etc... but also the competing theories of creation from other various world religions both current and extinct. Let them learn what the ancient Greeks, Egyptians, Sumerians, Samoans, Japanese, Chinese, Native American, and other cultures accepted as creation and let them compare and contrast these various ideas.

Not necessarily that you could inquire into how it works, but that you could denounce it in favor of some bullshit religion (aka 100% of all religions). Inflammatory comments ftw

This is why I tend to lean in favor of Deism over other forms of theism. I can't shake a fundamental belief in god, but I think that the best way of knowing the mind of that god would be better served in studying the actual creation rather than bronze aged myths and fables.

As it turns out, many of the "evidences" supporting Evolution also support Intelligent Design (i.e., common bone structures in different creatures suggest a common ancestor, but humans, apes, bats and dolphins all have identical wrist-structures, which makes that observation a little awkward-- it suggests a common toolkit rather than a common ancestor, which is supportive of Intelligent Design, instead.

I don't quite follow. Seems this is a variation on the "same genes, same designer" argument, but there evidently isn't a "toolkit" since you have clearly defined diagnostic traits, such as mammalian lacteal glands (see above video). Were the argument valid, you'd find these traits wouldn't be diagnostic and could be found in multiple different species irregardless of any apparent descent. The argument is valid to a degree, however, as you find certain traits that are shared regardless of descent. Wings, for example, can be found on birds, mammals, and insects. The wing most definately did come the same toolbox, which was the environment acting as a selector. Mutation is random, but selection isn't. Regardless of how much the Earth has changed over it's billions of years, it always had an atmosphere - so it makes sense that animals from widely different lines of descent would independantly evolve an adaptation to it.

[rogue_robot]

The problem with the Evolution/ID debate lies in the origins. Evolution explains the variations in species quite well, and is scientifically well established.

Unfortunately, many religious fundamentalists confuse evolution with theories on the origin of life itself (before evolution as a process could function, as it had no life on which to operate), which, to my knowledge, have not yet panned out in the experimental phase (though biologists are still hard at work on it). Worse still, this misinformed notion of evolution has quite readily infected popular belief, leading people to commonly mix evolution with a host of other, less established theories in their minds.



When it comes to the origin of life, Intelligent Design (in the sense of a creator being providing the original life on which evolution operated) becomes a tolerable theory. Now - before some of you in here flame me to a crisp on that comment - bear in mind that I said tolerable. I did not say optimal or desirable. After all, ID still remains untestable as of this point in time.

However, I agree that ID and similar theories should be left out of schools - or at most, taught as mere footnotes. As was already stated, pressure should not be placed on teachers to disseminate propaganda for religious fundamentalists, and ID will always hold a religious element that will invariably place the teacher in that uncomfortable position.

[Sinue_v2]

Eh, rouge, even with the contention in theories over the beginnings of life - we do have some rough workable models and some experimental data showing how Abiogenesis is possible. What a lot of people seem to fail to grasp is that the first "life" on Earth, probably couldn't even have been called life. We still really don't know where "life" in the contemporary sense first began, because the first single celled organisms had much more in common with viruses - except that the RNA was enclosed in a lipid shell rather than a protein shell. But once you have primitive cells that can form on their own, then the big hurdle to the theory ceases to be a problem.

I still wouldn't accept ID/Creationism being taught in science even on that level, because it's just a variation on the "god of the gaps" argument. If there is a natural explanation for a phenomena, it makes much more sense to postulate than than a supernatural explanation. A natural explanation will increase our understanding of how the world works and drive further research. A supernatural explanation only supplants the original question with another question that is untestable, unverifiable, and prohibits further research or inquiry.

[Tensu of the moon]

Allow me to get in my two cents.

As both a Bible thumping Christian and a Biology nerd, one would assume I am in an interesting position, but I am not. To state things bluntly, I believe in both the theory of evolution and the philosophy of creationism.

Note the theory being used on science and the philosophy being used on religion.

I was once told by one of my Biology teachers that some scientists once tried to create a single celled organism from scratch. they carefully coded the DNA and put all the little organelles into place, but lo and behold, the cell did not spring to life.

there are three big gaps in evolution, one being the creation of life itself. Another being the gap between single and multi celled organisms, and finally, the gap between simple and complex animals. The odds of any of these changes happening by chance are astronomical, if possible. Ask yourself: what stimulus would cause a slime mold to evolve into a multi celled creature?And then, what mutation would allow them to do so? Slime molds form to mate and then die. There would have to be some kind of mutation that would allow it to keep living after mating and would every cell in the mold need the same mutation? After all, they are all different organisms. Even what little advantage this setup provides against single celled organisms is imedeatly negated by the fact a single virus could kill the whole organism. fast forward to the next gap, the brain, which we still do not fully understand, forming by chance. I find that improbable. And then there's the spine. While I understand that many invertabrates have a notocord, which could be considered a vestigal spine, what about Sponges? It has been suggested by scientists that the sponge is full of jelly, and that could be a primitive notocord, but that strikes me as weaker than any argument supporting God. Calculate the odds. is evolution without divine intervintion really that plausable?

Now, read the book of Genisis. pay no attention to the "days" thing, as God exists outside of time: what is a "day" to God?

religion science
1.And God said let there be light 1.Universe explodes into existance
2.God creates all the stars 2.Stars form
3.God seperates the Water of 3.Planets form and develop atmospheres
the earth with the "water of
the sky" (perhaps a reference
to water vapor, or a reference
to the realitive Chaos of outer
space, as Water as often ass-
-ociated with chaos by ancient
cultures because it had no form)
4. God creates all the creatures 4. life begins in the sea
of the sea
5. God creates life on land 5. life spreads to land
6. God creates humans 6. humans appear
7. God rests 7. humans screw everything up

the only contridiction I see between genisis and science is that in genisis fly creatures appeared at the same time sea life did. but the sea floor if not the best at making fossils: undertows and scavenging fish break bones. plus, any bones had by flying creatures would be light and easy to break. it is entirely possible that flying animals existed at that time and do not appear on the fossil record.

I believe in the possibilty of a "base form" evolution. perhaps God created several species of fish, from which all fish evolved, or something to that effect. or perhaps evolution did happen as science assumes, and even though it is a very well educated and supported assumption, it is still an assumption, but with a divine hand guiding it. However, I do know that, with what we know about the universe, it did have a beginning, and it could not have created itself. So establishing this one would logicly discern the existance of a God, and if a God exists, one would assume he would have a hand in the creation of life.

but do not dismiss God as some pointless creation to be done away with, lest he do the same to you. even if we can one day prove God had no hand in the creation of life (Which I doubt will ever happen), I doubt we will ever be able to explain creation without God. even if God dose not belong in high school cirriculim, that dose not mean that the idea of God is an implausable one. Every culture has accepted the existence of God in some form. to dismiss the fact that something had to create the universe is not being clever, or whatever it is you think you are being, it is being arrogant. heck, I'd go so far as to say the existance of God is one of the few things we can be certain of.

ok, so that was less like two cents and more like five bucks.

[rogue_robot]

Sinue: I was aware of the hypotheses out there on abiogenesis, but don't recall hearing of any experimental evidence yet (simply because the initial conditions which likely provided for abiogenesis aren't exactly easy to reproduce - it's not like you just throw down a soup of the varying chemicals in organic beings and zap it, as some religious fundamentalists would characterize such theories). Personally, I don't really think all too much of ID myself, anymore (I don't really think too highly of the traditional concept of "divinity"), but I am willing to be open-minded enough to permit it to hang around as long as the theory evolves (interesting irony there) to reflect newly discovered information.

I just wish that scientifically-minded ID proponents would distance themselves from the religious fundamentalists, and that people in general would stop using ID as a battering ram to try and halt the testing of hypotheses they see as "competing" with their religions.



Tensu: There are logical problems with the existence of God - especially when the notion of all-powerful (omnipotent) and all-knowing (omniscient) are involved.

Omnipotence and omniscience can be said to be mutually exclusive, as an argument I saw in a logic textbook laid out: If a being is omniscient, it knows everything, including the future - including what actions it will take in the future. It must necessarily take those actions, or else it failed to know everything, and this therefore not omniscient. Because of this, however, there is a limitation on what actions it can perform - it must invariably perform the action it knew it would perform, and therefore, because of this limitation, cannot be omnipotent.

I have my own theories on the nature of God, omnipotence and omniscience, and the problem of the origin of everything - one which attempts to answer the problems of the existence of God as omnipotent and omniscient while simultaneously allowing for free will and science unhindered by the concept of God - but as this topic is about the (fallacious) dispute between Creationism and Evolution, and not my personal theories on God, I won't go into much further detail here. I will say this much - it does involve abandoning the concept of God as an entity which exists independent of creation (not exactly the kind of thing you as a Christian wanted to hear, no doubt).

[Tensu of the moon]

well, then let's start our own topic, as I have my own theories about God, the future, and omnipotence.