well, i didn't read EVERY post, but i thought i'd throw in my http://www.iroc409.com/pub/smileys/2twocents.gif.

as far as the evolutionary process, i am rather up in the air about it. the liklihood of the first single-celled organism was once explained to me as just as likely as "a tornado moving through a junkyard and assembling a flying 747 on the other end".

i've visited a rather interesting person in texas that has in fact tied in a lot of the bible, scientifically. it is very compelling evidence, but alas it has been a while since i've been there, so my memory needs a good refresher. i have been there more than once though, and have seen a very interesting experiment that appeared to be successfully conducted with reptiles and pre-flood times. it's very good stuff, i have a vhs set of his stuff, i think i'll watch it again to really delve into his evidence. and, as well, his books. the interesting part is, with experimentation and physical evidence, he does in fact prove much of what was experience in the bible, just as well if not perhaps better than science proves evolution.

also, during a project a few years back my senior year in HS, i question religion even more. this particular theory doesn't explain god, but it does explain jesus. it's really far to get into, and pretty crazy, but i think it could make sense. basically, it leads to that any one of us could have the same power as jesus, and such, but merely have not figured it out. it's pretty drawn out, and i've got work to do now or i'd explain it. tying in god, one could say god divined jesus into figuring out the whole process.

it could conversely prove that there is no god, that jesus - although not a hoax - was not truly devine, either.

just some things to think about.

Ah, the "because it's easier to comprehend" argument.

I think Newtonian physics is much easier to fathom than the outrageous claims of Einstein's theory of Special Relativity.

Easier to comprehend makes it true?

This thread was started as a discussion as to the effects religion has on our society, not as a what is truth. Religious people belive VERY strongly that they are right. Some non religious people feel the same way. We really wont be able to prove one way or another so the argument of truth is mute. However I will say that any religious person that doesn't question the teachings of his/her religion is doing a disservice to himself and his society.

Questioning a sanscrit translation done by a group of random people many hundred years ago isn't sacreligous. If you are religious, please think about what is written and spoken to you. Im not saying you have to dissbelive but think about why what was written is translated the way it is. NOTHING is free this includes truth!

i agree on both points. a resolution will not be found. i believe anyone that falters in questioning their religion, than it is perhaps not for them. if they can answer these questions with reasonable justification to themselves then it's all good.

enjoy, i have to go negotiate a car deal for a friend.

Yes, that is what we do. We have to consider the evidence and see what is more credible. Part of understanding is accepting what you don't understand and can't place under a microscope. No scientist says "i understand it all" and is considered credible. The credible ones start by stating what the do not know, and what new questions they have learned to ask.
I can't accept evolution personally, due to its being as non-fictional as a James Bond film. Humility, and science work together better than outright fiction and creation of "facts" if the picture is too blurry to make out. What we do know, is that the longer you stare at the theory of E, the more faith you have to apply to it. If that is the kind of "truth" that lets you sleep well at night, then you must have wonderful memories of the tooth fairy. Afterall, there is no other way that money could have been placed under your pillow.
Of course I can not fault someone for faith in something they have never seen. I have attempted to proove the Biblical teachings false, but I cannot. Frankly if Creationism was as "solid" of a case as Evolution, it wouldn't have made it past 2-3 centuries. Creation has been a theory for 2 thousand years without being disproven. Maybe that will help some people give it some more consideration.
Thanks for hearing me out guys. I do not mean any disrespect to your understandings my presenting my own findings.

not to be a butt head, but if truth is the amount of time something has been around without being dissproven then pagan religions must really be the way to go. Pagan religions were around loooooong before any form of judeo christian religions, as of yet I have never seen a single pagan religion proved to be untrue. ALL WORSHIP NATURE!!!!!

"Ah, the "because it's easier to comprehend" argument."

yes that is what we do. however it contradicts the point that was made by earier. We dont say I dont understand calculus so calculus isnt right algebra is. It doesnt work that way we have to weigh it against evidence like you said. Not our own comprehension.

My writing this is just to show that just because somthing cannot be proven untrue doesnt make it true, especially when its nothing but a metaphisical idea. I could tell you that I am god, but I dont want to do anything to prove it I will live my life exactly as a regular human. If I left you to dissprove it I doubt it would be possible. Would you believe this was true because you couldn't dissprove it? I hope not.

I believe evolution exists, in one form or another. I'm not saying there is no god, there may be a god that created the universe and time and matter and energy and set the building blocks for our lives in this world.

It drives me CRAZY when people are soo closed minded that they can't see a scenario where there is a god and science, christians do it, Scientists do it.

Above all don't get mad if you dont understand somthing! Right now if there is a heaven Jesus and Darwin are really sad that they have polarized the people in this way.

Which religons are you refering too? Just curious...

umm ill pick Dravidianism for 800 Alex... (sort of a precurser to hinduism)

however there are many people that celebrate various forms of very old pagan religions. (no one really knows how old they are because they are thought to precurse any known history.) Sort of the beginning of social man. There are also people that still worship old Sumerian and Babylonian gods which as you know would be very old as well.

As far as linking them up with being disproven, I was referring to the biblical stories, events, locations, and assertations as to scientific principles. I was not meaning to bring in the proof of custom, traditions, nor assertations of the diety structure. And that was my fault. Please take the former in context of my opening statement of this post.
Good arguements though.

Organised religeon was made to control people, it was another power base to contend to the then~present monarch/emperer/top dog/whatever. It was mind control full stop, and not to be confused with genuine belief...

Anyone who does't have spiritual beliefs is living in a bubble. Anyone who can't see that Life involves two destinct different realities is just waiting to get laid by the right woman :p ...

People should'nt confuse beliefs and religeon. I'm totaly against religeon because of the limits each and everyone of them imposes ( except Budism, which is'nt a religion, it's a way). I don't believe in God so much as 'the powers that be'. I don't believe Hell is the end reality though I have to wade through it and it's product every day...

I believe evolution can happen over eons and in the space of a thought. Why does it have to be one or the other? Not both?. The world was made to change was'nt it? otherwise it'd be static. 'A holiday camp from eterity' gone wrong is the way I see it :D . It's a world full of wonders, not a wonderful world, and religeon is more often the cause, not the solution :( ...

interesting link
 

Click me
Thought this was interesting.

And therin lays the truth :D . Anyone who's ever taken halucinagenetic drugs will see the truth in your statement. Jesus was just 'up on it'. Jesus did'nt talk to a burning bush, he was burning bush! :evilaugh: . seriousley though I agree. This is what I don't understand about chrisianity, Jesus did lots of magical things and was enlightened, so what?, where's the relevance?. These things are'nt confined to one man!, who has to be the result of an unnatural conception. These things happen every day in varying degrees. I've made things happen myself, anyone with enough beleif/confidence can will things, the ability to 'conect' with other people helps though :) ...

The real miracle was getting enough people together on the same level/plane (without the 'infighting'!!) to let these things happen!. Like the saying should of said: 'Minds that think alike can be Great!!' :D , but divide, rule, and conquer, is the capitalist way :( ...

Pe@ce people :cool: ...

OK, just for the heck of it...

Religion is not about principles, or morals, or philosophy, not really. It's about attachment (Attachment? Yup, for the psychology grads amongst you, just read a bit of Bowlby).

Basically, attachment refers to the strong emotional bond that exists between a child and caregiver (usually parent); more specifically, the "secure base" that the parent provides for a child from which to explore the world (think how a crawling infant stays within a certain "action radius" of its mother), and to which it can return when it feels frightened, insecure or hurt. All children sort of know they depend on their parents (think of the terror a child can feel when it suddenly finds itself lost in a shop or crowd, for instance), on a very instinctual, pre-verbal level. Since we're talking basic survival here, you can rest assured that attachment is a very instinctual drive. Animals have it too, but there the phenomenon is referred to as "imprinting" on the parent.

Attachment never stops. As we grow up, and more independent, we can tollerate a greater physical and psychological distance between us and the caregiver; we go to school, we leave home, etc. But at the same time we "internalise" our secure base. We learn to depend on ourselves in the way we depended on our parents, because we internalise their caring for (and about) us in our caring for (and about) ourselves. You can see how attachment issues form the basis of many psychological problems (particulatly where dependency --either on drugs or on people-- play a part). Moreover, our attachment experiences influence the emotional bonds we form with our friends, our life partners, and our children.

No matter how grown-up we are, the world remains a scary, and dangerous place. It's a big universe out there, and the more we learn about its vastness, the more we feel like an insignificant speck. We will still feel that yearning for a "secure base", and the more insecure (and immature?) amongst us will feel it stronger. So we create a new "attachment figure", in the image of a parent as seen by a very small child: all powerful, all wise, all loving, or, if you had the bad luck of growing up in less fortunate circumstances perhaps: all authoritarian, unpredictable, demanding, abusive. Sometimes, God is just an attachment figure. And to think that we're all alone (like Evolutionism would seem to suggest, for instance), is very scary, and therefore meets with fear and hostility.

And with this attachment comes the primitive, almost magical thinking of a child. That is another reason why Evolutionism doesn't go down well-- there seems to be no simple cause-effect relationships here, and it is very hard to get your head around principles like Critical Dependence on Initial Conditions, or Emergence phenomena, which are part of how a tree gets created, seemingly, "out of thin air".

Don't get me wrong. Religion, like any beliefs or preferably, ideas, can be a powerfully good thing or powerfully evil. But let's not lose perspective. Let's acknowledge being human. After all, in this world, we only have each other. There's no justice, but in us. No love, but in us. No mercy, no faith, no compassion, but in us. There's just us.

Ok, humanity is screwed :p

Yeah, but didn't I break it to you gently, though? :D

Apologies for the long post, but I've been gone a while and must make up for lost time. A free cookie to anyone who reads the whole thing.

No problem. Some of these are based on posts made after yours, if you consider that fair. First, look at my first post, where I corrected a number of BigBen's hyperbolae.

Yo-DUH seems to be a bit dim on the concepts of Buddhism, Islam, and biology. Calling science "a bunch of hooey" more or less signals his unwillingness to debate.

The "small million year steps" between amphibian and mammal are at least partially reconstructable. There is a pattern of physiological and chromosomal features between any two animals chosen at random, and by building up the foundation of knowledge that is biology, it can be shown with varying degrees of certainty how random genetic mutations, encouraged by natural selection, in a process of tens of thousands of years, led one particular animal to gradually become another. Nature itself has no care for our particular word "species" - taxonomy is both a help and a hindrance to evolutionary biology - so when people claim that evolution is false because there are no creatures halfway between one species and another, I'm at a loss: All creatures people find evidence of existing are ascribed a species name. Trying to pick two species and find a transition species between them that is not itself its own species is an absurdity of the definition of species - it's like being asked to pick two rational numbers between which no numbers exist. Biology, like the number line, is a continuum.

Psychofunk is pretty much pure unfocused vitriol, the sort of speak one writes about in a screenplay where a doomsday fundamentalist Chrisitan is needed to unleash God's wrath by unleashing a super-flu of some sort.

I honestly can't read airspirt's stuff. The tone makes it too difficult to follow.

Bigben is wrong again about the law/theory thing, but I guess that's alright because half of the scientists around don't know what a law is anyway. Laws are quite rare in science.

A law is a scientific assumption made based on recurrence rather than based on a series of premises. A law is most useful in mathematics, which is entirely based on axiom. In science, laws find their best purpose by defining basic parameters of nature rather than natural events, though they can do both. The laws of thermodynamics define temperature, work, heat, entropy. Newton's laws of motion define force and momentum. They are problem solving tools based on observation, not hypotheses that could be proven or disproven. If laws could be disproven, Newton's laws of motion would have been struck down by quantum mechanics. But their function does not necessitate this - Newton's laws were, are, and will remain to be approximations of nature and work perfectly well for a certain range of scale.

Evolution, or natural selection, was regarded by Douglas Adams - who knew less science than I do, but was such a fantastic writer and public speaker as well as an astute mind that he could run laps around me in any field I claimed to be an expert in - as a very special tautology, "That which survives, survives." A is equal to A. It's such an obvious concept that the basics that come form it - that animals die, that animals better-equipped for that time and place generally survive, that mutations occur and once in a while are beneficial, and that four billion years is a long, long time.

I'm perfectly alright with people asking specific questions about details that bother them with scientific principles - we do that all the time with heat, temperature, viscosity here - but spouting cavalier rhetoric like "wish me a tree" is juvenile and unproductive. Do people doubt the existence of Sumeria because anthropology does not produce real, live Sumerians? Do people doubt the existence of dinosaurs because paleontology does not produce real, live allosauri? Isn't it simply idiocy to know nothing about a scientific principle, then mock it by requesting evidence for this principle that in fact violates this principle?

Consider how foolish people appear when such concepts of heat and temperature are argued on this board. Then consider that the mechanisms for heat transfer, especially turbulent, are a thousand times less predictable and less understood by physics than the evolutionary path of tens of thousands of creatures charted by biology.

Okay, more examples of falsifications? Winewood says evolution is filled with holes, but gives no reason or example, then follows with a number of non sequitors. Again, the common tactic of the (excuse the connotation) ignorant - "I don't believe evolution, give me an example of a cell organizing itself from nothing, even though this is not how evolution works and would in fact neither prove nor disprove evolution."

To be clear, the origin of the first cells is the focus of many, many academic papers I lack the time and understanding to read. All I can do is borrow the argument of Richard Dawkins - the fully functional cell is the Roman arch. It had a support structure - its evolutionary predecessors - on which it was built, and that structure is gone. We know the Romans used wooden supports to hold up arches on their bridges until the capstone was in place. In the case of the first cell, possibly the predecessor to the first bacteria, this support structure isn't anywhere near as obvious.

Regarding religion - it's another playground, it is as irrelevant to evolution as heat transfer is to the Bible. Only when a particular group of people, following a specific interpretation of a book that is holy to them, claim that a scientific theory is false, does any debate occur. Nothing in science makes claim for or against god - it simply takes the evidence and comes up with the most logical, consistent, comprehensive, and predictive understanding. To misrepresent this - to think of science as a group of hell-bent, radical atheists (or satan-worshipper, as I've been called once), or to ignore the review of information by peers, or to claim some massive flaw in the scientific method on a hunch rather than actually stating the flaw itself, or to deny logic in favor of insults and vitriol - does both sides a disservice.

Logic is the engine of mathematics, the most important tool in science, and it is by no means heretical for the religious to use it - if it is, I do indeed fear for the people who worship that god.

I think it's important to ascribe a scale to faith - from rational assumptions based on repeated observation all the way to the blind faith of doomsday cults. There is a matter of how much evidence one needs and how credible that evidence is, as well as how likely or unlikely the truth ascribed to that evidence is, for a person to draw an opinion on the truth or untruth of an event. I take it on faith when someone tells me he was late to an appointment because he had a flat tire simply because the truth or falsity of the event has little bearing on me, for example.

That should do.

Alchemy

Very well written. I want my cookie. :p

Some of the best evidence for the evolution of species comes from biochemistry. Take a look at the enzymatic pathways that metabolic processes take to get from point a to point b. These are often amazingly intricate, and tend to recur in many organisms which are phylogenically similar. I have not the time to go into detail, but any college level biochem text should explain. These sorts of indirect evidence of common ancestors has to some extent refined the field of taxonomy, and the study of enzyme pathways and reactivity have also transformed the field of drug development. I have had the whole creation vs evolution argument with the minister of my in-laws before over coffee. My take was that the only religious anti-evolution people I had much respect for were the chrstian scientists. Everyone else wants to bad mouth evolution in public and then go to a doctor for cutting edge drugs that were developed by insight from evolution.

If I wanted to look at evidence of some higher power then I would return to the very thing most creationists hold persona non gratis: science. Consider that the bulk of the biochemical processes that hold a person together and allow one to go about day to day processes are all entropy driven. In both directions. Nifty. Of course you have to quit pointing to evolutionary processes (which are actually pretty innocuous as far as theories go) to stir up fights with the physical scientists then.

Okay, I lied - I forgot to make a point in that last paragraph.

Thus, my concern with religion and the religious only comes up with certain types of Christians, such as those following Tertullian (and oftentimes misunderstanding him) - "It is true because it is impossible," or those quite vehemently arguing I Corinthians 1:21 or others - God makes "foolish the wisdom of the world." Though I respect the Bible, as I do all great works, it seems a cop-out to me to use these things as tools of argument - I'd go so far to call it absurd, for one cannot persuade without logic - shysters and snake-oil dealers excepted - , and using an argument that arguments are not arguments is an internally inconsistant means of debate.

Further, wiring ones' mind to accept arguments on blind faith seems to me like the opening of port 21 in the mind - even on the hypothesis that everything regarding ones' faith is true, to use blind faith as a mechanism makes one vunderable to exploit.

Okay. Done now. Serious.

Alchemy

Although I am not religious I can understand how people can take some thing on pure faith. I for a time I had no idea how anyone could believe anything without hard evidence.

I was thinking one night about the nature of reality and what I could believe, what I came up with was rather disturbing to me. I decided that the only thing that I truly knew was that I and only I exist. The only reason that I believe that my wife exists and that you reading this exists is faith. I don't have any proof but I wouldn't want to exist if I was the only thought and thus faith comes into play. I don't see religious people much different than me; they just take it a bit further. I think faith, fear and anxiety walk hand in hand.

I wrote this to get other peoples take on what I am thinking.

Thanks for the critique.

I was not calling science "a bunch of hooey," you got that wrong. I was calling the theory of humans descending from one-celled microbes "a bunch of hooey." There is a difference ;)

Evolution HAS happened in a sort-of-way, but not to the extent that agnostics and atheists are claiming. Different species of dog can mate, and look at what we have here, some sort of bizarre half-breed. Zebras and horses, Loins and Tigers, these are supposedly biologically compatible. But, the idea that we all happened through a process that was so delicate, and more than likely involved several different intelligent species developing, is a little insane.

Adding to that, why don't we have semi-intelligent apes running around? If we came from apes, or whatever evolution states we "popped out of," why have we not seen any ape species that have at one time started up the technological ladder? In the wild, without any training, the most sophisticated tool I've seen my "so-called ancestors" use was a stick, as an eating utensil. Don't you think there would be at least remnants of other "smart" civilization? I'm not asking for anything as complex as a computer, but something simple, such as sharpening something to be used as a tool...

I believe Buddha was a wise man, I believe that he did obtain much wisdom through his long thoughts while he starved himself, I believe that his teachings have bettered the people that have accepted them, and many of his teachings have great meaning and worth to them.

But, I also believe that he died of indigestion, and that I could better use my time by talking to my nice white textured ceiling. If he couldn't help himself, then what can he possibly do for me?

Islam, I do admit, I am a bit weak on. Their religion has changed a bit since I read about it last, and I'm a bit vague on the specifics.

I do know that they descended from Abraham's illegitimate son, Ishmael, and that God promised him a kingdom that would be wild and untamed, and he would like at odds with his kindred (and a "thorn in the side of the Christians").

The God of Islam (whatever it's name is at the present, last time I checked it was Allah) is supposed to be a "fair judge, but far away entity." You are aware of him, and him of you, but you never interact. He is often swift and will, according to the Qur'an, "destroy evil nations in a heartbeat." Hmm, I think Allah has a slow heartrate ;)

This is a striking contrast to "The Christian God," who is loving and caring for his people, who is with us all the time, and very companionate. Forgiving our every transgression.

Comparing the two is unthinkable. Allah is portrayed as an uncaring dictator, no more.

And the way they treat the women is insane, I'm sorry if you're personally a Muslim, but honestly. All people are created equal. Women are not meant to be used as just maids/breeding stock/prizes, they have just as much capability to learn and make decisions as men do, if not more :D

I won't go into the Jihad and all that extremist terrorist stuff. I think it is great that they all want to blow themselves up! In fact, I encourage it! But could they please NOT do it around other people :D :D

I quote Joshua by saying "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." If you have a religion that you are totally devoted to, or you really believe that we are all descendants of termites, all the more power to you. I am happy you are happy. But, the difference is I know the future of my eternal life, that being heaven. I would hope to see you all when I get there ;)

Alchemy, I am going to have fun at your expense. Please forgive me. I am not attacking the messenger, but the arguement. In doing so, I wish to show you that possibly there are fallacies in everyones arguements, including your own.

Lets pretend that whomever wrote the Bible had "higher understandings" beyond our own. As a father would instruct a child, he would not tell the 1 year old WHY the road was off limits, just to stay off of it. The understanding of why comes later. I personally don't think humans are any smarter than thousands of years before we have just been able to keep better records and build on it. So far, we have not been able to find a substantial logical fallacy with the Bible, but still hold it in high regard as one of the most hardened volumes of morality and logic to our criticisms.
Faith in this regard is acceptance that the road that we should not venture out into is in fact not in our best interests. If we have that for no other reason than we haven't been led astray or can find no holes in the fabric of the arguement, this is a scientific principle of the theory. Test it until we find it is false. I have tested and therefore find it a working theory that has yet to be disproven. Do I have blind faith? Not at all, it is based on what I cannot disprove, and have already seen

Next is a series of arguements from your previous post. And yes, I want my cookie as well. :D

Funny stuff. Thats so Clintonesque. When a large portion of the theory involves 2 creatures VASTLY different and tells us how many thousands and millions of years in between evolved to get there, but there are no fossils or proof of those "drawn in" figures, doesn't that seem absurd? From fish to salamander, there would be thousands of transistions VERY much like the former or the latter. There are large gaps in between these and thousands of years of their existance involving thousands of simple changes in each step. Logically you cannot explain away the transitional periods that are voids now, as a labeled step. I feel like that arguement is the Wizard of OZ saying disregard the steps of my theory, don't question them.

Science has documented no example of a benificial mutation. Each mutation catalouged has resulted in a less functional animal for its environment. Especially a mutation that can be carried along genetically to a following generation.

You are using apples and oranges. First of all, the heat, temperature can be argued but tested by multiple independent people. The biology, which outside of dna research on the creatures 10's of thousands of years old is limited to a very defined set group who attempts to make the best hypothesis based on bones, without an understanding of skin, internal organs. A series of "facts" creating other "facts" based on supposition of function to begin with. Color me amused indeed. Lets extrapolate on that idea and say the biology is more misunderstood than the thermodynamics of heat transfer of a core to a block.

Not obvious means not discovered, but a theory hangs on it. Ok. Does this seem funny at all? The basis fundamental building block of evolution is now gone. Non-existant. Non-proveable, non-disprovable because it has yet to be discovered? Kind of like building a skyscraper but finding out the foundation no longer exists, but is not unproveable or is now missing or never built. Apparently faith is not confined to religion but now science? I think this shows why evolution is included in a religious arguement due to its reliance on blind answers built on conjecture.

I would now start to argue who has the most faith. I know I am not going to change any of your ideas or faiths, however it seems ironic to point the "blind faith" finger at the religions without accepting that the premise of many of your own scientific higher logics contain more faith in some circumstances. Face it, man is ignorant and very succeptable to persuasion. What we KNOW one day is completely dismissed in another generation of science. Shakey foundations indeed. Higher scientific logic or psychology in the place of religion is interesting, but a laughable arrogant swap.

You are discounting the entire pesticide industry, who have seen firsthand how difficult that accelerating natural selection can make their lives. Genes which previously had no use end up saving a few insects because they impart insecticide resistance. The next year, the majority of insects are resistnat because only the remaining bugs could breed and reproduce. There have also been documented cases of moths in europe that were white before smog began to turn the trunks of the trees where they lived grey. Once this happened then birds could see those moths clearly. It wasn't long until most of the moths were not white but grey; again natural selection at work.

I think you are mixing up immune system resitance with genetics. An immunity can be passed from a parent, but that is not gene coded. When you get down to the hard core of the arguement, where are the half armed species in middle of a change? Where are the land animals with non-developed large wings that are useless for thousands of years before they allow flight? Name a mutation that can be passed down genetically. Much less the mutation that develops, passed down genetically, and is spread evenly across an entire population, then the non mutated population dies out instead of mutating in a different direction.
Moth color fails to justify the entire process of natural selections role in genetic mutative heritage. If my environment changes to allow more uv rays into my house, and I become more tan. Is that an example of my genes changing? If I am a moth, suddenly it does. There HAS to be much more credible evidence than a moth to explain where every living thing came from. Don't you guys agree? Does it take a single arguement to justify your belief when 1000's before have been disproven?

The reason that there are no semi-intelligent apes is that we as a species wiped them out. Many neanderthal bones show the wear of warfare. Yes, we weren't related to them ... that article said as much. We branched off of an earlier species, much like the lion and the tiger. We were more closely related, however. While lions and tigers can breed, the product is a sterile mule. It is speculated, however, that Cro Magnon man and Neanderthal man could breed (I didn't mean in the homo sort of way, I meant "man" as a species). It was probably a rare occurance, however.

We all know how xenophobic mankind is. We also know how territorial we are. The difference between a white man and a black man was seen as a different species practically until the recent century. How do you think our primitive ancestors would have seen the difference between themselves and some slope-headed, bow-legged, extremely muscular guys that didn't have the same cognitive and linguistic abilities as themselves? They probably (from the fossil record) wiped them out, and unlike our branch, they weren't adaptable enough to sail off to islands or cross the land bridge to north america. They just grew outdated.

I would argue, however, that there are semi-intelligent species out there. Certain breeds of ape are extremely intelligent, such as the gorilla and the chimpanzee, while others are less intelligent and some are ... well, frickin' stupid. A few breeds of dog are wicked smart, such as the golden retriever, though it is the product of forced evolution by man, and it hasn't been such a distinct evolutionary process that it prevents viable breeding. Look at the African Gray parrot. Dolphins? Certain whale species? Don't be so pompous to believe that humans have a monopoly on intelligence, though we certainly have the most developed intellect of the bunch.

No one has ever disproved the theory of evolution.

Immunity can be passed from parents to offspring in mammals; they give their young antigens and resistance through their milk. Insects, as far as I know, don't nurse and don't pass on anything to their young OTHER than their genetic makeup. I am a chemist and not a biologist though so I could be wrong. Things like pigment color of wings are genetic though.

Besides the whole natural selection theory is just that when resources (food, shelter, water) are limited and you apply some outside pressure then species which can cope with the change thrive and those who can't die out. That is a pretty hard theory to disprove as it can be seen over and over again in nature.

I think the evolution of the scientific method, its first discovories - germ theory, for one example - and the ability of the Western world to more or less agree on a construction of civil rights that include the abolition of slavery, theocracy, and dictatorship, as well as governmental focus on environmental protection and restoration, all represent significant intellectual advancement in the past few hundred years. I think as time goes on, more things are discovered and known, and people are expected to know and understand more aspects of politics, their career, and the world they live in. I think humankind grows smarter because we are all encouraged to become smarter, because - amazingly - it benefits people to be shrewd in business, to be clever in games, etc. Not all people feel the intelligence/personal success gradient, but it's certainly a major factor to much of the world's population.

This isn't to say we're the paragon of intelligent life right now - far from it. But I think it's the nature of intelligent life to be continually improving the conditions in which it lives. Though we may be, as a whole, a very selfish species, it is that selfishness that drives us to improve the lives of those worse off - poverty, unemployment, and homelessness damages *all* of society.

I'm not sure who the "we" is here. I could easily point out a number of examples where the Bible is internally inconsistent, such as the two slightly different creation stories in Genesis, or the existence of humans who are not descendents of Adam and Eve, or the drawing of Jesus's lineage from David (Abraham? can't recall) through Joseph, who Jesus was not borne by and thus by Hebrew law his ancestry would be irrelevant to Jesus. There are physical inconsistencies, such as the story of Noah - a very clear parable, yet an event many fundamentalists consider factual. There is Revelation, a book many Christians discount, and many scholars find to be not a foretelling of the Apocalypse but a foretelling of the fall of Rome - a political tract with little meaning in modern times. There is evidence of trinity-type dieties in pre-Christian religions, though I can't recall which ones, and I apologize for not having more information. The flood tale of Noah is similar to pre-Jewish religions. Many aspects of the Old Testament can be seen in Sumerian religions, in Egyptian religions, and then re-interpreted in Islam. No writer of any holy book wrote in a vacuum - all were influenced by the folklore of their time.

As for a "hardened volume of morality," I am not sure what particular chapter and verse you refer to. I find the book of Job very distressing. I find repeated references to God encouraging his followers to kill, torture, mutilate, and rape in the Old Testament. I find the Ten Commandments inapplicable to any but Christians - the first three command singular loyalty to him and how that loyalty should be professed, the remaining seven are redundant and could have easily been cut down to "Do not take what is not yours," with it being understood this applies to your neighbor's possessions, wife, and life. The fealty to ones' parents seems appropriate, though to consider it a commandment of equal level of the others seems strange, especially in current Western society where it is no longer the father's perogative to kill his children.

Jesus's teachings are mostly beyond reproach, for he spoke in parables and thus there is nothing to prove or refute - they are all opinions. Strangely, I don't see many fundamentalists arguing the truth of Jesus's parables - they are apocryphal, and unlike many other events in the Bible, most people actually realize this.

My only suggestion, really, would be to have amended "Do unto others as you would have done unto you" as "Do unto others as they would like to have done unto them." More complicated, and perhaps the brevity is the important factor, but I think much unhappiness in this world could be solved by selflessness as well as empathy.


Trusting texts on their face is not consistent with the scientific method. A theory must be based on logical assumptions, but it must also predict something. It has to be disprovable - if it isn't, science becomes a mess of half-truths.

I'm not sure how you have tested the Bible, but I find it difficult to believe you've done so in a manner that stands up for any sort of review - religion by its nature makes no predictions and explains nothing about the natural world. It isn't supposed to.

Fossils aren't easy to come by. What is your interpretation of the data - that a supernatural force randomly spawns and then smites species of animal and plant for about four billion years?

How do you know that there isn't evidence of that, somewhere?

I'm unable to do so, yes, simply because I'm not an evolutionary biologist. I haven't the expertise or knowledge base to explain *everything* about a scientific field that I am not an expert in. So no, given your choice of two species, I can't dig up cited references of all the transitional species between them, or chart them upward to the ancestor of common descent. It's a lot of work, and it's not my job.

And I feel like an empiricist whose information is discoutned by a pundit because I cannot give you an infinite amount of data points for a particular process. If I show you one transitionary species between an animal and its evolutionary descendant, would you ask for five? If I showed you five, would you ask for twenty? I feel like you're not grasping the gist of my argument - the transition is slow, there are thousands or millions of creatures between two discovered species. To expect physical proof of existence of every single animal, plant, microbe, etc. that ever lived on Earth is absurd.

pHaestus has made his point. You tell him he is wrong. There's not much I can say beyond that: If you ask for evidence, and someone well-versed in biology gives you evidence, and you say "No" without further explanation, there's nothing else that can be done. Few people will bother arguing with you if you respond to evidence against your argument with categorical dismissal.

I have enough trust in biologists that they are aware of skin and internal organs, and that animals have them. Information about hide, feathers, scales, etc. can be and often are preserved in fossil remains. Biologists, like all scientists, must make logical theories, and these theories must stand up to peer review. Those that don't are discounted. People who fabricate evidence are found, usually very quickly. Scientists, like anyone else with a job, usually know what they are doing.

What supposition? That things live? That things die? That things mutate? That things reproduce? Which one of these is fundamentally incorrect?

The one holding an arrogant, mocking opinion of the other side usually is not doing well in a debate.

I still stand by my observation that natural selection is a much older and much more studied topic in science than turbulence, or certain advanced topics in optics, or special or general relativity, or quantum mechanics, or chaos mathematics. Painting it as a silly or renagade branch of scientists is, quite simply, wrong.

The theory does not hang off it. A single step missing does not make the entire theory invalid, no more than a single missing note makes a symphony not a symphony. Yes, it's fascinating to try to come up with possible explanations. I don't know which ones are currently posed, as I am not well-read in current biological publications.

Do you understand? Evolution is a theory that makes predictable events. You pick a certain event that is not predictable, and say that the fact evolution does not predict it disproves evolution. It's an invalid argument: it is irrelevant to the truth or falsity of evolution whether a single organism, chosen at random, can have its evolutionary geneology drawn to a previous ancestor, even if that organism is very important, because such a thing requires biologists to know the full genotype, phenotype, livespan, etc. of every single animal ever born since the existence of the Earth - it's a computational impossibility.

Alchemy

If not coded into the genes, how did it happen? Chance? Can immunity be taught?:rolleyes:


Anyway.....


I started this thread to get one premise across: Faith (in the philosophical sense) != Knowledge. It has fallen into a debate on evolution. Both sides (with some exceptions), though, seem to have accepted certain aspects of the argument on Faith on one level or another. I wish to "bring it back to Earth", if you will.

This is a relatively precise illustration of religious use of Faith. If you believe, you can be led.


How were these "higher understandings" derived? Are men so ignorant and naive that we need external guidance for all time?

Oh, I guess so. :rolleyes:

This is an example of how most religions view man. Only the "enlightened" have any right or ability to guide men's lives. A few examples of this in action would be Plato's Republic, medieval Europe, or any two-bit dictatorship of the 20th century.

The Bible offers no proof of anything.

It is an elementary tenet of logic that he who makes the assertion has the burden of proof of that assertion. The fact that a thing cannot be disproven proves nothing. It becomes a hypothesis. Add to this the predilection of the faithful to regard any non-provably factual element of the Bible as allegorical or symbolic. This allows something to be "interpreted" to mean anything. You might as well get spiritual guidance from Jean Dixon's horoscopes.

Bob

Children get immunities (although temporary) from their mother in the womb and then from breastfeeding after birth. I was merely pointing that out to explain why that wasn't the case in the insect examples that were summarily dismissed.