Big contradictions in the evolution theory

[Promethean]

I think this needs to be pointed out. I'm willing to bet that a majority of non-creationists here still either have read or are reading the bible and understand it's context --

A survey by the Pew Research Center confirms this.

 

[Seamus Riley]

so...my earlier post begs the question, "should someone fully read an 11 page thread before responding at all to it or some part of it?" if not, "should someone start a new topic if their objective is not to attack the arguments themselves as much as the way they're presented?" all praise for the help in dissemination of zombie gifs aside, i do apologize for any false alarms raised to those who thought they were gonna read someones attempt to say the theory of evolution is contradictory. but i did try to rectify this with a quick follow up after finishing the thread. you have to admit, the first two pages were quite long and i hadn't known most of the rest could've been easily zipped through.

Freodin, i think i was very clear in what i was judging, i don't think it could be said i drew my conclusions from a few scraps of text and while i think i could make the argument that the aging of the thread doesn't really nullify my claims in the least, i think i could make an even stronger case that some of the freshest responses illustrate my point beautifully. observe:

(oh, and before i forget, i did like most everything else you said)

Hespera postulates that creationists are incapable of admitting wrong or even admitting any sort of fallibility because she's never seen it. now, don't go invoking poe's law on me because i do see the sarcasm of the statement, but we can also agree that Hespera is not being entirely facetious either, correct?

and yet, can anyone here honestly say they have never heard one of the most important tenets of christianity that is that they must first admit they are sinners? i've heard many of them even say they can do no good without god. and no, i do not assume all christians are creationists or vice versa, but i don't have to prove that, only that at least one creationist can admit they're wrong. i think Hespera's sentiment is not only ridiculous, but dishonest.

knowledgeispower suggests categorically that creationists cannot understand the theory of evolution. this is very simply a STUPID thing to say and if i wanted to learn about evolution, creation theories or anything scientific or even pseudoscientific, i would not be attracted to the input of people who make such insipid sweeping claims.

Delphiki, how does one qualify understanding the context of the bible better than someone else? i'm not challenging the validity of the claim, but the means of which such a thing can be tested. Promethean, perhaps you could help me understand how this survey was able to prove that the context of the bible was better understood by non-creationists.

Delph, your characterization of creationist reaction to the theory of evolution is pretty accurate for the most part in my experience. but i think my suggestion about instruction by insult can be highlighted even more so for this reason. the idea that "well, they're too stupid to understand, so we just like to bash them as it pleases us" sounds neither smart nor scientific and i wouldn't conclude someone like that was trying to help me find any truth. i realize you aren't the one who defended use of insult, but that someone else had asked "so what is left?" in answer to my question about why there is this need to personally crush those who question science. (and btw, science has made some of its best advances by those who questioned it)(ok, carico will probably not make one of those advances).

final suggestion, perhaps someone who better understands the bible contextually should be sufficiently equipped to relate well to christians and/or creationists.

 

[Delphiki]

Well, it's not a matter of slight differences in the way the bible is interpreted -- if you take a minute to look around at some other posts, some users will quote passages from the bible which are completely irrelevant to whatever conversation they are involved in. It would be a bit like if we were debating about socialized health care and I decided to quote a book on how to breed parakeets to support whatever argument I was trying to make.

An example of this is how the book of Genesis clearly describes divine creation. Normally the debate among Christians is whether it's meant to be taken allegorically or literally. Some people on this forum (at least one that I can think of), however, somehow interpret it as Adam being the first real human, with black people being evolved from the animals created before hand, and Noah's ark having TARDIS-like properties.... We even have a user that thinks the bible scientifically explains that the laws in our universe involving time, gravity, mass, and energy, as they are now were completely different a few thousand years ago, or even today beyond Pluto, or even beneath the earth's crust.

How do we judge which interpretation is correct? I'm not sure what the words for it are as I'm not a literary major, but, I think it's easy to figure out. Which of the three interpretations is the least likely interpretation of the sentence below?

"The firey cat rocketed out from beneath the bushes."
1) An orange feline quickly left the vicinity of a shrubbery.
2) A burning cat, left the bushes, literally propelled by burning rocket fuel.
3) Potatoes can be prepared using any number of means including by boiling, frying, and baking.

 

[Ar Cosc]

Interesting to see ring species brought up. I haven't seen them used to blow a creationist out of the water in a while.

 

[Seamus Riley]

Delphiki, thanks for your reply, but this is not the claim that you originally made which i addressed.

To clarify, i wasn't asking about any one (or two) particular user who may have wild ideas, but this majority you spoke of before and now for some reason seem to allude to only two.

 

[Delphiki]

Delphiki, thanks for your reply, but this is not the claim that you originally made which i addressed.

To clarify, i wasn't asking about any one (or two) particular user who may have wild ideas, but this majority you spoke of before and now for some reason seem to allude to only two.

I was responding to your question of what method would be used to determine the "correct" interpretation of the bible. My answer is that I'm unaware of one, but there is still be a point at which common sense should prevail.

Also:

final suggestion, perhaps someone who better understands the bible contextually should be sufficiently equipped to relate well to christians and/or creationists.

I'd like to ask you the same question you asked me:

How does one qualify understanding the context of the bible better than someone else?


You'll find there's a lot of disagreement to even the answer of your question as well... Probably about as many different answers as there are sects of Christianity.... Oh, and Judaism.

If you want my opinion, a secular theologian is the best authority for understanding the bible in proper context. Someone like this guy for example:
http://www.youtube.com/user/ItsTheSuperFly#p/a/u/2/4HX1_wmWgjM

 

[Seamus Riley]

I'm not the one making the claim that i can better interpret the bible...you suggested this. therefore, read my "final suggestion" thusly: if you are better at understanding the bible contextually, perhaps you are better able to appeal to creationists intellectually and shouldn't be suffering from this frustration you often express.

saying a secular theologian is the best authority for understanding the bible in proper context is little different than saying an american linguistics professor is the best authority on colloquial russian, and not a russian living in russia.

edit: is there a particular video you recommend by the user you linked? i'd like to check him out, but not necessarily all of them. is there a particularly strong one you like? thanks.

 

[LittleLambofJesus]

Interesting to see ring species brought up. I haven't seen them used to blow a creationist out of the water in a while.

Pardon my ignorance, but what do you mean by "ring species"

 

[Ar Cosc]

Pardon my ignorance, but what do you mean by "ring species"

They're a collection of related species, some of which can breed with each other, and some of which can't. So say there are four types of monkeys living in a jungle, from north to south, we'll call them A, B, C, and D. The monkeys were originally all the exact same species, but they don't move around a lot, so they only have contact with the nearest groups of monkeys. So A and B can still interbreed, B and C can interbreed, C and D can interbreed, but a monkey from group A wouldn't be able to produce fertile offspring with a monkey from group C, or any sort of offspring with a monkey from group D.

If there was a forest fire, killing all of the B and C monkeys, A and D would be two distinct and separate species, which would not be able to breed with one another at all.

There are several examples of ring species occurring in the wild, showing that it's perfectly possible for small changes to gradually accumulate, and eventually result in two separate species.

(Sourced mainly from Ring species - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

I hope I've made that clear!

 

[Skaloop]

Pardon my ignorance, but what do you mean by "ring species"

They're little regions of, essentially, evolution in action.

Here's the wiki: Ring species - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Basically, you have a species of animal whose population forms a ring around a natural barrier (like a lake). The ones on the east side cannot interbreed with the ones on the west side. But the ones on the east side can interbreed with the ones on the south-east side. And them with the ones on the south side. And them with the ones on the south-west side. And them with the ones on the west side. So while east cannot interbreed with west, each of them can interbreed with the ones close to them, forming a chain where each can interbreed with its neighbours, but cannot interbreed with the individuals opposite it.

 

[MoonLancer]

I'm not the one making the claim that i can better interpret the bible...you suggested this. therefore, read my "final suggestion" thusly: if you are better at understanding the bible contextually, perhaps you are better able to appeal to creationists intellectually and shouldn't be suffering from this frustration you often express.

saying a secular theologian is the best authority for understanding the bible in proper context is little different than saying an american linguistics professor is the best authority on colloquial russian, and not a russian living in russia.

edit: is there a particular video you recommend by the user you linked? i'd like to check him out, but not necessarily all of them. is there a particularly strong one you like? thanks.

Actually its more like a professor of English who speaks English as a second language but does it better then someone who speaks it as a first language but failed English

 

[Seamus Riley]

Actually its more like a professor of English who speaks English as a second language but does it better then someone who speaks it as a first language but failed English

Actually, my point was not that the russian living in russia of my analogy must inherently understand russian better than someone for whom russian is a second language. that would've smacked of straw man. my point was that on a case by case basis, yes the american speaker of russian might be better, but how can Delphiki make a blanket statement like "the best authority..." using his analogy?

 

[driewerf]

POE'S LAW:

Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is uttrerly impossible to parody a Creationist in such a way that someone won't mistake for the genuine article.

Is this the moment when Poe's Law was stated?

 

[Seamus Riley]

Is this the moment when Poe's Law was stated?

yes, but you can plug anything into the statement, even evolution biologist. it's merely a statement on how great the number of people there are communicating over the internet...eventually someone is going to miss your sarcasm. just like goshwin's law isn't really a law, but that if you do something an infinite number of times in a slightly different way, you can expect a certain result...his example, that someone will invoke hitler eventually.

 

[driewerf]

im only two pages into reading this thread and may take a while to finish it. i'm sure by then i'll have lots to comment on or respond to, but i wanted to start now with this question: do i HAVE to be an a-hole to be a proponent of evolution? i'm very interested in evolution theory, but it appears that every response so far to the original poster's question has been met with venomous ridicule and claims that the questioner couldn't possibly have the intelligence to understand the replies that are still, i suppose begrudgingly given. now, i want to be sure on this because if i become a defender of evolution i don't want to do it the wrong way: is it absolutely important that i step on people with their very innocent questions? thanks in advance for what will certainly prove to be interesting responses and i'll get back to reading the rest of the thread.

Consider Carico's attitude on this forum:
EvC Forum: Nuggin & Carico - Evolution Explained

 

[Seamus Riley]

mmmm, im tired...and i'd rather not read more from her if i can avoid it. i will (later) if you really want me to and have a reason for me to do so, but i think however irritating she may've been here or wherever she may troll, my points remain valid.

 

[Freodin]

mmmm, im tired...and i'd rather not read more from her if i can avoid it. i will (later) if you really want me to and have a reason for me to do so, but i think however irritating she may've been here or wherever she may troll, my points remain valid.

Oh, I agree that your point are valid... but at some point you stop caring about "valid" and just want to vent your frustration.

 

[walkingxshadow]

there were A LOT of posts so i only read the original statement. please forgive if i repeat some things that have already been stated. im a biochem student in college so i have a little authority on this subject.

evolution is a thing. is does exist. i see so many christians dismiss is outright because that is what their parents did. i also see them dismiss it because they think its evil but really have no idea what it is or what it means. and it makes me so angry! but ill try to keep it to straight facts.

evolution is best define as gradual change over time. it is slow....horrendously slow. you arent going to go from pig to flying pig in one generation. it would likely take millions. all changes in a species are brought about by random mutation in the genome of the parent organism. evolution is not purpose oriented or need oriented. meaning there is no real end product in mind and no amount of need will cause new traits to appear. lamarckian inheritance told us that a giraffes necks were so long because over generations of stretching their necks up toward the food sources that they eventually acquired long necks. um no. genetics dont work that way. you cant have what isnt already there. lets say that you some how found a way to graph wings onto a pig. and then you bred it with another pig you graphed wings onto. none of the offspring would have wings because wings arent part of their genome.

changes in a species come about randomly and without meaning. if the change is beneficial to the organism it will be more competitive for food and mates therefore passing on this benefical trait to the next generation. and so on and so forth until it is a full fledged species and not just single anomaly. its is strictly survival of the fittest in the animal world. this strong live to pass on their genes and the weak die and are culled from the gene pool. this is very much like what man did to wolves and larger feral cat species to produce domesticated dogs and cats. man saw the traits they wanted in a certain dog or cat and bred specifically for those traits. and between inbreeding and breeding with other species mutations occured that the breeders liked along with selection for other desirable traits. we forced evolution. but dont you love your dogs and cats? they are the results of the understanding of inheritance. so if you reject evolution you had better not have a dog or cat.

even the human race has evolved from bible times. we are considerably taller than bible times ppl. because apparently tallness is an attractive trait looked for by women so thats who they have children with. goliath was only only actually about 7 feet tall. and even then he more then likely had some sort or pituitary disorder. this whole 9 feet idea comes from mistranslation and exaggeration. look it up. if he was really nine feet tall he would have had horrible health problems and never been a warrior. the average person then was only about 5 ish feet(or less, i cant remember the exact number) tall. so to them he would have looked like a giant. but all we see today is a tall man that probally plays basketball. not a giant. and the whole 6 fingers and toes thing is called polydactlyly. it is a dominant trait that runs in families. if one parent had it you will too. it can also arise from mutation in other various genes randomly without the parent having to have it. but its usually just a nub and not a fully formed digit. polydactlyly still around today. most ppl just have the extra digits removed or play a ridiculous piano :]

and there arent contradictions in the evolutionary theory. its pretty darn accurate and succinct. couple darwinian inheritance with mendelian genetics and you have a beautiful thing! as well as the basis for all modern biological science. dont get me wrong. im not saying we evolved from apes. God could have done it that way if he had wanted. but who really knows. none of us were there. so its pointless to argue. but i personally see the garden of eden as a starting point anything after that is fair game. darwin was a cool guy. he did amazing things for the scientific community. but he has been ostracized and demonized by the religious community because of closed minds and the refusal to accept anything that is not specifically written in the bible. does the bible tell how to make planes fly? no? so why then arent planes a thing of the devil? tvs? movies? cars? is there any science mentioned in the bible at all? how bout math? calculus? the bible is the inspired word of God. but he revealed himself to its authors in ways their, for lack of a better term, primitive minds could understand. they would not have understood any of the science so God just didnt tell them because it was not important for them at that time.

so take it for what you will. but dont judge what you dont know anything about. dont just blindly make accusations that you heard form you parents or friends. think for yourself. draw your own conclusions. take a class if youre really that concerned. be your own person and believe only what you want to believe. but blindly following someone or something is not acceptable or smart at all. if you follow blindly you might find yourself blindly following off the edge of a cliff. God gave us the amazing minds we have. so why not use them.

 

[Jro]

evolution is best define as gradual change over time. it is slow....horrendously slow. you arent going to go from pig to flying pig in one generation. it would likely take millions. all changes in a species are brought about by random mutation in the genome of the parent organism.

It can actually be fairly quick. We've seen the origin of several species in that past couple hundred years and significant morphological changes can occur in relatively short order: Lizards Rapidly Evolve After Introduction to Island

 

[walkingxshadow]

thats another one of those forced evolution type things. the lizard got moved and had to adapt quickly or die. and even then it didnt happen over night. they were transplanted back in 1971. 40 years. even then that is several hundred generations of lizard later. i should have clarified: when there are no major environmental changes and the organism is just going about its day to day it is awfully slow. but when something drastic changes in its environment the species has to adapt or die.