Which came first? plants or animals?

[PsychoSarah]

Dear PS, Thanks for your opinion. If you are correct, No problem, but IF you are wrong, and you wake up at the Judgment, it will be too late to change your mind. IF I, as a Christian, am wrong, NO problem. God Bless you.

In Love,
Aman

Sure there is, you might be facing Allah instead, we can both be wrong. Even if we could prove that a deity must exist, there is no way to be sure which one it is. It could be one which has no religious following or had one for a religion that died out, and to say it could only be Yahweh (YHWH) shows bias, for if you can so easily disregard other possible deities without real reason, why can't anyone else do the same with Yahweh (YHWH). Our best hope is that if there is a deity that we aren't punished in the afterlife just for not believing, otherwise we both might be seeing each other in Tartarus, or be reborn as cockroaches, or wander the earth aimlessly causing the suffering of living people, etc.

Plus, if there isn't an afterlife, that means nonexistence, which I view as the worst fate of all, so I cross my fingers hoping that I am wrong. Remember, belief doesn't care about what people like or want, belief is what you feel to be true, and that truth can hurt.

 

[EternalDragon]

No, I said that the change from other apes to man involve simply natural selection and variation. Don't quote out of context. And what didn't you understand about that?

Sure I can. It is not just similarities, but the pattern of similarities as you have been told.

There are no significant differences between other apes and humans. In fact some of the other apes are closer to us than they are to other apes, specifically bonobos and chimpanzees. The fact that they are close to us than they are to others shows that not only are we apes but that we had a common ancestor.

Of course they are "close to us". Anyone with eyes can see that their body designs are very similar to ours. So naturally you will find many similarities genetically. So with all you have said you still only have....similarities.

Similarities are evidence of only one thing. Similarities.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Of course they are "close to us". Anyone with eyes can see that their body designs are very similar to ours. So naturally you will find many similarities genetically. So with all you have said you still only have....similarities.

Similarities are evidence of only one thing. Similarities.

Wrong it is not just "similarities". We can also see that we are related by our genes. Their genes are extremely close to ours. What do we see in related species? Genes that are almost identical. We are not quite close enough to breed with chimps anymore, or at least it is so believed. There are rumors of a Soviet attempt to breed humans and chimps but it is not well supported.


E.D. you are not fooling anyone with your "ostrich" defense.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Wrong it is not just "similarities". We can also see that we are related by our genes. Their genes are extremely close to ours. What do we see in related species? Genes that are almost identical. We are not quite close enough to breed with chimps anymore, or at least it is so believed. There are rumors of a Soviet attempt to breed humans and chimps but it is not well supported.


E.D. you are not fooling anyone with your "ostrich" defense.

There are records of that experiment (human and chimp breeding) and it failed, because the sex cells of humans and chimps don't recognize each other as sex cells and won't merge.

 

[Subduction Zone]

There are records of that experiment (human and chimp breeding) and it failed, because the sex cells of humans and chimps don't recognize each other as sex cells and won't merge.

Links please. I have seen some claims but they looked rather slanderous, back from the cold war days.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Links please. I have seen some claims but they looked rather slanderous, back from the cold war days.

Blasts from the past: The Soviet ape-man scandal - life - 23 August 2008 - New Scientist from 2008

Wow, it is hard to find unbiased sites for this, what a lot of crappy sites.

Anyways though, experiment records were released in the 1990s. Gosh, having trouble tracking down those records though, thanks to all the fringe crap sites.

There are a couple of documentaries you could look up too.

 

[SkyWriting]

Wrong it is not just "similarities". We can also see that we are related by our genes. Their genes are extremely close to ours. What do we see in related species? Genes that are almost identical. We are not quite close enough to breed with chimps anymore, or at least it is so believed. There are rumors of a Soviet attempt to breed humans and chimps but it is not well supported.


E.D. you are not fooling anyone with your "ostrich" defense.

Genes are structural in nature. Similar functions and shapes may have similar genes. This does not prove common origins.

 

[Dizredux]

Similar functions and shapes may have similar genes. This does not prove common origins.

I gotta wonder how many times have you had it explained to you that science does not do "proof"? No matter how many times, it doesn't seem to slow you down any. I guess you feel you have a point and you are not going to let go of it no matter what.

In any case, it is not the similarities that are the evidence but that they appear in parallel nested hierarchies in both morphology and genetics. At the current time, this is best explained by common descent and some would say that the model of common descent is the only one that can accurately explain the pattern of diversity of life as we know it.

You may not like it but if you want to mount a challenge then provide another way of handling the data and making good predictions based on your model. Again, right now, design does not do the job. If you think it does, then show the successful predictions, show how they follow logically out of design and how the model of common descent cannot handle them.


If you can do this then you will be well on your way to supporting design as a factor in explaining why the diversity of life is as we know it.

I await your work with great interest. Being able to detect and validate design to explain the diversity of life would make faith a lot simpler.


Dizredux

 

[Gracchus]

Genes are structural in nature. Similar functions and shapes may have similar genes. This does not prove common origins.

And what about the similarities of non-coding DNA? For instance, endogenous retroviruses can insert themselves at random in chromosomes. Why would the same insertions occur at exactly the same places on the chromosomes of chimps and humans. And some occur at the same places in chromosomes of gorillas, chimps and humans.

Strangely enough though, we don't find identical retro-viral insertions in humans and gorillas if they are not also found in chimps. So, some retro-viral insertions occurred in the common ancestor of gorillas, chimps and humans, and some occurred later in the common ancestor of chimps and humans.

If these meaningless retro-viral insertions are evidence of common ancestry, as they must be, if not incredible coincidence, then gorillas, chimps and humans are descended from a common ancestor, and chimps and humans diverged from gorillas later. So it is not just the structure, or the physiology that point to common ancestry, it is also the non-coding parts of the chromosomes.

I realize this information is uncomfortable. You will deny it. You will demand that I "prove" it. You will make up all sorts of fantastical and complicated reasons why we find the facts we do, for which we can provide simple explanations, that you, however, are unwilling to accept.

If pressed too hard with the falsity of their delusions, schizophrenics will become combative, or retreat into catatonia. Or they might even forget the conversation ever took place. I have personally observed all those reactions in delusional schizophrenics confronted with their obvious nonsense.

Real problems won't be solved by re-arranging your fantasies. The ship is sinking and religious people will help with neither the pumps nor the lifeboats. They're in the chapel singing "Nearer, My God, To Thee".

 

[TLK Valentine]

Dear PS, Thanks for your opinion. If you are correct, No problem, but IF you are wrong, and you wake up at the Judgment, it will be too late to change your mind. IF I, as a Christian, am wrong, NO problem. God Bless you.

In Love,
Aman

Is that all that your faith is to you -- a risk/reward scheme?

 

[Gracchus]

Is that all that your faith is to you -- a risk/reward scheme?

Religion provides lots of benefits!

For one thing, you demonstrate that you belong with the group by professing nonsense. That is less painful than a gang tattoo and easier to change when conditions change.

 

[Kylie]

Dear PS, Thanks for your opinion. If you are correct, No problem, but IF you are wrong, and you wake up at the Judgment, it will be too late to change your mind. IF I, as a Christian, am wrong, NO problem. God Bless you.

In Love,
Aman

Pascal's wager? Seriously?

 

[TLK Valentine]

Pascal's wager? Seriously?

Any belief system founded on Pascal's Wager is one founded on cowardice.

Just one more indication concerning the level of contempt religious people hold for the non-religious.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Blasts from the past: The Soviet ape-man scandal - life - 23 August 2008 - New Scientist from 2008

Wow, it is hard to find unbiased sites for this, what a lot of crappy sites.

Anyways though, experiment records were released in the 1990s. Gosh, having trouble tracking down those records though, thanks to all the fringe crap sites.

There are a couple of documentaries you could look up too.

Thank you Sarah, I will read it. I grew up in the 60's and 70's and at that time we were just a tad prejudiced against the Soviet Union. Perhaps it was with good cause. They were not angels. But stories like this one were often grossly exaggerated.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Interesting read. It seems that their choices of apes was incredibly bad. The only ape species mentioned was that of orangutans. Of chimps, bonoboa, gorillas and orangutans we are most distantly related to orangutans.

One cannot help but to wonder what would have happened if they tried chimpanzees.

It is not an experiment I see happening today.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Interesting read. It seems that their choices of apes was incredibly bad. The only ape species mentioned was that of orangutans. Of chimps, bonoboa, gorillas and orangutans we are most distantly related to orangutans.

One cannot help but to wonder what would have happened if they tried chimpanzees.

It is not an experiment I see happening today.

Well no kidding, it would be atrocious. Pretty sure purposely trying to cross humans with anything else would break several ethics laws.

 

[EternalDragon]

Wrong it is not just "similarities". We can also see that we are related by our genes. Their genes are extremely close to ours. What do we see in related species? Genes that are almost identical. We are not quite close enough to breed with chimps anymore, or at least it is so believed. There are rumors of a Soviet attempt to breed humans and chimps but it is not well supported.


E.D. you are not fooling anyone with your "ostrich" defense.

You are stretching the words "extremely" and "almost" quite a bit there.

Your attempts at bullying me to believe something won't work.

 

[Loudmouth]

You are stretching the words "extremely" and "almost" quite a bit there.

Your attempts at bullying me to believe something won't work.

Only a creationist would accuse someone of bullying for merely showing them the facts.

 

[Kylie]

You are stretching the words "extremely" and "almost" quite a bit there.

Your attempts at bullying me to believe something won't work.

There is very little stretching. We can look at the actual genes and see for ourselves how similar they are. You can say they aren't similar if you want, but the evidence from the real world shows that such a claim is just plain wrong.

 

[Seipai]

You are stretching the words "extremely" and "almost" quite a bit there.

Your attempts at bullying me to believe something won't work.

No, he is quite correct. Humans' DNA fits in a nested hierarchy of relationship with other mammals and our DNA is extremely close to that of chimpanzees and bonobos. Just a couple of percentage points worth of difference. We are just a little bit less related to gorillas and even more distant from orangutans.


You could try to debunk his claim, I don't think you will have any luck.