Debate #1: Is Evolution science or not?

[Ryal Kane]

Hi Folks,

I'm new around here but thought I'd wade in...

I grew up in a non-religious home, attended public shooling and got a great education in evolution!! I believed in evolution absolutely all my life (until 18 months ago). My science teachers in high school taught me all about the big bang, life emerging from primordial soup, simple cells, mutation, natural selection, Darwin - everything!! and it sounded logical and real - I believed.

Through Uni I even argued with some Christian friends about evolution v's creation and my friends, unfortunately, didn't have the info to counter me. So I thought all their religious stuff was just fantasy.

Then 18 months ago I met a fellow work collegue who I got to know and admire. Later I 'discovered' that he believed in God!! Now his good nature, dedication, and very high intelligence (he has a degree in IT - like me, and a degree in electrical engineering) completely threw me. Here was a person of scientific background who believed differently to me.

This spurred me to action - I started reading christian literature and creationist arguments (to see if I could debunk them and keep to my beliefs). You know what? - as I read, the threads of evolution fell apart so quickly that a life time of belief was undone in weeks.

There is so much evidence against evolution, and for creation. Some of the more compelling areas that impacted me are:

- What external force or 'trigger' started the big bang or creation?
- There are so many universal constants (I think more than 100), like the force of gravity, charge of an electron, speed of expansion of the universe etc etc that have to be 'just right' to allow life to exist.
- The mathematical probability of atoms arranging themselves by pure chance to create the building blocks of life are by mathematical standards so infinitely small as to be close to zero.
- What caused these building blocks to arrange themselves into organic matter? and what sparked life in them?
- The first simple cells to 'evolve' are not simple at all. They contain membranes, nuclei, means for reproduction etc etc - how would this spontaneously form?
- So many parts of animals cannot be explained by evolution ie the Eye. How did it evolve? Every part must be present in order for the organ to function ie iris, retina, pupil, nerves, blood vessels etc etc.
- Even Darwin on his deathbed still held the view that he could not account for how something so complex as the human eye could ever evolve.
- Complete lack of fossil evidence for any transitionary forms between species - which would have to exist in order for evolution to occur.

Anyway this is probably only a small part of the type of information that I am now exporing. However I now have total faith in creation and an intelligent designer - God.

I'd welcome any feedback or alternate views.
Geoff

Most of those are covered here
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/

You're reading creationist arguements but are you looking for the explanations. Many creationist sources are highly biased and deliberately conceal counter arguements.

You're also equating christianity with creationism which it is not. Most christians believe that evolution is the means that god created life.
Even if the above points were completely correct, they could easily be csolved by means of a god dictating them.

Check out the above list. It is very thorough and should cover most of your problems. Anything else that still problems you feel free to bring it up on the boards.

Ryal Kane

 

[Tomk80]

Hi Folks,

I'm new around here but thought I'd wade in...

I grew up in a non-religious home, attended public shooling and got a great education in evolution!! I believed in evolution absolutely all my life (until 18 months ago). My science teachers in high school taught me all about the big bang, life emerging from primordial soup, simple cells, mutation, natural selection, Darwin - everything!! and it sounded logical and real - I believed.

Through Uni I even argued with some Christian friends about evolution v's creation and my friends, unfortunately, didn't have the info to counter me. So I thought all their religious stuff was just fantasy.

Then 18 months ago I met a fellow work collegue who I got to know and admire. Later I 'discovered' that he believed in God!! Now his good nature, dedication, and very high intelligence (he has a degree in IT - like me, and a degree in electrical engineering) completely threw me. Here was a person of scientific background who believed differently to me.

This spurred me to action - I started reading christian literature and creationist arguments (to see if I could debunk them and keep to my beliefs). You know what? - as I read, the threads of evolution fell apart so quickly that a life time of belief was undone in weeks.

There is so much evidence against evolution, and for creation. Some of the more compelling areas that impacted me are:

Interesting. Let's see if we can work on some of the problems and see whether they really are problems. I'll give some off-hand answers to your questions. If there are any you find particularly interesting and want to pursue further, we can do that here or in a new thread.

- What external force or 'trigger' started the big bang or creation?

We don't know. We don't know what triggered the big bang or what happened in the first moments of its occurrence.
Note two things with this. First, not knowing something is not an argument for or against a model. Second, biological evolution is not the same as the big bang, you should take care not to conflate different models into a big model if they aren't related.

- There are so many universal constants (I think more than 100), like the force of gravity, charge of an electron, speed of expansion of the universe etc etc that have to be 'just right' to allow life to exist.

If they wouldn't have been right, we wouldn't have been here to talk about it. That they are 'just right' gives us no insight in why they are 'just right'. You are implicitly arguing that they are so because they have to sustain life, but that is putting the cart before the horse.

- The mathematical probability of atoms arranging themselves by pure chance to create the building blocks of life are by mathematical standards so infinitely small as to be close to zero.

You are talking about abiogenesis here, which again is seperate from biological evolution.
Your probability calculations have a series of problems. The first is that currrent models of abiogenesis (which are still incomplete) are dependent on chemistry. Given the right conditions, chemical reactions have a chance of 1 of occurring. If these models are right, your argument is very, very wrong.
Furthermore, I have yet to see a calculation of this probability that is anywhere near believable.

- What caused these building blocks to arrange themselves into organic matter? and what sparked life in them?

Again, this is abiogenesis, not evolution. Do a search on it.

- The first simple cells to 'evolve' are not simple at all. They contain membranes, nuclei, means for reproduction etc etc - how would this spontaneously form?

Same as above.

- So many parts of animals cannot be explained by evolution ie the Eye. How did it evolve? Every part must be present in order for the organ to function ie iris, retina, pupil, nerves, blood vessels etc etc.

This is demonstrably untrue. There are a lot of 'half' eyes around in nature. Not all parts have to be around to produce something which helps the organism survive.

- Even Darwin on his deathbed still held the view that he could not account for how something so complex as the human eye could ever evolve.

Which is no argument at all.

- Complete lack of fossil evidence for any transitionary forms between species - which would have to exist in order for evolution to occur.

There is plenty of fossil evidence of transitory forms. Why don't you first tell us what a transitionary form should look like, so we can look whether they exist after you give what you are looking for.

Anyway this is probably only a small part of the type of information that I am now exporing. However I now have total faith in creation and an intelligent designer - God.

I'd welcome any feedback or alternate views.
Geoff

I hope you keep in mind that this intelligent designer might have used evolution as a design tool. By the use of genetic algorithms, we do exactly the same.

 

[Jet Black]

- What external force or 'trigger' started the big bang or creation?

fact of thae matter is that we do not know. It could have been God. Alot of Christian scientists think it is. THere are problems with this argument though, such as we simply do not understand the BB enough to comment on it. Not that this has anything to do with evolution.

- There are so many universal constants (I think more than 100), like the force of gravity, charge of an electron, speed of expansion of the universe etc etc that have to be 'just right' to allow life to exist.

2 things here. we do not know that these things are independent from one another. secondly, given that life exists, that is how we have to find all these things, so it does not really say anything either way.

- The mathematical probability of atoms arranging themselves by pure chance to create the building blocks of life are by mathematical standards so infinitely small as to be close to zero.

terrible terrible argument, and long dealt with.
http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/The_odds_of_life_forming_are_incredibly_small

- What caused these building blocks to arrange themselves into organic matter?

chemistry. it happens all the time

and what sparked life in them?

again, chemistry. see next answer.

- The first simple cells to 'evolve' are not simple at all. They contain membranes, nuclei, means for reproduction etc etc - how would this spontaneously form?

great answer here, it didn'T. It is an often touted creationist claim that life mist have begun spontaneously from a primordial cell, when this is simply not the case, simple replicators exist, and we know it - we have seen them. naked replicators would have been the first step along the route of abiogenesis, and the cell would be the end result of a process.

- So many parts of animals cannot be explained by evolution ie the Eye. How did it evolve? Every part must be present in order for the organ to function ie iris, retina, pupil, nerves, blood vessels etc etc.

first of all this is wrong. there are many "eyes" that do not have these complex features and they are all fully functional. our ancestors would have had these fully formed but less complex versions.

- Even Darwin on his deathbed still held the view that he could not account for how something so complex as the human eye could ever evolve.

total nonsense actually. In fact he went into the evolution of the eye in some detail immediately after the paragraph in which he proposed his problem. one has to remember the writing style of victorians, it'S quite different to now. tell me, have you ever read Origins?

- Complete lack of fossil evidence for any transitionary forms between species - which would have to exist in order for evolution to occur.

again wrong. even a small amount of research would demonstrate that this is wrong.

Anyway this is probably only a small part of the type of information that I am now exporing. However I now have total faith in creation and an intelligent designer - God.

I'd welcome any feedback or alternate views.
Geoff

well sorry, but your research amounts to naught. please look at alternate evolutionary views. I recommend www.talkorigins.org www.evowiki.org and www.pandasthumb.org as three excellent sources of information.

apologies if my replies have been somewhat flippant, if you want to explore any particular one in detail then I am willing to do so, but I don't provide in depth replies to lists anymore.

 

[GeoffCC]

Thanks Ryal, Tom.

It will take me a few days to research the further links you have provided. I'll come back with further analysis if necessary.

Can I ask what your personal belief is in terms of "what extent did God have in creation?, ie how much influence did he exert and at what stage/s?".

Also how much of the bible do you believe is fact and how much is fables?

I suppose both of these questions assume you believe in God.

Cheers,
Geoff

 

[Tomk80]

Thanks Ryal, Tom.

It will take me a few days to research the further links you have provided. I'll come back with further analysis if necessary.

Your welcome, and take your time

Can I ask what your personal belief is in terms of "what extent did God have in creation?, ie how much influence did he exert and at what stage/s?".

I am agnostic, hinging on atheist. I do not think God exerted much influence in creation, if He exists at all. He might have had a hand in starting the big bang, for example. On the other hand, he might not have.

Also how much of the bible do you believe is fact and how much is fables?

I think it is hard to tell, really. You see, I think there is plenty of evidence to assume that ancient people did not treat history the same way we did. If you look at the way the romans handled history, you'll see that a literal history like we are used to was not always that interesting to them. For example, when handling lineages they often had no problem to connect themselves with a God through their lineage.
Myths in a number of cultures are very important and used to convey truths deeper than the superficial meaning of the myth.

I think that treating the bible as literal history ignores the way ancient people looked at writing history and therefore is erronous. How much of the bible is fable/myth versus literal history then becomes hard to tell, because most stories will contain both.

I suppose both of these questions assume you believe in God.

Cheers,
Geoff

Probably. I hope my answers are useful to you anyway.

 

[thirsty]

How incredibly arrogant.

It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know.
--Henry David Thoreau

You might as well be dead if you are too full of your own visions of wisdom to continue learning.

Jesus sais He is the way,the truth and the life. Call it what you want.
An athiest calling some one arrogant. Now I have truly heard it all.

 

[thirsty]

Because you're wrong?

Prove it.

 

[Douglaangu v2.0]

Prove it.

set var "earthage" = 4500000000
if earthage = >6000 then
                         msgbox"Creationism False, old earth true"
                   elseif earthage = <10000 then
                          msgbox"ERROR, ERROR DATA MISINTERPRETATION DETECTED ABORT ABORT"
end if

Seems pretty clear to me.

 

[thirsty]

set var "earthage" = 4500000000
if earthage = >6000 then
msgbox"Creationism False, old earth true"
elseif earthage = <10000 then
msgbox"ERROR, ERROR DATA MISINTERPRETATION DETECTED ABORT ABORT"
end if

Seems pretty clear to me.

Thats proof?

 

[Douglaangu v2.0]

Thats proof?

Is there something wrong with it?

It has the correct facts: The earth is 4.5 billion years old.
It has the correct arugments: For creationism to be correct, the earth must be less than 10'000 years old.

Its very straight foward.

 

[gluadys]

You already got good answers to most of your questions. But I want to focus on these.

Can I ask what your personal belief is in terms of "what extent did God have in creation?, ie how much influence did he exert and at what stage/s?".

I am a Christian and theistic evolutionist. I believe God was and is constantly involved in creation at all stages. Science describes the biological aspect of creation as evolution.

Also how much of the bible do you believe is fact and how much is fables?

Cheers,
Geoff

I find little fact in the bible and no fables. I do find much myth, fiction, poetry, drama, prophecy, vision, prophetic oracles, apocalyptic, parable, law, didactic, proverbial and wisdom literature and that is not an exhaustive list.

Much of the bible cannot be considered literally factual, but IMO all of it is true, except for some minor factual errors mostly attributable to the inexact knowledge of the time (e.g. bat classified as bird).

 

[The Lady Kate]

Jesus sais He is the way,the truth and the life. Call it what you want.
An athiest calling some one arrogant. Now I have truly heard it all.

Then hear it from a fellow Christian.
Jesus also taught humility.

 

[MQTA]

Reformationists like Martin Luther realized that the early church had gotten things wrong. They changed the church. The church is still changing.

According to your argument, Christianity would be false because it had to change.

I guess you could say that Christianity has Evolved in the last 2000 years, quite a bit.

 

[Bible Defender]

We have a debate: is Evolution science or religion? No interference allowed. Let the debate begin. My position is that it's a religion. My opponent says Evolution is a part of science. We shall see who's right and who's wrong.

Of course its a religion. Anything that tries to explain how we got here and what our purpose or lack of purpose is must be a religion. Science is based on stuff we can observe... not imaginative naturalist scientists. (i know some christians have bought into the evolution theory so you don't have to puff your chest and say that evolution doesnt equal atheism slogan you like to say a billion times)

 

[L'Anatra]

Prove it.

The fact is simply this: the earth is roughly four and a half billion years old. The data are out there, but you have chosen to cover your eyes. Fair enough.

But it may surprise someone acting with such blind pride (like yourself) to know that it's really not relevant to objective reality whether you accept it or not. The earth will still be roughly four and a half billion years old tomorrow morning.

Now what has this got do with evolution, anyway?

 

[L'Anatra]

Of course its a religion. Anything that tries to explain how we got here and what our purpose or lack of purpose is must be a religion. Science is based on stuff we can observe... not imaginative naturalist scientists. (i know some christians have bought into the evolution theory so you don't have to puff your chest and say that evolution doesnt equal atheism slogan you like to say a billion times)

Evolution is a biological process that has been observed countless times. It does not, however, attempt to describe a purpose of any kind.

But, out of curiousity, what do you think evolution is? Generally, Creationists tend to try and argue against a strawman version of said process.

 

[Bible Defender]

Evolution? A gradual change over time.

Evolution is not cosmology, abiogenesis, or any other field of science other than biology.

Philosophy is not a fiend of science, evolution has philosophical and religion implications.

 

[Douglaangu v2.0]

Evolution? A gradual change over time.

Evolution is not cosmology, abiogenesis, or any other field of science other than biology.

Philosophy is not a fiend of science, evolution has philosophical and religion implications.

Only if you make them yourself.

 

[mikeynov]

Of course its a religion. Anything that tries to explain how we got here and what our purpose or lack of purpose is must be a religion. Science is based on stuff we can observe... not imaginative naturalist scientists. (i know some christians have bought into the evolution theory so you don't have to puff your chest and say that evolution doesnt equal atheism slogan you like to say a billion times)

We can and have observed evolution, and evolutionary theory is not religion by any stretch of the imagination.

While it does, in a sense, explain 'how we got here' (the origin of our species), but it prescribes precisely nothing about who or what we SHOULD be. Your mistake here is a missunderstanding of science itself.

 

[Lucretius]

If one simply looks up the meaning of the word 'religion', one will easily see that it has nothing to do with evolution.

1) A system of faith in and worship of a deity.
2) devoutness; dedication to a holy life.
3) a doctrine or custom accepted on faith.

Now, 1 and 2 of course don't work. The third doesn't either, because faith is "belief without proof." Evolution is not without proof.