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Evolutionists Moving the Goalposts Again

jamie4418

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Humans are apes, if you want to get technical about it.

You believe humans ARE apes, but you don't believe humans aren't more evolved than apes?


Does it matter? The point is, life started somewhere and diversified.

How could life (amoeba) come from no life?
 
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USincognito

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How could life (amoeba) come from no life?

Amoeba's aren't the first life. And life doesn't come from "no life." It either comes from self-replicating polymers or such that through abiogenesis got the ball rolling for life to start. Or god made the first life and got the ball rolling. Either one works for most everyone on the evolution side.
 
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Chalnoth

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Why can't we even find a drop of WATER on another planet, let alone life?
Venus and Mercury are too hot. The others are too cold for any liquid water on the surface.

But there is evidence for liquid water to have existed at some time in Mars' past, hence the reason why we have been looking for life there. I personally think we've failed not because there isn't evidence for life in Mars' past, but because we've only been looking at the surface in the least geologically-interesting areas. If we ever get the chance to dig into the surface, or investigate more interesting geological areas, we have a higher chance of finding fossils of ancient life, from when Mars might still have had liquid water (now it's all ice).

Europa is another possibility. Europa is covered in ice, but there are many cracks in the ice that are evidence of a possible liquid water sea under the surface. Some have hypothesized that life might possibly exist near volcanic vents far under the surface, but I have no idea how one would be able to find it.

Our best chance, really, of finding another habitable planet is in looking for planets around other stars. To date we've found hundreds of planets around other stars, but the ones that we have found have only been those that are the easiest to detect, which are big, heavy planets orbiting close to the star (think Jupiter occupying the orbit of Mercury). We are, however, quickly developing instruments and techniques to detect smaller and smaller planets. I have head some astronomers predict that we will be capable of finding Earth-like planets within a decade.
 
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USincognito

a post by Alan Smithee
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If life is so easily created, why isn't there even the smallest form of life on another planet?

We don't know that life is so easily created. Heck, it's not even that easily maintained in some instances. But while we haven't found evidence of living life on Mars, we have found evidence indicating there was life there at some point in the past.
 
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Chalnoth

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Do evolutionists generally agree that the Big Bang created the universe?
Oh, the Big Bang theory is pretty much undeniable once you know the evidence. For this, I will direct you to this other thread I started on the subject:
http://www.christianforums.com/t3288145-a-brief-history-of-cosmology.html

I really like the history of theory and experiment with the Big Bang, because it is a really striking example of how mathematical beauty has led to tremendous predictions that have been borne out in rather striking ways over the years.
 
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astroweezer

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If life is so easily created, why isn't there even the smallest form of life on another planet?

Because most of the other planets are not amenable to life forms as we know them. There is still speculation of life having been on Mars. However, it's hard to search for. Absence of proof isn't proof of absence.

Why can't we even find a drop of WATER on another planet, let alone life?

Wrong. There's water all over in this solar system. Mars has shown to have some water in its polar regions in ice form. Europa, a moon of Jupiter, is an ice planet. It has an icy surface, but water exists in liquid form as a giant ocean beneath that ice. So, water is present in many other places in the solar system.

Do evolutionists generally agree that the Big Bang created the universe?

Evolutionists are not generally specialists in cosmology so there is no consensus for evolutionists to make on the Big Bang Theory. I assume most have reasonable assumptions on the beginning of the universe, but it's irrelevant because they don't study the beginning of the universe or even the beginning of life. Those are different disciplines. Also, to speak for all evolutionists would be wrong in the first place.

However, as a strong supporter of evolution (I'm a chemist and structural biologist, not an evolutionary biologist), I feel that the Big Bang Theory has some merits that can explain things about the origins of our universe. But, I newer evidence suggests that it is not completely correct, and the theory needs to be fine-tuned to incorporate this information as all good scientific theories are.

=w=
 
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Chalnoth

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Do evolutionists believe there is a right and a wrong?
Right, so, evolution's take on morality is that it is a favored trait in social species. That is to say, if a species is organized into social groups, it will inevitably develop a sense of morality in order to continue living in these social groups. Morality is basically a socially-established compromise between personal freedom and personal security.

That is to say, if our society allowed complete and total personal freedom, I could morally go out and kill random people. This would obviously infringe upon those peoples' personal security to an unacceptable degree. As such, every society on Earth considers random killing to be just plain wrong.

And I do understand that one of the major Christian beliefs is that without knowledge of God, there can be no goodness. But I would like to point out that even among Christians, there is no absolute moral code: the moral code of Christian faiths today differ by a fairly significant amount. The moral codes of various Christian populations have changed over time. There is no absolute moral code: it is a socially-established compromise.

In fact, I claim that religion holds back morality: religion acts to slow down the change in moral codes (though not stopping it). Lack of religion allows people to more objectively consider what should be right and what should be wrong, while the establishment of religion prevents moral codes from changing as quickly as society changes.

I'd bring up some more specific examples on differences in Christian morality over time and denominations, but I'd rather not stir up a controversy on the subject.
 
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Chalnoth

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We don't know that life is so easily created. Heck, it's not even that easily maintained in some instances. But while we haven't found evidence of living life on Mars, we have found evidence indicating there was life there at some point in the past.
Actually, the evidence of finding fossilized single-celled organisms in Martian rocks has been debunked. The question is still up in the air as to whether or not Mars once held life.
 
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Chalnoth

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Wrong. There's water all over in this solar system.
Well, to be fair, there is water ice all over our solar system. She did say, "a drop of water." Europa is a strong candidate for the existence of liquid water, but I'm not sure whether or not that has been confirmed.
 
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TheBellman

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Do evolutionists believe there is a right and a wrong?
Since there are 'evolutionists' of every conceivable religious and moral viewpoint, including Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Atheist and just about anything else you can think of, this is a pretty meaningless question. I'd say that 'evolutionists' believe just about anything you like about right and wrong, given that for any viewpoint on right or wrong, there'll be 'evolutionists' who agree with it.
 
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USincognito

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Do evolutionists believe there is a right and a wrong?

Well we apparently believe there are right and wrong answers since I'll point out that apart from differences in detail, all of the answers you've received so far have been remarkably consistent have they not?
 
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Gracchus

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If life is so easily created, why isn't there even the smallest form of life on another planet?

How do you know that there isn’t life on other planets? We have barely begun to look at Mars.

Why can't we even find a drop of WATER on another planet, let alone life?

Well, we have discovered water in comets. We have found water in nebulae.

Do evolutionists generally agree that the Big Bang created the universe?

Those who have studied cosmology are in general agreement. I have my own whacko crack-pot hypothesis, but this is not the time or the place.

Do evolutionists believe there is a right and a wrong?

Most do. At least there is right in the sense of “correct” and wrong in the sense of “incorrect”. In the senses of “moral” and “immoral” it is very subjective and varies from person to person. This is Monday, however, so today I choose not to believe in free will. On Tuesdays I have no choice but to believe in it.

:confused:

How could life (amoeba) come from no life?

The first life was probably something like a bacterium. Amoebae are eukaryotes. They are bacterial symbionts. We are also eukaryotes.

Life is a set of chemical reactions. When you examine it very closely, it is hard to draw a clear line between life and non-life chemical reactions. Biology is just a subset of chemistry as chemistry is a subset of physics. And when you look again, everything is cosmology.

Nothing is really separate. It is all one big pattern of resonant energy. We break it up into more or less convenient artificial sections for purposes of discussions, but in reality it is not divisible. It is counter-productive, however to mistake this sectarian definition for reality. The universe is all one thing, the only thing, and all the “parts” just non-separable patterns in the one thing.

:wave:
 
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Dannager

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If life is so easily created, why isn't there even the smallest form of life on another planet?
We don't know that there isn't - we just haven't found any yet. It's not like we've had the chance to explore other planets. Heck, we've never set foot on anything but our own moon. Saying that there isn't any life on other planets is more than a little premature.
Why can't we even find a drop of WATER on another planet, let alone life?
We're pretty confident that there are planets or moons within our own solar system that contain water, but our tools for measuring that aren't quite advanced yet to tell for sure. A few more years and we'll have some more definitive answers.
Do evolutionists generally agree that the Big Bang created the universe?
Yeah, we generally agree that the Big Bang caused the universe to expand into its present form. The universe was still there "before" the Big Bang, of course - it was simply in another form (that of being compressed into an infinitely small space).
Do evolutionists believe there is a right and a wrong?
That usually depends on their philosophical leanings and not whether or not they accept evolution. It's kind of like asking if bridge engineers believe in right and wrong. I'm sure most of them do, but not because they're bridge engineers. Most evolutionists believe in right and wrong, I'd wager, but not because they're evolutionists.

Let us know if you've got any further questions!
 
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