Find has science puzzled?

[nephilimiyr]

Rufus

That's funny since Raelians are creationists/idists and believe cloning is what will prove them right.

I don't know much about this Raelian cult but I doubt they're creationists at least by the same way we see the term creationist. I heard they believe humans were a result of genetic engineering by a race of aliens some 20,000 years ago or so. 

 

[RufusAtticus]

Originally posted by nephilimiyr
I don't know much about this Raelian cult but I doubt they're creationists at least by the same way we see the term creationist. I heard they believe humans were a result of genetic engineering by a race of aliens some 20,000 years ago or so. 

That's a belief in special creation. Thus they are clearly creationists. They might not be biblical creationists, but they are creationists.

 

[nephilimiyr]

Well....creationist only on the stand point of creating human beings perhaps but that's only if you view genetic tampering as creating.

 

[Pete Harcoff]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2709797.stm

This is the closest news story that fits what ikester7579 was talking about.

 

[Pete Harcoff]

Originally posted by JohnR7
Because peice by peice it has been falisified.

How about, instead of spouting off empty rhetoric, you post one single piece of evidence that falsifies the theory of evolution. Your Nobel prize awaits.

 

[Arikay]

Yep yep, shame on us for asking for evidence, especially when what he wrote gets facts wrong. I guess we should all be good people and believe everything we are told without ever asking for any evidence.
Yep, Shame.

Originally posted by nephilimiyr
euphoric



Yes I do brett! I don't know if this story is true, for all I know it was all made up. I'm just offering an opinion on IF the story is true.

Yes I do think it rather funny how the evolutionists all pounced on this guy for doing nothing more then relaying a news report he heard on his radio. Some of you guys act like you want to tear him to pieces because he didn't post any links to the story. And now you want to pounce on me, lol, it just keeps getting better!

 

[Arikay]

Another thing I dont understand, is how this find would hurt evolution?

Evolution changes, adapts, and becomes closer to what really happend, everytime a find is made and correctly identified. We currently dont know everything, but we do know more than we used to.

How would a find of a 3.5 Million year old skeleton, help creationism?

 

[Ryder]

Originally posted by Arikay
Evolution changes, adapts, and becomes closer to what really happend, everytime a find is made and correctly identified. We currently dont know everything, but we do know more than we used to.

Translation ---- No matter what you find, we'll make it fit our story.

 

[Lacmeh]

Ryder, yes I have to agree, it´s a shame, that a theory is adapted to fit the facts. of course it would be much more honest to alter or disregard the facts...

 

[Pete Harcoff]

Originally posted by Arikay
Another thing I dont understand, is how this find would hurt evolution?

Evolution changes, adapts, and becomes closer to what really happend, everytime a find is made and correctly identified. We currently dont know everything, but we do know more than we used to.

How would a find of a 3.5 Million year old skeleton, help creationism?

If it was a fully human 3.5 million year old skeleton, then yes, what we know of human history would have to be completely re-written.

But after looking at the BBC article (assuming this is to what ikester7579 was referring), it looks they found additional remains of a 1998 skeleton that suggest a bipedal hominid, and this is further evidence that suggests that the human/ape split occured earlier than that (3.5 millions years).

Why this is a problem for the theory of evolution, I have no idea (other than I think some creationists here seem to think that human origins has already been completely figured out with all the details; far from it).

 

[Ryder]

I'm supprised it's still being called a theory, the way some people cling to it, you'd think it was proven fact. Perhaps it's hastey to call evolution flexible/adaptable, when the underlining premise is that evolution cannot be proven utimately wrong. That's not a theory anymore.... Theories can be proven wrong, what you have is an assuption (that evolution is correct) Backed up by an evolving body of evidence. Now how can changing proof entail a fixed conclusion ?? how can 2 plus 2 equal 4, and the next day 2 plus 3 equals the same ? If you admit your 'story' changes with new finds/etc, you also admit your conclusion is NOT fixed. Ergo evolution is not solid ground.

 

[Lacmeh]

Ryder, are you aware, that Einstein´s Theory of Relativity is "just" a theory?
Like Gravity?
Or like the Atom Model?
Or how about the sub atomar particles?
All is changing as we discover new things.
You know, that the smalles elictricty charge has changed?
The atomar model has changed quite a bit, too. Do you doubt the fact, that there are atoms?

 

[Pete Harcoff]

Originally posted by Ryder
I'm supprised it's still being called a theory, the way some people cling to it, you'd think it was proven fact. Perhaps it's hastey to call evolution flexible/adaptable, when the underlining premise is that evolution cannot be proven utimately wrong. That's not a theory anymore.... Theories can be proven wrong, what you have is an assuption (that evolution is correct) Backed up by an evolving body of evidence. Now how can changing proof entail a fixed conclusion ?? how can 2 plus 2 equal 4, and the next day 2 plus 3 equals the same ? If you admit your 'story' changes with new finds/etc, you also admit your conclusion is NOT fixed. Ergo evolution is not solid ground.

Apparently you misunderstand the theory of evolution. The theory of evolution is very much falsifiable. Likewise, our current understanding of common decent is also falsifiable (such as would be the case if we found fossils of modern organisms in Pre-Cambrian rock, for example).

However, the evolution of the human species from an earlier species is not currently up for debate, nor is our close relations to other primates.

What IS up for debate, is the exact lines of hominid species leading up to the human species. We already have the fossil evidence of earlier hominid forms, that are neither fully "ape" nor "human". The issue is where they fit in the overall picture of human evolution.

Which is exactly what that BBC article was about.

 

[Ryder]

Gravity, relativety, etc, too my knowledge haven't changed and are pure mathematics.

As fer molecules, sure our ideas change, no biggie, do I doubt atoms? Why not, they might not be exactly what we think they are... or they might be. My beef with evolution is that the science comunity (most) won't acknowledge the possibility that evolution could be wrong.

You know why they do double-blind tests right? Well evolution isn't even single-blind, everyone (nearly) just wants it to be correct (whithin that scientific comunity) and THAT in and of itself is also a corrupting factor. Like the physician that wants his drugs to work sees the positive in test patients and not so much in the control group. That's why they test without knowing who got the real stuff and who got placebo. Evolution isn't studied that way, they start with a shakey premise that evolution is correct and go out and see what they want to see.

Edit -Written before I saw Pete's

 

[Pete Harcoff]

Originally posted by Ryder
Evolution isn't studied that way, they start with a shakey premise that evolution is correct and go out and see what they want to see.

The theory of evolution is hardly a "shaky" premise. I suggest you read up on the history of evolution, particularly the research done by people like Darwin, Wallace, Huxley, etc.

The reason the theory of evolution is still accepted by mainstream science, is that there is no reason to not accept it. All studies of biological life point to ideas like inherited genetic traits, common decent, etc. If the evidence didn't point to evolution, it would be non-issue since the theory wouldn't have even gotten off the ground.

 

[Ryder]

And the Law of Entropy ? How 'bout the insane mathmatics of the statistical probabilities of molecules just forming up into life?

Those are just two serious evidences not in your favor.

 

[Pete Harcoff]

Originally posted by Ryder
And the Law of Entropy ? How 'bout the insane mathmatics of the statistical probabilities of molecules just forming up into life?

Those are just two serious evidences not in your favor.

There is NO law that prevents order from rising out of disorder in the universe, provided energy is expended in the process. Any attempt to show so is a gross misrepresentation of thermodynamics. Otherwise, babies wouldn't grow inside their mother's wombs, and it wouldn't be snowing where I live right now.

And as far as probability calculations go, they typically rely on a single series of steps, happening in exactly the right order, to reach a single, pre-determined conclusion. But by applying those same rules, I can show how ANYTHING is statistically impossible.

For more on probability, check out: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob.html

 

[Mechanical Bliss]

Originally posted by Ryder
And the Law of Entropy ?

What about it? The second law of thermodynamics states that entropy increases in a closed system. The Earth is not a closed system as both mass and energy transfer can occur in and out of the system. It is an open system.

How 'bout the insane mathmatics of the statistical probabilities of molecules just forming up into life?

First of all, the hypothesis of abiogenesis is not the theory of evolution.

Second, how can you assign probabilities to the steps of abiogenesis if we don't even really know how it happened? You can't.

 

[Mechanical Bliss]

Originally posted by Ryder
Gravity, relativety, etc, too my knowledge haven't changed and are pure mathematics.

The law of gravity is a mathematical description of what is observed; however, gravitational theory seeks to explain the mechanism behind gravity. Furthermore, gravity has been studied for centuries while the theory of evolution is, relatively speaking, in its infancy and is a larger scale theory as it is, in effect, the unifying theory in the biological sciences with large amounts of evidence to be considered. It's not as simple as observing what happens when a ball is released and hits the ground (though gravity is not truly that simple a concept either).

As fer molecules, sure our ideas change, no biggie, do I doubt atoms? Why not, they might not be exactly what we think they are... or they might be. My beef with evolution is that the science comunity (most) won't acknowledge the possibility that evolution could be wrong.

The possibility that the theory of evolution could be wrong comes with evidence that can falsify it, but there has been no such evidence.

everyone (nearly) just wants it to be correct (whithin that scientific comunity) and THAT in and of itself is also a corrupting factor.

The theory of evolution isn't accepted by mainstream science because of a desire for it to be correct but rather because it explains the evidence better than any other theory.

 

[Ryder]

*Sniffs* I smell an impass (no offense intended)

I do think evolution is statistically impossible, but anyways.... It'd also be nice to have a few more steps in the evolutionary 'chain' too, a lot of 'jumps' in there. Anyhow, I gotta jet, I'll check in later, cya guys.