"I'm not an expert, BUT......."

ivebeenshown said:

I do know what you are talking about, but your post is detestable. Posting a bible verse with a provocative question is a waste of everybody's time. I have done it all too much in the past. If you want to make a point, make a point.

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He only dabbles in making points. Where he really excels is in semantics, vagaries and innuendo.

ivebeenshown said:

If you want to make a point, make a point.

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My point has already been made by others here.

Hopefully you can put two and two together?

Just because we want to interpret scripture in a certain way doesn't make it so. There are two books of God: The Bible, and His creation. We can read from both to gain understanding.
But I have a question to pose after a small preface. I decided a few years back to read some books on Evolution, and when I finished I thought--you've got to be kidding me. I decided it took more faith to believe evolution than creation. I honestly thought God could have used evolution in the process of creation until I read some text books on evolution and saw the huge leaps of logic.
One thing in particular stands out--here in North America our current plant and animal life did not evolve over huge periods of time but completely changed after the last ice age, about 10,000? years ago. Lots of animals disappeared and were replaced by other animals. Gone were saber-tooth tigers, giant sloth, woolly mammoth, mastodon, all sorts of animals and plant life were replaced by new animals and plants in a short period of time. We did not have long periods between, but a sudden explosion of life. I understand that some scholars in the early 1970s tried to come up with a new explanation of this, but it does bring the idea of needing millions of years for evolution to change things into question.
I am at best agnostic on the idea of evolution, not on biblical grounds but on the grounds it seems a weak theory that may be partially true at best. Evidence for evolution within a species could make sense, but from species to species not so much. And just adding long periods of time to the equation also comes up short.
I guess my point here is: Shouldn't we be just as skeptical toward questionable science as others are toward the Christian world view?

KBD said:

I decided it took more faith to believe evolution than creation.

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I do not understand why Christians are so keen to publicly admit how shallow their faith is, or to admit that the "other side" has a stronger faith than they do. Could someone explain it to me?

I guess my point here is: Shouldn't we be just as skeptical toward questionable science as others are toward the Christian world view?

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Please start by being skeptical of the science that produced the computer and internet that allowed you to post your message. Oh...wait, it's just the bits o' science you don't like for which you want skepticism, right?

Naraoia said:

That? All you showed there is that you don't understand evolution, even when it's explained to you at length by multiple people in multiple ways.

I'll reiterate: there is nothing, absolutely nothing we know of evolution that would force everything to evolve into "something else" or everything to evolve at the same rate. Just because some organism once stumbled on a different way of life involving complex cells, the ecological niches that bacteria filled didn't magically disappear.

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I heard this thousands of times. But, the fact is: single-cell life went to multi-cell life, then went to more and more sophisticated lives.

No one will believe it is not a trend of something. You can not pin point the force. Don't say it is not there.

mzungu said:

Do take the time to learn what Evolution is before you go saying something as inaccurate as that!

If someone gets a promotion to a higher level in a company, does this mean that his previous position no longer exists? Evolution is all about life adapting and filling in the niches. Life forms adapt to take advantage of resources in order to survive. Adaptation follows the rule of "Function dictates form". An example of this is:

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You don't know that. Nobody ever see that happen. Nobody knows how could it happen.

Split Rock said:

You need to tell the thousands of biologists all over the world how "dumb" they are to use the TOE everyday. Strange that you cannot come up with any examples other than "1 explains B but not C" to demonstrate how dumb we biologists are. Thanks for providing yet another example of "I'm not an expert, BUT...." As usual, you guys have nothing to offer but your ignorant musings about subjects you don't even understand. But we should believe that you guys are the guardians of "The Truth," right?

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Try to find an article which claimed that evolution is proven. That is an example. And there are thousands of them, all made the same junky implication. If you care to find one, we then can talk about it.

Pfaffenhofen said:

I am new here. I believe in evolution and I believe in creation. God created evolution, on 2 sides: planning it and executing it.

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Welcome.

There is a subforum under the Theology>Origin called Theistic Evolutionism. You may find a lot friends there.

I don't think this idea make sense.

juvenissun said:

No one will believe it is not a trend of something.

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I believe it.

You can not pin point the force. Don't say it is not there.

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It is not there.

Blayz said:

I do not understand why Christians are so keen to publicly admit how shallow their faith is...

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Not this one --

KBD said:

One thing in particular stands out--here in North America our current plant and animal life did not evolve over huge periods of time but completely changed after the last ice age, about 10,000? years ago. Lots of animals disappeared and were replaced by other animals. Gone were saber-tooth tigers, giant sloth, woolly mammoth, mastodon, all sorts of animals and plant life were replaced by new animals and plants in a short period of time. We did not have long periods between, but a sudden explosion of life. I understand that some scholars in the early 1970s tried to come up with a new explanation of this, but it does bring the idea of needing millions of years for evolution to change things into question.
I am at best agnostic on the idea of evolution, not on biblical grounds but on the grounds it seems a weak theory that may be partially true at best. Evidence for evolution within a species could make sense, but from species to species not so much. And just adding long periods of time to the equation also comes up short.

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The "needing millions of years" aspect is often misunderstood. Evolution often takes millions of years, but in a lot of ways, that is incidental. Measurable, significant change can be seen within a species over the course of a year, and very dramatic changes can be seen within a few decades.

For example, the main differences between several species of finches are the size and configurations of their beaks--but measurable changes in the average size of beaks within a population can be seen after one year, and the changes are predictable. Like, after a dry season, beaks of nut-eaters will be longer, and after a wet season they will be shorter. If it were to be dry for 15 years, a normally short-beaked species of finch may start looking very similar to long-beaked ones.

On a slightly longer interval, there is this famous experiment done with foxes. The original goal was to develop tamer foxes for use in the fur industry. They started by simply opening a cage and putting their hand in. If the fox cowered or bit, it was not bred. The ones that were ok with that were bred together. I'm sure the criteria were made more stringent after a while, and I don't know the details of that, but within about 20 years the foxes were not only comfortable with humans, they were more playful with each other and more emotionally expressive. And beyond that...they wagged their tails and started barking (which foxes do not do). Their coat patterns even changed.

It is thought that dogs may have evolved from wolves in about 100 years.

So why the millions of years?

Because there is usually not sustained pressure in one direction. A year of drought is followed by a year or two of rain, then a few more years of drought. The birds' beaks grow longer, than shorter again, always prepared for last year's weather and not making a lot long-run progress in any given direction.

But if something really has dramatically changed in the environment, then there *is* steady pressure in one direction, perhaps even an explosion of sorts which quickly wipes out a large proportion of the population, leaving only the ones best equipped to survive in this new climate to repopulate. In the course of a few years, possibly, the species might be substantially different.

Mammals and dinosaurs lived during the same time period, but dino's really ruled the place. Mammals were fairly well confined to being nocturnal rodent-like-creatures as long as dinosaurs were around.

And then dinosaurs died and the environment changed dramatically--a strong restriction was released. Now diurnal mammals could evolve, and mammals which didn't need to focus as heavily on being tiny and hiding from predators. They could live anywhere. And they did. So, in response to that rather dramatic lifting of a restriction, they experienced a rather dramatic explosion of variety.

Whales are another example of that. If you look at a taxonomic chart, they're actually classified as an ungulate--a hooved mammal: horses, donkeys, cows, whales.... Their closest relative is the hippo, which is somewhat surprising to most people. The main difference, though, is just that whales, being aquatic, are weightless. They go about life fairly similarly--hunting by being huge-- but the whale got one major restriction lifted.

So yeah, millions of years...for subtle changes in relatively stable environments. but when the environment changes, so do the creatures living there.

Blayz said:

I do not understand why Christians are so keen to publicly admit how shallow their faith is, or to admit that the "other side" has a stronger faith than they do. Could someone explain it to me?


Please start by being skeptical of the science that produced the computer and internet that allowed you to post your message. Oh...wait, it's just the bits o' science you don't like for which you want skepticism, right?

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You are reading quite a bit into my statement that isn't there. My point is if you think it is hard to believe in God--try believing in Evolution!
I get why people want to believe, it sounds logical and seems to tie things up nicely, only don't go looking for physical evidence like intermediate forms because they aren't there.
Heck I wish it was true, nice little package of how God made everything, but I'm yet to be convinced of Evolution.
Now when it comes to God I have my own experiences, intuition, common sense, and the Bible to support the belief. Not enough for some people, but God is rather to be experienced than theorized about IMHO.

KBD said:

You are reading quite a bit into my statement that isn't there. My point is if you think it is hard to believe in God--try believing in Evolution!

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No, that's pretty much all I read into it. I know how much faith is needed to believe in evolution. It's tiny. Us evolutionists would thorw it away without a moment's good bye if something better came along, and we are constantly prodding and pushing it, looking for holes.

It really is about the smallest amount of faith that it is possible to muster.

And yet, your faith, self admitted, is less.

Not my words mate, yours.

I get why people want to believe, it sounds logical and seems to tie things up nicely

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Yeah...I gotta be honest, you really don't get it at all. It best models the available data. that's why we "believe" it.

only don't go looking for physical evidence like intermediate forms because they aren't there.

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Ahh yes, the good 'ol "intermediate form" that evolution predicts cannot exist, being held up as evidence that evolution is wrong. Let me guess, you reckon a cat giving birth to a canary would prove evolution correct right? instead of the truth with is to say absolutely destroy it.

Heck I wish it was true, nice little package of how God made everything, but I'm yet to be convinced of Evolution.

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You really should take previously given advice and retreat to the only-Christians-can-post section of the board if you want to bring God into it.

juvenissun said:

I heard this thousands of times. But, the fact is: single-cell life went to multi-cell life, then went to more and more sophisticated lives.

No one will believe it is not a trend of something. You can not pin point the force. Don't say it is not there.

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Imagine a cliff with lots of ledges in lots of configurations: large, small, flat, tilted, cracked. Then imagine lots of rocks falling from the top, down the side of the mountain--they, too, are in every possible configuration: large, small, flat, round.

What will happen over time?

Small rocks will fall in cracks, flat rocks may land on ledges and stay there. Round rocks will probably bounce and roll to the bottom. After a while, you'll get very clear patterns and distinctions--stacks of flat rocks on certain ledges, while other ledges are distinctly rock-free. In some cracks you'll find small rocks, while in others, only sand; and in any given crack, you'll never find a rock larger than a certain amount in any direction (the amount being the widest spot in the opening of the crack). Round rocks will form unstable piles at the bottom.

There are patterns, trends and seeming progressions. It may even look like the rocks are being deliberately organized. After all, no matter how long you stare at a bunch of rocks, they never just up and stack themselves. And how would the rocks know, anyway, whether they are round, and thus belong at the bottom; or small, and thus belong in a crack; or flat, and thus belong on a ledge?

The point is, when everything happens, in every possible configuration, the stuff that is stable will stick around and the stuff that is unstable will disappear. Over time, the stable things will build upon themselves. On the mountain, this looks like a round rock continuing to bounce, because it is rarely stable on anything, while a flat rock lands and stays put--perhaps on top of another flat rock, forming a tower.

In life, this looks like organisms which can't survive, dying, and organisms which can survive, surviving. And then those surviving organisms change, and the ones that can't survive anymore, don't, and the ones that can, do.

Evolution only looks so dramatic because we only see the "successes," (the ones that were stable enough to stick around long enough to have a chance of leaving enough fossils that we might one day find some). If all you ever saw of falling rocks were beautifully stacked towers, that would look designed, also. We don't have any fossils from the creatures that utterly failed, and they're not around to be studied.

We do have some that only sorta failed, though--giant humans, for example. They stuck around long enough to be some kind of success, but we can pinpoint exactly why they would have died out. Being big means you have a low surface area to volume ratio, which means your skin is less efficient at radiating heat, which means you're susceptible to overheating. Probably, people got pushed in the direction of being huge because bigger, stronger people were less vulnerable to predation by other animals. But once that stopped being a major issue, the heat got them, and they died out. Whoops. That rock teetered on the edge for a while, but, like most, it eventually it fell.

In short, evolution amounts to nothing more than the natural occurrence of stability. Fling enough poo at the wall, and eventually, some will stick.

Blayz said:

No, that's pretty much all I read into it. I know how much faith is needed to believe in evolution. It's tiny. Us evolutionists would thorw it away without a moment's good bye if something better came along, and we are constantly prodding and pushing it, looking for holes.

It really is about the smallest amount of faith that it is possible to muster.

And yet, your faith, self admitted, is less.

Not my words mate, yours.


Yeah...I gotta be honest, you really don't get it at all. It best models the available data. that's why we "believe" it.

Ahh yes, the good 'ol "intermediate form" that evolution predicts cannot exist, being held up as evidence that evolution is wrong. Let me guess, you reckon a cat giving birth to a canary would prove evolution correct right? instead of the truth with is to say absolutely destroy it.

You really should take previously given advice and retreat to the only-Christians-can-post section of the board if you want to bring God into it.

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You can twist this all you like. The bottom line is that you are taking a scientific theory on faith but find taking the evidence all around you of a Creator as unbelievable. That is your choice. My common sense leads me to believe otherwise. If more evidence mounts for Evolution--I could be persuaded to believe in it based on evidence. But I wonder what it takes for one opposed to the idea of God to believe?

KBD said:

You can twist this all you like

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I am not twisting anything. Here, let me quote you directly:

KBD said:

I decided it took more faith to believe evolution than creation.

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I simply pointed out how little faith is required to believe in evolution. You are the one claiming to have even less.

However, on the topic of twisting words, I said

It [evoluton] best models the available data. that's why we "believe" it.

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Which you turned into

KBD said:

The bottom line is that you are taking a scientific theory on faith

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I guess to be fair this is more an outright lie than a simple of twisitng of words... Are you one of those lying-for-Jesus-is-a-virtue Christians?

Blayz said:

I am not twisting anything. Here, let me quote you directly:



I simply pointed out how little faith is required to believe in evolution. You are the one claiming to have even less.

However, on the topic of twisting words, I said

Which you turned into



I guess to be fair this is more an outright lie than a simple of twisitng of words... Are you one of those lying-for-Jesus-is-a-virtue Christians?

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No, but you are a troll. So you can argue with yourself now.