Question about evolution

[blader]

Originally posted by GraftMeIn

dots are inanimate objects though, how can they become defensive?

They aren't dots. They're chemicals. This is just a basic rough idea of what happened. Random chemicals (including C, H and O) randomly bond with each other to create organic compounds. At some point, the organic compounds had the property of being self replicating. This is when evolution started.

No one knows who created every thing in the universe. I don't know. It could be "God." It could be any of the other gazillion higher deities people believe in.

 

[GraftMeIn]

Originally posted by blader


All materials contain chemicals. "Organic" materiels refers to those compounds which contain C, H, and O. Organic materials don't need "oxygen" to survive. In fact, not all organic materials are "alive." When you die, you decompose into organic materials, but you're still dead. =)

So there's a difference between Organic life, and Organic Chemistry?

Organic chemistry being based on carbons, How does life come about by carbons? don't carbons break down organic material? Wouldn't have life decompossed before it ever started if we only looked to carbon compounds for answers?

 

[blader]

Originally posted by GraftMeIn


So there's a difference between Organic life, and Organic Chemistry?

Yep. Well actually all life on the earth is organic (although silicon base lifeforms have been theorized to be possible). I don't know what you mean by organic chemistry. I was just replying to your misconception that organic materials "didn't have chemicals."

Organic chemistry being based on carbons, How does life come about by carbons? don't carbons break down organic material? Wouldn't have life decompossed before it ever started if we only looked to carbon compounds for answers?

Carbons break down organic material? Where do you get this stuff? Uhm... carbons make UP organic material. All life on earth are called "carbon-based lifeforms" for a reason ... me thinks you really need to go pick up an elementary o-chem book.

 

[GraftMeIn]

Originally posted by blader


4.5 billion years, give or take half a billion. Depending on who you ask, the Bible says the earth is around 5000 years old, give or take a few hundred.

The Bible doesn't tell us how old the earth is, We have no idea how long Adam and Eve spent in the garden before being banished from it, They would have lived forever, had they not sinned, If they would have lived forever, then we have to consider the fact that they wouldn't have aged while in the garden. So we have no way of knowing when the aging process started for them, or how long they were actually alive.

A variety of minerals, water, and chemicals. There is no very first compound. Your question is like asking "what was the very first compound that formed Dodger Stadium?"

How can there be a variety of substances if everything evolved? Everything would have to evolve from one thing.

Man didn't come from an ape. Ape and man came from a common ancestor, is all. Geez.

That's not what evolution teaches, It teaches that we evolved from apes

And it's not very hard to believe that God created man from clay, because it's a very simple explanation. Also, it's not very hard to believe that Zeus makes lightning strike, either, but both of these are lazy explanations. Science tells us why lightning strikes, and science tells us where we came from. You can believe in myths if you like, but you're not going to get any closer to the truth.

I already know the truth. How does science explain where we came from if it can't tell me what the one thing is that everything evolved from?

 

 

[seebs]

Originally posted by GraftMeIn

How can there be a variety of substances if everything evolved? Everything would have to evolve from one thing.

I think you're inadvertantly attacking a straw man. "evolution" is a theory for how, if you had little bacteria, you could eventually end up with plants, animals, and humans. It doesn't address the question of where the bacteria come from - that's abiogenesis. Abiogenesis doesn't address the question of where raw materials come from - that's cosmology.

That's not what evolution teaches, It teaches that we evolved from apes

Maybe you should consider the possibility that you're repeating lies someone told you.

I already know the truth. How does science explain where we came from if it can't tell me what the one thing is that everything evolved from?

Well, "hydrogen", but that's a really chintzy answer.

Science *DOESN'T* explain where we came from, not all the way back; what it does is tell us *PART* of the process.

You want a theory that tells us where we came from, all the way back to the start? There are more than a hundred creation stories on the planet. There's the Norse one (a cow licked at a salt lick until the gods came out of it), or any of a few dozen others. Greek myths? The world was made by the Titans, I believe.

Unfortunately, there's no way to tell which, if any, of them are true... unless we start studying the evidence we find lying around. That evidence happens to support the theory that life formed slowly over a long period of time from simpler life, but we don't know for sure how it got started.

However, this is still a better theory. The theory that lightning strikes you when Zeus is mad at you is a very explanatory theory, but it's useless. The theory that lightning is electricity, and conducts through copper well, allows us to avoid being killed... *EVEN* if we don't know why there's electricity in the clouds in the first place.

Science isn't about being able to *say* you know everything; it's about being sure of the claims you do make.

 

[GraftMeIn]

Originally posted by seebs


Not an exact one, no. "billions" is pretty well supported, though. But I don't *expect* an exact answer; I've never had one before.


That would be cosmology, not biology, so most evolutionary biologists don't have an opinion. I believe the earth formed from mostly the same rocks and metals it's made of today, plus a fair bit of carbon. The earth wasn't just one compound; it was similar in a lot of ways to what it is now, matter being what it is.

but how would life be formed by chance out of those rocks, metals, and carbon?

Because if He did, then He left an awful lot of skulls of apes with gradually bigger skulls lying around over the last few million years, and a lot of other bones and fossils for things we've never seen, and that would seem more than a little weird.

Maybe the apes just died at different ages, thus giving us different sized skulls.

Most scientists start with the assumption that the correct answer to "how did this happen" is "I don't know yet". From there, you form theories, and test them, and study the things you find.

So they form theories, and try to prove those theories. doesn't the bible tell us not to rely on our own wisdom?

Essentially, I can find very good evidence (at least, I think it's pretty convincing; not everyone agrees, although I think just about all biologists do) that, in a number of cases, life forms have come about through gradual development from other life forms, often simpler ones. It is uncontroversial, in my mind, to observe that dogs and wolves are closely related, or that lions and tigers are closely related... and further out, that domestic cats and tigers probably have a common ancestor. Given that, and given the existance of other animals with substantial similaritios to humans, it seems likely to me that humans also came about by the same mechanism.

but if you believe that the bible is the word of God, and that Gods word is true, isn't saying we evolved the same as calling God a liar?

Dots are inanimate. Patterns of dots, running under a system of rules, are not inanimate.

but they aren't alive, they don't have thoughts, or emotions, they don't breath or eat anything.

That's like saying "how can a couple hundred pounds of organic compounds become defensive?". They can't - unless they're a person, who *can* become defensive.

well then how can something that evolved become defensive? If the dots evolved in a sense like you stated, and became defensive, then in reality we wouldn't have minds of our own, if we evolved.

 

 

[seebs]

Originally posted by GraftMeIn

Maybe the apes just died at different ages, thus giving us different sized skulls.

That wouldn't explain why they're such different shapes, and sizes relative to the rest of the bodies.

So they form theories, and try to prove those theories. doesn't the bible tell us not to rely on our own wisdom?

In some contexts, yes. It does, however, also tell us to study the world as evidence of God's glory.

but if you believe that the bible is the word of God, and that Gods word is true, isn't saying we evolved the same as calling God a liar?

No more than it's saying He's a liar to observe that the world is full of things incompatible with simple readings of the Bible.

People were *KILLED* once for believing that the earth moved around the sun, because Scripture says, totally unambiguously, that the Earth is fixed in place, and does not move.

God often does things in ways that are more complicated than what we originally suspected - but the Bible is not a science textbook, so it doesn't talk about these things in any detail.

well then how can something that evolved become defensive? If the dots evolved in a sense like you stated, and became defensive, then in reality we wouldn't have minds of our own, if we evolved.

Why?

I don't see any reason for which gradually more and more complicated biological systems couldn't eventually start having "minds". Indeed, it seems very likely that precisely that has happened.

Consider your immune system; it protects you from diseases, even though you are often not even *AWARE* of its function. Does that mean you don't have a mind of your own? Of course not! Your body can have many qualities that you don't know about, or fully understand, or which you don't consciously use.

Have you ever in your life consciously said "Hmm, I think I'm a bit low on energy, maybe it's a good time to convert a bit of fat back for sugar, and while I'm at it I'd better process some fatigue toxins?" Probably not (unless you're weird). But it *HAPPENS*.

 

[GraftMeIn]

Originally posted by seebs


I think you're inadvertantly attacking a straw man. "evolution" is a theory for how, if you had little bacteria, you could eventually end up with plants, animals, and humans. It doesn't address the question of where the bacteria come from - that's abiogenesis. Abiogenesis doesn't address the question of where raw materials come from - that's cosmology.



Maybe you should consider the possibility that you're repeating lies someone told you.



Well, "hydrogen", but that's a really chintzy answer.

Science *DOESN'T* explain where we came from, not all the way back; what it does is tell us *PART* of the process.

You want a theory that tells us where we came from, all the way back to the start? There are more than a hundred creation stories on the planet. There's the Norse one (a cow licked at a salt lick until the gods came out of it), or any of a few dozen others. Greek myths? The world was made by the Titans, I believe.

Unfortunately, there's no way to tell which, if any, of them are true... unless we start studying the evidence we find lying around. That evidence happens to support the theory that life formed slowly over a long period of time from simpler life, but we don't know for sure how it got started.

However, this is still a better theory. The theory that lightning strikes you when Zeus is mad at you is a very explanatory theory, but it's useless. The theory that lightning is electricity, and conducts through copper well, allows us to avoid being killed... *EVEN* if we don't know why there's electricity in the clouds in the first place.

Science isn't about being able to *say* you know everything; it's about being sure of the claims you do make.

There's nothing that can prove this theory to be correct though.  It doesn't have enough evidence to back up it's claims, If scientists aren't willing to go all the way back and figure out where it all began in the first place then it's not doing what it needs to, to back up it's claims.

 

 

[seebs]

I think you have it precisely backwards, GMI.

Science is *MAKING NO CLAIMS* about the things you say it hasn't backed up. It's saying "we don't know".

Imagine that you find a dead person, still warm, with a bullet wound in him, a gun on the floor, and the ballistics tests say the bullet was fired from the gun.

I theorize that the gun was fired at the person, killing him.

You say "if you can't explain where the gun came from, you haven't got enough evidence to back up your claims".

In fact, it's exactly the opposite - I have made no claims about what happened *BEFORE* the gun was fired; I don't need to back up any claims. All I need to do is point out that I have very good evidence that the gun *was* fired.

The theory of evolution starts halfway through a story; it doesn't try to tell the rest of the story, but it tells us a bit about what conditions were like at the part of the story it tells.

 

[GraftMeIn]

Ahhh ok, so evolution starts half way through the story and my Bible starts at the beggining.

since science has no idea where it all began, let me pose one very simple question.

What is the one element on earth, that no life can survive without?

 

[LewisWildermuth]

Three off the top of my head, hydrogen, oxygen, carbon. For humans you can almost go through most of the lighter elements in the periodic table.

 

[seebs]

Originally posted by GraftMeIn
Ahhh ok, so evolution starts half way through the story and my Bible starts at the beggining.

You could look at it that way... but the Bible places things near the beginning of the story that we have good reason to think happened much later.

Most creation stories just assert that humans have always existed, because, of course, we have no stories going back before there were humans...

The point is, the story in the Bible, if taken literally, appears to be just plain false - the same as the Bible's claims that the Earth is totally immobile and fixed, and everything moves around it.

since science has no idea where it all began, let me pose one very simple question.

What is the one element on earth, that no life can survive without?

There is no *one* element you can't have life without. There are many elements that life as we know it can't exist without. I'd say, for starters, you'd have to include hydrogen and carbon. Most life requires oxygen, but I believe some anaerobic things may not actually even contain any... I'm not sure. It's certainly very common.

Note that "science has no idea where it all began" is a bit strong; scientists have *theories* about it. They just don't know for sure which, if any, of those theories are correct.

Sort of like how, if you've studied the creation myths of a dozen religions, you quickly realize that, if anyone knows how it started, it's God... only everyone who has ever asked Him has ended up telling their own culture's creation myth, instead of getting His answer.

 

[GraftMeIn]

What about water, doesn't every living thing need a certain amount of water to survive?

 

[seebs]

Water. Hmm. You mean that stuff made of hydrogen and oxygen? There's a reason we included those...

No offense is meant, but I think you have a lot of studying to do before you'll really be qualified to evaluate scientific claims.

 

[GraftMeIn]

then I will take it that you agree that water is something life wouldn't be able to survive, or be created without.

Don't you find this interesting?

Genesis 1:1-2

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

This tells me that when God formed the earth he created water first, and formed the earth from it. without water there could be no life, therefore he knew where to start.

 

[seebs]

I sorta thought you were going there.

However, the earth is not mostly made of water, or even of hydrogen and oxygen; it's mostly metals. There probably wasn't water for a fairly long time.

 

[GraftMeIn]

So should we ignore the fact that 70 to 80 percent of the earths surface is covered with water, and that new studies by scientists are showing that there may be even more water than that under it's surface?

If there wasn't water for a long time, where did it come from? did it evolve also? How could life have evolved without it, since every living thing needs water to survive?

 

[Shai-Hulud]

If there wasn't water for a long time, where did it come from?

Water (H2O) consists of hydrogen and oxygen. So water comes from those two elements. Oxygen can be created through fusion, and eventually came from hydrogen.

did it evolve also?

You seem confused about evolution. Only living things can evolve. In fact, there can only be evolution if you have organisms who reproduce, and sometimes make copying errors when they reproduce.

How could life have evolved without it, since every living thing needs water to survive?

I'm not sure it why it should have to survive without water. If I'm not mistaking all ideas about abiogenesis involve water.

Shai-Hulud

 

[GraftMeIn]

I asked that question because seebs stated there wasn't any water on the earth for a long time. So without water on the earth where and how would of life started? and How would it be able to survive without it?

seebs said the earth was mostly made of metals, so how does life come from metal, without water? and where did the water come from if there wasn't any hydrogen or oxygen?

thus bringing be back to the beggining of the Bible...

Genesis 1:1-2

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

So now should we discount the fact that every living thing needs water to survive, and the fact that God created it first because it was needed in order to create life?

Should we also discount these facts?
70 to 80 percent of the earths surface is covered with water, and that new studies by scientists are showing that there may be even more water than that under it's surface.

 

[blader]

Originally posted by GraftMeIn
I asked that question because seebs stated there wasn't any water on the earth for a long time. So without water on the earth where and how would of life started? and How would it be able to survive without it?

seebs said the earth was mostly made of metals, so how does life come from metal, without water? and where did the water come from if there wasn't any hydrogen or oxygen?

thus bringing be back to the beggining of the Bible...

Genesis 1:1-2

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

So now should we discount the fact that every living thing needs water to survive, and the fact that God created it first because it was needed in order to create life?

Should we also discount these facts?
70 to 80 percent of the earths surface is covered with water, and that new studies by scientists are showing that there may be even more water than that under it's surface.

There's water on Mars too. On Io, one of Jupiter's moons, it's completely water.

You're line of argument seems to be using the old "look at how everything is precisely designed to support our life, it can't be just a coincidence." Actually, if evolution is true, then all the things we see around us are evidence for, not against. You're using the argument that the environment was designed for us. Evolution says that we evolved to survive in our environment.

A good way to look at the flaw in your argument is to say "Since the odds of ordering a deck of playing cards in a certain order is 52 factorial, it must be impossible to shuffle a deck of cards."