the self replicating watch argument

[Speedwell]

true. i need to change it to "no one ever saw a genome which was not made by design".

No, that is what you are trying to prove--that functional complexity is, in itself, evidence of intelligent design. You haven't succeeded yet.

so why you detect design in a car but not in a flagellum?

Because all the cars I ever saw were demonstrably man made. The flagellum occurs naturally so I can't tell if it was intelligently designed.

 

[doubtingmerle]

Maybe that was handy for them in the different nature of the past? Maybe a lot of creatures that could not fossilize at that time also had similar features, but you just do not have the info/fossils?

Ha

Wait. What we find is a whole series of fossils leading up to the mammal jaw.

Deep in the fossil record we find the reptile jawbone but nothing close to the mammal. Then we find creatures with a bulge on the jaw where the mammals later show a joint. Your explanation? Maybe that was an advantage to them. Yes, I agree, but where did these animals come from? Most likely from reptiles that evolved this handy feature.

Above them we find creatures with jaws more mammal like. Again, this was probably an advantage. But where did they come from? Again, probably evolution.

On up we go, finding jaws more and more like mammals. And finally we find mammal jaws. And you seem to agree that this all could be evolution.

Oh, but meantime you say there were horses and humans walking around with the mammalian jaw, but they didn't fossilize until these other creatures had evolved into mammals.
Then suddenly they too started to fossilize too!

What a story. No wander it appears that not a single person here agrees with you.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Yes we know you refer to present nature DNA.

And we know you refer to last thursday's nature

You assume and believe that was the same in the far past, so try to read it accordingly.

You assume and believe the equivalent of the universe being created last thursday, with all our memories of having lived our entire lives implanted in our brains

 

[dad]

Got it. Fossils in the Cambrian, the Devonian, and the Silurian differ because things were evolving. Yes, I agree.

Yes, the evidence mounts-- for evolution.

No, because not only evolving was at work. You need to know what was created, rather than assuming it all just evolved. Science doesn't know what is what.

The cambrian loses any great meaning as far as the theory of evilution if we realize it happened in a short time period.

 

[dad]

Hmmm, not if I use your metric that we can't really know what things were like in the past.

(Well at least you can't claim those things).

Science can't. I can.

 

[theQuincunx5]

Science can't. I can.

How can you make any claims about what the world was like in the distant past? You weren't there.

 

[dad]

Wait. What we find is a whole series of fossils leading up to the mammal jaw.

Deep in the fossil record we find the reptile jawbone but nothing close to the mammal. Then we find creatures with a bulge on the jaw where the mammals later show a joint. Your explanation? Maybe that was an advantage to them. Yes, I agree, but where did these animals come from? Most likely from reptiles that evolved this handy feature.

Look at it this way, it doesn't matter about those few animals, because we had billions of other animals alive at the same time, with similar features, that could not leave fossils. You obsess on the few fossils of the few creatures that happened to be able to fossilize, as if they represented life on earth! Ridiculous. You CANNOT take those few fossils and try to imagine them as the ancestors. They were just evolved kinds at the time, who could fossilize probably.

Above them we find creatures with jaws more mammal like. Again, this was probably an advantage. But where did they come from? Again, probably evolution.

Well, if more creatures turned to meat eating, we would see changes in jaws. Also, we should remember that by the time mammals and man started to appear, we may be in the present nature epoch.

On up we go, finding jaws more and more like mammals. And finally we find mammal jaws. And you seem to agree that this all could be evolution.

Well, finally we enter this nature, so of course we start to find man and mammal stuff.

Oh, but meantime you say there were horses and humans walking around with the mammalian jaw, but they didn't fossilize until these other creatures had evolved into mammals.
Then suddenly they too started to fossilize too!

Don't blame me for the former nature, that seemingly did not allow man and most animals to fossilize. If they started to be able to fossilize when the nature changed we should see them starting to enter the record later on in the fossil record. Indeed that is what we see, exactly. The evidence seems clear and overwhelming.

To agree with God being able to change the laws around us, and that this is what He will do in the future, and did do in the past, would mean we would need to actually believe in God.

 

[dad]

How can you make any claims about what the world was like in the distant past? You weren't there.

God was. He told us.

 

[dad]

And we know you refer to last thursday's nature

Call the unknown anything you like.

You assume and believe the equivalent of the universe being created last thursday, with all our memories of having lived our entire lives implanted in our brains

The bible doesn't tell us anything like that actually.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Call the unknown anything you like.


The bible doesn't tell us anything like that actually.

and yet you ramble on and on about a "different state past" (aka "last thursdayism") anyway

 

[xianghua]

No, why would I?

I evaluate objects based on their own merits and I have no reason to think a flagellum or any other naturally occurring life is the product of deliberate design. (And yes, I've heard all the arguments before.)

From everything I have seen and studied, natural life on Earth bears the appearance of biological evolution.

i think i actually refer to the two cars but never mind..

 

[xianghua]

Sure.

Humans and bananas.

what about them?

 

[xianghua]

Because all the cars I ever saw were demonstrably man made. The flagellum occurs naturally so I can't tell if it was intelligently designed.

the problem is that no one ever showed that a flagellum can evolve naturally. therefore we cant conclude that.

 

[Speedwell]

the problem is that no one ever showed that a flagellum can evolve naturally. therefore we cant conclude that.

And no one ever showed it can't evolve naturally, either, so that leaves us in the same situation of not being able to conclude design.

 

[Alistair_Wonderland]

The funny/sad thing about the whole creation/evolution debate is that, in the end, we all have the same evidence. We just interpret it differently based on what we either consciously or subconsciously go in believing, and pick and choose what we say is false based on that.

For the record, I don't think God would make a world where he could be scientifically proven. That would mean you could get to Heaven through logic, not faith. And while I don't believe in the day-age theory, people seem to forget that some people simultaneously believe in evolution and creation, and while I think that may influence their outlook on God's personality, I don't think it will ruin their salvation.

Science and religion aren't opposites. They aren't even comparable. One is about faith and belief. The other is about observable facts and questioning what one knows. You cannot discover scientific principals through faith and religion alone. (The Dark Ages proved that.) And you cannot prove religion through science, or else God would be beholden to science, making science more powerful than him, in which science would be God.

My main complaint about evolution is its singularity. In all science, there is always, and always should be, multiple theories. The fact that there is a theory of evolution, instead of theories, makes me believe that this has moved beyond the borders of science and become a matter of personal belief for most people. Some people are scared of a world with a God. Some people are scared of a world without a God. And rather than seek the truth, no matter how it may scare us, we bicker over silly things, each trying to prove events that nobody can prove.

Due to scientific theory, we cannot properly replicate the circumstances of evolution to properly test it. While this neither confirms nor denies anything, the fact that so many people believe evolution as fact, rather than theory, shows that they are relying as much on faith as religious people, and are in fact turning evolution into religion. I am no scientific person, but I have one firm belief about what it takes to be a scientist: "Trust no proven theory as proven, dismiss no crazy theory as crazy." A true scientist will not say, "There is no God." A true scientist will say "I have not seen any evidence of a God." (Or maybe he has seen evidence.)

The problem is, until we remove our human biases, we cannot approach the subject without already having our information tainted. And even the most serious, logical human is not an unbiased, emotionless machine. This debate simply cannot be solved by proving anything to the other side. We all have the same information. We just chose to interpret it differently.

A word of advice before I leave: Be a true scientist. Be you creationist or evolutionist, try and understand why the other person believes what they believe. Dare to imagine "what if they are right?" and think outside the box. And just because one theory breaks your idea of how you interpret things are doesn't mean it goes against your beliefs, just your interpretation of your beliefs.

 

[Speedwell]

The funny/sad thing about the whole creation/evolution debate is that, in the end, we all have the same evidence. We just interpret it differently based on what we either consciously or subconsciously go in believing, and pick and choose what we say is false based on that.

For the record, I don't think God would make a world where he could be scientifically proven. That would mean you could get to Heaven through logic, not faith. And while I don't believe in the day-age theory, people seem to forget that some people simultaneously believe in evolution and creation, and while I think that may influence their outlook on God's personality, I don't think it will ruin their salvation.

Science and religion aren't opposites. They aren't even comparable. One is about faith and belief. The other is about observable facts and questioning what one knows. You cannot discover scientific principals through faith and religion alone. (The Dark Ages proved that.) And you cannot prove religion through science, or else God would be beholden to science, making science more powerful than him, in which science would be God.

My main complaint about evolution is its singularity. In all science, there is always, and always should be, multiple theories. The fact that there is a theory of evolution, instead of theories, makes me believe that this has moved beyond the borders of science and become a matter of personal belief for most people. Some people are scared of a world with a God. Some people are scared of a world without a God. And rather than seek the truth, no matter how it may scare us, we bicker over silly things, each trying to prove events that nobody can prove.

Due to scientific theory, we cannot properly replicate the circumstances of evolution to properly test it. While this neither confirms nor denies anything, the fact that so many people believe evolution as fact, rather than theory, shows that they are relying as much on faith as religious people, and are in fact turning evolution into religion. I am no scientific person, but I have one firm belief about what it takes to be a scientist: "Trust no proven theory as proven, dismiss no crazy theory as crazy." A true scientist will not say, "There is no God." A true scientist will say "I have not seen any evidence of a God." (Or maybe he has seen evidence.)

The problem is, until we remove our human biases, we cannot approach the subject without already having our information tainted. And even the most serious, logical human is not an unbiased, emotionless machine. This debate simply cannot be solved by proving anything to the other side. We all have the same information. We just chose to interpret it differently.

A word of advice before I leave: Be a true scientist. Be you creationist or evolutionist, try and understand why the other person believes what they believe. Dare to imagine "what if they are right?" and think outside the box. And just because one theory breaks your idea of how you interpret things are doesn't mean it goes against your beliefs, just your interpretation of your beliefs.

While I agree in general with what you say, as a practical matter the creation/evolution debate does not generally turn around the question of the existence of God. In fact, it is more usually a debate between those who hold to an fundamentalist Protestant interpretation of scripture and everybody else--Christians, other theists and atheists together.

 

[SavedByGrace3]

While I agree in general with what you say, as a practical matter the creation/evolution debate does not generally turn around the question of the existence of God. In fact, it is more usually a debate between those who hold to an fundamentalist Protestant interpretation of scripture and everybody else--Christians, other theists and atheists together.

You mean "fundamentalist darwinian evolution," that is those who hold to a fundamentalist interpretation of the theoretical works of charles darwin. It is, after all, a religion, and those who insist it to be absolute fact without the proof of scientific mentod... are fundamentalists to that faith.

 

[Speedwell]

You mean "fundamentalist darwinian evolution," that is those who hold to a fundamentalist interpretation of the theoretical works of charles darwin. It is, after all, a religion, and those who insist it to be absolute fact without the proof of scientific mentod... are fundamentalists to that faith.

A very tiny "religion," none of whose members are known to me. Certainly none of them frequent this forum.

 

[SavedByGrace3]

A very tiny "religion," none of whose members are known to me. Certainly none of them frequent this forum.

I am sure they are all saying "amen," and "preach it" to your post.

 

[Speedwell]

I am sure they are all saying "amen," and "preach it" to your post.

Wherever they are, if they exist at all outside of your imagination.