That may be true but doesn't anyone care or think about where did those "random chemicals" come from.[/quote ]
Of course they do! I do! But we've got the story pretty well mapped out right from the creation of the very first atom - hydrogen, to the fusion of hydrogen into helium, to the fusion of these light elements to carbon and oxygen and iron, to the creation of simple molecules like carbon dioxide, ammonia, water, things like that. Those molecules are completely non-controversial - we see those being formed all the time. We can see traces of them throughout the universe, too.
We are just now beginning to discover how these simple chemicals reacted to make complex organic molecules. We have found amino acids - some of the building blocks of life - on meteors. We know that amino acids will form, crucially, without life - and in conditions that mimic the early earth atmosphere.
It's all part of the story, and the story never starts and never finishes - science is going to keep on looking.
To say we have to stop looking at some point, to declare "God did this" is a crime against curiosity.
I know how you feel but that's not really much of an arguement, now is it?
Of course not - the evidence, however, is.
Due to a lack of a falsifiable concept for a start, and further due to a lack of testable hypotheses, with the accompanying verifiable and repeatable evidence or results.
You tell me you're the scientist. I bet God knows the answer. My point is not that these things are wrong just that they do not prove the none existence of God the Creator.
No, they don't. And nothing can - that's the meaning of the word unfalsifiable.
But I was responding to the use of the word "theory" in a derisive fashion.
This only shows we are similar but that is only because we have the same Creator. What is that to us if He chose to give different parts of His creation similar elements. They still are very distinct from each other.
OK, I guess you don't know the full story, here. No sweat - very few people do. Now, this is a rare opportunity for everyone, because it's rare that we get a creationist listening to this. Please don't let us down - think very carefully about what I'm about to tell you.
First some background. Chromosomes have three basic features. They have genes, which exist in a certain pattern. The have a centromere, which is the cause of the "pinch" in the X shape when you see pictures of chromosomes. Finally, the ends of chromosomes have little 'caps' of repeating DNA called telomeres. They're like the bits of plastic on your shoelaces, stopping the important DNA getting damaged.
For ages, scientists have known that humans have one chromosome pair fewer than chimps do. We found this out
after we discovered the theory of evolution, and came to the conclusion that humans descended from apes.
As such, scientists made a pretty big prediction. They said we should see evidence that two of these chromosomes fused together. One couldn't just disappear because that would cause the unborn offspring to miscarry, more than likely.
So, if two chromosomes fuse, those three features should show up in specific ways. Firstly, you two chromomes should have gene patterns which match the fused one. The centromere of the fused one should be in the same position as that of one of the originals, and there should also be a defunct, broken centromere in the position of the other original. Finally, at the site of the fusion event, we should see a specific sequence from the telomere.
We find
all of these things - we find that human chromosome two came from chimp chromosomes 2A and 2B.
Now, there's no need to reply to this straight away, because I seriously want you to have a think. I want you to rack your brains for an alternative explanation. A word of clarification. You
could come back right now and say, "yes, but God could have done it that way." Yes he
could. But that is
not an explanation. The point is that God
could have chosen to do anything he pleased, but evolution certainly can not. If you are to come up with a true
explanation, you need something which can
only produce the results we see.
That's science - the best theory is the one which provides loads and loads of opportunities to be disproven, but never is. Imagine if we found that human chromosome two had a matching gene sequence, but the centromere was in completely the wrong place, and there was no remnant of telomere - we'd be
darn puzzled, I can tell you.
Thing is, though, if you
do come up with a
proper explanation, there's more. You've heard of scurvy, I assume - it's what sailors got who didn't have enough fresh fruit. We only get scurvy because one of the genes required to make vitamin C is broken. It's also broken in other primates. But not in any other mammal except, oddly enough, the Guinea Pig.
Again, evolution can make predictions. It would be astonishingly unlikely that the same mutation took out the gene in both instances. So the remnants of each gene - the psuedogene - should look different. And they do. Furthermore, for the primates, we should notice that mutations gradually accrue in the now useless gene. We should find that any mutation that, say, gibbons and chimps have, we should as well, since gibbons, chimps and humans share a common ancestor.
All of these patterns are found in the pseudogene, and in others. There is absolutely
no way that anyone has ever mentioned, at all, that explains all of these patterns in one fell swoop.
That my friend, is why scientists accept evolution.
A little condescention here?
I wouldn't deny it. You probably would, too, if you got this about evolution, science, atheism and believing in yesterday being a religion left, right and centre.
I don't recall asking for proof (but I may have) and if I asked for proof, it was as a rebuttle to being asked for proof of God's existence. Just to make a point. What's good for the goose .... so to speak.
Well, proof for God is not
quite so unreasonable, since many people have claimed to have proof. But proof is by no means required, since God's existence would be an empirical fact.
Hey, someone else brought up the dogma, I was just answering. Please explain to me though how these things that you stated show that creation could not have happened.
I've explained HC2 and pseudogenes. Now, creation could, of course, still have happened. But think about it - somehow those patterns had to get there. On the one hand, evolution caused it. God could have created everything, but we still would've evolved - falsifying the genesis account. On the other hand, God could have created everything as it says in an ancient book written by nomads, and have
planted this stuff there, so it looks exactly like we evolved from apes. You can believe that if you like, but it's about as sensible as saying that pixies created the earth last Thursday, and that it just
looks as if it's really old.
I have never said that there was no indication of things evolving. I have said that creation happened as the scripture says AND if what has been learned in the "science" of evolution proves differently, then there is something wrong with that evidence.
That's not the way science works. The evidence says what it says, and no-one's ancient text gets special treatment.
(And this is where I believe the "religion" of evolution kicks in with their hypothetical theories, trying to "link" the so called evidences with their already stated erroneous "possibilities".)
It is precisely because science does not take holy texts as the sacred truth that it is
not religion.
Thankfully there are other scientists who do not succomb to this and bring to light the error.
Pretty much the only scientists except for Behe who are also creationists do not work in relevant fields. Even Behe is disowned by his department, and writes popular books, not scientific papers.
Again, How does this disprove a literal Genesis? I suspect it is rather a misunderstanding of the Genesis account and how scripture is interpreted.
Genesis says that light was created with stars. This is wrong. Genesis says that the earth started off covered in water. This is wrong. Genesis says the sun and stars were created after the earth. This is wrong. Genesis says the moon is a light. This is wrong. Genesis says grass came before land animals. This is wrong.
I would say the same of God. Although proof of God is all around us. Nature teaches us that there is a God.
No, it doesn't. You are reading into nature what isn't there.
Isn't that contradictory to what you keep saying?
The statement "organisms can evolve, but only so far" is contradictory to science, yes. That is why I asked for evidence.
(the evidence part I mean) I think I answered the other part of this above.
Do you agree that "organisms can evolve, but only so far" and if so, where is the evidence?
I never said that there was. I just said that within each species there is evidence of a Creator. The design is to intricate and wonderful to just "happen".
But it isn't. That's the point - every step of the way, we find evidence of evolution from a slightly less intricate "design." The only place left to put down to God is the very start of life, and that gap is closing, too, as we discover that even complex organic molecules - the basis of our "design" are created spontaneously without life.