What does having 96% chimp dna mean to you?

[rjs330]

If there is an outside force that was evolved in creation, I would want to understand that force, as would practically every scientist.

The problem as some have pointed out is that the "force" is not something you can understand. Science cannot answer the question of an unseen and untestable force. That is the real issue at hand. Intelligent design cannot be allowed in the scientific community because there is a designer and the designer cannot be seen or tested or observed. It's a paradox. Whereas evolution does not present that problem. All you have to do is say I believe in evolution and it's simple. Nothing more to look into really.

But evolution from a common ancestor is just as elusive as that force because it cannot be observed, tested, or reproduced.

 

[bhsmte]

The problem as some have pointed out is that the "force" is not something you can understand. Science cannot answer the question of an unseen and untestable force. That is the real issue at hand. Intelligent design cannot be allowed in the scientific community because there is a designer and the designer cannot be seen or tested or observed. It's a paradox. Whereas evolution does not present that problem. All you have to do is say I believe in evolution and it's simple. Nothing more to look into really.

But evolution from a common ancestor is just as elusive as that force because it cannot be observed, tested, or reproduced.

People can claim unseen forces till the cows come home, it is meaningless.

You can still believe your unseen forces though.

 

[rjs330]

To start with,
To teach creationism in public school science classes.
To require fundamentalist Protestant prayer and Bible study of all students, regardless of their religion (this is known as "putting God back in the schools").

That's the minimum, but it goes farther. Some years ago, a slate of creationists was elected to the school board of Vista, California (a residential suburb of San Diego). Besides the above, their program included such things as,
Forbidding the teaching of tolerance of ambiguity and diversity.
Forbidding the teaching about women who have achieved success in careers outside the home.
Bolting the students' desks to the floor to eliminate group work, which undercuts the divinely ordained authority of the teacher.
Teaching blatantly revisionist US history (a la David Barton)
Eliminating any kind of sex education.
And so on, all pretty typical of creationist goals still today.
Or you can just take a look at the campaign platform of your creationist Poster Boy, Judge Roy Moore (leaving aside his alleged pedophilia; he is from Alabama, after all).

I've lived in the Bible Belt and seen this kind of thing in action for myself where creationists have political power, for instance little kids being routinely harrassed and bullied by their teachers for belonging to the "wrong religion." Creationists look back to the bad old days of the 19th century when Evangelical Protestantism enjoyed an entirely unwarranted status as the unofficial state religion. They see themselves as the true heirs of that Golden Age and want to bring it back. No thanks.

Well I'd have to say much if that stuff you said happened (no link provided by the way)
I think is pretty dumb. I don't think we should force students to pray in school.

As far as reading the Bible I have no issue with on a constitutional level. The reason for that is based upon history. The Bible was a text book in schools before and after the founding and after the Constitution. It wasnt until 100+ years later that the supreme Court decided to come up with the separation of church and state despite the fact that the Constitution did not really support that.

I have no issue with teaching tolerance because that fits with Jesus teaching on loving one another. I have no issue with teaching about successful women outside the home as long as you also teach that you can be just as much of a success if you don't work outside the home. Too often it was taught that women in the home were not fulfilling their potential and subservient to men. That's just as wrong.

Bolting desks to floor is just dumb.

David Barton is not a revisionist, he actually combats revisionist history.

 

[doubtingmerle]

The problem as some have pointed out is that the "force" is not something you can understand. Science cannot answer the question of an unseen and untestable force. That is the real issue at hand. Intelligent design cannot be allowed in the scientific community because there is a designer and the designer cannot be seen or tested or observed. It's a paradox. Whereas evolution does not present that problem. All you have to do is say I believe in evolution and it's simple. Nothing more to look into really.

But evolution from a common ancestor is just as elusive as that force because it cannot be observed, tested, or reproduced.

A creator who created the earth in 4004 BC would show up in evidence.

A creator with a Facebook account where he expounded things only a God would know would have evidence.

A creator who healed amputees would have evidence.

A creator would be testable if only he were to clearly do observable things.

 

[Speedwell]

Well I'd have to say much if that stuff you said happened (no link provided by the way)
I think is pretty dumb. I don't think we should force students to pray in school.

The vast majority of your fellow creationists not only think that students should be required to pray in school but that it must be Evangelical Protestant prayer. During Santa Fe School District v. Loving a compromise was offered to have clergy of the different denominations represented in the student body lead the prayer in turn, but that suggestion was rejected out of hand by the school district. It was also brought out in that case that public school teachers of the district were sending little Catholic and Mormon kids home in tears by telling them that their parents belonged to "godless cults." That's who creationists really are, that's how they want the entire country to be run. I know, I've lived amongst them.

As far as reading the Bible I have no issue with on a constitutional level. The reason for that is based upon history. The Bible was a text book in schools before and after the founding and after the Constitution.

Yes, the Protestant Bible and none other, as interpreted by Protestants and none other. Back then, Catholic kids could be beaten by their teachers for not going along with it, not just harassed and bullied like in the Bible Belt today. Truly it was a Golden Age.

It wasnt until 100+ years later that the supreme Court decided to come up with the separation of church and state despite the fact that the Constitution did not really support that.

Good on them. We're better off with religious neutrality in the schools than we would be if we let the Fundies back in.

David Barton is not a revisionist, he actually combats revisionist history.

In my opinion the way he twists US history borders on treason. It makes me sick to my stomach. In fact, I'm sick of the lot of you. Another creationist on this board has been trying to pursuade us that the purpose of Isaiah 28:10 is to describe God laying down geologic strata after the Flood. So much for "literal inerrancy." It's just plain silly.

I suppose in the end we will have to fight again. You people seem to have forgotten how many lives it cost and that you lost last time.

 

[PsychoSarah]

The problem as some have pointed out is that the "force" is not something you can understand. Science cannot answer the question of an unseen and untestable force.

A force which cannot be detected is indistinguishable from a force that's entirely fictitious.

That is the real issue at hand. Intelligent design cannot be allowed in the scientific community because there is a designer and the designer cannot be seen or tested or observed.

Which makes said proposed designer indistinguishable from something that doesn't exist.

It's a paradox.

I wouldn't call that a paradox. After all, if said proposed designer had measurable properties, there'd be no issue in testing it.

Whereas evolution does not present that problem. All you have to do is say I believe in evolution and it's simple. Nothing more to look into really.

Lol, what? Evolution is testable, which is why it is a part of science. You just went through why intelligent design isn't allowed (and correctly assessed it), but then you act as if a person couldn't just say "I believe in god", despite admitting that said deity cannot be tested. I'm very confused about your logic.

But evolution from a common ancestor is just as elusive as that force because it cannot be observed, tested, or reproduced.

-_- I'm literally running an evolution experiment right now. I even designed the experiment such that other people without any special equipment could replicate it.

A sad fact is that evolution is a slow process, and anything that would speed it up fast enough for you to observe a transition on the scale of a lizard population evolving into a bird population would defy perimeters in nature so much that people like you would say it doesn't count as evidence. For example, it is entirely possible to increase the rate of mutation within genomes, and forced mutation is part of how people find out the function of genes. However, despite the fact that these forced mutations can be equally random to natural ones, the fact that they occurred due to human intervention would make people cry out "intelligent design". Which is as annoying as a person demanding that the circumference of the planet has to be measured with a ruler.

 

[DogmaHunter]

I know some people like to point out how close our species is to chimps and use this as evidence that God doesn't exist

Give that cliché a rest already. Most christians have no problems with evolution.

but would you really come to this conclusion on your own? If God created The universe, chimps and humans. Why couldn't he have used similar methods when creating chimps as us.

Why would this god create all life forms and go out of his way to make it look as if they all evolved from a common ancestor?

It's not about just chimps. It's about all living things.

I was watching a video about 15 body parts that we were supposed to lose over the next 500 years due to evolution and it had me starting to have some atheist sayings run through my mind and made me just ponder a bit. I eventually came to the conclusion that if God created humans and chimps then we should expect similarity between two created things God made right?

It's not about mere similarity. It's about the pattern of similarity.
The pattern of similarity in all living things (not just chimps and humans) is a nested hierarchy. This is a very specific pattern. It's a branching tree. Like a family tree.

The only pattern that could exist if evolution happened.
The last pattern one would expect if all things were individually created.

So what do things like the closeness of our dna to chimps, and the fact that we have certain body parts that we don't even need mean to you in regards to your belief in God or lack of belief?

It is completely unrelated to my atheism.
For most christians, it is also completely unrelated to their theism. Just ask the Vatican peeps, for example.

Most christians are fine saying God created humans and that evolution is the method he used.

 

[DogmaHunter]

I make all sorts of different things out of the same materials. Sometimes they are almost identical. I made two such bird feeders; one I finished with waterproofing, the other with varnish. They are at least 95 percent.....the same. Now you could say that the second bird feeder 'evolved' from the first,

You could. But then you would need to support it. To do so, you would have to show how these objects self-replicate with variation, how they compete for limited resources and how the collection of objects falls into a nested hierarchy depicted the common ancestry relations.

Which you can not do for your created objects.
But we can do that for living evolved things.

or from a common design that preceded both of them.

And that, you would be able to do.
You would also be able to identify clear signs of manufacturing.
Which you can't do with evolved living things.

 

[DogmaHunter]

So why is evolution talked up by atheists so much if it's not relevant to the question of does God exist or not?

Maybe, just maybe, because a significant bunch of fundamentalists with lots of money are hard at working lobbying to get proper biology kicked out of science classes only to replace it with their fundamentalist creation nonsense...

And when you say evolution do you mean micro or macro evolution?

You can't have one without the other.

Accumulating inches, inevitably ends up resulting in miles.

 

[DogmaHunter]

did you ever seen an ape created a car?

Humans are apes, so yes.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Garbage. If they are studying the origin of life here then they are overlapping into Theology.

How does theology study the origin of life?
Just curious.

So you are saying science cannot tell you the purpose of gravity is to keep your feet on the ground.

That is the effect of gravity. "purpose" is something quite different.

The overall definition is atheistic by an atheist.

You are talking to a theist who is an active professional working geneticist.

 

[AV1611VET]

How does theology study the origin of life?

Theology proclaims it; unbelief studies it.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Theology proclaims it; unbelief studies it.

Ha ok.

So it's just another assertion.

 

[SkyWriting]

This basically sums up my take away from discussions with creationists. God apparently made life with the appearance of evolution. Why? Creationists can't seem to tell us...

Evolution is a highly engineered and sophisticated process. Plenty of evidence.

 

[SkyWriting]

If species on Earth really were the product of a designer creating them independently, I would expect to find a whole host of chimeric organisms like these. Yet, we don't.

Thomas Edison designed a host of inventions, all different from each other.
So your assumption is not supported.

 

[doubtingmerle]

A 2001 Dodge Neon and Intrepid use the same door handle, and probably a LOT of other parts, not including the obvious screws, bolts, wires, etc. The reason is simple. Efficiency, the same design group, designed for the same basic function. i.e. all that matching DNA is a strong case for design.

i see. And where the DNA could easily match, and doesn't, that is evidence against design?

Creatures often need to make the same proteins. If there are a variety of codes that could make that protein, creatures that are close to each other use similar DNA, but creatures that are far from each other use DNA that is quite different for the same function. If there is a designer, why did he keep reinventing the wheel with different code for that protein in different creatures?

 

[Almost there]

i see. And where the DNA could easily match, and doesn't, that is evidence against design?

If the designer and I were peers, yes, it would be evidence against design. But we're not.

Creatures often need to make the same proteins. If there are a variety of codes that could make that protein, creatures that are close to each other use similar DNA, but creatures that are far from each other use DNA that is quite different for the same function. If there is a designer, why did he keep reinventing the wheel with different code for that protein in different creatures?

I'll ask him when I get the chance.

 

[pitabread]

Thomas Edison designed a host of inventions, all different from each other.
So your assumption is not supported.

You're taking this out of context to the discussion in which it was stated. I was replying to the argument than commonalities among organisms point to independent creation by way of 'common design'. If you want to argue that biological organisms don't share similarities, that is a different discussion altogether.

My point is that a designer of biological forms would not be constrained via hereditary descent in the same manner as biological evolution. Ergo, they would be free to design whatever they wanted including the mixing and matching of biological 'components' to create chimeric organisms.

By the same token they could create everything in a completely novel manner with no regard for sharing or swapping of components (what you appear to be arguing Thomas Edison did). But then we would expect to find no commonalities among organisms.

In either case, neither of the above is what we observe with respect to biological forms. They do share biological similarities in manners that is generally consistent with hereditary descent.

 

[Almost there]

People can claim unseen forces till the cows come home, it is meaningless.

You can still believe your unseen forces though.

If I were somehow transported back six thousand years, even if everyone around me thought I was nuts I'd still believe radio waves exist, though it might be difficult to prove.

 

[bhsmte]

If I were somehow transported back six thousand years, even if everyone around me thought I was nuts I'd still believe radio waves exist, though it might be difficult to prove.

Ok.