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What if we melded Evolution and Creation, in some way? That in the beginning, light set out to give

FrumiousBandersnatch

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You're the one who said a one-cell creature came to life billions of years ago and gradually changed into swimming creatures, land animals and finally mankind, not us.

Now you are saying it didn't evolve into anything new at all?
No, that's not what I said. If you read my post with attention, you'll find it refers to evolutionary changes in populations. No one animal changes into another unknown type of animal.
 
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coffee4u

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No, that's not what I said. If you read my post with attention, you'll find it refers to evolutionary changes in populations. No one animal changes into another unknown type of animal.

I honestly wonder if we are all speaking English.

Does evolution or does it not believe life started as a one-cell creature after the big bang which slowly changed over millions of years into mankind?
 
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FrumiousBandersnatch

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I honestly wonder if we are all speaking English.

Does evolution or does it not believe life started as a one-cell creature after the big bang which slowly changed over millions of years into mankind?
The theory of evolution posits that populations of simple unicellular creatures evolved into the diversity of life we see today, including mankind.

This theory is supported by the elaboration of a demonstrable mechanism for this process, and multiple independent lines of evidence, repeatedly tested over 150 years, with many fruitful predictions.
 
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coffee4u

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Dressing things up in convoluted syntax does not impress me.

So now you are saying evolution believes after the big bang there was a variety of unicellular creatures? (a fancy way of saying one-cell)

And what proofs do they have of that? Not that I believe any of their 'proofs' but I like to at least know what you all believe currently, before you change it again.
 
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pitabread

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Dressing things up in convoluted syntax does not impress me.

What convoluted syntax was in that post you quoted?

(Was it the word "fruitful"? It was fruitful, wasn't it? )

And what proofs do they have of that? Not that I believe any of their 'proofs' but I like to at least know what you all believe currently, before you change it again.

Fossils of the oldest life forms on Earth show are unicellular creatures: Fossil Record of the Bacteria
 
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coffee4u

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What convoluted syntax was in that post you quoted?

(Was it the word "fruitful"? It was fruitful, wasn't it? )

Haha.

Come on
This theory is supported by the elaboration of a demonstrable mechanism for this process

If this is how you all commonly speak I think you need to get your heads out of the lab and speak to some real people.

It reminds me of the flowery speech I make to the education department each year.
 
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pitabread

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If this is how you all commonly speak I think you need to get your heads out of the lab and speak to some real people.

It reminds me of the flowery speech I make to the education department each year.

Again, what part of that is convoluted? I'm being sincere since I really don't get it.

This is also coming from someone who uses words like "demonstrable" on a semi-regular basis in my job. Maybe I'm just used to it.
 
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coffee4u

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Again, what part of that is convoluted? I'm being sincere since I really don't get it.

This is also coming from someone who uses words like "demonstrable" on a semi-regular basis in my job. Maybe I'm just used to it.

I think you may be. The people I am around don't normally string words together such as "elaboration of a demonstrable mechanism" not unless they are showing off or are academics who live their life stuck in a book and can't relate to other people. I took it to be showing off and still might be even if yours isn't.

I'm Australian though, we speak very plainly here, so it could be cultural too. Speak like that here and you might get told to take the stick out your you know what.
 
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Speedwell

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Why are you critiquing the language used, rather than actually addressing the points raised?

I'm Australian too, and there's nothing "cultural" about your complaints about the language being used. Complex concepts justify complex explanations.
And the specificity and accuracy required in scientific discourse often justifies the use of words not frequently heard in common speech.
 
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FrumiousBandersnatch

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Dressing things up in convoluted syntax does not impress me.
I'm not trying to impress you, I'm trying to answer your question. If you don't understand it, ask me to explain. I'll try to simplify the language.

So now you are saying evolution believes after the big bang there was a variety of unicellular creatures? (a fancy way of saying one-cell)
No, belief is not really appropriate for scientific theories as they are provisional (although you could believe that a theory is the best available explanation). The big bang is also irrelevant.

There is good evidence that, at one time, the Earth was far too hot for life. There is also evidence that early life appeared soon (by geological timescales) after it had cooled, and that it was single-celled. The theory of evolution is an explanation for how that earliest life diversified into all the species we've discovered from then until now.

And what proofs do they have of that? Not that I believe any of their 'proofs' but I like to at least know what you all believe currently, before you change it again.
If you mean the evidence for early life being single-celled, the earliest signs of life are fossilised microbial mats, flat clumps of bacteria and archaea. They are identified by their characteristic shape and structure, their local environment (e.g. shallow waters), and the characteristic chemical signatures of metabolism that remain in the rock.

There are a lot of claims for the earliest known life, most of which are disputed, but all are microbial, as is the undisputed evidence. The earliest evidence for multicellular life appears about a billion years later.
 
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FrumiousBandersnatch

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If this is how you all commonly speak I think you need to get your heads out of the lab and speak to some real people.

It reminds me of the flowery speech I make to the education department each year.
It's partly my personal preference for using a wide vocabulary, and partly the habit of trying to be precise and concise in science discussions.
 
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FrumiousBandersnatch

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Horses for courses - this is not unusual language in science forums. This is a science forum.
 
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SLP

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The people I am around don't normally string words together such as "elaboration of a demonstrable mechanism" not unless they are showing off or are academics who live their life stuck in a book and can't relate to other people.
Those are the only options? Showing off or an academic "stuck in a book"?

I find these kinds of characterizations more demonstrative of the jealousy of the under-educated than anything else.

When you watch a rugby player pull off an amazing feat of athleticism, do you dismiss it as 'showing off' or just something a dumb jock does?

Stuck in a book... One of my colleagues runs a small farm in addition to being a professor of English. Another is a motorcycle mechanic, etc. I do wonder where this whole thing about denigrating the educated came from....

I'm Australian though, we speak very plainly here, so it could be cultural too. Speak like that here and you might get told to take the stick out your you know what.

But not if I got a try on the pitch, eh?

I'm American. Half the people here can barely string 3 words together coherently. I LOVE it when people actually communicate like educated adults.
 
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stevevw

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Could be Theistic evolution or maybe something different again. I think we are still learning and discovering. What may be classed as random as with mutations may be directed to a point. I cannot imagine God creating some universal common ancestor and then leaving everything to chance in the hope it would lead to what we have to today, intelligent beings who are able to have a relationship with their creator. The worldview of evolution would have that the outcome of the course of evolution cannot be predicted. There is no rhyme or reason only survival. I cannot see God taking a gamble like that.

So whether all instructions for life may have been in a common ancestor or several forms of life or it was set at the very beginning of existence the laws, codes and instructions had to be there from the start to ensure we were on the right path. Any slight variation to the left or right could cause us to end with no life or some other form of life that was incapable of knowing God. After all that was Gods intention to create humans to have relationship with. It seems the evidence for there being more direction and less randomness in how life evolved and developed is being discovered all the time and it is making it hard for the traditional understanding of evolution to account for what we see without appealing to extraordinary circumstances and capabilities.
 
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Speedwell

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Except we don't know that about evolution. It may well be that evolution naturally converges on self-aware intelligence, just as it has on, say, the ability to fly which has emerged in several very different branches of evolutionary development.

From the theological standpoint, the contingency of natural processes is not in any case a barrier to divine providence.
 
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ruthiesea

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To me it’s quite simple. Religion is about the who (the creator) and the Theory of Evolution and science in general is about the how and the process. I see no conflict between the two.

Some talk about “G-dless evolution” when, in fact, nowhere in his scientific writings does Darwin say that G-d doesn’t exist.
 
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