Where Do Complex Organisms Come From?

[SteveB28]

According to traditional Buddhist teachings, complex living organisms are a manifestation of Buddha-nature, the spiritual principle underlying the universe:
The Buddha-nature: the Original Source of All Living Beings

This might not be a satisfying explanation for a non-Buddhist, but someone who isn't already invested in the Darwinian paradigm would question how natural selection acting on random mutations would be responsible for complex features like the human eye.

We have never, in real time, witnessed such complex evolutionary changes. Instead, it's an extrapolation based on the small changes we can witness in the present, like peppered moths or a new species of fruit fly.

Scientists have never actually witnessed, as far as I know, the ability of natural selection acting on random mutation to produce complex features like the human eye. Alfred Russell Wallace, who discovered evolution by natural selection along with Charles Darwin, still believed that complex features like the human eye required some sort of intelligence.

How do you know that you had great great great great grandparents?

Where you there?



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[Speedwell]

And here again we have someone totally ignorant of the scientific method.

"Proven"????


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He knows. It's the last gap for his god.

 

[Dharma Flower]

How do you know that you had great great great great grandparents?

Where you there?



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Prehistory is much different from recorded history.

 

[SteveB28]

Prehistory is much different from recorded history.

And yet, both are recorded...


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[Dharma Flower]

And yet, both are recorded...


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No, that is incorrect. Prehistory is, by definition, before written records. We don't have any testimony of people who lived back then to tell us what really happened.

 

[SteveB28]

No, that is incorrect. Prehistory is, by definition, before written records. We don't have any testimony of people who lived back then to tell us what really happened.

Ah, but "recording" can take many forms.

For example, do you not accept the growth rings on a tree as a "recording" of its life span? Do you not accept that oil and coal exploration hinges on the "recording" provided by certain rock strata?




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[USincognito]

The fossil record is based on faulty dating systems and assumptions.

Vacuous rhetoric lacking support and substance. Adding a Creationist magic word doesn't help.

 

[USincognito]

And the majority of those are based on assumptive theory.

In an effort to be sciency, far too many Creationists post stuff that would fail a Turing Test.

None of them prove common ancestor. Once again it is not something that can be proven.

Arrrrggghhh!!! How many times do we have to go over this. Science doesn't do "proof". Anyone who doesn't get that isn't even in a position to discuss a scientific topic.

 

[Subduction Zone]

The fossil record is based on faulty dating systems and assumptions.

Simply and obviously wrong. Creationists make this claim but they can never support it.

 

[USincognito]

..complex features like the human eye.

The human eye isn't that special and isn't even a particularly good eye. They're eyes that evolved from earlier eyes going a long, long way back (to stem bilatarians at least).

We have never, in real time,

Good think science doesn't require it.

...like peppered moths or a new species of fruit fly.

Live by the PRATT, die by the PRATT. Ever heard of Italian Wall Lizards?
Lizards Rapidly Evolve After Introduction to Island

 

[USincognito]

No, that is incorrect. Prehistory is, by definition, before written records.

Then history goes back at least 30,000 years.

We don't have any testimony of people who lived back then to tell us what really happened.

Yes we do. From their fossils and tools and cave paintings, etc. etc. Those are just as much a testament as written records.

 

[Dharma Flower]

Ah, but "recording" can take many forms.

For example, do you not accept the growth rings on a tree as a "recording" of its life span? Do you not accept that oil and coal exploration hinges on the "recording" provided by certain rock strata?.

As a Buddhist, I accept the antiquity of the earth. What I don't believe, based on traditional Buddhist teachings, is that humans share a common ancestor with chimps:
Forbidden Archeology: Beyond Creation vs. Evolution

None of us were around to witness how and when humans first appeared on this earth. And in the present, we aren't able to observe the kind of largescale evolutionary changes such as the complex human eye.

The only evolutionary change we're able to observe in the present is very, very smallscale compared to the origin of complex features like the eye.

 

[USincognito]

As a Buddhist, I accept the antiquity of the earth. What I don't believe, based on traditional Buddhist teachings, is that humans share a common ancestor with chimps:
Forbidden Archeology: Beyond Creation vs. Evolution

None of us were around to witness how and when humans first appeared on this earth. And in the present, we aren't able to observe the kind of largescale evolutionary changes such as the complex human eye.

The only evolutionary change we're able to observe in the present is very, very smallscale compared to the origin of complex features like the eye.

Citing a crank like Michael Cremo repeating the "complex eye" thing despite having been corrected isn't helping you make your case.

 

[Ophiolite]

The only evolutionary change we're able to observe in the present is very, very smallscale compared to the origin of complex features like the eye.

Do you or do you not accept that in millions of years time the Himalayas will have been eroded down to practically nothing? If not, why not?

 

[sfs]

As a Buddhist, I accept the antiquity of the earth. What I don't believe, based on traditional Buddhist teachings, is that humans share a common ancestor with chimps:

My impression is that traditional Buddhist teachings are compatible with a wide range of beliefs. The only practicing Buddhist I know well is also one of the world's experts on the molecular evolution of humans, so it's certainly possible both to be a Buddhist and to accept evolution.

 

[GazzaStott]

No, that is incorrect. Prehistory is, by definition, before written records. We don't have any testimony of people who lived back then to tell us what really happened.

French cave paintings tell us a lot more than words ever could.
The Cave Art Paintings of the Lascaux Cave

 

[rjs330]

And here again we have someone totally ignorant of the scientific method.

"Proven"????


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Yes I said proven. Those that claim science doesn't have to prove or doesn't prove anything are grasping at a vacuous argument in order to explain why they can't prove anything but still claim a fact.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Yes I said proven. Those that claim science doesn't have to prove or doesn't prove anything are grasping at a vacuous argument in order to explain why they can't prove anything but still claim a fact.

Science does not absolutely "prove" anything. Gravity has not been "proved" by science. People were pointing out that your use of that word shows a basic lack of understanding.

Now if you want to use the definition of "proven beyond a reasonable doubt", then by that definition the evolution has been shown to be correct. I has been proven. If you accept DNA in court cases as valid evidence then the theory of evolution has been shown to be correct beyond a reasonable doubt. If you accept gravity as a fact then you should accept evolution as a fact.

 

[rjs330]

Said no one ever.

You're not paying attention. There are all kinds of problems with the dating of fossils.

http://www.nytimes.com/1990/05/31/us/errors-are-feared

It's another one of those assumptive arguments that evolutionists love

The Carbon 14 Myth

 

[Subduction Zone]

You're not paying attention. There are all kinds of problems with the dating of fossils.

http://www.nytimes.com/1990/05/31/us/errors-are-feared

It's another one of those assumptive arguments that evolutionists love

The Carbon 14 Myth

Your first link does not work and your second one is to a bogus source.

Try again.