Your Thoughts on Creation & Evolution

[xianghua]

As I said twice before. No.

It's a bad term that confuses the issue. Is it designed and constructed, sure, but it isn't a robot.

ok. but why its not a robot according to you? what is the main trait that make it non robot?

 

[Speedwell]

ok. but why its not a robot according to you? what is the main trait that make it non robot?

The term "robot" was coined by a Czech playwright to describe a manufactured artificial worker, a character in his play. Is that what you mean? A manufactured artificial worker?

I don't think you really know. You are just desperately trying to find an argument which will convince us that form and function are evidence of intelligent design. You will fail, because it isn't true.

 

[pitabread]

Just know I'm not going to bother with the rest of your post because dealing with this nonsense it time consuming enough.

If it's any consolation, you're not the only one.

I have not looked into the scientific method, and no one in their right mind should expect me to have. I've said time an time again how I don't look into what I don't care about. It's like flat earth, something I'm more likely to go for than evolution, yet I don't bother looking into it. Yet your asking me about it.

This is what confuses me and perhaps you help me out here.

You keep asking people to give you 'proof' of evolution. Evolution in this context being the scientific theory of evolution. Yet when I ask you about the scientific method you claim you don't care about that.

Surely you can appreciate that any evidence (or 'proof' if you will) that you are given in the context of a scientific theory is going to be based on the scientific method. And I've always said that to really begin to understand and appreciate the evidence which supports evolution requires at least a basic (e.g. high school level) understanding of science, biology and the theory of evolution itself.

If you're telling me you have no interest in learning about how science operates, why continually ask for 'proof' in relation to a scientific theory? I don't get.

I'm not going to lock myself into some method that may reflect some of the ridiculous claims you all have made here thus far, such as "science proves nothing" and "theory" is not the theory in the dictionary, and that's just to name a few.

This is something else I don't understand.

In order to have a conversation about something there is usually the need to agree on basic terminology. It's how people are able to communicate without misunderstandings.

When discussing something in the context of science, there is going to be certain terms that have specific means in that context. As was previously pointed out, dictionaries don't exist so you can just pick whatever definition you happen to prefer. They exist to give definitions in the context of usage of specific words.

If you refuse to agree to basic terminology I'm again not sure what you are expecting here. It seems unnecessarily argumentative and not conducive to having a conversation.

Your asking me to agree to something you know I'm not clear on before hand is a poorly set trap that supposedly traps me into excepting certain claims without question because I agreed to accept your scientific method.

No, my questions were to give you the benefit of the doubt so you could explain *your* understanding of science. I wasn't trying to "trap" you into anything. If anything my motivations were the exact opposite.

If that was not the case, why didn't you just put the method on the table and ask me if I accept it? something I'm going to ask you to do right now in order to put this one to rest, and since it seems so important to you.

In the context of this discussion, what I was mainly getting at was the basic method of hypothesis testing. Namely that one makes an observation about nature, forms a hypothesis (e.g. an assumption regarding a causative relationship between phenomena), derives predictions from that hypothesis, tests the predictions (e.g. via experimentation, observation, etc), and then draws a conclusion based on the testing.

For example, say I observe that plants seem to respond to sunlight. I might then form a hypothesis that sunlight is required for plant growth. I can then create predictions based on that hypothesis (e.g. that plants without sunlight won't exhibit growth), create an experiment where I test plants in different conditions and observe the results.

The reason I was getting at this goes back to your condition that anything you are given is free of assumptions. Hypothesis testing essentially rests on making an assumption about something and then testing it. Therefore if you reject anything that involves assumptions would you reject any form of hypothesis testing for this reason? Hence why I started asking you about what you understood in relation to the scientific method.

There is naturally a lot more to the scientific method; ways of deriving predictions from hypotheses, different methods by which hypotheses are tested, how conclusions are drawn, and so on. The Wikipedia page on the subject has a much more comprehensive overview: Scientific method - Wikipedia

I turn this back over to you for your thoughts on the subject.

 

[Kenny'sID]

It obvious that you read creationist literature because you use their bizarre terminology

Still pushing something that isn't true while evading the question about another false accusation. You're batting zero, dude.

Quality of character, verified.

 

[xianghua]

That's not what I asked. Let's recap, shall we?

I stated that in order to falsify biological evolution as an explanation for life's history on this planet (and if life were independently created at the same time), I would expect to see all of life's history including contemporary species showing up at the same time in the fossil record. And that the fossil record should not show any historical patterns that we currently observe.

You claimed this wouldn't be an issue and we could still claim everything evolved.

Thus, I am asking you to explain (not ask questions, but explain) how this would be possible given our contemporary understanding of how biological evolution works and in the context of the changing environmental conditions that the planet has undergone.

Now can you explain this?

its very simple. if according to evolution there is no problem to evolve many complex creatures from a simple creature during 50-100 my (as we can see during the cambrian) i see no problem for evolution even in a case with all creatures almost in the same time.

 

[pitabread]

its very simple. if according to evolution there is no problem to evolve many complex creatures from a simple creature during 50-100 my (as we can see during the cambrian) i see no problem for evolution even in a case with all creatures almost in the same time.

You do know that the Cambrian era lifeforms are NOT the exact same lifeforms as have evolved through the rest of Earth's history right? Once again you are making an argument based on the False Equivalence fallacy.

Thus you still have to explain how it would be possible get all of Earth's lifeforms in such a short period. You can't just gloss over the details like this; you actually need to explain it.

 

[Kenny'sID]

This is what confuses me and perhaps you help me out here.

You keep asking people to give you 'proof' of evolution. Evolution in this context being the scientific theory of evolution. Yet when I ask you about the scientific method you claim you don't care about that.

Yes, you are confused, and I will help you out, in depth. See you have to look at the big picture here, and read things in context, but mainly not look for a way to twist something into a negative action of the opposing party as attempt to discredit. Those are common evolutionists tactics that go along with their lies. Understand?

I'll be clearing this up for you, but because, once again, you make it so time consuming to have to explain your twists and turns or you pretending not to see what going on, the rest of your post will once again, go unread. However, a quick skim did reveal a link, but we all know the problem there, and if I wasn't clear about that, then ask me.

No, I don't care about it enough to look into scientific method prior to this, which is exactly what I said. I did not so much as indicate I didn't care at all as you twisted it into. All the discussion alone should have told you that. I don't care about a lot of things to just look into them out of the blue, but if they come up, I may. Let me be more precise...For example, I work on my own computer, more cost effective, but I don't know everything about them, and I don't care about the rest because it's not a passion or something I necessarily enjoy or not, I only care about what breaks or when other necessity arises, I only care when it's necessary. As a matter of fact, and you'd better sit down for this one...I cared enough at this point, since it has now come up, are you following me/my reasoning? to ask you to post it, and clear up any misunderstandings on Scientific Method.

See how time consuming that was, and I never even got around to your post, something I "think" I would have liked to read, but I have to start making some points here about the lying, deceit, and little games he before we can move on with this. You just aren't going to get it otherwise. But I have to take some of the blame of still taking some of you seriously after the way you carry yourselves, and at some point I'll just have to realize. "They simply have no valid argument, the very reason they defend in the way they do" and just stop listening to you.

 

[pitabread]

No, I don't care about it enough to look into scientific method prior to this, which is exactly what I said. I did not so much as indicate I didn't care at all as you twisted it into.

There's no attempt to twist anything here.

Your post literally said, "I have not looked into the scientific method, and no one in their right mind should expect me to have. I've said time an time again how I don't look into what I don't care about."

To which I replied, "Yet when I ask you about the scientific method you claim you don't care about that."

Which is what you literally just said. I was repeating your own words back at you.

I mean, I'm taking your words at face value here so if you mean something different then perhaps you should chose your words more carefully so that one doesn't misconstrue their meaning. To suddenly cry foul that everyone is twisting everything you are writing like it's some sort of deliberate conspiracy on everyone else's part is just silly.

I don't care about a lot of things to just look into them out of the blue, but if they come up, I may.

Then why not just say that? Instead of going on about how you don't care about a topic, just say, "I haven't looked into that yet, but I may do so".

This is just basic communication; it shouldn't be this difficult.

But I have to take some of the blame of still taking some of you seriously after the way you carry yourselves, and at some point I'll just have to realize. "They simply have no valid argument, the very reason they defend in the way they do" and just stop listening to you.

The funny thing about this is there hasn't even been any attempt to defend anything in this discussion we've been having. It's been a monumental struggle just trying to get you to even discuss a topic, much less argue about anything.

But hey, if you want to quit the discussion then I'll be happy to oblige.

 

[pitabread]

Quality of character, verified.

Irony meter, exploded.

 

[Inkfingers]

Presuming that Genesis is literal is as inadvisable as presuming Jesus really is a small woolly creature of genus Ovis... It is poetry presenting humanity's place in the world, not second-rate science.

 

[Jimmy D]

There's no attempt to twist anything here.

Your post literally said, "I have not looked into the scientific method, and no one in their right mind should expect me to have. I've said time an time again how I don't look into what I don't care about."

To which I replied, "Yet when I ask you about the scientific method you claim you don't care about that."

Which is what you literally just said. I was repeating your own words back at you.

I mean, I'm taking your words at face value here so if you mean something different then perhaps you should chose your words more carefully so that one doesn't misconstrue their meaning. To suddenly cry foul that everyone is twisting everything you are writing like it's some sort of deliberate conspiracy on everyone else's part is just silly.



Then why not just say that? Instead of going on about how you don't care about a topic, just say, "I haven't looked into that yet, but I may do so".

This is just basic communication; it shouldn't be this difficult.

Your post (#1083) was a perfectly polite and concise attempt to describe the scientific method.

That you got such a reply - four or five paragraphs of pedantic waffling without acknowledging the point of your post is telling.

Kenny is, by now, fully aware of how the scientific method works and of the nature of scientific theories, how could anyone not be after having it explained so many times?

Unfortunately he can’t bring himself to admit his position on this is untenable. I suppose it’s because then he’d have to start addressing evidence instead of employing his ‘proof’ routine.

It’s getting quite painful to watch.

 

[Shemjaza]

ok. but why its not a robot according to you? what is the main trait that make it non robot?

Attempt 4.

1) Being constructed from organic bits is bad for use of the term robot.

2) Being an organism that reproduces autonomously makes robot completely unacceptable.

You arguments are just not clear enough to have such unclear terms.

 

[PsychoSarah]

1) are you saying that a rabbit cant adapt to its different environment if such a rabbit exist at the Precambrian? (in other words: are you dont believe in evolution?).

Surviving in Precambrian conditions would absolutely require physiology dissimilar to that of a modern rabbit. Therefore, even with the intent of producing a Precambrian rabbit, said organism would have to have various differences in its organ systems in order to survive. Obviously, lungs optimized for breathing oxygen rich air wouldn't work out in a low oxygen environment. Different environments require different traits for survival, which is part of why the evolution of organisms is heavily shaped by the environment.

-_- additionally, do you honestly think that anyone believes that, for example, if I drop a goldfish in a pot of 0 degrees Celsius water (low range for goldfish is 20 degrees Celsius) that it is likely to survive? Your lack of understanding evolution is showing. Environments usually don't change very quickly, which gives organisms time and many generations in which to adapt. The more rapid and extreme the environmental change, the greater number of species in the environment go extinct. Obviously, transporting a bunch of oxygen breathing rabbits to an environment with low oxygen would cause them to suffocate and die within a matter of minutes. Adaptations which favor breathing oxygen would also be detrimental in such an environment and anything close to the lungs actual rabbits have would result in death. However, if you decreased the environmental oxygen by 0.3% every 10,000 generations, it is possible that you could gradually end up with an organism descended from rabbits which could survive in a low oxygen environment. Said organism would have different physiology than the rabbit ancestors and would easily be distinguishable from them, because the environment demands it be so. There is a range at which a given species can survive, and having organisms experience the extremes of that range will result in that range shifting such that the conditions can be changed more, and so on and so forth. Inevitably, though, physiology MUST change in order to continue adapting.

2) what about the possibility of contamination? we can claim that the fossil (or the layer around the fossil ) get a contamination so its age is actually a result of a bad dating.

Consistency is key; if the fossil is younger than the rock layer, it WILL NOT date as old as the entire rock layer, and likely portions of it will date differently from each other. That is, there is no means by which a young fossil can end up being dated as significantly older than it actually is when multiple dating methods are used (and a Precambrian rabbit would definitely warrant that). An animal can end up fossilized in a very old rock layer, but nothing can make the radioactive isotopes in its body decay any faster. Different radioactive dating methods rely on different isotopes, and contamination by every single isotope we use (or the daughter products of it) is so insanely improbable that no one would take such a claim seriously.

Also, you seem to be unaware as to how large rock layers are, since you seem to think that it is plausible for the entire rock layer to be contaminated -_-.

Furthermore, all of your contentions with the capacity to disprove evolution have no merit because none of the things brought up that would disprove evolution actually exist. There are no legitimate Precambrian rabbit fossils. There are no entire identical genes shared by separate lineages. Until you can give actual evidence that such things exist, your whining about whether or not it is possible to disprove evolution makes absolutely no sense.

 

[Kenny'sID]

Irony meter, exploded.

All that effort, and to make it simple just for you...wasted.

That you got such a reply - four or five paragraphs of pedantic waffling without acknowledging the point of your post is telling.

You all are so mistreated, and as innocent as a new born baby. lol

Kenny is, by now, fully aware of how the scientific method works and of the nature of scientific theories, how could anyone not be after having it explained so many times?

I'm not, and no one seems to want to post it. Maybe you all afraid of something, but I have no idea what..there was no trick involved when I asked it be posted, so I have to assume there may be something very unacceptable about it.

Anyway, thanks just the same...pretty clear by now it isn't going to happen, just like the opportunity I gave pita to prove evolution, just more evasive talk/avoiding the challenge.

 

[Jimmy D]

Me:

Kenny is, by now, fully aware of how the scientific method works and of the nature of scientific theories, how could anyone not be after having it explained so many times?

You:

I'm not, and no one seems to want to post it. Maybe you all afraid of something, but I have no idea what..there was no trick involved when I asked it be posted, so I have to assume there may be something very unacceptable about it.

So what was this that Pitabread posted? (On this very page)

In the context of this discussion, what I was mainly getting at was the basic method of hypothesis testing. Namely that one makes an observation about nature, forms a hypothesis (e.g. an assumption regarding a causative relationship between phenomena), derives predictions from that hypothesis, tests the predictions (e.g. via experimentation, observation, etc), and then draws a conclusion based on the testing.

For example, say I observe that plants seem to respond to sunlight. I might then form a hypothesis that sunlight is required for plant growth. I can then create predictions based on that hypothesis (e.g. that plants without sunlight won't exhibit growth), create an experiment where I test plants in different conditions and observe the results.

The reason I was getting at this goes back to your condition that anything you are given is free of assumptions. Hypothesis testing essentially rests on making an assumption about something and then testing it. Therefore if you reject anything that involves assumptions would you reject any form of hypothesis testing for this reason? Hence why I started asking you about what you understood in relation to the scientific method.

There is naturally a lot more to the scientific method; ways of deriving predictions from hypotheses, different methods by which hypotheses are tested, how conclusions are drawn, and so on. The Wikipedia page on the subject has a much more comprehensive overview: Scientific method - Wikipedia

I'm not, and no one seems to want to post it. Maybe you all afraid of something, but I have no idea what..there was no trick involved when I asked it be posted, so I have to assume there may be something very unacceptable about it.

Anyway, thanks just the same...pretty clear by now it isn't going to happen, just like the opportunity I gave pita to prove evolution, just more evasive talk/avoiding the challenge.

LOL.

 

[pitabread]

I'm not, and no one seems to want to post it

You asked me to post it and I did so for the benefit of trying to move the discussion along (see post #1083). But instead of responding to that, you once again fixated on writing another conspiratorial rant about misconstruing the meaning of your posts and then made a point of ignoring the very thing you asked me to write:

I'll be clearing this up for you, but because, once again, you make it so time consuming to have to explain your twists and turns or you pretending not to see what going on, the rest of your post will once again, go unread.

Then you have the gall to accuse others of not posting the very things that you make an emphatic point of ignoring when people do post them.

Anyway, thanks just the same...pretty clear by now it isn't going to happen, just like the opportunity I gave pita to prove evolution, just more evasive talk/avoiding the challenge.

Please stop, I only have so many irony meters.

 

[xianghua]

You do know that the Cambrian era lifeforms are NOT the exact same lifeforms as have evolved through the rest of Earth's history right? Once again you are making an argument based on the False Equivalence fallacy.

Thus you still have to explain how it would be possible get all of Earth's lifeforms in such a short period. You can't just gloss over the details like this; you actually need to explain it.

if we can get a large number of creatures in such a small period of time, we can also get more creatures and explain it by the same way (rapid evolution). simple logic.

 

[inquiring mind]

All that effort, and to make it simple just for you...wasted.



You all are so mistreated, and as innocent as a new born baby. lol



I'm not, and no one seems to want to post it. Maybe you all afraid of something, but I have no idea what..there was no trick involved when I asked it be posted, so I have to assume there may be something very unacceptable about it.

Anyway, thanks just the same...pretty clear by now it isn't going to happen, just like the opportunity I gave pita to prove evolution, just more evasive talk/avoiding the challenge.

Evolution has a major advantage within the scientific method; if one of its hypotheses is false or can’t be proved (say it is only partially true), it just recycles back through the flow chart, all the while still considering itself a theory or evidence because it is well-supported (according to its own definition). That’s okay with the physical and biological science stuff to the degree of their provability, but Evolution’s big ticket “ideas” on the whole (like projecting evolution back into different epochs, including origin) and without proof shouldn’t have a verifiable claim because it’s in the scientific method ‘revolving door’ any more than a religious idea.

 

[Jimmy D]

Evolution has a major advantage within the scientific method; if one of its hypotheses is false or can’t be proved (say it is only partially true), it just recycles back through the flow chart, all the while still considering itself a theory or evidence because it is well-supported (according to its own definition). That’s okay with the physical and biological science stuff to the degree of their provability, but Evolution’s big ticket “ideas” on the whole (like projecting evolution back into different epochs, including origin) and without proof shouldn’t have a verifiable claim because it’s in the scientific method ‘revolving door’ any more than a religious idea.

Yet we observe evolution occurring.

 

[pitabread]

if we can get a large number of creatures in such a small period of time, we can also get more creatures and explain it by the same way (rapid evolution). simple logic.

You keep saying you can explain it, but you keep avoiding the actual explaining part.

So again, go would one get 4+ billion years worth of evolution in the matter of only 100 million years or less?

Simply saying "rapid evolution" isn't an explanation. I'm asking to specifically detail how such rapid evolution could result in the same output as 4 billion years in less than 100 million.

So far it seems like you haven't actually thought this through...