[en] Evolution or Creationism

[Angryminer]

In my text above I used "Theory of evolution" to distinguish between the term evolution, as simply derived from the term to evolve, and that ghost that everyone thinks contradicts religion.
People use the term "Evolution" to imply something about the beginning of life. But that's not necessarily the case. Evolution is a process from today to tomorrow and doesn't have to do anything with things millions of years ago. It's just the reason why breeding horses works.
Now from this evolution you can draw conclusions back to the beginning of life and postulate that all life began with some simple life-form that was formed out of the random combination of natural chemicals. But the principle of evolution doesn't say anything about that. That's a seperate issue.

Angryminer

[Doux]

The life can change through genetical changes and conditions that are around it. But how did the life emerge?The definition of evolution as defined on Wikipedia is about evolution regarding living species. The emercence of life then would fall outside of the theory Darwin developed and so there is no hole at that point in Darwins theory.
I would say the emergence of life is a different point of discussion.

Personally, I think it is plausible that life emerged from "the lifeless". As the Miller-Urey experiment showed, amino-acids are formed from anorganic compounds, and these can form the basis of very primordial bacteria. Also, such amino-acids were found on the Murchison meteorite.

[Elvain]

Didn't know about that that.

So sad we can't wait several millions of years and give it good conditions and...
Creationists will though still insist on their point. That without an intelligent mind this wouldn't happen...

[catt]

I was going to type up something about the origins of live but now Doux already mentioned most of it...

Tell me if you want to know more.

[Angryminer]

I already know about the Miller Urey experiment, but what I'd like to know is, how realistic is it? That directly relates to the question of how secure our knowledge about the chemical composition early oceans is.

Angryminer

[Doux]

Well, regarding realism of the Miller-Urey experiment: as I said, aminoacids have been found on several meteorites and moreover in deep space. The basis for life on earth could well have come from space. Whether conditions on earth really have been as in the experiment (water, methane, ammonia, hydrogen & lightning) can only be guessed, but that experiment, and some more, have shown that it is remarkably simple how aminoacids and nucleotides can be formed.

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I can't believe such a question is still asked today.
I do not mean to offend you, catt, but how can you post that? I agree that the question is somewhat black/white, but I really think that the origin of life, the progressing (evolving) of species during time, the being of humans are some of the greater subjects to think, to philosophy about.

Why does nobody stand up and say "I don't believe in gravity"? Cause we can see it? Well, we can see evolution too. We even have more proofs for it than for gravity.Your comparison is skew. The phenomenon of gravity is widely accepted, simply because it is impossible to deny it; there might be some who deny it (are they mentally stable, is the next question), but I haven't found any movements saying this, as you described.
The origin of life, though, is not an empirical law as that of gravity, but more of a guess. We're not confronted with the origin of life on a daily basis.

Also, no one has ever actually observed change from one species to another, sure there is change within a species, but no amphibian becoming a lizard.Instances already pointed out in this thread are about selection by humans [Angryminer] - the fact that we haven't observed natural selection and evolution (yet) (though I think there might actually be examples, but I don't have them ready) can be easily explained by the theory - such evolution takes place over millions of years. We, the human race, are only about 10,000 years here - a very very small fraction of time since moment t=0.

The reply that would now come would concern the timescale - there are Creationists who do not believe that the Universe is billions of years old. This is of course another point of discussion.

To end this post, I would like to add that I read this quite often:
As well, there have been no "missing links found".But I immidiately know at least one: Archaeopteryx, a link between reptiles and birds. I am not able to list more intermediate species, but I cannot understand why 'no missing links have been found' is stated so often. Do you know examples of missing links, that are missing? This is an open question, I'm really interested, since I'm not well read-in into this specific subject of intermediate species/fossils.

[People's Republic of China]

I hoped you would bring this one up, unfortunately Archaeopteryx is a definite reptile, from what I've read, some scientists belive that it died out because it was not suited for life after the flood (in the Bible). But I'll write more on this when I have time.

Since I am a believer (not Christian, but Messianic Jewish, pretty much the same, but a different methodology and a differnt line of thought) in Jesus Christ (or in Hebrew, Yeshua Ha-Masheach), and many do not understand where my beliefs lie int his particular topic. I will lay them out. Just so you can understand how I view things, as do thousands of other Messianic Jews, and around 1 billion Christians.

G-d (Jews do not write the name of God out of respect for Him, so Lord and God have lines in place of the "o". In Hebrew, we do not spell out His name, but we use two yuds (a hebrew letter) made the universe and all that's in it in seven days, thats 168 hours. The exact things he made by day are in Genesis. On the seventh day He rested, this is the beginning of the Shabbat (Sabbath) which happens to be Saturday, which Christianity changed to Sunday (the L-rd's Day, when Jesus{I will use Christian terms for those of you who are not familiar with their Jewish counterparts which I use regularly.} rose from the dead on the third day after the crucifixtion) to avoid persecution.

The age of the earth can then be calculated by adding the geneaologies from Adam to Noah to determine the age of the earth befor the flood which comes out to 1656 years (It's been a long time since I added it up, so I'm drawing from memory here; I'm at an airport waiting for a flight, so my Bible isn't handy at the moment). Then reading on, their are geneologies and the reigns of the Kings of Israel to continue to determine age. Time elapsed has now gone to around 4000 yrs in age. There is a blank spot however, in which we must rely on Herodutus and his cohorts between the return to Jerusalem from Persia by the Jews and the birth of Christ. this is about 400 yrs. Then add the 2006 yrs after the birth and you have about 7500 yrs in age. I don't remember exactly how it added up, but that's close.

As to scientific evidence in aging, I don't know a whole lot, my forte is politics, war, and history, so I don't know science very well. But I do know there is around 200 different ways to test for age, either two or three of them can get long ages beyond 50000 yrs. The most common one is carbon dating, which can't get a reading less than 50000 yrs anyway, because carbon - 14's halflife is 50000 yrs. But, I'm getiing off the gist of my post, and they;ve begun the boarding call, so I'll wrap this up fast. (hopefully their will be no typos). The only aging method I'm familiar with is Magnitic half-lifes, which show that if the earth was older than 10000 years, than the magnetism would be so strong, it would boil the surface of the earth. Don't ask me technicalities, because, like most people I'm not a scientist or a physists.

The religious convictions that I believe in hinge upon a number of things, all of which I belive to be factual: there is a G-d, the Bible is entirely true and is the ultimate source, and that Jeses is G-d in human form, and that he died for our sins. The only "mandatory" thing about my faith is to belive in Jesus Christ, everything else is superficial, I know some of you my have grown up in church, and were turned off by that line of thinking and their legalism. In reality, belief in Jesus is all that matters. I know lots of closet Christians (particularly in China) who you would never guess. I for one left the church because I couldn't take the hypocrisy and self-righteousness in them (at least where I was) and I became an atheist temporarily, But I came back when I found Messianic Judaism (there is along story behind that, that I shant bore you with) , and I'm Jewish which helps in fitting in. But we're not particcular.

If you wish to ask questions about my beliefs, ask away, if it becomes important enough (as in too many posts) I'll ask the mods to create new thread. But please, try keep your written attacks and lambasting (some of you, no finger pointing, might do that) to minimum.

PS1 I've been called to board so I will have to go now, but I may edit this post if I get a chance to read it more thouraly. Gaack typos!!!

PS2 I agee with Doux, without being there, no-one will ever know the truth n hard facts. That's the reason I love my G-d, He gave me a Bible to explain everything that I will never be able to prove. Based on faith of course. Just as accepting evolution as a fact of life takes faith.

PS3 I may not have addressed every thing, but one other thing is that depending what we were exposed to (what books, what people, what beliefs) we all have different perceptions on things. for catt, he/she was led to beliive that evolution was final, for Doux, he has seen things or view things ina more speculative and/or less biased manner. For me, I view things in a perspective that is strongly against evolution. I was blown away that evolution is still stoutly defended, unitl I realized that there are 6 billion people on this planet, and everyone is different in their views, so it 'twas folly on my part to treat what I know to be true as common knowledge, same with catt, who treat what he/she know's to be true as common know ledge. I know for my part that aside from the Origin of Species, and a few other books, I have mostly read from a creationist view. I dabble in psychology studies, and found that no one is truly unbiased. There are subconscious bias put in, so that explains why many who read certain literature prove what they want to prove. In the Bible, one of the verses says, and I paraphrase, "that you will find what you are looking for". Which accounts for a lot of things which I won't be writing after all. The line ahead is moving again. Good night for now.

[catt]

...unfortunately Archaeopteryx is a definite reptile...

I don't want to offend you but do you know what is typical for a reptile and what is typical for a bird?

[Moryarity]

I guess one major problem, is that there is still a wrong thinking about what happened in evolution..it is not the way, that "fish" evolved in "amphibians" it is the way, that fish and amphibians had common ancestors and that the evolved in different directions..

I do not remember it completely, but I guess there was some example about a species, that evolved in two different valleys and became so different that nreproductionw as no longer possible between them, so they became 2 different species..but I do not remember the facts....... :scratch:

[catt]

Well, Moryarity, I don't think not understanding is the major "problem".

For Creationists it does not matter if anything developed from something or if a group of animals just split up into something new. In Creationism any new kind of (natural) development is impossible (of course there are different variations of Creationism but basically it comes down to no new species being able to develop out of existing ones).

[People's Republic of China]

sorry, catt, you were right Archeopteryx is a bird. Just an error of memory.

[Doux]

Note: the reply below is partly out of date (see previous post), but since I went through some of typing, I'll let it be :wink:

I hoped you would bring this one up, unfortunately Archaeopteryx is a definite reptile, from what I've read, some scientists belive that it died out because it was not suited for life after the flood (in the Bible). What is your source, that says that 'Archaeopteryx is a definite reptile'? I looked it up and have two sources that speak thus:

From Biology, Campbell & Reece:
"Archaeopteryx, which was discovered in a German limestone quarry in 1861, remains the earliest known bird."

From Dinosaurs. The complete guide to dinosaurs, Steve Parker [translated]:
'Archaeopteryx [...] is the earliest representative of the birds - a class of which the definition becomes less clear each year.'

So your statement is at least disputed, but what I can extract from the books is that, at least under scientists, it is commonly accepted that Archaeopteryx is one example of a bird/reptile link.

Arguments that the birds evolved from some reptiles (saurischia):
Archaeopteryx had a bill-like mouth, front bodyparts that had developed into wings, long feathers (found in at least one of the fossils). Also, reptile-like teeth in his jaws, claws on his three fingers, and a vertrebate tail. Lastly, maniraptors were probably the predecessor of the birds; their most important feature was a small, half-moonlike bone in the wrist, which allowed the wrist to move up and down quickly -the same principle which which modern birds can flap their wings in and out. [Paraphrases of Dinosaurs, by Steve Parker]

To conclude, one can think of the timescales as he wishes, but I think it is most commonly perceived under scientists that Archaeopteryx (along with Eoalulavis for example) belongs to the early birds and is a link between the dinosauria and birds.

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A note on carbon dating: this is absolutely not a method to estimate the age of the universe! As you said, carbon dating can go back to about 60,000 years with not too great accuracy.
The age of the universe, ~14 billions of years, as determined most recently, was deducted from the cosmic microwave background. It is known, that if there was a Big Bang far back in time, the universe must have been so hot that hydrogen atoms were without their electrons. When these recombined (out of my head I'd guess at ~3000 K, but I might well be wrong) - radiation was sent out. If we agree that the universe has been expanding ever since, this radiation would now be measured as cosmic background radiation with a much longer wavelength. Recently measured was a temperature of ~3 K [, which would estimate the age of the universe as stated above.
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Last note: if the posts in this topic are considered to deviate too much from the original topic (poll), a new thread could of course be opened.

[People's Republic of China]

Cosmic microwave background, hmmmm. I've not heard of that. Interesting. How does it work?

Elvain, yes, it IS a bird. I might write more on this.

Of course it would be nice, if some of the other creationists(at least 3) on this forum would pitch in and help here.

[catt]

It is true that it's a bird (sorry, I don't want to rub this in, it happens to me so often I remember something wrong too). I just wanted to say that it is a bird with very distinctive features of reptiles, it is something in between really.

However, even "missing links" will not explain anything in the light of Creationism since from a creationists point of view it is merely another animal that happens to possess features of a bird and a reptile, there is no need to link it to anything in Creationism (since all is supposed to have been created seperately).

I thought about typing something up about missing links but then I didn't, partially because I have not much time right now but also because really, it won't get us anywhere. Phylogenetic lines might, there are quite a few fossils who are spaced so close together in time and appearance that you can't really separate them into different species because they are so similar but the animal that appears in the of the line differs a lot from the one at the beginning. You can imagine it as a series of "missing links". After all there *is* always a series, we just don't have it for all animals.

An extremely interesting topic are also the Cichlids fishes of the African lakes, it's a natural environment in which we can observe evolution of the fishes today. I just wanted to mention it in case anyone wants to do some research about it, maybe I'll write something down during the weekend.

[binchen]

it is neither a reptile nor a bird. Reptiles don't have wings and birds don't have bones in their tails.

In my opinion it is no problem to believ in both creationism and evolution. The bible and the other religious books were written nearly 2000 years ago or even older. The people in that time had no proper explanation for the creation and so they wrote what they wrote. Today we know about evolution but there is no problem with my belief, that god "invented" and created everything. He saw tha the animals had to change and so he madde them to. That (or something similar) was taught at my school and I can perfectly live with it. It was a catholic school and this was told to us by a catholic priest.

By the way: How does Creationism and dinosaurs get along? Afaik they are not mentioned in the bible or elsewhere. So they never did exist? Or died out short after god made them?

[People's Republic of China]

Dinosaurs are mentioned at least three tomes in the Bible. When I have more time, I'll write further.

[catt]

binchen:

I know Creationism is very difficult to understand if you've not really lived it.
What it basically comes down to is the fact, that the Bible is not interpreted but that every word is taken literally. For example there are parts where it talks about a Leviathan, which can just as well be interpreted as a plesiosaur (aka the Loch Ness Monster). Yes, I wrote interpretation twice which really contradicts itself.

That in fact is one of the things I never liked about Creationism: Many fundamental Christians insist that every word of the Bible was inspired by God and that even every comma is correct. But on the other side they interpret the words to make them fit their cause. And if you've read a lot of the Bible you'll find parts contradicting itself or parts that might just as well mean something else. I don't know of any occasion where the word "dinosaur" is printed, which is not a surprise since it was coined in 1842, but it mentions things like dragons (which again depends on the translation you are using. Another thing I don't like: The many different versions of the Bible. But that's not the topic here.)

People's Republic of China:

Could you please give me the citations (if you have them). By the way: Which translation are you using? In English I use the King James Version.

[People's Republic of China]

I will, just give me time. I use KJV as well.

KJV is the most accurate version that's widely avaliable.

However, it was written in middle English, in which some words have different meanings than today. For example: let. Today it means to allow. Then it meant to prevent.

I do belive that everything in the Bible is divinly inspired. But many believers today think that the Bible has been lost in translation. I read Hebrew and I have a limited knowledge of Greek. The Old Testament is Accurate. I can testify from personal knowledge that it is. Though Hebrew is a multiplex langauge. It has four meanings. Literal, Inferred, and the other two I've forgotten (I'm stuck at an office, I don't have my books here). Literal is what it says, Inferred is what can be inferred by word formation, and the two others I'm not familiar with.

The New testament I accept as accurate by faith, I can't read Greek and understand it.

The many versions (Now I'm on a topic I'm comfertable with) have developed over the years to provide "more accurate" translations. The New International Version, and around 90% of recent translations, come from the Alexandrian line of texts, which frequently contradict each other. THe KJV comes from a more traditional text which is considerably more accurate.

The difficulty that many people have with the KJV is the blocky grammar of Middle English. I studied that subject and was amazed by the differences of
langauge that there are.

Oh yes, In Job 40 and 41 there are references to leviathans.

On the topic of punctuation, there is no punctuation in the Hebrew. It was added by the various translators, who filled them in according to grammatical rules of the day.

In some of the newer translations, it does says dinosaur, but the translation is more like "behemoth", "dragon", or "Leviathan".

Of course if one word of the bible is false, the entire book is compromised. Simply put: If you know one egg in a carton is poisoned, and you can't test it, you throw it out.

That's all for now.

[catt]

...and now we have reached a point at which we can no longer discuss this topic on a scientific level...

(I don't mean this in any negative way.)

[Richard]

Angryminer, your example wouldn't be considered "evolution". It would more or less be a mutuation that was caused by man. Like a cat been born with 1 blue eye and the other green. Evolution is the proccess by which animals adapt to their enviroment, where only the strongest and smartest survive. This process taking 100's, 1000's and millions of years depending on the changes and enviroment.

it is neither a reptile nor a bird. Reptiles don't have wings and birds don't have bones in their tails.


This is why it is called "evolution". The dinosaurs didn;t just one day decided to have wings,feathers, fly and become birds. It took millions of years for evolution, (change), to occur. Also you should know that for a bird to be a bird all it needs are feathers, as no other type of animals have them. At least the animals know to us are this way.


In my opinion it is no problem to believ in both creationism and evolution. The bible and the other religious books were written nearly 2000 years ago or even older. The people in that time had no proper explanation for the creation and so they wrote what they wrote.

Exactly, you just hit the nail, the center of every single person that doesn't believe in creationism and the bible. People back then didn't have the knowledge we have today. If the bible was written by God why would he say that earth is the center of the solar system? Why would God show us violence against people that don't believe what the bible says? Why would he inspire male supremacy and the bad treatment of woman, by making them seem like the bearers of mankind's doom? Why would he support slavery?
Is this what this "god" supports? Is it? Then he is no better than the most terrible people of human history.
Or maybe you would choose the most reasonable option, that the bible was written and changed therough time by men that had their own agenda?


Today we know about evolution but there is no problem with my belief, that god "invented" and created everything. He saw tha the animals had to change and so he madde them to.
So God is nature now, And earth isn't 5000-7000 year old like the bible says. Tomorrow we find life on Mars and suddlely a new scripture appears saying god made that world too but they were sinners and he send them to hell.
See the point? That's what been happening for the last 1700 years or so.


That (or something similar) was taught at my school and I can perfectly live with it. It was a catholic school and this was told to us by a catholic priest
So it is ok if a terrorist group teaches children to kill people, It is all fine because that's what they were teached ( I always forget how you spell teach on past tense:bash: :silly: ) at school. makes alot sence now:go: