04-14-2005, 06:25 PM | #121 |
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Chrys, if you think that evolution is what happened, then that is certainly your choice
I don't know if you mean me or not, but "ancient philosophy" has nothing to do with why I think evolution did NOT happen and some form of creationism DID. I conclude this based upon my evaluation of actual, observeable scientific evidence.
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. I should be doing the laundry, but this is MUCH more fun! Ñá ë?* óú éä ïöü Öñ É Þ ð ß ® ç å ™ æ ♪ ?* "How lovely are Thy dwelling places, O Lord of hosts! ... For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand outside." (from Psalm 84) * * * God rocks! Entmoot : Veni, vidi, velcro - I came, I saw, I got hooked! Ego numquam pronunciare mendacium, sed ego sum homo indomitus! Run the earth and watch the sky ... Auta i lómë! Aurë entuluva! |
04-14-2005, 06:28 PM | #122 | |
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becaus ei dont see that it is possible, as we have explored before... really trying not to sound arrogant here |
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04-14-2005, 06:28 PM | #123 | ||
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Maybe rather than intending to say that evolution is a fact, that is one of the assumptions that the author has to make when writing a paper. IOW the author assumes people already know that the theory of Evolution is, in fact, a theory.
Therefore they can discuss aspects of the theory without saying "in the theory of..." every time "evolution" is mentioned. EDIT: *waves to Chrys and R*an in cross-posting*
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Last edited by Nurvingiel : 04-14-2005 at 06:29 PM. |
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04-14-2005, 06:35 PM | #124 |
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Eärniel, as I ponder your post and the question in general, I think that many of the problems are caused by the ambiguous use of the word "evolution". It's used in several ways, some of which are very different. Some of the ways it's used are these:
1. it's used to refer to the current proposed mechanism of the theory of evolution (ie beneficial mutations and natural selection); 2. it's used to refer to minor changes in a species (the Galapagos finches' change in beak length); 3. it's used to refer to MAJOR changes in a species (a bird species changing to the point where they can no longer interbreed); and 4. it's used to refer to major whopping changes above the species level (one-celled prototype to a bird). I have no problem with 2 and 3; I think they happen and are observeable. I think some misunderstandings happen when a person uses sense #1 and another person doesn't realize they are using it. I have a problem with #4; I don't see any observeable evidence to point to this happening. Your article referred to the evolution of the frog. I think that frogs have certainly changed quite a bit from the original created frog or frogs. I think life was created with a huge amount of flexibility to adapt to environmental changes, and I would love to see a "fast motion" playback of what actually happened some day But I do NOT think that frogs came about from one-celled prototype things, and I don't think there's any good evidence to support this idea. Just some quick musings - I really need to scoot and pick up the kids!
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. I should be doing the laundry, but this is MUCH more fun! Ñá ë?* óú éä ïöü Öñ É Þ ð ß ® ç å ™ æ ♪ ?* "How lovely are Thy dwelling places, O Lord of hosts! ... For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand outside." (from Psalm 84) * * * God rocks! Entmoot : Veni, vidi, velcro - I came, I saw, I got hooked! Ego numquam pronunciare mendacium, sed ego sum homo indomitus! Run the earth and watch the sky ... Auta i lómë! Aurë entuluva! |
04-14-2005, 06:38 PM | #125 | ||
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Quote:
Quote:
*waves to Nurvi on her way to the car*
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. I should be doing the laundry, but this is MUCH more fun! Ñá ë?* óú éä ïöü Öñ É Þ ð ß ® ç å ™ æ ♪ ?* "How lovely are Thy dwelling places, O Lord of hosts! ... For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand outside." (from Psalm 84) * * * God rocks! Entmoot : Veni, vidi, velcro - I came, I saw, I got hooked! Ego numquam pronunciare mendacium, sed ego sum homo indomitus! Run the earth and watch the sky ... Auta i lómë! Aurë entuluva! |
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05-04-2005, 04:33 PM | #126 | |
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Hey look. A dinosaur missing link. What do ya know...
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05-12-2005, 03:46 PM | #127 | |
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Oh well so much for the old eye argument...
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05-12-2005, 04:04 PM | #128 |
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Ah, another example of an eye perfectly suited for the animal for which it was designed.
I guess evolution supporters will find what they want to see, even if it's not really there. There's LOTS of different kinds of eyes, but still NO evidence of them actually changing from one eye type to another. And if changing WERE to start to take place, then the intermediate stages would certainly be less efficient and the animals would be selected against and DIE and the change would be halted. It's just WAY too much for me to swallow. It's just statistically impossible. And saying it would be an "easy step" to evolve an image-forming eye just seems incredibly naive to me, and shows the author's bias. I think it is just more straightforward and likely that these different types of eyes were designed. Why should I accept such a statistically impossible model such as evolution? I just think creationism is more likely. Your apparent buying-into of this "easy step" thing (because you said "Oh well so much for the old eye argument") just mystifies me - you who want scientific evidence? What we actually see are different types of eyes that work great for the needs/environment of different creatures. IMO, any suggestion of one type changing into the next, and then the next, is just wishful thinking to support the bias of the thinker. How many beneficial mutations would it take for that "easy step"? Millions, I would guess. And again, EACH STEP would have to be advantageous, or the organism (and the change) would die out. Just too much to swallow for me. Feel free to believe those guesses if you would like, but it's just too improbable for me to believe.
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. I should be doing the laundry, but this is MUCH more fun! Ñá ë?* óú éä ïöü Öñ É Þ ð ß ® ç å ™ æ ♪ ?* "How lovely are Thy dwelling places, O Lord of hosts! ... For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand outside." (from Psalm 84) * * * God rocks! Entmoot : Veni, vidi, velcro - I came, I saw, I got hooked! Ego numquam pronunciare mendacium, sed ego sum homo indomitus! Run the earth and watch the sky ... Auta i lómë! Aurë entuluva! |
05-12-2005, 04:19 PM | #129 |
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Your conception of statistics, biology and evolution or vastly wanting. But hey Im not surprised. Never give up the fight no matter what right?
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05-12-2005, 04:41 PM | #130 |
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Well, if I think I'm right, then why give up? I just don't see the actual data supporting evolution very strongly. The most important parts of evolution are, IMO, entirely conjectural.
Similarity does NOT necessarily mean one changed into another! Similarity can also come about from reuse of good design. Eyes are amazing things, and the different types of eyes, as I said, are IMO wonderfully designed for each creature and its environment. Cars have wheels and bikes have wheels; that doesn't mean bikes grew up and changed into cars. I think it's kinda like this: 2 people walk on the beach and see a lovely sand castle. They come back later and see it slightly worn away. They come back later still and see just a mound of sand, and deduce, correctly, that this was a sequence brought about by natural causes without intent. Their deduction is aided by the fact that the previous day, they sat at the beach the whole day and actually SAW something similar happen. The next day, they see a pile of sand. Then they come back later and see a taller mound with the beginnings of walls and windows. Then they come back later and see a beautiful sand castle. The evolutionist then incorrectly deduces that it was a sequence brought about by natural causes without intent, while the creationist correctly deduces that it was NOT. Neither one of them have EVER actually SEEN a sand castle build itself or be built by causes without intent, yet the evolutionist will still stand by his deduction even tho he's never seen anything like that happen - in fact, he's only seen the reverse happen. The creationist recognizes hallmarks of design, based on observation of human design and implementation, and knowledge and observation of how the world has operated, and correctly deduces that there was a designer involved. Both men are making a deduction; the difference is that the creationist's deduction is more supported by actual, observeable information. I just can't swallow the huge number of chance occurrances - and RELATED chance occurances with EVERY step having to be advantageous somehow - that you have to swallow to believe in evolution. Also I can't swallow the lack of ACTUAL evidence that changes on the order of one-celled gushy thing to man happened. The existence of amoebas and of man does NOT necessarily mean that man CAME from amoebas. It's possible, but just not probable, IMO. Again, the number of beneficial mutations required, with EACH tiny step being beneficial, just staggers my mind.
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. I should be doing the laundry, but this is MUCH more fun! Ñá ë?* óú éä ïöü Öñ É Þ ð ß ® ç å ™ æ ♪ ?* "How lovely are Thy dwelling places, O Lord of hosts! ... For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand outside." (from Psalm 84) * * * God rocks! Entmoot : Veni, vidi, velcro - I came, I saw, I got hooked! Ego numquam pronunciare mendacium, sed ego sum homo indomitus! Run the earth and watch the sky ... Auta i lómë! Aurë entuluva! Last edited by Rían : 05-12-2005 at 04:43 PM. |
05-12-2005, 05:40 PM | #131 | |
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i dont believe anyone had ever suggested that bikes had evolved into cars (no matter how cool that would be) |
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05-12-2005, 08:14 PM | #132 |
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Well, I find evolution a "strange notion"
And by all the observable rules in nature that I'm aware of, change is limited and does NOT allow the one-celled-thing to man type of change.
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. I should be doing the laundry, but this is MUCH more fun! Ñá ë?* óú éä ïöü Öñ É Þ ð ß ® ç å ™ æ ♪ ?* "How lovely are Thy dwelling places, O Lord of hosts! ... For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand outside." (from Psalm 84) * * * God rocks! Entmoot : Veni, vidi, velcro - I came, I saw, I got hooked! Ego numquam pronunciare mendacium, sed ego sum homo indomitus! Run the earth and watch the sky ... Auta i lómë! Aurë entuluva! |
05-12-2005, 08:44 PM | #133 | ||
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People who don't believe in God - because of many reasons - think it's impossible God, or any other higher, all-knowing being did it. And therefore - when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. For reasons... (and I do know how much people talk about the holocaust) (heard of a poll that said many people think jews talk on the holocaust too much. Didn't like it) An example would be that disaster. How can one believe in a God, after he passed such horrors? How can God, who everyone says he's all good, can do that? Or not stop it for the matter. How can you convince someone who have been in a camp in Germany that there's God? And there are plenty of other exmaples.. of millions of innocent people murdered only for being in one nationality or another. If God is so great... how could he let things such as those happen? And will let them, probably, happen over and over again in the future? (just btw - people that came out of Germany, after hte holocaust, either didn't belive in god anymore [the majority] or has stronger belief [as 'God saced them']) |
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05-12-2005, 09:47 PM | #134 | |
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05-13-2005, 06:50 AM | #135 |
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jumping in and out of this discussion
Carl Sagan stated: If we consider the statistics of one, our own case--and take a typical time from the origin of a planetary system to the development of a technical civilization to be 4.6 billion years--what follows? We would not expect civilizations on different worlds to evolve in lock step. Some would reach technical intelligence more quickly, some more slowly, and-- doubtless--some never. But the Milky Way is filled with second- and third-generation stars (that is, those with heavy elements) as old as 10 billion years. So let's imagine two curves: The first is the probable timescale to the evolution of technical intelligence. It starts out very low; by a few billion years it may have a noticeable value; by 5 billion years, it's something like 50 percent; by 10 billion years, maybe it's approaching 100 percent. The second curve is the ages of Sun-like stars, some of which are very young-- they're being born right now--some of which are as old as the Sun, some of which are 10 billion years old.
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05-13-2005, 01:30 PM | #136 |
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DRAKE EQUATION
N = R x fp x ne x fl x fi x fc x L It expresses the number (N) of "observable civilizations" that exist in our Milky Way galaxy as a simple multiplication of several, more approachable unknowns. R is the rate at which stars have been born in the Milky Way per year, fp is the fraction of these stars that have solar systems of planets, ne is the average number of "Earthlike" planets (potentially suitable for life) in the typical solar system, fl is the fraction of those planets on which life actually forms, fi is the fraction of life-bearing planets where biological evolution produces an intelligent species, fc is the fraction of intelligent species that become capable of interstellar radio communication, and L is the average lifetime of a communicating civilization in years.
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05-16-2005, 12:37 PM | #137 | |
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That equation fits in very well in the evolution thread - conjecture upon conjecture, small actual data figures that are hugely extrapolated upon, multiplication upon multiplication of error. I mean, it can't be helped that there are no actual, measureable figures for those variables, and that it's just an educated guess at their actual values, but it's just a classic example of the way that evolution works, too - certain things are observed and then (IMO) wild and baseless extrapolations are made, based on pre-existing biases, and often treated as facts. And errors are compounded and built upon - as Chesterton observed:
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The "missing link" article that IRex provided is a classic example. If one has a preconceived, unproven bias that different species came from other species, then one will look at the discovery of a new dinosaur as a missing link, even though there is NO proof that it was. The way it was described, this new dinosaur seems very completely and competently designed. Any idea that it was a missing link is just that - an idea - based on a preconceived notion of macroevolution. The data does NOT support that macroevolution happened. What it DOES support is that lots of different types of dinosaurs existed. And again, it's not so much the scientists that I have a problem with as with the way evolution is talked about and written about in textbooks and journals and the popular media. That dinosaur "missing link" article is the perfect example. Totally unfounded conclusions drawn about a fossil discovery.
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. I should be doing the laundry, but this is MUCH more fun! Ñá ë?* óú éä ïöü Öñ É Þ ð ß ® ç å ™ æ ♪ ?* "How lovely are Thy dwelling places, O Lord of hosts! ... For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand outside." (from Psalm 84) * * * God rocks! Entmoot : Veni, vidi, velcro - I came, I saw, I got hooked! Ego numquam pronunciare mendacium, sed ego sum homo indomitus! Run the earth and watch the sky ... Auta i lómë! Aurë entuluva! Last edited by Rían : 05-16-2005 at 12:48 PM. |
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05-16-2005, 01:27 PM | #138 |
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Hi Rian
In science, there's stuff you can form theories about, and test empirically; there's stuff you can form theories about that can't be tested empirically. There is even stuff you can know empirically and have no idea of a theory to accommodate it. Would you then put evolution in the same bracket as, say, astronomy, where there is no possibility of testing a theory empirically, only sets of observations to construct a theory from? The Drake formula is cool, though didn't know it was Drake's. I remember seeing a Horizon programme years ago with a bunch of scientists coming up with the formula. More recently I saw something about an added variable: the existence of a Jupiter-sized planet orbiting outside the orbit of the Earth-like planet, hoovering up rogue asteroids and the like which would wipe out complex life on a regular basis otherwise. PS - empirical evidence can be biased too. |
05-16-2005, 01:33 PM | #139 | |
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05-16-2005, 01:51 PM | #140 | |||
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This is poorly written because I'm in such a hurry, and I'll expand on it later, but do you see what I mean about astronomy? We can do experiments in a lab that produce the same things we see thru telescopes, so it's a reasonable deduction that the same thing is going on. That can't be done in the most important areas of evolution, and so IMO it's WAAAAY below astronomy. Quote:
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. I should be doing the laundry, but this is MUCH more fun! Ñá ë?* óú éä ïöü Öñ É Þ ð ß ® ç å ™ æ ♪ ?* "How lovely are Thy dwelling places, O Lord of hosts! ... For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand outside." (from Psalm 84) * * * God rocks! Entmoot : Veni, vidi, velcro - I came, I saw, I got hooked! Ego numquam pronunciare mendacium, sed ego sum homo indomitus! Run the earth and watch the sky ... Auta i lómë! Aurë entuluva! |
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