Evolution

[OhIsee.Then]

There isn't enough data to say whether a god did or didn't guide evolution, only that evolution has been and is occurring.

When discussing things that are related to science, you have to be very careful to phrase them in terms of phenomena that can be observed and/or tested. God does't fit those guidelines.

Hum. God's existence or not is not an objective of most science. One can easily toss out all the 'scientific' effort using science to address the existence of God. What has happened is the science developments that do not address the existence of God have resulted in accepting the existence of any God described by any religion or belief essentially impossible. There was no intention to do that, it just happened. Things that don't exist don't have to fit guidelines. So you are in a way correct in your statement, but incorrect in what your statement means, i.e. God doesn't exist.

 

[Phys251]

This says a LOT.

 

[Ikari]

Only because they simply don't want to admit that ignorant semitic men (semitic includes arabs like mohammad) wrote a "best selling" line of fictional books that have created more wars and casualties than socialism, capitalism and nazism combined.

However you want to say it. Humans grow and learn over the years, decades, and centuries and then we adjust our current ideals and understandings to incorporate the new information; it's just what we do. Our religions are no different and are also influenced by the aggregate knowledge of our species. The Bible in the end is man made and as such man can and does change its meaning over time. It is expected that this would occur, everything evolves there is no such thing as an infinite.

 

[rocket88]

This new age belief that you can grab the bible an interpret it as anything but a LITERAL account is nonsense. You can't have it both ways.

Either:

A)It is fictional, allegorical or any related descriptives. By default this means that the very existence of a god, creator OF everything is up for debate (1.I doubt this is what you want 2. this is clearly contrary to the claims made by the writers of the bible and, most importantly, 3. it does not conflict with the concept of a "creator").

or

B) It is the inerrant and LITERAL word of god as told to certain specific individuals all of which proceeded to create scriptures out of it. This means that evolution DOES in fact conflicts with the accounts in genesis.



This is contrary to the interpretation christians up until the age of modern science (about 170 years) have given the bible. For 1800+ years christian have interpreted the accounts of the bible as LITERAL tellings. They may have drawn different messages from the stories themselves, but there was little doubt that they did happen. What changed?

Why must it be one or the other? The Bible, as we know it, is not one book, it is many books. The Psalms are poems. Ephesians, Thessalonians, etc, are letters from one man to various groups.

 

[Cardinal]

Hum. God's existence or not is not an objective of most science. One can easily toss out all the 'scientific' effort using science to address the existence of God. What has happened is the science developments that do not address the existence of God have resulted in accepting the existence of any God described by any religion or belief essentially impossible. There was no intention to do that, it just happened. Things that don't exist don't have to fit guidelines. So you are in a way correct in your statement, but incorrect in what your statement means, i.e. God doesn't exist.

I said that science doesn't deal with things that can't be observed and tested. Any conclusions about god's existence or nonexistence are entirely your own, although I think it unlikely one could derive those conclusions from any sort of scientific observation.

Edit: in order for god to be an object of science, god would have to be independently observed to begin with.

 

[OscarB63]

I said that science doesn't deal with things that can't be observed and tested. Any conclusions about god's existence or nonexistence are entirely your own, although I think it unlikely one could derive those conclusions from any sort of scientific observation.

macro evolution can't be observed or tested either...at least not over the course of a human lifespan. there is plenty of evidence that micro evolution has and is occurring. but I have never seen any evidence that macro evolution occurs. look at darwin's finches. birds adapted to different environmental conditions, evolving different beaks etc to better forage for food but they were all still birds. micro evolution is proven science. macro evolution is unproven theory.

is there a god and if so does he really give a rat's ass about what happens on one out of countless billions of planets in the universe? I don't really know. :shrug:

 

[Cardinal]

macro evolution can't be observed or tested either...at least not over the course of a human lifespan. there is plenty of evidence that micro evolution has and is occurring. but I have never seen any evidence that macro evolution occurs. look at darwin's finches. birds adapted to different environmental conditions, evolving different beaks etc to better forage for food but they were all still birds. micro evolution is proven science. macro evolution is unproven theory.

You must be new to the evolution debate.

is there a god and if so does he really give a rat's ass about what happens on one out of countless billions of planets in the universe? I don't really know. :shrug:

Angels on the head of a pin.

 

[OscarB63]

You must be new to the evolution debate.

why? you have physical evidence of macro evolution occurring? a link would be nice

 

[Cardinal]

why? you have physical evidence of macro evolution occurring? a link would be nice

Have you participated in many evolution debates before?

 

[OscarB63]

Have you participated in many evolution debates before?

a zillion of them. still never seen anyone produce any real evidence of macro evolution. but, then, it may be a miscommunication on what we consider "macro" to mean.

 

[Cardinal]

a zillion of them.

Then you've stated your "there is no evidence for macro evolution" a zillion times, been refuted a zillion times, and ignored those refutations and repeated your original statement each of every zillion times. Which means you're willfully ignorant, I would guess for ideological, almost certainly religious, reasons, and I'm not going to be your zillion and first fool.

Does that make me a lazy debater? You betcha, but I have better things to do than go around in infinite circles with someone who is willfully ignorant.

Edit: on the .00000000000000000000000001% chance I'm wrong about you, here's the big ass link of evolution. Educate yourself.

 

[tecoyah]

why? you have physical evidence of macro evolution occurring? a link would be nice

There has been evidence for quite some time:
Darwin's Finches

Darwin's finches are an excellent example of the way in which species' gene pools have adapted in order for long term survival via their offspring. The Darwin's Finches diagram below illustrates the way the finch has adapted to take advantage of feeding in different ecological niche's.

Darwin's Finches - All deriving from the common ancestor and diversifying natural selection

Their beaks have evolved over time to be best suited to their function. For example, the finches who eat grubs have a thin extended beak to poke into holes in the ground and extract the grubs. Finches who eat buds and fruit would be less successful at doing this, while their claw like beaks can grind down their food and thus give them a selective advantage in circumstances where buds are the only real food source for finches.
Darwin's Finches & Natural Selection - Biology Online

However....for a detailed list, please go here.
29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: The Scientific Case for Common Descent

 

[digsbe]

Humans evolved and the process of evolution was guided by God.

 

[OscarB63]

There has been evidence for quite some time:
Darwin's Finches

Darwin's finches are an excellent example of the way in which species' gene pools have adapted in order for long term survival via their offspring. The Darwin's Finches diagram below illustrates the way the finch has adapted to take advantage of feeding in different ecological niche's.

Darwin's Finches - All deriving from the common ancestor and diversifying natural selection

Their beaks have evolved over time to be best suited to their function. For example, the finches who eat grubs have a thin extended beak to poke into holes in the ground and extract the grubs. Finches who eat buds and fruit would be less successful at doing this, while their claw like beaks can grind down their food and thus give them a selective advantage in circumstances where buds are the only real food source for finches.
Darwin's Finches & Natural Selection - Biology Online

However....for a detailed list, please go here.
29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: The Scientific Case for Common Descent

darwin's finches are micro evolution. afterall..they are all still finches. show me some proof, not theory or extrapolation, that a flipper has ever "evolved" into a wing or a fin has ever evolved into a leg.

a birds beak evolving into a different shape/type beak or a rodent's fur changing color or getting thicker doesn't cut it.

 

[Cardinal]

Humans evolved and the process of evolution was guided by God.

Haven't I seen you post that you don't believe in evolution in the past? Did you amend that position or am I confusing that with another topic?

 

[OscarB63]

Then you've stated your "there is no evidence for macro evolution" a zillion times, been refuted a zillion times, and ignored those refutations and repeated your original statement each of every zillion times. Which means you're willfully ignorant, I would guess for ideological, almost certainly religious, reasons, and I'm not going to be your zillion and first fool.

Does that make me a lazy debater? You betcha, but I have better things to do than go around in infinite circles with someone who is willfully ignorant.

Edit: on the .00000000000000000000000001% chance I'm wrong about you, here's the big ass link of evolution. Educate yourself.

never been refuted. just heard a zillion people like you claim to have refuted me without actually refuting anything. :shrug:

 

[Cardinal]

never been refuted. just heard a zillion people like you claim to have refuted me without actually refuting anything. :shrug:

Uh huh.

So when are you going to go through that site I linked to?

 

[Ikari]

darwin's finches are micro evolution. afterall..they are all still finches. show me some proof, not theory or extrapolation, that a flipper has ever "evolved" into a wing or a fin has ever evolved into a leg.

a birds beak evolving into a different shape/type beak or a rodent's fur changing color or getting thicker doesn't cut it.

Those finches are speciated though, yes?

 

[digsbe]

Haven't I seen you post that you don't believe in evolution in the past? Did you amend that position or am I confusing that with another topic?

I used to be more creationist, now I'm a theistic evolutionist.

 

[Cardinal]

I used to be more creationist, now I'm a theistic evolutionist.

Okey dokey.

 

[Gardener]

It's funny, but I'm in the business of dealing with evolution right before my very eyes each year, and the process is certainly no great secret or especially difficult to understand.

Bugs eat my plants. I don't like bugs eating my plants so I try to kill them. I end up spraying with one thing or another and get excellent results one year. The next year I get very good results. The year after that fairly good and the year after that fair to middling. Eventually, if I use the same spray too long, I hardly get any results at all. What has happened is that an incredibly tiny group of bugs had a natural resistance to the chemical in question. As the ones who did not have the resistance were suppressed, those who had this resistance were able to pass along the trait to their offspring and theirs to the next. Eventually, a whole population developed with a natural resistance as in my little world where I was playing the god inside a greenhouse, I was actually controlling the traits being expressed by my spraying.

Environmental pressures work the same way, and as we are talking millions of years in some cases rather than just a few years, it should be a simple matter for people to get their heads around the fact that macro characteristics can change as well as micro. Heck -- just look at dogs and how much different they now look from wolves after just a few thousand years.

If it weren't for the dogma of a religion based in pre-scientific times mucking things up, I doubt whether we would be having these conversations, but why people stick to superstitious mumbo jumbo is beyond me. Just go out and try to kill a few bugs, folks. It happens.

 

[OscarB63]

Those finches are speciated though, yes?

yes, but they are still....birds :shrug:

 

[Gardener]

yes, but they are still....birds :shrug:

That is such an inspired observation, Oscar, that I wonder why nobody else thought of it.

 

[Cardinal]

yes, but they are still....birds :shrug:

Oh my god.

Seriously, that site I linked to? That will educate you on what evolution is, and it most certainly covers macroevolution and speciation.

Really, Oscar, you honestly don't know the first thing about evolution.

 

[tecoyah]

darwin's finches are micro evolution. afterall..they are all still finches. show me some proof, not theory or extrapolation, that a flipper has ever "evolved" into a wing or a fin has ever evolved into a leg.

a birds beak evolving into a different shape/type beak or a rodent's fur changing color or getting thicker doesn't cut it.

Though it seems your understanding of Micro/Macro evolution is a bit confused....I will do as you ask:

"It has been known since Darwin's time that whales occasionally show evidence of vestigial limbs and pelvic structures. This is most obvious in whale embryos, but adult whales have actually been found with protruding limb rudiments. (See the discussion in P. Gingerich et al, "Hind Limbs of Eocene Basilosaurus: Evidence of Feet in Whales," Science 249, July 13, 1990, p. 154). Why would an animal be born with traces of legs when it currently has no use for them? That the vestigial stumps have no functional purpose in modern whales is obvious. How, then, are we to explain the case of the whale's vestigial structures in a logical and scientific manner?

The evolutionist position is at once simple and perfectly logical: modern whales have vestigial legs and pelvic girdles precisely because they evolved from land animals with legs (most likely artiodactyls, an ungulate mammal of which hippos are perhaps the best modern example).

It would thus stand to reason that the earliest whales had fully functional legs and that only later did their legs begin to diminish in utility to the point at which they appear in modern whales as vestigial stubs concealed beneath the blubber. It is to be expected, moreover, that various intermediate forms will be found between early whales with fully functional hind limbs and modern whales with vestigial limbs only. "
On Whales Legs (maverick science)