Eye on the Ball

[flip]

It may be a gross misunderstanding, but current population numbers and DNA evidence put more weight to my theory than it does to their dates. How you can you date something at 2.5 million years with no real way to measure it? It's a educated guess at best that excludes the possibility of a Creator, making it a flawed process in that it will not take into account ALL the possibilities. Stephen Hawkins surmises that it's very possible life exists elsewhere by looking around and observing nature. I do the same thing when I look around and see the order of the universe and all the million different details needed to actually support life here. How are those 2 processes different from each other, except that one side refuses to look at all the possibilities?

[Top Gun]

...the radiometric dating does measure the age. We know the decay rate of various isotopes, so we can look at the ratio of those isotopes to their decay products and see how long the decay has been going on. There aren't any possibilities at work here, unless you're suggesting that God decided to fake isotope ratios just for shits 'n' giggles.

And what's the difference between the two of you? Pretty much that Hawking's musings are backed up by centuries' worth of scientific progress and rigor, while yours are backed up by...what, exactly? Just your own intuition?

Seriously, flip, you can't just say "It seems like things should be this way" and expect people to take you seriously. One of the first things you learn when studying science is that human "common sense" is often anything but sensible...there are any number of principles that fly in the face of what our gut instinct would tell us. Hell, the entire field of quantum mechanics operates on basic concepts that can make anyone's head spin. However, that doesn't make it any less valid. You need some sort of evidence from data or experiments in order to put together a useful model of how something works. It's not that scientists are somehow biased against religion because they reject the explanation, "Well, God did all of that"...it's because it's not something that's testable, so it can't really apply to scientific study in the first place.

[Foil]

...excludes the possibility of a Creator, making it a flawed process...

...one side refuses to look at all the possibilities...

Flip, despite what creationist literature says, the work in these fields does not exclude the possibility of a creator! They are simply working with models based on physical data; and thus are making no claims or assumptions about creatorship or anything supernatural.

When a good scientist makes a claim like "Based on data and observation, X is Y years old", they are not claiming anything about God or a Creator.

---------

Yes, there are atheists in the scientific community, just as there are theists in the scientific community. The point is: Scientists who are good at their work leave their assumptions about non-science at the door.



[Edit: This is actually a major problem among people working in 'creation science'. They rail about scientists making anti-theist assumptions, but in fact they are the ones working with the strongest assumptions by far!

Science is best done outside of pre-set notions, of ANY kind.]

[flip]

I'm pretty sure evolution and creation are mostly at odds with each other and my argument was directly pointed at Woodchips theory of alien bacteria. Which is the musings of Stephen Hawkings with no scientific evidence to back it up. Just that it seems logical.

[flip]

Oh and I mostly agree with you Foil. It's just I don't get that kind of sentiment on this board I would expect from the scientific community. I get alien bacteria theory thrown at me as evidence of how life originated here and then the theory of evolution declared fact on that basis alone, or some other theory with exactly the same merits. I would get a different argument from a real scientist I'm sure.

EDIT: Let me also say this. Evolution is either true or not. Creation is either true or not. I have no vested interest one way or the other which one is, just that it would be nice to know which one is. I see nothing in science that can debunk the biblical account of creation because there is nothing scientifically absurd about the account. Plus the perfect lining up of everything needed on all different levels to make life is on creations side itself. People on this board think as soon as they hear creation your some poor backwoods smuck that can't help him self, and not really dissect the foundations that their own beliefs are built on. Musings with scientific evidence to back them up.

[Foil]

I'm pretty sure evolution and creation are mostly at odds with each other...

Heh, I'm familiar with that sentiment; I grew up with it. Unfortunately, that's not the case.


Evolution = fundamentally a scientific model about nature.

Creation = fundamentally a philosophical/supernatural statement about origin/intent/meaning.


These are only "at odds" when someone makes the mistake of claiming that one determines the other (e.g. "it's a model for natural change, so there must be no God!" or "God is responsible, so it can't be a natural mechanism!").

[callmeslick]

I'm pretty sure evolution and creation are mostly at odds with each other

not necessarily at all. A Creator could have set the whole process into motion. The only thing that evolution would be at odds with would be a strictly literalist interpretation of the Creation story.

and my argument was directly pointed at Woodchips theory of alien bacteria. Which is the musings of Stephen Hawkings with no scientific evidence to back it up. Just that it seems logical.

musings, as you refer to them, are called theories or postulates. They are the starting point of the Scientific Process, followed by data collection, analysis, and modification of the theories. And that process continues until absolute proof is found, if indeed such ever occurs.

[Spidey]

That whole “everything is perfect” argument for a god always reminds me of the story…

A man is looking under a light…another man approaches and asks…what are you looking for?
To which the man replies…a ring.
The second man then asks…did you lose it here?
The first man replies…no.
The second man asks…then why are you looking here?
The first man replies…because the light is better here.

Now don’t ask me why, I am reminded of that…because I don’t have a clue. (except for the obvious flaw in logic)

Man evolved here, so here is where man “could” evolve…according to Murphy’s Law. Where else whould you be pondering the origins of life from?

Of course if life can only evolve where the conditions are right…then you would expect the conditions to be correct.

Proof of god, would be living here out of context.

[flip]

No. in the context of this discussion
Evolution= changing several forms from animal to the state we are in now.
Creation= being made in that state from the very beginning.

All I keep seeing the majority of people telling me that's not how science works and I don't understand the principals. Still, nothing I have said is disputed.

[Krom]

It is a big mistake to think that evolution boils down to just cosmic luck or some kind of incredible genetic accident. The part that tends to throw people off is the system of random mutations. Now most of the time random mutations in any system are considered bad. But evolution is just like computer programming: there isn't just one "right" way to build a living organism, just like there isn't only one "right" way to program a computer. Random mutations work for evolution because there is an incredibly thorough system of error control which discards useless, ineffectual or just plain counterproductive mutations which we call "Natural Selection". Even if random mutations get something wrong 99.99% of the time, natural selection will discard all of the wrong paths and will pick only the 0.01% that got it right for continuation. Evolution is not an accident and it certainly isn't luck. If you look at the big picture it is easy to see that evolution is a thoroughly deliberate and logical system.

[Jeff250]

Spidey--you may already know this, but that line of reasoning is called the anthropic principle.

I get alien bacteria theory thrown at me

Alien bacteria is more of an "origins" issue than an "evolution" issue, so I wouldn't take it too seriously in the context of this debate. It's analogous to asking whether evolution was kickstarted naturally or by a higher power. Evolution per se doesn't deal with where the first life came from, just what happened after that.

It may be a gross misunderstanding, but current population numbers and DNA evidence put more weight to my theory

We've already explained that your model for human population growth makes naive assumptions. For instance, it doesn't correctly model the growth of indigenous populations. These populations' sizes were limited to the resources in their environment, and they didn't innovate technology in the manner that your model predicts.

Regarding your DNA evidence, I don't think you understand the concept of genetic Eve. Straight from the wiki article:

One of the misconceptions of mitochondrial Eve is that since all women alive today descended in a direct unbroken female line from her that she was the only woman alive at the time.[10][11] Nuclear DNA studies indicate that the size of the ancient human population never dropped below tens of thousands. There were many other women around at Eve's time with descendants alive today, but sometime in the past, those lines of descent included at least one male, who do not pass on their mother's mitochondrial DNA, thereby breaking the line of descent. By contrast, Eve's lines of descent to each person alive today includes precisely one purely matrilineal line.[10]

So you have no such DNA evidence.

Still, nothing I have said is disputed.

Well, you have certainly made a number of factual misstatements that have been corrected over the course of this thread. Maybe you mean that nothing has been said to dispute the general theory that God created all species in their current form out of non-living material. But a theory that hasn't been disputed isn't necessarily a good scientific theory. A good scientific theory is falsifiable--it not just isn't contradicted but it makes risky predictions that aren't contradicted. Evolution makes a risky prediction about the age of fossils, predicting that they are much older than anyone originally expected and making specific predictions about which fossils we should find older than others. Creationism, in general, makes no such predictions, and explains away the dating evidence as God just so happened to create the animals in the order that evolution had predicted, or in your case, God just so happened to create the animals with already radioactively decayed material so that their fossils would date to what evolution had predicted. But this isn't very satisfying, since a good scientific theory doesn't just explain away evidence--it predicts it.

[flip]

I'm just looking at all the possibilities Jeff and seeing if some of this science stands up to common sense. Some does, alot of it is speculation and I can speculate just as well as the next. The alien bacteria theory for instance, what if any scientific or hard evidence is there to support this theory? What does it predict? There is absolutely no basis to believe that's how life started here unless your trying to predict that it was all an immaculate accident, and a great deal of modern science is built exactly like.No real way to prove it except in the light of your own preconceptions. That's all I'm saying. The idea that the carbon dating could be skewed because of the age of the material is an interesting one, no? Plus all things point to carbon dating only being reliable to 3000 years. Who has tried to use it to date fossils way beyond this one and that got conveniently diminished because the experiment predicted everything that you would expect from evolution except that the dating process is flawed. There's good reason to take science with a grain of salt and not just blindly trust some others results and findings.

[Top Gun]

I'm just looking at all the possibilities Jeff and seeing if some of this science stands up to common sense. Some does, alot of it is speculation and I can speculate just as well as the next.

As I said before, individual "common sense" very often doesn't mesh with reality, especially when you don't have a decent grounding in a few scientific fields.

The idea that the carbon dating could be skewed because of the age of the material is an interesting one, no? Plus all things point to carbon dating only being reliable to 3000 years. Who has tried to use it to date fossils way beyond this one and that got conveniently diminished because the experiment predicted everything that you would expect from evolution except that the dating process is flawed. There's good reason to take science with a grain of salt and not just blindly trust some others results and findings.

I already explained to you how long carbon-14 dating can be used (for the record, it's for objects about 60,000 years old), and how radiometric dating works in general. Please go back and re-read that.

[flip]

I've done conceded your all a bunch of damn apes, what else you want? Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

[Spidey]

At least he didn't say monkeys...

[Ferno]

I've done conceded your all a bunch of damn apes, what else you want? Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

concede? exactly how do you 'concede' something?

[flip]

No, Woodchip said monkey's

[Jeff250]

The alien bacteria theory for instance, what if any scientific or hard evidence is there to support this theory? What does it predict? There is absolutely no basis to believe that's how life started here unless your trying to predict that it was all an immaculate accident, and a great deal of modern science is built exactly like.No real way to prove it except in the light of your own preconceptions. That's all I'm saying.

In science, some theories have very strong evidence, and others have very weak evidence. Evolution has very strong evidence--suggesting it's wrong will get just about the entire board riled up at you. The alien bacteria theory is weak--Woodchip might be a strong fan, but you probably won't get much of a response from anyone else. So you're right to identify that theory as just speculation. It's not a failure of science that it's just speculation because that's all some theories are, and as long as most people would identify it as much, then there's no error. People like thinking about it and like thinking of experiments to make the theory stronger or weaker. On the other hand, evolution is already a really strong theory, so dismissing evolution is not at all on the same level as dismissing the alien bacteria theory.

[flip]

Dr. Gary Parker said, “Believe it or not, when it comes to fossils, evolutionists and creationists now agree on what the facts are. The overwhelming pattern that emerges from fossils we have found is summarized in the word stasis. Stasis and static come from the same root word, a word that means ‘stay the same.’ Gould and Eldredge are simply saying that most kinds of fossilized life forms appear in the fossil sequence abruptly and distinctly as discrete kinds, then show relatively minor variation within kind, and finally abruptly disappear . . . The most direct and logical inference (to a heart and mind open to the possibility) appears to be, it seems to me, creation, and variation within the basic created kinds. Differences such as extinction and decline in size and variety seem to point to the corruption [the fall] and catastrophe [the flood] in the created order, not at all to ‘upward, onward’ evolution.”

I lean more towards this school of thought. It also is directly in line with the theory of ‘punctuated equilibrium’, which is a necessary argument to explain away why these transitional stages havnt been found. Maybe they don't exist. Whatever they were, maybe they weren't man. Notice the use of the word maybe.

[Top Gun]

Urrrrgh. That sort of drivel is the absolute worst sort of maliciously twisting legitimate scientific concepts to serve a particular agenda. Don't trust that as far as you can throw it.

[flip]

Uhh, that abruptness in the fossil record isn't disputed. Just like gradual, slow evolution hasn't been up to this point, so I just debunked one of my own arguments.

[Krom]

Google Search: Evoluton faster than we thought.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... Id=3816881

[flip]

Lol, yeah I can see it now.
wha...Wha...WHAT THE HELL IS THAT. KILL IT, KILL IT NOW!!!!!

[woodchip]

In science, some theories have very strong evidence, and others have very weak evidence. Evolution has very strong evidence--suggesting it's wrong will get just about the entire board riled up at you. The alien bacteria theory is weak--Woodchip might be a strong fan, but you probably won't get much of a response from anyone else.

No, Woodchip is not a strong supporter of alien bacteria. You did notice I posted both pro and con statements regarding it. What I believe is there is tantalizing but not yet proven, indications of bacteria in the meteors. Nothing more.

What is stronger is the evidence toward Genesis Comets impacting early earth and seeding it with nitrogen rich organic compounds that are the foundation blocks for life.

[Heretic]

Funny I thought carbon was the foundation of life on earth. Carbon is often assumed in astrobiology to be the bases of life in our universe.

[null0010]

Funny I thought carbon was the foundation of life on earth. Carbon is often assumed in astrobiology to be the bases of life in our universe.

You need carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. CHON.

[Top Gun]

Funny I thought carbon was the foundation of life on earth. Carbon is often assumed in astrobiology to be the bases of life in our universe.

Carbon is the element that all organic compounds are built on; actually, the definition of an organic compound is simply any compound that contains carbon. However, plain elemental carbon doesn't do much to promote the development of life. You need more complex organic compounds, especially what we classify as amino acids, which as null noted are primarily composed of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen.

[Heretic]

We are carbon-based life forms. You hear all the time. It's also laughable for you to dispute this statement by upholding.

Carbon is the element that all organic compounds are built on; actually, the definition of an organic compound is simply any compound that contains carbon.

Yet without carbon we have no life. Yet again you dispute our carbon-bases life.

However, plain elemental carbon doesn't do much to promote the development of life.

Then point out you need carbon to make amino acids.

You need more complex organic compounds, especially what we classify as amino acids, which as null noted are primarily composed of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen.

[Top Gun]

I...I wasn't disputing anything. How in the world could you get that out of what I said? I was clarifying what "carbon-based" actually means. Saying that life is carbon-based doesn't mean that one can take a pile of graphite (pure elemental carbon) and assemble organic material out of it. The "carbon-based" part comes from the fact that carbon atoms for the "backbone" of most, if not all, complex organic molecules, including the ethanol in your beer and the octane you put in your car. We call life on Earth carbon-based because those organic molecules are built around chains of carbon atoms, but there are other atoms besides carbon in those molecules, so you need something a bit more complex.

Clarifying, not disputing. That's it.

[callmeslick]

without the carbon, one would not have the three-dimensional molecular backbone to build the complex molecules that make up living things. In fact, there are only a handful of elements that posess the potential to have such diversity. Silicon is another. An example of silicon based life forms can be found at most
gentlemen's clubs.....

[woodchip]

An example of silicon based life forms can be found at most
gentlemen's clubs.....

I dated one of those once.

[Ferno]

We are carbon-based life forms. You hear all the time. It's also laughable for you to dispute this statement by upholding.

Carbon is the element that all organic compounds are built on; actually, the definition of an organic compound is simply any compound that contains carbon.

Yet without carbon we have no life. Yet again you dispute our carbon-bases life.

However, plain elemental carbon doesn't do much to promote the development of life.

Then point out you need carbon to make amino acids.

You need more complex organic compounds, especially what we classify as amino acids, which as null noted are primarily composed of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen.