Environmentalists And Big Bangers; Educate Me

[Asimov]

Pardon?

 

What are the 'facts' underlining; from man before he evolved legs and arms, mouth, ears, penis, vagina etc, to man in that described form. Was that clearer?

 

 

Are you asking what the evidence is that man evolved out of a previous species?

[Comanche]

Evolution is a theory. Big Bang is a theory. To those here that don't believe there is a God, based mainly around science; those that believe religion is just made up fiction and is absent of evidence to Gods being, authenticity of scripture, all notions of the Bible stance in history as void.

 

Why choose science's unprovable over religions unprovable? We both believe in something unprovable; in which to some here would define themselves, by their own words, as 'delusional, uneducated, blinded, brainwashed, etc'

 

Religious theories and scientific theories are not the same thing. A religious theory is made up out of thin air - a hypothetical, untested answer to all your questions. A scientific theory is carefully constructed, tested, published, tested by others, published again, tested again, published again, added to. It goes on and on.

 

Evolution is classified as fact because it has gone through this process and always passed with flying colors. No religious theories have stood up to scientific inquiry. The Big Bang is an educated guess, not something someone came up with after having one too many shots of whiskey. There is nothing to indicate that any religious creation story is fact - there IS evidence to indicate that the Big Bang is as close as we can get to the facts (such as the universe expanding around us constantly).

[Ouroboros]

Are you asking what the evidence is that man evolved out of a previous species?

I think that is what he's asking. But I know I have answered him this before, about the ERV and other facts about the genome (a while back). That the only rational explanation to the similarities is that we're related to the apes. Maybe it's just not enough. It's too bad we didn't have a Kodak photo of every single individual of humans and apes the last hundreds of thousands of years... with a copy of each DNA too.

[SWIM]

I found a really good "scientfic american" article called: "Scientists on Religion"

 

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=scient...on&colID=12

 

"

Ten years after his death in 1996, science writer Walter Sullivan's byline occasionally still appears in the New York Times on obituaries of important physicists, as though he were beckoning them to some quantum-mechanical heaven. This is not a case of necromancy--the background material for Times obits is often written in advance and stored. If the dead really did communicate with the living, that would be a scientific event as monumental as the discovery of electromagnetic induction, radioactive decay or the expansion of the universe. Laboratories and observatories all over the world would be fiercely competing to understand a new phenomenon. One can imagine Mr. Sullivan, the ultimate foreign correspondent, eagerly reporting the story from the other side.

 

Light is carried by photons, gravity by gravitons. If there is such a thing as spiritual communication, there must be a means of conveyance: some kind of "spiritons"--ripples, perhaps, in one of M Theory's leftover dimensions. Some theologians might scoff at that remark, yet there has been a resurgence in recent years of "natural theology"--the attempt to justify religious teachings not through faith and scripture but through rational argument, astronomical observations and even experiments on the healing effects of prayer. The intent is to prove that, Carl Sagan be damned, we are not lost among billions and billions of stars in billions and billions of galaxies, that the universe was created and is sustained for the benefit of God's creatures, the inhabitants of the third rock from the sun."

 

It's a great article, you should go read the whole thing, here's another quote:

 

DNA sequence alone, even if accompanied by a vast trove of data on biological function, will never explain certain special human attributes, such as the knowledge of the Moral Law and the universal search for God." Evolutionary explanations have been proffered for both these phenomena. Whether they are right or wrong is not a matter of belief but a question to be approached scientifically. The idea of an apartheid of two separate but equal metaphysics may work as a psychological coping mechanism, a way for a believer to get through a day at the lab. But theism and materialism don't stand on equal footings. The assumption of materialism is fundamental to science. Richard Dawkins, in The God Delusion, tells of his exasperation with colleagues who try to play both sides of the street: looking to science for justification of their religious convictions while evading the most difficult implications--the existence of a prime mover sophisticated enough to create and run the universe, "to say nothing of mind reading millions of humans simultaneously." Such an entity, he argues, would have to be extremely complex, raising the question of how it came into existence, how it communicates--through spiritons!--and where it resides.

 

 

The bolded italic is really the heart of your issue, not just merely evolution, isn't it? You are trying to cope with science and still be religious, correct?

[Thurisaz]

Evolution is a theory. Big Bang is a theory.

 

Theory (scientific) != theory (common meaning).

 

To those here that don't believe there is a God

 

Note that I do believe in deities. Note that this doesn't change my view on science.

 

Why choose science's unprovable over religions unprovable? We both believe in something unprovable

 

Outside of the simple black-or-white-no-third-color-allowed morontheist fairy tale world, not all "unprovables" are equal.

 

Science: Unprovable; tons of evidence supporting it.

 

Morontheism: Unprovable; thoroughly illogical; not a shred of objective evidence supporting it.

 

Got the message?

[Evolution_beyond]

Why choose science's unprovable over religions unprovable?

 

Science tries to understand what is true about the universe by looking at the evidence, measuring, forming hypotheses that might explain the evidence, testing those hypotheses to see if they are true, trying to prove the hypothesis wrong, coming up with new explanations in the light of the new evidence revealed by the experiments, occasionally reaffirming the hypothesis if the experiments seem to support it, but also continuing to test the hypothesis to see if it's wrong, etc ad infinitum.

 

It's the best possible method for actually trying to establish what is real, and trying to keep an open mind and not let cultural assumptions ruin the results.

 

Religion takes the words of a book, or cultural traditions as the absolute truth and tries to make reality fit those assumptions.

 

A very different process. If you honestly can't see the difference then I feel sorry for you.

 

Religion takes man's words as truth. Science tries to let the Universe tell us it's truth.

[Evolution_beyond]

What are the 'facts' underlining; from man before he evolved legs and arms, mouth, ears, penis, vagina etc, to man in that described form. Was that clearer?

 

arms - primates. legs - amphibians. mouth - worms. ears - reptiles? amphibians? penis and vagina - fish? amphibians?

 

Those things developed at different stages in the evolutionary path.

 

The facts are fossil evidence. There are many transitional forms. Unfortunately there are gaps in the fossil record because fossils only form in extraordinary circumstances.

 

But there's plenty of evidence from comparative anatomy, and from genetics. It really does seem as all life evolved from common ancestors in a complicated process that took place over millions of years.

 

Also, Darwin's initial insight that variation in offspring plus competition between offspring so that only some of them survive plus natural selection favouring the survival and reproduction of certain traits over others - that this process takes place is undeniable. If we cannot deny that process actually takes place all of the time in nature, then it seems evident that taken to its natural conclusion over millions of years species could evolve into radically different forms than the ones they started out as.

 

I hope that makes sense.

[Grandpa Harley]

Pardon?

 

What are the 'facts' underlining; from man before he evolved legs and arms, mouth, ears, penis, vagina etc, to man in that described form. Was that clearer?

 

Nope... still doesn't make much sense.. I can see it's English but I don't see how it relates to Evolutionary theory in any know form...

[Grandpa Harley]

What are the 'facts' underlining; from man before he evolved legs and arms, mouth, ears, penis, vagina etc, to man in that described form. Was that clearer?

 

arms - primates. legs - amphibians. mouth - worms. ears - reptiles? amphibians? penis and vagina - fish? amphibians?

 

Those things developed at different stages in the evolutionary path.

 

The facts are fossil evidence. There are many transitional forms. Unfortunately there are gaps in the fossil record because fossils only form in extraordinary circumstances.

 

But there's plenty of evidence from comparative anatomy, and from genetics. It really does seem as all life evolved from common ancestors in a complicated process that took place over millions of years.

 

Also, Darwin's initial insight that variation in offspring plus competition between offspring so that only some of them survive plus natural selection favouring the survival and reproduction of certain traits over others - that this process takes place is undeniable. If we cannot deny that process actually takes place all of the time in nature, then it seems evident that taken to its natural conclusion over millions of years species could evolve into radically different forms than the ones they started out as.

 

I hope that makes sense.

 

you have to admit, the question actually is a nonsense question, since the a priori assumption is that the things he listed did not evolve with man...

 

when mammalian genitals evolved is questionable... extrapolating back, they probably formed at a stage before placental mammals and marsupials diverged... Fish, amphibia, reptiles and bird still have cloaca. Some insects have divergent extenal genitals (the crane fly being a good example, bed bugs being another, quite horrific one) and most Arachnids do.

 

Since external genitals are a soft tissue biological artifact, you can't really say much about the 'whens' and the 'morphologies' from 99% of fossils... soft tissue fossils are incredibly rare; last one I remember is that T-rex one, where they managed to extract proteins that are, today, only found in avians, not reptilia. due to the environment and living styles of mammals, they really don't make good fossil candidates...

[Neon Genesis]

Religion takes man's words as truth. Science tries to let the Universe tell us it's truth.

Yeah, religion forms a conclusion and tries to make the facts fit the conclusion whereas scientists take the facts and tries to see what conclusions they can draw from the facts.

[Ouroboros]

Your post reminded me, I don't think you mentioned this earlier (I'm too lazy to check ), but chicken and birds in general also carry the gene for teeth, but it's dormant. It has some code that blocks it from working, and if that block is removed, then they grow teeth. Like that's something God created on purpose... dormant teeth genes in birds... eh... one must ask why? There's no need to put a non-working code in the DNA just for "design" purpose. It's like making the next model of Ford with parts and designs from the early T-Ford, but only put them there, non-functional. Like the old wood steering wheel glued to the roof, and the old horn screwed on as a hood ornament, backwards or something. Or maybe fill the truck with the old box springs for the seats. And also humans carry the dormant gene for fur. There's no need for that in a "perfect" design either.

[DarthOkkata]

Double post. Grrr...

[DarthOkkata]

and again...stupid edit button...

[DarthOkkata]

Environmentalists And Big Bangers; Educate Me, Whats the difference?

 

Environmentalists are interested in preserving our planet's ecosystem, big bangers are abnormally large breasts.

 

A big banger could also mean a large sausage.

 

As for human Evolution, try this.

 

http://anthropology.si.edu/humanorigins/ha/ances_start.html

 

http://anthropology.si.edu/humanorigins/ha/a_tree.html

 

Creationist fail to understand that the 'missing link' is not a missing part in our own ancestry, but rather, the fossils that connect us directly to our closest relatives, the great apes. We're missing where they divert from our own genetic line. It's not a piece of our line that's missing, it's a piece of theirs.

 

The human evolutionary line is remarkably complete.

 

Creationism isn't a theory, because there's no evidence in archaeology, or any other science that supports it. Ancient history does not support Exodus, there isn't any proof that the Israelites were enslaved to the Egyptians, for example. It fails to take into account the forts and forces Egypt had on the other side of the river. It also mentions that they were to avoid the Philistines, when they didn't exist for another five hundred years. Genesis is just as bad, it has a talking snake in it.

 

Saying the bible is factual because a few minor characters are real, and the places were real makes you an idiot. You could say the same thing about Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, but that doesn't make that any more true either. Especially since both can be proven equally wrong.

 

There are fossil records, geological records, and archaeological finds, that proves the failures of the bible to explain the past. It's not even accurate history wise. Science is a proven method for discovering the mysteries of the past, and all sorts of other useful things.

 

Religion is proven to lighten your wallet, and make you feel nice sometimes.

 

You use the fruits of such research every day, the fact that you're able to post something to annoy us on the internet is proof enough of that. The same methods used to make all the wonderful stuff you take for granted were used to explain everything you're asking about. The fact that you're wearing clothes, sitting on something made partially of synthetics, inside a home containing plaster, treated wood, carpet, tile, and assorted other things manufactured using electric tools, while looking at an ionized screen, inside a huge hunk of metal and plastic that's sucking down electricity right now makes you a hypocrite.

 

After all, science worked just fine to make all that, didn't it? Only when it contradicts your imaginary views do you bother refuting it's methods, even though you obviously have no understanding of them.

 

I don't think most creationist really want to understand at all. Most just look for that magic easily spotted error, so they can point and say. "Look! It's wrong! Ha ha! Jesus is real and you look stupid!"

 

Creationism isn't a theory, because it's only basis is a 2,000 year old book of Jewish Fairy Tales. Evolution is a theory, because we've built up lots and lots of evidence, geological, fossil, biological, paleontological, and archaeological that says it's how things happened.

 

The Big Bang is based on math, physics, and observation of the universe, by people much smarter than you or me with much better equipment.

 

I trust millions of scientist to not lie to me more than I trust a group of twelve hippies from 2,000 years ago to understand the universe.

 

There's no reliable evidence Jesus was even a real person at all. Not a single first hand account while he was supposed to be living. No one important, who would have been writing about such a man, was writing about him at all. His name doesn't even show up in execution or criminal records.

 

It's like he never existed until his apostles made him up.

[Eric_PK]

Evolution is a theory. Big Bang is a theory. To those here that don't believe there is a God, based mainly around science; those that believe religion is just made up fiction and is absent of evidence to Gods being, authenticity of scripture, all notions of the Bible stance in history as void.

 

Why choose science's unprovable over religions unprovable? We both believe in something unprovable; in which to some here would define themselves, by their own words, as 'delusional, uneducated, blinded, brainwashed, etc'

 

Science has a method. Evolution is a theory, but it's a well-supported one, as is the big bang theory, the theory of gravity, etc. All these theories make predictions that are useful - in fact, how useful a theory is is exactly how you judge how good it is.

 

"God did it" is not a theory, as it makes not predictions. If you want to propose a different theory, it will also need to make predictions, and make them better than an existing theory (at least in some scenarios).

 

I do find it interesting when theists use a global computer network based on the work of generations of scientists to claim that the scientific method and the biblical method are equally good methods to use...

[Justin]

YoYo

 

It's interesting to note that you haven't been back here since saturday. What, did you tap out and run?

 

But if you ever show up again, on top of all the info supplied to you by other people on this thread, also try explaining why there is such a thing as vistigial organs? Why do we have the remnants of a third eye lid, a tail bone, an appendix, why we get goose bumps? Explain why their are flightless birds with wings? Why the mole rat and some species of cave fish and salamanders have eyes that they cannot see out of? Either the perfect good lord didn't know what the hell he was doing making useless organs or they are the remnants of organs that 'were' usefull and needed but were rendered useless over time by evolution. It's interesting to point out that according to the Bible, we are made in the image of god. So that means god shares 98% of the genetic make up of a chimp? Fascinating!

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vestigal_organs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_vestigiality

[Internet Jesus]

That's a great question.

No really, that's the best argument any christian has ever had.

And the answer is that in life there is no absolute truths.

Men have killed to understand them, trekked the world to find them, philosophers have gone insane meditating on them.

 

We can't live in the absolute truth, all we can do is choose the lie we like the best.

Your lie is based on old texts, and bronze age understanding.

My lie is based on blood sweat and toiling up-to-date research.

But at the end of the day, existence is just as existential for the both of us, and just as unexplained.

 

I choose science because as a piece of the universe aware of itself I'd like to think

we can make existence even slightly more fulfilling with just a little time and energy

trying to understand our world and eachother, and staying true to what is real.

 

Does that mean be a skeptical fucknut? Sometimes. Does it mean live in agony of hyper-rationalism?

If it did, it wouldn't be hyper rational.

 

I find reality to be the ultimate religion needing the greatest amount of dedication.

It's not something you sign your name to in order to belong.

You exist weather you like it or not, but the study of existence should be handled with much greater care

and forethought than has been demonstrated within any religion I've come across.

[Internet Jesus]

What about the environmentalists?

 

 

Environmentalists And Big Bangers; Educate Me, Whats the difference?

 

Environmentalists are interested in preserving our planet's ecosystem, big bangers are abnormally large breasts.

 

Man ole man. I must be tired. I meant Evolutionists.

 

Wow! Sorry all. Evolutionists and Big Bang theory advocates. Whats the difference?

 

 

Anyhow. If anyone can get past my error of topic discussion; my question was, What are the direct 'facts' that led scientists to believe organisms formed into human beings?

 

I can't help but reply to this one as well.

There is no difference between big bangers and evolutionists.

Just as I would say there is no major difference between Christians and evolutionists.

 

We live in a reality in which everything observed to date came about from the big bang, and all life we have seen so far came about through the process of adaptation and survival i.e., evolution.

 

We're both humans living in roughly the same condition in roughly [arguably] the same experience, and we came about through roughly the same process. Our different philosophies on the subject doesn't change the truth.

 

The only difference is that some choose to acknowledge this truth [as true as any truth can be through ever finer means of observation]

while others choose to think what they're told.

 

I'm trying to be nice about this, but that's all you get tonight. It's as black and white as I can be.

[chefranden]

YoYo dear,

 

Theories explain relationship between facts. You look to the theory of gravity to explain why that bowling ball smashed your foot instead of hanging in the air where you put it. Theories also predict that new facts will be found via this or that experiment or exploration like when Einstein's theory of gravitation predicted that light would be found to bend near a massive object such as a star.

 

Theories can change as new information becomes available. Sometimes theories fall before new information, like the sky is the floor of heaven theory, or the flat earth theory. Sometimes Theories are improved by new information such as Darwin coming up with natural selection based on his study of facts he found on his famous voyage.

 

But I suspect that you know this and are being a bit disingenuous trying to use fained naivete to inject doubt of the validity of the theory. If you are actually this naive then you are being unfair to members by asking them to write a book for you on a subject you should have learned in school. There are already plenty of books on the subject. If you need a list some will supply you with one. You could start by listening to Zack's podcasts above.

 

Edit: By the way God is not an alternative for a bad or non-existent theory as an explanation of facts. At best invoking God as an explanation of facts in the age of science is shorthand for I don't know and I'm too lazy to find out.

[Abiyoyo]

Thanks everyone for your thoughts, links and comments. This topic wasn't directed to irritate anyone, as to I always like to see other peoples thoughts, and beliefs about different subjects. I don't deny that sometimes we all walk a one directional walk to reason, logic, and rationality; and that direction is usually based all around each persons stance in regard to humanity.

 

Personally. For me to ever be totally convinced that science alone is the Father of Life would mean that I would have to completely deny religion. I can't do that, not because I'm some kind of Jesus freak, bible beating, doctrine holding, fundamentalist. But, because I just can't get past one thing.

 

Even with the volumes of information, that are appreciated and are looked into unbiased. I can't get past the complexity of life in general and the specific qualities of each living thing on earth; also the human characteristics and thought process.

 

If we are merely a result of something scientific, then reasonably, we are just emotionally overloaded creatures or emotionally challenged creatures.

[Dhampir]

I'd say one of your major problems is your need to apply religious imagery to everything, as well as the need to vilify they opposing position. My guess is that you do that so that you don't need to see the merit in the other side's argument. That's why you came here, instead of reading up on the facts. You can argue with us, but you can't argue with a textbook.

"Personally. For me to ever be totally convinced that science alone is the Father of Life would mean that I would have to completely deny religion."

Oh, come on, stop sulking. And "Father of Life"? Who said science is the father of anything? If science could, and did point to, any creative being as the "father" of life, and explained that being, would science still be the the "father of life"? I concur with Chef, in that your naivete is feigned, because a little thought would show your mind just how ridiculous that statement is. Science is a TOOL, not a creative entity or concept.

 

As it stands, your god, as well as every other god, is outside of the purview of science, as they all seem quite reticent to show themselves in a physically observable way. What science says is that NATURE is the most evident creative force, and that if any god, much less yours is behind anything, it is yet to be observed. Every scientific theory that stands up under scrutiny does so without any need to put god in there anywhere.

[florduh]

The title of this topic was a sham.

 

The poster's interest is not in Big Bang Theory compared and contrasted with Evolution. It was merely an excuse to showcase his position that despite all the irrefutable and overwhelming evidence, evolution can't be true for the reason that life is complex.

 

I fully understand what religious conditioning can do to a mind, but that "reasoning" seems akin to saying the law of gravity can't be right because helium balloons don't fall to the Earth. An irrelevant and nonsensical correlation.

 

I don't see the point of someone telling a group of evolutionists that they are wrong simply because evolution has produced variety and complexity over time. That is the most lame "argument" Creationists ever came up with. What can be gained by doing this?

 

Facts have no place in the mind of a True Believer. I know because I used to be one.

[Thurisaz]

If we are merely a result of something scientific, then reasonably, we are just emotionally overloaded creatures or emotionally challenged creatures.

 

"Just"? Why "just"?

 

Why exactly should we be worth less if we weren't the creations of whatever Divine force?

[Abiyoyo]

If we are merely a result of something scientific, then reasonably, we are just emotionally overloaded creatures or emotionally challenged creatures.

 

"Just"? Why "just"?

 

Why exactly should we be worth less if we weren't the creations of whatever Divine force?

 

Because we would be just a product of our environment, and we are limited to that environment and we die and are no more. The constant would be that the only result of our humanity is order. Order would be the backbone of the mind, thought, our guilt, emotions. No more. Isn't it depressing?

 

To me it is. If we are basically just a substance of another substance that reproduces and dies; leaving behind generations of history in which our minds have the ability to think about. The process of thought would merely be as I said earlier. Emotionally challenged, or emotionally overloaded.

 

We would basically be like ticking time bombs. Some may even say that makes sense, and maybe thats why 'mankind' created God, as a relief valve for our mental, emotional state of being. Some may say that is why we are made by God.

 

Still. The thought that we are a product of our environment, and in 40-50 yrs I'm going to be dust and thats that; is extremely depressing. So. I observe history of this world and religion, apply the story and concepts of Christ, and hope for life after I die; by having faith that Christ is the living water of life that is wrote in the story.

[Grandpa Harley]

So it's sentiment and fear that make you believe?