Jem812
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Joined: 3/11/2008
Msg: 76 | |
| EVOLUTION THEORY
Posted: 6/1/2008 5:14:12 AM | | Debating with creationists is a waste of time as they have no evidence FOR their position, if we ignore them they will eventually evolve......... | |
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| EVOLUTION THEORY
Posted: 6/1/2008 7:19:59 AM |
If we evolved from chimps then why are chimps still chimps?
So that the chimps could sign up to POF...
Evolution is a lengthy constanly ongoing process, there will always be algae & chimps from so-called "lower" down the scale. It doesn't stop & give up. The algae & chimps don't become extinct unless something goes wrong.
Compare it to the advencement of science & technology. A few hundred years ago mankind only dreamed about doing the things we do today. Flight, computers etc. Now project that back a thousand years & then few million million years, & you can basically get an idea how evolution progressed.
There is the "missing link". When did the chimps become intelligent? Little green men?
In a few million years after the human race has killed itself, the chimps that are still chimps will have evolved into something else, or maybe the lizards would have taken over the planet by then... | |
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| EVOLUTION THEORY
Posted: 8/4/2008 12:09:09 PM | Right revived this as there is a documentary series just started on Channel 4 about Darwin and evolution.
I think those on both sides of the fence should watch and come back with their thoughts.
I'm an evolutionist for the record. | |
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| EVOLUTION THEORY
Posted: 8/4/2008 12:15:45 PM | at my daughters parents eve, i was reading her school books , and saw that they are taught different religions etc etc ...
got me thinking (she is 9) as she does come home saying prayers and talking about jesus.. i asked her teacher when it was my turn ... what exactly do you teach them in respect of "how it all began"
she just looked dumbfounded at me (or was thinking , go back to hull you fricking nightmare)
i expanded and said ..evolution or adam and eve ...do you sway them in any way ..
the answer which she had to search in her head for .. was adam and eve in religious studies , but covers evolution to a degree in science ... | |
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scriba
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Joined: 6/11/2008
Msg: 80 | |
| EVOLUTION THEORY
Posted: 8/4/2008 2:26:15 PM | "Matter can neither be created nor destroyed."
Originally there must have been nothing, so where did matter come from? Perhaps it was created by non-matter, i.e. spirit. If spirit is eternal without beginning or end, it has always existed. The religious refer to "God the holy spirit" and assert that God created the universe. (Freemasons refer to "The architect of the universe.") Some non-believers accept the idea of the existence of spirit but without the holiness. If spirit is energy, or potential energy, then energy could become mass. And then we have a universe.
And in the universe we have life forms. And these life forms adapt/evolve as per the environment. This means that these life-forms--no matter how humble--are aware of these changes. To be aware means they must exercise some intelligence, however limited. So it appears that intelligence is the prerequisite of evolution. | |
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| EVOLUTION THEORY
Posted: 8/4/2008 2:41:14 PM | Variation is the truth about evolution and each type and length of leg a human (for eg) can have is already in the gene pool for humans, there are no humans with half finished parts of other animals sticking out of them as they 'evolve'. Nature doesn't work like that.
There are strict limits to variation that are never crossed, but evolutionists are eternally optimistic... | |
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| EVOLUTION THEORY
Posted: 8/4/2008 2:47:08 PM | Ok if we look at the order of Genesis we see on the third day that God brought forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit.
Then on the fourth day he created the two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also
Now any first year student will tell you, plants need photo synthesis ‘the Sun’ to grow.
Genesis then goes on to show that birds were created before animals. Fossil records show this to be incorrect.
What is also not mentioned is the continual extinction and appearance of animals through time. There are several periods of time where animals appeared then disappeared to be replaced by a completely different type of animal. In fact there were 5 major extinction events each 1 being replaced by a new set of creatures. For example no animal alive today appears in triassic or Jurassic, or in any other combination. This is not mentioned like this in the bible.
There are so many inconsistencies in genesis, the major one being the time frame given. It is fundamentally impossible.
“When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
Sherlock Holmes, The Blanched Soldier
The thing that remains is evolution!!
However, to make a statement, "There is no God," is to make an absolute statement. For that statement to be true, you must know for sure that there is no God in the entire universe. Since no human being can prove this, the absence of evidence is not evidence in itself, no human being is able to truthfully make this statement.
Bit of a paradox really | |
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| EVOLUTION THEORY
Posted: 8/4/2008 3:10:24 PM | By God! there is no way I'm reading all the way through this thread. I will however make one point. One common counter argument to evolution is that we are too complex, we must have been designed. The best example of this design is the incredibly sensitive, and highly responsive, optical equipment known as the eye. So who designed the eye? The all powerful, all knowing God? If it was God, I say this about him, they guy can't design optical equipment very well. The sensors are the wrong way round (they face the back of the eye) the data pathways lay in-front of the sensors, the energy supply is similarly in the wrong place. There is a bloody great blind spot right in the middle of where the most important part of the image is (where the nerves and blood vessels cross the retina, to lay in-front of it) The inherent shape of the sensor (inside of a sphere) is conducive to interference from internal reflection requiring a special light absorbing layer to prevent this (cats eyes do not have this layer, which is why they reflect light so well). The shape of the eye is inherently unsuitable for focusing images, even the slightest variation reduces the ability of the eye to focus (hence the need for glasses for so many people). The eye has one fixed lens and one variable lens, most high end optical equipment use more lenses to reduce chromatic aberration (or they use reflective lenses which are immune to chromatic aberration), something the eye is prone too (the brain is required to correct this whilst processing the image).
So in conclusion, the choices are evolution, or not very intelligent design. | |
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| EVOLUTION THEORY
Posted: 8/4/2008 3:14:13 PM | Having recently read the God Delusion and about to read Unweaving the Rainbow. I'm a bit into Dawkins at the moment, so watched the Darwin thingy tonight. It was good.
I thought the bit with the school kids was a bit scary though. For all my having faith in a higher being I've never really doubted evolution so to hear those kids actually denying evolution was a bit unsettling.
Once upon a time God was in the small things, the day-to-day stuff that we couldn't explain. Science can now explain just about about our planet and a good part about the cosmos. It can't (yet) explain everything though. God, if he is there, is now far out in the universe, in the Big Bang, in the beginning, in fact. The rainbow is not completely unwoven | |
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| EVOLUTION THEORY
Posted: 8/4/2008 3:21:37 PM | I can't be arsed to read all this either.
But, I think you're thinking too simplistically.
Just cos one amoeba (not algae) devloped and evolved, doesn't mean to say all have to. Even humans are at different stages of development.
There are people who can control pain, control all of their bodily responses and nerves, even control the functions of their organs. Yet most can't. Which shows in a simple way that some humans are developing differently to others. Inuits have developed different nasal passages to cope with extreme cold and chavs have developed skin thicker than all other humans to ensure no criticism gets to them.
Everything is constantly evolving, species becoming extinct, new ones being found, it's only 60 years or summat since the first gerbil. Where did it come from.
We're all just one big accident I think. | |
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| EVOLUTION THEORY
Posted: 8/4/2008 3:28:43 PM |
There are people who can control pain, control all of their bodily responses and nerves, even control the functions of their organs.
Can you tell us more..like, do they have a name ? | |
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| EVOLUTION THEORY
Posted: 8/4/2008 3:31:31 PM | | Boris, you crack me up. Im with you and the big accident theory. | |
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| EVOLUTION THEORY
Posted: 8/4/2008 3:51:30 PM |
Can you tell us more..like, do they have a name ?
I'm struggling to remember. There was a section of people in India who were renowned for it. One of them was scientifically tested as he claimed to be able to live for long periods without water and without urinating.
Scientists after the test said they could only guess, that his urine was somehow either not being processed (his life signs dropped to a remarkable degree) or the excess fluid was being absorbed back into his body.
Some testing was done on several of these men, resulting in claims that by imaging the brain live, students could learn to control pain especially in chronic cases.
Check these links
http://www.technologyreview.com/Biotech/16062/page1/
http://www.boston.com/yourlife/health/diseases/articles/2006/01/23/brain_over_pain/
So eventually, when women say Not tonight dear I ahve a headache, we'll just say think it away then! lol | |
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| EVOLUTION THEORY
Posted: 8/4/2008 4:02:44 PM |
However, to make a statement, "There is no God," is to make an absolute statement. For that statement to be true, you must know for sure that there is no God in the entire universe. Since no human being can prove this, the absence of evidence is not evidence in itself, no human being is able to truthfully make this statement.
I can't make this point any better than Peter Atkins did so I won't even bother to try....
Imagine one day someone tells you that there is a very small teapot orbiting the sun. There's no reason why they've reached this conclusion, they've just decided to tell you that its there. Its so small and far away there is no possible way of seeing it, its impossible to locate or get near to, but still, this person insists it is there.
Now imagine you go and tell all your friends, and they tell all their friends, and everyone believes this teapot is there. Eventually it becomes the widely accepted belief that the teapot exists- no question. No-one's seen it, because obviously this would be impossible, but still the belief persists.
Then one day someone comes along and proposes that the teapot doesn't actually exist, there's no logical line of thought to suggest that it might be there, someone (probably by now we've forgotten who!) just said that it was there. Of course a number of journalists and scientists write books on the subject of the teapot, stories are made up to explain how the teapot may have arrived there. Pictures are drawn of how it might look. Everyone now accepts the teapots existence as fact, despite never having seen it, or known anyone who has.
The newcomer points out that we can't see the teapot, that there's no proof of the teapot's existence. Now everyone who believes in the teapot turns around and says "Just because you can't prove it doesn't mean it's not there. You can't prove it isn't there." and carries on believing simply because the newcomer can't *prove* that the long ago invented and baseless "fact" isn't true, regardless of the fact that the original statement that started the whole system of belief wasn't based on any proof itself.
Of course, the newcomer is shown the collection of stories, the artists impressions, the quotes from famous dignitaries in order to try and persuade him of the teapots existence, helpless he can only continue to assert that there is no proof for the basic original fact of teapot-existence, as the "evidence" created after the conclusion of existence is presented to him. In the end he will probably just give up in exasperation and settle for being thought the oddball in the world of teapot- believers. | |
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| EVOLUTION THEORY
Posted: 8/4/2008 4:09:18 PM | LOL you just reminded me.
A friends daughter was doing a piece of work for Uni. She decided to present the evidence that blue eyed people are born with a better memory than brown eyed people.
She had collected all the evidence and it was suitably referenced and she presented it to a group of her peers.
At the end of the session, she told them all that the entire piece ahd been made up. It was all imaginary. The references referred to completely disassociated topics.
The brilliant follow up to this piece of work was one month later, when attendees of her 'class' were interviewed and she foudn that a handful of them still believed what she had said, even though they couldn't explain why they believed it!
Nowt so queer as folk.
Oh by the way I have a large penis and I am incredibly good at sex, fulfilling every woman's dream easily.
No really ... it is actually true. | |
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| EVOLUTION THEORY
Posted: 8/4/2008 4:28:42 PM | ^^^ your friend's daughter must have been inspired by the famous experiment by Jane Elliott ....the "Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes" test designed to teach children about discrimination and what it means.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/divided/
My brother is a big fan of Tai chi, he's been practising and training at it for years, it's quite amazing what he can do with his body, one of the things he can do is actually push someone backwards without physically touching them. I know he isn't more evolved than me because we practically share the same genes but he's gone off and worked a little harder on pushing the boundaries of his body.
The human body and brain is quite incredible as is the human spirit....why it's practically indomitable when we are pushed beyond our limits. | |
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| EVOLUTION THEORY
Posted: 8/5/2008 8:48:47 AM | It was indeed inspired by that very test, the blue/brown eye one. I'd forgotten that as I remember just the salient bits.
I think her focus was not on discrimination, but in showing how people hold on to learned knowledge despite it being proven to be untrue. A clever manipulation of the test I think and highlights the thinking behind most sun readers lol
This came to my mind as a result of the Barry George thread.
OT: I've never studied Tai Chi or anything esle of it's nature but in the past used to read articles about people who had and the things they could achieve. Maybe he isn't more evolved than you, but perhaps in a thousand years his descendants may be more so than yours? Isn't that how evolution works?
I think that's the simplistic view I take of it. | |
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| EVOLUTION THEORY
Posted: 8/5/2008 9:01:48 AM | ^^^ maybe...but he's gay and having children isn't on the agenda.
I think her focus was not on discrimination, but in showing how people hold on to learned knowledge despite it being proven to be untrue. A clever manipulation of the test I think and highlights the thinking behind most sun readers lol
I think her 'study' just proved that some people are selective about what they choose to believe or not, e.g. if someone was prejudiced against people with brown eyes or they had blue eyes themselves and were told that blue-eyed people have better memories, were more intelligent, they will obviously be more inclined to accept that as the truth. And although they were told they'd been manipulated and there was no truth in what they'd been told - some people just really like to believe the best of themselves and retain that belief regardless of how many times what they believe has been disproved.
The human race are very stubborn and that's why this evolution of us into super human beings is taking so long - too many people are clinging on to the past or established beliefs because it's safer. | |
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| EVOLUTION THEORY
Posted: 8/5/2008 9:22:13 AM | quote] there are no humans with half finished parts of other animals sticking out of them as they 'evolve'. Nature doesn't work like that.
Actually that is exactly the way nature works. You have obviouslly never read anything about genetic throwbacks, such people born with hairsuitism, or with a rudimentary tail, or even the cleft pallet. Try asking a thalidamide baby if there are no humans with half finished parts?
All of these things are throwbacks to earlier stages of our evolutionary development that ocasionally resurface in our modern gene pool.
and chavs have developed skin thicker than all other humans to ensure no criticism gets to them.
LAUGH! I almost did! Nice one. 
Maybe he isn't more evolved than you, but perhaps in a thousand years his descendants may be more so than yours? Isn't that how evolution works?
I think that's the simplistic view I take of it.
That is presicly how evolution works. A random change determined in the genes at conception, can give a slight advantage or disadvantage, making an individual more likely to survive and pass on thier genes. If they breed and everyone dose not because they do not have this change, then the next generation will also inherit the changed genes.
This doe not happen over a persons lifetime as Lemark sugested, but in the instance before conception when the egg and sperm mix to form a new life. You can however give your children a head start by being healthy, as a healthy body produces more healthy sperm ans will therefore produce helthier children. So doing Tai-qi means that your body will be producing more healthy sperm, not that your children will be born as Tai-qi masters. | |
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| EVOLUTION THEORY
Posted: 8/18/2008 1:32:23 PM |
If we evolved from chimps then why are chimps still chimps? 'Cos they're chumps as well!
Seriously, though, the chimps were probably the happy, well adjusted guys who went around beating up on the wimpy chimpys. No need to change, but the wimpy chimpys needed to do something about their situation, so they piked off, found somewhere they could be happy away from the chimps and founded their own species. Else why do you thing humans left Africa? I guess some of them sailed to America and became monkeys too. | |
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| EVOLUTION THEORY
Posted: 8/18/2008 4:13:31 PM | Having just had a very nice Ploughmans in the Piltdown Man pub in Sussex, I thought I would put forward this idea: Science is constantly evolving and ideas constantly change as new discoveries are made - and that IS a fact. Just a couple of examples: Archeoraptor - the 'feathered dinosaur' - was a fraud. Archeopteryx - the 'missing link' - was a true bird. So where I repeat WHERE are the 'missing links'?
Regarding reptiles supposedly evolving into mammals David Attenborough stated that: "Nor is there any fossil evidence of any consequence about their [the supposedly primitive monotremes] ancestors. So we have virtually nothing to help us link these creatures to any group of fossil reptiles".
The same goes for Primitive to Modern Plants, Single Cells to Invertebrates, Invertebrates to Fish, Fish to Amphibians.....I could go on for a while here.....
If Charles Darwin himself said: "The number of intermediate varieties which have formerly existed must have been enormous. Why then is not every geological formation full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated chain; and this, perhaps is the most serious objection which can be urged against my theory" (The Origin of Species 1859). ....then at least he was prepared to take a dispassionate, objective view of his own theory, something the above poster seems to be lacking.... | |
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| EVOLUTION THEORY
Posted: 8/18/2008 4:40:38 PM | I think the god book was a reasonable stab at explaining stuff based on the knowledge available at the time. It was also written by the establishment to keep the populace under control.
When you start to apply scientific questioning to the creationist theory it falls apart. As a scientist the god book don't stand up to scrutiny. There may well have been a thoroughly decent chap about 2000 yrs ago, but the fact his story wasn't written down for a good while allows for exageration and embelishment to creep in.
It takes blind faith to believe in the bible, I'm not blind.
OOps, just looked back and I said somat similar on page 2, ah well I still believe!!!! | |
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| EVOLUTION THEORY
Posted: 8/18/2008 11:46:46 PM | Relax, its all just a ride that exists within our imagination anyway.
Try to explain a dream with logic and scientific theory and you will close in on understanding evolution or creation.
Darwins book was OK, but a bit 'documentary', whereas Gods novel spawned some great movies. | |
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