Evolution or Creation?

Here's my little bit. Please view Chip's warning on this one.


I realize this is your opinion, but think about this. If there's a stupid mouse, or one too slow to cross the road in time to dodge the cars, then he will not survive, therefor not get the chance to reproduce and pass on the gene that makes him fast.

If a fish produces a chemical it can emmit that makes it invisible to it's enemies, then it will survive, while the ones without this small mutation slowly fade out, and the ones with that mutation will get the chance to reproduce and spread that gene on, and a new species is born.

If an ape is born with a prehensil thumb, then it is he who can build tools and make shelter. The smartest, the fastest, and the strongest are those that get to survive, therefor get to reproduce. NOW WHAT DOESN'T FIT IN THE COMMON SENCE CATAGORY, PLEASE TELL ME.

1. The earth is not billions of years old (thus destroying the possibility of evolution having happened as it is being taught).
Actually it is, please get your facts right.

2. No animal has ever been observed changing into any fundamentally different kind of animal.
That's because evolution happens one gene at a time, not many at once like in X-Men. It would take millions of years to see a significant change, though it would happen. And again with the facts, scientists have seen genes change from generation to generation in all living things.

3. No one has ever observed life spontaneously arising from nonliving matter.
AND
4. Matter cannot make itself out of nothing.

Do you know what a single cell is made of? As in a one celled organism, that is. MATTER. Individual molecules that joined, the same way air did, and shaped itself into something that could survive and duplicate itself. Yes, most of the time this failed. And those were the creatures that DIDN'T survive, for they couldn't reproduce. The ones that could shape themselves and structure their cells in the most efficiant way were those that survived, and that's how living matter was born. The same way inanimate matter was. The same way hydrogen met two oxygen molecules. The same reason a bubble is always round. It is most effciant, therefor it works and thrives in it's environment.

I think that aliens are the evolved version of humans, but because the human race grew to become so populous, and overcrowding in the world stopped people from reproducing, the reproductive organs were deleted as a gene was placed to allow extremely prolonged life. So with this new species of extra-intelligent human with no reproductive systems and the eventual ability to go back into time, they became curious and have come to the past to see if they can become what they once were, rather than the boring lives they currently lead. Unfortunately, they are so smart that they don't have vocal chords and instead use telepathy to speak to eachother, so with no written language (since most information is stored in their massive library-like brains) and no spoken language, they are unsure how to communicate with us.

One day, we will get proof of contact with these "aliens", and over time, they will figure out how to gain back their reproductive organs, and we can all colonize other planets and live in peace with eachother.

... seriously!

I'm with Dave! lol

Many theories point to number 3 actually happening. It seems like 15-12 billion years ago, our universe did not exist. Our universe came about when an infinitely dense 'something' spontaneously created itself out of nothing and started expanding. This is known as the Big Bang. There are still remnents of the Big Bang lying in our universe, in the form of background gamma radiation (or something like this (im not an expert, I read this somewhere)).

As the universe expanded, the infiniely dense material started clumping together, forming matter, a substance that spun in direction A, and anti-matter, a substance that spun in direction -A. When the two substances met, they would destroy each other, emitting a burst of energy. Fortunately, the quantity of matter overcame the quantity of anti-matter, and quarks, leptons, and elementary particals such as those were formed. Eventually, those clumped together to form electrons, neutrons, protons, and other particles in lesser quantitys. Atoms began to form, and gravity began its effects on that matter.

Primitive matter (hydrogen) organized itself into clumps, galaxys. A star is born when a dense cloud of hydrogen starts collapsing under its own gravity. Once it does this, the whole cloud heats up, once it reaches a certain temperature, it spits out helium, and forms into plasma (a sort of superheated collection of protons neutrons and electrons). The star continues to fuse its hydrogen supply into helium until it runs out of hydrogen. Once this happens, the star, if hot enough, fuses helium into heavier elements, the heaviest being iron. Once the star uses all of its fuel, and is left only with iron, it attempts to fuse the iron in vain. The star's energy bounces off the iron, and the gravitational force holding the star together is overpowered, and the star explodes, causing a supernova. This explosion triggers the formation of other stars, and the process continues. Sometimes, extra matter collects around a star during its birth that isnt needed, once the star is fully born, this matter clumps together and begins to orbit the star. Small clumps are known as asteroids, larger clumps are known as planets. Some clumps have enough of their own gravity to attract an atmosphere, or a second clump, a moon.

5 billion years ago, thats what happened in our solar system. The sun has a life expectancy of 10 billion years, so we still have 5 billion years left with our sun. I believe the earth is about 4-5 billion years old as well, long enough for simple matter to morph into living organisims.

Im taking this from memory, I remember reading this somewhere, and wanted to get my opinion out

-Chris

Maerl, please don't be offended by this, but your post demonstrates a fundamental (perhaps willful?) ignorance of what science is, how it works, and what its views of the world are. If what you say is truly taught in american schools then america's school system is in fair worse a shape than I could ever have imagined.
As I usually say, thousands of people - all far more learned and intelligent than you or me - have dedicated their entire lives to the study and painstaking documentation of nature's observable phenomena.
Who are you to disagree with the very best of the best?
If you think modern science is wrong about something, the best, most proper and effective way to demonstrate it is to first LEARN precisely what science says about these things, by getting a college degree in the appropriate field, complete with a Master's and PhD.
Then, and only then, will you be qualified to research these complex matters, point out their flaws, and propose a better explanation of the world's inner workings and its observable phenomena.
Spouting the exact same tired old opinions that I had previously heard from my excessively religious (former) girlfriend 5 or 6 years ago achieves nothing.
It merely serves to demonstrate that an opinion is like an anus - everyone's got one and they all stink.

Anyone posted the dropped off by aliens theory yet?

ie DNA and the system which started the evolution was planted on this planet on purpose or by accident by an advanced species not from this planet? That humans weren't created by God or randomly evolved, but designed at some level and left to grow?

I believe evolution is happening and has happened. I find too many coincidences from a laymans perspective in the evolution from nothing to anything that can think. Just the whole DNA structure and how some molecule can know exactly which parts of another HUGE molecule to read and make proteins from - how the **** does it even move?? Its a molecule! - that just blows my mind. But I'm a layman, biology that I learned bored me to death or made me sick (weak stomach sorry). So I am sure there are people who know more than I do about this.

Like I said, I believe in evolution, I just think there is the possibility we were given a shove in the right direction.

Personally, I believe that we were created by the Invisible Pink Unicorn.

It is a fact that a Smurf is born every blue moon.

wow lol guess that did light some fuses..heheh...guys ...im not a religious fanatic, nor am i a scientist..i just posted 2 seperate opinions on the subject.....and its pretty amazing 2 of these responses fall short of calling me an drooling moron lol....an EGGY..i can disagree or agree with anything i feel like......i wont be held back by expressing my opinions by pompous self important types.....=p and NO eggy u didnt offend me..the only thing that offends me are people that assume someones intelligence from a posting on a game forum......read the whole post next guys.........and by the way Eggy....my anus smells of roses =]

The following options have been mentioned in this thread

[snip]
Choices of how the observed phenomena came into being--
1. The universe was created by God.
2. The universe always existed.
3. The universe came into being by itself by purely natural processes (known as evolution) so that no appeal to the supernatural is needed.
[/snip]

I happen to belive in a fourth:

4. The universe was created by God in such a way as to be compatable with number 3.

I tend to call this the 'God as Master Clockmaker' theory. I believe that God used evolution, the big bang, etc to create humans. If a scientists creates bacteria in a lab to use in an experiment, he uses know ways of doing it, knowing the outcome before he even begins. I believe God started the Big Bang in such a way that he knows what the result will be.

This theory is not incompatible with most religous texts. The bible mentions the famous 'On the first day.....' story, if one concedes that God's days can be of any length he chooses, this story still works. I also do not believe that the Bible or other religous works can possibly be the end all be all of God, if so, why does the Bible, in Genesis, tell two mutually exclusive versions of the creation story (look, the second one is just after the first).

Anyways, that is this converted Catholic's thinking.

That goes partially with the belief that coinsidence is an illusion, and if there is a heigher power it created the universe in such controled conditions that everything would play out just as it wanted, and as soon as the universe was created it went away. I don't really believe that, but I do wonder about the coinsidence thing sometimes...

Alidar, I guess you can call your 4th option "intelligent design" then - which IMHO is different from "creationist theory".

I'm enjoying reading this thread, and so feel the need to add my tuppenceworth...

Starseeding!

Recent scientific research (i'm talking in the last decade) has turned up some interesting observations of deep space dust-grains. These grains were forged in the heart of suns, and spread throughout the cosmos by supernova and other related processes. These grains used to be thought of as simple inert and inorganic compounds (I remember being taught about 'soot' being a major constituent of nebulas at school 20 years ago).
Recently however, scientists have discovered SUGAR, ALCOHOL, and CFC-based molecules (amongst many others) floating around in nebulas and dust-lanes around stellar remnants. Did you know that sugar is a base comound of some proteins? I personally do not think it's too big a mental jump to consider that extremely simple building-blocks of life may have been born in deep space, to rain down on forming planets that could provide a niche for them to develop into more complex life.
Challenge me, agree with me, whatever - this is just my opinon.

I totaly go for the 'self assembly of everything' option.

I started to write about multi-dimensional membranes being a possible triggering phenomena for the 'big bang', but then realised this isnt a science forum!

Fantastic quote Chip!

Oh, this will get me flamed, but so what: I've had quite a few discussions with people of various religions about evolution theories (science) VS various 'creationist' type theories (bible). Every time I have remained the calm one who patiently waits for my turn to speak. Every time the person (or people) I'm talking to get incensed with rage at my blasphemy. Why is that? I always thought wisdom was quiet, patient, and never goes away...
Maybe I just pick the wrong people to talk to at parties...

Man Eddie, I agree with ya. Star stuff may well be the base of many elements on earth. The self creation of everything is what I believe, but I'm always open to anything. Except that the world was created in 7 days and all the dinosours are really fake.

Ok, Maerl, you are a drooling moron with a rose-scented anus.
=P
Mind sitting on my clothes for a bit?

LOL eggy LMAO....... ..your clothes.....??<grin>

<drool drool ~~~~~~~>

After reading your post I agree with the above, but unfortunately the term "intelligent design" has already been hijacked by Creationists as a way to "dress up" Creationism to make it more palatable and make it sound more like science. Of course once you peel away the semantics it's just the same old creation myth. They cite as "evidence" things like the Grand Canyon, which they say is proof of the great flood (completely ignoring everything we know about erosion). In school districts all around the US fundamental Christians are constantly lobbying school boards to get ID taught along side Evolution saying that evolution is just a theory, and therefore ID should be included as a competing theory (ignoring the scientific definition of a theory. If we used their standard then ANY explanation could be considered a viable competing theory regardless of lack of any supporting evidence.) In most school districts they lose. In some they win, and the schools are forced to put stickers inside the front covers of science books with a disclaimer that evolution is just a theory and should be viewed with a critical mind. Odd how they never suggest that Intelligent Design should be viewed with an equally critical eye. The very nature of science IS a critical eye. It's how the whole scientific method works, but that point seems lost on Creationists.

The founding fathers of the United States were mostly Deists (contrary to the revisionist belief that they were Christians). Deists believe that there was a creator (God) but that when he was done creating that was it... he had nothing more to do with the fate of man on Earth. Of any religious view, Deism is most compatible with science depending on their definition of God. It was mostly just an acknowledgement that the origin of the universe was beyond them and given the scientific knowledge of the times it truly was beyond them. I believe that had they lived to witness the knowledge gained since then due to technological advances in our ability to observe the unvierse and theoraize about it that they would have been rationalists, not mystics.

I'm not sold on the Big Bang. I just take it for what it is... the best theoretical model to fit the observable data. I have no doubt that cosmological theories will continue to evolve. We may never know exactly what happened even after hundreds more years of dedicated study. I'm comfortable with that. I'm patient. I can look back over the past few hundred years and see the huge advances in science and knowledge, and I can project that forward and know that we'll continue to advance towards a deeper undersanding of the Universe. It seems terribly impatient, shortsighted, and lazy to me to say that it's too hard to figure out, therefore a magical man in the sky must have done it.

A lot of people get hung up on the word create in the old testament. That is actually not a proper translation or the original hebrew word in the Bible. A better translation would be "organized".

The universe was created by a committee, and as such ever since some of the parts just don't seem to fit, and no one agrees on who should clean up the mess.

Life forms are the result of the collision between pure life i.e. spiritual beings, and matter. Trying to explain the changes and adaptations that they go through, and all the strange and wonderful varieties that exist, without taking both the physical and the spiritual into account, is doomed to ever more convoluted explanations and ultimately to failure.

The same could be said for any attempt to explain how pure chance could have ever led to something like life, out of dead matter.

I'd be happy to take the spritual into account. Please quantify it and supply evidence.

Hahaha, very funny Chip. First off, spirits are not a native part of the physical universe. They have no mass, no size, no particular location or position in time. They are, before, during and after time. So, trying to collect any physical evidence that they, or we, exist can only be done by observing the effects they leave behind.

The most obvious example is the differences between a living and a dead body. The mass is the same, all the chemical components are the same from before the moment of death to after. But in each death there is a moment when suddenly the self-organizing ability of the whole vanishes, the body no renews, but instead decays. Individual cells carry on long after this, but the overall function is gone.

Every living organism has a telltale standing electromagnetic wave, which shifts during its every thought and action. This wave disappears upon death.

People can be trained to make their thoughts solid, and possessed of mass, to the point of adding and subtracting several pounds while sitting still on a scale. This violates the principle of conservation of energy, so somehow this living being is capable of actually adding and subtracting energy from the world.

Earlier, growth in foot size was pointed to as evidence of evolution, which is fine. But notice that this, as well as a noted increase in brain size, has occurred in humans in a relatively short span of time, without any evidence of natural selection (i.e. small -footed and -brained people dying before the could procreate). So another factor must be at work, guiding this change.

These are just a few of the bits of evidence that something more than just matter is involved in our creation and evolution.

I don't see this as proof of anything mystical. There are two kinds of death for living organisms... Somatic death is a breakdown of the overall system. The second is tissue death which may not occur for some time after somatic death depending on the type of cell. You can think of a living organism as a collection of small systems that work independantly being held together and coordinated by a larger system. If the larger system stops functioning (brain, respiration, circulation) then the smaller systems stop being supplied and coordinated and stop within a few minutes. This is proof of the way complex biology works, not proof of a "soul"



Interesting. Can you cite sources? I did a search for standing electromagnetic waves and life. All I came up with were pages about pyramid power, claims about tachyon energy sources being harnessed by "free energy" machines (in other words, scams), and other dubious pseudo-science. I'd be interested to know where you get this from. Can you supply links to more info?



Again, can you cite sources? I've never heard of this claim before.

First of all I agree with Chip on that first one, there isn't much abnormal about that since we understand how we die almost perfectly.


As for those last two, please do post some sources, and a tutorial maybe? btw Chip, search google for a fork bending tutorial... aparently it's quite possible. Give it a shot, I certainly didn't get it to work.

Well, Maerl, the forums are supposed to be PG

"Chip Midnight is a genius"

Simple We were Created To Evolve....