Creation vs. Evolution

[Nomadic_One]

(This is in honor of a good friend of mine, *that doesn’t read this board*)

We must not be fooled that there is an overwhelming body of evidence for the evolutionist imagination. To put it bluntly - the evidence just isn’t there in the clear manner they would have you to believe.

Evolution carries with it an elitist attitude. To an evolutionist, the idea that an almighty God created everything is pure foolishness. And don’t take kindly to those who don’t fall for their imagination. Just look at evolution’s prevalence in places where people claim to be learned.

-The public school system, -Rather then encouraging students to have an open mind to the world, they teach only one possible solution for our existence.

-The college and university system –The elitist attitude of educrates only gets stronger as one moves to the secular university system. Evolution is more or less universally accepted as their doctrine of choice.

-Other examples include PBS, National Geographic, and The Learning channel.

The false concepts and ideas from evolution are used constantly as a marketing tool to target kids, FlavoRite Fruit Snack Boxes, Quaker oatmeal with dinosaur eggs, and many more products in which they are in contact with.

---------

Paul warned Timothy against this type of “elitism”

1Ti 6:17 Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded; nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy;
1Ti 6:18 That they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate;
1Ti 6:19 Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.
1Ti 6:20 O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called:
1Ti 6:21 Which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with thee. Amen.

Evolution is a convienent new religion invented by men in a feeble attempt to explain their own existence in the absence of faith and the demonstrated power of the Spirit of God.

But I believe through faith that God created the Heavens and the Earth and everything that is in them simply through the expression of his Word.

Heb 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Heb 11:2 For by it the elders obtained a good report.
Heb 11:3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

I am sorry but I cannot square man’s imagination of evolution with the power of God’s spirit demonstrated upon me in salvation.

---------

Evolution –Religious Doctrine of the World

Evolution is in a sense a religious doctrine, because it attempts to provide a substitute for faith in an almighty creator.

One thing needs to be made clear. Evolution is not science –it is at best a theory necessary to explain the world’s existence without God.

Evolutionists have a zeal to evangelize the world with their doctrine, and they start with children at a young age.

Evolution lifts man up as the highest form of life available –with no one to answer but himself.

---------

That being said, there are stark contrasts between the imagination of evolution and faith in creation.

When we look at the two opposing viewpoints, our mind must be sharpened in wisdom to separate:

• FACT from FICTION
• FAITH from ASSUMPTION
• TRUTH from LIE
• SCIENCE from PSEUDO-SCIENCE
• IMAGINATION from EVIDANCE

---------

Science

So what is science? Because evolution always seem to be labeled as scientists. Christians oftentimes get the idea that science is a bad thing. –true science is a noble pursuit. In Proverbs Solomon says -Pro 25:2 It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honor of kings is to search out a matter.

Science has to do with the observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena. –Science is a systematic method of gaining knowledge.

True science follows these steps.
1. A problem or question is posed.
2. A Hypothesis is proposed (educated guess)
3. A controlled experiment is conducted.
4. Correlate the data into a generalization.
5. Verify with a repeat experiment.

The problem with labeling evolutionists as scientists is that the origin of the earth and the life are history, Not science. You cannot go back and follow the steps of science in order to prove a theory. The experiment cannot be observed, repeated of verified. At best, you can only pose the question and a hypothesis.

But look at what God asked Job.

Job 28:3 He setteth an end to darkness, and searcheth out all perfection: the stones of darkness, and the shadow of death.
Job 28:4 The flood breaketh out from the inhabitant; even the waters forgotten of the foot: they are dried up, they are gone away from men.
Job 28:5 As for the earth, out of it cometh bread: and under it is turned up as it were fire.
Job 28:6 The stones of it are the place of sapphires: and it hath dust of gold.
Job 28:7 There is a path which no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture's eye hath not seen:
Job 28:8 The lion's whelps have not trodden it, nor the fierce lion passed by it.
Job 28:9 He putteth forth his hand upon the rock; he overturneth the mountains by the roots.

To find the answers regarding origins, we must go to the word of the One who was there. The only one who was there when the earth was formed and life was God.

---------

Creation is rooted in faith –verified by observation of the things that are made.

Rom 1:17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written. The just shall live by faith.
Rom 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;
Rom 1:19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath showed it unto them.
Rom 1:20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

Contrast this to the next five verses in Romans where Paul talks about those who do not want to glorify God.

Rom 1:21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
Rom 1:22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
Rom 1:23 And changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
Rom 1:24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves:
Rom 1:25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

---------

The difference between Creation and Evolution is this.

-Evolution attempts to fit the facts into an imaginary world without God.

-Creation lets the facts build upon faith in God.

---------

What is evolution?

1. A gradual process in which something changes into a different and usually more complex or better form.
2.
a. The process of developing.
b. Gradual development.
3. Biology.
a. Change in the genetic composition of a population during successive generations, as a result of natural selection acting on the genetic variation among individuals, and resulting in the development of new species.
b. The historical development of a related group of organisms; phylogeny.
4. A movement that is part of a set of ordered movements.
5. Mathematics. The extraction of a root of a quantity.
The history of evolution goes way back – back before people like Charles Darwin or Louis & Mary Leakey were out scrounging to put together old bones.

1. Epicurius suggested that living things might have developed from simple forms. Paul encountered the Epicurians in Acts 17:18

2. Aristotle (384-322BC) believed in a gradual transition from the imperfect to the perfect and that man stood at the top of this ascent.

3. Lamarck(1744-1829) proposed that a new body organ for example might have been developed based on need. A worm wanting eyes could develop them merely by wishing for them intensely enough.

4. Darwin popularized evolution with his book in 1859 “The origins of species by means of natural selection or the preservation of favored races in the struggle for life”
If you think that sounds racist, it is. The bible never refers to the word “race”. However, for someone who truly has prejudice, evolution fits right with their philosophy.

Early evolutionists including Darwin were racists in the true sense. He believed that the gorilla and the Negro occupied evolutionary positions between the baboon and the Caucasians.

Henry Fairfield Osborn, Professor of biology and zoology at Columbia university wrote, The Negroid stock is even more ancient than the Caucasian and Mongolians, as may be proved by an examination not only of the brain, of the hair, of the bodily characteristics . . . but of the instincts, the intelligence. The standard of intelligence of the average adult Negro is similar to that of the eleven-year-old-youth of the species Homo Sapiens.

Hitler used the German word for evolution (Entwicklung) over and over again in his book, “mein kampf”.

So you see that once God is removed from the picture, anything goes –including the worst and most vile philosophies that man has to offer.

---------

The imagination of evolution proposes that the heavens and the world were formed by a BIG BANG. So what was before the big bang –just a bunch of energy? –And so what was before that? Would you really expect that the disorder of an explosion would bring the beautifully ordered universe we have today?

**Interrupting this otherwise serious topic to bring a joke. Did you hear that scientists have been working with an ultra-sensitive listening device that is able to hear the sounds that occurred just before the big bang? You know what they heard –UH OH! :) **

• Non-living chemicals gave rise produced living material.
• Single celled organisms deceloped to multi-celled organisms.
• Somewhere in here, plants and Fungi must have started to evolve.
• Invertabrates, which have no backbone or spinal column transformed in to vertebrates.
• Fish developed into amphibians.
• Amphibians evolved into reptiles.
• Reptiles evolved into birds and mammals.
• And all this time, a certain segment of the poor hapless creatures at the bottom of the food chain haven’t seemed to keep up with the times.


The imagination of evolution rests on two shaky pillars.
1. The good luck on chance.

Everything from the Big Bang on relies on the good fortune of chance to develop into what the world is today.
A study of mathimital probabilities and a little practical common sense almost practically, if not totally destroy this first pillar. Just because you give a group of monkeys in a room with all the chips necessary to build a computer doesn’t mean that they would ever do so – no matter how much time you gave them. Now try giving them the raw iron ore, copper, crude oil, aluminum, silica, and other ingredients while not supplying them with any necessary tools and see just how long it would take them to build a computer. Now that’s a good way to learn patience.
Even the most basic of life is infinitely more complex in molecular structure then any computer.

2. Eons of time. –

Evolutionists say that if enough time passes, and given enough chances life will evolve.
Given enough time, simple things will evolve to complex.
Given enough time and chance, mutations will occur that enhance the species –and whats more, they will continue throughout the following generations…..NO!

---------

So what about time – what about these olf dates they keep coming up with?

Evolutionists rely heavily on radiometric dating techniques. Radiometric dating is based on the half-life of Carbon-14.
Carbon-14 is a radioactive form of carbon. If you remember any chemistry, Carbon 14 has 6 proton, and 8 neutrons. Over time, the the carbon loses two of the neutrons and decays into good old carbon 12. Incidently, the half life of Carbon-14 is about 5,760 years. This means that if you had a handful of Carbon-14, half of it would have decayed to Carbon 12 after 5,760 years.
Plants and animals typically ingest a small amount of Carbon-14 in the form of Carbon Dioxide. The Carbon-14 continues radioactive decay for yeats after the plant or animal is dead. If you measure the amount of Carbon-14 in something and compare it with what it ws supposed to have, then you can take a guess at the age. –and I do emphasize guess.
This type of dating is fraught with error.

1st of all, you don’t know just how much Carbon-14 and Carbon-12 was in the animal in the first place. The typical ratio of ancient times may have bee different than it is today.

2nd You must assume that the changes only occur by radioactive decay. You don’t know what external influences might have come into play.

3rd You cannot know for sure that the radioactive decay has been constant for all these years.

There have been many examples of radiocarbon dating errors. For example.
1. Shells of snails living in southern Nevada were dated at 27,000 years.

2. A shell from a live clam was dated thousands of years old.

3. Dried seal carcasses less then 30 years old were dated as old as 4,600 years/ A freshly killed seal was dated at 1,300 years old.

4. Relatively fresh volcanic rock on Reunion Island in the Indian ocean were dated from 100,000 to 4.4 billion years.


Even though evolution is extremely flawed, they seem to have everyone convinced and no one seems to wasn’t to stand up an to tell the empoper that he isn’t wearing any clothes.

Much of this is to do with the fact that the evolutionist are prevalent in colleges and universities and in this field of study. Having the evolutionists as the keepers and disseminators of the fossile records is kind of like putting the fox in charge of the chicken house.

Ecolutionists done have a very god track record when it comes to producing the truth.

A few examples. Evolutionary Hoaxes:
1. Ramapithecus – A fossil that was found in India in 1932. Turns out that this fossil was nothing more then a few teeth and some fragments of jaw and palate. Most likely it came from some type of orangutan.

2. Nebraska Man – This hoax when on for quite a while before the big fossil find was identified as a single tooth from a wild pig.

3. Piltdown Man – This fossil from England turned out to be a modern human skill, and the jawbone of an ape. The teeth has been carefully filed down, and the skill chemically treated to make it appear older. This thing fooled so called scientists from 1912 to 1953 (40 years).

4. Peking Man –these remains mysteriously became lost. Eventually the remains of a variety of apes was found at the site. Other remains of modern humans were reported to also be at the same site along with their tools.

5. Australophithecus Afarensis (Southern Ape) – The best guess on this creature, nicknamed Lucy, is that she was just an extinct ape.

6. Java man – This fossil was “found” in the 1890’s by Eugene Duboise. Mr. Duboise kept the lie going until the end of his life when he revealed that the Java man was not a half man/half ape link, part of the skill actually belonged to a giant Gibbon.

7. The National geographic Dinosaur – Bird Hoax – Within just the last two years, National Geographic printed a large spread detailing how they had found a missing link between dinosaurs and birds. On the very next issue, they were forced to acknowledge that the fossil was a total hoax, complete with chicken feathers.

(this is too long so i must post it in two posts only 20,000 chars per post)

[Nomadic_One]

So what about creation –Lets examine the story in Genesis.

Day One – God created the heavens and the earth. God created light and divided it form the night. He established the laws of physics.

Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Gen 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
Gen 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
Gen 1:4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
Gen 1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Day Two – God created the atmosphere.

Gen 1:6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
Gen 1:7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
Gen 1:8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

Day Three – God shaped the earth to cause the land and seas to separate. He also created living plants.

Gen 1:9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
Gen 1:10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
Gen 1:12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.

Day Four – God set in motion the sun and the moon to mark day and night time.

Gen 1:14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
Gen 1:15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
Gen 1:16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
Gen 1:17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
Gen 1:18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

Day Five – God created the creatures like fish and birds.

Gen 1:20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
Gen 1:21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.
Gen 1:23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

Day Six – God the living creatures such as mammals and mankind that dwells on the land.

Gen 1:24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
Gen 1:25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
Gen 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Day Seven - God rested
Gen 2:2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.

---------

So what evidence do we have for creation.

1. By faith in the word of God
Heb 11:3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

2. The population growth.
If people actually been around for a million years or more, we would be stepping all over each other because the earth would be so densly populated. Evolution makes no sense when you look backwards at population statistics. Creation ~6000 years ago, and the flood after that makes sense.

3. No one has found ant of those sought after missing links.
Of course this doesn’t directly prove creation, but it certainly doesn’t help the evolution side either. Without the missing links, evolution continues to be pure fantasy. The absence of missing links demonstrates that things are as they were in the beginning.

4. The nearly universal folklore story of the flood.
Almost all ancient folklore includes a story of a great flood. Like the Gilgamesh epic recorded by the ancient Babylonians.

5. Order in the heavens. It always take a higher power to produce order from disorder.
Any scientist that knows the 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics know that 1) Matter and energy can be converted from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed. 2) Systems left to themselves go to a condition of greater disorder, probility, and randomness. Big bangs do not produce a universe, tornadoes do not build buildings, explostions in a junk yard do not neatly arrange the cars.

6. The witness of Jesus.
The witness of Jesus ministry and the miracle that he did are a powerful testimony for creation.

Jesus demonstrated His ability to control the elements when he calmed the storm.

He demonstrated his power over the laws of physics when he walked on the water.

He demonstrated his power to create something from nothing when He fed the 5000.

He showed His ability to give life when Lazarus was raised from the dead.

He demonstrated that He was not bound by time and space constraints when He appeared unto His disciples after the resurrection.

Since Jesus is God manifested in the flesh it is easily seen how God accomplished these many things.

7. Fearfully and wonderfully made.

Examples of being wonderfully made:

Psa 139:13 For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb.
Psa 139:14 I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.
Psa 139:15 My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
Psa 139:16 Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.
Psa 139:17 How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!
Psa 139:18 If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee.

I hope this helps clear up some of the confusion about creation and the imagination of evolution. (thanks Andrew, -friend who gave most of text)

[Nomadic_One]

(ACK I type that whole thing and i get the title wrong) MODs can you please change the title to: Creation vs. Evolution -thank you!

[photopat]

Nomad, you need to get your information from more reliable sources. All your claims for flaws in the evidence for evolution or for errors in calculation sound like they came directly from Jack Chick tracts.


Your "arguments" have already been refuted ad nauseum, so I suggest you just go look for some real information. To start, just enter "evolution" in the SDMB message board search engine. You'll find lots of links and if you read them, you might learn something.

By the way, "evolution" doesn't refer to the big bang.

[Meatros]

Just a quick question before the onslaught of inevitable posters who will make short order of your points:

In your "creation" account, how did the plants, which were created before the sun, survive without sunlight or heat?

[Dob]

You know the problem with presenting alternate theories of evolution is when you start quoting the Bible. You can make the most reasoned, intellegient, articulate arguments in the world and as soon as you add a Bible passage at the end...well...people tend to think your just a Bible thumping nut who refuses to see reality.

Not that you are of course...

[Meatros]

Hitler used the German word for evolution (Entwicklung) over and over again in his book, “mein kampf”.

In addition to your overwhelming load of inaccuracies and utter B.S. I noticed that you broke Godwins before *anybody* challenged on any of your baseless assertions!

That's got to be a record!

[Meatros]

The imagination of evolution proposes that the heavens and the world were formed by a BIG BANG. So what was before the big bang –just a bunch of energy? –And so what was before that? Would you really expect that the disorder of an explosion would bring the beautifully ordered universe we have today?

You know what's funny? Take away the big bang theory, it's gone, utterly nonexistent.

Guess what?

That doesn't effect the theory of evolution one iota.

I see very little substance to your rant actually. Did you get this material from Hovind?

I also find this *highly* amusing:

2. The population growth.
If people actually been around for a million years or more, we would be stepping all over each other because the earth would be so densly populated. Evolution makes no sense when you look backwards at population statistics. Creation ~6000 years ago, and the flood after that makes sense.

Let's see your math, which you seem to think makes some sense. Did you include ice ages, disease, disaster and I'd like you to explain to us why the earth isn't overcome by *all* the other animals *in your 6k* year idea.

3. No one has found ant of those sought after missing links.
Of course this doesn’t directly prove creation, but it certainly doesn’t help the evolution side either. Without the missing links, evolution continues to be pure fantasy. The absence of missing links demonstrates that things are as they were in the beginning.

Uh, what is the "missing link"? I think you'll find that this is primarily a creationist concept because mankind's evolution has a fair amount of transitional human links.

4. The nearly universal folklore story of the flood.
Almost all ancient folklore includes a story of a great flood. Like the Gilgamesh epic recorded by the ancient Babylonians.

Stories should be considered evidence now? Let me ask you this: How did the freshwater fish survive? How did animals that require swamplands survive? How did the polar ice caps form so quickly?

How did animals get to islands after the flood? Do you know how quickly the rain would've had to have fallen in order to cover the entire globe??

5. Order in the heavens. It always take a higher power to produce order from disorder.
Any scientist that knows the 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics know that 1) Matter and energy can be converted from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed. 2) Systems left to themselves go to a condition of greater disorder, probility, and randomness. Big bangs do not produce a universe, tornadoes do not build buildings, explostions in a junk yard do not neatly arrange the cars.

First, big bang-it's validity doesn't effect evolution at all. Second, do you know what open and closed systems are?

[Meatros]

Originally posted by Nomadic_One
Evolution –Religious Doctrine of the World

Evolution is in a sense a religious doctrine, because it attempts to provide a substitute for faith in an almighty creator.

Evolution is only a religious doctrine in creationists eyes, no serious scientist believes this. Evolution also doesn't say *anything* about faith or an almighty creator, this is just *your* empty rhetoric.

Originally posted by Nomadic_One
One thing needs to be made clear. Evolution is not science –it is at best a theory necessary to explain the world’s existence without God.

Check your science books again-evolution has nothing to do with the worlds existence, nor does it attempt to falsify God.

Originally posted by Nomadic_One
Evolutionists have a zeal to evangelize the world with their doctrine, and they start with children at a young age.

Evolution lifts man up as the highest form of life available –with no one to answer but himself.

Children at a young age? What do you consider "children"? Highschool students? They have to learn about biology and science some day, don't they, they can't just stick to the narrowminded pseudoscience of creationism now can they?

Also, once again, evolution is not a substitute for faith; it's not a belief system, no matter how red in the face you get screaming it. People who accept the fact of evolution can be (and many are) theistic.

[Meatros]

The problem with labeling evolutionists as scientists is that the origin of the earth and the life are history, Not science. You cannot go back and follow the steps of science in order to prove a theory. The experiment cannot be observed, repeated of verified. At best, you can only pose the question and a hypothesis.

Again, this is has nothing to do with evolution. The origin of the earth is cosmology, not biology. Also, you can not "prove" a theory, "proving" things is for math.

In addition you do not have to "observe" a phenomenon; try to watch gravity. At best you can see how gravity *effects* things, you can not actually witness it.

To find the answers regarding origins, we must go to the word of the One who was there. The only one who was there when the earth was formed and life was God.

Again, this is cosmology, not evolution. Since you are asserting this, give me evidence of "God".

What is evolution?

1. A gradual process in which something changes into a different and usually more complex or better form.
2.
a. The process of developing.
b. Gradual development.
3. Biology.
a. Change in the genetic composition of a population during successive generations, as a result of natural selection acting on the genetic variation among individuals, and resulting in the development of new species.
b. The historical development of a related group of organisms; phylogeny.
4. A movement that is part of a set of ordered movements.
5. Mathematics. The extraction of a root of a quantity.
The history of evolution goes way back – back before people like Charles Darwin or Louis & Mary Leakey were out scrounging to put together old bones.

You start with a good question "what is evolution", you should have ended it there, because you obvious have a very shaky grasp on the concept.

Evolution is the change in alleles in a gene pool of a species over time.

4. Darwin popularized evolution with his book in 1859 “The origins of species by means of natural selection or the preservation of favored races in the struggle for life”
If you think that sounds racist, it is. The bible never refers to the word “race”. However, for someone who truly has prejudice, evolution fits right with their philosophy.

Riiiigggghhhhtttt....And gravity is the real culprit behind bullets killing people. By the way, you might want to check on that fictious title of yours:
“The origins of species by means of natural selection or the preservation of favored races in the struggle for life”



Here's the actual title and the actual book, online.

Why don't you try actually reading it before you condemn it?

Early evolutionists including Darwin were racists in the true sense. He believed that the gorilla and the Negro occupied evolutionary positions between the baboon and the Caucasians.

That's slander, give me a page number, or cite for this idiotic quote!

Evolutionists rely heavily on radiometric dating techniques. Radiometric dating is based on the half-life of Carbon-14.

Uh, no. You are thinking of Carbon dating. Which is *only* used to date things up to 50,000 years old.

In any event, how do you explain the age of the ice caps? Or the amount of killer-meteors that mankind would have had to live through in order for the 6k years to be remotely accurate?

I hope this helps clear up some of the confusion about creation and the imagination of evolution. (thanks Andrew, -friend who gave most of text)

I wouldn't thank Andrew-It's overwhelmingly obvious that "andrew" hasn't the foggiest clue what he's talking about. It sounds as though he's brainwashed you into believing this nonsense.

[quelquechose]

Let me ask you this: How did the freshwater fish survive?

I was just going to ask this question when I saw Meatros had already posted it. I've asked this question at creationtalk.com and No Answers in Genesis, and I have yet to receive any sort of explanation. I'm willing to bet that Nomadic_One can't explain the survival of fish either...but if he or anyone else can, please feel free to enlighten me.

[Czarcasm]

Nomadic_One, would you mind telling us the source of that long, misleading and totally uninformed screed? If it has already been published, you will have to credit the original author.

[Blake]

Oooh there are stil some baltant lies or preposteros misrepresentations left for me.

Evolution is in a sense a religious doctrine, because it attempts to provide a substitute for faith in an almighty creator.

No it doesn't. there are many posters on the SDMB and throughout the world who believe in an almoghty crator and evolution. One does not provide a substitute for the other.

Evolution lifts man up as the highest form of life available –with no one to answer but himself.

Quite the oposite. Evolutionar tells us that man is one small and dwindling branch on the tree of life, no higher or lower than any other living organism. It is religion that " lifts man up as the highest form of life".

[Joe Random]

Originally posted by Blake
there are many posters on the SDMB and throughout the world who believe in an almoghty crator and evolution.

Of course, the difference between them and Nomadic_One is that they are aware of what evolution actually is, and, more importantly, what it isn't.

Nomadic_One is in possession of a horribly distorted strawman of evolution. And why do fundies always seem to think that evolution = big bang? The two are not connected at all.

Oh, and Nomadic_One, just a little advice: When debating about evolution, try not quoting huge chunks of the Bible every few sentences. The Bible isn't a science textbook, and no one is going to take any religious text as a serious cite in a scientific debate.




Quite the oposite. Evolutionar tells us that man is one small and dwindling branch on the tree of life, no higher or lower than any other living organism. It is religion that " lifts man up as the highest form of life". [/b][/quote]

[Zoe]

You lost my my confidence when you made this absolutely incorrect assertion:

To an evolutionist, the idea that an almighty God created everything is pure foolishness. And don’t take kindly to those who don’t fall for their imagination.

I support the theory of evolution -- the little that I know about it.. I also believe that God created everything. I try to be patient with those who disagree with me and I expect the same from them. I do not expect my religious beliefs to be taught in a science class. That would be inappropriate.

To say that something is "history" so it can't be "science" is silly. Use your logic, Nomadic_One, and don't just repeat nonsense without thinking about it. Edison invented the light bulb through science. That is a matter of history. See?

About the only thing you've said that I can agree with is that the more educated you become, the less likely you are to believe in creationism as a science.

One suggestion, learn what is actually meant by "scientific theory."

Keep your mind open and your faith strong.

[Joe Random]

Please ignore the last chunk of my post. Stupid editing mistake on my part.

[Tinker Grey]

In the interest of "stamping out ignorance", from the link provided by Meatros, the first page of the preface show the complete title as [quote]

[Tinker Grey]

Well, dang ... I pressed the wrong button.

What I intended to say was

In the interest of "stamping out ignorance", from the link provided by Meatros, the first page of the preface show the full title as

[Diogenes the Cynic]

5. Australophithecus Afarensis (Southern Ape) – The best guess on this creature, nicknamed Lucy, is that she was just an extinct ape.

Who's "best guess" would that be?

You really should be more careful what you post in GD. Your OP is like chum to the sharks around here.

[Nomadic_One]

Nomadic_One, would you mind telling us the source of that long, misleading and totally uninformed screed? If it has already been published, you will have to credit the original author.

It hasnt been published but Andrew Thone a friend of mine, helped with alot of the points. Most of the information can be found on alot of websites and this is just them stuck together.

[Nomadic_One]

Czarcasm can you please change the title. Creation vs. Evolution. Im sorry about that mistake. Thanks

[Nomadic_One]

.....man i love all the friends im making on these boards. Im sorry you dont deem the bible as scientific, it is. Thanks for all the responses all. I will see what i can write in the morning im a little tired now. Love you all

[Diogenes the Cynic]

Do you have a clue what "scientific" means?

[commasense]

Originally posted by Meatros
By the way, you might want to check on that fictious title of yours:
“The origins of species by means of natural selection or the preservation of favored races in the struggle for life”



Here's the actual title and the actual book, online.

Why don't you try actually reading it before you condemn it?

Meatros: I'm definitely with you and all the other "evolutionists" here, but Nomadic_One did get at least one thing right in his nonsensical creed: the full title of Origin of Species is, except for three typos, exactly as he gave it. And it's there on the site in your link, specifically here.

On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.

Of course, his use of the term "race" does not mean that Darwin was racist, but boy, have all the creationists jumped on that word to smear him (and by association, all us "evolutionists")! A few sites that counter the racist slander are here and here.

It's been 20 years since I read Origin, but I seem to recall that he used "race" as a sort of sub-class of species. But someone who has read it more recently will provide a better explanation.

[Ben]

I'm an evolutionist, and I'm also a molecular biologist. I can't see how I could possibly do my work with creationism as an intellectual framework. But if you can give scientific answers to the following questions, I'll consider the possibility that creation science might be right:

1.) Why do the calculated phylogenetic trees (ie "family trees") of orthologous proteins agree with the pattern of relationships between species which evolutionists claim to have reconstructed from the fossil record?

2.) Why do unrelated proteins serve similar functions in cases where evolutionists claim that those functions evolved independently in the fossil record? (For example, odorant binding proteins in vertebrates and insects, and lens crystallins in vertebrates and molluscs.)

3.) Why does the arrangement of genes and pseudogenes in the hemoglobin clusters correlate with their calculated phylogenetic trees?

4.) Why are similar functions sometimes served by completely different proteins? Why are completely different functions sometimes served by similar proteins?

5.) Why do retrogenes lack introns, and have a poly-A tail? Why are they sometimes cut short? Why are they flanked by repeat sequences which are characteristic of transposons and other inserted sequences?

6.) Why do pseudogenes exist? How do you explain their observed features?


7.) Why do transposons exist? Why do some transposons carry pseudogenes for transposases?

8.) Why do introns exist? How do you explain their observed features?

9.) Why are exons predominantly of class 1-1? Why is exon class conserved when particular exons appear over and over again in different proteins?

10.) Why do pseudoexons exist?

11.) Why do we see the observed mutation rates (creationists might prefer to think of them as "observed number of differences") for different classes of genetic information? Why do pseudogenes differ between species roughly as much as introns and fourfold degenerate sites do, while protein coding genes differ much less?

12.) Why do amino acids on the outside of proteins show higher mutation rates (or observed differences, if you prefer) than amino acids in the hydrophobic core or active sites of proteins?

[commasense]

Oops! I missed Tinker Grey's post making the same point I did. Sorry.

[tomndebb]

Nomadic_One, does it it bother you that you are repeating lies? Your sources of information are those I call the Nine Commandment Christians, since they generally wish to exclude the prohibition against bearing false witness in their screeds.

Here are a couple of quick examples:

Early evolutionists including Darwin were racists in the true sense. He believed that the gorilla and the Negro occupied evolutionary positions between the baboon and the Caucasians.

2. Nebraska Man – This hoax when on for quite a while before the big fossil find was identified as a single tooth from a wild pig.

6. Java man – This fossil was “found” in the 1890’s by Eugene Duboise. Mr. Duboise kept the lie going until the end of his life when he revealed that the Java man was not a half man/half ape link, part of the skill actually belonged to a giant Gibbon.

While there were racists among the early proponents of the Theory of Evolution, Darwin was not one of them and he never proposed that the "Negro" was a "lower" species than the "Caucasian."

The only hoax associated with Nebraska man is the one perpetrated by Creationists. The teeth of pigs and primates share a number of similarities. In reality, a tentative identification of the tooth as coming from a primate (not even an ape) was made in 1922 and almost immediately dismissed by the scientific community. The claim was retracted by its author within a couple of years and was never a "hoax" that went on for "years."

Again, the only lie is that of your source. Dr. Duboise never claimed a "half man/half ape." He identified a specific set of bones (correctly) as belonging to a pre-human ancestor and later changed his mind regarding the specific category it should be accorded. However, Java Man was not a composite and Duboise never hid its origins--he just disagreed with other scientists regarding its classification. (Even the "giant gibbon" phrase is a lie, in which the Creationists take a phrase out of context to twist what Duboise actually described.)

Is there a particular reason why it is acceptable for Christians (or so they claim) such as Hovind and Gish to bear false witness against Duboise, Osborn, and Darwin?

[I Love Me, Vol. I]

OK. You convinced me. I'm an evolution believer!

but the earth's still flat... right?

[Czarcasm]

Originally posted by Nomadic_One
Czarcasm can you please change the title. Creation vs. Evolution. Im sorry about that mistake. Thanks

I will change the title;
Will you show us that you know what "evolution" even means?

[Joe Random]

Originally posted by Nomadic_One
Im sorry you dont deem the bible as scientific, it is

Oh look! The fundie can make baseless assertions!

I'm with Diogenes the Cynic. Could you please tell the audience what would make you possibly think that the Bible has any validity as a scientific reference manual?

[Voyager]

Originally posted by I Love Me, Vol. I
OK. You convinced me. I'm an evolution believer!

but the earth's still flat... right?

Right. There's nothing to sphere but sphere itself.

[Phoenix Dragon]

Originally posted by Nomadic_One
Im sorry you dont deem the bible as scientific, it is.

Considering the number of factual errors, the number of contradictions, and the complete lack of physical evidence presented by the bible, no, it is not. It is a collection of anecdotal stories, which may or may not be true. Any chance you can explain why the bible is scientific?

Furthermore, most of the article seems to be using Chick tracts as the basis for their information. It is, quite simply, wrong:

We must not be fooled that there is an overwhelming body of evidence for the evolutionist imagination. To put it bluntly - the evidence just isn’t there in the clear manner they would have you to believe.

There have been many observed cases of microevolution, and observed cases of speciesation. That's pretty clear to me.

-The public school system, -Rather then encouraging students to have an open mind to the world, they teach only one possible solution for our existence.

"Only one possible solution" is a bit of a simplification. A more acurate statement would be, "the only possible solution with any solid evidence supporting it."

Evolution is a convienent new religion invented by men in a feeble attempt to explain their own existence in the absence of faith and the demonstrated power of the Spirit of God.

Demonstrated... Where?

The problem with labeling evolutionists as scientists is that the origin of the earth and the life are history, Not science.

Simply absurd. The process that brought forth life can, indeed be analyzed under the scientific method. Every possibility can be tried. If only one theory shows any success - as it happens to be, now - then it's reasonable to assume that was probably how it happened.

4. Darwin popularized evolution with his book in 1859 “The origins of species by means of natural selection or the preservation of favored races in the struggle for life”
If you think that sounds racist, it is. The bible never refers to the word “race”. However, for someone who truly has prejudice, evolution fits right with their philosophy.

Another absurd statement. First off, there is a big difference between the common conception of "race" as black/white/hispanic/etc, and race/species in the sense of lions/bears/wolves/etc. And second, other people using something as a platform for immoral purposes does not invalidate that thing in itself (If it did, then consider that christianity, having been around hundreds upon hundreds of years longer than the theory of evolution, has been used for far more evil than evolution could be considered to have been. When using logical fallacies, it's particularly bad to pick one that works against you).

The "Mein Kampf" example is, quite simply... Stupid. I wouldn't be surprised if "God" appeared "over and over" in that book. Or Germany. Or people, for that matter. Are all these things bad simply because Hitler spoke (wrote, in this case) the word for them? Of course not. And congratulations on the early Godwinization of the thread. If it weren't for the incredible length of the OP, you'd probably win some sort of SDMB award for the speed that one came up, I'm sure.

So you see that once God is removed from the picture, anything goes –including the worst and most vile philosophies that man has to offer.

Funny, they seem to do just as well pushing those "vile philosophies" with gods, currently. Perhaps better. It's probably easier to whip religious fanatics into an irational frenzy than it is to do the same to rational thinkers.

The imagination of evolution proposes that the heavens and the world were formed by a BIG BANG.

Bzzzzt. Evolution has nothing at all to do with the Big Bang, as already mentioned several times (I just wanted to include it to be thorough).

So what was before the big bang –just a bunch of energy? –And so what was before that?

The Big Bang theory is that the big bang created all of space-time. The moment of the big bang was the very begining ot time (T=0). There was nothing before the big bang, because there was no before.

A study of mathimital probabilities and a little practical common sense almost practically, if not totally destroy this first pillar.

Not true. We have no way of knowing how many planets out there are capable of supporting life in some form. Even on just Earth, alone, the odds aren't too high (I think I remember some creationist claiming the chance of ambiogenisis was around 1 in 1 million... Per year). Even if it's only one in one million total, then by those odds, there are probably thousands if not millions of planets in the universe that could have formed life. Further, while you claim that even the most basic of life is more complex than a computer, laboratory tests have shown that organic materials can form from inorganic ones in conditions such as the early earth (Amino acids, primarily), and also in a later test, that such simple early materials, when prompted by stimuli (I forget what, but I think it was heat, something that was easily found back then) would form up into a ball almost identical to cells.

Evolutionists say that if enough time passes, and given enough chances life will evolve.
Given enough time, simple things will evolve to complex.
Given enough time and chance, mutations will occur that enhance the species –and whats more, they will continue throughout the following generations…..NO!

Just "no?" No attempt at an explanation? Probably for the better.

Evolutionists rely heavily on radiometric dating techniques. Radiometric dating is based on the half-life of Carbon-14.

As noted above, Carbon-14 dating is only one form of radiometric dating. I'll leave the finer details to someone who knows more about it than me. However, do you (Or the original author) have any cites for any of the above? I suspect context may be important...

Ecolutionists done have a very god track record when it comes to producing the truth.

Not true at all:

Ramapithecus: Scientists originally considered a hominid species, and possibly an ancestor to humans. Eventually they came to the conclusion that it was a closer relative to Orangutan than humans. "Evolutionists" produced the truth here.

Nebraska Man: This was widely suspected from the start. In the same year it was discovered, many scientists pointed out that it was impossible to extrapolate a whole species from a single tooth. Many questioned wether it was even from a primate. Eventually, they proved that it was false. Again, "evolutionists" produced the truth.

Piltdown Man: Probably the closest one you have, but not really. This was a case of someone with good knowledge in the field, trying to provide a false creation for his own gain. The only reason it did so well was because the people involved knew enough to make it plausible, and there had still been little in the way of discoveries. As more and more ancient hominids were found, Piltdown was seen as more and more out of place. Eventually, of course, they figured out that they had been hoaxed. It took a while, but eventually, the "evolutionists" figured out the truth, even when presented with a skilled hoax.

Peking Man: They weren't apes, that's for sure. The largest skullcap, at 1225cc, was twice as large as that of a large male gorilla. Also, while the originals are gone, we still have the casts (Not models, an important difference), photographs, measurements, and even x-rays.

Australophithecus Afarensis (Lucy): Solly Zuckerman promoted the theory that Lucy was just an ape in the '50s, and started some debate on it, but the evidence was against that idea and it was abandoned. Creationists still like to bring it up like it's commonly accepted to be true, however.. Oxnard tried to prove it again in the 70s, but his data used measurements of often fragmented or poorly-preserved bones, and ignored important details such as how they effected locomotion.

Java man: It's not from a gibbon, the skullcap has ten times the volume of a gibbon. A giant gibbon? Just where did that come from? And further, Duboise never reversed his possition. He stated eventually that it was "a gigantic genus allied to the gibbons," but always maintained that it was bipedal, had much to large of a brain capacity for an ape, and was an ancestor to humans. Saying he revealed it as a "lie" is, well, a lie.

The National geographic Dinosaur: National Geographic foolishly rushed publication on the Archaeoraptor before scientists had a chance to peer-review the fossil. Sure enough, when the scientists did, they revealed it as fake, within two weeks. "Evolutionists" finding the truth, yet again.

Check out talkorigins's cite on human evolution sometime.

So what evidence do we have for creation.
1. By faith in the word of God

Useless. You're about as likely to win the argument by saying "faith in the word of Darwin." However, scientists have higher standards (Hence the practice of peer review).

2. The population growth.

Ahh. I remember working this one out in high school. A 6000-year figure only works if the population's growth rate for those 6000 years averaged modern rates of growth. However, I don't think there's been any period in time where growth rates have been as high (Birth rates, maybe, but death rates are way down). Further, there are notable periods when the human population was stagnant or declining (Dark ages, IIRC). And also as noted, humans would have had to live through a huge number of potentially extinction-level meteorite impacts in those 6000 years, if that's how old the world is.

And, of course, it ignores the various known facts about geology. Fossils just don't form that quick, for example.

3. No one has found ant of those sought after missing links.

There are numerous links. However, the creationists have a nice possition. They can ask for the missing links. Scientists find one between apes and humans. Creationists ask for the missing links between those three. Scientists find some. Creationists ask for the missing links between those ones. If one can't supply every single missing link, then the creationists still have something to point to. BFD.

4. The nearly universal folklore story of the flood.

There are nearly universal folklore stories of dragons. Shall we accept this as proof dragons exist?

The whole flood/noah's arc bit was done quite well in another thread already, but I can't find it. The few bits I remember was that it would takes dozens (Or was it hundreds?) of times more water than exists on earth, to cover the earth as was told in the bible. The estimated 15,754 would take up a HUGE amount of space (And that's not including amphibians, and invertabrates like slugs). And that's 15,754 animals for 40 days. That's a lot of food. Hell, that's a lot of weight, estimated at about 5,000 metric tons. The longest modern wooden ships are 300 feet long, and require iron straps to reinforce them, and yet still leak badly enough that they have to be constantly pumped; the ark was 450 feet and had no such problems. There are serious issues about fitting brachiosaurs, tyrannosaurs, and such all on the ark (The only way young-earth creationists can figure out dinosaur fossils are the bodies of those that died in the flood being burried, and this means there were dinosaurs alive then. This is, of course, bunk, but hey.. Note also that dinos weren't factored into the weight calculations above). Enough water vapor in the atmosphere to rain just 40 feet (Far less than the Bible's flood) would have raised the atmosphere's pressure dramatically, so that oxygen and nitrogen levels would have been toxic. Then there's the ludicrious theory of the geological record being formed in the flood; The formation of the magma structures alone in those 40 days would release enough heat to vaporize the earth's oceans.

5. Order in the heavens. It always take a higher power to produce order from disorder.
Any scientist that knows the 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics know that 1) Matter and energy can be converted from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed. 2) Systems left to themselves go to a condition of greater disorder, probility, and randomness.

Creationists love to say this, but they never understand it.

The Earth is not a closed system. We get energy input from the sun, as it "decays." The "decay" of the sun currently outweighs the increase in order on earth. Under thermodynamics, certain portions of the system may increase in complexity, so long as the overal system decreases. Even with evolution, we aren't breaking from that.

Further, we've got examples of individual parts becoming more complex without a "higher power" in the form of ambiogenesis experiments (Unless you count "higher power" as in arranging to setup a situation just like the early earth for the experiment).

#1 is more of an argument against the Big Bang, but I'll address it as well. According to the big bang theory, matter didn't have to be created. It has simply always existed... Ever since the begining of the universe (See T=0 again).

6. The witness of Jesus.

Anecdotal stories, many of which are done better by other mythologies? You'll have to do better than that...

7. Fearfully and wonderfully made.

As far as I can tell, this statement does not actually mean anything. Explain?





Endnote: Good grief, I think that's the longest thing I've written in my entire time here. I'm going to go cool off my brain, now... Hope I didn't make any mistakes in there...

[MEBuckner]

I thought about trying to post a serious, intellectually responsible reply to the OP(s), but really, what's the point? There's no actual argument there, it's just a lot of unsupported assertions, leavened with the odd outright lie. (Anyone who wants the actual straight dope on the science vs. creationism "debate" should please refer to the Talk.Origins Archive.)

Evolution carries with it an elitist attitude. To an evolutionist, the idea that an almighty God created everything is pure foolishness. And don’t take kindly to those who don’t fall for their imagination. Just look at evolution’s prevalence in places where people claim to be learned.

So, you're saying creationism is prevalent in places where people are ignorant?

Hitler used the German word for evolution (Entwicklung) over and over again in his book, “mein kampf”.

So you see that once God is removed from the picture, anything goes –including the worst and most vile philosophies that man has to offer.

"So let us be blunt about it: we must use the doctrine of religious liberty to gain independence for Christian schools until we train up a generation of people who know that there is no religious neutrality, no neutral law, no neutral education, and no neutral civil government. Then they will get busy in constructing a Bible-based social, political, and religious order which finally denies the religious liberty of the enemies of God." – Gary North, "The Intellectual Schizophrenia of the New Christian Right", The Failure of the American Baptist Culture, p. 25.

"The Christian goal for the world is the universal development of Biblical theocratic republics, in which every area of life is redeemed and placed under the lordship of Jesus Christ and the rule of God's law." – David Chilton, Paradise Restored, Appendix A: The Eschatology of Dominion: A Summary

"The present world's population of people is said to be nearly 6 billion. It is expected to rise to 8.9 billion by 2030, and reach 10 to 14 billion by 2050....[M]ost of the ways proposed and being tried to control the human population is blindness, foolishness, immoral and thus infringes upon the God-given rights of the weakest and most innocent of the human community. There is a better and more sane way to control the human population without allowing immorality, without doing injustice to anyone and while not seeking to discourage pronatalist views among the human population....[T]he way to control the population growth is through the increase of the human mortality rate by legitimate means. Not through the crimes of abortions, infanticide, euthanasia and etc; but through the automatic DEATH PENALTY for the broad spectrum of deeds that are high crimes in the sight of the true GOD....blasphemy against the true God; idolatry; breaking the Lord's day; dishonor to parents; murder; adultery; incest; homosexuality; bestiality; rape; kidnapping; seeking to destroy the righteous; putting to death the innocent (such as putting innocent embryos and fetuses to death in abortions); seeking to overthrow God's appointed authority, etc....This principle of controlling the population would positively affect the economic prosperity of nations, positively affect the health and increase the life expectancy of lawabidding citizens, properly educate the human race, positively affect the family structure, overwhelmingly reduce crime, etc. Every legitimate aspect of the human society would benefit greatly." – Robert T. Lee, "Controlling the World's Population"

[Apos]

Paul warned Timothy against this type of “elitism”

Paul was a hater of reason and a fan of self-sealing logic: if they disagree with you, this just goes to show you that they're wrong. His warnings work for and against any view at all: anyone can play that cheap game. And if you disagree with me on that, well that just goes to show how throughly you've been corrupted, and how arrogant you are.

Nebraska Man: This was widely suspected from the start. In the same year it was discovered, many scientists pointed out that it was impossible to extrapolate a whole species from a single tooth. Many questioned wether it was even from a primate. Eventually, they proved that it was false. Again, "evolutionists" produced the truth.

Actually, even your account contains bits of the creationist distortion of the truth. No one extrapolated a whole species from a tooth in the way that it is often described. What happened was that the Illustrated London News (a popular newspaper, not a scientific journal) had an artist draw a rendition of early man's ancestors. But though the story was about the tooth, it WASN'T based on the tooth: it was based on the Java man. And the article even contained the disclaimer that the "reconstruction is merely the expression of an artist's brilliant imaginative genius.” Even then scientists still criticized it as being misleading, and it was never reprinted until creationists discovered it as a usual PR tool to spin lies about (in their account, they make it sound like "scientists" all conspired to publish a reconstructed picture based solely on the tooth, when in reality, even the tooth wasn't ever taken all that seriously in the first place.)

More here:
http://members.cox.net/ardipithecus/...es/lie020.html

But don't read if you don't want to see yet another litany of blatant creationist dishonesty.

[Muad'Dib]

"Sigh"

*Puts a check mark through one of the annoying threads we have not seen in a while.*

[Zoe]

Nomadic_One, you have reached an age now when you can either choose to drown in the ignorance of someone else's confused thinking or you can be open to the possibility that evolution, in itself, is not an "anti-God" science.

I don't know how much of the information that you posted is what your friend gave you to post. But I do know that parts of your OP are word for word what is on other websites. It is really important at SDMB that you think for yourself and express your own opinions rather than just borrowing meaningless phrases and words like elitiest educrates and the like. Those are not the words of someone who has learned to love his fellowman. SDMB can be a good place for you to practice the thinking skills that you are going to need when you are on your own soon.

Two suggestions:

1. Express your opinions in your own words and then, if you need to, provide a link to support your ideas. (It's very important to back up what you say with factual information. Don't just base your opinions on someone else's opinions.)

2. Educate yourself on the different points of view before you decide what is right for you. And you have all the time in the world to do that!

One of the fairest accessments of the divergent views on how life has been created is at this site: http://www.religioustolerance.com/sci_rel.htm

You will find many, many interesting links about science and religion -- with differing opinions. You may be particularly interested in the link on creationism and evolution.

It's a good place to start and I don't think that you will find yourself insulted by it. Yet it is easy to follow.

Let us know what you think or if there are parts of what is said that you would like to discuss. Okay?

I hope that I am not sounding to patronizing. I don't mean to be. I'm just the remnants of what used to be a high school teacher and I still love young people. I'm not trying to change your religious faith, but I am hoping that at some point you will have a different understanding of science.

Peace.

[Doc Nickel]

Holy crap.

And I mean that in every way and with every erg of irony I can wring from it.

However, most has already been covered. As much as I'd like to post "Cite?" after each of your biblical quotes, I'll content myself with a reiteration of an old favorite:

The imagination of evolution proposes that the heavens and the world were formed by a BIG BANG. So what was before the big bang –just a bunch of energy?

Ah, yes. Yet another who asks "What was there before the Big Bang?", but feels that a perfectly valid answer to "So where did God come from?" is God is eternal. He always was, and always will be.

I'm still waiting for a creationist to explain that one to me.

Apparently since the Bible doesn't specifically say, nor even hint, as to God's own origins, then the only explanation must be that he always existed.

However, even though through testable data gathered over decades we can reliably and repeatably postulate that the universe is expanding, and can thus by extension theorize that it must have begun that expansion at some point, this was not mentioned in the Bible, and runs contrary to the concepts of the "Young Earth" and Creationism, and thus could not possibly be true.

Care to give me the Cliff's Notes version of an answer to that, Nomadic_One, but without quoting the Bible? (Which is no more a scientific source than a Harry Potter novel.)

[GodlessSkeptic]

Originally posted by Nomadic_One
It hasnt been published but Andrew Thone a friend of mine, helped with alot of the points. Most of the information can be found on alot of websites and this is just them stuck together.

I would hardly call him a freind then if I were you.Anyone who would send me onto a battlefield armed with a rubber chicken, assuring me it was a grenade could be no better than the worst kind of miscreant.Andrew Thone is either sending you into class with a "Kick Me" sign on your backor he is the type of person who would replace the contents of a diabetic friend's insulin vials with some type of oil to watch him suffer.At best he is grossly uneducated.

If you(or he) would like to know more about evolution theory or fact I would be glad to help or point you towards a more qualified source of information(as I am not a biologist myself) just as I am sure you would be so inclinde to help me if I were stuck on some niggling detail about the Bible.

I must insist on honesty in any case though(foreign as that concept is to most Biblical literalists).

[masonite]

Zoe, really really excellent post. :claps long and loud:

Ben, I love your famous 12 Stumper Questions, but of course no one ever even attempts to answer them -- they're way too technical. Sometime, could you expand the list by defining a few terms, providing a few examples, etc.? (I realize the matter is so highly specialized that this may not be possible.) But if that list were in a shape where a somewhat-educated person would not merely go "huh" when presented with it, but be intrigued, I'd show it around to quite a few people. Just a comment, not intended as a criticism.

Nomadic_One, it's obvious from the OP that you haven't read much if any material on creation/evolution on this board. I'm a little insulted, as an SDMB member, that you presume to come and teach us, when you have no idea what's gone down before you got here. You've been a member long enough that if you're interested in the topic, you have no excuse for not reading up on it here. If you sincerely wanted to convince people of anything, that would be the least you could do. Otherwise, your post comes off as a grudging duty on your part. "See, Lord, I showed them the truth, and they wouldn't listen." Have a little more respect for this community. We've been back and forth over this topic since the very beginning. You're not the first one to have thought of it.

[Nomadic_One]

Well thank you all for showing your opinions on my post. I will try to get to answer the questions but i need to go to work and I need a little more time. First of all I want to say I am a little shocked that no one agreed with me. Usually when I post a topic of this nature on other message boards (there are quite a few) I usually get some pro responses. I find that intriguing. Well please know that I do get both sides of these topics. I have googled this so many times I must be their number one user. And this isnt just the conservative side of the issue I look at the evolution side just as often as I look at the Creationism side, if not more. At this time you will be thinking ....man that kid is really ignorant or blind. I try not to be. MEB I have even used that newsgroup from time to time. interesting stuff. Well I'll answer most of your rhetorics later tongiht. thanks again....lol i thought you would have at least liked that joke.

[MrVisible]

I think one of my favorite events on the SDMB is the moment that Ben posts to a creation versus evolution argument. It's like seeing Superman appear in the sky.

It's the only reason I read any of these threads anymore.

[Joe Random]

Originally posted by Nomadic_One
I look at the evolution side just as often as I look at the Creationism side, if not more.

I find that very difficult to believe, seeing as you don't even see to know what evolution is. If you have actually looked at the evolution side, then why did you bother to mention the Big Bang, which, as you would hve to know, has nothing to do with evolution?

[Meatros]

[quote]Originally posted by Tinker Grey
In the interest of "stamping out ignorance", from the link provided by Meatros, the first page of the preface show the complete title as

Whups, I was a bit tired, last night, and not thinking altogether clearly.

[Meatros]

Originally posted by Nomadic_One
[b] Well thank you all for showing your opinions on my post. I will try to get to answer the questions but i need to go to work and I need a little more time. First of all I want to say I am a little shocked that no one agreed with me. Usually when I post a topic of this nature on other message boards (there are quite a few) I usually get some pro responses. I find that intriguing. Well please know that I do get both sides of these topics.

There are quite a few different creation/evolution messageboards out there, I know that I have at least 15 (or so) bookmarked.

I have googled this so many times I must be their number one user. And this isnt just the conservative side of the issue I look at the evolution side just as often as I look at the Creationism side, if not more. At this time you will be thinking ....man that kid is really ignorant or blind. I try not to be.

I may have come off a bit...harsh, but I don't really think you are generally ignorant, I just think you are misinformed. I've heard (and I'm sure many others have also heard) the gist of your post before. Now, I haven't heard the connection between Darwin and Hitler for a long time now and it took me off guard (as you can see by *my* misinformation).

[Ben]

Originally posted by MrVisible
I think one of my favorite events on the SDMB is the moment that Ben posts to a creation versus evolution argument. It's like seeing Superman appear in the sky.

It's the only reason I read any of these threads anymore.

Ok, now I'm blushing.

Masonite, I have the FAQ which explains the questions in detail. I'd very, very much appreciate it if you or anyone else would read it and tell me what parts you did or did not understand, so I can try to make it better suited to the layman.

http://psyche11.home.mindspring.com/...itingIndex.htm

I've been planning on making more detailed essays on specific issues, like retrogenes, but I've been too busy with other things. (Specifically, a page with pictures of human and primate chromosomes side-by-side, so you can see for yourself where different cut, paste, and flip operations took place in human evolution.)

For now, let's focus on retrogenes:

When one of your cells takes the information in DNA and makes it into a protein, it first makes a "working copy" in the form of messenger RNA, or mRNA. (This lets the cell keep an "archival copy" in the DNA.) The mRNA is then edited in a number of ways. A string is pasted onto the end which reads "AAAAAAAA". Genes also normally have intervening sequences called "introns," which don't code for any part of the protein. These introns are spliced out of the mRNA. After the editing, the mRNA is sent off to be read by the protein-synthesising machinery.

The odd thing is that sometimes you see genes, called retrogenes, that have an "AAAAAAA" on the end, and have no introns. These genes started out as mRNA, but the mRNA was accidentally pasted back into the genome. The evidence for this (other than the obvious similarities between retrogenes and mRNA) is as follows:

* retrogenes are flanked by repeat sequences that occur when you splice RNA back into DNA.

* retrogenes can be found far from the parent gene. By contrast, the other main mechanism of production of new genes makes two identical genes side-by-side.

* retrogenes can be cut short, as if the machinery that was writing them back into the DNA pooped out before it got finished.

So what's the creationist explanation? Why did God create a class of genes which look exactly like they came from mRNA that was pasted back into the genome?

[Phoenix Dragon]

Originally posted by Apos
Actually, even your account contains bits of the creationist distortion of the truth. No one extrapolated a whole species from a tooth in the way that it is often described. What happened was that the Illustrated London News (a popular newspaper, not a scientific journal) had an artist draw a rendition of early man's ancestors. But though the story was about the tooth, it WASN'T based on the tooth: it was based on the Java man. And the article even contained the disclaimer that the "reconstruction is merely the expression of an artist's brilliant imaginative genius.” Even then scientists still criticized it as being misleading, and it was never reprinted until creationists discovered it as a usual PR tool to spin lies about (in their account, they make it sound like "scientists" all conspired to publish a reconstructed picture based solely on the tooth, when in reality, even the tooth wasn't ever taken all that seriously in the first place.)

Sorry, should have been more clear in my post. The quote I gave about it being impossible to extrapolate a whole species from a tooth was a reply written to the Illustrated London News. I would have put more detail into my post, but it was getting mind-numbingly long enough, already

The Talk Origins pages have a lot more detail, obviously.

[Mangetout]

Originally posted by Nomadic_One
[b]Evolution carries with it an elitist attitude. To an evolutionist, the idea that an almighty God created everything is pure foolishness.

False dichotomy combined with straw man - Evolution is not atheism, neither are all people who accept evolution athesits

-The public school system, -Rather then encouraging students to have an open mind to the world, they teach only one possible solution for our existence.

Projection. I think this criticism would be more true of the kind of extreme fundamentalism that is so often associated with creationism. Anyway, keeping an open mind to things that have already been substantially proven false can be quite counterproductive; should we teach our kids that 'some people think 2 plus 2 is 4, but hey, keep an open mind about it!"?

-The college and university system –The elitist attitude of educrates only gets stronger as one moves to the secular university system. Evolution is more or less universally accepted as their doctrine of choice.

reversal of cause and effect; evolution is quite fundamental to biology and genetics, creationism on the other hand, contributes nothing but confusion to the topics (along with geology, astronomy etc...)

The false concepts and ideas from evolution are used constantly as a marketing tool to target kids, FlavoRite Fruit Snack Boxes, Quaker oatmeal with dinosaur eggs, and many more products in which they are in contact with.

Nonsense - kids just like monsters and dinosaurs are great monsters - I can't see what your point is here, unless you're trying to claim that dinosaurs never really existed.

I'm not even going to try to address the rest of your post (although all of it is of the same cloth) because what you're doing here is the favourite tactic of spraying multiple, diverse arguments all at once in the hope that the resulting melee leaves the casual observer with the impression that you know what you're talking about.

[Trinopus]

Originally posted by Mangetout
Projection. I think this criticism would be more true of the kind of extreme fundamentalism that is so often associated with creationism. Anyway, keeping an open mind to things that have already been substantially proven false can be quite counterproductive; should we teach our kids that 'some people think 2 plus 2 is 4, but hey, keep an open mind about it!"?

In fact, yes... I remember exactly that discussion in fourth grade, as an introduction to "clock arithmetic."

"If someone told you that nine plus four was equal to one, would you say they were right, or wrong?"

In other words, the public schools *do* teach us to keep an open mind regarding other interpretations of the facts.

What they *don't* do, and should not ever do, is ask us to be so open to every lurid claim made by extremists, as to give up on the primary avenues toward knowlege.

(e.g., yes, we *should* keep an open mind about the possibility of other gunmen in the JFK assassination... But no, we don't need to pay any attention to the idiots who say that Richard Nixon orchestrated the whole affair!)

(I mean, obviously, it was GHW Bush, right?)

Trinopus

[Nomadic_One]

Ben its going to take me a while but I am working on answering your questions.

[Ben]

Why don't you just focus on retrogenes for now?