And yes, prostate is precisely that.
IANAEvolutionaryBiologist, but I’ll take a crack here. Evolution, unlike Creationism, did not happen at the snap of a finger. Moreover, there are some basic fallacies in your statement.
Evolution does not have a purpose. The critter doesn’t think, “hey, I want a lung” and poof, there is a lung in their next kid. A shallow water fish may have mutated over millions of years to allow its gill system to also breath fresh air, leading it to better hunting grounds, in shallower water and on the shore, where specimins with stronger fins would have survived better, etc. This doens’t happen overnight. Indeed, many animals (including humans) have body parts that either are not yet functional or are no longer functional but haven’t evolved out.
Another example; the recent theories regarding jaw position and correlation to brain size. A mutation with a smaller jaw size changes the anatomy of the entire skull, leaving more room for the brain to grow. This is a theory, but it demonstrates how a seemingly insignificant mutation can lead to large changes in anatomy.
As for animals going extinct instead of evolving, well, extinction is due to envornmental factors. As you mentioned the dinosaurs, those critters vanished coincidentally with sidespread weather change. Critters going extinct today die off because of climate change, habitat loss, or their food going extinct or changing.
We haven’t really been alive long enough to observe true evolution, though we have seen select species mutate.
And before you mention the “but other primates haven’t evolved,” well, if you understand the concept that evolution happens through minor mutations over time, it is clear that our ancestors did being an evolutionary path, and their cousins, who did not have the mutations, continued on happily without need or mutation.
To give a concept about evolution, lets do an assumption. There is a primative monkey species, short tailed, but otherwise recognizable. One little monkey happens to be born with a mutation - a longer tail. The longer tail lets him do his monkey thing better than short-tailed monkeys, making him more likely to pass along his genes, as well as mutation. Over time (and I don’t mean a few generations, I mean hundreds of thousands of years), the long-tailed monkies become effectively another species existing alongside of the short-tailed monkeys. Eventually, they may outhunt/gather the short tails, either pushing them out of the area, or into extinction. Or they could co-exist in other parts of the same region. This is one reason that you don’t always find a “missing link” species. (An aside point; I’m guessing out of the blue, but it demonstrates how a subtle change can have tremendous effect - this could be the reverse of what happened to humans. We could have mutated to lose tails, and been stuck on the ground, where the fittest specimens were mutated with stronger legs etc etc)
On the other hand, a species of frog is hopping along quite nicely. One rapidly growing little fella happens to have a mutation; a third eye. The third eye is nonfunctional, as it is an imperfect mutation. This does not make the three-eyed frog any better off than its companions - in fact, it makes the poor guy a bit worse off, because his anatomy doesn’t work properly. The third eye squeezes his brain. He dies before mating.
There are a lot of paths evolution can take, and it is a very complicated process.
One of the other problems is the 2nd law. First of all, the second law concerns energy, not disorder in general. Second of all, as mentioned, this ain’t a closed system. Third of all, in any case, disorder is good - it means mutation. The last is my presumption, not a scientific fact, and in any case, the first 2 points make it irrelevant.
As for your dinosaurs into birds point, that is still up to much debate, though it isn’t entirely impossible. It would be a tremendous feat of evolution if true, but not unheard of. After all, ancestors of whales used to walk the land. 
One possibility could be that the surviving dinosaurs were small. Some people tend to think “survival of the fittest” means that the biggest, baddest mofo wins, but that ain’t true, as mammals have proved. In catastrophic times, the smallest, most energy-efficient critters who can eat the most diverse foods win out. In this case, the smaller dinosaurs.
At least, that is how I understand it. I’m just a poor lib arts student, so don’t shoot me if I got some details wrong, but the process is absolutely fascinating. I realize that I got a bit carried away here - my intent isn’t to preach, but to educate. I also study religion, so I’m interested in seeing it from both sides, but I think you need to understand the concepts before you can begin discussing their reality (or lack thereof).
Because the same book that describes His omniscience to me describes how He created it all.
And that book also lays down the parameters for sexual fufilment - according to His design.
Evidence supports the account of Noah’s flood as well 
The monumental lack of accurate information coming from you Sam is bewildering and would take us too long to debunk everyone of your notions. And why should we when it’s already been done.
Go there. No, it’s not some propoganda website created by the evil atheist scientists to undermine you ‘proof’. Many of the articles there are written by THEIST scientists.
Regardless, the site does an exemplary job at tackling just about every ID and creationist “theories” on evolution.
Please, do yourself a favor, and atleast make the effort to understand the theory in depth so as not to keep repeating the quite ignorant statements you have made.
Potentially everything. The point is that disorder is only predicted for systems in which energy is not replenished. The earth’s energy is constantly replenished by the sun, and when the sun dies the earth and all its life and creatures will die with it, God’s supposed hand in things notwithstanding.
hehe. It’s all good, I’d hate to have scared you off. I do speak a bit harshly at times, and this thread is interesting. I don’t agree with you, but I would really hate to motivate you to abandon your position here.
I suppose one of my problems is this. I was taught to be able to debate both sides of an issue. My first formal debate was doing abortion - both sides, switching at “halftime.” That was rough - but I was able to come out of it with a much better understanding of the issue (though I like these informal discussion format debates better ;-). My problem here is that this is one of the few issues that I really don’t understand the opposing viewpoint, and that is ignorance on my part. I just find it harder to accept, and I’m sure in this issue, that probably has a lot to do with my own religion getting in the way. That makes me sad, because I like to think of religion as being a mind-opening experience, rather than mind-closing. 
Actually, that may be my real problem. I hate seeing religion used in a position to restrict education. Hm. Something to think about for me.
Anyway, sorry if I came off as harsh. I wasn’t kidding when I said you’d know it if I wanted to call you names - things like “asshat” and “cockbite” would be involved. I’m not too subtle when I’m ticked.
The prostate is your friend, in more ways than one. Not something to be feared. You don’t even need to be gay to like it. Just adventurous. :-p
I mean, unless it gets cancer. Then it kinda sucks. But you get my point.
That’s pretty much what I learned in 1st grade in public school… thanks for the refresher. It carried me all the way to 9th grade until I learned a whole new way of seeing some previous evidence, seeing some new evidence, and seeing that some evidence was missing from the 1st grade history lesson. It seems a significant point that there is no evidence on the one hand of one kind changing to another, and in fact on the other, God had set it up for a kind to beget the same kind.
Thanks for the link to the other site. I’ll spend some time there. Have I been dismissed?
That same book says that you can control the genetics of your livestock by placing striped sticks in the river while they mate. That same book has two different creation accounts in it’s first two chapters.
Like what?
The Noah Flood is thoroughly impossible-absurdly so. Can you explain to me how, post flood, kangaroos got to australia? Can you explain what all the animals ate post-flood?
What is an example of a documented, beneficial mutation that’s been passed on?
Apes MAY be slowly changing into “men” or another species, however, this is not something that will be seen for hundreds of thousands of more years (assuming we don’t kill them off first). Evolution is slow.
In reading the posts in this thread, I’m seeing an awful lot of hyperbole from the creationism side of the debate but with no evidence that would be scientifically accepted to support their arguments. You need to produce some real evidence other than mere belief.
OTOH, below is a new article on limb evolution.
How did fins evolve into feet?
And another evolutionary link:
Oldest male fossil bares all - Privates revealed in virtual view of creature that dates back 425 million years
“That same book has two different creation accounts in it’s first two chapters.”
Easy one first…
It’s a literary device. You get the overall story Chapt. 1 thru Chapt. 2, vs. 4. Then the account drops back for a closer look at man’s creation. The chapter and verse divisions are not divinely inspired.
Micro-evolution happens all the time, most frequently with microscopic organisms. Think about bacteria or viruses. We can stave them off with medications, but over time, the little bastards mutate, and those mutant strands resist the medications that work on the “non-mutant” ones… then we have the same problem all over again.
There is also a lot of evidence in things like isolated environments (like islands), where you have a species that is slightly removed from species in other areas, by a distinctive visual appearance, or by a slight adaptation that makes it more survivable in a harsher area.
Sometimes, it is overwhelming to imagine all of the tremendous diversity in nature, but on the other hand, that points to a lot of mutations happening over hundreds of millions of years.
I’ve heard that before and it doesn’t answer the question, it’s a subtle change of focus.
The fact is, that either the order of Genesis 1 is correct or the order of Genesis 2 is correct.
Which is it, and furthermore, what evidence do you have to support your case?
Accelerated regulatory gene evolution in an adaptive radiation
The other view is that the survivability of those bacteria already existed, rather than developing anew. The ones that already had that resistance as a dominant trait survive to pass on that resistance. Sometimes through mutation (where information is LOST), the trigger that makes a bacteria susceptible to treatment is lost and thereby changes its susceptibility to the treatment.
Similarly, variations in Kind (even such as “race” in Humans), can be explained as a pre-existing trait being isolated either intentionally or because of environment, and becoming common / dominant.
Man, right when I start feeling up on biology, I read something like that, and my head starts hurting. I think I’ll stick to my books and social studies.
I’m sorry, but what exactly seems out of order? Have you read it lately? It’s on my lap and I don’t see any further contradiction.
Samhouch, read the two accounts again very carefully.
Notice that in chapter 1, God makes the plants and animals first and then he makes Adam. In chapter 2, he makes Adam before he has created any other living thing.
There is no way to reconcile this.
The reason the accounts are contradictory is that they are two distinct variants on the same creation myth which were arranged side by side. Genesis is not a contiguous work but a compilation, an anthology of tribal myths, many of which are “doubled” to reflect variant versions.
It doesn’t really matter because the Genesis story has been utterly refuted in every detail anyway. The world is not 6000 years old. The sky is not a solid dome. Species were not all “created” simaltaneously nor separately. The earth is not the center of the universe. There is no water suspended above the sky “dome.” There has never been a global flood, etc. etc. etc.
The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics only applies to closed sytems and the Erath is an open system. Your question about the origin of life is irrelevant to evolution because evolutionary theory only tells us what happened after the origin of life.
Having said that, abiogenesis is in no way hindered by the 2nd Law because abiogenesis does not have to occur in a closed system.
There is no shred of evidence which supports the Genesis story of creation and there is scads which refutes it.
If you want to disprove evolution you must first disprove at least one of the following phenomena:
-mutation
-heredity
-speciation
If all three of these things occur, then evolution must occur. All theree of these things have been abundantly observed and verified. The only thing that can prevent evolution under these circumstances is supernatural intervention.
Please either disprove one of the three phenomena I listed (this earning yourself a Nobel Prize) or show some convincing reason why evolution would not occur under those circumstances.
Good morning
It does not seem unreasonable that the overall creation happened as stated in chapt 1, whereas chapt 2 revisits and gives specific relevant points on man’s introduction to life.
re: chapt 1’s description that God created plants on the third day is an overall, true statement.(BEFORE the sun, note. The information and “programming” how to use the sun’s energy was “installed” on the earth in the plants before the raw energy was created, rather than vice-versa. It was not the sun’s energy that created life by feeding the open system. Raw energy alone does not create the more complex (deteriorating) system that feeds from the (deteriorating) energy.)
chapt 2 tells that no shrub of the field was yet in the earth. That particular use of the word shrub is mentioned specifically only 4 times in Scripture (Ge. 2:5; 21:15; Job 30:4,7). It is an arrid climate plant, who’s time and place had not yet come, because although rain had not been introduced, an even more permeable and regular mist watered the earth. It can be reflecting the difference of climate and environment between now and when all was new in the creation. Conditions later deteriorated after the fall of man, and changed even more after the flood. Also, the phrase “of the field” changes the focus from overall, general earth-wide plants, to cultivated farming, which didn’t exist because there was no man to work the ground. Not necesarily that the plants’ existence had not yet been created. The invention just hadn’t been used yet for its purpose.
God plants the garden of Eden a few verses later, but it is resonable that the plants he planted were already created worldwide, he merely planted a garden, an orderly collection of selected plants.