Right you are, Johnny Boy. I already had a strong belief in evolution and after reading that book, my belief was affirmed. The author, Brian Sykes, talks about his procedures at length in a very convincing manner. It gets the Quack Seal of Approval as a book about biology that won’t bore the hell out of you.
AcidKid:
You’re not going to get an answer here. Trust me. You’re not the first person to try to crack this idea. I started a somewhat similar thread Christianity, Human evolution, and the concpet of the Soul awhile back and got nowhere. But good luck!
Not expecting an answer as much as looking for input for my answer, of course.
**Mangetout]/b], in your thread, has a point that the soul is just conscienceness. I disagree with Bobby Roberts that it would be impossible to determine a when.
But scientific knowledge doesn’t challenge beliefs but only instills a greater appreciation of God and God’s works.
Putting a model airplane together like the creation theory is easy, grabbing a handful of dirt and throwing it into the air to make it spin and turn into an airplane is something else.
The Seven Daughters of Eve would be another.
Good book.
I hope he follows up and writes some more of those, considering he’s found 23 “Eves.” He only talked about 7 in that book because he reasoned most of his readers would be of European descent, and he has found 7 Eves in that area.
It’d be interesting to read his guesses on the African Eves.
> Those who study evolution realize there are limits to what it can do
I disagree. There are no limits to what evolution can do, given an unlimited amount of time. The only reason people think there are limits is that not enough time has gone by and we don’t have access to every bit of data (like the creatures that have evolved on Omicron IV, for example).
> The whole “belief” requires as much faith as that required to
> believe the sun will rise tomorrow.
I don’t think I disagreed that faith comes in many forms. I just happen to place my faith in things I can see and touch and ideas that have physical evidence to support them.
So, I have faith that the sun will come up tomorrow because I’ve seen it happen every day of my life and people tell me it has been that way long before I was born.
I have faith in evolution because I’ve touched the old bones and seen the natural selection process at work in my own garden.
I don’t believe in Tarot cards and Palm readings, because there is no physical evidence and there is no real product to see or touch.
gobear
I wasn’t trying to put words on your mouth, sorry if I came out that way. It was just a minor rant on the fact that (apparently) most SDMB people are “open-minded” and claim thay never want
to force beliefs on anyone and detest the idea the some people think their (for example) religion is the only true one saying it is unfair, and on the other hand saying “if you don’t believe in
evolution you’re dumb”. You DID say the latter idea but not the former, sorry if I insulted you in any way.
As another very minor and non-thread-originating rant I have to say that many of these evolution/creation debates end up with people like me, who are not card-carrying Darwinians having to continually expalin that we believe in God and at the same time don’t believe the earth is flat, or that Creation too necessarily 6 24-hour days or that the world started 6 000 years ago. Fundamentalist Christians (right or wrong as they may be) are only a tiny (but vocal) fraction of the 2 000 million Christians, most of us are much in the middle, with Old Earth Creation, Intelligent Design, Theistic Evolution, etc.; discard the idea that non-Darwinian-Christian means Young Earth Creation.
Finch
We must’ve broken a record of debating past each other (here and in the other thread).
Also you called me ignorant far too many times, please stop it, I’d rather go for deluded.
As to your last 2 posts, I’ll quote and answer.
a)Macroevolution is not fish transforming into apes, or any other nonsense that creationists of all stripes seem to think it is. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: at least try to understand a concept before you criticize it.
---->You’ve made the, mainly, lexical point (although maybe technically correct) about micro and macro evolution. Most people use the terms to compare let’s say, beaks on birds (micro) and an
extra heart chamber (macro). There isn’t a clear-cut line between them, I agree. As to fish becoming apes, well, most biology books have nice diagrams showing fish coming out of the water then becoming amphibians and later becoming mammals which later become apes, that’s the evolution party-line. Unless you’ve created the leviathanical, man-eating, earth-shaking, fire-breathing straw-man of fish becoming apes in one step.
b)Macroevolution is a large-scale view of evolution. What determines differential survivability of species? How do novel features arise? How do new taxa “arise”? That sort of thing. Underlying this entire view, at the micro-level, is the steady action of natural selection.
----> I hope you are also looking for answer to question like why almost all phyla appeared after the Cambrian explosion and never again? It is the jump from micro-level Natural selection to class-and-order-creation where Darwinism loses me.
c)The language analogy works perfectly well: how does one language transform into another? At what point did the ancestral tongue of modern romance languages become “English”, or “French”, or “Spanish”? How did the transformation between languages occur? Clearly, it did occur, and it had to occur gradually, from generation to generation. Just like how birds can evolve from dinosaurs, or whales from terrestrial animals.
---->It shows the micro-level adaptation you claim explain the macro-level changes. Old English and Modern English are similar, are clearly related, it’s like a Ford T becoming a GTO. Languge
will not change into something totally different, hence my language-hammer ananlogy or one cell alagae becoming Argetinosaurus, no matter how may steps.
d)Those who study evolution realize there are limits to what it can do
—> Well if it can change free-floating aminoacids into bees (after a gazillion years and a zillion steps), there is very little it CAN’T do
e)**the process is not “purely by rando[m] chance”. **
—> Well, mutation seems pretty rando[m] to me. Whatever happens after the mutation and how it interacts with the species or the environment is of course not random (if the mutation leaves you sterile, it is not random that your genes won’t get passed on), but the underlying process is still random.
f)We may have the “faith” that grand changes can occur given sufficient time, but that is a direct consequence of the evidence that sufficient time has, indeed, passed, and further evidence
that many small changes can have profound effects. That, and the mounds of evidence that natural selection operates as advertised
----> That’s the leap I’m not prepared to take. That the OBSERVABLE small changes in small time translate into big changes in “big” time is not warranted (maybe true, but not necessarily). Of course a lot of time has passed, millions of years. What bothers me is that yo believe that species are almost infinitely plastic, and, as breeders know ,they aren’t.
g)The whole “belief” requires as much faith as that required to believe the sun will rise tomorrow.
----> Sorry to burst your bubble, but the sun never rises. it is the earth which rotates, unless you are the first and only Darwinian/Geocentrist, it is only apparent. I’ve said it before, and
I’ll say it again: at least try to understand a concept before you criticise it.’:D’
Nope, didn’t say that either. My exact words were, “Eh, not horror, just lack of education.” Being uneducated is not being “dumb”–ignorance is merely the lack of knowledge, a condition that is easily repaired.
In my above speculation, I mean that God selected a human pair to ensoul out of a thriving human population. Now, would all humans today have to be descended from that pair and if not, are there human individuals & groups that are pre-souled? I think the ensouling of humanity (if my speculation is correct) was transmitted by the communication of the God-is-our-Parent/we-are-His-children message and perhaps His sparking of that same awareness throughout the world. If a people were found that seemed to have never been aware of a ParentGod, that would raise some questions- but that would not make them subhuman or animals or proper subjects for oppression. It would just mean they had not yet received the Adamic Revelation.
OK, not dumb, uneducated.
I have not called you ignorant, I have said that you do not fully understand the concepts which you are so casually dismissing. And I have attempted, apparently in vain, to correct your misconceptions by stating what evolutionists really believe about these concepts.
**
Most people use the terms incorrectly because they fail to see the distinction. The evolution of new chambers in the heart is macro so far as a four-chambered heart is a “new invention”, so to speak. But it is produced by micro processes (e.g., mutation and natural selection).
See, that’s a strawman. It is by no means the “evolution party-line” that that is what happened, and I seriously doubt you could find an evolutionary biologist who believes that. The evolutionary process is one of branching, not continual transformation. Amphibians did not “become” mammals, for example.
Given that “phyla”, “classes”, and “orders” are subjective categories, I don’t see the problem (side rant: Linnaean taxonomy is quite probably the worst possible taxonomy to use in conjunction with evolution. It is precisely because people are unwilling to let go of such arbitrary categories as “class”, “order”, “family”, etc., that they are unable to see how the “jumps” between these categories occur - or, indeed, to see that there were no such jumps at all!). Why should those phyla be expected to appear more than once? What evidence do you have that all possible body types appeared then? The “Cambrian Explosion” marks the first appearance in the fossil record of the bulk of extant body types - it does not mark the first appearance of multi-cellular life. Is it an interesting topic for study? Sure. Is it a problem which shall bring down evolutionary theory? Not in the least.
See, there’s that strawman again: “Language will not change into something totally different.” Show me one case wherein it is theorized that one species turned into something “totally different”.
I never said it wasn’t very powerful. It is not, however, all powerful. I think it’s a safe bet that Marvel comics-esque super-powered mutants, for example, are not going to evolve.
A given gene is not free to mutate freely in any conceivable manner. There are still limits to which mutations are even viable. Mutation is random in the sense of being chaotic and unpredictable, but not in the sense that all mutations are possible, and thus probable in a statistical sense, to occur.
A strange stance to take, given that you have no trouble believing in a compleletly NONOBSERVABLE deity, don’t you think? Despite your claims of such a “leap” being unwarranted, The indirect evidence is abundant that such nevertheless is exactly what happened. We may not be able to SEE it happen, but then, I never SAW WWII, either. Yet I have no doubt that it happened. History is like that, being unrepeatable, and all.
**
You must have me confused with someone else. I believe I’ve just stated, in this very post, that organisms aren’t infinitely plastic. There are limits as to which mutations can arise, there are limits as to which of those mutations are viable, and there are concomitant limits as to what evolution can produce. Again, natural selection is powerful, but it is not all-powerful.
When did God evolve Adam? Ok, 666, promise me you are not the devil and I’ll tell you.
Modern man emerged from the last ice age 12,000 years ago fully clothed, articulate, and, if intelligence is measured by the ability to weigh lots of variables in order to effect a positive evolutionary outcome, he was probably a lot smarter than you or even, bite my tongue, me.
But he wasn’t Adam.
About 8000 years ago the earth warmed up much warmer than it is today. This was good, more rain fell and food was plentiful and cotton was high, sorta like in the Garden of Eden. Mankind lay around planting and reaping and living the good life, but not running around in packs hunting. This was bad because in the idle moments given to them by planned agriculture, mankind formed into superpacks, and gave birth to what we call culture.
The symbolic Adam was one of those culturated and a new aspect of man was born.
Meanwhile the sea was rising. It rose and rose, it rose thirty feet until about 6000 BP it was a few feet higher than it is today. The rising seas flooded estuaries and salt water flowed up rivers and spilled onto the fields of produce and hope. Then the climate became colder much like it is today, and crops would often fail, and wars between cultures began to be fought, much like they are today.
Being Adam is being a creature whose existence no longer extends just to the limits of his physical body, or even to interactive controls of the tribe or pack. Being Adam means that you no longer have an independent existence, you are now and forever a part of the single animal that is Mankind.
Like it or not.
Finch
So we can only talk like nobel-prize winners here, not language for the non-PhD-holding crowd? OK, you, win, I’m deluded, I believe in a non-observable deity, I don’t know what I’m talking about, you’re the only one who knows about evolution, my examples are all bad, my examples of fish becoming amphibians are wrong ( it’s branching, you say, sorry). I have tried my very best to lay out my beliefs and you nitpick on extremely minor linguistic points. It’s impossible to talk to an evolution guy who almost denies that fish “became” amphibians (in layman’'s language). I of course understand what you point out as to branching not tranforming, but it is a galaxy-size straw-man to imply that I think that all fish became amphibians (of course they didn’t, I’ve just eaten fish).
BTW, I’d rather belief in a non-observable deity than in non-observable fossils. I’m out. YOU WIN
No, you’re too arrogant to be left unanswered. Have you tried reading the whole post before answering?, it helps, I can tell you. Genes can mutate totally at random, what is not random is what happens after the mutation. A gene can change all its Cs for Gs, it is possible, of course, immediately viability is compromised, but that’s ex post facto (which I mentioned in my previous, and apparently partly-invisible, post). You fail to mention a limit to evolution and debate right past my post (aside from evolution not being all-powerful). If free floating aminoacids serve as the basis for humans (after branching, changing, evolving or however you want to call it) there are almost no limits. Your WWII example is horribly wrong (it tells me you’re runnig out of excuses) we have direct evidence of it and guys who fought it. There are many battles mentioned in historical record that possibly never happened, but we haven’t got any footage of them.
You’ve sadly resorted to lexical minutiae, where the science failed you. How can you havei magined I thought of “linear”, the diagrams I mentioned are “tree” diagrams. When I say that one species became a totally different one I took the time to say “after many steps, after time, not directly” I quote myself (sorry, for the rest, self-quoting is horrible) As to fish becoming apes, well, most biology books have nice diagrams showing fish coming out of the water then becoming amphibians and later becoming mammals which later become apes, that’s the evolution party-line. Unless you’ve created the leviathanical, man-eating, earth-shaking, fire-breathing straw-man of fish becoming apes in one step. I CLEARLY stated that I didn’t beleive in one-step transformation. Evolution (if true) takes a LOT of time and a LOT of changes (and branching). I said ALMOST completely plastic.
At least I didn’t say that the sun rises, with your linguistic-nit-picking machine in turbo-mode you would’ve have my head on a platter.
With people like you defending evolution it’s no wonder you guys are losing the school battle.
Fascinating discussion, folks. I have nothing useful to add, but I did want to give Flash-57 some deserved applause for the following analogy, which I haven’t seen anyone comment upon:
I. Love. This. Bravo and well done, sir or ma’am, as the case may be. As an analogy it’s simple, illuminating, refreshing and brings a smile to my face – not a bad combo.
Is there really such a thing as a soul? Is not the term soul another word for God’s ability to give life after death? There is often speculation of when the soul leaves the body after death and when does a fetus have a soul. Perhaps such speculation is unnecessary? Why would God need to inpart a soul when all he has to do is what was done. Is it not a little egotistical of us, like thinking the Earth is the center of the universe, to think that a part of us is eternal? We are only eternal if God so wills. Would God need the mechanism of a soul?
The human brain is constructed to reconize patterns. One pattern obvious to all is parent/child which leads to the speculation of the first parent. This in itself does not seem momentus enough. Although if confirmed by a communication from God would be.
i think rodrigo is winning this one for me…
my problem with evolution is the fossil record,
how come there isnt wall to wall half - man half something else all over the shop? i also read in "forbidden archaeology" i think it was called, by michael cremo?(sorry if the names not accurate), about various discoveries in coal mines in the us,(and elsewhere) of fossils which defy the evolution theory. eg;there was a 300million year old bee preserved in amber, and it was just the same as a modern bee,
there was also human skeletons which were the same as modern humans, and lots more.
how does an elbow or an eye gradually evolve?
either you got one or you dont.
Yes, play the martyr, that’s always an excellent debate tactic.
Arrogant?! So pointing out that you misunderstand a concept is arrogant, is it? Moreover, I have also taken strides to explain the concepts, rather than simply stating, “you’re wrong.” I honestly don’t know how to respond to such nonsense.
My WWII example was to illustrate one point and one point only: the “you can’t/didn’t see it, therefore it can’t/didn’t happen” argument is bullshit. Which is exactly what you were arguing with respect to, as you put it, “MACROevolution” - if we can’t observe it, it obviously can’t happen.
But, I will be honest; frankly, at this point, I have no idea what the hell you are arguing. I was pointing out that you were mistaken as to what macroevolution is, and how it operates. But then, I’m arrogant because I dared correct you, I guess. Put plainly, you hold to a caricatured version of macroevolution.
As for this:
Show me were I "imagined’ any such thing as you claim I have. I was addressing the comment you made with respect to the alledged biology-text diagrams. I said nothing whatsoever about you believing, or not believing, that the process occurred as those diagrams might indicate. I stated that those diagrams, if such exist (and I very strongly doubt they do. I DO suspect that such is another caricature on your part, especially given the nonsense “evolution party-line” comment), are false representations of the process, and stated one reason why it is false.
You seem to delight in finding insult where I have made none. Perhaps you also fail to realize that there are others reading these threads, and as such I make attempts – perhaps in vain, perhaps not – to explain my reasoning. If you want to interpret that as a slight to your intelligence, knock yourself out.
Yes, you’re very clever for catching that dreadful mistake. Since you are surely not a hypocrit, I shall assume that you have never made any mention about the sun rising (or setting, for that matter).
You see, Rodrigo, I am not alone in my assumption that you hold to such caricatured views. Otherwise, surely the creosote kid would have seen where you’ve CLEARLY stated that you do not believe evolution operates in such a manner as to produce “half - man half something else”.
tck, I have explained in part why that is a nonsense proposal in this thread and this one. Just what sort of “half - man half something else” are you expecting?
…chains, my baby’s got me locked up in chains, and they ain’t the kind, that you can see-e, oh oh, these chains are or lo-o-ove gotta hold on me, yeah.
Chains, well I can’t break away from these chains, got them all around…
…what ? I’m on the SDMB again? well, it doesn’t matter what I put, it’s not read…what, that baby’s pooped again? I’ll get the nappies.
When I mentioned that biology books have diagrams showing “amphibians becoming mammals” someone pointed out The evolutionary process is one of branching, not continual transformation. Amphibians did not “become” mammals, for example., call me crazy but saying “branching” would be usually considered to be a contrast to my implied “linear” or that I believed that amphibiams became mammals by magic.
Finch
…and now I’m a liar, of course aside from ignorant and deluded.
(I called you arrogant, so we’re even)
…one other thing, I’m not a martyr (I’m still alive), I am a Confessor
I’ll try ONE FINAL TIME to CLEARLY state my views on evolution.
a) God created everything.
b) Old Earth. By that I mean that the earth “started” around 4 500 million years ago.
c) Species can change, so that after some time species A can be said to have originated species B.
d)On a small-scale, mutations (and the environment and other chemical, biological, biochemical, thermodynamic and physical "forces) are the basis of some change. As an example ( which is not supposed to hold up in Doctoral dissertation dissertation only to show one of the many possibilities opened up) species F can have to sub-species F1 and F2; F1 live in a colder habitat than F2 and, not surpirsingly, due to the time that has passed since the original population was split, there are some anatomical differences between F1 and F2, most notably: longer hair and more sub-dermal fat.
e) I am not personally convinced, as of today, that these small changes can add up to produce considerable changes.
f) I’d love that there were more fossils.
g) Whatever turns up to be true, my religoius beliefs won’t be affected.
h) If you put a gun to my head I’d say I’m in the Intelligent design camp, but flirting with theistic evolution.
i) In MY OWN PERSONAL “book” evolution and Darwinism are not synonims, Darwinism is a form of evolution
j) Unigenism, i.e. ALL humans are descendend form an original pair (to whom God gave a soul). As to when this original pair lived, I havent’ got a clue.
Flash 57
I didn’t read your analogy until today. It’s a good analogy and it shows exactly my beef Darwinism.
If (and that’s a big “if”, I grant), you only showed me rocks, a pendulum and an axe, I wouldn’t believe you and that’s what I personally feels that’s what Darwinism is showing. Even if Darwinism is right (it may be) it is not logical (fro me, maybe not for others) to accept it without more evidence, I feel that there is a bit of connecting dots where there are many dots missing. It like Orion ( the constellation) it’s got 7 stars and 3 are the belt, so that’s 4 stars to make the rest of the guy, if you don’t know the guy, you’ll never see it.
I explained what I wrote already, I’m not going to explain myself again.
And, had you simply wrote that initially, I would have not have said a word. I have no issue whatsoever with your faith; it was your nonsensical statement “You should’ve started with a language and ended up with a hammer in order to show MACROevolution” that I objected to, and I stated why. Your understanding of macroevolution is flawed. Perhaps such accounts for your choice not to accept the evidence which points to large-scale changes being primarily the sum of small-scale changes, perhaps not.
And, if you wanna call me arrogant again, you go right on ahead. Just remember that you’re the one doing the calling. I have not called you anything resembling a liar, I have not called you deluded (that was your own damn word), and I have not even called you ignorant. Every one of those perceived insults was exactly that: perceived, by you.
I am bewildered by those who will “buy” microevolution, as they seem to define it, but necessarily rule out macroevolution. What’s the distinction? Isn’t a long series of “micro” type changes capable of producing an enormous change from start to finish–i.e., still an animal, but a substanitally different one?
Can someone clarify? I can’t see how someone can accept any form of evolution and conclude that means that enough of this type of evolution, over a long period of time, can’t possibly produce drastic changes. Why the hell wouldn’t it? What prevents it?