Why, oh why, does the origin of the unviverse crop up in every singe evolution debate?
they are two completely seperate theories from two completely different areas of science which have nothing in common with each other than the fact that they make fundamentalists uncomfortable.
One is about big exploding chunks of fiery gas (think mexican food), the other is about small, non-exploding chunks of slimy slime (think student food).
How in the world can they be construed as one theory?
I agree whole-heartedly. However, I was once Christian too and found it very uncomfortable to think of evolution as a possibility. At the time, for me, I also thought the theory of evolution was an attack on my religion and creator. So I understand why it is brought up… what? No creator? Nobody gives a shit about me!!! Who can I push my problems onto now?
They just want you to fill in the blanks, just like I did. Blanks like when I found my parents putting presents under the Christmas Tree in the middle of the night, not Santa Claus… or when I found them hiding candy in the yard, not the Easter Bunny.
You’re right though, I don’t believe I have ever had a discussion on evolution where the “big bang” didn’t also come into question.
Well, you have to remember that you are dealing with people who actually believe that there is a scientific basis to Creationism. In other words, their actual grasp of genuine science may have been compromised.
However, from their perspective, they have a point. Their logic is one of origins and causes as found in the Metaphysics of Aristotle and, later, the Scholastics. Everything must have a cause or origin. They know, intuitively, that evilution is wrong, so they look for its first event–and get back to abiogenesis (which, as everyone knows, Loius Pasteur “disproved” in the nineteenth century). And, while “we’re on the subject,” where did everything else come from? If they can get an admission that God was the origin of the Whole Universe (and let’s not hear any nonsense about Stephen Hawking and his singularities), then they can posit that God probably made critters, and if you’ve conceded that God might have done that, what is to prevent God from having populated the world with species that happen to resemble each other?
Their point is that, regardless what tedious facts you may throw out regarding homology and fossil records and DNA and all the rest, your basic argument is flawed because you are missing the Big Picture, in which everything had to come from somewhere and that source is God.
Look at it this way, probably 60% of the population doesn’t know what a cell really is. They don’t understand how DNA works, hell they probably believe the crap most modern periodicals say about DNA.
I"m still laughing about an article in Redbook we talked about in the oncogenetics class I took: It showed similar basepairs pairing up in ds DNA.
Fundamentalists lump them together because in Fundamental ‘theory’ they are together - universal creation and life creation are a single unified event. If you look at it from their point of view, they do belong together, so it’s natural that the scientific explanations should be together.
I don’t know if I’m just restating what tomndeb said…I think I at least added a tiny shred here.
Hmmm…That’s interesting. I’d still say that the two are different, one being cosmological (Is that the right term) evolution and the other being biological evolution. One deals with life and the other does not.
I was just thinking about this and one of the most often rebuttals that I’ve heard (over and over again) is the “it’s just a theory” sound bite.
This annoys me because it’s followed up with “if they were so sure it would be a LAW”. Which isn’t true at all. My question is, their is an apparant interest in some science, but why not the proper science?
I’m a Christian and don’t consider it a violation of my faith to believe in either. God created the things that caused the Big Bang and/or the process of evolution. That’s what I think. I never understood how those theories conflicted with Christianity, other than the belief that the earth was created in 7 days and that was done about 10,000 years ago. Only a small minority of Christians believe that.
I’ve never given it very much thought because I figure I’ll find out soon enough.
The reason i think they come up together is from the scientific standpoint, they are two different things, but from the creationist argument, to argue one you must argue both.
If someone were to say to me, “Do you really believe we evolved from apes?” I’d say, “No, we are apes.”
Semantically, yes. It is an evolutionary theory because it literally explains how the universe evolved. It still has nothing to do with Darwin’s Theory of Evolution.
Got me. How about if I argue the broader point that the driving principle - survival of the fittest - could explain how a molecule that already tends to replicate itself, would make copies of itself, and the ones that did it better led to protolife, which led to life?
Actually (and this is one of my own pet peeves) evolution is not technically the theory. Evolution is the observation explained by Darwin’s theory of natural selection.
Even many of the most ardent proponents of creationism recognize that change can happen, and that is all evolution really is.
Evolution implies a sort of forward progress of organisms to become more ‘fit’.
The big bang theory is an attempt to explain how matter was first generated in our universe. Then using that theory we have physics that describe mechanisms which allow for creation of stars, planets and the formation of solar systems. Regardless, the universe as such does not evolve. It is not undergoing a chance in structure/form/fitness that gives it any advantage.
Ok, look INANIMATE OBJECTS CAN"T EVOLVE! There is no survival pressure on a freaking rock! The rock either exists or does not exist. It cannot pass on genetic material to it’s baby rocks so subsequent generations can benifit from any/all mutations that occured during the rock’s life.
IF rocks suddenly start growing and reproducing offspring that are in turn able to reproduce THEN they can evolve all they damn well want!
I was watching the PBS series Evolution and a scientist refered to the big bang and its consequences as evolution. I was pretty put off by that. There’s no natural selection in astronomy. I agree with the OP.
Whenever this is said to me (not often these days, because I refuse talk to my born-again family members about this subject) the people in question mean chimpanzees. I know and you know that chimpanzees aren’t even monkeys, but the all seem to think the evolutionist believe it went from gibbons, to gorillas, to chimpanzees to human. Or some equally silly line of ascent.
I share the OP’s exasperation. I also agree with Slip. I live in south Louisiana and most of acquaintances know that my graduage training was in Physical Anthropology (“AlasYorick” = skull; get it? :D). This is pretty much like painting a target on my forehead: “How can you believe that evolution crap?” Needless to say, I’ve had a lot of practice dealing with "creation science, "an oxymoron if there ever was one (and probably best dealt with in another thread?).
“Evolution” is merely another word for change over time, whether it describes worlds, species, programming languages, whatever. However, the word has come to be associated specifically with the evolution of the human species.
As an aside, I’ve found that the meaning of the word “theory” and the works of Darwin are probably the most misunderstood concepts around today. As someone raised as a fundamentalist Baptist, I can sympathize with Christians who can’t understand why anyone could buy the theory of human evolution; after all, all the Chick mags that I read did indeed say that evolution means your grandfather was literally a monkey.
Evolution doesn’t mean change over time. It’s a change over time in which there are increases complexity or fitness or further development.
Wouldn’t the formation of stars/planets and the removal of matter via blackholes mean that the universe becoming LESS complex as a whole? Big Bang = highly complex vs slowly expanding/cooling universe?
Arrg I don’t know, I never did pay too much attention in phsysics classes. I never really cared too much about the finer points of astrophsyics or quantum mechanics
This is assuming that gasses have a higher complexity than solid state objects.