What is Evolution? - A Primer

I've never really encountered a real argument from fundies about vestigality, most just try to ignore it from what i can tell....

i think a real good example of vestigality in humans is the tail-bone and Plica semilunaris (3rd eyelid)

In other words, you're a shameless fundie-baiter, so to speak.

And the Water Cooler would be best, since this is really neither religion nor philosophy. You could have justified it if you used it in the context of refuting intelligent design.

I would disagree with you there.

The whole ethos of religion is that a supernatural being created all and everything. In that you have what we all have come to know as ID Intelligent Design and the Creationism theory.

In order for the bible to be infallable, Creationism must be proved beyond reasonable doubt. As yet there has not been a single piece of evidence that i have seen which proves this.

Now in order to debunk the idea that we were all created by a supernatural being in the sky Sabz has posted this in the most relevant section there is.

Creationism and Evolution are at WAR, make no mistake evangelical religious fundies are trying to influence the American government to stop teaching evolution and focus entirely on creationism.

The points Sabz makes are eloquently made and backed up by irrefutable evidence IMO. I am an ardent believer in Evolution and I have learnt a hell of alot from Sabz.

This is the correct and only place to discuss this, the religous community have put Darwin and the Origin of the Species as their Public Enemy No.1 it is only correct that it is debated where all the fundies who try (and fail) to label Evolution as non-starter can see it in all its glory

sorry if i seem to be picky, but calling creationism a theory is not accurate by the least, by scientific standards creationism is still a hypothesis at best.

It has to get points for being around thousands of years longer than evolution.

It has to get points for being around thousands of years longer than evolution.

no it doesn't.

age doesn't = credability....the belief that the sun revolves around the earth is much older than the modern belief, but it isn't anymore credible.

By your own definition, creationism is a hypothesis. It's been around since probably some caveman came up with it. It's been adopted by pretty much every culture at some point, in some way. Quasi-scientific and simply logical arguments have indeed been given for it. No one has come up with a better, more likely alternative, simply 1,000,000,000,000 to 1 remote, obscure possibilities, that may or may not have happened.

If your goal is to disprove it, remember, one counterexample to prove a conjecture false, and you haven't disproven it or even come up with a viable alternative, what does that say about you?

By your own definition, creationism is a hypothesis. It's been around since probably some caveman came up with it. It's been adopted by pretty much every culture at some point, in some way. Quasi-scientific and simply logical arguments have indeed been given for it. No one has come up with a better, more likely alternative, simply 1,000,000,000,000 to 1 remote, obscure possibilities, that may or may not have happened.

If your goal is to disprove it, remember, one counterexample to prove a conjecture false, and you haven't disproven it or even come up with a viable alternative, what does that say about you?

if indeed the universe is infinite then the odds that life would occur is more like 1:1

I may be wrong, but last I heard was that there was no clear answer to the creation of life from science. I'm sure that the universe is not infinite. Take the number of planets that are even remotely hospitable to life. Optimistically, based on our own solar system, I guess I'd say that's maybe 10%. Then take the possibility of whatever highly specific events are needed to create life through nature. Much lower, if not totally unrealistic.

If you cannot show direct evidence of this being, then you cannot attribute certain events to this being. This is totally overlooked by the creationist simply because in his mind, the default answer to "Does God exist?" is yes, even though he/she does not possess, nor is able to supply, even one piece of evidence for this being.

Out of proportion statistics are not evidence for God. You could say that life arising by what scientists believe is a one in a quadrillion chance, and that would be completely irrelevant because no matter how far the "probability", we are here. We won that bet and we exist now. Statistics and probabilities like this are also almost solely based on totally linear mathematics, such as the whole "We can trace the lineage of the Bible back and get 6000 years! We can take the Flood survivors and make six billion people!" schpeel, which factors in NOTHING except geometric population expansion.

Our own solar system? Are you ***ing kidding me?!?!

Do you have any clue how many Solar systems there are in the universe?

if indeed you're right and there is a 10% chance that life could happen in our solar system times that number by the number of solar systems, and then times that by the age of the universe, it would probably be something like 1000000000000000000000000000000000000%

here's a little equation for you


Possiblity of life in a solar system x Number of solar systems x Age of universe = Possibility of life

There are totally unexplainable incidents that occur quite widely, definitely too much to be ignored, commonly known as 'miracles' among the religious. They would see this as proof that a supernatural force must exist to explain such abnormal events.

They do not prove God, they simply prove that it is highly unlikely and perhaps totally unrealistic for some obscure processes to happen, and just as if not more unlikely for said processes to result in life.

This results in doubt, and that results in looking for other answers. That's where creationism comes in.

So we can't shove proof under your nose. You believe in dark matter? Proof, if yes. Proof can't always be obtained, sometimes by very definition of the hypothesis. But my own logic tells me that Creationism is more likely. Maybe you're different.

Thats called an argument from ignorance

meaning that becuase you don't know then it must be X

it is a greatly flawed argument
goes along these lines

1) X happens
2) I don't know what caused X to happen
3) therfore god caused X

what is the possiblity that a coin i drop from the empire state building will fall in a cup on the street? Probably not very god. What is the possiblity if i do the same but there is 10 cups or 20 cups or 1000 cups? What if i drop a coin every 3 seconds for eternity, then what is the possiblity?

Oh so because you don't know what caused something you will believe the first possibilty? That is very poor logic

becuase you think the universe needed to be created therfore god (yahweh/jehovah) father of jesus the warthful god of the jews must have been the creator? I'm wondering how you made this connection.

1) this needs a creator
2) therfore the creator must have been that

do you see the folly of this logic

I did not say it was god, I said it was supernatural. I choose to go with God because I like him best. Also. what if they were in obvious connection with God, as many modern miracles are?

First of all, it is almost surely less than the one cup. You do not get eternity. The cup has to not be present at all most of the time. It is very unlikely in any limited space like the universe, large as it is.

You get to choose your favorite possibility. Because I believe 'miracles' are caused by a supernatural force who I believe is God, I believe it is entirely possible that God created life. Somewhat of a stretch by scientific standards, but it implicates faith because proof is not a likelihood.

It's not necessarily him, I'm just arguing for creationism, I could be a Hindu for all I've said before this post. I choose God because of the miracle thing again.

The universe has nearly an infinite amount of time to have just the right conditions for life, and a vastly huge number of planets to get it right on.

You can believe what ever you want i'm just letting you know that creationism is not a logical stance.

What of miracles? Mircales are no more evidence for god than sightings are evidence for leprechauns! Miracles are not testable, they are based solely on personal perception and are vulnerable to revision and afterthought, all miracles can be explained logically.

Subtract those without the right resources, then those without hospitable conditions. Relatively few. Many years is not infinite time. Factor in the possibility that life would evolve to the point of complexity it is currently at. It is not even sure if life can actually spontaneously form. Speculation.

Neither is the scientific explanation. With relatively no proof and less consensus on the issue, I'd rather go with Creationism. You seem to cling to the scientific explanations because, well, it's science and there'll be enough proof of whatever eventually.

Then do it. Explain the tens of thousands of miracles logically. Explain how the hundreds of thousands of eyewitnesses got it wrong. Explain the conspiracy so there is no doubt that miracles have never happened, or find someone who has.

the hospitbale planets are included in the probablility of life, if you only included hospitible planet the probability would be much much higher. nevertheless it is not clear howold or even if the universe is of infinite age as some scientists speculate. So if the universe was infinite in age then even the tiniest microscopic chance of life would become certainty.

mysticism has proven itself to wrong over and over again and does not correct it mistakes, unlike science which is always refining itself and has a much greater success rate when it comes to explaining natural phenomena. Creationism still has NO EVIDENCE so why would you believe it over theories that do have evidence? tradition perhaps?

It would have to be on case by case basis. But yeah whenever you are talking about witnesses and personal rhetoric there really isn't much credability there, especially since it is a known fact that different people may explain the same events! Have you ever heard of the GOD MACHINE? It is a machine that scientificlly creates "religious experiences" whithin the mind of the test subject, the same thing is done to all subjects yet all of them explain the experience based on their own culture or beliefs.

Obviously. But how can it be infinite in age when we know it stops going at the current time. Don't you need two directions to make a line?

These theories have no conclusive evidence. It is not known if life can really form out of nothing, with no initial force. So I prefer God. And if there ever is proof, I'll still prefer God, because, like it or not, Christianity has been the driving factor behind Western civilization.

No credibility in hundreds of thousands of witnesses, even, in some cases, hard scientific data? Tell that to the US Justice System!