Evolution or Creation

One poin is that Humans share at least 50% of their DNA with every other living thing thus proving a genetic lineage. We share over 98% of our genes with Chimpanzees. The fossile record proved there were many lieanges of humans before Homo Sapiens. The fossile recods prove there was simnple life 5 billion years ago. Shall I go no? There is not a shred of evidence for creationism.

You might want to mention that one of these theories is based on science, and the other is based on religion, which are quite different methods of reaching conclusions.

Yes, the very first thing you might want to make clear is that Evolution and Creation are based on different methods of validation.

Within the realm of science, there is absolutely no doubt that Evoltion occured and is occuring. It is only when you include other epistemological stances, that there can be any debate over the fact of evolution.

When the letter i is by it's self it should be capitalized = I "If he where" should be If He were.
Some modern ET = extraterestrial believers think imperfect ET created humans instead of God and are still meddling in human genetics.
Assuming God had knowledge of modern science and more, He does not need a physical body to create the Earth and Universe, however, Mormons = The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and I think The Church of Christ believe God does have a body of flesh and bones. Mormons also believe that God speaks though a prophet today = Gordon B. Hinkly so that solves another objection. Neil

So God is just a regular guy like the rest of us? How does he stay so fit and active in his later years? I'm 44 and already starting to slow down a bit. God must be at least 20 billion years old and not a gray hair on him!

You should probably say fundamentalist Christian instead of liberal as liberal politics is very anti-Christian in the USA.
God did not tell us how he stays fit for 20 plus billion years, But the God hypothesis is useful even if there are many missing answers. Neil

My problem with evolutionism and Neo-evolutionism is that it relies on too many assumptions. OK, so man and Chimpanzees and Gorillas and other apes are related because they came from a Common Ancestor. OK so far. So where did the Common Ancestor come from? This can continue on until eventually evolutionists insist that life started in the sea by single-celled creatures.

So where did these single-celled creatures come from?? "Lightning strikes in Earth's ancient atmosphere, which created a primordial soup in the water from which the first life came." This has only been shown to form a few amino acids, not long strands of RNA as would be required in even the simplest life. And in this primordial soup, the primary reaction would be Hydrolysis of these lengthy chains instead of their further construction. And assuming that all the structures and microorgans of the simplest single-celled creature came about, how would it survive? Would would it use to nourish itself? Would it be able to reproduce (even this is a very complicated process)?

It boggles my mind how such things can spontaneously form from the atmosphere, and then proceed to "evolve" into other creatures. Why don't we see such things happening now? Survival of the Fittest may be a legitimate theory, as are the rest of Darwin's theories...but his inferences are what I have questions about. The ultimate assumption is of spontaneous generation, which I find harder to believe than religion.

Here's how it happened. Energy discharges of various sorts in the primordial oceans sometimes resulted in more complex organic molecules. All sorts of chemical reactions occurred continuously throughout the Earth's oceans until, after hundreds of millions of years, a molecule was formed which could replicate itself. As time passed, more and more replicas existed. As these molecules continued to replicate themselves, occasionally errors occurred in the replication. The errors were almost always fatal, or harmful, but were very occasionally helpful. With this replication occurring throught the oceans, under the guidance of natural selection and eventually competition between the molecules/cells, the descendants gradually became better adapted to their environment and more able to compete and survive. Generally, this involved movement towards greater complexity. The same process could occur today, but such prototypes of life are not well able to compete with the life which is here now, and tend to die out, so that a completely new line of evolution does not arise.

Evolution is also, of course, responsible for the way that bacteria and viruses acquire resistance to drugs and treatment methods.

Evolution and creationism are two different ways of looking at the problem, but they don't necessarily have to be in conflict so long as we agree that the first is an objective viewpoint and the second subjective. In this way we can have the best of both worlds. There is beauty in myth as there is in science.

There are also two ways to take myths, e.g., Adam and Eve: literally and metaphorically. If we're emmeshed in your own religious myth, we tend to take them literally; however, we can examine the myths of other cultures and understand them metaphorically, as one would a poem.

Thus, with a bit of an open mind we can admit that if other's myths can be taken metaphorically, then so can ours. This frees us from the addiction of literalism and allows us to view the world from two points of view without conflict: the objective scientific view, and the subjective poetic and metaphorically spiritual view.

Bear in mind that if every culture and religion insisted that their myths be taken literally, there would be no end to conflict and war. However, if we see that all the myths are just slightly different versions of the same theme, i.e., the human condition, then we can get along and use science to figure out ways to improve one person's life without sacrificing the other person's.

On the other hand, an explanation of the universe arrived at by non-scientific means can often be merely wrong.

Then there's also this thing called deism (from Latin, deus for god). I think it means that there is a creator of some sort who creates the universe and its laws, but does not interfere. I also think I read that source from one of Einstein's or Hawking's writings. Evolution is built upon logic and observations. It offers explanations, but it's not set in solid stone; it's not conclusive. Creationism, on the other hand, offers no explanations or observations; just text references (ie, the bible). Those who accept Creationism do not question its possibility and just agree that it is true. There's a lot of information on this sort of thing at http://www.stardestroyer.net/Creationism/
It clears up a few things.

Your essay
real_deal_paji,
You have picked a very interesting topic! You have probably finished it and submitted it by now. I just want to say how perceptive you are when you suggest that the evolution vs. creation debate leads toward the question of whether or not there is a God who created everything that exists. That is also an incredibly important question. I read many people who say that evolution is objective and creationism is subjective. I challenge you to investigate whether that is really true. It is not possible for both theories to be true - they are mutually exclusive. I have spent the last 20 years of my life studying that question and have come to the conclusion that it takes more faith to believe in evolution than it does to believe in creation. I have also, after much study and thought, realized that God is not hiding; He DOES reveal Himself to us and His creation is one of the ways He does that!! Read authors from BOTH sides of the debate! I hear that faith is needed to believe in creation since it is so subjective, but there is a lot of faith required to believe in evolution too. Science is objective. It is based on using the Scientific Method to prove whether or not something is true. The Scientific Method is based on observability and repeatability. Evolution cannot be observed or repeated, so it must be taken on faith. No one has been able to prove that life, with its inherent design and complexity, just sprang forth from random chance in total defiance of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, commonly known as the Law of Entropy, which says that, left to itself, all matter becomes more random and less organized over time. Evolution requires the opposite - randomness becoming complex by chance!!! Think about it, a universal law of science would have to be false in order for evolution to be true! How objective is that? I agree with you that this is perhaps the most important question in the universe! If the question is THAT important, wouldn't it be right to study both sides of the debate, and to read the books of highly qualified authors from both camps? This is not a question that we should just guess about, which is why I spent so many years learning about it (and I continue to do so), and I hope you will too, even though your essay is already probably finished!

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A few things:

I've never seen anyone write a scientific report proving creationism. Evolution can be observed; in fact, it's happening. Scientists can test evolution on a smaller scale. The fossil record is consistent and shows that evolution is possible. Of course, gaps in the fossil record are there because not all fossils will be preserved. If god is not hiding, why can no one clearly explain to me what he looks like? He can't be many organisms--he's only one god; that's why Christianity is termed monotheism. Even if he does reveal himself through "his creations", how am I going to believe that those are "his creations"? Doesn't that require faith? Life may have developed from random chance. Few people also seem to realize that a cell didn't become a particular cell. First, organic chemicals formed proteins necessary for cells. The proteins could have formed the cells in many different ways, but it doesn't necessarily mean that only one combination of proteins will result in a functional cell. In fact, there are many combinations of proteins that will form a variety of functional cells. That's why there are animal cells, plant cells with cell walls, and fungus cells. How else did you think we have as many different species in the world as today? I would read books on both sides, but I don't know what you mean by "highly qualified authors". Do you mean people who know how evolution works, or do you mean people that know the bible inside and out, and think they know what evolution is, yet they don't really understand it? If the latter people are attacking evolution, when they don't understand it themselves, I don't see how their ideas can be plausible.

Belief in evolution is based on numerous observations as well as common sense. First of all, the entire theory can be summed up in the following two ideas:

1. In large populations, statistically, those creatures whose characteristics render them best able to survive, tend to survive more often. Hence, over generations, anti-survival traits tend to be expunged from the population, and helpful traits come to dominate the gene pool.
2. From time to time, accident introduces a new trait into the gene pool. Such accidents usually result in harmful traits, but very occasionally in a useful trait.

That, basically, is the whole theory of evolution, and all other ideas in the theory are derived from that.

We see this happening before our eyes in certain species which have very short generations. An example would be viruses and bacteria which eventually become immune to medicines. That is an example of evolution in action.

Other evidence includes fossil records which often show gradual changes occurring in a species over time, usually directed towards greater sophistication, e.g. greater speed, strength, dexterity, etc.

People who say that evolution depends on faith are usually people who have not bothered to understand it, or people whose religions will not permit them to accept it no matter what evidence is presented.

real_deal_paji, welcome to A2K.

We know with certainty that life evolved on Earth over the last 3.5 billion years. We do not know with certainty that no god was involved in the process, although it is highly unlikely unless that god was either cruel and malicious, or incompetent.

It amazes me that some people still believe in the Judeo-Christian creation myth, but I suppose that a good story, however fanciful, is more appealing than cold, hard scientific facts.

Jean Baptiste Lamarck thought that acquired traits could be inherited, for instance a giraffe's neck would grow longer with repeated stretching to forage in tall trees, and its offspring would also have longer necks. Darwin's theory says that giraffes, like people, vary in size, and those animals with genes that produced longer necks got more to eat so they had more surviving offspring which propagated the genes for longer necks. (Darwin did not know about DNA, but knew that there was some mechanism for inheriting traits.) Lamarckian theory proved to be incorrect.

samosa, amino acids naturally form into chains and did not have to form any one particular sequence. (there are thousands of ways to make a functioning hemoglobin protein, for instance)

We do not know whether life originally evolved in pools of primordial soup, hydrothermal vents, or space, but new life does not evolve today because there is too much competition for resources. Rudimentary life forms would be eaten before they had a chance to evolve into anything.

Berean, it takes no faith whatsoever to learn science and evaluate scientific facts for yourself. Contrary to the lies told by some religious sects, evolution has indeed been observed, both in the lab and in the field.

Evolution does not violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics. All chemical processes, including DNA replication and change, result in an increase in total entropy in the universe. There is no law that says "order" can't increase, otherwise snowflakes could never form from random molecules of water vapor.

If this question is so important, why do you suppose that God does not come forward and tell everyone in the world, once and for all, that he created everything - including the birth defects, diseases and parasites that plague all species of life and cause so much needless suffering.

Lucifer, how do you "know" that God is not a group of organisms rather than a single entity? Otherwise, I second everything you said.