What's the point? Utterly boring. Didn't make me think about the issues at all. A silly strawman argument is subjected to a numbing explanation as to why it's a silly argument. Now think about it for the remaining 30 seconds. . . . . . . . . . . . Terrible video.
Well, it seems you two have completely missed the start. One theory to prove there was divine creation is to put all the pieces of a watch in a box and shake them long enough, then you should end up with a functioning watch. This simulation just shows that we can evolve from one life form to another, without divine intervention. But, you must first start with life.
Even if you believe in the Big Bang theory, you have to ask, "Who lit the fuse?" This simulation begs the question. Yes, we can evolve, but where did life start?
Well, no. It doesn't beg the question. It talks about the need for a creator, not the existence of a creator. For the existence, you need to rely on faith.
Evolution only suggests (not proves, but really, who can prove, one way or the other) that the need isn't there.
ID doesn't prove the existence of god any more than it disproves evolution.
redraxil: you are aware that "god" is reguarded as an omnipresent, omnipotent entity? That description alone nullifies your question.
wingryder: Membrane theory attempts at "scientifically" proving the big bang. However the question then arises, what created the membrane. One argument I've heard is that the dimension of time does not apply to the membrane, and therefore there is no beginning to the system. It still does not attempt in any way of proving it beyond the means of theoretical math and "guesstimation". But what this video is argueing is that evolution is only the theory of mutations which over time can create a new species. It is merely a theory of a system and not of how that system came about.
sorry that it isn't "entertaining" enough, but if a provocative video disproving a creationist straw man argument was ever presented in a 'cutesy' way on TV, the right-wing religious zealots would boycott every sponsor of that program. Best to get your food for thought online, no matter how "boring" it might be.
This was, sadly, a vacuous attempt at undermining a fairly good, albeit imperfect, analogy to intelligence. The strawman here is not accurately stated. The Blind Watchman analogy starts from the position that observable life appears to be created. (If you were to find a functioning watch, logic would compel you to believe it was made fromather parts by an intelligence that clearly had the watch, as an end product, in mind.) Life, by implication, appears to mirror this. It does not necessarily address Darwinian evolution, only the origin of life coming from a Creator and not a accidental random process, which is not science either.
A few points...watches have evolved as well. Yet, they are still watches. The selection forces guiding their evolution are economic and technological. Also, the biological molecules that the author of this video suggests have high affinities for each other, don't, until they are in life situations. In the lab and in strictly controlled and environmentally proportional cirumstances (NOT RANDOM) have life-like larger molecules ever been formed. Life only reproduces from life andthe randomness of these forces are reduced in each successive generation, not expanded. The above video is among the weakest attempts at decostruction of a pretty good Creator argument.
There is no point in arguing with creationist because their point of reference will always exist outside of what is currently well understood in the world. If we listened to these people we'd still believe that the earth was the center of this system and this system was center of the universe. If you want to see what religion over science does to a culture you only need to look at the middle east once a powerful and well educated part of the world. Now they have to fight for there very survival on their own land. That means even if they "win" they still have to pay to pick up the pieces. If the religous dominate education systems as they seek to do that will only weaken the minds and the future of the their culture. If you people think the bible is going to save you from cold hard reality just hope you aren't around long enough to see the dumbing down and marginalization of your country.
Guy makes a good argument, seems pretty well researched, however I won't lie... a little entertainment value might push it across the internet a bit more quickly... no use in making a good point if everyone is too bored to watch it to the end.
There's no further proof as to Glumbert going into the gutter than this video. I know! Put protein, lipids, carbohydrates, and other molecules into a bag and shake them up. Do they make life?
Here's the real truth. None of us know how we got onto this planet as of yet. NO one has the answer. Those atheists running around screaming are just as entertaining to watch as the rightwing Christians... think about that.
it's not so much how we got here to begin with, rather how we evolved to become what we are now. that's a big point of the video which he states repeatedly.
I stopped at "one of the most strongly supported theories in the history of science". If you want to believe in evolution that's fine but please treat it as what it is: a theory based on observation and supported by faith. Compare it to two theories that are strongly supported, gravity and plate tectonics, and you'll see what I mean.
You can use equations invented by Newton to predict the mass and distance of an object to another based on gravity and then measure the mass and distances and see if you were correct or not. More simply, you can pick something up and let it go and record what happens. These are supports for the theory of gravitation.
The theory of plate tectonics is supported by events at the margins of plates: there is a lot of activity there. More recently we've been able to measure the movement of the plates via GPS. Another strong support for a theory.
Evolution: paleontologists have found a wide variety of fossils and predict that ancient organisms evolved into that variety and subsequently into what we see today. One support for evolution is Archaeopteryx, an animal that looks like a dinosaur and a bird, which paleontologists believe is a "missing link" between the two types of animal. Unfortunately for science, we no longer have Archaeopteryx and if we did we would be unable to wait millions of years to see if one would evolve into a bird. This is where evolution and science don't see eye to eye.
There are fossils on the planet. There are also present-day organisms. What fits between them is evolution and it is entirely supported by what scientists believe happened. When science wants to explain something in the past it relies on the present and we just do not have observable data to support the theory of evolution.
Before it comes up, I am not claiming intelligent design to be science either; that is very much a religious belief, not a scientific theory. Evolution is also mostly a belief and certainly not "one of the most strongly supported theories in the history of science". Do not confuse scientific support for popular support.
See, the fossil record is the equivalent of a dropped stone. Things happen even if you don't see them. In fact, stones fall whether or not you're looking at them. Avoiding evidence isn't skepticism. The fossil record is there. What left it. The Flood? Staggered alien experiments?
Direct observation isn't the only reliable proof. It's a lousy argument for Christians to make, anyway. There are more written eyewitness reports of UFOs than there are of Jesus.
The fossils are there, and we all make the assumption that animals left them. This is a valid assumption as we can see animals die today and leave their remains behind. No one here is denying the overwhelming evidence for the existence of fossils.
No one has seen a certain type of animal evolve into another. We can breed our dogs to have certain qualities but so far this breeding has yet to produce something other than a dog. Evolutionism is a faith-based system in which a person looks at two fossils and assumes/guesses/believes that in the time between them something occured that we can not observe today.
Just let that sink in for a minute. It's going to feel strange at first when you realize that your science classes have taught you a belief system.
Secondly, who said anything about Christians? Let's stick to science.
There are quite a few examples of observed evolution. In antibiotic resistant germs and viruses for example where they evolve to better survive in their enviroement. So dont go around saying that you cant observe evolution.
Flax, that is microevolution and I'm not saying we cannot see that. In fact microevolution is what happens in the dog breeding example I gave above. What is taken on faith is that over long periods of time microevolution will lead to macroevolution. This is what cannot be observed.
Adon, forgive me for my ignorance of the processes of dog breeding, but I thought that it simply involved combining traits, not creating new ones. Creating new ones would require mutation, which is what happens with bacteria as flax mentioned. While the mutations indeed happen on a small scale, they do happen, and evolution does occur.
Well, no. It doesn't beg the question. It talks about the need for a creator, not the existence of a creator. For the existence, you need to rely on faith.
Evolution only suggests (not proves, but really, who can prove, one way or the other) that the need isn't there.
ID doesn't prove the existence of god any more than it disproves evolution.
Anyway, to stir up the americans... er... christians...
Evolution happens over generations. To record the traits of one generation and compare them to the next is a) going to show no reliable trend whatsoever and b) going to show such minute mutations that there won't be much to look at and c) going to be a complete waste of time as it alone would not add anything to the evolution debate that's going on over there in the backwards country some call the USA (it's pretty much finished elsewhere).
To get some results worth looking at you're going to have to span thousands of generations worth of offspring. I'm fairly certain you're not going to live long enough to see these results for a cat or dog or cow or another "traditional" animal that the average yank would look at and say "hay dat cow iz still a cow lol evolushun". However, as has already been posted, mutation is observable, and evolution itself has been observed in creatures with extremely fast reproduction rates... ie, bacteria.
Sorry for all the anti-america stuff but you guys floor me on a daily basis.
Bacteria reproduce rapidly and mutate into different forms of...bacteria. Yours is another classic straw man argument. One person will say that one kind of animal will not evolve into another and you reply with, "How dare you argue evolution when we can observe it in bacteria?". There is a big difference between micro- and macroevolution; one which many "evolutionists" fail to recognize.
Again, if you choose to believe that observing microevolution in bacteria is proof for macroevolution that's fine. Just try not to insult other people that do not share in your faith. It makes you look like a fanatic.
If you make the definition of macroevolution broad enough then sure you can make your statement correct. This website defines macroevolution as evolution occuring at or above the species level. Since we can observe evolution at the species level, that confirms macroevolution. Since macroevolution is confirmed and is defined as the above, then evolution therefore occurs above the species level. This is not necessarily correct.
Maybe dinosaurs evolved into birds. Maybe they didn't. I'm not claiming that I know, I'm only claiming that you don't either. Science CAN NOT tell us what happened to the offspring of any given fossil. It just doesn't work that way.
My point was always that evolution is not "one of the most strongly supported theories in the history of science" as this video suggests. It is, however, one of the most strongly supported theories in the history of scientists. Unfortunately scientists aren't always right and blindly believing them won't make you right either.
DuckInferno - Don't be sorry. (Sorry for all the anti-America stuff but you guys floor me on a daily basis.)
Your point is well taken. I am here (USA), and I don't know what to make of all this Religious nonsense either. I expect Witch hunting to begin any day now.
Evolution is not a theory supported by faith. Its a theory supported by the vast majority of observation in archeology, genetics, and biology (among many other areas of study). It is NOT a seriously contested subject outside of the politcal sphere. Predictions it makes in all relevant scientific areas have come true.
1. When you begin to discuss what has occured in the past, before human observation was possible, then you leave the realm of science. We cannot apply the scientific method to the past. All you can do is have faith that what you believe occured actually did occur.
2. The earth being the center of the universe was also not seriously contested until it was proven false. That is not a good argument.
3. I'd be interested in hearing what predictions evolution has made that have come true.
So, Adon, you're essentially arguing that we can't know anything. That's a kind of nihlism, a contrarian philosophy. If we can't directly watch an Archaopteryx (sp?) evolve into a bird, then we don't know that dinosaurs evolved from birds, or therefore that evolution happens at all?
You can't prove it, so it didn't happen?
Well, hell, you can't observe gravity. The only thing you I see is a rock passing me on the way to the floor. There is no gravity, the earth sucks! There is no history: only faith in the existence of your progenitors.
Referencing christianity in an ID thread isn't off topic.
I have no problem with the idea that evolution may be the big lie of science. Well, I do. But if something more compelling than contrarian skepticism came along, I'd be interested to see it.
What there isn't, however, is a useful alternate theory. Why bother to argue causation when you don't have a clue and the other guy has a bag full of evidence?
What I'm essentially arguing is that evolution is not "one of the most strongly supported theories in the history of science". I said at the very beginning that all I want is for people to treat evolution for what it is and that is a belief system. Just to see where I'm coming from here, I am a scientist; I majored in geology at university so I have plenty of background in evolution. I do not opposed evolution for any religious reason but simply because so many people take it as truth without ever asking why.
It would be like if a historian wrote a history book that was largely fiction. There are some real events but what is between them is just made up. Would you want to read it? More importantly would you believe it as truth? The scientific community seems to work that way.
Take a puzzle with 1,000,000 pieces. Shake it up and dump it on the floor. Do this until all the pieces fall into place. Oh, and hold your breath until this happens.
I also want to point out that religion is a theory. Evolution is a theory. If you believe in evolution then that is by definition your set of beliefs and therefore your religion. And who says scientists aren't religious. lol
That is an exceptionally ignorant way of looking at science. Religion is all about believing something based on nothing. Science is all about believing something based on evidence, logic, reasoning, etcetera. You're being thrown off by the "believing" part. Perhaps a better term would be "rational asumption". Unless you want to call my believing that the sun will rise tomorrow religious.
In common speech, a theory is simply a guess, an educated guess at best. In science, a theory is a strongly supported set of statements that describe and make predictions about the world. Therefore, when people say, "the Theory of Evolution", they are not saying it is a guess or hypothesis.
Evolution is a theory in the same sense that gravity is a theory. Religion is a theory in the sense that "the moon is made of green cheese" is a theory.
I agree with duckinferno, "rational asumption" is the most clarifying lable anyone can put on scientific analisis. However, the reason that evolution in its rational asumptions is more logical than ID's rational asumptions is that evolution has clearly definable proof.
Most people disregard evolution because of the lack of "Missing links". We dont have a clear transition between one organisim and another, but thats another misconception. The most recent theories of evolution suggest that it occours quickly over the course of thousands as opposed to hundreds of thousands of years. Its punctual evolution, mandated by a mutation or environmental anomaly. The theory of punctuated evolution accounts for the lack of fossil evidence and is even represented in the graphs of watch evolution. Evolution is not a gentle slope, its a rollercoaster.
As to why I prefer it: evidence, even vauge evidence, is better than impulsive asumption.
btw, im in 9th grade, allow me my spelling/grammatical errors
There does seem to be a lot of confusion involving "believing" in terms of evolution vs. intelligent design. Well, first off, I agree. However, if you say all science is, is a huge belief system, then since most basis of our life if you look around involves some sort of this "belief system", you would end up with a theory (aka a belief) that defines absolutely everything as a belief. It's like the brain in a vat issue: I believe I exist- but do I really? So if it's all based on beliefs, and that's what you're defining religion to be in the first place- don't you end up with everything being a religion? Which, as others have stated, can't be the case because of the power of observation and indirect evidence. We see the apple fall toward the earth, we see fossils, we see patterns in magnetic rock, etc... as small as those things are, they are a sort of "proof" of something in that general direction and so it cannot be discarted simply because it cannot be completely proved, either. So if you want to argue about whether one is right over the other (evolution ID), you need to figure out first whether you could ever know whether either is right or not. And in order to proceed from there, you would have to- brace yourselves- believe it.
You can see, I think, from these debates, why the idea of evolution vs. creation is so hotly debated "...over there in the backwards country some call the USA". But I am a trained molecular biologist and have actually CREATED transgenic organisms ranging from bacteria to mice. And the impossibility of randomness, after spending YEARS manipulating genomes, had slowly cemented itself over those years. Even my fellow geneticists, with whom I have spoken with and debated these issues, are hard pressed to concede that evolution is, as any other religion is, a belief. I am not going to go into the specifics of the arguments, to do so would be boring and require a profound understanding of genetic mechanisms, but the gist is this: Adaptation (microevolution) is the changing of the level of expression of existing genes. Making legs longer, hair darker, tails smaller, teeth harder, etc. Evolution (macroevolution) is the acquisition of novel genes... genes that have never before existed; an arm into a wing, an eye-spot into an eye, scales into hair, etc. And this is the problem. I have done the calculations myself, supported by DIRECT OBSERVATION, and under the control of intelligence (i.e. a scientist in the lab physically screening every, single offspring for reporter genes and killing all offspring who do not have the reporter - there is no natural system that is that stringent and directed). And even under these conditions, the chances of a fully-formed, fully functioning, novel gene being incorporated into a genome, that does not kill or severly mutate the stem cell, is in the 1:10,000 range. Introducing a new gene is like throwing bolts into a car engine. Or like tossing in a mathematical permutation in the middle of a huge formula. The system does not care for it. The chance of that gene, once incorporated, forming a healthy offspring is in the 1:100 range. The chances of that gene being passed over several generations and still being turned on, is around 1:100 as well. These are all due to the mechanisms of genetics. No philosophy, no climatic shifts, no bibles, no 'indirect evidence'. This is simply the work that a scientists has to endure to create a transgenic organism and why a single 'designer' lab mouse can be worth $50,000. NOW throw in the stats on a new gene being formed with with a new function - even from a copy of a different gene (so-called 'jumping genes'), and the probablity goes into exponants of 10. And then throw in the complexity of mating behavior (a mouse will not shag another mouse with three eyes, no matter how benificial to the population. Just as a pendulum will not shag another pendulum with a huge gear growing out of his back) and the chances become astronomical. This is why, no matter the number of generations, no matter how many point mutations, a bacteria will remain a bacteria and why, over years of breeding, a dog is still a dog. There can be variation of existing genes, but a new gene with a new function, approaches the impossible. Macroevolition, and, by extension, evolution, would take billions of generations and, if you do the math, you will realize that the universe is not old enough to create a mouse. And, just as a note regarding evolution as "one of the most strongly supported theories in the history of science" - I find it interesting that it cannot be observed, cannot be predicted, cannot be reproduced, and the mechanisms cannot be described. So I have to agree that it is simply "one of the most POPULAR theories in the history of science". The 'mysterious force' that overcomes logic, for Judeo-christians, is God. The 'mysterious force' that overcomes logic for scientists is called 'evolution'. Now you can beat each other with your books - bible or text. Whether it be from evolution or creation, I Loooove weed and am now going to smoke some. (yes, scientists smoke weed) :-)
refering to noumea's point-by the way you totally rock- but i just want to clarify a couple of things she said so people don't leave this site misinformed. Evolution is a synthesis of Darwin's theory of gradualism and eldredge's theory of punctuated eqilibrium. that is, changes DO happen over long periods of time, but we don't find evidence in fossil record because the gene flow between populations reduces visable differences. evolution is more visable when species dverge into separate populations so you can have something nearby to compare it to.
and i'm in 9th grade to. whoever wrote this article was probably a smartass college student with a huge ego and too much time on his hands.
and refering to the awsome pothead genetisist above i agree thatevolution is a belief, as it is based on postulates. in that manner of speech, however, fact is just beliefs based on other beliefs that are widely accepted. a common misconception is that intellegent design is always based on religion, when in fact it is often just an admittance that we DON'T know how things got to be the way they are, and they do not want to postulate and accept a theory when they are not sure (which no-one can be) so they temporarily attribute it to some unknown phenomenon until convincing evidence comes aroud and proves them otherwise. wow that was a long sentence.
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