What would be enough proof for a creationist?

Cool, thanks for the clarification. This puts you in the theistic evolution camp and I see no inherent contradiction there. Even if abiogenesis is proven in the lab it doesn't mean that God didn't initiate it 3 billion plus yrs ago. What I'm saying is that determination is beyond the scope of science.With all respect the banana boy

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Cool, thanks for the clarification. This puts you in the theistic evolution camp and I see no inherent contradiction there. Even if abiogenesis is proven in the lab it doesn't mean that God didn't initiate it 3 billion plus yrs ago. What I'm saying is that determination is beyond the scope of science.

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With all respect the banana boy

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Thanks, BB. Delighted you understand what I said. The way I feel about evo and science in general, does not really go with the basic observation on those who believe in creation. I'm a mutant, what can I say?
Thanks again, you have made my day, with all respect.
Tohido, good peace to you (Cherokee)
George

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"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."
Hey, Albert, I agree!

One more thing. Thought yous guys wuz razorbacks?Arkansas----beautiful place.

Thanks for the kind reply...perhaps the mods will forgive this off topic reply.Yep, we're the Razorbacks...but I lost my vicarious love of football when the Longhorns beat us in 1969(was in the stands as a youngster and they broke my spirit). I'm less than a mile from the stadium, but that includes a lot of Fayetteville anyway.The "banana boy" bit is an obscure reference to our former governor Frank White. He was the gov that was in office in 1980 between 2 Clinton governorships. We had a creation/science case where Judge Overton ruled for the science side. White supported the creation side and our famous political cartoonist George Fischer forever after depicted Frank White with a half eaten banana in his hand.I love Texas too; got family in San Antonio and Bandera and I have camped extensively in the Hill Country and Big Bend areas.I also have Cherokee in my background (greatgrandmother maternal,greatgreatgrandmother paternal) but unfortunately no written lineage, just old pics with dark long haired ladies next to my pasty German/Scottish forefathers.OK, off topic over...I'm new to this boards and boards in general. I hope to discuss stuff w/o being contentious and I've gotten off to a mixed start. I try to not get the anonymous mindset that can lead to meanness...I'll always try to talk to others like they are here.thanxArk banana boy

Richard Nixon was there, too...and I had a clear line of sight to his helicopter from the green house on Markham Road. But I was a nonviolent type, anyway, dang it.

Thanks for the banana story.Respect for a fellow creature will get you everywhere. Even the most outlandish among us recognize respect.I do hope to see you around.

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"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."
Hey, Albert, I agree!

(quote)There was at one time a thread that dealt with the subject of what would constitute sufficient proof of evolution for a creationist.(/quote)Sorry, but it's not about proving evolution that would make a creationist believe, it's about disproving God. You "KNOW" that there is no God (correct me if I'm mistaken in saying that), I "KNOW" that there is indeed a God. Even if you ever do find absolute indisputable proof, not evidence, proof of evolution, most Creationists(including myself) would have to have their God proven false before they believe you.(quote)It seems that from the creationist point of view there aren't enough transitional fossils. I think that this one fact is the biggest stumbling block to getting bible literalists to believe in evolution.(/quote)Well, there's your biggest problem. Even if evolution was true(which as you know I DO NOT believe), it is estimated that 90% of all living things that have lived on the earth lived in places that did not form sedimentary rock, and of the remaining 10%, only a small amount were preserved well enough to be uncovered and examined. So you never will be able to absolutely prove evolution anyway. All you can do is remove it from government and brainwash the public school kids so as not to have alot of controversy against your theory.(quote)By uninterrupted I mean that if you had my bones and my grandfather's bones but not my dad's that would be an interrupted lineage. Clearly this type of evidence is impossible to produce so the fundamentalist will always say "but you are still missing pieces".I would be curious if this is an accurate description of what the creationist members of the board are looking for. If it is not could you explain what you would consider to be sufficient proof that God created life through evolution and not by producing animals prefab?(/quote)Well, you're the shrink here, so I guess you nailed it. Also, since I feel like debating, I'll just say that the biggest reason I know of that we creationists well not accept evolution as God's medium of creation is because evolution takes much of the control out of God's hands. Don't misquote me on this; God could manipulate DNA or whatever to get the right animal, but it would mean he would have to guide the animal all the way to conquering it's parents.

First of all, see my signature. I'm curious as to why you think this should be so. Also, does this mean that the dirt that cover much of the surface of this planet is only part of our imagination?This message has been edited by Jacen, 02-02-2005 00:39 AM

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People, please look at the Style Guide for EvC thread by Sylas. Pay particular attention to step 3.

Hi LDSdude:First off, let me say that everytime I've seen your name, my mild dyslexia kicks in and I read it as LSD dude...sorry () I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Why does evolutionary theory need to disprove God? I interpret this along these lines:
To get a creationist to accept evolution, we would also have to disprove God, because God certainly did not start things off (with the Big Bang for example, or creating the "first" living thing) and then let evolution take over..
Is that your position? Because if it is then you are also saying that creationists will never accept the ToE...because the ToE in no way addresses any issue(s) what-so-ever relating to a supreme being.

Well if Evolution even WAS the way God created the earth, do you know how many factors are involved that would have to happen just right for evolution to work? First of all, if a species has to unable to breed with it's parents(please remember when I say 'parents', I'm referring to the previous species), it would have to meet with another mutated form of the species that is mutated the same way it is. Otherwise it would never breed and the supposed 'better gene' that it carried would be lost. Also, advantagious mutations in animals more often than not are dissapated into the gene pool because they do NOT present a problem with breeding. Like dropping a drop of yellow dye into a lake, the animal would breed with another animal of the 'old' species, and the offspring would only have pieces of the advantage. So if it were true that God used evolution to create the world and all the animals in it, he would have to guide mutated creatures of his design to breed and carry the 'better gene' on and on, and on. Without this guidance, evolution would take amounts of time that God would have no control over. That is why I think that Evolution would have to be monitered by God if it created the world(which I once again state, I DO NOT believe in).
And Jacen, I don't quite understand where that dirt comment is coming from. The (currently incomplete)Fossil Record?
And to Flies Only, hi to you too. It's nice to meet someone here a little bit friendly. Except for the LSD thing... But anyways, my position is that it is impossible to prove evolution and it is impossible to DISPROVE God. Everyone talks about how proof of evolution would convert everyone to the theory, but until you prove evolution and also disprove God, it is my hypothesis that there will always be Religious people(and I myself would probably stay religious even after that!) (:

But that has nothing to do with the Theory of Evolution or the fact that evolution happened. It's perfectly possible to believe in the Christian God and the Theory of Evolution. That's why almost every major Christian sect supports teaching the Theory of Evolution and opposes teaching Creationism. Of course. Evolution has absolutely nothing to with the existence or non-existence of God. that's why so many of us here are both supporter of the TOE and also Christians.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

You seem to have a bunch of serious misconceptions. You need to know what it is you are critisizing before you jump in, guns blazing. This suggests that each step in evolutution has to be a species jump or something. Or anything with a mutation is a new species.That is utterly, totally wrong!You have mutations that your parents don't carry. We all do. Some may well be beneifial, that doesn't make you a new, incompatible species.What happens is that these changes, which are in all individuals, can gradually over time pile up. Each individual is completely interfertile (same species) with ALL of the individuals alive at the same time as it is. However, if you took an individual and tried to breed it to an individual form 100,000 generations previous they might well not be successful. Or even want to mate (imagine your blind date as a H. eretus ). At each generation there is no problem. What you have described is no an issue it stems from your lack of understanding and that is all. You are correct that genes will get lost in a population under some circumstances. In others they will become"fixed" because of some advantage they confir. This is simply fact. We might need another thread to go over the evidence though."Yellow dye" --- genes are discreet. They do not "water down" your analogy is false. If they confer an advantage they have a certain chance of spreading throughout the population. The guidedance that is supplied is selection.This message has been edited by NosyNed, 02-02-2005 19:34 AM

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Sorry, but it's not about proving evolution that would make a creationist believe, it's about disproving God. You "KNOW" that there is no God (correct me if I'm mistaken in saying that), I "KNOW" that there is indeed a God. Even if you ever do find absolute indisputable proof, not evidence, proof of evolution, most Creationists(including myself) would have to have their God proven false before they believe you.

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My particular belief in God is not really at issue here. Clearly it is possible to be both a Christian and believe in evolution, the list is long and distinguished and has been provided by Jar several times.This having been said, I’m not sure that you understand the question. The question was not, does God exist? but rather, By what mechanism did God put diversity of life on this planet? Science would answer that the evidence we have points to evolution and creationists would argue that he created everything fully formed. I was trying to ascertain what type of evidence would be required of you to believe that your God might have started everything and then let it go via evolution.

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So you never will be able to absolutely prove evolution anyway.

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I would agree with this statement. It is not so much a question of proof but more a question of how much evidence would be required to say, Yes, that seems like it is the most likely scenario.

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Also, since I feel like debating, I'll just say that the biggest reason I know of that we creationists well not accept evolution as God's medium of creation is because evolution takes much of the control out of God's hands.

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I guess I just don’t understand this line of reasoning. Does mean that you believe God is involved in personally forming every single cell? Every time a bacteria divides God is there to do the dividing? Are you suggesting that your God is not powerful enough to create an evolving system?

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Don't misquote me on this; God could manipulate DNA or whatever to get the right animal, but it would mean he would have to guide the animal all the way to conquering it's parents.

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Conquering it’s parents doesn’t seem to belong at the end of this sentence. Can you clarify?

Evolution doesn't quite work like that. It really affects populations, rather than individuals. Individuals within a population mutate and make new alleles all the time, but a single individual doesn't have to match their mutation with someone else's identical mutation to create a new species.Allow me to use an example. Lets say you have a population of lizards living on both sides of a fault line. The lizards on the East side can freely pass to the West side, and vice versa, and all the lizards can mate with one another and produce healthy offspring. The lizards have stripes on their backs.Now an earthquake occurs, making a deep rift in the ground at the fault line, which fills with water that the lizards can't cross. The lizards are then separated into two populations. Time passes, and gradually, each population changes. Mutations accumulate over each new generation, and both populations become different from what they once were. One group might end up composed of lizards with dotted lines on their backs, while the other might end up with zig zag lines. Eventually, a scientist comes along and tries to mate lizards from one side of the river with ones from the other, and it doesn't work. They can't produce fertile offspring with each other, since too many mutations accumulated between each population. Therefore, even though both groups are still lizards, the two populations, which were once all the same population, are now classified into two different species.My point is that changes brought about by evolution do not generally work much on individuals. They work on whole populations.The changes brought about in the lizard example might not have been caused by the lizard populations being separated. Even if the two groups had remained one, they still might have changed over time. If a lizard tried to mate with a time travelling lizard of a hundred thousand years prior, the two might not be able to produce offspring. This is because in any population, mutations, some of which remain in the population, and some of which are removed, change the phenotypes of the individuals. Mutations are generally unimportant - its just that sometimes a whole lot of them accumulate, and then a new species is formed.I hope this clears things up a little.

Yeah. Two of them:1) Organisms must reproduce slightly imperfectly.
2) Organisms must be able to die.Those don't sound like difficult conditions to meet. Well, no. What you're describing is "saltation", and it doesn't happen. Individuals don't evolve; populations evolve. When new species come to be, it's not because a mutant was born; it's because two subpopulations have been separated for so long that they lack an ability to breed with each other; their gene pools become separated. Genes don't break up, usually. Moreover, you always inherit entire chromosomes from your parents, not bits and pieces of chromosomes. In other words there's a genetic "clumping" mechanism that prevents exactly what you're describing.