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Author Topic:   Evolution doesn't make sense.
Lorenzo7
Inactive Member


Message 1 of 80 (2228)
01-15-2002 10:38 PM


Creationists believe in a universe of creation by God. Evolutionists believe in many years of organism evolution. These are the facts and they are undisputed.
As a Creationist how can an evolutionist say that by complete and utter chance:
The earth is at just the right tilt to that we don't burn or freeze to death.
We just happened to evolve the correct life processes such as krebs cycle, cellular respiration, DNA sythesis etc.
The planets just happen to orbit the sun without running into each other.
Everything in life depends on a pattern of something creating something else. Your mom and dad didn't evolve into you, they "created" you through a complex system of reproduction.
It only makes sense that something or Someone was the first Creator.
And if I'm not mistaken evolutionists believe in the Big Bang theory?
Where did this comet or particle come from that supposedly started all life? Are you telling me that time is circular and has no Beginning?
Your theories are quite weak. Chickens lay eggs, they don't turn into eggs.

Replies to this message:
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sld
Inactive Member


Message 2 of 80 (2234)
01-15-2002 11:52 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Lorenzo7
01-15-2002 10:38 PM


quote:
Originally posted by Lorenzo7:
Creationists believe in a universe of creation by God. Evolutionists believe in many years of organism evolution. These are the facts and they are undisputed.
Well, now that's a pretty simplistic way of looking at things. There are many evolutionists who believe that God is still responsible for the creation of the universe.
quote:

As a Creationist how can an evolutionist say that by complete and utter chance:
The earth is at just the right tilt to that we don't burn or freeze to death.

Whoaa, who says that we would freeze or burn to death if the world was not tilted on its axis. Freezing or burning to death would depend on the distance we are from the sun; not the tilt of its axis.
quote:

We just happened to evolve the correct life processes such as krebs cycle, cellular respiration, DNA sythesis etc.

??? The Krebs Cycle (which is cellular respiration) and DNA evolved. If they didn't evolve we wouldn't be here having this discussion. Check out some good books on abiogenesis such as "The Spark of Life" and "Abiogenesis." Sorry I can't recall authors' names of the top of my head, and am too lazy to go upstairs and look for them, but do an Amazon search and you will find them. The books are complex but explain evolutionary scenarios for the Krebs cycle and DNA. A simpler book would be Christian DeDuve's "Vital Dust." DeDuve is a nobel laureate biologist who works specifically on the origin of life issue.
quote:

The planets just happen to orbit the sun without running into each other.

As we say in the Navy, "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Over?" The planets have run into each other. That's why we have a moon. It took quite a long time for the planets to stop having collisions with a multitude of planetesimals, and only after that did life gain a foothold on our planet.
[QUOTE][b]
Everything in life depends on a pattern of something creating something else. Your mom and dad didn't evolve into you, they "created" you through a complex system of reproduction. [/QUOTE]
[/b]
Actually it's not that complex. Have you ever tried it? It's really quite easy. A lot of fun too, I should add.
quote:

It only makes sense that something or Someone was the first Creator.

And that something was quantum physics. Although if you want to say that there was a "Creator" of the laws of quantum physics, that's fine, but you haven't ruled out evolution by any stretch.
[QUOTE][b]
And if I'm not mistaken evolutionists believe in the Big Bang theory?
Where did this comet or particle come from that supposedly started all life? Are you telling me that time is circular and has no Beginning?
[B][/QUOTE]
Again, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over? The Big Bang says nothing about comet formation or has anything to do with comets. I'm not sure where you're getting your info on the Big Bang Cosmology, but it sounds like your getting it from your local fundy minister. Hardly a good source. Try reading a few good books for laymen on the issue such as "A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking, or "The First Three Minutes" a great book by Nobel prize winner Steven Weinberg.
quote:

Your theories are quite weak. Chickens lay eggs, they don't turn into eggs.

Your knowledge of the subject matter is quite weak. Are you a high school student perhaps? If so, don't make up your mind yet. Why don't you read a lot, first. Start with those I mentioned above and then some basic college level textbooks on biology, evolution, physics, chemistry, philosophy of science, history of science and then move on to even more complex books and laymen books on the subject. It's really quite a fascinating subject matter when you get into it.
SLD

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Lorenzo7, posted 01-15-2002 10:38 PM Lorenzo7 has not replied

  
gene90
Member (Idle past 3823 days)
Posts: 1610
Joined: 12-25-2000


Message 3 of 80 (2235)
01-15-2002 11:59 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Lorenzo7
01-15-2002 10:38 PM


quote:
The earth is at just the right tilt to that we don't burn or freeze to death.
I'm afraid that if you want to use that argument successfully, you're going to have to understand it. Axial tilt determines the extremity of the seasons, not the average surface temperature.
And incidentally, we feel comfortable in our current conditions because we evolved to them.
quote:
We just happened to evolve the correct life processes
What makes these life processes correct? Because we have them? In that case, your reasoning is circular. There are thousands of other reaction cycles and potential metabolisms we could have used. Essentially as many are there are organic reactions.
quote:
The planets just happen to orbit the sun without running into each other.
Simply for the sake of argument, if there had been other planets that were ejected or collided, the debris would most likely have reaggregated by now into new planets and asteroids, until the remaining planets were all in nearly circular orbits. But if our solar system were made perfectly, the planets would probably be in perfectly circular orbits and we wouldn't have those nasty collisions with the thousands of rather unfortunate asteroids that cross our orbit and occasionally destroy more of God's creations. Seems like a rather sadistic twist to our solar system doesn't it?
quote:
Everything in life depends on a pattern of something creating something else.
And the variations of that pattern are evolution.
quote:
Your mom and dad didn't evolve into you, they "created" you through a complex system of reproduction.
Mom and Dad are individuals. Populations evolve, individuals do not.
quote:
Where did this comet or particle come from that supposedly started all life?
Comet?
quote:
Are you telling me that time is circular and has no Beginning?
Can you demonstrate that time had a beginning?
quote:
Your theories are quite weak.
Most theories are to the people that have a poor understanding of them.
[This message has been edited by gene90, 01-16-2002]

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Lorenzo7, posted 01-15-2002 10:38 PM Lorenzo7 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 4 by Lorenzo7, posted 01-16-2002 7:54 AM gene90 has replied
 Message 5 by Lorenzo7, posted 01-16-2002 7:58 AM gene90 has replied

  
Lorenzo7
Inactive Member


Message 4 of 80 (2240)
01-16-2002 7:54 AM
Reply to: Message 3 by gene90
01-15-2002 11:59 PM


I see alot of your answers are in the forms of questions which is an easy way out of explaining your point of view. But I commend you for trying.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3 by gene90, posted 01-15-2002 11:59 PM gene90 has replied

Replies to this message:
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Lorenzo7
Inactive Member


Message 5 of 80 (2241)
01-16-2002 7:58 AM
Reply to: Message 3 by gene90
01-15-2002 11:59 PM


I notice alot of your "finished products" require large amounts of time. Its hard to see that any large amount of time will build you the starting materials for DNA which in an of itself have an intricate design that chance or time could not reproduce. There are proteins that require the presence of other proteins to determine its own function. So how can you evolve proteins that don't know what they are supposed to do? Oh yeah I know the answer to that "how can I not prove that?".
I need alittle more than that.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3 by gene90, posted 01-15-2002 11:59 PM gene90 has replied

Replies to this message:
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mark24
Member (Idle past 5195 days)
Posts: 3857
From: UK
Joined: 12-01-2001


Message 6 of 80 (2245)
01-16-2002 8:29 AM
Reply to: Message 5 by Lorenzo7
01-16-2002 7:58 AM


Lorenzo7,
You're confusing abiogenesis (life from chemistry) with evolution. Since evolution is in the title, I'll confine my answer to that.
What is evolution?
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-definition.html
"In fact, evolution can be precisely defined as any change in the frequency of alleles within a gene pool from one generation to the next."
- Helena Curtis and N. Sue Barnes, Biology, 5th ed. 1989 Worth Publishers, p.974"
"Evolution is a process that results in heritable changes in a population spread over many generations."
This process is VERY SIMPLY put as random mutation offered up to non random natural selection. There's an experiment I usually quote in these circumstances that proves the above (simple) mechanism.
http://www.accessexcellence.org/AB/BC/Bacterial_Mutations.html
"Today bacteria are an important tool in the study of genetics and biotechnology, but for 40 years after the rediscovery of Mendel's work and the rebirth of genetics, they were considered too simple to have genes, undergo mutation, or reproduce sexually. This is not surprising - bacteria are so small that it's very difficult to study individuals. Scientists had long observed differences between bacterial colonies, but had never realized that these differences were the results of mutations.
"It was well known that if a bacterial virus was added to a flask containing bacteria, the liquid in the flask would become clear, as if the virus had killed all the bacteria. However, with time, the flask would once again become cloudy as the bacterial population rebounded - now composed of virus-resistant bacteria. This happened even when all the bacteria in the flask were the clonal offspring of a single bacterium. Although such bacteria should have all been genetically identical, some of them were susceptible to the virus while others were resistant.
Two explanations for this unexpected variation confronted the scientific community: either (1) exposure to the virus had caused some small proportion of the bacteria to become immune and able to pass this immunity on to their offspring, or (2) the virus-resistant form already existed in the colony prior to the introduction of the virus - having arisen through mutation - and it was selected for by the addition of the virus.
To determine which explanation was correct, Salvador Luria and Max Delbruck, working together at Cold Spring Harbor during World War II, devised a test. According to Luria, his inspiration for the test was his observation of a colleague playing at a dime slot machine at a faculty dance. After consistently losing for some time, his friend finally hit the jackpot. Luria realized that if the slot machine distributed payoffs randomly, according only to chance, the payoff would usually be zero, occasionally be a few dimes, and almost never be a true jackpot. However, the machine he was observing had clearly been programmed to return an excess of both zeros and jackpots.
Luria returned to the lab and set up a large number of bacterial cultures, starting each one from only a small number of cells. He allowed the cultures to grow for a while, then added virus and counted how many bacteria survived (were resistant). He reasoned that if resistance was induced in bacteria randomly, in response to contact with a virus, it would be expected to occur at a zero or low level in all cultures - like the zero or small payoffs from a slot machine operating by chance. Alternatively, if resistance was the result of a mutation, the results would be analogous to the payoff from a programmed slot machine. Most bacteria in most cultures would not mutate, but if one did, it would reproduce and when the virus was added there would be many survivors - a jackpot! By looking at the fluctuations in the pattern of payoff (viral resistance), he and Delbruck could determine whether they were governed purely by chance or if the game was "rigged" by mutation.
It turned out that the number of resistant bacteria varied greatly between cultures; the fluctuations in payoff were far too great to be accounted for purely by chance. These fluctuations proved that bacteria did undergo mutation - and that the resistance to the virus they used in the experiment (a T1 bacteriophage) arose through such mutation.
By analyzing their data further, Luria and Delbruck were also able to determine the rate of bacterial mutation from virus-sensitive to virus-resistant. The likelihood of any single bacterium mutating during each cell division was extremely low - only about one in a hundred million, explaining why it was so difficult to detect and study bacterial mutations. Luria and Delbruck were successful because they created a method that screened for the outcomes of such rare events. They screened for the mutation from virus-sensitive to virus-resistant by exposing the cultures to the fatal virus. Other mutations, for which there was no such screening method, would have been almost impossible to detect. "
Evolution happens. I suspect your problen is that you can't see how a long slow collection of mutations can bring about large change.
I'll leave it here for now.
Mark
------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 5 by Lorenzo7, posted 01-16-2002 7:58 AM Lorenzo7 has not replied

  
gene90
Member (Idle past 3823 days)
Posts: 1610
Joined: 12-25-2000


Message 7 of 80 (2248)
01-16-2002 8:34 AM
Reply to: Message 5 by Lorenzo7
01-16-2002 7:58 AM


quote:
I notice alot of your "finished products" require large amounts of time. Its hard to see that any large amount of time will build you the starting materials for DNA which in an of itself have an intricate design that chance or time could not reproduce.
You're overlooking the fact that the structure and the functions of DNA are defined by the laws of chemistry. What you call "intricate design" is actually the "natural" way in which DNA would assemble as defined by those natural laws. That's why we can propagate DNA in the laboratory.
Incidentally, the "starting materials" for DNA are ribose sugars, which only consist of a few atoms each. Why would these not assemble spontaneously?
quote:
There are proteins that require the presence of other proteins to determine its own function.
When a new protein evolves, there will usually be other proteins already there.
[This message has been edited by gene90, 01-16-2002]

This message is a reply to:
 Message 5 by Lorenzo7, posted 01-16-2002 7:58 AM Lorenzo7 has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 40 by Christian1, posted 02-20-2002 4:57 PM gene90 has replied

  
gene90
Member (Idle past 3823 days)
Posts: 1610
Joined: 12-25-2000


Message 8 of 80 (2276)
01-16-2002 11:33 AM
Reply to: Message 4 by Lorenzo7
01-16-2002 7:54 AM


quote:
I see alot of your answers are in the forms of questions which is an easy way out of explaining your point of view.
I have to ask you questions because many of the things you claim make absolutely no sense, but might be a misinterpretation of a legitimate piece of evidence. If I sift through your responses I might be able to correct you. However, since you have refused to reply to our questions and commentary, I suppose you just aren't serious about this debate.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 4 by Lorenzo7, posted 01-16-2002 7:54 AM Lorenzo7 has not replied

  
Lorenzo7
Inactive Member


Message 9 of 80 (2279)
01-16-2002 12:06 PM


For example, let's look at three claims of evidence for Darwinian evolution often cited by high school textbooks. First, as the use of antibiotics has
become common, mutant strains of resistant bacteria have become more common, threatening public health. Second, darkcolored variants of a
certain moth species evaded predation by birds because their color matched the sooty tree trunks of industrial England. Third, the embryos of fish,
amphibians, birds and mammals look virtually identical in an early stage of development, becoming different only at later stages.
A relevant distinction, however, is that only the first example is true. The second example is unsupported by current evidence, while the third is
downright false. Although light and darkcolored moths did vary in expected ways in some regions of England, elsewhere they didn't. Further,
textbook photographs showing moths resting on tree trunks in the day, where birds supposedly ate them, run afoul of the fact that the moths are
active at night and don't normally rest on tree trunks. After learning about the problems with this favorite Darwinian example, an evolutionary
scientist wrote in the journal Nature that he felt the way he did as a boy when he learned there was no Santa Claus.

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Darwinboy
Inactive Member


Message 10 of 80 (2284)
01-16-2002 12:50 PM


These are only three small discrepencies. There are many other examples where evolution has come through. The origin of life for example. We evolved from atoms long ago. Wait that doesn't make sense, where did the atoms come from. Anyways all i know is that life started with. . . I think i'm in trouble.

  
Darwinboy
Inactive Member


Message 11 of 80 (2288)
01-16-2002 12:58 PM


It is in fact the tilt of the earth that determines the temperature along with distance from the sun. The tilt of the earth does not change. Only the position of the sun rays hitting the earth as it revolves. So should the tilt of the earth change, we would burn or freeze to death. Seasons have little to do with the tilt. Climate is what results from tilt. Seasons have to do with the revolving of the sun. Evolution can't explain this, but it explains other things.

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derwood
Member (Idle past 1876 days)
Posts: 1457
Joined: 12-27-2001


Message 12 of 80 (2290)
01-16-2002 1:07 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by Darwinboy
01-16-2002 12:58 PM


What IS false is to claim that the embryos of various creatures do not resemble one another.
One would serve themselves well by not believing everything they read on some creationist web site or read in a creationist book.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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joz
Inactive Member


Message 13 of 80 (2291)
01-16-2002 1:14 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by Darwinboy
01-16-2002 12:58 PM


quote:
Originally posted by Darwinboy:
It is in fact the tilt of the earth that determines the temperature along with distance from the sun. The tilt of the earth does not change. Only the position of the sun rays hitting the earth as it revolves. So should the tilt of the earth change, we would burn or freeze to death. Seasons have little to do with the tilt. Climate is what results from tilt. Seasons have to do with the revolving of the sun. Evolution can't explain this, but it explains other things.
If the Earths tilt changes the solar flux would remain the same assuming that the tilt change wasnt accompanied by a change in the distance from sun to earth this means the amount of incident energy/time remains the same the only difference would be in the distribution...
Since all life isnt baked to a crisp at the equator or frozen to death in the polar regions it seems a safe enough inference that life would exist at different axial tilts....

This message is a reply to:
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joz
Inactive Member


Message 14 of 80 (2292)
01-16-2002 1:38 PM
Reply to: Message 12 by derwood
01-16-2002 1:07 PM


quote:
Originally posted by SLP:
What IS false is to claim that the embryos of various creatures do not resemble one another.

I thought this one WAS spurious....
Who did the research?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 12 by derwood, posted 01-16-2002 1:07 PM derwood has replied

Replies to this message:
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mark24
Member (Idle past 5195 days)
Posts: 3857
From: UK
Joined: 12-01-2001


Message 15 of 80 (2298)
01-16-2002 2:14 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by Darwinboy
01-16-2002 12:58 PM


quote:
Originally posted by Darwinboy:
It is in fact the tilt of the earth that determines the temperature along with distance from the sun. The tilt of the earth does not change. Only the position of the sun rays hitting the earth as it revolves. So should the tilt of the earth change, we would burn or freeze to death. Seasons have little to do with the tilt. Climate is what results from tilt. Seasons have to do with the revolving of the sun. Evolution can't explain this, but it explains other things.
Actually, axial tilt does change, in a cyclic manner. We're currently in the mid range of that tilt change.
http://www.homepage.montana.edu/~geol445/hyperglac/time1/milankov.htm
"Axial tilt, the second of the three Milankovitch Cycles, is the inclination of the Earth's axis in relation to its plane of orbit around the Sun. Oscillations in the degree of Earth's axial tilt occur on a periodicity of 41,000 years from 21.5 to 24.5 degrees.
Today the Earth's axial tilt is about 23.5 degrees, which largely accounts for our seasons. Because of the periodic variations of this angle the severity of the Earth's seasons changes. With less axial tilt the Sun's solar radiation is more evenly distributed between winter and summer. However, less tilt also increases the difference in radiation receipts between the equatorial and polar regions.
One hypothesis for Earth's reaction to a smaller degree of axial tilt is that it would promote the growth of ice sheets. This response would be due to a warmer winter, in which warmer air would be able to hold more moisture, and subsequently produce a greater amount of snowfall. In addition, summer temperatures would be cooler, resulting in less melting of the winter's accumulation. At present, axial tilt is in the middle of its range."
Mark
------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 11 by Darwinboy, posted 01-16-2002 12:58 PM Darwinboy has not replied

  
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