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Author Topic:   Are we all descendants of Adam and Eve?
JonF
Member (Idle past 195 days)
Posts: 6174
Joined: 06-23-2003


Message 258 of 376 (710217)
11-03-2013 9:32 AM
Reply to: Message 254 by jaywill
11-03-2013 8:30 AM


Re: First man?
You before boasted how devout you are as a Christian. So you apparently want to be considered in the "Club."
Not all Christians, by far, are in the Christian Club of Ignorance. The CCI consists of people such as yourself dedicated to denying pretty much all of reality.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 254 by jaywill, posted 11-03-2013 8:30 AM jaywill has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 263 by jaywill, posted 11-03-2013 8:35 PM JonF has replied

  
JonF
Member (Idle past 195 days)
Posts: 6174
Joined: 06-23-2003


Message 266 of 376 (710260)
11-04-2013 7:30 AM
Reply to: Message 263 by jaywill
11-03-2013 8:35 PM


Re: First man?
JonF, Why are you here in this universe ?
Don't know. Doesn't matter.
What's the most real thing to you ?
Me.
Just give me one succinct explanation of why your heart beats and you breath - WHY are you alive in this universe ?
Because of millions of years of evolution.
And I bet in the morning you have one opinion which like the restless waves of the sea, is gone by evening time.
Nope.
Some fossils prove your ancestors were animals and you arrived by some lucky mutations ?
Yes, fossils are part of the evidence for evolution. Humans arrived partly by lucky mutations. Also by selection, drift, etc.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 263 by jaywill, posted 11-03-2013 8:35 PM jaywill has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 267 by jaywill, posted 11-04-2013 8:36 AM JonF has replied

  
JonF
Member (Idle past 195 days)
Posts: 6174
Joined: 06-23-2003


Message 269 of 376 (710265)
11-04-2013 8:46 AM
Reply to: Message 267 by jaywill
11-04-2013 8:36 AM


Re: First man?
Does it matter if someone meets you in a back alley tonight, clobbers you over the head, steals your wallet, leaves you with severe concussion and broke ?
It matters to me. But that's a very different question than "why are you here?".
Do you think there was a very first instance of natural selection ?
That's hard to say. There may not have been anything that we would recognize as the first instance of natural selection were we witnessing it. Biological boundaries tend to be fuzzy and hard to pin down. There was a time when there was no biological natural selection, there was a time sometime later when natural selection was operating, and research is ongoing. So what?
Or unlucky. According to your view I think it really doesn't matter one way or another. Maybe it was unlucky and the luckier thing would have been for there to be nothing around but dust or cold rocks, or even nothing at all.
I prefer it the way it is, but a near-infinite number of other outcomes would have been possible.
What good is evolution anyway ?
That's way off topic. But it is the best description we have of the history of life, by far, and knowledge in itself has some value. It's foundational to all of biology and a lot of medicine. And more.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 267 by jaywill, posted 11-04-2013 8:36 AM jaywill has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 271 by jaywill, posted 11-04-2013 9:40 AM JonF has replied

  
JonF
Member (Idle past 195 days)
Posts: 6174
Joined: 06-23-2003


Message 283 of 376 (710311)
11-04-2013 12:38 PM
Reply to: Message 271 by jaywill
11-04-2013 9:40 AM


Re: First man?
Not that simple. To the thief you are HERE for the purpose of providing him with some money. The means by which he obtains it does not matter.
Now which one of you is right ? Is it your reason for being here, or the thief's reason you are here ?
As far as I know, I have no reason to be here and neither does the thief. But if there is a reason for being here, both of us could be right or both wrong or one wrong and the other right. So what?
While an evolution theory may contribute to some medicines it has also contributed to the barbarous eugenics, slavery, national policies of racial superiority, genocide, execution of retarded people.
As have all the major religions and many political movements and many other scientific discoveries. Some people do bad things for all sorts of reasons and using all sorts of tools. Don't blame the tools or their excuses, blame the people.
Guess you better turn off all the electricity in your home because of the horrible things that have been done with electricity. And don't get me started on automobiles! Or airplanes!

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JonF
Member (Idle past 195 days)
Posts: 6174
Joined: 06-23-2003


Message 313 of 376 (710526)
11-06-2013 10:55 AM
Reply to: Message 309 by jaywill
11-05-2013 8:18 PM


Note that in none of those quotes does Darwin advocate any kind of intervention in natural processes. He's speaking of what he expects will happen. The first one especially is an egregious quote mine that is discussed at Quote Mine Project: Assorted Quotes.

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 Message 309 by jaywill, posted 11-05-2013 8:18 PM jaywill has not replied

  
JonF
Member (Idle past 195 days)
Posts: 6174
Joined: 06-23-2003


Message 316 of 376 (710586)
11-07-2013 8:13 AM
Reply to: Message 314 by jaywill
11-07-2013 4:22 AM


My referring to what someone said in discussions on the Internet about Darwin is no different from those referring me to what someone else said on talkorigins.org (?)
It's very different. Talkorigins.org content is written by people known to be knowledgeable in the field, is "peer-reviewed" and edited by the participants in the talk.origins newsgroup, and typically contains references for further investigation.
Of course the ultimate test is whether the content the content itself is verifiably correct.

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