@StiltonFC First, geologic record tells us that early earth was not oxygenated, or do you not believe in geology either? It would really help me to understand your viewpoint if you explain how you rationalize that an intelligent designer makes intuitive sense, when it doesn't really explain anything. Can you explain how you marvel in complexity of life and than explain it's existence with something far more complex; an entity that doesn't require a creator itself and can magic things in to existence at the blink of an eye? How do you rationalize complexity with more complexity? The eye is so complex it requires a creator, but god is so simple it doesn't? I don't understand your problem with how the retina is structured, can you tell me why you think that it shouldn't be from behind? For starters, if you truly want an in-depth understanding of the evolution of the eye, you're going to need more than a 15 min video to satisfy your curiosity. You know that Richard Dawkins doesn't actually study eye evolution right? He studied behavior. Think of videos like this as just a primer, a springboard for the curious to learn more about a topic. You need to read, preferably peer reviewed articles on the subject. There are a number of reviews on evolutionary theory with anywhere from 40-70 referenced articles that you can read to learn more about the nitty gritties. Some are open access, but if you come across one that isn't, you can PM me and I can try to grab it through my university access. I love to spread knowledge and will do it whenever I can. Think about it this way, I took my first biology class as a 9th grader and I just finished my Ph.D. last summer. I've been taking classes and studying the sciences for 17 years (all of them, my knowledge of chemistry, physics and mathematics are crucial in aiding my understanding of biology), and my advisors still blow me out of the water with the knowledge they have amassed in our field. Do you think you can fully understand and appreciate these topics by spending a couple of hours on the internet? It's frankly insulting. DO MORE SCHOLARSHIP. Start by studying and understanding the biological concept of 'fitness'. Some of these things will start making more sense to you. False premise, Richard Dawkins doesn't do that. I study the evolution of carbohydrate metabolism in bacteria, and there no completely reasonable questions I don't acknowledge or claim trivial. I have never seen anyone in my field or related fields do this either. If you have any specific questions, I'd be happy to attempt to answer, point to resources that can answer better than I can, or be more than willing to admit that we do not have that information yet. The way you word your questions doesn't come from a position of inquisitiveness but one of defiance. You don't WANT to believe any of these things are true, so you make it harder for yourself to really appreciate what's being explained.
I'm new to this thread and have not read every post in it - just the ones from the last few months. I notice several problems with your post. First, you shape-shift a bit. You talk about the origins of life and then about evolution. Keep in mind Evolution by means of Natural Selection does not address how life began, only how life changes once present. Second, the gentleman who pretty much "wrote the book" on intelligent design and especially on irreducible complexity which you allude to, Michael Behe, in his New York Times editorial states that intelligent design and evolution are not incompatible. So arguing against evolution using intelligent design is a non-starter. Third, under oath in the Dover trial (I think he was the loan witness on behalf of Intelligent Design) Michael Behe confesses that structures that appear to be irreducibly complex, such as the eye, can develop naturally over time without the aid of an intelligent designer. So the guy who coined the phrase irreducible complexity as evidence for intelligent design explicitly states things that appear irreducibly complex might come about naturally without a designer. Some evidence! Finally, even if the first life form was created from nothing by some intelligent designer it does nothing to negate the evolution of life, and humans, from earlier life forms. It also contributes no information as to the identity of the designer - although I guess it does eliminate the biblical creator, if we are forced to take those stories literally. So that's something. Intelligent design is simply a waste of intellectual space. It tells us nothing and leads nowhere.
@Sounders78 , don't bother explaining the difference to StiltonFC. He's been on this board for years and he purposely conflates evolution and abiogenesis. It's been explained a 100 times already. He's also clearly not stupid, so this is just a classic case of intellectual dishonesty on his part.
I have a long history of dealing with creationist arguments (disclaimer - I was one in my college years). I know the main strategies employed, such as: 1) always be on offense, never defense; simply try to poke holes in the theory of evolution and then shape-shift to the origins of life or the origins of the universe. 2) don't provide or test a coherent, authoritative "theoretical perspective" distinct from evolution. Happily, because there is YEC, OEC, etc the goal posts can constantly be moved and there is no single target for critics to attack. 3) draw examples (often out of context) from a wide range of scientific fields knowing that many scientists have a narrower range of focus and will not be able to speak as knowingly about other fields. Geologists can't speak authoritatively about the biology of the eye, microbiologists about paleoanthropology, paleoanthropologists about cosmology, cosmologists about paleontology, and so on. So if you come well equipped with a variety of examples from many different fields, you can force the scientist into saying "I don't know" a lot. Remember, always be on offense. 4) don't allow the debate to focus on the Bible itself. Thankfully, most scientists are not well versed in biblical criticism, aren't able to intelligently discuss the multiple (inconsistent) versions of the Noah's Flood story that are embedded within Genesis 6-9, can't speak about the development of the Torah, etc, so they don't have to worry about it. (But then, I don't meet many creationists who are aware of those either). Furthermore, thankfully most scientists are not aware of the archaeological record as it pertains to the Near East, including Canaan, Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean so they can't point out the problems with any and all of the biblical stories prior to the 10th century BCE and the inconsistencies from the 9th and 8th centuries BCE. If these issues come up, redirect the conversation to events from the first century CE or the few hundred years before that because those are more historically consistent. Regardless, if scientists do bring up issues related to the Bible in such a manner, accuse them of attacking your religion, which is not socially acceptable! Socially it's acceptable to attack science and its theories but it is not acceptable to attack religion or sacred Scriptures. Remember, always be on offense. 5) point out past mistakes or flaws in science to demonstrate scientists (and science) can't be trusted! At least those are the ones I encounter on a regular basis.
And it makes sense when you think about it. The entire purpose of "intelligent design" is to present a justification for the existence of their deity. It does not encourage research because if we don't understand something it must be because that's how "God" did it (the "God of the gaps" scenario). There's no incentive to understand, no incentive for further research, no incentive to question. Doing so only pushes the diety further out of the picture when new discoveries are inevitably made that explain the previously unexplainable. This is why about 20 years after Michael Behe's book Darwin's Black Box there is still no novel research done based on the intelligent design "theoretical" framework. The de facto goal of intelligent design is to demonstrate we can never know because it was done by a deity, so why would you ever try to figure out how it was done? Unfortunately for them, the more research that is conducted, the more discoveries that are made, the further their deity gets pushed out of the picture. The problem with "Creation science" adherents is that they need to find a way to justify what the Bible says, despite the fact that the Bible was written from various worldviews over an extended period of time, often about events that happened hundreds or thousands of years prior. Not exactly a template for "inerrancy".
Wait. You mean to say that after I eat the Kale salad with the chia seeds and cod liver oil, and drink the fermented kombucha tea, and all that other stuff that tastes like shit....I'm not going to live forever? Whatever, I wager I'll still live longer than you.
And God wouldn't be trying to weasel out of paying them either, what with the whole "render unto Caesar, yadda, yadda, yadda" shpiel.
I wonder if he has sme cash laying around. A lot of those $1 bills saying they trust him have been put into collection plates over the years
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...-supporter-stumbled-upon-a-major-fossil-find/ He is, of course, unfazed by the devil trying to tempt him with fossil evidence
Yes, it's all about how you interpret the data - whether you interpret it devoid of all other factual evidence or interpret it in the context of the other factual evidence. Take a guess which creationists do.
Unfortunately, when you have an entrenched viewpoint which states that anything that contradicts your viewpoint must be false because you know your view to be correct, rational thought has long since left the discussion.
Heavy crossover with the American People Failure thread... http://www.charlestondailymail.com/article/20150521/DM02/150529767 Kenneth Smith, who is representing himself, filed the four-page federal lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia against the Jefferson County Board of Education, state Superintendent Michael Martirano, National Institute of Health director Francis Collins, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and the U.S. Department of Education. “His complaint is against all Defendants, who’ve fostered the propagation of religious faith in our West Virginia public school machinery and government at large,” the May 12 lawsuit said. Smith alleged education officials violated the U.S. Constitution because he claimed they are “propagating” a religious faith in public schools. “Their actions during the 2014-2015 school year affects my child’s future directly through the state grading system to enter college and the ability to earn economic security and a good job in her chosen veterinarian medical field of work, by being taught a faith base (evolutionary ideology) that just doesn’t exist and has no math to back it,” Smith’s lawsuit said. -
The cuckoos are on a roll! http://www.rawstory.com/2015/06/hom...-of-good-scientist-he-would-start-over-again/ “Natural selection is not evolution. Absolutely not. Know why?” she asks rhetorically. “It’s observable. Evolution, macro-evolution, one species going into another is not observable, and it never has been. A fruit fly never becomes anything than another fruit fly — a different fruit fly. A horse doesn’t become a fly, and a horse doesn’t become a bear, and a bear doesn’t become a whale.” “Whales evolved after bears — this is not a lie,” she said sarcastically. “Bears walked into the ocean with their mouths open looking for food and became whales. Magical.”
I wish you were right, Richard . . . but sadly the science says that's not normal for people at all. http://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/06/10/the-backfire-effect/
It probably depends on the kinds of beliefs. It's the sort of thing that feeds prejudices. If someone believes a certain kind of people will act in a certain way, it doesn't matter how many times they don't act they way, it'll make little difference, but every single time one does act that way, it backs up their belief. You also have weird factors in play now, where you get a lot of people who think blog posters are more truthful than media sources. It's something that's especially wrong in the minds of conspiracy theorists, where they pretty much assume anything which contradicts their theory is just part of the conspiracy.
an intelligent designer makes intuitive sense because when we see things that appear to be designed it turns out that they were created. now i understand that you will quibble with "appear to be designed", but the complexity of living things challenges the idea that they came into existence thru random chance. i'm not saying that a random event could not have produced Life, but it's not so great a likelihood, from a purely statistical/probability standpoint as not. lots of well-respected scientists believe that the genesis of Life did not happen by chance. the issue here is what is meant by 'evolution'. evolutionary biologists perpetuate the notion that there is no recondite difference, process-wise, between "micro-" and "macro-"evolution. i don't think Behe would agree with that notion. no sensible person disagrees with the concept that natural selection produces finches better adapted to certain climatic phenomena and that poorly adapted populations may be unable to compete for the available food supply. where we differ is in the area of the development of entirely new genera, without a cogent explanation of how they came to be. because we don't observe the processes that differentiate genera, since those processes must have taken millions of years and innumerable genetic changes, we know that the explanations of such phenomena are speculative. to give an example, i haven't heard a narrative that explains metamorphosis in a manner that is satisfying. in my search of such a narrative, i accessed this excerpt from Scientific American: while this brief explanation is interesting, it doesn't touch on HOW the shift took place. what we know about genetics would seem to tell us that there was a set of instructions for a particular body play (caterpillar) and a different set of instructions for a different body play (butterfly) with a "delay" feature that allowed the one form to develop first and then the other. the question that arises is where did the set of instructions come from and what went into the process of genetic change that made this bifurcated development happen. while i can see that there would be a biological advantage for such a process, what i cannot see is where the information came from for the second set of instructions, whether we are talking about the pupa or the caterpillar or the butterfly. i do understand that these processes are "controlled" by hormones that are synthesized in the insects' brains, but that's more the WHAT than the HOW. we don't need to find a way to justify what the Bible says. the lengths that evolutionary biologists go to to justify impossible to explain phenomena are not a template for "inerrancy" either.