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Georgia wants to remove "evolution" from the curricula


SkinWalker

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Originally posted by Prime

Breeding would the the aformentioned artifical selection. Natural selection is selection done by nature. Or otherwise known as evolution. :)

Oh, okay. :) But I meant in the fact that it is adaptation to the environment, but not to a completely different extreme. I thought that it was talking about the complete change of the structure that supposedly took millions of years.

 

And evolution can be directly observable, as has been pointed out earlier. It has been seen directly in creatures such as bacteria and fruit flies, both in the lab and in nature.

I'm assuming that you mean the natural selection/adaptation. However, the DNA is not being changed.

 

Plenty of time for things to gte misinterpreted...

But many other documents with many fewer manuscripts and those manuscripts are dated much later than the 100 years of the manuscripts of the New Testament books and yet they are taken as fact.

 

I agree with toms. Divinely inspired is different from divinely created. Again, man wrote the Bible (in the physical sense), and man is fallible. That does not mean the message isn't from God.

Though man is fallible, man is capable of producing a perfect work. (I did a test and got 100%, for example)

 

Good, you've now neatened up all the consistencies in a neat little package :)

:thumbsup:

 

This is the point that I don't understand. The website says that there needs to be natural selection for the story of Noah to be taken literally. Natural selection is the mechanism of evolution. So what is the problem with evolution?

Oh, okay. :) But I meant in the fact that it is adaptation to the environment, but not to a completely different extreme. I thought that it was talking about the complete change of the structure that supposedly took millions of years.

 

Another question is what about all the plants? Covering the world with water would be just as devastating to plants as was to animals (40 days underwater would kill most of them). So presumably most of the trees and flowers were destroyed as well as the animals. How did they recover? Did Noah take lots of seeds along with him? How did he have seeds for each and every plant in the world? If he did, how did he get them all? If he didn't, then once again natural selection is required to produce the variety we see today. It would seem in that case that these stories rely heavily on evolutionary processes.

 

Another problem is the length of time. If the world is indeed 6000 or so years old, how do all the forests and vegetation get to the current state? If the flood must have wiped the world clean of land-living creatures (both trees and animals), then Noah must have started the process to revegetate the world. He obviously didn't replant all the forests himself. So then we have to rely on the natural reproduction of plants to do this. The problem is the length of time required. A tree gets a new ring every year. From this we know that there are trees that are over 1000 years old (is this disputed by creationists as well?). How does Noah go from seeds to having forests (tens of thousands of trees?) in the west of North America in so few generations? And how does it go from a evergreen to a palm tree in that time using natural selection? Even scientists don't claim that is possible. Do creationists claim that natural selection occurs much faster? They have to for the story to work literally.

I think the accepted age of the earth among creationists is about 10,000 years.

 

In my opinion, if creationism must be taught in school, then there should be a new class created to discuss not only the Christian view of creation, but also the views of all the other major religions as well. Creationism should not be taught in a science class, because it does not rely on the Scientific Method to come to its conclusion. In other words, it should not appear in a science class because it is not based on science. If you want everything in one class, don't call it a science class.

 

That's my view. :)

I agree about the new class thing. :)

 

I wrote my last post while _PerfectAgent_ was posting his. :)

;)

 

But do the parts where they talk about the same thing 100% identical?

Yes, they simply describe different parts of an event.

 

But some newborns are quite large, such as giraffes and elephants. And without natural selection, you are still having to house tens and maybe hundreds of thousands of animals on a 450 ft boat. But again, that isn't the only problem.

Don't forget that the ark had three decks. Also, there were less than 1,600 known species of birds, reptiles, mammals and amphibians, the ones who needed to go on the ark, not including fish. (Taking fish would be silly. :p)

 

If all Noah is taking is babies, how does he feed these things? In the wild, mammals babies feed almost exclusively from their mothers . But now all the mothers are dead, because only babies were taken on the Ark. So how did all the babies survive without the food provided by their mothers' milk?

Not newborns, but younger ones.

 

Even if they could survive without their mothers' milk, Noah would still have to store over a months worth of food for tens of thousands of hungry animals (and 8 people). This also includes the different kinds of foods for herbivores and carnivores. Where is all this stored when you you already have tens of thousands of animals on a 450' boat?

Given the amount of known species at the time, there was alot of room to spare.

 

Then there is the, ahem, waste disposal and caring for the animals. There were 8 people on Noah's Ark. How did they get rid of the waste for that many animals as well asn feed that many?

Why not throw it overboard?

 

After the waters receeded, how did all those babies survive? They have no parents to teach them to hunt or whatever other skills they normally learn from their parents. You couldn't just throw them out into the wild and expect them to survive.

They didn't take newborns, simply younger ones.

 

Then you get into the problems of trying to create a viable populations from 2 animals. The gene pool would be so limited that the potential offspring of the original two would be siblings trying to produce offspring together.

It is possible from a small amount of animals. Over 200 varieties (breeds) of dogs have developed from a very few wild dogs.

 

I didn't include some because I don't want to repeat.

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Originally posted by _PerfectAgent_

I'm assuming that you mean the natural selection/adaptation. However, the DNA is not being changed.

 

How do you know? Are you accepting this as what you believe to be true, or through verifiable test? The reason I ask isn't because I contend that DNA has been observed to change in a given species (it has been observed, but that's beside the point), but I'm actually curious about how you arrived at that conclusion. Assuming your conclusion is that DNA of a given species has not, to date, been observed to change, which is patently false.

 

Creationist believers are quick to point out the fact that "evolution is not observable in real time," however, it is quite observable in the fossil record. Conveniently enough, creationists apologetics are equally quick to discount the fossil record, sometimes with outright deception, but fail in every argument. The failure ultimately will rest in a supernatural explanation.

 

Originally posted by _PerfectAgent_

I think the accepted age of the earth among creationists is about 10,000 years.

 

Which is a prime reason to consider these fanatics as seriously ignorant and primitive. As insulting as that may be, it's spot on. A 10k age of the Earth is simply not possible as evidenced by nearly every dating technique used. The historical world is about 10k years old, but the age of the planet is far older.

 

Attempts by fanatical creationists and their apolegetics to disprove center around the fact that dating methods are not "100% sure" as admitted by the scientists that utilize them. Never mind that the margins for error still offer very close approximations and give us a clear, and consistent idea of the ages of fossils, rocks, organic materials, etc. Methods utilized are the commonly recognized radiocarbon method, potassium-argon, argon-argon, dendrochronology, paleomagnetics, stratigraphy, amino racimazation, etc., etc. Nearly always, multiple methods are used and the dates/ages correlated.

 

Man alone, has been on this planet as Homo sapiens for perhaps 150k years. Earlier hominids that show clear relation to H. sapiens, such as Australopithicus robustus, roamed East Africa 2.5 million years ago.

 

Creationist malarky is of the dark ages and reminiscent of the religious restraint that was placed upon Galileo, who correctly observed that the Earth was not at the center of the universe, but forced to denounce this truth by the Inquisition. Luckily an outright Inquisition isn't tolerated in today's world, but the fundamentalist garbage that creationist apologetics cling to is still dark age thinking.

 

Creationist baloney clings to the two Genesis accounts in the bible. A story written when no man existed to observe it. If the story is divinely proffered, the divine being must have had a memory lapse during at least one proffering, since the stories are obviously different. Some of the events are even differing order!

 

That the Earth was created prior to the Sun is an expected account from a primitive culture that is attempting to explain it's place in the cosmos, after all, even during the 15th century, people couldn't accept that Earth wasn't first. Therefore, it is abundantly clear that the bible was written by those who, after writing was recently developed as a form of communication, recounted an oral tradition that had been passed on for hundreds (if not thousands) of years prior to writing it down. The Eloist and Yahwist slants are apparent throughout the Pentateuch.

 

Does that mean that the wisdom in the bible is invalid? Absolutely not! Even I, recognize and respect the fact that the historical accounts presented in the bible are a part of the history of Man. It gives wonderful insight into how we lived, thought, behaved, etc. And it offers wonderful guidance and wisdom. But to adhere to its every word and believe that it is inerrant is foolish.

 

Originally posted by _PerfectAgent_

Don't forget that the ark had three decks. ... Given the amount of known species at the time, there was alot of room to spare.

 

Poppycock. If we were, for a moment, to abandon all common sense and slip back into dark-age modes of thinking, and assume that Noah was able to round up all the birds, reptiles, mammals, amphibians and several million species of insects... how did he keep them from eating each other? What did they eat? Did the carnivores become herbibvores? The amount of feed that would have had to be kept for 41 days surely would have occupied more space than the animals themselves.

 

But, lucky for us, we don't have to abandon reason to appreciate the mythology of Noah and the moral of the story. The moral of it all is the truth, not the specifics, afterall. Humans in modernity are quite prone to embellish a story, particularly one that might have to be told and retold in the course of a few days. Imagine what might happen if a story had to be recounted again and again for a hundred years! Are we given to believe that humans of antiquity were less prone to this shortcoming than those of today? If so, then perhaps the flood itself was needless, afterall, wasn't our kind and gentle god who loved us all trying to "cleanse" the planet?

 

By not abandoning reason, we can also observe that the mythical flood is not shown to have occured in the geological record. Our ability to read the geological record of our planet has served us well... it helped us locate the carbonic remains of life that existed millions of years ago and tap into their energy (petroleum) with predictable accuracy.

 

What is demonstrated in the geologic record, however, is that several flood events did occur in antiquity in the Middle East and Black Sea regions that undoubtedly created mythology in several cultures. It's not difficult to imagine that these cultures interpreted such an anomaly as an omen and embellished it with adjectives and retell it to make a point. But the fact is that the Black Sea flood, while rapid, did not coat the planet with water nor did it suddenly engulf the region. The residents likely had plenty of time to seek higher ground, particularly along the coast of Turkey in the Hittite regions.

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Originally posted by _PerfectAgent_

Just because the authors made mistakes does not mean that they are completely wrong. I have a biology book that mistakenly names a fern gametophyte as a sporophyte, but still does not mean that the book also misnamed the spores and roots.

 

Pehaps not, but what is telling about these documents isn't necessarily what information was mistaken but, rather, what information was left out. One would expect that a figure as important to the region as Christ the myth is to have a little more said about him. In addition, it's the way he was referred to in some of the texts. Remember, Tacitus doesn't even refer to him by name. Lastly, the authenticity of the texts are questionable and unverifiable in many cases. Christians have been fanatical enough in the past to create evidence that has gained worldwide attention (Shroud of Turin, for instance). Of particular interest here is Josephus. It's quite possible that portions of this work were replaced or edited to offer historicity to Jesus.

 

Originally posted by _PerfectAgent_

But many other documents with many fewer manuscripts and those manuscripts are dated much later than the 100 years of the manuscripts of the New Testament books and yet they are taken as fact.

 

Not likely. If credibility is given to an historical document, it is because there were corroborating documents or artifactual evidence. I don't know if it's one of the documents you're thinking of, but Homer's Illiad was believed by Schliemann to be an historical account more than simply a tall tale about the Trojan war. Schliemann spent much of his life searching for and finding Troy. While the city that he found (along with Calvert) resembles Homer's account of Troy, it isn't "factually accepted" to be so.

 

Perhaps you can provide an example of the type of documentation you are referring to...... I'm betting that if its accepted as highly probable, there's some serious corroboration.

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Originally posted by SkinWalker

Creationist believers are quick to point out the fact that "evolution is not observable in real time," however, it is quite observable in the fossil record. Conveniently enough, creationists apologetics are equally quick to discount the fossil record, sometimes with outright deception, but fail in every argument. The failure ultimately will rest in a supernatural explanation.

Could you show me an example?

 

A 10k age of the Earth is simply not possible as evidenced by nearly every dating technique used. The historical world is about 10k years old, but the age of the planet is far older.

Could you explain which methods?

 

Attempts by fanatical creationists and their apolegetics to disprove center around the fact that dating methods are not "100% sure" as admitted by the scientists that utilize them. Never mind that the margins for error still offer very close approximations and give us a clear, and consistent idea of the ages of fossils, rocks, organic materials, etc. Methods utilized are the commonly recognized radiocarbon method, potassium-argon, argon-argon, dendrochronology, paleomagnetics, stratigraphy, amino racimazation, etc., etc. Nearly always, multiple methods are used and the dates/ages correlated.

The dating methods rely on a stable environment, one that does not cause it to lose carbon-14 at odd rates(and other problems with other methods) and they rely on assumptions, not proven facts.

 

Creationist malarky is of the dark ages and reminiscent of the religious restraint that was placed upon Galileo, who correctly observed that the Earth was not at the center of the universe, but forced to denounce this truth by the Inquisition. Luckily an outright Inquisition isn't tolerated in today's world, but the fundamentalist garbage that creationist apologetics cling to is still dark age thinking.

I do believe that should not have happened to Galileo.

 

Poppycock. If we were, for a moment, to abandon all common sense and slip back into dark-age modes of thinking, and assume that Noah was able to round up all the birds, reptiles, mammals, amphibians and several million species of insects... how did he keep them from eating each other? What did they eat? Did the carnivores become herbibvores? The amount of feed that would have had to be kept for 41 days surely would have occupied more space than the animals themselves.

The animals were kept in different rooms/sections. The reptiles require alot less food than do mammals.

 

By not abandoning reason, we can also observe that the mythical flood is not shown to have occured in the geological record. Our ability to read the geological record of our planet has served us well... it helped us locate the carbonic remains of life that existed millions of years ago and tap into their energy (petroleum) with predictable accuracy.

The petroleum thing would be a whole other subject.

 

Perhaps you can provide an example of the type of documentation you are referring to...... I'm betting that if its accepted as highly probable, there's some serious corroboration.

The New Testament was written from A.D. 50 to A.D. 90. The earliest manuscript is dated at A.D. 120. There are about 25,000 manuscripts dated at around that time. Caesar's The Gallic Wars manuscript was dated 1,000 years after it was written.

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Did not read the thread, sorry. No time for that now. :o

 

But there's one thing I'd like to point out (sorry if it has been mentioned earlier)

 

Every time people start discussing about evolution vs. creationism it's the same old story: creationists try to come up with flaws in the evolution theory and evolutionists try to defend their theory.

 

That's just stupid. :disaprove

 

On other forums I've started threads about this same issue. The difference is that I've turned the table around >>>

 

No talk about evolution. Don't even mention the word! No talk about any theories or explanations that you think are false. Simply show my why your theory is correct. That's all that matters. That's all that is relevant.

 

If I want to prove that I can juggle with 5 balls, I surely won't start bad-mouthing my neighbor Bob who can barely hold 1 ball in his hand without dropping it.

 

Think about - Isn't it really, really stupid to try to prove something that way?

 

So what happens when a creationist is asked to argument his case without using the word "evolution"?

 

I'll tell you what >> first there's a lot of confusion. Then finally someone comes out and says: Creationism is the truth because

a) the world is a really amazing place and I think Someone must have created it

b) I think that Someone is the one that a book called the Bible speaks about.

 

And that's it. That's all they got to offer besides the bashing of rival theories. Now...I don't know about the rest of you, but surely those two arguments are not enough to make creationism something worth taking seriously?

 

And yes: the whole world is laughing their asses of at USA every time things like these make it into the news. :D

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Originally posted by _PerfectAgent_

Oh, okay. :) But I meant in the fact that it is adaptation to the environment, but not to a completely different extreme. I thought that it was talking about the complete change of the structure that supposedly took millions of years.

But as creationists seem to admit, it had to. If Noah only took a limited number of animals (say a black bear), then there has to be large enough changes due to natural selection to explain the existence of koalas and polar bears. So in this case natural selection and evolution has to exist. The other way is that Noah took all these kinds with him, which is also unfeasible because then he would have to take two of every kind of animal we see in the world today. So which is it? Did Noah take a select group of animals which all others evolved from, or did he take a sample of every animal we see today?

 

Originally posted by _PerfectAgent_

I'm assuming that you mean the natural selection/adaptation. However, the DNA is not being changed.

But natural selection/adaptation over time does change the DNA. I mean, that at its core is what natural selection does. Or are you suggesting that the DNA is identical between a koala and a polar bear? Heck, every human's DNA is also different in some respects, and that is why it can be used to identify a person. The DNA of a person is not identical to their great grandfather. In the same way, the DNA of different species of bears (or whatever) is also different. You can't have natural selection without altering the DNA.

 

Originally posted by _PerfectAgent_

Oh, okay. :) But I meant in the fact that it is adaptation to the environment, but not to a completely different extreme. I thought that it was talking about the complete change of the structure that supposedly took millions of years.

You do have to take into account extremes. If a koala and polar bear decended from Noah's bear, they had to evolve to handle the extreme differences between the scorching Outback of Austrailia and the Arctic Circle. And obviously they have completely different structures which must have evolved from those two bears that Noah had. If not, then Noah had to ahve had every type of bear we see today. And that is ignoring all the animals we know to be extinct from the fossil record.

 

Originally posted by _PerfectAgent_

I think the accepted age of the earth among creationists is about 10,000 years.

That doesn't change the point at all. There is still simply not enough time with that number. Besides, the flood did not occur at the beginning of time :)

 

Originally posted by _PerfectAgent_

Don't forget that the ark had three decks. Also, there were less than 1,600 known species of birds, reptiles, mammals and amphibians, the ones who needed to go on the ark, not including fish. (Taking fish would be silly. :p)

Where did you get the 1600 number? I've seen a lot of different numbers, so whose is the right one? So if there was only 1600 species included, there you have to rely on evolution to produce all the rest we see today. Not only that, but you have to claim this occures at a pace that no scientist would deem possible. Is this the way you see it?

 

And it doesn't matter how many decks it had. If anything, the deck structures take up valuable space that had to be used for animals. If there were thre decks,then that means one every 15 feet. So obviously the dinosaurs did not go on the bottom level :)

 

Okay, let's figure this out. The Ark was 450 feet long, 75 wide (the length of some dinosaurs), and 45 tall. Since I am Canadian I like to work in meters, so that's 137.16 by 22.86 by 13.716 metres. To make it easy let's say 140m x 23m x 14m. That gives us 45080 cubic meters of volume. One cubic meter of fresh water weighs 1 tonne, and salt water is more (greater density). So the Ark displaces about 46000 tonnes. I'll be really generous and say it displaces 50000 tonnes.

 

Noah needed enough food for himself, his family, and the animals. The creationist John Woodmorappe, who wrote Noah's Ark: A Feasibility Study calculates that the Ark carries 5.5 million kg of animals (from about 15,000 "kinds"). He estimates that each animal on average eats 1/30th of its bodyweight in food per day. So to find out how much food was required on the Ark, we calculate:

 

5,500,000 / 30 * 365 = 66,916,666.67 kg or about 67000 tonnes of food.

 

Now we generously calculated that the Ark displaces 50000 tonnes. So the Ark couldn't have carried the food alone, let alone the animals. You would need two Arks just for the food.

 

As far as the animals go, it is not as simple as just having enough room to physically fit them on. You can't just pack them all in like sardines. They have to survive for a year. They (not to mention Noah and his family) need to be able to move around a bit, or else their muscles will atrophy.

 

If we take the suggested 15,000 kinds of animals (I won't even multiply by to for the number of animals), that means that each person must feed and remove the waste for about 2000 animals per day (rounding up a little bit). There are 86,400 seconds in a day. That means each person on board had to feed and remove the waste for one animal every 44 seconds. And that is 24 hours a day, seven days a week for a year. So no sleeping and no eating for Noah and his family. And this is even requiring the massive evolution afterwards to get up to today's species.

 

Originally posted by _PerfectAgent_

Not newborns, but younger ones.

Which will be much bigger than newborns. So again you are getting back to the problem of storing these things.

 

Originally posted by _PerfectAgent_

Given the amount of known species at the time, there was alot of room to spare.

I think I have shown there wasn't. Regardless of the numbers, if Noah didn't take every sample of species we see today, then the story has to rely on evolution to remain literal.

 

Originally posted by _PerfectAgent_

Why not throw it overboard?

It isn't an issue of where to put it, it's an issue of how 8 people could collect the waste of thousands of animals to put it over the side, as well as feed all those animals. It is easy to see what to do, it is completely another to be able to pull it off with so few people.

 

Originally posted by _PerfectAgent_

It is possible from a small amount of animals. Over 200 varieties (breeds) of dogs have developed from a very few wild dogs.

Very few is different from 2 animals. With 2, you have exactly one pair of DNA samples.
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First off, like its really going to fly?

 

Secondly, some liberal nuts also want to ban certain words that are even more unrealistic than that, a group wnated to take the words "founding fathers" out of books because it was discriminitory towards women and the word "yacht" because it might offend children who are to poor to afford a "yacht" and might make there life horrible.

 

And I think they shouldnt take it out of books because it should be taught, as a THEORY and only that not as gospel. But other theories should be taught aswell, thats why Americas America because we have the freedom of choices to chose what to believe.

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Originally posted by Thrackan Solo

But other theories should be taught aswell, thats why Americas America because we have the freedom of choices to chose what to believe.

 

But the point is, there are no other viable theories that withstand any testing. A theory, by definition, is one that is born of one or more hypotheses that have been tested and have reproducible results that can be used to make additional predictions related to the theory. The General Theory of Evolution fits that bill. Nothing else does. Period. Everything else relies on primitive superstition, the metaphysical, and the supernatural.

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Originally posted by _PerfectAgent_

Could you show me an example?

 

http://geology.er.usgs.gov/paleo/vertebra.shtml

 

 

Originally posted by _PerfectAgent_

Could you explain which methods?

 

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dating.html

 

 

Originally posted by _PerfectAgent_

The dating methods rely on a stable environment, one that does not cause it to lose carbon-14 at odd rates(and other problems with other methods) and they rely on assumptions, not proven facts.

 

They're as clear and predictable as atomic theory and Electronic Theory. But no one contends that any dating method is "proven fact." However, the HUGE variety of methods used, which complement each other is not to be ignored. It should be noted that these methods are completely independent of each other.

 

In addition, there is an extremely remote chance that an atom of argon behaved differently 10,000 + years ago than it does today.

 

Fundamentalists attack dating methods for sole reason that this is the easiest thing for them to dismiss. Their adherence to superstition and mythology cannot allow the acceptance that the Earth is older than 10k years. But when dating methods are dismissed, it is usually done so in sheer ignorance of the subject.

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Originally posted by SkinWalker

But the point is, there are no other viable theories that withstand any testing. A theory, by definition, is one that is born of one or more hypotheses that have been tested and have reproducible results that can be used to make additional predictions related to the theory. The General Theory of Evolution fits that bill. Nothing else does. Period. Everything else relies on primitive superstition, the metaphysical, and the supernatural.

 

 

You have a point but there are still giant pieces missing from the puzzle of evolution. And, maybe there is evolution but i dont think that we evolved from a single celled organism in a primordial soup on the surface of the earth 5 billion years ago, because things do change I will admit, but this could still be from a divine creator.

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Originally posted by Thrackan Solo

You have a point but there are still giant pieces missing from the puzzle of evolution. And, maybe there is evolution but i dont think that we evolved from a single celled organism in a primordial soup on the surface of the earth 5 billion years ago, because things do change I will admit, but this could still be from a divine creator.

 

But the evolution theory has the most plausible, the most interrelating, and the most amount of evidence and proof. Can you repeat the theory of creationism in a laboratory by "miraculously" making life? There are many things about evolution that we have yet to prove and verify, that is true. This is what geologists, paleontologist, and other scientists are doing everyday and discovering more evidence and answers to. Yet for creationism the same arguments and claims are brought up every time.

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Originally posted by Thrackan Solo

but i dont think that we evolved from a single celled organism in a primordial soup on the surface of the earth 5 billion years ago

 

but why? because humans are "special" beings? why is it that the human is seen as the centre of life? humans too are only a bunch of (single) cells after all. and also, no human could live without single celled organisms, like for instance coliform bacteria. heck, NO complex lifeform could live without it. so there is at least a chance that all these lifeforms developed "together", if not from the same source.

if not, which lifeforms came from that "primordial soup" and which ones not? or wasnt there a primordial soup, and god created some single celled organism here and there to evolve, and within it all some humans?

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Originally posted by Thrackan Solo

but i dont think that we evolved from a single celled organism in a primordial soup on the surface of the earth 5 billion years ago...

And what is the evidence to support this claim? Or is it just a gut feeling? It is great great for one to have their own opinions, but if they are not backed up with evidence, then they remain just that. Opinions.
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Originally posted by Prime

Or are you suggesting that the DNA is identical between a koala and a polar bear? Heck, every human's DNA is also different in some respects, and that is why it can be used to identify a person. The DNA of a person is not identical to their great grandfather.

I mean that one organism's DNA cannot change on its own (in that one, single organism) and a species keeps its characteristics (humans staying humans, ect.), but the DNA can be slightly different, giving a different type of trait (different eye color for example).

 

Originally posted by SkinWalker

http://geology.er.usgs.gov/paleo/vertebra.shtml

That explained what vertebrates are, but not any specific examples on the fossil record.

 

They're as clear and predictable as atomic theory and Electronic Theory. But no one contends that any dating method is "proven fact." However, the HUGE variety of methods used, which complement each other is not to be ignored. It should be noted that these methods are completely independent of each other.

Radiocarbon dating gives ages that are millions of years younger than those obtained by other radiodating techniques.

 

Also, dating rocks by their fossils is based on circular reasoning. Each strata is a certain age because of important fossils in it. The fossils in the strata are a certain age because they are in rock strata which is claimed to be that same age.

 

In addition, there is an extremely remote chance that an atom of argon behaved differently 10,000 + years ago than it does today.

What about excess argon? Argon from the mantle can "contaminate" the rocks in the crust and cause distorted ages. Also, heat applied to a sample can change the date drastically.

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I mean that one organism's DNA cannot change on its own.

 

Why not?

 

Originally posted by SkinWalker

http://geology.er.usgs.gov/paleo/vertebra.shtml

 

Originally posted by P-Agent

That explained what vertebrates are, but not any specific examples on the fossil record.

 

True, but it gave examples of vertebrates in the various eras of the geologic past, such as the Cretaceous, Cenozoic, etc. If you want specific account of the fossil record, read journal articles such as this one at Nature. If you want to set up a strawman, get to the point.

 

Originally posted by SkinWalker

They're as clear and predictable as atomic theory and Electronic Theory. But no one contends that any dating method is "proven fact." However, the HUGE variety of methods used, which complement each other is not to be ignored. It should be noted that these methods are completely independent of each other.

 

Originally posted by P-Agent

Radiocarbon dating gives ages that are millions of years younger than those obtained by other radiodating techniques.

 

No kidding. I'm getting the impression that you have little to teach me in the way of radiometric dating methods.

 

Originally posted by P-Agent

Also, dating rocks by their fossils is based on circular reasoning.

 

Only if you are ignorant to the science. If you have an understanding of context, stratigraphy, and seriation, it can be done quite effectively. But I made no contention that the dating of rocks initially depended upon the fossil record. It is possible to do so if the fossils found in the strata have been previously dated, typed and recorded.

 

Originally posted by P-Agent

Each strata is a certain age because of important fossils in it. The fossils in the strata are a certain age because they are in rock strata which is claimed to be that same age.

 

Strata can be dated independent from the fossil record. I won't bother to go into detail for two reasons: First, you likely aren't interested in the specifics; and second, it isn't within the scope of this thread to offer a course in geology. But rest assured, each stratum is "a certain age" because it was deposited at a certain period of time in the geologic history. The Law of Superposition and Original Horizontality come into play here. Each artifact/fossil will be dated specific to its context and provenience.

 

Originally posted by SkinWalker

In addition, there is an extremely remote chance that an atom of argon behaved differently 10,000 + years ago than it does today.

 

Originally posted by P-Agent

What about excess argon? Argon from the mantle can "contaminate" the rocks in the crust and cause distorted ages. Also, heat applied to a sample can change the date drastically.

 

First, heat applied to the sample (in sufficient quantity) serves to reset the clock, so to speak, making the date arrived at by some dating methods the minimum age of the sample.

 

Second, you obviously are attempting to "cut/paste" arguments from some fundamentalist source as it is apparent that you don't grasp the concept of potassium-argon dating as a method. To put it brief as I can: K-40 is trapped in a molten rock as it re-crystallizes (cools). As the K-40 decays into Ar-40 (an isotope of potassium to an isotope of argon), the Ar-40 is trapped in the rock. "Excess" of either element from the mantle, crust or elsewhere has no effect on the process. The isotopes of either behave the same regardless of quantity.

 

The significant point in regard to the many available dating methods is this: they corroborate each other! Often the methods employed are very different, such as dendrochronology and radiocarbon; thermoluminescence and seriation; paleomagnatism and K-Ar; etc. The only way to refute the evidence established by science as to the age of the Earth is to invoke a supernatural influence, which is irrefutable only because it cannot be tested.

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Originally posted by _PerfectAgent_

I mean that one organism's DNA cannot change on its own (in that one, single organism) and a species keeps its characteristics (humans staying humans, ect.), but the DNA can be slightly different, giving a different type of trait (different eye color for example).

so for each generation there can be small variations in DNA. And many small variations occuring over a very long time lead to big variations. Evolution.
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Another state has its own battles with the creationists:

 

A non-ad, straight text news article from New York Times.

 

In case you need to sign in (NY Times membership is free and they don't seem to email crap to you):

 

DARBY, Mont., Feb. 26 — In early December, a local Baptist minister, Curtis Brickley, put up handbills inviting residents of this town, population 754, to a meeting in the junior high school gym. The topic was the teaching of evolution in the Darby schools.

 

Apparently this nut caused quite an uproar with the citizenry:

 

Within days, a group of parents, business people, teachers, students and other residents mobilized to defend Darwin against Mr. Brickley's challenge. [...] On Tuesday, there was yet another confrontation at the board meeting, and on Wednesday, about 50 Darby High School students staged a walkout carrying signs with slogans like "Don't spread the gospel into school" and "Strike against creation science." There are 39 students in this year's graduating class.

 

Go students!

 

But the bad news:

 

Still, after three long evenings of often anguished public comment in late January and early February, a preliminary vote of the school board was 3-2 to add a revision to school policy suggested by Mr. Brickley.

 

This is the kind of ignorant (in the sense that the proponents lack knowledge) dogma that prevents kids from getting an appropriate education. Science classes in High Schools are already suffering because of unqualified teachers, poor curricula, lack of funding, poor falculty emphasis, etc.

 

The parallels and plagerisms I pointed out in this thread are enough to refute the creationist claim to "literal interpretation of the bible." This is the tactic that I fear scientists and those interested in refuting creationist mythology will have to invoke in order to defeat the cult takeover of the classroom.

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and yes: the whole world is laughing their asses of at USA every time things like these make it into the news.

 

No, we're not laughing. We would be if it wasn't for the fact that you're a hyperpower. Now we just cry at the fact that the world's largest store of nukes is managed by a country who could (almost) elect dubya as president.

 

In addition, there is an extremely remote chance that an atom of argon behaved differently 10,000 + years ago than it does today.

 

Hardly. Radiological dating is consistent with astronomical observations. And differing behavior over time would mean that intercalibration would be impossible, which it clearly is not.

 

 

Besides, treering dating goes back way to an era that the Bible doesn't even consider. And here we're talking about a dating system at least as certain as our culture's calendre.

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Originally posted by ShadowTemplar

No, we're not laughing. We would be if it wasn't for the fact that you're a hyperpower. Now we just cry at the fact that the world's largest store of nukes is managed by a country who could (almost) elect dubya as president.

 

true on one hand... but if you watch 2Dtv or DeadRingers or Rory Bremner do their impressions of GW then you will laugh every time he opens his mouth. Then maybe cry a bit later when you realise what he is up to.

 

It is scary that everytime you think you have misjudged the US based on redneck/fundamentalist/backwards sterotypes they go and do something to prove that they are scarily accurate sterotypes in places.

 

Nuclear weapons are based on science that isn't 100% conclusively proved. Physics at that level is still something we have to make theories about that fir the observable results, theories which we can't prove. Hovever, if we had just said "well, we can't prove it 100% so we won't teach it" then we would never have advanced past the renaisance and would still be riding horses and have no nuclear weapons....

 

..erm, hang on... :confused:

 

----

 

Maybe there is a minute possibility that there will be a "world isn't flat" scale revelation and we will realise our theory of evolution is wrong. BUt until that happens we need to continue with the only workable theory we have.

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  • 4 months later...

In news related to the Original Topic: Man wants schools to tell students that evolution just a theory.

 

Wouldn't this mean that chemistry books would need a disclaimer in the front, explaining how the periodic table is based on a theory about atomic principle and not a fact? How about a disclaimer in the physics textbooks that gravity is only a theory?

 

Actually, this guy (who's 84 years old) gives away his distinct lack of education in the sciences, since nearly every science text of nearly every discipline goes through, step-by-step, the process of scientific method, which clearly states that science is ever changing and that theories are just that: theories, but based on tested hypotheses.

 

The theory of evolution is based on a convergence of disciplines. Geology, biology, chemistry, physics, anthropology, etc. all point to the same induced conclusion: that life began on earth some 3.5 billion years ago with simple bacteria and gradually diversified to the present, perhaps with some "punctuated" leaps brought on by environmental changes.

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Darrah has distributed a letter to the Alexandria Community Schools board proposing the schools require disclaimers in their science and biology textbooks to help children understand that there are differences of opinion on the origin of life.
there's always an opposing side to everything, everyone disagrees, also, it's all over the news that people disagree with evolution, previous examples in this thread prove that.

 

And maybe it's just me, but when first taught about science, don't you usually learn that science is basically just theories, but documented and constantly studied and tested theories.

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Originally posted by Thrackan Solo

You have a point but there are still giant pieces missing from the puzzle of evolution. And, maybe there is evolution but i dont think that we evolved from a single celled organism in a primordial soup on the surface of the earth 5 billion years ago, because things do change I will admit, but this could still be from a divine creator.

 

I think this pretty much sums up the whole thread. It doesn't matter how much evidence you provide, if it doesn't "feel" right then people will have a problem believing it. You can't overcome opinions like that, no matter how much you try.

 

People just don't like to believe they come from a tiny organism, even over billions of years, it is too much of a gap and the time frame is too big to comprehend.

 

However they do seem willing to believe that a koala and a polar bear could evolve from the same creature in a few thousand years, even though that is actually much FASTER than scientists believe.

 

I'd be interested as to what happened once the animals were released from the ark... what did the carnivores eat one they were released, as they would need to have eaten something else for 6 months or so to allow enough prey to grow fro them to feed on without wiping them out.

 

I don't see why it is possible to jump through all these highly unlikely hoops to try and prove that your version MIGHT be true, when it would be much more impressive if there WAS a god and he had created the tiny organism in the soup knowing that one day it would evolve into all these creatures.

---

We know humans are growing and changing at a dramatic rate over the last few 100 years, but be creatioist theory we are the same age as all other creatures. So in the time that 16,000 creatures evolved (sorry - adapted) into billions of very different creatures, we changed hardly at all, but we have suddenly accelerated???? huh?

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  • 2 weeks later...
Radiocarbon dating gives ages that are millions of years younger than those obtained by other radiodating techniques.

 

Gee, maybe that's because they aren't used on the same substances: Radiocarbon dating is used on organic substances, and is corroborated by dendrochronology and archeological excavations, whereas the other radiometric dating techniques are used largely on inorganic materials, and corroborated by geological evidence and other radiometric dating techniques.

 

[And, in case anyone is in doubt: Rocks are usually a lot older than organic materials]

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  • 3 weeks later...

Holy crud, why is this still alive? It's been months since this was first posted. Here's the ultimate solution:

 

Don't bother trying to take evolution out of the curriculum, it's a stupid idea to take a valid idea out of the curriculum.

 

Done.

 

I might have something to say about ID being added to the curriculum, but that's a whole different argument for another thread... and I think this one's about had it.

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Originally posted by Master_Keralys

I might have something to say about ID being added to the curriculum, but that's a whole different argument for another thread... and I think this one's about had it.

 

Adding Creationist nonsense to the curriculum? Sheesh... There are what? Twenty 'arguments' for it. They can be presented and refuted within the week - comfortably.

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