Bring up Evloution Again....

Originally posted by Mexico
Hey there's noting to prove that wrong, but the 6.5billion years is definitley necessary..... I don't see why they can't just say "God created evolution".... Or "God left the building blocks of life on the earth"..... Instead of arguing from ignorance about a theory they appear to have huge misconceptions of.... Evolution and Abiogenesis remove the necessity of god from life, they don't eliminate him......

Educated Christians do exactly that. Strangely, you can actually talk to them and have a good argument about religion and faith. I wish there were some of those here...

Originally posted by Mexico
I've given you my views, and I've still yet to hear 1 straight answer to my originally posted question, 96 posts later, seriously can you not admit that your world view is unscientific and shouldn't be thought in science classes. Its just as valid a stand point as a scientific one. From a philosophical point of view anyway. I have no desire to make you angry ...[text shortened]... lievers to admit that its not science and shouldn't be thought in science classes. thats all

I have never claimed my beliefs should be taught in science class.
Why did you say that?
Kelly

Originally posted by Mexico
I've given you my views, and I've still yet to hear 1 straight answer to my originally posted question, 96 posts later, seriously can you not admit that your world view is unscientific and shouldn't be thought in science classes. Its just as valid a stand point as a scientific one. From a philosophical point of view anyway. I have no desire to make you angry ...[text shortened]... lievers to admit that its not science and shouldn't be thought in science classes. thats all

You gave me a vague statement which more than one person said
could be taken several different ways. Since that time I have been
asking for more.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
I have never claimed my beliefs should be taught in science class.
Why did you say that?
Kelly

Then why did you join the thread I made it clear a few posts in that my whole point here was that this nonsense shouldn't even come up in science classes..... I don't care about your beliefs.... My issue is when they start getting taught to children as sciences.....

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For the record there is very little difference between "Macroevolution and Microevolution" its a concept developed by people who dispute the theories surrounding evolution.
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So what if that is true? Is the discrimination not useful because of that fact alone?

The micro / macro distinction probably came about by some researchers said - "Okay, evolution we agree with, but how much we are no sure of ? Does it account for land mammels gradually becomming whales? Does it account for apes becomming humans?"

So some exponents of micro and macro evolution are perhaps meeting you half way and feel they are not going overboard. I want to hear there opinions too.
So

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As to the thousands of predictions:
Fruit flies adapting generation to generation, and in fact speciating if separated for long enough.
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Okay. However, the fruit flies were fruit flies before they adapted. And after they adapted they were still fruit flies.

So we come back to Evolution, OK, but how much? Thus a concept of micro / macro evolution.

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Bacteria doing the same thing.
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Same as above. both before adapting and after adapting the organisms were still bacteria.

You can't appreciate the difference between this kind of change and the change which causes an ape to become a human being?

Okay, we observe change. Now how far is it reasonable to take this phenomenon? Does it explain land mammels eventually giving birth ever so slowly and gradually to whales?

So some choose to speak of micro and macro evolution.

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Certain plants doing the same thing.
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I think the same issue applies. That is unless you have a plant of one type become a totally different plant of another type.

I speak as a layman.

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Genetic defects.
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That's all well and good. But because of this should we leap to the assumption that apes became humans?

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Several hundred species found in the fossil record.
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Some are not assured by this that it proves relationships of descent.

If the evidence were that abundant then no hoaxes and fakes would need to be concocted, which they have.

A researcher finds a bone one place and quite a distance away finds another. He jumps to the conclusion that both bones belong to the same body. That's a dangerous assumption.

Another researcher finds monkey bones and human bones in the same spot. He assumes that these must be missing links - monkey men. Maybe. However maybe both human corpses and monkey corpses were deposited in the same place.

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An old earth,
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I think that is a geology matter. For the record I am interested in ID and I believe in a creation. If you need a few million years or a few billion year old earth, I have no problem with that. Young Earth Creationists might have a problem. I don't have a problem with an ancient earth.

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The progressive development and increasing complexity and diversity of life within the old earths history.

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Encreasing complexity could have other causes. It could have other reasons for that.

Seriously. Those reasons could have to do with cultivating a sense of self consciousness in man's realization about himself. He looks down from the top of a pinnacle of other lives. He sees a graduated incline of level after level after level of encreased complexity. It engenders within him a sense of his own speciality. He notices that there is nothing else which is quite like himself.

Dolphins are clever and chimps are smart. But human beings are still in a class occupied by themselves alone. No one and nothing can quite compete with this highest plain upon which man stands.

Perhaps a Creator wanted intentionally to instill a sense of our uniqueness. It could be done by having humans at the top of a long series of graduated levels. We look down and all the "lower" forms of life. We have an unquestionable sense of uniqueness among all living things.

We are connect to them. We are like them. Yet somehow we are amongt them but separated.

There could be other reasons an intelligent creation may purposefully arrange designs in an unmistakable graduated incline of complexity. Relationships of descent is not the only possible answer.

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Ammonite complexity

Trilobite complexity
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As a layman I will have to review these. However the Cambrian explosion in the fossil record is called by some a "biological big bang".

What is thought to be the earliest life forms, in the fossil record, seem to explode upon the scene fully formed.

Also, I would think that evolution would find the one celled animals far less complex since time wise they are thought to be on the lowest rung of the ladder. However, a simple amoeba seems not to exist. The one celled animals are incredibly complex.

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Divergent Evolution and mode of life
Convergent Evolution of isolated extant lifeforms which have a common ancestor so far back its extinct........
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This sounds a little circular. I think it is called "question begging".

Anyway, thanks for you examples of predictions. And my thoughts on them demonstrate the micro / macro evolution is a useful and valid aspect of the whole evolution discussion IMO.

Originally posted by KellyJay
I have never claimed my beliefs should be taught in science class.
Why did you say that?
Kelly

Would you mind reading the original post, which is the thing you should be addressing?

Originally posted by jaywill
[b]============================

For the record there is very little difference between "Macroevolution and Microevolution" its a concept developed by people who dispute the theories surrounding evolution.
==============================

So what if that is true? Is the discrimination not useful because of that fact alone?

The micro / macro ...[text shortened]... cro evolution is a useful and valid aspect of the whole evolution discussion IMO.[/b]

Ok granted I can see why the Macro/Micro can be a useful term. However I think your major problem here is not being able to visualize how long a Billion years is. I'm very glad that you accept the old earth by the way, there is no way and very little point in discussing evolution with someone who doesn't.
Taking the example of the fruit fly: If we can see speciation(You know what defines a species?) and noticeable changes in morphology, within a fly over the period of a few generations(a few days in this case) then apply this to a billion years and a natural environment and I can easily see there being many many creatures who look nothing like the original fruit fly but have certain features which mark it as having the fruit fly somewhere in it's ancestry, six legs, compound eyes etc etc.......
Apply the same logic to bacteria and it goes further, I can easily visualize over a million(less actually) years how a bacterium could combine with neighboring bacteria, changing from unicellular to multi cellular. Thus changing not only species but actually being something completely different.
Same logic with the plant.

You seem to think that in larger creatures this would take only 1 or 2 generations. Taking the average mammal lifespan to be 20 years..... several million/20 gives a lot of generations even 1 million years is 50,0000 generations. And the effect is exponential, once 2 creatures become speciated, they themselves will start diverging in respect to environment, resulting in 4/6/8/10 species, and so on and so forth.

Specifically to your whale comment, all you need is a large aquatic mammal, which slowly adapts to the sea over say 5000 generations (gross underestimate). Look at humans in the space of a few generations on average we've gotten significantly taller on average. And a clear example of this is the size and shape of doors in older buildings (celts, Norman, viking kind of older). And I firmly believe if 2 groups of humans we're seperated for 1 million years, they'd look very very different and probably not be able to breed.

to kill 2 birds with one stone
Relationships of descent can be demonstrated in both ammonite and trilobite populations within the fossil record. As well as brachiopods, bivalves, echnoids etc etc. All of which can be shown to start out as 1 or 2 species further down in stratigraphy (older), then as one investigates further and further up stratigraphy they become vast and hugely divergent species..... Both trilobites and ammonites went from something as small as your hand to creatures as big as a table. And in the case of ammonites even larger (Car Bus).
Actually heres one for you; echnoids, think sea urchins, star fish, sea lilies etc. A clear spectrum of change can be show from the initial morphology of a small basic (round) sea urchin all the way through to the massive starfish, which have limbs that the sea urchin never had, we see today, and we still have highly adapted and evolved species of the original sea urchins also. Same with sea lilies.

These by the way are complete creature fossils, no bone matching required.

I'm going to ignore the comment about man looking down at lesser lifeforms. For several reasons; your assuming mans self awareness makes him superior to all other life. I judge success on span of existence, we haven't been here that long and we won't be if we carry on the way we are.
There was nothing quite like the trilobite, it was a successful predator, a successful herbivore... Effectively the trilobite filled every mode of life imaginable. It was also here longer, and survived more readily..... It was by every definition, except self awareness, far far more successful than us. As we're the dinosaurs actually.

Why would a designer allow a perfectly adapted creature such as the trilobite become extinct?
And relationship of descent fits the data better.....

There is much pre-cambrian life, look up stromatalites and the ediacara fauna....... The life explosion is more than likely the shift from soft bodied creatures being dominant to hard bodied creatures being dominant... An artifact of preservation nothing more.

Single celled life is incredibly complex because its been evolving the longest, I thought that would be clear. None of it can't be linked to other single celled lifeforms, we just don't have the ancestors anymore.

Divergent evolution is the adaption of 2 species with 1 common ancestor into 2 completely separate modes of life.... Creatures that share ancestry and look the same but have completely different adaptions for feeding, breeding, etc etc

convergent evolution 2 creatures, completely separate from one another with completely different ancestry, that have developed similar adoptions in morphology to facilitate a similar mode of life.....

Originally posted by jaywill
Okay. However, the fruit flies were fruit flies before they adapted. And after they adapted they were [b]still fruit flies.

You can't appreciate the difference between this kind of change and the change which causes an ape to become a human being?[/b]

Actually after apes adapted and became humans they were still apes - and remain apes to this day. So where is your argument?

I have talked to a number of people on these forums claiming that there are limits to the changes possible, but not one has yet been able to explain to me what those limits are, or even why they think those limits exist. The best anyone has come up with is similar to what you are saying ie basic incredulity with no explanation.

Thank you Jaywill by the way for having a reasoned conversation, presenting your views and importantly not evading points. I'm trying for discussion here not argument. Also please remember that the point of the original post wasn't a defense of evolution. I wished for Intelligent Design and any other alternatives to be presented for analysis. And a conclusion to be drawn on whether or not its should be thought in schools as science..... This has never and will never be an attack on faith as some people seem to think it is.... I simply wished the schools issue brought up and objectively argued from both sides.

although its off topic you never did answer my question by the way. What happens to intelligent design if they successfully create life without gods hands?

Originally posted by Mexico
Then why did you join the thread I made it clear a few posts in that my whole point here was that this nonsense shouldn't even come up in science classes..... I don't care about your beliefs.... My issue is when they start getting taught to children as sciences.....

I guess you still have not read what I have been you. I cannot
compare,contrast, or replace what you have not defined. If you are
unable or willing to do the basic, good luck with getting your answers.
Kelly

Originally posted by UzumakiAi
Would you mind reading the original post, which is the thing you should be addressing?

"Whats your alternative, the answer has to be based in science, not religious text."

Yes, you have a point, or you as thick as he is? I am not offereing
a 'belief' or a "religious test" for his science class, but it looks like
that is all he thinks anyone who may disagree with him on evolution
has to offer. I'm tired of asking him to define it so we know what it
is he is looking for. I don't think he is honest in his query.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
I guess you still have not read what I have been you. I cannot
compare,contrast, or replace what you have not defined. If you are
unable or willing to do the basic, good luck with getting your answers.
Kelly

As always evading questions.
If you read the first page of posts it becomes quite clear what I'm looking for here, there is currently a debate about the theory of evolution: The question is effectively, should the alternatives which agree with creation be thought alongside evolution in science classes. My whole thread was targeted at this point, and seeing what these alternatives are and whether they have any place in classrooms.

Now I know your aware of this debate, and I also know you are well aware of the Theory of Evolution. So my only conclusion that I've drawn, from your lack of a single answer to any questions in this thread, is that you know the theory evolution is accurate, good science based on empirical evidence and data, and reject it anyway, but don't want to admit it. And that you either have no Idea about the alternatives that fit with a creation, or else you don't want to bring them up in case they get knocked down. Either way I grow weary of your circular arguments and lack of points. All you ever do is answer questions with questions.........

How is it that Jaywill knew exactly the questions I was asking? and everyone else in the thread?

Originally posted by KellyJay
"Whats your alternative, the answer has to be based in science, not religious text."

Yes, you have a point, or you as thick as he is? I am not offereing
a 'belief' or a "religious test" for his science class, but it looks like
that is all he thinks anyone who may disagree with him on evolution
has to offer. I'm tired of asking him to define it so we know what it
is he is looking for. I don't think he is honest in his query.
Kelly

No I actually don't give a rats ass about what you think about the Theory of evolution, as long as your not preaching against it in science classes. And further more, I'm going to read slightly beyond what your implying here; this post is almost an admission that your beliefs are unscientific... Which is very honest of you. As for "the honesty of my query", I've been quite clear in what I want here, and all you've done is evade and answer questions with questions. The TOE has been clearly defined several times in this thread and in several ways. What exactly are you looking for here? a transcript from some evolutionary theory text book?. Or perhaps a way to evade my original question?............

It appears you've been reduced sputtering and Name calling;
"Are you as thick as he is?" and calling my honesty into question.

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Originally posted by serigado
I want to dedicate a music to all of you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C9CH3q9PLI&feature=related

Lol.... Never seen that video, its kinda cool....