Famous Scientists Who Believed in God

Originally posted by Proper Knob
Do i have an easier question, - yes!! Why haven't you read your copy of The Blind Watchmaker yet?

I don't have a copy. I only read it sometimes when I am not mad and stop by Barnes and Nobles to check out some popular books without buying them.

Originally posted by twhitehead
It is interesting though that most people who have these doubts are not only creationists, but don't have a clue as to what the actual numbers involved are. So how about enlightening us. Give us a ball park figure for each of the relevant figures, give us the equation, and lets see if the amount of time required is any where near what is believed to be th ...[text shortened]... believe there is a religion called 'evolutionism' like RJHinds? Or have I misunderstood you?

It is interesting though that most people who have these doubts are not only creationists, but don't have a clue as to what the actual numbers involved are. So how about enlightening us. Give us a ball park figure for each of the relevant figures, give us the equation, and lets see if the amount of time required is any where near what is believed to be the amount of time that has actually passed. - or you can admit that your doubts based entirely on your scepticism of evolution and you are actually ignorant of the facts.

Do you know why it is hard to put numbers on this ? It is hard because the proposition of one life form turning into another life form has never been observed.

Finches remain finches. Bacteria remain bacteria. Moths remain moths and dogs remain dogs. Horses remain to be horses.

If it had ever been observed that one species creature actually gave birth to a another species creature they might better be able to put some changes / time ratios on it.

Originally posted by jaywill
I don't have a copy. I only read it sometimes when I am not mad and stop by Barnes and Nobles to check out some popular books without buying them.

My apologies, my mistake.

Originally posted by Proper Knob
My apologies, my mistake.

You are gracious today. I thought you were going to jump on me for not having the book.

Originally posted by jaywill
[quote]
It is interesting though that most people who have these doubts are not only creationists, but don't have a clue as to what the actual numbers involved are. So how about enlightening us. Give us a ball park figure for each of the relevant figures, give us the equation, and lets see if the amount of time required is any where near what is believed ...[text shortened]... cies creature they might better be able to put some changes divided by time calculations on it.

If it had ever been observed that one species creature actually gave birth to a another species creature they might better be able to put some changes divided by time calculations on it.

[head hits desk]

I've read numerous books on evolution and i can't recall any scientist ever claiming any species will give birth to another species.

That is definitely not how speciation would occur.

Originally posted by jaywill
You are gracious today. I thought you were going to jump on me for not having the book.

I have no qualms apologising when i'm wrong/mistaken, it just doesn't happen very often. 😉

Seriously though, if you really want to get a handle on evolution it's a great book.

Originally posted by Proper Knob
[b]If it had ever been observed that one species creature actually gave birth to a another species creature they might better be able to put some changes divided by time calculations on it.

[head hits desk]

I've read numerous books on evolution and i can't recall any scientist ever claiming any species will give birth to another species.

That is definitely not how speciation would occur.[/b]

Oh.

The land walking mammal did not gradually migrate into the ocean and become a whale ?

The ape (or something that looks like an ape) did not one day give birth to a human ?

Why didn't you tell me ?!? Relationships of descent have to mean reproduction.

Originally posted by jaywill

yes, and they are quickly weeded out by evolution before they spread to the whole population.
“Most” is the operative word here: What about the beneficial ones?

Without intelligence ? Without an intelligent plan ?
I don't think any "quick" weeding out could take place just on its own.

[quote]
Here then a valid concern: I do e me two or three consecutive sentences on WHY you exist in this universe.

Without intelligence ? Without an intelligent plan ?
I don't think any "quick" weeding out could take place just on its own.

does this mean you deny that a living thing with a bad mutation would be weeded out by the environment?
If a antelope was born in the wild with a mutation that prevented it from running, how long would it likely live for?
How likely would it be for it to live until it could reproduce and pass-on its genes? Would you deny that a predictor will probably kill it first? If you do not deny any of this then you are admitting that the environment will weed out that mutation before it could spread to the rest of the population and do so without any need for divine intervention so what is exactly the problem you have here with the environment quickly weeding out a bad mutation?

How many years do I have to repeat throwing a grand piano down the side of a rocky mountain, before the time comes when as it tumbles over rocks I hear Bach's Goldberg Variations coming out ?

your analogy is stupidly flawed; evolution works as a long series of small credible increments and NOT as one incredible step occurring all in one go.

There has to be some "look ahead" capacity to steer the results to the outcome I observe.

No.

But I was asking the question behind that. If there were evidence how are you undercut in human dignity that such evidence exists ?

I wouldn't and I did not claim that nor believe that. I have already pointed out there is NO such evidence so that is just purely academic anyway.

Do you think that since 9/11 atheists have pounced on the event to seek to drive home that ANY belief in God is equally evil and destructive ?

No, but it proves the danger of having absurd beliefs.

Okay. There are some good Atheists. Why not ?

why not indeed! Esp given the unsurprising fact ( given the general lack of delusions most atheists have + higher IQ on avarage ) that atheists are statistically on average less likely to commit a crime than theists.
Okay. There are also some good theists. Why not ?

Tell me WHY you are here in the universe ?

there is no “reason” why I am here in the universe other than the universe is such that it physically and mindlessly allows my existence.

You said you don't need any god to tell you why.
…..
….. ( middle bit deleted )
….
Give me two or three consecutive sentences on WHY you exist in this universe.

No, I said I don't need any god to tell me what my PURPOSE is. I said nothing about " why" I am here in the universe. There is no 'WHY' I am here in the universe of the type of 'why' you are referring to.

Fine, why then do you breath? Why does your heart beat?

because that is part of the biological function of my respiratory system and blood circulatory system and it hasn't yet stopped functioning.

When you look into the mirror at "humy" WHO are you in this universe ?

humy

Originally posted by jaywill
[quote]
It is interesting though that most people who have these doubts are not only creationists, but don't have a clue as to what the actual numbers involved are. So how about enlightening us. Give us a ball park figure for each of the relevant figures, give us the equation, and lets see if the amount of time required is any where near what is believed ...[text shortened]... o a another species creature they might better be able to put some changes / time ratios on it.

Creationist nonsense and lies.

Evolution in both 'micro' and 'macro' forms has BEEN OBSERVED and anyone claiming otherwise is
lying or ignorant of the facts.

Originally posted by jaywill
Oh.

The land walking mammal did not gradually migrate into the ocean and become a whale ?

The ape (or something that looks like an ape) did not one day give birth to a human ?

Why didn't you tell me ?!? Relationships of descent have to mean reproduction.

No creature has EVER given birth to a (viable offspring) that was a different species from the parent.



It's like I was explaining to robbie the other day.

Evolutionary change is [sort of, will do for an analogy] a continuum.

Imagine you had a light source that you could infinitely finely control the colour (frequency) it emits.
You start with red (low frequency) light.
If you ever so slowly increase the frequency (colour) of light so that from one second to the next the
colour is pretty much indistinguishable from the colour the second before or the second after.
You will still given enough time reach a colour that is definitely blue and distinctly different from the red
you started from.

Yet at no point could you distinguish the colour change from second to second or look at the colour
emitted in any two adjacent seconds and say that they were different colours.


This is what we mean when we say that evolution changes creatures from one species to another while at
no point do any creatures give birth to an animal of a different species.


This is one of the most fundamental creationist misunderstandings about evolution.
Mainly due to the fact that various priests and apologists lie about it so frequently.



The evolution of creatures from one species to another is readily evident in both the fossil record and has been
observed numerous times with living creatures.


How it happens is more complex than my analogy but it should give you an idea of what we mean when we
say that speciation occurs without any creature ever giving birth to a creature of a different species.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciation

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html#CB900

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB901.html

Originally posted by jaywill
Do you know why it is hard to put numbers on this ? It is hard because the proposition of one life form turning into another life form has never been observed.

Why would that be relevant? What is a 'life form' anyway? A species? You do know I hope that that is a man made classification system?

Finches remain finches. Bacteria remain bacteria. Moths remain moths and dogs remain dogs. Horses remain to be horses.
Funny how you mention a family of birds, a whole kingdom of micro organisms, an order of insects and two species of mammal. Clearly you knowledge of biology is somewhat lacking.
Anyway, you are flat out wrong. Dogs are descended from wolves, horses can breed with donkeys, and finches, bacteria and moths come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. That the descendants of a given moth are also moths has to do with our classification system not to do with some limit of nature.

If it had ever been observed that one species creature actually gave birth to a another species creature they might better be able to put some changes / time ratios on it.
It has been observed. But now that you admit that you haven't got a clue what time limits to put on it, do you admit that you have complete ignorance of the subject and shouldn't be making claims about how long it would take and shouldn't even have any opinion on the matter?

Originally posted by googlefudge
No creature has EVER given birth to a (viable offspring) that was a different species from the parent.

I disagree. I believe hybrids are technically a new species. They are certainly not members of their parent species. This is obviously a somewhat rarer event than most speciation, but happens nevertheless - especially in controlled environments (human livestock).

Also, in plants, speciation is sometimes due to single mutations (plants can often propagate vegitatively) and speciation can take place from parent to child.

Originally posted by humy

Without intelligence ? Without an intelligent plan ?
I don't think any "quick" weeding out could take place just on its own.

does this mean you deny that a living thing with a bad mutation would be weeded out by the environment?
If a antelope was born in the wild with a mutation that prevented it from running, how long would it likely li hen you look into the mirror at "humy" WHO are you in this universe ? [/quote]
humy

does this mean you deny that a living thing with a bad mutation would be weeded out by the environment?
If a antelope was born in the wild with a mutation that prevented it from running, how long would it likely live for?

You have a much more complicated problem than that.
You have the antelope evolving. But you also have the preditor evolving as well. You also have the enviroment remaining the same long enough for Evolution to make the best "decisions" for lack of a better word.

You have all these things coordinating in concert. The timing of the preditors evolving has to move in conjunction with that of the prey. It is a very complex scenario of coordination.

Then you have to have the modified antelop be a reproducing parent. By the way, we have no gaurantee that ANY fossil represents the PARENT of another animal. We have no way to know that fossil X was the mother or father or pregenitor of another animal.

Given, perhaps his or her siblings were parents. But then they would have to have lucked out to be similar.

Take the elongated neck of the giraffe. Whatever it ate was ALSO evolving. And its favorite food on what, what tree had to be the same long enough for the millions of years to "decide" that length X was a more advantageous length.

With the earth undergoing climate changes, whether changes, deological changes, we don't know that there was stability long enough for Evolution to do the right weeding.

How likely would it be for it to live until it could reproduce and pass-on its genes? Would you deny that a predictor will probably kill it first? If you do not deny any of this then you are admitting that the environment will weed out that mutation before it could spread to the rest of the population and do so without any need for divine intervention so what is exactly the problem you have here with the environment quickly weeding out a bad mutation?

The preditor, the prey, the environment are all undergoing changes in the millions of intervening years.

Mind you intelligent intervention may or may not be "divine". I think God is divine. But like forensics - the perpurtrator of a purposeful crime may not be identified.

Okay, I'm a Christian so I'm suppose to believe it is divine intervention. My point is that it is intelligent involvement. Either in the design of the program of Evolution or in the intervention.

If evolution did occur on a macro level I detect the intelligent "look ahead" ability in the trial and error. Look Evolution must be educating itself. That is fantastic.

What TOLD it, what Made it know that reproduction was the best method to be used over multiple classes. That's intelligence man!

Something is saying, ie, sexual intercourse is a good idea and can be reused in umpteen thousand other cases. Milk production for the young is a successful method of nourishment of offspring across thousands of other creatures in the same class.

I think we have a Java programmer around here somewhere on the Forum. That is like Object Oriented Programming. There is CLASS and instanciation. There is class and subclass. There is classification and inheritance of class characteristics.

This speaks of intelligence. This speaks of looking ahead rather than groping blindly by trial and error.

This is like the booting up of an operating system in a computer. Plan is there. Make space, clear space, build tables, propogage tables, duplicate characteristics, duplicate with slight modification for related but slightly different function.

This is stuff minds do - planning minds.

How many years do I have to repeat throwing a grand piano down the side of a rocky mountain, before the time comes when as it tumbles over rocks I hear Bach's Goldberg Variations coming out ?


your analogy is stupidly flawed; evolution works as a long series of small credible increments and NOT as one incredible step occurring all in one go.

Yes, you have the same object to do trial and error on. You cannot have a completely moving target. You have to have the same basic organism (like another piano) to live again and again and again.

So the analogy is not completely off. In object oriented programming terms you have have to have multiple instances of the member of a class to repeat itself for this weeding out to happen.

There has to be some "look ahead" capacity to steer the results to the outcome I observe.

No.

I think Evolution, if true, has to have had an "ideal" to steer towards.

I have to stop writing for awhile.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I disagree. I believe hybrids are technically a new species. They are certainly not members of their parent species.

Hmmm, ok however you are talking about an instance where two species come together to
create a third whereas I was talking about a single species giving birth to a second species.

And we may well get into arguments here about what does or does not constitute a different
species.

Biology as ever is complicated.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_%28biology%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_speciation



However this does not in any way change the point that at no point has a dog ever given birth to a dolphin
or a crab.
Or other such ridiculous claims made by the creationists.

Originally posted by jaywill
I think Evolution, if true, has to have had an "ideal" to steer towards.

See if you can come up with an original argument not dealt with on this site and then get back to us.

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html#CB

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

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/