Evidence for creationism

[Lone Wolf]

Another one they say is that one animal one day decided to lengthen it's neck, and so one day it turned into a giraffe.

Lamarck was wrong. If you were really good at science, you really should know that evolution doesn't work that way. Evolution is a cold, naturally selecting beast, that doesn't care about anyone's desires.

Anyway, I'm a bit confused by your post. Do you mean that the arguments of your anti-evolutionary friends convinced you?

 

[Chukchi Husky]

Lamarck was wrong.

They said it was Darwin who came up with it, and that Darwin's last words before he died were "What have I done?", since he knew evolution was a mistake.

If you were really good at science, you really should know that evolution doesn't work that way. Evolution is a cold, naturally selecting beast, that doesn't care about anyone's desires.

I guess I'm just too much of an idiot.

Anyway, I'm a bit confused by your post. Do you mean that the arguments of your anti-evolutionary friends convinced you?

Yes. I'm an idiot and they are clearly far smarter than I am.

 

[Lone Wolf]

They said it was Darwin who came up with it, and that Darwin's last words before he died were "What have I done?", since he knew evolution was a mistake.

They're Just Wrong. The point of Darwin's theory is that evolution is guided by random mutations, and over time, mutated traits that aid survival become more common. There's also a component of chance involved. Giraffes with longer necks survived more slightly longer, produced offspring with slightly longer necks, et cetera.

Yes. I'm an idiot and they are clearly far smarter than I am.

Don't be so self-deprecating

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

They say that according to evolution, that an ape decided one day that it wanted to straighten it's back, and that it eventually after doing that turned into a man, then laugh at how absurd the idea is.

What they say is according to evolution, is not according to evolution. The fact they have to misrepresent evolution to make it ridiculous tells you they have no answer to what evolution actually claims. There is no conscious thought in evolution. No ape one day thought "lets walk upright and turn into man".

Another one they say is that one animal one day decided to lengthen it's neck, and so one day it turned into a giraffe.

This is the same misrepresentation. The animals with the slightly longer necks had slightly more food at their disposal, so a slightly higher chance of surviving. Since their survival rate was a bit higher, they had more chance to reproduce (not being dead is a huge advantage when breeding). So the slightly longer neck gene got passed on more often than the normal sized neckers. In effect making the average length of the neck a little longer. Now of that new population of long neckers, the ones with the slightly longer neck had the same advantage. Repeat for a couple of million years ...

Another example they give to how evolution is false is the bee orchid, a plant that fools bees into thinking it's another bee so it can spread it's pollen. What they say is that the plant has no brain, and it cannot think, so how can it know what a bee wants and therefore know it should look like a bee to attract bees?

Again, conscious thought does not play any part in evolution.

A fourth example they give is penguins. They say that the fact that penguins live in such an extreme environment as Antarctica show what it's impossible for any creature to adapt to such a condition, and therefore it must have been designed.

Do they give a reason why it's impossible to adapt to a food rich environment which few other animals have tapped?

One other thing they say, which applies to all animals, is "Why would an animal want to change when it's perfectly happy the way it is?"

want to change. Christ, what kind of morons are telling you this nonsense?

At one time I thought evolution is true, and I would give dog breeds as an example. I would say that all dog breeds are descended from wolves, and that man found traits in the wolves they wanted and mated them, and that slowly over time all the modern breeds of dogs came about. They say that's complete nonsense, saying at first that it's man made, so it doesn't count, and then that dogs were designed by God to be that way.

Ah yes. Uhm .... uhm ....God did it!

They said it was Darwin who came up with it, and that Darwin's last words before he died were "What have I done?", since he knew evolution was a mistake.

Lie.

I guess I'm just too much of an idiot.

When in doubt, doubt everything and try to find out for yourself.

Don't listen to these clowns. Heck, don't even listen to us. Go and see what you can figure out from studies and which argument is more persuasive. An idiot would take their claims on evolution on face value, the fact you come here to present them to be discussed means you;re not an idiot.

Yes. I'm an idiot and they are clearly far smarter than I am.

Wrong on both accounts.

 

[negZero]

@Chukchi Husky

First example, man is related to ape in the same way your related to your third cousin twice remove. At one point we were closer but our branch stood up little straighter and then they mated with people stood up straight to and there kids stood up even straighter so on so on. Just because the Piltdown Man was hoax doesn't mean every piece of fossil evidence is hoax.

Second example, giraffe didn't one day decide that there neck is going to be longer, animals just can't do that sort of thing. Instead what happen was there food started getting higher up forcing them either to learn how to climb a tree or become taller. The ones with long necks were able to survive and mate well the shorter ones died, hence why giraffes now have long necks.

Third example, bee orchid looks like a bee cause that what succeeded and allow its spread

Fourth example, penguins live in Antarctica cause the ones that where able to survive changing world and mate were the ones that could live in cold. Allowing them to pass there genes down to the next generation that mated with penguins that were even better at handling the could.

"Why would an animal want to change when it's perfectly happy the way it is?"

Cause the world changed forcing them to either adopt or die.

 

[Haseri]

If there is any fossil evidence, they say it's a hoax, because the Piltdown Man is a hoax.

That's like filling a cup of water from a waterfall and declaring that you have stopped said waterfall.

 

[Atlas14]

They give several reasons why you have to be an idiot to think evolution is right, and that anything that proves evolution is a hoax.

The first example they give is the supposed idea that man is descended from apes. They say that according to evolution, that an ape decided one day that it wanted to straighten it's back, and that it eventually after doing that turned into a man, then laugh at how absurd the idea is. If there is any fossil evidence, they say it's a hoax, because the Piltdown Man is a hoax.

Another one they say is that one animal one day decided to lengthen it's neck, and so one day it turned into a giraffe.

I realized some posters already addressed these points, and there's no need for overkill but I thought i'd chip in a bit.

First off, evolution is primarily driven by natural selection, amongst some other driving factors. That said, primates cannot consciously ponder the benefits of possessing straight backs and somehow make these desires come true. The primates' populations would most likely already had individuals possessing alleles for straighter-than-average backs, or there could have been one/multiple mutations with this trait the phenotypic result. Through Natural selection, however, over the course of millions of years presumably, the primates' populations would evolve based upon which genes were most favorable in the environments they were situated. If straight backs happened to confer an advantage in hunting, strength, etc., then it is logical that the primates possessing these genes would have greater reproductive success and so the population genetics for the primates would shift towards the genes responsible for straighter backs. Same goes for the giraffe example.

Another example they give to how evolution is false is the bee orchid, a plant that fools bees into thinking it's another bee so it can spread it's pollen. What they say is that the plant has no brain, and it cannot think, so how can it know what a bee wants and therefore know it should look like a bee to attract bees?

The plant doesn't know what the bee wants. The plant somewhere in history had to have had a mutation or series of mutations that happened to make it look like a bee. The reason it has become successful is because of this. If it happened to have a mutation that made it look like a zebra, well it likely wouldn't present any added benefit or advantage, it would likely not be as successful, and we would probably not be talking about it here today. We are talking about this type of orchid and the bee because it is an example of the sorts of genes that are successful.

A fourth example they give is penguins. They say that the fact that penguins live in such an extreme environment as Antarctica show what it's impossible for any creature to adapt to such a condition, and therefore it must have been designed.

This one is easy. Penguins that had the greatest protection from the cold due to fat reserves were successful and reproduced, those that didn't would not be able to tolerate the cold, and so would not be found in Antarctica. Although fat reserves are obviously not genetic, the ability to find fatty fish, minimize activity in severe cold, navigate through blizzard conditions, care for young all are affected by genetics.

One other thing they say, which applies to all animals, is "Why would an animal want to change when it's perfectly happy the way it is?"

Populations evolve due to pressures such as predation, resource availability, and mutations. If the populations are not evolving, then nature is not functioning.

 

[El_Machinae]

Genesis

How do you shift your interpretive paradigm for the later verses? While you can selectively cut a section out, and make sense of it in an historical setting, the paradigm by which you're interpreting the system completely breaks down over the next dozen verses.

 

[Methos]

the Earth existed in some other form before "creation" began. But it did exist... Under the water, and it was dark.

I find it interesting that in this statement you take water as the literal meaning of water, yet further on you take water as being defined as something other then its literal meaning. Tell me, why does the statement above have to be the literal meaning? Have you considered it otherwise?

 

[Tani Coyote]

hm, then God is a sadist.

Thus, because God is perfect, sadism is perfect.

God suffers from a dilemma; he must allow the Devil and sin in general to exist for a variety of reasons:

1. The Devil is just as much one of his children as us, and thus, he cannot be smote
1a. That not touching upon if the Devil isn't really pure evil and is a more sympathetic version who merely screwed up or is an agent of God

2. God's love is manifest in free will. Choice without choices isn't choice at all. By allowing sin to exist, he gives us not only free will, but choices in how to exercise it. What would be the point if he only made it possible to do good? He allows us to be as righteous, amoral, or downright despicable as we please. ...but he also reminds us we'll be held accountable in the end.

3. God allows suffering to exist to respect the free will of humanity. All events in society, more or less, are the results of temptations and how we act on them. Or at least, that's what I heard from my Pentecostal-raised mother. I suppose it kind of ties in with the theme of free will being of the utmost importance. Perhaps God imbued us with the power to develop governments and inalienable rights so as to take care of the suffering that he himself could not, lest he violate free will?

3a. Allowing suffering to exist also serves as a temptation. People can crack under the pressure. But God rewards those whose faith and hope prevents them from succumbing to sin.

 

[Chukchi Husky]

They're Just Wrong. The point of Darwin's theory is that evolution is guided by random mutations, and over time, mutated traits that aid survival become more common. There's also a component of chance involved. Giraffes with longer necks survived more slightly longer, produced offspring with slightly longer necks, et cetera.

That's another thing they say. Life is so complex that it's impossible anything can appear just by random chance. One example they give is the eye, saying that how can each individual part appear that won't work until all the parts are together, and it's impossible that such a complex thing can just appear from random chance.

What they say is according to evolution, is not according to evolution. The fact they have to misrepresent evolution to make it ridiculous tells you they have no answer to what evolution actually claims. There is no conscious thought in evolution. No ape one day thought "lets walk upright and turn into man".

I guess it's just the way it's taught in England. Even most of my science teachers thought evolution was complete nonsense. There's another problem that they think the concept of evolution is evil because the Germans in World War I practiced it and it ended up creating the Nazis.

This is the same misrepresentation. The animals with the slightly longer necks had slightly more food at their disposal, so a slightly higher chance of surviving. Since their survival rate was a bit higher, they had more chance to reproduce (not being dead is a huge advantage when breeding). So the slightly longer neck gene got passed on more often than the normal sized neckers. In effect making the average length of the neck a little longer. Now of that new population of long neckers, the ones with the slightly longer neck had the same advantage.

I guess they'll say how did the ones with the slightly longer necks appear in the first place, and why it would make them have a better chance of survival, or they'll just dismiss it as being too complex and long winded.

Repeat for a couple of million years ...

I don't think they think the world has been around that long. They claim that forms of dating like carbon dating are wrong.

Again, conscious thought does not play any part in evolution.

That's how they think is the only way it could possibly work.

Do they give a reason why it's impossible to adapt to a food rich environment which few other animals have tapped?

They never mentioned anything like that. I guess the closest is that ecosystems are so balanced and everything so interconnected that it must be designed that way.

want to change. Christ, what kind of morons are telling you this nonsense?

They're far smarter than I am.

When in doubt, doubt everything and try to find out for yourself.

I guess everything is wrong and knowing anything is pointless.

An idiot would take their claims on evolution on face value, the fact you come here to present them to be discussed means you;re not an idiot.

I am an idiot.

First example, man is related to ape in the same way your related to your third cousin twice remove. At one point we were closer but our branch stood up little straighter and then they mated with people stood up straight to and there kids stood up even straighter so on so on.

They'll just laugh at that absurd idea of wanting to straighten their backs.

Just because the Piltdown Man was hoax doesn't mean every piece of fossil evidence is hoax.

No only that, but whenever science tries to prove anything it must be a hoax, wrong or evil.

Second example, giraffe didn't one day decide that there neck is going to be longer, animals just can't do that sort of thing. Instead what happen was there food started getting higher up forcing them either to learn how to climb a tree or become taller. The ones with long necks were able to survive and mate well the shorter ones died, hence why giraffes now have long necks.

Why would their food move up to make them want to be taller?

Third example, bee orchid looks like a bee cause that what succeeded and allow its spread

How did it look like a bee in the first place?

I had an idea of how it could have appeared, but it'll just be dismissed as made up nonsense to explain a wrong idea.

Fourth example, penguins live in Antarctica cause the ones that where able to survive changing world and mate were the ones that could live in cold. Allowing them to pass there genes down to the next generation that mated with penguins that were even better at handling the could.

How can anything survive a sudden change to a frozen wasteland like Antarctica?

"Why would an animal want to change when it's perfectly happy the way it is?"

Cause the world changed forcing them to either adopt or die.

I think they'll say that the world changing causing animals to either adapt or die is nonsense.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

That's another thing they say. Life is so complex that it's impossible anything can appear just by random chance. One example they give is the eye, saying that how can each individual part appear that won't work until all the parts are together, and it's impossible that such a complex thing can just appear from random chance.

It is known how the eye has evolved. For anyone who desires to find out, there's plenty information available.

I guess it's just the way it's taught in England. Even most of my science teachers thought evolution was complete nonsense.

Those are not science teachers. They are hacks.

There's another problem that they think the concept of evolution is evil because the Germans in World War I practiced it and it ended up creating the Nazis.

They are hacks who also suck at history

I guess they'll say how did the ones with the slightly longer necks appear in the first place, and why it would make them have a better chance of survival, or they'll just dismiss it as being too complex and long winded.

Why are some people longer than others? And I explained why they had a better chance.

And science teachers dismissing something because it's too complex? Gimme a break.

I don't think they think the world has been around that long. They claim that forms of dating like carbon dating are wrong.

Claims Schmaims.

That's how they think is the only way it could possibly work.

As I said, morons.

They never mentioned anything like that. I guess the closest is that ecosystems are so balanced and everything so interconnected that it must be designed that way.

That is not a logical conclusion, but a leap of faith.

 

[Lone Wolf]

the concept of evolution is evil because the Germans in World War I practiced it and it ended up creating the Nazis.

That's total whut.

 

[Chukchi Husky]

Those are not science teachers. They are hacks.

One of them did try to run for government as a member of the Christian party.

They are hacks who also suck at history

They claim to find history interesting and have studied it. A lot more than I have I guess.

Why are some people longer than others?

Because "God made everyone unique".

And I explained why they had a better chance.

I don't know if they'll think why the food was out of reach in the first place or just dismiss it as being a stupid idea.

And science teachers dismissing something because it's too complex? Gimme a break.

It wasn't the science teachers who dismissed something for being too complex.

As I said, morons.

I guess I'm more of a moron. I can't understand many of the things they say about how animals exist.

That is not a logical conclusion, but a leap of faith.

It's what they claim is said in every single BBC nature documentary.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Why would their food move up to make them want to be taller?

It didn't move up. The giraffes eat twigs of trees. The ones with the longer neck can reach twigs that are out of reach for others.

 

[Chukchi Husky]

I guess that would lead to the problem of "why did they eat twigs in the first place?"

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

One of them did try to run for government as a member of the Christian party.

Oh, I see. It's well known that you can use the titles of Member of the Christian party and science teachers interchangeably.

They claim to find history interesting and have studied it. A lot more than I have I guess.

I claim to be posting from Mars, and I'd like to come and meet you, but I think I'll blow your mind.

Because "God made everyone unique".

Very scientific that, I can see the science credentials shining through

I don't know if they'll think why the food was out of reach in the first place or just dismiss it as being a stupid idea.

Yeah, Those darn trees being stupid with their height and everything.

It wasn't the science teachers who dismissed something for being too complex.

Then who were those "they" you referred to?

I guess I'm more of a moron. I can't understand many of the things they say about how animals exist.

Neither can I. Because it's total bollocks.

It's what they claim is said in every single BBC nature documentary.

They sure do claim a lot don't they. Well, I have seen about every single BBC nature documentary, because I love them. And I claim they haven't watched one ever

 

[Traitorfish]

I guess that would lead to the problem of "why did they eat twigs in the first place?"

Because their shorter ancestors did. They just started eating higher ones.

 

[Lone Wolf]

I guess that would lead to the problem of "why did they eat twigs in the first place?"

And we're back to chance.

 

[Haseri]

One of them did try to run for government as a member of the Christian party.

Like he said, hack.

It's what they claim is said in every single BBC nature documentary.

Then they lie. I cannot think of a single instance where David Attonborough has ever said such a thing.