Evolution is stupid

[BigChrisfilm]

GOOD GRIEF WILL SOMEONE GIVE ME SOME PROOF OF EVOLUTION BEFORE I PUNCH MYSELF SQUARE IN THE FACE! LOL.

[theleftone]

HomeSchooling is indoctrination almost by definition, i have no doubt you go against it (i guess it only exist in the States). But yes, i was joking about the first part, as no one with a proper education would believe the earth to be 6000 years old when we have cultures older then that. So i guess history is one part of the education they missed out on?

Indoctrination. To imbue with a partisan or ideological point of view.

I can't help but to think this is precisely what you're attempting to do with "proper education." Let us indoctrinate our children with critical thinking skills, and let them decided matters of creation/evolution for themselves. Even if this means they come to a different conclusion than the "right" conclusion. We should not fear a diversity of thought, even if it is "wrong."

[Curious]

The same reason we have eyes, and monkey do too. Because the same guy made them. lol. Please, I am begging someone to give me some evidence of Evolution, and stop playing ring around the rosey with me.

Holy shit, this thread has really got people worked up. OK, let me first say that at this moment I believe the theory of evolution to be the best theory available. At the same time , I do realise it is completely hopeless in it's current incarnation.
The theory of evolution is completely inadequate if it is looked at in any depth whatsoever. If we are to believe in the current theory as it is passed ( and take it as it is peddled), then the universe should be a fractal construction of a stable crystalline structure. This is by far the most likely outcome. I find it difficult to understand people's insistence on it's veracity. The evidence is purely anecdotal and mathematically improbable yet anyone who challenges it is subjected to the most extreme ridicule imaginable. Evolution has been hijacked. Evolution shows the ascendency of pre-existing traits and not the emergence of function as many would have us believe. Please stop ridiculing those who question it in it's present form.

[Lainey]

In answer to my question,

BigChrisFilm wrote:
I didn't look at the link because it was from talkorigins.com.

Lainey wrote:
What have you got against Talkorigins.com, other than the fact that they disagree with you? Did Kent Hovind tell you Satan hosts it or something?

I have something for you to disprove. Do a good job, now--I'm anxious to hear your report. Here it is:

Explain to me why we share viral DNA with chimpanzees. I want to make sure I'm clear. We have DNA left over from viruses that our ancestors passed on to us. Chimps, apes, etc. have the SAME viral DNA that we have.

While we're talking about viruses...are they living or non-living? Viruses, I mean. I'm talking to you, BigChrisfilm.

I just can't wait for your response.

BigChrisFilm wrote:

It isn't about the one or two things our DNA shares. How do you explain the many things we DON'T share in DNA. Again, the fact that Apes have the some of the same things we do means they were probly made by the same person. Why don't you explain to me how DNA evolved from a non living organism.

To which Scrotum replied:

You did not answer Laineys question. Does this mean you cant, or refuse to do so? Which makes the entire topic pointless? You started it to learn did you not? The main question remember? And She asked you something regarding it.

Are you going to answer?

And then Cathar1950 said:

Lainey and Scotum, he can't because it disagrees with him.
Selective reading is part of the creationist war armor.
I would like to know what they taught him is schools.

Thank you, Cathar and Scrotum. You're right, he did not answer my question(s). Let's try again. Maybe he's a Methodist...we'll do it step-by-step...I'll even color it and make it bold:

BigChrisFilm,

1.) What have you got against TalkOrigins.com?

2.) Why do we share viral DNA with other primates?

3.) Are viruses living or non-living?

Just to remind you, you said:

Give me 1 peice of evidence please, and then I will have something to work with.

and:

Just one peice of evidence that we come from a different kind than a human. How about that.

Viral DNA is my attempt to fulfill your request. I'm still waiting for your explanation.

Now this isn't an explanation:

BigChrisFilm wrote:

It isn't about the one or two things our DNA shares. How do you explain the many things we DON'T share in DNA. Again, the fact that Apes have the some of the same things we do means they were probly made by the same person. Why don't you explain to me how DNA evolved from a non living organism.

No, it's not about the one or two things our DNA shares. Viral DNA, however, is a biggie. It means that either we had the same ancestor, or God, for some inexplicable reason, made us and the other primates already complete with viral DNA. Or, we all got the exact same viruses at the exact same point in history, and the leftover viral DNA was passed on to us in exactly the same way.

Now, if you think this means that we were made by the same person, why would He do a silly thing like that? We don't need viral DNA. It doesn't make sense to me, so I'm going to need you to explain it. Now, the "many" (there aren't really that many--every living thing is related) things we don't share in DNA is easy--we're not the same species. If we shared the exact same DNA, we'd all be carbon copies of each other.

As for how DNA "evolved" from a non-living organism--I don't know. Is there an animal called "DNA?" If something is non-living, it's not an "organism." I think you have some basic science to learn, if you really want to understand evolution.

Are you aware that we're made up of chemical elements? Chemical elements, by themselves, are not "alive."

This post is long enough--please answer my questions.

[The Persnickety Platypus]

BigChris, after you answer Lainey, feel free to have a go at this (again):

- Microbial diseases. Viruses that we once were able to defeat with certain remedies have managed to adapt to these treatments, forcing us to concoct new formulas. Penecillin, once completely effective, is now useless in most situations. Scientists examining these microbes have sufficiently concluded that their anatomies are quite different. Viruses that could once only infect birds are now jumping over to humans. How does this happen, except through evolution? Did God suddenly create new versions of the disease to foil our medicines? Or could such microbes have evolved in order to better access their prey?

- Biologists are good people to talk to about evolution. They use it every day in the field of genetic engineering, where certain species are forcibly modified for industrial use. By natural selection, engineers add and abolish traits of certain natural products (food, livestock, ect) for better cost efficiency. If you are like 99% of Americans, you probably eat food that has been generically engineered every day of your waking life. How is it that you can grow vegetables in your garden that, curiously, do not exist in the wild? If species are immutable as Creationists claim, how is it that genetic engineering is even viable?

- Through selective breeding, people have been able to modify pets (such as dogs) for individual purposes. A few hundred years ago there was no such thing as a "miniature poodle", or a "black labrador", or a "Bulldog". How is it that we are able to accomplish this if all species are supposed to have remained immutable since creation?

- Since the industrial revolution and the development of pesticides/herbicides, insects and weeds have regularly aquired resistance to our poisons over time, forcing us to invent entirely new killing concoctions. DDT, invented in 1939, was an effective killer of pests. By 1950, common houseflys could bath in puddles of it and remain unharmed. Obviously the flys had to have changed, right? We know the poison didn't.

Quote:
Give me a viable proof(i.e A study) and maybe then your point will hold some water


You seem to doubt that there is any conclusive evolutionary study that we can cite. What do you think scientists have been doing for the past 150 years?

Most people believe that evolution is far too slow and complex to be replicated in a lab. No so. Many scientists have taken the time to personally observe evolution in action. Here are a couple of my favorite studies:

(1) Richard E. Lenski and colleages at Michigan State University recently tracked 20,000 generations of a certain bacterium. A slow, almost unnoticable evolutionary change through the generations was noted.

(2) Speciation events (where lineage splits into two seperate species), has also been observed in the scientific community. William R. Rice and George W. Salt achieved astounding results in an experiment involving fruit flys. Conducted over many years, they noted that same species of fruit fly placed in different environments began to alter accordingly. When the two different species were brought together, they were so different that they were unable to mate. Salt and Rice succeeded in creating an entirely new species of fruit fly via natural selection.


Evolution in the larger scope is well proven as well. Vast archeological records demonstrate various changes in animals over time. Our ape-like ancestors have been genetically tracked to modern humans. Carbon-14 dating (along with other methods) gives us a surprisingly accurate idea of the fossil's ages (which happens to be considerably more than 6,000 years, giving large scale evolution ample time to occur). Sediment is deposited in direct correlation to time, lending our geological time-scale further creedence.

[The Persnickety Platypus]

Pure conjecture. Morpohological simularities do not necessarily equate to ancestry. Example: For years the Neanderthal was seen as a likely forefather to modern man. His picture (drawing) was up on our high school and college classrooms along with a number of other hominids - carefully arranged in order and presented to us as man's forefather. But then genetic DNA testing was performed and it excluded the Neanderthal from being man's direct line ancestor. No other specific hominid to date has been conclusively identified as man's direct line ancestor via genetic DNA testing. Keep trying, though.

Right. The Neanderthals can not be our direct line ancestors because we are two completely different species (I, nor anyone else is claiming differently). Homo Sapians evolved from the Homo Erectus lineage, while the Neanderthals originated from the heidelbergensis line. Modern Humans, Neanderthals, and Florens (the recently discovered "hobbits", who deviated from H. Sapiens) competed, and as the laws of natural selection dictate, one eventually won out (us, in this case).

However, while H. Sapiens and H. Neanderthals are not direct line ancestors, we are genetically linked (in the same way that the different Galapagos finches are linked).

Morphological similarities do not equate to ancestory? Yes they do. That's how we have been classifying species for hundreds of years. Two species who share identical characteristics aside from a few certain deviations had to have come from a common ancestor.

A morphological comparison between H. Sapien and our proven direct line ancestor, H. Erectus:



Are you prepared to tell me that these two species are unrelated? Look at their bone structures. What are the chances that two completely different ancestors evolve into these two nearly identical species? Pretty much 0%.

You and I share ancestors with the man on the left. Unless you uncover some grave biological anomaly that myself and every scientist on earth somehow missed, then this remains the only logical explanation.

[Scrotum]

Gosh, you learn so much in this forum. I always wondered about the Neanderthals (about their lineage), but been o lazy to check up on such a simple thing.


See Big, perhaps you can explain? Or where these Neanderthals monkeys perhaps? Or mini-people ? Or just made up by the Evolutionist controlled by Satan (i guess thats all of them?).

[QED]

GOOD GRIEF WILL SOMEONE GIVE ME SOME PROOF OF EVOLUTION BEFORE I PUNCH MYSELF SQUARE IN THE FACE! LOL.

Since a moderator moved this topic into a more appropriate forum it's the first time I've seen it. BigChrisfilm, I'd be interested to know what you make of the fact that NASA use the principles of evolution to evolve spacecraft hardware. I tend to think that if the principles of evolution are shown to be a force for design without sentient intelligence making all the design choices then that might be telling us something about the theory as applied to living structures (especially as it was the study of living structures that directly inspired this novel design tool). It certainly demonstrates that the general principle of evolution isn't "stupid" otherwise we would have to believe that NASA was even stupider.

[Curious]

GOOD GRIEF WILL SOMEONE GIVE ME SOME PROOF OF EVOLUTION BEFORE I PUNCH MYSELF SQUARE IN THE FACE! LOL.

Since a moderator moved this topic into a more appropriate forum it's the first time I've seen it. BigChrisfilm, I'd be interested to know what you make of the fact that NASA use the principles of evolution to evolve spacecraft hardware. I tend to think that if the principles of evolution are shown to be a force for design without sentient intelligence making all the design choices then that might be telling us something about the theory as applied to living structures (especially as it was the study of living structures that directly inspired this novel design tool). It certainly demonstrates that the general principle of evolution isn't "stupid" otherwise we would have to believe that NASA was even stupider.

Really QED, just because something does work in certain situations does not mean that it does in practice. I am sure that you can give me a dozen mathematical algorithms that lead me from a to z but none of these may be used in the real world. It is reassuring to believe that random fluctuations could lead to every conceivable permutation but this is the same cop out as the "creationist garbage" you are so fond of deriding. You mention the principles of evolution being used as a tool for hardware development and assume that it is these "unintelligent" principles that drive the development of the hardware rather than the intelligent programming of these principles. Without the programmer how exactly would the hardware evolve?

[The Persnickety Platypus]

I wonder; just what are Creationist principles accomplishing for us in the fields of science and technology?

just because something does work in certain situations does not mean that it does in practice.

But where do you think the programmers got the idea?

"We're taking our cue and inspiration from nature," said Jason Lohn, who leads the group that captures evolution inside a computer.

I am sure that you can give me a dozen mathematical algorithms that lead me from a to z but none of these may be used in the real world.

But this one *is* used in the real world. Look around you.

The computer systems at NASA do not prove evolution, but they do verify the driving force (natural selection). No matter how tightly you close your eyes, you cannot deny this force, nor the effects it has on earth's living systems. Genes vary between individuals of a species. Individuals with ill-equipted genes die or fail to reproduce. Those with suitable genes mate, and pass their characteristics on.

Now, consider the implications of this simple biological fact. Over the long haul, what phenomena must occur if particular genes and their corresponding qualities are constantly fluctuating, diminishing, and changing within a species' population? Obviously, the species itself will change.

Is this not a reasonable conclusion? Is it not based on clear natural observation and recorded phenomena? Why do so many people continue to deny this basic fact? Even the .14% of scientists who still espouse Creationism have brought themselves to accept these basic evolutionary tenants. What is keeping reasonable commonfolk from doing the same? Even if you can't bring yourself to adopt the idea that we originated from single celled amoeba, you can at least accept the indisputable facts of the matter.

You mention the principles of evolution being used as a tool for hardware development and assume that it is these "unintelligent" principles that drive the development of the hardware rather than the intelligent programming of these principles. Without the programmer how exactly would the hardware evolve?

Without our buddy Homo Erectus (and the principles of natural selection), the programmer would still be drawing pictures on cave walls.

Maybe there is a God, and maybe he did 'create' us in some form or another. But if so, he couldn't have done it without evolution.

Evolution was good enough for God. It's about time it was good enough for Christians too. Darwinist principles offer great scientific, educational, and technological opportunity for modern societies. It's about time we tap that opportunity. NASA has.

[QED]

Really QED, just because something does work in certain situations does not mean that it does in practice.

Something that works in "a certain situation" does so because it obeys a certain principle. BigChrisfilm's request for proof of evolution is probably motivated by the perfectly understandable view that it takes a from of intelligence to make design decisions. What the principle of natural selection does is provide a decision making process that is devoid of the sort of intelligence that comes from minds. Thus NASA engineers can employ this principle to make design decisions for them resulting in the generation of evolved hardware that outperforms the best designs humans can come up with.

I am sure that you can give me a dozen mathematical algorithms that lead me from a to z but none of these may be used in the real world.

That seems like a rather odd thing to say; if there is mathematical integrity within an algorithm then in principle it ought to have some expression in the "real world". As Harvey is so fond of pointing out the relationships between mathematics and the real world seem very much more than just coincidental. But that's another story.

It is reassuring to believe that random fluctuations could lead to every conceivable permutation but this is the same cop out as the "creationist garbage" you are so fond of deriding.

You make me sound like some sort of evangelical zealot here. This "cop out" you refer to has a distinct logic called the "Anthropic Principle" which in its weak from tells us that we shouldn't be amazed at any apparent coincidences if those coincidence are necessary for our existence. Logically we are faced with ambiguity and all we can do is try to interpret things in ways that make most sense.

You mention the principles of evolution being used as a tool for hardware development and assume that it is these "unintelligent" principles that drive the development of the hardware rather than the intelligent programming of these principles. Without the programmer how exactly would the hardware evolve?

That is the crux of the matter. The principles of evolution supply the knowledge to the design generator in the form of feedback through the equivalent of "trial and error". So the knowledge about what configurations of conductors make good antennas is totally contained within the design generator. The engineer who constructs the system need never have read about 1/4 waves etc. So there is an intellectual barrier keeping all the intelligence that goes into the design entirely away from the human element. This intelligence is the stuff that can create apparent designs.

Now take a step back and look at what this force for the creation of apparent design might do in the same world of logic and materials; it might make human engineers who then take inspiration from what they see and use it to create better optimized hardware for them That makes a lot of sense to me.