Thread: What evidence do you need?

This keeps coming up so I made a thread for it.

What evidence do you need to see to see that evolution is factual?

~

I think that I'd need to see a monkey turn into a brilliant Japanese gardener right before my eyes. And all of its hair better be gone too. I'm not taking any half assed evidence. And I'd want to have it on camera so as to be able to prove to myself that it wasn't just a delusion brought on by the deep rooted, faith-based fervor that always seems to accompany scientific studies.

Bothe evolution and creationism cannot be proven or disproven.

According to the Bible, the choice is clear. We can believe the Word of our omnipotent and omniscient God, or we can believe the illogically biased, “scientific” explanations of fools.

Bothe evolution and creationism cannot be proven or disproven.

According to the Bible, the choice is clear. We can believe the Word of our omnipotent and omniscient God, or we can believe the illogically biased, “scientific” explanations of fools.

You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about, do you?

But based on your sig, it's not even worth opening the can of worms that is discussing with you. Oh and of course, your own "atheist test" thread you ignored so well after the arguments started to flood in.

Buuut... here I go anyway!

First of all, evolution has been proven in the sense of "smaller scale" that is:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/...n-the-lab.html

Proves the concept of evolution right there.

Oh and, did you ever stop to consider the fact that your god might not exist? Do you really think it's a logical approach to believe in what YOUR specific god told you (note: not all of the other thousands of religions or many many other gods out there), or the approach of trying to explain a certain idea based on our very own observations?

Oh and, please do point out the illogical parts.

Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

I think that I'd need to see a monkey turn into a brilliant Japanese gardener right before my eyes. And all of its hair better be gone too. I'm not taking any half assed evidence. And I'd want to have it on camera so as to be able to prove to myself that it wasn't just a delusion brought on by the deep rooted, faith-based fervor that always seems to accompany scientific studies.

Unfortunately, that's not how evolution works. The theory of evolution states that apes and humans descended from a common ancestor, but sometime many thousands of years ago, these races branched into two separate, distinct species. A modern-day ape will most likely not evolve into a human.

Originally Posted by kingerman

Bothe evolution and creationism cannot be proven or disproven.

According to the Bible, the choice is clear. We can believe the Word of our omnipotent and omniscient God, or we can believe the illogically biased, “scientific” explanations of fools.

Evolution has essentially been proven time and again. There are MOUNTAINS of evidence that support it, while the only thing we have to go on in terms of "proof" for divine creation is a book written 2,000 years ago, during a time when sea monsters were still considered a reasonable threat. Not to mention the endless editing that has taken place over the millennium. Honestly, if you truly believe that the bible as we know it today is the same one written thousands of years ago, you're either delusional or insane.

I find it a shame that evolution is still referred to as a theory, when it is FACT. Anyone who thinks otherwise, I have a single concept for you: Occam's Razor.

And another thing; why does everyone have such a mistrust of science? The first step in the scientific process is to make an observation, then try to explain it using logical, rational arguments. You could look at a watch and say, "it works because a watch maker crafted it with intense care and designed so that all the tiny, moving components within would mesh, etc." or you could say, "It runs because fairies trapped within use their magic powers to turn the hands in exact time." One solution is clearly more logical. The same principle applies here. You could say, "life originated many billions of years ago when a unique series of events set the wheels in motion," or you could say, "Some great, divine, invisible being suddenly decided one day to spontaneously create life from nothing, while the devil planted fossils to confuse humans, etc." Which is the logical one and which is the fairy tale? Hmm...

Sorry if I offended anyone, but I'm really getting sick of all this creationism vs. evolution bullshit. We could rant endlessly on the subject, but none of us would ever budge on the stance we currently hold. Just thought I'd try out this ranting thing, and I must admit, it really is quite calming.

/rant.

If evolution is true than why are there still monkeys and apes?

Originally Posted by legonut4

If evolution is true than why are there still monkeys and apes?

http://listverse.com/2009/04/08/top-...science-myths/
^this

Evolution is not equal to progress. Monkeys and apes are well-enough adapted to their environment to survive effectively; therefore, they do not need to rapidly evolve into wildly different organisms. Besides that, they are evolving...even humans are evolving, and at an amazing pace, too.

Do not forget the Hardy-Weinberg Principle. There are 5 conditions that must all be true to stop evolution within a certain population. Unless all 5 conditions hold true, the population can be considered to be "evolving."

Originally Posted by kingerman

Bothe evolution and creationism cannot be proven or disproven.

According to the Bible, the choice is clear. We can believe the Word of our omnipotent and omniscient God, or we can believe the illogically biased, “scientific” explanations of fools.

You're a fuckin idiot. People like you make me sick.

If we had proof, the theory of evolution wouldn't be called a theory

You DO of course realise that theory is the highest achieveable status when talking science, right? Just like the theory of gravitation... oh and:

You know the idea that microbes cause diseases? You know, that thing we know for a fact? Yes, that one. You know it's called the Germ THEORY of Disease?

Educate yourself on what theory means in a scientific context.

^This.

Again, did you EVER even read the newsline of this article?
http://www.newscientist.com/article/...n-the-lab.html

If not, let me write it here: Bacteria make major evolutionary shift in the lab

You making statements like that just goes to show how ignorant you really are o_O

Originally Posted by kingerman

Bothe evolution and creationism cannot be proven or disproven.

According to the Bible, the choice is clear. We can believe the Word of our omnipotent and omniscient God, or we can believe the illogically biased, “scientific” explanations of fools.

Troll?

Troll?

You know what... looking at all kingermans posts... it totally makes sense if he's a troll! Can't believe I didn't see that .__.

Originally Posted by SomeDreamer

You know what... looking at all kingermans posts... it totally makes sense if he's a troll! Can't believe I didn't see that .__.

He makes extraordinarily long, detailed posts. If he's a troll, he must have a problem. Either that or he copy&pastes most of his stuff. If he's a troll, he's learned to emulate a viciously close-minded, angry christian perfectly. If he's a troll, he's a good one.

He makes extraordinarily long, detailed posts. If he's a troll, he must have a problem. Either that or he copy&pastes most of his stuff. If he's a troll, he's learned to emulate a viciously close-minded, angry christian perfectly. If he's a troll, he's a good one.

I think the long detailed posts you're reffering to is the copy/paste of articles :3 But you do make a very good point, if he's a troll, he's indeed a very talented one

People often say that they couldn't have come from a monkey, but I think that is because people imagine a human turning into a monkey right before them. The transistion happened over thousands of years it wasn't instant. People in this day and age aren't affected directly by those animals we evolved from.

There was a HUGE Creationist forum online up until lately when it was pulled off.

http://dreamviews.com/community/show...1&postcount=23

Onus makes an extremely detailed post and gets ignored, again...

Evolution is "just a theory..." Gravity is also "just a theory." (Though one should mention that evolution has more independent strings of evidence than does the theory of gravity).

Read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evoluti...heory_and_fact
A little more about that.

Plus I don't understand how people can doubt evolution, as if you doubt evolution you doubt your own ability to perceive. What do you call it when traits change before your eyes over generations of organisms which mate rapidly? If you get a thousand fruit flies, and kill all the ones with red eyes, what do you call it when you end up with only white eyed ones after a couple of generations? Evolution. What do you call it when HIV positive patients have to go through a series of many different drugs to combat the rapidly EVOLVING disease inside of them. When a new drug is taken, the vast majority survive, but the ones that survive mate and make a drug-resistant variety.

This right there is evolution. I don't see how it's possible to doubt that? Ultimately that's plain stupidity to deny that fact.

Originally Posted by O'nus

This keeps coming up so I made a thread for it.

What evidence do you need to see to see that evolution is factual?

~

I'll bite at this one and bring up to very simple but fundamental points that I have with Neo-Darwinism.

• Show that Abiogenesis is fact. (although you're probably going to say this has nothing to do with evolution. However, prove that it's fact anyway.)
  
• Bridge the Big Gap between between the early Cambrian era and the Ordovician period.

Nobody can prove that 'natural abiogenesis' happened at the moment (although it's an ongoing area of research), but it seems like a rather natural assumption based on the facts that

- no supernatural events have ever been observed
- looking back through time life tends to get much simpler so it is natural to think about this process going back to the beginning of life
- experiments such as the Miller-Urey experiment show that the required organic compounds would form spontaneously in Earth's prehistoric climate.

I don't know anything about the Big Gap but I don't see how it could negate the existence of the thousands of other species which clearly evolved over the past 4bn years according to the fossil record.

Oh, am I required to respond everytime O'nus makes a post?

If that's the case, then I am leaving R/S

Fortunately, that is not the case.

Originally Posted by Alextanium

Noogah, we're still waiting:

Oh? Well apparently you don't care about it very much. Because if you had spent ten seconds to look at the next page, you would have seen that I politely dropped out.

Originally Posted by Noogah

Oh? Well apparently you don't care about it very much. Because if you had spent ten seconds to look at the next page, you would have seen that I politely dropped out.

Can't say that I'm surprised at all. Are you going to keep running your entire life? How cowardly.

And there's no post of yours in that thread that I can see after mine that's relevant.

Originally Posted by Noogah

Oh, and now that the weekends over, I didn't lie.

I didn't say that I wouldn't post, I said I wouldn't post here.

I'll get to this soon.

Lying for Jesus is cool guys.

Run? Coward?

I do not run, and I am not a coward. You wouldn't know. You have about 50+ atheists who will jump in at any given time, and help out. Me? I have like, 2. I dread getting involved with a thread, because they demand so much attention. If you had been around here longer, you would see that I used to be much more diligent.

I didn't lie. I said later that I was dropping out.

And no, you cannot lie for Jesus. Apparently you didn't believe in him. Guess I was wrong.

Originally Posted by Ne-yo

[*]Show that Abiogenesis is fact. (although you're probably going to say this has nothing to do with evolution. However, prove that it's fact anyway.)

Firstly, Abiogenesis is not part of evolution.

Secondly, no one knows it as factual.

However, this may help with the understanding. It is my most posted video on DV by far:

[*]Bridge the Big Gap between between the early Cambrian era and the Ordovician period.

What gap are you talking about? What specifically do you have an issue with understanding here?

Does this help:

"The Ordovician period started at a major extinction event called the Cambrian-Ordovician extinction events some time about 488.3 ± 1.7 Ma (million years ago), and lasted for about 44.6 million years. It ended with another major extinction event about 443.7 ± 1.5 Ma (ICS, 2004) that wiped out 60% of marine genera. Melott et al. (2006) suggested a ten-second gamma ray burst could have destroyed the ozone layer and exposed terrestrial and marine surface-dwelling life to deadly radiation, but most scientists agree that extinction events are complex with multiple causes"

Perhaps you could be a little more specific.

~

Originally Posted by Ne-yo

I'll bite at this one and bring up to very simple but fundamental points that I have with Neo-Darwinism.

• Show that Abiogenesis is fact. (although you're probably going to say this has nothing to do with evolution. However, prove that it's fact anyway.)

Abiogenesis IS irrelevant in regards to evolution. You can't evolve something that doesn't yet exist. Just like the Big Bang has nothing to do with evolution, neither does abiogenesis.

But let me put it to you another way. You as a whole person, are alive. Your living tissue appears to be alive. Now zoom all the way in and start from the bottom.

Subatomic particles that make up your atoms? Not alive.
Atoms that make up your molecules? Not alive.
Individual molecules? Not alive.
Groups of molecules organised by physical chemical processes? Not alive.
Different groups of chemically organised molecules (cell membranes, DNA, ribosomes, etc.) interacting with one another? First signs of life.

Life is an emergent property of the structure of matter. Just as your intelligence is an emergent property of the complex network of neurons in your brain, with a bit of culture thrown in to fine tune the programming. There is no 'breath' or 'spark' of life. Just order created by physical and chemical processes.