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Re: Things evolution can't explain
[Re: Matt_Aufderheide]
#78050
06/18/06 21:41
06/18/06 21:41
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Joined: Feb 2004
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Wisconsin
Irish_Farmer
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You haven't shown me any proof that animals are conscious. If they behave a certain way socially, that could just as well be completely dictated by their genes.
"The task force finds that...the unborn child is a whole human being from the moment of fertilization, that all abortions terminate the life of a human being, and that the unborn child is a separate human patient under the care of modern medicine."
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Re: Things evolution can't explain
[Re: Irish_Farmer]
#78051
06/18/06 21:49
06/18/06 21:49
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Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 8,177
Netherlands
PHeMoX
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Quote:
You haven't shown me any proof that animals are conscious. If they behave a certain way socially, that could just as well be completely dictated by their genes.
Yes, and exactly what would prove that? Can you prove that our social behavior isn't hardcoded in our genes? That we need devine inspiration to act clever?  Come on, I can hardly take you serious when you come with arguments like these.
Cheers
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Re: Things evolution can't explain
[Re: Irish_Farmer]
#78052
06/18/06 21:58
06/18/06 21:58
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Posts: 1,659
San Francisco
JetpackMonkey
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>Evolution makes things like rape, and doing whatever you feel like, sound ok.
>Or not as bad, what have you.
The biologists are coming! Quick, everybody inside!
But seriously, what an insightful argument, Irish Farmer-- it's lovely how pious and religious Christians, Ancient Israelites and Muslims have lived together peacefully, without church-sanctioned war, murder or rape for the last several thousand years. You know, this thread really makes me yearn for the middle ages.. back before radio-carbon dating, before genetic biology, before vaccinations and microscopes, before the internets and hospitals. Back when everybody knew that the sun and heavens really rotate around the earth, before that idiot Copernicus and his heathen notions of "astronomical science".
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Re: Things evolution can't explain
[Re: Irish_Farmer]
#78053
06/19/06 00:12
06/19/06 00:12
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Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 4,131
Matt_Aufderheide
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Quote:
If they behave a certain way socially, that could just as well be completely dictated by their genes
Genes dont "dictate" behavior...because genes play no active role in how an organism functions on a day-to-day basis, something else must guide it.
I agree that this is a contentious issue, and maybe not fully solvable. However, I think the concept of human uniqueness is species chauvinism; just because a chimp cant talk to us, doesnt mean they dont have some kind of self-awareness and sense of being. I think that many animals have emotions, and form attachments to other animals (including poeple), as most pet owners would agree.
Certainly this is subjective in the extreme, but then so is all emotion, and even the whole concept of consciousness. A perfectly logical argument can be made by any idividual that he/she is the only self-aware person in existence, because there is no real way to prove otherwise. This is a called sollipsism. While I doubt anyone actually believes this, there is no rational way to prove absolutely that any other person is truely conscious or self-aware. A typical arguement can go like this:
"for all I know, everyone else is an android or a gollum created by an evil spirit, etc. They can insist that they aren't but they could be lying."
There is no real way to actually refute this arguement logically, but it seems extremely unlikely to actually be the case, so we assume that it is false.
This relates to the idea of whether animals have consciouness because it shows that the question of the consciousness of the "other" is entirely subjective, and must be based on observations of behavior alone. While I'm not a true bahviorist, I do think there is really no way to actually view a consciouness seperated from its outward behavior.
Thus most poeple observing animals like great apes, and certain other mammals and even birds can easily conclude that these creatures have must have some consciousness, even if it is different than ours. While they may not think symbolically, they may certainly think emotionally. And then of course, there is some good evidence that a gorilla can learn some language skills.
This makes good sense--if we use evolutionary theory. In the modern evolutionary framework, the great apes like gorillas are fairly closely related to humans, having seperated from the human line some few millions of years ago. While evolution provides a good explanation for the compelling similarities in physical morphology AND social behavior bewteen humans and apes, creationism does NOT.
To conclude: there are observable similarities between apes and humans that seem too close to be purely chance coincidences. When combined with the genetic evidence that show we share about 98% of our genes with chimpanzees, the evidence for a close and receent ancestral link is undeniable. This then naturally requires a process of biological change, which is provided by Darwin.
Given the strength of these arguements, the result seems strong, and any problems and seeming paradoxes are far more likely to be products of an incomplete understanding of the highly complex nature of life, or a poor understanding of the facts and theory itself, by those who desire to attack it for emotional or philosophical reasons.
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Re: Things evolution can't explain
[Re: Matt_Aufderheide]
#78054
06/19/06 00:27
06/19/06 00:27
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Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 718
Wisconsin
Irish_Farmer
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Man, you guys will take any opportunity you can to completely and utterly distract the topic away from the problems of evolution. I'm gonna have to split this one too.
"The task force finds that...the unborn child is a whole human being from the moment of fertilization, that all abortions terminate the life of a human being, and that the unborn child is a separate human patient under the care of modern medicine."
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Re: Things evolution can't explain
[Re: Matt_Aufderheide]
#78056
06/19/06 01:43
06/19/06 01:43
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Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 718
Wisconsin
Irish_Farmer
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Quote:
Im not sure what you mean here.. my post is clearly relevant to the issue--you brought up the silly notion that evolution makes rape ok,a dn you questioned that animals can have a consciousness. It seem that you cant argue agianstt my point, so you attemp to ignore it by saying its not relevant
No, its just instead of approaching the main topic of the thread, you spend an entire post on one of my sentences that I made in passing. You do this because you can't defend evolution as a theory.
Last edited by Irish_Farmer; 06/19/06 01:43.
"The task force finds that...the unborn child is a whole human being from the moment of fertilization, that all abortions terminate the life of a human being, and that the unborn child is a separate human patient under the care of modern medicine."
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Re: Things evolution can't explain
[Re: Irish_Farmer]
#78057
06/19/06 02:05
06/19/06 02:05
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Anonymous
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Quote:
Quote:
Im not sure what you mean here.. my post is clearly relevant to the issue--you brought up the silly notion that evolution makes rape ok,a dn you questioned that animals can have a consciousness. It seem that you cant argue agianstt my point, so you attemp to ignore it by saying its not relevant
No, its just instead of approaching the main topic of the thread, you spend an entire post on one of my sentences that I made in passing. You do this because you can't defend evolution as a theory.
Irish, I'd like to point out that he was only responding to you. You're both equally to blame for going off-topic. Your suggestion of seperate threads is a good one, but please do not be condescending about going off-topic when you did so yourself on multiple occassions.
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Re: Things evolution can't explain
#78058
06/19/06 03:31
06/19/06 03:31
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Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 718
Wisconsin
Irish_Farmer
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Agreed, I did mention one thing out of a list of about 13 things that was off topic. However, I'd assume that if his theory is scientific fact, it should be pretty easy to defend. And instead of spending an entire post on one sentence I wrote that was off topic, he could have responded to that and defended his theory. However, I posit that defending the theory isn't possible, and that's why he decided to focus on one sentence instead. Lesson learned. I can't go off topic even one bit because evolutionists will cling to that instead of defending their theory.  I'm not trying to be condescending. We're just having fun here.
Last edited by Irish_Farmer; 06/19/06 03:35.
"The task force finds that...the unborn child is a whole human being from the moment of fertilization, that all abortions terminate the life of a human being, and that the unborn child is a separate human patient under the care of modern medicine."
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Re: Things evolution can't explain
#78059
06/19/06 03:54
06/19/06 03:54
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Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 4,131
Matt_Aufderheide
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In any case, regardless of who went off-topic, I do think the issue has some relevance to what we are discussing... But anyway, Irish's main post has many, many points, and it's diffcult to address them all at once. I'll look at some more of them though: Quote:
How could sex possibly have evolved?
The fact is, this is null question, becuase it proceeds from the standpoint that sexual reproduction is the only way for organisms to reproduce. Clearly it's not, as many orgaims reproduce asexually, and many plants can do it both ways.
There is no reason that an organism couldn't have developed sexual reproduction while still being able to reproduce asexaully.
As far the advantages of sexual reproduction, the answer is clear: mixig the genes of two parents creates more genetically diverse organisms, and mitigates most genetic diseases, while still allowing for mutaion to create new variations.
Therefore a better question would be: how could sexual reproduction have NOT evolved?
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Evolution is the only real 'god of the gaps.' In fact, the entire theory is based on gaps. Animals appear with no ancestor, and then disappear.
This is simply not factual. The fossil record is full of ancestral or transitional forms, although you CHOOSE not to accept them (just not believing somehting doesnt prove it wrong). Look at Homo Erectus for example.. while clearly a different species from Homo Sapiens, the relationship is too striking to be coincidence. If gaps exist it's because we havent filled them in with new fossil evidence, not because it doesnt exist.
Clearly, evolution does not proceed according to a set timetable, and there are are indeed quick jumps fomr form to form, for whatever reason. And since the chances of any one individual being fossilized is very slim, if a species evolves past a certain form quickly, there are proportionally fewer chances of one being preserved.
This "gap" kind of arguement is among the weakest that can be brought.
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Biogenesis. Where's the evidence? Speculation is fun. I'd love to know what its like to be superman...but I don't think I'm going to abuse science to convince everyone that I could be superman.
I dont understand this one at all...what does biogenesis have to do with superman?
The fact is biogenesis has two distinct meanings. One is the simple definition of creating life from life, as occurs in the reproduction of an organism. The other is th more abstract; the theory that life can ONLY arise from other life--the contrary theory being abiogenesis; the theory that life can someitmes arise fomr non-life.
Most modern scientists believe that abiogenesis is possible. But it has little to do with the origin of the species through natural selection. This is a quesition that may or may not be ultimately resolved, and it is of philosophical or academic interest, but may play little part in our understanding of the processes of evolutiojn of already living organisms.
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Creative mutations. I've shown you that every known mutation is utterly useless to the theory of evolution. Why haven't we seen an information-increasing mutation yet? Speculation on the possibility of information increasing mutations is great, but should be called speculation. Not science.
In fact you have shown no such thing. While you may delude yourself into beliveing it, most of us are not se easliy fooled. While there are indee insertions and adiitions in the genetic code, there dont even need to be for evlotuoin to proceed. This is because even a deletion or a rearranging of the sequance can have effects on the evetual outcome... therefore any change is novel, and can have evolutionary impact.
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Evolutionists only believe in evolution because they cannot believe in God. God has performed bigger miracles than evolution before, so it really isn't that hard to believe that God used evolution to create if need be.
While MANY poeple who accept evolution also believe in god, this has no bearing on wether evolution is true or not, and is clearly a pedestrian arguement that should have been left at home.
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Our moon is escaping and our sun is shrinking. Both give much younger ages for the universe.
uhh... not sure how to respond here. What astronomy textbook have you been reading?
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Lizards to mammals. When did non-breasts turn into breasts,
Lizards didnt turn into mammals. Please please learn some of the BASIC science here before attempting to argue against the theory.
Perhaps there is no reason for me to take this seriously, when you dont put any effort into actually learning the facts.
However, this is an old trick question, "what came first: the chicken or the egg?".
The answer is your word for chicken has not been defined, so there is no answer. This applies to many of your points, like the probblem of haert evolution, eye evolution, sex, etc, etc. ad infinitum. It comes from a basic lack of understanding of how logic, language, and abstract thinking deal with concrete things in the real world.
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I'm not trying to hurt your feelings, or to destroy your sense of self or well-being. Evolutionary theory--and science in general--is really about liberating man from ignorance, superstition, and fear of the dark unknown, based on the only tools we have; the ability to observe the world, and draw conclusions from that.
you may have been LED to believe that evolution disproves the existence of god, but the fact is it doesnt. While Darwin himself lost his faith in a god, at least a benevolent god, he didnt intend to destroy that faith for others.
You are still young, and obviously bright and curious. But I must tell you there comes a time when you simply cannot answer all questions with "common-sense" logic, or "common knoweledge" that your parents or church leader may teach you.
You are best advised to seek to the opinions of experts who have actually studied these things at length. Learn the facts, dont just recycle factoids from propaganda, or rehash ancient arguements that have long since been been dealt with.
I am no expert, but I have read a great deal on the natural sciences and have observed ecosystems in many parts of the world, including tropical forests, coral reefs, mountains, deserts, etc. There is a lot out there in the world that is far more interesting than worrying about whether God kept your family together, or what happens to you after you die. Darwin didnt reach his conclusions simply by sitting around in his dreary home brooding, he went out and saw things as they are, not as you want them to be, or as you have heard they are supposed to be.
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