We are using science and then by using science we are discovering the necessity, and the evidence for a designer.
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Intelligent is basically that God deigned the Universe and worked in the forming of the Universe and life on earth. Intelligent design differs from creationism in a few key ways. 1. Intelligent design is not specific two one religion
Again, I'm not a biologist, so it would be pointless of me to cite mutations when I don't know the first thing about them.
Okay so we can stop arguing the mutation point.
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I suppose it'd best be summed up as saying that over the course of history, species have developed different traits in order to adapt to their environments. That's natural selection, which I've always thought was a rather important part of evolution.
Okay so you believe in two main aspects of evolution. Natural selection, and the slow change and development of species. Is that correct?
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Based on what I know about early life, pre-Cambrian life would have mostly been rather soft, with few species having hard skeletons.
Okay that is why the Cambrian explosion is called an exploshion. Because during the Cambrian explosion we saw an explosion of diversity, and as you just said there was mostly “pre-Cambrian life would have mostly been rather soft, with few species having hard skeletons.” If you would like I can bring up evidence on fossils found during the Cambrian explosion.
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So, there may indeed be no evidence to date, but that doesn't mean we should jump to another conclusion just because it fits.
But you do it all the time. Because you have not yet seen proof of God, you don’t believe in him. We have to make theories with what we have or we would always be waiting for new evidence and would never form thoughts on anything.
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All right, we can add in volcanoes and methane/carbon bubbles from the ocean if you like.
That would be an example of natural decreasing of species, you would always have that. So that really supports the point that I was making =, that there are things in nature that decrees the level of species. We know at some point the introduction of new species heavily out weighed the decreasing of new species.
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Anyways, if life types are still decreasing, what explanation do you have for that?
Life types are decreasing for all the reasons that you and I have listed.
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Indeed, but it doesn't preclude the designer doing other things. It just means that evolution happened naturally. In other words, there could be a designer (say, God) who didn't muck around with evolution but still created the universe, played pool with planets, etc.
So this then goes into the origin of life. What are your beliefs about the origin of life? Also I was talking about the design in life on earth. This would indicate not just a designer for the universe, but a designer of life on earth. The designer can be the same, but both do show evidence of being designed.
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." Albert Einstein
I was addressing the theory that relies on mutations because someone, it might have been you, was citing random mutations, over billions of years as the explanation of life. So this point was to address that.
Again, I'm not a biologist, so it would be pointless of me to cite mutations when I don't know the first thing about them. It was probably Strangelove who brought that up.
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Just so we can be on the same page what version of Evolution do you believe?
I never really settled on a specific version, per se. Considering how little I know about biology, my beliefs on the matter are rather general. I suppose it'd best be summed up as saying that over the course of history, species have developed different traits in order to adapt to their environments. That's natural selection, which I've always thought was a rather important part of evolution.
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In that case we should have some way of finding the fossils to fill in the caps. However this has not happened, and so the evidence currently supports the conclusions for the Cambrian explosion.
Not everything that dies produces a fossil. Based on what I know about early life, pre-Cambrian life would have mostly been rather soft, with few species having hard skeletons. Without a hard skeleton, you're pretty much guaranteed there won't be a fossil. It can sometimes happen, but it depends a lot on where the specimen died, and the pre-Cambrian periods were, to my knowledge, lacking in the stuff that produces fossils.
So, there may indeed be no evidence to date, but that doesn't mean we should jump to another conclusion just because it fits.
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Man and climate change are not the case of animal extinction, and there are other causes.
All right, we can add in volcanoes and methane/carbon bubbles from the ocean if you like.
Anyways, if life types are still decreasing, what explanation do you have for that?
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Evolution says that life has evolved without the help of a designer, and is used to show that a designer is not necessary.
Indeed, but it doesn't preclude the designer doing other things. It just means that evolution happened naturally. In other words, there could be a designer (say, God) who didn't muck around with evolution but still created the universe, played pool with planets, etc.
Ironically, that very same link you provided claims that evolution doesn't depend on mutations alone, so I'm just going to go with that. I'm no biologist, so my input here isn't going to be worth much.
Okay, I realize that the source backs evolution, which is why I used it. I try to use evolutionists as sources when ever they agree with me on a specific point, because they will seem more credible to you and others on this thread. There is another theory that does lower the importance of Mutations because of the problems that the reliance on random mutations has. However I can bring up problems with this theory, I was addressing the theory that relies on mutations because someone, it might have been you, was citing random mutations, over billions of years as the explanation of life. So this point was to address that.
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leading me to wonder exactly how prevalent the theory is in evolutionary biology.
I’m not saying that it is a major theory. However before people were flipping over to this theory when I addressed other theory so I thought I would address it. Also I take it you don’t believe in this theory. Okay that really leaves you with the theory of small changes over a long period of time. This theory has two problems. One there are unexplainable gapes in the fossil records, and not nearly enough transitional fossils to validate this theory. Two, if there are many small changes we should be able to see evolution happening today. Instead we do se some micro evolution but see no macro evolution.
Just so we can be on the same page what version of Evolution do you believe?
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What do you mean "most life on earth dies"?
Never mind, there is a fringe theory on the effects the Cambrian explosion would have had on existing life, but I’m going to drop that point.
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These sites are claiming that the Cambrian explosion is just the unveiling of pre-existing diverse life, meaning that the pre-Cambrian fossil record (which shows few forms of life) is merely incomplete compared to the post-Cambrian record.
In that case we should have some way of finding the fossils to fill in the caps. However this has not happened, and so the evidence currently supports the conclusions for the Cambrian explosion. There may be theory’s that say that there can be different conclusions, and that’s fine, but for now the evidence sides with the Cambrian explosion.
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Evolution may call for an increase in life types, but it doesn't account for such things as climate change and humans, who have historically caused most of the decreases in types of life on Earth.
Man and climate change are not the case of animal extinction, and there are other causes. So even if you discount say 70 % of all cases of extinction you would still have a problem because there would still be more extinction than introducing of new species.
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Evolution does not depend on there not being a designer. As I've said before, ID is just evolution with a designer tacked onto it.
If you are including a designer you are talking about the theory of Intelligent Design, not evolution. Evolution says that life has evolved without the help of a designer, and is used to show that a designer is not necessary. So if there is a designer evolution should be replaced with a version of intelligent design. I say version because there are two main versions. One that agrees with the idea of a common ancestor and one that does not.
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If I left them out, it means I don't have any answers.
Okay I will stop arguing these points then.
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By saying these complicated things must have been designed because its too complicated, are we not just saying "the god thor causes thunder" like the vikings (who didn't understand static electricity etc)?
No not at all. We are using science and then by using science we are discovering the necessity, and the evidence for a designer. Intelligent design is not a theory made by unintelligent people trying to explain nature, but by scientists drawing conclusions from their observations.
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Sure, but I can't argue everything at once!
Okay, well in that case pick one or two of the points and discuses those until you are done with those points. Thanks.
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." Albert Einstein
who have historically caused most of the decreases in types of life on Earth
Now who told you that little lie?
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This is the argument for a designer. Basically because we observe that all things with a design has a designer, so the same most likely applies to creation and life since it is complex and does have a design, must also have a designer.
Does this not apply also to the universe and physical laws etc as well as biological things? If so, then isn't this just a case of "Where science ends religon begins"? I mean, in the days of old, natural events were also claimed to be caused by gods, until science yeilded meteorology. Australias aboriginals have a very large complicated religon they developed to explain everything, because they never had any science or maths etc. By saying these complicated things must have been designed because its too complicated, are we not just saying "the god thor causes thunder" like the vikings (who didn't understand static electricity etc)?
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You had addressed the second point but then you dropped it? Are you going to continue to argue this point? You also addressed this point, but then like the other one you stopped arguing this point. Will you continue to argue this point?
Sure, but I can't argue everything at once!
I like this debate. It seems much more peaceful than others.
So most of then don’t do anything. Out of the remanding some are positive, and some are negative, but most of the mutations either don’t do anything or have a negative.
Ironically, that very same link you provided claims that evolution doesn't depend on mutations alone, so I'm just going to go with that. I'm no biologist, so my input here isn't going to be worth much.
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The theory is called punctuated equilibrium.
As you said earlier, that theory only exists to explain the lack of gradual evolution present in the fossil record. Things stay the same for millions of years only to change violently in the span of a couple hundred thousand before staying the same again for millions more years.
Also, it would seem to me that this theory is rather outdated, considering it was first presented in the '70s. Also, a rather famous atheist (Richard Dawkins) opposes it, leading me to wonder exactly how prevalent the theory is in evolutionary biology.
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Let’s say that life had already been developing before the Cambrian explosion. Well that’s nice, but when the Cambrian explosion happens, most life on earth dies. And yet then we see a rapid explosion in life types.
What do you mean "most life on earth dies"? Where are you even getting that? These sites are claiming that the Cambrian explosion is just the unveiling of pre-existing diverse life, meaning that the pre-Cambrian fossil record (which shows few forms of life) is merely incomplete compared to the post-Cambrian record.
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But then it stops and now there is a decrease in animal types.
Evolution may call for an increase in life types, but it doesn't account for such things as climate change and humans, who have historically caused most of the decreases in types of life on Earth.
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And also you can’t prove that evolution did happen, no amount of experimentation can show that there is not a designer so by that reasoning evolution is also guesswork.
Evolution does not depend on there not being a designer. As I've said before, ID is just evolution with a designer tacked onto it. In other words, in order to prove evolution,. you do not need to prove there is no designer.
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You did not respond to two of the points. Do you have answers for those two other points?
If I left them out, it means I don't have any answers.
Intelligent is basically that God deigned the Universe and worked in the forming of the Universe and life on earth. Intelligent design differs from creationism in a few key ways. 1. Intelligent design is not specific two one religion, 2. It is not a religious explanation of life on earth, but a scientific one. 3. It holds to the belief in a Multi billion year old universe and earth. 4. Believes that god made specific categories of animals and made man separate, and then micro evolution has lead to diversity within animal types.
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Yeah, were top stuff! We're the most superior species evolution developed.
Okay, the problem with that is there is a distinct line, and if that were the case we should see a constant move toward the highest level of life. This would mean that we should see many animal or part man creatures that are starting to develop things like religion. However this is not the case, and instead we see a large difference between any animal and Humans in this area.
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Oh, I didn't get some of the points.
Okay let me try to explain them really fast, in a more understandable manner.
1. Random Mutation would never have lead to the diversity, and complexity that we see in life because most mutation either don’t do anything significant, or are negative so the positive mutations would always be outweighed.
2. You had addressed the second point but then you dropped it? Are you going to continue to argue this point?
3. You also addressed this point, but then like the other one you stopped arguing this point. Will you continue to argue this point?
4. Why are humans different, this point you have continued to argue see above for my response.
5. The decrees of animal species that we see in the world today does not match what we should see in evolution. In evolution we should see a constantly expanding range of animal types; however what we see is an increase during the beginning of life on earth, and then a stop in the increasing. Now all we see is a decrees of species, and no new species.
6. This is the argument for a designer. Basically because we observe that all things with a design has a designer, so the same most likely applies to creation and life since it is complex and does have a design, must also have a designer.
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." Albert Einstein
Well lets take homo-sapiens for instance. There are no homo-halibi left, there are not homo-erectus left, and there are no homo-erecti left. Gaps are caused by old intermediate versions dying, right?
I was talking about gaps in the fossil record. Also why would all those types of life die? They are constantly adapting, and some are made better, but if all the inferior life types die, only complex life would be left, and then complex life would die as well.
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think it does, genes are weighted - i.e. a small gene change can cause a big physical change.
No it would not because it can only make new changes as the range of the DNA expands, which we don’t even know that DNA can do without Genetic modification. This is why you can have big changes like having a third arm, but you wont have a mutation and grow wings, or a tail.
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Because we're top stuff!
What type of answer is that? Do you have an actual answer?
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But anyway, I don't know why evolution is being debated.
Now how can you say that you don’t even know why evolution is even being debated, when you don’t even answer all the points that I raise. The points I brought up are some of the problems with Evolution and if you can’t answer those points, I think it should be fairly obvious why I don’t think evolution is the best explanation of life on earth.
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"Lifes to complicated, so some guy made it all with magic".
That’s not what I am saying, ever heard of intelligent design?
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." Albert Einstein
small changes over long periods of time contradicts the more modern evolutionary idea where there are gaps between evolution and each time there is evolution there is large changes. This theory was put in place to explain why there was a lack of transitional fossils and why we don’t see evolution happening today.
Well lets take homo-sapiens for instance. There are no homo-halibi left, there are not homo-erectus left, and there are no homo-erecti left. Gaps are caused by old intermediate versions dying, right?
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the theory mentioned above does not work for two reasons. First because of the mutations problem And second because the DNA would not allow for large changes over a small period of time.
I think it does, genes are weighted - i.e. a small gene change can cause a big physical change.
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Why are humans different? There is a clear distinction between Man and all other living things. We are the only life on earth with morals, governments, religions, and such.
Because we're top stuff!
But anyway, I don't know why evolution is being debated. To me it seems a very good theory which fits well, which has mechanisms which science experiements have recreated, and which is far superior to "Lifes to complicated, so some guy made it all with magic".
Anyway, where are we with this debate? It looks like this is one where I can take your side for once.
We are currently discussing some of the problems with Evolution. I listed the points that we are currently looking at in my post that I posted May 9, at 5:17, you can look at that post to see what the points were.
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." Albert Einstein
All right, now I suppose you'd have to prove that most mutations are indeed negative.
Okay the first point is that they key is most mutation are useless or detrimental. Most of the mutations have no effect. Here’s this quote. “The average human being has about 50-100 mutations, of which about 3 matter, i.e., they actually change a protein. If the typical mutation were deleterious life would go extinct in short order.” http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mutations.html#Q1 So most of then don’t do anything. Out of the remanding some are positive, and some are negative, but most of the mutations either don’t do anything or have a negative.
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I've never heard of such a thing. What I know about evolution says that it's continually occurring.
The idea that life was already diversified before the Cambrian period actually seems to be fairly common, judging by how many of the results in a simple Google search for "cambrian explosion" questioned it as the starting point for all life.
Okay first of all these groups are questioning whether or not the Cambrian explosion was the start of life, or a big explosion in new life, not whether the Cambrian explosion happened. Here’s the problem with those theories. Let’s say that life had already been developing before the Cambrian explosion. Well that’s nice, but when the Cambrian explosion happens, most life on earth dies. And yet then we see a rapid explosion in life types.
And once again even if the Cambrian explosion was overblown and the theory’s surrounding it wrong. There would be no impact on this point. The main point here is that evolution calls for an increase in life types, and that it does meet this during the beginning of earth’s history. But then it stops and now there is a decrease in animal types. This is the main point and really does not depend on the Cambrian explosion.
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No amount of experimentations can prove that such a designer exists
So? the foundation of the hypothesis is the observations. And also you can’t prove that evolution did happen, no amount of experimentation can show that there is not a designer so by that reasoning evolution is also guesswork. You have to remember that the study of the origin of life is different because we can’t redo it, we are tying to deduce what happened in the past and so it is different that most other science. So there some exemptions to the rules.
You did not respond to two of the points. Do you have answers for those two other points?
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." Albert Einstein
Mutations that are detrimental for the organization, or useless.
All right, now I suppose you'd have to prove that most mutations are indeed negative.
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There is an evolutionary theory in which no evolution occurs for long periods of time, and then there are short periods of large evolutionary progression.
I've never heard of such a thing. What I know about evolution says that it's continually occurring.
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No it is not!! The only scientific group that denies this to my knowledge is the young earth creationists who reject it because otherwise they would have to admit that the earth much older than they say.
Yes it is still in question. Read here, here, and here. None of those are Young Earth groups. The idea that life was already diversified before the Cambrian period actually seems to be fairly common, judging by how many of the results in a simple Google search for "cambrian explosion" questioned it as the starting point for all life.
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Basically this is what we know this is what we observe, in science we are supposed to bass theories of what we observe, so from this we can come to the conclusion that science should include a designer in its explanation of life.
Hypotheses are indeed based on observations, but the next step is experimentation. No amount of experimentations can prove that such a designer exists. Therefore, any claim that a designer does exist is merely guesswork, and not proof or even science.
Mutations that are detrimental for the organization, or useless. They either are just a useless change that gets in the way or a detrimental change. An example of this would be being born with a third arm. This arm is useless and actually impairs one of the other arms, and has to be surgically removed.
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There are gaps in the theory because there are gaps in the fossil record. We simply can't get all the information needed to have a complete view, so evolutionary theory attempts to explain it by assuming those missing pieces existed.
I think that you misunderstood this point. There is an evolutionary theory in which no evolution occurs for long periods of time, and then there are short periods of large evolutionary progression.
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Also, I'm not sure how small steps contradict the theory. Microevolution is a valid part of evolutionary theory, just as macroevolution is, which would be the large leaps you speak of. Hopefully I'm understanding this right.
Basically there are two main evolutionary theory’s, so actually contradicted is probably not the best word, basically what I meant is that the idea of a constant stream of small changes does not have a place in the more modern evolutionary theory where evolution starts for a period of times and then stops and progress is dormant for other large periods of time.
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I'm no biologist, so I'm not sure what you mean by the DNA bit.
Okay basically the DNA in a life form would prevent large changes like growing a tail from just happening, and if it did happen it would slowly progress, it would not happen suddenly, even if that short period of time was fairly long. One more point under the DNA is that the DNA dictates what the life will look like. For example human DNA dictates what the new child will look like. The problem that this presents to the evolutionary theory is that this would prevent, macro evolution, as you could not evolve past the bounds of the DNA. This is why today there is the science of Genetic modification, to change the boundaries of what a certain type of life can do. For example they can make mice glow in the dark by adding DNA from florescent creatures. So this argument actually has two parts first of all it would block Macro evolution from ever happening, and even if it could happen it would have to change over a very long period of time, per organism.
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The reason could be supernatural, or it could be perfectly natural.
But could it be purely natural? For instance there are many other types of life that are very intelligent, like dogs and dolphins, but at the same time there are no other life forms that have things like morals, the ability to create new things, religion and more. So there is a distinct line of difference. Again if there was a line of evolution you would expect to see many other species that were in a developmental stage, and becoming humans, but this is not seen. So this makes us distinct, which is odd because you can say this for no other type of life on earth.
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The existence of the Cambrian explosion is still in question. One theory is that life didn't suddenly appear there and the explosion merely revealed pre-existing diversity from the Proterozoic period. So, it could be that there wasn't a large and fast increase. Again, the fossil record is unclear when exactly life began and how quickly it happened.
No it is not!! The only scientific group that denies this to my knowledge is the young earth creationists who reject it because otherwise they would have to admit that the earth much older than they say. And even if it didn’t happen and the increase was slow, that would still present a problem. Basically we start out with no diversity in life and then expand until there are many types of life. However what we see today is a reduction of species. So how does this fit in with evolution, because according to evolution we should be seeing at least as many new species into the world as are becoming extinct, but again this does not fit the facts. So what does fit this set of facts? Well the theory of intelligent design in which God guided the creation of animals would fit because the increase of species would make since because God would have been guiding the creation, and the decrees now would also make since because God has finished creating.
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This is not really an argument.
It’s not the most definite argument, but is a theory argument. Basically this is what we know this is what we observe, in science we are supposed to bass theories of what we observe, so from this we can come to the conclusion that science should include a designer in its explanation of life.
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." Albert Einstein
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