Pretty sure that's not true. Have a source for that?

Talkorgins.com the anti creationist website. (Though I also remember that from my highschool science labs)

Though I was surprised to find speciation amongst plants being completely untaught in school.

Since when is evolution strictly "random"? There is genetic drift, yes, but there is also natural selection, which is certainly not random. If we're talking about speciation, as is more relevant to the topic of creationism, then we're likely talking about natural selection.

Yes, the evidence for evolution may apply to many "theories" (I use that term loosely because Creationists do). As I have said, though, evolution is the most viable, scientific, etc solution to the life predicament. (For example: we see the sun go zooming around the sky each day. Is the sun revolving around the earth or the earth around the sun? If we compare creationism to evolution, and we opt for creationism, then it is revolving around the earth.)

Do you even know what the Intelegent design argues? Apparently not. Try learning from the source instead of hearsay.



If you go back to page one, you will notice mitbulls saying that "science" is not the only method of recognizing knowledge.

And "creationism" does not say that the sun revolves around the earth. Creationism says that however the sun moves or does not move is part of a plan which serves a specific purpose and moral lesson.

Intelligent design (lrn2spel) argues that certain parts of life and the universe were brought about by an "intelligent cause" because they were "too complicated" to be explained by things like evolution and natural selection. I don't know what the hell you thought I thought it was, but tries to directly contradict evolution and has failed to even be recognized as a theory by the scientific community because it is so ludicrous.



You completely missed the point.

So, how many times are you going to completely change the argument before we can continue with the original one?

Creationism states that everything (including humans) was created in its original form by a God or gods. Evolution provides countless bits of evidence to the contrary, which come together into a solid theory. You claimed that your "humans are uber psychic awesome dudes theory" used the same evidence as evolution, but your "theory" is more complex, relies on things that have yet to be proven or even observed, and you still haven't even explained how Creationism could use the same evidence. You can Google up all you want (because I know you aren't just pulling this all from your own thoughts), and you may actually find what I'm talking about. Yes, I'm talking about Creationists using the evidence for evolution against non-Creationists. But, hey, guess what? All of that has been refuted already, too. Yes, that's right, evolution is still the superior explanation, as has been argued by countless scientists over the years. It would be better for all of us if evolution and similar scientific theories were universally accepted, but that just can't happen with religions that teach ignorance being dominant. Then again, if you want to contradict science and halt scientific advancement by teaching your offspring to think the same way, go right on ahead. You're still allowed to do that, unfortunately, and I'd imagine that the rest of the world can progress without you. But I think this thread can be closed now, as none of you religious types are ever going to be swayed by any amount of evidence (even though the burden of proof isn't even supposed to be on the non-religious to begin with), and these kinds of arguments just go in circles until one side gets pissed off enough to stop.

figures, I'm ignoring the rest of the post. Not going to bother to read it.

But I will give you this quote:



edit: Side note, I find it sad and hillarious that I have to go to the second set of pages in the google search results to find a site that is actualy written by Intelligent design proponents.

There seems to me that there is plenty of proof that random evolution does occur.

Looking through the layers of the earth and using radioactive dating and relative dating, you can observe the approximate age of each layer of rock. Within each layer is a multitude of fossils, which can be dated by dating the rocks around them. The oldest layers are on the bottom, so that helps with the relative dating. Anyway, looking at the layers, the fossils within them, and the age of the fossils, you can see what was living, and when, and how much of it there was.

There have been five major mass extinctions in the history of the earth, there is proof of this, as there are five certain points in which the number of fossils in the layers of rock drastically fall over a short period of time. Even though this period of time is "short" geologically, it's still a massive amount of time to humans. Although the dinosaur extinction is the most famous, it's not actually the largest. There were bigger ones. After each one of these mass extinctions, a plethora of new fossils begin to appear. There are MANY variations of seemingly the same species. In a class I took last semester we looked at about 20 different insect fossils from the same time period, all very similar, each with a few striking differences. As time goes on, the variation of these fossils begins to wind down until equilibrium is reached. Up until this point many species go extinct, and many new ones form. This is the "random evolution". Whenever a species finally hits on an evolution that is great for surviving, the amount of new species forming dwindles down. When equilibrium is reached, it stays that way until the next mass extinction.

This happens after -every- mass extinction. I might have forgotten the exact number, but after the end Permian mass extinction, about 95% of life on earth went extinct. With so little competition, whatever survives the extinction is going to continue to succeed. Whatever mutations that occur (mutation is a strong word, it doesn't mean bizarre things happen, it can be something small like one group of a species developing two horns and another developing one) have nothing to slow them down.

I don't see how intelligent design people can argue against evidence like this that random evolution does occur.

I'm not quite sure how mass extinction is a case to be made for being random.

Random is when you are pregnant and you give stillbirth one month but a healthy baby the next month with no change in behavior or diet.

Mass extinctions result from changes in the ecosystem which are dependent on climate. A random asteroid hitting the Earth can shift the climate. A glacier hitting critical mass and breaking an ice damn (A thin wall of ice the keeps water contained, which is above freezing temperature because the pressure of the ice above and around it melted it.) causing a massive flood killing a troop of monkeys, and taking them out of the gene pool.

What most neo-darwinists actually claim, at least the ones I know, is this: "It is entirely possible that some intelligent being has agency over the evolution of this world, however, assuming this to be true, the only way to prove it is to understand how the design is completed in the first place, otherwise there is no chance to ever truly prove there is an intelligent designer." (This is an exact quote from my room-mate. His credentials being BS/Masters Student, in Human Origins(Paeleoanthropology) and Archaeology)

Several things here.

First off, Verithrax, sorry to pass so quickly over your previous post, but I don't have time to respond point-by-point. I was surprised to see that you posted links to sources (though, of course, incredibly biased sources). Back to the point, though:

1. This is not a very good explanation for the Explosion. If you are truly going to make the case that those developments allowed for greater diversification, then you must then explain why that accelerated rate of mutation and evolution did not continue after the explosion.

2. Your explanation also does not quite work for irreducible complexity. Natural selection, by its very definition, requires that each change must provide a functional advantage over the previous generation. You suggest that it is possible for a system to develop with several redundant parts which then are 'removed' by evolution. However, the removal of a redundant part cannot be explained by natural selection, since the absence of that part does not provide any functional advantage.

3. Kromsh, I'm not even going to respond to your evolutionism post, since you seem to have missed my original point. Daganev picked up on it quite nicely, though, and seems to be making the case well enough himself.

4. I find this very interesting:



The primary reason is that this entire thread has turned into a strawman for what people are most comfortable arguing. For example, someone (I'm too lazy to go see who) made the statement that this thread was about Creationism vs Evolutionism. I am not sure where that idea came from, besides the fact that atheists tend to be more comfortable arguing evolutionism than the scientific explanations for other facets of Creationism. How about we turn this into a discussion of Creationism vs Abiongenesis? Or Creationism vs a cyclical theory? Creationism and evolutionism are not parallels - I have been arguing that mostly because I don't think that evolutionism is very convincing, not because it is directly contrary to creationism.

The problem that atheists tend to have with these other theories is that they are equally unscientific. There is no scientific evidence for abiogenesis. There is no scientific evidence for a cyclical model of the universe. It is all up to philosophical arguments, where you can't make the (however unfounded) claim that your theory is based in science and therefore superior.

Shall we go there? Any proponents of either of these theories really feel comfortable comparing their merits to Creationism? Or should we stick with the evolution strawman where you're more comfortable?

It does. Useless parts still require energy, for one.

That's pretty forced. I have never heard of anyone making the case that a useless part required sufficient energy to be considered a functional disadvantage. In order to make that case, you would have to say that it requires enough energy that it causes the organism to die, where a creature without that same part could live because of the energy they save. That would be pretty difficult.

Then, you would also have to look at humans, who have several seemingly redundant parts which have never been eliminated through evolution.

There are other examples of rapid diversification in natural history; they happen whenever new ecological niches happen, or when a new adaptation evolves that allows for such ecological niches. You'll note a similar "explosion" of diversity concurrently with the evolution of animals that could live on land - as the first metazoans reached dry land, they diversified into whatever ecological niches they could reach. This has been seen to happen over and over again - the first mammals who colonised Australia, for example, built an entire new ecosystem from the ground up; marsupials evolved into their own predators, grazers and scavengers because there were none when they got there. Sometimes evolving is just easier; there are more ecological niches to fill in, existing species are less adapted, thus there is a greater domain of mutations that can be beneficial. Additionally, if you'd read my post properly, you'd know that:

• The Cambrian explosion has been exaggerated by creationists; science doesn't recognise it to be nearly as overreaching as ID proponents seem to believe it is. It is apparent that less than half of metazoan phyla actually evolved during the Cambrian.
• This coincides with the evolution of larger predators and hard bodies - leading to larger, harder animals which fossilise better.
• Transitional forms of animals that seem midway between pre-cambrian metazoan and Cambrian phyla have been found.

The Cambrian explosion is hard to explain due to a lack of evidence. It's been some five hundred million years. The problem with your reasoning is that you go from "We can't find enough fossils" to "Godddit." Trying to isolate the former from the latter won't help your case.
Except natural selection is not the only mechanism of evolution (Here's one thing in which the theory changed since Darwin.).

There are other things that cause variation and speciation - Genetic drift, sexual selection, and hybridization. Genetic drift can be neutral; in fact it has to be, otherwise it would be natural selection. Sexual selection can actually be bad for an organism's chances of survival (Do you think a peacock's tail helps it stay alive?) but is good for finding a mate.

Also you assume that natural selection can select only for added traits. This is wrong; natural selection can certainly select for loss of traits which have unpleasant by-products and no longer have a good enough function to compensate for that. Natural selection will often (Not very strongly, most of the time) select for the loss of vestigial organs because of the expense in protein and energy involved in developing them, and the added risk of developmental abnormalities involved.

Except... there is scientific evidence for abiogenesis; maybe you should drop the bible and read your high school science textbooks (Assuming they taught real science) again, because this has been around since the 50's.

Reference: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/


Again: It's impossible to compare the scientific merit of an actual scientific theory (Such as abiogenesis as it is understood by biochemists) to the merits of creationism because creationism is not a scientific theory. It's like comparing the merits of interpretive dancing versus free-market economics.

Look at a whale... they have useless hips. Guess thats not an intelligent design.

Once humans got passed needing to or even wanting to eat raw meat, there was little reason for them to continue expending energy in the digestion of such things... for one example.

No matter how you look at evolution though, it is interesting to suggest that humans evolved into the state we are now to even fathom conversations and ideals like we're discussing... based and built upon skills that were honed for the purposes of hunting other animals for survival.

EDIT: @Callia. I have heard it discussed before that whales are not only the oldest, but also the most advanced and intelligent life forms on this planet. Hell... wasn't even one of the Star Trek movies about that or something? I think dolphins are considered next to them as far as being evolved, with humans in a distant distant third. Being able to create things externally does not an evolved creature make!

Yet.

Ha, I was wondering when that would come up. Luckily, redundant parts don't really pose any problem for ID.



I agree, it is interesting that, via evolution, we should reach a point to consider complex philosophical and theoretical ideals.

EDIT: So long, and thanks for all the fish!

I must be missing something. ID wasn't all that intelligent after all?

Wouldn't that conflict with the whole pesky "omniscient" thing though?

Except... That's not the case, and you clearly don't understand natural selection. Natural selection works with probabilities, and less energy and protein being used during development certainly adds to the probability of an organism surviving development and later life. Also, you have genetic drift - the fact that natural selection is no longer selecting for the existence of a body part will mean that given enough time it'll disappear from the population.

You seem to be assuming that humans are the finished product of evolution, when there is no such a thing. Humans, like all life forms, are still in the process of evolving.