Creationism?

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Creationism?
« on: October 18, 2005, 10:36:27 PM »
I was curious what flat-earthers think of creationist theories.

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Nrg

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Creationism?
« Reply #1 on: October 19, 2005, 10:15:13 AM »
They believe in god, so they believe in creatonism. Simple as that.
f meat is murder, are eggs rape?

Creationism?
« Reply #2 on: October 23, 2005, 10:26:16 PM »
I'm not a flat earther but here goes anyway

Christians say: Intelligent Design theory

Christians mean: Ok, people have undoubtedly proved the creationism idea wrong. There have been many reliable, unbiased studies which have proven that evolution does occur, and you have found many interconnections between species, each of which could have evolved. So we're going to pull out an example of a complex biological system (from the millions available) and say that this system is of irreducible complexity, then after we've wasted many years of very intelligent men/women's lives, when they show that the system is actually extremely reducible in complexity we will say that this does not matter as you still have not proven the complexity of "insert random bug, bacteria or animal here" is undesigned. Or we will keep wasting years of these peoples lives by continually saying that there is a missing link and when that link is filled we will say that there is a missing link, between the newly discovered link and the next form of the species.

Furthermore, despite not being published in unbiased scientific journals and having made no correct testable predictions (a requirement of a theory) we will call this the intelligent design theory when in fact it does not even qualify as a scientific hypothesis, and we will say that evolution is just a theory, neglecting to tell the public that theory means a totally different thing in the scientific community and that ID DOES NOT QUALIFY AS A THEORY.

When all is said and done, in many thousands or even millions of years when science has discovered everything that is to be discovered about eveything, and proven it to everyone, we will either claim that god set these processes in action and exists in another plane of existance OR BETTER YET! since no one man/woman could possibly know everything about everything in existance and many fields of science rely on other fields discoveries, we will say that science is a religion in itself, and that there is a mass conspiracy against the church and science is lying to us but just forget to specify which field of science is being lied.

Scientists say: insert any comment on ID by an intelligent scientist talking about the field relevant to his speciallity.

Scientists mean: You're a bunch of fucking morons who can't even see the truth that has been collected for you and laid out before your eyes.

yeah, that just about sums up my opinion on ID/creationism
ou can't spell idiot without ID.

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EnragedPenguin

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Creationism?
« Reply #3 on: October 24, 2005, 11:22:05 AM »
Quote from: "Realist"
I'm not a flat earther but here goes anyway

Christians say: Intelligent Design theory

Christians mean: Ok, people have undoubtedly proved the creationism idea wrong. There have been many reliable, unbiased studies which have proven that evolution does occur, and you have found many interconnections between species, each of which could have evolved. So we're going to pull out an example of a complex biological system (from the millions available) and say that this system is of irreducible complexity, then after we've wasted many years of very intelligent men/women's lives, when they show that the system is actually extremely reducible in complexity we will say that this does not matter as you still have not proven the complexity of "insert random bug, bacteria or animal here" is undesigned. Or we will keep wasting years of these peoples lives by continually saying that there is a missing link and when that link is filled we will say that there is a missing link, between the newly discovered link and the next form of the species.


Evolution can be observed, but not evolution of species. Let's say you where to take a dish of bacteria and add a few drops of anti-bacteria all of the bacteria will die except a few who have a gene that makes them immune, and then all bacteria produced by them will also be immune. however, that is not one species changing into another, which is what the evolution theory says happens.

Evolution hasn't been proved right, it just can't be proved wrong (of course, thats how all scientific theory's are "proved"), same with creationism.

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Furthermore, despite not being published in unbiased scientific journals and having made no correct testable predictions (a requirement of a theory) we will call this the intelligent design theory when in fact it does not even qualify as a scientific hypothesis, and we will say that evolution is just a theory, neglecting to tell the public that theory means a totally different thing in the scientific community and that ID DOES NOT QUALIFY AS A THEORY.


All scientific journals are biased, in favor of science(DUH). It has never been published in a scientific journal because no scientist has ever tried to prove it right, simply because they don't want it to be right, because if it is right than that means there is something that science can't explain.

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When all is said and done, in many thousands or even millions of years when science has discovered everything that is to be discovered about eveything, and proven it to everyone, we will either claim that god set these processes in action and exists in another plane of existance OR BETTER YET! since no one man/woman could possibly know everything about everything in existance and many fields of science rely on other fields discoveries, we will say that science is a religion in itself, and that there is a mass conspiracy against the church and science is lying to us but just forget to specify which field of science is being lied.


I hate to tell you this but science IS a religion. Unless you question everything a scientest tells you, than that is just faith, and since, like you said, no one can ever possibly know everything, scientists will just have to believe what other scientists tell them, which makes it a religion.

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Scientists say: insert any comment on ID by an intelligent scientist talking about the field relevant to his speciallity.

Scientists mean: You're a bunch of fucking morons who can't even see the truth that has been collected for you and laid out before your eyes.


It should actualy say, "You're a bunch of f*****g morons who can't even see the small amount of evidence that has been collected for you and laid out before your eyes."
since because science "proves" things by simply not being able to prove them wrong, means that science doesn't really "prove" anything (and usualy it doesn't pretend to). like I have said before "science doesn't offer proof, only evidence" so to say that a scientific theory is 'fact' or 'truth' means that you believe it is, and to believe it is is nothing more than blind faith. Science can pretend to be whatever it wants, but in reality it is nothing more than a religion.



You can believe whatever you chose to believe, just don't try to say evolution has been "proven", because it hasn't been, and probably never will be.
A different world cannot be built by indifferent people.

Creationism?
« Reply #4 on: October 24, 2005, 10:41:02 PM »
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Evolution can be observed, but not evolution of species. Let's say you where to take a dish of bacteria and add a few drops of anti-bacteria all of the bacteria will die except a few who have a gene that makes them immune, and then all bacteria produced by them will also be immune. however, that is not one species changing into another, which is what the evolution theory says happens.


That was actually my point, the creationism idea said that evolution of any sort does not happen, but now christians (lets not kid around, were talking about ID here) have to accept that evolution at least occurs, it is proven (in the scientific meaning of the word). Evolution does predict that new species will occur from evolution but it also predicts that smaller evolution will occur, which as you showed has been confirmed in a number of studies, if it was shown that this evolution did not occur then evolution would have been disproved.


So i mostly agree with you as it would take a long time to produce any serious change of a species, although i see it as illogical accepting evolution which just stops for no reason before different species evolve I will not argue the point because I am only aware of a few legitimate experiments where speciation has been replicated.


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Evolution hasn't been proved right, it just can't be proved wrong (of course, thats how all scientific theory's are "proved"), same with creationism.


using the scientific definition of proof (which we pretty much agreed on before) evolution could be proven wrong if experiments showed that it does not occur but experiments (i.e. the guy who bred human friendly foxes or the one who bred giant and tiny versions of the same fish) have proven it right. So far speciation has been observed in insects (with fruit flies being bred in different conditions to the point that they can only breed with their own kind) and once some longer term experiments are conducted we will get confirmation or denial of speciation.

Creationism has been proven wrong, as you said evolution does occur (even if only in small amounts) so it has been abandoned by all but the most hardcore christians and now it has been modified to ID. The difference between ID and evolution is that evolution has made and still makes predictions which were able to be disproven but were actually proven right. Creationism made a prediction (that evolution does not occur) but was wrong, ID (saying that evolution does occur but specitation does not occur) has not yet been tested and shown to be right so it is not yet a theory. Furthermore the logic and maths used to hypothesise ID have been proven to either be circular logic or just plain wrong, bringing into question whether it can even be called a hypothesis.

Science starts from nothing and builds up, it is not biased as it makes no prior assumptions about anything, there is absolutely nothing to be biased towards aside from individual peoples biases which defer widely. This means that when a scientific hypothesis is made it is being tested for truth by people who think it is true and it is being tested for falseity by others. If there is a dispute between a reasonably large number of scientists, each commenting about their relevant field of speciality (i.e. no theologans or lawyers disscussing biology like ID's founders) then there is reason to doubt the theory, there is almost no dispute within science over evolution and creationism, if there was a reason to doubt evolution (which by the way is more concrete than our current theory of gravity) or the tiniest bit of evidence against it then it would be presented by science. Scientists don't want to prove religion wrong, in fact early science was very friendly with religion and trust me when i say there are plently of religious scientists, but most scientists value logical conjecture over belief and speculation which is why this is only an issue within religion, education and politics and not science itself.

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I hate to tell you this but science IS a religion. Unless you question everything a scientest tells you, than that is just faith, and since, like you said, no one can ever possibly know everything, scientists will just have to believe what other scientists tell them, which makes it a religion.


thank you for making my point.... this arguement is flawed because every scientist in whatever field was making a conspiracy would have to be lying (with religion on the other hand most never see any evidence for what they preach) meaning that some of my long time friends would already be a part of the lie. Also you or I don't have to wait for a miracle to confirm our beliefs, we can randomly pick any area we want and test it ourselves to the fullest of our standards. As a requirement of my current course (and sometimes just for the hell of it) i regularly check geological, astronomical and psychological theories to convince myself of them I or any of my friends could randomly pick any area to check so unless i was extraordinarily paranoid and thought the world revolved around me i (or from my view anyone) could not logically draw the conclusion that a large part of science is just a conspiracy. I suppose someone who doesn't see this confirmation on a daily basis could think there is a conspiracy so unless you're gonna buy my story this is quite a pointless arguement as i won't be convincing anyone but those who already know.

we already disscussed the proof issue and you know that my use of the word proof basically refers to a large amount of solid evidence towards and little solid evidence against an idea. In this way the occurence of evolution and natural selection is proven, it hasn't just failed to be disproven it has made precise predictions or experiments which have been proven true. The creation of new species (a different prediction to it just occuring) from this process however has not been tested outside of the insect world, and even there few experiments have been conducted. so as i said
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There have been many reliable, unbiased studies which have proven that evolution does occur, and you have found many interconnections between species, each of which could have evolved.


ID's main differing testable prediction is that speciation does not occur and its admission of evolution occuring on a smaller scale is not a confirmation of its ideas as it was made after the evidence had been provided. If it is shown that species do not evolve into new species over time then this part of ID is proven and the arguement for the existence of god will be greatly strengthened.
ou can't spell idiot without ID.

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EnragedPenguin

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Creationism?
« Reply #5 on: October 25, 2005, 05:48:30 PM »
Let me explain why I don't believe in evolution. Evolution says that it's survival of the fittest, the strong survive and the weak go the way of the Dodo, the problem I have with that is, why are there still weak species? why are there still puny plants? I know science can give answers but the problem with those answers is that humans are the only creatures to ever cause another species to go extinct, apparently it's only survival of the fittest to us, if a species is not strong enough, we kill it off.
 
Second: have you ever heard of Wistar? What Wistar did was make a forum that put together many of the world's best biologists together with the world's best mathmaticians. It was designed to prove the mathmatcial validity of Darwinian natural selection. It was, however, a complete distaster. The odds proved so enormous that Darwinism seemed to be mathmatically impossible. It was thereby shoved into the closet & hidden because it was an embarrasment to the Darwinists.

look at it this way. If all the atoms in the moon where to all start spinning in the same direction at the same time, the moon would actualy leave it's orbit around the earth. However, the odds of this happing are almost zero, because there are so many millions upon trillions of atoms in the moon it is impossible. it is mathematically possible but it will never happen



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Creationism has been proven wrong, as you said evolution does occur (even if only in small amounts) so it has been abandoned by all but the most hardcore christians and now it has been modified to ID. The difference between ID and evolution is that evolution has made and still makes predictions which were able to be disproven but were actually proven right. Creationism made a prediction (that evolution does not occur) but was wrong, ID (saying that evolution does occur but specitation does not occur) has not yet been tested and shown to be right so it is not yet a theory. Furthermore the logic and maths used to hypothesise ID have been proven to either be circular logic or just plain wrong, bringing into question whether it can even be called a hypothesis.


The problem with this, is that while evolution can be observed, we can't observe one species changing into another, and until we can, there is no evidence whatsoever that says they do.

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Science starts from nothing and builds up, it is not biased as it makes no prior assumptions about anything, there is absolutely nothing to be biased towards aside from individual peoples biases which defer widely. This means that when a scientific hypothesis is made it is being tested for truth by people who think it is true and it is being tested for falseity by others. If there is a dispute between a reasonably large number of scientists, each commenting about their relevant field of speciality (i.e. no theologans or lawyers disscussing biology like ID's founders) then there is reason to doubt the theory, there is almost no dispute within science over evolution and creationism, if there was a reason to doubt evolution (which by the way is more concrete than our current theory of gravity) or the tiniest bit of evidence against it then it would be presented by science. Scientists don't want to prove religion wrong, in fact early science was very friendly with religion and trust me when i say there are plently of religious scientists, but most scientists value logical conjecture over belief and speculation which is why this is only an issue within religion, education and politics and not science itself.


That would be true except that, while science it's self may be unbiased, scientist aren't (they are only human after all) it's just human nature to see things the way you want them to be. Scientists don't disagree with eachother on ID-evolution because a god is not something that can't be explained by logic, which is what science is based on.


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thank you for making my point.... this arguement is flawed because every scientist in whatever field was making a conspiracy would have to be lying (with religion on the other hand most never see any evidence for what they preach) meaning that some of my long time friends would already be a part of the lie.


When I say religion I don't mean the dictionary definition, I mean just the basic idea. I am not saying science is realy some sort of secret cult, what I mean is, science is a religion (or, like one any way) because like I said before, nothing can be proved (hmm, maybe I should stop using that word, as it seems to create confusion, whene I say proved, I don't mean it in the scientific sense, I mean it as showing something to be truth or fact) to say that something has been shown by science to be "proved" means it is truth, and since nothing can be proved, it is simply a matter of belief.

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we already disscussed the proof issue and you know that my use of the word proof basically refers to a large amount of solid evidence towards and little solid evidence against an idea. In this way the occurence of evolution and natural selection is proven, it hasn't just failed to be disproven it has made precise predictions or experiments which have been proven true. The creation of new species (a different prediction to it just occuring) from this process however has not been tested outside of the insect world, and even there few experiments have been conducted.


So, basicly by that definition, proof is, like I said, nothing more than belief (logicaly backed belief, but belief none the less) which is the core of every religion.



Have you ever stoped to think, that, just because creatinism may be wrong, that doesn't mean evolution is right?.



P.S I like you signature, by the way.
A different world cannot be built by indifferent people.

Creationism?
« Reply #6 on: October 28, 2005, 08:35:25 PM »
I have exams coming up in a week, which i should probably do some study for, so ill give you a full reply after november the 20th.
I actually just wrote out a one hour rebut of the wistar maths thing, relating to Bayes theorem and probability, as it is openly disscussed in lectures at my uni, was slightly related to my exams and could be considered study. But upon pressing forward i realised that my AOL account had disconnected, deleting the unsaved work and replacing it with a 'this page cannot be displayed' message. As I am currently a little bit annoyed :evil: i will add this maths stuff to my rebut after exams.

Until then, cheerio

-Ray

P.S. thanks
ou can't spell idiot without ID.

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EnragedPenguin

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Creationism?
« Reply #7 on: October 30, 2005, 07:48:21 PM »
But I only like it if you came up with it yourself.
A different world cannot be built by indifferent people.

Creationism?
« Reply #8 on: November 22, 2005, 03:47:34 AM »
Quote from: "Realist"
I have exams coming up in a week, which i should probably do some study for, so ill give you a full reply after november the 20th.
I actually just wrote out a one hour rebut of the wistar maths thing, relating to Bayes theorem and probability, as it is openly disscussed in lectures at my uni, was slightly related to my exams and could be considered study. But upon pressing forward i realised that my AOL account had disconnected, deleting the unsaved work and replacing it with a 'this page cannot be displayed' message. As I am currently a little bit annoyed :evil: i will add this maths stuff to my rebut after exams.

Come on where's the rebut? I was going to respond to a few things but I decided I'd let you do it since you appear to know more about evolution than I do. Do you know how significant that is? I kept my pretentious mouth shut for you!! I never do that! Now make yourself worthy of my tremendous sacrifice and rebut!!

BTW if you could add the maths stuff that would be great. I've been trying to find that myself.
ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity

Creationism?
« Reply #9 on: November 22, 2005, 04:39:44 AM »
Quote from: "Goethe"
Quote from: "Realist"

img]http://toons.artie.com/alphabet/ralph/arg-y-50.gif[/img]

Creationism?
« Reply #10 on: November 22, 2005, 05:56:30 PM »
I hope you die a slow and painful death.
ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity

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applejuice

Creationism?
« Reply #11 on: November 23, 2005, 08:43:53 PM »
you're fuckin disgusting

Creationism?
« Reply #12 on: November 23, 2005, 10:38:24 PM »
Quote from: "applejuice"
i collect things, i am a collector
img]http://toons.artie.com/alphabet/ralph/arg-y-50.gif[/img]

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pspunit

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Creationism?
« Reply #13 on: December 20, 2005, 08:42:27 PM »
the majority of Christians I know believe in evolution that was put into motion by God. They've pretty much given up on the world in 6 days thing as far as I can tell.
Three people of different nationalities walk into the bar. Two of them say something smart, and the third one makes a mockery of his fellow countrymen by acting dumb."

Creationism?
« Reply #14 on: February 11, 2006, 02:02:35 PM »
Quote from: "pspunit"
the majority of Christians I know believe in evolution that was put into motion by God. They've pretty much given up on the world in 6 days thing as far as I can tell.


  HERETICS!!! BROOD OF VIPERS!! They'' BURN IN HELL for that and so will you. Either your a human being like me, or your a  subhuman branch swinger that evolved from poo throwing monkeys like the Secualar Humanist Liberal Atheists are! GET RIGHT OR GET LEFT!!! TURN OR BURN!!
ow you liberal secular humanists may have come from a dirty monkey, but not me! No, Sirree!

Adam and Eve, Not Adam and Steve!

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McB

Creationism?
« Reply #15 on: February 11, 2006, 03:39:32 PM »
Quote from: "EnragedPenguin"
Let me explain why I don't believe in evolution. Evolution says that it's survival of the fittest, the strong survive and the weak go the way of the Dodo, the problem I have with that is, why are there still weak species? why are there still puny plants? I know science can give answers but the problem with those answers is that humans are the only creatures to ever cause another species to go extinct, apparently it's only survival of the fittest to us, if a species is not strong enough, we kill it off.


You know, I'm *so* tired of seeing this mistake...

"Fittest" does not mean "strongest," means "most likely to transmit their genes to a new generation." Biologists talk about "strategies" of doing that. Some species are pretty weak, but given a tenth of a chance will breed like crazy. Some species will *seem* weak to the unsophisticated eye, but they actually are quite good at getting energy and nutrients from parts of the ecosystem that are neglected  by other species. Sometimes their apparent weakness is actually an strategy -- for instance, many plants are quite tasty to animals, but in being easily eaten (which usually won't kill the plant) they actually use the animals to transport their seed to other places, helping it to spread faster and compete in the environment.

Size and strenght are not always advantageous. In times of rapid environmental change, the big, slow-breeding species have a harder time adapting to the changes than the small, fast-breeding ones. Look at the elephants, the rhinoceros, the big cats, even the whales -- they all have been endangered by the changing conditions created by the presence of humans. OTOH, a lot of small pests thrived -- rats, racoons, voles, pigeons, seagulls... now, don't try to convince me that rats are "stronger" than rhinos. They obviously aren't. But  they ARE better adapted to live in a human-dominated environment, and thus, "fitter."

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EnragedPenguin

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Creationism?
« Reply #16 on: February 14, 2006, 03:38:40 PM »
Quote from: "McB"
You know, I'm *so* tired of seeing this mistake...

*snip*


Don't worry, I realised that a couple of day's after I posted it. As a matter of fact I take back most of what I said in this thread, I started studying evolution after we had this discussion and I understand what you guy's are talking about now.

I still think that everything was created at one point in time or another by some sort of divine being though.
A different world cannot be built by indifferent people.

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Erasmus

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Creationism?
« Reply #17 on: February 14, 2006, 08:32:12 PM »
Quote from: "EnragedPenguin"
I still think that everything was created at one point in time or another by some sort of divine being though.


Just out of curiosity, does this mean you believe that evolution doesn't happen?

Or that evolution happens, but not by natural selection?

Or that natural selection happens, but not speciation (the appearance of new species)?

Also, does "everything" mean "every fundamental particle", in which case, a divine being put all the parts in place, pressed "go", and then backed off?  Or does it mean that you and I personally, and this keyboard, and the wall next to me, were created?  Or what?

-Erasmus
Why did the chicken cross the Möbius strip?

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EnragedPenguin

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Creationism?
« Reply #18 on: February 15, 2006, 10:22:00 AM »
Quote from: "Erasmus"
Just out of curiosity, does this mean you believe that evolution doesn't happen?


No.

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Or that evolution happens, but not by natural selection?


I believe it happens, whether it's by natural selection or not I have no idea.

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Or that natural selection happens, but not speciation (the appearance of new species)?


I don't thinkthat there any truly new species, just slightly changed forms of other species.

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Also, does "everything" mean "every fundamental particle", in which case, a divine being put all the parts in place, pressed "go", and then backed off?  Or does it mean that you and I personally, and this keyboard, and the wall next to me, were created?  Or what?


By everything I literaly mean everything, the entire universe(s?) was created at one point in time (what scientists call the "big bang") and then things took off from there. Possibly given a helping hand at times by said god.
A different world cannot be built by indifferent people.

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Erasmus

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Creationism?
« Reply #19 on: February 15, 2006, 06:02:45 PM »
Quote from: "EnragedPenguin"
I don't thinkthat there any truly new species, just slightly changed forms of other species.


So, "species" is a fairly well-defined concept.  With some obvious caveats, two individuals are the same species can and do breed and produce viable offspring.  We can't breed with plants, so we're a different species, in this sense.  Nor can we breen with other apes.  However, it turns out all dogs can produce viable offspring, so all domesticated dogs are the same species.

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By everything I literaly mean everything, the entire universe(s?) was created at one point in time (what scientists call the "big bang") and then things took off from there. Possibly given a helping hand at times by said god.


Okay, that's pretty reasonable.

-Erasmus
Why did the chicken cross the Möbius strip?

finally back
« Reply #20 on: February 17, 2006, 12:41:16 AM »
Realist wrote:
I have exams coming up in a week, which i should probably do some study for, so ill give you a full reply after november the 20th.
I actually just wrote out a one hour rebut of the wistar maths thing, relating to Bayes theorem and probability, as it is openly disscussed in lectures at my uni, was slightly related to my exams and could be considered study. But upon pressing forward i realised that my AOL account had disconnected, deleting the unsaved work and replacing it with a 'this page cannot be displayed' message. As I am currently a little bit annoyed  i will add this maths stuff to my rebut after exams.

Come on where's the rebut? I was going to respond to a few things but I decided I'd let you do it since you appear to know more about evolution than I do. Do you know how significant that is? I kept my pretentious mouth shut for you!! I never do that! Now make yourself worthy of my tremendous sacrifice and rebut!!

BTW if you could add the maths stuff that would be great. I've been trying to find that myself.

Needless to say i have been doing other stuff....... Lets leave it at summer course, Fiji and life in general

I honestly can't be stuffed going back to find out (and recheck) that Bayes theorem stuff and as you said it didn't come out of my mind (though I have confirmed it myself).

ADDED NOTE: explanation one is correct but hard to follow without the afformentioned mathematical proof, probably best to look at explanation 2 first.

So I'll give you 2 much simpler explanations

1.
The first is a simplified version of what Bayes (a reveron ironically enough) math says, but one which i figured out for myself with logic before it was proven to me with maths, it basically shows that even if the Wistar maths was correct then it would have no relevance to the odds of evolution Vs. god because of a third possibility. If some planet had not created life through evolution or a god then there would be nobody to say, "hey it was pretty unlikely that we were created by evolution!" therefore how unlikely it is to have happened is irrelevant unless you know the odds of god existing and creating life on a planet. This is because the idea which says that evolution is unlikely, if true (BTW I will later prove this idea untrue making this argument a redundent nail in the coffin) allows for 3 possible scenarios 1. No life 2. No god exists 3. a god exists, 1. no life could take up the majority of the remaining chance or it could take up very little of it and 3. a god exists could take up the rest(I stress that this is wrongly assuming that the maths used by wistar is good). Without knowing the chance of 3. a god exists, (which obviously must be assumed) you cannot know the chance that 1. No life was going to occur which would be the literal number 1 - scenario 2 - scenario 3. Without knowing the odds of 1. no life you cannot know the odds of 3. and vice versa, without knowing 3. you cannot compare its to 2. so no matter how unlikely 2. is it is irrelevant as 3. could be just as low because if 1. were true we would not be here to ask the question, so to figure out the significance of this figure you would need to know 3. which is what you wanted to know at the start. Thankfully Bayes maths does clear this up a bit and you can take small definite mathematical steps to prove it. On a personal note the odds of an omnipotent god spontaneously being (one which can leave existance itself as he must have done acts which are, literally and to the full meaning of the word, impossible in this universe) created then deciding to create a race of humans (scenario 3.) is less likely than the slow evolution of man.


2.
The second arguement is thankfully a lot simpler and requires little complex logical thinking. Wistar found out the odds of life being created on earth, but if it was on any other habitable planet then it would not matter. They figured the odds of life occuring by chance on earth to be 5 billion to one, they were about right with these figures as they were very generous with the amount of organic matter on the surface but did not include any at all below the surface, i would assume this genorousness is enough to make up for only considering the surface.

so according to a figure adamently followed by ID proponents for every 5 billion habitable planets you can expect 1 to have life.

At best estimates there are 100 billion stars in your average joe galaxy and there are 100 billion galaxies. so if every star had a habitable planet we would expect 2 trillion habitable planets in the universe. Every star doesnt have a habitable planet, and it is hard to tell how many do since with current techniques we can only detect planets larger and closer than jupiter in nearby stars due to their slight wobble. So lets be very, very generous, in our solar system out of nine planets 3 are in the habitable zone, if they were given the right atmosphere, this is one third so lets say that one in ten planets are in a habitable zone, we'll say that one in ten stars has planets (best pessimistic estimates puts it as one in three). Since rocky planets tend to be around the habitable zone, this is given and given that mars, venus and earth have or have had geological activity occuring (every planet in the Habital zone), lets say that one half have it occuring and one tenth have it occuring for long enough to give them a van allen belt etc. this is one in twenty.

So far we have 10 billion planets with the right conditions AND the one in 5 billion occurence. It would be safe to let all other factors (ie. water and things I'm not smart enough to think of) come down to a one in 10,000 chance.

so at the most pessimistic estimates your average neighbourhood universe (sorry im just getting pretentious now) should have about 1 million inhabited planets, needless to say it is not neccesary to use factorials to calculate the odds of not having one. This is at the moment, like space, time of occurence is quite irrelevant, as it would not matter if it was happening now or some other time,  so the number should be infinite (assuming infinite time in the universe, but thats a whole other subject) or at least an extraordinary amount. I hope that the numbers are far better than this. Otherwise we'll have to travel through many thousands or millions of galaxies to find life.

Also the maths used by wistar assumes (metophorically speaking) that there is only one hand that will win you a game of poker, there are probably many different combinations that could have resulted in some form of life and it is quite irrelevant which one happens.

In conclusion the maths used by wistar is actually a very pretty way of dancing around the question and hiding the trick the mathematicians had used (finding an irrelevant figure) and is ultimately dependent on the chance of god existing. If the maths was correct however, it only figures the odds for earth, and if it was on some other habitable planet in some other galaxy it would not matter, It would be like me figuring out the odds of every species mutating just the way it did and every occurence on earth happening precisely how it did to give us every single person who now exists and then declaring that this is the odds of us evolving, it is simply one of many possible paths which add together to give a very good chance. Finally even if a god did create life on earth, life elsewhere has almost certainly occured through chance (which can now not be argued with by ID as they have stood behind the Wistar figures.)

this is all im doing for now, ill try to find more time in another week or so, if you're still reading.
ou can't spell idiot without ID.

one last thing
« Reply #21 on: February 17, 2006, 12:44:34 AM »
Quote:
By everything I literaly mean everything, the entire universe(s?) was created at one point in time (what scientists call the "big bang") and then things took off from there. Possibly given a helping hand at times by said god.


Okay, that's pretty reasonable.

-Erasmus


Yeah i can more or less live with that too, coming from non-existance to existance is some pretty funky stuff in anyones books.
ou can't spell idiot without ID.

?

Erasmus

  • The Elder Ones
  • 4242
Re: one last thing
« Reply #22 on: February 17, 2006, 11:58:01 AM »
Quote from: "Realist"
Yeah i can more or less live with that too, coming from non-existance to existance is some pretty funky stuff in anyones books.


I agree.  But it's just shuffling of the burden of being funky onto a Creator....

-Erasmus
Why did the chicken cross the Möbius strip?

Creationism?
« Reply #23 on: February 17, 2006, 03:08:27 PM »
Maybe the Universe just is, as fundamental and axiomatic as gravity and electromagnetism. Maybe there was no beginning. That cuts out God, at least.

Re: one last thing
« Reply #24 on: February 17, 2006, 09:13:04 PM »
Quote from: "Erasmus"

I agree.  But it's just shuffling of the burden of being funky onto a Creator....
-Erasmus


Some people definitely push off responsibility to their Creator, be it God, parents, or society, instead of admitting wrong-doing.  It's very easy to do these days, and sue people for money because of it.  But I digress...

But we're making progress every day in uncovering the mystery of the universe.  Some say the amount discoveries is exponential.  Doubtlessly this is scary to some, who then seeks to halt scientific knowledge.  Okay, that's another tangent.

What I wanted to say was that knowing the WHY is not the same as knowing the HOW.  Believing in a Creator God should not prevent us from trying to figure out the mechanisms by which we came into being.

That's my biggest beef with creationism and now, flat earth theory.  These theories are lazy in nature when they claim "we don't know and CANNOT know how this happens because God is making it happen/there is a conspiracy".  These kind of rhetoric is only suitable for children and their mental equivalent.  The worst part is that they distract people from real progress.

I want my freakin' flying car that runs on Mr. Fusion, damnit!

?

Erasmus

  • The Elder Ones
  • 4242
Re: one last thing
« Reply #25 on: February 18, 2006, 02:58:54 AM »
Quote from: "flyingleaf"
That's my biggest beef with creationism and now, flat earth theory.  These theories are lazy in nature when they claim "we don't know and CANNOT know how this happens because God is making it happen/there is a conspiracy".


Yeah, it's a problem... but nowadays I'm merely saddened by it.  Clearly, God's greatest gift to man is his soul, the font of his intellect and creativity.  The idea that as you say "we don't know and cannot know" is to spit in the creator's eye.

Really I think that when people say that they really mean, "I don't know and I'm pretty sure I never can, so it's gotta be that nobody else can either."  Partially, okay, some people will never understand.  But for a lot of people, I suspect that this is our shortcoming -- science education is in a shameful state.

I think our society's heros should be people like Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov, who could make anybody understand science, the important part of it anyway, and could make them want to understand more.

-Erasmus
Why did the chicken cross the Möbius strip?