Creation vs. Evolution

[Soggy]

Sorry, GM...Pangaea? Maybe you should learn some geology (I think that was 10th grade) before you start making stuff up.

Pangaea? Really?


Really?


200 million years ago...you realize that, right?


For real?!


And...fossils on mountains? Really?


You know how mountains are formed, right?


I mean, the whole plate tectonics thing? I think I learned about that in 4th grade in Mr. Allen's class, not long before I wrote my paper about river otters that I mentioned before.



You know that the continents move around and push into each other at the edges and that is what causes some mountains, right?


And others are created from volcanic activity beneath the sea....you know, like Hawaii.


But, you think it was 'the flood' that created these instantaneous fossilization that could never possibly occur.

Really? Seriously? You're not just playing a prank on us?


This thread has taught me a lot...I honestly did not think that there were sane people in this world that still believed in fairy tales. I thought everyone just accepted that the bible was allegorical.

 

[Thalassamania]

Stop continental drift! Reunite Gonawanaland!

 

[SeanQ]

As I mentioned in my previous post, I didn't decide that the theory of evolution was false... I just set it and my underlying reason for believing it aside.

Once having awakened to spirituality and faith the way I looked at things changed. I no longer had the underlying reason for *believing* in evolution. I could take what was true and leave behind what was supposed.

If I understand correctly, you no longer considered the how relevent; the fact that we're here at all is important enough? But then why suscribe to a literal interpretation of Biblical creation?

I don't reject evolution but I don't accept that evolution is the explanation for who and why we are.

Nor do I. I accept it as a partial explanation for how we came to be. I don't use it to define the who or why. The who and why is what I make it to be.

I don't have to come up with silly lists of supposed contradictions in the Bible to insulate myself from believing in God since I already do.

Are you saying you're already insulated? My reading comprehension detects a contradiction...

 

[aquanuts...]

It takes faith either side you choose. If you decide creation, then you believe in God and anything is possible. If you choose evolution, then you must have faith that science follows a predictable path.

God can do anything to the believer for God is not bound by time. Science does not always follow a predictable path. Look at rough waves as proof. How about square roots? Where's the scientific model's for time/space? String theory? The theory of everything? There are lots of holes in science and you have to have faith (the same amount IMHO) to follow this course.

Believe in God and have everlasting life after physical death if your right. Don't believe in God and if you right, God doesn't exist, then your just dead. Don't believe in God, if your wrong, there's hell to pay.

 

[ShallowDiverDave]

How about radioactive decay??? There are simple exponential decay equations that predict the percentage of decay over a period of time. Many such calculations have been made from samples taken from the earth. I'll let you decide whether any of them have been determined to be older than 6000 years or not. BTW, these exponential decay equations, can be derived from partial differential equations and if I remember correctly they are exact, not empirical.

 

[aquanuts...]

You are correct, growth and decay models are very predicable. But not everything in science is as predictable as most would like to think it is. Here's a question for you... what is the square root of 4?

Hint... it's 2 and/or -2. I see three choices to one seemingly simple question.

 

[ShallowDiverDave]

You are correct, growth and decay models are very predicable. But not everything in science is as predictable as most would like to think it is. Here's a question for you... what is the square root of 4?

Hint... it's 2 and/or -2. I see three choices to one seemingly simple question.

oh "lord"...I don't even know where to start with this one...First of all, carbon-14 has a deterministic halflife, there is no and/or about it. Second, this analogy is terrible...The square root function to which you refer has two values in the range for any one value in the domain. That is, the square root of 4 (which is in the domain) has two solutions, which can be found in the range, 2 AND -2. These are the solutions to the function. This should not be thought of as a choice, because it's an equation, it's either included in the solution space or not.

 

[SeanQ]

But not everything in science is as predictable as most would like to think it is.

Everything in a scientific model should be predictable, otherwise it wouldn't be a very effective model. The discrepancy between reality and models arises because in reality it is impossible to control every variable. The more complex the model, the more likely those variables are to affect it. Which is part of the reason we still use approximations, such as Newton's Laws.

 

[Warthaug]

Do we understand how this works?

Quite well. In humans adenoviruses bind to the "CAR" receptor. CAR stands for "Coxsackievirus and Adenovirus Receptor". What that receptor is actually for is a bit of a mystery, but some form of it is found on basically any animal made of more then 1 cell.

It could be seen as either incidental, being genetic code defines physical life, and these infect in such a "low level" way as to infect everthing with this tye of encoding code, or specific - is it's targeting a specific genetic structure (or segment) within each organism (plant and animal alike) ... i'm almost guessing any cell within the organism.

Adenovirus only really has one requirement to be able to infect a cell - that cell must be undergoing division. As such, cells like neurons are not infected, but any dividing cell population (which is most of our cells) are potential targets.

Maybe one thing I should mention is that all life uses the same genetic code - I could take a gene out of a bacteria (or a sponge, or a jellyfish, or a monkey, or a plant), put it into a human, and the human would make the protein that gene codes for. As such viruses (which are made of DNA, or closely related RNA) can, in theory, by made in any type of cell.

Bryan

 

[Warthaug]

"Quite a few" appears to be two. Your faith in the theory is large and commendable... I notice that in the scientific community there is still considerable debate.
Personally, I think that either birds are evolved dinosaurs, or they had a common ancestor. The difference is that I think there was (and is) some guidance along the way. A Grand Plan, if you will, that's still unfolding.
Rick

No, that article talked about two new species. That's on top of the dozen or so previously known.

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC214.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/archaeopteryx/info.html

Bryan