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Seattle think tank raises questions about evolution
Charlotte Observer & The Seattle Times ^ | 04/05/2005 | LINDA SHAW

Posted on 04/05/2005 7:42:56 AM PDT by bedolido

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To: Quark2005
Scientists such as Newton, described the working of creation, to glorify and magnify the Creator. It's called natural, because it is a description of nature. Naturalism as a presupposition is a relatively recent invention.
181 posted on 04/05/2005 3:38:44 PM PDT by Chaguito
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To: Rebel_Ace
(1) Observing physical reality
(2) Forming theories based on observations
(3) Constructing experiments to test theories from Step 2
(4) Take the results of the experiments are repeat from Step 1 as long as a better understanding is desired

Agreed. However, macro evolution fails #1, #2, #3, and #4.

182 posted on 04/05/2005 3:40:12 PM PDT by SirAllen (Liberalism*2 = Communism)
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To: FastCoyote

I think I said the same thing you did, just using different words. Thanks for reply.


183 posted on 04/05/2005 4:25:52 PM PDT by cvq3842
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To: balrog666

The evolution before Adam presents a problem for those Christians who believe that Jesus is God Incarnate, that He is God come in human form. Jesus did not consider Jonah or Adam or other named persons in the OT to be allegories. He spoke of them as true human history. If Jesus was wrong about them in any way, then He cannot be God.

For myself, I take these observations in nature and apply a theory such as ID which accounts for my observations.

For example, if there were global flood, there should be billions of dead creatures buried in sedimentary rock. My observation shows billions of creatures in the rock. My theory accounts for them. There is even marine sedimentary rock on top of Mount Everest. My flood theory accounts for that, too. Of course, there are other theories that account for these observations.

New observations at the eruption of Mount St Helens showed that many sedimentary layers dozens of feet thick can be formed in a matter of days trapping many dead creatures. These layers would ordinarily look like sediment laid down over thousands of years.


184 posted on 04/05/2005 4:32:16 PM PDT by IpaqMan
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To: SirAllen
Originally from me (Rebel_Ace):
"(1) Observing physical reality
(2) Forming theories based on observations
(3) Constructing experiments to test theories from Step 2
(4) Take the results of the experiments are repeat from Step 1 as long as a better understanding is desired"


From SirAllen:
"Agreed. However, macro evolution fails #1, #2, #3, and #4."

(1) Observing Physical Reality
Fossils are physical realities. Matching DNA Sequences in similar organisms are physical realities. Observing baterial and viral mutations are physical realities. Now, since neither you or I live for millions of years, we will not be able to personally observe large creature speciation with our own eyes. Let me give you another example of such a phenomenon from another branch of science: The planet Neptune takes 165 years to orbit the Sun. The planet Pluto takes even longer, 249 years. I'll never see them orbit once. You'll never see them orbit once. If I can't personally observe it because I don't live long enough, I should dismiss it as not possible? Heck, Pluto was not even discovered until 1930, so we have only really "seen" it going around for 75 years. How can we be sure it will continue for the next 174 years?

(2) Forming theories based on observations
I fail to understand how you think the theory of evolution fails on this point. Just some of the observations are listed in my reply to point one above, and other posters have done yeoman's work illustrating others in great depth.

(3) Constructing experiments to test theories from Step 2
Failing to get ahold of Doc Brown's "flux capaciter" to build a time machine, experiments on evolutionary theory have been largely conducted at the biochemical level. Tracing retroviral DNA sequences to determine species divergence for example. Such experimentation exists, is published and peer reviewed, and is largely available for you to look up on this here Internet.

(4) Take the results of the experiments are repeat from Step 1 as long as a better understanding is desired
Again, the published material referred to above shows that indeed Step 4 is taking place.
185 posted on 04/05/2005 4:34:44 PM PDT by Rebel_Ace (Tags?!? Tags?!? We don' neeeed no stinkin' Tags!)
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To: Ichneumon
[Thunderous applause!]

Your endurance and perseverance under these circumstances is astonishing. You are patient and instructive beyond the call of duty.

186 posted on 04/05/2005 4:58:31 PM PDT by PatrickHenry (<-- Click on my name. The List-O-Links for evolution threads is at my freeper homepage.)
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To: Rebel_Ace

I did qualify my statements by saying on the macro evolution level.

1) First of all, your listed observations could also be used in the same manner as observations for ID. I'd also question whether they have anything to do with observing evolution on a macro level. Second, your Pluto orbit logic is flawed - with each passing moment we're observing Pluto slowly progressing around the sun and it's right where we calculated it would be. We don't need to live for 249 years to see it complete its orbit since it's been following it precisely the last 75 years and we can measure it each second. We are not on the other hand, slowing observing evolution, or even if we are there is no way to know that's what we are seeing. It takes a leap of faith to believe so. One you might not mind taking, but you are believing it is such though nobody has ever observed it. Other "evidence" may lead you to that conclusion, but it's not being backed up by the scientific theory.

2) I guess if your observations are flawed to begin with, you can still form a theory based on them. So I take back my statement you can't do #2.

3) As you admit, there's currently no way to observe macro evolution. Again, with reference to the tracing of DNA sequences, this can also be used in the same manner "to test" ID theories.

4) I would argue that this step is not taking place. Evolutionaries, the newest religion, are not looking at or revising any part of the theory that does not jive with their presupposition that ID is a bunch of hogwash, and that anything that leaves room for a creator or architect is unscientific, no matter what the data may say. If the data's not what they want, they trivialize it or completely ignore it. If they don't like the carbon dating results for these latest fossils, no problem, do it another way until we get a date that fits with what we think it should be. I submit there *may* be a few who try to do honest experiments, but if any of the results go against current established evolutionary religion...I mean theory, then they get torn up in peer reviews and if they still stick to their guns they are brandished as outcasts.

The bottom line - either you take a leap of faith and believe macro evolution, that everything happened by chance, that life gains complexity instead of decaying like everything else in the universe, that somehow something can come from nothing inside the laws of the universe, or, by leap of faith you believe that somebody created you and this wonderful universe. No matter which way you believe, it takes faith.


187 posted on 04/05/2005 5:48:24 PM PDT by SirAllen (Liberalism*2 = Communism)
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To: RadioAstronomer

It is indeed a very bad idea to re-define what science actually is, and it's something we're seeing far too much of nowadays. I've mentioned before that ID adopts the rhetoric of science, but has none of the actual properties of a scientific theory: it explains nothing, it predicts nothing, it lacks openness or heuristic value, and can be neither proven nor falsified. ID, to quote John Derbyshire (and I hope you all read his superb evisceration of ID in National Review back in February) is a critique, not a theory.


188 posted on 04/05/2005 5:52:55 PM PDT by RightWingAtheist (Creationism is not conservative!)
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To: RightWingAtheist

I would say the exact same thing, except about evolutionists.


189 posted on 04/05/2005 6:03:25 PM PDT by SirAllen (Liberalism*2 = Communism)
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To: r9etb

Well done, r9 ... you've just hit the nail smack dab on the head, but judging from the responses so far I don't think they understand your point.

Congregants of the Church of Darwinism claim exclusive privilege to define science in order to differentiate their faith from the Creationists'.


190 posted on 04/05/2005 6:22:13 PM PDT by IndyMac
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To: Publius6961

One irrefutable fact remains: Science cannot explain the origin of matter. Science observes 'creation' and humans have learned to manipulate it to a small degree and will gain more understanding of and thus more control over 'creation' as time passes. Atheists simply accept that matter has been here all along and will continue to exist thus considering humans to be simply the product of the random combining of elements that evolved into our current intellectual/spiritual state. I find that assumption absurd. Our bodies may have evolved but the spirit of man could not have.


191 posted on 04/05/2005 6:28:25 PM PDT by Pipeline (The lessons can be harsh. All are repeated until learned.)
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To: IpaqMan
New observations at the eruption of Mount St Helens showed that many sedimentary layers dozens of feet thick can be formed in a matter of days trapping many dead creatures. These layers would ordinarily look like sediment laid down over thousands of years.

Utter BS, you boob. Ask any geologist if a few dozen feet of ash, clay, and rock will ever look like sedimentary rock.

192 posted on 04/05/2005 6:45:39 PM PDT by balrog666 (A myth by any other name is still inane.)
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To: Pipeline
One irrefutable fact remains: Science cannot explain the origin of matter.

Wow, just how ignorant are you? Science explains it just fine.

Science observes 'creation' and humans have learned to manipulate it to a small degree and will gain more understanding of and thus more control over 'creation' as time passes.

Huh? You have a point here?

Atheists simply accept that matter has been here all along

Again, utterly wrong. Don't you idiots ever read a book?

... and will continue to exist thus considering humans to be simply the product of the random combining of elements

Random? Proteins are random creations? Absolutely wrong. Again.

... that evolved into our current intellectual/spiritual state. I find that assumption absurd.

Nobody cares what a boob finds absurd, so you might want to get a life.

Our bodies may have evolved but the spirit of man could not have.

What "spirit" would that be? Got any evidence for that supernatural supposition?

193 posted on 04/05/2005 6:54:44 PM PDT by balrog666 (A myth by any other name is still inane.)
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To: balrog666

It seems to me that you may be making assumptions about what was discovered at Mt St Helens.

The fact is that layers of sediment laid down as different types of sediment which was a surprise to scientists. It did not lay down as a huge admixture as one might assume. It separated out as strata.

Here is a paragraph from one of many Internet discussions on St Helens.

Stratified layers up to 400 feet thick formed during the Mt. St. Helens eruption. A deposit more than 25 feet in thickness, and containing upwards of 100 thin layers accumulated in just one day on June 12, 1980. Naturalists have long claimed that stratified layers such as those found in the geological column have accumulated over vast periods of time, and these laminates represent long season variations or annual changes. However, the Mt. St. Helens deposits have demonstrated that catastrophic processes are able to create these geological formations in a short period of time.


194 posted on 04/05/2005 8:04:22 PM PDT by IpaqMan
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To: Elsie

He shares it with Billy the Kid, though.


195 posted on 04/05/2005 9:50:55 PM PDT by Doctor Stochastic (Vegetabilisch = chaotisch is der Charakter der Modernen. - Friedrich Schlegel)
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To: PatrickHenry

High fives all around.....


196 posted on 04/06/2005 5:19:07 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: Doctor Stochastic

It just shows a lack of imagination: reuse of middle names should be enough proof that .......... (fiyob)


197 posted on 04/06/2005 5:23:12 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: All
Methinks there is a PROBLEM with this example.  Any of you great minds see it??
 

The Dawkins program to produce the string "Methinks it is like a weasel" involves three processes:

1. Random variation -- on each "generation", 1/8th of the character strings in the "population" (size selected by user) have one of their text characters completely randomized to some other character.

2. Selection -- the character string which has the most "correct" characters (or if more than one such string exists, the most recent such) is flagged, and a) will be "bred", and b) won't itself be mutated or replaced by one of its own "offspring".

3. Reproduction -- the current "most fit" character string undergoes "sexual reproduction' with randomly chosen other strings, and the resulting offspring replace the "mates". (This is actually more akin to biological lateral gene transfer.)

So all three of the processes necessary for evolution to take place are in the Dawkins program. And, as predicted by "evolutionists", the results are swift and sure -- the mutating, reproducing, subject-to-selection population very quickly (within seconds) produces a Shakespeare text string which the creationist "pure random" methods would not have produced before the Earth permanently froze over.



198 posted on 04/06/2005 5:25:58 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: Chaguito

Not only that ... but when you are only looking for naturalistic explanations, you wont find anything else.


199 posted on 04/06/2005 5:58:59 AM PDT by dartuser (Many people think that questioning Darwinian evolution must be equivalent to espousing creationism.)
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To: Quark2005

I see what youre saying ... everything before 1859 wasnt real science ...

I'll give you some credit ... you are committed.


200 posted on 04/06/2005 6:02:26 AM PDT by dartuser (Many people think that questioning Darwinian evolution must be equivalent to espousing creationism.)
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