Posted on 08/24/2005 10:47:29 AM PDT by joyspring777
What I want to see is a totally new creature, not a mutaion.
Yes, I realize "life force" is in the realm of metaphysical, which means serious science doesn't want to look, cept maybe as a cautionary tale. The reason protons don't repel each other in atoms had no answer when I first learned about them, but I had no problem taking my science teachers' word for it. The down side to telling children the way things work stories like that is connecting them to that reality. Education needs to teach "the way things are, the way things work" business, but more importantly, it should lean hard towards teaching the kinds of things that lead to abstract, creative approaches to everything. There needs to be a certain amount of tension between the two kinds of learning.
No honey, your copper bracelet with magnets on it won't help your pain, cept maybe through the placebo affect. Teacher, what's the placebo affect? That's just mind over.... mind.
Funny you mentioned aura, cuz I didn't believe in them until I saw one. I thought it might be the lighting, so I looked at it from another angle & then I closed the blinds in the room to see if the sunlight coming into the room was causing it. I looked away & looked back, to see if it was still there. It was. I checked in the mirror to see if it would be reflected & if I could see my own. I couldn't see my own, but I could still see the neon indigo colored glow around my son. My reaction to it all was along the lines of, "Oh NO, I've joined the new age kooks!" lol I never saw one since & it's been almost two decades, so believing in them doesn't seem to make me any more aware of them.
I understand why we teach ToE, because it wanders into a lot of different disciplines. For that reason alone, it is valid to keep it part of the curriculum. However, rigidity does not equate to strength.
1) The false assumption is made that all the boundary conditions used to calculate the probability are known (virtually impossible to do with a complex system)
There are boundaries? I don't believe I'm making that assumption. Where do you see it in my thinking, in anything I've written? If you can identify it for me, I might be better able to overcome it & hopefully un-stick my thinking. Could be necessary for me to learn more in order to see those boundaries & that is what is holding me back.
2) The false assumption is made that outcome that we observe is somehow a "favored outcome", as if life could not have turned out in another completely different yet equally astonishing way (or not all, in which case we wouldn't be here to make the observation anyway).
I know I don't assume this, despite what you see. My question in post #330 assumes an unknown, unknowable future form that works after an unknowable change in the earth. It was an abstract hypothetical, which assumes a designer. I was disappointed when I didn't get an abstract hypothetical assuming against a designer in return, but I didn't specifically ask for one, so the fault is my own.
Assuming total failure as a potential possibility? High incidence of hybrid sterility argues strongly in favor of it, so IMO, it's a given. It also goes to RussP's question about harmful to beneficial mutation ratio.
Looking at his question, the absence of anti-matter in the universe comes to mind. My answer to his question would go along the line of the explanations I've seen given for all of the missing anti-matter. After the big boom there was a secondary reaction, where most of the matter & anti-matter which formed in the boom wiped each other out, but for some reason the ratio between them wasn't 1-1, but instead there was a ratio of a billion to a billion plus one (or some other abstract numbers). Some particles of anti-matter decay slightly faster than their matter counterparts, which could account for the imbalance. First life could be like that "plus one", after billions to whatever power of total failures. Each step along an evolutionary process could also be like that "plus one". Life, as we see it, is all of the successful "plus ones".
You'll have to wait a while. New body plans mostly evolve after an asteroid or supervolcano has wiped out most of the highly specialized things.
LOL. You may be right, but what I am asking is has anyone actually seen this happen? Yes, you can look at fossils and DNA,RNA and everything in between, but no one actually saw it.
Yes, there are fossil records, DNA, RNA etc, but has anyone actually witnessed it?
That's a pretty silly statement. There is scientific evidence for a lot of things you can't witness, see, pinch, etc. Ever pinch an electron? The list is long, but I suspect it would be a waste of time. Your statement suggests you are a CS/ID type whose mind is already made up, and whose goal is to try to discredit or destroy science and the scientific method. If I'm wrong, please correct me, but that's the way it seems from your comment.
However, I believe in evolution to a certain extent. I believe each creature changes to some extent, but that each remains what it is. Just like the ring species, they changed but they are still salamanders. I like science, it's fascinating and there are many things it has done to help shape our life. There are many in the history of science that have made claims only to be refuted by others or a new discovery that shows their idea was wrong. No one is perfect. Science in it self is an evolutionary process, but science will always be science.
What's a hyena?
The left opposes ID because the left simply hates Christians and everything they represent. But if Christians are successful in forcing creationism into the public school system, then the rest of us will have a reason to hate Christians too. Christians should know better than to actually pursue this corruption of science education.
They call me "threadkiller".
I would say it's a hyena. What would you call it?
Another ball is now in your court. Score: Two/Love
What you request can't happen in any observable amount of time according to the theory of evolution.
For a totally new creature to spring up within an observable amount of time would be more like creationism, not evolution. That's just not how it works. This type of change only occurs over tens or hundreds of millions of years; some examples of it exist in the fossil record (which itself is a very scant method of preservation).
Is it a dog?
I am no scientist. I am a Christian. I acknowledge that evolutionary theory may have some merit. I have my questions about evolution, but given my lack of scientific background, I am probably not competent to even formulate those questions properly for those who would give them serious consideration.
I also recognize that what I believe, I believe by faith, not fact. That's what makes it faith. My religious belief is not science, not likely provable by science, but perhaps disprovable by science (but my faith says that it won't be disproven-- that's why I believe what I believe).
I believe in the Bible as the inspired word of God, but I cannot say that every word was intended to be interpreted literally. I believe there is room for symbolism in much of scripture.
I believe God is all powerful, and created the universe for His own reasons, most of which are beyond my (and because I am a fairly intelligent guy, relative to others) and most others' understanding. I believe God is all knowing and all good and loving, although I confess I cannot understand everything about Him.
If God is all powerful, and if among God's purposes was for us to discover and love Him by faith, rather than by His demand or by making Himself obvious to us, then He may have made the world just as it is-- ambiguous and problematic as to its origins, purposes and destiny.
God may have (but need not have, and in fact may not have) created the world in 6 days, or less if He were so inclined. I believe that however God created the world, the day after He finished, it looked older than it was-- perhaps millions or billions of years older, by human reckoning. Alternatively, He may have started the universe by a Big Bang and "cultivated" it to its current state, but my faith suggests not.
I acknowledge the shortcomings that many may see in my belief system, but I suggest that every belief system, even those purportedly based in science, contain shortcomings large enough to allow a total destruction of their validity.
Where does this statement of belief get me (us)? Perhaps nowhere, but hopefully a little further toward a mutual tolerance of others' beliefs (and by tolerance I mean true tolerance, not like that of the left, but an attitude that allows others to have their beliefs without ridicule, while not requiring anyone to adhere one's own beliefs).
Have a great week...
no, it is not a dog. it's a hyena.
Why does the aardwolf look like a miniature striped hyena, but have little peg-like teeth that render it incapable of chewing meat? Why does it live exclusively on two species of termite? Why does it nevertheless still have fangs? Where did the behavior of living in underground burrows come from? Since it eats only termites, why does it have such an inefficient method for doing so (it doesn't have the powerful forelegs of aardvarks, so it can't dig the things out -- it just hangs around the termite mound and licks up what comes out).
Why does the spotted hyena, but not the aardwolf or the the brown hyena, have a unique social structure and behavior that resembles that of certain primates? Why does the female spotted hyena have such high male hormone levels, and what kind of nasty trick was it to have the female spotted hyena (but not the brown hyena) give birth through an elongated clitoris that morphologically resembles a penis, resulting in extraordinary percentages of death for mother and cub? Why do brown hyenas have two types of emissions to scent-mark with, but the spotted hyena only one?
Ain't these critters related to each other? Did the intelligent designer grind up a bunch of left over DNA in a gene-o-matic when making these things?
Of course no one will ever know that answer.
I know one thing, God has a sense of humor. Look at the duck billed platypus.
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