I will definitely take it upon myself to delete this thread if it ets out of hand. I promise.

On your part, if you don''t like this sort of thread, you could choose not to click on it.

---signature---
People get ready.
I''m ready to play.

And the mods will almost certianly choose to delete it. Before they do, I''ll post this little tidbit.

Chris Barry (crbarry at mts.net)
My Personal Programming Depot

I just want to point out that the name of this thread is a loaded a question. One does not "believe in" evolution. Evolution is a theory to be rejected or accepted on the basis of scientific investigation. To ask if one believes in evolution is to implicitly and dishonestly equate a scientific theory with a religious belief system. I realize this probably wasn''t your intention, but it really irks me that the question is commonly phrased that way and nobody ever seems to take exception to it.

Others on this board know the science better than I do, and I''m sure you''ll be hearing from them shortly, but I think I can help you with a problem here:

quote: And that''s what kinda throws me -- it all done by chance

This is true, and a point the creationists often bring up to ridcule evoltion. The truth is that most mutations are deleterious, but when you take into account that evolution operates on a scale of millions of years (multiplied by a population of thousands or millions of the population of a species), it is not unreasonable to consider that beneficial mutations will occur, and accumulate within the gene pool. Evolution is extremely slow, but also has had a nearly unimaginable amount of time to occur. For the first two-billion years of the earth''s history, there existed nothing more complex than a bacteria.

If you want to see evolution in action, you don''t need to look any further than the drug-resistant strains of bacteria that we have created by over-prescription of anti-biotics.

I offer you one caution when you read the responses from religious fundamentalists who only bother to think critically about ideas which they find uncomfortable: Modern science is not at an end-state. There may be valid questions about some of the details of evolutionary theory, and some will point to these questions and then say "See, you can''t explain everything!". And to this I say "No shit!". That doesn''t mean you should label the answer "God" and turn off your brain. It also doesn''t mean that the entire theory is unsound. I have yet to encounter an argument that seriously throws doubt on the basic tenets of evolution (genetic change over time and survival of the fittest)

Sean

"Science has all the answers, we just don''t have all the science." - (The name of the auhtor escapes me, but the book is "Only Begotten Daughter")

"An individual is nothing more than a temporary vessel for genes" - Uhm, I''m 0 for 2 here

"The only good mystery is a solved mystery" - Dick Grayson

But, randomeness doesn''t mean the wanted outcome should only happen at the end, heck, it could happen at the begining! And, also, if you STRING together other theories and proofs, you''ll see that evolution is the development of thigs, so th eye had to be developed over a series of millenia. Heck, geologists give evidence that supports evolution!

And how did we all start out? Amino acids. The basic buildng blocks of life. They were all slapped together in a primordial slosh. AND, thunder was a catalyst to join the amino acids together to create random creations.

Heck, all this stuff we have is all made from random generations of life. We just got lucky to be made when we were! I have heard of an expierement where a scientist poured CHON (Carbon hydrogen oxygen nitrogen) into water and blasted electricity into it. They created primitive biological structures. That''s exactly how evolution is explained. Through random, yet lucky happenings.

And, the girrafes with short necks could have adapted to other areas were shorter neecks could be more useful.

quote:The only part of "evolution" that has been proven true is microevolution where existing information is reused to create something that looks or acts different. Like when bacteria develops an immunity to certain medicines

Please clarify this distinction beweetn micro and macro evolution. What are you saying is being re-used? Bacteria developing an immunity to a drug means that the resistant bacteria is producing a protien (I assume) to fight the drug, which previous strains of the bacteria were not producing. How is this not new information? (It needs a new sequence of DNA to direct the construction of the protien).

I really don''t understand the concept. How can you say that the "same information" is used to produce two different structures? This seems like a huge contradiction. If you''re saying that the instructions for a protien are re-arranged to produce a new protien, then I don''t think you can get away with calling it the "same information". Are you instead trying to say that an increase in genetic material from one generation to the next is impossible?

Sean

Sean99 -

I disagree with your first statement. One can believe in evolution. Many do, despite the lack of supporting facts. I believe in God, despite a greater lack of supporting facts. We don''t know if Evolution is true or not -- it hasn''t been proven either way. However, most people have a belief as to what the truth is. Maybe a more appropriate way to phrase the question would be:

When the truth of evolution is discovered, do you feel the theory will be proven or disproven?

Of course, this question is a bit too long, so I went with yours. You''ll notice the topics title has changed

And now that we''ve crossed the eggshells, we can get to the meat n'' potatoes of your argument. Actually, let me first take care of one of your statements:

>>I offer you one caution when you read the responses from religious fundamentalists who only bother to think critically about ideas which they find uncomfortable: Modern science is not at an end-state.<<

While I''m sure that there are people out there who are both religious and only bother to think critically about ideas when it makes them uncomfortable, I''m not one of them. I don''t think you meant to, but be careful not to label an entire group of people. I reject the idea of Evolution based on the facts currently available. Is my rejection premature? Of course it is -- evolution hasn''t been disproven yet.

But I do get a bit worried about the Calr Sagan types who build their lives around science, yet prematurely accept the idea of evolution as fact, despite the fact that it hasn''t been proven yet.

Should that upset me? It shouldn''t, considering I''m doing the same thing -- coming to a conclusion even though the facts aren''t there. Then again, I''m not passing myself off as a scientist, and I don''t host a science-themed TV show. I don''t print text books, for that matter, and I don''t teach biology.

If there was one fact that cast a serious shadow of doubt on the theory of evolution, I don''t believe as many people would believe in it as they do(yes, I said believe).

With that said, there is a seriously strong case that can be made for anti-evolutionism (I just made that word up). I once asked an evolutionist about macroevolution. He told me that a quick google search would reveal tons of examples. When I asked him to show me one, he spit some chart that compared the ridge sized of two species of oysters, and what seemed to be an intermiedary species. Riiight.

And you''re right. It is indeed very hard to imagine what 5 billion years is like. Impossible, in fact. However, that''s why we have math. It''s the math that boggles my mind. Did you read what 23yrold23yrold posted? My goodness!

Defining Evolution as MacroEvolution makes Evolution a belief system since it has neither been proven to be possible without intelligent design or even observed. MacroEvolution is the evolutionist''s "god" essentially.

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

Therefore by defition since no-one has seen MacroEvolution it is faith to believe it happens and therefore evolution is a belief system (e.g. religion).

We''ve found A and Z but it takes faith to say that B-Y
a) existed in the first place and
b) that they''re laying around somewhere

You can''t very well claim that since God hasn''t been proven to exist that b-y must exist and that a-b, b-c, ect can be achieved naturally without intelligent design.

We''re all in the same boat, just different ends.

Ben

[The Rabbit Hole | The Labyrinth | Programming | Gang Wars | The Wall]

Sean99:

If you don''t know the difference between Micro and Macro evolution I suggest www.google.com

I''ll try it again though:

Say I have a binary pattern of 1024bits. I can rearrange those bits in a lot of ways to create new numbers. I can then copy them or combine the patterns to make new patterns. That''s microevolution because I will always have 1024bits.

MacroEvolution is when you start adding more bits to get say 2048bits. That has never happened in nature. And that is what is required for any evolutionary step from a to b. Otherwise it''s just another version of a.

Ben

[The Rabbit Hole | The Labyrinth | Programming | Gang Wars | The Wall]

Found something on macroevolution:

quote:
QUESTION: Are scientists actually observing macroevolution as it happens in bacteria?

RESPONSE: That depends on how "macroevolution" is defined. Scientists have seen bacteria exchange genetic material. They have seen bacteria become antibiotic resistant. They have seen bacteria become bigger from mutations. But have they ever seen bacteria become anything other than bacteria? No. Have they ever seen one type of bacteria, such as E.coli, become some other type of bacteria that is not (in this case) E.coli? No, they haven't. In fact, with over a hundred years of work with E.coli behind us, (at 20 minutes per generation time, that's over 2 1/5 MILLION generations of E.coli minimum that have been witnessed), and despite forcing or encouraging mutations, they still cannot get anything but E.coli. So it's your call. Is that macroevolution? By some evolutionists' standards it qualifies.

[edit: quoted instead of linking]

Chris Barry (crbarry at mts.net)
My Personal Programming Depot

Edited by - 23yrold3yrold on February 9, 2002 8:35:31 PM