@ 2PM EST NASA will announce alien life has been discovered

[AF]

Indeed there are numerous nonsensical details that defy explanation from creationist points of view but are obvious and elegant from an evolutionary point of view.

Basic evolutionary principles are used and demonstrated in modern science and manufacturing on a daily basis, and have probably saved your life or someone you know. They're rarely called evolution because theres no point in doing so, and in the modern age your likely to alienate most of the religious population who currently equate evolution with Satanic verses.

For example, evolution is in practice in the numerous lab animals and cellular organisms, its in practice in hospitals where viruses and bacteria 'evolve' their way into resistance. Of course you can just say "BUT THAT'S MUTATION", but its the same thing. Things don't necessarily evolve to be better organisms at all.

As for unicellular organisms, its like the woman who stood up in a conference and said "I don't believe something as complex as a human being arose from a single cell". (*hint egg and sperm fusing to become single cell*).

The very idea that evolution can not generate new species because thats how species were created, is made a mockery of by things like Mules, Ligers, Zebroids, Beefalos, Leapons, Pumapards, Zorse, etc, regardless of creationisms correctness, these animals, these species, were not created by God, they are the product of what came before them.


And please, God is not a fact, it is a belief, a theory. No amount of conviction and faith will make that true without evidence, for which nothing has been put forward. I can be tolerant of your opinions, but what you are saying is if anything blasphemous, if not grossly incorrect.

The word fact can refer to verified information about past or present circumstances or events which are presented as objective reality. In science, it means a provable concept.

The presence or non presence of God obviously does not fit into the above definition. There is no evidence or means of verifying Gods existence currently being demonstrated. Nor is there any evidence that such a god is your god and not someone elses.

I myself have strong convictions, and opinions, and I have religious friends, one of whom aspires to be a nun, but they wouldn't dare claim God as fact. They're sure s/he's there, and they'll say they have no doubt in their mind of his presence and divine power, but they don't claim him as scientific fact or fact of any kind.

[SinbadEV]

The very idea that evolution can not generate new species because thats how species were created, is made a mockery of by things like Mules, Ligers, Zebroids, Beefalos, Leapons, Pumapards, Zorse, etc, regardless of creationisms correctness, these animals, these species, were not created by God, they are the product of what came before them.

You just used the ability of some species to breed with each other as evidence that those species were derived from the same root species... so why can't primates breed with felines and bovines breed with equines etc.

This is what I'm referring to as "kinds", or what I call "Archetypal Creation"... namely that God created "horses" "fish" "dogs" "primates" "rodents" or whatever (granting that humans naming conventions are based on pre-genetic science and that they likely need to be amended)... but whatever, can you give me examples of evolution where one "kind" (say a fruit-fly) evolved into another "kind" (say, a caterpillar) and the simple answer is no,... can you provide an example of a multi-celled organism that arose from a single celled organism where said single celled organism did not already contain the genetic instructions to produce said multi-celled organism... the simple answer is "not that I know of"... so yeah, where's the proof dude?

And please, God is not a fact, it is a belief, a theory. No amount of conviction and faith will make that true without evidence, for which nothing has been put forward. I can be tolerant of your opinions, but what you are saying is if anything blasphemous, if not grossly incorrect.

I've felt God's direct effect on my life in tangible ways, so either I'm deluded or God's real... to me. If I used the term "fact" in a way that was unpalatable to your paradigm you can pick a different word that means "unarguably true to me but unprovable to you because the proof rests solely in my own mind".

[TradeMark]

I've felt God's direct effect on my life in tangible ways,

What did you feel?

[SinbadEV]

Hard to define... "presence" maybe?

[TradeMark]

OH that... its explainable by brain malfunction.

The brain can trick you in so many ways...

Edit: now you think im trolling, but ive felt this "presence" thing as well.

[zwzsg]

You just used the ability of some species to breed with each other as evidence that those species were derived from the same root species... so why can't primates breed with felines and bovines breed with equines etc.

No, as evidence that new species can be created, in contradiction to bible dogma.

So why can't primates breed with felines and bovines breed with equines etc.

Not the same number of chromosome, mismatching organs or chemicals etc...

But have you ever heard of GMO? People in labs bred tomato with fish!

Anyway, interspecy breeding has little to do with evolution. You never see branch merging into evolution trees. Gene swapping happens in nature, but it's super rare, and never happens with half DNA from each race, it's more <0.0...01% from one, >99.9...% from another. The only merging of specy that occurs in nature is symbiosis, and you can still tell apart the two species if you look closely. Well, come to think of it, there's a theory that says the mitochondria in human cells results from such a symbiose. Which would mean we (human, animals, etc..) are an interbreeding between eukaryotes and prokaryotes. You probably don't know enough about biology to understand, but eukaryotes and prokaryotes are about as far as possible living beings can be on the tree of evolution.

can you give me examples of evolution where one "kind" (say a fruit-fly) evolved into another "kind" (say, a caterpillar) and the simple answer is no

You will shift your definition of "kind" to whatever suit you at the moment. And of course, to accumulate enough divergence between too branches that a, err, let's say Phylum division is requested, takes times well beyond a human lifetimes. But yes, there is ample fossilised evidence of cow turning into whales, of proto-lizard turning into rodents, or rodents turning apes, of dinosaurs turning into birds, etc.... But creationist thinks fossil are just prank planted by God to test our faith.

I've felt God's direct effect on my life in tangible ways, so either I'm deluded or God's real...

LoL developp please!

so either I'm deluded or God's real... to me

Common misconception about statiscal computation usually. Like "but what were the odd that ..." without taking into account all the equally improbable events that never took place. Or forgetting that stats can't be applied to individuals (Yes, the law of big numbers, shockingly, don't apply to one!). Or stuff the explanation of you never thought about. Because "God did it!" is such a convenient all-purpose answer, works every time, for anything, your mind is tempted to resort to it instead of the scary "we don't know", or the exhausting running a 2 year scientific investigation everytime something odd happen.

Plus you just said God has a direct effect on your life. Which mean god is not a useless something outside the universe, watching without acting, but has effects, here and now, so is accessible to scientific experimentation. Because, I repeat, you don't need to touch or see something to scientifically determine it exists. We know what earth core is made of, without anyone having been there. Indirect effects are enough to power scientific theories and experiments.

(say a fruit-fly) evolved into another "kind" (say, a caterpillar)

I can show you a caterpillar evolve into a butter-fly before your eyes... though by means unrelated to Evolution.

[PicassoCT]

If you, like nature does, throw enough flour, eggs and milk into the air, one day, on a planet not so far away, a christian will be hit by a caked, baked in thin air by a sunflare :)


Sorry, zwszg but where do you get all your fire from? I fought that battle, time after time without any result at all, i dont get why you waste your precious time in such threads?

[zwzsg]

It had been a long time since I hadn't indulged in such a discussion. Plus I still have trouble getting how can seemingly normal thinking people can believe so strongly in balderdash. Also one day I'd like to map the beliefs of a creationist. Do they believe the earth is couple millenia old? Not anymore? Do they believe into Noah's arch? Do they disbelieve man created new breed of dog?

Then Spring board isn't the right place for that. The only believer is SinbadEV, and he's not that hardcore into it.

[KaiserJ]

to me, the creation story can sort of be justified if you ignore the time scale... it somewhat describes the order in which evolution suggests that life evolved, with some poetic licence.

where it really falls apart for me is in the matter of science. if we were created in gods image, or at least by gods grand design, then we would assume that it was gods plan that we examine and quantify the natural world.

but if this is the case, then why would god lie to us? why go to the trouble of burying dino bones under sediment layers... sediment layers that still accumilate every year in the same manner of debris solidifying on lake bottoms

well, i'll answer my own question. its a matter of academic conflict. for example : the complete dismissal of erosion data collected on the great sphinx by egyptologists, because it doesn't fit with the big picture of what said egyptologists have based their academic careers on. imagine basing your entire career (and your colleagues) around a certain timeframe and supposition, and then a geologist (hes not even an egyptologist for crying out loud, how can he say anything?) makes a pretty solid case that everything you've based your work on is inaccurate. would you just give up? no. because your good name, and your "faith" if you will in canon information is on the line.

to me, its not even a conflict between creation and evolution, its a conflict between literalists and thinkers. it would be easy enough to ratify and combine creationism with evolution, if not for the literal translation of bible passages and the belief that "this means what it means. its not an analogy for something else". which, to me, is ridiculous because the bible is chock full of symbolism, and at the time it was written, the average layman couldn't even read, let alone make scientific statements.

and yet, 2 thousand years later, with all of the recent advances and discovered knowledge, people still cling to a literal translation of a ghost story. if i told you something like "the movie starship troopers is 100% true" then you'd call me an idiot. the same works in reverse. if i said something like "the movie starship troopers is fiction, but a parable representing human reaction to conflict and our ability to band together to deal with adversity" then you might agree with me... or at least think i wasn't insane. to me, the bible is an instruction manual on how to act... and even though im not christian, i can still read and agree with the stories and ideas in a non-literalist manner.

in no way does a belief or disbelief in creationism reflect on a persons belief in god. it's more representative of "faith over fact" and continual indoctrination by the modern christian church in a strategy to retain members and continue to grow, that they have some sort of hidden truth that you can learn and understand if you join

[TradeMark]

The only believer is SinbadEV, and he's not that hardcore into it.

You forgot Jazcash too.

[PicassoCT]

Trolls have Godz? Do they sacrifice people?

[AF]

The very idea that evolution can not generate new species because thats how species were created, is made a mockery of by things like Mules, Ligers, Zebroids, Beefalos, Leapons, Pumapards, Zorse, etc, regardless of creationisms correctness, these animals, these species, were not created by God, they are the product of what came before them.

You just used the ability of some species to breed with each other as evidence that those species were derived from the same root species... so why can't primates breed with felines and bovines breed with equines etc.

This is not me proving evolution. This si me demonstrating that your chosen theory makes statements about speciation that are utter tosh, statements for which evidence disproving it is not only present, has not only been known for millennia, not only predates your entire religion up to the present day, but is actively living eating breathing and reproducing as we speak.

This is what I'm referring to as "kinds", or what I call "Archetypal Creation"... namely that God created "horses" "fish" "dogs" "primates" "rodents" or whatever (granting that humans naming conventions are based on pre-genetic science and that they likely need to be amended)... but whatever, can you give me examples of evolution where one "kind" (say a fruit-fly) evolved into another "kind" (say, a caterpillar) and the simple answer is no,...

Those aren't the same branches as Z said and evolutionary branches that are sufficiently far do not merge, by the time they are differentiated enough to consider them seperate animals, they're usually incapable of merging. The hybrids we have are only possible because the animals involved are recent branches of common ancestors, which is why we have cat hybrids involving lions lepoards tigers etc. Most of these hybrids are incapable of reproducing ( probably all but I havent researched that yet ).

But all in all it comes down to the nonsensical nature of what you ask. It's like asking why a dog and a praying mantis cant merge into a new species. It would be nonsensical to ask that, and it would be nonsensical to think it would ever work. From the inability to fertilize eachother, to the horrible horrible failures resulting from grossly incompatible biochemistry. We have enough trouble giving birth to humans ourselves, why would mating with a whole other species in a differen genus work?

Of course given a lot of time and hard work in a lab, we can devise a version of one animals genome containing a significant proportion of the others.

can you provide an example of a multi-celled organism that arose from a single celled organism where said single celled organism did not already contain the genetic instructions to produce said multi-celled organism... the simple answer is "not that I know of"... so yeah, where's the proof dude?

Easily, bacteria for one regularly clump into multicellular organisms called Biofilms. Granted these biofilms dont do much, but bacteria can cooperate as a single unit to achieve a means to an end or ensure survival. Other bacteria join with larger multicellular organisms to form structures and organs in symbiosis. Bacteria are incredibly social and have many collective and coordinating multicellular roles.

For example root nodules on plants are an essential part of their structure, but it is one built not by the plants but by single celled organisms that come together for mutual benefit of the plant and of eachother.

Your also feigning utter ignorance of the world of Fungi.

And please, God is not a fact, it is a belief, a theory. No amount of conviction and faith will make that true without evidence, for which nothing has been put forward. I can be tolerant of your opinions, but what you are saying is if anything blasphemous, if not grossly incorrect.

I've felt God's direct effect on my life in tangible ways, so either I'm deluded or God's real... to me. If I used the term "fact" in a way that was unpalatable to your paradigm you can pick a different word that means "unarguably true to me but unprovable to you because the proof rests solely in my own mind".

And I know people who have felt the same things and yet come to wildly differing conclusions. I myself have had experiences and feelings that I could easily attribute to a God or religious persuasion, if anything Im predisposed by my Catholic upbringing.

But when I say fact, I dont mean my personal interpretation. I mean actual fact, as is held by official means, as defined in dictionaries and used the world over. What you deem to be fact in your personal definition is not fact at all. It is conviction.

Whatever you have in terms of proof in your own mind, it is not proof. It is an experience that happened to you, for which you attribute God as the cause, because that is the most persuasive argument you have to explain it, and other arguements dont anywhere near close. Other people do not share this view, yet if you are correct in this analysis, and it is indeed fact, and your theory is indeed proof, then you are forced to acknowledge the proof present in my mind, and the other forum posters minds, and everyone elses, who differ and contradict yours.

I have no qualm with you expressing your beliefs. I do have a problem with you expressing them as scientific fact based on 'proof' which is non-empirical, not even normative, but is completely subjective. It is compelling to you, and no doubt others have their own reasons to come to the same conclusions, but this is no excuse for labelling it fact.

The real question of wether you are deluded or not rests in the following statement:

"Given a reason to explain said experiences that discounts God, and is more compelling, fits with scientific evidence, is provable, and offers more answers than the existing hypothesis arrived at, would SinbadEV renounce his faith given that he has discovered this new more fulfilling hypothesis?"

If the answer is yes, then you are not deluded. Those of faith should continually question it, because through that questioning they gain a deeper understanding of God and are closer to his love.

If this faith does not hold up to basic reasoning and logic then obviously someone somewhere is manipulating you, or you are in some kind of denial.

If you find you have been incorrect then you should be fine to know you acted in good faith and that it is a natural progression.

And if God is indeed the correct hypothesis, and holds up to scrutiny and questioning, then one can only benefit.

[AF]

Of note:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteria#Multicellularity

Multicellularity
(See also: Prokaryote#Sociality)
Bacteria often function as multicellular aggregates known as biofilms, exchanging a variety of molecular signals for inter-cell communication, and engaging in coordinated multicellular behavior.[115][116]

The communal benefits of multicellular cooperation include a cellular division of labor, accessing resources that cannot effectively be utilized by single cells, collectively defending against antagonists, and optimizing population survival by differentiating into distinct cell types.[115] For example, bacteria in biofilms can have more than 500 times increased resistance to antibacterial agents than individual "planktonic" bacteria of the same species.[116]

One type of inter-cellular communication by a molecular signal is called quorum sensing, which serves the purpose of determining whether there is a local population density that is sufficiently high that it is productive to invest in processes that are only successful if large numbers of similar organisms behave similarly, as in excreting digestive enzymes or emitting light.

Quorum sensing allows bacteria to coordinate gene expression, and enables them to produce, release and detect autoinducers or pheromones which accumulate with the growth in cell population. [117]

So there you have it. Bacteria clump together and go as far as specialising, for various benefits such as doing things together a lone cell cannot, all for the common good.

[PicassoCT]

They also eat each other, and dont digest, because there is benefit. There are sea snails who eat algee, storing the chlorophyll in skinpouches, basically living a plants live, while crawling around on the oceanfloor. Some of our basic cell mechanisms are under that hitchhikers doubt- and yes, if something sticks around long enough, it gets into the dna-source, or is at least transmitted from mother to child (like the diggestion bacteria cultures.)

[zwzsg]

Still symbiosis and colonies are pretty much orthogonal to evolution: Neither is necessary, proving nor disproving the other. You could have one without the other, and the other without one.

Furthermore, having one missing link in the evolution tree doesn't mean evolution is all wrong. Just that this particular transition happened too fast, on a too small population, in an area where condition weren't fit for corpse conservation etc.... You'd have to prove a transition is impossible to raise evolutionnist interest. (Yes, scientists are always very interested into what could prove their beliefs wrong. Because that usually indicate a new source of knowledge waiting to be discovered!).

Given the giganormous of specie living on earth, it would to the contrary be suspicious that mere mortal like humans could already have mapped all relationship between all extinct species. Sometimes it's hard even for scientist to be sure of what happened a billion year ago! If someone has a ready answer for everything and anything in any domain (such as God did it), he's either lying or providing useless answers.

So what's important in a scientific is not that it's perfect (only useless imaginary concept like God are perfect), but that it provides us a better understanding of the world, and let us make prediction according to the theory which are then found true.

[bobthedinosaur]

The 'neither prove nor disprove' is a hard concept for some people. I like thinking of god entities as analogous to a mathematical concept, where we can use this concept in some models, but there is no tangible or conceptual example for infinity/ god.

Speaking of god(s) and math, I would imagine the only thing people could agree on when using logic and reason is: if there was a god like force somewhere, it would not speak(word of god arguments) in human shaped languages, but it would use a communication of math, the universal language. Math and natural world (not to be confused with bio specific) are the closed things you can get to a divine model, and therefore appreciating both would be a form of getting 'closer to god' of a universal force.

Okay..... maybe a bit of stretch on the god is math crap, but that is one of the ways how I see it.


Also: many of the counter papers on the arsenic life take note on how messy the science of this report was, and how it was probably released before it should have.

[zwzsg]

Right, a purely imaginary concept like math is also perfect. Yet math is ton more useful. Biggest difference between math and god is math very strong self coherency, making it possible to undispuntably separate mathematical truth from mathematical wrong. Which in turn allow to build incredibly hair conceptual constructs, that still hold thanks to solid base and entirely verifiable structure.

Also: many of the counter papers on the arsenic life take note on how messy the science of this report was, and how it was probably released before it should have.

Or not published at all considering how likely it is to be an IMA NOUCING full of bold claim but devoid of serious work. And yes, that's what this thread should have been about.

[Panda]

For instance, typically religion says that God listen to prayer. Or that God care to his people. Which a scientific study can easily demonstrate to be bullshit.

There are scientific studies that show that prayer can have a positive effect on a person. I generally think that this means that it has an effect on a person in much the same way a placebo (something, sometimes a drug, with no medical effect, that causes a person to expect something good to happen. This personÔÇÖs belief, then, leads to good effects such as improved health for that person.) in medicine or a Voodoo (Voodoo is a part of the culture where I live.) spell would. According to Anne Harrington (the famous Harvard University Professor), ÔÇ£Placebos are the ghosts that haunt our house of biomedical objectivity.ÔÇØ They ÔÇ£are not only puzzles to be solved, but - to the extent they elude ready solutions ÔÇô they also teach us how far we still are from closure on the question of what it will mean to create a science subtle and complex enough to encompass all that is entailed in being human.ÔÇØ

Voodoo spells, on the other hand, can have a nocebos (They involve expectations that something bad will happen leading to something bad happening). An example of nocebos are Voodoo death. An extreme form of the nocebo phenomenon is ÔÇ£voodoo deathÔÇØ which doesn't work exactly the same way, but has something of the same effect as being harshly told by a doctor that you will die even if their is actually nothing wrong with the patient. What happens is that the patient believes it so much that the stress generated from their believe kills them.

I think that the whole God answering you're prayers thing could be worked out by the devoted believer in God to mean that God is love (I've heard this many times in church while growing up.) and if you wish for goodness and love in your life, praying can cause that to happen.

[AF]

The effect of prayer could be attributed to many things be it placebo, meditation, or even a divine God, but investigation into prayer has yet to show up any anomalous occurrences that could be attributed to divine intervention, and the statistical correlations are so poor as to be insignificant and match closest with pure coincidence and chance.

Regarding fossil record gaps, Dawkins puts forward that these are nonsensical, because there will always be a gap to find. If we filled in all gaps we knew of, say 1 - ? - 3, and 2 was discovered, the gap proponents would merely ask "What about 1.5 and 2.5?", as if this negates the genetic and observational evidence found. He also likened ti to a guy being tried for murder with video evidence showing the murder, and his defence is that because there is a small gap of 5 seconds between him putting the murder weapon down, and him coming back to remove the body, it therefore never happened because the record is incomplete.


Regarding Math, this is not a purely imaginary concept. It is an abstract concept, but it has real testable attributes. It is possible to prove empirically via logic. It is possible to disprove a mathematical theorem, to have erroneous calculations, to state wrong things e.g. 2 < 1 etc

[PicassoCT]

I dont have problems with anyone who wants to be shizo to boost his weak selfassurance, i have problem the moment he expects me to stand up in the bus, so his imaginary friend may have a seat.

Religion is a privat thing, in fact so privat, that you best keep it completely out of the public sphere, which is nearly impossible because the invisible friend makes you vote for demagogic bigots, forces you into stuffing your childrens heads with propaganda and is in every way generally a asshole.

And that presence thing happens to everyone who gets under serious stress. I nearly crashed a car on a frozzen over street once, and after that filled up with adrenalin, alone in the car, but longing for company to celebrate live going on, i can quite imagine how this presence must feel. Guess its only natural, but human nature sucks, if we all would listen to that, we would still have kings, and keep away from dangerous magic machinery. So,you- man, no, human the fuck up, grow into an adult, be responsible for yourself.