Doctor Who Club of Australia

[SharazJek]

To use a Roseism I was "gobbsmacked" to see New Zealand scientists going to extraordinary lengths to prove that evolution progresses at a faster rate than already theorized (although presented as undeniable fact!).

They collected a fish from two different river systems that were at one stage joined together to discover that low and behold, both creatures from the seperate areas, though isolated for millions of years were still..........

fish!

And revelation of revelations, there was variation within the genetic code of a minute percentage, due to that isolation.

They could have saved themselves a lot of time by looking at the variety in the human race. I'm yet to see any isolated group of humans produce anything other than humans as different as Zulus might be from Eskimos genetically.

One of the scientists said that looking for evidence of evolution in the fossil record was not the way to go, that there's (searching for genetic variation) was now a better approach.

Sorry guys, but your elusive clues to the spontaneous eruption of life add up to a great big primeval cul-de-sac of wishful thinking, and when stacked against the evidence of design within life, is not only ludicrous, but highly offensive.

[phase5]

[SharazJek]

I haven't seen an advance copy of the program, it screened on the ABC last week.

It's offensive in that it denies stark staring evidence of design, therefore, the designer, creator or architect or whatever faddy name you want to give it. It's trendy for evos to call ID 'the latest incarnation of' BLAH BLAH BLAH!!!!!!!!!!!!

I note the book you mentioned in it's very title does NOTHING to focus on actually proving the evolution faith, but rather concentrates on what evolution is all about; the intellectual denial of God/creator/designer. Sounds great for reading between sips of pan galactic gargle blaster. These scientists may have brains the size of planets (or so they reckon), but when are they going to stop parking cars and get a real job?

Gotta go, there's a girl in my primeval soup.

[phase5]

Before you read any further I'd suggest going to the Catalyst web site and read the transcript of the topic under discussion; “Evolution River”:
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s1778907.htm

[phase5]

[Amano07]

i think Andrew Denton sumed up all religon the best in a radio interview with Merrick and Rosso

"it all boils down to my imaginary friend is better then your imaginary friend"

[charlie]

[SharazJek]

[dave]

Without stooping to 'Bible denigration', I'd just like to point out a couple of things. For a start, there is a LOT of evidence supporting evolutionary theory. Secondly, science doesn't deal in 'proof' so much as repeatable experiment, and thirdly, once again, the theory of gravity is also unproved, but I've not yet seen people of any faith try to argue that because it's "just" a theory that gravity doesn't exist.

Please leave the 'just a theory' line alone, as it's incredibly weak.

At it's very base, ID is unscientific because it cannot allow for any new evidence which might effect the theory. To spell it out, ID is based on the idea that god designed and created all life as we know it. What possible 'evidence' could be provided to prove/disprove such an idea? None, as that would require being able to quantify god and/or his (supposed) communication with humanity. Because it's not possible to design an experiment, even in theory, which might test the proposition, then the proposition is unscientific at its foundation.

I find creationists/ID supporters will make use of scientific method, without any regard for the basic scientific principle of unbiased inquiry. If you already KNOW, without a doubt that God wrote the Bible, which is, therefore, literally true because God wrote it, for example, you're not approaching things from an open-minded position at all. Unfortunately, the same can be said of almost any scientist with a vested interest in the science they're propounding.

[Chris]

SharaJek: Your arguments sound so weak it's not funny! i mean, how can you totally deny evolution? Sure evolution may be just a theory, but it's not like ID is fact either. if you where to look at things with an open mind you'd probably realise that while both AREN'T fact, evolution is getting more and more things to back it up and is a lot more convincing than "Some guy made us and then like, went away somewhere" ............yeah, real convincing. and no i'm not anti-religious i just dislike narrow-minded people.

[SharazJek]

[SharazJek]

[dave]

For a start, whilst I offered up some explanation of what is/is not science, I nowhere stated that evolution is fact in my above post. I did say that there's a great deal of evidence to support the theory, yes, but that's not the same as saying evolution is fact. Actually, evolution is a theory, just like gravity.

The importance of repeatable experiment to science can't be understated. An experiment which can only successfully be carried out by a single group at a single time is useless to science as it is unverifiable. If an experiment can be repeated by others, however, especially others of a different bias, then the hypothesis the experiment is testing comes closer to being regarded a theory.

Some sciences, however, do not depend upon experiment. Palaeontology would probably be one of these sciences. It does depend, as you've said, upon observations - observations based on evidence of past life on earth, as laid down in the fossil record.

And now a question for you about the fossil record, S-J. If I understand the Bible correctly, there has been one major catastrophe since the creation of the world which might account for fossil formation: the Great Flood. Can you explain then, why the deepest fossil layer contains nothing more complex than tiny, single-celled creatures; the next layer contains some simple multi-cellular creatures and lots of protzoans, the next layer small fish and reptiles, the next layer (for example) dinosaurs (there are a number of layers containing dinosaurs actually) and then after that mammals, etc in more shallow layers?

To state it clearly: How could a single catastrophe account for so many layers and why didn't the largest creatures (dinosaurs/whales) sink to the bottom as would be expected if all these fossils were created during the one disaster?

[SharazJek]

The flood of Genesis was not (or should I say, is not claimed to be) a natural occurance, so I think the label 'catastrophe' is a misleading one. The Bible isn't a catastrophe almanac, so who knows what other major upheavals there have been in nature during the earth's existence.

As for the fossil record question, no I can't answer it. I am reasonably certain however, that nothing in the fossil record shows any of the intermediate stages of evolution you would expect to find.

When someone can prove to me or even theorize how my comparatively simply designed house can build itself by chance, then I will give evolution the time of day.

Most of intelligent humankind believed the world was flat at one stage (and that was thousands of years after the Bible said it was circular and 'hanging on nothing'), so the insistance of many intelligent people believing in other ludicrus theories like evolution today is hardly surprising.

[dave]

I appreciate your honesty in admitting that the stratafication of fossil layers poses problems for ID/Creation theory. Especially when there's a general tendency towards greater complexity from layer to layer as we work from the deepest/earliest layers to the shallower/recent layers. This stratafication suggests a gradual development (I want to avoid the term evolution here) of life in terms of complexity of organisms, and this development matches well with evolutionary theory.

As for the absence of intermediate forms, if fossils are only created by catastrophe (which is something I learned from Creation 'Scientists' back in my Christian heyday) then the fossil record will only contain examples of forms extant at a particular time - a 'snapshot' if you will. Therefore, in the absence of continuous catastrophe, we can't expect to find every intermediate animal or vegetable form we might like to find. In other words, we'll never have a complete fossil record, due to the way in which fossils are formed.

The problem with your example of your house is that it is a misleading simplification: non-living material is not known to adapt to it's environment, unlike living organims. All Creation Scientists I've met admit that micro-evolution, or in other words, adaptation, does occur. Back when I was a christian, I hated that admission, as I felt we'd lost the battle right there. If adaptation takes place (and it does, there can be little doubt of that) then might not a very long period of successive adaptation lead eventually to the development of a new species? Therein lies the foundation of evolutionary theory, a theory which only appears 'ludicrous' to those with a vested interest in seeing it as so, because it threatens a cornerstone of their beliefs.

Likening a house building itself to an organism adapting to suit its environment is ridiculous. Organisms are known to adapt to environment. Non-living materials aren't known to form complex structures in most circumstances, with the exception of the snowflake. And a snowflake is a very good example, actually, of order arising directly out of chaos, due to random processes. Which is what evolutionary theory would state happened right back when life first got started on Earth.

[SharazJek]

[dave]

[Chris]

I'd just like to point something out that the whole flood story is extremely (almost word for word) similar to the flood in the story "The epic of Gilgamesh" which dates from the 3rd millenium b.c. The only difference is the guys name.

[dave]

Would that be the Utnapishtim or the Deucalion version of the Flood story?

Whilst I guess it's relevant to our discussion, there's no way S-J will accept that any other version of the Flood story predates the Biblical account. We've been over this before, just not in this current thread.

[dave]

Please forgive the double post.

I've been doing reading all day today about evolutionary theory, the fossil record, and theories about how life might have started on Earth. Very interesting reading.

S-J, you stated above "I am reasonably certain however, that nothing in the fossil record shows any of the intermediate stages of evolution you would expect to find. "

I'm happy to report that I discovered today that there's heaps of intermediate fossils in the fossil record, which cover:

Fish to Amphibians
Amphibians to Amniotes (early reptiles)
Synapsid reptiles to mammals
Diapsid reptiles to birds; and the biggy,
Non-human apes to modern humans.

Also, check out the fossil record of the evolution of the modern horse. It's the most complete evolutionary record we have for a modern animal, I think.

Most of your arguments (and in this thread, that's a generous term, S-J) seem to be based upon an argument from complexity: that because life on earth is so complex and diverse, it must have had a designer. This will seem fundamentally obvious to anyone who has an a priori belief in a Creator, and a very weak argument to most people who know anything about evolutionary theory and don't have such a pre-existing belief.

Accepting evolution as being highly probable doesn't require faith, as there's a great deal of evidence to support it. On the other hand, if we look at actual evidence that God created life on Earth, we have...

What exactly?