Evolution vs Creationism (be nice)

[amargasaurus cazaui]

Utterly impressed with your take on this Dr. Admin, thanks for being open minded and giving benefit of the doubt

[Loon]

Was just about to start a new thread for this, but will start here. I say we set up some ground rules, this will be the new thread for this topic. This is from the unposted thread which I cut created, please, read it like a boxing coach.

I want a good, clean fight. No insults, stick to the forum rules, see? Let's be civil, gang. Present you evidence thoroughly, cite sources when necessary, no bashing one's religion, or lack thereof. We're not here to discuss god(s)'s existence, just good ol' fashion evolution and creatonism!


Evolution or Creation, LETS FIGHT!!!


Just kidding, please be civil.

[DinoToyForum]

Utterly impressed with your take on this Dr. Admin, thanks for being open minded and giving benefit of the doubt

Well, forums are for discussion and debate, and there's obviously an interest in this topic, which is relevant to palaeontology. I'm trusting members to debate within the forum rules.

[suspsy]

What specific, testable evidence would convince you that you're wrong about evolution?

Why make it about who's right or wrong? You could rephrase the question:

What specific, testable evidence would convince you that evolution occurs?

I could, but since there's no shame in being wrong, I honestly don't see the need to. I assume your intent is to phrase the question more kindly, and I can't dispute you on that, but when it comes down to it, wrong is still wrong. I've been wrong about many things in my life. For example, I used to think that evolution was inherently atheistic, but I've since learned that some of the best and brightest proponents of the theory are devout Christians. Joel Duff and Francis Collins are but two shining examples..

The question can also be spun in the other direction.

What specific, testable evidence would convince you that life was created?

Oh geez, where do I begin? For starters, a Precambrian rabbit, a Devonian gorilla, or any of those other such examples I mentioned earlier. An insect with a backbone. A reptile laying an egg that hatched a mammal. An organism that can spontaneously erase and then rewrite its own genome. Anything along those lines.

[DinoToyForum]

The question can also be spun in the other direction.

What specific, testable evidence would convince you that life was created?

Oh geez, where do I begin? For starters, a Precambrian rabbit, a Devonian gorilla, or any of those other such examples I mentioned earlier. An insect with a backbone. A reptile laying an egg that hatched a mammal. An organism that can spontaneously erase and then rewrite its own genome. Anything along those lines.

Good examples, now it is the creationists turn to answer the equivalent question.

[DinoToyForum]

I could, but since there's no shame in being wrong, I honestly don't see the need to. I assume your intent to phrase the question more kindly, and I can't dispute you on that, but when it comes down to it, wrong is still wrong.

Too arrogant to be kind, gotcha.

Seriously, you've been snide in this thread ("hopeless creationists" "Sad."). This reflects badly on both you and this forum, and I could construe it as a breach of forum rule 1 if I wanted to. Your attitude is counterproductive to constructive debate and isn't welcome, so please rethink how you interact with other forum members. You might not mean to offend people, but you are, so if that isn't your intention, then it is easy for you to change by phrasing your posts differently. Kinder, if you will. Surely you aren't above that? If it is your intention to offend, then you are breaking the rules.

[stargatedalek]

If I may, Suspsy's tone changed after thelordsgym became so aggressive in the previous thread, I feel like at the time the tone was justified.

[Loon]

If I may, Suspsy's tone changed after thelordsgym became so aggressive in the previous thread, I feel like at the time the tone was justified.

I agree, thelordsgym adopting a more aggressive tone than I feel suspy ever did. His "brainwashed" comment is a particular stand out.

[DinoToyForum]

If I may, Suspsy's tone changed after thelordsgym became so aggressive in the previous thread, I feel like at the time the tone was justified.

I agree, thelordsgym adopting a more aggressive tone than I feel suspy ever did. His "brainwashed" comment is a particular stand out.

No, it was the other way around. It doesn't justify it either way. Anyway, enough finger pointing, back on topic please. 

I also want to clarify that religous topics are against the forum rules, so by leaving this topic open, I'm making a rare exception to see if we have evolved (no pun intended!) as a community to be able to discuss this in a civilised manner.

[suspsy]

If I may, Suspsy's tone changed after thelordsgym became so aggressive in the previous thread, I feel like at the time the tone was justified.

I agree, thelordsgym adopting a more aggressive tone than I feel suspy ever did. His "brainwashed" comment is a particular stand out.

No, it was the other way around. It doesn't justify it either way. Anyway, enough finger pointing, back on topic please. 

I did indeed say that he was like many other hopeless creationists and that it saddened me, but that was only in response to his decidedly arrogant declaration that nothing would ever convince him that one species can evolve into a new one. Given that speciation can and has been observed first hand on numerous occasions, and given that AIG, the most prominent creationist organization in the world, has admitted that it does indeed occur (even if they deny or distort the implications behind it), I stand by my words. It's one thing for a creationist to deny observable, testable science; it's another thing to deny observable, testable science that major creationist groups have admitted is for real. AIG would agree with me on that.

Too arrogant to be kind, gotcha

I suspect this will get me into further trouble with you, but I really don't see how slightly rephrasing my question (which I had no qualms about giving my own answer to) makes it any more or less "kind." I've asked that question of many creationists over the years, and not once have any of them objected to its phrasing, even if they failed to give a satisfactory response. You are the first. Regardless of whether or not the actual term "wrong" is employed, the clear implication of the possibility of being wrong still remains. Hence why I don't see anything insulting or arrogant about phrasing it that way.

But you know what, I think I should just do us both a favour and abstain from participating in this thread anymore. I don't come to this forum to discuss creationism and I have no desire to argue further with someone who I consider a friend, especially not over perceived tones.

[BlueKrono]

If I may, Suspsy's tone changed after thelordsgym became so aggressive in the previous thread, I feel like at the time the tone was justified.

I agree, thelordsgym adopting a more aggressive tone than I feel suspy ever did. His "brainwashed" comment is a particular stand out.

No, it was the other way around. It doesn't justify it either way. Anyway, enough finger pointing, back on topic please. 

I also want to clarify that religous topics are against the forum rules, so by leaving this topic open, I'm making a rare exception to see if we have evolved (no pun intended!) as a community to be able to discuss this in a civilised manner.

To be honest I'm very surprised this thread has been allowed to persist. There has been a fair bit of name calling and complaints that it is not what certain members want to see on this forum. That being said, I don't personally have any problem with it, so by all means, fight on...

[ZoPteryx]

Thought I'd drop this link here.  It's in broken English, but I think it'll make an interesting read for all those involved in this thread. 

http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&hl=en&ie=UTF8&langpair=it%7Cen&rurl=translate.google.com&sp=nmt4&tbb=1&u=http://theropoda.blogspot.com/2015/10/la-scienza-ed-i-draghi.html&usg=ALkJrhhv-EIyylLi1YtC0GTr41j5wh7tEg

[Loon]

Thought I'd drop this link here.  It's in broken English, but I think it'll make an interesting read for all those involved in this thread. 

http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&hl=en&ie=UTF8&langpair=it%7Cen&rurl=translate.google.com&sp=nmt4&tbb=1&u=http://theropoda.blogspot.com/2015/10/la-scienza-ed-i-draghi.html&usg=ALkJrhhv-EIyylLi1YtC0GTr41j5wh7tEg

I've read Mr. Cau's article before, and it is quite well done, I love the dragon analogy.

[Dinoguy2]

One thing rarely brought up in these debates is how hopelessly culturally and religiously biased most creationists are. How convenient for you, a western Christian, that the answers are in Genesis, not the Bhagavad Gita! You must feel very lucky to have been born, out of the billions of people on the planet, into the one religion that happens to be right!

[amargasaurus cazaui]

One thing rarely brought up in these debates is how hopelessly culturally and religiously biased most creationists are. How convenient for you, a western Christian, that the answers are in Genesis, not the Bhagavad Gita! You must feel very lucky to have been born, out of the billions of people on the planet, into the one religion that happens to be right!

This response is one that has always hit me rather solidly....indeed. In the right place, and the right time too. Given the estimates of some 4200 religions and gods to date more or less, I find it indicative that most people follow the belief set within their local area or the one taught them as children, without any exposure or study of outside possibilities.....so if the true god had been followed in Egyptian culture 5,000 years ago or is only observed on a remote island in the pacific...someone has to be wrong...a lot of someones. In fact the implication is if there is one true god, that statistically nearly all are wrong, throughout time and anywhere you might wander. I am not suggesting any one religion is wrong, but how incredibly wonderful for you if you just happened to select the one god over the entire world, and over the past ten thousand years that was correct.

[Loon]

@amargasaurus, as interesting as your post is, and I do very much agree, I don't think this is the place to be about the religious views of the Creationists. While I do also believe that Creationism is just religion wearing sciencey words to look smarter, the claims presented are "scientific" in nature. So I say we just stick to that. If anything I just wrote made cohesive sense, it sounded much better in my head.

[amargasaurus cazaui]

Fair enough then, I defer to your opinion. I will sit and watch for said science to be offered, before commenting further.....thanks for the heads up.

[tanystropheus]

The Books of Enoch, The Koran and Sumerian scriptures seem to strongly implicate evolutionary process. The reason religionists are screwed up in the head is because of sloppy use of terminology (e.g. gods/jinss/angels/aliens/annunaki/watchers/ghosts/satans/whisperers/shadow people/fairies) and subsequent mislabeling. For example, Hindus use the term, 'Devi' to describe 'gods' (or ilah in Islam) but the Parsis (Zoroastrians) use the same term to refer to 'demons' (and, vice versa). Scientifically speaking, we can substitute the word 'angels' with 'aliens', and 'jinns/minor deities' with 'prehistoric hominids'. Also, in classical arabic, the word, 'day' (ayyam) is sometimes translated as 'aeons'. The discrepancies that exist between religion and science are mostly due to our unfortunate understanding of semantics and intertextuality. Religion (metaphysics, in particular) is to Science as Poetry is to Prose.

[tyrantqueen]

The reason religionists are screwed up in the head

I thought you were supposed to be nice.

[Halichoeres]

Here are some things that could convince me that life was created, besides the fossil record being much different than it is (the argument that in a global flood aquatic things should be found at the bottom makes no sense to me--I would think that air-breathing animals that find it hard to swim for days on end would be first to go).

Wheels, axles, or treads. It's hard to imagine an intelligent designer overlooking something as brilliant and efficient as a wheel. There is a certain amount of modularity in evolution and development (cluster of hox genes and other transcription factors, somites, globin variants, etc), but none consists of a mechanical part that can't be more or less extruded from a single wormlike embryo. Hence, it would be an impossible structure for evolution to produce, but it would be possible for a creator to make such a thing.

Wings on animals that also have four functional legs. This is similar to the argument above, but probably more damning, in that it would be possible to produce it with existing equipment. A creator could take a cluster of genes coding for limbs, alter them to make wings, and just add them to something that already has four legs (a pegasus! A dragon!). By similar logic, you could make a centaur or what have you. If you try to get there by selection on random mutation, it would probably be so lethally destructive to the embryo that you'd never get an adult. But an omnipotent creator shouldn't find that insuperable.

Any feature that is good for a species other than the species that bears it, while simultaneously being bad for the species that bears it. Let's contrast with aphids, some of which secrete a sugary substance (honeydew, which is partially digested sugars sucked out of plant phloem) from their anus that ants eat. The ants benefit, sure, but so do the aphids. They're already deriving as much sugar as they need before it passes through them, and they gain protection from predators. Similarly, some acacias have specialized structures on their branches that secrete sugar and protein for ants, and the ants, residing on the tree and guarding their food source, defend the tree from insect and mammal predators. If either of these relationships were completely one-sided, and yet was not purged by natural selection, that would call the predictions of evolution into serious doubt.

Science is about finding ways to prove yourself wrong. Richard Feynman famously said, "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself--and you are the easiest person to fool." If, as Keaton64 and Ken Ham say, no evidence could ever convince them that they must reconsider beliefs, they are not doing science. They are doing rationalization.