Five Major Misconceptions about Evolution

[PsuedoGhost]

What is called "evidence" is not conclusive. It's conjecture at best. It "proves" nothing.

Wheres your proof for something besides evolution taking place?

That is NOT evolution. It's ADAPTATION, or MUTATION. But it is NOT evolution.

Yes it is. Adaptation and mutation are both evolutionary principles. You can scream and argue semantics all you want, but it does not change the undeniable fact that evolution does occur, and is the primary mechanism for the diversity that we see in life today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution is a good link to start educating yourself on some of the scientific principles behind evolution.

www.talkorigins.org should completely dispell any remaining issues you have with evolution.

PaleRider, the science is undisputed. Evolution occurs regardless of how long you want to sit with your fingers in your ears screaming about how you dont believe it to be so.

 

[Nuc]

Evolution is a fact. Why would anybody try to dispute it? This argument is ridiculous. Asked and answered. Move on.

 

[Bullypulpit]

Seldom is so much ignorance displayed by so many as when they attempt to defend intelligent design.

While ID isn't science, it is brilliant in its use of pleas for "open mindedness" and the desire to "have a debate" to undermine open mindedness and debate on issues which have been generally accepted as proven and settled by the scientific community...like evolution. However, as new information is discovered, changes may result in what were considered sound scientific principles. This IS NOT disagreement or dissention within the sicentific community. It IS a change of paradigm resulting from new discoveries, as the information of those discoveries is disseminated and verified.

And it is this process the proponents of ID exploit in their pleas to have "both sides" of the issue presented as fact in classrooms across the country. Never mind that they are arguing from faith rather than fact. Never mind that they are falsely conflating the complexity and changing nature of scientific knowledge with "contradiction".

Evolutionary theory, like every other field of scientific endeavor, is subject to change with the addition of new discoveries and information. ID, on the other hand, is presented as a fixed dogma, changeless regardless of any new information or discoveries. And it is this immutabilty that distinguishes the religiously rooted doctrine of ID from the facts of evolutionary science.

But that doesn't deter the proponents of ID. So long as they are able to throw the slightest doubt on the enlightenment and progressivism that the pursuit of scienctific knowledge, in general, has bestowed upon humankind they will have achieved their goal.

For your edification:

<center><h2><font color=green>Intelligent Design as Applied to Newton's Laws of Motion</font></h2></center>

<blockquote> 1. Newton's Law of Inertia: Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it <i><b>by something, or someone, since only an intelligent agent of some kind (not necessarily God, but not necessarily not God) could recognize that this object was in motion and decide to "apply" an external force.</i></b>

2. Newton's Law of Dynamics: the acceleration (a) of an object is directly proportional to the net force (f) exerted and inversely proportional to the object's mass (m) <i><b>[and] is derived from the wishes of the intelligent agent---not God but maybe God</i></b>

3. Newton's Law of reciprocal Actions: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, <i><b>unless an intelligent agent who may or may not answer to the name of "God" wishes it to be only some actions or not quite equal reaction, or, really, anything else, in which case, it is those things, because he's the designer, and if you don't like it, design your own fucking universe.</i></b> - F.U.B.A.R.</blockquote>

 

[Hobbit]

Evolution is a fact. Why would anybody try to dispute it? This argument is ridiculous. Asked and answered. Move on.

This seems to be the brunt of the argument for evolution.

Let's take a look at a few things, shall we?

Micro-evolution - This is a misnomer. What has been deemed 'micro-evolution' is little more than an adaptation. No new species develop. Nothing that wasn't already there is made. It's just that a preferential trait becomes more prominent. Calling adaptation of a species micro-evolution is like calling the Utah Salt Flats a 'micro-flat Earth' (after all, it's flat).

Development of New Features - The crux of evolution is that a random mutation can produce everything from the nanites that operate individual cells to complex organs such as eyes, livers, and kidneys. Evolutionists always like to say something like "Well, you start with light sensitive cells and end up with eyes." First off, that's ludicrous. Second off, you're skipping the most complicated step. To have light sensitive cells start to mutate into eyes, the DNA must provide 1) a chemical sensitive to photons 2) a series of chemical reactions that turns that into a distinct signal 3) cells capable of carrying the information to other cells 4) cells capable of interpereting that information and 5) the light sensitive cells must be located in an advantageous position. Any one of these things is completely useless by itself and would be weeded out via natural selection. You can't reduce the problem any further without rendering the mechanism useless. The chances of this happening all at once are astronomical at best, as it would require millions of mutations to occur simultaneously and in the correct manner. I mean, we're not talking comic books here. In the real world, random mutations usually kill you.

Origin of Life - Atheistic scientists have calculated the odds of life occuring spontaneously, given the right conditions. 1) The odds of it happening are 1 out of a number ending in thousands and thousands of zeros. 2) Geologists have discovered that the right conditions didn't exist.

The Cambrian Explosion - Nearly every known phylum of life appeared in the relatively short period of 5 million years. Most evolutionists like to pretend this doesn't exist and sue schools that mention it over 'seperation of church and state,' even though its occurance has been verified by extremely well preserved fossils. One guy even got fired from the Smithsonian for allowing an article mentioning it to be published in a scientific journal, despite the fact that, as the special prosecutor put it, the article follows all academic guidelines and meets all academic standards for publication.

'Useless' DNA - Simple organisms that don't have such features have DNA regulating things like the creation of lungs, the location of limbs, and other things that they don't even have. Why?

'Proof' of Evolution - My last challenge is...where is it? All I EVER hear from evolutionists is, "You're just a religious zealot who refuses to acknowledge science," or "I don't have to prove it, becuase it's a proven fact." Well, I'm challenging that notion. Prove it to me. Pretend I've never heard of the notion of evolution before (skipping the preliminaries of basic biology) and pitch the idea to me. I want to see this 'mountain' of proof for it I keep hearing about.

 

[Hagbard Celine]

This seems to be the brunt of the argument for evolution.

Let's take a look at a few things, shall we?

Micro-evolution - This is a misnomer. What has been deemed 'micro-evolution' is little more than an adaptation. No new species develop. Nothing that wasn't already there is made. It's just that a preferential trait becomes more prominent. Calling adaptation of a species micro-evolution is like calling the Utah Salt Flats a 'micro-flat Earth' (after all, it's flat).

Development of New Features - The crux of evolution is that a random mutation can produce everything from the nanites that operate individual cells to complex organs such as eyes, livers, and kidneys. Evolutionists always like to say something like "Well, you start with light sensitive cells and end up with eyes." First off, that's ludicrous. Second off, you're skipping the most complicated step. To have light sensitive cells start to mutate into eyes, the DNA must provide 1) a chemical sensitive to photons 2) a series of chemical reactions that turns that into a distinct signal 3) cells capable of carrying the information to other cells 4) cells capable of interpereting that information and 5) the light sensitive cells must be located in an advantageous position. Any one of these things is completely useless by itself and would be weeded out via natural selection. You can't reduce the problem any further without rendering the mechanism useless. The chances of this happening all at once are astronomical at best, as it would require millions of mutations to occur simultaneously and in the correct manner. I mean, we're not talking comic books here. In the real world, random mutations usually kill you.

Origin of Life - Atheistic scientists have calculated the odds of life occuring spontaneously, given the right conditions. 1) The odds of it happening are 1 out of a number ending in thousands and thousands of zeros. 2) Geologists have discovered that the right conditions didn't exist.

The Cambrian Explosion - Nearly every known phylum of life appeared in the relatively short period of 5 million years. Most evolutionists like to pretend this doesn't exist and sue schools that mention it over 'seperation of church and state,' even though its occurance has been verified by extremely well preserved fossils. One guy even got fired from the Smithsonian for allowing an article mentioning it to be published in a scientific journal, despite the fact that, as the special prosecutor put it, the article follows all academic guidelines and meets all academic standards for publication.

'Useless' DNA - Simple organisms that don't have such features have DNA regulating things like the creation of lungs, the location of limbs, and other things that they don't even have. Why?

'Proof' of Evolution - My last challenge is...where is it? All I EVER hear from evolutionists is, "You're just a religious zealot who refuses to acknowledge science," or "I don't have to prove it, becuase it's a proven fact." Well, I'm challenging that notion. Prove it to me. Pretend I've never heard of the notion of evolution before (skipping the preliminaries of basic biology) and pitch the idea to me. I want to see this 'mountain' of proof for it I keep hearing about.

Just because it's too complex for you to understand doesn't mean you can write the existence of life off to an all-powerful creator. There are mounds, tons, planets of evidence supporting the validity of the theory of evolution and they are all smacking you in the face. Pale Rider's post perfectly illustrates the whole case for evolution. I understand Nuc's exasperation at people like yourself, whose blind allegiance to their faith closes-off their minds to rational and logical argument. Evolution isn't evil, in fact it's validity in no way undermines the existence of God if one were so inclined to believe in him or her, so your resistence to accept its validity based on the overwhelming data presented to support it can only be ascribed to stubborness. You asked, "where is it?" in reference to proof of evolution. On this board it has been given in spades over and over again. Now I've got a question for you. How can you prove or even test for God's existence? I submit that you cannot. If there were proof of a creator, it would be definitive; yes or no. Since you have absolutely none, the issue is still nebulous, hence the existence of the argument. The theory of evolution stands on its own with a mountain of physical evidence as its foundation. The only physical evidence supporting the existence of God is a 2000-year-old book written by middle-eastern savages and first-century European monks. So who's crazy here, the creationists or everybody else?

 

[theHawk]

Just because it's too complex for you to understand doesn't mean you can write the existence of life off to an all-powerful creator. There are mounds, tons, planets of evidence supporting the validity of the theory of evolution and they are all smacking you in the face. Pale Rider's post perfectly illustrates the whole case for evolution. I understand Nuc's exasperation at people like yourself, whose blind allegiance to their faith closes-off their minds to rational and logical argument. Evolution isn't evil, in fact it's validity in no way undermines the existence of God if one were so inclined to believe in him or her, so your resistence to accept its validity based on the overwhelming data presented to support it can only be ascribed to stubborness. You asked, "where is it?" in reference to proof of evolution. On this board it has been given in spades over and over again. Now I've got a question for you. How can you prove or even test for God's existence? I submit that you cannot. If there were proof of a creator, it would be definitive; yes or no. Since you have absolutely none, the issue is still nebulous, hence the existence of the argument. The theory of evolution stands on its own with a mountain of physical evidence as its foundation. The only physical evidence supporting the existence of God is a 2000-year-old book written by middle-eastern savages and first-century European monks. So who's crazy here, the creationists or everybody else?

In other words you cannot provide any proof whatsoever to answer hobbit's questions. Nice deflection.

Fact is evolution does not explain exactly what hobbit is talking about, complex systems of which individual parts of the system are useless until they all come together.

Development of New Features - The crux of evolution is that a random mutation can produce everything from the nanites that operate individual cells to complex organs such as eyes, livers, and kidneys. Evolutionists always like to say something like "Well, you start with light sensitive cells and end up with eyes." First off, that's ludicrous. Second off, you're skipping the most complicated step. To have light sensitive cells start to mutate into eyes, the DNA must provide 1) a chemical sensitive to photons 2) a series of chemical reactions that turns that into a distinct signal 3) cells capable of carrying the information to other cells 4) cells capable of interpereting that information and 5) the light sensitive cells must be located in an advantageous position. Any one of these things is completely useless by itself and would be weeded out via natural selection. You can't reduce the problem any further without rendering the mechanism useless. The chances of this happening all at once are astronomical at best, as it would require millions of mutations to occur simultaneously and in the correct manner. I mean, we're not talking comic books here. In the real world, random mutations usually kill you.

 

[Hagbard Celine]

In other words you cannot provide any proof whatsoever to answer hobbit's questions. Nice deflection.

Fact is evolution does not explain exactly what hobbit is talking about, complex systems of which individual parts of the system are useless until they all come together.

The proof's already been provided. You're being thick, except you think you're being clever. The reality is that YOU and HOBBIT cannot provide a single shred of proof to support the creationist "hypothesis." Hobbit's asking for proof of evolution to be provided, when it's already been provided--see the very first post in this thread.

 

[Hagbard Celine]

The "complex systems" argument is an old one that has already been proven to be false in another thread on this board. It's also a Philosophical argument, which is the only kind of argument that there is to support the creationist "hypothesis." There is no physical evidence and there are no hard facts to even remotely support the creationist "hypothesis." That's because it's a philosophical argument not a scientific theory.

Why does rain fall? Because of the water cycle--evaporation, condensation. How do plants convert sunlight into energy? Photosynthesis. How does biological diversity occur? Evolution. NOT MAGIC.

 

[theHawk]

The "complex systems" argument is an old one that has already been proven to be false in another thread on this board. It's also a Philosophical argument, which is the only kind of argument that there is to support the creationist "hypothesis." There is no physical evidence and there are no hard facts to even remotely support the creationist "hypothesis." That's because it's a philosophical argument not a scientific theory.

Fair enough, I went back and read the original post. There is nothing there explaining the above problem pointed out by hobbit.
Darwin's evolution theory is just that, a theory. And it fails to explain how complex systems can be formed through evolution. And as it was pointed out earlier does not even address the creation of the first life.

I guess thats just me being 'thick'.

 

[Hagbard Celine]

Fair enough, I went back and read the original post. There is nothing there explaining the above problem pointed out by hobbit.
Darwin's evolution theory is just that, a theory. And it fails to explain how complex systems can be formed through evolution. And as it was pointed out earlier does not even address the creation of the first life.

I guess thats just me being 'thick'.

Yes it is. Once again you think you're being clever, but you're not. You just have this demented view of reality that is based on the clear delineation of all people in red and blue. Apparently you've aligned yourself with the red side and for some reason you have decided that evolution is a blue ideology so you continue to argue its validity despite the fact that it has been incontrovertably proven again and again on this board and everywhere else in the world over and over again.

Here is another example (adding to the hundreds on this board alone) of how evolution can account for a complex system. All I did was input "complex," "system," and "evolution" into Google and it came up with a billion examples. Here.

http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/23321/

You'd think that with the whole of human knowledge at your fingertips, you'd be more informed.

 

[Hagbard Celine]

"The theory of evolution says that life originated, and evolution proceeds, by random chance."

There is probably no other statement which is a better indication that the arguer doesn't understand evolution. Chance certainly plays a large part in evolution, but this argument completely ignores the fundamental role of natural selection, and selection is the very opposite of chance. Chance, in the form of mutations, provides genetic variation, which is the raw material that natural selection has to work with. From there, natural selection sorts out certain variations. Those variations which give greater reproductive success to their possessors (and chance ensures that such beneficial mutations will be inevitable) are retained, and less successful variations are weeded out. When the environment changes, or when organisms move to a different environment, different variations are selected, leading eventually to different species. Harmful mutations usually die out quickly, so they don't interfere with the process of beneficial mutations accumulating.

Nor is abiogenesis (the origin of the first life) due purely to chance. Atoms and molecules arrange themselves not purely randomly, but according to their chemical properties. In the case of carbon atoms especially, this means complex molecules are sure to form spontaneously, and these complex molecules can influence each other to create even more complex molecules. Once a molecule forms that is approximately self-replicating, natural selection will guide the formation of ever more efficient replicators. The first self-replicating object didn't need to be as complex as a modern cell or even a strand of DNA. Some self-replicating molecules are not really all that complex (as organic molecules go).

Some people still argue that it is wildly improbable for a given self-replicating molecule to form at a given point (although they usually don't state the "givens," but leave them implicit in their calculations). This is true, but there were oceans of molecules working on the problem, and no one knows how many possible self-replicating molecules could have served as the first one. A calculation of the odds of abiogenesis is worthless unless it recognizes the immense range of starting materials that the first replicator might have formed from, the probably innumerable different forms that the first replicator might have taken, and the fact that much of the construction of the replicating molecule would have been non-random to start with.

(One should also note that the theory of evolution doesn't depend on how the first life began. The truth or falsity of any theory of abiogenesis wouldn't affect evolution in the least.)

This excerpt is taken from the original post on this thread. It explains how life arose through the process of evolution.

 

[theHawk]

This excerpt is taken from the original post on this thread. It explains how life arose through the process of evolution.

How can life of sprung from ...non-life through the "process of evolution"? Evolution only effects the living, not atoms or other atomic particles.

 

[PsuedoGhost]

This seems to be the brunt of the argument for evolution.

Let's take a look at a few things, shall we?

Micro-evolution - This is a misnomer. What has been deemed 'micro-evolution' is little more than an adaptation. No new species develop. Nothing that wasn't already there is made. It's just that a preferential trait becomes more prominent. Calling adaptation of a species micro-evolution is like calling the Utah Salt Flats a 'micro-flat Earth' (after all, it's flat).

First of all, evolution and adaptation are synonymous. If you want to argue semantics you can do so with yourself, they are one in the same.

Secondly, no one said that evolution was: suddenly you have two different types of birds. Instead evolution proposes and recognizes that small adaptations in two separated populations of a species eventually will lead to the formation of a new species. One that is more properly adapated to the environment in which it lives.

False dichotomy.

Development of New Features - The crux of evolution is that a random mutation can produce everything from the nanites that operate individual cells to complex organs such as eyes, livers, and kidneys. Evolutionists always like to say something like "Well, you start with light sensitive cells and end up with eyes."

So far so good. This is true, this does happen.

First off, that's ludicrous.

Says you. But its obvious you aren't exactly the brain child of scientific thought.

Second off, you're skipping the most complicated step. To have light sensitive cells start to mutate into eyes, the DNA must provide 1) a chemical sensitive to photons 2) a series of chemical reactions that turns that into a distinct signal 3) cells capable of carrying the information to other cells 4) cells capable of interpereting that information and 5) the light sensitive cells must be located in an advantageous position.

The argument from complexity is ridiculous. Completely and utterly ridiculous. Again evolution states that changes take place over time and on a small scale initially.

Any one of these things is completely useless by itself and would be weeded out via natural selection. You can't reduce the problem any further without rendering the mechanism useless. The chances of this happening all at once are astronomical at best, as it would require millions of mutations to occur simultaneously and in the correct manner. I mean, we're not talking comic books here. In the real world, random mutations usually kill you.

See above.

Origin of Life - Atheistic scientists have calculated the odds of life occuring spontaneously, given the right conditions. 1) The odds of it happening are 1 out of a number ending in thousands and thousands of zeros. 2) Geologists have discovered that the right conditions didn't exist.

The laws of probability dictate that if it is possible, that given enough time it will happen. You have to recognize again, that evolution does not deal with the origins of life on Earth.

The Cambrian Explosion - Nearly every known phylum of life appeared in the relatively short period of 5 million years. Most evolutionists like to pretend this doesn't exist and sue schools that mention it over 'seperation of church and state,' even though its occurance has been verified by extremely well preserved fossils. One guy even got fired from the Smithsonian for allowing an article mentioning it to be published in a scientific journal, despite the fact that, as the special prosecutor put it, the article follows all academic guidelines and meets all academic standards for publication.

Citey cite?

'Useless' DNA - Simple organisms that don't have such features have DNA regulating things like the creation of lungs, the location of limbs, and other things that they don't even have. Why?

I honestly dont even know what you're talking about here...

'Proof' of Evolution - My last challenge is...where is it? All I EVER hear from evolutionists is, "You're just a religious zealot who refuses to acknowledge science," or "I don't have to prove it, becuase it's a proven fact." Well, I'm challenging that notion. Prove it to me. Pretend I've never heard of the notion of evolution before (skipping the preliminaries of basic biology) and pitch the idea to me. I want to see this 'mountain' of proof for it I keep hearing about.

talkorigins.org Go educate yourself, then come back and tell us that its not true.

 

[PsuedoGhost]

How can life of sprung from ...non-life through the "process of evolution"? Evolution only effects the living, not atoms or other atomic particles.

Apparently you weren't reading the other posts we were making. EVOLUTION DOES NOT DEAL WITH THE ORIGINS OF LIFE ON EARTH.

 

[theHawk]

Apparently you weren't reading the other posts we were making. EVOLUTION DOES NOT DEAL WITH THE ORIGINS OF LIFE ON EARTH.

i'm responding to Hagbard's post you JACKASS:

This excerpt is taken from the original post on this thread. It explains how life arose through the process of evolution.

And i pointed out to him just as you said that EVOLUTION DOES NOT DEAL WITH THE ORIGIN OF LIFE.


ANY QUESTIONS?

And please stop using ALL CAPS like we're in the first grade.

 

[Hobbit]

First of all, evolution and adaptation are synonymous. If you want to argue semantics you can do so with yourself, they are one in the same.

Secondly, no one said that evolution was: suddenly you have two different types of birds. Instead evolution proposes and recognizes that small adaptations in two separated populations of a species eventually will lead to the formation of a new species. One that is more properly adapated to the environment in which it lives.

False dichotomy.

It's a far cry between a bird's beak changing shape slightly within the original limitations of the species and some fish growing legs and lungs.

So far so good. This is true, this does happen.



Says you. But its obvious you aren't exactly the brain child of scientific thought.



The argument from complexity is ridiculous. Completely and utterly ridiculous. Again evolution states that changes take place over time and on a small scale initially.



See above.



The laws of probability dictate that if it is possible, that given enough time it will happen. You have to recognize again, that evolution does not deal with the origins of life on Earth.

So, most of what you said basically states that I'm wrong...and that's it. Any actual arguments. Anything evidence to back up your claims? The only thing you said is something about 'small changes.' The problem is that the small changes that lead to complex systems are completely useless unless you get all of them at once. There's no way that small changes over time could lead to eyes, because each small change, in and of itself, would result in absolutely no advantage. In fact, each step poses a disadvantage which would be weeded out through natural selection. Even if you could have these small changes over time...where are they? How come there has never been a fossil to bridge the gap between seaweed and grass, fish and amphibians, or lizards and birds. And about the laws of probability, you must have missed the part of my post where I said that the conditions necessary to create life did not exist on the Earth when it was young. The probability was zero. Even if they were right, the probability, even given the time granted, was astronomical.

Citey cite?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambrian_explosion
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/cambrian/camb.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/03/4/l_034_02.html

And here's a well worded refutation to the idea that the Cambrian Explosion goes against evolution. I don't think it answers all the questions (such as why the Chinese pre-Cambrian strata contained nothing more complex than a sponge), but it's still a good read.

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC300.html

As for the prosecution of people who have mentioned the Cambrian Explosion, I did look these guys up myself. However, the only place I had their names was in a book that somebody has apparently run off with. I can't find the teacher case, but the guy's name at the Smithsonian was Richard Sternberg, and here's an article about the case from the Washington Post. He has two PhDs in evolutionary biology. After publishing this article, his colleagues at the Smithsonian accused him of being a closet Bible thumper, and uneducated hack, and some sort of shadow priest.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/18/AR2005081801680_pf.html

I honestly dont even know what you're talking about here...

The last time I asked why we never saw fossils with limbs in the wrong place, I was told that DNA inherantly positioned those limbs and that it was encoded even in the DNA of organisms that had no limbs.

talkorigins.org Go educate yourself, then come back and tell us that its not true.

I did. It's not true. The theory is nothing but a series of holes.

 

[MissileMan]

The last time I asked why we never saw fossils with limbs in the wrong place,

I can't understand this either. A creature born with all 4 legs on the same side of the body would have been so successful, you shouldn't be able to swing a dead cat without hitting 3 or 4 of their fossils.

 

[Harmageddon]

Originally posted by theHawk:
The complexity of a DNA strand. If the data of a DNA strand is written out in a book it would be the size of a dictionary. But if you want to believe such a data stream could be formed completely randomly in nature, go ahead! Is it possible it formed in nature randomly? Sure maybe, I just believe its more likely someone wrote it....much more likely. That is all.

And that my friends, is the whole culprit of the argument right there.

I think that humans are nothing but the next step in a wonderful, mindblowing feat of physical and chemical laws that by chance happened to find the right balance in the case of the planet Earth – and very likely in millions of other places in the Universe – to have LIFE emerge. The idea that this is all a matter of chance, combined with the power of natural selection that acts on all of these chances, makes us feel very insignificant – because it means we are very similar to all other life-forms on this planet: we are all family. The fact that I think this is an amazing, awe-inspiring conclusion of the biological and physical sciences gives me hope that others will see the same as I have seen.

But then there is the ID-crowd.
They think that random chance and natural selection, which are utterly chemical and physical events, cannot possibly account for the diversity or even the existence of something so complex as life – not in a million years. And not because they do not think it couldn’t happen.

It is because propenents of ID think that since us humans cannot pull it off ourselves, and because we are the smartest friggin’ beings on the planet, we cannot possibly concede to the idea that we..are..nothing. In the whole chain of events that is the universe and life within it, we cannot and will not accept that humans are utterly insignificant.

Luckily, humans possesses the God-given virtue of arrogance.

So much of it in fact, that proponents of ID would like to believe that the Universe and life itself is created by a being that looks exactly like us, and has made us his most favourite part of creation – and has proven this by making us exact copies of Gods image. Such reasoning is called circular.

And preach amongst yourselves:
“We are so arrogant, that we believe the planet earth, and if we can do it, the entire universe, is there for us to consume, without regard for the consequences to the rest of it. We are so arrogant in fact, that we believe that our arrogance will be rewarded by eternal life at the Creators side – but only if we are arrogant enough to accept this utterly Narcissist worldview.”

Personally, you disgust me. The lot of you.

Now, let it rain retribution in the form of negative reputation points, for speaking truth to power (in this case, some moderators) is always a costly affair. So be it.

Hell, I feel like friggin’ Jesus in the temple, kicking out the moneychangers.

And Jesus even died for it, but his death was in vain
Because we were just too arrogant to see the truth.

 

[Hobbit]

And that my friends, is the whole culprit of the argument right there.

I think that humans are nothing but the next step in a wonderful, mindblowing feat of physical and chemical laws that by chance happened to find the right balance in the case of the planet Earth – and very likely in millions of other places in the Universe – to have LIFE emerge. The idea that this is all a matter of chance, combined with the power of natural selection that acts on all of these chances, makes us feel very insignificant – because it means we are very similar to all other life-forms on this planet: we are all family. The fact that I think this is an amazing, awe-inspiring conclusion of the biological and physical sciences gives me hope that others will see the same as I have seen.

But then there is the ID-crowd.
They think that random chance and natural selection, which are utterly chemical and physical events, cannot possibly account for the diversity or even the existence of something so complex as life – not in a million years. And not because they do not think it couldn’t happen.

It is because propenents of ID think that since us humans cannot pull it off ourselves, and because we are the smartest friggin’ beings on the planet, we cannot possibly concede to the idea that we..are..nothing. In the whole chain of events that is the universe and life within it, we cannot and will not accept that humans are utterly insignificant.

Luckily, humans possesses the God-given virtue of arrogance.

So much of it in fact, that proponents of ID would like to believe that the Universe and life itself is created by a being that looks exactly like us, and has made us his most favourite part of creation – and has proven this by making us exact copies of Gods image. Such reasoning is called circular.

And preach amongst yourselves:
“We are so arrogant, that we believe the planet earth, and if we can do it, the entire universe, is there for us to consume, without regard for the consequences to the rest of it. We are so arrogant in fact, that we believe that our arrogance will be rewarded by eternal life at the Creators side – but only if we are arrogant enough to accept this utterly Narcissist worldview.”

Personally, you disgust me. The lot of you.

Now, let it rain retribution in the form of negative reputation points, for speaking truth to power (in this case, some moderators) is always a costly affair. So be it.

Hell, I feel like friggin’ Jesus in the temple, kicking out the moneychangers.

And Jesus even died for it, but his death was in vain
Because we were just too arrogant to see the truth.

The truth that complete random chance somehow managed to perfectly orchestrate something so infinitely complex as the Earth in such a relatively short period of time without leaving so much as one fossil of a transitional phase or even a failure? You're not even worth my time to give negative rep points. Evolution is a frickin' religion. It requires just as much faith as belief in Jesus, in fact more, as there is evidence of Jesus. The only reason anybody believes it is because it allows them to disbelieve God. Personally, I find the theory of Xenu executing a massive holocaust on our planet billions of years ago more plausible.

 

[Nuc]

'Proof' of Evolution - My last challenge is...where is it? All I EVER hear from evolutionists is, "You're just a religious zealot who refuses to acknowledge science," or "I don't have to prove it, becuase it's a proven fact." Well, I'm challenging that notion. Prove it to me. Pretend I've never heard of the notion of evolution before (skipping the preliminaries of basic biology) and pitch the idea to me. I want to see this 'mountain' of proof for it I keep hearing about.

I'm assuming most of the people on this board are more than 10 or so years old. Anybody who has been alive for 30 or 40 years can see in their own American lifetime that black girls have gone from entering puberty at 12-13 years of age to much younger, sometimes 8 or 9 years. This is because they have EVOLVED to do this after only a few generations of eating too much MacDonalds and KFC.

Or maybe you think Jesus, God, Holy Ghost, Virgin Mary, Ann Coulter, Santa, Tooth Fairy and Barney have somehow "designed" this change in humanity?

Come on use your powers of observation. Evolution is visible everywhere.