The Stupid Lie called The Theory of Evolution

[Boss]

I did not say God is a myth. I said Genesis is a myth.

Have you proven it is? Where's your evidence?

And why do you keep jumping from one inane point to another? This all started when you decided you didn't want to talk about science but instead, religious philosophy. I pointed out you were abandoning science to talk about philosophy as if that somehow compensates for your lack of science... you denied this and proceeded to continue talking about philosophy and not science. You spoke as if you have all the answers and no question remains... things are myths and people are arrogant, God shouldn't teach science. I point this out and suddenly you claim you do still need science to answer questions but then you go right back to philosophizing. Then you want to nit pick about God isn't a myth but Creation as told in Genesis is.... but you don't KNOW that... it's only your OPINION. Not everyone agrees with your opinion.

Still sitting silently on the table is this notion that life somehow originated from a single living cell that popped into existence out of nowhere through random chemical reaction. And that one magical cell produced trillions and trillions of various forms of interdependent and interconnected life through a process of evolution. When asked to support your theory with science you run back to philosophy and start espousing your opinions again.

I am relying on science for answers. The musings of some Bronze Age philosopher as accounted in the mythological Book of Genesis provides no answers for the origin of life.

I want the truth too. But I can't find it in the fairie tale told in Genesis. I believe truth comes by way of empirical evidence and the scientific method, not mythology.

Every culture has produced a creation myth. Why oh why would the actual truth be found in the Judeo-Christian mythology and not in the mythology of other cultures?

I am not dismissing God as a myth, but the stories made up to explain God to Bronze Age man ring more of myth than science, superstition more than fact and intellectual shallowness rather than proofs provided by the scientific method.

Well, but I keep on asking you for this "empirical evidence" to support the notion that all life emerged from a common single cell.... I keep getting philosophical pablum. Your opinions on which philosophy is a myth and fairy tale is not science.

Now, here is the scientific long and short of it... you don't have the scientific evidence to support your abiogenesis theory at this time. So, in THAT regard, it's just as much mythology as anything you criticize.

 

[sealybobo]

What you are doing here is abandoning Science to discuss religious philosophy. As if to derive that if you present some objections to philosophy it somehow bolsters a weak scientific case. That's not in the scientific method.

Indicating that we are a class of animals we have defined as mammals is not evidence for anything and it doesn't even reject philosophy. Yes, mammals do lots of similar things, so do other various classes of life form. What's interesting is how interdependent all the life forms are upon each other for nutrition, energy and ultimately, survival.

So..... I guess what we are supposed to imagine is.... that somewhere WAYYYYY back in time.... a magical single seed of living organic matter suddenly poofed into existence from nothing... just a random chemical reaction... and from that initial germination of life sprang forth literally trillions of interconnected and interdependent life forms in all their intricate and beautiful glory and wonder? .......For me..... that is a FAR more fascinating, extraordinary and amazing account of how life originated than anything I've ever heard from a creation theorist.

Now.... Only IF you could prove that happened!

I did not abandon science. I am pointing out the arrogance and intellectual shallowness of a creationist position. If anything, the creationists have abandon science to embrace mythology.

And you're right. There was a chemical reaction that initially spawned life. It took the brain pan and intellect of Man to invent a myth about creation, a myth which exists in every culture. It takes science to prove how when and why life began.

Glad you have it all figured out and know all answers... no more need for science OR god... right?

Plenty of need for science to answer the questions. And plenty of need for God to place a lamp unto your feet for moral guidance. But don't let God teach science! And don't rely on science to prove the existence of God!

Answer questions? You've already answered them, haven't you? God is a myth and we are the product of some common single cell which happened randomly through chemical reaction.... right?

I did not say God is a myth. I said Genesis is a myth.

God is a hypothesis unable to leap into the realm of theory because there is zero physical scientific evidence for it. So go ahead and say it. God is a myth we made up. If not we figured it out without any help from the big guy upstairs. And he has yet to make himself seen.

Not to mention we now know what part of the brain invented god.

 

[sealybobo]

The top 10 signs that you don’t understand evolution at all

1. You think “it hasn’t been observed” is a good argument against it.

2. You think we’ve never found a transitional fossil.

3. You think macroevolution is an inherently different process than microevolution.

4. You think mutations are always negative.

5. You think it has anything to do with the origin of life, let alone the origins of the universe.

6. You use the phrase “it’s only a theory” and think you’ve made some kind of substantive statement.

7. You think acceptance of evolution is the same as religious faith.

8. You think our modern understanding of it rests on a long series of hoaxes perpetuated by scientists.

9. You don’t like Pokémon because you think it “promotes” evolution.

10. You think it’s inherently opposed to Christianity or the Bible.

 

[sealybobo]

What are these features of the human brain that evolved to favor religion over evolution? What are the seven reasons that cause our brains to pre-dispose us against accepting evolution? Here they are:

All due respect to your opinion.... I don't accept the theory of macro-evolution because there is no scientific evidence supporting it at this time. I've pointed out numerous times, micro-evolution happens all the time, we have clear indisputable evidence of it. But micro-evolution is merely life adapting to changes. Sometimes, life cannot adapt to changes fast enough and it becomes extinct. It simply doesn't spawn an entirely new genera of life, DNA doesn't allow it. You do not have any scientific evidence to support this theory but you continue to present it as fact, and you pretend that it's a well-established fact that most people accept. It's simply not.

You think macroevolution is an inherently different process than microevolution.

At its core, “macroevolution” is simply the steady accumulation of the small changes we observe in “microevolution.” It seems any sane person must admit that, if small changes can occur, then it is logically consistent that small changes adding up over extremely long periods of time would result in very large changes. On the other hand, the creationist assertion that there is some mysterious, invisible barrier within “kinds” that prevents large-scale changes is as logically consistent as saying you can walk from your front door to the sidewalk, but walking to your friend’s house across town is fundamentally impossible.

 

[Boss]

I found a great article that explains why it's so hard for a religious brain like yours to believe in evolution.

The evidence is clear that both our cognitive architecture, and also our emotional dispositions, make it difficult or unnatural for many people to accept evolution. "Natural selection is like quantum physics...we might intellectually grasp it, with considerable effort, but it will never feel right to us. Often, people express surprise that in an age so suffused with science, science causes so much angst and resistance.

The thing is, I am not religious and I believe in natural selection because there is scientific evidence to support it. BUT... Natural selection is no friend to macro-evolution.

 

[sealybobo]

For too long, scientists have thought that facts speak for themselves. They don’t. They need advocates. If we ignore the attacks on science, or simply counter them by reciting facts, we’ll lose. That much is clear from the statistics. Facts and stories of science are great for rallying those already on our side, but they do little to sway believers.

But theists insists evolution is anti-religious. But it’s not; it’s just anti-your-religion. This is, I think, the most critical aspect of this entire problem: The people who are attacking evolution are doing so because they think evolution is attacking their beliefs.

But unless they are the narrowest of fundamentalists, this simply is not true. There is no greater proof of this than Pope John Paul II—who, one must admit, was a deeply religious man—saying that evolution was an established fact. Clearly, not all religion has a problem with evolution. Given that a quarter of U.S. citizens are Catholics, this shows Ham’s claim that evolution is anti-religious to be wrong.

 

[Boss]

You think macroevolution is an inherently different process than microevolution.

At its core, “macroevolution” is simply the steady accumulation of the small changes we observe in “microevolution.” It seems any sane person must admit that, if small changes can occur, then it is logically consistent that small changes adding up over extremely long periods of time would result in very large changes. On the other hand, the creationist assertion that there is some mysterious, invisible barrier within “kinds” that prevents large-scale changes is as logically consistent as saying you can walk from your front door to the sidewalk, but walking to your friend’s house across town is fundamentally impossible.

Again... that is NOT science... that is in fact the reason Science was invented.... so that we don't speculate based on how things logically seem they should be. What you continue to do is ABANDON science in favor of a faith-based belief.

There has never been any evidence that one genera produced another genera of life. Ever.

 

[sealybobo]

I found a great article that explains why it's so hard for a religious brain like yours to believe in evolution.

The evidence is clear that both our cognitive architecture, and also our emotional dispositions, make it difficult or unnatural for many people to accept evolution. "Natural selection is like quantum physics...we might intellectually grasp it, with considerable effort, but it will never feel right to us. Often, people express surprise that in an age so suffused with science, science causes so much angst and resistance.

The thing is, I am not religious and I believe in natural selection because there is scientific evidence to support it. BUT... Natural selection is no friend to macro-evolution.

If macro evolution offends your religious beliefs, and clearly it does, that's religious enough.

You think macroevolution is an inherently different process than microevolution.

At its core, “macroevolution” is simply the steady accumulation of the small changes we observe in “microevolution.” It seems any sane person must admit that, if small changes can occur, then it is logically consistent that small changes adding up over extremely long periods of time would result in very large changes. On the other hand, the creationist assertion that there is some mysterious, invisible barrier within “kinds” that prevents large-scale changes is as logically consistent as saying you can walk from your front door to the sidewalk, but walking to your friend’s house across town is fundamentally impossible.

Why does it bother you? Why does it bother you that you are related to an aunt? How do you think human's got here? And what scientific evidence do you have that we are not related to bugs and birds and frogs?

 

[sealybobo]

You think macroevolution is an inherently different process than microevolution.

At its core, “macroevolution” is simply the steady accumulation of the small changes we observe in “microevolution.” It seems any sane person must admit that, if small changes can occur, then it is logically consistent that small changes adding up over extremely long periods of time would result in very large changes. On the other hand, the creationist assertion that there is some mysterious, invisible barrier within “kinds” that prevents large-scale changes is as logically consistent as saying you can walk from your front door to the sidewalk, but walking to your friend’s house across town is fundamentally impossible.

Again... that is NOT science... that is in fact the reason Science was invented.... so that we don't speculate based on how things logically seem they should be. What you continue to do is ABANDON science in favor of a faith-based belief.

There has never been any evidence that one genera produced another genera of life. Ever.

You clearly are being willfully ignorant now.

And if you don't think one genera split off into two different genera, what do you think happened and what evidence do you have? The scientific community have a lot of reasons why they believe what they believe and they disagree with you.

When I believed in God, I imagined he planted a fish seed and bird and reptile and aphibian and mammal seed but what possible reason do I have to believe this? The fact that we don't know how life got started doesn't add any credibility to your hypothesis when 99% of science disgrees with your hypothesis.

Your hypothesis hasn't even made it to the level of basic theory. Am I right? Or can you show me a peer reviewed report where the scientific community thinks your hypothesis has any credibility.

Don't think for a second science hasn't already discussed your hypothesis at great lengths. For whatever reasons they believe we all came from one source, not many. No god didn't plant millions of seeds. A bird seed, a pig seed, a dog seed, a human seed, a cat seed, a stingray seed, a scorpion seed, a whale seed, etc.

You do believe whales once walked, right?

The evolution of whales

 

[sealybobo]

Why do creationists persist in believing the myth of Genesis?

One word: arrogance.

They cannot accept that mankind is indeed a mammal with all the traits of a mammal. We have hair, we nurse our young, we have live birth, vertebrae, warm blood.

Creationists tell us that the myth of Genesis is the truth, any questioning of that myth is heresy, and that particular myth is, indeed, the truth. Their fear of being regarded as an animal is anathema to them. They claim that the origin of the species is too complex to ponder any further than the Book of Genesis. With that level of curiosity, it's frankly a miracle that mankind ever crawled from caves to explore territory over the next hill, let alone leave tire tracks on the surface of the moon.

What you are doing here is abandoning Science to discuss religious philosophy. As if to derive that if you present some objections to philosophy it somehow bolsters a weak scientific case. That's not in the scientific method.

Indicating that we are a class of animals we have defined as mammals is not evidence for anything and it doesn't even reject philosophy. Yes, mammals do lots of similar things, so do other various classes of life form. What's interesting is how interdependent all the life forms are upon each other for nutrition, energy and ultimately, survival.

So..... I guess what we are supposed to imagine is.... that somewhere WAYYYYY back in time.... a magical single seed of living organic matter suddenly poofed into existence from nothing... just a random chemical reaction... and from that initial germination of life sprang forth literally trillions of interconnected and interdependent life forms in all their intricate and beautiful glory and wonder? .......For me..... that is a FAR more fascinating, extraordinary and amazing account of how life originated than anything I've ever heard from a creation theorist.

Now.... Only IF you could prove that happened!

I did not abandon science. I am pointing out the arrogance and intellectual shallowness of a creationist position. If anything, the creationists have abandon science to embrace mythology.

And you're right. There was a chemical reaction that initially spawned life. It took the brain pan and intellect of Man to invent a myth about creation, a myth which exists in every culture. It takes science to prove how when and why life began.

Glad you have it all figured out and know all answers... no more need for science OR god... right?

Plenty of need for science to answer the questions. And plenty of need for God to place a lamp unto your feet for moral guidance. But don't let God teach science! And don't rely on science to prove the existence of God!

Answer questions? You've already answered them, haven't you? God is a myth and we are the product of some common single cell which happened randomly through chemical reaction.... right?

Now you got it. AND, we know when and why our primitive ancestors made up god back when they didn't know any better.

 

[Boss]

If macro evolution offends your religious beliefs, and clearly it does, that's religious enough.

I don't have religious beliefs, remember? We've had this conversation before.

Macro-evolution is fine as a theory it's just not supported by science. It's possible that it someday will be, but as of now, all the science seems to contradict it... DNA doesn't allow evolution to happen across genus taxon. Maybe there is a way it can and we've not discovered it yet? I can't answer for what we don't know... I can only go by what science supports.

What offends me is people who present macro-evolution as if it were proven scientific fact when I know better.

 

[Boss]

Now you got it. AND, we know when and why our primitive ancestors made up god back when they didn't know any better.

No we don't.

 

[sealybobo]

I found a great article that explains why it's so hard for a religious brain like yours to believe in evolution.

The evidence is clear that both our cognitive architecture, and also our emotional dispositions, make it difficult or unnatural for many people to accept evolution. "Natural selection is like quantum physics...we might intellectually grasp it, with considerable effort, but it will never feel right to us. Often, people express surprise that in an age so suffused with science, science causes so much angst and resistance.

The thing is, I am not religious and I believe in natural selection because there is scientific evidence to support it. BUT... Natural selection is no friend to macro-evolution.

I'm reading this article and it's reminding me of people like you. Say you are not religious but some reason evolution bothers you. So does the big bang, right?

It is well-known that people’s opinions in this area are highly sensitive to small changes in question wording. The most careful polling available suggests that the percentage of people who accept young-Earth Creationism (YEC) is actually between 10-20%. If support for some form of anti-evolutionism hovers around fifty percent, but the percentage of young-Earthers is way smaller than that, then we seem to have two options. Either an awful lot of people are just confused about the consequences of their religious beliefs, or it is not just fundamentalists who have a problem with evolution.


YEC and intelligent design (ID) are different dialects of the same language and separate cultures nevertheless. Nearly all of the people I met at ID conferences were quite religious, but they were also contemptuous of YEC. They were not fundamentalists, and on many occasions they lamented the fact that YEC makes Christianity look foolish. Plainly, there is a large contingent of people who are not fundamentalists, but who also have a problem with evolution.

 

[Boss]

You clearly are being willfully ignorant now.

And if you don't think one genera split off into two different genera, what do you think happened and what evidence do you have?

Hold on a minute... where is it in the scientific method that someone has to present a better explanation or else your speculation stands? I don't have to explain what happened in order to state that you have no evidence to support your speculations.

The scientific community have a lot of reasons why they believe what they believe and they disagree with you.

I really don't care about what the scientific community believes or if the agree with me... that's not a science argument, that's an opinion.

The fact that we don't know how life got started doesn't add any credibility to your hypothesis when 99% of science disgrees with your hypothesis.

What? We don't know? I thought everything came from a single cell through evolution and everyone smart agreed? First, you claimed that was a matter of fact, now your saying the fact is, we don't know. And WHAT hypothesis are you talking about? I've not presented one.

For whatever reasons they believe we all came from one source, not many.

What? We're back to KNOWING again?

 

[Boss]

I'm reading this article and it's reminding me of people like you. Say you are not religious but some reason evolution bothers you. So does the big bang, right?

You should stop reading trash. No... I said that I believe in micro-evolution because there's scientific evidence to support it. I don't believe in macro-evolution because there is no science to support it. How many times do I need to clarify this?

I'm not sure I am convinced there was ever a Big Bang. I don't believe in Singularities because they defy Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle.... that's MATH and MATH doesn't lie. Again.. it is POSSIBLE that one day we will discover something we don't know now... I can't say what the future holds, I can only go by what we can support with science today. By the way... Stephen Hawking says there was never a Big Bang.

 

[Boss]

You do believe whales once walked, right?

Nope.

 

[sealybobo]

If macro evolution offends your religious beliefs, and clearly it does, that's religious enough.

I don't have religious beliefs, remember? We've had this conversation before.

Macro-evolution is fine as a theory it's just not supported by science. It's possible that it someday will be, but as of now, all the science seems to contradict it... DNA doesn't allow evolution to happen across genus taxon. Maybe there is a way it can and we've not discovered it yet? I can't answer for what we don't know... I can only go by what science supports.

What offends me is people who present macro-evolution as if it were proven scientific fact when I know better.

Like the article says. You can believe I can walk ten blocks but you can't believe I can walk 100. That's the difference between micro and macro.

I read this article on why evolution bothers so many theists. Even ones who aren't fundamentalists such as yourself. I cut it down to this:

From 1910-1914 a series of pamphlets was published by prominent Protestant scholars. These pamphlets were known as “The Fundamentals,” and were hostile to the theory of evolution. Evolution as Darwin presented it was almost entirely unacceptable to Christian scholars in the decades after Darwin. They had specifically religious objections to the non-teleological nature of the theory, and to the conflicts between Darwin and the Bible. The idea that a non-teleological process produced humanity only as an afterthought, is what bothers religious people. You want to think you are special.

Evolution challenges the Bible, refutes the argument from design, exacerbates the problem of evil, and strongly challenges any notion that humanity plays a central role in creation. These are not small points.

Evolution is an important part of science, and the basis upon which our understanding of biology is founded. It’s like the Periodic Table in chemistry, or Newton’s Laws in physics; without it, biology makes no sense. And we know biology makes sense.

 

[sealybobo]

I'm reading this article and it's reminding me of people like you. Say you are not religious but some reason evolution bothers you. So does the big bang, right?

You should stop reading trash. No... I said that I believe in micro-evolution because there's scientific evidence to support it. I don't believe in macro-evolution because there is no science to support it. How many times do I need to clarify this?

I'm not sure I am convinced there was ever a Big Bang. I don't believe in Singularities because they defy Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle.... that's MATH and MATH doesn't lie. Again.. it is POSSIBLE that one day we will discover something we don't know now... I can't say what the future holds, I can only go by what we can support with science today. By the way... Stephen Hawking says there was never a Big Bang.

Macroevolution and microevolution describe fundamentally identical processes on different time scales

Paleontology, evolutionary developmental biology, comparative genomics and genomic phylostratigraphy contribute most of the evidence for the patterns and processes that can be classified as macroevolution. An example of macroevolution is the appearance of feathers during the evolution of birds from theropod dinosaurs, when now viewed at a distance from the future, although as they arose the developing changes would be deemed microevolution.

 

[sealybobo]

The earliest known genus, Hyracotherium (now reclassified as a palaeothere), was a browsing herbivore animal resembling a dog that lived in the early Cenozoic. The preferred evolutionary explanation is that as its habitat transformed into an open arid grassland (which we can reconstruct through pollen and seed records), selective pressure acted so that the animal become a fast grazer (as recorded by dentition changes etc.). Thus elongation of legs and head as well as reduction of toes gradually occurred, producing the only extant genus of Equidae, Equus.

 

[sealybobo]

You do believe whales once walked, right?

Nope.

The scientific community says you are wrong. You sure you're a scientist? What IT?

The term "macroevolution" frequently arises within the context of the evolution/creation debate, usually used by creationists alleging a significant difference between the evolutionary changes observed in field and laboratory studies and the larger scale macroevolutionary changes that scientists believe to have taken thousands or millions of years to occur. They accept that evolutionary change is possible within what they call "kinds" ("microevolution"), but deny that one "kind" can evolve into another ("macroevolution").[16] While this claim is maintained on the vagueness of the undefined, unscientific term "kind", evolution of life forms beyond the species level (i.e. "macroevolution" by the scientific definition) has been observed multiple times under both controlled laboratory conditions and in nature.[17] In creation science, creationists accepted speciation as occurring within a "created kind" or "baramin", but objected to what they called "third level-macroevolution" of a newgenus or higher rank in taxonomy. Generally, there is ambiguity as to where they draw a line on "species", "created kinds", etc. and what events and lineages fall within the rubric of microevolution or macroevolution.[18] The claim that macroevolution does not occur, or is impossible, is not supported by the scientific community.