[Closed] Evolution - I`m not buying it.

So he (why do you say it is a he)?

God created Man in his image. Ergo, "he." Woman was an afterthought, made from Adam's bone (hur hur hur).

God created Man in his image. Ergo, "he."

That, for me, is the definitive proof that god is a man made construct. The ego involved to assume that we were created in the likeness of some all powerful being could only be the ego of man 🙂

Which brings us back to how 'He' came to being. Was He born? Was He part of the Big Bang (fnarr). Was He Created? If so, who Created Him? This story makes Game of Thrones seem like a documentary.

If so, who created Him?

Intelligent design, obvs.

It's elephants all the way down.

It willed itself into existence?

Some other (more omnipotent?) it created it?

It spontaneously burst into existence from nothingness?

It has always existed?

It was created by humanity's need to explain the world they observed?

I think he may have evolved 😉

From what?

Something else not quite as godly

*I don't believe in it so have never really given it much thought.

Some other (more omnipotent?) it created it?

Where did that one come from? Like I said, elephants all the way down.

It spontaneously burst into existence from nothingness?

It has always existed?

Why are they acceptable explanations for "god" but not for "the universe"?

Is this thread going to diverge into a discussing religion species and a discussing evolution species? If so, can it happen some time soon?

Hey, I have no answers, just questions...

funkmasterp - Member
Something else not quite as godly

Or does it mean we (humanity), who are clearly not (yet) Godlike (except being made in his image), are evolving into Gods? Each capable of creating our own personal universe?

Ooh, that's deep.

Does that imply more than one God that reproduced and mutated over many generations?

I'm going with the theory that it started with a kiss and who'd have thought it would come to this?

Each capable of creating our own personal universe?

I think a lot of folks already do this and just see the rest of us as the extras in their own movie.

Cougar - Moderator
Some other (more omnipotent?) it created it?
Where did that one come from?

Total pulp, but actually an interesting philosophical concept at its core.

and there are plenty of Christian scientists so it can certainly co-exist. Where the wheels come of is when the fringe Xtians such as Creationists assert that science is wrong because god

So to summarise then - creationists are nutters. Is that our consensus?

Which brings us back to how 'He' came to being.

A time traveller, he created himself, his time machine and accidentally the conditions for the big bang. Whoah. Is that the plot of that Dean R Koontz book by any chance?

Is it possible that there is a selective pressure that confers reproductive advantage to social groupings? Collective activity with others, and perhaps even the emergence of charismatic leaders might be advantageous to passing on genes.

I was thinking about evolution last night.
Some religious believers like Francis Collins accept evolution, but from a moral perspective, I think I would have trouble believing that a wholly good God would use evolution to run a universe.
It's wasteful, for a start, and involves suffering, death, and is overall an pitiless and ruthless process.
Hence I can understand why there is so much resistance to evolution in the US in religious circles; the rise of modern atheism is almost entirely rooted in the discoveries of Darwin and Wallace.

Is it possible that there is a selective pressure that confers reproductive advantage to social groupings? Collective activity with others, and perhaps even the emergence of charismatic leaders might be advantageous to passing on genes.

Yes, it is the case. Religious communities, especially traditionalist ones, have higher fertility rates than non-religious communities. I believe this is known as "The Religious Shall inherit the Earth" phenomena.

It's wasteful, for a start, and involves suffering, death, and is overall an pitiless and ruthless process.

It's a very 'human' view if the world to think those things are bad, you're applying human moralities and interpretations to things which are ultimately just 'stuff that happens' and then assuming that a god would share those interpretations.

A truely omnipotent being may be so far removed from such concerns that they are of no more importance to him than it is to you how many microscopic bugs you kill every time you wash your bed linen...

I think this fundamentally is my biggest issue with all religions depictions of a god, none of them are truely godlike, they're all bound by human ideals (and have changed over time with them) and reflect human nature (whatever that is). In my eyes this reflects human ego so much to the point that I can only explain religious gods as a human construct.

(Note I refer to religious gods specifically rather than the concept of a 'something' beyond our understanding if the universe)

Anyway I've drifted, I don't believe god and evolution are mutually exclusive. I do believe that the creation story and evolution are mutually exclusive.

That's where this gets blurred because evolution doesn't preclude the existence if a god, but it does preclude belief of the story if creation, which means at least part of the bible. If you can throw doubt in part of the bible, the very basis of the religion then you're on pretty shaky ground believing the rest if it. Which I guess is why some religious people are so defensive and deny evolution as they see it as an attack on the core principle rather than simply an explanation of a process which was previously not understood.

If you can throw doubt in part of the bible, the very basis of the religion then you're on pretty shaky ground believing the rest if it.

Not really, if you understand what it actually is.

so what is it?

I've never seen one before - no one has - but I'm guessing it's a white hole.

so what is it?

Collection of writings and stories that the authorities thought were relevant a very long time ago.

I've never seen one before - no one has - but I'm guessing it's a white hole

[s]so what is it?[/s]

Collection of writings and stories that the authorities thought were relevant a very long time ago.

That might be what you think it is, other people have different opinions... And therein lies the issue.

Ive stayed away from this thread today as its degenerated into an argument about the existence of a deity. Not my intention.

So i have been using my google fu to find out more about this subject. I found this.

One creationist-intelligent design argument goes like this: the human alpha-globin molecule, a component of hemoglobin that performs a key oxygen transfer function, is a protein chain based on a sequence of 141 amino acids. There are 20 different amino acids common in living systems, so the number of potential chains of length 141 is 20to the power141, which is roughly 10to the power183 (i.e., a one followed by 183 zeroes). These writers argue that this figure is so enormous that even after billions of years of random molecular trials, involving all the biochemical material on the ancient earth’s surface, no human alpha-globin protein molecule would ever appear, and thus the hypothesis that human alpha-globin arose by an evolutionary process is decisively refuted

Unfortunately and not surprisingly the only people arguing against evolution are creationist or supporting intelligent design.

So is that a claim that everything on earth evolved apart from humans who were invented by a god?

[quote=trailwagger ]Ive stayed away from this thread today as its [s]degenerated[/s] evolved into an argument about the existence of a deity.

hese writers argue that this figure is so enormous that even after billions of years of random molecular trials, involving all the biochemical material on the ancient earth’s surface, no human alpha-globin protein molecule would ever appear

Well there are a few flaws with that.

1) Why does the molecule have to appear fully formed instantly as a random event? Given that lower lifeforms don't have blood, they instead have other strategies for transporting oxygen, it is reasonable for me (as a non biologist) to suggest that our cells evolved the ability to produce simpler compounds over billions of years and gradually refined the process.

2) Who's to say it wasn't just a random event. Statisticians say something has a one in a million chance, but that doesn't mean you have to try a million times to see it happen. It might happen on the first go. Ask a lottery winner.

3) Sure, life is improbable, but what's the probability of a supreme being suddenly appearing and deciding to create an earth/universe? Anyone want to calculate that? No? Thought not.

[quote=trailwagger ]These writers argue that this figure is so enormous that even after billions of years of random molecular trials, involving all the biochemical material on the ancient earth’s surface, no human alpha-globin protein molecule would ever appear, and thus the hypothesis that human alpha-globin arose by an evolutionary process is decisively refuted

The easy counter to that (even assuming the maths is right) is survivorship bias as mentioned earlier on this thread: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

Essentially we're only having this discussion because we happen to be on the planet where all the stars did align and such evolution did happen.

In reality I suspect there are flaws with the maths, because it's not just a random combination of stuff. Not only that, but that there are probably a lot of combinations which have similarly useful properties - on some different world the creationists might be arguing against the probability of some completely different life supporting combination arising.

These writers argue that this figure is so enormous that even after billions of years of random molecular trials, involving all the biochemical material on the ancient earth’s surface, no human alpha-globin protein molecule would ever appear, and thus the hypothesis that human alpha-globin arose by an evolutionary process is decisively refuted

And where is the evidence that it could not? How is that a decisive refuttal lol? Tell us? Youre obviously a bioinformatics expert.

oh wait

http://www.evolutionarymodel.com/alusrhaglobingenes.htm

alpha globulin does not pose a threat to the evolutionary model.

It seems that big numbers are the answer to everything. Throw a big enough number into the mix and even the impossible becomes possible.

Years ago scientists were claiming that the chances of just the right combination of conditions for life to emerge were so remote that life could only exist on earth.

Then they start to discover just how massive the universe really is and suddenly they start telling us that its probably teaming with life.

Chucking this link into the discussion, it has interesting info on 'dark DNA', DNA that should be in place otherwise the creature couldn't survive, yet still appears to function, and some info that perhaps clarifies the mutation/natural selection process:
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/dark-dna-could-change-how-we-think-about-evolution-2017-8

Also... the OP is lazy

http://experimentalmath.info/blog/2009/08/misuse-of-probability-by-creation-scientists-and-others/

copy and paste to troll? poor form.

lets quote the rest of the article...

the above argument fails to note that most of the 141 amino acids can be changed without altering the key oxygen transfer function. When we revise the calculation above, based on only 25 locations essential for the oxygen transport function, we obtain 10^(33) fundamentally different chains, a huge figure but vastly smaller than 10^(183), and small enough to neutralize the probability-based argument against evolution [Bailey].
More importantly, this and almost all similar probability-based arguments against evolution suffer from the fallacy of presuming that biological structures such as alpha globin arise by a single all-or-nothing random trial. Instead, available evidence suggests that alpha globin and other proteins arose as the end product of a long sequence of intermediate steps, each of which was biologically useful in an earlier context. Probability calculations such as the above, which do not take into account the process by which the structure came to be, are not meaningful and can easily mislead

Also... the OP is lazy

http://experimentalmath.info/blog/2009/08/misuse-of-probability-by-creation-scientists-and-others/

copy and paste to troll? poor form.

lets quote the rest of the article...

I didnt get it from that article, i got it from the article that your article copied it from.

Years ago scientists were claiming that the chances of just the right combination of conditions for life to emerge were so remote that life could only exist on earth.

Then they start to discover just how massive the universe really is and suddenly they start telling us that its probably teaming with life.

It seems that big numbers are the answer to everything. Throw a big enough number into the mix and even the impossible becomes possible.

A time traveller, he created himself, his time machine and accidentally the conditions for the big bang. Whoah. Is that the plot of that Dean R Koontz book by any chance?

And why does every point made in a discussion have to be trolling? I happen to be genuinely interested in everyone's points in this thread.

Cougar - Moderator
Ooh, that's deep.

[quote=Tom_W1987 ]lets quote the rest of the article...

The thing is, both of those points are details which are obviously likely if you think about it just a little - I have no specific knowledge at all of amino acid structures, yet essentially came up with both of those as possibilities (from a mathematical perspective) in my post above which took me all of a couple of minutes of thought.

Anybody discussing such an issue who doesn't consider those details either has insufficient intellectual rigour to add to the debate, or is far too biased (possibly both).

So scientists are willing to learn from experience and grow with knowledge? What is wrong with that? Surely that is entirely the point of doing what they do – to learn from and make assumptions based on facts as they become available.

Thanks for explaining the role of a scientist to me, i feel much more enlightened.

Just for the record, once again.....
I am not religious.
I am not a creationist nor do i believe in intelligent design.
I am not anti science

I simply struggle to get my head around the probability of evolution creating the diverse nature it is claimed to have done in the timescale available.

maybe I've got PTNES.... post traumatic ninfan exposure syndrome.... so i apologise if you aren't trolling.

Thanks for explaining the role of a scientist to me, i feel much more enlightened.