Talon1977 wrote:
Quote:
In both those articles, the author consistantly refers to the term "natural selection" almost as if this process were a thinking entity. Instead of actually giving some sort of scientific explanation for how this miraculous occurance happens, the author instead attributes these happenings in nature to "natural selection," as if this is a thinking entity making the choice to advance certain species. I do not see this as a valid scientific explanation for the problem presented as Irreducibly Complex Living Systems.
You are entering this with a wrong premise. Natural selection is a fact, proven by many experiments. Survival of the fittest and all that. It is a part of evolution. The author referes to it as the driving force, not a thinking entity. Science has gone beyond talking in such philosophical terms to rather more quantitative data. Most creationist stuff I have read is very qualitative and relies on play of words and semantics, not numbers, equations and data. That's my main argument with it.
Quote:
First, I'd like to point out that these scientists you refer to as "religious scientists" should be more accurately described as "creation scientists." Religion need not play any part in it. Religion is a set of man-made rules and rituals that cannot be refuted by reason or science. These scientist are ones who open-mindedly look at the evidence and draw the conclusion that mankind, as well as the entire universe we live in cannot possibly be brought into existence by itself by random chance. The very notion is completely irrational, even without the evidence that supports otherwise. As I'm sure you've heard before, Einstein himself believed that to state that the universe is the result of a random event that somehow worked itself out on its own to its current state, is more ludicrous than stating that a printshop blew up one day and the result was a complete and orderly dictionary.
I said religious scientist on purpose, because there are many more scientists who believe in God and also trust in evolution, than are creationists. Contrary to what you might think, accepting evolution and believing in a superior being is not mutualy exclusive.
Also, the Einstein quote you are reffeing to is taken out of context. Eintein said that god doesn't depend on chance (or does not gamble or something along those lines), when he saw the work of Heisenberg and Schroedinger on quantum mechanics. If you ever had any quantum mechanics, you would know how probability plays into the physical world. At the smallest scale, very much depends on probability. Yet on a larger scale things average out and we have a pretty steady world. Einstein later accepted quantum mechanics and it is currently one of the basic theories in physics. Just goes to show you that you should not just look at scientists's statements, but rather at the end results and data and equations. Words can be played with, data not so much.
Quote:
Yes, you have similarities that are carried over from species to species. But you STILL have ENORMOUS gaps in the fossil records where there should be BILLIONS of connecting forms between the various species. But the fact is, that you have complete forms of each species in the fossil records and not ONE SINGLE connecting fossil form with slight genetic mutations moving toward another complete species.
Like I said there are gaps. Look at the case of horse, where it's predecessors that were about 3 feet tall and had 5 fingers were found and traced throughout the ages, growing to its current size and the fingers joining into one big toe - the hoof. Sure, not all the species are explained in such great detail, because the fossil records are imperfect and they always will be. Look at my car analogy - looking for a DeLorean in a junkyard. DeLorean was a revolutionary car in many ways, yet as a model it failed. Some of its features were adopted by later cars, however. I view evolution in a similar way. It would be extremely hard for you to find a DeLorean in a car junkyard, however.
Quote:
I'm not arguing religion here. I'm arguing scientific facts. It is evolution that is on trial.
You cannot just discard a scientific theory, you need to provide a better one. Arguing creationism will undobtedly bring religion into the discussion.
Also, if evolution is on trial, don't you think the principle of innocent until proven guilty should apply? As far as I know, the jury is still out or it hasn't even been presented all the evidence. Until then, evolution stands. That's my only point - it is the current reality.
Quote:
Religion plays no part in this. The facts are being looked at and nothing more. I've not once said, "because God says." or "I don't know how it happened, God just did it." It would be foolhardy for me to do so. All I'm saying is that the evidence, scientific evidence,
does not support the claim that all species including mankind evolved from a single celled organism of the period of millions or billions of years.
One final piece of evidence I will lay out for you. Radioisotope Dating is completely inaccurate, and yet science continues to rely on it to validate the theory of evolution. It goes off the premise that Radioactive Decay is, and has been constant with little to no variance throughout history, across the board. It has been stated that without the belief that the earth is billions of years old, the theory of evolution crumbles, on account of the sheer length of time it would take for species to evolve. I give you this experiment, performed by a well known scientist who has discovered that Radioisotope Dating is inaccurate:
http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-376.htm
Umm, the jury is still out on that one:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-meritt/age.html
http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/rate_abandon_fantasies_henke.htm
Like I said, we can drag this argument waaaay too long. Both of us can find references on the web for either side of the argument. Since smarter people than us, who are actually paid to research this, cannot come to terms about it, I don't think we shall come to terms here.
Here is an index of creationist claims and the rebuttals:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/
I am sure you will find very long-winded rebuttals to these rebuttals. I don't have the time or the energy to go through all of them.
Hehe, I pass the torch to Kyp
