I am absolutely flabbergasted

[tthor]

Snip.

You shouldn't fear biologist who are creationists. There are plenty of them in today's science and each of them come up with genuine arguments as to why evolution doesn't exists.

we're supposed to be in an age of acceptance but once someones opinion is different all hell brakes loose.

I'm a creationist, does that mean I'm stupid. I don't believe the Earth was made in six days nor is it only 6000 years and most biologists who are creationists say the same thing.

I assume what you are refering to is the idea of 'guided evolution', where evolution occurred but was guided by a divine entity? that I can respect, as its a logical approach to religion. I mainly only have a problem with the young-earth Christians, who believe the earth is only like 6000 years old, because they just sidestep centuries of scientific research just because they think the bible says so- I have no problem with religion, as long as it is approached rationally

 

[Jmurray21]

Snip.

I read your post and I do understand what you are getting at. I wrote a post before in which I said that I took biology last year at school because I wanted to learn more about evolution ad natural selection. I haven't come to my 'opinion' just by saying that's wrong. It might not be wrong, at the movement I just don't consider it fact.

A question for you (and any other who knows about biology:

Is adaption the same as evolution?

 

[lacktheknack]

Snip.

You shouldn't fear biologist who are creationists. There are plenty of them in today's science and each of them come up with genuine arguments as to why evolution doesn't exists.

we're supposed to be in an age of acceptance but once someones opinion is different all hell brakes loose.

I'm a creationist, does that mean I'm stupid. I don't believe the Earth was made in six days nor is it only 6000 years and most biologists who are creationists say the same thing.

Name one creationist biologist. Please. I asked for them ages ago and nobody could give me one.

Henry M. Morris is a biologist who wrote a book called "Scientific Creationism"

Funny thing is I looked him up yesterday in my research (Layperson thing. I heard about him and wanted to check out his credentials.) He has a Ph.D. in hydraulic engineering. This is by no stretch of the imagination, a biologist. On top of all this he is a christian apologist who blatantly sets out with a conclusion in mind and ignores anything that contradicts him.

How about Michael J. Behe? He's a biochemist, though, maybe not quite what you're looking for.

 

[Wuggy]

[EDIT]

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

Snip.

I read your post and I do understand what you are getting at. I wrote a post before in which I said that I took biology last year at school because I wanted to learn more about evolution ad natural selection. I haven't come to my 'opinion' just by saying that's wrong. It might not be wrong, at the movement I just don't consider it fact.

A question for you (and any other who knows about biology:

Is adaption the same as evolution?

Similar yes. The idea is that we take the fact organisms adapt to survive. You cant deny this, look at MRSA, and we see that to do this their DNA structure changes randomly, mutation, again fact. You can have YOUR DNA traced and logged as well as your parents and bits of yours will be different. Mutation. You are a mutant, so am i, we all are. However especially in single celled organisms these mutations can have positive or negative effects that cause their survival to fall or rise. Do you see how in nature a rabbit who has randomly got a gene to increase hearing will be better off than one that doesnt? How he will breed and his children will ALSO have this advantage, until all rabbits in that area have it. Of course other rabbits seperated by sea will not.

Ah, now we have two of the same species who are becoming genetically different because of huge distance gaps. This is the start of speciation. When enough mutations and adaptions take place between these two groups their DNA will be very different. It might not even create matchabale gametes anymore. Now they cannot breed. This marks them as a new species, or a subspecies.

We BRED wolves into dogs. Thats evolution at work there, albiet a forced one. If speciation is the thing you dont believe in this is the answer. However if you deny mutation happens, or these mutations are sometimes helpfull, or animals with help are better survivors, or that these animals cant breed with ones halfway around the world i cant help you.

 

[erto101]

Snip.

You shouldn't fear biologist who are creationists. There are plenty of them in today's science and each of them come up with genuine arguments as to why evolution doesn't exists.

we're supposed to be in an age of acceptance but once someones opinion is different all hell brakes loose.

I'm a creationist, does that mean I'm stupid. I don't believe the Earth was made in six days nor is it only 6000 years and most biologists who are creationists say the same thing.

Name one creationist biologist. Please. I asked for them ages ago and nobody could give me one.

Henry M. Morris is a biologist who wrote a book called "Scientific Creationism"

He's not a biologist. He got a bachelor's degree in civil engineering and a Ph.D in hydraulic engineering. Impressive but not biology. Furthermore Creation Science is not science. There are 8 creteria which must be met for something to be called science. Creation Science fails 4 of them.

There really is no need for your post. AtheistGuy corrected me, I said sorry.
Secondly the reason I started talking about creation science is because AtheistGuy was talking about up coming biologist who believe in creation. I try not to get involved in these threads because they always feel like flame wars. Anyways I'm off to play New Vegas. I got an exam soon and I'm getting fidgety

I'm sorry if it seemed like flaming. I didn't mean to cause any offense. When I hit reply your post was the last one. I opened the thread and left because i found something intresting on another page which i read first

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Snip.

You shouldn't fear biologist who are creationists. There are plenty of them in today's science and each of them come up with genuine arguments as to why evolution doesn't exists.

we're supposed to be in an age of acceptance but once someones opinion is different all hell brakes loose.

I'm a creationist, does that mean I'm stupid. I don't believe the Earth was made in six days nor is it only 6000 years and most biologists who are creationists say the same thing.

Name one creationist biologist. Please. I asked for them ages ago and nobody could give me one.

I'm not going to name names, because it would just be petty at this point, but the professor who taught my general bio course (whatever the one non-science majors take to get the required lab credit out of the way) at the community college was a creationist biologist. He did some work for an oil company in Alaska before moving down here to teach -- even wrote a paper about how it's okay for the occasional polar bear to get run over by the heavy equipment. I wish I was making this up.

Anyway, his contract (it was his first year of teaching, so he didn't have tenure at that point) was non-renewed. When you're teaching one of two science classes the majority of students wind up taking, denigrating the scientific method (which is what all that "it's just a theory" nonsense does) is a major no-no.

Incidentally, I'm a practicing Christian. I just think God was more of a clock maker, less of a sculptor -- and what sculpting he did involved procedural generation. Think "The Game of Life[footnote]The computer program, not the board game[/footnote]" and Elite.

I mean, think about it. If a being is really omniscient and omnipotent, isn't it a sign of hubris on our part to think he's limited to our three dimensional views of space and time? Isn't it a much better example of omniscience to know not only what has happened, what is happening, and what will happen, but to know every little detail of every little branching point of what may happen as well? And wouldn't it be a better example of omnipotence to take that knowledge, and using a complete understanding of the laws of the universe (which he would have, since he wrote them) set off the big bang in such a way that what he wanted to happen, did[footnote]As opposed to simply sculpting everything by hand, if it wasn't obvious.[/footnote]? Young Earth Creationsim, to me, shows not only a lack of scientific understanding, but also a fatally limited view of God.

 

[Jmurray21]

Snip.

You shouldn't fear biologist who are creationists. There are plenty of them in today's science and each of them come up with genuine arguments as to why evolution doesn't exists.

we're supposed to be in an age of acceptance but once someones opinion is different all hell brakes loose.

I'm a creationist, does that mean I'm stupid. I don't believe the Earth was made in six days nor is it only 6000 years and most biologists who are creationists say the same thing.

Name one creationist biologist. Please. I asked for them ages ago and nobody could give me one.

Henry M. Morris is a biologist who wrote a book called "Scientific Creationism"

He's not a biologist. He got a bachelor's degree in civil engineering and a Ph.D in hydraulic engineering. Impressive but not biology. Furthermore Creation Science is not science. There are 8 creteria which must be met for something to be called science. Creation Science fails 4 of them.

There really is no need for your post. AtheistGuy corrected me, I said sorry.
Secondly the reason I started talking about creation science is because AtheistGuy was talking about up coming biologist who believe in creation. I try not to get involved in these threads because they always feel like flame wars. Anyways I'm off to play New Vegas. I got an exam soon and I'm getting fidgety

I'm sorry if it seemed like flaming. I didn't mean to cause any offense. When I hit reply your post was the last one. I opened the thread and left because i found something intresting on another page which i read first

I wasn't saying you were flaming. I take no offense from what you said, or from what anyone said for that matter. My view is different to yours and yours is probably different to others. What's so offensive about that.

The reason I say flaming is that when I come onto a thread like this I usually don't get involved because I feel like i'm the one starting a flame war and I'm only creating problems. I enjoy debates but on forums with people who share similar interests to me. Well let's just say it doesn't feel right

 

[Legendsmith]

I feel like slapping you for making such a retarded post (Kidding). But seriously there only really is one definition for it. Micro and macro evolution are just arbitrary distinctions made by laypeople.

Actually, we should BOTH be slapped, because nobody cited any sources.
I'm going to now. Macro and Micro evolution are distinct terms. They are not arbitrary.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macroevolution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microevolution

 

[Lieju]

I propose a compromise to creation vs evolution, stated using the (heavily paraphrased) words of the founder of the idea of Evolution, Charles Darwin, which he wrote at the end of "On the Origin of Species." "What a wonder it is that God had the foresight to create creatures capable of adapting to their ever changing surroundings" Again, very heavily paraphrased, but the gist of the matter is that God couldn't just create a world and hope it worked out, he would have had to create it in a way so that everything could work and survive according to the scientific laws

Why bring in god at all?

Do you, when studying computer programming, follow the scientific view but feel the need to remind people that god made physics that enable making computers?

Or when you study history, mention that god probably appeared to the people in their dreams telling them what to do?

It's definitely possible to believe in god and accept evolution, but god is such an unscientific poorly defined concept it should be left out of scientifc discussion.

Also, all kudos to Darwin, but who cares what he thought? Biology has gone forward during the 150 years.

Personally I get flabbergasted when I see this.
See - the thing is, I usually complain about how overly politically correct we always are, but this worry's me quite a bit. See - the fact a future scientist isn't allowed to believe in a theory (which it is - YES I KNOW IT HAS A TON OF PROOF BUT really it's the entire principle the matters!) is kind of why there are so many annoying things, because just a few people cannot be asked to take an opinion.

I mean hell - a LOT of people have a mixed between evolution and creationism - myself included and you may find this for a lot of the people here *cough second comment*, i.e - the fact evolution makes sense - of course! - but sometimes it leaves holes and there's still a hell of a lot of other things to consider.

Considering that intelligent design or creationism aren't scientifc theories, yeah, thinking that they are kinda means they don't know either what a scientific theory is, or what those ideologies are about...

It's possible to believe in some vague type of creationism, though, that cannot be disproven because it's so vague, but that's hardly scientific.

And even if we'd, for the sake of an argument, say that evolution is untrue and doesn't happen THAT WOULDN'T MEAN CREATIONISM IS TRUE.

And the way creationists try to justify their ideas without ever doing research or formulating any actual theories is what annoys me so much about them.

Although, I should mention that when we are talking about'creationism', we can mean pretty much anything, some of the ideas of which would fit with evolution, some not. Because it's not a scientific field and has no real widely accepted definitions.

But it also leads to this situation where people who want the kind of BS that is unprovably untrue being taught in schools will paint the issue in such a light that people who don't really believe the world is 6000 years old will end up supporting them because they believe in some kind of creator and think that they are supporting such an idea against evolution.

I feel like slapping you for making such a retarded post (Kidding). But seriously there only really is one definition for it. Micro and macro evolution are just arbitrary distinctions made by laypeople.

Actually, we should BOTH be slapped, because nobody cited any sources.
I'm going to now. Macro and Micro evolution are distinct terms. They are not arbitrary.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macroevolution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microevolution

I study biology in a university, and in my experience biologists don't really differentiate between the two, because there's not any real way to objectively do so.

When they are used, it's more along the lines of dividing animals to 'big' and 'small'. It's the same process, and they are considered to be the same thing. Ypu can say that at certain point something is certainly 'macroevolution' and at one point 'microevolution', but there's no clear point where one changes to another.

Speciation is discussed and studied, and if you're interested in the 'difference' between macro and micro, I'd suggest reading up on that.

 

[fenrizz]

If they arbitrarily have dicided not to believe in evolution because of a belief in one or more fictional beings, then they should be kicked out of the course.
No, really.

Why waste the schools time on people who will arbirtarily decide not to believe what is taught at the school?

Believeing in creationism is at best downright silly, and directly harmfull to our scientific progress at worst.

 

[Torrasque]

Science for educational institutions, creationism for church. Do not mix them. It ends in tears.

More like, you got peanut butter on my Rhesus Monkey. I mean, should we me mixing bad philosophy with Science(!)?

Damn, now I want to listen to that argument between a religious professor and a philosophy professor again...
Also, that peanut butter on a monkey sounds like a really disturbing fetish...

How does a biologist study biology and not believe in evolution. Isn't that like me (a physics graduate) believing that the world is 6000 years old and orbited by the sun?

My physics professor in grade 11/12 is a hardcore Christian. This is the same guy that got me interested in Astronomy, told me the universe is always expanding, and that stars are pretty awesome.
I've never questioned him on the matter because I respect the guy too much, and he's one of those religious types that doesn't force it on others, so it doesn't bother me too much.

OT: I had a class called Controversies In Science in my first term, and we talked about a bunch of stuff. It was basically a general science course, and was a GNED. One of the best classes I've had in University, and my teacher was awesome.
Anywho, near the end of the term, we had to do a group project on the origin of life. Group project groaning aside, each group was randomly given one of 6 possible choices they had to support. There was the clay life hypothesis, deep sea vents, warm little ponds, Panspermia, intelligent design, and my group's: RNA world v. metabolism (iron-sulfur world theory)
None of these actually matter (unless anyone wants me to explain them, lol) but after class, I went to chat with the prof, and this muslim girl (had the whole getup) was talking to him about intelligent design. She absolutely believed in it, and was gently asserting that he was wrong, while he was being a good professor, and saying "well how do you know that?", "are you sure?" and not destroying her opinions utterly. It was quite amusing to know that a girl that firmly believes in intelligent design (that name bothers me so much...) was being taught about how it was incorrect, and how even panspermia was more believable.
Related: my group was voted as having the most believable origin of life (probably because we actually did work), with creationism getting only 2 votes.

 

[Phisi]

It may be that they just lowered the entry mark for biology and now all the country bumpkins are getting in XD GO STEREOTYPES!!!!

 

[GraveeKing]

-snip-

I must confess, I got quite a few reply's for my previous message - since yours was to the point, polite and saves me time answering every single one - I'll just reply to yours.

The point of a creationism-evolution combination theory is what some people use today, the idea that yep - evolution was right, but hell there's still a lot more to it than sheer chance, is what I believe in - so you're more or less right, creationism on it's own has more big holes than a drunk whore in Amsterdam, but together they can work quite well.

It's more or less just saying, evolution happened - but here and there something or someone set us on the right direction and lets be honest. Either way something like this is going to sound crazy - going from a single cell life-form or a Giant hand reaching down to place every creature on earth down in perfect unity. At least to some people it'll seem a little more logical - hence the popular view that there's either some other shinier alternate - or something in-between.

And hey - before people actually discussed the theory of gravity, there were probably other mad ideas of why we kept our feet firmly on the ground, and oh boy medical science before the 17th century... sheesh. Point I'm trying to get at here is - there may be another theory we've yet to come across, until there's one much more clearly likely than the other, it may as well be down to opinion on what is right and wrong - hardly does anyone any harm eh?

 

[AtheistGuy]

.

I actually would love to hear those described.

 

[Torrasque]

.

I actually would love to hear those described.

*blows dust off of notes*
Clay life hypothesis: This one is similar to the iron-sulfur world theory in saying that life began from inorganic molecules combining and becoming more and more complex as time went on, until they eventually got so complex that they became organisms. No, dust didn't turn into dolphins, but after a ridiculously long time, inorganic carbons and whatnot started to form simple bacteria and the like.

Deep sea vents: This one is really plausible in my mind. You know those deep sea vents you see in national geographic magazines, or discovery channel programs about the bottom of the sea? Well you know how there is stuff living down there without any sunlight or oxygen? Well, this theory says that the heat given off by the vents, as well as the abundance of nutrients given off by the reaction of water with magma, is what spawned life. Considering that there is stuff living down there now, it seems pretty damn plausible to me.

Warm little ponds: Kind of like Clay life, this one is just different in saying that it happened in little ponds that were sheltered from the horrible harshness of the planet being formed and all that jazz.

Panspermia: Life started somewhere else, and came to earth on a meteor/asteroid/foreign body. Kind of like what happens in Evolution

Intelligent design: The easiest to explain: God made everything, the end.

RNA world v. metabolism (iron-sulfur world theory): This one is absolutely fascinating, you should really read what actually happens in the Miller-Urey experiment, because it is really REALLY interesting. Read <url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller%E2%80%93Urey_experiment>this. What basically happens, is they put a bunch of chemicals (the kind that could be expected at the time of life's origin) in a loop system, add some electricity, go away for a while, come back, and voila: amino acids. Not just one or two, but 20. That is a really big deal considering we are made of those amino acids, and they made them in a small system with electricity.
For those of you who don't speak science: they made life material out of water, methane, ammonia, and hydrogen.

 

[esperandote]

The question is, they believe in evolution in what degree? If they believe that the first humans were adan and eve and that dinousaurs didn't exists then yeah that pretty contradictory but some that believe in creation might believe that God triggered the big bang and everyhing else evolved from there, after all the bible was written by men not by god.

Asking a creationists to prove themselves right is as stupid as the "Where did you come from?" argument because in the end you can't prove God neither you have to, it's something you believe.

What irritates me the most is atheists calling stupid poeple with beliefs when is not of their fucking bussines. (As ironic as it is that it irritates me)

They said they believed in creation, as opposed to evolution. So I'm assuming that means they think evolution is false. Which is more than contradictory, it's stupid.
I never asked for creationists to prove their point, so I'll ignore that bit.
I don't think there's any problem calling someone's idea about a topic stupid, especially when it is. Honestly, it's just a slightly more insulting way of saying they're incorrect on this topic. But again, that's not the issue I was talking about in my post.
I'm saying that it's stupid to discount evolution if you're studying biology, and that we shouldn't be ok with that opinion. You still haven't said why you think we should be.

You shouldn't be ok with their opinion as in agree with them, you should be ok with it as in respect it. Why? Courtesy.

 

[Carrotslayer]

How does a biologist study biology and not believe in evolution. Isn't that like me (a physics graduate) believing that the world is 6000 years old and orbited by the sun?

... so what would(n't) a chemistry graduate believe?? -_-

That the elements are earth wind fire and water?

I think you forgot "heart"

 

[monkey_man]

Well, to a snotty 16 year old as me who thinks Creationism is a lie, and religion in general is a lie, this comes to no surprise to me. There is no true/not enough evidence to support either side, so I'll just say we're all wrong. Until it's absolutely proven. And I think at that point religion stops. If Man proves the Big Bang happened, or something similar, or something else not creationism-ish, every one will finally stop bickering about religion and start improving every day life. All together as a single, unified people. Of course we have to abandon racism too, but I think we'll be at a point where life is finally fair for everyone then already. I hope.

So hurry up already! I want to live in a utopia!