Poll: Evolution and the other side

[evilneko]

Even if I granted you everything in your post, it neither falsifies evolution nor supports creationism.

Anyway, I hung around this thread so long in part because the forums were being glitchy. I'm going to do something more fun for a while instead.

 

[Nemesis729]

I was forced to go to church every sunday for the first 17 years of my life, It's all bullshit, I realized that when I was 10, I'm pretty convinced not even the priests buy any of it

 

[Defenestra]

I have looked in to what is rather optimistically called Creation Science, but as it seems to be composed almost exclusively of an argument from complexity, being that life and the universe are simply too complicated to have arisen without outside help, therefore God, I clicked No on the poll.

Because 'I do not understand how this could be the case, therefore it is not.' is a damn stupid argument, and is not science in any way, shape or form.

 

[infohippie]

Poll is broken. It does not have the option "There is no scientific evidence for creation" therefore I can't select anything.

 

[Faladorian]

The only thing I've ever seen creationists "debate" about is asking their opponent: "If creationism isn't true, how do you explain this?"


It's simply the Argument from Ignorance Fallacy inflated to a cancerous mass.

 

[Worgen]

There is no other side of evolution, there is evolution and there is people being stupid, you dont see people claiming that the universe revolves around the earth anymore and anyone who did would be called a retard and pushed into a mud puddle, its stupid we still let people be stupid about evolution.

 

[zehydra]

I have, back in high school. (Actually ID, not creationism specifically. The two are compatible, but not the same thing. For instance, there are atheist/secular ID scientists)

I have come to accept Evolution a long time ago (it makes sense).

 

[Sight Unseen]

I have, back in high school. (Actually ID, not creationism specifically. The two are compatible, but not the same thing. For instance, there are atheist/secular ID scientists)

I have come to accept Evolution a long time ago (it makes sense).

It's not possible for an atheist to be an ID scientist unless he doesn't believe the lies he's making and only doing it for money. Atheism, by definition, is the lack of a belief in a God. Intelligent design, by definition, is the idea that a God-like creator made the universe (in a SHOCKINGLY similar way to Biblical creation, imagine the odds...) and all life in the universe. By definition, it is not possible for an atheist to believe in intelligent design, because then he would be a theist...

 

[Sight Unseen]

*snip*

Oh goodness, where to start with this load... how was I taking stats out of context and blatantly mis-using them? There was a study performed where participants stated their race and religion and then answered a series of questions relating to the judeo-christian religions, and atheists statistically scored the highest out of all of the other groups. I assure you I am no troll.

SOURCE: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/8030672/US-atheists-know-more-about-religion-than-believers-quiz-finds.html

I have had my fair share of debates with creationists in the past, and I feel like I have heard all of the arguments that they have to offer, and can fairly easily refute all of them, and I'm not even an expert when it comes to evolution. I have also read enough of the Bible myself to know that it is completely bullshit and that it cannot be taken any more seriously as a theological text than Harry Potter. I am also fairly educated on the mechanisms of evolution and the "rules" of science, being a 4th year biotechnology major.

I hate to say it, but your creationist friend is pretty naive and borderline dumb. Science NEVER works by filling in any unknowns with "this must be unexplainable, it MUST be magic". Science deals with gaps in knowledge as just that, a gap in the knowledge. They make no presumptions about what that gap may mean until they can find evidence to back up their claim. Creation is NOT science, it is religious dogma that can be easily proven to be bullshit, so it SHOULD NOT be taught as science in a science classroom, because that is an insult to what science actually means. Creationists have no peer-reviewed and accepted papers in the literature, and merely spew out immature and easily refuted arguments. Also the supposed holes in evolutionary theory are all very minor holes (such as missing a transitional species in the fossil record, when 10 other such transitional species are already known) whereas the holes in creation are gigantic inconsistencies which outright contradict each other making it impossible for it to be right.

Finally, I have never heard of this so called "hydrogen-bond dating" but I call bullshit. Having a fairly good understanding of what a hydrogen bond is, I know that this would be a completely unreliable way to date anything. Hydrogen bonds are just weak interactions between molecules/atoms and they are very easy to break. They could never provide a reliable basis for dating anything, whereas radioactive decay dating is reliable (and there are multiple different tests acting on different principles that all show roughly the same results)

Ok two things. Number one, the hydrogen dating method is used by studying the hydrogen contained in a certain kind of radioactive material (I want to say Uranium). They don't test for it normally because we know that under normal circumstances, it should only last for about 15,000 years (it degrades MUCH quicker than anythign related to radio-carbon dating). But we've found uranium (or whatever said radioactive material was) under normal circumstances that all date back to 6000 years. This isn't just one or two occurences. This is from rocks at a variety of levels within the sediment, scattered at locations around the world. something like 170. All, that's right all of them are recorded to be about 6000 years old.

I sincerely don't believe that you've earnestly studied any Creationist texts. and I was also a biotech major before changing to history (and I got into genetics and all that stuff, so I understand the evidence behind it all). It is from this back ground in biology that I cannot safely assume evolution is wrong... but I also can't wipe away Creation.

Look, I'm not sitting here tryign to fight with you. I sincerely don't understand why people come off as so vehemently against Creationism in terms of science. NOTHING in the scientific realm should be cast off as "unstudiable"... that defeats the whole purpose of science. Therefore, I will not argue with you about anything after this post, unless you want to have a civil discussion (which thus far, you are not willing to). Respond if you feel like it, but belittling me only satisfies yourself and hardly proves anything.

If you want more information, you should look for a movie on netflix called Dragons or Dinosaurs. While I found some faulty logic in it (it's obviously more of a propaganda film than a legitimate scientific documentary, to say nothing of its outdated arguments against evolution [simply put, some of the things they SAY is found in evolutionary theory has been done away with a long time ago]) it raises both some good points and evidence.

I would be interested to see your source for the "hydrogen dating" I google'd hydrogen dating and found absolutely nothing, and I don't have enough information to make a judgement on that right now, but from the way you're describing it sounds like its made up. A source would be helpful.

Nobody has ever said that anything is unstudyiable, but if you're going to try and force your "theory" into the scientific world you'd better be prepared to support it with facts, and thus far, creationists have failed spectacularly at that. I'm not going to bother checking that video because you admit that it's a propaganda film, so I'm not even going to try and separate what facts they may have from their propaganda.

 

[mcnally86]

hooooooooooooly crap I could not listen to just him for even one minute haha.
skipped to the Q and A, on a side, loved how that proffessor repeaditly asked him to stop avoiding the questions. So, is there any chance you know of any actual creationism science? his whole speech appeared to be an attempt to discredit evolution anyway. All i can recall from my time in catholic school is 'On the nth day(5?), god created the animals'.

You had to watch his thing. Basically he said do not teach origin in schools only observable natural selections or anatomy. He was saying tax money should not teach anything not 100% provable. He did not want creationism or evolution taught in schools. It was pretty interesting, and yes he probably could sell glasses to a blind man.

EDIT: And I realize this is brilliant on his part. He made it so he didn't have to defend his beliefs but at the same time use them against other people.

 

[Grospoliner]

Yes, and the fact is, there is no evidence supplied by creationists. Merely conjecture. At no point does any single creation scientist supply sufficient evidence for the creation hypothesis.

 

[JCBFGD]

Seeing as how evolution has been proven to be fact many, many, many times over, no, I've not put any effort into studying a pseudoscience believed only by people who figuratively put their fingers in their ears whilst stomping on the ground and shouting "LALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"

Evolution is fact. The exact method of evolution is the only thing that's a theory now. Sorry to burst your bubble.

 

[khantron]

Kent Hovind? Really? I mean, there are creationists who are outcasts among the community who think Kent Hovind is a few marbles short of having a marble.

 

[Knight Templar]

What would make the Greeks think up the Griffins as motherly? To come up with such far fetched details that even now our Scientists have to make HUGE leaps of faith to come up with instead of treating them as the same as mythical creatures.

Again, that source is saying they looked at fossils and came up with griffons.
Not living creatures. So waxing on the possible origins of particular traits attributed to bones is not helping your point.

And I see you ignored the dating part.

Do you have the page numbers by any chance?

""I was interested in the way legends of fantastic creature can arise from observations of the remains of unfamiliar extinct animals"
Page 15
Do you own the book?

He constantly refers to fossils, not living creatures. Where in the book does it suggest this is anything other than legend born from bones and paleontology? I mean look at the god-damn title!

You have yet again failed to take note of my rebuttal of your claim re:dating. Are you going to address it? Are you willing to admit when wrong?

 

[monfang]

What would make the Greeks think up the Griffins as motherly? To come up with such far fetched details that even now our Scientists have to make HUGE leaps of faith to come up with instead of treating them as the same as mythical creatures.

Again, that source is saying they looked at fossils and came up with griffons.
Not living creatures. So waxing on the possible origins of particular traits attributed to bones is not helping your point.

And I see you ignored the dating part.

Do you have the page numbers by any chance?

""I was interested in the way legends of fantastic creature can arise from observations of the remains of unfamiliar extinct animals"
Page 15
Do you own the book?

He constantly refers to fossils, not living creatures. Where in the book does it suggest this is anything other than legend born from bones and paleontology? I mean look at the god-damn title!

You have yet again failed to take note of my rebuttal of your claim re:dating. Are you going to address it? Are you willing to admit when wrong?

I believe I already addressed that 're:dating' thing you are speaking of.

And SHE refers to fossils because to think that maybe they came up with such details about their lives from real creatures would contradict her beliefs so she made the major claim that the Greeks had Paleontologists. The first one to do it according to my research.

I'd think someone who read HER book would know who the author is.

 

[DracoSuave]

Nobody has ever said that anything is unstudyiable, but if you're going to try and force your "theory" into the scientific world you'd better be prepared to support it with facts, and thus far, creationists have failed spectacularly at that. I'm not going to bother checking that video because you admit that it's a propaganda film, so I'm not even going to try and separate what facts they may have from their propaganda.

See, this is one of my biggest problems with evolutionists is they just flat out reject it. The smart thing to do would be to watch it and then take the "facts" and independently varify them.[/quote]

You mean that video where a guy asks the question 'Where could oxygen have come from?' in a state with electricity and water? Yeah. He's asking questions and pretending the answer isn't 'electrolysis'.

but no. It's by Creationists... it can't POSSIBLY be worth your time......

No. It's because a man who is actively ignoring non-evolutionary science, like basic fucking chemistry, is making the fallacious argument that just because individual experiments don't explain things those experiments were not trying to explain (which isn't how science works anyways) that therefore the explanations developed over decades of research must be wrong.

What he has NOT done is provide evidence that the conclusions are wrong. He hasn't provided experiments to SHOW the conclusions are wrong. He hasn't provided experiments to show his position is even defendable, never mind correct.

He's trying to pretend to be scientific to a room of people who don't understand science enough to know the basic fundamental errors he is making.

It's as bad as people ranting on Fox News when they only know how "bad" it is from watching the Comedy Show or seeing random info about them bashing games on gaming websites. I won't defend Fox News, I think they are biased. but I've at least watched them and pretty much every other news network to realize that on a scale from one to ten (ten being horribly biased, 5 being average for all news stations, and 1 being as fair as fair can be [mostly meaning that there are only facts reported without any journalistic input]) they are probably a 6... and that's not to praise Fox News, but is a knock on the horrid culture surrounding journalism and the news today.

Ad hominem. This has nothing to do with the debate at hand. I have watched the video. The man is either ignorant of basic scientific principles, or is pretending to be to make a point. Either of those would be enough to discredit him. It has nothing to do with his opposition to evolution. It's his unwillingness to accede scientific processes such as electrolysis, or even the sceintific method itself, that make what he says absolute pap.

He's putting forth rhetoric, not evidence, and it's not hard to see if you understand it.

It's an hour or so long dude. Just watch the damn thing. So I don't COMPLETELY lose faith in the idea that there can be civil discourse about anything controversial, watch it... watch it for me.

The controversy is this.

Creationists believe that calling something a science makes it a science.
Evolutionists believe that actually performing science makes it a science.

There's no actual controversy in scientific circles with that. No science done = Not a science. The only place the controversy exists is where those who are not knowledgable in science are in charge of making policies to educate in science.

EDIT: I especially like how on a thread about whether or not you've actually seen evidence for Creationism, you refuse to look up evidence... irony is such an underrated word sometimes....

The burden is not on evolutionists to 'look up' the evidence to support the creationist debate. The burden of proof of your point in any argument is on yourself. It's not MY job to make YOUR case for you.

And we're not asking for 'evidence' which so far has consisted of rhetorical nonsense like the OP's link, or outright lies like 'the bible is empirical data.' We're talking about experiments. We're talking about the scientific method.

If you wish to advance creationism as a science, then you, not me, not anyone else, but YOU need to provide science.

Nothing less is acceptable.

 

[Sight Unseen]

See, this is one of my biggest problems with evolutionists is they just flat out reject it. The smart thing to do would be to watch it and then take the "facts" and independently varify them.

but no. It's by Creationists... it can't POSSIBLY be worth your time......

It's as bad as people ranting on Fox News when they only know how "bad" it is from watching the Comedy Show or seeing random info about them bashing games on gaming websites. I won't defend Fox News, I think they are biased. but I've at least watched them and pretty much every other news network to realize that on a scale from one to ten (ten being horribly biased, 5 being average for all news stations, and 1 being as fair as fair can be [mostly meaning that there are only facts reported without any journalistic input]) they are probably a 6... and that's not to praise Fox News, but is a knock on the horrid culture surrounding journalism and the news today.

It's an hour or so long dude. Just watch the damn thing. So I don't COMPLETELY lose faith in the idea that there can be civil discourse about anything controversial, watch it... watch it for me.

EDIT: I especially like how on a thread about whether or not you've actually seen evidence for Creationism, you refuse to look up evidence... irony is such an underrated word sometimes....

Why should I waste my time watching a video from a source that you yourself admit is outdated and not very credible? If that's your best source for information then maybe you should be the one doing more research.

 

[Thaliur]

But I already explained why it's not with the hydrogen-bond thing... although there's a whole plethora of other reasons (here's one more, you know the geological layers thing? You know, the idea that further down in the dirt you go, the farther back in history you are? Well that does not work for the entire world, and in fact this idea has to be constantly reshaped for every area of the world you're in. Answer me this: Why is it in China they can find dinosaurs several hundred feet below the surface of the average height of land above sea level but in Georgia a family can find a a dinosaur from the same era while digging a few inches to plant lettuce?)

You still owe the world an explanation of your apparently secret but infallible hydrogen bond dating...

Also, the "phenomenon" you pointed out is caused by tectonics. I will not explain it in detail here. You didn't explain anything so far, and at least with tectonics I know a Google search will yield results anyone should be able to understand (if you don't, step away from the computer right now, disconnect your phone line and cut off your electrical supply. You do not belong in the 21st century)

As for the other dating thing - I don't particularly trust carbon dating. Here's why: There are roughly 100 techniques known for carbon dating. only three are accurate beyond 1000 years, and of those three, after 1000 years, it is difficult to pinpoint the precise age of an object unless other archeological evidence is presented. Further, mosts evolutionists, when attempting to date something, go down a list of carbon dating methods until they find roughly the right age. For example, we know that the T-rex lived around 65 million years ago. One t-rex in Montana may test at 65 million years old using one method of carbon dating. But if they find a t-rex in New mexico and the same method says it's only 12 million years old, scientist simply shrug their shoulders and say, "I guess this method of dating doesn't work given the circumstances..." and then they go down the list of 100 or so methods until they find one that gives an answer coinciding with the scientists beliefs on exactly how old it SHOULD be.

And here's an example of how carbon dating can be so wrong. in the 1960's, the Nile flooded its banks and in a matter of weeks petrified a well. Carbon dating put the wood in the well to be several thousands years old by one method, and several million by another... yet the well was only a number of decades old. the natural occurence of the flood that caused the petrification of the wood accelerated the radio-decay. Creationists would say, if you applied the same concept to a catastrophic, world wide flood, it's no mystery as to why you'd have things that appear millions of years old.

The point is, for one reason or another, radio-carbon dating is possibly one of the worst dating methods ever devised by the scientific community.

There is one method for radiocarbon dating. measure the activity (or, if the sample does not need to be preserved, the actual amount of C-14) in a sample as precisely as possible, and you have a pointer to the age of the sample. I really doubt the measurement you hinted at, determining the age of something as 65 million years, since radiocarbon dating has a range of less than 70k years (don't know the exact number, and I'm sure you will point that out as a flaw in my argument. Look it up if you care). The age of the well being different than the age determined by radiocarbon dating is also explainable: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiocarbon_dating#Carbon_exchange_reservoir.
The lowest resolution ever achieved with radiocarbon dating is 700 years though, so nothing to worry about in geological timeframes.

Oh, and here's another interesting Wikipedia article that explains really well how the belief in creation and intelligent design and all that junk is said to be well-proven and true:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

And SHE refers to fossils because to think that maybe they came up with such details about their lives from real creatures would contradict her beliefs so she made the major claim that the Greeks had Paleontologists. The first one to do it according to my research.

I'd think someone who read HER book would know who the author is.

So, a book where it is explicitly stated that the belief in griphons and the like originated (much like dragons) from bones of prehistoric creatures mistaken for and partially misassembled as mythical creatures proves that these creatures really existed because you think the author didn't want to tell the readers that the creatures were alive at the time the stories about them were written because you believe that this is true?

 

[ninetails593]

Statistically speaking, Atheists actually tend to score higher in tests/quizzes about the bible/torah/qu'ran contents than average members of the church in question.

Atheism is generally a side-effect of having increased knowledge on the topic than the religious folk. As so many say, the best way to become an atheist is to actually read the bible.

Biased speculation with no actual proof. How does believing in something make me stupider? Sorry to offend the Atheist master race, but you don't make claims like that without sources.

 

[AMMO Kid]

As a Creationist I do believe in scientific evidence for creation, because scientific evidence for creation is found in observational science. Evolution is based on the study of things we can't study, like "billions of years ago" and the likes (well, not entirely). When people say "there is no evidence for creationism, it's just a load of horse shit" I feel sorry for them because they are obviously looking at the wrong kind of science to study creationism. For example, the proteins that form life are made up of amino acids. To sum up an argument for creationism, amino acids cannot survive in water (fact), therefore life as we know it could not have formed billions of years ago in water (and of course there is the theory of RNA that was invented to counter this argument). But do you see where I am coming from, Joe Evolutionist? Creationism isn't formed on the studies of "billions of years ago." It's formed on observational science. Another example is that evolution relies on mutations to make it work, but we have only ever found bad mutations in creatures that are harmful to life, not helpful mutations leading to survival of the species. A third example is the theory of Neanderthals. If they were really alive from 100,000 BC to 35,000 BC, where are all the skeletons? We haven't even found one legitimate set of bones yet. We came close with Lucy, only to discover that they were really ape bones from under 10,000 years ago... 50,000,000,000 - 55,000,000,000 generations of bones don't just disappear. I guess we'll just keep studying the dinosaur bones from BILLIONS of years ago that keep popping up everywhere...

I know that this isn't a discussion thread so if anyone wants to chat just inbox me. Plus I'll pick and choose who to reply to based on how short the message is. 300 points for me to reply to isn't much fun, so keep it to your five most important points please.