Science: Evolution, life on Mars etc.

[daszo24]

Alright, first off, popular opinion is not always correct. If opinion merely concerns whether Deny's is better that Applebee's, then it doesn't matter too much. However, if an opinion contradicts concrete truth, then it is wrong.

Most of the imformation which I will be using comes from Biology: God's Living Creation, published in 1986 (I know it's not the most up to date, but the basics of evolution have not changed drastically) by Beka Book Publications. Other sources will be cited if I use them.

The very basis of evolution is flawed. Firstly, the cell principle is the truth that all living things are compsed of living units called cells and that all cells come from living material. Evolution by its very nature teaches that living matter developed by non-living matter. This has been proven to simply not be possible. Secondly, spontaneous generation, the belief that living things can arise from nonliving things apart from a creator, has been proven to be impossible by Francesco Redi and Louis Pasteur. However, evolutionists believe that since there was no creator, matter must have formed from something, even though this has been proven to be absolutely and completely impossible. Finally, the first law of Thermodynamics states that energy is lost and not gained--basically that lower things can not become higher things. Think about this: I have a house, and I put in 200 pounds of dynamite in it and light the fuse. What's going to happen? Is this huge explosion going to result in a mansion that was greater than what originally existed? Might it form something of lesser grandeur but still with form and shape? Or is it going to be merely a pile of rubble? Evolution says that the first option, the construction of a chatteau, will happen when my house blows up. This sounds absurd, but it's exactly what evolution teaches about the big bang and the development of a lower mass into a greater one. However, it also states that this palace will then turn into a living breathing giant over time...just give it long enough.

Evolutionists, beginning with Charles Lyell and developing with Darwin, taught this because they believe in the principle of uniformity--that the present is the key to the past; that all things continue by natural processes as they have always done. This means that since creation isn't happening NOW, it never happened. While it is an extreme use of this logic, the eventual conclusion leads to the false idea that since an earthquake isn't happening NOW, an earthquake never happened. It is very illogical, but it is a key to the Theory of Evolution. However, they have grasped this because it rejects God. Instead of having to form their lives to moral principles such as the 10 Commandments and 8 Beatitudes, they could follow their fallen human nature because their science 'proved' that there was no God, and they were then not required to do what they did not want. Basically, Evolution allows one to follow the path of least resistance without having to answer a higher authority. Thus, it has become popular worldwide with largely hedonistic and athiestic societies.

Evolution has no basis on real science, but it has been widely accepted because it does not call man to a higher place, but caters to his current level. Change is difficult, and Evolution, which is practically a religion, has allowed men to ignore God's call to sanctity, holiness, and eternal life with Him.

 

[SirNukes]

Quote[/b] ]Evolution by its very nature teaches that living matter developed by non-living matter. This has been proven to simply not be possible.

Well, it technically is possible. The real question is how probable. Estimates on that vary a lot, I tend to lean toward the low side.

Quote[/b] ]Secondly, spontaneous generation, the belief that living things can arise from nonliving things apart from a creator, has been proven to be impossible by Francesco Redi and Louis Pasteur.

Quite true. But spontaneous generation and evolution are not the same thing. However, spontaneous generation is a good example of how a widely held scientific theory could be totally wrong. It is a good lesson to keep in mind.

Quote[/b] ]However, evolutionists believe that since there was no creator, matter must have formed from something, even though this has been proven to be absolutely and completely impossible. Finally, the first law of Thermodynamics states that energy is lost and not gained--basically that lower things can not become higher things.

Well, be careful about arguing against the theories based in physics (the Big Bang) or other heavier science. Most people who have any knowledge of physics have only the most basic knowledge of Newtonian physics, which only scratches the surface (and also has a lot of errors, though it works well for our normal, everyday scale). I'll share a little bit of what I do know here, though. I by no means have been through all the math for the Big Bang, or even all of the details, but I do know more than most.

First, matter can form from nothing. And does. It has not "been proven to be absolutely and completely impossible." I'd like to add that phrases like that are inherently flawed. Science cannot prove a universal negative (that something cannot happen). Anyway, have you heard of E=mc^2? Well, the full formula is E^2=m^2 P^2 + m^2 c^4, but anyway, what it means is that mass and energy are equivalent. And yes, the conversion between these happens regularly. The energy released in a fission reaction, for instance, involves a decrease in mass. Another example is high energy photons creating massive particles.

The inflationary Big Bang theory (according to what I know of it) starts with nothing but a vacuum. The energy fluctuates (it can do that on small time scales), and particles are generated that begin to cause space to expand. The gravitational force separates from the other forces, releasing a great deal of energy which basically powers the rest of the Big Bang. Thus, it starts with no matter and no energy, but occurs anyway.

And the first law of TD is basically conservation of energy, so maybe you used the wrong number (you probably just typed it wrong on accident or something). As for energy leaving a system, that is true, to a degree. There is also a concept called entropy, and a tendency for entropy to increase. Entropy wants to increase, energy to decrease, and if reactions happen is determined whether the above tendencies are favored or not (they are often at odds, but what this means if that if you quantify the entropy and energy changes and subtract the energy change from the entropy change, a positive result means the reaction will be favorable).

Concerning the mansion, evolution doesn't say necessarily that it will happen, but that it can happen. Thus, if you blow up enough houses, you should eventually end up with a mansion. Again, the question isn't if it can happen, but what the probabilities are. Most would agree that they are pretty low.

Quote[/b] ]...they believe in the principle of uniformity--that the present is the key to the past; that all things continue by natural processes as they have always done.

Now, this is a really good point. Though, it should be admitted that this is pretty much all we have for determining the past, and it works pretty well. The example you gave is an extreme one that misrepresents the idea. No, an earthquake is not happening now, but they do happen. Therefore, it is assumed that they happened in the past as well. Vast chunks of land disappearing for days before reappearing is not something that happens today, and so it is assumed that is has not been happening in the past. The concept of uniformity is not that illogical (not any more so than human reasoning in general). Anyway, the weakness in the concept is not so much the logic, but the fact that it is limited by the people who use it (through ignorance, bias, mistakes, or whatever else).


Personally, I just don't accept Darwinian evolution because of the fossil record. That is strong enough reason for me. There is another type of evolutionary theory which explains the fossil record, but I feel this post is long enough for the moment.

-Brent

 

[Moody]

My mom works at a library and I have asked her to get me that one Stephen Hawking book about the big bang theory. Not that I will understand it but I think it would be nice to read. I really only thought of the energy being released like that in a fusion reaction. And as a Christian I do believe in evolution. Micro evolution that is. Micro Evolution is an entirely different thing than Macro, Micro Evolution actually happens. But the truth remains that Macro evolution, the kind in Darwins theory, there is simply not enough time for us to change from apes. If we took the pace of Macro Evolution and sped it up 100000 times then there would be about enough time for that to happen.

 

[Mr_Eon]

I personally use Geology as my inspiration in this addition to the discussion. Geological evolution proceeds from two basic theories - the theory of gradual change and the theory of abrubt change.

Take the Mediterranean as an example - there is no argument that the Med used to be both a grassy plain and a salt flat at times in the past. Once it was NOT a sea at all. As the Ice Age ended, though, and the water levels rose (all that water locked up at the poles being released into the sea table) there is no argument that the pillars of Gibraltar were breached and the Atlantic came into that basin and formed the Mediterranean.

The only question is whether this was a cataclysmic event involving enormous Tsunami hundreds of feet high, or whether there was just a waterfall there for a thousand years, and a steadily rising water level in the Med basin. It's the same with evolution.

Evolutionary timescales are BIG they are to Cultural or Technological timescales what your life is compared to the history of your nation. But in what way do the changes occur? Genetics seems to support the theory that quite a small group, with some advantage, can breed up to replace a larger less functional population quite quickly, simply through natural wastage.


Eon

 

[Kidan]

Yes but why isn't it happening today?

Why in the past 4000 years of recorded history have we only lost animals to extinction?  Why in the pat 4000 years of recorded history have we not domesticated a new animal?  Why haven't we noticed a difference between what was and what now is within a single animal?

Take sheep. a lamb today, is exactly the same as a lamb from 4000 years ago, why isn't it bigger, or faster, or smaller or stronger, or smarter?  Why isn't it in the process of changing into a different species?  Too long of a lifetime you say?

Ok, take those fun fruit flies.  Why haven't they changed species?  There has been thousands upon thousands of generations of fruit flies since Mengel (sp) and Darwin, yet they are still fruit flies.  With the same characteristics and breeding attributes as when Mengel (I might be thinking of the wrong person here ) first started studying them in an effort to prove evolution.  We routinely document how we expect them to produce offspring from mating them with their siblings, and it still produces the exact same results, why has there not been something new?  Why are we still screaming 'Look at evolution' as we point at birth defects that happen consistently when we breed sibling fruit flies.


And why does this topic keep getting brought back up..

 

[daszo24]

Sir Nukes, is there any examples that you can give me of spontaneous generation? It would be very interesting to see if this is happening or has ever happened, out side of the big bang.

I do agree that spontaneous generation and and evolution are not at all the same thing, however, you even imply that spontaneous generation is imperitive for the big bang:

Quote[/b] ]The inflationary Big Bang theory (according to what I know of it) starts with nothing but a vacuum. The energy fluctuates (it can do that on small time scales), and particles are generated that begin to cause space to expand. The gravitational force separates from the other forces, releasing a great deal of energy which basically powers the rest of the Big Bang. Thus, it starts with no matter and no energy, but occurs anyway.

If I understand you correctly, you are saying (though you may be stating what evolution believes) that spontaneous generation occured--that nothing at all existed and that something came out of it. Atoms, which are obviously the basic building blocks of everything, do not form from nothing...that is impossible. If energy did not exist and matter did not exist, they can not then exist. And if a vacuum existed, that implies that nothing existed, and therefore nothing could exist from that.

Uniformity is not the only way we can really know about the past. The Bible states God created the heavens and the Earth and all that is contained within them. The problem with uniformitarianism is that it throws out the single most important factor of reality: God. Uniformitarianism (unless alterations are made to the beleif) explicity denies the fact of Creation, since that is an exceptional event which is not happening now and will never happen in the same way again. It also denies God's supernatural intervention in the world. In short, uniformitarianism denies creation, the fall of man, and thus the need for a Messiah--the entire history of salvation.

I do agree that uniformity is not illogical (sorry if I stated that I believed that it was earlier). However, it denies key parts of history (which we know are true), namely what is mentioned above. Basically what I was trying to get at earlier is that if you follow uniformitiy's logical line to conclusion, it denies much of what happened in the past.

Finally, as you well know, the fossil records do not match up with Darwin's theory either

Quote[/b] ]The only question is whether this was a cataclysmic event involving enormous Tsunami hundreds of feet high, or whether there was just a waterfall there for a thousand years, and a steadily rising water level in the Med basin. It's the same with evolution.

Or is it possible that the Great Flood accomplished this? I don't have time to go into Biblical Catastrophism right now, but it is, from what I've read, the most convincing argument as to how many of these geological wonders happened.

 

[Flashon]

Heres how i take Science and Christianity.

science is science, Christianity is Christianity. They can have a different opinion! SO What?

I'd like to think that Christianity>Science. But I'm one of the sci lovers.. Probably science is the most thing i like if i take away computer (all computer) sleep and eat ;P

Just ignore the fact it tries to oppose Christianity. We know by heart that Christ is here with us and thats a fact!

God Bless
Flash

 

[Mr_Eon]

Well Flash, I use a different organ to do my "knowing" than the heart - but whatever works for you, works for you.

Now - why haven't we domesticated a new animal in 4,000 years? Try the HORSE - one group of people had those, the others didn't and it made a HUGE difference. Now, of course, we've got them all over the world, but it spread from somewhere.

As for your contention that domesticated animals haven't changed much - frankly that's a load of bullocks. Look at the way that Cows and Pigs have changed in domestication. Look at horses like the Arabella and the Arabian stallion. One of the great things about coming from a country with a long history of agriculture is that we actually HAVE some ancient breeds of domestic cattle still knocking about in specialist herds. I've seen an Old English Longhorn and I'll tell you what, it's a WORLD away from a Freisan Heifer. The same goes for pigs - look at the huge pink porker, now go and look at a wild boar. Spot the difference yet?

Regarding Flood theory - there WAS no great flood. Or rather there were a hell of a LOT of great floods. In the fertile Crescent where life began you have the Black Sea and you have the Mediterranean. BOTH of these areas are natural bottlenecks with differing sea levels from the main bodies of water they're attached to. Both of them gave way at some point, leading to lots of flooding.


Eon

 

[timor]

I must interject something at this point. As a Christian, I DO believe in the ability for organisms to adapt and change - I do NOT believe in random mutations spawning completely different species. I am not talking about micro evolution here, nor macro. I simply think it's pretty obvious that organisms can change and adapt (look at bacteria). I do, however, reject the notion of a common ancestor - on the microscopic level, many of the life systems in this world are irreducibly complex and could never have arisen progressively.

Also, since I pretty much skimmed this topic, daszo, be careful not to confuse evolution with abiogenesis.. (which I don't believe, either)

 

[SirNukes]

Spontaneous generation both is and is not proven. I do not respect your method of arguing this point, which involves switching definitions for the terms you are using. Stick to one definition, please, or at least don't attack my position just because you decided to switch meanings. You were originally speaking of the spontaneous generation theory, which deals with the organization of living organisms from lifeless matter (look it up in a dictionary, if you don't believe me), and I responded to that. Now you have switched the definition on me, which I do not appreciate, to the generalized idea of something coming from nothing. Spontaneous generation, in this sense, is proven. It is a repeatable observation, and has even found its use in the engineering field. That's right, not only does it happen, but it is used in technology. If you want to check that, look up how a barrier tunneling microscope works sometime.

Quote[/b] ]Atoms, which are obviously the basic building blocks of everything, do not form from nothing...that is impossible.

Again, please do not use the word impossible. And atoms are not the basic building blocks of everything; you only think it is obvious because it is all you know. The basic known building blocks are photons, leptons, mesons and baryons (which can, in theory, be broken down even further into quarks, though this has not been yet observed, last I checked). At least, that's what I know, and I have so far received the impression that I know more on this matter than you (no offense, I am sure you know more than I do about plenty of other things).

Quote[/b] ]And if a vacuum existed, that implies that nothing existed, and therefore nothing could exist from that.

Which is untrue. Energy does fluctuate, and particles can be (and are) spontaneously created; however, this happens on short time scales. The time it would have theoretically taken for the gravitational force to separate is 10^-35 seconds, though, which is sufficiently short.

Uniformitarianism does not throw out God. It simply assumes that God's influence today is representative of God's influence in the past (you could say God does nothing or that God powers every event, but in either case you assume He is consistent). It does deny creation in the 6,000 years ago sense, but it does not deny the fall of man (it deals with geology), so does not deny (nor affirm) the need for a savior. Also, I would like to point out that your trust in the Bible assumes the same logic behind uniformitarianism. You assume (and so do I) that your Bible today is the same Bible that has existed for ~2,000+ years, only translated. Any sort of supernatural being (God, Satan, etc) could have changed it, but you take for granted that that did not happen. You could be wrong for making that assumption, but it is still the best assumption you can make. Uniformitarianism uses the same logic, but applies it to geology.


Anyway, as for evolution, there is actually a pretty elegant way to explain the fossil record and the lack of major mutations today. Most people aren't taught it (and thus don't spread it around)--I don't know why. Punctuated equilibrium, this other form of the evolutionary theory, states that evolution occurs in bursts. This would happen when the Earth is bombarded by excessive radiation, such as during the flipping of the Earth's magnetic field or when gamma ray bursters occur in our galaxy. Personally, I don't fully buy it, but I don't have any counter arguments either.

-Brent

 

[Mr_Eon]

It's obvious that there have BEEN periods of history where evolution was more intense. For example, during the domination of the dinosaurs (a very stable period ecologically speaking) it was a case of bigger and better versions of the more succesful designs. Then the environment would change slightly and the optimum design would be changed along with it.

However, after Nemesis put an end to all that, and we had the big die off, the Earth eventually recovered, but recovered missing large predators, herbivores and a lot of other slots in the food chains. All the Marine Reptiles died out (well, not ALL but you know what I mean) and it took quite some time for Whales to fill that niche and teach the Shark respect again. Birds filled the niche for awhile - but Mammals were just more flexible than Avians in the end, especially Primates.

Of course, since the Mammalian age we've seen a flattening of that effect caused by the advent of man. Nowadays we pretty much swan into any ecosystem we like and set ourselves up as the primary consumer of land and the top foodchain predator.

The creation of life. Chemical Soup + Energy = Amino Acids. Amino Acids -> Microbes. Microbes -> Amoebae. And so on. Admittedly, nobody has had an Amoeba in the lab for the millions of years it takes for it to turn into an invertebrate lifeform, but then we've not really been around that long, have we?

As has been said, the creation of life from no life has been accomplished. We can achieve it in the lab. If there's one lesson that should have been learned by now, it's that if we can do it in a lab, nature has usually found a way to achieve it by herself.

I mean, few people now consider the existence of microbial life on Mars absurd. I would just LOVE to hear how it doing so glorifies God. Rather, to me, it suggests that the process of life is so universal, so common, that it exists on the only two planets we've thus far been able to survey.


Eon

 

[sealcomm]

Evoltion is not 'survival of the fitest'

evoltion in it's simplist form says that one thing changes into another with added information.

science says you add salt and water you get salty water.

evoltion says that you add salt and water and you get pea and ham soup. there's extra, we didn't put it there it just formed.

The SECOND law of thermodynamics (simply) states that things degrade. not upgrade, you lose information not gain it.

So you don't get people from monkeys. Just like when people lose information through defects you don't get monkeys. you get people with limited function. No matter how much they lose, they won't become a monkey again.



www.answersingenesis.com

if you have major q's go here.

THe fact is evolution isn't a theory cos it isn't proven. It's a belief system throug which people view the facts. It's the same with Genesis, it's a belief through which we view the facts. (paradym)

evolution, isn't science. you can't observe any experiment and reproduce the same experiment with the same result to get a proven theory.

So believe what you like,

i believe what God told Moses, and any other legend in the Bible who wrote it down



sealcomm

 

[timor]

Eon, the whole problem with common ancestry, especially that of beginnings in such simple organisms as ameobas, is that the complex structures we have today could never have evolved, step by step. Systems, such as something "simple" like the cilium or something everyday like blood clotting simply cannot have formed gradually due to dependance and cooperation. Heck, blood clotting makes a Rube Goldberg machine look laughingly easy and to-the-point. I suggest to you, Eon, whom I know is reluctant to buy books on other relgiions, Darwin's Black Box. It is written by Micheal J. Behe, who is not a creationist and surprisingly trusts in common ancestry (though how, I have no idea - many times in his book, though, he mentions that he is not trying to totally disprove things, btu encourage other scientists to revise theories..I believe that's how he pulls it off).

 

[Mr_Eon]

Blood clotting is actually not a great system of defence, there are many, many times when it is counterproductive.

What you have to remember about Thermodynamics is that it refers to the LONG RUN. Now, I know you guys think the long run is about 10,000 years (if that) but Physics says that it is a period of time far FAR longer than that. It is VERY possible that nature forms order out of chaos over discrete time periods, it's just that over the LONG run that order is doomed to break down back into disorder.

 

[SirNukes]

Actually, thermodynamics doesn't refer just to the long run, sealcomm just misinterpretted the second law. I'm not sure how well it applies on really short time scales in which uncertainty kicks in, but it applies at least as well as conservation of energy. Anyway, what the law says is that total disorder (entropy) increases. This does not pose a problem for the evolutionary theory or the big bang.

Things don't necissarily degrade. If they did, life of any kind would be unable to form. Actually, one way to define life is a system that decreases entropy. In this case, the 2nd law of TD simply says that the environment will become more disordered, which does happen. Increasing disorder applies to dropping a rock on the ground (kenetic energy becomes dispersed primarily as thermal energy, which is a much more random form of kenetic energy), or to the creation of the universe (the forces went from unified to a four-way split, releasing the energy for pretty much everything else).

 

[timor]

The effectiveness of blood clotting was not the issue. The issue is how complex it is and how it arose. Whether it is 100% effective all the time is irrelevant. I'm refering to when it DOES happen, and the ridiculously complex and interdependant chain of events that occurs.

 

[Avesther]

Goo to You science fails to answer one question:

Where did the goo come from?

Did enough goo really spontaneously come into existance from nothing to create the entire universe?

 

[Mr_Eon]

Hydrogen... Although where the H came from is one of those little mysteries that *I* can't answer. Unlike you, I don't pretend to have all the answers, just a few of them, subject to change or amendment!


Eon

 

[SirNukes]

Well, going by the Big Bang theory, when the gravitational force separated out and released energy, that energy had to, you know, be energy, of course. The early universe would have been basically a big mess of elementary particles. Photons would produce pairs of particles, matter and anti-matter would join to reform photons, so forth (with a slight excess of normal matter being formed). Eventually, as the universe expanded (and the photons lost energy), it would cool to where baryons would no longer form (the end of the Hadron Era); later, it would cool to where leptons wouldn't form (end of the Lepton Era). This would essentially leave a bunch of protons, electrons, and photons; however, they could not form atoms because the universe would still have been too hot (any atoms would be broken up). Eventually, the universe cooled to where atoms would form--the protons and electrons formed hydrogen, which would have then been transparent to the photons (which were formerly getting scattered, absorbed, and re-emitted, primarily by free electrons), releasing them. This accounts for the universal microwave background radiation, one of the main pieces of evidence of the Big Bang theory. Anyway, from there, hydrogen gathered to form stars, fusion reactions created heavier elements, etc.

 

[ToJ | Dead_Aim]

Wow Sir Nukes thats deep bro. Thanks for that science lesson during the summer