Evolution versus Creationism

[H2Oya 05]

In the interest of fairness, please do not vote until Hifi gator has revealed his ground breaking defence of creationism. The last two hundred years of science have had ample time to defend evolution, so now it is hifi's turn.

[Boz]

I am a Jatravartid. I firmly believe that the entire universe was sneezed out of the nose of a being called The Great Green Arkleseizure, and I live in perpetual fear of the The Coming Of The Great White Handkerchief.


Everyone celebrate with me. This marks my 850th consecutive post that does not contain a single original thought. I should reach the 1000 mark sometime before Kenner League starts, with any luck.


(sorry, I couldn't wait for hifi)

[SFHoya99]

boz1 said:

I am a Jatravartid. I firmly believe that the entire universe was sneezed out of the nose of a being called The Great Green Arkleseizure, and I live in perpetual fear of the The Coming Of The Great White Handkerchief.


Everyone celebrate with me. This marks my 850th consecutive post that does not contain a single original thought. I should reach the 1000 mark sometime before Kenner League starts, with any luck.


(sorry, I couldn't wait for hifi)

Boz, did you see the movie? It was a horrible idea to even try to make that a movie to begin with, though I do think the casting was fairly well done.

I was skeptical, and then the opening credits hit. The dolphin "So Long and Thanks for all the Fish" montage was hysterical. Perfectly done -- you can't do the book one for one so you have to capture the random humor in other ways that are more applicable to movie format than print.

Then the rest of the movie came and tried to go waaay too literal. Utter crapper.

[Jack]

boz1 said:

Everyone celebrate with me. This marks my 850th consecutive post that does not contain a single original thought. I should reach the 1000 mark sometime before Kenner League starts, with any luck.


(sorry, I couldn't wait for hifi)

I am trying to remember the original thought somewhere in the first 30-40 posts on the new board. Regale us with tales of yore, Boz.

[Filo]

Yet more popular culture references that I had to google. I never realized that I was a pop culture dunce until I started reading hoyatalk. I am not sure that is such a bad thing though

[Boz]

jack said:

I am trying to remember the original thought somewhere in the first 30-40 posts on the new board. Regale us with tales of yore, Boz.

Yeah, well I think one of them was congratulating you whiny little Red Sox Nation bitches for your team finally not choking for once in a century.

Not sure if that's original, but saying anything good about the Red Sox was definitely a first for me.

[By the way - in response: did see the Guide movie, thought they did an OK job, and fell in love with Zooey Deschanel; it wasn't perfect, but it wasn't terrible; yes, the cast was the best part. I was very impressed by Mos Def, he was very good. Alan Rickman was the perfect voice for Marvin]

[hifigator]

h2oya05 said:

In the interest of fairness, please do not vote until Hifi gator has revealed his ground breaking defence of creationism. The last two hundred years of science have had ample time to defend evolution, so now it is hifi's turn.

I never said I had any ground breaking evidence and for that matter I never said if I was supporting one side or the other, just that people ask the wrong questions and that the two thoughts don't have to be mutually exclusive.


Now just a couple of questions for those who believe in the strictest most literal evolutionary concept, and by which I mean those who think that everything "just happened" and that the mechanism by which everything we see developed was simply random order and natural progression.

1. What started the very beginning? The "big bang" theory is often claimed but not only is there zero evidence of such an occurence, there is zero empirical supportive evidence to any similar happening. Technically it really should be the big bang hypothesis.

2. Why is there such a tremendously diverse assortment of life?

3. Given this is supposed to be the "scientific" view, why does this theory refute other "proven" scientific law, specifically the second law of thermodynamics. In simple terms, the second law of TD states that things will tend towards disorder from order. More specifically unless affected by an ourside force, order cannot come from disorder.

4. Where is the missing chain? We often hear of a missing link but the fact is that we have a missing chain. The principle that makes the evolutionary theory a logical and viable one is that there were millions upon millions of infinitessimally small changes from specie to specie that happened over and over again. What both our physical observations tell us as well as what the fossil record shows is something different however. We don't have a single record of a half bird half something else. Similarly, we don't have half turtle-half monkey etc... If the millions upon millions of these "evolutions" have actually happened over the years, then the lack of just one such intermediary specie due to "an incomplete fossil record" is dubious at best.


more to come, but this is enough for you to chew on for a while

[StPetersburgHoya (Inactive)]

That is the most baseless argument I have ever heard. It ignores the fact that turtles and birds are not even in the same category of animal and would not logically have evolved from one to another. In addition, points 1 and 2 are non-starters they don't prove or disprove either position. Evolution doesn't rely on the big bang as part of its argument and neither does creationism. How can a law of thermo-dynamics - which is a very specific scientific field seeking to explain only thermo-dynamics apply to the whole of bio-diversity?

Your arguments are stupid, uninformed, illogical, and out of context.

Please leave this board and let us enjoy our off season.

[CO_Hoya]

1. Any competent astrophysicist, cosmologist, etc. will disagree with your statement "zero evidence". George Gamow (for whom a building on the U of Colorado campus is named) would be particularly grumpy, if he weren't dead.

2. Why not?

3. Simply, the 2nd Law applies to a closed system. You haven't defined this system, but, if you limit it to the Earth, you're missing the boat. (Hint - don't forget that orb of fire in the sky.)

4. This is baffling. Perhaps it would help if you defined "evolution" in your next post, because your use of it doesn't jibe with what they taught me.

[Bahstin]

Isn't the universe expanding and isn't that evidence in support of the big bang theory?

[nychoya3]

"The "big bang" theory is often claimed but not only is there zero evidence of such an occurence, there is zero empirical supportive evidence to any similar happening."

Suck on that Steven Hawking! I guess if by "no empirical evidence" you mean, "no evidence that doesn't make my head hurt and has all kinds of funny numbers and squiggles" then you've got a point.

Seriously, please feel free to indulge your insanity elsewhere. There must be a park bench from which you can scream at passerbys where you would find a more receptive audience.

Please, please, please ban this clown admin.

[HoyaOnBothSides]

Are any of us even remotely qualified to discuss this? I'm guessin this thread was started to have a little fun with HiFauxGator's strange obsession with this topic and with his postings on random message boards, not to have a real debate.

Unless you're a theologian or a scientist, probably best not to try to sound informed (assuming it's possible for a theologian to sound intelligent about this) on this topic..

I read the elegant universe and i think my head is still spinning

[Boz]

bahstin said:

Isn't the universe expanding and isn't that evidence in support of the big bang theory?

Tee it UP!!
And my streak continues. . . .

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at 900 miles an hour
That's orbiting at 19 miles a second, so it's reckoned
A sun that is the source of all our power
The sun and you and me, and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at 40,000 miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the Milky Way!

Our galaxy itself contains 100 billion stars
It's 100,000 light-years side-to-side
It bulges in the middle, 16,000 light-years thick
But out by us it's just 3,000 light-years wide
We're 30,000 light-years from galactic central point
We go round every 200 million years
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe!

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whiz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light you know
Twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure
How amazingly unlikely is your birth
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space
Because there's bugger all down here on Earth!

[hifigator]

stpetersburghoya said:

That is the most baseless argument I have ever heard. It ignores the fact that turtles and birds are not even in the same category of animal and would not logically have evolved from one to another. In addition, points 1 and 2 are non-starters they don't prove or disprove either position. Evolution doesn't rely on the big bang as part of its argument and neither does creationism. How can a law of thermo-dynamics - which is a very specific scientific field seeking to explain only thermo-dynamics apply to the whole of bio-diversity?

Your arguments are stupid, uninformed, illogical, and out of context.

Please leave this board and let us enjoy our off season.

It is very nice that you so blanketly dismiss many of the difficult issues which confront the theory of evolution. I have read many books on the topic, some written by proponents others by critics. Neither has arrived at a simple conclusion, yet you have somehow solved this eternal dilemna.

When I use the example of turtles and birds that is merely an illustration. The point is there is not a single example of something that is half of one specie and half of another, nor is their a fossil record to signify one such intermediate specie. The lack of just one such creature or fossil record of such in spite of the millions upon millions of such occassions is dubious at best.

As to whether creation relies on the Big Bang or not, that is not the point. The point is that even if evolution happened exactly as suggested, there is still a very real question of how the ball got rolling. Yet once again you blanketly dismiss this as not relevant. You are either stubborn or simply argumentative.
Lastly as to the second law of TD, the whole point is that science laws are just that. They are laws which have been proven scientifically and don't have exceptions. Once again you blanketly dismiss this as being in conflict, but in point of fact this is one of the major questions which those who back evolution in the strictest sense have to deal with. Their studies, which are presumably done "scientifically" in nature which means without a predetermined bias but with a predictable and repeatable outcome have proven that an isolated community will tend from order to chaos if left alone. Does that mean that this couldn't be the one exception? That point could be argued, but all that would do is bring in the very imprecise nature which we are presumably seeking to avoid.

Lastly, you seem to be thinking about this in the wrong light. I haven't promoted either side of the argument. I have merely pointed out legitimate issues which are at best difficult to handle and which are also difficult to explain cohesively and within the other accepted fields of science.

That brings me to my ultimate point: my complaint, if you will, is not that evolution is wrong. The problem is that many present it as a proven fact in its entirety. Yes we see minor changes within species. We also discover new species and of course we also discover now extinct species. We can also track examples of the "survival of the fittest" like the english moths in the 1900's. Without going into details, over time one particular moth gradually became darker, such that the light colored moths no longer existed. A better ability to blend in and therefore not stand out and get eaten by predators was credited with this occurence. Right or wrong doesn't matter. That was a perceived example of evolution on the micro scale. But to take what we know now and jump from that point to the point where we are attempting to say that everything evolved from start to finsh from nothing is entirely a different proposal. And in my opinion it is simply a matter of faith. You are putting your confidence in that which you cannot see and cannot prove. Ironically that is not that far from most religious views is it?

[washingtonhoya]

Anyone else think that not only has hifi "read many books on the topic," but also that his apartment smells of rich mahogany?

[/off-topic]

[hifigator]

nychoya3 said:

"The "big bang" theory is often claimed but not only is there zero evidence of such an occurence, there is zero empirical supportive evidence to any similar happening."

Suck on that Steven Hawking! I guess if by "no empirical evidence" you mean, "no evidence that doesn't make my head hurt and has all kinds of funny numbers and squiggles" then you've got a point.

Seriously, please feel free to indulge your insanity elsewhere. There must be a park bench from which you can scream at passerbys where you would find a more receptive audience.

Please, please, please ban this clown admin.

Referencing someone who proposed a certain idea ("hypothesis") is not in any way proof. I could reference critics of his views, does that "disprove" them?
There are certainly those who have suggested something similar to a big bang type of start. Nothing wrong with that, just understand that we don't have ANY evidence of it having happened nor has anyone been able to replicate even the most minute of working models of such.
Again, I am not saying it didn't happen that way, I just get a little irritated when some suggest with certainty that it did.

[StPetersburgHoya (Inactive)]

hifigator said:

nychoya3 said:

"The "big bang" theory is often claimed but not only is there zero evidence of such an occurence, there is zero empirical supportive evidence to any similar happening."

Suck on that Steven Hawking! I guess if by "no empirical evidence" you mean, "no evidence that doesn't make my head hurt and has all kinds of funny numbers and squiggles" then you've got a point.

Seriously, please feel free to indulge your insanity elsewhere. There must be a park bench from which you can scream at passerbys where you would find a more receptive audience.

Please, please, please ban this clown admin.

Referencing someone who proposed a certain idea ("hypothesis") is not in any way proof. I could reference critics of his views, does that "disprove" them?
There are certainly those who have suggested something similar to a big bang type of start. Nothing wrong with that, just understand that we don't have ANY evidence of it having happened nor has anyone been able to replicate even the most minute of working models of such.
Again, I am not saying it didn't happen that way, I just get a little irritated when some suggest with certainty that it did.

How does this bulster your contention regarding creationism in the least?

[hifigator]

washingtonhoya said:

Anyone else think that not only has hifi "read many books on the topic," but also that his apartment smells of rich mahogany?

[/off-topic]

I denote the obvious sarcasm and for the record, let it show that my house may smell like lasagna, grouper or beer at any point, but not mahogany.

For whatever reason I took and interest in the subject and did a science project on it in a non-religious high school, and I also wrote a paper in college on the subject as well.

[hifigator]

stpetersburghoya said:

hifigator said:

Referencing someone who proposed a certain idea ("hypothesis") is not in any way proof. I could reference critics of his views, does that "disprove" them?
There are certainly those who have suggested something similar to a big bang type of start. Nothing wrong with that, just understand that we don't have ANY evidence of it having happened nor has anyone been able to replicate even the most minute of working models of such.
Again, I am not saying it didn't happen that way, I just get a little irritated when some suggest with certainty that it did.

How does this bulster your contention regarding creationism in the least?

It Doesn't! When did I say it did? Creationists too must have quited a bit of faith. They too are putting their trust in that which they cannot see and cannot recreate, just like evolutionists.

[StPetersburgHoya (Inactive)]

hifigator said:

stpetersburghoya said:

How does this bulster your contention regarding creationism in the least?

It Doesn't!

Good work Clarence Darrow. You have an excellent argumentative style all of the other kids in first grade must really look up to you.