Once again...Evolution

Hey,
I'm not sure how many of you feel about the Evolution debate, but I was wondering if could get a few things clarified. I'm not here to attack Christians. I'm this has been discussed many times before, but I didn't do a search, sorry.

Mainly, I'm wondering about the Neanderthal. For Creationists, what are the meaning of these fossils? Actually, how do Creationists account for many of these primitive species like Homo erectus? What about Homo heidelbergensis that has characteristics similar to both Homo erectus and Homo sapiens (an intermediate form perhaps). Are these species only similar, having no history that connects them, or are these fossils just plain wrong?



Thanks.

 

That's a really good question, I've often wondered that myself. I've heard some half cocked lame excuses in the past, but I would like to see a serious point of view on this from an intelligent and informed Christian.

 

i think its halarious becuase most christians that believe in creationism believe that humans and dinosaurs were around at the same time...i mean if you believe in creationism then you must believe that. Thats such a load of shit saying we can date fossils and they are millions of years apart.

 

Creationists say that dating methods are flawed. They also say that pre-man fossils are really just large chimps or gorillas or something or that scientists made up the skeleton based on a tooth. One of the reasons creationists say that dating methods are wrong is because trees have been found through many rock strata layers.

 

are you a creationist? i don't ask to critize or any such thing but if so i might be up for a bit of a debate.

 

No, I am not. Well, I believe that God could have created life, or lead life through systematic changes, but that it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. But by Creationist, if you mean Young Earth Creationist, then no, I am not.

Even though still, I am still up for debate. I can take the evolutionist side, you can take the creationist side (any good debator can debate things he/she doens't believe in ) haah, just razzin ya. If you start out a statement that can spur a debate, then I wil try to take the creationist side unless one shows up, and then I will ride the fence and tell other people when they are wrong on both sides.

 

eh for now i rather sleep then debate. One thing i do not understand...again regarding fossils blah blah is....Yes i know no one can be 100% sure that humans and dinasours didn't live at the same time and that the fossils of humans we find are not actually humans but there are alot of things we aren't 100% sure of and yet consider fact. Why would someone go against all this evidence and fact basically hitting them in the face... i guess it has something to do with this thing people call faith. The Time period of dinasaurs and humans is something that i just except based on all the evidence and research we have done that shows the two species lived millions of years apart..whereas there is 0 evidence that shows they coincided. I don't see how someone can have a belief that basically defy's such a stand-out fact.

sorry for the jumbled thoughts...its sometimes hard to express what i really mean to say when i speak of religious topics...the frustration clowds my thought process.

 

Like Burbot, I see the question as largely irrelevant. I am not a creationist per se because I don't really worry about the question. However, I would like to try and explain some of their positions.

The thing many evolutionists don't seem to understand is that creationism (especially young earth types) deny some of the fundamental *assumptions* of the evolutionist position. The evolutionist holds up a rock and says that it is 800 million years old based on the rate of decay of some element. The creationist says that to assume that the rate of decay is eternally constant regardless of any unknown external factors is not a safe assumption. As an extension of this denial, creationists can point out that if God created that rock yesterday with that same concentration of elements, said dating method would give completely false results based on that same assumption.

I have also heard it argued that if the fossils are millions of years apart in age, the fossil "record" becomes meaningless. We have no way of determining ancestry between two fossils that are so separated. Similarities at that point *might* mean that the two have some sort of shared ancestry, but, given one or two million or years, they might not be related at all. Entire populations might have risen and fallen in that time. Given the time span, it is reasonably possible that two similar fossils have completely different (and unknown) ancestries.

Like I said, I don't necessarily agree, but there it is.

 

So do Creationsists just deny that evolution happened with humans, or that evolution by natural selection is false regardless of the species because of the sketchy fossil dates? I could have sworn that the horse's history had been traced.

"They also say that pre-man fossils are really just large chimps or gorillas or something or that scientists made up the skeleton based on a tooth"

Isn't that similar to me saying, "a Panther is just a black Lion"?

What about comparing amino-acid sequences? Is our affinity with the chimpanzee in that respect just another similarity that might not mean anything except God created us all?

Also, just for fun, on a more philosophical level, why would God have abandoned the Neanderthal? Isn't it thought that the Neanderthal buried their dead? Perhaps they could have developed a language and, given enough time, could have developed a relationship with God.

 

To get this in motion, I will try to explain the main schools of thought surrounding creationism and evolution, and put my argument accross as best I can.

Firstly there is the Young Earth Creation Science belief system. These are people who take the word of the bible to be literal, absolute truth and the direct word of God himself. Such creationists believe that god created the Earth over a 6 day period, days as we know them i.e. 24 hours. This is believed to have occured a maximum of 10,000 years ago. Every living creature or biological entity, including extinct species (neanderthal man, dinosaurs, mammoths etc etc) are all descendants of the creatures that God created during the six day creation of the Earth. The Earth according the the Young Earth Theory did not look like it does today, it was the Great Flood which created many of the natural landmarks such as volcanoes, cliffs, mountains etc that we see in the world around us.

Secondly there is the Old Earth Creation Science belief system. These people believe that the Earth was created in 6 days, but that these days were not days as we know them, they were perhaps 2 to 2.5 billion years long, accounting for the 12 to 15 billion years since the creation of the Universe, while others believe there were massive gaps between 6 24 hour days. All living beings alive today are descendants of the first beings created by God etc (this is where young and old earth science converge).

Next there is the Theistic Science belief system. These people believe that the Universe is 12 to 15 billion years old. The Earth was created 4.5 billion years ago, and the land evolved as the Earth grew older giving rise to volcanoes, seas, cliffs and canyons, mountain ranges etc Humans evolved from the fist living cell which created by God. God manipulated evolution do a degree and finally homosapiens arose. What is special about humans when compared to other animals is that God created the soul.

Finally there is my personal belief system - Pure Science. But I'm afraid I can't explain it as briefly as creationism (mabye because we actually know this stuff for a fact), but to efficiently argue tje case for creationism or evolution I think it is essential that all the facts are laid bare.

12 to 15 billion years ago the universe was a single point, so incredibly dense it is almost immpossible to concieve. This single point exploded and gave rise to quarks and leptons alongside antiquarks and antileptons and radiation. from this dense soup of particals (about 0.01 seconds after the big bang) some of these particals came together to form protons and nutrons. 3 seconds later the only leptons which still existed were electrons, all antiparticals had been annihilated (I love that word for some reason). 30 seconds later nuclei to hydrogen and helium began to develop. Everything in the universe was incerdibly hot (around 2000000 oC) and immensly powerful, and was moving away from the blast centre - ground zero if you will - at a very high speed, thus the universe expanded and is still expanding to this day. The speed at which the universe (bear with me here, there is a good reason why I am going into this) is expanding, is slowing down, and the temperature of the universe has dropped to -270oC. By looking at the rate of cooling and kinesis of the universal matter (stars and galaxies etc), and because we can see the universe at a much younger age due to the finite speed of light (the stars we see reflected their light millions if not billions of years ago, so essentially we are looking back in time when we look at a star) we can work out a relatively simple equation to to find out the rate at which the universe is expanding and cooling, and from that we can work out the approximate age of the universe.

The Universal matter, ie gases and metal and other debris which developed from the initial stages of the big bang globulated (through gravitation) if you will (from pods of swirling gas matter) over billions of years, giving rise to larger and larger masses which continued to move/swirl around one another depending on the gravity of objets and the distance from such objects. Some of these objects became gas giants, like our sun, and others developed a crust, these became planets, asteroids and moons. Our planet was formed some 4.5 billion years ago, after our galaxy had fromed, and was formed as a large lifeless waterless mass of rock with a heated core of elements. As the Earth grew older the the heat in the Earth's core gave rise to many chemicals and particals which were pushed out onto the surface of the Earth creating atmosphere, water and seas believed to be the cradle of life. Inorganic compounds combined through chemical reactions combined with the presence of light from our sun became more complex, giving rise to organic carbon based compounds - which forms the basis of all life. over time these organic compounds evolved and grew into singular cell organisms and bacteria. These organisms - life - continued to evolve and are still evolving today. You and me, and all life on Earth comes from such humble origins.

I hope that makes sense
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where did the single point come from though? did it spring from nothing?

 

No, most creationists deny that macro-evolution happens but do not deny micro-evolution/natural selection. They deny that new species can arise through the random mutations of genes and antural selection.

http://emporium.turnpike.net/C/cs/emlu.htm
No, they go with something more like this.

oh, and sinbannac, that was a piss poor explanation in the context of evolution. It seems like you copied and passted a huge thigns about the origins of the universe, then gloassed over evolution which is somethign i and creationists hate about many evolutionists. How did these organic substances "grow" into cells? How could an eye form? Science can't prove anything, only disprove. I am not saying you believe this, but that is a FACT any good scientist knows.

 

There is absolutely no reason to be so rude, I am not having a go at you personally. I can quite honestly say that I did not copy and paste anything, but I did try to simplify the information and I apologise if it came across badly. I am really quite well read on this subject. I have written a number scientific papers myself, and am quite capable of putting together information off my own back. I can reference everything I write, I checked all of my information from various scientific journals, books and a few good websites. As a scientist, I do not believe that everything is set in stone, science is an ever evolving and changing subject, as we learn more and more, theories prove or disprove other theories, and when I say 'prove' I mean a theory has irradiated every other plausible scientific theory.

As for my explanation of the development of life, you are right, it is not the best explanation I could have given. OK, I'll try again. While there is no definitive standard explanation, there are basic models of the origins of life and protocellular development. The earlier explanation I gave only took into account one possibility. Another, which is also widely recognised as a highly plausible theory (perhaps even combined with the afore mentioned theory) is the extraterrestrial infall, and I don't mean aliens! While the Earth was young it was bombarded with meteorites and comets, which are believed to have brought volatile and radical partials, and possibly organic compounds to the Earth (such as the Murchison meterite did in the 20th century). These particles, combined with the massive energy created by the impacts are believed to have over 100s of millions of years influenced the environment to the degree that it was able to sustain life - also known as prebiotic conditions. The timing of these impacts and atmospheric development also match the estimated timing for the development of life. The very fist cells, known as protocells are believed to have developed from inorganic structures which (physiologically) are the basis for a cell, ie. "enclosed structures with aqueous interior separated from the environment by walls built of amphiphilic molecules". The molecules were assembled in a bilayer membranes in which the polar parts are in direct contact with water and their nonpolar parts in contact only with the interior of the membrane. These amphillic molecules will accumulate spontaneously at water/air and oil/air interfaces, which, when in sufficient concentrations will self assembly into structure which are known as vesicles through a process of agitation or continuous re and dehydration. Such structures (vesicles) are capable of growing and dividing by taking on extra amphillic material. This phenomena occurs in a quite a range of environmental conditions. So with the structure of a biological cell in place as new particles were added (through atmospheric change), the way in which the amphillic molecules functioned was affected, which lead to new and more complex structures. As these structures became more complex, the essential functions of cells began to develop. These functions are, according to nasa and Oxford university:

(a) capturing and transducing energy, (b) sequestering organic matter and ions from the environment, (c) catalyzing the synthesis of its components from the captured material, (d) protecting organic matter accumulated in its interior from dilution in the surrounding water, and (e) self-replication.

The molecules which were involved are believed to have been precursors to peptides and nucleic acids, which are incredibly important to the function of any living cell. But quite how these precursors developed is as yet undetermined and currently under significant debate.

Two main hypotheses are in play when it comes to the question - where did protocellular functions evolve? The first is that function and structure evolved together, the second is structure and function evolved separately, but I have no information as to how that possibly happened, very little has been published on the subject, and to be honest, it's too complex for me.

When it comes to evolution we can look at the Stag Beetle model. Because this ancient animal species has such a high fecundicity rate we can quite easily monitor any evolutionary adaptations. If a group of beetles are introduced into an environment where they have difficulty cutting through the stem of a plant so it may feed, subsequent generations will develop stronger and sharper mandibles. In some sub species of stag beetles they have almost no mandibles because the plant they feed from is very easy to eat, but others have huge mandibles to cut through bark. Each aspect of the body evolves in this way from generation to generation.
In relation to your point about eyeballs: Some incredibly simple organisms have single cells which are light sensitive, other subspecies have evolved two or three of these light sensitive cells because the environment they exist in is darker, or the animal requires more light sensitivity in order to recognise food items, so the eye develops with each generation. Consider this over a process over 100s of millions of years, in all body parts, and you may realise that such complex organs such as eyes, hearts and nervous systems have had quite enough time to develop, with so many generations passing before them.

I hope that answers your question in a more satisfactory way than my earlier post.

 

Actually, the first quote was yours as well. The link actually says that there is no consensus about whether Lucy walked upright or not, and I am not a biologist, but I could have sworn that in fact there was such a consensus.

Damn, Burbot. Maybe you should chill out. Drink a glass of water, watch some t.v. Everything is going to be okay.

Science can't prove anything, only disprove? Well what about Christianity? It denies science, most notably Evolution, which is widely viewed as scientific fact not only by the masses (in which case, wouldn't mean anything) but by the majority of biologists, anthroplogists, etc., based on the VERY LARGE assumption that there is a God. If science is shit, then what is religion?

 

A convenient way to control the masses and justify intolerable actions?

 

I am sorry I sounded rude, but it wasn't my intention. But the main thing that set me off was the line about "we know these things as fact" and it just made you sound, to be frank, quite pompous and how most of what you posted, although very well informed (as you said you are very well read on the subject) had very little to do with evolution but with the origins of the universe. It just seemed out of place and a long winded explanation for "nothing" IMO.

OK, I am sorry for that assumption on my part that you don't know anyhting about the philosophy of science. But you'd be suprised how many people "trust" science (and when I say trust, i don't mean scientism trust, but like respect the value of science) don't know that there are never REAL positives in science, but just the best possible explanation given experiments performed.

HUH?

Well you made the line about a panther and a lion being the same thing, so I posted somethign froma Creationist type website about how the pre-man fossils are either unreliable or there is a debate to their status.

Yeah, that is one of the first things they teach, or should teach, in high school science class.

I am not going to get deep into technicalities--but to be fair, Christ never denied science (well, except when he said that the mustard seed is the smallest of all seeds). I never said science was shit. One of the men who worked on the human genome project was a devout Christian. Religion and science aren't totally exclusive.

 

My point was to illustrate the time period since the begining of the universe and the begining of the earth, and to explain how 'creation' actually occured, since the other creationist throeries all give an age for the universe and earth. But perhaps I did elaborate a little too much. My only intention was to explain the scientific aspect as effectively as I can.

 

Then you should have quoted that line and not your own quote that appeared in my post.

I'm not disagreeing with that; I repeated it because I wanted to emphasize the absurdity of someone who believes in something (Christ) without ANY proof knocking Science for that reason.

Religion and science aren't totally exclusive.[/QUOTE]
I don't disagree with that either. Evolution does not disprove God; though it does disagree with a strict interpretation of the Bible

I didn't come here to attack Christians. You get enough of that already. But unfortunately that is how it turned out.

 

ok, i FINALLY see what you eman. i am an idiot.

Ok. I guess the question mark in your post threw me off

Which is odd, because I was attacking you for not knowing science things. That is a first I think

I am sorry for being an ass. I just get in moods where I am "better" than ignorant people and i think this was one of those times. Forgive me.

 

It's called a rhetorical question jackass.

Like a true Christian. I'm not sure which of my comments was ignorant, but I'm sure your powers of observation are greater than mine.

I've had fun joisting with you Burbot. You seem like the kind of guy who always needs the last word so I'll let you have it.