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Author Topic:   Creation, Evolution, and faith
Flyer75
Member (Idle past 2423 days)
Posts: 242
From: Dayton, OH
Joined: 02-15-2010


Message 1 of 456 (552405)
03-28-2010 7:04 PM


I hope I'm am doing this the correct way as this is my first proposed topic since joining. I've admitted here that I am a little behind most here when it comes to the knowledge of creation vs. evolution. There is still a ton for me to digest and learn.
I'm taking the thread titled "Personal Philosophy" found here EvC Forum: Personal Philosophy kind of running with it in my own topic that I would like to expound on. Many replied and I would like a more detailed discussion on some of the things that were said.
Since discussions on geology, astronomy, genome, mutations, ect are a little (and sometimes way) out of my league at this point, I would like to just discuss/debate presuppositions from both sides. I'd first like to stipulate to the fact that creations believe what they do based first and primarily on faith. It's certainly debatable if this faith is backed by facts (I believe it is in my early studies, but that's not the point of this discussion). I would hope that all YEC would stipulate that faith in the inerrant Word of God is the presupposition for our beliefs. The Bible is chalked full of faith references. To name just some:
Hebrews 11:1 pretty much gives the Biblical definition of faith in saying, "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."
Hebrews follows up with many examples of faith displayed in the Bible such as, vs. 3, "By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what is visible".
vs. 7, "By faith, Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world......".
And of course a the Bible clearly says one is saved by grace, through faith.
So, I would be terribly amiss if a creationist/Christian were to deny faith as their presupposition, even within the creation/evolution debate. Science just can not completely validate the Bible or creation. We depend more on faith and the Word of God, and I'm not ashamed to admit that on a primarily science forum.
Now, my post takes the turn here. I believe the above can be said for the evolutionist. Here's where I get confused on terms however. When I say evolutionist, I am talking about the evolutionist who believes in no ID or God who started the process, but the scientist who believes that natural selection is the sole catalyst in the process from the start of nothing, to what we see now. With that being clarified, I hope, I propose that evolutionists start with a presupposition of faith, just from a different worldview.
Charles Darwin created a theory, not based on fact, but on his philosophy of life and belief system. I understand much, an earth's time in fact, as been learned about science since Darwin proposed his theories in the 1800's. But the fact is, Darwin had faith and did not deny this. For example, a few of his quotes:
"This difficulty, though appearing insuperable, is lessened, or, as I believe, disappears, when it is remembered that selection may be applied to the family, as well as to the individual...."
"The electric organs of fishes offer another case of special difficulty; it is impossible to conceive by what steps these wondrous organs have been produced; but, ...we must own that we are far too ignorant to argue that no transition of any kind is possible."
Then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real.
Other more modern day evolutionists such as T. H. Huxley admitted his belief in evolution was an act of philosophic faith. And Herbert Spencer admitted that, Even in its most defensible shape there are serious difficulties in its way."
So I believe imo, that evolution requires faith. More specifically then even these Darwin quotes, I believe it requires faith from the outset, but not so much once science is involved. What I mean is, no one knows how evolution started. How the process began. Was it a big bang? Was it an ocean of soup charged by energy? What was it? In order to believe in evolution, no matter what science may tell us, it takes faith from the outset to believe that something scientific started it. No one can reproduce the beginnings in a lab, as far as I know. We still can't reproduce something out of nothing, even with all of our modern technology. Everything that we know is formed from something else in existence.
So, does evolution require faith? I believe it does. Rahvin stated in the thread I mentioned above that it doesn't matter what started it all...well, why doesn't it matter? Isn't that a fairly important question that needs to be answered?
Thanks in advance for your responses. I look forward to a spirited debate on this topic. For the record, my quotes come from the NIV Bible and from "Origin of Species" by Charles Darwin.
Edited by Flyer75, : No reason given.

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Message 2 of 456 (552437)
03-29-2010 6:41 AM


Thread Copied from Proposed New Topics Forum
Thread copied here from the Creation, Evolution, and faith thread in the Proposed New Topics forum.

Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 3 of 456 (552439)
03-29-2010 6:53 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Flyer75
03-28-2010 7:04 PM


I believe the above can be said for the evolutionist.
Your belief is wrong.
When I say evolutionist, I am talking about the evolutionist who believes in no ID or God who started the process, but the scientist who believes that natural selection is the sole catalyst in the process from the start of nothing, to what we see now.
So when you say "evolutionist" you are referring to someone who doesn't actually exist, but is someone whom you've just made up in your head.
The real evolutionists who actually participate in this forum might be offended at that.
Charles Darwin created a theory, not based on fact, but on his philosophy of life and belief system.
Not only is this as a matter of fact contemptibly and ridiculously false --- but I also cannot see how the quotations from Darwin that you append could possibly be adduced to justify it.
I should like to see you try to misinterpret those quotations such that they seem even vaguely to justify the nonsense that you're talking.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

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Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


Message 4 of 456 (552440)
03-29-2010 6:55 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Flyer75
03-28-2010 7:04 PM


Welcome to the dawn of the vibrant modern 20th century
Other more modern day evolutionists such as T. H. Huxley admitted his belief in evolution was an act of philosophic faith. And Herbert Spencer admitted that
Seriously?! These are 'more modern day'? Only one of them (Spencer) even lived to see the 1900's and he was only 10 years younger than Darwin!!
Why not come up with some examples since the advent of molecular genetics?
Gald to see creationists continuing to be up to date with the latest evolutionary thinking of more than a century ago. Not to mention continuing to base their arguments on quote mining and lies, specifically the lie that Darwin did not base his theory on factual observations. Did Wallace come up with essentially the same theory by the observation of similarly non-existent facts?
TTFN,
WK

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Larni
Member (Idle past 164 days)
Posts: 4000
From: Liverpool
Joined: 09-16-2005


Message 5 of 456 (552442)
03-29-2010 7:05 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Flyer75
03-28-2010 7:04 PM


I think the thing to do do is to look at the modern research, rather than rely on history to inform your position. This is some thing that is not uncommon in science: the availible evidence and theories of today are more informative than those of history.
Edited by Larni, : Spellink

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PaulK
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Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
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(1)
Message 6 of 456 (552443)
03-29-2010 7:11 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Flyer75
03-28-2010 7:04 PM


quote:
Now, my post takes the turn here. I believe the above can be said for the evolutionist. Here's where I get confused on terms however. When I say evolutionist, I am talking about the evolutionist who believes in no ID or God who started the process, but the scientist who believes that natural selection is the sole catalyst in the process from the start of nothing, to what we see now. With that being clarified, I hope, I propose that evolutionists start with a presupposition of faith, just from a different worldview.
You do realise that natural selection is merely the guiding force in biological evolution ? It does not start with "nothing" at all ? You need something approximating life, to the point of being able to (broadly speaking) produce copies of itself.
quote:
Charles Darwin created a theory, not based on fact, but on his philosophy of life and belief system.
This is a common creationist claim but one that is not founded in reality. Darwin was a very thorough researcher and spent a good deal of his time gathering evidence - and he would have spent more, had Wallace not independently come to much the same conclusions from his research.
quote:
But the fact is, Darwin had faith and did not deny this. For example, a few of his quotes:
"This difficulty, though appearing insuperable, is lessened, or, as I believe, disappears, when it is remembered that selection may be applied to the family, as well as to the individual...."
"The electric organs of fishes offer another case of special difficulty; it is impossible to conceive by what steps these wondrous organs have been produced; but, ...we must own that we are far too ignorant to argue that no transition of any kind is possible."
Then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real.
I suspect that you have copied these quotes from a creationist source - and not read them in context at all. All these quotes are from Darwin's replies to objections to his theory and rely on reason rather than faith. In the case of the first and the third he has counter-arguments. In the case of the second he points out that it is merely an argument from ignorance. Thus we see no more "faith" than is usual in science - simply the standard view that known and evidenced mechanisms should be preferred unless the evidence gives us a reason to reject them.
Science does not rely on faith in the same way as creationism. Creationism has it's dogmas which are held to be unchallengeable. Science is tentative and uncertain - true certainty is unobtainable - science just does the best it can refining it's ideas as our knowledge and understanding grow. The quotes you offer are examples of that - Darwin does not preach and expect to be unquestioningly believed, he offers rational argument to answer objections.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(3)
Message 7 of 456 (552448)
03-29-2010 7:46 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Flyer75
03-28-2010 7:04 PM


Your post reveals the deep confusion of creationists.
Creationists think that everyone basically thinks like them, only different.
Creationists know that their belief is predicated on faith. So, because they are mostly insane, they also believe that any idea opposed to theirs must also be predicated on faith. And so they believe that rational people must regard The Origin Of Species as our holy book just like creationists regard the Bible as their holy book, and we must revere Darwin in the same way that they revere the Apostles, and because we regard natural selection as having done some of the things that they attribute to God, we evolutionists must bow down and worship natural selection ...
Creationists can't imagine someone believing something for sane reasons, just 'cos the evidence says so. They can only think about realists as being like them only having a different set of beliefs.
I would point out that realists don't do the same thing.
Creationists rave about how "evolution is a religion", because the nastiest and most insulting thing that they can think of to say about biology is that it resembles their own beliefs. Meanwhile scientists do not say that creationism is a science. They stand up and say that creationism is not a science. They say that creationism is about as far as science as can possibly be. This is how I would insult creationism --- I would say that it is the opposite of science.
But when a religious person wishes to insult science, he says that it's exactly like religion.
I do think this is odd. Surely if a religious person wants to insult science, he should say that it's the very opposite of his religion. But instead he jumps up and down and screams: "Look, you're just like me! You're doing what I'm doing! Your beliefs are exactly as ill-founded as mine! Admit it, you're as irrational as I am! Your beliefs are religion, just exactly like the thing that I would live and die for. Religion! Religion! You have faith, just like me. You're exactly like me --- you idiot!"
Well, I think it's odd.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Flyer75, posted 03-28-2010 7:04 PM Flyer75 has replied

Replies to this message:
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New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 8 of 456 (552481)
03-29-2010 12:23 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Flyer75
03-28-2010 7:04 PM


I say evolutionist, I am talking about the evolutionist who believes in no ID or God who started the process, but the scientist who believes that natural selection is the sole catalyst in the process from the start of nothing, to what we see now. With that being clarified, I hope, I propose that evolutionists start with a presupposition of faith, just from a different worldview.
Well I guess you're right. That kind of evolutionist would be taking things on faith. Although, I've never met anyone like that before
There's a lot more to it than NS being the SOLE catalyst in the process from NOTHING. There's more involved and there never has been nothing. And there's a lot of evidence to back it up.
I accept evolution and I have faith and I can say that I have no faith in evolution, the evidence has persuaded me to accept it as an accurate model. And it doesn't rule out god.
Charles Darwin created a theory, not based on fact, but on his philosophy of life and belief system.
Um, no. What was all that time spent out in the field gathering data for then?
For the record, my quotes come from the NIV Bible and from "Origin of Species" by Charles Darwin.
Really!? Did you actually read the book and then pull those quotes from it? Or did you copy and paste those from a creationist webpage?
Because they look just like the dishonest quote-mining that creationists use.

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Rahvin
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Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 9 of 456 (552485)
03-29-2010 12:49 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Flyer75
03-28-2010 7:04 PM


Since discussions on geology, astronomy, genome, mutations, ect are a little (and sometimes way) out of my league at this point, I would like to just discuss/debate presuppositions from both sides. I'd first like to stipulate to the fact that creations believe what they do based first and primarily on faith. It's certainly debatable if this faith is backed by facts (I believe it is in my early studies, but that's not the point of this discussion). I would hope that all YEC would stipulate that faith in the inerrant Word of God is the presupposition for our beliefs. The Bible is chalked full of faith references. To name just some:
Hebrews 11:1 pretty much gives the Biblical definition of faith in saying, "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."
In other words, "Faith is wishful thinking and having cionfidence that an assertion is true even when there is no reason for that confidence in teh form of evidence."
So, I would be terribly amiss if a creationist/Christian were to deny faith as their presupposition, even within the creation/evolution debate. Science just can not completely validate the Bible or creation.
Particularly so when the Bible directly contradicts observable, physical evidence. IE, basically all of Genesis, Exodus, etc.
Now, my post takes the turn here. I believe the above can be said for the evolutionist. Here's where I get confused on terms however. When I say evolutionist, I am talking about the evolutionist who believes in no ID or God who started the process, but the scientist who believes that natural selection is the sole catalyst in the process from the start of nothing, to what we see now.
There is no such thing. As has been stated, the process of evolution does not begin with "nothing." It begins with life already existing - whether that life was the result of abiogenesis (which still doesn't qualify as "nothing"), panspermia, alien science projects, or even divine Creation.
Evolution is simply the process by which the features displayed by a given population of living things change over time. The process is an inevitability in any circumstance where living thigns pass on their traits to their offspring imperfectly (as in, the offspring are not identical clones of the parent, but rather possess their own alleles that were not inherited, which we call "mutations") and where resources are limited. Those features that help an individual better acquire those limited resources than their neighbors will tend to allow that individual to pass on its features to its offspring mroe readily than those individuals who have less access to resources or are consumed by predators, and so gradually over generations the inherited traits that allowed for increased access to the limited resources will be more and more widely represented in teh population as a whole.
With that being clarified, I hope, I propose that evolutionists start with a presupposition of faith, just from a different worldview.
What aspect of evolution, spevcifically, is taken on faith rather than being based entirely on evidence and logical extrapolation of that evidence? WHat part is based on wishful thinking? What aspect of the Theory of Evolution, in particular, is held with confidence despite no evidencial basis for that confidence?
Charles Darwin created a theory, not based on fact, but on his philosophy of life and belief system.
FALSE. Utterly false.
Darwin's theory was based entirely on his own direct observations. Present your evidence that some aspect of Darwin's theory was held with confidence that was not backed by observed evidence, or that was based entirely upon wishful thinking. Or retract.
I understand much, an earth's time in fact, as been learned about science since Darwin proposed his theories in the 1800's. But the fact is, Darwin had faith and did not deny this. For example, a few of his quotes:
"This difficulty, though appearing insuperable, is lessened, or, as I believe, disappears, when it is remembered that selection may be applied to the family, as well as to the individual...."
"The electric organs of fishes offer another case of special difficulty; it is impossible to conceive by what steps these wondrous organs have been produced; but, ...we must own that we are far too ignorant to argue that no transition of any kind is possible."
Then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real.
This is an absurd line of argument, Flyer. Darwin was pointing out examples in nature of features that he, personally, could not immediately explain through evolution. He believed that those features were stillt he result of evolution even if the specific pathway was unknown because of his experience with other more easily understood features - in other words, not faith, but prior experience and evidence.
A few centuries of research sicne then, of course, has allowed us to vastly improve upon what one man was able to observe, and we now have evolutionary pathways for things Darwin personally was unable to answer - the evolution of the eye, of the bombardier beetle, etc.
Other more modern day evolutionists such as T. H. Huxley admitted his belief in evolution was an act of philosophic faith. And Herbert Spencer admitted that, Even in its most defensible shape there are serious difficulties in its way."
Appeals to authority, Flyer, logical fallacies. What individuals say is irrelevant.
Demonstrate specifically what aspect of the Theory of Evolution is taken on faith. Which aspect is held with confidence without evidence to support such confidence? Which aspect is based solely on wishful thinking?
So I believe imo, that evolution requires faith. More specifically then even these Darwin quotes, I believe it requires faith from the outset, but not so much once science is involved.
...there is no aspect of the Theory of Evolution, being in fact a scientific theory, where science is not involved.
What I mean is, no one knows how evolution started. How the process began. Was it a big bang? Was it an ocean of soup charged by energy? What was it? In order to believe in evolution, no matter what science may tell us, it takes faith from the outset to believe that something scientific started it. No one can reproduce the beginnings in a lab, as far as I know. We still can't reproduce something out of nothing, even with all of our modern technology. Everything that we know is formed from something else in existence.
Do you take gravity on faith, Flyer? Do you need to know the specific equasion showing the gravitational attraction between you and the Earth based on your respective masses to know that, if you jump, you'll fall back down?
Or are the specific details irrelevant to understanding that, since every single other time you or anyone else has ever jumped that they fell back down, you are almost certainly going to fall back down if you jump as well?
"I don't know everything" does not mean "I'm taking this on faith." That's what you are asserting here, and it's absurd.
So, does evolution require faith? I believe it does. Rahvin stated in the thread I mentioned above that it doesn't matter what started it all...well, why doesn't it matter? Isn't that a fairly important question that needs to be answered?
For the same reason that knowing the starting point of a road tripis irrelevant to understanding the workings of an internal combustion engine. For the same reason that we know we'll fall back down when we jump regardless of whether we individually understand the modern Theory of Gravity. For the same reason you don't need to know the specific programming code of this message board to know that, when you hit the "reply" button, you will be taken to the "reply" page.
The Theory of Evolution is the process by which features in populations of organisms change over time. It is an inevitable process where those features are inherited by offspring, where new features can spontaneously occur through imperfect inheritence, and where resources are limited.
THe process of evolution has been directly observed, both in the lab and in the wild. Computer simulations that use simple models consisting only of inheritable traits, a random element representative of mutation, and limited resources and/or predators have also displayed the process of evolution, showing that it happens by itself without any directing so long as those conditions are met, regardless of what set up those conditions initially.
The Theory of Evolution will remain just as valid if abiogenesis is falsified, for the same reason the the Theory of Gravity would not be falsified by the falsification of Germ Theory. Evolution is based on direct observation and the fact that all evidence relevant to the subject anywhere fits within its predictions, and no evidence anywhere contradicts them. The predictions of the Theory of Evolution have proven to be extremely accurate, to the point that literally all of modern biology ties into it, from genetics to antibiotics to animal husbandry.
Where is the faith, Flyer? All I see are direct observations and validated, accurate predictions. I don't see the "evidence of things unseen," or the "proof of things hoped for." I don't see wishful thinking or assertions that are not supported by evidence. Where is the faith?

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nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 10 of 456 (552490)
03-29-2010 1:16 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Flyer75
03-28-2010 7:04 PM


Flyer75 writes:
When I say evolutionist, I am talking about the evolutionist who believes in no ID or God who started the process, but the scientist who believes that natural selection is the sole catalyst in the process from the start of nothing, to what we see now. With that being clarified, I hope, I propose that evolutionists start with a presupposition of faith, just from a different worldview.
I don't think I have ever come across that kind of evolutionist. I wonder whether they even exist.
For myself, I first heard of evolution in high school. I thought it very interesting, and it fitted the evidence from the biosphere rather well. Still, I knew it was controversial and I saw no need to make up my mind one way or the other.
Later, as an undergraduate, I took a biology class where I learned more about evolution. It continued to be interest. I continued to remain uncommitted. I was mainly interested in physics and mathematics at that time, so it was not important for me to make a commitment. It was several years later, then a graduate student in mathematics, that I read Watson's book "The Double Helix". It was then that I recognized that everything fitted together so well that evolution had to be correct.
There were still the question as to how life originated. And evolution does not answer that. The question is still not settled. And then there was the question of whether each of the major phyla were independent, and evolution occurred only within the phyla. By now, I a pretty well convinced that the phyla probably arose from common ancestors - i.e. the did not independently come into existence. And then there is the Lynn Margulis and her theory that eukaryotes arose as a symbiotic union of simpler organisms - I find that very interesting and highly plausible.
I hope you can see from the above account that it was never a matter of accepting on faith. It was always a question of looking at evidence, withholding decision until there was enough evidence, and even then being willing to revise my views as more evidence became available.
By the way, there is no need for you to individually reply to this post. Think of it as contributing to the overall picture of how people decide on such issues, and of how very different evidence based decisions are from faith based decisions.

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subbie
Member (Idle past 1254 days)
Posts: 3509
Joined: 02-26-2006


(1)
Message 11 of 456 (552495)
03-29-2010 1:51 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Flyer75
03-28-2010 7:04 PM


Evolution in a nutshell
Darwin based his theory on the following observations. Please tell me which ones you think lack evidential support:
Organisms compete for scarce resources.
Organisms produce more offspring than can survive to maturity to reproduce.
Some offspring will be better suited to compete for the scarce resources than others.
Those better suited to compete will be more likely to produce more offspring of their own than the others.
The subsequent generation will be more likely to have more characteristics of those better suited to compete than of those less well suited.
This cycle will repeat from each generation to the next.
Where do you and Charles Darwin part ways, Flyer?

Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus. -- Thomas Jefferson
For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack Obama
We see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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Flyer75
Member (Idle past 2423 days)
Posts: 242
From: Dayton, OH
Joined: 02-15-2010


Message 12 of 456 (552524)
03-29-2010 5:58 PM
Reply to: Message 7 by Dr Adequate
03-29-2010 7:46 AM


Hmmm...ok, allot to digest here. I'm sorry if I don't get to everyone's reply and specifically address concerns, I'll try my best over the next few days. My schedule is awful this week.
First, I'll just address Dr. A's second post. First, I know it looks like I'm heading to a conclusion that evolution is a religion but I did not say that anywhere in my post. I'm just trying to get to the bottom of the start of things for evolution as it's never been explained to me, even in public schools that I attended, although evolution was taught. Second, I guess I have no clue what evolution is as I'm getting what appears to me to be different answers from just about everyone as to what is evolution. I guess I should simply ask, "what is the board's consensus on the definition of evolution"?
Second, just because I believe in faith, I don't think evolutionists MUST also believe in faith just because it's opposed to my beliefs. I understand, and very basic level, that evolution occurs all around us. I understand that Darwin did tons of field studies to back up his theories but not all were able to be backed up, nor was he able to foresee the complexity of life that technology would reveal later on. He himself questioned the theories that he could not come up with through his own studies, mainly due to limited knowledge at the time.
I'm not saying evolution, as it occurs around us, isn't sane or backed by science. I'm not asking anyone here to drop science on the side of the road, go to church, and claim faith as the only logical conclusion for life. I'm asking for answer to a beginning to it all. I guess I put too much mundane nonsense in my original post and should have just asked: how does evolution explain the beginnings of the universe and can it be proven scientifically. If it can't, then there is faith involved, to whatever degree that may be. If it can, then I stand corrected.
I'll try to get to others soon. Thanks again for the discussion.

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Flyer75
Member (Idle past 2423 days)
Posts: 242
From: Dayton, OH
Joined: 02-15-2010


Message 13 of 456 (552525)
03-29-2010 6:03 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by subbie
03-29-2010 1:51 PM


Re: Evolution in a nutshell
Subbie, thanks for the post.
I do NOT disagree with any of the things you listed that Darwin theorized. I believe every one of those things have and can be proven in a lab or in nature or wherever. I don't see in that list a starting point however. That is what I'm looking for. I bought a copy of Origin of Species two weeks ago, thumbed through it and am going to start reading it probably next week. Does Darwin address the first stage or origin of matter and where it came from and can that be proven?

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 Message 11 by subbie, posted 03-29-2010 1:51 PM subbie has replied

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PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 14 of 456 (552527)
03-29-2010 6:08 PM
Reply to: Message 13 by Flyer75
03-29-2010 6:03 PM


Re: Evolution in a nutshell
quote:
Does Darwin address the first stage or origin of matter and where it came from and can that be proven?
Of course not. That's completely outside the scope of his theory.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 13 by Flyer75, posted 03-29-2010 6:03 PM Flyer75 has not replied

AZPaul3
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Posts: 8513
From: Phoenix
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Message 15 of 456 (552528)
03-29-2010 6:22 PM
Reply to: Message 12 by Flyer75
03-29-2010 5:58 PM


... how does evolution explain the beginnings of the universe and can it be proven scientifically
Here is your major issue. Evolution does not explain the beginnings of the universe and was never intended to. Evolution explains the diversity of life we see around us, that is all.
Evolution is not cosmology. These are two separate disciplines. And if cosmologists talk about the evolution of the universe they are using the word in a different context separate from the biological.
When we use the word evolution within its biological meaning do not think about the beginnings of the universe, stellar nucleogenisis or abiogenisis. Think strictly decent with modification, speciation and diversity of living organisms, nothing more.

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