Evolution has been Disproven

How odd. Many major creationist sites claim that life arose from non-life (by the action of God) and that diversity arose after that (by modification within kinds) by natural processes. They just disagree on the degree of modification.Another view is taken by the majority of Christians (and individuals of other faiths). That is, God caused the raise from non-life (either directly or establishing a universe in which it would happen) and then allowed His laws to unfold through organic evolution.You logic has a hole in it. Life could arise by natural or supernatural processes but that does not force it to diversify by the same processes that caused it to arise. Why should they be tied that tightly together.If life did arise by supernatural processes then yes, I agree, the possiblitiy of the diversification by supernatural processes at least becomes a possibility. However it is not required.Also, while we don't know the details of how life arose (by whatever process) we do know that the diversity (or at least a lot of it) [i]can/i arise by natural processes. This is agreed to by many creationists as noted above. Somehow we got from 1,000's of "kinds" 4500 years ago (to make the ark work out) to 1,000,000's of species sometime back around 2 or 3 thousand years later. Therefore even if life arose by supernatural means lots of diversity happened by natural means.

Uh, crash, you're out by about 3 or so orders of magnitudeOff the top of my head the estimates for species are about 10 million.It is still pretty fast evolution though. Really, really fast!

Actually, no it doesn't. Evolution doesn't give a rats ass where life came from. It just needs something with certain characteristics which it isn't really clear we would all call "alive".Of course, other scientific disciplines make it pretty clear that there was a time when there was no life on earth; in fact, no earth at all. So those other (not biology which is where evolution sits) disciplines would say that life came from non-life.Of course, this is exactly the religious view too. I thought all religions (certainly Christianity) say that there was a time when there was no life and a later time when there was life. "From the dust of the earth"; isn't that how it goes.If you are going to discuss things maybe you should bone up a bit first. You are working with some misconceptions. Ignornance is not a very strong foundation for discussion.

True enough if he is actually seeking.However, there is ample opportunity to learn if one is really seeking.Since we've seen posts of almost exactly the same content many, many times there is some chance to predict the outcome.I'd say (no real data) about 80% of the posters are not seeking at all. They will show no signs that they even read the responses. They will either go away or simply restate the same thing several more times.

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You have to picture evangelical Christianity as a vast factory continually churning out newly minted uninformed Creationists.

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What an odd combination of sentences.The post claims that evangelical Christians are uniformed on the subjects discussed here. This is an easily demonstrable fact. You don't actually claim that more than a smattering of our fundamentatlist posters know jack squat about evolutionary theory do you?And, of course, full-fledged scientists do not fall from heaven. It requires a mind capable of handling years of education, some of it rather complex. The difference between that and the willingness to reach conclusions based on no understanding and then to attack a complex topic from a basis of total ignorance is exactly why these dicussions go on and on.ABE Are you claiming that they do understand the topics being discussed? Would you like to show that this is so?This message has been edited by NosyNed, 02-08-2005 13:13 AM

And you are somewhat familiar with the current state of the research in this area? You understand some of the chemistry?Or do you, in fact, know nothing at all about it?(you are right though that "for sure" is a silly thing to say. We aren't at that point yet and I'm guessing won't be for a decade or 3. Are you haning your religous world view on this never being worked out? I'd say that is a pretty bad bet.)

Check on having engaged in dialogue with numbers 1, 3 and 4.Check to surgeons but not brain.All the discussions were interesting and informative.What is the point exactly?We were not talking about the few evangelicals who know science, we were talking about the run-of-the mill poster here who comments without knowing what they are talking about.We were talking about your, perhaps snide, comments about origin of life research as well.I haven't seen any reason to withdraw any statements about the level of knowledge of the "usual" evangelical poster who comes here. It isn't, however, a derogatory comment to say that someone is ignorant even though it is used like that very frequently. We are all ignorant in a huge number of areas.I also don't see any reason to suggest that a majority (or even large minority) are really 'seeking" anything. While ignorance itself isn't a crime the maintenance of willful ignorance in the face of available information is.ABE
If you are not knowledgable about an area it is best to avoid being overly strong in your position. It can be embarassing.If you consider it arrogance to point out that someone is making unfounded statements from a position of utter ignorance then I guess I am arrogant. I'd say that someone who puts some effort into leaning before saying too much has a right to point out the error of those who don't.This is especially true when that same error is repeated over and over and there is an entire community devoted to maintaining an appalling level of ignorance.This message has been edited by NosyNed, 02-08-2005 14:05 AM

In one sentence you manage to get two major screwups which I'm pretty sure you have already been told are wrong. (who was it accusing us of being arrogant because we found difficult to tolerate?).The ToE says nothing about how life came about. It tells us how life diversified into the forms we have today. How life arose remains to be determined. It may not have come about by chance at all.Evolution is NOT a random process.Now have you read that over a couple of times. Once that is settled in we can progress a bit.

Mutations are random. The "non-random" driving force is selection. Evolution is driving by selection on differences between individuals. The source of differences is partially mutations. Care to quote Darwin's comments? It is a bad idea to be sarcastic and arrogance when you are displaying a high degree of ignorance of the subject. So you want to discuss the origin of God instead of aliens?In fact, that is not at all what I meant about "not by accident". We don't know yet if that is necessary. There are two possible paths:
1) Accident. The earliest error-permitting replicators were simple enough to arise by chance in a reasonable amount of time.
2) Chemical Imparative. The nature of the chemical conditions at the time makes error-prone replicators a natural consequence of those conditions. That is they are as bound to arise as water is from H2 and O2 under the right conditions.Of course some mix of the two is more likely. There are hints that a self-catalyzing replicator can be a rather simple chemical.As as small side question: When it is demonstrated how life can arise from non-living chemicals will you then be giving up your faith? You seem to think that it is a direct disproving of God. That is not a position that the majority of Christians take of course. Just the fringier ones.ABE
Corrected comment about off topic, this is about origin of life, just badly titled.This message has been edited by NosyNed, 02-09-2005 01:22 AM

There are some serious limitations on how much detail can be gone into in a high school level class. I wish more could be discussed. It is important to allow students to understand the real process of science.However, with the limitations what should be taught is the current best consensus ideas. The level of confidence in those ideas would be nice to discuss and support but it is simply too much at the greade school level.In fact, my daughter was taught about right I think. The origin of life was given about 3 paragraphs making it clear that it is unknown right now and one paragraph saying some people believe that a creator did it. The rest of the time was spent on a too light overview of evolution but a not bad attempt in limited time. The origin of life stuff was sandwiched in between geology and biology about where it should be.

off topic I know If that is all you want then you are in good company. The majority of believers are happy with this and even the athiests might be convinced to say "ok, if you want to believe that I don't think anyone can prove you wrong -- yet"That of course, has nothing to do with biology (including the ToE), geology (including the age of the earth), phyics or cosmology. It simple says "An intelligence set up the laws of nature such that the rest followed on." If that is all you want to say then it doesn't seem worth discussing. There ain't going to be any hard evidence one way or the other for a few years yet. If is, as they say, on open question.

You are ranting a bit. You need to read what is posted and be sure you understand it. It looks silly when you demonstrate that you haven't.

Have you been reading? There are, in fact, clues. It appears you don't understand them but they are clues none-the-less.As noted:
1) amino acids from naturally, they even occur in space.
2) a surprisingly simple RNA chain is capable of self catalyzation.These are two of the jig saw puzzle pieces that have to be assembled into a complete picture. We are saying, and have said a bunch of times, that we don't have that picture right now. That is not the same as saying we don't have a clue.I take it that when a mechanism for abiogenesis is demonstrated you will renounce your faith. That is the logical conclusion that one would draw from your ranting on this topic.Those with a strong, truely spiritual faith do not need to have science supply the foundations for it. Those with a weak, magic and mumbo-jumbo kind of faith seem to need all the help they can get.

I'm sure others will be ranting soon too. I'm getting there since you seem to have a problem following the information presented to you.

Would you like to find a thread to define this?Someone has been asked for their definition today IIRC. Was that you?If you want to use terms then you need to be able to define them.