Science Disproves Evolution

[obscureatheist]

Ok i gave up .
it seems that it s so hard to understand what i said for you. and we should tolerate spammers here too!

What fools these spammers be!

[feedback]

FYI, we hade considered deleting 'the member in question' when he originally created an account and began posting.

We do not consider him to be a 'spammer' though. If anything, his actions could be consider those of a 'flamer' or 'troll'.

While our TOS (Terms of Service) would allow us to delete him and his posts in their entirety, we thought we'd allow him to continue his commentary...mainly because we began to be amused by his comments.

Perhaps amused isn't exactly the right word, but it is interesting to see someone attempt to disprove the obvious with such passion and focus.

While our immediate reaction to most if not all of his posts is annoyance and disbelief, we have come to appreciate our little Don Quixote.

.

[ghostdriver (deleted)]

`I was tempted to post a paragraph or to from Dawkins tome "The Ancestor's Tale (excellent, by the way. If you haven't read it, please do. you won't regret it) about just how the eye, and other organs that are supposedly too complex to have evovled did, actually, evolve....however, after reading feedbacks post, I will simply laugh, and do so now....hahahahahahahahahaha!

[ghostdriver (deleted)]

`hahahahaha! Creationism is not science and never will be unless someone produces and figures out how to observe and test god.

[ghostdriver (deleted)]

I don't know what it is you are not getting here, but creationism is NOT a science and never will be for the simple fact that no one has gone to get god, actually gone to the cloud he is supposed to live on or whatever, and brought him back so that his life creating powers can be observed and tested. That is what is necessary for creationsim to become a science. The key element of the creationist hypothesis (god) cannot be observed or tested. I mean, if you can do it, go for it. Go get god and have him/her/it demonstrate creation in a setting where it can be observed and documented. Then you have science. Until then, you are simply attempting to shove facts together to support an untestable hypothesis.

Let's stop beating around the bush here.

The real point of this whacky creationist attack on science is fear: people like yourself see science as a threat to your religion. Well if ignorance and lack of critical thinking are required for your belief system to survive, you might want to find another one.

I know christians who understand evolution and are not afraid of science. They manage just fine. All you and your ilk are doing is making fools of yourselves.

We do not go to your churches and insist there is no god. We do not stand outside of schools and hand out printouts of the scientific method or copys of Origin of the Species. We do not meddle in politics attempting to foist our veiws on others, regardless of what they want.

Get over it. And quit posting that creationist nonsense from whatever garbage site you are getting from in our forum. If we want to read it, we can damn well look up the site ourselves. We do not need you to spam it here.

[demigod79]

Quote: Science is not a matter of consensus, but evidence. Where is the evidence supporting evolution?
The evidence from biology, paleontology, genetics, the fossil record... every single one of which has proven evolution true. If you haven't looked then that's your problem.

Quote: Science explores the natural world. It cannot examine the supernatural. Does it follow there can be no supernatural?
No, just that science cannot use supernatural explanations. Anything that deals with or involves the supernatural is outside the bounds of science. Thus creationism falls outside science's domain and thus cannot be considered science.

Quote: Actually, since science disproves evolution, as I am demonstrating, the better alternative is creation.
Science has proven evolution (you got it backwards). Also, for something to be an alternative to evolution it has to qualify as a scientific theory. Since creationism involves the supernatural it falls outside the bounds of science and thus does not quality (this is not to say that creationism is not an explanation for how living things are, just that is does not quality as a scientific theory and is therefore not an alternative to evolution).

Quote: What misinformation and non-sequiturs are you referring to?
The articles you copy and paste from creation science contains many non-sequiturs and strawman arguments. Your lastest post for example says absolutely nothing about why evolution is wrong. It simply says we have discovered that living organisms are a lot more complex than we originally thought. This is recognized today as one of the greatest features of evolution -- give it enough time and it will produce amazing complexity and dazzling organization (as they say, "evolution is smarter than you are"). It's simple a poor rehash of the incredulity argument which says "I cannot believe this much complexity evolved naturally, therefore evolution is false". It is an exceedingly poor argument (again, why are you posting such useless stuff?).

Quote: Since there is no evolution, what other option is there, putting aside the naturalistic preconception?
There are plenty of other explanations we can think of. For example, living beings could have been crafted by an advanced alien civilization. Aliens might even explain the big bang since their technology might allow them to exist outside the universe (in the multiverse) or in a different dimension, from where they could have initiated the beginning of our universe. This and an infinite number of other natural explanations would have to be considered before resorting to any supernatural explanation (and if we were to go there I would prefer the Greek gods ).

Quote: Why do you believe that? Have you actually heard those debates, or have you accepted assertions made to you by others? The debates I have heard have always shot the evolutionists down in flames, because they have nothing but assumptions based on wishful thinking. Creation science simply lays out the facts and compares them with the two models of origins. Evolution always loses!
Show me an example of a creationist argument which isn't based on evidence against evolution (in other words, actual evidence FOR creationism) or the incredulity argument ("how can this have formed naturally?"). In every single debate the creationist simply points to complexity or points out current gaps in knowledge about evolution. They never actually present their side, simply assuming that disproving evolution will make their idea of divine creation credible. You yourself said if evolution is false, then creationism is the best alternative. This is exactly the frame of mind that I am referring to.

Quote: Yes. Everyone living in the dark needs some light.
As arrogant a statement as I ever heard. Again, you're setting a bad example for other Christians. Most of my friends are Christians and they are generally very nice people, an image that you are (almost deliberately) destroying.

Quote: No. I consider it of the utmost importance showing folks the error of their destructive worldview. What we believe, we apply. Some examples are Nazism and atheist Communism that murdered more than 100,000,000 people. Another current example is the widespread practice of murdering some 50,000 unborn babies every day worldwide.
And what does any of that have to do with the way living things evolved?

Someone once said the main objection creationists had with evolution is not the scientific data, but its perceived social/moral consequences. You have proven that this is the case.

Quote: Are they and you being forced to read the facts I am sharing?

I'm laughing at the things you're sharing. With every post you're proving that creation science is a sham, based on misinformation, lies, and really poor outdated arguments. The only thing you're doing is making me feel embarrassed for having believed such stuff once.

Please, save yourself the trouble as you're only making yourself look arrogant and foolish. I am a committed atheist but I still remember the lessons of Jesus and his teachings against arrogance. Jesus encouraged people to be humble (remember the beatitudes?) and did not approve of those who showed off their righteousness (Luke 18:9-14). It's Christians like you who make me convinced that many Christians have lost their way. Again, I feel really sad for you...

[demigod79]

Quote: What is hard to understand is why you believe something without evidence? Where is the fossil record that bears it out? Where is the data from genetics that is conclusive?
The fossil record points to a gradual evolution of species over time. We know this because the fossils are laid out in particular strata and no species that evolved later ever appears in an earlier strata. This is precisely what evolution predicts. Creationism on the other hand would predict that all living things appeared at one particular point in time (the point of creation). This has been proven false by the fossil record. Evolution wins.

Note that evolution can very easily be proven wrong if even a single fossil from a later period (say a modern mammal fossil) showed up in an early strata (such as the Cambrian). Among the millions of fossils that we have found we have never come across such a fossil. If you find such a fossil then give me a call .

The genetic data shows that all animals share a common genetic structure and many animals also share the same genes, even those which seemingly do not seem related (such as plants/fungi genes in animals - e.g., human genes contain a large number of yeast genes). Those who are the closest on the evolutionary tree also show the greatest genetic similarities, which is to be expected if they evolved from a common ancestor. Evolution predicts such common ancestry and it's borne out by the DNA record. Modern living things also have a great number of genes that are not in use; genes that used to perform some function in a prior ancestor but have become obsolete. This fits with the theory of evolution since evolution is a blind mechanism and it is unable to single out useless genes (thus it replicates all genes, useful and useless). In the creationist model we expect that each species would only contain genetic code that is specific to that species (since obviously a god who includes plant genes in an animal or genes that are not used would not be a very intelligent god). This is not borne out by the DNA evidence. Again, evolution wins.

Quote: Lets assume those figures are correct. Is their belief in evolution the result of evidence? If so, why dont they produce it? There is a lot of pressure today for scientists and others to claim a belief in evolution, despite the evidence. Often, those who dont lose their financial support and jobs. Facts are the result of evidence, not popular opinion or vote.
All accepted scientific theories are based on a concensus of scientists based on the evidence. Whichever theory has the most amount of evidence backing it and the soundest explanation is the one that is accepted. Evolution is no different. Thus, the reason why some 99% of biologists support evolution is due to the overwhelming amount of evidence for it. If you're claiming that they do so for other reasons then you have to provide some proof.

From your statement I also assume you're having problems finding the evidence. That shouldn't be too surprising since creationists don't even bother to look most of the time. The prime example of this was in the Dover trial with professor Behe.

Quote: In fact, on cross-examination, Professor Behe was questioned concerning his 1996 claim that science would never find an evolutionary explanation for the immune system. He was presented with fifty-eight peer-reviewed publications, nine books, and several immunology textbook chapters about the evolution of the immune system; however, he simply insisted that this was still not sufficient evidence of evolution, and that it was not "good enough". (emphasis mine)

Furthermore, under cross-examination by Eric Rothschild, Behe was forced to admit that he hadn't read most of those fifty-eight peer-reviewed papers. Behe proposed a theory and even published a book on the topic of irreducible complexity without even doing the relevant research. Even before he started on his book there were tons of information out there that proved that his theory was wrong, yet he did it anyways and made a complete fool of himself in court.

This is the main problem with creationists. Instead of doing genuine, diligent research and finding out what's been discovered they simply claim that there is no evidence and then say evolution is false.

Tell me, if you have actually done your homework, where did you do your research? What peer-reviewed scientific articles have you looked up concerning evolution? What books have you read? What shows have you watched? Please name the specific research you have done.

Quote: What evidence supports that assertion?
It was predicted by the big bang (and also by Einstein's equations). If the universe is expanding then at sometime in the past all the matter would have been squeezed into an infinitely small space before "exploding". This has been labelled as the singularity, the point of creation.

However, certain physicists such as Stephen Hawkings doubt that the singularity existed at all. He initially said it did (and this was adopted by theologians such as William Lane Craig for his Kalam argument) but he later rescinded it upon learning of quantum mechanics. He now proposes that the universe did not start at the big bang but that it had always existed in one form or another. Others have proposed that the universe will one day shrink back into the singularity (the Big Crunch) which will then explode again and start the process all over (our big bang might be just one of many big bangs). All of these of course support the idea that the universe is eternal.

Quote: What evidence supports that assumption? If we use known physics, we are stuck with the fact that everything has a beginning, including the universe. That before that beginning, the universe did not exist and therefore there was nothing, and since the universe could not come from nothing by any natural cause, the cause must be supernatural.
This is an anachronism. You are applying the laws of the universe to a period when the universe did not exist. We have no evidence to indicate that the laws of physics apply outside the universe (and even within our universe it only applies under normal conditions - the laws break down in extreme situations such as in a black hole). The existence of time is also known to be tied to existence of the universe (space-time). If the universe did not yet exist then how could these laws apply? Specifically, how can the law of cause-and-effect apply if time didn't yet exist? This is the basic problem with the first-cause argument; it assumes too much about existence before the big bang. It only works by assuming that the current laws of physics apply, but then the argument is based on an assumption so it proves nothing.

The fact is that we will never know what caused the big bang (if I can use the term 'caused' at all). This will probably remain one of humanity's most endearing mysteries. Even with the Large Hadron Collider we will only be able to replicate what happened a fraction of a second after the big bang, never anything before it. As far as we know, this is one of the boundaries of human knowledge (as the saying goes, "only God knows...")

Quote: What evidence supports that assertion? Using an unproved hypothesis does not support another unproved hypothesis, does it?
Umm, quantum mechanics has been proven to an astonishing degree. In fact, it is one of the most accurate theories in human history. The principle of randomness is a core component of that and it is now the accepted idea of nature at the sub-atomic level (nature, at its very smallest, is random). You should really catch up with the times.

Of course the randomness of the sub-atomic world is not the only bizarre thing we have discovered. We have since learned that particles can also be waves, even at the same time (Wave-Particle Duality) and that particles can actually exist in two different places at once. Nature is bizarre at the smallest level and it's only by our ignorance that we assumed that the microscopic laws had to apply in all times and places. There is still so much we don't know, such is the nature of man.

Quote: I know. You supplied some of them and they are an example of fascinating science fiction.
I kid you not, look up superstring or M-theory. Not even science fiction writers have dreamed of the reality proposed by these theories. They're still theoretical, based purely on mathematics (which is why many particle physicists ridicule and reject them) but they're beautifully coherent and have massive explanatory power. Hopefully one day an experiment will prove whether the theory is true or not.

Quote: I am not familiar with the arguments or the alleged refutations. I do know that what I have proposed is based on scientifically valid facts that have yet to be refuted.
It's been refuted due to its assumptions about pre-big bang existence. You can't build a logical proof based on what we do not (and in my opinion, can not) know. In my estimation a much better argument is the fine-tuning argument, which still doesn't have a completely satisfactory answer. Even Alselm's Ontological argument is preferrable to the first-cause argument.

Quote: It is for those who are willing to accept it. What evidence is there that God does not exist?
It is a logically fallacy to believe in something because we cannot prove it doesn't exist. In that case we'd have to believe in fairies, unicorns, Thor, Zeus and all the other things we cannot prove doesn't exist.

The burden of proof is always on the person making the claim so theists have to prove absolutely, beyond a shadow of a doubt that God exists. So far no one's done so, thus I suspend my belief.

Quote: Apples and oranges. This question comes up a lot. The problem is that people dont listen well to what we have to say. We didnt say that everything needs a cause; we said everything that has a beginning needs a cause. Only finite, contingent things need a cause. God didnt have a beginning; He is infinite and He is necessary. God is the uncaused cause of all finite things. If God needed a cause, we would begin an infinite regress of cause that would never answer the question. As it is, we cant ask, “Who caused God? because God is the first cause. You cant go back any farther than a first.
But then why should we assume that the universe needs to have a beginning? Hawkings and other physicists have shown that the universe could very well be eternal. Even the big bang doesn't rule out the possibility of previous universe/existence (again, we do not know enough to say either way).

Quote: So what is good? What is evil? Are these absolute terms that apply equally to everyone, or are they terms that each individual decides for himself?
Although some atheists subscribe to relativism I do not (I tried to argue otherwise but they wouldn't budge). I choose to call my ethical beliefs moral objectivism (different from relativism and absolutism) which says that there are certain fundamental principles that apply to all humans which are the source of our morals. Our morals are basically the same, the difference usually comes in how we apply them.

Quote: What about those outside those social circles? For Nazis, killing Jews was good. For Muslims, killing non-Muslims is good. Did the Jews agree with the Nazis as they were being slaughtered? Do the non-Muslims agree with the Muslims as they are being beheaded? Which is right?
It's not about specific social circles. Secular humanism applies the same rules for all of mankind. Any human being who commits a wrong against another human being is bad. This is the basis of universal human rights.

Furthermore, even the Nazis realized what they were doing was wrong (otherwise they wouldn't have tried to cover up their crimes).

Quote: But if we are the result of that process, how can we escape continuing in it? Has evolution been put on hold since we arrived?
There are some who say that evolution is still working in us, others who say we have moved beyond it. I'm of the latter camp. It seems that evolution has brought us to the point where we have supercede it with cultural evolution (through the passing on of memes instead of genes). We no longer act and behave as evolution would have us do. In my opinion this is a good thing, even if it means we are increasingly out of touch with nature.

Quote: If that is true, then why did Friederich Engels, one of the founders of communism, write Karl Marx, another founder, and strongly recommend Charles Darwins book, The Origin of Species? In response, why did Marx write Engels that Darwins book “contains the basis in natural history for our view [communism]? Are you in denial?
I've read the Communist Manifesto and it contains nothing that I can positively attribute to evolution. There were many people who were inspired by Darwin's theory and and some of those people incorrectly applied it (social darwinism is the prime example). I do not see how the fact that we evolved from different animals based on survival pressures leads to the idea of common ownership of the means of production. Show me precisely what the connection is.

Oh, and one more thing. I just watched a BBC documentary called Did Darwin Kill God?, presented by Conor Cunningham, who is a devout Christian. The documentary shows how a belief in God can be reconciled with a belief in the theory of evolution. Also, one of the prime witnesses for evolution in the Dover case was a devout Catholic, biologist Kennith Miller (who did a brilliant job defending evolution). I'm also wondering if you've heard of the The Clergy Letter Project, which to date has collected some 12,099 signature from Christian clergy in the US supporting evolution and opposing creationism? It seems to me that the momentum is clearly in evolution's direction, not creationism/ID.

[delishab]

`Funny how, no one bothers to focus on how in the very beginning after conception every life form looks practically the same. Some people act like to survive, eat, and live in comfort is not motivations in life for life.

Is it too far fetched to believe we may actually ize far distant cousins to survive everyday. We all like to think we know the answer the truth of our existence and the very beginnings of it but obviously we can not really handle that the truth may very well leave us shaking. What if there is no magic supernatural occurence but a chain of events that put a few at the winning end of the stick and left a few at the lower and even scarier still is the possiblity of all that changing in two blinks.

[delishab]

`I remember being called silly in school for pointing out that the map suggest that all land was once connected into one mass of land. Indeed my 1st grade teacher did not defend me from my class mates probably cause she didn't want to go any further with the subject than she had too or maybe she didn't know what to say.

I felt discouraged and stopped looking and speaking in class for a very long time. Where you hoping for that effect with all your post? Science is like a recipe it can be changed and rewritten and improved upon if it is found wrong or lacking and sometimes even in it's improved form submits itself to being flawed. Religion is something that is something that is changed, rewritten and adjusted and improved in some cases but never submits itself to being flawed. So, in my opinion science is far better on the grounds that eventually I will receive truth and logic that is usable and current.

[cosmosfan]

I would call you stupid, but I guess in your case ignorance is bliss.

[challenger360]

`Everything looking the same at the beginning?

Ah.. have you looked at the REAL images of baby turtles.. humans.. whales etc etc.. at their embryo stage?

Not the ones from the evolutionary textbooks that have almost identical 'drawings'

The real images.. have things in place already that distinct themselves from eachother.. eg. .. the turtle embryo already has a shell... the fish embryo already has a tail.. etc etc etc..

these are the real images.. not the drawing you find in the evo theory textbooks.. (not all of them tho) of the beginning embryo forms..

[sterling09]

`i have yet to hear of a valid transitional figure to prove evolution, and everyone of the "proggressions" we have made in so called evolutions are either mutations or in actuality is devolution we have not gained new DNA in our bodies when that is the main reasoning behind Evolution, And demigod79 evolution has not been proven or else it would be a law!!, and Darwin himself said at the end of his life that his theory was probably wrong and that he was trying to discover new things, so if you can show me anywhere in history where any animal whatsoever has gained DNA i would be glad to hear it

[dnaunion (deleted)]

Quote:
a. William Paley, Natural Theology (England: 1802; reprint, Houston: St. Thomas Press, 1972).

This work by Paley, which contains many powerful arguments for a Creator, is a classic in scientific literature.


LOL! No, it is a religious work, not a scientific one.


Quote:
Some might feel that because it was written in 1802, it is out of date. Not so.


Wrong. It IS out of date. It doesn’t take evolution into consideration.

Take its most-famous analogy: the watch and its implied watchmaker. That’s nice, but has nothing to do with biology. Watches do not reproduce! That alone invalidates the analogy. In addition, watches are not constructed from internally stored information; the non-existent internally stored information cannot undergo mutation; and that non-existent internally stored information that has not undergone mutation cannot be passed on to offspring; and so on.


Quote:
Gertrude Himmelfarb, Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1959), pp. 320-321.


Smells like a quote mine.

Even if not, she is not a scientist, but a historian. That makes it an argument from authority fallacy.

[dnaunion (deleted)]

Quote:
There is no direct evidence that any major group of animals or plants arose from any other major group.


False.

We have transitional fossils supporting the evolution of the first amphibians from certain fish, the first birds from certain reptiles, the first mammals from certain reptiles, and the first cetaceans from certain four-legged land mammals. For most of those we also have genetic and embryonic evidence supporting them.


Quote:
Austin H. Clark, “Animal Evolution†Quarterly Review of Biology, Vol. 3, No. 4, December 1928, p. 539.


1928? You’re using a quote – a logical fallacy – and further, one that is 83 years old? You’re kidding, right?


Quote:
When we descend to details, we cannot prove that a single species has changed; nor can we prove that the supposed changes are beneficial, which is the groundwork of the theory [of evolution].â€Â Charles Darwin, The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Vol. 1, p. 210.


And now you go back to the late 1800s????

Speciation has been verified experimentally. A speciation even that occurred in the wild – in certain hemp nettles, via allopolyploidization – was duplicated in the lab.

We have examples of beneficial mutations. Here are a couple:

Identification and dynamics of a beneficial mutation in a long-term evolution experiment with Escherichia coli,
Mark T Stanek, Tim F Cooper and Richard E Lenski, BMC Evolutionary Biology 2009, (December 29, 2009) 9:302doi:10.1186/1471-2148-9-302

Industrial fuel ethanol yeasts contain adaptive copy number changes in genes involved in vitamin B1 and B6 biosynthesis, Boris U. Stambuk, Barbara Dunn, Sergio L. Alves, Jr, Eduarda H. Duval, and Gavin Sherlock,
Genome Res. December 2009 19: 2271-2278

Of course, Darwin didn’t even know about genes, which is why it makes you look desperate and foolish to use his work from 150 years ago to try to argue against what is known today about evolution.



Quote:
“The fact that all the individual species must be stationed at the extreme periphery of such logic [evolutionary] trees merely emphasized the fact that the order of nature betrays no hint of natural evolutionary sequential arrangements, revealing species to be related as sisters or cousins but never as ancestors and descendants as is required by evolution.â€Â Denton, p. 132.


Sounds like it’s from his 1986 book, “Evolution: A Theory in Crisisâ€Â.

1) Michael Denton himself later rejected the views he expressed in that book.

2) That book was torn to shreds by biologists.

3) In fact, that part sounds like it is referring to Denton’s botch job on sequence comparisons of cytochrome c. He used a flawed view of evolution to conclude what the similarities should be, and then found that they did not agree with his predictions. He therefore claimed that equidistance of sequence comparisons of cytochrome c argued against evolution.

But he was wrong! His view of MODERN mammals having descended from MODERN reptiles, which descended from MODERN amphibians, which descended from MODERN fish is completely wrong. It shows how little he knew about evolution!

And in fact, when the correct branching tree (phylogenetic tree) was constructed for the animals tested, the comparison actually SUPPORTED evolution!

[dnaunion (deleted)]

Quote: I haven't posted on this site very long, so you probably haven't noticed most of the scientists being quoted are not creationists, but the facts they have discovered disprove evolution.

Wrong.

First, some of them were Creationists. Some weren't scientists: like the historian you quoted. Others were quoted from the 1920s, which was before the Modern Synthesis.

Second, there are dissenters in all fields of science. What we need to look at is the proportion, not the number. A survey of 480,000 earth and life scientists in the US found that only 0.15% accepted Creationism. So sure, you can find some 700 actual scientists who - because of religious reasons - reject evolution, but then there are some 479,300 who reject Creationism and accept evolution. You lose - BADLY - the numbers game.