tl scott

You do make some good arguments. But I’m not going to argue with you because you’re getting into philosophy. Which isnt to say that you aren’t right, just that we could debate forever and never get anywhere.

I do have 2 things to say though:

1) The term ’survival of the fittest’ is an oversimplification and somewhat misleading. It would be better to say that the more accurate term is ’survival of the fit enough’

Basically, you dont need to be the fastest wildebeest on the savannah to survive. Just NOT the slowest.

2) “Science can’t prove WE exist without bias”

This is a fair argument. But its not one worth debating. If we dont exist then theres no point debating the subject at all. Lol! So if we plan on discussing the subject we have to start out with the assumption that we exist.

Fromclouds – Ford motors created some thing responsible for pollution and obesity and God didn’t The spine was meant to carry lean body mass in an aerobic manner NOT have the majority of the weight confine to the posterior 75% of the time. So that lower back pain could be an indication the need to have a lot less couch and a little more bi-pedeling

Because most of man kind sits on his duff at work in traffic and in front of TVs computers ect it may indicate God designed us to be more interactive with our environment

{The problem is, your statement ignores the 150 years of research and advancement that have happened since.}

This ignores the fact that 150 years of research still have yet to prove GOD DOESN’T EXIST – they are no closer to proving simple things like reality Science can’t prove WE exist without bias –

Having fun yet ????? I may actually get a bit of a warm up

Blacksheep –

{Faith is the belief in something without evidence}

You mean like the evidence we exist in time and space – that we are ??? Science is based on this “faith” called an assumption.

All these flaws in human design are use as evidence that an intelligent God could not have designed us – would this same line of facts also fly into the face of “natural selection” or evolutions “survival of the fittest”???

I do love a good irony in a debate –

Thus far, I’ve yet to see a single coherent argument for intelligent design

{What ever}

I would like to direct your attention to the article hyperlinked in the past blacksheep post “Human evolution kicks into high gear”

{Article Quote}They find an abundance of recent adaptive mutations etched in the human genome; even more shocking, these mutations seem to be piling up faster and ever faster, like an avalanche. Over the past 10,000 years, their data show, human evolution has occurred a hundred times more quickly than in any other period in our species’ history.{End Quote}

Who is to say this is the first time evolution kicked into high gear – meaning that evolution did not take as long as once thought – at one time speciation wasn’t considered possible. The article continues to back up my presentation

{Article Quote}“We aren’t the same as people even a thousand or two thousand years ago,” he says. “Almost every trait you look at is under strong genetic influence.”

By his account, Hawks’ theory of accelerated human evolution owes its genesis to what he could see with his own eyes. But his radical view was also influenced by newly emerging genetic data. Thanks to stunning advances in sequencing and deciphering DNA in recent years, scientists had begun uncovering, one by one, genes that boost evolutionary fitness. These variants, which emerged after the Stone Age, seemed to help populations better combat infectious organisms, survive frigid temperatures, or otherwise adapt to local conditions. And they were popping up with surprising frequency{End Quote}

The answer is elementary and right before your eyes and you have proven my point extremely

The Xiphoid process a bony prominence used as a marker for CPR and the Heimlich Maneuver. I asked in a class what happens if some one doesn’t have one I was told every one has one – Well not any more! They disappeared in two generations and the newest generation carries the same changes so it is a dominate gene no less.

Mutations are NOT taking millions of years – it is happening in thousands and less The scientific time line you are refuting creationist views is flawed I wonder how many other “facts” are screwed by erroneous interpretations –Ruling out the possibility of intelligent design is a informal fallacy

Your claim that you agree with me that we should use our senses to understand the world is a bald-faced lie. You reject your senses and the world around you. You reject the facts of the world in favor of a book written by humans over a thousand years ago.

I see you also completely ignored the second half of my example. You are basing your world view solely off the bible. No one would suggest using the bible as a guide for parenting (stone disrespectful children to death) or astronomy (the earth is the center of the universe). There are dozens of stories in the bible that make no sense, why should genesis be any different? Very brief list of very weird stories in the bible http://listverse.com/bizarre/top-10-bizarre-biblical-tales/

Finally, you claim that “When I read the arguments for both sides the quality of the argumentation is not even close. The intelligent design side makes cogent, reasonable arguments based in data. The evolutionists make smoke and mirror arguments” … I have to thank you for this one, I really needed a good laugh today. Lack of satire like that is the problem with TV today. Lol

In all seriousness though, this claim is the absolute proof of what I said in that you are rejecting the facts of the world. Thus far, I’ve yet to see a single coherent argument for intelligent design. Even the Vatican has come out in support of evolution and said that ID is simply “bad science” and “not supported by the evidence” http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5705331.ece
They also shoot down your claim that evolution and christian beliefs are incompatible.

But no reason to listen to the pope if you’re not catholic. So I’ll bite. I’d like to hear these claims that are so spectacular that they make fossil evidence and everything we know about genetics seem like a “smoke and mirror” claim.

Let’s backtrack a second. The purpose of the story you presented was to show that evolution is ongoing. Now maybe by that you meant that over time a species will vary as influenced by its environment and even produce sub species. However, this is uncontroversial and has been known (if in not always in the same language) for thousands of years.

Instead I assumed (rightly I believe) that the story was intended to buttress the core argument of evolution as it stands today – that more complicated life forms have arisen over time from simpler life forms through a process of random genetic change and natural selection. The story as recited provides zero evidence for that proposition. To believe it does is entirely irrational.

The question of when something is a separate species may be interesting, but is not really relevant to the larger questions. I would just suggest that reproductive viablity is a bright line standard or at least closer to one, whereas behavioral divides are speculative and as your example shows here likely to breakdown quite quickly. THat is if their was a behavioral divide between the parent and child species in your example, what would happen if you imported more of the parent species? Would their offspring be able to bridge that divide as they faced the same environmental factors. I would hypothesize yes. This is obviously different from bringing dogs to the island, which we would never expect to be able to breed with the lizards. Some of this discussion is semantics.

I too believe that we should use our senses to understand the world, although I do not live in the delusion that our senses are adequate to understanding all of it. When examined the universe and life in it look created not random. And the more detail and data we have the more created it looks. As best as I can tell it is the evolutionists that seek to close off debate and ignore facts. That is without a doubt true in our public schools. When I read the arguments for both sides the quality of the argumentation is not even close. The intelligent design side makes cogent, reasonable arguments based in data. The evolutionists make smoke and mirror arguments (like your lizard story), straw man attacks (like your scripture vs. reason argument above), ad hominem attacks, etc. Most people who believe in evolution do so as a matter of faith. Sometimes it is faith in those who taught them. Often it is faith that all events must have natural causes and therefore assumes out the possibility of God.
There is a reason why hardcore evolutionists often turn to atheism – it is the only sensible retreat. The God that we are going to see in nature outside of some divine revelation is an evil God. A God who creates by death, going through billions of trials to get to the end result is either a very scary or very weak God. If you believe in a divinely good God who wants the best for us who created us through natural selection you are entirely irrational. These ideas are not compatible.
I would flip your question around a little. If God is divinely good and wants the best for us, but has also allowed us by our choices to screw up His creation, how will He communicate to us. He cannot do it adequately through His creation – it is screwed up. He must find a different way. He does it first by His word which is divinely inspired, and then by the Word made flesh, who through His willing sacrifice overcomes death. Your false God of nature uses death for His creative purposes. The true God revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, accepts the death that we have brought about into Himself for our benefit. This is what I believe. It may be wrong, but unlike the position you stated (which may or may not be yours) it is not irrational.

My one paragraph should look like this:

However, you are wrong in that something is not a separate species is ‘if it can breed.’ The technical term for a separate species is one that is reproductively isolated from another. This could be a genetic divide, meaning that two species physically cannot produce offspring with each other. Or a behavioral one, meaning that they could but don’t. While these lizards could likely successfully reproduce with the parent species, they wouldn’t due to differences in behavior.

This is going to be a long one…

I may not have all the answers, but you seem to misunderstand genetics as well. I don’t have the original article at hand because I read it well over a year ago, but I will look for it.

Anyway, to disprove your claims:

1) Even the original scientists were shocked at the speed of the transformation, so they brought in other groups to confirm the experiment.

2) Genetic testing was performed that showed that these new lizards were direct descendants of the original group, not a preexisting one or a hybrid.

3) You’re actually very close on this one, and you help me to disprove your earlier claim that the likelihood of this happening is zero.

You are exactly correct that this new group is just a recombonation of genetic diversity that already existed in the parent group of lizards, a related species to the parent group even has the chambered stomachs as our new group, even though the parent species did not. So one could say that this new group arose with very little genetic mutation, and thus would very likely still be able to breed with the parent species.

However, you are wrong in that The technical term for a separate species is one that is reproductively isolated from another. While these lizards could likely successfully reproduce with the parent species it was found that they wouldn’t due to differences in behavior.

We find this is actually quite common between closely related species. Many species of finches are closely related and if artificially inseminated will produce hybrid offspring, but this never happens in the wild because the birds refuse to mate with each other.

Another good example was a study of african cichlids. Cichlids are a family of fish containing some 1600 species, many of which share habitat with each other. The fish avoid mating with each other thanks in part to their bright coloring, which can be quite spectacular. However, due to pollution from humans the rivers and lakes they live in are becoming cloudy, and the fish can no longer see their mates as well. As a result, we are seeing more and more hybrid fish appearing between species of cichlids.

If we followed your definition of a species, then we would be forced to declare that all these cichlid species are in fact the same species. Thus, the reason for the slightly broader definition than you used.

4) I cannot disprove your theory of God having helped the lizards along, since I cant comment on magical powers. I can assume though that if Thor was involved did he probably had the help of the various other classical gods. Or at least Dionysus, the Greek god of partying. Since copious amounts of godly wine had to have been involved for Thor to have missed his target that badly.

HOWEVER, even if you HAD been right on all these points, it does NOT mean that evolution (Which is not ‘Darwinism’ as you claim. But that’s a whole rant of its own so I’m not going to go into it now) is a dead theory. This was only one example, as fromclouds kindly pointed out, there are many such articles in Time’s science section this week. Or you can just look around online and find dozens of such articles in minutes with a quick google search.

I’m going to leave you with an argument I’ve come up with after many such discussions with theists.

Assuming that all we believe about God is true, that He is divinely good and wants the best for us, which is more likely?

That God would give us senses to observe the world around us and free will and intelligence to interpret what we see as it makes sense, but would then fill the universe with evidence contrary to the truth of the bible and punish us for believing the evidence that He Himself has presented us with…

OR that the writers of the bible misinterpreted His word and His work and put together stories that made sense with what they knew at the time? Wouldn’t it make more sense to base our beliefs on the actual WORKS of God that surrounds us as opposed to His WORDS as interpreted and written then reinterpreted and rewritten by small, flawed, limited humans over and over again over the last 2000 years?

As Todd said in his original article, belief in scientific ideas is not mutually exclusive to belief in God, only the literal word of the bible. Which even the most devout of theists have to admit has a lot of parts that don’t make sense in today’s world.