Thread: God

>So i really will do my utmost to keep my tone sincere and not condescending.

Thank you

>I will try to explain to you all the ideas involved, as far as I can
>see, you do not really understand the theory, that is a problem
>that i can atleast attempt to remedy.
I may not entirely understand it, I admit that freely - after all it is changing constantly.

>I have to go eat now, but i will be back, and give you answers! Soon!
heh.. thats ok.. take your time


--added later
hm.. very odd.. now when I hit the back button and then forward again, it actually works!! so It must not have been the back function I hit last time. I wonder if I'll ever figure it out.. lol.. my poor lost posts are all in the bit bucket now..
WAIT!! AH hah! if you hit "refresh" it wipes it out.. so I must have somehow hit the refresh key. Don't ask me how tho lol..

First I will address some of the points you raise and then I will attempt to explain some of the ideas involved.

"And by the way.. I hope you're not trying to imply that I should believe you based on the number of other people who do.. because i wouldn't consider that thinking for myself"

This is true to an extent, but at some point you have to accept that you cannot possibly verify everything personally.

Once you have seen how science works, you realise that if a theory is favoured by the scientific community then at that point it is the most reasonable theory.

The fact that physcists express the distance of the stars with certainty, and that even people who would dearly love for the distances to be false (ie. creationists) accept them seems to imply that they are pretty undisputable.

"Was the man who measured nickel up on a mountain accepted by other scientists of his time? Just because it's accepted doesn't mean it's correct, even if the most intelligent people think it is; there might be things they simply don't know about, which factor into the equation."

That is very true, which is why nothing is ever officially set in stone in science, but there comes a point where there is so much evidence favouring a theory that people accept it as fact. An example would be the germ-theory of disease, or the theory of heliocentrism (earth going round the sun), because of the amount of evidence supporting these theories we basically accept that the main body of the theory is right. The same is true for how people within the scientific community view evolution, they deem the alternative too improbable to be a real consideration.

Dating techniques such as radiodating are also pretty accepted as 'true' because they build on fundamental parts of physics.

In addition the fact that many separate forms of dating that have no obvious link in mechanism all arrive at the same kind of figure for the age of the Earth seems to make the possibility of a 6000 year old Earth all the more improbable.

"macro evolution has nothing to do with micro evolution"

I will address this with my explanation of evolutionary theory.

"Oh.. well.. thanks for the input but.. it kind of does so.
You do know that is the whole entire question right?"

I don't see how it makes any difference, whether life originated with a creator or formed chemically does not alter evolutionary theory. Evolution describes how life changes.

Charles Darwin described how species originate, not how life originally formed, there is a difference, Species originate from other similar species, that is what Darwin was explaining in 'Origin of Species'.

"that's also known as "magic".. 1) you didn't answer the other question - "what is life" and 2) life does not come out of chemical reactions and rocks."

I may return to this point later, at the moment i am trying to concentrate on evolutionary theory, though as i say i may return and deal with why I think what i do regarding abiogenesis (original formation of life)

".e. you decided that based on your beliefs?
What says God is magic, just because he doesn't conform to the physical laws he created?"

See previous point.

"If there is no supernatural, explain how matter was created.
I believe one of the laws of Thermodynamics says something about "Matter cannot be created or destroyed"? Are you saying matter always was in existance?"

I will attempt to revisit these points after i have covered evolution.

"Oh enlightened one.. what in the world are you talking about? there's no fundamental difference between living and non-living matter? so life is just a chemical reaction? then why were you whining about God putting a man to death for working on the sabbath? all it is is stopping a chemical reaction.. man I'm glad I don't live near you.. you probably don't think there's anything wrong with murder either do you?"

Ok this is slightly relevent, yes, life is just a chemical reaction, thats what Biochemistry shows, everything is proteins, carbohydrates, nucleic acids, and other chemical compounds, it is a chemical system more complex than anything our brains can cope with, but never the less it is a chemical system. I'm afraid i can't go into detail explaining this, if you are doubtfull perhaps we can revisit it after evolution is out the way.

There is no need to change ones ethical stance based on the knowledge of how life operates, the fact that I am composed of a complex chemical system does not alter the fact that I am aware, feel, and value my life. Those aspects are what the logical side of ethics are geared towards.

"so we're no better than an amoeba? okay.. sure.. I believe you.. amoebas have discussions like this on the internet too right? I'm sure they're scientificaly as advanced as us right?"

I will answer this in more detail, in the evolutionary discussion following, but the key here is that you are defining what "better" means in an arbitrary manner using what you deem important. Consider it from a more universal point of view, what makes us "better"? Intelligence? And why is intelligence "better"? You will find you quickly run into the "X is better because it is", line of reasoning. The reason for this is because some things are intrinsically important to us as humans, that however does not make us "better" from a universal perspective.

"i.e. we ARE BETTER THAN AN AMOEBA"

Better at what? Adapting to a given environment? Sometimes (not always though), but then an Amoeba is better at surviving being put through meat grunder, you see there is no universal context for the term "better", only specific instances.

"he is a scientist, he studies the field, and he doesn't agree with you. I have just totaly disproven your point. At least try to be accurate and truthfull okay?"

I can't find any mention of his credentials on that website, perhaps it is unfair to say EVERY scientist who studies in the field supports me, since anyone can call themselves a scientist and anyone can study in the field.

What I should say is that every scientist working in a respected institution agrees with me, if you go to Cambridge, Harvard, MIT, etc. you will not find physicists who believe the Earth is 6000 years old or biologists who believe evolution to be false. Now i realise you have no way of verifying that, so what i suggest you do, is go to the Harvard web-page (or some other good university of your choice) go to the physics section, randomly pick one of the professors and email him asking if he believes the Earth is 6000 years old. Now pick a random biology professor, and ask him if he believes in evolution, if you like you can ask both questions to both professors, i assure you, you will get the same answers.

"You are lying; first off, you do *NOT* know that all the scientists in the world believe in evolution. Secondly, we *DO* know that some don't. Please stick to at least theories that aen't easy to prove wrong.
Secondly, pictures of fossils have nothing to do with it; they still have not demonstrated that macro evolution is possible, let alone that it occurred."

Again i'm sorry i can't say all, i can say all respected scientists. I will attempt to cover some of the fossil evidence when i explain evolution shortly.

Incidently if you have access to any form of scientific journal see if you can find any articles disputing evolution, surely if there are many scientists who don't beleive its true there will be articles published explaining why the evidence is false.

" thought you said you thought for yourself? Sounds like you're blindly accdepting what they say because you think they've spent alot of time on it. Just because they spent alot of time on it doesn't necessarily mean they're right."

I do think for myself, i have a good grasp of the theory and it seems pretty sound to me, i have seen a fair amount of evidence. But you must realise that you cannot hope to individually verify everything that every scientist has ever done. At some point you have to rely on the scientific peer-review process. Now i have very good reason to rely on that process, because every single time I have delved into a scientific theory that is accepted I have found real answers, supported by real data.

Presumeably you believe that pluto is the furthest planet from the sun, yet you won't have personally seen the evidence for yourself, perhaps you have seen the evidence for pluto but there will be many other examples where you accept what scientists tell you. I've seen the scientific-method up-close and personal, thus i have very good reason for trusting it.

Ok before you reply to this post please let me write my next one explaining evolutionary theory, then you can take the two together and reply to me after you've gone through it. Hopefully you will have a clearer idea of what the theory actually says and why we believe it

Ok on to evolutionary theory.

I need to give you some background, on genetic replication and protein synthesis, i'll try and keep it brief.

When i was doing A-level biology we were set an essay with the title "Genes make proteins make life, discuss", it was designed to demonstrate the students comprehension of how life works because really thats what life is: genes and proteins.

Proteins are the machinery of life, they 'do' everything (ok thats not exactly true, but its a valid generalisation at this level). Proteins govern the chemistry that is running your body right now; enzymes chop up your food into smaller pieces then different enzymes turn those pieces into biological building blocks or units of chemical energy. Other enzymes combine those building blocks into usefull molecules, whether they are structural like the actin fillaments in muscle cells or stores of energy like fat molecules. Wherever you look in biology you will find proteins guiding the way.

Each protein is coded via a gene, which is a sequence of DNA, the actual mechanism of protein synthesis is not really necessary for an understanding of evolution, if you wish me to go into more detail I will do so, but basically an enzyme builds a temporary template based on the gene sequence, the protein is then built off this temporary template.

When DNA is copied, the enzymes that copy it are amazingly accurate BUT they are not 100% accurate, variations do creep in, these variations are mutations.

When a mutation has occured within a gene, the resulting change to the protein can be extremely large or negligible depending on the kind of mutation and the site of the mutation within the gene, in turn the protein involved can be an extremely vital one or a less important one. What that adds up to is that mutations can have small or large effect on the organism as a whole.

Ok so you should be able to see that mutations can cause changes in organisms by altering the proteins they code for.

So what does that mean?

Well, think of it in terms of properties; what properties will make an organism more likely to successfully survive and mate hence passing on its genes? The answer will depend on the organisms environment, in different environments different properties are favourable, for example cold environments favour small noses and ears which reduces heat loss, hot environments favour large noses and ears which aid heat loss.

Imagine a generic mammal, going to an extreme environment lets say a cold one. What will happen to that mammal's properties over time (I mean the properties of the group not an individual one)?

Almost all mutations will make an organism less likely to pass on its genes, you would expect this given the complexity of the systems involved, many mutations will be 'neutral', they will make no difference, however a few will make the organism more likely to pass on its genes.

If we swap from mammals to bacteria, its easier to see real life examples of this (bacteria replicate a heck of a lot faster so its a lot easier to see, though there are plenty of examples in larger animals of micro-evolution too).

If i grow a culture of bacteria on an agar plate in a lab, then treat the agar with antibiotic X, most of the bacteria will die (or stop growing depending on whether the antibiotic is bacteriostatic or bacteriocidal), because the antibiotic is doing something that messes them up, e.g. penecillin stops bacteria building a critical component of their cell wall, without it they explode.

However some of the bacteria will not die, because (by chance) they have a mutation that confers resistance to the antibiotic, the nature of this resistance can take many forms, in some bacteria a mutation in one of their genes coding for an enzyme means that the enzyme now breaks down the antibiotic, alternatively an alteration in the protein that builds what ever molecule it is that the antibiotic attacks, may have altered slightly which alters the molecule in question slightly which in turn means the antibiotic not longer binds to it, etc.

Creationist often mistakenly believe that the resistant bacteria are not due to mutations but that there are always a number of bacteria within the population with genes that are already resistant.

There are two problems with this stance, 1) It has been shown to be false experimentally; when new antibiotics are discovered 2 samples of bacteria are taken one is exposed to the antibiotic and the mutant genes confering reistance identified, then compared to the bacteria not exposed to the antibiotic. The reistant gene is often not found in the unexposed bacteria.

It should be noted that there have been some cases where the resistant gene has been found in bacteria that have not been cultured with the antibiotic, this does not however present a problem since it is usually because the mutant gene is also usefull in some other way, or it is a neutral mutation (ie. has no downside and is there due to genetic drift).

The second problem, is the logical disconnection required; if we know mutations are possible and we know that the only difference between a mutant resistant gene and a non-mutant gene is a single amino acid change (the smallest possible mutation) then it is inevitable that mutation can result in resistance.

In the examples where resistance is already there, it still arose via mutation, whether it stayed in the population because the mutation was neutral or because it was advantageous in some way doesn't matter.

Ok moving on....... what happens to an organism who has a detrimental mutation?

Well, the first organism is less likely to pass on his, genes, he may die or fail to find a mate, but, he may not; he is statistically less likely to find a mate than an organism lacking the mutant gene he carries but never the less there is a chance that he will survive and will have offspring. So how is this mutant gene going to be removed?

Well some of his children may not have the mutant gene, some may, the key here is to look at organisms who posess the mutant gene vs. organisms who don't. If every time it comes to mate organisms with the mutant gene are less likely to do so (they may be already dead, or they may not be chosen by a female) than their non-mutant counterparts, the mutant gene will eventually fall out of the gene pool. An anology is that with every successive generation the gene pool is sieved and some bad genes are left behind in the sieve (the organisms with the bad genes failed to mate).

Now the reverse is also true, if an organism has a beneficial mutation (like resistance antibiotics for a pathogenic bacterium, or smaller ears for a mammal in a cold climat), ie. one that makes it more likely to pass on its genes, the mutant gene will spread throughout the entire population, (unless the original organism meets an untimely end without reproducing, but that will not happen to every organism with a beneficial mutation).

What i'm describing to you is the process of 'micro-evolution'.

Ok so why have i gone to all this trouble to explain microevolution, when you already accept it?

The key is to show that microevolution will inevitably lead to macroevolution, if given time.

First consider, what is a species? The usual definition for organisms that reproduce sexually is that two members of a species can reproduce to form fertile young.

So why do we consider dogs and cats to be separate species? Because they cannot mate and form dog-cat hybrids that are fertile. Why do we consider horses and donkeys separate species? Because whilst they can form a donkey-horse hybrid (a mule) it is not fertile.

Ok so how does macroevolution work, and why is it inevitable given microevolution?

Well we have seen that microevolution allows small changes in chacteristics that benefit the organism to sweep through the gene-pool.

So what happens if you have an organism that is split into two groups by geographical isolation?

Well they are now in different environments and their gene pools can no longer mix, not because they are a different species but because they are physically separated.

What will happen to these two gene pools?

They will gradually become more and more different, via two processes: micro-evolution ie. beneficial mutations, and genetic drift ie. neutral mutations.

At some point they will be so different they will no longer be able to mate together to produce fertile young at this point we define them as being new species.

Perhaps you are thinking that microevolution is very limited and inherently cannot cause much change, afterall when we take our bacteria, once it has mutated and got its resistant gene what then?

Well for a start normally resistance is not an all or nothing phenomena its a gradual accumulation ie. organisms become progressively more resistant to increasing concentrations of toxin.

But never the less, all that is changing is resistance, thats but a single characteristic. Bacterial antibiotic resistance is a single example of "selective pressure", selective pressure is "pressure" on an organism to change, ie. the possibility that a mutation will lead to increased genetic fitness (increased likelyhood to pass on genes).

Sometimes there can be zero selective pressure, ie. an organism is "perfectly" adapted to its environment, however usually this is not the case, because all life is constantly striving against other life for fixed resources, the biological world is constantly playing a game of one-upmanship. The best example of this is in the predetor-prey relationships:

The prey are constantly adapting to the predator which is constantly adapting to the prey.

Because of the continual struggle for resources in most cases there is always selective pressure on organisms, meaning there is no end point for evolutionary adaptation.

You should be able to see now that macroevolution is inevitable given microevolution, there is no way that macroevolution could not occur.

In addition however there are mechanisms available for larger scale changes than provided by microevolution, i won't go into them now because i don't think its really necessary given that macro evolution must be given micro (if you want me to elaborate on these mechanisms i will).

Now i haven't really given you 'proof' of macroevolution; the aim so far has been to demonstrate how microevolution works, and why because of that macroevolution is inevitable.

But there is also a plethora of evidence supporting macro-evolution.

First we must consider what we mean by evidence; evidence consists of making a prediction based on a theory then testing the prediction and finding the data supports our prediction.

What predictions would we make given the theory of evolution?

Well, we would predict that the DNA of species that are closer in time to their common ancestor would have closer matching DNA.

If we consider the two species that formed due to geographic separation, their DNA will still be remarkable similar, however the longer their gene pools are separated the more different it will become. In turn these 2 species will split and become more species, some will die out some will not the process will continue, we can draw a tree of life with each branch being a new species, the further away two branches are the greater we would expect the differences in genetic material to be.

This is EXACTLY what we see, in nature.

In addition we would expect to see gradual change in the physical characteristics of organisms demonstrated in the fossil record, again this is exactly what we see.

Heres a link showing horse fossils:
http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/horse_evolution.htm

and heres some pictures of the fossils involved:
http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/natsci/vert.../Stratmap1.htm

Now Creationist often argue the case of "missing links", ie gaps in the fossil record, but they miss the point, we EXPECT gaps in the record because so few organisms are fossilised!

They also claim there are no transitional forms, a transitional form is an example of an intermediate between higher taxa (larger groupings like mammal/reptile - of course these were at the time just a normal species separation).

See my enclosed diagram of the tree of life. (which is fairly lame, if you don't understand what i'm trying to show, let me now and i'll try to clarify)

So we would expect that the organisms close to the mammal -reptile divide would have very similar characteristics ie. mammalian like reptiles and reptilian like mammals. And we do see that in the fossil record; we see fossils that have characterstics from two groups (ie. we see transitional forms). The most obvious example is Archaeopteryx ( http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/archaeopteryx/info.html ), which shows reptillian and bird like features, but there are many others like the therapsids -mammal-reptile ( http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaver...7/therapsd.htm ) , the various fish-amphibian transitional forms ( http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/transit.htm )

Creationists of course do not accept any of the transitional forms, because that would constitue "proof" of evolution, they say the archaeopteryx is "just" a bird, and it IS classified as a bird, BUT our taxonomy ie. the way we name things is done for OUR convenience, we label it a bird because it resembles a bird more than a reptile

The point however is that it is exactly what we are looking for a fossil that shows characteristics from two lineages, including characteristics that are NOT seen in modern birds, it has no bill, reptile vertebrae, reptillian like bones, and various other features not seen in birds.

Again predicted by evolution and born out by the fossil record.

There are many more examples of evidence not to mention the computer models that reproduce evolution spectacularly well..... but i better stop soon or i'll overflow the boards .

Unfortuneately science is not simple, you don't get quick easy answers, it does take time to get to grips with the subjects involved and some concepts are not especially easy to grasp. What i have desciribed is an extremely simplified version of events, i could go into a lot more detail in almost all the areas covered, and I know only a tiny tiny fraction of what the scientists in the field know, consider that for a moment.

Science can sometimes be hard, but the sheer wonder of seeing how and why things work, more than makes up for it IMO.

There are books, by scientists particularly gifted at explaining ideas to people lacking specialist training, i implore you to go and find one on evolution, Richard Dawkins is king of this kind of thing, buy borrow or steal a copy of "The Blind Watchmaker" or "Climbing Mount Improbable", he's pretty anti-religion (much like me, really) but you will not find a more lucid account of evolutionary theory aimed at the layman.

I'll be editing this post for a year and a day so don't be suprised if there are a host of gramatical logical and spelling errors on first reading!

Edit: The diagram had an amazingly stupid mistake where i had reptiles and mammals evolving from a precursor...... when infact mammals evolved FROM reptiles, so i've corrected that now. (damn 5 kingdom naming system is totally useless).

"They have no evidence that there ISN'T God."

*Stands up*
.....
*Grabs fresh kipper*
.....
*Walks over to Sean*
.....
*Beats Sean over the head repeatedly with fresh kipper*
.....

aah, so much better now.

huahhhh...it seem that this tread is the most popular among other threads. hmm.... when this tread will be ended?

>>People may have been posting that same argument, but have you noticed how people have continued to ignore it?

Have you noticed that new people are joining this thread who have very obviously _not_ read the rest of the thread. I'm finding this extremly rude. That question was answered quite repeatedly earlier in the thread. I believe so repeatedly that is was at least once posted in CAPS.

>>You can't prove there is.
>>I can't prove there isn't.

And yet, we can provide enough evidence that there isnt, to logically conclude that thinking so would be insane... ... Which we have done... ... And not to put too fine a point on it but: some of you are still insane...

>>And you haven't found the rest of this thread to be the same 700 pieces of crap?

Not really. I've noticed it to be 700 pages of repetition. But what can you do when someone refuses to listen to you?

P.S. Clyde, I've never seen a larger post (RE: "Ok on to evolutionary theory"). That is huge, my friend, just huge. That must have taken a good 45 minutes to upload to cprogs server.

"P.S. Clyde, I've never seen a larger post (RE: "Ok on to evolutionary theory"). That is huge, my friend, just huge. That must have taken a good 45 minutes to upload to cprogs server"

Yea, i didn't mean for it to be huge, and to be honest i don't think its nearly enough, every time i start trying to explain theory i begin to realise just how much you need to cover. I just hope i can make him realise just how much there is to know, if i can get that point accross maybe he might think about looking into it in more depth and perhaps getting a popular-science book on evolution.

well, I skimmed over the post, but unfortunately, as I said before, I just don't have the time to delve into the subject in depth (as I have said before) right now, so I might just have to let it lie for now.
I know there is amuch out there that I don't know; and I do like very much to learn new things.. but I just can't right now.

However, a quick point to light@dawn:

>And yet, we can provide enough evidence that there isnt, to
>logically conclude that thinking so would be insane... ... Which
>we have done... ... And not to put too fine a point on it but:
>some of you are still insane...

according to Clydes definition of evidence (i.e. that if it hasn't been proven wrong yet, it's still considered evidence: "evidence consists of making a prediction based on a theory then testing the prediction and finding the data supports our prediction.")
there is no way for you to test a theory that God does not exist, so you cannot say that you have evidence.
According to Clyde's definition of the theory of evolution(I am assuming that you agree with him) does not deal with the origin of life, or the universe anwyay; it also does not rule out God.
Therefore,even if the theory of evolution is quite correct (I said if), based on the theory of evolution, and our current definition of evidence, you cannot say that you have provided evidence that God does not exist. If I am incorrect, and you have, plz provide a link to the post here in which you ssaid it, because as I have mentioned (many times b4) I simply don't have the time to go reading through all these posts.. let alone the many replies I could make to them.
Thanks, and I'll probably not be back for a bit.
(*sigh*.. oh for the old days of summer w/o a job (or a care in the world).. when I sat around all day and did nothing.. lol..)

>>there is no way for you to test a theory that God does not exist, so you cannot say that you have evidence.

Sentance Formula: 1 parts correct, 1 parts irrelevant.

You're missing the point.

a) It is insane to believe something without evidence. Point: We've noticed a lack of belief in Clydes invisible kangaroo. This indicates that you have some sort of reasoning available for use.

b) There is no physical evidence to support god. Any arguments presented by theologists have been repeatedly and conclusivly rebuked by scientific knowledge.

My point is that though we have no evidence against the possibility of god, we also have no evidence against Clydes invisible kangaroo. And yet; Nobody believes the kangaroo? Why? Your reasoning should allow you to believe anything anybody suggests to you.

So to answer Seans most recently posts question ("They have no evidence that there ISN'T God.": The reason he got beat with a kipper), and yours simultaniously:

Lack of disproof is not proof. If you did a search for this in the thread it would come up 4.2 trillion times. Honest. I checked.

What this means is that, simply because you cannot prove something to not be, is not any indication or evidence of it as truth. As has been repeatedly pointed out; There are many many many things (infinite actually) that we cannot disprove. ... Get it?