Stirring the pot - creation vs. evolutionism

[Infidel Castro]

Originally posted by Modderrhu
If the Universe is geared towards life, then... see... but if Torn blue sky was made, then he was made by a mistake, and then he\'s also a mistake, right? Unless he\'s only made of hydrogen...

I feel so much better now, we\'re all mistakes, every last one of us. :flip:

Sorry rev, didn\'t mean to sound serious. I just happen to your previous post about going to Theology Online for this stuff. Politics, religion, guns and Alexi Z are dire topics for CMON.

Which is why I go there!

 

[Infidel Castro]

Originally posted by Shawn R. L.
This is the result of random chance?? To believe that requires a HUGE amount of FAITH..................

Aye, and you seem to be the one touting FAITH dude! It\'s all the same whichever way it boils down. Sex runs the show in survival, so why be surprised?

 

[No Such Agency]

Originally posted by Shawn R. L.
This is the result of random chance?? To believe that requires a HUGE amount of FAITH..................

I don\'t think you understand \"natural selection\". See, the random variation comes before the selection... A peacock\'s tail is basically this:

Grotesque and impractical, sure, but it causes enough females to want to mate with the bearers that the characteristic confers a reproductive advantage over those who lack it. Similar displays have been shown to have this effect in other species (fish, I believe).

EDIT:
Sexual selection in seahorses.
Evolution of an ornament can be reversed.
A mating display can correlate with other aspects of fecundity.
Size does matter sometimes, but it can come at a cost.

 

[Undave]

lollollol I saw some idiot driving a car with lights in the bottom like that. He went over a speedbump too quick and smashed the lot.

 

[farseerlum]

i\'m always surprised at how many people of faith instantly reject evolution without ever understanding the principle.

i\'m also astounded at how many scientists don\'t understand the difference between darwinian natural selection and evolution as a theory.

darwinian natural selection is FACT. provable and reliable. it happens everytime the theory is tested. we rely on it intensively in agriculture though we really make it unatural selection.

saying god made it all means nothing in the face of what happens down the track. even if god made foxes we can still breed different foxes. i dare say given enough time we could breed new species.

i\'m not above believing it was all started by supreme beings. but saying it isn\'t what it is is rather boring. no one likes people who insist it\'s sunny when it\'s raining.

 

[tomusannonymous]

i think a lot of ppl don\'t believe in creationism because then they are responsible for what they do in there life. they don\'t have to \"own up\" for anything or behave themselves with evolutionism.

its like if a child had split up parents and prefered to stay with the (for example) \"easy going father\" over the \"strict mother\"....

im not trying to say creationsim is right but why *some* ppl tend to dismiss it so easily.

 

[Roger Bunting]

I saw some idiot driving a car with lights in the bottom like that. He went over a speedbump too quick and smashed the lot.

I guess that would be an example of a mutation in the genome causing the flashy display but at the same time another mutation making the subject less intelligent. Style over substance.

 

[Infidel Castro]

Ah, gene pool!

 

[skeeve]

Originally posted by Roger Bunting

I saw some idiot driving a car with lights in the bottom like that. He went over a speedbump too quick and smashed the lot.

I guess that would be an example of a mutation in the genome causing the flashy display but at the same time another mutation making the subject less intelligent. Style over substance.

Ah, but see, from the species perspective it doesn\'t matter. He might be less intelligent but he will get his mate this way too, because there are mates of matching intellegence

 

[Einion]

Originally posted by Shawn R. L.
This is the result of random chance?? To believe that requires a HUGE amount of FAITH..................

Nah.

You want to really bake your noodle think about the development of things that look on the surface to be simpler than a peacock\'s tail feathers:
nipples on male mammals;
the complex eye;
insect wings;
viruses.

Einion

 

[Modderrhu]

Originally posted by Einion
nipples on male mammals;

That one\'s easy. We liked \'em so much, we wanted some of our own. Most still prefer them on the opposite sex however.

 

[Gilvan Blight]

That one is easy actually. It\'s easier to include something then it is to exclude it. It\'s easier to the species if both sexes have nipped and then breast tissue develops if needed.

Same thing with babies being non-gendered at first. It\'s easier to give us both and grow one set, then to take a set away.

 

[Einion]

Originally posted by Modderrhu

Originally posted by Einion
nipples on male mammals;

That one\'s easy. We liked \'em so much, we wanted some of our own. Most still prefer them on the opposite sex however.

lol

Originally posted by Gilvan Blight
That one is easy actually. It\'s easier to include something then it is to exclude it. It\'s easier to the species if both sexes have nipped and then breast tissue develops if needed.

Yeah, I know the reasoning (great essay on this by Stephen Jay Gould, with a few more wrinkles than you might already know) but it\'s still something that a lot of people haven\'t a clue about and it\'s one of a number of things that points very directly to the mammalian evolutionary background - there\'s no justification/reason for them in a simple creationist viewpoint.

While we\'re on the subject, I\'d kill me granny to hear a creationist explain *cough* try to explain *cough* actual milk-producing breast tissue on a man, which occurs every now and then.

Einion

 

[Undave]

You can actually trace most of the stages of the evolution of the eye. Photoreceptive cells develop in patces on the skin, these then become sunk into a recess to gain some kind of directional specificity. The lens forms from a protective coating and specialised cells develop for colour vision etc.

Her\'s a link to a pic I found on Wikipaedia as a result of a quick search. You can get better illustrations citing various existing species displaying different stages of development but I\'m not about to go scanning textbooks.

Eyes are a good example of parallel evolution as human eyes are virtually identical to thos of octopi despite being products of different evolutionary pathways.

Now you could argue this as proof that some supreme being used the same component design for two different creatures. Equally it supports Darwinian evolution as it can be cited as the best design for a light detecting sensory organ hence it appears more than once.

 

[No Such Agency]

Originally posted by tomusannonymous
i think a lot of ppl don\'t believe in creationism because then they are responsible for what they do in there life. they don\'t have to \"own up\" for anything or behave themselves with evolutionism.

its like if a child had split up parents and prefered to stay with the (for example) \"easy going father\" over the \"strict mother\"....

im not trying to say creationsim is right but why *some* ppl tend to dismiss it so easily.

Are you trying to insult half the people in this thread?

 

[DrEvilmonki]

Originally posted by No Such Agency

Originally posted by tomusannonymous
i think a lot of ppl don\'t believe in creationism because then they are responsible for what they do in there life. they don\'t have to \"own up\" for anything or behave themselves with evolutionism.

its like if a child had split up parents and prefered to stay with the (for example) \"easy going father\" over the \"strict mother\"....

im not trying to say creationsim is right but why *some* ppl tend to dismiss it so easily.

Are you trying to insult half the people in this thread?

No he\'s trying to insult 90% of the people in this thread and anyone who doesn\'t believe in god as well! lol

 

[Avelorn]

Well the people being creationists have been called ridiculous in this thread..

So I think it\'s easier just to skip that discussion.

When people call each other names it\'s most likely because lack of arguments or people being narow-minded.

 

[Aidan K]

Originally posted by Shawn R. L.
This is the result of random chance?? To believe that requires a HUGE amount of FAITH..................

NO!! It is not random chance, merely random chance followed by natural selection. The peacocks that had random changes that resulted in tails a little like that one were preferred by females, allowing them to produce more offspring with those random changes. Hence the population shifted towards peacocks with elaborate tails.

To put evolution solely down to \"random chance\" is, in my books, a criminal over-simplification.

 

[Aidan K]

Originally posted by Einion

While we\'re on the subject, I\'d kill me granny to hear a creationist explain *cough* try to explain *cough* actual milk-producing breast tissue on a man, which occurs every now and then.

Einion

Maybe when God was giving out chests, those guys thought he was giving out milkshakes?

 

[funnymouth]

Originally posted by Aidan K

Originally posted by Shawn R. L.
This is the result of random chance?? To believe that requires a HUGE amount of FAITH..................

NO!! It is not random chance, merely random chance followed by natural selection. The peacocks that had random changes that resulted in tails a little like that one were preferred by females, allowing them to produce more offspring with those random changes. Hence the population shifted towards peacocks with elaborate tails.

To put evolution solely down to \"random chance\" is, in my books, a criminal over-simplification.

well said. i find that that misconception about evolution comes up a lot.