"Did Life Evolve" program..

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Justin (Wiccan)

Justin (Wiccan)

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Jeremiah85 said:
So, how do you believe that life began?
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Who, me? Religiously, I'm a theistic evolutionist. As far as my science, we've got some really good insight on speciation and evolution of species, but I don't think we have a good understanding of abiogenesis.

Justin
 
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Jeremiah85

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Justin (Wiccan) said:
Who, me? Religiously, I'm a theistic evolutionist. As far as my science, we've got some really good insight on speciation and evolution of species, but I don't think we have a good understanding of abiogenesis.

Justin
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Let me make sure that I understand you: You believe that god (or gods) created the universe and allowed man to develop by means of evolution? If so, what has led you to believe this?
 
Justin (Wiccan)

Justin (Wiccan)

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Jeremiah85 said:
Let me make sure that I understand you: You believe that god (or gods) created the universe and allowed man to develop by means of evolution? If so, what has led you to believe this?
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More like "guided all species to evolve," but pretty much.

On the scientific side, once you have life (and remember, I'm not terribly satisfied at the scientific explanations), evolution most closely matches the fossil, genetic, and biological evidence. Modern geological models (a four-billion year old earth) and modern cosmological models ("Big Bang" cosmology, 13+/- billion year old universe) are the best explanations for those things, and the three (cosmology, geology, and evolution) agree without too many tangles.

On the religious side, I have ... well, I guess you would have to say I have "seen" the Creator sustaining and maintaining the Universe, guiding the processes of life. It's a mystical and rather subjective piece of evidence, so I know it may not be tremendously useful for you, but it gives me a better theological understanding.

Justin
 
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Jeremiah85

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Justin (Wiccan) said:
On the scientific side, once you have life (and remember, I'm not terribly satisfied at the scientific explanations), evolution most closely matches the fossil, genetic, and biological evidence.
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May I ask what specific fossil evidences you are speaking of?
Modern geological models (a four-billion year old earth) and modern cosmological models ("Big Bang" cosmology, 13+/- billion year old universe) are the best explanations for those things, and the three (cosmology, geology, and evolution) agree without too many tangles.
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Do you mean micro-evolution or macro-evolution?
On the religious side, I have ... well, I guess you would have to say I have "seen" the Creator sustaining and maintaining the Universe, guiding the processes of life. It's a mystical and rather subjective piece of evidence, so I know it may not be tremendously useful for you, but it gives me a better theological understanding.
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I am a Christian so matters of faith don't bother me. I am simply trying to understand what you believe and why.
 
Justin (Wiccan)

Justin (Wiccan)

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Jeremiah85 said:
May I ask what specific fossil evidences you are speaking of?
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Hmmm. Kind of off-topic for the thread, but briefly: when you dig in the same location, you tend to find "more specialized" creatures in more recent (higher) strata, and "less specialized" creatures in older (lower) strata.

Do you mean micro-evolution or macro-evolution?
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I'm not actually aware of an operative difference, and as such, it's realy beyond my skills to answer in a coherent fashion.

I am a Christian so matters of faith don't bother me. I am simply trying to understand what you believe and why.
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Cool. :thumb:
 
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Jeremiah85

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Justin (Wiccan) said:
Hmmm. Kind of off-topic for the thread, but briefly: when you dig in the same location, you tend to find "more specialized" creatures in more recent (higher) strata, and "less specialized" creatures in older (lower) strata.
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I can start another thread if you prefer or we can continue this by e-mail. My main question is: How do you explain polystrate fossils?


I'm not actually aware of an operative difference, and as such, it's realy beyond my skills to answer in a coherent fashion.
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Simply put micro-evolution is changes within species and macro-evolution is changes from one species to another.
 
fool

fool

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Jeremiah85 said:
I can start another thread if you prefer or we can continue this by e-mail. My main question is: How do you explain polystrate fossils?
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can you describe some?

Jeremiah85 said:
Simply put micro-evolution is changes within species and macro-evolution is changes from one species to another.
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are we talking about "species" as described by Wikipedia?

sorry to jump in
hope you guys don't mind
 
fool

fool

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Jeremiah85 said:
There have been numerous report of trees that have been buried in multiple layers of rock.
Cite
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could these fossils be the result of "rapid intense" local "geologic process"?
 
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Jeremiah85

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fool said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_neanderthalensis
can you explain why they seem to be another species?
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You can only learn so much about a creature from its bones. They seem to have very human characteristics such as stone tools and ritual burials. The article that you cited even says the they probably had a spoken language. As to whether or not they could interbreed with humans like us cannot be proven or disproven with the evidence at hand so whether or not they were human must be deduced by what they made and left behind.
 
fool

fool

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Jeremiah85 said:
You can only learn so much about a creature from its bones. They seem to have very human characteristics such as stone tools and ritual burials. The article that you cited even says the they probably had a spoken language. As to whether or not they could interbreed with humans like us cannot be proven or disproven with the evidence at hand so whether or not they were human must be deduced by what they made and left behind.
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ok
so if we clone one is he eligible for salvation ?
 
fool

fool

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One Eyed Jack said:
Sure. Why not?
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what about the rest of these?
Homo antecessor (extinct)
Homo cepranensis (extinct)
Homo erectus (extinct)
Homo ergaster (extinct)
Homo floresiensis (extinct)
Homo georgicus (extinct)
Homo habilis (extinct)
Homo heidelbergensis (extinct)
Homo neanderthalensis (extinct)
Homo rhodesiensis (extinct)
Homo rudolfensis (extinct)
Homo sapiens
 
One Eyed Jack

One Eyed Jack

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I can't say about all of those. I don't know whether or not they're all human. Those that were would be eligible for Salvation. We've gone over this before.
 
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Johnny

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Since the thread has gone a bit off track, I'll reiterate why the program is not a valid criticism.

Let's assume Bob is in fact referring to abiogenesis.

  • The link that points to his program is labelled "Did life evolve?" Evolution and abiogenesis are two different concepts. Showing that abiogenesis (i.e. that life could come from non-life) is impossible does not invalidate the theory of evolution in any way.
  • Bob's link says, "Can the 26-letter English alphabet evolve by chance?". Randomly jumbling letters together is not evolution by any definition. So what does randomly jumbling letters together tell us about evolution? Nothing.
  • Bob says, "A protein molecule must get the letters of its amino acid alphabet correct in the right order, from the beginning, sequentially through to the end." This is true, but complex proteins didn't just spontaneously appear one day. The first "proteins" were undoubtedly very simple, perhaps a just a few amino acids long. By the time we see anything that we would classify as a protein today, the primitive life-form had been replicating for quite some time. Hemoglobin didn't just spontaneously appear one day, and so it is absolutely pointless to ask how many tries it would take for a complex protein to just "randomly jumble together".
  • In the next sentence, Bob says, "That makes the probability of the evolution of life tremendously more unlikely than our alphabet evolution." Once again, the alphabet program isn't evolving. And once again, how life got started is irrelevant to the process of evolution.
  • "This Evolve alphabet program tests the ability of random chance to order information." Truely, and that's about all it does. It is not analogous to abiogenesis or the process of evolution.

So what does Bob's program tell us about evolution? Nothing. What does Bob's program tell us about abiogenesis? Nothing.
 
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