Forums IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ PhotoReading, Memory Optimizer A simple matter of faith

"I wonder why we are the only creatures to develop such an amazing brain... just by chance?"

There are plenty of creatures out there with amazing brains. Dolphins, for example. Depends on your definition of amazing.

As for "why are there no primates/saurians/whatever that are kinda like us but not?", well, we killed'em off. Current theory is that we killed off the neanderathal, for example, who had that "similar yet different" angle you're looking for. (I know, some other theories state that neanderathals weren't as much killed off as assimilated. Not terribly pertinent for this discussion.)

Btw, this subject really gets close to racism at certain points (example, eastern-european Jews are prone to certain diseases), so we need to be carefull here.

"And if it is by chance why do all humans have near identical DNA?"

Heck, chimps are pretty close in that department too. So? Human bodies are amazingly complex things. For that matter, verterbrates are complex. Heck, even examining one-celled organisms and detailing all the parts is a pain in the rear.

The difference between "near identical" and "identical" is a big deal when you're talking about billions of comparisons.

-Jeff

P.S. Regarding "billions" - I don't remember the various numbers. Find one you like.

Check it out: http://www.learningstrategies.com/DecisiveAction/Intro3.html

Pete Bissonette describes the evolutionary remnant of,

"Neanderthal Power"

So not only is Photoreading occult, it is also evolutionist...

"Harness the raw, 'Neanderthal power' that surges naturally through your veins"...

[This message has been edited by Brian649 (edited March 21, 2002).]

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Originally posted by Mastermind:
Those monkies on Planet of the Apes didnt just evolve by chance, they were genetically modified

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Thanks Mastermind... but read into the movie and think about it.

If each form of life is evolving individually, why do we not see striking differences between us all.

For instance why do I only have two arms, 10 finger's, 10 toe's. If we are part of a game of chance some people should have four arms, others have 3 toes and fingers, one eye instead of two...

For that matter why don't we have an eye at the back of our head? If it is truely about survival we would definately be better off if we could see behind us without turning around.

To help develop this topic more let me pose some questions.

Why do we see in color? Do we need that for survival?

Why do we enjoy music, art, movies, books? If all we need to do is survive then our bodies would never have needed such things.

It has been my experience that every scientist that is an evolutionist has forgotten what science is all about. This is because they totally ignore the possibility that there is a creator. When they ignore that possibility they are on a slippery slope of guessing and calling fiction fact.

This is not how evolution works. See above reply on "punctuated equilibria". Closed systems spontaneously evolve to higher orders only when they are stressed to capacity. Otherwise, same old/same old.

Like the Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in 1991... The system stayed the same for decades, unchanged. Over time, entropy just built and built until something had to give. The system came crashing down. And a new and more adapted system took its place.

I personally believe that God created the Universe and everything in it. How he did it, I don't know. Could evolution be a part of God's plan? Possibly. Darwinism, however, does not include God, or any other supernatural forces, providing "guidance" in the process of evolution. Because of this, the genetic mutations have to be completely random and with no purpose, either good or bad. The "value" of the mutation is judged by natural selection. If the mutation is good, the organism lives and prospers passing the mutation on to its offspring. If the mutation is bad, the organism dies and that mutation stops there.

This complete randomness and lack of purpose/guidance (or design) is what gets me. It just doesn't make sense to me on a gut level. Statistically, the odds are overwhelmingly against life as we know it on earth. I know the argument "Given the size of the Universe and the number of possible combinations blah blah blah, it was bound to happen someplace in the Universe and it just happened here". But if you take the Earth as a closed system, it just isn't that big and life just hasn't been here long enough to run through enough permutations to get the results we see around us every day. According to Darwinism, evolution is caused by random, incremental, changes that are followed through to the next generation. Darwinism dictates that every incremental step has to be beneficial to the species or it will not survive natural selection. So for example, the first animal that grew wings would have done so over an extremely large number of generations before the wings are even remotely functional, never mind all the other physical changes needed to fly that also happen by pure chance, and just by pure coincidence happened to the same species that grew wings. The odds of having multiple, complimentary mutations that will eventually become something useful are extremely unlikely. Until those wings are functional, what good are they and why would natural selection pick those animals for survival and why would the other non mutated species die off? To put this in perspective, in the entire history of Homo Sapiens, there is no evidence that we have evolved, and the mutations we see in Humans are all too often destructive, i.e. cancer and other disease. So it would take a long time to "evolve" in such a complex way as to grow wings, or even minor changes for that matter. There are many other things in nature that the complexities are astounding. When the Discovery channel has "venom week" I'm hooked. It is simply amazing how these venoms work. How people claim random mutations resulted in venoms that so intricately attack biological systems of the victims on the cellular level is beyond me.

"Irreducible complexity" is a concept that is popular with Creationist these days along with the Intelligent Design Theory. This concept is that some biological systems could not have been attained by a multiple step process due to the necessity of having all elements present at the same time for the system to be beneficial. This concept points to the need to have an "intelligent designer" involved in the development of life. An example of this would be cilia on single celled organisms. In order for the cilia to function, the mechanical elements have to be fully in place AND several specific proteins must also be present. Without any of the elements present, the cilia would not work and its presence would be harmful to the organism. One problem with irreducible complexity is that as science improves, what once looked like it was irreducibly complex, may get a scientific explanation of a step by step development path that would fit within evolution.

One thing though that really annoys me about many pro-evolution folks is their absolute refusal to accept that fact that evolution is an unproven theory. In this society, it is treated as absolute fact. There was a movement in the recent past by some creationists to simply put a disclaimer in biology textbooks saying that evolution was only a theory and not proven. All hell broke loose within the educational community and they fought it tooth and nail and defeated it. So much for the truth. I was watching a program on Discovery the other day similar to "Walking with Dinosaurs" but about the early mammals. With very little data, the show presented these early mammals explaining what they were, what they ate, how they slept, the time of day they hunted, and what they eventually evolved into. There was one large mammal that lived on both land and in the water (looked like an alligator) and they explained virtually step by step how this creature evolved into a whale. There are no intermediate animals in the fossil record, or any other evidence of this but that didn't stop them from their assertions. I guess their logic was "this was a big mammal that lived mostly in the water. Whales are big mammals that live in the water. Evolution is fact so whales must have evolved from this ancient mammal." The imagination of these pseudo-scientists is amazing. There was no words like "it's speculated that" or "one possible explanation is", everything was presented as fact. All those public school kids are out there swallowing this stuff hook, line, and sinker without so much as asking basic questions. Mastermind, I'm glad your not one of those mind numbed robots .

In an odd way, it reminds me of Princess Bunhead's line from that classic movie, "Thumb Wars."

"I escaped somehow. Let's go!"

I became a photosensitive patch of skin somehow. Let's become an eyeball!

[This message has been edited by slithy toves (edited March 21, 2002).]

I don't know about you, but this makes more sense to me than a 30 year old woman spontaneously *poof*-ing out of nothing from Adam's rib.

Evolutionary scientists are just trying to make sense of their world. They are theorizing, true, but these theories are based on facts such as fossil evidence, uncanny similarities between disparate animals, environment and its relation to physical structure, and that wonderful stuff of logic that connects the facts to a 'reasonable' theory.

So it is a theory. But it makes more sense than any other theory put forth. For that matter, what is the evidence behind the Judeo-Christian Creation myth?

Your stance is that, "there is element of "intelligent work" that is missing and that something is the work of the Christian God." But how do you know? What are the facts? (Besides that 4000 year old book you keep referring to.) What observable "thing" proves the work of God?

"The eye is complex, therefore God made it," just doesn't cut it, I'm afraid. For example, how do you know it was your God and not someone else's? What makes a complex eye a complex christian eye?

I guess what I am asking is... What distinguishes your creation myth from the creation myth of any other religion?

Please answer this last question as specifically as possible.

Yes, I believe the world is only about 6,000-10,000 years old. No, I am not saying that the species now are the only one's there have ever been. Before the Great Flood, I'm sure there were many species including dinosaurs and many other plants and insects. The 65 millions years date is set most likely by carbon dating, wouldn't bet my life on that since it's been proven wrong in many occations.

Yes, you do in fact grow from the day you are born, but you are dying at the same time. The reason Jesus heals is because it is supernatural something the human mind cannot comprehend. The closed system "anti-entropic" effects you're talking about is only delayed entropy. If you put a human being in a near perfect enviroment, with near perfect food, and near perfect training sure they'd probably live a little longer. But, not that much. They're still gonna die.

The man's arm doesn't "adapt" it reacts to an external stimulus the 40 pound weight. The muscle tears filling with blood enlarging it. Just like you create more blood in your bone marrow when you lose blood, you build more muscle when you create the need for more muscle, such as lifting weights. But, the more time goes by the harder that same man will have to work to maintain the same amount muscle as before because...you guessed it entropy . Enjoyed your post though .

-Will