Fight over teaching evolution in Texas fizzles

[Maddhattter]

Exlude, then you have no answer for the creation of life. That is what you are telling me.

I agree. It seems that is what Exlude said. I would say that as well.

That fact, however, grants absolutely zero credibility to any of your claims. In fact, as you keep lumping bio-genesis into evolution, the fact that evolution can be true without any need for knowledge of how life started works against your argument of evolution.

I read through your article, however what you just did with it said that for evolution to occur, it has to be guided. Don't believe me? Go back and read it. The experiments done had human guidance that required the researcher to manipulate already existing creatures to get a desired effect.

While the above is irrelevant, if God guided evolution, evolution is still more supported than creationism by merit of being scientifically supported at all.

[exlude]

Yes, frosty, I'm talking about evolution. The "creation of life", while a few experiments have been done to back current theories, is still fairly far outside our research ability. Just doesn't interest me as much.

Maybe you should go back and read closer, I'll guarantee at this point you haven't read the whole thing. There are plenty examples of speciation in the wild, but you'll just claim there was another influencing factor. But when it's taken to a lab, in a testable environment, you claim it's unnatural. Quite a circular paradox you've created there.

Nevertheless, upon understanding the experiments (which regrettably takes a deeper molecular biology understanding), you'll see the confirmation (partially or entirely, depending on the experiment) of different components of evolution.

(I'm getting sucked into this, damnit)
For example:

Polyploidy/Hybridization shows how, in nature, organisms are able to sexually isolate themselves to create two separate and eventually diverging gene pools through physical reproductive isolation, thus speciation immediately.

The houseflies show how, in nature, organisms are able to sexually isolate themselves through behavioral isolation mimicking geographical isolation then later reintroduction and remain sexually isolated. This is very specifically seen in Rice and Salt where they are able to produce two sexually isolated strains.

The yellow monkey flower shows the forces of natural selection hard at work in fostering the divergence of a new species.

Of course, once you achieve reproductive isolation, adaptation will affect the isolated populations differently and, over time, diverge the two populations into easily identifiable species.

Those that say they accept adaptation but not speciation simply tell me they don't really understand the mechanisms at work in either.

[racrguy]

The bible is a story. Nothing more. The theory of evolution is man's attempt at explaining how our species came about. If I had to choose between the two, as to which to teach young minds in school, it would be the bible. It may be alot of hogwash, but it instills very basic morals and teachings that are beneficial to young impressionable minds. Evolution on the other hand would not provide this benefit.

With that said, any grown adult that thinks we all came from Adam and Eve, is delusional. It makes for great stories, but to believe it as fact, and discredit the rational idea that we might have evolved fom more primitive relatives, is ignorant.

I get what you're trying to say, but to say the bible is a good source of morals is a joke at best.

[Forever_frost]

I'll be the first to admit, there was a lot outside of my pay grade. Psychology or criminal law? Those are my wheel houses and I'm pretty good with both. However, reading it, what I saw was the researcher said "I took fly x and had them mate with fly y and got fly z." He took 2 already existing creatures of the same species and induced them to mate in a controlled environment. What the leap is, is to say "humans came from nothing, moved up to apes and from there, became as we are" whereas I'm saying "we were created as we are and our environment caused biological changes and modifications to us to help us survive in the environments our ancestors chose." Now, which takes more faith?

Yes, frosty, I'm talking about evolution. The "creation of life", while a few experiments have been done to back current theories, is still fairly far outside our research ability. Just doesn't interest me as much.

Maybe you should go back and read closer, I'll guarantee at this point you haven't read the whole thing. There are plenty examples of speciation in the wild, but you'll just claim there was another influencing factor. But when it's taken to a lab, in a testable environment, you claim it's unnatural. Quite a circular paradox you've created there.

Nevertheless, upon understanding the experiments (which regrettably takes a deeper molecular biology understanding), you'll see the confirmation (partially or entirely, depending on the experiment) of different components of evolution.

(I'm getting sucked into this, damnit)
For example:

Polyploidy/Hybridization shows how, in nature, organisms are able to sexually isolate themselves to create two separate and eventually diverging gene pools through physical reproductive isolation, thus speciation immediately.

The houseflies show how, in nature, organisms are able to sexually isolate themselves through behavioral isolation mimicking geographical isolation then later reintroduction and remain sexually isolated. This is very specifically seen in Rice and Salt where they are able to produce two sexually isolated strains.

The yellow monkey flower shows the forces of natural selection hard at work in fostering the divergence of a new species.

Of course, once you achieve reproductive isolation, adaptation will affect the isolated populations differently and, over time, diverge the two populations into easily identifiable species.

Those that say they accept adaptation but not speciation simply tell me they don't really understand the mechanisms at work in either.

[Hobie]

The earth is flat - why don't we teach that alternative theory?!?!

FLAT-EARTHERS UNITE !!!!one!!

[Hobie]

I get what you're trying to say, but to say the bible is a good source of morals is a joke at best.

Of course it is a good source of morals, if you pick and choose the morals that you like and exclude those you don't. ;-)

[Hobie]

in college, evolution is taught in every science class, and there is a lot of evidence to back it up. why make it harder on our kids?

This country seems to be heading in an anti-intellectual direction. The idiocracy is now.

[Baba Ganoush]

I get what you're trying to say, but to say the bible is a good source of morals is a joke at best.

Well I meant that the teachings of Christianity offer a wholesome basis for individuals to follow in a civil society. Do unto others, turn the other cheek, that sort of thing.

Other than that, it's just a fairy tale.

[Forever_frost]

The earth is flat - why don't we teach that alternative theory?!?!

FLAT-EARTHERS UNITE !!!!one!!

That has been proven to be wrong, can be measured to be wrong and is easily and independently verifiable. Evolution is a theory because it's not.

[racrguy]

I'll be the first to admit, there was a lot outside of my pay grade. Psychology or criminal law? Those are my wheel houses and I'm pretty good with both. However, reading it, what I saw was the researcher said "I took fly x and had them mate with fly y and got fly z." He took 2 already existing creatures of the same species and induced them to mate in a controlled environment. What the leap is, is to say "humans came from nothing, moved up to apes and from there, became as we are" whereas I'm saying "we were created as we are and our environment caused biological changes and modifications to us to help us survive in the environments our ancestors chose." Now, which takes more faith?

This has already been explained to you. 1) Evolution doesn't touch on the creation of life. 2) The only person that believes something came from nothing are creationists. You believe a magical man created everything from nothing, including humans. Yet you fail to understand, or choose to remain ignorant of the fact that apes and humans have had the same number of chromosomes in their DNA structure at one point, until a pair joined up in the human DNA structure to give us 23 chromosomes instead of 24 like other primates. How do we know this? Chromosomes have "start points" and "end points" There is a chromosome in humans that has both start points and end points in the middle of the chromosome, proving at some point one pair of our 24 chromosomes joined to create 23 chromosomes. I can't recall off the top of my head what the actual terminology is, or which pair of chromosomes joined together. Aside from that, primates and humans share some 98% of their genetic material IIRC.

It requires more faith to believe in an intangible magic man in the sky, let alone that he did anything. Evolution has evidence to back it up. Before you continue on with the "where did life come from" schtick, we don't know. And neither do you.


Don't take my word for it, fact check me, do some research.

[racrguy]

The earth is flat - why don't we teach that alternative theory?!?!

FLAT-EARTHERS UNITE !!!!one!!

I wish I was joking about this, but I'm not. They are serious as a heart attack.

http://theflatearthsociety.org/

Well I meant that the teachings of Christianity offer a wholesome basis for individuals to follow in a civil society. Do unto others, turn the other cheek, that sort of thing.

Other than that, it's just a fairy tale.

Like stoning rape victims, a "slavery for dummies" guide, and how to murder entire towns? Yep, it's a wholesome basis for individuals to follow. Hell, in the bible, god has killed more people than satan did.

That has been proven to be wrong, can be measured to be wrong and is easily and independently verifiable. Evolution is a theory because it's not.

So, you're willing to accept science in the case that the earth is not flat, yet you won't accept the same scientific methodology that proves evolution true. How convenient.

[Forever_frost]

You believe that we came from nothing, spent some time as a fish and then moved up to curious george. You keep dancing around the point. You say my view has flaws, I'm pointing out that not only does yours have flaws, it's 1) even considered a theory, 2) doesn't touch on creation saying instead "Something happened at some point to get us to this point where we can start with our theory" 3) No mutation that increases genetic information has ever been discovered. Mutations which increase genetic information would be the raw material necessary for evolution. To get from "amoeba" to "man" would require a massive net increase in information. 4) This is easier since copy and past is okay:

Evolution flies directly in the face of entropy, the second law of thermodynamics. This law of physics states that all systems, whether open or closed, have a tendency to disorder (or "the least energetic state"). There are some special cases where local order can increase, but this is at the expense of greater disorder elsewhere. Raw energy cannot generate the complex systems in living things, or the information required to build them. Undirected energy just speeds up destruction. Yet, evolution is a building-up process, suggesting that things tend to become more complex and advanced over time. This is directly opposed to the law of entropy.

There is a total lack of undisputed examples (fossilized or living) of the millions of transitional forms ("missing links") required for evolution to be true. Evolution does not require a single missing link, but innumerable ones. We should be surrounded by a zoo of transitional forms that cannot be categorized as one particular life form. But we don't see this—there are different kinds of dogs, but all are clearly dogs. The fossils show different sizes of horses, but all are clearly horses. None is on the verge of being some other life form. The fossil record shows complex fossilized life suddenly appearing, and there are major gaps between the fossilized "kinds." Darwin acknowledged that if his theory were true, it would require millions of transitional forms. He believed they would be found in fossil records. They haven't been.

Pictures of ape-to-human "missing links" are extremely subjective and based on evolutionists' already-formed assumptions. Often they are simply contrived. The series of pictures or models that show progressive development from a little monkey to modern man are an insult to scientific research. These are often based on fragmentary remains that can be "reconstructed" a hundred different ways. The fact is, many supposed "ape-men" are very clearly apes. Evolutionists now admit that other so-called "ape-men" would be able to have children by modern humans, which makes them the same species as humans. The main species said to bridge this gap, Homo habilis, is thought by many to be a mixture of ape and human fossils. In other words, the "missing link" (in reality there would have to be millions of them) is still missing. The body hair and the blank expressions of sub-humans in these models doesn't come from the bones, but the assumptions of the artist. Virtually nothing can be determined about hair and the look in someone's eyes based on a few old bones.

The dating methods that evolutionists rely upon to assign millions and billions of years to rocks are very inconsistent and based on unproven (and questionable) assumptions. Dating methods that use radioactive decay to determine age assume that radioactive decay rates have always been constant. Yet, research has shown that decay rates can change according to the chemical environment of the material being tested. In fact, decay rates have been increased in the laboratory by a factor of a billion. All such dating methods also assume a closed system—that no isotopes were gained or lost by the rock since it formed. It's common knowledge that hydrothermal waters, at temperatures of only a few hundred degrees Centigrade, can create an open system where chemicals move easily from one rock system to another. In fact, this process is one of the excuses used by evolutionists to reject dates that don't fit their expectations. What's not commonly known is that the majority of dates are not even consistent for the same rock. Furthermore, 20th century lava flows often register dates in the millions to billions of years. There are many different ways of dating the earth, and many of them point to an earth much too young for evolution to have had a chance. All age-dating methods rely on unprovable assumptions.

Uses continue to be found for supposedly "leftover" body structures. Evolutionists point to useless and vestigial (leftover) body structures as evidence of evolution. However, it's impossible to prove that an organ is useless, because there's always the possibility that a use may be discovered in the future. That's been the case for over 100 supposedly useless organs which are now known to be essential. Scientists continue to discover uses for such organs. It's worth noting that even if an organ were no longer needed (e.g., eyes of blind creatures in caves), it would prove devolution not evolution. The evolutionary hypothesis needs to find examples of developing organs—those that are increasing in complexity.

Evolution is said to have begun by spontaneous generation—a concept ridiculed by biology. When I was a sophomore in high school, and a brand new Christian, my biology class spent the first semester discussing how ignorant people used to believe that garbage gave rise to rats, and raw meat produced maggots. This now disproven concept was called "spontaneous generation." Louis Pasteur proved that life only comes from life—this is the law of biogenesis. The next semester we studied evolution, where we learned that the first living cell came from a freak combination of nonliving material (where that nonliving material came from we were not told). "Chemical Evolution" is just another way of saying "spontaneous generation"—life comes from nonlife. Evolution is therefore built on a fallacy science long ago proved to be impossible.


Evolutionists admit that the chances of evolutionary progress are extremely low. Yet, they believe that given enough time, the apparently impossible becomes possible. If I flip a coin, I have a 50/50 chance of getting heads. To get five "heads" in a row is unlikely but possible. If I flipped the coin long enough, I would eventually get five in a row. If I flipped it for years nonstop, I might get 50 or even 100 in a row. But this is only because getting heads is an inherent possibility. What are the chances of me flipping a coin, and then seeing it sprout arms and legs, and go sit in a corner and read a magazine? No chance. Given billions of years, the chances would never increase. Great periods of time make the possible likely but never make the impossible possible. No matter how long it's given, non-life will not become alive.

The scientific method can only test existing data—it cannot draw conclusions about origins. Micro-evolution, changes within a species on a small scale, is observable. But evidence for macro-evolution, changes transcending species, is conspicuous by its absence. To prove the possibility of anything, science must be able to reproduce exact original conditions. Even when it proves something is possible, it doesn't mean it therefore happened. Since no man was there to record or even witness the beginning, conclusions must be made only on the basis of interpreting presently available information. If I put on rose-colored glasses, I will always see red. I accept the Bible's teaching on creation, and see the evidence as being consistently supportive of that belief. When dealing with origins, everyone who believes anything does so by faith, whether faith in God, the Bible, himself, modern science, or the dependability of his own subjective interpretations of existing data. I would rather put my faith in God's revealed Word.

http://creationismunleashed.blogspot.com/2005/08/ten-major-flaws-of-evolution.html

[racrguy]

Do you have a single thought of your own, or do you parrot a bunch of bullshit you read somewhere? The source of your article, Randy Alcorn, has no education that I can find. And even if he did, he's intellectually dishonest because:

Not only is the Bible infallible, it is the exclusive rule of faith and practice

http://www.epm.org/about-us/our-beliefs/

Even if he had the education to speak on any of the topics without having to cite other sources, he can't be trusted because he believes that nothing will prove the bible wrong. Everything he comes across that contradicts what the bible says is automatically wrong regardless of how much proof it has.

[Forever_frost]

Several actually. And I stated them along with supporting evidence or are you upset because I've done what you guys have and finally started bringing in outside information? You say he has no pedigree to talk on the subject. What is yours?

[racrguy]

Several actually. And I stated them along with supporting evidence or are you upset because I've done what you guys have and finally started bringing in outside information? You say he has no pedigree to talk on the subject. What is yours?

The difference is, I can cite relevant sources. He offers no citations, nor do you.

Edit: I just went through and read every one of your posts in this thread, you've made a ton of claims, yet you've provided absolutely no credible supporting evidence. And the only supporting evidence you've given is in post #72, that isn't credible.