I often hear that there must be more to life. That we are "here for a purpose".
I guess many people feel better with the sense of mystery of these ideas; with the feeling that we are special, as we were created by a greater being.
Is it posssible that some lives are so plain that such mystery is needed. I accept that, for some that maybe there are experiences so painful, that a form of "out" is needed, thus the phrases and beliefs such as "it was for a purpose", "it's all part of God's plan", "God works in mysterious ways" or "I'll meet my whomever in heaven" are employed.
Am I being unfair to think that maybe it is a weakness of intellect to think in this manner?
What is so wrong with saying that we evolved from a knuckle-dragger?, that we exist for no greater reason than luck? That there is nothing after we die?
The paranormal and religion, to me, answer these insecurities with a soothing "there, there" instead of an honest analysis and discussion.
I do think this book's main premise – that God belief evolved as a way of coping – may be true but, unfortunately, this book offers zero referenced experimental evidence to support the case.
To me the book might be useful in explaining the widespread belief in God without the need to propose that God actually exists. But the factual errors in describing evolution need to be corrected before I would recommend it.
I note Eistein is on the list so I gave up looking at the rest
If Albert Einstein believed in anything he would call a "god," it wasn't the sort of god which religious theists today typically believe in. Einstein explicitly rejected the possible existence of any sort of "personal god" which could care about human existence, would interact with us, or would answer prayers. In fact, Einstein went so far as to argue that belief in such a god was a legacy of humanity's primitive existence when we created such supernatural beings to explain events around us.
actually i have given you examples that have been observed over the last 50 years or so; there are many many more.
Each time i answer your questions you change you question and once again you misquote Dawin (red italics) which i answered and corrected in a previous post.
Why misquote him?
check out all your misquotes of dawin on this site, Creationists do it all of the time
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. quote]
As biologists use the term, macroevolution means evolution at or above the species level. Speciation has been observed and documented.
New species have arisen in historical times. For example:
• A new species of mosquito, isolated in London's Underground, has speciated from Culex pipiens (Byrne and Nichols 1999; Nuttall 1998).
Several new species of plants have arisen via polyploidy (when the chromosome count multiplies by two or more) (de Wet 1971). One example is Primula kewensis (Newton and Pellew 1929).
Rhagoletis pomonella, the apple maggot fly, is undergoing sympatric speciation. Its native host in North America is Hawthorn (Crataegus spp.), but in the mid-1800s, a new population formed on introduced domestic apples (Malus pumila). The two races are kept partially isolated by natural selection (Filchak et al. 2000).
The mosquito Anopheles gambiae shows incipient speciation between its populations in northwestern and southeastern Africa (Fanello et al. 2003; Lehmann et al. 2003).
Silverside fish show incipient speciation between marine and estuarine populations (Beheregaray and Sunnucks 2001).
Ring species show the process of speciation in action. In ring species, the species is distributed more or less in a line, such as around the base of a mountain range. Each population is able to breed with its neighboring population, but the populations at the two ends are not able to interbreed. (In a true ring species, those two end populations are adjacent to each other, completing the ring.) Examples of ring species are
the salamander Ensatina, with seven different subspecies on the west coast of the United States. They form a ring around California's central valley. At the south end, adjacent subspecies klauberi and eschscholtzi do not interbreed (Brown n.d.; Wake 1997).
greenish warblers (Phylloscopus trochiloides), around the Himalayas. Their behavioral and genetic characteristics change gradually, starting from central Siberia, extending around the Himalayas, and back again, so two forms of the songbird coexist but do not interbreed in that part of their range (Irwin et al. 2001; Whitehouse 2001; Irwin et al. 2005).
the deer mouse (Peromyces maniculatus), with over fifty subspecies in North America. •
Evidence of speciation occurs in the form of organisms that exist only in environments that did not exist a few hundreds or thousands of years ago. For example: • In several Canadian lakes, which originated in the last 10,000 years following the last ice age, stickleback fish have diversified into separate species for shallow and deep water (Schilthuizen 2001, 146-151).
Cichlids in Lake Malawi and Lake Victoria have diversified into hundreds of species. Parts of Lake Malawi which originated in the nineteenth century have species indigenous to those parts (Schilthuizen 2001, 166-176).
A Mimulus species adapted for soils high in copper exists only on the tailings of a copper mine that did not exist before 1859 (Macnair 1989).
The spontaneous generation that Pasteur and others disproved was the idea that life forms such as mice, maggots, and bacteria can appear fully formed. They disproved a form of creationism. There is no law of biogenesis saying that very primitive life cannot form from increasingly complex molecules.
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. quote]
i think you were referring to this "mined" quote so often used (or misused)
"But, as by this theory, innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?" (Origin of Species, 1859).
if you have read the book you would know that the sentence continues
But, as by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth,it will be more convenient to discuss this question in the chapter on the Imperfection of the Geological Record; and I will here only state that I believe the answer mainly lies in the record being incomparably less perfect than is generally supposed. The crust of the earth is a vast museum; but the natural collections have been imperfectly made, and only at long intervals of time.
interesting how so many scientists are "mine" quoted. Not sure why people do this but they do
There are many transitional fossils. The only way that the claim of their absence may be remotely justified, aside from ignoring the evidence completely, is to redefine "transitional" as referring to a fossil that is a direct ancestor of one organism and a direct descendant of another. However, direct lineages are not required; they could not be verified even if found. What a transitional fossil is, in keeping with what the theory of evolution predicts, is a fossil that shows a mosaic of features from an older and more recent organism.
My previous post gave examples which have been published and reviewed I also gave links to many many more scientific publications that contain examples yet you ignore them.....
Mathematical formulae make up the VERIFICATION LANGUAGE of science. Formulae are the only reliable way to test a theory. Every scientific theory has a formula, except the Theory of Evolution. Darwinists have never been able to derive a working Evolution Formula because Evolution theory does not work.
Darwinists claim we evolved from the simplest form of bacterial life to ever more complex forms of life. The most basic bacteria had less than 500 genes; man has over 22 thousand. In order for bacteria to evolve into man, organisms would have to be able to add genes. But there is no genetic mechanism that adds a gene. (Mutations change an existing gene but never add a gene.) This means there is no mechanism for Darwinian Evolution and this is a fatal flaw in the Theory of Evolution.
It is hard to understand how anyone could make this claim, since anything mutations can do, mutations can undo. Some mutations add information to a genome; some subtract it. Creationists get by with this claim only by leaving the term "information" undefined, impossibly vague, or constantly shifting. By any reasonable definition, increases in information have been observed to evolve. We have observed the evolution of
• increased genetic variety in a population (Lenski 1995; Lenski et al. 1991) • increased genetic material (Alves et al. 2001; Brown et al. 1998; Hughes and Friedman 2003; Lynch and Conery 2000; Ohta 2003) • novel genetic material (Knox et al. 1996; Park et al. 1996) • novel genetically-regulated abilities (Prijambada et al. 1995)
If these do not qualify as information, then nothing about information is relevant to evolution in the first place.
2. A mechanism that is likely to be particularly common for adding information is gene duplication, in which a long stretch of DNA is copied, followed by point mutations that change one or both of the copies. Genetic sequencing has revealed several instances in which this is likely the origin of some proteins. For example: • Two enzymes in the histidine biosynthesis pathway that are barrel-shaped, structural and sequence evidence suggests, were formed via gene duplication and fusion of two half-barrel ancestors (Lang et al. 2000). • RNASE1, a gene for a pancreatic enzyme, was duplicated, and in langur monkeys one of the copies mutated into RNASE1B, which works better in the more acidic small intestine of the langur. (Zhang et al. 2002) • Yeast was put in a medium with very little sugar. After 450 generations, hexose transport genes had duplicated several times, and some of the duplicated versions had mutated further. (Brown et al. 1998) The biological literature is full of additional examples. A PubMed search (at
The word theory, in the context of science, does not imply uncertainty. It means "a coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation for a class of phenomena" (Barnhart 1948).
In the case of the theory of evolution, the following are some of the phenomena involved. All are facts:
• Life appeared on earth more than two billion years ago; • Life forms have changed and diversified over life's history; • Species are related via common descent from one or a few common ancestors; • Natural selection is a significant factor affecting how species change.
2. The theory of evolution has proved itself in practice. It has useful applications in epidemiology, pest control, drug discovery, and other areas (Bull and Wichman 2001; Eisen and Wu 2002; Searls 2003).
3. Besides the theory, there is the fact of evolution, the observation that life has changed greatly over time. The fact of evolution was recognized even before Darwin's theory. The theory of evolution explains the fact.
4. If "only a theory" were a real objection, those that claim this would also be issuing disclaimers complaining about the theory of gravity, atomic theory, the germ theory of disease, and the theory of limits (on which calculus is based). The theory of evolution is no less valid than any of these. Even the theory of gravity still receives serious challenges yet the phenomenon of gravity, like evolution, is still a fact.
would you consider the production of melanin in our dermal cells beneficial of harmful?
it is beneficial to the parasitic secies to survive longer since it will reproduce more in that time and the perpetuation of the species is more likely to happen
clearly it is not. I don' see you point!! Cancer happens in somatic cells and thus only affects individuals for mutations to become inheritable they must occur in production of gametes
All the genetically controlled features that you consider to be the "norm" of a species are a result of mutation...... unless you have another explanation as to how they have come about
what do you know about sickle cell anaemia?
Are the nations you mention members of the same species? The Biological world, whilst beautiful and full of wonder is not a place of harmony!!!
1 all species have a very large set of alleles (genes) that control their features, biochemistry and behaviour and that each species have their own unique pool of alleles, some of which are the same in other species and some of which are different
2 alleles are located as sequences of DNA which code for specific proteins, usually enzymes and that these enzymes control the chemical reactions within the and outside of the cells of each species
3 mutations which happen randomly change the sequence of the DNA bases and thus change the tyoe of protein which is synthesised and subsequently the product that is made
4 if these mutations happen in the production of gamete then they will become inheritable
5 inheritable mutations, whilst rare, will be seen in individuals in future generations
if you don't accept this then i would like to know how you account for the anatomical features, biochemical reactions and behaviour of differentces that we see in different species
Actually, Neandertals are usually classified as Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, a subspecies of humans, in recognition of consistent differences such as heavy brow ridges, a long low skull, a robust skeleton, and others. (Some scientists believe the differences are large enough to justify a separate species, Homo neanderthalensis.) Evolutionists last century claimed that these were real differences between us and Neandertals, and they were right. Creationists claimed that the differences were a result of various diseases or environmental factors, and they were wrong.
Amazingly, a century after scientists knew otherwise, most creationists still believe that Neandertals were merely modern humans, deformed by diseases such as rickets, arthritis or syphilis. Some, but by no means all, Neandertals have been found with signs of health problems such as arthritis. But Neandertals have many distinctive features, and there is no reason why these diseases (or any others) would cause many, let alone all, of these features on even one, let alone many, individuals. Modern knowledge and experience also contradicts the idea that disease is a cause of Neandertal features, because these diseases do not cause modern humans to look like Neandertals.
1 am i correct in my understanding that in your view Natural Selection does not drive evolutionary change?
2 Michael Denton wrote this in 1985!!!!! AND he was wrong
Evolutionary pattern and process stands vindicated from Denton's assault. It does not win out by default, being implausible but socially established and lacking a superior alternative - rather, it is a plausible process with no contenders, and is backed up strongly by empirical evidence. There is debate within evolutionist circles about systematics, tempo, and the roles of genetic drift and preadaptation, and still plenty of work to be done fleshing out the development of certain structures, but none of this in any way puts macroevolution and the pattern of non-teleological common descent in a crisis situation. Rather, they are indicators that evolutionary biology is still a field which offers work to be done, just like any other field.
i have read this...... old creationist school in my view, debunked and discarded
it is simply not science
The claims in the book are non sequitur. Intelligent design says nothing at all about the Darwinian mechanism of evolution. Whether or not evolution lacks power must be decided by looking at evolution. If intelligent design is correct, it provides an alternative explanation, but it does not automatically falsify other alternatives.
The Darwinian mechanism of natural selection is part of the normal design process. If designers were not able to abandon old designs in favor of better modified versions of the same design, then intelligent design would have very little power itself.
so in your view you can "prove a theory (hypothesis) (black swan),was just a theory (hypotheis), but you cannot disprove something (ie the theory) which is not proven!
theoldestdear Forum Posts (507)
i would if I had made the same error of judgement
RE: Few questions about Jesus?
do you understand empirical evidence?please provide us with the empirical evidence that proves God exists