Evolution belief in America

Discussion in 'Science & Society' started by James R, Sep 12, 2007.

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What do you believe?

Poll closed Oct 12, 2007.
  1. God created humans pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years.

    6 vote(s)
    11.8%
  2. Human beings evolved from less advanced forms of life, with God helping or guiding the process.

    4 vote(s)
    7.8%
  3. Human beings evolved from less advanced forms of life, and God played no part in the process.

    36 vote(s)
    70.6%
  4. No opinion.

    5 vote(s)
    9.8%
  1. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    54,036
    You could look at the commonality of all life forms as far as using DNA, as well as the increasing complexity. This points to an early, simple past.



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  3. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    Why?
     
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  5. (Q) Encephaloid Martini Valued Senior Member

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    Split moons, angels, gods and other supernatural phenomena - are these your observations too?
     
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  7. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    oke:
     
  8. (Q) Encephaloid Martini Valued Senior Member

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    Sorry sam, you've filled the last few pages with so much nonsense, I didn't know where to begin.
     
  9. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    So as I pointed out: if that were operating we see the effects already, from the atheist influences of generations ago. We don't. The centers of scientific imagination and novelty and progress have not been the overtly theistic universities, but the more secular and atheistically influenced ones, for far longer than 20 years.
    Your understanding of how evolution is "assumed" to proceed, along with the "present context" of evolutionary theory, is in error. And the error is expressed in typical theist's language: "a chance event", as if a coin flip were the basic model. You will find that use of "chance" in the context of criticising evolutionary theory on every fundie Christian website that handles the topic. You will also find, frequently, the entire mistake of "chance event". This misled and misleading language is characteristic of specifically theistic objections to evolutionary theory. Why I don't know.

    Just to pick the obvious point, it would make no difference to evolutionary theory if abiogenesis were somehow forced by physical law - no more "chance" than the operations of Le Chatelier's Principle, Netwonian Gravitation, or the Second Law of Thermodynamics. We have no idea, at the moment, what the role of chance was, if any. It is certainly not assumed to have governed the entire process of abiogenesis - which was not, of course, an "event".

    It certainly got a typical theist response - all attitude, no content.
     
  10. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    So why the presumption of a common origin?
     
  11. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    39,397
    SAM:

    There's a massive difference between a single amino acid, which is a fairly simple chemical molecule, and something like a protein or a DNA strand, which may have millions of codons.

    If you find two things that share an amino acid, putting it down to chance may be reasonable. But when you find two animals that share a full 50% of all their DNA, if you consider the probability of that happening by pure accident you will find that it is utterly negligible.

    The only conclusion that is open to us, based on such evidence, is that if we take, say, a mouse and a human being, at some point they must have shared a common ancestor. Anybody who claims otherwise is obviously arguing from a position of utter ignorance of genetics, and really needs to educate themselves in a few basics.

    Actually, the theory of evolution has nothing to say about abiogenesis. They are two completely different questions.

    You are lumping all atheists into the same basket. DO you think all theists are fundamentalists? If not, then why assume all atheists are fundamentalists?

    You've made this mistake before. Atheists need not be devoid of moral values, and generally are not.
     
  12. (Q) Encephaloid Martini Valued Senior Member

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    That is absolutely terrible, sam. Iceaura penned a very well thought out response to your dishonest and ignorant post. You should be utterly ashamed of yourself.

    You've just demonstrated the stereotyped, typical, theist mindset, a trap which you've been so careful to avoid and yet fell into so easily, cornered once again by simple logic and reasoning chipping away the shards of superstition and myth.
     
  13. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    Only if you are looking at it from this end of the telescope; everything ultimately is made of simple basic elements.
    Who said anything about chance? I said why presume a common origin?

    Hmm so similarity of structure presumes a common origin? Is that always true?

    I know

    Well all theists are delusional so what do you expect?

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    And much of atheism today derives its moral values from religion, so its not the same as having a society devoid of the moral influences from religion. Experiments in societies minus religion, have not, in general, given rise to an improvement of the social order.
     
  14. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    72,825
    ^^^ another typical atheist rant.
     
  15. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    24,690
    As I noted in another thread, we do not need to be motivated by the threat of punishment by a supernatural creature in order to act morally. We need only be motivated by the desire to leave the world a better place than we found it. This follows naturally from our primate's nurturing instinct to care about our progeny, and from our primate's pack-social instinct for harmony and cooperation with our pack-mates. . . who care about their progeny. To this instinctive behavior we can add the reasoned and learned behavior from ten thousand years of civilization, which expands our notion of "pack" so as to extend harmony and cooperation to the members of our tribe, city, nation, or larger community, therefore caring about all of those people and their progeny. None of this requires a belief system based on faith in the supernatural.

    Atheists have our bad days like anyone else, during which we regress and behave like Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, temporarily ignoring the welfare of the extended pack. This does not make us any less "moral" than the members of religious communities, who, by some internal clock I don't understand, synchronize their bad days to rise up en masse every three or four generations and attempt to exterminate the members of a neighboring religious community.
     
    Last edited: Sep 18, 2007
  16. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    Sorry Fraggle, but thats merely your opinion. Primates do not indulge themselves with thoughts about their moral responsibility to leave the world a better place. In fact, some of them form groups to hunt and murder other groups. Others eliminate competition through infanticide.
     
  17. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    No, holding up a mirror.=

    Which then cannot be used to make more complex forms? On what basis?

    Heck, I dunno: DNA sequence similarity?

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    DNA sequence similarity is not the same as morphological heterogeneity, Sam. This is elementary cladistics.

    Athiesm could as easily derive other 'moral' values from religion, such as oppression, massacre and intolerance.

    Of course not.

    ...well, except for Norway, Sweden, Denmark and France. But other than that, it's a clean sweep.
     
  18. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

    Messages:
    39,397
    SAM:

    You presume a common origin in these situations because anything else is just way too improbable.

    Do you understand how evolution works? Small changes, essentially random, are worked on by natural selection, and over time produce very large changes. This means that small changes to DNA early on in the history of life on Earth would result in major differences at the present time.

    The fact that a mouse might share 50% of its DNA with a human being tells us that the common origin of mice and human beings must be relatively recent (in geological terms). There simply is no alternative.

    If you're still doubtful about this, try to come up with a plausible reason why a mouse might share the exact same DNA sequences as a human being, amounting to, say, 50% of its total amount of DNA (a number of base pairs in the millions), other than evolution from a common ancestor. If I can, I'll tell you why you're wrong.

    No. It is only true when the occurrence of such similarity by any other means would be so unlikely as to be easy to discount.

    It does not. In fact, even modern religion does not derive its moral values from where it thinks it does. I'll bet your personal moral values aren't in 100% accordance with the dictates of the Qu'ran, for instance.

    Which societies would those be?
     
  19. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    Yes I understand how evolution works; but what you are saying is that DNA is no longer created, merely altered. Right?

    So what we see as patterns of combinations of nucleotides have reached their present complexity from an initial single molecule of DNA?
    Assuming we are aware of what those conditions are.

    Thats rather a presumption. IMO, my personal moral values are in concordance with the guidance of the Quran. (I remember you've said this before)

    How many societies do you know have been based on moral values that have nothing to do with religion?:shrug:
     
  20. one_raven God is a Chinese Whisper Valued Senior Member

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    13,433
    I would argue that religious values are based on social values, not vice-versa.
     
  21. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    72,825
    What are social values? Can you give me an example of a social value unrelated to religion that is not decayed as religion becomes less practised in a society?
     
  22. one_raven God is a Chinese Whisper Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    13,433
    Try wording that in a form that is not a strawman, and perhaps we can have an honest discussion on the matter.
    Do you even realize you do that? Is it intentional, unintentional, or so practiced that it is second nature and you don't even notice it anymore?
     
  23. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

    Messages:
    39,397
    SAM:

    That's what evolution does. It builds up small changes in DNA over successive generations.

    Of course, if you're religious, it's quite possible that the evolution of every new species might have been deliberately engineered by God in such a way that the process looks indistinguishable from one in which God was not involved...

    Yes. But bear in mind that to get from there to here required a few billion years, with well over 99% of species that have ever existed having become extinct along the way. Thus, any individual species existing today is enormously improbable. And the change of two species sharing large numbers of genes without being a product of common descent is therefore equally improbable.

    Do you think that women should be subservient to men and entitled to a smaller division of inheritance, as the Qu'ran requires (to take one example)?

    It's very hard to separate moral values and declare "This is the result of culture. That is the result of religion. The other thing is a result of evolution."

    I know of no societies that are without some form of religion. But that doesn't mean they get their morality from religion.
     

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