Not true at all. Only those who insist that the books of the bible be held to absolute scientific accuracy and precision would think that. Thankfully, most do not. For many, myself included, the elegance and beauty of DNA and "evolution" strengthen my faith in God tremendously. The more I understand about the tremendous order found in science and nature the more powerful the work of God becomes. It seems to me that it would be senseless and harsh to hold the writers of ancient scripture to absolute 21st century scientific precision.

....and you are sure of this?

Jim, no offense, but you really don't seem to know much about the theory of evolution. It's obvious that you don't understand what it claims and what it doesn't. You should spend some time looking into it. It is really pretty fascinating and not nearly as full of holes as you suspect.

Have you ever considered that we might be here *because* the Earth is the way it is and not the other way around? In other words, that the Earth was not created to suit our needs, but that we evolved to exist within the parameters that we find around us? After all, something like 90% of all the species that have ever existed are now extinct. If this is the work of a "creator", his success rate sucks.

Mike

So I am way off base on this? Not a clue? So Evolution only deals with "Evolving" and nothing else? The whole big bang theory has nothing to do with Evolution? I was wrong with the Amino acid in the pond theory too?

I understand Evolution has to do with species evolving over millions of years. I just have one issue I cannot get past.

Once I get past where life came from I'll submerge myself in the theory or it will be the fact of Evolution at that point.

I was taught Evolution by my Science teacher in High School on Long Island. Beyond that no, I do not have a deep knowledge of it because anyone I discuss it with cannot prove to me where life came from and why its not anywhere else in the universe excpet here on Earth.

I have lighter fluid and a match the bible is nearby. Show me life somewhere else beside earth and I am a believer of Evolution.

BTW- No offense taken at all, I respect your opinion. If you cannot respect each other what do you have?

Man wants to be the supreme intelligence...
Man wants to have all the answers...
Man wants to be accountable to only himself...
Man wants to decide what is right and wrong...
Belief in God does not allow this.


There is NO proof for evolution, NO repeatable lab tests, NO missing links alive or in the fossil record. This would be earth shaking news.
Instead, made up "theories" are taught to children as "fact".

It's all put in place to discredit God...Man wants to do things his way.
The issue hasn't changed since the beginning.

Call me a broken record if you like, but man will NEVER rule himself.


KT

Respectfully, you are wrong. It's very easy to prove evolution in the lab. It's done every year in every genetics 101 lab in the country. It is, in fact, verifiable, provable and observable. The argument is if the process of evolution explains the origin of man. That's the question.

"Evolution" is simply the alteration of a population over time secondary to changes in genetic material.

Consider this simple example;

If we want to examine the effects of change in a human population, it would take a long time as our generation time averages more than 20 years. So let's look at a healthy strain of unmolested E. Coli with a generation time of less than 30 minutes. We can study genetic changes that occur over 50 generations in a single day!

We'll start with a population of a few billion bacterium. We'll add a stress to our healthy population, say, Penicillin. The Penicillin kills 99.999% of our population, but after a few days, the colony is as robust as ever! When we sequence the DNA of our new population and compare it to the original, the new bacteria all share a series of mutations that allow penicillin resistance. If we do this experiment 100 times, we get similar results, but the mutations are generally different.

The point is that the genetic strategy a population uses in order to survive is random. You can't apply any type of environmental stress to a lizard and expect to get a bird. Evolution is non-directional and not likely to be genetically repeatable.
The idea than man evolved from apes is a theory, but genetic evolution is a demonstrable fact.

And...

The bible says man was created in God's image.
Or his qualities of love , power, wisdom and justice.
Man also has the ability to think, reason, plan, purpose, build and so on.

If there was evolution, why does only man, the one given the assignment to care for the earth, have these abilities and all the animals are basically equal?


KT

There IS evolution. It's a dynamic process. There is no final product. Remember the white moths in industrial London? The white birch trees where the moths lived became blackened with soot. Soon birds ate most of the moths who could not hide against the dark soot-covered bark. The few moths that survived were mutants. They were dark colored. Soon, the moth population flourished again... all dark moths.


Not sure we have been assigned to care for the earth. Certainly the planet would be in better shape without us. (No, I'm not suggesting we should leave.)

All animals are not basically equal. The diversity is amazing. Why do humans have such a vast intellectual capacity compared to the rest of the animal kingdom? I don't know. Makes for a great discussion, though. :)

That mythology widely accepted by those accepting Darwinian thought is erroneous. There is no evidence or logic behind the assumption that all life was spontaneously spawned and evolved from a bacteria or other single celled organism...Without some outside organizer of information this task did not happen, as what we see clearly suggests a single creator. Monkeys are monkeys, reptiles are reptiles, birds are birds, humans are humans...none of these things have ever shape or species shifted.

Adaptation and mutation differ from what is widely accepted as evolution. Lets not get lost in the smoke-screen.

Genetic mutation is the process through which adaptation occurs. That is evolution.

Evolution is fact. Does evolution explain the origin of man and other species? THAT is an interesting discussion.

Maybe God Created Evolution.

Aren't there fossils of dinosaurs with feathers? Would this be an adaptation, mutation, or evolution?

Great question. Some people (like me) tend to believe those fossils represent transitional species as some reptiles evolved into birds.

The feathers may represent an adaptive mutation that allowed evolution of that species.

DING DING DING! We have a winner!

What could be more God-like than to create a dynamic system with an INFINITE capacity for change?

You guys need to listen to Moses. He is nailing it here. You're trying to slam the barn door on evolution, but the cows are long gone.

Evolution is a fact. Species on this planet have evolved. The theory of evolution is merely represents the prevailing scientific thoughts on how this evolution occured.

The origins of life, the big bang, et al, have nothing to do with the theory of evolution! They are very interesting questions, but even if it was found that some omnipotent creator started life on this planet, the theory of evolution would still be valid! The theory of evolution does not care how life started.

Mike

For me, evolution is Divine elegance. For someone to find godlessness in the miracle of evolution suggests to me that their faith may be too fragile.

+1!

Yep!
 

+1 here!

Well said. For one to reconcile science and what is said in the Bible, all that is needed is to understand what science says and what its limits are, and not to take to the word what the Bible says. then, it all comes together. That was what I wanted to hear in starting this thread.

Aurel

Amazing that we have AGAIN come to the same conclusion that we came to a month ago.

Evolution does not try to explain the origins of life. Some people take evolution and try to extrapolate it to apply to the origins of life, hence the primordial soup theory.

Creationism and evolution are two separate entities dealing with two separate issues. Creationism deals with the origins of life, evolution does not.

The same thing happened on this thread as happened on the last thread. An anti-religious poster put up an evolution vs creationism thread, the "fundies" rushed to defend creationism while others took the chance to talk about how stupid and ignorant the "fundies" are. Then people with rationality come in and point out that the two issues really don't have anything to do with each other and that evolution could easily simply be God's method of creation.

Now the thread can die...until next month.