At least you honestly state your "quite limited" knowledge of evolution.

I won't get into the actual evolution debate here, but there is a lengthy thread that does have some helpful information among much ranting: http://forums.pelicanparts.com/showthread.php?t=393175&highlight=evolution

If you really want to understand evolution, this referenced thread should be helpful.

Best,

Kurt

Where evolution completely loses me (as in i laugh hysterically at the notion) is ambiogenesis (evolutionists attempt to explain how life got on earth in lieu of some overt act by 'god').

Oh, and by the way...if evolution is so sound, how were scientists TOTALLY wrong about life originating from simple sponges, and now they say it was some jelly fish type of organism?

I suspect that scientists in 500 years (in reality, probably a whole lot less) will look back on the theory you and others are praising as gospel here, and merely shake their heads while saying, "Man did we have that all wrong."

Every probe we send into space shows us time and again how utterly ignorant we are wrt what we thought we knew, vs the reality of what is.

Great. Here we go again. Fascinating how this question can divide people in this modern day and age. The most fantastic part of it is how it really tends to arouse frantic aggression - even between friends. Really amusing.

As most of you know, I am a hard core (I almost wrote fluffer..) atheist and Darwinist - BUT! - it does not bother me personally one tiny bit that there are people who believe the opposite. Fine with me. That is to say, it is not for me personally an important subject. If it turns out, fact will prove the existence of a God - fine with me. People may slander Richard Dawkins and Darwin all day - I don´t care and I can not get angry. I do not need to defense my point of view. My convictions are safe with me. Others may believe what ever they want. Does not bother me.

Whats with the big hostile words and aggression as soon as this topic comes up. We disagree. So what? The more interesting the debate.

It's "abiogenesis" and evolution does not, nor has it ever addressed how life started.

See other thread I posted above.

Best,

Kurt

I don't know what i believe wrt evolution. It's way above my pay grade.
But i DO know that when someone tells me they 'got it all figured out', i get highly skeptical, because history has taught us that such claims are almost invariably wrong.

I dont care if people believe in evolution, god, mickey mouse, or the easter bunny. Why should i?

I personally don't think there is any way that the life or the universe are an accident, or rather, a series of billions and billions of them.

I do not believe that my family tree can be traced to a meteorite.

I also know that Einstien, Hawking, and Newton all believed in God. I have no idea what God is or what God intends, or if God even cares (i highly suspect that God does not pay much attention at all to the details)...but to me, God has to exist, because i do.

I do not believe that life came to earth in a meteorite as ambiogenesis claims, but i am pretty sure that it came somewhere from the heavens.

This is a fascinating topic, but the real irony is that for as upset as people get, in reality, it's utterly irrelevant.

We're here now...how we got to here is pretty academic.

'Abio'genesis (sorry that i mispelled it going solely from memory) is a theory of some scientists (all darwinists, i am sure) that seeks to address how life (or the building blocks thereof) could get to earth, and therefore how evolution could begin.

I think it's ridiculous.

The fact that evolution has never adressed how life started is to me one of it's flat out biggest failings.

Physics offers us the big bang...evolution offers us...nothing.

See: http://forums.pelicanparts.com/showthread.php?t=393175

Evolution is not a fact.

It is an extremely robust theory. One that will likely see tweaking and further clarification in the future. Much like our understanding of other areas of science, it will grow. But the sciences lack of maturity is not an indication of its validity. On the Origin of Species was published 150 years ago. Our understanding will be improved in another 150 years, but it is clear that Darwin illuminated the basic mechanism by which evolution happens.

At least we have that much established. ;)

Throughout history more than a few 'very robust theories' have later been shown to be way off base.

Well then surely you or someone else can show me one documented instance where evolution was directly observed either in nature, or in a laboratory, thereby confirming Darwin's predictions with actual observation.

It is my (limited) understanding that that has never happened. Not even once.

LOL...that's what this thread is likely to look like in a few days time.

How did life start in the first place? This is what Ben keeps asking Dawkins and finally Dawkins says that there must have been some type of intelligent design (probably aliens that seeded the planet) to begin with. So with all his great intellect, Dawkins admits to I.D. starting it all, only the I.D. he believes in are space aliens. Everyone keeps talking about life evolving, but the question remains, how did life begin in the first place?

I really don't want to get into this...

The Galapagos, Madagascar, the fish tank in your living room (OK my living room).

I agree. Lets just say that the highlight of the movie for me was watching all the evolutionists hero Richard Dawkins admidt to "Intelligent Design" as starting it all. The seeding of the planet by aliens was an added touch.

Since we now have the Evo Thread Part II, I am going to bow out and wish everyone a good night.

It's all been said before. :D

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1208677991.jpg

As It was, is and will always be.

Best,

Kurt

Ben Stein: you said it all. This guy is about as objective on this subject as your local catholic pedophile! What a joke all this is.

Despite the OCEAN
of emperical evidence...you still wan't to doubt Darwin's theory of evolution?

Hello? Isn't this the United States of America, the most advanced state in the world, and isn't this 2008? How in the hell does the tooth fairy bend your mind to even post a thread as stupid as this?

Let me give you a lesson in science: Go to the nearest tall building, go to the roof, and then jump off. You'll find yourself falling. If you really believe that the crap in that book you call a "bible" is real, then your Jesus or God or Allah or Buddha will save you. If not, then you've simply helped prove my point.

So...when are you jumping?

N

This what Dawkins had to say:

Toward the end of his interview with me, Stein asked whether I could think of any circumstances whatsoever under which intelligent design might have occurred. It's the kind of challenge I relish, and I set myself the task of imagining the most plausible scenario I could. I wanted to give ID its best shot, however poor that best shot might be. I must have been feeling magnanimous that day, because I was aware that the leading advocates of Intelligent Design are very fond of protesting that they are not talking about God as the designer, but about some unnamed and unspecified intelligence, which might even be an alien from another planet. Indeed, this is the only way they differentiate themselves from fundamentalist creationists, and they do it only when they need to, in order to weasel their way around church/state separation laws. So, bending over backwards to accommodate the IDiots ("oh NOOOOO, of course we aren't talking about God, this is SCIENCE") and bending over backwards to make the best case I could for intelligent design, I constructed a science fiction scenario. Like Michael Ruse (as I surmise) I still hadn't rumbled Stein, and I was charitable enough to think he was an honestly stupid man, sincerely seeking enlightenment from a scientist. I patiently explained to him that life could conceivably have been seeded on Earth by an alien intelligence from another planet (Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel suggested something similar -- semi tongue-in-cheek). The conclusion I was heading towards was that, even in the highly unlikely event that some such 'Directed Panspermia' was responsible for designing life on this planet, the alien beings would THEMSELVES have to have evolved, if not by Darwinian selection, by some equivalent 'crane' (to quote Dan Dennett). My point here was that design can never be an ULTIMATE explanation for organized complexity. Even if life on Earth was seeded by intelligent designers on another planet, and even if the alien life form was itself seeded four billion years earlier, the regress must ultimately be terminated (and we have only some 13 billion years to play with because of the finite age of the universe). Organized complexity cannot just spontaneously happen. That, for goodness sake, is the creationists' whole point, when they bang on about eyes and bacterial flagella! Evolution by natural selection is the only known process whereby organized complexity can ultimately come into being. Organized complexity -- and that includes everything capable of designing anything intelligently -- comes LATE into the universe. It cannot exist at the beginning, as I have explained again and again in my writings.
source: richarddawkins.net/article,2394,Lying-for-Jesus

Hardly a belief in intelligent design I would suggest.

Life, especially homo sapiens (us), is so deeply flawed, it is THE BEST ARGUMENT AGAINST Intelligent Design.

If we are the product of an Intelligent Designer, there is no doubt that the Designer was hit on the head with a large rock just before he created us. Or maybe he was drunk. I don't know, but the human species has so many flaws, you'd have to be an idiot to believe we were designed with any kind of intelligence. or you'd have to believe MotorMeister builds good motors.:rolleyes:

do you really think we are the best that a Designer could make? Pfft! If that isn't the very definition of hubris, I don't know what it is.

Put another way, we are Yugo's. A few folks might have risen to Pinto level, but that's as far as the analogy will allow. And so many on this board prove this point day after day and never get it.:(

Want even more proof that Intelligent Design is a moronic theory? Just take a stroll through Wal-mart any given Saturday.

It's really a pathetic reflection on our society when this subject keeps coming up. Evolution is a fact. It is the reason for the immense diversity of life on Earth. The theory of evolution is the scientific explanation for the fact of evolution.

Anyone who argues that evolution is not fact does so from ignorance or religious-based denial. Neither is flattering.

You guys are f*cking kidding me, right? I mean, this SERIOUSLY is some sort of joke, right?

So-called "intelligent design" is little more than proof that certain threads of humans are not fully done evolving yet.

Hmmmm, I thought that being a THEORY, it was able to be changed as new evidence (and new technology to study that evidence) was brought to light.

It's just man's way of trying to explain the world around him.

I understand both sides of this argument. What I don't understand is how if someone is so strong, and resolved in his/her belief in God, why are the religious the ones who get all bent out of shape when Darwin is mentioned. USUALLY, those of us that do recognise the theory of evolution, just sit back and chuckle.

As a general rule, I've found the more religious someone claims to be, the more closed minded they are. Case in point: I have a very good friend that is brilliant. The best school in this area happens to be a private Catholic school. You have to be a member for your child to be enrolled. His wife was, and he converted to catholicism, his daughter now will have the best education available here. He and I used to have some of the best conversations, for hours. Just bouncing ideas, and things we read off of each other. We drank cases of Foster's discussing Stephen Hawkins' A Brief Moment In Time. All of that is gone now, because it doesn't fit in with creationism. He gets pissed if you even try to talk about it now.

With that said, I am in no way saying that if you are religious that you are an idiot. Don't even try that argument with me, it's old and busted. I personally don't care what religion you belong to. By all means, if that's what gets you through the day, and life, I SINCERELY hope it brings you comfort and happiness. Just open your mind and realize that NONE OF US KNOW THE ANSWERS TO LIFE! We're just trying to make our own way in this world.