[Guest]

Tomorrow we will be celebrating the 150th anniversary of "On the Origin of the Species." Unfortunately, It will also be celebrated by some (*Choose your own explitive*) Creationalist. The 150th Anniversary Edition of "On the Origin of the Species" will have a forward by said Creationalist (*Choose your own explitive*) and will be missing 4 Chapters. Be sure to celebrate by getting your copy today, and burning it tomorrow.

[unreality]

what creationist is doing this?

[Guest]

His name is Ray Comfort. Here's an Article he wrote in US News. Talk about a J******!!!

[Izzy]

Bananaman... eugh... Dude, don't even give him the funds (wait, rumors are that it's free?). There was a huge band of college kids bashing that creotard. Celebrate by buying a real copy.

Happy 150 years of scientific enlightenment.

[Guest]

Please don't discount the "heretical" work of my favourite scientists. Galileo (with whom I share a birthday, implicit narcissism? maybe) and DaVinci both did great scientific work that flew in the face of the prevailing religion.

[Izzy]

^ Try telling Ray "Bananaman" Comfort that, the douche that holds the opinion that if it ain't in the Bible, it ain't right. Rumor has it Ray Comfort is sending Richard Dawkins a copy of his book and a banana. One of my friends(ish)/an admin of RDF is sending Ray Comfort a copy of The God Delusion and a coconut.

the debunked version of this dude's bull.

[unreality]

His name is Ray Comfort. Here's an Article he wrote in US News. Talk about a J******!!!

oh man that article really riles me up. I don't want to bring up specifics but this part: "or example, evolution has no explanation as to why and how around 1.4 million species of animals evolved as male and female. No one even goes near explaining how and why each species managed to reproduce (during the millions of years the female was supposedly evolving to maturity) without the right reproductive machinery. Nor does any evolutionary believer adequately address the fact that all those 1.4 million species managed to evolve into maturity together in our lifetime. Nothing we have in creation is half evolved."

All I know about evolution are the fundamental basics and I still know that the whole quoted italic phrase is just some of the dumbest sh*t I've ever seen, pardon my language. This guy has the completely wrong mindset ... "nothing is half evolved"??? There is no final manifest destiny to evolution Mr. Comfort. There is no gauge that we can look at and say "hey we're 87% done with our evolution, yay!". There is no final model of a working uterus that the parts need to work toward. No ultimate blueprint of a human eye that just magically assembles itself over time... Evolution is a natural process that is always ongoing. With each birth and death all animals are evolving! There is no goal to evolution, and it's that which allows the wonderful diversity and breadth & depth of life we experience on Earth...

I could probably go on and on so i'll get out now

[Guest]

^ Try telling Ray "Bananaman" Comfort that, the douche that holds the opinion that if it ain't in the Bible, it ain't right. Rumor has it Ray Comfort is sending Richard Dawkins a copy of his book and a banana. One of my friends(ish)/an admin of RDF is sending Ray Comfort a copy of The God Delusion and a coconut.

the debunked version of this dude's bull.

Sorry, this is pretty irrelevant, but I liked it anyway

[Izzy]

Hahahahaha. Oh man, laughing hurts with headache. But LOL.

[Guest]

oh man that article really riles me up. I don't want to bring up specifics but this part: "or example, evolution has no explanation as to why and how around 1.4 million species of animals evolved as male and female. No one even goes near explaining how and why each species managed to reproduce (during the millions of years the female was supposedly evolving to maturity) without the right reproductive machinery. Nor does any evolutionary believer adequately address the fact that all those 1.4 million species managed to evolve into maturity together in our lifetime. Nothing we have in creation is half evolved."

All I know about evolution are the fundamental basics and I still know that the whole quoted italic phrase is just some of the dumbest sh*t I've ever seen, pardon my language. This guy has the completely wrong mindset ... "nothing is half evolved"??? There is no final manifest destiny to evolution Mr. Comfort. There is no gauge that we can look at and say "hey we're 87% done with our evolution, yay!". There is no final model of a working uterus that the parts need to work toward. No ultimate blueprint of a human eye that just magically assembles itself over time... Evolution is a natural process that is always ongoing. With each birth and death all animals are evolving! There is no goal to evolution, and it's that which allows the wonderful diversity and breadth & depth of life we experience on Earth...

I could probably go on and on so i'll get out now

I haven't read the article mentioned, but I did hear about the publicity stunt. As I "understand" it, the four chapters missing are due to a "clerical error" and just by coincidence happen to be the chapters in which Darwin presents the most evidence for his theory. As opposed to burning them, I would suggest ripping out the foreword (which is filled with complete non sequiturs to the contents of the book (mainly glorifying the author of the foreword)) and maybe finding the missing chapters from another source and gluing them back in.

As for the male/female species thing, the simplest assumption (Occam's Razor) is that most of those 1.4 million species have a common ancestor, but as we are talking billions of years to find the origin of sexual reproduction, it's not unreasonable that we haven't found the ancestor in question. We're still finding random specimens linking us to the apes some tens of thousands of years ago, so why should we be expecting to find the connection between sexual and asexual reproduction so easily?

[Guest]

another wondering, how do atheists/evolutionists think life began?

[Guest]

another wondering, how do atheists/evolutionists think life began?

I personally don't know and I don't really care. It's another item on the list of things that are irrelevant to evolution, as I see it. However life started (and there are a fair few theories to explain it), the fact is that life did start in some matter and that having started, evolution is the most consistent explanation for how it reached its current level of diversity and complexity. People who oppose evolution like to trot out the "Oh yeah, but how did life start?" argument in an effort to counter evolution, but in truth, evolution and the beginning of life are only loosely correlated subjects, both of which can be handled separately as evidence is examined for each. Trying to tie them together is an effort to smear evolution since the question of the beginning of life is still unanswered by science, such as it is.

At least that's my take on the situation. I've never viewed the study of evolution and the study of the origin of life as asking the same questions. It's a false equivalence in my mind. I'm not saying that the origin of life isn't important, but I would say that it has little to do with the veracity of evolution.

[Guest]

I personally don't know and I don't really care. It's another item on the list of things that are irrelevant to evolution, as I see it. However life started (and there are a fair few theories to explain it), the fact is that life did start in some matter and that having started, evolution is the most consistent explanation for how it reached its current level of diversity and complexity. People who oppose evolution like to trot out the "Oh yeah, but how did life start?" argument in an effort to counter evolution, but in truth, evolution and the beginning of life are only loosely correlated subjects, both of which can be handled separately as evidence is examined for each. Trying to tie them together is an effort to smear evolution since the question of the beginning of life is still unanswered by science, such as it is.

At least that's my take on the situation. I've never viewed the study of evolution and the study of the origin of life as asking the same questions. It's a false equivalence in my mind. I'm not saying that the origin of life isn't important, but I would say that it has little to do with the veracity of evolution.

i believe in intelligent design, not creationism. I think a higher power(i call it god) made one basic life form or shaped it or helped it form in a way. I don't think its fair just to dismiss my point and call it stereotypical.

[unreality]

pablos: the basic tenets of evolution stand no matter how life got there in the first place. I know people that believe god created the first bio-organisms and it all evolved from there. I also know people who think a comet brought alien life to earth ("panspermia") and it all evolved from there. I also know people that think life developed out of simpler and simpler self-replicating molecules and then it all evolved from there.

The truth is, it doesn't matter how life got here in the first place. Evolution is just a process that shows how genetics of lifeforms are always changing - always evolving. It's quite simple:

* We've got a bunch of organisms. Some of them have genes better suited to survival, some of them don't (from mutation, etc).

* Over time (and we're talking a long long long long time - millions of years - although with some bacteria you can see it in hours) the organisms with the weak genes will die, leaving organisms with stronger genes (better "fitness")

* These better adapted organisms will reproduce and create new organisms of the better genomes (with slight mutations and cross-breeding of course, leading to diversity over time)

That's how it works. Survival of the fittest leads to constant adaptation It's really no more complex than that. The more time you give, the more species branch off from each other and could even be classified as new species ("speciation")

[Guest]

that just leads to

1.where did those alien lifeforms come from

2.doesn't that violate the cell theory, so which is right?

[unreality]

that just leads to

1.where did those alien lifeforms come from

2.doesn't that violate the cell theory, so which is right?

my point was that it doesn't matter how life got here! Evolution will kick in regardless, no matter where one is in the universe, as long as our traits are defined by a genetic code and as long as we reproduce, evolution will happen

[Guest]

i believe in intelligent design, not creationism. I think a higher power(i call it god) made one basic life form or shaped it or helped it form in a way. I don't think its fair just to dismiss my point and call it stereotypical.

What unreality said...

But I'm not arguing that your point is stereotypical, I'm arguing that it's irrelevant to evolution. The origin of life is an interesting topic that could be the subject of its own thread and I'd be happy to discuss it as such, but I've never seen any meaningful comparison between it and the discussion of evolution. So far as I've always seen it, adding the beginning of life to a debate on evolution is an effort to undermine the evidence for evolution by saying that evolution "leaves important questions unanswered," which on the face of it is untrue.

Yes, we don't have a compelling explanation for how life started, but tying the lack of a scientifically supported theory for the beginning of life to evolution detracts from the merits of evolution without addressing the evidence for evolution at all.

(As an aside, when Creationism was ruled scientifically invalid for study in schools, the ID crowd was born, complete with transcribed Creationist documents rewritten to replace every reference of "Creationism" with "Intelligent Design." Otherwise, the documents were identical, so while you may believe in ID, ID is little more than a rebranding of Creationism in an effort to make it sound like "science"... )

[Izzy]

(As an aside, when Creationism was ruled scientifically invalid for study in schools, the ID crowd was born, complete with transcribed Creationist documents rewritten to replace every reference of "Creationism" with "Intelligent Design." Otherwise, the documents were identical, so while you may believe in ID, ID is little more than a rebranding of Creationism in an effort to make it sound like "science"... )

Pablos, you should read Monkey Girl, a book that points out the flaws in intelligent design and why it isn't a scientifically acceptable theory (and therefore isn't taught in schools). ID = Creationism, which this book explains, along with its origins (as dawh pointed out). Funny book.

[Guest]

Why oh why are they putting a Creationist's foreword on Darwin's book? That's like having an atheist write a foreword for the Bible. (Well, not exactly but you get my point) It'll most likely be some s**t about Creationism and blah, blah, blah.