Creationism vs evolution (warning: long)

[philh 0]

"Now if you still want to argue the point, I suggest you take it up with Merriam-Webster. "
Oh really, well I decided to look atheism up on Websters. Although i think there are other ways to understand language than one campanies say so. But heres what webster had to say:
"2 a :a disbelief in the existence of deity b:the doctrine that there is no deity "
They have more than one definition. one that fits with my view and one that fits with yours. how convenient of you of to ignore the one that you didnt like and only mention the one you did.
they also discuss the etymology of the word and what do they say:
"from a- + theos god "
exactly inline with what I have been saying which you also so wittily mocked.
Now we can go on and on debating this if you want. but what i think is the issue here is that there are religious athiests. That there are people who believe evolution proves god does not exist. Well i think these people are at best not representative of atheists and perhaps dont exist at all. can you find me any athiest web sites that claim this? Im not aware of one. What was said which I think is right is "that every new discovery of science (the heliocentric theory, paleontology, cosmology etc) is another nail in God's coffin. ".Well i think that is very reasonable. We cant prove that somehting doesnt exist. but the more we discover of nature, the less and less reason there is to believe in god. just as every child that discovers there parents buy them presents and that the store Santa is just an old guy in a suit is another nail in the coffin of Santa Claus. After all the more we understand the generation of presents at Christmas the less and less convicing the Santa myth becomes. of course even if millions, possibly billions of parents give their children the presents that doesnt prove santa doesnt exist. we cant prove he doesnt exist in the same way we cant prove god deosnt exist. but there comes a point where all the so called evidence is shown to be bunk so it is just as reasonable to say there is no god as it is to say there is no santa. Tell me the difference? Are you undecided on the existence of Santa? is it a religious position to say that Santa doesnt exist?after all it cant be proved either way.

[likearock 2]

So what's the difference between atheism and agnosticism again? Enlighten us.

[philh 0]

Work it out: gnosic refers to knowledge, even in websters: we have:

Etymology: Greek gnOsis, literally, knowledge, from gignOskein
:esoteric knowledge of spiritual truth held by the ancient Gnostics to be essential to salvation

gnosis means knowledge ,in context knowledge of god or other spiritual matters. An agnostic then is either someone who has no knowledge of such matters or believes such knowledge is impossible. Gnosis refers to knowledge, theism refers to belief. You can believe in god without believing you have knowledge of god. A means without so agnostic is without knowledge atheist is without belief. One who is undecided is just that, it doesnt require another word. Some people claim that agnostic and athiest are contary positions. But I think you can see the language does not imply that. furtheromore since it might be fair for Hindua, jews etc to define what it means to be jewish so it might be true for athiests. look at most athiest sites you will find the following:
"Basic atheism is not a belief. It is the lack of belief. There is a difference between believing there is no god and not believing there is a god--both are atheistic, "Dan Barker
"atheism is a negative view, characterized by the absence of belief in God. " Michael Martin
"an atheist is someone without theism, or without a belief in God." Gordon Stein
these are all leading atheists if you are to deny athiests the right to define themselves will you do the same to jews, Hindus etc?
So you will see the language and the people imply a certain definition fo athiesm. I am an agnostic becuase I have no knowledge of god, an athiest because I have no belief in god and I further believe there is no god. This last point goes beyond simple athiesm. This is the view which has been considered a religious viewbecuase I cannot prove god doesnt exist. whilst that is true ,one cannot prove Santa doesnt exist, one cannot prove fairies do not exist, one cannot prove there is not a dragon living in the middle of the sun of that there is a man in the moon. So to the extent that denial of god is religious so must these other positions be considered religious. I dont think thats a fair description beuccase to deny Santa, dragons, etc is not to dismiss them for no reason but to dismiss becuase of our knowledge of the natural world and our knowledge of the origin of mythology. Both imply that Santa, dragons etc are creations of the human mind not physical realities.so it is with god,

[likearock 2]

Actually, we're both right: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism

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Atheism, in its broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of gods. This definition includes as atheists both those who assert that there are no gods, and those who make no claim about whether gods exist or not. Narrower definitions, however, often only qualify those who actively disbelieve as atheists, labeling the others as nontheists or agnostics.

[nacmacfeegle 0]

I'm an agnostic, and not entirely convinced I'm proud of it.

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He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

[mr2mk1g 10]

Your translations are incorrect. You are not breaking the Latin back to it's route form but working with the conjugation. You will come up with incorrect translations if you work that way.

The correct translation is "a" (without); "theos" (God).

As such it is not "without the belief in God" but "without God". ie an Atheist is without a God - ie they believe there is no God for them to be "with".

Atheism is the belief that there is no God. It is a positive belief in a negative - that there is no God. It is not the absence of any belief, as in order to be Atheist you have to have a belief - specifically that there is no God.

The absence of a truly held belief would be Agnosticism. One who can't say one way or another if God exists would hold no true belief one way or the other. As such Agnosticism is the passive non belief in God.

Thus if a person were to profess the non-existence of God, they would have to be classified an Atheist as they actively believe there is no God as opposed to merely passively not believing as they have concluded is no way of truly knowing - for that would be Agnosticism.

It is a subtle difference, I know.

[likearock 2]

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Atheism is the belief that there is no God. It is a positive belief in a negative - that there is no God. It is not the absence of any belief, as in order to be Atheist you have to have a belief - specifically that there is no God.

The absence of a truly held belief would be Agnosticism.

You're a little late. See my previous post.

You and I are using the narrower version of the definition. However according to several sources, the broader version, which also encompasses agnosticism, is equally acceptable.

I just thought of something. This might be the first time in the history of SC where everybody is right!

[mr2mk1g 10]

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This might be the first time in the history of SC where everybody is right!

haha - do we all owe beer?

[nacmacfeegle 0]

Meh!
Everybody is SC is always right...
All we do is argue over the definition of 'right'.

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He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

[ROK 0]

If evolutoin means that we're all merely products of our environment, I'm moving...

[likearock 2]

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This might be the first time in the history of SC where everybody is right!

haha - do we all owe beer?

Nah, I think I chipped in for the three of us.

Ah, what the hell!

[Zenister 0]

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If evolutoin means that we're all merely products of our environment, I'm moving...

since you are only half right are you only moving half way?

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Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed.

[Erroll 80]

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Meh!
Everybody is SC is always right...
All we do is argue over the definition of 'right'.

Sometimes we argue about the definition of "is" too.

[Dolph 0]

Straight from the horses mouth:

Brief intro to atheism by the atheists themselves.

Re: atheism:
Some atheists go beyond a mere absence of belief in gods: they actively believe that particular gods, or all gods, do not exist. Just lacking belief in Gods is often referred to as the "weak atheist" position; whereas believing that gods do not (or cannot) exist is known as "strong atheism".

Re agnosticism:

The term 'agnosticism' was coined by Professor T.H. Huxley at a meeting of the Metaphysical Society in 1876. He defined an agnostic as someone who disclaimed both ("strong") atheism and theism, and who believed that the question of whether a higher power existed was unsolved and insoluble. Another way of putting it is that an agnostic is someone who believes that we do not know for sure whether God exists. Some agnostics believe that we can never know.

In recent years, however, the term agnostic has also been used to describe those who simply believe that the evidence for or against God is inconclusive, and therefore are undecided about the issue.

To reduce the amount of confusion over the use of term agnosticism, it is recommended that usage based on a belief that we cannot know whether God exists be qualified as "strict agnosticism" and usage based on the belief that we merely do not know yet be qualified as "empirical agnosticism".

Words are slippery things, and language is inexact. Beware of assuming that you can work out someone's philosophical point of view simply from the fact that she calls herself an atheist or an agnostic. For example, many people use agnosticism to mean what is referred to here as "weak atheism", and use the word "atheism" only when referring to "strong atheism".

Beware also that because the word "atheist" has so many shades of meaning, it is very difficult to generalize about atheists. About all you can say for sure is that atheists don't believe in God. For example, it certainly isn't the case that all atheists believe that science is the best way to find out about the universe.

[ROK 0]

I already did...got tired, didn't think I would make it the rest of the way, and came back.

Hey, at least you're an optimist!

[Deuce 1]

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Mutation and selection, over a long enough period, IS evolution.

I disagree with this, Bill. I think, from what I've read, that mutation is the result of stuff like radiation. I'm not convinced of evolution, yet, but I'm open to DNA coding in response to environment.

If human DNA allows for webbed fingers, then it would appear we could "evolve" for a waterworld environment.

What's the key, though? How does DNA "know" that we need to move to the aquatic variant of a human?

Honestly, I'm wide open about this. I just doubt the ability of individuals to recode their offspring according to environment.

I'm dying to know what's in there. Is a zero G variant of human already programmed? An amphibian?

I'm wide open, but I think we are limited to what is in the code.

[billvon 3,032]

>If human DNA allows for webbed fingers, then it would appear we could
>"evolve" for a waterworld environment.

Even today, some kids are born with webbed fingers. We consider it a birth defect. (Google syndactyly.) If we all suddenly had to live in water, the kids _without_ webbed fingers would be the ones with the 'defect,' and would quickly die out (if the environment was competitive, with predators and food shortages and whatnot.) So the ones with webbed fingers would survive, and reproduce, and soon we'd all have webbed fingers.

Voila! Evolution.

>I just doubt the ability of individuals to recode their offspring according to environment.

They can't, sadly. The only thing offspring can do to further evolution is to survive. The ones that die get selected against.

>I'm dying to know what's in there. Is a zero G variant of human already programmed?

Nope. But some people, even today, have no problem with zero-G. Some do. If we start living in zero-G a lot, the ones with no problems will reproduce more often, and within a few hundred generations almost no one will have a problem with it. That's all evolution is.

[jakee 1,536]

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Honestly, I'm wide open about this. I just doubt the ability of individuals to recode their offspring according to environment.

I think this here is where your key misunderstanding lies. Animals do not mutate in response to their environment. Zebras who live among tall trees do not start having more babies with longer necks until you get giraffes.

The same mutations and differences would occur in the offspring of those who live with tall trees and the ones who live with short trees. It just so happens that the long neck is an advantage in the tall tree group so those offspring are more likely to grow to sexual maturity and reproduce than short necks, passing on their mutation. In the short tree groups long or short necks are just the same and continue to balance each other out.


So as Bill said, mutations do not occur through environmental pressure, it is the likelyhood of them getting passed on (natural selection) that the environment influences.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[mr2mk1g 10]

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I think, from what I've read, that mutation is the result of stuff like radiation.

Nope - random gene mutations happen all the time as a normal part of life.

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How does DNA "know" that we need to move to the aquatic variant of a human?

It doesn't. The mutations are random. It a random mutation gives your offspring neon yellow skin it probably won't give them and advantage and they won't survive in that aquatic environment any better than the more numerous normal humans. In fact they die out as they're more visible to predators.

If the random mutation gives them webbed fingers they might have an advantage over their competitors and thus eat more and be stronger and therefore get better and more mates and their webbed genes will therefore be more numerous in the next gnereation. Over a long period of time whole populations can come to express this trait.

DNA doesn't have to know anything.

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I just doubt the ability of individuals to recode their offspring according to environment.

You should be - it doesn't happen that way. You reproduce just as normal, its only those random mutations which cause species to develop in one way or anther.

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I'm wide open, but I think we are limited to what is in the code.

Except the code is constantly changing with every gen

[ROK 0]

>If human DNA allows for webbed fingers, then it would appear we could
>"evolve" for a waterworld environment.

This is fascinating stuff..

IMO if our DNA were encoded to cover every future eventuality, the future would have been known before-hand.

I believe that our, and most flora and fauna adaptability can be attributed to the ability of DNA to change when stimulated by the need to survive. We know this to be fact, so if the code is flexible, there wouldn't be a need to have an arsenal of "what-ifs" waiting for every eventuality.

Aberrations and mutations occur at random, but to completely change an entire species I would agree that the weaker of the species is weeded out, allowing the better prepared to reproduce and grow stronger.

In other words...if you stab a DNA with a knife, it's going to bleed. If it survives, and you stab it again, it's going to bleed a little less. Over time the DNA is going to adapt to being stabbed and learn how to best survive any future attacks. Those that can't survive the attack go away allowing a smaller selection of surviving DNA to reproduce from a smaller stronger pool.

All of this takes time. Throw in the human factor and genocide, and you can toss the time needed to evolve out the window...

[billvon 3,032]

>I believe that our, and most flora and fauna adaptability can be
> attributed to the ability of DNA to change when stimulated by the
> need to survive.

That's lysenkoism, and it nearly caused the failure of the USSR's agricultural system. The idea that "DNA changes in the right direction when it needs to" just doesn't work - but fit neatly into Communist ideology, and so was pushed as valid science. A lesson on how having a 'belief' and applying it to science is a very dangerous thing.

Evolution happens because unfit organisms die, not because organisms 'make themselves' more fit.

>In other words...if you stab a DNA with a knife, it's going to bleed. If
> it survives, and you stab it again, it's going to bleed a little less.

Not really. If you stab 1000 organisms, 999 are going to die. 1 may survive by chance (thicker skin? clottier blood?) and go on to reproduce. The next time you try it, 990 are going to die and 10 are going to survive, because some now have that thicker-skin gene from that one ancestor. The next time, only 900 will die. The next time, half will survive - because now a solid half of them have that gene.

What you are doing here is 'selecting' for thick skin. The DNA doesn't improve itself, it's just that the DNA that doesn't die (thicker skin) is the one that's passed on.

[ROK 0]

"Evolution happens because unfit organisms die, not because organisms 'make themselves' more fit. "

I understand what you are saying, but I'm a little confused about the ability of an organisms ability to change over time, adapting to the environment.

An example would be cave dwelling creatures that never are exposed to sunlight. They lose the pigmentation in their skin, and are blind. Are they born with the ability to see, and lose it over time? Or, are they born pale and blind? If so, how does the DNA know that certain traits are no longer necessary?

[kallend 2,070]

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"Evolution happens because unfit organisms die, not because organisms 'make themselves' more fit. "

I understand what you are saying, but I'm a little confused about the ability of an organisms ability to change over time, adapting to the environment.

An example would be cave dwelling creatures that never are exposed to sunlight. They lose the pigmentation in their skin, and are blind. Are they born with the ability to see, and lose it over time? Or, are they born pale and blind? If so, how does the DNA know that certain traits are no longer necessary?

DNA doesn't know anything. Genes that code for traits with no survival/reproductive value may or may not survive with no harm to the descendants. Given enough generations, probability of survival of active useless genes goes down.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[billvon 3,032]

>An example would be cave dwelling creatures that never are exposed
> to sunlight. They lose the pigmentation in their skin, and are blind.
> Are they born with the ability to see, and lose it over time? Or, are
> they born pale and blind? If so, how does the DNA know that certain
> traits are no longer necessary?

A good example, because this actually happens in fish.

First let's look at a regular fish, say a trout. He's light on the bottom and dark on top so he's harder to see from above; this helps him hide from predators. He has eyes that help him see hazards (sticks and whatnot) and find food (insects floating on the surface.) Most trout look pretty much like this.

Every once in a while, a trout is born with a birth defect. This defect could come from a lot of places - it could be a radiation-induced mutation, or it could be caused by pollutants messing with his parent's creation of sperm or egg, or it could be a random error. This birth defect could be barely noticeable (slightly longer fin or something) deadly (no stomach) or it could be obvious but survivable, like a missing eye or an albino fish. Albino fish get eaten quickly because they are easy to see, and eyeless fish have a harder time catching food. They are not helpless, since fish also have lateral lines that let them navigate, find moving prey etc in the dark, but they are going to have a harder time than their sighted fellow fish at finding food. So odds are they're not going to make it, especially if food is scarce (which it usually is in the wild.)

So those rare birth defects get "selected against." They don't propagate because the organism dies.

Now, let's say some of those trout found their way into a deep cave where food was available, so they stayed. Now those albino and eyeless mutations are suddenly an advantage! Not being able to see doesn't matter any more, because they can't see anyway. Not having pigmentation doesn't matter any more, because no one can see them. But (here's the important part) being albino and eyeless helps the organism because they don't have to grow eyes or create pigment, and this means they don't have to eat as much as their fellow normal fish. So the next time breeding season comes along, the albino and eyeless fish are at a very slight advantage. If there was a food shortage, they were the ones who probably survived, because they needed less food to begin with.

Now, it might take a thousand years for that first eyeless mutant to happen, and before that there were probably hundreds of other mutations that happened that weren't helpful (or were deadly.) But once that one fish is born with no eyes, his genes are going to start getting passed on bigtime. The fish's DNA doesn't 'know' anything; the eyeless DNA is no smarter than the eye DNA, or the no-fin-mutation DNA. But the eyeless DNA has a better chance of being passed on.*

Fast forward ten thousand years, and all the fish are eyeless because that set of genes works the best, and the other fish have died off. Now, if they return to the surface, they better hope that there is a mutation really quickly or they're all going to die when normal trout out-compete them. Most likely the mutation will not happen in time, and that part of their genetic line will dead-end, as 95% of genetic lines have. But again, there's no intelligence in the fish's chromosomes thinking "Hey, it's bright here! I better evolve some eyes." It's just random chance working against (and sometimes for) certain genes.

(* - note that not all mutations are heritable; in other words, some mutations result in a mutated creature, but he produces normal gametes. Thus you have to wait that thousand years for a fish that both has the right mutation, and can pass it on. Which is one reason it takes so long.)

[Kid_Icarus 0]

I believe human evolution has stopped. And at the very least, if it is continuing, modern science and health care will stop it. Much like "Birth defect" we try and prevent, or anything "Unusual" would be "fixed"

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"What What.....