Evolution is a hoax

[DJTX]

We, as humans, are not very good a dealing with large numbers be it time (millions of years) or simply probability. If you vaguely understand how evolution works you will see that man has got very very lucky to exist at all let alone dominate the planet. At the same time each individual is also very lucky to be alive given all the possibilities from our relatively small strings of DNA.

Given how lucky we are to simply exist at all it seems rather ungrateful to put it all down to divine intervention. More specifically it is, in my view, rather sad to see the Scartfargus's of this world whose life is dominated by dreamed up creations and silly myths. There he is, blessed with life as a human against all the odds and he doesnt really even appreciate it. To me he is like a guy who wins the lottery with a chance of 50 million to one who turns round and says he cant have won because the chances of him winning are so small.

The chances of most things happening are extremely small but there are also an almost infinite amount of possbilities. That any of us exist is virtually an infinite impossibility - we should at least appreciate our luck enough to make the most of our lives on this world.

I won't attempt to argue devine intervention. I for one can not prove that divine intervention is not the source of everything that happened. I can only say that I believe it's possible. Probable - now that's another question.

Your point on the 'very religious' - you used Scutfargus as an example. I lived in the US' so-called "bible belt" for quite a while. I got to see and meet a lot of people I'd classify as being on the religious far right - zealots. I found them to be about as open minded as those on the opposite end of the spectrum. But your comment about religious people not appreciating life seems to go a bit far. While they may look at life differently than others, and may enjoy their life from a different viewpoint, they do appreciate what they have.

Other than them constatly trying to 'convert' people, and much of their "in your face" approach to religion, most are good people. Although I question those who think they can go to church on Sunday and be resolved of all the sins them commit during the rest of the week.

But back to point - their appreciation of life. For a devout Christian, isn't it their belief that the 'good life' really happens after death - in heaven?

[robbie36]

But back to point - their appreciation of life. For a devout Christian, isn't it their belief that the 'good life' really happens after death - in heaven?

And doesnt that sound totally unsatisfactory.

Lets face it noone knows what happens after death but every thing we do know sort of points to nothing happening after death. Whether this turns out to be right or wrong, everything seems to point to making the most out of your current life and just 'hoping' or 'preying' there is something else.

To live a life based on the 'faith' that the good life happens after death just seems such a waste of the life we have all been given.

(Incidentally I do realise that my athesit or non-theist views border on the 'faith based' irrational and rather closed minded views of the likes of scartfargus but you should bear in mind that virtually everyone is grounded, brought up and educated in some God based religion (apologies to all the Buddhists) despite and probably because of the lack of evidence.)

[DJTX]

(Incidentally I do realise that my athesit or non-theist views border on the 'faith based' irrational and rather closed minded views of the likes of scartfargus but you should bear in mind that virtually everyone is grounded, brought up and educated in some God based religion (apologies to all the Buddhists) despite and probably because of the lack of evidence.)

"Closed minded"? Try living in the bible belt if you want to see that... :wink:

[Loburt]

What's so humurous about it?

About 97% of a gorilla's DNA is the same as a human's.

Don't think you're so superior.

[mattyt]

i'm not reading all the posts and maybe someone has already said this, but if the bible is true then dinosaurs never existed. i'm sure i've seen bones in the london museum.

[zeusbheld]

Scientists believing in evolution will tell you dinosaurs and humans didn?t live at the same time. They ignore the discoveries of human and dinosaur footprints in the same layer of mud/rock.

dinosaurs and humans existing at the same time?

errr maybe but there is ZERO solid evidence, unless you count the bible. i don't. the mention of something in the bible will prove something only to people who believe the bible is intended to be taken literally in every aspect, it isnt even a matter of christian vs heathen barbarian godless atheist commie. you can believe something is true because the bible says so and that iss fine but dont expeect to convince me with that.

every "discovery" i've ever heard of where human and dinosaur footprints were on the same layer was so dubious even the "creation science" people shy away from them. burden of proof's on you hotshot, show me one that is credible.

i'm perfectly willling to have an open mind about the evolutioon issue IF AND ONLY IF you can provide evidence for something else being true IN A WAY THAT WOULD QUALIFY AS GOOD SCIENCE.

if you believe science is not valid then we should not waste our time and agree to each think the other guy has his head up his ass.

also please try a tactic other than manipulative propaganda, it's been done to death on this thread already, it's boring.

[Loburt]

GenoPlex states that chimps and humans share 98.4 percent of identical DNA. They also estimate that mice and humans share as much as 98 percent identical DNA. Why don?t we hear about that? Why don?t we hear about how bananas and humans have 50 percent of their DNA in common? Are bananas in our evolutionary past as well? :shock: No more than chimps.

Comparing humans to chimps is tables and chairs. Structurally similar, made of a lot of the same things?but one is not the other. Oh, and tables and chairs are made by a carpenter. Isn?t it possible that mankind was too?

And as far as the Bible not mentioning dinosaurs?it does. It mentions them in Genesis Chapter 2 where God created (uh-oh, I?ll hear about that one) the beasts of the field and living creatures. Scientists believing in evolution will tell you dinosaurs and humans didn?t live at the same time. They ignore the discoveries of human and dinosaur footprints in the same layer of mud/rock. Yet Job in the Bible describes two dinosaurs in Chapters 40 and 41 (Behemoth and Leviathan). So there ya are.

I see that folks brutalize the messenger in this forum rather than sticking solely to the issue so I totally expect a flogging here. So be it.

God bless,

Stubby

Mice do not share 98% of the exact DNA genome sequence as humans. Don't make an assertion with backing it up with evidence. Show us evidence from a NON-CREATIONIST source. If it's true, even non-creationist sources will have had to acknowledge it.

The carpenter you refer to, could very well be natural selection. You are suggesting that the carpenter is some "intelligent being." Possibly. But there is no evidence of that. If you say the bible is evidence, that's faith not evidence. If the bible is to be admitted as evidence, then so must every other religious text from every other faith. Most of those texts differ significantly in their explanations of the origins of the universe and mankind than your bible.

The "evidence" you refer to about dinosaurs and humans living at the same time is ignored by the vast majority of the scientific community and the public because it's already been shown to be untrue.

Yes, we are not the same as chimpanzees. But we are closer than you care to acknowledge. And your post showed a lack of basic understanding and empathy for the other living intelligent beings we share this planet with. That kind of callousness is a major reason mankind is destroying the environment.

[frankenburner2]

about 60 pages spread over two forums.....FLIP A COIN ALREADY!

The TFALW refuses to get involved.

[zeusbheld]

about 60 pages spread over two forums.....FLIP A COIN ALREADY!

The TFALW refuses to get involved.

j

umm... not to belabor the obvious, but... you just did.

besides it has been mathematically determined that halomi decides (see other thread).

[frankenburner2]

about 60 pages spread over two forums.....FLIP A COIN ALREADY!

The TFALW refuses to get involved.

j

umm... not to belabor the obvious, but... you just did.

besides it has been mathematically determined that halomi decides (see other thread).

errrmmm....refuse to get involved ANY further...after this one...i think

[zeusbheld]

about 60 pages spread over two forums.....FLIP A COIN ALREADY!

The TFALW refuses to get involved.

j

umm... not to belabor the obvious, but... you just did.

besides it has been mathematically determined that halomi decides (see other thread).

errrmmm....refuse to get involved ANY further...after this one...i think

your'e sure about that?

[zeusbheld]

ruffled feathers?

no feathers ruffled. when u bring a lot of rhetoric, expect equally strong rhetoric in return, although my choice of strong rhetoric may not be to your taste (which does not imply that i in any way care if it is ).

your previous entry wasnt manipulative propaganda, it was fluff, a teaser like a trailer for a movie. the last guy started the same way. his movie sucked. he may be back now that he has pals to sing along with hiim. please make a movie that doesnt suck. it will be tedious if you spew the same kind unsubstantiated crap he did.

this offer ?if you believe science is not valid then we should not waste our time and agree to each think the other guy has his head up his ass. still stands. if you believe that the bible is true, that is fine. your choice. the point at which i will believe yoou have your head up your ass (i'm not saying you, just definiing groundrules) is the point at which you make post after post of shaky 'evidence' and pretend it is science, and deflty ignore any challenges to said 'evidence.' if you wanna play ball, fine, but you wont persuade anyone that horseshit is roses.

another groundrule: i'm inherently allowed to say things like " you wont persuade anyone that horseshit is roses." if anyone's delicate sensibilities are offended, apologies in advance.

as for the footprints, most of the names are familiar, but i am in the middle of actual real life and dont have time for these parlor games among non-scientists (i am not a scientist either) until after 9 september at the VERY earlies. so hold that thought.

ps what does "shew" mean?

[zeusbheld]

i'm not gonna read the whole thread....

what do i believe?

i believe that Man might have LOOKED like a primate (monkey, ape, whathaveyou) but was always different.

S-

that's fine but only marginally on topic; if man was always man that still neither proves nor disproves the theory of evolution. "did man evolve from similar ancestors as apes" is a separate question, a theory that could be disproven by disproviing evolution, but could also be dispoven without disproving evolution.

if the idea interets someone thhey might consider starting a thread.

matthew gave a nice concise definition of evolutioon a few pages back.

[Loburt]

As far as man looking or not looking like a primate - man IS a primate.

If you're not aware of that simple fact, then you're not qualified to argue for or against evolution.

Go back to the TF Boobs thread where you belong.

[Loburt]

:!:

:!: ?Mice do not share 98% of the exact DNA genome sequence as humans. Don't make an assertion with backing it up with evidence. Show us evidence from a NON-CREATIONIST source. If it's true, even non-creationist sources will have had to acknowledge it.?

:idea: I provided genetic information obtained from GenoPlex. They are a Denver-based company founded by two University of Colorado biologists, James M. Sikela and Thomas E. Johnson. They study genes from an evolutionist base. They are a NON-CREATIONIST source. Should I expect a non-creationist to acknowledge their data? Initial indicators are not favorable.

I searched the web for articles including the terms Genoplex, Sikela, mice and dna. A few articles came up in which Sikela and his colleagues talk about chimps having 98% of the same dna as humans. Nowhere did they say that mice have 98% of the same dna as humans.

You say you got your information from Genoplex and Sikela. Show it to us.

[ling_dtua_khaao]

Actually, the statistic that mice have "98% of the same DNA as humans" whether or not it is true is quite meaningless unless it is given much better explanation.

2% of a very big number is still very big.

98% might be a very good approximation, say if I tell you to walk 100 metres down the street to find a certain shop but you only walk 98 metres, you'll still find the shop. Or, if I say that the family of species Homo (as in, Homo sapiens, Homo erectus, Homo erotic hehe) is recognizable in archeological evidence for the past 2 million years, but actually it's just 1.96 million years.

98% might be an incredibly poor approximation. For example, if I fly 300 kilometres in my bomber with a compass bearing of 98 degrees I'll end up more than 10km away from where I would have been if I had flown 300km with a bearing of 100 degrees, and I'll end up bombing the wrong target, especially if visibility is poor. (These kinds of errors certainly have happened during wars.) Similarly, if I point my mortar or my howitzer at an angle of 100 degrees instead of 98, it can make quite a difference to whether or not I hit the target. If I filter 98% of the cyanide out of my gold mine tailings pond instead of 100% and that pond overflows into the nearby river during a big storm or earthquake or other natural event, it will still be enough cyanide to kill plenty of fish and other life (including possibly people) downstream. (Another slight variation on real world examples.)

2% can mean nothing or it can mean the world. Saying "2% difference" or "98% the same" is meaningless unless you quantify the scale of the problem and what error tolerances of various sizes actually mean.

In this example, someone is saying that mice have 98% the same DNA as humans. What does that mean? Does it mean that of the 100,000 or so genes that every human has (I know it is at least this number, possibly much higher but I don't feel like searching for the info right now), 98,000 of them appear identically in mice, with the same possible variations?

A gene is not a single molecule. A gene is a very very long sequence of amino acids (hundreds or thousands long), each of which may be one of 4 kinds if I recall correctly. If a gene is 1000 amino acids long, that means that numerically there are 4 raised to the power 1000 different possible sequences that can make up that gene. That's a 1 followed by about 602 zeros. Even if 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% of those possible sequences are garbage (i.e. lead to no meaningful genetic information), that still leaves an incredibly huge number that are meaningful. Many of those meaningful sequences may just be different ways of saying the same thing, and there may be a huge amount of redundancy and "bookkeeping" information in the gene, further cutting down the number of different meaningful possibilities.

In short, I have NO IDEA AT ALL how significant a dfference of say 2,000 genes out of 100,000 is in terms of the differences in the resulting life form. Mice actually share an incredible number of similarities with humans from a physiological standpoint. Sure they are small and hairy and have tails etc. etc. but they have the same organs we do, they have a very similar nervous system, they have similar endocrine (hormone) systems etc. etc. The differences in many of their features are in quantity not quality. That's why testing of possible new medicines on mice and rats actually does very frequently lead to valuable information in terms of their effect on humans.

So, "98% similar" just means nothing at all unless you elaborate quite a bit in the ways I have indicated are necessary. All you non-creationists in the forum need not get bothered as to whether the number is 90% or 98% or whatever until a creationist can actually show the goods in a convincing and scientific way as to why 98% is such damning evidence.

--Ling

[hyper223]

Proof at last.

[robbie36]

God (used as a figure of speech rather than literally you understand) I am beginning to miss Scartfargus!!

[Loburt]

shhh....robbie. he's still here. in fact he logged in yesterday.