Shock news: NI has more fundies than anywhere else in UK..!
NORTHERN Ireland has the UK’s highest proportion of creationists (25%) and believers in Intelligent Design (16%), a survey by Theos (pdf here) suggests. Hardly unsurprising to learn that we’ve more fundamentalists here than anywhere in Great Britain. While the overall results are somewhat confused and demonstrate a lack of public knowledge on the issues, Theos Director Phil Woolley said: “There are two lessons in particular that we can learn from Darwin. The first is that belief in God and evolution are compatible. Secondly, in a time when debates about evolution and religious belief can be aggressive and polarised, Charles Darwin remains an example of how to disagree without being disagreeable.” The subject was discussed on Talkback earlier.
New Yorker:
“A question for evolutionists: How did the earliest humans survive in an environment of stronger and faster animals? Where humans the fittest, and if so, why?”
Presumably the same way as humans survive today in an environment of stronger and faster animals. Our brains are better developed, i.e. fitter for survival.
“Creation means something came from nothing. Do not ‘big bang’ theories posit something from nothing?”
No.
“A first principle of logic is that the same thing cannot ‘x’ and ‘not x’ simultaneously. Can you identify that principle from your sense knowledge, your experience of the natural world?”
Yes of course. Red is red, orange is orange. Orange is not red, although mixing red and yellow pigments will give you orange.
“The evidence for evolution is overwhelming . Bones , fossils , teeth , fossilised footprints , complete specimens that have been entrapped in resins , tar pits , preserved mummies in hot sand etc . Blood tests indicating relationship to other primates -the molecular basis of all life including man, the double helix DNA , DNA replication , protein synthesis , the Genetic Code , DNA hybridisation, primate similarities , amino acid sequences, hemoglobin beta chain , immunological studies , somatic cell division , mitosis , sexual reproduction, meiosis . In short man evolved alongside all the other mammals . Man’s hominoid antecedents include Homo Habilis , Ergaster , Erectus and all the way back to Australopithecus Africanus with related cousins in Neanderthal man and others”
Greenflag how is any of this evidence of macroevolution?
there is not one shred of evidence for macroevolution. not one.
for microevolution there is literally millions of examples of how species adapt to best fit their environment. Dogs, cats, birds, plants, bacteria, humans… it is beyond question that microevolution takes place. And it is a process that has no bearing on the existence of God.
For people like Dawkins (and yourself) the problem lies in that you cannot provide a single (or collective) piece of evidence to provide proof that man evolved from a single celled organism.
It takes faith to believe natural selection is a sufficient process to provide for macroevolution. To believe it does, you need to assume that organisms can add info to their genetic makeup. There is NO evidence that this can occur.
Even if it does occur, where did all the necessary info come from? there would have to have been significant numbers of early lifeforms, each with a different set of info. And if this was the case then how could there be so few common ancestors? the fossil record certainly does not back this up.
Microevolution on the other hand is not about the addition of info but in fact the loss of info. An organism undergoing microevolution does not gain the info to survive in that environment. It already has that info in its makeup. In other words speciation. Take Darwins Finches for example – in this case the beaks changed shape over time but the original finch had the necessary info for each type of beak to begin with. The first offspring had the ability to have any beak shape. However, over time as each finch adapted best to their environment they lost this diversity.
Evolution actually means species become less able to cope with changes to the environment. Evolution is a detrimental process to overall ability of a species to survive.
microevolution is science
macroevolution is an illogical faith.
Until Dawkins and co. can prove the addition of information, they are merely practising a humanist religion.
SNP:
“Until Dawkins and co. can prove the addition of information, they are merely practising a humanist religion.”
How long are you prepared to give them?
New Yorker ‘
‘How did the earliest humans survive in an environment of stronger and faster animals?’
They ‘grew ‘ a bigger brain and learnt how to make tools and throw stones . Being able to climb back into a tree was a useful skill at appropriate times .
‘ Where humans the fittest, and if so, why? ‘
In the sense of fitting their ‘environment ‘ we would’nt be here if they had not adapted . In the sense of physical fitness or physical strength even a modern chimpanzee is probably three to four times ‘stronger’ than your average homo sapiens but we make up for our weakness in our skills in contract negotiation;)
‘A question for materialists: Creation means something came from nothing. Do not ‘big bang’ theories posit something from nothing?’
No they posit something i.e all matter from a singularity which was all matter condensed to a pin point . We do not know as yet whether this was a once off or just one in an eternal series of big bangs. There may be other universes and probably are.
‘A question for empiricists: A first principle of logic is that the same thing cannot ‘x’ and ‘not x’ simultaneously.’
Have you never heard of ‘multi tasking ‘ a feat much practiced with some success by the female members of the species ? recent discoveries in the micro world and that of quantum mechanics are raising all kinds of events which are beyond man’s direct (in the natural sense) observation .
Our logic is based on our human limitations. Presumably the God of ‘creationists ‘ works outside these limitations which begs the point of why he bothered to assume human form in the first place . It’s now accepted by most Biblical scholars that the works of Matthew , Mark , John and Luke all have major differences in their recollection and writings on the so called divinity of Jesus Christ
New Yorker
“A question for evolutionists: How did the earliest humans survive in an environment of stronger and faster animals? Where humans the fittest, and if so, why?”
Aside formt he bigger brains, coopaerative huntuing and tools, an interesting theory recently is that humans are distance runners par excellence. Most animals sprint, but they can’t do it for long distances. So early humans could run them down. This would example our stubby toes, which are better adapted for running than longer monkey like ones.
‘there is not one shred of evidence for macroevolution. not one. ‘
That’s right according to this writer there is at least 29
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc
That’s right according to this writer they are NOT actual proofs.
http://www.trueorigin.org/theobald1a.asp
But this is not the point. I seen this list before and it’s nothing more than dodgy fossils and ill thought out interpertations of scientific observations. e.g. just because apes and humans share similar genetic info does not mean they have to have the same common ancestor.
Why couldn’t a Creator give different species similar functions? If you are a human designer you don’t each of your creations a radically different design.
Most cars have 4 wheels. A bike and a car both have wheels. An aeroplane has wheels.
It is mere conjecture to believe in common ancestors. It is not science. That undermines one of your 29 proofs.
The evidence is just not there but the biggest stumbling blocks for macroevolutionists are
1. evidence of information addition
2. the sheer complexity of biological organisms
Maggie,
I’ll give them as long as they want.
The problem is they do not have the evidence for macroevolution but they still parade around like it is scientific fact.
Just a wee reminder that an interesting show on BBC2 tonight…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00j0c54
SNP
“The problem is they do not have the evidence for macroevolution but they still parade around like it is scientific fact.”
No, it’s a scientific theory, and that’s as good as a fact. If you can find evidence to refute it, the scientific community will take your evidence on board and learn from it.
‘there is not one shred of evidence for macroevolution. not one. ‘
That’s right according to this writer there is at least 29 and more are being discovered all the time .
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc
‘there would have to have been significant numbers of early lifeforms, each with a different set of info.’
There were . The Burgess Shale deposits are an indication of the huge number of early lieforms some 500 to 600 million years ago . But despite their differences all life is made up of the same basic chemistry . All life is one. *rokaryotes are the earliest known life form and was a form of bacteria and was produced by the combination of conditions that existed on the earth at that time presumably .
‘ And if this was the case then how could there be so few common ancestors? ‘
????? You alone going back to only the time of Christ have at least 8 billion ancestors in the direct line .
‘ the fossil record certainly does not back this up. ‘
Of the millions of hominoids who have lived and died since the emergence of australopithecus africanus enough fossils have been found to lay down the map of human evolution . Just look at what humans have done with dogs in a comparatively short period of time 20,000 years or so ? Compare and contrast a chihuahua with an Irish Wolfhound . The latter stands 3 feet at the shoulder the former 6 inches yet they both come origonally from the same ancestor ?
The ‘Neanderthal ‘ genome research study is almost finished and scientists should be able to calculate from the findings just how far back both hominoids separated along their common ancestral tree .
error above should read .
Prokaryotes are the earliest known life form ‘Why couldn’t a Creator give different species similar functions?’
Why would a creator decide to wipe out almost all his ‘creation’ every few hundred million years by causing random events to occur such as those in the Cambrian and later ‘mass exterminations ‘?
You envisage your God God as the Versace or Yves St Laurent of life design ?
Greenflag:
“You envisage your God God as the Versace or Yves St Laurent of life design ?”
Hilarious! Yes, no matter how you look at it nature is terribly wasteful. This fact alone should vindicate Darwin’s theory on the survival of ONLY the fittest. I recall someone commenting on the “strength” of the evolutionary tree of the horse: so few branches needed to lead to “perfection”. Until someone else pointed out that so few horses meant the comparative failure of that line—that the insects are far more successful, that of about 2 million species of animals on the earth about 750,000 of those are insects.
Makes you think. Odd how Noah never spoke about the insects.
The beetles went in two by two, haroo, haroo….
Maggie, Greenflag and Kensei
Humans were fit to survive because of their brains and importantly because of concept formation and implementation, an ability of a different magnitude from animals. For example early humans had the idea of fire and made fires for warmth, cooking and protection.
It is true that there is a long way to go on ‘big bang’ theory. But there could have been a mother of ‘big bangs’ from which some type of matter was produced from nothing. After all, everything seems to have a beginning and an end. It is reasonable to believe the universe is not eternal, and if it has an end it most likely had a beginning, ie, it was created eons ago.
I don’t believe fundamental principles of logic are subject to change, that at some future time it is discovered that “x” and “non x” can exist at the same time. I happen to think rules of logic are structures of reality. The question remains, how do we know “x” and “not x” can not exist simultaneously? In a similar way we know axioms of geometry. We know many things that are not derived from our experience of nature. How do we know those things?