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When the genome of the chimpanzee was published it shed some light on human evolution and our relationship with chimpanzee. In the video below Ken Miller explains how chimp chromosome #13 not only proves we are related to the chimpanzee, But also how we managed to lose a chromosome during our own evolution.
It was an amazing discovery and a discovery which, Even now, Has never been refuted by anyone arguing for intelligent design. (Thanks God Be Gone)
It was an amazing discovery and a discovery which, Even now, Has never been refuted by anyone arguing for intelligent design. (Thanks God Be Gone)
http://www.videosift.com/video/Biologist-Ken-Miller-on-Intelligent-Design-157
A great view!
*sarcasm*
"I'm Roman Catholic" *-> "I don't believe in a deceptive [God]"
Talk about self-deception!
Also the evolution defending doesn't fit in with the Roman Catholic part...
The Catholic church gets bashed on a lot and I'm never sure why. I guess because I was brought up in a communtiy of many denominations, so it was all pretty intergrated. Notably though, none of the creationists were Catholic. Most were Anglican.
The vatican staying silent about the holocaust during WWII,
Still teaching even today that HIV can pass through condoms in AIDS stricken Africa,
Covering up child abuse allegations, for example that of Father John Geoghan, accused of sexually molesting over 100 boys in the Archdiocese of Boston,
The persecution of Galileo, the inventor of the telescope,
The infamous brutal and violating interrogations directed at the suppresion of heresy,
In fact hundreds of years of years of persection, deceit, lies and social control; much of which can be levelled at any religion in the world. Take your pick.
The vatican's position on evolution does not explicity say that evolution is the most likely creation theory, only that "faith and scientific findings regarding the evolution of man's material body are not in conflict, though man is regarded as a 'special creation', and that the existence of God is required to explain the spiritual component of man's origins."
This is always worth saying: Science is a METHOD, not a position.
Just my first thought on it.
ID's argument is that the designer designed us like this, for whatever reason.
I do not believe in macro-evolution personally and believe in an Intelligent Designer, but in no way can I determine how Intelligent Design in and of itself claims that cromosones cannot merge.
It's obvious in lots of real life examples that species change, but this (or any other "evidence") does not prove that one species became another.
http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/translocation.html
I personally liked the professors mentioning of his religion at the end. What's so contradictory about understanding what Empirical Data means, as well as believing in something that goes beyond it?
I have a question. That marker in there is the same as the chimps but is the dna on both sides of that marker consistent with the dna from the two missing chromosomes? If not than this marker may be nothing more than a section that looks like the section that they where looking for but has a different practical use. Dna as a whole section can be easily compared so this should probably be a yes or no.
Just my first thought on it.
Of course they line up.
Only an absolute moron would release such findings and not do a basic check like that. Scientists, especially geneticists, tend to be a little bit on the smart side, and tend to do their best to not present easily disprovable material.
The similarities are also there with Gorillas and orangutans.
This is relatively old information in the world of genetics.
Also, look at google:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromosome_2_(human)
http://www.gate.net/~rwms/hum_ape_chrom.html (has pictures)
http://www.evolutionpages.com/chromosome_2.htm (more pictures)
http://www.mun.ca/biology/scarr/Human_Ape_chromosomes.htm (from 2003)
If we assume that the theory of evolution is true, which it is, a "designer", ie ANY kind of designer is just about out of the question, its just too damn unlikely to be true. The fact that this man is also in a particular christian sect, is a remarkable example of the doublethink that goes into preserving religion.
The human species, depending a little bit on how you define homo sapiens (there is no clear "moment" when we went from "ape" to "human", because evolution is a gradual process) Has been on this planet for roughly 200 thousand years. So, for 194 thousand years, we humans stumped around in the dirt, most infants dead at birth, life expectency for the surviving minority probably less than 25 years, tribal wars, misery, starvation, sickness and natural disasters killing of people by the thousands, and then, only then, does his roman catholic God decide its time to intervene.. Obviously, this fairy-tale cooked up by people in complete ignorance, is not anywhere near true.
When it comes to deism, the view that "Something is up there", this is also laughable in light of evolution, the whole point of natural selection is that it is NATURAL, its automatic, its a self-guided process, if someone ever intervened it simply would not work the way it works, it works precisely BECAUSE there is NO "guide" to it, thats the whole beauty of it, its wasteful, mean, unsympathetic and ruthless because its tautological, Whatever happens, happens, and if some god poked his finger in there to "help it along", those fingers would either 1. Work as sticks in wheels, or 2.leave a trace, none of which is true
god can create evolution if he/she/it wants.
carry on.
However it does require a designer who wuld have to be capable of manipulation on the same level as a "creator" making them one and the same.
Obviously one species can become another. Cows have not been here forever. They have been bred by humans. Same with dogs. Think there were wild chihuahuas in the woods ? Nope they are here only becuase they have been bred like that.
Your just brain washed. Here is a url to the many zillion types of cattle http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/cattle/. When your flipping through that remember that they only exist becuase of breeding. And no not all of them can successfully breed with each other, meaning at least some are separate species.
In contrast, chimps and humans now sit in the same family-'Hominidae'... this video shows that we can see how the genetics of a family ancestor changed and did NOT change as we speciated in our direction and chimps speciated in theirs.
god can create evolution if he/she/it wants.
carry on.
Yes, well, as he says in the video he/she/it COULD have merged the chromosomes too, but it just gets to a point where postulating a designer/creator/manipulator really becomes pointless, redundant and outright counter-productive. The beginning of evolution COULD have been farted out the ass of an invisible green magic donkey, but as with Yaweh, the evidence is just not there.
carry on.
A bit of meta-evolution there... sharing your group's beliefs and customs may have been evolutionarily advantageous, where-as now that same adaptation limits the ability to rationally analyze the mysterious in the face of cultural norms. In other words, don't hate the player (anti-evolutionists), hate the game (evolutionary predisposition).
Typical ID "argument" that misunderstands the concept of evolution, try this for size: There are no species. just wipe words lik human, ape, monkey, fish, tree,horse,dog, cat and fox out of your mental image of the world for a moment.
All of the above are just "Life", pure and simple, a "species" is just another "variation of life" it is simply how we humans, for simplicity, classify animal variety. The rule is that if two animals cant produce an offspring, or if the offspring itself is unable to reproduce (such as mules) the animals are a different "species", for example, you could probably not mate with your ancestor 3 million years ago (even if you had a time machine) because the difference would be to great, yet, there is an unbroken line of relatives from this ancestor to you, but the whole thing about evolution is that it flows gradually shaping a different species, at no particular point is the mother a different species than her offspring, no more than you are a different species from your mother, but in a sense, that small change (from parent to child) is the largest kind of change that happens in one step on the road from "one species to another"
A good example of this is a so-called ring-species(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_species) This is a known phenomena, where animals are separated not by time, but geography to from a complete transition from one species to another, one good example is the Ensatina Salamander, that migrated up a valley and around a mountain, and when they finally closed the ring, they could no longer interbreed, thus defined as "different species", yet, if you went back down the valley, there was an unbroken line of relatives.
There really is no such thing as "macro" and "micro" evolution, its all the same thing, its just that one takes longer than the other.
My face or the faces of the religious?
All faces shall be reddened!
I meant that it should be humbling for both sides if the drive to believe is shown to be ingrained by evolution and that nurture just decides which belief.
You can extrapolate the idea out in many ways to think about irrational societal situations (war, homophobia, womens equality, etc.) in the context of the evolution of human society...
You're right, this doesn't prove evolution. What it does is reaffirm our understanding of evolution. Based on existing knowledge scientists were able to predict that we would find a fused or merged chromosome in humans. When they went and checked, they found it. Again, it proves nothing, but it's consistent with what we expected based on our understanding.
ID's position is that life is too complex to have happened without a guiding intelligence to design things. This is a self-defeating proposal. Allow me to illustrate:
- Complexity such as we find in living things cannot form through natural process.
- A superior being or intelligence must have designed or created this complexity.
- This superior being or intelligence was not created, but has always been there.
If you don't see the fault, I ask you to read #3 followed by #1 over again. ID says we're too complex to exist without a designer, but that far-more-complex designer exists without the need for a creator.It's also a matter of issue that an omniscient, omnipotent designer could be such a fool as to make so many bad design choices. See http://videosift.com/video/You-better-do-it-the-octopus-way
Anyone who believes in Intelligent Design needs to raise their standards for what qualifies as intelligent or design.
just take your level of reasoning one step back from the wall and take a good look... there's god! you found him!
Sigma/Everything/God.
Of course this explanation isn't finite enough for science, hence the phrase "god is infinite" and the counterargument "that's just faith" etc etc blah blah blah. "why would he make chromosomes like that" lol why the fuck would you bother asking in such an impertinent manner? you're only human, you can't expect to understand everything, that would be boring. Ask in an honest manner, like a proper scientist, and realise the answer is "we don't know yet but we're working on it"
an infinite god has neither beginning nor end, an infinite universe does not need to be created, life might have an extra component that is not biological, you have no idea. so you rationalise, to comfort yourself, in exactly the same way that other people use prayer... repeat the nice words "empirical" and "evidence" until you feel all righteous and comfortable... cling to the theory of evolution even though it explains nothing about creation itself...
one thing's for certain, our current theories will look stupid in 1000 years' time, so i wouldn't defend them too vigorously.
carry on.
p.s. I'm drunk.
Sifters Against Drunk Sifting
Fairies = Angels = One big freaking imagination.
i'll post when i feels like it! ... p.s. I'm posting from my BlackBerry while piloting a nuclear submarine, so that just goes to show that... oh shit!... (crashes into school for kittens and puppies)
In this video we have a finding that was predicted by theory and found to conform to the expectations. That's a powerful theory!
evolution "seee!! god is ridiculous!! and tenouous!!" people are also wrong. it doesn't matter how crazy it sounds, the concept of god is by definition crazy sounding.
Irishman said: science is a method, not a position, EXACTLY TRUE! if only more Dawkins fanboys would think about that a little more.
What started evolution? errr, well, you know, a thunderbolt. kinda. maybe. but not god, oh no, that would be ridiculous.
http://www.bustedtees.com/bt/images/BT-vivalaevolucion-gallery-2756.jpg
By now (now as in modern living with heat-proof spatulas, extra absorbent paper towels, pools with chlorine, electric powered lawn-mowers etc etc) I would've thought scientific teachings would be a common knowledge.
But apparently we still live in 19th century and appalled by the idea that we're somehow related to apes. In fact, why don't we revert everything back to the 19th century?
Forget the sports bras, make women dress up in corsets and layers upon layers of clothing to hide all their skin except the hands and face! (European hijab!), throw away the modern medicine and surgical technology and go back to the good ol' leeches and skull-crackin' iron tools with questionable sanitation.
Ehbolooshun? Bahumbug! That Darwin boy sure is a tardy old fool!
Man related to Monkeys? The nerve! *scoffs*
I don't subscribe to Evolution, and I don't agree with Intelligent Design. Because we just don't know enough. And really it doesn't matter. Oh I'll have people disagree with that I'm sure, but honestly it's a bit to ridiculous to say: "This is how it all happened!" Because if history is ANY guide at all it will prove to us that we need to go back to the drawing board.
To dismiss God from the equation is to ignore scientific theory. It's a factor that no one can disprove. And if you can't disprove it it's still a possibility. To say there is none just goes to prove the ignorant and errant mistakes previous generations are still being followed.
How, with finite limitations as humans can we even begin to comprehend the infinite?
Our understanding may be finite and very well may always be finite, but it's getting less and less so all the time as time & our own understanding progresses. You can't prove that something does exist because it has NOT been proven to exist and conversely you can't prove something does NOT exist because there is no proof it does exist. We may eventually discover evolution is part of an even larger & more complex system or that it was wrong in some places but once again it's not an "Either it's evolution as we know it OR it's god." multiple choice question. Whatever it is will be based on the tangible when/if it is solved. The possibilities may seem infinite from our own lonely perspective but does that mean every possibility within that infinite spectrum of our imagination is as valid as the next? Are the possibilities that are shown to have zero supporting evidence as important as those that actually do? Are all points of view (regardless of what reality/evidence may contradict) equally valid? Relativism with the facts or lack thereof is not science.
who knows might have been safer than todays obstetrical environment...
Let's just say I'll let you believe in whatever you want, as long as you let me believe whatever I want to believe. You can argue against my opinion, but you really shouldn't try to penalize me for my opinions or in severe cases, STOP me from stating my views.
I mean, we don't go around to churches and force you to teach evolution. It'll be rude, Get what I'm saying?
A "designer" would necessitate a high level of complexity at the start, which is anathema to the philosophy behind evolution.
cobalt said: However it does require a designer who wuld have to be capable of manipulation on the same level as a "creator" making them one and the same.
A designer would certainly not need to have the same capabilities as a creator. Unless you are proposing that human geneticists who have designed, for example, mice with very specific phenotypes are also able to will them into existence.
The point I was making and several others have is that the theory of evolution says nothing about creation, and as such does not rule out a creator. I'd consider myself agnostic on the issue, but I get aggravated when the debates about evolution vs. ID get completely off track by bringing in arguments that have nothing to do with the debate. It's the same thing when debates about religion confuse faith and social hierarchies/power structures.
Science is a cumulative method, not a dogma, I know its been said over and over, but read it again because its important, yes, historically we have been lots of wrong, and indeed, there is much we do not, and cannot know, but there is actually something to the word cumulative, it means that as we build on what we have, we get better. Please try to understand the word "Theory" as what it means in the scientific sense and not the common language sense. Secondly, Yes we have been wrong before, no question, but this has its limits, there are some things that just are not going to fundamentally change, because the predictions and observations are just too many, for too long to make any kind of sense without a given theory.
Evolution is a fact. this is not going to change, not in a million years, not ever, how can I be so cock-sure? because of evidence, overwhelming amounts of it, every skeleton, fossil ever dug up, every dna test ever taken , daily use of the theory in the areas of medicine,biology and even geology, things that wouldnt make sense without evolution, science that can point to DIRECT benefits from using evolution actively, The applications are seemingly endless.
Scientific theory is not guesswork, nothing demonstrates this louder than Oppenheimers application of Einsteins gues... uh, I mean, theories
You cant make bigger bombs from an understanding of evolution(to my knowledge) so we dont have the same kind of explosive application to show to in biology, but as I said, its still in daily use in medicine, for instance.
Please read an entire book on evolution, I can guarantee its gonna be worth it, Dawkins is an obvious starting point, I recommend "The selfish Gene, Blind watchmaker or Climbing mount improbable, but "The Ancestor's Tale" is even better, but it ticks in at 650 pages, so you'd might want to start with a smaller warm-up
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/88/20/9051
actually much of scientific research is available for free!...e.g try out this:
http://biology.plosjournals.org
it has lots of pictures and its quite easy to understand for any interested amateur (still it does have a decent impact factor of 14.1)
If you're interested in an particular topic go for:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=PubMed
the free articles are marked with green and orange. for easy understanding it is useful to check out an editorial or minireview if avaible.
nuff said, cheers!
P.S just try to search for "evidence for creation/design" or alike and see for yourself how much you can find.
Nothing can, even in principle, rule out a creator, it is simply impossible to do. Thats what we are trying to show by postulating celestial teapots and invisible unicorns, you cant rule anything out.
To say evolution "says nothing about creation" is a bit like saying "the football coach hasnt scored a single goal this season" it is correct in one sense, but a pretty pointless argument against the coach. The answer in both cases is "well, not exactly". You still need a coach, thats my point.
Evolution explains how all life went from really simple to really complex with no need for, and perhaps not even room for, a divine intervener. In other words, God is shown quite certainly to be ruled out of the entire circle of life as we know it, and he/she/it is reduced to a previous gap, this time not to explain the wonderful diversity and beauty of the life of this planet (Which is the reason we invented him in the first place), but to explain how he twisted the cosmological constant knobs into place and made lifeless, barren rocks unevenly distributed in galaxy clusters so far apart it shouldnt even count..
Theories like gravity, relativity, all those can't really be proved. But the amount of evidence amassed for them is so great that the chance they could be the wrong explanations is minuscule. Currently, the same goes for evolution.
I don't think that this constitutes "proof" at all. But it is immensely powerful evidence. That's what matters in real life.
If I pose to a theist the question, "Why do you think there is a God?" his answer, overwhelmingly, turns out to be "All this.", something in the lines of "I dont think we humans are here by pure chance, I dont think all of this life and stuff could just pop out of nowhere!"
A perfectly reasonable statement, after all, we are NOT the result of pure chance, and there is nothing that suggests it from merely looking around. What Darwinism shows, however, is that we are not summoned from above by some divine entity either. Its the 3rd option, its not chance, its not creation, but a third factor that is the basis for our existence.
Now, as I said this does not mean we have explained the universal constants, the origin of matter, energy, or time, the answer to all those questions are still somewhat of a mystery. We dont know, but the thing that gives us the idea of God in the first place; Life, the order of things, intelligence, consciousness etc are all subjects to a completely different explanation from "God", and so you could say "ok, the whole "life"-thing wasnt god, but I still think he created the rocks we live on.", but I guess I just dont see the point. There is no evidence that suggests he did, and until that evidence comes in, there really is no need to even mention things like "God" or "Creation" Its much better to admit that whatever it was, we have no freakin clue. (except from the clues supported by hard, stone-cold evidence.)
The truth is most people believe whatever is convenient for them to believe. No amount of science, logic, or experimental evidence can make believe otherwise. The sad thing is when people equate a scientific fact with a philosophical belief. In my opinion, the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but they should be treated separately.
And Just An FYI:
'To Beg The Question' means using what you are trying to prove. Not making you want to ask the question.