Evolutionism vs creationism

[grobblewobble]

If mutations happen over time, then where are the millions of half fish half amphibian fossils?

Some of these intermediate forms are still alive today. See here, for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lungfish

And here is a list of transitional fossils: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...h_to_Tetrapods

But there are some missing links. That should not be surprising. Only a tiny fraction of animals ever fossilize, and only a tiny fraction of those fossils are recovered.

Also, what animals today are evolving currenly?

All of them. For an example of evolution happening at a short timescale, new diseases would be a good example.

There are two kinds of evolution. Microevoluion is a fact that there are differences between members of the same species. Macroevolution is a hypothisis that a species can evolve over time into another.

Then what prevents microevolution from changing so much about a species that it becomes another species?

Both ideas require belief. One can belive that all the matter in the universe suddenly exploded and formed stars. Then gas slowly gathered together and made planets. Then a planet was the perfect distance from a
star. Then, the chemicals available spontaneously formed life, something that humans cannot do even today with the best knowledge and tools. Then these bacteria grew over millions of years and slowly built up all of life as we know it today.

Or, one can believe that God made the universe, ex nihilo, and formed life on earth to live and prosper.

I believe both of these things. The contradiction only arises when you insist that the laws of nature and the will of God are different.

[Soirana]

Sorry no such fossils exist. However there appaer to be a rther large number of creatures that exist to day and existed millions of years ago but do not exist in the fossil record any where in between.

http://www.devoniantimes.org/who/pages/lungfish.html

i will stop here as i have discussed this topic enough.

[Soirana]

Also, as for the racist stuff... Being resistant or immune to disease (or certain anti-bodies as some bacteria have developed) is not due to mutation. It is due to the natural growth of certain cells. Because Europeans were exposed to smallpox long before Native Americans, they already developed a resistance to it while it completely ravaged the natives.

I was going to bring it up earlier when someone mentioned the "different colored lizards on different hilltops". Different colored humans on different continents was the first thing that came to mind but no one really wants to start asking if other nationalities are different species without sounding like complete racists.

google malaria vs forms of hemoglobin.

Falciform hemoglobinemia [or whatever english form is] is rather serious disease for homozygotes, but
heterozygotes are rather resistant to malaria. It is mutantion of one gene or one base pair to be exact.


It is similar mutation causing europeans [mostly] being partialy resistant to some HIV forms [which makes them more susceptible to certain viral diseases as certain tropical fevers].

I've been in bio and medical sciences since sixteen you know, so i recommend checking basics before arguing

[grobblewobble]

Hey, as long as I can deny God, I don't care what the truth is.

There is no need to become sarcastic. Christians don't have a monopoly on being interested in the truth.

[vogonpoet]

http://www.devoniantimes.org/who/pages/lungfish.html

i will stop here as i have discussed this topic enough.

Sorry Soirana, but that link goes to a bunch of money grubbing scientists who tell lies in order to earn a living - the site even admits receiving funding from the so-called Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. Show me a reference to fossils in the bible, and then maybe I will take your 'theory' seriously.

/yes there is a need to become sarcastic

[grobblewobble]

How things transitioned from raw
materials into life is the more fundamental question to me,
rather than how life proceded thereafter.

Simply put, to have life you need to have DNA, RNA, proteins and you need to assemble a cell from it somehow. The catch is that there can be chemical feedback loops that resemble the evolution of life, but with only proteins. This is fascinating stuff, but I don't know enough about it to explain it in more detail. If you are interested, you could start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

Well, that, and how did the raw materials come to be

They fell off a truck.

[Soirana]

Sorry Soirana, but that link goes to a bunch of money grubbing scientists who tell lies in order to earn a living - the site even admits receiving funding from the so-called Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. Show me a reference to fossils in the bible, and then maybe I will take your 'theory' seriously.

/yes there is a need to become sarcastic

i thought you got used to my sense of humour already

[JellySlayer]

If mutations happen over time, then where are the millions of half fish half amphibian fossils? Also, what animals today are evolving currenly?

There are two kinds of evolution. Microevoluion is a fact that there are differences between members of the same species. Macroevolution is a hypothisis that a species can evolve over time into another.

I will direct you to the talk.origins FAQ on speciation for observed instances of new species within the last few centuries. I'd also recommend the macroevolution FAQ and the evidence for macroevolution. All of the claims in the FAQ are extremely well sourced from scientific literature and is a great resource on the subject.

The evidence for macroevolution is weak, but it is accepted because is the a hypothisis that does not involve God. Creationism accepts that there is a god, so it can produce a theory that best fits th evidence.

Evolution is the accepted theory because it is the one that best fits the available data. Most other scientific theories, such as the theory of gravity or quantum theory, also don't involve the existence of God. Although it isn't terribly relevant in modern times, I will point out that Darwin was in fact an ordained minister and a devout Christian. He agonized for years before publishing his work precisely because of the possible religious implications.

Both ideas require belief. One can belive that all the matter in the universe suddenly exploded and formed stars.

Evolution doesn't require you to believe this, it only talks about the diversity of life. In fact, theories of star formation (sometimes called stellar evolution although unrelated to Darwinian evolution) predict that the formation of stars takes billions of years.

Then gas slowly gathered together and made planets. Then a planet was the perfect distance from a star. Then, the chemicals available spontaneously formed life, something that humans cannot do even today with the best knowledge and tools.

Evolution doesn't require you to believe this, it only talks about the diversity of life.

Then these bacteria grew over millions of years and slowly built up all of life as we know it today.

This is what evolution predicts, although millions should probably be billions, here.

Or, one can believe that God made the universe, ex nihilo, and formed life on earth to live and prosper.

Based on what evidence? Evidence against evolution is not evidence for God or any sort of special creation.

When it comes down to it, this issue is whether God exists. If you are willing to believe whereever the facts lead, then one must believe in creationism. If one refuses to believe in God from the start, then they are forced in thinking that evolution was possible.

There is far more evidence for evolution than there is evidence for God.

If I were feeling particularly belligerent, I might suggest that there is no evidence for the existence of God.

[Overheat]

Species cannot evolve into another species. One of the many things that would need to happen is for two of the species to mutate to have a different number of chromosomes- at the same time. Otherwise, they could not breed and start this "new" species.

The will of God and the laws of nature are different. God established how His world would work, but He does
not just leave the earth to its own devices. The world would be an awful place if He did. The reason for the Flood was that man was so evil that He was sorry that He had made
them.

A point that many evolutionists will not answer is where did matter first come from? If that big bang happened, there where did all that matter in the tiny point come from originally?

[JellySlayer]

Species cannot evolve into another species. One of the many things that would need to happen is for two of the species to mutate to have a different number of chromosomes- at the same time. Otherwise, they could not breed and start this "new" species.

It's not as big of problem as you might expect. There's a nice description of how this can happen here.

The will of God and the laws of nature are different. God established how His world would work, but He does
not just leave the earth to its own devices. The world would be an awful place if He did. The reason for the Flood was that man was so evil that He was sorry that He had made
them.

For God so loved the world that He decided to destroy everyone for sins they didn't even know they were committing. Nice guy.

A point that many evolutionists will not answer is where did matter first come from? If that big bang happened, there where did all that matter in the tiny point come from originally?

Cosmologists have actually thought quite a bit about this. Stephen Hawking has a book out called "A Brief History of Time" that discusses this a little bit. Stephen Weinberg's "The First Three Minutes" looks at this in some detail as well. Short answer is that matter probably came from energy. We know from relativity that we can convert energy to matter by E=mc^2. From thermodynamics, we also know that energy cannot be created or destroyed, so we expect that however much energy there is in the universe now, there must have been the same amount at the Big Bang. There are a variety of ideas for where the energy might have come from, although we haven't yet found any means to observe the Big Bang (and there is good reason to believe it may be impossible to do so), so it's hard to say anything definitive about it.

[edit]I feel I must add that, while postulating the existence of a god who created the energy required to start the Big Bang, it isn't terribly fruitful to do so, since it simply begs the question of how this god came into existence. If you're going to argue that this god always existed or is somehow outside of time, it's just as plausible to argue that the energy of the universe always existed or that the Big Bang happened somehow outside of time.

[edit2]I'll also point out, as I have before, that the theory of evolution does not say anything about the existence of matter, only about the diversity of species.