but this thread is dead, so let’s no go around in that circle again.

RightWinged on April 2, 2007 at 6:50 PM

Do threads have souls??

RightWinged on April 2, 2007 at 6:50 PM

Till next we meet.

wouldn’t our advanced brains, with the ability to reason toss the idea of God aside? I know you think you have, but why isn’t the rest of the world as smart as you?

You’d think people would do that (disregard the idea of a god), but the idea of eternal pleasure/happiness after our short lives or the idea that our lives our out of our hands is too appealing, even for reason.

Are you more apt to mate, because your highly evolved reasoning skills leave the rest of us mere humans in the dust?

RightWinged on April 2, 2007 at 4:06 PM

It’s not that I’m more evolved; everyone has the ability to accept or reject the religion they are taught (or not taught) as a child. I chose to reject it based on reason and logic, this does not mean that I’m genetically more advanced, it just means that I used my reason and rejected it. I think everyone knows that religion and revelation cannot be explained through logic and reason, but the religious people (in my opinion) are okay with that and accept the idea of a god anyway.

I think the concept of god is unique to humans because I have no reason to believe otherwise. Humans are the most advanced form of life on Earth and I haven’t seen any badger temples yet. But this isn’t to say that if there are other forms of life in the universe that they would also not have a concept of god.

Nonfactor on April 2, 2007 at 12:09 PM

I understand the question could have been read two ways, which is why I attempted to clarifyl, but it obviously still didn’t come through the right way.

I’m in agreement that the idea of a God is unique to humans, and I’m asking you why you think it worked out this way? I mean, you just said we’re the most advanced form of life… that being the case, wouldn’t our advanced brains, with the ability to reason toss the idea of God aside? I know you think you have, but why isn’t the rest of the world as smart as you? Are you more apt to mate, because your highly evolved reasoning skills leave the rest of us mere humans in the dust?

cmay on April 2, 2007 at 6:46 AM

Actually, I think it was Aquinas who first tried to mesh logic with the idea of (specifically) the Christian God. He makes a very liberal argument for moral values, but a not-too convincing one for the idea of God.

And lets not forget that Aristotle also tried to reason that retards should be slaves.

RightWinged on April 2, 2007 at 3:56 AM

I think the concept of god is unique to humans because I have no reason to believe otherwise. Humans are the most advanced form of life on Earth and I haven’t seen any badger temples yet. But this isn’t to say that if there are other forms of life in the universe that they would also not have a concept of god.

I know Nonfactor, and Aristotle was no Nonfactor!

When I first started studying Aristotle I thought I would finally agree with some ancient philosopher, but nope.

Aristotle reasoned his way to a single, personal God with no Jewish influence.

cmay on April 2, 2007 at 6:46 AM

How dare you elevate Aristotle to the position of Nonfactor. Please, I know Nonfactor, and Aristotle was no Nonfactor!

If people use logic they will dismiss the idea of any type of god . . . .

Aristotle reasoned his way to a single, personal God with no Jewish influence.

As for the God thing… Why do you think this is unique to humans?

RightWinged on April 2, 2007 at 3:55 AM

And to clarify, I’m not saying why do YOU think this is, I mean to point out that it is unique to humans, and ask you (who seem to agree) your opinion on why this is the case?

The thing about that is that poor people still have children who will most likely be poor who will have children et cetera, so I don’t think that over time poor people would die off unless there arose a situation where you needed to have $50,000 or die.

Nonfactor on April 2, 2007 at 3:34 AM

Well, people who don’t have money go to bed hungry and can’t afford healthcare… unless they’re scumbags and illegals who just skip out on their tabs.

As for the God thing… Why do you think this is unique to humans?

I wasn’t talking at all about religion, just the idea of God, which you seem to admit comes naturally to us. By that definition, you submit that we evolved it?

No. To clarify, the idea of God isn’t natural to all people. If people use logic they will dismiss the idea of any type of god (Muslim God, Christian God, Greek gods, etc.). In my first answer I should have said “some people” in the beginning.

And I was mainly joking about evolving money, but I thought it was interesting that the more money you have, the better equipped you are to survive. By evolutionary logic, money is an evolved quality.

The thing about that is that poor people still have children who will most likely be poor who will have children et cetera, so I don’t think that over time poor people would die off unless there arose a situation where you needed to have $50,000 or die.

And I was mainly joking about evolving money, but I thought it was interesting that the more money you have, the better equipped you are to survive. By evolutionary logic, money is an evolved quality.

Why would humans evolve the idea of God?

Because people want to feel like their lives are out of their control. When things go bad they want to know that it wasn’t their fault, when they need luck they can pray to something. Look back all the way to the ancient gods to the modern gods; they share the idea that there is some force larger than them that ultimately has sway over their lives. An exception I see is in the Norse gods where even the gods will eventually be defeated, not widely appealing, and thus it isn’t around today. Propose a religion with no heaven or hell and nobody will want to believe in it; propose a religion where you are rewarded after you die and you’ll have people clamoring to be a part of it.

Somewhere along the line, some humans were born with the idea of God and others weren’t

Ideas don’t evolve in the sense that you’re born with an idea; ideas come to life through nature. When I was born I wasn’t a Christian, when you were born you weren’t a Christian, when Osama bin Laden was born he wasn’t a Muslim. We didn’t have these ideas in our heads at birth; they were put in our minds throughout our lives. If nobody was there to tell you that there was a certain god all you might have is a concept of something bigger than yourself (until you name that concept as a specific god).

By the way, is money something we evolved as humans?

I can’t believe you seriously asked that.

By the way, is money something we evolved as humans? Because the rich, especially heirs to fortunes have the ability to survive much easier than anyone else, yet they can be the fattest and stupideset people on the planet who never do anything but eat and watch TV. Will those who didn’t evolve money die off (in the next millions of years)?

The deeper question, given the two different starting points, is; what is man’s purpose and meaning in the life that is?

The Darwinist must answer that there is no meaning apart from the “now” whereas the Christian knows his purpose and meaning in life are intertwined with the purpose and meaning of his Creator. The Darwinist ultimately has no authentic hope whereas the entire life and even death of a Christian is inextricably intertwined with the hope of both a “now” and an eternity spent with a loving God.

It would have taken an uncanny sixth sense for us to have predicted this outcome when our time machine deposited us in the middle of the Devonian.

So, now we have to change the meaning of the word “fact” and we have to accept that making predictions requires a sixth sense. Sounds like Shubin is relying more on faith in evolution than science.

By the way, I think it was incredibly dishonest of you to portray him as a critic of evolution

Actually, I spoke in praise of Gould because he made strides toward solving some problems with evolution. But even Gould could not work through all the inconsistencies and his solutions were hypotheses (untested theories).

. . . read Stephen Gould, who attempted to explain these problems

I fail to see how the above quote from me indicates that Gould was anti-evolution. Once again, he attempted to explain the apparent problems with previous evolutionary hypotheses.

As for Gould changing the definition of “fact”, he admits to doing it in his essay. Are you illiterate? Please re-read paragraphs 5 through 7 in his essay where he redefines “fact.”

You claim that:

No, it was a prediction based on the theory of evolution

The website claims different:

First, it demonstrates the predictive capacity of palaeontology.

If that sounds familiar, it’s exactly what I claimed it was.

And even from the same website (from a commenter called McDarwin):

So much for the claim that evolution isn’t science because (among other things) it “doesn’t make predictions”. It’s just too bad that Ahlberg & Clack didn’t explicitly refer to the “predictive capacity of evolutionary theory”

Maybe they didn’t because they are not fools and realize the limits of their research.

Once again, I’m not against evolution. Just bad science.

Actually, that’s a paleontological prediction. I notice that these scientists didn’t have a sketch of what the fossil should have looked like before they found it.

No, it was a prediction based on the theory of evolution. They set out to find a particular intermediate form. They knew what area to look in, and what geological age range it would be found. They also knew where to look because they knew what it would look like, and from size and shape of the limbs determine its habitat. (Here’s an essay by one of the researchers, another fool like Stephen Jay Gould who just doesn’t understand evolution. By the way, I think it was incredibly dishonest of you to portray him as a critic of evolution, and accusing him of “changing the definition of “fact” merely to make it fit (his) opinion”. For those that don’t want to click through, Gould gave a good example: “I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.”)

See you guys in the next evolution flame war. Or as I suppose I should call it the “don’t say evolution because we have to pretend that long-standing theory is just an assumption because it doesn’t meet RightWinged’s scientific standards” flame war.

The ball-and-socket joint is critical to the locomotion and therefore survival of almost all land-dwelling vertebrates. It is incumbant upon the Darwinist to prove how such a basic bio-mechanical mechanism could evolve over millions of years. Anything less than a smooth ball in a concave socket, from the get-go, would be useless. Those geometric shapes cannot evolve. The same mechanical design in your grandmother’s hip replacement is the same design in a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Nothing has changed and there is ZERO evidence of its development in the fossil record.

God directly creates the soul. By an act of Divine Will, that soul is united to our bodies.

I don’t see that evolution is necessarily anti-Christian. If you believe that the creation narrative is literal, then there is a problem. But many Christians believe that it is allegorical, especially since there are two separate creation stories. Not to mention the faulty science in those narratives about there being a vault of water above heaven.

… I’m not one who believes that evolution is anti-Christian. But I also don’t believe that folks should pass off some personal opinion as scientific fact.

cmay on April 1, 2007 at 2:35 PM

As a christian, I believe that I have a soul. Is it correct to assume that those of you who don’t believe in creationism and/or intelligent design also believe human beings don’t have souls? (and as a corollary there is no afterlife) Does this make evolution anti-christian?
(otherwise, I’m not disagreeing with you cmay)

I really don’t understand your objection to this as “crap”. I understand you think evolution is incorrect, but it’s just a news story on a scientific discovery, and the researcher is quoted mentioning “evolution”, which is uncontroversial among scientists. And the paper itself was published in the “Evolution” section of the PNAS. But I guess you would have them rename that section.

dorkafork on April 1, 2007 at 1:54 AM

You’re proving my point. The findings have nothing to do with evolution, other than that evolution is assumed.

Early Cretaceous lizard glided with its ribs In most gliding animals, the membrane that keeps the animal airborne, called the patagium, is stretched between the toes or between the legs and the body. Among lizards, an alternative patagium evolved: a membrane spread alongside the body by elongated ribs.

There isn’t evidence for evolution here, it’s assumed. And why mention this assumption as fact? Does this benefit anyone? Why is it necessary to submit assumption in a science article, rather than just saying “Alternatively, gliding lizards had….”?

Based on the shape and size of the patagium, the animal appears to have possessed great maneuverability. Li et al. suggest that the rib-supported patagia of different lizard species arose by convergent evolution.

It suggests nothing of the sort… but when evolution is assumed, the evolution language MUST be included.

Again, you’re proving my point for me… they’re not only using evolution language they put it in the evolution section… not because there are intermediate fossils or any evidence that this creature evolved from another, but because evolution is assumed. And that language has nothing to do with science, and benefits the reader in no way.

I suggest that you get a better dictionary. From American Heritage:

A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.

Evolution can be predictive, it predicted where a fossil like Tiktaalik would be found.

Actually, that’s a paleontological prediction. I notice that these scientists didn’t have a sketch of what the fossil should have looked like before they found it. That would have been an prediction that supported evolution as a theory. A “prediction” that occurs afterward is called a description.

And maybe you should read Stephen Jay Gould. He described evolution as both fact and theory, and gives a pretty good description of what makes a scientific theory.

I only brought up Gould because he went further than anyone else I know of in reconciling some of the problems with evolution. But he still fell short.

BTW, I especially like how Gould comes up with his own definition of fact:

Moreover, “fact” does not mean “absolute certainty. . . . In science, “fact” can only mean “confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.”

As I originally said, I don’t believe that folks should pass off some personal opinion as scientific fact, even if that means changing the definition of “fact” merely to make it fit your opinion (as Gould obviously does).