http://www.intelligentdesignversusevolution.com/

The $10,000 Offer
A transitional form (or missing link) is an example of one species “evolving” into another species. Excited scientists thought they had found one when they discovered “Archaeopteryx.” The fossil led to the theory that the dinosaurs did not become extinct, but rather all turned into birds. The Field Museum in Chicago displayed what was believed to be an archaeopteryx fossil on October 4-19, 1997. It was hailed as “Archaeopteryx: The Bird That Rocked the World.” However, Dr. Alan Feduccia (evolutionary biologist at the University of North Carolina), said, “Paleontologists have tried to turn Archaeopteryx into an earth-bound, feathered dinosaur. But it’s not. It is a bird, a perching bird. And no amount of ‘paleo-babble’ is going to change that.” [Science, February 5, 1993]. So here’s my challenge: I will give $10,000 to the first person who can prove to me that they have found a genuine living transitional form (a lizard that produced a bird, or a dog that produced kittens, or a sheep that produced a chicken, or even as Archaeopteryx—a dinosaur that produced a bird).

How about a horse that produced a zebra?

since once life starts changing the ecosystem only life produces life, every bit of life currently living can trace its liniage back to the beginning.

so every fossil is of a critter that either went extinct, stopped producing offspring, or is a part of the chain of a currently living critter.

if you go back far enough there are no examples of any currently living critters, only critters that went extinct... or changed into the currently living critters.

since life only comes from life the new critters HAD to come from whatever critters came before them.

no matter how different the two critters may look.

so a person digging up a fossil has to try to figure out what critter the fossil might be related to if it didn't go extinct.

even though the fossil is obviously not related to any living critter there MUST be examples of critters that did change into todays critters to account for the existance of todays critters which MUST be descended from SOMETHING that was living at the same time as the fossil was.

or must we assume a magic wand was waved to spontaniously create the new critters when ALL the old ones went extinct without having ANY children ?

Now before I begin, I'm not attacking anyone's faith.

Here's the problem, if you allow for the presence of an omnipotent/omniscient being(which, for convenience's sake I'll refer to as lowercase-g god), then that being could have conceivably created the universe at any time at any stage of "development". This means that any proof of an existing process can instantly be negated by the "god created it that way" argument. For instance: allowing the above, we've negated fossils as proof of the existence of dinosaurs, as they can be instantly negated by the idea that god created the earth with said mineral formations in place. The very universe could have been created 5 seconds before you read this post, but as you (the reader) were created with your memories, you feel that you have observed and been party to a great many events that did not in fact happen (by this case, all events prior to about 30 seconds ago, give or take for how fast you read).

One of the basic assumptions of most science, and I apoligize for my horrible paraphrasing, is that things are the same as they've always been. What we observe now would have been repeatable 50, 100, or 1,000,000 years ago, and thus the present is the logical progression of the past.

We can set up the moment of creation at any point prior to right now. (Obviously we have to have some form of existance to have any form of experience, cogito ergo sum and all that). Now, we can move that moment back, and based upon what we are observing, extrapolate probable reasons for why things are the way they are and the processes that caused them to come to their current state. If the Universe was created 10 days ago, and I come upon an accident scene, I can assume from my observations that the two vehicles were 1) traveling at some rate of speed, 2) came into contact at a combined rate of speed high enough to deform metal 3) not in their current shapes 24 hours prior. (amongst many other observation and extrapolations). Now we start pushing the moment of creation back, let's say 100 years. Now we can look at some greater causes and effects, like population explosion and pollution. Now push it back 5000 years, 100K years, 10 billion years, etc. Science as a whole continues to try and push back it's understanding, based on the way things are now, and its understanding of the way things change, to understand the way things were. As techniques get more advanced, and more people have more time to observe and experiment, effects can be traced back to further and further potential causes.

But, as said before, this can all be negated by the "god created it that way", or slightly modified "god created it to appear that way" arguments. Proof is only as good as your initial premises. Using Occam's razor, we choose one of two paths (well, for this argument): either it's more succint that all living creatures stemmed from a long and improbable series of random mutations, or that all living creatures were created in their present from by an exterior power.

In short, I don't believe that any theory of evolution, especially one that includes humankind, can ever be proven to one of faith, much as the presence of an all-powerful exterior being coud be proven to one of science. One side bases everything on faith, while the other takes nothing on faith (ideally).

I counter with a dollar to someone who can prove God.

I'd go for 10K too, but I don't have it. We have to be realistic about these offers.

lol@random evolution. where are the people with arms on their heads? Why dont basketball players' children not have arms on their head? Why is my immune system so efficient? How to sperms know how to get to the ovum? How do birthing women's contractions happen with precision timing so as not to crush the baby? How!!?! Chance? LOLLLL get the fuck outta here!!!

platypusssssss

Why not chance?

Thats the whole point of evolution, that things are the way they are because they work.

Things that don't work die off, things that do work work better and better.

For 10,O0O bucks? Naw, I want more.

Why not chance?

Thats the whole point of evolution, that things are the way they are because they work.

Things that don't work die off, things that do work work better and better.

ohhhh yeah, and what process decides what works and what doesnt?

What are the chances an idiot writes a multiple choice exam on something he doesnt know about and gets 100%. OKay, now what are the chances that 100 uneducated people do a multiple choice exam and get everything 100% correct?? Dude, just cuz yall dont know exactly how it or what happens, doesnt mean it's chance. There is clearly some intellect at work. Some fundamental framework to which everything must abide by, in order to make "work" out of chance

for this argument): either it's more succint that all living creatures stemmed from a long and improbable series of random mutations,


excellent post :bigthumb:

you covered a whole bunch of territory in few, well chosen, words.

naturally you got fuzzy in a couple spots, this is NOT an attack on that fuzziness.

the use of "improbable" here is a key feature of creationist attacks on biology.

it turns out that, to the contrary, the chemical interactions that produce DNA and all of its manifestations are so probable that "inevitable" would be a more suitable word to use there.

as in, "given the initial conditions of the planet it was inevitable that DNA would form and life would happen."

since that removes any 'need' whatsoever for a god to meddle in the nature of the planet after it was formed, creationists, who require a god TO meddle with nature, substitute "improbable" for "inevitable" to create a 'need' for a god to meddle with nature to bring about the "improbable" process we observe happening all around us.

the movie "Dark City" features a race of gods who create reality anew each day.

M. Night Shyamalan's "The Village" is a different take on created reality.

stir in "The Matrix" and godding around in creating reality seems to be fairly easy.

What are the chances an idiot writes a multiple choice exam on something he doesnt know about and gets 100%. OKay, now what are the chances that 100 uneducated people do a multiple choice exam and get everything 100% correct?? Dude, just cuz yall dont know exactly how it or what happens, doesnt mean it's chance. There is clearly some intellect at work. Some fundamental framework to which everything must abide by, in order to make "work" out of chance

I see the framework, what I don't see is the intellegent hand needed to force it to work.

the only intellegence I do see is ours, and ours IS required for the 'random' configuration to have produced us, otherwise there would be nobody to NOTICE that this configuration had ever happened.

{anthropic, eh ? ;) }

but we didnt come up with the order of the universe or physical laws or anything even close to such incredible phenomena, we can only use it

ohhhh yeah, and what process decides what works and what doesnt?

Death.

You are obviously illiterate, since I clearly stated that anything that doesn't work dies in my previous post.

There is no need for intelligence, only circumstance.

but we didnt come up with the order of the universe or physical laws or anything even close to such incredible phenomena, we can only use it

a point is that we can understand 'it' well enough TO use it with ZERO help from any sort of 'intellegence' claiming to have just created it all on a whim.

no we "think" we understand it, because we like to overestimate ourselves, because it's so painful for some people to accept that they really know so so little in the grand scheme of things. Bottom line is: we have no say in the laws of u niversal physics, we have no say in what elements react with what to form what compounds to what effects, etc etc etc, we're simply just 'discovering' how it works and primatively 'playing with' like a tribe of apes who just discovered fire. So to sit here and read some kid try to tell me that we're above another, very apparent order, or to deny this order exists makes me wanna take a shit. A really big, long, hefty shit.

no we "think" we understand it, because we like to overestimate ourselves, because it's so painful for some people to accept that they really know so so little in the grand scheme of things.

that would be a wonderful explanation for inventing religious 'explanations' of how things work, but it has nothing to do with science which has as its basic view that we DON'T know anything that we haven't learned.


Bottom line is: we have no say in the laws of u niversal physics, we have no say in what elements react with what to form what compounds to what effects, etc etc etc, we're simply just 'discovering' how it works and primatively 'playing with' like a tribe of apes who just discovered fire.

or a toddler with building blocks.

an evolutionist toddler will grow up and learn to make his own blocks, a created toddler will be cast into the pit of eternal fire for stacking one block on another in defiance of the creators command.

{'stacking one block on another' as sin comes from the 'tower of babel' story}

So to sit here and read some kid try to tell me that we're above another, very apparent order, or to deny this order exists makes me wanna take a shit. A really big, long, hefty shit.

be sure to wipe and flush.

it gives me the pip when a person tells me that there are some things man was not meant to know, without giving me the url of whoever decided to hide the truth from us.

that would be a wonderful explanation for inventing religious 'explanations' of how things work, but it has nothing to do with science which has as its basic view that we DON'T know anything that we haven't learned.


Knowledge without wisdom are books on the back of an ass. Having said that, you need to understand for the purpose of this conversation that I am not approaching this issue from a religious perspective, so youre reading the wrong script. For this discussion, I'm coming from a dynamic stand point, meaning I'm formulating it as I go along, simply because I cannot convey instinct to you.


an evolutionist toddler will grow up and learn to make his own blocks, a created toddler will be cast into the pit of eternal fire for stacking one block on another in defiance of the creators command.


I'm neither evolutionist or creationist. I generally like to stay CENTERED in things, so as not to become a fundamentalist of any kind. It works.


{'stacking one block on another' as sin comes from the 'tower of babel' story}


sorry, i dunno where religion came into this. like i said, you need to write a whole new script.

it gives me the pip when a person tells me that there are some things man was not meant to know, without giving me the url of whoever decided to hide the truth from us.

Quote me where i say we're not *supposed" to know. Thats like saying because a small child falls down and hits his head, that he should not know about gravity, simply because he is then unaware of it. What would be really stupid is when the child grows up and learns about gravity, and learns to fly a plane, then says that he created gravity, and that he is now master of gravity. Thats what youre trying to say, not about gravity, but about the entire universe, and all physical LAWS set in place, by THE HIGHER INTELLIGENCE, that you deny, which guaranteed our survival, and our creation no less, to this point, over the course of billions and billions of years (do you know how old the universe is? that long) So, again.. you really going to have to sit down and think about this. Everything scientists take pride in 'discovering', has ALREADY EXISTED far earlier than the scientist's species was as it is. The possibilities of the manipulation of physical matter ALL EXISTED PRIOR to the scienctific communities very existence! Scientists are just slaves to human nature, and get caught up in thinking theyre the smartest, most supreme beings. At least thats what you'd make them out to be :p

In short, I believe in genetic adaptation, AS A VIRTUE OF INTELLIGENT DESIGN. So, i believe in evolution, and intelligent design ... wheres the category for people like me?

all physical LAWS set in place, by THE HIGHER INTELLIGENCE, that you deny,

why do you postulate a nonhuman creator intellegence ?

my thought is that having the religious shouting stories about creator intellegence into your ear has sommat to do with it.

otherwise, where did the notion come from ?

what about reality points to it having been produced by a living critter ?

"laws' is a confusing construct of us using a language, devised by the religious folk, that assums a creator, to describe something that has no need for someone to create the reality that inspires US to invent the 'laws' that describe what happens.

as in, WE make the 'laws' to describe what happens no matter what we do.
so far.
as we learn more we REWRITE the 'laws' to reflect our increased ability to make reality do stuff we were not able to previously.

which is the sign that intellegence is at work, reality doing things it doesn't want to, because the intellegence MAKES it bow to our will.

so for you to postulate a nonhuman creator intellegence means that you see something in reality that has to be FORCED to behave the way it does.

what I am seeing is a random collection {more religious language tricks, 'collection' implies a 'collectOR', like all the sand that a beach collects needs to have been collected BY someone.} of qualities that happened to result in us, you appear to see a desire to PRODUCE us which requires the qualities that produced us to have been CHOSEN specifically TO produce us.

requiring a chooser.

why do you think we are a desired result ?

i like how they left out that archaeopteryx had teeth, claws and a bony tail.

fyi they also found some feathered (!) dinosaur fossils (that were not archaeopteryx's) in china. that's old news though.

at any rate, this is all based on a rather common misconception of evolution. a particular life form with speciate first... i.e. divide into groups that after a few generations cannot interbreed. afterwards, selective pressures over time morph them into progressively more and more different looking forms.

i.e. monkeys didn't turn into humans. the proper way of looking at it is monkeys and humans both evolved from a common ancestor. it branches out like at tree. it's not like a stack where one just pops out of another.

as far as I can see it god has been pushed back to the big bang, since everything else is a natural result of the initial conditions created by the big bang requiring no further divine intervention after the selection of the universal constants.

note that this is not proving that I think god had a hand in the choice of constants. its just that the big bang is the only thing we still are ignorant enough about to give him the gap in our knowlege he needs to hide his awesome glory in.

as far as I can see it god has been pushed back to the big bang, since everything else is a natural result of the initial conditions created by the big bang requiring no further divine intervention after the selection of the universal constants.

note that this is not proving that I think god had a hand in the choice of constants. its just that the big bang is the only thing we still are ignorant enough about to give him the gap in our knowlege he needs to hide his awesome glory in.

You and the guy from TimeCube (http://timecube.com/) should get together sometime for tea and crumpets. :)

You and the guy from TimeCube (http://timecube.com/) should get together sometime for tea and crumpets. :)

we did, but it turned out that his midday persona met with my midnight personna and I slept through the whole thing.:bigthumb:

monkeys were created and have always been monkeys, period, there are simply adaptatons of the created kinds...

the ability to adapt was designed by the Creator in order to respond to environmental pressure

so close to truth you are, and yet so far.

there is only 1 created kind, DNA life.

all current lifeforms are adaptations of that one created lifeform responding to environmental pressure.

so aznpoopy's "monkeys didn't turn into humans. the proper way of looking at it is monkeys and humans both evolved from a common ancestor." is spot on.
all three, monkeys, humans, and our common ancestor, are all adaptations of DNA to environmental pressure.

we are ALL THREE composed of the SAME identical deck of cards, the ONLY difference is in the shuffling of the cards, which shuffling is done by environmental pressure.

this is proved by twins, same deck, same shuffle, and siblings, same deck different shuffle.

for your theory/myth to be true would require there to be different CARDS in the decks of different kinds making them distinct and unique, kinds, incompatable.
this is NOT the case, same cards in ALL decks.

I know...nothing changes



5) No more quoting other members, then changing what they said to reflect either A) what you think they mean, B) to "clarify", C) to change their post more in line with your thinking, or D) to be a smartass. You can respond to what they posted with YOUR opinion, but leave the original posters intent alone.





complete nonsense, no biologist worth a plugged nickel agrees with you

the rest of your lame argument is rejected because the premise is false

you know of NON DNA based life ?

DO tell.

where can I find it ?

monkeys were created and have always been monkeys, period, there are simply adaptatons of the created kinds...the ability to adapt was designed by the Creator in order to respond to environmental pressure


Hmm...seems you are a little out of date, and BTW adaptation is apart of evolution...so thanks to the Creator for evolution!


But there has been thought that right after the split of a common ancestor of chimps and man, the two may have still interbred. We see this all the time in nature, i.e mules for instance.


http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2006/05/18/humans_chimps_may_have_bred_after_split/?page=2

Will evolution be called into question now that the similarity of chimpanzee and human DNA has been reduced from >98.5% to ~95%?
not by anybody who has a clue as to what that MEANS.

note that the DNA itself is still IDENTICAL, it is only the "information" coded by the DNA that differs.
duh, chimps ARE different from us so the DNA MUST be different.

if they had found that the DNA codes were the SAME, now THAT would have got the biologists ascrambling for sure.

so, what's your point?

the origin of information is a key reason your jacked up belief system fails miserably

heh, your theory is that the complex organization of a snowflake cannot possibly form by random chance so every snowflake must be individually sculpted by an immortal all powerful spiritual vampyre.

or perhaps the H2O molecule itself is a miracle of design

fine, let us assume that H2O was miraculously created.

where in any given water molecule is the INFORMATION found that SPECIFICALLY INSTRUCTS that INDIVIDUAL molecule to take its SPECIFIC place among billions of other water molecules to form a SPECIFIC snowflake shape ?

it isn't, and yet there the snowflake is.

snowflakes don't have "specific" shapes, they are completely random.

but their structured, beautiful patterns

structured beautiful patterns are clearly NOT "completely random"

add in the fact that there are a number of different STYLES of structured beautiful patterns that exclusivly occur in response to different initial weather conditions, little round balls or big fluffy flakes for instance, it is obvious that random is NOT a useful way to describe their formation.

now consider that water molecules SUCK compared to carbon atoms as far as hooking up with other atoms AND SPONTANIOUSLY FALLING INTO structured beautiful patterns.

randomly.

so your insisting that carbon atoms COULD NOT POSSIBLY 'randomly' fall into a shape that carbon atoms DO fall into with no outside intellegent guidance, DNA, is just plumb goofy.

the patterns are random, the molecular structures which result in the patterns are not random

much better, except the patterns are not truely random either, remember the different shape snowflakes, a certain shape is selected for in a snowfall, the flakes are a "kind" in each fall, the shape of the individual flake is dictated by the conditions in which the flake forms.

which dictates the kind of flake that forms.

note, I believe that each snowflake is complete, a finished form.
so the difference in kinds is not merely different stages in growth, but rather fundamental differences in structure.

so, the randomness only operates WITHIN each kind, specific ranges of shapes are selected for, while incorrect shapes, kinds, are selected against.

within the selected for kind of shapes randomness gets to go nuts and try everything that might work.

and then waters suckyness manifests and the flake falls to the ground.

{note that selection doesn't stop there, some flakes get to grow up to be a glacier, others don't.}

carbon, on the other hand gets to hook up with OTHER atoms and form REALLY cool complicated shapes, which are selected for coolness.


weakly polar, did you read the article?

water is truly amazing stuff

just now.

yeah, I like how it can dissolve stuff and then evaporate and leave the gross flesh behind, becoming pure again.

even though it and trillions of its brothers just drowned a planet.


water molecules do not transfer information like the vastly more complex double helix of DNA, so ridiculous example

no, wonderful example.
water is so very complicated and cool while being nowhere as complicated as carbon, which DOES form the simple but beautiful DNA molecule.

more beauty with more complexity, which is selected for.



and how can carbon atoms "fall into a shape"? may I remind you water is a liquid at STP and only forms a lattice structure upon freezing

did you read the article ?

in the liquid form water falls into a shape with high surface tension, and so when not acted on by outside force forms itself into a sphere.

{ I wonder how big a sphere of water it would take for its gravity to keep its shape {in freefall} harder than the surface tension would ? }

a CO2 molecule falls into water, a couple of hydrogen atoms grab the oxygen and the Carbon atom is FREE !!!

to go bumping into all sorts of other atoms dissolved into the water, with energetic radiation falling from the sky to keep things moving.

and its unions being selected for coolness.

I'd love to hear a Darwinist explanation of the origin of the (known) periodic table of elements

all but the hard core naturalist will dodge that one with "only applies to biology"

come again ?

{I must have missed reading the ICR webpage proving that there are only the four elements, earth water air and fire, sorry.}

{{meaning I REALLY have no clue to what you are talking about :D }}

{{{so I provide something not nearly silly enough for you to be meaning. :bigthumb: }}}

{{{{ I mean, in mine nobody actually NEEDS to be killed for it to work.
:bowdown: :screwyou: }}}}

DNA is far more than a simple carbon atom

Chemically, DNA is a long polymer of simple units called nucleotides, with a backbone made of sugars and phosphate atoms joined by ester bonds. Attached to each sugar is one of four types of molecules called bases.

right, every one of those molecules is based on carbon atoms, take away the carbon and NONE of those molecules could exist.

that is why we are CARBON based lifeforms.