No since the unsuited intermediate forms will not survive. and there are a lot of intermediate forms still living, just looka t how many animal species there are alive. Also one thing i don't understand is why people think we are at an evolutionary end point. Evolution is process that never ends, there is no such thing as an endpoint.
intermediate forms are between species not separate. the old term is 'missing link' termed such because they are missing. and no evolutionist will say that all intermediate forms are extinct because that would crash the entire theory. it's ok to believe in evolution and not be able to explain the absense of intermediate forms
Definitely not true. Einstein was effectively a Deist. Many of his contemporaries wanted him to retract his famous quote, "God does not roll dice with the Universe." But he always refused. He did not believe in a personal God or an immortal soul, but he definitely believed in God. More than you want to know: http://www.einsteinandreligion.com/index.html
Again you are making the false assumption that a religious person can not believe in scientific evolution. One of the best sermons I have ever heard was from a pastor who I will paraphrase. "The bible is not supposed to be a history book. We can't argue that the world is only thousands of years old when sciene has proved otherwise. Why argue with science? Why should we disagree with evolution. That was never the intent of the bible. The bible isn't supposed to be a fortunetelling book to tell the future. We don't need to worry about the end of the world. The bible is supposed to be a guide to help us live our lives, and grow spiritually." Stephen Jay Gould is an evolutionary biologist, and paleontologist who was an expert in the field. My doubts were is there really a God, a need for a God, how could a loving God supposedly damn people to hell? How is it that Ghandi would be in hell, while Hitler could be in Heaven? What is heaven? What is hell? How could a loving God create a hell? Those are only some of the questions. I started studying, taking classes, going to lectures reading books, etc. What I learned is changing and growing all the time. Part of what I came to believe is that what is divine is that which is beyond human understanding(much like Einstein mentioned in some of the quotes I listed). The idea that people should show love to someone who was cruel abusive, dishonest, openly antagonistic, etc. was a concept that seemed beyond normal human nature, even the best of it. Self-Defense, and protection seemed to be much more normal, and rational. Basically heaven is within us, not necessarily a place we go after death, and many people who call themselves atheist I would not describe them as such. The bibile says that those who know love know God. So if someone knows love they aren't really an atheist. Like Einstein I am willing to call the amazing things in Nature, and science divine. That is just part of it, and it is much larger than that, and I am sure I don't do it justice on this message board. No doubt. The church was responsible for a lot of stifling of science over the years. Especially during the periods that Hugo wrote about. Einstein himself said directly that he wasn't an atheist. I printed the quote from him. Again, I disagree with you that Einstein was an atheist. So did Einstein. Here's the quote again. It just doesn't get more plainly stated than that. He speems mainly to be a follower of the philosopher Spinoza. I would be sad if anyone gave up a career in science for what I believe is a misguided understanding of faith as well.
here's the first page (it's 11 pages long so i'll not post it all) from the link i posted. i assume nobody read it because they don't subscribe to the times. it is absolutely relevant to the derailment in this thread and a great read. Darwin’s God By ROBIN MARANTZ HENIG Published: March 4, 2007 God has always been a puzzle for Scott Atran. When he was 10 years old, he scrawled a plaintive message on the wall of his bedroom in Baltimore. “God exists,” he wrote in black and orange paint, “or if he doesn’t, we’re in trouble.” Atran has been struggling with questions about religion ever since — why he himself no longer believes in God and why so many other people, everywhere in the world, apparently do. Call it God; call it superstition; call it, as Atran does, “belief in hope beyond reason” — whatever you call it, there seems an inherent human drive to believe in something transcendent, unfathomable and otherworldly, something beyond the reach or understanding of science. “Why do we cross our fingers during turbulence, even the most atheistic among us?” asked Atran when we spoke at his Upper West Side pied-à-terre in January. Atran, who is 55, is an anthropologist at the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris, with joint appointments at the University of Michigan and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. His research interests include cognitive science and evolutionary biology, and sometimes he presents students with a wooden box that he pretends is an African relic. “If you have negative sentiments toward religion,” he tells them, “the box will destroy whatever you put inside it.” Many of his students say they doubt the existence of God, but in this demonstration they act as if they believe in something. Put your pencil into the magic box, he tells them, and the nonbelievers do so blithely. Put in your driver’s license, he says, and most do, but only after significant hesitation. And when he tells them to put in their hands, few will. If they don’t believe in God, what exactly are they afraid of? Atran first conducted the magic-box demonstration in the 1980s, when he was at Cambridge University studying the nature of religious belief. He had received a doctorate in anthropology from Columbia University and, in the course of his fieldwork, saw evidence of religion everywhere he looked — at archaeological digs in Israel, among the Mayans in Guatemala, in artifact drawers at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Atran is Darwinian in his approach, which means he tries to explain behavior by how it might once have solved problems of survival and reproduction for our early ancestors. But it was not clear to him what evolutionary problems might have been solved by religious belief. Religion seemed to use up physical and mental resources without an obvious benefit for survival. Why, he wondered, was religion so pervasive, when it was something that seemed so costly from an evolutionary point of view? The magic-box demonstration helped set Atran on a career studying why humans might have evolved to be religious, something few people were doing back in the ’80s. Today, the effort has gained momentum, as scientists search for an evolutionary explanation for why belief in God exists — not whether God exists, which is a matter for philosophers and theologians, but why the belief does. This is different from the scientific assault on religion that has been garnering attention recently, in the form of best-selling books from scientific atheists who see religion as a scourge. In “The God Delusion,” published last year and still on best-seller lists, the Oxford evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins concludes that religion is nothing more than a useless, and sometimes dangerous, evolutionary accident. “Religious behavior may be a misfiring, an unfortunate byproduct of an underlying psychological propensity which in other circumstances is, or once was, useful,” Dawkins wrote. He is joined by two other best-selling authors — Sam Harris, who wrote “The End of Faith,” and Daniel Dennett, a philosopher at Tufts University who wrote “Breaking the Spell.” The three men differ in their personal styles and whether they are engaged in a battle against religiosity, but their names are often mentioned together. They have been portrayed as an unholy trinity of neo-atheists, promoting their secular world view with a fervor that seems almost evangelical. Lost in the hullabaloo over the neo-atheists is a quieter and potentially more illuminating debate. It is taking place not between science and religion but within science itself, specifically among the scientists studying the evolution of religion. These scholars tend to agree on one point: that religious belief is an outgrowth of brain architecture that evolved during early human history. What they disagree about is why a tendency to believe evolved, whether it was because belief itself was adaptive or because it was just an evolutionary byproduct, a mere consequence of some other adaptation in the evolution of the human brain. Which is the better biological explanation for a belief in God — evolutionary adaptation or neurological accident? Is there something about the cognitive functioning of humans that makes us receptive to belief in a supernatural deity? And if scientists are able to explain God, what then? Is explaining religion the same thing as explaining it away? Are the nonbelievers right, and is religion at its core an empty undertaking, a misdirection, a vestigial artifact of a primitive mind? Or are the believers right, and does the fact that we have the mental capacities for discerning God suggest that it was God who put them there? In short, are we hard-wired to believe in God? And if we are, how and why did that happen? “All of our raptures and our drynesses, our longings and pantings, our questions and beliefs . . . are equally organically founded,” William James wrote in “The Varieties of Religious Experience.” James, who taught philosophy and experimental psychology at Harvard for more than 30 years, based his book on a 1901 lecture series in which he took some early tentative steps at breaching the science-religion divide. In the century that followed, a polite convention generally separated science and religion, at least in much of the Western world. Science, as the old trope had it, was assigned the territory that describes how the heavens go; religion, how to go to heaven. link again: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/04/m...73675600&en=622a31be04e37bea&ei=5070&emc=eta1
I am working on it, all I ask is when he does you let me know. OK- as far as convincing you of God. Let me just begin with a little personal background (it will be important if I get far enough with this- my work load is picking up) I was an atheist and evolutionist all through high school. I was a little obsessed with my belief in science and really liked to study and considered myself a true scientific atheist. Upon entering college I was pretty aggressive with my atheism to the point of debating anyone who wanted on the subject. Some problems in my life over a three year period led me to secretly read the Bible. I didn't understand it. So that passed pretty quickly. But the next thing that happened was significant. For reasons I cannot explain I began to think to myself and realize that 99% of what I read was sympathetic to my own beliefs. I decided to begin to read objections and criticisms to my evolutionary beliefs- I love to study, I love to read so I started reading counter arguments to my beliefs and I studied them. I tried to be very objective (which is impossible) so I basically read and debunked. Anything I found as an objection to my worldview I researched every possible counter-point I could find. This was tedious work because there were no PC's at that time. But I trudged through college with this debate raging in my own mind. Don't do that with an objective and honest heart. If you start to question your own beliefs you will endanger them. At least that is my advice and experience. Later...
I'm reading through your comments and will give you a complete response when I get the chance but as a matter of form considered this. You stated in an earlier post that you didn't think I had much of an argument when I start labelling you with names. As a matter of courtesy I apologized and explained why I was using such terms. Apparently you don't feel that applies to yourself.
Human and apes are both under the family Hominidae that includes Chimpanzees, Bonobos, Orangutans, Gorillas and Humans. Taxonomic classification puts us under the Apes. So while we evolved from a common ancestor as the other great apes we are still apes and rather than the other apes being our forebearers they have been evolving as we have. I don't see why you're challenging this as someone who supports Evolution the fact that we are apes supports that position. FYI. The difference between human DNA and bacterial DNA is far far greater than 10%.
Sorry but i disagree. Species are evolving all the time. the only problem is that our lifespan is to short to notice it. We do not know if the current Lions will develop into two different species. For example we have one species of elephants in africa, however the forrest elephant could be a different species. but so far it is accepted as the same elephant species. but if they continue to develop(over a lot of years) there will probably be a time when they cannot get virtile offspring together. and thereby a new species is created. Not all intermediate forms are extinct. however att this time we cannot say of any species of it is an intermedate species, since our lifespan is to short. But we can only say in the future if something is an intermediate species. I do not think that evolution is the ultimate truth, you should always look at holes in theories(the same goes for the theory of god).
I was going to write you a longer response and still may later but in response to your post this is really the key point. Do you agree that God can never be empiracally disproven? You bring up facts and logic but how do you know that wasn't created by God? Yes Darwin gave up on the idea of a personal benevolent supernatural deity but he never gave up the idea that there was a primary cause that could be considered God. As Franchiseblade pointed out Einstein felt the same way. You argue that either everything is random or there is God. Is it possible that what we perceive as randomness is actually directed according to a higher power? Neither of us can answer this question, or perhaps we can, maybe I'm God and you refuse to believe also. In the end your absence of belief is belief unto itself that is driven by a faith that whatever is material is what it is. That's not something that can be absolutely proven. Its not a zero sum gain since neither argument can be absolutely proven or disproven. In the absence of that we rely on belief. You choose to believe one way others choose another.
I would suggest you read up some on evolution. The fact that lifespan is too short is the argument against evolution. The shorter the lifespan the more evidence of transitional intermediates would be observable. (they aren't) Also variation between species whether it is elephants or humans is normal and observable and has nothing to do with macro evolution. Variation is a scientific occurance that everyone agrees with. But what most evolutionists won't admit is there are strict scientific limits to variation that prevent variation being vehicle for evolution between species. That's why evolutionary scientists have revised their positions. Punctuated equilibrium is one of the most commonly accepted textbook explanations for the lack of transitional species. Read both sides of this idea.
Before you spend any time going further with evolution, realize I am not a scientist, I don't know half of what I am talking about and I don't believe in evolution strictly from a matter of my faith. I think it is fine if Christians believe in evolution, I just don't. If we debate long enough you will get me to surrender, I'm simple minded on some things.
I wasn't trying to pursuade you into believing in Evolution. I was just explaining it a bit(since i'm a biologist, even tough i'm not specialised in evolution). And defending my arguments since you questioned them(even though i first questioned yours ) If you don't believe in Evolution that is your right. I myself also have doubts with Darwin, and i do not think it is the complete truth (like i already said). One of my best friends is a man who trully believes in god, and has done a lot in his life with it.(he is giving seminars to others writing books etc.) We have tons of discussions about religion, and about evolution. I think everybody should believe what they believe. If you don't believe in evolution based on your Faith that is a good reason. IMHO what it is all about is if your believe in a God. You do, and i get the feeling you are happy with it. So i'm happy for you. I do not believe in a god. And I'm happy with it. I think this is one of the discussions in which we will have to agree that we disagree.
I love biology! Whatever was the first initial cause of the existence of the universe is who I believe is God. You know the one who caused the nothing to become something back when there wasn't nothing but nothing yada, yada, yada
I completely disagree with this assertion. Absence of a belief is not equivalent to believing in the opposite. A person who lacks the belief in deities does not mean he necessarily believes in the opposite (that deities absolutely do not exist). A person could lack the belief in something without asserting the opposite to be necessarily true. There are an infinite number of things that can't be proven or disproven ever. But it makes "no sense" to consider all possibilities that can't be proven and could be true to be actually true. The default position IMO is to be skeptical of belief in things that have no basis until shown otherwise and use the philosophy of "Occams' Razor" (which is to use the simplist explanation possible that still explains everything rather than resort to unnecessarily complicated explanations).
We do not know and may never know the ultimate cause and nature of the universe. Did it come out of "nothing"? Is the universe oscillatory (infinite progression of big bang, big crunch big bang, etc). Is it part of some greater "reality" (i.e. the univese of part of some other bigger multi-verse or is a part of some progression of universes within universes or is a subset of a large multi-dimensional reality that we can't begin to comprehend, etc)? I do not think we know these things and may never know them. Until we have a good understanding (which we may never do) of the nature of what we perceive of as the "universe", it doesn't make a lot of sense to consider the "initial cause" of the universe. Anyway saying "god" was the initial cause of the universe doesn't explain a whole lot because what it the "initial cause" of god then? If your answer is god does not need an initial cause but always existed then so could the universe/multi-verse or whatever the "ultimate reality" actually is.
ahem...the "documentary" aired last night. I didn't watch it, but I did see this review from the New York Times on it. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/03/a...50445b716&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
It is something odd about him. When I listed a book by a renowned evolutionary biologist he said it was common sense and he didn't need a book. In essence he was denying scientific proof to believe in what he thought was common sense. It is odd for someone claiming to be in favor of science and proof, when his ideas about evolution have been disproven. The scientific version of evolution is different than what he was espousing, and refused to acknowledge the evidence.
