Exaeus

Unfortunately, Isaiah, it's you who doesn't understand the whole line of reasoning. Your argument would be valid only if similarity was the only data available to be considered. As it is, evolution takes into account all the empirical data, while creationism cherry-picks the facts it wants to address, ignores the rest, and tries to pass itself off as a viable theory. I've already told you what creationism would need to say if it really took into account all available facts instead of selectively exhorting only the ones that fit in with the preconceived conclusion. Does creationism actually say that? As I've said, I'm willing to accept creationism as a viable theory if you can prove that it indeed does. You keep saying this but have yet to provide data. "Genetic variation at most loci examined in human populations indicates that the (effective) population size has been ~10^4 for the past 1 Myr and that individuals have been genetically united rather tightly. Also suggested is that the population size has never dropped to a few individuals, even in a single generation. These impose important requirements for the hypotheses for the origin of modem humans: a relatively large population size and frequent migration if populations were geo-graphically subdivided. Any hypothesis that assumes a small number of founding individuals throughout the late Pleistocene can be rejected." - Takahata 1993, "Allelic genealogy and human evolution", http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/10/1/2.long http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment Well Isaiah, please help us take that claim more seriously then by not being so ignorant in your arguments, and by providing evidence for your arguments - which you never seem to do despite demanding it at every opportunity from others.

Tell you what, why don't you provide proof of your claims with links, and I will?

If creationism is really trying to address the same facts, it'd be saying that God created life as simple, unicellular organisms, changed it ever-so-slightly baby steps at a time to adapt them to the environment, and made older species die out and go extinct. Rinse and repeat that process over hundreds of millions of years, slowly branching out into other genuses and families instead of creating them all at once. No such thing as Adam and Eve, because the data tells us that at no point in time were there only two humans. And that this God-trigged process can actually be replicated in a laboratory and under controlled conditions, because God is aware of the experiments scientists are carrying out and made his will known in them upon demand, as well. Are you really sure that's what creationism says, Isaiah? Because if that's indeed the case, then I'll state for the record that I have no problems whatsoever with that version of creationism. Or is creationism only cherry-picking the facts that fit in with the preconceived ideology while rejecting the rest, and trying to pretend that it's a viable competing theory?

Well, I'm not offended, to be honest. As I said, I can understand where your frustration is coming from, and also stated that I'd probably be frustrated too if I were in your shoes. But feel free to continue dragging this thread down to the level of personal insinuations if it floats your boat. I'll just have to decline to play your little games with you any further, as it's becoming more and more obvious that it's part of a deliberate strategy.

Isaiah, I'll quote your own reply in response to this, since in fact you hit the nail on the head but apparently haven't realized it yet: Which is exactly how science operates. It builds upon itself with each successive discovery, where previous advancements in biology all built the groundwork for the unifying theory of evolution, and where a sound understanding in evolution forms the basis for future progress in biology. Just because there has been progress made before evolution doesn't mean that evolution is unneeded for future discoveries. To give you an example, how far do you think astronomy would have progressed if we ignored the heliocentric theory? How far do you think we'd have gotten with chemistry if we threw out atomic theory? To further illustrate how ridiculous your argument is, it can essentially be extrapolated to claim that every single scientific theory is not needed for progress, as long as there were prior discoveries that predated it. Do you see how absurd your logic is now?

Hmm, I think I must've had several tabs open in Firefox and posted the wrong link by mistake. Thanks for pointing it out, here's the one I meant to post instead: http://www.prb.org/Articles/2011/usforeignbornstem.aspx Given how you're stooping to such antagonistic ad hominems, Isaiah, I think it's safe to say that you resent the claim that religion makes people unscientific. You want to be seen as scientific and progressive, yet you also want at the same time to cast aside science when it doesn't fit in with your preconceived beliefs. Well, I guess I'd be frustrated too if I ever found myself in in the same Catch-22 as you.

Except that the "opinion of the common man" is an indicator of how effective out education system is. As D-9 has pointed out, it's highly unlikely that a nation will remain scientifically competitive if its children are being brought up to reject science in favor of false beliefs. Even now there's already the worrying trend that America is basically "importing" its scientists from immigrants, instead of having key positions in the American scientific community staffed by Americans: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/24/immigrants-science_n_866321.html

Well, I copied an extract from the BioLogos website since the NPR article quoted BioLogos for the story. My intention was to show that the allegedly biased article wasn't misquoting its sources, since that's indeed what BioLogos says. Other than that, I don't think your definition of bias is particularly useful. If an entity that expresses a POV one way or the other automatically means that the entity is biased in favor of its opinion, it'd be impossible to find unbiased stories anywhere. I'm not defending BioLogos here since I've never heard of them before, I just think that you need a stronger basis before accusing them of deliberate bias. They could be biased... but then again, they might just be less willing to discard scientific evidence than other theists, since genetics does indeed demonstrate that having the entire human race as we know it spawn from only one male-female pair is quite impossible.

Well, Isaiah, given how theism is a belief, I don't quite see how any theistic websites can possibly be unbiased. You're right that the site is biased, of course, but that's pretty much a given for anything regarding theism, so I wonder what pointing out the obvious is meant to achieve. Theistic creationist websites are equally biased as well, and I say that without trying to attach a positive or negative connotation to the term out of recognition that it's an unavoidable fact.

Why not hear the story right from the horse's mouth, then? "It is important for Evangelicals to know that science is silent on the historicity of two people named Adam and Eve, just as it is silent on the existence of persons named Abraham, Isaac, and Moses. Adam and Eve may well have been two real people, who through the grace of God entered into a paradisiacal relationship with him, until—tragedy of tragedies— they allowed their own self-centered desires to reign in their hearts, instead of their love for God. Although genetics convincingly shows that there was never a time when there were just two persons, the Bible itself may even provide hints of the existence of other people—likely we’ve all wondered about those hints since we were children. “Did Cain marry his sister?” we want to know. “Who were the people that Cain was afraid of as he wandered the earth after killing Abel? If they were his brothers or nephews, why didn’t the author refer to them that way?” The author doesn’t seem to be as puzzled by this as we are. We’ve always known about those little pointers—in fact, ancient interpreters wrestled with them too, long before Darwin or modern genetics appeared on the scene. So it ought not to necessarily surprise us for genetics to come along and confirm that, sure enough, there were others around at the time of Adam and Eve." - http://biologos.org/blog/nprs-adam-and-eve-story However one may choose to interpret it, it appears that the BioLogos Foundation does indeed agree that no, Adam and Eve weren't the only humans around in the beginning.

So what exactly are you proposing then as a measure of "blending in", Isaiah? I could point out the fact that the Nazis committed numerous war crimes against blond-haired, blue-eyed people as well (marched into a village and started killing people, in many cases), but I suspect you'd also reject that as well. What is the set of objective criteria you are using to say with such confidence that it was a fact I was so full of "pure ignorance" that my debating opponent gave up and walked away? Isaiah, do you even understand what science is saying about ERVs, and have you read your own link at all? How does the arguments presented in the article refute what science says about ERVs or use ERVs to bolster creationist claims in the slightest? They do not. All the article does is describe a totally irrelevant argument, claims that it nullifies what ERVs means to evolutionary biology, and then chalks it up as a win for creationism. Like the majority of other creationist pseudoscience out there it's utterly dishonest, ignorant, and so obvious to the extreme that it was meant to mislead scientifically illiterate Christians, but here you are, burying your head in the sand with your raggedly adamant replies that the article represents an "alternate viewpoint". Please read your own link, and explain to us how exactly does the article refute science or bolster creationism with regards to ERVs. Until you demonstrate to us that you actually understand what you posted, I think it's quite futile for me to try any further to get a sensible response from you. I'll name you one: Adam and Eve and/or Noah's Ark is falsified by genetics. I'll name you another: the order in which God allegedly created the universe is falsified by cosmology and nuclear physics. Yet another: Paleontology and geology tells us which fossils appeared when, and the alleged sequence in which God created the species is quite out of order. And so on and so forth, as well as other absurd creationist claims such as the earth existed before the sky, vegetation existing before the sun and moon, etc. Isaiah, I'm not sure why you're putting forward the argument that you haven't seen any evidence as though it's supposed to mean something. To the best of my knowledge, openly advertising how ignorant one is doesn't quite count as a sensible debating strategy. Besides, if you're going to count on this alleged lack of evidence for evolution as a strike against it, are you willing to say the same for creationism, which not only has no data in favor of it but mountains against? The fact that this is an argument from ignorance notwithstanding, there are many non-creationist alternatives to evolution, or significant parts of it, which are possible and have received serious attention in the past. These include but are not limited to orthogenesis, neo-Lamarckianism, process structuralism, saltationism, spontaneous generation, etc. There is nothing to say that an alternative theory that also adequately explains the data cannot possibly arise as a competitor to evolution in future, or perhaps even replace it. You claim that both creationism and evolution are only beliefs, but here you state that one or the other must be true since you are of the position that they are the only two possible options. I'll simply speculate on the reasons for this, and let others draw their own conclusions. Isaiah, you apparently don't understand the difference between the fact of evolution and the theory of evolution. Let me give you an example. We know that gravity is a fact. We have tons of empirical data to prove it conclusively, and we can observe it happening. It's called the fact of gravity. What we are not completely sure of, on the other hand, is why gravity exists. There has been a variety of proposed explanations, from LeSage's fluid-based theory to Weber-Gauss electrodynamics to general relativity (space-time disturbance caused by mass) and quantum field theory (gravitons). These attempts to explain the fact of gravity are collectively known as the theory of gravity. Do we dismiss and profess a disbelief in gravity because we don't know exactly how and why it happens? No, we do not. Back to evolution. We know that evolution happened. We have tons of empirical data to prove it conclusively, and we can observe it happening. It's called the fact of evolution. Just because we're unclear on some evolutionary pathways does not mean we reject all the facts that are staring at us in the face, the same way we do not reject gravity. As for how the evolution of sexual reproduction is possible: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_sexual_reproduction When it progresses from a hypothesis to a scientific theory due to sufficient data supporting it, then it'll be falsifiable depending on the nature of supporting data.

Isaiah, I'm not sure that being accepted by Nazi Germany as a traitor from other nations during wartime is the best definition of "blending in", but if that's what we're going with, the Empire of Japan had her fair share of Chinese traitors during WWII. As the Japanese invasion spread across Asia under the propaganda cover of the "Greater Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere", many more first-generation Chinese migrants in other Asian countries flocked to support Japan as well. If we are to accept your logic, the Chinese apparently "blend in" with the Japanese just as well as blond-haired, blue-eyed people "blended right in" with the Nazis. I was trying to point out your set of conflicting criteria more than trying to pit you against another poster. Either way, it might have been quite impossible for me to do so if you didn't hold to such arbitrary standards of what consists of "pure ignorance" and what does not. Food for thought. The lesson to be derived by ERVs was not because they were non-functional genetic code; it is because those identical or highly-similar strings can be found in other organisms that allows us inspect those sequences and at which stage of the evolution tree were they inserted into the genome, and from the data deduce common descent. By focusing on arguing that "junk DNA is not junk" while completely failing to mention the results of phylogenetic analysis, that linked article is nothing but yet another classic example of a creationist argument that not only misrepresents what science is saying, but completely ignores it altogether. And, as I've repeatedly explained (and again above), my point was that one of them does not even acknowledge that the data exists, much less explain them. Because, as I've explained, creationism as described by the Bible is discredited by mountains of evidence from virtually every field of science. Even if theists managed to score a victory against evolutionary biology, there's still a whole bunch of hurdles that creationism needs to clear. You also assume that there can only be two possible explanations for life on Earth, evolution and creationism. Hence one of them must be right if the other is wrong. This is quite an illogical assumption, for reasons which I hope are obvious. Actually, I'm taking your word for it and seeing what you come up with, for now. If you really are literate about science and the scientific method, it's usually fairly obvious from the arguments you make. Of course, the same holds true for the opposite. Isaiah, I assume you know that evolution really did happen over hundreds of millions of years, because that's how long ago that the earliest fossils have been dated to. "Invoking time" is not a magic wand, it's what the data tells us. In all seriousness, what do you expect scientists to say? That we've only been around for about 7 thousand years or so, when that flies against the face of all evidence? Unfortunately the evolution of sexual reproduction is pretty much still at the hypothesis stage, last I checked. If you have any evidence to the contrary I'd love to see it. However, the thing to keep in mind is that the evolution of sexual reproduction is not impossible. We can propose viable pathways via which it happened, except that we do not know which one is correct due to lack of data. Let me give you an analogy. Suppose that we have a murderer who was proven guilty by DNA evidence, eyewitnesses, and camera footage. What we do not know, however, was whether he entered the victim's house through the door or window. Do you throw out the entire case simply because of that? No, you don't. That's being silly. Again as I've said, no harm done.

Hi PGA, You claim to derive objective morals from God. Can you propose a method of verifying that these God-derived morals are indeed subjective?

That's very interesting. To clarify, is it okay for me to tell someone he's acting like an idiot as long as I genuinely believe that is the case, since I'm telling the truth, or is it only safe when I'm telling that to a non-Christian and I know that there will be a moderator willing to look the other way?

Well, then that leaves us wondering what criteria do you use to determine when it is appropriate to put forward these "statements of fact", because you obviously considered it unnecessary when it was a Christian claiming that European "blue-eyed, blond-haired" people would "fit in" with German Nazis. Except that one of those viewpoints does not even attempt to explain the data! Again, you continue to ignore this. Creationism in general as argued by theists is plagued with the same problem. Whatever cannot be explained by theists are either misrepresented or dismissed. While it is theoretically possible to come up with a "theory" of creationism that does address all the data we have (I put theory in quotes because I'm not sure if it'd be falsifiable), it's not a theory that theists are generally willing to accept because they've yet to find a way to adequately square it with the Bible. Isaiah, there is no difference in the scientific process between evolutionary biology and any other field. You can focus all your efforts on sieging evolutionary biology if you want, but assuming that evolution is the last and only bastion of science holding out against creationism is a common mistake made by many theists. Creationism is falsified by virtually every branch of science out there, including but not limited to cosmology, nuclear and quantum physics, physical chemistry, biochemistry, molecular genetics, phylogenetics, anthrolopogy, paleontology, geology, et cetera et cetera et cetera. Even if your story is true, and it is proven that there's a worldwide conspiracy by evolutionary biologists in cahoots to discredit creationism... guess what? Creationism would still be dead wrong. Most of your points have already been debunked by other posters while you raggedly repeated yourself with already-discredited arguments. The one that wasn't was your "magic of time" remark, which was not only too general to understand, much less break down, but also couldn't possibly be taken out of context because as far as I could tell it had no context whatsoever. Hence my reply asking if you could be more specific. You mean pretty much the same way you phrased your loaded question to imply that I "did this here a lot" (whatever "this" may mean), and that I'm here to cause strife? Two people can play that game. However, I'd rather not if I don't have to, to be honest. Well, if we're in agreement on that, then there's no harm done.