Certainly worth a gander.....but don't delete it just because you don't believe it.

[thinhorn_AK]

1) the Indian subcontinent is not "small".

2) The second highest peak in the world is K2. Please show me the papers documenting that K2 and Everest are "oscillating back and forth as to which is the highest." This would be a relatively easily measurable phenomenon. K2 would have to get 778 feet taller to equal Everest.

I promise you K2 and Everest are not in a tight race to see who's tallest.

Correct, the 2 peaks absolutely do NOT compete for which one is tallest, not my any metric would that be true. Anybody who claims such should be embaressed.

 

[Sapcut]

This reminds me of a story….

This smarter than thou scientist decided God had made serious mistakes when making man. He listed all the flaws God made and decided how man should’ve been made better.

So God decided, ok, if you’re so smart, due to the brain I created for you, let’s see who is better. Let’s see who can make the most perfectly designed human.

God said… if you can make a better man than me, I will concede I am not perfect and not the Creator of all things. If I win then you worship me, your Creator, and live in heaven forever. You go first…

Smarty britches says you’re on!…. As he gets his first shovel full of dirt, God says…No No No, get your own dirt!!

 

[Sapcut]

Only because you good, loving, religious folk quit beating us to death with big rocks, burning us, drowning us & lopping off our heads. Mostly.

I didn’t see anything he said regarding Islam.

 

[Hoodie]

I understand evolution. I will
Never cease to wonder though, how a common, complex trait, like the eye and its corresponding and equally (really more) complex connected nervous system evolved so early in evolution’s history while other, gross anatomical traits seeming lagged for eons. Damn near every species shares bilateralism and the same/similar supporting systems, from hormonal to lymphatic, circulatory, respiratory, etc. those needed to exist in such successful numbers to allow procreation in further numbers to allow the gross anatomical changes e.g. From ape to man.

Things like instinct also make me wonder. Consider a brood parasitic bird. The egg is deposited in the nest of another bird species. It hatches early and then kills the nest mates with a hooked beak that is only used to kill the nest mates. Or other species literally push the competing eggs out of the nest. Both of these happen while the bird is completely blind. The birds natural mother never has an opportunity to teach its chick how to kill its nest mates. But kill it does. And has, for whatever thousands of years. Things like inherited knowledge show the limits of our understanding. We simply sit back and marvel at them but still have absolutely no clue how it works.

I don't see how species sharing features like complex organ systems casts doubt on the idea of speciation from common ancestors. If anything, that is support for the idea.

For the second part, an organism doesn't need to know why it's doing something in order for the thing it's doing to be advantageous. Inherited "knowledge" is really just inherited behavior.

For the bird example, that's brood parasitism. Cowbirds are a good example. The only two behaviors you need for it to work are 1) the adult female needs to lay her eggs in nests that are already constructed, as opposed to building her own. Nothing too complicated there. That just saves time and energy. Importantly, since none of the females of her species build their own nests, there is zero chance she will accidentally lay eggs in a nest of another brown cowbird. There are no cowbird nests. The second thing you need is for the offspring to be aggressive towards its nest mates. Again, there's an obvious advantage to that behavior in that, without competition, that nestling gets more food.

There's no need for the mother to "know" why she's doing what she's doing, or to pass along the knowledge of what appears to be a complex strategy to her offspring. She just has to be too lazy to build a nest and the offspring just has to be hostile to other chicks. Voila, you've got brood parasitism.

 

[robtattoo]

I didn’t see anything he said regarding Islam.

I didn't want to single out just the Christians. That's persecution & I'm kinda low on lions.

Although, to be fair, your team has spent a good amount of time reducing the global need for hats too.

 

[Broomd]

I've met Hovind and Ham, both good men.
The fact of that matter is many of us find it far easier to attribute life on Earth to intelligent design than to some primordial soup over the course of 75 million years.

The dexterity of the human hand, the human eye, a mantis's five eyes, etc.
The symbiotic relationship of myriad of organisms...

No doubt in my mind from whence we all came.

 

[ODB]

I don't see how species sharing features like complex organ systems casts doubt on the idea of speciation from common ancestors. If anything, that is support for the idea.

For the second part, an organism doesn't need to know why it's doing something in order for the thing it's doing to be advantageous. Inherited "knowledge" is really just inherited behavior.

For the bird example, that's brood parasitism. Cowbirds are a good example. The only two behaviors you need for it to work are 1) the adult female needs to lay her eggs in nests that are already constructed, as opposed to building her own. Nothing too complicated there. That just saves time and energy. Importantly, since none of the females of her species build their own nests, there is zero chance she will accidentally lay eggs in a nest of another brown cowbirds. There are no cowbird nests. The second thing you need is for the offspring to be aggressive towards its nest mates. Again, there's an obvious advantage to that behavior in that, without competition, that nestling gets more food.

There's no need for the mother to "know" why she's doing what she's doing, or to pass along the knowledge of what appears to be a complex strategy to her offspring. She just has to be too lazy to build a nest and the offspring just has to be hostile to other chicks. Voila, you've got brood parasitism.

It’s the idea that the most complex systems evolved first, before less complex systems , say in response to other factors.

As far as brood parasites…how come the foster mothers never caught on? And how is it that, again, this behavior is distilled down so perfectly before the birds migrate and expand their range? It’s the idea of the complex behaviour occurring before the less complex.

And if a cowbird gets “lazy” and didn’t build a nest, how did it evolve into a cowbird ? In other words, it’s earlier behaviour was plenty successful to allow it to evolve into a nesting bird. Why the change? And how did it happen to the entire species across regions?

It’s funny, your ‘voila!’ sounds a hell of a lot like creation or the Big Bang. God said “voila!” Or the universes said “voila!”

There is a lot of faith in that “voila!”

 

[thinhorn_AK]

I didn’t see anything he said regarding Islam.

Might want to read a bit about how the nice christians treated people when they were settling in the southwest. Making people repent then burning them alive, stoning them. The southwest is just one of MANY examples of christian tolerance. Literally the same as islam.

 

[Sapcut]

I didn't want to single out just the Christians. That's persecution & I'm kinda low on lions.

Although, to be fair, your team has spent a good amount of time reducing the global need for hats too.

Yea . I don’t quite understand why that happens other than Man and it’s religion gets in the way of really knowing God… cause it ain’t religion. If you haven’t noticed, religion is certainly a Man thing. Not a Jesus thing.

Regarding the death and violence you mentioned, you’re premise is that beheadings, murder, etc is wrong. Wrong as in not good and something bad. Why do you think that? Did you come up with that? What moral standard are you using to conclude anything is “wrong” ? What if murderers think it’s right and good? Are they what you consider wrong?

Of course I also think those acts are wrong and I know why. Do you know why?

 

[mlgc20]

For you guys that are into translating the bible literally, and I guess also you guys who are Christian but don't take it literally, have you read the book Zealot, by Reza Aslan? I'm curious to hear your take on it if you have. I haven't read it myself, but my wife did and she gave me a very good summary. It's on my to read list.

It's a strange book IMO. It really isn't about literal versus figurative interpretations of the Bible. He has a theory about Jesus. (Mainly that Jesus was looking to use violence against the Romans to get them out of Israel. And that the "peaceful" version of Jesus is made up after the fact.) He looks at the books of the New Testament. If a certain part of scripture is consistent with his view, he uses it as evidence to support his theory. If a different part of scripture doesn't support his theory, then he says it's made up.

A more interesting book (IMO) on reading Scripture figuratively versus literally is The Lost World of Genesis 1, by John Walton. This is a whole book dedicated to just this one chapter of the Bible. But, he delves deep into who the Bible was originally written to and how they would have interpreted it. As he says in the book, "The Bible was written for us, but it wasn't written to us." The "us" in this instance is 21st century Americans. And the fact that the Bible was written in another language, and in another culture is quite relevant to how we interpret the Bible.

 

[Hoodie]

The voila was meant to convey that simple behaviors with obvious benefit to the individual are all you need to explain complex strategies like brood parasitism. You don’t need inherited “knowledge.”

That doesn’t mean that’s why cowbirds do that. Maybe Jesus made cowbirds do that. But the theory of natural selection is sufficient to explain it.

 

[Tod osier]

I understand evolution.

You said this previously.

As far as brood parasites…how come the foster mothers never caught on?

As and FYI, there are species that recognize cowbird eggs. There are species that almost never recognize cowbird eggs. There are species where some populations do and others don't.

And if a cowbird gets “lazy” and didn’t build a nest, how did it evolve into a cowbird ? In other words, it’s earlier behaviour was plenty successful to allow it to evolve into a nesting bird. Why the change? And how did it happen to the entire species across regions?

This is the not understanding how evolution works part... The advantageous change occurred once and spread, that is how evolution works. The population was one way, there was a change in an individual that conferred an advantage and that trait spread to the detriment of what was there originally. The original population was successful, but being a nest parasite was more successful and the population... evolved.

 

[woods89]

I'm amazed this one is still open.....

I'm a young earth creationist as well, but I am well aware that "proving" how this system came to be is not possible. I share some of the concerns people have about trying to argue people into agreeing.

I believe the Bible because I have personally seen the principles taught in the New Testament change people's lives in ways that are hard to explain without believing God is who he says he is. I've also seen those very positive influences in my own life. By virtue of this I give a lot of weight to the rest of the Bible as well.

I also struggle to reconcile the complexity of life with evolution as origin of life. I can't break down an elk or sit and glass a basin and not think that this had to be put together intelligently.

Both creation and evolution as origin of life force one to believe that at some point, something was made out of nothing. So even science has to admit that some supernatural event happened in the beginning.

Both ways require some faith, honestly. No human was around to watch whatever happened.

 

[robtattoo]

Yea . I don’t quite understand why that happens other than Man and it’s religion gets in the way of really knowing God… cause it ain’t religion. If you haven’t noticed, religion is certainly a Man thing. Not a Jesus thing.

Regarding the death and violence you mentioned, you’re premise is that beheadings, murder, etc is wrong. Wrong as in not good and something bad. Why do you think that? Did you come up with that? What moral standard are you using to conclude anything is “wrong” ? What if murderers think it’s right and good? Are they what you consider wrong?

Of course I also think those acts are wrong and I know why. Do you know why?

Your correct answer is "Because the Bible tells me so" & I'm occasionally bright enough to know when I'm being led

Which came first; the belief in a god, or the societal morality that led to belief in a god? Because there's been an awful lot of immorality perpetrated throughout history in the name of gods.

 

[douglasfir]

This site is turning into 24hourcampfire

 

[Sapcut]

Your correct answer is "Because the Bible tells me so" & I'm occasionally bright enough to know when I'm being led

Which came first; the belief in a god, or the societal morality that led to belief in a god? Because there's been an awful lot of immorality perpetrated throughout history in the name of gods.

Just something to think about.

 

[browning2480]

Might want to read a bit about how the nice christians treated people when they were settling in the southwest. Making people repent then burning them alive, stoning them. The southwest is just one of MANY examples of christian tolerance. Literally the same as islam.

There are extremists in every religion, race and political thing you can be a part of. Doesn’t mean they are the true representation of what it should be.

 

[thinhorn_AK]

There are extremists in every religion, race and political thing you can be a part of. Doesn’t mean they are the true representation of what it should be.

There was a time not all that long ago when extreme violence and opression was THE hallmark of Christianity. In fact, that accounts for about 98% of the time christianity has been around.

 

[Hoodie]

As far as brood parasites…how come the foster mothers never caught on? And how is it that, again, this behavior is distilled down so perfectly before the birds migrate and expand their range? It’s the idea of the complex behaviour occurring before the less complex.

And if a cowbird gets “lazy” and didn’t build a nest, how did it evolve into a cowbird ? In other words, it’s earlier behaviour was plenty successful to allow it to evolve into a nesting bird. Why the change? And how did it happen to the entire species across regions?

Someone else already touched on this, but again, none of these questions would cast doubt that the behavior of cowbirds was a result of natural selection.

1) "how come the foster mothers never caught on? "

As someone mentioned, some have. Some haven't. Asking why illustrates that you don't get what's driving the process, which is randomness and chaos. Nothing "has" to happen. And if catching on confers an advantage that allows those individuals to get more of their genes into the next generation, on a long enough timeline you would expect that all of them will recognize cowbird eggs. It's an arms race.

2) "how is it that, again, this behavior is distilled down so perfectly before the birds migrate and expand their range?"

Why is migration a less complex strategy than brood parasitism? Why would we expect birds to evolve a migration strategy first?

3) "it’s earlier behaviour was plenty successful to allow it to evolve into a nesting bird. Why the change? And how did it happen to the entire species across regions?"

This is not understanding the theory. It doesn't matter if its earlier behavior made it the most successful nesting bird of all time. If a new behavior allows an individual to get more copies of its genes into the next generation, eventually that new behavior will be ubiquitous (assuming there's no major downsides to counterbalance the effect, or bad luck leads to the extinction of that population). It has to. It happened across the species' range, because over enough generations any adaptation that confers a major advantage in passing on genetic material will become the status quo.

 

[browning2480]

There was a time not all that long ago when extreme violence and opression was THE hallmark of Christianity. In fact, that accounts for about 98% of the time christianity has been around.

Again doesn’t mean that is how it was ever supposed to be. Islam used to be a very peaceful religion and non-violent. I have spent time in many Muslim countries and the majority of them don’t engage in any violence and are some of the most least threatening people I have ever been around. Extreme side not so much