The Mystery Thread

[Dan From Smithville]

Now that you have understood the theory of evolution, here is the evidence for it. Follow my posts in this thread.
Evidence of Evolution that was presented but never addressed

Thank you for the link. I have been reading through it. Slowly. What an excellent idea. Clearly, the evidence is provided on this forum.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I'm not saying anything about availability though, I'm talking about people who say they know it and most likely don't even begin to understand it. I certainly never felt the need to familiarize myself with it. It's a question of whether to believe in the creator of the universe or some imperfect people who have a long history of changing their minds about what is true.

I'm still curious to know how you make determinations on evolution without benefit of knowing much or anything about the science and theory. That seems completely offtrack in my mind. As an example, I don't support the doctrine of communism, but I did bother to find out a little about it before coming to my conclusion. Personally, it would work successfully, but only for organisms like ants.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I'm not sure that the progression from the chemical to "life" can be called evolution, hence the name "abiogenesis."

A very good point. I think, up to that point where life arose, it is chemical evolution, but I agree with you that space between that chemical evolution and the origin of life is abiogenesis.

 

[Jollybear]

It is a very obvious fact that we are intelligent and we design and create things. As you say, that does not follow that a being we cannot perceive in any way, itself exists and is the designer of all the natural world.

This does not mean that such a being does not exist. It only means that seashells, mountains, pretty sunsets, the stars, kangaroos, butterflies, flowers and song birds are not evidence of that being. I think that difference causes a great deal of confusion for creationists. They equate the refutation of that logical fallacy as a denial of God, when it is only refuting the claim that the evidence of the natural world indicates a designer.

Heres what i dont understand. You DO believe God exists. Ok, dont you think that if God exists and created the universe, that he would leave his fingerprints of evidence sorta speak? Wouldnt that make sense?

 

[Jollybear]

There is only a single case of an ID article reaching a peer reviewed journal in the scientific mainstream. All the rest are just ID reviewers rubber stamping articles by other ID advocates.

Ok, isnt that good?

 

[Earthling]

I'm still curious to know how you make determinations on evolution without benefit of knowing much or anything about the science and theory. That seems completely offtrack in my mind. As an example, I don't support the doctrine of communism, but I did bother to find out a little about it before coming to my conclusion. Personally, it would work successfully, but only for organisms like ants.

I was taught it in school before becoming a believer, I read a couple books by the Watchtower on the subject and I listened to Kent Hovind and David Berlinsky. Yes I know that Kent Hovind is nuts, in prison, and I disagree with his theology, but he knows evolution.

 

[Jollybear]

It is true, that without a heart or lungs or some other organs, we would die quickly or at least quicker than a person with all of their original equipment intact. But this is no indication of design or that we couldn't be derived by slow or even periods of punctuated evolution. With a few exceptions, all mammals have very much the same sets of organs, but each species did not have to develop them independently. Some remote common ancestor evolved them and then mammals radiated off of that ancestor. It didn't even have to be a mammal to catch most of those organs. There are things that are alive and don't have the same organs that we do, all of them or any of them.

What evolved first, the heart or the lungs? The chicken or egg? The DNA or the cell? The parrent or child? The legs or arms? The brain or liver? The eyes or ears? You seeing this yet?

But even that evidence isn't definitive. Maybe I'm insane and experience hallucinations that seem very real to me. Or maybe I did and now I don't, but I still can't tell the difference. It doesn't even have to have resulted from insanity. I could have been in a heightened state of some type and be easily convinced. How do we know. My experiences are personal, but I feel they were real. I just cannot share that with another to convince them with evidence. It would be oratory and argument only.

My mom saw a glowing spirit being appear to her once. My niece who was 7 or 8 saw the same thing at the same time. Doesent that rule out halucination? Ill answer any anticipated questions. They did no drugs.

We don't really know what an NDE is, so declaring them an experience with the world beyond is biased and premature. I have found no convincing scientific evidence that compells me to consider ESP is an actual ability. I myself, have experienced times when I was thinking about a person that I haven't talked to in a great deal of time and then that person calls or I run into them. It could be ESP, but it could be coincidence. Since there is a existing concenction--even one separated in time and distance--there is a greater chance that person might circle back into my life. Maybe I think about the people I know a lot and am bound to have a few of the more separated individuals pop in during those times. If I could really read minds, I would do something with that and one of those things would be to enrich myself personally. Maybe people do that and hide the fact, but then they would leave no evidence of the origin of their wealth coming from ESP. So, that is a dead end.

Do I think it would be cool if ESP existed or even that NDEs really were experiences with an afterlife. Yes. Do I think there is evidence for them, beyond the anecdotal or biased interpretation. No.

You believe in God though, do you believe in a afterlife? If yes, why would something that real not have any evidence for it? I seriously think people have deluded themselves on what evidence is or isnt.

Theres some pretty compelling NDE experiences that i have read. Anectotal or not, i still consider it evidence. I dont believe millions of people are lying. And some of these are not halucinatory because of certain things they see and verify (ESP).

I could see advantages in the existence of it, but even if it did exist, that doesn't mean that it is of a spiritual origin.

Oh? What would the origin be if not spiritual?

There would be survival advantages that such traits would impart. Considering the advantages, I would expect such a trait to be highly expressed in the greater population. Along with abilities to prevent it or block it.

Like I said, I have had events occur on numerous occasions that have the feel of some kind of ESP event, but could be merely coincidence and the result of low probability events occurring do to large numbers of trials that happen naturally.

I'm not against the idea of ESP, it is just that I have seen nothing that provides strong evidence that those abilities--traits--exist.

Some things are too specific to be coincidence in some ESP experiences. I had a dream of a friend once. I seen him standing there and heard the numbers E708. I told him the dream the next day and he told me he went to go get his passport and they gave him a waiting # which was E708. I dont think thats coincidence.

It is personal, but no visitation by spirits or anything like that. No disembodied voices advising me. Just feelings and senses that guided me. I couldn't even tell you it wasn't my own subconscious acting on my own active mind in a way that seemed like it was of external origin.

In fact, were I to hear a voice that had all of my own imaginings of what I perceive the "voice of God" to be like or to see what is the classical image of a very European Jesus that filled my childhood Sunday school classes, I would question my own sanity on the occurrence. It would be a shaking experience, no matter what prompted it.

Arent you just the doubting thomas, arent you?

 

[Subduction Zone]

I was taught it in school before becoming a believer, I read a couple books by the Watchtower on the subject and I listened to Kent Hovind and David Berlinsky. Yes I know that Kent Hovind is nuts, in prison, and I disagree with his theology, but he knows evolution.

No, Kent Hovind gets almost every single fact wrong about evolution. You really could not have chosen a more idiotic person to follow. I have never seen someone that knows less and speaks more about a subject than he does.

You should take some time and watch the discussion between him and Aron Ra on evolution. Aron demanded a discussion because Hovind is either an idiot or a lying piece of .... wait lets try to be nice.

It is two hours long, and since Hovind is constantly wrong he is constantly interrupted.

 

[Jollybear]

We cannot know who wrote the message. It could be God. It could be aliens. It could be Bigfoot on a beach holiday. It could be random chance events that resulted in shapes in the sand that look very much like a message. Without viewing it being written we can't completely eliminate those and many other possibilities. But we know that people write. We know they visit the beach. There are probably people on the beach the day we see the message. The number will depend on the location and time of year. We know that people write messages in the dirt, sand, on rocks, on buildings and so forth. Having no experience or evidence for any of the other possible sources of the message, the most probable conclusion is that a person wrote the message.

Your conclusion is not dishonest. Taking it further and stating that human design indicates a designer is not necessarily dishonest either and I don't perceive you are using it dishonestly, but the fact is that the one--divine design--does not logically follow the other--human design.

I get it, i understand that the atheist paradigm explains the "apparent design" as come from chance via billions of years from either nothing or unintelligent eternal energy. I get it. Therefore thered be no real design.

But, if you think theres evidence for that, but no evidence that God created it and designed, it boggles my mind how you define evidence.

Believers get told we fill God in the gaps. But, dont atheists do that? Fill in the gap with "chance".

 

[gnostic]

Heres what i dont understand. You DO believe God exists. Ok, dont you think that if God exists and created the universe, that he would leave his fingerprints of evidence sorta speak? Wouldnt that make sense?

Except there are no such evidences of God, here on Earth or any part of the universe.

All you are doing is making assumptions and claims that god created something, but they are baseless because you are without the evidences.

 

[Jollybear]

Science does not deal with proof. Its always evidence and inferences and predictions based on that evidence.
See below,
Scientific Proof Is A Myth
In order to come up with a model capable of predicting what will happen under a variety of conditions, we need to understand a few things.

1. What we're capable of measuring, and to what precision.
2. What's been measured thus far, under specific initial conditions.
3. What laws hold for these phenomena, i.e., what observed relationships exist between specific quantities.
4. And what the limits are for the things we presently know.

If you understand these things, you have the right ingredients to formulate a scientific theory: a framework for explaining what we already know happens as well as predicting what will happen under new, untested circumstances.
Our best theories, like the aforementioned theory of evolution, the Big Bang theory, and Einstein's General Relativity, cover all of these bases. They have an underlying quantitative framework, enabling us to predict what will happen under a variety of situations, and to then go out and test those predictions empirically. So far, these theories have demonstrated themselves to be eminently valid. Where their predictions can be described by mathematical expressions, we can tell not only what should happen, but by how much. For these theories in particular, among many others, measurements and observations that have been performed to test these theories have been supremely successful.

But as validating as that is — and as powerful as it is to falsify alternatives — it's completely impossible to prove anything in science.

In your link, you need to tell me what specifically seems convincing to you as a counterargument. To me it looks like a lot of hand waving.

Well, based on this, i could just as validly say the same thing. Intelligent design is not proven, but theres evidence, inference and prediction for it.

 

[Jollybear]

Except there are no such evidences of God, here on Earth or any part of the universe.

No direct proof, but there is evidence, inference and prediction.

All you are doing is making assumptions and claims that god created something, but they are baseless because you are without the evidences.

I disagree. There is evidence. You have to believe the alternative that time and chance created the universe. Thats not proven.

 

[Willamena]

A very good point. I think, up to that point where life arose, it is chemical evolution, but I agree with you that space between that chemical evolution and the origin of life is abiogenesis.

No, I just meant that the theory of evolution and its connotation refers to life-forms.

 

[Jose Fly]

I was taught it in school before becoming a believer, I read a couple books by the Watchtower on the subject and I listened to Kent Hovind and David Berlinsky. Yes I know that Kent Hovind is nuts, in prison, and I disagree with his theology, but he knows evolution.

Oh my goodness......Hovind "knows evolution"?

 

[Jose Fly]

Well, based on this, i could just as validly say the same thing. Intelligent design is not proven, but theres evidence, inference and prediction for it.

Great! Point to something in the biological world that you've determined to have been "designed", and describe the methodology you used to reach that conclusion.

 

[gnostic]

Well, based on this, i could just as validly say the same thing. Intelligent design is not proven, but theres evidence, inference and prediction for it.

No.

Intelligent Design failed in all departments.

It failed in proofs, as no ID advocates provided any mathematical equations or formulas that proves ID happen, or that the Intelligent Designer exists.

It failed in the “falsifiability” department and the “scientific method” department, because ID advocates have never formulated a testable hypothesis, which in turn, never provided testable predictions, which in turn failed to test the hypothesis, hence there are no evidences and repeatable experimentations.

ID was never hypothesis, because the explanation/predictions were never falsifiable and never testable.

While evolution is a scientific theory because it passed the falsifiability, scientific method and peer review requirements, abiogenesis isn’t a scientific theory, yet, but it did passed the falsifiability and scientific method, it is still a hypothesis, because it is still undergoing more testings, so it is a work-in-progress type of hypothesis.

Despite being hypothesis and not scientific theory, abiogenesis showed far more potential than Intelligent Design, because ID has already been debunked even before it even has a chance of winning the hypothesis status. ID is ruled as being a pseudoscience and a religious concept, so it isn’t even in the competition with abiogenesis, let alone be in the competition with evolution.

 

[Subduction Zone]

No.

Intelligent Design failed in all departments.

It failed in proofs, as no ID advocates provided any mathematical equations or formulas that proves ID happen, or that the Intelligent Designer exists.

It failed in the “falsifiability” department and the “scientific method” department, because ID advocates have never formulated a testable hypothesis, which in turn, never provided testable predictions, which in turn failed to test the hypothesis, hence there are no evidences and repeatable experimentations.

ID was never hypothesis, because the explanation/predictions were never falsifiable and never testable.

While evolution is a scientific theory because it passed the falsifiability, scientific method and peer review requirements, abiogenesis isn’t a scientific theory, yet, but it did passed the falsifiability and scientific method, it is still a hypothesis, because it is still undergoing more testings, so it is a work-in-progress type of hypothesis.

Despite being hypothesis and not scientific theory, abiogenesis showed far more potential than Intelligent Design, because ID has already been debunked even before it even has a chance of winning the hypothesis status. ID is ruled as being a pseudoscience and a religious concept, so it isn’t even in the competition with abiogenesis, let alone be in the competition with evolution.

And since ID has never been presented as a falsifiable concept by definition there cannot be any scientific evidence for it at all.

 

[Earthling]

Oh my goodness......Hovind "knows evolution"?

I always find it interesting that atheists absolutely can not accept the fact that anyone who doesn't accept evolution can't know it. Unless they agree with evolution they can't possibly know it. It reminds me of some spoiled child on the playground who can't defend his bad behavior logically so he puts his hands over his ears and yells "Nah Nah Nah Nah" or just laughs, bullies and mocks.

I don't do that. There are people who know the Bible better than I do who are now atheist, who are mainstream Christians that believe different than me.

It's kind of like their refusal to believe anyone who says they were once atheist and became a believer.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I always find it interesting that atheists absolutely can not accept the fact that anyone who doesn't accept evolution can't know it. Unless they agree with evolution they can't possibly know it. It reminds me of some spoiled child on the playground who can't defend his bad behavior logically so he puts his hands over his ears and yells "Nah Nah Nah Nah" or just laughs, bullies and mocks.

I don't do that. There are people who know the Bible better than I do who are now atheist, who are mainstream Christians that believe different than me.

It's kind of like their refusal to believe anyone who says they were once atheist and became a believer.

Kent Hovind continually demonstrates that he is a complete idiot when it comes to any of the sciences. He does not even have a high school level of science literacy and yet he claims to have taught it for years.

Bring up any of his claims, please link the source, if a video give us a time range, I or others will explain his errors to you.

 

[Earthling]

Kent Hovind continually demonstrates that he is a complete idiot when it comes to any of the sciences. He does not even have a high school level of science literacy and yet he claims to have taught it for years.

Bring up any of his claims, please link the source, if a video give us a time range, I or others will explain his errors to you.

Maybe someday. Right now my plate is too full to get into it in the detail it deserves.