Evolution/Creation

Morbert

So... Are there many Board members who believe in a literal 6 day creation (with rest on the 7th)? Or has this topic been beaten to death before?

Capt'n Midnight

Dang - can't find that link that showed DNA evolved about 3.8bn years ago, 'cos it also rules out the dropped in from a meteroite too.

Nobel prize winner Manfred Eigen [Science, May 12, 1989] concluded that a primordial gene appeared 3.89 billion years ago (plus of minus 600 million)

Hands up if you believe in the Great Green Arkleseizure Theory

John

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

Dang - can't find that link that showed DNA evolved about 3.8bn years ago, 'cos it also rules out the dropped in from a meteroite too.

How did it rule out?

AngryBadger

6 day creation....does anyone actually believe this?seriously, I'm not being funny, are there people in the world, (or indeed on boards), who actually believe in a 6-day creation?

Although I have to acknowledge that on some crazy level, since we're all basically energy,it's not entirely inconceivable that a sufficiently advanced race might be able to manipulate physics to an extent allowing them to "create" a planet,and seed it with life....but the 6-day god thing....not really no

Capt'n Midnight

AngryBadger wrote:

6 day creation....does anyone actually believe this?seriously, I'm not being funny, are there people in the world, (or indeed on boards), who actually believe in a 6-day creation?

Although I have to acknowledge that on some crazy level, since we're all basically energy,it's not entirely inconceivable that a sufficiently advanced race might be able to manipulate physics to an extent allowing them to "create" a planet,and seed it with life....but the 6-day god thing....not really no

Theory A - The universe was created 5 minutes ago complete with fake fossils and people with artificial memories.

Theory B - You are the only one that exists and you bumped your head 5 minutes ago and are suffering delusions and amnesia such that your subconcious is presenting you with experiances your concious can't remember.

Unless you provide physical proof to the contary either of the above beats the 6 day theory hands down.

DNA (& RNA) mutates over time, most organisms have similar genes for things like Cytochrome C . If you do a regression analsysis on the differences you get a family tree similar to cladistics and a common ancestor 3.8Bn years ago.

Also like the Moby song says (paraphrasing) most of the heavy elements are only formed in the centre of stars and only released in supernova etc. So there is a lower limit for the development of life. It can be argued that the universe needs to be this big and this old before you can form a Sun and Planets capable of prividing the raw materials and conditions for life to evolve. So it is extrtemely unlikely for an inteligent life to evolve to the level of technology you state before 4 billion years ago.

In another ~billion years when our galaxy merges with Andormoda we might play those practical jokes ourselves but I wouldn't hang around to seee if any one fell for it.

PS. don't bother with time travel , you can explain everything with time travel. Arguments based on breaking the laws of thermodynaimcs have no place on a science forum. Loopholes and workarounds (like the way information gained in protein construction is less than that lost in the breakdown to provide the energy to assemble them) are acceptible but only when well backed up - none of this "in the future we will be able to go back in time suppostions" thank you.

Gurgle

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

PS. don't bother with time travel , you can explain everything with time travel. Arguments based on breaking the laws of thermodynaimcs have no place on a science forum.

How is time travel linked to thermodynamics ?
(Its impossible by definition, not because physics says so.)

GuanYin

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

PS. don't bother with time travel , you can explain everything with time travel. Arguments based on breaking the laws of thermodynaimcs have no place on a science forum. Loopholes and workarounds (like the way information gained in protein construction is less than that lost in the breakdown to provide the energy to assemble them) are acceptible but only when well backed up - none of this "in the future we will be able to go back in time suppostions" thank you.

Actually there is no conflict bewteen the 2nd law of thermodynamics and Newtons laws mainly because they are both applied to different scenarios. I thought thatold myth was cleared up at school level.

If you want further discussion on this, start another thread (or ask and I'll split em).

As for Evolution Vs. Creation, an astrophysicist has showed that theoretically, you could take the 6 days of creation literally if you accounted for the definition of "a day" by the orbit of the forming earth around the sun (which he put at a few hundred million years). The argument was used in a high profile case in the US back in the 50's (I think) where a teacher challenged the ban on teaching science that conflicted with the bible (thus his argument was "we could both be right"). I'm not sure if its since been debunked, but it was a very clever argument by the teacher.

Personally I think evolution is possibly the most incredible and wonderous thing. I'm amazed continuously by the biological adaptions made by organisms to account for their lifestyles throught their evolution. If you are interested in this sort of thing you could literally sit down for a month looking at all traits a cat has evolved to make it a cat, from its blood cells, to its biological membranes to its physiology, all down to its lifestyle and the diseases its encountered.

I'm sure its the same for any animal.

Calibos

I know of at least one here in Ireland though most creationists live in A-l-a-bama US of A I believe :D. Anyway...my brother showed me the UCD newsletter/paper last year IIRC. In it was a letter/article from a MED.!! Student espousing her creationist/literal biblical views. In the next few issues, the letters page was full of letters from Physics students explaining how the universe is 13 bilion years old rather than 6000, biology students explaing about the mitochondrial DNA from 10 million years ago rather than 6000, geology students explaing how they date rocks as old as 4 billion years, archaeology students...... etc etc

The response from her was the cliched, dinosaur fossils are to test our faith, your logical arguements are just tools of the devil etc etc

What I found so amazing about this was the fact that she was a MED Student!!! Just goes to show that all the points and great leaving cert results in the world are not a definitive proof of intelligence.

Capt'n Midnight

The point was that the rules of physics can't be broken cf. Montgomery Scott
And while time travel could explain things (Gurgle saying it is impossible by definition is not the same as talking about the "arrow of time" or the increase of entrophy)

You have to show that our current understanding of the universe is consistant or explain where the descrepiencies are (rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertanty etc.) Religion has the easy out of not having to explain anything. AngryBadger - Time travel / Aliens / vistors from alternative universes is a little like religion in this case as you are stepping outside the constraints with explaining that this can be done never mind how it could be done

demand a universe of a minimum age (galaxies / heavier elements to form) and a certain size (density too small and flies apart, too high and big crunch) for a planet capable of intelligent life to form. These match the observable universe. An explosion in a "reactor" two billion years ago shows that the laws goverening radioactive decay (weak/stron nuclear force) are the same as today and physical constants were within 1E10 or whatever for this to happen. Also

Also changing many of the physical constants , speed of light, ratio between mass and energy, ratio of electromagnetic force and gravity mess up the chances of a complex universe like ours forming.

All of the above fit in to the clockwork model - of a creator setting up the intial conditions to very high degree of precision.

John2 it shows a common ancestor , other genes are newer. eg: eyes have been developed independently up to twenty times in different phyla/species. Octopus eyes have the light sensitive cells on the front of the retina, vertrebrates on the back , insects have compound eyes , scallops have lovely blue eyes (and aren't bad swimmers) some trilobites had silica lenses etc. etc. So if life were seeded from outer space then it wern't very advanced - and lab tests have created self replication liposomes, rna can be used as an enzyme as well as holding genetic code and there was NO COMPETITION by better organisms for the first sucessiful organelles to replicate. so life could have happened in the organic soup in the 500 milion years of so missing from the fossil record.

skye - Newton, motion ?
Perhaps the days were logarithmic.

On the first day, God created light, and thus Day and night
BIG BANG (NB. day/night only implied)

On the second day, he created the firmament, which He called Heaven.
Energy density drops enough for 3 Dimensions + time

On the fourth day, He created the lights of heaven, including the sun, moon and the stars.
Bakground radiation was a wee bit brighter then, Galaxies first then after the first generation novas the sun then the planets.

The third day, He created land, called Earth, endowed with plants, flowers and trees.
Earth cools enough for liquid water to form and techtonics allow land masses
Plants - for 2.5 billion years cyanobacteria (blue green algae) were the dominant life form on the plant

On the fifth day, he created the birds of the air and the fishes of the sea.
Fishes in the sea - multicellular organisms , eucaryotes - 500-600mya

Finally, on the sixth day, God created the beasts of the earth, and then the Lord said: Beasts - vertrebrates esp. tetrapods

Pet

AngryBadger wrote:

6 day creation....does anyone actually believe this?seriously, I'm not being funny, are there people in the world, (or indeed on boards), who actually believe in a 6-day creation?

Although I have to acknowledge that on some crazy level, since we're all basically energy,it's not entirely inconceivable that a sufficiently advanced race might be able to manipulate physics to an extent allowing them to "create" a planet,and seed it with life....but the 6-day god thing....not really no

Oh yes. I believe the figure is something around...44% of Americans believe in Creationism. It was enough to warrant the banning of evolution "theory" from being taught in PUBLIC high schools in about 7 states I think.

And we wonder how Dubya is so stupid.

Calibos

Veering towards religion and politics and away from science, I know, but apparently there are several high up in Bushes administration that believe in creationism and the 'Rapture' including Ashcroft the attorney general and also the equivelent of the Ceann Comhairle in the US senate, amongst others. We all know what a belief in creationism is but the Rapture is a theory formulated by an Irish(Irish American?) priest in the 19th Century. (What other armageddon obsessed Irish priests do we know! ) He said he discovered secret prohecies in the bible in relation to armageddon, about certain conditions that need to be met before the second coming and how the chosen would ascend into heaven before the event to be beside God for a ring side seat for the main event. One of these events is Jews occupying the whole of historical Israel. This is why a lot of fundamentalist christians are paradoxically very supportive of 'the christ killers'. Not only is it very scary that these kind of people have a vote, its even more scary that some of these people have a vote in the governing administration!! :rolleyes:

Do a google search for Rapture Ready. These people can't wait for armageddon!!

As some of you will know, the great comic Bill Hicks(RIP) did routines slagging off creationists, fundy christians and the first Bush administration and the war in Iraq (First gulf war) 99% of the routines are equally applicable today. One of his quotes was something like....." I can't believe we have fundy christians in the oval office with access to the big red button! "Just tell me when oh lord...just tell me when!"

Funny and scary at the same time!! :D

Pet

This Bill Hicks sounds like my kinda guy. I reserve a special part of my gall bladder just for evangelists, fundamentalists and those blinded by religion.

popinfresh

hmm, wasn't the 6 day creation-theory written off as a translation error. Where the word "day" (in hebrew was it) could mean a period of time, as well 24hours. ie: "the first day" should have been translated as "the first stage"

goose2005

In some American states it is ILLEGAL to teach the theory of evolution, or to keep "Origin of Species" in school libraries. This is pure stupid: presuming there is a God, and hedecided to explain the creation of the Universe to a nomadic tribe in the year 4000 BC, would he really start talking about singularities, space-time, galaxies, gravity, dust clouds forming planets, single-celled organisms, years counted in thousands of millions, dinosaurs, evolution, hominids etc.? How on earth could the Jews have understood that, when at the time all they needed to know was how to sow and reap crops? Really, Genesis is just a metaphor, a fable, told to (in terms of scientific knowledge) children, so that they might grasp a tiny fraction of what the universe is.

popinfresh

In some American states it is ILLEGAL to teach the theory of evolution, or to keep "Origin of Species" in school libraries. This is pure stupid: presuming there is a God, and hedecided to explain the creation of the Universe to a nomadic tribe in the year 4000 BC, would he really start talking about singularities, space-time, galaxies, gravity, dust clouds forming planets, single-celled organisms, years counted in thousands of millions, dinosaurs, evolution, hominids etc.? How on earth could the Jews have understood that, when at the time all they needed to know was how to sow and reap crops? Really, Genesis is just a metaphor, a fable, told to (in terms of scientific knowledge) children, so that they might grasp a tiny fraction of what the universe is.

Yes, that's a nice way to put it. For example, there is no evidence that there was a world-wide flood. And there is no evidence that we came from 8 people (The story of Noah's flood) There is however evidence that for some reason the population of humans at one stage nearly got wiped out. ie We all come from a family of 100-300ish people. And also in the 6-day creation theory, it is taken in steps. All of which make sense.

Dr. Dec

popinfresh wrote:

Yes, that's a nice way to put it. For example, there is no evidence that there was a world-wide flood. And there is no evidence that we came from 8 people (The story of Noah's flood) There is however evidence that for some reason the population of humans at one stage nearly got wiped out. ie We all come from a family of 100-300ish people. And also in the 6-day creation theory, it is taken in steps. All of which make sense.

I thought the population bottleneck was more like 100,000 or so individuals?

klap trap

i believe in the 6 day creation and i'll thank you all not to label me as stupib because of it. lots of smart people believe in it akright?

John

klap trap wrote:

i believe in the 6 day creation and i'll thank you all not to label me as stupib because of it. lots of smart people believe in it akright?

I've yet to see a sensible post from this person, first he says that Radiohead are a poor man's muse and now this, methinks I smell TROLL.