Is Evolution True?

i wrote this cause i want to try to convince some people that evolution is false, cause it is. i think it is false cause if people evolved from monkeys and apes and stuff then how can we all have such unique abilities and characteristics? there are many answers you might come up with but the only right answer is that we got these characteristics and abilities from the ultimate Creator, God. i am saying this not cause i think i’m smart and all that (even though i am), but i am saying this cause i know and believe in the Lord and that He created us. if you THINK otherwise please tell me so i can try to get you to know that you are wrong! thank you for your time and goodbye!

do you know what the definition of evolution is? that is how over time we did devlop our unique abilities and characteristics. we are talking millions of years man.

Yeah, like Freighter said, man, evolution is like a fact, you know. If you don’t think evolution is backed up, then you might as well think that like there’s no such thing as gravity.

It also explains the problems as much as the solutions. God never explains the problems (like why the trachea and the esophagus are so close together allowing us to choke on food).

What abilities and characteristics are you talking about exactly? Do you know the abilities and characteristics of apes (in fact, apes and humans have alot in common, especcially the brain structure).
The evolution theory concerns most (or all) living things on this planet, not only humans. Think about dogs, for example - one of their main characteristics is their loyalty to their human masters. This characteristics couldn’t have always existed , especially since dogs are domesticated wolves, which have grown the characteristics of loyalty.
This is an example of evolution - A dogs kids don’t have to be taught to be loyal to their master, they will have the characteristics from birth.

Who ever said anything about humans evolving from apes!?! Evolution suggests we evolved from monkeys, not apes.

one of the defentitions of ape is monkey

What exactly are the proofs for evolution?

TheRichDude3 stated:

I thought I recognized that arrogance, and ignorance for that matter. If your only here to convince people of something, your in the wrong place. An evolution thread already exists your royal highness, you can go there and see the proof for evolution and argue against them there. Furthermore, even if evolution is wrong, that doesn’t logically lead to a God. If you are familiar with fallacies in debates, you will know that what you are doing is called the False Dilemma fallacy. You would probably commit another fallacy, the fallacy from Ignorance if I was to question you on how you know God exists, for most will respond “You can’t disprove God, therefore he exists”. But that is an unwarranted assumption on my part at this stage of the game.

RichDude3 stated:

You obviously haven’t studied evolution in any sort of serious depth, otherwise you would not have asked that question. Our only unique abilities are those derived from the brain. Our bodies are no more complex than the average ape. Certain evidence from Caveman times leads us to understand something about how our brain evolved over the years to come to more complex and in-depth thoughts and ideas we have today.

RichDude3 stated:

You’ve said much about how right you are, but you’ve said nearly nothing about why you are correct, other than pose questions as a Scare Crow Fallacy to us who haven’t made the arguments you are presenting against yourself. You are obviously not here to hear out our ideas, opinions, and thoughts - otherwise you would resist arguing with yourself.

RichDude3 stated:

No one here has said anything about you thinking you are smart and that we think it is the reason you’re here, hence, because you are defending yourself against such a claim - I would have to assume that it is exactly for that reason you are here. Furthermore, you say you are smart, I don’t deny that. But I will deny that you are smart (educated) in the topic of evolution. Moreover, I will go so far as to say that I don’t believe you to be educated in Religion either, for no scholar of religion would ever leave their argument so arrogant, shovenistic, and blatantly disrespectful.

RichDude3 stated:

You say you KNOW the Lord and that he created us. So let me show you have naive your notions really are. Join me in a series of questions that will allow you to exemplify your knowledge and make a mockery out of me. How do you know the Lord? How do you know he created us?

If you can answer those questions adequately, thoroughly, and coherently - then you will have my surrender. Are you up for the challenge?

What’s your take?

— Another phantom poster i presume, but Ladies and Gentlemen we still have a topic to discuss. Where is that other evolution thread?
— Magius! Would the fallacy from ignorance be an example of excluding the middle? It really does seem like a particular example of excluding the middle. It is like the person will only accept a yes or no to the question.

Marshall McDaniel,
the Argument from Ignorance is not about excluding the middle. The fallacy you are likely thinking of is the False Dilemma fallacy which is committed when you reduce several possibilities to two alternatives. Meanwhile, the Argument from Ignorance fallacy is when we are arguing about one point. For example, I may believe that unicorns live on the surface of the sun. You will try to argue against me but fail to provide any evidence for your argument. I then come out and claim “Because you cannot disprove that unicorns live on the surface of the Sun I am justified in believing they do”. A more relevant example, and one that is used often, is the argument for the existence of God. Religious people will argue that because you cannot disprove God, they are justified in believing he exists. Which is the paradigm Argument from Ignorance Fallacy.

Hope that helped.

— Thanks Magius. So it is basically a fallacy wherein someone feels that they are justified in their ignorance due to the fact that none can disprove their thesis. There are so many informal fallacies and i have seen nothing that even comes close to a complete grouping of them, do you university dudes ever run across any books like that?

What are the proofs for evolution? Go to a chemist, or microbiologist might be even more handy. There have been tapes of microscopic organisms, over time, clearly becoming more advanced in terms of ability to cope with environment and the weak being “naturally selected.”

Or, go to any of the millions of horse (or other livestock) farms in the world, where mankind has been doing nothing more than expediting the process of evolution. Bigger horses, fatter cows - how do you think it’s accomplished? Magic?

Oreagan,
just read up on Darwin. You can view a thread with relevant information on the topic, go to the Science Forum and look for the EVOLUTION thread and read through the posts.

FACT: Over time, an insect population will build up a resistance to a pesticide used on it. This is because those few members of the population who are genetically able to survive the pesticide will live and pass those genes to their offspring, while those who are susceptible will die and not reproduce. This is called natural selection.

FACT: Evolution is not a mechanism, it is a series of changes. One of the mechanisms through which these changes occur is called “natural selection”, described above.

FACT: Evolution of life forms happens, through a variety of mechanisms.

It’s kinda funny. I was reading this pamphlet based around the debate against evolution that I got from my mall. Basically some lady was singling out kids and preaching to them about why they should believe in god. The pamphlet portrays people who believe in evolution as mindless raiving sheep. The professor of the class is the best. He comes off the same way the first poster “TheRichDude3” does because… obviously everyone who believes in evolution is irrational. But anyway the thing actually produces some good points. I don’t know how much their “proof” will hold up though which is why I’m bringing it up.

First they bring up the chart showing the evolution of prehistoric man to modern man. Each stage kinda offers a little bit of contradictory evidence against evolution. The first few stages state that the models were built up from pieces that turned out to be either other animals or mistaken for some other reason. The later ones like neanderthals and later are just mistaken for modern humans. I don’t really care all that much for their judgement on that but if you want to argue it go ahead.

Later they go on to attack carbon dating. To quote it “Dr. Melvin Cook said that if oil in the earth was as old as geologists claim (80,000,000) it’s pressure would have dissipated long before this - the present pressure of oil indicates not over 10,000 yeras.* *Chapters 12-13 of Prehistory and Earth Models by Melvin A. Coook, Max Parrish and Company, 1966.” Also it says that “scientists working in a lab produced a barrel of oil from one ton of garbage in only 20 minutes.” I don’t know if that’s true but the point is brought up to prove that the earth isn’t as old as it’s said to be. But it just goes against logic. If we could make oil that fast… what the hell are we doing buying it from other countries. I’d like to see how they prove that though. Not only for my own interest but because they basically attack science all together with their next one.

“Protons have positive charges. One law of electricity is: LIKE CHARGES REPEL EACH OTHER! Since all the protons ni the nucleus are positively charged, they should repel each other and scatter into space.” That one makes perfect sense but if that’s true what scientific proof of anything can we trust? Also they complete forget that they’re using other scientific laws to prove it.

Then they bring up the infamous moth arguement which I’ve grown to hate mostly because there are so many arguements against it that I just don’t care anymore. They claim the moth is the same species. The reason the black one became more popular is because birds were eating more of the white ones. I mean yea that would make sense but that is the idea of evolution is it not? The more physically apt to survive will.

Another part of the pamphlet brings up the subject of scientists creating life. The kid who is argueing for the christians (did I mention he fits the perfect description of an aryan?) says that the thing that scientists created doesn’t fit the definition of “life”. That make sense too but the definition of life is always under criticism.

Annnnyway. The pamphlet ends with the profesor trying to resign from his position as scientist but there’s one last twist to add even more exciting drama to an already annoying debate. His boss whoever he is degrades him further by insulting him and throwing him out of the college for questioning science.

It’s pretty ridiculous but if you’re interested in being frustrated with peoples arrogance then I suggest you check out their website at chick.com

By the way I’m posting in here because It’s not really like I’m contributing to the debate so I figured I’d keep it seperated.

THe attitude most Christians have adopted is that God works through science. Thus evolution would be the process through which God guided man from ape to what he is today. So God DID design us, man. In fact a lot of scientists are backing the intelligent design theory now (there was an article in either Atlantic Monthly, or Crisis magazines… I’m too tired to remember).

Yep, you’re right he created us. Just the same as he created evolution :slight_smile:

Heres a interesting link to the forever going evolution posts
vega.org.uk/series/tnbt/ende … index.html

This probably the best science site ive found:http://www.vega.org.uk/series/az.html

You need a real player but they get you one for free :smiley: anyways.

—This is addressed to cba1067950 about the pamphlet. Although it is true that piltdown man was a fake (coming from orangutang and human bones), almost all human fossils have never been debunked and thus still remain valid windows to the past.
— After they invalidate carbon 14 testing (which i doubt that they have done) those who argue against evolution will have to invalidate a host of other age testing methods as well as recent discoveries in a plethora of other fields, e.g. geneticists have recently dated ‘mitochondrial eve’ at around 150,000-200,000 years ago. The mitochondria was probably originally a bacteria that decided to attach itself to us, it gets passed down to women at birth, similiar to the way the y chromosome gets passed down to males. (source: Mapping Human History copyright 2002 Houghton Mifflin Books a discover best science book of the year and a national book award finalist.)
— And as others have pointed out here. evolution is not necessarily incompatible with the notion of God or religion.

I feel like any post that starts out, “a is false, cause it is” shouldn’t be in the Science section.

That last one was me. And I’d just like to add, God is dead cause he is.