Creationism vs. Evolution

[Seperates]

The nuclear atomic device is a hypothesis. Your computer is also based on hypothesis. The internet is also a hypothesis.

Wrong on all counts. Those are known functioning practical devices, as we perceive them. They were a hypothesis, now they work.

Most, if not all the products of the modern world are based on hypothesis, based on similar methodology and reasoning. We can duplicate and observe nuclear decay in other radioactive particles (which is what causes radiation sickness when exposed to), so there is no reason to assume that these differ in anyway.

Sure there is, prove to me why scientific inquiry into the validity of these claims is not to be continued if there are still variables to be questions? The box is not closed. We must think out of it for science to actually progress.

These are the reproduced results, this is the theory. Technically speaking, nothing is ever 'proven' in science. You can only 'show beyond any reasonable doubt'.

Who defines reasonable? The man with a closed mind?

And the relative age of the Earth has so far been proven beyond any reasonable doubt.

According to you, in light of information to which you specifically have access. I might have the same information and simply see a different possibility which leaves me with doubt. Disagreement has often resulted in scientific process many times. And in many cases people with conflicting ideas have had them tested and the one that believed they were correct were disproven. Human intellect, regardless as to whose it is, is not iron clad.

Could this be overturned? Absolutely. But it will likely overturned by scientists who aren't even working on that specific question, if/when that does happen.

You are correct. My greatest hope for any real measurement of temporal compression might be in the study of Tachyions, assuming they are proven to actually exist as defined.

Don't just sit there are say that "Well, time was non-linear." Go! Show us beyond a reasonable doubt that time was non-linear and that because of that our perception of the age of the Earth is faulty. Achieve something for the scientific community. Don't just assume it and then subsequently assume that our previous perception is wrong. And if they are honest, they will be glad, because in showing them that they were wrong they will have increased in their knowledge, from which they can go to discover even more things.

If only I had chosen that specific path in life and had the resources to perform such a task. I'd probably enjoy it thoroughly, but alas, I am not at Cern. However, others are taking up the task. Such as the ones using laser telemetry to try to account for gravometric wave distortions thrown off by black holes. So there is hope, other than me. I'm not the only inquiring mind out there, and the same science can be achieved from many different angles of approach and tangents inquiry. I would accept your challenge, but have no means to do so.

As does nuclear decay 'work' in devices such as atomic clocks and such. Again, your apparent boundary between the proven and the hypothesized is vague. And you contradict yourself. You assume the big bang, which supposedly caused this non-linear time, but the big bang has not been directly observed, all we can observe are the effects of it and assume it occurred. Similarly, one could argue that we really don't know that some stars ever existed, because all we are observing are the affects of the light of long dead stars. We only know the relative age of the Earth because of time's affects on radioactive particles.

It is not the closed mind who decides what is reasonable in science, it is the peer review, the skeptical empiricist's. Theories have been overturned, but not on the whimsical notions of philosophers or mathematicians (though they can be guided by it), but by empirical research and careful study. And thus far, no empirical research or careful study has indicated your hypothesis to be correct. And so, if you are truly of the scientific mindset, there is no reason for you to make any assumptions on the implications of your hypothesis, because your hypothesis has yet to even be proven, and being of the theoretical nature that it is, it will likely become much different than originally intended, especially if what you are suggesting in proxy destroys something that is known at this current in time point to be beyond a reasonable doubt. Because if non-linear time is proven to be true, then the age of the Earth will no longer be beyond a reasonable doubt. So that is the first thing to show... non-linear time.

I find it ironic that you are assuming that I am not inquiring. I am planning on being a researcher. Not physics, but archaeology and anthropology. So yes, there is much we don't know, even when it comes to ourselves, otherwise there wouldn't be an opening. But if non-linear time is proven... well... *laughs* it seems that there will be a lot more work for us to do, because we were wrong in our operating assumptions. But until that time, there is no reason to operate any other way, because this is how significant research occurs. And when the time comes, we will go back and examine what we did wrong and find a way to do it with these new variables in place. Because that is how a scientist operates.

[Breadknife]

For whoever's arm that was it was correct.

That's a spurious argument.

Different people may have measured any single given length differently, yes, but why would anyone believe that two different people measuring the two different distances of an apparently notable structure, so differently, is an acceptibly accurate way of doing things?

(Personally I don't give a darn about the end result of your biblical interpretation on this matter, but am somewhat irked by the lack of continuous thought in this regard.)


(edit: Umm, sorry. Replying to something on page 88, onto page 116. Perhaps an out-of-date argument. Forgot this was a fast-mocing hot topic.)

[Pot Noodle]

Definitely Evolution.

[Chinese Regions]

And it's irrelevant, because pi is a static number; it doesn't matter whose arm you're measuring.

I was hoping you wouldn't notice that little thing, speaking of relevance what does this have to do with the creation evolution debate?

Super Magic Sky Wizard Saviour has the ability to be LAZY? Are you serious?

[Chinese Regions]

I believe a meteor could have caused the flood.. whether or not time is relative. However, someone went into c-14 records for the age of the earth and that got mingled into the argument.. and so I went into the relativity of time. That sort things better?

Flood, so implication that the whole freaking world flooded and a 900 year old man was preparing his family for incest on a boat filled with creatures that'd probably eat eachother assuming they'd survive out of their natural habitat.
The bibical flood story is copied from the epic of Gilgamesh, so it isn't even the account of the world of the Israelites flooding but of an entirely different peoples.

[Chinese Regions]

Which is barely 5000 years old and it impacted right in the middle of the Indian Ocean. This hardly would have impacted the ecosystems in such a way as to devastate ALL life on Earth.

No, but imagine what impact it had on the middle east where the events of Noah's flood occurred in Biblical record directly north of hte impact zone. Keep in mind that we don't know the exact time frame of the Noah story due to the fact that it was first verbally conveyed for potentially centuries and through multiple cultures. You are actually picking one event from the Bible that is recorded in other faiths and may actually be verifiable in due time and study. That said. I think if you're trying to disprove a book based on an event, it's best to make sure there's not multiplicative records of the specific event across multiple cultures and a potential scientific angle that may give it merit. The world, to Biblical authors, was a very small place. It was what they could see to their horizons in Noah's time.

Ok, so only the world known to the authors?
It most likely went:
A part of mesopotamia flooded
People wrote it down and exaggerated, about every natural disaster at the time was thought of as the work of deities.
Over time the story spread to other peoples, other religions, other cultures until...
...it finally reached the Israelites.

[Chinese Regions]

Tell me? God the omniscient super magic sky man can't have an infinitely precise measuring instrument, please.

It doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things what their measurement was. God could have, but he saw no reason for it. The bible could go on without perfect measurement. The bible is about salvation, not measurements.

So god was lazy. He's omniscient he knows we would be debating this very moment, questioning his word.
Omnipotent: Can do everything and anything
Omniscient: Knows everything
So with those to qualities how can any be "can't be arsed" to write down the exact value of pi which would take forever for a man but for a god that can do the impossible, piece of pi

[Breadknife]

Where is the proof that any god intervened?

He just created DNA along with everything else, except sin and our advancements.

I'm 25 pages (and six hours?) behind the most recent messages, and it's not exactly germaine to the thread's focus, but I suppose I just have to ask...

Where did the sin arise from? The tree? The fruit? The serpent? Or Adam/Eve? Which of these were not created hy Him?

(Actually, I know a lot of misogynists always considered Eve to be to blame, even above the serpent. But I'm hoping you're above that.)

[Conscentia]

I believe a meteor could have caused the flood.. whether or not time is relative. However, someone went into c-14 records for the age of the earth and that got mingled into the argument.. and so I went into the relativity of time. That sort things better?

There isn't enough water on Earth to flood the entire Earth as described in the Old Testament.
Some parts of the Atacama desert have not received rain for 40 Million years.

Myths are not intended to be taken as history lesson.

[Breadknife]

Yes we do, I know a very smart person who could poke holes in evolution all day.

I know of some very smart people who have bought themselves electrical sockets, screwed them onto the wall and then wondered why the things they plug into them don't work. Forgetting that they also need to be wired up to the household ring-main somehow...

People with smarts (in this case University professors) can be quite dumb about things that they're not experts in. I blame it on their heads being so filled with their own specialities (e.g. South American tribal anthropology, ancient Egypt, global economics) that they overlook what should be mundane knowledge for even the most inept "DIY Dad".

I'm not saying that scientists cannot be blind to the details of theology, nor that all theists are ignorant of scientific principles, but (just like the professor who buys fuse after fuse trying to get his desk-lamp working) your guy might well be on completely the wrong track due to various incorrect assumptions and oversights.

[Conscentia]

Yes we do, I know a very smart person who could poke holes in evolution all day.

I know of some very smart people who have bought themselves electrical sockets, screwed them onto the wall and then wondered why the things they plug into them don't work. Forgetting that they also need to be wired up to the household ring-main somehow...
[...]

[Breadknife]

Furthermore, evolution does not have some sort of fucking goal in mind. Suppose you applied selective pressures to evolve a bird from a fish, because you had some sort of a time accelerator or something that could be used on an area to test evolution over the long term.
You would first have to get some of those fish to have a reason to go onto land.
Then, a reason to go into trees or cliffs.
Then, a reason to glide.
Then, a reason to glide further.
Then, a reason to power their gliding to make it sustainable flight.

Actually, I could see the Flying Fish (already exists, still rather relying on being ballistic, and then gliding, once out of the water) being closest to doing the "reverse penguin", evolution-wise.

Though right now I can't think of too many reasons why their current predator-evading behaviour would need to develop into such longer soaring and controlled flight (there's not that many insect swarms or other airbourne protein-banks, that far out at sea, that would be a handier food-source than what they currently take from the ocean), and they'd have to transition either to full air-breathing biologies or a "dampened gill" mid-point that works good enough (a tall order, I suspect) for the duration of their flight.

But it'd be a long-shot, regardless. All evolutionary progress is a long-shot, us seeing only the ones that (temporarily, at least) won that particular lottery, but the true airborne fish would have had to have won several different lotteries along the way.

[Breadknife]

Charles Darwin was the first to formulate a scientific argument for the theory of evolution by means of natural selection.

(Don't forget Alfred Russel Wallace's near-parallel development, which actually spurred him on to publication, and didn't grandpapa Erasmus have some thoughts in this direction as well? I'm sure morehistoric figures pondered over these things as well. However, Darwin is definitely the one that refined the idea and then eventually brought it sufficiently into the public (and scientific) light. Despite various reticences about it causing the fuss.)

[Chinese Regions]

What"Gaps in the fossil records"?

Are you that blind? There are many. where's this? http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iFfvrbV_yTs/U ... 0/fishbird.

Why would it exist, when has a scientist ever said that should exist?
Bird's evolved from Dinosaurs, heck they ARE dinosaurs. They are directly descend from fish. What you say is like comparing your father to your great great great grandfather.

[Breadknife]

Possibly.. if you compressed time enough relative to our own perception of it, it could happen easily.

I'm now four pages behind the front curve, so apologies if I'm being anachronistic (<= hah, interesting that I use that term, considering), but...

If you're seriously arguing that time changed speed, so that everything happens 'quicker' so that millions of years' worth of everything happening happened 'in less time', then surely that affects everything that takes time, such as day lengths and year lengths and every other gosh-darned possible measure of time passed. So if the measurements say "a million years" happened since an event, then a million years of things happened during that time... That's a millon christmases (if they'd been around at the time) and a million midsummer days, and a tad under 250,000 February 29ths (again, if the current calendar had been observed). About 23 trillion seconds (by the "short measure" of large numbers) have passed. It's still an effective million years ago.

And we're at risk of going back to the "Well, the bible said it was <n> days to get to the mammals/plants/birds/whatever, but it was actually <m> millenia", where we're arbitrarily saying "Time is whatever it needs to be in order to make Creation 6000 years ago".


Stay away from that, there's not a place to stand where you can properly apply a lever to move Earth backwards and forwards in time like that and make any logical sense.


If you understood more about the possibility of altered rates (per constant time!) of radioactive decay you might have a look at what might cause this, e.g. changes to the fundamental forces holding the nucleonic instablities in check and/or goading them to spark off. Although I do believe you'd find this a wasted half hour, or two, because you'd find that different, but overlapping, measures would not so easily agree with each other if you assumed a hand-wave had changed everythingin such a consistent way.


This doesn't exclude the possibility that the hand-wave had deliberately falsified everything about history. Ever heard of Last Tuesdayism (or those heretical offshoots such as Last Thursdayism and Last Mondayism)? The world was created just Last Tuesday (or whenever), you know. You think you have evidence from of it having been in existence prior to Last Tuesday, but that's just the way the world was created. Diary entries? Faked. Time-stamps on computer files? Faked. That unpaid electricity-bill? Faked (but still needs paying!). Your memories? Faked as well, I'm afraid.

Just like you might imagine that fossils are there to test your faith in the Bible, maybe the Bible is there to test your faith in Last Tuesdayism! Or was it Wednesday. Or Sunday? Choose wisely, there's an afterlife of despair for those that don't work it out correctly.


Actually, that's all bullshit. You see I have the answer. Last Tuesdayism is a hoax. If there were a Last Tuesday, to be '-ism'ed, then the supreme being would of course have had to have created the universe with all kinds of historical detail at the outset. Everything from making sure your appointment book/photo album/bank account were filled with so-called evidence of the things that you supposedly had happening to you during the time prior to Creation. That little scar on your leg when you... well, you know... ...that (and the memories, hopefully not too horrible) were placed upon your person to provide the 'proof' of your prior existence. As were all kind of incidental things like loads of photons in space placed and aimed, with the right frequency and phase, so as to arrive out of the night-sky as if having come from a star that before Last Tuesday had not even existed!

All those details. Would take the mind of God to work out, right? Handily, that's who is creating the universe. And while He's going through all the details in His mind, ensuring that there's a reason why there's a set of scuff-marks on your 'old' boots, making sure that an old receipt is in your paper-bin, just in case you 'remember' about it and realise you need it to return that shirt that's too tight around the collar, etc... It's all going through His head. A whole history of the Universe going through God's head, imagine. All leading up to the Tuesday of creation.

So, it's obvious. There has been no Last Tuesday. Instead, it will be Next Tuesday! Next Tuesday you and me and the cat in the street and the awkward smell in the elevator and the Final Demand bill from the people who supply you electricity (I do suggest you consider paying that, once you can get around to it...) will all come into being. Not that we'll know this, of course, because you'll be remembering me blathering on about "Last Tuesdayism" and remembering how you thought it was all hogwash. Personally, I suspect (depending on what time of day it is) I'll be blithely doing something and not notice myself that I suddenly exist...

But I know the Truth! Or will know the Truth! Or something! Because the True story of Creation is not umpteen billion years ago (for the Universe) or so many lesser billion (for the solar system and the Earth) or however long ago it was life was stirred out of whichever little chemistry experiment happened upon the right solution, or the apparently 6,000 years-ago instance of the Genesis Creation Myth. No, not even Last Tuesday! The answer, Brother, is Next Tuesday! Come join me Brother (or Sister, or Other) in my church of Next Tuesdayism! For it is the Ultimate Reality and those that follow this cause shall (once Next Tuesday comes around) find themselves Chosen and the Blessed of our Lord Of Next Tuesday! Can I get an "Amen"?! Yeah!!


(And you can't prove me wrong. Oh, and those Next Saturdayists? Heretics. Should be burnt at an imagined stake.)


_{Smallprint: Be aware that Next Tuesday may not be next Tuesday. Your imaginary existence is subject at all times to senior moments by the Ultimate Deity. It's best to not think of Pink Hippos. Warranty void in event Pink Hippos of Divine distrations. Hot apple pies may Pink Hippos be hot. Please remove child Pink Hippos before collapsing collapsable baby-carriage. Sales tax not included. Pink Hippos.}

[Conscentia]

What"Gaps in the fossil records"?

Are you that blind? There are many. where's this? http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iFfvrbV_yTs/U ... 0/fishbird.

Birds are not directly descended from fish.

There is no gap:

· Dinosauria (Dinosaurs)
·· Saurischia ("lizard-hipped"; includes Theropoda and Sauropodomorpha)
··· Theropoda (all bipedal; most were carnivorous)
··· †Herrerasauria (early bipedal carnivores)
··· †Coelophysoidea (small, early theropods; includes Coelophysis and close relatives)
··· †Dilophosauridae (early crested and carnivorous theropods)
··· †Ceratosauria (generally elaborately horned, the dominant southern carnivores of the Cretaceous)
··· Tetanurae ("stiff tails"; includes most theropods)
···· †Megalosauroidea (early group of large carnivores including the semi-aquatic spinosaurids)
···· †Carnosauria (Allosaurus and close relatives, like Carcharodontosaurus)
···· Coelurosauria (feathered theropods, with a range of body sizes and niches)
····· †Compsognathidae (common early coelurosaurs with reduced forelimbs)
····· †Tyrannosauridae (Tyrannosaurus and close relatives; had reduced forelimbs)
····· †Ornithomimosauria ("ostrich-mimics"; mostly toothless; carnivores to possible herbivores)
····· †Alvarezsauroidea (small insectivores with reduced forelimbs each bearing one enlarged claw)
····· Maniraptora ("hand snatchers"; had long, slender arms and fingers)
······ †Therizinosauria (bipedal herbivores with large hand claws and small heads)
······ †Oviraptorosauria (mostly toothless; their diet and lifestyle are uncertain)
······ †Archaeopterygidae (small, winged theropods or primitive birds)
······ †Deinonychosauria (small- to medium-sized; bird-like, with a distinctive toe claw)
······ Avialae (modern birds and extinct relatives)
······· †Scansoriopterygidae (small primitive avialans with long third fingers)
······· †Omnivoropterygidae (large, early short-tailed avialans)
······· †Confuciusornithidae (small toothless avialans)
······· †Enantiornithes (primitive tree-dwelling, flying avialans)
······· Euornithes (advanced flying birds)
········ †Yanornithiformes (toothed Cretaceous Chinese birds)
········ †Hesperornithes (specialized aquatic diving birds)
········ Aves (modern, beaked birds and their extinct relatives)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reptile#Taxonomy

Reptiles, including dinosaurs, diverged from amphibians. Amphibians diverged from lobe-finned fish.

[Breadknife]

is anything really real? Or all we just ripples on a membrane?

Oh fuck, don't go into philosophy.

I think he's quoting something akin to M-Theory, perhaps mixed with a bit of String Theory. Admittedly those are somewhat at the Philosophical (or Metaphysical) end of Physics.

(Someone earlier mentioned a 5-dimensional hypersphere, which as a concept is actually not far off that idea, can't recall if it was Dragonisia or not, though. I'm actually looking into creating a simulated universe (not intended to be accurate, merely a toy) on a similar basis, but looks like I need an extra dimension to handle some of the procedurally-generated timeline stuff.)

[Conscentia]

is anything really real? Or all we just ripples on a membrane?

Then the membrane would be real.

[The Land of Truth]

is anything really real? Or all we just ripples on a membrane?

Then the membrane would be real.

Did somebody fucking restart this after I went to bed?

[Yaltabaoth]

Then the membrane would be real.

Did somebody fucking restart this after I went to bed?

Had we all known you had gone to bed, we'd have paused NationStates until you were ready to rejoin us.

Our apologies.

[The Land of Truth]

Did somebody fucking restart this after I went to bed?

Had we all known you had gone to bed, we'd have paused NationStates until you were ready to rejoin us.

Our apologies.

That's all I'm asking.

[Yaltabaoth]

Had we all known you had gone to bed, we'd have paused NationStates until you were ready to rejoin us.

Our apologies.

That's all I'm asking.

The hivemind shall update its protocols accordingly.

[The Rich Port]

Why are we debating this, the actual debate ended many decades ago. Evolution (that species change over time) is a fact and the modern theory of evolution explains it very well.

Because some people still think Creationism won the debate.

[Hurdegaryp]

Why are we debating this, the actual debate ended many decades ago. Evolution (that species change over time) is a fact and the modern theory of evolution explains it very well.

Because some people still think Creationism won the debate.

The only way Creationism can win is when all suffer under the iron fist of a global theocracy.

[Conscentia]

Because some people still think Creationism won the debate.

The only way Creationism can win is when all suffer under the iron fist of a global theocracy.

The United States of America is not a theocracy.
Within the United States of America, the percentage of people in the U.S. who accept the idea of human evolution declined from 45% in 1985 to 40% in 2005.

Looks like no one told the Americans.