God Bless The U.S. of A.

[Plague Bringer]

A theory is a helluva lot more believable then a bunch of here-say from people who believe in a supernatural being because they need to feel love, and an inner strength.

According to this theory, the world is approxomately four-point-five billion years of age. What's your point?

[KobraKaine]

How do you know it's that old?

[Survivor]

evolutionary theory does not determine age of this hunk o rock. Carbon dating does.
Also while you emphasize theory the atheists may emphasize belief. And while it is said that a theory may be wrong present time a belief is usually founded on uncheckable factlike treated hearsay from ages ago.

[KobraKaine]

I'm glad you mention carbon dating.  No check that, ecstatic that you mentioned it.

Carbon dating is only accurate up to 5000 years.  It only works if you have something of equal or greater age to compare to.  The oldest things on earth that we can be relatively sure of (their) age would be trees.

Beyond 5000 years, carbon dating is little more than wild guesswork.

[Plague Bringer]

Well, that's all good and nice, but would you mind mentioning how the age of this earth has any relevance to the theory of evolution or whether or not god is real.

Oh, wait. I get it. You're going to back up the point that carbon dating is only valid for a few thousand years, then argue that our evolution could not have happened in such a short period of time, so a 'god' must have put us here, right?

Sorry, bud, but that's not going to work. Although the age of the earth is not a perfect estimate, it is largely agreed on, and you would have no ground for stating that it is much younger, therefore, you have no ground to state that the theory of evolution is flawed in it's timeline.

[KobraKaine]

I'm just pointing out that a fundamental part of Evolutionary theory is fatally flawed.

The only reason it hasn't been ditched yet is because no athiest scientist has developed a less-implausible theory to date.  Evolution was disproved long ago.  Still clinging to an illogical belief in it puts you in the exact same boat as the "illogical" religious believers.

[Survivor]

So first you mistakingly apply the age of earth with evolution and now you are saying carbon dating is only accurate TO 5000 years. Ever heard of extrapolation?

The problem is that religious debates allow science to the point where it supports religion, any science used in defence of true science becomes mere guesswork.

The fact that we can take a carbon measurement, apply the known formulas concerning it and predict the amount which it will have 10 years in the future, and being correct in that since we can check that timespan allows us to also extrapolate it backwards. But we cannot do that in your view since you think it doesn't work that way.

I give you #1
Carbon dating has been proven to be very accurate up to 45.000 years, 3 times further than previously confirmed and 7,5 times further than the bible says earth even existed.
This is the very accurate part.

When extrapolating obviously the margin of error increases, but when you are looking a million years back what is +- 50.000 years in our discussion.

Now this is only to prove we are well over that wonderful 6000 year bible limit.

The true dating was done through radiometric measurements and pointed towards 4 something billion years. But the fact is new methods only make earth older. Not younger.

[KobraKaine]

Once again, the oldest things that we KNOW for 100% certainty the age of are trees.  The oldest was dated somewhere in mid-BC.  (You count the rings...)

Outside of that it's just a lot of mathmatic equations and unverifiable speculation.

As for the Bible, it allows for up to 10,000 years for the earth's age... There are a few gaps in the geneologies.

[Survivor]

I'm just pointing out that a fundamental part of Evolutionary theory is fatally flawed.

The only reason it hasn't been ditched yet is because no athiest scientist has developed a less-implausible theory to date.  Evolution was disproved long ago.  Still clinging to an illogical belief in it puts you in the exact same boat as the "illogical" religious believers.

What was disproven? Point me to it.
Because we must prove we are right, yet the religious people only need to point to a piece of paper and say, look it says so here, written by god, (edited , translated , lost, partially refound, corrected, adapted by humans), but by god this is totally accurate.
If we wrote down our findings now, and had them discovered in 3000 years would they be more true? Or would the religious people from then say, our belief is older so it must be true. Because when we follow that line we should all believe the older living tribes, which are aboriginal beliefs or african ones or south american ones. Or even greek ones to be more close to home.

[sleekslacker]

The age of earth wasn't determined using carbon dating. That's nonsense. But we do use radiometric dating. Carbon is not the only element that has isotopes with long half-lives.

Meteorites were found to be of the same age. If we assume that the earth was formed around the same time meteorites formed ( that is when materials in space started to accumulate and aggregate ), then 4.5 - 4.9 Billion years is an acceptable estimate.

Please stop trying to win the argument using pseudo-facts and your own imagination.

[Survivor]

...unverifiable speculation.

=

the Bible...

[Plague Bringer]

Give him a chance to respond; debates are pointless when one side owns the other for a few posts.

[sleekslacker]

I'm just pointing out that a fundamental part of Evolutionary theory is fatally flawed.

The only reason it hasn't been ditched yet is because no athiest scientist has developed a less-implausible theory to date.  Evolution was disproved long ago.  Still clinging to an illogical belief in it puts you in the exact same boat as the "illogical" religious believers.

Your father mated with your mother. They got you. Now you inherit some traits from your father, and some traits from your mother. Now extend this little concept a little bit. Some animals of different species can mate and produce offsprings. These have traits of both parent animals. Some can further reproduce, some cannot. This is evolution. You don't need prove. It's an observation already made.

[Lucifer]

Physics got off track a bit there.  But yes it mass increases with speed and time slows.  This has been proven using instruments placed on satellites and on the ground and comparing the two readings.  Even at those speeds the increase is so small as to barely be readable, much less mater.  You have to get around half the speed of light for there to be a significant effect.

[IJsje]

I'm just pointing out that a fundamental part of Evolutionary theory is fatally flawed.

Carbon dating is only accurate till 50,000 year back, therefor god exists.

[sleekslacker]

Physics got off track a bit there.  But yes it mass increases with speed and time slows.  This has been proven using instruments placed on satellites and on the ground and comparing the two readings.  Even at those speeds the increase is so small as to barely be readable, much less mater.  You have to get around half the speed of light for there to be a significant effect.

Where's the scientific paper ? Give me the title of the paper and maybe I'll read it and confirm this. "Mass increasing with speed, and it being measured using satellites.." sounds like a lot of bullshit to me. If we can measure mass with satellites, then we wouldn't need image processing in remote sensing. Quack science if you ask me.

[Lucifer]

I have no clue what you just said but it is not detected directly.  The radio signal from a satellite in geo stationary orbit is compared to the signal from a satellite that is moving.  After compensating for doppler shift there is still a very small shift left in the signal, this is caused by the increases pull from the satellite.  This effect is implied by relativity.  I may have caused some confusion by not stating that I was referring to relativistic mass.  And here is a page on that http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/mass.html

[KobraKaine]

Physics got off track a bit there.

You mean that "God Bless the USA" got off track?  

Your father mated with your mother. They got you. Now you inherit some traits from your father, and some traits from your mother. Now extend this little concept a little bit. Some animals of different species can mate and produce offsprings. These have traits of both parent animals. Some can further reproduce, some cannot. This is evolution. You don't need prove. It's an observation already made.

Show me one interspecies mating that isn't fertile (mules cannot reproduce).

Meteorites were found to be of the same age. If we assume that the earth was formed around the same time meteorites formed ( that is when materials in space started to accumulate and aggregate ), then 4.5 - 4.9 Billion years is an acceptable estimate..

  HAHAHAHAHA, you're joking, right?  We know so very little about space as it is, that we have no idea what kinds of artificial aging and outside forces have been working on space rocks.  Anyway, how would space debris floating around in our galaxy or others have ANY connection with how old the earth is?  Your statement is completely ridiculous.  It's so far removed from scientific theory that it can barely even be called speculation.  Absurd.

[Survivor]

Your father mated with your mother. They got you. Now you inherit some traits from your father, and some traits from your mother. Now extend this little concept a little bit. Some animals of different species can mate and produce offsprings. These have traits of both parent animals. Some can further reproduce, some cannot. This is evolution. You don't need prove. It's an observation already made.

Show me one interspecies mating that isn't fertile (mules cannot reproduce).

You answered your own question.
But if you meant 'isn't infertile' then dogs. Any breed of dogs. Saint bernard's with Poodles. Chiuauas with german shepherds. And any dog can intermate with wolves, but since they prefer to keep to their own species only with human involvement. And these can produce offspring of themselves which also have viable reproducement systems.

Meteorites were found to be of the same age. If we assume that the earth was formed around the same time meteorites formed ( that is when materials in space started to accumulate and aggregate ), then 4.5 - 4.9 Billion years is an acceptable estimate..

  HAHAHAHAHA, you're joking, right?  We know so very little about space as it is, that we have no idea what kinds of artificial aging and outside forces have been working on space rocks.  Anyway, how would space debris floating around in our galaxy or others have ANY connection with how old the earth is?  Your statement is completely ridiculous.  It's so far removed from scientific theory that it can barely even be called speculation.  Absurd.

I'll point to the damn bible again to show hypocrisy in source warping. You do have a point that there is no true relation between the age of meteorites and that of earth.

Tbh i haven't seen you respond to what I posted about the bible.

[Stof]

Your father mated with your mother. They got you. Now you inherit some traits from your father, and some traits from your mother. Now extend this little concept a little bit. Some animals of different species can mate and produce offsprings. These have traits of both parent animals. Some can further reproduce, some cannot. This is evolution. You don't need prove. It's an observation already made.

Show me one interspecies mating that isn't fertile (mules cannot reproduce).[/quote]
IIRC, there have been a few cases.

But anyway, everybody knows that earth, the universe and all life was create by the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2006-03-26-spaghetti-monster_x.htm

[f0rqu3]

there is only "inheritance and natural selection" nothing else
edit: never argue with dogmatists

[KobraKaine]

Any breed of dogs. Saint bernard's with Poodles. Chiuauas with german shepherds. And any dog can intermate with wolves, but since they prefer to keep to their own species only with human involvement. And these can produce offspring of themselves which also have viable reproducement systems.

They're the same species, lol.  Dogs are nothing more than domesticated "wild dogs."  (a wolf being an undomesticated "wild dog")

Tbh i haven't seen you respond to what I posted about the bible.

I actually spent 2 hours a few days ago typing up a post proving the validity of the bible, and the falacies in the Qu'ran, but the computer died (I was at the library, some kid hit the power cord with his foot) before I could finish it.

I'll get to it again sometime this weekend.

[Survivor]

Biology. the major subdivision of a genus or subgenus, regarded as the basic category of biological classification, composed of related individuals that resemble one another, are able to breed among themselves, but are not able to breed with members of another species.

So interspecies breeding only exists so long as the taxonomy branch doesn't catch on. But for all intents and purposes this is what you meant since dogs haven't been classed as a subspecies of wolf for that long.

Also evolution is not only built on purely genes. Differences in environment, food, chance etc determines the outcome. The classic example being darwin's birds. They came over as a single species and over time started to differ so much they could no longer reproduce with the original species. This happened several times due to the islands having a very different environment.

[sleekslacker]

What makes you think that earlier organisms couldn't mate interspecies ? After all we thought they were simpler in form. I just don't believe in organisms sprouting from random atoms in space.  Natural selection is somewhat involved in evolution.

[KobraKaine]

The classic example being darwin's birds. They came over as a single species and over time started to differ so much they could no longer reproduce with the original species. This happened several times due to the islands having a very different environment.

You refer to microevolution.  This is something entirely seperate from the fallacy of Evolutionary Theory.

This happens all the time.  We see it everywhere... humans growing resistant to diseases over time, the differences between black people and white people, differing beak sizes in a family of birds.

This kind of evolution actually exists.  It is superficial changes to a plant or animal.  It has not ever, nor will it ever account for major changes in the makeup of a creature.  For example, humans will never grow fins, no matter how many generations spend a large portion of their time in the oceans and pools of this world.

As for mutations, only a very small percentage are actually beneficial.  They are flukes, genetic errors, and they are not passed on to the next generation.

[Survivor]

Macroevolution is microevolution over an even longer timeperiod. Why? Because big changes are actually a lot of small changes.
 
Mutations exist, and true most don't matter. But why don't most mutations matter? Because all the truly bad ones have already died. Albino's are an example. They have perfectly functioning organs and thought. But they don't blend in the scenery when hunting for example. So they could happily live their days in a zoo while getting eaten or dying of starvation within a week in the wild. You can consider humans the same way. An flimsy accountant may make a very good living in the current world, but throw him back in a forest and he is weak. Mutations benefit's are all dependant on circumstances.

It is not that suddenly people would develop fins if they spent a lot of time in the water. If people could no longer provide for food on land and would have to swim to get reach a viable foodsource those people who were best suited to swimming would survive and procreate. Since some people are actually born with small 'fins' between their toes and/or fingers (a mutation) they might be better at reaching that food. If this would be so, which it most likely isn't since a big lungful of air would be more important than the minor speed/agility increase, people would start developing fins. What is more likely is that the people would develop larger lungs over time. When these people reach their max lung capacity the advantage would have to come from another angle, possibly this time the 'fingerfins', but still more likely a change in the legmuscle build due to a mutation.
I could go on but the fact is there are many paths, and the path taken depends on the circumstances and chance of having the right mutation during those circumstances.

Many species die off as an evolutionary deadend due to some other species outperforming them. Either someone is better at getting the food they need as well so the supply for them dwindles, or a virus/bacteria finds a loophole to which there has not been/could not be a profitable mutation.

This is the concept of evolution, in which many more species die off than succeed. And it all depends on the circumstances. As long as the changes are not lifethreatening/promoting they will remain superficial as you say and remain simply as diversity and not as deciding factor, but once they do come important as in this example certain things would follow evolution, and change stacked upon change would eventually produce a species incompatible with a species which descended from the same parentspecies in other circumstances.

The finches is actually a perfect example of this due to their small area, small timespan. So i don't know why you disregard it.

[Anansi-Sama]

A theory is a helluva lot more believable then a bunch of here-say from people who believe in a supernatural being because they need to feel love, and an inner strength.

According to this theory, the world is approxomately four-point-five billion years of age. What's your point?

Since by God's very nature, God is omnipotent, he could have created the world yesterday, and you wouldn't be able to know the difference.  The reason we can't prove God's existence is that our efforts are those of three or four dimensional beings trying to perceive beyond the fifth.  Here's an illustration.  Let's say you have created a world of two dimensional people called "Flatties", on a sheet of paper.  The Flatties can percieve direction sideways, but there is no up or down for them.  They can't perceive the third dimension.  They can sometimes hear you speak, but there is no concrete way for them to prove you exist, since they can't look up out of their paper and see you.  That doesn't mean that you aren't there though.  You can see them, you can affect them, you can speak to them.  But no one will ever see you, unless you touch the paper.  Even then, they will only be able to perceive one single plane of your entire being.  The same holds true to God, only on a more complicated scale.  We exist in three dimensions, four if you count time as the fourth dimension.  God exists so far beyond our perception that we could not prove he was there, even if we worked a thousand years trying.  The only reason we can believe in him is because sometimes he speaks to us.  The truth of faith is bound up in its name.  It's belief without proof.  It's a higher calling to a purpose that not everyone else can see, but that still exists.  

If you have been bound, blindfolded and gagged and are lying on the railroad tracks, denying that a train will eventually come because you can't see it won't make a difference.  And if someone who has the power to save you is there, and you can't see them, wouldn't you rather take a leap of faith, and in total helplessness, ask for their help?  Or would you rather take your chances with the train?

[and bringer, I say this with no disrespect.  just a thought.  take it for what it's worth]

[KobraKaine]

Macroevolution is microevolution over an even longer timeperiod. Why? Because big changes are actually a lot of small changes.
 
Mutations exist, and true most don't matter. But why don't most mutations matter? Because all the truly bad ones have already died. Albino's are an example. They have perfectly functioning organs and thought. But they don't blend in the scenery when hunting for example. So they could happily live their days in a zoo while getting eaten or dying of starvation within a week in the wild. You can consider humans the same way. An flimsy accountant may make a very good living in the current world, but throw him back in a forest and he is weak. Mutations benefit's are all dependant on circumstances.

It is not that suddenly people would develop fins if they spent a lot of time in the water. If people could no longer provide for food on land and would have to swim to get reach a viable foodsource those people who were best suited to swimming would survive and procreate. Since some people are actually born with small 'fins' between their toes and/or fingers (a mutation) they might be better at reaching that food. If this would be so, which it most likely isn't since a big lungful of air would be more important than the minor speed/agility increase, people would start developing fins. What is more likely is that the people would develop larger lungs over time. When these people reach their max lung capacity the advantage would have to come from another angle, possibly this time the 'fingerfins', but still more likely a change in the legmuscle build due to a mutation.
I could go on but the fact is there are many paths, and the path taken depends on the circumstances and chance of having the right mutation during those circumstances.

Many species die off as an evolutionary deadend due to some other species outperforming them. Either someone is better at getting the food they need as well so the supply for them dwindles, or a virus/bacteria finds a loophole to which there has not been/could not be a profitable mutation.

This is the concept of evolution, in which many more species die off than succeed. And it all depends on the circumstances. As long as the changes are not lifethreatening/promoting they will remain superficial as you say and remain simply as diversity and not as deciding factor, but once they do come important as in this example certain things would follow evolution, and change stacked upon change would eventually produce a species incompatible with a species which descended from the same parentspecies in other circumstances.

The finches is actually a perfect example of this due to their small area, small timespan. So i don't know why you disregard it.

As I've shown, the world isn't old enough for Macroevolution to take place.  Anyway, lungs are a muscle and can be expanded simply through exercise.  Swimmers do it all the time.  It wouldn't be genetically coded to people, but I agree that in a water-based culture most everyone would have more expansive lungs, simply due to the fact that they started swimming at a younger age and their lungs got a lot more use.

As for natural selection, does this mean that you are against having an endangered species list, and are against trying to stop "global warming?"

Because according to evolutionary theory, we should just let it happen, and let endangered species die.

[Survivor]

Can I please ask what this railroad track is you mention? Is it for example a disease or are you referring to the divine judgment upon death (heaven or hell).

[Survivor]

As I've shown, the world isn't old enough for Macroevolution to take place.  Anyway, lungs are a muscle and can be expanded simply through exercise.  Swimmers do it all the time.  It wouldn't be genetically coded to people, but I agree that in a water-based culture most everyone would have more expansive lungs, simply due to the fact that they started swimming at a younger age and their lungs got a lot more use.

As for natural selection, does this mean that you are against having an endangered species list, and are against trying to stop "global warming?"

Because according to evolutionary theory, we should just let it happen, and let endangered species die.

You have shown me nothing about the world not being old enough. And saying 'It's in the Bible' means nothing until you prove the bible is right.

And your lung example is not one of evolution but exercise and adaptation in a single lifetime, that's not how evolution works.

The endangered species list is indeed against evolution in its natural form. But for us to maintain the balance with us at the top I can understand why it would be handy to not interrupt the current foodchain. But if we did, and we went down accordingly, that would be evolution in its finest form. The fact is humans have placed themselves partly outside of 'natural' evolution, see the accountant example. Morally I'm for saving species since we don't need to kill them off but for convenience we do (we are responsible, directly (tigerskins etc) or indirectly (removing their habitat or foodsource) for most of them), but we're talking logically here.