Sarah's Question: How Were We Created?

[Chemical_Sis]

Hello everybody,

It's my first post here, excuse me if this thread has been opened before or it isn't the right place, I am a newb.

I am simply asking you guy; how do you think we were created? was it evolution? or we were created like that from the very beginning...etc.

I would like to hear your opinions and some fruitful discussion here.

Best Regards;

Sarah

 

[thunderfvck]

Too many fruits have gone rotten over this topic before. They were first ripe, maybe a little smelly, and everyone was having a good time...Eating those juicy mellons and grapefruit (with brown sugar, ohh yeah), and then they started becoming more smelly...Before you know it, my good friend, Hubert, picks up what he thought was the nicest fruit in existence. But it was contaminated with herpes, and now we can only pray for a world with less pain, and less herpes.

I used to believe in creationism, because I had found a website that argued against evolution in such a convincing way...I had also learned about evolution, and it made sense, but I still stuck to creationism (because that old guy was so damn convincing!). But then I realized that microevolution is an indisputable fact (bacteria evolve constantly)...With that, I decided that macroevolution maybe isn't so far fetched. Sure, there's probably mistakes here and there, but the general concept of it makes sense. It's just a bit unbelievable to see how perfect everything is...The Earth is in the perfect position relative to the sun, has water to support life, ozone layer to filter UV, other stuff...There's also so few subspecies between species, AFAIK anyway, like...We have monkeys (stupid smelly), then there's bigger monkeys (more ugly smarter) then there's cave people eventually to humans. Not to say that it's not gradual or anything, but when I think genetic mutations and macroevolution...I don't understand how it gets a whole slew of better qualities rather than just a few at a time, which is how I learned mutations happen. Like, you don't get a bigger brain, with a cooler spine, and some nicer genitals...you get maybe a little bit bigger brain, and that's it, and it will survive IF it's reproduces...And who's to say that it doesn't get bad mutations with it? If it does, it's screwed...

but this is over the span of so many years, so I guess it gets a lot of time to correct itself or whatever.

Another thing I never understood is how different species are able to breed. So we got our monkey man and the next one, less-monkey man...The less-monkey man was born from the monkey man and his *****, and he's the result of a mutated gene that came from his parents. And he has something like more massive and pleasurable genitals, so he's going to grow up to be quite the stud, like his dad, the monkey man. Blah blah, so less-monkey man wants to bang some monkey women, but will his sperms still be compatable with the monkey women? Like, I guess for it to work, the difference in the DNA can't be so extreme that they're not compatable?

WHY AM I STILL AWAKE?!

...

 

[Chemical_Sis]

That's Exactly the reply I needed.

Please, somebody move the topic to philosophy section or something

 

[Phobos]

Welcome to Physics Forums, Chemical Sis.

Check through the older topics...there are several on the creation-evolution debate. Hopefully you're looking for some more discussion to the questions/thoughts listed above. There is a lot to be considered. I'll try to check back when I have more time.

Given that this is a science forum, you'll find that most people here are on the evolution side of the debate (including me) althrough there's a whole spectrum of variations to those beliefs.

In general, the overall beliefs of Americans are reflected in this Gallup poll...

On the question of the origin and development of human beings...

38% of the respondents agreed with "human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process,"

13% agreed with "human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process,"

45% agreed with "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so,"

and 4% offered a different or no opinion.

 

[Chemical_Sis]

Thanx Phobos,
That was helpful, I am not so backed up myself to talk about it, I was only aiming to see what other people think.

I'll start looking in old topics then.
thanx again.

 

[Monique]

45% really? in the Netherlands that number would be very low

 

[jhirlo]

45% really? in the Netherlands that number would be very low

It could be true…in past month in my country we had, for some reason, few on national level discussions on this topic, on many popular and national TV stations. Professor teaching molecular genetics on my university, also was teaching in USA for a long period of time, had same experience, and he has roughly noted the same numbers. At first, I thought that it must be some kind of mistake, but it seems that it isn’t (and it tells few things about average American). And I agree with Monique in my country that number is quite low.

 

[DocToxyn]

45% really?

I was surprised by that number as well. What can we potentially attribute this to? People haven't been (or currently are not) exposed to enough evolutionary theory...they have seen it and aren't convinced by the evidence...they refuse to believe because of some religious conflicts?

 

[selfAdjoint]

Hey, even in the Bible belt most people can't name the four gospels. I am afraid to say it; the American people are just bone ignorant about everything except celebrity divorces.

 

[pikapika!]

The vadility of the bible is not being questioned but the idea of creationism.

 

[Phobos]

45% really? in the Netherlands that number would be very low

scary, eh?
it's a pretty consistent result from various public polls on the topic

 

[Phobos]

I was surprised by that number as well. What can we potentially attribute this to? People haven't been (or currently are not) exposed to enough evolutionary theory...they have seen it and aren't convinced by the evidence...they refuse to believe because of some religious conflicts?

some guesses...
- see what selfadjoint said (science education is still considered nerdy by many...& the quick/bumper-sticker explanations of Creationists are easier to accept than the complicated explanations provided by science)
- strong religious faith in the US (~90% of the population is religious)
- growing number of evangelical/fundamentalist Christians
- a long list of creationist organizations including ICR, AIG, etc. spending millions of dollars every year in promoting Creationism in the public media and to school boards in every state
- most people only get introductory biology in school, which does not get into the details of evolution
- the Creationist myth feels more reassuring to the layperson than the scientific theory

 

[Phobos]

The vadility of the bible is not being questioned but the idea of creationism.

True, but many creationists (especially the Young Earth Creationists) take evolution as questioning the validity of the Bible.

 

[DocToxyn]

The vadility of the bible is not being questioned but the idea of creationism.

If I were to read it as I do any text I am trying to obtain factual information from and I find some of it to be false or misleading that tends to give me less confidence in the veracity of the work as a whole. No real bias associated here, just logic. Its a similar rationale to the point that Phobos makes.

 

[Joel]

I don't think there is much difference in "difficulty" between evolutionary biology in high school and creationistic thoughts. If one would pursue a non-science degree and question evolutionary theory just like everything else, couldn't the arguments in principle quite easily swing over?

Btw, a friend told me about a study that concluded that the level of education had nothing to do with the likelihood of believing in some pseudo-scientific explanation about something... Go figure...

 

[Phobos]

I don't think there is much difference in "difficulty" between evolutionary biology in high school and creationistic thoughts. If one would pursue a non-science degree and question evolutionary theory just like everything else, couldn't the arguments in principle quite easily swing over?

Perhaps that's why the U.S. population is split almost 50-50 on the issue (given that most people are non-scientists). At a high-school science level, it's hard to tell the difference (unless students are in advanced placement classes in which case the evidence is better presented).

 

[Janitor]

I listened to the radio program 'Truths That Transform' with Rev. Dr. D. James Kennedy at lunchtime yesterday. He claims that Stephen Jay Gould (now deceased) himself said that in the last hundred major debates of creationism vs. evolution, the creationism side won. Kennedy quoted some scientist as saying something close to this: "We can only take evolution on faith, because there is not one single piece of evidence for it." At the close of the program, the promise was made that donors would receive a book written by Ken Hamm, showing that dinosaurs and humans overlapped in time.

I mentioned the dinosaur bit to a co-worker. My co-worker said, "Creationists always take the attitude that if they can poke a hole here and there in the theory of evolution, that in and of itself proves that Genesis is the literal truth."

I remain unconvinced of creationism, though I will continue to listen to their arguments.

 

[noobie]

There is a growing field called synthetic biology and one of its aims is to understand what consitutes a minimal organism. That is what are the minimal number of genes needed to sustain a reproducible organism. Most early estimates of this is no fewer than ~150 genes. Macroevolution may seem plausible from a naturalistic worldview but once you get down to the so-called 1st organism, even the most ardent evolutionist is at a loss as to explain how that organism could have come into being. And so it is often said that you have take evolution upon faith just as creationism is taken upon faith.

 

[Qyamat]

I once heard an interview of a renowned biologist. He exlaimed that the formation of even an RNA spontanously is as impossible as the formation of a boing 777 from a junk yard full of scarp metal

 

[noobie]

It's interesting that you bring up RNA because there are quite a number of scientists who believe in the RNA World that RNA (not protein or DNA) was the very first biomolecule that came to being. The reason being that RNA structure allows it to have the dual function of catalyzing reactions (like enzymatic proteins) and also store genetic information (like DNA). But even if such an RNA were to spontaneously evolve and were somehow enveloped in a membrane, it would still fall far way short of the so-called minimal organism.

 

[kcballer21]

He claims that Stephen Jay Gould (now deceased) himself said that in the last hundred major debates of creationism vs. evolution, the creationism side won.

I can remember reading an article by Gould where he pointed out that the debater with the weaker argument (factually) could still win the debate. I think his point was that to convince the layperson that evolution is the best possible explanation, you have to do more than present data. You have to somehow exhibit a passion for the argument that rivals the creationist zeal, that's what people respond to. It probably shouldn't be that way, but it is.

 

[loseyourname]

There is a growing field called synthetic biology and one of its aims is to understand what consitutes a minimal organism. That is what are the minimal number of genes needed to sustain a reproducible organism. Most early estimates of this is no fewer than ~150 genes. Macroevolution may seem plausible from a naturalistic worldview but once you get down to the so-called 1st organism, even the most ardent evolutionist is at a loss as to explain how that organism could have come into being. And so it is often said that you have take evolution upon faith just as creationism is taken upon faith.

A common mistake. What you're referring to (the emergence of the first lifeform from non-living matter) is usually referred to as abiogenesis; some texts will call it chemical evolution. It is a separate matter from organic evolution, which proceeds from the point at which we have a reproducing organism.

 

[noobie]

I can remember reading an article by Gould where he pointed out that the debater with the weaker argument (factually) could still win the debate. I think his point was that to convince the layperson that evolution is the best possible explanation, you have to do more than present data. You have to somehow exhibit a passion for the argument that rivals the creationist zeal, that's what people respond to. It probably shouldn't be that way, but it is.

I have to disagree that there are more factual arguments on either side of this debate. People's stance on this is largely determined by their worldview (whether the world is naturalistic or that there are forces outside of nature). Once people have set their minds on this matter, it's very difficult to get them to change b/c there are simply aren't slam-dunk facts on either sides. Naturalists invoke time and survival mechanisms whenever they are at a loss to explain something and Creationists invoke God to fill their gaps. Oh and if you go to almost any university you'll see that the evolutionists are just as zelous as creationists if not more.

 

[noobie]

A common mistake. What you're referring to (the emergence of the first lifeform from non-living matter) is usually referred to as abiogenesis; some texts will call it chemical evolution. It is a separate matter from organic evolution, which proceeds from the point at which we have a reproducing organism.

A common mistake of what? I don't believe I've mixed the two. BTW, how do you think organic evolution occurs? It occurs by changes at the chemical/molecular level. A knowledge that Darwin certainly did not have during his days.

 

[misskitty]

Hello everybody,

It's my first post here, excuse me if this thread has been opened before or it isn't the right place, I am a newb.

I am simply asking you guy; how do you think we were created? was it evolution? or we were created like that from the very beginning...etc.

I would like to hear your opinions and some fruitful discussion here.

Best Regards;

Sarah

This is a great question. A very popular topic for debate where I am. Don't know why, really don't care.

Anyway, back to your question. For me it depends on how you ask me this question. I have two opinions concerning this question.

If you ask me that from a theological point of view then I believe that God created the Heavens and the Earth in six days and rested on the seventh. Being a Christian this is what I believe. Theres a bunch of chapters on the creation of Earth and people in the first book of the Bible, Genesis.

Now, having said that, if you ask me this from a scientific viewpoint, I have to say that I do indeed favor the evolutionary theory. It is a sound and very well based theory. Yes, there may be a few things here and there that are grey, but is there anything in this life, especially nowadays that is completely black and white? I think not.

So in a way I guess I'm torn with what to believe because I am a firm believer in both of these theories. I don't know if that helps you or not. I hope it does. If you need a clearer idea, why not start a poll?

Kitty

 

[kcballer21]

Naturalists invoke time and survival mechanisms whenever they are at a loss to explain something and Creationists invoke God to fill their gaps. Oh and if you go to almost any university you'll see that the evolutionists are just as zelous as creationists if not more.

Doesn't it seem as though those gaps are being made smaller and smaller by naturalists? Sure, for now creationists have some thread to hang by, but doesn't there seem to be a trend here?
Zeal is not a bad thing, maybe I'm wrong but I equate being zealous with being passionate. On the other hand, any person of science would be wrong to say that there is zero chance for a theory they support to be wrong, but this is common practice among creationists. Science is provisional even if some peoples beliefs are not.

 

[noobie]

Doesn't it seem as though those gaps are being made smaller and smaller by naturalists? Sure, for now creationists have some thread to hang by, but doesn't there seem to be a trend here?
Zeal is not a bad thing, maybe I'm wrong but I equate being zealous with being passionate. On the other hand, any person of science would be wrong to say that there is zero chance for a theory they support to be wrong, but this is common practice among creationists. Science is provisional even if some peoples beliefs are not.

My background is chemistry and not evolutionary biology but I would not characterize creationists as "hanging by a thread." We're finding out more and more than the human body (for any living thing for that matter) is composed of complicated molecular machineries. These machines are so incredibly and irreducibly complex that it befuddles the mind how these things could have evolved by natural selection. This is a huge huge gap because it gets at the basic mechanism of evolution. Most of the evolution in a test tubes studies today show that you can generate a huge library of sequences and select those out which have the function you are interested in. But how do you select out molecular systems which have 40-50 components whose functions requires every one of those parts be in place and working fluidly together. How do select out for components that have no apparent function and only have function when there are 50 other components in place? There are numerous systems in biology which are highly complicated and cannot be made simpler than they already are. The evolutionists have their arguments and explanations- but I believe those rise from their supreme confidence in naturalism. Even if they discover their particular explanations to be wrong, they would just revise them because they are all working under the assumption that the natural world is it. In the end it comes down to, do you believe in naturalism or do you believe there's more than nature because there are so many things we just simply do not know at this point.

I don't know if you work in science. As you tend to get into more biology there are less and less creationists. Biologists at universities will not hear of creationism. In fact, if you profess to be a creationist, it's virtually professional suicide. But I know plenty of religious people who believe in evolution. But I have yet to meet a non-religious person who believes in creationism. There are dogmatic people on both sides of the argument. Science is provisional in that you can always revise and add to your theories as time progresses. Creationists cannot because their theories is clearly laid out in the scripture. Any revising of that theory really violates the fundamental principles of the scripture itself.

 

[loseyourname]

A common mistake of what? I don't believe I've mixed the two. BTW, how do you think organic evolution occurs? It occurs by changes at the chemical/molecular level. A knowledge that Darwin certainly did not have during his days.

Neither did Empedocles 2000 years before him. Nonetheless, both managed to develop theories of evolution. The specifics were left to be filled in. It was probably sheer coincidence that Mendel came along at just about the right time to give a mechanism of heredity that fit so well with the theory.

And you did mix the two. You said this: "Macroevolution may seem plausible from a naturalistic worldview but once you get down to the so-called 1st organism, even the most ardent evolutionist is at a loss as to explain how that organism could have come into being."

It is not the place of evolutionary theory to explain how the first organism came into being. Evolutionary theory proceeds once we already have that first organism.

 

[Phobos]

I listened to the radio program 'Truths That Transform' with Rev. Dr. D. James Kennedy at lunchtime yesterday. He claims that Stephen Jay Gould (now deceased) himself said that in the last hundred major debates of creationism vs. evolution, the creationism side won. Kennedy quoted some scientist as saying something close to this: "We can only take evolution on faith, because there is not one single piece of evidence for it."

Kennedy (who recently started up a new creationist organization…I forget the name at the moment) typically misrepresents evolution and the creation-evolution debate. He is quoting Gould out of context. Gould’s point was that, in a brief public forum where creationists make general attacks and popular (feel good) claims and tend to bus in groups of supporters and where scientists try explain complex evidence/theories, it is the creationist speaker that wins over the audience. Gould also once said that in a courtroom forum, where creationists are not allowed to grandstand and must stick to the evidence, it is the evolutionists that win.

At the close of the program, the promise was made that donors would receive a book written by Ken Hamm, showing that dinosaurs and humans overlapped in time.

Ken Ham - - founder and director of the large/international creationist organization “Answers in Genesis”….typical Bible literalist group, but their website does include some of the more thoughtful arguments you’ll see from young-earth creationists.

 

[noobie]

Nowhere did I say the formation of 1st organism is part of macroevolution. I simply stated that most evolutionists cannot account for the 1st organism because this thread is about human creation. If you are an evolutionist but believe the first organism was created by a higher being then I'm not inclined to debate you because we're really on the same side of this debate.

 

[Phobos]

I once heard an interview of a renowned biologist. He exlaimed that the formation of even an RNA spontanously is as impossible as the formation of a boing 777 from a junk yard full of scarp metal

That's a strawman argument. Evolutionary biologists are not saying that RNA formed from 1 sudden random event.

 

[Phobos]

I have to disagree that there are more factual arguments on either side of this debate. People's stance on this is largely determined by their worldview (whether the world is naturalistic or that there are forces outside of nature). Once people have set their minds on this matter, it's very difficult to get them to change b/c there are simply aren't slam-dunk facts on either sides. Naturalists invoke time and survival mechanisms whenever they are at a loss to explain something and Creationists invoke God to fill their gaps.

Worldview is certainly a big factor in the debate. However, the theory of evolution is based on a lot of scientific evidence, with the uncertainties outlined for review. Creationism (as previously noted) tries to poke holes in the scientific evidence in order to convince people to accept the alternative of divine creation. There's very little in the way of creationist scientific research.

I probably shouldn't only compare extreme viewpoints...it's worth noting that there is a spectrum of beliefs, including theistic (God-directed) evolution.

 

[misskitty]

Doesn't it seem as though those gaps are being made smaller and smaller by naturalists? Sure, for now creationists have some thread to hang by, but doesn't there seem to be a trend here?
Zeal is not a bad thing, maybe I'm wrong but I equate being zealous with being passionate. On the other hand, any person of science would be wrong to say that there is zero chance for a theory they support to be wrong, but this is common practice among creationists. Science is provisional even if some peoples beliefs are not.

Just for clarification:

Zeal: eagarness and ardent interest in pursuit of something.
Zealous: filled with or characterized by zeal.

Passionate: capable of, affected by, or expressing intense feeling.

Either zeal or passionate could be used as a descriptor in the scenario that you mentioned. You're right that zeal in small amounts isn't too bad. However there are some pretty zealous/passionate people out there.

It does seem like some of these gaps are being filled by Naturalists. So the longer the argument goes on the more technical it gets. The Creationist argument is getting harder to stand by, but I don't think that its a thread that will be easily severed. No matter how much evidence is presented against it.

I agree that it would be wrong for any person in science to say that there is no chance for their theory, whatever it may be, to be wrong. Its part of what science is about. Hypothesizing and then trying to prove it. If its wrong, then its wrong. You go back to the drawing board and try again.

Now we haven't really seen this in Creationism vs. Evolution, because how could you prove the Bible to be wrong? I'm not saying that people aren't trying or that it can't be done, its just that no one has been able to do it yet. I think part of the problem might be that there isn't any absolute concrete evidence to hold against the Bible and say this is right and the Bible is wrong and now we have proof of that. Again, I'm not saying that it can't be done.

An interesting thing I had heard from someone was, most people who set out against proving the Bible wrong end up finding more evidenc to support it and then they believe it. Now I don't know if that's true or not, or if it has any relvence to this topic. I thought it was an interesting thing to put out though.

 

[misskitty]

Worldview is certainly a big factor in the debate. However, the theory of evolution is based on a lot of scientific evidence, with the uncertainties outlined for review. Creationism (as previously noted) tries to poke holes in the scientific evidence in order to convince people to accept the alternative of divine creation. There's very little in the way of creationist scientific research.

This is very true and I do agree with it. I don't really think that we will see a lot of Creationist Sceintific evidence though. I could be wrong, but I still think that its unlikely. The opposite could also be said; Scientific research tries to poke holes in the idea of Creationism. So its a two way street.

 

[Phobos]

These machines are so incredibly and irreducibly complex that it befuddles the mind how these things could have evolved by natural selection.
...
There are numerous systems in biology which are highly complicated and cannot be made simpler than they already are.

Name one thing in biology that has been shown to be irreduceably complex. There are some claims (from Michael Behe, etc.) but many times the examples are refuted by examples of simpler features. Granted, evolutionary biology has not identified exactly how each biological feature first developed, but that's a long way from saying it's impossible.

But how do you select out molecular systems which have 40-50 components whose functions requires every one of those parts be in place and working fluidly together. How do select out for components that have no apparent function and only have function when there are 50 other components in place?

Exaptation. Evolution often borrows from existing (functional/neutral) features and adapts them to new uses. Also, many features can have more than one function, which allows for flexibility in adaptations.

The evolutionists have their arguments and explanations- but I believe those rise from their supreme confidence in naturalism. Even if they discover their particular explanations to be wrong, they would just revise them because they are all working under the assumption that the natural world is it. In the end it comes down to, do you believe in naturalism or do you believe there's more than nature because there are so many things we just simply do not know at this point.

As you later say, science is supposed to update/correct explanations when new evidence comes in.

A scientific explanation can't invoke a supernatural cause unless there was scientific evidence for it. It may be a philosophical bias that science looks for natural explanations, but by the same token, scientific explanations do not say the supernatural is impossible.

I know plenty of religious people who believe in evolution.

An indication that evolution is not anti-religion.

But I have yet to meet a non-religious person who believes in creationism.

How can they?

Creationists cannot because their theories is clearly laid out in the scripture. Any revising of that theory really violates the fundamental principles of the scripture itself.

I'd say that scripture is not clear on matters of science (it may say "X happened" but it does not say how). I'd also note that scripture has been revised many times (e.g., contributions of multiple authors recording long-time oral traditions, the inclusion/exclusion of particular books/writings, various translations, etc.)