PROOF that Evolution is a Myth

[Phaneuf3]

Originally Posted by photon

Religion doesn't claim that God influences events in a natural way, it claims that God directly intervenes in a very unnatural or supernatural (and therefore provable) way.

correctness of a belief doesn't have to be a binary right/wrong kinda thing... there can be degrees of correctness.
also, a certain religion (or all religions) can be wrong and god can still exist.

[photon]

True, I'm talking more about religions that make specific claims (ie the Bible).

However the natural/unnatural argument is a binary true/false thing by definition.

[AC]

To be honest, if 'Intelligent Design' was responsible for our creation... the designer could not be very intelligent at all.

Consider how humans eat and breath through the same opening. This guarantee's the risk of choking. If I was designing an organism... making sure they don't die so easily would probably be the most intelligent way to go. And it's not a complicated request, look at dolphins for example.

Or vestigal organs. If you reject evolution, the presense of organs without functions is completley unintelligent. For example in humans: the appendix, the coccyx, wisdom teeth.

Whales have remants of legs and pelvises for crying out loud!

[photon]

Or how people (and other mammals) require vitamin C to survive, but can't produce it ourselves. Oh we have the necessary structures to make it, but the gene to turn that stuff on is damaged.

And the funny thing is all the other mammals that can't make their own vitamin C have that same gene, and it's damaged in the exact same way.

But other mammals have the same gene, but it is undamaged and they don't need an external source of vitamin C.

Evolution provides a perfectly reasonable explanation for this. If Intelligent Design was a real scientific theory, it would give reasons for this kind of thing, and make predictions about other things that could be verified. However it isn't a real science since all it does is try to find gaps and holes in existing theories.

[HelloHockeyFans]

I'm not sure I agree with the few posters in this thread who have stated that religions don't affect society.

How about the opposition to stem-cell research? Contraception?

In one case, the opposition is preventing a process which could lead to significant breakthroughs for numerous people around the world, while in the other case, AIDS continues to spread at ridiculous rates because religions forbid their followers to use protection.

This is why I have an issue with religion.

[MolsonInBothHands]

Originally Posted by photon

Or how people (and other mammals) require vitamin C to survive, but can't produce it ourselves. Oh we have the necessary structures to make it, but the gene to turn that stuff on is damaged.

And the funny thing is all the other mammals that can't make their own vitamin C have that same gene, and it's damaged in the exact same way.

But other mammals have the same gene, but it is undamaged and they don't need an external source of vitamin C.

Evolution provides a perfectly reasonable explanation for this. If Intelligent Design was a real scientific theory, it would give reasons for this kind of thing, and make predictions about other things that could be verified. However it isn't a real science since all it does is try to find gaps and holes in existing theories.

First of all let me just say I believe in evolution, but this fact about the vitamin C gene strikes me a little odd. Wouldn't the undamaged gene be more suited for survival of a species? How would the damaged gene have become prevalent? Wouldn't that be reversed evolution? Just asking.

[icarus]

Originally Posted by MolsonInBothHands

First of all let me just say I believe in evolution, but this fact about the vitamin C gene strikes me a little odd. Wouldn't the undamaged gene be more suited for survival of a species? How would the damaged gene have become prevalent? Wouldn't that be reversed evolution? Just asking.

There is no such thing as reversed evolution.

I have never heard of this vitamin C gene, but nevertheless the idea would be that at some stage in mammalian evolution history this gene stopped working and everything descended from that common ancestor had the same faulty gene. In order for it to be propagated, it must have not had much of a significant effect... probably because the animals with the gene were frugivorous and got their vitamin C from the food they would be eating anyway. If this faulty gene had emerged within a carnivore, it would have been a little more problematic. I haven't looked it up, but I hypothesise whatever ancestor it was that got the screwy gene it must have been a fruit-eater.

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by MolsonInBothHands

First of all let me just say I believe in evolution, but this fact about the vitamin C gene strikes me a little odd. Wouldn't the undamaged gene be more suited for survival of a species? How would the damaged gene have become prevalent? Wouldn't that be reversed evolution? Just asking.

Yeah, but that sort of de-evolution isn't that uncommon. At some point, we depended on that gene to survive. The gene was genetically protected, because any offspring born with a defective gene would die. But once our diet switched to significant fruit content, the gene was no longer protected. With increasing frequency, new offspring were born with the defective gene, but were no longer weeded out by natural selection. The gene is kinda like the appendix. Our diet has dictated that it's no longer necessary.

[photon]

Originally Posted by MolsonInBothHands

First of all let me just say I believe in evolution, but this fact about the vitamin C gene strikes me a little odd. Wouldn't the undamaged gene be more suited for survival of a species? How would the damaged gene have become prevalent? Wouldn't that be reversed evolution? Just asking.

Yeah as has been pointed out at the time the common ancestor must have had a diet that consisted of things that provided enough vitamin C for it to not matter. So even though the gene became faulty, it gets passed on in that state because there's no selection taking place against it.

I was reading that even having that non function gene (proto-gene I think they called it) does have a negative impact since the organism still has to support it. But if no decendant ever lost the gene and passed that loss onto it's decendants then there's no advantage to select, so the proto-gene is still there.

It's survival of the fittest, not always survival of the best solution.

[Kipru]

This intelligent design crap confirms my beliefs that only reason that USA is so dominent in the world is their natural resources and ability to capture the best brains from other countries for their R&D.

Imagine if Tom Cruise would be their president and the schools had to teach that scientology BS. You can believe what you want but i think schools are only for scientific information. Unless you are a no-good, humanist hippie. ;-)

[MolsonInBothHands]

So then, why would the faulty vitamin C gene be an argument against ID? Perhaps the Almighty just drug that gene from the desktop to the recycle bin and he hasn't emptied it yet. Our genes need to be defragged.

[icarus]

Originally Posted by MolsonInBothHands

So then, why would the faulty vitamin C gene be an argument against ID?

It's not really, but rather just one of the many observations that supports the evolutionary theory, or at least does not negate it.

It is hard to argue against ID because you could always play the deus ex machina trump card to any evidence presented: "because God made it that way".

[MolsonInBothHands]

Now if there were genes that have stopped functioning, and were once capable of regeneration, I would have to question what the big guy was thinking. He could have saved us from all this stem cell debate.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by Kipru

Imagine if Tom Cruise would be their president and the schools had to teach that scientology BS. You can believe what you want but i think schools are only for scientific information. Unless you are a no-good, humanist hippie. ;-)

I read somewhere that public education was only started so that the great unwashed could learn to get to school every day and on time so they could work in the factory.

Learning to read, write and sum, has probably been a regretable offshoot.