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Forums - General - Ben Stein to take on Darwinism on April 18

Escherichia on 07 March 2008
timmah said:
godf said:
timmah said:
Escherichia said:

Is Ben Stein a creationist? I thought he was smarter than that. But wait, he's a comedian so he probably is.

Then again after seeing the trailer I'm not so sure.

 


Sorry, but comments like that really bother me as a creationist.

Cmon, seriously. Are you that immature?? You don't have to be stupid to believe in creationism, and I am truly bothered by comments like this. There are many brilliant people that believe in creationism, and many brilliant people that beileve in evolution. It's simply a difference in point of view. I concider myself to be of decent intelligence, and I'm a creationist. Your immature comment suggest, however, that I have to be unintelligent to believe in creation rather than evolution. On the contrary, there are many intelligent arguments to be made by creationists...

DNA: When scientists look for proof of intelligent life in outer space, they point their radio telescopes at the sky and search for ANY repeating, logical 'code' in the radio waves. It could even be a simple code, but science says even that would be solid evidence for intelligent life, as nature cannot produce such codes on it's own. DNA, on the other hand is the most complex code known to man, how then, is that not concidered to indicate the possiblity of intelligence behind the code?

The laws of physics:

Newton's first law of motion: This states that 'an object at rest will stay at rest, and an object in motion will stay in motion UNLESS something acts upon it. The 'big bang' theory has absolutely no way of explaining this. It claims that an infinitely small, infinitely compact ball of matter exploded WITHOUT anything acting upon it, on it's own. This is completely contradictory to this well known law of physics.

Newton's third law of motion: This states (in a nutshell) that For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. In other words, for a 4000 pound load to be lifted, it would have to have a force of 4000 pounds or more pulling it upwards. Where, then is the action that caused the 'big bang' to happen?? Where did the infinite energy required to explode a stagnent object of infinite density that had been there for an infinite amount of time come from without some kind of 'creator' force?? Physics cannot answer this without the inclusion of an infinite amount of energy at one end of the formula to create the energy at the other.

The law of entropy: This law is fully accepted in the scientific community, and states that nature takes a natural course from order to disorder (stars go from burning fission reactions to dead and lifeless over time) without the introduction of an outside force (such as life, a plant turning random molecules into it's cells, or humans turning dirt into bricks into buildings). By this law, it should be impossible for life (perfect order) to come from non-living nature (pure disorder, chaos).

Entropy also states that all differences in energy will equalize themselves naturally over time, eventually becoming inert. (If you turn the heat off in your house at night, it will cool inside to the temperature outside). This makes the big bang impossible without a HUGE outside energy source that is completely independant. Since time is concidered to be infinite, the matter at the center of the 'big bang' would have to be there for an infinite amount of time before exploding. The law of entropy says that the mass would have been in complete equilibrium, no one part would have been at a different energy level/temperature than another, making a reaction or explosion impossible without outside force.

This is just a brief synopsis of the many credible arguments that can be made for intelligent design. It's not possible to 'prove' either theory, because nobody (but God if you believe in him) was there to see & document what actually happened, but reasonable arguments can be made for either belief.

But I'm apparantly stupid, just like all other 'creationists', so just keep thinking like you do. It's virtually impossible to have an intelligent, civil discussion with people who think of themselves or their group to be superior.

/rant

Edit: @Kasz216, read my post, then come back and tell me there's no 'proof' for my position. We're not just a bunch of blind morons who don't look at the evidence, we just see the evidence somewhat differently than you. The condescension is totally unneccesary.


It is possible to have a high IQ and be a creationist.

But it is stupid to believe in creationism, and the weakness of the arguments you bring up only serves to highlight this.

re DNA being a code, and a code being a sign of intelligence. Scientists have already found repeating codes in radio waves coming from space: these were naturally occurring however, and not a sign of intelligence. This is just a confusion over words: we can call DNA a 'code', and the codes we come across in our day to day life are likely to have been created by an intelligence. But our labelling of DNA as a code indicates nothing about it's likely origins.

Newtonian physics are really only an approximation as to what's really happening. But regardless, at the time of the big bang the laws of physics seem to have been operating very differently to how they do now, under massively different circumstances.

The law of entropy? When we're orbiting the sun? The energy required for a single cell organism is the least problematic part of the origin of life.

There is a very really possibility that you are quite stupid.


This is exactly what I'm talking about. Completely out of line and totally uncalled for. I've not insulted you or called anyone stupid, because that's not debate, it's just rude. Personal insults are just low and immature.

This isn't my first time on the site, so don't think of me as a new poster you can just push around, I've just created a new account because I can't get into my old one, I do know how to use the 'report this post' button.

And yes, with a 148 IQ, a degree in Computer Science, a successfull 65K/year job as a senior Network Engineer before 30, A's in AP Biology, physics, pre-calc, and chemistry, I'm a complete idiot. Ya got me.

I'm seriosly done with this thread now.

 Yeah, that was way outta line. Let me just say this though with a little more tact than our rather crude friend. I have an IQ in the 150-160 range, I have a Bachelors in Biology and am working on a Masters in Biology and would very much like that to lead to Med-School. That doesn't mean that I'm not ignorant of things like say, engineering, or economics, of these things I have no clue...okay i know a little but I'm no expert. For that matter I'm not an expert on Biology either, but I happen to know a fair bit more about it than someone who has a 180 IQ and has never really studied biology.  I wouldn't say your stupid, but you might be ignorant of biology.  Huh, I guess that could be an insult too huh, well I'm not an expert at debate either.

 



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kazadoom on 07 March 2008

are you reading what you are writing? This is nonsense, it takes more faith to believe this then creation. There are so many ifs and holes in what you are saying it is crazy. You keep talking about adaptation, like bears turning white in the snow, and people getting hairier in colder climates. That is not evolution, because they are still bears, and they are still humans. There is NO evidence that species changed from one species to another on this planet.



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Escherichia on 07 March 2008
ResiRiley said:

Scenario....

Let's say that the polar caps completely melted tommorow, and there was no more land.

 

Would we, as human beings, sprout flippers and gills to keep up with natures changes.

Enviornmental changes don't take thousands and millions of years like "evolution" or specialization is claimed to take. If a supervolcanoe were to erupt 10 minutes from now it would take only hours, or days, for it take have global ramifications that very few species could handle.

If you believe in evolution, then you belive we, as a species, would adapt or begin to physically change to live in our new enviornment that was forced on us by nature.

I do believe some species learn to adapt to their enviornment but I just don't buy the notion that fish felt the need to live on land, so they just "decided" to change and grow a pair of legs and lugs to do so.

 

I wanna be able to fly like Superman and swim like Aquaman, but I still don't have any gills and I still can't fly.....which is a crying shame considering some of these gas prices here in Alabama.

 


Um, no in that case we would surely perish, there isn't enough time to adapt on a genetic level. Please do a little research on the subject though, your arguement is quite juvenile, no offense.



Sqrl on 07 March 2008
kazadoom said:
are you reading what you are writing? This is nonsense, it takes more faith to believe this then creation. There are so many ifs and holes in what you are saying it is crazy. You keep talking about adaptation, like bears turning white in the snow, and people getting hairier in colder climates. That is not evolution, because they are still bears, and they are still humans. There is NO evidence that species changed from one species to another on this planet.

Really?

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Paul on 07 March 2008

The frog baby actually had some sort of defect where the spine didn't develope properly close to the brain stem. The harlequin kid was refered to as the snake baby.



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GotchayeA on 07 March 2008

But of course information can increase over time. I'll point again to evolutionary computation. Evolution explains this by reference to random mutations.

You can see this for yourself with some pretty simple code. Assume that fitness is defined as similarity to the vector [1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10]. Start from the vector [0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0]. Now copy it three times, with each entry of each copy having a 5% chance of changing in value (to something random between 0 and 10). Then save the copy with the most entries in common with our fitness vector. Repeat the process. Eventually you'll have [1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10]. If you want a more robust test, save the copy which gives the lowest value of the sum of the absolute values of the difference between each entry in V and F. There you go - you've created information. Now, we began by knowing what was most fit, but nature works that way too - there is a definite standard for fitness that mutations are kept or discarded based upon. This is what natural selection does.



kazadoom on 07 March 2008
Escherichia said:
kazadoom said:
GotchayeA said:
But what would distinguish these intermediary species? They'd simply appear to be yet another subspecies. And, in fact, it's my understanding that we have found groups of animals that could breed with another group, which could breed with another group, which could not breed with the first group.

If your question is why we don't see a clear continuum of living species, then the answer is, again, natural selection. There isn't a continuum of environments, and the specialized species on either end are going to be more suitable for one sort of environment or another than the species in the middle. Evolution is supposed to be a very slow process - there's plenty of time for intermediary species to be reabsorbed.

If this is true, then what happened from water to land, they just developed lungs over time, then flopped around on the ground until legs appeared over time? What did birds do when only one wing developed, wait around on the other one flopping around until they got what they needed? This is utter stupidity. If it is a slow process then show me something now that is changing from one species to another. There ought to be some proof of something out there. Where are all these mysterious transitional forms?

 Take a look at domestic wolves, yes I mean dogs. They haven't yet speciated from their anscestors and yet look at the genetic differences common in all dogs. That's like something in the range of 400,000 years of evolution right there and still no new species. It takes time. And no, fish did not flop on land until they evovled lung, that would have been a good way to go completely extinct. Nope they more than likely evovled lungs first and became obligate are breathers later and still later developed ample appendages to walk with, until finnally developing crude legs.  Sort of like this maybe, as oversimplified as it is. Anscetral Fish-->Goldfish-->Lungfish-->Salamander-->Primitive reptile-->Mammal  

 


and they are still dogs, they did not change into something else.  Your logic disproves your own beliefs.  There is no evidence to support transitional forms at all. None. Yet you try to prove there are by saying dogs changed a bunch of times yet they stayed dogs.  Wow that really proves that reptiles became birds. 



My Tag: 2 Timothy 3:1

Jesus Christ is the ONLY way to Heaven! (John14:6)

Every second 2 people die . . . What if this is your second? 

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Escherichia on 07 March 2008
kazadoom said:
are you reading what you are writing? This is nonsense, it takes more faith to believe this then creation. There are so many ifs and holes in what you are saying it is crazy. You keep talking about adaptation, like bears turning white in the snow, and people getting hairier in colder climates. That is not evolution, because they are still bears, and they are still humans. There is NO evidence that species changed from one species to another on this planet.

 I'm gonna assume that you aren't the most ignorant poster in this thread, and that instead, you sir are a TROLL. I guess I'll just have to quit feeding you.



twesterm on 07 March 2008
godf said:
 

There is a very really possibility that you are quite stupid.


Ugh, I don't think there's anything I hate more than religious debate threads because there are always people that just can't be civil. godf, this is your only warning: be civil and respect others.

To everyone: respect that everyone has their own set of beliefs and they may very well differ from yours. Just like you have your own set of beliefs that you believe are right, give them the same respect you hope they will give you. Feel free to argue but please keep things civil.




 

stof on 07 March 2008

A question to the creationists, if the underlying belief is that biological organisms are far too complicated to have occurred randomly, and that surely some intelligent and powerful creator being is responsible for our existence, wouldn't said creator being be far more complicated?

Surely a being capable of creating life is too complex to have just occurred. So who created the creator? And wouldn't that being also be far too complicated to just occur? So who created that being? and wouldn't a being capable of creating a being capable of creating a being capable of creating all life on earth be far too complex to just occur? And if *you get where I'm going with this*



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