You know, in my ~10 years on the internet, I don't believe I've ever seen anyone converted to/from their religious view through an internet forum thread.

And I've probably read 100's of religious/atheist/philosophical threads on the internet.

And always, everybody keeps yappin'.

I'll agree with you on that. My comment above wasn't meant to convert people (and even if it was, it would be futile because most poeople that come into forums are set in their ways).

I was merely trying to explain the current status of the Evolutionary theory as I feel there is some misunderstanding in here on what it currently is. But, like I said, people can believe whatever they want believe; I really don't care becasue it's their right to do so. However, if they wanted further clarification on what the Evolutionary theory states in today's scientific context, I wanted to help them understand it better. That is all, and like I said, I certainly agree with you.

Well said Hockey. and even z64dan. However like Hockey I do believe in discussion about topics that people are stuck on. Especially when people are vocal about certain issues. I wouldn't say that it is a fruitless endevevour to debate. I wouldn't expect anyone to say err creationism is right or errrr evolution is right because of a post by someone on the internet, but people do debate and look up stuff sometimes a change of opinion or at least understanding comes about through a slow process of questioning and research sparked by debate.

The most important thing to me is that people try and at least understand what a theory is and that in science it takes a while to narrow down the correct model but as a theory evolution is a very complete theory with plenty of supporting evidence. In fact it is more of secure theory than Relativity or Quantam Mechanics both of which are pretty solid on their own rigth and have both produced  results we use in everyday life. Are their points of Evolution which will eventualy prove to be outdated  most likely yes but something else will replace what ever that facet was.

There is quite a bit of research going into unexpressed genes and their roles in evolution for example. 

 This is exactly why I didn't want to have this conversation; it goes the same way every time. I know how big the universe is. I've heard everything you said before. I’m in no way new to the debate. Trust me there is very little you can say that I haven't heard. Some of my counter arguments will be perhaps crude or off, but I'm seriously behind at work here, and yet I really don't want you all to think I don't have a response. So anyway let me take a few things, you use the whole trillions of opportunities thing, sounds great, it's so easy to say, well if you try a trillion combinations you are eventually bound to get it right. Totally logical. It's always been the scientific get out of jail free card, there has been a trillion chances, and billions of years, of course eventually it will happen! Except, you don't go into just how many factors have to be right, to create and sustain that life. And more importantly how many times in a row on a particular scenario has to be. Earth might be 1 in a trillion that got it right, but this planet it got it right over and over and over, it's very much like a man who keeps winning the lottery every single day of his life. Take a look at some of the factors:

Location in the universe, yeah there may be trillions of stars, trillions of planets out there, but large portion of them are located in areas that are simply inhabitable. Look at the rare Earth hypothesis, I know it’s a hypothesis, but there are some points all agree on, area of tremendous gamma ray radiation would obviously refute the ability of life, and many other factors as well. So first location has to be right.

Secondly your star(like our sun) has to be right.

Your moon has to be right

Your solar system has to be right.

All these play a role in what would be required to have a planet sustain life, and they all have to get a lot of unusual things right in themselves and that’s yet to include the planet itself.

I could do research and go into all kinds of stuff like ultraviolet radiation from too large of a star would prevent complex life. But I think you get the point, it’s basic goldilocks principle at work. But if you did do research you’d find these things don’t become more generic, simple and common, there are an amazing amount of unique properties involved here.

And the planet most of all has to get a lot right, chemistry of the atmosphere, plate-tectonics, magnetic field, etc…

And we have yet to get to the actual life part.

Here is also more food for thought:

What are the chances of the angular diameters of the moon and sun as viewed from Earth being almost exactly the same, causing s total eclipse, giving us an opportunity to see starlight near the edge of the sun’s disc? Earth’s very habitable nature go hand in hand with it’s ability to be explored and understood, it’s a data recorder, it potentially has one of the very best views of the entire universe. What are the chances that in this universe being formed the planet that is habitable is also the most suitable for discovery and learning? I guess that was a lucky coincidence.

Now life. The other guy here kept saying I was wrong about evolution being chance. He used the long and short haired Tiger scenario. Well here is the problem, did someone choose to create a long haired tiger? No. random mutation in a gene by chance would have brought that about, and lucky for him, it helped in survive, so much so that the short haired tiger died off. What are the chances that the right random change would come at the right time? Your going to either assume someone rigged the game or, there are so many random changes, so many variations in the various tigers out there that one is bound to hit the mark. The first scenario implies their being a creator, the second one implies we live in a world with absurd variations, like 5 legged tigers, purple haired tigers, I mean for time and time again for natural selection to have gone through so many enduring scenarios with so much progression of species, there would have to be absurd level of randomness inherent in life. There are no sub-human species, the species are for the most part relevant to their own kind. So that makes me skeptical, randomness in genes would imply to my own logic a world that looked like a mad science experiment. Secondly go behind something as simple as tiger hair, there is clearly animals with functions that require many systems to work in harmony all at once, like a giraffe’s long neck would require special heart valve, special muscles, special lungs all to facilitate that one change. I find it hard to believe they all popped in at once, and one of those changes by itself would most likely kill the animal. So that’s my argument. I apologize for not covering everything as you can see this already killed a lot of time.

Ok let's take that star argument a step further. According to NASA there are over 10 billion trillion(10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) stars in the known universe of which 75% are binary systems or greater so that leaves us with 2.5 billion trillion single star systems and even with 1 percent of those stars would be habitable by us it is still several hundred million trillion stars that would be habitiable that is a lot. And the odds are much much greater than even just a trillion.
Secondly you talk about no sub human species. If you can explain to me what Allopatric speciation, Sympatric Speciation, Parapatric speciation, and tell me why you think it is wrong other than you think it just is which is what you have said or that no one has looked into the situation in evolution(which is wrong) than you can talk. Try looking into Dollo's law and see how it corelates to speciation. It deals specifically with genetic expression and unexpression.
You keep talking about how perfect everything is but did you knwo that you are far from perfect your genetic is mostly trash. That you have a ton of genetic code that goes unused strings of DNA that do not produce their associated proteins. That there are techniques that creatures use to surpress certain traits over time.
Did you know that there are many failures in evolution. they are hard to spot because they have too many fatal genes and don't reproduce. there are two headed turtles and 3 legged cats. Did you know that your genetic code is noticebly different than the genes your great great great grandfather had that it has even changed since than.

The eye is common attack by ID becuase it was questioned by even darwin himself. But the eye started off as pigmented cells and has gone through a wide variety of changed including creatures that have water filled cavities with pigmented cells at the bottom.

But all of that aside my biggest problem with ID is that it does one thing that no other purported scientific hypothesis(I say hypothesis because there is no evidence to support ID and say purported because it is not science) is that it says well something made it no need to look forward or look deeper and just kind of feeds on this fast food version of science that says give me all the answers now.

Fooflexible I am not attacking you nor am I calling you dum by any means but I do want to know. What is your opinion about the book of genesis specifically Noah and creation? If religion is the reason you believe in ID are you a literalist or an interpretist? How old do you think the Universe is? rememebr there are no right or wrong answers but to be fair I will give you mine.

I believe there was someone like Noah who expeirenced a massive flood and ended up out to sea but not a flood that covered the world(even in Hebrew "Erets" could mean field country or world). With regards to creation I do not believe in creation as literal story I think it may tell the story of the begining of the jewish/christian/muslim peoples even genesis hints at this with the people in the land of nod not too mention the two seperate stories about creation in Genesis(The first Featuring Elohim the second featuring Yahweh)? The bible was written by men and many of the stories were original passed down orally and in no way what originally happened as told or at least my viewpoint.

When it comes to ID let me ask these questions
What does ID bring to the table? What would study of ID help scientists and engineers understand that could benefit mankind? What does ID prove? and finally What can ID prove? It seems like a a dead end in circular reasoning to me. Like someone taking an Ox cart down a super highway ID seems to try and halt progress of logic and reasoning and does little to help faith at the same time.

About the moon the diameter is only one par tbut it is also the distance. The moon used to much much closer and is slowly moving farther and farther away. The moon used to appear to be a lot bigger and blockked the entire sun more often.
As for the earth having one of the best viewing spots of the universe? Not really Intergalatic space would have the best views of the universe. There is a lot we can't see and the atmosphere obscures most of our view as is. If an intelligent design was set around that than don't you think we would see the stars all day? Intelligent design does not account for a lot of things useless organs and genes. It doesn't account for cancer Downs Syndrome and hermaphiditism. It doesn't account for numerous genetic flaws that are introduced every day nor birth defects. It doesn't account for the high infant mortality rate of mankind before the advent of modern medicine. It doesn't account for a lot since most of evolution is actually unintelligent.

@ fooflexible, last paragraph

I dont know where to start. So here goes, some of the things you say suggest to me that you think evolution from one thing to another happens in a generation. The Giraffe's neck didnt go from 20cms to a couple of meters in a generation, it got longer milimeter by milimeter, generation by generation. So as the Giraffe's neck got longer the Giraffes with the strongest hearts where more likely to survive because they could pump blood to the brain most afficiently. You say its hard to believe that the longer neck, special heart valves, special muscles, special lungs all popped in at once. Well your right to believe this didnt happen, because this didn't happen. Nor did the Giraffe get a longer neck then the special heart valves and lungs. It was all gradual over 1000's of years.

"randomness in genes would imply to my own logic a world that looked like a mad science experiment."

Well the world would look like a mad science experiment except that a lot of animals have been extinct. There did exist every possible animal imaginable, but most did not adapt to their habitat, and went extinct. At one time in the past there was an animal half way between a parrot and a baboon, but it wasnt adapted to its habitat and went extinct. If no animal ever went extinct, you could line them up, an ant at one end and a human at the other. And you would have every other animal inbetween. As you went along this line starting at the ant to the next animal you would see a slight change. There would be a slight change between each animal until you reached the human.

The only reason it looks like every animal is perfect to survive, is because every animal that was imperfect has died out. From long neck Giraffes with weak hearts, to the Dodo.

I doubt you have read a book on evolution, if you have you didnt get a proper grasp of it and I suggest you reread a couple of books.

 There is still alot unknown to science, as far a 'junk' dna goes as time goes by those parts of the DNA have been proven to serve a purpose. Science use to teach the Glial cells in the brain didn't serve a function in thinking, now they think otherwise. In time science has come find Hubble's Constant is wrong. Hence the creation of dark matter, and energy. I find alot about science fascinating, but I find it constantly changing, things once accepted as fact have changed. Evolution itself has changed drastically since Darwin's original theory, so many subsequent theories have been proposed, so many ages and different theories of the big bang have been proposed. Alot will change as time goes on. And that's fine. But for me I have a hard time putting my trust in something I will believe will change, as it continues to do every day. meaning I choose to believe in my faith-based beliefs in the bible over science, when the seem to disagree. Now I know people are saying that evolution isn't contradicting religion, or God, and they also feel that ID is creationism in disguise but I also feel that's bias, Richard Dawkins is an Atheist, who is to say his religious beliefs or lack there of don't motivate his science? He more then once lashed out against religion, he obviously is opposed to it, I can just as easily accuse him of disguesing evolution as athiesm. And then you have a bioligst like Michael Behe, who did believe in evolution and what he had seen over time convinced him otherwise. But I'm not here to talk about ID I wouldn't even call what I believe is Intelligent Design( I'm not refering to the notion, I'm refering to the movement)

My beliefs you ask about, I believe the Bible didn't have an entire account about creation exclaiming that animals were made according to their kind just to be figuritive. Nor does the notion that that account being figuritive make much sense. I believe that account was as is, to tell us what happened. I believe if he used some sort of evolutionary process, it would have in some way shape or form been described like that. That's not to say I take everything literaly in the Bible, I don't think I'm hypocritical for that, I think the context of each section makes it clear. For example, the words in the bible that Galileo refuted to mean the earth stood still, I agree with him, it was not a literal account it poetic figurative statement, the context makes that clear. It uses plenty of illustrations as well. As far as the flood goes, I do believe that account. I'm not one of that young earth creationists, I know they say the bible says the earth was created in six days, but the bible also says a day is like a thousand years to God. This creation was also prior to an actual day. So I believe these days were called days in the sense that they were unspecified periods of time dedicated to each elements therein described.

About the star thing I'm thinking we can simply agree to disagree, but I look at these elements lineup up like this. The chances of it all coming together are like you throwing a 100 piece puzzle in the air and the pieces landing on the ground all in the right place. I don't care how many trillions of times you try it, it just won't happen. I know most will refute this illustration saying it's not accurate for whatever reason, that's just what my own logic tells me. If life has taught me anything its that nothing happens on it's own, nothing naturally falls into place. So I look at the universe how extradinary it is, how amazing life is and this planet, and with no amount reasoning can I accept it's without a creator.

There is a lot of unknown in science and yest there is a lot that changes and our understanding will continue to change as we develop better and more accurate tools to test our current theories and old theories. This is science and as long as something remains a theory it will continue to be tested and some can be proved to eb wrong but science is like looking at a blurry picture one in which we constantly flesh out more detail with all the time. Most sceince is based on changes to objects over time. The earth used to have different geology and different geagraphy the suns fuel changes slowly over time the interaction between the oceans land and moon casues changes in the moons orbit almost nothing in this universe remains static and the soncept of evolution fits in with this notion very nicely. Galaxies used to look very different and this is a visible thing that can be tested even failed theories have brought about useful tools. To hold off and say you have to wait for science is 100% accurate and nothing but fact is a foolish notion and one that stimies development.

That said concepts like evolution and plate tectonics are theories that not everyone needs to know understand only people who make use of those theories need to study them for the rest believe what you want it doesn't really matter. The issue comes in when people try to stop teaching evolution in school. It is a legititmate theory with a mountain of evidence and I have not seen one thing that has refutes it. It does deserve to be taught in school.

As for religion yes Dawkins is an atheist and yes it would be natural for him to lash out at religion since the majority of opposition comes from religous people some of whom mail death threats to people like him. However most scientists are deeply religous they have just come a different understanding than other people. Most people who think evolution is a legitimate theory are religous as well.

The point regarding the star comments is not that there are X many chances for something to happen, so it's not a surprise that it happened.  The point is that there are likely Y many situations very similar to this once that are likely to occur in the universe, and Y is a number too big to put into any meaningful context for almost anyone of us.  We should therefore not be surprised to find life in many, many other places.  The odds of Earth the only place where life exists in the face of these odds would be rediculous.  That would be, to me, like throwing a puzzle in the air and having it fall into place perfectly.

I am also not sure how we can, with certainty, place arbitrary boundaries on what conditions are needed to create life.  We just know what parameters are already in place to create life on this planet compared to apparent lack of life on our neighboring planets (and with sparse information of even these planets).  I would not assume that this is the only way life can come to exist in the universe.  I'll go out on a limb and that that our collective knolwedge of how the universe works is much closer to 0.1% complete than 100%.