Eight objections to evolution

marks said:

Does this notion of evolution qualify as a "theory"?

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Yes. All of Darwin's points of evolutionary theory have been confirmed by evidence. Many other predictions of the theory have since been confirmed.

marks said:

My understanding of a scientific theory is that you can repeat experiments that show your hypothesis to be correctly predictive.

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Yes. But not always experiments. For example, Einstein's theory predicted that mass distorts space. It was unproven until observations during an eclipse of the sun showed that space was distorted enough to show stars that were actually behind the sun. Properly, a theory is a hypothesis for which its predictions have been repeatedly verified by subsequent evidence.

Darwin's claim is that random variation, along with natural selection changes populations over time, and this sometimes causes new species. Evolutionary theory today adds the findings of genetics, which cleared up one major problem with Darwin's theory.

Wick Stick said:

He did. It just isn't in Genesis. It's in Ezekiel.

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The only reference I'm familiar with, is his mention of the King of Tyre:
Exekiel 28:13 Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.

But this is obviously not saying that the king was literally in the garden of Eden. Or is that your point?

The Barbarian said:

The only reference I'm familiar with, is his mention of the King of Tyre:
Exekiel 28:13 Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.

But this is obviously not saying that the king was literally in the garden of Eden. Or is that your point?

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There's a few. Chapter 31:

3 Behold, the Assyrian [was] a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of an high stature; and his top was among the thick boughs. ...
8 The cedars in the garden of God could not hide him: the fir trees were not like his boughs, and the chesnut trees were not like his branches; nor any tree in the garden of God was like unto him in his beauty. 9 I have made him fair by the multitude of his branches: so that all the trees of Eden, that [were] in the garden of God, envied him.
16 I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to hell with them that descend into the pit: and all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, shall be comforted in the nether parts of the earth. 17 They also went down into hell with him unto [them that be] slain with the sword; and [they that were] his arm, [that] dwelt under his shadow in the midst of the heathen. 18 To whom art thou thus like in glory and in greatness among the trees of Eden? yet shalt thou be brought down with the trees of Eden unto the nether parts of the earth: thou shalt lie in the midst of the uncircumcised with [them that be] slain by the sword. This [is] Pharaoh and all his multitude, saith the Lord GOD.

Here, Ezekiel treats the garden of Eden as a literal place - "in Lebanon." However, he doesn't treat the trees as literal. Instead, he makes them metaphors for the kings of nations. In particular, the Assyrian king and his allies, though the prophecy is ultimately about the downfall of Pharoah.

As for the king of Tyre in chapter 28, if the garden of Eden is identified by the prophet as "Lebanon," then I believe Tyre is literally located in Lebanon.

Jericho said:

But humanity didn't create the universe and everything in it. Only God can create something from nothing. This is exactly what the Bible says: He spoke it into existence and created man from the dust of the ground. If you truly are a Christian, then there is no middle ground to be had. You say I haven't given any answer to why evolution might have been a means of creation when I have given many reasons why it cannot. There's simply no observational evidence of something changing from one kind to another kind as Darwin suggested. There's nothing in the fossil record to support it either. That's why it remains an unproven theory. Conversely, you haven't provided any reasons why evolution might have been the means of creation.

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1. I do not think you have a good argument against Evolution. They literally have dozens of examples of change and thousands of examples.
2. Darwin is old school.....He is not a good example of evolutionary science.
3. Because a person agrees with Evolution that does not mean they are not a devoted Christian.
4. This is actually a good case study: The number of people that think that the Bible is God. Then they put Holy Bible on the cover. The Bible is not a God. The scriptures are not a God. The Bible is not Holy. The scriptures were men documenting God and or trying to understand God. That is a good thing, but it was written from an antient perspective. Not a good source for the Law of Physics or advanced medical or Cosmology or the advancement of species......The Bible lead people to think that the earth was the shape of a cracker on a foundation, immovable and the sun and stars revolved around it.
5. The scriptures were inspired by God, not dictated. Man's attempt to document God and the history of it all. We call the scriptures the Word of God.....but they are not an actual God. That would be idolatry.
6. As far as Creationism.....The oldest part of the "Bible" Which is made up of two separate short creation stories that have their differences and both are vague and full of symbolism. Nothing bad but, it is what it is. From there people speculate and fill in the holes left by the stories.

You turn on your satellite TV and you watch a football game broadcasted from a satellite 20,000 plus miles in space. You call an ambulance with that witchy smart phone that can talk to nearly anyone around the world. If you have a heart attack you go to that building of science to be treated by someone that knows more than what the Bible says.....if not....you are going to die.

The science of Evolution.....human or otherwise.....includes many branches of scientific disciplines. Considering all that, I find the theory of Intelligent design the most plausible. And all theories have holes.....I know that God created things from nothing....no way around it.....Even the Big Bang theory starts after God created the material to go bang. Something from nothing that goes bang and sets things in motion and the rest evolves under His power and control. The real difference is that "DAYS" can mean periods of billions of years.

There is nothing degrading to Christianity to know or believe that there is a lot more to the story of creation than what is written in those two short stories in Genesis, as long as you know whatever theory is prevalent, God was the power and intelligence behind all of it.

The Barbarian said:

Yes. All of Darwin's points of evolutionary theory have been confirmed by evidence. Many other predictions of the theory have since been confirmed.

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No one has seen a new species. The only "evolution" anyone has seen is adaptation, not changing species. You yourself claim a new species except they can reproduce with the "origin" species, so this is not a new species at all. That's the very definition of a species.

The more we add to our body of knowledge, the more scientists are recognizing intelligent design. You can see it in an airplane, or a toaster, but you can't see it in the human body, which I find puzzling to say the least!

Much love!

marks said:

No one has seen a new species.

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Drosophia miranda, for example.

marks said:

The only "evolution" anyone has seen is adaptation,

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No, that's wrong. You've confused evolution and adaptation
Getting a sun tan is adaptation, but not evolution.
A random mutation that has not selective value is evolution, but not adaptation.
Evolution of a new enzyme system is evolution and adaptation.

marks said:

You yourself claim a new species except they can reproduce with the "origin" species, so this is not a new species at all.

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You don't get what a species is. A species is reproductive isolate from other populations. So polar bears (Ursus maritimus) is a species. So is a brown bear (Ursus arctos). They are very different, but having diverged around the last ice age, they can still reproduce sometimes. as in zoos.

Darwin pointed this out in his theory. If evolution is a fact, one would expect to see transitional cases where reproduction is still somewhat possible. If creationism were true, this would be impossible. It's a huge problem, one in which many creationists have fudged a little, allowing that new species, new genera, and sometimes new familes can evolve.

marks said:

The more we add to our body of knowledge, the more scientists are recognizing intelligent design.

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The Kitzmiller trial pretty much put intelligent design out of the running, showing that it's a religion doctrine, not a scientific theory. IDer Michael Behe openly admitted that ID is science in the same sense that astrology is science. The decision was, as ID inventer Philip Johnson admitted was a "train wreck" for ID. It's no longer an issue in the sciences, although religions like Islam and some fundamentalist Christians still accept it.

marks said:

You can see it in an airplane, or a toaster, but you can't see it in the human body,

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Airplanes and toasters are designed, rather than evolved. We do have some examples of evolved machines now, since engineers have discovered that evolution is more efficient than design for solving complex problems. But living things show all sorts of evidence of evolution. Would you like to learn about some of those?