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[chaoticag]

Then until I see proof, we operate under the Null Hypothesis and try to explain it as best as we can. We aren't here to prove abiogenisis, but the existence of chance supports it. We know chance exists, and are unsure about God, so while I have not proved it, I can support it more than your position.

(This is a little out of order, but bear with me, I typed up the questions as the answers popped up in my head)

First off, who in the world says the existence of a God would stop scientific advancement?

Because it happened before (not the existence per se, but bear with me, that wasn't the right question to ask). Islam ushered an age of knowledge through Islamic scholar scientists, but after a while, science became heresy, and scientific advancement there stopped. While in the dark ages, there was near to no scientific advancement,  just the three field system, and the wheelbarrow.

a visit from Jesus himself would not change your mind.

No, it would. As long as he can prove he is who he says he is.

How can something like this explain free will, and the human mind?

Easy, free will is beneficial or neutral to survival. When it does pop up, it usually stays. Besides that, the only difference between a human mind and a chimpanzee's is that the human mind is more developed, specifically towards group mentality. It is the group that makes humanity at it's most powerful, and as many traits that further social cohesion would be favored under natural selection. If you really wanted to, you can teach a chimpanzee to use sign language, and might be suprised by the results.

And please, keep the questions coming.

[kuro_suna]

This I don't understand, so over 5,000 years a wolf can become a chiwawa but not a pterodactyl to chicken in a million years.

Ah, this one is quite simple. A wolf and a chihuahua are very different, yes, but they are both recognizably canines. A pteranodon (and I KNOW you mean pteranodon, because everyone mixes it up with the fucking pterodactyl) has nothing in common with a chicken beyond wings (which on a chicken are practically vestigial) and what could generously be called a beak. And don't get me started on skeletal structure, because I'm fully aware that all flying non-insects share SOME things in common, because without them they couldn't even fly.

But they do have similar organs, connective tissue and feathers are made of the same material as scales, I don't understand why you insists on arbitrary cut off points regardless of how much time were talking about.
Also why do lifeforms that are clearly more primitive like marine invertebrates that have light sensitive skin instead of eyes exist.

[CJ1145]

True, animals have minds too, I do not deny that. The question I am attempting to pose is, how could such a thing come about through natural processes (or rather as my case wishes to be, non-guided natural processes)

Also why do lifeforms that are clearly more primitive like marine invertebrates that have light sensitive skin instead of eyes exist.

I... don't understand the purpose of this. Are you supporting ID now? Because unless I am mistaken natural selection would destroy, change, or otherwise remove more primitive creatures, correct?

[kuro_suna]

Also why do lifeforms that are clearly more primitive like marine invertebrates that have light sensitive skin instead of eyes exist.

I... don't understand the purpose of this. Are you supporting ID now? Because unless I am mistaken natural selection would destroy, change, or otherwise remove more primitive creatures, correct?

Most have but they don't have to die out as long as they can maintain a ecological niche. The point is a creator that is already a sentient lifeforms shouldn't have to make multiple prototypes just to figure out how to focus light.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_eye

[CJ1145]

Most have but they don't have to die out as long as they can maintain a ecological niche. The point is a creator that is already a sentient lifeforms shouldn't have to make multiple prototypes just to figure out how to focus light

Not necessarily true. If we're going by alien creators, then there's the chance that they simply needed to get down the basics first. They're not perfect, you know. Not to mention you assume a lot when you decide they must have had eyes. Life on other planets could take many forms, and eyes are not a necessary part of any given form.

If we're going by Almighty God creator here, then the answer is quite simple: He's God, you're not, let him do what he wants. Maybe he wanted to try a fish with no eyes, just to see what it'd be like. If he made the universe he has every right to dick around in it.

[Louis]

Yargh, I wish I had time to read all of this thread and really get involved in some discussion here.  I'll try to succintly state my thoughts however.  I apologize if I'm breaking up the current argument.

I think that all is this argument on the existence of God is a moot point.  If such a being, that is capable of creating matter in all it's infinite complexities and combinations, existed it would be beyond our capablities to even fathom.  The Christian God, and others that I know of(not all of them), are really just anthropomorphisms of nature.  Attributing and projecting our ideas about things unto them so that they can be understood(or rather understood to be understood, meaning simply believed to be) in human terms.  Something that conceived our entire reality, if it indeed it is an entity, is beyond it and therefore entirely alien and not conceptually available to our thoughts.  To see God or believe that you know it is a rationalization and, ultimately, self-deception. 

[chaoticag]

True, animals have minds too, I do not deny that. The question I am attempting to pose is, how could such a thing come about through natural processes (or rather as my case wishes to be, non-guided natural processes)

Through genetics, mutations are made, bad mutations die out, neutral and good mutations stay. This is likely a multiple gene process, with one more gene adding just a little bit more. Again, this doesn't happen all at once, and the environment, including predators and prey, helped shape this. It naturally came out because anything that did otherwise would get the creature killed, in it's specific environment. If the same species was over different environments, then each species naturally adapts to the respective environment, because otherwise, they would die.

And no, evolution makes no assumption that "lesser" creatures die out, just creatures no longer suited to their natural environment. Those invertebrates still fit their environment well, and since there is no need for change to happen the environment is stable enough for their existence. Fits perfectly.

[IronyOwl]

Because unless I am mistaken natural selection would destroy, change, or otherwise remove more primitive creatures, correct?

"Primitive" is not the same as "unfit" or "inefficient." Screwdrivers didn't die out when we invented power drills, because they still have advantages, even if those advantages are just cost, availability, size, or other factors that don't seem to make them strictly better in a direct comparison.

Similarly, primitive organisms can often go on thriving where more complex ones would have problems or just be inefficient, even if they generally don't seem like they'd be able to compete head-on. It's the same reason evolution doesn't mean everything's getting bigger, faster, stronger, smarter, etc.

[Bauglir]

True, animals have minds too, I do not deny that. The question I am attempting to pose is, how could such a thing come about through natural processes (or rather as my case wishes to be, non-guided natural processes)

Also why do lifeforms that are clearly more primitive like marine invertebrates that have light sensitive skin instead of eyes exist.

I... don't understand the purpose of this. Are you supporting ID now? Because unless I am mistaken natural selection would destroy, change, or otherwise remove more primitive creatures, correct?

Well, birds didn't come from flying dinosaurs anyway (at least not the ones you're talking about). You could start with a velociraptor or something, a jumping dinosaur that could benefit from motion control after it's airborne so that it can hit prey with more accuracy. From there, it's not too hard to suppose that scales could grow more and more outward, eventually becoming shafts which could provide minimal advantages in controlling flight direction (EDIT: because each successive lengthening provides slightly more advantage). From there, you can imagine these shafts growing perpendicular shafts and so on until you reach modern feathers. After all, feathers and reptile scales are the essentially the same thing, in terms of their protein structure (yay for keratin, right?). At the same time, such animals might develop a hunting pattern that relies on ambush from above as they become more able to direct their falls, and they might have decreasing mass to help maneuverability further. Eventually, feathers became large enough to generate slight lift, and those on the limbs were ideally positioned for the movements necessary for flight. And so on. Birds are pretty easy, really.

Also, natural selection doesn't do anything particularly mean to primitive creatures. It does mean things to creatures that are ill-adapted, but if sharks worked out an essentially ideal body plan millions upon millions of years ago, who is natural selection to complain?

[Micro102]

Evolution started trillions of years ago, when he first strand of DNA (or maybe some lesser form of it, maybe even lesser then RNA) was created by some random encounter of molecules. That "DNA" created more of itself. Eventually, one of it's billions of copies came into contact with molecules that increased the "DNA"'s structure. That's when they started forming cell walls or whatever. They made more copies and those copies started randomizing their DNA sequences, adding to it (transportation, transduction, conjugation), changing it through a series of complete coincidences. A few trillion years of this later and you start getting a multi-cellular organism.

This multi-cellular organism kept multiplying and just like the single celled organisms, and randomized it's DNA. Sometimes mutations occurred and it's skin hardened, maybe it grew a skeleton. Then these new creatures that were capable of surviving started to multiply as well. They mutated over and over, splitting down the evolutionary chain, at once point what would become eyes was created in a mutation. Before that light sensitive skin could have been what was used; and both of these creatures thrived.

Evolution is a series of mistakes over trillions of year, where the mistakes that just happened to work out stay in genes and get passed onto offspring.

The amount of different types of animals their could be is almost limitless. Googles of mistakes determine what those creatures would be.

That is my view on evolution so far.

[CJ1145]

Similarly, primitive organisms can often go on thriving where more complex ones would have problems or just be inefficient, even if they generally don't seem like they'd be able to compete head-on. It's the same reason evolution doesn't mean everything's getting bigger, faster, stronger, smarter, etc.

Yet, the question must be raised why NOTHING is getting bigger, faster, stronger, smarter, etc. What adaptation we have seen in our history is nowhere near enough to be adequate proof for evolution. Ultimately, our only clues are by looking into the past. But when we look into the past, whatever side we're on, we expect certain things to happen, and therefore we ignore contradictory evidence, that which supports evolution and that which supports creation.

trillions, DNA, ehhwha?

Based on what I learned of evolution, that process you've described it very, VERY wrong. DNA cannot survive without something to contain it. It doesn't just float freely. You need cells before you even get DNA. Which is mind-boggling. Also, choose your words carefully. Even if the evolutionary theory is correct, the universe is nowhere near that old.

When you get to the end of it, it's a futile argument.

[Micro102]

Your right about the age of earth, I was too lazy to look it up but 4 billion years is still plenty of time for evolution to take place.

DNA on the other hand can "survive" quite easily outside of a cell. It's a molecule, just like any other molecule. And it can replicate too if nitrogen bases are around it. Look up PCR to see how DNA can replicate exponentially. It was a slim chance, but it happened naturally.

[chaoticag]

True, there was probably no DNA first, but that doesn't rule out a precursor (Actually, DNA works fine in a non-living environment. Other creatures are the issue), which is what abiogenisis is about.

Yet, the question must be raised why NOTHING is getting bigger, faster, stronger, smarter, etc. What adaptation we have seen in our history is nowhere near enough to be adequate proof for evolution. Ultimately, our only clues are by looking into the past. But when we look into the past, whatever side we're on, we expect certain things to happen, and therefore we ignore contradictory evidence, that which supports evolution and that which supports creation.

You forget though, bigger better faster comes at a cost. You need to eat more calories to be faster, and you over-hunt your prey, leaving less calories, then die out. Ecology is all about checks and balances. Besides which, you can't prove a theory, and there isn't such a thing as too little proof, but something such as contradictory proof.

Speaking of which, do you know of such proof CJ? You also say there is proof that supports creation.

[Bauglir]

Similarly, primitive organisms can often go on thriving where more complex ones would have problems or just be inefficient, even if they generally don't seem like they'd be able to compete head-on. It's the same reason evolution doesn't mean everything's getting bigger, faster, stronger, smarter, etc.

Yet, the question must be raised why NOTHING is getting bigger, faster, stronger, smarter, etc. What adaptation we have seen in our history is nowhere near enough to be adequate proof for evolution. Ultimately, our only clues are by looking into the past. But when we look into the past, whatever side we're on, we expect certain things to happen, and therefore we ignore contradictory evidence, that which supports evolution and that which supports creation.

Actually, it is. You've got things like average human height increasing measurably over thousands of years, stuff like that. What adaptation we have seen in our history is more than adequate evidence for evolution when one considers the enormous time span over which macroevolution is argued to have occurred. Of course, many of our best clues ARE found in the past, and what we find there is absolutely no support for creationism. We find some interesting things that suggest that events in the Bible and similar works were allegory for historical events that may have actually occurred, and things like that, but only with regards human history. We also find no proof that creationism is wrong, because creationism has a built-in excuse of "God's will is mysterious, don't question it" (incidentally, this is one of the major things that makes creationism not science, whether it is correct or not). We do, however, find tremendous amount of support for evolution, which I've provided to give you a chance to refute. If you didn't see the post, say so and I'll bring it up again.

trillions, DNA, ehhwha?

Based on what I learned of evolution, that process you've described it very, VERY wrong. DNA cannot survive without something to contain it. It doesn't just float freely. You need cells before you even get DNA. Which is mind-boggling. Also, choose your words carefully. Even if the evolutionary theory is correct, the universe is nowhere near that old.

When you get to the end of it, it's a futile argument.

Actually DNA can survive without things to contain it. I do DNA extractions from algae on a weekly basis, and it's stored in nothing more than water at a low temperature. Not too preposterous. Of course, you're right that it's far likelier that RNA and proteins came before DNA, and you're right that the universe isn't that old (it's about 15 billion years old, IIRC). It's not a futile argument, though. Quite frankly he just got a few details different from the theory; the actual concepts, he seems to have grasped far more effectively, which is the important part, really.

[Micro102]

You can't compare 10 thousand years of history to 4 billion years of evolution. 10000 years would of generated 1/400000 of the new species that 4000000000 years created.