Why Creationism Supports Evolution.

[Shapsters]

Also, people were much shorter back in the time of Jesus, was it evolution that made us taller, or do we all get stretched at birth?

Darwin vs. Forceps?

Haha, yes, the new eternal struggle!

 

[Ironic]

To the printing press! WE MUST. INFORM. THE MASSES.

O>O

 

[Archaeology Hat]

My argument? There are black people, and there are white people (among other ethnicities) and that is a pretty 'substantial change' in the human species.

You know the same argument was used to justify slavery and it is still as ignorant as ever. Just because someone has different colored skin doesn't mean that that they are a substantial change.

There was a TV series last month about the first humans and they made a CG Picture of what they'd typically look like and it seemed to be a mix of all races, was pretty cool.

I bet man. We just are what we are now cause of where our ancestors decided to travel to. Some went north and some went south. So I don't buy Wolfwoods idea that because of your ethnicity that your an off shoot of the human species.

Evolution happens over time, starting small and moving up. Wolves and domesticated dogs are considered different species, I think (didn't google that one) but they can cross breed. Each ethnicity, by the theory I'm running with, developed traits to deal with their environment, but didn't split from the human race. They have MINOR adaptations. If societies remained closed through prejudice and lack of travel options, each ethnicity, in theory, would have become a separate race. What we have a subsets of minor adaptations.

But even that theory is full of crap because Africa had been isolated for centuries and the people living there didn't become their own species. Hell, sometimes we still discover tribes in the Amazon and they arn't off shoots of the human species. Your argument really only serves to encourage racism and is kind of offensive.

Again you miss my point. If you find this offensive, that is due to your background with dealing with race, I mean no offense.

My point: MINOR DIFFERENCES exist. Creationism doesn't account for this. I made this just for a light social debate, so don't think I'm trying to encourage racism or anything.

ZOMG AFRICANS ARE SUBHUMANS?!

No.

No, you pointed out that with enough time that groups of humans would become a different species altogether. When scientifically and historically that has been shown that this is not the case. And while you might not be actively encouraging racism good intentions are some of the most dangerous things of all.

Well actually, in theory, that might be the case, it's just no human society has been isolated and remained in conditions different enough for long enough to make evolution into something else particularly likely. The point about macro-organism evolution is that it takes hundreds of thousands of years to millions of years for significant change to occur, there simply hasn't been enough time for biological variation to occur in Homo Sapiens Sapiens and given the increasing culture of globalization we have it becomes increasingly unlikely that we will actually diverge prior to space exploration.

Also we, as a species our mitochondrial DNA comes from seven individual females (although this in no way indicates that at some point in time our species was reduced to only having seven individual females) and our DNA in general indicates by its lack of diversity that at some point in the Paleolithic we were as a species reduced to less than 10,000 individuals.

There are however also clear mitochondrial DNA clades, which are also associated with ethnicities and geographical areas, for example all of western europe and all people tracing their ancestry back to Western Europe are related to each other.

Further Reading: Seven Daughters of Eve (2001) Bryan Sykes

As for Creationism vs Evolution.

Pure Creationism is a religious belief supported by little more than a 10,000 year old legend.

Intelligent Design isn't a "Theory" like Evolution, it should NOT be taught in the Science classroom as basically, it's not a scientific theory, it presents a hypothesis that can neither be proven nor disproven. There's nothing excluding it from being taught in the Religious Education class though. Nor does believing ID exclude you from believing in Evolution, it's just important to separate the two in your mind if you want to be taken seriously as a scientist.

 

[AndyFromMonday]

Creationism? It died a long time ago. Just because people still beat the dead body of the thing doesn't mean something amazing will come out of it. It's so flawed and pretty much so dumb that just by reading it's definition you'll imediatelly think "Oh my gosh..."


FYI, creationism: Creationism is the belief that humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe were created IN THEIR ORIGINAL FORM BY A DEITY. Creationism in the West is usually based on a literal reading of Genesis 1-2, and in its broad sense covers a wide range of beliefs and interpretations.

How can some people not see the siliness of this, I don't know.

 

[internutt]

Creationism goes hand in hand with parts of evolution I believe.

God created us and animals and placed us in the Garden of Eden, the fall caused humanity and the animals to spread across the Earth.

Being exposed to sunlight constantly in Africa and the middle East eventually darkened the skin of some humans. Or perhaps lightened other people's skins since places like the UK do not get much sunlight.

Animals adapted to their environments, different coloured feathers/shapes of beaks, whatever they really required to survive in their given climate and area of the Earth.

God doesn't abandon his creation. He helps them survive.
Dogs are another perfect example of evolution. Mankind used wolves for years, training them for specific tasks, mixed with specific breeding and location on Earth we now have a variety of Dogs as pets. Each with their own strengths and weaknesses.

Mankind can create, adapt and destroy. Sounds just like God. I do believe we were made in his image.

 

[bue519]

My argument? There are black people, and there are white people (among other ethnicities) and that is a pretty 'substantial change' in the human species.

You know the same argument was used to justify slavery and it is still as ignorant as ever. Just because someone has different colored skin doesn't mean that that they are a substantial change.

There was a TV series last month about the first humans and they made a CG Picture of what they'd typically look like and it seemed to be a mix of all races, was pretty cool.

I bet man. We just are what we are now cause of where our ancestors decided to travel to. Some went north and some went south. So I don't buy Wolfwoods idea that because of your ethnicity that your an off shoot of the human species.

Evolution happens over time, starting small and moving up. Wolves and domesticated dogs are considered different species, I think (didn't google that one) but they can cross breed. Each ethnicity, by the theory I'm running with, developed traits to deal with their environment, but didn't split from the human race. They have MINOR adaptations. If societies remained closed through prejudice and lack of travel options, each ethnicity, in theory, would have become a separate race. What we have a subsets of minor adaptations.

But even that theory is full of crap because Africa had been isolated for centuries and the people living there didn't become their own species. Hell, sometimes we still discover tribes in the Amazon and they arn't off shoots of the human species. Your argument really only serves to encourage racism and is kind of offensive.

Again you miss my point. If you find this offensive, that is due to your background with dealing with race, I mean no offense.

My point: MINOR DIFFERENCES exist. Creationism doesn't account for this. I made this just for a light social debate, so don't think I'm trying to encourage racism or anything.

ZOMG AFRICANS ARE SUBHUMANS?!

No.

No, you pointed out that with enough time that groups of humans would become a different species altogether. When scientifically and historically that has been shown that this is not the case. And while you might not be actively encouraging racism good intentions are some of the most dangerous things of all.

Well actually, in theory, that might be the case, it's just no human society has been isolated and remained in conditions different enough for long enough to make evolution into something else particularly likely. The point about macro-organism evolution is that it takes hundreds of thousands of years to millions of years for significant change to occur, there simply hasn't been enough time for biological variation to occur in Homo Sapiens Sapiens and given the increasing culture of globalization we have it becomes increasingly unlikely that we will actually diverge prior to space exploration.

Also we, as a species our mitochondrial DNA comes from seven individual females (although this in no way indicates that at some point in time our species was reduced to only having seven individual females) and our DNA in general indicates by its lack of diversity that at some point in the Paleolithic we were as a species reduced to less than 10,000 individuals.

There are however also clear mitochondrial DNA clades, which are also associated with ethnicities and geographical areas, for example all of western europe and all people tracing their ancestry back to Western Europe are related to each other.

Further Reading: Seven Daughters of Eve (2001) Bryan Sykes

As for Creationism vs Evolution.

Pure Creationism is a religious belief supported by little more than a 10,000 year old legend.

Intelligent Design isn't a "Theory" like Evolution, it should NOT be taught in the Science classroom as basically, it's not a scientific theory, it presents a hypothesis that can neither be proven nor disproven. There's nothing excluding it from being taught in the Religious Education class though. Nor does believing ID exclude you from believing in Evolution, it's just important to separate the two in your mind if you want to be taken seriously as a scientist.

I thank you for your in depth analysis. But I the point I was trying to make was an ethical one. That just because someone has a different skin color does not mean that they are a separate species and that this argument was used a for racial purposes back in the day.

 

[Lexodus]

Well, yeah, it kind of destroys the argument of the Young Earth because evolutionary changes take more time but most Creationists don't even believe in the Young Earth anymore.
The more basic problems that arise between Creationists and Evolutionists aren't really about the Young Earth.

If only that were true. The mainstream group of Christians in America are Young Earth Creationists.

Which, by definition, means they are idiots.

 

[irrelevantnugget]

Ok, now, I dont' want to start a huge religion war, I just came up with this case with my coworker last week and it seems sound. I post it to get feedback on where the flaws in my argument may or may not be; a thought out discussion, if you will. First, what is evolution?

Wikipedia: "In biology, evolution is change in the genetic material of a population of organisms from one generation to the next. Though the changes produced in any one generation are small, differences accumulate with each generation and can, over time, cause substantial changes in the organisms."

My argument? There are black people, and there are white people (among other ethnicities) and that is a pretty 'substantial change' in the human species.

Now, classic evolution says that this is normal. Adam and Eve or other creationist theories state that, inherently, we would all be one race one color. Why is that not so then? Well, if we were just created, evolution has obviously darkened the skin of equatorial people, while lightening the skin of norther people, and narrowing the eyes of Asians, each with an advantage to the environment they migrated to.

Now, this idea shoots down another sect of creationism: the young earth creationist. If the earth is only a few thousand years old, how FAST do people evolve these traits? Shouldn't we see people morphing in civilized society to reduce minorities by assimilating into the 'norm' of that region based on the evolutionary advantages for that region? This means we should, right now, be able to SEE Americans that live in China getting Chinese features since it, in theory, helps you live there.

I'm sure there are flaws here, but I currently can't make any out from it. So, let the destruction being I guess!

~cheers~

Your mistake is that you see race traits as evolutionary adaptations that have certain benefits. That's where you went wrong. There's 3 kinds of mutations, all randomly obtained with reproduction: the kind that helps a species survive (or at least gives the mutant a better chance to survive and pass on his genes in the gene pool), the kind that gives a disadvantage to your survival skills (thus taking you OUT of the gene pool), and the kind that doesn't really have any significant effect.

Race belongs to the latter, I'd say.

 

[kanyatta]

My argument? There are black people, and there are white people (among other ethnicities) and that is a pretty 'substantial change' in the human species.

If the first humans were in the middle of the spectrum of color, it would have only been a few dozen generations before we would have the diversity we see today (pale white to darkest black). It has to do with reproduction and traits, a morphing because of your exposure to the sun (equatorial distance) or anything like that.

Well, yeah, it kind of destroys the argument of the Young Earth because evolutionary changes take more time but most Creationists don't even believe in the Young Earth anymore.
The more basic problems that arise between Creationists and Evolutionists aren't really about the Young Earth.

If only that were true. The mainstream group of Christians in America are Young Earth Creationists.

Which, by definition, means they are idiots.

No, it just means you've never taken the time to hear a relatively intelligent Young Earth Creationist's opinion. You've only heard redneck Bible-thumper's opinions, and obviously never someone with 7+ years of college and dozens of published books talk on the subject.

There's plenty of evidence to support a Young Earth. The presence of Hydrogen in our world completely defies Old Earth dogma, since Hydrogen converts into Helium as a one-way process, and there is no known ways to produce Hydrogen, and it would take approximately 72,000 years for all of the Hydrogen to be lost in Earth's atmosphere.

Also, comets lose their mass over time by traveling through the universe, and there is no way to create new comets. At the rate they dissipate, a comet over 10,000 years old would be larger than our sun.

There's plenty more examples and explanations to the theory of a Young Earth, but in the end, it's just a theory, just like Old Earth, and in the long run, what does it really matter where we came from? I think where we're going is a more important question.

 

[NDWolfwood5268]

My argument? There are black people, and there are white people (among other ethnicities) and that is a pretty 'substantial change' in the human species.

If the first humans were in the middle of the spectrum of color, it would have only been a few dozen generations before we would have the diversity we see today (pale white to darkest black). It's just basic genetics.

Yes, aka, EVIDENCE towards evolution. It shows an organism can adapt, albeit slightly. In this case VERY slightly. Those 'genetics' are what I'm referring to. It shows evidence towards evolution.

 

[NDWolfwood5268]

Ok, now, I dont' want to start a huge religion war, I just came up with this case with my coworker last week and it seems sound. I post it to get feedback on where the flaws in my argument may or may not be; a thought out discussion, if you will. First, what is evolution?

Wikipedia: "In biology, evolution is change in the genetic material of a population of organisms from one generation to the next. Though the changes produced in any one generation are small, differences accumulate with each generation and can, over time, cause substantial changes in the organisms."

My argument? There are black people, and there are white people (among other ethnicities) and that is a pretty 'substantial change' in the human species.

Now, classic evolution says that this is normal. Adam and Eve or other creationist theories state that, inherently, we would all be one race one color. Why is that not so then? Well, if we were just created, evolution has obviously darkened the skin of equatorial people, while lightening the skin of norther people, and narrowing the eyes of Asians, each with an advantage to the environment they migrated to.

Now, this idea shoots down another sect of creationism: the young earth creationist. If the earth is only a few thousand years old, how FAST do people evolve these traits? Shouldn't we see people morphing in civilized society to reduce minorities by assimilating into the 'norm' of that region based on the evolutionary advantages for that region? This means we should, right now, be able to SEE Americans that live in China getting Chinese features since it, in theory, helps you live there.

I'm sure there are flaws here, but I currently can't make any out from it. So, let the destruction being I guess!

~cheers~

Your mistake is that you see race traits as evolutionary adaptations that have certain benefits. That's where you went wrong. There's 3 kinds of mutations, all randomly obtained with reproduction: the kind that helps a species survive (or at least gives the mutant a better chance to survive and pass on his genes in the gene pool), the kind that gives a disadvantage to your survival skills (thus taking you OUT of the gene pool), and the kind that doesn't really have any significant effect.

Race belongs to the latter, I'd say.

But whether they are beneficial or not is irrelevant, I mentioned this in a previous post. ANY change shows the POSSIBILITY for change meaning evidence towards evolution.

And skin color IS beneficial. I also cited an abridged story about that. Light skin in the north and dark skin in the equatorial regions is beneficial.

 

[kanyatta]

Yes, aka, EVIDENCE towards evolution. It shows an organism can adapt, albeit slightly. In this case VERY slightly. Those 'genetics' are what I'm referring to. It shows evidence towards evolution.

The thing you're missing, it's not "adaptation," it's heredity. If an Asian person and an African person have children, the child is going to have traits from both parents, since children are not born from spores.

Also, if a person who grew up in Alaska and has Alaskan traits of very pale skin moves to Cairo, they will grow more tan from more exposure to the sun, but if they move back to Alaska and have kids with a very pale mate, the child has a very good chance of being very pale, even though one parent may be very tan from their exposure to the sun, just because they're appearance changed, not their genetics. Same as if a person with Cairo ancestry moves to Alaska, their skin may get a bit more pale just because they don't have exposure to the sun, but they are still going to have dark-skinned children, just because their DNA is a certain way.

 

[NDWolfwood5268]

i've hured that one before, and i still think that you've contradicted your own argument by pointing out the different races in people. If creationism is to be believed that adam and eve were the start of humanity, evolution to other races is impossible, due to the lack of inherent recessive gene from the past ancestors of the race involved.
I am also inclined to point out that creationism in no way supports the theory of evolution, because evolution would suggest that a natural occurrence is out of the hands of a higher being or "god". Both theory's directly oppose each other, both in terms of ideology and design.
Yours is a better argument that most though, although it's impossible to start a thread on creationism without sparking a response like this. Its a bit of a shame really... but there's my input

I think I get what you're saying... I found it a bit unclear...

The first bit you said about Adam and Eve is what I'm talking about. The second bit about how creationism counters evolution is also what I'm talking about. I'm saying that, if you follow the logic of creationism, the first part of your response would make today's existence impossible. Hence, creationism is unlikely, if not impossible, and the second part of your argument dictates evolution to hold true.

 

[NDWolfwood5268]

Yes, aka, EVIDENCE towards evolution. It shows an organism can adapt, albeit slightly. In this case VERY slightly. Those 'genetics' are what I'm referring to. It shows evidence towards evolution.

The thing you're missing, it's not "adaptation," it's heredity. If an Asian person and an African person have children, the child is going to have traits from both parents, since children are not born from spores.

Also, if a person who grew up in Alaska and has Alaskan traits of very pale skin moves to Cairo, they will grow more tan from more exposure to the sun, but if they move back to Alaska and have kids with a very pale mate, the child has a very good chance of being very pale, even though one parent may be very tan from their exposure to the sun, just because they're appearance changed, not their genetics. Same as if a person with Cairo ancestry moves to Alaska, their skin may get a bit more pale just because they don't have exposure to the sun, but they are still going to have dark-skinned children, just because their DNA is a certain way.

No, I get what your saying, but what I mean is that, if you subscribe to creationism, all of what you just said, would not exist. You understand my argument perhaps best of all of these guys so far. The existence of genetics shows evidence towards evolution. These 'basic genetics' is what the theory of evolution is based on. Hence, their existence disproves creationism.