Y or N? Do you believe in Evolution? Why?

[DAN 1]

Yes. I believe in Evolution as the Divine Process presented in the Urantia Book. Darwin only touched upon the finite surface of this element of Eternal Life. It has already happend, that scientists of other worlds have come before God and were rewarded for their dedicated journey. Science is an essential part of Creation.

I believe because it appeals to and makes sense to my particular personality and character.

Respectfully Submitted, DAN 1

[hbah427]

Originally Posted by jab2

I guess then you do not believe in and use computers and cars, as these are also continually evolving, both in functionality and capability.

Yes, because cars and computers all happened by chance, and they definitely did not get created by a creator! BTW, What you just said is Micro-Evolution (if you consider computers and cars "species") It's been PROVEN!

[tynkyr_belle]

YES.
Because I'm not STUPID, that's why.

[mark5019]

yes i do its obvious

[Pyrotex]

Yes, I do. Because I took the time to actually study what scientists said about evolution -- not what my hometown preacher was saying about what scientists were saying. I even read Origin of Species. The more I read, the more obvious it became that evolution would work, HAD to work -- that it actually EXPLAINED the evidence, rather than hand-waving it away. And that the only alternative was to believe in an invisible, all-powerful, peeping-tom, supernatural, slight-of-hand, stage magician in the sky.

[InfiniteNow]

I've posted this already in another thread, but within a few days, that thread and this one will be completely seperated again and I feel this particular discussion would benefit from the below:

YouTube - How Evolution REALLY Works

[wddycus]

Moderation note: This posts and several responses to it have been moved to the thread “Believing in God and/or science”. They were moved to the Theology forum because they are less about the original thread’s topic than the subject of God

I do not know where to start. In the Beginning their was a big bang can we all agree with this. So who or what causes it. You can go either way with this depending on your belief so for me I think I will go with the big Guy started it all so if I am right then I have the Big Guy on my side.
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[HydrogenBond]

I believe in evolution, but not necessarily by the standard mechanisms that are currently in vogue. Here a simple observation. Red bloods cells are able to function without DNA. They are alive without needing DNA. But the DNA is not alive without the rest of the cell. Logically, the hierarchy is the alive part first and the dead part second. But most existing theories of evolution put the cart before the horse. If we put the cart before the horse we will need to add fudge factors to account for lack of logical direction. The dead part has to randomly mutate since it is dead. The default is the need for statistics to factor out all the variations in the road that can stir the cart. We need to have a way to account for the affect of potholes, the slope of the road, etc, when the cart is leading.

The ID approach is oversimplified, but they are intuitively putting some version of a horse before the cart. At some conceptual level, this approach is correct, although their choice of horse is not supported with science. That is the heart of the debate. Evolution currently has a conceptual problem that is hard to see since the cart before the horse is supported with science and a random fudge factor. It is fully functional even without needing logic because it is empirical. ID doesn't have this fundamental conceptual problem, but it lacks science support for the type of horse it tries to use.

If we continue the cart-horse analogy one can see the difference in affect. Picture a dirt road that is winding, it has little hills and valleys, pot holes, the shoulder of the road is sloped with various pitches along the way. With the cart going first it will be a slow ride. If we put the horse first, much of this variation is not as significant, since the horse will just pull the cart long. The result is the journey ends quicker. ID sort of assumes a race horse instead of a work horse, but it has a horse pulling the cart. The logical approach is put the horse first but use science at the same time.

[InfiniteNow]

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by HydrogenBond

I believe in evolution, but not necessarily by the standard mechanisms that are currently in vogue.
…
Logically, the hierarchy is the alive part first and the dead part second. But most existing theories of evolution put the cart before the horse.

Though I’m unsure to what logical hierarchy HB is referring, these ideas remind me of the “metabolism first vs. replication first” discussion of such biochemists as Robert Shapiro, which we discussed in The metabolism first model of the origin of life. In short, Sharpiro describes the previous mainstream theories of the origin of life as “replication first”, in that they propose that RNA arose from random chemical reactions, leading to the storage of information, first as RNA only, then as DNA, which organized and allowed cells to faithfully reproduce. In his “metabolism first” model, a rich pre-biotic ecology of cyclic chemical reactions appears first, with RNA eventually being selected from among many such systems due to its superlative efficiency.

Originally Posted by HydrogenBond

Here a simple observation. Red bloods cells are able to function without DNA. They are alive without needing DNA. But the DNA is not alive without the rest of the cell.

I find this an interesting perspective. Red blood cells are indeed without nuclei or mitochondria, and thus without DNA or RNA – with the exception of briefly after their release into the blood, when they retain some of the RNA involved in their construction, and possibly when infected by viral invaders – although they can only be used by viruses as protection and transportation, not for reproduction.

However, I don’t think, upon close examination, most people would conclude that red blood cells are independently alive. Although capable of glycolysis-powered metabolism, red blood cells cannot reproduce, or even repair damage to themselves. Their surface proteins slowly wear and degrade, until, after about 120 days, the immune system identifies them as foreign bodies, attacks and destroys them. Along with the other two kinds of blood cells, white cells (which have DNA) and platelets (which don’t), they’re “manufactured” by bone marrow cells, which have both nuclear and mitochondrial DNA.

Perhaps more than any other, red cells are, IMHO, well-described as “molecular machines”. Due to their simplicity and short lifespans, they’re one of the few metabolically active cells that can be replaced with a variety of artificial substitutes. Though critical to nearly all complex animal life, one can reasonably, I think, consider red blood cells (and their non-red, oxygen-carrying equivalents in some animals) to be non-living, due to their lack of the various “life traits” described in this thread and elsewhere.