quote:

So without gravity how do you explain the formation of the universe. Where does gravity come from and who ordered gravity as a reality? Perhaps you can share with us your view about nothingness and gravity

SR4759,

Here is the basic question as mentioned above that atheists shy away from. They simply do not know, but instead will only make stifling comments like does your God eat food, sleep and the like. Downscaling an all mighty God like this is not winning the debate for you in any way if we consider your insignificance against the power of God - in fact all human mortals put together.

Gravity the mystery force ....

Starting with the great creationist physicist Michael Faraday in 1849, physicists have searched continually for a hidden relationship between gravity and the electromagnetic force. There is an ongoing effort to unify all four fundamental forces into a single equation or ‘theory of everything’, with no success thus far. Gravity remains the least understood force.

It is a fair question to ask natural science why basic laws such as gravity exist. Why is the universe filled with intriguing technical relationships, symmetry, and unity? Some experts are quick to reply that the task of science is only to find out the how of nature, not the why. But this excuse simply reveals the incompleteness of natural science alone. Ultimate truth about the universe must also deal with God's initial provision of gravity to hold every thing together. One wonders if scientists will ever discover the actual method by which God maintains the gravity system.

Gravity, the ‘mystery force’, … is poorly understood after nearly four centuries of research …

Isaac Newton published his discoveries about gravity and motion in 1687, in his masterpiece Principia. Some readers quickly concluded that Newton’s universe left no room for God, since everything now could be explained with equations. But this was not Newton’s view, as he clarified in the Principia’s second edition: ‘Our most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being.’

Designer gravity

The force F between two masses m1 and m2, when separated by a distance r, can be written as F = (G m1 m2)/r^2

Where G is the gravitational constant, first measured by Henry Cavendish in 1798. (1 )

This equation shows that gravity decreases as the separation distance, r, between two objects becomes large but never quite reaches zero.

The inverse-square nature of this equation is intriguing. After all, there is no essential reason why gravity should behave in this way. In a chance, evolving universe, some random exponent like r^1.97 or r^2.3 would seem much more likely. However, precise measurements have shown an exact exponent out to at least 5 decimal places, 2.00000. As one researcher put it, this result seems just a little too neat. (2)

We may conclude that the gravity force shows precise, created design. Actually, if the exponent deviated just slightly from exactly 2, planet orbits and the entire universe would become unstable.

Gravity is the ‘string’ that holds things in orbit.

Reference and note:

1. For the technically minded, G = 6.672 x 10^–11 Nm^2kg^–2
2. Thompsen, D., ‘Gravity very precisely’, Science News 118(1):13, 1980.

Warrior

Their time has come:

Richard Dawkins stumped:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=zaKryi3605g

Warrior

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech...eapon-making-skills/

Early Humans' Weapon-Making Skills Sharper Than Expected
A delicate, sophisticated way to craft sharp weapons from stone apparently was developed by humans more than 50,000 years sooner than had been thought.

The finding could shed light on what knowledge people were armed with when they started migrating out of Africa.

The artful technique is known as pressure flaking. Early weapons' makers typically would use hard blows from a stone hammer to give another stone a rough blade-like shape, then would use wood or bone implements to carve out relatively small flakes, refining the blade's edge and tip.

When done right, pressure flaking can provide a high degree of control over the sharpness, thickness and overall shape of sharp tools such as spearheads and stone knives, said researcher Paola Villa, an archaeologist at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History.

Pressure flaking has long been considered a fairly recent innovation, with the earliest examples seen roughly 20,000 years ago in the Solutrean culture in France and Spain. Now, however, researchers say Blombos Cave in South Africa yielded what seem to be 75,000-year-old spearheads made by anatomically modern humans using pressure flaking.
"We did not expect to find evidence of this very skillful method for shaping and retouching stone artifacts at such an early time," Villa told LiveScience.

In addition to these sharp points, the site yielded other evidence of modern human behavior, such as artwork in the form of shell beads. These are all linked to the so-called Still Bay industry, a Middle Stone Age tool-manufacturing style that was adopted roughly 76,000 years ago and may have lasted about 4,000 years.

"This finding is important because it shows that modern humans in South Africa had a sophisticated repertoire of toolmaking techniques at a very early time," Villa said. "This innovation is a clear example of a tendency to develop new functional ideas and devices. It adds to the complex of novel behaviors already documented at the site, and shows that the Still Bay was a time when novel ideas and techniques were rapidly developed."

The stone points were made of silcrete, or quartz grains cemented by silica, which needs to be heat-treated before pressure flaking. To confirm that was how the newfound artifacts were made, Villa and her colleagues analyzed microscopic details of 159 silcrete points and fragments, 179 other retouched pieces and more than 700 flakes in Blombos Cave from the Still Bay industry.

The removal of flakes from unheated silcrete produces scar surfaces with a rough, dull texture. However, the surfaces of silcrete that was treated with heat have a smooth, glossy appearance. The researchers concluded that at least half of the ancient, finished points at Blombos Cave involved pressure flaking with heat-treated silcrete.

The scientists also experimentally crafted stone points using both heated and non-heated silcrete chunks collected from outcrops roughly 20 miles (32 km) from Blombos Cave. They found that unheated chunks could not be pressure flaked, while blocks of heated silcrete yielded points very much like the ones discovered.

Villa and her colleagues speculate that pressure flaking was invented in Africa and proved crucial to survival when Homo sapiens migrated from the continent about 60,000 years ago, leading to the technique's widespread adoption in Europe, Australia, North America and later Africa.

"More technological studies like ours, based on experimental replication, microscopic studies and detailed analysis of stone artifacts, supported by statistics, should be applied to other archaeological assemblages in South Africa and in other regions," Villa said. "It is important to understand if there are precursors or antecedents in older industries. It is also important to understand if the method was used in the following period — that is, on the backed blades of the Howiesons Poort, a South African culture dating to 65,000 to 60,000 years ago, thus establishing continuity and cultural transmission between social groups in South Africa."

The scientists detail their findings in tomorrow's issue (Oct. 29) of the journal Science
.

Sorry Warrior, more bad news for you.

What is the bad news?
Please post the findings when available.
Do you perhaps know how long have we been using knife & fork?
That is why we are here to share info.

Warrior

quote:

God lives outside of space and time. He created space. He created time. He is confined to neither of these things.

And your evidence for this?

What created the big bang?

quote:

What created the big bang?

The current leading theories are M theory and Brane theory.

Look them up!

M is the attempt to merge all of the String theorys. They have a lot of work to do to make it work.

Which Brane theory are you reffering to. There are about a dozen.

quote:

What created the big bang?

Who created the big bang?
Dead things do not create anything.
Intelligence is need to create or improve anything.
Design is based on intelligence, it is not a random affair left to chance.
Statistiacally speaking we know how small that chance is - ask the biochemists.
Very seldom if ever, do things improve on themselves.
Most things left to themselves do deteriorate - a lesson in life on earth as we experience it.
That is why we need to supervise and manage people - just as an example.

Warrior

Isaac Newton .... clarified in the Principia’s second edition: ‘Our most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being.’

Who is used for persons.
I don't believe anyone has established that God/The Creator is a person.

Who = Intelligence = Great Architect = All Mighty God

Follow the line of thinking ....

In your kitchen cabinet, you've probably got a spray bottle with an adjustable nozzle. If you twist the nozzle one way, it sprays a fine mist into the air. You twist the nozzle the other way, it squirts a jet of water in a straight line. You turn that nozzle to the exact position you want so you can wash a mirror, clean up
a spill, or whatever.

If the universe had expanded a little faster, the matter would have sprayed out into space like fine mist from a water bottle - so fast that a gazillion particles of dust would speed into infinity and never even form a single star. If the universe had expanded just a little slower, the material would have dribbled out like big drops of water, then collapsed back where it came from by the force of gravity. A little too fast, and you get a meaningless spray of fine dust. A little too slow, and the whole universe collapses back into one big black hole.

The surprising thing is just how narrow the difference is. To strike the perfect balance between too fast and too slow, the force, something that physicists call "the Dark Energy Term" had to be accurate to one part in ten with 120 zeros. If you wrote this as a decimal, the number would look like this:

0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001

In their paper "Disturbing Implications of a Cosmological Constant" two atheist scientists from Stanford University stated that the existence of this dark energy term would have required a miracle... "An unknown agent" intervened in cosmic history "for reasons of its own." Just for comparison, the best human engineering example is the Gravity Wave Telescope, which was built with a precision of 23 zeros. The Designer, or the 'external agent' that caused our universe must possess an intellect, knowledge, creativity and power trillions and trillions of times greater than we humans have.

Absolutely amazing.

Now a person who doesn't believe in God has to find some way to explain this. One of the more common explanations seems to be "There was an infinite number of universes, so it was inevitable that things would have turned out right in at least one of them." The "infinite universes" theory is truly an amazing theory. Just think about it, if there is an infinite number of universes, then absolutely everything is not only possible...It has actually happened! To believe an infinite number of universes made life possible by random chance is to believe everything else I just said, too.

Some people believe in God with a capital G and some folks believe in Chance with a Capital C.

Warrior

Isaac Newton .... clarified in the Principia’s second edition: ‘Our most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being.’

So, could this God fellow make a stone so heavy he couldn't lift it?

Warrior,

While you see in this reasoning that God is a who (person) I see it as rational that God is not a who.

But then I don't claim to be able to understand what God is.

We all see the world differently - it just depends on the glasses we wear. The same facts are in front of us in politics and yet we have Democrats and Republicans, and if that is not enough we now have a Communist party in the USA. Russia must be laughing. The other point is that we never have to have a final opinion on anything, we can swop it if something better comes along.

Warrior

Well put.

quote:

Intelligence is need to create or improve anything.

Diamonds, coal, oil?
Tree's grow, does that make them intelligent?

The rings of saturn are the results of gravity and shepard moons, no intelligence required.

As for which M, Brane or Bubble theory? I don't know, some of them I consider as unlikely as an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, creator creating a univers with quadrillion's of stars and life forms, but making little 'ol us in his own image. The difference is, I'm open to new possibilities, those anchored to their dogma are not. When this dogma begins to enter our schools, and scinece books have to include disclaimers saying, "This is not what Christians believe", and creationism and a 4000 year old earth must be taught along side the most up to date, testable, repeatable, scientific thoeries of the day, and their likely courses of continued inquest, well, I have a problem with that.

So far, theologist have believed that stars are pins of light in the frimament, the earth is flat, the sun rotates around the earth, and the earth is the center of the universe, the earth is less then 10k years old, and man was created in an instant, because the bible says so.

Now the dogma's of science are falling, Steady state universe, and even the idea that we are the only universe, and the idea that we evolved from apes (a possible common ancestor is know as Pierolapithecus catalaunicus, which lived 13mm years ago. BTW that more then 10m years ago for any young earth creationist out there).

Our modern technology has proved the Bible wrong. That means that if there is a God, he didn't write the Bible and the Bible is not his word. If the Bible were the word of God and the Bible is wrong, then God is wrong. And if God can't be wrong, then the Bible, which is wrong, can't be the word of God.

As to evolution, evolution is science. We have the bones of creatures living millions of years ago that are the links between different forms of life. Bones exist that link us humans with our common ancestors that we share with other primates. In fact we have unearthed many civilizations that go back further than 10,000 years and predate Adam and Eve. And these discoveries actually exist and can be measured. We know them to be real. Evolution is happening right now. Farmers have been using evolution for thousands of years to breed new and better farm animals and crops. Today's cattle are very different from cows a few hundred years ago. The difference is that farmers controlled the breading to select the best individuals and to cause them to reproduce instead of the inferior ones. We have taken control of evolution and used it to our benefit. Do we know everything about evolution? No, we don't. But we know a great deal, and we're learning more every day. As we pursue science and research, we are expanding our knowledge of the reality of the universe and the world around us. This is real knowledge about the way that the world actually is. Knowledge that has come from scientific discovery rather than the mythology of past and primitive civilizations.

"One of the most fundamental beliefs of evolutionism is that man has evolved from beasts through time, chance and natural selection. Some insist that evolutionism does not teach that man evolved from apes but rather from "ape-like" ancestors. This argument is specious as virtually any of the presumed "hominid ancestors" of man would be classified as apes were they alive today. An ape is defined as merely a tailess monkey. The research dealing with mans evolution from the apes begins with the assumption that man did in fact evolve from the apes. No observations or interpretations are allowed to question this apriori assumption. What has been sought in paleoanthropology (the study of human and "prehuman" fossil record) then are the transitional stages from ape-like animals to man. Transitional forms have proven as elusive here however, as between any other class of plants or animals. The missing links remain missing."

"To be consistent with evolution, the fossil record should show how organisms slowly transformed one into another through countless intermediate or transitional stages. Evolutionists, for -~ example, claim that it took more than 100 million years for the gradual transformation of invertebrates into vertebrates. If this were true, we would expect that the fossil record should show at least some of the progressive stages of this large-scale transformation."

By David N. Menton, Ph.D

Dr. David N. Menton is associate professor of anatomy at the Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis

Some perplexing and nagging questions here ...

Climbing the "Ladder of Life" in the Grand Canyon

The walls of the 270-mile-long Grand Canyon in Arizona (photo, right) reveal 21 distinct layers of mostly sedimentary rock-the so-called geologic column. Presumably, or so an evolutionist would say, this pillar of succeeding layers, and the fossils contained therein, should reveal the progressive steps of hundreds of millions of years of evolutionary history. But consider these facts:



- Some of the lower (and thus, evolutionists would assume, far older) layers of the column contain marine invertebrates commonly found today: oysters, clams, corals, worms, etc. In not a single case is there fossil evidence-either in these layers or in anything below them-to show what these creatures' presumed ancestors looked like; they appear all at once and fully formed.

- in the next two layers, going up, are found simple organisms (foraminifers, among others) thought to pre-date the more complex oysters, clams, etc., found below them. What are these simple, one-celled organisms doing in this higher stratum in the geologic column? So far, this "ladder of life," supposedly constructed over untold eons, would seem to be a one-rung affair.

- An amazing point: No one has ever found a single fossilized bone of any kind in the canyon. While the footprints of more than 20 species of amphibians and reptiles appear in the Supai, Hermit and Coconino layers of the column, there are no fossilized feet! No fossilized bones at all. One has to go to higher strata-and then not canyon strata at all but strata located several miles from the canyon-to find the bones of the tetrapods (four-legged animals) that could have made these prints.

Those who believe in Noah's Flood might suggest that the common occurrence of footprints in strata below those bearing the bodies themselves says something about how long those tetrapods could climb and tread water before drowning!

- Even more amazing: Those footprints are, in the main, heading hi the same direction-toward higher ground to the north! Are we to believe that for, say, 10 million years, the amphibians and reptiles inhabiting the canyon all walked in the same direction?

- The Kaibab Limestone layer, at the very top of the column, shows the only evidence to be found in the canyon of fossilized sponges! This is embarrassing to evolutionists, because sponges are believed to be the first multicellular organisms to have evolved on earth. If anything, they should be at the bottom, not the top, of things.

In a word, there is no evidence of evolutionary progress in the fossils of the Grand Canyon's geologic column (or any other column, for that matter). Evolutionists are well aware of this fact, though you would never guess it from the evolutionary indoctrination presented in public schools, zoos, museums, science centers and in the popular media.

David N. Menton, Ph.D

In a wideder sense, if we consider findings or the lack thereof on the planet as a whole, what do other evolutionists have to say ... here is one:

The evolutionist Dr. Steven M. Stanley put it bluntly: "The known fossil record fails to document a single example of phyletic evolution accomplishing a major morphologic transition" - (Macroevolution: Pattern and Process, 1979, p.39).

You failed to resond to my assertion that the bible has been proven wrong.

The bible has shortcomings and is wrong in many respects, as it was written by man in a time frame when they had no school like us - for example the earth does not stand on 4 pillars. Put another way, if I lived way back then and had to write the story it would have been far worse. I am not one of those that take every word in the bible literally.

You have not given one example of an intermediate form between ape and man other than to state casually .... "Bones exist that link us humans with our common ancestors that we share with other primates." Please share the evidence and proof.

All animals and plants appear suddenly in the fossil record and are not preceded by continuous transitional stages. While some of these fossilized organisms have become extinct, many have persisted right up to the present time in what appears to be essentially their original form, showing only a limited range of variation.

The absence of even a single example of a continuous fossil sequence showing the progressive stages of evolution of any plant or animal would certainly seem to be an insurmountable problem for evolutionism. Evolutionists have long been aware of this problem and have felt compelled to try to explain it away by any means possible, short of abandoning their faith in evolutionism itself. In 1944, the evolutionist George Gaylord Simpson spoke of these missing transitional forms in his book _Tempo and Mode In Evolution_:

"Their absence is so nearly universal that it cannot, off hand, be imputed to chance, and does require some attempt at special explanation as has been felt by most paleontologists."

Paleontologists have indeed been trying to imagine some "special explanation" for how progressive evolution could occur without leaving any fossil evidence. Since evolutionary speculations have rarely been restricted by the demands of experimental verification, evolutionists have allowed their imaginations to run free and have now devised a really outrageous explanation for their lack of evidence.

Warrior

The evolutionist Dr. Steven M. Stanley put it bluntly: "The known fossil record fails to document a single example of phyletic evolution accomplishing a major morphologic transition" - (Macroevolution: Pattern and Process, 1979, p.39).

quote:

David N. Menton, Ph.D

Menton might be a phd, but he's still a apologetic, and had permitted his faith to cloud his science. He is no longer in search of the truth, but his faith.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/icr-science.html

quote:

You have not given one example of an intermediate form between ape and man other than to state casually .... "Bones exist that link us humans with our common ancestors that we share with other primates." Please share the evidence and proof.

Antelope Sniper,

What do you make of the following .... ???

Speaking of the highest level of animal classification, evolutionist Philip Handler claimed that:

"Some 25 major phyla are recognized for all the animals, and in virtually not a single case is there fossil evidence to demonstrate what the common ancestry of any two phyla looked like." (Biology and the Future of Man, 1970 p. 506)

As for the lowest level of taxonomic classification, the popular evolutionist Steven J. Gould said:

"In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and fully formed." (Natural History, 86:12-16)

Warrior

quote:

"The known fossil record fails to document a single example of phyletic evolution

That's complete and total BS. Go spend an afternoon at the Mammoth sigh in HotSpring SD. They can show you a dozen examples.

How much faster are race horses today then 100 years ago?

How about the evolution from hulled to free thrashing wheat?

How about this list:

Homo
Homo habilis
Homo rudolfensis
Homo ergaster
Homo georgicus
Homo erectus
Homo cepranensis
Homo antecessor
Homo heidelbergensis
Homo rhodesiensis
Homo neanderthalensis
Homo sapiens idaltu
Homo sapiens (Cro-Magnon)
Homo sapiens sapiens
Homo floresiensis


Many of these are close enough to each other that scientist continue to debate the totality of their relationships, of course half of these were discovered since your 30 year old quote. I guess it's better then the 300 year old quote of Newton.

quote:

(Biology and the Future of Man, 1970 p. 506)

40 year old work of a Christian apologist.

Back then we all still believed in a steady state universe, and no one had even thought of dark matter, or dark energy.


As for Gould, I fail to see how his work, when taken in it's entirety, helps your case. I believe what you are trying to elude to is his theory of Punctuated equilibrium:

Punctuated equilibrium
Early in his career, Gould and Niles Eldredge developed the theory of punctuated equilibrium, in which evolutionary change occurs relatively rapidly, alternating with longer periods of relative evolutionary stability.[2] According to Gould, punctuated equilibrium revised a key pillar "in the central logic of Darwinian theory."[5] Some evolutionary biologists have argued that while punctuated equilibrium was "of great interest to biology,"[19] it merely modified neo-Darwinism in a manner that was fully compatible with what had been known before.[20] Others however emphasized its theoretical novelty, and argued that evolutionary stasis had been "unexpected by most evolutionary biologists" and "had a major impact on paleontology and evolutionary biology."[21]

Some critics jokingly referred to the theory as "evolution by jerks,"[22] which elicited Gould to respond in kind by describing gradualism as "evolution by creeps."[23]

None of the above can be linked with man. They can most probably be compared in the same way that all other type of apes can be compared with each other or monkies or baboons. Many species have gone exitinct for whatever reason.

The way all species reproduce themselves is by making babies ... go right back to the very first 2 of each specie (male & female) .... but as babies .... how did they survive .... coming from something different as to what they were .... fish to birds, the first two apes from non-apes, etc.

"In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and fully formed." (Natural History, 86:12-16) --- Steven J. Gould.

Stephen Jay Gould (September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist and historian of science. He was also one of the most influential and widely read writers of popular science of his generation.[1] Gould spent most of his career teaching at Harvard University and working at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. In the latter years of his life, Gould also taught biology and evolution at New York University near his home in SoHo.

Warrior

Homo habilis and Homo erectus can't be linked to modern man? Now you are just plain delusional. I do agree with a couple things you said:

The bible was written by men.
The bible is wrong.
Since we have established that the bible is wrong on:
1. The earth is flat.
2. The earth stands on pillars.
3. The earth is the center of the universe.
4. The earth is create before the stars.
5. Light is created before the sun and stars.
6. The earth is surrounded by a solid firmament that would prevent space travel.
7. Plants are created before the sun (makes photosynthis difficult)
8. The earth is created first, then the stars around it.
9. Creation takes 6 days, not billions of years.
10. What did the carnivors on Noah's are eat after they disembarked? Why didn't they all starve to death?
11. Bats are birds, not mammals.
12. The sun orbits the earth.

So, here a a good dozen scientific claims fromt he bible that we should be able to agree are wrong, yet you still choose to belive the bible regarding the creation of man? Faith does strange things to a person, and sometimes the only way to maintain your faith, is to deny reality. I don't believe this makes you a bad person. Something tells me you would probably be one of the first people to help a person in need. I just don't want my kids science text books written by a Christian Apologist.

The above is the same to link a Gorilla to man because its DNA is 96% the same. Fact is we are different ... very different.

The missing link is still missing, not so?

Evolution is not observable, repeatable, or refutable and thus does not qualify as either a scientific fact or theory.

Inconsistencies with Neanderthal genomic DNA sequences
October 15, 2007

Were Neanderthals direct ancestors of contemporary humans or an evolutionary side branch that eventually died out? This is one of the enduring questions in human evolution as scientists explore the relationship of fossil groups, such as Neanderthals, with people alive today. Two recent papers describing the sequencing of Neanderthal nuclear DNA from fossil bone held promise for finally answering this question [1, 2]. However, the two studies came to very different conclusions regarding the ancestral role of Neanderthals. Jeffrey D. Wall and Sung K. Kim from University of California San Francisco now reveal in PLoS Genetics what they found when they reanalyzed the data from the two original studies.

Wall and Kim's reanalysis reveals inconsistencies between them and they believe that possible contamination with modern human DNA and/or a high rate of sequencing errors compromised the findings of one of the original Neanderthal DNA studies. The authors therefore recommend that we carefully evaluate published and future data before arriving at any firm conclusions about human evolution.

Warrior

At Connecticut College, Professor Kim teaches the following courses:

Introduction to the Study of Religion
The Christian Tradition
Theories of Religion
Religion and the Discontents of Modernity
Identity, Place, and Religion: Nostalgia and the Quest for Home
Religion and the Spirit of Politics
Critique, Power, and the Other: Theory across the Disciplines
Living a Moral Life
Theorizing Race and Ethnicity.

Kim doesn't teach a single class in the hard sciences, let alone anything regarding DNA. At least he hasn't been dead for 300 years, but he's still just another theologist. His creditablility in the realm of science is zero.

Here's a good discussion of punctuated equalibrium.
http://www.jstor.org/pss/4449848

I doubt you have not seen the full quote in it's original contest, I suspect you lifted it from the apologist Menton.

I see string.

quote:

At Connecticut College, Professor Kim teaches the following courses...
Kim doesn't teach a single class in the hard sciences, let alone anything regarding DNA.

Antelope Sniper,

I think you have the wrong Prof Kim - the one quoted by you is at Connecticut College and he is David Kyuman Kim a theologian.

The one quoted by me is Sung K. Kim from and his colleague is at the University of California San Francisco. Both of them keep themselves busy with genetics and evolutionary biology - they are biologists.

Kim Sung-Hou PhD is a Korean-born American structural biologist and biophysicist. Dr. Kim reported the first 3D structure of tRNA with A. Rich in 1973.[1] He also published many papers on the structures of protein molecules including human Ras,[2] human cyclin dependent kinase 2 and small heat shock protein. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Science and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1994. He is currently a professor in the Department of Chemistry at the U.C. Berkeley and a faculty scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBL).

From 1972 to 1978, he served as assistant and associate professor at the Department of Biochemistry, Duke University School of Medicine, and as Professor at the Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, from 1978 to present.

Warrior

quote:

The way all species reproduce themselves is by making babies ... go right back to the very first 2 of each specie (male & female) .... but as babies .... how did they survive .... coming from something different as to what they were .... fish to birds, the first two apes from non-apes, etc.

If all babies from all species survived the hostile enviornment to survive and become adults before they can reproduce, then we have one of the biggest miracles ever. Similary that there was the inbuilt inteligence that we needed male and female so that the species could not become extinct in short order. Also that the multitude of species run into hundreds of millions. Evolution has to do with babies ... babies that must be made .... be made differently through sex of adults .... my head is spinning.

Punctuated Equilibrium

In the early 1970's, two paleontologists published a paper that put forth an idea that is still debated by evolutionary experts in the Twenty-First Century. Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge built upon earlier work by Ernst Mayr, suggesting that most sexually reproducing species would experience prolonged periods of stagnation, or stasis, and would evolve rapidly into a different species due to environmental pressure. This concept is known as punctuated equilibrium and it stands in stark contrast to the more widely accepted concept of gradualism that suggests evolution is a constant process that works in a slow, smooth progression over long geological timescales.

Steven M. Stanley's view

Steven M. Stanley feels that the mechanism that allows Homo sapiens to develop the extraordinary large brain that is the definitive feature of the species would only be possible in a species that developed what he calls the "terrestrial imperative" that brought them out of the trees, thus freeing their hands to care for the slowest maturing infants in the mammal kingdom. It is during this slow maturation that the infants of the Homo sapiens (and likely other Homo species like rudolfensis and erectus) develop the extraordinary brain size while other primates' brain development stalls within a short time of leaving the womb.

Stanley further points out, "The absence of recognized intermediate bones does not mean that there never were any, but it does mean that any intermediate forms probably existed during only a brief interval of geologic time and in small numbers within a restricted geographic area."


Very important ..... many of Stanley's colleagues in the field of paleontology and evolutionary biology do not agree with his ideas. Must say I am not buying into Stanley's views .... at least not as yet.

Dr. Colin Patterson, Director of the British Museum of Natural History

Luther Sunderland, a creationist and aerospace engineer comments on a letter he wrote to Dr. Colin Patterson, Director of the British Museum of Natural History, concerning transitional fossils. Dr. Patterson, a well known and highly respected evolutionist, had just finished writing a book about evolution. Even though he believes in evolution, Dr. Patterson failed to illustrate any interspecific fossil forms. Dr. Patterson didn't include any pictures of transitional fossils.

"I wrote to Dr. Patterson and asked him why he didn't put a single picture of an intermediate form or a connecting link in his book on evolution. Dr. Patterson now, who has seven million fossils in his museumwho has seven million fossils in his museum, said the following when he answered my letter:

'I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossils or living, I certainly would have included it.… I will lay it on the line. There is not one such fossil for which one might make a watertight argument.'"

Warrior

Ok, I'll stop taking the piss and lay my cards on the table.

My undergraduate degree was in Biochemistry and molecular biology from, if I might be permitted the indulgence, from one of the best universities in the world for the subject.

I make this point not to toot my own horn, rather to make the point that I have studied under, and worked with, some of the very best in the field.

The issue that you raise above, viz that a really deep look at the current body of knowledge leads to the conclusion that there is an underlying order to nature that cannot be characterized by the current state of the art, is indeed correct.

We don't why the mechanism we propose for the way life has come about, flourished, evolved etc, are as we propose them, we are in the business of empirical observation, for the biochemical sciences at least.

What the quotes above fail to adress, in their speculation as to the why's and wherefores of the genesis, is the principle of Occams razor.

This is an overarching principle that is one of the fundamental conerstones of good scientific method.

In the absence of evidence for or against multiple theorem, the simplest must be adopted until the boy of evidence dictates otherwise.

It is not enough to point to unknowns or holes in one theory as evidence of of the validity of another theory, if similar holes in that second theory can't be addressed either!

If you'll forgive that is the reason my previous posts on this topic have not been entirely serious.

FWIW I don't think that evolution as a theory is or should be static, the idea of gradual change doesn't make sense to me either as the stimulus for change would be changing environment and the geological record shows that change is usually comparatively rapid in comparison to generational succession.

To restate the point simply, problems with a given theory have no bearing on the validity of another theory, unless evidence or observational experiment prove otherwise.

You may say that the reverse applies to evolution, that the problems with the bloke-on-a-cloud idea don't mean that evolution is valid.

I would answer that whilst that might be the case, the evidence for and the mechanism of genetic variance whereby are well established and thus far God has not provided anything like similar testable data as to his version of events.

Ghubert,

I value this discussion with you immensely.
Only by sharing oppsosing views will we learn more.

In answer to your previous question ... "So, could this God fellow make a stone so heavy he couldn't lift it?"

I suspect that God can collapse the universe if he so wishes ... in fact there are proponents out there that actually predict that the Universe will collapse one day. This is about the best I can answer you. Then there is still the possibility of mutiple universes that existed before the current universe ... how do we make sense of this .... all by chance with no Great Architect?

Warrior

quote:

Originally posted by tin can:
I see string .

Tin can,

In the scientific circle there is a lot of conflicting ideas ....

Lawrence Maxwell Krauss (born May 27, 1954) is foundation professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration, a professor in the physics department and director of the Origins Project in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University. In August 2008 he joined the faculty at Arizona State University as Foundation Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration and the Department of Physics in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and Director of the university's Origins Initiative.

His active opposition to intelligent design gained national prominence as a result of his 2004 appearance before the state school board of Ohio. Krauss is also a critic of string theory, which he takes on in his 2005 book, Hiding in the Mirror.

String theory is a developing theory in particle physics that attempts to reconcile quantum mechanics and general relativity.[1] It is a candidate for the theory of everything (TOE), a manner of describing the known fundamental forces and matter in a mathematically complete system. The theory has yet to make testable experimental predictions, which a theory must do in order to be considered a part of science. String theory is the name for a number of mathematical models that want to find a common explanation for the four main forces that have so far been observed in nature. These forces are gravity, the electromagnetic force, the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force, respectively.

Yet another problem is that it says our universe is made of at least 10 dimensions, while we only see four (width, height, depth, time). String theory proponents say some dimensions may not be visible to us, but others doubt there can be 6 or more hidden dimensions, or that we will never be able to access them even if they do exist.

Warrior

As far as a great Architect is concerned Warrior, the first law of thermodynamics is enough as it gives both a direction to time and a phenomenon that travels along it.

This is the rational behind the God and stone thing, if he/she/it can create a stone heavier than he could possibly lift his omnipotence is denied. His omnipotence is in fact denied by any answer to that question; a damned if you, damned if you don't scenario, if you'll pardon the pun.

The paradox behind omnipotence, to take one, is in my view more a mystery than a possibly undiscovered source of order behind it all. If it is all not one and the same thing, that it....

The theory of God and the theory of evolution came about in the same way, ie gradual tending towards a conclusion and sudden crystallisation of such.

What I mean is that in the beginning, man didn't understand the world much like now and happened upon the idea of worshiping a benevolent creator, the idea coming from the natural and extant example of parents, and at first worshiped rocks and suns and moons ad infinatum until refinements of the original theory resulted in the religions and belief systems we have today.

Similarly the theory of evolution has been and will continue to be refined.

In other words, we are not born with the knowledge of a god, not even with that of parents, these are but concepts we acquire through serendipity.

quote:

first law of thermodynamics

Ghubert,

The problem we sit with here is whether or not all the physical laws existed before the big bang or simultaneously with the beginning of the big bang. Richard Dawkins eluded that gravity existed before the big bang. From our physical world that we can observe we know that gravity goes together with matter, as part of a holistic system of space, time, matter and gravity.

The first law of thermodynamics is an expression of the principle of conservation of energy and the law expresses that energy can be transformed, i.e. changed from one form to another, but cannot be created or destroyed. It is usually formulated by stating that the change in the internal energy of a system is equal to the amount of heat supplied to the system, minus the amount of work performed by the system on its surroundings.

The conundrum here is that energy does not change by itself from one form to another .... something needs to induce a change. The supremacy of God is not challenged by the existance of the law of thermodynamics, or is that what you propose? Uncontrollable change at random and by chance is to put it bluntly chaotic.

Stephen Hawking writes that God is not necessary for the creation of the universe. All it takes is gravity and the laws of physics. He is, of course, writing theoretically — the curse of our age — but really, he will have to do better than that. If gravity is a pre-condition, where did it come from? And “laws” by definition are mental constructs. Whose?

Warrior

It's not a problem within the framwork of theories that predict a big bang, Viz it is a property of THIS univerese and This is the universe we live in.

To draw a theist analogy, it is like mortal man trying to guess at the nature of heaven and hell. Heaven and hell are beyond the capability of the mortal mind, in the same way as God, and so are the why's are wherefores are irrelevant to the actuality of them.

To the point about energy, I think the issue you have is one of sloppy definition, energy can indeed be transformed and does need an input of energy to change form, but that change of form may release more energy than was needed to initiate the change.

This is the principle behind the concept of activation energy in chemical reactions and overall enthalpy or nuclear fusion etc.

The "something" that induces the change is the state of the environment in question. It is posited that matter is a stable form of energy and without vast input the conversion of matter to energy is not possible, but the process releases so much energy that when in the form of a big bang, the eventual collapse and formation of a singularity can convert energy back into higher matter.

This is the idea of a "historyless" ( ie anything before the singularity can have no bearing on the events after that singularity ) endless chain of universes going bang bust. Any universe thusly created that does not follow the same path, laws if you like, than ours will not survive.

The ideas are coherent, mostly, within themselves, the question is which idea is the correct one.

At moment we don't know.

This is not say that we cannot know, and in my opinion we will eventually know.

This is what I meant when I said that at death an Atheists beliefs will be explained or at least put into perspective.

Sorry just seen your edit.

I'm not saying that the supremacy of god is challenged by the first law of thermodynamics, rather that the need for a guiding order in this universe, is fulfilled by the laws of thermodynamics without recourse to a god.
Both the theist and the scientist accept that matters outside this universe are unknowable except by inference; the question being what is a more reasonable inference God, or eternity?

I note that even theist accept the notion of eternity.

Ghubert, & the group

where is the notion" "Intelligent design requires an intelligent designer..."; and how does it not fit at the top of the debate?

As a rule, things do not just occur. We say that they occur for a reason, and so it is.

As far as the silly idea that mortal man cannot really understand the concepts of Heaven and Hell, Balderdash! We experience a basic, but imperfect form of the two as children. Unfortunately, due to lack of cognitive development at that stage, we do not retain those memories. That said, we usually have some, often centered around visiting Grandmothers. Sitting on Gram's lap and being read to, with a glass of milk and some home made cookies.

The appeal of Evolution to non-Christians, in most cases, is that abject fear of discovery that we have done wrong, and must now endure consequences for our actions being eliminated. We always have choices, but we don't always appreciate the marvelous balance life presents us in the form of consequences. A sort-of guilt free "I decide what is right and wrong, but I have free choice..."
The appeal is that we are then free to live our life on earth as self-centered and selfishly as we choose to, and since we just die; there are no ongoing consequences. We are, and then we aren't.

For example: I was at a friend's home several years ago. I said something to him about taking his children to church. He had gone thru school, and then walked away after college. He said he did not wish to predispose them either way, and that they could make the decision when they became adults. I thought about that for a bit, and then asked him if he planned to send them to school. He assured me they would. I then asked him if he shouldn't wait until they grew up so they wouldn't be predisposed one way or the other and could make their own decision when they were adults. He informed me that such comparisons could only result in uneducated, helpless humans. And so it is with God.

Evolution is just a perceived gradual improvement or adaption to meet changing conditions, or to maximize one species ability to thrive and propagate. For some reason, scientists are finding different "links" on a regular basis. But, in every case to date, they are just separate links, we are unable to find any connecting links. The analogy: you are sitting in a hardware store with a big chain cutter and a barrel of 1/2" chain. You cut the second link off and then the fourth. Now you have two whole links of chain. And two that connected them but were cut.
We cannot find any of those cut links, but lots and lots of whole separate ones.

Show me just one cut link that would connect any of the multitudes of whole(read different) ones. They don't exist.

Atheists and Evolutionists are just unable to deal with the difference between what they think and what is real. Conjecture is always and only that.

Let me ask the group just one question. I am going to assume you have all heard the saying "no man will willingly die for what he knows to be a lie..." So we can compare apples to apples here and ask Christians, "would you die for your faith?" Overwhelmingly, the answer is a resounding "yes". For thousands of years that has happened on a regular basis. It is happening today in more than seventy countries around the world, Christians are being martyred. They do so because they know there is a reward in Heaven for eternity.
And, yes, I would, rather than renounce my faith in God. I will die for my faith, because it just gets better from there on out.

Would any of you die to advance the theory or evolution, or atheism? Of course not, if you have no real faith you are not prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice, or much of any in defense of it. Because, you are here, and then you aren't in that belief system.

Heaven is being reunited with your Creator for all of time, and with fellow Christians, both family and friends.

Hell is equally as simple, you are separated from the light of God along with others who believe as you did, or didn't.
"We think everything just came out of nothing" We KNOW "the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.

Rich
Imperfect, because God just isn't finished with me yet