Intelligent design vs evolution.

[Rayadragon]

I feel like all I'm doing is reitterating what Ragnarok and Zuca are saying, but anyways...

Zuca gave a good explanation of the scientific process in general. In order for a hypothesis to be accepted scientifically, it has to be tested scientifically (through controlled experiments, observation, etc.). By it's very nature, creationism and ID can not be concidered scientific hypotheses, because their central idea (God or a higher being of some sort caused evolution) can not be tested in a scientific manner. As Hyraxylos stated, the existance of a God (or gods) can not be scientifically suported or disproven.

[ZucaTreangeli]

I also have to add to that, there are numerous experiments done with bacteria's and fungi for instance that produce mutations that are beneficial.. For example a bacteria placed inside a growth medium that contains a sugar it "cant" digest (and it has no real other food source), through a fast number of generations it develops through mutations the ability to digest these kind of sugars..

This is clearly a beneficial mutation, and if its so easily represented in a laboratory situation, how many beneficial mutations happen all over the world ?

[Rayadragon]

The other thing to remember about benificial mutations is that they ARE benificial. Organisms with benificial mutations are more likely to survive stress situations (such as the black butterfly on the soot covered tree versus the soon-to-be-eaten white butterfly on the same tree). If you have a better chance of surviving, you have a better chance of having/having more offspring. The offspring who inherit the benificial mutation are in turn more likely to survive and reproduce, etc. Therefore, once a benificial mutation is generated, it should result in a bit of an evolutionary "boom."
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[Hyraxylos]

I was hesitant to dig up this old thing but I'm getting tired of searching randomly across the Internet. What's bothering me currently is that I keep stumbling across creationists who claim that evolutionists say that we evolved from rocks, undoubtedly the most eye-rolling statement I've ever heard anywhere in the debate, and one that attempts to totally rewrite the definition of the word "evolution". Yet not once have said creationists actually CITED anyone specific publishing any claims that anything at all evolved from rocks, and I'm getting desperate. So if anyone here might have the slightest clue what the people making these claims are referencing, I'd really appreciate it if you could enlighten me here. Whenever I try to ask them directly I get a mysterious deafening silence from the other end. Isn't that interesting. -_-
For the record I'm not trying to start up a debate this time around, I'm just trying to figure out where someone on the other side is coming from with what they're saying since they won't just tell me directly.
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[Ragnarok]

Easy. As there is no evidence for a creator (either in the form of a deity or other supernatural being or in a form of directed panspermia), abiogenesis is the current theory of life's origin on Earth (tests show that organic molecules and such can be created from inorganics, etc, so Occam's Razor applies). Inorganics->life->evolution->humans (and other things), therefore, things evolved from rocks, which, as everyone knows, are inorganic.

QED.


At least, that was the most I was able to wring out of any creationist I ever debated. Wrong on so many levels it isn't funny, but there you go.
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[Dragoneyes]

Ok. I have a question then... If we evolved from apes how come apes haven't evolved? I'm not a believer in God's explanation or Darwin's but what if with all the variations of man that were put on this planet as Adams & Eves in their own races and allowed to live?
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[Hyraxylos]

@Ragnarok: Dangit, so then why don't they say it CORRECTLY then? Why don't they say "built from soup"? For that matter why do they say "monkeys" instead of "apes" or "hominids"? My hypothesis on that is that it's a trolling technique; deliberately explain the theories the wrong way to irritate scientists. I just don't see what good that does though... I enjoy trolling sometimes but I wouldn't be willing to look ignorant to do so, and in debates I usually have a higher priority of actually CONVINCING someone--I feel merely being obnoxious for entertainment value should come AFTER that.
Oh well. Thanks for answering...

@Dragoneyes: this is a common question that I've seen dodged too often. The answer is that not all apes would have benefitted from evolving into humans, and not all environments would favor human characteristics over "primitive" ones. From here just think of it as a family tree. The apes that exist now aren't really our "ancestral" species, they're more like cousins or something who aren't as drastically different from the ancestors as we humans are. This also answers another frequent question of "why are there still apes".
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[Ragnarok]