Evolution proven in a petri dish
 

hxxp://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/dn14094-bacteria-make-major-evolutionary-shift-in-the-lab.html

"Fascinating"

God is responsible for that mutation. There will never be a "poke in the eye" for the illogical.

i predict this thread ends badly

wow...that's fascinating

I wish I was smart enough to be an evolutionary biologist, that's some interesting stuff.

Very interesting, but I generally agree with what jeff said above.

Just what we need, another bacteria. Where's the monkeys that can talk??

"evolution does not always lead to the best possible outcome"




DULY NOTED

Big deal. I can win the Front Office Bowl ten times in a row, if I use the save-and-replay cheat.

Sounds to me some are just grumpy that you can never refute the existence of God. As an agnostic, I don't have a place on either side of the fight, but I find it ironic when someone from either side can take a piece of knowledge and try to spin it to match their faith in religion or atheism.

And I agree with the posts above, fascinating stuff.

I personally don't see the incompatability of the theory of evolution and religion unless you prescribe to the most literal interpretations of the bible and believe the Earth to only be 6000 years old ect.

Oh come on! You'll be hearing from my lawyers.

I'm grumpy that people believe that the concept of evolution is contrary to their belief in God. These are not mutually exclusive concepts, and I would fault anyone on either side who argues they are. The existence of evolution does not mean there is no God. God never denied the existence of evolution.

However, if your definition of God is dependent upon evolution not existing, then I can see how science, logic and reason would be your mortal enemy.

Nobody believed they were not mututally exclusive concepts until evolution became an accepted part of the scientific community. Then the religious changed their mind and pure creationists became something of a fringe group.

There's nothing wrong with that, but the religious need to stay out of the scientific debate, where they have a pretty bad record over the last few thousand years. Faith should be enough.

Would it then be fair to ask scientists like Richard Dawkins to stay out of religious debate, like whether or not there is a God? It would seem science should be enough, but Dawkins has quite a bit to say about the very religious question of the existence of deity. I just have a difficult time separating science and religion on a topic like this one. In order to have a useful discussion, I don't think either side can ask the other to exit the room.

Top 5 answers on the board. Name something you can bring up to upset Christians.

*buzz*

EVOLUTION!


Show me EVOLUTION!

*ding ding ding*



(dawkins, dawson.. eh.. whatever, close enough)

The only logical stance is to be agnostic. So nope.

What Dawkins does for a living is irrelevent to that discussion however. Dawkins simply believes there is no such thing as God and believes in it strongly enough to try and refute those who do believe it.

As for seperating the two, again, this is a matter of individual belief. you've got three options:

1: God created everything as it is, period
2: God did nothing and everything evolved to this point and will continu to do so
3: Some combination of points 1 and 2.


if you find it dificult to seperate them then it would seem your beliefs fall in #3. Dawkins falls in #2 and others fall in #1.

Science and Religion are not the same things. Just because one exists does not disprove or prove the existance of the other. They are different topics entirely.

How one chooses to BELIEVE the universe came into being is open to interpretation, some will believe that science holds the answers, some will believe that Faith holds the answers, some will combine the two.

Nobody has been proven wrong, its all a matter of opinion.

Well, unless of course you are contributing knowledge to mankind, which I am not :).

In order for our knowledge to grow someone needs to come up with an unsubstantiated idea and then work to prove it.

Edit: That was in response to my previous post.

atheists rule

:+1:

this thread just calls out for :popcorn:

I call BS.

I see trillions of cells everyday, whats the BS?

Why shouldn't you take the bible literally? How should you take it? Why wasn't it written clearly enough for people over the past 2,000 years - longer in the case of the OT - to realize that this is the case? Seems like a pretty major screw up by the authors considering all the harm the literal interpretation has caused.

I'm agnostic about some sort of higher or intelligent power that might (or might have) resemble(d) a god, but I'm completely 110% atheist when it comes to any sort of organised religion. That's the only logical stance from where I'm sitting.

Lots of people have been proven wrong. The Ancient Egyptians, Ancient Greeks, and all those other civilizations of the past whose gods are now remembered only by historians and the writers at Stargate SG-1.

I laughed :)

SI

Doesn't mean they were proven wrong, unless at the point of a sword counts.

It means they were replaced!

;)

I personally think the :deadhorse: or :banghead: are much more appropriate for this thread. Though the :popcorn: is certainly not uncalled for


:devil:

Zeus must have been mighty pissed off these past couple of millenia! Certainly explains the pretty awesome electrical storm we had round these parts a month or so ago.

A proponent of ID weighs in...

http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK3U696N278Z93O

Look, I beleive in evolution as a Christian, but you have to admit that those final lines take this from an interesting and normal science story to someone with an obvious axe to grind, which casts the whole story in a suspicious light in my eyes as a result.

That was just the FSM changing the results with his noodly appendage.

What are they going to work out a payment schedule so you can repay him for mentioning you?

The author of the article perhaps, but it was written by a journalist and not the researchers, so I don't see why that would cast suspicion on the findings.

Though to be honest, I group anti-evolutionists in with the Flat Earth Society, Hollow Earth advocates, etc. etc. If you want to believe something despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, go right ahead, but you can't expect immunity from ridicule any more than I could if I went around insisting that the sun rotates around Earth.

You gotta remember, Zeus was always fairly preoccupied with his winky and which lovely young lass was going to ride the lightning next.

He may not even have noticed yet.

You can't argue with a christian as christianity (most/all religions?) was set up with this in mind. Anything that happens is God's will. End of story. Game. Set. Match. Seacrest Out! Adios. Bye bye.

Indoctrinate kids as early as possible (like liberalism :D) and it makes it hard for them to use their logical brains later to overcome this madness. I know from personal experience (took me until I reached my 30s).

I think his point is that the mutation that allowed the e coli to metabolize the citrate isn’t the type of mutation that would ultimately lead to the development of organisms with more complex molecular systems – which is the whole argument behind evolution – over time, random mutations have resulted in simple organisms evolving into more complex organisms.

Also, if this evolved trait required not just one, but two or more simultaneous mutations, this greatly increases the odds against a “lucky” roll of the dice especially considering that the majority of mutations are harmful to organisms. Considering this occurred in only one of the experimental colonies and required 30,000-40,000 generations of the fast growing bug, this would seem to be the case. This would also indicate that such “beneficial” mutations in more complex organisms would be even less likely. I haven’t read his books, but from what I’ve gathered, he argues that Darwinian evolution can’t account for the diversity of life on our planet today, unless an outside “engineering” or “guiding” component is involved. Now, whether he attributes this to the Divine, space aliens, or whatever…I’m not sure.

oh shit. Ronnie Dobbs FTW! :bowdown:

This thread has officially broken my brain. F*** you people.

:D

It's pretty amusing how the Bible was taken literally up until science started disproving a lot of the shit. Then it's not taken literally.

Lets face it, Christianity changes so frequently it's hard to determine what to take literally and what not. It changed when it was found the Sun didn't revolve around us, that the Earth wasn't flat, that the Earth was over 6,000 years old, etc. Why bother using it if you have to change it everytime science comes along and makes it look dumb?