• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Does evolution have a purpose?

Does evolution have a purpose

  • yes

    Votes: 17 32.1%
  • no

    Votes: 30 56.6%
  • not sure

    Votes: 6 11.3%

  • Total voters
    53

gnostic

The Lost One
Some people who aren’t good in biology (from my experiences here, most of them are creationists), think the “survival of the fittest” means being the “strongest”, “smartest”, or other qualities.

That’s not what it meant in evolutionary, biological term. And it has been over hundred of years since that term was coined, people (eg creationists), even today, still cannot understand what it mean.

It all have to do with being able to pass the necessary genetic changes - the physical traits - to future generations that they not only survive the changed environments, but to thrive in the environment.

Every species of every organisms that are here today, are living examples (evidence) of Natural Selection or Mutations or Genetic Drift. Each species and subspecies that are here today, have found niche in which can survive and thrive.

Take for instances the differences between brown bears and polar bears. Polar bears didn’t exist prior to 2.5 million years ago, the polar bears actually evolved from earlier brown bear species.

The brown bears before the start of the Quaternary glaciation, are similar to the ones that exist today, they hunt for food during the warmer seasons, and hibernate during the colder seasons, each years.

The recent Ice Age - the Quaternary glaciation changed the environments, where the ice sheets covering extensive regions in northern Europe, Asia and North America. And these glacial period could last any from thousands of years to tens of thousands of years, where there were no annual warmer seasons (eg no summer).

When those ice sheets covered regions for thousands of years with no summer, animals that found themselves in these regions with no summer in their lifetime, must adapt to these conditions, or else, these animals faced extinction.

Among the animals trapped there, in the regions covered in ice, were the brown bears. The changes didn’t change overnight, and it was more than obvious changing the color of their fur from brown to white.

One of those changes, were not hibernating, the brown bears can no longer afford to hibernate, because otherwise they will starve. So they must hunt and eat even in the most coldest period. And what they must consume were lots of fat, so their diets changed, so their main prey were sea seals and sea lions, instead of fishes and other meats they could catch on icy land. The more fat they eat, the more body fat they would retain, because fat are better at insulating the body for warm than lean muscles.

And since their preys were animals with lot of body fats, they must become even better swimmers than other species of bears. Their paws are longer than most other species of bears, which give them better propel in sea water, but also their claws have changed to, that gave them better grips on ice. Most bears can swim, but the polar bears are capable of staying in freezing sea for days if necessary.

And more than change of color of their furs or hair. Sure, white gave them better camouflage, but the textures of hair, fur and hides have changed. The changes gave them better resistance to icy wind and better water proofing in sea water.

As I said, the changes came slowly for brown bears to evolve into what we currently see today as polar bears. It would have taken hundreds of generations.

These changes - the evolution - don’t involve 3rd party, like the Intelligent Designer, directing changes. The very notion of the ID Designer is absurd, and it exactly the same absurdity of GOD or CREATOR.

Now, creationists tried to switch gear, thinking (evolutionary) changes required there be “purpose”, “intention” or “design”...or else Evolution isn’t true.

The only things that are true, are the ways that creationists continued to be misinformed in even the most basic biology concept. They have even created another form of Creationism - Intelligent Design - but this too failed to be science, because its main focus is on PR propaganda and trying to use political, legal and social pressures to force education organizations to teach creationism in classrooms.

ID Creationism have nothing’s to do with natural science, and nothing to do with natural reality. It is just more of the same superstitions of Genesis CREATOR. All ID is doing is giving God a different title, Designer.
 

ratiocinator

Lightly seared on the reality grill.
" And falling objects, GPS clocks, planetary motion, and the deflection of starlight prove the theory of gravity.
Except that's a complete lie. While they provide very strong evidence for those theories, they aren't proof. In fact, when it comes to science, proving anything is an impossibility." An -- impossibility. So thank you, all.
Scientific Proof Is A Myth (forbes.com)

:facepalm: Everybody who understands science already knows this - and has been trying to tell stubbornly ignorant creationists who ask for 'proof', for years.

What we do have, for evolution, is vast amounts of evidence that take it way beyond the legal standard of 'proof beyond reasonable doubt' - so not absolute proof (you only get that in mathematics or pure logic) but more than enough evidence to convince an unbiased, rational person.

What creationism and ID have is nothing. No evidence, no proof, just blind faith.
 

KWED

Scratching head, scratching knee
I doubt the following is a "creationist" website, you think? (Forbes magazine...) Here is, in part, what the article says about "science." (I'm learning, thanks to so many of you...And by the way, the Bible is not a scientific textbook.)
" And falling objects, GPS clocks, planetary motion, and the deflection of starlight prove the theory of gravity.
Except that's a complete lie. While they provide very strong evidence for those theories, they aren't proof. In fact, when it comes to science, proving anything is an impossibility." An -- impossibility. So thank you, all.
Scientific Proof Is A Myth (forbes.com)
(I'm learning. Because when I was in school and before I studied the Bible, I believed every "scientific theory," or scientific fact (?) they taught me. :) And because I could memorize pretty well, grasping concepts, I did rather well in school as well.
Anyway, y'all have a good night.
That article is wrong. "Scientific proof" exists. It is basically a body of evidence so comprehensive and well-established that that the possibility of it being fundamentally wrong is negligible - sometimes known as a "theory".
However, no scientist worthy of the title ever claims to have "absolute proof", so the article is attacking a straw man.

Ironically, it is only religionists who make absolute claims and refuse to consider that there might be other explanations.
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Well the survival of the fittest makes good sense and we can see it happening on youtube when lions catch the slowest and unfit buffalos, but on a larger timescale I like Senator John McCains observation-
"When I hike the Grand Canyon at sunset I see evolution, but I also see God's hand behind it"

In other words, evolution/survival of the fittest needs God's hand to tweak it from time to time to keep it on track..:)

"Sorry kiddo, you're on the way out"
View attachment 56077
But these "tweaks" equate to magic, and when has such a thing ever been reliably observed?

Magic amounts to an alteration of the laws of Nature -- gravity, relativity, conservation of mass, the inverse square law. These are consistent and reliable. If they were not, we'd have no confidence that we wouldn't drop through the sidewalk when we stepped onto it, that we wouldn't float off into space, or that water wouldn't suddenly become flammable.

No. An appeal to miracles/magic is not a reasonable or demonstrable hypothesis.
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Well the survival of the fittest makes good sense and we can see it happening on youtube when lions catch the slowest and unfit buffalos, but on a larger timescale I like Senator John McCains observation-
"When I hike the Grand Canyon at sunset I see evolution, but I also see God's hand behind it"

In other words, evolution/survival of the fittest needs God's hand to tweak it from time to time to keep it on track..:)

"Sorry kiddo, you're on the way out"
View attachment 56077
But these "tweaks" equate to magic, and when has such a thing ever been reliably observed?
Magic amounts to an alteration of the laws of Nature -- gravity, relativity, conservation of mass, the inverse square law -- These are consistent and reliable. If they were not, we'd have no confidence that we wouldn't drop through the sidewalk when we stepped onto it, that we wouldn't float off into space, or that water wouldn't suddenly become flammable.

No. An appeal to miracles/magic is not a reasonable or demonstrable hypothesis.
yeah, very funny. (on the border of ridiculous.) :)
You, who know not the first thing about biology or statistics; find the selfish gene hypothesis ridiculous?
How so?
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
That in itself would make evolution a fake concept. To think that sheer chemicals that combine have a mindset is beyond reason. In other words, ridiculous.
The ToE implies no 'mindset'. It has no goal, purpose or intention. Your attribution of "mindset" to it is yet further evidence that you don't understand the theory you so vigorously oppose, at all.
 
Last edited:

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
I was passing a bunch of cows today. They were munching on grass. Humans eat cows. I cannot imagine it just happened by evolution that these grass grazing animals evolved differently from carnivores with sharp teeth and claws. But I know a lot of people don't agree with me on that.
And that's the trouble. You have neither imagination not knowledge.
Why do you think cows evolved differently from carnivores? The evolutionary processes were identical.:confused:
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
That article is wrong. "Scientific proof" exists. It is basically a body of evidence so comprehensive and well-established that that the possibility of it being fundamentally wrong is negligible - sometimes known as a "theory".
However, no scientist worthy of the title ever claims to have "absolute proof", so the article is attacking a straw man.

Ironically, it is only religionists who make absolute claims and refuse to consider that there might be other explanations.
Theories are not "proved," they're just unambiguously and extensively evidenced. They're always provisional; always open to new evidence and reïnterpretation.
 
Last edited:

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Oh, so you think evolution has a purpose? A conscious purpose? Of course, humans and cows, etc., do die each individually, that's true, so the emerging organisms are kind of like born to die. Each. Unless, of course, a meteor or disease knocks the species out. But then, that would be the end of the evolutionary process for them in terms of constant birth. Change, and mutation. :)
?????????????? -- How is it that you come to exactly the opposite interpretation of what was said?
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Lol ok about maybe they have selfish genes? After all, Eve was kind of selfish and Adam was hateful towards his creator so maybe they passed on their genetics in thàt their decisions affected their bodies (obviously) and thinking.
Not selfish in the intentional sense. Selfish in the statistical sense.
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
You can think of them as "magic" if you like mate, but modern Christians prefer to think of it as a "Superscience" that we as yet know nothing about..:)
But science is an investigational modality. Christianity employs none of the mechanisms associated with science.
So how does this "superscience" in any way resemble science? :confused:
 

Dropship

Member
But science is an investigational modality. Christianity employs none of the mechanisms associated with science.
So how does this "superscience" in any way resemble science? :confused:


Jesus's 37 miracles were "Superscience" in action, and furthermore he said WE could do it too ("move mountains") if we had the knack, how kool is that..:)
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Jesus's 37 miracles were "Superscience" in action, and furthermore he said WE could do it too ("move mountains") if we had the knack, how kool is that..:)
How is an act an investigation? You don't understand what science is.

Do you have any evidence of these 37 miracles, or of Jesus, for that matter?
Please define "Superscience."
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Jesus has bad weather for breakfast, remember when he told the storm at sea to shut up?..:)
Sorry, Pecos Bill beats your Jesus character:

Now everyone in the West knows that Pecos Bill could ride anything. No bronco could throw him, no sir! Fact is, I only heard of Bill getting' throwed once in his whole career as a cowboy. Yep, it was that time he was up Kansas way and decided to ride him a tornado.

Now Bill wasn't gonna ride jest any tornado, no ma'am. He waited for the biggest gol-durned tornado you ever saw. It was turning the sky black and green, and roaring so loud it woke up the farmers away over in China. Well, Bill jest grabbed that there tornado, pushed it to the ground and jumped on its back. The tornado whipped and whirled and sidewinded and generally cussed its bad luck all the way down to Texas. Tied the rivers into knots, flattened all the forests so bad they had to rename one place the Staked Plains. But Bill jest rode along all calm-like, give it an occasional jab with his spurs.

Finally, that tornado decided it wasn't getting this cowboy off its back no-how. So it headed west to California and jest rained itself out. Made so much water it washed out the Grand Canyon. That tornado was down to practically nothing when Bill finally fell off. He hit the ground so hard it sank below sea level. Folks call the spot Death Valley.

Anyway, that's how rodeo got started. Though most cowboys stick to broncos these day


Pecos Bill Rides a Tornado: From Pecos Bill at Americanfolklore.net

the-story-of-pecos-bill.jpg
 

Dropship

Member
Do you have any evidence of these 37 miracles, or of Jesus, for that matter?
Please define "Superscience."


Jesus strutted his miracle stuff in full public view, thats a lot of eyewitnesses..:)
Wait, I feel a speculation coming on!!!-
Perhaps prayer is a kind of "thought pressure" that can influence this dream we call "reality", so perhaps Jesus was a "Master of the Art of Dream Manipulation", and he said we could do it too if we believed we could-

 

YoursTrue

Faith-confidence in what we hope for (Hebrews 11)
But these "tweaks" equate to magic, and when has such a thing ever been reliably observed?
Magic amounts to an alteration of the laws of Nature -- gravity, relativity, conservation of mass, the inverse square law -- These are consistent and reliable. If they were not, we'd have no confidence that we wouldn't drop through the sidewalk when we stepped onto it, that we wouldn't float off into space, or that water wouldn't suddenly become flammable.

No. An appeal to miracles/magic is not a reasonable or demonstrable hypothesis.

You, who know not the first thing about biology or statistics; find the selfish gene hypothesis ridiculous?
How so?
1. It's a hypothesis.
2. What is the definition of a "selfish gene""
3. Can it be identified as such when examining genes?
4. You may be right -- but -- what about the gene apparently only recognizable in humans that make one want to live forever? Many, many, m-a-n-y people want to live forever wherever they think they will -- heaven - earth - in another body - etc.
 
Top