I'm a "just born once" atheist. I lack any form of faith in any creator gods, interfering gods or any other so-called "supernatural beings". There are things I do not understand, but I live my life based on what I think is likely, what I can prove myself (or demonstrate) and what I otherwise can observe in nature.

The central claim of the Christian faith is something that you can prove to yourself. If you believe Gods testimony that He raised His Son from the dead and you confess Jesus is Lord, you will be born again and receive the Holy Spirit. It is tangible and experiential. To know God is to know Him personally, and He gives you the evidence.

Gravity, I can prove myself - to a certain degree, and when testing it, the current theory does predict the result, so I think it's true.

You can think about morality this way. If you take a look at your life, you will probably see that you live as if there is good and evil, that an absolute moral law exists. Your conscience will tell you that much, before intellect even comes into it. Some things are right and some things are wrong. The whole world acknowledges this, and this points to an absolute moral law, which in turn points to a moral lawgiver.

Evolution is a little more tricky, because I can prove micro evolution myself with fish, and with basically all the animals we have bred artificially, cats, dogs, cows, chickens etc. Macroevolution is harder, for me as a layman, but I think it is likely, because it explains so much very neatly, and it predicts how things are now, it is also the natural conclusion of micro evolution.

This is what Darwin believed, and he expected to find the evidence for it in the fossil record. Except it wasn't there:

innumerable transitional forms must have existed but why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth? ..why is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links?

Geologoy assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain, and this perhaps is the greatest objection which can be urged against my theory.

Charles Darwin
Origin of the Species

150 years later and it still hasn't appeared. You see, if you assume that all life has a common ancestor, then you have to believe that micro-evolution leads to macro. It's a just-so story. Darwin made a quantum leap of assumption when he extrapolated micro evolution to a common ancestor. He made a great discovery, but one doesn't necessarily lead to the other. The model of micro evolution is also compatible with special creation. Why should one be preferred when there is absolutely no evidence for macro evolution? Micro has even been demonstrated not to lead to macro:

natural selection, long viewed as the process guiding evolutionary change, cannot play a significant role in determining the overall course of evolution. Micro evolution is decoupled from macro evolution.

SM Stanley Johns Hopkins University
Proceedings, National Science Academy Science
Vol.72 p.648

They have been breeding thousands of generations of fruitflies and millions of generations of bacteria and never once have they created a new species. If macro is true, you have to ask yourself why there are limits they are unable to cross. Living fossils are another problem, creatures supposedly hundreds of millions of years old, and no change at all. They found a blue green bacteria (supposedly) over 1 billion years old, and it is exactly the same as it is today. The evidence all points away from macro. Fossils enter the record in stasis; they don't change.

God can't be observed, can't even be tested for. God also have no direct impact on the world, other than through his followers, and since he (she/it) is not his followers, the conclusion is that he probably doesn't exist.

If you can't even see the operations of atoms in the world, why would you expect to see the operations of God? The bible says that in God all things live and move and have their being. How could you observe that?

It is not that I have faith that he doesn't exist, it's just that I haven't seen anything to suggest otherwise. I have the same attitude towards Ghosts, Zombies and Unicorns. I would have had the same attitude towards Dinosaurs, because, come on, they're huge lizards, no way they exist! But the evidence suggest otherwise, fossils are real, they actually did exist, but not anymore, thus my earlier theory is demolished by the evidence, and a new hypothesis is formed, one backed by evidence.

It's good that you have an open mind. That's a rare thing in this world. If you don't prefer any evidence, but just want the actual truth, no matter what it is, then all is open to you. Jesus said, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will open. Take a leap of faith and ask Him what the truth is..ask Him for revelation. If He can't hear you, all you will have done is wasted a few minutes of your life.

>> ^gwiz665

@kceaton1

I wholly agree that I detest these once atheists that have literally taken what is normally a balanced "naught" position as to God(s) existence barring evidence and instead these anti-theists ditch that stance and deem that not only is all religion a wash, but any God is as well. They're very "militant" in nature and seem to draw in those that are less secure about their own opinions; kind of like the Westboro Baptists. Unfortunately, they are also very pro-active, boisterous, and vitriolic in nature--worse of all they call themselves atheists still, giving the rest of us a bad rap.

And they're everywhere. The only place that I can go and say anything about Christianity without being ridiculed is a Christian forum. This goes from the obvious places like atheist forums, to a place like this, to even the comments section on CNN.com. Antitheists seem to outnumber thoughtful atheists at least 100-1.

Some of them though are just plain tired of the charades they have had to play with men they worked with, people they once respected--but, those same people might as well put their workmate, friend, and neighbors into brutal conditions for a simple principle held: atheism. It's happened before, not as ruthless as it may have been in the earlier centuries, but black listing someone in a community can happen. I've seen it happen innumerable times first hand! I can't blame some for their outrage and pointed damnation they hold for others; it was created by those that may complain that the volume and acidity of their words may be too strong--or too true.

Some have been mistreated, and some are just on the hate bandwagon because they are angry, insecure people who scapegoat religion for the evil in the world. Much like an anarchist blames all the evil in the world on governments.

Of course religion has it's share of idiots as well. They are almost always the fundamentalists, like the Westboro clan. Papa (George H. W.) Bush once said that atheists should have no rights in the U.S.--if he had his way--they would not be citizens nor would they be patriots. Because, this is a nation "under God"--atleast after that was added. Maybe Papa Bush didn't know that historical part. Religion also has a grand stand in politics and the media. That is yet another thing that must be remembered is that when an anti-theist does speak it will outrage the religious; but, atheists, anti-theists (even Jews, Muslims, Hindu, Buddhism, etc...), endure the endless exposure and should be expected to remain quiet... Fox News is the epitome of which I speak as it is nothing more than a pulpit for the rich, white, Christian, American, white collar worker.

Stupidity, of course, is not exclusive to any particular group of people, but is common to all of them.

But, there is one more consideration that HAS to be mentioned. As this point gets me to go after religious people all the time. If this makes me anti-theist, because I voiced a concern over what is being said--then anti-theism is far more wide-spread and has NOTHING to do with atheism. I do think this may be a common misconception from just my general experiences on the messageboards, here and elsewhere.

The problem is: Science!

This is especially true for all of the fundamental type religions. They all have a huge laundry list of minor science flaws to HUGE science flaws. Fundamentalism Christianity in the U.S. tends to take the lead in this war of fact versus opinion. There are plenty of fully qualified scientists out there that are religious, but ones that tend to go against the full body of evidence and scientific community to prove a religious claim tend to be "not fully qualified". They tend to use full scientific data and factual evidence to create a new theor...I mean hypothesis (many will try to use "theory", but their reason for their arrival at the new understanding tends to have no basis) and inject a very large amount of opinion, sprinkled with some facts. One such example is the red-shift video provided above by @shinyblurry .

The video I posted does have a basis, the phenomena was legitimately observed:

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0606294

Obviously it isn't conclusive, but it definitely has merit and should be explored rather than dismissed. I would really like to know the difference between something like this and the pure speculation accepted as fact in big bang cosmology, such as the existence of dark matter and dark energy. They are little more than fudge factors, as well as cosmic inflation, to account for the glaring holes that don't fit observation. That isn't science, but you excuse it because..?

Science can become a VERY heated area of topic when it comes to religion. This begins when a religion: tries to debunk a theory or a part of it, to commandeer a theory and direct a new conclusion to fit an already preconceived destination which has not been peer-reviewed or tested, repeating scientific theories in religious pamphlets or media while purposefully undermining the theory by not presenting in full and correct context or actually printing falsehoods, lying about the nature of scientific testing, repetitiously incorrectly stating current stances on various theories (like radio-carbon dating, etc...), attempts by any churches through the state to eliminate the teaching of branches of science--especially ones that have been tested so much that have attained the rank of THEORY (Evolution, etc...), again the use of lying in media against science--this has reached every facet of media-large and small.

Here's the problem with the so called theory of evolution. What Darwin observed was microevolution, not macroevolution. He observed that species will adapt to their environments. That is scientific fact, and a great discovery. What he did from there is speculate that because species adapt to their environments, that those adaptations would lead to new species, and therefore, that all life has a common ancestor. Since it wasn't something that could be observed, what was supposed to prove his theory would be evidence from the fossil record. There was only one problem with that:

innumerable transitional forms must have existed but why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth? ..why is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links?

Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain, and this perhaps is the greatest objection which can be urged against my theory.

Charles Darwin
Origin of the Species

The total lack of transitional fossils was a complete embarrassment to Darwin. The excuse made was that because the record was so poor, more time was needed to unearth the fossils. Here we are 150 years later, and those transitional forms have failed to materialize. The fossil record is composed mainly of gaps. It also defies all the predictions of gradualism. All the major body types appeared suddenly in the Cambrian explosion without any discernable evolutionary history, and they appeared highly diversified. All the major phyla, classes, orders etc were there at the beginning. Species appear suddenly in stasis and leave just as suddenly. Macroevolution is not science, it has never been observed nor can it be tested. It is a just-so story which does not fit observation.

Christians don't have a problem with science, they have a problem with what isn't science. Macroevolution was a giant leap made by Darwin for which there was no evidence, and the fossil record does not match the predictions of the theory. Because of this, evolutionists have moved away from the fossil record and have used other lines of evidences to prove macroevolution, like common genetics in our DNA. The problem with that is, common genetics also indicates a common designer, and is better indicated by it actually, because of the mosaic pattern we observe in the genome.

I'm sure there are more. History has been a great use to show us what religion WILL do to science, even though all that is being shown is the truth. It truly is a dangerous weapon. If you can't except truth what hope do we have for you. Yes you can be a good person, but somehow you're flawed, unable to except reality.

Historically the church supported scientific inquiry. Science got its start in Christian Europe, and many of the greatest scientists were devout Christians.

When I was a believer (no matter what @shinyblurry says I was; I was Mormon and shiny seems to believe that his religious path is of course a T3 hard-line; were as Mormons just get the basic 56k dial-up...) I FELT the presence of God, or more accurately The Holy Ghost. I had no problem believing in everything science told me when I was religious. I knew it was the truth and I knew that God would not want me to ignore the grand insights into the workings of his masterpiece. I could feel in my soul, the first year I had physics, that something profound had just happened. I had found something I had been searching for my whole life. I felt connected to everything. I began to dismiss those that were religious around me and disliked evolution--to me evolution was so simple and yet such a wondrous way to create the most complex of things from literally the simplest. A literal masterpiece. So I do know that some can believe all that science says, but it's very hard in Christianity.

There are two kingdoms in this world, the kingdom of darkness and the Kingdom of Heaven, and they are both supernatural kingdoms. You can get a supernatural experience in a false religion, but it is just a corrupt copy of the real thing. Were you feeling a burning sensation in your chest? What you were feeling wasn't the Holy Spirit, or the presence of God, but the false spirit that pervades the mormon church. The presence of God is something that goes beyond feelings and sensations. This is how people get duped into false religions, because they get a spiritual experience from a false spirit.

I grew up secular, and when I became a Christian I was more than willing to accept the conclusions of science. I had believed them all my life because they had been taught to me as factual. I was even willing to intergrate them into my faith. It was only after investigating these things that I found, to my shock, that there wasn't any actual evidence for these things, and that they were neither testable or observerd. I changed my mind based on my investigation of the facts and not because of any religious duty. I would still believe it if I thought there was convincing evidence, but it isn't there.

Since you're scientifically minded, let me give you a challenge. You appear to be quite confident that evolution is proven true, so if that is the case, see if you can refute the arguments in this book:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0890510628/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&seller=

So I hope I made a point with this. Anti-theism comes from quite a few directions. The most usual and common sight is that you'll see between someone defending scientific theories, while the less common will be those that have been directly burned by the religious community they most likely once belonged to. The last is of course what was brought up in earlier posts: atheists who turn into anti-theists. They tend to be the kind that will assert that religion is evil no matter how small or insignificant it may play a role in someones life.

It's because they have no idea how much of western civilization is built upon Christian principles and philosophy. What they need to do is educate themselves:

http://www.amazon.com/Book-that-Made-Your-World/dp/1595553223

In the end most atheists boil down to this:

Stephen speaking to a religious friend...
“I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”

~Stephen Roberts

>> ^budzos:

Took thirty seconds of skipping around to find what I was afraid of: "a whole new species of Alien."
STOP DOING THIS.


And so linear!

Took thirty seconds of skipping around to find what I was afraid of: "a whole new species of Alien."

STOP DOING THIS.

@GeeSussFreeK

Time is interesting, truly one of humanities and other animals, greatest sensory abilities via memory. In fact how our memory is stored depending on what type of creature you are can give you a wide difference in abilities. Like a fly out maneuvering your swat attempts. Truly time seems not to exist at all if there is no memory. You can also tell that our perception of time was never meant to work with time dilation; this showing that time is extremely relative even just by biological standards.

But, you must remember that if we all died tomorrow and on some distant planet a new species started to learn as we have. They will still have access to the greatest library ever known: The Universe. Does that make time exist? Is it merely just an artifact? Time seems to have an "artificial" standing, as this new species will not see it at "one second" nor will they perceive "one second" the same as us. Time exists, but what is your duration, one tic = the time it takes for the Universe to go from 3k Kelvin to 0 Kelvin, or a few seconds = as we see it?

Much like temperature and other sensory based interpretations of reality. I think it does exist outside our perception, but it could be better stated than is. Perhaps using discreet energy packets in relation to the speed of light interpreted by general relativity for the system, etc... (a much more precise definition of time is using the mechanical nature of particle physics and sharing it with another system, much like nuclear clocks).

Your refutations were (in order)

"This guy believes in evolution"

"We can never prove anything about the fossil record"

"this quote is old"

"this guy is crazy"

"this quote is old"

"this guy is a probable creationist"

Yeah, amazing refutations..which you got from a website, while calling me out on doing the same thing. Evolutionists, biologists, palentologists etc DO dispute the theory of evolution..you were right though..the ones I provided were kind of weak. You'll have an infinitely harder time refuting these:

"With the failure of these many efforts [to explain the origin of life] science was left in the somewhat embarrassing position of having to postulate theories of living origins which it could not demonstrate.

After having chided the theologian for his reliance on myth and miracle, science found itself in the unenviable position of having to create a mythology of its own: namely, the assumption that what, after long effort could not be proved to take place today, had, in truth, taken place in the primeval past."

Loren C. Eiseley,
Ph.D. Anthropology. "The Immense Journey". Random House, NY, p. 199

"We have no acceptable theory of evolution at the present time. There is none; and I cannot accept the theory that I teach to my students each year. Let me explain:

I teach the synthetic theory known as the neo-Darwinian one, for one reason only; not because it's good, we know it is bad, but because there isn't any other.

Whilst waiting to find something better you are taught something which is known to be inexact, which is a first approximation."

Professor Jerome Lejeune,
Internationally recognised geneticist at a lecture given in Paris

"Considering its historic significance and the social and moral transformation it caused in western thought, one might have hoped that Darwinian theory ... a theory of such cardinal importance, a theory that literally changed the world, would have been something more than metaphysics, something more than a myth."

Michael Denton,
Molecular Biologist. "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis". Adler and Adler, p. 358

"The fact of evolution is the backbone of biology, and biology is thus in the peculiar position of being a science founded on an unproved theory - is it then a science or a faith? Belief in the theory of evolution is thus exactly parallel to belief in special creation-both are concepts which believers know to be true but neither, up to the present, has been capable of proof."

L.Harrison Matthews,
British biologist

"[The theory of evolution] forms a satisfactory faith on which to base our interpretation of nature."


L. Harrison Matthews,
Introduction to 'Origin of Species: The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life', p. xxii (1977 edition).


"I reject evolution because I deem it obsolete, because the knowledge, hard won since 1830, of anatomy, histology, cytology, and embryology, cannot be made to accord with its basic idea. The foundationless, fantastic edifice of the evolution doctrine would long ago have met with its long deserved fate were it not that the love of fairy tales is so deep-rooted in the hearts of man."

Dr Albert Fleischmann. Recorded in Scott M. Huse, "The Collapse of Evolution", Baker Book House: Grand Rapids (USA), 1983 p:120

"Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent."


William B. Provine,
Professor of Biological Sciences, Cornell University, 'Evolution: Free will and punishment and meaning in life', Abstract of Will Provine's 1998 Darwin Day Keynote Address.


"The origin of life by chance in a primeval soup is impossible in probability in the same way that a perpetual machine is in probability. The extremely small probabilities calculated in this chapter are not discouraging to true believers ? [however] A practical person must conclude that life didn’t happen by chance."


Hubert Yockey,
"Information Theory and Molecular Biology", Cambridge University Press, 1992, p. 257


"As I said, we shall all be embarrassed, in the fullness of time, by the naivete of our present evolutionary arguments. But some will be vastly more embarrassed than others."


Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, Principal Research Associate of the Center for Cognitive Science at MIT, "Inevitable Illusions: How Mistakes of Reason Rule Our Minds," John Wiley & Sons: New York, 1994, p195)


"In 10 million years, a human-like species could substitute no more than 25,000 expressed neutral mutations and this is merely 0.0007% of the genome ?nowhere near enough to account for human evolution. This is the trade secret of evolutionary geneticists."

Walter James ReMine,
The Biotic Message : Evolution versus Message Theory


"Today, a hundred and twenty-eight years after it was first promulgated, the Darwinian theory of evolution stands under attack as never before. ... The fact is that in recent times there has been increasing dissent on the issue within academic and professional ranks, and that a growing number of respectable scientists are defecting from the evolutionist camp. It is interesting, moreover, that for the most part these 'experts' have abandoned Darwinism, not on the basis of religious faith or biblical persuasions, but on strictly scientific grounds, and in some instances regretfully, as one could say. We are told dogmatically that Evolution is an established fact; but we are never told who has established it, and by what means. We are told, often enough, that the doctrine is founded upon evidence, and that indeed this evidence 'is henceforward above all verification, as well as being immune from any subsequent contradiction by experience'; but we are left entirely in the dark on the crucial question wherein, precisely, this evidence consists."


Wolfgang Smith,
Mathematician and Physicist. Prof. of Mathematics, Oregon State University. Former math instructor at MIT. Teilhardism and the New Religion: A Thorough Analysis of the Teachings of de Chardin. Tan Books & Publishers, pp. 1-2


"If there were a basic principle of matter which somehow drove organic systems toward life, its existence should easily be demonstrable in the laboratory. One could, for instance, take a swimming bath to represent the primordial soup. Fill it with any chemicals of a non-biological nature you please. Pump any gases over it, or through it, you please, and shine any kind of radiation on it that takes your fancy. Let the experiment proceed for a year and see how many of those 2,000 enzymes [proteins produced by living cells] have appeared in the bath. I will give the answer, and so save the time and trouble and expense of actually doing the experiment. You would find nothing at all, except possibly for a tarry sludge composed of amino acids and other simple organic chemicals.
How can I be so confident of this statement? Well, if it were otherwise, the experiment would long since have been done and would be well-known and famous throughout the world. The cost of it would be trivial compared to the cost of landing a man on the Moon.......In short there is not a shred of objective evidence to support the hypothesis that life began in an organic soup here on the Earth."


Sir Fred Hoyle,
British physicist and astronomer, The Intelligent Universe, Michael Joseph, London, pp. 20-21, 23.


"...(I)t should be apparent that the errors, overstatements and omissions that we have noted in these biology texts, all tend to enhance the plausibility of hypotheses that are presented. More importantly, the inclusion of outdated material and erroneous discussions is not trivial. The items noted mislead students and impede their acquisition of critical thinking skills. If we fail to teach students to examine data critically, looking for points both favoring and opposing hypotheses, we are selling our youth short and mortgaging the future of scientific inquiry itself."


Mills, Lancaster, Bradley,
'Origin of Life Evolution in Biology Textbooks - A Critique', The American Biology Teacher, Volume 55, No. 2, February, 1993, p. 83


"The salient fact is this: if by evolution we mean macroevolution (as we henceforth shall), then it can be said with the utmost rigor that the doctrine is totally bereft of scientific sanction. Now, to be sure, given the multitude of extravagant claims about evolution promulgated by evolutionists with an air of scientific infallibility, this may indeed sound strange. And yet the fact remains that there exists to this day not a shred of bona fide scientific evidence in support of the thesis that macroevolutionary transformations have ever occurred."


Wolfgang Smith,
Ph.D Mathematics , MS Physics Teilardism and the New Religion. Tan Books and Publishers, Inc.


"... as Darwinists and neo-Darwinists have become ever more adept at finding possible selective advantages for any trait one cares to mention, explanation in terms of the all-powerful force of natural selection has come more and more to resemble explanation in terms of the conscious design of the omnipotent Creator."


Mae-Wan Ho & Peter T. Saunders,
Biologist at The Open University, UK and Mathematician at University of London respectively


"In other words, when the assumed evolutionary processes did not match the pattern of fossils that they were supposed to have generated, the pattern was judged to be 'wrong'. A circular argument arises: interpret the fossil record in terms of a particular theory of evolution, inspect the interpretation, and note that it confirms the theory. Well, it would, wouldn't it?"


Tom S. Kemp,
'A Fresh Look at the Fossil Record', New Scientist, vol. 108, 1985, pp. 66-67


"We have proffered a collective tacit acceptance of the story of gradual adaptive change, a story that strengthened and became even more entrenched as the synthesis took hold. We paleontologists have said that the history of life supports that interpretation, all the while really knowing that it does not."


Niles Eldredge,
Chairman and Curator of Invertebrates, American Museum of Natural History, "Time Frames: The Rethinking of Darwinian Evolution and the Theory of Punctuated Equilibria," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, 1985, p144)


... by the fossil record and we are now about 120-years after Darwin and the knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded. We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn't changed much.
The record of evolution is still surprisingly jerky and, ironically, some of the classic cases of Darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information."


David M. Raup,
Curator of Geology. Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago "Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology". Field Museum of Natural History. Vol. 50, No. 1, p. 25


"Thus all Darwin's premises are defective: there is no unlimited population growth in natural populations, no competition between individuals, and no new species producible by selecting for varietal differences. And if Darwin's premises are faulty, then his conclusion does not follow. This, of itself, does not mean that natural selection is false. It simply means that we cannot use Darwin's argument brilliant though it was, to establish natural selection as a means of explaining the origin of species."


Robert Augros & George Stanciu,
"The New Biology: Discovering the Wisdom in Nature", New Science Library, Shambhala: Boston, MA, 1987, p.160).







>> ^MaxWilder:
What the hell are you talking about? I refuted every one of your quotes point by point! I provided links to further information. The whole point was that your "evidence" of paleontologists speaking out against evolution was utter bullshit!
The only one where I discredited the source was from some no-name Swedish biologist that nobody takes seriously. Every other source was either out of context (meaning you are not understanding the words properly), or out of date (meaning that science has progressed a little since the '70s).
You have got your head so far up your ass that you are not even coherent now.
But you know what might change my mind? If you cut&paste some more out of context, out of date quotes. You got hendreds of 'em! </sarcasm>
>> ^shinyblurry:
So basically, you cannot provide a refutation to the information itself but instead try to discredit the source.

"This is actually somewhat true. If breeds interbreed (derp, thats why they called breeds teehee?) there is very little chance of speciation occurring. Seperate a Great Dane a Chihuahua by a huge expanse of water for long enough though and eventually they will diverge to the point where they can no longer produce fertile offspring, or in other words, become a different species."

I don't think it really matters how long you wait or if one of the dogs lives in Alpha Centari..they will still just produce dogs according to the evidence. I suppose you could cook up anything and make it seem real by adding the magic value of millions of years..but without any real evidence its just pie in the sky

"I'd like to see you define a "fully formed" species. Honestly, this really shows how badly you misunderstand evolution. You are a transitional species, we all are, every single living thing on this planet is in some sense transitional. This misunderstanding of evolution seems to stem from the belief that it all happens at once, suddenly one day a bird hatches out of a dinosaur egg. Honey, it don't work like that, its millions of tiny changes from one generation to the next."

Fully formed as in, no true ancestors. There aren't any true ancestors for any of the major groups. There simply is no evidence in the fossil record demonstrating macro evolution which of course is seriously embarassing to darwinian theory. I highly doubt that darwin himself would maintain that his theory was true, just on the basis of the complexity of the cell and the DNA molecule alone.

"I really encourage you to learn more about speciation. It seems you accept that species do mutate to better survive, but you don't believe that results in them forming a whole new species. Thats quite a reasonable position to take but there is plenty of evidence explaining how speciation actually occurs. Gogo read up on it, its fascinating."

I will check it out. It sounds interesting.. Here is something I recommend...

A critique of 29 evidences for macro evolution

http://www.trueorigin.org/theobald1b.asp

"No, I don't. That's the whole point..they're all dogs, there is no difference in kind. Do it for 500 or 500 million, you'll have the same result..dogs. "

This is actually somewhat true. If breeds interbreed (derp, thats why they called breeds teehee?) there is very little chance of speciation occurring. Seperate a Great Dane a Chihuahua by a huge expanse of water for long enough though and eventually they will diverge to the point where they can no longer produce fertile offspring, or in other words, become a different species.

"Every species we observe is completely fully formed, showed up suddenly in the fossil record with no ancestors. If evolution were true, we would see species in transition from one kind to another today, which we don't. We would find ancestors in the fossil record which showed the tranistions. We don't. If evolution ever happened, it is not observable today anywhere, especially the fossil record."

I'd like to see you define a "fully formed" species. Honestly, this really shows how badly you misunderstand evolution. You are a transitional species, we all are, every single living thing on this planet is in some sense transitional. This misunderstanding of evolution seems to stem from the belief that it all happens at once, suddenly one day a bird hatches out of a dinosaur egg. Honey, it don't work like that, its millions of tiny changes from one generation to the next.

"The "advantage" is only good for the circumstance, and when the circumstance is gone, the population returns to normal. For instance, when bacteria produce this mutation for resistance, it always makes them less effecient..it always at the sacrifice of something else. There was nothing added and nothing new created..things only got shuffled around. These mutations don't ever survive in the wild."

Again, this somewhat true. Adaptions for a specific thing often come at a price. Its why we still see so many simple organisms sitting around, bacteria still exists and has not evolved into more complex forms because simple works for that bacteria. If there is no strong evolutionary pressure then why evolve? However, there is PLENTY of pressure to evolve, be it exploiting a new niche, adapting better to hunt new prey or to survive in a different environment.

I really encourage you to learn more about speciation. It seems you accept that species do mutate to better survive, but you don't believe that results in them forming a whole new species. Thats quite a reasonable position to take but there is plenty of evidence explaining how speciation actually occurs. Gogo read up on it, its fascinating.

I know we'd really like to believe this but I can't find anything about this on any serious website, and I think if it was real, there would be more news on it.
Upon looking, while I did find many sites picking up the story using the exact same article as every other one, I did come across this one site and article. It's the only one I could find that clearly states this truly is a hoax and I couldn't find any information backing up a hoax confession by David Salmanin so I guess it's still open to personal interpretation:

"On April 1st a story broke that a botanist had discovered an incredible species that appeared to have come from an extraterrestrial source. The new species not only had the characteristics of a more traditional form of cactus, but also a few others that led one botanist to believe it was from outer space. Of course when he said he first discovered the plant in Roswell, New Mexico from a meteorite the paranormal community was already beginning to get skeptical. But all lingering doubts were removed with the prankster came clean shortly afterward and said his cactus story had been a big prank to raise awareness of cacti.

David Salman, of High County Gardens first developed the prank to air footage of a known terrestrial species of alien cactus as a more deliberate and unusual brand of alien invader which he named Ariocarpus extraterrestrialensis. Ariocarpus was chosen as the creatures did resemble a terrestrial form of cactus species going by that name, and extraterrestrialensisafter his belief that the strange plants had actually originated among the stars. But thins have been quickly developed into a far more elaborate prank than Salman likely had hoped for as a good natured bit of fun. And when your life's work includes studying cacti in the desert, you're familiar with your work resulting in a few jabs. Luckily, however, Salman was able to come clean long before the story got too out of control." - http://www.unexplainable.net/UFO-Alien/Alien-Cactus-Story-an-April-Spoof.shtml

>> ^Mammaltron:

I wish they'd explain a little more about the 'almost overnight' theory. A individual mutant became a new species, and had to immediately adapt new hunting techniques to live?
That just seems a little... contrary to everything I've ever learned about evolution.


Haven't you heard Sir. Patrick Stewart's intro to X-Men?

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium
It's controversial. But intuitively I think that the rate of change of species is far from constant -- some changes are rapid, some are gradual. Although "rapid" might still many many generations.

The idea of a mutation in a SINGLE individual starting a new species is fascinating, if true.

>> ^spoco2:

I was more annoyed that nothing was said of the 'evidence' as to why this is. I mean, what is the reasoning behind thinking that they didn't evolve slowly? If we don't have fossil records, then what has made them believe that it was a mutation?

I believe it's simply that they can't find any 'missing links' and that as far back as they can go the crazy nutters still have giant hammer heads, so therefore they're starting to think there was no intermediate phase.
>> ^Mammaltron:

I wish they'd explain a little more about the 'almost overnight' theory. A individual mutant became a new species, and had to immediately adapt new hunting techniques to live?
That just seems a little... contrary to everything I've ever learned about evolution.

Exactly. It's crazy hence the debate. A baby shark comes out all twisted and has to scurry off elesewhere to try and get by.. and makes it so well its kids are doing gangbusters 40 million years later.
They say that spreading its sensory gear across a wider face helps with triangulating prey. Wikipedia also says they have 360 vision which contradicts this film. Easy enough to test tho..any marine biologists on the sift?

I wish they'd explain a little more about the 'almost overnight' theory. A individual mutant became a new species, and had to immediately adapt new hunting techniques to live?

That just seems a little... contrary to everything I've ever learned about evolution.

'Evolution' is shorthand for 'Evolution by Natural Selection' in the context you're using it, with 'natural selection' being the mechanism that Darwin and Wallace realized could be driving the evolution that others had for so long struggled to explain.

When groups of people select what should be bred and crossbred and carried on for our benefit, its 'evolution by human selection'. Eventually human-driven selection can produce things like dogs which can no longer interbreed (but come from the same ancestors) and plants that don't even produce seeds (like bananas, which have to be planted by people).

'Natural Selection' is only different because it takes people out as the selectors of who breeds and who has offspring, and roughly says 'in nature, small variations between individuals play a role in determining which ones thrive and have offspring (or conversely don't thrive)... this natural selection slowly accumulates, and whole new species can develop (especially with migration to new areas where different adaptations give benefit)'.

>> ^Calcul8r:

Bananas and cauliflower don't demonstrate evolution. They demonstrate intelligent design. Had the mutations not been specifically selected by the growers they would have disappeared, overwhelmed by the overall gene pool of the species.

Ah..."Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish" -Euripides. It has been my personal experience that those who do not believe in evolution are not so much resistant to the idea as they are ignorant of it, as you said. You can explain to him that evolution is the product of math, and that's it. As one allele is favored in the environment, it increases in frequency. In fact, you could also explain that evolution may also occur through something as simple (and unarguable) as migration. If more individuals with blond hair enter a population, the population evolves because the frequency of the blond allele increases.

In regards to the age of the earth, you could discuss some geological facts that are in obvious support of an ancient earth:
1) Fossils (Previous types of organisms have existed. Extinction has occurred. We know the rate of extinction and the rate that speciation occurs - these all indicate an earth that is billions of years old)
2) Vestigial structures (Previous useful structures can lose their function through time - lots of it)
3) Modern Gemonics (The more closely related two organisms are the more similar their DNA is, the more genes they have in common and therefore the more morphologically similar they are. We know the rate of mutation, which means we know the rate of the formation of alleles in a population. For humans, the rate of mutation is about 0.0000001 mutations per base pair per generation (very slow - and this is for all mutations, not just for positive ones). The formation of new species usually takes millions of years due to this slow rate coupled with natural selection.
4) Biogeography (A single species separated by the movement of continents evolves at the same discussed rate. We know how fast continents move (theory of plate tectonics: 2 - 10 cm/year). We know many organisms were separated by continental drift (Many separate (but very similar-looking) species are found in currently separate geographical areas that were once together - primates in Africa / South America, for example or the flightless birds - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratite - for marsupials: http://biology.clc.uc.edu/Courses/bio303/contdrift.htm)

I hope this helps!

Marc

In reply to this comment by Psychologic:
Hey, you seem to know your way around science so I have a question for you (asking several people actually):

I have a friend who is fairly intelligent and open-minded, but is also a young-earth creationist. While there is quite a bit of evidence showing the planet to be much older than 7000 years, I'm trying to find something that is fairly obvious and can't be dismissed as easily as, say, radiometric dating.

Needless to say, he doesn't "believe" in evolution, but I think many of his positions are the product of misinformation. I wouldn't believe in what he thinks evolution is either, but for now I just want a clear way of showing a skeptic that the earth is much older than the christian bible seems to indicate.

Any insight?