there must be more to it

[vashti]

There are loads of physicians that would agree with you, eco.

[IndiReloaded]

There are loads of physicians that would agree with you, eco.

?? She asked about scientists. A physician is not a scientist, Vash, not even close. Ask your doc next time if he or she has actually read Origin of Species. Most have what I would consider the equivalent of a master's degree and the medical curriculum doesn't cover anything specific about evolution. In fact, my doc (a smart guy) asks me about the latest science papers.

[boobaa]

I have been studying biology in college, my first year, i just had my first exam yesterday and it has me thinking. the human body is amazingly complicated. there has to be more to story. how could something so amazing have 'just happened'? there has to be someone or something behind the creation of man. how is it possible that we are just here by accident? i don't necessarily want to start a whole thread on religion, but just my thoughts right now are confirming to me personally that there is no question in my mind there there is more to the story. have you scientists/agnostics/athiests ever thought about that aspect at all?

Its all the work of Macarony king, The Great Sphagetty Monster!

I never believed you would be so full of shit, I thought better of you.

Now, what exactly is it that made you think there has to be more to it? More as in what?



And yes, there is a difference when speaking of the beginning of life, and development of different lifeforms. Human body is complicated? Wtf, you little self centered cuntheads? Human is just a monkey with bigger brain. All organisms are complex, human is not the most complex organism on the planet. Mind? Every mind is specific in the field of enviornment the creature is in.

There is a funny thing with those religious nutcases. Every time some new proven theory comes out, in the field of astronomy, biology what ever, any science, they deny it. And when they realize it can't be denied because it is simply there, they just say okok God made it. We have been more times wrong with the God than actual science.

[vashti]

?? She asked about scientists. A physician is not a scientist, Vash, not even close. Ask your doc next time if he or she has actually read Origin of Species. Most have what I would consider the equivalent of a master's degree and the medical curriculum doesn't cover anything specific about evolution. In fact, my doc (a smart guy) asks me about the latest science papers.

???

So? That doesn't negate what I said. I am simply stating what I know. I also know that not everyone who believes in God denies evolution.

[DoesntMatter]

Not so for evolution. There is a TON of supporting data, in fact, we can recreate it artifically in a test tube these days. Just do a wiki search for 'ribozyme' or 'RNA world hypothesis'.

... I think I know what ribozymes are

eco was asking more than just evolution. The origin of life, and MOLECULAR evolution, aka selecting out ribozymes that replicated better under saltier ocean conditions or whatever, is just as useful to bring up and talk about as is evolution of species

[boobaa]

Give an octupus half a million years more and they will start making ufo ships. Smart creatures they are. The problem right now is that the enviornment they are in doesn't provide enough challenges for the mind to evolve.

Actually it would require a very complex mind to control every limb separately, since octupus has so many of them. There are all kinds of theories but in fact different scientists are still puzzling.

And one could say that a dolphin can be smarter than human. If you can compare them at all, definately they have better family values, moral, ethics, but our worlds are still so much different that the process of thought between two species cannot be compared.

So, my religious conclusion is that since there are so many complex organisms, there must be many gods, each god has his own creature he created. My suggestion is that an octupus belongs to a sphagetty monster.

[NeoSeminole]

fill a box with 10 ping pong balls and 10 billiard balls. Then shake it for a while. What do you see? The heavy billiard balls settle on bottom while the lighter ping pong balls settle on top. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why. Much in the same way, atoms arrange themselves to form bonds according to the principles of chemistry and physics. These simple bond interactions are the basis for more complex molecules. While all of this occurs at the microscopic level, we perceive the resulting 'organization' at the macroscopic level. Salt, for example, is nothing more than a bunch of sodium (Na) atoms bonded with chlorine (Cl) atoms. Now let's take this a step further, say... a billion years in the making. The blueprint for life - DNA - originated from molecules that arranged themselves to form copies of itself. The replication of these molecules required resources which soon became limited, resulting in natural selection. Thus began the evolutionary radiation that resulted in all the life forms you see around you today.

[vashti]

Yes, of course, but that doesn't explain where the original molecules came from.

[NeoSeminole]

from the Earth

[NeoSeminole]

if you want, I can post the entire version of a paper I wrote for fun explaining the origin of everything. My post above is just a highly condensed version made simple for anyone to understand.

[NeoSeminole]

Enjoy!

The prevailing theory is that quantum fluctuations in the vacuum of space were pulled far apart during the Big Bang. Normally these fluctuations result in pairs of virtual particles that come into existence briefly and then annihilate each other. However, the rapid expansion of the universe during the Big Bang separated these particle pairs before they had time to couple thus making them 'real.' The particles created by quantum fluctuations have the ability to become either matter or energy.

American Scientist
[url]http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/feature/observing-the-beginning-of-time[/url]

Matter and energy were interchangeable during the earliest moments after the Big Bang. Colliding photons formed particle-pairs, and matter/anti-matter annihilation created photons. The very instant these photons were created, they immediately converted into matter and vice versa. It wasn't until 10^-12 sec. after the Big Bang that quarks and electrons were able to exist separate from photons.

[url]http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Cyberia/Cosmos/InTheBeginning.html[/url]

[url]http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Ast162/Unit5/early.html[/url]

As space expanded, it began to cool down. The universe entered the nucleosynthesis epoch during which the first hydrogen atoms began to form. However, the distribution of hydrogen gas in the universe was not homogeneous. Over time, regions of higher density collapsed and coalesced due to gravitational forces. These clouds of collapsing interstellar hydrogen were so massive that the gravitational forces at the center caused the atoms to ignite in a process called fusion. Thus the first stars in our universe were born.

[url]http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s249630.htm[/url]

[url]http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/COMPLETE/learn/star_and_planet_formation.html[/url]

The process of fusion produces many new elements. Stars fuse hydrogen to helium, and helium to heavier atoms. Heavier elements are formed in denser areas of the star. These elements were blasted out into space when the earliest stars underwent supernova. There is evidence that heavy-element formation occurs in stars.

"observations in red giants of one kind of nucleus - 99technetium - provides direct evidence that heavy-element formation really does occur in stars today."

Wright Center for Science Education
[url]http://www.tufts.edu/as/wright_center/cosmic_evolution/docs/text/text_stel_6.html[/url]

The newly formed elements that were casted into space existed in the form of rocks and gas clouds, which coalesced to form planets, moons, and other celestial bodies. It was only a matter of time before the elements released from stars gathered on one of the planets that is hospitable for life, such as Earth, and combined to form molecules that combined to form amino acids, which evolved into very simple cells, and thus life began.

It is believed the earliest signs of life appeared 600 million years after the earth formed. These life forms were possibly derived from self-reproducing RNA molecules. The replication of these organisms required resources which soon became limited, resulting in natural selection. DNA molecules then took over as the main replicators. They began to develop inside enclosed membranes which provided a stable environment for replication: proto-cells. 100 million years passed before cells resembling prokaryotes appeared. These organisms were chemoautotrophs. Another 900 million years passed before photosynthesizing cyanobacteria evolved which produced oxygen. The oxygen concentration in the atmosphere subsequently rose. Eventually, more complex cells began to appear: the eukaryotes. After 2 billion years, the first multicellular organisms evolved. Natural selection fueled the evolutionary radiation that occurred during the last 1 billion years. Homo sapiens (modern humans) didn't appear until about 200,000 years ago.

[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_life[/url]


cliffs:

the Big Bang caused the rapid expansion of our universe, which led to the heterogeneous distribution of hydrogen clouds that birthed stars and ultimately led to everything you see around you.

[IndiReloaded]

???

So? That doesn't negate what I said. I am simply stating what I know. I also know that not everyone who believes in God denies evolution.

No, but it makes it as meaningless as saying there are lots of pizza delivery ppl who also think the same. You were attempting to resort to physicians as an authority on a subject when they simply aren't. Besides, any physician who has actually studied, and understood, comparative anatomy (much less all the other data) would have no difficulty seeing how it supports evolution.

Again. I am only addressing Eco's question about evolution.

Not abiogenesis, which I readily admit we don't know much about at this time. Neo & Vash, you are confusing the two concepts.

Eco, this answer to this question:

how could something so amazing have 'just happened'?

is simply this: it didn't 'just happen'. There was a process, a fairly well understood one. Watch the videos for a summary & then ask more questions if you have them.

[Lipp]

And when dealing with these time spans it's quite amusing to see how fast we're causing so much trouble.

[IndiReloaded]

And when dealing with these time spans it's quite amusing to see how fast we're causing so much trouble.

Meh, that's such a human-centric view, tho. In the scope of the earth, we are nothing. Even if humans completely destroyed each other & contaminated parts of the earth with nuclear weapons, the earth can and would continue in time.

The current theory is that dinosaurs were wiped out by a 10+ mega ton equivalent meteor. This kind of stuff is standard in our solar system, just look at the craters on the moon. In fact, here's a sobering table from Duncan Steel:

About 2,000 objects massive enough (1 km diameter) to cause global catastrophe are known to cross Earth's orbit. Such an impacting object would wipe out 25% of humanity.
About 10,000 objects of 500 m size cross Earth's orbit.
About 300,000 objects of 100 m size cross Earth's orbit.
About 150 million objects of 10 m size cross Earth's orbit.
Some 70% of potential impactors are asteroids; the rest are comets.
About 50% of the Earth-crossing asteroids most likely are extinct or dormant comets.

And here's the table of the frequency of these things:

Pea-size meteoroids - 10 per hour
Walnut-size - 1 per hour
Grapefruit-size - 1 every 10 hours
Basketball-size - 1 per month
50-m rock that would destroy an area the size of New Jersey - 1 per 100 years
1-km asteroid - 1 per 100,000 years
2-km asteroid - 1 per 500,000 years
A "nemesis" parabolic comet impactor would give us only a 6-month warning.

Anyone want to take a stab at how long "humans" have been around?

Have a nice day.

[NeoSeminole]

IndiReloaded says:

"Again. I am only addressing Eco's question about evolution.

Not abiogenesis, which I readily admit we don't know much about at this time. Neo & Vash, you are confusing the two concepts."

I assure you I know the difference between abiogenesis and evolution. I was addressing Eco's original post:

"how could something so amazing have 'just happened'? there has to be someone or something behind the creation of man. how is it possible that we are just here by accident?"

go back and re-read the whole thing. Nowhere does she explicitly mention evolution.