Given that evolution is a fact and that the evidence for it is incontrovertible, I find it very difficult to understand how religious people, mostly Christians, can deny it. Can you enlighten me?

Christian View

The Christian Perspective

Christians deny that life spontaneously erupted from nothingness into walking, breathing, car-designing, music-making, poetry creating creatures. The evolutionist requires that you and I belched into existence without intention, thought or design. As a Christian I am comfortable with the notion of faith, but it is truly a fantastical faith that asserts random interactions of atoms produced hearing, seeing, self-reproducing, intelligent creatures with self healing skin and a myriad of other features -- all of which can be powered by peanut butter and potato chips.

Dr. George Wald, evolutionist, Professor Emeritus of Biology at the University at Harvard, Nobel Prize winner in Biology writes
"When it comes to the origin of life on this earth, there are only two possibilities: creation or spontaneous generation (evolution). There is no third way. Spontaneous generation was disproved 100 years ago, but that leads us only to one other conclusion: that of supernatural creation. We cannot accept that on philosophical grounds (personal reasons); therefore, we choose to believe the impossible: that life arose spontaneously by chance."

Christian view Atheist view

Atheist View

The Atheist Perspective

by Richard Carrier

The emotional need to believe prevents them from seeing facts or reason in any matter that challenges their belief.

Christian view Atheist view

Comments

Jonathan,
Thanks for your answer. I have a few issues with it.
1. At best, your answer is an argument from personal incredulity.
2. You grossly misrepresent evolutionary claims.
3. You mistakenly conflate two very different concepts, abiogenesis (the origin of life) and the evolution of life.
4. No “evolutionist” accepts anything on faith, but what the evidence says, whether she likes it or not.
5. The asserttion that “god did it” has precisely zero explanatory power.
6. If we were “designed”, please explain how the position of the recurrent laryngeal nerve in the human body represents good “design”.

— Tony

"Christians deny that life spontaneously erupted from nothingness into walking, breathing, car-designing, music-making, poetry creating creatures."

Ah, so Christians don't really understand evolution. That makes sense.

Seriously, nice strawman.

— Wormwood blazes

Thanks for the answer

I may be echoing the above questions, but in short, two parts:

1) Most importantly, if complexity, awesomeness, (or whatever else) of life is what requires a design, doesn't that mean the complexity, awesomeness (whatever) of god also requires a design, creator, whatever?

In other words, rather than answering the question, aren't you simply pushing the question one step back by having faith in a creator?

2) This is more of a nitpick. Why do you use words like "belched into" or "spontaneously erupted" when your real deal breaker is clearly the "without intention, thought, or design" bit?

I mean, I presume you have no problems accepting on faith the following:

"We were belched into and/or spontaneously erupted with intention, thought, or design" and yet I wonder if you would use the same wording there when discussing your faith, trying to get a cheap laugh? I bet you would not say your god "belched" us into existence, or would you?

— Phil

What evidence is there for evolution?

— Anonymous

Anonymous, try here for some answers.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

— Tony

that's a lot of reading and a lot of scientific terms. what would you say is the best single evidence, or most convincing?

— Anonymous

Anonymous - Tony provided you with a fantastic response to your request, but you are unwilling to invest the time to appreciate it.

In the absence of investing the time to find your answer, I propose that the "best single evidence," or argument, is the fact that the overwhelming majority (admittedly not 100%) of the scientific community agrees on evolution as the means for the origin of life and engine of biodiversity.

When one lacks expertise in a specific area, one looks to an expert in that area for advice, solutions, or knowledge. A non-doctor does not mend her own broken bone. She looks to a doctor. A non-mechanic does not perform complicated repairs on his own car. He seeks out a mechanic. A non-pilot does not fly himself from one city to another. He employs the services of a licensed pilot.

In matters of science, a non-scientist should trust the scientist as the expert. Science overwhelmingly endorses evolution.

— J S

FAO Anonymous - yes there is a lot of reading there but it's well worth the effort. To deal with your question, I think to concentrate on one piece or line of evidence is to miss a very important point about evolution, which is the mass and sheer variety of mutually reinforcing evidence for it. Hope this helps.

— Tony

I'm familiar with this stuff already. hoped you'd post the best evidence here simply so others could easily read it. i bet that link is overwhelming. i'd already looked at a couple of the "evidences" there and they didn't suggest kind producing different kind, but i figured i probably missed the "really good" ones, so i hoped you'd put them here. i looked at this one that says "two different kinds are similar, therefore they came from a third kind", which obviously doesn't follow:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section3.html#morphological_analogy

and i looked at this one, which was like "this animal used to exist and now it's extinct, so kinds are descended from other kinds":
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section1.html#morphological_intermediates_ex4

just blatantly in-your-face poor reasoning. why waste time reading "evidences" that aren't relevant to the claim? surely something there must be good. why not tell us what it is?

— Anonymous

js - are you a ken ham supporter masquerading as an evolutionist? he says "most scientists believe in evolution because most scientists believe in evolution". that sounds a little too much like your "best evidence".

— Anonymous

Anonymous - sorry,I'm confused by your responses. If you're familiar with this stuff already, why not post your own views? Do you yourself accept evolution as a fact or not? Your last post would seem to suggest not but I don't want to jump to erroneous conclusions.

— Tony

my own view is that people who claim to have "incontrovertible evidence" should have no problem summarizing it for the rest of us.

— Anonymous

For evidence for evolution, start with these three:

* The fossil record
* The genetic record
* The living biological record

— Phil

As for me, here is the single most convincing piece of evidence that evolution occurs is within my own family, and, by extension, any other family I have ever observed:

Individuals change over time, the children sharing the traits of their parents, and having new traits introduced.

For me its not any kind of leap at all to put two and two together and see how natural circumstances "select" for these traits (e.g. if suddenly you can smell something toxic to you like sulfur (assuming sulfur is toxic to you) you can survive better in an environment with sulfur by avoiding sulfur and are therefore more likely to propagate)

— Phil

And to nip something in the bud: I don't see any difference between "micro" evolution and "macro" evolution, except a prolonged period of time for the latter.

Since we know time fairly well as a natural phenomenon, it is again no leap at all to put two and two together and see once more how extended periods of time result in an accumulation of trait selections that, eventually, make the difference between one organism and another more and more drastic.

After all, we don't talk about micro-geology and macro-geology, as if the observations of continental drift (for example) do not extrapolate to mountain formation. Continental drift, along with the mass of these continents, only needs to occur for a long enough period of time (the macro part) to form mountains, really.

Finally, notice how we are not saying here "given enough time and random stuff happens" instead we are saying "given enough time the stuff we observe actually happens results in more and more accumulated change"

— Phil

A counter-question:

What kind of evidence would you accept as "proof" of evolution?

— Phil

Thanks Phil, nice one. Anonymous, is that a good enough summary for you? You could also try reading something like "The Greatest Show on Earth" by Richard Dawkins. It's an excellent summary of all the evidence for evolution. It has more than a few big words, but that's sometimes necessary when you're trying to explain something complex. I'd like to point out that evolutionists, Dawkins included, have never made any secret of the kind of evidence that would prove, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that evolution is *false*., Any scientist who found that evidence would be an instant Nobel Prize winner and candidate for everlasting scientific fame. So far though, not a sausage.

— Tony

Anon - just a couple more points.
1. Evolution *is* a fact. Claiming that it didn't or doesn't happen is an error of the same magnitude as claiming that the Roman Empire didn't exist.
2. Just because the evidence for something is there, doesn't mean it's simple. Relativity is one of the most proven theories in history but it's far from simple. Sometimes you need to put a bit of effort in to understand something.

— Tony

i guess it depends on how 'evolution' is defined... as phil says it, it just means the descendant is not identical to the ancestor. nobody denies that, so nobody (even the christians in the question) denies evolution. so if that's all evolution means, the question and both answers were waaaay confused.

to me though, when someone says 'evolution' happened, it ultimately means my ancestors were not human. but nothing here on this page even comes close to evidence of that. if my ancestors weren't human, and there's evidence of that, tell me what it is.

— Anonymous

phil, one of the common creationist claims is that new genetic info is never added through observable mutations. change, yes, but additional information, no. never observed. so their claim is not that we observe this stuff on a small scale but not on a large one -- their claim is we don't observe it at all. do you have "incontrovertible evidence" to the contrary for that at least?

— Anonymous

Dr Wald is wrong, there are at least three. I posit one in which the Universe gave birth to itself, and in many ways continues to give birth to itself. It/we now manifests in accordance with our own potential, in full accordance with the laws of Nature and Science.

— Mark Colwell

Anonymous, if what you're saying is that Christians are horribly confused about evolution specifically, and about what they believe generally, then you'll get no argument from me. Trying to pin Christians down about precisely *what* they believe is like nailing smoke to a wall, and that's part of the problem. When you start trying to compare Young Earth Creationism with Old Earth Creationism, you’re well on the way to disappearing down the rabbit hole. Taken at face value, Christians believe that humans were formed, as they are now, in a single act of creation by god as described in Genesis. If that is the case, why do we share 98% of our genetic material with chimpanzees? What possible reason would god have for making us that way? Of course, if you hypothesise that this is because humans and chimpanzees share a common ancestor (which we do), it makes perfect sense.

— Tony

if dna similarity needs an explanation there are others. dawkins proposed an alien seeding theory. if aliens designed and seeded humans and apes, we'd have a common design because of a common designer, like creationists say. if one guy designed everything, alien or divine, of course there'd be similarity. or, if apes used to be humans you would have devolution but still no evolution, and that would explain it too.

but why should similarity need any historical explanation at all? the sea and sky are both big and blue, it must be a *fact* they have the same grandpa. why the unfounded leap of logic? similarity isn't "evidence" of evolution any more than it's evidence of common design, pure coincidence, or devolution. speaking of historical explanations, what makes a "scientist" an expert in history anyway? i thought we call experts in history "historians".

— Anonymous

i'm still curious about the "incontrovertible evidence" of either my ancestors not being human, or of one kind having offspring of a different kind with new genetic information. surely there's something more concrete than "we said so" or "i'm not identical to my dad" or "different things are similar" or "some animals are extinct". of all of those, "we said so" is the only one that's actually evidence of evolution at all, and it ain't incontrovertible, especially since the people saying so can't offer any reason for what they're saying. please, help me out here. give me something incontrovertible.

— Anonymous

Anonymous, maybe it's time to lay off the meth...

— Phil McCracken

i quit the meth last week. what's that? oh -- sorry. gotta go. the voices in my head are beckoning...

seriously though, i'd love to see this "incontrovertible evidence" you guys keep talking about sometime. it would help me out a lot.

— Anonymous

Anon, you wrote "...if dna similarity needs an explanation there are others". Of course there are always alternative explanations, but how *likely* are they? It's *possible* that we were all created 5 minutes ago and our memories implanted, but how *probable* is it?
Look, you keep harping on about giving you incontrovertible evidence. Phil and I have both pointed out to you where you can find it and read it for yourself. If you can't be bothered putting in a little effort, neither can I. You can't expect us to summarise the past 150-odd years of scientific progress in a few paragraphs.

— Tony

why should anyone read through piles and piles of irrelevant nonsense in the hopes of maybe finding something valuable when the people promoting it have supposedly already read it and know what's valuable in it? if you have no incontrovertible evidence, that's okay. really. bluster and falsehoods don't advance any view. just say "this is what we believe", but don't make up lies about how "incontrovertible" the supposed evidence is, all the while having no good evidence at all. it just makes evolutionists look foolish. calling people who disagree names when you have no solid reason for your view doesn't endear anyone to you either. just be honest about things.

— Anonymous

If you haven't read these "piles and piles" of "nonsense", how do you know it's irrelevant? If you *have* read it, why do you need someone else to summarise it for you? Didn't you understand it? Sorry but if that's the case it's not my problem.

— Tony

Anonymous - Do you demand the same standard of evidence of creationists?

If so, has incontrovertible evidence been presented for its existence?

Your apparent outright dismissal of science with respect to evolution is disturbing. My point earlier in this conversation is that science cannot be dismissed when its conclusions are inconvenient to our world view.

We trust science's methods and conclusions with our health care. We trust science when we rely on a weather forecast. We trust science when we browse to godcontention.org using our smartphones, and when we enjoy the convenience of air travel. The list goes on and on and on. Science makes every aspect of today's civilized life possible.

And yet there is a tendency among some Westerners to mock and dismiss science and scientists when its conclusions challenge what we want to believe. It is a disservice to those who devote their educational and professional lives to scientific progress.

— J S

each of the "evidences" i personally read at that link were definitely irrelevant nonsense. thus, all the experimentation and observation i did supported the hypothesis that the link was loaded with irrelevant nonsense. none of the experimentation or observation i did supported the alternate hypothesis that there was "evidence" there. scientifically, the hypothesis that the link was loaded with irrelevant nonsense has now moved to the realm of "theory", which, according to you guys, apparently makes it *fact*.

i've provided more scientific evidence that the offered link was loaded with irrelevant nonsense than you've provided for the *fact* of evolution. and you're challenging my conclusions? are you guys anti-science or something?

sheesh. getting a shred of actual evidence for evolution is worse than pulling teeth. no wonder people don't believe it.

— Anonymous

"i'm still curious about the "incontrovertible evidence" of either my ancestors not being human"

It is the same sort of evidence that we have that, say, the Rocky Mountains were, ultimately, once underwater and not mountains at all but a plain or a valley or whatever. Or the same sort of evidence that the solar system, sun, planets, asteroid belts and all, were once an extremely large collection of gas spinning and coagulating.

The incontrovertible evidence we are talking about is a straightforward extrapolation of observed phenomenon to larger and larger spans of time.

Your ancestors, at one time, were not human. Don't take it personally.

As for "information creation" (recall: dna is information just like the report of a storm is information, put the various meteorological devices on a hurricane and you will get a mountain of data and you can call that information all you want if that helps you sleep better) it is a straightforward result of natural selection over time.

— Phil

OK Anon, tell me exactly which piece or pieces of evidence in the link that I posted was irrelevant and why, why it was nonsense and what alternative explanation you have for the phenomenon in question. I look forward to your response.

— Tony

And yeah, please help us so we don't talk past each other:

What kind of evidence would you accept as "proof" of evolution?

— Phil

phil- "What kind of evidence would you accept as "proof" of evolution?"

to be proof it needs to require that evolution be true, which is the same as requiring that not-evolution be false. there has to be no other possible explanation. but i guess an observed snake giving birth to a lizard or ape giving birth to a human, with multiple witnesses, without human intervention, would be good enough evidence for anyone that evolution happens. course that still wouldn't be evidence that my ancestors were anything other than human.

most important, phil, is that it fly in the face of YEC. in other words, it isn't evidence of human evolution (in the context of the claim made in the question/title on this page) without being totally incompatible with YEC. most importantly incompatible with gen 2:7, man from dust instead of apes.

— Anonymous

tony- to repeat what i said earlier, i looked at this one that says "two different kinds are similar, therefore they came from a third kind", which obviously doesn't follow (since they could have been created that way, YEC):
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section3.html#morphological_analogy

and i looked at this one, which was like "this animal used to exist and now it's extinct, so kinds are descended from other kinds" (i don't see how anybody could think that that kind of logic makes sense at all):
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section1.html#morphological_intermediates_ex4

— Anonymous

in addition, i also looked at this one which i thought when i clicked on it was observed snakes giving birth to lizards, but it was actually just pointing out a developmental feature of the snake kind where they supposedly have some leg stubs as embryos that go away... but since their parents were the same way and their children will be too, there's no reason to say that this means that their ancestors were not like this or that their descendants won't be like this... in other words it just has no bearing at all on the question of evolution:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section2.html#ontogeny_ex3

thanks for your help.

— Anonymous

Anonymous - Do you subscribe and believe in YEC?

If so, what is the evidence that has you convinced of its validity?

I remain curious if you hold evidence of creationism to the same standards that you do evolutionism's evidence.

— J S

Anon, you haven't answered any of my questions. All you've said is that something "obviously doesn't follow" without explaining why (a bald assertion that they "could" have been created that way has precisely zero explanatory power). You haven't explained exactly why these things are "nonsense" or what is "irrelevant" about them, nor have you provided any coherent alternative explanation. You've simply made a series of assertions without any evidence. I'm quite happy to discuss this with you, if you have an actual point or an argument to make, but you don't appear to have.

— Tony

Just to clarify a point, otherwise we risk this conversation getting even more confused than it already is - Anon, can you explain what you think you mean by "evolution" and "kinds"? That would help a lot.

— Tony

And another thing, Anon - you wrote to Phil above that "...an observed snake giving birth to a lizard..would be good enough evidence for anyone that evolution happens". No it wouldn't!! That would be evidence that evolution does NOT happen! What on earth are you talking about? This is why I asked you to explain what it is you think you mean when you talk about evolution. Your answers indicate that you don’t understand or you’re trolling, I’m not sure which.

— Tony

i looked up the snake-lizard thing and i see what you're saying: same ancestor, not one from the other. fine. your complaint misses my point: one kind into another kind. ape to man. etc. if people see the disputed activity occurring, we have convincing evidence that it happens. that was all i was saying. another example... YECs say there's no evidence that a single new protein has ever been generated through evolutionary mechanisms.

— Anonymous

i come to this page that says there's incontrovertible evidence of evolution. that means we've proven it can't possibly not be true. i'm like, "wow, i wonder what the evidence is?" so i ask. the responses that i get, the "evidence" presented doesn't, to me, even have anything at all to do with evolution -- it just has to do with animals existing. except what pj said (that lots of scientists believe it). that at least had a direct connection to evolution. but it certainly wasn't incontrovertible evidence that it's true. the other "evidences" you guys have brought up, to me, are basically like this example:

— Anonymous

i come home and my window is broken. so i say "i have incontrovertible evidence that my son jake broke the window!" so my wife says "what's your evidence?" so i say "look -- the window is broken!" so she says "how is that evidence that jake broke it?" so then i ask her if she has an alternate theory, or if she has evidence that it broke through some other method. she says, "no". so i say "see -- incontrovertible! jake did it!" she tells me i haven't given her any evidence that jake did it. so i call her an ignorant anti-science troll who's baldly asserting that i have no evidence without providing any evidence that i have no evidence and then i ask if she holds all the other theories up to the same scrutiny she holds mine up to. she doesn't answer, so i go and punish my son, because it's a *fact* that he did it.

i came here looking for evidence of evolution and i totally feel like i completely wasted my time. you guys have no clue or else you'd just give me a straight answer.

— Anonymous

pj - i meant JS. must be tired. sorry man.

— Anonymous

Anon, since you're unwilling or unable, I'll define evolution for you. Evolution means that a species undergoes genetic change over time. What’s the evidence for this? DNA sequences. How do we know that this has happened over long periods of time on earth? The fossil record. We can use the fossil record and DNA sequences to show common ancestry i.e. all creatures on earth share one common ancestor if you go back far enough.

— Tony

(Cont.) How do we know that Darwinian natural selection is true? We’ve seen it happen, in the example of bacteria evolving resistance to antibiotics.
Note that in a creationist view of life, organisms would *not* have common ancestry, but would simply result from the instantaneous creation of forms designed to fit their particular environment. Therefore humans and chimpanzees would not share 98% of their DNA. But they do. Ergo creationism is incorrect.

— Tony

DNA sequences exist. The fossil record exists. Therefore evolution did it. I see where you're coming from, anonymous.

— moxie

Bacterial cultures from bodies frozen 140 years ago were found to be resistant to antibiotics that were developed 40 years ago. The specific chemical needed for resistance was already in the bacteria. These bacteria did not mutate to become resistant to antibiotics.

Other bacteria, through loss of functionality, have mutated to become resistant to certain antibiotics. This, however, is not evolution, but devolution.

There are absolutely no examples of bacteria "evolving" to become resistant to antibiotics.

Dr. Kevin Anderson, Ph.D., Microbiologist
http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq/articles/41/41_4/2005v41n4p318.pdf

Dr. Bert Thompson, Ph.D., Microbiologist
http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=9&article=572

Dr. Georgia Purdom, Ph.D., Microbiologist
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v2/n3/antibiotic-resistance-of-bacteria

— moxie

Moxie, you're wrong. The strain of E. Coli used by Lenski was specifically chosen because it reproduces only asexually *without* bacterial conjugation, thus eliminating the possibility of the explanation of horizontal gene transfer posited in the papers that you mentioned in your post. The only explanation for the results obtained by Lenski are new mutations.

— Tony

The following link provides a very brief, easily digestible and relevant narrative describing well known first hand observations proving evolution through natural selection:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/01/6/l_016_01.html

These observations over several short decades, extrapolated to large spans of time, prove evolution by its scientific definition, which Tony shared above.

— J S

Anon, just for giggles, here's an analogy to your ludicrous evidence requirement, as seen from, say, geology.

Phil - "What kind of evidence would you accept as "proof" of mountain formation?"

Anon - i guess an observed grassy hill becoming a rocky mountain, with multiple witnesses, without human intervention, would be good enough evidence for anyone that mountain formation happens. course that still wouldn't be evidence that the grand canyon was once a plain.

— Phil

js- this is just the recessive gene thing, isn't it? the big T and the little t. Tt + Tt sometimes yields TT (big beak) and sometimes tt (small beak) and sometimes Tt (manifested big beak with hidden recessive small beak gene, or medium beak, or something like that). but never Xx (elephant trunks). the genes are all there to begin with in the parents. how is this evolution?

"Body and beak variation occurs randomly. The birds with the best-suited bodies and beaks for the particular environment survive and pass along the successful adaptation from one generation to another through natural selection."

is beak size random or genetic? based on the evidence they present, it looks entirely genetic to me. so how is this evidence of evolution?

— Anonymous

phil- about the "ludicrous evidence requirement"... all you're saying is that "incontrovertible" evidence doesn't exist and it's ludicrous to expect it. i didn't claim it did exist. i thought the claim that it existed was just as ludicrous as you think it is! which is why i was so interested in what this "incontrovertible" evidence was!

— Anonymous

Anon - You asked for evidence. We provided it. My first inclination is to point out the obvious answers to your questions, but I see now that there is nothing I or we can say to satisfy your demands to your satisfaction.

The only thing that I suggest is that you let go of your own idea of what evolution should be, and instead accept what it really is, and that it really does exist and occur by the definition presented earlier in these exchanges.

— J S

Anon - by incontrovertible evidence we mean evidence good enough to form a belief on.

Evidence such as "what goes up - must come down" so we throw a bunch of apples and they all fall down. (We also launch space ships and modify our beliefs accordingly) This is all incontrovertible evidence, even though we haven't exhaustively tried every single thing about things going up and falling down.

Similarly, while we do not observe mountain formation or speciation in our lifetime, the evidence of mountain formation and speciation /steps/ is incontrovertible, especially in the sense that it overpowers any sort of "god did it" counter-evidence.

I hope this helps you to understand what kinds of evidence people form their beliefs on, and how it is different from you.

— Phil

Anon, your "beak size random or genetic" is a false dichotomy. They are not two sides of the same coin. Genetic mutations are random and can be caused by any number of factors including radiation and errors in replication. Most mutations are either neutral or disadvantageous. Those mutations which confer an evolutionary advantage in terms of fitness to an environment are naturally selected, i.e. *not* random, and passed on to offspring. If birds suddenly started sprouting elephants trunks, this would be clear evidence that evolution is false.

— Tony

Commenting is fun!

— Pac-Man

I have two things, that alot of people don't generally think about:

1. Those with the need to believe in creationism and deny evolution have this psychological need to believe that humans had to exist and have some meaning and purpose.
2. Christians deny evolution based on a literal reading of Genesis, yet a literal reading of the Bible will also lead them to deny the germ theory of disease, and yet I've had no Christian adequately answer my question on that. I wonder why.

— Matt

How does the Bible deny the germ theory of disease?

— Anonymous

The Bible denies the germ theory of disease because it says that sin is the cause of sickness and disease, not microscopic organisms.

— Matt

Acts 12:23 says that Herod died because of his sin, and that he also died because of worms. According to the Bible, this is not either-or but both-and. If God punished his sin by afflicting him with worms, why would anyone claim that God does not punish people for their sin by afflicting them with germs? There is no reason to claim that "sin causing disease" and "germs causing disease" are mutually exclusive.

— Timothy McCabe

Leviticus 14:2-52 gives an excellent cure for leprosy. It makes as much sense as anything else in that ancient drivel.

— Tony

tony- v.3 makes it clear this is all written about a leper who is already healed. you've misrepresented evidence for evolution and you've misrepresented what the bible says. is this intentional or are you just totally clueless?

— Anonymous

I stand corrected and apologise. Of course, when you look at it that context it makes perfect sense.

— Tony

Anonymous, it's more than a little bit ironic for you to call someone else "clueless" when you can't understand the evidence for evolution presented here (and not misrepresented by anyone as far as I can tell). Or perhaps you're not clueless, you're just brainwashed and deluded like most Christians.

— Phil McCracken

Why does Richard Carrier even bother posting? The majority of the time all he writes is 1 asinine sentence which doesn't give any insight.

— Paul

Paul - Richard's posts are clear, concise and to the point. If only the same could be said for the posts by religious people.

— Tony

It is very curious as to how the religious try to defend their faith with now "testable" proof whatsoever.....yet those that use rational thought and can provide "repeatable testable" arguments for how life evolved on this planet....and possibly others ...are the ones asked to do the most explaining.

A god that could have produced what we witness daily must be one wonderous entity ....yet the faithful fail to worship him enough into revealing himself.

— Dave T

My comment is for Anon-I LOVE YOU! :)

— jrmwyeah

Can you give the said evidence? Science has proven the missing link to be a fraud and has realized that oxygen was not around in the beginning so because of that the amino acid that was produced in the test tube has not been reproduced since the original experiment. If you cannot give evidence then you are using more faith then me. You see I have tested the word of God and found it to be true. I put my faith to the test and it has proven to be sound. Since you are stating that evolution is a fact please show said evidence for academic study. Thank you.

— Eugene Zohlmann

Eugene, have a look at the evidence presented on this website http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

There's lots a lots of it, it might take you a while to get through it, but the evidence is there.

— Tony

Earth in the Beginning by Eric Skousen. If you get past what religion he was and look at the contents of the book it will make sense that both Creationism and Evolution are true.

— Jake

What the bible means when it says germs are a result of sin is this. When Adam and Eve disobeyed God (who was visible to them in Eden, by the way, and actually walked with them) by eating from the tree of life after being tempted by the devil, that he cursed the land outside of eden and then cursed them to it live in it. This was the first Timothy "thorns and thistles" (Gen 3:17) appeared. Thorns and thistles are basically a short way of saying all of the things that were easy in the garden would be hard in the world. So disease wasn't present before sin. Death was not present before sin. If we were not born with a sinful nature, then we would not die. Or if we could find someone who was sinless and have him go before God for us and ask for our lives instead of his. This is what God provided for us. Because he loves us, He gave His Son Jesus to die on the cross for all of us, so that we could be saved. All we have to do is believe.

— Elaine

Timothy is a typo, that should say time

— Elaine

Elaine,
Can you explain two things please? Firstly, what evidence do you have that Adam and Eve actually existed? Secondly, there is a discrepancy between what you say and John 1:18 and 1 Tim 1:16 which says that no-one has ever seen god.

— Tony

Sorry I meant 1 Tim 6:16

— Tony

Evolution,noun: -The process by which different kinds of living organisms are "thought" to have developed and diversified from earlier forms during the history of the earth. Synonyms: development, growth, progress. I've seen the comments about sharing 98% of our DNA with primates. And this may be true but even if it was 99.99% still doesn't deny Intelligent design because that 1/100 of a percen difference is all God needs. Our bodies also have most of the elements found in the earth so we are related to the earth even dirt just like God says. I don't deny that other primative humanoids have been found by science. But when you consider an Eternal Creator that is sovereign over everything by His choice during different ages he could have whatever he wanted according to His will. The Bible treats what God has to say to modern man like us created in His Image to have free will and dominion over the earth. That's the difference between us and primative humanoids.(cont)

— sinner2servant

I believe in development, growth, and progress. The TV started out with tubes, then transistors, now they are digital HD etc. TV evolved but it's still a TV and someone with intelligence invented it. My challenge to Big Bang evolutionist: Ya'll sit down and bang rocks together, I'll plant a seed in the ground and lets see who starves to death first.

— sinner2servant

Conclusions about the evidence are based on the assumptions brought to bear in studying it. I do not grant the premise that macro-evolution is proven fact. The presumption that evolution is true is a form of faith that colors all supporting facts. I rarely meet an honest evolutionist on this question. If random process created all that exists, how do you know your thoughts about the evidence are not themselves random chemical events in the brain? Evolutionists presume by faith that the universe is understandable and that random process leads to increasing complexity. There are many articles of their faith that are presumed, not proven. It's ok. Admit it. We are all biased.

— presuppositionalist

This must be an old site. For someone to assert that Evolution is true seems rather absurd these days. Most scientist have concluded that Darwin was wrong, see Scientific American publication. They still want to defend evolution but seem to agree they don't really know how to justify it. I still hold to created since the cambrian explosion shows us where everything came from. No kind reproducing into other kinds have been proven. Yes, follow the fossil record, no missing link there. For a while i thought there might be some good discussion on this site but it looks like i was wrong. Still looking for some good discussion!

— Doug

Doug, I'm sorry to hear that your narrow conclusion of scientists pointing out things that Darwin were wrong about somehow stretches out to mean that evolution is false. No reputable scientist denies evolution, however modern day geneticists dispute Darwin got some details of evolution wrong--not that evolution the concept is wrong. Do you realize that they attribute few of his details of the hypothesis to how he lacked the modern day understanding of the genome, DNA, etc?

I can explain your thought process, if I may, and if I'm wrong, please point it out and I'll be glad to take this back: You merely saw that scientists have pointed out things Darwin was wrong about, and you've therefore unrightfully concluded that the scientists meant that evolution itself is wrong. This is absolutely false, and if you looked into it, then this would be obvious enough that I wouldn't be having to explain it to you.

— Calvin

Doug - could you please point me in the direction of the Scientific American publication which said that Darwin was wrong? A note of the issue number and date would be sufficient, although if you could supply more details such as a weblink, or the names of the authors of this piece, I'd be extremely grateful, because cos I want to nominate them for the Nobel Prize they so richly deserve and which doubtless will be theirs for having overturned what may well be the most tested scientific theory in history.
Cheers!

— Tony

All I've read from evolution supporters is a load of clap trap dogma that there is no proof or evidence for. They ramble on about a fossil record and say that's evidence for evolution! Seriously? Its evidence for the bible. You cant tell me that any of those fosils evolved from other fosils, why? Because no one was there to observe it or test it or repeate those results. No other disciplines of sciences could get away with such "evidence". It takes blind faith to believe this nonsense. All started by a man who had mental problems, married his cousin, was a deep racist and even includes racism in the theory of evolution so you have to be a racist to believe it or your not following dawins evolution, he shot hundreds of native austrailians looking for the missing link, and you can't find a shted of evidence for it in any living creature including humans today even with our technical advances today and you tell me that this man over 200 years ago could see this cell mutation while he

— Nick

The atheist 'view' here is laughable. Many of us have been led by facts and reason AWAY from atheism.

I should note as well, that evolution is no more compatible with Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, etc. than with Christianity. Oh sure, you can probably find modern 'adherents' to any of those traditions who would claim the opposite, but it just ain't so.

As the Tao Te Ching says of the Tao (what we would call God) it is 'The Door of all Essence'. Material forms have their essence in a higher realm and then 'descend' into the material world.

— Frank

Frank - can you give me some facts that have led people away from atheism?

— Tony

Tony, I should note before starting that, if what I say is offensive to atheists, I used to be one, so do not take it personally.

I would start with the absurdity of the idea that life developed randomly; that somehow, over a long period of time, through very mysterious processes 'primordial slime' (or whatever you want to call it) produced Mozart, or Shakespeare, or Plato. The idea that somehow completely random disorder produces order - it is an absurdity and would have been recognized as an absurdity in most places and most times - the fact that many do not think it absurd now is a sure "sign of the times" if ever there was one.

— Frank

Another blow to the atheist worldview is the consensus of all traditional peoples that the material world is not the whole of reality. Go anywhere, China, India, Africa, America, Europe, and you will find agreement on the fact that our material reality is 'not the whole story'.

Traditional people understood the Universe better than we do now. One thing they understood was that the material world was at the bottom of the hierarchy of being, which explains there relative lack of interest in exploring the PURELY MATERIAL workings of the world. Our ancestors were not dumb brutes just making up a bunch of nonsense, as atheists portray them, rather they had a better sense of the Order of Things and of what Knowledge was important and what was frivolous or potentially dangerous. If Plato or Lao Tzu were alive today they would understand modern science perfectly and they would be horrified that so many people had come to accept purely material explanations of reality.

— Frank

Continued from above:

Lao Tzu, after all, urged his readers to live in small countries and to use a minimum of the technologies than available (imagine what the Old Sage would say today).

Perhaps modern science would not be so bad if it was not so EXCLUSIVE; if those who practiced it did not so often insist that it is the ONLY way to know anything about our existence. But it seems that when one becomes a scientist nowadays there is a lot of pressure to also be a materialist.

There is more I could say, but I think the above will do for now.

— Frank

Frank, what you personally find absurd is irrelevant. You're entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts. Evolution is a fact. Order does arise from disorder. Perfectly formed hexagonal basalt columns form from molten volcanic rock. No God or gods needed.

— Tony

Tony, you can insist evolution is a fact, but it simply is not so...fact is, one species does not turn into others. The greater does not come from the lesser; you do not get man from bacteria. Every species has its archetype in a higher realm.

I will give you that evolution is an ingenious theory, and perfectly suited to the prejudices of its time; though perhaps less suited to our own time when some intellectuals are now as likely to question science as religion in the attempt to subjectify all truth.

— Frank

Frank, tell me this...do you accept the germ theory of disease? The fact of evolution has been established and confirmed through exactly the same scientific method as this. I don't see many Christians insisting that their surgeons NOT wash their hands...but sure germ theory is "only" a theory...

— Tony

Tony: if one theory is true than all are true? I do not see why I should believe that the scientific method and its practitioners are so infallible.

— Frank

Richard as answering the question: "Why dont Christians believe in naturalism".
Jonathan is answering the question: "why can't naturalism explain the origin of life"

Terms:
Evolution: Evolution is the change in the inherited characteristics of biological populations over successive generations.

That's it, that's the definition, period. It's a theory of how the current complexity of life that we observe arose from the first single celled life form.

It says nothing about the origin of life, period. Doesnt offer an explanation, leaves the question unaddressed.
We see it every day, just talk to a dog breeder.

The question then SHOULD have been, can naturalistic evolution as a mechanism explain the level of diversity and complexity of life we observe?
[continued below]

— Chad

[continued from above]
The answer is no, the fossil record simply does not support gradualism, and there is no rational naturalistic explanation for Punctuated Equilibrium.

A guiding hand is neccessary to have produced what we see, the God of Israel is the best

— Chad

[continued, partial paste]
The answer is no, the fossil record simply does not support gradualism, and there is no rational naturalistic explanation for Punctuated Equilibrium.

A guiding hand is neccessary to have produced what we see, the God of Israel is the best explanation for the world we see around us.

— Chad

Over a thousand scientists have signed this scientific dissent from darwinism.
https://dissentfromdarwin.org/

— ergonaut

Just for a little balance on the alleged "scientific dissent from Darwinism" thing...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Scientific_Dissent_from_Darwinism

— Anonymous

Given that evolution is a fact and that the evidence for it is incontrovertible, I find it very difficult to understand how religious people, mostly Christians, can deny it. Can you enlighten me?

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