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August 31st, 2012
03:24 PM ET

soundoff (1,077 Responses)
  1. mpmyer5

    Bill Nye disappoints me. Science is those things that can be proved by an experiment. Anyone with any knowledge of simple math knows that the odds involved in literally thousands of things that must happen for evolution to be true is such great odds that any mathematician would tell you that it is impossible. That is not true of one thing, but thousands of different things. The theory of evolution is the least scientific thing attributed to science of anything that has ever been proposed. To believe this, one would have to believe that if you are walking in the woods and come upon a house, no one built it. It just happened. And actually, as ridiculous as that thought is – it is more probable than evolution ... by thousands of times. It's important to understand that Creationists do not teach the Genesis account of Creation. Creationists also teach that which is not scientific. But the Genesis account of Creation is both scientific and in harmony with all known archeology finds.

    September 1, 2012 at 6:55 pm |
    • Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son

      It's not impossible, obviously, because it occurred and is occurring.

      September 1, 2012 at 6:57 pm |
    • Sue

      No, mpmyer5, that those thousands of things happened is actually a tautology.

      September 1, 2012 at 7:21 pm |
    • FifthApe

      Another fool who thinks that Evolution is random. Not even smart enough to think it through to the point that in order to compute odds you are predicting a certain outcome.

      September 1, 2012 at 7:22 pm |
    • Dan

      Idiots like you really should have had evolution explained to them in clear and simple terms as children, rather than a bunch of nonsense. You prove Nye's point with your ignorance

      September 1, 2012 at 7:23 pm |
    • fredhull

      You can posit that "god" created the parts of evolution that you can't understand or explain, I can suggest that a herd of magic unicorns from a parallel universe are responsible. We both sound silly to each other and neither of us is more right than the other.

      September 1, 2012 at 9:23 pm |
    • GreatDragon

      @mpmyer5

      Actually, those thousands of things have already happened. What the theory of evolution does is takes those facts, empirical evidence and results of experimentation and builds a unifying explanation to why and how those happened. It's based off of tests and observations that have already been done. There seems to be a slight confusion with a hypothesis, which is done before the tests. This being the case, evolution is technically ironclad. It's based on existing empirical evidence. Genesis creationism also requires the assumption of a young earth concept which is not scientifically proven either.

      September 1, 2012 at 10:19 pm |
    • Agent 355

      Your analogy that believing a house "just happening" and comparing it to evolution is demented to say the least. According to evolution, the house would not "just happen", it would slowly come to be by way of a carpenters hands. He would build a foundation, which would then EVOLVE into a frame which would EVOLVE to include rooms which would EVOLVE into some siding, etc. No one who believes in evolution thinks that things just appeared, that's called creationism.

      September 1, 2012 at 10:32 pm |
    • Jonathan Hatch

      Agree with Sue. Your argument is circular and thus invalid.

      September 2, 2012 at 6:22 am |
    • Mark M

      @mpmyer5 The 'statistics say it cannot happen' argument is fake, and its advocates never publish their calculations in science journals because they would be proven wrong. Some very rough calculations gives 30,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules in earth's ecosphere, each one interacting with other molecules 4,000,000,000 times per second, over a billion years which is 30,000,000,000,000,000 seconds. That's a LOT of chances for good things to happen. And, we should remember that chemistry and physics do say that some reactions are much more likely to occur – and surprise surprise, those reactions product the carbon-based molecules that we are built out of.

      September 2, 2012 at 12:08 pm |
    • takawalk

      I still don't think that belief in the Genesis version of creation requires one to believe in the ten thousand year thing.The King James translated the original to say seven days, other scholars have since said that word could be interpreted as ages. Setting that aside, if there is a God capable of creating all that we know and all that we don't know, it might be reasonable to think that if he felt like compressing a few billion years into a 24 hour period he would be capable of doing so.

      September 3, 2012 at 6:01 am |
    • Damocles

      @takawalk

      What I have to wonder is this: if scientists said that evolution needed exactly 100,000 years, would the 6 days then be translated into 100,000 years? I am confused as to why believers need to constantly re-evaluate what 6 days means.

      September 3, 2012 at 7:05 am |
    • takawalk

      Damocles. Different possibilities in the translations kinda make it important, or if it was meant to be literal. Someone accused me of jumping through loops to avoid questioning my believes because I suggested 7 day = 7 ages as some Hebrew scholar said. If I recall he said days would be the most commonly used term but that the same Hebrew word had other meanings. Which in my mind when I read this, meant that maybe God used evolution to create things. However I don't think time is an important factor since in my world view he created and controls that also. Takawalk is no Hebrew scholar so how do I know. I only know that the basic truths and the red letters in the Bible led me to a place I am very glad I found.

      September 4, 2012 at 4:17 pm |
    • Harry Kuheim

      I wonder why Bill doesn't take his show on the road to Iran, A'Stan or Pakistan and pontificate about how absurd Islam is?

      Why limit your Bulling to Christians Bill?

      September 4, 2012 at 5:19 pm |
    • Chet

      Science doesn't prove anything. Just by your first sentence I can tell that you don't understand the nature of science and what it actually does.

      September 4, 2012 at 6:44 pm |
    • Grant_X

      "Science is those things that can be proved by an experiment. "

      You made everything you said irrelevant by your second sentence. You, and I assume many of your right leaning ilk, have no idea what science is. You have no idea how it affects your life, how much you take advantage of its rigor and sophistication, clearly...you are a clueless buffoon.

      This is what happens when you gut education and funnel money to the top 1% through tax breaks.

      September 5, 2012 at 6:45 am |
    • Gal Who Can Read.

      What Nye objects to is people who are being told – by their church – that creationism is true. Creationism is a concept that evolution didn't occur AND it was all done in 6000 or 10000 years. What? You can't read your Bibles and science and meld the two together without cancelling either one out? How stupid do you have to be to not be able to do that? Let me show you how both can be true at the same time: Earth as we know it, with humans on it, was created in seven days vs billions of years. And it doesn't occur to your tiny minds that a day in the life of the creator of the universe might be different in scale and scope to your perception of a day? Once you realize the creator's perception of a day is different to yours, Christianity is one of the few faiths on the Earth in which their holy book's tale of all the events that led to today actually match science. Like, first there was light. There's your big bang. And then there was heaven and earth. There's your billions of years that the stars and galaxies and planets and Earth evolved. That's just a day in the life of a God. Everything in that bit of Genesis fits and matches science. It's the timescale that's different. The solution is obvious: the scientists aren't lying or decietful or evil. It's you because you won't accept that not being God yourself, your concept of a day is limited to those we have here on Earth. Everything that led to today is just a blink of an eye to God. Whether it was a second, a day, 10,000 years, or a billion years, it makes no difference to God. Get over your stupidity. Just do it. You're freaking lucky your holy book matches science. All faiths other than Christianity, Islam, and Judaism don't match and they have to choose between science and faith. Because the Bible actually matches other than time scale, and you can see that time scale for God can not possibly be the same as time scale for you, that means you don't have to pick between science and your faith. You can have both. But only if you open your eyes. Open them.

      September 19, 2012 at 2:44 am |
  2. Richard

    This guy! Is equivalent to a 2 watt bulb... "The Fool Has Said...There is no God" What A Fool Indeed! A 5 Year Old Child Has More Intelligence! (Be Honest And Unbiased)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpNt8d2jgSU

    September 1, 2012 at 6:53 pm |
    • Sue

      Far better video:
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPOfurmrjxo

      September 1, 2012 at 7:19 pm |
    • FifthApe

      Richard – keep your creationists nonsense out of the class room. Its not science, its religion or otherwise known as myth.

      September 1, 2012 at 7:20 pm |
    • Bolton

      DNA is he ultimate proof of evolution. Evolution needed a fragile assembly code that was prone to mutation. This finally explained where variation arises for selection to act. So when Watson and Crick discovered DNA and how it works the very last thing they expected was for creationists to delude themselves into thinking that this actually demonstrated intelligent design. It actually does the exact opposite. As ever, complexity is not proof of design. The possible number of different evolutionary pathways for something complex to arise are almost infinite and so it is almost impossible to prove something is designed purely on the basis of how complex it is. Until creationists get this idea into their thick skulls they will always look dumb to the rest of us.

      The earliest replicator molecules may have only replicated themselves in a crude and slow way without the need of proteins (think about RNA or even the way crystalization occurs). The enzymes are only catalysts that speed up reactions that can often take place very slowly anyway. The introduction of proteins may have arisen as a byproduct initially, that had little or no use. But replicators would ultimately get better and better at creating byproducts that could assist their replication (the better replicators would be selected over the poor ones). The final outcome was DNA (the perfect replicator molecule that is highly prone to mutations that introduce necessary variation for the theory of natural selection to be tenable). Sure, we can't prove this yet, but saying these assembly instructions are too complex to arise without a creator is nonsense.

      September 2, 2012 at 12:24 pm |
  3. Bill

    Evolution explains the diversity of life. There is a ton of evidence for it and literally none that suggest it to be wrong. If creationists find any evidence to support their ideas, or any that actually refute evolution, then I'm sure they'd be an instant hit.

    September 1, 2012 at 6:41 pm |
  4. Hunter Crepeau

    I think the money going into a science class should be used teching science and nothing else. If you yourself do not beleive in science or evolution then keep it to yoursef and stop robbing your children of the chance to learn the skills they need to persue certain jobs.

    September 1, 2012 at 6:19 pm |
  5. Matt

    For someone to discount a theory that includes a superior intelligence is to turn your back on scientific thought. Just because you or your peers can not believe there is an intelligence greater than yourself shows how limited your thinking is.

    September 1, 2012 at 6:04 pm |
    • damo12345

      It is discounted to the same extent as any other hypothesis completely ungrounded in logic and completely unsubstantiated in evidence.

      90% of Americans believe in a god, in some way shape or form.
      93% of the members of the National Academy of Science (America's largest and most respected scientific society) are atheists.

      It's fairly easy to see that there is no form of thinking less compatible with blind faith than scientific reasoning.

      September 1, 2012 at 6:34 pm |
    • chubby rain

      Can you provide one scientific experiment (real or hypothetical) that supports or would support intelligent design?

      September 1, 2012 at 6:43 pm |
    • Boris

      Great response to Bill, Matt.

      Matt, worth you learning more about "scientific thought". Belief is simply not part of science.

      September 1, 2012 at 6:45 pm |
  6. jessica

    creationism=autism

    September 1, 2012 at 5:52 pm |
    • john

      I agree
      Christians should be classified as a special case of autism.

      September 1, 2012 at 5:54 pm |
    • joe

      There is actually MRI scans of Christians that show there brains are less active than the atheist.
      Religious people may be mentally incapable of rational thought.

      September 1, 2012 at 5:56 pm |
    • biff

      now jessica, when you're staring in the face of your Lord on your judgement day, what do u think he's gonna say to u when u want to pass the gates into heaven? What does the Lord do to people who bash his name? What do u think? Think about it, u wanna know truth? ask the big man, he'll show u all the truth u'll ever need to know

      September 1, 2012 at 9:40 pm |
    • biff

      and explain to me this, why is it that demons, magic, and unexplainable miracles and supernatural forces undoubtedly exist, oh yes of course, there must just be a scientific explanation for it all, lol, pathetic

      September 1, 2012 at 9:47 pm |
    • Pauly

      Biff, The Gates of Heaven are closed to people who are too lazy to spell things like "you" and "laugh out loud". But seriously, if there is a God, and he's perfect, then he probably doesn't worry about little things like his ego.

      September 2, 2012 at 9:24 pm |
    • I'm not a GOPer, nor do I play one on TV

      @biff,

      you said this: "why is it that demons, magic, and unexplainable miracles and supernatural forces undoubtedly exist"

      and you meant it? Without trying to be ironic?

      Well I'm 'stupefied'!

      September 2, 2012 at 9:27 pm |
    • takawalk

      I'm glad I am not as smart as Joe. It does take a simple and humble faith to seek and find God(and the realization that a race even the most intelligent are still pretty dumb)

      September 3, 2012 at 6:08 am |
    • takawalk

      as a race < mistakes like that proves I am stupid

      September 3, 2012 at 6:10 am |
  7. bonnibrai

    The Noble Peace Prize winning biologist, George Wald, was quoted in Scientific American magazine in 1957 as saying, “There are only two possibilities as to how life arose. One is spontaneous generation arising to evolution; the other is a supernatural creative act of God. There is no third possibility. Spontaneous generation, that life arose from non-living matter was scientifically disproved 120 years ago by Louis Pasteur and others. That leaves us with the only possible conclusion that life arose as a supernatural creative act of God. I will not accept that philosophically because I do not want to believe in God. Therefore, I choose to believe in that which I know is scientifically impossible; spontaneous generation arising to evolution.”

    September 1, 2012 at 5:22 pm |
    • Moby Schtick

      The problem is that making that proclamation doesn't help us in any way. It doesn't make our experiments run faster or better, or do anything that claiming it was all due to a big pink unicorn fart doesn't do. Both propositions can be a'sserted with the same effect--none. If either proposition will due, then who cares what you call it?

      September 1, 2012 at 5:26 pm |
    • Moby Schtick

      Excuse me, I'm an idiot. "either proposition will do" not "due"

      September 1, 2012 at 5:26 pm |
    • What IF

      Another quote from George Wald along these lines.,..

      "Time is in fact the hero of the plot. The time with which we have to deal is of the order of two billion years. What we regard as impossible on the basis of human experience is meaningless here. Given so much time, the "impossible" becomes possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain. One has only to wait: time itself performs the miracles." - "The origin of life" Scientific American August 1954 p.48

      We don't know what we don't know until we know that we don't know it.

      September 1, 2012 at 5:43 pm |
    • FifthApe

      Its NEVER an 'either' or an 'or'. To think this way flies in the face of the scientific method.

      September 1, 2012 at 7:26 pm |
    • Ryan

      Funny thing actually, Pasteur's experiment holds that something cannot be instantaneously generated out of nothing; however the "Big Bang" isn't a generation from nothing. It is an infinitely large amount of matter compressed into an infinitely small space, that burst outwards. Also, if you're going to try and cite Pasteur as a reason for why the universe can't be created out of nothing, then where did your God come from? Why is it that only a god can be the cause of causes, why not physics? Religion is an antiquity that was necessary to define the present and future of the past. The reason it still exists is because many people are not comfortable with their own mortality. However, do not attempt to use science to refute science, then prop up your own belief using the exact same science. If you're trying to defeat the stereotype of the ignorant religious right, maybe you should stop fueling it.

      September 4, 2012 at 5:07 pm |
  8. blairmc

    If evolution is true, would we not have an infinite variety of every species? Why are dogs distinctly different from cats and why are there NO intermediate species?

    September 1, 2012 at 5:03 pm |
    • Moby Schtick

      Holy Sh1znit, are you serious? So you're discounting all the similar species (whales spring to mind, and ants, and all manner of bacteria and insects) because there's not an "infinite number" of them? Try reading a book on evolution.

      September 1, 2012 at 5:09 pm |
    • Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son

      Can these boneheads get any dumber?

      September 1, 2012 at 5:11 pm |
    • lamb of dog

      You are amazingly stupid.

      September 1, 2012 at 5:15 pm |
    • WRoss

      "If evolution is true, then how come potato!??"

      September 1, 2012 at 5:59 pm |
    • truth be trolled

      wow.. well I guess you can think creatively. but if I were you, I'd have your tap water tested.

      September 1, 2012 at 6:50 pm |
    • FifthApe

      Just need to check. Did you complete High school (or are you from Texas)?

      September 1, 2012 at 7:26 pm |
    • biff

      u guys are just proof of the devil's relentless ways of deceiving the world, one day u will see that this life was a feeble one compared to the one that some fortunate indivuduals will be able to spend in paradise, while others unfortunately will perish forever, most people dont like to think that when they die they are going to be held accountable for how they carried out their life, which is unfortunate, because there are goona be a lot of people who are gonna be uncomfortably hot for the rest of eternity

      September 1, 2012 at 10:29 pm |
    • Bolton

      Despite what some people might claim, this is a good question? Evolution addresses it in a number of ways. To begin with some adaptations are not optimal when they are intermediate. This means that organisms tend to shift to having the best morphologies and those with less good ones are outcompeted by those that are optimal. So something with a small pair of wings may be able to use them to fly poorly or glide a bit. But if the same individuals of that species start developing large wings they would outcompete those lineages that had small wings, resulting in their extinction.

      Another reason we see that organisms are discrete in terms of their change is that they form discrete units that we call species. A species is a reproductively isolated group of organisms that tend to converge on similar morphologies because they are breeding with one another. Because they are evolving together they tend to evolve away from the other species that they have broken off from. We should therefore not expect too much similarity between two species that have diverged.

      Perhaps the most important explanation for your question is extinction. If all lineages survived (and there clearly is not enough room on this planet for that to happen) we should expect to see many more intermediates. But large numbers of species get extinguished for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes it is as simple as being in the wrong place at the wrong time (where a large meteor impacts for example). Other times it is because an organism is outcompeted by another.

      If we look into the fossil record we tend to find a lot of these intermediates. For example, whales started out a little bit like crocodiles before they took to being completely aquatic. A number of these intermediates have been found. Of course we do not find all intermediates. This is partly because we have only found a small fraction of all the fossils out there. But the other reason is that fossilization is a very rare event and only takes place in a few types of habitats (ones in which oxygen is absent for example). This means that the majority of species will not fossilize as many lived in habitats that were not conducive to fossilization. It should be pointed out that even when conditions appear optimal for fossilization there are many cases where fossilization does not happen. Still, despite this we have found a surprisingly large number of intermediate fossils.

      September 2, 2012 at 2:39 pm |
    • Pauly

      Intelligent design does exist, if you're talking about dog breeding. We shape what they are by selective breeding, and design them to be what we want them to be. By doing this, we are compressing evolution into a short time frame. The only difference between selective breeding and natural selection is the nature of the selection process. One is efficient, and can be compressed into a human generation or two. The other relies on mutation to produce variation that can be accepted or rejected by nature, so it takes much longer.

      September 2, 2012 at 9:33 pm |
  9. Bev S.

    I wonder what humans will evolve to in the next 2 million years?

    September 1, 2012 at 5:02 pm |
    • lamb of dog

      Atheists

      September 1, 2012 at 5:16 pm |
  10. Ketzazu

    Creationists,
    Let the evolutionists be because none of us on this planet can explain Genesis. I tell everybody that if the Creation story of Genesis could have been replicated or scientifically proven God would have ceased to exist. What kind of mind can really lower itself to believe in an explosion or the evolution nonsense to explain our globe and its elements? Seriously! The whole mechanics that make us a human being was the result of evolution? Nature and animals are well crafted for what they are. They can never be the result of a random explosion or evolution. You know that. Then let those who decry the story of Genesis make fools of themselves. What is the gain of responding to them?
    I remember asking one of my professors if any one had ever witnessed an example of evolution. He told me evolution stopped x millions years ago! Really! How did they know evolution stopped so much long ago?
    If I may ask: How did black men evolve to become white men? Rather, how did white men evolve to become black men? President Obama is not the result of an evolution. His diversity was the result of the fire between a white woman and a black man. If he goes to live in Africa he will become darker. Would that be evolution?
    Our globe is a mosaic of diversities not a monotonous look alike creatures. I don't even think Darwin believes that his theory or findings was so much of a religious creed. There are proofs of evolution!?
    I know.

    Can you imagine some intelligent anthropologists of the future excavating the skeletons of the Thalidomide children making a case to explain how mankind evolved from those skeletons? How could you challenge such scientists brandishing the Thalidomide skeletons as the evolutionary proof of a regular skeleton?
    That is what Darwin was observing, for argument sake, the difference between the skeleton of a Thalidomide human being versus the skeleton of a normal human being.
    Being unable to appreciate diversity but seeing evolution in diversity is the evolution of intellectual myopia.

    September 1, 2012 at 4:46 pm |
    • chas

      "If I may ask: How did black men evolve to become white men?" Yea – how did all of Noah's kids turn into all the races of the world? Maybe they evolved after the flood.

      September 1, 2012 at 5:59 pm |
    • WASP

      @ket: the diversity we see in the animal kingdom, is a direct result of the enviroment.
      let's take the north american brown bear(grizzly) and the polar bear; they are direct genentic relation, so much so that brown bears and polar bears can breed hybrid bears. during the last ice age brown bears migrated following food north. as the ice retreated a group of brown bears were seperated from the mainland over time the offspring of those trapped bears that had lighter fur were able to catch food easiler thus passing on their genetics. the offspring born with brown fur would starve and die, leaving only the ones with the lighter fur trait alive to reproduce.

      here is a question explain a platypus, what is it? did your god play a evil joke on it? an egg laying mammal with a bill and a beavers tail, second eyelids for swimming and a poisonious barb on the males right rear foot.................now science tested and found it is a kin to the mole; what does your god say it is?

      or here is one for you, why isn't my ancestory in your bible? i'm native american and your jesus found it prudent not ton visit my country before your missionaries came to steal our land.

      September 1, 2012 at 6:17 pm |
    • Mateo

      Q1)What kind of mind...explain the globe and its elements? A) The human mind
      Q2)The whole mechanics...result of evolution? A) Yes
      Q3)What is the gain to responding to them? A) To pursue truth through human communication
      Q4)How did they know... so long ago? A) Evolution is still happening. This particular 'professor' is uninformed or perhaps even fictional
      Q5)How did black men evolve to become white men? A) Melanin (Google it)
      Q6)Rather, how did white men become black men? A) (see above)
      Q7)Would that be evolution? A) Technically yes, since evolution includes breeding and the passing of genes.
      Q8)There are proofs of evolution? A) This question is phrased awkwardly. Do you mean photographic negatives?
      Q9)Can you imagine... evolved from those skeletons? A) No.
      Q10)How could you challenge... proof of a regular skeleton? A) Employ the scientific method.

      September 1, 2012 at 6:27 pm |
  11. Atheism is not healthy for children and other living things

    Prayer changes things ,

    September 1, 2012 at 4:30 pm |
    • Mateo

      I understand why you would say Atheism isn't healthy for kids, but in that same school of thought, you would have to deduce that NO belief system is healthy for children. My kid will develop his own belief system based on his life experiences and his own judgement. There is no wrong or right in belief systems there is only poor or healthy moral judgement. Healthy moral judgement includes (IMHO) acceptance and equality for gays and all people regardless of their belief systems.

      September 1, 2012 at 9:54 pm |
  12. Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son

    John P. Tarver is nothing more than a poser. He refuses to present credentials, cannot back up his claims with sources, and runs away whenever he is challenged.

    September 1, 2012 at 4:23 pm |
    • nope

      @tom tom ,
      nope

      September 1, 2012 at 4:29 pm |
  13. John P. Tarver

    Well, the editor wants no more science here so I am gone

    September 1, 2012 at 4:19 pm |
    • Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son

      Run away, little fraud. You're leaving because anyone here can see you're the emperor with no clothes, dude.

      Don't forget about that spelling test on Tuesday–your tenth-grade English teacher will be expecting you to know how to spell all KINDS of words, like "intelligence'!

      September 1, 2012 at 4:21 pm |
    • FifthApe

      Run away POE.

      September 1, 2012 at 7:28 pm |
  14. John P. Tarver

    I have an idea for American education: Perhaps K-12 could teach current science, as opposed to the century out of date inormation we teach in science classes. For instance, instead of a big bang, we could teach the notion of a vacuum fluctuation. We could also teach the current Geological fact that species occur rapidly following a mass extinction, the opposite of Evolution. In this way America could cease to insult the intellegence of Creationists and at the same time stop the racist ant study cult from doing more harm. (ie K-12 78th in science and math)

    September 1, 2012 at 3:59 pm |
    • Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son

      Oh, great. We get advice from some azzhole who can't spell "intelligence."

      September 1, 2012 at 4:00 pm |
    • John P. Tarver

      Tom- I don't care about spelling. I scored in the top 4% on my GRE, but they test for vocabulary after high school.

      September 1, 2012 at 4:06 pm |
    • John P. Tarver

      Tom- oops, spelling is what I should have written. Of course the GRE does test vocabulary.

      September 1, 2012 at 4:07 pm |
    • Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son

      Sure thing, you lying pos. And I'm Cleopatra. Also Helen of Troy.

      Get out of here, you fraud. You're as believable as nope the dope.

      Unless you can produce cites and proof, you're nothing but a pompous windbag.

      Wait. Even if you DO produce cites and proof, you'll STILL be a pompous windbag.

      September 1, 2012 at 4:10 pm |
    • biff

      yo tom tom, ur what i like to call a lost cause, only the Lord himself could change your point of view, so why dont u get out of here at least John has a future in his afterlife

      September 1, 2012 at 10:42 pm |
  15. IntelligentDesign

    Evolution is based upon mutations, where the number of bad mutations outnumber the good mutations. These mutations are totally random, there is no intelligence involved at all when these mutations modify DNA.

    I have a question relating to these mutations. Computer programs sometimes have an error called a storage overlay where the program’s instructions get overlaid with random data, the same thing in concept to a mutation which is basically an overlay of nucleotides in DNA. My question is, how often do you think that random storage overlays of a program’s instructions result in an enhanced program that works better than it did before the overlay occurred?

    September 1, 2012 at 3:56 pm |
  16. MrMr

    Evolution is not testable – Every new fossil dug up, every genome sequenced, every new species discovered, every new simulation run is a test of evolutionary theory. If what we discover doesn't fit in with what evolution predicts then evolution is wrong. In the 150 years it has been around not a single new discovery, Including DNA and genomes which weren't even known of in Darwin's time, Has told us anything other than what we would expect to find if evolution were a fact. They all end up telling us the exact thing which we would expect to be true if evolution was a fact. The EXACT thing we would expect.

    To prove it wrong just discover something which should not be true if evolution is right. I'll help you: The gene for feathers in humans or a chicken in the Precambrian.

    September 1, 2012 at 3:50 pm |
    • gluonspring

      The genomic evidence alone removes all doubt the fact of evolution, con-artists telling you otherwise notwithstanding. There was a great chance for us to find our we were wrong when we started sequencing genomes in the 1990's. Darwinian theory predicts that all genomes are related by descent, that we share common ancestors and so the genomes of all living things were derived from previous living things that were the common ancestors of current living things. This means that there should be a certain pattern to how genomes relate to one another. Now we could have sequenced these genomes and found that no such pattern existed. It could have been that chimpanzees and human genomes showed no evidence of having a common ancestor. Obviously they'd have common genes because we are very similar, but the organization of those genes and the location of random events, like retro-virus insertions, didn't have to be the same. If they weren't the same, evolutionary theory would have collapsed. It was a sharp and specific test of the theory. What did happen, however, was that immediately we saw that it was completely obvious from the genomes that human and chimpanzees, for example, share a common ancestor, a genome that both of their genomes was derived from. We saw, for example, that human chromosome 2 was a fusion of two ancestral chromosomes, chromosomes that are still separate in chimpanzees, and we can even see the useless remnants of teleomeres and centromeres from the ancestral chromosomes. I will confess that I myself was on the fence before I saw this evidence, but the evidence is conclusive. I can understand that many people do not know the evidence, and many probably find it hard to understand but, but the evidence is as solid as anything in all of science. To deny it now really is denying reality. It might not be comfortable, but it is the truth.

      September 1, 2012 at 6:20 pm |
    • WASP

      @mrmr: ok you don't have a grasp on basic genetics do you? portions of humans DNA resemble plenty of lower life forms, like the oak tree. we have sequences in our DNA chain that are rather cool if you truly look at it from a strictly inforamtional basis. 98% of our DNA code matches that of our closest relative in the animal kingdom.
      hmmm i love science, no faith all proof.

      September 1, 2012 at 6:26 pm |
    • damo12345

      Speaking as someone that works with genetics, my job would be extremely difficult if evolution was not real. I see it firsthand all the time. The fact is, you simply can't grasp just how much time was required for evolutionary forces to push materials in the right direction for life to emerge. But the universe is incredibly large (perhaps infinitely so) and with enough time even the most seemingly unlikely things can happen. Given enough time.

      September 1, 2012 at 6:43 pm |
  17. Joe Balke

    The DNA strand of a human being, stretched fully would be 200,000 in length. Remove 1mm, and you do not have any life at all.

    How many times did it take for the plants to get the process of photosynthesis correct? Do you think the very first plant actually got the entire process correct enough to continue it's existence?

    Where did all of this stuff come from? From nothing? A vacuum? Really? Doesn't it take a greater leap of faith to believe our existence came from nothing than from a God?

    September 1, 2012 at 3:31 pm |
    • Fallacy Spotting 101

      Post by 'Joe Balke' contains an instance of the Argument from Ignorance fallacy and is Begging the Question

      http://www.fallacyfiles.org/glossary.html

      September 1, 2012 at 3:50 pm |
    • Moby Schtick

      Nobody is suggesting that something came from "nothing" as any state we would define as "nothing" is merely a vacuum with trillions and trillions and trillions of sub-atomic particles "foaming" in and out of the reality we are able to observe. And I've always preferred the direct, honest, "we don't know" to "big invisible sky wizard made it by chanting magic spellz." And besides, insisting that it was "god" doesn't do anything for you that "pink unicorn fart" doesn't. You can exchange the two possible causes equally well and with equal results--–none.

      September 1, 2012 at 5:23 pm |
    • FifthApe

      I read what you wrote and what I heard was the sound of an empty mind.

      September 1, 2012 at 7:30 pm |
  18. Charlie J

    Any good scientific theory is *always* one well-designed experiment away from being disproved. We call it 'testability' or 'falsifiability.' Einstein's General Theory of Relativity superceded Newton's Theory of Gravity because of observations of the orbits of Mercury. Newton's theory was tested - because it was testable.
    No serious scientist accepts Creationism because it is not testable. Formulate testable hypotheses for Creationism and it would be welcomed into the ranks of Science. Otherwise, it's a belief.
    And what's wrong with belief, by the way? I believe that following the teachings of Jesus makes me better.

    September 1, 2012 at 3:31 pm |
  19. Karen

    John P. Tarver, you are a particularly ignorant twit. You can start your reading and learning about the science of evolution and the evidence for evolution here:

    http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/

    September 1, 2012 at 3:24 pm |
    • Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son

      I'll bet the Tard won't respond. He's already exhibiting his ignorance in another tedious post.

      September 1, 2012 at 4:02 pm |
  20. CJ Mason

    You are as ignorant as your Fundamentalist friends. If you were truly wise, you would understand the world was recreated. All your dios were destroyed in the Last Earth Age, no that is not Noah’s flood, but the world before Adam. Billy Boy, ever hear of something called a Nephilim? Better check your DNA.

    September 1, 2012 at 3:20 pm |
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The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.