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Most atheists do not know what science says about our origins

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Taffer said:
I have yet to meet two evolutionary biologists who agree on the exact nature of the LUCA.
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A nice example of diversity within the species :).


And yes, evolutionary biology is very cool. :cool:
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From a lay perspective it's fascinating, isn't it? And amazing, and progressing. (Not incredible, of course.) Far more interesting than an inherently mysterious flapjob on which the final book has already been written. (You know, the Koran. Or maybe the Mormon thing. Whatever, let's not go to war over niceties, eh?)
 
The Lay of the Clay

Those atheists claim in their godless depravity:
Your uncle's a monkey and grandpa's a virus.
How dreadfully lacking in spiritual gravity;
Mere nucleic acid can hardly inspire us!

My sunday school taught us a much finer story,
How Adam was made on the last working day.
The crowning achievement of God in his glory,
When he breathed the life into that cold lump of clay.

But what is that clay, gentle reader; beg pardon?
Is that not just a fancier handle for dirt?
It seems that the gardener was dug from the garden,
When God shed his grace on that figure inert.

The droppings of fish and the feces of snails,
Deposited slowly, more slowly compressed,
Until oceans receded, leaving shingle and shale
For weather and earthworms to cast and digest.

So from scripture or Darwin, we reach one conclusion:
No matter what agency stirred up the soup,
And though details of genesis may cause confusion,
Get used to it, Doc: you're just made out of poop.
 
That is a beautiful poem, Bruto--

But, if DOC is a young earth creationist... then his god probably didn't allow the animals to poop until after he whipped up humans... But if he's going with the old earth--the poop of some things had to be present... Our own intestines are home to trillions of microbes... the stuff of life is everywhere with it's own little DNA program in each...
 
Cleon said:
Not only were you completely and unambiguously wrong about the "most atheists don't know this" bit, but everybody here knows more about the subject than you do. Everybody. From the atheists like those on this thread, to Christians like kittynh, to Jews like me, to the guy who believes in "corn gods." Everybody. So if you want to salvage what little dignity you have left, just stop posting here and let this thread die. Find something else to be your "DOC Topic of the Week." This one isn't for you.
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Quoted and limed for truth.
 
bruto said:
The Lay of the Clay

Those atheists claim in their godless depravity:
Your uncle's a monkey and grandpa's a virus.
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According to the World Book Encyclopedia (which someone in these threads said was a children encyclopedia) most scientists don't even believe a virus is a living entity. Thus it seems more likely great great ..... grandpa was a bacterium -- according to science, that is.
 
DOC said:
According to the World Book Encyclopedia (which someone in these threads said was a children encyclopedia) most scientists don't even believe a virus is a living entity. Thus it seems more likely great great ..... grandpa was a bacterium -- according to science, that is.
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Viruses satisfy some but not all of the characteristics associated with life, so indeed there is some disagreement as to how to classify them. However, viruses almost certainly evolved from living things. They contain DNA that is compatable with life on earth.

Of course, you're aware that A) Bruto was using poetic license (to rhyme "virus" with "inspire us") and B) he was using the voice of what creationists say about atheists.

It's a great and funny poem. It was art, not science. Obviously, you evolved from a creature with no sense of humor.

Oh, and by the way, World Book is indeed a children's encyclopedia. That is exactly the way it is marketed. I know because I used to sell them. That does not make their information incorrect, merely simplified.
 
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DOC said:
The origin of life is a crucial part (if not the most important question) of the Theist/Atheist debate. Yet I contend that most atheists are not aware that all life (the blue whales, the insects, the elephants, the octopuses, the trees in the redwood forests, the butterflies, the cactus, the humans, all the dinosaurs, and the multi-millions of other plant and animal species) that have ever existed are descended from the "same" one celled organism. (according to modern science)

I would estimate that no more than 10 percent of all atheists know that modern science believes that all the millions of "plant and animal" species that have ever existed came from the "same" organism (and that first organism that we all came from was a one celled bacteria).
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I think this subject is only important to those whose religious beliefs cannot sustain the notion of evolution. There are many theists whose beliefs can sustain such a notion and therefore it is not even an issue that is raised in any atheist/theist debate they may have.

That life arose from single cells that went onto to evolve is, I would have thought, common knowledge. It was taught in school when I was a kid quite a while ago. Whether all life evolved from the same single cell organism or different ones is moot as 90% of everything that ever evolved has ceased to be. There may be many life forms we will simply never know about.
 
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DOC, you seem to be operating on incredulity. You seem to think it rather unbelievable that such diversity of life would have been generated by as simple a process as evolution.

However, this process has been confirmed by multiple, independant bilogical and medical observations.

If you think evolution isn't real, what is your explanation for

1.) the fossil record
2.) molecular biology describing the fundemental mechanism of evolution
3.) the phylogenetic tree
4.) How the fact that how an evaluation of variation in sequence of each protein that presists between species matches what would be predicted by the phylogenic tree.
5.) ERVs
6.) human chromosome fusion
7.) multi drug resistent bacteria
8.) existence of RNAi
9.) Mitochondrial DNA
10.) Success of Directed evolution techniques
11.) vestigal organs
12.) prions
13.) protein multifunctionality
14.) protein polymorphisms
15.) symbiosis
16.) interspecies viable offspring
17.) nylon-eating bacteria
18.) Persistence of Sickle Cell

All of these items are nicely explained by simple evolution. But if that is wrong, what is the right explanation? How would you test that theory?
 
Tricky said:
Oh, and by the way, World Book is indeed a children's encyclopedia. That is exactly the way it is marketed. I know because I used to sell them.
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From Wiki's article on the World Book.

World Book Encyclopedia is, according to its publisher in the United States, "the number-one selling print encyclopedia in the world."[1]...

Though not called a "children's" encyclopedia, it is marketed as a "family" encyclopedia for readers above 15 years of age.[2]

It claims to be the most up-to-date commercial encyclopedia, thirty-three percent of its pages being revised each year.[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Book_Encyclopedia

Tricky said:
However, viruses almost certainly evolved from living things. They contain DNA that is compatable with life on earth.
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This statement is opposite of what one or two in here have said. They say life could have evolved from viruses {I hope my great great... granddaddy wasn't an AIDS VIRUS} -- whereas you say viruses almost certainly evolved from living things.
 
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DOC said:
From Wiki's article on the World Book.

World Book Encyclopedia is, according to its publisher in the United States, "the number-one selling print encyclopedia in the world."[1]...

Though not called a "children's" encyclopedia, it is marketed as a "family" encyclopedia for readers above 15 years of age.[2]

It claims to be the most up-to-date commercial encyclopedia, thirty-three percent of its pages being revised each year.[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Book_Encyclopedia
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So what?

This statement is opposite of what one or two in here have said. They say life could have evolved from viruses {I hope my great great... granddaddy wasn't an AIDS VIRUS} -- whereas you say viruses almost certainly evolved from living things.
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Nope. Viruses, bacteria, plants, fungi and animals, in fact all living things, evolved from something that may or may not have been virus-like, or bacteria-like.

Viruses do not fill all of the criteria that are classically assigned to "life", but they do procreate, and they do contain DNA or RNA. They are "sort of" alive. Which is absolutely no problem for evolution. The fact that they cause disease is a problem for biblical literalists, since the bible says nothing about such things, which is odd for a book written by an omnipotent being.
 
DOC said:
From Wiki's article on the World Book.

World Book Encyclopedia is, according to its publisher in the United States, "the number-one selling print encyclopedia in the world."[1]...

Though not called a "children's" encyclopedia, it is marketed as a "family" encyclopedia for readers above 15 years of age.[2]

It claims to be the most up-to-date commercial encyclopedia, thirty-three percent of its pages being revised each year.[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Book_Encyclopedia
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Well I'm tellin' you Doc, when I sold them, they told us to push the fact that they were encyclopedias designed to be accessible to children. Hell I grew up with World Book in my house and my mom used to tell us to "look it up in the encyclopedia" when we had a technical question. It is a very good encyclopedia, but if you go to a library and look at World Book versus Encyclopedia Britannica or other college-level encyclopedias, you will note how much more information is in the bigger encyclopedias.

World Book is very good, but it is aimed at pre-college kids.

DOC said:
This statement is opposite of what one or two in here have said. They say life could have evolved from viruses {I hope my great great... granddaddy wasn't an AIDS VIRUS} -- whereas you say viruses almost certainly evolved from living things.
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As I say, Bruto was taking poetic license. Others may be making off-the-cuff or joking comments about the source of viruses. It is likely that there are some few scientists who think it is possible that life on earth was seeded by viruses, but I assure you they are in the vast minority. Viruses prey on living cells. If there were no living cells, they would have had nothing on which to prey. They could not have arisen unless the host was there first.
 
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