Chicken or the Egg Discussion

[DonCasablanca]

Those "brilliant" scientists you mention are only ones biased for Evolution, found in textbooks and magazines that are biased for Evolution. The evidence for a very young earth certainly won't appear in textbooks at schools, since that would go against the religion they teach.

Yes, it probably is a safe bet that Creationism hasn't attracted any "brilliant" scientists.

I think it is absolutely pathetic that you would go so far to refer to Evolution as a "religion" that "biased ... textbooks and magazines" teach, as if to snub Evolution as an equally faith-based (or "bias"-based) doctrine as that of Creationism. As if Evolution was a religion.

Yes, you have successfully identified the sickening irony of your point of view: Evolution is, by definition, a science. The Bible is, by definition, a sacred religious text.

I am deeply offended, as an Episcopalian, that you would try to read any words of the Bible and substitute them for something as banal as a middle-school biology textbook. Science has built up evidence -- excellent, unrefuted evidence, that has spawned scores of new sciences -- that Evolution explains the fossil record. The Bible hasn't explained the fossil record -- the Bible is about something that Christians should know is more important.

So if you have a crackpot explanation of the fossil record, be my guest and explain why radiocarbon dating is so wildly wrong. But Evolution is not a religion, so you have to play by the rules of Science. And read why this "not enough time for mutation" nonsense is indeed nonsense in last month's thread on this topic.

[TheTypist]

Oh, but Evolution is really a religion, and a very popular one at that. It gives people the chance to be able to worship themselves. Either that, or they bow down to the gods of random chance and have faith that they performed the supernatural fairy tale that is Evolution.

Carbon dating does not work past around 50,000 years because of its incredibly short half-life, which is why scientists use other forms of radiometric dating. And of course, radiometric dating only measures the amount of Isotope 1 compared to the amount of Isotope 2, which was supposed to come from Isotope 1. Then they try and mathemetically calculate how old things are based on the half-life of the element. This, of course, assumes that there were no Isotope 2s to begin with. That's not a very safe assumption.

Please check up on what you call "unrefuted." Wild evolutionary theories can run rampant in popular magazines that favor Evolution, but that doesn't mean that no evidence for good ol' 7-day creation.

So go on and bow to the gods of random chance. I doubt they'll hear you.

[DonCasablanca]

Good thing that the earth is only 6,000 years old, so we can stick with good ol' carbon.

And even though I am, believe me, quite impressed with your flawless understanding of geology, you've utterly missed my point. You, and many other Creationists, are evidently reading the Bible as a science textbook.

Why?

I certainly hope that you ascribe more meaning to it. This is perhaps material for another thread: I don't understand how people view science and religion (as I've often heard) as two windows looking out at the same world. I assumed that most healthy Christians look to the Bible as providing insight into the living of one's life, whereas science investigates the environment in which we live that life; something certainly interesting, although patently less relevant to questions that people really need to answer. So why on earth would you bother creating this conflict? Religion isn't science, even you fundamentalists can concede that. Science certainly isn't creating the conflict; I haven't read any Nature papers describing why exactly we evolved from apes, just theories how. I haven't read any psychology papers detailing for what greater purposes we love and hate, just the mechanisms involved. There are no challenges from science comparable to your:

bow down to the gods of random chance. I doubt they'll hear you.

So try to ascribe some real meaning to the Bible, and let science derive its own meaning. The fight you're picking is pointless. And again, already discussed this in a thread last month.

[TheTypist]

Well I wasn't here last month.

If someone were to read the Bible like you mentioned, as if it were some collection of fortune cookie notes, then it would become completely irrelevant and not worth reading.

It's enough that you've spit in the faces of the great scientists like Newton, Kepler, Mendell and Pasteur, who were all creationists. You would have thought that by now the ridiculous ideas of spontaneous genration would have been done away with now. But you continue to think that the flies come straight from the dead, stinking piece of rotten meat and completely ignore the scientifically accurate idea of biogenesis.

The theory of Evolution just has to keep evolving because it doesn't make sense. That's why people keep having to make up all these bizarre theories you mention. I think the Bible does mention all that continuous speculation:

They became vain in their imaginations; their foolish heart was darkened; professing themselves to be wise they became fools.

Ecclesiastes 10:12-13

And don't you dare say that your idea of "science" and religion can go peacefully, because Evolution tries to get right in the face of God and say "You don't exist." I pity the scientists who continue to defend Evolution, just as I would pity a doctor who tried to use leeches to reduce a fever.


So go on. Keep on dreaming. "Let your imaginations run wild." That's what they said in Kindergarten, wasn't it? Wow. I guess they teach you how to contribute to Evolution in Kindtergarten too!

[Mindfields]

Hmm...
I see that most of you are using "Which came first: the chicken or the egg?" as a technical term, as in you are using it for and actual chicken, and an actual egg. Izzy, you are saying that the chicken egg came first, but what the question really (in my opinion) is asking is "Which came first: Whole form or fetus?"
I really think the whole form came first, and that's what (basically) Izzy said.

[TheTypist]

Well yeah, but even though the whole chicken may have come first, the eggs that the it produced then came before any of the chickens that came afterward.

[iced_fetto]

If it truly is which came first chicken or egg instead of the chickens or eggs, arent we just assuming anyways that if a chicken had eggs with whatever sort of things its parents were, that a chicken would come out, instead of the original species or maybe some third party

[rydenHS]

Originally Posted by DonCasablanca

Aasum and jewpin, I think we all know the real question here. You don't have to hide it.

Why discuss these superficial, insubstantial thoughts when we can get at the real meat of the dilemma? At the very marrow of the human experience? At the juicy center of all that transcends this earthly realm and makes life (at least life from 7am-midnight, excluding holidays) meaningful?

Personally, I think Popeye's is better than KFC. Not only are the prices more reasonable, the service more smiley, and the establishments better-kempt, but there is so much more for one's palette to explore! You have your family meal-deals -- the two-piece, the three-piece, the breast, the white meat, the dark meat -- but above that is the wondrous realm of the chicken-finger meal! And here, Popeye's outdoes KFC hands down. No, wait -- hands up! Like on a thrilling roller coaster ride, but with fried chicken. Explore Popeye's endless mixing possibilities with their splendid array of sauces. Create the perfect boneless chicken eating experience -- try honey mustecue sauce, or barbecetchup, or perhaps even grape jellustard.

And then, sink your teeth into that far crispier, warmer, and golden-browner biscuit, slathered in deliciously congealed cornseed oil (you found it in those packets labelled "butter"). Wait, did you forget your spicey fries?! Eat those first, save the biscuit for last. Oh man, not that those spicey fries aren't exquisite -- so, spicey, and, fried. Wash that slimy residue off the roof of your mouth with that tall cup of Coke -- that's right, you could get a Coke, because you went to Popeye's instead of KFC. Sit back, content, satisfied, knowing that even if you lick your fingers for the next hour they'll still feel greasy. Damn, that was good. You'll probably need a cigarette.

I'm kind of hungry. I think I'll go eat.

What the hell? I am really confused. LOL. Weren't we talking about which came first? That would make a good topic though. Props!

Anyway my idea is that the egg came first because prob. two birds similar to chickens banged in bed and then OUT came a chicken egg. Woot.

[MonkeyFoo]

Point #1: Nobody said that we're talking chicken or chicken egg. We all feel it's implied, but really the egg must have come first, because things were hatching out of eggs before birds existed.

Point #2: With the question of chicken egg first or chicken first, indeed the egg must have come first. All that stuff about mutation during meiosis etc. is the most likely thing. There is, of course, a minute possibility that the chicken's closest ancestor had an egg, which hatched, and then all of its cells mutated into chicken DNA. But that's like the probability that, standing in a heavy downpour for five hours, no rain would come within a mile of you.

Point #3: Ahh, creationists. If God did indeed make the Earth some 6000 years ago, let's just say that He made it pre-aged-looking. After all, it should be well within His power to make all the fossils with the right amounts of Carbon-13 in them. So, why not just say that the Earth, while technically only 6,000 years old, has had 4.6 billion years worth of development, if only simulated? And maybe He did make Adam first and then Eve, and later all the other animals. He could have just made it look like they had a chain of evolution that runs up to Humans. He could have even made evolution work, a system set in place so that His creatures will continue to develop with only His guidance, rather than His direct intervention.

In summary of point #3, please realize that all of our modern science can indeed be true, alongside the teachings of the Bible. After all, God works in mysterious ways, right?

Actual point of point #3: Quit arguing that modern science is wrong. The bible doesn't make it wrong, that's just how you have come to interpret it. Have an open mind.

Sidenote: I'm an Atheist, and I think that the whole God concept is like a big add-on to reality. Occam's Razor always seemed to work well enough for me: "Occam's Razor: It slices, it dices, it removes superfluous supernatural entities."

Point #4: Feel free to argue with my other points. If I've gone wrong somewhere, I'd like to know. I haven't read more than a few pages of the Bible, and I'm not entirely clear on all of the beliefs of the various Christian sects.

Blather, blather, blather. That's enough for tonight. I'm a go sleep now.

[Draigun]

I don't feel like reading all of this, so I'm going to go ahead and tell you:

It was the egg.

Believe me, I asked Jeeves. He told me it was due to a mutation after two non-chickens had sexlolz and the result of the mutation was a chicken (which obviously began in the egg.) This concludes it was the egg which came first, due to the original chicken's parents being non-chickens..

..Or something.

[natsuko]

hmmm is this post locked yet?

[iced_fetto]

Assuming evolution is how the chicken came to be, at what point in time (maybe a year if you have it) did that first chicken egg show up and when do you think chickens will have an egg that isn't a chicken, I wonder if the species can get any tastier. What would we call the little fella?

[MonkeyFoo]

Originally Posted by iced_fetto

What would we call the little fella?

Definitely the Chickmaster 3000, by Ronco.

But then going back to the discussion at hand, I thought about the question some more. There's another issue of semantics here: if it is chicken or chicken egg, a chicken egg means from a chicken, right? So we could define away the question and say that the chicken had to be first, or else there could be no chicken's egg.

And finally, the last thing I can think of that could be a variable here is if a rooster was born from a mammal through some massive mutation, then it couldn't lay any eggs because it's a male, thus having the chicken before the egg. This is assuming that you aren't calling the mammalian egg an egg per se, because there's no hard shell and the chicken doesn't develop inside of it and hatch from it.

Regarding my previous post, now I've realized that some of modern science doesn't work with the Bible. The whole part about the "heavens above." Of course, the church gradually had to accept the facts about outer space, but the Bible remains unchanged. Who knows? Maybe some cattle ranchers in Texas think that outer space is a big conspiracy to make us lose faith in the Bible, because most people have no real proof that outer space actually exists. It could, after all, just be God making little specks of light come from Heaven, not stars, right? So, the bible does indeed come in conflict with modern science, but the church acknowledges most modern science as fact anyway.

Writing that, I've thought of another thing. How do we define a chicken? If it looks like a chicken, smells like a chicken, sounds like a chicken, feels like a chicken, and even tastes like a chicken, then it must have been a chicken, right? So therefore it is impossible to say exactly when the chicken came into existence, unless the mutation was very large. This, of course, doesn't effect which came first, just when the first chicken/egg came.

I think that's everything that we could possibly cover in this topic; it should be locked. Anything else posted here will just be blatant repetition or irrelevant.

[firemon22]

Locked

[TheTypist]

Originally Posted by MonkeyFoo

Point #3: Ahh, creationists. If God did indeed make the Earth some 6000 years ago, let's just say that He made it pre-aged-looking. After all, it should be well within His power to make all the fossils with the right amounts of Carbon-13 in them. So, why not just say that the Earth, while technically only 6,000 years old, has had 4.6 billion years worth of development, if only simulated? And maybe He did make Adam first and then Eve, and later all the other animals. He could have just made it look like they had a chain of evolution that runs up to Humans. He could have even made evolution work, a system set in place so that His creatures will continue to develop with only His guidance, rather than His direct intervention.

In summary of point #3, please realize that all of our modern science can indeed be true, alongside the teachings of the Bible. After all, God works in mysterious ways, right?

Actual point of point #3: Quit arguing that modern science is wrong. The bible doesn't make it wrong, that's just how you have come to interpret it. Have an open mind.

Sidenote: I'm an Atheist, and I think that the whole God concept is like a big add-on to reality. Occam's Razor always seemed to work well enough for me: "Occam's Razor: It slices, it dices, it removes superfluous supernatural entities."

Ahhh, Atheists. So fun to hear their naturalistic speculations, yet depressing to hear how they haven't learned from past mistakes.

Actual point #1= "modern" science has been proven wrong many times before. For example, most modern doctors do not use bloodletting to reduce fever anymore. But once it was commonly accepted as scientific. Most modern scientists back in the day thought that proteins were responsible for genetic activity, when later it was discovered to be DNA instead.

Many people way back in the day believed in spontaneous generation, where flies would mysteriously appear out of rotting meat. But today-- oops, no, what am I saying? People still believe in spontaneous generation today, only they think life comes from pools of jumbled up building blocks.

Of course, we all know what it took back then for one to even conceive the notion that the "modern" science was flawed. That's right: an open mind. So, you keep an open mind too, okay? Okay.

The picture of the Earth 4.6 billion years ago, in the mind of most Atheists, is probably one full of volcanic activity, and temperatures too hot to live in, and vast pools of lifes building blocks that would eventually turn into amoebas, which would eventually turn into frogs, which would eventually turn into princes and astronauts. However this is not the case.

In reality, there would still be unbearable temperatures, but it would be because the SUN is so ENORMOUSLY HUGE that it envelops the entire area where the Earth would be.

That's right: A few decades ago the Sun was found to be shrinking, about %0.1 every century. Spreading this out over 6,000 years is no problem, but 4.6 billion? That's a rather big Sun. Hmm...

[MalReynolds]

Cite your scources.

Actual point #1= "modern" science has been proven wrong many times before. For example, most modern doctors do not use bloodletting to reduce fever anymore. But once it was commonly accepted as scientific. Most modern scientists back in the day thought that proteins were responsible for genetic activity, when later it was discovered to be DNA instead.

Funny, religion has been proven wrong many times before. People used to go out of their way to kill people (The Crusades) in the name of God, when all they did was plunder. And just because Science is an evolving study of life doesn't mean it can't be wrong. I mean, hey, I used to think Santa was real. And Scientists used to think that protiens were responsible for genetics.

The egg came first. I mean, the way ameobas evolved and animal life evolved, it's completley reasonable to think a creature may have laid an egg.

OR, the egg just formed out of mixed genetics and birthed the egg that made the chicken.

Typist, go wield you boner for God somewhere else.

Mal

[AasumDude]

Originally Posted by MonkeyFoo

Point #1: Nobody said that we're talking chicken or chicken egg.

Title of topic: Chicken or the Egg Discussion



EDIT: and i really like the example of the crucades (post above). Apparently they prooved that Jesus never actually rode into Jerusalem on a donkey in he first place, but they added that in by the 70BC church to make it seem like the most possible prophacies were true. Comments on this, anyone?

[Moogy]

My cock came first.

[TheTypist]

How would the 70 B.C. church know what Jesus did? He wasn't around yet. The prophecies concerning Jesus were as specific as prophecies would get. If the church really wanted to fake them, they would make the prophecies more vague, and more like the messages found on fortune cookies. Then, no matter what happened they would be able to make some weird metaphorical fufillment. But that's not what happened.

Mal, I'm really doubting that you read my post. I already used the protein-genetics example as an example of how science was wrong. You even quoted it.

The Crusades were a horrible deal. And even today people do things in the name of God that aren't within God's will. It is true that many people flying under the banner of Christianity will be completely off, like King Saul was before he was Paul. But you know what? Even Jesus proved religion wrong when he was walking around on Earth. Don't you know how He let those religious leaders have it? So religion has been proven wrong, but never God.

In fact, the actual science behind creation has never been proven wrong before either. Creation was completely accepted by science until someone decided to try and find a way through science that would "free" people from morals, start the sexual revolution and begin the spread of AIDS.

Thus, Evolution was born. Keep in mind that Evolution was formed to intentionally try and kick out creation. It started a little while before, actually, when a 19th century geologist, Charles Lyell, wrote that he aimed to "free the science from Moses." Now that doesn't sound as impartial and objective as science usually makes itself out to be.

Mal, go take your punctuated equilirbium ideas and flush them down the toilet.

Every single organism on the planet has genes that are 100% dedicated to producing another organism of the same kind. The idea of a bird with feathers to be born out of some other animal is ridiculous. The genetic code would have to make very specific quantum leaps. The chances of this happening are unimaginably slim, since (1)mutations are pretty rare in the first place, (2) most mutations are harmful and (3) mutations happen on a very small scale and could not possibly be enough to change species.

And if that's not enough for you, we still have to worry about the poor lonely chicken that has NO ONE TO MATE W/

[MalReynolds]

Frogs in captivity have been known to change sex and produce children that way. Hell, if you've seen Jurassic Park you know this, so it's not too insane to think it could happen with chickens. And yes, I read all of you post. That's why I quoted it and said that it's okay for a branch of science is wrong. And I really doubt that evolution just came around to thrown religion out the window. Espcecially because people wanted to be free from morals.

That just sounds like some conspiracy theory.

Once again, Typist: Boner, God, Elsewhere.

Mal