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Posts: 193
Join Date: Nov 2009
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It is entirely possible that within the last ten seconds the entire universe came into being, all that we believe to be our past is a simple trick of existence.
It is likewise possible that the story in Genisis true as written, and that all we see to refute it is merely the efforts of God to hide his truth and chalenge our faith.
It is likewise possible that the universe as we see it did not follow the same laws of physics at some point earlier in it's history than it does now, and that perhaps gravity was stronger or weaker, or other fundamental forces behaved differntly and all our assumptions about the universe based on our current models of physics are off by a factor of the changes in these forces.
All these things are possible, however none of them are observeable.
What is observable is the universe as we see it today, and the laws of physics as we know them today. That is the only thing in evidence, as such any theories we put forth for testing must be tested by those laws. By those laws, the universe began billions of years ago, the earth took millions of years to form, and life took Hundreds of thousands of years to create a species called man from a species descended of apes.
Now, based on what we can observe, and prove this evidence is correct. we can see the fossil record showing the changes in species, and we can see on a genetic level the process of natural selection taking place in the present. We can extrapolate from these two provable real observations what the origin of the species is, but this does require an ordered universe and a set of physical laws that we observe today.
It could still have all sprung fully formed from the head of Zeus ten seconds ago, and could just as easily be whiped away ten seconds from now. But that is all conjecture. Theory and proof however require more paramaters, and in that Evolution as a scientific theory has been proven to the extent that things can be proven, as in beyond a reasonable doubt.
Now you can like the catholic church say that evolution is likely the method God used to create man, or you can say that man is the result of unguided mutation and natural selection. Those are unprovable philosophical statements, just like the universe springing fully formed from the head of Zeus. They have nothing to do with what is meant when one says Evolution has been proven.
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