Comments by "TheEvertw" (@TheEvertw) on "Big Think" channel.

16:20 -- That was one brave scientist. Let the name of Trump be shamed for ever more.
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Yep. This has been the plan of conservatives for many decades. Keep 'm dumb and they 'll keep voting for corrupt politicians.
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@MatthewChenault I am no Atheist, but I do believe Trump is evil. He is a narcissist, he is anti common sense, he is a racist, he is corrupt, he is a bully, he lies constantly and he is a-moral. And that is apart from his disastrous policies. I would, as a Christian, NEVER vote for a person like that. My conscience does not permit me.
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@MatthewChenault Thank you for being so respectful.
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@brucefrykman8295 "Real science never demands "belief"" Exactly. Neither does it rely on coercion. It lets facts speak for themselves. In the absence of facts, "scientist" should remain silent because then indeed their opinion has the same value as mine.
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Some excellent points raised in this video! However, I do not like the anti-Christian bias in it. While a lot of "christians" in the USA reject science, most Christians have a healthy respect for it. After all, "Truth" is one of the names of Jesus, and science is one form of truth. There are, and were throughout history, huge numbers of real scientists that are real Christians, serving God in their quest for scientific truth, to the advancement of humankind.
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"Do you believe in Darwinistic Evolution" is a very controversial question, as evolution as taught today is a religion in itself, where Chance has replaced God. It is physically impossible that Evolution happened by accident: the likelihood that molecules organized themselves to form the first basic chromosomes is essentially zero, and chromosomes have no value without the mechanisms in place to replicate them and translate them into proteins -- which are themselves constructed from chromosomes. This combination makes it absolutely impossible that life "just came to be" without the guidance of some superior being outside our ability to observe or measure. That does not mean evolution did not happen, only that it was not initiated & guided by chance. So I would answer NO to this question, in spite of being a scientist. Science clearly points out that there must be more to life than what can be felt or seen. (Re natural selection: before DNA/RNA and the basic components of bacteria were established, there was no natural selection. You can't reproduce the best variant of two dead things, as dead things don't reproduce. So the initial stages of Life were determined 100% by Chance -- or by the Divine.)
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@FallenAngel Evolution requires as much (if not more) faith than other religions. As I said, Evolution has huge gaping holes in it, as it can not explain how genes first came into being. Science, instead, argues strongly against Evolution, in that it goes against the accepted principle of entropy maximization.
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@FallenAngel There most certainly are gaping holes in the faith of Evolution. I already explained some of them. Care to find a paper that scientifically discussed them, that is not a long list of baseless conjecture? That is because there are none. The only bit of Evolution that has some scientific merit is "micro evolution", i.e. the small mutations that cause small differences in similar species. The rest is baseless extrapolation and conjecture, i.e. no science at all.
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@FallenAngel "Evolution is based on science" No use arguing if you fail to read my comments, mate. As I said, only a small portion of what people call "Evolution" is actually based in science. Most is conjecture & interpolation, i.e. NO SCIENCE. <edit>The step from micro to macro evolution is: an extrapolation. No-one has ever observed it, and it goes square against the principles of thermo-dynamics. Every scientist knows that extrapolations are dodgy at best. Mathematically you can prove that it is is extremely unlikely for a single instance of macro evolution to have occurred during the life time of the universe.
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@FallenAngel I don't disagree science, I disagree with people who think science has proven something, which it has not. I have refuted certain hypotheses, as I have briefly sketched above. Until someone is able to find a flaw in my arguments, the hypotheses stand refuted. That is the scientific method. Sadly, I find that when I try to have a meaningful debate on the issue, even some other scientists get very hot and bothered, and disregard my reasoning out of hand without refuting it. That is NOT the scientific method. Thus my opinion that Evolution is a religion, as people believe it without question or debate, and ostracize you for believing something else -- even if you have very good reasons for it.
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@FallenAngel You are boring, and you are not reading my comments. The flaw in your argument that small changes add up to big changes is that these small changes can never create NEW chromosomes. It is mathematically impossible for them to do so. QED.
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If she mistakes mathematics with religion, she doesn't understand her Bible either. Jesus is called the Truth, meaning that research will ultimately point to Him. No need to reject science, or to feel threatened by it. In the USA, religion is often abused as a way to get power or money. That has absolutely nothing to do with Christianity.
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 @Mrstarwars1980 The Bible is written as a tool to find God and to get to know Him. Used in that way, its truth has been proven many, many times.
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@schmetterling4477 To understand Biblical concepts, you need to study the meaning of the words in the original languages. The English words have slightly different meanings, and are often strongly associated with wrong understandings of the Bible that are a result of human traditions, not divine inspiration. The word sin, in its Biblical meaning, can mean breaking Gods law, moving away from the path of blessing, or missing Gods purpose. Gods law is clearly defined in the Bible: "Love God with all thy heart, and love thy neighbour as thy self" (Mt 22:35-40). The other forms of sin are personal, and are related to Gods plan for you personally. It is possible to miss Gods plan by e.g. failing to see an opportunity God gave you, and that would be "sin". The Bible teaches that all have sinned, and that all can be restored into Gods perfect plan by accepting His Love and Grace.
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I hear a lot of people that are angry at Christians for being against "scientists". Please understand that this is a reaction to society and politics pushing the Evolution Theory very hard, even mandating it some schools, as the explanation of the origin of Life. People have embraced Evolution as the proof that there does not need to be a God. Well, I have news for you: the Theory of Evolution does NOT prove there does not need to be a God. It does NOT explain the origin of life. It only explains the small differences we can see between similar species of organisms. Science has NO explanation of the origin of Life in all its vast diversity. In fact, science indicates life needed some super-natural, intelligent force to get it started and to take the major steps from bacteria to organisms to mammals etc. I call him God.
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Americans forget that many of the innovations they introduced, were brought by immigrants that had fled war-torn Europe, many of them Jews. Before WW2, the USA was a backwater. It is now quickly falling back into its proper place.
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@gorillaguerillaDK In spite of you strong words, you are absolutely wrong. There is currently no scientific explanation for the origin of the basic elements of Life: RNA / DNA, the replication of RNA & DNA, the construction of proteins from RNA / DNA, etc, etc. These structures are so complex and so dependent on each other that it is absolutely impossible they originated by Chance. There is NO mechanism that could have caused these to be without the intervention of a Divine being.
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@gorillaguerillaDK I am aware of Abiogenesis, however that vast majority of people in this discussion are not. "Evolution" has different meanings in different contexts. If you are aware of the difference between Abiogenesis and "the Theory of Evolution", you must also be aware that most people, including many scientists in other fields, believe the Theory of Evolution proves God is no longer necessary to explain Life. While obviously, it does not. A word means what the listeners hold it to mean, not what you or a small group of scientists intend it to mean. So, instead of moaning about fools that do not understand Evolution, please set all these people straight that angrily attack Christians for upholding that God created Life. This is my biggest gripe about this video, btw. The persons asking the questions expect Yes or No answers, while in order to be able to answer the question, I must first negotiate with the asker to determine what he means with "Evolution". If not given that opportunity, I will answer according to how the majority of the people understand Evolution, and my answer would be NO. But from your remarks, I get the feeling that if we had a discussion about it, my answer to you would be YES. But aside from that, in my earlier comment I mentioned the origin of the cell because it is the most obvious refutation of the idea that Evolution disproves God. However, the same argument can be used to refute Macro Evolution -- the creation of new features in an organism by the combination of Chance & Natural Selection. Consider for example sight. There are too many genes required that must all appear at exactly the same time and location for sight the become possible. And again, as with Abiogenesis, Natural Selection does not help because all these genes have no function before they are all perfect. As you are probably aware, the Theory of Evolution only discusses Micro Evolution, i.e. the little adaptations in phenotype due to random mutations in the genotype, and the selection of these by nature. Nothing about the origin of species, dinosaurs, etc, which all children are indoctrinated by when introduced to Evolution. So, Yes, I think it very dangerous that governments mandate that Evolution is taught at schools as the one true source of life. Something that has absolutely no scientific basis.
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@gorillaguerillaDK If you think that micro-evolution + time = macro-evolution, you do not understand how complex genes are. The likelihood of a single specific DNA gene to have been created by chance within the Universe over its lifespan is absurdly small. To then think that somehow, several finely-matched genes appear at the same time at the same place is absolutely impossible. If Macro Evolution without Divine intervention were a possibility, it would also be a viable strategy to build a house by putting all the rough components in a large pile, insert a measured amount of TNT, blow it up and presto, a house! We all know that is absurd. Then how come it is less absurd when it is about genes that are orders of magnitude more complex than a house. To realise the complexity of the genome, consider that something like 95% of the genome is absolutely the same for all people. That means that a single mutation in any of those genes will make the child nonviable. So much for natural selection: those essential genes had to come together all at once in perfect order at the same place at the same time for a viable child to come into being. Natural Selection can not do that. The only people who intuitively understand the complexity of DNA are Software Developers. Only they understand the difficulty of getting a software system up and running.
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While absolutely true, there are elements of Evolution that certainly do not have the status of Scientific Theory, i.e. the origin of the elements operating within a cell. In lieu of a Theory, this part of the narrative is always accompanied with a lot of hand-waving and, might I say it, magical thinking on the part of "scientists". Their reasoning goes: Cells exist, so they must have some origin. I don't know how, but it can not have been by God because I do not believe there is a God. So it must just have happened. The smarter ones exclude it formally from Evolution as being a separate area of Science. But it is a vital part of the Evolution Faith, as without this part it is impossible to use Evolution as a proof that God does not need to exist.
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@brucefrykman8295 this! As soon as "science" tries to explain the large mysteries like the creation of the Universe or the creation of Life, it falls flat on its face. "Science" without experiments is no science at all, and we are not going to experiment with the creation of the Universe anytime soon, nor with the creation of Life or Evolution...
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