14 replies to this topic

[friendly_atheist]

I was about to make a post the size of a whale, but I decided to get right down to the point. I kindly respect everyone's views about the origin of the universe. However, in this post, I postulate a question to the people who hold the opinion of divine creation i.e. that a god or god(s) miraculously created mankind in our current form a recent time ago. Here's my challenge to that:

GOOSE BUMPS

Goose bumps happens when you are sitting near the window and cool breeze comes in and your arms do these funny things: the look like bumps! Those are little muscles in at the base of every hair that contract whenever the nerves feel a cold temperature.

Evolution has the perfect explanation for goose bumps. Millions of years ago, our ape ancestors still had a lot of fur. When it got cold, the muscles would contract, making the fur erect. This would keep them warmer. However, later on in the evolutionary ladder, human beings lost the fur (that's why we're called the hairless apes). Although we lost the fur, we did NOT lose the muscles. That's why we have muscles there with no fur to contract. In biology, we have a name for these types of mutations: vestigial. Vestigial structures in a living organism body (such as ourselves) have little to no effect for the organism and have lost their function through evolutionary history (another example would be our appendix).

Anyway..from the perspective of the creationist, this would seem extremely bizarre. Why would Allah put muscles there but no fur to contract them? hmmm..? =O Did he put it there to test our faith in the quran?

OR MAYBE HE'S TRYING TO TELL US HOW HE DID IT!

So that's my question for creationists: why would Allah gives us muscles but no fur to contract them? And while you're at it, tell me why Allah put a useless appendix there?

I'd like to hear some peaceful responses.

Peace to all.

[Aussie]

Hi Friendly atheist,

I don't know much about anatomy but IMO you are not presenting you argument in a logical way.

You are presenting a problem on the topic of evolution and offering a hypothesis, not an answer and if not challenged by a better hypothesis then you are concluding that religion must be false.

It is like me saying: God created everything so that we can know Him. Therefore God created goosebumps. What does atheism tell us about the meaning of life?

I hope that makes sense. There are literally billions of unanswered questions that science cant answer.

Edited by Aussie, 15 April 2010 - 03:36 AM.

[friendly_atheist]

No i was just trying to put a dead end to creationists' arguments.

I presented the facts of goosebumps and evolution's flawless explanation for why they exist. I was trying to point out that if God had created hair muscles with no hair to actually erect, then it would strong evidence against creationism.

I'm just curious as to why religions just can't pause for one moment and think about the beauty of nature through the eyes of science and stop to wonder what an awesome god theirs would be had he made everything the way science tells us, and not some ancient book written by a bunch of dessert sheep herders.

Instead all we see is tribalism. The 'book' is more important than reality. That's religion's problem: the evil of dogma.

[Aussie]

There are plenty of Muslim scientist, biologists, researchers etc. One of my Shayukh has a background in entomology. Amoung his hobbies is walking throuhj the forests and admire the fauna and insects. There are lots of questions out there that science has not yet answers. Evolution itself is no more then a theory. It is kind of absurd to expect an adherent of a religion to automatically know the answer to every question.

Perhaps find an anatomy forum and see if there are any creationalists there who can answer your question.

[Machher]

Could a creationist not just say that the use for goosebumps at this point in time but in the future as science increases its understanding of the human body the reasons will become clear.

Such a thing has occured in the past where around 50 years ago scientists proposed humans maintained over 100 vestigal organs, unfortunately that number has reduced to only a handful and according to many scientists zero.

The vestigial organ argument assumes that there is absolutely no possible way for there to be alternative uses for the organ and it assumes we have perfect knowledge of the organ and science has reached its limit in understanding the skin.

[friendly_atheist]

so could you then explain to me why god put retracting muscles with no hair to retract? That's kind of like a country building an army, but not giving them weapons... see what i mean?

[Teckni]

Salam.

Or maybe it's cause Goosebumps and the appendix! are still useful!
All those muscles still create a considerable amount of heat when contracting, so yes, there still is a purpose to them. Hey, they may even be a purpose for them that we don't even know about.

And we are recently getting information that appendix is useful because it provides hormones in fetal development to train the immune system. Not only that, but it's also suggested that help harbor growth of helpful bacteria in our intestines.

[friendly_atheist]

I've given up on this argument. Creationists will just believe what they want to believe or what makes them feel comfortable, and their process, their thinking goes from irrational to just plain sad. So I don't bother with reason or evidence any more when it comes to evolution.

You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.

[Teckni]

I've given up on this argument. Creationists will just believe what they want to believe or what makes them feel comfortable, and their process, their thinking goes from irrational to just plain sad. So I don't bother with reason or evidence any more when it comes to evolution.

You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.

Resort to petty insults when beaten at your own game.

I can give you MULTIPLE links of these new findings and theories. But then again, Atheists just quit when we use their own precious science against them.

[friendly_atheist]

Resort to petty insults when beaten at your own game.

I can give you MULTIPLE links of these new findings and theories. But then again, Atheists just quit when we use their own precious science against them.

I always lose every debate before I even begin because I don't realize who I'm debating with. There's no point debating with religious people, they're never going to change their minds; they've been brainwashed as children. It's not an insult, it's a fact.

I could have presented my arguments and you could have presented your wonderful links and I'd be pleased to debate with you all month long, but I'd just be degrading my keyboard. Hence my quote:

"You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into". You weren't reasoned into Islam, you were brainwashed into it.

Also, that creeping doubt of yours will never go away.

[Teckni]

I always lose every debate before I even begin because I don't realize who I'm debating with. There's no point debating with religious people, they're never going to change their minds; they've been brainwashed as children. It's not an insult, it's a fact.

I could have presented my arguments and you could have presented your wonderful links and I'd be pleased to debate with you all month long, but I'd just be degrading my keyboard. Hence my quote:

"You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into". You weren't reasoned into Islam, you were brainwashed into it.

Also, that creeping doubt of yours will never go away.

If you have your mind absolutely set on Muslims, then why come? You come here, present your argument, we present ours, you says we aren't reasonable enough to debate with and act like you won.
I find this extremely stupid. I reasoned myself into Islam and so have the other millions of converts and non converts, unlike what you'd like to believe. It's obvious you show no effort to understand, so I suggest you just leave this forum and live on with your narrow minded life.

Salam.

[freedslave]

/ Greetings to All

I'll quote two excerpts here, one from Harun Yahya, and another from Answers in Genesis.

Yet another blow to the myth of vestigial organs

Darwinism considers all life on Earth as a product of chance mutations and natural selection and, as an a priori commitment, excludes intelligent design. In order to argue against design, the Darwinist mind seeks for flaws in the biological systems. From Darwin to Dawkins, over and over, this dogmatic stance has led the evolutionist to insist on the existence of imaginary flaws and "useless" vestigial organs in living systems. However, over and over, these bold claims by evolutionists turned out to be manifestations of ignorance. The allegedly vestigial organs were discovered to be performing very important functions and the whole "vestigial organ" argument turned out to be a fallacy.

The history of science documents a steady reduction in the number of the so-called vestigial organs. The allegedly non-functional organs, one by one, turned out to be organs whose functions had not yet been discovered. A list of vestigial organs that was made by the German Anatomist R. Wiedersheim in 1895 included approximately 100 structures, including the appendix and the coccyx. As science progressed, it was discovered that all of the organs in Wiedersheim's list in fact had very important functions. For instance, it was discovered that the appendix, which was supposed to be a "vestigial organ," was in fact a part of the lymphatic system. A medical publication notes in 1997 that "other bodily organs and tissues - the thymus, liver, spleen, appendix, bone marrow, and small collections of lymphatic tissue such as the tonsils in the throat and Peyer's patch in the small intestine - are also part of the lymphatic system. They too help the body fight infection." (1)

It was also discovered that the tonsils, which were also included in Wiedersheim's list of vestigial organs, had a significant role in protecting the throat against infections, particularly until adolescence. It was found that the coccyx at the lower end of the vertebral column supports the bones around the pelvis and is the convergence point of some small muscles and for this reason, it would not be possible to sit comfortably without a coccyx.

In the years that followed, it was realized that the thymus triggered the immune system in the human body by activating the T cells, that the pineal gland was in charge of the secretion of some important hormones, that the thyroid gland was effective in providing steady growth in babies and children, and that the pituitary gland controlled the correct functioning of many hormone glands. All of these were once considered to be "vestigial organs." Finally, the semi-lunar fold in the eye, which was referred to as a vestigial organ by Darwin, has been found in fact to be in charge of cleansing and lubricating the eye.

The steady reduction in the list of vestigial organs results from the fact that this is an argument from ignorance. Some wiser evolutionists also came to realize this fact. S.R. Scadding, an evolutionist himself, once wrote in his article "Can vestigial organs constitute evidence for evolution?" published in the journal Evolutionary Theory:

Since it is not possible to unambiguously identify useless structures, and since the structure of the argument used is not scientifically valid, I conclude that "vestigial organs" provide no special evidence for the theory of evolution.

(you are not allowed to post links yet)"you can't post links until you reach 50 posts_us1.harunyahya(contact admin if its a beneficial link)/Detail/T/EDCRFV/productId/2059/YET_ANOTHER_BLOW_TO_THE_MYTH_OF_VESTIGIAL_ORGANS"]Harun Yahya - An Invitation to the Truth[/url]

The classic definition of a vestigial organ is an organ or structure in an organism that is not functional, but is derived from an ancestor that had a use for that organ or structure. Creationists understand that there has been degeneration and mutation since the Fall. We also expect that there would be a significant loss of information for many genes. The loss of genes for organs that do not significantly impact survival in a negative way could be quite prevalent. Thus, for the creationist, there should be no problem with an organ or structure in man that has lost some functionality. However, another possibility is that we have just not determined or understood the function properly yet.

Creationists that I know do not deny that there are organs in man that have lost some of their functionality. However, they do reject the notion that those organs were inherited from a common ancestor with apes or other animals. Evolutionists typically point to these presumed non-functioning organs and insist that they are evidence that we evolved from a common ancestor with more primitive organisms. Just because humans have organs with reduced functionality does not really count as evidence of common ancestry. This is perhaps because God created Adam and Eve with those organs, but they have lost some functionality in their descendants.

.....

Goosebumps

The second vestigial organ on the New Scientist list of vestigial organs is goosebumps. In many animals, this reflex that causes hair to stand erect is used to generate warmth. It can also make the animal appear larger as happens when a cat’s fur stands on end when it is frightened. Goosebumps are a natural response to cold or high emotions. There is nothing really wrong or dysfunctional about the small erector pilli muscles that cause the bulge of skin as the hair stands erect.

The classification of goosebumps as a vestigial organ stems from a revised definition of vestigial. According to the New Scientist article, it is not necessary to be completely functionless. If an organ or response is reduced compared to its ancestral version or takes a slightly different form, it can be considered vestigial. Under the revised definition, because human hair is “puny” and the thermoregulatory impact reduced, goosebumps can be considered vestigial.

Once again, this example must assume that humans share a common ancestor with animals in order for goosebumps to be considered vestigial. In this case, there is no evidence that the goosebump response has been reduced from that of our human ancestors.

.....

At best, evidence of vestigial organs in man demonstrates deterioration and loss of information since the Fall. They are evolutionary relics of common ancestors with animals only if you begin with evolutionary presuppositions.

(you are not allowed to post links yet)"you can't post links until you reach 50 posts_you are not allowed to post links yetanswersingenesis(contact admin if its a beneficial link)/articles/aid/v3/n1/setting-record-straight-vestigial"]Answers in Genesis - Setting the Record Straight on Vestigial Organs[/url]

[friendly_atheist]

It somewhat saddens me when people like Answers in Genesis or Harun Yahya quote scientific papers to support their unscientific claims! They have done nothing to help such scientific studies and their thinking only blocks scientific progress. Do they not have any shame in what they're doing? Maybe your organization can start talking about vestigial organs and goosebumps when you start curing some diseases!

Don't pray in my schools and I won't think in your Masjids.

[Teckni]

Will you actually refute the arguments instead of yap about how we are all ludicrous?

Salam.

[friendly_atheist]

Will you actually refute the arguments instead of yap about how we are all ludicrous?

Salam.

Your creationist arguments have already been refuted years ago, just search the internet I won't bother typing. Harun Yahya is a proven liar, here ya go -----> ###### dot youtube dot com/watch?v=xn4ACWR0aag