 |
|
|
 |
Full Member
|
|
Jun 24, 2008, 11:15 AM
|
|
Please see post #236...
|
|
 |
Full Member
|
|
Jun 24, 2008, 12:58 PM
|
|
just like your hot air secular humanism religious beliefs are unsupported by objective evidence.
 Originally Posted by sassyT
I detect a lot of anger in your posts. Why are you getting angry and verbaly abusive? Just give the FACTS and we won't be able to refute it. But so far all you have been giving us is your theoretical and religious rantings filled with emotion and no factual material what so ever. ***sigh***
Facts please... :rolleyes:
Psychiatrists call that projection...
|
|
 |
Ultra Member
|
|
Jun 24, 2008, 03:11 PM
|
|
Firmbeliever,
Thanks for your support on this. I think we agree, yes?
 Originally Posted by firmbeliever
The belief in a Higher Almighty Power that created the whole universe and all that is beyond is not going to proved ever in a lab test like we could do with the materials of this universe.
I completely agree with this. That was my point. For some people the untestableness of faith is fine, a good thing. For others it is problematic.
All that exists in and around us are proof enough for me to believe in an Almighty and even if someone else thinks it is subjective it makes no difference to my beliefs because I believe them to be true.
Exactly.
And similarly, I can never know if there is a God and so I choose not to worry about it. I learned a new word recently--an apatheist (an apathetic atheist)--which I thought applies to me a little. It's not that I feel I don't know (making me an agnostic), so much as it doesn't really concern me. I don't care. The question is not something that affects my life in any meaningful way. But that's just me. I know that for others God is a deeply important way of understanding the world, and I respect that even though I don't share it.
What I want is for my lack of belief to be okay, not for people to assume I'm evil or not human, just because I wasn't rasied to believe in God--something I am basically incapable of doing. I tried when I was young and could not summon any belief. I want believers to appreciate that I have similar feelings--a sense of wonder and awe, for example--which I just don't happen to attribute to the same source.
Over the years, I have tried to see how religious feeling and insight overlap with my own ways of understanding and appreciating the world. I loved the film Jesus Camp. I know it depicts a very specific kind of religious expression, but I think it also about passion generally, something shared by all of us. Did I agree with what they were teaching their children? Definitely not all of it. I even found some of it scary. But I felt I understood the intensity of the belief and devotion to an ideal. I didn't see the people depicted in it as "other" -- that is, different from me, even though they might see me as damned and bad, which makes me sad.
Asking
|
|
 |
Full Member
|
|
Jun 24, 2008, 05:12 PM
|
|
 Originally Posted by asking
Creationism and intelligent design are not science. There is no scientific evidence FOR them--it's all about faith, to which I'm not opposed in principle. It's just nothing to do with science.
Tuscany's assertion that the conflict between evolution and Creationism is all a matter of opinion and both sides have equally valid or invalid arguments is simply wrong. The two sides both have valid arguments, but they are based on completely different assumptions. We are comparing apples and oranges. One side draws conclusions from physical evidence; one from religious insight and faith. There is no way to reconcile these two modes of thought, although small numbers of biologists, mostly molecular biologists, do manage to compartmentalize religion and science. Most biologists are quite secular--much more so than in other scientific fields. A sound understanding of biology doesn't tend to support religious ideas...a sad fact if you believe that religion has the answers to life's problems.
BRAVO!
|
|
 |
Pets Expert
|
|
Jun 24, 2008, 05:54 PM
|
|
 Originally Posted by sassyT
I detect a lot of anger in your posts. Why are you getting angry and verbaly abusive? just give the FACTS and we wont be able to refute it. But so far all you have been giving us is your theoretical and religious rantings filled with emotion and no factual material what so ever. ***sigh***
Facts please... :rolleyes:
He gets angry because he can't back up his opinions the way others can. He loves being the antagonist in all threads he joins. He loves picking a fight, then gets angry when he can't back up his point of view, that's his bread and butter, what makes him tick, just like any other bully out there.
Sassy, trust me on this, you can't win, even with all the evidence in the world. He doesn't believe in God because he thinks he is a God, but that's just my opinion.;)
Just watch, he will come back and call me silly, or moronic, look through my post and point out the spelling errors, the grammar, the sentence structure, simply because he can't dispute what I say. Let it go, walk away, you can't win, because bullies don't give up.
Just a bit of advice from someone who's butted heads with him before, and apparently will again.
|
|
 |
Ultra Member
|
|
Jun 24, 2008, 06:57 PM
|
|
 Originally Posted by sassyT
Evoltion is admittedly unobservable, lacking fossil evidence, dependent upon scientific consensus, and essentially a belief system about past life on Earth.
Here are 12 quotes from some leading evolutionists ("real" scientific source :rolleyes:) about the insurmountable flaws of their theory. Happy reading :)
http://www.creationism.org/articles/quotes.htm
The evidence is so flawed and lacking and yet you believe it so zealously. You are a true man of Great FAITH credo.. i really admire that.
Dear Sassy,
Only one source of these quotes is from a practicing evolutionary biologist. The others are from people outside the field or on its margins or making some other argument. Some of the quotes are quite old. Many are taken out of context. Fred Hoyle the astronomer, who has been dead for a very long time, knew nothing about biology. This is like citing the Pope as an authority on the local building code, or quoting a biologist on scripture.
The Gould quotes are clearly taken out of context. He was making a case for his particular theory of evolution--punctuated equilibrium--not arguing against evolution generally. Gould was a known popularizer and grand stander, quite capable of slopping arguments to make a rhetorical point, which I can assure you he did in his books. He was a persuasive writer to many people, but not a careful one. And you certainly would not liked anything else he had to say about evolution, which was basically his only topic for 50 years of writing. He has written countless books and papers on evolution. He obviously accepted it not merely as fact, but as the most interesting fact in his life.
The quotes about the fossil record specific to humans by anthropologists are complaining in tone, but do not mean we didn't evolve, just that these guys wish they had more fossils to work with, and indeed in the last 20 years, a lot more fossils have been found. But a relative paucity of hominin fossils in sub Sahara Africa 20 years ago does not remotely translate into a general lack of fossils in the fossil record regarding animals in general, not to mention plants and other organisms. Not at all! The record on horses and whales for example is superb. And for marine snails!
To sum up, these quotes don't remotely represent the consensus view of the evidence for evolution among practicing biologists any time in the last 50 years. These quotes were cherry picked to make it appear that biologists think something they don't. Biologist do know that species have been changing and diversifying for more than 3.8 billion years. As the famous geneticist Dobzhansky said, "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution." Evolution is very much science. It is what makes life tick, and a discussion of its details would belong in the science section as much as would ecology or physiology. None of the hundreds of thousands of biologists in the world would agree with your contention that evolution is not science.
I have been thinking and writing about biology and particularly evolution and ecology for much of my life. I have undergraduate and graduate degrees in biology from first class universities. In the 70s and 80s, I studied evolution under several of the best evolutionary biologists around, and all I can tell you is that you are mistaken in insisting that the evidence I've summarized elsewhere does not exist. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. So I can tell you about things, but I cannot make you see or believe what you don't wish to. I accept that and admire your spunk. But I cannot stay silent when you say things that are not true.
The evidence for evolution is fabulous; it is one of the best supported theories, and one of the most amazing and powerfully explanatory theories in all of science. It is on a par with Newton's laws of motion.
|
|
 |
Expert
|
|
Jun 24, 2008, 07:00 PM
|
|
Big difference between law and theory and no evolution is not even near the level of Newtons loaws of motion, that is just beyond words that anyone could even consider that.
|
|
 |
Ultra Member
|
|
Jun 24, 2008, 07:12 PM
|
|
 Originally Posted by Fr_Chuck
Big difference between law and theory and no evolution is not even near the level of Newtons loaws of motion, that is just beyond words that anyone could even consider that.
Unless one is a biologist who actually knows the evidence for evolution. In which case, it's of course perfectly accurate and well put, if I do say so. :)
If you are outside of science looking in and listening to folks like Sassy, who contradict basically every known fact that you'd find in a college biology book, then I can understand why you'd think there was some doubt about basic biology and evolution in particular. But the reality is that biology is a solid field of science. The theory of how the immune system works is more controversial than evolutionary biology. Modern physics--especially the structure of the universe--is 100 times as controversial as evolution, at least! String theory is controversial. Where and what is the dark matter? The universe is not infinite. Those are controversial scientific ideas. (Actually, I guess the idea that the universe has definite boundaries isn't controversial either, but string theory is.) But within BIOLOGY, evolution is not controversial. And the opinions of people who have never studied biology seriously, to be frank, don't count, not any more than an electrician's opinion of how to transplant a heart. An astronomer's opinion on evolution doesn't really mean anything, nor a chemists, nor an engineer's. If people don't know anything about a field, they aren't in a position to say it's wrong.
|
|
 |
Full Member
|
|
Jun 24, 2008, 07:27 PM
|
|
 Originally Posted by sassyT
I was going to post my own counter to these - many are obviously misquotes or so taken out of context to be the equivalent. But while I was looking up a couple of those cited I found that someone has already done the work. For anyone who bothered to read SassyT's Discover Institute distortion file, here's a quote-by-quote analysis of the fraud: Misquoting Evolution | Rob Lowe
BTW: here's a blurb for another of photojournalist Reader's books:
Africa: A Biography of the Continent
By John Reader
"The ancestors of all humanity evolved in Africa," notes photo-journalist John Reader at the beginning of this epic, panoramic overview of African history. From the formation of the continent to the present, Reader's informative narrative tells the story of the earliest dwellers and the natural obstacles of desert, jungle, and animals they faced, expertly entwining the development of humanity with the ecological and geographical evolution of the continent.
[emphasis added]
|
|
 |
Ultra Member
|
|
Jun 24, 2008, 11:54 PM
|
|
 Originally Posted by WVHiflyer
Thanks, WVHiflyer! These rebuttals are good, especially to have all in one place. But I actually think we could improve on them. For example the guy from the atomic energy commission devoted his life to things like inventing new ways to slice microscopic organisms and x raying sperm to see what happened to them. He was never a "leading evolutionist," or even a biologist of any importance. Unclear why we should care what he was spouting off about to some small town reporter in 1959. How do we even know the reporter got it right? The Fresno Bee is hardly a reliable source of scientific information. (Fresno is, and was in 1959, the raisin capital of California, for those who don't know Fresno.)
And of the bizarre quote from Grassé: Wikipedia says Grassé believed that species evolved by means of internal forces, not natural selection. That is, his objections to natural selection were because he was a follower of the French biologist Lamarck. Grassé was not a creationist, just a mistaken scientist. Modern molecular biology has shown over and over that organisms that are closely related by other measures--for example humans and chimpanzees have more similar DNA than two organisms that are obviously unrelated, such as humans and rabbits. Many distinct mutations separate the DNA of humans and rabbits, far more than separate humans and chimpanzees. And that's just one of hundreds of similar examples. Grasse was just wrong. Mistaken scientists are just that, mistaken. They are not evidence for Creationism.
|
|
 |
Ultra Member
|
|
Jun 24, 2008, 11:56 PM
|
|
 Originally Posted by WVHiflyer
Thanks, WVHiflyer! These rebuttals are good, especially to have all in one place. But I actually think we could improve on them. For example the guy from the atomic energy commission devoted his life to things like inventing new ways to slice microscopic organisms and x raying sperm to see what happened to them. He was never a "leading evolutionist," or even a biologist of any importance. Unclear why we should care what he was spouting off about to some small town reporter in 1959. How do we even know the reporter got it right? The Fresno Bee is hardly a reliable source of scientific information. (Fresno is, and was in 1959, the raisin capital of California, for those who don't know Fresno.)
And of the bizarre quote from Grassé: Wikipedia says Grassé believed that species evolved by means of internal forces, not natural selection. That is, his objections to natural selection were because he was a follower of the French biologist Lamarck. Grassé was not a creationist, just a mistaken scientist. Modern molecular biology has shown over and over that organisms that are closely related by other measures--for example humans and chimpanzees have more similar DNA than two organisms that are obviously unrelated, such as humans and rabbits. Many distinct mutations separate the DNA of humans and rabbits, far more than separate humans and chimpanzees. And that's just one of hundreds of similar examples. Grasse was just wrong. Mistaken scientists are just that, mistaken. They are not evidence for Creationism.
|
|
 |
Junior Member
|
|
Jun 25, 2008, 10:04 AM
|
|
[QUOTE]
 Originally Posted by asking
Dear Sassy,
Only one source of these quotes is from a practicing evolutionary biologist. The others are from people outside the field or on its margins or making some other argument. Some of the quotes are quite old. Many are taken out of context. Fred Hoyle the astronomer, who has been dead for a very long time, knew nothing about biology. This is like citing the Pope as an authority on the local building code, or quoting a biologist on scripture.
The purpose of the quotes is merely illustrate what other intelligent people and scientists a have said about evolution. One does not need to be a practiciing Dawinists to comment on the unliklyhood of the wild claims made by the theory of evolution. Not all Scientists believe in evolution so why should I just quote Dawinists?
The Gould quotes are clearly taken out of context. He was making a case for his particular theory of evolution--punctuated equilibrium--not arguing against evolution generally. Gould was a known popularizer and grand stander, quite capable of slopping arguments to make a rhetorical point, which I can assure you he did in his books. He was a persuasive writer to many people, but not a careful one. And you certainly would not liked anything else he had to say about evolution, which was basically his only topic for 50 years of writing. He has written countless books and papers on evolution. He obviously accepted it not merely as fact, but as the most interesting fact in his life.
"The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions in organic design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of evolution." Gould
He also said "The fossil record with its abrupt transitions offers no support for gradual change."
This sums up evidence for the theory.
I know gould was not arguing against evolution (because he is a great believer in Dawinism) he was just admitting to the obvious lack of fossil evidence to set a platform for his punctuated equilibrium theory. Since you believe there is fossil evidence, why then do you think stephen gould had to come up with the punctuated equilibriam theory?
Fossil gaps between families and the higher classifications are both so large and so persistent that Gould had to even invented a theory to explain them away. How convenient, don't you think?
The punctuated theory is that change in animals in the past was so quick that it left no record of its happening. This truly is the perfect theory; the proof of its happening is that there is no evidence of its ever having happened.
The more that these Dawinists find no fossil evidence of change ever having happened, the stronger their punctuated equilibrium theory gets. There is a real Alice in Wonderland logic to it all
The quotes about the fossil record specific to humans by anthropologists are complaining in tone, but do not mean we didn't evolve, just that these guys wish they had more fossils to work with, and indeed in the last 20 years, a lot more fossils have been found.
Like I said before, I am not claiming these people are refuting evolution, I am just showing that they do actually admit to the lack of fossil evidence. What fossils have been found in the last 20years that are conclusiveley "transistional fossils"? If you are talking about the likes of Tiktaalik and Archaeopteryx don't even hold your breath because Dawinsist have not been able to distinguish between transitional creatures and extinct side lineages.
But a relative paucity of hominin fossils in sub Sahara Africa 20 years ago does not remotely translate into a general lack of fossils in the fossil record regarding animals in general, not to mention plants and other organisms. Not at all! The record on horses and whales for example is superb. And for marine snails!
Like I said above those so called transitional fossils are only transitional if you assume evolution is true however Dawinist have not been able to prove or distinguish whether the fossils is a transitional ancestor or if it is just an extinct side lineage.
To sum up, these quotes don't remotely represent the consensus view of the evidence for evolution among practicing biologists any time in the last 50 years. These quotes were cherry picked to make it appear that biologists think something they don't. Biologist do know that species have been changing and diversifying for more than 3.8 billion years
Dawinists do not KNOW that species have been changing to form an interely new species never seen before. This is an unproven assumption made by believers in Dawinism. No one has observed this first hand niether has anyone observed this in the fossil record.
|
|
 |
Junior Member
|
|
Jun 25, 2008, 10:26 AM
|
|
[[QUOTE]QUOTE]
 Originally Posted by asking
If you are outside of science looking in and listening to folks like Sassy, who contradict basically every known fact that you'd find in a college biology book
That is because I do not accept unproven theories with very weak and inconclusive evidence as facts.
But the reality is that biology is a solid field of science.
Again the theory of evolution is not Science/Biology. It is a theory on originis that employs science as a basis for the theory. The essence of the scientific method is measurement, observation and repeatability. Neither Creation nor Evolution are scientific in this sense. Neither one can be tested, for the simple reason that we cannot repeat history. The origin of the universe, life and mankind all took place in the past and cannot be studied or repeated in the laboratory. No one, in all human history has ever observed macro evolution taking place anywhere not even in the fossil record. So why should I believe something as truth just because a school text books says it MAY have happened and there is barely any proof for it?
I have no problem with believing in Biological facts that I can observe myself to verify, but history is not science.
|
|
 |
Ultra Member
|
|
Jun 25, 2008, 10:57 AM
|
|
[QUOTE=sassyT]
The purpose of the quotes is merely illustrate what other intelligent people and scientists a have said about evolution. One does not need to be a practiciing Dawinists to comment on the unliklyhood of the wild claims made by the theory of evolution. Not all Scientists believe in evolution so why should I just quote Dawinists?
You stated they were "leading evolutionists." They are not. You mislead readers here.
And no, a non expert has nothing substantive to contribute to a discussion of a technical field, which evolutionary biology is. It's fine for party conversation. People can say whatever they like to amuse themselves. But, as I've said, an astronomer or lawyer has no more expertise in biology than a garbage man. Intelligence isn't the issue. It's knowledge.
I know gould was not arguing against evolution (because he is a great believer in Dawinism) he was just admitting to the obvious lack of fossil evidence to set a platform for his punctuated equilibrium theory. Since you believe there is fossil evidence, why then do you think stephen gould had to come up with the punctuated equilibriam theory?
He didn't come up with this theory. Ernst Mayr described in the idea in his 1940s textbook of evolutionary biology. Gould and Eldridge gave it a fancy name and reintroduced it. Rapid evolution (in small, isolated populations) is perfectly consistent with everything we know about biology and evolution. Gould liked the idea because it accounted for the absence of transition fossils IN SOME LINEAGES. Since he was a paleontologist and the up and coming geneticists and molecular biologists were putting down paleontology as old fashioned when he was a young student, he had an axe to grind, wanted to defend his field. ( It's all very childish.) But simple bad luck also accounts for the few missing pieces. There isn't going to be a fossil for everything. What's important is that the overall pattern of the fossil record--millions of individual fossils--is incontrovertible.
Gould wasn't "admitting" anything. He was saying that missing fossils IN SOME LINEAGES isn't an accident, but the result of rapid evolution. How does that in anyway support Creationism? It doesn't. You are seizing on a relatively trivial argument among biologists about the timing of evolution (many biologists rejected rapid evolution in the 40s-70s for some very bad reasons, more political than scientific, but have since realized that evolution can occur very rapidly--in just a few decades, never mind the 10,000 years that Gould was talking about)
Fossil gaps between families and the higher classifications are both so large and so persistent that Gould had to even invented a theory to explain them away. How convenient, don't you think?
This makes no sense. What are "fossil gaps between families and higher taxa"? Are you expecting to find animals that are half lion and half fish? That's not how evolution works... There never was any such creature, so of course there's no fossil of it.
The punctuated theory is that change in animals in the past was so quick that it left no record of its happening. This truly is the perfect theory; the proof of its happening is that there is no evidence of its ever having happened.
There would, in principle, be no FOSSIL evidence in such cases. But there can be plenty of morphological, developmental, genetic, and biogeographical evidence. EACH of these lines of evidence provides independent confirmation of the same pattern of descent--similar to learning who your grandparents, aunts and uncles were. As I'm sure you know, the molecular evidence showing common genes and proteins in related organisms, such as dogs and wolves, is extraordinarily consistent. You can map relatedness just by looking at modern gene families. You don't need the fossil record to establish that we evolved from common ancestors. But you have the fossil record too, and any challenge to evolution must first account for the fossil record, which is like a written history of life on Earth. Yes, a few pages are missing, but that hardly makes it meaningless.
The more that these Dawinists find no fossil evidence of change ever having happened, the stronger their punctuated equilibrium theory gets. There is a real Alice in Wonderland logic to it all
Your contention that Darwinists "find no fossil evidence" is simply wrong. You are talking about some frustrated biologists not having yet found fossils for some specific transitions, not a lack of fossils generally. Your contention is like looking at stamp collectors, finding that several complain that they cannot find a 1914 Belgian stamp they'd really like and arguing, first that the stamp never existed and second that stamps themselves tell us nothing about history, art, post offices, politics, and all the other information that can be gleaned from old stamps. The inability of a few people to locate specific stamps or fossils says nothing about the overall historical pattern of millions of stamps or fossils.
Like I said before, I am not claiming these people are refuting evolution, I am just showing that they do actually admit to the lack of fossil evidence.
They complain about a few missing puzzle pieces. There is no generalized lack of fossil evidence for evolution, just some missing pieces in specific groups of organisms. Are you proposing that some organisms evolved --where there's great fossil evidence--but that other organisms were specially created by God, but only where the fossils are missing? Is that your point?
What fossils have been found in the last 20years that are conclusiveley "transistional fossils"? If you are talking about the likes of Tiktaalik and Archaeopteryx don't even hold your breath because Dawinsist have not been able to distinguish between transitional creatures and extinct side lineages.
This is gibberish. I'm sorry. It's wrong at so many levels, I don't know where to begin with you and have to go work! Hopefully someone else can step in here and describe some fraction of the results of the last 20 years of anthropolgical research... It would take a book to cover it all.
Dawinist have not been able to prove or distinguish whether the fossils is a transitional ancestor or if it is just an extinct side lineage.
Oh, that's actually an interesting point. In some cases, that's true. But it doesn't in any way undermine the theory of evolution generally. Is this individual a direct ancestor--a grandfather or grandmother--or is it an uncle or aunt? The fossil is a relative, but the small scale details aren't always clear. The problem provides zero support for special creation, however.
Sassy, now it's your turn. Give me a coherent account of special creation that accounts for all the evidence we've discussed. What do YOU think happened? Why do older rocks contain simple fossils and newer rocks contain both simple forms and more complex ones like dinosaurs and mammals? Why do whole lineages go extinct, to be replaced by entirely new sets of organisms 5 million years later? Why would a God create such complex and consistent patterns that resemble evolution but are not? It's your turn to answer some questions.
Asking
|
|
 |
Junior Member
|
|
Jun 25, 2008, 11:23 AM
|
|
[QUOTE]
 Originally Posted by WVHiflyer
I was going to post my own counter to these - many are obviously misquotes or so taken out of context to be the equivalent. But while I was looking up a couple of those cited I found that someone has already done the work. For anyone who bothered to read SassyT's Discover Institute distortion file, here's a quote-by-quote analysis of the fraud: Misquoting Evolution | Rob Lowe
I think what you are miss understanding is that you think I am saying these people I quoted refute Evo but that is not the case. What I am trying to point out is the fact that these people (like Gould) subscibe to the theory of Evolution and yet they ADMITT to the lack of fossil evidence.
Gould said "The fossil record with its abrupt transitions offers no support for gradual change."
This is a factual statement he made so no matter what the context was, the above statement he made (among many) is the reality of the matter.
BTW: here's a blurb for another of photojournalist Reader's books:
Africa: A Biography of the Continent
By John Reader
"The ancestors of all humanity evolved in Africa," notes photo-journalist John Reader at the beginning of this epic, panoramic overview of African history.
So the evolutionary myth goes... I am yet to see any conclusive evidence for this.
|
|
 |
Junior Member
|
|
Jun 25, 2008, 01:27 PM
|
|
This is interesting... The British Museum of Natural History boasts the largest collection of fossils in the world. Among the five respected museum officials, Sunderland interviewed Dr. Colin Patterson, Senior Paleontologist at the British Museum and editor of a prestigious scientific journal. Patterson is a well known expert having an intimate knowledge of the fossil record. He was unable to give a single example of Macro-Evolutionary transition. In fact, Patterson wrote a book for the British Museum of Natural History entitled, "Evolution". When asked why he had not included a single photograph of a transitional fossil in his book, Patterson responded:
...I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them. You suggest that an artist should be used to visualize such transformations, but where would he get the information from? I could not, honestly, provide it, and if I were to leave it to artistic license, would that not mislead the reader? I wrote the text of my book four years ago. If I were to write it now, I think the book would be rather different. Gradualism is a concept I believe in, not just because of Darwin's authority, but because my understanding of genetics seems to demand it. Yet Gould and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional fossils. As a paleontologist myself, I am much occupied with the philosophical problems of identifying ancestral forms in the fossil record. You say that I should at least "show a photo of the fossil from which each type of organism was derived." I will lay it on the line - there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument.
OK, I just wanted to complete that loop. I haven't found even one transitional fossil. Therefore, based on Darwin's own words, his original theory of macro-evolutionary progression didn't happen. Paleontology was a brand new scientific discipline in the mid-1800's, and now, roughly 150 years later, we know that the fossil record doesn't provide the support Darwin himself required.
|
|
 |
Junior Member
|
|
Jun 25, 2008, 02:50 PM
|
|
 Originally Posted by asking
He didn't come up with this theory. Ernst Mayr described in the idea in his 1940s textbook of evolutionary biology. Gould and Eldridge gave it a fancy name and reintroduced it. Rapid evolution (in small, isolated populations)... ( It's all very childish.) But simple bad luck also accounts for the few missing pieces. There isn't going to be a fossil for everything. What's important is that the overall pattern of the fossil record--millions of individual fossils--is incontrovertible.
Look Asking i don’t care who came up with the theory but the bottom line is the fossil evidence was abrupt and offers no support for gradual transition and therefore Darwinists had to come up with a reason for it. Conveniently the punctuated equi theory was created to counter the poor fossil record and as far as "bad luck" goes, that’s just a lame excuse for the non existence of conclusive fossil record.
Gould wasn't "admitting" anything. He was saying that missing fossils IN SOME LINEAGES isn't an accident, but the result of rapid evolution. How does that in anyway support Creationism? It doesn't.
No, what he was trying to do was make an excuse for the "missing link". Fossil record actually supports creation because all fossils appear abruptly & fully formed in strata and show no evidence of ancestry. Sequences of transitional fossils do not show direct ancestry. For example, with the fossil whale transition, which evolutionists consider as good a series of transitional fossils as one could hope to find, the fossils show extinct side lineages at best. Even if we had a fossil of every individual in the lineage, we could not verify direct ancestry. Fossils cannot show evidence of descent with modification even in principle.
All the different, basic kinds of animals appear abruptly and fully functional in the strata so do Plants. Evolutionist Edred J.H. Corner said "… I still think that to the unprejudiced, the fossil record of plants is in favor of special creation." (Evolution in Contemporary Thought, 1961, p.97) Scientists have been unable to find an Evolutionary history for even one group of modern plants.
There would, in principle, be no FOSSIL evidence in such cases. But there can be plenty of morphological, developmental, genetic, and biogeographical evidence. EACH of these lines of evidence provides independent confirmation of the same pattern of descent--similar to learning who your grandparents, aunts and uncles were. As I'm sure you know, the molecular evidence showing common genes and proteins in related organisms, such as dogs and wolves, is extraordinarily consistent. You can map relatedness just by looking at modern gene families. You don't need the fossil record to establish that we evolved from common ancestors. But you have the fossil record too, and any challenge to evolution must first account for the fossil record, which is like a written history of life on Earth. Yes, a few pages are missing, but that hardly makes it meaningless.
Just because i find a fossil in my back yard and claim it is a transition from a fish to a crocodile does not automatically mean i should be believed. I have to prove it. Evolutionist have had difficulty distinguishing a transitional fossil and an extinct anilamal. So, as far as i am concerned if you believe in evolution you will conclude that a fossil like Tiktaalik is a "transitional fossil" but how do you prove that it is not just an extinct species of a lobe fin fish?
First of all there are a lot of fish—both living and fossilized. Approximately 25,000 species of currently living fish have been identified, with 200–300 new species being discovered—not evolved—every year. Many living fish are air-breathers and “walkers” air-breathing fish are not uncommon among living fish species. For example, many popular aquarium fish are surface air-breathers that can actually drown if kept under water! So Tiktaalik could easily belongs to a group of fish called lobe-fin fish. Tiktaalik is not unique in having these bones because other lobe-fish, such as “coelacanth” fish, also have them. Evolutionists said the lobe-fin fish became extinct millions of years ago until it was discovered in the waters of Madagascar.
Thus all the claims about Tiktaalik, like all other so called transitional, are mere smokescreens, exaggerating mere tinkering around the edges while huge gaps remain unbridged by evolution
Molecular biology... lol evolution falls dismally on this front.
The hidden truth that evolutionists have seldom openly acknowledged is that mutations are genetic mistakes that fail to provide a logical answer to the question as to what fuels the evolutionary development. In fact mutations can not possibly explain the biological diversity in our world. The problem is simply that mutation by definition are rare errors in a the copying of the genetic code. They are genetic mistakes and as a result are almost always negative or neutral in their effect. Evolutionist do admit to this fundamental flaw in their theory but it is never publicized.
As Molecular genetics professor Michael Danton wrote in is book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, many world class biologists never fully accepted the validity of Dawins theory. This is because its claims to explain biological diversity were clearly contradicted by the enormous complexity and ingenuity they discovered in their own research. Now most evolutionists believe in the theory despite the lack of evidence because the alternative( creation) is unacceptable.
Francis Hitching wrote The Neck of the Giraffe: where Darwin went Wrong, which documented that many evolutionary scientists concluded the theory of evo was incompatible their new knowledge of DNA and genetic complexity Hictching said
" computer scientist especially were baffled as to random mutations could possibly enrich the library of genetic information. A mutation they repeatedly pointed out is a mistake- the equivalent of a copying error. And how could mistakes build up into a new body of complicated ordered information."
Scientists have never observed a single mutation in the laboratory in nature that adds information to an organism. Coping errors through mutation cannot possibly add new information as the theory of evolution demands.
The fact it that the theory depends entirely upon the unobserved and unproven assumption that random mutations over long periods will result in beneficial improvements in a species via added information that will be carried into future generations because they provide an enhanced opportunity for "survival of the fittest" However scientific research contradicts this underlying assumption of evolution that accidental mutations could ever produce improvements in a species, let alone a transformation to an entirely new species.
|
|
 |
-
|
|
Jun 25, 2008, 06:24 PM
|
|
The problem with people who BELIEVE in a supra-natural entity (having the powers to create the universe and everything in it ) is that they never have provided - or even will ever be capable of providing - any objective supported evidence for their claims.
And as they also realize that they can not provide any such support, all that is left to them is either peacefully just keep believing in their beliefs themselves and leave it with that, or aggressively contradict and deny any other possible alternative scenario, even if that is covered by lot's of support or not.
sassyT and her approach is a perfect example of that. Asked for her objective supporting evidence for what she BELIEVES to be "true" she does not - can not - provide any support for that, so she attacks other world views.
She demands proof for instance for a scientific theory as Evolution, every time suggesting that Evolution is completely incorrect. Even if there is freely loads of back-up support available for anyone who wants to see that.
Than she introduces straw man arguments by focusing on small sections of the theory that are not or poorly supported, and attacks them as being invalid. Time dating is a perfect example of that approach. In her belief all history has to fit into an approx 6000 year period , claimed by religious fanatics to be the age of the earth and the entire universe.
She knows her claims are invalid. She also knows that nobody claims evolution to be a fact : nobody ever did.
All that is stated is that Evolution explains the major lines of the development process from the first living cell to everything that is living today. A process backed up with lot's of supported evidence. Not 100% full coverage, as that is impossible. It is already remarkable that fossils many millions of years old have been found and identified. And that earth layers are found that back up and confirm what other theories say has happened on earth hundreds of millions of years ago.
The same goes for a scientific thesis like the "Big Bang", also supported by loads of inter- and cross- linking evidence from many different sources.
In both examples the claim itself is just denied by her and her peers, and the focus is put on what support is not available, and not on what is available.
As per many previous posts : it is my opinion that everyone should be allowed to believe whatever he/she wants to believe. No problem.
I wonder however why people like sassyT refuse that same tolerance into the direction of those who do not believe in her deity/deities and who pursue different ways to search and explain for what happened and how that happened without any need for such deity/deities, and who over the last hundreds of years have produced (partly) objective supporting evidence for many scientific theory and thesis.
:rolleyes:
·
|
|
 |
Ultra Member
|
|
Jun 26, 2008, 07:54 AM
|
|
A nice summing up, Cred.
Asking
|
|
 |
Ultra Member
|
|
Jun 26, 2008, 09:29 AM
|
|
 Originally Posted by Credendovidis
As per many previous posts : it is my opinion that everyone should be allowed to believe whatever he/she wants to believe. No problem.
I wonder however why people like sassyT refuse that same tolerance into the direction of those who do not believe in her deity/deities and who pursue different ways to search and explain for what happened and how that happened without any need for such deity/deities, and who over the last hundreds of years have produced (partly) objective supporting evidence for many scientific theory and thesis.
:rolleyes:
·
Well said. I would just like to add that just because someone believes something different then you that does not make their views wrong. Just different. There is nothing wrong with differences of opinions, but a truly compassionate person does not judge harshly those people whose views are different from their own.
|
|
Question Tools |
Search this Question |
|
|
Check out some similar questions!
Supporting wall
[ 3 Answers ]
Hi guys I live in Manchester,UK n want to knock down a wall to create an open plan kitchen/dining but hoe do I know if it's a supporting wall?
Supporting the Troops
[ 4 Answers ]
Someone sent this to me - and I was asked to share. Sharing with all of you, seems to be the best place :D
Hope you don't mind me sharing. This applies to all Troops, American and those brave troops from all over the world, who stand by our side. This clip was received with the following...
Supporting the terminally ill
[ 3 Answers ]
What is the best way to support someone who is terminally ill and extreemly depressed about it. He speaks of suicide and is saying his good-byes to everyone. Should I go visit or just make myself available?
How can I tell if it's a supporting wall?
[ 3 Answers ]
Hi
I would like to remove a wall between my living room and a rather arkwardly shaped hallway. Our house is just over 100 years old. The floor board upstairs do run the same way as the wall (north to south) but the wall runs for just less than half the house (there is no beam continuing from...
Is it a supporting wall?
[ 2 Answers ]
Hi.
I would like to remove a cupboard in my kitchen but am not sure if it is safe to do so. I live on the middle floor in a block of three. The cupboard is in the corner of the room and is brick. The floors are concrete. How do I tell if this is a supporting wall? I only wonder because a plumber...
View more questions
Search
|