tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post832637869335324740..comments2024-03-25T17:35:02.238-04:00Comments on Debunking Christianity: DC Evolution SmackdownUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger130125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-43761411892185665262008-04-13T17:08:00.000-04:002008-04-13T17:08:00.000-04:00The Grand Canyon is really old.http://www.scienced...The Grand Canyon is really old.<BR/><BR/>http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080410140455.htmAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03469718358131331499noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-6854452430875772462008-03-22T02:17:00.000-04:002008-03-22T02:17:00.000-04:00Shygetz "Squid coloration language" & "Animals can...<B>Shygetz</B> <I>"Squid coloration language"</I> & <I>"Animals can and do use language, just not as well as us."</I><BR/>I don't know how much research has been done on squidspeak, but we do know that they're smart, they remember, and their communication of shifting patterns of both colour and texture (how cool is that?) is remarkably complex, even among the dopey cuttlefish (all they can say is "Ooo! I can hover!"). The main problem with squid, as I see it, is that they don't have much to talk about ("It sure is a hot one, today.", "Yup, but it's a moist heat.", "...So, are you gonna finish that clam?" "I reckon I will." "You still livin' in that crevice under the rock?" "Naw, I moved out to the crevice under the other rock").<BR/><BR/>Evan: I try to make up for both my vastly incomplete knowledge and general inability to adequately explain things, stuff, and whatnot by being at least vaguely entertaining. Plus, I'm adorable!.Modusoperandihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04213914791604385761noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-46166628644821000072008-03-21T01:52:00.000-04:002008-03-21T01:52:00.000-04:00Two things.First: Modus I have finished cleaning o...Two things.<BR/><BR/>First: Modus I have finished cleaning off my screen from my spit take on the Fawlty Towers reference but you are the cat's pajamas. /bow<BR/><BR/>Second: DSHB you repeat this canard:<BR/><BR/><I>Has ANY biological, matter ever come out of material, non living matter??? That's the question fro evolution to answer and PROVE...YOU CAN'T!</I><BR/><BR/>Yet it seems like you didn't read Shygetz' post at all.<BR/><BR/>He informs you that non-live chemicals have been used to make a viable virus. He gave you the reference, but you probably didn't want to look it up.<BR/><BR/>Here's the abstract:<BR/><BR/><B>Full-length poliovirus complementary DNA (cDNA) was synthesized by assembling oligonucleotides of plus and minus strand polarity. The synthetic poliovirus cDNA was transcribed by RNA polymerase into viral RNA, which translated and replicated in a cell-free extract, resulting in the de novo synthesis of infectious poliovirus. Experiments in tissue culture using neutralizing antibodies and CD155 receptor-specific antibodies and neurovirulence tests in CD155 transgenic mice confirmed that the synthetic virus had biochemical and pathogenic characteristics of poliovirus. <I>Our results show that it is possible to synthesize an infectious agent by in vitro chemical-biochemical means solely by following instructions from a written sequence.</I></B><BR/><BR/>I know that the Discovery Institute is probably eagerly trying to replicate <A HREF="http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/297/5583/1016" REL="nofollow">this experiment</A> but I haven't seen them publish anywhere.<BR/><BR/>Face it DSHB, your argument about life coming from non-life needs to go out with the trash, just like your fossil gap argument and ... well pretty much all your arguments with the possible exception of abiogenesis.<BR/><BR/>If you wanna hang all your hopes on abiogenesis be my guest. It's a pretty weak thread to believe in Genesis from though. Remember Harvey, an overwhelming majority of <B>Christian</B> biologists accept the age of the earth as 4.5 billion years BP and the fact of organic evolution by means of descent with modification and natural selection.Evanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14299188458940897810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-43886631193887645082008-03-21T00:20:00.000-04:002008-03-21T00:20:00.000-04:00District Supt. Harvey Burnett "That's the whole ar...<B>District Supt. Harvey Burnett</B> <I>"That's the whole argument...If there is NO ABIOGENESIS then there is NO EVOLUTION..."</I><BR/>Uh, no? If abiogenesis is a dead end, and it turns out that the origin of life on Earth is supernatural, that's creationism ("In the beginning...", though probably not the one you're expecting), plus evolution. That your god got so much of His "in the beginning" wrong (in that it conflicts with what we do know about the history of the universe) disqualifies Him from contention in the big Creation giveaway, I think, leaving an infinite number of possible creators, both known and unknown, as He still seems to insist that He did it differently than whoever did it did. Inerrant is all fine and dandy, but in this case, inerrancy is only true if its meaning is changed to be "literally and flagrantly wrong, but just close enough to keep some people happy, except for the parts that fail to conflict with what we don't know, primarily because we haven't discovered those conflicts yet. Also, it comes with a wicked argument from authority. Argument from tradition, too".<BR/><BR/><I>"but yet you LIE and say they're not connected..."</I><BR/>They are connected. One comes right after the other. They are not, however, the same. The many, generally incompatible, hypotheses for abiogenesis could be entirely wrong, and it would still have no effect on the TOE.<BR/><BR/><I>"Has ANY biological, matter ever come out of material, non living matter???"</I><BR/>Pending further evidence, at least once. "God did it" is not an answer. It's "I don't know", dressed up in pious guise. The world will be a better place when people start using the latter instead of the former. Personally, I use it all the time. Who stole my sandwich? I don't know.<BR/><BR/><I>"That's the question fro evolution to answer and PROVE."</I><BR/>No. No, it's not. Abiogenesis is from nothing to A. Evolution is from A to B, B to C, etc.<BR/><BR/><I>"YOU CAN'T!"</I><BR/>In those two words, at least, we're in the same boat. The difference between abiogenesis and creationism is that the former has a working, if radically incomplete hypothesis (too incomplete to really be a theory, IMO), while the latter is based entirely on what we don't know. Evolution vs creationism, meanwhile, favours evolution as evolution has much evidence for, while creationism only has evidence against (against itself, I mean). Creationism's buffer is doing what you've done, demanding a perfect proof of its competitor, which ain't gonna happen (this isn't mathematics), denying that evolution's evidence is really evidence then when that fails, printing in ALL CAPS to show how emotional you are about the conflict.<BR/><BR/><I>"Your answer is deceitful."</I><BR/>No, our answer is incomplete, imperfect, and for some people, uncomfortable. If you're looking for deceitful, that's <A HREF="http://www.answersingenesis.org" REL="nofollow">these guys</A>.<BR/><BR/><I>"So far as the theories of evolutionary psychology and ethics as it pertains to altruism...all of you are NUTS if you believe that mess. That's why it's debated because none of it in EVOLUTIONARY thought makes sense."</I><BR/>No, it's debated because <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_psychology" REL="nofollow">evolutionary psychology</A>, like a lot of the fairly recent sciences, is a fairly recent science, as sciences go, recently, and we're still figuring out why we (and also our evolutionary cousins, and beasties in general) do the voodoo that we do.<BR/><BR/><I>"I'll deal with it in another post but in short evolution fails to account for motive and intent which are essential in understanding and deceiphering conduct..."</I><BR/>I can't wait. Your perfect evidence for your view should be interesting. Yes, I'm getting pissy. You bring it out of me. People who demand a perfect answer while not questioning the paucity of the their own position do that to me. Still, I won't turn down a hug, if you offer it.<BR/><BR/><I>"(like the Chimps and animals that you continue to offer for some reason)"</I><BR/>Chimps are our nearest living relatives. Hence, what they do and why they do it will be similar to what and why our own ancestors did and dood (not perfectly, by any means. Behavioral science never is. Heck, even the "hard" sciences aren't). Observing them, we can see more primitive versions of us. We have an advanced mind; them, a primitive one. We both have <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciprocal_altruism" REL="nofollow">reciprocal altruism</A>. We're both social animals. We both have emotions, concepts of justice, the critical concept of "I" (go back far enough down the evolutionary tree and they all fade and disappear, for the most part. Gibbons and macaques, for example, are pretty dang primitive) and we both fling poo when angry or frightened. Well, I'm not supposed to do that last one anymore.<BR/><BR/><I>"...then let's just assume that it can and that morality is biological or hereditary...your argument then defeats itself because then ALL behavior is preprogrammed and DO NOT qualify for moral behavior, because ONLY free moral agents can do and experience that."</I><BR/>No, the basics of behavior, through millions of years of evolution, are programmed. Behavior, in general, can be effected by any number of influences, from chemical balance to the adorably adorable "nurture".<BR/>Incidentally, I've heard that the concept of free will is on its way out. I'm going to hang around the backstage door and get its autograph.<BR/><BR/><I>"Now you're trying to make the link but don't give me speculation...give me PROOF."</I><BR/>Rock solid, absolute, inerrant proof? We don't have that. Science doesn't work like that. We have many different lines of related evidence. The ToE links those many bits of data into a narrative that works. You're thinking of religion, which <I>is</I> like that, except that its proof is wanting. "As Paul says in Romans..." isn't evidence, it's anecdotal.<BR/><BR/><I>"...even Robert Wright in 'The Moral Animal' even goes so far as to say that under the evolutionary system, what we think of as higher truth is only a "Shameless Ploy" (p.212) ie; what we call morality is only CONDUCT and as such there would be no right or wrong to it..."</I><BR/>Are you trying to use a book on evolutionary psychology to prove that morality didn't evolve? (/me adds book to next shipment from Amazon)<BR/><BR/><I>"Tell that to the victim of the rapist or family of the one who has been murdered."</I><BR/>Tell them that the rapist and the murderer converted to Christianity in jail, and as an honest conversion they will rejoin the victims in heaven. Better, point out that they converted and are in heaven, but since the victims weren't Christians (or weren't the right sect, or weren't True Christians) that the rapist and murderer will go to heaven, while their victims a boiling away for eternity in a fire that burns but does not consume "Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched."<BR/>On second thought, you're probably best off to offer your condolences and a shoulder to lean on. That's what we do.<BR/><BR/><I>"Tell that GARBAGE to the family member who just got their car stolen or child killed by a psychopath..."</I><BR/>Or, better yet, tell them that they're unrepentant sinners who must accept the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (our Lord and Saviour), lest they taste His most divine, holy, and just wrath. Remember, it's a well known fact that it's easiest to convert someone who is at their lowest.<BR/><BR/><I>"Evolution is a FARCE at ALL levels!"</I><BR/>No. <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fawlty_towers" REL="nofollow">Fawlty Towers</A> is a farce at all levels. Especially Manuel. You'd be surprised how often people get the two mixed up. To help, one is "change in the gene pool of a population from generation to generation by such processes as mutation, natural selection, and genetic drift.", while the other is "John Cleese runs a small hotel and deals poorly with the stress that results from said job".Modusoperandihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04213914791604385761noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-86899836389199320192008-03-20T22:25:00.000-04:002008-03-20T22:25:00.000-04:00DSHB,That's the whole argument...If there is NO AB...DSHB,<BR/><BR/><I>That's the whole argument...If there is NO ABIOGENESIS then there is NO EVOLUTION...but yet you LIE and say they're not connected...</I><BR/><BR/>I don't understand what you think this argument is supposed to show. Are you saying that you're willing to concede that once there was a breeding population of single-celled organisms, you accept evolution as the explanation for the diversity and structure of life we see today?<BR/><BR/>If yes, then you accept evolution, congratulations. If no, then you do see there is a distinction between the origin of the first forms of life and its present day manifestation. Evolution is the explanation for the diversity of life and something else must deal with ultimate origins. We can quarrel over both, but that doesn't mean they are the same.<BR/><BR/><I>Has ANY biological, matter ever come out of material, non living matter??? That's the question fro evolution to answer and PROVE...YOU CAN'T!</I><BR/><BR/>Yes, every second of every day. Bacteria may consume non-living material and, much clearer, all plants turn non-living matter into living matter. Once you come to learn about the way individual cells function, you'll see that they do not operate on other living material, they consume chemicals - it is like this with all organisms, even animal cells.<BR/><BR/><I>So far as the theories of evolutionary psychology and ethics as it pertains to altruism...all of you are NUTS if you believe that mess.</I><BR/><BR/>There <I>is</I> rather good evidence for this, coming from game theory for example. It makes many predictions about reputation and repeat interactions which have further confirmed the theory.<BR/><BR/>I should warn you that if you don't raise any specific objections and instead just call you opponents names, you look like you are ignorant of the theories you claim to be discussing. It also doesn't engender further respectful dialogue.<BR/><BR/><I>your argument then defeats itself because then ALL behavior is preprogrammed and DO NOT qualify for moral behavior, because ONLY free moral agents can do and experience that</I><BR/><BR/>The problem that we seek to explain is behaviour which is why we observe behaviour. That's hardly self-defeating.<BR/><BR/>You can shout about Free Will and other items of faith if you wish, but it doesn't affect evolution.<BR/><BR/><I>ie; what we call morality is only CONDUCT and as such there would be no right or wrong to it...</I><BR/><BR/>Come on. Fallacy of <A HREF="http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-consequences.html" REL="nofollow">Appeal to Consequence</A>, really? This has no bearing on the validity of evolution, even if your argument made sense.<BR/><BR/>You just splattered the thread with a huge list of so-called objections and then never bothered to address any of the when people take the time to explain why they're wrong. That's disrespectful, and again creates a bad impression that you don't care about the facts. I'm not trying to accuse you of anything, just letting you know so that you can take steps to salvage things.Adrianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08694840174170043470noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-19955065534082360522008-03-20T17:20:00.000-04:002008-03-20T17:20:00.000-04:00Shygetz~ DON'T Try to council me on behavior you G...Shygetz~ DON'T Try to council me on behavior you Godless humanist! <BR/><BR/>I told Tyro not to address me because he wasn't addressing ISSUES he addressed me and my beliefs, and he wasn't answering my questions without second guessing my me...So FORGET BOTH OF YOU so far as that's concerned.<BR/><BR/>To your points...you try to make one believe this: "However, I will readily concede that abiogenesis is currently a hypothesis. That says nothing about evolution"<BR/><BR/>That's the whole argument...If there is NO ABIOGENESIS then there is NO EVOLUTION...but yet you LIE and say they're not connected...Has ANY biological, matter ever come out of material, non living matter??? That's the question fro evolution to answer and PROVE...YOU CAN'T!<BR/><BR/>So far as your lie about mutations and specifically using cancer as an example...Those cells are BORN with us. They turn on in certain circumstances and under certain stresses...They are not evolved mutations. As I said there remains no new sequences created ONLY combination changes. Your answer is deceitful. <BR/><BR/>So far as the theories of evolutionary psychology and ethics as it pertains to altruism...all of you are NUTS if you believe that mess. That's why it's debated because none of it in EVOLUTIONARY thought makes sense. I'll deal with it in another post but in short evolution fails to account for motive and intent which are essential in understanding and deceiphering conduct...All evolution does is observe behavior (like the Chimps and animals that you continue to offer for some reason) but cannot discern motive or intent...then let's just assume that it can and that morality is biological or hereditary...your argument then defeats itself because then ALL behavior is preprogrammed and DO NOT qualify for moral behavior, because ONLY free moral agents can do and experience that. <BR/><BR/>Now you're trying to make the link but don't give me speculation...give me PROOF. <BR/><BR/>Like I said I will only scratch the surface here but just based on those 2 concepts alone any reasonable person would reject evolution...even Robert Wright in 'The Moral Animal' even goes so far as to say that under the evolutionary system, what we think of as higher truth is only a "Shameless Ploy" (p.212) ie; what we call morality is only CONDUCT and as such there would be no right or wrong to it...<BR/><BR/>Tell that to the victim of the rapist or family of the one who has been murdered. Tell that GARBAGE to the family member who just got their car stolen or child killed by a psychopath...<BR/><BR/>Evolution is a FARCE at ALL levels!District Supt. Harvey Burnetthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15315686602819371111noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-56547307807928982942008-03-20T11:44:00.000-04:002008-03-20T11:44:00.000-04:00Harvey, you have no right to demand that someone n...Harvey, you have no right to demand that someone not address you. Tyro's responses have been within the bounds of decorum that, by tradition, have been accepted here. Sorry if you don't like them, but your tantrum was ill-advised.<BR/><BR/>modusoperandi took care of Harvey's list, but I can't resist having my go at it. There will be some overlap between the two.<BR/><BR/><I>1- Organic Evolution Has Never Been Observed</I><BR/><BR/>False, as previously pointed out and cited. Many events of speciation have been observed. Many, many events of microevolution have been observed. Events of chemical replicators sufficient for evolution have also been observed (e.g. Tjivikua, T.; Ballester, P.; Rebek, J., Jr. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1990, 112, 1249-1250.) These data are not new, but may be new to you, as I imagine the creationist circles you get your info from would not tout them.<BR/><BR/><I>2- The Law of Biogenesis</I><BR/><BR/>This is misleading. The Law of Biogenesis simply says that modern organisms do not spring from decaying organic matter. It says nothing, positive or negative, about the possibility of generating life from non-life in general. Indeed, we have constructed fully viable and evolvable viruses from non-living matter, proving that <B>your</B> version of the Law of Biogenesis is false.<BR/>Cello, J., Paul, A. V. & Wimmer, E. Science 297, 1016−1018 (2002).<BR/><BR/>However, I will readily concede that abiogenesis is currently a hypothesis. That says nothing about evolution. <BR/><BR/><I>3- Acquired Characteristics</I><BR/><BR/>You just argued against Lamarkianism, not evolution. We don't say that organisms under duress produce more offspring with favorable characteristics. We say that organisms that ALREADY HAVE favorable characteristics for the environment will produce more children <B>which due to genetic heritability will be more likely to also have those favorable characteristics</B>, while organisms with unfavorable characteristics will produce fewer children <B>which due to genetic heritability will be more likely to also have those unfavorable characteristics</B>. You clearly do not understand evolution whatsoever to think that this is an objection.<BR/><BR/><I>4- Mendel’s Laws</I><BR/>You just claimed that mutation does not happen, and new genes are never formed. This is entirely false. We have oberved new genes forming. Example--MRSA-resistant Staph bacteria is due to the evolution of an entirely new gene, <I>mecA</I>, which happens to be on a piece of DNA known to move around (SCCmec). HIV evolution is due to the emergence of entirely new genes. I could (literally) go on all week. Mendelian assortment accounts for some variation, but not all, and does not account for ANY variation in asexual organisms (what, did you forget about those?)<BR/><BR/><I>5- Natural Selection</I><BR/><BR/>I'm sorry, did you assert here that antibiotic resistance previously existed, was lost from the genome, and then somehow re-emerged as a new gene in organisms that previously did not have it? You seem to neglect the fact that we KNOW what mutations occurred in these genes, we KNOW where they came from, so we KNOW that your version is crap. There is no non-functional MRSA-protogene in bacteria waiting to be reactivated. If there was, we would see it when we sequenced non-MRSA <I>S. aureus</I>. We don't.<BR/><BR/><I>6- Fossil Gaps</I><BR/><BR/>Allow me to use an analogy that you might relate to. There are no accepted records of how Jesus spent his adolescence. Therefore, due to this gap in our knowledge, Jesus could not have grown up from the baby Jesus at the beginning to the adult Jesus of the crucifixion. They must have been two separate Jesuses, each created wholly in its own form.<BR/><BR/>Do you see how dumb this argument is yet? Now add to the fact that every time we find a fossil, you proclaim that there are now two gaps and you will see why this argument impresses no one. We have amazingly good fossil records for those species with bodies that fossilize well and that lived in areas that promote fossilization. For others, the record is much more spotty. This is missing data, not refuting data. Find me a rabbit that dates to the pre-Cambrian era, and you'll have refuting data.<BR/><BR/><I>7- Altruism</I><BR/><BR/>Now this is a hot area of reasearch. First of all, natural selection works on replicating functional units, which in this case are genes. It is entirely expected that a person will sacrifice himself for a relative under certain conditions, as that relative carries much of the same genes. Second, the phenomenon of group selection is known to be valid; however, there is fierce debate as to how important it is. Third, you ignore the emergence of cultural phenomena (memes), which enable people to act counter to their genetic predisposition. Fourth, you neglect game theory advances, which show that under certain conditions apparent altruism is beneficial to self-gratification. Fifth, you neglect the emergence of empathy as a stabilizing force in social animals, a side effect of which would be apparently altruistic acts to satisfy the empathic drive. So, while this is the best point you raised (in that it is actually an area of active research and debate), it is not anti-evolution as you make it seem. There are various explanations, each of which explains <B>some</B> altruistic acts, and current research being done to learn more.<BR/><BR/><I>8- Fruit Flies</I><BR/><BR/>You neglect to mention that these fruit flies are almost always maintained without selective pressure. They are well-fed, have an abundance of mates, and a lack of predators. And yet we have still seen speciation, as previously noted and cited. Fruit flies have helped prove evolution, you silly man.<BR/><BR/><I>9- Language</I><BR/><A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_language" REL="nofollow">No non-human languages, huh?</A><BR/>Bee dance (which we can now interpret)<BR/>Bird songs (some parrots can actually learn human language and use it to answer questions)<BR/>Whale songs<BR/>Prairie dog alarm calls, which identify size, color, species, and speed of predators<BR/>Squid coloration language<BR/>And the chimp sign languages that you pointed out<BR/>And that's just a few of the more popular ones. Animals can and do use language, just not as well as us.<BR/><BR/>Language itself would not evolve, as language is not a replicating organism. Our capacity for language would evolve, and evidence based on fossilized remains suggests it almost certainly did, as brain capacities and structure changed over time. Language is a cultural phenomenon, and as such would have to be taught. This actually supports evolution.<BR/><BR/><I>10- Speech</I><BR/><BR/>Speech is not uniquely human; <B>human</B> speech is uniquely human. And why shouldn't it be? Evolution would predict that, as our brain capacities for language increased to the point where more and more complex abstractions can be handled, we would require a larger variety of vocalizations in order to best utilize our increased capacity for language. Animals with less capacity for language would not require as extensive a range of vocalizations.<BR/><BR/><I>11- Embryology</I><BR/><BR/>This is a lie. Find me a single modern embryology textbook that holds to strong recapitulation theory. None of them do; modern embryology (done by scientists, not creationists) refuted Haeckel. Mammals did not supposedly evolve from fish; mammals and fish have a common ancestor. The proper name for gill slits in mammals are pharyngeal arches; gill slit is just a common moniker. And gill slits is not as misleading as you let on; humans and fish (and other organisms) both have the same slits; in fish they develop into gills, in humans they develop into other things. And it is another bald-faced dirty lie that most embryologists don't consider developmental similarity to be a hallmark of evolution; I point you to the entire <B>field</B> of evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) as refutation.Shygetzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12587529149916263563noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-49551266860014734832008-03-18T18:13:00.000-04:002008-03-18T18:13:00.000-04:00There can't be gaps without a sequence.Beware of a...There can't be gaps without a sequence.<BR/><BR/>Beware of arguing there is no sequence because of gaps!paul01https://www.blogger.com/profile/06306440944379183875noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-81152223607047730892008-03-18T11:50:00.000-04:002008-03-18T11:50:00.000-04:00"The fossil record has been studied so thoroughly ...<I>"The fossil record has been studied so thoroughly that it is safe to conclude that these gaps are real; they will never be filled"</I><BR/><BR/>Tell that to <A HREF="http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/shubin06/shubin06_index.html" REL="nofollow">Neil Shubin</A>.<BR/><BR/>Really, that is one of the most mind numbingly stupid asserstions I've read in some time. You may want to at least pick up some <A HREF="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v450/n7173/full/nature06343.html;jsessionid=B103DEB88E97AB0A33DE6B3407BD967F" REL="nofollow">scientific journals </A>or <A HREF="http://books.google.com/books?id=4s1GGwAACAAJ&dq=human+evolution" REL="nofollow">books</A> sometime. <BR/><BR/>Of course, creation "sciences" contribution to the evidence still remains nil. All they are doing is sitting around playing some pathetic version of arm-chair quaterback, while the real scientist...you know...do the science.Spirulahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14556681288241092875noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-21929433793814484592008-03-18T10:35:00.000-04:002008-03-18T10:35:00.000-04:00District Supt. Harvey Burnett "1- Organic Evolutio...<B>District Supt. Harvey Burnett</B> <I>"1- Organic Evolution Has Never Been Observed"</I><BR/><A HREF="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-misconceptions.html#observe" REL="nofollow">Actually</A> <A HREF="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html" REL="nofollow">it</A> <A HREF="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/speciation.html" REL="nofollow">has</A>. If you're expecting a parrot giving birth to a rat, that's not how it works. Evolution is small changes spreading through populations over many generations. While biologists do argue about the minutae of evolution, they are in agreement that it happens. There is no controversy. The Discovery Institute lies. Bald-faced, naked lies. I kid you not. The compartmentalization that's required to keep the facts on the ground, and what you (whether "you" is creationist or ID) want them to be is worthy of <I>nineteen eighty-four</I>.<BR/>Evolution is messy. The TOE is incomplete (and always will be). There are gaps. We did come from earlier animals. We are animals. Evolution happens. Get used to it.<BR/><BR/><I>"2- The Law of Biogenesis"</I> <BR/>Way to misuse a "law" that came about when scientists figured out that maggots don't "spontaneously generate" from rotting meat.<BR/>That out of the way...<A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_life#Current models " REL="nofollow">abiogenesis</A> is easily the weakest theory in modern science, IMO. The problem with figuring out how life came from the primordial goo is that we have virtually no evidence. Single-celled organisms simply don't fossilize all that well (if ever). Their precursors are even worse; they're simpler, smaller and older (4.4-2.7 billion years ago). Worse, it can never happen again (as existing living things would eat any new life, no matter how simple). Even working backwards from now to then means working through billions of years of incomplete history. There are simply too many "ifs" for it to be a comfortable theory (which has the scientifically cool side-effect of it potentially changing radically with every new piece of data). The <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_life#Current models" REL="nofollow">current models</A> are neat and I have no hesitation in saying that they, in the end, will prove to be almost completely wrong. That's the beauty of science; it's self-correcting.<BR/>That that out of the way, abiogenesis is better than "God did it". Goddidit leads nowhere. It provides no new information and, worse, it puts a full stop on looking for new information (once you know He did it, you don't have to look anymore). Worser (for creationists), it's a God o' the Gaps argument (and an argument from ignorance and an argument from incredulity). When has a GotG argument ever turned out in God's favour?<BR/><BR/><I>"3- Acquired Characteristics"</I><BR/>Wow. That's a remarkable set of half-truths (a sin of omission is still a sin). If an environmental pressure selects for a given adaptation, that adaptation will be bred in to the species, over time (simply through examples that are the "best" for a given environment outbreeding those in the same species that are not). <A HREF="http://www.boingboing.net/2008/01/21/parasite-turns-ants.html" REL="nofollow">This parasite</A>, for instance, didn't start out making the ant's rump bright red. It would've started with a minor change. Birds chose to eat the slightly redder ants...the cycle continues...voila!...bright red rumps. For that matter, the nematode's ancestors didn't start out in the ant at all (nor the bird). Go back far enough, and the ant wasn't an ant, and the bird wasn't a bird, either. History is freaky.<BR/><BR/><I>"4- Mendel's Laws"</I><BR/><A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mendelian_inheritance" REL="nofollow">Mendelian inheritance</A> is classical genetics. The science has moved on. For one thing, we can see DNA now (rather than just the outcome of dominant/recessive genes). Modern genetics has concepts that Mendel couldn't even theorize. He simply didn't have enough data.<BR/>By way of a (terrible) analogy, Mendel was trying to figure out how the sun works without being able to look at it. All he had was its light reflecting off the moon from which to work his theory.<BR/>Creation science (and its critique of actual science) hasn't moved on since the Dover trial. It still brings up things that show its profound, willful ignorance of what we've learned since its practitioners decided to stop learning, and when it does grab on to new data, it inevitably distorts it to fit Genesis. Genesis is just as right as it's always been. It's only in the last couple of centuries that we've noticed how wrong its right turned out to be.<BR/><BR/><I>"5- Natural Selection" & "Natural selection cannot produce new genes; it selects only among preexisting characteristics."</I><BR/>Well, it's a good thing that evolution isn't just natural selection! That paragraph isn't even internally consistent; first it talks about preexisting, then it mentions mutation (and then, only the "bad" mutations). Natural selection selects from whatever it has to select from (whether existing, mixed or mutant). In the short term, its mostly the former (the "best" of Protungulatum), but over tens of thousands of generations, the "positive" mutations build up, one species slowly becomes another, then another, then another (with branches with specific pressures in different environments). See <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_cetaceans" REL="nofollow">whale evolution</A>, as an example (although the wikipedia article is probably out of date. Recent fossil finds have filled in a bunch of formerly head scratching gaps).<BR/>That quote from Jacques Monod is dead on (although its veracity/accuracy is doubtful, as a quick google search shows it only appearing on creationist sites, which have a history of misquotes and manglings. That ellipsis is worrying. I'm scared. Hold me). Is it the cruelty that creationists loath? "Cruel" is a misnomer and a gross misuse of the word. Natural selection is not cruel; it is literally heartless. No goal, no direction, no plan, no emotion whatsoever. Humans have a habit of anthropomorphizing things. It gets us in to trouble, sometimes. This is one of them. Calling evolution cruel is like calling gravity cruel after you fall down the stairs. It's moot. Neither cares what you think. For that matter, neither thinks.<BR/>Creationism and theistic evolution on the other hand are cruel, as there's an accountable moral agent in charge of the whole mess. That the former has no change and the latter only has change when He chooses doesn't help, as it's still red in tooth and claw. Each living thing only lives because something else died to make the fuel that it runs on. You may have come from your mother and father, but you're only here now because that cow and that melon aren't. Damn you, food chain!<BR/>...and, no, animals weren't all herbivores before "the fall" (as amusing as images of a tyrannosaur feasting on a field of wheat or a female mosquito sucking the juice out of a lemon may be). There was no literal fall bringing sin and death in to the universe. Things have been eating things ever since there were things to eat and be eaten. Stars "died" long before anything resembling homo sapiens sapiens walked the Earth. Side note: we're only here <I>because</I> those stars died. Isn't that cool?<BR/><BR/><I>"6- Fossil Gaps"</I><BR/>Yes, the fossil record is incomplete. Most things that die don't get fossilized. Most of the ones that do will never be found. There is (and has been for quite a while) enough data in the geologic column to show that evolution has occured.<BR/><I>"The fossil record has been studied so thoroughly that it is safe to conclude that these gaps are real; they will never be filled"</I><BR/>That's the kind of answer you'd get from someone who isn't looking (and ignores the stuff that others find). The gaps are gaps. Some will never be filled. Some lead to new branches, new dead ends, new gaps and even reorganizations of the Tree of Life (the ancestors of birds, for one. I can't wait to see how it turns out). The data stream is incomplete. That does not mean that evolution is false. What we do have shows evolution. We may not have E, but we do have C, D and F. Each epoch in deep time shows things becoming other things (in snapshot form). Evolution happens. Also, it's a theory that leads to predictions (and, with finds like Tiktaalik, one that matches the predictions. TOE held that there should be a half step between sea and land in the Devonian period. An expedition was sent to an area where the right section of the geologic column was exposed. They dug. And dug. And dug. A mere four years later they found a fossil...and hey!...it fit the prediction). It can't predict the future, unfortunately (remember, there's no "goal" for evolution), but it makes testable predictions about the gaps in the past.<BR/>And while I'm here, all fossils are transitional fossils.While species may remain stable for long periods of time, everything is changing (even if the changes are minor, or environmental pressures "breed out" deviations from the current "standard", or "best").<BR/><BR/><I>"7- Altruism", "Natural selection, which evolutionists say selects individual characteristics, should rapidly eliminate altruistic (self-sacrificing) "individuals.""</I><BR/>Um, no, not if altruism is beneficial to the species. Reciprocal altruism is beneficial to man, because one man vs. lion = lion eats man. Many men working together + lion = nice fur coat for the missus. Man's success is partly due to helping each other and partly to helping ourselves. I help you now (for no benefit), in the hope that you do the same for me later on. If you don't, you are tarnished as selfish, and I am less likely to help you in the future. Think of altruism as enlightened self interest. If our predecessors only practiced greed, we wouldn't be here, as no man is an island.<BR/>Remember, too, that until fairly recently man lived in small, mobile extended family units (where virtually everyone is loosely related). Helping others, in this context, helps yourself (your genes live on, even if you sacrifice yourself for the tribe). This face to face altruism is "built in", reinforced over many generations, as it worked so well. The happy defect of altruism is that you will put your life in danger to protect virtually anyone that you can touch (as long as your inner altruist sees "them" as members of the tribe). That's why you'll give the shirt of your back to your brother, while a starving baby next door tears you up inside and you go out of your way to help (hopefully), but if the same kid is in Africa on the TV, while it does engender some response, it doesn't do so with nearly the same intensity.<BR/>It's not perfect (evolution isn't really the "best". It's what works just "best" enough to beat the competition over generations). Cheaters do prosper. Sociopaths, apparently, do well in big business, as they don't have a conscience to get in the way of their actions and, as such, don't mind screwing you over to make what's yours theirs. That is a deviant psychology, thankfully, as it doesn't work on the large scale.<BR/><BR/><I>"8- Fruit Flies"</I><BR/>That we can't force a small batch of critters to change much over a mere 3,000 generations doesn't mean a lot. Evolution/natural selection/mutation/adaptation isn't a hundred flies over 3,000 generations, it's every fly of a given species in the Amazon basin over 10,000 generations or more. The chance of a single beneficial mutation is tiny, but the number of possible individuals within a species is mind boggling. There are more insects in and on one square mile of land than there are people on the entire Earth (and there are a lot of people). That most of them will be eaten and most colonies will eventually fail pales in comparison to how successful the "big picture" is (350,000 species of beetles alone). The human mind didn't evolve with the capacity to easily picture the flabbergasting scale of the whole thing (that one square mile statistic alone makes me woozy). This, in a way, leads all the way back to abiogenesis. The chance of life at all is practically nothing, but it improves remarkably once you take into account both the time scale (between one and two billion years from the start of the Earth to the theoretical beginning of life, with any number of failures in that time), and the volume (potentially everywhere there was water). We simply aren't made to comprehend stuff like that (whether time or scale. The age and size of the universe continues to baffle even the most baffle-resistant people).<BR/>Given a long enough period time, on a big enough scale, life happens. After it happens, given a long enough period of time, on a big enough scale, it becomes something else.<BR/><BR/><I>"9- Language"</I><BR/>Language did evolve. Birds tweet, octopi change colours, whales sing, chimps throw poo. We're just the present pinnacle of language. I'm no linguist, unfortunately. I'll have to leave this one to someone who knows more. I barely evin learned English real good. If you're thinking that the Babel story fits in here, it doesn't. At 2,240BC on the biblical timeline, it's way too late as an origin for the multiplicity of languages (try from 40,000 to 2,000,000 years ago for the earliest tongues, with dialects and languages changing in to other languages over time and as homo sapiens sapiens, or potentially his ancestors, spread). As a tale that Hebrews made up after they encountered many different people with many different languages and dialects Babel, Tower of, is an interesting attempt at an explanation for the multiple foreign tongues that they would've encountered while away. It's wrong for the same reason Gen1 is wrong: they didn't know any better.<BR/><BR/><I>"10- Speech"</I><BR/>This feeds in to #9. Speech evolved as our ancestors did. The gear to talk evolved with language portion of the brain.<BR/><I>"Even if an ape could evolve all the physical equipment for speech, that equipment would be useless without a "prewired" brain for learning language skills, especially grammar and vocabulary."</I><BR/>Exactly. The two evolves together, much like our bigger brain's ability to invent and improve tools and our thumbs (an ability and a digit we share with our nearest cousins, though they don't improve tools. Take that, chimpanzees!).<BR/><BR/><I>"11- Embryology"</I><BR/>Ah. <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Haeckel#.22Infamous.22_embryo_drawings" REL="nofollow">Haeckel</A>. We meet at last, again, for the first time, once more. Oh noes! A scientist got something wrong! And people repeated the error! And modern biology texts still have his infamous drawings! That last one is my favourite. Most biology texts that have a Haeckel drawing have a note and a paragraph or two on the failure of his recapitulation theory. It's not that the texts are continuing to pass it off as true; it's a cautionary tale (and if you find on that still shows it as fact, tell the school board. Shitty textbooks don't belong in school). Scientists are wrong, sometimes. Even when they're right, it's only temporary (Newton was wrong on classical mechanics. Luckily, he was close enough that it still works, until the very big scale and the very small). <BR/>I'll let you in on a secret: Darwin was wrong more than he was right. In some cases, dead wrong. That doesn't make evolution false. A scientific theory doesn't rest on the shoulders of its prophets. It rests on its data, and even then, only as long as new data continues to fit. When contradictory data comes in, the theory is revised or abandoned. There is no inerrant and unchanging canon of science. It's just canon for now.<BR/><BR/>...<BR/>Others can probably explain all the above much better than I did. The information is out there (from people who look in the microscopes or dig up the fossils), you just have to go look for it. National Geographic is a good start. Nature and Nova on PBS are good, too. A good natural history museum is will give a nice overview on the big picture. The library is better (it's full of books on stuff like this). The internet is a mix of good, bad and blah.<BR/><BR/>Did I avoid getting pissy?Modusoperandihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04213914791604385761noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-52032559435485166482008-03-17T17:50:00.000-04:002008-03-17T17:50:00.000-04:00District Supt. Harvey Burnett: Ooo. Quotes from cr...District Supt. Harvey Burnett: Ooo. Quotes from <A HREF="http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences4.html" REL="nofollow">creationscience.com</A>. AIG has competition, I see. Who can prove a literal, worldwide flood first? On your marks...Modusoperandihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04213914791604385761noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-78366335883326545562008-03-17T17:46:00.000-04:002008-03-17T17:46:00.000-04:00District Supt. Harvey Burnett "I believe in the Bi...<B>District Supt. Harvey Burnett</B> <I>"I believe in the Biblical record above science and above what things “appear” to be."</I><BR/>Uh-huh. Good luck with that.<BR/><BR/><I>"Secondly, God DID NOT put an age tag on any of his creation and he left neither you or I a memo dating ANY of what we see."</I><BR/>Actually, most things have age tags. From the geologic column, to half-lives, to the "gene clock", to a bunch of other things that I can't remember because I just woke up, He (if He's involved) left a bunch of notes on when things happened.<BR/><BR/><I>"And because the evidence certainly SIGNIFICANTLY conflicts, unless you have that memo, you are in no position to call God a liar."</I><BR/>I don't think He's a liar. I don't think He exists at all. We atheists are like that. In fact, it's one of only two things that we have in common (the other? We look best while wearing nothing at all. I've said too much). Suffice it to say, the time between the first beings that could be called and now, and the time between the biblical Adam and now, are way, way different. No matter how you calculate the biblemath, whether 6k or 12k or 24 thousand years, it's still a far cry from the actual first men (and that's a minor quibble compared to the "when" in the biblical beginning and the "when" in the actual one). I'm not being arrogant when I point out that the two beginnings (biblical and reality-based) don't match. They aren't even close. This, ordinarily, wouldn't be a problem, as Gen1 is poetry, man, but some people take it literally. That's where you run in to problems (those problems inevitably run in to school boards, which run in to science class, which run in to your children. Won't somebody think about the children?).<BR/><BR/><I>"Man in his arrogance and little, limited knowledge extends himself as a higher moral being than God but yet daily makes decisions that cause more and more immorality to proliferate."</I><BR/>Well, cut it out! I knew that it was all your fault, man! Jeez! I turn my back for one friggin' minute, and your suddenly making decisions that cause more and more immorality to proliferate!<BR/><BR/><I>"Because we are arrogant and love to hate God."</I><BR/>Really? I love popping popcorn, campfires, and long walks off of short piers. Is hating God listed anywhere in there? <BR/><BR/><I>"My next post will deal with specific reasons why I reject evolution as nothing more than a man created fantasy...As I said, thank you for a clear and cogent answer and I submit this response to you and others with all due respect."</I><BR/>This could get interesting. Don't be surprised if we get a little pissy. A casual glance at your next post leads me to posit that we will. Kudos, sir! Answersingenesis has served you well! I like the mention of Haekel (you did, however, miss Piltdown man).Modusoperandihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04213914791604385761noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-67166411810833048512008-03-17T17:20:00.000-04:002008-03-17T17:20:00.000-04:00Tyro~ DON'T ADDRESS ME AGAIN UNTIL YOU'VE EVOLVED ...Tyro~ DON'T ADDRESS ME AGAIN UNTIL YOU'VE EVOLVED INTO A MAN OR WHATEVER YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE. <BR/><BR/>NATURALLY SELECT YOUR BUTT OUTA GROWN FOLKS CONVERSATIONS.<BR/><BR/>YOU'VE PROVEN YOURSELF TO BE STUPID, AND UNKNOWLEDGEABLE ON ALL BUT TOO MANY SUBJECTS AND HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT...I SEE THAT 4- SHURE! <BR/><BR/>Thank you very much!District Supt. Harvey Burnetthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15315686602819371111noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-18015207986442450612008-03-17T16:18:00.000-04:002008-03-17T16:18:00.000-04:00DSHB,Secondly, God DID NOT put an age tag on any o...DSHB,<BR/><BR/><I>Secondly, God DID NOT put an age tag on any of his creation and he left neither you or I a memo dating ANY of what we see.</I><BR/><BR/>That's not true. There are many, many, many tags indicating age and in the rest of your life I'd bet you could list dozens of them.<BR/><BR/>Can you tell the difference between a brand new house and one that was build in 1900? 1400? 2,000 BC? You may not be able to date them specifically but you aren't so stupid as to think that there are no signs of age. Don't treat us as if we are.<BR/><BR/>We know you don't believe this in any other part of your life, so why should anyone possibly accept this when it comes to the age of the Earth?<BR/><BR/><I>It really goes back to my original analogy of the car. Buying a 2007 in 2007 that was BUILT and assembled in 2006 with parts that were created as early as 2005 in no way makes the car company a liar.</I><BR/><BR/>Your analogy is ridiculous. You seem to have no idea of the magnitude of the differences in time scales between the biblical account and reality, and you seem to have no awareness of how things can be dated.<BR/><BR/>The only thing even close to accurate is the fact that people who just <I>read a date</I> are the ones who are being misinformed. It seems that people who just read the sticker (or their bible) get a date that's at variance with reality.<BR/><BR/>Come back when you have an analogy where the label says 1 year old but the object looks 100,000 years old.Adrianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08694840174170043470noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-65021834649516080152008-03-17T16:03:00.000-04:002008-03-17T16:03:00.000-04:00To pick up from where I left off. He’s numbers 6-1...To pick up from where I left off. He’s numbers 6-10. I could offer up to 50 of these but you get the point. <BR/><BR/>6- Fossil Gaps<BR/>If evolution happened, the fossil record should show continuous and gradual changes from the bottom to the top layers. Actually, many gaps or discontinuities appear throughout the fossil record. At the most fundamental level, a big gap exists between forms of life whose cells have nuclei (eukaryotes, such as plants, animals, and fungi) and those that don’t (prokaryotes such as bacteria and blue-green algae). Fossil links are also missing between numerous plants, between single-celled forms of life and invertebrates (animals without backbones), among insects, between invertebrates and vertebrates (animals with backbones), between fish and amphibians, between amphibians and reptiles, between reptiles and mammals, between reptiles and birds, between primates and other mammals, and between apes and other primates. In fact, chains are missing, not links. The fossil record has been studied so thoroughly that it is safe to conclude that these gaps are real; they will never be filled<BR/><BR/>7- Altruism<BR/>Humans and many animals will endanger or even sacrifice their lives to save another—sometimes the life of another species. Natural selection, which evolutionists say selects individual characteristics, should rapidly eliminate altruistic (self-sacrificing) “individuals.” How could such risky, costly behavior ever be inherited, because its possession tends to prevent the altruistic “individual” from passing on its genes for altruism? If evolution were correct, selfish behavior should have completely eliminated unselfish behavior. Furthermore, cheating and aggression should have “weeded out” cooperation. Altruism contradicts evolution<BR/><BR/>8- Fruit Flies<BR/>A century of fruit fly experiments, involving 3,000 consecutive generations, gives absolutely no basis for believing that any natural or artificial process can cause an increase in complexity and viability. No clear genetic improvement has ever been observed in any form of life, despite the many unnatural efforts to increase mutation rates.<BR/><BR/>9- Language<BR/>Children as young as seven months can understand and learn grammatical rules. Furthermore, studies of 36 documented cases of children raised without human contact (feral children) show that language is learned only from other humans; humans do not automatically speak. So, the first humans must have been endowed with a language ability. There is no evidence language evolved. Nonhumans communicate, but not with language. True language requires both vocabulary and grammar. With great effort, human trainers have taught some chimpanzees and gorillas to recognize a few hundred spoken words, to point to up to 200 symbols, and to make limited hand signs. These impressive feats are sometimes exaggerated by editing the animals’ successes on film. (Some early demonstrations were flawed by the trainer’s hidden promptings.) <BR/>If language evolved, the earliest languages should be the simplest. But language studies show that the more ancient the language (for example: Latin, 200 B.C.; Greek, 800 B.C.; Linear B, 1200 B.C., and Vedic Sanskrit, 1500 B.C.), the more complex it is with respect to syntax, case, gender, mood, voice, tense, verb form, and inflection. The best evidence indicates that languages devolve; that is, they become simpler instead of more complex. Most linguists reject the idea that simple languages evolve into complex languages.<BR/><BR/>10- Speech<BR/>Speech is uniquely human. Humans have both a “prewired” brain capable of learning and conveying abstract ideas, and the physical anatomy (mouth, throat, tongue, larynx, etc.) to produce a wide range of sounds. Only a few animals can approximate some human sounds. Because the human larynx is low in the neck, a long air column lies above the vocal cords. This helps make vowel sounds. Apes cannot make clear vowel sounds, because they lack this long air column. The back of the human tongue, extending deep into the neck, modulates the air flow to produce consonant sounds. Apes have flat, horizontal tongues, incapable of making consonant sounds. Even if an ape could evolve all the physical equipment for speech, that equipment would be useless without a “prewired” brain for learning language skills, especially grammar and vocabulary.<BR/><BR/>And I’ll add one for good measure…<BR/><BR/>11- Embryology<BR/>Evolutionists have taught for over a century that as an embryo develops, it repeats an evolutionary sequence. In other words, in a few days an unborn human repeats stages that supposedly took millions of years for mankind. Another well-known example of this ridiculous teaching is that embryos of mammals have “gill slits,” because mammals supposedly evolved from fish. (Yes, that’s faulty logic.) Embryonic tissues that resemble “gill slits” have nothing to do with breathing; they are neither gills nor slits. Instead, that embryonic tissue develops into parts of the face, bones of the middle ear, and endocrine glands. Most Embryologists no longer consider the superficial similarities between a few embryos and the adult forms of simpler animals as evidence for evolution. <BR/>Ernst Haeckel, by deliberately falsifying his drawings, originated and popularized this incorrect but widespread belief. Many modern textbooks continue to spread this false idea as evidence for evolution. <BR/><BR/>Evolution is in no doubt complex, but just doesn’t fly in the face of what we know for sure. That’s why it’s a THEORY as I stated from the beginning. There are MANY contingencies which DO NOT match or cannot be reconciled. Too many for me to base my life on mere materialism. <BR/><BR/>Thank god this is America. You do you…I’ll certainly do me. Peace.<BR/><BR/>Thanks.District Supt. Harvey Burnetthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15315686602819371111noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-22399899148267798392008-03-17T16:01:00.000-04:002008-03-17T16:01:00.000-04:00Unless there is new evidence to show why these arg...Unless there is new evidence to show why these arguments are wrong, the following are the non-Biblical reasons why I will NEVER believe in the biological evolution of mankind: <BR/><BR/>1- Organic Evolution Has Never Been Observed<BR/><BR/>2- The Law of Biogenesis <BR/>Spontaneous generation (the emergence of life from nonliving matter) has never been observed. All observations have shown that life comes only from life. This has been observed so consistently it is called the law of biogenesis. The theory of evolution conflicts with this scientific law when claiming that life came from nonliving matter through natural processes. Evolutionary scientists reluctantly accept the law of biogenesis. From my research I have seen the following in effort to explain this: 1- some say that future studies may show how life could come from lifeless matter, despite the virtually impossible odds. 2- Others say that their theory of evolution doesn’t begin until the first life somehow arose. 3- Still others say the first life was created, then evolution occurred. <BR/>All evolutionists recognize that, based on scientific observations, life comes only from life.<BR/><BR/>3- Acquired Characteristics<BR/>Acquired characteristics—characteristics gained after birth—cannot be inherited. My research has shown that almost all evolutionists agree that acquired characteristics cannot be inherited, but yet, many unconsciously slip into this false belief. I acknowledge that stressful environments for some animals and plants cause their offspring to express various defenses. New genetic traits however, are not created; instead, the environment can switch on genetic machinery already present. The marvel is that optimal genetic machinery already exists to handle some contingencies, not that time, the environment, or “a need” can produce the machinery as stated by most evolutionists including those on this site.<BR/><BR/>4- Mendel’s Laws<BR/>Mendel’s laws of genetics and their modern-day refinements explain almost all physical variations observed in living things. Mendel discovered that genes (units of heredity) are merely reshuffled from one generation to another. Different combinations are formed, not different genes. The different combinations produce many variations within each kind of life, as in the dog family. A logical consequence of Mendel’s laws is that there are limits to such variation. Breeding experiments and common observations also confirm these boundaries.<BR/><BR/>5- Natural Selection<BR/>Natural selection cannot produce new genes; it selects only among preexisting characteristics. As the word “selection” implies, variations are reduced, not increased. <BR/>Many mistakenly believe that insect or bacterial resistances evolved in response to pesticides and antibiotics. Instead,a previously lost capability was reestablished, making it appear that something evolved, a mutation reduced the binding ability, regulatory function, or transport capacity of certain proteins,a damaging bacterial mutation or variation reduced the antibiotic’s effectiveness even more, or a few resistant insects and bacteria were already present when the pesticides and antibiotics were first applied. When the vulnerable insects and bacteria were killed, resistant varieties had less competition and, therefore, proliferated. <BR/><BR/>While natural selection occurred, nothing evolved and, in fact, some biological diversity was lost. The variations Darwin observed among finches on different Galapagos islands is another example of natural selection producing micro- (not macro-) evolution. While natural selection sometimes explains the survival of the fittest, it does not explain the origin of the fittest. Today, some people think that because natural selection occurs, evolution must be correct. Actually, natural selection prevents major evolutionary changes<BR/><BR/>In the words of the Nobel prize-winning evolutionist Jacques Monod: “[Natural] selection is the blindest, and most cruel way of evolving new species….The struggle for life and elimination of the weakest is a horrible process, against which our whole modern ethic revolts. Obviously there is great conflict among evolutionists in explaining the boundaries of natural selection. <BR/><BR/>Next 5 in a new post. Thanks.District Supt. Harvey Burnetthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15315686602819371111noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-33896032379590321182008-03-17T15:50:00.000-04:002008-03-17T15:50:00.000-04:00Modusoperandi~ As I said I appreciate you getting ...Modusoperandi~ As I said I appreciate you getting back with me and giving me the reasons why you feel that if creation is true God would be a liar. I’ll begin by saying that it’s obvious that there are other issues you have in your personal experience that you indicated in your response and my intents are not to minimize those experiences in any way, but with that said I will strongly disagree with all of your assertions and explain why.<BR/><BR/>First of all other than because God CANNOT lie (Num. 23:19, Heb. 6:18) and as sccording to scripture that does not change so far as his nature or essence is concerned, I would offer this: The genealogical record as outlined in Genesis does not seek to offer a comprehensive or exhaustive list of genealogical record especially among the more ancient records and genealogies preceding Genesis 11. There are certain points there are gaps and every “begat” doesn’t necessarily mean there was a paternal or father-son relationship between the characters listed. Some were grand-parent-grandchild relationships. Once such example is in Luke 3: 36 where Cainan is mentioned as son of Araphaxad whereas Shelah (Salah) is mentioned to the exclusion of Cainan in Gen. 11: 13-14. The point of the genealogies, was not to make a comprehensive listing, but rather a succession of generations. <BR/><BR/>With that said, I don’t believe that the record covers millions of years of generations either. Neither do I believe in day-age creationism or gap creationism, or for that matter theistic-evolution which I believe may have more problems than most sorts of creationism. As you may see where this is going, I believe in the Biblical record above science and above what things “appear” to be. <BR/><BR/>Why? The age old story (Gen. 3) of satan appearing through the serpent to Eve and suggesting , that God was withholding a secret knowledge from her and therefore appealing to her senses of sight, desire, and carnal wisdom, is the same tactic dressed up in different clothes. In this case the clothes of EVOLUTION, that has been repackaged and sold in this age of “enlightenment”. <BR/><BR/>Secondly, God DID NOT put an age tag on any of his creation and he left neither you or I a memo dating ANY of what we see. We can ONLY hypothesize and therefore cannot be sure of certain aspects of creation because of a lack of evidence. And because the evidence certainly SIGNIFICANTLY conflicts, unless you have that memo, you are in no position to call God a liar. <BR/><BR/>Further who made man the highest moral order in the cosmos? To call God a liar for something that HE DID NOT tell neither you I, or any of his creation, is the ultimate self-exaltation. Man in his arrogance and little, limited knowledge extends himself as a higher moral being than God but yet daily makes decisions that cause more and more immorality to proliferate. This is inconsistent but is yet the plight of man when trying to extend his concept of morality throughout the universe and world. <BR/><BR/>So this is nothing new. It really goes back to my original analogy of the car. Buying a 2007 in 2007 that was BUILT and assembled in 2006 with parts that were created as early as 2005 in no way makes the car company a liar. A rational person doesn’t even hold a secular organization to the same standard as we hold God. Why ? Because we are arrogant and love to hate God. <BR/><BR/>My next post will deal with specific reasons why I reject evolution as nothing more than a man created fantasy, but I did want to deal with your commentary since you took the time to answer at least answer my primary question. As I said, thank you for a clear and cogent answer and I submit this response to you and others with all due respect. <BR/><BR/>Thank you.District Supt. Harvey Burnetthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15315686602819371111noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-10090672677498534332008-03-17T09:32:00.000-04:002008-03-17T09:32:00.000-04:00joe said: I think it is a valid question to know ...<I>joe said: I think it is a valid question to know why evolution "leaves some behind". Who knows. There could be some completely rationale answer I have never heard.</I><BR/><BR/>Then let me provide one. If you have a population that meets the following criteria:<BR/><BR/>1.) A sufficiently large randomly interbreeding population size to prevent random elements (e.g. genetic drift) from playing a large role<BR/>2.) An environment that remains relatively stable for VERY long periods of time (even if it requires the population to migrate to maintain its stable environment)<BR/>3.) A species that has reached genetic equilibrium within its environment--that is, under the conditions present in the environment, there is not sufficient selective pressure to favor any evolvable characteristic over the present population<BR/><BR/>Then you will see that the species in question will remain at genetic equilibrium, and no change in genetic frequency (and therefore, no evolution) will occur; see <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardy-Weinberg#Application_to_cases_of_complete_dominance" REL="nofollow">the Hardy-Weinberg Law.</A> Some organisms reached conditions similar to this, but never exactly like this for any prolonged period of time. Crocodiles HAVE evolved, just not on the order of gross physical changes.<BR/><BR/>See, enigma, no desire on the part of the organism to "stop evolving" required. So kindly stop misrepresenting me--it makes you look bad, and you don't need any more help on that account.<BR/><BR/>For example, after my extensive but incomplete list of speciation events, enigma said: <I>As far as I know, no one has ever observed the introduction of a new species even though experiments have been done to try and induce such a thing. If there has, please let me know.</I> Sweet irony.<BR/><BR/>Then after it was pointed out by myself and evan, said: <I>Yes, I've read the articles on these. I have not read the creationist rebuttals, so let's see how close I get.</I><BR/><BR/>Ha, ha, ha. From "It's never happened!" to "Oh, let's see what my Friends in Jesus say about it." to:<BR/><I>These are not new species, but sub-species with such severly damaged DNA that they can only reproduce with their own sub-species. If anything they are devolved not evolved.</I><BR/><BR/>Without realizing that there is no such thing as "devolved" in biology, and that the new organisms were just as fit as their predecessors if not moreso precluding the idea of major DNA damage or "devolution".<BR/><BR/><I>Believe it or not (and I'm sure you won't), I got this from reading the papers which touted these things as proof of evolution.</I><BR/><BR/>Cite or fail. Such assertions are definitely NOT in the original articles I cited, and I would bet money you have not read them. Hell, the plant examples were just cases of polyploidy, which happens all the time in plants (the apples you eat are both diploid and triploid; which are "heavily damaged"?) So which papers were they? Gentleman's bet says that they were creationist screeds, passing on their propaganda of how best to deny the evidence of the obvious, or you pulled it out of your nether regions.<BR/><BR/><I>We hear all the time that intelligent design is not science because it can not be observed. Why should evolution, or cosmology be held to a different standard?</I><BR/><BR/>No, you hear that intelligent design is not science because it it makes no testable predictions, not because it can not be observed. Neutrons cannot be observed; evolution can and has been observed. Also, evolution has made testable predictions that HAVE come true, and continues to do so today.<BR/><BR/><I>What is it about people not believing in evolution that drives you to prove it to us?</I><BR/><BR/>It is infuriating to see people accepting medicines and treatments founded on evolutionary understanding, eating food engineered by evolutionary understanding, and deny evolution. It's like an airline passenger denying aeronautics, or a mechanical engineer denying Newton's Laws of Motion, simply because his God doesn't like them--the cognitive dissonance required is enough to drive me nuts. Poop or get off the pot; if evolution is such crap, you shouldn't be trusting your life to drugs that were generated using artificial selection schemes, molecular homology modeling and docking, or any other biomedical research technique predicated on the idea that evolution is true.<BR/><BR/>Then add to it the fact that you want to teach pseudoscience and/or just plain myth in place of one of the most heavily supported scientific theories because evolution contradicts your favorite creation myth, and it really starts to piss me off. I have to deal with the students that are churned out by these rural Southern and Midwestern high schools. They come in not knowing what evolution means, much less how it works. That means I have to waste my time and the taxpayers' money teaching them what they should have learned in high school if their teacher hadn't been too afraid of the local God Squad (made up of well-meaning people like yourself who just want to save their immortal souls from the boogie man) to teach evolution.<BR/><BR/>If your God didn't want us to believe in evolution, He shouldn't have made it so bleeding obvious.Shygetzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12587529149916263563noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-34054682415183234312008-03-16T14:04:00.000-04:002008-03-16T14:04:00.000-04:00zilch,you are the manzilch,<BR/>you are the manJamie Steelehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13186614354346762218noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-43411572189004433552008-03-16T11:12:00.000-04:002008-03-16T11:12:00.000-04:00trou- you're most welcome. I'd also like to thank...trou- you're most welcome. I'd also like to thank shygetz for starting this thread, and for his careful explanations.<BR/><BR/>enigma- if we can agree to disagree peaceably, that means a lot. I'm glad that you and joe are willing to look further into this fascinating subject.<BR/><BR/>jamie- I haven't given up hope that you will also check out more of what the reality-based community has to offer. If your faith is strong, you won't be endangered.<BR/><BR/>I'd also like to extend an invitation to all of you to come visit me in Vienna, or in SF this summer, to chat over a beer (or other beverage of your choice). Drop me a line if you're in town- my email address is in my profile.<BR/><BR/>cheers from overcast Vienna, zilchzilchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01695741977946935771noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-66792044382023243632008-03-16T01:49:00.000-04:002008-03-16T01:49:00.000-04:00But I will take His opinion of this topic over you...<I>But I will take His opinion of this topic over yours he sounds more educated and believable.</I><BR/><BR/>I suppose if your idea of the educated and believable is Paul saying "For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe."<BR/><BR/>Jamie you don't make arguments. I don't know if its because you can't or you won't. But at least try to act like you actually read what people are trying to tell you.Evanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14299188458940897810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-28800442411270651002008-03-16T00:59:00.000-04:002008-03-16T00:59:00.000-04:00enigma said, "I do not refuse to read and understa...enigma said, "I do not refuse to read and understand. I have read everything I could find on evolution, both in support of and in opposition to. I understand very well what the issues are and the science involved."<BR/><BR/>I find this hard to believe due to the following quotes from you. You had been better off to have admitted to being ignorant and only reading creationist chick tracks than to claim to have read "everything you could get your hands on". I call bullcrap.<BR/><BR/> enigma said,<BR/>"the only valid "way of knowing" is empiricism. Sorry; deal with it.<BR/>As far as I know, no one has ever observed the introduction of a new species even though experiments have been done to try and induce such a thing. If you cannot cite an observed case of evolution, then by your own standard, evolution is not science."<BR/><BR/>As was pointed out to you geology can not be directly observed in most cases. It's hard to observe millions of years of sedimentation or continental drift. Yet you have no problem with that. Furthermore, it's disingenuous of you to define science to your own liking then exploit your biased definition to your own ends. Either you are ignorant of science and how it operates because of your reading comprehension skills or you haven't read "everything you could get your hands on" and are therefore a liar. <BR/><BR/>enigma said,<BR/>"We hear all the time that intelligent design is not science because it can not be observed. Why should evolution or cosmology be held to a different standard?"<BR/><BR/>Intelligent design is not a science because it is a statement of belief that can't be tested, which means that it can't be falsified either. Science doesn't pull stuff out of their butts and try to make it so with an ad campaign or a promotional tour. The neat thing about science is that there is always a focus on trying to disprove or falsify a hypothesis. If the theory or hypothesis stands up to testing then it lives to be challenged again. It can never be entirely proven but it can be falsified.<BR/><BR/>Evan said, "Shygetz has tried to explain some observed speciation events but nobody is looking up his cites. So here you go on observed speciation. This list is NOT exhaustive." <BR/><BR/>An example of you not reading.<BR/><BR/>enigma said,<BR/>"Evan,<BR/>Yes, I've read the articles on these. I have not read the creationist rebuttals, so let's see how close I get."<BR/><BR/>So you admit here to having to go to the creationist websites to see what your official response should be to any given information. So here is an example of you not wanting to understand until you are able to be told what you should think on the subject. <BR/><BR/>When given requested examples of speciation you say,<BR/><BR/>"These are not new species, but sub-species with such severely damaged DNA that they can only reproduce with their own sub-species. If anything they are devolved not evolved."<BR/><BR/>What a load of crap. Once again you invent new meaning to words so you can twist things to your liking. Sub-species? Severely damaged DNA? Devolved? Yet you say that you read and understood "everything you could get your hands on". Bullcrap.<BR/><BR/>Here is the last of your disingenuous, mocking excuse for a civil discussion on evolution.<BR/><BR/>"So let me get this straight. All species are continuously evolving unless they decide that they are happy where they are and then they stop. Evolution is a choice. If I want an eye or an opposing thumb I just evolve one, but if I'm happy to stay the same for fifty million years, I can. This isn't exactly how I learned evolution, but I like it, and it's much more politically correct." <BR/><BR/>Choose either ignorant (which can be corrected by information), liar or stupid. You have to be one of these to have written this. I think, to be gracious, that you have not read and have not understood. Yet, that makes you a liar because you have claimed to do both.<BR/><BR/>"Of course this is stupid, but it is precisely what I have read in posts from Joe and Shytgez. Yes, their words were much more eloquent than that, but I have a gift for seeing through the words and getting right to the meaning."<BR/><BR/>One mans gift is another mans curse. You have purposely twisted what was said and in violation of shygetz' request for a civil discussion. <BR/><BR/>I don't despise you, just your willful ignorance and in much the same way as you might hate the sin but love the sinner. As I said, ignorance can be cured with knowledge. It's the willful part of it that you may need to address. <BR/><BR/>Tell you what, you work on correcting your willful ignorance and if successful I will make an attempt to find something about my father to respect. You go first.Trouhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10728387496683503438noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-24598652320814376592008-03-15T22:31:00.000-04:002008-03-15T22:31:00.000-04:00Evan,this is not a sermon bro.... But I will take ...Evan,<BR/>this is not a sermon bro.... <BR/>But I will take His opinion of this topic over yours he sounds more educated and believable.Jamie Steelehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13186614354346762218noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-9719844384330017212008-03-15T22:16:00.000-04:002008-03-15T22:16:00.000-04:00First before I begin, let me say that Darwin is no...First before I begin, let me say that Darwin is not evolution and evolution is not Darwin. Evolution, if it were falsified, would require a complete re-evaluation of all of biology. Darwin got some things wrong that nobody believes anymore. What he got right is descent with modification by the means of natural selection. This is really critical since science deniers love to personalize this. But Einstein had some things wrong, Darwin got some things wrong and science does not deify its great people. We acknowledge what they did well, correct the mistakes they made, and move on with the corpus of knowledge as we have it. <BR/><BR/>Personalizing is what makes good sermons, but it makes terrible science.<BR/><BR/><I>"Darwin knew well enough that evolution would seem absurd and that he would have to supply a good reason for the hope he had in natural forces. Of course there is no scientific argument for how the most complex thing we know of arose on its own.</I><BR/><BR/>There is a perfectly good scientific argument and the outlines of it are present in the above thread. There is an even better outline of it in The Origin of Species.<BR/><BR/><I>It is simple intuition that good things just don't happen on their own. The ground does not produce a useful harvest without painful toil. A dining room does not organize and clean itself after a feast. And nothing, from clothing to cars, self assembles.</I><BR/><BR/>Crystals self assemble. Hunter gatherers lived off the land without planting a thing -- yet they had useful harvests. And simple intuition shows us that the sun goes around the earth, that heavy objects drop faster than light objects and that germs don't exist. <BR/><BR/>Simple intuition is USELESS in science. Simple intuition is simply the weakest argument anyone can come up with against anything.<BR/><BR/><I>How could Darwin convince the world that evolution could create complexity? He had no strong scientific explanation, so he shifted the burden of proof. Rather than requiring evidence showing that evolution could create complexity, Darwin suggested that there was no counterevidence</I><BR/><BR/>Hold it right there. He had a VERY strong scientific explanation that has since been heavily challenged by many scientists and is to this day believed to be correct. It is hard to imagine a theory that has been challenged more than descent with modification by natural selection. <BR/><BR/>Yet it is still taught as a basic fact in all introductory biology courses. INCLUDING the one at the creationist school that I attended. There was no argument that Darwin was wrong, simply that the Bible was more right than Darwin was wrong. My classes taught the Hardy-Weinberg law, species distribution throughout an ecotone, and island biogeography just like Darwin did. If there was weak science there, I sure never heard it.<BR/><BR/><I>He allowed that if the skeptic could find a complex organ that evolution could not produce, then the theory would be disproven. But it would be impossible for a skeptic to prove that evolution could never create complexity, for that would be tantamount to proving a universal negative.</I><BR/><BR/>False. All too false. Darwin did indeed lay down the challenges to his theory that would disprove. Many people have tried to show that he was wrong. Every time they do, the mechanism for the development of the structure is elucidated and it matches his theory perfectly. It's believers in God who demand the proof of a universal negative.<BR/><BR/><I>Darwin made things easy by inverting the question. Rather than asking the question "How much positive evidence is there that complexity can arise on its own?" he asked "Is there negative evidence to disprove the idea.</I><BR/><BR/>More lies. Darwin's book begins with a LONG sequence on artificial selection in which he talks about the diversity present in organisms bred by artificial selection. Read him. His argument is compelling to this very day.<BR/><BR/><I>Darwin's argument was not in the scientific spirit , for one does not purpose and unlikely and unproven theory and justify it because it cannot be disproven. It was the best argument available to Darwin and he used it skillfully. (Sic)</I><BR/><BR/>This is simply ungrammatical and I cannot discern what the author is trying to say here.<BR/><BR/><I>After Darwin, evolutionists rarely needed to defend the theory against the problem of complexity.<BR/><BR/>The fields of mathematics and logic can provide objective proofs for their results, but science is ultimately subjective.</I><BR/><BR/>First, there are no "evolutionists" who "believe" in evolution the way that "creationists" believe in Creation. There is no famous evolutionary biology who is well known for saying "I believe because it is absurd" as there is for Christianity. <BR/><BR/>Secondly, this is simply assertion without evidence.<BR/><BR/>I don't know what preacher wrote your little sermon Jamie, but she was fundamentally ignorant of biology and every detail of this quote shows it.Evanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14299188458940897810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21219785.post-55661119413163906472008-03-15T21:47:00.000-04:002008-03-15T21:47:00.000-04:00JamieDarwin did try to support his argument with r...Jamie<BR/><BR/>Darwin <I>did</I> try to support his argument with regard to organs of extreme perfection with facts. <BR/><BR/>Here is part of one paragraph from his analysis:<BR/><BR/><I>The simplest organ which can be called an eye consists of an optic nerve, surrounded by pigment-cells and covered by translucent skin, but without any lens or other refractive body. We may, however, according to M. Jourdain, descend even a step lower and find aggregates of pigment-cells, apparently serving as organs of vision, without any nerves, and resting merely on sarcodic tissue. Eyes of the above simple nature are not capable of distinct vision, and serve only to distinguish light from darkness. In certain star-fishes, small depressions in the layer of pigment which surrounds the nerve are filled, as described by the author just quoted, with transparent gelatinous matter, projecting with a convex surface, like the cornea in the higher animals. He suggests that this serves not to form an image, but only to concentrate the luminous rays and render their perception more easy. In this concentration of the rays we gain the first and by the most important step towards the formation of a true, picture-forming eye; for we have only to place the naked extremity of the optic nerve, which in some of the lower animals lies deeply buried in the body, and in some near the surface, at the right distance from the concentrating apparatus, and an image will be formed on it.</I><BR/><BR/>He was not merely shifting the burden of proof by <I>fiat</I>- as if he could!- he was attempting to show that organs of extreme perfection may <I>well have</I> developed gradually, and only then did he propose that if one could show the impossibility of such an instance, then his theory would fall to the ground. But he did his homework first!<BR/><BR/>The burden of proof thing really sticks in the craw of creationists because that was Darwin's historical achievement- to shift that burden, perhaps permanently, in the direction of the creationist. It is the Holy Grail of ID/Creationism to shift it back, to be able to say "If it looks designed, it must be designed, you must prove otherwise." Unfortunately the inroads already made by evolutionists make that very improbable.<BR/><BR/>It is ironic that now IDers are demanding that they not be asked to prove the impossibility of structures arising through selection, they want to make it easier on themselves by showing merely that the structures are somewhat improbable, i.e, they want to be relieved of the necessity of proving a universal negative. Now who do they remind me of in that reagard? Oh yeah, atheists!- like Percy Shelley and Richard Dawkins.<BR/><BR/>It is somewhat of an insult to Darwin to accuse him of logical shuffles that would circumvent the need for empirical demonstration, when his entire body of work testifies to his sturdy empiricism. Playing burden of proof games is more in the ID purview.<BR/><BR/>By the way, you forgot to tell us who the scientist was that you were quoting ha ha.paul01https://www.blogger.com/profile/06306440944379183875noreply@blogger.com