Comments Posted By plunge
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THE DEMONS ARE STIRRING...THE CANDLE IS GUTTERING
I don't need to publish anything about the 2nd law. Concepts like thermodynamics aren't necessarily easy, but the general ideas are not out of the grasp of laypeople and you can understand them if you try. But you have to be willing to put in some effort. Your account of them is, however, convienient for me, because it is a nice and easy way to demonstrate that you are ignorant about the concepts you claim to be using.
"How did life begin? Biochemical evolution on mineral surfaces How did life begin on Earth? University of Chicago geophysicist Joseph V. Smith, in a Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper published Tuesday, March 31, provides a theory for how small organic molecules may have been able to assemble on the surfaces of minerals into self-replicating biomolecules—the essential building blocks of life."
Okay, so you've read this paper, yes (it's from 8 years ago so it's a little out of date, but whatever: I'm just confused as to why you'd note the day of the week something was published for a paper almost a decade old)? Did you notice that it ISN'T talking about the mechanism of biological evolution at work? Did you? Or are you still just not getting it?
"but when I ask why these same natural processes that gave us this huge biological complexity, couldn’t have given us much simpler thinks like roads and bridges, you laugh….."
If you actually understood what you were talking about: even if you had read the papers you are citing, the answer to such a dumb question would be obvious. The abiogenetic research you are citing concerns the formation of organic compounds under specific conditions that happen to have the property of self-replication. These are all very specific processes and events with specific sorts of outcomes (namely, some very simple organic complexes with little overall structure but some semblance of replicative descent with heredity). They don't include "roads and bridges" anymore than the Krebs cycle involves vinyl siding.
Are you going to attempt any of my questions now?
Comment Posted By plunge On 15.08.2006 @ 10:01
"despite what toilet plunger says, evolution is a theory of origins, and in order to do that it had to take inorganic matter and make it organic. Duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh"
Look, no matter how many times you say this, it doesn't make it true. The TOE does not and can not and does not claim to explain the origin of life. If you understand what evolution was or required, this would be extremely blindingly obvious. But you don't, so you don't realize it, and end up saying silly things like this.
"It is that to attribute the development of life on Earth to natural selection is to assign to it—and to it alone, of all known natural “forcesâ€â€”the ability to violate the second law of thermodynamics and to cause order to arise from disorder."
Unfortunately, as I said, you have just misstated the 2nd law. If your account were true, then the formation of, for instance, ice would be impossible, along with any number of chemical reactions occuring all around and inside you right now. Thermodynamics is essentially the idea that you cannot be efficient: no matter what you do, you lose the use of some portion of useable energy from the system in doing it. Nature CAN create order in all sorts of ways. It just costs energy to do so.
THAT is why the earth not being a closed system is important. All manner of chemical reactions can continue without the earth's surface running out of energy, because energy is constantly being added from elsewhere. None of this has anything to do with order. Macro-events like messing up your room or ordering your are not thermodynamics, except in the sense that they require energy to perform.
The argument being made is simply mathematically ignorant. You cannot model reality as the random positioning of atoms! Reality contains any number of macro processes that change the picture of what is and isn't likely to happen dramatically. If you ignore the existence of gravity, for instance, and just model atoms in the universe moving randomly, then you will wrongly conclude that galaxies are wildly improbable. The person you are quoting is making the EXACT same sort of straw man argument.
Your link is, of course, broken.
And of course, you didn't even attempt the simple question I've asked over and over: how do you explain the very very particular pattern of nested heirarchy appearing over and over again in nature no matter which way we examine things?
Comment Posted By plunge On 14.08.2006 @ 21:12
What, are there two of you?
Anyway, all of your arguments have failed, you can't answer even simple questions about the evidence: all you can do is scream that it's all a conspiracy and dogma and then run off cackling.
Comment Posted By plunge On 14.08.2006 @ 18:09
"so all I was taught in school was a lie?"
No, chances are you didn't study very hard or listen very clearly, because you have a lot of very simplified, mangled ideas about what evolutionary biology is about.
"looks like more ‘morphing’ from evolutionists. so you take it on FAITH that somehow, just somehow, life started…."
Nope. We search for information on how life started. The major issue right now is that there is no good guide to exactly what of many many different possibilities and paths might actually have been taken. We know that in general the idea is plausible, but its hard to nail down specifics.
"then of course, this vast, all powerful force of evolution takes over!! I doubt dawkins would agree with you….but evolution sure is a slippery target….it means everything, and nothing….ok"
Dawkins and virtually every other biologist would agree with me.
But again, the only person claiming that evolution is a "vast, all-powerful force" is you.
"only if you define science if purely materialistic terms, which is what evolution does."
No: only if you define science as being based on testible evidence, which it must. Anything else is basically just faith, and we all have different faiths but no way to establish whose faith is correct. So instead, in science, we focus only on those things we have some ability to think about testing and finding evidence for. You can gab on about "materialism" all you want, but unless you can explain how science could work any other way, it's just a lot of hot air.
"This is one of the problems with science is general. They want to be purely about ‘science’ but then they define it to encompass a purely materialistic philosophy which is hostile to christianity, or any religion other than their own…and then of course they deny they are religious."
If something isn't religious, then yes: it's not religious. If you call it "religious" as some sort of insult, then you denigrate both religion as well as showing a poor grasp of english.
"when has that ever stopped evolutionists? Plain and simply genetic changes within species is not evolution."
Of course it is.
"if you want to say that ‘micro evolution’ is all that evolution is, then its not the traditional meaning of evolution…but apparently evolution is whatever anyone wants it to mean."
Nope. Evolution is quite well defined. The problem you are having is that it isn't simple: understanding evolution requires understanding a lot about genetics and biology and a whole host of other things. It's not some simple concept like "things morph." That doesn't mean anything.
"again only if you can change the definition of evolution to mean whatever you want it to mean, and you do."
No, I'm using the normal standard definition of the word as used in biology.
"I’m talking about the traditional definition of evolution, not your personal definition. its this grand force that shapes all of our lives and everything…and its of course ARBITARY. For some reason we can talk about the EVOLUTION of the universe…."
That's using the term "evolution" in a non-biological, almost poetic, sense. That's not what anyone means when they talk about the evolution of life on earth. In english, words have different meanings. But biologists have been consistent. The only one confusing the different meanings is, again, yourself.
"so somehow it affects non-living things in that case, but it can’t ‘evolve’ non-living things into more complex forms…."
Right, because the basic components of biological evolution are not there. If you take "evolution" to mean simply "change over time" then that's a valid use of the word, but it really isn't what a biologist is talking about, or what a creationist objects to. Again, this seems to be your personal confusion over the usage of terms.
"the whole point of panspermia and punctuated equilibrium is to demonstrate how far afield the defenders of darwinism will go to defend their theory….as you are amply demonstrating."
Again, as I pointed out, neither of those things are what you claim they are. PE, for instance, is not "going far afield" because it doesn't mean what you think it means (of course, I asked you to define or explain it, and you haven't bothered to even try, despite using it in sentances as if you knew what it meant). PE is a refutation of phyletic gradualism. Do you even know what THAT is?
"tell me, do you know much about evolution? are YOU the official evolution spokesman to define what it is and is not?"
No: I'm someone that can read. What evolution is, what these terms mean, what all these different concepts are: they aren't some interpretative dance. They are well established and intelligible terms that anyone can understand. The problem is that understanding them takes a tiny bit of effort and care about getting things right. You don't seem to be willing to put in that effort, and you are extremely careless: you'll say or believe anything regardless of how flawed, nonsensical, or self-contradictory it might be, as long as you think it shows that evolution is naughty and evil.
"to say that darwinism is not a primary component of the materialistic world-view is just ignorant…."
Why? Why would Christians have a "materialistic world view"? I'm not a Christian, and I don't have a "materialistic world-view." Science is about what physically testible and detectable things we can verify, indeed, but it isn't by itself a worldview. People that have all sorts of different theologies and ontological convictions can handle science just fine.
"again you can’t define things as you wish they would be. tell me Dawkins would not like to see christianity destroyed, and it is he, not YOU, that is the foremost evolutionist in the world today….like it or not."
He's certainly a popular figure, but calling anyone "the foremost" anything in science displays a real ignorance of what science is. Science isn't about celebrity or any single person's views about this or that. Dawkins is a popular speaker and educator on evolution, but he's not a particularly notable figure in evolutionary biology proper. That he thinks Christianity is bad for society is his own opinion and he's welcome to share it just as you are to disagree with him.
"enlighten you? that would be like casting pearls before swine. I know anything that challenges darwinism is ‘taken out of context’...yeah….ok."
Well, what do you want us to say? If you lie and misstate things, are we not allowed to point this out? The practice of dishonest "quote-mining" isn't something we just reflexivly toss out without thought. We can prove that it's done, and done dishonestly, time and time again by creationists. The real problem is that creationists have no serious interest in biology. They don't bother to learn anything about it. So they scan through texts without really reading anything for things that they think will sound troubling as a few sentances.
But really honest people read the whole papers/books/whathave you. Trying to think you can be informed about something just from a handful of quotes of dubious context is just plain lazy.
"again, then you may as well say evolution is dead, evolution is really genetics."
Evolution is really genetics. But it doesn't predict that cats will give birth to dogs. If something like that happened, it would be a real problem for evolution.
"You attack christianity"
I don't attack christianity at all. I attack dishonesty as practiced by creationists.
"come on, how stupid are you? do you think YOU are the face of darwinism?"
Nobody is the face of any discipline of science. That's not how science works. And only creationists talk about "darwinism."
"no, dawkins is, whether you beleive it, or like it."
Again, what someone like dawkins believes about christians has next to nothing to do with whether the evidence for evolution is sound or not.
Your vision of science is almost like a child reading a tabloid. Dawkins has written a number of accessible and quite good books explaining evolution: you'd probably learn a lot if you sat down and read them. But whether or not evolution is true or not does not rest on Dawkin's personal beliefs or his attitudes towards religion. Kenneth Miller is another popular biologist and author of books on evolution who is a devout Chrisitian and who disagrees with Dawkins quite strongly. I highly recommend "Finding Darwin's God" as a response to both creationists and Dawkin's views about religion.
"all your questions are explained by either evolution or creation."
No, because you haven't been able to answer any of my questions. That's why you try to change the subject always away from the actual discussion of the evidence.
Comment Posted By plunge On 14.08.2006 @ 15:32
"I’m going to assume for the moment that you ARE the spokesman for evolution."
Well, that would be stupid. I'm not even a biologist. I'm a layperson who happens to have read and understood enough to know that your arguments are lousy. But I can't even diagram a Krebs cycle. Treating me as an authority on evolution isn't just silly: it smacks of delusional thinking, as if you a random blog commenter were addressing the NAS somehow by posting.
"When I was in school LIFE EVOLVED period, end of story….now we don’t know how life started, evolution only works on living things, but we don’t know how they got here."
I am willing to bet that if you are claiming your school taught you that rocks evolved, then you are either lying, crazy, or you grew up in some sort of bizarre new age cult sect and not a public school (as lousy as those are).
Or maybe, far more likely, you just misunderstood what you were taught then as badly as you misunderstand the issues before you now.
Our understanding of abiogenesis has improved over the last couple of decades, not failed.
"I remember the little fairy story about how some animal kept reaching higher and higher for food, and it became a giraffe….."
Well see, you proved my point. What you are describing is not evolution, but rather Lamarkism. We often teach kids about Lamarkism as a CONTRAST to how evolution actually works. You got confused then, and you remain confused now.
"evolution was caused by external forces….not its purely internal, purely genetics, now the changes are very small and minor."
At each individual step, yes. But over time lots of small changes inevitably make large differences. And once speciation happens, then two populations will not develop in the same direction, because there is no transmission of genes.
Are you ever going to answer any of my questions by the way? How come we never see in nature what any designer could do easily: how come we only see genes passed ancestrally rather than, say from a cat to a dog? Why does nature obey a rule of genetics that only makes sense in terms of evolutionary ancestry?
"The fruit fly example does hold up. if evolution now rules out large changes, then its only left with small changes, or its nothing."
No, you still aren't grasping the concept here. Large changes are perfectly possible. But no matter how large a change is, it still is very unlikely to ever become something "entirely" new, and certainly not suddenly: it's always a modification of what came before. Human cells are still eukaryotic. Our basic bodyplan is still vertebrate. Evolution does not and never has predicted anything different.
"If evolution cannot change a creature into something else, gradually over time, and we’ve had thousands of generations of fruit flies to attempt this, then what is it? its nothing, just a plank of a religion called materialism, that must be defended at all costs."
No, you still just aren't getting the concept. The problem is with your understanding of what "something else" is. Gerbils are very very different from the early tetrapods (the first sizeable land animals, which were something like a cross between lobed-fishes and amphibious lizards). However, they are not something "new": they aren't a new group on the same level as tetrapods. They ARE tetrapods: they are a subset of tetrapods. Gerbils are also eukaryotic. Now, if you looked at a single celled eukaryote and a gerbil, I think you'd probably agree that they are quite different. But gerbils are still not something radically new on the same level as eukaryotes. They are eukaryotic, and they are a subset of eukaryotes.
Comment Posted By plunge On 14.08.2006 @ 13:41
"you really can’t see the forest for the trees. Before there was life there was what cargon, inanimate matter? correct? But, somehow, evolution worked on this inanimate matter, and created life, correct?"
No, not correct. Again, you very clearly do not understand what you think you are criticizing. Evolution, at least as we mean it in biology, cannot be the process that began life. Evolution REQUIRES the basic elements of life (reproduction with heredity plus variation) in order to function.
"It could not have been God, perish the Thought."
Plenty of evolutionary scientists do, in fact, believe that it was God that created life. This view is not science, but it is not precluded by science anymore than the knowledge about how/why it rains precludes the belief that God can make it rain.
"So if evolution could ‘evolve’ this inanimate matter into something as complex as life, why couldn’t it ‘evolve’ inanimate matter into something far simpler, than life?"
This sentence contains so many misconceptions that it stands in testament to its own foolishness.
"Does Gravity just work on living things? so why should evolution, which as everyone knows, is all powerful, just work on living things?"
If you actually understood the basic process then it would be obvious why it can only work on living things. Fire can only work when there is oxygen.
"isn’t that nice? Now when darwin was asked about how life started, didn’t he say something about a ‘nice warm pond’?"
Yes, but this wasn't in his published work and he made no claim about it being something he could demonstrate in the same way that he could evolution. It was a speculation in a private letter.
"really? so tell me how darwinism ‘morphed’ into neo-darwinism."
Pretty simple actually. Darwin didn't know anything about genetics when he and Wallace first proposed the idea. In other words, they didn't understand heredity (Darwin, in fact, got it quite wrong, thinking that heredity happened via a blending of traits). Genetics first really became understood on just last century, and with it came powerful new tools to determine things like common ancestry, family trees, population dynamics, model the actul speed of transmission of traits and so on. This was such a powerful new insight into life that it vastly enriched the basic evolutionary idea. Not only did it confirm evolution in a rather spectacularly precise manner, but it allowed us to discover the twin-nested heirarchy, which is one of the centerpieces of the evidence for common descent.
"Darwinism has added ‘panspermia’ and ‘punctuated equilibrium’ and whatever to fit any new fact….so I must defer to the experts (darwiniacs) about morphing!"
First of all, panspermia is not a part of neo-darwinism. It's a speculation about how life might have begun on earth, which isn't about evolution, and it isn't anything more than speculation about one possible way life could have come to this planet. If you read journals about evolution you aren't going to find it mentioned. If you read journals dealing with abiogenesis, you might hear it mentioned, but only rarely. In short, your obsession with it is simply a sign that you are quite unfamiliar with what you are talking about.
Punctuated equilibrium is a principle about the pace of speciation and change. I'm not sure how observations that make evolution more specific and applicable are somehow bad things. The whole point of science is that it is ever correcting its own misconceptions and improving its theories.
I doubt you could even define PE or explain its place in evolutionary history. Just like Cambrian Explosion, its a buzzword you've heard that you think has something to do with evolution being wrong, but you don't really know much about it.
"Please post the quote from my above posts that you think demonstrate this. Christianity is the largest religion in the world and is growing by leaps and bounds. get a clue, christianity will not be destroyed by a bunch of punk-ass professors HA"
You didn't read what was said. What was said is that it is a minority of Christians that believe that evolution is a threat to their beliefs. It is mostly only evangelicals and mostly only those in the U.S., where science education is weakest. It is YOU who is claiming that evolution is trying to destroy Christianity.
"doesn’t the second law of thermodynamics make evolution impossible?"
No. But if you think it does, then please, do enlighten us. I can almost guarantee that in doing so, you will badly misstate what the 2nd law even is.
"doesn’t the lack of fossil evidence doom evolution?"
What lack are you talking about, exactly?
"like I said, put your money where your mouth is, and PROVE IT! take a fruit fly and make it something else…."
The really ironic thing is that you are so ignorant of what evolution even is that you don't realize that if something like this happened, it would be strong evidence against evolution. The neo-darwinian synthesis is inherently anti-saltationist.
"put a few chemicals together in the lab and create a new life form, and then evolve it! simple stuff."
Nope, it's not. We don't know what early life was like, and so we have no idea how to reproduce the conditions that might have brought it about. Or, for that matter, calculate anything about its properties or likihood.
"oh and why is darwinism sooooooo threatened by christianity, and never misses an opportunity to attack it?"
Just because you can say this lie doesn't make it true. Many biologists are Christians. Most of what they and everyone else attacks are not Christians, but a particular fundamentalist movement called creationism. And they attack it because it promulgates all sorts of falsehoods.
"Dawkins, for example, hates christians. Why does ‘science’ have to fight against faith? hmmmmmmmm?"
Dawkins does hate Christians. But then, so what? Dawkins is not "darwinism."
"I know, its all taken out of context, and you darwiniacs won’t answer this question any more than you are capable of ansering any of my other questions….."
I asked you a pretty simple question: I don't remember you answering it.
Again: how do you explain the twin-nested heirarchy? How come lateral gene transfer, which is something that even the dumbest designer could accomplish, never shows up in higher life?
I could ask a million questions you can't answer, really. How come, if humans are not apes and are not related to apes, they have particular sorts of molars which are unique to apes, of all living things? How come humans are sometimes born with tails? How come dolphins and whales are sometimes born with legs, and in fact their embryos actually form legs, just like all tetrapods, but then later reabsorb them?
And how come we never see the opposite? Why are ape atavisms like tails only ever seen in apes and not in, say, birds? Or dolphins?
Comment Posted By plunge On 13.08.2006 @ 23:25
"It recognizes several mechanisms of evolution in addition to natural selection. One of these, random genetic drift, may be as important as natural selection."
Important to what? Genetic drift is an important macro-level determinant of what sorts of niches and patterns are available, but it doesn't do any real heavy lifting.
"you are basically saying that small genetic changes add up to ‘evolution’ a new creature. it doesn’t, plain and simple."
But it so clearly does. You only need to look at the genomes of two distinct but not far distant species to see . You act as if there is some mysterious barrier separating species. But there isn't. The separation is a small genetic change just like all the rest, and it isn't particularly mysterious. In many cases, the exact genetic changes that led to the diverisification of like can be traced and triangulated. How would that even be possible if evolution wasn't valid?
Here, answer me this one question.
Why is it that when we use fossils and geographical distribution to construct a sort of "tree of life" of heirarchical relation over time that we get pretty much exactly the same tree that we get when we examine the genetics of creatures? Why would those things match up? If all creatures were specially created, why would this distinct pattern that ties them to a very distinct past set of ancestral history be found in virtually every way we know to look at them? How do you account for that?
"Like my example of the fruit flies. They have a new generation every 11 days, and after decades, nothing…do I need to reproduce the above quote on fruit flies?"
No, because the quotation is like, decades behind the times. There hasn't been "nothing." Fruit flies have speciated in both in the lab and in the wild. You just can't admit it. And as I explained, you don't even understand what evolution predicts. If you believe that evolution expects any descendants of fruit flies to STOP being fruit flies, then you are simply mistaken as to what evolution expects. If we lived millions of years ago and watched the evolution of flies from then until now, you'd probably still be saying the same dumb thing: "well, sure flies are of all different species now, with different characteristics, but they are all still FLIES"
"Genetics only go so far, before they stop."
Really? How? What stops it? What is this myterious force that prevents species from every becoming genetically incompatible and henceforth developing in different directions?
"its really simple, take that fruit fly, and over the generations, make it ‘xidshfw’ whats that?? SOMETHING NEW…but you can’t. because ‘evolution’ does not exist. all that you see are variations within species, and you hope and pray that somehow you’ll get a new creatore (ie hopeful monster) please."
All speciation is essentially variations within a species group. If you don't understand that, then you are working from a faulty understanding of how evolution works.
"as far as the age of the universe, its obvious, but of course you don’t see it. with an eternal universe, then anything becomes possible, but now the mathematics of proteins happening by chance make it impossible for life to have arisen by chance…"
Again, this is what creationists say. But what they say, and what reality is like are very very often different things.
"oh and I know darwinism doesn’t deal with origins….yeah, thats why darwin wrote the ORIGIN of the species…..come on….."
Have you actually READ the origin of species? If so, then why would you say something so ignorant of what it's about. The title is the origin of species, not "the origin of life." Darwin showed how life became diverse, not how it began.
you see what you want to see. you see a cell and you see the ABITRARY force (or whatever it is) of evolution….others that are more intelligent than you or I see it a bit differently:
"‘The likelihood of the spontaneous formation of life from inanimate matter is one to a number with 40,000 noughts after it…"
Anyone claiming to be able to calculate odds is flat out lying. There is no way to do such a calculation. If you think there is, then lets see the math.
"As far as evolution and society there is no doubt that Hitler was trying to create the ‘master race’ and the soviets, the ‘new socialist man’. Didn’t Marx want to write the forward for Darwin’s book?"
I dunno. Did Darwin convert back to Christianity on his deathbed? Did all the Jews get warned about 9/11? What does that have to do with anything anyway? If Einstein was a rapist, would that mean that relativity is de facto wrong?
Comment Posted By plunge On 13.08.2006 @ 18:53
"so everything is a mutation now?"
No. If you would like me to spend some time introducing the subject of genetics and how it relates to development, I would be happy to do so. But I doubt you would really listen.
"kind of like Andre the giant was a ‘mutation’"
I don't know if his size was genetic or not. According to wikipedia, his size was because of excessive growth hormone, but that can be either genetic or environmental.
"....now with this ‘mutation’ what do we end up with? a bone,"
Your problem is that you don't know enough about what a "bone" is to recognize what it really is composed of and how that can change. You see things in terms of vague abstractions that you think are fundamental. In reality, the substrate of these things is far more similar and fluid that you are imagining.
" and thats ‘evolution’...do you ever step back and realize how ridiculous this sounds? what isn’t evolution?"
Well, lots and lots of things. Computers aren't. Acquired traits aren't. Inorganic materials aren't. Genetic modification of things isn't.
"then you ignore history. lets see the universe used to be thought of as eternal, which would give time for anything to happen, but now it had a start,"
Well sort of, though it's hardly that simple. Some people thought of the universe as eternal, some didn't, and no one really knew for sure. And actually, what's really striking is that people used to think that the universe was SMALL. I mean, really small. The standard view was not far off from the Biblical idea that the earth was set at the center of a firmament (behind which were waters) and things like the sun and the moon and the stars were set in great spheres. It was, in fact, less than a century ago that we even realized that the universe was much bigger than the Milky Way: we thought that this was all there was. But then someone saw galaxies for what they were, and our idea of its size expanded to an almost unimaginable degree.
"which was thought to be a body blow to evolution,"
No it wasn't. Again, this is something in your imagination, not history. First of all, the age of the universe has nothing to do with evolution. It might impact the chances of abiogenesis happening in a universe, but the current age of the earth and the universe seem pretty much perfectly possible for that, though that's all we can say since we don't really know exactly what we are looking for.
"but NO, nothing is, and nothing can ever be because of how you interpret what you see. I look at the immense complexity of a cell and see the hand of God, you see ‘chance’ and this mysterious, unmeasurable, ARBITRARY, but all-powerful, force of ‘evolution’."
No again, you're just spinning out wild hyberbole. It's not an interpretation to look at a cell and see how it is an example of adaptation run wild. Every element down to its genetic code is precisely the sort of thing we might expect if it had evolved. If it had been designed, it would be trivially easy to show that it could not possibly have evolved. There are thousands of things that a designer could and can do that evolution cannot do. There are many things human designers are doing with genetic code right now that evolution cannot do. And yet, we never see any of these things in nature. Why is that?
"no one would ever accuse darwinists of having an ‘evolved’ sense of etiquette"
It would be perverse to regard folks who lie and proudly accuse vast majority of honest people of a vile conspiracy to be deserving of polite treatment. You insult countless Christians who are also scientists by alleging that they are traitors to their religion. You besmirch the honesty and integrity of countless scientists by alleging that they are covering up the weaknesses of evolutionary theory or being less than honest about how certain a reality it is.
"we’ve seen the results of your ‘darwinist’ society, in Auschwitz and the Gulag….."
There is no such thing as a "darwinist" society in the sense of one evolution proscribes. Evolution proscribes nothing. It is not a guide to morality, but a description of biological history. You might as well allege that we have seen what a "hurricanist society" does to coastal towns, and therefore we should not believe in hurricanes.
As for your copy and paste-fest: let me ask you: have you actually read the books and articles from which those quotes were taken? You pre-empitively try to pretend that it would be illegitimate to point out that you misunderstand them, but in that case: are you honest enough to have even tried to read them in context in the first place? I highly doubt it.
Regardless, a collection of quotes yanked off a creationist website doesn't demonstrate anything of interest to this discussion. Lots of people have all sorts of opinions about this and that, some good, some lousy, some in between. But single sentances are not what make up science: it's articles and evidence that build scientific consensus, not quotes.
Like everything else, you want this to be simple: to be able to simply toss out evolutionary theory without ever having to actually understand it in the first place. That's, if I may say so, truly intellectually lazy.
Comment Posted By plunge On 13.08.2006 @ 09:30
"more bone mass is a ‘mutation’??? couldn’t it be just better nutrition? seriously, you type quite a bit, but it doesn’t make much sense."
Yes, it is a mutation: a mutation that has been identified in their genes and which is being studied in the hopes that it could help us cure osteoperosis. We're not talking strong bones. The family in Connecticut with this mutation has EXTREMELY strong bones, to the point where they do not break under conditions that would shatter normal bones.
"I know, NOTHING IS INCONSISTENT WITH EVOLUTION evolution morphs and twist to meet every new fact that comes along."
No, in fact. The basic requirements for evolution to be true are, in fact, very exacting, to the point where imagining something that would disprove something like common descent would in fact be quite easy to do. It's just that, in practice, we never come across anything like that.
Your complaint about how nothing is inconsistent with evolution is yet another baseless accusation that you could make about anything. "Yes, nothing is inconsistent with gravity. You even claim that balloons, which float up, are consistent with gravity, which says they fall down! You'll say anything!"
"of course the gradual ‘genesis’ of new forms is perfectly consistent with the sudden appearance of a great many creatures…...ah yeah… its OBVIOUS that nothing can disprove evolution. and if nothing can disprove it, its not science….duhhhh….and if you can’t measure it, its not science….and your so-called formulas aren’t for evolution…but in your mind everthing is evolution, evolution is god…yadaydaydyayyady"
Whatever. You can say this stuff. But you can't support it or justify it. Anyone can make stupid accusations.
"Clowns from Voltaire to Marx have been trying to destroy christianity, and Darwin and YOU won’t have any more luck…what a joke!!"
Tell it to all the Christian biologists: I think they'll be really amused at this one. It's YOUR paranoid fears that make evolution out to be about destroying Christianity. And thus, you'll believe any lie or nonsense about it, because you think it's a threat to your faith.
"I have a real fear of what darwin does to a society, the ‘brave new hellish world’ it produces."
Again, even if it were true that evolution produces bad results, that has nothing to do with whether or not it is true. Of course, the claim that it causes bad things for society is pretty suspect anyway.
"Of course, those poor evolutionists everything is against them WAAAHHHHH…."
No, they weren't going to give a bunch of nutcases a platform to preen on. If you want to have a debate, then debate. If you want a bunch of scientists to lend credibility to your press conference, then sorry, we don't have to play along.
"you’d have no problems with any arguments with us!!"
We didn't have any problems with your arguements. We just aren't going to help you play your goofy games.
"because its hey kids, we’re going to ram our god (evolution) down your throat, like it or not."
No, in science class, we're going to teach mainstream science, just like we teach astronomy and physics instead of astrology and Dungeons and Dragons.
"again if your arguments were so superior you would welcome this."
Welcome what? If you want to teach something in a basic science class, then it had better be a well supported scientific theory. You don't get to just toss in any old nonsense because you happen to believe it. What goes into an official curriculumn as something you need to learn to be educated about science is a very different thing from debating an issue with a fringe group. We'll debate all you want. But we're not just going to hand over signs of legitimacy to your view unearned just because you whine a lot.
"well what is it? its not a force, you say, and it DEFINATELY is arbitrary, so what is it??"
It's a process, a logical outgrowth of some basic conditions like a descending heredity with variation and an observed process in nature.
"admit it, its god."
Blah blah blah. Again, you can keep making dumb accusations like this all you want if it makes you feel better.
"I’m glad to see how open and ‘tolerant’ you darwiniacs are to debate!!"
Nothing says that we have to be nice to people that argue dishonestly and out of a careless ignorance. Once we've easily refuted your litany of bad arguments, we are perfectly free to characterize what the use of those arguments says about you.
Comment Posted By plunge On 12.08.2006 @ 22:31
"plunge: Why don’t you ask Richard Sternberg what happens when the god of evolution is questioned??"
If you tell the story of supposed martyr Sternberg by 1) leaving out all sorts of pertinent facts 2) leaving out all the stuff he did that was shady, then I suppose it could look as if he was hard done upon. But then, if I narrated a boxing match by only telling you about the punches thrown by one side and not the other, it might seem like assault. What that proves is anyone's guess.
"Why do evolutionists go to court, as in Pennsylvania, to stop any mention of any HERESY towards the god of evolution??"
Because when people say "hey, let's teach kids a bunch of babbling nonsense and call it science" other people say "er, no."
"In Kansas, when the evolutionists were invited to debate before the school board, not one showed up?"
Because the format for the "debate" was rigged and dishonest. Regardless, putting on a showboating public event for publicity is not the same thing as seriously debating claims. The claims have all been dealt with, and any new claims will be dealt with. We can do that without giving crackpots or preening politicians special publicity.
"I see no answers coming from evolutionists, just an effort to silence critics."
The critics seem to be yammering on just fine despite this "silencing" so we must not be doing a very good job of it.
"Since the fossil record doesn’t show evolution, especially given the cambrian explosion, we now have ‘punctuated equilibrium’."
You can put these words in a sentance as an accusation, but I bet you don't even know what they mean. The fossil record is perfectly consistent with evolution in every respect. Citing the "cambrian explosion" as proof against evolution just a buzzword that creationists use: there's nothing anti-evolutionary about it.
"Once the universe was discovered not to be eternal, and given that life cannot possibly have arisen by ‘evolution’ (ie chance) in that time, we have ‘panspermia’."
Again, evolution is not "chance." Not even abiogenesis is really "chance." If you continue to insist that it is, then you are simply attacking a straw man. Your account of "panspermia" is just as ill-informed as the rest. Biologists haven't concluded any such thing about the possibilities of abiogenesis.
"As a science it has collapsed, as a faith it’ll keep going…keep the faith!!"
Again, you can make these accusations, but you can't back them up with anything. Any believer can accuse mainstream science of refusing to consider their ideas based on some dogmatic faith. It's a charge that's easy to make. But so what? Screaming about it isn't going to make the evidence go away, or make experimental results proving a young earth, or ID detection magically burst into existence.
Comment Posted By plunge On 12.08.2006 @ 20:51
