4a. Ten Impossibilities of Evolution
The URL for my book is www.Evo-illusion.com.
The above video is about my book Evo-illusion, now available at Amazon. The page begins below.
There are so many items in nature that cannot possibly evolve in small steps. The list would be enormous. If any one of these items could not possibly come into existence through the TOE (Theory of Evolution), then the TOE is not a possible scenario for how species came into existence. Ten examples are:
- Sexual Reproduction and Mitosis
- Flight
- Birds and Eggs and Bird Nests
- Eyes and Hearts
- Maxillary jaw teeth forming and articulating perfectly with concurrently forming mandibular jaw teeth.
- The Kreb’s Citric Acid Cycle
- Survival of the fittest eliminating all weather skin/fur from human beings
- Hemoglobin
- Insects, spiders, and their webs
- Bird teeth and boney jaws evolving then dis-evolving, forming beaks
(1) Sexual reproduction is an all or none event. Would an evolutionist say that one multi-cellular animal grew an appendage after millions of years, then decided to insert it into a fold in another multi-cellular animal that didn’t possess the appendage just to see what would happen? How could perfectly matched male and female sexual organs evolve in separate individuals of a species? What microsteps to sexual reproduction could possibly have occurred? Any explanation of gradually evolving sexuality would be preposterous. The mutations and NS of one gender would have to “know” what mutations and NS were taking place for the other gender. And since there is no intelligence involved, according to evolutionists, this scenario is not possible.
On March 13, 2008, I attended a lecture on Darwin and the TOE at the Ayn Rand Institute in Costa Mesa, California. The lecturer discussed how Darwin was concerned that it may have been impossible for two separate vertebrate sexual beings to evolve since one set of mutations would have to know what the other was forming, which would require intelligence. In the ensuing years, a great deal of study was done on barnacles. It was found that the male barnacle was flea-sized and attached itself to the large female, and somehow that explained the M and NS of vertebrate sexuality. I don’t get it, but that was the explanation. More evo-illusion.
The same is true with cell mitosis (cell splitting for reproduction). Mitosis is an all or none event. Cells cannot split .00001, then .00002…….Mitosis cannot evolve in small steps. Period. It’s a split or no split deal. The other major problem is the fact that for evolution to occur, cells must go through mitosis so that traits and mutations can be passed on the future generations and be improved upon. In other words, mitosis can’t evolve unless there is mitosis!
The fertilization of the female egg by a sperm is also all-or-none. So is copulation.
Below is a video that I made on the subject of sexual reproduction. To watch, press the lower left arrow so you won’t leave the page.
(2) Birds and Flight: Evo-illusionists explain flight by saying that insects were the first to fly. Somehow because insects are small, evolutionists think that they will provide an acceptable explanation for the beginnings of flight evolution. However big or small a species might be, evolution cannot in any way explain flight.
Did a bird grow appendages over the millennia that eventually flapped up and down, causing the bird, to fly? Just think what a heckuva surprise that must have been for the first individual that flew! There simply is no possible scenario that would explain the origins of bird flight that would include mutations and natural selection. Of course, there are absolutely no fossils that help evolution along here, as usual. The beginnings of insect flight also remain obscure, since the earliest winged insects currently known appear to have been capable fliers. And there is no known imaginable and reasonable path to flight that could be developed by random mutations and natural selection.
A Nova program on this fascinating species “The Four-Winged Dinosaur” (Feb. 6, 2008, PBS) was dedicated to the remarkable discovery of A. Microraptor, pictured at left, a newly found dinosaur flier. A large portion of the program was devoted to the evolution of flight. This was certainly another in the amazing list of evolution science programs which try to make the absolutely impossible seem like it could be possible. The part on the evolution of bird flight was nothing short of unbelievable. According to the program, “The origin of flight in birds is a puzzle that seems to defy solution. The fossil record provides few clues as to how it happened. The aerial skills of modern fliers evolved in small steps over millions of years.” (How do they know, since there is absolutely zero fossil evidence showing how it happened?) They then went on to describe the three most accepted theories of how it did happen, all equally impossible but believed by many in the world of evolution:
(A) Flight started from the “ground up”. The running leaps of dinosaurs evolved into the powered flight of birds. Nova explains that this theory “works” against gravity, and therefore is the most difficult of the three theories and very unlikely. A video cartoon of a running raptor was shown. With every few steps, the raptor would leap forward. The raptor gradually got smaller and smaller, and it began sprouting wings! (Why would it get smaller? So it can be more easily digested by its predators?) And, bingo, it evolved into a bird and flew off! (I wonder if the offspring of an animal today, who ran from predators and leaped, would sprout wings and fly. Oh, I forgot, that only happened “a long long time ago” when nobody could view the process.)
(B) The “arboreal origin of flight”. Supposedly the dinosaur would climb a tree and fall/fly out, creating the birth of flight. The only problem with this scenario says Nova is that dinosaurs could not climb trees.
(C) A new theory was presented by Ken Dial, a well-known dinosaur biologist. He says, “Birds tell us how they did it.” He used baby birds of a variety he called “chuckers” to show his thinking. When he put the baby chuckers on a very steep inclined plane, the birds would try to run up and flap their not yet fully grown wings to help them get to the top. They would then power fly down, using their wings the whole way, with no gliding. Dial says this is the evidence of how bird evolution took place. (Only an evolution scientist would take a birdie exercise board and turn it into the solution for one of the most amazing puzzles in nature: the origin of flight! Most people would think the way the baby bird struggled up that board was just cute! Again, dinosaurs couldn’t climb. And, why would they have wings that were useless in the first place, which they were until they were formed enough so the dinosaur could fly? I know, I know; they mutated and were “selected.)
Another interesting feature of bird fliers is the fact that their bones are hollow, which reduces their weight. This, of course, makes them more capable fliers. Were early fliers, which haven’t been found, capable of only getting a few feet off the ground until they evolved hollow bones?
The bottom line is that there is absolutely zero evidence for how birds evolved flight. Birds showed up in the fossil record suddenly, with no reasonable precursors in earlier strata. Ev-illusionists list theropod dinosaurs as precursors, but this is beyond preposterous. Bipedal dinosaurs with ultra-tiny arms, immense boney tails, a vicious set of teeth, and scales, had to dis-evolve those tails, dis-evolve the teeth then evolve beaks, get tiny and light, evolve large aerodynamic wings, evolve feathers, and learn flight. Ev-illusionists couldn’t have picked a more illogical and preposterous precursor than theropods. Why did they? Which animal would you pick from over 150 million years ago that was a bird precursor? The pickin’s are thin. There simply aren’t any animals to choose from other than dinosaurs. Remember, fish begat amphibians begat dinosaurs, which begat mammals. Where would birds fit in? Evo-illusionists HAD to select a dinosaur species as a bird precursor. That’s all there was, so they are stuck. They couldn’t pick fish, or frogs, or worms, or insects… Archeopteryx was supposedly the first true bird, but it also had a large boney tail, sharp teeth (no beak), and we don’t even know if it was capable of flight due to its anti-flight musculoskeletal characteristics.
Leave it to evo-illusionists to make up three impossible scenarios for how flight “might” have evolved. The best scenario would be that flight could not and was not caused by naturally selected mutations, and we actually have no idea what did cause it.
Above are two of the earliest insects: the dragonfly, and palaeoptera
The oldest definitive insect fossil is the Devonian Rhyniognatha hirsti, estimated at 396-407 million years old. This species possessed dicondylic mandibles, a feature associated with winged insects, suggesting that wings were already present at this time. Ev-illusionists think the first insects probably appeared earlier, in the Silurian period. Of course, there is no fossil evidence showing that fact, so they have to make it up to allow enough time for the thousands of microsteps to evolve insect flight.
The origin of insect flight remains obscure since the earliest winged insects currently known appear to have been capable fliers. So where is the evolution? Evo-illusionists think the wings themselves are highly modified tracheal gills since the tracheal gills of the mayfly nymph in many species “look like” wings, they, therefore, must have evolved into them. Evo-illusionists say that by comparing a well-developed pair of gill blades in the naiads and a reduced pair of hind wings on the adults, “it is not hard to imagine that” the mayfly gills (tergaliae) and insect wings have a common origin. Actually, it is not hard for any evo-illusionist to imagine anything as long as it fits the needs for their “proof”. And anything that looks the slightest bit like anything else must have evolved into it.
A note about Birds: Birds have completely unusual lung systems due to their high demand for oxygen during flight. They are made up of nine air sacks which fill with fresh air. The air goes into the lung from the sacks when birds exhale. These specialized lungs and their sacks need support from bird femurs, which are fixed. Bird knees are buried within the soft feather/skin covering of the bird and cannot be seen. What looks like their lower leg (tibia/fibula) is part of their foot. What looks like our knee joint is their ankle. Birds are “knee runners”. Below are the skeletons of two non-flying birds, an emu (left) and an ostrich. Even though they don’t fly, you can see how the femurs would be buried under their feather/skin.
Below are two videos that I made on the evolution of flight. Press the lower left arrow to view so you won’t leave the page.
(3) Birds, eggs, and arboreal nests cannot have possibly originated through the “wonders” of evolution. Not much explanation is required here. Do your own mental experiment and you would have to come to the same conclusion. Of course, there cannot be birds without eggs, or eggs without birds to hatch them.
In reality, the old adage about “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” has many more nuances than first meets the fully evolved eye. A chicken egg has over 10,000 pores that allow air into the egg. If there were no pores, the chick would suffocate before it could even get started. As the chick forms, it is nourished by the yolk. And, as the chick grows, it has to displace liquid that is present and forms in the egg. The pores act as miniature drains to eliminate the fluid. The chick attaches blood vessels to the thin membrane, that we are all familiar with, that forms just inside of the shell. This membrane helps to oxygenate the chick embryo. Other vessels attach to the yolk for nourishment. The small void that we see in the egg is actually an air pocket. When the chick is nearly ready to hatch, it needs an extra dose of air, and this small void gives it six hours of air so that it can begin the process of breaking out of the egg. The chick has a small tooth that forms on the outside of its beak. On the 19th day, the chick breaks a hole in the shell to allow air in. 
It breathes through this hole for two days. On day 21 it completes the job of breaking the shell, and hatching occurs. So, the “Which came first…………” adage is far more complex than we could even imagine. The idea that mutations and natural selection brought about this process is unimaginable, and simply not possible.
And what scenario could there possibly be for arboreal “branch” bird nests to evolve? Or really any birds nest? Bird nests are beyond fascinating. They are feats of engineering beyond our own ability to construct. Try it yourself. See if you can weave those tiny twigs and straw into anything that looks nest-like; with your hands. You will fail quickly. Now try it with your teeth. Remember, birds weave their incredible artistry with their beaks! They have no fingers to help them along. There is an immense number of incredible designs for bird nests. Evo-illusionists say birds first made nests in tree-holes. Then the tree-hole nesting birds gradually move out to the branches. But if you compare the two pictures above, you will quickly see the differences in engineering required for both. Try to imagine the branch nest evolving from the tree hole nest. What adventurist bird had the “guts” to try moving its nest out to those thin branches, then laying eggs on the first prototype nest? Was that first prototype a few twigs with eggs? Did the eggs splat? Did the twigs fall? Were those first courageous inventive birds observed by other birds who tried to copy the nest building of the first few birds that gave branch nest building a try? If the eggs fell, why would an intelligent bird capable of thinking and copying, if there was such a bird, try to copy the first birds? Did a bird that saw the first few failures think it could make a better branch nest? Do birds think to that degree? Maybe millions of years ago there were highly intelligent “Sir Isaac Newton” birds that were thinkers. Actually, any scenario is ridiculous.
The Megapode bird of New Guinea, north of Australia, makes a 12-foot-high pile of vegetation. The bird is about a foot tall, so this is like a six-foot-tall person building a seventy-foot-tall building. A smaller megapode nest is at left. The mallee fowl, the best known of the group of megapodes, is about two feet long and has white-spotted, light brown plumage. The male builds a mound of decaying vegetation, which may require 11 months to construct. The result is a low mound, about three feet in the ground and up to five feet across, made up of twigs and leaves soaked with rain and covered with a foot and half of sandy soil. When the heat of fermentation inside the mound reaches 91° F, the female lays the first of about 35 eggs in a central chamber. The male maintains a nest temperature amazingly close to 91° F even when there is daily and seasonal weather variation. Mallee eggs hatch in seven weeks, and the hatchlings dig u
pward through the mound and run off on their own. They can fly one or two days after hatching.
The South American ovenbird, which may take months to construct one nest from clay or mud mixed with bits of straw, hair, and fibers. The tropical sun bakes the walls and makes them hard as concrete. The American bald eagle uses sticks, some two inches thick and several feet long, to make nests strong enough to support a human adult. They may look like an unorganized mix of building materials, but the sticks are usually placed in layers, beginning with a triangle, followed by more rotated, triangular layers. Their nests are five feet in diameter.
Birds are capable of marvelous engineering feats. But they are not engineers; not in the way you might think anyway. They don’t train and study engineering or nest building. They don’t have teachers. Parents don’t teach them. They don’t even learn how to build by watching their parents or each other. Just as birds know how to fly, they know how to build a nest without the teaching and instruction from parent birds. Nest building is a matter of instinct, and not learned, according to scientists. “They are ‘hard-wired,’ Douglas Causey of Harvard University’s Museum of Comparative Zoology, says, “sort of like robots.” Birds construct their nests without consciously thinking about it. How then did some species of birds develop such well-engineered, elaborate nests? Books have been written on the subject without providing a single clue, says Jeremiah Trimble, an assistant in the Harvard museum’s bird department.
Here is a tongue in cheek example of what good science should try to determine, search out, and come up with. A step by step description of how arboreal branch bird nests came about:
1, Millions of years
ago, birds placed their eggs on the ground; on dirt and grasses.
2. Eventually, some birds found that a solid base on higher elevations was safer for their clutch. They began laying the eggs in small “caves” high on cliffs. That way fewer predators could eat their eggs and young.
3. Due to the lack of room and the low number of small caves, some found holes in trees worked well. They laid their eggs on the solid “floor” of holes high up in trees. The hard surface caused the breakage of many eggs. The birds that lost their eggs had to start all over.
4. Some birds found it advantageous to add small straw and twig mats as cushions on the floor of the caves and holes. The cushions were selected for because eggs were far less likely to break. The cushions were embedded in the DNA of the birds that made the cushions. The idea spread to other birds. Their DNA was also altered to favor the cushions.
5. Some “cushion” birds began weaving the straw and twigs into more complex cushions which helped them stay together and give better cushioning.
6. The number of birds greatly exceeded the number of caves and tree holes. As a last resort, some birds had to lay eggs on the “Y” of tree branches. Many held, but many also fell and went “splat”. Birds with multiple-egg clutches lost many eggs.
7. Some bird mutations formed “super-glue” in their saliva. The glue was found to be an advantage and was selected for, and coded in their DNA. The glue was used by the glue-birds to attach their eggs to a tree branch “Y” and prevented many splats.
8. Due to a low number of “Y” tree branches that were capable of holding eggs, and due to the great number of “splats”, some birds began moving their eggs farther out on the branches. But to their dismay, more eggs fell. Few eggs held on those round branches.
9. Some birds that had learned nest weaving on solid surfaces began weaving a few twigs and straws on a branch. Placing the eggs on these few straws and twigs caused many more splats, but at least they had a place to lay their eggs. Out of pure unadulterated luck, those early nests were able to hold SOME eggs.
10. Over time some birds began adding and weaving more and more straws and twigs, making larger and larger branch cushions. The large cushions were selected for because they were advantageous.
11. Over thousands of generations, just enough “branch cushion birds” were left to improve the cushions and form them into cupped nests. The cups were selected for because they held the eggs much more efficiently.
12. Some birds began weaving the cupped cushions right onto the tree branch, which made them very stable. Other birds saw, and followed suit. Bird nests became very stable and secure, greatly reducing the number of splat
s.
13. Some bird species did go extinct due to the large number of splats, but the smarter species did survive due to the fact that they were able to invent new and better ways to weave their nests into the tree branches. The birds whose nests didn’t cause the eggs to fall were selected for. The result of this trial and error nest invention saga is the wonderful bird nests we have today.
Does this sound like an absurd series of events? It is, of course. But it’s all I could come up with in trying my level best to help evolution along and figure out how bird nests came about. So, as silly as this story is, it’s told from the perspective of how an evolutionaut might see the formation of bird nests. Whatever story they might come up with would be so ridiculous that they really don’t want to think about it. So what they will do is preemptively demean the question and try (and fail) to make the questioner look as stupid and silly as they possibly can. That’s their best strategy for sure. Because any attempt they might make at explaining bird nests would look as silly as this scenario.
As always, evolutionauts never like to think about the reality of their scenario. No plausible evolution scenario can be penciled out. The details must be ignored, as with all the details of the evolution of all bio-systems. “They started simpler, then got more complex because that’s an advantage…..” And that’s it.
If we bring up arboreal bird nests, why not beaver dams? Did a beaver place a twig in a river/stream that slowed up some edible vegetation, which allowed for the vegetation to be caught by the beaver? Then, next generation two twigs? Why wouldn’t the first twigs get swept away? Were the first twig placing beavers so adept at placing twigs that they remained in place? Did the advantages of a few twigs slowing rivers and streams then spur the formation of larger and larger dams? Then, thousands of years later, finally, fully formed dams like the one at left? ? Is this scenario imaginable? Arboreal bird nests actually bring up all kinds of other “nesting/living/hunting” entities in nature that simply could not have come about if evolution was the source of all of nature.
An interesting note on beaver dams: Beavers are most famous, and infamous, for their dam-building. They maintain their pond-habitat by reacting quickly to the sound of running water and damming it up with tree branches and mud. Early ecologists believed that this dam-building was an amazing feat of architectural planning, indicative of the beaver’s high intellect. This theory was questioned when a recording of running water was played in a field near a beaver pond. Despite the fact that it was on dry land, the beavers covered the tape player with branches and mud. The largest beaver dam is 2,790 ft (850 m) in length—more than half a mile long—and was discovered via satellite imagery in 2007.It is located on the southern edge of Wood Buffalo National Park in northern Alberta and is twice the width of the Hoover dam which spans 1,244 ft (379 m). (Wikipedia)
Chicken Teeth are the Whoopee Cushion of Evolution:
comedian. Chicken teeth are studied and written about by respected evolution scientists. So, as absurd as they are, I will try to address chicken teeth on a serious vein. Working late in the developmental biology lab one night, Matthew Harris of the University of Wisconsin noticed that the beak of a mutant chicken embryo he was examining had fallen off. Harris closely examined the broken beak and found tiny bumps along its edge that looked like teeth. Harris thought they closely resembled alligator teeth. Upper left, encircled, are the chicken teeth that Harris discovered. Below left are alligator teeth. One wonders if Harris forgot his glasses that night. Do Harris’s “chicken teeth” look like alligator teeth? The skeptic in me wonders why alligators were the comparison in the first place when there are millions of toothed animal species on the planet. Anyway, Harris did think the “teeth” resembled alligator teeth. According to evolution science, the accidental discovery revealed that chickens retain the ability to grow teeth, even though birds lost this feature long ago.
Alligators have a unique set of teeth. Like human teeth, and unlike chicken “teeth”, alligators have teeth set in bony sockets. They are able to replace their teeth throughout their life. Wouldn’t it be nice if humans had the same talent? The ability of an alligator to replace their teeth deteriorates as they age. As young alligators grow in physical size, they can replace teeth with larger ones every thirty days or so. After reaching adult size in a few years, however, tooth replacement rates can slow to several years and even longer. Very old members of some species have been seen in an almost toothless state after teeth have been broken and replacement slowed or ceased. Alligators can go through over 3,000 teeth in their lifetime. Each tooth is hollow, and the new one is growing inside the old. When an old tooth breaks away, a new one is set to take its place. Interestingly, alligators don’t use their teeth to chew. They capture their prey with their teeth, swallow the prey whole. Alligator teeth have roots that hold them in the jawbone. They are covered by enamel much like human teeth. Their tooth body is made of dentin, just like in humans. Alligator teeth are not like chicken teeth. Or should I say chicken beak bumps?
My first question which evolutionauts never consider, is why did a predator with sharp vicious teeth get rid of those teeth, one of its main sources of predation and defense? And, of course, why did the theropod that lead to chickens get rid of its claws so it could eventually develop useless wings that would never even give it the advantage of flight? What could be more awkward and defenseless than a chicken? The notion is absurd, and not at all what evolution describes. Survival of the fittest and selected advantage is what drives evolution. Did the pre-chicken eliminate its teeth and claws so it could eventually move to the bottom of the food chain, and be completely defenseless? So it could make eggs and meat for all of mankind? Is this evolution in action? The survival of the weakest?
The mutant chickens Harris studied bear a recessive trait dubbed talpid2. This trait is lethal, meaning that such mutants are never hatched. Some incubate for as long as 18 days inside of their eggs. But they all die before hatching. Evolution celebrated another great discovery that certainly piles more evidence on top of the “mountains of evidence” they already have. The bumps on the beak of a mutant chick embryo that can’t even hatch and are labeled chicken teeth is certainly a great example of how weak their mountain really is. The celebrations are still ongoing. Ev-illusionists take this information and run with it. To evo-illusionists, there is no doubt that those tiny spikes are teeth. Everything moves on as if they are teeth. There is no doubt. No ev-illusionist questions. All discussions and research are done with complete surety that Harris found chicken teeth and another cog in the wheel of evidence that proves ancestry to theropods. According to ev-illusionists, chicken teeth are a fact!
These chicken teeth have no enamel, no dentin, no root, pulp chamber, periodontal ligament, gingiva (gum tissue) surrounding them like alligator and human teeth do. To classify these mutant bumps as teeth, and then to go on to add them to evidence that shows theropods evolved into chickens is, well, more standup comedy material, nothing more.
The first thing that comes to mind is, if mutant chick beak bumps are really teeth, why don’t ev-illusionists discuss all of the possibilities for the existence of those teeth? Is the only possibility that chickens evolved from theropod dinosaurs? Other possibilities need to be examined and proffered. Here are some other possibilities that need to be addressed as possibilities:
If evolution is truly valid, chickens may be in the process of evolving teeth. Instead of chicken teeth being a remnant of a past ancestor, it may be a beginning. They may be getting rid of their beaks and substituting a set of vicious teeth through the wonders of natural selection. After all, aren’t mutations such as these teeth the way evolution works? Chickens could be in the process of evolving into predators again! Million of years from now who knows how dangerous they could become. If they are evolving new teeth, I certainly hope they get rid of the “buck buck buck”. Just doesn’t go with vicious teeth. Can you imagine a vicious predator attacking you whilst howling “buck buck buck”? What is truly amazing is that evolution is devoid of examples of biological systems evolving themselves into existence today. Why was the idea that chickens might be evolving instead of eliminating teeth not considered? They may have a plan for survival and revenge on humans (tic) for which they are now such an amazing food supply. Why would a species that so badly needs a defense mechanism to survive get rid of its greatest weapon for survival in the first place? So they could be food for humans? Did survival of the fittest work in reverse for chickens so they could be at the bottom of the food chain? Is this selected mutations in action? Chickens didn’t evolve the ability to fly, and they got rid of their teeth. My Gawd, what on Earth was natural selection doing to the vicious theropods that supposedly caused them to become chickens? According to evolution, chickens went from a vicious predator to the weakest of prey. Methinks natural selection goofed here.
Chicken teeth may be a constant. Chickens may have come from some scientifically unknown source, appeared in some unknown way, and the mutation that supposedly forms chicken teeth may be a constant in chickens. Ev-illusionists will decry the notion that chickens first appeared on Earth as they are as a complete absurdity. Their choice for you is to believe their own version of an absurdity: that chickens came from theropod dinosaurs. Which choice is more absurd? Neither choice seems scientifically possible. But one choice follows what the fossil record shows: the sudden appearance of species at very different times. To believe evolution, you must believe what your eyes they do not see. Evolutionauts have to believe and evo-illusionists must teach that species morphed into other species. But your eyes see the fossil record which shows the sudden appearance of species, not the gradual morphing. When your eyes see design, you must believe there is no design. Your eyes see species that appeared at very different times, remained rather constant, and then either became extinct or still exist as modern species. That is what you should go with if you are truly interested in objective science. You should go with what your eyes see, not what someone tells you they should see.
(4) Eye and heart/lung systems are two excellent examples of organs that cannot have possibly evolved, as any pre-functioning steps to a fully functioning organ
would be completely useless. Evolutionists poo poo this eye/heart challenge, however, they never answer it with more than made up fables. Essentially, if heart/lung and eye systems evolved, the pre-functioning organs would be no more than useless tumors.
Species would have to carry around these useless tumors for hundreds of thousands or millions of years before they would become functioning organs. What force would cause these useless tumors to continue to evolve into the
incredibly complex organs represented by heart/lung and eye systems? In the case of the heart: over 800 million years ago there were no pumps on the entire earth of any kind. Evolution would have to start knitting a few cells together with each generation, with the end result, hundreds of thousands of years later, being a sealed pump and valve capable of moving blood. Of course, the blood couldn’t exist until there was a heart to pump it. Add to that, there were no lungs to oxygenate the blood, and no vessels to get oxygenated blood to the needy cells. It is not even imaginable that a heart and
all systems required to run it could be produced by mutations and natural selection. Evolutionists make note that there are “simple” and “complex” heart/lung systems in different species today. They ignore that fact that even “simple” heart/lung systems are immensely complex, and that any complexity of heart would be useless until it was evolved into a fully sealed pump.
I was debating website participants from Pharyngula, a University of Minnesota connected website. They wrote a paper describing the evolution of the vertebrate eyes, which they think happened like the drawing at left. I posed the challenge of how could hundreds of thousands of mutations form a binocular vision system when there was no model on the face of the earth. How did the mutations “know” where they were going? Stanton, a commenter there, angrily said that “didn’t I know that protozoans had opsins (vision biochemicals) to use as the model?” Biochemicals in a protozoan were models for a binocular vision system? Absurd. Stanton’s other problem was that admitting to the use of a model admits to intelligence, which copying a model would require.
Evolutionists use placoderms and flatworms as examples of steps in the evolution of eyes. They think that because there are some “simpler” eyes in existence today, that proves evolution. The only problem is placoderms had binocular and possibly color vision. They also had two bony eye sockets. http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/vertebrates/basalfish/placodermi.html Flatworms have two eyespots that help them sense light. But this means that they must have optic nerves, and a visual cortex to translate a coded nerve signal into light and some sort of image. Both systems would be immensely complex, and not the simple vision systems required to prove Darwin. http://www.mcwdn.org/Animals/Flatworm.html Out of a billion species that have inhabited the earth, these examples are pathetic anyway. If binocular vision systems evolved by M and NS, there would be overwhelming evidence. And, of course, the question arises, why didn’t “simple eyed” creatures cited by evolutionauts fully evolve complex visual systems? Why are they here as “simple” eyes when they have had 2,000 times longer than evolutionauts say it took eyes to evolve in the first place? Euglena is a single-celled species that evolutionauts cite as an example of “simple” visual systems. For one thing, euglena NEVER evolved into a multi-celled species. It’s light-sensitive spot isn’t any kind of eye. It reacts to heat or electromagnetic waves and makes no images. The spot isn’t “light sensitive”, and it never evolved into anything more than what it is. Euglena had 2,000 times longer than eyes supposedly took to evolve, but it did nothing. That is bent evidence. Euglena didn’t evolve into multi-celled, the spot didn’t, yet it is used as evidence for the evolution of visual systems. Further, since it is single-celled, it is not comparable to a visual system that is COMPOSED of individual cells. It’s EMR sensitive spot is intracellular so it couldn’t be a building block.
Other factors:
Mutation CPA’s: According to evolutionists, a huge majority of mutations are not “good”. Therefore each selected mutation would have to be accompanied by many “bad” mutations, which would mean one step forward and many steps back. The finish line would never be reached. Did a single mutation cause the same eye parts to form in the right and left eyes? If a mutation caused the formation of 100 retinal cells, did it perform the exact same feat bilaterally? If not, did a later mutation make the 100 retinal cells on one side after an earlier mutation made 100 on the other? Of course the number of cells would have to be exact on each side. What a “bookkeeping” job that must have been for natural selection!
Mutation Location: Why couldn’t a species mutate the wrong type of cells and place them where the retina should be? For example, could mutations have added cartilage cells to the iris, since mutations had no intelligence, which means anything could be possible? If mutations did that, does that mean the host would not have survived? Couldn’t retinal cells be just as easily added to the knee or stomach as to the eye? The complexities for M and NS are so astronomically enormous, logic should tell us they are beyond the world of possibility.
One Species or Many: Did eye and heart systems evolve in just one species, which then spread the miracles to other species? Or, did eye and heart/lung systems evolve in millions of species all in unison, at the same time, kind of like a huge choir singing? The thought that they evolved in only one animal population is unimaginable since species can only procreate with their own kind. Even if the population with these organs as a trait was split by geological events numerous times over eons causing the formation of additional species, the result would be that few species today would have eye or heart/lung systems. The reason? Eye and heart/lung systems formed 3.4 billion years after the first living species and 2.9 billion years after the oldest common ancestor of all of modern life. Between 2.9 BYA and 500 MYA, millions of species had to have evolved. There would just be too many species that would not get eyes or hearts from the original single species that evolved them 500 MYA. That scenario just could not produce eye and heart/lung systems in the vast majority of all modern species that have them today. Also, the thought that vision or heart/lung systems evolved in unison in millions of animals at the same time is completely preposterous.
Evolutionauts, when discussing eye evolution, say that seeing “light and dark” confers a survival/predatory advantage on the species that other species didn’t have. Therefore, it would be “selected for”. They isolate vision as if were the only “advantage” and that it should be considered isolated from other possible advantages. When they discuss vision, notice that other characteristics are never mentioned. In reality, many “advantages” were evolving, and the food chain would have been complex beyond imagination. Olfactory systems (smell), teeth, and hearing could well have trumped “light and dark” vision. If a toothless species moved toward a “dark” object, and that object turned out to be a species with teeth, the species with the early vision would be nothing more than a tasty treat for the toothed species. Or how about the case where a two pound eyed species ran into fifty pound blind species. The eyes wouldn’t trump the size. It’s pretty hard to imagine how most multicelled species with very modest size are all equipped with all five senses. One would think that if these senses came about by evolution, the picture wouldn’t be so neat. But it is.
Cornea Retina and Iris: Eyes are capable of auto-adjusting their “f-stops”. The iris consists of pigmented fibrovascular tissue known as a stroma. The stroma connects a sphincter muscle (sphincter pupillae), which contracts the pupil, and a set of dilator muscles (dilator pupillae) which open it. If the retina is overstimulated with too much light, it sends a signal to the brain which then sends a signal back to the muscles that control the iris. The f-stops are then auto-adjusted by the iris, and the light on the retina is reduced to a comfortable level. This all takes place because of an unbelievable series of biochemical reactions that simply could not be evolved in small steps.
The retina is composed of about 120 million cells. These cells combine to connect with the optic nerve which has about 1,200,000 neurons (nerve cells). The visual cortex has 538,000,000 cells. An astounding thought is how these all connect up. The varying numbers of cells of each part must have made an incredibly tough job for evolution. Think of trying to organize 120,000,000 cells to connect to 1,200,000 cells which then must connect to 538,000,000 cells. The dumb luck connections and trial and error must have been endless for the organisms that owned the trial visual systems until natural selection got it right. There must have been thousand of generations of nearly blind species until the trial and error ended. What a thought!
The cornea is the only living tissue in the body that doesn’t have a blood supply. Think of what vision would be like if the cornea had bunches of blood vessels running through it. We would be nearly blind! Evolutionauts like to cite the fact that the optic nerve exits the retina toward the front, then makes a turn to go to the back of the eye and on to the visual cortex as horrible design. Since this design does little to affect our vision, I don’t think evolution has a case. And my bet is that there is some reason for that design that we are unaware of and cannot test. Of course, scientists cannot take human eyes and redirect the nerve fibers without blinding the test victim. What evolutionauts don’t mention is the fact that of all of the tissues in the human body, the only one without blood supply is the cornea. The cornea receives its nourishment from tears and the aqueous humor. Just imagine if the cornea did have blood vessels and a blood supply. We humans would be blind. But somehow, in its immensely intelligent way, natural selection saw to it that there was one and only one tissue in the body without blood supply. The one we humans NEED to not have a blood supply.
This video shows how Richard Dawkins visualizes the evolution of the eye. This is nothing more than an amazing sham; another pseudo-scientific cartoon with no connection to reality at all. Dawkins doesn’t mention that (1) The “light sensitive cells” have no connection to the brain so the species would not be able to react to light, only the cells may. (2) How does the visual cortex evolve to translate the chemical signal received from the “light cells”. (3) What causes the “indentation”? Why would that occur? (4) How does the chemical signal that travels to the brain form. Is this something mutations can do? I think not. It’s no use even commenting farther on this sham. It’s interesting to read the comments on YouTube. The viewers are almost universally wowed by this Dawkins video.
Evolutionists say that eyes evolved using 100,000 to 500,000 mutations (generations). Since eyes have a small number of parts, let’s say thirty, the question here would be: How do the mutations divvy up among the eye parts. Did 20,000 mutations form the retina and it’s 130 million cells? Were the 20,000 mutations working like a team, each mutation knowing what its job was and what the last mutation accomplished in making retinal cells? What about the visual cortex and thalamus? How many mutations were required to evolve these, and did the mutation work like a team here also? How did the mutations “know” where the cells should be placed. Did some place their cells on the back of the neck? After all, these are mutations!
Evolution likes to claim that the optic nerve evolved from the more “simple” sensory neurons. The big problem here is the fact that the optic nerve is ensheathed in all three meningeal layers (dura, arachnoid, and pia mater) rather than the epineurium, perineurium, and endoneurium found in peripheral nerves. Which means the it could not have evolved from sensory nerves, unless an amazingly large change evolved. This is an important issue, as fiber tracks of the mammalian central nervous system (as opposed to the peripheral nervous system) are incapable of regeneration and hence optic nerve damage produces irreversible blindness. Would this fact fit in with the “survival of the fittest” model?
The really interesting thing about eye and heart evolution is the fact that it supposedly stopped when pretty good perfection was achieved. What would suddenly cause the cessation of mutations, whose frequency should be constant?
Below are three videos that I made on eye evolution. Press the lower left arrow to view so you won’t leave the page.
[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRDAY39Zd9M]
[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9KQecDfn_o&feature=channel_page]
Evolution: An Objective Look 
John Matrix said,
December 16, 2010 at 5:52 pm
F. Whitman: My response to your diatribe of insults you showered on Kent is above here:
https://evillusion.wordpress.com/impossiblities-of-evolution/comment-page-3/#comment-4162
John Matrix said,
December 17, 2010 at 3:34 am
ADParker said: But you DON’T know the gay agenda John.
How do you know what I know or don’t know Parker?
Do I have to show you the photos and videos of Gays holding placards and signs that convey their agenda?
Do I have to show you their own commentaries and public comments at public rallies where they openly state their agenda?
Parker, you are making yourself look stupid…..why not quit and make yourself look a bit wiser instead of burying yourself in your own stupid presumtuous assumptions about what other people know or don’t know?
I’ve asked you three or four times to give me ONE piece of proof or evidence that you rely on to support your disbelief in God, …and you have not give me one.
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 17, 2010 at 11:00 pm
The Fact is John, Parker doesn’t know the gay agenda and his only response is to call us bigots. As if what they do in therprivate lives is any of our business. Gays have a powerful lobby they make more money than the average so they are not discriminated against. They have a higher education than most and yes they can love anyone they want including having sex with anyone they want.
This idea that it is immutable is a crock of shit though and same sex marriage has been voted DOWN in every single state. The only way it gets allowed isi to have some idiot liberal judge slap the will of the people right in the face by over turning the peoples decision.
This has got many judges kicked off the bench this last election and it will continue because we are sick of them and the mouthy whining homosexual deviants I have every legitimate right to dislike with extreme prejudice by the way they have gone about this. The facts are in and Gays are a threat to the public and have no business imposing their will on an American institution of marriage by changing it to suit their sexual bent. It is a debate Parker can’t win other than to call us names and why I shove the same tactic right back at the snarky stupid asshole.
He doesn’t know the half of the shit gays have been up to politically they are a menace to the kids in our schools as Safe Schools Czar Jennings has already proven with the “Fistgate” investigation. Then their is the gay lobby pushing to get age off consent laws lowered in every state because as we know, Gays can’t get busted for pederasty if they make it legal changing the laws.
Seeing our tax dollars pay for brochures that promote a a circle jerk calling it cool, isn’t the kind of thing I want to see our children coming home from school with but the fact is they are and I have seen them.
Getting lessons on the proper way to fist the rectum of a school classmate is not my idea of progressive. John and I have both been serious body builders John winning some titles in it too. Their are many gays out there that hit on us and I know we both never got angry or bent out of shape by it just saying thanks but no thanks. It’s not a big deal being around gays, I have hired gays, had many gay friends two of them died of aids and I took care of them in my own home. I know what they are about I know what they do at bath houses and book stores and I know straights engage in similar sexual acts but foro SOME reason, having anal sex with a woman doesn’t seem to spread a deadly disease like it does gays who dip their stick on 10 different assholes sometimes in just one day! So don’t bother with all your comments about what straights do. Gays do it to extremes so far they are killing people. If they want to use that genetics as a defense then PROVE IT!
The fact is gays lie like a damn rug about their alleged victimization and their poster boy Matthew Shepard was killed by one of his own ex-sex pals he shared meth injections and flesh injections with. The guy tried killing a straight guy that same evening but he got away. The reason he killed matt was because the little druggie wouldn’t front em more meth so he killed em. The gay activists got all up in the Church;s face and made this a religion is to blame thing and it isn’t. What it was is a gay thing because gays lives are all about sex and drugs in the extreme with the extreme. You go to any gay website and all they talk about is sex and how all straights can be converted, how woman are just breeders looked down on with contempt and most of them were straight until they dabbled in gay sex and yes ACQUIRED A TASTE FOR IT. Just like many gays who changed back to straight.
If one fantasizes using sex drugs and objectifies a new kind of sexual fetish, the brain starts the poly-addictive process where that becomes what you get attracted to.
The only real objection to it is same sex marriage. Leave it alone. Invent their own contract, THIS ONE IS FOR ONE MAN AND ONE WOMAN PERIOD.
They want sex with animals too http://s103.photobucket.com/albums/m126/junesoft/?action=view¤t=sexwithbeasts.jpg
Then I suggest we can use the same argument for child molesters but parker would call that an unfair comparison because gay deviance has more consensual promiscuity and depravity. Then I suggest they quit asking for funding to help cure them of all the shit they spread that seems to cross over into straight sex eventually. Parker said I can choose to hold my bigotry inside when I said I can;t help it. Well Gays can do the same damn thing and deny themselves the urge just the same. No one has ever died denying themselves the opportunity to suck dick Parker.
Just say no and see for yourself, you’ll live I can guarantee it.
ADParker said,
December 17, 2010 at 5:34 am
Charlie said:
“As for “basing ones beliefs on possible consequences is simply illogical”… Really? Okay. I find no trouble basing my belief that I should not speed on the freeway on the possible consequence that I may get a traffic ticket or get into an accident. Such beliefs do not fall into what you describe at all- I’m quite sure.”
Ah, well that is simply because you do not understand the nature of the Appeal to consequences.
The appeal is better summed up by this analogy:
You believe that speeding will NOT result in a traffic ticket, because you find such a consequence of your actions to be undesirable. THAT is the appeal to consequences logical fallacy.
And THAT is what properly equates through analogy to what I said: In other words; I will not, rationally can not, believe in a given god and/or religion because I happen to like the consequences it implies and/or dread the negative it implies if a) true and b) I ‘choose’ not to believe.
Charlie said:
“I recognize that there is confusion. I do think there is much less confusion than you believe, but no matter. In any case, I will assume that you do believe that my God does not exist.”
Ughh! I said “to vague” – I of course meant “too vague’ (I hate when I do that.)
I have no idea what your god is, what attributes it has, so no I do NOT believe that is does not exist. How can I, when I have no real idea what it is you are asking me if I believe in it?!
Charlie said:
“No matter really. I was just wanting to get to the nuts and bolts of what it is you do believe. You do not believe a Creator/Designer exists.”
No.
Charlie said:
“You do believe the Christian God does not exist. (Of course- with plenty of nuanced qualifications.)”
Sometimes. I don’t believe there IS “A Christian god”, instead there are many. I see no reason to think that these various beliefs attach to anything real though.
So, okay fine, for all intents and purposes I think that your god “God” does not exist, and never did.
Charlie said:
“From what I can tell, you do not believe one to exist because you have not been presented with enough evidence.”
Essentially yes. ANY remotely viable evidence in fact.
Charlie said:
“What exactly *would* it take for you to concede that perhaps the ToE is flawed in its assertion that we owe our existence solely to materialistic causes?”
That is not exactly what the ToE asserts of course. For example the abiogenesis event (origin of all life) could have been enacted by magic or whatever for all it matters to the theory. Same again for any step prior to that event, as they are all beyond the scope of the ToE.
Not being a professional scientist I think I would probably require the science to move in that direction, for the scientific method to really show the theory to be fundamentally flawed (of course there are flaws and revisions WITHIN the scope of the theory, that is only to be expected) in such a way that the scientific community begins to take it seriously. Perhaps some practically undeniable evidence of a barrier to the theoretical process. I can’t think of one, as all I know of have been overcome sufficiently to, as far as I can tell, pretty much rule that out (speciation, sea to land, unicellular to multicellular etc.) But I am open to such a paradigm shift as that occurring. In fact that would be simply FANTASTIC to witness such a thing in my lifetime!
Charlie said:
“ What sort of evidentiary or logical flaw would you need to see in the ToE in order to concede that the whole thing is unraveling?”
I honestly can’t imagine what would satisfy any more. It would be most impressive however. No theory of the robustness and strength of the ToE has EVER been so overturned, what a coup that would be! The scientist (or more likely team these days) would be instantly catapulted into scientific super-stardom!
Charlie said:
“Obviously, if such a flaw in the ToE were to be discovered, would you simply look to another materialistic cause?”
It wouldn’t be my job of course. But yes I expect that would be the case. What else is there? Even if you BELIEVE in this mysterious “supernatural”, how on earth could that be tested? Can it even be rationally and scientifically established as real? Can the Supernatural (other than natural) be distinguished from the ‘Superreal’ (Other than real) in any remotely quantifiable way? Daniel Dennett put best in ‘Breaking the Spell”, (something loosely like this anyway) that the only way to proceed is to investigate what we can, the ‘material’, the measurable and observable, and ONLY when every single such possibility has been exhausted to such a level that we KNOW that every thing has been examined, only then could we have any justification is concluding that it must be ‘something else’ – i.e. Supernatural. The nature of that ‘supernatural’ would even then remain unknown and ‘mysterious’. And thus still pretty much amounting to “we don’t know what it is, but we do know what it is not.”
Charlie said:
“What exactly would it take for you to consider that perhaps there is a non-materialistic cause?”
Sufficient disproof that there CAN be no materialistic cause.
I guess you and your fellow believers have a lot of work cut out and ahead of you then. Time and time again religious “believers” have claimed that This and/or that can ONLY be explained by their preferred ‘Supernatural’ cause. Only to, EVERY SINGLE TIME, have it either come to pass that it be explained by MATERIALISTIC and NATURAL means, or simply not yet be explained at all.
You and yours are 0 for, oh I don’t know, millions? And all you have on the table is that there are still a few hands yet to play – and just perhaps for the first time EVER they will come up your way this time.
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 17, 2010 at 10:57 am
There is little difference between the evolutionist saying ‘time did it’ and the Creationist saying ‘God did it.’ Time chance and an inconceivable leap of thee most deaf dumb and drop dead blind faith is their trinity but they call faith reason.
The reason they call it that is the word faith reminds them to much of their nemesis religion, which reminds them of their guilt-ridden conscience.
Time is merely a lot of past moments just like the present moment. Miller tried to make some primordial oooze and that beaker of bs could sit on the lab counter for 100 years and nothing would come climbing out of it. Not in a thousand not in ten thousand not in a million. If you could live that long you would see NOTHING happens. Fact is we don’t live that long to see that future so it isn’t scientific to suggest that scientifically but that is exactly what scienatheists do and say we would have seen millions of years in the past.
You and I know it would not happen in a year of watching; why think it would in a million years?
Ill tell you why, these morons say so and that is the only evidence they have!
So they write phony papers called peer reviewed where their clique if like minded yes men praise the tortuously contrived explanations of how things could have happened, might have happened and they pass it off as if it did happen and then they call it fact.
That new fact gets piled on other papers written with the same uncritical mandate to make the evidence fit the theory and the opinions are then called evidence. That evidence is stacked tall on the now towering peer reviewed paper pile of Bullshit and lies and is affectionately referred to by the followers of this man made synthetic science, the MOUNTAIN of evidence and these fact less feckless fuctards pump each of the others nuts up as they swing from Darwins Vas defrens.
Every time the world got sick and tired of thier bullshit, these assholes would save the theory by the most unscrupulous and dishonest means. The first time it was Haekle lying his dishonest ass off. From all the piles of evidence they keep celebrating as the nail in the coffin of Intelligent Design, six months later it invariably gets a retraction as debunked or found to be yet, ANOTHER GOD DAMNED FRAUD!
NO SCIENCE, NOT ANY OTHER BUT THIS ONE HAS BEEN FOUND TO HAVE SUCH A PROPENSITY FOR DISHONESTY AND FRAUD. NONE BUT EVOLUTIONARY SCIENATHEISM.
Sometimes they get caught but they never clean up the mess and the lies stay there and are taught as science nevertheless. It now takes a court order to get these bastards to stop their conniving bullshit and lies. In the meantime Science is wasting its time and teaching our children a load of crap and is why our country is falling further and further behind the rest in science because our science is run by a bunch of ADPARKER like morons with their heads in there frequently fist fucked, and prolapsed faggot assholes.
There is no publication in scientific literature-in journals or books that describe how molecular evolution of any real, complex, biochemical system either did occur or even might have occurred.
If you know of one SHOW ME and Ill show you another sweeping speculation atheists call proof and we call scienatheism dumb ass opinions.
DNA has Destroyed the hopes of biological evolutionists; this is why they diminish the problem of where did the information come from to start with. Not only that but the intelligence to DECODE the encoded message. In computers this is called artificial intelligence and takes data and logic programed into the system. To think this happened by itself is fantasy pure unadulterated and butt stupid to think it wasn’t created by an intelligence of some kind be it God or who knows what. The evidence for design is in the patterns
DNA provides clear cut and dried evidence that every species is locked into its own coding pattern. It would be impossible for one species to change into another, since the genes network together communication so interdependent on the rest. It is described as a kind of combination lock, when locked it would take a genetic locksmith to figure out and not one that shows up with a million years of time on his hands as he waits for the lock to pick its own tumblers and unlock itself. The only changes are those hard coded in the DNA itself and only sub-species variations can occur
Since a living creature would have to come into existence all at once, fully formed and functional sound no proto bio systems no half evolved organs on the way to becoming a something to process food etc, just in order to survive, it doesn’t matter how much time we pile onto the such a far fetched and totally imagined fictional event.
Nothing is going to happen.
Nothing like that has happened and nothing like that ever WILL happen.
When the impossible probability was proven by science bioengineering and mathematics, these monkeyloid lemmings invented a new method of making the math work manufacturing yet another bogus theory called the multi-verse and now I hear their are trillions of them yet not ONE but ours can be proven to exist and they call this “Science”
Parker laughs at anything his limited finite feeble mind can not fathom if it is something metaphysical. Yet astrology has recently been added to the bio sciences and is being renamed “Bio Seasonal Science” to the chagrin of Darwit cult follower Dick Dawkit pimping pompously the little metro sexual mongoloid speaking in his effeminate British accent objects to anything but what he thinks science ought to be, what it should think and what it shouldn’t believe in. Like all dimwits for darwit who believe it was a good idea to have the alliance with the gay activists borrowing the same militant tactics for atheists a marriage made in the bowels of hell.
Ask yourself what has evolutionary theory produced as its outstanding accomplishments in scientific discoveries, but more hoaxes, imaginative claims, skillfully rendered wax figurines and artwork, lawsuits, and government and employment abuse of authority, discrimination and coercion?
We have been too polite, too nice to them for far far too long and it’s time we stuff it down their dick smoking cock sucking semen saturated sperm lined throats.
Gee, I Hope I don’t sound too bitter hehe
While they acted like rude little bitches yelling in the halls of academia “We are atheists damn it! They’re HERE and their Queer and they’re in your face”. Well they better get of face or ill re-arrange theirs and probably ejaculate doing it.
All you have to do is say Evolution offends your religion to get law suits started to get it stopped and we have learned this tactic from the Muslims and it is working. So tell everyone this is the way to attack this junk science and get it kicked out of our public schools for good and forever and if atheist don’t like it, GOOD!
I hope they all get so pissed they grope for their left arm feeling shooting pains and have the BIG ONE and drop dead right there.
The world won’t miss em one bit.
Charlie said,
December 17, 2010 at 2:46 pm
This information would have been useful and informative, Kent, but the vitriol probably nullified all of it. I will hope that it didn’t.
Redirect some of it my way if you must. But I would suggest you reflect a moment before you do. (Please know that I have hesitated on numerous occasions to say anything against your delivery. These others don’t know any better when they behave and speak the way they do. We do. At the very least, you may want to respect the site’s spirit of honest inquisitiveness sans emotional tirades.)
ADParker said,
December 17, 2010 at 10:31 pm
Charlie said,:
“These others don’t know any better when they behave and speak the way they do.”
I wouldn’t worry too much Charlie. The above was probably at least as, if not more, insulting that anything Kent has said.
John Matrix said,
December 18, 2010 at 4:12 pm
Quote from Charlie:
This information would have been useful and informative, Kent, but the vitriol probably nullified all of it. I will hope that it didn’t.
ME: Well Charlie….Kent’s commentary works for me. Ya see Charlie, Christianity is not about losing your personality and becoming an automaton in an homogenized group of mindless zombies who all have the same vocabulary, mannerisms, body language, ability to put words together, convey meaning, PERSONALITIES…etc. It would be a damned boring world if all Christians were just like YOU Charlie…..so get off your narcissistic perch and quit knocking Kent for having the courage of David and the bold audacity of Peter who drew his sword when his Savior was confronted by the FEARED ROMAN SOLDIERS and sliced the ear off a mouthy moron right in front of all who were there while being vastly out numbered vs. the kind of sissy girly men we have today who will see an old lady getting mugged and turn their ass cheeks to the mugger and run like faggots.
I don’t expect all Christians to have the same personality or to express themselves the same as me because I understand that all Christians will not have the balls of David who faced Goliath and killed the big shit by cutting his big mouthy head off.
And I already told you that Jesus used name calling a ridicule when he confronted evil law makers, lawyers, judges, prosecutors, and religious leaders of his day. So why are you still bitching about Kent. How do you know Jesus would not say and do a lot worse that call smug self arrogating morons like ADPArker worse that things like dip shit or fucktard?
You comment and contend for the faith your way and let others do it their way and just shut the fuck up…ok?
I don’t want to have to tell you again Charlie.
Charlie said,
December 18, 2010 at 11:57 pm
John,
I wonder what words you would have for Jesus himself if he were here today.
John 18:11. Luke 22:51.
I hardly think it cowardly for me to criticize those that for the most part agree with me. Or lacking in personality. But if you think you know me, John, so be it.
Shine light. Not darkness.
Charlie said,
December 17, 2010 at 3:36 pm
I thought I’d add this article to the conversation.
I like the path that Michael Behe is taking. Go to the base of the tree and shake it to see what shakes out. Simple life forms; Simple adaptations; Concrete observations.
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/12/the_first_rule_of_adaptive_evo041811.html
Essentially, the article discusses Michael Behe’s interaction with Jerry Coyne’s ongoing critique of Michael’s recent paper on his First Rule of Adaptive Evolution.
The premise that Michael is putting forth is essentially that the most probable path for Darwinian evolution would be through the loss of a functional coded element in an organism that would somehow lead to an overall gain of fitness. That is because loss of functional coded elements are demonstrably more probable both in and out of the laboratory. Yet Behe put forth various evidences that point out a serious lack of any such gain of fitness adaptations. And additionally, a large potential for such GOF adaptations to get canceled out by more common deleterious mutations.
In other words, complexity has yet to be shown to arise decisively from Random Mutation and adaptation. And because the GOF is so slight in nature, Natural Selection tends to derail any ‘forward’ progress toward increased complexity rather than to promote it.
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 27, 2010 at 6:06 am
yep to this day we have to ask how the new information got added to the DNA and Darwits have given examples of copying errors as the added information when that isn’t NEW information it is old copied information that can’t even be used most of the time and whenever it IS used, it has a deleterious effect on the entire genome of the life form.
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 17, 2010 at 7:38 pm
I’m way past that Charlie ole buddy, ole pal and I am certain their are readers out there that believe Adparker deserves to be treated with the utmost dis-respect JUST like they tell everyone to treat stevebee because he is helping to keep science in the stoneage and deserves nothing less than their vitriolic contempt. The moment he started his bullshit getting all presumptuous giving examples of other beliefs I have etc,. is the moment he gets to see just what it looks like. He acted all indignant as if I didn’t have room to talk! HA HA The Same Double Standard they allow themselves for years in these debates and anyone who has been at them that long knows that is what WE’VE had to put up with while they just couldn’t care less and now neither do I. You might say do two wrongs make a right. I’d have to agree, I’d rather shut his mouth using something much more,, how,, shall we say, “Deliberate”..
Something along this kind of thing since adparker reminds me of the guy in this illustration
Hey Charlie,, http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m126/junesoft/mind.gif
Charlie said,
December 17, 2010 at 8:41 pm
I get it, Kent. I don’t deny having some of the same emotions. I just felt moved to appeal to your conscience, and couldn’t deny THAT powerful urge more than the first. Please don’t mind if you hear it again from me from time to time.
Some articles that I thought were pertinent to ‘answering’ Steve’s questions- and those that I have posted from Jonathan Well’s article. I haven’t read through them yet, but plan to do so soon in order to properly respond to them.
I thought that they may be worth discussing openly, so I can add your scrutiny to a final response of some sort:
Creation “Science” Debunked:
http://www.huecotanks.com/debunk/index.htm
Icons of Evolution? (A rebuttal to “Inherit the Spin” article, referenced below)
http://ncse.com/creationism/analysis/icons-evolution
Inherit the Spin: The NCSE Answers “Ten Questions…”…
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2008/08/inherit_the_spin_the_ncse_answ010631.html
I suppose that they will rehash old arguments that have already been dealt with, but maybe some new ones appear that are worth a fresh objection.
At the very least, maybe it will give Steve and us other evolution doubters some new stuff to chew on. Maybe the responses will be useful toward adding to the library of materials on this site.
Thanks very much to all of you, btw, for single-handedly distracting me WAY away from my daily work. Ugh. LOL.
Charlie said,
December 17, 2010 at 8:52 pm
(That final thanks, btw, was intended toward ‘you’ being this entire site and all its contributors, and was meant in a jovial/friendly manner.)
ADParker said,
December 17, 2010 at 10:55 pm
Hey Charlie and Kent:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T69TOuqaqXI
stevebee92653 said,
December 17, 2010 at 11:03 pm
Gee, ADParker, this guy blocked me for asking a very respectful question. They guy with the vid on OPEN MINDEDNESS! And he removed the question I had for him. Whattya think? THAT is funny. Getting blocked by a guy who makes a vid on open mindedness. I even complimented him for being very intelligent! I guess I’ll have to retract that in my mind.
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 17, 2010 at 11:11 pm
Hey dumb ass what you think I made the one smashing the guy in the face for as a rebuttal . See how they sort of look the same ?? Yeeeaaah That’s the reason. You see youtube has video rebuttals like that.
So, Sorry Parker, already seen it and it has more lessons in it that apply to you than it does anyone else.
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 17, 2010 at 11:12 pm
Yeah he had my video removed too LOL
ADParker said,
December 17, 2010 at 11:29 pm
Funny how we see things eh Kent?
I saw your little ‘rebuttal’ as a good example of just the kind of problem QualiaSoup was talking about.
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 18, 2010 at 6:43 am
of course you do, and I see you really don’t know what the hell believe. “Sometimes. I don’t believe there IS “A Christian god”, instead there are many. I see no reason to think that these various beliefs attach to anything real though.
So, okay fine, for all intents and purposes I think that your god “God” does not exist, and never did.” – AD Parker.
The video called open mind is kind of Ironic atheists think the are soooo open minded. It reminds me of something CS Lewis said about when he was an atheist and the difference between the two theist and atheist. That the religions of the ancients all through the ages held some truths and were worthy of consideration but the atheist today wants nothing to do with them, Vox Day says it well “Richard Dawkins accuses me of child abuse because I teach my children that God loves them even more than I do. Sam Harris declares that I should not be tolerated and suggests that it might be ethical to kill me in preemptive self-defense. Christopher Hitchens asserts that I am a form of human Drāno, poisoning everything I encounter.”
I remember the way Hitchens and Harris laughed it up when Rev Jerry Falwell died. Ironic isn’t it how Christopher has somewhat of a change of heart and now welcomes prayer. http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m126/junesoft/atheism4.jpg
Lewis mentions how large a number of people that is to know they all believe in a fairy tale but when he began to understand their is a spiritual nature to this world and one the strict materialist is completely closed his mind to.
I think Sam Harris would like nothing more than to remove the right hemisphere of the brain, all that emotional stuff intuition I’m ashamed to admit was the female part of the yolk that made us the whole from the yin yang the Iching speaks of it the tao the Sumerians wrote of ancient beings who created man in their image like Genesis and tweaked something in the DNA of pre man.
The white race is still a mystery to many. the genesis account is so similar to the epic of Gilgamesh and the book of enoch very much the same. The amount of suppressed findings the NAS has locked away that have been getting leaked showing proof man has been here longer than most think and he has had marvelous technology matching our own.
Dimensional phenomena is becoming more a part of science and many have said is the reason we can’t merge materialist thinking with spiritual concepts and ideas. It is man and religion also that have been insisting we not develop the right brain activity focusing on left brain only and our oppression of the female intuition is wrong.
The tweak made some believe was the bonding of the telemeres to give us much more superior intelligence and had to teach us much more to survive as we know longer had the bone density were hairless.
The evidence discovered of the city of Sodom and the golf ball size sulfur (brimstone) balls just beneath the ground including the discovery of vertical mass graves. The Egyptian chariots discovered on coral at the bottom the the red sea all the photos I have seen and archaeology discovered just in the last ten years makes it much to difficult to ignore.
ADParker said,
December 18, 2010 at 8:27 am
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“of course you do, and I see you really don’t know what the hell believe.”
Oh, I know alright. It is just that I am not a fixed dogmatic thinker, I am more than willing to allow my beliefs to shift as evidence and reason demands.
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“ “Sometimes. I don’t believe there IS “A Christian god”, instead there are many. I see no reason to think that these various beliefs attach to anything real though.
So, okay fine, for all intents and purposes I think that your god “God” does not exist, and never did.” – AD Parker.”
Yes, I said that. So?
Sometimes I positively think there are no gods, but most of the time I just don’t hold any beliefs that any do – with no feeling of any need to go beyond that to active disbelief. How often you you find yourself actively thinking that no pixies exist?
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“The video called open mind is kind of Ironic atheists think the are soooo open minded.”
Some are, some aren’t. It is just silly to paint everyone under such a heading with such a broad brush.
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“Vox Day says it well “Richard Dawkins accuses me of child abuse because I teach my children that God loves them even more than I do.”
Nicely demonstrating what a dumbass Vox day can be. Because that is NOT what Richard Dawkins point was at all.
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“Sam Harris declares that I should not be tolerated and suggests that it might be ethical to kill me in preemptive self-defense.”
Another gross understanding of what was really said.
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“Christopher Hitchens asserts that I am a form of human Drāno, poisoning everything I encounter.”
And yet again – Reading comprehension not really your strong point is it?
And before you ask; no, I no longer have any interest in explaining to how you are in error, because what would be the point?
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“I remember the way Hitchens and Harris laughed it up when Rev Jerry Falwell died. Ironic isn’t it how Christopher has somewhat of a change of heart and now welcomes prayer. http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m126/junesoft/atheism4.jpg”
Comprehension fail yet again. No change of heart; he welcomes your prayers that he dies – because as the saying goes; “Prayer: How to do nothing, and still think you are helping.”
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“I think Sam Harris would like nothing more than to remove the right hemisphere of the brain,”
I doubt it. HE actually understands neuroscience.
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“The white race is still a mystery to many.”
Me too. It is a mystery to me that some people still think there IS such a thing.
Oh good; I can just ignore the rest of your post where your train of thought clearly left the rails. Heh!
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 18, 2010 at 7:20 am
Interesting you don’t see yourself like that however.
I remember when evolutionists used to say we had 98% like chimps and now the latest findings have neo darwits scrambling again over the Y chromosome how radically different it is. Then there is more showing them in black and whit they simply do not have a mechanism
Click to access j17_1_117-127.pdf
Evolution pffft silly science of the insane darwin
ADParker said,
December 18, 2010 at 8:43 am
98.6 of protein coding genes, and 96% of all base-pairs to be precise. The remarkable similarity between where those are placed – the chromosomes – is interesting as well. And one can’t forget the evidence of the fusing of two of them!
The Human Y-Chromosome is as it happens an interesting in itself ; it appears to be shrinking.
Sorry Kent, but I see no point in taking anything from a creationism apologetics site seriously.
If, as you claim, “neo darwits”, are “scrambling” over this, then I am sure you should have no trouble finding a less openly biased source.
John Matrix said,
December 18, 2010 at 5:16 pm
ADParker:
I see no reason to take anything from an atheist / evolutionist site seriously.
The evidence of fusing in DNA can easily be interpreted as evidence of an ID’er. I don’t see that as irrefutable proof for evolution like the moron in the video does.
Only a moron would believe HIS interpretation is the only one. It proves nothing except that there was a fusion made in the past and to reason that it happened by natural processes without intervention from some intelligent designer /creator is absurd.
Stevebee and Kent have given you evidences and proofs to demonstrate ID and such shows you are chasing rainbows and fairytales.
You have given us nothing…no evidence or proof to support your athiestic, godless belief in evolution..
Ya best get Dawkins to drop by so I get watch him get torn a new asshole because you are talking shit and nothing more.
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 18, 2010 at 8:34 pm
@ ADPARKER “Nicely demonstrating what a dumbass Vox day can be. Because that is NOT what Richard Dawkins point was at all.”
Oh really parker, I sat through one of his lectures in Tempe Az. and he said the same thing and that is just how I took it also. What WAS his point Parker?
You seem to believe every retraction they make when they are so often told how they came off sounding and their public relations people tell them to say “what they meant to say was” and we get the more watered down version having nothing to do with the context it was said in the first time. I’ve been reading Harris garbage for many years and VOX Day destroyed his book in his reviews. By the way he also was made to “explain” what he said the first time.
Maybe if these morons yo are so quick to defend, actually think about what they are going to say before they end up putting a whole shoe store in there mouths, they wouldn’t need little goupies like you getting all smart mouthed telling us we don’t get it. The FACT IS JACK ASS, I KNOW WHAT THE FUCK HE SAID!
I know what he meant and I know the context YOU defend was the one public relations people advised him to give as the “what he really meant to say version”
They are BOTH JAGGOFF’s and so are you for defending the shit head morons because YOU don’t know what they said when they said it the first time jack ass and I do.
@ADParker “Prayer: How to do nothing, and still think you are helping.”
What you get that off some bumper sticker parker:?
You read that and had another brain fart thinking it was some epiphany and got all excited did ya? You think it has some sharp cutting razors edge that will slice through the religious fog of the prayer believers with the common sense of truth, your truth, the one that isn’t true for the believer? DuH YEAH !! DuuuH, THAT STATEMENT ROCKS *hic-cup*!! I can’t wait to use it on a stupid fundie xian moron! *Slurp* Dayum! that was sooo coool *sniffle*
I don’t understand why you even think that is a clever comeback when you use it on people who think they ARE doing something by praying and that they ARE helping by praying. I mean I get it that who ever makes such an idiotic statement only says it because THEY don’t understand the power of prayer and because they think they are being cute. But that isn’t how it looks to a believer in it, so why say it shit head.
As usual, because insulting them makes you appear smart? Right? That is why I made that little cartoon about open minds because as much sense as YOU think it says about MY closed mind, the evidence of your own shines though and the stupidity of arrogance is what garners the fat lip NOT a closed mind.
It just makes you look like a jack ass which is another thing VOX Day says about assholes like you and lets face it Parker I think that is too kind calling you an asshole.
It takes a degree of intelligence to be an asshole parker.
No,, you are not an asshole, you’re just a JERK plane and simple
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“Christopher Hitchens asserts that I am a form of human Drāno, poisoning everything I encounter.”
“And yet again – Reading comprehension not really your strong point is it? – ADParker”
heh there it is again, ya know, someone ought to smack the living shit out of you. To respond to that “comment” about comprehension,, Who Parker? Vox Day? Or YOU for thinking it was something I “misunderstood” Share with us the correct way to comprehend such a statement as that genius. Do shine the light of your staggering intellect so that we may see the error of our ways. That when someone says religion is like draino poisoning everything it touches, that those following a religion aren’t poisoned themselves. Just what is it I didn’t comprehend or was that comment made just for the sake of having some dumb ass comment to make that doesn’t apply to me at all. Looks like YOU are the one having an issue with comprehension you pathetic little fudge packer, quit acting like you think you know what you’re talking about moron because clearly,
YOU DON’T HAVE A FUCKING CLUE
Parker asked, “How often you you find yourself actively thinking that no pixies exist?”
Pixies exist else you wouldn’t know what to call them. It’s when I go making it a mission in life to convince those believing they do, that they are stupid for believing in them and go writing all kinds of books like “The Pixie Delusion” or how Pixies poison everything” spending hours calling these people crazy and delusional, while I actively disbelieve in them 24/7.
No, the last thing I do when confronted by delusional people, is argue with them calling them names.
But ONLY if I think they really are delusional. Else I am just calling them that for another reason perhaps trying to convince myself that I am not the delusional one.
Sort of like a helluva lot of atheist’s and “evolutionistas” I know.
@Parker Oh good; I can just ignore the rest of your post where your train of thought clearly left the rails. Heh!”
Hehe there you go again Parker.
Little comments like this is why I would rip your fucking lungs out your big fucking mouth in a face to face meeting but then I doubt you would be talking like such a god damn little smart ass in that situation. For some reason, I have a presence that seems to garner a measure of respect from people I meet face to face.
Un-less you are a dumb ass too and going by the rest of your shit talking garbage you’ve said to everyone else here in your subtle insults and comments, makes me wonder why you are really here.
Or has stevebee’s site been given you as an assignment from your group of forum warriors that see websites like stevebees as such a threat to your religion of Darwin. That you make it your mission in life to just waste peoples time who may otherwise be thinking if you are ever going to take your head out of your faggot loving ass.
Not me. Charlie may see a reason to but when he finally understands what and who he is really dealing with here is when he may give you the verbal respect shit stained fuckin liars of scienatheism truly deserve.
That train of thought occur to you yet scumbag?
Probably not
John Matrix said,
December 18, 2010 at 5:28 pm
ADParker probably won’t click your link to that research / discovery article . If he did read it he would not get it bcause the natural man is bound up and deluded by the Spirit of this world. It requires an intelligence beyond that of natural man to see beyond the self interest based lower intelligence of man.
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 18, 2010 at 8:44 pm
Yeah I read the cop out he gave for not going. Truth is truth where ever you find it but he hates the source of the information and truth is hate to those that hate the truth.
Condemnation without investigation is his own undoing.
It’s as if he believes information to undo the TOE would be posted all over Dawkins website. Yeah and if ya believe that, I got a bridge Ill sell ya.
Parkers a punk JM just snot nosed piece of shit
John Matrix said,
December 18, 2010 at 4:43 pm
Last % similarity in DNA between chimps and humans I read about was 85% and falling….LOL. I think Kent found research that showed there is a vegetable that’s even closer….LOL.
The Evidence for evolution is its own existence. It’s been observed mutating and EVOLVING(changing rapidly like a listing ship full of fleeing rats).
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 18, 2010 at 8:53 pm
http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m126/junesoft/atheism4.jpg?t=1292705559
ADParker said,
December 18, 2010 at 9:55 pm
Kent Perry, AZ said:
“Yeah I read the cop out he gave for not going.”
I did go, actually. I just felt no need to comment on it’s contents.
Kent Perry, AZ said:
“Truth is truth where ever you find it but he hates the source of the information and truth is hate to those that hate the truth.”
While you, on the other hand, BLINDLY accept anything that fits in with your already held doctrinal beliefs, or comes from sources that promote said doctrine.
Kent Perry, AZ said:
“It’s as if he believes information to undo the TOE would be posted all over Dawkins website. Yeah and if ya believe that, I got a bridge Ill sell ya.”
Wouldn’t trust that entirely either. I DID say sources WITHOUT an open bias didn’t I? Although; Dawkins IS a professional evolutionary biologist, so I might make the effort to study what was written more closely (if it interested me of course) and then look around to see if it is corroborated anywhere else – pure science sites etc.
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 18, 2010 at 10:15 pm
Yeah yeah yeah blah blah blah Shut the fuck up Parker, no one wants to listen to your deliberate contradictions just so you can have something contrary to say.
If I wanted to listen to an asshole I’d fart.
now go do something positive
like Die or something
ADParker said,
December 18, 2010 at 10:40 pm
Why don’t you pray REALLY REALLY hard Kent, and contrary to what experiments on intercessory prayer report, you might just get your wish. Or better yet; try to find a second “true” Christian to pray with, your magic books claims that would make it a guarantee, right?
Kent said,
December 19, 2010 at 8:04 am
@ADParker said: “Why don’t you pray REALLY REALLY hard Kent, and contrary to what experiments on intercessory prayer report, you might just get your wish. Or better yet; try to find a second “true” Christian to pray with, your magic books claims that would make it a guarantee, right?”
If I wanted to “guarantee” anything parker, I wouldn’t Pray FOR you,,
I would “PREY” ON you and make you
my little bitch,
bitch.
ADParker said,
December 19, 2010 at 9:47 am
Kent said:
“If I wanted to “guarantee” anything parker, I wouldn’t Pray FOR you,, ”
Obviously I meant for you to pray for what you want to happen to me.
But of course you won’t. Because deep down you know that never works.
Kent said:
“I would “PREY” ON you and make you
my little bitch,Kent said:”
Ah; that explains your extreme displays of homophobia then. Yet another case of “she protests too much.”
Just come out of that closet Kent, you will be better for it, really.
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 19, 2010 at 2:02 pm
ADPARKER Said,” Just come out of that closet Kent, you will be better for it, really.”
If anyone would know, it would have to be you Parker, but no thanks, you aren’t my type Parker but even if I was gay,, I’d probably want someone with some brains in his head and some balls between his legs and you have neither brains or balls and its your complete lack of balls that got me to think you were bitch in the first place.
That and they way your posts come off so gay.
Kent said,
December 19, 2010 at 8:36 am
Interesting article on how evolutionists have bastardized the vernacular of science to mean anything they want it to mean. Like when they merged the two meanings of micro and macro evolution and assuming the consequent. Or how they have destroyed the once respected prestige of the peer review process relegating it to nothing more than a political clique of consensus science and diminishing its reputation to that of an ex-convict.
In 1959, the Darwin Centennial Celebration was held at the University of Chicago in commemoration of the one hundredth anniversary of the first publication of Darwin’s infamous work, Origin of Species. At that celebration, a number of papers were presented and in one of those papers by Prosser, “Comparative Physiology in Relation to Evolutionary Theory”, he discussed the criteria for a species (Prosser, 1960). Prosser stated that there were three ways of understanding biological species; morphology, reproductive isolation, and physiological adaptation. Morphology, is listed as the simplest approach and is accomplished by the arbitrary cataloging of morphological traits of similar organisms and is the basis of most taxonomic keys. However as Prosser points out, the morphological classification is not always based upon phylogeny. Reproductive isolation may be due to a number of causes such as genetic, behavioral, anatomical, hormonal, spatial, and others. Prosser mentions that reproductive isolation is difficult to test under natural conditions while the occurrence of hybridization under laboratory conditions is not sufficient reason to extrapolate to natural isolation. Physiological adaptation, at least at the time of Prosser’s presentation in 1960, was an approach to defining a species that had scarcely been examined and dealt with the ecological separation. He divided the ecological separation into two general aspects:
(a) No two related species can successfully occupy the same ecological niche (possibly excepting a few overlaps which are isolated by breeding behavior). (b) No two species have identical distribution ranges. Hence, if all of the microclimatic and biotic features of an ecological niche and distribution range are known, a description of the distinctive physiological adaptations to the niche and range should describe a species.[vii]
The emphasis of Prosser’s paper was that although the morphological features were important, more emphasis should be placed on the determination of the reproductive isolation mechanisms and even more emphasis on physiological or ecological adaptation as a determining factor in defining a species.
In 1957(a), Mayr presented a brief history of the species concept with a statement that denotes the current problem with the term:
Linnaeus will be cited as the champion of two characteristics of the species, their constancy and their sharp delimitation (their ‘objectivity’). One of the minor tragedies in the history of biology has been the assumption during the hundred and fifty years after Linnaeus that constancy and clear definition of species are strictly correlated and that one must make a choice of either believing in evolution (the ‘inconsistency’ of species) and then having to deny the existence of species except as purely subjective, arbitrary figments of the imagination, or, as most early naturalists have done, believing in the sharp delimitation of species but thinking that this necessitated denying evolution . . .
The insistence of Linnaeus on the reality, objectivity, and constancy of species is of great importance in the history of biology for three reason. First it meant the end of the belief in spontaneous generation as far as higher organisms are concerned, a belief which at the time was still widespread . . .
A second reason why his emphasis was important is that it took the species out of the speculations of the philosophers who approached the species problem in the spirit of metaphysics and stated, for instance, that ‘only individuals exist. The species of a naturalist is nothing but an illusion’ (Robinet, 1768) [referenced by Mayr]…
A third reason why the insistence on the sharp delimitation of species in the writings of Linnaeus is of historical importance is that it strengthened the viewpoint of the local naturalist and established the basis for an observational and experimental study of species in local faunas and floras, of which Darwin took full advantage.[viii]
Darwin took a completely opposite view of species as did Linnaeus. As Mayr stated:
In Darwin, as the idea of evolution became firmly fixed in his mind, so grew his conviction that this should make it impossible to delimit species. He finally regarded species as something purely arbitrary and subjective. ‘I look at the term species as one arbitrarily given for the sake of convenience to a set of individuals closely resembling each other, and that it does not essentially differ from the term variety which is given to less distinct and more fluctuating forms…The amount of difference is one very important criterion in settling whether two forms should be ranked as species or variety.’ And finally he came to the conclusion that ‘in determining whether a form should be ranked as a species or a variety, the opinion of the naturalists having sound judgment and wide experience seems the only guide to follow’ (Darwin, 1859) [referenced by Mayr].[ix]
Those that followed Darwin only helped to increase the disagreement on what the criterion for a species was. Mayr points out those disagreements as:
Subjective versus objective;
Scientific versus purely practical;
Degree of difference versus degree of distinctness;
Consisting of individuals verses consisting of populations;
Only one kind of species versus many kinds of species;
To be defined morphologically versus to be defined biologically.[x]
Mayr, then moves to clarify the main three aspects that are derived from the current discussion on species:
(1) they are based on distinctness rather than on difference and are therefore to be defined biologically rather than morphologically, (2) they consist of populations, rather than of unconnected individuals, a point particularly important for the solution of the problem of speciation, (3) they are more succinctly defined by isolation from non-conspecific populations than by the relation of conspecific individuals to each other. The crucial species criterion is thus not the fertility of individuals, but rather the reproductive isolation of populations.[xi]
Therefore the question arises: “What is a species?” Again turning to Mayr for the reply:
Depending on the choice of criteria, it leads to a variety of ‘species concepts’ or ‘species definitions.’ At one time I listed five species concepts, which I called the practical, morphological, genetic, sterility, and biological (Mayr, 1942) [referenced by Mayr]. Meglitsch (1954) [referenced by Mayr] distinguishes three concepts, the phenotypic, genetic, and the phylogenetic, a somewhat more natural arrangement. Two facets emerge from these and other classifications. One is that there is more than one species concept and that it is futile to search for the species concept. The second is that there are at least two levels of concepts. Such terms as ‘practical,’ ‘sterility,’ ‘genetic’ signify concrete aspects of species which lead to what one might call ‘applied’ species concepts. They specify criteria which can be applied readily to determine the status of discontinuities found in nature. Yet they are secondary, derived concepts, based on underlying philosophical concepts, which might also be called primary or theoretical concepts. I believe that the analysis of the species problem would be considerably advanced, if we could penetrate through such empirical terms as phenotypic, morphological, genetic, phylogenetic, or biological, to the underlying philosophical concepts.[xii]
In 1970, Mayr did not seem as unsure of what constituted a species. Theoretically, they constituted a reproductive community, plus an ecological unit and finally a genetic unit. This took the concept of species away from the typological classification of objects. He ends with the following definition: “Species are groups of interbreeding natural populations that are reproductively isolated from other such groups”.[xiii]
With all of the difficulties in defining exactly what a species is, Mayr also points the importance of maintaining the use of the term:
There are many difficulties in applying the species concept to the vast variety of discontinuities found in organic nature. Yet many biological phenomena would make no sense if individuals were not organized into populations, and these populations into species. Species are an important biological phenomenon, important to every biologist because ever biologist works with species.[xiv]
By 1982, Mayr recognized that the controversy over what constitutes a species still existed and probably will for some time to come. He states:
The entities which the taxonomist assembles into genera and still higher taxa are the species. They are the basic kinds of living beings that make up the diversity of nature. They represent the lowest level of genuine discontinuity above the level of the individual. The song sparrow and the fox sparrow are different species and so are the red oak and pin oak. The entity designated by the term ‘species’ would, at first sight, seem obvious, simple, and easily defined. But this is not the case. There is probably no other concept in biology that has remained so consistently controversial as the species concept. One should have thought that the animated debate of the post-Darwinian period would have produced clarity and unanimity or, at least, that the new systematics of the 1930s and 40s would have brought final clarity, but this was not the case. Even today several papers on the species problem are published each year and they reveal almost as much difference of opinion as existed one hundred years ago. The advance that has been made is that the nature of the disagreement is much more clearly formulated than in the earlier periods. What is particularly interesting for the student of ideas is that the history of the species problem is, to a large degree, quite independent of the history of the problem of classification. The branch of systematics dealing with the species problem can be designated as microtaxonomy . . . .[xv]
Regardless of the inability to define what a species is, Mayr believes that it is still important to use the term as if we did know what it was.
Therefore the question is raised one last time, “What is a species?” For if the concept of what defines a species is so variable, then how can one honestly discuss the process of speciation? Provine adds to this concept by stating:
The corresponding book on observed and documented cases of speciation in action would be very thin indeed, and some evolutionary biologists claim even those pages would be mostly blank. That is one good reason why, in the face of great mounds of evidence of the results of speciation processes, there is so much controversy about mechanisms of speciation.[xvi]
Demonstrating that there is no clear and concise definition of what a species is, one must question use of the term in the scientific literature, especially since the process of speciation is discussed as one of the main evidences for evolution. Therefore, the point in question is: “How can a process such as speciation be used as one of the main bodies of evidence for evolution when the very item at its core, the species, is such a vague and controversial term?”
ADParker said,
December 19, 2010 at 10:20 am
http://creationrevolution.com/2010/12/the-ambiguity-and-controversy-of-the-evolutionary-term-‘species’/
I always laugh when creationists (not those few who have any real understanding of evolutionary biology of course, they aren’t so stupid) bring up the difficulty in defining “Species” succinctly. They just demonstrate there ignorance of the subject, and how this too is an expected consequence of the truth of evolution,
And I started, I might as well address this briefly (even though I known full well that there is no point with this audience):
Now; there is good reason why, if they are correct, “species” should be hard to define in a clear-cut fashion by evolutionary biologists. And correlated reason why that should be relatively easy for the creationists’ “kinds”
And as expected this is true for evolutionary biologists, but not for creationists – that is indeed telling.
Kent said:
“Like when they merged the two meanings of micro and macro evolution and assuming the consequent.”
This, of course is just deceitful bullshit. No doubt read and absorbed without a hint of critical thought by Kent – as per usual.
MIcro and Macro evolution were once terms in evolutionary biology. Used to define two differing levels of examination of the observed facts of evolution.
Microevolution: Was the study of the direct effects of evolution, namely variation (and later mutation when this was discovered to be the prime cause of this variation) and the causes and effects of differing survival and procreation success (due in large part to those variations.)
Macroevolution: Was the study of the broader, longer term, effects of those evolutionary processes (examined by those focusing at the micro level.) How large scale charges occur and occurred. The big picture.
It came to pass that these lines began to blur, and more and more biologists found themselves doing work hat could not fairly be defined within only one of the two branches of study. The distinction, and thus the labels were therefore largely discarded, and soon fell out of fashion altogether (until creationists picked them up and distorted then to fit their own agenda of course – primarily when they finally were forced to admit that SOME evolution did and does in fact happen; when THEY needed a dividing label themselves.)
From memory; the terms were first use in the mid 1920s (1927 maybe?) and dropped I think by the 1960s or early 70s. Something like that anyway.
I can only assume that your misuse of the “assuming the consequent” fallacy, was you making the classic mistake that evolution is, was ever, a theory. When in actual fact evolution is a set of facts, on which a theory was built.
Scientific terms 101:
Fact: Observed known things and events.
Law: Description of a set of facts.
Theory: Explanation of a set of facts.
There are the FACTS of evolution, and
a THEORY of evolution, and
there are a few LAWS within that theory.
Likewise:
There are the facts of Gravity, and
there is a LAW of gravity, and
there is a THEORY of gravity* as well.
*Although, unlike that of evolution, the current theory of gravity IS a theory in crisis (which is kind of exciting, in my humble opinion!)
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 19, 2010 at 3:38 pm
ADPARKER SAID: I always laugh when creationists (not those few who have any real understanding of evolutionary biology of course, they aren’t so stupid) bring up the difficulty in defining “Species” succinctly. They just demonstrate there ignorance of the subject, and how this too is an expected consequence of the truth of evolution,”
Jeez are you fucking stupid,, Did you bother to read the article at all shit for brains or are you so god damn fucking dumb you didn’t see what the article says is the EVOLUTIONIST’S as the ones having the problem Hoss. They are the ones that can’t seem to agree on what it means shit head, so don’t blame creationists for not “getting” when it is obvious in all your presumptuous conclusions about us creationists, you still haven’t given the right answer either. You think all that artificial ad-lib aristocratic rhetoric you vomit from that yap of yours is going to make it sound more like you know what you are talking about ?
Dude, I’ve seen this argument a hundred times and they are NOT the same. In fact we agree that micro-evolution is adaptation and we KNOW that is hard coded in the DNA so it isn’t the same. We ain’t talking about a sun tan, sonny so if you are going to cross the genetic divide, you are going to have to me where the line is drawn because not even Dawkins can give an answer to that question.
You word smiths trip over your own manipulative logic traps more than anyone can count anymore. So sorry sweet cheeks, they are not even close to being the same.
I know it makes equivocating between the two to prove the latter but accepting an agreed and observed phenomena with one that has not been observed is the whole reason you assholes made the term species so elastic so you can say it’s true.
The problem is, the word has become useless as a term to distinguish these life forms and it is the evolutionists that bitch about it. so your argument is with them girl friend. NOT me or creationists.
Here let me help you to understand the science a little better than you think you already do. The term evolution may have different meanings, which can be classified into three categories:
First: The earliest life existed 3.5 billion years ago. New species arrives, while others go extinct.
The scientific explanation evolution offers is that every life form may have a biological ancestor, newer creatures came from these ancestors. This is the first type of evolution, also known as macro-evolution. The evidence might come in the form of a fossil or comparing similarities of their anatomy.
The Second: is, each type of organism is not immutable, all of them have theer own characteristics, like speed or color or size, etc. Some of the these characteristics offer an advantage for the creatures survival For example, if a new color in moths provides the moths better CAMOUFLAGE , the moths with that color would be harder to catch giving them better odds for offsprings.
After many years the moths with this color will show up more and more in the moth population.
However, no matter how many more moths with the new color would be, they still could mate with the other moths of the other color and have healthy offspring.
This is known as micro-evolution.
Now THIS, is a scientific fact .even among religious peoples.
Now the third,, would be the emergence of a BRAND NEW species or what is “macro evolution” which is the result of micro-evolution, may lead to the formation of new species by Darwin’s theory of natural selection, it is the foundation of Chucks theory .
Now, the third type of the evolution. is the process and / or mechanism of evolution.
Other mechanisms of evolution have been offered such as sexual selection genetic drift , geographic isolation, etc.
According to Darwits, one supposition is that any emergence of a new species takes thousand and thousands of years .
If that were true, we wouldn’t see these new species emerge simply because why??
That’s right Parker, we don’t live long enough to see them.
But that isn’t my fault and it isn’t any other creationists fault. It also isn’t our problem. However, it is said that a large number of new species have been discovered in a relatively short time or they are just a one generation process.
Many Plants and animals have been generated by a processes called “polyploids” without any help from natural selection another is “parthenogenetic reproduction”
One of the many examples Darwits use to illustrate this is the cichild fish that has evolved from one type of cichild fish over many many thousands of years but then two they say came about in less than twenty years. They call them new species but in arguments with creationists, we still see cichlid fish and sub species. They still call them cichild fish two but insist they are a new species altogether which is okay I suppose but the changes are still those well within the cichlids DNA for variation
So Neo Darwits began a wordsmithing agenda.
They changed the whole thing and now they use natural selection as the primary mechanism for generating new species and any others would be rare occasions.
Now THAT makes the TOE a junk science
If a theory is a scientific, it is incumbent on the science to test it and to do this, they must have characteristics be proven wrong or falsified.
Of the three types of evolution, only two can be tested or falsifiability
If human fossils were found in earth’s strata some 100 million years ago, then of course, macro-evolution is proven wrong.
This situation has not occurred so the type of evolution is correct.
The second one is also falsifiable.
The third one however, is not falsifiable.
if we observed new species emerging but NOT by micro-evolution, this type of evolution can be proved wrong.
Or if we observed new species in a one generation process without the aid of natural selection. Now, nobody knows for sure that mutation and natural selection, generate new species, or no new species whatsoever.
it is impossible for anybody to see this process, and any means of investigation where one must interpret “clues” that happened millions of years ago is playing spec detective but NOT scientist.
You can merge the observed with the un-observed all you wish but that isn’t good science, but it does make for good scienatheism
ADParker said,
December 20, 2010 at 3:50 am
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“Jeez are you fucking stupid,, Did you bother to read the article at all shit for brains or are you so god damn fucking dumb you didn’t see what the article says is the EVOLUTIONIST’S as the ones having the problem Hoss.”
LOL! I honestly laughed out loud at that one Kent, well done!
Of course I read the article Kent; THAT is why I laughed. I know the author says that – which is funny, because they are wrong, fractally wrong.
But I understand that you just accept anything uncritically just so long as it comes from a source that genuflects to your belief system.
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“They are the ones that can’t seem to agree on what it means shit head,”
True to a point. But, as I wrote (did you even read MY post?) this is to be expected IF the theory of evolution is correct. Here’s a clue: It’s hard to find a clear cut-off point in a process of gradual change. In fact you should expect a ‘grey’ area, and numerous examples that don’t fit neatly within any given definitions.
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“you still haven’t given the right answer either.”
And never will, because evolution does not work like that.
There “just so” definitions that do the job in certain contexts though. The simplest one is that two sets of organisms are different species if they are genetically INCAPABLE or interbreeding, therefore that the two groups can not possibly share, and pass, genes between each group (naturally.)
But less strenuous definitions do in many cases. For example Lions and Tigers CAN interbreed, but do not normally do so in nature -therefore effectively amounting to two distinct genepools. They have interbred in captivity, resulting in Ligers and Tigons (Look up Patrick the Liger; he’s huge! Tigons on the other hand tend to be even smaller that tigers.) which can be fertile (as opposed to mules (horse/donkey cross) which are ‘almost’ always sterile.
Note the gradual progression there, as expected in evolutionary theory, which described the processes leading to the diversity of life being a gradual one of ‘becoming’:
Some groups of organisms can interbreed freely.
Some can, but do not tend to do so.
Some can, but have a more limited success rate in terms of being fecund
Some can, but with a lesser chance of producing viable young (fecund/live)
And some simply can not interbreed at all.
The question that springs to mind is how can this be explained in what one can laughably call The Creationist Model? Doesn’t seem to jibe that well with the whole “After there own kind” deal.
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“You think all that artificial ad-lib aristocratic rhetoric you vomit from that yap of yours is going to make it sound more like you know what you are talking about ?”
Aw, too many big words for you widdle Kenty?
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“Dude, I’ve seen this argument a hundred times and they are NOT the same.”
What micro and macro evolution?! No, they are different angles and perspectives to LOOK at the processes of evolution. There is only ONE evolution though. It is not as if one kind of evolution switches off once speciation is achieved (the agreed upon dividing line back when the terms were used) and another kicks in! That’s just daft.
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“In fact we agree that micro-evolution is adaptation and we KNOW that is hard coded in the DNA so it isn’t the same.”
Oh well done Kent; you just declared that you KNOW something that is NOT TRUE.
But out of mild interest, what do you think Macro evolution is then?
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“We ain’t talking about a sun tan, sonny so if you are going to cross the genetic divide, you are going to have to me where the line is drawn because not even Dawkins can give an answer to that question.”
There is no line. That is the mistake. There is a process of ‘becoming.’ There is no magic point in which one species SUDDENLY becomes another. THAT is why natural habit* to define “species” is so difficult.
*We humans do so love to pigeon-holes everything into neat little categories don’t we? Heh! Even when we know that they don’t properly fit.
Like Black & White, when there is a whole smooth range of skin colours (which is why the South Africans came up with Black, White and Coloured.)
And Hetero and Homosexual, ignoring the the vast range between that of ‘bisexuality.’
And innumerable other examples of varying sorts..
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“I know it makes equivocating between the two to prove the latter but accepting an agreed and observed phenomena with one that has not been observed is the whole reason you assholes made the term species so elastic so you can say it’s true.”
You know that the phenomena observed that started the whole theory off were what could be called “macro evolution”, right?
And the dividing line is speciation, which HAS been directly observed – yes even up to the hardest definition of the term. Therefore Macro evolution is an observed phenomena.
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“The problem is, the word has become useless as a term to distinguish these life forms and it is the evolutionists that bitch about it. so your argument is with them girl friend. NOT me or creationists.”
It is far from useless Kent, it is just those who bother to try to understand it, and the reality it describes, also understand the subtleties and contexts involved.
I know you creationists would prefer neat and SIMPLE little definitions, so that you don;t have to think too hard, but the real world isn’t like that.
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“Here let me help you to understand the science a little better than you think you already do.”
Ha ha ha Ha ha HA HA!!!
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“The term evolution may have different meanings, which can be classified into three categories:
First: The earliest life existed 3.5 billion years ago. New species arrives, while others go extinct.”
A most juvenile synopsis, but okay I guess. Not the process of evolution of course, but a broad desciption of what occurs.
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“The scientific explanation evolution offers is that every life form may have a biological ancestor, newer creatures came from these ancestors. This is the first type of evolution, also known as macro-evolution. The evidence might come in the form of a fossil or comparing similarities of their anatomy.”
And genetics, and bio-geographical distribution, evo devo, and…
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“The Second: is, each type of organism is not immutable, all of them have theer own characteristics, like speed or color or size, etc.”
A rough description of Variation.
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“Some of the these characteristics offer an advantage for the creatures survival For example, if a new color in moths provides the moths better CAMOUFLAGE , the moths with that color would be harder to catch giving them better odds for offsprings.”
Differing advantage, survival opportunity.
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“After many years the moths with this color will show up more and more in the moth population.”
Natural Section.
These are (some of) the processes that cause the broad definition you tried to give as the first explanation.
You are wrong, they are the SAME explanation. The second is the description of the processes. The first is the result of those processes. Much like explaining how electricity can be directed through certain circuits etc. (as your second), and the turning on and off as a light switch: Same processes involved.
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“However, no matter how many more moths with the new color would be, they still could mate with the other moths of the other color and have healthy offspring.”
And you would expect anything else with this minor variation?! The experiment(s) you allude to were to demonstrate Natural Selection of a single feature. Not speciation.
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“This is known as micro-evolution.”
The examination of these processes is what used to be called microevolution.
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“Now THIS, is a scientific fact .even among religious peoples.”
Heh. A fact is a fact Kent. Doesn’t matter who believes it or doesn’t believe it. It was a scientific fact when most creationists didn’t believe it as well.
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“Now the third,, would be the emergence of a BRAND NEW species or what is “macro evolution” which is the result of micro-evolution, may lead to the formation of new species by Darwin’s theory of natural selection, it is the foundation of Chucks theory .”
This is Speciation. NOT a new kind of evolution or anything.
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“Now, the third type of the evolution. is the process and / or mechanism of evolution.”
It is neither a process or mechanism Kent. It is simply one notable result of the processes you roughly hinted at in your second example, in which the ONLY processes and mechanisms can possibly occur. The result being the divergence to the degree of resulting in new genepools, genetically distinct from that of other genepools. Such that genes can no longer pass between that group and any others. This is essentially what speciation is; the appearance of new distinct genepools.
As already explained; this divide is not as cut and dried as some may prefer. Look up “Ring Species” for a fine example.
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“Other mechanisms of evolution have been offered such as sexual selection genetic drift , geographic isolation, etc.”
Sexual selection is akin to Natural selection, but it is the mates that do the selecting. It is really nothing more that sexual preference (although the effects etc., can be dramatic and diverse.)
Genetic Drift is the ‘random’ variation, where as opposed to that of Natural Selection, it is essentially random factors that lead to one trait becoming dominant over others:
Eg. Natural selection would mean that Green body colour offers an advantage over the blue colour, so green ones tend to survive and procreate more, and green becomes dominant in that manner. But with Genetic drift it can just be that while neither Green or blue makes a lick of difference, but by chance the blues just luck out and come to be the new norm. Sexual selection would be when neither blue or green offer any real advantage, but he ladies like the green ones more; green just does it for them.
Geographic isolation is just one of the causes for speciation events to occur, this is known as Allopatric Speciation. Others include Parapatric and Sympatric.
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“According to Darwits, one supposition is that any emergence of a new species takes thousand and thousands of years.”
Where did you get that from? Some cases are known to have occurred over just a few centuries. Differing generation times, and the ‘right’ environmental pressures, result in vast differences in speciation times as well.
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“If that were true, we wouldn’t see these new species emerge simply because why??
That’s right Parker, we don’t live long enough to see them.”
Dumbass.
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“But that isn’t my fault and it isn’t any other creationists fault. It also isn’t our problem. However, it is said that a large number of new species have been discovered in a relatively short time or they are just a one generation process.”
It is because of your sadly distorted imagined caricature of speciation. You just don’t understand nearly enough (and worse believe that you understand facets that is simply false) to have any idea what is going on.
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“Many Plants and animals have been generated by a processes called “polyploids” without any help from natural selection another is “parthenogenetic reproduction” “
Sure. Only a fool thinks that Natural Selection is all there is too it. Not that “parthenogenetic reproduction” and Natural Selection is at all mutually exclusive.
Polyploidy is just the description of organisms with more that two paired sets of chromosomes though (most organisms are Dipliods – i.e. the famous Double Helix.)
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“One of the many examples Darwits use to illustrate this is the cichild fish that has evolved from one type of cichild fish over many many thousands of years but then two they say came about in less than twenty years. They call them new species but in arguments with creationists, we still see cichlid fish and sub species.”
Why? Because you are morons who think that “cichlid fish” is a species classification?!
Why is it when we point out the speciation of cichlid fish, you cry out “But it is still a cichlid fish!” or a new split of two species of fly you shout “But it is still a fly!” But have a problem when we say that a human and a chimpanzee is “Still a primate”?!
Primate and Fly (diptera) being ORDER level classification of organisms. And Cichlid being a family level classification. Chimpanzees and Humans being in the same family as each other, just like all cichlid fish.
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“They still call them cichild fish two but insist they are a new species altogether which is okay I suppose but the changes are still those well within the cichlids DNA for variation”
I would be impressed with your detailed understanding of cichlid DNA, if I believed you for a second.
In other words when creationists can’t get around the fact that speciation events really happen, shift the goal posts to redefine “macro evolution” as not beyond speciation, but beyond this imaginary non-defined “kinds.”
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“They changed the whole thing and now they use natural selection as the primary mechanism for generating new species and any others would be rare occasions.”
That makes no sense.
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“Now THAT makes the TOE a junk science”
No, it makes your imagined understanding of biological science as laughably poor.
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“If a theory is a scientific, it is incumbent on the science to test it and to do this, they must have characteristics be proven wrong or falsified.”
Which is done all the time. I am sorry you refuse to see it.
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“Of the three types of evolution, only two can be tested or falsifiability”
They are all the same ‘type.’
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“If human fossils were found in earth’s strata some 100 million years ago, then of course, macro-evolution is proven wrong.”
Yup, or Rabbits in the precambrian (or any mammal, bird, reptile or amphibian.)
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“This situation has not occurred so the type of evolution is correct.”
No, it has not been falsified. Not the same thing. It is always possible (although bloody unlikely) that we will find such an anomaly in the future!
HA! Will you look at that: This time it is you who are giving the theory too much credit!
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“The second one is also falsifiable.”
Not really. The second are the observed facts, of the processes of evolution. It is these (with some added later obviously) which were the facts on which the theory of evolution was initially based:
“This is what we see, how best to explain these facts?”
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“The third one however, is not falsifiable.”
Not any more. The third one however is NOT a theory, it is an observed fact, just like your second. It was once a theory that the known processes led to speciation, to new distinct species and genepools. This is now known to be a fact. Facts aren’t falsified, facts are facts.
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“if we observed new species emerging but NOT by micro-evolution, this type of evolution can be proved wrong.”
Um no. Would the ‘artificial’ creation of a human being disprove procreation?! It would prove that speciation occurs by this other means (which may or may not be a part of evolution, and have the theory change accordingly.)
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“Or if we observed new species in a one generation process without the aid of natural selection.”
…any of the other processes that fit within evolution.
More plausible would be the discovery of some mechanism that PREVENTS evolution beyond a certain level. Which seems most unlikely as speciation is the only real defining point in evolution.
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“Now, nobody knows for sure that mutation and natural selection, generate new species, or no new species whatsoever.”
Sure we do. You can deny reality as much as it pleases you however.
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“it is impossible for anybody to see this process, and any means of investigation where one must interpret “clues” that happened millions of years ago is playing spec detective but NOT scientist.”
Except many cases of speciation doesn’t TAKE “millions of years”, nor did it just happen “millions of years ago”. But you go ahead and play your little Magic Man of the Gaps games.
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“You can merge the observed with the un-observed all you wish but that isn’t good science,”
You have NO understanding of science, do you?
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“but it does make for good scienatheism”
Idiot.
stevebee92653 said,
December 20, 2010 at 5:10 pm
ADParker and Kent Perry:
I would appreciate it if you would discuss here with a modicum of respect for each other. I screened comments for a while, and don’t like doing it. It then takes 24 hours for comments to post. I have rules for posting, and they basically include no personal attacks, no “name calling”, stay on the subject of the validity of evolution. I have spent a great deal of time writing this blog, and constant demeaning in the comments detracts from it’s purpose. If you want to attack each other personally, please do it by exchanging email addresses and have at it. Also, one link per comment is all that is allowed on webmail. Comments will not post with more.
Thanks
John Matrix said,
December 19, 2010 at 5:34 pm
ADFudgePacker:
You responded as follows to Kent. “While you, on the other hand, BLINDLY accept anything that fits in with your already held doctrinal beliefs, or comes from sources that promote said doctrine.”
Well Fudge Packer….It’s still better than making up new fairy tales to explain new evidence that clearly demonstrates Intelligent Design which you and your atheist fudge packers go out of your way to spin, morph, and mutate to suit your belief in the ever evolving theory of evolution.
You still haven’t provided one piece of proof or evidence to support your belief…and it’s because you can’t or you won’t because you know if you do you are going to get your intellectual ass handed back to you all beat to shit…..and you can’t bear the thought of the impending humiliation you are going to get.
Bring it on ADFudgePacker…let’s have your strongest evidence or have you come hear unarmed and just to troll?
I see stevebee’s proofs and evidences at the top of each page and all I see from you is red herrings, fallacious arguments, and cute cliche’s and euphemisms that only self arrogating pricks like yourself would think are clever, funny, and put any weight to them.
If ya hadn’t started with the fallacious arguments and attacking people who don’t believe in your fairy tales for evolution and if you HAD presented your PROOF for why you believe in Evolution this thread may have benefited you but all you’ve done is backed yourself into a corner and now you come out swinging like a blatant mad man proving that Kent is right and you really are a “fist in the face waiting to happen.”
I’ve tried over and over to get you back on track and you just won’t listen. You don’t have Asperger’s Syndrome by any chance …do you? If so I could find it more easily to ignore your annoying and ignorance.
stevebee92653 said,
December 20, 2010 at 5:14 pm
John Matrix, ADParker, Kent Perry:
I would appreciate it if you would discuss here with a modicum of respect for each other. I screened comments for a while, and don’t like doing it. It then takes 24 hours for comments to post. I have rules for posting, and they basically include no personal attacks, no “name calling”, stay on the subject of the validity of evolution. I have spent a great deal of time writing this blog, and constant demeaning in the comments detracts from it’s purpose. If you want to attack each other personally, please do it by exchanging email addresses and have at it. Also, one link per comment is all that is allowed on webmail. Comments will not post with more.
Thanks
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 19, 2010 at 10:30 pm
“Yawn. And where are you copying this apologetic piffle from (again without citation) this time? Here perhaps?” -ADFudgepacker
http://www.aish.com/ci/sam/64069232.html
Sorry I don’t read garbage from Evolutionist apologist websites jack ass.
{Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“So when people like you try explaining things in evolutionary terms, often they come off sounding more like educated morons rather than knowing simple truths that can be explained in one word*
“Watched it. It’s stupid. A fine example of how religious zealots prefer easy cop-out answer, than actual explanation”. -ADFudgepacker}
I don’t have to watch jack squat shit for brains unless you want start quoting ME rather than the person in your drug induced schizophrenia, shit for brains. Damn are you pathetic, typical darwit.
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“Probability doesn’t have memory”
“Well duh. What does that have to do with anything?” -ADFudgepacker
asked and answered, Alzheimer’s too fudgepacker?
“You think spelling out a word relating to complete and utter bullshit assertions counts as reasoning?” -ADFudgepacker
Unless you can prove otherwise shit head and there is NOTHING you can give me as evidence for trans-speciation I couldn’t debunk. So yeah it doesn’t matter how someone spells it out to you fudgepacker you’re too god damn fuckin stupid to grasp the most basic understanding of science.
“Who said anything abut chance numbnuts?”-ADFudgepacker
I did shit head don’t you remember? Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“Hitting upon the useful combination’s did not, and could not, and will not happen by chance parker”
“You post crap from apologetics sites as if it was your own work.”-ADFudgepacker
“Ok having God about God explaining it * – Kent Perry
“You have ZERO understanding of evolutionary biology or mathematics.”-ADFudgepacker
says YOU?? AGH HA HA HA HA HA That’s hysterical coming from you shit head. You ain’t a pimple on my intellectual ass Fudgepack.
“Don’t forget how the experiments have been repeated many times, with what now seem to be the right conditions; which has led to EVEN BETTER results” -ADFudgepacker
No they haven’t
(“No I am not.
I am not claiming that the entire theory of evolution is a fact. It isn’t; it’s a theory.” -ADFudgepacker
“Theory explains facts” ADFudgepacker)
Mmmmm
Oh I said it like this packer, “You claim something even more outrageous is a fact”
That something is what you refer to as fact, If I had said the entire TOE you say is a fact, then your response would apply yo me but as usual, you word smith and try to slick trick your way out of the corners I have painted you in
“Magic IS your god.” – -ADFudgepacker
No Magic is a former Basketball Player and not my God
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“They say intelligent design has no proof? Not if you have to manufacture it. “
“That doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.” – -ADFudgepacker
It does when you understand that is how evolutionists have proven things for many many years
“Yawn. And where are you copying this apologetic piffle from (again without citation) this time? Here perhaps?”” ADFudgepacker
http://www.aish.com/ci/sam/64069232.html
No, Melatoxic but if you think half a sentence out of that whole page makes for some plagiarism. call the copy paste police I doubt they will be anywhere near as desperate to criticize.
” you lot invariably do as you have done: Avoid providing the evidence you claim you have” – ADFudgepacker
Ha ha ha Pot meet Kettle the Fudgepacker
“You do realise that asserting that over and over doesn’t magically make it true, don’t you?” – ADFudgepacker
It’s “Realize” with a “z” but I keep saying that same thing to the Global Warmist’s but they keep right on spouting off bullshit
“You realise that only makes you look like a childish tool, don’t you?”-ADFudgepacker It’s realize with a Z Packer, shit you are like me with the “there” AND their” thing.
Calling you ADPLiar? No I don’t think it makes me look anymore childish than you have looked calling me a creotard, fuctard, and numerous other names that you get away with behind the safety of the internet. So you are no alternative to anyone’s immaturity shit head.
stevebee92653 said,
December 20, 2010 at 5:12 pm
Kent Perry and ADParker:
I would appreciate it if you would discuss here with a modicum of respect for each other. I screened comments for a while, and don’t like doing it. It then takes 24 hours for comments to post. I have rules for posting, and they basically include no personal attacks, no “name calling”, stay on the subject of the validity of evolution. I have spent a great deal of time writing this blog, and constant demeaning in the comments detracts from it’s purpose. If you want to attack each other personally, please do it by exchanging email addresses and have at it. Also, one link per comment is all that is allowed on webmail. Comments will not post with more.
Thanks
ADParker said,
December 23, 2010 at 3:10 am
stevebee92653 said,:
“Also, one link per comment is all that is allowed on webmail. Comments will not post with more.”
Since when? Both Kent and Charlie have comments above with no less than three links.
Charlie said,
December 23, 2010 at 3:20 am
Those were probably posted before the insults started flying and Steve changed his policy.
stevebee92653 said,
December 23, 2010 at 5:22 am
That is because I screened and passed them. They won’t post until I override WordPress which can take up to 24 hours. Quit trying so hard ADParker.
ADParker said,
December 23, 2010 at 5:36 am
Thanks (despite the attitude in your response,) I am not familiar with the inner workings of wordpress. Your initial comment implied to me that you were saying that it was impossible, which clearly it is not.
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 21, 2010 at 4:44 am
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“They still call them cichild fish two but insist they are a new species altogether which is okay I suppose but the changes are still those well within the cichlids DNA for variation”
I would be impressed with your detailed understanding of cichlid DNA, if I believed you for a second.
In other words when creationists can’t get around the fact that speciation events really happen, shift the goal posts to redefine “macro evolution” as not beyond speciation, but beyond this imaginary non-defined “kinds.” -ADPARKER
Gee I really wish you’d object to these shifting of goal posts allegations, when the actual shift occurs.
You see it isn’t ME or creationists that have been redefining macro-evolution, it is evolutionists. The reason they merged the meaning with micro evolution is so they could escape having to equivocate between the two which is something they often did to explain the other. They would use something like the variation on the beak if a finch and call that proof of of macro-evolution.
That example so often heard coming from them, never did prove that species go through these radical morphological changes over the long term in the millions of years. If it did, we would certainly see many more transitional fossils There are just too far many fossils that show up suddenly and invariably they are full fledged fliers or swimmers. There are no quasi feather scaled dino birds and those that have been suggested as such have been either another hoax (as usual coming from this area of science) or they have been demoted as discovery of earlier flying bird fossils would knock the smug look off the evolutionists faces, (as usual again). The usual response to common sense like this is the kind of answer you gave me Parker. EXAMPLE:
When I said this
“it is impossible for anybody to see this process, and any means of investigation where one must interpret “clues” that happened millions of years ago is playing spec detective but NOT scientist.”
You answered below
Except many cases of speciation doesn’t TAKE “millions of years”, nor did it just happen “millions of years ago”.
The fact that some speciation doesn’t take a million years doesn’t respond to my statement, it responds by splitting hairs on an argument I am not even arguing. Sure, ok some Ill agree you think some doesn’t tale a million years but SO WHAT. I don’t think it happens AT ALL. In other words there is no proof of a dino to bird. There are speculations for some fossil being one of the transitional in between but those were full fledged fliers while others were more of an artists rendering. The program I saw on PBS the test they used to substantiate which of the renderings would be the one tat proved the transitional for was the one most capable of flight. So naturally the model that won in he wind tunnel test would be the one they decided yo put in the text books as proof of a dino to bird fossil. The thing was a dead extinct bird that is all they had and how they worked it to fit their hypothesis was truly disturbing if is what they are calling science these days. So getting back to your rebuttal statement, the point is the one you missed apparently and your excuse to not address it was to pick on a general description of gradualism as if the argument were about all evolution MUST take a millions years or more and that was never the argument. I know you get the point. you just don’t want to argue that because you simply can not.
We have seen the line DNA has where you can get only so many morphological changes to occur and that’s it. You see it with Dogs and in 1500 years the most varied species of animal but they are all dogs having all the typical dog parts. The attempts to create more varieties have proven the dog only gets worse and worse having more and more health problems. I am not talking about over breeding either. The same goes with bacteria which isn’t a fair example being that they don’t reproduce the same but even if I were to accept it as an allowable construct of evolutionary proof, the examples given by evolutionists don’t prove anything more than e-coli evolving into e-coli Surely, as fast as mutations may take place or those alleged, one would think this bacteria would start to show some signs of leg nubs or something. What do they show us? The e-coli strain adapts to a diet of citrate and saccharides which is an amino sugar. Wow. The evolutionists hail this as they usually do the most insignificant of new observation’s, like they always do making a big deal about something most of us would expect from such a living organism which is notorious for eating things a billy goat would throw up on. Yet here we see it again, the scienatheist calling this proof of evolution. No, sorry, in fact if it were to live among the other e-coli it most likely would have died out but making a world of only citrate for nourishment and only in such a world, would that even be considered an advantage as far as beneficial mutations are concerned.
Another example of this was given here you said ““You have ZERO understanding of evolutionary biology or mathematics.”
ZERO? understanding of science and math? This suggest someone doesn’t know what 2+2 is Parker so giving the reader the benefit of the doubt that they would give me at least that much credit, Ill ignore this attempt to use this exaggeration in yet another attempt to beat me in a debate using such tactics. Again rather than debate, you offer an opinion and nothing more so my argument stands regardless of your opinion I can’t add two and two.
All of this is a science of history and it might be a goof place to see evolution moved. History of life and how it might have evolved.
The speculation of the first evolving eye. On what life form did this allegedly occur and assuming it did, it could only be an advantage in a world of blind life forms. I find that argument is one based on many speculative ideas but nothing I would consider truth in the old sense of the word. Truth being the truth now and in the past as truth should be true else it never was the truth. It is subjective opinions of a mindset desperate to keep Darwin’s silly theory alive.
Another item you do this is below;
“LOL! I honestly laughed out loud at that one Kent, well done!
Of course I read the article Kent; THAT is why I laughed. I know the author says that – which is funny, because they are wrong, fractally wrong.”
Again the point wasn’t about them, it was MY answer to you for insulting ME as if I was the one not getting it. Now, in light of the fact that is what you were doing was insulting me for not understanding speciation and asking if you had even read the article. Now you say “of course you did” Well then my question is why then did you say it was ME not understanding what speciation meant. The answers is, even if you did read it, you couldn’t exactly criticize Darwin for using species in such a way as to make it mean anything that fits his theory. Now in this Rebuttal, you blame the source for being stupid and me for getting reading it from that source. If I were to take a story or quote from you and post it to that website, would that make your statement false? Would it make anyone stupid for reading it there rather than here ? You claim Stevebee is a creationist or ID’er . So does it hold the same logic for what you have said in all your posts here too?
I just don’t agree that is a good enough argument to refute what I said and will again submit that it is in deed YOU who doesn’t get it. The article gives examples of the word changing commensurate with the requirements needed to substantiate the TOE and yes the word is a contentions subject among many other evolutionary scientists as well. So your argument is really nothing but an opinion and a need to blame someone for being stupid again while you, conversely, hold yourself to be the wiser. I disagree and the article stands and an accurate assesment given that you have done nothing but offer an opinion that you now defer as if you were talking about someone else being stupid for writing it and me for believing it. Mmmm Yeah that was riveting.
You did it again here when I said :
“Now, nobody knows for sure that mutation and natural selection, generate new species, or no new species whatsoever.”
You rebuttal again is an opinion nothing more and without citing who “we” are I can only guess but I know you don’t speak for science so who is “we” and what does what you “think” have to do with it? If you got proof, show it. But you didn’t. What you chose to do again was suggest I am stupid by suggesting it pleases me to deny reality. Whose? Yours? and what does it have to do with your rebuttal when what I do does’t make your argument as your opinion of me doesn’t prove what I said is wrong. So my argument in the original post must stand I have no choice. I don’t know how science can continue to get by in debates thinking you win them merely by saying you are right because someone else is stupid and that is just all their is to it end of story. Well perhaps it is between you and I because I have not been proven wrong.
at least not by you.
“But I understand that you just accept anything uncritically just so long as it comes from a source that genuflects to your belief system – ADParker”.
Now that I have established your methods of winning debates, I don’t think I have to explain what that was or the unscientific intent behind it. Again, it doesn’t prove my posts are wrong, it just says they are and then goes at my belief they are so I am somehow wrong for getting information from a place that doesn’t parrot for ADPARKER belief system.
Ok, I can live with that. but what does it have to do with the information you claim is wrong and me for getting it there but AGAIN. that is not debate, and it isn’t a rebuttal. It’s just more of the same and I guess I have seen enough.
You have proven nothing, insulted no one and didn’t change a thing. You haven’t proved to be smarter but have shown you have a pet peeve or two with grammar details. Ill concede that and admit you do have a pet peeve and I do use “there” when I should have used “their” .
I guess if the debate was proven by that charge, it would be very similar to the way Dover was won. Not because it wasn’t science, but because it was in violation of the first amendment .
It really is too bad Man made God a religion. Perhaps the tables would be turned then, or if only man could separate religion from the fact of God.
Ya like that one? “Fact of God” ? I hope it looks as confounded and untrue as the fact of evolution is to us. It helps to show just how far we are from understanding what is really dividing us.
I’m pretty certain the reason will be that I am stupid and have ZERO knowledge of science while i cling to imaginary invisible men in the sky. I would say that would be the example I would give as a place to start. Not what you said about me in the example, but that you said it at all and why.
I think the problem is, evolutionists have not been able to explain it in a way I am going to understand if it is true. The reason I think they have a hard time is because it simply isn’t true.
It isn’t true whales evolved from a land animal, it isn’t true monkeys are 98% like we are. The current estimate is around 95% and getting lower and the truth of the matter is they really had not unraveled the chimp genome when they first started using that in their arguments it was untrue. Now they have and they are finding the Y chromosome is radically different.
I have given you data suggesting a “Third way” from Prof. James Shapiro and you ignored it. The argument from a credible source is a fallacious one but you continue to use it as if these people have no business offering challenges to evolution and if they do, they aren’t peer reviewed.
Well that is not the case with everyone doing that, in fact, I doubt Dawkins has anywhere near the depth of understanding why evolution is a dogmatic dead end anymore than Shapiro who doesn’t exactly follow evolutions claims as religiously as you do. I guess he is just stupid.
.
EDUCATION: Harvard College, Sept., 1960-June, 1964
B.A. in English Literature, Magna cum laude
Phi Beta Kappa, 1963
Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, England, Sept.1964-August,1967
Ph.D. in Genetics, October, 1968 (W. Hayes, supervisor)
POSITIONS: Postdoctoral Fellow, August, 1967-August, 1968
Service de Genetique Cellulaire
Institut Pasteur, Paris, France
Prof. Francois Jacob
Jane Coffin Childs Fellowship
Research Fellow, October 1968-June, 1970
Department of Bacteriology and Immunology
Harvard Medical School
Prof. Jonathan Beckwith
Jane Coffin Childs Fellowship
Invited Professor, August, 1970-April, 1972
Department of Genetics
School of Biological Sciences
University of Havana, Cuba
Research Associate, November, 1972-May, 1973
Rosenstiel Basic Medical Sciences Research Center
Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachussetts
Prof. Harlyn Halvorson
Assistant Professor, 1973-1978
Associate Professor, 1978-1982
Professor, 1982-1984
Department of Microbiology
University of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois
Visiting Professor, March-April, 1980
Department of Microbiology
Tel Aviv University, Israel
Professor of Microbiology, 1984-1985
Department of Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology
University of Chicago
Professor of Microbiology, 1985-
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
University of Chicago
Darwin Prize Visiting Professor, May-July, 1993
Institute of Cell and Molecular Biology
University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Visiting Fellow, Jan. – June, 2000
Churchill College
Cambridge, England
EDITORIAL BOARDS:
Journal of Bacteriology, 1976-1983, 1986-1988
Enzyme and Microbial Technology, 1981-1988
Biotechnology series (Wiley), 1981-1988
FEMS Microbiological Reviews, 1985-1991
Research in Microbiology, 1996-2002
Environmental Microbiology, 1998-
PROFESSIONAL SOCIETIES
American Society for Microbiology
Society for General Microbiology
Genetics Society of America
Genetical Society
American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science
Fellow, American Academy of Microbiology
OTHER:
Co-chairman, Molecular Biology Project, U.S. Working Group under the US/USSR Scientific Exchange Agreement on the Production of Substances by Microbiological Means, 1975-1978
Co-organizer, DNA Insertion Elements meeting, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, May,1976
Director, Business and Professional People for the Public Interest (BPI), 1978-1983
National Science Foundation Genetic Biology Panel, 1981-1984
Biotechnology Contact Group, Mayor’s Task Force on High Technology 1982-1983
Organizing Committee, Third International Symposium on Microbial Ecology, Michigan State University, August, 1982
International Commission on Genetics of Industrial Microorganisms, 1982-1990
Board, University of Chicago B’nai-Brith Hillel Foundation, 1983-88, 1996- (Chairman, Finance Committee, 1984-1988; Chairman, Fundraising Committee, 1996-2000)
Board, KAM-Isaiah Israel Congregation, 1990-1995, 1998-2002
Marshall Scholarship, Midwest Regional Selection Committee, 1984- ; chairman, 1991- .
Organizer, ASM Conference on “Multicellular Behavior of Bacteria: In Nature, Industry and the Laboratory,” Woods Hole Marine Biology Laboratory, October 21-25, 1990.
Board of Visitors, Biological Sciences Division, Office of Naval Research, Jan. 15-16, 1991
Review Panel on “Genetic Ecology of Biofilms and Microbially-Influenced Corrosion,” Electric Power Research Institute, Knoxville, Tennessee, Mar. 25-27, 1991
Organizing committee, International Conference on Genome Plasticity, Cancun, Mexico, December 8-12, 1991
Organizing committee, ASM Conference on “Interactive and Multicellular Behavior of Bacteria,” Woods Hole Marine Biology Laboratory, March 28-April 1, 1993.
Organizer, joint Physical-Biological Sciences mini-symposium, “Dynamic Cell Systems: From Molecules and Motors to Networks and Populations,” University of Chicago, May 20, 1994
Steering Committee, “Global Issues in Microbiological Water Quality for the Next Century” Colloquium, Guayaquil, Ecuador, March, 1995
Organizing committee, EMBO Workshop on “Evolutionary Engineering of the Procaryotic Genome,” Retie, Belgium, July 3-5, 1995
Faculty, summer school on “Physics of Biological Systems,” Humlebaek, Denmark, August 14-27, 1995
Organizer, workshop on “Cellular computation,” Santa Fe Institute, October 5-8, 1997
Organizing committee, “The information revolution in midstream: An Anglo-American perspective,” School of Information, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, May 29-31, 1998
Organizing committee, NY Academy of Sciences Symposium, “Molecular Strategies in Biological Evolution,” Rockefeller University in New York June 27-29, 1998
Faculty, summer school on “Physics of Biological Systems,” Humlebaek, Denmark, August 20-23, 1998
Lecturer, program on “Statistical Physics and Biological Information,” Institute for Theoretical Physics, Santa Barbara, March 16-17, 2001
AWARDS & HONORS
Marshall Scholarship (1964-1966); Wellcome Research Training Scholarship (1966-1967); Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund for Cancer Research Postdoctoral Fellowship (1967-69); NIH Research Career Development Award (1976-1980); Darwin Prize, University of Edinburgh (1993); Fellow, American Academy of Microbiology (1993); Foundation for Microbiology Lecturer, American Society for Microbiology (1994-6); AAAS Fellow (1994); OBE (2001).
Dane said,
December 22, 2010 at 12:57 pm
The most persistent problems with all of this debunking of evolutionary theory is twofold:
first, the problem with arguing against Darwinian concepts of evolution is a moot point. Evolutionary biologists have today gone way past Darwin in concepts and understanding. Arguing against Darwin today would be like chastising Alexander Bell for the crappiness of phones. The second major problem is that every argument boils down to same fallacy: the argument of incredulity. Simply put, the consistent argument is “hey, look how complex and orderly this thing is…no way that happened by any sort of natural process!” It hearkens back to the Watchmaker Argument and it just doesn’t work.
stevebee92653 said,
December 22, 2010 at 7:03 pm
Seems like you have it all down pat! Congrats. Me? I am not as easily convinced as you. So don’t read my stuff. Don’t want to rock the boat, now, do we.
Dane said,
December 22, 2010 at 7:17 pm
Well that’s just the problem, isn’t it? You’re not really rocking the boat…you’re trying to drill a hole in it and let it sink. Congratulations on so casually dismissing my observation. It’s funny how you that when you present arguments in favor of the supposed ‘impossibilities’ surrounding evolution to those who support it, you complain that they don’t try and refute you, they just insult you….yet here you are doing the very thing you vilify others for doing.
It has nothing to do with being easily convinced and everything to do with being offered a viable, reasonable alternative…and you don’t offer one. You simply continue the same discourse by engaging in the same fallacy.
When you come up with an alternative that is as observable, empirical and rationally objective as evolutionary theory, then you’ll really have something to present. Right now, all your doing is running a website that’s built on a single intellectual fallacy.
stevebee92653 said,
December 22, 2010 at 9:28 pm
Right. I AM trying to sink the boat. And I hope I succeed. Don’t worry, that will take hundred of years. If evo is good science, it will withstand all challenges. Reality is it can’t withstand any. Which is why you comment like you do. Just that same generalized “you’re wrong, evo is right, offer an alternative” repetitious evo comment. (The alternative is “we don’t know”) You have no observation to make. Out of “mountains” of material on this site, you ignore it and are thoughtlessly generic. Your comment could go on my list of awful comments page, because it’s just like every other generic evo-copy/paste. Try p. 1b for a hint. And p.1a for lots more fun.
Dane said,
December 22, 2010 at 10:26 pm
That’s the problem, Steve…I HAVE looked through your so-called mountains of evidence against evolution and they keep boiling down to the same rhetoric: “it’s impossible that evolution is true because look how complex this thing is…no natural process could do that”. It’s a circular argument…complex structures cannot be the result of a natural process because a natural process cannot create something complex. If your arguments were ever sustained by anything more than that, I’d address it…but they aren’t. You’re not telling anyone WHY it’s impossible, you’re just insisting that it IS impossible.
And if your true alternative is “we don’t know”, why do you insist that ID must be present? You’re so down on evolution and feel that those who agree with evolutionary theory are simply blinded and brainwashed, yet you never entertain for a moment that ID could, in any way, be wrong. If you’re all about truth, why don’t your rigorously investigate ID instead of just buying into it…or are YOU just so blinded by the “WOW factor” that you talk about that you simply dismiss the notion that natural process could result in something wonderful?
Let’s face it…you and all the other ID proponents have been so taken in by the argument of incredulity that any true scientific evidence that comes your way is casually dismissed because there is no “wow” to them. Everything from the morphological explanations to the anthropological record to the ALIfe experiments are just brushed off. Why? Because they don’t fulfill your desire for wonder, for amazement…for that “wow factor”. If you accept the scientific truths these things represent, then ID goes out the window and they “mysterious intelligence” that did all this designing goes with it.
You say you’re not religious…but really…who are you kidding? ID is just the price point for religious belief and although you may not be aware of it, you’re just the door to door salesman for it.
stevebee92653 said,
December 22, 2010 at 11:11 pm
I show hundreds of times on this blog the impossibilities of evolution. You would address at least one if you did read. Evolution’s task to prove itself is unbelievably and amazingly simple. Show how RM and NS et al could invent, design, assemble, and sustain organs and bio-systems. That’s it! If that can be done I will get rid of this whole blog and all of my videos, and bow down to Darwin. (tic) Admit defeat. Simple deal. The problem you have is there is no way to,even in completely imaginary fashion, draw out the formation of a heart/lung system, or visual system without the obvious need for intelligence and planning. Virtually all bio-systems need to be put together like an assembly, be it fast or slow. So, prove it can be done without intelligence, and you got it. Which is why it IS impossible. It can’t be proven. You can’t do the proof so you will continue to ignore the information in this blog like it doesn’t exist, and poo poo my conclusion. That evolution is nothing more than hogwash put together by a 19th century “scientist” that lots of people believe for some reason, mostly to support their belief about religion.
Dane said,
December 22, 2010 at 11:53 pm
That is the biggest load of intellectual dishonesty I have ever heard. You do NOT show hundreds of times how evolution is wrong….you don’t even address the current model of evolutionary biology. All you do, from beginning to end, is address the pure 19th century Darwinian model and do your best to poke holes in it. Newsflash, friend…REAL science has already done that and established a workable, rationally objective, logically consistent scientific theory. The plain fact of the matter is that you and all other ID proponents don’t want to hear anything involved in current evolutionary biology because you know you don’t have a leg to stand on. You don’t address any of the evidence presented to you…you wave your hand and dismiss it. You take none of it into consideration because you know damn well that the explanations are viable but you can’t counter them. You show ME how an ‘intelligent designer’ could exist when the existence of such a thing is absolutely illogical when put face to face with the anthropological record, paleontological record, observed evolution and every other evidence and fact that you ID lovers just ignore. You clamor that evolution needs to be discarded and real scientific inquiry needs to begin, but you know as well as I do that there is no way to scientifically investigate a “designer”. You’re not asking people to think…you’re asking them to disregard authentic scientific inquiry in favor of something that doesn’t qualify to be pseudo-science and embrace the belief of the existence of some ‘designer’ whose sole proof-a word I use loosely-is a circular argument. What a sham.
stevebee92653 said,
December 23, 2010 at 12:12 am
Your “designer” is “nothing”. Mine is “something”. What more can we say. Again, you ignore the challenge, which you must. Because you have no answers beyond your cartoon eye evolution vids. “First the light sensitive cells place themselves in two places on the face. Then two tea cups. Then a pinhole camera! Here comes the lens. Then the iris. Then the eyeball forms and covers itself with sclera. Bye bye tea cup!” So believe what you want. You are a typical adamant believer with lots of groupthink to back you up . So do it. Why bother me with it?
Dane said,
December 23, 2010 at 12:24 am
You know Steve, you’re right. Why am I bothering you with a science you clearly don’t understand? Why bother you with simple morphological functions that create additions over time, just like the ALife experiments show? Yeah, you’re right…forget all that nasty good science.
Oh hey…where IS that designer of yours? I haven’t seen it/him/her yet. In fact nobody has. In fact, there is really no evidence or facts to support it’s/his/her existence but heck that won’t stop us, right? Aliens, a god or some other supernatural intelligence is bound to be out there just waiting to reveal the truth to us!
Yeah…I am done with you.
Charlie said,
December 23, 2010 at 3:24 am
Standard.
Dane said,
December 23, 2010 at 3:40 am
I agree. That is all pretty standard for ID proponents.
John Matrix said,
December 23, 2010 at 4:42 am
The science you say stevebee doesn’t understand is what we refer to as JUNK science.
Our creator reveals himself to those who seek Him with a contrite and humble heart. He does not reveal himself to the proud and arrogant.
That could be why you haven’t seeen him Dane. I encourage you to keep on the look out.
Dane said,
December 23, 2010 at 6:52 am
Now you see John…that’s the problem with being a religious fanatic. You make absurd claims like the one you just made, safe and secure in the knowledge that there is no way to actually prove or disprove your deity.
And I’m proud and arrogant, so your “Creator” won’t reveal “Himself” to me? How do you know this “Creator” is male? What would it even need a gender aspect? Your “Creator” certainly does not seem very interested in humans overall…only humans that blindly believe in it. It seems to that a “Creator” that will only reveal itself to someone humble and contrite is working is an incredibly spiteful and egotistical “Creator”. It’s the cosmic equivalent of a kid who takes his ball and goes home when other kids refuse to play his way.
For the record, this has nothing to with pride OR arrogance. Why do you theists always jump to that conclusion? I’ve examined ID up and down and I’ve found that there is nothing reasonable about it. There is no logical consistency, no credible data to support it. It’s strictly an inference made from a circular argument. People who agree with evolutionary theory are always chided by you types that we don’t think for ourselves, but when we do think for ourselves and we tell you that we don’t agree with you, it always ends the same way. You trot out metaphysics and the supernatural. You pat yourselves on the back for being more ‘enlightened’ than others.
Really…just who is the one being arrogant and proud here?
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 23, 2010 at 11:01 pm
Dane said: “f your true alternative is “we don’t know”, why do you insist that ID must be present? ”
Umm the evidence Sherlock the evidence and the alternative you suggest but never substantiate that has been nothing but a history of lies and deception.
“You’re so down on evolution” – Dane
Yet it is YOUR side of the argument where raiders of forum warriors actually plan attacks sites like this assigning debaters to swarm in and inundate them with your religious philosophy of origins
“and feel that those who agree with evolutionary theory are simply blinded and brainwashed,” – Dane
You are suggesting we not “call it, like we see it”?
“yet you never entertain for a moment that ID could, in any way, be wrong.” Irony is hysterical sometimes isn’t hypocrite
“If you’re all about truth, why don’t your rigorously investigate ID instead of just buying into it” – Dane
Hypocrites giving advice to someone who had the guts to question his belief in evolution has escaped you as the lesson you need and not Stevebee, Dane
“or are YOU just so blinded by the “WOW factor” – Dane
hehe the “WoW factor? Steve I didn’t know you played an ID released version of World of Warcraft?
Dane said,
December 24, 2010 at 12:44 am
Well, Kent, if that little tirade proved anything, it proved that ID proponents are as closed-minded and brainwashed as those supporters of evolutionary theory that they vilify.
You have not said one thing substance.
So there is evidence of some intelligent designer? Really? And what evidence would that be…I mean something beyond the same circular argument of complexity that ID proponents have been using since day one.
Evolutionary theory is backed by a history of lies and deception? Like? And who are the ones doing the lying and deceiving? And how does it benefit these people to create such lies and deception? I assume I’m going to get some rant about the NWO or some other conspiracy nonsense.
Oh yeah….and ID proponents are absolute angels. They don’t swarm all over trying futilely to debunk evolutionary theory.
Oh, so now I’m a hypocrite. If so, that makes two of us. I, at least, reserve the notion that evolutionary theory, or at least parts of it, MIGHT be demonstrated to be wrong as new data and evidence is acquired. However, you and all the other ID proponents will never even do that much. You are as bad fundamentalist theists.
That’s really what it comes to. ID is just religious belief disguised as pseudo-science and you know it. You want people to believe in the existence of some hidden, intelligent designer of vast power and ability. The end result of ID is that it only works if you are willing to believe in the existence of some omnipotent and intelligent supernatural force.
Why? Because you could never believe that your intelligent designer is another biological form. I’ll explain:
Let’s say you found out and were able to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that humanity is the result of extraterrestrial experiments/contact/curiosity…whatever you’d like to call it. Let’s say you were able to ascertain these ET’s were biological entities…they simply possess science and technology that is light years ahead of ours. Let’s say you further discovered that they have somewhat comparable physiology, in that they have organs that function as a heart, lungs, skin, eyes etc. Amazing discovery, right? Sure…it’d be amazing right up until some ID proponent asked “Well who designed them? After all, if evolution, a natural process could not have resulted in biological forms as complex as us, there’s no way it came up with them.” And that would be uttered again if other ET’s were discovered. And again. And again.
So…if complex biological organisms must be the result of intelligent design, that leaves you with only one way to go to explain the existence of any complex biological form in the universe: an intelligence that somehow supersedes pure biological form and the constraints of the physical universe, i.e., a supernatural entity…which is hidden and can only be “seen” through inference….oh and I guess faith and humility and all such other religious trappings.
If ID would simply step up and admit that it is religion’s attempt at creating it’s own branch of science, I wouldn’t have such a huge problem with it; however, it consistently presents itself as hard, evidence based, rationally objective science that has no religious connotations whatsoever…and that just ain’t so.
ADParker said,
December 23, 2010 at 2:55 am
stevebee92653 said:
“I show hundreds of times on this blog the impossibilities of evolution.”
Name one.
This is not an idle comment; show one, because I have yet to see anything that I have recognised as evidence for the impossibility of evolution. No worthless avoidance by telling me to read your blog again, just tell me one. If there are any, they are buried too deeply amongst other commentary.
stevebee92653 said:
“Evolution’s task to prove itself is unbelievably and amazingly simple. Show how RM and NS et al could invent, design, assemble, and sustain organs and bio-systems. That’s it!”
Simple question, but not one that requires anything remotely close to a simple answer. Especially not to such a dogmatic evolution denier.
stevebee92653 said:
“The problem you have is there is no way to,even in completely imaginary fashion, draw out the formation of a heart/lung system, or visual system without the obvious need for intelligence and planning.”
Easier than validating the claim that an entity capable of such an extraordinary level of intelligence and planning existing PRIOR to the formation of those systems.
stevebee92653 said:
“Virtually all bio-systems need to be put together like an assembly, be it fast or slow. So, prove it can be done without intelligence, and you got it. Which is why it IS impossible. It can’t be proven.”
First off Steve; “Can not be proven” =/= “is impossible.”
Secondly; The inability (of me, Dane, or any person on the planet ever) to prove it IN NO way proves that it is impossible.
THAT my ‘friend’ is the very definition of the Argument from Ignorance.
stevebee92653 said:
“You can’t do the proof so you will continue to ignore the information in this blog like it doesn’t exist, and poo poo my conclusion.”
Which conclusion is that Steve?
1. “I don’t know, and nor does anybody else.” or’
2. “It was done by an intelligent Designer.”
Because you flip-flop between the two like crazy.
stevebee92653 said,
December 23, 2010 at 5:35 am
All of your comment is a rehash. Done before. Why again. Why over and over? Not worth responding again. Reread the past comments.
I would say:
(1) Right
(2) Intelligence must be part of the formula. “Designer” connotes personage.
I don’t flip flop. Both are correct.
You say I can’t prove intelligence. I can prove that invention, design, assembly, sustenance cannot occur without it.
You can’t prove NS and RM et al can do the job whatsoever. So why do you go for one, not the other?
ADParker said,
December 23, 2010 at 5:58 am
stevebee92653 said:
“All of your comment is a rehash. Done before. Why again. Why over and over?”
Because, just like this time, YOU NEVER ANSWER THE QUESTION
stevebee92653 said:
“Not worth responding again.”
If you had no intent of answering my question, why did you even bother?
stevebee92653 said:
“Reread the past comments.”
Just as I asked you not to say, as you always do.
I asked you for ONE example of you showing the impossibility of evolution, which you claimed you had done hundreds of times. I guess I have to take it from this non-response, that you were just lying about that bold assertion.
stevebee92653 said:
“I would say:
(1) Right”
How exactly do you know that no one else (of the almost 7,000,000,000 people on the planet) knows? Rhetorical question, no need to avoid answering.
stevebee92653 said:
“(2) Intelligence must be part of the formula. “Designer” connotes personage.”
Wow! How circular can you get? If you say there is design, then there must be a designer, because you said design?!
stevebee92653 said:
“I don’t flip flop. Both are correct.”
So you don’t know and do know that it was done by design?!
stevebee92653 said:
“You say I can’t prove intelligence.”
Do I?!
stevebee92653 said:
“I can prove that invention, design, assembly, sustenance cannot occur without it.”
Now prove that “ invention, design, assembly, sustenance” (sustenance?!) were involved. Otherwise you are just wasting your breath with this.
stevebee92653 said:
“You can’t prove NS and RM et al can do the job whatsoever.”
Oh please. Read the research.
On second thoughts, don’t bother. I have already seen how you make a hash job of that. Scanning for “prehapses” isn’t assessing, it’s confirmation bias.
stevebee92653 said:
“So why do you go for one, not the other?”
One has supporting evidence. NS and RM (and GD…) are known to exist/occur, his mysterious designer is not.
One is accepted (and actively advanced and worked on) in the scientific community as a whole, and to an awe inspiring degree. It meets it’s scientific and rational burdens.
And one is not.
stevebee92653 said,
December 23, 2010 at 6:12 pm
You said you read this blog, and there are no challenges for evolution. Which is BS, of course. Well, here is one for you. Just do the arboreal bird nests. Maybe you can answer that question for me and I can then remove it from the blog.
Pg. 4a: (3) Birds, eggs, and arboreal nests
I have to know how arboreal bird nests, the simplest of bio-systems, evolved. So have at it.
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 23, 2010 at 11:09 pm
ADParker said Secondly; The inability (of me, Dane, or any person on the planet ever) to prove it IN NO way proves that it is impossible. THAT my ‘friend’ is the very definition of the Argument from Ignorance.”
Yet when WE say the same thing about a creator designer, that our inability to prove it, in no way proves that it didn’t happen that way. THAT my ‘friend’ is the very definition of the “Argument from Ignorance.” You never cease to amaze me parker the level of hypocrisy you seem to sink to
ADParker said,
December 24, 2010 at 1:59 am
And what exactly does that have to do with anything Kent?
You are tilting at straw men again (sorry for the mixed metaphor.)
ADParker said,
December 23, 2010 at 3:07 am
stevebee92653 said:
“Your “designer” is “nothing”. Mine is “something”.”
You do realise how blatantly religious that sounds don’t you?!
stevebee92653 said:
“What more can we say.”
Indeed.
stevebee92653 said:
““First the light sensitive cells place themselves in two places on the face. “
Wrong.
stevebee92653 said:
“Then two tea cups. Then a pinhole camera! Here comes the lens. Then the iris. Then the eyeball forms and covers itself with sclera.:
This is your ridiculous “Build a person kit” nonsense once again.
stevebee92653 said,
December 23, 2010 at 5:27 am
Watch you own geniuses in action ADP. Q-Soup and Eugenie, Dawkins. “Indeed”. All the same exact cartoons. We DO agree, it IS nonsense.
You are religious paranoid. Looking for ANYTHING. Grand intelligence does not mean religion. Anymore than human intelligence means a tiny bit of religion.
You fail again. What on earth makes you equate intelligence with religion? Your Sunday school days?
ADParker said,
December 23, 2010 at 5:40 am
It was the “yours” and “mine” bit actually. Sorry if you didn’t get it, instead just reacting instinctively once again.
And it’s “Grand” intelligence now? Interesting.
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 23, 2010 at 11:13 pm
stevebee92653 said:
“Your “designer” is “nothing”. Mine is “something”.”
‘You do realise how blatantly religious that sounds don’t you?!” – Dane
Depends,, are we talking about religion? Or is that another word you have merged the meaning with design and religion as synonymous.
It isn’t OUR fault you got issues with religious implications there may be in the way the universe came into existence.
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 23, 2010 at 11:15 pm
awe sorry Parker I see I credited the wrong person in the quote “‘You do realise how blatantly religious that sounds don’t you?!” and that it was YOU saying that.
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 23, 2010 at 11:46 pm
This is classic.
stevebee92653 said,
December 23, 2010 at 12:12 am
Your “designer” is “nothing”. Mine is “something”. What more can we say. Again, you ignore the challenge, which you must. Because you have no answers beyond your cartoon eye evolution vids. “First the light sensitive cells place themselves in two places on the face. Then two tea cups. Then a pinhole camera! Here comes the lens. Then the iris. Then the eyeball forms and covers itself with sclera. Bye bye tea cup!” So believe what you want. You are a typical adamant believer with lots of groupthink to back you up . So do it. Why bother me with it?”
A perfectly legitimate set of questions that have not been answered with anything more than just so story and toturously imagined wild speculation having no evidence that it DID happen that way. If they could prove that it DID, then we have an even bigger quagmire in having to explain to them that such a step by step construction process without the necessary proto eyed between the gaps fossil evidence which by the way would have more chances than not for being found, only illustrates design steps. The symmetry and similarly placed locations for them scream design process.
Then their is the typical frustration dealing with common sense, evolutionoids give whenever faced with questions that leave only one alternative and why they fight so hard to BE the only alternative a curious child is doomed to confront in our public school church system of scienatheism
“Dane said,
December 23, 2010 at 12:24 am
You know Steve, you’re right. Why am I bothering you with a science you clearly don’t understand?”
Umm because he doesn’t understand it?
Then again why would he, it makes no logical sense at all and is why you are done. Enjoy your shattered faith my friend
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 23, 2010 at 11:51 pm
stevebee92653 said:“First the light sensitive cells place themselves in two places on the face. “
ADParker said,”
Wrong.”
How is it wrong?
stevebee92653 said:
“Then two tea cups. Then a pinhole camera! Here comes the lens. Then the iris. Then the eyeball forms and covers itself with sclera.:”
ADParker said,
This is your ridiculous “Build a person kit” nonsense once again”
How is it ridiculous? , how is it non sense?
Please share
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 24, 2010 at 12:03 am
Sp next time you accuse stevebee of never answering, Parker, remember he JUST did and you didn’t like what you heard and you also NEVER answered any of those objections only to call them ridiculous and non sense.
This is why our American Science is nothing more than a pathetic joke. Generations of students have had their curiously asked questions, answered the same way and why they STILL don;t have an answer to them. Because we now have Prof. that are “just as smart, answering them, as you Parker.
Guess we will see another merge of meanings eh? Or perhaps you guys will enlist the services of the ACLU and make Science inquiry illegal and unconstitutional. I am sure someone from the ACLU will have properly coached the Judge with a payout and a pre written conclusions to over rule objections waged by the defense months before such a trial would be adjudicated like Dover.
Then PBS can make a re-dramatization casting all the creationists as dufus looking mongoloids and evolutionists as the heroic defenders for keeping infallible science out of the stone ages of religion!
PffffT you guys need to shit can that theory once and for all.
It died years ago dude
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 24, 2010 at 12:13 am
stevebee92653 said:
“Not worth responding again.”
Nope and now we understand why. You say 100 times abd they doubted it. Funny thing is they were spent after the first examples you gave again throwing their hands in the air and basically being too frustrated to answer. This proves the only reason we may have a doubt about the TOE, remains their fault
Not ours
Makes you wonder, do they understand what it is they say we don’t understand. I kinda doubt that too
ADParker said,
December 24, 2010 at 1:48 am
stevebee92653 said:
“You said you read this blog,”
Most of it, yeah.
stevebee92653 said:
“and there are no challenges for evolution. Which is BS, of course.”
No, I asked you for ONE example of you showing the impossibility of evolution. As you claimed that you had showed this many times.
stevebee92653 said:
“Well, here is one for you. Just do the arboreal bird nests. Maybe you can answer that question for me and I can then remove it from the blog.”
First answer me this:
How exactly is “Just do the arboreal bird nests” a challenge to evolution? Let alone evidence for the impossibility of evolution?
How it even a question?
And what difference would my complete and utter ignorance on the subject have ANY impact on evolution whatsoever?!
stevebee92653 said:
“I have to know how arboreal bird nests, the simplest of bio-systems, evolved.”
Why do you HAVE to know that stevebee92653?
And phenotypes are “bio-systems” now?
stevebee92653 said:
“So have at it.”
If you think “Tell me how bird nests appeared as a result of evolution” counts as a challenge to (or evidence of the impossibility of) the validity of the theory of evolution, then you have already lost.
stevebee92653 said,
December 24, 2010 at 3:29 am
ADParker, if birds evolved, arboreal bird nests had to evolve along with them. Arboreal nests cannot have simply appeared one day. Full of eggs. There had to be an evolution of birds, and their arboreal nests. So this is a simple one for you. And you already failed, but declared VICTORY! har har har More complex would be human intelligence and consciousness. Or heart/lung/blood/vessel/cardiac and lung nerve systems. But I am being easy as I can. And you are sloughing off the easiest question I could possibly give you, as always. You said there were no challenges for you, and you get stuck on the first one….birdy nests! The loser is always you. I gave you another one that you sloughed off: show that NS and RM can invent, design, assemble, sustain organs and bio-systems. Do that and all my stuff comes down. Blog, vids everything. You will be a hero at RS! “ADParker stopped stevebee!” But that question disappeared, just like every one you are asked. Gone. But I don’t rag much when you evos fail. As at RS. I let the failures go because answering the huge flare ups that occur when the non-answers are exposed ain’t worth the time. Like all the organs and bio-systems in a single common ancestor, and the average 9,000 doubling time for human populations over 200,000 years. Not worth the effort. You guys will accept ANYTHING. As long as it validates your belief. And in your dream world, you never lose.
ADParker said,
December 24, 2010 at 5:24 am
stevebee92653 said:
“ADParker, if birds evolved, arboreal bird nests had to evolve along with them.”
In a manner of speaking, sure I guess. As bird nests are an extended phenotype of birds (hat build nests.) So it is rather like saying “ if birds evolved, the wings of birds had to evolve along with them.”
stevebee92653 said:
“There had to be an evolution of birds, and their arboreal nests.”
Of at least such phenotypes had to have come about while sometime in the evolutionary history of such birds. Something about those birds drove them to begin building nests in trees.
stevebee92653 said:
“So this is a simple one for you.”
Not that simple really. All you are asking me is to describe all the steps of a series of events that occurred over who knows how many millennia or millions of years, and millennia or millions of years ago.
I could give you a brief synopsis of what I have heard on the subject (Starting, if I recall from Richard Dawkins mention of it in his second book “The extended Phenotype” some 30 years ago or so. As well as a relatively likely hypothetical on how it could have developed. I don;t actually see much of a great mystery to be honest, starting with the relatively obvious benefits of raising ones offspring (eggs and young) above the forest floor and its many predators. But I don’ seen any point in doing any further research for the benefit of someone who has demonstrated a positive resistance to honestly listening to ANYTHING that does not conform to his already held views.
So, I will just get to the punch and say; I don’t know exactly (or in any real depth at all) how such things evolved. And I don’t even know how fully it is understand by the professionals whose area of study and expertise this falls within.
stevebee92653 said:
“ And you already failed, but declared VICTORY!”
Yes Steve; Victory is mine! (oh brother – tongue firmly in cheek.)
YOU made a claim that you show hundreds of times on this blog the impossibilities of evolution. When I asked you to tell me just one, you reinterpreted what you said to “ challenges for evolution”, a notably weaker assertion.
And what did you offer? A way in which evolution is shown to be impossible? No.
A challenge to evolution? No.
But instead just a question of how some particular thing evolved!
WTF?!
So okay; I answered with “I don’t know.” Can you now explain how my personal lack of expertise and knowledge shows evolution to be impossible, or at least challenges the validity of the theory of evolution?!
stevebee92653 said:
“har har har More complex would be human intelligence and consciousness.”
You know that the argument from complexity is crap, right?
stevebee92653 said:
“And you are sloughing off the easiest question I could possibly give you, as always.”
And why did I “slough it off” as you say Steve? Because I asked YOU a simple question, a really simple question as it was merely to show what you claim you have already achieved in this blog “hundreds: of times. You chose NOT to answer my question, but ask one of your own – and have the gall to claim that you have answered mine!
stevebee92653 said:
“You said there were no challenges for you,”
!!!
And now “showing hundreds of times on this blog the impossibilities of evolution”
magically becomes
“challenges for evolution”,
and then magically becomes
“challenges for ADParker”
Where will this repeated Goal post shifting possibly end!
stevebee92653 said:
“Like all the organs and bio-systems in a single common ancestor, and the average 9,000 doubling time for human populations over 200,000 years. Not worth the effort.”
Still believe that garbage eh? (I particularly like the population dynamics one, as it is an argument, not from IDC [intelligent design creationism), but pulled directly from Young Earth Creationism.)
stevebee92653 said:
“you never lose.”
You are right Steve, I never ever do! When I am wrong and corrected (which has happened innumerable times) then I learn something! And that is a definite win!! A far greater win that being on the “winning” side of an argument in fact.
stevebee92653 said,
December 24, 2010 at 6:18 pm
The population conundrum is pulled from simple math. It’s not “garbage”, it’s MATH. Anything that hurts your belief system is, of course, garbage. Something you must dismiss, as you and your friends did at RS. Simple averaging, something that any 5th grader can do. Even you but you won’t. Bad for the belief system. The population of the earth doubled twice from 1900 to 2000, with two world wars and many others, famines, holocausts, disease. It’s the first century in history with really functional birth control. To this date, over half the world still has backward medical care. DOUBLED twice in 100 years. And you accept an average doubling time of 9,000 years from 200,000 years ago until now? SIMPLE MATH, ADParker. Not YEC or any philosophy or religion. If 2+2=4 was bad for evolution, you guys would do your laugh a minute rag to get rid of the notion. It’s simple math.
You fail at arboreal bird nests, but you can account for human intelligence and consciousness, heart/lung systems, vision,……..? Admit it. ADP, you fail miserably. Actually evolution does. You said I had no challenges, I give you the easiest. And you’re already stuck. And saying you found no challenges/impossibilities on my blog is pure dishonesty. Unless you didn’t find arboreal bird nests. Your “impossibility” and “challenge” rant is just a distraction for you failure. Try Dane’s links on the evolution of nests if you want to see how hopeless your position is. His links to knowledge and science have no idea but discuss it as if they did. Typical.
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 24, 2010 at 2:01 am
Dane said, “Well, Kent, if that little tirade proved anything,”
Sorry ot sounds like a tirade, it couldn’t be helped as it was necessary to use tirade quotes of someone named “dane” .
Like this ” it proved that ID proponents are as closed-minded and brainwashed as those supporters of evolutionary theory that they vilify.” – Dane
Oh and isn’t that look familiar to what I said as thr real reason your two reasons were not correct about the discussion degrading into fallacy. At least you and I are honest to admit we have our fixed opinions. Which one is right is the question. When one has the truth, their really is no need to keep looking for it. Many confuse that kind of thing for a closed mind. Me? I see they still have a problem with accepting truth.
So there is evidence of some intelligent designer? Really? And what evidence would that be…
Should I give you the same effort you and Parker did ? I could be a smart ass like evolutionists answering the question of transitional forms and say “Look in the mirror” and you will see the evidence for design. Or you can attempt a project of creating a universe and find out on your own, just how much you don’t know in addition to the cognition hitting you like a ton of bricks that design doesn’t happen by accident although we often copy designs we call happenstance cosmic coincidence and make marketable tools from those copycats calling it “Intellectual Property”
Irony is a curious teacher
“I mean something beyond the same circular argument of complexity that ID proponents have been using since day one.” – Dane
Don’t see the circular argument, unless you are talking about the one that goes, who created the creator. That isn’t my argument however. You see I don’t suggest such a straw man as a created designer. Multidimensional, Multi-versal, etc,. many things come to mind that have been submitted by cosmology but I don’t have much belief in that as I do in it being where a creator is. The idea insisting a designer is a created one is where your flaw in your logic is found. Who said anything about a created God, designer or ?
So in other words, you want tailor made proof instead. Nah, If I did that, I would be doing the same thing evolutionists have done and made a multi million dollar industry in China just making fake dino to bird fossils.
If ID would simply step up and admit that it is religion’s attempt at creating it’s own branch of science, I wouldn’t have such a huge problem with it; however, it consistently presents itself as hard, evidence based, rationally objective science that has no religious connotations whatsoever…and that just ain’t so.
“Oh yeah….and ID proponents are absolute angels. They don’t swarm all over trying futilely to debunk evolutionary theory.” – Dane
Thank you, Ill use that often in other debates where such a comparison is given because until you told me, I had no idea but I DID know about the evolutionist side. It’s nice to know we don’t swarm all over futily trying to debunk the TOE. Especially when it has never been proven to be more than a very bad ill thought out hypothesis. Child’s play for anyone to debunk so I think it is a given ID’eas would crush it as silly as it has been stretched and corrupted.
“Oh, so now I’m a hypocrite. If so, that makes two of us.” – Dane
I totally agree, and again it is truly an honor to finally meet someone of the other side of the argument where I can finally say there is an iota of honest self reflection and objective self criticism on the evolution side. I know of a Church where their are LOTS of hypocrites attending and they would welcome your presence without skipping a beat with a warm welcome without prejudice.
Its a far cry from the kind we creationists would get if we were allowed to be openly ourselves in a University Science Dept.
“you and all the other ID proponents will never even do that much. You are as bad fundamentalist theists” – Dane
Mmmm I see, and lets not forget the evolutionists. Or,, didn’t we just agree to that ?
“ID is just religious belief disguised as pseudo-science and you know it. You want people to believe in the existence of some hidden, intelligent designer of vast power and ability. ” – Dane
Oh puhleeease,, I don’t really give a rats ass what you guys believe. If I was so damned concerned with things I believed didn’t exist as they are who believe in the non existent god, I’d be writing books like “the Santa that wasn’t there” or “How Big Foot Poisons everything” or “The Tooth Fairy Delusion” etc,. The thing is, Dane, if I really knew those things really didn’t exist, and I do know they do not, then I have to conclude, those who believe in them are kinda nuts.
Having said that, I would have to question with even more scrutiny, that of I knew they didn’t exist and they were all crazy, what does that say about me going into long debates with people who believe in unicorns and especially what it says about those whack jobs who make it a mission in there life to author books like i mentioned, that are essentially arguing with idiots.
So no,, I may be crazy,, but I am not as butt stupid as an atheist is for arguing with those he “says are crazy” when his actions prove him either a believer or, even more nuts than his interlocutors.
“Let’s say you found out and were able to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that humanity is the result of extraterrestrial experiments/contact/curiosity…whatever you’d like to call it. Let’s say you were able to ascertain these ET’s were biological entities…they simply possess science and technology that is light years ahead of ours. Let’s say you further discovered that they have somewhat comparable physiology, in that they have organs that function as a heart, lungs, skin, eyes etc. Amazing discovery, right? Sure…it’d be amazing right up until some ID proponent asked “Well who designed them? After all, if evolution, a natural process could not have resulted in biological forms as complex as us, there’s no way it came up with them.” And that would be uttered again if other ET’s were discovered. And again. And again.” – Dane
The question who designed them would be the logical question to ask would it not? The idea that confirms it is circular isn’t true although it might be, it doesn’t make it a fact that it is however. Research into the created aliens might lead to countless generations of others and they might lead to the one original designer that was NOT created. Now if you find that hard to fathom a designer that wasn’t designed, welcome to my world when arguing with people who think EVERYTHING wasn’t created.
“So…if complex biological organisms must be the result of intelligent design, that leaves you with only one way to go to explain the existence of any complex biological form in the universe: an intelligence that somehow supersedes pure biological form and the constraints of the physical universe, i.e., a supernatural entity…which is hidden and can only be “seen” through inference….oh and I guess faith and humility and all such other religious trappings.
If ID would simply step up and admit that it is religion’s attempt at creating it’s own branch of science, I wouldn’t have such a huge problem with it; however, it consistently presents itself as hard, evidence based, rationally objective science that has no religious connotations whatsoever…and that just ain’t so.” – Dane
Thanks for your honest thoughts on this Dane and Again, I have to admit, their are “religious implications to it indeed.” That should never be a reason not to go where the evidence takes us.
I understand the history of religion leaves many with a bad taste in their mouths and I have ripped on Christians with just as much vitriol in the past as I have Evolutionists. Just ask Charlie LOL
Take care Dane
Dane said,
December 24, 2010 at 3:01 am
So what’s the end result of all that?
That you’re conceding ID is really a disguised religious agenda? Because, via the alien life example, you’ve demonstrated that can be the only result of ID.
The entirety of ID is based on a single premise: this thing is too complex to be the result of a natural process, so it must have a designer. That’s it. When you look at every ID argument, they always go straight to that point. If that’s the basis of ID, fine. You’re telling me that all you’re doing is questioning and are skeptical about complex systems being the result of a natural process. That’s fine too. However, don’t tell me that I can’t be just as skeptical of the existence of a prime designer who, in and of itself, has no designer…it just “is.”
Your skeptical of evolution because your perception says these biological systems are much too complex to have come existence through a non-intelligent process. Such complex systems are revelatory of some intelligence, some designer guiding the process.
I’m skeptical of ID because if the only proof for a designer is due to the fact that a finite human mind sees biological systems as ‘too complex’ to be the result of a natural process, then that’s just not enough as evolutionary theory reasonably explains this process. The incompleteness of the theory does not invalidate it…we have no idea today what we’ll discover tomorrow.
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 24, 2010 at 4:14 am
So what’s the end result of all that?
Dane said ”
That you’re conceding ID is really a disguised religious agenda? Because, via the alien life example, you’ve demonstrated that can be the only result of ID.So what’s the end result of all that?
That you’re conceding ID is really a disguised religious agenda? Because, via the alien life example, you’ve demonstrated that can be the only result of ID.”
No that is NOT what I am saying, try taking your impulses out of it and just understand what I am saying without trying to trip me up on something you have against me. I have no shame in suggesting that the only alternative of this age old question, just may be the one science refuses to acknowledge merely because it doesn’t work for them or cramps their style. I am not responsible for the ideas YOU have that every single personality, prime mover, God being, master designer, etc,. has a religion, IS a religion or cares about religion. Religion is a construct of societies that made a religion around such an entity or personality but that isn’t my problem and i doubt it would be a Problem for any God. What religion represents yto those who feel it is oppressive or a tool to control the masses, has NOTHING to do with science and why people can’t stop inserting into every comeback as if to hurt someones feelings, mock them for it while they are the same voices suggesting it not be a part of science, is beyond my help. I figure if you can’t separate your paranoia, and angst aggression for religion from a sovereign creation intelligence or agency, then we got nothing more to talk about.
We both know where it goes from there and i have already wasted enough time talking to ADPARKER who has already proven he is nothing more than an antagonist for religion. Hell if he can’t stay message centered or find a flaw in the logic of stevebee’s or my arguments, logic, he criticizes you for making the argument like a girl does when you ask what is wrong and she says “if you don’t know, I’m not gonna tell you”
EXAMPLE: “If you think “Tell me how bird nests appeared as a result of evolution” counts as a challenge to (or evidence of the impossibility of) the validity of the theory of evolution, then you have already lost.” ADPARKER.
That is what that reminded me of a girl I used to know.
Stevebee had a question but can’t ask unless it is the kind that devastates the entire mountain of evidence for the TOE. I assume that would require many of the same examples for each and every stone, rock or pebble that makes up a mountain, so the best place to start is with your best example which Stevebee gave as the aboreal birds nests objection. Parker assumes stevebee is using this one objection to nuke the TOE and is so cock sure of himself he actually uses that presumption as an excuse to abdicate his position in the argument as someone with an answer and calls stevebee a loser for asking it.
Hehe Sorry, I was just thinking about what I’d do to that guy if I ever met him.
The fact is Dane, I have given Parker several posts that suggest the TOE is incapable of explaining the grand diversity because it simply does not have a mechanism. Mutations don’t even scratch the surface and Natural Selection is already coded in the DNA so what ever it changes, didn’t evolve but adapted.
I gave Parker a “Third Way” http://shapiro.bsd.uchicago.edu/Shapiro.1997.BostonReview1997.ThirdWay.pdf
Three times but this time I can’t find a perfect enough website host that will magically change the truth to a truer truth if it is on the TSA PARKER watch list of bad websites, he just won’t read em and finds no shortage of excuses to insult you for suggesting them.
The typical fault it may have for being on a creation biased website?
That one floors me. I read everything Dane. Everything I can get my hands on, by Dawkins Harris, Huxley Ayn Rand, Ken Miller and more. I have sat in on two lectures given by Dawkins. and never do I not read something because “I don’t like guy that wrote it, or because of some meeting he attends one day a week an hour a day. but some malware spy-ware pop-up crap not withstanding, if a website hosts the truth held in a document, it doesn’t matter where I read it.
Stevebee has made it abundantly clear what his objections are to the TOE and has created a series of videos and written his thoughts and ideas about those objections. He has asked all those who come here to debate the arguments or videos he has presented. Parker is here to be a pain in everyone’s ass and that is all he is about. He ain’t that bright and he may even be stupid, that is not what I would give as a reason to break off any debate however.
It would seem parker is more interested in grammatical errors. If something, some post isn’t perfectly parsed, formatted, spelled and grammatically correct, something as simple as using the word Gage rather than Gauge, would be where we end up having to go and my misuse of a word becomes the excuse he so desperately needs to insult, ridicule and ultimately win the argument.
I mean C’mon Dane, you see his last post to me? Rather than just GET THE FUCKING POINT, he knows what I meant and he knows what am saying. Else I can ask him, what is it I said he he said, he asked for.
He doesn’t know and I know he doesn’t but rather than ask for clarification, he bluffs his way through. i don’t have time for games do you? Ill be as polite and as respectful as you are toward me, the moment I hear stuff about spaghetti monsters and invisible friends etc,. its all down hill from there and I dish it right back.
I got a stinging reprisal from stevebee about talking that way to his guests here so rather than waste time on Parker, I thought I could talk to you.
Can I do that or not?
Dane said,
December 24, 2010 at 5:03 am
Don’t you understand that by what you’re doing you are, in fact, conceding that ID is just a mask for religion? Why else would one so readily latch onto ID if it didn’t provide for them everything that religion does?
Let’s face it…ID is just another security blanket that alleviates the same stresses that religion does, namely the fear of our own mortality. ID comes with an all-powerful, mysterious creator who took a special interest in making you. Said creator must care about what happens to you; otherwise why bother with making you? And if this creator cares, maybe it cares beyond what we recognize as life; after all, for it to do what it does, it must exist beyond life and death as we understand it, so maybe when we ‘die’, there’s something more to come from this creator. ID sure looks pretty religious to me.
If you want to keep harping on bird’s nests, than take into consideration that nests predate birds. Birds simply possess a hard wired instinct they inherited from their ancestors and this instinct has continued to be refined. What was the precise mechanism that predicated nest building in the first place? I don’t know. Evolutionary science isn’t 100% sure either, but this just leads into my next point….
….that just because a theory isn’t complete doesn’t mean you should automatically jump to a supernatural conclusion, which is exactly what ID ends up being. Evolutionary theory is constantly amassing new data, but ID remains static. ID makes no forward progress and acts as if it doesn’t need to. All you’re doing here is discarding a theory for it’s lack of completeness and embracing an idea that proposes it’s complete but really isn’t.
As far as Steve goes, if you critically examine all his arguments, they end following the same pattern: he presents us with something that he feels is amazing and complex. He explains the function of the thing. Then he makes the claim that something so complex could in no way be the result of any natural process because it works so well, so there must be an intelligent designer behind it. That’s it. That’s all. Don’t you see that after a while that just becomes circular? “This is too complex for a natural process to make because natural processes can’t make complex things”.
And why are these things so complex? I asked you this before. How can you say for certain it’s really so complex? How do you know it’s not just the limitations of the human mind that make it seem complex? I’ve often seen Id proponents-and Creationists-say ‘well let’s see YOU make a living thing, then you’ll see just how complex it is!”. Well, of course I can’t do that…I do not the process by which I could create life; however, I can’t make gold either…so does that mean gold is proof of an intelligent designer?
You’re probably right that we don’t have anything more to say to each other. I’m not going to convince you and you aren’t going convince me. However,like you, I read everything, so if ID every moves beyond it’s unfortunately circular complexity argument and offers something more substantial to examine, I’ll do so and, if it ends up being necessary, revise my position. Until that happens, I can’t take ID seriously.
Charlie said,
December 24, 2010 at 6:28 pm
Dane is just long winded and his paragraphs run on and on. (Yours too, lately, Kent. I like short succinct paragraphs or my eyes sort of glaze over. LOL.) At least ADParker would attempt (for a while) to direct his answers about the topics brought forth on this site. Dane seems intent on just distracting relentlessly.
(Thanks everyone, though, for getting back to civilized interaction. I was losing interest when that aspect deteriorated.)
It seems as though Dane and Adrian and other evolutionists like them are just swarming in just to overwhelm the site with nonsense and distraction. They never seem to say anything worth reading. I don’t know what to say about ADParker except that for the most part he follows a tight discussion. That at least keeps it interesting for me.
None of these evolution proponents seem to ever address any of the questions on the site or present any real evidence of where NS has EVER been responsible for accomplishing the positive gain of complexity and information that would be required to create today’s life as we know it.
Here’s a quick challenge to the evolutionists:
Name your BEST evidence that random genetic mutation has EVER been observed scientifically to increase genetic information in such a way that it would be almost certain to a) survive in nature; b) not degrade before another beneficial mutation could piggyback on the first to provide a path toward continued increase of complexity.
(Note: Lenski’s recent experiments with the citrate adaptation do not apply here. Coyne himself addressed the limitations on the experiment. (Though his argument was against Behe’s conclusion that LOF mutations would tend to overwhelm any GOF mutations in the long term, nullifying them before they could create a path toward complexity.)
Here’s a challenge back to the ID proponents:
I just presented a series dealing with Jonathan Wells’ 10 Questions to the NCSE.
The NCSE volleyed back with this subsite:
http://ncse.com/creationism/analysis/icons-evolution
I need to print and read through that. Does that present anything that hasn’t been evasively argued a million times already? Or is there any new strengthened argument in there that properly addresses Wells’ 10 questions that we should know of? (Steve might be interested in the Archaeopteryx rebuttle, since it might address his own bird question on this site.)
Anyhow. I’m going to fast from evo cripe until after Christmas. My head hurts.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!
(The Reason for the Season IS Absolute Truth)
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 24, 2010 at 11:53 pm
Ill check that out Charlie. You know I still haven’t heard a single reply to that devastaingly damning essay by Dr. James Shapiro regarding a “Third way”.
He is one of many in micro biology today that sees the TOE as an impediment to Science giving one of thee most compelling arguments for his opinion that the TOE can’t account for all the species using his own highly respected work at the university of Chicago Medicine.
He is one of a few foremost experts on DNA a Scientist’s Scientist who has had the guts to put everything on the line and tell science it knows jack squat and why continues to produce Generations of nitwits for Darwit who THINK they know science, but can’t seem to answer the simplest of questions other than to take them as a personal insult lashing out as those asking, calling them “Creotards” “Fundies” and “Xians” and of course all those more colorful expletives ADParker is so deserving of .
Merry Christmas to you too Charlie and Dane and John and Stevebee!
and even YOU Parker.
Ho Ho hooo
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 24, 2010 at 2:04 am
“If you think “Tell me how bird nests appeared as a result of evolution” counts as a challenge to (or evidence of the impossibility of) the validity of the theory of evolution, then you have already lost”.- Parker
Ha ha ha Parker you’re such a coward, He Gave you what you wanted and you offer another one of your chicken shit cop outs as an excuse walking away saying He lost..
You got no class son
ADParker said,
December 24, 2010 at 2:19 am
You are either lying, as as poor at reading comprehension as Steve presents his own ability as. Because that is NOT what I asked for at all, as I explained.
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 24, 2010 at 11:28 pm
You are either lying, as as poor at reading comprehension as Steve presents his own ability as. Because that is NOT what I asked for at all, as I explained. – ADParker
Sorry Parker but you’re busted and quit accusing me of lying unless you can prove it, just what did I say you were asking for that wasn’t true Parker?
This was the post you responded to below:
“If you think “Tell me how bird nests appeared as a result of evolution”
Ha ha ha Parker you’re such a coward, He Gave you what you wanted and you offer another one of your chicken shit cop outs as an excuse walking away saying He lost..
You got no class son”
The thing you asked for is in the statement you made saying and I quote “If you think the “Tell me how bird nests appeared as a result of evolution”
here is what you wanted something that “counts as a challenge to, or evidence of the impossibility of the validity of the theory of evolution, ”
I guess stevebee wins because that question posed a challeng to, your precious theory.
and YOU couldn’t answer it.
You can scoff and act up all self righteous and indignant all you like and then hide tail and run while you claim victory
Just like the coward I said you are but now we know you are also a coward and liar who can’t read or comprehend.
So what are you gonna do now?
“I’M Goin Ta “Dizzyland””! – ADParker
Charlie said,
January 5, 2011 at 1:06 am
I liked the Shapiro article, Kent. Thanks!
I’ll tell you what, though. Seeing as Darwinism was (perhaps) initially brought in as a sincere enough scientific endeavor, and the scientific method was quickly hijacked for the obvious purpose of denying God, I wonder what might be the eventual course for this Third Way. If Darwin’s stuff was able to embed itself into the social pysche as tenaciously as this… I feel that this eventual relinquishing of Darwin’s ToE will not be the last we see of human nature’s wholesale rejection of God.
For another example of how quickly the scientific community might head down a rabbit look at lateral gene transfer- e.g. Third Domain of Life, Carl Woese’s brain child. see http://www.creationsafaris.com/crev0802.htm#abiogenesis64.
ADParker said,
January 5, 2011 at 8:30 am
Charlie said:
“Seeing as Darwinism was (perhaps) initially brought in as a sincere enough scientific endeavor, and the scientific method was quickly hijacked for the obvious purpose of denying God, “
I find it interesting that so many creationists fall for this “evolution as part of the dishonest atheistic agenda” fable. When others instead see that the evolution-religion connection as something primarily an aspect of creationists attacking it (so often to the exclusion of their apologetics talking about much else – you know like evidence FOR their beliefs or anything) and equating it to atheism. And then this canard tacked on in order to illegitimately shift the blame, a little game of projection.
As for that website (not the content per se) Tell me Charlie (although this site is milder than many I have seen) do you know why there seems to be this positive correlation between Creationism apologetics websites and Gods-awful colour schemes? (of note is a tendency for glaring colour mixes, primary and pastel colour schemes)? Just wondering, as it is reminiscent of some of the earliest websites as more colour choices and the like became possible, and the efforts of young children and the Web-design uneducated.
Charlie said,
January 5, 2011 at 6:55 pm
Me: ”(You might try reading “Five Years Later, Evolutionary Immunology and other Icons of Kitzmiller v. Dover Not Holding Up Well” at http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/12/ before you respond to this.)”
ADP: That linked to the Discovery Institute (their dishonesty in the trial, and elsewhere, was just atrocious! I did love Behe’s open admission that ID wasn’t science though
ADP, it doesn’t sound like you read the article there. Or like you listened to the audio from Ewert. And you even claim that Behe agreed that the evidence he was presented *for* the (neo)Darwinian explanation for the immune system was ‘not good enough’. What he responded to the attorney’s question of “So these are not good enough?” was “They’re wonderful articles. They’re very interesting. They simply just don’t address the question that I pose.”
[
Q. The selectability of the immune system that that is a selectable function, I mean that’s not very controversial, is it? It’s a good thing, right?
A. If you mean is it beneficial for an organism to have one, I’m going to have to say that it’s general, it’s good for systems that, for organisms that depend on it to have one. But when you’re thinking about evolution, one of the things you have to think about to have a rigorous understanding of it is what it is changing from and what is it changing to. The question is is a particular mutation that happens going to have a net beneficial effect or a net detrimental effect is an open question, and in any step one can look at, that question arises very pointedly, is this going to help or is it going to hurt.
Q. But these articles do discuss immune systems that are different from the vertebrate immune system, correct?
A. Which one is that, sir?
Q. The articles about the transposon hypothesis.
A. I think most of them are trying to look at connections between vertebrate immune systems and precursor elements.
Q. And those precursors have some form of immune system, though not as robust as the vertebrate immune systems?
A. I’m not sure what you’re referring to, sir.
Q. You said they’re referring to precursors, those precursors are precursors that have immune systems, correct? Just not the kind we have?
A. Well, I don’t think so. Transposons are thought to have arisen from I think bacterial-like elements which do not have immune systems, and so I’m not quite sure how to take your question.
Q. We’ll get back to that. Now, these articles rebut your assertion that scientific literature has no answers on the origin of the vertebrate immune system?
A. No, they certainly do not. My answer, or my argument is that the literature has no detailed rigorous explanations for how complex biochemical systems could arise by a random mutation and natural selection and these articles do not address that.
Q. So these are not good enough?
A. They’re wonderful articles. They’re very interesting. They simply just don’t address the question that I pose.
Q. And these are not the only articles on the evolution of vertebrate immune system?
A. There are many articles.
Q. May I approach?
THE COURT: You may.
Q. Professor Behe, what I have given you has been marked Plaintiff’s Exhibit 743. It actually has a title, “Behe immune system articles,” but I think we can agree you didn’t write these?
Other Links:
“Immunology in the spotlight at the Dover ‘Intelligent Design’ trial”
The cross-examination of Behe’s claims about the immune system was written up in a May 2005 article in the journal Nature Immunology.
List of publications presented to Behe
This is a simple list, without commentary, of the article, books, and book chapters presented to Dr. Behe during his cross-examination.
Annotated Bibliography on the Evolutionary Origin of the Vertebrate Immune SystemTitle of web site
This page by Nick Matzke contains annotations and quotes for each publication in the Behe cross-examination list, as well as a description of how the list was assembled, an introduction to the science, and a summary of significant discoveries in evolutionary immunology.
Longer, Unannotated Bibliography on the Evolutionary Origin of the Immune System
This longer bibliography shows that the literature in the Annotated Bibliography is just a small sample of the available literature. Contains a quantitative analysis by Matzke.
Press accounts of the event
Several journalists have recounted this episode as a key moment in the trial.
A. I’ll have to look through. No, I did not.
Q. And there are fifty-eight articles in here on the evolution of the immune system?
A. Yes. That’s what it seems to say.
Q. So in addition to the, some of these I believe overlap with the eight that I previously identified that Dr. Miller had talked about, so at a minimum fifty new articles?
A. Not all of them look to be new. This one here is from 1991 that I opened to, I think it’s under tab number 3, it’s entitled “Evidence suggesting an evolutionary relationship between transposable elements and immune system recombination sequences.” I haven’t seen this article, but I assume that it’s similar to the ones I presented and discussed in my testimony yesterday.
Q. And when I say new, I just meant different from the eight that I identified with Dr. Miller.
A. Yes, that’s right.
Q. A minimum of fifty, and you’re right they’re not all new. Some go back as early as 1971, and they go right through 2005, and in fact there’s a few that are dated 2006, which I guess would indicate a forthcoming publication.
A. I assume so.
Q. Okay. So there’s at least fifty more articles discussing the evolution of the immune system?
A. And midpoint I am, I certainly haven’t had time to look through these fifty articles, but I still am unaware of any that address my point that the immune system could arise or that present in a detailed rigorous fashion a scenario for the evolution by random mutation and natural selection of the immune system.
] *1
*1 http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dover/day12pm.html
Charlie said,
January 5, 2011 at 7:51 pm
Anyhow, I’ll take it as an indication of your God-given sense of humor that you care to point out the color schemes in the creationist websites as something worth talking about.
We had some fun talking about what I believe personally. Which of course I cannot ‘prove’ to you. All I can say is that if you keep your mind open to all reasonable possibilities, the Cross is the only Truth that looms large and tall and provides a cohesive explanation for anything and everything we experience as a human race on this earth.
I have looked at other claims and just don’t find them satisfying. You appear to find your view satisfying. But I sense that you are insistently here on this site because you are striving desperately to find your own purpose in life. I hope you find it, ADP.
Moving back to the central discussion (which you seem very adept at avoiding)…
ADP claims:
“For example: “It is found that it is possible that the Bacterial flagellum evolved through this path…or perhaps this path” […] But it DOES show that it is quite possible that it did evolve through natural means”
Charlie requests evidence, asserting:
“But it has NOT been found possible by ANY natural means. Nothing of the sort was ever ‘proven’ except to a miseducated activist judge who was presented theatrical evidence. (Well, anything is ‘possible’, but it has never been observed, and no reasonable path has ever been proven.)
Where is your evidence to the contrary?”
To which I added a reference to http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/12/ so that we can hold a well-rounded conversation.
I hope you find your purpose, ADP. I truly do.
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 24, 2010 at 7:40 am
Dane Said: “Don’t you understand that by what you’re doing you are, in fact, conceding that ID is just a mask for religion? ”
No I do not moreover I don’t know where you are getting that or why you frame the statement using the words “conceding” that ID is just a mask for religion when I have stated quite clearly that religion has neither anything to do with a master designer or a God like being what so ever. I mean why would it? Who is it saying this? Man or God? I assure you Dane, I have no problem at all saying it like I mean it and if I felt ID were a religion, I’d have NO problem saying it is whether I was a member of that religion or not.
What religion is it? I mean seriously, if you want to discuss it, just what the hell is a religion. Does it have to have a God? What about Buddhism then? Atheism is a religion according to a supreme court ruling and most atheists bristle at the suggestion yet it was an atheist that brought the case to the SCOTUS to the chagrin of atheism’s high priests. I imagine that is just as frustrating for them to argue. I HAVE admitted it has “religious implications” but that is because I am in the midst of debate with someone insisting that ID IS a religion and I disagree with the definition but can not disagree with the feeling you have that it is a religion OR that you seem to hallucinate my agreement that it is in fact a religion. I believe if someone can say it is a religion, by the so called actions or beliefs of many Christians who find it supports their own in a science that seeks to understand the evidence for a finely tuned universe, who am I or YOU for that matter to suggest it makes it a religion.
The same logic can used against evolution then as it attracts atheists who see it as supporting their own supreme court ruling that it is a religion so evolution is a mask for religion. I can make that argument, and you might scoff at that but it is the same argument you are making. One is a belief in a non existent God and the other is a belief in one that exists would be the only difference. That however is NOT what I am going to say UNLESS I wanted to discredit someone for their belief in something I disagree with but has nothing to do with this.
Do you actually think that anyone and everyone who disagrees with evolution, does so because of his religious belief? One doesn’t have to be a faith believing bible thumping fundie to find evolution absolutely absurd, nor does one have to believe in a God being to agree that ID rings true.
It isn’t even necessary to prove the existence of a designer to know that complex Bio systems and a finely tuned universe was designed had a designer or designers to bring it about.
That is a rule pulled arbitrarily out of the frickin blue by evolutionists, whose TOE wouldn’t pass muster using the same scrutiny and process of passing through the scientific method without failing as a flawed hypothesis.
“Let’s face it…ID is just another security blanket that alleviates the same stresses that religion does, namely the fear of our own mortality”- Dane
Lets face it? Face what? what is your problem and why are you superimposing your fear of mortality on me? I have been in a war, I have seen men die and death is a fact of life but how does ID offer any security about that? Where in the hell does anyone suggest we have eternal life believing the universe was designed and what the hell would that even matter to anyone?
Even IF it did offer something like warm fuzzy feelings about mortality, if I said evolution gives me finality and the presence of mind to live my short blip of life with gusto and did what ever the hell i felt like, it shouldn’t have any bearing on the validity of the TOE and neither should it for ID as you seem to suggest.
Why else would one so readily latch onto ID if it didn’t provide for them everything that religion does?
So it is the argument from credulity is it? Because you just can’t believe anyone would latch onto ID unless yatta yatta then you just can’t believe it. ID doesn’t even begin to offer what Religion does because it isn’t the same thing. If it were I would think it could get some tax exempt status or some protections offered by the 1st amendment that government guarantees protection from those attacking it bashing it etc,.I think it was George W. Bush who signed an executive order making the seven Noahide laws at the center of what is under-girding the laws of our country.
Dane said: “ID comes with an all-powerful, mysterious creator who took a special interest in making you. Said creator must care about what happens to you; otherwise why bother with making you? And if this creator cares, maybe it cares beyond what we recognize as life; after all, for it to do what it does, it must exist beyond life and death as we understand it, so maybe when we ‘die’, there’s something more to come from this creator. ID sure looks pretty religious to me.” – Dane
“ID sure looks pretty religious to me.”
yeah, especially when you went to all the trouble of turning it into one in that rant heheh. Just teasin ya a bit there Dane
First, ID doesn’t come with anything, it merely recognizes the undeniable evidence for design in the universe. It doesn’t project it doesn’t assume it is all powerful or all knowing but it does believe any thing that could have designed all the life and matter in the universe is probably a good likelihood it or they are smarter than you and I.
I know Parker would disagree but that is his problem.
Now you can try pigeon holing my argument into being something else I have never said or agreed to all you want. but that isn’t going to get us anywhere and look how much I have had to post about something I have never said and you are beginning to force the issue and that wouldn’t be some insecurity I have about my mortality but YOUR hang ups about religions.
Dane said: “If you want to keep harping on bird’s nests, than take into consideration that nests predate birds. Birds simply possess a hard wired instinct they inherited from their ancestors and this instinct has continued to be refined.”
You don’t know that Dane and it is pure bluster. Please share with us the nest making gene it has “hardwired” into it’s DNA that would facilitate your assertions about this “instinct”. Then show us what that common ancestor for the bird making those proto nests are. Then explain how those other birds kept their nests and where they kept there eggs to sit on until hatching How does a birds nest predate the bird that makes them? If you are talking about another kind of nest, then by all means, be frank and don’t be so cryptic.
So tell us about the nests pre dating birds and how that is any consolation to the questions I will ask about THAT nest making creature too. Or were these self replicating self assembling nests like the first molecules evolutionists can’t prove happened when life began and is the reason they always say they don’t talk about that.
Even after you gave that paragraph of your understanding of ID and went on about asking me question after question, as if I would know these things or as if ID has some intimate knowledge of it when no such claims are made and you can’t show me how anyone has asked any of those questions. You have appointed yourself the social conscience of ID, then asked a series of loaded questions about reasons God made us, etc THEN if that wasn’t unscientific enough, you answered them as how you think we all would and that isn’t even close to a being skilled enough to argue this subject son. Your argumentative nature, shows a willingness to argue but certainly not the skills or discipline to argue.
These questions are all predicated on your own suspicions and answered to satisfy your own dislike for any concept of a designer because in YOUR mind, any creator designer what so ever is GOD and God is a religion, PERIOD.
You are blatantly making speculative answers to questions about this God, neither I, nor ID has ever suggested much less asked.
YOU asking them as IF you were an ID person, projecting your own preconceived ideas on it then going as far as making conclusions in what looks to be an argument you are having with yourself.
and finally you said:
” And why are these things so complex?”
Now hold that thought,,
“I’ve often seen Id proponents-and Creationists-say ‘well let’s see YOU make a living thing, then you’ll see just how complex it is!”. Well, of course I can’t do that”
That’s why we say they are complex, and if you can’t do it, what makes anyone think an I,Q, of virtually ZERO could create a digital programmable 4 digit coding language that can scan, read for errors, scan again and again and again, verify decode and debug in a process of creating everything alive without first having the intell or to input all that data processing,, oh,, I dunno,,, by what amounts to be DUMB LUCK so miraculous to be an accident that even saying it in the only way you can describe it suggests what you understand most call super natural intervention.
Now you said you couldn’t make gold so that disproves someone or something else made it? The only reason you can’t make it is you don’t know how. Like most everything we do that we couldn’t do the day we were born, it is easy when you know how.
I wouldn’t call gold a design however. It is an element a textile if you will.
“However,like you, I read everything, so if ID every moves beyond it’s unfortunately circular complexity argument and offers something more substantial to examine, I’ll do so and, if it ends up being necessary, revise my position. Until that happens, I can’t take ID seriously.” – Dane
I understand.
You take care Dane
Dane said,
December 24, 2010 at 8:29 am
No I do not moreover I don’t know where you are getting that or why you frame the statement using the words “conceding” that ID is just a mask for religion when I have stated quite clearly that religion has neither anything to do with a master designer or a God like being what so ever. I mean why would it? Who is it saying this? Man or God? I assure you Dane, I have no problem at all saying it like I mean it and if I felt ID were a religion, I’d have NO problem saying it is whether I was a member of that religion or not.
Then just ‘fess up and admit that this designer you believe in so wholeheartedly would have to be a supernatural designer.
What religion is it? I mean seriously, if you want to discuss it, just what the hell is a religion. Does it have to have a God? What about Buddhism then? Atheism is a religion according to a supreme court ruling and most atheists bristle at the suggestion yet it was an atheist that brought the case to the SCOTUS to the chagrin of atheism’s high priests. I imagine that is just as frustrating for them to argue. I HAVE admitted it has “religious implications” but that is because I am in the midst of debate with someone insisting that ID IS a religion and I disagree with the definition but can not disagree with the feeling you have that it is a religion OR that you seem to hallucinate my agreement that it is in fact a religion. I believe if someone can say it is a religion, by the so called actions or beliefs of many Christians who find it supports their own in a science that seeks to understand the evidence for a finely tuned universe, who am I or YOU for that matter to suggest it makes it a religion.
Apparently you not understanding what I’m saying, so I’ll have to elaborate. I never said that ID itself is a religion, merely that it is a tool of religion. That’s precisely what it’s being used for. The religious majority in the United States latched onto ID as a means of trying to coax the masses into “scientifically” accepting Creationism.
Do you actually think that anyone and everyone who disagrees with evolution, does so because of his religious belief? One doesn’t have to be a faith believing bible thumping fundie to find evolution absolutely absurd, nor does one have to believe in a God being to agree that ID rings true.
Do you actually think that someone can only agree with evolutionary theory because they have been brainwashed by a bunch of lies and deceit? One can doesn’t have to be a drooling, thickheaded member of the masses to agree that evolutionary theory works.
So it is the argument from credulity is it? Because you just can’t believe anyone would latch onto ID unless yatta yatta then you just can’t believe it. ID doesn’t even begin to offer what Religion does because it isn’t the same thing. If it were I would think it could get some tax exempt status or some protections offered by the 1st amendment that government guarantees protection from those attacking it bashing it etc,.I think it was George W. Bush who signed an executive order making the seven Noahide laws at the center of what is under-girding the laws of our country.
Despite it’s non tax exempt status, ID DOES fulfill the specific roles I outlined which are normally the province of religion. And what does the First Amendment have to do with anything? You have, and have always had, First Amendment protection like everyone else.
You don’t know that Dane and it is pure bluster. Please share with us the nest making gene it has “hardwired” into it’s DNA that would facilitate your assertions about this “instinct”. Then show us what that common ancestor for the bird making those proto nests are. Then explain how those other birds kept their nests and where they kept there eggs to sit on until hatching How does a birds nest predate the bird that makes them? If you are talking about another kind of nest, then by all means, be frank and don’t be so cryptic.
So tell us about the nests pre dating birds and how that is any consolation to the questions I will ask about THAT nest making creature too. Or were these self replicating self assembling nests like the first molecules evolutionists can’t prove happened when life began and is the reason they always say they don’t talk about that.
If you really want to know, you can start from here. If you choose to pursue inquiry into the matter, that’s up to you: http://www.twincitiesnaturalist.com/2010/06/how-did-bird-nests-evolve.html and http://people.eku.edu/ritchisong/birdnests.html
That’s why we say they are complex, and if you can’t do it, what makes anyone think an I,Q, of virtually ZERO could create a digital programmable 4 digit coding language that can scan, read for errors, scan again and again and again, verify decode and debug in a process of creating everything alive without first having the intell or to input all that data processing,, oh,, I dunno,,, by what amounts to be DUMB LUCK so miraculous to be an accident that even saying it in the only way you can describe it suggests what you understand most call super natural intervention.
Now you said you couldn’t make gold so that disproves someone or something else made it? The only reason you can’t make it is you don’t know how. Like most everything we do that we couldn’t do the day we were born, it is easy when you know how.
So…ID must be right because humans can’t create complex biological constructs? That’s pretty bad reasoning. You insist on giving life the label of ‘complex’ because, aside from sexual reproduction, you can’t make it from scratch. That’s the whole of your point: “If I can’t do it, than it must be complex”. You think that just because your human mind can’t figure out to do something it is beyond a natural process? You think the process has to be fully aware and possess an IQ in order to fulfill it’s function? So when are you going to start calling gravity evidence for ID? I mean, no human can reproduce gravimetric effects from scratch, so it must complex and therefore the work of a designer, right?
Now you said you couldn’t make gold so that disproves someone or something else made it? The only reason you can’t make it is you don’t know how. Like most everything we do that we couldn’t do the day we were born, it is easy when you know how.
So, just because I don’t know how to make an element from scratch doesn’t mean it’s a complex thing that demands a designer. Sort of like how just because a scientific theory isn’t one hundred percent complete in explaining it’s mechanisms that doesn’t the process it describes is so complex that it demands an intelligent designer.
Thank you.
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 24, 2010 at 9:40 pm
Dane why do you INSIST on arguing this as if I am being cryptic about it in any way. If I am to believe ID is Science and Science tested via the scientific method, HOW then can I test something that is supernatural ? I can’t. You know it and I know it. So why then would I even suggest that the designer is supernatural when I can’t test that hypothesis using any finite means of testing scientifically .
Can you tell me that? If you can’t, then GOD DAMN IT QUIT READING IN TO THIS WORDS I HAVE NEVER CLAIMED !
You have gone as far as mind reading the entire population of the religious faith.
EXAMPLE:
You said: “Apparently you not understanding what I’m saying, so I’ll have to elaborate. I never said that ID itself is a religion, merely that it is a tool of religion. That’s precisely what it’s being used for. The religious majority in the United States latched onto ID as a means of trying to coax the masses into “scientifically” accepting Creationism.”
First, I understand you just fine. IT is YOU who are not listening and Ill go into that further later but lets start with this paragraph.
you said and I quote “I never said that ID itself is a religion,”
No you didn’t, what you said was, that I am saying it is a religion but am not admitting it. That is why you keep saying words to the effect that I should fess up or admit it. You see that or do I have to copy paste the exact quote to you?
Then you said; “The religious majority in the United States latched onto ID as a means of trying to coax the masses into “scientifically” accepting Creationism.”
and Dawkins has not said he will use evolution to turn everyone into atheist’s? Yes he had said that. Neil Degrasse Tyson, host of PBS Nova Science has never said he will use science to advance his atheism? Yes he did say that.
Does it mean that the science he will use is atheism or that atheism is a science? No how could it. BUT if science were to be used to advance a world view as proof of the existence of or non existence of God, so what? It doesn’t make Science a religion or a philosophy for either atheism or theism unless you got a problem with it and use the guilt by association fallacy they are not mutually exclusive. It is impossible for ID to prove a super natural God so why are you suggesting it is used to coax the masses into accepting one? Hell Dane, it isn’t even taught in school based on that same damn paranoia that same tendency atheists have for merging the meaning of words to suit their agendas the gays have done it with marriage and now you are doing it suggesting any word usage with the letters C-R-E-A-T-I-O-N means a supernatural God designer. If you didn’t then why does it seem like I have to grope a thesaurus just to keep you from getting scared their may be a theocracy running our science dept if I do.
The fact is ID has NEVER claimed it knows anything about the creators, designers God Beings, alien’s at all NOTHING! EVER!
Now I have continued to answer your questions but lets see how you answer mine.
I said: “Do you actually think that anyone and everyone who disagrees with evolution, does so because of his religious belief? One doesn’t have to be a faith believing bible thumping fundie to find evolution absolutely absurd, nor does one have to believe in a God being to agree that ID rings true.”
And you said:
“Do you actually think that someone can only agree with evolutionary theory because they have been brainwashed by a bunch of lies and deceit? One can doesn’t have to be a drooling, thickheaded member of the masses to agree that evolutionary theory works.”
Now there I am again answering you and I still haven’t got my questions answered. Letting that slip aside Ill answer yours again.
Dane asks: “Do you actually think that someone can only agree with evolutionary theory because they have been brainwashed by a bunch of lies and deceit?”
Depends on what evolution we are talking about. The type WE CAN PROVE or the type that has and continues to use lies and deceit and is the ONLY one they have a chance to learn about told to them by some bean curd eating atheist telling them to leave their brains at the door and isolating any creationist to a small group to use the tactic of making a joke out of them where the hope is the cool kids that believe the bullshit get the faith believing group to abandon their ideas they have about God and join the atheist worldview. The science is most definitely being used to promote atheism and since it isn’t really science but a pile of piltdown puffery and peer reviewed politics, Biology Classes today, are more about learning to hate religious people and religion. As Hitchens says, how it poisons everything. Well now I can say the same thing of atheism poisoning science.
If Science is so damn auto correcting and the same scientific method is so perfect at getting to the truth, then why worry about what someone says about a supernatural God, they can’t test for that anyway so it shuts down the Hypothesis from the gate!
I know this is true because it was investigated by our United States Senate and they found this kind of corruption at all levels of Science to the top of the NAS Lets face it you say, well lets do that shall we, I mean after all Dane, we are looking at the same evidence are we not?
How is someone going to suggest “God did it ” and prove it?
Saying the Bible says so is another circular argument and we already know that is a pet peeve of yours so who do we test for that?
RIGHT YOU CAN’T !
So how could it be the center piece of a science.
Let me ask you something. If the evidence were right there in front of us and it hit a dead end without any place to go BUT perhaps a supernatural cause or someone, some thing OUTSIDE of our universe THANKS to the Evolutionists who came up with this kind of crap, they made the “Multi-verse” a scientific argument to enable enough time for evolution to make sense of it.
The more complex they discovered the universe actually IS, and know that isn’t something ID says, it is a fact evolutionists have said. But the more they discovered were microscopic systems and computers, the more evolution needed to account for its creation. the more time had to be added in the trillions of trillions of trillions said 16 more times and you’ll have where we are now the chances of life existing under the old paradigm of just one universe.
Trouble is Dane, their is NO way to test a multiverse. In fact we would have to get OUT of ours to even do know or suggest their is something more. I mean if They can do it, Why shouldn’t ID ?
Ill tell you.
IT AIN’T SCIENCE!
It ain’t science for us like God ain’t science and it shouldn’t be science for them.
But it is what is being taught in Science class rooms and MOST of what you tell me about evolution, you got spooned up your ass by someone else that said it but look real hard and test it using your own scientific method and evolution fails every time because it is BUILT on years and years of speculations and all of them by people who assumed it is true to start with and is why it is so damn guilty of assuming the consequent. Hell THEY KNOW THIS DANE!
Top Scientists all know it’s true.
It is this type of fear hatred what ever motivates you to see some dark secret agenda of the religion people that keeps evolution trying to imagine the most outlandish natural explanations of our origins and has had to cover so many lies, got caught in so many logic traps it is just pathetic they keep pushing that garbage. I mean it’s like the Global Warming thing. THEY GOT BUSTED LYING Their ASSES OFF. Yet they just keep on inserting the words in public access television shows and the MSM until we just accept it as true.
Even those links you sent me don’t prove a thing about birds nests and you know why? They are too damn busy worried about US and what WE think!
“There seems to be a lot of creationists on the web who love to claim that no one can explain how nests evolved. They claim that no one can explain how it could happen and then when someone very reasonably explains a possible way it can be explained they change the argument and don’t want to see how it could have happened, they want proof that it DID happen in that way. I have actually seen someone use the argument, “Well how do you know, YOU weren’t there.”
His answer “Not the strongest debate style.”
Yeah that was about it. Oh yeah he goes on doing the typical “creationist” impersonation suggesting that we always say “God did it” as if that was true. I have never to this day seen one evolutionist, able to quote a scientist who supports ID, EVER use that phrase. If you google the phrase “God did it” you know what you come up with?
A mind boggling number of atheist websites all SAYING we say that. Not one of them can quote the name of a serious science minded individual who is a religious guy, use that as an answer to how the universe works or how it came to be.
You link never gets around to explaining the nests that predate birds.other than to imply it as a meme of some sort passed on from a Dino to bird just so story. The fact is if that is true, then they have to have some proof other that to suggest words to the effect “ot probably happened that way” Especially if they are going to imply it is in their genetic design. If that is the case, what gene is it and how does it prove the one in a lizard evolved from the one in the bird.
No what I did was ask about the birds nest and you took that right from site posting the question about nests predating birds.
Rather than answer me, you sent me a link to the place you read about it. Now I know why you couldn’t answer.
BECAUSE THE JACK ASS NEVER GETS AROUND TO EXPLAINING IT BUT MOCKS US FOR ASKING !
That my friend is the gist of the debate and why they hate us. Because we keep em honest but we won’t hold our breath for even a pebble of that proof we asked for from the embellished landfill of piltdown paleontology of faux fossil fraud they call “The Mountain of Evidence”. You continue to approach this debate as if I am a suspect in a crime and you are trying to get a confession out of me and their is no way you can get me to lie for you just because your need to be right is in jeopardy.
You said: “Then just ‘fess up and admit that this designer you believe in so wholeheartedly would have to be a supernatural designer.”
To borrow a phrase from the link you furnished as my response but only this time it will make scientific sense..
“Not the strongest debate style” to discuss a supernatural hypothesis so please, try to keep your religious suspicions and paranoia out of it and let the science be the debate.
I am NOT going to tell you again.
You see paradox? So do I. Now Quit trying to set me up in a logic trap kid,, it won’t work.
Next: you said :” So, just because I don’t know how to make an element from scratch doesn’t mean it’s a complex thing that demands a designer.”
What is “Scratch” ? I wouldn’t know the answer to that Dane, If I were to make Gold from Scratch I would first have to know what scratch is. I also never said it was complex but I believe it can be used to create complex systems like electronics.
Given that you don’t agree and lets say you some how found a way to make gold, would that then make it complex or perhaps a complex process? The reason I ask that way is to be fair to the personality who owns the intellectual property of all matter in the universe.
That means, even if you could make Gold and prove it, you still have this one itty bitty problem if you want to be fair in considering whether or not it is complex.
That is you would have to use,,
your own scratch too
ADParker said,
December 24, 2010 at 11:38 pm
stevebee92653 said:
“The population conundrum is pulled from simple math. It’s not “garbage”, it’s MATH.”
Heh! Yeah Steve, and do you know what that math was?
Well I will tell you, it went something like this:
Hmmm let’s see; we ‘know’ that the Flud occurred in 2348 BC (Ussher’s YEC Chronology) at which point there was a population of 8 people (Noah, his wife, three sons and their three wives obviously.) And now the population is about 6.5 billion or so.
So let’s round those out to:
Starting pop: 8 people
Final pop: 6,500,000,000 people
duration: 4500 years.
Doing the math we get a Doubling time of 152 years. Now comes the blatant dishonesty; Let’s just ASSERT that a ‘Normal’ population doubling time is ~150 years – and pretend for the masses, by doing the math (Backward) from there!
And when they do, what do you know?! It comes out that the math ‘proves’ that the human race was only around for 5 thousand years or so – JUST AS THE BIBLE (YEC interpretation) SAYS!!!!!
stevebee92653 said:
“Anything that hurts your belief system is, of course, garbage.”
Ha ha ha! And this is something you seem unable to grasp Steve; It DOESN’T hurt my ‘belief system’, and couldn’t no matter what the result, It has nothing to do with evolution. Population growth is not evolution.
stevebee92653 said:
“Simple averaging, something that any 5th grader can do.”
Yet you failed at, twice! Remember that?
Here, try a tool that can do it for you:
http://www.doubling-time.com/compute.php
Not that that is how real human population dynamics works.
stevebee92653 said:
“Even you but you won’t.
But I did, didn’t I? And in so doing corrected your original doubling time (of 4770 years or something like that.)
Your math was wrong, but more importantly your choice of what math to use in the first place, and what do do with the figure(s) when you had it was atrociously wrong.
stevebee92653 said:
“Bad for the belief system.”
Irrelevant to what you call my belief system.
stevebee92653 said:
“ The population of the earth doubled twice from 1900 to 2000, with two world wars and many others, famines, holocausts, disease.
So?
Those world wars did result in significant baby booms though. (as do major black outs!)
stevebee92653 said:
“It’s the first century in history with really functional birth control.
So?
Really reduced rates of failed pregnancies as well.
stevebee92653 said:
“To this date, over half the world still has backward medical care.
Not so much that many populations have grown at unprecedented rates. In large part due to medical and nutritional advances – Even those with “ backward medical care” benefit from this. For example if it were not for those religious conspiracy theory nutters (including Catholic groups) telling lies about the polo vaccine (“it is mind control, makes you sterile/impotent…”) the disease would have been essentially completely wiped out by now (it was thought to almost be there before those ‘efforts’ to undermine it) worldwide, local modern medicine or not.
One well known problem is the ‘third world’ is that the tendency to have as many children as one can (in order for at least a few to be likely to survive and support/continue the family) continues longer than the improvements in successful offspring production (improved life expectancy), resulting in larger families in which more offspring survive to adulthood – and of course those then go on to have their own large families! This results in dangerous population explosive growth! This too is a modern trend.
If you are going to spout off facts, consider all of the facts, not just the ones that support your prior assumptions!
stevebee92653 said:
“And you accept an average doubling time of 9,000 years from 200,000 years ago until now?”
Of course. But then I understand that a simplistic average doubling time figure means very little. One has to do a lot more work than that to come up with anything mathematically significant.
stevebee92653 said:
“SIMPLE MATH, ADParker.”
No Steve, a SIMPLE INABILITY to understand how to use the tools of mathematics PROPERLY!
Remember the old saying in Statistics? (I think I have told it to you before, it is a simple standard of the discipline anyway):
You can ‘prove’ anything with statistics. It is a Warning, not a Boast!
stevebee92653 said:
“Not YEC or any philosophy or religion. If 2+2=4 was bad for evolution, you guys would do your laugh a minute to get rid of the notion. It’s simple math.
You are confusing “simple” with “overly simplistic.” Simple, but wrong Steve, misapplied use of mathematics. An all too common problem, far too many people are just plain Innumerate. And too many of them are ignorant of their own innumeracy, so think they really can prove things with math when they really have no clue.
stevebee92653 said:
“You fail at arboreal bird nests, but you can account for human intelligence and consciousness, heart/lung systems, vision,……..? Admit it. ADP, you fail miserably.”
Are you even reading my posts Steve?
stevebee92653 said:
“Actually evolution does.”
So you assert, over and over. But have yet to establish even a little bit.
It appears from this latest waffle that Steve thinks that “ADParker can’t explain X” is evidence that it CAN NOT be explained within the evolutionary biology framework!
Thanks for your unwitting vote of ultimate confidence in my ability Steve, but it is just laughably fallacious!
stevebee92653 said:
“You said I had no challenges, I give you the easiest. “
{Sigh} I SAID THAT YOU HAD NOT SHOWN ANY DEMONSTRATIONS OF the IMPOSSIBILITY OF EVOLUTION. After you boasted that you had shown HUNDREDS. Stop trying to distort what I fucking said!
stevebee92653 said:
“Try Dane’s links on the evolution of nests if you want to see how hopeless your position is.”
I read them. Not too bad. Not the hard science of course, but then they didn’t claim to be. There main point is the best one; there is no difficulty at all in seeing that such a development is trivially simple. And in no way a challenge to evolution – what a ludicrous claim in the first place!
So you have yet to explain to me how you asking me about the evolution of arboreal bird nests counts as a demonstration of the impossibility of evolution.
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 25, 2010 at 12:14 am
“So you have yet to explain to me how you asking me about the evolution of arboreal bird nests counts as a demonstration of the impossibility of evolution” -ADPARKER
That’s funny, I would think Science not explaining it the same way you haven’t, would be your first clue.
ADParker said,
December 25, 2010 at 12:42 am
You would?!
So the demonstration that it is impossible that the world is not flat/stationary/centre-of-the-universe was, in the past, that no one had at that time explained exactly how it isn’t?!
Basically, in your worldview; Unless EVERYTHING, and every detail thereof, is fully explained in full detail, to you, then that counts as evidence that it is impossible?! (Except those things you already believe in of course, they get a free pass with cover words like “mystery” and the like.)
stevebee92653 said,
December 26, 2010 at 5:45 am
Re: “telling lies about the polo vaccine”
What is the polo vaccine? Is that a vaccine against a game played with horses and men with sticks?
I wouldn’t spend too much effort ragging on typo/math errors unless you don’t make any yourself. It’s POLIO, BTW.
I would love to see this comment written by you if the math was in your/evo’s favor. I wonder how it would be different. I think I know.
ADParker: “We have MOUNTAINS OF EVIDENCE! Even the population doubling times prove evolution! Say hallelujah!”
Something like this? Or would you dismiss it like you tried but failed miserably to do. You are very transparent.
No bird nest answer, no evolution answer. If you can’t do bird nests, you should give up your belief and admit we just don’t have the answers. Much more honest.
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 25, 2010 at 12:05 am
“We are learning that virtually every aspect of cellular function is influenced by chemical messages detected, transmitted, and interpreted by molecular relays. To a remarkable extent, therefore, contemporary biology has become a science of sensitivity, inter- and intra-cellular communication, and control. Given the enormous complexity of living cells and the need to coordinate literally millions of biochemical events, it would be surprising if powerful cellular capacities for information processing did not manifest themselves. In an important way, then, biology has returned to questions debated
during the mechanism-vitalism controversy earlier this century.
This time around, however, the discussion is informed by two new factors. One is that the techniques of molecular and cell biology allow us to examine the detailed operation of the hardware responsible for cellular responsiveness and decision-making. The second is the existence of computers and information networks, physical entities endowed with computational and decision-making capabilities. Their existence means that discussing the potential for similar activities by living organisms is neither vague nor mystical.
What significance does an emerging interface between biology and information science hold for
thinking about evolution? It opens up the possibility of addressing scientifically rather than
ideologically the central issue so hotly contested by fundamentalists on both sides of the
Creationist-Darwinist debate: Is there any guiding intelligence at work in the origin of species
displaying exquisite adaptations that range from lambda prophage repression and the Krebs
cycle through the mitotic apparatus and the eye to the immune system, mimicry, and social
organization?
Borrowing concepts from information science, new schools of evolutionists can
begin to rephrase virtually intractable global questions in terms amenable to computer
modelling and experimentation. We can speculate what some of these more manageable
questions might be: How can molecular control circuits be combined to direct the expression of
novel traits?
Do genomes display characteristic system architectures that allow us to predict
phenotypic consequences when we rearrange DNA sequence components? Do signal
transduction networks contribute functional information as they regulate the action of natural
genetic engineering hardware?
Questions like those above will certainly prove to be naive because we are just on the threshold
of a new way of thinking about living organisms and their variations. Nonetheless, these
questions serve to illustrate the potential for addressing the deep issues of evolution from a
radically different scientific perspective. Novel ways of looking at longstanding problems have
historically been the chief motors of scientific progress. However, the potential for new science
is hard to find in the Creationist-Darwinist debate. Both sides appear to have a common interest
in presenting a static view of the scientific enterprise. This is to be expected from the
Creationists, who naturally refuse to recognize science’s remarkable record of making more and
more seemingly miraculous aspects of our world comprehensible to our understanding and
accessible to our technology. But the neo-Darwinian advocates claim to be scientists, and we
can legitimately expect of them a more open spirit of inquiry.
Instead, they assume a defensive posture of outraged orthodoxy and assert an unassailable claim to truth, which only serves to validate the Creationists’ criticism that Darwinism,
has become more of a faith,
than a science. ”
Dr. James Shapiro
Molecular Biologist
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 25, 2010 at 12:11 am
stevebee92653 said:
“Try Dane’s links on the evolution of nests if you want to see how hopeless your position is.”
I read them. Not too bad. Not the hard science of course, but then they didn’t claim to be. There main point is the best one; there is no difficulty at all in seeing that such a development is trivially simple. And in no way a challenge to evolution – what a ludicrous claim in the first place! – AD PARKER
If it’s so simple and such a ludicrous claim in the first place, then why can’t they explain it? You think that was an explanation they gave?
Dane said,
December 25, 2010 at 12:43 am
This will be my final entry into this website. It’s like I said…you’re not going to convince me, I’m not going to convince you.
You say evolutionary as bankrupt science that is marred by lies and deceit. You accept that evolution does happen on some scale, but not the broad, vast scale that the theory proposes. It cannot explain complex behaviors and structures. It refuses to acknowledge that some designer must have been present in the formation of bio-structures far too complex for an unintelligent, natural process to have formed.
I see ID as little more than a movement that is a thin veil for religious movements. Despite it’s cries that it has nothing to do with religion, the ‘intelligent designer’ it proposes must be a supernatural being or force…if not, what is it? If the designer is merely a higher order of life, than ID must ask who designed the designer yet ID insists that there exists a prime designer-certainly the most complex thing that ever existed-who has no need of a designer. Further, it never explains why evolution is impossible…it merely points at the complexity of something, couples that to the fact that evolutionary theory is incomplete and simply insists ID must be right. ID never takes into consideration that the so-called complexity it views may be nothing more than a trick of limited human intelligence, but insist that because a human can’t reproduce it, it HAS to be complex.
You have your evidences, I have mine but neither one of us takes the others evidence seriously because we’re just too disposed one way or the other. Anything rational either one of us has to say ends up being lost…but then again, this is an Internet chat board and this ends up being a frequently common occurrence. Everyone is to blame.
The only way this argument is ever going to be settled is if proponents of evolution can demonstrate, at least to the satisfaction of IDers, how a natural process could produce complexities or if proponents of ID can demonstrate, at least to the satisfaction of evolution adherents, that this Intelligent Designer does in fact exist. I don’t think either one is going to happen on a chat board, though.
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 25, 2010 at 9:39 am
Well Ill still say you are one of the most gracious evolutionist’s I have debated this argument with and I agree with your final comments that it won’t be decided here.
Warm Regards Dane
stevebee92653 said,
December 25, 2010 at 7:57 pm
The bottom line of your comment is we don’t know the answer. Which is the point of this entire blog.So we finish by agreeing. Bye
Charlie said,
January 2, 2011 at 8:26 pm
“You have your evidences, I have mine but neither one of us takes the others evidence seriously because we’re just too disposed one way or the other.”
That is the wisest position I’ve seen from an evolutionist on this board. To concede that both sides have their predispositions is exactly on the money. Predispositions do not create Truth however. The Truth will be whatever remains once an honest search is conducted. The *possibility* of God is not absent of Reason. The Truth of the Christian God is only attainable by Faith and Grace.
Christian Faith:
It is not an absence of Intellect.
Its absence is a lack of Will.
It is not an absence of Reason.
Its absence is an excess of Bias.
It is not an absence of Logic.
Its absence is a misunderstanding of Love.
– Charlie, 2010
ADParker said,
December 25, 2010 at 12:20 am
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
”You are either lying, as as poor at reading comprehension as Steve presents his own ability as. Because that is NOT what I asked for at all, as I explained. – ADParker”
I said that? Crap. That should have, of course started: “ You are either lying, OR as poor at reading comprehension…”
D’oh!
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
”Sorry Parker but you’re busted and quit accusing me of lying unless you can prove it, just what did I say you were asking for that wasn’t true Parker? ”
Lying or using poor reading comprehension. If there is a third reason why you got it so wrong, then I am more than willing to hear it.
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
”This was the post you responded to below:
“If you think “Tell me how bird nests appeared as a result of evolution”
That was about the sum of his answer to my request “Name one example in which you demonstrated the impossibility of evolution” (as he claimed ha had shown hundreds), yes.”
Steve seems unwilling, can you explain to me how that satisfies my request?
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
”Ha ha ha Parker you’re such a coward, He Gave you what you wanted”
No he didn’t. He avoided satisfying my request for him to substantiate his claim, by asking he a question about one specific thing instead. HE AVOIDED THE QUESTION! An all too common tactic of Intelligent Design Creationist (and common creationist as well of course) apologetics
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
”and you offer another one of your chicken shit cop outs as an excuse walking away saying He lost..”
What are you on about Kent?
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
”The thing you asked for is in the statement you made saying and I quote “If you think the “Tell me how bird nests appeared as a result of evolution” ”
Well that is sure a mess of a statement to try to parse out!
I take it you are referring to my statement that If Steve thinks that him asking me how bird nests evolved meets the burden of proof he took on by claiming that he had shown hundreds of demonstrations of the impossibility of evolution, he is sadly mistaken.
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
”here is what you wanted something that “counts as a challenge to, or evidence of the impossibility of the validity of the theory of evolution, ” ”
And how exactly is a question of how one thing came about through evolutionary means, in any way shape or form satisfy that request?!
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
”I guess stevebee wins because that question posed a challeng to, your precious theory.”
Then your understanding of the basics of reasoning is soundly flawed.
At BEST it is a challenge to my own understanding of how one particular thing evolved. Which has Zero impact on the theory at all. How could it?!
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
”and YOU couldn’t answer it.”
No one could answer ANYTHING to Steve’s satisfaction, not if it differed from the conclusion he already has fixed fast in his head. So I see no reason for even trying.
It should be trivially simple to see that there is no great difficulty in imagining how bird nests could come to be as they are, within the bounds of the theory of evolution (although it doesn’t even really need to be addressed much at all in this case.) But anything less that the ACTUAL way it really happened – a mammoth task, probably impossible (Bird nests aren’t really known to fossilise you know) – would not even begin to satisfy Steve, or any dogmatic evolution denier. As you well know; if I even mention anything like “may have” “could have” “imagine how”… he would take that as an excuse to ignore the content and make fun of that. Because he doesn’t seem to want to grasp the distinction between “possible/impossible” and “did/did-not happen.”
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
”You can scoff and act up all self righteous and indignant all you like and then hide tail and run while you claim victory”
I just love how people (and people like you) try to pretend that your opponents are really acting like that. Makes me laugh every time.
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
”So what are you gonna do now?”
Laugh at you Kent. It is all that this waffle deserves.
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 25, 2010 at 12:31 am
“No he didn’t. He avoided satisfying my request for him to substantiate his claim, by asking he a question about one specific thing instead. HE AVOIDED THE QUESTION! An all too common tactic of Intelligent Design Creationist (and common creationist as well of course) apologetics” – ADPARKER
Show me where he did that
How does one avoid the question by asking a question about one specific thing, avoids the question ?
I mean it is garble the way you talk. The only thing I saw is he asked and you ducked and continue to duck the challenging question it is incumbent upon evolution to prove happens.
We can’t prove it doesn’t happen like you can’t prove their is no God. So knock it off it’s getting old Parker
“An all too common tactic of Intelligent Design Creationist (and common creationist as well of course) ” – ADPARKER
Examples ?
ADParker said,
December 25, 2010 at 1:00 am
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“How does one avoid the question by asking a question about one specific thing, avoids the question ? “
You can’t see how asking a question of your own, instead of answering the question is avoiding the question? Wow!
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“The only thing I saw is he asked and you ducked and continue to duck the challenging question it is incumbent upon evolution to prove happens.
Yes, he asked. WHY did he ask, when it was I who was asking him a question (well more accurately to substantiate his own prior assertion)?!
That, and I DID answer his question; I don’t know how bird nests evolved exactly. And did Steve come back and say “okay; well here is where it can be shown to be impossible if evolution were true…” No he did not. So what good is it? And how on earth does it count as meeting the burden of proof that he himself took on by making the claiming the first place?
I don’t think either of you have a clue as to what constitutes a challenge to, let alone evidence of the impossibility of, anything.
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“We can’t prove it doesn’t happen like you can’t prove their is no God.”
Thank you Kent for admitting that Steve has failed to substantiate his claim to have shown hundreds of demonstrations of the impossibility of evolution, as I asked him to do. You don’t even think that he can do it.
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
” “An all too common tactic of Intelligent Design Creationist (and common creationist as well of course) ” – ADPARKER
Examples ?”
Start with most of this blog. Then look at pretty much any lecture on creationism.
“A demonstration that evolution is impossible: How did arboreal bird nests evolve? No answer (to my satisfaction)? – I win!!!!”
Oh please.
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 25, 2010 at 12:36 am
“No one could answer ANYTHING to Steve’s satisfaction, – ADPARKER ”
How would YOU know? You haven’t tried once.
So I see no reason for even trying”. – ADPARKER
So what the fuck are you doing here then
Another Cop out Another Excuse.
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 25, 2010 at 12:47 am
It should be trivially simple to see that there is no great difficulty in imagining how bird nests could come to be as they are, within the bounds of the theory of evolution
Imagining how birds nest came to be?
Yeah YOU actually said that parker.
Is this Science or Science fiction because If I wanted to imagine how it happened I could just as easily say it was magic which is why (in your case) iMAGIne and MAGIc should be next on the agenda tp merge the meaning of both to mean the same thing. That is the only way using imagination could be used to prove a theory but Theory is supposed to explain a set of facts, and observations.
isn’t that what you said?
If you can let people get away with imagining how things happen and calling that a fact when the only way it can be observed is to shut your eyes clicking your heels together and imagine their is no place like home,, IT AIN’T GONNA GET YA HOME LIKE IT DOES IN OZ PARKER
Because it ain’t science if it ain’t true
ADParker said,
December 25, 2010 at 1:04 am
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“Imagining how birds nest came to be?
Yeah YOU actually said that parker.
Is this Science or Science fiction because If I wanted to imagine how…”
Thanks for making that point of mine Kent.
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 25, 2010 at 1:00 am
“It should be trivially simple to see that there is no great difficulty in imagining how bird nests could come to be as they are, within the bounds of the theory of evolution ” – ADParker
Imagining how birds nest came to be?
Yeah YOU actually said that parker.
Is this Science or Science fiction because If I wanted to imagine how it happened I could just as easily say it was magic which is why (in your case) iMAGIne and MAGIc should be next on the agenda tp merge the meaning of both to mean the same thing. That is the only way using imagination could be used to prove a theory but Theory is supposed to explain a set of facts, and observations.
isn’t that what you said?
If you can let people get away with imagining how things happen and calling that a fact when the only way it can be observed is to shut your eyes clicking your heels together and imagine their is no place like home,, IT AIN’T GONNA GET YA HOME LIKE IT DOES IN OZ PARKER.
Seriously Parker if all you are going to do is yank peoples chain while you demand he back up his claim and have no intention of answering his questions Then LEAVE !
Even My suggestion that your not answering is a forfeit yet it is I who has a flaw in my reasoning ! YOU QUIT ! YOU HAD NO INTENTION of responding anyway! You said so yourself!
What are you doing just testing his reflexes or are you just being an asshole again.
Because it ain’t science if it ain’t true
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 25, 2010 at 12:22 am
stevebee92653 said:
“You said I had no challenges, I give you the easiest. “
{Sigh} I SAID THAT YOU HAD NOT SHOWN ANY DEMONSTRATIONS OF the IMPOSSIBILITY OF EVOLUTION. After you boasted that you had shown HUNDREDS. Stop trying to distort what I fucking said! – ADPARKER
He is right parker that is what you were asking for or to quote you ” ANY DEMONSTRATIONS OF the IMPOSSIBILITY OF EVOLUTION.”
Now “ANY” means any at all and the the challenge he posed was the very reason evolution keeps assuming the consequent. You keep thinking it has been proven and it has not which is why we keep asking. That will continue to happen until you or someone can prove it DOES.
So until then,,
WE DON’T BELIEVE YOU
Why should we, you keep yappin but ya haven’t proven shit
ADParker said,
December 25, 2010 at 12:45 am
Man, you are just wilfully ignorant, aren’t you?!
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 25, 2010 at 1:09 am
“Man, you are just wilfully ignorant, aren’t you?!” – ADPARKER
Well lets see, I read three of your posts and already I am feeling a little more retarded.
I guess anyone would, reading that NON answer you keep endorsing. Except for your insults when you don’t have an answer, it is the only answer you know how to make.
Gawd our country is in a lot of trouble if you are what we have to look forward to as a so called educated product of our publicly funded school system.
ADParker said,
December 25, 2010 at 1:53 am
Kent Perry, AZ. said,:
“Gawd our country is in a lot of trouble if you are what we have to look forward to as a so called educated product of our publicly funded school system.”
Why do you keep assuming that I live in your country?
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 25, 2010 at 1:12 am
December 25, 2010 at 1:04 am
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“Imagining how birds nest came to be?
Yeah YOU actually said that parker.
Is this Science or Science fiction because If I wanted to imagine how…””
Thanks for making that point of mine Kent.” – ADPARKER
Thank YOU for PROVING mine Parker
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 25, 2010 at 1:17 am
“Start with most of this blog. Then look at pretty much any lecture on creationism” – ADPARKER
That isn’t proof parker, it’s an assertion and a suggestion. It isn’t proof.
Do you know what proof means ?
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 25, 2010 at 1:19 am
“A demonstration that evolution is impossible: How did arboreal bird nests evolve? No answer (to my satisfaction)? – I win!!!!”
Oh please.” – adparker
That is what I said when you quit and said steve lost
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 25, 2010 at 1:25 am
Kent Perry, AZ. said:
“We can’t prove it doesn’t happen like you can’t prove their is no God.”
Thank you Kent for admitting that Steve has failed to substantiate his claim to have shown hundreds of demonstrations of the impossibility of evolution, as I asked him to do. You don’t even think that he can do it.” – AdParker
Hey I told him he was wasting his time after you invited him to the stevebash circle jerk.
You know I don’t think people should argue with idiots, they bring you down to there level and beat you with experience.
as idiots go parker , you got more experience at being an idiot than all the creationist’s combined
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 25, 2010 at 1:41 am
“You can’t see how asking a question of your own, instead of answering the question is avoiding the question? Wow!” – ADPARKER
No I don;t, yours was not a question parker, yours was a request NOT a question.
the question he asks is the one you assume has already been answered and proven.
The whole reason he is asking is because it has never been proven. The ONLY way anyone CAN answer your request is to get YOU to see their is no plausible answer outside taking A HUGE LEAP OF FAITH and a whole lot of imagination.
Unfortunately, that ain’t science
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 25, 2010 at 1:53 am
“No he didn’t. He avoided satisfying my request for him to substantiate his claim,” ADParker
Yep it was a request alright .
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 26, 2010 at 4:30 am
“Well that is sure a mess of a statement to try to parse out!
I take it you are referring to my statement that If Steve thinks that him asking me how bird nests evolved meets the burden of proof he took on by claiming that he had shown hundreds of demonstrations of the impossibility of evolution, ”
Steve claimed “Hundreds of demonstrations” of the impossibility of evolution, ” and that upsets you Parker?
Gee I find that hard to understand, given that we have had to endure years of being told there was Mountains of evidence for evolution and NEVER has anyone shown me this so called mountain. In fact, many times I have pictured you guys so confused about this alleged mountain.
They remind me of Actor, Richard Dreyfus in the movie close encounters of the third kind, as I you see you all staring at the mashed potato’s on your dinner plate piling it up higher and higher trying to figure it.
Using the spud mash medium as clay you begin to sculpt your mountain by spinning the plate on a lazy susan like the potters wheel. You see the mountain you envision in your head as some recurring dream or endless loop of dejavu haunting you, day and night, it is always there and feels like you have been there before but you just can’t place it.
You sculpt your Potato Mashed Mountain in the hope it will jog your memory but in this case there is no mountain because close encounters is something an ID’er would support,. So you go on making assertions about the massive, mountain of evidence supporting Evolution with the same care, same strict protocols for inductive reasoning, critical thinking and logical fallacy.
But not once has the mountain been proven exists. Not once has the pathetically postulated piles of piltdown, politically peer reviewed, pipe dream of the alleged mountain of evolutionary evidence, EVER been more than a pipe dream.
So get off your sanctimonious high horse when you support a theory saying emphatically it has mountains of evidence they never ever have shown us an anthill much less a mountain.
When you can back up your theory’s bravado by showing us the damn mountain, you can’t be taken serious your “outrage” over any doubt of the hundred or so times Stevebee has literally taken evolution and demonstrated how FUBAR it is.
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 27, 2010 at 1:22 am
What makes things complex? The difficulty their is in explaining them
Complex, statistically improbable things are by their nature more difficult to explain than simple, statistically probable things.
the most basic claims of religion are scientific and Religion is a scientific theory.
Kent Perry, AZ. said,
December 27, 2010 at 3:08 am
One of the things that is wrong with religion,
is that it teaches us to be satisfied with answers which are not really answers at all. – Richard Dawkins
I can’t imagine why that bothers someone like Dawkins, it is what we’ve had to deal with in the Science of Evolution ever since Darwin.
We see it all the time as in the ADParker tactic or the equivalent to: “If you don’t know how evolution works, then I’m not going to tell you”
John Matrix said,
December 28, 2010 at 6:57 am
Dane wrote:
Now you see John…that’s the problem with being a religious fanatic. You make absurd claims like the one you just made, safe and secure in the knowledge that there is no way to actually prove or disprove your deity.
Me (JM) says:
Define religious fanatic.
The claim is only absurd to the proud arrogant fool who denies God. Remember Dane….the FOOL says in his heart there is no God. Those words were written by men of old who were moved and inspired by the Holy Spirit to convey to mankind the wisdom of the ages through the written word. But the natural mind cannot comprehend spiritual truths because they are contrary to his proud, arrogant, and foolish nature which is in a state of rebellion against God and His WORD. His WORD is TRUTH Dane.
Dane said:
And I’m proud and arrogant, so your “Creator” won’t reveal “Himself” to me?
Me(JM)says:
you mentioned something about God revealing Himself to you….so I just told you why it ain’t going to happen for you. You should thank me, instead of being cute with me.
Dane said:
How do you know this “Creator” is male? What would it even need a gender aspect?
Me(JM)says:
I know because His Spirit bears witness with my Spirit……you see Dane….I don’t have to prove anything to you regarding my experience…nor would I try….and I don’t speak for God, but I can say that God has already proved Himself to the world, but the majority are FOOLS and deny Him his right or ownership out of their own arrogance.
Dane wrote:
Your “Creator” certainly does not seem very interested in humans overall…only humans that blindly believe in it. It seems to that a “Creator” that will only reveal itself to someone humble and contrite is working is an incredibly spiteful and egotistical “Creator”. It’s the cosmic equivalent of a kid who takes his ball and goes home when other kids refuse to play his way.
Me(JM) says:
That is the natural mind of man trying to explain the Spiritual. It can’t be done Dane. You need a Spiritual rebirth first. The wisdom of this world is folly.
Dane wrote:
For the record, this has nothing to with pride OR arrogance. Why do you theists always jump to that conclusion?
Me(JM) says:
God is opposed to the proud and gives grace to the humble so it has everything to do with why you won’t be seeing the light until you humble yourself and seek Him from a sincere heart.
Dane wrote:
I’ve examined ID up and down and I’ve found that there is nothing reasonable about it.
Me(JM) says:
Mathematics is pretty logical and reasonable proof. The language found in DNA with it’s 3 billion letter codes………only a moron would deny the ID behind DNA and call that unreasonable to accept as proof for ID.
[url]http://www.gnmagazine.org/issues/gn58/tinycode.htm[/url]
Dane wrote:
You trot out metaphysics and the supernatural. You pat yourselves on the back for being more ‘enlightened’ than others.
Me(JM) says:
Jealousy, envying, pride, arrogance are all part of man’s nature and only a birth of the supernatural in man can raise him from it. Ponder and learn what ever you want about this universe and you will conclude that there is only two possible states for nature. The one in nature left to itself and it’s own inner workings, and the other is God manifested in nature. In other words: the natural and the supernatural are the two possible states for all that is.
Dane wrote:
Really…just who is the one being arrogant and proud here?
Me(JM) says:
I already told you. To deny God His due for having designed and created ALL is the pinnacle of human arrogance. Humans deny God because they can’t accept the existence of a being that is smarter than they are, and who designed and created the Universe, and all life in it.
John Matrix said,
December 28, 2010 at 8:49 pm
Stevebee: I like your blog and agree with your position. The whole thing was great reading until you took up censorship…and that is something I don’t agree with unless you can cite a law against what is being said.
stevebee92653 said,
December 28, 2010 at 9:20 pm
I don’t know why it didn’t post. There is no censorship here except in the case of gross personal disrespect. If you placed more than two links in your comment it won’t post until I approve it. I didn’t see any in the “awaiting approval” zone. So, I really don’t know what happened. Apologies. If you try again, copy it before posting just in case. Or try a test one word comment to see if it posts.
John Matrix said,
December 28, 2010 at 8:53 pm
Oh, looks like I jumped the gun there Stevee. Last night I spent an hour typing responses to Dane and when I clicked to post they did not show up.
I just love wasting my time….which is why I wrote the comment above….assuming you were censoring my post….which was a polite response to Dane by the way.
stevebee92653 said,
December 28, 2010 at 9:23 pm
I found it in the spam folder for some reason. I don’t know why wordpress placed it there. There were no links. Anyway, I got it out of spam and it did post. Sorry for the inconvenience. I know the feeling of having all that writing go down the terlit.
ADParker said,
January 2, 2011 at 10:34 pm
Charlie said:
”To concede that both sides have their predispositions is exactly on the money.”
Of course everyone has a predisposition in the direction of what they currently think and believe.
Charlie said:
”Predispositions do not create Truth however.”
Indeed not, on the contrary they tend to act as a resistance to changing of one’s position.
Charlie said:
”The Truth will be whatever remains once an honest search is conducted.”
Spot on. Well almost. This of course assumes that the truth, actual knowledge, can be established, this may not always (or ever) be the case. What the honest search instead produces is the best approximation of truth and knowledge. An approximation that can shift, and improve, as new data and evidence becomes available.
This, of course, is what science is all about.
Charlie said:
”The *possibility* of God is not absent of Reason. The Truth of the Christian God is only attainable by Faith and Grace.”
I must reject both of those claimed means. What does “Faith” and “Grace” even really mean (Yes I will look at your stuff on Faith below), I mean honestly?!
Your above statement reads as horribly muddled to me. You claim Reason is involved, but then insist that only Faith and Grace does the job, so what is it Faith/Grace or reason?
Charlie said:
”Christian Faith:”
Good luck with that; claiming and stipulating Faith as defined by Christians as if Christianity was a single entity with one definition for this.
Charlie said:
”It is not an absence of Intellect.”
Agreed. Faith and Intellect are two separate issues entirely.
Charlie said:
”Its absence is a lack of Will.”
Your poetical prose makes it more difficult to parse out, but…
Agreed to an extent, one common aspect of Biblical Faith does involves will. Or one could say desire or hope.
Charlie said:
”It is not an absence of Reason.”
Oh yes it is. Biblical Faith is all about believing in what you hope to be true (desire, emotion) and being convinced by assuming that evidence that you don’t have (don’t see) is actually there (imagination.)
This employs to aspects of human thought: Imagination and emotion, but ignores the third (which should be the governing) aspect: Reason.
Hebrews 11:1
(NIV) Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.
(KJV)Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Charlie said:
”Its absence is an excess of Bias.”
Quite the reverse; Faith IS all about bias, about starting with a conclusion and employing confirmation bias to hold to it.
Charlie said:
”It is not an absence of Logic.”
I just hate how people use the word “logic” with apparently no thought as to its meaning.
Yes it is an absence of Logic, logic plays no part in Faith.
Charlie said:
”Its absence is a misunderstanding of Love.”
And that is the biggest Non Sequitur of all. What has Love got to do with it, to do with assessment of truth?!
Charlie said,
January 3, 2011 at 2:31 am
ADParker, and everyone. Happy New Year!
I stand by the whole of what I just said, though I do see that you have trouble with some of it…
Charlie said:
”The *possibility* of God is not absent of Reason. The Truth of the Christian God is only attainable by Faith and Grace.”
ADParker:
“I must reject both of those claimed means. What does “Faith” and “Grace” even really mean … horribly muddled to me. You claim Reason is involved, but then insist that only Faith and Grace does the job, so what is it Faith/Grace or reason?”
That is in two parts, ADP. A Creator/Designer either exists or does not exist. Science is unable to either affirm nor deny. A genuinely unbiased observer should fairly conclude that both possibilities are reasonable. (I know you will disagree, but will show no evidence that the existence of God is less possible or probable than the non-existence of God.)
The *possibility* of God is not absent of Reason. (Any more than the *possibility* of NO God is not absent of Reason…)
As far as the Christian God and Faith and Grace being the necessary ingredients… I thought that you were listening in my earlier posts. In essence, Reason will only take you so far. At some point, you *will* need to make a leap of faith in order to accept the Christian God. But you will only be able to do so if you are graced with God’s mercy. You will have to realize that this is something that you may never understand fully unless and until you come to Jesus. I will not try to ‘prove’ that assertion to you.
As for my attempt at poetry on “Christian Faith”…
C: ”It is not an absence of Intellect.”
A: Agreed. Faith and Intellect are two separate issues entirely.
C: ”Its absence is a lack of Will.”
A: … poetical prose makes it more difficult, but… Agreed to an extent
C: ”It is not an absence of Reason.”
A: “Oh yes it is. Biblical Faith is all about believing in what you hope to be true (desire, emotion) and being convinced by assuming that evidence that you don’t have (don’t see) is actually there (imagination.)
This employs to aspects of human thought: Imagination and emotion, but ignores the third (which should be the governing) aspect: Reason.”
It requires MORE than just Reason, ADP. But it is not an absence of Reason. Then again, we seem to disagree profoundly on what things can be declared self-evident. So obviously I won’t be able to ‘prove’ this to you.
C: ”Its absence is an excess of Bias.”
A: ‘Quite the reverse; Faith IS all about bias, about starting with a conclusion and employing confirmation bias to hold to it.”
To defend this point, ADP, I have only to quote you:
“Of course everyone has a predisposition in the direction of what they currently think and believe.”
This is exactly that excess of Bias (Predisposition).
C: ”It is not an absence of Logic.”
A: … Yes it is an absence of Logic, logic plays no part in Faith.
The Bias that exists will prevent us to talk about this one, too. But we don’t see eye to eye on logic, either. Maybe I haven’t used formal logic. But perhaps you can show me where something I have said is absent of logic.
C: ”Its absence is a misunderstanding of Love.”
A: “And that is the biggest Non Sequitur of all. What has Love got to do with it, to do with assessment of truth?!”
Again, ADP. It only seems to you to be a Non Sequiter. Love has EVERYTHING to do with Christian Faith. To lack Christian Faith is to misunderstand everything that Love means. I’d love to try to explain this to you, ADP. But I have a feeling that you’re not ready.
I do love this verse, though:
(KJV) Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1.
Evidence of things not seen. Just because we don’t see them does not mean that they don’t exist, ADP. Substance of things hoped for. Just because they don’t have substance now doesn’t mean they won’t eventually if the hopes are realized.
But what does any of this have to do with ‘proving’ Evolution is supported by more than a long series of empty assertions? I have no apologies for my beliefs.
ADParker said,
January 3, 2011 at 8:38 am
Charlie said:
“ADParker, and everyone. Happy New Year!”
You too. We made it through another rotation of the planet around our star without screwing the world up too much, yay!
Charlie said:
“That is in two parts, ADP. A Creator/Designer either exists or does not exist.”
Sure, the law of the law of the excluded middle; either p or not-p. This applies to everything.
Fairies either exist or do not exist. Hot dogs either exist or do not exist. My great grandfather Alistair either exists or does not exist…
Charlie said:
“Science is unable to either affirm nor deny.”
Certainly not without a decent definition/description. If however one’s claimed god manifests in reality in a certain way, then it is at least possible that this manifestation could be examined. And if it does manifest as claimed then that counts as evidence (of some level depending on that claimed) and if it does not then that counts as evidence that that particular god does not in fact exist.
For example those who believe that when two true believers in their god get together to pray for a thing, then that thing will surely come to pass. And to true believers do come together in prayer, and that thing DOES NOT come to pass, then that god (a very specificity defined god obviously) does not exist.
Charlie said:
“A genuinely unbiased observer should fairly conclude that both possibilities are reasonable. (I know you will disagree, but will show no evidence that the existence of God is less possible or probable than the non-existence of God.)”
You are correct, I do disagree. Your reasoning is flawed, it misses a significant step.
That step? Getting from “possible”, not proven false, to “reasonable”, plausible or probable. Almost ANYTHING is possible, possible doesn’t get you that far.
I could make up any number of ludicrous magical mystical entities (or occurrence or anything really – textbook examples being the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Invisible Pink Unicorn, Bertrand Russell’s Celestial Teapot and Carl Sagan’s “Dragon in my Garage”) and assert that as ‘science’ can neither prove or disprove it (Not that science really does proof – nor does reason for that matter except within certain conceptual areas) that the possibility that it is true or false are both “reasonable.”
And I would be wrong. “Reasonable” demands a little more than mere possibility. And most certainly “Reasonable to believe is real” does.
Charlie said:
“The *possibility* of God is not absent of Reason. (Any more than the *possibility* of NO God is not absent of Reason…)”
the possibility of ANYTHING of an ontological nature (‘real’ as opposed to conceptual) does not defy reason, unless it conflicts with the laws of logic, of which there are but three. But so what?
Charlie said:
“As far as the Christian God and Faith and Grace being the necessary ingredients… ”
I’m sorry Charlie but I just can’t help it, I can’t help but chuckle whenever I hear someone speak of “The Christian God” (or worse; the Abrahamic of Judeo-Christian God), what with there being a reported 33,000 plus denominations of Christianity, many of which involve differing, sometimes wildly conflicting, ideas of what this “God” character is.
Charlie said:
“I thought that you were listening in my earlier posts. In essence, Reason will only take you so far.”
This is true. That does not, however, provide licence to leave it behind and believe in things which reason does not lead to be rational to believe. Beliefs that are not supported by reason are, by definition, irrational.
Also by definition; if one can not reason to a certain conclusion (for example “God X exists”) then to believe it is to hold an irrational belief. Simple as that.
Charlie said:
“At some point, you *will* need to make a leap of faith in order to accept the Christian God.”
And if that is indeed the case, then I could ‘never’ (mental illness/ brain injury aside) do so. And by your own admission (whether you realise it or not) such a belief would necessarily be irrational and unreasonable.
Your “leap of Faith” (again by your own arguments) is the abandonment of reason. Which comes in two ‘flavours’:
1. One ignore the reasoning available (does not examine it or whatever) and chooses to believe, and/or employ irrational means (logical fallacies etc.) in order to latch onto and maintain a belief, or
2. When reasoning reaches its (current) limits, one chooses to trudge on regardless, rushing headlong without using reason at all, in order to again latch on and maintain an irrational belief. (which may or may not be true – the point is you have no reason to think it is.)
This leads me to an old analogy I have used a number of times. Faith is like when one is walking through the bush (jungle or whatever) following the path (reason), and then (this is the Faith part) either chooses to wander off the path (1. above) or on finding the path ends chooses, instead of stopping or tracing back along the path to find ones way out, to lumber on, bush crash and forge ahead (2. above) regardless. If you have had any experience in the bush, as I have< the you will realise that this is the worst thing to do; an excellent way to get yourself well and truly lost, and in all likelihood Dead.
Charlie said:
“But you will only be able to do so if you are graced with God’s mercy. ”
What does that even mean? I honestly have no clue. It sounds all touchy feely and an attempt to pull on the emotions, but with no substance to it at all.
What is it that you have said so far?
You can’t find that God (I will use this name-title for your particular version of a Christian concept of a god for your benefit for now) is real through reason. But will have to abandon reason, which you refer to as a “leap of Faith” to ‘find’ God (by which I take it you mean find that this God is real?) But if it is not through reason then it is not a “reason” to believe, but a means to hold an irrational belief.*
*If one mysteriously “found” God, and that belief was reasonable, then one could work back and establish the reasoning to get there. This can not be the case if your assertion that one can not get there through reason, meaning that you are arguing for an irrational basis for that belief, that one believe on irrational grounds. No thank you.
And secondly that this God won’t LET anyone, even if they do abandon reason and take a “leap of Faith”, unless he chooses to ‘grace’ with the opportunity to do so. In other words taking this irrational leap is even worse than it sounds, it is a gamble, based in God’s whims – you may just be abandoning reason to no good ends. Which I think is ALWAYS the case.
Charlie said:
“You will have to realize that this is something that you may never understand fully unless and until you come to Jesus.”
And what exactly is “ come to Jesus” supposed to mean?
Are you suggesting that one first abandon reason in order to believe in Jesus (again requiring a lot of work of definition, I take it that this does not involve simply accepting that there was a preacher by that name around the time of the stories in the New Testament) AND THEN abandon reason AGAIN to believe in God, and then this God (for which one at this point has no “reason” to think exists) will allow one to ‘know’ that he does exist?!
This just gets more and more atrocious! It really does!
Charlie said:
“I will not try to ‘prove’ that assertion to you.”
{Sigh} Oh well, perhaps one day someone will find themselves willing enough to be bothered to back up their assertions.
I have heard this many times before, and none of them get much further than these assertions either.
Charlie said:
“It requires MORE than just Reason, ADP. But it is not an absence of Reason. Then again, we seem to disagree profoundly on what things can be declared self-evident. So obviously I won’t be able to ‘prove’ this to you.”
But Charlie you just as much said above that “reason only gets you so far.” And then claimed that a “leap of Faith” is required. Thus declaring (in such a way that you can delude yourself into not consciously recognising it yourself it seems, not the first time I have seen such internal defence mechanisms either, anther classic it taking unwarranted offence whenever ones cherished beliefs become ‘too’ challenged) that one has to abandon reason, leave it behind and continue to try to believe anyway, in order to reach the beliefs you have. This is a clear admission that at some level you realise that your beliefs are irrational.
And as a basis for any other beliefs; well there is a well known story about building ones castles on the sand, is there not?
And again with the empty “It’s obvious It’s self-evident” assertions. Do you honestly not realise how completely without worth such clobber words truly are?! “It’s obvious” is a cop-out when one finds that one can not justify ones claims. honestly you might as well have just spouted off by favourite verse in the entire Bible, namely verse 1 of both Psalm 14 and 53 (which are just different attempts to translate the exact same poem.) as all you are really trying to do is insult the intelligence of your audience.
Charlie said:
“C: ”Its absence is an excess of Bias.”
A: ‘Quite the reverse; Faith IS all about bias, about starting with a conclusion and employing confirmation bias to hold to it.”
To defend this point, ADP, I have only to quote you:
“Of course everyone has a predisposition in the direction of what they currently think and believe.”
This is exactly that excess of Bias (Predisposition).”
Um, sorry, what? Huh?!
This whole “leap of Faith” deal is all about confirmation Bias: Really really try to believe that this (God) is real, even when reason doesn’t support it at all.
Charlie said:
“The Bias that exists will prevent us to talk about this one, too. But we don’t see eye to eye on logic, either. Maybe I haven’t used formal logic. But perhaps you can show me where something I have said is absent of logic.”
“Reason will only take you so far. At some point, you *will* need to make a leap of faith in order to accept the Christian God.”
‘Nuff said. Or at least it should be.
How about the clear leap from “possible” to “reasonable.”?
Perhaps you could have gotten somewhere if you had used Formal Logic (although it has its limits as well), as that is something I just love, having studied it and finding it much to my liking (It’s like Math and philosophy combined; how cool is that?!) And as a result really value that which can come from it, and the proper usage of its tools and methods.
Charlie said:
“C: ”Its absence is a misunderstanding of Love.”
A: “And that is the biggest Non Sequitur of all. What has Love got to do with it, to do with assessment of truth?!”
Again, ADP. It only seems to you to be a Non Sequiter. Love has EVERYTHING to do with Christian Faith..”
I know it does Charlie, love and worship or your Lord and Master – essentially a love-slave cult mentality is encouraged.
BUT that is not what I asked. I understand that your religion (like all religions, probably due to their pre-philosophical origins) is based on emotion and imagination driven conviction -AS OPPOSED to rational foundations (which came later in the history of our species attempts to understand.)
What I asked was what does “love” (and emotion) have to do with the assessment of TRUTH VALUE?
And that I think is the core of your problem, in trying to argue for the validity of your religious beliefs; you can’t step back from that belief, and more importantly your emotional attachment to it, in order to engage fully in rational assessment and argument, your attachment to the truth of you belief hamper your ability to reason on the subject.
Charlie said:
“to lack Christian Faith is to misunderstand everything that Love means.”
That is just insulting to EVERY non-Christian on the planet, past, present or future.
I don’t take offence, I very rarely do, instead it kind of saddens me, to think that people think like that. To me religions like the many versions of Christianity, which bow down to one (or a few) ultimate being, cheapen such concepts as love, not the reverse. As all forms of love not directed at, or ultimately tied to this (imagined) ultimate entity is so often seen as somewhat (if not entirely) “lesser.”
Charlie said:
“I’d love to try to explain this to you, ADP. But I have a feeling that you’re not ready.”
Ah, the old “you are not ready” canard.
Charlie said:
“I do love this verse, though:
(KJV) Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1.”
I can’t say that I am surprised. I like it too, but for quite different reasons I am sure. It reveals a lot about the nature of the intent behind the religion more clearly than it does elsewhere, bringing those other excepts into starker context. (Oh that is why the Zombie Jesus [TIC – for Stevebee’s benefit] told ‘Doubting Thomas’ that those who believe who have NOT seen are truly blessed – supposedly over those who believe based on the evidence. It’s sick of course, but explains a lot.)
Charlie said:
“Evidence of things not seen. Just because we don’t see them does not mean that they don’t exist, ADP.”
Taking “not seen” it its rather clear context: it DOES mean however that it is NOT evidence at all, but what amounts to wishful thinking – believe it, believe that there is sufficient reason for it, and thus believe it is true because of that evidence you assume exists, even though you have not seen it, or been given any actual REASON to think that that evidence does exist.
It’s suck, it’s twisted, it is an advocation of the abandonment of Reason, a command to ASSUME it is true AND that there is evidence to support it FOR NO REASON AT ALL!
So no charlie; it does not mean that they don’t exist, nor does it mean that they do exist, or that there is ANY reason to expect that they do. It offers ZERO to the truth value of the claim: And that is precisely the point charlie; precisely the point. It is suggesting that one believe based on something that offers NOTHING on the truth-value on that claimed, nothing.
If you best argument for for a claim is that we can’t prove that it isn’t true, then that is just sad.
Charlie said:
“Substance of things hoped for. Just because they don’t have substance now doesn’t mean they won’t eventually if the hopes are realized.”
So it is, as I said; suggesting that you believe something just because you want it to be true! WITHOUT that ‘substance’ that may or may not even exist. This is a classic case of the appeal to emotion, a form of the broader Appeal to Consequences logical fallacy. In which one claims/believes that something is true based, not on reason (on any actual reason to do so, like evidence) but on the desire for the consequences of it being true, and/or distaste for the consequences of it being false. The classic apologetic committing this fallacy is, of course, Pascal’s wager.
Charlie said:
“But what does any of this have to do with ‘proving’ Evolution is supported by more than a long series of empty assertions?”
None at all. It was a response to your post in which you chose to take this path instead of that of evolutionary biology.
Charlie said:
“I have no apologies for my beliefs.”
What was all that then?
The theory of Evolution is a complex field, no simple little “road to Damascus” revelations there, this is the real world. If you are honestly interested then I would recommend a fairly good book on the subject (which I only recently read myself.) You may be able to find it in your local library or something if you are unwilling to pay for it. I wouldn’t bother suggesting it to Stevebee; his is a far to closed-minded dogmatic evolution-denialist attitude, yours may be as well, but I see at least some dim hope to the contrary there.
The book in question is called “Your Inner Fish” by Neil Shubin. The leader of the paleontological team that discovered Tiktaalik roseae, which is the starting off point of the book, but it goes far far deeper than that.
On the other hand stevebee may be interested to find that it has a chapter on teeth! But I doubt it.
Charlie said,
January 3, 2011 at 3:31 pm
We’ll just have to agree to disagree here, ADP.
What I will concede is that perhaps it is difficult to defend the Reason line. I will reflect on this point some more. But I do see that you have missed the boat on the Bias line. It is exactly your excess of bias- toward insisting that only materialistic explanations are justified- that prevents you from seeing that Reason is not absent. Albeit at some point a leap is made, which in your eyes is an absolute abandonment of it.
That I may ‘trust my instincts’ in your jungle scenario and still arrive at my destination does not mean that I will have abandoned all Reason to get there. Especially if ‘tracking back’ is simply not an option. Just that Reason alone was not enough. Reason is not absent. Just not enough. You want to call it all or nothing- and primarily because of the Bias toward Materialism- I can’t help that.
As far as logic, you attempt to pose an objection to my use of logic:
C: “Reason will only take you so far. At some point, you *will* need to make a leap of faith in order to accept the Christian God.”
ADP: “‘Nuff said. Or at least it should be.”
So maybe making a leap of faith is not necessarily logical. But I do not think that making that leap of faith is necessarily an absence of logic either. It may simply be an unrelated concept. I will give this some thought- perhaps another term will fit here better.
ADP: “How about the clear leap from “possible” to “reasonable.”?” Don’t Darwinian evolutionists do this all the time? But I do want to set a higher bar for myself.
Your ‘evidences’ against the existence of God are weak. God is sovereign. Our prayers- and their ‘failure’ can never be evidence against God, because He will only answer our prayers according to His Will and His Timing. The Christian God is, by definition, beyond any criticism that you will ever create for Him. You will use the term nebulous and self-protecting. But that is just what He is- beyond your reach. Period. I find that ‘He Exists’ is not only possible, but reasonable, in light of the multitude of corroborating evidences that support the claims in the Bible- and none that refute it conclusively. But if one begins with a closed mind that diminishes God by equating Him to unicorns and teapots and FSMs and other such non-equals right at the starting gate, then a fair examination of the Bible’s claims will be difficult to conduct.
On Love, without God, what is Love, if anything at all? A biological chemical response? An ’emotion’ that has no cohesive origin according to any other religion? We Love, ADP, because God gave us the Gift to do so. We Love, because God Loves Us and desires our Love for Him. The highest Love that we can pursue for another is to Love that person as much as God Loves us. Your opinion that this description of Love cheapens Love is unsupportable. As an atheist what grounds do you even have to claim that such an emotion exists at all?
My Christian Faith poem was not intended to prove anything to you or provide further evidence for ‘Truth’. It is a short description of how I see the faith. The only thing I may change is to find a replacement for the term ‘Logic’. Though I am not sufficiently convinced that it should be replaced.
The biggest theme that I saw in your response, ADP, is that you seem to think that I am trying to convince you to believe. I am not. That is not up to me. I am simply trying to ensure that you keep your mind and your heart open. What you saw as an attempt by me to provide ‘evidence’ was not that at all. What I was providing was my personal conviction and an example of what the faith means to me. (It’s not a competition)
Charlie said,
January 3, 2011 at 7:14 pm
Entice me, ADP. I don’t have any time to look for this book, Your Inner Fish. But if you entice me with some thought-provoking arguments in the book, I may desire to read it. (I don’t really want to spend hours reading some elaborate fairy tale.)
These are what I did pull up with a quick internet search:
– http://creationsafaris.com/crev201005.htm#20100521a
– http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/feb/10/shopping.scienceandnature
– http://creationsafaris.com/crev200812.htm#20081216a (excerpt in *a)
*a- (This was funny, but perhaps over the top with ridicule… then again, it was funny)
Shubin: “Take the body plan of a fish, modify it using genes altered from those that build the body of a worm, dress it up to be a mammal, then tweak and twist that mammal to make a creature that walks upright, talks, thinks and has superfine control of its fingers, and we have a recipe for disaster. We can dress up this fish only so much before paying a price.”
As for Tall Tales, you might see where I’m coming from as far as not wanting to just read more tall tales:
“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbuQwdsDRc8&feature=related”