That Pesky "Dinsoaurs lived millions of years ago" thing... - Page 3  

Evolution is not consistent with a literal reading of the Bible, however, and for some people, that means it must be wrong because they know that the Bible is utterly and completely correct in every detail.

Such Biblical literalists might play at the game of science, might want to add the imprimatur of science to their credentials, and might try to clumsily to use science to batter their opponents, but in the end, science for such people is only a sideshow. They already know the Truth via Faith.

Evolution could be reconciled with such a concept, but it hardly requires any "Creator" concept.

A big bug-a-boo for creationists, be they Biblical literalists or believers in something like God-assisted evolution, is the issue of complexity. Living things (not to mention physical constants and the like, if you're getting cosmology and biogenesis and evolution all jumbled up, as creationists often do) are so complex, and work together so well in concert with other living things and the world at large, that, this reasoning goes, only a Creator could have designed such "perfection".

But how does proposing the existence of a Creator solve the complexity problem? All it does is move unexplained complexity from a realm where it may be difficult, but it's far from impossible, to perform experiments, gather evidence, look for patterns, etc., to a mysterious box named "God" that you can't measure, can't experiment with, can't hope to explain.

Creationist often act like scientists reject God as an answer to the mysteries of life out of some (often described as evil or even Satanic) hatred of God. But the reason to reject God as an answer is that God simply isn't much of an answer. God explains too much, without being testable or falsifiable in any way.

I can explain away the entire universe as a figment of my own imagination, quite thoroughly. There's not a challenge you could make to such a "theory" as long as I'm willing to ascribe infinite cleverness and inventiveness to my own imagination. Why, my imagination is so powerful that I imagined myself right into existence so that I could imagine my imaginings!

This "theory" is both thoroughly bulletproof, and thoroughly useless at the same time.

Remember Occam's Razor: One phrasing is "Given two explanations of seemingly equal validity, the simplest explanation is most often correct." But another important phrasing is "Entities should not be needlessly multiplied."

One can assume that (1) the physical universe and its observable constituents of energy and matter are in and of themselves capable of achieving the complexity of life...

...or...

One can assume that (2) the physical universe and its observable constituents of energy and matter are not sufficient, and introduce a new entity into the equation which, with no explanation or testing, is simply assumed to be the source of all of the necessary complexity.

Occam's Razor obviously favors the first explanation. Occam's Razor isn't a perfect rule, it's merely a guideline, but it generally serves quite well. For those who wish to deride evolution as "bad science", Occam's Razor certainly puts evolution ahead of creationism.

No you're not. You have yet to present a "Scientifically sound" argument against evolution. Simply saying


because the only thing this statement does is debunk ALL science.

In fact, you made this statement already:
Prove it. You present evidence that supports your statement. I've read Darwin's works. I've read modern revisions of how evolution works (Darwin was wrong when he hypothesized survival of the fittest). Your statement shows you have a misunderstanding of the scientific method. What Darwin wrote a hundred years ago is not fact today. The foundation of his hypothesis is that evolution occurs but that's it. Move on past Darwin because the scientific world has.

So, if evolution is at odds with science then what are the steps of the scientific method?

Science is not "we think of it now and it will always apply." Science is we Hypostesize now and revise as our understanding improve. You have presented a hypothesis that evolution isn't science well then prove it. Show us where the scientific method can't be applied to a modern understanding of evolution. Show us evidence that supports your claim.

PS still waiting on whether the earth is the center of the universe.

[edit] Changed sun to earth. It pains me to even think the earth is the center of it all.

Is it just me, or has dmz not yet put forth anything near resembling a compelling case against evolution? Mostly just a bunch of one-liners, catch-phrases, and retorts where the criticism isn't clear at all.

Since no one picked up on my suggestion for how to avoid a lot of wasted typing, let me put the point directly to the most vocal creationist here-

dmz, Is there any possible evidence that could convince you of the validity of evolution as a scientific theory? If so what?

If there is none, then you are all wasting your time arguing the point with him/her.

Again, excellent rehtoric---except maybe the "evolution begs a designer" bit.


There is nothing to "disprove" concerning evolution. It has never been proven, and still remains a theory---a theory that fundamentally contradicts all known characterisitcs of the known universe.

There are no working models to contradict---only wishfull thinking; blue-sky paradigms of abstract generalities.

Questions of what did the whale's eat while waiting for their baleen to develope are dismissed as "stupid"---yet these simple, unanswered questions ruin an otherwise wishfull and scientifcally irresponsible theory.

How did life form?

---you don't have anything other than "it just did"---the elements "just formed" in the comos, those chemicals "just formed" amino acids, those somehow changed to this, that and everthing"....it just did...it just did....it just did."

How do lifeforms "evolve" interdependent nervous, digestive, immune and circulatory systems?

"---they just did, the beings just developed----and please don't ask to see behind the curtain."


....you have no other answers to offer than "it just developed", "it just evolved", "it just did". You have NO ideas on what sort of sustanable sytems could have existed between the systems we know of, and you have NO WORKING models that tell us how these could have transformed.

"oh the [insert theory-of-the-week animal here] first learned to glide then they learned to fly as the feathers and wings developed."

Uh.....okay, great theory, how did this happen at a DNA level?---oh and, by the way, what is the likelyhood of this happening knowing what we observe in DNA?


This is why evolution is beginning to fade as a serious theory---you need more than complete improbability to build a worldview.


It's Halo time.

Again, dmz didn't answer a single question posed to him. What a worthless little putz.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.... oh dmz, you so funny. Give an example, please, other than fundie sound bites. Please. It ought to be entertaining.


Wow, you are clueless, ignorant, and ill informed by choice, aren't you?


Uh-oh... how does wood burn? How do sodium hydroxide and hydrochloric acid make salt water? How sugars and starches combine to make cake when you bake it? Oh my god, *these aren't treated in the Bible*! *They must not be happening!* AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Silly fundie.


And this is different from creationism *HOW*?

If you're going to claim that evolution is to be invalidated on this basis, then you have to invalidate creationism at the same time.

"It just happened, don't ask how." <-- precisely the message in creationism. Of course, since "don't ask" is the fundamental concept of fundamentalism anyway, that's not surprising.


Bullpucky. It's obvious you haven't past a high-school level of understanding of science, if that, by your own choice.

Try reading something not Church Approved(tm) sometime. You might be surprised.


Beginning to fade?? What *are* you smoking?

faust, shetline..et al, you guys do realize that's the wall you're talking to.

Walls are fine if they are silent like walls. It's when they show their ignorance by speaking that they become annoying.

It's when they band together and try and force their lunacy down everyone else's throats that they become dangerous.

Nordstrodamus, I'm gonna take you stance from now on. Arguing with people who wont even answer simple questions like "Is the earth the center of the universe" or "What proof would you need in order to believe in evolution" is simply silly on my behalf. Arguing with someone who doesn't know (or doesn't want to know) how science works is folly. Yelling at the wind to try and make it stop is a waste of my time. Convincing someone that evolution is a fact of life (I showed at least two sources of how creatures have evolved--wolves, and peppered moths) when they don't want to trust fact while blindly accepting an allagorical story as the "God's honest truth" (pun intended) is is misuse of my time. So, with that...

DMZ you are 100% correct, and I concede. Evolution does not occure. The life forms here today are the EXACT same lifeforms as those present when the world was created 6000 years ago. At no point in time has a single organism underwent a change which improved the likelyhood of survival. At no point in time has the structure of life changed from one generation of creature to another. At no point in time has there been explosive periods of evolution coenciding with the reversing of the magnetic poles of the earth. The earth is the center of it all. Galaleo was wrong, and the 14th century church doctrine was correct. The earth is a great disk contrary to what the Greeks discovered in the early 500's BCE. There have never been experiments where a pre-life aqtmosphere was created in a large glass sphere resulting in the formation of simple amino acids (the building blocks of life) after an electric shock (lightening). There has never been a virus that has mutated in response to a vaccine. There has never been a bacteria that has mutated to become immune to a particular medacine. Baleen whales have always had Baleen. They didn't loose their teeth and develope baleen in a slow process as a result of competition with other types of whales. There are no intermediat whale fossiles at the bottom of the ocean because we have been down there, combed every square inch and found nothing. There is no genetic link beenween seal lions and caninis. There is no genetic link between any two creatures because we were all designed and as such change is impossible. What surrounds me now has always been here. What surrounds me now will never change.

All of the science I have done throughout my life is wrong. I have not used a scanning electron microscope to see the locations of individuals atoms in a crystal lattice of a material. I have not split U235 into daughter atoms and an average 2.5 neutrons. God made the energy when I raised the control rods. The scanning electron microscope was programmed to make a pattern of bright dots when I placed a sample of BCC iron iin the chamber.

DMZ you are 100% right. We have not seen species of animals with different traits which allow them to survive under differnent circumstances. There isn't a species of house fly that doesn't have wings in Hawaii due to lack of preditory insects.

I'll have to run to Mass next Sunday and tell my priest his view on evolution is wrong... I hate to do it though because I figured a former biologist turn priest would know better but I guess not. No strike that I can't wait. I'll tell him Wednesday at Mass...

Thanks DMZ, I'm a better person now.

Boss:Evil Wall
HP:28000
MP:2300
Exp23000
GP8000
Resident Location(s): Sealed Cave


Battle Strategy
This battle must be fought quickly, as Evil Wall will constantly advance on your party and, when it gets close enough, use an instant kill attack. Have Rosa cast Berserk on Cecil, Kain, and Edge, while having her heal damage caused by the Evil Wall. If the Evil Wall starts using its instant kill attack, have Rosa cast Life on the dead person to revive them, and continue attacking.

Rydia should concentrate on casting Virus, or if she does not know that, summoning Leviathan.

What could "prove" it then? Are you aware that science should only ever have theories, rather than facts, and update them based on the evidence available? (aside: Newtonian mechanics is wrong, but far more practical for everyday engineering purposes).


This topic is not evolution (as has been said many times). Evolution needs life, but does not seek to explain its origin.

Baleen: proto-whale may had a mixed diet, with a less efficient filter to catch plankton but supplemented with other things. Also, why do whales have vestigal hind limbs?
(I Am Not a Cetacean Scientist).


Think modularity. It doesn't matter if blood is still flowing to the organs, as long as it still roughly the same (ie compatible). The same goes for nerves.


Mutation/recominbination. The probablility of mutations may seem low for an individual, but remember that we're dealing with large populations and timescales, and that not all mutations necessarily affect the organism (gene expression is surprinsingly robust).


Yes. I need some practice.

Since you act like you're so knowledgable about the ways of science, here's an excellent opportunity for you to strut your stuff and explain just what it means for something to be "proven" or not.


Have you got another bogus interpretation of thermodynamics to offer us here, or something better? Just which "characterisitcs of the known universe" are all of these anyway?


Tell us what a "working model" is, and please explain to what degree TRUE SCIENCE (since you're the expert on that, apparently) requires said "working models".


Like a God Who snaps His Fingers and makes anything He wants to exist poof into existence?

Adaptation through mutation and natural selection is far more than a "blue-sky paradigm" or "abstract generalities". It has been observed and tested. Yes, on much smaller scales that are needed to bring a full living world into existence, but there's more than enough data from which to draw useful conclusions and with which to test and extend our models.

Do you wish to essentially rule out scientific access to anything that can't be exactly recreated in a laboratory?

Is forensic evidence that convicts a murder just so much "blue sky" until the forensic scientists recreate the same murder in a laboratory?

I propose that you have, in fact, already ruled out anything that a scientist could possibly come up with as evidence. I'll bet that if scientists learned how to accelerate time, and did so in a vast preserve filled with nothing but raw chemical components, and came out with new life and new species, you'd simply dismiss the awesome wonder of such an experiment by saying something like "The just used their own intelligence to make it comes out that way, and they just copied God's work. They still haven't proved anything to me."

Even if by some miracle (pardon the expression) that the above was finally enough to convince you, I feel fairly certain that you'll happily rule out anything less that this as sufficient proof.

If you think that digging in your heels and making up your mind that you'll accept nothing less than impossible-to-conduct experiments as proof makes you some sort of Champion of True Science, you don't understand at all what science is about at all.

You've been given the opportunity to explain what the problem is here, and haven't taken it yet. I don't know enough about whales and the kinds of food they eat to know what alterative food sources might have existed in the past, what adaptations whales might have passed through as available food sources changed, etc.

Presumably you must know something about this that makes the whale question terribly troubling and difficult to explain. Either that, or you're convinced that the question is a stumper without having even thought about much yourself.

Developing a model of how random changes guided by natural selection can lead to adaptive complexity is more that "it just did".

Examining geological data and doing experiments to determine if the available conditions and chemical constituents needed for life were available are more than "it just did".

Making successful predictions based on the theory of evolution about what future archeological and genetic studies might prove is more that "it just did".

And by the way, the question of how the very first life formed isn't a question of evolution anyway, it's a question of "biogenesis". Evolution starts with the first cell or cells already in existence. You can insert gods, aliens, or evolution-inspired models of chemical biogenesis in here if you like, but the validity of evolution is a separate and independent issue from the matter of where the first life came from.

Your solution seems to be to jump straight to a God "behind the curtain" without bothering with any intervening steps, models, or examination of data. This is your vision of better science?

Your solution is to take a fixed, invariant story and struggle to make the data fit the story, because you already "know" the story you have is true. This is your vision of better science?

This again. As I said above, tell us what a "working model" is, and please explain to what degree TRUE SCIENCE requires said "working models".

You already know the answer, even if you refuse to accept it as sufficient: random mutation. You simply fail to understand how "mere" randomness is a powerful thing when operating under selective pressures and given billions of years and enormous numbers (quadrillions? quintillions? sextillions? however many living beings have ever existed) of opportunities for trial and error.

I imagine that you grin a wide grin when someone trots out that old saw comparing evolution to "a tornado hitting a junkyard creating a 747". If you smugly think that silly analogy has evolution nailed, it's just another sign you don't know what you're talking about or arguing against.

I don't see the slightest evidence of evolution fading. Among whom? Where? Have any statistics?

And by the way, how are things going at that bustling center of scientific inquiry known as the Creation Studies Institute? Are those studies that are going to rock the world just around the corner from being published now? Or are all those other bad, evil, Satanic scientists still beating down the fine God-fearing CSI folk, and persecuting them so much that they just can't get the Good Word out to a larger audience yet?

As for "complete improbability" -- just another sign that you're clueless about the very thing you're railing against. You're fighting a creationist-created parody of evolution, not evolution itself.

shetline, you're just showing off now.

It's simply interesting to see how much dmz (or any other creationist who might happen to come along) will do to avoid answering the questions that he isn't prepared to answer.

I've never once, not once, found a creationist who railed against how evolution is "completely incompatible with modern science", or some such drivel, to come forward and show even a hint that they know what is compatible and how the scientific method actually works.

It would be amusing someday to see a creationist try, but I'm not holding my breath.

Dmz hasn't even managed so far to clarify his all-important "what were the whales eating" question that he seems to think is so pivotal. I'm ready to take a shot at it if he ever can explain what the mystifying puzzle is supposed to be.

<sarcasm>You're wrong.... Just accept it. All we know was created as is. No change. No alteration. No mutation. Baleen whales weren't eating anything because god made these whales (with vestages of limbs and all) and plankton at the same time. Adam then named then and we progressed from that point. <\\sarcasm>

It's unreasonable to agrue a reasonable point when an unreasonable response is all that will suffice.

I actually have made progress in conversations like this about evolution, believe it or not, but much more so in live conversations as opposed to message boards.

Not great progress, mind you, but I've gotten people to back down on some of the most egregious anti-evolution claims, and pretty much reduced a few to "well, it's just a matter of faith!", with their attacks on evolution being "unscientific" pretty much abandoned. (Not that I imagine some of these people wouldn't happily trot out the same failed arguments with different person, if they think they can get away with using them unchallenged on a different occasion.)

The great advantage of live conversation is being able to interrupt your opponent and keep forcing him back to questions that he or she is trying to avoid.

Message boards are much trickier. People can easily side step any challenge they can't handle simply by ignoring those challenges, throw out a lot of scatter shot while doing their avoidance dance, and heap up 50 questions to you for each of your unanswered questions, and then pretend that you're the one not being cooperative or who's unable to respond to their (in their own minds) oh-so-clever attacks.

Dont forget to also look over the must-read files on talk.origins, available in .pdf format.

http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-mustread.html

If you're really keen, look at Evolutionary Biology by Douglas Futuyma (1998, Sinauer Associates Inc., Sunderland, Mass) and The Nature of Diversity: An Evolutionary Voyage of Discovery by Daniel Brooks and Deborah McLennan (2002, University of Chicago Press).

I'd also like to see some answers to the questions posted in the talk.origins list of stumper questions.

Here's a statistic, yet it's one that the Creationists probably didn't have in mind.

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA111.html


Also: http://home.entouch.net/dmd/moreandmore.htm

It's quite interesting that Evolutionary Biology has been declared to soon be on its death bed for so long now. Reminds me of a certain computer company I heard about once...hmm. What was it called again?

We should leave an evolution/creationist thread as a sticky so that we don't have to redo all the same arguments over and over and over again.

Since these are 1995 statistics, perhaps someone like dmz believes the past decade has been the start of a new Golden Age of Creationism. Who knows? Maybe the number of US scientists working in relevant fields who believe in creationism is up to a whopping 0.17% by now.

We should give dmz a chance to produce some newer stats -- if he has them, of course. He wouldn't want to leave us thinking his talk of evolution "fading" was simply wishful thinking and empty rhetoric, would he?


To dmz:

Yes, I do realize real science is more than a popularity contest. But if you're going to talk about evolution "fading", you are talking about the popularity of the idea, a claim you should either be able to back up, or not make it if you can't back it up.

And while popularity isn't a good measure of the validity of an idea, it is relevant to burden of proof. Even if you're right, and you think the world is round while nearly everyone else thinks it's flat, it's your burden of proof to prove that the world is round.

If I'm very generous, and will suppose for a moment that the wildfire of creationism taking on the world of science has produced a ten fold increase in supporters, you'd still have 97.5% of relevant, related-field scientists in the world's relative "bastion" of creationism, the US, to win over.

At least have the decency to realize a flippant dismissal of evolution as "not at all supported by science" is way, WAY out of line for the position you're arguing from. If you think you're the round-worlder surrounded by flat-worlders, do the work to prove your point.

Doing that work does not consist of throwing out scattershot supposed "gotchas". It does not consist of posing questions that you think are unanswerable, and then ignoring or denying offhand any answer you might get. The work you need to do does not consist constructing impossible standards of proof to hide behind, while pretending that applying such standards makes you a better, more demanding scientist than anyone else.

What the work of changing a widely accepted scientific view does consist of is coming up with a better alternative. It consists of constructing better models that make better predictions. It consists of explaining more things better while still adhering to the need for falsifiability, which means understanding what kind of evidence would prove you wrong, and being prepared to accept that evidence if it appears.

A few creationists at least seem to understand the nature of this challenge and take it seriously. You are not one of them.

You seem to think you can challenge a strongly held, widely accepted view like evolution with nothing more than a few imagined dilemmas, with maybe even a real honest puzzle or two buried in there, coupled with a heavy dose of derision that you haven't earned the right to dish out through any real work of your own.

Uh oh---I've never been called a putz before.


Uh oh---I've never been called a clueless, ignorant, and ill informed by choice before.


Uh oh---I've never been called someone who doesn't know (or doesn't want to know) how science works before.


Uh oh---I've never been called clueless about the very thing you're railing against before.




You have more questions for me---but no answers? Look, this isn't a high-school biology class--it's not a National Geographic special. Attacking me doesn't provide answers to your bankrupt theory of existence.



You have no answers. Get a clue.

In case you missed it, there was a little more of substance going on than you bothered to respond to. Perhaps when you've overcome the extreme shock of those terrible onslaughts against you that you did quote and respond to, you'll manage to address some of the actual substance.

But it's easier to play poor, offended victim instead.

You've gotten more than a few answers. Are you just going to play the game of demanding complete satisfaction for every single question of your own before you deign to answer anything yourself?

Show us the way then, by showing us how giving answers is done, won't you?

I'd wager you've never been likened to the evil wall boss from the sealed cave in Final Fantasy 2(4) before

He can't. He won't. Give up, it's a useless battle... he simply refuses to act rationally, intelligently or even civilly. It's the usual fundie tactic - dodge, dodge, dodge. Never actually offer up an actual answer to a question, just toss out inanities and then play the martyr when cornered and asked for anything other than a religious tract as proof, or heck, even evidence.

Just walk away. He's not worth your energy or time.

Or mine, for that matter.

fighting among creationists, id'ists, evolutionists, etc. is futile. each person, on their journey from womb to dust, encounters certain specific and/or general pieces of evidence, which explain the wonders to them. religious types read the bible, and hold credence to its text. science types read eachothers journals. either text presents some evidence, sometimes with something believable behind it. the bible has the all powerful force of god behind it. to a religious believer that is the ultimate in evidence. a science journal often has experiments which can be reproduced, so a new scientist can look over similar evidence and arrive at similar results, thereby resonating the originator's hypothesis; to the scientific, that is the ultimate in evidence. but, at the core, there are very different methods of looking at the world. a scientist, as i extrapolate, believes that everything of the world can be observed, and that what is observed is true, often to the end of disbelieving other evidences; a posteriori. a person of faith looks to a higher power, or alternately available source of answers, where observable evidence doesn't convince him.

fundamentally, religious and scientific types won't believe each other evidence (of course, people are rarely very stringent about which side they are on, but on mattesr of evolution they often seem to polarize). religers don't believe, on all the levels, scientific evidence; and sciencites similarly don't believe the religious evidence. its not worth the effort to even try and convince the other side. its like trying to convince a non-intelligent object of the simpler wonders of the universe. a flower can't comprehend a combustion engine; it doesn't exist on that level. [other side's team] is just a bunch of obtuse idiots.

There is plenty in science that goes beyond what is directly observable. Observable data are primary sources, of course, but creating testable theories -- tests which may, by necessity, be quite indirect and removed from the theorized phenomena -- helps extend the reach of science beyond the directly observable.

Creationism wants to pretend to be something that is derivable both from faith and from the types of evidence that scientists rely upon. Creationism wants very badly to claim both ways of believing fall under its umbrella.

Creationists are quite willing to accept scientific evidence... as long as it agrees with what they want it to say. They want to claim that they have, or will find, scientific evidence that proves them right in scientific terms.

You can't boil the problem down to different viewpoints on different turf when one group is trying to claim it can cover all turf. Evolutionists aren't trying to deny the religiosity of creationism. Creationists are, however, trying to deny the scientific credentials of evolution.

I'm not sure you can truly speak of religious "evidence".

Religious viewpoints tend to spring from the private and internal world of the individual. Some believers in some faiths will even go out of their way to say that faith is a matter of "grace" -- you get it or you don't by God's will. It's not found outside, it comes to you from within.

Evidence, and evidentiary processes, are, however, public in nature. Something that you can only know internally, and aren't empowered to share at will with someone else, like "revelation", does not have this public quality. As compelling to the individual as faith and revelation may prove to be, they aren't forms of "evidence" in any truly meaningful sense of the word.

As for "not worth the effort to even try", usually true, but I've seen occasional inroads made, although much more often in live, spoken conversations, not on message boards.

Also, the thing you're saying isn't worth the effort is a scientific person trying to change a religious viewpoint, or vice versa. The most important thing that's going on here is somewhat different, and that's people with scientific viewpoints arguing against people with religious viewpoints who are trying to tell the scientists what is and isn't science.

It's a question which demonstrates a misunderstanding of evolutionary theory. The whales didn't just hang around waiting for their baleen to develop. You can't compare a whale to Apple waiting for IBM to suppy them with 90nm 970 FX's. Whales are dynamic organisms living in an environment perpetually subject to change. Ancestral whales were still most likely eating what whales eat today -- most likely vertebrates and plankton. Mechanisms such as natural selection and character displacement allowed for baleen whales to better exploit krill as a resource.

A quick google search got these links pertaining to whale evolution and transitional fossils.

A Whale of a Fossil: ABC News

Transitional Vertebrates Fossils FAQ: Talk.Origins FAQ


Again, you misunderstand evolutionary biology. What sort of ideas on "sustainable systems" did you have in mind? Evolution by natural selection gives us a framework for building a model for the development of complex nervous systems. I'm not a neurobiologist (nor am I a specialist in mammalian evolution -- the program I'm is grounded in ecology), but here are some links to help you out.

Talk.Origins: Nervous System Evolution Bibliography

Talk.Origins: Evolution of Colour Vision

Brain too complex to be evolved?

[fun]pokes head in[/fun]

As a scientist, you are wrong here. everything that science predicts is by its very nature observable (even directly), otherwise it isn't science. String theory isn't science because it makes no predictions of observable events, yet relativity is... etc etc...

I'm talking about "observable" in the sense that you should know many a creationist will play upon. You want me to believe a reptile can become a bird? Show me it happening! You've never seen it happen!

The data that support the link between birds and reptiles is of course directly observable. Concrete, real, physical evidence in the form of fossils, in the form of the DNA contained in the modern descendants of ancient creatures, etc.

But when you "see" that the data show a relationship between reptiles and birds, you are fitting data into a model and looking for consistency within that model, then determining what else should be true if that link is true, and going out and finding new data or re-examining old data to see if your predictions hold up, etc.

This isn't the same thing as watching millions of years of certified videotape showing the entire sequence of evolutionary events, nor is it the same as recreating a laboratory experiment where you turn a bunch of lizards into parrots. If you don't realize these impossible things are essentially what many creationists are talking about when they use the word "observe", and when they demand "observable" data, you'll entirely miss the place they're coming from.

PS: You sure do have a bug up your ass about string theory!

I think the point was that we can't always observe every thing yet we know certain particles theoretically exist. Take the not so lowely neutron for instance. In most instances we don't see neutrons--we infer their presence because of there interaction with other particles. We can detect the presence of a neutron when it interacts with B. We can say "A neutor interacted with B to produce a Li, and an alpha" but we never observed the neutron itself. The argument being made is that we can't always "see" but we can theorize and test our theories.

Leptons, how many have you seen? I've never seen one yet theoretically they certainly do exist. We have built chemistry and physics on their existance yet we can't "see" electrons, muons... We can only infer their presence. Millikan never saw an electron but he was able to infer a charge based on how an oil drop moved around in a capacitor.

The point is creationists hold a "I can't see evolution occuring thus it doesn't exist!" This show me attitude is their so they can debunk difficult concepts at face value. Well you can't see a lot of things but that doesn't reduce them to flights of fancy spewed by Feynmann and the like.

My 2 cents.

shetline you beat me

Not to belabor this point, but seeing and observing are often far different things...

point made however...

Look, either the feeding systems developed at the exact same time, and in concert with all other dependent systems---or they didn't. The question is nearly rehtorical---and still unaswerable. If any of you were willing to be objective, you would realize your only real option is punctuated equilibrium. Ufortunatly PE is an even more far-fetched concept. Face it, you are out of ideas! Theorizing how many self directing ammino acids can dance on the head of a statistic is all you have got.

And shetline, if you retreat into another 5000-word dissertation on evolutionary doctrine, I'm going to barf on my trackball.

I gotta get out of here.

What systems exactly are dependent solely on the baleen of a whale? Baleen whales can probably still be fed fish if their baleen has been removed, so what is your point? What creationist fail to understand is that there is a great deal of redundancy in all of our systems. The baleen is more or less only necessary if the whale can survive only on plankton. The thing is that as humans can live without teeth, albeit not well, so too can most animals that have teeth to begin with. THe same goes for the development of the eye etc etc etc. Redundancy is a definitive part of any working progessive model be it evolution or engineering...

Thanks for keeping this short and sweet. We wouldn't want dmz to soil his trackball.

A two to three minute google search taught me that infant baleen whales have teeth and fossils have shown that there were baleen whales with teeth.

So your theory is based not only on ignorance of the facts, but also your neglegence of informing your beliefs.

HA! so the whales were eating teeth!?! I think not!

Evolution is the suxxors.

While we're on the subject of whales, here's the remains of an atavistic hind limb chopped of a living whale (by whalers) in 1919.



And here's some Evolution caught in the act.




Observed Instances of Speciation