That Pesky "Dinsoaurs lived millions of years ago" thing...

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  • Reply 41 of 212
    spindlerspindler Posts: 713member
    Here's the Christian view on science:



    For thousands of years, a high percentage of humans lived horribly because of disease. Of course Jesus and the Bible did nothing about it. Children were orphans because their mother died in childbirth. People died miserably from bubonic plague, measles, Polio, etc. For thousands of years reading the Bible verses did absolutely nothing about this. So then man goes into the laboratory and gets monumental results by using real thinking.



    So then Christians claim all this scientific progress by making an incredibly vague connection. They zoom way, way out from the fact that the Bible verses played no part in science and claim "God gives us our intelligence so he gets credit for giving us all the results of science". By the same logic I could give the credit to oxygen, because without oxygen no one would be alive to make scientific discoveries.



    So science cured all that misery while religion has mostly been an excuse to do bad things. But after instantly claiming all those results from science, they then choose to reject science wherever they don't like it. If you give evidence that gays are just born that way, or that psychiatry can be used to cured the darker side of man, they'll say "No! No! Only God can knows about these things! The only solution is to go back and read the Bible until things are better."
  • Reply 42 of 212
    dmzdmz Posts: 5,775member
    ahhhhhhhhhhhhh work is done. Beer is good. IPA is better. The right ESB can be better than that. The local microbrew Nazi just told me that the "ES" in ESB refers to and English beer specification on specific gravity. Is that right?





    Anyway, I was thinking about evolution, and it occurs to me that the theory of evolution is alot like those very detailed plans of the NCC-1701 that you can get. (yes I am ashamed to admit that I once owened a set---I think I was 11 at the time)



    Detailed? Yes but not in an engineering kinda way.



    Fun to look at? Of course.



    Great for fantasising "what ifs?" Certainly.



    But at the end of the day we still do not posses warp technology---evolution doesn't have the magic "information from chaos" touchstone that will give it legs. Order from chaos? Wrong universe.
  • Reply 43 of 212
    wrong robotwrong robot Posts: 3,907member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by dmz

    But at the end of the day we still do not posses warp technology---



    As opposed to believing that god created everything, which provides us with warp technology.
  • Reply 44 of 212
    rampancyrampancy Posts: 363member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Jubelum

    God loves evolutionists, too.



    As a fanatic card-carrying Evolutionary Biologist-in-training/Roman Catholic, thank you.
  • Reply 45 of 212
    shetlineshetline Posts: 4,695member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by dmz

    But at the end of the day we still do not posses warp technology---evolution doesn't have the magic "information from chaos" touchstone that will give it legs. Order from chaos? Wrong universe.



    Right universe, wrong understanding of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, coupled, I suspect, with a convenient definition of "information" that attempts to impose human notions of purpose on information.



    Many creationists, misunderstanding the difference between open and closed systems, try to make the claim that it's "unscientific" for evolution to suppose the development of more ordered systems from less ordered system. This of course overlooks the role of energy, and how energy flowing into an open system (say, the Earth viewed as an open system, with the energy source being the Sun) can increase local order. All theromodynamics requires is that order decreases over the whole system that includes such a local system, the external energy source, and anything which can receive energy from both.



    In short, there's nothing at all contradictory to the laws of thermodynamics about evolution occuring on the Earth because the "order" represented by growing chemical and biological complexity can easily be fueled by energy sources like the Sun, and like heat left over from the formation of the Earth, and the larger disorder caused by such chemical and biological processes can be radiated away into space as waste heat.



    Another misunderstanding about the second law is to forget that it is statistical in nature, not absolute. On a macroscopic scale, that's nearly a distinction without a difference, since the odds of random events leading to any significant decrease in entropy are vanishingly slim. On a molecular level, however, the odds of random events producing occasional unusual bits of chemical complexity aren't as small. On a planet-wide scale with 10-to-some-stunning-power chemical reactions going on all of the time, that has important implications for the chemical evolution needed for biogenesis.



    Recently a few creationists, who can at least be credited with finally coming to grips with the reality of thermodynamics rather than some convenient parody of it, have tried to replace "order" with "information", trying to make the distinction that information is some special thing apart from mere order, and... forget what we were trying to say about "order", sorry, had that all wrong, yeah, that stuff can increase by chance, it's information, that's the ticket, that's the stuff your silly randomness can't create.



    This isn't science though, it's just word play. Calling the ordered structure of DNA "information" is simply a convenient way for human minds to think about that structure as we contemplate DNA. It doesn't mean that our human sense of the notion of "purpose" has to exist in any real or physical way in the properties of DNA molecules.
  • Reply 46 of 212
    709709 Posts: 2,016member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by dmz

    ahhhhhhhhhhhhh work is done. Beer is good. IPA is better. The right ESB can be better than that. The local microbrew Nazi just told me that the "ES" in ESB refers to and English beer specification on specific gravity. Is that right?



    No. It stands for 'Extra Special'. I'm not pulling your leg either. A nice English ESB is made by Fuller's, if your interested.



    [edit:] Although, in re-reading your post, he might be referring to a 'Strong Ale' (ESB is considered one), which is very English as has to do with the SG of a beer.



    /OT
  • Reply 47 of 212
    rampancyrampancy Posts: 363member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by drewprops

    We had a kid in our biology class in High School who devoted his evolution paper to why fossils and dinosaurs weren't real. I thought he was doing it as a joke for the longest time. He wasn't.



    I can be a Christian and believe in dinosaurs.



    Everybody's crazy in some way~



    I've really come to the conclusion that trying to establish a meaningful dialogue with most Creationists (note that I say most, not all Creationists) is pretty much a waste of time. They've already made up their minds and nothing you could say or do could possibly change their mind, or even make them consider what you have to say. Just look at Kent Hovind's ridiculous $250,000 offer to anyone who can "prove" that evolution has occured. His terms though, are so ludicrous that the only way it could be answer it is to invoke 'evolution' through divine intervention.



    But it's not even that which bothers me the most about Creationists...not even their banter and rhetoric which tries to demonize and vilify the achievements made by many great scientific minds over the last century as being merely some sort of Satanic veil to oppose God. It's that I've seen Creationists time and time again use unfair, underhanded and dishonest tactics to further their agenda, such as quote mining. Even after they have been extensively refuted, some Creationists still present their arguements as facts.



    It's the take-it-or-leave-it, my-way-or-the-highway, I-know-more-about-God-than-you-do attitude which many Creationists have. I really have to say that I think that there are better things one could do with one's view of Christianity than to shove it down other people's throats.
  • Reply 48 of 212
    dmzdmz Posts: 5,775member
    rumpancy, shetline, guys, gals.....I salute your rehtorical abilities, but you have not yet left the gate in a reply to my original query.



    Abstracting abstractions is great blue-sky "how many self-directing amino acids can dance on the head of a statistic" but you don't have what it takes to approach traditional science in your quest for order from chaos. Nothing that you know or have ever experienced behaves as you claim evolution should.





    goodnight
  • Reply 49 of 212
    groveratgroverat Posts: 10,872member
    "Intelligent Design" is not science. It provides comfort to theists, but beyond that it does nothing to advance knowledge. ID is not science, it is strategic theological retreat.



    The fun of the whole thing is that evolutionary theory is allowed to not have all the answers right now because it is a theory.
  • Reply 50 of 212
    midwintermidwinter Posts: 10,060member
    From the horse's mouth:



    "WHEN we look to the individuals of the same variety or sub-variety of our older cultivated plants and animals, one of the first points which strikes us, is, that they generally differ much more from each other, than do the individuals of any one species or variety in a state of nature. When we reflect on the vast diversity of the plants and animals which have been cultivated, and which have varied during all ages under the most different climates and treatment, I think we are driven to conclude that this greater variability is simply due to our domestic productions having been raised under conditions of life not so uniform as, and somewhat different from, those to which the parent-species have been exposed under nature. There is, also, I think, some probability in the view propounded by Andrew Knight, that this variability may be partly connected with excess of food. It seems pretty clear that organic beings must be exposed during several generations to the new conditions of life to cause any appreciable amount of variation; and that when the organisation has once begun to vary, it generally continues to vary for many generations. No case is on record of a variable being ceasing to be variable under cultivation. Our oldest cultivated plants, such as wheat, still often yield new varieties: our oldest domesticated animals are still capable of rapid improvement or modification.



    It has been disputed at what period of time the causes of variability, whatever they may be, generally act; whether during the early or late period of development of the embryo, or at the instant of conception. Geoffroy St Hilaire's experiments show that unnatural treatment of the embryo causes monstrosities; and monstrosities cannot be separated by any clear line of distinction from mere variations. But I am strongly inclined to suspect that the most frequent cause of variability may be attributed to the male and female reproductive elements having been affected prior to the act of conception. Several reasons make me believe in this; but the chief one is the remarkable effect which confinement or cultivation has on the functions of the reproductive system; this system appearing to be far more susceptible than any other part of the organization, to the action of any change in the conditions of life. Nothing is more easy than to tame an animal, and few things more difficult than to get it to breed freely under confinement, even in the many cases when the male and female unite. How many animals there are which will not breed, though living long under not very close confinement in their native country! This is generally attributed to vitiated instincts; but how many cultivated plants display the utmost vigour, and yet rarely or never seed! In some few such cases it has been found out that very trifling changes, such as a little more or less water at some particular period of growth, will determine whether or not the plant sets a seed. I cannot here enter on the copious details which I have collected on this curious subject; but to show how singular the laws are which determine the reproduction of animals under confinement, I may just mention that carnivorous animals, even from the tropics, breed in this country pretty freely under confinement, with the exception of the plantigrades or bear family; whereas, carnivorous birds, with the rarest exceptions, hardly ever lay fertile eggs. Many exotic plants have pollen utterly worthless, in the same exact condition as in the most sterile hybrids. When, on the one hand, we see domesticated animals and plants, though often weak and sickly, yet breeding quite freely under confinement; and when, on the other hand, we see individuals, though taken young from a state of nature, perfectly tamed, long-lived, and healthy (of which I could give numerous instances), yet having their reproductive system so seriously affected by unperceived causes as to fail in acting, we need not be surprised at this system, when it does act under confinement, acting not quite regularly, and producing offspring not perfectly like their parents or variable."
  • Reply 51 of 212
    shetlineshetline Posts: 4,695member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by dmz

    rumpancy, shetline, guys, gals.....I salute your rehtorical abilities, but you have not yet left the gate in a reply to my original query.



    Is "I always wondered what the whales were eating for millions of years waiting for their baleen to develop." the original query that you refer? (Not that it's actually formed as a question.)



    Frankly, I didn't think it was worth answering, because it just sounds like the usual "Here's a puzzle for ya!" type of attack that generally turns out to not only have very little bite, but not even much bark when you look into it. Po hos all over again.



    I'm no expert, however, on the historical eating habits of whales, nor have I ever heard that evolution pivots on this monumental question.



    If you have a case, make it. Don't lazily expect everyone to research your objections for you. You tell us what you think is so horribly shattering to the very foundations of evolution in this what-did-the-whale-eat question, and we can go from there.

    Quote:

    Abstracting abstractions is great blue-sky "how many self-directing amino acids can dance on the head of a statistic" but you don't have what it takes to approach traditional science in your quest for order from chaos. Nothing that you know or have ever experienced behaves as you claim evolution should.



    You've been given the opportunity to explain what you imagine "traditional science" demands of a theory, yet you have not yet availed yourself of the opportunity to explain what those standards are.



    In the absence of such an explanation, I simply have to guess that you imagine that "traditional science" implies some standard of evidence which is always conveniently tougher than whatever level of evidence an evolutionist can reach.



    As I see it, evolution has been accepted by so many scientists for so long now that it is in-and-of-itself a great part of the "tradition" of science -- so you must have some special meaning of the word "traditional". Do we have to go back to the Four Humours and the Four Elements and curing disease by driving out demons to find the fine scientific traditionalists that we should aspire to emulate?
  • Reply 52 of 212
    discocowdiscocow Posts: 603member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by dmz

    <stuff>



    29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: the Scientific Case for Common Descent



    Have fun, I'm sure you'll look at it objectively.
  • Reply 53 of 212
    thttht Posts: 5,421member
    Evolution works. It's pretty simple. Science is a significant factor in a society's economics, its survival and its strength. So if the evangelicals take over American government and American culture, and regress us into a stunted view of science and evolution, the rest of the world will be trying to learn Mandarin or Hindi because they'll have all the neat new technology creating new markets. Anyone disagree with the hypothesis?
  • Reply 54 of 212
    shetlineshetline Posts: 4,695member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by dmz

    Nothing that you know or have ever experienced behaves as you claim evolution should.



    The above remark deserves individual attention. It gets right to the heart of what you don't understand about how science works.



    Science does not demand that the very thing that you're trying to prove be observable. Certainly, being able to directly observe, and then repeatedly demonstrate, what you wish to prove is the best form of evidence you can hope for, but it's not at all the only acceptable form of evidence.



    To pretend that only direct observation of a theorized phenomena is acceptable as evidence would be equivalent to saying that the only time a murderer can and should be convicted is when there's at least one eyewitness to the crime, if not many more than one, since one person's claims can easily be disputed.
  • Reply 55 of 212
    wrong robotwrong robot Posts: 3,907member
    I can't see the electricity going into my computer, It must be an act of god.
  • Reply 56 of 212
    I have found the quickest way to cut to a meaningful discussion on evolution is to ask a creationist if there could ever be any possible evidence that would convince them of the validity of evolutionary theory and if so, what?



    This tends to have two different outcomes...



    1. They propose something that clearly demonstrates that they do not understand evolutionary theory or science in general (ex. Show me a lizard turning into a bird again)



    OR



    2. After a long time beating around the bush, they finally admit that no evidence could convince them.



    On a few rare occasions I have had a meaningful discussion with some people, but only after this question was addressed.
  • Reply 57 of 212
    drewpropsdrewprops Posts: 2,321member
    Well, I personally think that the Cat shouldn't worship Lister, regardless of what anyone in here says. And that, me buckos, is that.
  • Reply 58 of 212
    shetlineshetline Posts: 4,695member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by segovius

    This is only true if one assumes evolutionary theory as the ONLY model that is plausible for human development. In fact such a view is yet another example of bi-polar reductionist thinking and either/or: creationists or evolutionists. That's not how it is.



    You say this, but the only example you bring up has to do with the timing of details in the always-developing story of evolution. The most important thing about evolution is the concept of gradual change over time brought about by random mutation coupled with natural selection, not the play-by-play story of each and every species.



    Arguing against when and how long apes and men lived together, for example, isn't arguing against the core meaning of the theory of evolution, nor does such an argument create any major alternative to "bi-polar" creationism vs. evolution.



    Besides, it's not like "creationism" is one story either. There are plenty of creation myths from plenty of religions. Even within the Christian creationism that we're typically talking about here, there are variations like Old Earth vs. Young Earth, and middle-of-the-road paths like divinely-assisted evolution.

    Quote:

    Evolution has many flaws and science glosses over these in a fraudulent manner in order to maintain their position.



    This kind of phrase puts my crackpot detector on high alert. Maybe, maybe someone like your Michael Cremo has found "stunning evidence", but not once have I ever been very impressed by the typical follow-up (when there is any follow-up at all) to claims like this.

    Quote:

    Michael Cremo's Forbidden Archaeology website details many authenticated anomalies that prove evolutionary theory to be deeply flawed (though not in the sense the creationists would like).



    For example, he cites data of modern human skulls found in Pliocene layers (ie dating the skull to 3 - 4 million years old).




    I followed the above link and poked around a bit. The actual information is very limited, most likely to keep from giving all the goods away online and to convince you to buy the book.



    But what little is there certainly doesn't seem impressive. Cremo's main point seems to be to gasp at every fossil or artifact that is found in an unexpected strata. If there's more to what Cremo has to say, I couldn't find it, and I certainly don't feel compelled, starting with this unimpressive web site, to put money in this man's pocket by buying his book.



    The geological strata is a jumbled mess. It takes careful detective work to figure out the sequence. There will be anomalies, and there will be errors. When it comes to human artifacts, human activities can often be the explanation for why something shows up in an unusual place.



    Imagine taking a hundred or so copies of a book, tearing the pages out in clumps, shuffling the pages, shredding the pages into pieces, often tiny word- or letter-sized pieces, then stirring the whole mess together. Now imagine trying to piece together a consistent original book.



    It's possible to achieve that task, but it's far from easy. Bits of the original sequences of pages and words will tend to stick together, but that's only a tendency. Working from trying to find an overall pattern of consistency is the best you can do.



    Is it possible you might start developing a way that you want the book to turn out, and to start rejecting data that doesn't fit your ideas about how the book should be? Certainly. But rejecting anomalous data wouldn't be proof that that's what you're doing. Anomalous data is to be expected, and having some methodology for rejecting such data is essential, not in-and-of-itself suspicious.

    Quote:

    There are literally hundreds of such examples and they cannot all be discredited...



    Well, yes, yes they can be. Quite validly so, depending on the nature of "such examples".



    It's not the number of examples per se that matter. It's whether or not the examples spell out a consistent and compelling alternative. Don't show me one "metallic sphere from South Africa with three parallel grooves" that "was found in a Precambrian mineral deposit, said to be 2.8 billion years old" if you want to impress me. Show me lots of things that keep showing up in 2.8 billion year-old deposits that spell out some consistent picture of a 2.8 billion year-old culture if you want me to be impressed.



    Show me piles unrelated anomolies, however, from unrelated time periods, that don't form any compelling new picture of their own, and I'll say "Congratulations. You found some jumbled bits of the jumbled mess we're digging through. What else did you expect?
  • Reply 59 of 212
    norfanorfa Posts: 171member
    There was a study of fundamentalists done a few years ago, that found that they lack logic skills. Theym may seem very smart in other respects, but are very unlikely to be able to understand a logical argument. So you can argue with them as long as you want, but for them, faith will always be their guiding force, and logic will always come in second place.
  • Reply 60 of 212
    bartobarto Posts: 2,246member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Stoo

    Anyway, if you beleive in an omnipotent, omniscient creator god, outside of time, etc, couldn't this god use evolution? It's not as if It's going to be surprised.



    Which was, for what it's worth, Darwin's personal view. Evolution as part of God's plan.



    This is a non issue in every country in the whole entire world except the USA. Everywhere else you go evolution is almost as accepted and fundamental as the notion of gravity.



    Barto
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