Wasn't the USA the leader of science at one time?

Wildkow,

Q: How many posts does it take to get 20 pairs of liberal evolutionists undies in a bunch?

A: 2.. I guess 1 would have done it, but 2 certainly did the trick..

Hahahahahaa.... This thread is insanely funny..

The answer to this question may have evolved.. it may be 3, and I think I'm hearing a high pitch tuning fork vibration coming off those undies being so wound up.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Aug 12 2006, 09:30 PM) [snapback]302382[/snapback]</div>

Rocks or organic compounds found in nature.

The fossil record in its entirety supports evolution. Better yet, there is not a single fossil find inconsistent with it. I am a scientist and I don't admit it the fossil record has no evidence.

The cambrian "explosion" was is only an explosion in geologic time. By biology standards its more like a hiccup. Complex life did not just show up. Fossils preceding the cambrian show precursors to many of the cambrian organisms.

A more complete explanation is here.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daronspicher @ Aug 12 2006, 08:33 PM) [snapback]302407[/snapback]</div>

If they admit evolution is full of holes and no credible scientist could even endorse the "Theory" it's the same to them as saying God exists. The chance of that happening are. . . in the words of the great Mathematician and Astronomer Fred Hoyle. . . "The chance that higher life formers might have emerged (by chance) is comparable with the chance that a tornado sweeping through a junkyaed might assemble a Boeing 747 form the materials therein."

Another example of the wisdom of the Bible . . . said almost 2000 years ago. . .

Rom 1:20-23 For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity; that they may be without excuse: because that, knowing God, they glorified him not as God, neither gave thanks; but became vain in their reasonings, and their senseless heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.

I think somehow Paul foresaw evolution way before Darwin. Oh, BTW do you happen to know what Darwin's credentials were? Inquiring minds want to know! Hmmmmmm, I bet Godiva or Galaxee could help us on this one they know a lot about scientist.

Wildkow

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Alric @ Aug 12 2006, 08:53 PM) [snapback]302417[/snapback]</div>

What type of evolution are you speaking of here?

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/arti.../511070344/1031

2 types of evolution

It might seem impossible for the statements, "Evolution is an established scientific fact," and "Evolution has never been scientifically established as fact," to both be true unless you know, as leading evolutionists do, that there are two scientifically different kinds of evolution.


Evolution within a single specie has been observed by Darwin and many other scientists and is a well-confirmed as fact. However, evolution from one specie to another -- what most people think of when they hear the word "evolution" -- scientifically has little in common with evolution within a single specie and has never been scientifically confirmed. Some scientists have even said this kind of evolution is not scientifically testable. Generally, a scientific theory that cannot be tested is considered bad science.
We need to teach the whole truth about evolution. That it is both scientifically true (evolution within a single specie) and scientifically unproved and highly unlikely (species-to species-evolution). Concerning intelligent design, atheist and noted astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle said, "The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question." If scientists of his stature say something about science, our students should be allowed to know it.

Wildkow

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Aug 13 2006, 12:12 AM) [snapback]302455[/snapback]</div>

That is the problem. A clipping from an indiana newspaper is not a reference. References only should be from peer-reviewed publications or there summaries, as such:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/macroevolution.html

Is a valid reference because it includes references to the primary literature at the end.

And here are some published "evidences" of macroevolution:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

Note the references at the end.

But this is my personal favorite:



All life on earth is related to another in a measurable way, DNA homology, in a hierarchical fashion. If macroevolution did not exist you would not be able to arrange life this way.

Cheers!

 

Good ol' Paul again. Paul never met Jesus or heard him preach. Paul was not one of the original disciples. Do you really think being Peter's houseguest for 15 days makes him an authority? I'm with Thomas Jefferson (a very learned man) on this one. "The American founder Thomas Jefferson was ridiculed as a heretic by his Christian contemporaries for excising the Pauline books from the Bible canon as a means of returning Christianity to what he felt were the true teachings of Christ and the Apostles. Jefferson once wrote that "Paul was the first corrupter of the teachings of Jesus.""

I'll invite you again to propose your own theory of evolution, with "proof" that doesn't rely only on Paul and Genesis. No more attacking. Now it's time to propose something. Present your "theory" and back it up. (Remember....no Paul and no Genesis.)

And try not to use that chapter and verse again. It has nothing to do with creation or evolution. It's about the guilt of mankind and refers to idol worship.

I'll bookend your quotes:

Rom: 1: 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.

Rom: 1: 24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen.

"Suppression of the truth" can apply to fundamentalists suppressing science. Science may be revealing the works of God. How about that? Free will and all?

But this passage sounds like a review of the punishment of the children of Israel after they left Egypt and violated their agreement with God and worshiped idols. A little fire and brimstone before the major event. Why the reference? Well, he was writing to Romans. Romans worshiped idols. duh.

As for me, I don't throw pearls before swine or waste my time teaching pigs to sing.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Aug 13 2006, 12:47 AM) [snapback]302464[/snapback]</div>

I always thought it would be cool to have a t-shirt that says:

Leviticus was an optimist!

But I don't think many people would get the joke.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daronspicher @ Aug 12 2006, 11:33 PM) [snapback]302407[/snapback]</div>

hate to bust your bubble, daron, but over here i am neither a bleeding heart liberal... nor am i wearing any.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Aug 13 2006, 12:01 AM) [snapback]302422[/snapback]</div>

first off, there are plenty of credible scientists who endorse evolution. there are also plenty of scientists who endorse evolution and also acknowledge some kind of higher power/god/whatever.

finally, your constant questioning about what evolution has to offer in the way of the beginning of life, well, you should know by now if you have been paying attention in the countless other religion vs science debates here that evolution offers no explanation for the beginning of life, only an explanation for the changes that have occurred in organisms and contributed to diversity of species we see on the planet today. just because it offers no explanation there does not invalidate the whole thing. evolution by definition speaks of change of already existing organisms.

likewise, we can't invalidate the bible for not including a chapter on how to manage your credit cards.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Aug 13 2006, 04:30 AM) [snapback]302382[/snapback]</div>

This is hilarious, really. So fossiles don't support evolution? They are the cornerstone of evolutionary theory! Humans are just one example: there is a large variety of sceletons that have been found over the last 100.000 years, showing a variation from ape-like bone structure (using 4 feet) to human-like bone structure (standing on 2 feet). The size of the skull, the bones of the hands, the teeth structure, it all shows this transition. It doesn't prove anything, but it's a damn good argument that humans evolved from an ape-like ancestor. The same sequences of fossiles can be found for many animals, such as horses, elefants, etc... Of course you can come up with another scientific theory to explain these fossiles, but I haven't heard of anything.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Aug 13 2006, 04:30 AM) [snapback]302382[/snapback]</div>

The "Cambrian explosion" is fascinating indeed. The most widely accepted explanation for the "sudden" wealth of biodiversity is simply that the sampling of the timeline at that moment is incomplete, because so few fossiles have reached us from such a long time ago. There are not enough fossiles preserved to be able to follow in detail the speciation of these creatures over time. But what is really interesting in that time period is the existence of creatures that totally differ in structure from what we see now or at any time later in history. You can see creatures that seem to come from an artist on a bad trip: things with three legs, etc...

It's naive to think that a theory that describes 4 billion years of history is going to give you all the answers, up to the smallest detail. There are still open questions, and there will always be. But it's downright wrong to claim that a theory is false simply because there are unanswered questions. The same holds for every current theory: general relativity, quantum mechanics, you name it. They all have some unanswered questions. As long as there is no other theory that better explains all the observations, the current theory holds. Darwin's theory does an excellent job in explaining a lot of observed facts: fossiles, animal resemblences, DNA homology, mitochondrions, etc...

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Wildkow @ Aug 13 2006, 04:42 AM) [snapback]302388[/snapback]</div>

You seem to be a bit stubborn on that rock thing. Sorry to have to counter it, but conventional theory is that life originated in water. The first aminoacids and nucleotides were likely to be formed in the ocean. Perhaps you need to find a new set of silly jokes about scientists originating from water?


Many people seem to be scared about evolutionary theory, because they experience it as conflicting it with their belief. It doesn't have to be. Science and religion work on a different level. Science is about "how", religion is about "why". Science will never be able to give a meaning to things, because it doesn't look for it. The "meaning" of something is not part of a scientific arsenal. So, yes, you can believe in a Creator to explain why things happened. But if you want to exlain how it happened, its usually wize to rely on science.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(vtie @ Aug 13 2006, 03:06 AM) [snapback]302489[/snapback]</div>

I think you hit the nail on the head with these two sentences. Your chief antagonist in this thread believes that the Earth in less than 6,000 years old. After all, that is his understanding of the story of Creation.

 

Assuming that there were no eyeballs laying around that evolution fit into whatever animal that was appropriately slithering up the beach at the time, we must assume that the eyeball evolved in some creature that didn't already have an eye.

The funny thing about evolution is that it's based on a necessity... (right?) So, did the whole eye just appear one day, or did the little rods evolve 1000 years before the cornea? Why would the millions of rods evolve into existance unless they knew the cornea was on the way? Expand the field a bit to include all the parts of the eye. None of those parts makes sense without the other parts. Ya'll are telling me that all the parts of the eye evolved during open experimentation unrelated to the counterparts without knowledge of the counterparts, and one day once all the parts were in place (wow, what are those odds?) and they then evolved to begin working together and now we can see...

It takes a huge amount of faith to believe something like that could happen. In my oppinion, much more faith than it takes to believe that God just built the thing... We can't explain exactly how, just know He can do it and he did and I'm glad I can see.

I'm also glad the cornea didn't evolve on my kneecap while the rest of the eye was busy evolving in the eye socket. (might I add how lucky we were the eye socket evolved near where the eye was evolving). Whew!!

What exactly does evolution have to say for extremely complex systems that are built on parts that somehow came to be working together?

Does the Tornado 747 have wind created software systems? Might as well have...

 

Eye evolution explained:

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB301.html

One part at a time that resulted in gradual improvement.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Alric @ Aug 13 2006, 01:36 PM) [snapback]302613[/snapback]</div>

That article explains nothing... It almost looks formatted scientifically, but it really says nothing useful.

And, I suppose that's the best answer for how complex systems evolve?

That's it? That's all you got? and you believe it? Interesting...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daronspicher @ Aug 13 2006, 03:09 PM) [snapback]302683[/snapback]</div>

Sounds like evolution skeptics' talking points.

 

Wasn't the USA the leader of science at one time ?

R&D and inovation coupled with commercialization are the USA's core strengths. Production can usually be done more cheaply elsewhere. The problem with losing the prodcution part is that the country will have to keep innovating to stay ahead of the production curve or else they're not needed. An indicator of leadership is that students come to the US from around the world to study in the US. Many Ph.D.s from foreign countries come to work here. As one example, we have three, one from Russia, one from Canada, one from Japan and one from China because they could not find R&D jobs in thier home countries.

 

so what's your argument here, daron? that because you don't believe in evolution that all of america should be totally cool with watching the general scientific knowledge posessed by our average citizen fall farther and farther behind in comparison with the rest of the world?

so it's not important to know anything about genetics either? you know, things like the reason rednecks shouldn't go around producing offspring with immediate family? or what diseases run in families that you should watch out for? and how these diseases are inherited so you know what chances your children have for inheriting them?

we already look like complete morons in the world arena, and this isn't helping. people like you aren't helping by laughing about it.

please, articulate what you think is just so funny about this topic. i'm curious.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Karnac @ Aug 13 2006, 06:47 PM) [snapback]302695[/snapback]</div>

i agree that is a sign of leadership. however when they have their postdocs cut short and have to return to their home countries in search of jobs because there's no money to fund them (at least here in academia, i imagine the private sector is doing much better) that doesn't scream leadership to me. some are fortunate enough to get jobs in industry here, but some inevitably end up flying back home.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daronspicher @ Aug 13 2006, 05:09 PM) [snapback]302683[/snapback]</div>

That's it. Usually the simplest explanation is the better one. This has also been explored at the molecular level in other systems including..wait for it...

The bacterium flagellum!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Karnac @ Aug 13 2006, 05:47 PM) [snapback]302695[/snapback]</div>

Another indicator is education. We are about to hire a couple of post docs. They will be foreiners because they are too scarce here. (U.S. citizens would have been much less red tape.)

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daronspicher @ Aug 13 2006, 08:09 PM) [snapback]302602[/snapback]</div>

No. Beneficiality (perhaps a neologism, but anyway). Even then: be aware that it's not obvious to determine what was beneficial under the conditions 2 billion years ago. And there are quite a few mutations for which no use has been found (yet).

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daronspicher @ Aug 13 2006, 08:09 PM) [snapback]302602[/snapback]</div>

That's an old argument that has reached its expiration date a long time ago already. In fact, if you look at the animal world (present and extinct), you find an almost complete range of evolution, from the simplest concept of just a few cells that have some level of photosensitivity, over primitive eyes that can't focus, up to the advances eyes of human beings. You don't have to invent the evolution of the eye, it's right there. Most people who are struggling with the evolution theory have problems to grasp the notion of 3 billion years of evolution. It's almost impossible to try to imagine what can and has happened in such a time span. There was plenty of time to re-develop the eye 50 times from scratch along the path of evolution, and there was still time left for all kinds of sidesteps and weird, curvy evolutions. Such as birds to give up flying for running, essentially giving up two legs, mammals returning to the sea and having their legs evolved into fins, etc... 3 billion year is a breath-taking amount of time, no one can hold all the possibilities and opportunities that arise during such a period. 3,000,000,000 years. There was plenty of time.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daronspicher @ Aug 13 2006, 08:09 PM) [snapback]302602[/snapback]</div>

Yes. Believe me or not, but I agree with this statement. Saying that God created everything is a much simpler, more elegant, and more satisfying explanation. The only problem: it doesn't fit into the scientific reasoning. Why not? Because it does not produce any verifiable observations. It doesn't produce any statement about our surroundings that we can test, accept or falsify. It doesn't allow me to conclude anything, to predict something that can be verified.

Whether or not Darwinism is "true" (whatever that may be), it is a theory with a lot of power, even to assist us in day-to-day, life-saving science. Let me give you one example: bacterial strains and their resistance against drugs. A huge problem these days, MRSA and all the rest, people die daily by this. This is nothing more (and nothing less) than Darwin-at-work. Bacterials have an extremely high reproduction rate, and an extremely high mutation rate, so that they are much quicker to adapt to new circumstances. For bacterials, antibiotics are one of those new circumstances. Within a few decades, a new gene emerged, out of the blue, that coded for resistance against a range of drugs. Do you think God created this? That would be a really nasty thought. The fact is, this fits 100% into the evolutionary model, and the adaptation of bacterials to antibiotics has even been predicted. And the story continues: bacterials are very good at exchanging genetic information, so now that resistance gene is rapidly spreading to other types of bacterials.

Funnily, anti-Darwinists always try to find the slightest unlogical aspect of the theory to "prove" that it is wrong. But do you have any idea what would be left unexplained if you would reject the whole theory? How would you explain all the ancient fossiles? Why would God have bothered to put them in the earth, with all those nice transitions? Where would those dinosaur bones come from? How would you explain that we have several components in our body that don't serve any purpose anymore, but are clearly relics from the past? If God really set up this whole scene as we know it at once, then He must be One Weird Guy.

Evolution theory is a very valuable theory that can explain and model a lot observed things from the past, present and future. But its a scientific theory, nothing more. It doesn't explain you why things happened. It doesn't give you a meaning. That's the area of religion (and philosofy). And I'm absolutely convinced that both can co-exist, in the same mind. After all, no scientific theory is going to tell you why an atom exists. It only tells you what it does.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daronspicher @ Aug 13 2006, 08:09 PM) [snapback]302602[/snapback]</div>

Why do people against evolution theory always have to resort to silly, pointless jokes?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daronspicher @ Aug 13 2006, 08:09 PM) [snapback]302602[/snapback]</div>

That's an old argument as well, about the plane created by wind. I believe it must be attributed to Wickramasinghe. It's totally pointless. Why would you compare the creation process of something that was created over 50 years to something that was created over 3,000,000,000 years?

In a sense, it's a bit frustrating that "the other side" only can come up with such lame arguments. In fact, you could do much better. I will help you a bit with some food for thought. Arguments that are harder to counter if you don't accept some "Higher Steering Force". Think about the following:

* Science is working hard at it, but there is no acceptable theory of the creation of life itself, in its essential, simplest form. Life is about interactions between proteins and DNA/RNA. But here is no explanation yet about how either one of them could originate from scratch.

* We live in a Universe that is subject to the laws of physics. The current chemical complexity that is the basis for our life (organic molecules, ...) all have to obey this. Now, there are a few physical constants that, if they would be a few percentages different, would never have allowed such chemistry (the fine-structure constant just comes to my mind). So, apparently miracously, those constants have precisely the correct value to allow the conditions for life. If you want to see the hand of God, this might be a good place to start with. But then again, even here, people have come with some counter-arguments, but they are not really satisfying (look up "anthropic principle" if you want to learn more about this exciting subject).

* Interestingly, if you look at the current standard model for cosmology and creation of the universe, there is little reason why there would be matter at all. Much more logically, there should have been a complete annihilation between equal portion of matter and anti-matter. Somehow, there was an anomaly, creating a tiny asymmetry that allowed for all the matter we are built of. God again?

* As you most likely know, the standard model for cosmology starts with the Big Bang. But what set if off? What triggered it? Science doesn't have even the beginning of an answer to that, and there are good reasons to suppose that we will never be able to answer this scientifically. Progressive theologists (yes, they exist) consider the Big Bang theory as a God-sent (pun intended), because believe they directlty see His Hand.

So, science offers quite a few openings to start looking for God, and that's exciting. But it's wrong to attack a valuable, well founded theory just because it doesn't agree with a book that was written more than 2000 years ago.