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let me get this straight
its ok for yall to believe that there is no god
but its wrong for people to believe in a god?
some of yall might think that creationism is a fairytale but most of the science stuff is based on theory.
this site is becoming more and more disrespectful to those that have a religion. not cool.:(
nature, yes I would get mad. But not because I didn't understand what they are trying to say but rather because they are basically committing scientific blasphemy. Science is based on fact, find any fucking fact that proves "gods" existence. Think of it this way, remember that book by Dan Brown (DaVinci Code)that was created as a work of literature that raised such a big stink in the world of Catholicism? Now just think what is happening here, i'm surprised scientists haven't lashed out the same way. I hate that most peoples proof of creationism is that the world is very complex. Yeah, it is complex, so, does that mean that god is automatically real? This is just an attempt to try to get Christianity into the schools under the label of Science. It is stupid to argue with them because that implies that they are willing to see how fucking ludicrous their ideas are and get them past "no one can prove god isn't real, so he must be real."
From Death Row this is DreadConches Abu-Jamal signing out.
lol "scientific blasphemy". That is a good one. Don't take DNA's name in vain!!!! That being said, everyone who is worried that people might manage to get this pushed into the public schools need to realize ONE BASIC PRINCIPLE re: government services. If you allow the government to take charge over any area of you and your children's lives, it will simply be the tyranny of the majority or the whims of a few determining the style and quality of service. In other words, you get what you pay for, and if you're pooling your resources you lose your individual control over the utilization of those resources. In other words, for a creationist, why should you let THEM decide what to teach YOUR CHILDREN? And for a non-creationist, why should you let THEM decide what to teach YOUR CHILDREN? As far as government funded schools are concerned, this will always be the basic flaw unless a completely ideologically neutral voucher system is in place. In other words, if you want your children to be taught that Dr. Seuss wrote non-fiction historical works, then you and the other parents who agree should get up your own school and hire a teacher. Of course, there would have to be a math, history, reading, writing, and science test for the children to pass in order for the school to accept the vouchers for payment, but you can teach the skills for those tests and still ground the children in whatever philosophy you like the best. Even if kids learn creationism, so what? If they have a good understanding of biology they won't have any trouble understanding college classes, and if they're not college-bound it surely won't have any effect on their work performance or success in life. Take me for example. I was taught in the Christian private school all my life. But in college I got all 4s in my life sciences. I know all the organs of mammals, I knew at one point all the parts of the brain and almost all the bones, I understand genetic replication, protein coding and synthesis, inheritance, natural selection, the generally accepted timeline of life on Earth, radiocarbon dating, and the use of genetic markers to trace lineages. Why? Because they did teach the scientific principles of observation and testing, which are what's REALLY important for young people. So everyone get your heads out of your heinies and realize that ideological matters are relatively unimportant from an educational standpoint, and the quality of the curriculum is what's really important. I was by no means disadvantaged compared to my classmates, and neither will anyone else be if they learn to read, write, do math, and experiment.
RamblerGambler re: the danger of religion ruling science. That's not a good example. It's only a good example of the danger of religion legislating and executing law.
I just thought of another point... it seems like the topic REALLY up for debate isn't even science, it's what most museums very accurately call "Natural History". Reminds me of a great museum I spent a lot of time in as a child. The Fort Worth Museum of Science and History. The Science wings had computers (personal computer were new back then, lol), the visible woman, star charts, preserved fetuses, skeletons, plate tectonics, physics, etc. The History wings had the dinosaurs, coal, amber, timelines, phylogeny, cosmology, early man (I used to LOVE the stone-age surgeons trepanning with their lava-rock bone drill. I could look at that for hours.. if anyone else remembers it, wasn't that cool?), different civilizations and cultures. IOW, the proper context of the evo/creation debate is within the realm of history, with the science only useful to provide the evidence with which to back up your claims.
Heh, 'intelligent design' is such a joke. Rabbits have to eat their food, crap it out, and then eat their crap, in order to properly absorb the nutrients. That's intelligent design, eating your own poop? There are lots of similar examples where evolution didn't quite work out very well and produced 'an inferior product'. If there is a God doing this designing, he's a retard and not worth worshipping.
I don't think the word 'museum' should be used for this building. It's a place of proselytizing an unproven theory, more of a place of worship than anything else.
As to right-wing Christians coming in the night and stealing babies, no, of course not. But when they gain a majority, they assemble in Congress and steal your rights. Which is rather ironic because one of the most basic conservative tenets is small government, less government intrusion. Yet, when it comes to what you might do with a consenting partner in your own home with the curtains drawn, they definitely want the government in there, to make sure you don't inadvertently do something they consider immoral and thus put your soul in peril.
When someone says that evolution is purely scientific and then says creationism is not science, they are really declaring their own ignorance about what science even is.
Science can do a lot of neat stuff. It can help build airplanes and calculators and computers etc. It can help us learn a lot of new information about the outside world and test any theory we may have about how the natural laws of the universe work.
But the thing about science is, : Science only works in the present!. Science is a tool that we use to observe and make observations and tests here in the present today.
When it comes to the past, it is always relegated to the area of belief, even with evolution. This is because neither creationists nor evolutionist were there to see exactly what when on.
We all have the same evidence, but two different presuppositions, two different worldviews, and so we interperet the evidence differently. A scientist who is a creationist will take his beliefs and look and the evidence and try to look for ways the evidence fits with what he assumes about the natural world and how it got here. He can extrapolate back in time by using scientific data and knoledge about natural laws, and it is possible to come to the right answer, the thing about it is if you start from a faulty presupposition you could get incorrect results.
Evolutionts purport to use science in much the same way. There is and never has been any observable example of any bio-organism
gaining complexity and an increase of genetic information by evolution. They have to make assumptions and beliefs about the past too, just like creationists. They try to look for things in the natural world that show evidence of evolution. Since there is no empirical evidence they have to make assumptions about the past. They look and bones, and interperet them a certain way.
Now it's true that both interperetations cannot be right, but both make assumptions about that past. I hope that is clear enough.
Modern science as we now know it was founded by Christians and
flourished because of a release of ideas and freeedom through the reformation. Science itself is established on one asumption, that is that the natural laws of the universe always hold true. Even evolutionists accept this and forget that without a Christian philosophy to shape that assumption beleiving in a God of order, there is no reason to belive that the natural laws always hold true.
That was a big assumption that was made back then, but it turns out that that act of faith has been validated, and even before that was validated by early observers of the universe.
Finder out which theory is closer to the truth is a lot more obvious than people think. Evolution and creation are such enormously different concepts that the evidence and information we have available should fit one much more readily than te other. And it does! but it's not evolution, it's creation. When looking at a theory, it's a good idea to look at it's past history. When we take a look at evolution, and very much of the evidence it has shown as proof, you will find that it's just about all been discounted and discarded. But all the time they try to come up with new ideas, trying to save the sinking ship. But creationism has a different story. What it's shown as proof has stayed stable far longer than evolution has ever ixisted as a theory. And furthermore there's much more evidence for creation then evolution. And Creationism has had very few examples of evidence that has had to be discarded, although there have been some.
When people say no creation science should not be discussed in schools, they're showing the same kind of attitude that they would not want to have pushed on them. They wouldn't want to live in the Roman catholic empire where they cannot speak or learn about other religions or ideas besides catholicism. But they will not allow another idea for how our world got here except evolution. No cross examination. But that's one of the most IMPORTANT parts of empirical science!! Creationism is discounted
merely because it includes God and therefore must be religious indoctrination. How is it religious to merely talk about the idea that God made the universe? Are they forcing your children to pray or obey the ten commandments? Are they pushing them into the water to get baptized? It's a farce, and it's a pathetic tactic to keep any competition to evolution out of the secular dominated schools.
THe creation museum is something you really should go see before you start slandering it and saying it's just the same stuff they preach in sunday school only hid behind psuedo science. What ignorance. You don't even realize that churches have been one of the biggest hinderances to the creationist movement. Many churches you go to nowadays have no clear doctrine on whether things came by evolution or not, and many are firmly opposed to creation. ANd that is not only true today, but also right from the beginning! When darwin's idea first came around it wasn't church who gave resisitance to his idea, it was the scientists! The church practically worshipped him. More about that here:
Holy war?
I've seen pictures of the museum and it's indeed world class. People have come from all over the world to see the museum and it is a great acheivement for creation science. It's funded by donations and sales. The exibits arn't just bible stories, but include scientific evidence that fits with creation and refutes false evidence and concepts propogated by evolutionary theory.
I suggest anyone feeling critical of the museum should go to the website and learn more about it first:
Creation Museum - Creation, Evolution, Science, Dinosaurs, Family, Christian Worldview - Creation Museum
Just another testiment to organized religion.
That simply isn't true, you are completely wrong.Quote:
Originally Posted by natureisawesome
I can give you LOTS of examples.
Go ahead. I challange you.
But do it in another thread.
Please post them, Delta9uk. Now I'm going to get in my time machine and see what was going on in 10 MILLION BC! O wait, that's science fiction. Sorry guys I can't bring you a report on dinosaurs.
<sigh> OK then......
Quote:
Creationism does not contradict very many things. Evolution is one of the few things it contradicts. We cannot prove that evolution is real.
Man I hope you were high when you wrote that.
Creationism is built upon the Genesis, and Genesis is nonsense. Hell, I personally know pastors who have conceded this! Only a vocal fringe group really takes young earth creationism seriously.
Evolution, via natural selection, IS real - the evidence is overwhelming and denying it makes you look brainwashed. Plain and simple.
If evolution were false, then pesticide companies like Orkin and pharmaceutical firms like Phizer wouldn't have the business they do today. Care to guess why?
I feel bad for many christians, as I know they're sensible people in general but they allow they're feelings to lull them into believing the weak talking points so en vogue with their vocal and closeminded brethren. In my experience the most vehement anti-evolution types are in fact the ones who are ignorant of even the most basic evolutionary principles. Case in point the people who made this museum. I can't help but feel sad when dogma wins over reality. :(
And people wonder why the US is losing it's global dominance in science.... *sigh*
You are COMPLETELY misrepresenting the opposition here, odd behavior if you're indeed confident in your sides position.Quote:
When people say no creation science should not be discussed in schools, they're showing the same kind of attitude that they would not want to have pushed on them.
People don't want creationism taught in science class - there is a huge difference. If you want the christian literary tradition covered in public schools, then it belongs in a Comparative Religion class, many high schools already have syllabuses to that effect. Creationism should not be taught, and is not taught in a science curriculum for the exact same reasons we don't dispense astrology in astronomy class.
Parents who have a problem with that should either enroll their kids in a private school more in line with their religious sensitivities, or look to Bible School at their prefered church for the additional tutelage. Pretty straight forward really...
The problem with Creationism, aside from there being no evidence of any kind to support it, is that if there is a God, Creationism necessitates him being a conniving and purposeful liar. Hiding dinosaur bones all over the planet, along with the humanoid bones of what appear to be our ancestors, in minute detail, just to trick us into thinking he doesn't exist? That's pretty hard to swallow.
What did Sherlock Holmes say? "The most obvious answer is most often the correct one." Something like that. The simplest explanation for there being dinosaur bones all around the planet that carbon date to many millions of years ago in time is that there were dinosaurs many millions of years ago. The simplest explanation for the fossil record showing increasing complexity in lifeforms over time is that lifeforms grow more complex over time.
There's no reason to inject religion into this other than that the material facts don't match this or that piece of religious writing. That's the problem with religion mixing with science: religion tries to make the facts fit the religion. Science doesn't try to make the facts fit anything; scientific theories are refined constantly to reflect the available evidence. Most scientists are willing to accept that God created everything, even a mere 6,000 years ago or whatever, provided that that is what the evidence shows. But it doesn't. Creationists are not nearly that flexible. If the facts don't fit their beliefs then either the facts must be wrong, or God did it all just to trick us.
Quote:
Creationism does not contradict very many things. Evolution is one of the few things it contradicts. We cannot prove that evolution is real.
I hope you're not talking to me because I didn't type that.Quote:
Man I hope you were high when you wrote that.
This is just an opinionated comment with no scientific examples to back it up.Quote:
Evolution, via natural selection, IS real - the evidence is overwhelming and denying it makes you look brainwashed. Plain and simple.
Because there was already a small percentage of bugs that were resistant to the pesticide in the first place. When the other bugs got killed off, the resitant ones survived and this became the dominant gene. The information pre-existed in the organism. This is one of the many lines of false evidence for evolitionists, that creationists have to answer over and over again because people like you are so ignorant you don't even realize that your own leading evolutionists know this but you don't.Quote:
If evolution were false, then pesticide companies like Orkin and pharmaceutical firms like Phizer wouldn't have the business they do today. Care to guess why?
Creationism doesn't teach religious doctrine. What creationism deals with is how the universe and everything came to be. It doesn't neccessarily tell you what laws to obey or how to go to heaven. If that's what fits with the evidence then so be it though. If creationism should be banned from science class because it requires belief, then so should evolution which has it's own accompaning philosophy. You don't understand that facts by themselves are useless but people fit them into a larger philosophy. You can seperate the facts from the philosophy, even though it's better to teach both together. But ultimately everyone will fit the facts into their own philosophy as with evolution fits into a greater philosophy such as humanism or naturalism or pantheism. Either have them both evolution and creation compared and examined or none at all.Quote:
You are COMPLETELY misrepresenting the opposition here, odd behavior if you're indeed confident in your sides position.
People don't want creationism taught in science class - there is a huge difference. If you want the christian literary tradition covered in public schools, then it belongs in a Comparative Religion class, many high schools already have syllabuses to that effect. Creationism should not be taught, and is not taught in a science curriculum for the exact same reasons we don't dispense astrology in astronomy class.
Parents who have a problem with that should either enroll their kids in a private school more in line with their religious sensitivities, or look to Bible School at their prefered church for the additional tutelage. Pretty straight forward really...
Where do you get this idea that simply because a concept involves God or inteligent design it instantly becomes religion? That's not true.
Jamstigator said:
I will simply say you are totally wrong and ignorant, and suggest you go study some creation websites to understand what they really teach. LIke I said we both have the same evidence, but interperet it differently. There is evidence for creation in fossils, geology, archaeology, astronomy, dna, plants, natural laws, irreducible complexity, microorganisms, hydrology, human biology, mathmatics,musicology, zoology, etc. etc.Quote:
The problem with Creationism, aside from there being no evidence of any kind to support it,
Go ahead check it out : Answers in Genesis - Creation, Evolution, Christian Apologetics (there are lots of other sites besides that one as well)
Actually the bones and sediment layers fit WONDERFULLY with the creationist model of a worldwide flood. No deciet there at all. The deceit is with evolutionists who show you what's called the geoligical column which exists nowhere in the world asi t's shown exept for a few places in layers that are much too thin. Furthermore they use circular logic, dating the layers by the fossils, then dating the fossils by the layers.Quote:
Creationism necessitates him being a conniving and purposeful liar. Hiding dinosaur bones all over the planet, along with the humanoid bones of what appear to be our ancestors, in minute detail, just to trick us into thinking he doesn't exist? That's pretty hard to swallow.
Heres more:
Chapter 4: Unlocking the Geologic Record - Answers in Genesis
FOSSILS AND ROCKS: CIRCULAR REASONING
Noah's Flood Q&A
While I don't believe with the imaginary character sherlock, the most obvious answer is creation. If you say things don't look designed, you are a liar. Lying to yourself.Quote:
What did Sherlock Holmes say? "The most obvious answer is most often the correct one." Something like that.
Science is a tool, it has no mind of it's own. It can be used one way or another. Scientists are biased human beings just like you and me. They think of theories of what they think best happened and search for evidence that's fits with the theory they like best.Quote:
Science doesn't try to make the facts fit anything;
Feedback: Are scientists really biased by their presuppositions? - Answers in Genesis
I think that there's just too much ignorance in this world. As it says in the Word, If you are wise, you are wise for yourself and if you are a fool you alone will bear it.
did somebody say stuckey's yum lol the pecan rolls r greatQuote:
Originally Posted by delusionsofNORMALity
lol +repQuote:
Heh, 'intelligent design' is such a joke. Rabbits have to eat their food, crap it out, and then eat their crap, in order to properly absorb the nutrients. That's intelligent design, eating your own poop? There are lots of similar examples where evolution didn't quite work out very well and produced 'an inferior product'. If there is a God doing this designing, he's a retard and not worth worshipping.
No shit. Did you see your name attributed to it? There's your answer. Partly my fault as it's a habit of mine from another forum, but suffice to say it's not hard to recognize one's own words, is it? I get by fine without having to be told what it was I wrote.Quote:
I hope you're not talking to me because I didn't type that.
Anyways...I got as far as..
...and alarm bells went off.Quote:
This is just an opinionated comment with no scientific examples to back it up.
*buzzzer sound* Ugh, wrong! Evolution via natural selection is a fact, there are mountains of evidence to back this up - sorry! Is my belief in gravity just an opinionated comment too? Why don't you jump out the window and prove me wrong? ;) Sweet jeebus, you might as well have said there's no proof the sun is yellow.
You'll have to forgive me, I don't feel your brand of indoctrination warrants the effort required on my part to illustrate just how wrong you are. Been down this road before; provide all manner of verified proof and what I get is backpeddling, diversions, then nothing but crickets. If you've made it this far knowing absolutely nothing about Darwin's Natural Selection yet still continue to rail against it, I hold no illusions that an anonymous poster on this forum is going to change your mind. Likewise, it kinda strikes the rest of your replies not worth responding to, no matter the number of strawmen and downright falsehoods you post. I learned a long time ago not to debate with those wearing earplugs and blinders. Mea culpa.
Is there anyone else here who would like to discuss this without resorting to talking points that were shot down a long time ago?
For the lazy folks (not a slam, I'm kinda lazy myself!) National Geographic did a pretty good article on this topic not too long ago, it was called 'Was Darwin Wrong?' I'm sure you can find it online, some of you might even have the issue it's in.
Aha! Found it! An excerpt from the article I mentioned:
I used this as an example as it's one of the most succinct rundowns on the subject that I've come across...full article can be found at Was Darwin Wrong? @ National Geographic MagazineQuote:
Today the same four branches of biological science from which Darwin drew??biogeography, paleontology, embryology, morphology??embrace an ever growing body of supporting data. In addition to those categories we now have others: population genetics, biochemistry, molecular biology, and, most recently, the whiz-bang field of machine-driven genetic sequencing known as genomics. These new forms of knowledge overlap one another seamlessly and intersect with the older forms, strengthening the whole edifice, contributing further to the certainty that Darwin was right.
He was right about evolution, that is. He wasn't right about everything. Being a restless explainer, Darwin floated a number of theoretical notions during his long working life, some of which were mistaken and illusory. He was wrong about what causes variation within a species. He was wrong about a famous geologic mystery, the parallel shelves along a Scottish valley called Glen Roy. Most notably, his theory of inheritance??which he labeled pangenesis and cherished despite its poor reception among his biologist colleagues??turned out to be dead wrong. Fortunately for Darwin, the correctness of his most famous good idea stood independent of that particular bad idea. Evolution by natural selection represented Darwin at his best??which is to say, scientific observation and careful thinking at its best.
Douglas Futuyma is a highly respected evolutionary biologist, author of textbooks as well as influential research papers. His office, at the University of Michigan, is a long narrow room in the natural sciences building, well stocked with journals and books, including volumes about the conflict between creationism and evolution. I arrived carrying a well-thumbed copy of his own book on that subject, Science on Trial: The Case for Evolution. Killing time in the corridor before our appointment, I noticed a blue flyer on a departmental bulletin board, seeming oddly placed there amid the announcements of career opportunities for graduate students. "Creation vs. evolution," it said. "A series of messages challenging popular thought with Biblical truth and scientific evidences." A traveling lecturer from something called the Origins Research Association would deliver these messages at a local Baptist church. Beside the lecturer's photo was a drawing of a dinosaur. "Free pizza following the evening service," said a small line at the bottom. Dinosaurs, biblical truth, and pizza: something for everybody.
In response to my questions about evidence, Dr. Futuyma moved quickly through the traditional categories??paleontology, biogeography??and talked mostly about modern genetics. He pulled out his heavily marked copy of the journal Nature for February 15, 2001, a historic issue, fat with articles reporting and analyzing the results of the Human Genome Project. Beside it he slapped down a more recent issue of Nature, this one devoted to the sequenced genome of the house mouse, Mus musculus. The headline of the lead editorial announced: "HUMAN BIOLOGY BY PROXY." The mouse genome effort, according to Nature's editors, had revealed "about 30,000 genes, with 99% having direct counterparts in humans."
The resemblance between our 30,000 human genes and those 30,000 mousy counterparts, Futuyma explained, represents another form of homology, like the resemblance between a five-fingered hand and a five-toed paw. Such genetic homology is what gives meaning to biomedical research using mice and other animals, including chimpanzees, which (to their sad misfortune) are our closest living relatives.
No aspect of biomedical research seems more urgent today than the study of microbial diseases. And the dynamics of those microbes within human bodies, within human populations, can only be understood in terms of evolution.
Nightmarish illnesses caused by microbes include both the infectious sort (AIDS, Ebola, SARS) that spread directly from person to person and the sort (malaria, West Nile fever) delivered to us by biting insects or other intermediaries. The capacity for quick change among disease-causing microbes is what makes them so dangerous to large numbers of people and so difficult and expensive to treat. They leap from wildlife or domestic animals into humans, adapting to new circumstances as they go. Their inherent variability allows them to find new ways of evading and defeating human immune systems. By natural selection they acquire resistance to drugs that should kill them. They evolve. There's no better or more immediate evidence supporting the Darwinian theory than this process of forced transformation among our inimical germs.
Take the common bacterium Staphylococcus aureus, which lurks in hospitals and causes serious infections, especially among surgery patients. Penicillin, becoming available in 1943, proved almost miraculously effective in fighting staphylococcus infections. Its deployment marked a new phase in the old war between humans and disease microbes, a phase in which humans invent new killer drugs and microbes find new ways to be unkillable. The supreme potency of penicillin didn't last long. The first resistant strains of Staphylococcus aureus were reported in 1947. A newer staph-killing drug, methicillin, came into use during the 1960s, but methicillin-resistant strains appeared soon, and by the 1980s those strains were widespread. Vancomycin became the next great weapon against staph, and the first vancomycin-resistant strain emerged in 2002. These antibiotic-resistant strains represent an evolutionary series, not much different in principle from the fossil series tracing horse evolution from Hyracotherium to Equus. They make evolution a very practical problem by adding expense, as well as misery and danger, to the challenge of coping with staph.
The biologist Stephen Palumbi has calculated the cost of treating penicillin-resistant and methicillin-resistant staph infections, just in the United States, at 30 billion dollars a year. "Antibiotics exert a powerful evolutionary force," he wrote last year, "driving infectious bacteria to evolve powerful defenses against all but the most recently invented drugs." As reflected in their DNA, which uses the same genetic code found in humans and horses and hagfish and honeysuckle, bacteria are part of the continuum of life, all shaped and diversified by evolutionary forces.
Even viruses belong to that continuum. Some viruses evolve quickly, some slowly. Among the fastest is HIV, because its method of replicating itself involves a high rate of mutation, and those mutations allow the virus to assume new forms. After just a few years of infection and drug treatment, each HIV patient carries a unique version of the virus. Isolation within one infected person, plus differing conditions and the struggle to survive, forces each version of HIV to evolve independently. It's nothing but a speeded up and microscopic case of what Darwin saw in the Galápagos??except that each human body is an island, and the newly evolved forms aren't so charming as finches or mockingbirds.
Understanding how quickly HIV acquires resistance to antiviral drugs, such as AZT, has been crucial to improving treatment by way of multiple drug cocktails. "This approach has reduced deaths due to HIV by severalfold since 1996," according to Palumbi, "and it has greatly slowed the evolution of this disease within patients."
Insects and weeds acquire resistance to our insecticides and herbicides through the same process. As we humans try to poison them, evolution by natural selection transforms the population of a mosquito or thistle into a new sort of creature, less vulnerable to that particular poison. So we invent another poison, then another. It's a futile effort. Even DDT, with its ferocious and long-lasting effects throughout ecosystems, produced resistant house flies within a decade of its discovery in 1939. By 1990 more than 500 species (including 114 kinds of mosquitoes) had acquired resistance to at least one pesticide. Based on these undesired results, Stephen Palumbi has commented glumly, "humans may be the world's dominant evolutionary force."
Among most forms of living creatures, evolution proceeds slowly??too slowly to be observed by a single scientist within a research lifetime. But science functions by inference, not just by direct observation, and the inferential sorts of evidence such as paleontology and biogeography are no less cogent simply because they're indirect. Still, skeptics of evolutionary theory ask: Can we see evolution in action? Can it be observed in the wild? Can it be measured in the laboratory?
The answer is yes. Peter and Rosemary Grant, two British-born researchers who have spent decades where Charles Darwin spent weeks, have captured a glimpse of evolution with their long-term studies of beak size among Galápagos finches. William R. Rice and George W. Salt achieved something similar in their lab, through an experiment involving 35 generations of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. Richard E. Lenski and his colleagues at Michigan State University have done it too, tracking 20,000 generations of evolution in the bacterium Escherichia coli. Such field studies and lab experiments document anagenesis??that is, slow evolutionary change within a single, unsplit lineage. With patience it can be seen, like the movement of a minute hand on a clock.
Btw, Jams, in regards to the Sherlock thing, are you sure you ain't thinking about Occam's Razor?
I was thinking of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes, but his was a paraphrase of Occam's Razor. Snippet via Wiki:
"The fictional friar, William of Baskerville, alludes both to the fictional sleuth Sherlock Holmes and to William of Ockham. The name itself is derived from William of Ockham and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's book The Hound of the Baskervilles. William of Ockham, who lived during the time of the novel, first put forward the principle known as "Ockham's Razor": often summarised as the dictum that one should always accept as most likely the simplest explanation that accounts for all the facts (a method used by William of Baskerville in the novel), similar to Sherlock Holmes' familiar assertion that when one has eliminated the impossible, whatever remains ?? however improbable ?? must be the truth."
I like the Sherlock Holmes quote the best, but they say basically the same thing, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle obviously did get it from William of Ockham.
I gotcha! :thumbsup:
I wanna go to the museum and see Adam and Eve riding matching T-rex's! Who wants to take a field trip?!?!?!?!
seriously, this museum does make me sad for our country, but I doubt it is the impending "Hammer of Doom" decending towards our youth many posters make it seem.
Sure, it's kind of sad that religion is trying to use science to further it's own aims (what with being an organization that supposedly relies on faith alone), but there are worse things out there in the world, like the fact that our president is the kind of person that would visit this museum. I'm more worried about that then a handful of zealot parents taking their kids to visit it. I worry that our president says "The verdict is still out on evolution".
Worry about our children and our future, but lets worry about the present more.
LegalizeTheGreen wrote:
Fixed! ;)Quote:
Sure, it's kind of sad that religion is trying to use religious pseudo-science to further it's own aims
I'm always amused by the typical creationist methodology involved in supporting their silliness. Start with the conclusion, then work backwards to find supporting data! How's that for a scientific method? :D
If anyone has noticed, God used to be the cause, in peoples' minds anyway, of one helluva lot of things, from meteors to disease, and just about everything else. As time went on and as we expanded our knowledge base, we realized that it wasn't God causing this or doing that. There are many questions still left unanswered; the universe is a complicated place. But I'm glad that instead of attributing everything unexplainable to God, there have been enlightened and intelligent people who have looked deeper for explanations. Had there not been such people, we'd all still be living in caves and shivering in fear at the sight of every meteor shower.
Every year and with every new discovery, 'God's domain' -- e.g., that which we cannot yet explain and which the superstitious therefore attribute to God -- continues to shrink.
If we could figure out faster-than-light travel and improve our telescope technology, we could lay to rest an enormous number of myths. First thing I'd look for is Jesus giving the speech on the mount, then I'd track him backwards in time to find his mother, then I'd track her backwards in time to find out who Jesus' father *really* was. I'm guessing it was either a local boy (sex out of wedlock), or Mary's father (incest). Either way, she had an obvious kickass motive to make up a 'little white lie': she didn't want to be ostracized from her community (or worse, stoned to death). I'd lie to keep from being executed too.
I had a professor, a one time hardcore Catholic, say that christianity was the most elaborate cover-up for an illegitimate birth in the history of the world. Even secular humanists like myself gasped at that, but it does bear a striking similarity to the notion of impregnated girls back in antiquity using excuses like "I met Pan in the forest!" when confronted by family and holymen about their growing abdomen.Quote:
I'm guessing it was either a local boy (sex out of wedlock), or Mary's father (incest). Either way, she had an obvious kickass motive to make up a 'little white lie': she didn't want to be ostracized from her community (or worse, stoned to death). I'd lie to keep from being executed too.
I forget what text this was read out of, (it was read at a seminar) but I recall hearing something to the effect that Mary was knocked up by a Roman legionary named Panthera.
French women who slept with German soldiers during the occupation had their heads shaved when the Huns were expelled. There's little doubt in my mind that back in Mary's day her punishment for having sex with an unclean occupier would have indeed involved more rocks than scissors. ;)
Interesting conjecture anyway...
All right Blue devil,
you posted an article and now here's one in return. Enjoy!
also see preliminary comment :
"Was Darwin wrong?" preliminary comments
from National Geographic is wrong and so was Darwin :
National Geographic is wrong and so was Darwin
by Dr. Terry Mortenson, AiG??USA
6 November 2004
The 33-page cover story of the November issue of National Geographic asks the question, ??Was Darwin wrong?? The magazine surprised no one with their confident answer, ??No!? But scientifically informed and careful thinking readers will want to analyze the ??overwhelming evidence? (p. 4) before concluding that they are correct. We invite you to consider the following article as food for thought ? there is another explanation!
National Geographic (hereafter simply NG) reflects on the fact that nearly half of Americans don??t believe in evolution, due in part to ??Scriptural literalism? [really, it??s simply believing God??s plain word] and the ??proselytizing? work of young-earth creationist and intelligent design proponents (p. 6) [one might consider that NG is also proselytizing for their perspective]. They also suggest the disbelief is based on ??honest confusion and ignorance?; but given that the popular science magazines, the mass media and the educational establishment are controlled by evolutionists, it would seem that evolutionists have no one to blame but themselves for this alleged confusion and ignorance.
For instance, please consider that only about five years ago, NG promoted ??Archaeoraptor? as ??proof?? that ??We can now say that birds are theropods just as confidently as we say that humans are mammals.?1 However, this turned out to be a hoax??a Piltdown Bird??see Archaeoraptor??Phony ??feathered? fossil. NG published an embarrassing recantation. However, it seems that their open honesty may have been shortlived.
The NG article begins with an attempt to refute the ??evolution is just a theory? claim. As we have attempted to show in many previous articles, this belief is simply not valid and we have long discouraged people from saying this very thing??see this section of our ??don??t use? page. This section also points out that we should be very careful to not elevate evolution with a word like ??theory,? and put the ??amoeba-to-man? conjecture on the same level as the theory of relativity and theories of electricity. Rather, these theories that NG confidently compares with evolution are based on repeatable observations in the present, while evolution is a claim about the unobserved past. See Naturalism, Origin and Operation Science.
The article says that ??two big ideas are at issue here: the historical phenomenon of the evolution of all species (descended from a common ancestor) and natural selection as ??the main mechanism causing that phenomenon??? (p. 8).
The fundamental points of debate: Information
To understand the following brief analysis of this article, we invite you to consider some important facts about life and the creationist view. All living things contain in their cells the DNA molecule that carries the information (genetic instructions) for making all aspects of that creature and all this information is in the first fertilized cell of each kind of creature. Amoeba DNA has no information for making hooves, hair, tails and eyes, but horse DNA does. Alligator DNA has no genetic information for producing feathers, hollow bones and one-way lung systems, but eagles do (as did Archaeopteryx). Some DNA information is common to many different kinds of creatures, but there are also differences.
So the key questions related to evolution are these. One, how did this information come into existence in the evolutionist??s supposed first living microscopic creature? And, second, how did the information in that ??simple? creature get changed and augmented to produce all the different kinds of plants and animals that we see living and in the fossil record?
The NG article doesn??t even attempt to address the first question, with good reason. As the world famous astrobiologist, Paul Davies, says:
It's a shame that there are precious few hard facts when it comes to the origin of life. We have a rough idea when it began on Earth, and some interesting theories about where, but the how part has everybody stumped. Nobody knows how a mixture of lifeless chemicals spontaneously organised themselves into the first living cell.2
This is not surprising, given the problems with chemical evolution to explain life??s origin, and the key role of genetic information in the making of living creatures. Dr Werner Gitt is a leading German scientist and young-earth creationist who is an expert on information theory. In his powerful, tightly reasoned book, In the Beginning was Information, he argues, ??There is no known law of nature, no known process and no known sequence of events which can cause information to originate by itself in matter.?3
So the evolution hypothesis is in big trouble right from the beginning. But it gets worse, because, as creationists have repeatedly argued, and as we review below, natural selection and mutations (either alone or together) do not produce the increase of new genetic information needed to support the goo-to-you-via-the-zoo theory of evolution.
Creationists believe, based on the clear teaching of Genesis, that God supernaturally made different ??kinds? of plants and animals during the first six literal days of history and that He endowed those creatures with the genetic information to produce enormous varieties within the original kinds but not the ability to change into a different kind. In case you are reading material like this for the first time, please read on and consider what is reviewed below. We believe this to be of vital importance in the overall discussion of life on this earth. Creation scientists (with PhDs earned at secular, evolution-dominated universities) are involved in ongoing scientific research to try to define the genetic boundaries of the original kinds, but most seem to agree that, generally speaking, the Genesis kinds are in most cases at the genus or family level, not the species level of modern taxonomic classification. See What is the Biblical creationist model? and Variation, information and the created kind.
So the contrast between evolution and creation is clear. Evolutionists believe in the tree of life??that all living things are descended from one common ancestor. That is, they believe in vertical change from one kind of creature to another. Creationists believe in the forest of life??horizontal variation within the original created kind, but not one kind changing into another. Which view really fits the scientific evidence?
Concerning natural selection, NG gets it wrong at the start when it says that ??Wallace and Darwin share the kudos for having discovered natural selection? (p. 8). Actually, a respected creationist British scientist, Edward Blyth, discussed the concept (without using the term) 25 years before Darwin published his famous book. Blyth attributed variation within the original created kinds to changes in environment or food supply.4 NG describes natural selection as the ??natural culling? of ??useless or negative variations? (p. 8), but this reveals the fatal flaw in Darwin??s theory. As creationists have continually pointed out, natural selection doesn??t create anything new, it only selects from the existing genetic information from which the varieties are produced. The result is either the preservation of some of that information in a variety well suited to a particular environment or the complete loss of some of the information through extinction of a variety. But what never results is the increase or creation of new genetic information.
NG misleads its readers and evades this information argument when it showcases losses of information as ??proof? of goo-to-you evolution, which would involve massive increases of information. For example, NG asks, ??Why do certain species of flightless beetles have wings that never open?? (pp. 12??13). We have long ago pointed out that such beetles did arise from beetles with fully functional wings because of a mutation that crippled the power of flight. But in some environments, such a mutation may be beneficial, i.e. benefiting the organism. For example, on a windy island, a beetle that flew into the air may be blown into the sea, while flightless ones will avoid that peril. But the bottom line is the beetle has lost something; this doesn??t explain how beetles or flight could have arisen in the first place. See Beetle bloopers: Even a defect can be an advantage sometimes, even though it results from a loss of genetic information.
The evidence for evolution is presented by NG in four categories: biogeography (the study of the geographical distribution of living creatures), paleontology (the study of fossils), embryology (the study of the development of embryos to birth) and morphology (the study of the shape and design of creatures). Darwin used all these arguments, and so do modern evolutionists.
Biogeography
Evolutionists say that only evolution can explain why there are certain creatures in one location, say kangaroos in Australia, but not in another location. However, Darwin claimed that evolution explained the pattern of life on fixed continents, while now evolution is supposed to explain the pattern of life on continents that moved apart from one big one. If evolution is so flexible that it can explain such mutually incompatible distributions, then it explains nothing at all.
Also, there are many puzzles to the observed distribution of living and fossil creatures. For example, kangaroos are not mainly in Australia ??because they evolved there.? And evolutionists have to admit that marsupials once lived in Europe, Asia and North America (in profusion in the latter), but now are largely absent (except for opossums in the Americas). Here is a revealing admission from two evolutionists:
Living marsupials are restricted to Australia and South America (which were part of the supercontinent Gondwana); North American opossums are recent immigrants to the continent. In contrast, metatherian fossils from the Late Cretaceous are exclusively from Eurasia and North America (which formed the supercontinent Laurasia). This geographical switch remains unexplained.5
But creationists contend that there are much better explanations of the biogeographic evidence, which flow from understanding the changes in climate and sea level after the global catastrophic Flood at the time of Noah and the fact that post-Flood people would have intentionally (and sometimes unknowingly) taken plants and animals to different parts of the world as they repopulated the earth. See Migration Q&A and chapter 1 of Woodmorrappe??s book, Studies in Flood Geology.
Closely related species in an area, such as the thirteen species of finches in the Galápagos Islands that Darwin explored, have indeed arisen from a common ancestor. But finches changing into finches don??t tell us where finches came from in the first place. Rather, they are a classic example of sorting out genetic information, not generating new information, and far more quickly than evolutionists expected but just what the creation model predicted??see Darwin??s finches: Evidence supporting rapid post-Flood adaptation. Also, recent work shows that many of the changes are really the result of a built-in capacity to respond to cyclically changing climates. For example, while a drought resulted in a slight increase in beak size, the change was reversed when the rains returned.
This argument applies to the other NG examples of anoles, mole rats, ants, pigeons and fruit flies. It??s also important to note that Darwin??s argument was against a compromising view similar to that of progressive creationists such as Hugh Ross: namely, that God created individual species where they are now living.
Contrary to what the NG article implies, informed creationists do indeed believe that new species can arise. But these are the result of the reshuffling or loss of the genetic information in the original created kinds. As explained earlier, creationist scientists do not believe that the original created ??kinds? (mentioned in Genesis 1) are equivalent to the modern man-made taxonomic classification of ??species,? but more likely approximates the ??family? level. Much recent evidence has accumulated to show that speciation can happen rapidly, which has surprised evolutionists but fits perfectly with the Bible??s teachings??see Speedy species surprise.
Paleontology
NG leads readers to believe that Darwin thought the fossil record supported his theory. But actually he admitted more than once in his famous book6 that the fossil record is an embarrassment to his theory of descent from a common ancestor. He knew that if his theory was true, there should be countless numbers of transitional forms (e.g., 100% reptile, 75% reptile-25% bird, 50% reptile-50%bird, 25% reptile-75%bird, 100% bird and many transitional forms between each of those). Darwin attributed the lack of evidence to our ignorance of the fossil record. But today our museums are loaded with fossils and the missing links are still missing.
As the late Harvard evolutionary geologist, Stephen Gould, put it:
The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils.7
In a 1979 letter responding to the late creationist, Luther Sunderland, Colin Patterson, then Senior Palaeontologist at the British Museum of Natural History in London, concurred:
I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them. You suggest that an artist should be used to visualize such transformations, but where would he get the information from? I could not, honestly, provide it, and if I were to leave it to artistic license, would that not mislead the reader? ... You say that I should at least ??show a photo of the fossil from which each type of organism was derived.? I will lay it on the line ?? there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument.8
Richard Dawkins?? evolutionist disciple at Oxford University, Mark Ridley, is emphatic:
However, the gradual change of fossil species has never been part of the evidence for evolution. In the chapters on the fossil record in the Origin of Species Darwin showed that the record was useless for testing between evolution and special creation because it has great gaps in it. The same argument still applies. ... In any case, no real evolutionist, whether gradualist or punctuationist, uses the fossil record as evidence in favor of the theory of evolution as opposed to special creation.9 [emphasis in the original]
So I guess the folks at NG are not real evolutionists, or at least not very informed. They certainly offer nothing in this article to negate these statements. Incredibly, NG even admits that ??illuminating but spotty, the fossil record is like a film of evolution from which 999 out of every 1000 frames have been lost on the cutting-room floor? (p. 25). So there you have it. Evolution is 99.9% imagination! NG quickly reassures us that ??dozens of intermediate forms? have been found, but they only give two examples: horses and whales.
Creationists have exposed the flaws in the supposed horse evolution story for years. The story told by the fossils in South America is backwards compared to the story told by the fossils in North America??see What??s happened to the horse? Rather, the horse ??tree? is really a bush, and comprises merely variants within the horse kind, and most likely a non-horse at the bottom??see The non-evolution of the horse: Special creation or evolved rock badger? and pages 189??97 in Evolution: The Fossils Still Say No! A previous flawed attempt by NG (in 1981) to use horse fossils to support evolution is exposed in Horse find defies evolution.
Top left: Gingerich??s first reconstruction12
Bottom left: what he had actually found12
Top right: more complete skeleton13
Bottom right: more reasonable reconstruction14
As for whale evolution, NG refers to the work of paleontologist Philip Gingerich. It discusses his research on Pakicetus (??whale from Pakistan?), but doesn??t reveal the real story. In 1994 Gingerich claimed Pakicetus was a creature ??perfectly intermediate? between a land animal and a whale.10 The fossil evidence at the time only consisted of parts of the skull, yet Gingerich??s artist drew the creature swimming in the ocean with front legs like a land animal but the mouth and a rear end looking like a sea creature as it was trying to eat fish. But by 2001 more fossils had been found11 and it was concluded that Pakicetus was ??no more amphibious than a tapir.?13 Yet NG misleadingly tells us that Gingerich ??discovered Pakicetus, a terrestrial mammal? (p. 31). That??s not what he called it when he discovered it and wrote about it in the scientific literature!
NG goes on to say that Gingerich now believes that whales are related to antelope based on a ??single piece of fossil? found in 2000. It was part of the anklebone of a ??new species of whale,? they said. But later they found the other part and realized that it was ??an anklebone, from a four-legged whale.? Hold on! When was the last time you saw a ??four-legged whale?? Evolutionists are playing language games to call the fins and tail of a whale ??legs.? But if, as NG says, the fossil ??closely resembled? the anklebone in artiodactyls (hoofed land animals, such as antelopes), then how on earth could this ??single piece of fossil evidence? be interpreted as being in any way related to whales? In evolution theory, imagination is king! NG says at this point ??this is how science is supposed to work? (p. 31). Really?
For more refutation of the supposed fossil evidence for evolution, readers should consult Darwin??s Enigma, Evolution: The Fossils Still Say No! and chapter 5 of Creation Scientists Answer Their Critics.
Embryology and Morphology
Similarity of shape or design can just as well, if not more so, point to a common designer, rather than a common ancestor. Roller skates, bikes, cars, trucks, busses and trains all have wheels, but one is not the ancestor of the other. They are similar because intelligent human designers have all thought that wheels are a good way to move things on land. So too living creatures that share the same planet and are interdependently linked in a complex ecosystem will have many similarities and those which live in very similar environments on earth (e.g., in water or air or on land) will share even more similarities. Our infinitely wise Creator is smarter than all the engineers put together. Good designs can be, and are, easily modified for different applications.
But when we take into account the differences in creatures that share common features, the common ancestor argument becomes even more unbelievable. For example, humans and frogs have five digits on their hands, but the developmental patterns in them are vastly different. In humans the fingers develop by programmed cell death in between the digits, whereas in frogs it is by outward growth as cells divide. See more detailed discussion of this in the sixth chapter of Refuting Evolution 2.
As for embryos, the development is programmed by the information in the DNA molecule in the fertilized egg. So again the question is where did this information come from for the different kinds of plants and animals? It didn??t come from time and chance and the laws of nature. And we must never lose sight of the evolutionists continued use of Ernst Haeckel??s fraudulent drawings??see Ernst Haeckel: Evangelist for evolution and apostle of deceit and Fraud rediscovered. Yet, like Darwin and many science textbooks15 and evolutionist books for laymen,16 NG endorses embryonic recapitulation (p. 13).
NG claims vestigial characteristics or organs as proof of evolution. These are aspects of the body that are claimed to be useless leftovers from our animal ancestry. There are two problems with this argument. One, the loss of function (through the loss of genetic information) cannot be evidence of the ascendance from a lowly kind of creature up to a higher form (which would require an increase of information). Secondly, nearly all of the 180 ??vestigial organs? in man cited by evolutionists as proof of evolution at the turn of the 20th century are now known (because of medical research) to have at least one function. See Chapter 7 of Refuting Evolution 2 and Vestigial Organs Are Fully Functional. In fact, NG ludicrously uses male nipples as proof of evolution (pp. 12??13)??do they think males evolved from a race entirely comprised of breasted-female humans? For an answer, see Male nipples prove evolution? (reply to a skeptic).
NG makes a big deal about plants, animals, bacteria and viruses changing to resist herbicides, insecticides and antibiotics. In fact, the article says that ??there??s no better or more immediate evidence supporting the Darwinian theory than this process of forced transformation among our inimical germs? (p. 21).
But in each cited example we have a certain kind of creature changing into another variety of that same kind of creature. One flu strain changing into another flu strain, or one staph bacterium changing into a different staph bacterium, or one variety of house fly turning into another variety of house fly is not an explanation of where the information to make the flu, staph or house fly came from in the first place. And we always find that the change is actually going in the opposite direction to what evolution requires??see The evolution train??s a-comin?? (Sorry, a-goin????in the wrong direction).
But how does this variation occur? Prominent evolutionist, Francisco Ayala tell us:
Insect resistance to a pesticide was first reported in 1947 for the Housefly (Musca domestica) with respect to DDT. Since then resistance to one or more pesticides has been reported in at least 225 species of insects and other arthropods. The genetic variants required for resistance to the most diverse kinds of pesticides were apparently present in every one of the populations exposed to these man-made compounds.17
Research shows that the same can apply to antibiotic resistance.
Scientists at the University of Alberta have revived bacteria from members of the historic Franklin expedition who mysteriously perished in the Arctic nearly 150 years ago. Not only are the six strains of bacteria almost certainly the oldest ever revived, says medical microbiologist Dr. Kinga Kowalewska-Grochowska, three of them also happen to be resistant to antibiotics. In this case, the antibiotics clindamycin and cefoxitin, both of which were developed more than a century after the men died, were among those used.18
But many times the changes are due to mutations, which are copying mistakes in the DNA molecule in the process of reproduction. What NG doesn??t tell the readers is that mutations result in a loss of genetic information in the creature. Most mutations are deleterious, if not fatal, to the organism. It is not on the way up (evolving), but on the way down (devolving). Sometimes, the mutation does improve the chance of survival, but it always involves a loss of genetic information.
For example, the bacterium, Helicobacter pylori, is troublesome to humans, but doctors can destroy it with an antibiotic. After the patient takes the antibiotic, it is absorbed through the cell wall of the bacterium. It has the genetic information to make an enzyme which reacts with the antibiotic converting it into a poison, killing the bacterium. But due to a mutation, some H. pylori cannot make the enzyme and so cannot convert the antibiotic and so do not die but reproduce, giving the patient and doctor a new problem. The mutant survived through a loss of information, which is not a process that will eventually lead to an increase of information to change a bacterium over millions of years into a biologist.
As Dr. Lee Spetner, a Jewish scientist and expert on mutations, has stated in his excellent book, Not by Chance: Shattering the Modern Theory of Evolution, pp. 159??60:
But all these mutations reduce the information in the gene by making a protein less specific. They add no information and they add no new molecular capability. Indeed, all mutations studied destroy information. None of them can serve as an example of a mutation that can lead to the large changes of macroevolution. ... Whoever thinks macroevolution can be made by mutations that lose information is like the merchant who lost a little money on every sale but thought he could make it up on volume.
So much for mutations being any help to the evolutionist. Just like natural selection, they don??t produce the new genetic information that the theory requires. But like natural selection, mutations fit perfectly with what the Bible teaches. They are the result of the curse of God on creation when Adam and Eve sinned (Genesis 3:20, Romans 8:20??22).
NG is simply ??hurling elephants? at their readers when it says that additional evidence for evolution comes from ??population genetics, biochemistry, molecular biology, and ... genomics? (p. 20). Readers will see the insurmountable problems for evolution from biochemistry in Michael Behe??s (Ph.D. university biochemist) Darwin??s Black Box. For an agnostic, university molecular biologist??s strictly scientific evaluation of evolution, see Michael Denton??s Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (particularly chapter 10).
Darwinism and religion
NG wraps things up by asserting that ??no one needs to, and no one should, accept evolution merely as a matter of faith? (p. 8). But that is precisely what most of the world, including most scientists (who are just laymen outside their own field of expertise), have done. Evolution is believed because it appears to be scientific due to ??smoke and mirrors? arguments and because it gives people an excuse for not submitting to their Creator. As Romans 1:18??20 says, people suppress the truth in unrighteousness.
But what is Darwin??s theory??s relationship to religion? Certainly, a person can believe in a vaguely defined ??religion? and in evolution at the same time (see Is evolution ??anti-religion?? It depends). NG claims the compatibility of evolution with papal pronouncements and Roman Catholic dogma (p. 6). However, as far as the likes of NG are concerned, when the Pope says you can believe in evolution, he??s an enlightened religious leader who should be heeded. But when he speaks on the sanctity of human life from conception and marriage, and thus opposes abortion and homosexual behavior, then he??s just an old bigot who should keep his religion to himself.
But even the NG??s premise can be debated. There are Roman Catholics who don??t believe evolution or millions of years is compatible with their faith (or true science). For example, most of the scientists in the video Evolution ... Fact or Belief? and in the geology video Experiments in Stratification are Catholic. But the real issue is whether the theory of millions of years of evolution is compatible with the Creator??s Word, the Bible. For two centuries, young-earth creationists have shown clearly that it is not. See The Great Turning Point, Refuting Compromise, Creation and Change, and these articles: Two histories of death, Two world-views in conflict and The god of an old earth.
Conclusion
NG is wrong that scientific evidence proves goo-to-you-via-the-zoo evolution. The evidence has never supported Darwin??s theory, which is why an increasing number of Ph.D. scientists and well-informed laymen and students are rejecting what they have been taught (brainwashed) in schools, museums, TV science programs and in National Geographic all their lives.
Darwin was partially right about natural selection explaining the origin of species. But because he didn??t pay attention to the Bible (but rather rejected it because of his rebellion against his Creator), he didn??t understand that speciation is simply the God-designed way for the original supernaturally created kinds to produce wonderful variety and perpetuate themselves in the changing environments of a sin-cursed world that would be radically changed by a global year-long Flood at the time of Noah.
The Bible fits the facts, which explains why an increasing number of Ph.D. scientists are creationists??see In Six Days, On the Seventh Day, The Genesis Files and our website section Creation scientists and other biographies of interest. Evolution doesn??t agree with the scientific evidence. It cannot stand careful scrutiny, which is why evolutionists have to use political and academic power and legal intimidation to keep criticisms of evolution out of public schools. In fact, the atheistic anti-creationist Eugenie Scott tacitly admitted that if students were presented such criticisms, they might end up not believing it!
In my opinion, using creation and evolution as topics for critical-thinking exercises in primary and secondary schools is virtually guaranteed to confuse students about evolution and may lead them to reject one of the major themes in science.19
It is sad to see that Philip Gingerich is an evolutionist, and not a Bible-believing Christian, today because his church didn??t teach him correctly. He said, ??I grew up in a conservative church in the Midwest and was not taught anything about evolution. The subject was clearly skirted.? (p. 31)
Churches that don??t equip their youth and adults to deal with the myth of evolution are likely to see them deceived by articles like this one in NG and many of them will drift away from the truth of God??s Word.
blue devil said:
That's actually how evolutionists work too, but creationists presuppositions and convictions are based upon what they see and observe in the outside world, whereas there is no evidence to logically convict evolutionists of their presuppositions of evolution, besides their corrupt heart and minds.Quote:
I'm always amused by the typical creationist methodology involved in supporting their silliness. Start with the conclusion, then work backwards to find supporting data! How's that for a scientific method?
Quote:
All right Blue devil,
you posted an article and now here's one in return. Enjoy!
If laughter equates to enjoyment, rest assured I'm enjoying it!
So, no thoughts of your own, you're content to quote someone who insists scientific evidence exists to support a literal Genesis? Oh wait, you're one of those YECs too right? Nevermind...
Stephen Gould is likely spinning in his grave from having a poser and spinmeister like Mortenson using his name. The man is the perfect example of the kind of religious pseudo-science I referred to earlier. He's been smacked down by real scientists more times than I can recall. In fact, I'm surprised you have the balls to cite him!
If this is the best you can do as a rebuttal, yeesh.... :wtf:
Quote:
That's actually how evolutionists work too, but creationists presuppositions and convictions are based upon what they see and observe in the outside world, whereas there is no evidence to logically convict evolutionists of their presuppositions of evolution, besides their corrupt heart and minds.
Wrong bucko! You YECs do not practice science and you do not carry out legitimate research, anyone with a shred of scientific integrity knows this so spare me the bullshit - "evolutionists" are not the ones attempting to bend a discipline until it aligns with the religious text of their choice. Talk about projecting! You denigrate science in a vain attempt to preserve that which is close to your heart. It's disgusting. :mad:
Ok, I'm not going to waste anymore time or bandwidth on your kind of cognitively dissonant zealotry. Have a nice night! :jointsmile:
I'm done too, if a phd. doesn't convince you that someone is a 'real' scientist what will. Of course evolutionists talk bad about him, but I'm not sure what you mean when you say he's been smacked down so many times.
You posted a 33 page article and you expect me to post a rebuttal all on my own? Of course I could that stuff is basic but it's just too long. Btw, it totally blowed holes in the entire National Geographicarticle despite you character assasination.
I feel comfortable with what I posted and it's up to other readers to use thier common sense or lack of. Night.
It occurred to me awhile ago whilst breaking in my new Volcano that on a topic most basically about geology, we've haven't heard from any actual geologists! Surely a professional in the field counts this forum among their bookmarks! Who knows, maybe someone here has their very own Randy Marsh a la Southpark.
I would love to know not only his or her personal feelings on the thread topic, but also:
-What is in their experience the general attitude towards nature's ultimate website of truth, Answersingenesis.org.
-What do they think of the AiG Statement of Faith, that being "No apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the Scriptural record."
-How would one equate the above with The Scientific Method?
-Does having a BA in mathematics and a Phd in History of Geology make Terry Mortenson an active, practicing scientist on the cutting edge of current day geology?
-Difference in fields aside, based on accomplishments is Mortenson in the same class as someone like Douglas Futuyma?
-Does it matter that Mortenson is not a member of the History of Science Society (America's peer society) and hasn't published anything in any of the world's acknowledged historical journals?
-Does it matter that the only peer review he partakes in comes from other Young Earth Creationists?
Inquiring minds want to know. I'm not a geologist, and I'm damn sure natureboy here isn't either - so please, if there's a pro in the house, by all means sound off!
Regardless of your personal feelings on creationism, it would be great if we could get some industry insight into the merits of the geology that supposedly supports it.
TIA!
Did you see that article recently talking about the imminent creation of artificial life? Looks fascinating, human beings creating new lifeforms themselves (for assorted purposes, mostly industrial). Apparently, most of the problems are close to being solved, starting with a membrane to hold the DNA information. They said that once they've created the life, they're going to let evolution do the hard work and fine tune the organisms for them, since we aren't yet smart enough to do what evolution does, selecting the most robust individuals for species propogation and survival, but the actual creation of basic life, we *are* smart enough for that.
Another interesting thing is that while standard DNA is comprised of four chemicals, they're talking about adding an addition eight to the artificial life's DNA, for twelve total, which would greatly increase the information-storing capability of the DNA. Heck, if we can do that, that exceeds what's already been done, by nature or God or whatever. Maybe our form of life, with four-chemical DNA, was created by some alien race passing through. Maybe *we* are artificial life, also, in other words. I've seen no proof to contradict this. Seen nothing to support it either, but hey.
Nice to see that scientists are actively using evolution as a tool in the lab, even as the less educated members of our society are denying the very existence of same.
rofl, the sad thing is it isn't even the "less educated". Hell, our president denies evolution and he is the leader of this country.
I like your responce,there does not have to be so much hatred:thumbsup:Quote:
Originally Posted by Billionfold
Lol, eight base pairs.. WTF? Like every living thing doesn't offer enough complexity for our corporations to exploit?
If you are talking about the same attempt as I am Jamstigator, then they are not using DNA. The articles I read said that a team is trying to create a basic organism using something other than DNA, RNA or anything used by natural organisms.
And nature, why is it that if people do not see why Creationism is so "TOTALLY TRUE" they are either ignorant or stupid?
Caution:not actual nature quote.
Here's the (short) article relating to artificial life:
Wired News - AP News
And here's the quote about the 'brains' of the proposed new lifeforms:
"Szostak is also optimistic about the next step - getting nucleotides, the building blocks of DNA, to form a working genetic system."
So maybe it will be 'real' DNA, and maybe it won't. I'd think using actual DNA (e.g., the nucleotides, standard double-helix model) as the blueprint to get started might make things easier on them, but I'm not a genetic scientist, so I don't really know. 'Working genetic system' is a lot more characters than DNA though, and I'm lazy. ;)