Posted on 04/07/2006 4:16:49 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
Even as the evolution wars rage, on school boards and in courtrooms, biologists continue to accumulate empirical data supporting Darwinian theory. Two extraordinary discoveries announced this week should go a long way to providing even more of the evidence that critics of evolution say is lacking.
One study produced what biblical literalists have been demanding ever since Darwin -- the iconic "missing links." If species evolve, they ask, with one segueing into another, where are the transition fossils, those man-ape or reptile-mammal creatures that evolution posits?
In yesterday's issue of Nature, paleontologists unveiled an answer: well-preserved fossils of a previously unknown fish that was on its way to evolving into a four-limbed land-dweller. It had a jaw, fins and scales like a fish, but a skull, neck, ribs and pectoral fin like the earliest limbed animals, called tetrapods.
[big snip]
Another discovery addresses something Darwin himself recognized could doom his theory: the existence of a complex organ that couldn't have "formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications," he wrote in 1859.
The intelligent-design movement, which challenges teaching evolution, makes this the centerpiece of its attack. It insists that components of complex structures, such as the eye, are useless on their own and so couldn't have evolved independently, an idea called irreducible complexity.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
True.. thats amazing in itself, ain't it...
What a plan.. We truely are spirits here(this planet) for a human experience.. That experience seeming to be, Do you want to remain, or be happy with being, a Primate or are you open to something else?.. Shazzam, now, thats what I call Evolution..
The past and present are composed of moments.. In the moment time irrelevant.. Take care of the moment and the past and future will take care of themselves- Jesus(paraphrased).. If your into the past or future your not into the moment.. As in a dream, a moment can be long or short.. The same dream can last 20 minutes or all night.. with the same content.. Have you noticed this?..
Space and Time may be human qualia or perceptions.. They may exist below the spiritual level.. Not (human/flesh plus the spirit) level but the purely spiritual level.. Where time might be a fluid or a gas or a solid(metaphorically).. and space the same.. Designated matter/energy/time/space being one thing and UnDesignated matter/energy/time/space being another.. Like the difference between the second and third dimensions.. Second dimensional things can appear to be 3D but they are not.. they just appear to be.. i.e. as in a painting..
The wholly unproven Dark energy/matter concept(no one knows what that is they just call it that) being a hint of something beyond solid space/time/energy/matter.. UnDesignated energy/matter/space/time being what the crude Dark energy/matter concept is..
You know the Spiritual Dimension or Entrophy..
What if a Man rose from the dead? Would that be supernatural?
Cordially,
I guess that depends on what dead is(means)..
If there is a hell nobody really dies..
In principle, of course, but I am not going there. Those waters are muddied by the same kinds of arguments that would stir up any court case.
You believe the resurrection or you don't. Miracles happen or they don't.
My concern is with people who make false claims about evidence, such as claiming there is evidence supporting a global flood. Belief in miracles does not require lying or making silly claims about evidence. Miracles, by their nature, are outside the world of evidence.
Similar to the fish that still exists today. When it's pond dries up, it can walk to another pond nearby.
Not sure of the species, but I recall that it lives in southern USA.
Truly, there can be no argument against the theory that reality is an illusion - much like there can be no argument against the theology that God created an old-looking universe six millennia ago (or last Thursday).
Nevertheless, the most effective arguments (IMHO) consider the worldview of the correspondent.
Truly that is so, Alamo-Girl! But if true, then science has no foundation to stand on. It would be an exercise in futility.
It also suggests that the Creator of the universe seeks to mislead us.
I can find no good reason to credit either supposition.
Thanks so much for writing, A-G!
I agree with you as always. Thank you so much for your reply!
whether "reality is an illusion" or not is irrelevant *to those stuck within the reality under dispute*
all science presumes solipsism is bogus. any scientific theory can be said to be implicitly prefaced with various provisos, including "provided that what we are observing/describing/explaining is real"
this is a non-issue.
whether reality is real has no impact on how stuff works within reality.
How about "evidence" that at some point reptile scales became feathers?..
Would that be a false claim?... or merely IF'n...
True.. who decides whom is in a 2nd reality and whom is in the 1st reality?..
Could be that ALL are in some degree of a 2nd reality..
Indeed the observer sees what nobody else sees, exactly.. like in a dream.. and dreams can relate to reality on a metaphorical or actual scale.. It is possible that 1st reality has not even started yet.. and we see hints of it on a sliding scale.. Why Humans dream(at all) could be to get us used to dreaming and waking up.. so it won't seem strange when we finally do..
I know, I know.. ;)
If it is not 'real' then science and math have nothing to do because physical causality would be an illusion. OTOH, God might have a great sense of humor.
I'm sorry, King Prout; but the statement is nonsensical to me. If reality isn't "real," then what difference does it make how stuff works within it? For such stuff would also be unreal, if reality itself were unreal.
Aren't we pretty much stuck with having to assume that experiences we have of reality actually refer to something real? Whether the experiences are direct observations, a la the scientific method, or "indirect," intuitions worked out in the mind, a la mathematics, we have nothing to "test" unless and until we make that assumption.
Perhaps you think this is a "small point," even an exercise in solipsism, thus not worthy of our regard....
Thanks for writing.
"If reality isn't "real," then what difference does it make how stuff works within it?"
standard response for all iterations of the solipsism "dilemma" - if someone bashes you on the knee with a baseball bat, you will howl and weep whether or not the pain, the knee, and the bat are "really really real" or not.
when you are locked in the system, only the internals of the system matter.
I have some doubt about that, King Prout. Who's to say we're locked in a system in such a way that only the system's "internals" matter anyway? How do we know that in point of fact, without understanding the context in which the system arises, exists, evolves?
The above doesn't make either logical or grammatical sense. TOE is not about origins of life, it is about speciation. That's why the book was given the title "Origin of Species" not "Origin of Life". If you can't read I guess that explains the lack of writing ability.
your reality, the only one you can do anything with, the only one you can observe and test, within which you are stuck and perforce must operate, is that within the container. The "context" in which the container itself exists is irrelevant to anything you can perceive, test, or enact.
*of course, in this analogy, the ship could encounter seas which exceed the container's motion stabilization, in which case the occupants of the container might perceive pitching, rolling, undulation. If so, however, they would NOT be able to test any hypotheses they come up with pertaining to the cause of the motion.
*additionally, any ship can sink. I suppose that if that happened, the occupants would sooner or later experience a brief epiphany involving seawater and its inability to sustain human respiration.
*all analogies break down if extended beyond their limits. this does not obviate their utility in illustrating the desired point.
And the point here is: If you cannot test a thing, you can't even *claim* to know a thing to be any more valid than any other untestable thing. You and everything you know, even the parameters of knowing itself, are all stuck within your operational reality - whether that reality is "the Really *Real* Reality"[tm] or not.
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