Posted on 08/16/2002 5:26:43 PM PDT by PatrickHenry
Yes, there does appear to be a succession, somewhat loose perhaps. But succession has not been established scientifically; i.e. there has been no credible mechanism that is supported by the evidence. There have been lots of lies, lots of lies, perpetrated by the so-called scientists -- Haeckel and on and on. Mutation is a wholly destructive non-starter. "Chance" is a howler. No mechanism, Vade, just fruit flies that are bred in the lab into monsters but then revert quickly to the norm when subsequently left to their own devices, Galapagos bird beaks that enlarge with unusual dryness, then revert to the norm with a return to climate normality.
You post a link to Talk.Origins. That site is one big lie. I have parsed their stuff before and its all rhetoric and misrepresentation.
Abiogenesis is taught as fact, yet is is none such, it is a gleam in the eye of hopeful atheists.
I do not attack you, Vade, but the Evolutionist case has simply not been made. Yes, I agree that the earth is more than 6,000 years old. But you know that I am not a literal Biblical Creationist. And I agree life has increased in its complexity over geological time. And I agree that the same amino acid bases comprise the genetic alphabet for all life.
Now this does not in any way establish that life came from non-life of its own magical accord or that one species evolved into another or that the Universe is comprised solely of material, and most emphatically the latter. Vade, the biologists don't know but they are not honest about it. They have conferences where they engage in an activity they call "tree-building". The physicists do not hold conferences where they engage in "formula-building" in any sense similar to the biologists.
It's about evidence, Vade. Show me. I've been lied to for a very long time.
Which society is more advanced, that of Zimbabwe or that of Iceland? That of North Korea or that of Canada? That of medieval Germany or that of modern Britain? That of the old Soviet Union or that of the U.S.? By almost every conceivable measure, the more technologically advanced a society becomes, the less depraved it gets. About the only significant exception is Nazi Germany; the technical advancement of the Soviet Union (and Saddam Hussein's Iraq) was mostly a sham.
Well, yes it does, but this is an argument for God, not against "Him", and it does not at all illuminate "His" nature beyond this one very basic observation.
—Aldous Huxley, "Confessions of a Professed Atheist"
And tomorrow? Your smartness flickers, draws away to a dull glow, and winks out, cast upon a foamy river of mindlessness wending its purposeless way to an ocean of heat death.
In the end, none of it mattered, Physicist. Your dear wife, your wonderful children--the joy they brought you with their smiles and hugs. It was all a cruel Darwinian joke, but no one was left alive to appreciate the punchline.
The materialists have pretty much outlasted and bullied the critics of materialist nonsense off these threads.
You are an exception. I like to pop in from time to time, like a stone in the shoe, to give them a blister. They deserve it. Their insufferable arrogance is breath-taking in scope. For sheer stubborn pigheadedness, they have no equals.
It's exactly what I personally like to see and I imagine it is quite engaging to many others also.
A "science scary, science bad!" placemarker.
Because man, at his most basic, is a social creature. Humans need the company and cooperation of other humans to survive ("No man is an island..."). When we "do as we want" we run the risk of alienating our supporting group -- a situation that we instinctively know could be fatal (even if modern technology means it won't). When one is that deeply tied to the group one develops a set of rules to allow the group to interact in relative peace.
This is the biggest clue to the motivations of the pseudo-science crowd I've ever seen.
Indeed, my dear Phaedrus, nor would I argue against Him. I presented it as an argument against religion. Religion is what Kevin Curry is attempting to market here, not God.
The actions of the universe are not ultimately predictable; its laws are...as is its fate.
And I do exult in the incredible majesty of the universe, every day. In fact, it's my career to do so.
And tomorrow? Your smartness flickers, draws away to a dull glow, and winks out, cast upon a foamy river of mindlessness wending its purposeless way to an ocean of heat death.
Would you wish it to be otherwise? So would I. Tough shit to the both of us.
In the end, none of it mattered, Physicist. Your dear wife, your wonderful children--the joy they brought you with their smiles and hugs. It was all a cruel Darwinian joke, but no one was left alive to appreciate the punchline.
Ultimately, that's correct. But in the nearer term, my children, my works and my words will outlive me. I love my children--and yours, for that matter--and for their sake I make the world a better place. The ways in which I influence the world are the only afterlife that will be permitted to me, or to anyone...but for any sane, rational and moral person, that's more than enough.
"...[your] dear Phaedrus"? Ah, Well... Here, Physicist, you separate God from religion, which would seem unusual but, strangely enough, I would agree, emphatically. The best evidence for this is that the Cult of Darwin is not science -- it is indeed a/the "secular" atheist religion that infests our schools. Dawkins is its High Priest.
It has not escaped me either that when provided with evidence, you ask "What mechanism?" and when provided with the mechanism--think "variation and natural selection"--you ask "What evidence?" What's the problem? Can't keep more than one thought in your mind at a time?
Come on, Vade. What is the mechanism of evolution? You know that the way science works is that the scientist begins with an hypothesis (God knows where THAT comes from) and is then expected to support it with evidence. 100+ years and we're still waiting for the Darwinian evidence, Gould's Punk Eek rhetoric notwithstanding. Why should we wait? Why hasn't Darwin been sent back to the drawing board? Why will no one discuss Gertrude Himmelfarb's absolute decimation of Darwin in 1959? Well, the answer is that there is an ulterior agenda at work.
Now I believe that you are sincere in your belief in Evolution. I also believe that your wishing it to be so plays a strong part in that belief. This is as opposed to the nasty anti-Christian stuff that comes from others here.
Christians, where are you? Stop citing scripture! Learn how to fight! Darwinism falls of its own weight! That's the Darwinists' dirty little secret, and it's why they keep attacking "Creationism" instead of defending nominally scientific Darwinism.
What are you talking about? Darwin published in 1859, when knowledge in so many areas was lacking and potential falsifications of his theory were everywhere. Those potential falsifications have never shown up.
Punctuated Equilibrium is a scientific theory, not rhetoric. "Rhetoric" is a good description of your handwaving when presented with evidence.
Take your dismissal of the 200+ species cataloged in the TalkOrigins vertebrate transitionals article. You pretend they're all gone--Poof!-- when you say this:
You post a link to Talk.Origins. That site is one big lie. I have parsed their stuff before and its all rhetoric and misrepresentation.
Let's examine that trick in detail. Is everything all gone? What happens if I go to that site and pick a fossil we don't usually talk about on these threads?
We don't talk much about sirenians, so I follow the links for "Sirenians (dugongs & manatees)" and find
Prorastomus (mid-Eocene) -- A very primitive sirenian with an extremely primitive dental formula (including the ancient fifth premolar that all other mammals lost in the Cretaceous! Could this mean sirenians split off from all other mammals very early on?) The skull is somewhat condylarth-like. Had distinctive sirenian ribs. Not enough of the rest of the skeleton was found to know how aquatic it was.Are they making this up? If they aren't, can I find where they made something up about it?
Stick the name in Yahoo! For sure, there's a real fossil species out there.
This page in Portugese on Sirenians and Pinnipeds--you may want to use AltaVista--commits to Prorastomus being a land animal but otherwise has no conflicts.
The creationist answer to sirenian transition plays on the ambiguous adaptation of Prorastomus, going the opposite way from that Portugese site. Prora is "A sirenian!" "Just a sirenian!" Note that so far the only hard conflict is with a site called "Genesis Mission." Gee! Who'd a thunk it?
How Manatees Evolved plows the middle ground.
Paleontological evidence as well as recent biochemical evidence, reveal that Sirenians, together with the Proboscideans (elephants), Hyracoidea (hyraxes) and Tubulidentata (aardvarks) represent four living orders of mammals that are sometimes lumped together as "subungulates", which derived from a primitive ungulate ancestral stock.I could go on, but it's clear that TalkOrigins has invented nothing and distorted nothing on Prorasmus, candidly presenting where the evidence is ambiguous about the adaptation of the animal.The mammals in these four orders all lack a clavicle, and have nails or hooves instead of claws. Sirenian evolution is not fully understood. They likely originated in Eurasia and/or Africa, but spread into tropical South America by the middle Eocene (45-50 mya). The sirenians reached a peak of diversity during the Oligocene and Miocene epochs (55 mya). The earliest animal with a manateelike appearance (Potamosiren) dates from the Miocene epoch (13-16 mya). Early fossil record begins with early Eocene genus Prorastomus, structurally close to the common ancestor, already adapted to at least a partially aquatic lifestyle "Sirenians have a long history, first appearing on earth some 50 mya, and their family tree has included denizens of cold as well as warm waters.
You claim above to have refuted the site and, by interpolation, that article, as "one big lie." Well, the whole article can't be a lie or the Prorasmus material would have been incorrect. I challenge you to demonstrate anywhere by the method I have shown that the article is "one big lie" or even truth interspersed with a few little lies. So far as I can tell it's a good-faith catalog of the fossil record for vertebrate evolutionary transition: warts, gaps, and all.
So who presents evidence and who does rhetorical hand-wave dismissals? Am I going to see something like this again on some future thread?
Well, Yeh, I keep asking the Materialist True Believers to splain to me by what infinite magic came the laws of physics and to point to that vast array of transitional forms and all I get is rhetoric. When I call rhetoric by its name, they get nasty.
This is staring to look a bit like projection on your part.
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