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To: BroJoeK
You are offering me here the public (and IIRC parochial) school pablum and cant, each point of which is not only arguable and flatly disprovable, but almost an insult to the atheist who is up on the latest (and continuing) modifications to the supporting arguments that have been made to accommodate recent geological, biological, and cosmological developments that have undercut the evolutionary stance.

You might at least do yourself the favor of freely downloading the Martin book mentioned in the opening passage, read it carefully to see your theses at least blunted, then come back with your objections to that.

Otherwise, I'm not going to waste my time recapitulating the claims you have made in your Post 164, which have all been refuted by others. (At least, please account for Stephen Jay Gould's "punctuated equilibrium" to explain the failure of the "geological column" to support Darwinian gradualism, and the Mt. St. Helen's sedimentary depositions that bring the whole presuppositions of history of geology, as taught, into disrepute.)

When I speak of science, I speak as one who has successfully employed the tools and methods of science for both commercial and theoretical efforts. When I speak on origins, I speak as a philosopher, as happenings not now nor ever provable by scientific methodology, for they are not repeatable (and neither you nor I were there, observing). Please be kind not to confuse these areas of endeavor, as you have been doing, eh?

I cannot respect a blending of evolutionism and science practice. They are not the same.

172 posted on 05/06/2013 9:55:19 PM PDT by imardmd1
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To: imardmd1

I don’t debate with links.
If you have a case to present, then present it — here.
Otherwise we can all reasonably conclude that you are really just blowing smoke.

The truth of the matter, again, is that you don’t speak for science, because you reject the defining scientific principle of natural explanations for natural processes.
So what you are selling here is not science, but something else — your religious convictions.

Must go now, will have more later...


173 posted on 05/07/2013 5:11:58 AM PDT by BroJoeK (a little historical perspective....)
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To: imardmd1; Swing_Ladder
imardmd1: "You are offering me here the public (and IIRC parochial) school pablum and cant..."

If "cant" is your word for simple text-book science, that fact alone confirms you are anti-science and therefore unqualified to speak for, or even about, it.

imardmd1: "...each point of which is not only arguable and flatly disprovable..."

No point of which is disprovable scientifically.

imardmd1: "almost an insult to the atheist who is up on the latest (and continuing) modifications to the supporting arguments that have been made to accommodate recent geological, biological, and cosmological developments that have undercut the evolutionary stance."

So now you are speaking for atheists too??
And your religion is what exactly?

But let's note here: your suggestion that somehow, to be valid, science must arrive at 100% of the corrects answers in its first efforts, confirms yet again that you either: 1) know nothing about real science, or 2) willfully distort it to support your own beliefs.

imardmd1: "You might at least do yourself the favor of freely downloading the Martin book mentioned in the opening passage, read it carefully to see your theses at least blunted, then come back with your objections to that."

To repeat: I don't debate against links, but if I did, then I'd simply refer you to other links, i.e., this one.
So, if you have a case to make, then make it here, and I'll respond.

imardmd1: "Otherwise, I'm not going to waste my time recapitulating the claims you have made in your Post 164, which have all been refuted by others."

False, none have been refuted by anyone.

imardmd1: "At least, please account for Stephen Jay Gould's "punctuated equilibrium" to explain the failure of the "geological column" to support Darwinian gradualism..."

Several points to remember here:

  1. Judging by the total number of species alive today (i.e., circa 5,500 mammals), the fossil record for any given time period (i.e., 10 million years ago) contains only a tiny percent (typically less than 1%) of all species, sub-species and breeds alive back then.
    Therefore fossils found merely represent samples of day-to-day evolutionary processes of prior ages.

  2. But the fossil record, sketchy as it is, does confirm what common sense (and Gould) suggests: that species once well adapted to their environments don't change much until or unless their environment does -- i.e., becomes hotter, colder, wetter, dryer, a new predator, etc.
    Then, when major change is required, the species must either adapt of go extinct.

  3. On average, mammal species lasted only about a million years before going extinct, or changing to something noticeably different.

  4. While major changes can sometimes be quite rapid, they do not happen overnight.
    We can see this today, in various species modifications -- for examples breeds of dogs, where humans replace natural selection.
    All dogs are still dogs, but a fossil record would suggest that breeds "suddenly appear" out of nothing.
    In fact, we know that even selective breeding takes many generations.
    And the isolation required to produce subspecies which no longer interbreed (a definition for species) takes tens of thousands of generations.

  5. Again, the example of Polar Bears: seemingly so very different and yet even after 10,000 generations still able to occasionally interbreed with Brown Bears.
    Point is: speciation takes a long time, even after major physical changes.

imardmd1: "and the Mt. St. Helen's sedimentary depositions that bring the whole presuppositions of history of geology, as taught, into disrepute."

The only disrepute was Dr. Steven Ausin's effort to perpetrate fraud on science.
In fact, there was nothing honest about what he did, and the results are fully explainable in normal scientific terms.

imardmd1: "When I speak of science, I speak as one who has successfully employed the tools and methods of science for both commercial and theoretical efforts."

Sure, and I drive a Chevy truck.
Does that make me qualified to speak for GM engineers?

In fact, you speak arrogantly and condescendingly as one who apparently rejects the basic definition of science: that it only provide natural explanations for natural processes.
Instead, it appears you would have science replace certain observations, hypotheses and theories with your own unique religious interpretations.

imardmd1: "When I speak on origins, I speak as a philosopher, as happenings not now nor ever provable by scientific methodology, for they are not repeatable (and neither you nor I were there, observing)."

You may well "speak as a philosopher", since philosophy includes many branches unconcerned with material nature (i.e., metaphysics, aesthetics, ethics, etc.)
But you do not speak as a scientist, because you seemingly reject the basic scientific premise.

In fact, basic evolution (descent with modifications, natural selection) is observed and repeated every day both in nature and in many human activities -- a fact which even anti-evolutionists don't deny.

Finally, scientific theories do not require observation (anything which can be observed is not a theory, it's a fact).
Instead, theories required confirmation through use of falsifiable predictions.
Evolution theory (but no opposing hypothesis) has been confirmed too many times to list them all.

imardmd1: "Please be kind not to confuse these areas of endeavor, as you have been doing, eh?"

Only you are trying to deliberately confuse yourself and others.

imardmd1: "I cannot respect a blending of evolutionism and science practice.
They are not the same."

Regardless of your religious convictions to the contrary, basic ideas of evolution remain: scientific observations (aka facts), hypotheses and confirmed theories.

178 posted on 05/07/2013 2:09:15 PM PDT by BroJoeK (a little historical perspective....)
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To: imardmd1

“and the Mt. St. Helen’s sedimentary depositions that bring the whole presuppositions of history of geology, as taught, into disrepute.)”

—I’m guessing that the layers that the site is discussing are these (at least, it’s the only photos of layers that I can find):
http://www.creationism.org/articles/nelson1.htm
The problem is that any geologist undergrad should be able to quickly discern that the layers are volcanic ash that consolidated, and probably formed very quickly from a single volcanic eruption.

Here’s another well known example:
http://gregvaughn.photoshelter.com/image/I0000vX.buOgCKmQ
That’s Cathedral Rock - also from a single eruption, with subsequent erosion exposing the layers.
Other pics:
http://www.highonadventure.com/Hoa08aug/Vicki/Digging%20Ancient%20Dirt.htm

Here’s a description of how such layers are formed:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuff
“During some volcanic eruptions a layer of ashes several feet in thickness is deposited over a considerable district, but such beds thin out rapidly as the distance from the crater increases, and ash deposits covering many square miles are usually very thin. The showers of ashes often follow one another after longer or shorter intervals, and hence thick masses of tuff, whether of subaerial or of marine origin, have mostly a stratified character. The coarsest materials or agglomerates show this least distinctly; in the fine beds it is often developed in great perfection.”


180 posted on 05/07/2013 5:56:40 PM PDT by goodusername
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