Posted on 11/30/2004 3:53:55 PM PST by shubi
There are two parts to creationism. Evolution, specifically common descent, tells us how life came to where it is, but it does not say why. If the question is whether evolution disproves the basic underlying theme of Genesis, that God created the world and the life in it, the answer is no. Evolution cannot say exactly why common descent chose the paths that it did.
If the question is whether evolution contradicts a literal interpretation of the first chapter of Genesis as an exact historical account, then it does. This is the main, and for the most part only, point of conflict between those who believe in evolution and creationists.
(Excerpt) Read more at talkorigins.org ...
But humans come out face down
Head down, most of the time. So do chimpanzees, most of the time. The only difference is that humans tend to turn 90 degrees at the last minute so the long axis of the head is along the wider axis of the brith canal. It's not a major change; it may well simply be caused by the pressure of contractions.
http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/dept/d10/asb/anthro2003/origins/babies.html
Dolphins, sharks, whales...the same!
Nonsense. there is a full set of transitional species for whales and dolphins.
But Giraffes suddenly appear with their enormously lengthened necks with all that entails...with no, absolutely not one, preceding hint of any fossil of anything even remotely like them!
Haven't you ever seen an okapi?
B: An excellent point. The Okapi was actually known from the fossil record before it was *discovered* by western science. That should bake Jehu's noodle.
Evoscience for Evotards...what a waste of time.
You don't even know I am talking about rotational positions in birth along the long axis of the human body, not about butt first, or head first! Awww..never mind!
Maybe, I don't remember and I am too tired to look it up.
I have been more grouchy than normal today, cause I am sick.
There is a priceless contradiction between the creationists here. On the one hand Jehu thinks that millions of years of the pre-cambrian explosion aren't enough; OTOH derheim has every species on earth exploding (from what could be saved on a 450ft boat with all the food for those animals and plants for a year, and food for all the predators for years) in the first 1000 years or so following the disembarkation since we can't see this explosion continuing now and there is no historical record of it. Hilarious.
You don't even know I am talking about rotational positions in birth along the long axis of the human body, not about butt first, or head first! Awww..never mind!
B: I know what you're talking about.I'm just pointing out that in either case, the reason is the same.
B: Sheesh. Your so hard head.
I think you misunderstood just about everything I said and I am feeling too bad right now to go into detail. Besides, from past experience, it would be a waste of time.
As to the sociological dangers of evolution, that is the same misinterpretation of science that literalism is of the Bible.
B:Energy can't be destroyed, per se, but converted into mass and vice versa. THis is observed routinely. Yet again, realizing that he has no facts and no ideas, jehu resorts to his favorite chestnut, the argument from "Personal Astonishment". The basic problem with the argument from persoanl astonishment is that, when you're ignorant, just about everything astonishes you.
There is no "per se," about it, you incredibly smug moron. Energy cannot be destroyed or created...what is in the universe now, (energy wise) is fixed!
B: In theory, the energy content of the Universe is fixed. You state that as if it were a fact. I agree that its probably true.
If I was Right Wing Professor, Shubi, or Thatcher, I would disown your dofus self.
B: You mean "doofus" ? Actually I'm not sure how that should be spelt. All I was doing was expounding on your point.
At least they actually know the ignorant drivel they spout, you are simply a parrot, and not a very bright one at that.
B: Polly wanna cracker?
That energy and mass are convertible I will allow even an insufferable moron like you may know.
B: I appreciate the confidence you have in me.
How your mind ever grasped Einstein's equation is a marvel almost as great as 1 billion monkeys typing out a single meaningful sentence in 1 billion years.
B: It comes as a great surprise to my high school physics teacher as well.
B: Now if only you would put the same effort into learning that you put into insulting, you'd probably realize the seed of this conflict is all in your mind.
A little later I'll post an experiment in which scales were inadvertantly converted to feathers. Scales and feathers are the same stuff, but in different forms.
B: Its now a little later. This is reposted from a previous post of mine:
"Now in case your wondering where feathers came from, consider the proteins which make up feathers are the same ones which make up scales. Isn't interesting how some birds have scales? Ever see a chicken's legs? Feathers are simply evolved scales. One of my favorite papers is "Requirement for BMP signaling in interdigital Apoptosis and Scale Formation" by Hongyan Zou and Lee Niswander, Science Vol. 272, 1996, pgs 738-742. The goal of this paper was to understand what transpires during the embryonic development of a chicken. Early in their embryonic development, chicken feet are webbed, later on the "interdigital tissues" (i.e. the webbing) is destroyed when the cells making up these tissues, for lack of a better description, kill themselves (cell apoptosis). The experiment tested an idea that the cells received a biochemical signal which "told" them to undergo apoptosis. The experiment was basically to block the biochemical signal, and see if the digital tissues remain. The experiment was a success.
But now for something really interesting, What Zhou and Niswander also found. From their abstract,
" Expression of dnBMPR (thats an inhibiter of the biochemical suicide signal) in chicken embryonic hind limbs greatly reduced cell apoptosis and resulted in webbed feet. In addition SCALES were transformed into FEATHERS"
Folks, thats like trying to invent the pizza and comming up with a helicopter instead.
This research example illustrates a couple of things. First evolving feathers from scales, ain't that big a deal. It also lays waste to the idea that evolution is not an experimental science, which creationists claim on a continual basis. "
Go back and read some of his cut and paste drivel then. He deserved the slap upside the head. I am an accomplished engineer and for someone to lecture me about the Law of Conservation of Mass/Energy is ludicrous,
B: THere's precious little evidence from you that you're accomplished in anything except as a vertiable fountain of ignorance w.r.t the natural world. Most accomplished engineers that I know, and I know a bunch, particularly at JPL, are aware of the use of Genetic Algorithms in circuit design. You haven't kept up with times.
B: Here's another example for you:
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg15621085.000
B: Now lets all watch while Jehu tries to tell us how this circuit was designed, even though nobody understands how it works. THis should be fun.
but what is worse he was in error in his little lecture, there is no "per se," in proved physical law.
B: ROFL. I merely pointed out that while energy can't be destroyed, it can be converted into mass. Most people don't know that. If you understood that, then bully for you! I'm not sure why you want to make a big deal out of it. But hey, whatever floats your boat.
I will reserve "per se" for evolution, since it has the most rickety mathematical scaffolding of any scientific theory.
B: Actually, I think its mathematical underpinnings are well founded, and well studied. Thats why engineers who are actually accomplishing something use Darwinian methods to design circuits which best human designers, even though how the circuit works is not understood. I don't know about anyone else, but I find that like way cool.
And some of the better critics and growing enemies of this "theory," are mathematicians!
B: You mean ignorant ones. According to them, results such as in:
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg15621085.000 would be impossible. Who should I believe? Them or my own two eyes? Every mathematical work I've seen which purports to show Evolution is mathematically impossible is based on a mathematical model which has nothing to do with evolution. They all seem to start with the assumption that evolution occurs via purely random processes. Which of course, is simply not true. Mutation is random with respect to fitness, natural selection is not. NS is not random, but harnesses the randomness in the same manner as a genetic algorithm.
B: THe hallmark of a great theory, is that it results in the creation of whole new fields. TOE certainly has done that. Stochastic hill climbing methods and immunology are but two that owe there existence to Darwin. Doesn't that just bake your noodle?
Who demand accuracy and specifics. Not the unbelievable evolutionist's practice of throwing shit
B: Profanity is unnecessary.
on the blackboard and seeing what sticks "Punctuated Equilibrium indeed!"
B: Actually solutions from Genetic Algorithms in the course of their development actually do show something like PE behavior, in that the solution won't change much during the course of several iterations, and then bam, rapid change.
B: Methinks you doth protest too much.
Evidently Jehu is referring to this post (number 657), in which he says
Note the following from Dr. Alan Feducia of University of Northern Carolina, one of the world's leading bird experts AND an evolutionist. ‘Paleontologists have tried to turn Archaeopteryx into an earth-bound, feathered dinosaur. But it’s not. It is a bird, a perching bird. And no amount of “paleobabble” is going to change that.’2 Archaeopteryx is the premier (and just about the only species) put forth as a "transitional" form. And yet one of the leading experts on birds who IS an evolutionist himself is honest enough to admit "it is a BIRD!" And this labeling game just goes on anyway.
Feduccia’s ‘The Origin and Evolution of Birds’ is a wonderful book. While it’s by no means mainstream, it’s interesting, and opinionated, and chock-full of facts, a commodity creationists are starved for. Let’s start with Chapter 1, Paragraph 1….
The creature thus memorialized was Archaeopteryx lithographica , and, though indisputably birdlike, it could with equal truth be called reptilian….The Archaeopteryx fossil is, in fact, the most superb example of a specimen perfectly intermediate between two higher groups of living organisms – what has come to be called a ‘missing link’, a Rosetta Stone of evolution.
It is clear from the above that Jehu, either from malice or from willful disregard of the truth, has represented Feduccia as saying the exact opposite of what Feduccia in fact said. Feduccia explicitly refers to Archaeopteryx as a missing link, the epitome of a transitional form. Jehu tried to pretend he said the opposite. You might say Jehu has borne false witness; me, I just call Jehu a liar.
LOL. I wonder which creationist crapsite Jehu got that "fact" from. You can tell when Jehu is typing lies because his fingers move on the keyboard.
LOL. I wonder which creationist crapsite Jehu got that "fact" from.
B: Sounds like an AIG chestnut.
You can tell when Jehu is typing lies because his fingers move on the keyboard.
B: Anybody wanna take bets as to whether Jehu will apologize for his misinformation, or complain that he was "tag teamed"?
LOL. I wonder which creationist crapsite Jehu got that "fact" from.
B: Its a Sarfati "special" on AiG. THere's nothing quite like a "Lies for Jesus" website.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2/4254news3-24-2000.asp
It is the creationists who maintain that scientists cannot think for themselves. Which makes it curious that nearly all of creationist arguments in forums like this appear to be copied without acknowledgement from religiously inspired websites. (and almost never from any peer-reviewed literature or real-world observations or experiments)
It must be a good book anyway, because Dembski and Behe endorse it.
Feeling better placemarker
Reading through the 5000 word summary of his article it is replete with wilful misunderstandings, canards, straw men, non-sequiturs, and arguments from personal incredulity. To name but a few that he wheels out:
Darwin knew nothing of modern genetics.
Evolution cannot account for human genius.
Darwin's doubts about the fossil record.
Lack of fossil evidence for whales
Evolution characterised as "random" and "coincidence"
Here is a direct quote from the article which gives you an impression of the level of scholarship involved, I don't know about Dembski, but surely Behe must be embarassed by the company he is keeping:
Then again, is surviving a matter of survival of the fittest- or of the luckiest? Questions such as these cloud evolutionary thought. Even the most ardent supporters of the theory of evolution still call it a theory-with very good reason: no knowledgeable scientist has ever called it the "facts of evolution."
Whatsits-"Then again, is surviving a matter of survival of the fittest- or of the luckiest?"
In his case it MUST have been the luckiest. LOL
A lot of Jehu's other ideas seem to be derived from this book which a quick google turned up for me.
It is the creationists who maintain that scientists cannot think for themselves. Which makes it curious that nearly all of creationist arguments in forums like this appear to be copied without acknowledgement from religiously inspired websites. (and almost never from any peer-reviewed literature or real-world observations or experiments)
B: Creationists are the masters of turn speak.
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