Evolution: Like a Waterfall That Flows Upward!

Creation-Evolution Headlines ^ | 4/16/2004 | Creation-Evolution Headlines

[bondserv]

Picture a little boy at a waterfall, who has been convinced by a trickster that water flows upward. At the base of any waterfall there are droplets that bounce and splash up temporarily. The boy becomes fixated on those splashes, hoping against hope that his observations will, in time, demonstrate the truth of the theory he has been led to believe. All the while, the big picture demonstrates the exact opposite.

[bondserv]

PING fall....

[VadeRetro]

The usual idiot doing the usual stuff. Just browsing around the page, I noticed his reference to the "fallacy of extrapolation." He clarifies further, in part:

Extrapolation
Definition: Assuming a trend beyond what the data permit.
Catch-phrase: If a little’s good, more’s better.

Hmmmmm. What my dictionary says on "extrapolate":

1. Mathematics. To estimate (a value or values of a function) for values of the argument not used in the process of of estimation; broadly, to infer (a value or values) from known values. 2. To infer or estimate (unknown information) by extending or projecting known information...

Note the distinct lack of reference to "fallacy" in the standard usage. While any estimation is potentially fallacious if taken as hard data, techniques of estimation are everywhere useful and in use. Furthermore, a little experience with tools and techniques of estimation, sometimes formalized as calibration of the measure involved, allows a measure of confidence in whether what is being attempted is likely to be accurate. Science would be totally hamstrung if it were not allowed to draw a line through data points--points that seem to lie on a line, anyway--and assume the line is smooth and continuous.

In other words, more lawyerly nonsense from the anti-science crowd. Your author is just looking around for clods to throw at the picture emerging from modern science, one which increasingly diverges from the cosmology of medieval times.

[bondserv]

Good morning Vade.

In other words, more lawyerly nonsense from the anti-science crowd.

You clearly didn't read the tripe being posed by "Scientists" that he was commenting on.

As Indigo Montoya from "The Princess Bride" would say, "You keep using that word 'Lawyerly', I don't think it means what you think it means."

[AndrewC]

As Indigo Montoya from "The Princess Bride" would say, "You keep using that word 'Lawyerly', I don't think it means what you think it means."

Incon(th)eivable!

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[RightWingAtheist]

Ping

[balrog666]

What a clown this author is!

I don't think the idiot even knows what "[sic]" means.

Grade: F-

[Monty22]

I don't care what anyone says, life, crystalization, and any other 'temporary ordered' system does produce a net increase in entropy.

Even a chicken egg does. The chicken wasted a lot of energy overall to form the ordered egg, a lot more than the egg itself.

[VadeRetro]

As Indigo Montoya from "The Princess Bride" would say, "You keep using that word 'Lawyerly', I don't think it means what you think it means."

That's what you said about "Luddite." Nothing goes away when you refuse to understand why you're wrong.

[VadeRetro]

Grade: F-

"F" for "flatlining."

[MineralMan]

Should be posted in the Religion topic, not News!

[Revolting cat!]

The "idiots" are always the outsiders who question the "scientists" and their cult, who are never wrong, even when the next theory and dogma contradict the previous theory and dogma. It's a clever, circular rule "scientists are never wrong". (They'll of course deny there is such a rule, since it's never explicitly stated.) Before I return to my idiot cave, what is the dogma about the earth's age this week, give or take a few billion years?

[Doctor Stochastic]

But of course water can't get up a water-fall. That's why Niagara Falls is dry. The movie "Niagara" (Monroe, Cotton, Peters) had to filmed on a sound stage. The drying of Victoria Falls has severly impacted Zimbabwe's agriculture.

However, it's not due to global warming.

[PatrickHenry]

Dumb thread PING. [This list is for the evolution side of evolution threads, and some other science topics like cosmology. Long-time list members get all pings, but can request evo-only status. New additions will be evo-only, but can request all pings. FReepmail me to be added or dropped. Specify all pings or you'll get evo-pings only.]

[<1/1,000,000th%]

I wonder if the village where I live can get one of these because then we could get lake water really cheap.

[Shryke]

That post took some figuring out, but in the end was humorous. Thanks.

[Shryke]

Shall I insert my perfect DU rebuttal to Vade?

[PatrickHenry]

No need to do anything, really. The thread seems to have been moved to the Vanity Pit.

[Shryke]

I just realized something, and pardon me if I am the last guy to do so: it seems that every single Creationist thread from now on is going to be doomed to this "Blogger" section, no? Don't all their sources basically originate from two or three wesbites?

A fate worse than death!