The Official Death of the Theory of Evolution – 2/25/2006

PowerBASIC Forums ^ | 2/25/2006 | SDurham

[King Prout]

I find the racially distinct morphology of overbite versus edge-on bites quite interesting, and puzzling... what would be the advantage of either setup? are the local foodstuffs so different?

answers always bring on more questions.
*delight*

[King Prout]

it is interesting, yes.

[Dimensio]

I am a little disappointed that more people are not seeing the relationship between a belief A) we are just animals and accidents, therefore B) there's no basis for morality, cf. sexual revolution, drug culture, etc.

Even if you can demonstrate a link between A and B beyond simply asserting it, the theory of evolution does not postulate that we are "just accidents". The theory is unable to lead to such a conclusion.

[King Prout]

I submit to you that your Third Reality is actually derived from an exogeneous fungal culture in the cheese you use in the au gratin for your potatos, not from the potatos themselves.

[Senator Bedfellow]

More importantly, even if it did lead to such a conclusion, how does that affect the truth or falsity of the proposition?

[King Prout]

Evolutionary theory in its purest form begins with the [faith] assumption that there is no God.

incorrect.

It might be correct for you to assert that the purest version of your misconception of the theory requires the assumption of no God, but the actual theory itself has no such requirement.

Theism and evolution are incompatible - theistic evolution is full of contradiction and should be discarded outright.

again: incorrect.

It might be correct for you to assert that your understanding of "theistic evolution" is incompatable with your interpretation of the tenets of the creed to which you subscribe, but this does not render evolution and divinity fundamentally contradictory.

It would help if you and all your ilk would make even the least effort to learn what the theory of evolution contains, and what the terms used actually mean.

If you did so, you would save yourselves a great deal of public embarrassment, spare political conservatism some of the Luddite tarnish it has acquired... and save us in the science wing a great deal of time now spent in endless serial corrections of your grotesque misrepresentations.

[King Prout]

I believe stupidity ought to be painful... but would prefer it were painful only to those who commit the stupidity.

I wish I had had the chance to catch that lecture.

[King Prout]

I find it rather odd that they assume that "morality" is an exclusively human attribute.

I have seen animals behave in ways which seem quite analogous with similar "moral" behavior in humans.

[Senator Bedfellow]

The killdeer is a nice example.

Anyway, I'm constantly amazed by the shallow thinking of people who argue from the consequences. Even if evolution really does lead to atheism, abortion, divorce, and films about gay cowboys, that still doesn't mean the theory of evolution is false, that therefore evolution didn't really happen.

It's sort of like arguing that National Socialism is a murderous ideology, which, if it were ever implemented, would result in massive deaths amongst certain groups of society. Obviously, this consequence of National Socialism would be really horrible, so therefore the Nazis didn't really exist and the Holocaust never really happened.

Put like that, it's clear that such an argument doesn't even remotely begin to make sense - "I don't like (what I see as) the potential results, so therefore it didn't happen". It's purely nonsensical, and not much different than believing you can wish some inconvenient aspect of reality away merely by choosing to disbelieve it.

[King Prout]

true, true.

[Virginia-American]

It's not like "atheism, abortion, divorce" never happened pre-Darwin. Or racism, slavery, treating people like animals, whatever.

In the last two days alone, I've seen the ToE compared (unfavorably) to abortion, the Waco massacre, and cancer.


(Gay sheepherder movies, on the other hand, are exclusively post-Darwin)

[King Prout]

only because movies are exclusively post-darwin.

I am reasonably certain that pre-darwin modes of communication contained and conveyed tales of similar deviance.

[Virginia-American]

No doubt.

(I was trying to be funny, sometimes it works...)

[Senator Bedfellow]

Apparently things are supposed to be much worse these days. Or some such.

Anyway, if we don't care for the Nazi example, consider the potential horrors that would be in store if there actually existed some mysterious invisible force that caused objects to rapidly accelerate towards the earth. Imagine, if you will, what life would be like if this so-called "gravitational theory" were actually correct. Thousands, if not millions, of people could be injured annually, by "falls" causing an impact with the ground. Children everywhere would potentially be in mortal danger by playing near stairs or on playgrounds or on any other structure that took them off terra firma - tens of thousands of children could be injured, crippled, maimed, or killed by this unseen force.

Well, you don't hate children, do you? Think of what it would mean for them if this "theory" were actually true. Isn't it obvious that the theory must be false, that this "gravity" doesn't really exist? Gravity leads to dead children, and we don't want that, now do we?

[Virginia-American]

What's funny is that the only people who still practice slavery are, AFAIK, middle-east Muslims. Creationists all.

[CourtneyLeigh]

Thank you, Sir! ;)

[King Prout]

read my tagline.

my grinding literalism often leads me to overlook wit.

[King Prout]

ah, no.
so-called "white slavery" (sexual slavery, forced prostitution) is far from exclusive to muslims or other creationist demes.

[aceintx]

"Given the length of time (short, short, short) we have been observing moths it would surprise me if we witnessed a subgroup become something other than moths."

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The Scientific method as defined by webster "The rules and methods for the pursuit of knowledge involving the finding and stating of a problem, the collection of facts through observation and experiment, and the making and testing of ideas that need to be proved right or wrong."

By your statement you are admitting that Evolution is not science since nobody has been around to observe or test the scope of "Evolution" throughout the supposed Billions and Billions of years that this is supposed to have been going on.

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"Note: The definition of species is fluid not because taxonomists can't make up their mind (which is sometimes the case) but because in many cases the differences between real live animals are difficult to categorize (think platypus)"

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This statement is an admission of a key flaw in the so called "Science" of Evolution. What determines what animal belongs to what species. The answer? We do! I know there is a lot of study and comparison on the genetic level that are used to classify these animals but species when you get down to it is nothing more than a name given by a white coated person in a lab to life forms of similar makeup.

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"I challenge you to prove it could not and has not happened."

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First of all it is not my burden to prove that evolution is not science based on observation and testing. The burden is yours to prove that it is a "Science" since the final thrust of all your arguments when questioned by those of us who believe in intelligent design is that "Evolution is science". "You're just a religious nut." "Nyanya Nyanya Nya Nya" Again I challenge you. Show me a "Scientist" who has ever tested or observed an instance where one type of animal ever became another.

If you can not do so, the claim that Evolution is Science falls flat on it's face.

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"It is up to you to provide the mechanism that prevents accumulated 'micro' changes from becoming large 'macro' changes. The transitional sequences in the fossil record spanning the large jumps in time we are too transitory to witness, tell us that the small changes we see in extant species (and we do have examples of new species) do indeed accumulate and result in huge change. What we find in DNA verifies this accumulation of change and the relationship of apparently morphologically disparate extant species. (eg. artiodactyls and cetaceans)."
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I can't help but note that you neglected my question about the second law of thermo dynamics which states in a nut shell that all matter is breaking down and tending toward chaos. This is my answer to your challenge above. The Second Law of Thermo Dynamics blows away any chance that increasing complexity is possible. The idea that a single celled organism some how gathered enough new genetic data to become a fish is laughable. The Second Law of Thermo Dynamics and evolution are absolutely incompatible.

Let me ask you this as you are obviously more well versed in genetics than I am but I think I know the answer to this. Isn't it true that as genes are transfered from one generation to the next that there is a loss of data? Has anyone ever observed an infusion of new data to one generation that didn't already exist in the generation that preceded it? Is it really possible to make something out of nothing?

Is it really possible for EVERYTHING to spring from NOTHING as the Big Bang would have us believe.

I eagerly await your answer.

:>)

[Virginia-American]

You're right about that. I was only thinking of field hands and house servants.

I was going to say that it is only tolerated by the government in Muslim countries, but I imagine there's a good deal of sexual slavery in, say, Thailand, that's tolerated.