Posted on 01/18/2005 9:49:17 AM PST by Laissez-faire capitalist
It's always easier to argue against a cartoon version of an idea than against the real thing.
Is there anybody on these crevo threads that argues the Creationist/ID side from a solid knowledge base, understands science and has actually read what they are railing against?
I think the terms "half formed" and "useless" usually creep into the creos vocabulary at this point.
No. One guy used to come close, but he's since degenerated into word lawyering.
I can think of three ID posters who are well educated and argue well. One of them hasn't posted much in the last few months, and the other two avoid flame threads.
I'm quite aware of this fallacy, however, you have somewhat misunderstood it. Appeal to numbers is in fact valid when those people are experts on the given subject. In the same way it's not Appeal to Authority fallacy if you say a physicist agrees with you when arguing about physics.
"Or the opposite. "That's fully formed and integrated, and thus not a transitional. Where is the dinosaur with one wing and one claw?""
At least debate then moves on to explaining why their concept of a transitional, is not one that is predicted by evolution, which is a lot less repetitive than the cycle of showing transitional fossils and having them turned down with little explaination why.
It seems as likely as water running uphill.
Old Faithful.
The significance of the fossil record of horses becomes clearer when it is compared with that of the other members of the order Perissodactyla ("odd-toed ungulates"). The fossil record of the extinct titanotheres is quite good (Fig. 7), and the earliest representatives of this group are very similar to "Eohippus" (Stanley, 1974; Mader, 1989). Likewise, the earliest members of the tapirs and rhinos were very "Eohippus"-like. Thus, the different perissodactyl groups can be traced back to a group of very similar small generalized ungulates (Radinsky, 1979; Prothero, et al., 1989; Prothero & Schoch, 1989) (Fig. 8). But this is not all; the most primitive ungulates (hoofed mammals) are the condylarths, which are assemblages of forms transitional in character between the insectivores and true ungulates (Fig. 9). Some genera and families of the condylarths had been previously assigned to the Insectivora, Carnivora, and even Primates (Romer, 1966). Thus, the farther you go back in the fossil record, the more difficult it is to place species in their "correct" higher taxonomic group. The boundaries of taxa become blurred.
Not that I've seen. Some (very few) seem to be knowledgeable, but they only go so far, then they just kind of shut down and won't allow themselves to see any more evidence, or to draw the inevitable conclusions. They're usually well-behaved.
Cool. More inquisitors insisting the sun revolve around the earth.
Could I be the first on this thread to say Hitler, Stalin? Oooooh, that feels good.
sucessfully damaging it maybe
used to try to re-engineer society and human behavior
Try? I'd say they are having many successes.
As far as re-engineering society using psychological and sociological theories, if any change at all is the measure of success, you are right. But is a valid scientific theory permitted to have so many unintended consequences? ...and outright failures? So are these theories scientific?
As far as changing human nature, there are no successes, intended or otherwise. And IMHO, there won't be any.
What exactly is "human nature"?
I don't accept your statement that plutonium is more complex. You don't understand what specified complexity is.
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