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Scientists Speak About Evolution (Quoted Admissions Of Evolutions Condemning Evolutionary Theory
Pathlights ^ | Staff

Posted on 01/18/2005 9:49:17 AM PST by Laissez-faire capitalist

Top flight scientists have something to tell you about evolution. Such statements will never be found in the popular magazines, alonside georgeous paintings of ape-man and Big Bangs and solemn pronuncements about millions of years for this rock and that fish. Instead they are generally reesrved only for professional books and journals.

Most scientists are working in very narrow fields; they do not see the overall picture, and assume, even though their field does not prove evolution, that perhaps other areas of science probably vindicate it. They are well-meaning men. The biologists and geneticists know their facts, and research does not prove evolution, but assume that geology does. The geologists know their field does not prove veolution, but hope that the biologists and geneticists have proven it. Those who do know the facts, fear to disclose them to the general public, lest they be fired. But they do write articles in their own professional journals and books, condemning evolutionary theory.

Included below are a number of admissions by leading evolutionists of earlier decades, such as *Charles Darwin*, *Austin Clark, or *Fred Hoyle. The truth is that evolutionits cannot make scientific facts fit the theory.

An asterisk (*) by a name indicates that person is not known to be a creationist. Of over 4,000 quotations in the set of books this encyclopedia is based on (see BOOKSTORE), only 164 statements are by creationists.

(Excerpt) Read more at pathlights.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: creationism; crevolist; evolution; evolutionisbunk
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To: metacognative

Does anyone? Can you give me an example of a prediction resulting from specified complexity?


281 posted on 01/18/2005 5:48:42 PM PST by js1138 (D*mn, I Missed!)
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To: PatrickHenry

You mean waste any more time with people who believe DNA mistakes can form a whale from a cow.


282 posted on 01/18/2005 5:52:56 PM PST by metacognative (follow the gravy...)
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To: Laissez-faire capitalist
To cut to the chase---What should be done, is for teachers from the lowest levels of school all the way to the collegiate level to be required to state before discussing evolutionary THEORY that it is an unproven theory and be required by law to give statements from scientists that are counter to the theory of evolution...give both sides, and let the students decide for themselves.

Get real.

Creationism/ID is no more scientific that pink elves dancing on the moon.

283 posted on 01/18/2005 5:58:30 PM PST by RadioAstronomer
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To: frgoff
So. There's not enough sediment available to preserve any transitional form between the various horse species, but enough sediment to preserve actual examples of each species in the evolution chain?

Actually, we don't (and in nearly all cases can't) know that. The example of living species has taught time and again that the kind of purely morphological identification of species that is necessary and unavoidable with fossils is often misleading. When living species are actually studied it turns out that virtually (or even exactly) identical morphotypes sometimes belong to distinct and separate species, whereas in other cases one species might include forms that are morphologically very different.

Even assuming a dependable correspondence between morphological and biological species (as there indeed is at some general level, albeit with exceptions) you still have the problem of natural variation within species. Now some species are more variable and some are less so, but even if the degree of variation was approximately constant from one species to the next, you still need to understand the parameters -- which characters vary, what the extremes are, ans so forth -- in order to dependably identify species morphologically.

Even then it's possible that two perfectly good and distinct biological species might resemble each other sufficiently that the ranges of variation overlap between the two. In this case you couldn't tell which species an individual belonged to just by looking at it. You'd have to observe the population the individual belonged to.

Now apply all these considerations (that we KNOW are commonly true of species by observing living ones) to the case of fossil species. It quickly becomes clear that we might be looking at a form that is exactly transitional between two species, but would have no possible way of knowing or showing that.

When we only have a few dozen, or even a few hundred, examples of a morphological type that is inadequate to dependably assess the full range of variation that would be present in any typical species, let alone within a genus that might contain any number of similar species. We have little or no way of really knowing (expect by some statistical approximation) whether the fossils we group under the name Hyracotherium represent the natural variation of one species, or of several closely allied ones.

IOW, when you demand that we produce transitional between species, I don't think you understand that you are making a demand that can't be fulfilled (except possibly in a few very unusual cases) in the nature of the matter, even if evolution is true.

Besides, it's kind of an odd demand. Many creationists in the 19th century and before held to a fixed species view, but few, if any, modern ones do. In fact creationists typically get offended when people assume they believe in absolutely fixed species. Why wouldn't a creationist also expect transitionals at the lower species level?

What a staggering coincidence! We have sediment preserved long enough to show an actual example of each species in the chain, but all the sediment that might have preserved transitional forms was subsumed into the magma.

Oh, come now. Sonleitner never suggests we have "each species in the chain". In fact I don't doubt for a minute that any paleontologist would presume that any number of species are missing. We have what we have. A few scraps of time preserved here that there. Even within those scraps it's, as a mere statistical phenomena, the most widespread (geographically) and long-lived species that will tend to leave a few fossils that happen to be noticed by a paleontologist or fossil collector before they erode away.

I feel a little silly even responding to such a silly strawman argument (if you can even call it an argument) because it's so obvious on the face of it that we can't possibly have "every species in the chain". Consider that there are only (last I knew) about a quarter million or so species that have been identified from fossils. Measure this against the number of species living on the earth right now (representing just one "slice" of time). There are a few millions to a few tens of millions of living species (very few represented by fossils, btw).

284 posted on 01/18/2005 6:04:41 PM PST by Stultis
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To: RadioAstronomer

You've seen them too?


285 posted on 01/18/2005 6:08:32 PM PST by furball4paws ("These are Microbes."... "You have crobes?" BC)
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To: metacognative
You mean waste any more time with people who believe DNA mistakes can form a whale from a cow.

That would be more useful than arguing with someone so ignorant he thinks that's what evolution says or predicts.

286 posted on 01/18/2005 6:08:54 PM PST by js1138 (D*mn, I Missed!)
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To: furball4paws

LOL!


287 posted on 01/18/2005 6:10:31 PM PST by RadioAstronomer
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To: AntiGuv

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_nature


288 posted on 01/18/2005 6:21:01 PM PST by ml1954
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To: munchtipq

Evolution describes what is known as a steady state process. The changes are gradual and constant.

In a steady state process, time is not a factor in the process (assuming enough time has passed for one cycle of the process to complete; in the case of evolution, one full speciation).

Therefore, we should be able to observe macro evolution occurring at present within the biosphere. We should even be able to calculate a percentage of transitions occurring based on the rate of species creation from the fossil record.

Let me use an example to illustrate. A human being takes about 70 years to pass through all the stages of life. However, we don't have to wait 70 years to observe a human being in all stages of life. This is because human life is a steady state process: humans are constantly being born, growing old and dying. Therefore, all we have to do to observe every stage of human life in a short period of a few minutes is take a sampling from a representative population, say the entryway at Disneyland on a Saturday morning.

The lack of observed macro evolution occurring in the biosphere TODAY is a massive failure of the theory of evolution.

Evolutionary biologists know this (it's one of the dirty little secrets). This is why the theory of punctuated equilibrium keeps getting bandied about. If you can demonstrate that evolution occurs in spurts instead of gradually and incrementally, you can simply declare that the current lack of speciation occurring today is because we are in a "lull" period.

Hope this helps.


289 posted on 01/18/2005 6:23:19 PM PST by frgoff
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To: metacognative
We've had a century and a half to find an existing 'halfway' species.

Actually there are all sorts of "halfway" species. Geneticists have done any number of studies, for example, showing reduced fertility between populations that puts them just short of being separate species, or make it difficult to determine just where the line between species should be drawn. There are probalby hundreds of example involving fruitflies alone, and dozens on birds, etc.

All we see in the real world are discrete familiies.

Huh?!?! Which is it? Just one sentence ago you demand finely graded transitionals between species, and now you lump whole Families together? The horse family alone includes dozens of species in several genera. Don't even think about cats, dogs or weasels!

BTW, how "distinct" are even Families? Take sharks, skates, and rays, for instance. Is that one, two or three "distinct" families?

PS, according to conventional classification (as invented and applied by the creationist Carolus Linnaeus) humans and chimps/gorillas belong to the same family. (Orangutans, Gibbons and Siamangs are in separate Families within the same Super Family.)

290 posted on 01/18/2005 6:24:21 PM PST by Stultis
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To: metacognative
You mean waste any more time with people who believe DNA mistakes can form a whale from a cow.

Who believes that?

291 posted on 01/18/2005 6:25:33 PM PST by Junior (FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC)
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To: bobdsmith
So if it were seen you would accept a prediction of evolution was sucessful?

I would accept that as an observation supporting the current theory. I also accept the fact that none have been observed as very damning to the theory in its current form.

There are many evolutionary biologists who agree. Which is why you keep hearing about punctuated equilibrium.

292 posted on 01/18/2005 6:29:40 PM PST by frgoff
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To: RadioAstronomer
Creationism/ID is no more scientific that pink elves dancing on the moon.

Nonsense! This man believes in creation science:


293 posted on 01/18/2005 6:31:54 PM PST by PatrickHenry (<-- Click on my name. The List-O-Links for evolution threads is at my freeper homepage.)
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To: Junior

DNA mistakes can form a whale from a cow.

An interesting theory. Apparently some cows that survived the great flood (Noah) learned how to swim and evolved into whales.

294 posted on 01/18/2005 6:32:30 PM PST by ml1954
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To: metacognative
I don't accept your statement that plutonium is more complex [than hydrogen].

For some reason, I am not surprised.

295 posted on 01/18/2005 6:34:53 PM PST by WildTurkey (When will CBS Retract and Apologize?)
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To: neutrality
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.

Appeal to Numbers and Appeal to Authority are always fallacious because you are attempting to persuade, not by the actual logic of the argument, but because x number of people (regardless of their credentials) said so or because person y, who is an expert, said so.

Appeal to Numbers and Authority in this instance is the opposite of Shoot the Messenger. Both attempt to sidestep the actual arguments for or against the idea and instead focus on the messenger or presenter of the idea.

This fallacy of appealing to numbers or authority is well recognized in science which is why articles are peer reviewed, even if you are a nobel laureate, or if there are ten thousand scientists on your team.

In science, it is the experiment which is tested based on its reproducibility, not on the authority or number of people making the particular claim.

296 posted on 01/18/2005 6:36:48 PM PST by frgoff
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To: frgoff
The lack of observed macro evolution occurring in the biosphere TODAY is a massive failure of the theory of evolution.

O.K. Very rough calculations, but feel free to quibble...

Let's say there are 6 million species alive on earth today. Let's assume that the average "lifetime" of a species from first appearance to extinction is 1 million years. That means you'd only have to evolve one new species, somewhere on the entire earth, every six years to maintain the current level of biological diversity. Heck, the observed rate of speciation is probably higher than that. (And the vast majority of speciations will never be observed. They'll get lost in the mix, considering that we've only even named, after several hundred years, a small percentage of living species.)

"Massive failure"? I fail to see how it is even a small problem. Besides, a single speciation every few years wouldn't even contradict creationism (which hasn't insisted on fixed species for nearly two hundred years).

297 posted on 01/18/2005 6:39:34 PM PST by Stultis
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To: ml1954

Well, the Wikipedia link appears to describe "human nature" as a vague generality, a few autonomic responses, and a dozen conflicting theoretical frameworks. LOL

I guess it's one of those you'll-know-it-when-you-see-it kind of things.. ;)

PS. I might add that psychology and sociology are "human nature"..


298 posted on 01/18/2005 6:42:33 PM PST by AntiGuv (™)
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To: ml1954

They must've been those prehistoric carnivorous cows.


299 posted on 01/18/2005 6:42:57 PM PST by Junior (FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC)
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To: AntiGuv

I might add that psychology and sociology are "human nature"..

But not science.

300 posted on 01/18/2005 6:52:53 PM PST by ml1954
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