Posted on 09/20/2005 7:02:45 AM PDT by Right Wing Professor
ITHACA, N.Y. - Lenore Durkee, a retired biology professor, was volunteering as a docent at the Museum of the Earth here when she was confronted by a group of seven or eight people, creationists eager to challenge the museum exhibitions on evolution.
They peppered Dr. Durkee with questions about everything from techniques for dating fossils to the second law of thermodynamics, their queries coming so thick and fast that she found it hard to reply.
After about 45 minutes, "I told them I needed to take a break," she recalled. "My mouth was dry."
That encounter and others like it provided the impetus for a training session here in August. Dr. Durkee and scores of other volunteers and staff members from the museum and elsewhere crowded into a meeting room to hear advice from the museum director, Warren D. Allmon, on ways to deal with visitors who reject settled precepts of science on religious grounds.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I didn't write what you quoted. :)
This is a small and unique order of mammals placed by themselves in the subclass Prototheria. There are only 3 living species of monotremes — one species of duck-billed platypus and two species of echidna. Very little is known about them from the fossil record.
(From here --> http://www.angelfire.com/mo2/animals1/mammal/monotreme.html )
======================
Truth is violated by falsehood,
but it is outraged by silence.
Whoops, I did. Sorry. Too many posts in one thread to keep up with.
Would it be fundamentally dishonest to present the Civil War as a historic fact? Can you reproduce it in a laboratory?
Romans 5:12-21
12. Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned--
13. for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law.
14. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come.
15. But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!
16. Again, the gift of God is not like the result of the one man's sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification.
17. For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.
18. Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men.
19. For just as through the disobedience of the one man, the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.
20. The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more,
21. so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Old information. Here's a site with more info on the fossil data for the monotremata. Don't rely on a single web site for this sort of thing. There's more than you think.
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/mammal/monotremefr.html
It has certainly convinced me that many of the people I assumed were merely misinformed are in fact, belligerently ignorant.
It has convinced me that Pascal's Wager is an evil teaching, as harmful and anything preached by the Islamists.
This says nothing about evolution, only that there are few monotreme fossils. Fossil evidence is not the only line of support for evolution, it is only one of many.
It does not seem that this has affected the Democrats; so why should it Conservatives?
Why? Has God died?
Nothing that has occured in science over the last 80 years has killed off God. Quite the reverse is true.
Cosomology is in utter disarray. All the popular theories of the past 30 years have been killed. The Biblical origins still remain the most credible.
Physics is more and more justifying a Creator rather than not. Scientists are astonished at the revelations of string theory and quantum dynamics. They point to a design. There are 13 physical constants that cannot vary one iota or else life would cease to exist.
I'll agree with Einstein, and other great scientists who recognize there must be a Creator.
Once we accept there is a Creator then how can we consider that the Creator cannot have the power to influence our universe on a daily basis in any way he might choose?
Not quite. Deists believe God does not intervene in our daily lives. This does not mean he does not have the power to do so.
Coming at the problem from both ends, eh?
...but I saw your reply two posts down ;^)
Despite your clever use of HTML, I remain unconvinced. You make one assumption that I do not make, and that is that the Bible represents actual fact in every detail. I do not accept that assumption, so your argument is wasted on me, you see. Look at my tagline.
The Theory of Evolution says nothing about creation of anything. That was my statement. I fail to see how your argument applies to my statement.
I can see how it might apply in a discussion with another Christian regarding the appearance of Adam and Eve. But that hardly has anything to do with the Theory of Evolution, frankly, which doesn't deal with any supernatural stuff at all.
The fact remains that many Christians (perhaps a majority) believe that evolution is the explanation for speciation. Some make a special case for humans, but not all. Your beliefs may vary. Isn't human intelligence wonderful? We all get to examine thing for ourselves and make decisions.
"Coming at the problem from both ends, eh?"
More apt, perhaps if they were dentists and proctologists, I'd say. [grin]
You have a point! At our university, I made a point of getting on our "General Education Committee" which was tasked with creating a new general education "framework". I was hoping to nudge things towards a core-curriculum model. No such luck. Our gen ed requirements are even more nebulous and abstract than before. The model I had in mind is what they have in Texas: all public universities there have a tight core where students are obliged to choose maybe two dozen courses from a list of maybe four dozen. Their requirements include such things as 6 credit hours of US history (or 3 credit hours of US history and 3 credit hours of Texas history). We, on the other hand, have requirements such as "Methods of Inquiry and Investigation in the Social Sciences" which can be met by any of a zillion courses (e.g., you can avoid history if you wish). The Texas system was installed state-wide by the legislature. The professoriate, left to its own devices, will never ever agree to a Texas-style core curriculum.
Newton's observations got more accurate as he got older. It's a miracle, but his earlier observations actually moved closer to the theoretical values in later published versions. Proof that God favored him.
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