Replies

Well, well. This is too funny. After all your talk about not answering the "trolls," you are answering all of us.

Looks like we must be EFFECTIVE or you wouldn't bother with us "trolls."

OK, since you are so smart, explain THIS science, supporting Intelligent Design:
http://www.intelligentdesignnetwork.org/NCBQ3_3HarrisCalvert.pdf

Then explain THIS:

Prove that we humans evolved from an "unknown primate".

Columbus was a deeply committed Christian whose own writings prove that his desire to carry the message of Jesus Christ to faraway lands was the primary motivation of his historic voyage to the New World.

http://www.eagleforum.org/educate/columbus/columbus.shtml

Columbus' writings also showed that he knew the world was round from the Bible. Do a search and read where the Bible said the world is round.

And thank goodness, there are more people with common sense than there are scientists with closed minds, stuck in the past:

A new Gallup survey asks the question:
Which of the following statements comes closest to your views on the origin and development of human beings: Human beings have evolved over millions of years from other forms of life and God guided this process; human beings have evolved over millions of years from other forms of life, but God had no part in this process, or God created human beings in their present form exactly the way the Bible describes it?
And the poll results are:
Evolved, God guided: 31%
Evolved, God had no part: 12%
God created exactly as Bible describes it: 53%

http://corner.nationalreview.com/10/13/05 | Byron York, citing Gallup

On page 560 of your link, I notice the following whopper:

"First, a bacterium or insect that has immunity to a toxin is still the same bacterium or insect...Nothing new has been "created". Second, these organisms did not "gain" resistance; they "lost" sensitivity. They contain mutated or damaged proteins that fail to bind or fail to take up toxic chemicals..."

This is nonsense. They DID gain resistance. They are no longer hurt by the toxin. All of their descendants will share this immunity. They are not *damaged*; they evolved. Something NEW was added.

Also on the same page they kill off William Provine by calling him the *late* William Provine. (this came out in 2003; as of the current Cornell website, he's still teaching courses for 2005-2006).

The rest is the same old same old of ID (almost 30 pages of it). If you have a particular point in there you wanted to stress, you should have been a little more direct.

"Then explain THIS:

Prove that we humans evolved from an "unknown primate". "

Science doesn't prove anything. But the evidence is overwhelming we descended directly from primates. ERV's are really all that are necessary to demonstrate that.

"Columbus' writings also showed that he knew the world was round from the Bible. Do a search and read where the Bible said the world is round."

Every educated person in the time of Columbus knew the Earth was round. They learned that from the Greeks.

nd then you add a meaningless Gallup Poll. Science isn't done with polls.

I just read some more of your link supporting ID. I missed some other great stinkers too. First, the lump cosmology, origins of life, and biological evolution together under the invented group *origins science*. This is nonsense.

Then they have this horribly inaccurate quote from Pope John Paul II,

"theories of evolution...are incompatible with the truth about man." (page 536)

This is a blatant lie. Here is a fuller quote:

" And, to tell the truth, rather than the theory of evolution, we should speak of several theories of evolution. On the one hand, this plurality has to do with the different explanations advanced for the mechanism of evolution, and on the other, with the various philosophies on which it is based. Hence the existence of materialist, reductionist, and spiritualist interpretations. What is to be decided here is the true role of philosophy and, beyond it, of theology... All the depth and grandeur of this vocation are revealed to us in the mystery of the risen Christ. It is by virtue of his spiritual soul that the whole person possesses such a dignity even in his body. Pius XII stressed this essential point: If the human body takes its origin from pre-existent living matter, the spiritual soul is immediately created by God... Consequently, theories of evolution which, in accordance with the philosophies inspiring them, consider the spirit as emerging from the forces of living matter or as a mere epiphenomenon of this matter are incompatible with the truth about man. Nor are they able to ground the dignity of the person."

Earlier he had said:

" Today, nearly half a century after the publication of the encyclical, new knowledge leads to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis. It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor provoked, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of this theory."

The Pope said that evolution of the body was acceptable as long as the soul was considered the special creation of God. For the authors of your piece to make it look like the Pope had said that evolution in general was "incompatible with the truths about man.* is a shameless lie.

Why should anybody take anything this article says seriously if they will stoop so low as to lie about what their own Pope has said?

Columbus' writings also showed that he knew the world was round from the Bible.

Nonsense. He didn't need to get that from the Bible - no seafaring society truly believed that the Earth was flat. The evidence to the contrary was right before them.

That's a myth invented to make later societies feel superior to older ones. They might have been wrong about a lot of the natural world, but not about that.

If Columbus had to learn that the Earth was round from the Bible, he was a pretty poor sailor.

Your paper isn't science until it's been vetted by the peer-review process.

Regardless what you say, the basis for the idea the Earth is a sphere was determined by the Greeks, not from the Bible (there is a Flat Earth Society which does base its beliefs on the Bible, however). And, Columbus did get the size wrong.

Science does not depend upon popularity (nor do most other things outside of high school cliques). There are more Moslems in the world than Baptists; does this make the Baptists wrong?