Posted on 01/30/2006 10:27:35 PM PST by Sweetjustusnow
The two scariest words in the English language? Intelligent Design! That phrase tends to produce a nasty rash and night sweats among our elitist class.
Should some impressionable teenager ever hear those words from a public school teacher, we are led to believe, that student may embrace a secular heresy: that some intelligent force or energy, maybe even a god, rather than Darwinian blind chance, has been responsible for the gazillions of magnificently designed life forms that populate our privileged planet.
It is when the organism does things to "cultivate" it for some purpose. Like pheremones for example, or the fragrance of flowers which attracts pollinating insects. Or even the horrible stink like rotten corpses from flowers that rely on flies for pollination.
Dont female dogs give off a 'smell' when in heat...I can remember when I was a kid, the lady dogs in the neighborhood, when they went into heat, drove our male dogs nuts...our dogs would lay at the back door, and groan and groan, because they wanted out, and wanted to get at that lady dog....
I remember when we lived next door to a minister, when I had my own kids, and he used to lock his female dog up in a huge outdoor area, completely enclosed by fencing...you could look outdoors anytime of the night or day, and see a pack of male dogs, hanging around, desperate to get into the fenced in area...the minister even had to put fencing on the bottom of the area to prevent the male dogs from digging underneath the fence...
No one told these male dogs that girlie dogs were in heat....they could 'smell' it...
[If you're trying to imply that I *haven't* made a very significant amount of rational arguments on this thread, then you either haven't been paying attention, or I'll add you to the list of folks knowingly making false accusations. Which is it?]
I guess I should restate my position. There has been no name-calling on this thread. No one used the word "idiot".
If that's the bizarre position you want to take, go for it, but it doesn't answer my question. Why are you attempting to misrepresent the amount of my rational arguments on this thread?
[I stand by my analysis of just how confused someone would have to be to misinterpret Darwin's actual statement in the bizarre manner that TheCrusader did. Or maybe he was just knowingly lying -- it's so hard to tell with the anti-evolutionists' frequent falsehoods. Are they idiots or just liars? That is the eternal conundrum. If pointing out the degree of distortion which was being made is just "name-calling" in your book, then so be it.]
No one has been called an ignoramous, a--hole, liar or any other name.
If you insist.
Please do not claim that I was making a false accusation...
You were making a false accusation. You implied that a) I *started* the namecalling (sorry, it was the *creationists* who did that), and that b) I called names "as opposed to making rational arguments", as if I *didn't* make a significant amount of rational arguments on this thread.
Both of these implications are indeed false.
So I say again, if you're trying to imply that I *don't* make rational arguments on these threads, and often, then you either haven't been paying attention, or I'll add you to the list of folks knowingly making false accusations. So I ask *again*, and maybe you can answer it this time: Which is it?
I must've somehow misread those particular posts.
Yes, indeed you must've.
Now this was not only entertaining but informative.
I love a good thread ;)
It ain't just dogs, it's most mammals.
I cannot supply you with the name of a Creationist that has uncovered scientific fraud for the same reason you cannot - there is none.
Creationists spend a lot of time playing up "scientific fraud" as a way to tarnish Science's good name. If scientific fraud were that rampant then a Creationist would find some and start blowing his horn. That hasn't happened and I doubt it's because they don't look. So there are two obvious reasons why and they are not mutually exclusive: 1)there is very little fraud (I think this is a big part of the case), contrary to what Creationists would like the world to believe, and 2)Creationists are not scientifically literate enough to see scientific fraud (i.e. they don't know enough to be able to spot it). To perpetrate scientific fraud today requires a pretty sneaky person sophisticated enough to get the fraud past editors and peer reviewers. That's a tall order.
So Creationists wait for someone else to uncover the fraud and jump on it and blow it up.
If you have objective information that invalidates my conclusions I will gladly broadcast my error right here where it began. But until then, my conclusion stands.
Thanks. When I need advice on my cognitive abilities, however, I think I'll seek it elsewhere.
There are no "transitional forms" amongst human beings, just human offspring and ancestry that is traced to human beings of the past.
If human descent from apes implies there should be no more apes, then why does German-American descent from Germans not imply there should be no more Germans?
There are many transitional fossils between humans and our common ancestor with the other apes. Denying it gets you nothing but my contempt and that of other scientifically literate people.
My original point was to illustrate that there would likely have been many varieties of 'transitional forms' over the millions of years it took for monkies to become humans. So my question was why didn't any of these more recent 'transitional forms' remain static, (as the apes have), and remain extant, (as the apes have)?
If we evolved, why shouldn't the other modern apes? Why would a human evolve from an ancestral form 6 million years ago, and a chimp not evolve?
Germans can migrate and have children who become citizens of the country they were born in; but how you believe this process ties in with the so-called theory of evolution is mystifying to me.
A simple analogy escapes you, and yet you presume to adjudicate the cognitive abilites of others. Fascinating.
Anyway, clearly this is all beyond you, so why don 't we call it a day? When I expound on scientific matters, first of all usually I get paid for it; second of all, the people listening generally aren't stupid; and third and most importantly, they haven't locked themselves into a permanent mental state of ignorance. You fail in all three respects.
What CAN be done, is to show fraud comitted by none other than Intelligengent Design Movement founder Phillip E Johnson:
The most serious specific allegation leveled by a number of critics is that Johnson is often intellectually dishonest in his arguments advancing intelligent design and attacking the scientific community. [14] [15] For example, he has been accused of numerous equivocations, particularly involving the term naturalism which can refer either to methodological naturalism or to philosophical naturalism. [16] [17]
In fact-checking Johnson's books Darwin on Trial and Defeating Darwinism, one reviewer discovered that almost every scientific source Johnson cited had been misused or distorted, from simple misinterpretations and innuendos to outright fabrications. The reviewer, Brian Spitzer, a professor of Biology, described Darwin on Trial the most deceptive book he had ever read. [18]
My reading comprehension is just fine, thank you.
Not that I've noticed. You very frequently misread and misunderstand things.
The point is that if we don't know everything about the human body (and we certainly don't) then perhaps the appendix has a function that we don't fully understand.
...and by the same token, then perhaps all of the places where you ID folks "see design" in some structure is just a misunderstanding. That "we can't know nothin'" nonsense cuts both ways, are you sure that's really what you want to go with? Because I'll be perfectly happy ceding the "presumption of ignorance" position to you folks if you're so fond of it.
[Quick, why do you get goosebumps when you're cold or scared? Hint: It was functional back when our distant ancesters had fur. It's useless now that we have sparse fuzz on most of our skin.]
Well, there we go, right on que.
The word you're struggling for is "cue". In any case, I don't follow anyone's cues, I respond to posts.
All you've done is repeat the addendix mistake which is a repeat of dozens of other mistakes.
Your false accusations of "mistakes" have already been dealt with, and you failed to learn a single thing from it. For example, TWICE now (at the very least -- twice by *me*, and I'm sure others have told you so as well), "vestigial" does not necessarily mean "functionless". If you would actually *read* the material you've been presented with, you'd know that. This is one of the (many) reasons I have come to question your reading comprehension (not to mention your memory and your reasoning ability). Keep up your end of the discussion, or stop wasting our time.
So God made all mammals with hair, the ability to get goose bumps. SO?!
So the point went right over your head, that's "so".
LOL But you, the wisest of all, KNOWS FOR A FACT that this function is completely useless in humans.
Feel free to demonstrate that I'm wrong by describing its function. We'll wait.
Well, you'll have to excuse me if I don't take your word for it.
You're free to be as irrationally stubborn as you choose.
With the evolutionary track record on these sort of things, it would be more logical to assume that you are wrong (again) than correct.
Actually, that line of argument applies FAR more to the creationists, who have been wrong almost every single time they've opened their mouths and said anything about biology. Biologists actually have a really good track record.
So then what is the function of goose bumps in humans? Well, I'm surely not going to make the same mistake of those who claim to know the full extent of all bodily functions; however, I can easily consider at least one possibility. We get goose bumps when we’re cold, frightened, or experiencing other strong emotions. They are not under conscious control. Maybe, must maybe goose bumps are designed as a way of bringing to consciousness various stresses that need attention. In other words, goose bumps may assist in raising our consciousness of a serious situation. Maybe, must maybe, when you get goose bumps, your body is telling you something, and is working as designed.
And maybe you're grasping at straws as usual. Like feeling painfully cold wouldn't be noticed by a human unless his skin got bumply to "remind him"? Like consciously recognizing a danger bad enough to generate an intense emotional fear isn't *enough* "notification" that action needs to be undertaken, unless your skin gets little bumps and that's what *really* gets things moving?
Do you even listen to yourself? Your "explanation" makes as little sense as the average creationist hand-waving, and dissolves into ludicrousness when one spends four seconds pondering its implications -- again, perfectly on par for the average creationist "explanation".
Sorry, no, we prefer things that aren't transparently silly to a five-year-old.
Of course, if humans didn't get goose bumps, evolutionists would trumpet it as sure sign that evolution works and that that feature was "de-selected". You see, the evolutionists claim victory either way. If humans exhibit similarities to animals, they say "SEE!? EVOLUTION!". When humans don't share a certain trait with animals, they say "SEE!? EVOLUTION!".
Congratulations, you're being really dense. Yes, VESTIGIAL FEATURES do indeed provide evidence of evolution "either way", because if they linger from a common ancestor, they indicate the link to that common ancestor, and if they have been "de-selected" as you say, they also provide evidence for evolution because they leave traces of their passing, such as the fact that birds do not have teeth, but still have "broken" genes to produce teeth (which can and have been chemically triggered to produce chicks with reptile-like teeth). Even though birds have lost the teeth of their reptile ancestors, they retain clear evidence that they *did* have teeth in a distant ancestor.
Vestigial features, even (and in some cases especially) ones which are not entirely non-functional, provide strong evidence for evolution precisely *because* they are the kind of "leftover" that a sensible designer wouldn't have put in if he were free to design things from scratch, but are exactly the kind of thing that evolution via common descent produces frequently (because it's slow to "weed out" things which aren't strictly detrimental, and because it "retasks" structures from earlier "models" instead of being free to "redesign" things from scratch.)
So can evolution ever be falsified? Sure -- by organisms having features that are *not* inherited from a common ancestor (by unmodified or modified descent). So far, no such feature has ever been found, despite 100+ years of searching, and despite the fact that *designed* objects have these kinds of non-heirarchical features all the time.
Try learning some biology before you attempt to critique it. Heck, you'd be a long way towards not making bone-headed errors on this topic if you had just *read* (and understood) the links I've *already* given to you for your education. They've already explained the problem with your fallacies, and yet you come right back and make them *again*.
Here, for example, are some of the passages you failed to either read or understand:
And:Evolutionary vestiges are, technically, any diminished structure that previously had a greater physiological significance in an ancestor than at present. Independently of evolutionary theory, a vestige can also be defined typologically as a reduced and rudimentary structure compared to the same homologous structure in other organisms, as one that lacks the complex functions usually found for that structure in other organisms (see, e.g. Geoffroy 1798).
Classic examples of vestiges are the wings of the ostrich and the eyes of blind cavefish. These vestigial structures may have functions of some sort. Nevertheless, what matters is that rudimentary ostrich wings are useless as normal flying wings, and that rudimentary cavefish eyes are useless as normal sighted eyes. Vestiges can be functional, and speculative arguments against vestiges based upon their possible functions completely miss the point.
For more discussion of the vestigial concept, extensive modern and historical references concerning its definition (especially the allowance for functionality), see the Citing Scadding (1981) and Misunderstanding Vestigiality and 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: Anatomical vestiges FAQs.
A vestige is defined, independently of evolutionary theory, as a reduced and rudimentary structure compared to the same complex structure in other organisms. Vestigial characters, if functional, perform relatively simple, minor, or inessential functions using structures that were clearly designed for other complex purposes. Though many vestigial organs have no function, complete non-functionality is not a requirement for vestigiality (Crapo 1985; Culver et al. 1995; Darwin 1872, pp. 601-609; Dodson 1960, p. 44; Griffiths 1992; Hall 2003; McCabe 1912, p. 264; Merrell 1962, p. 101; Moody 1962, p. 40; Muller 2002; Naylor 1982; Strickberger 2000; Weismann 1886, pp. 9-10; Wiedersheim 1893, p. 2, p. 200, p. 205).Yes, we DO notice. ;-)
For example, wings are very complex anatomical structures specifically adapted for powered flight, yet ostriches have flightless wings. The vestigial wings of ostriches may be used for relatively simple functions, such as balance during running and courtship displays—a situation akin to hammering tacks with a computer keyboard. The specific complexity of the ostrich wing indicates a function which it does not perform, and it performs functions incommensurate with its complexity. Ostrich wings are not vestigial because they are useless structures per se, nor are they vestigial simply because they have different functions compared to wings in other birds. Rather, what defines ostrich wings as vestigial is that they are rudimentary wings which are useless as wings.
Vestigial structures have perplexed naturalists throughout history and were noted long before Darwin first proposed universal common descent. Many eighteenth and nineteenth century naturalists identified and discussed vestigial structures, including Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), Georges-Louis Leclerc, Compte de Buffon (1707-1788), and Georges Cuvier (1769-1832). Over sixty years before Darwin's publication of On the Origin of Species, the eminent French anatomist Geoffroy St. Hilaire (1772-1844) discussed his observations of the vestigial wings of the cassowary and ostrich during his travels with Napoleon to Egypt:
"There is another species that, like the ostrich, never leaves the ground, the Cassowary, in which the shortening [of the wing] is so considerable, that it appears little more than a vestige of a wing. Its arm is not, however, entirely eliminated. All of the parts are found under the skin. ...
Whereas useless in this circumstance, these rudiments of the furcula have not been eliminated, because Nature never works by rapid jumps, and She always leaves vestiges of an organ, even though it is completely superfluous, if that organ plays an important role in the other species of the same family. Thus, under the skin of the Cassowary's flanks are the vestiges of the wings ..." (Geoffroy 1798)
Geoffroy was at a loss for why exactly nature "always leaves vestiges of an organ", yet he could not deny his empirical observations. Ten years later, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829) identified several vestigial structures in his Zoological Philosophy (Lamarck 1809, pp. 115-116):
"Eyes in the head are characteristic of a great number of different animals, and essentially constitute a part of the plan of organisation of the vertebrates. Yet the mole, whose habits require a very small use of sight, has only minute and hardly visible eyes ...
Olivier's Spalax, which lives underground like the mole, and is apparently exposed to daylight even less than the mole, has altogether lost the use of sight: so that it shows nothing more than vestiges of this organ. Even these vestiges are entirely hidden under the skin and other parts, which cover them up and do not leave the slightest access to light.
The Proteus, an aquatic reptile allied to the salamanders, and living in deep dark caves under water, has, like the Spalax, only vestiges of the organ of sight, vestiges which are covered up and hidden in the same way." (Lamarck 1809, p. 116)
Even Aristotle discussed the peculiar vestigial eyes of moles in the fourth century B.C. in De animalibus historiae (lib. I cap. IX), in which he identified them as "stunted in development" and "eyes not in the full sense".
As these individuals noted, vestiges can be especially puzzling features of organisms, since these "hypocritical" structures profess something that they do not do—they clearly appear designed for a certain function which they do not perform. However, common descent provides a scientific explanation for these peculiar structures. Existing species have different structures and perform different functions. If all living organisms descended from a common ancestor, then both functions and structures necessarily have been gained and lost in each lineage during macroevolutionary history. Therefore, from common descent and the constraint of gradualism, we predict that many organisms should retain vestigial structures as structural remnants of lost functions.
But not understand.
We all know that the CR/ID people have a very bad, deservedly so, reputation in many areas - fraud, outright lies, perjury, etc. We see that in every crevo thread here.
But they retaliate by trying to smear Science as if that will make the mountains of evidence for evolution magically disappear.
Switching the spotlight to the frauds of CR/ID seems to make it a fight between who is worse and that is not fair to the thousands of honest scientists plying their trade every day.
I get tired of hearing how rampant scientific fraud is, something that is just a flat out lie. Objectively Science is one of the cleanest things around and it does a pretty good job of policing itself, as it should.
The tactic of trying to pull down science into the mud of lies and fraud of CR/ID is just plain dishonest and I'd like everyone to see it that way without throwing mud in the opposite direction, no matter how much it is deserved.
see how fun it is to play the namecalling game. not really.
Except that calling someone "ignorant" isn't name-calling. It's describing a level of comprehension.
Most people that criticize evolution are genuinely ignorant. They have near zero conphrehension of the subject.
IIRC, dog phermones are phenolic derivatives. A dog's nose is up to 1,000,000 more sensitive than a human's (this was in a Science News a few years back), so you bet those guys could smell the lady in heat.
People probably have pheromones too, but our bathing and hygiene procedures tend to cover up these things (soaps, deodorants, perfumes). Have you read Faulkner and the story of the teacher and Eula (the poor guy hugging and sniffing her school chair?)? Napoleone was reported to have said something like this to Josephine in a letter (obviously paraphrased) "I'll be home in a week - don't bathe" Anectdotal, but highly suggestive :)
I am sure others have other tantalizing tidbits along the same lines.
BTW pheromones are used as insect traps commercially - can't remember the insect(s) involved, but it works pretty good.
Fair enough.
Any input on the methods and operations of science is welcome.
uh..huh...okay....
Space aliens didit placemark
What something should or should not be called is, in the end, a matter of opinion. If you wish to label some common ancestor "ape", though, you make a statement that might tend to confuse others into believing you're refering to a modern animal. People then ask why it is apes still exist if people evolved from them. The answer is they didn't. They evolved from a common, ape-like, ancestor.
But if you insist that this ape-like ancestor should be called an ape because of its similarity to modern apes, then you're forced to call humans a kind of ape, too. But this makes the statement that humans evolved from apes silly.
All this can be avoided by simply saying humans and apes evolved from a "common ancestor".
Ya know, some of you condescending armchair scientists could have just posted the link to talkorigins etc.. rather then quoting pages worth of info in your comments. Apparently your goal was to win a debate by overwhelming your opponents with more info then they would have the time or the expertise to address in an obviously scientifically casual environment like this blog.
With that said, as far as creation/evo goes, imo it is futile to debate this topic. The scientific majority who accept evo and common descent use strict methodological naturalism to reach their conclusions. This means that only after they have exhausted ALL possible naturalistic mechanisms and explanations or have an intimate understanding of how God works (assuming he exists) would they consider the possibility of a creator. The former isn't likely to ever happen since it would require absolute knowledge, the latter is doubtful unless God (again, assuming God exists) were to reveal himself AND allow himself to be a test subject for scientists. The only other option I can think of is if in the future scientists find a reliable way to detect design (meaning the majority accepts it) without having studied the designer.
If you are a Christian (like myself), just realise that scientists have a metaphysical bias in their line of work. You can look at the same facts and evidence from a theistic perspective and reach different conclusions. Also, don't sweat the "God of the gaps" complaints from theistic-evolutionists and atheists when it comes to your religious beliefs. Theistic-evolutionists do the very same thing, they just pick gaps that they feel won't be filled in by science (usually involving the Big bang and Quantum mechanics etc..). Philosophical naturalists tend to use "chance of the gaps" arguments which are no better.
As King Solomon told his ore extractors: "Mine!"
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