Birds Didn’t Evolve from Dinosaurs (Evos forced to invent an even older common ancestor!)

I’ve given you numberless cites.

I'm surprised that, for someone who's as fond of dictionaries as you appear to be, you don't understand what I mean by a "cite." I don't mean a reference to a dictionary definition--I'm aware that the word has other definitions in the dictionary. That may document all usages, but it doesn't establish which one or ones are most common. Like I said, I could claim that anyone who criticized democrats must be against the political equality of all people and point to a definition to prove my point. But I'd sound stupid, because that's not how the word is commonly used.

By "cite" I mean the kind of thing a dictionary uses to support its definition: an example of the word being used in the sense described, with source. With little trouble, I've been able to come up with seven instances, outside of dictionaries, of "creationism" or "creationist" being used in the sense I claim is most common (four of them by self-described creationists). I've challenged three of you now to find any similar instances in common speech of the terms being used in any other sense. All I get is insults and speculation as to my motives, but no examples. I find that telling.

I have never used the word creotard. Name-calling is not my style.

”All I get is insults and speculation as to my motives, but no examples. I find that telling.”

Gosh, you’ll just have to bear up and carry on as best you can, I guess. Admirable fortitude. There’s a good fellow. And in the best tradition of science, we’ll plug away in the lab until we get the result we’re looking for. In the meanwhile, I’ll be contacting all the publishers, letting them know to hold the presses on any future editions until they hear from the definitive authority on all the proper meanings and most common usages of words. Do hurry and don’t keep them waiting too long.

”I could claim that anyone who criticized democrats must be against the political equality of all people and point to a definition to prove my point.”

And, with that, you’ve precisely summed up what you propose to do in this discussion. Command the lexicon; command the debate.

”I have never used the word creotard. Name-calling is not my style.”

Isn’t necessary when you’re looking to turn every term describing your adversary into a slur.

”Got a cite yet?”

Whistle for it.

Like a Liberal, whatever you are provided will never be enough. You’re not interested in communication, understanding, or knowledge. You want a scripted answer, and the one and only that will satisfy you.

It’s like that moron who shot the security guard at the DC Holocaust Museum the other day. The government news media immediately came out with their homilies about ‘Right-Wing hate’ and how we must finally have a discussion about hate, race, and guns. Turns out this nutcase is a Ted Kaczynski style Left-winger who not only hates Blacks and Jews but Conservatives and Christians too, and who believes that Bush knew about 9-11 and, indeed, was in on the planning of it. That fact didn’t even momentarily unsettle the pukes of the press. They had their template and, by God, they weren’t going to let any stinking facts get in the way of their pursuit of the Right-Wing hate mongers. No amount of revelations or nothing else will ever be enough to dissuade them from their appointed mission.

Actually, come to think of it, I’ve given you dozens of cites, Hundreds maybe, in those definitions I’ve provided. The publishers of dictionaries all have a board of scholars who constantly research new words and the ‘evolution’ (you should pardon the expression) of existing words. Maybe you ought go join some of those boards and set them straight on where they are going so horribly wrong.

An old coach of mine used to say, "You either have results, or you have reasons."

I’ve given you dozens of cites, Hundreds maybe, in those definitions I’ve provided. The publishers of dictionaries all have a board of scholars who constantly research new words and the ‘evolution’ (you should pardon the expression) of existing words.

And yet amazingly, with those hundreds of cites out there, you are unable to come up with even one.

(Side note, purely in the spirit of dictionary appreciation: you might enjoy the book The Professor and the Madman, the story of the editor of the Oxford English Dictionary and the asylum inmate who provided him with many of his most useful citations.)

”An old coach of mine used to say, "You either have results, or you have reasons."”

What did your old coach have to say about an opponent who wanted to carry the whistle and the flag as well as play the game, and who changed the boundaries any time the course of the game looked to be taking an inauspicious turn? I’ve produced results. You’ve rejected them. Only an outcome selected to your specs will satisfy. Should more of your demands be met, you would simply change the boundaries again. I don’t play in rigged games. If you want to send someone on a fool’s errand, go find a fool.

In the meantime, while you demand every issue you raise be answered, you ignore any issue you find inconvenient (a propensity common among The Masters of the Universe). For instance. Since you reject dictionaries as repositories of the meaning of words (their primary function), I’ve asked if you, then, denounce dictionaries as perverse tools of the rabid and wicked Christian Right, and if you would even have one in the house . . . Crickets.

I reject the proposition that you get to play and also get to carry the whistle and the flag, just as I would expect you to reject any such proposition favoring me. We’ve presented our arguments. Let the forum decide. It will be a mixed verdict, surely.

Side bar: The Professor and the Madman sounds like fun. I would note that the asylum inmates were where they were because they were crazy, not because they were stupid. In a similar vein, I can report that a team of Harvard chess masters were once soundly defeated by a team of inmates from Bedlam. { :^)

I’ve produced results. You’ve rejected them. Only an outcome selected to your specs will satisfy. Should more of your demands be met, you would simply change the boundaries again.

I am asking for the same thing I asked you for back in February, the same thing I was asking for the first time I used the word "cite" or "citation" here, the same thing I've asked the two posters who supported you for. From February:

Can you find a popular use of the term to mean, say, someone who believes God created a universe 13 billion years ago that through the inexorable operation of physical laws led to the evolution of human beings?

From my first mention of it in this thread:

a citation of a recent use of the word "creationist" in the generic "believe that God created the universe" sense.

From another post:

He's provided no citation for anyone using the word in normal speech--i.e., not a discussion of what the word means, but just as an undefined term

I would have thought phrases like "popular use" and "normal speech" would make it clear that I didn't mean dictionaries. But since you didn't seem to get that, I explained:

By "cite" I mean the kind of thing a dictionary uses to support its definition: an example of the word being used in the sense described, with source.

I don't say this to further the argument, but just to establish that I haven't ever changed the boundaries of the game.

Since you reject dictionaries as repositories of the meaning of words (their primary function),

Uh, no. I've agreed several times that dictionaries record all the meanings of a word. What they're not as useful for is indicating which meaning is the most commonly understood one.

I’ve asked if you, then, denounce dictionaries as perverse tools of the rabid and wicked Christian Right, and if you would even have one in the house

Sorry, I thought that must have only been asked for rhetorical effect. I love dictionaries. The only one I have in the house is my beloved, old American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. (I selected it precisely because of its Usage Panel, an acknowledgment that bare definitions can't tell the whole story of how a word is used.) These days, though, I mostly rely on dictionary.com, which presents results from multiple sources.

I cannot imagine why you would set any store in the value of dictionaries when you allege their ineffectiveness in providing us with the knowledge of what words mean. However you parse your words, you speak from both sides of your mouth. For example, the Compact Oxford English Dictionary of Current English states in its preface that its fully revised, updated, and redesigned edition “is directly informed by the evidence of how the language is actually used today.” Yet you allege that dictionaries don’t really tell us how words are commonly used, in direct contradiction to the volume. Can’t trust the dictionary, huh? It’ll lie to you every time. Oh, but it’s a wonderful book, just the same.

Why?

If dictionaries do not provide us with definitions that inform us how the language is used today, why would we bother to consult them, and why would you, as you claim, set any stock in their value?

In truth, in the instance of this particular word, there doesn’t seem to be a great deal of separation of meaning in most of the modern definitions I provided, and popular use doesn’t seem to have changed very much during the course of my entire lifetime, as witnessed by Webster’s Universal Dictionary of the English Language, unabridged, 1937, which I threw in with the later definitions Which, incidentally, also explains why as a kid my understanding of the term was no different than it is today.

”I would have thought phrases like "popular use" and "normal speech" would make it clear that I didn't mean dictionaries.”

I don’t know why, since popular use and normal speech seems to be what most dictionaries deal in. But, I understand why the political exigencies of the moment compel you to malign the usefulness of the dictionary even as you profess your profound admiration for its manifold virtues. You have to create a wall of separation between dictionaries and language, or your whole thesis falls apart. Such is the wonderful blessing of politics in our lives.

Can you find a popular use of the term to mean, say, someone who believes God created a universe 13 billion years ago that through the inexorable operation of physical laws led to the evolution of human beings?

I haven't the foggiest idea what you're asking for.

But I DO know allmendream comes the closest to fitting your description. If I'm reading it correctly, not that he'd admit it in a million years. :)

But it reminds me of something...I see bumper stickers of people with pro-life on one end and Obama '08 on the other. There should be a term for someone that puts more faith in one thing than another opposing or at least competing belief; while simultaneously claiming firm belief in both.

Besides a hypocrite, because some people are unknowingly miseducated about one, or the other, or even both.

So, somewhere in all my comments, there’s a time when I took ONE scientist’s claim on something.......and then further down the page of this scientis’s article I conveniently ignored the SAME scientist’s other claim because I disagreed with it?

Yeah....you almost had something to say.

Uhhh why would that be something to worry about in the first place?

Have you never seen a scientist or anyone else for that matter, say one thing you agreed with, but then said another thing and you didn't agree with it?

I find this extremely odd.

Cultlike actually.

I have shown you enough respect to not accuse you of being dishonest or disingenuous in this discussion, even though your inability to grasp the distinction I'm making has made me wonder many times. Please don't accuse me of dissembling either, and please don't distort my meaning.

I'll walk through it one more time, and then I'll drop it.

Dictionaries are a record of the attested uses of a word. By "attested," I mean there are examples of the word being used that way--in books, magazines, newspapers, movies, TV shows, speeches, whatever. These examples are what I have called "cites" or "citations."

Words develop new meanings, and old meanings go obsolete, and dictionaries try to keep up with that process. That means that, like your Compact OED, they're constantly collecting and reviewing citations. They do their best, and I respect them for it.

However, they can't really keep up. Also, their main concern is documenting as many meanings of a word as they can. They're less useful in helping the language user sort through the connotations of each meaning and figure out which usage is most prevalent at a given time.

For example, do you know what "alternative rock" is? Twenty years ago, it was a newish style of music that was a true "alternative" to the kind of pop/rock that was dominant at the time. Today, it's just another genre and not really an "alternative" to anything. But looking up the definitions of the word "alternative" isn't going to help you understand that. Only by seeing how the word is used in common writing or speech--when it's used as a term the writer expects the reader to already understand, not as part of a discussion of what the term means--can you really grasp what "alternative rock" refers to.

In other words, you need citations.

My point has been, from the beginning, that the terms "creationism" and "creationist" as they are used in common American speech today--as when someone says "I'm a creationist," or when newspapers write "creationists won a victory in Texas today"--do not refer to a general belief in God as the creative force behind the universe. And they certainly don't refer to opponents of Traducianism, despite both of those meanings being in the dictionary. (Heck, I'd never even heard of Traducianism before, and I went to 12 years of Catholic school!)

You claimed otherwise. I asked you for citations, in the sense I outlined above, for another use of the terms. That's what I've asked for, consistently, this entire time. I was able to find several citations of that sort for what I claim the common usage to be.

If I don't return to this discussion, it isn't because I'm whining or slinking. It's because I've concluded that you cannot or will not see the distinction I'm making and that there's no point in trying to make you see it.

"I'm a creationist," or when newspapers write "creationists won a victory in Texas today"--do not refer to a general belief in God as the creative force behind the universe.

Well that's bizarre because that's the very first thing that comes to mind!

In fact, ultimately, I think 100% of creationists would belive this! It's the one unifying aspect of ALL creationists!

From there you have subsets, those that believe in an old earth or a new earth, or even the creator uses evolution to some degree as a tool, etc, but this characteristic seems to be the very single defining and unifying factor for ALL creationists: "a general belief in God as the creative force behind the universe". THE logical, by definition, starting premise! Look up creation!

In my mind you have two major groups: theism vs. atheism/anti-theism. You either believe in God or you don't.

Some believe in a creator that may have created all we know slowly over ga-jillions of years, perhaps used evolution/monkeys to men, humans are mere great apes, perhaps even used aliens to bring life to earth, while others believe God made man directly from the earth, as an already adult male, then made Eve from his rib, a young earth...essentially the Christian creation. (And of course there are other faiths that believe combinations of these things but in this country I'd say these are the two main groups).

THEN you have those that simply will not even perceive of a creator or intelligent one at that, that is responsilbe for all we know...everything is simply natural, happened for no reason, by no plan or purpose, there simply is no God.

The lines get blurred by confused people who try as they might simply can not or will not figure out which of the two major groups they belong to. There's serious conflict muddying not only their own waters, but everyone's perceptions of them.

But in my mind anyway, a creationist, by simple definition is one that believes an intelligent creator is responsible for designing and creating all we know. Period. Creationism, means precisely that...a creation event or process by a creator. One of course "can" believe in God and evolution, but to then assert He didn't know what He was doing by not having a plan or purpose and all this just happened willy-nilly without intelligence or design, seems utterly non-sensical and illogical at best.

However, it makes all the sense in the world to an atheist ar anti-theist though, since there's no creator, no purposeful design or big-bang seems quite logical I suppose.

While there can be creationists that believe in evolution, (evolution itself IS intelligent design, that is it is a tool God uses over a long period of time, which incidentally rejects pretty much everything in the Bible); there just aren't any atheists/anti-theists that believe in creationism. And I know of no atheist or anti-theist that rejects evolution.

I'm almost afraid to ask, but what is it YOU think creationism or creationist means?

And I AM too afraid to ask the definition of evolution btw...but I'm certain right next to it in the dictionary is a picture of someone trying depserately to nail jello to a wall!

When the term “creationist” is used, unless the hearer is a mind reader, one can only determine the meaning by (1) Whom the speaker is referring to, or (2) if the speaker provides the definition he is applying.

Well, yes, we might just guess too and therein lies the problem of speech today, particularly in the U.S.,
everyone wants to be Humpty Dumpty,

“’When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’”

Of course Humpty had no need of a dictionary since he making it up as he went along like those who bastardize the language until words has no useful meaning at all.

I think, as you seem to indicate, that a word should be used in it's broadest meaning until there's a need to describe a specific example of the general.

To “speak the same language” means also to understand how the other person thinks, a great advantage said to accrue to the British and Americans during WWII.

While the confusion of communication famously ended the Tower of Babel.

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	Gods Graves Glyphs	Here's a better excerpt directly from the Oregon State news release: Discovery raises new doubts about dinosaur-bird links News and Communication Services Oregon State University 6-9-09 It's been known for decades that the femur, or thigh bone in birds is largely fixed and makes birds into "knee runners," unlike virtually all other land animals, the OSU experts say. What was just discovered, however, is that it's this fixed position of bird bones and musculature that keeps their air-sac lung from collapsing when the bird inhales. Warm-blooded birds need about 20 times more oxygen than cold-blooded reptiles, and have evolved a unique lung structure that allows for a high rate of gas exchange and high activity level. Their unusual thigh complex is what helps support the lung and prevent its collapse... However, every other animal that has walked on land, the scientists said, has a moveable thigh bone that is involved in their motion -- including humans, elephants, dogs, lizards and -- in the ancient past -- dinosaurs... "For one thing, birds are found earlier in the fossil record than the dinosaurs..." Ruben said... "But one of the primary reasons many scientists kept pointing to birds as having descended from dinosaurs was similarities in their lungs," Ruben said... The newest findings, the researchers said, are more consistent with birds having evolved separately from dinosaurs and developing their own unique characteristics, including feathers, wings and a unique lung and locomotion system. There are some similarities between birds and dinosaurs, and it is possible, they said, that birds and dinosaurs may have shared a common ancestor, such as the small, reptilian "thecodonts," which may then have evolved on separate evolutionary paths into birds, crocodiles and dinosaurs. The lung structure and physiology of crocodiles, in fact, is much more similar to dinosaurs than it is to birds... old theories die hard, Ruben said... Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution. Probably will post a separate topic. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
·Dogpile · Archaeologica · ArchaeoBlog · Archaeology · Biblical Archaeology Society · · Discover · Nat Geographic · Texas AM Anthro News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · Google · · The Archaeology Channel · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists ·

Have you never seen a scientist or anyone else for that matter, say one thing you agreed with, but then said another thing and you didn't agree with it?

Not really. I don't deal in theoretical sciences much...tend to deal in research...mostly infectious diseases and the immune system and biochemistry and molecular biology and protein chemistry.....not very theoretical....not much to have a disagreement with.

.....but I wouldn't go using an evolutionist's claims to prove something if I didn't believe in evolution.

Now, had I posted an article by a young earth creation scientist (misnomer).....that showed evolution in some manner no matter how micro....but then that scientist (misnomer) goes on to talk about the Earth being 6000 years old....you'd have a point.

Had I posted something by a climatologist that shows that the recent climate shows there is no global warming this decade.....and then he goes on talking about how man-made global warming is killing the planet and we're all gonna die in 10 years...

THEN, you would have had something to say.

....but your intent is to do nothing more than make an accusation and then put me in that nice little box marked "cult"....good job...mission accomplished.

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