Sadly, an Honest Creationist

SecularHumanism.org ^ | Richard Dawkins

[Nebullis]

I actually wasn't trying to say that the archae and durans were the same, but was just giving another example.

Oh, pardon! A highly fascinating creature, though, the D. radiodurans. And it's found almost everywhere! Of evolutionary interest is that most of the genes for the repair mechanisms lie on a plasmid and a small chromosomes, implicating horizontal transfer. But, hey, if you know the people who sequenced it (Venter?) you have probably heard all about it.

[jennyp]

I thought it was a measure of the speed of the Millennium Falcon through the Kessel Run.

You're thinking of a different galaxy in a different era.

[sadimgnik]

bump .. so I can find this later

[Diamond]

admit that Scripture—a local origin myth of a tribe of Middle-Eastern camel-herders

I know it's late in the thread but since no one said anything I guess I will. Maybe they didn't teach you anything in those 16 years at church, but your sourcing of the creation accounts is off. A cursory Google search would reveal generally that Scripture was written by many different writers from almost every social status over a period of at least 1600 years. But specifically you should know that the portions of the book of Genesis regarding origins were probably translated from much earlier possibly Sumerian cuniform tablets.

"...Astounding also was the discovery, below the flood stratum, of a four-wheeled chariot, the earliest known wheeled vehicle. Other discoveries showing the highly developed Sumerian civilization were thick-walled temple towers, canals, and a library with some of the earliest known writing."

In other words, they were not exactly mere camel-herders.

Cordially,

[Gumlegs]

What does such have to do with mathematics?

The improbability calculation is premised on the changes taking place in a serial fashion. That is why I so casually dismiss the math. In addition, attempting to assign a "probability" is an exercise in absurdity.

Let's calculate the odds against any given person. You take the number of sperm cells the person's father produced over the course of his (the father's), lifetime, the number of eggs the person's mother carried, the liklihood of the right sperm striking the right egg at exactly the right time, and you come up with something you can't tell from zero. Then figure out the same odds against the parents. It's impossible that anyone here now can exist!

Second, nothing in Evolution says that changes must be serial.

Agreed. But the ID calculations seem to require this.

The inability to mate and reproduce is the only limitation. Thus, a monkey with more developed hands could mate with a monkey with a better or larger brain, producing an offspring with both traits.

I wouldn't disagree with this.

[wooly_mammoth]

No, I learned a lot in church. But I also learned a lot from Comparative Religion and Western Philosophy. Kind of hard to take things too seriously after reading Aristophanes(sp?) or the original Cynics. Reading Socrate's Apology is supposed to be moving when read as part of an Ancient philosophy class with a proper professor and it was. Didn't care much for Plato. Aristotle was OK but his Nichomanchean Ethics was boring. I liked St. Augustine.

Now the problem was that I didn't read this stuff in chronological order. I read Karl Popper and Wittgenstein first, including all the Logical Positivist stuff up to 1960. Then I went to Imre Lakotos and Paul Feyerabend (recent Philosophy of Science in case you aren't familiar with the names). At this time I was studying Physics so it's not like I was some scientific ignoramus. Then back to St. Thomas Aquinas. At this point the minor disputes about various aspects of late Middle-Age Catholic dogmatics didn't have too much effect.

...

[wooly_mammoth]

Thanks for the link. Have you read Graham Hancock's

Very good book. The pic is clickable.

[gusopol3]

I'll give you credit--you treated me more gently than I deserved. I had gone slightly ballistic about the undercurrent of many of the posts about the mental competence of the Creationist side. With regard to the whole topic, I am satisfied with anyone who simply says, "If biologic processes have always worked as they do today, then this is the closest that we can come to describing what may have been then..." As I had stated above, I see Christ's miracle of turning water into wine as instructive of the whole issue. It looked, tasted and acted like any wine, I'm sure, but it was very good.I'm sure any chemical analysis would have shown evidence of grapes, the fermenting process, etc. I don't see that scripture encourages believers to fight it out on that ground with unbelievers. Even if Adam's body were found preserved in the ice, any analysis based on the presupposition of known processes as being exclusive, would turn out to be consistent with his having had progenitors (except maybe no belly button, as they say.)Paul didn't have this in mind when he said,"not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:but God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty...that no flesh should glory in his presence," but it applies well. I will debate the Diaspora, the Jewish population of the Persian Empire at the time of Christ--they didn't all go back with Ezra and Nehemiah by a long shot--etc. at another time, but again I give you credit for being a scholar and a gentleman.

[Diamond]

Thanks for the link. It looks like I've still got some reading to do to try to catch up to you!

(I too, like Augustine.)

Cordially,

[Gumlegs]

How about clearing something up for us.

Are you gusopo 13 or gusopol 3?

I like getting these things right.

[gusopol3]

are you gum 1 egs, or gum legs? Actually, it's an "el."

[Gumlegs]

Well ... I think my context is just a little clearer than yours.

"Gumlegs" is the name of the horse W. C. Fields asked Shemp Howard about in "The Bank Dick."

It was also Fields's nickname for FDR, which is why I chose it.

[gusopol3]

it's a good one. I had no reason.nice to meet you.

[ffusco]

dawkins demonstrates a intolerence in faith, yet probably has never seen a nuetrino and believes in them. So faith has a place in science too.

[ffusco]

Until science can explain how lifeless carbon dust and hydrogen gas became you and me they are wrong to belittle creationism as a belief system

[ffusco]

Until science can explain how lifeless carbon dust and hydrogen gas became you and me they are wrong to belittle creationism as a belief system

[ffusco]

Until science can explain how lifeless carbon dust and hydrogen gas became you and me they are wrong to belittle creationism as a belief system

[ffusco]

Until science can explain how lifeless carbon dust and hydrogen gas became you and me they are wrong to belittle creationism as a belief system