The Cross vs. the Swastika

Boundless ^ | 1/26/02 | Matt Kaufman

[VadeRetro]

No, just explain how a land mammal could have evolved into a dolphin or whale or how the duckbilled platypus could have evolved. I don't want pasted generalities. In fact, I want specifics from you on how that is possible.

You are ignoring my post 96. Is this in some way convenient to your argument?

[Gladwin]

You want us to believe that it is all just a coincidence that Hitler, Stalin, Trotsky and Karl Marx were ALL influenced by Darwin's writings, studied those writings and praised those writing....

Stone Deaf is one of the few truly invincible Warriors because nothing can shatter his impenetrable armor of non recognition. His primitive battle strategy is maddening effective; he simply refuses to acknowledge any arguments he doesn't like. Kung-Fu Master can hammer away with devastating blows, Cyber Sisters can screech in full throat and Profundus Maximus can expound until he drops, but Stone Deaf remains utterly oblivious as he advances his dogged and often repetitious attacks. In the early stages of battle a wide array of Warriors will fling themselves at Stone Deaf, but inevitably they fall back exhausted or lose interest when they see that their best weapons have no effect. His only real enemy is Administrator, who has the power to eject him from the discussion forum.

Click here for source and other flame warriors.

[MEGoody]

Yes, you are right about Hitler being an adherent to evolutionary theory. He was trying to 'help it along.'

[MEGoody]

Actually, Darwin did theorize that black skinned humans were 'less evolved' than white skinned humans, simply because their skin tone was closer to the color of apes. We find this theory silly now, but based upon Darwin's initial suppositions, it made sense to him at the time. (After all, Darwin thought a cell was merely a blob of protoplasm. He had no clue about the complexity inherent in a single cell.)

[Junior]

If we are evolved animals with no God, killing sick, elderly people whose quality of life has passed is common sense. The elderly and handicapped suck up tax dollars and create a financial burden on a society, that is if we are merely evolved animals and there is no God to be held accountable to.

Would you like to live in a society like this? Why not? Is it because you would be constantly worrying that someone would declare you "a burden on society" and kill you? Do you think atheists feel any differently than you do when it comes to how much they value their own lives? The society you posit for "Godless" folks would never last because no one wants to live in perpetual fear; it has nothing to do with some God-imposed morality (humans are either moral or they are not. If they are moral then God does not need to impose morality upon them. If they are not moral then the only reason they would act moral would be through fear of retribution, and I'm not sure God wants humans who have to be threatened to do the right thing).

[VadeRetro]

When you're more ready for the details, there are pages like this:

Uhen's Cetacean Evolution Page

There's new progress (and new issues) with AndrewC's favorite whale topic, the question of mesonychids versus hippopotamus-like animals.

Whence Whales?

Junior, this last might be a good one for the Ultimate Resource, although sometimes Scientific American removes articles quickly.

[Quester]

I'm not sure God wants humans who have to be threatened to do the right thing

Do your children ever have to be threatened (in any way)to do the right thing (i.e. the thing that would be in the best interests of your child and others, ... like not biting other people)? If you're like most parents, I'm sure that you anticipate that you won't have to threaten them forever, ... just long enough for them to mature to the point where they can understand for themselves why they shouldn't bite other people.

[Dataman]

I see the usual band of evo-thugs is masterfully employing their best darwinist apologetic: Shout louder and pile on!

Stingray used to save the evo threads so he could embarrass the evos with their own comments. I sometimes wonder how they can type with their fingers in their ears.

Is this a logical refutation of their superstitions? No. But logic doesn't work with them so this is just as useful.

[VadeRetro]

Stingray used to save the evo threads so he could embarrass the evos with their own comments.

So, for a long time, did I, so I could prove to the witch doctors that we'd actually gone over this stuff n times already. My patience gave out before my hard disk.

[Junior]

Ah, the old creationist gambit -- show me the evidence, but don't use expert writings, as I'll never be able to rip those. Give it to me in your own words so that I can attack evolution on semantic, rather than scientific grounds.

What do you want to know about whale evolution?

Shall we start with mesonychian?

Ambulocetidae?

Remingtonocetidae?

Dorudontids (gee, those hind legs are getting smaller and smaller, aren't they)?

Dorudon atrox?

 

Or my personal favorite, Basilosaurus (whose hind legs are just a tiny little nub)?

Of course, there is always the more modern evidence of whale evolution:

Earth’s largest animals are sometimes born with a leg or two, a startling genetic reminder of the time, 50 million years ago, when their ancestors walked on dry land.

[FourtySeven]

I just think it's funny that a thread that started out with an article that offers evidence of Hitler's disdain for Christianity turns into a debate over evolution vs creation. < wink >

[FourtySeven]

The myriad of directions any given thread can take always fascinates me.

[AndrewC]

Shall we start with mesonychian?

That is questionable. In post 146 VadeRetro gives a SA link that again points out the new evidence that belies the old thinking. The long and the short of it is that nearly all of the new evidence shows a close relationship to herbivores not carnivores. Thar she blows!
The teeth of a 50-million-year-old whale called Pakicetidae, said Thewissen, are not as highly evolved as those of the mesonychians, making it unlikely that whales are the descendants of that group.
The fossil whales give mixed evidence about whether the cetaceans belong among the ungulates. Thewissen says that five traits of the early whales, including features of the skull, upper teeth, and feet, are "not inconsistent" with the hippo hypothesis. But the last molar on the lower jaw, which has three sections in artiodactyls, has just two in whales. And Thewissen recently discovered an anklebone from an early whale ancestor that still had legs. It lacks the rounded head characteristic of an ungulate anklebone, although it is similar in other respects.
Thewissen thinks his findings open the door to a tentative link between whales and ungulates. Several paleontologists at the meeting agreed that the whale-hippo link is looking more plausible, and Norihiro Okada, a molecular biologist at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, thinks the case will soon get stronger: "I think paleontologists may discover more [features common to early cetaceans and early hippos] in the near future."
Vade's SA link
Although all the new fossils point to artiodactyls as the ancestors of whales, where on the family tree cetaceans belong in relation to hippos remains controversial. Whereas Gingerich's team considers the whale-hippo link a possibility, the analysis conducted by Thewissen and his colleagues indicates that cetaceans are not more closely related to one artiodactyl group—such as hippos—than another.
Resolving that matter will require further work. "Two other evolutionary transitions vital to our understanding of the relationship between whales and artiodactyls beg for elucidation: the precise ancestry of hippopotami and the origin of artiodactyls themselves," Kenneth D. Rose of Johns Hopkins University comments in a perspective article accompanying the Science report. "The answers seem likely to come only from an improved fossil record—perhaps from the same region that has yielded fossils showing that whales evolved from artiodactyls."

Plus, of course, all of the genetic data(save one) that put whales closer to hippos.

Also from Vade's link---"Now I admit the possibility that hippos are a sideline of artiodactyls that might be closer to whales than any other living animals," he remarks.

What intriques me, is the reluctance of the cognoscenti to abandon their positions facing such a preponderance of contrary evidence, yet their celerity to accept tenuous data when it supports.

Thanks, for the SA link Vade.

[VadeRetro]

From the SA article: "Now I admit the possibility that hippos are a sideline of artiodactyls that might be closer to whales than any other living animals," he remarks.

"He" being a former proponent of the mesonychid ancestry of whales.

AndrewC: What intriques me, is the reluctance of the cognoscenti to abandon their positions facing such a preponderance of contrary evidence, yet their celerity to accept tenuous data when it supports.

No question that scientists have pet theories. Notice however that it's considered bad form to keep going when the evidence is blowing you out of the water.

If, as often claimed by the C-siders, everyone was simply spinning the data for his own version of The Infallible Truth, such admissions as the one you quote would never happen.

[ThinkPlease]

Darwin's cousin was racist just like he was

And your grandfather and grandmother were likely racists also, so were they idiots, because of it? If you don't agree, you're a hypocrite. Looks like a lose-lose situation to me. Give up that line of argument, its a really dumb one, and a pretty good sign that you have no scientific argument as well.

[PatrickHenry]

The Japanese are probably the most racist people on earth, and I think they always have been. I doubt that Darwin played any role in this aspect of their culture.

[Ol' Sparky]

I know for a fact that countries that established atheism as state policy did, in fact, behave this way. Hitler did kill the elderly and handicapped. China does force abortions and kill already-born baby girls.

There are only two possible views of the world. We are evolved animals and no absolute morality. Or there is absolutely morality and it comes from a source outside of mankind.

[Ol' Sparky]

There is NO fossil record of macroevolution, let alone in whales. Nor could land mammals have evolved step-by-step into whales or dolphins. Both land mammals and whales and dolphins have multiple functions that are required for land or for sea.

What you presented is the lamest theory to support the evolution fairy tale.

It's laughable anyone could even believe the speculation that was presented in this article. It's science fiction at its very worst.

[Ol' Sparky]

My grandparents didn't devise eugenics programs like Darwin's cousin. Nor did they come up with a theory that could be used as a foundation for racism and totalitarianism.

[Ol' Sparky]

ROFLOL...these drawings are assuming as the drawings of apes becoming men. They are laughable. It's science fiction at its absolute WORST. And, Dr. Michael Behe In Darwin's Black Box completely destroys the idea that complex organisms with multiple interdependent organs could have evolved in a step-by-step manner.