Evolution debate: State board should reject pseudoscience

Columbus Dispatch ^ | February 17, 2002 | Editorial

[VadeRetro]

Yes, certain fossils do indicate a high degree of likelihood of oil beneath. However, this is more in the realm of archaelogy, not evolution.

No, it isn't about archaelogy, or even archaeology. You don't know what the words mean.

[gore3000]

"Your statements of this form are particularly meaningless. I marvel that you still want to go there."

Okay, if any proof has been given on this thread of macro-evolution, kindly give us the number of the post giving it.

Even better, Vade, how about if you take up the challenge and give us proof right here of macro-evolution?

[gore3000]

"electricity is evidence of consciousness."

So a lightbulb is conscious?

We have been burying people because they did not show this "evidence" of life (just as we used to bury people because their heart stopped beating or we could not feel any breath in them). However, in the last few years we have found that we can stop all bodily functions by freezing, perform an operation, and "revive" the person with no harm done at all. What this proves (again) is that there is a lot more to life than what materialist theory can account for.

[gore3000]

"You're saying its a conjectural reconstruction and not a replica? "

All that Andrew C was saying was that "replicas" are not evidence. The originals are evidence. One never knows what has been changed, or what has been added or subtracted from a replica. His "proof" is therefore not proof at all.

[gore3000]

<Perhaps you'd like to read some of UCMP's self-serving evolushunist propaganda:

Too funny! You quote what you know to be an advertisement as proof!

You really need to do a lot better Vade! Or maybe not, we need some myrth in this thread which sometimes gets too serious.

[VadeRetro]

Even better, Vade, how about if you take up the challenge and give us proof right here of macro-evolution?

OK. 29 Evidences for Macroevolution.

The posts directed at you since your time on these threads have been rife with evidence, actually. That therapsid-to-mammal series is another one. Cuffey, whose artwork you seek to impugn, didn't invent it or discover the fossils or write the important papers on the subject. He simply wrote a popularizing article that referred to that series.

Dino-to-birds. You've been dragged kicking and screaming through it many times. You've only proven that no one can make you see.

And then there's the platypus. You told Louis Figo you'd never had an answer about the evolutionary explanation of the platypus.

It has been quite a few threads since I first asked that question and I have heard tons of excuses and evasions, but not a single answer.

I eventually showered you with evidence of the falsehood of that statement. Before then, however, you indulged in an orgy of brazening, lying, and name-calling as eventually summarized in this post.

You get pummelled with evidence every time you come on one of these threads. Your word is the last thing anyone should take that you do not.

[Nebullis]

Why don't you finish reading the conversation before commenting on it?

We exhausted this issue with the available evidence. Replicas are casts of originals.

[VadeRetro]

Remember, science asks "what." - - Religion asks "why."

So remember that the next time somebody wants to diddle the science curriculum on religious grounds.

[gore3000]

"Pakicetus is a multi-fossil species, etc. Gore was of course assuming that the picture he had was the only basis for reconstructions"

Wrong again Vade! The only thing I was assuming was that the link provided proof of macro-evolution as lexcorp stated it did. As I showed, it did not. Even adding your replica to the "evidence" in the article, it is totally insufficient to show the evolution of whales from Pakicetus since no whale bones are given for comparison, the breast bones are missing from the cadaver of Pakicetus (which is an important difference between whales and land animals) and the Pakicetus cadaver has legs which obviously whales do not. You would at a minimum have to show some intervening cadavers to prove the point of evolution from Pakicetus to whales.

What this whole discussion shows more than anything else though is that the links given by evolutionists do not prove what the evolutionists claim they prove.

[RobRoy]

So remember that the next time somebody wants to diddle the science curriculum on religious grounds.

Exactly! That's why I don't want the theory of evolution being taught in public school as anything resembling fact.

[VadeRetro]

That's why I don't want the theory of evolution being taught in public school as anything resembling fact.

Does the theory of gravity bother you? Gravitation is both a fact and a theory. So is evolution.

Again, I'm not telling you your religion is ultimately wrong, but it shouldn't be telling you to go out and impose wrong answers on science.

[Junior]

Face it, gore3000, your brain (or programming) has been trained to force a cognitive disassociation between the pariticulars of evidence and the sum total of evidence. You can't see the forest for the trees. You'll pick at individual pieces of evidence given you, but fail to understand the overall picture painted by the evidence coming in from dozens of scientific disciplines. And, you show an inherent inability to actually learn anything, which is why you come back with the same inanities time and again. About the only difference is you don't automatically call those who disagree with you "slimers." So, maybe there is hope yet.

[gore3000]

Great post!

You will notice that all the "sciences" you mention have one thing in common between themselves and also with evolution - all of them are taxpayer paid for. No business would waste their money on that nonsense.

[RobRoy]

I will agree to disagree at this point. I, as well as you ( I'm sure) have other interests to pursue, and I need to focus on those now.

Nice talking to you, though.

[gore3000]

"The "pre-biotic soup" is only one of many hypotheses for beginning of life. "

That is correct, and the reason for there being so many hypotheses for the beginning of life is that none of them seem to work.

One of the problems with formulating a non-God created hypothesis for life's beginning is that simple matter of food. Living things cannot eat minerals. They can only eat proteins manufactured by other living things. The only exception to this is plants which either through photosynthesis or chemosynthesis can create their own nourishment from sunlight and chemicals. Both these processes are quite complicated. They require quite complicated genes to function and the very first life would have required such a functioning system in order to survive at all (in addition to genes for reproduction and other essential functions). Of course such a living thing could not have "evolved" since there can be no evolution until there is reproduction and working living beings.

[PatrickHenry]

Ultimately, of course, science is irrelevant. We are just the little boy taking apart the alarm clock to see how it works. Once we think we can figure out the meaning of life if we figure out how the alarm clock works, well, now that's religion.

I've been reading your posts, and frankly I'm struggling to figure out what it is that you're trying to say. You've told me, and also VadeRetro, that we've missed your point. Perhaps so, but I had a lot of fun posting some of the many profound differences between science and religion. Anyway, if you truly believe that science is irrelevant, then even though you've said that you love science, I'm getting the impression that you may not know what science really is.

And as for your point, whatever it was that VadeReteo and I keep missing, would you please state that point, explicitly, so that we can have the benefit of your views?

[gore3000]

gore3000 woodenly assuming that each scrap of fossil bone is all the evidence there ever is or was for the reconstruction of said fossil.

You keep posting this even though I have said no such thing. Kindly do not put words in my mouth.

What I said was that lexcorp offered a link as proof of macro-evolution and the link did not provide such proof. In spite of your harping on this for more posts than I cared to read, and even adding up all the additional "evidence" presented by you, you still have failed to provide proof of the macro-evolution of whales from terrestrial animals. You have failed to give evidence of any intervening species showing the change in the breast bones towards those of whales and the gradual loss of the legs.

[gore3000]

If you see a planet full of life, such as the Earth, you can -- quite reasonably, based on our knowledge from chemistry and biology -- suggest that it developed over a long time from a pre-biotic soup.

No you cannot assume such a thing. You cannot prove the existence of something for which there is no evidence. You are making an assumption (that there is no God) and using it to prove that there is no God. Such reasoning is called a tautology in logic and sophistry in common speech.

[PatrickHenry]

No you cannot assume such a thing [pre-biotic soup].

I can; and I do. For the reasons I gave.

You cannot prove the existence of something for which there is no evidence.

That cuts two ways, doesn't it? Think about it. {Oh, I forgot to whom I'm speaking.)

[gore3000]

"his [Pateur's] "no spontaneous generation" demonstration has absolutely nothing to do with the ultimate origin of life. "

It does show that it has been scientifically proven that at least nowadays there is no such thing as spontaneous generation of life. That is all that science knows about it right now. Now on a previous post (#517 posted just 19 minutes before the one I am responding to here!) you said that science can extrapolate from what it knows now to what is yet unknown. Therefore, the only scientific extrapolation that can be made (according to your previous statements) is that there can be no spontaneous creation of life.