Evolution debate: State board should reject pseudoscience

Columbus Dispatch ^ | February 17, 2002 | Editorial

[cracker]

so no thread I ever started totalled more than 2 or 3 hundred. -Vade

But there were endless CONTINUATION threads.

I am as amazed as you that this one has lasted this long. I think part of it is that the new format (plus the self-search and index lists) makes it easier for discussions to last more than a few days. You come back tomorrow, it's right here where you left it.

[medved]

Then when you do quote evolutionists, you snip and edit what they say in order to make it seem as though they support creationism.

There's enough context in all of those quotes to support a claim that each of the authors has severe reservations about the possibility of macroevolution, which is all I claim to be demonstrating. Anybody claiming that I'm doing or trying to do anything more than that is lying.

[longshadow]

I'd rather have a three week vacation on a tropical desert island with some leggy supermodel as a prize.

Well, so would we all, but that misses the point. Consider that first prize would be three weeks with "medved" and "G3K"; second prize would be six weeks with them.

;-)

[cracker]

There's enough context in all of those quotes to support a claim that each of the authors has severe reservations about the possibility of macroevolution, which is all I claim to be demonstrating. Anybody claiming that I'm doing or trying to do anything more than that is lying.

1. There is no context in the quotes for the author's ideas. If you asked any of the evolutionists you quoted if they agreed with your conclusion, they laugh themselves hoarse. Because the quotes you selected do not capture that, you have not provided adequate context.

2. Their "problems" are with a specific aspect of a particular hypothesis about macroevolution. Yet they all would agree that the earth is more than 4 billion years old; that humans and apes share a common ancestor; that dinosaurs were largely wiped out 65 million years ago; that some descendants of dinosaurs evolved into birds; that evolution, comprising (but not limited to) natural selection, mutation, reproductive isolation, and other processes is sufficient to explain the observed flora and fauna of the natural world; and many other propositions that you reject.

They never state that macroevolution does not and did not happen at all, just that it may have happened differently or for different reasons. Your attempts to imply the former from the latter are intellectually dishonest.

[PatrickHenry]

Placemarker. This is the start of the final leg of the long run to post #1000. The tension mounts ...

[cracker]

Well, so would we all, but that misses the point. Consider that first prize would be three weeks with "medved" and "G3K"; second prize would be six weeks with them.

Are yout trying to kill the thread? No one will risk posting when we get close to 980 for fear of being called "winner!"

[medved]

Their "problems" are with a specific aspect of a particular hypothesis about macroevolution. Yet they all would agree that the earth is more than 4 billion years old; that humans and apes share a common ancestor...

You've interviewed each and every one of those people and all have told you that they share this little list of beliefs of yours?

[cracker]

You've interviewed each and every one of those people and all have told you that they share this little list of beliefs of yours?

Your very first section (in Post 99) includes two quotes from Gould who your own SPAM insists is a macroevolutionist! You've also got a quote form Darwin, supposedly to back up your contentions that Darwinism is false! How are those possibly in context?

The Raup quote is also out of context, as are the Kemp, and Science News quotes. Most of your quotes are hopelessly out of date - of your first 10 quotes, only two are less than 20 years old - and those two are from 1988. Some are flat out wrong, such as your 1956 Encyclopedia Britanica quote, which ignores the whole field of radiometric dating because the quote is 45 years old!.

The Denton quotes are unsourced and undated. The set of fossil quotes following Denton contains 10 quotes 9 of which are more than 20 years old, the remainder being from 1988. There is not a single quote in the rest of the spam newer than 1988. Do you have anything more recent?

[VadeRetro]

Denton is one of the ID writers. He favors creationist anti-E arguments like the dishonest Darwin quote on the eye, etc. Duane Gish with more camouflage.

[medved]

Your original little claim was "Yet they all would agree..."

I want to know how you know that THEY ALL would agree with your own little list of beliefs, and so far you haven't told me. Or could it be you were just making that #### up?