Posted on 08/18/2005 6:15:15 PM PDT by wagglebee
You know that TV crocodile hunting team Steve and Terri Irwin? Well those two can expect some competition in days to come. Scientists in northern Australia have been collecting blood from crocodiles in hopes of saving humans.
Studies in the late 90s showed that several antibodies in croc blood killed penicillin-resistant bacteria. More recently it has been discovered that crocodiles immune systems can kill the HIV virus. American scientist Mark Merchant says the reptiles tear limbs off each other, [but] they heal up very rapidly and normally, almost always without infection. Aussie scientist Adam Britton adds: The crocodile has an immune system which attaches to bacteria and tears it apart and it explodes. Its like putting a gun to the head of the bacteria and pulling the trigger.
These two scientists draw blood from wild and captive crocs, saltwater and freshwater species. After capturing the donor, they strap its jaws and go for a vein. The vein, Britton says, is called a sinus, right behind the head, and its very easy just to put a needle in the back of the neck and hit this sinus and then you can take a large volume of blood very simply.
Itll be years, of course, before croc blood is ready for human use. Their antibodies are so powerful they may have to be diluted. But this is pretty remarkable on two fronts. Once again, proof that embryonic stem cells arent the only miracle cure for all that ails us. And more importantly, understanding how crocodiles heal points to a pretty intelligent design in nature. Now when are the animal rights people going to start complaining to stop all of this?
I'll give them a look. And in return, something you might find interesting.....
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/2437/genesis.html
It's okay to kill babies for stem cells and genetically engineer life, but don't think of using croc blood to actually try to cure human diseases, that's animal cruelty.
Fair enough....bookmarked for further study.
Well if they are so inclined, they can form a "human shield" to protect the crocodiles. And then after an hour or so, when the crocs are extremely well fed, it will be easier to draw blood.
I've heard every creationist argument you can think of and they all boil down to misrepresenting paleontology, physics, anthropology (both physical and cultural), biology, genetics, history and every other science and academic discipline you can think of.
How does irreducible complexity misrepresent any of those? Be specific.
If you want to see a good scientific argument against Darwinism, here's one:
A Scientific Critique of Evolution.
Also a peer reviewed paper giving evidence for a young earth by Dr. Russell Humphreys who has been published in leading scientific journals:
The odds of any human being being struck by lightning are enormously improbable, yet every year at least a dozen people are killed in the United States by lightning bolts. Have they all been struck down by God? Is the chance of any particular person being struck by lightning "too improbable" to have happened by chance?
The odds of a dozen people in the U.S. as a whole being struck by lightning is not enormously improbable. You don't apply the probability of a single person being hit to the likelihood of anyone in the entire country being hit. That's how probabilities are calculated. It's the same reason it's not incredible that someone in the entire group of players hits the lottery. There's millions of chances in the aggregate group.
Rush is more brilliant than all the egg-head evolution apologists on these boards combined.
Revelation 4:11
See my profile for info
Even more preposterous is his example disproving how a mousetrap is irreducibly complex, in which he has someone wielding a hammer as the first evolutionary phase of the trap - trying to demonstrate that an evolving mousetrap without all the parts could be fully functional from the get go. The person wielding the hammer is not part of the evolving trap but is an outside agent. His example actually demonstrated the opposite of what he was trying to prove. What a joke.
So why didn't God give that boon to human beings, then? Or at least to the Jews? It seems rather--I don't know--haphazard to squander something so great on crocodiles alone.
But then, many IDers will shrug that off by saying "the Lord works in mysterious ways," and without any trace of irony.
the forest for the trees
I suggest www.reasons.org
I usually just observe these threads. But, Bombardier if you respect and worship God so much, how come you don't take Him at His word?
Because man wrote it down and man tends to screw things up. It's called "being human." If you want a religion that thinks its book is utterly perfect and incorrupt, I suggest you look at Islam. They tend to not think much about the word of their god, too. I happen to like the Judeo-Christian tradition of being able to take God's word in the manner in which it speaks to each believer. And for me, the Bible is the "why," science tells the "how."
And if that ain't Christian enough for you, then too damn bad. It's no skin off your nose.
2 Timothy 3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
2/3 of Americans don't believe in evolution, so it cracks me up how the "elites" around here marginalize the majority.
Yet, you place utter faith in man's "Science", which is at its heart, a human institution, and thuis heir to all the foibles and follies human nature has to offer...
the infowarrior
And science also doesn't claim truth, eternal and everlasting, just fact. Facts don't change, but interpretation of them does. As we learn more, hypotheses and theories need to be updated.....that's what science does. Claiming absolute, inalterable truth is what troglodytes do....such as saying a pedophile murderer was the "seal of the prophets," and seeking to eliminate all other forms of belief. Earlier in this thread someone said that two-thirds of Americans didn't accept evolution. While I doubt the number (one survey showed closer to 45%, and I was taught at the school I went to that 2/3 is 66%), it misses the point: Facts are facts. Science is neither populist nor democratic. The fossil record can be read, the theory can be tested and proven, genetic testing can suggest relationships between genera and species, and new information can lead to changes in hypotheses and theories. Say what you want, but man is fallible. We learn new things, and correct ourselves. God gives us a moral structure, but it was man who wrote the Bible....and as I've said before, if you want to take it literally and condemn all who don't accept literalism and inerrancy as unchanging doctrine, that's your right. But it's also my right to keep to my beliefs in a God who gave man a brain to study and learn about the mechanisms of His creation and to not accept Wahabbi Christianity. Christ died to save us from our sins, not to save us from scientific inquiry.
You got it right infowarrior.
People balance the Word of God with the word of man.
Fortunately, passing the origins test isnt a factor to a persons entry into heaven.
Unfotunately, it does tend to lead people into discrediting Gods Word and they choose man and they distrust God.
Seeing the reactions of the "OHDI" on this forum, extreme doubt obtains as to this statement. Look, I am neither an "evo" or a "crevo". I am of the opinion that we truly do not know our origins, and may never know with certitude.
Much of what you call "fact' isn't, at least with 100% certitude, but is as you later put it, "interpretation". Much is made by the Darwinist community of "peer review", as a panacea against fallacy. However, as science is a human institution, and thus subject to, as I stated earler, all the foibles of human nature, peer review is no where near the panacea it is claimed to be.
"Science" is being questioned more and more these days, and it comes as no surprise to me and others like me, who have seen "scientists" and their defenders become just as intolerant of discussion as any cheap parody of Inquistors of days of yore (the acrnym OHDI stands for Office of the Holy Darwinian Inquisition, btw)...
the infowarrior
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