I "somehow feel justified" how/what/huh?
Ich, You basically demand I have a award winning scientific thesis or else I'm wrong.
Not at all. I just expect that if you make claims, you should have actual evidence and valid reasoning to back it up, otherwise you're just presenting your presumptions as if they were facts.
If I say a premise and do not provide exhaustive evidence, it is obvious that I believe it is valid based on my learning and that I am appealing to a similar understanding on the readers part.
You're dodging -- no one has asked you to "provide exhaustive evidence". We've only asked you to explain what you're basing your conclusions on, and you're not able/willing to do even that.
In essence you're asking us to just take your word for the assertion that the validity of your belief, and the reliability of your learning, are trustworthy.
This "my declaring it should be good enough" attitude is especially troubling when a) your assertions fly in the face of pre-existing research and evidence, and b) you get awfully defensive and start making excuses when asked to explain or support your naked assertions, or asked how you reconcile your claims with previous findings to the contrary.
Someday, I will have every little contention cited (a side project), but of course on FR during a study break I cannot do this.
Ah, yes, the old "plenty of time to make repeated assertions, and plenty of time to make excuses, but never a free moment to provide a shred of support" defense. I hope you don't think you're being original, I've seen that one countless times before.
Look, if your statements were just based on your presumptions about how much genetic difference there "must" have been between humans and chimps, and not based on any actual study of the matter, it's not the end of the world to say so.
I'm also a little concerned about how you've worded your vow to "have every little contention cited". Creationists in general too often make the mistake of thinking that "citations" are sufficient support for an assertion. They're not. Just because you can cite someone who says the same thing, that doesn't mean that the claim is necessarily supportable. Instead, citations should only be used to point the reader to a source wherein *actual* support for the assertion (e.g., a valid experiment which sufficiently supports the assertion and been found to be sound by others) can be found. Being able to "cite every little contention" is not the important thing. Indeed, you can dispense with citations entirely if you can adequately support your contentions directly. The other important thing that creationists too often overlook is that citing or supporting an assertion in isolation is useless if the assertions don't fit together as a coherent whole, *and* fit the entire body of known evidence. Creationists are famous for "explaining" one thing entirely in isolation, but in a way that conflicts with almost everything *else*. It may look good at first glance, but it's remarkably stupid to anyone who stops to think about it for a moment. My favorite example (although there are *thousands*) is the AiG page which attempts to explain the Coconino layer of the Grand Canyon in terms of The Flood. They postulate that the "swirls" found in the Coconino formation are not actually wind-blown sand dunes, but instead are water-rippled sands formed in the final waning days of The Flood. I suppose that's *vaguely* plausible by itself, but AiG sort of "forgets" to reconcile that hypothesis with the fact that there are another SIX HUNDRED VERTICAL FEET OF ADDITIONAL GEOLOGIC LAYERING ON TOP OF THE COCONINO which AiG's "explanation" has just made impossible. See here for my critique of AiG's idiocy.
Someday in the future, probably after december break, I will have finished my website on how scientific observations (but not the method itself) point to God/Jesus.
And, of course, you can't spare a few precious seconds to provide a single example...
Would you be interested in having us help critique it before you publish it? Are you truly interested in making sure that your material is valid and reliable and doesn't have any fallacious reasoning? I hope so, because there's enough claptrap on the web already.
And this is a change of subject anyway -- the claims I've been discussing with you do not concern your assertions about "observations pointing to God/Jesus". The actual point of contention involved your assertions concerning evolutionary biology.
Until then, I will concede that I do not have the time to aduquetely and scientifically challenge your massive postings
Why would you feel the need to "challenge" them? Do you actually spot any flaws in them? Or do you just want to attack them because you don't want to accept the conclusions?
In other words, are you motivated by a desire for accuracy and validity and discovery -- or by a desire to protect your existing presumptions?
(which I suspect were to some degree pre-generated, which is wise).
Only that one obviously pasted section entitled "Prediction 5.8: Genetic rates of change". The rest I composed on the fly in response to your posts, and that includes rereading the study I presented selected tables from.
That said, I am a biochem student so I really appreciate your attempts to educate me.
You're welcome.
Unlike patrichenry and mylo--who seem more interested in self-justificatio--you seem genuinely interested in educating others and debating your own understanding.
I am, but I disagree with your conclusions concerning PatrickHenry and Mylo. Their styles may differ from mine, but I don't believe their goals do.
I look forward to speaking with you in the future.
Likewise.
Patrick Henry, You might be knowledgable about science and naturalism/theism and science--I don't know enough about you. But from what I've seen on this post and others, your dismissive and condescening remarks do not earn you the respect your potential knowledge should deserve you.
I don't think PH is seeking "respect", he's interested in shaking people out of their comfortable but unsupportable preconceptions. That's a prerequisite for being able to learn.
For what it's worth, I usually greet misstatements with little more than a link or two to what I think is accurate information. My operational assumption is that a newbie to an evolution thread is simply misinformed, and needs to be exposed to better information than he's encountered previously. I recognize that sometimes these misstatements are made in ignorance, their confused posters having blindly copied such material from notoriously unreliable creationist websites. A newbie should be allowed a few mistakes. Often the information is accepted in silence, and the newbie departs, better informed than when he arrived.
It's only when someone has a history of posting erroneous material, and the corrective information that's provided him is consistently brushed aside with the usual creationist accusations about fascism, communism, racism, etc., that I change to a different mode. And even then, my disparaging remarks are directed at the false material and fallacious arguments that have been posted.
Gentlemen,
The reason I have not yet posted from-the-cuff evidence is that I am actually pretty careful to make sure I evidence all of my claims. Since I was making many claims, I simply put them out there as a challenge and not a proof.
I have very little time each day to relax and surf the web/listen to music. In addition to biochem classes (adv physics, adv biochem, evol of behavior, biocore) I have quite a few extra committments. So that is why I am not currently interested in a lengthy debate, though I might be in December if I am not deployed (I'm a Marine Reservists).
Here is the oppressively formatted basic thesis of why I believe in Jesus. My section on biological evolution is not very developed yet, but the section on physics is.
http://jdhighness.tripod.com ***no www
I intend to completely rehaul it at winter break, including updating the arguments made since I have learned quite a bit since I made the site.
Thank you for your assistance. I will engage this topic more thoroughly when time permits. I hope you undestand