Common Creationist Arguments - Pseudoscience

http://www.stardestroyer.net/Creationism/Arguments/Pseudoscience.shtml ^

[BMCDA]

One of those articles on ring species I lost my bookmarks to is just here. It's about them darn salamanders in California you mentioned earlier ;-)

Now if that isn't convincing...

[VadeRetro]

Typing a little slow tonight aren't we, Einstein?

[VadeRetro]

Now if that isn't convincing...

There are those for whom evidence is not the main thing.

[VadeRetro]

I'm going to give you a break and go out to eat. Try to think.

[tallhappy]

What do bacteria do, and when do they do it? Is it: 1) mitosis, 2) meiosis, or 3) none of the above?

You are an idiot.

Do you kjnow what a molecule is? My guess is no.

[PatrickHenry]

Lurking ...

[Doctor Stochastic]

...we don’t need a reason for everything, just an explanation....

That's all you get from science: explanations.

[tallhappy]

That's all you get from science: explanations.

Learn something about science dude. It is actually a lot more exciting and intriguing than you think.

[BMCDA]

Why?

Because it isn't an explanation at all. It only makes you think you have an answer.

[Heartlander]

Why can't 'Intelligent Design' be an answer yet random chance can?

[Lev]

Since evolution and nature are the driving forces - than everything we do must further it's cause.

Do you know the difference between descriptive science and prescriptive ethics?

[VadeRetro]

You are an idiot.

Do you kjnow what a molecule is? My guess is no.

You seem to have made a disappointing use of the time. At least I had a good turkey cheese sub.

Such ad hominem! Can't you be as cordial and hail-fellow-well-met to me as I am being to you? Can't we just have a rational discussion of the finer scientific points of creation versus evolution?

(Note to self: Getting too longwinded here.)

What your fears of inadequacy must be doing to your nightmares I can imagine, but this forum is not the place for therapy.

(Note to regulars: If I'm being more of an a$$hole than usual, see post 739 for a clue what is going on.)

You have, in your usual parlance, detected me "bullying" Aquinasfan, whose delusional system you profess not to share. At least, that is your standard rationale. You accept evolution but feel sorry for the pathetic creationists bullied by people whom you are uniquely qualified to spot as not knowing what they are talking about. (Hence, also, the tallhappy entrance post, optionally repeated to all or several E-side parties.) I assume you actually are aware of the unscientific nature of the following argument against macroevolution:

My problem is, somewhere along the line one member of the daughter species mutated enough to become reproductively isolated from the parent species. But at the same time that creature must necessarily be reproductively isolated from the other members of the daughter species, unless an opposite sex member of the daughter species mutated comparably simultaneously.

Now riding to the rescue of such is not simple. A frontal defense is out of the question. A diversion, rather, is required so that the pathetic bully-ee can escape.

Your target is the following paragraph of mine, which I admit is a rather rushed description for an even less technical than myself audience.

I've mentioned clones evolve slowly relative to sexuals. There's a fascinating scenario in which early organisms rather freely exchanged materials through bacterial conjugation. Budding and other cloning techniques then produced a long stasis, ending only when "modern" mitosis developed, leading fairly quickly to meiosis, sex at the cellular level. That produced the Precambrian "sizzle" of suddenly fast evolution leading to the Cambrian Explosion of Creationist pamplet fame. (You still see people posting that all the phyla of life appear full-blown for the first time "at the bottom of the geologic column in the Cambrian.")

Now, I asked you a lot of questions after you did your usual. They were not off-point. I'm helping you do what you don't do well, which is say what you're saying.

You seem to assume "modern" mitosis means "as opposed to ancient mitosis." I gave you a figure that suggests an alternate interpretation. Do you see it?

Are you going to demolish the point I'm making to Aquinasfan, support "Don't second-guess" as just-as-good science, or confine yourself to the usual diversions on 1) is anybody else here tallhappy? and 2) can anybody else here guess what tallhappy is thinking?

[VadeRetro]

Do you kjnow what a molecule is? My guess is no.

Why is sex important?

I haven't been able to stop thinking about it much since I was in the seventh grade. Is this normal? All my English teachers looked sexy to me, even the ugly ones. This can't be right. So now I'm 52 and the only difference is I can't seem to do as much about it as before.

[Heartlander]

And never the two should meet?

[Lev]

Since evolution and nature are the driving forces - than everything we do must further it's cause.

Lev: Do you know the difference between descriptive science and prescriptive ethics?

And never the two should meet?

They meet but what you are saying is moral code = evolution. This is not the case. Evolution and other sciences are the means of accomplishing ends determined by whatever moral code you have. Regards.

[gore3000]

And they do that despite all the modern non-mammalian species running and flying around that gore3000 can name with hammer-anvil-stirrup earbones.

Let me show you the following description of mammals:

Mammals are a group of vertebrates (animals that have a backbone). Certain characteristics separate them from all other animals: mammals breathe air through lungs, give birth to live young, produce milk for their young, are warm-blooded, and have hair or fur. They also have relatively large brains and a variety of tooth sizes and shapes. From: Mammals- Characteristics

As you are no doubt aware, that description is wrong. We both know one mammal that does not fit it - the platypus.

Thanks to that species, the part about live young was taken out of the official definitions. The paleontologists were proven wrong - but only because we had found a live species. If all we had had were the bones of the platypus, then we would though it bore live young and we would have been wrong, very wrong. We would have learned nothing and we would have just re-established the self-fullfilling prophecy of phony paleontology. Further, the part about live young is certainly much more related to the mammary glands than the shape of the ear. There is absolutely no necessary connection between the ear and the other features and if you really believe that species did evolve you would have to admit that sometime during the development of mammals not all of these features were present. That is - unless you wish to posit the ridiculous notion that through super-evo selection all the different characteristics of mammals appeared suddenly at once. ( O wait, is not that what creationists say?).

[Heartlander]

Evolution if used solely to prove that God does not exist is a moral code and an agenda. Yet, if evolution leaves the door open to the possibility of an Intelligent Designer… I can only hope more productive discussions will come…

Regards

[gore3000]

Wouldn't it be more like a design if there were a single, standard gene for cytochrome c or hemoglobin?

Nope. Just because we do not know the reason, does not mean there is no reason. We learned that recently when the evos made the argumentum ab ignorantia (for the evos here let me translate - argument from ignorance) that the DNA codons between genes which had been mapped in the genome project were "junk DNA". It took less than a year to prove the evos wrong (thankfully real scientists did not listen to them, else we would have missed out on much progress in biology).

[VadeRetro]

There is absolutely no necessary connection between the ear and the other features and if you really believe that species did evolve you would have to admit that sometime during the development of mammals not all of these features were present.

Actually, it relates to the disappearance of the multi-boned lower jaw. Why would I have the slightest reluctance to admit that sometime during the development of mammals, not all features were present? Early in the development of mammals, they weren't really mammals and essentially none of the various diagnostic features were present. Well, maybe that's not quite right.

I know you remember this figure!

Here's an exception to the rule about ear bones. All but the top two are reptiles, but some of them have the ear bones! (But they aren't around anymore. All the synapsids seem to be real mammals now.)

Notice that even the primitive one at the bottom also has slightly differentiated teeth, the start of pair of canines. The point is, only this one lineage of reptiles, none of whom are still around as reptiles, underwent these changes. Evolution says you have to look up the tree of life from there for similar features, not on side branches or below. (OK, there's a complicating factor called convergent evolution which can be hard to sort out in the fossil record sometimes.) Creation/ID shrugs and says "He can do what he wants. Mustn't second-guess."

Never mind for a moment about what's science. What's actually telling you something and what isn't?

[gore3000]

There are the same number of bones found in both the arm and the wing -- at least in early birds, such as archaeopteryx. In later birds some of the wing bones have fused, but they are still discernible as having been separate bones at one time (sort of like the teeny-tiny toes of modern horses).

That's the problem with archaeopteryx, it was not a bird. The forearms did not give it the capability to fly. You need bones in the "arms" in order to have enough wingspan for flight. Archaeopteryx did not have that. It could not fly. It had no descendants. It was what evolutionists would deem impossible - a feathered dinoasaur. It led nowhere, it came from nowhere. A refutal of evolution, not an example of it.