Fact, Fable, and Darwin (If you haven't read this already, you should!!!)

American Enterprise Magazine ^ | 8/04 | Rodney Stark

[whattajoke]

Please explain Penguins and ostriches, Mr. Ornithologist.

[whattajoke]

You guys sit and point to snakes with supposed hips and leg bones dangling off them. We read the bloody books and see where you guys say that these changes take millions of years because you can't figure out how to explain it in light of the absence of any proof for your theory otherwise. And there is no proof. That is the whole point.

Well now, I guess you told me! By the way, what's your point here again? Is it that snakes with "supposed hips and leg bones" don't exist? I think you've lost it.

[VadeRetro]

How do you suppose critters without wings evolve wings over large periods of time if it doesn't happen in stages or bits at a time? Oh, right, It's invisable.

No, it isn't invisable or even invisible.

It all just cooks together inside the critter really knowing the critter needs to fly then one day, wings pop out it's butt and it commences to flapping.

You are extremely ignorant. Extremely. Why even pretend you care anything at all about science?

Feathered Dinosaurs.

So if we say it takes millions of years (though we can't prove that anything has actually been around that long) then people will have to drop their expectation of ever seeing it happen and we can claim any bloody thing we like.. Yep. Snake oil. I thought this was supposed to be science. It's nothing more than a different religion trying to disprove God apparently. I don't see much science in it. There's a lot there pretending at science. But this is more like a debate between protestants and Catholics than a debate on science.

That isn't reasoning, that's typing. To a Witch Doctor, everything is My God versus Your God. Science reasons things in ways you don't understand and probably think you will go to Hell for understanding. That doesn't give us much to talk about or you much to say to a science class.

[VadeRetro]

As a final point, with this kind of statement:

How do you suppose critters without wings evolve wings over large periods of time if it doesn't happen in stages or bits at a time? Oh, right, It's invisable. It happens; but, not so you could really tell or ever see it. It all just cooks together inside the critter really knowing the critter needs to fly then one day, wings pop out it's butt and it commences to flapping..

... you have gone from defending that "transitionals" must be malformed freaks to saying that gradual transitions are unknown. Both statements are already refuted now, and you have neither acknowledged the correction nor defended your misstatements. You simply hop from one to the other, back again dumb as a stump on the left foot of "That's fully formed! A transitional isn't fully formed!" and back again on the right foot of "That's invisable!"

The one thing is not expected and the other thing is not "invisable." Let's see if you can get both thoughts or even one thought into your little head.

[longshadow]

It's rare that belligerent ignorance is worn so proudly as a badge of honor as has been seen on this thread. Most of the people who used to do that have been banned from FR, and with good reason.

This thread is a stark reminder of just how bad the arguments used to be, and, sadly, occasionally still are.

[aquila48]

Evolution creates more problems than it solves and it blasphemes God in the doing.

And you know what insults God how?

In my view, God is insulted when people don't use their god-given gifts such as their brains to solve his mysteries.

The difference between the theory of evolution and creationism is that the former is a science, the latter is a dogma.

If you are intellectually honest you will admit the following. One of the things that scientists get the biggest kick out of is to disprove an existing theory. They are constantly testing and probing its limits. If they find new evidence that disproves a long held theory they are often rewarded with a Nobel prize because such a discovery usually enhances man's understanding of nature. (e.g. Einstein's theory of relativity, supplanting Newtons theories, and today String theorists are trying to supplant Einstein). So generally speaking scientists are more than eager to embrace a new theory if experiments or observations prove it superior to the old. There's no faith or religious attachment to a theory.

The same cannot be said of creationists. They (unlike scientists) don't eagerly look for data that might disprove their theory. Rather they feel threathned by such findings and look only for data that supports their views. Whereas scientists would have no problem changing or completely dumping a theory (such as evolution) if the facts justified it, creationists would never do such a thing. This is because creationism is faith and not science.

[Havoc]

Hell, you don't even consider an animal that has both reptilian and bird characteristics as transitional. In your world, it would also need gills and a scorpion tail.

I also don't consider whales to be transitional - a fish with lungs. Imagine that. There is nothing that would lead one to believe that the critter in and of itself or compared with anything else is transitional. Ya'll have a theory that tells us these changes take long periods of time to happen and that now, apparently, we can't see it happen - it's invisible and because of what. Well, that's easy. Genetic mutations in recorded history have never produced a useful mutation. Not once. Furthermore, when they have happened they have largely either produced a disease or an extra appendage or feature of a type common in the critter already - not something new. In the case of disease, that ends up crippling or destroying the person or critter - ie the elephant man, people with MS, etc. The odds of abberations creating other than disease are pretty astronomical. This is because our genetic system was designed to prevent such abberations from occuring - not help them along. Thusly the guy with three legs would not produce offspring with three legs. The coding is designed for two. So instead of offspring being produced with an improved third leg, they are produced with two legs. This isn't a matter of natural selection, this is a matter of the laws governing life built into the genetic code.

Like a hacker playing with a data file, Science has tinkered with genetic data to try and determine what parts of dna data represent what; but, they have no idea how the program built in actually functions, save for by observation. And what we have observed is that unless the system becomes damaged, it defends itself. When it can't defend itself, it generates abberations and never has been observed to generate one that was useful. The observeable always comes back and bites ya on the butt.

[RUCKUS INC.]

"Bible" just means a collection of books, which is what the Bible is, a collection of books and letters.

[RUCKUS INC.]

It would make perfect sense, because the New Testament was (for the most part) written in koine greek, the common language at the time of the early church.

[Havoc]

LOL

[Havoc]

The TOE does not have an agenda, and neither do people who study it other than trying to explain all of the evidence before us.

If that were the case then why does evolution avoid the evidence rather than embrace it. The evidence from genetics has been stated. Nothing other than a useless abberation has ever been witnessed. How then does evolution deal with this - by ignoring it and hoping people don't pay attention to the facts. Stating something in light of facts to the contrary is called lying, misleading, decieving, etc - not truth.

It's kinda like the liquifaction issue. You guys want to say that the geologic record doesn't show completely nice sorted items by bouyancy. Well, I didn't say it would. I said by and large this is what is shown. But abberation is expected for unknown factors like flood runoff, quakes, upheavals, etc. In a world wide catastrophe, it is expected that the aftermath will to some degree follow order based on processes; but, otherwise will look catastrophic. We have to leave everything out after the liquifaction issue though so we can argue that it can't be liquifaction because there are abberations. Things don't happen in a vacuum. And you aren't analyzing looking for facts. You are proceeding from your thesis looking for proof for it. This approach, btw, is considered bad science. LOL.

[siunevada]

Thomas Cech earned the Nobel Prize in 1989 for discovering that this isn't always true. In fact there are over 300 examples of catalytic RNA that have been found in nature since then.

Thanks for the reference.

I read his Nobel lecture. Completely over my head but I still read it. I caught some of his excitement about the discoveries they were making. And he injects a small touch of humor here and there, good lecture.

These were interesting comments toward the end:

Origin of Life Fantasies

The discoveries of RNA self-splicing and the enzymatic activity of RNase PRNA rekindled earlier speculation concerning the possible role of RNA in the origin of life (Woese, 1967; Crick, 1968; Orgel, 1968). Contemporary cells depend on a complex interplay of nucleic acids and proteins, the former serving as informational molecules and the latter as the catalysts that replicate and express the information. Certainly the first self-reproducing biochemical system also had an absolute need for both informational and catalytic molecules. The dilemma was therefore: Which came first, the nucleic acid or the protein, the information or the function? One solution would be the co-evolution of nucleic acids and proteins (Eigen, 1971). The finding that RNA can be a catalyst as well as an information-carrier lent plausibility to an alternative scenario: the first self-reproducing system could have consisted of RNA alone (Sharp, 1985; Pace & Marsh, 1985; Orgel, 1986).

[Havoc]

I think I'd like a little more solid understanding of what he is meaning by changing the nature of science; but, in general I agree. Science is not intuitive and is adversarial as it is taught in school and that is not as intended. When students challenged things that didn't line up with common sense, much less science, the teachers could be anything from abusive to dismissive and at the least - condescending. It isn't a matter of not liking what facts say. It's when we start wandering off into theories that stand on shaky ground that things begin to get dogmatic. That's where indoctrination comes into play. You call people names and abuse them into subbordination to the idea rather than proving the case. That ain't science, that's brainwashing.

Science must be redirected to follow what Science is - not what a bunch of people have hijacked it and turned it into.
That stance is dangerous though, it removes power from liberal elites and calls for accountability, so we can expect wingnut fringes (mainstream scientists) to scream like stuck pigs over any move to clean things up.

[Shryke]

You call people names and abuse them into subbordination to the idea rather than proving the case. That ain't science, that's brainwashing.

You realize you've perfectly described the way alot of religion is taught, yes? You don't do this, you go to hell? You do this, you go to heaven? And I (being the teacher) will never, EVER, be able to prove it, I'll just convinve you via brow beating/threatening you (or in the case of the crusades, torturing/killing)?

[Havoc]

Penguins and Ostriches? What's to explain. They're animals with given habitats. They show diversity. And as it happens, the penguin is one of my favorite critters. They're kinda cute and kinda cool at the same time. I don't find that they need much explanation, though there is a great deal written about their habitats and habits so if you're scientifically or otherwise curious, the facts about where they tend to live, what they eat, etc (the scientifically observable) is available to the extent of the research available to now. They live, they eat, poop, walk, breath, etc. The penguine spends much of it's time in the water and has fins that allow it to guide itself through the water in searching for it's food and a beak to catch it's prey with. THe Ostrich I know next to nothing about other than it's a large flightless bird that is somewhat homely but lives, eats, breaths, poops, etc like any other living being. It is interesting. But, not enough to make me run off and study it at the moment.

God created both and designed them for their particular environments. What else do I need to know? I don't think I'll come across either in the near future, although I do have a bazillion Opus stuffed toys on my dresser and TV.
Mom buys them all the time for me and brings them by. LOL

[Havoc]

Right, that's a classic long dodge combined with pictures of claws on a set of fingers, if you will. Were you hoping I'd call it a wing, cause it don't look like one.

[whattajoke]

Hmmm, maybe I gave you too much credit earlier. Maybe you do think whales are "fish with lungs?" Because you definitely think: "The penguin spends much of it's time in the water and has fins that allow it to guide itself through the water.

I knew I called you "Mr. Ornithologist" for a reason.

[atlaw]

"Why would a loving God keep his creation in the dark about their origin till thousands of years after Genesis was written?"

Why didn't the Egyptians have computers? Why would a loving God keep his creation in the dark about computers till the twentieth century?

[Havoc]

You've bloody refuted nothing. That's the problem. You want to stand on a stage, wave a wand and pretend you've said something. You haven't. You dodge and weave and pretend; but, I haven't seen you offer anything solid yet.
Go ahead and just insult us all in good Democrat style now and play superior. LOL. Defund defund defund.. ope, sorry, for you it's defend, to me it's defund.

[whattajoke]

Were you hoping I'd call it a wing, cause it don't look like one.

Yup. And Havoc has demonstrated his vast knowledge of what is and what isn't a wing in his previous post to me.