Posted on 12/22/2001 7:04:34 PM PST by Exnihilo
Nobody has ever proved that the earth goes around the sun.
A very Clintonian definition. Give a couple million years and all these little mutations start to add up and the critters start looking very different.
People who buy micro evolution (and they have to in order not to be seen as obvious fools) actually buy into macro evolution because it is just a matter of time scale.
There was a newspaper article I read a few years ago (and I wish I had clipped it or could find it on-line). A neurologist at a major convention of a professional organization, reported that, in a group of people he studied, a certain part of the brain had become active, whenever they thought about religion. He referred to it as the "god node."
Now, several reasonable, possible material causes for this "god node" were put forth -- ranging for the idea that religious belief held off despair, so that people who had such beliefs would last longer in desperate situations to the fact that the people being studied had a neurological disorder and this may have been an effect of the disorder.
All well and good. But one possible cause went unmentioned: That God (or some deity or deities) exists and that the development of such a node would be beneficial to survival as it brought people closer to deity. Such could even be a natural, materialist development in response to the existence of something divine.
Maybe it was discussed and just not mentioned in the newspaper report. But its absence was glaring.
A lawyer was able to get O.J. acquitted. I'd expect one to do no less in defense of creationism.
sniker. yeah sure. ha ha ha.
Why do you creationists think it is so cool to be stealthy about being creationists? I've termed this "Liars for Christ." Apparently the goal of asserting the biblical accounting is so important that lying is justified in its pursuit.
Look, we all know that ID'ers and creationists what to turn science to their view -- and they've given up on just Biblical fire and brimestone because no one was buying it anymore, except the faithful.
So the only route into science is the so-called "objective neutrality." So creationists and ID'ers who are actually Biblical absolutists sneak around and pretend they are just students of "objective neutrality."
Hogwash. And besides, reality has certain characteristics. It is not open ended to any interpretation. One can reasonably deduce certain interpretations and STICK to that in the face of rather ridiculous claims to the contrary.
This whole notion that each Creationist/ID'er brain fart ought be entitled to a complete rehearing is laughable.
Produce the evidence FOR your view. Assaults agains evolution are just attempts to prove a negative and therefore a complete waste of time, since that is almost impossible to do.
So stop sneaking around pretending to be someone you aren't. If you believe in creation or ID (intelligent design) produce the fricking evidence for it!!!!!!!!
Don't need faith. The increasing sophistication is clearly on display in the fossil record. You guys have to say it was planted there to fool us. You have to be silly to save your Biblical account.
A very Clintonian definition. Give a couple million years and all these little mutations start to add up and the critters start looking very different.
Indeed they do. But you need to take two further steps before you can push the theory of evolution to the extent some people do. You first need to prove that the changes involved in micro-evolution can occur in such a sequence as to yield certain types of changes. While there's enough randomness in mutations that just about anything 'can' happen, some things don't seem very plausible. For example, how could an egg-laying species which relied upon external fertilization evolve into one that relied upon internal fertilization? It would be necessary to have a genetic mutation affect enough males and females to yield a sustainable population with such a trait, since all internally-fertilized egg-layers would have to be decendants of that population. While such transitions could conceivably happen, it seems doubtful that they would.
Even if mechanisms are shown by which the right kind of mutations could occur by some freak event, that still does not cross the second step: did things in fact happen that way. Again, conceivable but doubtful.
IMHO, the science of what some would call 'microevolution' should be tought in science courses since it can be experimentally demonstrated. It would also be proper to teach that while such mechanisms are responsible for at least some of the diversity of life on this planet, it's unclear exactly how much.
What??? Such an assumption is known as an "unsound extrapolation of data". It assumes that because a little bit of change can occur over a short time then that trend can continue indefinitely, producing massive change.
Example: The stock market drops 110 points in a day. Based on that change, in three months time the value of all companies on the DOW will be zero.
Example: The temperature at 7 AM was 35 degrees F. At 2PM it was 60 degrees. In another three days it should be hot enough to boil water.
Example: I decide to get myself in shape and start jogging, timing myself once a week. THe first time it takes me 7 minutes to jog a mile. Next week its down to 6, the next down to 5 min, 20 seconds. How long will it be before I can run a four minute mile?
All of these examples demonstrate an unsound extrapolation of data, as does your mircoevolution + time = macroevolution assumption.
MANY things in nature are a WAVE FORM, they change, but it is change around a mean. THey can only go so far from the mean of the wave form. Your micro + time = macro assertion is unwarranted, as there are too many other reasonable possibilities.
Name two.
Nice try. The truth is, most evolutionists are preternaturally adept at interpreting their observations as "massive amounts of evidence" because they want to obscure their own "philosophical benders."
Perhaps I wouldn't mind so much that the materialists force all of their conclusions to be aligned with their a priori atheistic assumptions, except for one thing. They have the gall to pontificate on how superior science is to religion because a religionist will not allow evidence to contradict his philosophical assumptions, while a scientist will impartially go wherever the evidence leads him.
When Lewontin says,
We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen.he is simply a scientist admitting two things that many religionists have known for a long time. FIRST, that evolution vs. creationism is NOT science vs. religion: it is one religion against another. SECOND, that scientists are consummate hypocrites about the first. Most cannot be as honest as Lewontin, even with themselves. Are you?
Where are the transitional forms. Where are the long chain of human anscestors who had first a little bump, then the next one had a slightly larger bump, then the next one had the beginning of a knuckle, etc etc etc.
Where are all the transitional forms?
OK. who are you and what have you done with the real jlogajan? YOu know, the one who was able to put up a respectable arguement in our little online mental exercises. Seriously, have you been drinking tonight? You seem rather off your game.
How can you not see in your above statement EXACTLY what Prof. Johnson was talking about. For you all the evidence is viewed through a materialst lens. OF COURSE we see the increasing sophistication in the fossil record. The issue is HOW did it get there? Who or what was the information source which produced that massive increase in sophistication? You are talking like the increase in sophistication itself is proof that evolution did it all.
THat could only be because you assume in advance that evolution alone will be responsible for all changes, thus when changes are found, you conclude that evolution occured. HELLO!!!!
Well at least you are honest about putting forth your religion because it is your religion rather than sneaking around pretending to be "objectively neutral" like these other fakes.
You'll always demand absolute proof from science, and accept without any proof anything in the Bible. Fine.
Absolute proof is an interesting concept -- but not attainable by human minds. I'm quite happy to go by best available evidence. Religion just doesn't happen to measure up in that criteria. Sorry.
And his eyes perceive the metaphysical? Nice work if you can get it.
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