Problems of Evolution

Independent Individualist ^ | Apr 28, 2008 | Pamela Hewitt

[MrB]

All education is discipleship.
Secular Humanists, actual signers of the Secular Humanist Manifesto, which refers to SH AS A RELIGION, were also instrumental in establishing the public school system.

Stats show that 75-88 percent of kids who grew up in Christian households, but were “publically educated”, lose their faith by their sophomore year of college. This is by design, as they are exposed to 14000 hours of proselytizing by the secular humanist “priests” of the public school system.

On the other hand, 94% of homeschooled kids KEEP their faith all the way through college. Thank GOD for homeschooling, and that someone was inspired to form the HSLDA before the ACLU saw the “threat” to their religion.

[allmendream]

And should Engineers accept advice from non-Engineers about Engineering?

Should Doctors accept that non medical professionals health advice is just as good?

Post-modernism is ludicrous.

The author made an appeal to authority that they obviously do not posses, and made claims which are obviously incorrect.

I have no disrespect for a layman in a subject, and much respect for a well educated layman in a subject (it usually takes more work to learn it on your own).

But when someone is nothing more than an ill educated layman, and makes an appeal to authority about being some ‘medical professional’ I must point out that changing bed pans and putting catheters in someones urethra doesn't qualify them to make pronouncements in Science.

Outside knowledge might well make them qualified to discuss the evidence, but apparently the author got their Evolution “education” from Creationists talking points.

[allmendream]

Nothing in Science is ever “proven”, just provisionally accepted pending further data.

When a hypothesis is well supported by the evidence then it is accepted as a Theory.

Evolution happens every day. If it didn't then last years flu shot should be just as good. It is hardly history, it is a current and ongoing phenomenon.

[Coyoteman]

Fist of all, evolution is not at theory. It is a hypothesis. People who do not understand the nature of science do not ususally understand the difference. A hypothesis cannot be a theory until it has been proven, and so long as there is more than one hypothesis, as there is for evolution, none are theories.

Perhaps it is you who does not understand the nature of science.

All science is tentative, and nothing is ever proved! No theory, not germ theory, not the theory of gravitation, not a one is proved! Your statement denigrating the theory of evolution, and reducing it to an hypothesis because it hasn't been "proved" is simply incorrect and brings into serious question your knowledge of science and its methods.

The theory of evolution is a theory, and has been for a long time. Calling it an hypothesis does not make it one.

See the definitions on my FR home page.

[MrB]

Even given your position on evolution, saying what you just posted in a classroom would likely get you fired, or get the ACLU sicced on you.

“Evolution is a fact.” Stating anything to the contrary, even as you have, or questioning that statement in a classroom is verboten.

[mil-vet]

Actually, MUCH in science is "proven", using scientific method and repeatable tests/demonstrations.

It's THEORIES which are not "proven" because they CANNOT be readily demonstrated on a repeatable basis. Things such as darwminism, which is based soley on assumption and inference, not scientifically verifiable fact, CLEARLY fall into the hypothesis/theory category.

Evolution does NOT happen every day; in fact, it DOESN'T happen. I do not consider "natural selection" within a species to be evolution. No short-hair, low body fat wild dogs in arctic climates is perfectly logical, but it is in no way evolution!

[allmendream]

Sorry but you don’t get to define the terms used in Science.

[ROLF of the HILL COUNTRY]

“And should Engineers accept advice from non-Engineers about Engineering?”

If it’s useful, YES!

There is an old story, based on a true incident, about such advice:

A big moving van took a wrong turn in town and ended up traveling on a road with an overpass with low clearance. The truck struck the bridge hard and was jammed tightly, with several feet of the van crushed into the bridge. Wreckers were called but were of no avail; firetrucks, cranes were tried, but because of the terrain and orientation of the van, could not do much. The next thing to be tried was to be the cutting away the upper part of the van by blowtorch.
While the emergency teams were waiting for the welders, one of the children amongst the bystanders asked a policeman on the scene: “Why don’t they just let the air out of the tires?” Which of course worked.

The moral of this story is obvious and the answer to your questions in your post.
Having said that, I too, think this article is poorly written, and not at all convincing.

[Guyin4Os]

The dolphin's rear fins are NOT of any parasitic twin.

How does one tell if they are a mutation, an aberration or a vestige? And what creature looked like a dolphin but had legs and feet... that evolved into a dolphin? Before one can state with confidence that the fins are vestiges, one must be prepared to state what animal evolved into a dolphin.

[CarrotAndStick]

Dolphin reveals an extra set of ‘legs’

Scientists say fins may represent throwback to ancient land-dwelling ways

FREE VIDEO

 

Nov. 6: A bottlenose dolphin has two sets of fins. Researchers say it is fresh evidence that ocean-dwelling mammals may have once lived on land. MSNBC.com's Dara Brown reports.

MSNBC.com

By Hiroko Tabuchi

updated 3:44 p.m. ET Nov. 6, 2006

TOKYO - Japanese researchers said Sunday that a bottlenose dolphin captured last month has an extra set of fins that could be the remains of hind legs, a discovery that may provide further evidence that ocean-dwelling mammals once lived on land.

Fishermen captured the four-finned dolphin alive off the coast of Wakayama prefecture in western Japan on Oct. 28, and alerted the nearby Taiji Whaling Museum, according to museum director Katsuki Hayashi.

Fossil remains show dolphins and whales were four-footed land animals about 50 million years ago and share the same common ancestor as hippos and deer. Scientists believe they later transitioned to an aquatic lifestyle and their hind limbs disappeared.

Whale and dolphin fetuses also show signs of hind protrusions but these generally disappear before birth.

Though odd-shaped protrusions have been found near the tails of dolphins and whales captured in the past, researchers say this was the first time one had been found with well-developed, symmetrical fins, Hayashi said.

 

AP

This photo, released by the Taiji Whale Museum, highlights the extra set of fins. The tail is being held by a diver whose hand is visible at upper left.

---

"I believe the fins may be remains from the time when dolphins' ancient ancestors lived on land ... this is an unprecedented discovery," Seiji Osumi, an adviser at Tokyo's Institute of Cetacean Research, said at a news conference televised Sunday.

 

The second set of fins — much smaller than the dolphin's front fins — are about the size of human hands and protrude from near the tail on the dolphin's underside. The dolphin measures 8.92 feet (2.7 meters) and is about five years old, according to the museum.

Hayashi said he could not tell from watching the dolphin swim in a musuem tank whether it used its back fins to maneuver.

A freak mutation may have caused the ancient trait to reassert itself, Osumi said. The dolphin will be kept at the Taiji museum to undergo X-ray and DNA tests, according to Hayashi.

 

  Click for related content
 

• Whale-dolphin hybrid has baby wholphin
   
• Mystery of ‘unicorn’ whale solved
   
• Fossil study links whales and hippos

 

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15581204/

 

[onedoug]

Leviticus 11:19 uses the Hebrew word "tuf nun shin mem tuf" - "Tinshemet" - to refer to a "bird", then uses the same word in 11:30 to refer to a "reptile".

'Seems interesting to me.

[Hank Kerchief]

I love these evolutionary fairy tales.

“Dolphin reveals an extra set of ‘legs’
Scientists say fins may represent throwback to ancient land-dwelling ways”

Sure I’ll swallow that.

But, why not say:

Scientists say fins represent evolutionary reversal. Dolphins are evolving back into land animals.

Do they believe in evolution or not? Either could be the case, which means neither is science—just stuff they make up.

Hank

[Hank Kerchief]

“The assertion is ...”

There was no “assertion.” Why is plain English so hard for so many people. The author clearly said it was “specualtion.”

Good grief!

Hank

[CarrotAndStick]

If you read the whole thing, they actually mention that- that it could be a mutation too.

[mil-vet]

"Sorry but you don’t get to define the terms used in Science."

A a matter of fact, I don't have to; the definitions are firmly in place and HAVE been for much longer than either you or I have been alive.

I'm a graduate engineer and have been working within the tenants of science and logic for decades. It's part of what makes it so easy for me to see that the false religion of darwinism is merely inference and assumption.

It really looks to me like YOU are trying to change the rules, which is something I would expect of someone in a losing position (like a liberal, socialist democrat, or a global warming wacko or .....).

No offense meant; just wondering.

[allmendream]

Engineers are not Scientists. I am a Scientist. You do not get to define the terms used in Science. Scientists have already done so a long time ago.

Evolution is not a religion, I am quite happy with the religion I have, it is called Christianity; perhaps you have heard of it. Evolution is a Scientific theory, as much as your ignorant view of actual Science may oppose that statement of clear fact.

A losing position? Isn't some posters tag line “Evolution; a doomed theory since 1865”? Yeah, shelf after shelf of journals on Molecular Evolution, Paleontology, and Genetics; all confirming Darwin's elegant theory of natural selection of genetic variation; and it is a losing position! Thanks for the laugh. If this is losing I wonder what victory would look like. You have shown your cognitive dissonance for all to see, you have little grasp of what Science is and what the reality of Scientific thought on the subject entails.

[tacticalogic]

There was no “assertion.” Why is plain English so hard for so many people. The author clearly said it was “specualtion.”

I'll accept the criticism for that, but note that either way there are periods in the plant's history that the geological records indicate life existed, but under environemntal conditions that would have been quite hostile to much of the life in existence today.

[dan1123]

I would like to propose ... That it is a combination of factors, including the environment which the forms develop in, which directs the final shape, and that the shape found in all animals, (with a series of minor variations) is so, not because of “descent” from a common ancestor, but because in the environment of this world, it cannot take another.

So there is no interaction between DNA, RNA, or biochemistry in general but "a combination of factors including the environment" that directs organic macroscopic form? Is she kidding? How is this any different from just saying that it's Natural Selection?

She needs to seriously read up on the latest RNA research

[allmendream]

Never a speciation event in Drosophila? Maybe your source doesn't know as much as you suppose.

1: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1966 Apr;55(4):727-33. Links
Spontaneous origin of an incipient species in the Drosophila paulistorum complex.Dobzhansky T, Pavlovsky O.
PMID: 5219677 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
PMCID: PMC224220

[Fichori]

"Didn’t read the article I see.

Yes, Drosophilia has been mutated into all sorts of forms of... mutated Drosophilia.

I guess if you loosen your definition of speciation, you can say that it happened.

But it’s still the same “kind” of organism."

Jackpot!