Girl saying the tsunami in Japan is an answer to her prayers.

I think we'll have to disagree with your definition of the greatest scientists the world have ever known. Pasteur, Mendel and Wallace I can see how they could fit into that definition but I really think you're pushing it with the others.

As for any relevance of your argument the fact you can name scientists who didn't/don't agree with evolution doesn't vindicate your comments that implied there is still serious ongoing scientific debate about the validity of the theory of evolution. There isn't. There were scientists in the past who didn't agree with it for a variety of reasons, most of whom never had the sort of evidence available to them that we have today, and frankly it's understandable that this would be the case. Then there are scientists today who don't believe in evolution but have been unable to provide any sort of evidence to support their claims or discredit evolution and their views are pretty much disregarded by the rest of the scientific community.

Edit: Just out of curiousity, how old do you believe the earth is?

From what i've read of scientists who've lost their job because they openly supported creationism it's not as simple as the fact they supported creationism. It's the fact that their work and promotion of creationism made it untenable to have them remain in the sorts of positions they were in. Let's take Arthur Ernest Wilder-Smith for example, as a open supporter of creationism he published a book that promoted already discredited claims about human and dinosaur footprints existing together at Paluxy River. He later also published a book about evolution which was shown to contain a number of errors and demonstrated a confusion or ignorance about what was then present day understanding of evolution. Do you honestly think these sorts of actions bode well when scientific institutions are looking for staff?

As for your personal story, firstly I wasn't aware that Lucy (assuming you're referring to the Australopithecus specimen discovered in 1974) had been proven to be fraudulent. Yes I was aware that creationists have made claims to try and discredit Lucy but i'm fairly certain none of them have stood up to proper investigation and the scientific community still regards Lucy as a real 3.2 million year old hominid fossil. However whether or not Lucy was shown to be fraudulent is neither here nor there with regards to your story; if you decide to start arguing with your teacher they're going to take steps to resolve that which could include sending you out of the class. The fact that a teacher has done that doesn't mean there's some big cover-up by the scientific community at large.

You misunderstand my point, I've got no desire to try and force creationists to leave religion out of it. I'm fully aware that creationism and religion go hand in hand because they are essentially the same thing, a belief in a supernatural creator for which there is no evidence. Creationism is religion, not science. My point behind mentioning that the recent names you've mentioned appear most prominently on websites belonging to organisations who wish to promote creationism is they are being used to pursue a creationist agenda, i.e. these people are scientists and hold the same views as us so our views must have merit. The fact that someone is a scientist doesn't mean their views in fields other than that in which they specialize must have merit or should be given any consideration, serious or otherwise, by the rest of the scientific community.

 

Oh Krog, you poor thing...

Where are the fossils? Why they're here. Looking at that table (and the detailed articles they link to) you should also know that both carbon dating and dna sequencing corroborate the findings.

The Lucy controversy - Are you talking about the fact that there was a bone found metres away at a different depth, categorically proving that the fossil was an amalgam of individuals? That would certainly prove it, unless of course the fossil was found at the edge of a river gorge (which it was) in which case currents could easily have scattered the bones. Coupled with the fact that there was zero bone duplication at the site and this tired old creationist argument falls flat on it's face.

You're wrong about Wallace too. He didnt actually publish his findings before Darwin, he in fact wrote a private letter to his "hero" Darwin. It was this that made Darwin decide to publish after years of sitting on his theory because he was afraid it would ruin his marriage - His wife was deeply religious and they had recently buried a son - Both Wallace's and Darwin's papers were presented simultaneously to the Royal Society. Wallace was said that he was deeply humbled to have his work and Darwin's presented together.

Perhaps Darwin's apprehension was fuelled by the following passage:

And as feedayeen pointed out, most of the scientists you mentioned were either dead, or dying when Darwin was published. You must understand that religion had a entrenched monopoly on the origins of life, and Darwins theory was hard to swallow as it dethroned man from religion's view that he was special, instead painting him as just another beast. To many it was repulsive.

The other scientists are known creationists who have a political agenda to undermine evolution. Other than Lord Kelvin, of course, and you can ask me anything you want about him, I know quite a bit. He and I are alumni of the same school...

Finally you should know the use of the word "Theory" in science differs from that of everyday use. The equivalent of the normal use of the word "theory" in our every day language is "hypothesis" in sceintific parlance. A hypothesis is an idea put forward that has not been tested, whereas a Scientific Theory is a hypothesis that has been tested rigourously and, not only has resisted all attempts to disprove it, but also explained all the observations in attempts to disprove it. To say something is a Theory in science is the highest accolade one can bestow on it. So, when one says "The Theory of Evolution" it means that evolution has been rigorously tested and it was found that, in the realm it encompasses, everything works with it, but nothing works without it.

 

Hmm, maybe I did mis-read your point, sorry about that. Anyway, we don't understand how the universe came into being but saying 'God did it' is a bit of a cop out in my eyes. You seem to hold a belief in a 'God of the gaps' the problem with this is that as we increase our understanding of the universe you will have less and less things for your God to do.

Well as above I mis-read your post so sorry about the FFS. Umm no I don't quote string theory to 'make myself seem smarter'. I quoted it because it is a big part of the development of our understanding of the inception of the universe. M theory and branes are a development of strings where you go from 2 dimensional vibrating stings to 3 dimensional branes and up to 10 or 11 dimensional shapes. Also we often theorise about phenomena that cannot be currently tested this makes those theories more believable when we can actually do the tests and it confirms our hypothesises (see quantum theory).

Nope see this extensive list of transitional formsList_of_transitional_fossils. Again lack of evidence is not proof of anything.

I'm not sure what you want to be honest. There are probably thousands of books in libraries that explain and support evolution that will provide you with endless facts. There are probably hundreds of thousands of journal articles that will do the same. Even if you just browse over to Wikipedia and read their article on evolution it is stuffed with proof for you. To be honest I'd say the reason you haven'rt seen proof is that you don't look. Evolution has been researched for over one hundred years all the evidence points to it being true. There is no evidence against it. I think we're pretty safe in accepting it as fact now.

See the problem is you don't understand what evolution is or how it works. That makes it very difficult to have a reasoned debate. It operates over millions of years.

To be honest I don't think you understand science and there are no respected scientist on the other side of the fence. There is no fence.

Again you don't understand what scientific terminology means, Theory: A scientific theory comprises a collection of concepts, including abstractions of observable phenomena expressed as quantifiable properties, together with rules (called scientific laws) that express relationships between observations of such concepts. A scientific theory is constructed to conform to available empirical data about such observations, and is put forth as a principle or body of principles for explaining a class of phenomena. (from Wikipedia). The reason you would lose your job would be that you were some hack or fraudulent scientist who was not operating in a proper way not because you disagree with the theory of evolution. You being kicked out of class has nothing to do with this discussion.

I think the problem is that religious people are used to having dogma that cannot be questions and think the rest of the world is like that. No it isn't. If you were to become a biologist and did some research that dis-proved evolution, published it in a journal for peer review and made your results and methods available to the scientific community who could test them. If these other scientist verified your claims you would not be fired or shunned by the scientific community. You would be given the nobel prize and a million dollars and lauded as one of the greatest scientists who ever lived.

 

related item of note:

religion may become extinct in nine nations, study says

story from the bbc: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12811197

the study: http://arxiv.org/abs/1012.1375

 

Haven't seen this posted yet ( sorry if it has been ):







Silly creationists, when will you learn...

 

I could listen to this man talk all day, everyday

 

you know that's legal here nowdays if your ever in the area =]

you can get a license and even grow as much as you want.. cali has it's own laws cause we have almost 25% unemployment here in the valley

they said it'll save on court costs as most of cases deal with amounts for personal use.. it was bankrupting the state

---- edit

on the other stuff.. I own a couple of parakeets- and the female grooms herself in the mirror every morning.. omg she must be as smart as me! to accept a lot of crackpot ideas, you have to make a jump in logic.. it's when that jump becomes 'facts' like when everyone thought the earth was flat without seeing the edge, when it starts to get scary

I kind of like malvio's take on it.. the base is affected by 'subroutines' that evolve over time.. and these get better and better

the traits under that scenario- let's say you create a clone.. if the clone is totally dependent on external events to shape his beliefs, two clones would never come out exactly the same and it would be hard to conclude a unique soul exists unless you cloned maybe a total psychopath who would be easy to diagnose

that's basically what evolution is though.. the additions and subtraction of key parts of dna to adapt to different circumstances.. it doesn't explain how we recently attained, I should say the 'higher abilities' we have today.. I asked my girl about this and she thinks I'm wasting my time, so it didn't go very far

there's not much of a history record where we as humans weren't buttsexing around

it doesn't help that genetics shows we go back to one.. what really happened.. maybe a creator did stick us on this planet to fend for ourselves

or maybe let's make this scenario.. there was a monkey prison.. this super monkey we all came from was having a smoke and he got buttsecked in the monkey showers

he roid raged and started banging all the other monkeys using his bait and switch tactics he acquired from somewhere.. one of them got pregnant and even though she didn't have the red hair dna- she passed it onto her offspring

now that story sounds ridiculous.. but that's just as valid as what your saying.. we are traced back to one according to genetics.. what really happened there?

of course the know it alls say.. magic monkey is my creator! end of story.. I tend to think there is a lot more going on than meets the eye.. especially when you look at things that defy physics

there's also prayer that can be pretty powerful.. like my pops recently had a stroke and his eyesight went.. talking to him he wasn't the same

there was a lot of people praying for him to get better.. his last mri came back good and the doctors gave him a clean bill of health.. talking to him on sunday, it was like I was back talking to my dad in his 40's.. clear thinking, fast- and the funny part is this doesn't surprise him at all

it's just part of what happens sometimes when you have faith.. so far as I go- I can either believe in theory or believe in something I've seen work.. what you call delusion, maybe more to it than you realize

I'm not saying I'm closed off that we are evolved monkeys.. but it does seem highly unlikely that that's the case- I was excited when the cloning experiments got underway.. again it failed.. the face on mars turned out to be a cloud monster and we are still the only blue ball in our solar system that supports life

with your theory your looking at a flat earth, and haven't seen the edge yet.. I think they could definitely prove it once and for all with cloning- that would definitely show that our 'consciousness' is physical.. but what's the point in arguing over something that's really not able to be proven at this point in time

 

Sir David Attenborough OM, CH, CVO, CBE, FRS, FZS, FSA

We'll not see his like again

 

That isn't completely a correct view of how evolution works, but for the sake of explaining this point it works just the same. Evolution can explain perfectly how we have the higher abilities we have now. The first thing that happened is that one of our distant ancestors was born with the ability to walk on 2 legs.

As physics tells us, this would be a disadvantage, as 2 legs are nowhere near as fast as 4, so for predators this individual is an easy target. However this individual survived and over time, as it evolved, it's brain became more and more complex, as instead of running from predators an intelligent mind allows it to build weapons or safe shelters, once again putting it in an advantageous position. The reason other creatures have not shown signs of developing intelligence is likely to be just because it does not help them reproduce, and so it is an 'unneeded' trait, and becomes lost.

 

Seriously, if you're going to continue to try and get involved in serious discussions could you please please please go and educate yourself, or at the very least actually pay attention to what others have said and take some of it onboard, because it's becoming really tiresome seeing you repeat the same nonsense over and over again. You really don't bring anything of use or interest to the discussion and it's been shown by a number of other posters that your understanding and grasp of the topics is woefully lacking so why do you keep insisting on repeating the same stuff?

 

that's funny.. cause if you look at history- recorded history.. what your talking about doesn't even come close to making any sense

so your saying we just recently became smart enough to record history within the last few thousand years..

 

Isn't carbon dating somewhat innacurate, from what I read, only useful to a few thousand years. I was reading this in Geology papers though, not the Christian Science Monitor. Although I understand how they were using that as an angle for Creationism.

 

What has recorded history got to do with current scientific understanding? I'd fully expect a lot of recorded history to have stories and explanations for events that invoke spirits or supernatural deities as the people who wrote them will have had little understanding of how the natural world around them really worked. As such they filled in the gaps the only way they knew how, by creating supernatural entities and having them do the things they couldn't explain.

As for evolution, it makes perfect sense if you take the time and effort to actually learn about it and understand it properly. You haven't bothered to do this so to you it doesn't make any sense. That doesn't however mean that it doesn't make sense to other people who have made the effort because they want to educate themselves and really understand how things work. There's a reason that noone has been able to disprove the theory of evolution in the 150 years since Darwin first proposed it. Although I would be interested to see what examples of recorded history (with sources please) you'd put forward to demonstrate that evolution makes no sense.

As far as I know carbon dating is currently accepted to be accurate back to about 50,000 years or so, altho any result will have some margin of error.

 

yeah carbon dating is pretty wide on accuracy.. I guess it gives a rough idea though- further back they go the bigger the gap

like when they carbon dated the shroud and found it to be a forgery- it helped there as it was recent stuff

really old, don't even see the point.. just like saying it's really old

krazeh.. it seems you get all your info from google or something.. not first hand accounts- instead of putting people down for their opinions- you might be the one who could go read a book- I've posted nothing that is factually incorrect

if so please point out what.. like quar up there- he just took what I said and repeated it =] and you jumped on it like white on rice

 

Why would I want to get my info from first hand accounts? They're notoriously unreliable because you have absolutely no way to verify the accuracy of anything you're being told. Why do you think that personal experiences and anecdotes are given very little weight when it comes to their consideration as evidence in scientific matters?

As for putting people down for their opinions I'm quite happy to have a discussion and point out where people have made flaws and/or may not have all the information available to make a fully informed opinion and will happily take on board similar criticism about my opinions. However in your case plenty of people have pointed out the flaws in your arguments, how you're not understanding the topics you're discussing, where your information is limited or plain wrong and where you're getting confused but instead of acting on any of this you just repeat the same things over and over and over again. It wouldn't be so bad if you managed to put forward a rational supported argument about why you were right and other people are wrong but it's just rambling nonsense which really has no basis in any reality beyond whatever goes on in your head. For example you keep banging on about us needing to create human clones before we'll have an answer about evolution despite the fact that it's been pointed out numerous that we already have human clones walking around amongst us and that even if we didn't the success or not of cloning has got absolutely nothing to do with evolution.

As for things you've said that are factually incorrect, we could start with your statement that evolution is the additions and subtraction of key parts of dna to adapt to different circumstances - it's not.
Or your oft-repeated claim that evolution says we evolved from a monkey (super or otherwise) - it doesn't.
Or your claim that there's an ongoing legitimate debate about where humans come from - there isn't.
Or that we need a human clone or to discover life on another planet before we can answer the question of the validity of evolution - we don't.

I'm sure I could go back through the AI thread to find more examples of you saying things that are factually incorrect but seeing as you refused to accept that to be the case back at the time and as you'll no doubt insist that i'm wrong and what you've said in this thread is all factually accurate I can't be bothered going to look through it.

 

If you're going to quote biblical verses at least read the surrounding passages, the whole thing isn't as menacing as just that passage alone sounds. Either way, this bit was a reference to Micah 7. The point of both is that there are no truly righteous in the world, not even your own family and that you should put your trust in God.

As for the age of the earth I'm not sure but I suppose the 4.5 billion years sounds a bit better than trying to convince someone that it's 6,000 years old x_x. I mean hell... it takes light billions of years to reach our tiny little planet.. and I CAN see stars. I've seen the arguments for "oh God put that light in transit" and such but it's just nonsense. I'm sure someone out there is going "ha! he contradicts his own beliefs!" but I'm not. I said pretty early on that I'm sorta middle of the line on everything. I don't take everything at face value either. But... if you want to know how i can justify agreeing that the earth could be 4.5billion years old.

Genesis 1: 1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

I don't count that in part of the 6 day creation since it didn't "technically start" until he said "let there be light". Yes i realize there would already be light from stars and the sun. Perhaps it could mean that light was made visible.. i don't know. Sorry I don't have time for much more, I wasn't even able to read everything. I just saw a few things i figured i could quickly post on.

 

Correct me if i'm wrong but you're saying you accept the current scientifically accepted figure when it comes to the age of the earth, i.e. 4.5 billion years or thereabouts?

If that is the case how do you resolve that with the fact that most of the contemporary scientists you mentioned earlier in this thread (to show that there is apparently an ongoing debate about evolution) are young earth creationists? Why accept part of what they say as being correct but not the rest?

 

Nah, I'm pretty sure it's about JC preparing his disciples to be hated, and possibly killed for spreading a new religion...And priming them for the inevitablity and guilt of tearing family apart.

If it is a reference to Micah 7 then you should consider verse 6:

Do not trust a neighbor; put no confidence in a friend. Even with the woman who lies in your embrace guard the words of your lips.

Which kind of contradicts Romans 13:9, dontcha think?

For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

So, love your neighbour, or your wife, but don't trust them? How does that play itself out psychologically exactly?

I really don't see a way out of that unless you resort to what the true fundamentalists call cafeteria christianity, in that you pick and choose what to believe to bend to your world view. Speaking of which, do you shave the corners of your beard or wear any mixed fibre clothing? Afterall, god gave direct commandments in Leviticus 19 not to do these things...