Anyone is entitled to their own beliefs and opinions. They may be held legitimately in the face of fierce opposition. They may be held despite overwhelming evidence pointing to error or logical inconsistancy, though someone doing so is liable to have their motives or even their mental capabilities questioned. However no one is entitled to pass off as fact what is essentially their own idea, derived from personal faith in a discredited theory. There is a simple word to describe this sort of behaviour, its called lying. If you do it in court you can expect punishment. And in my opinion if you do it in the classroom you should expect similar penalty.
The sticking point for all the fanatics when a discussion degenerates to this extent is their insistence that we must accept their fairy tale. Even were one to accept absurd statements from authority (of which he evinces none) such as Starman's, and abandon evolutionary theory, that is no good reason to accept Genesis over, say, Coyote, the great trickster, creating life to amuse himself with defiance of the Great Spirit; or perhaps we should believe that the universe rests on the back of an elephant, standing on the back of a giant cosmic turtle, in turn standing on a "gianter" cosmic turtle, standing on the back of . . . etc. Given the prospect of being obliged to surmise about what is unknowable, or currently unknowable, such as the origin of life, i prefer plausibility to fairy tale, especially when the fairy tale comes with such a price attached as is exacted by the religiously faithful.
Well said Set.
A good part of the problem is that people like a story. Fairy tales are much more attractive than scientific enquiry requiring hard mental effort. Its further complicated by a total lack of understanding of the scientific method by many who are keen to object to its findings.
Let superstition and ignorance be no bar to strident criticism . . . as we say on the left-hand side of the pond, it's a free country . . .
Excuse me, i'm feeling a bit dizzy . . . i'd better go have a lie down . . .
No person will ever prove creation;
And we know it aint this evolution thing (not for now according to the last 100+ years of research);
So what's this Coyote thing?
sorry couldn't resist, found this
"According to Navajo mythology, the Milky Way was created by the mischievous behavior of the god, Coyote. When the world was created, the Holy People gathered around Black God to place the stars in the sky. Coyote grew annoyed at the slowness of this process.
In his anger, he chose to place a red star, called Ma'iio, in the south. Ma'iio means 'the one who roams'. This star symbolizes Coyote and appears for only a short time during the year. To the Navajo, it is a symbol of trouble. Coyote continued to be displeased with the Holy People's progress and threw the bag of stars over his head, forming the Milky Way."
Surprised you didn't know that, with your name Starman.
As possible as anything else mentioned. What else do you know?
mesquite, I was thinking about the very same quote by Bush.
Um, haven't read more than the last page of this thread, but that won't stop me...
One of my favorite things to ask people who take the Genesis account literally (my family, for instance) is to explain how we can see light from stars that are billions of light-years away, when according to the good book creation occurred less than 7000 years ago.
Course, it doesn't help -- they'll just claim that either god moved the light himself or that the entire astronomical community is a pack of liars who exaggerate distances in order to support evolutionary doctrine -- but at least it helps to immediately establish a rather high level of demonstratable delusion.
Yes, c.i.
That one covers quite a few issues. :wink:
Thats a good question Monger. I'm sure our resident creationist cosmologist will supply the answer according to Leviticus.
Starman wrote:IronLionZion wrote:evolution
IronLionZion wrote:makes no sense
IronLionZion wrote:suggest
IronLionZion wrote:further research.
I thought that was quite funny, Starman.
Starman wrote:Galapagos Islands????
Galapagos Islands????
Tell me someone did not just say, Galapagos Islands!!
I'm new to this site, so let's clear this up real quick - just because evolutionists found the need to redefine 'evolution' several times the last 100 years, let's not get confused here. Even Darwin knew the slow gradual processes he refered to were the mechanism by which TRUE evolution comes about. So let's get rid of the conveniently created "micro-evolution" from the start. We all know what Darwin and al the rest of us are talking about - species turning into another species.
And please don't give me some garbage about the fossil record. Evolution scientists have already admitted this imaginary ancestoral tree, where every plant and creature alive today is at the outter branches and can be traced back inwardly to other branches and so on all the way to the trunk, the first life form, they've admitted this is not what we find in the fossil record. Rather, its more like a bunch of parallel straight lines. Every species is the same from its earliest finding until its extinction. Even though Darwin was convinced the fossil record would be full of transitional forms. Its not. So don't mention the lie, sorry, hypothesis of the fossil record.
So now that that's all cleared up, someone tell me what's this proof of evolution I've been told? Please give me the facts.
Addressing the title of this thread is easy, its like when I don't know the answer to the multi choice question - I use deductive reasoning and eliminate what I know it is not. I can't prove creation, but the more evoltuionary theory trips over itself, redefines itself, and becomes more laughable- then 20 years from now we won't even have to discuss this.
micro evolution is the pathway to evolution. We have to divide the terms because we see evidence (within our individual lifetimes) of that pathway. Because of the time involved we cannot see the overall pattern except in studying the fossil record (although, hopefully, we will eventually be able to see if macroevolution is true.)
Secondly, lack of evidence is not support for the other side. Contradictions or innacuracies are support for not believing in evolution. Evidence is the only thing that can scientifically support creationsim, not lack of evidence in other theories. (By the way, the same argument can be used to support your belief in the g-d - whose "representatives" I'm assuming are telling you evolution is incorrect.)
Did somebody say fossil record?
Quote:The trail of whale evolution begins in Paleocene time, about 60 mya, with a group of even-toed, hoofed, trotting, scavenging carnivorous mammals called mesonychians. The first whales (pakicetids) are known from lower Eocene rocks, that formed about 51 mya; the pakicetids are so similar to mesonychians that some were misidentified as belonging to that group. However, the teeth of pakicetids are more like those of whales from middle Eocene rocks, about 45 mya, than they are like the teeth of mesonychians. Pakicetids are found in nonmarine rocks and it is not clear how aquatic they were.
In 1994, Ambulocetus natans, whose name means "walking whale that swims," was described from middle Eocene rocks of Pakistan. This species provides fossil evidence of the origin of aquatic locomotion in whales. Ambulocetus preserves large forelimbs and hind limbs with large hands and feet, and the toes have hooves as in mesonychians. Ambulocetus is regarded as having webbing between the toes and it could walk on land as well as swim; thus, it lived both in and out of the water.
From late Eocene time onward, evolution in whales shows reduction of the hind-limbs, modification of the forelimbs and hands into flippers for steering, development of a massive tail, etc.; all of these changes are modifications for the powerful swimming of modern whales. The fossil Rodhocetus from the upper Eocene rocks, about 38 mya, of Pakistan already shows some of these modifications.
http://www.agiweb.org/news/evolution/examplesofevolution.html
Quote:So now that that's all cleared up, someone tell me what's this proof of evolution I've been told? Please give me the facts.
And of course there is the startlingly high incidence of organisms (everybody always forgets about the poor plants) showing sequences of DNA mutations that correspond to notions about their descent that were derived from morphology (what they look like) and geographical distribution.
Predictions that were made before the advent of molecular biology have overwhelmingly been supported by molecular evidence. And this is how science works. You make a prediction about observations based on a particular theory, and you either find ways to test this prediction in a laboratory or you devise new ways to test the prediction in the field. But appreciating this requires a certain amount of study, which most people aren't willing to do. (Which is perfectly understandable -- I'm not interested enough in constitutional law or baking to study either of those.)
Quote:And please don't give me some garbage about the fossil record. Evolution scientists have already admitted this imaginary ancestoral tree, where every plant and creature alive today is at the outter branches and can be traced back inwardly to other branches and so on all the way to the trunk, the first life form, they've admitted this is not what we find in the fossil record. Rather, its more like a bunch of parallel straight lines. Every species is the same from its earliest finding until its extinction. Even though Darwin was convinced the fossil record would be full of transitional forms. Its not. So don't mention the lie, sorry, hypothesis of the fossil record.
I'm wondering as to who these scientists are who said this. Knowing that they are "Evolution" scientist even further makes me wonder. Sounds like lying propoganda to me. However if you provide a link (to obviously a non-Creationist-"Hey look this scientist denies evolution; he's right" site) I will retract what I said and your argument will only be further strengthened. I also ask that this "scientist" not be some college student or "Aliens killed Dinosaurs" type guy wanting himself on the front of a newspaper.
I would like to see this as well.
And I seem to remember someone a while back mentioning something about no species having arisen from fruit flies. Experiments using fruit flies and other model systems aren't designed to recreate evolution in any way. They are used to study the effects of genes on development. They are used because:
* they reproduce extraordinarily quickly -- making them "darlings of the laboratory bench."
* they have only four chromosomes, making it relatively easy, especially in the early days of the research, to localize interesting mutations.
* they have a prolonged polytene stage in their life cycle (polytene = extensive DNA replication without cell division), making it easy to examine the chromosomes under a microscope.
* they have been used for a long time, which makes further research on them very fruitful.
Anyway, if you want man-made speciation, look at agriculture.
