Evolution - Who wants to KNOW?

Do you REALLY wish to discuss radioisotopes? I did offer this to you previously but you shied away from it.

Perhaps you can call upon your "specialistts in geochron, dendrochron, and geomag chron" that you boasted about earlier?

Why do you all have to take jabs at each other? This thread is like 'Days of A2k's Lives.'

Cut the as hominem arfumentation and settle down. I started to page through the thread but was so turned off with the rhetoric I gave up.

If Frank and I can get along then anyone can.

TF

Go Jason! :wink:

Yeah, can we get along?

certainly Ill discuss radioisotopes, you make it read like something evil will befall me if I do. <<<<GASP>>>>>What will tthis become, a cage match over hafnium?

I too am tiring of the ad hominem, but at least I got Bib off his Websterophallia. The source of my ad hominem comes from being a bit "snookered" by this guy . I never learned that , since abuzz, many of us havent gotten any better.
Maybe Im one too. However Up, with all this duplicitous pseudo scientific crap, is that which shall not be put, by me.

Maybe my sense of humor is poorly developed.

Ill go back and find some other thread to habittuate. Ill be a real son of a habitue.

Hey, I get my Hackles raised too Farmer - No blood no foul.

I just try to take two breaths on this forum. I see so many that are so smart on this forum that I have to be humble - or I will get blown away. I don't want that to happen after I have talked trash.

TF

you are very wise for an ugly little bald headed baby.

Guy goes into a psychiatristt and tthe psychiatttristt sez
'Now whats your problem Mr SMith"

"Nobody likes me you dum sumabitch"

You mob still at it?

Picked up this one from Bartcop.com because it is sooooooo precious.

Lark Myers, a blond, 45-year-old gift shop owner, frames the question and answers it. "I definitely would prefer to believe that God created me than that I'm 50th cousin to a silverback ape," she said. "What's wrong with wanting our children to hear about all the holes in the theory of evolution?"

"The school board has taken the measured step of making students aware that there are other viewpoints on the evolution of species," said Richard Thompson, of the Thomas More Law Center, which represents the board and describes its overall mission as defending "the religious freedom of Christians."
source


These guys aren't even trying to inject some realism into their arguments! Viz...

Lark Myers - blond-headed, blue-eyed, patriotic, hetero-sexual, successful small business - shook his impressive Aryan locks of hair and as his magnificant American muscles rippled said, "What's wrong with scaring children with stories about the truth that teaching Darwin in school will end up with this nation led by homosexual, Islamic, terror-loving, tree-hugging, French-speaking scum?".

An opinion, that's all he has ventured. An opinion. Why attempt to dress it up as something else?


its overall mission as defending "the religious freedom of Christians."

Persecuted as they are by natural history and emperical scientific theory and thus unable to practice their belief in supernatural deities and incomprehensible and unrepeatable events. Echoes of 'Monty Python'; "Don't you oppress me!".

1) Great joke Farmeman. My wife and I laughed.

2) I think faith only needs a .01% chance of it being true to stay alive.

3) I think that science cannot get rid of the .01% - ever.

4) I think evolution is under attack because we (in America) are a) in uncertain times and b) have moved to a more conservative adgenda.

I personally believe that this is good for evolution. It will come under pressure - and be supported more clearly and cleanly or not. I think that evolution has rested on more slim evidence to be taken as a 'proven fact' than other 'laws' of science (like gravity and the like).

Ultimitely I think evolution will be proven - and I for one - am not shaken in my faith of God's grandeur.

I think what is at stake in this argument is many poor believers faiths being eroded - which is not faith at all.

TF

That uncertainty must be long-lasting, the Scopes Monkey Trial (1925) was a victory for creationists - the Butler Act remained as law until 1967 in Tennessee (1968 in Alabama)!

TTF, I believe you are dead on. The mere newsworthyness of this topic can only act as a catalyst to wake up many sleepy minds and cause people to question their school out loud.

The Dover Pa issue issue is the first real test of a "non Bible centered " creationist doctrine since edwards v Aguillard in 1987. The USSC knew that in its vote on edwards , it left open any other Creation doctrine since the language on Edwards was carefully crafted to surround evangelical Christianity.

Dover Pa, and the other states where Intelligent Design is going to be proposed for a court test , will probably go to the USSC aagaain and , im not soi sure thaat scientific evolutionary theory will prevail. The poor judges are not expeerts in this arcane area and unless they are allowed to engage their own experts, Intelligent Design could win out. Its a very well tthought out doctrine that engages science where it lives, in the doubts of how far we can take our own data bases.
I feel that the engaging of such areas as the "scientific method" and "evidence driven theory" will have to be discussed in a court of law. Either way, it appears that for the prof core curriculum in colleges , we will have to add a lot more emphasis in what constitutes a theory and the meaning of science data,

TTF, I believe you are dead on. The mere newsworthyness of this topic can only act as a catalyst to wake up many sleepy minds and cause people to question their school out loud.

The Dover Pa issue issue is the first real test of a "non Bible centered " creationist doctrine since edwards v Aguillard in 1987. The USSC knew that in its vote on edwards , it left open any other Creation doctrine since the language on Edwards was carefully crafted to surround evangelical Christianity.

Dover Pa, and the other states where Intelligent Design is going to be proposed for a court test , will probably go to the USSC aagaain and , im not soi sure thaat scientific evolutionary theory will prevail. The poor judges are not expeerts in this arcane area and unless they are allowed to engage their own experts, Intelligent Design could win out. Its a very well tthought out doctrine that engages science where it lives, in the doubts of how far we can take our own data bases.
I feel that the engaging of such areas as the "scientific method" and "evidence driven theory" will have to be discussed in a court of law. Either way, it appears that for the prof core curriculum in colleges , we will have to add a lot more emphasis in what constitutes a theory and the meaning of science data,

Actually, Evolutionary Theory (biological primarily, but also stellar) is considered to be one of the most well founded of all scientific theories, exhibiting confirmational conformance with an extremely wide range of knowledge.



Evolution has already been proven. To the degree that we humans can "know" anything, we know evolution is a fact. If deities exist which can create the trees around us out of nothingness and then give us memories of them always having been there, then we humans can't "know" anything in the world. But other than that, Evolution is a fact.

And I, like you, find no conflict in this and the possibility of a God which put it all in motion.

Source

Rosborne,

Were we talking about interspecial evolution or intraspecial evolution - or both?

I think the gap that yas yet to be proven to the creationist is that Man has evolved from apes. I don't think this link has been 'proven' at all like theories of gravity.

I think inerspecial evolution is where it is at - for the creationist argument to die.

TF

http://www.nap.edu/html/creationism/evidence.html

Evolved from apes - what kind of talk is that?

Man and apes share a common ancestor. The chimpanzee and the gorilla are just as evolved as you and me - their species survives from exactly the same time as ours.

It is precisely the nonsense that Homo sap is the 'most evolved' creature ever that has got to be jettisoned. It is specious - there is no perfectly evolved creature that has a special relationship with either nature or the Invisible Sky Being. Many, many species of ape, man-like apes, ape-like men and men (the all-inclusive term, no offense ladies!) went belly up - we're only the last ones standing. Us and several OTHER million species, all successfully adapted to conditions here and now.

When the Earth does change it's environment to something that our present condition can't cope with I don't think there'll be much argument about the benefits of evolutionary change. No creationists in the fox-holes at that point!

Mr Still, Good points; this planet has experienced several ice ages, and those flora and fauna able to cope survived - while all the others died or disappeared leaving no trace of their existence. We we talk about million year increments, don't try to explain "we can't see it" by our short life spans.

See,-- those concepts with which you are all so comfortable are concepts that are not universally understood or respected.
ros, the supportive sciences that underpin modern evolution theory involve many aracane subjects that , although they support, they arent accepted by the majority of educated people. (There are still alot of liberal arts types who do our popular science writing- and they want sensational and quick stories, not facts)
I refer to our friend at the NYT Tuesday section, N Wade. Hes a BS artist who can often artfully confuse a subject while leavinng it entertaining only.

I tend to agree with TTF just because Im slowly being burnt out (although still smokin a little).
Explaining the obvious is often the most difficult thing.

Stillwater-----remember Ehrlichs old rule that -- synchronic occurence rules out common ancestry.I know its wrong, you know its wrong, all gods chillun.... However There are still vocal holdouts of that hypothesis, even though DNA has shut that door soundly. The lesson that was drawn by theorists was that apes and humans bore no common ancestor. This was argued in the 60s

one of the biggest problems that this evolution "controversy" is even happening today is that all the unrelated support sciences underlying evolution have no really good stump speakers. Maybe Dave Raup, or Niles Eldrege but theyre getting old .Even Jay Gould, one of the best minds was a crappy speaker. He expected a certain level of traaining andinterest and was fond of tangential topics that bore no relevance to his main topic unless you really dug deep into the substance of the talk.

Two of the best known Creationist "Geochronologists" D Wise and S Austen were originally well respected researchers in their field of radiological induced crystal changes in rocks. They , after a short time of post grad work, were starting to "fool" with Creation doctrine as a serious endeavor. I dont know what tripped them and Ive never met them except as an audience member . Im surprised at how theyve bought into all the other BS lines of Intel Design. For them, it was a careeer move that , like Michael Behe, made them household words in the Creation Camps.
As Walter has shown, its gonna be uphill before it turns . Thhe problem with Republican Democracy is that often the people least qualified make most of our decisions, and they give strict rules to follw to those govt employees who are trained to know better. A buddy of mine, high up in a , lets say a govt science agency, is lectured lectured at least once a year by the legislative budget and finance committee chair.
"You aint gonna be takin no views on stuff like Evo-LEWWSHEUNN are you"?

Hi TF,

I'm wasn't talking about proving evolution to anyone else in particular, whether it be creationists or rain forest dwellers of Borneo. I was talking about proof in the pure scientific sense, as it stands within the scientific community. In that sense, Evolution has been proven, and nobody is denying that evolution happened, all that is being discussed is how it happened, and what mechanisms are causing it in what degree.