Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

The skull was said to have been exposed due to the low level of the river.

Do you think it's likely that the river has never been this low in 10,000-20,000 years?

Some also refer to evolution as a 'tornado in a junkyard producing a Boeing 747' type of an idea.

Some also refer to evolution as a 'tornado in a junkyard producing a Boeing 747' type of an idea.

I don't disagree. Except it's a little too tame.

The idea (and don't tell me 'this isn't actually part of evolution' when it's all sold in one slick package as Big Bang/Abiogenesis/Evolution in the government controlled schools) that a living organism of ANY description could have assembled itself by chance is just too funny.

Please.

Believe it if you must, but don't ask us to consider it science.

Evolution at least can be dressed up for the high stage with the air of plausibility until the lights go back on.

Abiogenesis is the embarrassment that most evolutionists don't want to discuss.

The idea (and don't tell me 'this isn't actually part of evolution' when it's all sold in one slick package as Big Bang/Abiogenesis/Evolution in the government controlled schools) that a living organism of ANY description could have assembled itself by chance is just too funny.

Believe it if you must, but don't ask us to consider it science.

Abiogenesis is the embarrassment that most evolutionists don't want to discuss.

real life wrote:

The skull was said to have been exposed due to the low level of the river.

Exposed in in it's latest location due to the low water level.

real life wrote:

Do you think it's likely that the river has never been this low in 10,000-20,000 years?

Do you think it's likely that the skull was there and mysteriously resisted destruction, or do you think it's likely that the skull was buried in sediment somewhere upstream for all but the last few years (when it washed out of its original location)?

Your questions are suggestively obtuse, unless you are seeking to support some type of implied assumption. What are you implying by this line of questioning (as if we didn't know)?

It would be interesting to compare the amount of enamel of this supposed 10,000 year old with the teeth of dinos supposedly many millions of years old.

Mastodon finds like this in Missouri, Iowa and now Kansas indicate that these critters may have been very numerous and widespread, which makes the idea that a relatively few 'Paleo-Indians' hunted them to extinction all the more unlikely.

real life wrote:

The idea (and don't tell me 'this isn't actually part of evolution' when it's all sold in one slick package as Big Bang/Abiogenesis/Evolution in the government controlled schools) that a living organism of ANY description could have assembled itself by chance is just too funny.

Oh, sorry. I should have read further. You demonstrated your lack of understanding in the same post.

As we've explained many times before RL, "Natural Selection" is not a "Chance" process. That's why it's called Natural SELECTION.

real life wrote:

Believe it if you must, but don't ask us to consider it science.

It is science, and it is a proven scientific fact. If you don't like it tough luck, that's just the way it is.

real life wrote:

Abiogenesis is the embarrassment that most evolutionists don't want to discuss.

Abiogenesis is not part of the basic theory of biological evolution. However, unlike most people who understand evolution, I will not dodge the obvious implication.

The basic foundational mechanism of evolution (natural selection) strongly implies that abiogenesis occured due to selection mechanisms at the chemical levels in similar fashion to biological evolution.

At an even more basic level, the assumption of naturalism within scientific theories means that no matter how abiogenesis happened, it was through a natural sequence of events.

Which part of that do you wish to bash your head against this time?

real life wrote:

It would be interesting to compare the amount of enamel of this supposed 10,000 year old with the teeth of dinos supposedly many millions of years old.

Supposedly? Ha, you crack me up. We know they are at least 65Million years old or older. Of that there isn't a shadow of a doubt within the world of reality.

real life wrote:

Mastodon finds like this in Missouri, Iowa and now Kansas indicate that these critters may have been very numerous and widespread, which makes the idea that a relatively few 'Paleo-Indians' hunted them to extinction all the more unlikely.

I wouldn't be so sure of that.

Humans are extremely efficient hunters. Control of fire alone could have altered environments and migratory pathways.

At least this is a much more interesting area of discussion than your continued regression into flood mythology and seven day creation.

Ah, yes. To trumpet one's assumption and thus settle the issue.

That's what makes evolution such a grand Faith, isn't it?

There is a huge difference between "What if, given .... " and "By the available evidence, it appears probable to within a vanishingly near certainty that .... ", and nowhere in science or logic is "Questions remain, I perceive contradictions, some things make no sense to me, other things offend me, so this construct congruent with my preferences and assumptions must be the one, only, definitive, discussion-ending answer" a valid answer.

real life wrote:

Ah, yes. To trumpet one's assumption and thus settle the issue.

That's what makes evolution such a grand Faith, isn't it?

Is that the best you can come up with? Nice try.

The basic foundational mechanism of evolution (natural selection) strongly implies that abiogenesis occured due to selection mechanisms at the chemical levels in similar fashion to biological evolution.

Or is it that they really aren't 65 MY afterall?

What we 'know' is getting in the way of what we 'know'. Hmmmmm.

Yeah, and until recently we 'knew' that soft tissue and possibly DNA couldn't survive that long.

But if the dinos really are 65 MY , then maybe soft tissue and with it some DNA did survive that long.

Or is it that they really aren't 65 MY afterall?

What we 'know' is getting in the way of what we 'know'. Hmmmmm.

How nice that in your Faith you haven't a shadow of doubt. That's very commendable.

The supposed resultant macrochemicals are not MORE resistant to chemical degradation by the environment that (supposedly) produced them, but LESS.

They are much more fragile than raw chemicals to the extent that if you put xNA into the open environment (especially one such as is thought to have existed then), everyone including an evolutionist would expect it to degrade.

To suppose that these chemical baths forced themselves out of lazy equilibrium into a high powered building program of amino acids and beyond is laughable.

We discussed entropy, remember? Oh (hits head) but that's it.

You don't believe in entropy. It doesn't apply in the real world, just in theory, right?

The extinction of a species rarely is the result of a single cause - major asteroid impacts, for instance, are fortunately not common even on geologic timescale. Paul Martin's "Clovis Overkill" hypothesis for the disappearance of North American megafauna at the end of the Pliestocene - ca 10-12K Years ago - hasn't much support any more; hunting no doubt was a factor, but it was not the only factor at work, and it need not have been - likely was not - the primary factor. Current research indicates quite strongly that environmental changes, chiefly pursuant to the retreat of the ice sheets, was extremely disruptive to flora and fauna, imposing tremendous - in some cases clearly insurmountable - stresses on everything from mosses and lichens to mastodons. Large critterstypically have comparatively long gestation periods, relatively few offspring per mated pair, take longer than do smaller critters, on average, to reach sexual maturity and begin reproducing, and often are vitally dependent upon their parents or other adults within their immediately familial population group longer than are smaller crittersw. Just as no one thing sank the Titanic, but rather a chain of events and circumstances combined to produce the disaster, no one thing sank the mastodons. The introduction of human hunters into their rapidly changing environment was just the last straw; piled on other already existing stresses and circumstances, hunting merely hastened their disappearance.

Unless you, like Ros, use the assumption of naturalism as your trump card to finish the hand.

'Control of fire' to alter (purposefully?) migratory pathways?

Have you been out West, lately?

We don't control fire to that extent even now. C'mon, Ros.