Creation Museum

real life wrote:

Chumly wrote:
real life wrote:
When folks realize that the Darwins were believers in evolution BEFORE any evidence gathering by Charles........ well it kind of ruins the whole thing about 'evolution being firmly rooted in observation and evidence etc etc' , doesn't it? Too bad, that's actually what there is to deal with.
Even if true, personal beliefs and biases are not relevant to objective scientific methodology. No doubt there are numerous examples of concepts and ideas having sway prior to substantiation by objective scientific methodology, big deal.

So whether the Darwin's were or were not believers in evolution before evidence gathering does not change the end result of the underlying scientific objectivism.

Yeah it just kinda spoils the Charles Darwin legend of the objective gatherer of evidence who then *ping* realized what the evidence was telling him ---

*clears throat, speaks into a large tin can* 'Everything has evolved!'

Charles was familiar with the family's belief in evolution which preceded his trip to the Galapagos by decades. (Whether his Grandpa was Lamarckian or not is really beside the point) Darwin's familiarity with Grandpa's idea of evolution is inescapable, and rather embarrassing to most evolutionists who try never to mention it.

Generally, it is insisted that Charles formulated his theory of evolution only on the basis of scientific evidence that he gathered starting in the islands. They like to forget that the Darwins believed it BEFORE the trip on the Beagle.

When you go out to gather evidence to bolster a theory which as of yet has been proposed without evidence, that's not objectivity.

What difference does it make if you think it spoils what you call "the Charles Darwin legend"? This so-called "Charles Darwin legend" has no relevance whatsoever to scientific methodology.

It certainly is net objective when you "go out to gather evidence to bolster a theory which as of yet has been proposed without evidence" as long as you apply rigorous scientific methodology.

Are you familiar with the scientific method? If so you should know that your criticisms are more akin to circular logic than to scientific method!

It matters not if you come up with an idea first and then try and prove it, or if you take a body of evidence first and try and distill conclusions from it, as long as rigorous scientific methodology is applied.

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If you use RL's ideas that Erasmus did all the heavy lifting and Charles just did some of the clerk work, then we should also recognize that Erasmus was the "father of the Big Bang". In his "In a Botanic Garden another of his didactic poetry collections we have the following

Quote:

Roll on, ye Stars! exult in youthful prime,
Mark with bright curves the printless steps of Time;
Near and more near your beamy cars approach,
And lessening orbs on lessening orbs encroach; -
Flowers of the sky! ye too to age must yield,
Frail as your silken sisters of the field!
Star after star from Heaven's high arch shall rush,
Suns sink on suns, and systems systems crush,
Headlong, extinct, to one dark center fall,
And Death and Night and Chaos mingle all!
- Till o'er the wreck, emerging from the storm,
Immortal Nature lifts her changeful form,
Mounts from her funeral pyre on wings of flame,
And soars and shines, another and the same

Writing "ideas" down for scientific consideration is valid. Wegener came up with Continental drift as an idea. Of course he was poo pooed until a bunch of Canadians found some intereting data during WWII and that led to some hard work and a quite robust set of data that shows Wegener wasw right.
I dont think Id go that far with Erasmus, his poetry and musings were not unique and being Lamarkian (or actually Lamark would have been Darwinian) doesnt add anything to our understanding until it ws systematized and e had a template for future work. Real Life seems to think that all ideas are Poofed into being. (Not a big jump from his worldview really). He also thinks that people exist in vacuums totally unaware of their predesessors. But, still, Giving Erasmus the honors and denying Charles the discovery of natural selection ispoor revisionism that doesnt stand up to the "LMAO" test.
However, its still an interesting way of thinking. If the worldview that one supports demands that pioneers in another be brought down , at least ones arguments should be demonstrable. Jut like everything else that rl spouts, its all "fact-free"

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This is not the first time "real life" has used that "clears throat, speaks into a large tin can" horsie poop . . . must be something new in the latest creationism hand-out: "Dodging the hard questions by ridiculing the messenger."

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I noticed but, in the spirit of debate , we dont bring up these shortcomings in etiquette.

hawhawhawhawhawhaw

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real life wrote:

*clears throat, speaks into a large tin can* 'Everything has evolved!'

At least that's better than, "*clears throat, speaks into a large tin can* 'Open your Bibles to page whatever!' ... at which point the herd obeys and prepares itself for another good brainwashing session.

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A little humor usually makes things interesting, but you guys are taking yourselves too seriously this morning.

Why is it only Farmerman can make jokes about shiny suits?

Lighten up and have a donut with some coffee.

Or maybe

*clears throat, speaks into the tin can with TV announcers voice* Betcha can't eat just one!

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Quote:

Why is it only Farmerman can make jokes about shiny suits?

Its a gift I guess.
"Shiny suits" is a local metaphor for mafiosi. Ive extended its metaphoricalness to include those tv evangelists who , by proclaiming some myth and condemning those who understand the power (and limitations) of evolutionary theory, are merely trying to line their own pockets. You dont see any of these guys going poor or suffering discomfort to pursue some arcane research. Hell, their hardest task is getting a weekly haircut and lacquering

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Probably some would call that 'ridiculing the messenger' as discussed above.

You mention the limitations of evolution. But we seldom hear of that when the issue is discussed publicly. I think many on the evolution side think there are none or are unaware that there are.

I think it is a major point in the whole education debate.

What are some of the limitations or weaknesses, if you will, of the evolutionary theory that you discuss with your students? Do you tell them there are any?

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real life wrote:

Probably some would call that 'ridiculing the messenger' as discussed above.

You mention the limitations of evolution. But we seldom hear of that when the issue is discussed publicly. I think many on the evolution side think there are none or are unaware that there are.

I think it is a major point in the whole education debate.

What are some of the limitations or weaknesses, if you will, of the evolutionary theory that you discuss with your students? Do you tell them there are any?

If you were a math teacher would you put efforts into examining the weaknesses of geometry with your students by saying that once you get to the level of quantum mechanics that there may be weaknesses in the Euclidean viewpoint?

Here's looking at Euclid Smile

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real life wrote:

Probably some would call that 'ridiculing the messenger' as discussed above.

You mention the limitations of evolution. But we seldom hear of that when the issue is discussed publicly. I think many on the evolution side think there are none or are unaware that there are.

I think it is a major point in the whole education debate.

What are some of the limitations or weaknesses, if you will, of the evolutionary theory that you discuss with your students? Do you tell them there are any?

The only limit is your need to disbelieve it.

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real life wrote:

Probably some would call that 'ridiculing the messenger' as discussed above.

You mention the limitations of evolution. But we seldom hear of that when the issue is discussed publicly. I think many on the evolution side think there are none or are unaware that there are.

I think it is a major point in the whole education debate.

What are some of the limitations or weaknesses, if you will, of the evolutionary theory that you discuss with your students? Do you tell them there are any?

of course, we usually assign entire reearch projects on individual aspects, like phylogenetic relationships.What are the correct clades of association among various taxa.
WHen did protists , plants and animals differentiate? evidence. Why dont we understand about the differentiation of early cells, why did bilateral symmetry seem to win out?

Lifes Origins are independent from evolution.(Evolution studies are silent re" the beginnings of life)

WE see wildly different and weirdly unique bauplans of life that cluster around the Vendean till the Mid Cambrian, What happened to the vast differences in lifeforms.

We deduce a "Cambrian explosion" from how many separate areas of stratigraphy.We trace the beginning of the C explosion, but when did it end. We dont have a good stratigraphic understanding because the basal Cambrian was an active geologic period.

How do we trace notochords adaptation and in how many different species. How come many Paleozoic notochords as larvae become sessile radial species

Really explain the gaps . Why do birds and reptiles give us a wonderful transitional sequence and mammals dont

Is most evolution adaptive? How comes some of the biggest macroevolutionary features dont appear adaptive.

Phylogenetics v paleontological evidence has some major disagreements

-------
Other limitations include the presentation of human social v biological evolution as extensions of the same mechanisms, when no evidence supports it. We can only compare the events of the movements of H sapiens sapiens and H sapiens idaltu. We cannot ascribe social developments to evolutionary mechanims.

what do Short Tandem repeat alleles tell us?

I have the students follow a taxanomic clade and plot the fossil evidence on a vertical scale from when it shows to when it dies in the record. Define any gaps in the records and critically analyze reasons or speculate as to the expansion , decline(bottlenecks) or resurgence in the fossil record.

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I can imagine "real life" furiously taking notes, stopping to scratch his head quizzically, and returning to his task--recording a gold mine of quotes to throw back at you, and to report to his creationist friends at the web sites from which he gets his talking points.

Dime to a dollar we see him bring these things up down the road . . . how very naive of you FM . . .

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well, Im sure that somebody smart will come to my aid We saw those Creationist sites during Dover. They are pretty much unarmed because they cant honestly take both sides of an argument, to them its heresy. To me its QA

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Setanta wrote:

I can imagine "real life" furiously taking notes, stopping to scratch his head quizzically, and returning to his task--recording a gold mine of quotes to throw back at you, and to report to his creationist friends at the web sites from which he gets his talking points.

Dime to a dollar we see him bring these things up down the road . . . how very naive of you FM . . .

How insecure you are.

Farmerman answers a simple question with an honest, simple answer and you need to change your Depends.

Good grief.

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A typically pathetic attempt to belittle someone because you have no cogent response. We expect no less from you, "real life."

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Wait a minit both of you. This is a forum in which I choose (or not) to post, pose, answer and debate as I see fit. Ive never considered the arguments in my area of science "a priesthood" that must be defended by shibboleths and "secret handshakes" > AS Ive always maintained DATA IS WHAT DATA IS. My rguments with you , real life, are only presented with the facts as I know them. You, quite the opposite, have a clearly defined worldview that requires that you apply at least some uncertainty to these facts (as we know them). Now many here are cynicla enough to say that you will never accept facts and evidence and merely want to use these data to go back, load up on AIG faqs and argue from the Evangelical perspective.This may be true or not, however the Theory of nat selection and the underlying sciences is so robust that these many limitations and data gaps are in a place now where any further data will either reinforce what we know or render us a new pathway of thinking.

Im, in no way threatened , scared, or unwelcoming of any points of view, cause thats the way we learn .
I dont have a fixed way to "believe" anything thats been dug up or analyzed. In that way the theories in science arent immutable. If they last for long times , its certainly not for trying to bust them in the chops every coupla years. After all, thats the fun of it.

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Well, to summarize: the quality of the premises and resultant statements and predictions of a theory of evolution increase incrementally but steadily with each passing year; creationists continue to willfully misunderstand or to disingenuously misrepresent the premises and statements of a theory of evolution for doctrinal reasons; therefore, creationists make silly quibbling arguments either through ignorance or a policy of deception; science remains unimpressed but increasingly intent upon preventing the bowdlerization of science education; school boards continue to be the target of "stealth candidates," intent on dragging education, sometimes kicking and screaming, sometimes mute, back to the eleventh century; the courts remain immovable in a rejection of creationist trojan horses such as "Intelligent Design" (fundamentalist oxymoron of the year) . . .

Everything seems to be going along famously . . .

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yep, that's pretty much it

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Setanta wrote:

I can imagine "real life" furiously taking notes, stopping to scratch his head quizzically, and returning to his task--recording a gold mine of quotes to throw back at you, and to report to his creationist friends at the web sites from which he gets his talking points.

I wouldn't worry too much. None of the new "ammunition" contradicts the basic tenets of evolutionary theory, it merely points out those areas in which we see aspects of the process which we need more information on. And that is the *best* thing about science.

Besides, I would rather see challenges which at least offer me a chance to learn something while I research them. All the challenges we've see so far are antiques.

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I like that turn of phrase, Ros . . . i'll likely think of the creationists as antique dealers from now on . . .

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