Good stuff Timber. Im just catching up and was highly amused at Gungas "Bullited list of options" of how humankind got here. He dont need no steenken evidence on any of his points. I would surely like to see some evidence before one concludes that
"evolution is not an option"
on WorldnetDaily today:
Why Darwinism is doomed
Harvard evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould wrote in 1977: "Biology took away our status as paragons created in the image of God." Darwinism teaches that we are accidental byproducts of purposeless natural processes that had no need for God, and this anti-religious dogma enjoys a taxpayer-funded monopoly in America's public schools and universities. Teachers who dare to question it openly have in many cases lost their jobs.
The issue here is not "evolution" - a broad term that can mean simply change within existing species (which no one doubts). The issue is Darwinism - which claims that all living things are descended from a common ancestor, modified by natural selection acting on random genetic mutations.
According to Darwinists, there is such overwhelming evidence for their view that it should be considered a fact. Yet to the Darwinists' dismay, at least three-quarters of the American people - citizens of the most scientifically advanced country in history - reject it.
A study published Aug. 11 in the pro-Darwin magazine Science attributes this primarily to biblical fundamentalism, even though polls have consistently shown that half of the Americans who reject Darwinism are not biblical fundamentalists. Could it be that the American people are skeptical of Darwinism because they're smarter than Darwinists think?
On Aug. 17, the pro-Darwin magazine Nature reported that scientists had just found the "brain evolution gene." There is circumstantial evidence that this gene may be involved in brain development in embryos, and it is surprisingly different in humans and chimpanzees. According to Nature, the gene may thus harbor "the secret of what makes humans different from our nearest primate relatives."
Three things are remarkable about this report. First, it implicitly acknowledges that the evidence for Darwinism was never as overwhelming as its defenders claim. It has been almost 30 years since Gould wrote that biology accounts for human nature, yet Darwinists are just now turning up a gene that may have been involved in brain evolution.
Second, embryologists know that a single gene cannot account for the origin of the human brain. Genes involved in embryo development typically have multiple effects, and complex organs such as the brain are influenced by many genes. The simple-mindedness of the "brain evolution gene" story is breathtaking.
Third, the only thing scientists demonstrated in this case was a correlation between a genetic difference and brain size. Every scientist knows, however, that correlation is not the same as causation. Among elementary school children, reading ability is correlated with shoe size, but this is because young schoolchildren with small feet have not yet learned to read - not because larger feet cause a student to read better or because reading makes the feet grow. Similarly, a genetic difference between humans and chimps cannot tell us anything about what caused differences in their brains unless we know what the gene actually does. In this case, as Nature reports, "what the gene does is a mystery."
So after 150 years, Darwinists are still looking for evidence - any evidence, no matter how skimpy - to justify their speculations. The latest hype over the "brain evolution gene" unwittingly reveals just how underwhelming the evidence for their view really is.
The truth is Darwinism is not a scientific theory, but a materialistic creation myth masquerading as science. It is first and foremost a weapon against religion - especially traditional Christianity. Evidence is brought in afterwards, as window dressing.
This is becoming increasingly obvious to the American people, who are not the ignorant backwoods religious dogmatists that Darwinists make them out to be. Darwinists insult the intelligence of American taxpayers and at the same time depend on them for support. This is an inherently unstable situation, and it cannot last.
If I were a Darwinist, I would be afraid. Very afraid.
Get Wells' widely popular "Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design"
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Jonathan Wells is the author of "The Politically Incorrect GuideĀ to Darwinism and Intelligent Design" (Regnery, 2006) and Icons of Evolution (Regnery, 2000). He holds a Ph.D. in biology from the University of California at Berkeley and a Ph.D. in theology from Yale University. Wells is currently a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute in Seattle
gunga, that article begins with a false premise, proceeds immediately into straw man, and winds up with non sequitur red herring ... no surprise it might engage the fancies of the easily beguiled.
Well, the title gives it away as fantasy anyway....
gunga, who quoted some other "true believer" posted this crapQuote:It has been almost 30 years since Gould wrote that biology accounts for human nature, yet Darwinists are just now turning up a gene that may have been involved in brain evolution.
...and his point is(?)
And we are approaching the 150th ANNIVERSary of the publication of "The Origin...". Maybe it would surprise gunga and John Wells that, when Darwin wrote his little book , he had never , ever conceived of a thing such as a gene or genetics, or any of the information we now take for granted. This he carried to his grave because Mendels work, although done in the late 1860's, was never really read until about the 1890's when Darwin was about 7 years dead.
Many things in science are first postulated as hypotheses and then theories (should enough data support it and none refute it), without understanding the mechanism that "drives " it. Think about ATOMIC THEORY, or "Plate Tectonics Theory".
gungaQuote:Get Wells' widely popular "Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design"
-------------------------------
.
OR, if you wish to get something besides Mind Pudding, try "
Intelligent Thought" Edited by John Brockman. Vintage Books 2006. It has papers on ID as the polished monkey of Creationiswm by some more credible thinkers like Jerry Coyne (co author of "speciation") DANIEL dENNET, Leonard Susskind,, Tim White ( one of the co workers on "little Lucy")Lee Smolin, Scott Sampson , (and a host of others).
Dr Wells, who resides at the Discovery Institute reminded me of some quotes that I just saw by William Dembski.
Quote:Intelligent Design Is not an Evangelical Christian Thing, or a Christian thing, or even a generically theistic thing... ID is an emerging scientific research program. Design theorists attempt to demonstrate its merits fair and square in the scientific world-without appealing to religious authority-Dembski The Design Revolution
Then we have this by Dembski
Quote:Any view of the sciences that leaves Christ out of the picture must be seen as fundamentally deficient... The conceptual soundness of a scientific theory cannot be maintained apart from Christ-DembskiIntelligent Design:The bridge between Science and Theology
So, whats next for these dangaling partisnipples. All the arguments made by anti-evolution ists are merely:
"A little song,
A little Dance.
A little seltzer
down yer pants"
A big question is what the foot bones will show when their sandstone casing is removed, he said.
The above quote is from a news site of the ABC network. Apparently, they expect to have the foot bones of Selam once they finish removing the sandstone. Have patience, rl.
I've got Dikika in my google news alerts - lots of interesting information coming out.
We amateurs sometimes ask questions like this:
http://www.slate.com/id/2150157/fr/rss/
Why do they wait so long to announce their findings?
Science -real science - is not interested in sensational announcements and quick answers - the aim is the best possible answer given the available data. Science is patient, checking and rechecking its results before offering conclusions, the public isn't inclined to make such effort.
Nature journal
This links to the website of Nature, the journal carrying the papers on Selam.
Edgar, removing a fosiil from a pozzolonic (Volcanic ash and cement) mix, which best describes the ash falls at laetoli is best decribed,as was told to me, as being similar to extracting saltine crackers embedded in a concrete matrix(without busting the crackers). It took years of cleaning and describing. Lots of other experts were consulted and , since Nat Geographic was the big sponsor till 2004, they often pull the shades on stuff until they exercise their publications rights. Notice how the Nature article only precedes the National Geo article by 2 months. I dont know what controls that the Planck Institute asserted.
Ever since "cold fusion", The "Paluxey tracks" the "Sinoornithes" fossils that were discovered to have been doctored in the late 90"s , most discovery based advances are carefully scrutinized by any number of interveners, and this vetting of data and evidence can add more years.
I know that it eats some field guys guts out to have to keep quiet for so long, but thats the way it is. Look how many times stright news has to be retraced and represented. Most recently, the TO story
1He had a medical reaction
2He had a reaction to pain killers
3He tried to commit suicide
4"I didnt try to commit no suicide". I always needs 40 pills".
timberlandko wrote:Science is patient, checking and rechecking its results before offering conclusions, the public isn't inclined to make such effort.
Well, Duh ! ! !
Why the Hell should they, they can just run over to the Discovery Institute web site and get
all the answers, right now.
Interesting note there set. Ive always wondered how the DI could have opinions already in place trying to refute any importance of new finds that seem to assist the evidence in evolutionary sciences, when the work on the specimens(the interpretive parts and even the cleaning0 were just underway?
Science evidence screws with their pre-conceived notions, kinda like Dr.gungasnakes "bullits" .
Interesting as well is that the DI - self-proclaimedly the champion of demonstrating the science of ID - has developed and published no science of its own. Never has there been presented a Creationist/ID-iot argument that was scientifically, academically, forensically, objectively honest.
You should have been in the pub tonight timber.
The descendents of Lucy were there having a high old time.
They might not have been scientifically, academically, forensically, objectively honest but they were there. No question.
I left when they started fighting.
spendius wrote:You should have been in the pub tonight timber.
Tonight wouldn'ta been a good night for me to be out pubbing spendi - sorta preoccupied by a sudden, unexpected intrusion of The Way Life Works - just wouldn't been able to get into it. Mebbe tomorrow ...
I'm sorry to hear that timber.
I hope you quickly recover.
An exclusive interview with the man who discovered the oldest child in the world
from the middle
Quote:For scientists like Bernard Wood, a paleoanthropologist at George Washington University in the US, Selam is "a veritable mine of information about a crucial stage in human evolutionary history". The chief surprise is that her shoulder blades and arms still look like those of a gorilla. There is now hot debate over whether they are just useless evolutionary baggage or a sign that 3.3 million years ago Selam and her family were still swinging.
If they were, then the most popular theory of why humans stood up is challenged, says Desmond Morris, the zoologist who studies human behaviour. This theory says they did it because they had learned to use their hands for making tools and weapons but still needed to get around. "If Selam is significant and not an oddity, that means bipedalism came first. So there must have been a different reason for it."
But he warns against drawing too many conclusions. "People end up basing their idea of an entire species on a little girl's skeleton. There's a man in the Guinness World Records who is eight feet tall. If you found him, and only him, in three million years' time what would you think we had been?"
the article is truly about Dr Zeresenay
Quote:"This is a stunning discovery," said Martin Meredith, author of The State of Africa, "but it does not change the picture of human evolution. What we're doing now is filling in the pieces." For him and many other observers, one of the most significant things about Selam is the identity of the man who discovered her. Desmond Morris agrees. "It is wonderful news," he said. "There is still a colonial and imperial flavour to anthropology - virtually all the discoveries are made by Europeans and Americans who go out to these remote places with the help of the locals, who also do the digging. So the fact that Selam was discovered by an African leading a team in his own backyard is brilliant."
great article beth. Im always concerned that these "functional reductive" aspects of evolutionary mechanics get top press even before all the work is done. I suppose its because publication must now add a little sex appeal beyond the purely scholarly interests.
The fact that within less than 10 years , weve abandoned the "big brain" hypothesis to a more realistic "bipedal centrism" is in better alignment with Natural Selection and what its taught us. Somehow, bipedalism has conferred a tiny, selective advantage . This, as we are seeing, leaves us with an entire list of intermediate stage morphologies that , like archeopteryx, will be leading to lively debates until the next stage fossil baby is found and we can compare where the little ADVANTAGES HAVE BEGUN KICKING IN.
Here we have a baby that with arms and canid teeth, more like a gorilla, yet with a clear "vertebral hole in the skull" that clearly shows she would be as comfortable walking upright as she would be swinging in a tree (and the fact that A australensis had opposable thumbs and a slowly forward morphing big toe) exhibits a neat mix of new and ancestral skeletal features. I believe that the paleo environmental guys need to become more involved to reconstruct Salems world and how it was changing so that we have a better understanding. Right now, were still using Mary Leakeys geomorphologists reports on the environment , and most of that stuff goes back to the 60's. The ash falls are pretty well dated so, wherever the ash falls and is incorporated into the ancient sediments we could (if money were not an issue) reconstruct each environmental stage to demonstrate conclusively what the Australopithecenes were adapting to.
