Don't tell me there's no proof for evolution

@aperson,

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Don't tell me there's no proof for evolution

I take it you're happier not knowing that evolution is a bunch of bullshit?

@gungasnake,

Obviously they are gunga. It's simple so no thinking is required and they can use it to pose as scientifically minded and to undermine Christian sexual morality which one presumes they have a personal reason for doing.

Alas, as you can easily see from the posts they offer us, they haven't a scientific bone between them so their pose is a load of fakery and they have no proof that undermining Christian sexual morality is functional from an evolutionary point of view either for society or even for themselves.

When you think of the number of violations of Christian sexual morality it is astounding where their point of view is in the poll ratings. Which shows, I think, that very few violators of Christian sexual morality actually reject it even though they have lapsed on occasions from adhering strictly to it and have the humility in respect of a long Christian tradition to feel a degree of shame about it. A degree of shame which must run deep in American society for Tiger Woods, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mr Spitzer, Gary Hart and many others, whose names you will be more familiar than I am, to be hounded as they have been.

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@gungasnake,

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I take it you're happier not knowing that evolution is a bunch of bullshit?

Lets see, weve got vast amounts of evidence that support evolution. Weve got, geology, paleontology, genetics, geophysics, isotopes, paleomagnetism, cladistics, epigenetics, biogeography, etc etc. NOW, we also have the inability of gunga to craft an argument against evolution other than some lame attempt at a pejorative.

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@farmerman,

Maybe, fm, it just feels wrong to gunga. It feels wrong to me. I suspect that if you understood it better it would feel wrong to you as well. It's sort of atavistic. Swampy. The weird jungle stuff. Grunty. Not at all congruent with many of our established principles of etiquette.

Imagine, and I know you are fond of imagining things, that monkeys had cerificates of excellence and they tried to us them to corner all the bananas and the females. A bit like Prof Dawkins has done. You can see how silly evolutionary principles are compared with our etiquette from your own experiences.

You are not the silliest moocow I have ever come across because you hold the worldviews you do but because you cling to them so stubbornly. It's as if you spend your life on roller skates and can't understand why we all don't.

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@spendius,

I'm definitely going to have to side with Farmerman on this one...and I don't even have to read his post. Your views on this are so seemingly warped that it's beyond ridonkulous. Now whether you really are that mentally damaged, or are just purposely being foolish, remains to be seen...I'm more inclined to think the latter.

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

Quote:
I take it you're happier not knowing that evolution is a bunch of bullshit?
Lets see, weve got vast amounts of evidence that support evolution. Weve got, geology, paleontology, genetics, geophysics, isotopes, paleomagnetism, cladistics, epigenetics, biogeography, etc etc. NOW, we also have the inability of gunga to craft an argument against evolution other than some lame attempt at a pejorative.

Yes. Hmmm, which viewpoint should we side with... let me see...

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@Chights47,

I love 'ridonkulous'

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The mathematics of being nice

Using mathematics to tackle some of biology's biggest questions, Martin Nowak has concluded that an ability to cooperate is the secret of humanity's success. He talks to Michael Marshall about drawing fire from Richard Dawkins, the perils of punishment, and devising the mathematical equivalent of the rules of religion

Full article at New Scientist

Further to my assertion that religiosity and evolution are not of necessity anathema to each other.

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@Chights47,

Well done, you've figured out Spendius after viewing a single post.

Joe(hilarious)Nation

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@hingehead,

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Further to my assertion that religiosity and evolution are not of necessity anathema to each other.

Only Spendius argues that.
He thinks human society would collapse without some adherence to the idea of an intervening supernatural being. All other species seem to be evolving without being in the grip of some unseen guide.

What bothers me (and most others like me) about religion and science, is that belief in a Deity tends to make people lazy when faced with a question, especially difficult ones.

"Another one of God's mysteries" is hardly an adequate scientific explanation to any answer, but it is quite satisfactory to most believers.

Such was the answer given to the millions who died from Cholera over the centuries, it took a suspension of two beliefs, that it was caused by bad air and that is was a curse from God, for a mathematically inclined (and church going) physician to find the actual cause and cure.

Joe(See: The Ghost Map)Nation

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@Joe Nation,

Well Joe--I don't think society would collapse without religion. I think it would dramatically change character. As someone who finds discipline irksome the change would place me in the ****. The discipline of religion is that of the light touch. It relies on persuasion and not on police. You are unharmed by rejecting it. And it is a belief in an "intervening supernatural being" rather than an actual ISB that I support.

All other species are neither here nor there. It is the essence of Christianity that we are special as human beings. Tell me what aspects of, say, your sexual behaviour, relates to that of any other species excluding the reflex once it has been triggered. It is the essence of atheism that we are not special.

Which other species, out of the myriads of them, has studied the evolution of life forms and its own physical and mental behaviour?

Which questions have our modern experts been too lazy to study and seek answers too?

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"Another one of God's mysteries" is hardly an adequate scientific explanation to any answer, but it is quite satisfactory to most believers.

Such was the answer given to the millions who died from Cholera over the centuries, it took a suspension of two beliefs, that it was caused by bad air and that is was a curse from God, for a mathematically inclined (and church going) physician to find the actual cause and cure.

By heck Joe--that's disingenuous. The refusal to accept the proferred cause of Cholera in London was to do with an organised, professional and scientific circling of the wagons. Nothing to do with religion. The resistance to the suggestion that it was the contaminated water supply was a scientific one. It made the "cronies" look silly. And it demanded treatment by money. The resistance was political. A jumped up nobody, a religious man, setting the experts straight is not usually well received.

Oswald Spengler rarely complimented another man then living but he complimented Bernard Shaw for being the only man with nerve enough to follow out the logic of evolution and arrive at the stud farm. And eugenics.

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@Joe Nation,

Don't jump into the deep end until you know how deep it is. Dr. John Snow can be credited with the birth of practical epidemiology. However, he did not identify the cause of cholera, nor did he find a cure. He identified the most common vector in his society (bad water), and to this day, good public health is far more about clean water and effective waste removal that it is about the formalized practice of medicine. Clean water, good sewage systems and the automobile have been worth far more than a whole heap of overpaid doctors.

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@Setanta,

I agree with that although I might place the food supply above automobiles.

By inventing the water closet Sir John Harrington invented the modern city.

Take a look at Medical Nemesis by Ivan Illich.

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@Setanta,

True, Setanta, not cause and cure, I was imprecise.
Joe(I have no excuse)Nation

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@Setanta,

The Ghost Map was a good read.

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@spendius,

How sharp is that parsing knife of yours?

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Well Joe--I don't think society would collapse without religion. I think it would dramatically change character.

As in collapse, give it up.

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As someone who finds discipline irksome the change would place me in the ****.

I'm sure you would be fine, boyo.

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The discipline of religion is that of the light touch. It relies on persuasion and not on police.

Unless you are a Jew in Medieval Spain or 1930s Germany, unless you are a Catholic when there is a Protestant Queen or a Protestant when the Catholics re-arrive on the throne of England, unless you are amongst the millions of inhabitants of the New World who were all more than lightly persuaded.

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You are unharmed by rejecting it.

Unless you commit your apostasy in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan or Indonesia.

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And it is a belief in an "intervening supernatural being" rather than an actual ISB that I support.

So, will you be glad or disappointed if one, pardon me, One, appears?

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All other species are neither here nor there. It is the essence of Christianity that we are special as human beings. Tell me what aspects of, say, your sexual behavior, relates to that of any other species excluding the reflex once it has been triggered. It is the essence of atheism that we are not special.

Excellent. You have laid your finger upon the foremost error of religion. You're a special guy, Spendius, but you are not a member of a special species.

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Which other species, out of the myriads of them, has studied the evolution of life forms and its own physical and mental behavior?

I don't know but I suspect the jellyfish were first, they told the octopi and they passed the knowledge on to the dolphins, which is why none of them has come ashore.

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Which questions have our modern experts been too lazy to study and seek answers too?

The modern Christian ones have specifically blocked research into the use of stem cells against a myriad of diseases. There's more, but I have got to leave at the moment.

Joe(you are so much fun.)Nation

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@hingehead,

Cool, Boss . . . thanks for the recommendation.

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@Joe Nation,

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As in collapse, give it up.

You give it up Joe. Society won't be collapsing without some cosmic event. A dramatic change is nowhere near a collapse. The dramatic change you seek, to a completely secular society, has to be a big improvement for your side to make any sense at all. In a completely secular society religion has gone. It cannot be recovered. Completely means there's nobody left to recover it. All there is left to look up to is celebrity and the biggest celebrity of all is Big Brother. Which doesn't entail collapse at all. Simply an adjustment in mental attitudes which fm suggested so revealingly.

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Unless you are a Jew in Medieval Spain or 1930s Germany, unless you are a Catholic when there is a Protestant Queen or a Protestant when the Catholics re-arrive on the throne of England, unless you are amongst the millions of inhabitants of the New World who were all more than lightly persuaded.

I belong to none of those groups and thus don't feel qualified to speak for them. I'm quite persuaded, as I'm sure we all are, that it was all a dreadful shame. Are you trying to suggest that if we don't eradicate the Christian religion some of our fates would be like their's. Pull the other one Joe. They were evolutionary hurdles. Plagues of hysteria.

So--as I'm me and it's 2011 I will say it again---The discipline of religion is that of the light touch. It relies on persuasion and not on police.

And the same applies to--

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Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan or Indonesia.

who are a number of years behind us. They haven't had a proper civil war yet.

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So, will you be glad or disappointed if one, pardon me, One, appears?

I suppose I'll be glad to be able to get a few things off my chest about how He designed women.

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You're a special guy, Spendius, but you are not a member of a special species.

Oh but I am a member of a special species. And I was born and brought up in a special place and at a special time in a special epoch.

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I don't know but I suspect the jellyfish were first, they told the octopi and they passed the knowledge on to the dolphins, which is why none of them has come ashore.

Ace Joe. Loved it.

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The modern Christian ones have specifically blocked research into the use of stem cells against a myriad of diseases.

You are appealing to the disease paranoics with that. Shame on you. Intellectuals don't stoop to those well-tried tactics. As Rider Haggard said--"there's plenty more where they came from". But I see it as "holding up" rather than "blocking". Getting it properly considered before letting such technology loose. That some stem-cell research is going on means that there is obviously no blocking. I'm sure there are important considerations which are beyond the competence of the likes of you and me.

The World Health Assembly is today debating whether to destroy the last two samples of the smallpox virus which are being stored at great expense in very secure facilities. One supposes that those who undertake this responsibility are against destroying them. The science they have been used for has been perfected it seems and anyway, the claim is, the virus can be recreated from DNA stores if it is ever needed in the future. There hasn't been a known smallpox case for over thirty years. The virus has been declared extinct apart from the two samples. They are in a virus zoo. I presume there are a lot of such things.

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@Setanta,

almost 100 years before Snow was the experimental deduction by James Lind that scurvy was caused by the lack of vitamins C and B and often, an overabundance of vitamin A.Even though he had no idea what a "vitamin" even was His experimental work was carried into the field on Cook's HMS Resolution. Course, Cook, always the career move maker decided to get himself killed on his last voyage and the field tests he had with oranges, potatoes and saurkraut were lost on the test floor for another 30 years or so. However, epidemiological research was (IMHO) owing much to Linds pioneer use of experimentation. Unyil that point scurvy was thought to be caused by bad air and a number of conditions seen at sea.

Dr JAmes Lind
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Lind

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@farmerman,

One of the problems with identifying the source of scurvy was that even after it was assumed to be dietary, people were stumbling around in the dark. For example, in the early 19th century both John Ross and William Parry lead expeditions to find a northwest pasage, and both were highly praised because their men had not suffered scurvy. They had both used a great deal of fresh meat, and they both had used "portable soup." The lack of a sound methodology meant that people continued to assume that fresh meat could ward off scurvy. In both of those cases, the portable soup, canned foods used by both and the fresh meat had contributed enough to prevent a virulent outbreak of acute scurvy. Both of the had an interest in hiding any evidence of incipient scurvy, for sake of their reputations. The lack of a sound methodology, the lack of controls meant that little of real worth was discovered as far as concerned the cause of scurvy.

Dr. Snow's accomplishment was to have used a methodologically sound method to identify the vector for cholera. He didn't identify the disease organixm nor a cure, but his sound methodology identified drinking water as the vector.

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Don't tell me there's no proof for evolution

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