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

Another data point would be Ica stones:

I know, I know, Michael Shermer, Skeptic Magazine, and the yuppies in charge of Wikipedia have all declared these things to be fakes. Nonetheless the fact remains that carving ONE of these things would be a huge amount of work and that the original find of the things back in the 60s involved thousands of them, i.e. many man-years worth of work.

Who's going to do all that on speculation? I mean, there was no guarantee that gringos would pay money for the things at all.

0 Replies

Near as I can tell, John Whittaker wrote his smear piece in Skeptical Inquirer, and not any sort of a science journal. I don't see any real arguments for or against much of anything in Whittaker's writing, basically, just the usually blathering screed against crackpots and creationists. Moreover, I don't see any sort of a webpage which DeLoria might have wanted to put up or which any of his admirers might have put up by way of refutation of anything which Whittaker might have had to say By contrast, there actually ARE people who DeLoria viewed as worthy of going after, e.g.

http://www.thelongridersguild.com/deloria.htm

e.g. Paul Martin of 'overkill hypothesis' fame.

Clearly nobody on DeLoria's side of things ever took any notice of John Whittaker who, like our two resident blowhards here on A2K, appears to have been another blowhard and legend in his own mind.

0 Replies

AS I said before, Phil Deloria, a credible scholar, makes no apologies for his dad, but at the same time , he doesnt support anything, In fact, in his book "The Native Americans" They highlight Delorias quotes in text boxes while the REAL story is included in the main text. The point is that Deloria is highlighted as a "Nativist" who has tried to present these folk tales as truth (sort of like the Christian Bible).

As far as the ICA Stones. I havent heard about thse sice the Eric von Daniken Books . Dniken (the ole fraud) loved the ICa stones and , since about 20000 of these things were "found" by a few guys in one spot, the PEru govt arrested one of the dealers on the charges of "Illegally selling National Treasures"(A Peruvian version of Han van Meegeren painting and selling fake Vermeers to Hermann Goering).
So this guy (forgot name and Im not spending any time on your ridiculous proposition) recants and then tells the athorities that he actually carved the ICA stones witha Dremel tool. Some scholars inspected the stones in detail and found

A no patina in the carved lines, whereas there was a desrt varnish patina on the Andesite raw stones , (CONCLUSION__The carving post dated the desert varnish by a lot)

B Tool marks indicated that rotary carving tools were used to carve the stones(CONCLUSION__ Unless Dremel had a tool that ges back to Monte Verde, the perp was telling the truth)

How About the PAluxy Footprints or the Ogum standard texts in New Hampshire

0 Replies

I should probably ignore the blowhards here since all they really produce is hot air.

Here's another data point related to the question of dinosaurs in antique literature, and it doesn't come from the Americas. Louis Ginzberg's 7 volume Legends of the Jews is the largest body of midrashim ever translated into goyish languages like English or German and it used to be an exotic item which was difficult to get a look at, but at least the first volume can now be seen easily enough on Gutenberg:

http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext98/1lotj10.txt

The sections which describe the pre-flood world describe several animals which were rare and viewed as oddities at a time just prior to the flood, and a reasonable aassumption based on the descriptions is that several are leftover dinosaurs:

Quote:

[fabulous description of leftover sauropod]

Leviathan, ziz, and behemot are not the only monsters; there are many others, and marvellous ones, like the reem, a giant animal, of which only one couple, male and female, is in existence. Had there been more, the world could hardly have maintained itself against them. The act of copulation occurs but once in seventy years between them, for God has so ordered it that the male and
female reem are at opposite ends of the earth, the one in the east, the other in the west. The act of copulation results in the death of the male. He is bitten by the female and dies of the bite. The female becomes pregnant and remains in this state for no less than twelve years. At the end of this long period she gives birth to twins, a male and a female. The year preceding her
delivery she is not able to move. She would die of hunger, were it not that her own spittle flowing copiously from her mouth waters and fructifies the earth near her, and causes it to bring forth enough for her maintenance. For a whole year the animal can but roll from side to side, until finally her belly bursts, and
the twins issue forth. Their appearance is thus the signal for the death of the mother reem. She makes room for the new generation, which in turn is destined to suffer the same fate as the generation that went before. Immediately after birth, the one goes eastward and the other westward, to meet only after the lapse of seventy years, propagate themselves, and perish.[144] A traveller who once saw a reem one day old described its height to be four parasangs, and the length of its head one parasang and a half.[145] Its horns measure one hundred ells, and their height is a great deal ore.[146]

[leftover pterosaur]

...Again, in Tishri, at the time of the autumnal equinox, the great bird ziz[7] flaps his wings and utters his cry, so that the birds of prey, the eagles and the vultures, blench, and they fear to swoop down upon the others and annihilate them in their greed. ..

As leviathan is the king of fishes, so the ziz is appointed to
rule over the birds.[129] His name comes from the variety of
tastes his flesh has; it tastes like this, zeh, and like that,
zeh.[130] The ziz is as monstrous of size as leviathan himself.
His ankles rest on the earth, and his head reaches to the very
sky.[121]

It once happened that travellers on a vessel noticed a bird. As he stood in the water, it merely covered his feet, and his head knocked against the sky. The onlookers thought the water could not have any depth at that point, and they prepared to take a bath there. A heavenly voice warned them: "Alight not here! Once a carpenter's axe slipped from his hand at this spot, and it took it seven years to touch bottom." The bird the travellers saw was none other than the ziz.[132] His wings are so huge that unfurled they darken the sun.[133] They protect the earth against the storms of the south; without their aid the earth would not be able to resist the winds blowing thence.[134] Once an egg of the
ziz fell to the ground and broke. The fluid from it flooded sixty cities, and the shock crushed three hundred cedars. Fortunately such accidents do not occur frequently. As a rule the bird lets her eggs slide gently into her nest. This one mishap was due to the fact that the egg was rotten, and the bird cast it away
carelessly. The ziz has another name, Renanin,[135] because he is the celestial singer.[136] On account of his relation to the heavenly regions he is also called Sekwi, the seer, and, besides, he is called "son of the nest,"[137] because his fledgling birds break away from the shell without being hatched by the mother bird; they spring directly from the nest, as it were.[138] Like
leviathan, so ziz is a delicacy to be served to the pious at the end of time, to compensate them for the privations which abstaining from the unclean fowls imposed upon them.[139]

[creatures too big for the cages onthe ark]

...One animal, the reem, Noah could not take into the ark. On account of its huge size it could not find room therein. Noah therefore tied it to the ark, and it ran on behind.[34] Also, he could not make space for the giant Og, the king of Bashan. He sat on top of the ark securely, and in this way escaped the flood of
waters. Noah doled out his food to him daily, through a hole, because Og had promised that he and his descendants would serve him as slaves in perpetuity.[35]..

Most readers would assume that the references in the OT to Og, king of Bashan, were describing a human while, from this text, it becomes clear, they are describing a leftover super animal.

Misrashim are the full body of antique rabbinical literature. The Old Testament itself is a kind of an index to midrashim or a readers digest version of something like the compendium which Louis Ginzberg put together, which is why the tales of the OT often appear laconic, or to be telling large stories in few words.

0 Replies

perhaps also ironic. If you wish to call me a blowhard because I dont buy any of your sources as credible, blame it on things that have screwed me up. Things like education and experience. Ive been in the geology game close to 25 years and Ive never seen any field evidence of anything that youve spoken of. Geologists are fond of poking gasbags , so if such beasties were found they would be verified and the whole world stood on its ear and somebodies career would be made instantly. However such hasnt happened has it>

If there were any of these"left over" beasties (left over from what? try to explain your use of terms better), how come the uSGS or the academic world hasnt reported same. I get 3 major Journals that cover just geo (plus a bunch of others on econ and applied). You can view the contents of the Journal of paleo on line and nowhere has anyone reported any "leftover" hadrosaurs, pterosaurs, stegosaurs, tricerotops or protoceratops. NOWHERE. Does this mean that educated scientists are in some cabal , a collusion to keep the "truth" from reaching the readers of folklore ? I notice that you dont do a really good job of backing up your gungaplops. You driop them into a thread , and then when someone backs you against the corner, you just dreop that and turn to another fraud.
No, if you really wanna see an emptyheaded blowhard gunga, check a mirror.

0 Replies

farmerman wrote:

If there were any of these"left over" beasties (left over from what? try to explain your use of terms better), how come the uSGS or the academic world hasnt reported same.

It's a conspiracy maintained by the aliens who created life on this planet. Obviously. Smile

0 Replies

Quote:

The ziz has another name, Renanin,[135] because he is the celestial singer.[136] On account of his relation to the heavenly regions he is also called Sekwi, the seer, and, besides, he is called "son of the nest,"[137] because his fledgling birds break away from the shell without being hatched by the mother bird; they spring directly from the nest, as it were.[138] Like
leviathan, so ziz is a delicacy to be served to the pious at the end of time, to compensate them for the privations which abstaining from the unclean fowls imposed upon them.[139]

This sounds like a line from an M Knight Shamalyan movie. Is this what you call evidence? Do you spend a lot of time responding to these guys from Nigeria who want to share their fortunes with you? You soundlike one who's easily gulled.

0 Replies

OH yeh gunga. The ICA Stone that you presented at the top is, Im sure we all agree, a ceratopsian (like protoceratops, triceratops etc). All "topsian" dinosaurs are from the Northern Hemisphere and , since South America was separated during the breakup of Pangea, it has no ceratopsians (with the exception of a nomen dubium called notoceratops. Noto... was later found out to be a duck bill cause there werent enough bone segments at first, later digging found the parts that showed it wasactually bipedal.
So, the forgers who made up the ICA stones with protoseratops , probably had a picture of Roy Chapman ANdrews fossil reconstructions from the Gobi. They werent skilled enough to come up with something like giganotosaurus or ankylosaurus , which were native to the SOuth AMerican Mesozoic.

0 Replies

This is a lion:

http://home.globalcrossing.net/~brendel/javfulbd.jpg

Wait a second, that CAN'T be a lion since I've never been to Africa, can it??

http://www.webwhispers.org/newspics/jan04/Blowhard.jpg

0 Replies

gungasnake wrote:

aperson wrote:
Hello everybody. Happy new year.

My what a lovely little discusions we are having here.

It is not possible at the present time to have any sort of a rational or civil discussion with committed evolutionists, what you're seeing here is about as good as it gets. That is due to the nature of evolutionism, i.e. that it is not about science at all but rather about lifestyles. Nobody defends any sort of a science theory the way evolution is defended, i.e. at all costs, to the last man, the evidence be damned, and take no prisoners. Only religions and lifestyles are defended like that.

That's because it's common sense. Me, myself and I cannot see how any educated person can deny evolution.

Sorry Gunga, but I am supporting the evilutionists here. From what it seems, they are providing intelligent answers to your stupid questions.

And you don't exactly argue this neutrally either. The childish sarcasm doesn't help at all - it simply shows your immaturity and unwillingness to ever change your view, even when the evidence is stacked up against you.

0 Replies

aperson wrote:

That's because it's common sense. Me, myself and I cannot see how any educated person can deny evolution....

That's your basic problem.

0 Replies

Fine.

I am usually open minded, or try to be, (see my signiture) but this is one matter where I just cannot think of changing my mind. It's just pure intuition.

Give me some EVIDENCE. I want pure, straight, whole evidence. If you can't give me that, then you have no hope of changing my mind.

0 Replies

aperson wrote:

Fine.

I am usually open minded, or try to be, (see my signiture) but this is one matter where I just cannot think of changing my mind. It's just pure intuition.

Give me some EVIDENCE. I want pure, straight, whole evidence. If you can't give me that, then you have no hope of changing my mind.

I cant give you any evidence that God created the world 7000 years ago, I dont have any. I CAN give you overwhelming evidence that the theory of evolution, all current versions of it, is an ideological doctrine and a pseudoscience with no rational support.

The most basic argument against normal versions of it arises from a basic conception of logic and probabilities.

Take flying birds for example; suppose you aren't one, and you want to
become one. You'll need a baker's dozen highly specialized systems, including wings, flight feathers, a specialized light bone structure, specialized flow-through design heart and lungs, specialized tail, specialized general balance parameters etc.

For starters, every one of these things would be antifunctional until the day
on which the whole thing came together, so that the chances of evolving
any of these things by any process resembling evolution (mutations plus
selection) would amount to an infinitessimal, i.e. one divided by some gigantic number.

In probability theory, to compute the probability of two things happening
at once, you multiply the probabilities together. That says that the likelihood of all these things ever happening, best case, is ten or twelve such infinitessimals multiplied together, i.e. a tenth or twelth-order infinitessimal. The whole history of the universe isn't long enough for that to happen once.

All of that was the best case. In real life, it's even worse than that. In
real life, natural selection could not plausibly select for hoped-for functionality, which is what would be required in order to evolve flight feathers on something which could not fly apriori. In real life, all you'd ever get would some sort of a random walk around some starting point, rather than the unidircetional march towards a future requirement which evolution requires.

And the real killer, i.e. the thing which simply kills evolutionism dead, is the following consideration: In real life, assuming you were to somehow
miraculously evolve the first feature you'd need to become a flying bird, then by the time another 10,000 generations rolled around and you evolved the second such reature, the first, having been disfunctional - antifunctional all the while, would have DE-EVOLVED and either disappeared altogether or become vestigial.

Now, that was the case of flying birds, but similar considerations hold true for every basic kind of creature which ever swam, slithered, walked upon or flew over the Earth.

What that means is this. I could at least listen to a theory which required one probabilistic miracle or zero-probability event in the whole history of the Earth, but evolution requires an endless series of probabilistic miracles, i.e. it requires that we take everything we know about probability and logic and stand them on their heads.

Moreover, the new Gould/Eldridge version of evolution, punctuated equilibria, does not do anything for the logical conundrum other than make it worse. Having a flying bird arise in a week or a month instead of thousands of generations simply requires your tenth or twelth order infinitessimal to happen at a stroke.

I have friends who are atheists who refuse to believe in evolution and I have friends who have taught biology at university level who view evolution as a fairytale for grown people. The case against evolution is pretty overwhelming.

0 Replies

gungasnake wrote:

I cant give you any evidence that God created the world 7000 years ago, I dont have any.

Correct.

gungasnake wrote:

I CAN give you overwhelming evidence that the theory of evolution, all current versions of it, is an ideological doctrine and a pseudoscience with no rational support.

Incorrect.

I'd say that the best anyone can do to disprove what is accepted by the scientific community is disprove evolution with new evolution.

When an element of evolution is proven wrong, we default to how, not creationism. You make no case for use to accept creationism at all. At your own admission.

0 Replies

While such as gunga gunga claim to be able to give us "overwhelming evidence" for this, that, or the other evidently absurd proposition, why might it be that they produce no science, no testable hypothesis, no independently verifiable corroboration of their claims, no validation of their methodologies, but instead offer - without exception - only contrarian, crackpot, cockamamie claptrap? Might it be they actually are functionally, intellectually, unable to discern the difference? Might such as they be proof the human intellect is yet evolving, themselves providing evidence of genetically-sourced lesser cognitive development than is becoming evermore manifoldly presented in the overall larger general population? Perhaps such as they genetically are yet on the developmental road to becoming fully human, or, perhaps they represent an evolutionary dead-end, products of a genetic makeup that functions well enough to facillitate essetially parallel development up to a certain point beyond which they lack the means and ability with which to compete successfully in the gene-passing game?
Well, that's silly, of course - no reason to suspect it might be anything near the case.

And why might it be, when such as they find their propositions confronted and destroyed by logic, understanding, science and education, when their errors and absurdities are pointed out to them, just why might be so typical - to the point of stereotypicality - of their response, a near-universal resort to anger, invective, and pejoration directed equally to challenge and challenger, to wholly subjective claim of righteousnous unfairly beset by victimization imposed by malicious institutions, rather than to actually, objectively set about providing legitimate, academically sound, intellectually honest, scientifically valid support for whatever proposition they forward or rebuttal to whatever proposition they contest?
That isn't silly, it is the case, and it is sad.

0 Replies

I don't pipe up often here, but, hey, it's New Years. On these matters, Timber has spoken for me too many times to count.

There are people of different views on a2k who can't snap to with concise logical argumentation, on any side of any question. (Osso waves). And some have sort of sylphed to a pov which agrees with some folks on one side or another.

On these matters under discussion, I've only disagreed with Timber once, something about magisterium a year or two ago.

Just a quiet happy snowball to Timber on the New Year.

0 Replies

Gunga, you are an uneducated, ignorant fool. Naturally, you make friends with people who share your views. For every person out there who opposes evolution, there are ten more who believe in it.

Let me ask you this: if the evidence against evolution is overwhelming, then why is it taught universally in schools and colleges, accepted by the vast majority of scientists, and used to explain many things that cannot be explained without introducing some stupid concept - God?

Your view is based on your belief. Mine is based on REAL facts and evidence.

The mere proposition that all creatures were made at the same time is ridiculous. Are you saying that all primitive humans and all primitive species that have had their fossils dicovered existed together in the same ecosystem? Let alone dinosaurs and ancient plants and aquatic life.

You and those like you stain the name of your religion. I pity those who suffer from your foolishness.

0 Replies

Diest TKO wrote:

I'd say that the best anyone can do to disprove what is accepted by the scientific community is disprove evolution with new evolution.

When an element of evolution is proven wrong, we default to how, not creationism.....

So you basically assume evolution to 'prove' evolution?

I guess that puts you in famous company, at least.

Darwin had no evidence for evolution when he boarded the Beagle, but even his grandfather was already a believer in evolution and had written about it several decades earlier.

Now some will denigrate Grandpop Darwin's belief just because it was somewhat Lamarckian, but hey that's just details, right? He had the basic idea. He was assuming evolution, even if he didn't yet know HOW it occurred , he KNEW that IT HAD TO HAVE HAPPENED.

Evolution was becoming the 'in thing' for stylish intellectuals during Darwin's day...........all before he went out , and 'came back with proof of evolution'.

Darwin didn't go out 'a blank slate' and after a 'eureka moment' he suddenly saw the light.

No, he assumed evolution like he should have.

And what proof he obtained!

Several finches have different shaped beaks, for one thing! Why, if that doesn't prove evolution , I don't know what does!

Of course, if Darwin had been really observant, he would have already noticed that humans have different colors of skin , different shapes of heads, noses, ears and so forth, different characteristics in their teeth, different lengths of arms and legs, different muscle sizes...............

Why, we're just brimming with proof of evolution.

In one family over a period of just a few years, you might see evidence for evolution because different children born into that family may have different characteristics.

Who says you can't observe evolution? A tall boy born into a short family should be all the proof anyone needs, right?

Darwin didn't need no stinking finches. The proof was all around him the whole time.

0 Replies

real life wrote:

Diest TKO wrote:

I'd say that the best anyone can do to disprove what is accepted by the scientific community is disprove evolution with new evolution.

When an element of evolution is proven wrong, we default to how, not creationism.....

So you basically assume evolution to 'prove' evolution?

I guess that puts you in famous company, at least.

Straw man - no such claim as that you contest was presented.

Quote:

Darwin had no evidence for evolution when he boarded the Beagle, but even his grandfather was already a believer in evolution and had written about it several decades earlier.

Now some will denigrate Grandpop Darwin's belief just because it was somewhat Lamarckian, but hey that's just details, right? He had the basic idea. He was assuming evolution, even if he didn't yet know HOW it occurred , he KNEW that IT HAD TO HAVE HAPPENED.

Evolution was becoming the 'in thing' for stylish intellectuals during Darwin's day...........all before he went out , and 'came back with proof of evolution'.

Darwin didn't go out 'a blank slate' and after a 'eureka moment' he suddenly saw the light.

No, he assumed evolution like he should have.

So what - absolute non sequitur - irrelevant.

Quote:

And what proof he obtained!

Several finches have different shaped beaks, for one thing!

For one thing among many, many other things documented painstakingly in reams and reams of notes.

Quote:

Why, if that doesn't prove evolution , I don't know what does!

What you don't know you persistently take great care to make abundantly clear.

Quote:

Of course, if Darwin had been really observant, he would have already noticed that humans have different colors of skin , different shapes of heads, noses, ears and so forth, different characteristics in their teeth, different lengths of arms and legs, different muscle sizes...............

Why, we're just brimming with proof of evolution.

In one family over a period of just a few years, you might see evidence for evolution because different children born into that family may have different characteristics.

Who says you can't observe evolution? A tall boy born into a short family should be all the proof anyone needs, right?

Darwin didn't need no stinking finches. The proof was all around him the whole time.

Case in point. By such presents one justifiably may surmise you wear ignorance with pride.

0 Replies

Great post, timber.

RL: The Darwins were believers in evolution before Charles had collected any evidence.

timber: So what?

Yes, that pretty much sums up the typical attitude of the evolutionist. Evidence is secondary, only there as window dressing to be interpreted in SOME fashion for evolution which is the presupposition, whatever might be required to uphold it.

It is well known that evolution got it's modern start, not as a 'scientific theory' but as a philosophical position, without evidence.

But , so what? Evolutionists don't need no stinking evidence.

0 Replies

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

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know