quote: It's not unlike my response when people say "oh, if the value of e had been slightly different, or if the average spacing of stars was a bit different, or [insert property of the universe here] were slightly different, we wouldn't be here, so obviously god designed the universe such that life as we know it could exist in it." Well, no, that doesn't follow. [/QB]
definitely agree with you here. I don't think the fact that universal laws of physics support life proves anything and shouldn't be used as a proof that God exists.
quote:"In the absence of god, we would not be here if those conditions had not existed."
I still think it kind of overlooks the possibility that the Theory of Evolution is correct, but that our understanding of its early stages is incorrect. Of course, based on my earlier assertion that past events are unprovable, then it doesn't matter that much as long as the conclusion is correct because the rest is unprovable anyway. Of course, once we get to the point of space travel and terraforming planets, then it might be important. Now I'm just kind of rambling. I think I'm done now.
Posts: 1256 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
here's somthing I'm not so clear about. Evolution doesn't purport to know or describe how everyhing originaly started. It simply describes how things got to how they are today since that initial moment of creation or chance or whatever you think it is. So if you want to believe that it was God who started evolution, thats fine, or if you want to belive it was just random chance, thats fine too. The point is (and this was mentioned before) that the question of "why" is more appropriate for a philosophy, sociology, etc class than a science class. Evolution doesn't claim to have the "why" answer, where as ID theory does. And for this reason, it is not science, and should not be taught in a science class. No one is afraid of ID, we just do not feel as though it is appropriate to teach it in a science class, because that would be misleading to the students who don't know better. Evolution is a theory just like the sun rising is a theory. We know how the sun rises and what makes it rise, but if you go far back enough, there are still things we don't know (like where the initial particles came from that eventually formed the sun - or where the big bang came from that formed those particles). The same goes for evolution. It is a great theory that encapsulates everything we know about how species form and develop. But there is no theory of why who or what started evolution, it is just opinion. And that is what should be taught. Evolution is consistant with a belief in God, and a scientifically misleading theory like ID is unecessary.
Posts: 46 | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:That the evolution of modern life was guided solely though the mechanics of "natural selection" and not by any intelligence. This is not testable because we cannot go back in time and observe the mechanics of how life actually did evolve over millions of years, but it is part of the model, and the one part of the model that ID disagrees with.
Nope, big errors throughout here. Evolutionary theory does not state that life was solely guided through natural selection, not at all. It states that natural selection is an adequate, testable account for the progress of life, by which we mean (among other things) that our confidence in its accuracy may rise and fall depending upon newly revealed evidence and tests.
For instance, if someone comes up with something that natural selection does not appear to explain, this reduces the adequacy of the explanation, and the test of natural selection is if an adequate explanation through natural selection may be uncovered.
Its completely scientifically testable.
quote:You just said "that mutations are aptly modeled by a random variable derived from testable measurements is evidence in support of mutations being random, and not in support of mutations being caused by a supernatural being." This is a way in which evolution is random, isn't it?
Two things: first, if you are accepting my statement, you are giving up on your argument that all the evidence is equally supportive of ID and evolutionary theory. Thank you .
Also, the modelability of something being a random variable, which does support that something being random, does not mean a theory using that notion is saying the something is random. It is saying if we treat that notion as random we may a) test the adequacy of this randomness as an explanation and b) use this tested random model as a basis for further conclusions on other things. This is the difference between a scientific evidence and any sort of more general evidence -- scientific evidence supporting something is talking about how we can treat it within science, coming from scientific principles that have been long established to maintain the entire framework of science as testable and relatively closely tied to practicality.
quote:And philosophy doesn't attempt to be useful? Science is just philosophy using a certain method of reasoning and experimentation, which both improves the strength of its claims and limits the scope of things over which it can make such claims
Some philosophy attempts to be useful. More generally, though, much of philosophy attempts to generate thoughts which are of little use to anyone. Its still worth it because philosophy occasionally hits on something that's quite worthwhile.
However, the primary bit is I was largely using useful as a shorthand for what you expanded, as that is a sense useful can be meant in. And as you have noted, it doesn't just improve the strength of its claims, it changes the character of claims which can be made within the system. It is impossible to make a scientific claim that there is something which has neither testable existence nor testable effect (verifying in some small part its existence) on any testable phenomenon. Its just an eliminated possibility.
This is the fundamental problem with ID as science -- the existence of a "superior being" is given neither a larger nor smaller confidence value no matter what tests we run. Given that, it is not scientific, since it is untestable.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by fugu13: Given that, it is not scientific, since it is untestable.
Ding! And this is precisely why, as a scientist, I think ID "theory" is nonsense.
Which is not to say that I don't discuss God in my science classroom. I certainly do. I believe that studying the world is a way to gain insight into the Mind of God.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
do you think that it is fair to include your ideology into a science class, where i assume you are teaching may impressionable youth? or do you also give creedence to other faiths, as well as ideologies?
Posts: 46 | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I see... so we're talking about a case of preaching to the converted?
I went to a catholic school until grade 9, and I never believed in God, but my science teachers also never told me that God was behind all science when I was younger, and maybe would have been more easily manipulated.. I don't know if I'd appreciate science teachers (even at religious schools) preaching their faiths.
Posts: 46 | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:I see... so we're talking about a case of preaching to the converted?
No, we're talking about teaching young people to examine the world through many different lenses and to bring their different perspectives together into a consistent worldview, rather than attempt to compartmentalize the scope of human reason into neat little boxes.
quote:I don't know if I'd appreciate science teachers (even at religious schools) preaching their faiths.
Then clearly a religious school isn't for you.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I like that response, Dag, especially with the second part. I at first thought you were implying that ID in public schools was at attempt at this (which it may be, but I'm doubtful). I think it's laudable for a religious school to teach their philosophy as it relates to all subjects. I just think this is impractical in a public school science class. I'd have no problem having a humanities class in public school that tried to teach the formation of a comprehensive and consistent world view.
Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
If he is indeed teaching many different faiths' and ideologies' points of vue, then that is great. But if you are restricting your teaching to one faith in a science class, and using the power that science has to manipulate children into believing in your worldview (hence not letting them form their own), I have a problem with that.
Like i said, I went to a religious school (2 of them actually), and at this school they were clear to seperate science and faith, i.e. we had religion class, and science class as we got older (or science and religion period), as teachers were aware that is it wrong to use your influence as a teacher to preach your ideology to the kids. I also lived in Quebec (canada) where the majority of the teachers at my french school were seperatist, but they never talked about this ideology of theirs to us students, as many of us were not seperatists (or our parents more accurately) and they didn't want to use their authority as teachers to push their views. The same should go for religion.
Posts: 46 | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by KarlEd: I like that response, Dag, especially with the second part. I at first thought you were implying that ID in public schools was at attempt at this (which it may be, but I'm doubtful). I think it's laudable for a religious school to teach their philosophy as it relates to all subjects. I just think this is impractical in a public school science class. I'd have no problem having a humanities class in public school that tried to teach the formation of a comprehensive and consistent world view.
Not all children attending religious school are themselves religious. Most of the time it is their parents forcing them to go there, or because of location. With this in mind, why should they be manipulated into a certain set of beliefs?
Posts: 46 | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Not all children attending religious school are themselves religious. Most of the time it is their parents forcing them to go there, or because of location. With this in mind, why should they be manipulated into a certain set of beliefs?
The same can be said about public schools. Not all children that attend public schools are atheists. I think the schools do a pretty good job the way it is, and from some of the responses here, it sounds like teachers are pretty fair and honest about what they are teaching. The experiences given on this thread also show that many people have changed their beliefs or are willing to change their beliefs. The important thing is that schools teach children to learn how to think themselves and not to rely on other people's opinions.
Posts: 1256 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
exaclty. to not mention god in schools is not to teach an atheist perspective. an atheist perspective would be to teach that there is no god. so what i think is appropriate is for the type of thing you said to happen.
Posts: 46 | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
On the other hand, it is the responsibility of a parent to teach their children and to instill in them the values that will make them happy and successful. Why should a parent be expected to support the teaching of something they do not, themselves, believe? Or something they believe to be a lie?
I personally would not send my (theoretical) child to a religious school, or if one was the only option for a decent education I would make sure to temper the religious indoctrination as much as possible, much like religious parents are expected to do with philosophical issues they may disagree with in public school teachings. However, if a religious school chooses to teach science as it applies to a God-created universe, I have no problem with that as long as they are not receiving public funds to do so. If the actual science they are taught is actually sub-standard, well, that should become apparent when those children move into the public sector (either college or a job in a scientific field). If they can't perform in the scientific world, then I guess that school wouldn't be a good choice for scientifically minded religious people to send their children.
As for teaching children in general, there is almost nothing in this world that someone wouldn't classify as propaganda from one camp or another. Why should they be manipulated into accepting your beliefs above those of their parents?
Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
| IP: Logged |
quote: would like to volunteer to make pirate garb for anyone who wishes to help stem global warming but cannot afford the proper attire.
RAmen.
Really, kq? I want to look like a pirate wench, but a fairly well covered one so hubby doesn't try to keep me home.
Posts: 2711 | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote: I just think this is impractical in a public school science class. I'd have no problem having a humanities class in public school that tried to teach the formation of a comprehensive and consistent world view.
I agree. I do wish there was some kind of class that focused on the philosophical aspects of science. But it would be a philosophy class, not a science class.
quote:If he is indeed teaching many different faiths' and ideologies' points of vue, then that is great. But if you are restricting your teaching to one faith in a science class, and using the power that science has to manipulate children into believing in your worldview (hence not letting them form their own), I have a problem with that.
Fortunately, private schools don't have to organizae themselves according to what you or I have a problem with. I see nothing wrong with accurate science being taught in a religious school, and, in the same class, saying, "What are the implications of theory A for doctrine 1?"
quote:Not all children attending religious school are themselves religious. Most of the time it is their parents forcing them to go there, or because of location. With this in mind, why should they be manipulated into a certain set of beliefs?
Could you please drop the loaded language ("manipulation")? It's rather rude, especially since you haven't even tried to make a case to support your claim that it is manipulation.
Science is separate from religion. It does not mean that neither has anything to say relevant to the other. One of the advantages of private schools is that we don't have to exclude a major portion of most people's worldviews from discussion, because the school can be selected based on religion. This would not be feasible at this scale in a public school.
For science to be taught well, it has to be taught as science, not religion. But a good teacher, making the distinctions clear, will only improve their children's minds by encouraging cross-disciplinary discussion, especially when most of the students have more beliefs in common than not.
There's no equal time doctrine in a private school.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Does anyone really think that ID would, or would need to, get more class time than one single class period discussing that fact that these theories exist, and that none presented are conclusive, but since there is more science on evolution, we will teach what we know about it here?
They're not talking about having an entire curriculum based on ID, most likely a single lesson that mentioned that, "These are additional theories as to how it All Began".
That being said, I really don't see the Big Flopping Deal. ID proponents get their message across, and Big Bangers/Evolutionists still get their theories taught (and at far greater length).
Everybody is equally appeased and pissed off. It's the great American compromise.
Posts: 2689 | Registered: Apr 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
And would you see the Big Flopping Deal if the Flat-Earth types were allowed to get their message across? Also, I suggest you Google for 'WEdge document', it might interest you.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by fugu13: Given that, it is not scientific, since it is untestable.
Ding! And this is precisely why, as a scientist, I think ID "theory" is nonsense.
Which is not to say that I don't discuss God in my science classroom. I certainly do. I believe that studying the world is a way to gain insight into the Mind of God.
rivka,
For me, you have summed up this entire thread, and every argument I've heard about the issue, your wonderfully succinct post.
I would go further to say that any other view of the situation strikes me as inherently perverse. The extremes either ignore the possibility of God (for what can ultimately only BE personal reasons) or ascribe to God a penchant for deception.
I submit that science is as much a tool of expanding faith as scripture is. To me, sometimes, even moreso.
And I think that's amazing and marvelous.
Just as an aside, I would like to point out that Occam's Razor works well within the limits of the data. For the "ultimate questions" there are no ready criteria upon which to peg our judgements of "simplest" explanation. It's also worth pointing out that sometimes things are a lot more complex than we first imagined them to be.
I promote, wherever possible, TC Chamberlain's Method of Multiple Working Hypotheses. That encourages us to reserve judgement and think of all the many ways that a result could be obtained and it discourages us from holding pet theories even in the face of contrary evidence.
Belle, I agree with all of your reasoning.
I disagree about macro-evolution, though. I think the differences between species are genetically so slight, and the phenotypes so radically altered by small genetic alterations, it's not a huge stretch at all to see how speciation could occur through natural selection acting on individuals.
Time and available niches are all that's needed.
And the explosions in new species formation recorded in the fossil evidence seem to line up dramatically well with availability of niches.
I look at it this way: 1) assume a reasonably constant rate of mutation 2) assume two states: normal times with all niches generally "filled" versus "crisis" times with a sudden expansion of the variety and availability of environmental niches.
Natural selection makes a very neat and easy to follow prediction: Some of the vast number of mutations that would've been fatal in normal times turn out to be beneficial in times of crisis. The result is that a few critters bread more viable offspring in the new setting than they would've in the old. They are now a bud on the evolutionary branch. That's all it takes. They grow ever more different from the parent species because while they go one way, the parent goes another. It's not all that difficult to get to a point where they can't interbreed and thus are technically new species.
If you start far enough back in time, it's not that hard to imagine lineages that come from a parental multicellular critter becoming anything: fish, fowl, mammal or reptile.
What I've heard you argue against in the past is a kind of macro evolution that isn't proposed in the Science of Evolution at all. No-one says that a cat became a bird. We're not looking at modern species and saying "let's turn this into that."
While that might be possible or even likely under the right conditions, what we're really saying is that a proto-vertebrate species split millions of years ago to become mammals and birds and from those lines arose modern cats and modern birds.
Macroevolution and microevolution are exactly the same and, really, believing in one is believing in the other, and disbelieving one is disbelieving the other. The mechanism doesn't stop functioning just because the perceived gap is larger. It just takes more time (which we've had a lot of in the past) and a knowledge of the starting point and conditions along the way.
Anyway, I think a situation in which microevolution is true, but macroevolution isn't is about the least likely scenario of all that have been discussed.
(And yes, I know there are scientists who believe this...I just think they are dead wrong and have misconstrued either the timeframes, the precursors, and/or the mechanisms involved.)
However, you are right to say that evidence of microevolution does not prove the truth of macroevolution. It does, however, provide support for the mechanism being one that COULD do the job and the alternatives have a much harder time with the body of evidence.
I think mitochondrial DNA are about as good an example of irreducable a complexity as one could hope for in biological entities. And they are a gold-mine for estimating the relative "distances" between species (in terms of ticks of the evolutionary "clock" or number of branchings between them on the bush of life). The actual time estimates may be off, but the relative estimates (this happened before that) are probably pretty accurate. So...this wonderful, irreducibly complex thing is really a roadmap of the prior history and relationships among species.
posted
I didn't read through the entire thread, but has anyone brought up water mammals and their place in the evolutionary line?
Posts: 162 | Registered: Dec 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Uh, what do you mean? Nobody has brought them up, but they aren't particularly relevant except as yet another example of a situation well explained by evolutionary theory.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Clarifier: do you think that it is fair to include your ideology into a science class, where i assume you are teaching may impressionable youth? or do you also give credence to other faiths, as well as ideologies?
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: Rivka teaches at a religious school, I believe.
Dags is correct. And the year that I taught in a non-religious school, I only mentioned my religious beliefs when I was directly questioned about them -- and usually not on class time.
quote:Originally posted by Clarifier: I see... so we're talking about a case of preaching to the converted?
Who's preaching? Most of the time it's brief, and often fairly flippant. My students and I share a religious background (for the most part) and speak a common language. (However, while I believe God-guided evolution is the most likely scenario, most of them come from what KoM might refer to as young-earth-creationist homes, and that is the official party line at the school. Therefore, I am careful when discussing evolution to use such phrases as "many scientists believe.")
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: No, we're talking about teaching young people to examine the world through many different lenses and to bring their different perspectives together into a consistent worldview . . . Then clearly a religious school isn't for you.
Agreed, on both points.
quote:Originally posted by KarlEd: I think it's laudable for a religious school to teach their philosophy as it relates to all subjects. I just think this is impractical in a public school science class. I'd have no problem having a humanities class in public school that tried to teach the formation of a comprehensive and consistent world view.
I agree with that too.
quote:Originally posted by Clarifier: If he is indeed teaching many different faiths' and ideologies' points of vue, then that is great. But if you are restricting your teaching to one faith in a science class, and using the power that science has to manipulate children into believing in your worldview (hence not letting them form their own), I have a problem with that.
Firstly, she. Second of all, excuse me? These are intelligent high school students, and for the most part quite willing to argue with anything they disagree with. I am far more likely to get grief from them when I "preach" scientific "doctrine" than anything else. That's when it's really useful to have a similar religious background -- because a fair number of their objections can be answered with statements from the Torah (especially if you include the Talmud).
quote:Originally posted by Clarifier: Not all children attending religious school are themselves religious. Most of the time it is their parents forcing them to go there, or because of location. With this in mind, why should they be manipulated into a certain set of beliefs?
Any student attending our school (with a rigid and rigorous dress code, and various other rules which are enforced) is highly unlikely to be doing so unless they want to be there. There are other options in town for those who are less religious. And I really object to your characterization of my teaching methods as manipulation.
quote:Originally posted by twinky:
quote:I believe that studying the world is a way to gain insight into the Mind of God.
Are you intentionally referencing Stephen Hawking here? If so, nicely done!
Nope, sorry. I'm actually not much of a Hawking fan . . .
quote:Originally posted by Bob_Scopatz: rivka,
For me, you have summed up this entire thread, and every argument I've heard about the issue, your wonderfully succinct post.
I would go further to say that any other view of the situation strikes me as inherently perverse. The extremes either ignore the possibility of God (for what can ultimately only BE personal reasons) or ascribe to God a penchant for deception.
I submit that science is as much a tool of expanding faith as scripture is. To me, sometimes, even moreso.
quote:Originally posted by fugu13: Uh, what do you mean? Nobody has brought them up, but they aren't particularly relevant except as yet another example of a situation well explained by evolutionary theory.
Well, it never really made much sense to me. Did animals go onto land and then some mammals went back into the water, or did some fish just evolve fully developed air-breathing systems in one generation?
Posts: 162 | Registered: Dec 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Not all children attending religious school are themselves religious. Most of the time it is their parents forcing them to go there, or because of location. With this in mind, why should they be manipulated into a certain set of beliefs?
Then your problem is with the parents, not rivka or her school.
If the kids object to being "manipulated" by their education, they only have their parents to blame.
Posts: 4116 | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Sigh. The former. There is a very fine pathway between gills and lungs, you know.
But why bother going back into the water?
Did they have to devolve their legs, or did they just never have them? Or did they have some anti-amphibian stage where instead of getting legs and losing fins, they were getting fins and losing legs?
Again, why? Was it better to go to land in the first place? Was it better to go back to the water again? Why didn't everyone go back to the water?
Posts: 162 | Registered: Dec 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Oh dear, I feel an "If we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys" argument coming on. Animals went back into the water because there was room for them, as there hadn't been for their ancestors sixty million years earlier. Conditions do change, you know. And not everybody went back into the water, because some were doing just fine on land. Species don't plan out these things, each individual beastie just does whatever it feels like. As for the legs, yes, they re-evolved into fins. About 1% of whales are still born with vestigial legs, actually.
Also, you don't have to assume that it was actually better to go back to the water. It's entirely possible that the cousin-line that stayed on land did better in the end. So what? Evolution doesn't find the best path, it finds any path that works.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
To be brutally honest, I was being particularly annoying with my questions because, in reality, I've never gotten a straight and honest answer from anyone on that question. (Amazingly enough, I would also have accepted "We just don't know that" as well... I tend to answer a lot of God questions like that)
In case it wasn't glaringly obvious, I'm a Creationist. As for Young Earth v. Evolution, I try my best not to touch that argument. Whether the 7 days in Genesis are literal days or poetic (or both), God is still God.
Edit: As long as you mention "if we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?", here's another question: were there missing links, and where are they?
(I like asking tough questions) This isn't really evolution-related, but can you explain fossil graveyards and mass deposits of fossil fuels? (They may not be mass deposits any more, with gas creeping toward $3/gallon)
Posts: 162 | Registered: Dec 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Well, yes, there were missing links, and we've dug up a lot of 'em. Australopithecines, H. habilis, H. erectus. The thing is, every time the scientists dig up a new species, B, intermediate between two others A and C, two things happen :
a) That link isn't missing anymore. b) The creationists begin screaming for links between A and B, and between B and C.
As for fossil graveyards and fossil fuels, I don't know what the question is, so I can't answer it. Could you explain what you see as the problem?
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Well, they're there, and there's not much to explain why. How can a ridiculous variety of animals from all kinds of places and climates come together and fossilize in the same area multiple times?
And fossil fuels aren't exactly an every-day thing. It takes a lot of organic material and a lot of pressure, and there are some pretty huge deposits of fossil fuels.
Posts: 162 | Registered: Dec 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
There's really no such thing as a "missing link" -- evolutionary theory combined with our knowledge of fossilization predicts we won't be able to find examples of every transitional form, so that we don't find something isn't particularly astonishing, nor required that we find the things in order for evolutionary theory to provide a reasonable account -- but its important to understand that transitional form is just a term we use for forms we don't see much of that seem to come between the actually rather arbitrary groupings of species (the notion of a species itself being a very hazy and arbitrary thing) we've made.
That is, its perfectly reasonable to view literally every species ever in existence as a transitional form -- while populations may have periods of comparable genetic stability, they'll almost certainly be in circumstances they will adapt differently to at some point.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Vid: as for the first, they don't, really. Do you have links to any examples of what you're alleging? Some environments are much more conducive to fossilization that others -- for instance, when we dig where there were ancient tar pits, we find lots of fossils, something perfectly well explained by tar tending to trap and kill animals in ways conducive to eventual fossilization. Nothing mysterious at all. Similarly for certain swamplike environments (which nowadays are more commonly desert-like).
As for fossil fuels, see: billions of years of plants. That's a lot of organic biomatter, more than you seem to be conceiving of. Imagine all the plants covering the earth -- times several hundred million (depending on what the average age of a plant by volume is).
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
But at the same time, you have to admit that there's just as good a possibility of them not being there. I'll explain: God created everything in perfect working order, and instead of waiting 800 million bajillion years for everything to work itself out, He created it as it would be 10,000 years ago. Either that or he did create it 800 million bajillion years ago, and gave us the Genesis account for purely poetic and educational reasons. That said, I think the point is moot.
That is, it all comes down to faith. What we know: everything is in perfect working order right now. What we choose to believe: either it is all random, or it was call put into place by God. (Or aliens planted human life on earth, but I don't think that one would get many votes)
Posts: 162 | Registered: Dec 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm at work, so I can't go into deep research, but the first site I found from searching "fossil graveyards" on Google was pretty good. Obviously, any site on Creation is going to be biased against Evolution; but likewise, any site on Evolution is going to be biased against Creation. (See my last post on faith )
Posts: 162 | Registered: Dec 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Perfect working order, hah; have you looked at the 'design' of the human eye, or brain, lately? A more kludged-up abortion it is hard to conceive of, at least if it's going to actually work.
I see fugu beat me to the fossil graveyards, perhaps because the term is apparently mainly used by creationists - which rather suggests to me that there ain't no such animal, at least in the form you suggest with 'a ridiculous variety'. Talkorigins has this as a claim. Moreover, if you're going to assert rapid burial, you're going to have to explain why fossils in most places occur in layers sorted by age.
Also, evolution is anything but random; only mutations are random.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:But at the same time, you have to admit that there's just as good a possibility of them not being there. I'll explain: God created everything in perfect working order, and instead of waiting 800 million bajillion years for everything to work itself out, He created it as it would be 10,000 years ago.
Of what value is this belief to any discussion of evolution? It's completely untestable. And how is the possibility "just as good" when only one of the two views has supporting evidence?
So no, I don't have to admit anything of the kind, because I don't have to admit that god "gave us the Genesis account." Since I don't believe in god, I should hope I'm allowed to discuss evolution without having to accept Genesis as anything remotely resembling evidence.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
As for your site, dear me, what a strawman. Of course they find mammals and dinosaurs together; mammals evolved from dinosaurs, and only became dominant after the comet, or whatever it was, wiped out the big beasties that were taking up all the big-animal niches. Here's the guy who actually found these things :
quote:Q: So he found mammals as well?
A: Yes. Mammals were part of the dramatic finds that the Andrews expedition uncovered. They weren't the biggest things; a lot of these mammals are little, nugget-sized creatures, but they were very, very important to science, because at that time we knew virtually nothing about mammals that old -- mammals so old that they lived alongside of the dinosaurs, nearly 100 million years ago.
(...)
But you'd have to say that during the Mesozoic [about 120-140 million years ago], many of these mammals seemed to be rather inauspicious creatures. They were all rather small, somewhat shrew- or mouselike, somewhat limited in their range of habits.
Full interview here. Nice quote mining there; to anyone not acquainted with the facts of the case, it looks very like people have been finding elks and T Rex intermingled. That is really a quite dishonest argument. For the rest of the page, fugu answered it already, so I won't.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I don't know if you noticed the "Intelligent Design" in the title, but I figured I'd do my best to represent that half of the discussion.
And would you please give me the supporting evidence you have of a totally random beginning to existence?
KoM: Are you seriously trying to discredit the design of the eye and brain? You might as well try to discredit the design of the atom. The point I was making there was that there is still existence.
Posts: 162 | Registered: Dec 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Also, evolution is anything but random; only mutations are random.
Evolution isn't random? I'm not going to jump to conclusions, I'm just going to point out some thesaurus antonyms of random: ordered, systematic, designed, intended, intentional, planned, premeditated. I don't know if those are words you want to be throwing around when we're discussing intelligent design Posts: 162 | Registered: Dec 2004
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Okay. Yes, it definitely assumes that our understanding is correct.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
