So this past weekend, we had the Midwest Science of Origins conference here in Morris, Minnesota. At precisely the same time, about 190 miles north-north-east of us, in Bemidji, Minnesota, a team of lying clowns from the Institute for Creation Research were repeating the same bullshit that provoked our students to organize our conference. I hope the Bemidji State biology faculty were paying attention, and that their students are right now planning some remedial education for the community; I’d be happy to help if they want to contact me.
It was a seminar titled “Rebuilding the Foundation: Demolishing the Pillars of Evolution”, and it was held in Bemidji High School. How embarrassing for Bemidji. How typical of creationists, though.
The seminar, consisting of six hour-long presentations, was presented by the Institute of Creation Research out of Texas and led by John Morris and Nathaniel Jeanson.
This is just weird, but they’re always doing it, and I don’t get it. It was the same thing last year here in Morris; Terry Mortenson of AiG showed up and did these back-to-back lectures, while refusing to answer questions (he claimed to have a sore throat…which didn’t interfere with 7 hour long lectures).
I see we missed an opportunity. We should have just told Neil Shubin to come here and spend all day talking. Unfortunately, when you’re talking science, it’s actually hard work and you have to back up everything with evidence and demonstrate some rigor and care; when you’re a creationist, it’s easier because all you have to do is make stuff up non-stop.
You might be wondering who these two guys are.
Morris has a doctorate of geological engineering and has led 13 expeditions to Mt. Ararat in search of Noah’s ark. Jeanson has a Ph.D. in cell and development biology from Harvard Medical School.
First, when your most notable contribution to “science” is haring off to chase down myths, you ought to be laughed off the stage. Morris is a deluded charlatan.
And Jeanson…he’s an embarrassment to Harvard. I’ve described Jeanson’s competence before — he’s a guy with an undergraduate degree in bioinformatics, who lectures creationists on genomics, who knew nothing about how the chimpanzee genome sequence was acquired or how it compared to the human sequence.
Students generally are taught evolution theory in early high school, Cairns [Steve Cairns is the superintendent of schools!] said.
“But it is expressed as a fact,” Penni Cairns said. She said students raised on Creationism concepts can be confused and frustrated with evolution theory teachings because their beliefs are shot down by teachers following educational guidelines.
Yes, I’m sure that is frustrating to have your superstitions constantly shot down by reality.
“There are so many unexplained aspects of evolution, such as the missing links,” he said.
In Morris’ morning session, “The Fossil Record: A Problem for Evolution,” he showed images of fossils that mirrored the images of the animals that exist today: A 200-million-year-old crocodile is still a crocodile, a 300-million-year-old dragonfly is still a dragonfly, a 65-million-year-old bat is still a bat.
Cairns keeps trumpeting his ignorance in this article. Why is he superintendent of schools again?
Harun Yahya also makes this argument — it’s about the only thing he says over and over again. Let’s show a picture of a fossil and a contemporary organism to someone who wouldn’t know a femur from a cercal bristle, and they’ll happily say that they look exactly the same. Meanwhile, someone who actually knows some systematics and anatomy will look at the 200-million-year-old crocodile and immediately spot the differences that make it a unique species.
And yes, it certainly is true that there were dragonflies 300 million years ago, and there are dragonflies today; it’s a successful form. It doesn’t follow that organisms separated by a third of a billion years of time are indistinguishable from one another, or that we ought to be surprised about it. What matters is that we have change over time: there were no T. rexes in the Triassic, and there are no T. rexes today, but there were T. rexes in the Cretaceous. The existence of successful taxa that span that range of years does not negate the reality of change.
He also showed pictures of actual fossils that show, in his interpretation, how animals died catastrophic, sudden deaths. Fish died in sediment-filled waters; land-dwelling animals drowned. He showed pictures of dinosaurs fossilized with their heads arched backward and up, saying they were struggling to find air, but were drowning.
“Every dinosaur fossil is like that,” he said.
No, they’re not…but it’s true that a lot are. It is silly to claim that opisthotonus (the arched neck in those fossils) is always a consequence of drowning; there are multiple possible mechanisms behind it. But it’s even sillier to claim that all of the dinosaurs not only died of the same cause, but died in the same cataclysmic event over the course of one year. It’s like noting that some human skeletons show evidence of fatal cuts, bludgeoning, or gunshots, therefore they all died in the American Civil War, which was global and explains all violent deaths in all of history.
But of course, Henry Morris is an idiot.
He also argued against evolution by saying that there is no hard evidence that shows one creature evolving into another. If a fish did turn into an amphibian, there would be a “missing link” or transitional fossils proving such steps. Yet none exist.
At the very same time that Morris was making that stupid claim, Neil Shubin was pulling out a cast of Tiktaalik, a transitional form in the process of fish evolving into amphibians, and showing it to a room of 200 people in Morris.
“Yet none exist.” Lying dumbass.
But OK, world. Any students out there shopping for colleges right now? Are you looking at Bemidji State University vs. University of Minnesota Morris? I think the smart choice is crystal clear.
But then, I expect someone at the university will soon come roaring back with a strong response. I’m looking forward to it.
P.S. One other odd thing about that article. It keeps touting “Intelligent Design”, and Cairns is promoting the inclusion of Intelligent Design creationism in public schools. Yet the talks are by the ICR, a specifically young-earth-creationist organization that believes the earth is less than ten thousand years old and that all of geology can be explained by a global flood, patently religious claims that the Discovery Institute tries mightily to sweep under the carpet in their pretense of being a secular, scientific organization. Somebody has apparently looked at the claims of both and can’t tell the difference. Which is not surprising.
(Also on Sb)
It turns out there is a letter from a Bemidji State University professor in that newspaper. It’s not what I expected.
Although I don’t work in the lab, I am the local professor who teaches epidemiology to undergraduate and graduate students throughout the state. In this capacity, I know of no one doubting the mutative action of skin-invading bacteria. But that’s a far cry from going from nothing to everything. Macro-evolution appears unable to explain the Irreducible Complexity of life as we observe it.
This conference, Saturday at the BHS auditorium, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., presents a wonderful opportunity to engage in civil and respectful discourse on a very foundational subject.
An epidemiologist who doesn’t understand evolution and thinks young earth creationism is reasonable — how strange and unfortunate. It’s not surprising at all that Karl Salscheider emphasizes civility and respect in his letter, though; when you’ve got nothin’ of any substance, pound that drum demanding respect for your superstition equal to that given to hard-won science.
And yet these all reveal derivative relationships with other life-forms in the expected evolutionary relationships–as, why do bats have wings that are highly-modified mammalian forelimbs, and not adaptations of, say, bird-wings, or pterosaur wings?.
Hm, let’s think about that. Oh no, all you’re interested in doing is in not thinking about that, while bringing up meaningless tripe related to the tacit fact that taphonomy and geology are hell on the fossil record.
Glen Davidson
SIX-HOURS-LONG presentations about creationism? That sounds like absolute agony: a bunch of die-hard ideologues ranting, raving, droning, and Gish-galloping, just to pretend they have six hours of material, and probably also just to hog time and attention and keep anyone else from saying anything.
It sounds like another version of that sixty-five-page speech in “Atlas Shrugged:” some long-winded fool who keeps on talking because he’s terrified that the minute he shuts up, someone else will start talking and everything he said will vanish forever.
Granted, you need to look closely to find differences between 300-million-year-old dragonflies and today’s. But 200-million-year-old crocodiles looked like this and this. Finally, no 65-million-year-old bats are known, and none may ever have existed; the only known 55-million-year-old bat famously looked like this.
Yep, like who is so stupid he can’t tell frogs and salamanders apart.
Oh yes those old dragonflies were exactly the same…except for that little fact that they were a lot bigger due to the difference in their environment.
So are roaches modified mantids or are mantids modified roaches? I mean, evolution has an answer for this but I’m curious as to the creationist’s.
This is a lie or this epidemiologist is an idiot, or both.
Germ Theory of Disease deniers are common.
The most prominent and vocal are the HIV/AIDS denialists. The ones who ahe HIV+ routinely die…of AIDS. This has happened so often that they are running out of deniers still alive.
The other common type of Germ Theory deniers are the anti-vaccine groups.
So how closely do modern pterosaurs resemble those of 100 million years ago?
Looks like your best hope is being contacted by some Bemidji State biology students who are right now planning some remedial education for the Bemidji State biology faculty.
“John Morris has led 13 expeditions to Mt. Ararat in search of Noah’s ark.”
For John Morris it’s 1 April every day of the year.
http://rambambashi.wordpress.com/2009/04/21/common-errors-2-ararat/
He doesn’t even know how to read his favourite book …..
Guys, I think you meant “but”, not “and”.
“But of course, Henry Morris is an idiot.”
No no, he is a stupid:
http://rambambashi.wordpress.com/2010/04/27/noahs-ark/
Compromise: John Morris is a stupid idiot.
Once you dig down and realize how much of the intelligent design doggerel was taken from creationist tracts with the serial numbers filed off, it becomes obvious that despite their denials, many (if not all) ID proponents are young earth creationists in disguise. They just know that they can’t pass off YE creationism as legitimate science in the current climate. Their strategy appears to be to use ID as a stepping stone to eventually getting YE accepted as the “truth”.
… I know of no one doubting the mutative action of skin-invading bacteria.
Then how come my teenage acne didn’t give me the super powers I really needed back then?
Moggie said
Having an advanced degree in any subject is not a guarantee against still being a fool.
I suspect the folks at the ICR, like many religious people, consider religious claims to be a type of scientific claim. Yes, you need ‘faith’ in order to believe, but when they talk about what ‘faith’ is they tend to define it in its common usage — a reasonable assumption based on strong but not absolutely conclusive evidence. Many of them think belief in God and the truth of the Bible are ‘secular’matters because they’re non-controversally true. It’s plain fact. Only the perverse deny what’s clearly seen in the world.
Since the DI also thinks there is a huge overlap between science and religion — and science is proving religion true — they have a hard time whining over where the YEC choose to draw the line on the arbitrary divide.
So the obvious branchings indicating relatedness cease at some point to indicate “real relatedness.”
Tell me, dumbass, how you determined that to be so.
And it’s well-recognized that evolution may have operated significantly differently back when horizontal transmission was far more rampant, and when copying wasn’t nearly so exact.
Learn something, moron, about what you’re whining.
Glen Davidson
They’re identical, just a bit deader.
If it is any consolation, amongst some old college friends, “Bemidji” somehow became synonymous with “vomit”
Dear Ms. Wesley,
Patrick Moynihan once said “Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts.” Creationists hold strong opinions based on fanciful (and by no means universal) interpretations of origin stories found in Hebrew, Christian and Muslim holy books; proponents of biological evolution present facts – in the form of provisional knowledge – derived from over four centuries of accumulated scientific progress.
“Penni Cairns…said students raised on Creationism concepts can be confused and frustrated with evolution theory teachings because their beliefs are shot down by teachers following educational guidelines.”
Science teachers are not responsible for their students’ confusion, their parents and pastors are. Creationism is a religious concept not a scientific one. It does nothing to prepare our children for the demanding disciplines of science, biology, physics, and math they need to make their way in the world.
“The inclusion of Intelligent Design in schools’ studies of life origins is overdue, said the superintendent of Bagley schools.”
Superintendent Cairns should know that intelligent design was repudiated as a poorly concealed religious dogma in the Tammy Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al. (400 F. Supp. 2d 707, Docket no. 4cv2688). It is illegal to teach intelligent design in the public school classroom.
Most surprisingly Drs. Morris and Jeanson seem to be arguing in favor of both Intelligent Design and Young Earth Creationism. These are conflicting concepts among the myriad sects of evangelical and fundamentalist Christianity. I wouldn’t expect you to know this without advance study, but the presenters at “Rebuilding the Foundation: Demolishing the Pillars of Evolution” certainly should.
This weekend my kids and I attended the excellent Midwest Science of Origins Conference at the U of M – Morris http://atheonomy.wordpress.com/the-midwest-science-of-origins-conference/ Among the many fine talks we heard was a lecture by Dr. Neil Shubin, the paleontologist whose team discovered the important transitional fossil, Tiktaalik Roseae, in the Canadian Arctic, precisely where the science suggested it would be found. The story is also told in his book, Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body http://www.amazon.com/Your-Inner-Fish-Journey-3-5-Billion-Year/dp/0375424474 I commend it to you if you are interested in learning more about the marvels of human evolution as illuminated by modern science.
Be well
I guess it shows that the creationist movement has evolved over the past two decades that I am surprised that there are still some in it ignorant enough to bring forth the concept of “missing links” in a serious conversation. missing links for gawds sakes!
I suppose all those dead deer by the side of the road weren’t killed by cars but by hyper-localized flooding, since they all die with their heads arched backwards and up. Or perhaps it’s just that the neck tendons tend to shrink after dying.
Now let’s not forget that Harun Yahya can’t tell the difference between a fishing fly and a real spider.
Actually, we have a creationist physics professor here at my school, so I can easily imagine a creobot slipping into a smaller school like Bemidji.
Anybody who claims “geological” anything as his/her profession and yet espouses creationism of any kind should be denied beer until they recant. If they don’t drink beer, they weren’t real geo-whatevers to begin with, and should be ignored.
You know, nearly a century ago a man named Johannes Weigelt asked himself why so many fossils were found with their long necks arched back, as described above. Not content with simply stating “They were drowning in Teh Floooood”, he started studying what happens to vertebrates when they die. He wrote a book about the results*. In his book, Weigelt points out that as the tendons and muscles in the necks of vertebrates dry out after death they tend to contract, which arches the neck in the fashion described. This is especially noticeable in long-necked species.
Like most dinosaurs.
*Recent Vertebrate Carcasses and Their Paleobiological Implications. Available at a price that absolutely floored me at Amazon, especially considering I bought my hard backed copy from a bargain bin at Barnes and Noble nearly 20 years about for about $3.
it seems so strange that at a time in human history when everything is so dependent on more information and the accurate analysis of it from the investment market, to supply chain management, marketing, medicine, increasingly climate change and military defense that there would be such a strong resistance to learning and intelligence and a desire for “faith” to be enough.
When even the right wing politician will use all the tools that political science and psychology has given them to manipulate the public into anti-intellectualism and away from reason.
They seem to think that if they re-write history to match their desires the world will behave accordingly?
it is happening I know but for the life of me what a bunch of stubbornly ignorant apes!
The leopard of reality is watching regardless of what anyone believes and will act in its own interests.
uncle frogy
LOL. True.
Modern pterosaurs don’t fly very often. They seem to be mostly terrestrial and subterranean although some are found in museums.
The only reason I knew how to read Bemidji in my mind was that I got a John Sanford book on cd a few years ago.
@Larry
Our local college is having Jesus Awareness Week this week, complete with creationists and all sorts of Christian apologetics. Since it’s a Presbyterian school, they are, of course, entitled, but much of their faculty is wincing and cringing about the Jesus club so misinforming the students (and, in reality, they’re much more open to Evolution than the public college where I teach).
I’d love to be able to get a good talk by someone like Shubin here, or P.Z., or anyone who has an inkling of how evolution works, because my students just spent the last two hours staring at me like I was a bug under a microscope as I tried to explain it to them. It would be great to have Shubin bringing out cool fossils we don’t have. But, our school doesn’t have the kind of money to pay for high power speakers, so I guess they’ll just have to listen to me.
As a Bemidjian, and former BSU student, I wish I was able to attend this seminar to see these clowns in action. How dare they sully my town’s name. :shakesfistangrily:
…yeah, but, that’s not how it works. Recent experiments have shown that water accounts best for the opisthotonic posture: put a dead chicken in water, and you get the posture within five seconds. The video was shown at last year’s meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology.
This nicely explains, of course, why there are articulated skeletons of vertebrates (even of long-necked ones) that don’t show that posture at all: those carcasses didn’t get soaked in the right time window.
This arched neck dinosaurs struggling for air doesn’t even make sense in creationist terms.
The mythological flood lasted for months and months and covered the earth miles deep in water.
Any drowned dinosaur would have did what any dead body in water does. Usually they sink first. Then as decay gases build up, they float around for a while, and start to fall apart.
Besides which, the vast majority of dinosaur fossils aren’t articulated whole bodies. Those are rare. They are scraps of bone scattered through sediments sometimes miles deep and scattered over millions of square miles.
The only toxin is the manifestly nasty lie of atheism-evolutionism. Most decent parents have had enough of this evil deceit and want their kids to be deprogrammed and given the substantial evidence of sudden creation in the geological record. Titaalik -what little remains of its fossilized remains – was no transitional “fishapod” any more than the infamous “frogamander” was an intermediate. It was a true fish with pectoral fins (not half-legs) and gills. It only exists as something wonderfully special in the imagination of Neil Shubin.
And the fact is, PZ, that a 300 million year old dragonfly is still a dragonfly even if may be a different “species” of dragonfly to modern versions. Why? Because all species of dragonfly, or fruit fly, are of the same KIND.
Over and out.
raven says (2 April 2012 at 12:44 pm):
Fear not, that pernicious meme is alive and well in a mutated version advocating “barebacking” — anal intercourse without a condom.
The ostensible reason is that condoms significantly interfere with sexual sensation — a claim that is total BS. The “barebacking” meme is also incredibly childish, as it flies in the face of the concept of deferred gratification, a concept many parents go to great lengths to teach to their kids.
This has further mutated into a form whereby some gay men want to be deliberately “bred” – infected with HIV.
All I can do is shake my head in disbelief at these follies.
If you thought the bible thumpers were nuts, you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet. I foresee the US deteriorating into a congeries of tiny idio-theocracies endlessly squabbling over fine points of theology and ritual. The only thing they’ll have in common is Jeebus and “evolution is evil” (even though they don’t have a clue what evolution really is).
I’m wondering when one of the great private universities of the US (e.g. Harvard, MIT, Chicago, Stanford, Caltech) will finally decide enough is enough, pull up their stakes, and decamp to a more intellectually friendly place.
Citation needed, not just inane and unevidenced opinion. Your testament is worthless.
If they are decent parents, they want their kids to learn SCIENCE, not religion.
Citation need, unevidenced and ignorant opinion. Testament is worthless. You aren’t an expert, merely a parrot. SQUAWK.
Citation needed. But then, you don’t have one. More lies and bullshit.
And also in the minds of all the rational and intelligent folks who read his wonderful and educational book. Still no evidence. Your testament is bullshit.
Prove it can mate and provide viable offspring with modern dragonflies, or shut the fuck up. Welcome to science, where you must provide real evidence for your testament. Number of citations, zero. NOTHING BUT BULLSHIT….
Mine wanted me to go to college, get a decent job, and do something contructive and worthwhile with my life. That is one reason why I’m a scientist. They even paid for part of my undergraduate education to help all this happen.
If I had become a creationist, they may or may not have said something but they would have been deeply disappointed. BTW, they are devout xians deeply involved in their Protestant church.
They loved their kids enough to accidently leave a backwards xian reformed church for another more benign xian reformed sect.
This is true of most xian parents worldwide. Creationism is just a cult belief of mostly south central USA cults.
So Nofriendofatheists, why did your parents hate you? You are showing signs of past child abuse BTW. The blatant hate and anger and inability to reason and tell the truth. I’ve seen this with fundie parents many times. They set their kids up to fail. Then the kids fail.
And that is why fundie xians score low in intelligence and education and high in social dysfunctions.
A rather stupid and meaningless statement.
So what is a 300 million year old kitty cat?
Or a 300 million year old kangaroo. 300 million year old human?
Oh, that is right, there aren’t any. The mammals hadn’t evolved yet.
What does a 600 million year old dragonfly look like?
no opportunity to comment on this article in the Bemidji Pioneer? I didn’t find any comment button.
So there’s no public discussion possible about this in Bemidji?
It is your fellow creobots who lie as a matter of course: quote-mining, distortion and outright, barefaced whoppers are their stock-in-trade. Moreover, liar, many theists accept the overwhelming evidence for an earth billions of years old, and the common descent of all living organisms from one stock, formed by natural selection into millions of species.
You don’t, of course, identify any sich evidence, liar, because there is none.
More shameless lying. Tiktaalik had a neck – something no fish has – and its head resembled that of a crocodile in shape. It is not only a perfect intermediate between aquatic fish and land-living tetrapods, it is one of an exquisite series of fossils showing different stages in this evolutionary transition. Still, I daresay it’s only a matter of time before some other idiot creobot claims that Tiktaalik is no intermediate – it’s obviously a land-living amphibian – just like some creobot idiots have claimed that Archaeopteryx is simply a reptile, while others have claimed that it’s an ordinary bird.
“Kind” is not a meaningful scientific term, liar, and capitalising it does not make it so.
First of all, fuck you and your definition of “decent.” I’m assuming you define it as adhering to the principles outlined in the Bible, which we here are aware actually supports slavery, genocide, treating women like cattle, and slaying your children if a voice in your head tells you to. Either you defend these things as moral, or you’re cherry-picking the stuff you like. Either way, you’re full of shit.
Second, teaching biology straight out of the Bible runs into a problem when you get to the part about bats laying eggs. If not earlier.
And, speaking of deprogramming, who is it that takes pre-schoolers and fills their heads with stories of impossible deeds, threats of infinite punishment for finite transgressions, and teaches them that thoughts are equivalent to actions?
And, lastly, fuck you.
I would call parents who brainwash their kids in fundie xian cult creationism at best:
1. Stupid.
2. Or at worst, child abusers.
Mine taught me to think, value the truth, and value education and hard work.
Nofriendofatheists
Flies certainly aren’t kind when they bite or buzz in your ear. It’s nice that in your alternate reality they are.
The key to getting out is realizing they are of all the same mind, because it is your own mind doing all the work.
OOOOOH OOOOH OOOOH!!!! They’re trying “evolution within, but not without, kinds.” I crushed a creationist who tried this one on me Thursday with the following – “what then, do you have to say to the substantial evidence, from molecular biology/genomics, paleontology, and developmental biology that clearly demonstrates the relationship that all life shares.” This was followed by my promptly providing copies of relevant evidence. They shut up after that.
Feralboy12
Thank you!! As if parents, especially single parents, don’t have enough bullshit to deal with. I mean really? Giving me shit for making sure my child gets a good education is a bad thing? WTF is wrong with people. I feel so badly for couples that have different views on this. It is a prevalent and growing sentiment in our society that if you don’t brainwash your child with this psychological torment and mental deprivation you’re a bad parent. And if speak up about it, tell them not to teach your child that shit at least, or answer their child’s questions when you are watching them without their bullshit, you are bad person.
GRRR.
Fuck that, fuck nofriendtoatheists and anyone else believes that.
Most moms and dads are sick to death with atheist doctrine being “taught” in public schools as if it were established fact. It is for students themselves to make up their own minds on whether atheism-evolutionism is true or not based on an analysis and appreciation of the actual data. They are currently being denied all of the available information.
The reason why PZbots oppose even the slightest exposure to creationist arguments is because kids will see that divine creation is right and natural evolution is just plain wrong. You lot need censorship in order to survive, in the same way that a fascist regime does. If evolutionism were true, you wouldn’t be clinging to a few suspect fossilized cases to defend your own messed-up views: the evidence would be overwhelming, rather than underwhelming.
nofriendoftheatheist
feeble
3.5
This is a lie. Most parents in the USA aren’t even fundie xians who only make up 20-30% of the population. Creationism isn’t even a xian belief, it is a fundie cult belief.
If your fundie death cult was true, you wouldn’t have to lie all the time.
BTW, the evidence for evolution is overwhelming. Creationism lost among educated adults over a century ago. It’s just a zombie lurching among the lesser educated of our society.
Most Moms and Dads are sick and tired of arrogant evil jerks like the poster of @45 trying to use the power of big government to force schools to teach their children a narrow and blinkered ideology against their will.
And speaking of which, those 300 million year old “dragonflies” are NOT dragonflies. They are griffinflies.
nofriendofatheist = Jonathon the Fake Polymath from the UK.
This troll is just an incoherent screamer. It’s very boring. Dumb is boring. Hate is boring.
I’m pretty sure it is the UK guy from yesterday with yet again another ID. Maybe he will threaten to sue us again.
According to the faith tradition of the vast majority of those who believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ, the theory of evolution is the truth. The leader of their church, inspired by their god to be infallible, has already declared it so.
It is established fact. Prove otherwise by citing the peer reviewed scientific literature.
Nope. There is two types of data. The scientific data conclusively evidencing that the TOE is correct and evolution happened. Then the is the religious data from you presuppositions of an imaginary deity and inerrant book of mythology/fiction.
Nope. The information is available. Science in science class. Religion/philosophy in religion or philosophy classes. Creationism isn’t a science, and even SCOTUS acknowledges that fact. Why can’t you? Delusional thinking with category error perhaps?
Sorry, you can’t provide conclusive physical evidence, like an eternally burning burning bush, for you imaginary deity, or similar type evidence your babble is anything other than mythology/fiction. We aren’t worried about real scientific evidence being presented. But religion being presented as scientific evidence is a mother fucking lie, and you know that. Otherwise, you would have lead with the scientific evidence…
Are you saying that million or so scientific papers backing evolution, both directly and indirectly, is not overwhelming evidence? It doesn’t get much better. And the scientific papers backing up creationism. Zero, zip, zilch, nil, nada, doesn’t exist….
Interesting, raven. I recall that the fake polymath claimed to be an atheist in that thread.
And yet another theist troll reveals itself to be a lying dishonest piece of ethical excrement.
Um, I think it works the other way. And we couldn’t care less about fossils, we have genomics to build for us a beautiful phylogenetic tree of life. The fossils we find (and there are actually quite a few of them) have an odd tendency to bear out the claims of phylogenetics. And the evidence is overwhelming. Or at least it is if you actually take the time to look at it instead of following AIG and ICR blindly. If any scientist ever has a doubt about evolution, they can always looks at the thousands of carefully researched and cited papers and books that make up the Everest of evidence for evolution. And how many legitimate papers support Creationism? How about none. All you have is a book of violent Bronze Age mythology and a few charlatans lying to children.
What a vicious little atheist lie!!! Have you even read the very first verse of the very first book of the Bible? What does it say, genius?
So why don’t we see it happening before our very eyes? I don’t see any fish crawling out of the water replete with legs and lungs. I don’t see any crocodiles sprouting wings with feathers. I don’t see chimps answering back when we speak to them.
Creation is a FACT. All of us have been created over a period of 9 months. You can observe creation but you can’t observe alleged evolution. As it is unobservavle, it is unscientific.
Actually, the truth is the exact opposite of nofriend’s lies. People are leaving US xianity by the millions a year, especially among the young, bright, and educated segments of the population.
And the reason young people are dropping US xianity by the millions is:
Wacko screamers like nofriend are the reason why. When xian became synonymous with liar, hater, ignorant, and sometimes killer, a lot of people didn’t want to be one anymore.
Go for it nofriendofatheists. Scream some more. Babble. Hate and Lie. Threaten. You and your lot create more atheists in a day than Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers do in a year.
Source: Ed Brayton’s blog recently. http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2012/03/28/thanks-christian-right/
2.4
I subscribe to the Journal of Creation which is a peer-reviewed journal and includes articles with references to research published in the mainstream journals.I doubt you have every picked up a copy of the JoC.
And where in the genome does it say that this thing “evolved” into that thing? It is only your own interpretation that males such claims. Is it really so revealing that humans are closer to chimps than they are to bears in terms of their DNA?
There is no such thing as atheist doctrine. By DEFINITION, atheism has no doctrine.
Evolution is reality.
Children who are not taught about reality grow up to be adults who will struggle to find jobs in the reality-based market.
Moms and Dads who do not allow their children to learn about reality are bad parents (note that most atheist parents encourage their children to learn about religions).
Moral reprobates like our troll here, who try to prevent OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN from learning about reality are engaging in child abuse.
They are also traitors, who sabotage America’s (or whatever their home country) future economic success by preventing the production of an educated work force. The Chinese ruling party is cheering them on (and in all likelihood, instructing their spies to fund them).
Two things. First, show proof that most parents are against the teaching of biology. And even if it were true, that should not stop the teaching of the best evidence.
Second, while it does seem that most atheists accept evolution as being true, atheism and the theory of evolution are not equivalent.
This sentence with the term is too muddled to make sense of. But students are free to make up their mind about any and all subjects. But they need to be taught so that they can make up their minds.
Yeah, students in biology should learn useless term like “kind” and “baramins”.
Here, we to the reason why the loon does not like the theory of evolution. If people knew nothing about the subject, it because easier to get them to accept an argument because it is “divine”. And toss in an untrue shot that people who argue for evolution are just closed minded.
Not teaching creationism in biology is not censorship. You are free to teach that to your children. But what is one more lie? If your argument is built lies, why stop with the first one.
The evidence is overwhelming. But you are a huge supported of self censorship.
Actually, we have all developed from the fusion of two cells into one, with further division and cell differentiation leading to a fully formed infant through well-known and described processes. The uterus is not a black box. But you know what, we can observe evolution. Ever heard of the Galapagos, or Influenza, or the E. coli long-term evolution experiment? But I have never heard of animals magically popping into existence, or small bits of ossified tissue being turned into fully adult female humans with the blink of an eye.
Shorter loon:
Not just closer to chimps than to bears. Closer to ALL apes, and ALL primates than bears. But NOT closer to bears than bears are to ALL carnivores. And closer to bears than ALL birds.
The nested hierarchies are ABSOLUTE and WITHOUT EXCEPTION for EVERY living thing on earth. And EVERY fossil lifeform fits PERFECTLY, WITHOUT EXCEPTION, into the pattern of the nested heirarchy. Every single one of the billions and billions of species alive today, and every one yet discovered of the quadrillions of all species that have ever existed.
This pattern, which exists WITHOUT EXCEPTION, is consistent only with evolution.
And that IS a VERY BIG DEAL.
That isn’t real evolution, but your ignorant and wrongheaded idea of what it is. Example of evolution in action. And there are thousands of such papers. No papers showing the existence of your imaginary deity, or that your babble is anything other than mythology fiction. You can’t handle the TRUTH…
Then where is the conclusive physical evidence for your imaginary deity??? I see nothink….
I’m a terrible parent.
I exposed my son to all the “sides”- ie, I told him some people believe the earth is 6000 years old according to the bible and that a sky god made everything.
He said that was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard (paraphrasing).
Cthulhu, are you crazy or stupid. My large natal Protestant sect doesn’t have a problem with evolution and they say that right on their website. Same with the Catholic church, where the last 4 Popes didn’t have a problem with evolution. Add in the other mainline Protestant sects and even the Mormons and some Evangelicals and the evidence is overwhelming:
Creationism is a fundie cult lie, not a xian belief. The vast majority of xians worldwide don’t have a problem with evolution.
We do see it every day. In my field of medicine, evolution of anti-pathogen drugs is common and often treatment limiting. Cancer is a classic example of somatic cell evolution. We see millions of newly evolved tumors every year and this will kill one hundred million of the US people now alive. You have to be blind and stupid not to see evolution every day.
Creationism is a lie of fundie xians.
We evolve over 9 months. Starting from a single cell, we go through multiple phases of growth and development, and from looking less human to more human. Evolution just means change through time.
nofriendoftheatheist @ 57: In fact I have read JoC. It was pure quote-mining pseudo-scientific nonsense attempting to justify a claim that lost its mainstream scientific support over a century ago. And genomics tells us quite a bit. For example, I know that amphibians share more of their DNA with reptiles than with mammals. The fossil record supports an assertion that reptiles developed from amphibians, and that mammals developed from reptiles. (Citations available upon request.) If we initially interpret phylogenetics in the light of modern biodiversity, then extend it back into the recent past, a beautiful branching tree of life becomes clear. And we find new parts of that tree in the rocks every year.
What a clear example of censorship and fascist thinking.
I am so sorry, spamamander. I used in the comic sans without thinking.
Please forgive me.
Yes, it is.
It’s even more revealing that we have hundreds of thousands of sequences and the DNA phylogenetic tree agrees closely with the one originally constructed by morphology and embryology.
This is millions of data points.
It also agrees closely with the extensive and ever growing fossil record. More millions of data points.
And the evidence for creationism is nothing, zero, nada.
It was old mythology known to be wrong over a century ago. Even most educated xians don’t buy it any more.
I have observed evolution occurring with my own eyes in the lab. It was quite annoying as my experiments were not about evolution, and the continuing evolution of my cell cultures often threatened to bugger up the interpretation of the results I was trying to get.
I have observed evolution occurring with my own eyes in the hospitals where I have worked. It was very worrying, as when it happens, some of the drugs we use to help sick people stop working, and sometimes people died.
I have observed evolution occurring with my own eyes in some of the places where I have lived. It was very frustrating when it happened as my pesticide budget went through the roof. Damn resistant cockroaches.
Fixed that for you loser. It isn’t scientific. Try journals like Science and Nature. Real science, no religion, no imaginary deities.
Still waiting for you to present the equivalent of the eternally burning bush for your imaginary deity. Why aren’t you telling us where to find it???
FYI. The current model of cancer is a Darwinian one. It’s been backed up by sequencing terminal cancer cells and comparing them with the host genome. There are lots of mutations that happen along the way.
Evolution of resistance to chemo, radiation, and biologicals is often or usually treatment limiting. The tumors just evolve resistance and in real time until we run out of treatments.
Anyone who has seen or has had cancer has seen evolution in action in real time. This Darwinian evolutionary process will kill 1/3 of the people alive today.
Ah, so that’s how you interpret the first chapters of Genesis. I guess you’re not so literal about it after all. The universe gestated in the divine ladyparts (for no amount of time in no location, since neither existed), and the delivery lasted for six days, followed by one day of rest. Rest wasn’t needed of course, since obviously that was all freely chosen as part of the omnipotent ladyparts’ cunning plan. So that’s why existence exists. Makes perfect sense.
You folk are trying to convince nofriendoftheatheist by means of facts. This won’t work. Xe is a fundamentalist creationist. Most if not all creationists are selective about what facts they will examine. If a fact is inconvenient to them, if it’s so evident that it can’t be dealt with by hand-waving or lying, then that fact doesn’t exist.
The Egyptians and Chinese kept good records that didn’t mention the flood that should have killed them all but apparently didn’t? Silence from the goddiditists. If stars and galaxies were all within 6000 light years of Earth the sky would be as bright and hot as the Sun. No response from creationists. Isochron dating does not vary over time. Crickets chirping.
The creationists don’t even try to answer these sorts of facts. They ignore them in hopes they’ll go away. And then they have the gall to say we’re close-minded.
Porco Dio, here’s another one for your patented discussion techniques that are so much better than everyone else’s!
We’ll just sit back and watch the magic.
raven #49 wrote:
Amphiox #52 wrote:
I didn’t read every post on that thread, but it seemed to me that the Polymath was playing around, trolling in the old fashioned sense of the term — deliberately saying provoking things just to watch us get upset. April fool’s game. For some reason, I’m getting the same impression from nofriendofatheist. He’s coming out with one trope after another, in short order. Too pat. I don’t buy it.
I could be wrong, of course, but I think nofriendofatheist sounds like he’s a pro-evolution atheist who is familiar with creationist arguments and wants to see if he can ‘do’ them while riling the hoards. A Poe.
In which case, refuting him is a useful exercise … if you need the exercise.
Sastra: That’s quite possible. We might find out with further posts.
Nofriend is just a wild eyed and rather stupid religious kook.
We already knew he wasn’t capable of reason.
It’s just amusing sometimes to show just how outrageously wrong he was about everything.
It is true though that people are fleeing xianity thanks to people like nofriendofatheists. but young “nones” grew by about 90%–a truly remarkable difference. I documented that in post #55.
Creationism is not only a lie but one that drives people out of xianity.
LOL. Except that all of the changes are directed towards a goal – the development of the foetus. None of them are random, and there is no natural selection involved at all. It is a process of gradual (progressive) creation, not gradual and undirected evolution.
Yet the “evolution of technology” has involved intelligent design over time. GOTCHA!!! I win. HA! You lose.
David Marjanovic@31:
Really? Cool! Can I see the citation, or just some kind of lookup information? That’s awesome! I knew I should have gone to SVP this year…
Same with every other mammal. Nothing special about humans. Just same old same old, just like your shtick. Still no evidence for your imaginary deity, or your babble not being mythology/fiction. I guess you can’t do anything but lie and bullshit without evidence.. And your OPINION isn’t evidence, but rather unintelligent bullshit.
Intelligent deign requires your imaginary designer,which did interact with universe, ergo it is real and physical. Now, show (don’t talk about), your imaginary designer…. Still waiting….
Awwwwww, It’s a Poe!
On the contrary, we can observe every step in the process of developmental creation even if we don’t understand the underlying cause of it. Yet there are creation deniers like PZ Myers who would have us suppose that organisms “self-assemble” their own bodies although he does not explain how. I just don’t want my kids being fed PZ’s poop during school hours.
Creationist fuckwhit:
Tadpoles do it all the time. Not that that is real evidence for evolution mind you, but it proves how unobservant, and thoughtless you are.
Religions evolve and quite rapidly. The Branch Davidians evolved from the Seventh Day Adventists which evolved from Protestants, from Catholics, and from Judaism.
And no intelligence was involved. In fact the Branch Davidians and Seventh Days evolved backwards rather than forwards.
Evolution doesn’t necessarily involve intelligence as the change in religious cults clearly show. And BTW, there is no guiding intelligence in the evolution of a zygote to a baby either.
You win most pointless life of the thread for your trolling. I’d ask if you had anything better to do but why bother, clearly you don’t.
Show us dark energy. It is real, in that it is responsible for the expanasion of the universe, but we cannot directly observe it. We can just measure its effects. Why do you assume reality is 100% material?
Don’t send them to college.
Does not explain how!?!? You gotta be a Poe. It’s impossible for a human being to be that stupid.
Can we measure the effect, anywhere, of any supernatural being? Any of the tens of thousands of gods that humans have worshiped as real? Please show us the measurable effect of gods.
Bleh. This chew toy tastes funny.
But PZ’s poop is a magical panacea!
Yeah, this is just some random kook trolling.
PZ could explain it but you couldn’t understand it.
If your kids end up like you, you are a child abuser. Someone who has little talent at even being an internet troll. They will always struggle just to hold down some minor minimum wage job.
Your development process isn’t physical evidence for your imaginary deity. It is explained by science. You need evidence that will pass muster with scientists, magicians, and professional debunkers, as being of divine, and not natural (scientifically explained), origin. Something like the eternally burning bush or equivalent. Which you fail at as human development = HOX genes, ergo scientifically explained. Now, where is the burning bush…
He does, but then showing your ignorance is more fun to you than actually learning evo-devo.
Still waiting for the eternally burning bush….
Poe troll is boring, so I’m going to bed. I’ll leave a supply of sharp sticks and grog for those interested in poking it.
nofriendoftheatheist says:
Why do you assume you can make shit up and not get called on it?
Og is doing sex jokes over on Teh Endless. I mean, if you were looking for a punch line.
Halleluja! Nerd of Redhead can explain the fundamental mystery of biological development. Go and collect your Nobel Prize, dude.
Learn some science, moron.
Gawd shaved it off… because it was… burning.
Actually, I am still waiting for your explanation of how we can measure the effect, anywhere, of any supernatural being. Even one of the tens of thousands of gods that humans have worshiped as real? Please show us the measurable effect of gods.
nofriendoftheatheist says:
Y’all ain’t frum aroun hear ar u?
@ jonathandelafield
“No opportunity to comment on this article in the Bemidji Pioneer? I didn’t find any comment button.”
I sent my letter directly to the writer of the article by clicking on the Comment tab on this page http://www.bemidjipioneer.com/event/author/name/Bethany_Wesley/
I have not heard from her yet.
Oops, “Contact” not “Comment,” and there’s no tab, just a hyperlink.
nofriendofatheist #86 wrote:
“Look out the window. We can’t see the wind, but we can see how it moves and sways the branches of the trees. God is like that, too. We can’t see God, but we can know He is there by seeing what God does.”
You don’t need to go into cosmological physics. You can open up a Sunday School primer.
The wind analogy is lame but, unlike the analogy to dark energy, there’s not a lot of additional math and science. Is the existence of God a science theory, then?
I think I’m going to use the LOLstar to fire a blast of facts/and or LOLcats at the Poe. Thoughts?
Still no evidence for his imaginary deity. Bad sophistry isn’t evidence, but is evidence for mental masturbation. Our troll loves mental masturbation. But it doesn’t do it well. Reality in the form of real deityless science is needed, as philosophy not grounded in reality is just so much bullshit…*Opens the windows to air out the place*
I had an organic chem professor who used that term once.
Chew Toy Review:
Troll, with Mr. Professional Troll as the prime suspect. It is having trouble sustaining its tone; the “voice” keeps changing. It tries to prove it can troll pharyngulites, showing off those mad troll expert skillz, apparently unaware that the horde considers trolls of any stripe to be merely a fang-sharpening surface. Conclusion: Fairly chewy at the start, flavor wore off quickly. Rating: 1-1/2 squids.
I find it amsuing that atheists demand material evidence for the existence of a non-material being. Of course, if atheists would just open up their eyes to the wonders of creation they would see the work of the Being they deny.
But they remain convinced in the mistaken view that their own intelligence, or lack of, is merely the outome of the interaction of dumb molecules and nothing else. I am, however, intelligent enough to know that I was intelligently designed and created. The signature is in the cell.
I’m going to need a trimmed down version of this. Let’s go with: Making a factual claim without evidence, or in spite of evidence, is stupid. Making a factual, unfalsifiable claim is stupid.
…
You stupid asshat.
And where is the evidence for this? We have evidence showing the history of life. We have evidence showing the actual age of the earth and the universe. We have physics, geology, palaeontology, biology, anthropology, etc. You have a mistranslated, bowdlerized, edited, excised, politicized, self-justifying, poorly edited and self-contradictory mythology which, every time it is compared to reality, fails. Pi = 3? Bats are birds? The evidence of your book fails when judged by reality.
Scientists, historians, and others demand evidence because that is the only way that anyone can tell that it was not pulled out of the asshole of a goat. And the book you hold holy would most likely be improved if it was pulled out of a goat’s ass.
@68 Janine
No apology necessary. It’s hard to NOT go into Comic Sans mode when quoting something about 6000 years and a sky-daddy.
And, erm, if this god guy is non-material then … erm… what IS he and how does he manipulate matter?
The right type of evidence is always required. If you think that the Creator must be a physical being, then physical evidence of him is indeed necessary. Conversely, a non-physical entity should (logically) require non-physical evidence for its existence. However, a non-physical entity that nontheless acts upon the physical world can be evidenced in its manifest physical works. That is what William Paley argued in his exposition of ID.
So do you automatically deny the possible existence of parallel universes and dimensions? Seems to me that both are fairly unfalsifable.
Learn to nuance. There’s a difference between “I deny X” (a positive claim), and “I say it’s stupid to claim X” (a militant agnostic claim). You are making an unfalsifiable factual assertion. I call you stupid, and your argument is without merit.
Still, depending on the exact particulars of your argument, your conclusion may be right. There may be a completely undetectable, unfalsifiable god(s). There could also be an invisible dragon in my garage.
http://godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/Dragon.htm
You don’t know, and I don’t know.
However, there are no miracles, and thus there is no theist god.
I have a theological question. How many angels can shit in the skull of a Poe or a creationist?
raven
Excuse me but I am struggling to hold down a minimum wage job. I’ve been going from temp job to temp job because I cannot get a permanent job. I am currently unemployed and cannot pay this months rent. That is not because I am unskilled, stupid or lazy.
@spamamander, hellmart survivor
Like, god can do anything, duh…
nofriendoftheatheist: If you are interested, there is a thread where you can go on and on about this sort of thing without worrying about being banned for Poeing or being boring, it’s called TZT. In fact, there is another Christian fundamentalist who posts there somewhat regularly.
@ nofriendoftheatheist #45
No, children are not being denied available information, just not being taught your religious litany. If you were correct, then I would ask, why are the children not taught the “information” available in the Koran or the Tripitaka? Those sources are precisely as valid as yours.
You don’t want all available information in the courses, however you define your information. You want your dogma, and that’s that.
And I join with others asking you for a citation for that “Most moms and dads are sick to death” stuff.
“So why don’t we see it happening before our very eyes?”
Because you wear blinkers.
The first one to observe speciation was the Dutch biologist De Vries, some 100 years ago.
“I find it amsuing that atheists demand material evidence for the existence of a non-material being.”
I find it amusing that creationists think a non-material being can influence material reality – something like a poltergeist. Of course you provide no specific records.
The only non-material being that makes sense creating things is the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Let’s make a deal. I allow you to teach your stuff in science class if you allow Pastafarians to teach theirs about the FSM. What do you think?
You see, as a moderate atheist I’m all for religious(ly inspired) education – as long as the Flying Spaghetti Monster is included.
A pissant wrote:
Ah, special pleading – always a popular fallacy for the intellectually dishonest religionist.
I find it amusing that creationists think “non-material being” is a meaningful phrase.
This is a contradiction in terms, and is therefore necessarily false.
Or in other words, it would be physical for all practical considerations, if it actually existed.
Non-material evidence would also be acceptable. The existing evidence for dark matter, for example, is non-material. But there is absolutely none of that, either.
Yes, it would, if it existed. And in this particular universe, it is not.
William Paley was the last honest creationist. If he were alive today, he would be an evolutionist.
Thanks to recent theoretical work in physics, parallel universes and dimensions are no longer theoretically unfalsifiable, just practically very hard to investigate.
However, back before these theoretical breakthroughs were made, the majority of physicists DID indeed dismiss parallel universes and dimensions as non-falsifiable and therefore not science. And they were CORRECT to do so.
The “goal” is assigned in retrospect, by the human being observing the process.
Depends on the species. In C. elegans for example the process is pretty much determinant.*
But in vertebrates, like humans, there is LOTS of natural selection-like events involved in the process. Clonal populations of cells expand rapidly and then are pruned back by a competitive process. The fate of any individual cell is stochastically dependent on its success in competition with its neighbors.
*Incidentally, we KNOW C. elegans development. The fate and history of EVERY SINGLE CELL, from the original zygote all the way to the mature adult, is known and mapped out. Nowhere in that whole process has their even been to remotest hint of a designer.
In fact, if his writing is any fair indication, if William Paley had lived long enough to have read Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, there is almost no doubt in my mind that he would have become one of the earliest supporters of evolution.
Ooh, that’s fantastic. I didn’t know that. Ya learn sumptin’ every day. That’s why I follow these anti-creationist threads.
Thanks to all the knowledgeable Horde for sharing.
There is a subtlety here that is worth bringing up, I think, in the interaction of mathematics and science. There is a long history of mathematical work that sometimes develops without reference to empirical data, consistent with the axioms and framework of mathematics. Complex numbers come to mind. But it is not correct to call the results scientific until they are found to be useful in modelling the world as we know it.
Emily Noether developed some beautiful mathematics that found expression as leading to conservation laws in the real world once Einstein’s theory of General Relativity was published, but not before, and her work now comprises part of the foundations of modern physics.
The mathematics that would imply parallel universes and dimensions have followed the same path: the mathematics has preceded even the possibility of real world verification. If I understand it correctly (and I quite possibly don’t) the notion parallel universes is not so much an attempt to explain empirical data, rather it is a formulation of the implications of the mathematics.
And the book you hold holy would most likely be improved if it was pulled out of a goat’s ass.
wouldn’t you have to feed it to the goat first?
Come to think of it, I’d bet that’s happened more than once already, likely unintentionally.
…In fact, I believe there was even a play written about it.
http://oneactplays.net/agoatatemybible.html
However, a non-physical entity that nontheless acts upon the physical world can be evidenced in its manifest physical works.
physical entities are tracked by the impacts they leave as well.
We can rightly hypothesize the existence of a beaver in a given area if we find a beaver dam, or a beaver “house”.
We don’t need to see the beaver itself for this indirect evidence to be strong support for the conclusion that one is (or was) about.
OTOH… there has never, EVER, let me repeat that: EVERRRRRRRRR… been even any INDIRECT evidence of the impact of any defined deity observed.
ever.
All you religionauts have is projection and wishful thinking.
nothing more.
NOTHING.
shove that in your damn pipe and smoke it already.
Still not one iota of evidence for his imaginary deity. Just inane excuses on why he doesn’t have any evidence, except for the real one. Which is it doesn’t exist except in his delusion mind.
Quite correct. Of course, since there is no sign whatsoever of such a manifestation (creationist lies notwithstanding), we conclude that if there is a god, it doesn’t want us to know about it. After all, if it did, it would be simplicity itself for it to make its presence unmistakeable.
I was thinking more along the lines of actual contents of the book, the ideas and ‘history’ contained in the book, not the physical book itself. However, that’s a lot of goat fodder out there. Just think how many hotel rooms there are in the US.
Rey:
failure to grok on my part. Sorry.
Actually, I have to rescind that statement about the watches. I had a wind-up Spiro T. Agnew watch in the early 70s. I never wore it because I couldn’t tell time yet. I wish I still had that watch.
That sounds cool. So does that mean that Chariman Mao wore an Alethea H. Claw watch?
I know you don’t want to hear this, but, wedding ring down the tulip aside, the little humans are much easier at this age than when they get older.
Sorry. Wrong thread. No caffeine. Pain pills. Scranton.
One would think that after 13 expeditions to Ararat, one might be tempted to say there was no evidence for an ark. But I guess “no evidence” is evidence enough!
LOL. I already stated that we CAN observe this process of developmental creation. But no scientist knows HOW or WHY it happens the way that it does. It remains the biggest mystery in biology – even PZ admits this. To build a complex multicellular organism, with all its intricate and interlinked parts, requires an astonishing degree of organization, coordination……and intelligence. Hence the compelling and absolute need for a designer or at least an agency of design. You have to come to terms with this fact.
So, because you don’t understand it, and because you do not want to understand it, and because you deliberately ignore what the scientists have observed, we must abandon science, and go GODDIDIT?
How yes, why is irrelvant, no imaginary deities required. Life happened. No purpose to it.
Still waiting for you to demonstrate the physical existence of your unevidenced imaginary deity, and mythical/fictional babble being inerrant. Nothing but mindless delusion on your part, as delusion is belief without evidence. And you have no real evidence, just imagufactured idiocy you pretend is evidence like the above. It isn’t evidence, but rather bad sophistry, special pleading, lies, and bullshit.
Fixed that for you, you unscientific delusional fool.
At the end of the day, atheists are staunch naturalists. Although they cannot explain the origin of natural laws and fundamental particles, they believe these can explain all other phenomena. It is an article of absolute faith for them. They assert that matter is essentially “divine” and has the capacity to change and mold itself into any complex structure and form. In this respect, atheists are really pagans who worship the creativity of Nature.
Creationists, on the other hand, are rational enough to recognize the limits of the potential of dumb molecules and natural laws. They see the work of an invisible organizing principle in the physical universe through which everything becomes intelligible and ordered rather than as a chaotic mess. In Christian theology, this principle is known as the Divine “Logos”.
So, notice the difference. The atheist-naturalist regards Nature herself (and by extension Evolution) as divine and all-powerful, whereas the theist regards Nature as just the manifest handiwork of a Divine Being which is not a physical part of the material universe but which instead transcends it.
As with the origin of life, we have long been waiting for a naturalisitc exaplantion to the origin of biological form. There isn’t one in spite of what some ignorant members here have claimed. Hence, we should abandon the current approach which is unproductive. Is “science” about banging your head agaisnt a brick wall or trying to extract blood out of a stone?
Faith is required when you must ignore the lack of evidence for your inane beliefs. No faith is used by myself, unless it is the faith that science will better explain the universe and advance the knowledge of mankind compared to an imaginary deity and mythical/fictional babble. As you keep proving with your inane and illogical posts.
No, creationists have nothing but presupposotion and religous belief. So says the Supreme Court, and ID is also a religious belief (see #10, Kitzmiller v. Dover), not a scintific idea. Your whole screed is a bunch a lies and presuppsotional thinking. Which is why I keep demaning conclusive physical evidence, which you never show, for your imaginary deity.
More lies. Atheists don’t believe in the divine. You presuppose that we must consider ourselves divine as there must be a divine. But there is no divine, so we can’t take that postion. Stop lying to yourself. Then, and only then, can you stop lying to us and the world.
You have to come to terms with the fact that complex multicellular organisms evolved from simpler organisms. Go back further in the story, lest you find yourself quote-mining. Don’t skip ahead until you understand the introduction. Aren’t you saying this god created everything? Life began about 3.5 to 4 billion years ago. Why was this god sitting on its immaterial hands for nine or ten billion years before it played its magic trick on this insignificant planet, a trick which looks exactly like it didn’t require a god or any magic at all? Why the long setup for a cheap parlor trick? Maybe it was just trying to distract you from what was really happening — better check your wallet. Check with the people who lied to you about this god bullshit.
Isn’t this new creationist that “polymath IT” dribbler from the other thread trolling for kicks?
Or is this a “genuine” muppet?
Louis
For a particularly stupid and meaningless definition of ‘divine’.
And ‘all powerful’? Do you really know that little about physics, chemistry, and biology? Or is truth just not that important to you?
Shall we stop looking for a cure for cancer?
For someone who’s so in love with his or her own writing that s/he sacrifices truth and honesty for verbose pomposity, you might be a little more selective when you tell other people what they worship: it’s clear that you worship yourself.
Try being a little humble and you might actually learn something.
Show me.
Show me one process in embryonic development where intelligence is required — just one step where it is impossible to get from point A to point B without a lift from the helping hands of an intelligent being…who apparently is floating invisibly in the egg or womb or petri dish, carefully pushing the organization of cells over some impossible thermodynamic hump.
Really, I’m tired of this vague handwavey shit. Get specific. Name just one of these critical steps that we can’t account for with molecules and biochemistry and physics.
Louis: We’re not certain about this one, though it looks quite like a Poe.
A.R., #147,
{Sigh}
It’s so hard to tell these days.*
Louis
* Yes I know! That’s the point of that joke. Oh do keep up people.
PZ, #146,
Everyone knows it takes godlike intelligence to do the amide condensation required to form even the most simple dipeptide. It’s not like these things just happen to form in space or something.
Tsk.
;-)
Louis
More barefaced lies from the creobot, because it has nothing else. No, atheists do not assert that matter is divine, no, they do not assert that it can mold itself into any complex structure and form, and no, naturalism is not an article of faith but a hgih-level hypothesis.
Louis: What’s more, undergrads can do that reaction, proving that intelligence is not absolutely required!
It sure likes to play fast and loose with the meanings of words like ‘worship’, doesn’t it?
Tell you what, godbot: if Christians ‘worshipped’ YHWH like atheists ‘worship’ Nature, the churches would be empty, the baptismal fonts dry, and all the priests and pastors would be forced to get actual jobs.
That would suit me just fine. Does it suit you? No? Then stop using words like ‘divine’ and ‘worship’ as these catch-all terms that do not in the least describe the both of us, our worldviews, or our actions in any meaningful way.
FIFY
Methinks the troll/Poe is finished here. Now on to anti-woman duties.
A.R. #151,
LIES! I have met undergrads that could not manage this.
I’ve had to teach undergrads that could not manage this.
I’ve had to teach labs to undergrads that could not manage the mechanism ON PAPER.
Granted, after I’d taught them they all could. Not because I’m a good teacher, I’m not, but because the death threats scared the shit out of them.
;-)
Louis
@nofriendoftheatheist
Actually, false, but not for the reasons presented in this thread. The distinction between natural and supernatural is a bullshit one that misses the entire point. It’s a red herring. Science doesn’t look for natural explanations – as opposed to supernatural explanations. Instead, it looks for testable explanations. In the words of my favorite rewrite of Arthur C Clarke’s third law:
“Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indintinguishable from science!”
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20081205
If anything, that is our article of “faith”, the belief that knowing material facts requires an evidence basis. From that, with the available evidence, we arrive at the inductive/deductive conclusion that physics is probably sufficient to explain all observable phenomena. Specifically, that there probably is a reduction from all observable phenomena to the basic rules of physics (though we may not know them yet) (and the reduction may not be useful in practice to form predictions).
Stop projecting. Atheists don’t worship science, nature, or any other shit.
Again, the deist god and its variants are untestable, which means your claim is both vacuous and bullshit.
nofriendoftheatheist: As with the origin of life, we have long been waiting for a naturalisitc exaplantion to the origin of biological form. There isn’t one in spite of what some ignorant members here have claimed. Hence, we should abandon the current approach which is unproductive.
Here’s an introduction to embryology, if you/re interested:
http://tinyurl.com/dy5jewm
(Just kidding: we both know you’re not.)
Scientific methodology has produced refrigerators, reattached severed arms, given us the internet, updated flu vaccines, landed humans on the moon, cures about half of childhood leukemia, and can now sequence genomes and is working on understanding it.
Science works. Some good science has been done by theists, but it was done by theists who were doing science. Theists haven’t accomplished anything by praying.
Is “science” about banging your head agaisnt a brick wall or trying to extract blood out of a stone?
No, that would be trying to talk to, educate, or reason with, religious fanatics.
The bottom line is that there is no acceptable substitute for science. Making factual, empirical claims without evidence is stupid and bullshit, and making untestable, factual, empirical claims is stupid and bullshit.
It’s funny how creationists claim to have found Noah’s ark, yet many claim be “in search” of it
It’s about banging this head against a brick wall. The crater in the wall is already pretty deep; the bricks are porous and hollow, and there’s lots of red dust lying on the floor.
Just be patient. Science is hard work.