No, that’s not right. It would be selfish for us as individuals to take advantage of this incredible windfall.
A controversial creationist who successfully campaigned for Richard Dawkins’ official website to be banned in Turkey has offered a multitrillion- pound challenge to scientists.
Adnan Oktar said that he has “issued a call to all evolutionists” that he will give “10 trillion Turkish lira to anyone who produces a single intermediate-form fossil demonstrating evolution” – a sum roughly equal to £4.4trn.
I had to look up the exchange rate. That’s $8,010,890,000,000. Eight trillion, ten billion, eight hundred and ninety million dollars. I could live reasonably comfortably on that.
Instead, though, I’m going to suggest something that will help out the entire country. The US government should immediately send a plane to pick up Mr Oktar, bring him to our country, and take him on a guided tour of the Smithsonian and the American Museum of Natural History, accompanied by Niles Eldredge, Kevin Padian, Jerry Coyne, Sean Carroll, and the entire scientific staff of those museums. Afterwards, they can accept the check from Mr Oktar, run down to the local bank and cash it, and use one trillion dollars to resolve the current financial crisis, seven trillion can be sunk immediately into the American educational system, and they can send the change left over to me as a reward for coming up with this brilliant plan.
Unless…
You don’t think…
Adnan Oktar couldn’t possibly be lying about how much money he has, could he? And he couldn’t possibly by planning to weasel out of accepting any honest evidence, could he?
You’d think he could have afforded a better lawyer, were that the case.
This depends on his definition of an intermediate-form fossil, I presume?
Thought so!
I think this is going to be like the Kent Hovind stunt; ultimately worthless but will be latched onto by fundies everywhere as proof evolution was made by the devil.
Brilliant plan, except that we don’t have transitional fossils, no–we only have “kinds” that god has seen fit to let go extinct in the last 6,000 years of Earth history. Get your facts straight.
Well…. I guess Mr. Oktar could at least pay for a bit of tzhat debt by having his organs donated.
@#1: Beth, he wouldn’t need a lawyer with this kind of money. He would’ve just bought turkey. And china. And some other countries. Like…all the rest of them.
What? A creationist lying? What a radical approach, Mr. Oktar!
This sounds like a scheme Dr. Evil would have come up with: “I’ll give you eight TRILLION dollars!”
Another asshole demanding crocaduck fossils. I wish he’d get eaten by a crocaduck.
And now, the Turkish publisher of The God Delusion may be going to jail : “Richard Dawkins’ best-selling atheist manifesto The God Delusion was at the centre of a growing row over religious tolerance yesterday after the Turkish publishers of his book were threatened with legal action by prosecutors who accuse it of ‘insulting believers’. Erol Karaaslan, the founder of the small publishing house Kuzey Publications, could face between six months and a year in jail for “inciting hatred and enmity”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/dawkins-publisher-faces-jail-over-atheist-manifesto-761063.html
BTW, Oktar is Harun Yahya.
Lutfen benni uldur!
I’ve always thought that one of the most common markers for a creationist is someone who can’t grasp large numbers.
The money is clearly in metaphorical dollars, where every metaphorical dollar equals a thousand real dollars.
Maybe he’s offering 10 trillion old Lira. They removed six zeroes in 2005.
I met people in France who were still reckoning in old Francs in the mid-1990s (France revalued the Franc in 1960). There was even a lottery specially tailored to senile old farts: It was called “Millionaire”, and the first prize was 10,000 Francs.
Probably a typo. He must have meant 10 trillion Zimbabwe dollars.
I thought everything was an intermediate form. I’m having trouble keeping my bogus creationist theories in a row. What does an intermediate-form look like again?
I will give TEN TRILLION DOLLARS to anyone who can present evidence that PROVES that even one case of divine creation has occured.
Your move Adnan.
I’d be reasonably comfortable with $5 million, that’s less than one millionth of that…
Also, he’d be THE richest man in the world if he had that kind of money. He doesn’t.
If you needed any more evidence that this guy was a total nutter… Waving that kind of reward money around when he knows he couldn’t pay…
Actually, I think there is even more money meant here. In the UK, their billion is the US’s trillion. In that case, the creationist offers 4.4 *10^18 sterling pounds. But then again, the GDP of the world isn’t even that much.
(World GDP ~55*10^12 US dollars)
I’m shocked by your insinuation that he might be planning to weasel out. Shocked! And everybody knows true believers are honest and can’t lie.
Huh wait a minute.
Now that I think about it.
Er, let me think this over again.
;)
There are probably old Turkish lira. Or the equivalent of $3.50.
Can’t call this Lying For Jesus. We need a moniker for non-christian creationist shenanigans. Mendacity/misdirection/misinformation for Mohamed? Antics for Allah? I could go on…
Face it. He wants a fossilized crocoduck.
Reminds me of a challenge some wankers put a while back about offering 10 million dollars to anyone that could prove them wrong about there being an afterlife. fallacious argument is fallacious
Of course he is not lying. He’s a Muslim, not a Christian (creationist).
In Islam, salvation is determined by good work — a Muslim lying to a non-Muslim is doing a good work, thus earning (the Muslim) salvation.
Which boils down to: if you’re not a Muslim, he ain’t lying. Even is he is.
If we were to announce that we were going to spend $7 trillion on education, I’m afraid the only major change would be that all the Wall St geniuses that caused the current problems would quit their jobs and become teachers. Hardly a gain.
We could use the entire $8 trillion to pay off the national debt, and use the money we save on interest to fund education. But wait- $8 trillion isn’t enough to pay off the debt.
PZ, your measly transitional fossils ain’t gonna cut it. These people expect a full, complete, documented list of individuals, with birth records notarized and signed in triplicate, that shows exactly who begat whom, before they’ll accept that evolution happened. Your Tiktaalik proves nothing to them.
//anyone who produces a single intermediate-form fossil demonstrating evolution//
I love it when total utter failure to even begin to understand anything at all about evolution is on display like this.
Turkey and Idiot America have almost the same percentage of creationist retards.
Here’s more evidence Americans are uneducated hicks:
Only 51% of Americans agree this incredibly stupid claim is false: The earliest humans lived at the same time as the dinosaurs.
There is virtually no difference between Muslim fundamentalists and Christian fundamentalists. Both groups are a disgrace to the human race. America needs a lot more ‘pointing at Christian morons and laughing at them’.
@21. Technically, you’re right, the UK billion is 10^12. However, over the past 10-20 years or so, we’ve become infiltrated by the (significantly more useful) US billion (10^9), and by now almost nobody using ‘billion’ means ‘a million million’.
Can someone please inform me as to how a convicted prisoner and rapist can not only get RD.net banned in Turkey but also issue stupid challenges such as this one?
Someone will have to break him out of his cell or wait 3 years after his sentence has finished in order to get him his much needed tour of the Smithsonian and the American Museum of Natural History
21: Nice idea, but unfortunately that usage of trillion is deprecated in the UK. Certainly, the whole financial industry uses the US definition, as does the BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5128220.stm
He already promised “10m New Turkish Lira (approximately $8.2m” a few months back and it is completely impossible to provide him with what HE calls a transitional fossile :
“If evolution had taken place, then there should be millions of fossils showing that living things assumed their present forms on a stage-by-stage basis. The fossil record should contain strange creatures with organs not fully-developed, with pathological characteristics, with features belonging to many different species. Specimens unearthed from beneath the ground should bear the signs of a strange world like that of the Island of Dr Moreau, and fossils showing that strange creatures like those on the island had once existed should frequently be found.”
“The fact is that the living things referred to as transitional forms by evolutionists would have been very odd-looking entities, with limbs protruding from the most unlikely places, with ears where their eyes ought to be, legs protruding from their ears, with fins on one side of their bodies and legs on the other.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/01/evolution.islam
@32 Thanks for the info
None the less, the creationist here is offering up about a seventh of the world’s GDP, offering up more than 10 times the value of Turkey’s GDP.
What a crock!
Oh, I forgot : ROTFL!!!
When I saw the title, I thought this post was going to be about how some mega-churches may be in danger of losing their tax-exempt status (through their own actions, of course).
link
Fortunately, there are ways of forcing him to pay up. Mr Oktar is essentially offering a unilateral contract, which can be accepted merely by fulfilling its terms. Since “providing” probably does not require him to actually see the fossil in question, it would seem merely having such a fossil publicly available suffices. I’ll suggest an immediate demand for payment, followed by a lawsuit, though you’re only likely to get whatever he has, not the full ten trillion Lira. Once at trial, its up to a jury, and not Mr Oktar, to determine whether the contract terms are satisfied (aka the provided fossil is transitional and demonstrates evolution).
He apparently will need a hell of a lawyer.
That bet isn’t worth sour owl shit.
I will wager something of real value.
Ten prime, plump, pullets to the first person to show up at my door with gawd.
“The fact is that the living things referred to as transitional forms by evolutionists would have been very odd-looking entities, with limbs protruding from the most unlikely places, with ears where their eyes ought to be, legs protruding from their ears, with fins on one side of their bodies and legs on the other.”
I figured he had absolutely no clue about biology.
He is just another ill informed idiot.
I had not realized that the limbs in reptiles are attached at the head in contrast to us mammals.
It also shows how easy it is to evade a challenge – just make up your own definitions.
Seeing as how RD.net was banned for a comment, one might be forgiven for thinking that this whole stunt is intended to generate negative comments regarding Oktar’s intentions of ever paying up, followed by similar legal action directed against Scienceblogs and anyone else in the pro-science and skeptical blogosphere who might have slandered Mr. Oktar and his most generous offer; thus silencing a large number of critics in one fell swoop.
Of course, far be it from me to even suggest that such a despicable scheme is what is behind this unexpected move!
“The fact is that the living things referred to as transitional forms by evolutionists would have been very odd-looking entities, with limbs protruding from the most unlikely places, with ears where their eyes ought to be, legs protruding from their ears, with fins on one side of their bodies and legs on the other.”
Would it actually have been possible to pack any more weapons-grade ignorance into a single sentence?
My concern with this is that it will devalue the Randi million dollar challenge. No-one seriously believes Oktar has any intention of allowing anyone to win dollar one of his ‘prize’, and this perception may spread to the JREF prize if it gets referred to in articles on the Oktar prize.
Yeah, since Mr. Oktar has thus far denied all of the scientific evidence, I would imagine that this man has no intention of paying people.
Oh well… imagine the money I could have made for my new Porshe… I mean… country.
From Oktar’s challenge,
There’s a reason that that book is considered fiction.
Far be it for any creationist to understand the distinction…
I’m no biologist, but doesn’t the (very much alive) duck-billed platypus exhibit both reptilian and mammalian features? Isn’t that the very definition of a transitional form?
Darn! I came to PZ Meyer’s blog thinking I could quit my job and all I find is another creationist lie.
I don’t even get out of bed for less than a bazillion.
My concern with this is that it will devalue the Randi million dollar challenge.
Except the Randi challenge is no more (or very soon to be no more). Randi announced that it was just taking too much time and it had been running long enough that its purpose had been served.
The first question is not if he is lying or has no concept of numbers or any other issue regarding fossils. The main issue at hand is; “Show me the money!”.
The challenge is moot up until the point he can prove he has the money and ability to pay up. After that we can show him the evidence, which he most likely ignores as any true ignoramus muslimus, subspecies of Ignoramus religus, but that too is beside the point without the cash.
How is Archeopterix not a transitional form? Wings and feathers of a bird, tail and teeth of a lizard/dinosaur.
Yeah… the annual revenue of the US federal government from all sources (Taxes, tariffs, interest payments, etc) comes to just over 2 Trillion dollars a year.
Nope. Wings, feathers, tail, and teeth of a particular type of dinosaur called a “bird.” Just a particular type of bird that’s no longer around.
Hmm…perhaps an embryologist or geneticist could create such animals, a la Dr. Moreau? Obviously, things like duckbilled platypi, Archeopterix, and Tiktaalik should qualify, but it seems he wouldn’t consder them to be transitional. I say, fight dishonesty with dishonesty, and create something he actually wants to see. Of course he doesn’t have as much money as he claims, but we could make him pay up as much as possible, and bankrupt the liar.
Erm….. isn’t every fossil an intermediate form though? Intermediate between one thing and something else. I want that money please. Bloody hell, if only Who Wants to be a Millionaire was that easy!
Erm….. isn’t every fossil an intermediate form though? Intermediate between one thing and something else. I want that money please. Bloody hell, if only Who Wants to be a Millionaire was that easy!
Erm….. isn’t every fossil an intermediate form though? Intermediate between one thing and something else. I want that money please. Bloody hell, if only Who Wants to be a Millionaire was that easy!
Ooh, this guy’s clever. (Well, at least in the trickery department.)
To understand this, you need to look at the wording:
It’s impossible to prove something is transitional without another stage in the transition to prove it’s going through that transition. He is demanding a single fossil. Although we can prove evolution with two or more fossils, we can’t with a single fossil. Neither can you prove, by looking at a picture of an egg being cooked, whether the egg completed being cooked or whether the egg was always in a half-cooked state.
Very, very sneaky. 8 trillion dollars would be nice, though…
Arcaeopteryx wins it.
http://skeletaldrawing.com/Archaeopteryx/archaeopteryx_WDC_small.jpg
BobC, I’m not comfortable typing creationist retards all the time.
I prefer the shorter version: Cretards.
Im from Turkey. Adnan Oktar is a perfect idiot.
He writes nonsense books and gives these books for free.
People, when he says 10 Trillion, he mean 10 million YTL, or around 8 million dollars. Although we’ve had a currency change in 2005, we still refer to “1 lira” as “a million”.
Still, it’s a nice amount of money and I’d like to lay my hands on that. Too bad I’m a good physicist and not a biologist.
#61 Cretards is very nice…. so, can we please call turkish creationist retards like Mr. Oktar/Yaya : Creturds ?
Nah, at current exchange rates that would be about 3 Euros and 50 cents :P
“Afterwards, they can accept the check from Mr Oktar, run down to the local bank and” bounce it.
Greetings from Turkey,
Adnan Oktar is a moron.
Have a nice day.
Harun Yahya – that’s his name? More like the sound I made when the hot tea blasted out my nose.
Gesundheit!
[gathering towels to clean off my monitor and keyboard]
Memory starting to click in…
Yes, Rolling Stones live album: Get Yer Ya Ya’s Out!
Special guest: Harun Yahya.
“Ya Ya” is old blues slang for ARSE. Coincidence? I think not.
Hey, Harun Yahya – put your Yahya (Turkish spelling) away.
Must. Stop. Now. – this is funny only in my head.
headline reads;
Octopus Man wins 8 trillion dollar bet and saves America
There is one thing missing in the article. There is not even one single transitional fossil in any of the natural history museums. My friends and I have seen many of the natural history museums. All the fossils within them certainly prove Creation.
Niles Eldredge also made a confession as such:
Darwin himself, …prophesied that future generations of paleontologists would fill in these gaps by diligent search …
One hundred and twenty years of paleontological research later, it has become abundantly clear that the fossil record will not confirm this part of Darwin’s predictions. Nor is the problem a miserably poor record. The fossil record simply shows that this prediction is wrong. (Niles Eldredge & Ian Tattersall,
‘The Myths of Human Evolution’, 1982, pp. 45-46)
Jake McFly: All fossils are transitional, except those species which have gone extinct. The fossil record is not the strongest class of data supporting evolutionary theory, but if you want fossils, here ya go:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html
I’d be interested to know how you think a 3MY old Lucy (australopithecus)fossil or 65MY old archaeopteryx “proves creation”. Do you, like Harry Yahoo, think that transitional fossils should have legs where their eyes should be, and a wing on one side of the body?
What about married fossils? Fossils in long-term committed relationships? Do they count?
Also, re #70: Oh, puh-leeze. We won’t even go into the “I’ve been in a natural history museum” thing. That’s like Sarah Palin saying she can see Russia from her house.
Way to go with that 26-year-old reference, by the way. Cutting edge, that is.
Bad troll goes to rest…
How about Amphicyon, the appropriately named “ambiguous dog”?
Jake McFly is, of course, lying. Eldredge did not confess that fossils prove creation. He claimed they showed evolutionary change was intermittent, or “punctuated”. Can a creationist ever post a comment which does not contain at least one bare-faced lie?
It seems that he is convinced that evolution works like this:
http://www.collectedcurios.com/spiderandscorpion.html
No. 67 if it updates…
He meant he can give 10 trillion old liras,which makes 10 million new liras,which is like 8.1 million dollars,which he is able to pay actually..
Please at least be a little more careful about these things..
Let’s offer The Discovery Institute Eleven Trillion in cash on arrival to move to Zimbabwe. By the time they alight, that should cover a Big Mac and a cab from the airport.
Please at least be a little more careful about these things..
ROFLMAO
Harun Yahya – that’s his name?
not exactly. His name is actually Adnan Oktar
Harun Yahya is a pseudonym of his, and I think has also been associated with his first creationist organization (now known as the “Science Research Foundation” – irony).
I think wiki has a brief overview:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harun_Yahya
I saw his “Atlas of Creation” while visiting Gary Hurd the other day.
I have to say… that tome has the highest production value, and likely cost, of any tome I have ever held in my hands. it even has little plastic 3-d inserts in the cover.
seriously, that book must cost a fortune to produce.
It’s so bloody heavy I can’t imagine adding it to my collection, however. Even for the humor value of the wonderful examples of fishing lures used as legitimate representations of actual organisms.
Can a creationist ever post a comment which does not contain at least one bare-faced lie?
my immediate thought was of course they can… but now that I think about it more, I’m not so sure.
so much denial and projection inherent in the creationist mind, it might really be a question of “can” instead of “will”.
Kermit: There are 100 million fossils unearthed, all of which are fully-formed beings with no transitional form characteristics. Not even a single one of them is a transitional form. This is why they have been concealed by Darwinists. You may see some of these fossils on http://www.atlasofcreation.com.
It is now acknowledged with certainty by the scientific world that Lucy is a species of ape. There are millions of similar ape fossils. In the wake of evolutionary speculations on Lucy, it was soon understood that it was not an intermediate and this was announced by the famous French Darwinist magazine Science et Vie under the headline “Adieu Lucy” (Goodbye Lucy). It was also understood that Archaeopteryx was not an intermediate either. Hoatzin, a similar bird to Archaeopteryx, is living today. It has claws just like Archaeopteryx did. Furthermore, a fossil bird, fully-formed and at the same age as Archaeopteryx, has been found. The fact that a fully-formed bird lived at that period invalidates all the theses about Archaeopteryx. You may check Harun Yahya’s web site at:
http://www.harunyahya.com/books/darwinism/atlas_creation_II/atlas_creation_II_10.php
Today these are known by even secondary school students. It is most surprising that you don’t.
It is not appropriate to post a comment here before reading Harun Yahya’s book. First read Harun Yahya’s books (www.harunyahya.com), then you will not feel the necessity to write a comment here anymore. These comments stem from ignorance.
I found you a nice transitional fossil between birds and dinosaurs.
#68
It reminds me of a quote from Buckaroo Banzai:
“You are… John YaYa. And you… John Smallberries!”
$8 trillion? Wow! That’s almost enough to bail out the banking industry!
This creationist says then you evolution thumpers should take him up.
A good chance to educate a increasingly sceptical public about evolution concepts.
Of coarse there are no intermediate fossils.
However what would be trotted out would be a fossilized dead creature , that was fully adapted to its world, said to be on its way to a new anatomical life.
When in fact its just fine and fixed, save for minor details, and going nowhere.
The geology record anyways is flawed in its presumptions it shows accumulation of time when actually it was a sudden instant collection.
Intermediate fossils need never be accepted by those already not persuaded by evolution. They are just snapshots in time.
Anyways boys go for it. Give your best three intermediates and call Turkey.
This is why they have been concealed by Darwinists.
and of course, Oktar can’t produce them either, so he makes cheap plaster fakes of them.
ROFLMAO
damn, you guys take the proverbial cake.
Give your best three intermediates and call Turkey.
how bout not, and we just call YOU turkey?
turkey.
I love when the kooks crawl out of the woodworks.
“Nuh Uhhhh!!!!” Is such a great argument.
But please keep going. :)
#s 82 and 86: Poe? I can see 86 being one, but 82? Seems too convinced of his own creotardery to me.
jake mcfly:”First read Harun Yahya’s books (www.harunyahya.com), then you will not feel the necessity to write a comment here anymore. These comments stem from ignorance.”
First you should learn a little about evolution before you post, or charges of ignorance will be, rightly, thrown at you. As for the thread topic, here is a good place to start:Transitional fossils.
co @90 No they’re both real. Byers has commented here before and in his own mind, such as it is, his comment was a devastating riposte.
You’d think that it would serve himself better to make it at least a marginally serious amount, like $100 million. Large enough to tempt, and small enough to actually exist.
The facts are true; the conclusions are stoopid.
It is not appropriate to post a comment here before reading Harun Yahya’s book.
I’ve held it in my hands, seen the ridiculous 3-d cover, and marveled at the pictures of obvious fish lures used to falsely display actual organisms.
does that count?
The facts are
true[used in a misleading way]; the conclusions are stoopid.thought I might take the liberty of amending that, if you don’t mind.
Do you even know what a transitional form is? It’s not a “missing link” or “common ancestor”, it’s a species that contains both characteristics of two distinct species.
Archaeopteryx is indeed a transitional form, just as Tiktaalik is. The archaeopteryx has reptilian features not found in modern birds.
But of course when you believe in Creationism, you can make words mean whatever you want. Instead of using the scientific definition of a transitional form, you make your own then complain at science for not finding what you deem to be one.
The irony meter exploded!
The irony meter exploded!
Whoever manufactures these things should really be taken to court for shoddy workmanship. I mean, there have been at least hundreds, if not thousands, of reports of exploding irony meters on this blog alone. Is everybody buying “Acme Irony Meters”, or what?
but seriously…
It has claws just like Archaeopteryx did.
Ok, not a biologist, but don’t most all birds have claws? Or is there something special about Archeopterix’s claws?
earlier, Sven wrote:
Yes, you and I know that, but I was thinking even in terms of Oktar’s deranged thinking. Archeopterix has charcteristics commonly identified as reptile and bird.
I’m buying industrial strength irony meters, there just isn’t one on the market strong enough for the levels of irony seen by creationists.
In the arms race between irony meters and creationists, the creationists are keeping too damn far ahead. Just when an irony meter is strong enough to cope, the creationists come out with new rhetoric that destroys it. The arms race is moving so fast that when it finally does settle, there will be no transitional irony meter in between. The mistake would then be to conclude that because there are no copies of the transitional irony meters that one never existed; that the alternative is that the preserved irony meter is only there because God made it so. But creationists like to do that, they like to look at the end product and yell “Goddidit”.
When we finally do get a stable irony meter that will survive for long periods of time, maybe future generations will look back at it, even in a society were irony is extinct, and call it a transitional form. Hopefully the creationist call of “that’s not a transitional form, and it’s certainly not proof that irony ever existed” will be long gone as they realise that life isn’t now as it once was.
It has claws just like Archaeopteryx did.
… on the wings
When we finally do get a stable irony meter that will survive for long periods of time, maybe future generations will look back at it, even in a society were irony is extinct, and call it a transitional form.
…and they will look like the divining rods I use as my non-destructable irony meter.
not terribly accurate (really doesn’t do “subtle”), but cheap and durable.
http://www.diviningmind.com/volvoline.html?gclid=CL_RvOeWg5YCFQsQagod4l7cFQ#rod
Liar McFly,
Why haven’t you retracted your lie about Eldredge yet?
I he wants limbs growing out of heads he only has to go into a forest and wait quietly, an example will be along. We call them deer. Antlers are not like horns, which are keratin, like fingernails, or tusks which are teeth, they are limbs. They even branch according to pentadactyl limb patterning. All that is missing is muscles, tendons and joints.
I am also in possession of a copy of a paper in the New Zealand Forest Industry journal. It has photos of a deer shot at the head of Lake Wakatipu in the South Island. Just in front of the left antler root is a recognisable limb. The hunter said it flopped about as the animal ran. The paper also shows the prepared bones clearly showing the attachment site on the skull.
The limb had joints, skin, ligaments and a little hoof at the end, but no muscle or nerves.
This should suffice to satisfy Oktar’s demands, surely?
Oktar has clearly forgotten the devaluation of the Turkish lira a few years back. 10 Trillion lira was about a buck-fifty back then…
//10 trillion Turkish lira to anyone who produces a single intermediate-form fossil demonstrating evolution//
Well,we can grow fly eyes from mouse genes,and anywhere we like,from wing to mouth,does that count?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10461206
Jake McFly said
“It is now acknowledged with certainty by the scientific world that Lucy is a species of ape.”
Now try this! It is now acknowledged with certainty by the scientific world that Homo Sapien is a species of ape.
Lucy may not be an intermediate, but the fossil record still indicates we have a common ancestry, incomplete as it is. Psst, so does genetics.
There’s a little misunderstanding on Independent’s article. It’s 10 trillion Turkish Liras, not 10 million Turkish New Liras. So it makes about 8.5 million dollars. Still good money though :P
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_new_lira
The only “intermediates” that creationists would accept are chimera. (Proof of whale evolution, to a creationist, would require back legs with hooves and an udder, coupled with front fins and underwater living.)
The irony is that people with an understanding of evolution would recognise that such an impossible animal could not have evolved and as such would be the disproof of evolution.
In case we needed more evidence of intermediate-forms, I just came across this article from the Guardian.
Can there be such a theory so much in a deadlock that is hardly kept alive? You are striving to keep up a dead theory by force. “If that fossil is not an option, then there exists this one,” you say. The fact is all of them are fakes. Why do you make so much effort to save a theory that is so flimsy?
Jake McFly,
You lying moron, your kind have been claiming the theory of evolution is “dying” for the last 150 years. What fossils are you claiming are fakes, and what evidence do you have. Why don’t you withdraw your lie about Eldredge?
As long as we have all that dosh sloshin’ around, might I respectfully request a modest sum of £5million be allocated rebuild the Beagle?
They are all fakes?!? Quick, give evidence to the scientific community about this: fraud is not tolerated! You may even make a name for yourself by exposing the fraud…
Though of course evolution never has and never will be down to the existence of transitional forms; in the fossil record it’s down to the emergence and variation of diversity. It’s genetics where the strongest evidence lies. Of course you don’t know what you are talking about, you are just another creatard who thinks he knows better than the millions of trained scientists in the field.
Can there be such a theory so much in a deadlock that is hardly kept alive?
yes, creationism is such an idea (doesn’t actually rise to the level of theory – or even an hypothesis -, but I’ll let that technicality go). It indeed is hardly kept alive except by loudmouthed idiots from various religions, like say, Adnan Oktar and Ken Ham.
You are striving to keep up a dead theory by force.
do you know what the term “projection” means?
I’d say you were trite, pedantic, and behind the level of even AIG commentary, but you probably wouldn’t be able to grasp that.
Oh brother, I see Marijuana Bill is back….
Fake fossils.
Excuse me gents. Time to change the unmentionables for something more durable. This is gonna be a real pisser of a thread.
Oh dear, link FAIL in my comment above. It’s The Beagle Project.
Why do you religious idiots work so hard to keep lying for your god? Where is your proof of a god?
I especially love how ‘Jake McFly’ felt it necessary to translate ‘adieu’ for us. ROFLicious.
Perhaps we could give Harun Yahya a gift copy of the Turkish translation of “The Ancestor’s Tale”? It seems to me he will be having a lot of time on his hands to read and understand it.
NICK GOTTS: Eldredge’s quote is true. These are the clear and explicit words of Niles Eldredge in his book named The Myths of Human Evolution. These were not expressed to defend the punctuated equilibrium. Because there is no intermediate fossil proving the punctuated equilibrium. You can see the irrationality of the punctuated equilibrium from the below links:
http://www.harunyahya.com/books/darwinism/atlas_creation_II/atlas_creation_II_06.php
http://www.harunyahya.com/refuted7.php
In addition to that, from the scientific point of view, the situation is clearly like this: there is no intermediate fossil, evolution is a lie. Even though Eldredge did not state these words, the situation is like this. Any rational scientist can sign under this quote.
You really have no clue do you? Silly Creatard with no understanding of the concepts.
Eldredge is talking about the predictions of gradualism, not of evolution as a whole. You are lying about him, quotemining him to prove something you don’t know about false. Why don’t you look at what punctuated equilibrium actually says?
Note the text in bold. This is what happens when you get your information from a creatard website instead of looking for the source. It would be like using Luke 19:27 to show that Jesus wants to murder all unbelievers.
#86 – Marijuana Bill – What a truly dumbass fucktard you are. Still dropping your pen and looking up girls skirts?
…what would be trotted out would be a dead fossilized creature, that was fully adapted to it’s world… They are just snapshots in time.
That puts you in a rather awkward position to explain how my little fake trilobite pal lived during the Palaeozoic era, when the earth is only 6000 years old.
Because there is no intermediate fossil proving the punctuated equilibrium.
considering one has nothing to do with the other, and apparently since you’re the only one who hasn’t already determined it, let me tell ya:
you haven’t the slightest clue what you’re talking about.
go back to tieing flies for Oktar to photograph for the next copy of your book of lies.
maybe the next one will finally break him? the first one certainly costs enough to print.
Kel – Ah-oh, we got a spelling difference going on here.
My Oxford English 11th edition dictionary says palaeozoic – 570 – 245 million years. Hummm.
I always use the Oxford English dictionary, because I figure what the hell, who speaks English better than the English.
But we are still talking about the same time frame, right?
btw, I think you might have more fun hanging out a site for the completely retarded, like yourself.
try this one on for size:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/
Adnan Oktar, meet Ken Ham.
will the relative increase in local density when these two black holes of intelligence meet destroy the earth?
tune in next week and find out!
Sometimes I have no idea what you are referring to Patricia.
Palaeozoic or Paleozoic seems to be the same era; 542-251MYA, from the start of the Cambrian to the end of the Permian.
Jared – Post a warning for your blog site. Frog, cute, frog, cute, SNAKE! Ewwwwwww!
Running away squealing like a school girl.
You caught it IN YOUR HOUSE!!!
Ewwwww!
Kel – Don’t worry about it, most people don’t speak the same dumbass hillbilly that I do.
I just wanted to say something all sciency for once and when our spellings didn’t match exactly, it freaked me out that I was a tard. Looks the same. Must be one of those English/American spelling things. Lift/elevator.
Anyway, the christian fuckheads still can’t prove their point. You are right/he’s an idiot.
Patricia @129
Sorry, I was going to put up a picture of the two hummingbirds I saw, but the picture came out blurry…
Adnan Oktar wrote:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/01/evolution.islam
Do you think he’d accept a caddis fly with a fishhook where its arse ought to be?
Jake McLie,
I have a copy of Eldredge’s book. I have read it. The passage you quote is written in defence of puntuated equilibrium. Either you haven’t read the book and are retelling a lie you’ve been told, or you are a bare-faced liar yourself. Which is it?
Come on McLie,
I’m waiting for your evidence that all the fossil evidence for evolution is forged.
Gotts,
Punctuated equilibrium is a lie used to cover up the lack of evidence fabricated by people who cannot find evidence to gradual evolution. It is also based on no evidence like gradual evolution.
Here are the Darwinist forgeries like “famous Piltdown”:
http://us1.fmanager.net/api_v1/productDetail.php?dev-t=7EZU2FZ0164&objectId=9546
Piltdown man was never accepted by the wider scientific community AND exposed to be a fraud by the scientific community. It’s an example of how the system self-corrects, it weeds out mistakes, frauds and hoaxes. That’s right, the only reason you are here talking about Piltdown man as a fraud is that the scientific community volunteered that information.
Are you going to admit you quotemined Eldredge?
Transitional fossils:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUcB_HiCKnM
McLie,
The page you link to is itself packed with brazen lies. The development of complex animals in the Cambrian is a well-documented process which took tens of millions of years. Moreover, there are simpler multicelled fossils from before the Cambrian, single-celled fossils before that. There were no land animals until many millions of years after the Cambrian. The transition from fish to tetrapods, to mention a single example, is documented in considerable detail. Evolutionary theory does not say, as your fellow liar Yahya claims, that “chance caused evolution”… I could go on. The only fraudulent fossil you mention is a forgery from nearly a century ago, which only remained undetected because for many years scientists were not allowed to examine it properly. Your claim was “The fact is all of them are fakes.” You are a shameless liar. You claimed that Eldredge admitted that fossils supported creationism. He did not. You are a barefaced liar. Liar, liar, liar, liar, LIAR.
Is it still a lie if he’s a pathological liar and believes what he’s saying to be factually true?
Is it still a lie if he’s a pathological liar and believes what he’s saying to be factually true?
Is water still wet even if someone calls it dry?
I mean, they wouldn’t call it pathological lying then, would they?
they’d call it pathological truthiness.
:p
Do you think he’d accept a caddis fly with a fishhook where its arse ought to be?
LOL
Hey, if it was good enough for use in his book…
Depends on how you interpret the word lie. If you truly believed what you were saying, is it still a lie or simply factually incorrect? I guess what I’m trying to say is the word “lie” would to me imply an intent to deceive. You can be an honest ignoramus and spout of absolute nonsense, but I’m not sure if it’s lying if they don’t know better.
Meh, I don’t really know.
If you truly believed what you were saying, is it still a lie or simply factually incorrect?
then it becomes a matter of timing and exposure.
if you were convinced something was true, it doesn’t become a lie when you tell it until someone else shows you it was demonstrably incorrect.
stretch that out to looking at the idea in general:
is it generally know that the idea the “believer” is spouting is factually incorrect?
if so, then, yes, that person is spreading a well known fallacy, and that works the same as spreading a lie in my book.
that the earth is 6000 yrs old is a great case in point.
You can be an honest ignoramus and spout of absolute nonsense
have you ever heard the expression:
“ignorance of the law is no excuse”
?
or, if you’d like another analogy…
Is it still called stealing, if you were unaware that taking someone’s possessions without their permission was labeled such?
yes, it is.
Oh I’m definitely not excusing his behaviour at all. He’s spouting falsehoods, and has deluded himself into rationalising a “rejection of truth”. Merely was questioning the semantics of calling him a liar. Ignorant, stupid or insane would work better :P
I’m sure McLie believes “evilution is a lie”, but he must know his specific claims are false, I think – as indicated by his implicit backtracking over Eldredge, and failure to come up with anything even pretending to justify his claim (of fossils) that “they are all fakes”. My hunch is that this is true of most creobots who have spent any time trying to defend their claims, as opposed to those who just don’t think about the issue at all: it becomes just a matter of partisanship, with lying on specific points simply being a rhetorical tactic.
Fair enough, the Eldredge quote is pretty damning especially has he’s been called on time and time again to acknowledge his error.
Merely was questioning the semantics of calling him a liar.
yeah, that’s what I thought, i was responding to both the semantics, and the underlying issue.
as far as semantics goes, like I said, I just think of it just like stealing.
stealing is stealing, semantically and objectively, in my book, regardless of ignorance or motivation.
It could be an overly simplistic way of looking at it, but otherwise, it would be pretty damn hard to define a lot of words in any given language.
Yeah, that analogy sums it up quite well.