Sometimes I get requests for assistance with creationists. Usually, it’s because some unwarrantedly confident ignoramus has been lying his butt off. Here’s a perfect example:
I have a quick question concerning an encounter I had with a man last night who claimed he was a scientist (although, foolishly, I didn’t ask him what field).
He made the claim that the majority of biologist do not “believe” in evolution. (He also pulled out the standard canards of “no macro biology” and “evolution requires faith”; I’m not wasting my time or your with this.) He claimed he has a “list” of all the biologist who “disbelieve” in evolution. and the many books he has read show this to be true.
I know this false. I told him so, but really didn’t want to get into this. He claimed the media made it seem as if biologists accepted evolution.
I cannot for the life me understand exactly where he is coming from. Do you know anything about some “list” circulating apologists of biologist who supposedly don’t accept the theory of evolution. I know a few do, but isn’t the scientific consensus something on the lines of 95%?
I’m curious if you’ve heard similar claims before and what you make of them. Next time I see this made I would like to be able to simply, flatly explain to him that he is wrong. (When a “scientist” tells me that evolution is random chance, my BS meter goes off like you wouldn’t believe. But since I’m not a scientist, he can try to claim some sort of argument from authority over me, and I don’t want to be hypocrite and claim my own argument from authority.)
Of course I’ve heard of this list: it’s the infamous Discovery Institute list of “scientists who dissent from Darwinism”, parodied by the Project Steve list, and which contains a few hundred names, many of whom are not scientists — the list leans towards dentists and engineers and such. It is a tiny number of people…if the majority of scientists rejected evolution, it would be rather easy to get tremendous numbers of names signed on, don’t you think?
Even easier, though, pick a biology department, any department anywhere. Go in and ask the faculty what they think of evolution. You’ll discover impressive unanimity — virtually 100% of every department will tell you that evolution is true and useful. You will find an occasional exception, though: the Lehigh University biology department comes to mind, and even there, they post a disclaimer stating that Michael Behe is the sole dissenter who rejects their unequivocal support of evolutionary theory.
My correspondent’s mysterious “scientist” was that extremely common phenomenon among creationists, the guy who has no evidence and relies on blustering falsehoods, a complete fraud.
Speaking of creationist liars…how about Casey Luskin? The primary reason so many biologists accept evolution is that it simply works: it’s a useful theoretical tool that guides research successfully, and helps scientists get work done and published. If the ID crowd actually had a model that helped us understand the world better, we’d be flocking to it. In an email debate, a fellow named Rhiggs engaged Luskin on just this topic, asking for sources to positive evidence and experiments backing design. Luskin tosses out the usual creationist handwaving, and attempts to hijack the work of legitimate, non-creationist scientists as supporting ID…but completely fails to produce any of that primary research literature that Rhiggs is asking for.
There are quite lengthy exchanges going on there, with Luskin always evading the main point (I could have said this was a futile effort: Luskin is no scientist, and his ignorance is legendary). Finally, though, he gives an excuse:
I assure you that I don’t ignore arguments. You don’t know me and I am not that kind of person. In fact, I’ve been traveling a lot for work lately, but in the last week over the course of 2 long plane flights I’ve managed to find time to work on replying to you. I’m nearly done with the reply and I hope to finish it on another flight I have later this week. FYI, my reply is already over 5000 words, and it begins by saying, “Greetings after an undesired delay on my part. I appreciate the time you took in your extensive reply. Because you put in so much time, you deserve a reply. I apologize that it took a while to reply–I’ve been busy a lot over the past couple weeks, including much traveling, and in fact I’m finally getting some free time now that I’m on a flight.” Thanks again–I hope you will hear from me soon.
“Soon” is 13 months ago. Maybe I’ll have to post reminders to him on Paul Nelson Day — this is becoming expected behavior from that gang of propagandists.
… encounter I had with a man last night who claimed he was a scientist
They want the respect and credibility of science, while simultaneously trying to demolish it. If that’s not weird, I don’t know what is. Stupid creos.
PZ, sorry to nit-pick, but shouldn’t “…virtually 100% of every department will tell you that evolution is true and useful.” read,”…virtually 100% of every department will tell you that evolution by natural selection is true and useful.”
Some of the religious nuts accept evolution happened, but think that goddidit.
Alan Clarke is Casey Luskin?
No, dude, you didnt catch the update!!
This ‘debate’ happened 13 months ago, right? After Rhiggs posted the exchange on his brand-new blag, Casey sent him a hateful email. CaseyTARD must just sit around all day, Googling himself every 15 minutes or so!!
AAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHA WHAT A LOSER!!!
@3-Alan as Luskin. Interesting thought. We could start a list of the guys, on this blog alone, who have promised answers to questions and then promptly raced off to defend Jesus elsewhere. Nat Weeks and maybe Alan* as recent examples.
*He might come back…
Is the number 1167 significant in some way?
Nat and Alan stayed around weeks preaching to us. (I just loved their slogan “the truth matters”, which we also used by adding the truth requires evidence.) I think Casey, from the sounds of things, would get all confused after the first two posts and run away.
I would like to say it was surprising to read about the blatant lies that Creationists are slinging but I’m not and haven’t been for a long time. At this point it seems like that is just a personality trait for them.
So I would like to ask how. How do they go through their everyday lives with out being called on their bullshit.
I assume the Creationists who get in front of microphones and on the air are leaders and spokespersons for their groups. But, how can these incompetent lairs make it that far in their personal lives?
One does not simply walk into a biology department.
It doesn’t matter how many times we tell them that. It seems they just don’t get it.
That sounds soooo like Alan Clarke…
Acceptance of evolution among biologists in the USA runs around 99%. It is higher in Europe. Source, talkorigins.org, the one stop shop for fundie lies.
The few who don’t freely admit they don’t on religious grounds.
The DI list has few biologists and more than a few who are now dead. They claim 700 or so, an insignificant number. You can find way more than 700 biologists in mental hospitals or drug and alcohol rehab programs.
The media doesn’t want you to know this, but in fact most mathematicians don’t believe in addition.
(Oh, sure, micro-addition, maybe…)
I just don’t get it about those creotards.
Why do they lie?
And most of them seem to know damn well that they’re lying (ahum twisting the truth?).
Doesn’t their god have something against lying?
If their babble would be true, wouldn’t that mean that by spewing their lies for jebus they automatically will go to hell, won’t past purgatory and certainly won’t go to heaven?
I hate liars. I even more hate liars about religions science and history.
Those people seriously make me sick to my stomach.
I’m glad i live in the netherlands. But even here some stupid christian organisation popped up to make an even more stupid folder about creation and education.
I wasn’t as “well educated” about the whole creotard topic as i am now, but damn.. if such a think ever happends in the netherlands again i’m going to so severely slap them it’s not funny.
(with words.. and truth.. and articles and email and proof. I’m a pacifist)
Mark says, “One does not simply walk into a biology department.”
But I hear they will let you twirl in.
AK47 @ #12:
I thought it was that they didn’t believe in multiplication, but had no problem with adding a number to itself over and over again?
Oops. Marc, not Mark.
In a way I think the statement that ‘the majority of biologist do not “believe” in evolution’ is correct.
The majority of biologists (and geologists) accept evolution as a fact. “Believe in” implies faith, unfounded by observation or rational argument.
But then again the IDiots think that science is a faith…
Of course we believe in microaddition. I’ve been trying to catch up on algebra and there’s repeated references to MA in ringtheory: “by nx we mean the sum of n summands of x: nx= x + x + … + x” (imagine there’s a bracket underneath saying “n terms”).
This is completely different from multiplication proper which involves two ring elements and no integers.
Who is lying? Yes, evolution (change) happens for adaptation in this broken world, within limits. That is what can be observed today. But no “scientist” has evidence of the Darwinism fairy tale of molecule to man. None. But this is your dogmatic faith. You are true believers in it. You are the ones who have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and you worship and serve yourselves rather than the one who (for His purposes) made you. Like the Bob Dylan song goes; “Gotta Serve Somebody.” We know who that is. But, you know what? God may actually be insisting or may have actually given you over to believe what you do; completely out of your control. Perhaps so that certain Scriptures can be fulfilled. Or, He is calling you to the Truth. It seems one, or the other. But judgment is coming.
I think a lot of people have a very vague idea of what science is, and what a scientist does. As they see it, virtually anyone and everyone is a “scientist” in some way, because they define science as “going out and looking for yourself, and checking on stuff to see if it works.” Naive empiricism and technology, in other words.
So when they say that “scientists” are at odds on evolution (or on vitalism or alien abduction or homeopathy) they include a lot of cranks, amateurs, and ordinary people on whichever side they themselves believe in, and have no compunction about calling these people scientists. It then comes down to politics, and “world view,” and choosing which side you want to believe in and which people you want to trust.
Yawn, god doesn’t exist, so no help there. That makes the bible a true work of fiction. Yawn, godbots are sooooo stupid.
S. Sorenson at #19 – first troll since PZ turned off the registration requirement!
Take him on, all you bored and angry commenters!
Well, so you obviously serve satan. How is it? Do you get health insurance, 401k plan, and 2 weeks paid vacation.
Keep it shorter. We know the type, hear it everyday, the mindless hater and liar. Just cut and paste:
All you baby killing, pseudointellectual, atheistic cannibals are going to hell. Don’t forget to add the usual death threats.
It’s assholes like you that knocked the number of xians in the USA down 10% in the last few decades to 76% of the population and falling.
S. Sorensen @ #19, you say, “But judgment is coming.”
Sure, you’re right. Here it is. You’re a feckin’ edjit.
I’m sorry to be so blunt, but I can’t see any point in trying to explain anything rationally to you. I’ve come across similar statements, & the deluded theists who author them aren’t so much always impervious to rational argument, as always starting with an unwarranted assumption that screws up their train of thought.
I think Sorenson could be a POE. Hit a reference to comming judgment in the first comment.
Ah, frrrresssshh troll meat my precious. Yep, things should liven up a little.
oh yawn. yeah yeah, judgment is just around the corner. any moment now. for the last 2000 years.
and micro vs macro evolution is a joke. that’s like claiming that losing hair happens, but no one ever goes bald from it.
Bah, both a blockquote fail and a lack of understanding the context fail in my #15. I shall now slink off into the corner reserved for computer geeks who lack a mathematics background…
I think it reads better this way:
*Sigh*
Trollmeat,finally !!
an oxy from one
Mister Sorenson.
What is this truth of god?
Do you have proof of this? (saying it’s the bible doesn’t count, because that’s just a book written by a lot of people and edited by even more people and the church, so absolutely not valid as _any_ evidence)
While we’re at it, please give me proof of god as well and i’ll start believing in him right away.
Wow, let’s see.
…this broken world…
You weren’t there!
Micro vs macro
Thinly veiled threat.
Congratulations Sorenson. Just one short post and I’m only one away from creationist troll Bingo!
“Claim” is right. Last time I looked through their list about half of them weren’t in a field even remotely related to biology. (Besides the expected computer scientists, engineers, and mathematicians, I believe there was at least one psychologist. I think I counted the one or two with Ph.D.’s in “meat science” as biologists.) And how accurate is the DI’s list, anyway?
Sorensen managed to violate 4 or 5 rules in his magic book. Sounds like false prophesy and assuming the role of a deity and condemming everyone.
The punishment is death. You should report yourself to your gang of mad cultists. They will cheerfully stone you to death, I’m sure.
It is more a burlesque show for the benefit of the general public.
They have no intentions of ‘proving’ evolution wrong…because they damn fool well know that there is not a atheists chance in heaven that that could ever come to pass…
They are not interested in actually doing any research into ID…there is no research they can do which is meaningful…they have no intentions to answer specific points put by other secular scientists…because they do not have the answers.
But that is not the point of them anyway…they are the ‘scientifical’ wing of creationists incorporated…they are marching for jeebus…they do not care.
The point is to appear to the general public that they actually do research…that they do answer questions put by secular science…that they are not associated with religion and that they have a case…that is all!
They want the general public to fight their cause…because the premise of ID actually does not have one…except to whip up ignorant public support…They want folks to think…
‘gee!…secular science is being really nasty to these other ‘scientists’ and not being fair to them…maybe they have a point that upsets regular scientists maybe they should have their case taught in schools so the students can decide which is the right explanation…that seems fair…teach the controversy…what does science have to fear.?..except the truth?.. because is ‘scientific ‘ after all…because those nicee young personable ID ‘researchers’ said so… and ‘scientists’ don’t lie!’
That is all ID has …that is the sole reason…there is no other.
To have Creationism taught as a respected science…to have evolution dropped from the curriculum…to preserve the delusion for as long as they can… it is all they want…so they figure lying manipulating and dishonesty is fine cos it is for jeebus…awww!…ain’t that sweet!
S. Sorenson #19 wrote:
If “worshiping and serving the self” is supposed to explain why people reject the Christian form of God, I don’t understand how folks like Mr. Sorenson account for people choosing cold, rational atheism over those forms of theism which literally claim that ‘everyone is God,’ and grant its followers magic psychic powers and mystical insight into great secrets — as well as eternal lives of bliss.
Are we just supposed to be too stupid to figure out that that there are fake religions which actually make us into Gods, or what? It can’t be discipline and honesty which keep us from joining up with some silly cult where we can pretend we have special “healing abilities” and channel ancient warriors from Atlantis.
Next time that “list” is mentioned to you, you may tell your friend to watch this video:
Heavy pwnage.
The Redhead’s cousin finally signed the Project Steve list. He was close (and trying to be) the the 1,000th signature, and acknowledged there probably was some politics involved with the “official” 1,000 signature. Still number 1,000±5 isn’t shabby.
There’s a good Wikipedia article on problems with the list (google “dissent from darwin list”).
An even better takedown is this youtube video:
The guy who did the video contacted all the biologists on the list (he didn’t count the park ranger as a biologist) and asked them if they rejected common dissent. 12 out of the 14 who replied stated that they actually accept common dissent.
(The video is based on an early version of the list when it had only 100 or so signers, 39 of whom were biologists/biochemists, so 14 out of 39 is a reasonable response rate. The list is now up to 700 or more.)
and micro vs macro evolution is a joke. that’s like claiming that losing hair happens, but no one ever goes bald from it
nice.
AFA sorenson, I don’t see the point of even bothering to respond unless he comes back. One post just makes a driveby, and there’s no point at shooting at a car that’s not there any more.
Ah, Citizen Z, you beat me to it in posting the youtube video challenging the list.
How could I write “dissent” instead of “descent”? You might as well throw me to the creationists right now.
THIS time I’m PREVIEWING!
OK. No idiot mistakes that I can see.
“debating creationists is like playing chess with a pigeon. It knocks over all the pieces, craps on the board and then flies back to its flock to claim victory” – anon
If I may speak for the class:
We’re all against you with regard to this.
And those who aren’t deliberately lying are dumb as stumps about science.
Comb your hair right and praise Jesus, and you can get people to believe anything.
There are quite lengthy exchanges going on there, with Luskin always evading the main point (I could have said this was a futile effort: Luskin is no scientist, and his ignorance is legendary).
I guess you could say this was a waste of time seeing as Luskin clearly has no clue about biology. But the thing is, I had never even heard of Luskin before. I had just read a few things about ID and the Dover trial and thought the whole thing sounded ridiculous. You might be surprised to know that most people in Ireland (and I imagine Europe) have never even heard of ID. So I decided to go right to the main source to question them about it. Hence, I emailed the DI to ask them for experimental evidence of ID. When Luskin replied, I engaged him in the debate and actually enjoyed it immensely. In fact, as I had to do a lot of research to back up my arguments, I ended up learning and appreciating evolutionary biology in greater detail. Since then I haven’t looked back…
Just to correct ERV, he did email me last night to complain, but I wouldn’t call it hatemail. He just said I was a big meanie and hadn’t acted in ‘good faith’. (Hmmm, I wonder if he accused Ben Stein of the same?)
Also I’d just like to make this point about Luskin. He may have less scientific knowledge than a ham sandwich but, to his credit, when he is angry he still maintains a courteous tone.
S. Sorensen #19:
Yes, they do. In fact, the sheer amount of evidence in support of evolution is staggering almost to the point of being absurd.
Which ‘truth of God’, precisely? The Protestant God? The Catholic one? The Lutheran one? The Anglican one? The Methodist one? The Presbyterian one? The Weslayan one? One of the myriad other denominations of Christianity? Some other religion entirely? What?
1) I don’t ‘worship myself’. I would find anyone worshipping me both degrading for them and for me, so for that person worshipping me to be me is doubly degrading.
2) I don’t ‘serve myself’. Whilst I am not perfect, and have therefore been known to be selfish, on occasion, in general, I am fairly generous, and treat others like I would like to be treated myself, not because some mythical Sky-Daddy told me to, but because I have this thing called ’empathy’. I suggest you look it up.
3) Prove ANYONE ‘made me’, except the biological processes that occurred when my parents conceived me.
Nope, you don’t. Or, at least, you don’t have to serve a mythical supernatural being who probably doesn’t exist, anyway.
I thought one of the central beliefs of Christians was that God gave humans free will? Or are you saying that God is deviously manipulating us into believing He doesn’t exist, quite deliberately? If so, why would I want to worship a God that is that dishonest?
Well, if God is trying to ‘call me to the Truth’, assuming that the ‘Truth’ is that He does, indeed, exist, all He has to do is make a public appearance of a kind that leaves no doubt that it is Him.
I’m not familiar with the Discovery Institute list (recent reader here), but as an engineer, I am totally offended at any engineers who would willingly sign that list. One of most important things you learn in engineering school is analytical thinking, obviously these folks missed that part. I don’t think I would recognize them as real engineers.
47#
That is the ‘Men in Black’ evangelical corps…
They are trained in being ever so polite well turned out little scamps…like regular jeebus sunbeams…
It is a scam…these folk know that they engender a lot of genuine frustration and anger at their tactics in general…especially their quote mining and twisting of words…
They hope that if they behave like polite little jeebus soldiers then the general public will take a shine to these handsome upstanding liars but reject any peed off folks that retort rather blatently that they are lying scumbags.
It is smoke and mirrors and a course in public relations or two…it is just an act…they know it and we know it…
The article reminds me of happy college days.
Kent Hovind was in town, and I went out to a church to listen to his talk. He told the people that oil was made from the billion people who drowned in the flood. He made fun of the folks who drowned, too. He is evil.
The next day, I had a job interview with an oil exploration company, held in the geology department. After it was over, I mentioned Evil Kent and his flood-oil theory, which got a good chuckle. I said the fellow was on campus, in the next building, giving a talk, and offered to lead them over, which got another chuckle, and a bit of a strange look.
I trotted on over and listened to Evil Kent again, and was amazed how much of his crap he didn’t spew that time. Being in a secular university with several professors in his audience really took the edge off him. He didn’t mention a damned thing about oil.
My point is that the oil-exploration people, those heartless capitalist corporate money-grubbers, didn’t waste a frakking second on Kent Hovind and his flood geology. They were at a secular university, recruiting modern scientists educated in geology. They have no motive but profit, and they knew which “theory” worked best in the real world.
No, I didn’t get a job with the oil guys, but that was just happenstance. It is not happenstance that I still regard Kent Hovind as the most evil person that I have ever met.
when he is angry he still maintains a courteous tone.
I’m sure many historical racists managed to curtail their sneers while describing the object(s) of their hate.
I can very politely tell your grandma to go suck eggs, too.
(not that I would, mind you) :P
The funny thing is, I’d bet that if he was that condescending to you in person, you’d be even angrier than if he let his true feelings fly.
…and I only say that because I’ve experienced it myself.
Smarmy fuckers.
He is evil.
He is in jail.
…where he belongs.
in case you never caught it…
the oil-exploration people, those heartless capitalist corporate money-grubbers
Ah. That reminds me – coming to New York next month:
http://wiwavshell.org/
Hey PZ,
You missed the debate. It was held 12 months ago, in the dungeon of his local Catholic Church. His debate winning comments were eloquently explained to the only in attendance. Seeing you ducked the debate. The Priest and Alter boy declared him the winner. They celebrated with high fives, communal wine and one Alter boy. lol
#50 and #52
Good points. I agree.
There is something funny about Luskin’s naive enthusiasm. It’s almost childlike. I get the feeling that he prints off his articles and sticks them to his fridge.
http://fourdollarsalmostfive.blogspot.com/
From the NCSE’s preparatory materials for the Texas board of education meetings (via Skepchick, by Steve Newton):
Even better, I recently encountered a creationist who cited a source from an institute that is apparently fictional:
Coppedge does have a book by an apologist publisher called “Evolution: Possible or Impossible?” The “Center for Probability Research in Biology,” however, has no web site and no physical address that I can find. I’d say there’s a very high probability that it consists of just Coppedge himself.
Luskin has this to say about Sorenson.
I hope he’s paying himself the big bucks to work on that, because nobody else would. Nobody thinks that modern cells popped up by chance–creationists seem to think that evolutionists say they do, but that’s typical lying creationist crock.
The evolution of single-celled organisms over billions of years is fascinating. The little buggers went through thousands of generations each year, for a time that makes our multi-cellular evolution seem paltry. Of course they are complex as hell.
Hmmm. Maybe he could do the math on the number of generations by which they outmatch us in the alleged progress of evolving.
creationists seem to think that evolutionists say they do, but that’s typical lying creationist crock.
*psst*
I think the term you’re looking for is “strawman”
…and yes, creationists create and defeat armies of the same strawmen on a daily basis.
It impresses the rubes, dontchya know.
:)
…well, actually, having seen it personally a couple thousand times now, I’d have to say that a lot of it isn’t even done consciously. Creationists evidently MUST employ strong psychological defense mechanisms to maintain their huge levels of cognitive dissonance, and these become apparent as they employ huge amounts of projection and denial.
I’ve often seen creationists presented irrefutable evidence that even THEY reluctantly agree with one day, only to reset themselves the very next day as if the previous day’s information had never been heard.
It’s quite remarkable.
Now I’m not saying ALL apparent creationists are like this. Some really do just lie outright in order to maintain an income by reinforcing the rubes.
SQUEEEEEEEEK
a tiny fantasy of mine for some time now is to have Luskin do a guest post on Panda’s Thumb, or here, and then have EVERY comment just be a series of squeaks.
Well, James F., looks like the only thing Dr. James F. Coppedge is directing is dirt. Naturally, not trusting a creationist website, I did a quick search of the LA Times obituaries, I’d say that a Dr. James F. Coppedge did, at one point, exist.
Funny how that obituary doesn’t say a single thing about him being “director of the Center for Probability Research in Biology in California”.
I came for amusement while waiting for a flight, and found someone with my last name spouting hateful nonsense @ #19. It makes me sad. Most of the Scandinavian-heritage Christians I was raised with would never have told someone “judgment is coming” so rudely. Even from a Christianist point of view, it would seem to be counterproductive. (You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.)
I cast off Christianity long ago, but I still have a certain affection for the mostly tolerant and gentle faith I was raised with. That faith didn’t have any particular obsession with literal readings of Genesis, either. This #19 person seems to reflect a “new Christianity” that is far more harsh and strident than the “new atheism.” Depart from the public square, #19!
So a priest, a rabbi and a penguin walk into this biology department…
So a priest, a rabbi and a penguin walk into this biology department…
The thing I’ve learned is that this kind of argument requires us to be polite and to accept a what is being said as plausible, and as polite social animals this is exactly how we’ve been taught to react. “Oh, really, the earth is 6.000 years old? Isn’t that interesting. Hmmm. Yes, I see.” And really only recently, what I’ve learned is that you must not give an inch, not agree one bit, when someone is trying to feed you sugarcoated bullshit. You have to say “No, that’s completely wrong, you do not have a credible source for that information”. Now, I cannot believe that I ever suffered these fools in the past, but I did. It was the Hitchen’s interview last week on the radio that turned me on. Turned me on finally from my years of slumber. Turned me into an attack aphid. And yes they will say that you are attacking them, because you are not following this common social convention of being agreeable. But actually they are attacking you, trying to put a wedge of doubt into your head that perhaps all of this might just possible require the hand of an intelligent designer. That is an attack, an attack against your will and against your conscious. And like any attack it must be repelled in the most expedient and forceful way possible. So do not ask PZ for help. If you do not know what else to say to an attack like this, just say “NO NO NO” and do not engage him, and walk away, just as you would a street hustler. Pay him no mind and in the future prevent allowing yourself to be found in this situation.
@Somnolent Aphid #66: Does this mean you’ll be changing your handle? If so, I humbly suggest “Militant Aphidist”.
Somnolent Aphid #66
I was never so nice. The first time I had a discussion with a creationist was 40 years ago, when I was 21. I told him, right to his face, that he was full of shit and I couldn’t understand how someone who had supposedly graduated third grade could believe such obvious stupidity. We worked together for the next two years but never discussed creationism again.
sorry for the outburstiness of that last post… little sleep over the last few days. haven’t been exactly somnolent.
I think most of us here are just trying to point out the shills.
haven’t been exactly somnolent.
no worries. You’ve come to the right place to shed your nightclothes.
rant away and enjoy.
A day at Pharyngula without a rant is day without sunshine.
a day without nucleic acid is like a day with a creationist—–boring.
A prophet? No. Just stating what the Bible teaches is going to happen. And God did reveal Himself on earth in Jesus Christ with many convincing proofs. Still they had such evil and lying spirits they crucified Him.
#74 was meant for the “raven” in #35, and all others it applies to.
Sorensen, the bible is fiction. Which makes Jebus fiction. Which makes god fiction. Falsehood all around. Yawn.
OT but worth stating:
Atheism: the belief that there was nothing and nothing happened to nothing and then nothing magically exploded for no reason, creating everything and then a bunch of everything magically rearranged itself for no reason what so ever into self-replicating bits which then turned into dinosaurs.
Makes perfect sense.
Belief in a Creator is not the same as lying.
It’s baaack…
Just stating what the Bible teaches is going to happen.
chapter and verse, if you really want to annoy us.
with many convincing proofs
like?
Still they had such evil and lying spirits they crucified Him.
I thought it was necessary? Isn’t it the whole fucking point? Didn’t the man himself ask for the cup to be passed?
or did you not want your “sins” taken by this jeebus dude??
My memory, confirmed by Google, records a Steve Sorensen saying stupis crap and getting his ass kicked all around talk.origins about 10 years back. If this is the same guy….he’s learned nothing in all that time. How sad.
So please explain why acknowledging the existence of antibiotic resistant bacteria arising due to inappropriate use of antibiotics or that trilobites, placoderms and titanotheres existed millions upon millions of years prior to the advent of humans, or that species and populations evolve because offspring are imperfect copies of their parents are enough to damn a person to Hell to suffer God’s eternal wrath for ever and ever and ever and ever?
More random thoughts.
The story reminds me of conversations I had with one of my nephews when he was a teenager loose on the streets of Berkeley (CA). He would confront me with various crackpot theories. When I asked for verification he would say “a professor at Cal told me blah, blah, blah.” I had to explain to him more than once that every whacko off his meds sitting around Berkeley claims to be a professor at Cal. Eventually my nephew caught on. Somebody says he’s a scientists? So what? When I used to give guest lectures on critical thinking I liked to start by walking around the classroom a bit, shaking hands, introducing myself as “Brad Pitt, you know, the famous movie star” and offer to sign autographs. It’s “the naming game” where naming something (including yourself) has the magical effect of making it true! Right. Sure. [BTW I look almost but not quite entirely unlike Brad Pitt.]
On the topic of the academic institutions and their existence (or more to the point, lack thereof) beware of the “Who’s Who” books. They are survey based. One of those surveys falls into the wrong hands and all sorts of fabricated factoids can appear in print. Some successful hoaxes have been perpetrated on the Marquis company.
On the topic of how can certain people hold such contradictory ideas in their heads, I can only speculate (no one can verify, not even with functional MRIs, what’s really going on in another person’s head). I can only say that I have encountered numerous people in my life who can say the wildest crazy-assed statements, genuinely mean them, and fail to see any contradictions nor logical fallacies. My favorite was the guy who decried the evil Saddam Hussein (and yes, he was evil, no joke) for slaughtering his own people then less than a minute later defended the selling of weapons to both sides in the Iran/Iraq war because “Our enemies were killing each other.” So, it’s vitally important that we save the Iraqi people except (but of course) when it’s vitally important to kill them? Yikes! Tilt! Where’s the bloody *%#$@ re-boot button on this guy?
OT but worth stating:
If you think strawmen are worth erecting.
Atheism:
the belief that there was nothing and nothing happened to nothing and then nothing magically exploded for no reason, creating everything and then a bunch of everything magically rearranged itself for no reason what so ever into self-replicating bits which then turned into dinosaurs.one giant fucking strawman army later…Makes perfect sense.
strawman defeated! hooray!
Belief in a Creator is not the same as lying.
no, but lying is the same as lying. and you just lied when you created that ridiculous strawman.
congratulations, liar.
You worship a sex offender? Are you catholic?
He doesn’t want the sins of those who do not slavishly and unquestioningly adhere to his own point of view to be taken by Jesus, so he can rest easy that he doesn’t have to share Heaven with people who disagree with him.
@74: So, was the Crucifixion part of the biblical God’s plan, or it was not?
Sounds pretty silly either way.
Ichthyic clearly has no humour.
The story reminds me of conversations I had with one of my nephews when he was a teenager loose on the streets of Berkeley (CA). He would confront me with various crackpot theories. When I asked for verification he would say “a professor at Cal told me blah, blah, blah.”
strangely enough, while he most certainly wouldn’t have gotten those ideas from a prof in the zoology dept., he certainly could have from Phillip Johnson over in the law dept.
http://www.origins.org/articles/johnson_evolutionofacreationist.html
Berkeley was a “fun” place, even in the late 80’s. Not only did we have to contend with the likes of Johnson, but Jonathan Wells was a grad student, paid for by Sung Yung Moon no less, in the MCB dept. just across the hall from me.
#66 – Beautiful rant! My attitude on this is: they give you hell, you give it back.
*smiles sweetly*
Ichthyic clearly has no humour.
oh, clearly.
*rolleyes*
Dear S. Sorenson,
Please explain how your savior could die when God is, by definition, immortal.
Thank you.
Ah, humour is debatable. But Ichthyic clearly has a femur.
AVSN,
Dunno, do fish have black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, or blood?
which God? there’s been more than you can imagine
which creation flood story? 40 days of rain, or 150?
which resurrection story? open tomb, one guy? open tomb, one angel? open tomb, two guys? closed tomb, two angels?
The religion of Abraham is an ala carte buffet.. something for everyone.. pick and choose the bits you like, and scoff at the ones you don’t, and pass those off as allegory..
don’t get me started on all the Jeebus attributes being lifted from other Mediterranean cults of the day.. and the major source of Christianity having never met or heard of the guy… came to him in a dream on the way to Syria… about as valid as reading invisible golden tablets by putting a couple of rocks in a hat… why don’t you keep up with the times and follow the Scientologists? You might meet some famous idjits…
Clearly, AVSN has never seen how giggly Ichthyic can get around stuffed porkchops and or catfish with black bean sauce.
Ah, humour is debatable. But Ichthyic clearly has a femur.
GROAN
(but the first time I’ve see Patricia say something funny)
Why thank you AVSN, but being funny isn’t my main job here.
Dunno, do fish have black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, or blood?
the answer is:
all of the above, of course!
being the most diverse of vertebrates, we’re funny like that. Little bit of everything, dontchya know. I should show you my liver sometime…
(but the first time I’ve see Patricia say something funny)
you must be new to these parts.
*psst* I think you should say something offensive about raising chickens to Patricia. She really likes that, and will inevitably think you witty.
I wish you had pointed to Project Steve. To sign up with Project Steve, you have to be named “steve” or “Stephen.” However, less that 1% of the population is named Steve. So for every person that signs up, there are 99 others.
Therefore, since Project Steve tracks the DI list exactly, the evolution “supporters” outnumber “deniers” 99 to 1.
being funny isn’t my main job here.
Noticed that. Seems to be your main job is to attack those who believe differently than you do. As you did to me more than once.
(don’t ask for citations, I have no idee how to reference all them.)
But to remind you, you attacked me for being Catholic.
Ichthyic, you shouldn’t encourage remarks about thighs and breasts when True Christians are present. Stop egging him on.
If that’s what you think the Big Bang and evolution are, well no effing wonder you don’t believe it. I wouldn’t either.
Here, these might help explain what these theories are and the processes involved:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0132013495/ref=sr_1_olp_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240109518&sr=1-6
http://www.amazon.com/Big-Bang-Origin-Universe-P-S/dp/0007162219/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240109694&sr=1-1
Come back when you’re done.
Oh, and no, believing in a creator doesn’t make you a liar, but it does mean you’ve been lied to.
such as…
you attacked me for being Catholic.
and?
AVSN – Please don’t feel slighted. I bite every catholic I get a chance to. It’s my duty to prove that vaccination works.
To #78…….Yes, Jesus had to die for humans who come to Him to know forgiveness before God. But the point was humans are depraved sinners and not righteous truth seekers by their very nature. It takes ears to hear and eyes to see to find the truth about God. So, even if God were to perform more signs and wonders today, still people would reject Him. Just like they did then………To the creation topic: Try this site: http://crev.info
Though your characterisation of atheism is… there are laws of nature that govern interaction in the universe, these laws acting over time produce what we see now. Christians either believe that these laws don’t exist or that god is responsible for the creation of those laws. An atheist is one who doesn’t believe in God. The laws of the universe remain regardless of whether there is a god behind it, so unless you are coming out and saying that the laws of physics are wrong (or inadequate to explain what we see in the universe) then all you are doing is lying about atheism by admission of your personal ignorance of physics!
The Sorenson guy has gotta be a Poe. Surely nobody would seriously cite any lyrics from Dylan’s born again period. I thought everybody in the world had agreed to sweep that under the rug.
Ah yes, this is more like it. I’ll catch up on everything in the morning. G’night all.
Great. Another calvinist. Sorensen, we already have a heap of horse hocky named Heddle. Go spread your good news somewhere else.
“To #78…….Yes, Jesus had to die for humans who come to Him to know forgiveness before God.”
God has a really stupid system.
Marc Abian #9
Why not? There are some where people are dashing around being Important Scientists but my experience has been that most biologists are happy to talk about their work to anyone.
Afraid to check out http://crev.info
Hmmm?
And Dylan….you gotta have ears to hear and eyes to see. His code is there. Just like he sang on his last recording, last song in Modern Times. Dylan has never renounced his faith, and his songs verify it.
which is it that is righteous in this sentence, the seekers?.. or the “truth”? it makes a difference.
Why is it no “true believer” (I’m looking at you, Sorensen and AVSN)can answer this simple request?
Please explain how your savior could die when God is, by definition, immortal.
Heh heh. Bob Dylan is Jewish, you know. He doesn’t believe in the divinity of Jesus. Shame that he’s gonna have to go to Hell.
#62
Citizen Z, crackerjack detective work. Evidently, the good doctor is no longer with us, and even if the center ever included anyone else, there’s no trace of it today.
#112
S. Sorenson,
Two quick questions. How old is the Earth? How old is the universe?
AVSN #99 wrote:
There is a difference between attacking someone for being Catholic, and attacking the beliefs of Catholics. “Being Catholic” is not some rigid part of identity like being black or gay or from Canada. It’s a belief system, and all someone has to do to become a Catholic is consider what it says about religious matters, conclude that it seems accurate, and accept it. So it’s more like a political or scientific viewpoint.
There’s nothing wrong with attacking different viewpoints. Creationists, for example, are welcome to attack evolution — and make fools of themselves by doing so. We atheists can then join together with the Catholics and point this out to them.
And what happens to those who reject the Good News of Christ before God? They will be thrown conscious and alive into the lake of fire. Not the cartoonish picture. You think you have hate now? It will be multiplied there. You will forever gnash your teeth. You will forever scream in your own tiny rage to God. Every nook and cranny of your conscious existence will have nothing but tears. The worms will never die. The fire will never be quenched. You will be in hell forever. Notice your response to this inside you? It will be multiplied there with rage, darkness, fire, gnashing your teeth, endless weeping, an eternal darkness that you will feel and understand why, forever. Romans 1: The wrath of God is revealed from heaven (now) against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in their unrighteousness. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature, rather than the Creator who is forever blessed. You are going to hell whether you believe that or not. That instant of death, your conscious torment will have only begun, and will be so much worse after the great white throne judgment of God. Your scoffing, filthy, wrath and rage will multiply in hell forever. Guaranteed. So, keep on with your ugly, sewage words if you will it. It is only a foretaste of your after life experience. The Good News is only for those listening.
Well, well, let those who have ears hear. Nice S. Sorensen, I rarely see Mary 7:28 quoted here. How about another, it’s even more delightful.
Peter said to him: “Since you have become the interpreter of the elements and the events of the world, tell us: What is the sin of the world?”
The Teacher answered:
“There is no sin.”
Mary 7:11-15
But it does trouble me…if the Teacher Jesus didn’t believe in sin, why do you?
Sorensen, I looked at your link.
I was presented with a litany of bold-faced quote mines within seconds. The only thing I’m afraid of is rolling my eyes 360 degrees.
You have have to stop making assertions based on the bible since none of us regard that as a reliable source. Explain to us why the bible (and ONLY the bible – not the Vedas or the Koran or the Necronomicon) should be reliable. Get it?
You have not explained how accepting the fact of evolution equals eternal damnation.
S. Sorenson #118 wrote:
Don’t you understand that, if your description is accurate, this “news” would only be considered “Good” by psychopaths? What sort of religion requires that people applaud their God for revenging his honor by demanding blood and pain?
Look, if you people are going to look into your hearts and make stuff up, at least make up nice stuff. Don’t buy into ancient authoritarian systems based on gruesome blood revenge scenarios. Discover the value of metaphor and symbolism, and use it to encorporate some better morals.
If hell is anything like listening to Sorensen’s blathering, tedious tripe, it will indeed be a place of weeping and pain.
And you’ll know they are Christians by their love.
So Mr. Sorenson, why would you want to subject Bob Dylan to that? I mean, he seems like an okay guy to me.
Is this the best they’ve got?
blah, blah, blah…
*yawn*
Rhiggs: The appearance of design or improbable functional sequences are not empirical evidence of ID, they are what you might call philosophical evidence. Furthermore, they are improbable sequences when you predict the probability of the entire sequence assembling spontaneously, but this is actually what ID proposes, not neo-Darwinism.
Rhiggs never heard of ID before, and Rhiggs is already an ID expert. That’s pretty much ID in a nutshell. They made their own special little religion out of “Darwinism” that for some odd reason looks a lot like creationism. Probably a coincidence…
They end up ceasing to be eventually… just like the ones who accept… just like I’ll cease to exist someday.
AVSN,
I was baptized Catholic without my consent as a child– Good News: It’s curable. Ridicule may even act as a catalyst in the deprogramming. As a “default Catholic” amongst other Catholics, I once took great pleasure in mocking silly beliefs like Scientology or Mormonism. As an atheist, I now get to derive pleasure from the indoctrination that caused me untold angst as a child. (You, too, can broaden your pleasures!)
Criticism of religion is not hate speech any more than criticism of Voo Doo is hate speech; it’s just that you’ve been indoctrinated to hear criticism of your magical story as being more offensive than the criticism or mockery you’d rightly give similarly unsupported beliefs. Faith is not (nor has it ever been) a method of knowing anything useful or true.
#128:
Agreed. Same sad story here. Not that my upbringing was that bad; just, well…based on bullshit.
I was baptized Catholic without my consent as a child– Good News: It’s curable.
indeed.
http://www.atheistfoundation.org.au/excommunication.htm
I highly recommend all thoughtful Catholics consider what their, intentional or unintentional, support of the CC has done for the world at large historically (even looking at recent history).
Once considered carefully, surely the only humanitarian conclusion is to have yourself excommunicated.
You are going to hell whether you believe that or not.
Woot! ’bout time. Was getting tired of having to work on it. Now that I have guarantees, I can finally relax a bit.
Articulett:
Soo-oh not interested in your “cure”.
Quite the opposite in fact, I was cured of my doubt by Mother Church. I will however go farther afield and quote the Koran: Sura 109
[109:1] Say, “O you disbelievers.
[109:2] “I do not worship (or believe) what you worship (or believe).
[109:3] “Nor do you worship(or believe) what I worship(or believe).
[109:4] “Nor will I ever worship(or believe) what you worship(or believe).
[109:5] “Nor will you ever worship(or believe) what I worship(or believe).
[109:6] “To you is your religion (or belief), and to me is my religion(or belief).”
Parenthesis mine.
A long winded way of sayin, Let’s just agree to disagree.
(oddly enuff, had to say that more than once here. Things that make you go hmmmm)
As soon as he gets to this part, just say something like “*yawn* This topic is boring” and walk away.
S.Sorenson @74 “many convincing proofs”??
Just one will suffice. Show us what you’ve got svp.
No, we don’t. But you sure do. As well as delusions of being a prophet.
Report to your toxic death cult and they will cheefully stone you to death like it says in Deuteronomy and many other places in the magic book.
Or do what civilized people do and check into a mental hospital.
How would you know? Doesn’t look like you have ever even opened one before. FWIW, you don’t speak for all xians or even some. Just the voices in your head.
@Stanton 121:
They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature, rather than the Creator who is forever blessed.
see? He did “explain” it. I’m sure in his twisted mind, he thinks that since evolution doesn’t require a “creator”, then that defacto means we have turned our backs on whatever fictional creator he happens to fantasize exists.
It just made so little sense you might have missed it.
:p
Stanton, you are right but you are dealing with a nutcase. There isn’t one word in the bible about evolution one way or another. There are many about the path to salvation, faith, good works, or both depending on what you pick and choose.
Sorensen is just a babbling idiot who knows as much about xianity as he does science, zero. He probably spends his days pushing a shopping cart around the park and mumbling to himself while clutching a bottle shaped brown paper bag.
For REY FOX on #124. First, God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son so save us from hell. That is love to the utmost. He died for His enemies. And second, subjecting Bob Dylan to what? I was saying he had never renounced his faith in Christ, the indicators have been there it remains. In his songs, and on his radio program, and in his concerts. Bob has been subjected to LOVE, and I have and many others. It is love that people reject that sends them to hell. God is love. We are fallen sinful beings. He came to save us. Whoever calls on the name of the Lord Jesus will be saved. Why just Him? He alone was able to take care of our sin problem by dying for the penalty of our sin so God’s justice would be fulfilled. God in His unconditional love gave His Son to do that for us. Then, He conquered the result of our sin, death, for us, by rising from the grave for us. Our two biggest problems. Sin and death, and Jesus took care of them both for us. He was the only suitable perfect sacrifice, as a Lamb unblemished. So, this is why people try to appease God through their various religions when they reject Christ as the only way. They are trying to cleanse their consciences and justify themselves, when God did that for them on the cross.
Sorensen–
You’re either a Poe or you are seriously, SERIOUSLY stupid. I mean, you’re trotting out the ol’ hell card? Really? Wait… next you’ll tell me your loving god will save us. Yes, I see.
First, create the problem, then offer the Jesus pill to cure it.
I would also like to add that if you are not an ACTUAL scientist (and from what I’ve read so far, a scientist you ain’t), then shut your ignorant piehole about things that you, frankly, just don’t understand.
Ridiculous.
Is S. Sorensen the proud result of teaching a parrot how to type?
A long winded way of sayin, Let’s just agree to disagree.
well then, as far as your opinions on the value of religion go…
He died for His enemies.
Why not follow his example then?
BTW, S.
Love isn’t god… it’s oxytocin. Duh.
And second, subjecting Bob Dylan to what? I was saying he had never renounced his faith in Christ, the indicators have been there it remains. In his songs, and on his radio program, and in his concerts. Bob has been subjected to LOVE, and I have and many others.
to quote another Pharyngulite:
“I’m much less interested in you and your ideas than you seem to think I should be.”
My sense of humor must be in bad shape for I find Patricia to be funny. I suggest that we use Patricia’s trebuchet to send AVSN on a trip.
Dear Mr. Ridiculous from #139. Science just means a way to figure things out, even though some scientists want to call themselves that so they can be god like.
and then ICHY in #141, go back and read #118. Your wrath is showing. And that’s only part of it. Like 118 says, more on its way.
They are trying to cleanse their consciences and justify themselves, when God did that for them on the cross.
…but if killing christ was a sin (you said evil people did it, right?), and it was required for him to die so he could take our sins when he died, then…
committing sin absolves us of sin!
Woot! just wait ’till I tell the other orgy fans!
Sin away! the more you sin, the better the absolution!
S-
Excuse me? No. Science is: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pseudo-science/
Seriously. You’re in over your head here.
Your wrath is showing.
funny, I thought it was satire.
more on its way.
follow the advice in 142 and just die for me already.
Isn’t that the inevitable end goal of your cult anyway?
S. Sorensen makes me understand why missionaries ended up boiling in a stewpot…
Mmmmmmm. Stew.
Ah… that old gem of logic: God sent himself to sacrifice himself to himself in order to appease himself and save us from his wrath.
Demented.
More importantly…
Patricia has a trebuchet? Want!
Ichthyic @130:
I’ve probably gathered quite a few technical disqualifications by now. But if you want Vitandus, I need to see the money first :)
BTW, LMAO @141 and 142.
*I just realized Vitandus no longer exists. S$%t.*
If this guy thinks that the majority of biologists are creationists, then who exactly does he think the creationists are opposing?
Hey guys,
stop bashing Sorensen,he’s the only troll that’s shown up since PZ re-enabled anon commenting,so be nice to the man and play along,will ya,at least he ‘s giving us something to talk about….
I need some entertainment here !
Rorschach, troll stomping is the entertainment.
@ 138,
Ah yes,that one.
God who had sat on his bum for 200.000 years since man evolved,finally made himself known to some middle eastern polytheistic tribalists(must have thrown dice or something i assume),ordered his son to have himself nailed to a cross and die a little for a while because he was bored or something,then had him resurrected,probably feared he’d get in trouble with child services or so,then had him beamed into a cracker somehow.
Good one S Sorensen,carry on,got any more examples??
Sorensen deserves a stomping… if anything it’s because (s)he assumed I’m a Mr.
Plus, I like the squishy sensation between my toes…
ERV@4:
Possibly, but Google Alerts seems to be a more likely explanation.
Of course, if he’s googling himself every 15 minutes, it will explain why it’s taking him so long to reply to Rhiggs…
“I was saying he had never renounced his faith in Christ, the indicators have been there it remains.”
Dude. He’s Jewish. Take a while to think on what that means.
Marc @9
Of course, if you take the time to disguise yourself with, say, a tank top, studded belt with matching fingerless gloves, leather pants, headband and bitching big hair – then you’ll just blend right in,
(I so wanted to be in a big-hair band. Of course, the fact that I can’t sing or play an instrument prevented that. Maybe I should have tried for a boy-band instead)
ordered his son to have himself nailed to a cross and die a little for a while because he was bored or something,then had him resurrected,probably feared he’d get in trouble with child services or so,then had him beamed into a cracker somehow.
die a little for a while…
LMAO.
I’ve always thought someone should re-do Weird Al’s “Weasel Stomping Day” with a theme of trolls instead.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8710797866388017148
Hello, Sorensen! You’re so-called God is impossible. It’s a square circle. It’s a married bachelor. If it died, even for a while, it wasn’t God.
You, your religion, and your Bible are self-refuting.
Now, now, Castle… don’t go confusin’ the fundie with logic! Faith requires a suspension of all things logical… and historical, and scientific, and psychological, etc.
tubbolard @ #77, “…Atheism: the belief that there was nothing and nothing happened to nothing and…Belief in a Creator is not the same as lying.”
I never once heard of anyone calling their skull a tub.
are you implying Luskin isn’t real? that he’s just a ‘bot?
I like the cut o yer jib, matey.
Sigh. I feel nostalgic for the pirate mode of the old Pharyngula.
#77
fix’t
also; Poe
Just remarking how his language is exactly the same in his letter and his “reply”. I’m pretty sure only people on the level of intelligence of creatards feel the need to be so redundant.
So to summarize, Sorensen has left us with not one proof, none at all. Rather, he’s demonstrated the bully in the bible, he has mistaken proof for threat, a threat of an intangible ‘eternity in hell’. If you cannot convince someone with logic, try intimidation, right Sorensen? He’s also claimed that it requires special ears to hear the proof, a clear sign of dementia, psychosis or inadequate medication. He’s off his meds! Enough Troll! Back to the hovel with you!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Dylan#Religious_beliefs
S. Sorenson #74:
Really? God ‘revealed himself’ by masquerading as simply an ordinary human who can do some magic tricks, like David Copperfield, instead of revealing himself as himself? Again, if this is true, why would I want to worship a God who deliberately deceives us like that?
tubbolard #77:
Wow. Don’t know what dictionary you use, but I suggest you get a better one. Here’s what mine says:
S. Sorenson #105:
Hang on, back in post #74 that, ‘they had such evil and lying spirits they crucified Him’, now you’re syaing that ‘Jesus had to die for humans who come to Him to know forgiveness before God’. The two are directly contradictory – either Jesus getting crucified was part of God’s plan, in which case the ‘evil and lying spirits’ aren’t ‘evil and lying’, but merely tools being used by God to, again, deceive us, or Jesus getting crucified was NOT part of God’s plan, in which case, if we take your assumption that Jesus was the Son of God, the ‘spirits’ were, indeed, ‘evil and lying’, but it means God’s plan went awry – which kinda casts doubt on that whole ‘omnipotent and omniscient’ deal.
S. Sorenson #118:
So much for the merciful, loving God, then. And why would God, if He is omnipotent and omniscient, punish us mere mortals for believing His celestial lies? It means He succeeded in doing what He is, apparantly, trying to do – convince us He doesn’t exist.
No, not particularly – it’s hard to hate someone who doesn’t exist. What I do hate is the way I am constantly preached to in the name of someone who doesn’t exist.
Well, simple arithmetic states anything multiplied by zero is still zero, so your point falls down. However, if I did find myself cast into a pit of fire by God for daring to believe Him when He lied to me, I think I would start to hate Him.
My response to this will be multiplied? Good, I want to be extremely amused for the rest of eternity.
S. Sorenson #138:
I’ll repeat the question – did He give His Son, or was Jesus taken from Him? You don’t seem too sure.
Ah, so Dylan has been singing in code that makes it clear that he’s a Christian? You do realise that he reportedly said that he subscribes to no organized religion, although that’s partly contradicted by him being seen to take part in a few Jewish ceremonies, such as bar mitzvahs of his sons, and also attending synagogue a few times during Jewish religious periods, like Yom Kippur? It would seem that he’s either atheist or Jewish, but certainly not Christian any more – either way, that means, according to you, he is destined for that pit of fire you’re talking about.
I know I’ve already made this point above, twice, but it bears repeating again – was it part of God’s plan for Jesus to be killed, as you do not seem to be too sure?
Or maybe they just reject Christianity in it’s entirety, or even perhaps have never considered it in the first place. I know it’s quite often a shock for Christian godbotherers to realise that not everyone thinks Jesus is real, hence justifications like the one I’ve just quoted, but there are people like that.
Sounds to me like he’s culturally identifying as a Jew, and therefore attends these culturally significant events, but identifies himself spiritually as being more self-guided. He finds his spirituality in music, particularly religious music of all faiths.
He apparently once said that the reason he converted (briefly) to Christianity is that the music it has produced is so beautiful. Religious music does tend to be aesthetically pleasing (at least if you don’t pay attention to the lyrics).
S. Sorenson – for myself, IF there is an afterlife, and IF your God is the dude in charge, then I will be glad to head to Hell. The God of the Bible is so despicable as to not be worth giving the time of day, let alone spend all eternity worshipping. Besides – in Heaven I’d have to hang around with fundamentalist Christians. *shudder*
(Besides, if heddle from the thread the other day is right, my chances of being saved are exactly the same as yours, because nothing we do is good enough for God, and he just picks us at random to be ‘saved’)
S. Sorensen (#138):
Person A: I love you.
Person B: Well, don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t feel the same way about you.
Person A: You will suffer an eternity of torment for rejecting my love!
Based on this exchange, which of the following seems more likely?
(a) Person A is a wonderful person who is worthy of Person B’s love.
(b) Person A is a morally-stunted psychopath who ought to be locked up.
Maybe not. It could this list of “scientists” at the Institute for Creation Research, or this other list at Answers in Genesis.
I knew I should have checked back on this threqd beofre I went to bed.
*grumble
yay for typos
Sorensen’s “loving, benevolent” god would give me eternal punishment if I don’t believe in it? What an asshole it is. Any god that sadistic isn’t worthy of my belief. And if it does exist and does so punish me, I’ll spit in its face because that’s what it deserves.
No, Sorensen, I most certainly will not believe in such a god. And it doesn’t say much for you that you feel the need to worship a sadistic bully.
no emails today from the heavenly hosts. oh that right, they don’t exist.
And good morning to you too. Wow, if this is a Poe I’m going to feel very silly.
To quote Christopher Hitchens, it sounds like Saint Paul. Even more-or-less sane Christians realize that the Romans chapters do not constitute the word of God, but are actually a compilation of letters from a Roman Lictor (police officer) who started out hunting down and executing Christians but then on the road to Damascus had some transformative experience. His creation of an authoritarian structure within Christianity changed its character. We can’t blame all the insane acts by various Christians throughout history all on St. Paul, but he gave them a good base base to work from. Also, given that he converted from hunter to hunted, he knew how to write in a kind of “code” that only other Christians would understand, as a way to evade arrest.
This is all winding up to the painfully obvious conclusion: reading the bible as literally true never ends well.
Rev. BigDumbChimp – I turned your font cootie loose. Might be fun to sick him on the trolls. ;)
If they return I’ll release the hounds.
Janine @145 – Good! I hope it was my gospel of Mary that you found funny. That means the dripping sarcasm, and fundie irony finally got noticed by someone. *sniff*
Anonymous! Oh shit, now I’ve lost me…
I thought you had to log in to this blog now
… so that you can electronically ignore the likes of me to avoid having your comfortable yet narrow world view challenged by scientific observations.
“He apparently once said that the reason he converted (briefly) to Christianity is that the music it has produced is so beautiful. Religious music does tend to be aesthetically pleasing (at least if you don’t pay attention to the lyrics).”
I dig those Christian rock bands ….. until they let a bad word slip out … then they’re not Christian anymore.
Christ, I might just have to convert back to Atheism… Maybe that love you and Bob were forcefully subjected to made you sin, you know, the priests do it all the time.
According to Christians, we are all born sinners and we need to accept the lord Jebus and God’s love to avoid being sinners. That’s why Dog the Bounty Hunter is Christian, because he was born a sinner.
For the majority of us who weren’t born sinners, Richard Dawkins has a perfectly good explanation for our sinning tendencies. You see, rather than being born sinners, we are instead born slaves to our selfish genes because we are machines. But since we are the masters of our own destinies and minds, so as long as we reject god and cultism, then we will be good people. Dawkins is like Jebus’s evil twin.
Null Hypothesis … so that you can electronically ignore the likes of me to avoid having your comfortable yet narrow world view challenged by scientific observations.
Yes, you could say our world view is narrow, if it doesn’t accommodate magic, such as spirits & gods & homeopathy & other kinds of wishful thinking.
But you’ve really shown your delusional mindset with that reference to scientific observations. How do you people live with yourselves when your minds are so confused?
And just what evidence do you think that you’ve got to support your magic spirit monster?
I wonder if this man actually looked into this list or was just regurgitating something one of this ‘colleagues’ said…
And what, pray tell, would “you people” refer to? Do you think coloured people are less intellectually capable than you? Do I need to report you to the mod?
And what, pray tell, would “you people” be referring to? Do you think “we” are less intellectually capable than “you”?
You are reverting into animalistic pack behavior of defining a group of people as enemies, versus a group of friends, kind of like what George Bush does (“You’re either with us or you’re against us”).
Apologize for the above “coloured” remark. I was taking satire a little too far.
Show me one calculation, using the known genetic mutations and occurrence rates, of the probability of how this could lead to new or improved functional genes. It’s such a fundamental premise of “your people”‘s belief system, you’d think someone would be looking at it.
You can’t. But you won’t admit it, because you are afraid you will then have to accept bible thumping sinning Christianity.
Null Hypothesis @192 – You’ve committed two banning offenses. Racism and sock puppeting. Godbotting won’t get you too much further.
What is sock puppeting? Who says I’m a God bot? You said that.
Hey, I apologized immediately afterwards, pointing out that it was satire taken too far, and if you’ll notice I didn’t even want it to be sent before it was too late. I’d hardly call satire racism, but I’m sure you would because you’d like me to go away, in any way you can manage.
Yes, Null.
Blah, blah, blah.
*yawn*
I’ll take that as either 1) you concede defeat, or 2) you weren’t very good at statistics
Wrong on both.
Now would be a good time to put on your helmet…
The problem with “you people” is that you think that by acknowledging this problem you will have to throw away previous scientific theories. That’s not the case.
It’s kind of like how Mendel botched his results to make them fit his hypotheses, which we all know was a result of crossing over — something even more interesting than Mendelian genetics. That’s how many new discoveries and philosophies came to be — not because narrow minded “scientists” denied and buried their observations because they didn’t fit their predefined world view — but because they find intriguing discrepancies that don’t make sense, they have an open enough mind to challenge their cultural and scientific assumptions, and investigate more fully what is going on. Until someone does this, we will unfortunately be relegated to either of the two camps of God-fearing Theists or head-in-sand Atheists.
Y’all remind me of the classical physicists of the turn of the century who made audacious statements about having almost explained the entire world based on their particle and wave theories. It’s these same people who would not accept quantum mechanics when it came out, despite the evidence.
Accepting relativity or quantum mechanics does not preclude the validity of classical physics; rather, they expand it. Similarly, accepting that we still have no idea how statistics can explain how random mutations can lead to new traits does not mean the ToE is incorrect. Rather, it simply means that evolution of new traits is not random at the genetic level. There’s lots of things that aren’t random that don’t require a god to explain.
Null, Show me one calculation, using the known genetic mutations and occurrence rates, of the probability of how this could lead to new or improved functional genes. It’s such a fundamental premise of “your people”‘s belief system, you’d think someone would be looking at it.
I’ll leave this to one of the experts here. Maybe PZ can provide the answer? But I’d be mighty surprised if there was a well-defined correlation, such as you appear to imply.
And our ‘belief system’, as you call it, depends upon nature or the universe being predictable, when one understands the rules, (& chaos theory doesn’t apply), without miracles occurring. There’s plenty of evidence to support this ‘belief system’, & nothing but hearsay against it.
#201
The problem is, not a single testable mechanism has been proposed for how an “intelligent agency” would influence DNA sequences. Nor is there a need to, as illustrated by the debunking of irreducibile complexity. The only reason the ID movement exists today – as a PR machine that has failed to provide supporting data in a single peer-reviewed scientific research paper – is because it is an attempt to smuggle creationism into American public schools.
WOW!!! More stupidity. Looks like the rooky liars got sent it.
We on earth should we calculate the probability of new and improved genes by evolution. We see it every day. It is the basis for our agricultural systems and a serious problem in pest control and medicine.
BTW, the number of new mutations from one generation to the next is around 150 in humans. That means you differ from both parent’s DNA by 150 de novo mutations. What is rate limiting in evolution is not mutation rates but selection pressure.
Most xians worldwide don’t have a problem with evolution. Just the evil US fundies mostly. Evolution has nothing to do with religion one way or the other. And BTW, salvation is by faith and/or good works according to the NT. There isn’t one word about biblical literalism or evolution in the entire book.
You don’t speak for all xians or even most of them. Just your poisonous death cult. Time to bring out the big guns to show your seriousness and mental and moral bankruptcy.
copy and paste it.
All you atheistic, baby killing cannibals are going to hell. Don’t forget the death threats.
Null, Y’all remind me of the classical physicists of the turn of the century who made audacious statements about having almost explained the entire world based on their particle and wave theories. It’s these same people who would not accept quantum mechanics when it came out, despite the evidence.
You mean the turn of the previous century. This sort of egregious error doesn’t do much for your reputation, such as it is.
…it simply means that evolution of new traits is not random at the genetic level.
Do you have any evidence for this remarkable conclusion? Can you even define what you mean?
Apologies to all the innocents here.
Please take cover.
But to avoid being banned from the spanking couch, I’m acting under orders from Patricia in the Sandwiched thread.
Looks like nullbrain is a fake. A troll pretending to be a stupid death cultist.
He may have enough spare life to waste imitating a kook but my life is valuable to me.
Pa once said:
“don’t argue with drunks or idiots.”
comming here i begin to see the wisdom in that.
Wha? Now I’m Anonymous @207.
I was just myself in the Sandwich thread.
But nullbrain’s nonlogic was funny.
“Show me one calculation that an internal combustion engine can move a wheeled vehicle or an airplane.”
“Show me one calculation that a bird can fly.”
“You can’t and therefore god exists and you atheists are all wrong.”
Such calculations might exist but we don’t really get too excited about them one way or the other. It is easier to just look out the window.
bastion, u prolly just forgot to type in your name.
*headdesk*
Bastion AT the troll, not warn the troll.
*sigh* More kack on my slippers.
In regard to the original text by PZ:
“Speaking of creationist liars…how about Casey Luskin? The primary reason so many biologists accept evolution is that it simply works: it’s a useful theoretical tool that guides research successfully, and helps scientists get work done and published.”
1. Evolution simply works? Interesting comment since PZ can’t come up with a way to articulate it.
Go to example #2 for his interpretation of building an eye:
http://whoisyourcreator.com/how_does_evolution_occur.html
In regard to the last 5 quotes on the above link, why don’t you set things straight and give us all a detailed account of the step-by-step genetic change that causes anything other than an existing trait or feature to change.
2. Evolution helps scientists get work done and published? Go to “Why Evolutionary-Based Science is a Menace to Scientific Research, Progress, and Discovery”
http://whoisyourcreator.com/evolution_menace.html
Yes, you guys have made a fine mess for yourselves, haven’t you?
blog whore
Uh, logged in with my typekey ID. Shouldn’t have to.
Wasn’t warning the troll. Trolls don’t move fast enough to avoid the incoming. And they’re too dumb to heed alerts anyway.
Was only warning the unsuspecting Pharyngulates.
Sorry about the slippers. This might be one of the times that crocs would be appropriate.
But I did warn you. And you know from the Sandwiched thread what kind of stinkbombs I have at my disposal.
But you just had to peek, didn’t you? [sigh]
But now, about that banning….
whois,
Neither of those two links does anything to support what you claim it does. Yes there are always dissenters from scientific theory. They need to actually provide the science refuting the thing they are dissenters from to make it worth a damn.
So far, no dice.
blog whore
Who is my creator?
Answer: my parents.
Next…
In regard to #216:
“They need to actually provide the science refuting the thing they are dissenters from to make it worth a damn.
So far, no dice.
blog whore”
The science refuting evolution is called the utter lack of evidence.
You can whine, insult, cuss, and post about how you hate God, but you would further your cause if you could actually come up with just ONE piece of evidence substantiating common descent.
You’d be a hero to your peers so give it a whirl, why don’t you?
Who is your creator, the burden of proof is upon you to prove yourself. We are waiting for your citations of the peer reviewed primary scientific literature. Cite away so we can see you aren’t a liar. Welcome to science.
I’ll give you back your paddle if you spank the troll first. Yeah, I know…but that was some nasty kack you left back there. ;)
Rev. BigDumbChimp – Is the first law of font cooties – never give one a piece of bacon or it will huump your leg forever?
Ignoring for the moment the fact that this sentence doesn’t actually make any sense, your assertion that there is no evidence for biological evolution is a lie. Doesn’t Jesus have some issues with lying? Or, is it okay for you to sin if it’s for the right cause?
Wherearemymeds is just a troll spamming her website. And has no scientific training whatsoever. You won’t get a coherent thought out of that one.
Shorter whoisyourcreator: “If evolution is true, why are there still monkeys?”
See, “WHOis is under the strange assumption that just saying there is no evidence means there isn’t any. Instead what he could do is address all of the research out there and refute it piece by piece, with his research and he needs to show his work.
In that case, explain the existence of vestigial structures according to creationism.
*smack*
I hate it when you steal my punchlines.
At #220, Patricia OM wrote:
OK. How about this?
Hey! who is your creator.
You can whine, insult, cuss, and post about how you hate
Godthe Theory of Evolution, but you would further your cause if you could actually come up with just ONE piece of evidence substantiatingcommon descentthe existence of god.You moron, crossing over makes inheritance patterns *more* Mendelian, since it counteracts linkage.
In regard to #219:
“Who is your creator, the burden of proof is upon you to prove yourself.”
Interesting … I would think that you would prefer to prove your theory by submitting just one piece of evidence.
In regard to #226:
“In that case, explain the existence of vestigial structures according to creationism.”
Please pick just one and we’ll debate it. (I’ll be out for a while but will pick it up later.)
*Yawn*
A. We don’t prove things in science. Do try to keep up if you want to be taken seriously.
B. What about that lying thing? Are you simply going to ignore that question? Who are you, Alan Clarke?
C. It’s not up to us to provide evidence for you, twit. YOU are the one making the claim that evolution doesn’t work. But fine, I’ll throw you one bone. How about you refute the results of this paper:
http://www.biology.ualberta.ca/faculty/philip_currie/uploads/pdfs/1998/1998Caudipteryx.pdf
Demonstrate how this paper is wrong. Just asserting shit isn’t going to cut it. SHOW US how this paper is flawed.
To expand on pcarini’s (15) and Sili’s (18) random mathematical ejaculations, I should recall that, in mathematical logic, the difference between multiplication and “micro-multiplication” (i.e., adding a number to itself repeatedly) is dramatic: between the two lies the thin line separating complete formal systems from incomplete ones.
More precisely, as soon as you allow in your (formal) language the possibility of speaking about the multiplication of integers, then you can also speak about decomposition into prime factors, and this is the starting point of Gödel’s trick for coding the metalanguage into the language, or, more precisely, for coding statements *about* the formal system as statements about numbers *in* your system. So for instance, after some heavy juggling which I’ll spare you, one can write down in this language a statement about integers which, when interpreted, says “This statement is not provable [in this formal system]”. So if it IS provable in the formal system, then it must be wrong, but then it would be true (assuming your systems is consistent — i.e., it only proves true statements) which is a contradiction. Hence it is NOT provable, and therefore it is true (because that’s what it says!).
I just sketched for you the original proof of Gödel’s famous first incompleteness theorem: If a formal mathematical system is rich enough to enable you to speak about elementary arithmetics (WITH multiplication) and is consistent, then it must be incomplete (that is, there must be some true statement which is expressible but unprovable in it — as for example the self-referential statement discussed above).
On the other hand, there are consistent* and complete formal systems for arithmetic where you can talk about adding numbers but not about multiplying them.
(apologies all round… I’d better switch right back to my usual lurking state)
—-
* assuming standard set theory is itself consistent, of course: in mathematics, contrary to theology, only relative proofs of consistency are possible (by Gödel’s second incompleteness theorem, in fact.)
Oh, I don’t know… so many hypothesis.
What about the existence of small leg bones in whales? What function could they possibly have?
And I’m off to bed (different time zone…). See you all tomorrow.
Bastion of Sass – Here’s your paddle back *ting*, and your place in the spanking couch line is restored.
What the hell, 20 ducats added to your bar tab. I can be a generous, saucy wench once in awhile. ;)
Human chromosome 2. Ta da.
Ooh! Ooh! And ERVs!
A creationist troll trying to flog the usual lies and ignorance.
What I’d really like to know is why do she do this? Does she really believe that she’ll convince a bunch of science-oriented atheists that a 2,500 year old creation myth trumps reality?
‘Tis, we’re dealing with a moronic lunatic: what he has been taught to believe is TRUTH, everything else, including the verdict of reality, are filthy lies; his message of God’s love is nothing more than his own personal hate painted with cherubs.
I submit the entire peer reviewed primary scientific literature. It stands until your refute it. Paper by paper, all million or so of them that support evolution directly or indirectly. Get to work, and show your work the only place it counts, in the peer reviewed scientific literature. Anyplace else is suspect.
Nerd – OT, but PZ has been off a long time. Has this happened before? (yes, I’m being a pearl clutcher).
How very Professor Fansworth.
“Good news, everyone! You’re going to burn in a pit of fire and be tortured for eternity!”
What is ONE piece of evidence you would accept? We could talk about the similarity in DNA, the similarities in morphology, biogeographical distribution of life, the fossil record, pseudogenes and vestigial organs, genetic markers, observed mutation acted upon by selection leading to adaptation, and speciation events – all of these supporting evolutionary theory… but explaining these to you would be a fruitless exercise. So how about you explain what kind of evidence you want that demonstrates common descent. Hell, can you even give a brief summary of how evolution works?
haha, nice call!
He’s definitely alive if that’s what you’re worried about; I just received an email response from him.
Patricia, only one post today is odd, but I don’t know his schedule, and there have days like that. He may be tied up with getting the TW’s new vehicle.
#242
Good point, Kel. The truly hardcore creationists, anti-vaxxers, 9/11 truthers, Holocaust revisionists, etc. will never change their minds, evidence be damned.
Sure. Start here and then here (Search under “biological evolution” leave the quotes in).
I’ll await your refutation of all articles.
Come on “who is your creator”, bring to us the kinds of evidence you would accept for common descent. Show that you have an understanding of the theory that you so ferociously reject by asking for evidence that is relevant to the theory and should be possible for us to find. I can think of countless pieces of evidence that support evolution, but me just listing them would be useless unless you show that you know what evolution is and what kinds of evidence to expect.
LOL @ “Professor Farnsworth”
Creationists like “who’s your creator” or Sorenson are wholly incapable of understanding how evolution works because they refuse to understand how evolution works. Hell, they’re the sort of willful morons who would refuse to understand even if God, Himself, along with Jesus, Mohamed, Buddha, and all the Saints come marching in from Heaven to personally explain On The Origin of Species to them in a tap-dancing musical with puppets.
Sign me up, I’ll bring the Acid.
OK, thanks. I was getting worried.
Got to twirl off now. The hubbit wants salmon patties, roasted corn (this time of year!) and fried pertaters for supper.
(While he isn’t lookin’ I’m gonna throw the Rev’s damned leg humpin’ font cootie into the salmon patties. Slippery little shit! Off! Off…!) Goodnight sweethearts.
who is your creator, you really don’t get it, do you? Vast swathes of the entire FIELD of biology are based on evolution, to such a degree that it is only a relatively slight exaggeration to say that modern biology in its entirety is based on evolution – and, so far, it has fitted all observations and evidence to date, with absolutely zero solid evidence challenging it. So for you to truculently challenge us to provide ONE piece of evidence in favor of evolution shows an almost complete and total ignorance of biology in general, far less evolution.
So, in short, go educate yourself.
Some scientists find that the study of the natural world provides evidence of God and purpose. Atheism is a personal choice, arrived at in spite of the counter evidence from science.
The numerous examples of evolutionary convergence have no plausible explanation within the Darwinian paradigm. Simon Conway Morris wrote a book, “Life’s Solutions,” about convergence. In the book, he was critical of “Darwinism” because of its randomness and purposelessness, calling it a new theology of evolution. His book demonstrated that the empirical evidence did not fit the Darwinian model.
Morris concluded his book by writing:
“The complexity and beauty of ‘Life’s Solution’ can never cease to astound. None of it presupposes, let alone proves, the existence of God, but all is congruent. For some it will remain as the pointless activity of the Blind Watchmaker, but others may prefer to remove their dark glasses. The choice, of course, is yours.”
Patricia, is hubbit a cross between a husband and a hobbit? What is the size is his feet? How many meals a day does he eat? How short is he?
I read that book. Conway Morris said no such thing. You are simply lying.
BTW, Conway Morris called ID “rubbish”. He thinks creationism and intelligent design are garbage.
Convergent evolution poses no problem for evolutionary biology and never has. In fact, it is a prediction of evolutionary biology. Similar selection forces operating on similar starting points yields similar solutions. The vertebrate forelimb has three times been modified for flight through air. The result is a functional, moveable air foil but the details are rather different. Anyone can tell the difference between a pterosaur, bird, and bat and yet they are all flyers.
Another so called xian lying his ass off.
More rubbish. Science has nothing to say about god one way or the other. 40% of biologists are believers, the rest not. One of the strongest arguments against the xian god is his followers. A religion that produces a high proportion of hate filled, lying, violent, morons such as yourself has to be questionable.
Actually, atheism is simply not believing in a supernatural. It’s arrived at by being born. But pray-tell, what scientific evidence is there that atheism is wrong?
Otis writes:
While most scientists, especially in the life sciences, have concluded that belief in God and purpose are at best unnecessary and at worst impediments to understanding the world around us.
@Otis
Funny how they can never seem to actually provide any credible evidence for that assertion. It’s also funny how for any respected scientist that believes in god, that they leave him out of their work, and leave him confined to their personal life/feelings.
Except that there is no such “counter evidence” just more arguments from ignorance, which later get explained by scientific methodology as natural. Care to site a specific example of this so-called “counter evidence” that doesn’t resort to a logical fallacy?
Evolution has no goal, but that doesn’t make it random or having “purposelessness”. For example being able to see at all gives a species a survival advantage, therefore the convergent evolution of eyes has a purpose (there is just no evidence that it was planned in advance).
Who has the “dark glasses”? The evolutionary side which is willing to change it’s position providing logical arguments and credible evidence are provided? Or, the believers that inevitably resort to logical fallacies and ignore credible evidence that doesn’t adhere to dogma? The argument you present is nothing more than yet another argument from ignorance.
I seem to remember Dawkins in The Blind Watchmaker spending quite a lot of time about convergence in nature. Though I guess Dawkins’ bluff has been called by Otis, just as Muller’s bluff about interlocking complexity was called by Behe. Evolutionary biologists talk about these phenomena occurring in nature decades before a creationist gets to it, but they are just pretending that Darwinism can do something that it cannot…
Otis, just what part of evolutionary theory makes it inadequate to explain convergent evolution, and why aren’t more evolutionary biologists aware of this fact?
Oh, and in no way was I implying that Dawkins was the one who came up with convergent evolution. Just saying that the idea is part of evolutionary theory.
Conway Morris thinks ID is rubbish, in his words.
But he has some off beat ideas that are worth at least considering.
One of his arguments is that we humans were inevitable. Drop a primordial replicator onto a proto earth and something like us would emerge sooner or later. This is just another version of the anthropic principle. Since he is a xian, he implies that god set it all up in the beginning and just let it run. It is plausible but doesn’t prove it.
More interesting is his guess that intelligent life might be common in the future. The evolutionary advantages of tool using intelligent bipeds is so great that we took over the planet. Evolution is blind so whether it is a long term advantage is unknown and irrelevant. But we could disappear in any number of ways and according to him, another intelligent species would evolve. Or we could be an intermediate giving rise to some even more successful species.
@raven
I for one, welcome our mechanical overlords! ;)
In regard to #231:
“C. It’s not up to us to provide evidence for you, twit. YOU are the one making the claim that evolution doesn’t work. But fine, I’ll throw you one bone. How about you refute the results of this paper:
http://www.biology.ualberta.ca/faculty/philip_currie/uploads/pdfs/1998/1998Caudipteryx.pdf
Demonstrate how this paper is wrong. Just asserting shit isn’t going to cut it. SHOW US how this paper is flawed.”
WIYC:
OK – Here are the flaws:
To substantiate that common descent is true, citing fossils that have new features is absurd. When you come up with a fossil with a partially developed NEW feature, let us know. Refer to ‘What is a transitional or intermediate fossil?’ on:
http://www.whoisyourcreator.com/fossil_evidence.html
Note that any hypothesis for the supposed original function for feathers is irrelevant to the argument, because it still wouldn’t explain how they (or any new bones) miraculously appeared.
In regard to #233:
“What about the existence of small leg bones in whales? What function could they possibly have?”
WIYC:
The ‘walking whale’ hypothesis is the most ridiculous premise that you guys have ever come up with. Even Gingerich knew better, until his imagination got a hold of him:
“The scientists said they could only speculate on the use whales made of the hind legs. In the journal report, they wrote: ”Hind limbs of Basilosaurus appear to have been too small relative to body size to have assisted in swimming, and they could not possibly have supported the body on land. However, maintenance of some function is likely for several reasons: most bones are present; some elements are fused, but remaining joints are well formed with little suggestion of degeneracy; and the knee has a complex locking mechanism.”
Although Dr. Barnes did not rule out the possible use of the hind limbs in shallow-water locomotion, Dr. Gingerich’s research group said it was more likely that they were used as ”guides during copulation, which may otherwise have been difficult in a serpentine aquatic mammal.”
Or as Dr. Gingerich remarked, ”It’s easy to imagine that a whale with a serpentine body whose reproductive organs are nearly 40 feet behind its brain might need some help.””
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE4D91731F931A25754C0A966958260
In regard to #235:
“Human chromosome 2. Ta da.”
WIYC:
Human #22 and ape 2a & 2b have differences in binding structure, pre-telomeric, telomeric and reverse telomeric sequences, telomeres length, major gene sequence and expression, gene duplications, single nucleotide polymorphisms, messenger RNA splicing variations. These are NOT predicted by common descent.
It is known, even by evolutionists, that fused chromosomes by themselves do not produce new species. So you’re back to looking for that mysterious mechanism that could possible create a new feature to appear.
In regard to #242:
“So how about you explain what kind of evidence you want that demonstrates common descent. Hell, can you even give a brief summary of how evolution works?”
WIYC:
The evidence that might save your failed theory would be:
1. Just ONE step-by-step scenario that could explain the genetic process(es) of a new feature ‘evolving.’
2. Just ONE partially formed feature in the fossil record or one beginning to appear in an isolated population.
You want ME to explain how evolution works? Interesting argument … but I’ll give you credit for being creative.
In regard to #247:
“Sure. Start here and then here (Search under “biological evolution” leave the quotes in).
I’ll await your refutation of all articles.”
WIYC:
Since you prefer NOT to use your own words, I’ll assume you have no idea how evolution works either.
‘Enough nonsense the day. We can only pray that God will open up your eyes to His Truth.
The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.”
– Psalm 14:1
Whoisyourcreator said
And the xian said to his god, fool me as much as you like, I’m OK with that.
You were asked for a definition of evolution to actually see if you knew what you were talking about as most IDiots and creotards haven’t a clue what the theory of evolution actually says.
As for transitional fossil features, or rather your claimed lack of any, for one of the most famous of recent times, look up Tiktaalik. Though it is not unique in that there are plenty of other fossil finds with features in various stages of evolving. In fact, if you knew anything at all about whales and ancestral whale fossils, you would already know that by now we have a complete chain of such evolving features. Such as various fossils showing the migration of the whale’s nostrils from the front to the top of the head.
So try again if you wish, but this time, actually try to read up about the subject in some detail first. Oh, and not from IDiot or creotard sites, at least not if you wish to be taken seriously. Here’s a free tip for you that might hold you in good stead in future, to paraphrase, better to not post and be thought a fool than to post and remove all doubt.
who is your creator (#218):
The fact that all species, living or extinct, can be classified into an objective nested hierarchy of groups within groups with groups (an objective nested hierarchy is one where even if you base the classification on different sets of traits, you still end up with the same grouping, or at least groupings that match closely enough to a high degree of statistical significance). To put it another way, comparisons of the differences and similarities between species resolve themselves into exactly the kind of pattern that is expected from sequential episodes of splitting and divergence.
Incidentally, while you’re also explaining what you think the theory of evolution actually says, maybe you can also explain what you think the term “evidence” means. Because you don’t appear to be using it right.
WhoIsYourCreator, your alleged refutation doesn’t count since it didn’t appear in the peer reviewed primary scientific literature. Until you can cite your paper as being in press, it doesn’t exist. Now, get to work on all the million or so papers in the literature. Submit the refutations to the proper journals. Then get back to us once you can cite one in press. That is how science works. Science is only refuted by more science. Religion can’t refute science, but science can make religion look ridiculous. The latter is your problem.
The fools say in public, believe in wrong and impossible things or you are going to hell.
You make the usual Death Cult lie, that one must be a creationist or an atheist.
The majority of xians worldwide are OK with evolution and reality. 40% of biologists are mostly xian religious, including some prominent evolutionary biologists.
The equation evolution=atheism is false.
Xianity is losing roughly 1.5 million adherents/year in the USA. Poisonous toads like yourself, Ham, Dobson, Haggard, Hagee etc. are an important cause. When xian becomes synonymous with stupid, ignorant, vicious, and lying moron, who would want to be one?
Um, not to knock the guy or anything, but isn’t the plural of “biologist” – “biologists?”
I can’t resist responding to #265:
“As for transitional fossil features, or rather your claimed lack of any, for one of the most famous of recent times, look up Tiktaalik. Though it is not unique in that there are plenty of other fossil finds with features in various stages of evolving. In fact, if you knew anything at all about whales and ancestral whale fossils, you would already know that by now we have a complete chain of such evolving features.”
WIYC:
The fossil record is the most incriminating tenet of the TOE. Here is the glaring flaw that specifically cites Tiktaalik drawings in “Fins to Limbs”:
What is a transitional or intermediate fossil?
Here is the typical evolutionary definition:
“What a transitional fossil is, in keeping with what the theory of evolution predicts, is a fossil that shows a mosaic of features from an older and more recent organism.”
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC200.html
So, where do they draw the line when connecting all the millions of fossils to each other? Is one shared feature enough? How about two, or three, or four, five, six? Does it also pertain to internal organs?
The only criteria used is seeing a gap in the record and attempting to fill it with some sort of fossil. It’s as simple (and pathetic) as that. But the real question of fossil evidence remains to be answered:
Does the fossil record provide ANY evidence for evolution creating new features to appear in existing organisms?
Refer to the first two diagrams from “Fins to Limbs”:
http://www.devoniantimes.org/opportunity/tetrapodsAnswer.html
The author lines up a fanciful progression of fossils and adds new bones as needed, attributing the evolution of them to nothing other than “refinements and variations of the adaptations and features.”
Notice how new bones instantly appear in the drawings and how the author conveniently forgets to mention how the necessary muscles, tendons, nerves, etc. also evolve simultaneously with them.
Do you see any fossils in the diagrams that have a partial bone mass displaying an initial development of a humerus, mesomeres, radius, ulna, or ulnar? Why not?
What causes new features to instantly appear and be fully assembled, fully formed, and immediately functional?
Go to: http://www.whoisyourcreator.com/how_does_evolution_occur.html
Why are there NO examples of any partially formed feature found in an existing population or in the fossil record?
“It is not necessarily easy to “see” macroevolutionary history; there are no firsthand accounts to be read.”
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/_0_0/evoscales_05
“In each of these pivotal nexuses in life’s history, the principal “types” seem to appear rapidly and fully equipped with the signature features of the respective new level of biological organization. No intermediate “grades” or intermediate forms between different types are detectable.”
http://www.biology-direct.com/content/2/1/21
“Most of the animal phyla that are represented in the fossil record first appear, ‘fully formed,’ in the Cambrian some 550 million years ago.”
Richard S K Barnes, Peter Calow, Peter J. W. Olive, David W. Golding and John Spicer, “The Invertebrates: A New Synthesis” (textbook), Updated 2000, Blackwell Publishing
(From http://www.whoisyourcreator.com/fossil_evidence.html )
who is your creator #264:
Ah, so, in other words, in order to prove to you that transitional fossils exist, we have to conform to what YOU think a transitional fossil is, even if it’s wrong? No.
As I said – go educate yourself.
It doesn’t explain HOW they appeared because that is so basic, it doesn’t require explanation. They appeared by the same processes which govern any other instance of evolution – including those observed in a lab.
As I said – go educate yourself.
Nice flanneling attempt. Care to actually answer the question you were asked now, which was ‘What about the existence of small leg bones in whales? What function could they possibly have?’ You see, Gingerich was talking about the intermediate, but still somewhat functional, form of the hind limbs of an ancient ancestor of the modern whale. Many modern whales and dolphins have small leg bones that are completely functionless – there is no leg for the bones to be in, they are simply sitting in the whale’s body, doing nothing.
Human #22? But it’s human #2 that was pointed out. Try reading about that. Once you’ve done that, please give an explanation as to the remarkable similarity between human #2 and ape #2a and #2b other than through common descent.
Yes, and the only people to even come close to claiming it does is creationists trying to set up straw men.
Why would evolutionists be looking for something that’s already been found?
Erm, what? You want us to give you a detailed account of exactly what gene mutated, in what way, to give a specific result? In creatures that’s been dead for a significant period of time? Where do we get the DNA from to study, exactly? Even if we could get this DNA, there is the slight problem of actually tracking down the exact gene that mutated. Even in a modern example of evolution being observed to occur under laboratory conditions, Lenski’s citrate eating e. coli, there was hundreds of millions of mutations. Out of these, only two were involved in the evolution of the ability to eat citrate. What you miss is that tracking down the precise gene that mutated isn’t required to demonstrate that evolution occurred.
As I said – go educate yourself.
You’ve been given examples of this.
We want you to explain how you think evolution is supposed to work, as your ignorance of the subject seems monumental. If you give how you think it’s supposed to work, we can fill in the blanks and/or correct any mistakes. That way, we know whether you’re expecting us to ‘prove’ a strawman or not.
Ah, so you ask for evidence, then, when presented with a mountain of it, you try to dodge it? Nope, sorry – you have your evidence, let’s see you refute it.
Who Is Your Creator – are you going to lay out what types of evidence that you would accept that supports evolution, or just take pot shots at isolated pieces of information? Can you even explain how evolution works?
Told you nothing coherent would come out of wherearemymeds. An ignorant death cultist in full retreat from reality.
To put the whales into perspective. Decades ago, creationist liars said there were no transitional fossils between land animals and aquatic whales. So whales couldn’t have evolved.
Which at the time was true. Then some transitional fossils were found. Then some more were found. Now we have a rather complete series of transitional fossils from land mammals to partially aquatic mammals to fully aquatic whales.
The creationists did what they always do. Ignore the fossils, lie, and retreat from reality while telling everyone they are going to hell. And move the goal posts somewhere else.
WITC:
That was not my question. I’m not talking about Basilosaurus or any other ancestor of whales. My question was about MODERN whales. What you have to do is show that the vestigial leg bones we can find in the back of the body of MODERN whales have a function. I’m still waiting for that…
WIYC wrote:
Did you read comment #231? I said demonstrate. Asserting shit isn’t going to cut it.
Show me why “citing fossils that have new features is absurd.”
Go.
Show me why this is a requirement.
Define what a “new feature” is.
Demonstrate how protofeathers aren’t “partially formed feathers” by your definition.
We don’t look for transitional fossils. We look for transitional features. Please go educate yourself on the difference.
In regard to #273:
“Whales are warm blooded and have a skeleton similar to our own (though greatly modified) the fore limbs are their front flippers and have similar bones in them to our arms and hands. The hind-limbs are generally not present at all, though are represented in many species by a tiny pair of “free floating” bones (pelvic vestiges) – not attached to any others – towards the rear of the animal. In the males of some species these bones serve as an insertion for the muscles that control the penis.”
http://www.coolantarctica.com/Antarctica%20fact%20file/wildlife/whales/whales.htm
In regard to #265:
“As for transitional fossil features, or rather your claimed lack of any, for one of the most famous of recent times, look up Tiktaalik. Though it is not unique in that there are plenty of other fossil finds with features in various stages of evolving. In fact, if you knew anything at all about whales and ancestral whale fossils, you would already know that by now we have a complete chain of such evolving features.”
WIYC:
The fossil record is the most incriminating tenet of the TOE. Here is the glaring flaw that specifically cites Tiktaalik:
(From http://www.whoisyourcreator.com/fossil_evidence.html )
What is a transitional or intermediate fossil?
Here is the typical evolutionary definition:
“What a transitional fossil is, in keeping with what the theory of evolution predicts, is a fossil that shows a mosaic of features from an older and more recent organism.”
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC200.html
So, where do they draw the line when connecting all the millions of fossils to each other? Is one shared feature enough? How about two, or three, or four, five, six? Does it also pertain to internal organs?
The only criteria used is seeing a gap in the record and attempting to fill it with some sort of fossil. It’s as simple (and pathetic) as that. But the real question of fossil evidence remains to be answered:
Does the fossil record provide ANY evidence for evolution creating new features to appear in existing organisms?
Refer to the first two diagrams from “Fins to Limbs”:
http://www.devoniantimes.org/opportunity/tetrapodsAnswer.html
The author lines up a fanciful progression of fossils and adds new bones as needed, attributing the evolution of them to nothing other than “refinements and variations of the adaptations and features.”
Notice how new bones instantly appear in the drawings and how the author conveniently forgets to mention how the necessary muscles, tendons, nerves, etc. also evolve simultaneously with them.
Do you see any fossils in the diagrams that have a partial bone mass displaying an initial development of a humerus, mesomeres, radius, ulna, or ulnar? Why not?
What causes new features to instantly appear and be fully assembled, fully formed, and immediately functional?
Go to: http://www.whoisyourcreator.com/how_does_evolution_occur.html
Why are there NO examples of any partially formed feature found in an existing population or in the fossil record?
“It is not necessarily easy to “see” macroevolutionary history; there are no firsthand accounts to be read.”
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/_0_0/evoscales_05
“In each of these pivotal nexuses in life’s history, the principal “types” seem to appear rapidly and fully equipped with the signature features of the respective new level of biological organization. No intermediate “grades” or intermediate forms between different types are detectable.”
http://www.biology-direct.com/content/2/1/21
“Most of the animal phyla that are represented in the fossil record first appear, ‘fully formed,’ in the Cambrian some 550 million years ago.”
Richard S K Barnes, Peter Calow, Peter J. W. Olive, David W. Golding and John Spicer, “The Invertebrates: A New Synthesis” (textbook), Updated 2000, Blackwell Publishing
It is well known that whales and dolphins have vestigal leg bones within their bodies. Left overs from when they were land animals and had hind legs.
Occasionally cetaceans are found with…atavistic legs. The abnormal reappearance of ancestral features from past morphology.
Humans show this too. Rarely humans are born with tails or fur covering their bodies.
There is a mutation in chickens that results in them having teeth, just like their dinosaurian forerunners and fossil relatives.
None of this poses any problem to creationists. They just ignore all scientific evidence and keep repeating their mythology while telling everyone that they are going to hell for reading the scientific literature.
That’s nothing; Wesley Elsberry has been waiting 81/2 years, since October 2000, for Bill Dembski to get back to him about Dembski’s misrepresentation of the “weasel program.”
Here’s the link to one of Wesley’s “I’m waiting” posts: “fine day for a woollen kettle or a copper sweater.”
According to Troy Britain at http://pigeonchess.com/ , The Playing Chess with Pigeons quote at 44 is from Scott D. Weitzenhoffer.
@who is your creator:
The reason everyone is asking you to explain evolution is because when someone says something as mind-blowingly ignorant as “there is no evidence for evolution”, we need to know the nature of your ignorance to even begin to address the problem. There has been almost no biological research since Darwin (and not too much before that) that didn’t either directly or indirectly provide evidence for either inheritance/selection as a viable mechanism for evolution, or for common descent itself; biology is pretty much a huge pile of evidence for evolution.
So the conclusion we come to is that you a) have the wrong definition of evolution, b) have the wrong definition for evidence, or c) both. We’re requesting that you define both “evolution” and “evidence” so we know what exactly you’re arguing against. Many of the readers here suspect that what you’re arguing against isn’t evolution at all.
Here’s a whole bunch of evidence, though, to satisfy your request (and then some). In addition, there’s a lot of nice articles explaining what evolution is, seeing as you’re probably not too sure in the first place:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
Get cracking. I want to see you refute every single point.
Just how do you think evolution works? Each stage of the way, EVERYTHING is final. Do you think that the eye came on piece by piece or was a slightly different series of modifications? Because we can show all through nature of the various stages of the eye that led to ours, but each of those various stages is not “partially formed”, it’s always in a workable state.
Ahhh creationists, so proud of their ignorance, think they know better than the entire scientific community because “God said so in the bible”
Again Who Is Your Creator, again I ask: WHAT evidence would you accept for evolution? Can you even explain how evolution works so what types of evidence we should see?
In terms of partial stages of development. Is a mudskipper’s fin not analogous to the partial stage between fins and tetrapedal limbs? Is not a gliding possum analogous to the partial stage between limb and wing?
In the fossil record we see the gradual development of fins to limbs, just as we see in nature the same bone structure in all tetrapods and some fish. It’s there already. In the fossil record we see the gradual evolution of feathers and the evolution of wings from limbs in dinosaurs. Would you not say that a proto-feather is a partial feather? Would you not say that the transitional phases between limb and wing are partial wings? They are end products at each step of the way – they have to be. Evolution is a modification of what is already there: fins to limbs, limbs to wings – each step of the way there has to be some advantage to the process, because that’s how evolution works.
You won’t see “half a wing” or “half an eye” because those are absurdities. What you will instead see is the gradual modification of limbs to wings and a pre-existing eyes getting more complex. We can make an eye like ours in purely sequential steps from a flat patch of light sensitive skin. Doesn’t that tell you about how evolution works?
So again I ask, what type of evidence would you accept for evolution? It’s important you lay out just what type of evidence for evolution you would expect as a) it would show that you understand the process (if you pick an absurdity, it means that you don’t know how it works and you are arguing out of ignorance) and b) that you are willing to change your mind. From what I can gather, you are nothing more than an ignorant creationist who thinks that he understands evolution despite not knowing the first thing about it. Why is it that people like you think that your ignorance trumps the study of millions?
Kel @283:
“each step of the way there has to be some advantage to the process, because that’s how evolution works. ”
Not necessarily. Some traits may not be subject to selective pressure, and some mutations may be neither beneficial nor deleterious in any obvious way (and some may be both). Through an accident of history, a slightly deleterious trait could end up drifting throughout an entire population.
The word “advantage” really only makes sense in the intentional stance, i.e. when you’re imparting the human ability to ascribe purpose to an inanimate object (for instance, saying that a compass “points north” is not really true; it’s a metaphor for the principles that actually cause the needle to swing in a north/south direction). As such, I think it’s better to avoid using the word “advantage” when trying to explain how evolution works, since evolution itself has no way to determine between an advantage and a liability, and humans can only do so in retrospect.
Well, for a start, that page doesn’t ‘specifically cite’ Tiktaalik at all. It only references something that, in turn, references Tiktaalik in passing. Impressive to get that wrong, seeing as it seem to be your own damn website. The sheer number of glaring errors on that page is also impressive.
No, you see, if an organism only has one shared feature, but absolutely everything else is different, then it’s obviously not a transitional fossil. What you’re looking for is a chain of fossils that all seem to fit together, in terms of dating, that seem to show a gradual progression of a feature (or several features) gradually changing. For example, yo take the evolution of the horse, we wouldn’t be able to say that Hyracotherium came before Pliohippus if Pliohippus was found in the early Eocene and Hyracotherium was found in the late Miocene, instead of the other way around. Indeed, in part, it was this sort of evidence that led Darwin to form the idea of evolution in the first place.
…that also fits with all other evidence (dating, for example).
Do you have an alternative explanation for this apparant web of fossils that indicate evolution, apart from goddidit?
OK, you are either being extremely ignorant or deliberately lying. Try reading the article. The diagrams do NOT depict an evolutionary pathway – they point out similarities between lobefins and tetrapods that live at the same time, suggesting a common ancestor.
The ignorance required to even pose that question is staggering. No, I don’t – and I would be very surprised if I ever did.
As I have repeatedly said – go educate yourself.
I’ll just skip the rest of your post, because it is only further evidence of your utter ignorance on the subject you’re talking about. Start by actually reading, in full, the things you lifted your quotes from.
No, I’m wrong there – the first diagram shows similarities betwen living and Devinian lobefins. However, what you miss is that there is a significant period of time between the Devonian and now. This means that, whilst it is possible, and, indeed, probable, that the Devonian lobefins are ancestors of modern lobefins, there are intermediate species that we don’t have fossils for. However, it has occurred before now that evolution has been used to successfully predict where particular fossils would be found, so it is entirely possible we will find them – thanks to evolution.
Who said anything about producing new species or creating new features? You asked for evidence of common descent, I gave you a piece. (Much in the same way a bloody fingerprint is one piece of evidence in a murder. Nobody claims a bloody fingerprint causes a murder. And human chromosome #2 is a much stronger piece of evidence. I’d say it’s more along the lines of DNA evidence, because… it is DNA evidence.)
And do you seriously think evolution does not involve those variation? Are you dense?
Fair enough, I’ll keep that in mind in the future. I only meant advantageous in the immediate sense, but I agree that the word is largely redundant – a post hoc explanation of events. Though it’s really hard to explain natural selection without at least appealing to an advantage such a mutation gives an organism over its peers.
True, but by all accounts you can’t get something like a wing through genetic drift alone. And there’s no point in confusing a creationist further by talking about how complex traits are built by talking about neutral mutations.
In my experience, you can confuse a creationist by simply suggesting anything more complicated than ‘God did it’.
This post on Casey Lusking reminds me of when the two drunk ladies paid him a visit. Now, that was a fun post.
I found Rhiggs correspondence with Luskin to be very educational for me as I am neither a biologist nor a scientist. Not as funny as the two ladies but extremely instructive as to why ID is awful and Luskin is an IDiot.
That said, I think S. Sorensen has read too many Chick tracts!
Fair enough. I guess what I was getting at is that a mutation with no obvious “advantage” could occur in an organism, get spread throughout a population, and only later become the basis for an advantageous trait, through further mutation or what have you. To use a rather spare metaphor, it seemed to me you were saying that evolution only takes steps forward when it seems to me that it can also take steps backward (someone mentioned whales occasionally growing leg-type things; I imagine this would be advantageous if whales became shallow-water dwellers) or to the sides. Otherwise you get the “why are there still monkeys?” strawman.
“because it still wouldn’t explain how they (or any new bones) miraculously appeared.”
Just so you know, calling it a miracle doesn’t explain it either.
Okay, I see where you are coming from now.
who is your creator wrote:
As is common with talkorigins, this definition tells part of the story. It’s accurate. What it doesn’t do is put the statement in context and ask the reader is to try and come up with an organism that doesn’t exhibit a mosaic of features from older and more recent organisms.
I seem to remember making a similar point to someone elsewhere – depending on the precise definition of ‘transitional fossil’ you’re using, you can argue anything from ‘there are no transitional fossils’ to ‘almost every single fossil that has ever been discovered is a transitional fossil’. On one end of the scale, there is the creationist tripe that every organism and fossil has fully functional features, so no fossils or organisms are ‘transitional’. On the other end, there is the argument that evolution never stops – so any and every organism is simply a stage in the evolution of a later organism. The only real exceptions are organisms that went extinct before they got a chance to evolve into something else, such as the dodo, or those currently alive – and there’s nothing to say that those will not evolve further, given time, so even they could turn out to be ‘transitional’.
Which is how I understood Darwin.
Michael Behe. Lehigh “University.” “Biology” Department.
Hehindeedy.
Just another thing the women and men of Lafayette College do better than our benighted Bethlehem brethren.
BS Genetic Engineering ’95.
Please take a look at this, whoisyourcreator.
youtube (dot) com/watch?v=NpZYRcglrsI&fmt=18
This too:
watch?v=Dm277H3ot6Y&fmt=18
who is your creator wrote:
Wow… in #264 you were accusing Rev.BigDumbChimp of not using his own words (when he was only pointing you to the evidence YOU asked for). And then, in #276, you simply threw that quote at me with no comments… You can’t be serious!
Anyway:
First, the fact that these pelvic bones serve as an insertion for the muscles of the genitalia actually supports the idea that modern whales evolved from land mammals, because the pelvis in land mammals also provides support for this same muscles.
And we are not only talking about pelvic bones. Some species also have femurs and tibiae. The Right Whale, for example, even has synovial capsules around the joints connecting them to one another. Why would god (or whatever you mean by “creator”) “design” whales like that? I mean, synovial capsules? To “serve as an insertion for the muscles that control the penis”? Why?
(I could also ask you why do embryos of ALL cetacean species develop hind limb buds that then get reabsorbed. But that would lead us to… embryology: another branch of biology you probably know nothing about.)
“Whoisyourhatefuloverlordthatwillroastyouinalakeoffire” His precise definition of ‘transitional fossil’ is “all of them”.