Liverpool FC Forum

[LFC2007]

Big Niall,

Thanks for a very astute observation. Unfortunately the evolutionist brigade is now guilty of what the religious zealots were int he dark ages- name calling and putting others down without a reasoned arguement.

Manhattan - your mind has been made up for you by a court in the US? Do you know the opinions and bias of the judges and/or jury? Why are you totally convinced that the court is disproving Intelligent design by labelling it as rleigious - all that does is giv eit a lable - nothingt o do with proving ro disproving it surley..? If you give so much wieght to court decisions on the sciebtific then maybe you will concur with the case of  June 22, 1633. Catholic Church v Galileo where the court ruled that the earth was the centre of the universe??

Anyone reading this please note - No answers to the questions raised above. Even Darwin had the good sense to note: “If numerous species . . . have really started into life at once, the fact would be fatal to the theory of evolution. and also conceded."   Would he put forward hs theory in 2007 if alive - no chance?

That is why people like Stephen Jay Gould and others came up with "punctuated equilibria" and other novel concepts that say evolution happened in rare but giant strides , not gradually.

Phillip Johnson, a professor of criminal law at the University of California at Berkeley in the United States, has long been fascinated by the way biologists defend the theory of evolution. They seem so defensive and dogmatic on the subject that Johnson set about finding out “what the vulnerable points were they’re trying to protect.” The result of his research is a book, Darwin on Trial, that The Sacramento Bee describes as “a lawyer’s examination, bit by bit, of the logic of and evidence behind the theory of evolution.” The newspaper summarizes: “Darwin flunks.” Johnson claims he found many scholars, including biologists, who are afraid to speak out publicly against evolution. “One of the things I’ve learned from this experience,” he told the San Francisco Chronicle, “is that to establish an intellectual orthodoxy and keep it beyond criticism, you don’t need concentration camps and secret police. All you have to do is say that people will laugh at you and you’ll lose your prestige. This has an enormous effect in academic life.”

Here are a few excerpts form evolutionists and other reference works . Anyone reading can make up his own mind whether evolution should remain a sacred cow or needs to be challenged.

New Scientist  (Feb 1982)noted that evolution “predicts that a complete fossil record would consist of lineages of organisms showing gradual change continuously over long periods of time.” But it admitted: “Unfortunately, the fossil record does not meet this expectation, for individual species of fossils are rarely connected to one another by known intermediate forms. . . . known fossil species do indeed appear not to evolve even over millions of years.”

The New Evolutionary Timetable (p.95 , 1981)acknowledges, “the fossil record does not convincingly document a single transition from one species to another. Furthermore, species lasted for astoundingly long periods of time.”—

Professor J. D. Bernal in the book The Origin of Life: “By applying the strict canons of scientific method to this subject [the spontaneous generation of life], it is possible to demonstrate effectively at several places in the story, how life could not have arisen; the improbabilities are too great, the chances of the emergence of life too small.” He added: “Regrettably from this point of view, life is here on Earth in all its multiplicity of forms and activities and the arguments have to be bent round to support its existence.”

It's all good and well playing quote the professor, I could find plenty of examples that clearly support evolution.

You come up with an ancient case which bears no relevance in todays society aswell.

But what's your theory?, forget the prof's what do you believe?

[Sabre]

Very interesting.

I thought that the people denying evolution were a folklorik minority I would never encounter and I've found one in this very forum!

I'm Catholic, believer, and I believe in the evolution aswell.

Denying that evolution exists is denying many of the transformations human are suffering, which are countless. For instance the molars that appear with age, the ones we call "Judgement molars" whatever it's the name in English, and the problems associated with their incorrect appearance, are due to evolution making smaller mouths than ancient humans. The progressive lack of hair, and the different human races are a blatant proof of human's adaptation to different environments. White people have less melanine than black people (the thing that gives us color or tan) quite simply because we need it less than a black man. Life is about adapting. Each race, and each species adapt to the environment, and that's why it's not surprising to see animals without eyes when you go to very deep waters, they do not need them in such environments.

It's astonishing that people against theory of evolution quote Darwin when that man was nothing but a researcher of centuries back and lots of things have been learnt since then.

Evolution is natural, and like most natural things it works very well. It's not surprising that we computer scientist base the resolution of complex problems that cannot be solved by maths through genetic algorithms for instace. Human copy the design of nature often to solve problems and evolution is just a marvelous way life has to adapt to new environments.

Evolution makes sense but our human time scale is simply too small to grasp it, it doesn't happen in clear stages but progressively. At the least I think it's a good theory that hasn't proved wrong. As an alternative, we have nothing.

[hello_red]

where do we come from? who do we thank?

evolution

creationism

alien interference

who knows?

[LFC2007]

where do we come from? who do we thank?

evolution

creationism

alien interference

who knows?

If we all approached it with "who knows" we'd never get anywhere.

[The Manhattan Project]

Thanks for a very astute observation. Unfortunately the evolutionist brigade is now guilty of what the religious zealots were int he dark ages- name calling and putting others down without a reasoned arguement.

They are guilty of nothing of the sort. The problem is that proponents of "intelligent design/creationism" simply cannot hold their argument against evolutionary scientists without resorting to religious preaching, efforts to misguide the public and especially children in schools, which I find most abhorrant, and other deceptive tactics.

Manhattan - your mind has been made up for you by a court in the US? Do you know the opinions and bias of the judges and/or jury? Why are you totally convinced that the court is disproving Intelligent design by labelling it as rleigious - all that does is giv eit a lable - nothingt o do with proving ro disproving it surley..?

Actually it wasn't just the court, but the main proponents of "intelligent design" make no secret of the fact that it is a religious ideology. The aforementioned Phillip E Johnson wrote "The Wedge Strategy" with the Discovery Institute in Seattle, Washington makes this explicitly clear:

"Our strategy has been to change the subject a bit so that we can get the issue of intelligent design, which really means the reality of God, before the academic world and into the schools."

"This isn't really, and never has been a debate about science. Its about religion and philosophy."

"The objective (of the wedge strategy) is to convince people that Darwinism is inherently atheistic, thus shifting the debate from creationism vs. evolution to the existence of God vs. the non-existence of God. From there people are introduced to 'the truth' of the Bible and then 'the question of sin' and finally 'introduced to Jesus."

Johnson's other idea that HIV does not cause AIDS is equally rejected as pseudoscientific nonsense. He isn't fooling anyone with "intelligent design" either.

If you give so much wieght to court decisions on the sciebtific then maybe you will concur with the case of  June 22, 1633. Catholic Church v Galileo where the court ruled that the earth was the centre of the universe??

I don't give weight to the "court" decision, because it wasn't a court. It was an Inquisition in Rome which charged Galileo with heresay for daring to question and argue against religious dogma, despite the fact that the Council Of Trent, a Catholic council, had accepted concepts of the mobility of Earth which contradicted the teachings of Psalms and Chronicles, some nine decades earlier.

But thankyou very much for presenting an example of religion trying to force false ideas onto those who present scientific evidence to the contrary and incidentally Pope John Paul II in 1992 basically admitted that the 1633 decision forced upon Galileo was misguided.

Anyone reading this please note - No answers to the questions raised above.

Your "questions" are nothing out of the ordinary. They are the type of questions creationists and "intelligent design" proponents ask quite often, thinking foolishly that they have somehow "cracked" evolutionary science. In the same way that "Moon Landing" conspiracy theorists can have their questions answered and theories debunked a million times, they will STILL parrot the same questions and theories because they have convinced themselves that they are correct when science soundly dismisses and debunks their ideas.

Now, these "quotes" you offer are a fine example of what is called "quote mining" where people take only a small section of a statement out of context to change it's meaning:

Even Darwin had the good sense to note: “If numerous species . . . have really started into life at once, the fact would be fatal to the theory of evolution. and also conceded."

Here is the actual statement he made in "The Origin Of Species" IN FULL: 

If numerous species, belonging to the same genera or families, have really started into life all at once, the fact would be fatal to the theory of descent with slow modification through natural selection. For the development of a group of forms, all of which have descended from some one progenitor, must have been an extremely slow process; and the progenitors must have lived long ages before their modified descendants. But we continually over-rate the perfection of the geological record, and falsely infer, because certain genera or families have not been found beneath a certain stage, that they did not exist before that stage. We continually forget how large the world is, compared with the area over which our geological formations have been carefully examined; we forget that groups of species may elsewhere have long existed and have slowly multiplied before they invaded the ancient archipelagoes of Europe and of the United States. We do not make due allowance for the enormous intervals of time, which have probably elapsed between our consecutive formations, longer perhaps in some cases than the time required for the accumulation of each formation. These intervals will have given time for the multiplication of species from some one or some few parent-forms; and in the succeeding formation such species will appear as if suddenly created.

- "The Origin Of Species" Chapter Nine.

That is why people like Stephen Jay Gould and others came up with "punctuated equilibria" and other novel concepts that say evolution happened in rare but giant strides , not gradually.

Pun Equ. 1

Pun Equ. 2

Authors such as Richard Dawkins argue that such constant-rate gradualism is not present in academic literature, serving only as a straw-man for punctuaded equlibrium advocates. He refutes the idea that Charles Darwin himself was a constant-rate gradualist, as suggested by Stephen Jay Gould, for Darwin has explicitly stated that "Many species, once formed, never undergo any further change...; and the periods, during which species have undergone modification, though long as measured by years, have probably been short in comparison with the periods during which they retain the same form."

Phillip Johnson, a professor of criminal law at the University of California at Berkeley in the United States, has long been fascinated by the way biologists defend the theory of evolution. They seem so defensive and dogmatic on the subject that Johnson set about finding out “what the vulnerable points were they’re trying to protect.” The result of his research is a book, Darwin on Trial, that The Sacramento Bee describes as “a lawyer’s examination, bit by bit, of the logic of and evidence behind the theory of evolution.” The newspaper summarizes: “Darwin flunks.” Johnson claims he found many scholars, including biologists, who are afraid to speak out publicly against evolution. “One of the things I’ve learned from this experience,” he told the San Francisco Chronicle, “is that to establish an intellectual orthodoxy and keep it beyond criticism, you don’t need concentration camps and secret police. All you have to do is say that people will laugh at you and you’ll lose your prestige. This has an enormous effect in academic life."

I've already addressed the motivations and mindset of Phillip Johnson.

New Scientist  (Feb 1982)noted that evolution “predicts that a complete fossil record would consist of lineages of organisms showing gradual change continuously over long periods of time.” But it admitted: “Unfortunately, the fossil record does not meet this expectation, for individual species of fossils are rarely connected to one another by known intermediate forms. . . . known fossil species do indeed appear not to evolve even over millions of years.”

Fossil Records

Fossil Records 2

The New Evolutionary Timetable (p.95 , 1981)acknowledges, “the fossil record does not convincingly document a single transition from one species to another. Furthermore, species lasted for astoundingly long periods of time.”—

Stanley was referring to the fossil record of Bighorn Basin, NOT the fossil record as a whole.

The quote in FULL:

"Superb fossil data have recently been gathered from deposits of early Cenozoic Age in the Bighorn Basin of Wyoming. These deposits represent the first part of the Eocene Epoch, a critical interval when many types of modern mammals came into being. The Bighorn Basin, in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains, received large volumes of sediment from the Rockies when they were being uplifted, early in the Age of Mammals. In its remarkable degree of completeness, the fossil record here for the Early Eocene is unmatched by contemporary deposits exposed elsewhere in the world. The deposits of the Bighorn Basin provide a nearly continuous local depositional record for this interval, which lasted some five million years. It used to be assumed that certain populations of the basin could be linked together in such a way as to illustrate continuous evolution. Careful collecting has now shown otherwise. Species that were once thought to have turned into others have been found to overlap in time with these alleged descendants. In fact, the fossil record does not convincingly document a single transition from one species to another. Furthermore, species lasted for astoundingly long periods of time. David M. Schankler has recently gathered data for about eighty mammal species that are known from more than two stratigraphic levels in the Bighorn Basin. Very few of these species existed for less than half a million years, and their average duration was greater than a million years".

Professor J. D. Bernal in the book The Origin of Life: “By applying the strict canons of scientific method to this subject [the spontaneous generation of life], it is possible to demonstrate effectively at several places in the story, how life could not have arisen; the improbabilities are too great, the chances of the emergence of life too small.” He added: “Regrettably from this point of view, life is here on Earth in all its multiplicity of forms and activities and the arguments have to be bent round to support its existence.”

Statistics and Abiogenesis

"... rarity by itself shouldn't necessarily be evidence of anything. When one is dealt a bridge hand of thirteen cards, the probability of being dealt that particular hand is less than one in 600 billion. Still, it would be absurd for someone to be dealt a hand, examine it carefully, calculate that the probability of getting it is less than one in 600 billion, and then conclude that he must not have been dealt that very hand because it is so very improbable.

- John Allen Paulos

"Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences"

[kalos]

Quote ""They are guilty of nothing of the sort. The problem is that proponents of "intelligent design/creationism" simply cannot hold their argument against evolutionary scientists without resorting to religious preaching, efforts to misguide the public and especially children in schools, which I find most abhorrant, and other deceptive tactics.""

Really? Biologist Richard Dawkins bluntly states: “If you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane.” Similarly, Professor René Dubos says: “Most enlightened persons now accept as a fact that everything in the cosmos—from heavenly bodies to human beings—has developed and continues to develop through evolutionary processes.”

So evolution being taught as a fact when there are so many differing opinions on it and no united front as to how it happened is not misguiding the public and children?

Please let everyone know the explanation evolutionary scientists give as to how non-living matter became living?

Also what were the conditions on earth when it was a “primordial soup”. Who replicated these conditions and applied the scientific method to them as follows?
o Ask a Question
o Do Background Research
o Construct a Hypothesis
o Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment
o Analyze Your Data and Draw a Conclusion
o Communicate Your Results


You are so against the term “religious ” Again your reasoning goes out the window. How does anything being called a religious theory disprove said theory? Anyone who talks about a designer is going to have to mention or ask the question about  God/Another force  at some stage ? You quote one mans intent and use him to tar all who believe in an Intelligent designer with the same brush.


Re Galileo, I think you missed my point somewhat – I’m agreeing with you – just pointing out what happens when people can’t at least give someone a fair hearing. I know the decision was misguided .

If the questions are "nothing out of the ordinary" where are the answers then? If it’s so stunningly simple – answer the questions – it’s the questioners prerogative to expect an answer?

Just repeating the mantra that evolution is a fact , that life came from nothing and/or non-lving matter does not nullify the requirement for a coherent answer. Also, please tell us which came first DNA or RNA. Then provide the proof...


Here is the actual statement he made in "The Origin Of Species" IN FULL: 

Quote ""If numerous species, belonging to the same genera or families, have really started into life all at once, the fact would be fatal to the theory of descent with slow modification through natural selection. For the development of a group of forms, all of which have descended from some one progenitor, must have been an extremely slow process; and the progenitors must have lived long ages before their modified descendants. But we continually over-rate the perfection of the geological record, and falsely infer, because certain genera or families have not been found beneath a certain stage, that they did not exist before that stage. We continually forget how large the world is, compared with the area over which our geological formations have been carefully examined; we forget that groups of species may elsewhere have long existed and have slowly multiplied before they invaded the ancient archipelagoes of Europe and of the United States. We do not make due allowance for the enormous intervals of time, which have probably elapsed between our consecutive formations, longer perhaps in some cases than the time required for the accumulation of each formation. These intervals will have given time for the multiplication of species from some one or some few parent-forms; and in the succeeding formation such species will appear as if suddenly created.

- "The Origin Of Species" Chapter Nine. ""

Thanks . That puts it even more clearly than my quote which in now way chnaged the meaning of what Darwin said - I paraphrased for the sake of brevity – So to see whether Darwins theory is viable please answer: Does the fossil record show numerous related species belonging to the same families starting into life at once Manhattan?  Yes or No.


You quote Richard Dawkins – the same man who wrote in the foreword to “The Selfish Gene”- ““This book should be read almost as though it were science fiction"" A book whihc was hailed as a breakthrough for evolutionary thinking...??


Stanley was referring to the fossil record of Bighorn Basin, NOT the fossil record as a whole.



Quote

""Superb fossil data have recently been gathered from deposits of early Cenozoic Age in the Bighorn Basin of Wyoming. These deposits represent the first part of the Eocene Epoch, a critical interval when many types of modern mammals came into being. The Bighorn Basin, in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains, received large volumes of sediment from the Rockies when they were being uplifted, early in the Age of Mammals. In its remarkable degree of completeness, the fossil record here for the Early Eocene is unmatched by contemporary deposits exposed elsewhere in the world. The deposits of the Bighorn Basin provide a nearly continuous local depositional record for this interval, which lasted some five million years. It used to be assumed that certain populations of the basin could be linked together in such a way as to illustrate continuous evolution. Careful collecting has now shown otherwise. Species that were once thought to have turned into others have been found to overlap in time with these alleged descendants. In fact, the fossil record does not convincingly document a single transition from one species to another. Furthermore, species lasted for astoundingly long periods of time. David M. Schankler has recently gathered data for about eighty mammal species that are known from more than two stratigraphic levels in the Bighorn Basin. Very few of these species existed for less than half a million years, and their average duration was greater than a million years".""

THANKS AGAIN . So the best (“unmatched by deposits explored  elsewhere in the world”) record of the Early Eocene shows no evolution of one mammal species into another over 5 million years – that’s a positive for evolution is it??.

Quote ""... rarity by itself shouldn't necessarily be evidence of anything. When one is dealt a bridge hand of thirteen cards, the probability of being dealt that particular hand is less than one in 600 billion. Still, it would be absurd for someone to be dealt a hand, examine it carefully, calculate that the probability of getting it is less than one in 600 billion, and then conclude that he must not have been dealt that very hand because it is so very improbable.

- John Allen Paulos

"Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences" ""

Great – show me evolution in action today (non living becoming living) and I’ll happily believe it. Your quote is a non sequitur. If you see something rare and the evidence is in front of you such that you can examine it , you would believe it. No such evidence exists for non living things becoming living.

Also your figure of 600 billion is not even close ,, in fact its completely insignificant compared to the numbers required for evolution:

Harold Morowitz, a Yale University physicist, has calculated that the chances of getting the simplest living bacterium by random changes is 1 in 1 followed by 100,000,000,000 zeros!!!!

600 billion (11 zeros after the 6) is only 99,000,000,089 zeros out !!!!!- this number is more than astronomical and for many Physicists and Astronomers (and me) makes evolution an absurdity  -

Who is numerically illiterate ?- decide for yourself folks...

[The Manhattan Project]

Really? Biologist Richard Dawkins bluntly states: “If you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane.”

Once again, let's put things in context:

Ignorance is No Crime
by Richard Dawkins

"It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)." I first wrote that in a book review in the New York Times in 1989, and it has been much quoted against me ever since, as evidence of my arrogance and intolerance. Of course it sounds arrogant, but undisguised clarity is easily mistaken for arrogance. Examine the statement carefully and it turns out to be moderate, almost self-evidently true.

By far the largest of the four categories is 'ignorant', and ignorance is no crime (nor is it bliss ? I forget who it was said, "If ignorance is bliss, how come there's so much misery about?"). Anybody who thinks Joe DiMaggio was a cricketer has to be ignorant, stupid or insane (probably ignorant), and you wouldn't think me arrogant for saying so. Nor is it intolerant to remark that flat-earthers are ignorant, stupid or (probably) insane. It's just true. The difference is that not many people think Joe DiMaggio was a cricketer, or that the earth is flat, so it isn't worth calling attention to them. But, if polls are to be believed, 100 million US citizens believe that humans and dinosaurs were created within the same week as each other, less than ten thousand years ago. This is more serious. People like this have the vote, and we have George W Bush (with a little help from his friends in the Supreme Court) to prove it. They dominate school boards in some States. Their views flatly contradict the great corpus of the sciences, not just biology but physics, geology, astronomy and many others. It is, of course, entirely legitimate to question conventional wisdom in fields which you have bothered to mug up first. That is what Einstein did, and Galileo, and Darwin. But our hundred million are another matter. They are contradicting ? influentially and powerfully ? vast fields of learning in which their own knowledge and reading is indistinguishable from zero. My 'arrogant and intolerant' statement turns out to be nothing but simple truth.

Not only is ignorance no crime. It is also, fortunately, remediable. In the same Times review, I went on to recount my experiences of going on radio phone-in talk shows around the United States. Opinion polls had led me to expect hostile cross-examination from creationist zealots. I encountered little of that kind. I got creationist opinions in plenty, but these were founded on honest ignorance, as was freely confessed. When I politely and patiently explained what Darwinism actually is, they listened not only with equal politeness but with interest and even enthusiasm. "Gee, that's real neat, I never heard that before! Wow!" These people were not stupid (nor insane, nor wicked). They didn't believe in evolution, but this was because nobody had ever told them what evolution is. And because plenty of people had told them (wrongly, according to educated theologians) that evolution is against their cherished religion.

I think it was my colleague John Endler, author of Natural Selection in the Wild, a fine compendium of field evidence on that important subject, who told me this story. I may have got the details wrong, but it was approximately as follows. He was on an internal flight within the United States, and his neighbour casually asked him what he did for a living. Endler replied that he was a Professor of Biology, doing research on wild guppy populations in Trinidad. The man became increasingly interested, so, without ever mentioning Darwin, natural selection or evolution, Endler explained more about his research. The man was greatly taken with the brilliant simplicity of the theory underlying the experiments, and he asked Endler the name of this theory and where it came from. Only then did Dr Endler revealed his hand. "It's called Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection!" The man's whole demeanour instantly changed. He became defensive, asserted abruptly that he didn't believe in that theory, and terminated the conversation.

Ignorant certainly, stupid perhaps, but not wicked. I originally listed 'wicked' as one of my possibilities, only for completeness. I have never been sure whether there truly are intelligent, knowledgeable and sane people who feign disbelief in evolution for ulterior motives. Perhaps a political candidate needs some such dissimulation in order to get elected in certain States. If so, it is sad but possibly not much more reprehensible than the proverbial kissing of babies. Not deeply wicked. There are certainly many creationists who tell lies for propaganda purposes, wantonly and knowingly misquoting biologists, from Darwin on down. Such dishonesty is documented on several websites, and by the Australian geologist Ian Plimer in his book Telling Lies for God. Coincidentally, the worst occasion when I have been misrepresented in this way involved an Australian creationist organization, who fraudulently mis-cut the tape of an interview of me. The story, which is quite amusing although it irritated me at the time, is told in the Australian Skeptic by Barry Williams, Editor of that admirable magazine (http://www.freethought-web.org/ctrl/news/file007.html). But such minor examples of wickedness can be excused on the grounds that ignorance and stupidity trump wickedness.

Are there, then, any examples of anti-evolution poseurs who are not ignorant, stupid or insane, and who might be genuine candidates for the wicked category? I once shared a platform with someone called David Berlinski, who is certainly not ignorant, stupid or insane. He denies that he is a creationist, but claims strong scientific arguments against evolution (which disappointingly turn out to be the same old creationist arguments). Together with the great John Maynard Smith and others, he and I were guest speakers at a debate organized by a prominent Oxford rabbi. Maynard Smith spoke after Berlinski and, not surprisingly, he soon had the audience roaring with laughter as he lampooned Berlinski's bad arguments. But what amused me was Berlinski's tactic for dealing with this mocking laughter. He sprang to his feet, held up a reproachful open palm towards the audience, and said (approximately of course, I can't remember the exact words): "No no! Don't laugh. Let Maynard Smith have his say! It's only fair!" Happily, the Oxford audience saw through this tactic of pretending to think the audience were laughing at Maynard Smith rather than with him. And the rabbi, himself a devout creationist, afterwards told me he had been shocked at Berlinski's duplicity. By itself, this is too trivial an example to deserve the name wicked. But it did make me wonder about Berlinski's motives. As I said, he is certainly not ignorant, stupid or insane.

I don't withdraw a word of my initial statement. But I do now think it may have been incomplete. There is perhaps a fifth category, which may belong under 'insane' but which can be more sympathetically characterised by a word like tormented, bullied or brainwashed. Sincere people who are not ignorant, not stupid and not wicked, can be cruelly torn, almost in two, between the massive evidence of science on the one hand, and their understanding (or misunderstanding) of what their holy book tells them on the other. I think this is one of the truly bad things religion can do to a human mind. There is wickedness here, but it is the wickedness of the institution and what it does to a believing victim, not wickedness on the part of the victim himself. The clearest example I know is poignant, even sad, and I shall do it justice in a later article

Similarly, Professor René Dubos says: “Most enlightened persons now accept as a fact that everything in the cosmos—from heavenly bodies to human beings—has developed and continues to develop through evolutionary processes.”

There is no insult here.

So evolution being taught as a fact when there are so many differing opinions on it and no united front as to how it happened is not misguiding the public and children?

If evolutionary science is taught properly in schools then legitimate debates within the scientific community, such as the Gould/Dawkins matter would be taught as part of the subject. "Intelligent design" on the other hand isn't science, so it's not going to be taught to children in serious study of evolution. In the same sense that studying various "moon formation theories" could be taught in science classes, but "Flying Spaghetti Monster/Zeus/Allah/God/Aliens/Intelligent Designer/Deus Ex Machina Did It" would not be included.

Please let everyone know the explanation evolutionary scientists give as to how non-living matter became living?

Abiogenesis reading:

Link

Also what were the conditions on earth when it was a “primordial soup”. Who replicated these conditions and applied the scientific method to them as follows?
o Ask a Question
o Do Background Research
o Construct a Hypothesis
o Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment
o Analyze Your Data and Draw a Conclusion
o Communicate Your Results

Link

Link 2

Link 3

You are so against the term “religious ” Again your reasoning goes out the window. How does anything being called a religious theory disprove said theory?

I am against the term "religious" when it tries to pass itself off as science. Religion has nothing to do with science, therefore it is irrelevant to anything relating to evolution, which is why the true motives of the "intelligent design" ideology are revealed.

Anyone who talks about a designer is going to have to mention or ask the question about  God/Another force  at some stage ?

Precisely, that's why it "intelligent design" is in fact a religious theory, because the proponents assign a "cover name" for their god. It's religion disguised by pseudo-scientific language, and it's fooling no one.

You quote one mans intent and use him to tar all who believe in an Intelligent designer with the same brush.

Even if we put aside the religious aspect and say "OK, perhaps it was a powerful alien that designed everything!", no evidence exists either to prove that. Scientifically it's baseless.

Re Galileo, I think you missed my point somewhat – I’m agreeing with you – just pointing out what happens when people can’t at least give someone a fair hearing. I know the decision was misguided .

There is no evidence to suggest that the Dover trial was not fair. It's a lot different to a 17th century religious hearing where you either accept what they tell you to accept or will have to endure a severe punishment.

If the questions are "nothing out of the ordinary" where are the answers then? If it’s so stunningly simple – answer the questions – it’s the questioners prerogative to expect an answer?

I've already told you that the questions you ask are answered. I've even guided you to places you can find the answers. It's much more effective that simply reposting the enormous amount of material based on evolutionary science.

Just repeating the mantra that evolution is a fact , that life came from nothing and/or non-lving matter does not nullify the requirement for a coherent answer.

I have repeated no such mantra.

Also, please tell us which came first DNA or RNA. Then provide the proof...

Link

The issue of "proof":

Link

Link 2

Thanks . That puts it even more clearly than my quote

Yes it does, hence the flaw in quote mining.

which in now way chnaged the meaning of what Darwin said - I paraphrased for the sake of brevity –

Actually it DID change the meaning of what Darwin said. Don't "paraphrase" because it does not lead to brevity, it leads to inaccuracy.

So to see whether Darwins theory is viable please answer: Does the fossil record show numerous related species belonging to the same families starting into life at once Manhattan?  Yes or No.

The issue of fossil records has already been addressed.

Link

Link 2

"Sudden Arrivals!"

Link

Link 2

Link 3

You quote Richard Dawkins – the same man who wrote in the foreword to “The Selfish Gene”- ““This book should be read almost as though it were science fiction"" A book whihc was hailed as a breakthrough for evolutionary thinking...??

I've already shown that debates within the scientific community exist regarding the process of evolution. So disagreement should not be surprising or taken as anything extraordinary.

THANKS AGAIN . So the best (“unmatched by deposits explored  elsewhere in the world”) record of the Early Eocene shows no evolution of one mammal species into another over 5 million years – that’s a positive for evolution is it??.

Ahhh, still quote mining huh?

It actually says:

"In its remarkable degree of completeness, the fossil record here for the Early Eocene is unmatched by contemporary deposits exposed elsewhere in the world"

Note, the word "contemporary"

It means that of all the examples of fossil records from this particular period of time in Earth's history, Bighorn had the most complete record, but since evolutionary science does not depend entirely on one example of fossils based on only one location, it doesn't harm evolutionary science. As demonstrated elsewhere in this post.

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Great – show me evolution in action today (non living becoming living) and I’ll happily believe it. Your quote is a non sequitur. If you see something rare and the evidence is in front of you such that you can examine it , you would believe it. No such evidence exists for non living things becoming living.

I've already addressed matters relating to abiogenesis, and incidentally, even if one rejects the explanations for abiogenesis from evolutionary scientists, "intelligent design" proponents themselves cannot explain it, without of course retreating to theistic concepts or infinite regression.

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Also your figure of 600 billion is not even close ,, in fact its completely insignificant compared to the numbers required for evolution:

Harold Morowitz, a Yale University physicist, has calculated that the chances of getting the simplest living bacterium by random changes is 1 in 1 followed by 100,000,000,000 zeros!!!!

600 billion (11 zeros after the 6) is only 99,000,000,089 zeros out !!!!!- this number is more than astronomical and for many Physicists and Astronomers (and me) makes evolution an absurdity  -

Who is numerically illiterate ?- decide for yourself folks...

Don't let the huge numbers dazzle you. What you are describing is the argument from incredulity. The fact remains, whatever the odds of life emerging on this planet, it happened, therefore one could say that life beat the odds.

From Probability and Certainty, p. 124-126:

The Problem of Life.

In conclusion, I feel it is necessary to say a few words regarding a question that does not really come within the scope of this book, but that certain readers might nevertheless reproach me for having entirely neglected. I mean the problem of the appearance of life on our planet (and eventually on other planets in the universe) and the probability that this appearance may have been due to chance. If this problem seems to me to lie outside our subject, this is because the probability in question is too complex for us to be able to calculate its order of magnitude. It is on this point that I wish to make several explanatory comments.

When we calculated the probability of reproducing by mere chance a work of literature, in one or more volumes, we certainly observed that, if this work was printed, it must have emanated from a human brain. Now the complexity of that brain must therefore have been even richer than the particular work to which it gave birth. Is it not possible to infer that the probability that this brain may have been produced by the blind forces of chance is even slighter than the probability of the typewriting miracle?

It is obviously the same as if we asked ourselves whether we could know if it was possible actually to create a human being by combining at random a certain number of simple bodies. But this is not the way that the problem of the origin of life presents itself: it is generally held that living beings are the result of a slow process of evolution, beginning with elementary organisms, and that this process of evolution involves certain properties of living matter that prevent us from asserting that the process was accomplished in accordance with the laws of chance.

Moreover, certain of these properties of living matter also belong to inanimate matter, when it takes certain forms, such as that of crystals. It does not seem possible to apply the laws of probability calculus to the phenomenon of the formation of a crystal in a more or less supersaturated solution. At least, it would not be possible to treat this as a problem of probability without taking account of certain properties of matter, properties that facilitate the formation of crystals and that we are certainly obliged to verify. We ought, it seems to me, to consider it likely that the formation of elementary living organisms, and the evolution of those organisms, are also governed by elementary properties of matter that we do not understand perfectly but whose existence we ought nevertheless admit.

Similar observations could be made regarding possible attempts to apply the probability calculus to cosmogonical problems. In this field, too, it does not seem that the conclusions we have could really be of great assistance".

In short, Borel says what many a talk.origins poster has said time and time again when confronted with such creationist arguments: namely, that probability estimates that ignore the non-random elements predetermined by physics and chemistry are meaningless.

Further Discussion

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NOTE:

To prevent circular arguments and repetition, if anyone wishes to respond to this post of mine, I will address only the parts which haven't already been dealt with in previous posts, since the links, quotes and posts provided should answer all reasonable questions relating to this matter, or at least direct one to other sources and further reading.

I furthermore note that I will not respond to any cited quote which has been "mined" or taken out of context from a source. So if anyone shows me a source quote and if I don't respond to it, then it's because the quote you provided wasn't accurate in the first instance.

[dawson99]

but cant religious people say: god invented evolution.

obviosuly things evolve, things start from nothing. icant write as elequently as the man that is manhatton. but as a religious person id say god made evolution. so ner ner

[dawson99]

also tho, if there is evolution, hiow come baby seals havent developed really thick skulls yet?

[The Manhattan Project]

but cant religious people say: god invented evolution.

obviosuly things evolve, things start from nothing. icant write as elequently as the man that is manhatton. but as a religious person id say god made evolution. so ner ner

Many religious people have no problem squaring their belief in God with evolution. The problem comes from those who try to push a certain agenda which is HIGHLY political. This is mainly an American problem. It comes from the fundamentalist lobby of U.S. society which sadly is powerful, wealthy and highly organised. Let me make it clear, I have no problem with religion, creationism (and it's variants) being taught in school, as long as it's in RE/Philosophy/Mythology classes.

also tho, if there is evolution, hiow come baby seals havent developed really thick skulls yet?

Because we can always create harder clubs! 

 

[account deleted by request]

but cant religious people say: god invented evolution.

obviosuly things evolve, things start from nothing. icant write as elequently as the man that is manhatton. but as a religious person id say god made evolution. so ner ner

As a non believer I respect your right to believe in god.(so put a good word in for me if you go first    )

[LFC2007]

For taking the time on that humungous post....   Manhattan

Fundamentally agree with your point in your last post, which is the basis behind the longer more drawn out minutia set out in the earlier post.

[112-1077774096]

reigion, pah.


may as wel believe in a magic chipmunk as believe in god, neither exist

[LFC2007]

reigion, pah.


may as wel believe in a magic chipmunk as believe in god, neither exist

Not true, I experienced the Magic Chipmunk effect a few years ago when testing some of the finest Brazilian herbal remedies.  

[Igor Zidane]

So what came first , the chicken or the egg. Was one created and the other evolve from it or what?