Evolution (Split From Obamacare Thread)

Quote: terapined

Heres my take on the Asian American vote and I am an Asian American.
1st off the community generally consists or Cantonese (Southern China) and Mandarin (Northern China)
Generally the Cantonese are the Restuarant owners and The Mandarin are Doctors, these are broad stereotypes but in general are true.
I'm half Mandarin so my viewpoint is from that community.
I can only speak for myself, family and close Mandarin friends.
In my small circle, parents dream of their children becoming Doctors. Money, Prestige and you are helping to heal people.
So Asian American Mandarin Parents put a very high value on Science , especially biology due to the core subjects to become a Doctor.
Many on the right disrespect science by puishing creationism in our schools and that in my opinion is the crux of the problem Asian Americans have with Republicans.
Mandarin Asian Americans put a high value on science, its very very important to Parents that their children do well in science.
Creationism is not science. Intelligent design is not science. Thats the problem on the right, Asian American want their children to be taught Science, not pseudoscience.

You cannot be intligent without at least considering creationism/intelligent design. Until science explains what was here before the Big Bang and how one cell animals suddenly left the water and bred totally new animals anyways.

In any case I don't buy this as a reason for the shift. Not a major one anyways.

Quote: AZDuffman

You cannot be intligent without at least considering creationism/intelligent design. Until science explains what was here before the Big Bang and how one cell animals suddenly left the water and bred totally new animals anyways.

*blink, blink*

A: It may be that there was no before. Most serious theologians believe in timeless existence, and finite time, no? Then why should science be bound to time as we understand it, at least until a better explanation is found? But this is not to say it's necessarily true, only that the question may have no answer - and whether it does or not, be irrelevant - see point C.
B: There is evidence for the universe's expansion - all attempts to provide evidence, with any rigor, of intelligent design of the universe or of life, or even really to define it rigorously, have failed miserably.
C: Not everything needs to be explained before what can be inferred is to be taught in preference to ancient navel-gazing. Your holy intellectual masturbation must be the best explanation, with all considered, to be taught. "Evolutionists can't explain...!" will never, not in a thousand years, get you where you want to go. "Creation better explains..." would, if you had the data, but it would take a thousand years, as you would have to go through the entire body of science, not a handful of oddly-situated fossils.
D: "...and how one cell animals suddenly left the water and bred totally new animals..." is just on its own level of fail, such that I'll need to set up a subheading.
i. "Suddenly" - an old strawman, and an ironic one, since the idea that life came about "suddenly" rather than by some process similar to those we see all around us is all but the definition of creationism. It is the tentative rejection of this positive claim that is at the center of what is called "evolutionism," and this stems from the basic methods of science.
ii. "How one cell animals left the water" - to truncate our family tree to this point is to advertise your willful ignorance. Such a statement shows you do not care about the state of the science - nothing would ever convince you, and so you have as much place anywhere near a science curriculum as the author of the Indiana Pi Bill at the math.
iii. "Until science explains how animals left the water" - Ever heard of a lungfish? Our closest living relatives outside the tetrapods, closer than the coelocanth. Not coincidentally, another name for them is "salamander fish." But more to the point, you know perfectly well that any explanation will be written off as a "just-so story," which you'll say has no place in science, leaving aside that they exist only to placate likewise unscientific demands like these.
iv. "Bred totally new animals" - let me guess, breaching the "kind barrier"? Explain what that is in a way that doesn't assume special creation and hasn't already been breached, and we'll talk.

I can hardly believe I'm reading this, honestly, anywhere more sophisticated than Youtube.

^^^^^^^^^^^
In other words, he thinks they're "ethically dissimilar". lol...

Quote: Beethoven9th

^^^^^^^^^^^
In other words, he thinks they're "ethically dissimilar". lol...

Oh, Jesus Christ, you're going to end up wearing my skin, aren't you?

Quote: 24Bingo

*blink, blink*

A: It may be that there was no before. Most serious theologians believe in timeless existence, and finite time, no? Then why should science be bound to time as we understand it, at least until a better explanation is found? But this is not to say it's necessarily true, only that the question may have no answer - and whether it does or not, be irrelevant - see point C.

But science states that there is supposed to be an answer for *everything.* I have wanted to know for years that if you cannot create or destroy matter, then what was there before The Big Bang?

Quote:

C: Not everything needs to be explained before what can be inferred is to be taught in preference to ancient navel-gazing. Your holy intellectual masturbation must be the best explanation, with all considered, to be taught. "Evolutionists can't explain...!" will never, not in a thousand years, get you where you want to go. "Creation better explains..." would, if you had the data, but it would take a thousand years, as you would have to go through the entire body of science, not a handful of oddly-situated fossils.

Your offensive hater talk dances around my point. When you cannot explain something, perhaps you should at the least consider the alternative. I mean, how many times do we hear the phrase "Mother Nature does.........."???

Quote:

D: "...and how one cell animals suddenly left the water and bred totally new animals..." is just on its own level of fail, such that I'll need to set up a subheading.
i. "Suddenly" - an old strawman, and an ironic one, since the idea that life came about "suddenly" rather than by some process similar to those we see all around us is all but the definition of creationism. It is the tentative rejection of this positive claim that is at the center of what is called "evolutionism," and this stems from the basic methods of science.
ii. "How one cell animals left the water" - to truncate our family tree to this point is to advertise your willful ignorance. Such a statement shows you do not care about the state of the science - nothing would ever convince you, and so you have as much place anywhere near a science curriculum as the author of the Indiana Pi Bill at the math.
iii. "Until science explains how animals left the water" - Ever heard of a lungfish? Our closest living relatives outside the tetrapods, closer than the coelocanth. Not coincidentally, another name for them is "salamander fish." But more to the point, you know perfectly well that any explanation will be written off as a "just-so story," which you'll say has no place in science, leaving aside that they exist only to placate likewise unscientific demands like these.
iv. "Bred totally new animals" - let me guess, breaching the "kind barrier"? Explain what that is in a way that doesn't assume special creation and hasn't already been breached, and we'll talk.

Lets try this again. Dogs have selectively been bred for various traits. But no matter if you breed a wolf-husky down to a toy poodle it is still a dog. It does not grow wings and it cannot breed with a cat. You can repeat this for any species. Fish can't mate with birds. Snakes can't mate with cows. Nature does not just "make" new animals.

So back to the one-cell being and the fish leaving the water. So there is a thing called a "lungfish." Yip-yip-yahoo. How did it come to develop lungs if nothing before had lungs? And how on earth did the fish first leave the water. Put a fish out of water and it will flap around for some time, then die. So when the first fish tried to leave the water the same thing would have happened.

Around here the haters tend to say, "well a gene mutated!" This makes very little sense. First, a mutating gene will far more often kill the animal or make it weaker than make it better. Second, do you expect me to believe genes mutated to simply develop the complex system all animals have? To give them the instincts they possess? And that multiplies billions of times for each and every species of animal out there?

When the above is pointed out, the "you don't believe in science" crowd will condescendingly say that I must believe God created the earth in seven days and enough time to watch the kickoff of the Jets-Patriots game. My retort in advance is that the story of creation was always meant to be an allegorical story. Most people do not take it literally, and for the ones that do they are hurting fewer people than the people who believe in man-caused global warming. The story and idea of creation is that a superior being caused life and the planet as we know it.

Based on how many holes there now are in evolution I will repeat that you cannot be intelligent without considering intelligent design. This is hard for scientists, who tend to have big egos like doctors, as well as those who cannot accept that there might, just might, be something out there more important than ourselves.

Quote: AZDuffman

Lets try this again. Dogs have selectively been bred for various traits. But no matter if you breed a wolf-husky down to a toy poodle it is still a dog. It does not grow wings and it cannot breed with a cat. You can repeat this for any species. Fish can't mate with birds. Snakes can't mate with cows. Nature does not just "make" new animals.

I think you know better than this. If you don't, this is exactly how new animals come about, not by hybridizing, but by becoming unable to interbreed, allowing different traits to become fixed at an accelerated rate. This has been seen, albeit not at the rate you require. (Incidentally, for all the species of canis to have emerged over the past few thousand years requires far faster evolution than any scientist has ever proposed.)

But your entire post is drivel, because no matter how many "holes" there are (and incidentally, look up everything you just said), the positive claim that some entity created life will always require positive evidence. Until at least the existence of a being or force with such power is shown, evolution will be the default assumption, although our understanding of in what way it occurred may change drastically (and has). A few things do bear special comment, though:

Quote: AZDuffman

But science states that there is supposed to be an answer for *everything.*

Science says we should seek an answer, rather than falling back on what's genial to our intuition at the first difficulty. It doesn't say we have to find one, much less have found one.

Quote: AZDuffman

Most people do not take it literally, and for the ones that do they are hurting fewer people than the people who believe in man-caused global warming.

...you don't care, do you? You just don't care - if reality says something other than what you want to believe, it's reality you'll reject, every time. You personify the reason why in a century, our descendants will be either an underclass in real countries or living in squalor in our ruins.

Quote: 24Bingo

But your entire post is drivel...

[snip]

...if reality says something other than what you want to believe, it's reality you'll reject, every time.

You personify the reason why in a century, our descendants will be either an underclass in real countries or living in squalor in our ruins.

Geez, these kinds of personal attacks make the "ethically dissimilar" argument look good.

Quote: 24Bingo

I think you know better than this. If you don't, this is exactly how new animals come about, not by hybridizing, but by becoming unable to interbreed, allowing different traits to become fixed at an accelerated rate. This has been seen, albeit not at the rate you require. (Incidentally, for all the species of canis to have emerged over the past few thousand years requires far faster evolution than any scientist has ever proposed.)

I was unaware you were not informed about selective breeding. Dog species/breeds did not just "come about." Dogs since the beginning have been selectively bred to get the traits desired. Labrador Retrievers were bred for hunting and Border Collies for working herds.

Quote:

But your entire post is drivel, because no matter how many "holes" there are (and incidentally, look up everything you just said), the positive claim that some entity created life will always require positive evidence. Until at least the existence of a being or force with such power is shown, evolution will be the default assumption, although our understanding of in what way it occurred may change drastically (and has). A few things do bear special comment.

Uh, no. We know there is not going to be "positive proof" of a superior being. But belief in such a being pops up in every society in history all over the world. This certainly bodes well for said being to exist. It is almost as if human nature has a built-in instinct for it.

Put another way, you may be able to prove evolution happened, but you cannot prove "why" it happened. And to each "why" there can be another "why." To say we only teach an atheistic view is to teach closed-mindedness.

Quote:

...you don't care, do you? You just don't care - if reality says something other than what you want to believe, it's reality you'll reject, every time. You personify the reason why in a century, our descendants will be either an underclass in real countries or living in squalor in our ruins.

This doesn't even make sense. We have done pretty well teaching creationism/intelligent design for 5,000 years. Our descendants will do better if taught that sometimes there are things we cannot control and to deal with them than to be taught that we can control it all (see: "global warming."

Quote: AZ

Uh, no. We know there is not going to be "positive proof" of a superior being. But belief in such a being pops up in every society in history all over the world. This certainly bodes well for said being to exist. It is almost as if human nature has a built-in instinct for it.

Belief does not make it exist or even make it likely to exist. On the other hand, the jury is still out on "positive proof". What we know is that there has been no verifiable truth *so far*.

As for global warming, the science behind the atmosphere absorbing more of the sun's energy due to the level of carbon dioxide in this atmosphere (which IS man made) is absolutely true. How climate and the earth's various systems aka mother nature deals with this is still being figured out. The earth's various systems are extremely complex to predict, so scientists have changed the term "global warming" to "climate change".

But that's the matter for a different thread.

Quote: AZDuffman

But belief in such a being pops up in every society in history all over the world. This certainly bodes well for said being to exist. It is almost as if human nature has a built-in instinct for it."

Sure, as do common gambler fallacies wherever gambling goes on.

Quote: boymimbo

As for global warming, the science behind the atmosphere absorbing more of the sun's energy due to the level of carbon dioxide in this atmosphere (which IS man made) is absolutely true. How climate and the earth's various systems aka mother nature deals with this is still being figured out. The earth's various systems are extremely complex to predict, so scientists have changed the term "global warming" to "climate change".

But that's the matter for a different thread.

The science behind "climate change" is the same mentality as those who thought the solar system revolved around the earth 1,000 years ago. Follow the belief or become an outcast. To stay on subject, what I find funny is that there is no "proof positive" on climate change yet we must teach it as gospel, but the same people demand proof positive of intelligent design before we are allowed to even consider it.

Quote: AZDuffman

but the same people demand proof positive of intelligent design before we are allowed to even consider it.

Intelligent design has been around and considered under less fancy names probably longer than modern science even. Just give it a chance? lol.

Quote: AZDuffman

what I find funny is that there is no "proof positive" on climate change yet we must teach it as gospel, but the same people demand proof positive of
intelligent design before we are allowed to even consider it.

Great point, AZ. I had not even thought of that analogy.

Quote: AZDuffman

I was unaware you were not informed about selective breeding. Dog species/breeds did not just "come about." Dogs since the beginning have been selectively bred to get the traits desired. Labrador Retrievers were bred for hunting and Border Collies for working herds.

I meant wolves and jackals. Dogs did evolve over a few thousand years (and are much closer to each other for it), so it's interesting that's where your mind went - it shows what an acolyte you can be to intuition.

Quote: AZDuffman

Put another way, you may be able to prove evolution happened, but you cannot prove "why" it happened. And to each "why" there can be another "why." To say we only teach an atheistic view is to teach closed-mindedness.

"Why" in the sense you mean has no place in a science class. It may or may not have any place in our reality - it reeks of projection by us apes - but science is all "how." Even if it's shown to be a valid concept, it will then only follow from "how."

Quote: AZDuffman

This doesn't even make sense. We have done pretty well teaching creationism/intelligent design for 5,000 years. Our descendants will do better if taught that sometimes there are things we cannot control and to deal with them than to be taught that we can control it all (see: "global warming."

We've also been without quantum physics, relativity, and electronics design for 5000 years. Our students don't need it!

(We've also been without the Internet for 5000 years.,,)

(And see indeed "global warming." You talk about those arrogant scientists thinking they can control it, and then try to control it with happy thoughts.)

Quote: AZDuffman

The science behind "climate change" is the same mentality as those who thought the solar system revolved around the earth 1,000 years ago. Follow the belief or become an outcast. To stay on subject, what I find funny is that there is no "proof positive" on climate change yet we must teach it as gospel, but the same people demand proof positive of intelligent design before we are allowed to even consider it.

If you could come to anywhere near the level of evidence there is for anthropogenic global warming for any kind of god, you wouldn't be turning to arguments like "all these apes have had Him in their meat brains!"

Quote: 24Bingo

Dogs did evolve over a few thousand years (and are much closer to each other for it), so it's interesting that's where your mind went - it shows what an acolyte you can be to intuition.

Quick question. In your opinion, is creation ethically similar or ethically dissimilar to evolution?

Quote: 24Bingo

Dogs did evolve over a few thousand years

Dogs didn't 'evolve' at all, they were bred by humans
from wolves over a period of thousands of years. They
would take a strange wolf pup and breed it with another
odd pup and get even odder looking breeds. This went
on and on until we have all the different kinds of dogs
we have. Its still going on. Dog DNA is still 97% the same
as a wolf. Breeding is not evolution.

Yes, it's still evolution. Why wouldn't it be? What makes us so damn special?

(Not that it's relevant.)

Quote: 24Bingo

Yes, it's still evolution.

No its not. If I make a hybrid ear of corn, thats
not evolution either.

The science on the effects of carbon dioxide and atmospheric absorption are very clear and have been for 30+ years now. More energy is being absorbed by the atmosphere as a result of the increased CO2 in the atmosphere. What hasn't been clear is how that translates to temperature changes. Climate scientists *used* to think that the earth's systems were simplisitic enough to tie the two together because in the past, there is a plenty of evidence (tree rings, fossil records, other methods) that link carbon dioxide content to temperature.

I've done enough of my own work (I have a diploma in Meterology) to come to my own unbiased opinions based on actual data (I don't have money in this).

Weather affects everything that we do. Climate affects everyone. Climate has always been taught in schools, and climate change is a part of that. Kids have always been taught that our activities affect the environment and activities to save the future generations (whether it's reducing waste, turning off lights, eating local produce), etc. Climate change is right down that alley.

When you increase the concentration of a known atmospheric absorbent by 1/3rd, it's going to have some effect on climate.

No it's not evolution because it's still the same damned species, canis familiaris. All dogs can breed with each other. We are just selecting which dogs to breed.

This is fascinating, a evolution argument on a Vegas board. Ain't the internet strange.
And I started it? Oh God. ehh, its just an expression, actually an atheist.
My background is my father was a scientist PHD. I grew up watching Star Trek and admiring Spock. High School education typical affluent suburban liberal teachers. Never went to church. All through this I had always thought evolution was just a given as the earth revolves around the sun. It wasn't till college that I met the otherside and was quite taken aback that some fellow students questioned evolution. Anyway in the end its all good. What you believe is what you believe, we are all unique individuals.

Anyway, I was curious, Is there anybody here that questions evolution and is is an atheist or is not religious?

Quote: boymimbo

No it's not evolution because it's still the same damned species, canis familiaris. All dogs can breed with each other. We are just selecting which dogs to breed.

That's still evolution. Dogs can usually breed with wolves and jackals, too. And we separate out dog breeds so that they generally don't interbreed - in time, if this continues, it's likely to fix them to such a degree that some will no longer be able to breed.

Quote: terapined

This is fascinating, a evolution argument on a Vegas board. Ain't the internet strange.

Gotta say, I'm as surprised as you. Apparently, the future of New Jersey public schools has "goddidit" an acceptable answer on tests and for any student who turns in two four-syllable words to be expelled.

(I almost said "Nevada," but I realized that was probably already true.)

Quote: terapined

Anyway, I was curious, Is there anybody here that questions evolution and is is an atheist or is not religious?

Don't say "question evolution," because that's not what they're doing. Scientists do that every day. What they're doing is hoping to make a positive claim look like a negative one, and since that positive claim is basically religious, anyone who adheres to it and doesn't believe in a creative power - not necessarily a god, but at least the possibility of a creative power - is utterly duped.

I'm always amazed how strongly each side reacts in arguments about Evolution. Each side.

I don't like to use the word "believe" when it comes to Evolution, so I will try to leave it out.

Personally, I find most aspects of the Theory of Evolution acceptable and supported; much of it massively supported. I can't accept that a belief in God can't co-exist with *any* type of scientific findings I know of.

Having said that, I'll list briefly some of the flaws with Evolution that have struck me as worthy of discussion.

*strident supporters who use expressions like "I believe in Evolution". This approach is actually quite improper and confirms for religious people that it is a matter of faith, an assertion that legitimately cannot thus be accepted in the affirmative for so many.

*The problem of Stasis in the fossil record. Instead of showing gradual change, fossil records tend to show no change at all, followed by extinction. This hasn't been impossible to explain away, but there it is. Attempts to deal with it have often been quite dishonest. For example, one of the favorite missuses of the fossil record to support Evolutionary Theory to students and the general public has been "The Evolution of the Horse" which purports to show a fossil record that indicates the Horse evolved gradually into its present form over eons, leaving behind a clear fossil record. Unfortunately, this bothered authentic scientists who knew better. You can read up on this, but basically the bottom line has been that that the fossils shown typically would be expected to be lines, in each case, that went extinct without leaving descendants. It's just the nature of such study that "missing links" predominate. As a result, knowledgeable detractors for evolution tend to bring up the "Evolution of the Horse" as a fiasco. At Wikipedia they show the old diagram with the warning inserted that "This image shows a representative sequence, but should not be construed to represent a "straight-line" evolution of the horse."

*The problem of falsification of evidence has been pretty bad. Those against accepting Ev. theory legitimately point to it. The best example is Piltdown Man, a hoax that the scientific community let stand for over 40 years!

I'd be interested in responses to these points.

Quote: boymimbo

The science on the effects of carbon dioxide and atmospheric absorption are very clear and have been for 30+ years now. More energy is being absorbed by the atmosphere as a result of the increased CO2 in the atmosphere. What hasn't been clear is how that translates to temperature changes. Climate scientists *used* to think that the earth's systems were simplisitic enough to tie the two together because in the past, there is a plenty of evidence (tree rings, fossil records, other methods) that link carbon dioxide content to temperature.

Leave it to media-driven science to think that you can look at one input (CO2) in a complex system (earth) and draw a simple conclusion. Any reasonably intelligent person would know that tree-rings and fossils cannot possibly be compared to give a temperature reading accurate enough to compare with daily readings of a modern thermometer and draw a conclusion. And a person with common sense will remember that they saw many early or late springs all their life. Yet it happens now and 47% of the population swallows the idea that is is "climate change" causing a hurricane, tornado, or wildfire. They believe it as they see the teasers for the news during commercials in "Dancing With the Stars" or the like.

40 years ago it was a new ice age on the way. 30 years ago we would have run out of oil by now. 15 years ago it was global warming. By 2020 it will be something else.

Here is the best way I have ever heard it put.

Quote: odiousgambit

*The problem of Stasis in the fossil record. Instead of showing gradual change, fossil records tend to show no change at all, followed by extinction. This hasn't been impossible to explain away, but there it is. Attempts to deal with it have often been quite dishonest. For example, one of the favorite missuses of the fossil record to support Evolutionary Theory to students and the general public has been "The Evolution of the Horse" which purports to show a fossil record that indicates the Horse evolved gradually into its present form over eons, leaving behind a clear fossil record. Unfortunately, this bothered authentic scientists who knew better. You can read up on this, but basically the bottom line has been that that the fossils shown typically would be expected to be lines, in each case, that went extinct without leaving descendants. It's just the nature of such study that "missing links" predominate. As a result, knowledgeable detractors for evolution tend to bring up the "Evolution of the Horse" as a fiasco. At Wikipedia they show the old diagram with the warning inserted that "This image shows a representative sequence, but should not be construed to represent a "straight-line" evolution of the horse."

The problem with this "problem" is that it doesn't even come close to implying that life was more likely to have been created - in which case none of them should have existed - than to have come about by evolution. Some level of stasis is to be expected in any case, just by negative feedback promoting an equilibrium.

Quote: odiousgambit

*The problem of falsification of evidence has been pretty bad. Those against accepting Ev. theory legitimately point to it. The best example is Piltdown Man, a hoax that the scientific community let stand for over 40 years!

This and Haeckel's embryos are basically the only examples - everything else you've heard either wasn't taken seriously for any length of time, or often at all outside the popular press (Nebraska Man, Archaeoraptor), or isn't actually false (for instance, the moths nailed to trees were only for purposes of illustration).

(for instance, the moths nailed to trees were only for purposes of illustration). Thats funny.

Quote:

Lets try this again. Dogs have selectively been bred for various traits. But no matter if you breed a wolf-husky down to a toy poodle it is still a dog. It does not grow wings and it cannot breed with a cat. You can repeat this for any species. Fish can't mate with birds. Snakes can't mate with cows. Nature does not just "make" new animals.

This is not how evolution works. Nature does make new animals. Micro-evolution has been shown to occur. Micro-evolution is evidence for macro-evolution.

Quote:

So back to the one-cell being and the fish leaving the water. So there is a thing called a "lungfish." Yip-yip-yahoo. How did it come to develop lungs if nothing before had lungs? And how on earth did the fish first leave the water. Put a fish out of water and it will flap around for some time, then die. So when the first fish tried to leave the water the same thing would have happened.

Adaption and survival of the fit enough. Just like the eye didn't have to come about as one magically, perfectly formed eyeball, the adaption to take in oxygen from the air rather than the water didn't have to come about as one perfectly formed lung. The theory of evolution does not state that it does.

Quote:

Around here the haters tend to say, "well a gene mutated!" This makes very little sense. First, a mutating gene will far more often kill the animal or make it weaker than make it better. Second, do you expect me to believe genes mutated to simply develop the complex system all animals have? To give them the instincts they possess? And that multiplies billions of times for each and every species of animal out there?

Gene mutation is complex. Genetic variations happen, and a lot are not useful. However, for evolution to occur, only some have to be useful. Some people have a genetic disposition to deal with high altitudes. This is a useful adaption, and will tend to get passed along, as being a feature that helps survival. Scientists have performed experiments on bacteria (the poor bacteria) which have shown gene mutation leads them to be able to survive nutrients that they could not before survive on.

The questions you pose have answers already. They may not be 100%, or perfect, but you aren't asking anything new, and science moves along, asks new questions and tries to answer them. Sometimes not perfectly. Sometimes it changes. Darwin's original theory has been improved on (evolved, should I say?).

It should be noted Evolution does NOT answer the question abiogenesis (how did life come about), and various other ideas exist on that score. The Modern Evolution Synthesis just describes and models (very well it seems) speciation. Evolution is not incompatible with Creation and a Creator. It's a far better model for examining the world than Intelligent Design, in terms of modelling, describing and making testable predictions that get proven later on.

Quote: AZDuffman

Yet it happens now and 47% of the population swallows the idea that is is "climate change" causing a hurricane, tornado, or wildfire.

http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/10/americans-are-finally-warming-climate-change

- 70%, not 47%. Though I have no idea of the slant of the source.

Anyone who believes a single tornado is caused by climate change is sadly mistaken. It's about trends and mass of data, not a single incident.

Quote: thecesspit

http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/10/americans-are-finally-warming-climate-change

.

Its a pity that actual warming stopped in the late
90's. Kinda takes the wind out of your fear mongering
and money begging when the thing you're warning
people about stops happening. Now its all about
weally weally bad hurricanes and tornados, like this
hasn't happened in decades past.

http://dailycaller.com/2013/04/26/climate-scientists-come-to-terms-with-the-lack-of-global-warming/

Bottom line with me is if you believe in intelligent design, that's fine. Anybody can believe whatever they want.
intelligent design and creationism seem to originate from deep religious beliefs.
You really don't see atheists promoting intelligent design and creationism.
My problem with all this is trying to include this in the public high school science curriculum.
I believe very strongly in separation of church and state.
Its a very slippery slope we stand on if we let Intelligent design and creationism in our public schools.
I live in Tampa and scientology is huge in Clearwater. They pretty much own and control downtown Clearwater.
Scientology has been trying to get into our school system under a variety fronts. Because of separation of church and state, we locals are able to fend them off.
Scientology is watching the intelligent design controversy very closely. If intelligent design can be taught in public schools, there is nothing to keep them out. Can you imagine L Ron Hubbard being taught to kids as one of the American Greats, up there with Washington and Lincoln.
Scientology wants intelligent in high school, that way, there is no way to keep them out, especially the Pinnellas county school system where they have a large population.

What a shock. When a saw Obama and Evolution in the same thread title, I was sure we were discussing the evolving Obama position on nearly every national security position. The Obama folks make the Bush folks look like a bunch of light weights when it comes to assaulting civil liberties.

Quote: EvenBob

Its a pity that actual warming stopped in the late
90's. Kinda takes the wind out of your fear mongering
and money begging when the thing you're warning
people about stops happening. Now its all about
weally weally bad hurricanes and tornados, like this
hasn't happened in decades past.

http://dailycaller.com/2013/04/26/climate-scientists-come-to-terms-with-the-lack-of-global-warming/

Has it now?

Quote: 24Bingo

Has it now?

Did you post this for comic relief? I had a good
laugh over it. GW is the dead horse that just
won't get up no matter how hard you beat on it.

Quote: EvenBob

Quote: 24Bingo

Has it now?

Did you post this for comic relief? I had a good
laugh over it. GW is the dead horse that just
won't get up no matter how hard you beat on it.

Oh god, we are doomed. Bob says it's definitely not happening, so, like Obama's election, its bound to go ahead.

Quote: terapined

My problem with all this is trying to include this in the public high school science curriculum.
I believe very strongly in separation of church and state.
Its a very slippery slope we stand on if we let Intelligent design and creationism in our public schools.
I live in Tampa and scientology is huge in Clearwater. They pretty much own and control downtown Clearwater.

But why not include it if there is valid reason to consider it, which there is. We teach history of religion already without pushing any one religion or another. BTW: There is no requirement of "separation of church and state." What is required is that no religion is compelled, as the Church of England was.

Quote: thecesspit

Oh god, we are doomed. Bob says it's definitely not happening.

The point is, who cares. The science is so bad,
the logic is so faulty, and people are sooooo
sick of it, that the big grab for easy money is
long gone. All the world gov'ts are flat broke
and GW is the last thing on anybody's mind.
It was a cause celeb in the 90's and early 00's,
but now people are worried about keeping
their homes and jobs, not some clinkyclunky
science mumbojumbo that seems to have no
impact on their lives whatsoever. A big tornado,
oh no, not like we never saw those before. Ever
hear of the 40's 50's and 60's? Or the 20's?

http://www.psmag.com/science/a-survivor-of-the-worst-tornado-in-history-tells-her-tale-58178/

Quote: thecesspit

Oh god, we are doomed. Bob says it's definitely not happening, so, like Obama's election, its bound to go ahead.

You beat me to it!

Quote: EvenBob

The point is, who cares.

As ever, never wise up a chump.

Quote: AZDuffman

But why not include it if there is valid reason to consider it, which there is. We teach history of religion already without pushing any one religion or another. BTW: There is no requirement of "separation of church and state." What is required is that no religion is compelled, as the Church of England was.

There simply isn't a valid reason to consider it. You can't even articulate what a valid reason would be, resting on redefining "design" to something that's ultimately a fig leaf over the intuition that got us into this mess some hundred thousand years ago.

Quote: 24Bingo

There simply isn't a valid reason to consider it. You can't even articulate what a valid reason would be, resting on redefining "design" to something that's ultimately a fig leaf over the intuition that got us into this mess some hundred thousand years ago.

Plenty of valid reason to consider it, as I have stated before in the thread. But to rehash the simplest one is that there is no reason to explain *why* beings evolved since genetics states that beings should *not* evolve. Add in that the favorite reason from the haters that "a gene mutated" should kill and not help the animal effected.

But hey, lets all have closed minds and deny that there just *might* be something more important in the universe than ourselves.

Quote: thecesspit

As ever, never wise up a chump.

You mean the general public? Impossible. They really
believe these are the worst hurricanes and tornado's
we've ever had and its not even close. Anything to sell
the GW claptrap. Luckily the public is worn out on hearing
about it, and no gov'ts have any money to spend on it,
so buhbye GW, go away now..

Quote: AZDuffman

But hey, lets all have closed minds and deny that there just *might* be something more important in the universe than ourselves.

Easy money for you here.

Quote:

The Foundation is committed to providing reliable information about paranormal claims. It both supports and conducts original research into such claims.

At JREF, we offer a one-million-dollar prize to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event. The JREF does not involve itself in the testing procedure, other than helping to design the protocol and approving the conditions under which a test will take place. All tests are designed with the participation and approval of the applicant. In most cases, the applicant will be asked to perform a relatively simple preliminary test of the claim, which if successful, will be followed by the formal test. Preliminary tests are usually conducted by associates of the JREF at the site where the applicant lives. Upon success in the preliminary testing process, the "applicant" becomes a "claimant."

To date, no one has passed the preliminary tests.

http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html

Quote: AZDuffman

Plenty of valid reason to consider it, as I have stated before in the thread. But to rehash the simplest one is that there is no reason to explain *why* beings evolved since genetics states that beings should *not* evolve. Add in that the favorite reason from the haters that "a gene mutated" should kill and not help the animal effected.

Genetics states no such thing. "Genetic entropy" either assumes a nonexistent golden age of life, or fails to account for the fact that harmful mutations, almost by definition, don't manifest on a population level. And if a gene mutated should kill, go die, since you (and everyone else) have got plenty. It's all there to be found; you simply don't care to look.

And even if it were the case, it's similar to the proverbial Precambrian rabbit - it would cause a vast overhaul to the theory, but what came to replace it would still be described by you as "evolutionism," "denying god," since it, like all science, would build as much as possible from empirically observed phenomena. If you want God in science class, walk Him into the lab and He'll be welcomed with open arms. Until then, it will never be the standpoint of science to default to our primate intuition's projection of our oh-so-special meaty nature onto the cosmos.

Quote: AZDuffman

Plenty of valid reason to consider it, as I have stated before in the thread. But to rehash the simplest one is that there is no reason to explain *why* beings evolved since genetics states that beings should *not* evolve. Add in that the favorite reason from the haters that "a gene mutated" should kill and not help the animal effected.

Your knowledge of genetics and the Modern Synthesis of Evolution appears to be lacking to make those two statements.

You are making statements that the Theory does not make, so your 'tests' for it's validity are based on faulty assumptions.

Quote: thecesspit

Your knowledge of genetics and the Modern Synthesis of Evolution appears to be lacking to make those two statements.

You are making statements that the Theory does not make, so your 'tests' for it's validity are based on faulty assumptions.

Not really. If a being has certain traits it does not suddenly develop new ones. A being that cannot fly does not either all of the sudden or over time develop feathers and fly. Beings that lay eggs to not eventually bear live young. Seriously, genetics means traits get handed down, not new ones develop.

Lets go back to the case of dogs. It took selective breeding to get desired traits. In nature such selective breeding simply would not be able to happen. And they are still dogs. No matter how hard man tries, the dogs will not fly, grow gills, or walk upright. So how will this happen in nature without some outside force? Maybe it can by evolution, or maybe it takes intelligent design. I would prefer to expose the yutes of America to a balanced approach than say there is one and only one answer when that one answer is so full of holes.

Quote: AZDuffman

Not really. If a being has certain traits it does not suddenly develop new ones. A being that cannot fly does not either all of the sudden or over time develop feathers and fly. Beings that lay eggs to not eventually bear live young. Seriously, genetics means traits get handed down, not new ones develop.

Actually, beings did develop feathers and start to fly. It just wasn't the same beings. Genetics does hand down some traits, and those traits change over time. Man has breed in petri dishes bacteria whose traits have significantly changed. Genes are not fixed, not even the ones you have right now. Copy errors happen. Gene expression can vary merely on the number of repeats in a genome. Some mutations are extremely harmful, some are harmless, and some confer an advantage, that allows for the survival of the fit enough (survival of the fittest is a poor term, in my opinion, you just have to be fit enough to pass on your genes, not the fittest of the pack).

Quote:

In nature such selective breeding simply would not be able to happen.

No? Really? So the dog pack that is near the river won't develop dogs that have traits that make them swim better, while the dog pack in the rough, sparsely populate mountains won't have more traits for those conditions? Really? Are you sure about that? For example, the Peppered Moth is the classic example of micro-evolution. Evolution takes a long time, and isn't a dog turning into a snake (that's an old old canard, really), but the many many X sons of the dog being a different species. Ancestors and all that jazz. Read up the common counter arguments to the points you make. Your not offering anything different from the same arguments that have been dissected before, by people far more eloquent than me.

If you know of all the holes evolution, you should start publishing papers and become a journalled scientist, you'd make a great career of it I'm sure. The model is improved and worked upon all the time.

THAT'S how science works. If the Intelligent Design/Creationists could produce a testable hypothesis that makes the model better, it would be debated, usable and deserve equal time in the science class. Problem is, as a theory, it's so full of holes, it doesn't merit any 'balance'. It just waves a wand and says 'God did it'. Maybe the supreme being did. As I've said before, Evolution doesn't destroy God (young Earth Creationism is not compatible with Evolution, but the Prime Mover theories are). It doesn't explain abiogenesis. But it is a hugely expressive body of work, and as a lens to look on the massive, beautiful complexity of life, it does a fantastic job.

Quote:

You can read up on this, but basically the bottom line has been that that the fossils shown typically would be expected to be lines, in each case, that went extinct without leaving descendants.

I think the reason for "missing links" is the fossil record is formed in branches (just like a family tree), not in a linear fashion. You're looking at ancestors that diverged but didn't die out immediately, and even continued on for a significant amount of time. But they also lived apart and developed traits related to that choice.

Quote: rxwine

the fossil record is formed in branches (just like a family tree)

This is exactly what is believed to be the case; bear in mind a branch typically represents a dead-end. So picking a fossil and supposing that the species left descendents is supposing quite a bit indeed. There is irony in that representing "straight-line" evolution in, say, the evolution of Man is so offensive to those who don't "believe" in it and also that it is often not accurate science either.

The new finds that have been made in the field of human ancestry have been pretty exciting and amazing too [you might think they would have had much worse luck]. 4 million years ago hominids, it turns out, were pretty abundant. Wikipedia lists Australopithecus afarensis, A. africanus, A. anamensis, A. bahrelghazali, A. garhi and A. sediba. All are extinct now, the whole Genus. Scientists, too, can not state for certain which or even if any of these are "missing links" for Man, not just someone opposed to the assertion that Man has an ancestor here at all. Later, Homo Erectus seems like a better bet, but even here particular fossils might be the wrong ones.

I guess what I am trying to say is that although anyone studying Paleontology is bound to conceptualize evolution as stages from one form to another, the commonly shown "straight-line" graphs used in teaching Evolution deserve more disclaiming than they ever typically get. Scientists who indeed prefer the representation to be tree-like aren't exerting much influence. It's a legitimate criticism of the way Evolution is taught IMO.

The fossil record argument is interesting enough I hate to break from it, but I have a legit question.

The whole supervirus thing – isn’t that mostly attributed to mutation of genetic structure and evolution of these microbes?

Anytime something new is found, whether it’s MRSA or H1N1 or whatever, it’s always reported as a bug similar to X but that has genetically mutated and evolved to resist standard treatments. In all the studies conducted on them, the changes can be seen. Yet I don’t remember ever hearing outrage or even a challenge that “it’s not evolution or mutation because they don’t exist”

I find it helps when viewing evolution to consider what all but single cell organisms really are, a symbiotic conglogmeration of single cell organisms. Humans and every other multicelled organisms are built from very simple parts. Our cells, other than stem cells, are specialized and provide support for our overall body. So well it is hard to imagine a human suddenly appearing it is not so hard to imagine two single cell organisms becoming mutually parasitic and both benefitting and over the millenia adding more and more cells. This is what we can currently see in life (not fossils) when we look from the simplist to more complex life.

The DNA research backs this. Much of our DNA is shared among almost all life. Virus's, one of lifes simplistic organisms, operate by invading a cell inserting their DNA, which is still compatible, into the hosts DNA and taking over the cell to replicate itself. The cell after many replications then ruptures and releases multiple copies of the original virus.

Cancer which we haven't, and probably never will 'CURE' is not a disease as such but is simply a cell or group of cells that revolt against having to do as told by the central system. These anarchist cells just do their own multiplication without regard to what effect it has on the overall organism