NEWSFLASH: Schools In Georgia (US) Are Allowed To Teach About Creation

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One the contrary, evolution contradicts the very essense of Science.

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Really? How? Please be very specific, explaining what "the very essence of science" is, according to you (with references, preferably), and also exactly how the Theory of Evolution violates science in any way.

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Recent developments in science completely disprove the theory of evolution.

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Really? Which developments are those, and why are religious fundamentalists the only ones who seem to know about these developments?Please cite peer-reviewed work from the professional literature, please.

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The only reason Darwinism is still foisted on people by means of a worldwide propaganda campaign lies in the ideological aspects of the theory.

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Ah, the Evilutionist conspiracy theory!You will have to do better than baseless assertions and conspiracy theories to be taken seriously here, I'm afraid.

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Brother Harun Yahya summarizes all these key points, scientifically.

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Um, no he doesn't. He just parrots the disinformation propagated, for decades, by the Protestant Christian fundamentalist groups in the US. They bear a striking resemblance to each other, really.It's the same old stuff wrapped in a Muslim package. What you don't realize yet is that these are all very old arguments that were refuted long ago.If these old arguments were valid, and if they had stood up to the rigors of the scientific method, they would have been incorporated into mainstram science long ago. They haven't. This should tell you something.

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And since I am a science student, who undesrtands how science fuctions, I have a better grasp over this subject. Of course, I am always open for corrections and rebuttals, nonetheless.

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OK, why don't you briefly explain to us how you think that science functions, and also give us a short explanation of the scientific method and how to tell the difference between real science and speudoscience?------------------
"We will still have perfect freedom to hold contrary views of our own, but to simply
close our minds to the knowledge painstakingly accumulated by hundreds of thousands
of scientists over long centuries is to deliberately decide to be ignorant and narrow-
minded."-Steve Allen, from "Dumbth"

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Originally posted by John:

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Originally posted by schrafinator:
If these old arguments were valid, and if they had stood up to the rigors of the scientific method, they would have been incorporated into mainstram science long ago. They haven't. This should tell you something.

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but.... but.... what about the conspiracy of godless atheist devil worshipping Darwinists?

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Oh, right, I forgot that Biologists are the root of all evil, and anyone who accepts the evidence for Evolution must therefore hate God.Wow, I think I just found the "fun" in fundamentalism.

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Originally posted by Ahmad:
[B]

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Really? How? Please be very specific, explaining what "the very essence of science" is, according to you (with references, preferably), and also exactly how the Theory of Evolution violates science in any way.

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Theory of Evolution contradicts the Law of thermodynamics. So if a theory contradicts a Law, which one would you go for?[/QUOTE]

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LOL! Another ancient argument that was refuted long ago but is still kept alive by the faithful.

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No, the 2LoT is NOT violated by Evolution. In a nutshell, the reason it isn't is because the 2LoT applies only to closed systems. The Earth is not a closed system because it is bombarded with energy from the sun. See more here:

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http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/thermo/probability.html

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Christian Fundamentalists have been using this argument to impress people who don't understand physics for many decades. Your Harun fellow is not big into original thought, is he? Oh well, I suppose it works, so why reinvent the wheel, eh?

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Really? Which developments are those, and why are religious fundamentalists the only ones who seem to know about these developments?

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Religious fundamentalists? You mean, Robert Shapiro, J.D Thomas, Fred Hoyle, William Dembski, Peter Russel, Michael Behe, Walter Bradley, Blaise Pascal, Philip Johnson are all religious fundamentalists?? They are very well-known scientists and have contributed quite highly in the realm of Science and technology.

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Robert Shapiro does not deal with Evolution. He writes about Abiogenisis, which is different altogether. As far as I know, he fully accepts Evolution.

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Fred Hoyle is an Evolutionist.

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William Dembski's book has been widely criticised as one big "argument from ignorance"; "because we don't unkerstan X, God must have done it."

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Michael Behe is an evolutionist. His book is also a "God of the Gaps" book.

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Philip Johnson is famous only for being an anti-Evolutionist, because he isn't even a scienctist. He is a lawyer.

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I have not heard of any of the others, other than Pascal, of course, but I am not sure why you bring him up.

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Did you mean to mention all of these Evolutionists to support your argument?

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Please cite peer-reviewed work from the professional literature, please.

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"The opportune appearance of mutations permitting animals and plants to meet their needs seems hard to believe. Yet the Darwinian theory is even more demanding: A single plant, a single animal would require thousands and thousands of lucky, appropriate events. Thus, miracles would become the rule: events with an infinitesimal probability could not fail to occur? There is no law against daydreaming, but science must not indulge in it."(Pierre-P Grass, Evolution of Living Organisms, New York: Academic Press, 1977, p. 103)

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This is a popular press book, not from a peer-reviewed, professional science journal.

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"The reason we specifically mention the senses of seeing and hearing here is the inability of evolutionists to understand evidence of creation so clear as this. If, one day, you ask an evolutionist to explain to you how this excellent design and technology became possible in the eye and the ear as a result of chance, you will see that he will not be able to give you any reasonable or logical reply. Even Darwin, in his letter to Asa Gray on April 3rd 1860, wrote that "the thought of the eye made him cold all over" and he confessed the desperation of the evolutionists in the face of the excellent design of living things.(Norman Macbeth, Darwin Retried: An Appeal to Reason. Boston: Gambit, 1971, p. 101.)

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This is also a popular-press book, not a professional journal of science.

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I thought you said you were training to be a scientist?

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"Since we astronomers are priests of the highest God in regard to the book of nature, it befits us to be thoughtful, not of the glory of our minds, but rather, above all else, of the glory of God.(Dan Graves, Scientists of Faith, . 51)

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This is also a popular-press book. It is, in fact, a collection of short biographies of Christian scientists.

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"Anybody who has been seriously engaged in scientific work of any kind realizes that over the entrance to the gates of the temple of science are written the words: Ye must have faith. It is a quality which the scientist cannot dispense with." (J. De Vries, Essential of Physical Science, Wm.B.Eerdmans Pub.Co., Grand Rapids, SD 1958, p. 15.)

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This is getting silly. This is a popular press book. Don't you know what a professiona science journal is?

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Besides, all of these books are at LEAST 30 years old!

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Um, no he doesn't. He just parrots the disinformation propagated, for decades, by the Protestant Christian fundamentalist groups in the US. They bear a striking resemblance to each other, really.

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Ah, the creationist conspiracy theory!

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"You will have to do better than baseless assertions and conspiracy theories to be taken seriously here, I'm afraid."

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Ah, but my assertions are not baseless. I can provide evidence. Have a look around this site and tell me how many arguments sound familiar:Five Major Misconceptions about Evolution

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It's the same old stuff wrapped in a Muslim package. What you don't realize yet is that these are all very old arguments that were refuted long ago.

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In accordance to my humble knowledge, the arguments raised in this era by potential as well as professional scientists are just warming up. They haven't been refuted, yet attempts were made.

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Read through the TalkOrigins site. You can do searches on any topic, such as "Thermodynamics". If you are truly interested in the truth about scientific theories, this site will be very useful to you.Your religious leader twists science for his religious purpose.

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If these old arguments were valid, and if they had stood up to the rigors of the scientific method, they would have been incorporated into mainstram science long ago. They haven't. This should tell you something.

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As a matter of fact of fact, they are being incorporated in mainstream science. The step to teach creationism in high schools,

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This is unconstitutional in the US and will not last.

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the recent dicovery of the Unjunk "Junk DNA",

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Cite from the PROFESSIONAL literature, please.

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the advances made in the study of the cambrian explosion,

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Cite from the PROFESSIONAL literature, please.

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observation of irreducible complexity in living organisms are all examples of this incorporation.

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There are no obsevations of irreducable complexity.Not one.This is just an argument from ignorance.Behe tried to say that the mechanism for bloodclotting was irreducably complex, for example, but only a few years since his book came out, an evolutionary pathway for blood clotting has been discovered.

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I do admit, that it will take a while for creationism to be the dominant approach in studying the origin of everything, but its worth it. May the Truth, triumph!!

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Tell me, how could your version of Creation Science be falsified? What evidence, if discovered, would make you abandon Creationism?If there is none, they you are not doing science. You are having a nice religious belief, which is fine, but has no impact whatsoever on real scientific inquiry. It is useless for that.

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OK, why don't you briefly explain to us how you think that science functions, and also give us a short explanation of the scientific method and how to tell the difference between real science and speudoscience?

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Science, as I understand it, is a tool to unravel, to decode, to discover, to advance, to ascend, and to eliminate the wrath of ignorance and superstition.

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That's what it does. HOW does it do that was my question.

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Science does not contradict Religion... nor vice versa.

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I disagree. Science doesn't HAVE to contradict religion, but religion contradicts science all the time.

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Real Science deals not only with the material world as we perceived by the five senses but also the root causes and effects of that perception. It is impossible for us to reach the physical world. All objects around us are a collection of perceptions. By processing the data in the centre of vision and in other sensory centres, our brain, throughout our lives, confronts not the "original" of the matter existing outside us but rather the copy formed inside our brain. It is at this point that we are misled by assuming that these copies are instances of real matter outside us. But ofcourse, that is my point of view of it. I hope I made some sense.

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You didn't answer the questions.I wanted:An explanation of the scientific method. What method of inquiry do scientists use to conduct science?How does one tell the difference between real science and pseudo science?Or, how does one tell the difference between pseudoscience and religion?I should have written, "how does one tell the difference between SCIENCE and religion?" above. That is the question I wish you to answer.------------------
"We will still have perfect freedom to hold contrary views of our own, but to simply
close our minds to the knowledge painstakingly accumulated by hundreds of thousands
of scientists over long centuries is to deliberately decide to be ignorant and narrow-
minded."-Steve Allen, from "Dumbth"[This message has been edited by schrafinator, 11-10-2002][This message has been edited by schrafinator, 11-10-2002]

Ahmad, you have been misled.This is the problem with reading only carefully-selected quotes instead of entire books or articles.This is the SJG quote you probably lifted off of some anti-science web site:

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"I can envision observations and experiments that would disprove any evolutionary theory I know."?*Stephen Jay Gould, "Evolution as Fact and Theory," Discover(Science Journal) 2(5):34-37 (1981).

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This is the entire quote, in context:

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I can envision observations and experiments that would disprove any evolutionary theory I know,but I cannot imagine what potential data could lead creationists to abandon their beliefs. Unbeatable systems are dogma, not science (Gould, 1983).

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Gould was not saying that he thought evoulutionary theory was suspect.He was making a comparison between the essential falsifiability of real science compared to the unfalsafiable dogma of Creationists.The quote was twisted to lead you to believe something which is not AT ALL what the author intended, and since they had to actually chop the end of the sentence off, this was not an innocent mistake.This was an edit which was specifically meant to deceive you and misrepresent Gould.I guess lying for God is OK, huh?[This message has been edited by schrafinator, 11-10-2002]

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I repeat: abrupt appearance of complex living organisms ALL AT ONCE.

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You DO realize that by "abrupt, Gould is talking about several million years, don't you?Have you ever heard of Punctuated Equilibrium? The Modern Synthesis?Tell me, have you ever read any complete work by Dawkins or Gould, or any other Evolutionist? Have you read The Blind Watchmaker in it's entirety??What we have been telling you is that you are arguing from ignorance . We have heard your arguments MANY TIMES before. They are all new and exciting and convincing to you, but they are OLD AND WEARY to us because we have refuted them over and over.We DO have more education in Biology and Evolution than you do. We have all probably read a great deal more Creationist literature that you have, which is why your arguments are so familiar to us.Go and read through TalkOrigins. Read Gould and Dawkins. Go and learn WHY we say your arguments are bunk and our evidence is better, even if you do not believe it. Do it for thsake of knowing what you are up against. This is why we read Creationist literature.Do the study and work to really write intelligently and show that you do understand, for example, a little bit about the second law of thermodynamics, instead of parroting what somebody else has told you is true without checking for yourself.------------------
"We will still have perfect freedom to hold contrary views of our own, but to simply
close our minds to the knowledge painstakingly accumulated by hundreds of thousands
of scientists over long centuries is to deliberately decide to be ignorant and narrow-
minded."-Steve Allen, from "Dumbth"

Ahmad,Please answer this question:By what method do we tell the difference between an Irreducably-Complex system and a system that;1) we do not understand yet but may in the future, and2) do not have the intelligence to understand?How does one tell the difference?If there is no way of telling the difference, then there is no way of telling with any level of certainty what is IC and what we simply don't understand yet, or do not have the ability to understand.Just because we don't understand something does not mean Godidit.People used to think that the sun was driven around the earth in Apollo's firey chariot. They didn't understand about planetary motion, so they decided that Godidit.The IC argument is using exactly the same "God of the Gaps" argument as the ancients used to explain the apparent motion of the sun across the sky.------------------
"We will still have perfect freedom to hold contrary views of our own, but to simply
close our minds to the knowledge painstakingly accumulated by hundreds of thousands
of scientists over long centuries is to deliberately decide to be ignorant and narrow-
minded."-Steve Allen, from "Dumbth"

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By modern evolutionary theory, you mean neo-darwinism? And yes, I am unaware. You don't expect me to know everything, now do you?

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No, you are not required to know everything, but you are required to know something about what you are attempting to refute.How do you know it's wrong if you don't understand it in the first place?You know, like the second Law of Thermodynamics. Or that "Law" and "Theory" are not levels of certainty in science. Or that you say that Evolution violates the "essensce of science" when you don't have a clue about what the scientific method even is. And so on.Arrogance and ignorance are so often found together.

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Originally posted by Ahmad: Firstly, what criterias do you use to distinguish between a scientific magazine (as SCIAM, discover) and journals?

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Popular magazines are for-profit and publish articles which are directed at a general audience.Professional science journals are not for profit. They are the place where scientists publish their work. They are peer-reviewed, which means that a committee of experienced scientists in the field (Evolutionary Biologists would review Evolutionary Biology papers submitted to an Evolutionary Biology Journal, for example) reviews the work submitted by scientists for methodological soundness, to see if their statistical work is good, to make sure they took into account other explanations from past research that might apply to their work, etc. Usually a paper is not accepted for publication on first submission and it is sent back along with suggestions for how to improve it, what additional experiments might need to be conducted to get better data, etc. If the revisions are relatively minor then it will be resubmitted after these are completed and probably accepted for publication.Certain journals, likd Nature and Science are very prestigious and difficult to get into because they encompass all of science and only publish very important or groundbreaking work. Other more specialized journals are also prestigious within their fields; Psychological Review, for example, is one of the most important journals to get published in if you are a research Psychologist.

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Secondly, why don't you accept quotes from scientific magazines or even medias like national review? Do they lie?

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It's not that they lie, it's just that they do not represent evidence from research in the same way as the professional literature does. It is not as reliable because it has been filtered through editors and writers.It would be like quoting from the Reader's Digest version of War and Peace instead of the original. Who knows how the meanings have been changed?

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"Nature" is a journal. However, "atheists" do not censor the scientific journals. What is published goes through an anonymous peer-review process. If Creationists are not being published it must be either (1) They aren't submitting papers or (2) they don't have any evidence. And I have never heard of a Creationist showing off rejection notices from the journals!

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And I have never seen any creation articles in Nature journal. For the sake of fairness, Nature should have at the least taken the step to publish one creation article or hold debates. They don't do that now do they?

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Look, most non-Creationist scientists never get published in Nature, either.I hat to break it to you, but since Creation science is based upon divine revelation rather than evidence, and since most Creationists spend their time trying to tear down Evolution rather than doing their OWN research, I doubt that any Creationist has even submitted for publication in the first place.Why should science jounals publish non-science?

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Discover is a popular magazine that covers science and technology, not a peer reviewed journal. SciAm is better, but is headed in that direction.

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Discover does review and verify its articles and checks the credentials of the authors. Its quite unbiased unlike Nature, IMO.

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LOL! See above for what peer-review means.

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Its not a letter or a commentary but a statement by H.P Lipson, a physicist.

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A "statement" is a commentary. The point remains that a statement is not evidence from a journal article.

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The same thing applies in the case of life as well. It is true that life derives its energy from the sun. However, solar energy can only be converted into chemical energy by the incredibly complex energy conversion systems in living things (such as photosynthesis in plants and the digestive systems of humans and animals). No living thing can live without such energy conversion systems. Without an energy conversion system, the sun is nothing but a source of destructive energy that burns, parches, or melts.

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So? This refutes Evolution how? [QUOTE]So a thermodynamic system without an energy conversion mechanism of some sort is not advantageous for evolution, be it open or closed.[QUOTE] Since, by definition, life arose with the ability to perform this conversion, what is your point?

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Ahmad:

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Popular magazines are for-profit and publish articles which are directed at a general audience.

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So that makes all their articles wrong?

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*Sigh*No, but it makes them much less reliable than professional journal articles. Which version of War and Peace would you use if you really wanted to know what it contained; the Reader's Digest version or the actual, unedited book?

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Professional science journals are not for profit. They are the place where scientists publish their work. They are peer-reviewed, which means that a committee of experienced scientists in the field (Evolutionary Biologists would review Evolutionary Biology papers submitted to an Evolutionary Biology Journal, for example) reviews the work submitted by scientists for methodological soundness, to see if their statistical work is good, to make sure they took into account other explanations from past research that might apply to their work, etc. Usually a paper is not accepted for publication on first submission and it is sent back along with suggestions for how to improve it, what additional experiments might need to be conducted to get better data, etc. If the revisions are relatively minor then it will be resubmitted after these are completed and probably accepted for publication.

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Thats when they go deep into explaining something, scientifically.

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Exactly. This is why I ask for jounal citations when you make specific claims about something that is scientifically-supported. I want to see the actual science that supports it, and that would be found in a professional science jounal.

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What I am asking is for example when Dawkins says that organism emerged as a result of the cambrian explosion were "placed there with no evolutionary history", is he wrong?

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It is driving me nuts, but I can't find my copy of the Blind Watchmaker here at home so I can't look up the quote in context. I am 99% sure you are taking the quote out of context but I cannot look it up until I find the book.

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As I know, scientists do write books in easier terms for the layman, but they elaborate their work in scinetific papers. Its not like Dawkins says something in his book but says something totally different peer-previewed papers.

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As you have been told several times, you are taking that particular statment of Dawkins' out of context, and that if you have read more of Dawkins (like entire books instead of quotes) you would know that he does not literally mean that he believes what you wish him to believe.

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It's not that they lie, it's just that they do not represent evidence from research in the same way as the professional literature does. It is not as reliable because it has been filtered through editors and writers.

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So when Alex Oparin says in his book Origin of Life, "Unfortunately, the origin of the cell remains a question which is actually the darkest point of the complete evolution theory" (page 96), is he going to disprove himself by proving the oppsoite in science papers??

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Huh?

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I hate to break it to you, but since Creation science is based upon divine revelation rather than evidence, and since most Creationists spend their time trying to tear down Evolution rather than doing their OWN research, I doubt that any Creationist has even submitted for publication in the first place.

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Oh they have. Natue just don't publish them.

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Really? Which papers by what authors. Please provide evidnece for your claim.

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And I believe there adequate evidence for Creationism to be qualified to be a "theory" just like the ToE.

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No.Scientific theories must be falsifiable, and Creationism isn't.

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LOL! See above for what peer-review means.

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Oh so the Discover mag publishes articles by anonymous, non-legible authors and they don't check their credentials?

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For someone that accuses others of putting words in his mouth all the time, you certainly like to do it to others.It is a question of reliability of evidence. Peer-reviewed articles are more reliable.

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A "statement" is a commentary. The point remains that a statement is not evidence from a journal article.

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If only you would have read, you will notice that the statement is a conlusion drawn from the research conducted by Lipson.

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It is not a part of a journal article, so it is not peer-reviewed, and is therefore not as reliable as a journal article.

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So? This refutes Evolution how?

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So the simplest of the organisms would have had a ready made energy conversion mechanism? Are you implying that?

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You have to show that the ability to do energy conversion is not evolutionarily possible.

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Since, by definition, life arose with the ability to perform this conversion, what is your point?

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In order for the energy to be functional, specific energy conversion mechanisms are needed.

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Why do they have to be specific?

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Do you agree that the first organism, most probably HAD ALL THE NECCESARY COMPONENTS FOR ITS ENERGY CONVERTING SYSTEM??

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What do you consider "the first organism?"That is like asking, "When does a child start to speak a language?"There is no clearly-drawn "before" and "after".

Ahmad, replies to messages 50, 58, and 59 would be much appreciated.[This message has been edited by schrafinator, 11-15-2002]

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Originally posted by schrafinator:
Ahmad, replies to messages 50, 58, and 59 would be much appreciated.

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Ahmad, I can't help but notice that you seem to be avoiding responding to messages 50, 58, and 59.

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Originally posted by Ahmad:
Patience my friend. Its not that I am avoiding your responses.. but tossing student life with chores at home, final year exams and then here is Ramadan.. hardly leaves my any time to go online and issue my responses. I will respond to yours Insha Allah

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Regards,
Ahmad

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Thanks, I look forward to it.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Ahmad:
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You DO realize that by "abrupt, Gould is talking about several million years, don't you?

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Um, so, do you understand that what Gould means when he says "abrupt" is not what you mean when you say "abrupt"?

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Have you ever heard of Punctuated Equilibrium? The Modern Synthesis?

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I have heard all of them.

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But do you understand them? Why not explain them in your own words here?

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Yet none of them stand to the test. The only purpose of these models was to provide an explanation of the gaps in the fossil-record that the neo-Darwinist model could not explain.

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No, see below. PE explains the rate of the apparent appearence of fossils.

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However, it is hardly rational to attempt to explain the fossil gap in the evolution of birds, for instance, with a claim that "a bird popped all of a sudden out of a reptile egg",

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Ah, as I suspected. You do not understand PE at all.Here is a good explanation of the basics. Please read it and show where it suggests anything remotely like the "bird out of a reptile egg" scenario is predicted.Punctuated EquilibriaAlso, you are incorrect that PE was developed to explain gaps in the fossil record:Five Major Misconceptions about Evolution"Some Creationists claim that the hypothesis of punctuated equilibrium was proposed (by Eldredge and Gould) to explain gaps in the fossil record. Actually, it was proposed to explain the relative rarity of transitional forms, not their total absence, and to explain why speciation appears to happen relatively quickly in some cases, gradually in others, and not at all during some periods for some species. In no way does it deny that transitional sequences exist. In fact, both Gould and Eldredge are outspoken opponents of Creationism."But paleontologists have discovered several superb examples of intermediary forms and sequences, more than enough to convince any fair-minded skeptic about the reality of life's physical genealogy." - Stephen Jay Gould, Natural History, May 1994"

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because by the evolutionists' own admission, the evolution of a species to another species requires a great and advantageous change in genetic information.

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Really? Care to back this up? Cites from the literature, or at least from Biologists' work, not Creationists or Creationist sites.

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Tell me, have you ever read any complete work by Dawkins or Gould, or any other Evolutionist? Have you read The Blind Watchmaker in it's entirety??

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I have read the Blind Watchmaker...

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Wow. I am surprised that you could misunderstand it so profoundly and/or be so unmoved by the amazingly detailed logic and evidence that he provides.

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little about Gould's books.

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I strongly suggest picking some up. "The Panda's Thumb" is a good one to start with.

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Say, have you read Henry Morris' "Scientific Creationism"

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Yup.

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or Wilder Smith's "Scientific Alternative to Neo-Darwinian Evolutionary Theory"?? Interesting books.

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Not read this one.

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What we have been telling you is that you are arguing from ignorance . We have heard your arguments MANY TIMES before. They are all new and exciting and convincing to you, but they are OLD AND WEARY to us because we have refuted them over and over.

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Could be because your responses are not adequate or does not fit the scientific criterias.

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Um, considering that you don't even know what a peer-reviewed science journal is, misrepresent evolutionary theory, physics, and the scientific method, and think that posting out of context, dishonestly-altered quotes instead of arguing from an informed position is legitimate debate, I don't really think you are in a position to judge if our responses are adequate or not.That's my whole point. In your arrogance and ignorance, you have decided we are wrong, yet you don't have the barest understanding of what you are attempting to deny.

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Science is progressive.. so the arguments may be incessant

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The problem is, you have yet to use anything resembling science as an argument.

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We DO have more education in Biology and Evolution than you do. We have all probably read a great deal more Creationist literature that you have, which is why your arguments are so familiar to us.

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Hmm..

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Go and read through TalkOrigins. Read Gould and Dawkins. Go and learn WHY we say your arguments are bunk and our evidence is better, even if you do not believe it. Do it for the sake of knowing what you are up against. This is why we read Creationist literature.

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Tell me one person who hasn't read evolutionist literature!!

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Apparently, you haven't because you do not seem to have an understanding of Evolutionary Theory, nor of the nature of scientific inquiry.

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Its literally dominant in every biology books.

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As it should be. I suggest you take a college-level bioligy course.

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Do the study and work to really write intelligently and show that you do understand, for example, a little bit about the second law of thermodynamics, instead of parroting what somebody else has told you is true without checking for yourself.

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I have checked.... thats why am here

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But you spout decades-old, long-refuted Creationist arguments at every turn!Only people who have a profound ignorance of Evolutionary theory, and worse, a profound ignorance of the history of the Creationist movement, would ever make the arguments you have repeatedly made, or use the debate tactics and logical fallacies you have.[This message has been edited by schrafinator, 11-19-2002]

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Call it anything, but the absence of transitional fossils has shook the theory of evolution and you can't deny that

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Would you like to talk about the transitional sequence of horses? Birds? Whales? Amphibians to reptiles? Reptiles to mammals? All of these are wonderful examples of multi-step transitional progressions for which we have many intermediate fossils.It is quite understood that the main reason we do not find more transitional sequences is because not everything that dies becomes a fossil. Most things get eaten, rot completely away, are broken up and otherwise destroyed. Fossilization is a rare event. Also, only a small portion of the earth's surface has even been excavated for fossils.Also, there is PE, for which I have already provided a link.

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You tell me what a trilobite ?transitional? SHOULD look like.

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If there indeed is a trilobite transitional, the organism should have a half exoskeleton and half-endoskeleton, half-jointed appendages, a body cavity with half-haemocoel etc. Everything should be hlaf-way since it's a transitional organism. At least, thats how I look at it.

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That is not even close to what the ToE predicts a transitional to look like. You have made yet another strawman in your ignorance.Take a look at these transitional species in the evolution of horses, along with a nice bit about horse hoof/toe evolution and the evolutionary family "bush" of horses. This is what transitionals actually look like; they don't look like "half" of anything. The ToE never predicts that they would, and you would know this if you had bothered to do any research yourself into what actual scientists say instead of letting yourself be misled by someone with a anti-science agenda.Page Not Found | Department of Chemistry

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Creation science is an attempt to explain the origin of wide diversity of life pointing towards a Creator.

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...and this is exactly why it isn't science at all.

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Creation theory offers reasonable explanations for both the Cambrian Explosion and the origin and ubiquity of the genetic code.

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No, it ignores evidence in order to make an a priori assumption true.

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Ofcourse, then again, it is not for me to decide the transitionals but Nature herself, IF evolution indeed took place. Legends of Mermaids, Centaurs throughout the centuries were believed until this century... which has rendered all of them as myths and used as fairy tales for children. Who knows? Evolution might have the same fate in the near future.

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Blah blah blah.Fairy tales don't cure disease.

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Regarding IC:

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1. How does evolution explain irreducible complexity in organlles and systems that are functionally indivisible? (Thornhill and Ussery could not explain that)

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I will repeat my question from a whil ago that you don't seem to have gotten to yet;how can we tell the difference between an IC system and a natural one which we;1) don't understand yet, or2) one that we do not have the intelligence to understand?Bot of these possibilities must be somehow ruled out in each case for you to ever claim that anything is IC/ID.How do we tell?------------------
"We will still have perfect freedom to hold contrary views of our own, but to simply
close our minds to the knowledge painstakingly accumulated by hundreds of thousands
of scientists over long centuries is to deliberately decide to be ignorant and narrow-
minded."-Steve Allen, from "Dumbth"[This message has been edited by schrafinator, 11-19-2002]

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Originally posted by Ahmad:

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Um, so, do you understand that what Gould means when he says "abrupt" is not what you mean when you say "abrupt"?

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Hmm... what does he exactly mean?

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He means in most cases tens of thousands of years.

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But do you understand them? Why not explain them in your own words here?

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I did.

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Well, you got them wrong. Try again.

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Ah, as I suspected. You do not understand PE at all.

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Here is a good explanation of the basics. Please read it and show where it suggests anything remotely like the "bird out of a reptile egg" scenario is predicted.

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Punctuated Equilibria

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What else can you expect from a pro-evolutionist site?

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I expect science articles to reference peer-reviewed scientific literature, and that's what TalkOrigins does.TalkOrigins is the best source for the lay person on the web for evolutionary information which is well-supported by current scientific research. You can see all the references to those peer-reviewed journal articles at the ends of the essays.You HAVE read those essays, haven't you?

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But PE does fit in the "bird out of a reptile" scenario.

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No, it doesn't. Repeating that it does will not make it so.I asked for your explanation of WHERE in PE it allows for such a scenario. You did not provide any such explanation, only assurances. If you cannot specifically explain the part which allows for it, your claim is unsupported and will be rejected.

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No, see below. PE explains the rate of the apparent appearence of fossils.

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And why was PE proposed? They claimed that this theory arose out of biology, but there is no empirical biological basis for such speciation events. It seems that the 'mechanism' was adopted because it 'explained' their observation of the fossils.

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EXACTLY!! What is wrong with that? Why is it so surprising that 100 years of paleontological research after Darwin, we might have a teensy, tiny bit more information, or some scientist might have had a teensy, tiny bit of insight beyond that of Darwin because of this additional information?Do you reject Einstein's Relativity because it modified Newtonian physics?

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Also, you are incorrect that PE was developed to explain gaps in the fossil record:

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Five Major Misconceptions about Evolution

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"Some Creationists claim that the hypothesis of punctuated equilibrium was proposed (by Eldredge and Gould) to explain gaps in the fossil record. Actually, it was proposed to explain the relative rarity of transitional forms, not their total absence, and to explain why speciation appears to happen relatively quickly in some cases, gradually in others, and not at all during some periods for some species. In no way does it deny that transitional sequences exist. In fact, both Gould and Eldredge are outspoken opponents of Creationism.

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I am requoting this because it seems as though you didn't actually read it.What you seem to want to say is that PE supports the notion of "a bird out of a reptile egg", i.e. PE explains the absence of all transitional fossils. It, as the article states, ONLY explains the apparent rarity of small-scale gradual speciation events.. We don't need the fossil record to see speciation; we observe it today. We also have fossil evidence, even though it is rare, of small-scale gradual speciation. None of what you posted contradicted this, and the stuff about the idea of PE being "borrowed" is irrelevent to it's validity.

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Really? Care to back this up? Cites from the literature, or at least from Biologists' work, not Creationists or Creationist sites.

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Huh? So you're telling me (correct me if I am wrong) that a change from one species to another does not require a great advantageous change in the genetic information?

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No, speciation doesn't require a great advantageous change in genetic information. Why do you think that it does? Cites from the professional literature, please.What do I think of Morris' arguments in "Creation Science"?He has been peddling the same baseless arguments for decades. What's really hilarious is that many of his arguments were abandoned by Creationists (because they were invalidated by the geological record) over a century before he started using them again.If you would like to start a thread on any specific Morris argument, please feel free to do so.

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Um, considering that you don't even know what a peer-reviewed science journal is

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Standard norm where the theories of scientists get evaluated by their peers. What about it?

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The point is, you came on to this board saying that Evolution wasn't true and saying that you were a student of science, yet you apparently had no idea what professional scientific journals were, or how to judge the relative quality of source material. We had to spend several days explaining this to you. Can't you see the problem with this?

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misrepresent evolutionary theory

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The theory misrepresents itself

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The fact reamains that you have continually misrepresented what the ToE actually states in favor of an incorrect version of it.

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physics, and the scientific method

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Just what according to you is the scientific method?

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Regarding the nature of scientific enquiry, you tell me about it. What are the physics of this nature?

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There is no room here to post all that is needed to answer your question, but I will post a link:science - The Skeptic's Dictionary - Skepdic.comThe following is a summary from a related link:pseudoscience - The Skeptic's Dictionary - Skepdic.com"Scientific theories are characterized by such things as (a) being based upon empirical observation rather than the authority of some sacred text; (b) explaining a range of empirical phenomena; (c) being empirically tested in some meaningful way, usually involving testing specific predictions deduced from the theory; (d) being confirmed rather than falsified by empirical tests or with the discovery of new facts; (e) being impersonal and therefore testable by anyone regardless of personal religious or metaphysical beliefs; (f) being dynamic and fecund, leading investigators to new knowledge and understanding of the interrelatedness of the natural world rather than being static and stagnant leading to no research or development of a better understanding of anything in the natural world; and (g) being approached with skepticism rather than gullibility, especially regarding paranormal forces or supernatural powers, and being fallible and put forth tentatively rather than being put forth dogmatically as infallible."

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and think that posting out of context, dishonestly-altered quotes instead of arguing from an informed position is legitimate debate

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I apologise for the "out-of-context" quote of S.J Gould.

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That's good, but let's remember that this was not just an out of context quote. This was an intentional misquote, in which the end of the sentence was removed in order to completely change the meaning of what the author intended.This leads me to ask you again; what do you think of such dishonest tactics, and what do you subsequently think of the honesty of the site you cut and pasted it from? Have you notified the site to tell them of the mistake? Have they changed it? Does this lead you to call into question any other quotes or information on this site and how trustworthy they are?

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Henceforth, I'll try my best to quote evolutionists in their proper context. However, I quote them to prove my point, not as an alternative to a legitimate debate.

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Except if you primarily quote, rather than debate in your own words, it is an avoidance of legitimate debate.

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I don't really think you are in a position to judge if our responses are adequate or not.

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I am a science student and I think I have every right and position to question the adequacy and veracity of claims of anyone I wish to. And I do exercise my right.

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OK, I should have said something like, "Because you get all of this basic science and debate stuff wrong, you are probably not the most qualified person to judge the quality of the science or the debate."You keep saying you are a science student, but I really can't see that. What branch are you studying? What level of university are you in?

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That's my whole point. In your arrogance and ignorance, you have decided we are wrong, yet you don't have the barest understanding of what you are attempting to deny.

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Firstly, I respect your opinion about me as arrogant and ignorant and take that as an ad hominem.

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They are not ad hominem. You are, most assuredly, ignorant of many things WRT science, biology, and the history of the Creationist movement. You are also arrogant because even though you have little knowledge of these subjects (and have been shown repeatedly that this is the case) you feel utterly confident in your correctness.

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Secondly, I don't think I have decided about anyone being erroneous.

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Um, you have said repeatedly that Evolution is false. This is deciding that we are all wrong and you are right.

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There are people triple times more intelligent and thoughtful than me in this forum, I bet. There is certain amount of truth in everyone. How do supposedly impose your own decision about me deciding that you guys are wrong is bizarre, since I don't recall making such an accusation.

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Your actions are my evidence.

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Lastly, enlighten me as to what indeed am I attempting to deny that I don't have the "barest understanding" of what I am talking about.

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It's what we have been talking about all along. You thinking that a transitional trilobite should have "half jointed legs" or that PE predicts that a bird will emerge from a reptile egg. These are such elementary mistakes as to suggest that you have never read anything at all on evolution.

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Apparently, you haven't because you do not seem to have an understanding of Evolutionary Theory, nor of the nature of scientific inquiry.

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Well, my biology Professor (evolutionist) didn't have that impression about me when I got an A+ for elaborating the ToE in my science papers

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Bad teaching or poor retention. One or the other.

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As it should be. I suggest you take a college-level bioligy course.

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As a final year student, I have done numerous reports and conducted group researches concerning evolutionary theory and its basis.

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Then why do you misrepresent it so?

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But you spout decades-old, long-refuted Creationist arguments at every turn!

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Thats one way of looking at it.

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LOL!

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Another way would be the consistent counter-responses and counter-rebuttals given by creationists to their critics. Look both ways. The argument is progressive and that is exactly why specially designated forums like this one have been built.

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No, the arguments are NOT progressive I am afraid. Today's Creationist arguments are the SAME as their arguments from 50 years ago.

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Only people who have a profound ignorance of Evolutionary theory, and worse, a profound ignorance of the history of the Creationist movement, would ever make the arguments you have repeatedly made, or use the debate tactics and logical fallacies you have.

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Really? So you tell me... what kind of "debate tactics" should I use?

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They are all in the forum guidelines. Mostly they consist of stuff you should avoid.So far, you have used misquotation of scientists, misrepresentation of the 2nd LoT, and misrepresentation of several aspects of the ToE inluding PE. Repeating claims instead of providing evidence to back up the claims is another one.

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What "logical fllacies" have I made? Correct me.

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God of the Gaps is a big one.

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I am willing to accept correction.

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mmmm, so far I haven't really seen that to be the case. The only one I recall is your misquote of Gould, but you had to be prodded several times to admit that one.

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But it seems that you're only good at pointing faults (although I do appreciate that) that correcting and providing your evidence.

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Well, debate consists of pointing out errors in one's opponent's arguments, no?What evidence are my claims lacking? Please let me know what further information you need.

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I suggest you re-think your allegations about me and before pointing one finger at me, do take in consideration the four fingers that point at YOU.

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Look, the way to counter my arguments concerning anything is with evidence.I have been at these debates for a long time, and I have learned to be careful about what I claim. I am sure to know what I am talking about, and to be able to back up what I say with good, solid research from reliable scientific sources rather than anti-science sources.All we ask is that you do the same.------------------
"We will still have perfect freedom to hold contrary views of our own, but to simply
close our minds to the knowledge painstakingly accumulated by hundreds of thousands
of scientists over long centuries is to deliberately decide to be ignorant and narrow-
minded."-Steve Allen, from "Dumbth"{Fixed quote structure and unbolded text - Adminnemooseus}[This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 11-24-2002]