Believe me, Poly, I could never mistake David B for the sun, and so misdirect my worship. One is a giant ball of hot gas… the other is, well, just a star.
(I tried to resist it, David, I really really did…)
Geez, Gaudere, I’d have thought that you of all people would have faith in science. Not only are the “scientists” perfectly capable of creating a sun in the laboratory, they’re going to go right past that short-term fix and recreate the entire universe. Right out on Long Island no less!
P.S. Don’t worry, Archie, I’m kidding. They aren’t really going to make a new Big Bang. Just a little bitty one.
I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids!
Or he could create false evidence, if he had a puckish sense of humor. Much like Mark Twain wrote in the Autobiography of Eve. Twain gave Eve the job of manufacturing a fossil record to fool the coming evolutionists. At one point during a bout of melancholy she screwed it up though by placing the wrong types of fossils in the wrong eras. After catching her mistake, she kind of shrugged it off saying, that’ll really make 'em wonder.
I’m not sure that has any bearing on the discussion at hand, but there ya have it. That’s my normal method of posting.
Argh! You fundies drive me crazy!
Just because science has shown what causes lighting doesn’t mean Z-us doesn’t truly exist! Scientists still appropriate to lighting many random properties, which could well be the hand of Z-us making decisions! Science does not, has not, and is unlikely ever to prove or disprove the actual existence of the Ancient Greek Gods!
You people make me sick.
JMCJ
Not Even Mentioned
Most Popular Poster of the 20th Century Competition
As overseen by Coldfire
Archangel:
Again, you have to come to realize that anything has some remote possibility associated with it. There is no such thing as scientific fact, but ONLY when you consider fact in the strictest, and frankly most anal way.
Do you consider the theory of gravity to be fact? You shouldn’t. Why not? Because there is always the possibility that the next experiment on gravity will prove it all wrong. Is this likely? No, not remotely. Why not? Because the OVERWHELMING amount of scientific evidence shows that gravity is a very robust theory. It describes the world we live in, and makes successful predictions. Nobody in their right mind would make the claim that the theory of gravity needs to be taken on faith.
Now, it can be debated as to whether the theory of evolution has reached the degree of robustness of the theory of gravity, but it is not debateable whether the theory is taken on faith. It like the theory of gravity is considered true because of the evidence that supports it. It will be considered false if evidence were to surface that brings it into serious question.
To reiterate, speaking in realistic, i.e. real world, terms, scientific theories are not taken on faith but taken on the fact that the scientific method has proven to be very reliable in the past, and we have no reason to believe that the scientific method will not be reliable in the future.
“Glitch … Window, large icons.” - Bob the Guardian
Tell us how you REALLY feel, John…
Yer pal,
Satan
First Place
Most Popular Poster of the 20th Century Competition
As overseen by Coldfire
I don’t know why I am bothering, Archie will not understand the explanations, but…
Actually, it suggests exactly what Dr. Gould said. A “rather well formed sequence of intermediate stages” is not the same as “countless”. The rebuttal is, of course, that if evolution has not occurred there should be NO organisms recognizable as “intermediate” between any other two organisms.
Yup, that’s what the fossil record shows. That’s why Gould came up with the mechanism of Punctuated Equilibrium. The idea that the really big changes, like those changes in a population that are enough to prevent it from interbreeding with other populations of the same species, happen to relatively small peripheral populations in a relatively short amount of time. This idea just happens to be supported by what we know about population dynamics in living populations.
Do you have the rest of the article? You give us the part where the author proposes a problem, but not the part where a solution is expounded. Kitts is right, we have very few examples of species-to-species modifications in the fossil record. This is due to the resolution of the fossil record, and the difficulty of telling whether a given descendent species is a direct descendant of species A or similar species B or is it is descended from currently unknown species C. We do have excellent transitionals between almost every taxonomic group above the species level, though.
It is easier to feel absolute confidence in an interpretation when you have less information. When there were only four species of ancient horses known it was easy to say that they formed a single line of descent. We now have over sixty different species of horses known from the fossil record. It is therefore futile to try to determine exactly which population of which species gave rise to the variety found in younger rocks. We can clearly see that horses have changed over time in response to the drying of their environment, but we cannot with confidence say that Equus is descended from exactly THIS variety of single-toed hose which is descended from exactly THIS variety of three-toed horse. Since Darwin’s time we have learned much more about how animals vary in nature and how these variations are passed down to future generations. Darwin was wedded to a Victorian paradigm of gradual change. We are no longer “embarrassed” by the fossil record, for its appearance is predictable from what we know about the heritability of variation and the geological mechanisms that preserve some organisms as fossils.
Interpretation of this requires us to know what Dr. Stanley considers a “major morphological transition”. As each phylum of animal had its basic blueprint set by the time of the Cambrian explosion, and that was done before animals developed hard parts, that quote is probably entirely accurate. The changes from fish to amphibian to reptile to bird is minor in that context.
I love Chesterton.
Context is vital in understanding what an author is attempting to say. A series of quotes taken out of context proves nothing other than that the person presenting the quotes has never read the literature from which those quotes were mined.
Dr. Fidelius, Charlatan
Associate Curator Anomalous Paleontology, Miskatonic University
“You cannot reason a man out of a position he did not reach through reason.”
Dr. Hovind’s various public performances seem to be aimed at providing those who agree with him already with grand gestures to refer to, and those gestures are dramatically developed to make him [Dr. Hovind] appear to be the persecuted maverick scientist. The searches I have done on the web show a fairly large number of references by Dr. Hovind to proofs he has seen, and evidence he knows about, and almost no references to scientific work he has conducted.
Whenever one begins to examine something with science, one must then apply the rules of science, and not make judgements on the basis of philosophy. When one begins to examine matters of faith, it is the same, and the rules of evidence and proof are not germane. Many scientists have faith, and many do not. The use of science is neutral to the matter of faith. Consider your own faith, and ask if it has the strength to maintain the same outlook. Dr. Hovind would, by the evidence of his own word, deny his God, if the evidence presented to him were sufficient. For reasons I do not understand, his followers do not consider that aspect of his claims.
The evidence of evolution, including the concepts of genetic drift, mutation, inheritance, and habitat isolation are supported by a wide array of evidence, repeatedly examined by hundreds of teams of scientists, over many decades. The emerging science of genome mapping has not shown any evidence to overturn the theories, either, and in fact strongly supports many of the same conclusions. The evidence has never been lacking, only the willingness to examine, and learn enough to understand the evidence. Dr. Hovind knows this, and, to the great discredit of his character, uses the credulity of his followers to mask his willful ignorance. (I know he is educated, that does not preclude willful ignorance.)
The more troubling aspect of the entire creationist phenomenon is the willingness of Christians to seek justification in science for their faith in the Lord. The wise are not exhaled for their wisdom, nor will their learning lead them to salvation. By your willingness to follow earthly learning in the matter of your soul, you make your spirit more earthly. Turn around. Seek the Lord with your heart, not with your mind. You cannot figure out how to be immortal, you already are immortal.
<P ALIGN=“CENTER”>Tris</P>
“Stoning non conformists is part of science. Stoning conformists is also part of science. Only those theories that can stand up to a merciless barrage of stones deserve consideration. It is the creationist habit of throwing marshmallows that we find annoying.”
– attributed to **Dr. Pepper **
Libertarian posted 01-12-2000 04:58 PM
Well, God certainly has the right to make miracles happen at his whim, but that’s not going to be very convincing to me. My point is that if the criteria are decided upon after the event, then there is a tendency for the event to affect the criteria. If the event occurs after the criteria are decided upon, however, then it is clear that the event did not affect the criteria. For instance, if you say “It would be a miracle if your car broke down in the middle of nowhere, and a tow truck happened to come along in less than a minute,” and the very next day that happened to me, I’d be much more impressed than if I told **you[/n] about having my car break down, etc., and then you said “Hmm, sounds like a miracle to me.” Do you see the difference?
Archangel - on issues relating to textbooks and evolution, you’re more than welcome to read my Textbooks and New Theories thread, and post there if you wish. The goal of that thread was to discern what the appropriate standards were for judging the textbookworthiness (if that’s a word) of a new theory such as creationism. It’s interesting reading, IMO, but then I wrote much of it, so I’m biased.
With respect to transitional forms, it’s worth considering the butterfly that Alfred Wallace found in 1857. It was dead midway between two known species of butterfly, and according to the reigning theory of the time, that of special creation, his new butterfly had to be a variety (sort of like a subspecies) of one or the other. Problem was, which? (Quammen, The Song of the Dodo, pp.105-06.)
So there’s a ‘missing link’ for you.
But on a more serious note, do consider what Tris had to say in the last paragraph of his post. If you know the Lord, does His existence depend on the falsity of evolution? Of course not. He is real, whether He meant Genesis to be a science text or whether He intended it as a myth or parable.
This isn’t about Christians versus evolutionists. It’s just about what science is and is not, and about the role of faith in science.
Tris is right: by raising the importance of biblical creationism to the elevated plane on which you put it, this becomes about the role of science in your faith, by treating a particular portion of scientific theory as a threat to your faith. It shouldn’t be: your faith should be more real than that, because God is more real than that.
Gaudere said:
Hmph. How dare you say that I’m “just a star”?! I’m an awesome star of print and TV! Just ask me!
I’m glad DrF saw Archangel’s Menton post before I did, thus allowing him to do the work. 
Incidentally, though, Menton has been known to quote out of context or simply misquote before. For a quick example I found in just one search, in The Scientific Evidence For the Origin of Man, he wrote about the fossil WT 15000 (the Turkana Boy) and said:
“He had a low forehead and pronounced brow ridges not unlike some races of modern man. Richard Leaky [sic] said that this boy would go unnoticed in a crowd today.”
What Leakey really said, in the November 1985 issue of National Geographic, was: “Suitably clothed and with a cap to obscure his low forehead and beetle brow, he would probably go unnoticed in a crowd today.” (Ref: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/misquotes.html )
Incidentally, Archangel, I know you have a lot of reading to do in this thread to catch up, but I hope you read and answer the messages that were posted before your Menton article as well, such as my questions about your thoughts on Hovind.
Ryan:
Yes, I understand that very clearly. But I thought David said in the Atheist Religion that I could collect a million dollars today from Randi for a miracle that occurred in my life some twenty years ago. Are you saying that he already has a general set of criteria that will apply to any miracle?
“It is lucky for rulers that men do not think.” — Adolf Hitler
Lib:
Its been quite a while since I read randi’s challenge, but I believe it is set up to test those who claim to be able to consistently reproduce their abilities. For instance, waterwitches who claim to find where to dig a well consistently, or folks who feel they can draw a picture of an area that someone else is viewing.
I do not believe his mandate includes one-time “miraculous” events, as direct intervention by God is not testable, reproducible or verifyable.
Dr. Fidelius, Charlatan
Associate Curator Anomalous Paleontology, Miskatonic University
“You cannot reason a man out of a position he did not reach through reason.”
Lib, the rules that Randi has now may not include the “old miracle” part – I’m not sure, though I know I provided a link to get to those rules so you could have checked at the time. I was more thinking along the lines of wha the said in his book, The Faith Healers, where he talked about a more historical look at supposed faith healing miracles (which is really what your claim dealt with). You’d have to check with him or one of his associates directly to find out whether that type of miracle would be a valid one now.
[Moderator Hat: ON]
(Should have caught this sooner.)
Archangel – did you have permission to repost that copyrighted article? In other words, was there either language wherever you got it saying it could be reposted, or did you ask the copyright holder? Please let me know ASAP. You won’t get in trouble or anything, but because of our guidelines I will have to remove it from the message board if you did not have permission. Thanks.
David B, SDMB Great Debates Moderator
[Moderator Hat: OFF]
Not having time to read everything yet, I do have to answer David in saying the web site which I got the article said I could take anything that I wanted so long as I was not quoting anything from it out of context. And according to this article, I quoted the entire article, hence I don’t believe it is out of context.
I hope that is the answer you are looking for. If not… Sorry for that …
Barak bow` shem Yahshua!!
Maranatha!!!
D’oh! I can’t believe I misinterpreted this one. I must have been tired last night.
Archie provided us with:
bolding mine
Of course there has been no major morphological transitions recorded from phyletic evolution. The really big changes happen in allopatric speciatiation events!
I assume ‘phyletic evolution’ would mean the evolution, not merely of a new species, but of a new phylum?
I remember that a phylum is a pretty big class, and from what you previously said, Dr. F, I gather that there’ve been no new phyla to come along in the past half-billion years.
Sounds like a great quote for an anti-evolutionist to slip into a speech, to leave his audience with a far different impression of what was meant than would be legitimate. Another entry in the ‘games creationists play’ playbook.
Rufus:
Are you the one recommending Song of the Dodo over on another thread?
Phyletic evolution is the pokey drift of the alleles of a central population. Because of the population size, a central population is not going to change much, just adapt a little to fit in its niche a little better. If it weren’t already adapted well enough, it would not have become the central population, now would it? The selection pressure in phyletic evolution is conservative, tending to retain those traits that allowed earlier generations to breed. No great change can be expected from that.
When a sub-population is cut off from the central population, then we see some changes. To be cut off, reproductively, the sub-population is probably on the fringe of the range of the central population. That means that the characteristics of the organism are not quite as well matched to the environment as the central population enjoys. The pressures of this environment that the organism is not quite comfortable with leads to changes in that population. This is allopatric evolution, which the quote does not address at all!
See how quotes taken out of context, or that use technical terms the audience may not understand, can make the difference in the interpretation of what is being said? The Devil himself can quote Scripture for his purposes.
[Moderator Hat: ON]
Yup, thanks Archangel, that’s fine. In the future, if you are posting copyrighted articles with permission, please note it as such in the message. Of course, we’d prefer that you just provide a link if possible (takes up less room), but that was a pretty short article anyway.
David B, SDMB Great Debates Moderator
[Moderator Hat: OFF]