# Evolution and science... **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 26, 2005, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979 "2005-02-26T05:18:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2005, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979/121 "2005-03-01T21:54:04Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > BTW, Darwin, and I know this is a question that has no place in GD and I shouldn’t ask it, but for some reason I’ve always assumed you were female. Is that true or just another of my many misapprehensions? I am most assuredly male. Is it because a finch is such a girly-bird? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Twoflower](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/twoflower/32/22_2.png) [@Twoflower](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Twoflower)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2005, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979/122 "2005-03-01T21:55:42Z")
**Nolies** , you continue to claim that the geologic time scale was made up out of thin air. You have yet to provide a valid argument to support that claim. Here’s a [handy link](http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/timescale.html) to a discussion of that time scale, how it was developed, and references to the science behind it. You need to provide a defensible refutation of all the science behind this time scale before you can go around inserting “presumed” into other people quotes. Nitpicking the details of dating techniques is not sufficient. As I said before, if you’re going to claim that evolution is disproved by science, you have to play by the rules of science. If you can’t do that, your claim isn’t worth the magnetic disk space on the SMBD server that it’s written on. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2005, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979/123 "2005-03-01T21:58:03Z")
> [@Darwin's Finch](#): > > Is it because a finch is such a girly-bird? 😛 That must be it. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2005, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979/124 "2005-03-01T22:18:06Z")
> [@Nolies](#): > > Not every one is so high on this silver bullet of dating rocks… > \ > I watched the show on the Propaganda Broadcasting System AKA PBS about the supposed origins of earth. What they showed was a plant that was so caustic and full of all different chemicals that life, as we know it could not exist. Now since we know that the earth is not a closed system, which is what Argon dating and other methods must assume. With the presumed nature of the earth in the beginning how can you even begin to say that you have some sort of scientific method to date rocks? If you are wrong about what it was like then and make a model based on that all your data will be skewed. Why is it that you give a Creationist a minor technical disagreement or inconsistancy and they inevitably blow it up into a major calamity, a total failure, an utter reversal of paradigm? On the other hand, (Christian) Creationsists throw out a reference to their favorite book, which apparently constitutes absolute and inviolate capitalized **TRUTH**! :rolleyes: Yes, radiological dating methods can get varied results based upon the rate of elements absorbed. These elements (such as carbon, as mentioned) have varied in atmospheric composition through time. That is why multiple methods are used, including geological assessment, measurement of composition ratios, proximity of fossils of known age, et cetera, in order to calibrate and correlate radiological dating methods. Note that none of these give exact answers, down to, say, the year or the decade, _especially_ the long time-frame methods, like the U-238 : Pb-206 method; they give close-order-of-magnitude results (within tens or hundreds of thousands of years), which are compared against other dating methods. When the comparisons agree down to an acceptible range of error, we have confidence in the method. Science isn’t the discovery of a single fact and a “Eureka!” moment (despite how it is portrayed in film and TV). It is a careful collimation, verification, and comparation of data, often recorded or generated at many different times by different researchers until a hypothesis which is supported by the data becomes predominant and is elevated to an accepted theory. Radiological dating isn’t “proof” of anything; it is one drawer in the large toolbox of evolutionary science (including biology, paleontology, botony, zoology, geology, geophysics, physical chemistry, et cetera) which has to be validated in different ways before it becomes accepted. But it makes for an easy strawman to burn if you assume it is so. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2005, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979/125 "2005-03-01T23:01:15Z")
Uh-oh, you spelled “botany” wrong. Now you’re gonna get it. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2005, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979/126 "2005-03-01T23:24:37Z")
> [@Bryan Ekers](#): > > Uh-oh, you spelled “botany” wrong. > > Now you’re gonna get it. Damn…well, my whole argument must be wrong then. My failures in spelling and copyediting invalidate my entire argument. I should just lie down and die now. Nah. 😉 Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2005, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979/127 "2005-03-01T23:52:28Z")
> [@Twoflower](#): > > 1. See post #53 of this thread, where I long ago corrected my terminology. And very graciously too. Which is part of what science is all about - understanding that we all make mistakes, and should find and correct them wherever possible. That’s why we have peer review, and bulletin boards are not given quite the weight of peer reviewed scientific journal. By the way, I am happy to see **nolies** return. One request: do you have a model of what the fossil record should look like under a creationist hypothesis? Why are whale fossils not found with the trilobite fossils? If you subscribe to the sorting hypothesis (much loved of floodites) could you propose an experiment to test it? ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2005, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979/128 "2005-03-02T00:02:53Z")
Ya know what, **nolies**? I’ll take you up on your offer. I am not a trained biologist. I am not a scientist. My education is in business and my profession is in computers. Nevertheless, I take you up on your offer for a formal debate. However, I’ll brook none of this “let’s you and him fight” nonsense. It’s you I wish to debate. Put up or shut up, friend. ---
**Author:** ![Siege](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@Siege](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siege)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2005, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979/129 "2005-03-02T00:07:22Z")
OK, **Nolies** , if you’re such a stickler for accuracy, please do me a favor. Re-read chapters 1 and 2 in Genesis in your Bible. If you don’t have one handy, here’s a [link to the NIV version of those two chapters.](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/index.php?search=Genesis%201-2&version=31) Now, please answer one simple question for me. Did God create plants and animals before or after He created man? Please cite chapter and verse to back up your answer. CJ ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2005, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979/130 "2005-03-02T00:17:30Z")
> [@Siege](#): > > Please cite chapter and verse to back up your answer. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2005, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979/131 "2005-03-02T02:03:31Z")
I love the example of corporlites in discussions like this. [http://www.envs.emory.edu/ichnology/Dinocopro.htm](http://www.envs.emory.edu/ichnology/Dinocopro.htm) Put simply, they’re shit. But very interesting shit. Because they can tell us something about what particular animals ate. And amazingly, dinos and other such animals that evolution “presumes” to have lived millions of years ago, long before modern animals, seem to have had a curious perchance to never eat a modern animal or plant, which creationists assert would have lived at the same time as the dinos. In the shit of plant eating dinos, we find not a single flowering plant. The poo poo of oceanic predators contains only the animal life that evolution suggests existed (and indeed, it contains species which are now extinct or whose descendants are radically different from their ancestors in the shit), and none of the animals that YEC creationists claim would have lived concurrently. Not a predatory single dinosaur poops humans, dogs, horses, or any of the surely luciously delicious treats that larger modern animals would have made (many modern animals would have been pretty easy for dinos to catch too, as modern animals are not evolved to deal with huge, incredibly fast lizards). Flowering plants would have been even more yummy and easy to catch treats, and yet brontosaurs for some reason avoided eating even a one. Poo. ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2005, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979/132 "2005-03-02T03:01:29Z")
> [@Nolies](#): > > I watched the show on the Propaganda Broadcasting System AKA PBS about the supposed origins of earth. What they showed was a plant that was so caustic and full of all different chemicals that life, as we know it could not exist. > [@Apos](#): > > Er, what are you talking about? “Oh, stewardess? I speak jive…” 😃 Nolies’ statement makes sense if you insert an “e” in “plant”, making it “planet”. He did indeed watch a PBS show on the origins of Earth in which the “planet” (not “plant”) was portrayed as being “caustic” and “full of different chemicals”. NOVA’s [“Origins”](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/3111_origins.html) from last September, began each of its four episodes with these words: > [@](#): > > \*A hellish, fiery wasteland, a molten planet hostile to life, yet somehow, amazingly, this is where we got our start. \* And most likely he’s specifically referring to [Episode 2](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/3112_origins.html) with its statements like this: > [@](#): > > \*But when it was born, some 4.5 billion years ago, Earth was a violent place, so hostile it’s hard to believe life could ever begin here. Covered in lava, and smothered in noxious gases, Earth was a planet under siege. > > \< snip \> > > …For about the first 600 million years, comets and asteroids pounded our planet, a time known as the “Heavy Bombardment.” > > These interplanetary missiles measured up to 300 miles across. Their impacts vaporized Earth’s oceans and melted its crust. With its extreme temperatures and toxic rain, seemingly nothing could survive here… \* Nolies is assuming, then, that only divine intervention could have created Life with a capital “L” in such a hostile environment. ---
**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2005, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979/133 "2005-03-02T03:05:06Z")
> [@Duck Duck Goose](#): > > Nolies is assuming, then, that only divine intervention could have created Life with a capital “L” in such a hostile environment. …Which, like his beef with radiometric dating, has nothing to do with evolution. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2005, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979/134 "2005-03-02T04:23:36Z")
Ah. I really did read it as “plant.” Lol. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2005, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979/135 "2005-03-02T04:27:06Z")
Apos, the dinos didn’t eat daisies because they were allergic. Duh! Anyway, it looks to me that you are saying that evolution is all shit! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![edwino](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@edwino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/edwino)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2005, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979/136 "2005-03-02T04:54:41Z")
Because I haven’t seen **Ben** around in an eon, I’ll post these questions to **Nolies** (since I’m taking a break in writing my PhD thesis on the evolution of noncoding DNA) How does creation theory explain pseudogenes? More generally, why is it that time and time again, taxonomic trees assembled by purely morphological and paleontological data is upheld by molecular data, including sytenic changes and rearrangements, duplication and divergence, evolution of gene families, pseudogene decay, changes in exon/intron boundaries, base changes in functionally constrained DNA, and numerous other aspects of molecular evolution. Honestly, if you don’t know what these terms mean or can’t explain them, you have no business telling scientists that they are wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2005, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979/137 "2005-03-02T06:00:05Z")
> [@edwino](#): > > Because I haven’t seen **Ben** around in an eon, I’ll post these questions to **Nolies** (since I’m taking a break in writing my PhD thesis on the evolution of noncoding DNA) > > How does creation theory explain pseudogenes? Ooh, ooh, I can answer. God works in mysterious ways. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2005, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979/138 "2005-03-02T11:58:23Z")
**Nolies** , do you accept that the Earth is **billions** of years old and humans have only been around for very recent **millions**? Species dying out and other species taking their place is what evolution **is**. ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2005, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979/139 "2005-03-02T13:41:46Z")
> [@edwino](#): > > Because I haven’t seen **Ben** around in an eon, I’ll post these questions to **Nolies** (since I’m taking a break in writing my PhD thesis on the evolution of noncoding DNA) As someone who recently finished his thesis, I feel qualified to respond thusly: Quit stallin’, and get back to writing your thesis! ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2005, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979/140 "2005-03-02T13:48:27Z")
> [@Siege](#): > > OK, **Nolies** , if you’re such a stickler for accuracy, please do me a favor. Re-read chapters 1 and 2 in Genesis in your Bible. If you don’t have one handy, here’s a [link to the NIV version of those two chapters.](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/index.php?search=Genesis%201-2&version=31) Now, please answer one simple question for me. Did God create plants and animals before or after He created man? Please cite chapter and verse to back up your answer. > > CJ I’m not **Nolies** , sis, but the proper answer to your question is “Yes.” 😉 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolution-and-science/291979.md?page=8)