Evolution, why us?

[sherlock]

Mountain Goat is using "appeal to authority" argument, which is a fallacy. just because so and so scientists support evolution doesn't make it a fact. Alchemist bro has shown you enough credible scientists who oppose the evolution theory or at least oppose many parts of it. Its far from a fact, so I don't know why you are being so confident in your assertion. Truth should be more important than which camp you belong to, so I hope this discussion is carried out in that manner.

That's true and no matter how much alchemist tries to convince them, they still won't get it or accept it. They have already made up their mind, and it would be false to assume to they are being objective.

[faye]

well the earth could be flat/flattened, on a round planet. flat and flattened don't have to be taken so literally. perhaps compressed would also suit the meaning. (just a speculation)

[ScimitarXEdge]

Mountain Goat is using "appeal to authority" argument, which is a fallacy. just because so and so scientists support evolution doesn't make it a fact. Alchemist bro has shown you enough credible scientists who oppose the evolution theory or at least oppose many parts of it. Its far from a fact, so I don't know why you are being so confident in your assertion. Truth should be more important than which camp you belong to, so I hope this discussion is carried out in that manner.

That's the thing though; he iisn't doing Appeal to Authority; these people are credible and have reproduceable scientific data to demonstrate their claims. An Appeal to Authority is merely using someone's status ALONE, especially when it is irrelevant. Like if a Mullah says the world is flat, believing that the world is flat because a Mullah says so is an appeal to authority. Someone who does research on evolution and has demonstrative peer reviewed reproduceable evidence. Isn't an appeal to authority.


And secondly Alchemist hasn't shown any credible scientific who rejects the evolution theory; He does what's called "Quote Mining"

which by the way is also a Logical Fallacy.

What he does he takes certain quotes where a certain scientist may have a slightly different understanding or interpretation of a SPECIFIC evolutionary transition, take for examples Birds and Dinosaurs. And then uses that to imply that the scientist rejects evolution or steer into a red herring debate on how a specific species evolved ignoring that evolution has occurred.

No matter how we try and slice it and dice it; you cannot deny that the protein sequences of Other Animals similar to us cannot be explained any other way except evolution. Unless you just say "God just did that to trick evolutionists"

that alone is irrefutable evidence that evolution has happened. To deny that would be like someone saying that You're not your father's son even when DNA tests his paternity. This is the equivalent of Alchemist's jibber jabber about evolution.


The reason people reject him is not because he presents evidence; but that he presents evidence ignorantly as if he's merely shooting blanks randomly. Seriously we need more scientific literacy on this forum to see exactly why Alchemist has not a clue what he's saying.

[طالب]

well the earth could be flat/flattened, on a round planet. flat and flattened don't have to be taken so literally. perhaps compressed would also suit the meaning. (just a speculation)

That could very well be true, but then why isn't Alchemist saying it? Why does he keep avoiding the question if he doesn't literally believe the Earth is flat?

Both I and ScimitarXEdge have asked him that exact question several times, yet he hasn't answered but keeps dodging the question.

It's not like there is a hidden meaning to the question, we all know what it implies, i.e. that the Earth is a flat circle with an edge from which you can fall into infinity, like so:



He has had ample opportunity to clarify his position if he didn't literally believe it was flat.

Of course the real reason he keeps dodging the question is because he does literally believe the Earth is flat, but realises he would look like a complete lunatic if he said it straight out.

In a way it's weird because he keeps uplifting himself as the one true believer on this forum, yet he doesn't have enough faith to state his beliefs straight out? Wouldn't a true believer be proud to state his beliefs? Wouldn't a true believer proclaim his beliefs with a straight back, regardless of ridicule and prejudice?

Is Alchemist ashamed of his beliefs? If not, why doesn't he say them straight out?

[Midnight_Sun]

Mountain Goat is using "appeal to authority" argument, which is a fallacy. just because so and so scientists support evolution doesn't make it a fact. Alchemist bro has shown you enough credible scientists who oppose the evolution theory or at least oppose many parts of it. Its far from a fact, so I don't know why you are being so confident in your assertion. Truth should be more important than which camp you belong to, so I hope this discussion is carried out in that manner.

If we're using the 'appeal to authority' argument then you just made the 'take out of context' argument and the 'jump to conclusion' arguments the law of the land. Al-Racist here provided me with many so called 'elite' experts, all of which ended up either old & dead scientists or scientists who believe in evolution--out of context! The funny thing is HE doesn't even believe in half the crap he misrepresents in his quotes!

[Midnight_Sun]

You beat me to it! Just one of his many tired and embarassing 'use scientists to disprove science' blunders. He is truly a master of irony!

[Alchemist]

We have three stooges who have shown bare their own ignorance. And time and again give examples of the psychological mechanisms of delusion.

Rather than dispute the facts that show that Archaeopteryx is a bird. They have quote mined for one interview in a science magazine where Feducci says it is "half repitle and half bird" to stick to their own delusion. Even though feducci has written in a scientific peer reviewed paper where he clearly says it is a tree perching bird based on the curve of it's claws. They don't accept that. Even though he says that because dinosaurs have digits 1,2,3 and birds have digit 2,3,4, they cannot be related as the shift is impossible to even imagine, they don't believe it. Even though the arguments show that ground up flight is improbable, they won't debate it. Instead what is their argument? Their mantra is "scientific community believes it, therefore it is fact".

How delusional do you have to be to bypass the evidence, the arguments and just look for a title in the name?

As for Scimitar, it has become clear to me that this boy's whole life work depends on this debunked theory. He spends his days analyzing computer simulation of ecological niches and tries to show what effect they have had on "evolution" of humans - so he will never admit that it is wrong because then he would admit his life time work has been a waste. His proof for evolution is based on a number of fallacies - Fallacy of Necessity: He argues that because the Genetic Code of life is based on Adenine, Guanine, Thymine and Cytosine then all life must have come from a tree of life, at the base of which is one ancestor to all. At one point in history, people believed that since all things are made of matter which is composed of atoms, which are indivisible particles, then all things that exist are made of matter, therefore there is no god, no angels, no extra dimensions where demons watch us from, etc etc and only what is visible with the eye, touchable with the skin, and audible to the ear, only exists. Now we know that this is not the case. We know that genes are shared by UNRELATED organisms across different phylogeny. If evolution was true, then similar genes would only be found in similarly related organisms - It is also a fallacy of the Single Cause. It is also an appeal to ignorance - that since no one knows how living things came to be so varied, then it must be evolution. Earlier, in another thread I also showed that Scimitar's argument for Evolution is a tautology - The term evolution here, as according to the sabbatic goat even, is divorced from what was originally expounded by Darwin. Here you won't have them arguing even for Natural Selection. The word Nature is left undefined and so is the word species. It is assumed that Nature is a force that can select consciously those traits that are best suited for the organisms. They will argue you with you that those traits are not randomly produced via mutation, because Nature selects them for their benefits, they cannot be random. But ask them what Nature is, and they go silent. And for them there is no such thing as a species, since all organisms fall on a continuum without distinction from each other - such as neanderthals and denisovans and cro magnon and erectus, all being the same race yet they claim them to different species. He then poses a false dilemma saying that it is either evolution or creation, and that science is emperical and religion is not, therefore science is factual. Even though he has yet to produce any empirical evidence for his position. (There was one paper he posted from wikipedia, and the experiment was set up a priori to yield the desired result).

Goat has just decided to join the bandwagon. And as part of his own personality to be narrow minded, shallow and stubborn he feels compelled to stay in that wagon. Despite proving him wrong on several of his assertions time and time again, he still won't nudge an inch. He wrote 20,000+ words on this thread and 90% of it was the same thing repeated (fallacy ad nauseum) . When caught performing circular arguments = saying that "all animals and all plants are different therefore different animals and plants developed from different animals and plants, and this evolution" - when asked "Developed how" he would say that that is irrelevant, even though it is in the proposition. This is a circular cause and consequence - which came first? the chicken or the egg? did evolution lead to differentiation or differentiation lead to evolution? Since the argument is that differences are there, therefore evolution, we are begging the question - different how? he says it doesn't matter. This is not even an argument for evolution by leading evolutionists in the field. He has made a strawfigure of his own for this discussion totally divorced from the general theory of evolution. I could just leave him to his own devices since his argument is his own and not even properly quoted from his sources, but what is astonishing me to me is that Mr. Scimitar actually agrees to this tact.

The irony here is that Midnight Sun posted a video of someone she admires for having the ability to speak latin and throw words ending with -saures and - piticus at a quick speed, as a challenge to me. His argument was against some christain youtuber who posted a video saying "when I look at this lizard, I see a dinosaur". Osiri's Ra, claimed that Dinosaurs are more related to his pet parrot than they are to lizards! I present as proof the arguments that describes how dinosaurs could not have evolved into birds for reasons x,y and z, yet she is high-fiving the sabattic goat for posting the picture of an ugly black man giving a smirk for finding the same doctor talk about his views on Creationism. Why is it assumed that I am a creationist? Did I ever make an argument in this thread that Allah Created organisms this way or that way? There very well could be an explanation for how non-living things could come to life - which is what evolution is claiming to have happened - but we don't know it. If anyone is being skeptical and rational, it is yours truly. We cannot assume that evolution is a fact and that it happened because day by day more evidence is coming out against it! And the longer this discussion drags out, the more evidence I will be able to present - but right now this argument has turned stagnant because my opponents are too busy trying to attack my character instead of my arguments. The last 5 posts in this thread have been nothing but slander.
The real irony here is that I am being declared a loon because it is said I believe the earth is flat - what's next? Goat will quote me saying "I believe the earth is flat" in his signature from just saying that phrase? I could just trick them into saying the phrase "The moon is made out of cheese" then I will quote them in my signature saying "hey...look scimitar believes the moon is made of cheese ..therefore yatty ya". I am not desperate though. Twenty years from now, when the older generation of people who believe in evolution die out, this theory will be buried along with other bygone "theories" and conjectures about this world, this universe. Or maybe biology as a science is doomed to lag behind the other sciences forever? What benefit has evolution as a theory brought forth for humanity? Instead it has only provided fervour for atheists and angostics against theists. And these stooges have adopted that old rhetoric and tried to apply it here. I am not a christain nor are you atheists, so why are you trying to impose that debate on me? Why do you want to reenact that scenario on this forum?
If you are truthful, then you would accept the flaws in your "Evidence". Rather the Sabbathic goat wants to argue "what is evidence?".

Until these guys get their heads around each other to debate with me, logically and coherently...I will simply post for those interested what the modern scientific evidence is against evolution.

[Alchemist]

ok good, so you do admit that nothing in science is 100%, and its mostly based on evidence supporting the hypothesis or theory. That still leaves the window open the scientists might one day change their view of evolution in the light of new found evidence. thats a good way to go about it, although Alchemist has posed many questions which still haven't been answered satisfactorily such as the complexity of single cell and evidance for speciation.

Exactly!

Here is an example of that.


A hundred and fifty years ago people believed that evolution is fact based on the saying that "Ontology Recapitulates Phylogeny".
They were saying that - Look, first you were a single cell, then you were fetus, then you were an embryo, then a full scale human. But if you look at the fetus of a monkey, or a rat, or a cow, they look similar, so at one time we were all similar - our species were all the same - since we as fetuses look the same. This was considered to be proof of evolution.

This theory has been long since discredit in the scientific community. Mainly because of Mendelian Genetics and also because we now know for a fact that embryos of different species DO NOT resemble one another.

Interestingly enough, we now that the person who proposed it first had fudged the drawing to make his "theory" more credible:

Embryo drawing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
.....

[Alchemist]

YouTube - Evidence against evolution -The HAR-1 Gene

[Alchemist]

YouTube - The Evolution of Birds and Flight: It's impossible Part 1
YouTube - The Evolution of Birds and Flight: It's impossible Part 2
YouTube - BIrd Evolution: It's Impossible Pt. 3

[Alchemist]

And secondly Alchemist hasn't shown any credible scientific who rejects the evolution theory; He does what's called "Quote Mining"

I assume you are asking for a credible "scientist"?

Amazon.com: Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth? (9780895262769): Jonathan Wells: Books

He has a Ph.D in Molecular and Cell Biology. (OK, he has another Ph.D in religious studies too :P)

How about this

http://www.amazon.com/Free-Lunch-Specified-Complexity-Intelligence/dp/0742512975

I think he has three Ph.Ds ...or four...not sure.

[Alchemist]

PBS's Evolution Series is Propoganda, not Science

by Josh Gilder "It is absolutely safe to say that, if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)."
– Leading Darwinist Richard Dawkins
The wicked and insane will presumably have to fend for themselves, but for the rest of us, PBS has undertaken a massive new "educational" project to promote the "understanding of evolution."
Apparently there's a lot of misunderstanding out there, as tech billionaire Paul Allen has ponied up some $15 million for the project (PBS refuses to disclose exactly how much). The centerpiece is an eight-hour documentary series for the week of Sept. 24 through 27, but this is only the tip of the iceberg. Much of Allen's money is going into a national "outreach" program aimed at our public schools. Cadres of "special teachers" are being trained to prep school boards and biology teachers across the country on how to respond to skeptical students and parents. They will be aided by subsidized teaching materials, videos and a special interactive website devoted to clearing up any "misunderstandings" the public might have.
Having sat through all eight hours of the evo-epic, however, I suspect the biggest problem is going to be keeping the students from lapsing into unconsciousness out of the sheer boredom of it all.
Except for a brief lesbian lovemaking scene in the segment about sexual reproduction, which no doubt the kids will be checking out for extra credit, Evolution flows more turgidly than the backwaters of the Amazon basin, meandering listlessly through its subject matter (much of which, it would seem, having little to do with evolution) before finally getting stuck in some stagnant pool of political correctness. (AIDS, feminism, homosexuality, the rain forests, and man's threat to species diversity, all get airtime.)
How on earth does one make evolution boring? Whatever one thinks of it as science, evolution has all the wonder and fascination of a modern day creation myth. And as anybody knows who's watched the Discovery Channel, with its seemingly infinite supply of wildlife footage of lions taking down gazelles and whatnot, evolution makes great television.
So what went wrong? One can only make an educated guess, but it seems that the evolutionists were blindsided by their own propaganda. It has become such an article of faith with them that any critique of evolution can only come from "creationists" – and is thus by definition unworthy of their attention – that they were unaware of the growing body of evidence against Darwinism.
Last October, however, U.C. Berkeley Ph.D. biologist Jonathan Wells published his groundbreaking Icons of Evolution. By that time, one assumes that most of the pre-production of Evolution was complete, including detailed scripts. Probably a fair amount of film was already in the can. And here comes a closely argued, thoroughly documented scientific critique, that basically blows their story out of the primordial soup.
The Darwinian story, after all, has remained relatively unchanged for generations. It's what most of us learned in biology class, and it's still taught much as we learned it. There's the Miller-Urey experiment that created the "building blocs" of life in a test-tube. There are Haeckel's embryos showing that all vertebrates pass through almost identical stages in development (the source of the famous phrase, "ontology recapitulates phylogeny"). There are the bones of bird wings, horse legs and human hands that appear so similar as to prove common ancestry. There are the peppered moths, the finches' beaks, and the clear line of ascent in the fossil record from ape to human.
As evidence of Darwinian evolution it was, taken altogether, extremely convincing. It has indeed, convinced generations of lay and science students that Darwin, with some minor modifications, had it right.
The problem is that none of it is true, or is so fraught with inconsistencies, misinterpretation and bad (sometimes fraudulent) data as to be worthless as science. Icons of Evolution dismantles these "proofs" one by one. Miller and Urey never came close to creating "life in a tube" and recent discoveries about the true nature of Earth's early atmosphere make "abiogenesis" – the creation of living organisms from non-organic chemicals – more of a Chimera than ever. Haeckel's embryos turn out to be an outright forgery, a fact that was known even in Darwin's day, though they continue to appear in standard biology texts. Early vertebrate embryos, it turns out, are radically different in look, size and manner of development, and, despite what we're told over and over again, human embryos never, ever have "gill slits," like little fishes.
"Homology" – the similar structures of some animals – is as good a proof of design (more about that later) as it is of evolution and common descent, especially considering the frequent number of homologous structures that even evolutionists don't believe developed from a common ancestor (think of the "duck-billed" platypus). The peppered moths had to be glued to tree trunks – where they rarely rest in nature – for that experiment to yield the right (pro-evolutionary) result, and the finches' beaks, which did grow longer during droughts, reverted to their original size once the drought is over – evidence not of evolution but its opposite, the extraordinary stability of species.
One can't blame the producers for not knowing this. Most evolutionary "experts" were equally in the dark.
While the problems with each specific "proof" of evolution might be known to people in that specialized discipline (moth experts, for instance), apparently none of them had bothered to share notes. Thus the college-level biology textbook edited by Bruce Alberts, president of the National Academy of sciences, to this day presents Haeckel's forged embryos as factual, and leading biologist and evo-enthusiast Jerry Coyne was shocked to only recently discover the truth about peppered moths.
The response of the Darwinist camp was largely to ignore Wells' scientific critique (there wasn't much they could say, after all) or offer only ad hominem attacks. Wells, they claimed, was religiously motivated. Why else would he publish such a book? None seemed particularly concerned that generations of students had been fed misinformation under the guise of science. A few of the textbook writers themselves averred that one had to "simplify" examples to help students' understanding, which is a bit like teaching them that the sun rotates around the earth because it's so much simpler to grasp. And then, many of these books were intended for college and post-graduate biology students.
Their final line of defense was that even if all of these proofs of evolution were wrong, it didn't matter, because there were so many other and better examples out there. The world was just full of them.
Well, judging by eight hours of Evolution, apparently not. Clearly the producers had to scramble for material to fill their eight hours, which is why we have long digressions into what appear to be AIDS awareness seminars, great swatches of pre-packaged "save our planet" environmentalism, long speculations about sex from sociobiologists, and enough humping bonobo apes to warm Peter Singer's, well, cockles.
The rest is rife with error. The Discovery Institute, a non-profit founded by old Reagan-hand Bruce Chapman, and a center for Intelligent Design science (more about this in a moment), has published a 150-page critique of "Evolution" documenting its numerous factual errors, historical distortions, suppositions masquerading as scientific proof and wholly gratuitous condescension toward the religious beliefs of the vast majority of the American people. For those interested, the full Evolution errata can be accessed online. (For purposes of full disclosure, this author is also connected with Discovery Institute.)
There are too many errors in Evolution to itemize here, but let's examine what the producers clearly believe to be their strongest example: the development in bacteria of antibiotic resistance. If one wants to demonstrate evolution in action, as the producers claim, bacteria are certainly the best candidates. Some of these microbes reproduce several times an hour, producing thousands and thousands of generations within a single year. Evolution thus takes us into a tuberculosis-infested Russian jail, and sure enough, the little pests quickly develop resistance to each new drug the doctors introduce. Case closed.
Well, not quite.
All the producers have demonstrated is the quite unexceptional occurrence of what is called micro-evolution, the small changes within species that we see all around us. The most obvious example – one Darwin himself used – is dog breeding. The thousands of different types of dogs extant today were all created, probably from some common wild ancestor, by selective breeding.
The question is, can these relatively small changes within basic species types be extrapolated to macro-evolution – big changes in body types, such as the evolution of birds from reptiles, say, or humans from apes. The fact is, nothing of the sort has ever been observed. Darwinists counter that when dealing with large animals – even fruit flies – there simply isn't enough time. The breeding cycles are too long. Fair enough. But what about bacteria?
With selective breeding, one should be able to produce new species within a reasonable time. Yet – and this the producers don't tell us – it has never been done. As British bacteriologist Alan H. Linton recently remarked, despite multitudes of experiments exposing bacteria to caustic acid baths and intense radiation in order to accelerate mutations, in the "150 years of the science of bacteriology, there is no evidence that one species of bacteria has changed into another."
The producers of Evolution unwittingly give the game away when they remark that the bacteria clearly identifiable as the same as modern TB have been found on a 6,000-year-old Egyptian mummy. Like the Galapagos finch beaks, what we seem to be seeing here is not macro-evolutionary change, but the extraordinary stability of species.
The producers repeat much the same error in a long segment on the HIV virus, which ends with doctors taking their patients off the anti-viral drugs (which appear to do more harm than good) and – voila! – the HIV returns to its original "wild-type." Once again, we have stasis, not evolution.
On other issues, Evolution mostly commits sins of omission (that is, omission of any evidence contrary to the simple story of Darwin's mechanism and "change over time" which they hammer away at endlessly). The program glosses over problems with the fossil record and sidesteps the challenge of the "Cambrian Explosion," in which, in direct contradiction to Darwinian theory, all the major animal groups (phyla) of modern animals appeared in a geologic instant, with no plausible precursors. Searching for a more contemporary spin, the program misstates the universality of DNA as evidence of descent from a common ancestor, when important exceptions that undermine this hypothesis have been known for over 20 years. And on and on.
But of course, the 5,000 pound primate in the middle of the room that the Darwinists won't even mention is what has come to be known as the Intelligent Design movement, or ID for short. In eight hours, I caught only one glancing reference to Intelligent Design in the last episode, and even that was a mischaracterization. For this series, ID is the dog that didn't bark. And from a purely strategic point of view, they are right to ignore it, because once the theory of Intelligent Design is allowed into the debate, Darwin is destined to follow Freud and Marx onto the ash heap of history.
At this point, perhaps, we need to take a time out for some personal information. It is practically axiomatic among Darwinists that the only people who would question Darwinism are religiously motivated, Bible-thumping fundamentalists from out there in those strange red areas of the map. This is a point, indeed, that is endlessly reiterated in various forms throughout the eight hours of Evolution. Everyone else knows – or in the words of Harvard biologist Ernst Mayr, "every educated person" knows – that Darwinian evolution is a "simple fact."
Well, for the record, evolution never offended my religious sensibilities. It seemed to me that if God wanted to create the natural world through a process of evolution, it wasn't my place to tell him no. And, in as much as being a conservative often means emphatically not knowing what "everybody knows" – that missile defense will never work, for example, or that Reagan's tax cuts produced "the worst economy ever" – I long took comfort that, when it came to evolution at least, I was right in line with elite opinion.
The trouble started, as it usually does, when I began to pay attention. In 1996, a molecular biologist at Lehigh University by the name of Michael Behe published a book entitled Darwin's Black Box that raised new and interesting theoretical objections to Darwinism. While the biological details were tough sledding for your average layman (e.g., me), the basic theoretical argument was not. Behe pointed out that the knowledge base in the fields of biochemistry and molecular biology has exploded in size over the last 50 years, leaving Darwinism decades behind on the learning curve. We now know that the cell, for instance, which Darwin thought to be barely more than a lump of protoplasm, is in fact a miracle of nanotechnology, a tiny factory full of miniature machines far more complex than anything human beings could design today.
Behe's striking insight, however, was not simply that these biological systems are complex, but that they are what he calls irreducibly complex. Like many mechanical devices of our own invention, these biological machines are made up of many interlocking parts, each one of which has to be fully developed and integrated into the whole for the machine to function. If one part is taken away, or is not fully developed, the whole mechanism breaks down. For a biological organism, that means it confers zero added survival value.
And there's the rub, because Darwinian evolution assumes that these biological machines developed gradually over millions of years by means of random variation and natural selection. (Even Darwinists agree that the chance of such an assemblage happening all at once in one "lucky accident" is beyond the realm of possibility.) Imagine a car engine developing gradually, and one gets a sense of the difficulty here. You might have the engine block, but if you've got to wait around another million years for the spark plugs or pistons, you're not going anywhere.
There have been many thoughtful critiques of Darwinism over the years, but what Behe had done here was raise a conceptual threshold that the Darwinists had to cross for their theory to retain even theoretical plausibility. Given the stakes, you might expect the Darwinists would be quick to come up with a counter-argument. You might, but five years later you'd still be waiting.
Richard Dawkins, of the above quotation, did give a revealing reply when asked about Behe's book on Ben Wattenberg's program Think Tank:
I'm not the best person equipped to think about it because I'm not a biochemist. … I don't have that biochemical knowledge. Behe has. Behe should stop being lazy and should get up and think for himself about how the flagellum [one of Behe's examples] evolved. …"
In other words, the truth – Darwinian evolution – is preordained and it's the scientists' job to only find the "facts" that fit.
Since that time Dawkins – like the other famous popularizer of Darwin, Stephen Jay Gould – has refused to debate Behe, choosing instead the Darwinists' preferred tactic: They accused him of religion. Both Gould and Dawkins have repeatedly called him a "creationist," which is as good as writing him out of the legitimate scientific community, and has the further benefit of making it unnecessary to actually answer his critique of Darwinism.
Behe is indeed religious. He is a Roman Catholic – as are many scientists who call themselves Darwinists – but he was a Catholic through most of his scientific career when, like many of his colleagues, he unquestioningly accepted Darwinism. He's still a Catholic now that his scientific investigations have led him to reject standard evolutionary theory. Behe doesn't believe in a literalist interpretation of the Bible, accepts what modern geology tells us about the age of the earth, and even believes in some form of common descent. Hardly what most people mean by "creationist."
What does carry uncomfortable religious connotations for avowed atheists like Gould and Dawkins, however, is the scientific outgrowth of Behe's insights, namely the theory of Intelligent Design. This theory simply says that if these biological systems couldn't have developed through purely natural processes, but had to be assembled all at one time (something, as noted above, that chance is simply incapable of doing) then there is a high probability that they were designed. And our experience of the world tells us, every designed artifact must have an intelligence behind it doing the designing.
Who or what that intelligence is obviously has far reaching philosophical implications, but has little to do with the science of Intelligent Design itself, which is silent of the identity of the designer. It might be the Judeo-Christian God, it might be Shiva, it might be some alien intelligence (not so silly as it sounds: Francis Crick, co-discoverer of DNA believes that life was seeded on this planet from outer space) or it might be what physicist Paul Davies speculates is some, as yet undiscovered, "emergent" property in matter itself. (Neither Crick nor Davies are followers of ID, but their problems with Darwinian explanations of life are emblematic of how shaky Darwinian theory actually is.) Intelligent Design scientists themselves cover the range of religious belief and unbelief.
What the theory does say is that design is an empirically testable hypothesis, and in the past several years, a growing body of scientists – in fields as diverse as biology, genetics, mathematics, physics, cosmology and even computer science – has adopted the theory as a fruitful line of investigation.
Interestingly, the mathematicians, physicists and cosmologists have always been more open to such ideas. As the great astronomer Fred Hoyle once said, "there are so many odd coincidences essential to life that some explanation seems required to account for them." Nobel prize laureate Arno Penzias said these coincidences suggested a "supernatural plan." Biology, and the study of how living organisms, including man, came into being, strikes closer to home, however, and this is where the real battleground is today.
Which brings us back to PBS's epic Evolution series and the urgency they feel to – as stated in an internal PBS memorandum – "co-opt [the] existing local dialogue about teaching evolution in schools" with a massive marketing campaign (including "viral" and "guerilla" marketing) aimed at "niche audiences," particularly "educators" and "public officials."
In the past, the courts have been their best allies, ruling "creation science" unfit for public schools because of its religious taint. ID, however, is a different animal altogether, and no matter how often they conflate it with "creationism" they won't be able to beat it back with the "separation of church and state" stick forever. Even the New York Times and Los Angeles Times have run front-page articles on Intelligent Design, acknowledging it as a real scientific endeavor.
But not PBS.
PBS claims there was no stonewall. The producers say that they contacted the Discovery Institute – a center of much of the ID movement – and invited its scientists to participate. Indeed the producers did, but only in the last segment, "What About God," and only to give their personal testaments of faith. In as much as ID is a scientific movement, and not a religious one, the scientists declined. It was an especially wise decision, since the producer of the "What About God?" episode, Bill Jersey, was well known for a 1992 documentary on religious fundamentalism that more or less equated American evangelicals with Muslim terrorists in the Mideast. As it turns out, Mr. Jersey's contribution to Evolution was very much in character, a condescending and offensive look at antievolution fundamentalists and their beliefs.
At a recent PBS press conference I asked the overall series producer, Richard Hutton, why Intelligent Design's scientific critique of evolution was completely ignored. He answered that he'd looked into it and decided there was nothing there. That's one way to decide important scientific disputes – let a TV producer decide.
As it happens, one of the leading ID theorists is University of Chicago-trained mathematician and probability theorist Bill Dembski. He's got multiple Ph.D.s, has published work in the prestigious Cambridge University press and has done postdoctoral work at Cornell, M.I.T., Chicago and Princeton. He is highly regarded in his field for the contributions he's made to the rather arcane field of probability theory. In November he will be publishing a book, No Free Lunch, which applies his theoretic insights to Darwinian evolution. Already, he's got enough enthusiastic blurbs from top scientists to cover several book jackets, but one, from leading Darwinist Michael Ruse, is particularly applicable. Even "those of us who do not accept his conclusions," Ruse writes, "should read this book. … He should not be ignored."
That, of course, is the voice of someone whose first passion is science – the search for true knowledge, wherever it may lead. But for PBS, science is clearly beside the point. It doesn't matter with propaganda if your facts are wrong. With 15 or so million dollars of Paul Allen's money, and a free-ride on America's public airwaves, not to mention the publicly-funded infrastructure of PBS stations and affiliates, no doubt the producers of this series will, for a time at least, "co-opt" the dialogue on evolution. But only for a time. In science, where there is still some respect for facts after all, the truth does have a way of coming out in the end.
Josh Gilder was a Reagan speechwriter and is the former editor of the American Spectator.
© 2001 Josh Gilder. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. File Date: 11.06.01

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Good to read your reply Timbaktu. I understand that you have questions regarding evolution, but I think that they spring from a lack of understanding of what science is. Please don't misunderstand, I don't mean that in an insulting way. A large part of the public do not understand the details of how science works and I believe that is one of the reasons why many people think evolution is simply a myth.

ok good, so you do admit that nothing in science is 100%, and its mostly based on evidence supporting the hypothesis or theory.

Well I'm not "admitting" it, I'm stating it!

In saying that I "admit" it, you make it sound as if I was somehow trying to hide the fact and after being hard pressed confessed to it. That's not at all the case. Actually I was the first one to make this fact clear in this thread! (if you dare to go back in this thread, you'll see I explained this to Alchemist)

The fact that nothing in science is 100% true is exactly what makes it science and is a great asset. It effectively means that scientists are always skeptical, not just about evolution, but about everything in science including the theory of gravity. In other words, science is always able to accomodate new evidence as it arises and change the theories accordingly. Again, you might see it as a weakness, but in fact it is the greatest strength of science. By changing theories as new evidence arises, we can come closer to how the world really works and use it to make our lives easier. Imagine if science didn't change, we'd still be stuck with old theories and no progress would ever be made!

The reason I brought forward this essential component of science, is to show you what science means when it says that a theory is "fact". It does not mean that the theory is 100% true (because nothing in science is 100% true) rather it means that the theory is overwhelmingly substantiated.

For example the theory of gravity is considered fact. But it is not 100% true, because we cannot be absolutely sure that if we drop a rock tomorrow it will not suddenly fly upwards instead of falling down. But we can be 99.9% percent sure that it won't fly upwards, because we've only ever observed it falling down. That's why the theory of gravity is considered fact by scientists.

The same is true with the fact of evolution. It is considered fact because it has overwhelming evidence to support it. Not because it is absolutely 100% true.

And science is not mostly based on evidence (or observations if you will), it is only based on evidence.

That still leaves the window open the scientists might one day change their view of evolution in the light of new found evidence.

Principly you're right, but this is like saying that because the theory of gravity is science, it leaves the window open that scientists might one day change their view of it. As you probably agree, this is a silly notion. Gravity is so overwhelmingly established, that it is highly unlikely that they ever will change.

The same is true for the fact of evolution (FoE). Of course we can't be absolutely sure it won't change, but with all the evidence we have it's very unlikely.

So when scientists talk of fact, they only mean that its probability is so extremely high that they are not bothered by doubting it and are ready to act accordingly.

Just like you in your day to day life probably aren't bothered doubting gravity. You know that if you jump out a window, the probability that you will fall to the ground is extremely high.

Your argument might be appropiate in a philosophy class (it is essentially correct) but in the real world it won't do.

although Alchemist has posed many questions which still haven't been answered satisfactorily such as the complexity of single cell and evidance for speciation.

Timbaktu, I'm not sure how closely you've followed this thread, but these questions have already been answered numerous times in this thread. I know because I've personally answered them myself more than once.

Now you say that they haven't been answered to your satisfaction. I completely accept that. But, I don't know which parts of the answers I've given that weren't to your satisfaction, and because we're having a discussion I therefore ask you to please point those out. If you haven't seen my answers (and I don't judge you if you haven't, it is a long thread) I'll be happy to dig them up and post them again.

Also, if you want to continue this discussion, let us focus on one or two questions at a time. I say this because I've noticed that when I've responded to a question, the answer is ignored and suddenly 5 new questions will be posted. I'm sure you'll agree that this is not how a proper discussion is carried out. It will be easier for both of us if we carry a question through to the end before going on about another question.

ofcourse one has to accept material evidence because science is basically to do with the physical world.

You are exactly right.

However the way one interpretes that evidence and draws conclusions from the evidence is something else.

You are right that evidence can be interpreted in different ways. But to interpret evidence as being in favour of supernatural phenomenon is not science. As you stated yourself before, science deals with the natural world. Therefore we cannot utilize supernatural explanations to account for evidence, or state that some evidence substantiates supernatural intervention.

This has nothing to do with conforming btw, it's simply how science works.

We have to have an open mind about such issues and consider the implication of a scientific theory on society.

Yeah, I agree.

Given that nothing in science is 100%, a theory such as evolution theory shouldn't be supported just because its the atheist's or secularists favourite tool to discredit those with beliefs in a diety.

Well no theory should be supported simply because atheists or secularists or religious people for that matter use it as tool. Rather a theory should be supported if there is evidence to support it.

Also, remember that there are many, many people who are religious and believe in God as well as evolution. E.g. I posted a lecture above of a Biologist who's a Catholic and believes in evolution. Also I and ScimitarXEdge are examples.

About earth being flat, I don't think Alchemist takes it to mean that the shape of the earth is flat. well earth can be flat depending on if your describing whole of the earth and its shape or a tiny portion of the earth such as your room floor. If Alchemist believes earth is flat and then uses Quran as the proof to say its flat. well that's circular logic and I am sure someone as learned as Alchemist won't make that mistake. He is just messing with you guys.

Well Timbaktu won't you agree that this messing about has gone on long enough then? The fact remains that he has stated that the Quran says the Earth is flat. Since Alchemist believes the Quran, he must also believe that the Earth is flat.

If he truly doesn't believe the Earth is flat, why doesn't he just say so? Why does keep refusing to answer it straight out? You must agree that this is not reasonable. This is not a way to honestly approach a discussion.

I am no evolution expert but I am just gaining knowledge, by reading your debates and other material.

And I'm very happy that you're trying to gain knowledge on this subject.

I said the same thing to faye earlier on. I'm very happy that people ask questions because that's the only way to learn. I'm very happy that people are sceptical because that's how people should be when dealing with science.

[ScimitarXEdge]

I assume you are asking for a credible "scientist"?

Amazon.com: Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth? (9780895262769): Jonathan Wells: Books

He has a Ph.D in Molecular and Cell Biology. (OK, he has another Ph.D in religious studies too :P)

I Said CREDIBLE Scientist not pseudoscience nutjob

Icons of Evolution is a pseudoscientific[1] book by the intelligent design advocate and fellow of the Discovery Institute, Jonathan Wells, and a 2002 video about the book. In the book, Wells criticized the paradigm of evolution by attacking how it is taught.[2] In 2000, Wells summarized the book's contents in an article in the American Spectator.[3]

Furthermore:

Scientists quoted in the work have accused Wells' of purposely misquoting them and misleading readers.[4] This includes biologist Bruce Grant, who said Wells was "dishonest" with his work[12] and biologist Jerry Coyne who said Wells "misused" and "mischaracterized" his work on peppered moths.[13][14] Specific rejections stand beside the already broader response of the scientific community in overwhelmingly rejecting intelligent design[15] as a valid scientific theory, instead seeing it as pseudoscience.[16]

So he uses intellectual dishonesty in his writings; which hinders CREDIBILITY.

How about this

Amazon.com: No Free Lunch: Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased without Intelligence (9780742512979): William A. Dembski: Books

I think he has three Ph.Ds ...or four...not sure.

Now this is what Appeal to Authority is; claiming that merely because they have PhD's their conjectures are equivalent to Peer Reviewed REPRODUCIBLE research.


read the following:

One of the common objections to intelligent design being accepted as valid science is that ID proponents have published no scientific papers in the peer-reviewed scientific literature in support of their conjectures. The ruling in the 2005 Dover trial, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, found that intelligent design had not been tested by the process of being published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal and was not supported by any peer-reviewed research, data or publications.[50][51] Despite the Dover trial ruling, the Discovery Institute lists Dembski's 1998 book The Design Inference under the heading "Peer-Reviewed Scientific Books Supportive of Intelligent Design Published by Trade Presses or University Presses".[52] The Discovery Institute describes Dembski as a mathematician and philosopher, who includes in his credentials postdoctoral work in physics and in computer science, and a B.A. in psychology.[53][54]

So next time you give examples of academically credible; dont present people who have degrees, Present people who have Peer Reviewed Research in support of their claims.

[Alchemist]

Basically your objection is not to what he says. Not his arguments. But what his opponents say of him. Even though he has a Ph.D in biology he is not Credible because he does not have the consensus of those who agree with evolution?
Rather than checking if he has actually misquoted someone, you just take him as guilty as charged. More bias on your own part.
So ou just like to split hair. Obviously if you want you will forever continue to find excuses to believe what you want to, despite the evidence. According evolutionists anyone who believes in Creation can't be considered a real scientist. Circular Logic dictates that no "real" scientist will reject evolution for the very fact that he rejects evolution means that he is not a real scientist. Henry Morris, John Morris, Larry Vardiman, Steve Austin, and Duane Gish are not scientists because they believe in Creation. Michael Behe, Andrew Snelling, Donald deYoung, and Kurt Wise are not scientists because they reject evolution.


In any case, even if he wasn't a scientist, his arguments are correct. "Icons" of Evolution, are those faked and incorrect "experiments" and "evidences" of Evolution that have long since been debunked but still believed to be true.


Anyway since you asked for a scientist who has written a book against evolution AND written to a PEER REVIEWED JOURNAL in support of his claims:

meet John C. Sanford

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Sanford

His book:

http://www.amazon.ca/Genetic-Entropy-Mystery-Genome-Sanford/dp/1599190028

his PEER REVIWED papers:

1. ^ Sanford, J.C., Baumgardner, J., Gibson, P., Brewer, W., ReMine, W. (2007). Mendel's Accountant: a biologically realistic forward-time population genetics program. SCPE 8(2): 147-165. http://www.scpe.org.
2. ^ Sanford, J.C., Baumgardner, J., Gibson, P., Brewer, W., ReMine, W. (2007). Using computer simulation to understand mutation accumulation dynamics and genetic load. In Shi et al. (Eds.), ICCS 2007, Part II, LNCS 4488 (pp.386-392), Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg.

I remember when I was in Grade 5, a friend of mine had bought a book on evolution. When he first told me that in the future humans would turn completely bald, with no hair, green skinned with long digits, I said he was making it up. So he brought the book to me, and it showed pictures of what the world would look like millions of years from now. Humans would have bulgy mid sections because they are not used to walking much and always using vehicles. It was must retarded book ever and it was written by a "Scientist".

If anyone is making an Appeal to Authority. It was you Scimitar. You and Sun and Goat. You kept asking for "Real" scientist who didn't believe in evolution. I would rather discuss what the theory it self is, but you are more interested in who believes in it. And where is your proof from PEER REVIEWED JOURNALS? Just because a paper is in one, doesn't mean it is free from bias and tantamount to Divine Truth. I would love to read an article that you think shows definitive proof for speciation. You have access to the journals since you are in school still...why don't you download some and email them to me.