…how did Archaeopteryx develop feathers? Earlier dinosaurs all had scaled skins, so how did that happen?
[quote]ephrem wrote:
…do you actually read my posts? I’ve admitted my ignorance on the subject, and my ambiguity on whether he’s right or wrong. Please pause before you hit the reply button because you are getting silly. So you have the mistaken identity of one fossil that the scientific community now believes is a flightless bird, and not a feathered dinosaur, that existed before the supposed ancestors of birds were even alive. Shame on me for posting that picture…
…just tell me something: how does this refute evolution?
[/quote]
What? read your posts? Why would I stop a perfectly good rant to consider what you were actually trying to say? j/k - found a rabbit trail and ran that puppy down until I couldn’t go any further . . . sorry - my enthusiasm for warm rabbit blood sometimes blinds me to the issues at hand . . .that was disturbing . .
Anyway - the point I was trying to make was that evolutionists can’t even get the theory agreed upon amongst themselves - and more importantly - we are still missing the key proof of transitional species . . and thirdly being in the minority doesn’t mean you’re wrong. . .I guess that was three points. . .
Was I supposed to refute evolution? Maybe tomorrow - I’m a bit tied up at the moment
[quote]ephrem wrote:
…how did Archaeopteryx develop feathers? Earlier dinosaurs all had scaled skins, so how did that happen?[/quote]
not my theory - someone else want to explain the strange?
[quote]ephrem wrote:
…how did Archaeopteryx develop feathers? Earlier dinosaurs all had scaled skins, so how did that happen?[/quote]
Recent Creation Science studies suggest that Archaeopteryx was actually a Compsagnathus that prayed to his Creator for feathers.
[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
ephrem wrote:
…do you actually read my posts? I’ve admitted my ignorance on the subject, and my ambiguity on whether he’s right or wrong. Please pause before you hit the reply button because you are getting silly. So you have the mistaken identity of one fossil that the scientific community now believes is a flightless bird, and not a feathered dinosaur, that existed before the supposed ancestors of birds were even alive. Shame on me for posting that picture…
…just tell me something: how does this refute evolution?
What? read your posts? Why would I stop a perfectly good rant to consider what you were actually trying to say? j/k - found a rabbit trail and ran that puppy down until I couldn’t go any further . . . sorry - my enthusiasm for warm rabbit blood sometimes blinds me to the issues at hand . . .that was disturbing . . [/quote]
…you drinking again?
[quote]Anyway - the point I was trying to make was that evolutionists can’t even get the theory agreed upon amongst themselves - and more importantly - we are still missing the key proof of transitional species . . and thirdly being in the minority doesn’t mean you’re wrong. . .I guess that was three points. . .
Was I supposed to refute evolution? Maybe tomorrow - I’m a bit tied up at the moment[/quote]
…‘theory’ does that, it changes when new evidence is submitted. That allows for progress and that leads to increased knowledge about our origins. Something i find much more interesting than ‘God did it’ to be honest…
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
ephrem wrote:
…how did Archaeopteryx develop feathers? Earlier dinosaurs all had scaled skins, so how did that happen?
Recent Creation Science studies suggest that Archaeopteryx was actually a Compsognathus that prayed to his Creator for feathers.[/quote]
[quote]ephrem wrote:
…you drinking again?
…‘theory’ does that, it changes when new evidence is submitted. That allows for progress and that leads to increased knowledge about our origins. Something i find much more interesting than ‘God did it’ to be honest…
[/quote]
no more, no less . . .well, maybe a little more . . .
Ahh, but you see, you don’t believe God did it - you’ve never placed yourself into the mindset and then asked the logical questions that would result from it. That is why people rarely understand it each other - we only see from where our eyes are or have been . . .
You get it all wrong because you assume that just because we say God did it - that that suffices as an answer to all questions - WRONG
Lemme splain - see, if God did it - ok, that tells me why it is - but it does not tell me how, when, where, or what. God is the why of life - and we still get to learn the rest. That’s why a person with a love of truth and a knowledge of the Divine will know this world far better than anyone else - - this of course assumes the intellectual discipline, etc - but that is a different thread . .
Evolution has no why . . . you are trying to get to a why, but never can. Why is there matter/energy - you don’t know, Why is there life - you don’t know. Why is there pain and evil - you don’t know. You come up with the what, where when and how answers, but at the end the why line is still blank . . .
For the most part it’s seems this discussion is about young earth (no dinos) creationists vs. evolution. However, do deists count as creationists in the broad sense? I suppose they could believe the deity/whatever had absolutely no hand, at any point, in the universe’s and our existence, but atheism seems the home for such thought.
Again, the discussion seems limited to young earth creationism (of which I don’t subscribe to). But, I’m just wondering how broadly the label could fit.
And isn’t our Declaration of Independence creationist (maybe not young earth creationsim, but still!) propoganda?
[quote]pushharder wrote:
DrSkeptix wrote:
pushharder wrote:
Ephrem, your ignorance on the subject matter is in full regal display here if you are convinced Archaeopteryx is a valid transitional form. It is NOT the example you want to use in this debate and you’re making a laughingstock of yourself. So much for the Dutch educational system for which you are so proud.
Seriously, more study is in store for you before you can compete in the arena of this debate.
Repeat: the theory that Archaeopteryx is a intermediary life form that substantiates macroevolution has been thoroughly debunked and even hard core evolutionists shy from using Archaeopteryx as intellectual ammo like a vampire in front of a barn-sized crucifix. In other words, Archaeopteryx is so passe.
You need to look elsewhere for evidence of the Great Myth.
“Paleontologists suggest that it was an intermediate form…”
A more accurate statement would be “Some Paleontologists…”
See Doc, when you’re dancing on the dance floor of THEORIES you must remember that not everyone got an invitation to the ball.[/quote]
If one demands unanimity of opinion, one will never find it in science; unanimous opinion is the province of religion, or totalitarianism. To demand it is a failure, not of fact, but of judgment.
I might come up with a dozen examples, and not one would be universally exceptable as “proof.” Remember, the question is whether an example is falsifiable, not verifiable. So if I produced fossils of fish-like creatures with radii and ulnae, or 7 carpal rays instead of the vertebrate 5, one could not disprove their importance as examples of evolution, and no one could verify that they were examples of an Intelligent Designer.
Tiktaalik has features of both fish and amphibians. It is not a fraud. But before it was found, “some” ID folks said that there would never be such an example, and there it is. (The “argument from incredulity” is again fallacy.)
[quote]ephrem wrote:
Varqanir wrote:
ephrem wrote:
…how did Archaeopteryx develop feathers? Earlier dinosaurs all had scaled skins, so how did that happen?
Recent Creation Science studies suggest that Archaeopteryx was actually a Compsognathus that prayed to his Creator for feathers.
[/quote]
come on - sophomoric cartoons picking on the other side? I should be ashamed of myself - lol
That was funny - wrong - but funny
[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:
If one demands unanimity of opinion, one will never find it in science; unanimous opinion is the province of religion, or totalitarianism. To demand it is a failure, not of fact, but of judgment.
I might come up with a dozen examples, and not one would be universally exceptable as “proof.” Remember, the question is whether an example is falsifiable, not verifiable. So if I produced fossils of fish-like creatures with radii and ulnae, or 7 carpal rays instead of the vertebrate 5, one could not disprove their importance as examples of evolution, and no one could verify that they were examples of an Intelligent Designer.
Tiktaalik has features of both fish and amphibians. It is not a fraud. But before it was found, “some” ID folks said that there would never be such an example, and there it is. (The “argument from incredulity” is again fallacy.)
[/quote]
and we have a couple of species of walking sharks that use their fins to traverse coral reefs - but that is not proof of a transitional species - merely an adapted one (don’t jump yet).
The difference being that an adaption to an environment in which it already existed does not prove adaption into a NEW environment (from water to air) and into a new respiratory system (from gills to lungs).
[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
ephrem wrote:
…you drinking again?
…‘theory’ does that, it changes when new evidence is submitted. That allows for progress and that leads to increased knowledge about our origins. Something i find much more interesting than ‘God did it’ to be honest…
no more, no less . . .well, maybe a little more . . .
Ahh, but you see, you don’t believe God did it - you’ve never placed yourself into the mindset and then asked the logical questions that would result from it. That is why people rarely understand it each other - we only see from where our eyes are or have been . . .
You get it all wrong because you assume that just because we say God did it - that that suffices as an answer to all questions - WRONG
Lemme splain - see, if God did it - ok, that tells me why it is - but it does not tell me how, when, where, or what. God is the why of life - and we still get to learn the rest. That’s why a person with a love of truth and a knowledge of the Divine will know this world far better than anyone else - - this of course assumes the intellectual discipline, etc - but that is a different thread . .
Evolution has no why . . . you are trying to get to a why, but never can. Why is there matter/energy - you don’t know, Why is there life - you don’t know. Why is there pain and evil - you don’t know. You come up with the what, where when and how answers, but at the end the why line is still blank . . .[/quote]
…you are mistaken, i’m not looking for a why. In Mak’s thread on eastern philosophy i said that truth is unknowable, so looking for a why is pointless to me. I like to know the mechanisms upon which reality rests, i find that an interesting and an honorable pursuit, is all. Understanding however why some people resist the scientific approach towards our origins in favor of irrational metaphysics, that’s a daunting task i tell you…
…i’m off to bed, it’s rise and shine in 6 hours for me. Goodnight!
[quote]Sloth wrote:
For the most part it’s seems this discussion is about young earth (no dinos) creationists vs. evolution. However, do deists count as creationists in the broad sense? I suppose they could believe the deity/whatever had absolutely no hand, at any point, in the universe’s and our existence, but atheism seems the home for such thought.[/quote]
I don’t see why an intelligent person who believes in God can’t just take the position that macroevolution is the method God has chosen to proliferate life. This position would neither deny faith in a creator, nor ignore the preponderance of evidence supporting evolution.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
Ephrem, your ignorance on the subject matter is in full regal display here if you are convinced Archaeopteryx is a valid transitional form. It is NOT the example you want to use in this debate and you’re making a laughingstock of yourself. So much for the Dutch educational system for which you are so proud.
Seriously, more study is in store for you before you can compete in the arena of this debate.
Repeat: the theory that Archaeopteryx is a intermediary life form that substantiates macroevolution has been thoroughly debunked and even hard core evolutionists shy from using Archaeopteryx as intellectual ammo like a vampire in front of a barn-sized crucifix. In other words, Archaeopteryx is so passe.
You need to look elsewhere for evidence of the Great Myth.[/quote]
If you’d like to read my posts earlier in this thread, you’ll see your errors.
Briefly though; all fossils are transitional forms. All beings that have ever lived are transitional forms. It is only the immense scale of time, and extinctions which allow us to seperate animals in to species. Your dad is a transitional form between your grandfather, and you.
The statement that macroevolution has been debunked; by whom? When? Please enlighten me. This is a popular creationist canard and is not true.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
“Paleontologists suggest that it was an intermediate form…”
A more accurate statement would be “Some Paleontologists…”
See Doc, when you’re dancing on the dance floor of THEORIES you must remember that not everyone got an invitation to the ball.[/quote]
Here you illuminate your crucial problem; you have absolutely no understanding about what science is.
In science, a theory is as good as it gets. It’s the best we have. A theory makes sense of all our hypotheses and various bits of knowledge and uses those to allow us to make predictions.
My favourite prediction that evolution made is that concerning human chromosome No. 2. As you know, humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes. Our closest relatives the African apes all have 24 pairs. This creates a problem; what happened to the missing pair? Either each of the other African apes evolved another pair independently (highly unlikely), or somehow we lost a pair. Evolution predicts that one of our chromosomes fused with another. When chromosome number two was being looked at very closely, it was discovered that it had a vestigial (dormant) centromere (the bit that contains the information) in addition to the normal one and it had an area where two telomeres (the bits that say where a chromosome ends) had fused together.
The elegance of the prediction and the facts I find to be beautiful and it is some of the most conclusive evidence for common descent.
Anyway, evolution as a theory allowed us to learn this. What predictions does creationism make? What use does it have in industry, agriculture and sciences?
Some other theories are; germ theory, Einstein’s theories of relativity and… the theory of gravitation.
When you mock scientific theories as being “just” theories you not only demonstrate extreme ignorance, but a worrying lack of regard for some of humanities greatest achievements.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Sloth wrote:
For the most part it’s seems this discussion is about young earth (no dinos) creationists vs. evolution. However, do deists count as creationists in the broad sense? I suppose they could believe the deity/whatever had absolutely no hand, at any point, in the universe’s and our existence, but atheism seems the home for such thought.
I don’t see why an intelligent person who believes in God can’t just take the position that macroevolution is the method God has chosen to proliferate life. This position would neither deny faith in a creator, nor ignore the preponderance of evidence supporting evolution.
[/quote]
Oh, I know. Again, I don’t hold an anti-evolution position myself. But still, believing in a creator (in my case the Christian God) does make me a creationist. I was just wondering if Deists, of the founding father admiring variety, consider themselves creationists.
Using the word “theory” as a synonym for “opinion” is pretty much like using the word “decimate” for “destroy,” “bullet” for “cartridge,” and “shrapnel” for “shell fragment.”
It’s just wrong, dude.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Oh, I know. Again, I don’t hold an anti-evolution position myself. But still, believing in a creator (in my case the Christian God) does make me a creationist. I was just wondering if Deists, of the founding father admiring variety, consider themselves creationists.[/quote]
Here’s what founding father Jefferson (who called himself a Materialist and a Unitarian, not a Deist) had to say about the matter. Take from it what you will.
"I hold (without appeal to revelation) that when we take a view of the universe in its parts, general or particular, it is impossible for the human mind not to perceive and feel a conviction of design, consummate skill, and indefinite power in every atom of its composition. The movements of the heavenly bodies, so exactly held in their course by the balance of centrifugal and centripetal forces; the structure of our earth itself, with its distribution of lands, waters, and atmosphere; animal and vegetable bodies, examined in all their minutest particles; insects, mere atoms of life, yet as perfectly organized as man or mammoth; the mineral substances, their generation and uses it is impossible, I say for the human mind not to believe that there is, in all this, design, cause, and effect, up to an ultimate cause, a Fabricator of all things from matter and motion, their Preserver and Regulator while permitted to exist in their forms, and their regeneration into new and other forms.
"We see, too, evident proofs of the necessity of a superintending power to maintain the universe in its course and order. Stars, well known, have disappeared, new ones have come into view; comets, in their incalculable courses, may run foul of suns and planets, and require renovation under other laws; certain races of animals are become extinct; and were there no restoring power, all of existence might extinguish successively, one by one, until all should be reduced to a shapeless chaos.
“So irresistible are these evidences of an intelligent and powerful Agent that, of the infinite numbers of men who have existed through all time, they have believed, in the hypothesis of a million at least to a unit, in the hypothesis of an eternal pre-existence of a Creator, rather than that of a self-existent universe. Surely this unanimous sentiment renders this more probable than that of the few in the other hypothesis…”
Of course, had Jefferson read On the Origin of Species, published only 33 years after his death, he probably would have found much in it with which he agreed. Old Tom was open-minded like that.