[quote]orion wrote:
Why don´t we have eyes like an octopus then? A blind spot seems to be a major design flaw.
[/quote]
Nah, you just haven’t worked out what it’s for yet. (It turns out it’s used for not seeing things.)
[quote]orion wrote:
apbt55 wrote:
ninearms wrote:
apbt55 wrote:
ninearms wrote:
apbt55 wrote:
ninearms wrote:
RebornTN wrote:
Question: Why can’t we apply big bang logic to the birth of species? If the universe could come out of nothing, why could a butterfly not?
– Honest question alert end–
Because the evidence suggests otherwise.
Why would a designer give a whale hip bones? In case they decided to add legs later?
ball and socket joint very uncommon.
What? It’s not uncommon at all.
I know it was sarcasm
Then I don’t get your point.
Well if you’re looking at it from a single designer stand point, then things that could be similar would be. And you would use the most efficient model available.
Why don´t we have eyes like an octopus then? A blind spot seems to be a major design flaw.
[/quote]
Because its really funny to see someone get hit in the face with a ball they didn’t see coming.
Jokes aside, evaluating and judging the design of something as complex as a living organism over the time-span of eternity, throughout all environments future and past, is a task above everyone’s head.
As for the whale legs thing, maybe he had a bunch of spare parts lying around, ever seen a platypus?
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
As for the whale legs thing, maybe he had a bunch of spare parts lying around, ever seen a platypus?[/quote]
What sort of intelligent designer would have spare parts lying around? That’s just bad planning. Besides, he could have made a giant centipede that was a mile long, which would have been way more awesome.
[quote]ninearms wrote:
DoubleDuce wrote:
As for the whale legs thing, maybe he had a bunch of spare parts lying around, ever seen a platypus?
What sort of intelligent designer would have spare parts lying around? That’s just bad planning. Besides, he could have made a giant centipede that was a mile long, which would have been way more awesome.
[/quote]
So you don’t believe in intelligent design, but moderately witted design is still a posibility?
Let’s see pretty basic.
physiological design: the design of a physiological system (e.g., hemocomponents and blood viscocity, angular movement of the hinge joint, facilitation through adenosine at the premuscular synapse during maximal contraction.)
The idea of mimicry in chemical and mechanical engineering. Using the design premise seen in these physiological systems as the underlying design premise for mechanical or chemical systems.
sorry if it was confusing the way it was worded before.
the whale question:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v20/i3/whale_leg.asp
I know you will be skeptical give the name of the journal creation, imagine my skeptisism from the names of some journals you may provide.
seems many of these bones serve as anchors for organs. In some species anchors for sex organs.
[quote]apbt55 wrote:
the whale question:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v20/i3/whale_leg.asp
I know you will be skeptical give the name of the journal creation, imagine my skeptisism from the names of some journals you may provide.
seems many of these bones serve as anchors for organs. In some species anchors for sex organs.[/quote]
That’s a specious argument. In fact, it actually supports the theory that the bone is a pelvis: the genital muscles always attach to the pelvis.
Here’s a ton of reading on the evolution of whales, including photos of whales with vestigal limbs:
[quote]ninearms wrote:
apbt55 wrote:
the whale question:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v20/i3/whale_leg.asp
I know you will be skeptical give the name of the journal creation, imagine my skeptisism from the names of some journals you may provide.
seems many of these bones serve as anchors for organs. In some species anchors for sex organs.
That’s a specious argument. In fact, it actually supports the theory that the bone is a pelvis: the genital muscles always attach to the pelvis.
Here’s a ton of reading on the evolution of whales, including photos of whales with vestigal limbs:
http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/whales/
[/quote]
But the whole problem with the evidence being shown is that it could also logically be used to support or at least not refute to be more correct the idea of a single designer.
If you can’t admit that the evidence could be used to support both arguments then there is blatent bias on your part.
I can freely admit that much of the evidence supports the theory of evolution. At one point all of the gatherable evidence supported the theory that the earth was flat.
But theories about the origin of man and earth will never be anything more than that. Whether it be religious faith or faith in some theory supposedly shrouded in science.
[quote]apbt55 wrote:
ninearms wrote:
apbt55 wrote:
the whale question:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v20/i3/whale_leg.asp
I know you will be skeptical give the name of the journal creation, imagine my skeptisism from the names of some journals you may provide.
seems many of these bones serve as anchors for organs. In some species anchors for sex organs.
That’s a specious argument. In fact, it actually supports the theory that the bone is a pelvis: the genital muscles always attach to the pelvis.
Here’s a ton of reading on the evolution of whales, including photos of whales with vestigal limbs:
http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/whales/
But the whole problem with the evidence being shown is that it could also logically be used to support or at least not refute to be more correct the idea of a single designer.
If you can’t admit that the evidence could be used to support both arguments then there is blatent bias on your part.
I can freely admit that much of the evidence supports the theory of evolution. At one point all of the gatherable evidence supported the theory that the earth was flat.
But theories about the origin of man and earth will never be anything more than that. Whether it be religious faith or faith in some theory supposedly shrouded in science. [/quote]
I don’t see how useless vestigal limbs in whales supports the idea of a desgner in any way.
The evidence may be used to support both sides of the argument, but it doesn’t mean the evidence actually supports both sides.
[quote]ninearms wrote:
apbt55 wrote:
ninearms wrote:
apbt55 wrote:
the whale question:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v20/i3/whale_leg.asp
I know you will be skeptical give the name of the journal creation, imagine my skeptisism from the names of some journals you may provide.
seems many of these bones serve as anchors for organs. In some species anchors for sex organs.
That’s a specious argument. In fact, it actually supports the theory that the bone is a pelvis: the genital muscles always attach to the pelvis.
Here’s a ton of reading on the evolution of whales, including photos of whales with vestigal limbs:
http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/whales/
But the whole problem with the evidence being shown is that it could also logically be used to support or at least not refute to be more correct the idea of a single designer.
If you can’t admit that the evidence could be used to support both arguments then there is blatent bias on your part.
I can freely admit that much of the evidence supports the theory of evolution. At one point all of the gatherable evidence supported the theory that the earth was flat.
But theories about the origin of man and earth will never be anything more than that. Whether it be religious faith or faith in some theory supposedly shrouded in science.
I don’t see how useless vestigal limbs in whales supports the idea of a desgner in any way.
The evidence may be used to support both sides of the argument, but it doesn’t mean the evidence actually supports both sides. [/quote]
Ok your right there is unequivoqual empirical evidence supporting the theory of evolution, how blind I must be.
You are right because you are right and the data could mean nothing else.
That is a stoneage view of things.
Good argument
So what are we actually discussing now? The existence of God? No good scientist is going to say this is NO God, there’s not enough scientific evidence to back that assertion up.
I think the problem is that people are trying to warp this to fit the Bible. The good book was written by several different people over several hundred years in several different continents. Get over it.
Inspired by the “Intelligent Design” topic.
Allright. People who are new to the origins question are often referred to this site 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: The Scientific Case for Common Descent for a breakdown of why to believe evolution is the real deal. So it is an authoritative site,and has been referenced by textbooks since the 90’s.
So I’m going to act like Talkorigins lays out the evidence that is appreciated by most everyone in the pro-evolution community. Talkorigins actually does not include everything ever described as evidence in reputable literature. The textbook “Evolutionary Biology” (Futuyama 1998) cited by Talkorigins actually classifies phenomena such as extinctions as evidence for evolution while hinting that it does not sound like the work of a benevolent creator.
I can’t argue against nearly all of that is printed but I can argue against some of it.
-Let’s start with the evidence from “nested hierarchies”.
Now though this is proudly presented at that site,what I’ve noticed in my own research that pro-evolution books spanning decades (there were many “let’s hand it to the creationists” books published from the 80’s on) often did not mention this at all,or only in passing. And textbooks either do not or rarely do.
In Darwin’s “Origin” book he only makes a short vague reference to this line of evidence.
Now this is not to say that this evidence is not for real,but apparently a lot of people did not find it important enough to print.
-A few comments about anatomical homologies and analogies.
[quote]a strong falsification would be if it were positively demonstrated that the primitive structures of an organism’s predicted ancestors could not be reasonably modified into the modern organism’s derived structures. A clear fanciful example, though completely serious, is the macroevolutionary impossibility of ever finding an animal such as a Pegasus. Since a Pegasus would be a mammal closely related to the horse, its wings would be considered derived characters. However, Pegasus wings cannot be modifications of its ancestors’ structures, since the immediate predicted ancestors of Pegasi and horses had no possible structures there to modify (Futuyma 1998, p. 110). [/quote] This carefully crafted argument is hard to falsify. If such a Pegasus horse was ever found, then it could be easy to prescribe evolution as an explanation and posit the existence of intermediates which may never be found. Nobody can truly say that this or that could or could not have evolved. Additionally,tweaking something out of the old structures eventually goes back to the origin of life itself. The first single celled organisms did not evolve to men by exploiting the existing structures,but by evolving new genes. Another fact of relevance is that many men of considerable stature in the evolutionary community have been prescribing ‘hopeful monsters’ as a solution to fossil record gaps,and that a lot of the major bodyplans appear very quickly in the fossil record during the cambrian explosion without clues of intermediates and ancestral forms. Sprouting wings on a horse would be a taxonomically small change relative to the evolution of a new phyla. The evidence cited is a fairly desperate case and not much discussed on paper.
-29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: Part 3
Now a lot of perceived ‘poor design’ in animals is brushed off as evolution. Only one example is presented on that site. This perceived evidence begs the question of what counts as good design then,possibly everything else? Presenting cases of ‘bad design’ that a ‘smart God would not do’ ultimately leads to Superman,who in turn could be turned up as evidence for evolution due to his vulnerability to kryptonite.
-About fossil transitionals:
Some of these,such as the transition from dinosaurs to birds,are disputed by others,who find problems despite what most others may consider compelling fossil evidence. A possible answer to that is that they still believe evolution. True as it is, it is a fair reason for doubting the transitional status of some fossils. Believe as he may,one man’s transitional fossil may not always be another’s.
In addition,numerous instances of fossil transitions that may be described as speciation,genus level or family level transitions are small differences in size and shape, or something like the disappearance of an animal’s tooth. Furthermore,some of these may be down due to enviromental variation with the same species taking on a different form when situated in a new enviroment,which is observed in living species. No evolution there,just a flexible genotype.
-About continuum or lack of,in general:
An often lamented problem is the lack of smooth transitions between “species”. What is more damning is the lack of transitions between major bodyplans. According to Darwin,human races are different enough to be reasonably classified as different species so if someone were to argue that smooth transitions between species are likely to get lost in the fossil record,they would have a fair argument. A larger problem is the lack of transitions among major groups of animals,up to the phyla level. Curiously,there are tens of cases of ‘living fossil’ species alive that seem similar to fossils up to hundreds of millions of years old, but no animals (with a few largely forgotten candidates) that show transitions between major groups of animals such as fish to amphibians, which would have taken drastically longer than comparatively tiny species to species changes like from an earlier species of human to the reigning one,and would have left behind an impressive number of intermediates.
-Biogeographical evidence:
While a lot of biogeographical data from fossils and the living world may be consistent with evolution,it does not mean that it necessitates evolution. There are also some difficulties posed by biogeography; like the fact that new world monkeys “are currently conjectured to have migrated across the Atlantic Ocean to South America on a raft of vegetation similar to the vast pieces of floating mangrove forest that storms occasionally break off from the tropical African coast.”
-Vestigial organs.
This is probably the most conflicted and dated argument for evolution. Back in the old days, it was confidently asserted that things like the human appendix or the whale’s pelvis are useless or insignificant at best. When knowledge improved,the argument has taken on a more sophisticated form. Now it may be argued that yes,that and that structure is not useless but if it was not for evolution,it would not be performing the function it is now doing. This claim is pretty much impossible to falsify. Another take is saying that the function,despite there being one,is not very significant. But it is very hard to say what significant is supposed to be. Heads or tails,evolution wins.
Despite the elusiveness of some definitions, some textbooks and even those pro-evolution books quite clearly came to say that since structure X has now been found a function,it is no longer considered a vestige. Long ago, some even proposed classifying so-called atavisms as true vestiges upon recognizing the problems with the old and contemporary definitions.
[quote]orion wrote:
RebornTN wrote:
orion wrote:
RebornTN wrote:
duffyj2 wrote:
My point is that if the theories aren’t testable, then they aren’t science.
I know. But saying that people who believe in evolution are just as illogical as people who believe in ID is ridiculous. Evolution is a VERY, VERY well educated guess. It is based on observation, research and reason. ID is not.
The observation, research and reason you claim to have is as credible as the bible and the reported eye witness testimonies; researching into history of the culture of people’s whom follow ID, and the reasoning they have for such.
If you really need top believe that, please continue to do that.
Once you are ready to open your mind:
Once you are ready to get rid of your superiority complex, come back and talk to me.
I don’t need to believe anything. You need to believe your right.
Look, I actually took the time to look into the ET, you clearly didn´t.
I really cannot rehash the same fallacious arguments I have seen posted over and over and over again.
Look at that website and get at least your most erroneous assumptions out of the way and then we can talk.
And I do not need to believe that I am right, I only need to believe that I am not so desperate to come to a conclusion that I ignore information that is at my fingertip.
And you know what?
As long as that is the case I am superior to you, at least when it comes to the ET.
And again:
http://www.talkorigins.org/ [/quote]
What is my conclusion again? You seem to know it so well.
Keep citing your same page. Please, if it makes you feel so “superior” continue. I am trying to discuss and learn, you are trying to soothe your ego.
[quote]ninearms wrote:
DoubleDuce wrote:
As for the whale legs thing, maybe he had a bunch of spare parts lying around, ever seen a platypus?
What sort of intelligent designer would have spare parts lying around? That’s just bad planning. Besides, he could have made a giant centipede that was a mile long, which would have been way more awesome.
[/quote]
What fun would perfection be?
[quote]RebornTN wrote:
ninearms wrote:
DoubleDuce wrote:
As for the whale legs thing, maybe he had a bunch of spare parts lying around, ever seen a platypus?
What sort of intelligent designer would have spare parts lying around? That’s just bad planning. Besides, he could have made a giant centipede that was a mile long, which would have been way more awesome.
What fun would perfection be?[/quote]
I see,so the imperfection is all part of the intelligent design,because the designer has an impish sense of humour.
Got it,now it all makes sense.
[quote]RebornTN wrote:
What fun would perfection be?[/quote]
You tell me, your avitar comes pretty close to perfection
[quote]apbt55 wrote:
the whale question:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v20/i3/whale_leg.asp
I know you will be skeptical give the name of the journal creation, imagine my skeptisism from the names of some journals you may provide.
seems many of these bones serve as anchors for organs. In some species anchors for sex organs.[/quote]
You cited answersingenesis… oh boy. Of course I am going to be skeptical, because it’s garbage. Instant loss of credibility. I mean, are you honestly going to take the opinions of people who believe the story of Noah’s Ark actually happened seriously (i.e. they are crazy), as opposed to those holding doctorates in the respective fields of study? The people at answersingenesis begin with their conclusion, and then try to ‘interpret’ the evidence so that it fits with their fantastical world view. It’s a complete backwards perversion of the scientific method, and should be labeled a such.
Imagine your skepticism of peer-reviewed scientific journals? Are you kidding me here? Peer-review is exactly what keeps the garbage you find on many ‘creation’ websites out of the scientific literature. I have an honest question for you. At the end of many an article on this website, there are references from the peer-reviewed scientific literature. Are you equally skeptical about these journal articles, and thus about the article on the website in general as you are about journal articles regarding evolutionary biology, which may be opposed to a literal interpretation of genesis (what answers in genesis is all about).
[quote]Fergy wrote:
apbt55 wrote:
the whale question:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v20/i3/whale_leg.asp
I know you will be skeptical give the name of the journal creation, imagine my skeptisism from the names of some journals you may provide.
seems many of these bones serve as anchors for organs. In some species anchors for sex organs.
You cited answersingenesis… oh boy. Of course I am going to be skeptical, because it’s garbage. Instant loss of credibility. I mean, are you honestly going to take the opinions of people who believe the story of Noah’s Ark actually happened seriously (i.e. they are crazy), as opposed to those holding doctorates in the respective fields of study? The people at answersingenesis begin with their conclusion, and then try to ‘interpret’ the evidence so that it fits with their fantastical world view. It’s a complete backwards perversion of the scientific method, and should be labeled a such.
Imagine your skepticism of peer-reviewed scientific journals? Are you kidding me here? Peer-review is exactly what keeps the garbage you find on many ‘creation’ websites out of the scientific literature. I have an honest question for you. At the end of many an article on this website, there are references from the peer-reviewed scientific literature. Are you equally skeptical about these journal articles, and thus about the article on the website in general as you are about journal articles regarding evolutionary biology, which may be opposed to a literal interpretation of genesis (what answers in genesis is all about).[/quote]
Exactly what most evolutionist try to do, that has by my argument this whole time.
They are taking a theory and then trying to use evidence to support it. And if it doesn’t they just don’t use it.
Both concepts are based on faith not on science in the truest sense of the word because we cannot replicate. If you cannot admit that then there is no hope for you and I would never want to use any research you supported.
A journal titled evolutionary biology holds the same weight to me. Peer reviewed by a bunch of other evolutionary scientist trying to add credibility to their theory just as biased as any creationist journal. Get it through your skull, these journals are no better.
I am an analytical scientist and a pragmatist. But when it comes to questions that can not truly be answered scientifically my faith pulls me in another direction.
When I conduct research I exam the process. Design balanced studies and analyze the results to see what they say.
Most research is not conducted in this way especially research looking at evolution. The experiments are designed to yield the results you want or at least so they can be interpreted that way.
Hell have of there analysis used iterative functions for algorithm’s with a predertmined range of answers. Great science there.
I say this with the greatest sincerety open your eyes. Evolution as an explanation for origin is just as much a faith based theory as God, or aliens giving us life here.
[quote]apbt55 wrote:
Exactly what most evolutionist try to do, that has by my argument this whole time.[/quote]
I am as much an ‘evolutionist’ as I am an ‘atomnist’ or a ‘gravitationalist’ or a ‘germist’. I laugh every time I see this word used.
You seem to have things backwards here.
The theory of evolution is supported by an overwhelming amount of evidence. I fail to see how faith plays any part in this whatsoever.
[quote]A journal titled evolutionary biology holds the same weight to me. Peer reviewed by a bunch of other evolutionary scientist trying to add credibility to their theory just as biased as any creationist journal. Get it through your skull, these journals are no better.
[/quote]
I was not aware that it was ‘their’ theory. I mean, it’s all just a conspiracy to push the views of a some evolutionary biologists onto everyone, right? Give me a break.
Also, evolution has nothing to do with the origin of life. That’s abiogenesis.