God, Order and Evolution
Joe Galenko
The name of your website (and the website itself) makes no sense. If you
have faith, then reason is irrelevant. If you use reason, then faith is
irrelevant. Faith and reason are two mutually exclusive ways of arriving
at a conclusion.
What some people do, and what it seems you're doing on your website, is
trying to use reason to support what you already believe by faith. A
problem with that though is that it can be easy to misuse and misapply
reason under such circumstances because you're beginning the reasoning
process with a conclusion that you want to reach.
Or, if you claim that you're not beginning the reason process with a
conclusion that you want to reach but that you're ending up reaching that
conclusion anyway, then what is the point of mentioning faith anywhere in
the entire process? It's irrelevant.
But really, I suspect it's the first one...you have faith in something
that you desparately want to be true and therefore you're using reasoning
to try to support it. But if you really believed that reasoning were the
best tool to use, you'd have used it in the first place and never had
faith to begin with.
I'm basically saying the same thing over and over...just as I said in the
first paragraph, faith and reason are mutually exclusive.
On Tue, 10 Apr 2001, John D. Callahan wrote:
> God created the universe with laws (gravity, time, etc.) by which it
> operates; we are able to understand these laws and make discoveries
> about past and future events and phenomena, including evolution.
> Evolution is simply a scientific understanding of our origins. It does
> not make God unnecessary. However, it may mean we need to reevaluate
> Him and our place in the universe. Evolution may imply that the
> universe is bigger and more complex than we at first imagined.
>
> Many Christians, unfortunately, are reluctant to accept modern
> science. Creationists, rather than accepting the ever increasing
> mountain of evidence validating evolution, have developed a new
> tactic: in addition to their religious and creation "science" premise,
> they now spin complex and sophisticated scientific arguments debunking
> evolution ("Intelligent Design Theory"). The Kansas Board of
> Education's 1999 decision removing evolution from their curriculum was
> a short-lived victory for such a strategy.
>
> But is it possible to be a Christian and fully accept modern science
> (including biological evolution and the Big Bang), and a valuable, yet
> non-perfect Bible? A Web site which addresses these issues -- and has
> a pretty good links page to related sites -- is
>
> http://www.faithreason.org (Faith & Reason Ministries)
>
>
Craig Desjardins
"Joe Galenko" <jgal...@bios.unc.edu> wrote in message
news:Pine.GSO.4.21.010410...@amber.bios.unc.edu...
Alex
> But is it possible to be a Christian and fully accept modern science
> (including biological evolution and the Big Bang),
How one can accept "survival of the fittest" and "Love thy neighbour like
thyself" at the same time?
Alex.
Ray and Mary
That one is easy. "Survival of the fittest" is what happens in nature. We
see it all the time. We see the weak animals falling to predators, hunger,
and the weather. We see animals competing for food. We see primates
raping, abusing, and stealing - just like humans who reject God's word,
"Love your neighbor as yourself" is God's commandment to his children. We
reject the self-centered actions of animals in favor of God's way. We don't
do a perfect job of it - which is why Jesus died on the cross for us.
Ray Drouillard.
Alex
> That one is easy. "Survival of the fittest" is what happens in nature. We
> see it all the time. We see the weak animals falling to predators, hunger,
> and the weather. We see animals competing for food. We see primates
> raping, abusing, and stealing - just like humans who reject God's word,
We see strong animals falling to predators and animals hunting in packs and
defending each other in a herd just as well, When I was a child I had a cat who
presented me mice she catched in the night, but who really care about nature? It
is a peculiar feature of western civilization to justify its own actions by
"naturality" As great American anthropologist Salkhnis observed "We are the only
civilization that believes that it emerged from wilderness. All other people
believe thy are descendants of Gods."
Teaching evolution at schools is mere indoctrination with the "survcival of the
fittest" ideology. Any way, nobody cares when long multiplication or division of
fractions are dropped from school curriculums, but should one dare to drop
evolution there is a huge scandal.
> "Love your neighbor as yourself" is God's commandment to his children. We
> reject the self-centered actions of animals in favor of God's way. We don't
> do a perfect job of it - which is why Jesus died on the cross for us.
At least we try. But there are quite powerful guys who want to stop us from
trying. They want free competition. So we see weaker person fallyng prey to
stronger. Weaker company falling to stronger, weaker peoples and nations falling
to stronger. The evolution hype is but one of the PR methods necessary to
justify al this cruelty and injustice.
Alex.
fm
"Alex" <as69...@bcm.tmc.edu> wrote in message
news:3AD4A3C3...@bcm.tmc.edu...
These are not necessarly mutually exclusive, but it misses the point. The
problem is that science itself has been unable to locate and identify even
ONE "missing link" which demonstrates the "evolution" of one species into
another. All "science" has as "proof" of this "theory" [and the word
"theory" here by no means fits the scientific criteria to be a "theory"] is
childish speculation by IDIOTS (who aren't "scientists" at all) that the
bones of one species look similar to the bones of another species, so one
must have evolved from the other.
That is not a "theory". That is childish speculation, at best. But even
worse, to teach that this is "science", in the face of the fact that not a
single bone of the millions of bones which have been found supports that
"theory".
John Knight
fm
"Ray and Mary" <Droui...@home.com> wrote in message
news:K40B6.167690$W05.31...@news1.rdc1.mi.home.com...
Excellent insight, Ray.
If we want to live like animals, it's easy to do. It's easier for
individual men to do that than it is for them to recognize what's important
to the success of a Christian culture like ours as a whole. There isn't a
more important difference between animals and homo sapiens than this, is
there?
"Survival of the fittest" (with "survival" meaning economic success) is what
created our successful free enterprise system, but winning the economic
battle doesn't require anyone to stop loving their neighbor.
Sometimes the one we love the most is the economic competitor who made the
big mistake which enabled you to be the survivor );
John Knight
fm
Well said.
The fact that weaker species may have been supplanted by stronger species
should be reason enough that human beings don't go to war with their
neighbors to kill them (except for "wars" which consist of economic
competition where the objective is to produce a better product).
John Knight
greggi
Evolution is a fine theory but the maths does not add up. Conservative
estimates put the chance of life being created by natural means in the
universe at 1/ 10 to the power of 28
(1/10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000). Statistically we can only
accept probability of 1/20 or 5%. The process of evolution is equally
statistically unsound. I agree that we should enthusiastically embrace
science but remain wary of biased (atheist) interpretations. God created
out of nothing (Creatio ex-nihilo) and God continues to create (Creatio
Continua). Design is a very compelling argument.
Yours truthfully,
Gregg Parkinson.
John D. Callahan wrote in message <3ad381dc...@news.lafn.org>...
>God created the universe with laws (gravity, time, etc.)
>
>Many Christians, unfortunately, are reluctant to accept modern
>science.
>But is it possible to be a Christian and fully accept modern science
Raymond E. Griffith
j.w.k...@usa.net wrote on 4/11/2001 3:17 PM:
>
> "Alex" <as69...@bcm.tmc.edu> wrote in message
> news:3AD4A3C3...@bcm.tmc.edu...
>> "John D. Callahan" wrote:
>>
>>> But is it possible to be a Christian and fully accept modern science
>>> (including biological evolution and the Big Bang),
>>
>> How one can accept "survival of the fittest" and "Love thy neighbour like
>> thyself" at the same time?
>>
>> Alex.
>>
>
> These are not necessarly mutually exclusive, but it misses the point. The
> problem is that science itself has been unable to locate and identify even
> ONE "missing link" which demonstrates the "evolution" of one species into
> another. All "science" has as "proof" of this "theory" [and the word
> "theory" here by no means fits the scientific criteria to be a "theory"] is
> childish speculation by IDIOTS (who aren't "scientists" at all) that the
> bones of one species look similar to the bones of another species, so one
> must have evolved from the other.
>
Uhh, you really want to be careful here. Now I am a Christian, and I trust
the scriptures -- but I don't believe in over-simplification either.
You not only have not adequately defined evolution here, you have completely
misstated its methodologies.
Many Christians like to claim that the evolutionary biologists are
unreasonable, but very often we Christians are more unreasonable of the lot.
When you say that they aren't scientists, you employ an invective that not
only is abusive to your adversary, but also ruins your own credibility.
> That is not a "theory". That is childish speculation, at best. But even
> worse, to teach that this is "science", in the face of the fact that not a
> single bone of the millions of bones which have been found supports that
> "theory".
>
Again, you really want to be careful here. Abuse given invites abuse!
But what is worse than an unbelieving evolutionist? A "believing"
creationist who employs bad science deliberately so as to make his point. I
have investigated many of the claims of the so-called "creation science"
movement, and many of them are not only erroneous, but outright deceitful.
This distresses me.
I have seen proposed as "creation science" the wildest speculation and
fabrications imaginable without any attempt for proof -- all trying to make
a point, and wrapped up in high-sounding words which the lay person cannot
understand. This deceit is unworthy of being labeled "Christian" in any
sense! And we have the gall to accuse the evolutionists of speculation when
they attempt to understand the world of the past by the way things work
today.
I have also seen Christians presented with credible evidence for processes
that they have declared impossible, who resorted to name calling and
ridicule. This also is unChristian.
If you are going to make your point, do it without the invectives. Be
willing to examine the opponents claims in depth, and be ready to offer
reasonable alternate models. If you can't explain something, admit it. But
don't simply dismiss as worthless the speculations or investigations of the
scientific community -- even if you believe that they are! You may not agree
with them, but you need to be willing to understand why they think the way
they do. If their "theories" are worthless, you should be able to present a
much more reasonable and workable hypothesis, don't you think? After all, it
is God's world. Christians should be willing to understand science to know
how God's world works.
BTW, I know several people who are devout Christians, but who also believe
in evolution. You might find this strange, but it would be a mistake to lump
everyone who believes in evolution into the unsaved camp.
The subject is incredibly complex. There are a huge number of factors to be
considered in how the world works. God created the world and the way it
works. I suppose then, that it is not unreasonable to think that he meant
for us to understand those processes?
I also suppose that is is not unreasonable to follow the scriptural
directives as to how we speak and act?
> John Knight
>
>
Raymond E. Griffith
Raymond E. Griffith
gre...@ntlworld.com wrote on 4/11/2001 5:24 PM:
> Dear John,
>
> Evolution is a fine theory but the maths does not add up. Conservative
> estimates put the chance of life being created by natural means in the
> universe at 1/ 10 to the power of 28
> (1/10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000). Statistically we can only
> accept probability of 1/20 or 5%. The process of evolution is equally
> statistically unsound. I agree that we should enthusiastically embrace
> science but remain wary of biased (atheist) interpretations. God created
> out of nothing (Creatio ex-nihilo) and God continues to create (Creatio
> Continua). Design is a very compelling argument.
>
> Yours truthfully,
>
> Gregg Parkinson.
>
>
I am not defending Mr. Callahan's viewpoints, as I do not believe in
fallable Scriptures. But I would like to ask where you got your figures
from? Quote your sources. Investigate as to how they got their numbers.
Most of these numbers games are exercises in pure imagination. I am a
statistician, and your numbers mean nothing to me, nor would they to anyone
educated enough to understand their significance.
Stating that we can only accept a probability of 5% is also meaningless.
Winning the lottery has a much smaller probability than that, yet someone
does.
Oh yes, your arguments sound fine, but they mean nothing! You talk about
biased interpretations, and attach the term "bias" to the "atheist" camp
(wrongly assuming that all people who believe that evolution exists makes
them atheists!). But "bias" is just as much a property of the "creationist"
camp as well. As long as we don't recognize our own biases, we make
ourselves to be perfect fools.
You speak of design. But design is as much about perspective as anything. I
dare say that I can see design and pattern where you would only see
randomness. Then again, anyone who knows some mathematics also knows that
random effects very often result in what we consider to be recognizable
design. Ever hear of fractals?
Our world is too complex to bear an overly simplistic explanations. We
Christians need to be *very* careful not to speak about what we do not know
-- and be willing to admit when we are wrong.
We damage the cause of Christ otherwise!
Raymond E. Griffith
R. Tang
fm <j.w.k...@usa.net> wrote:
>These are not necessarly mutually exclusive, but it misses the point. The
>problem is that science itself has been unable to locate and identify even
>ONE "missing link" which demonstrates the "evolution" of one species into
>another.
This is dead wrong, and shows your own lack of knowledge of both
the evidence and scientific methodology.
> All "science" has as "proof" of this "theory" [and the word
>"theory" here by no means fits the scientific criteria to be a "theory"] is
>childish speculation by IDIOTS (who aren't "scientists" at all) that the
>bones of one species look similar to the bones of another species, so one
>must have evolved from the other.
>
>That is not a "theory". That is childish speculation, at best. But even
>worse, to teach that this is "science", in the face of the fact that not a
>single bone of the millions of bones which have been found supports that
>"theory".
Incorrect. Avail yourself of the evidence and correct your
misconceptions. The lines of evidence go way beyond vague similarities;
there are specific reasons that go to the roots of both genetics and
paleontology.
--
-Roger Tang, gwan...@u.washington.edu, Artistic Director PC Theatre
- Editor, Asian American Theatre Revue [NEW URL]
- http://www.abcflash.com/a&e/r_tang/AATR.html
-Declared 4-F in the War Between the Sexes
Alex
> Well said.
>
> The fact that weaker species may have been supplanted by stronger species
> should be reason enough that human beings don't go to war with their
> neighbors to kill them (except for "wars" which consist of economic
> competition where the objective is to produce a better product).
Thy shalt not kill, even for the sake of producing a better product.
Alex.
greggi
Raymond E. Griffith wrote in message ...
>in article k74B6.4725$Ow3.1...@news2-win.server.ntlworld.com, greggi at
>gre...@ntlworld.com wrote on 4/11/2001 5:24 PM:
>
>> Dear John,
>>
>> Evolution is a fine theory but the maths does not add up. Conservative
>> estimates put the chance of life being created by natural means in the
>> universe at 1/ 10 to the power of 28
>> (1/10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000).
I found this figure in a 'Creationist' book. It may be simple and biased
but it seems reasonable. The chance of the right chemicals binding in a
link 100 parts long (NASA looks for life with links 400 long) in a period of
15 billion years is as above. I am unable to locate the book at the moment
so I am afraid I can say little more. I belive amino acids are the most
basic form of life but the may be more than 400 links long.
>>Statistically The process of evolution is equally statistically unsound.
I agree that we >>should enthusiastically embrace science but remain wary of
biased (atheist) >>interpretations.
I agree we may all be biased and should all be ready to humble ourselves and
learn.
>I am not defending Mr. Callahan's viewpoints, as I do not believe in
>fallable Scriptures.
Scriptures are written by fallible men. We must 'Study them to show
ourselves approved unto God, workmen rightly dividing the word of Truth.
Ref 1 Sam 16:14.
>But I would like to ask where you got your figures
>from? Quote your sources. Investigate as to how they got their numbers.
Good principle. I regret misplacing the source at this moment.
>Most of these numbers games are exercises in pure imagination. I am a
>statistician, and your numbers mean nothing to me, nor would they to anyone
>educated enough to understand their significance.
>
>Stating that we can only accept a probability of 5% is also meaningless.
>Winning the lottery has a much smaller probability than that, yet someone
>does.
I would not get in a vehicle or ascribe to a theory if it only had a 5%
chance of saftey!
>
>Oh yes, your arguments sound fine, but they mean nothing! You talk about
>biased interpretations, and attach the term "bias" to the "atheist" camp
>(wrongly assuming that all people who believe that evolution exists makes
>them atheists!). But "bias" is just as much a property of the "creationist"
>camp as well. As long as we don't recognize our own biases, we make
>ourselves to be perfect fools.
I agree.
>
>You speak of design. But design is as much about perspective as anything. I
>dare say that I can see design and pattern where you would only see
>randomness. Then again, anyone who knows some mathematics also knows that
>random effects very often result in what we consider to be recognizable
>design. Ever hear of fractals?
>
Good point.
>Our world is too complex to bear an overly simplistic explanations. We
>Christians need to be *very* careful not to speak about what we do not know
>-- and be willing to admit when we are wrong.
>
>We damage the cause of Christ otherwise!
>
>Raymond E. Griffith
Thank you for obliterating my unworthy contributions. I humbly accept that
you are right. I seem to wasting your time but your comments are valuable
to me. Do you have any contributions? I expect they should not so flimsy.
Yours in the Love of Christ,
Gregg.
Ray and Mary
from
> trying. They want free competition. So we see weaker person fallyng prey
to
> stronger. Weaker company falling to stronger, weaker peoples and nations
falling
> to stronger. The evolution hype is but one of the PR methods necessary to
> justify al this cruelty and injustice.
Evolution is treated by our brothers and sisters the same way that the
heliocentric theory was treated in Galileo's day. The religious leaders of
the day had very big theological problems with the idea that the Earth
rotates around the Sun, rather than the other way around.
When the evolutionary theory was first formed, the atheistic intellegencia
of the day seized it as proof that God isn't necessary for the formation of
life. They then tried to conclude that God doesn't exist because evolution
renders him unnecessary.
That is, of course, a silly conclusion. It is logically incorrect to
include that something doesn't exist just because it isn't needed for a
specific process. These are supposed to be intellegent people, but they
obviously made quite a large boneheaded error. (was it intentional or
accidental? Were they knowingly using incorrect logic to press their point,
or were they simply decieved?)
Many of our brothers and sisters came up with equally silly arguements
against evolution (I haven't seen a single one that is effective, and I have
seen a lot). They are, quite simply, attacking the wrong thing. They
should be exposing the folly of the arguement that God doesn't exist because
evolution makes him unnecessary. Instead, they are attacking the theory
itself.
By the way, a whole lot of modern theologians accept what the call
"microevolution" (adaptations of an animal without changing from one species
to another), but reject what they call "macroevolution" (a slow change from
one species to another).
So, the concept of "survival of the fittest" is accepted by such
conservatives as J. Vernon McGee.
There are times when this survival is based on group action by the animals
(herds, for instance). There are times when the strong fall. There are
lots of times where an advantage turns into a disadvantage. This is all
accounted for in the theory.
There is a moth in Europe that is generally a light color. That way, it can
hide better on the trunks of trees and avoid being eaten by birds. During
the industrial revolution, a whole lot more dark moths began to appear
because the soot from the coal that fueled the revolution darkened the tree
trunks. After a while, nearly all of the moths were dark. Once coal was
abandoned in favor of oil and gas, the trees lost their coating of soot and
white moths started to appear again. This is an example of
"microevolution", and it was observed, and it was documented.
Ray Drouillard
Ray and Mary
> Excellent insight, Ray.
Thank you :)
>
> If we want to live like animals, it's easy to do. It's easier for
> individual men to do that than it is for them to recognize what's
important
> to the success of a Christian culture like ours as a whole. There isn't a
> more important difference between animals and homo sapiens than this, is
> there?
It happens in some countries more than others.
The simple truth is that a moral people needs little government, while an
immoral people require someone to watch over them and make sure that they
don't mistreat and kill each other. Unfortunately, the government ends up
being as immoral as the people. We see examples in today's societies,
history, and in the Bible.
>
> "Survival of the fittest" (with "survival" meaning economic success) is
what
> created our successful free enterprise system, but winning the economic
> battle doesn't require anyone to stop loving their neighbor.
You can compete without being ruthless. If you compete by trying to produce
a better product, you help yourself and your customer.
>
> Sometimes the one we love the most is the economic competitor who made the
> big mistake which enabled you to be the survivor );
My former boss ran his company without integrity. The company is now
failing rapidly (I saw it coming and bailed). It's a case of zero to two
million to zero in fourteen years. They had their day in the sun, but it
has cought up with them.
>
> John Knight
Ray Drouillard
Ray and Mary
> problem is that science itself has been unable to locate and identify even
> ONE "missing link" which demonstrates the "evolution" of one species into
> another. All "science" has as "proof" of this "theory" [and the word
> "theory" here by no means fits the scientific criteria to be a "theory"]
is
> childish speculation by IDIOTS (who aren't "scientists" at all) that the
> bones of one species look similar to the bones of another species, so one
> must have evolved from the other.
>
> That is not a "theory". That is childish speculation, at best. But even
> worse, to teach that this is "science", in the face of the fact that not a
> single bone of the millions of bones which have been found supports that
> "theory".
If you actually take the time to learn about it, the theory is rather well
fleshed out, internally consistent, and makes lots of sense.
The real silliness is the fact that some of the "enlightened" ones try to
use the theory as proof that God isn't necessary, and therefore doesn't
exist.
We Christians, unfortunately, are spending our time attacking the
evolutionary theory, rather than attacking the foolish corrilary.
The evolutionary theory contains NOTHING that denies the existance of God.
We need to leave it alone, just like we no longer are bothered by the theory
that the Earth revolves around the Sun.
Ray Drouillard
Ray and Mary
Where did you arrive at the 10^-28 figure? I am really curious about the
details.
Your entire arguement is based on that figure, and I have no notion of how
anyone can derive such a figure.
Besides, God doesn't worry about the odds. If he wanted to start the
process of evolution in motion, he can do it - no matter what the odds.
Ray Drouillard
"greggi" <gre...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:k74B6.4725$Ow3.1...@news2-win.server.ntlworld.com...
Ray and Mary
> >fallable Scriptures.
>
> Scriptures are written by fallible men. We must 'Study them to show
> ourselves approved unto God, workmen rightly dividing the word of Truth.
> Ref 1 Sam 16:14.
Do you doubt that God can use fallible men to create infallible scriptures?
The scriptures are (to borrow an expression) Gospel truth :)
In the earliest Bible classes that I took, I learned that the actual writers
are actually the "pen". When I put pen to paper, I don't say that the pen
wrote what I put down on the paper.
Certainly, the personality of the writers shows up in the scriptures. They
are INSPIRED by God, and are therefore infallible.
The translations are NOT infallible, but they are pretty good. I use
several translations so that I don't end up depending on the translation of
any one group of men.
Another good point about the Bible is that any important message is repeated
several times in several different voices. No matter how bad the
translation (within reason), you can rightly divide the truth.
Ray
med...@bearfabrique.org
>These are not necessarly mutually exclusive, but it misses the point. The
>problem is that science itself has been unable to locate and identify even
>ONE "missing link" which demonstrates the "evolution" of one species into
>another. All "science" has as "proof" of this "theory" [and the word
>"theory" here by no means fits the scientific criteria to be a "theory"] is
>childish speculation by IDIOTS (who aren't "scientists" at all) that the
>bones of one species look similar to the bones of another species, so one
>must have evolved from the other.
>
>That is not a "theory". That is childish speculation, at best. But even
>worse, to teach that this is "science", in the face of the fact that not a
>single bone of the millions of bones which have been found supports that
>"theory".
>
>John Knight
You sure do have that one right. Glad to see more and more people
figuring this business out.
Evolution has been so thoroughly discredited at this point that you
assume nobody is defending it because they believe in it
anymore, and that they are defending it because they do not like the
prospects of having to defend or explain some axpect of their
lifestyles to God, St. Peter, Muhammed et. al.
To these people I say, you've still got a problem. The problem is that
evolution, as a doctrine, is so overwhelmingly STUPID that,
faced with a choice of wearing a sweatshirt with a scarlet letter F
(for fornicator), D (Democrat), O (Other loser of some sort or
other) or I (for IDIOT), you'd actually be better off sticking with
one of the former choices because, as Clint Eastwood noted in
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly:
God hates IDIOTS, too!
The best illustration of how stupid evolutionism really is involves
trying to become some totally new animal with new organs, a new
basic plan for existence, and new requirements for integration between
both old and new organs.
Take flying birds for example; suppose you aren't one, and you want to
become one. You'll need a baker's dozen highly specialized
systems, including wings, flight feathers, a specialized light bone
structure, specialized flow-through design heart and lungs,
specialized tail, specialized general balance parameters etc.
For starters, every one of these things would be antifunctional until
the day on which the whole thing came together, so that the
chances of evolving any of these things by any process resembling
evolution (mutations plus selection) would amount to an
infinitessimal, i.e. one divided by some gigantic number.
In probability theory, to compute the probability of two things
happening at once, you multiply the probabilities together. That says
that the likelihood of all these things ever happening, best case, is
ten or twelve such infinitessimals multiplied together, i.e. a tenth
or twelth-order infinitessimal. The whole history of the universe
isn't long enough for that to happen once.
All of that was the best case. In real life, it's even worse than
that. In real life, natural selection could not plausibly select for
hoped-for functionality, which is what would be required in order to
evolve flight feathers on something which could not fly apriori.
In real life, all you'd ever get would some sort of a random walk
around some starting point, rather than the unidircetional march
towards a future requirement which evolution requires.
And the real killer, i.e. the thing which simply kills evolutionism
dead, is the following consideration: In real life, assuming you were
to somehow miraculously evolve the first feature you'd need to become
a flying bird, then by the time another 10,000 generations
rolled around and you evolved the second such reature, the first,
having been disfunctional/antifunctional all the while, would have
DE-EVOLVED and either disappeared altogether or become vestigial.
Now, it would be miraculous if, given all the above, some new kind of
complex creature with new organs and a new basic plan for
life had ever evolved ONCE.
Evolutionism, however (the Theory of Evolution) requires that this has
happened countless billions of times, i.e. an essentially infinite
number of absolutely zero probability events.
And, if you were starting to think that nothing could possibly be any
stupider than believing in evolution despite all of the above (i.e.
that the basic stupidity of evolutionism starting from 1980 or
thereabouts could not possibly be improved upon), think again.
Because there is zero evidence in the fossil record (despite the BS
claims of talk.origins "crew" and others of their ilk) to support
any sort of a theory involving macroevolution, and because the
original conceptions of evolution are flatly refuted by developments
in population genetics since the 1950's, the latest incarnation of
this theory, Steve Gould and Niles Eldredge's "Punctuated
Equilibrium or punc-eek" attempts to claim that these wholesale
violations of probabilistic laws all occurred so suddenly as to never
leave evidence in the fossil record, and that they all occurred
amongst tiny groups of animals living in "peripheral" areas. That says
that some velocirapter who wanted to be a bird got together with fifty
of his friends and said:
Guys, we need flight feathers, and wings, and specialized
bones, hearts, lungs, and tails, and we need em NOW; not
two years from now. Everybody ready, all together now:
OOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.....
You could devise a new religion by taking the single stupidest
doctrine from each of the existing religions, and it would not be as
stupid as THAT.
But it gets even stupider.
Again, the original Darwinian vision of gradualistic evolution is
flatly refuted by the fossil record (Darwinian evolution demanded that
the vast bulk of ALL fossils be intermediates) and by the findings of
population genetics, particularly the Haldane dilemma and the
impossible time requirements for spreading genetic changes through any
sizeable herd of animals.
Consider what Gould and other punk-eekers are saying. Punc-eek amounts
to a claim that all meaningful evolutionary change takes
place in peripheral areas, amongst tiny groups of animals which
develop some genetic advantage, and then move out and
overwhelm, outcompete, and replace the larger herds. They are claiming
that this eliminates the need to spread genetic change
through any sizeable herd of animals and, at the same time, is why we
never find intermediate fossils (since there are never enough
of these CHANGELINGS to leave fossil evidence).
Obvious problems with punctuated equilibria include, minimally:
1. It is a pure pseudoscience seeking to explain and actually be
proved by a lack of evidence rather than by evidence
(all the missing intermediate fossils). Similarly, Cotton Mather
claimed that the fact that nobody had ever seen or heard
a witch was proof they were there (if you could see or hear them, they
wouldn't be witches...) The best example of that sort of logic in
fact that there ever was was Michael O'Donahue's parody of the
Connecticut Yankee (New York Yankee in King Arthur's Court) which
showed Reggie looking for a low outside fastball and then getting
beaned cold by a high inside one, the people feeling Reggie's wrist
for pulse, and Reggie back in Camelot, where they had him bound hand
and foot. Some guy was shouting "Damned if e ain't black from ead to
foot, if that ain't witchcraft I never saw it!!!", everybody was
yelling "Witchcraft Trial!, Witchcraft Trial!!", and they were
building a scaffold. Reggie looks at King Arthur and says "Hey man,
isn't that just a tad premature, I mean we haven't even had the TRIAL
yet!", and Arthur replies "You don't seem to understand, son, the
hanging IS the trial; if you survive that, that means you're a witch
and we gotta burn ya!!!" Again, that's precisely the sort of logic
which goes into Gould's variant of evolutionism, Punk-eek.
2. PE amounts to a claim that inbreeding is the most major source
of genetic advancement in the world. Apparently Steve Gould never saw
Deliverance...
3. PE requires these tiny peripheral groups to conquer vastly
larger groups of animals millions if not billions of times, which is
like requiring Custer to win at the little Big Horn every day, for
millions of years.
4. PE requires an eternal victory of animals specifically adapted
to localized and parochial conditions over animals which are globally
adapted, which never happens in real life.
5. For any number of reasons, you need a minimal population of
any animal to be viable. This is before the tiny group even gets
started in overwhelming the vast herds. A number of American species
such as the heath hen became non-viable when their numbers were
reduced to a few thousand; at that point, any stroke of bad luck at
all, a hard winter, a skewed sex ratio in one generation, a disease of
some sort, and it's all over. The heath hen was fine as long as it was
spread out over the East coast of the U.S. The point at which it got
penned into one of these "peripheral" areas which Gould and Eldredge
see as the salvation for evolutionism, it was all over.
The sort of things noted in items 3 and 5 are generally referred to as
the "gambler's problem", in this case, the problem facing the
tiny group of "peripheral" animals being similar to that facing a
gambler trying to beat the house in blackjack or roulette; the house
could lose many hands of cards or rolls of the dice without flinching,
and the globally-adapted species spread out over a continent
could withstand just about anything short of a continental-scale
catastrophe without going extinct, while two or three bad rolls of the
dice will bankrupt the gambler, and any combination of two or three
strokes of bad luck will wipe out the "peripheral" species.
Gould's basic method of handling this problem is to ignore it.
And there's one other thing which should be obvious to anybody
attempting to read through Gould and Eldridge's BS:
They don't even bother to try to provide a mechanism or
technical explaination of any sort for this "punk-eek"
They are claiming that at certain times, amongst tiny groups of
animals living in peripheral areas, a "speciation event(TM)" happens,
and THEN the rest of it takes place. In other words, they are saying:
ASSUMING that Abracadabra-Shazaam(TM) happens, then the rest
of the business proceeds as we have described in our
scholarly discourse above!
Again, Gould and Eldridge require that the Abracadabra-Shazaam(TM)
happen not just once, but countless billions of times, i.e. at
least once for every kind of complex creature which has ever walked
the Earth. They do not specify whether this amounts to the
same Abracadabra-Shazaam each time, or a different kind of
Abracadabra-Shazaam for each creature.
I ask you: How could anything be stupider or worse than that? What
could possibly be worse than professing to believe in such a
thing?
Ted Holden
www.bearfabrique.org
Raymond E. Griffith
gre...@ntlworld.com wrote on 4/11/2001 7:33 PM:
>
> Raymond E. Griffith wrote in message ...
>> in article k74B6.4725$Ow3.1...@news2-win.server.ntlworld.com, greggi at
>> gre...@ntlworld.com wrote on 4/11/2001 5:24 PM:
>>
>>> Dear John,
>>>
>>> Evolution is a fine theory but the maths does not add up. Conservative
>>> estimates put the chance of life being created by natural means in the
>>> universe at 1/ 10 to the power of 28
>>> (1/10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000).
>
> I found this figure in a 'Creationist' book. It may be simple and biased
> but it seems reasonable. The chance of the right chemicals binding in a
> link 100 parts long (NASA looks for life with links 400 long) in a period of
> 15 billion years is as above. I am unable to locate the book at the moment
> so I am afraid I can say little more. I belive amino acids are the most
> basic form of life but the may be more than 400 links long.
>
Actually, the way they cook the numbers is unreasonable -- an attempt at
statistics that doesn't wash. I hate to say it, but there is a lot of bad
math in Creationist literature. I wish it wasn't the case.
They make up certain assumptions (if you press them on it, they say they are
being "generous"), and then proceed on those assumptions as if they were
facts. Others quote the numbers from another source as if they were gospel,
etc.
As I said, I am a statistician. Statistics can be a very common sense
subject. But it can also be made confusing quite easily, and most people are
so afraid of math that they will gladly accept the word of someone else who
says that they "know".
>>> Statistically The process of evolution is equally statistically unsound.
Maybe, but again, this is really a misuse of statistics.
> I agree that we >>should enthusiastically embrace science but remain wary of
> biased (atheist) >>interpretations.
>
> I agree we may all be biased and should all be ready to humble ourselves and
> learn.
>
Good! Then you are beginning to learn a lesson that I had to learn the hard
way. I thought I knew it all, until I met someone wiser than myself who knew
that he did not. A good education helped me gain perspective.
>> I am not defending Mr. Callahan's viewpoints, as I do not believe in
>> fallable Scriptures.
>
> Scriptures are written by fallible men. We must 'Study them to show
> ourselves approved unto God, workmen rightly dividing the word of Truth.
> Ref 1 Sam 16:14.
>
Written by fallible men, but men indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God to
produce a work without error and utterly trustworthy.
But my inability to reconcile Scripture with science does not make either
one untrue or unsound. Rather it points to my limited intellect.
>> But I would like to ask where you got your figures
>> from? Quote your sources. Investigate as to how they got their numbers.
>
> Good principle. I regret misplacing the source at this moment.
>
It is a good principle. But I am afraid that even when you quote sources
within the creationist literature, you may still have troubles. I recently
read a document detailing that an article claiming to refute evolution had
quoted several sources that did not exist. The person writing the article
claimed to be on the boards of three publications. And while he was on the
board of one, the other two simply are nowhere to be found. I hate
intellectual dishonesty. It also happens to be spiritual dishonesty!
>> Most of these numbers games are exercises in pure imagination. I am a
>> statistician, and your numbers mean nothing to me, nor would they to anyone
>> educated enough to understand their significance.
>>
>> Stating that we can only accept a probability of 5% is also meaningless.
>> Winning the lottery has a much smaller probability than that, yet someone
>> does.
>
> I would not get in a vehicle or ascribe to a theory if it only had a 5%
> chance of saftey!
Uhhh, sounds good again. But it is again a misuse of statistics.
There are in statistical theory several ways to make decisions about
hypotheses. These always involve statistical tests on the data. "The testing
of a statistical hypothesis is the application of an explicit set of rules
for deciding whether to accept the null hypothesis of to reject it in favor
of the alternative hypothesis." (From a stats book in my library). The 5%
rule in here comes as a favorite value for the probability of committing a
Type I error (rejecting the null hypothesis when it is true).
Unfortunately, people misuse mathematics and say all sorts of atrocious
things without realizing what they are doing. To a math teacher it is
painfully humorous to see it.
These Let me give you an illustration. While I don't know for certain the
probability of unprotected, um, "marital relations" resulting in pregnancy,
suppose that the probability of it were, say, 1% each time. If you and your
wife wanted a baby, would you let that low figure keep you from trying?
Supposing that these figures were true, in 70 tries the probability that you
would not be a father by that time would be less than 50%.
Do you have automobile insurance? I bet you do. But try this. Calculate the
number of accidents/incidents you have had since you started driving.
Calculate the number of times you have been behind the wheel of a car. Why
the probability of an accident at any particular time you are behind the
wheel is terribly small! Why do you carry insurance? Not just because it is
required by law. If you haven't needed it yet, you reasonably conclude that
sometime you might, and you know people who have needed it!
You do a lot of things based upon anticipation or avoidance of certain items
with probabilities of far less than 5%. Tell me, have you *ever* entered the
Reader's Digest Sweepstakes?
>>
>> Oh yes, your arguments sound fine, but they mean nothing! You talk about
>> biased interpretations, and attach the term "bias" to the "atheist" camp
>> (wrongly assuming that all people who believe that evolution exists makes
>> them atheists!). But "bias" is just as much a property of the "creationist"
>> camp as well. As long as we don't recognize our own biases, we make
>> ourselves to be perfect fools.
>
> I agree.
>>
>> You speak of design. But design is as much about perspective as anything. I
>> dare say that I can see design and pattern where you would only see
>> randomness. Then again, anyone who knows some mathematics also knows that
>> random effects very often result in what we consider to be recognizable
>> design. Ever hear of fractals?
>>
> Good point.
>
>> Our world is too complex to bear an overly simplistic explanations. We
>> Christians need to be *very* careful not to speak about what we do not know
>> -- and be willing to admit when we are wrong.
>>
>> We damage the cause of Christ otherwise!
>>
>> Raymond E. Griffith
>
> Thank you for obliterating my unworthy contributions. I humbly accept that
> you are right.
Uh, I really did not come into this with the intent of obliterating anything
or anyone. If you felt so, I apologize.
What I *do* want is for you to be willing to investigate things very
closely. Ask questions -- even the ones you don't want to ask!
Above all, be careful to keep a teachable spirit. Don't use invectives
against others. It hardens them in their error if they are wrong, and it
prevents them from acknowledging the truth you possess even if they wanted
to. It is the goodness of God that brings men to repentance.
> I seem to wasting your time but your comments are valuable
> to me. Do you have any contributions? I expect they should not so flimsy.
>
No, you are not wasting my time. I am still a learner myself. There is much
I do not know. But I am working on learning. Still, there is more to learn
than could be absorbed in several lifetimes.
Here is what I try to remember. God created His World, and He wants us to
get to know it and how it works. God gave us His Word. Ditto.
If in my studies of His Word and His World, I run into contradictions, I do
not assume that one or the other is necessarily wrong. However, my
understanding is imperfect and limited by (among other things), my lack of
intellect. So I give my lack of understanding to God. I ask Him to guide me
as I try to know Him, His Word, and His World. He does not lie in His Word
or His World. So I will try to understand. And until I do, I will reserve
judgment on those things that I don't understand.
If I locate something that can be proven false, I will put that into the
rejected file, with appropriate notes as to why. Things that can be proven
true, I will also file appropriately.
And I expect to understand everything better when in His Presence.
> Yours in the Love of Christ,
>
> Gregg.
>
Yours as we grow in Him,
Raymond
>
Raymond E. Griffith
med...@bearfabrique.org wrote on 4/11/2001 11:45 PM:
> In probability theory, to compute the probability of two things
> happening at once, you multiply the probabilities together. That says
> that the likelihood of all these things ever happening, best case, is
> ten or twelve such infinitessimals multiplied together, i.e. a tenth
> or twelth-order infinitessimal. The whole history of the universe
> isn't long enough for that to happen once.
Well, a bit imprecise (to say the least!).
Question, please. How much probability theory have you taken? What courses?
Will you please elaborate on whether or not this is the whole scope of
probability theory's influence on the subject?
Just curious.
Raymond
Ray and Mary
> assume nobody is defending it because they believe in it
> anymore, and that they are defending it because they do not like the
> prospects of having to defend or explain some axpect of their
> lifestyles to God, St. Peter, Muhammed et. al.
Is it really? Where did you get that information? Do you have any
documentation?
The only people who call it "discredited" are those who have some kind of a
compelling reason to believe that it isn't true - sort of like the case
where a certain scientist was given a guided tour of the dungeon of the
inquisition in order to induce him to retract the "herecy" that the Earth
revolves around the Sun.
Some fools long ago tried to use the evolutionary theory to prove that God
doesn't exist. Their logic was badly flawed. It is not difficult at all to
prove their logic to be flawed. Why waste our time attacking evolution?
If someone comes up with a chain of logic that says that God doesn't exist
because the sky is blue, are we going to stomp our feet and try to prove
that the sky isn't blue?
>
> God hates IDIOTS, too!
No, God loves idiots. He loves all of us. Even our best wisdom is
foolishness to him, anyway :-)
God doesn't judge us by our mind. He judges us by our heart. He loves us
enough to die for us - even the idiots ;=)
>
> The best illustration of how stupid evolutionism really is involves
> trying to become some totally new animal with new organs, a new
> basic plan for existence, and new requirements for integration between
> both old and new organs.
<snipped a whole bunch of weak logic>
If you take the time to gain a basic understanding of the theory, you'll
find it to be logical and internally consistent. It doesn't answer every
question, but few theories do. Newton's laws of motion are not considered
useless and invalid just because they don't answer the question of what
happens when you get near the speed of light. Einstein's theories of
relativity come into play at that point.
Ray Drouillard
Ray and Mary
> If in my studies of His Word and His World, I run into contradictions, I
do
> not assume that one or the other is necessarily wrong. However, my
> understanding is imperfect and limited by (among other things), my lack of
> intellect. So I give my lack of understanding to God. I ask Him to guide
me
> as I try to know Him, His Word, and His World. He does not lie in His Word
> or His World. So I will try to understand. And until I do, I will reserve
> judgment on those things that I don't understand.
Very well said!
The only thing that I can add is that we should search for those appearent
contradictions. In studying them, we very often find a deeper truth. When
we study them and ask God for help, we work towards getting a bigger picture
that contains the contradiction and answers it.
I hope that wasn't too flakey and philosophical :)
Ray Drouillard
Michael S. Morris
Thursday, the 12th of April, 2001
Alex wrote:
It is a peculiar feature of western civilization
to justify its own actions by "naturality" [...]
Excuse me, but you were just told that "survival
of the fittest" is *not* a justification of
anything. It is not an ethical proposition.
(It is not even a remotely valid summary of
evolutionary biology.) The fact that it has
been advanced as an ethical proposition from
time to time by some human beings is absolutely
irrelevant to everything you say, since no one
around here has so advanced it.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Michael S. Morris
Thursday, the 12th of April, 2001
Someone said (sorry, the attributions were unclear):
Evolution is a fine theory but the maths
does not add up. Conservative estimates put
the chance of life being created by natural
means in the universe at 1/ 10 to the power of 28
(1/10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000).
Such numbers as estimates of the chance of life supposedly
arising randomly are of course absurd ignorances.
They assume randomness where almost certainly
certain sequences and links in molecular chains
are energetically preferred to others.
It doesn't have to be biology for us to play exactly the
same game: Simple high-school physics will do.
I hold a pen in my hand out from my chair approximately
one meter off of the floor. I let it go. It drops to the
floor. Now, I imagine a sphere of one meter radius
centered at my hand---its surface area will be about
12.6 square meters (=4*pi*r^2). Divide that up into
ten patches, each of area 1.26 square meters. Each patch
defines a rough direction that my pen could a priori go.
But, when I let my pen go, it falls into the 1.26 square
meter patch directly under my hand. What are its chances
of doing that? Clearly 1 in 10. It could have gone in
any other direction---flown sideways out the window, hit
the ceiling above, and didn't. Now I repeat my experiment.
The pen falls into the same patch again. What are the
odds it would do that? Clearly 1/10 to the 2nd power,
or 1 in 100. In fact, I repeat the experiment 28 times,
and every time the pen drops into the same 1.26 square meter
patch on the floor. It's a miracle! The a priori odds of my pen
going in that same direction 28 times out of 28 are
clearly 1/10 to the 28th power, or 1/10,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000.
The moral of this story: Physics is a fine theory but the
maths do not add up.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Herman Rubin
>On Wed, 11 Apr 2001 19:17:30 GMT, "fm" <j.w.k...@usa.net> wrote:
...............
> God hates IDIOTS, too!
Well, you are showing yourself to be one.
>The best illustration of how stupid evolutionism really is involves
>trying to become some totally new animal with new organs, a new
>basic plan for existence, and new requirements for integration between
>both old and new organs.
>Take flying birds for example; suppose you aren't one, and you want to
>become one.
No evolutionist has claimed that such an approach was taken.
You'll need a baker's dozen highly specialized
>systems, including wings, flight feathers, a specialized light bone
>structure, specialized flow-through design heart and lungs,
>specialized tail, specialized general balance parameters etc.
If you have more than 50 million years for these to evolve,
is it that difficult.
>For starters, every one of these things would be antifunctional until
>the day on which the whole thing came together,
WRONG.
Feathers are the most efficient means of maintaining heat
known for any species on this planet, more efficient than
fur, and much more efficient than scales. They have more
similarity to scales than one would think possible. The
earliest stages in the development were not likely to have
made the full transition; it goes by small stages.
There are many jumping and gliding animals of many types.
There are gradual stages in the development of wings.
Human children are often born with webbed fingers. The
early stages in the development of birds were probably
fairly small (this was the case with many others) and
the same type of mutation could produce webbed arms.
As for tails, there are lots of deviations; the fully
specialized tail is not necessary, but helps efficiency.
Many birds do not have this efficiency. The heart and
lung development can also arise gradually.
so that the
>chances of evolving any of these things by any process resembling
>evolution (mutations plus selection) would amount to an
>infinitessimal, i.e. one divided by some gigantic number.
With trillions of individuals involved in the evolutionary
process, the necessary mutations could easily have happened.
They do not have to happen at once. The rate of significant
mutations seems to be on the order of 1 in 10^5, or higher.
>In probability theory, to compute the probability of two things
>happening at once, you multiply the probabilities together.
Not if you want to pass my course; this is one of the
stupid errors made by students and far too many
philosophers.
There is more of the same misuse of probability and
misunderstanding of natural selection.
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
hru...@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
Whats Right
Mary" <Droui...@home.com> wrote:
> > Evolution has been so thoroughly discredited at this point that you
> > assume nobody is defending it because they believe in it
> > anymore, and that they are defending it because they do not like the
> > prospects of having to defend or explain some axpect of their
> > lifestyles to God, St. Peter, Muhammed et. al.
>
>
> If you take the time to gain a basic understanding of the theory, you'll
> find it to be logical and internally consistent. It doesn't answer every
> question, but few theories do. Newton's laws of motion are not considered
> useless and invalid just because they don't answer the question of what
> happens when you get near the speed of light. Einstein's theories of
> relativity come into play at that point.
>
>
>
> Ray Drouillard
The question about origins is not one of science but of morality. Those
who cling to the hopeless theory of evolution do not want to be
accountable to the Creator. They will subscribe to all sorts of feeble
ideas, without scientific evidence, as long as God is left out. They
develop their opinions in the face of truth(which is absolute) so anything
goes they hope.
One scientific evidence that flies in the face of random accidentalism
(evolution) is the formation of information. Al living things have codes
of organized information that lead to function and purpose. Not only is
this true in individual creatures and plants but it is further expanded
into complete functioning ecosystems. Just to arrieve at the lowest stage
of the evolved entity a whole supporting ecosystem must be in place first.
So we are not trying to explain a single living thing, we must look, and
find, evidence of coincident
supporting living things(and this has never been done).
We worship and follow that which we wish. Don't try and couch this in science.
Gerhard
--
Recte Faciendo Neminem Timeas
Is it opinion? Is it fact? Is it truth?
jj, curmudgeon and tiring philalethist
>Evolution is a fine theory but the maths does not add up.
Another Myth.
>Conservative
>estimates put the chance of life being created by natural means in the
>universe at 1/ 10 to the power of 28
>(1/10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000).
PER WHAT UNIT OF TIME?
Your statement of this "estimate" is not even correctly stated.
>Statistically we can only
>accept probability of 1/20 or 5%.
Why don't you find out what "acceptance" means before you
make this mistake?
The fact is, for each second, hour, or day, the start of life
by natural means is very small. When you look at the chance of
it NOT happening in 5 billion years, it then becomes a
near certainty that it DOES happen.
That's what the statistics say.
--
Copyright j...@research.att.com 2001, all rights reserved, except transmission
by USENET and like facilities granted. This notice must be included. Any
use by a provider charging in any way for the IP represented in and by this
article and any inclusion in print or other media are specifically prohibited.
Ray and Mary
> > find it to be logical and internally consistent. It doesn't answer
every
> > question, but few theories do. Newton's laws of motion are not
considered
> > useless and invalid just because they don't answer the question of what
> > happens when you get near the speed of light. Einstein's theories of
> > relativity come into play at that point.
> >
> >
> >
> > Ray Drouillard
>
> The question about origins is not one of science but of morality.
Really? What does "Where did I come from" have to do with morality?
> Those
> who cling to the hopeless theory of evolution do not want to be
> accountable to the Creator.
You speak for them? Amazing!
You certainly don't speak for me! I depend very deeply on God. That does
not, however, keep me from studying science. I don't "cling to" the
evolutionary theory, any more than I cling to Newton's laws of motion or
Ohm's law. They are simply bodies of scientific knowledge that are useful.
> They will subscribe to all sorts of feeble
> ideas, without scientific evidence, as long as God is left out.
Some atheists do that. I mentioned the sheer folly of trying to prove that
God doesn't exist by trying to prove that he isn't necessary. If you want
to attack that flawed line of reasoning, go for it. Trying to attack a
well-established and internally consistent body of knowledge like that
generated by the theory of evolution is doomed to failure. Nobody who
understnads the science and looks at it with an open mind is going to be
convinced by the logically flawed arguements against it.
Unfortunately, lots of new Christians are told that they have to reject this
theory in order to have faith. They tend to not voice thier concerns and
just remain silent when they are bullied into believing some doctorine that
is not even mentioned in the Bible.
It's too bad that some are told that they can't be Christians if they
believe evolution to be a viable scientific body of knowledge.
> They
> develop their opinions in the face of truth(which is absolute) so anything
> goes they hope.
Actually, that statement is an accurate description of the "creation
science" camp.
>
> One scientific evidence that flies in the face of random accidentalism
> (evolution) is the formation of information. Al living things have codes
> of organized information that lead to function and purpose. Not only is
> this true in individual creatures and plants but it is further expanded
> into complete functioning ecosystems. Just to arrieve at the lowest stage
> of the evolved entity a whole supporting ecosystem must be in place first.
> So we are not trying to explain a single living thing, we must look, and
> find, evidence of coincident
> supporting living things(and this has never been done).
The above displays that you know little about the theory itself.
The concept of choosing the best fit out of random variations is very
powerful.
Imagine you have a big tub full of letters (alphabet noodles or whatever you
want). That tub contains no data. You can, however, choose the letters
that you want and write a letter or a novel. This is an oversimplification
of what "natural selection" is all about. It takes lots of time for the
random variations to do much, but it is a very slow process.
>
> We worship and follow that which we wish. Don't try and couch this in
science.
I worship God. I follow God. I study science because I like to do so. God
made me with an inquisitive mind.
Can you study the great composer Johan Sebastion Bach without studying his
music? Perhaps, but there will be something missing if you remain ignorant
of such a great part of his life. In the same way, I honor God and get to
know him better by studying the work of his hands.
>
> Gerhard
Ray Drouillard
jj, curmudgeon and tiring philalethist
>Where did you arrive at the 10^-28 figure? I am really curious about the
>details.
Well, it lacks some information, such as per what unit of
time, as well as an understanding of what happens when very small
chances of an event are repeated in trials over a similar
number of events.
jj, curmudgeon and tiring philalethist
greggi <gre...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
>>> Evolution is a fine theory but the maths does not add up. Conservative
>>> estimates put the chance of life being created by natural means in the
>>> universe at 1/ 10 to the power of 28
>>> (1/10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000).
>I found this figure in a 'Creationist' book. It may be simple and biased
>but it seems reasonable.
If the next sentence is true, it's not.
>The chance of the right chemicals binding in a
>link 100 parts long (NASA looks for life with links 400 long) in a period of
>15 billion years is as above.
Except that it's already shown that it didn't happen all at once.
Look at archeobacteria.
jj, curmudgeon and tiring philalethist
Raymond E. Griffith <rgri...@vnet.net> wrote:
>in article 3ad52348....@news.fcc.net, med...@bearfabrique.org at
>med...@bearfabrique.org wrote on 4/11/2001 11:45 PM:
>> In probability theory, to compute the probability of two things
>> happening at once, you multiply the probabilities together. That says
>> that the likelihood of all these things ever happening, best case, is
>> ten or twelve such infinitessimals multiplied together, i.e. a tenth
>> or twelth-order infinitessimal. The whole history of the universe
>> isn't long enough for that to happen once.
>Well, a bit imprecise (to say the least!).
Especially where it leaves out the effects of repeaated trials.
At 6.02*10^23 molecules per mole, there can be a LOT of trials,
eh?
>Question, please. How much probability theory have you taken? What courses?
Me, or him? I've taken a few, and learned more from the likes of
the likes of the Bell Labs statistics dep't.
>Will you please elaborate on whether or not this is the whole scope of
>probability theory's influence on the subject?
I KNOW you weren't talking to me, but the answer is "no, not QUITE"...
Yes, you may argue I've understated things a wee bit. :)
Alex
The question is not about the theory per se, but about absession with
the theory. Namely huge publicity given to the issue of teaching
evolution at schools. That is clearly a matter of ideology, not science,
as much more important concepts, such as long multiplication and
division of fractions disappear from school curricula without a trace
and anybody noticing anything. School teaches nothing, but the slogan
"survival of the fittest". Christians and Muslims object to this
indoctrination, resisting enormous pressure.
The slogan "survival of the fittest", which schools teach, has only
ideological value, and is important exclsively as ethical proposition,
irrespectively of what anybody in this news groups believes. Nobody
attacks evolution theory, it is the cannibalist indoctrination at
schools, what people object to.
Alex.
Raymond E. Griffith
"Whats Right" <heat...@kalama.com> wrote in message
news:heatscan-120...@pm6-21.kalama.com...
>
> The question about origins is not one of science but of morality. Those
> who cling to the hopeless theory of evolution do not want to be
> accountable to the Creator.
I can tell you that your statement is false. I know of several godly men and
women who use the theory of evolution as a scientific tool. Yet they believe
in a Creator, and they trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior.
I can also tell you that you have a false definition of "evolution". Your
definition is so skewed as to be completely worthless. The ideas you attack
have been so removed from context that even those who believe in evolution
without God would likely be unable to recognize what you are railing
against.
When you take things out of context, you essentially produce a lie. You
could take something in my life out of context and then attack me about
it -- but your whole premise would be false. You would have built a "straw
man".
It distresses me to see how arrogant we often are, to speak with authority
about an area in which we know so little!
> They will subscribe to all sorts of feeble
> ideas, without scientific evidence, as long as God is left out. They
> develop their opinions in the face of truth(which is absolute) so anything
> goes they hope.
>
Uhh, do you know anything about peer review? No reputatable scientist,
atheist or believer, would *dare* to subscribe to feeble ideas without
evidence. One of the key notions in the scientific world is replicability.
Another is observability. Those who put forward theories without substantial
evidence are laughed out of the community.
And the goal of science is to understand *how* things work, and *why*. There
is certainly none of the "anything goes" attitude that you ascribe to them.
> One scientific evidence that flies in the face of random accidentalism
> (evolution) is the formation of information. Al living things have codes
> of organized information that lead to function and purpose. Not only is
> this true in individual creatures and plants but it is further expanded
> into complete functioning ecosystems. Just to arrieve at the lowest stage
> of the evolved entity a whole supporting ecosystem must be in place first.
Well, this is not quite true, either. Perhaps you are not up to speed on the
fact that life has been found in places where no one thought life could
exist, under conditions in which life as we know it was thought to be
impossible. Anaerobes, for example (if you care to look them up).
> So we are not trying to explain a single living thing, we must look, and
> find, evidence of coincident
> supporting living things(and this has never been done).
>
> We worship and follow that which we wish. Don't try and couch this in
science.
>
You are correct in saying that we worship and follow tha which we wish. I
worship God. I follow Him. And I trust His Word. Do you? If so, why are you
so frightened by those who wish to understand the processes God put into
place in this world He created?
The less I knew, the more confident I was that I knew it all. Now, having
learned a great deal more, I understand that I know very little indeed. I
will keep learning, but I will never know it all.
Raymond
> Gerhard
>
> --
> Recte Faciendo Neminem Timeas
>
> Is it opinion? Is it fact? Is it truth?
Ahhh, and how do *you* distinguish these?
Raymond E. Griffith
"Alex" <as69...@bcm.tmc.edu> wrote in message
news:3AD5F5F8...@bcm.tmc.edu...
> "Michael S. Morris" wrote:
>
> > Thursday, the 12th of April, 2001
> >
> > Alex wrote:
> > It is a peculiar feature of western civilization
> > to justify its own actions by "naturality" [...]
> >
> > Excuse me, but you were just told that "survival
> > of the fittest" is *not* a justification of
> > anything. It is not an ethical proposition.
> > (It is not even a remotely valid summary of
> > evolutionary biology.) The fact that it has
> > been advanced as an ethical proposition from
> > time to time by some human beings is absolutely
> > irrelevant to everything you say, since no one
> > around here has so advanced it.
>
> The question is not about the theory per se, but about absession with
> the theory. Namely huge publicity given to the issue of teaching
> evolution at schools.
Which I believe the Creationist camp genders, correct?
> That is clearly a matter of ideology, not science,
> as much more important concepts, such as long multiplication and
> division of fractions disappear from school curricula without a trace
> and anybody noticing anything.
No indeed. If such things disappear, not only are they noticed, but a large
number of us protest and try to correct. However, you don't notice that, do
you? Are you only concerned with your own pet peeve?
> School teaches nothing, but the slogan
> "survival of the fittest".
Such oversimplifications and lies do nothing to help your argument. And what
you said here is both.
> Christians and Muslims object to this
> indoctrination, resisting enormous pressure.
>
> The slogan "survival of the fittest", which schools teach, has only
> ideological value, and is important exclsively as ethical proposition,
> irrespectively of what anybody in this news groups believes.
Ahh, so your belief alone is what is valid? I am not up on my psychology,
but will someone help me out. Is that melagomania?
> Nobody
> attacks evolution theory,
I guess you don't read much Creationist literature, do you? This too, is a
lie, and a sad one.
>it is the cannibalist indoctrination at
> schools, what people object to.
>
How would you indoctrinate? Would you cannibalize evolutionists?
Raymond
> Alex.
>
jj, curmudgeon and tiring philalethist
>Namely huge publicity given to the issue of teaching
>evolution at schools.
>That is clearly a matter of ideology, not science,
Indeed, and the subject is raised by the opponents of the
theory of evolution.
And that, like the misguided (at best) statements we see here
are unquestionably the work of ideology.
jj, curmudgeon and tiring philalethist
Raymond E. Griffith <rgri...@vnet.net> wrote:
>"Whats Right" <heat...@kalama.com> wrote in message
>news:heatscan-120...@pm6-21.kalama.com...
>> The question about origins is not one of science but of morality. Those
>> who cling to the hopeless theory of evolution do not want to be
>> accountable to the Creator.
I missed this one.
>I can tell you that your statement is false. I know of several godly men and
>women who use the theory of evolution as a scientific tool. Yet they believe
>in a Creator, and they trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior.
The theory of evolution has no reading on the existance of God, a god,
or any gods.
There is no way to argue that the statement "God created evolution" is
either incorrect OR in any way disputing mainstream
Christian religion.
Alex
> In article <3AD5F5F8...@bcm.tmc.edu>, Alex <as69...@bcm.tmc.edu> wrote:
> >Namely huge publicity given to the issue of teaching
> >evolution at schools.
> Yes, and that by its opponents.
How many America newspapers and TV channels are controlled by the opponents of
teaching evolution? I've not seen a single article or TV show, against teaching
evolution. The mass media is virtually usurped by the advocates of the "survival of
the fittest".
> >That is clearly a matter of ideology, not science,
> Indeed, and the subject is raised by the opponents of the
> theory of evolution.
The subject is raised by the ideologists, who push for the "survival of the
fittest".
Which is not surprising, after all it is the fittest, who control the media.
> And that, like the misguided (at best) statements we see here
> are unquestionably the work of ideology.
The statements we see here are product of the freedom of speech, not of the
corporate dictatorship of the mass media.
Alex.
Alex
> "Alex" <as69...@bcm.tmc.edu> wrote in message
> news:3AD5F5F8...@bcm.tmc.edu...
> > That is clearly a matter of ideology, not science,
> > as much more important concepts, such as long multiplication and
> > division of fractions disappear from school curricula without a trace
> > and anybody noticing anything.
>
> No indeed. If such things disappear, not only are they noticed, but a large
> number of us protest and try to correct. However, you don't notice that, do
> you? Are you only concerned with your own pet peeve?
There are lots of Op Ed for teaching evolution, lots of articles for which
authors get paid. In contrast, when 200 of the nation's best matematicians and
phisicists desperately tried to attract public's attention to droppind division
of fractions from school curriculum they had to pay 70 000$ to have their word
heared.
And "lots of you" are much more likely to do what you are told to do by the
media than to do something on yourself.
> > Nobody
> > attacks evolution theory,
>
> I guess you don't read much Creationist literature, do you? This too, is a
> lie, and a sad one.
This is free country, don't you know this? Just don't use this literature.
> >it is the cannibalist indoctrination at
> > schools, what people object to.
>
> How would you indoctrinate? Would you cannibalize evolutionists?
I am against indoctrination.
No, I am against cannibalism.
Alex.
Raymond E. Griffith
> "Raymond E. Griffith" wrote:
>
> > "Alex" <as69...@bcm.tmc.edu> wrote in message
> > news:3AD5F5F8...@bcm.tmc.edu...
> > > That is clearly a matter of ideology, not science,
> > > as much more important concepts, such as long multiplication and
> > > division of fractions disappear from school curricula without a trace
> > > and anybody noticing anything.
> >
> > No indeed. If such things disappear, not only are they noticed, but a
large
> > number of us protest and try to correct. However, you don't notice that,
do
> > you? Are you only concerned with your own pet peeve?
>
> There are lots of Op Ed for teaching evolution, lots of articles for which
> authors get paid. In contrast, when 200 of the nation's best matematicians
and
> phisicists desperately tried to attract public's attention to droppind
division
> of fractions from school curriculum they had to pay 70 000$ to have their
word
> heared.
>
Well, there are several venues available which have been used. Not all of
them cost $$ to use. And BTW, these topics are still taught in many places
where it has been "officially" dropped by teachers who are going to give
their students what they need.
> And "lots of you" are much more likely to do what you are told to do by
the
> media than to do something on yourself.
>
Oh please! Most math teachers are rather an independent lot. As for others,
well....
> > > Nobody
> > > attacks evolution theory,
> >
> > I guess you don't read much Creationist literature, do you? This too, is
a
> > lie, and a sad one.
>
> This is free country, don't you know this? Just don't use this literature.
>
If you had, you would have realized that many people do attack evolution
theory. Maybe they are not the mainstream media, but that does not mean that
they are nobodies. So .... yes, there are those who attack evolution theory.
And they attract a good deal of attention. Much of that attention is
negative, unfortunately, because many of the attacks are quite shallow,
emotional, and based on a poor understanding of basic scientific principles.
> > >it is the cannibalist indoctrination at
> > > schools, what people object to.
> >
> > How would you indoctrinate? Would you cannibalize evolutionists?
>
> I am against indoctrination.
Are you agant teaching? "Indoctination", for all of its bad connotations, is
not a bad word nor a bad activity. It's primary definition is "to instruct
especially in fundamentals or rudiments." I indoctrinate my students in the
fundamentals and rudiments of mathematics.
So, with this definition, how would you indoctrinate people? You are
obviously against evolution. How would have people instructed in science,
and how would you do it?
> No, I am against cannibalism.
>
Good. Then along with what you would teach, you would graciously allow
evolutionary views to be given?
> Alex.
>
Raymond
Joe Galenko
>
> There are lots of Op Ed for teaching evolution, lots of articles for which
> authors get paid. In contrast, when 200 of the nation's best matematicians and
Compared to how well evolution is scientifically, there aren't many Op Ed
pieces for teaching evolution. There are many places in this country
where evolution is not taught and considering that evoluation just about
as solid a "fact" as anything science can give us, there'd have to be
constant Op Ed pieces all over the place to compensate. I mean, if
schools decided not to teach that the Earth revolves around the Sun,
you'd see quite a few more Op Ed pieces in opposition to that than you do
now in opposition to not teaching evolution.
med...@bearfabrique.org
wrote:
> [ ...lame attempt to put a better light on evolutionism:
>> God hates IDIOTS, too!
>
>No, God loves idiots....
How is anybody supposed to deal with people afflicted with such a
thing? I mean, we clearly are not dealing with anything
RATIONAL here, but rather with some sort of a psychic addiction. Quite
obviously, LOGIC is not the answer; logic bounces off
evolutionists like water off a duck's back. What I have come to
believe is needed here is the same sort of approach which you use
to try to reach drug addicts.
Consider the rapper Ice-T, and his efforts to substitute rap for the
crack, smack, PCP, LSD etc. etc. which he sees on the streets
of L.A. Ice obviously noticed Richard Wagner's use of music as a
vehicle of REDEMPTION, and is trying to adapt the idea to
his own settings. It is not engaging in racism or any thing like that
to note there is something of a general step downwards in
sophistication going from Richard Wagner's audience to that of Ice-T
and, other than for that trivial detail, the basic idea is much the
same:
Clown: Yo, what's up man, I need to get high, man,
I need to get hold of some big-time dope, man,
you know where I can get a ki?
Ice-T: I know where you can get a LP...
Clown: LP, man? Have you went crazy man, I'm talkin about some
dope man, I need to get high right now man, why'nt you hook me
up wit a five-oh...
Ice-T: I can hook you up with a twelve-inch...
Clown: Twelve-inch, man you done went crazy, you don't even know what
time it is, out here on the streets an don't know what time it,
man, you's a FOOL....
Ice-T Yo, home-boy, YOU a fool, YOU don't know what time it is out
here messin-up your mind, you know what I'm sayin; THIS is
Ice-T talkin to you BOOOY... I'ma tell you what TIIIIIME it
is...
Yo it's time for me to pump up the volume,
no problem the record's revolvin
Evil's the mixer, I'm the rap trace the
pack-o rats is on the bum-rush the pictures's
ice, Julio, coldah than evah
punk executioner, he pull the levah...
rotate the wax, then cut an axe the tracks
push up the levels towards the red-light max
dont try to size up; you better wise up
to the rap criminal, we're on the rise up
we're sellin dope till we succed it
dope beats the lyrics no beepers needed
for this drug deal i'm the big wheel
the dope we're sellin you don't smoke you feel
out on the dance floor, an on the world tour
I'm sellin dope in each an every record store
i'm the king pin when the wax spins
crack or smack will take you to a show-in
you don't need it, jus throw that stuff away
you wanna get high, let the record play...
Clown: Aw man, I like this dope here man, it's feelin allright
boooy, what'd you say yo name was, man...
See what I mean? Stupid as it sounds, the clown has actually been
REDEEMED.
Which brings me to the question of evolutionism.
The question arises naturally: if some cracked-out idiot like the
clown above can be redeemed by Ice-T's rap, then what about the
evolutionist, his mind obliterated by years of ideology abuse, his
sense of logic and proportion vitiated by the scholatstical
contortions required to maintain any defense of evolutionism, a
pathetic, hollow shell of a once-humanoid creature? Is there
anything which can redeem this cosmic ungeziefer?
I believe that there is, but the first thing you have to realize is
that, however much of a step downwards was involved in going from
Richard Wagner's audience to Ice's, there is a much BIGGER and more
precipitous drop-off in going from Ice-T's audience to the
evolutionists.
Something in the nature of a three-stage process is required; I will
attempt to get the miserable wretches in this category up to the
general level of sophistication of Ice-T's audience, Ice-T can take
over from there and, presumably, for those interested, Richard
Wagner can handle the final leg of the journey to something resembling
modern man.
Clown: Yo, I need to get high, man, I'm lookin for some big-time
ideology, man, you know where I can get a PHD?
Ice-Bear: I know where you can get a LP...
Clown: LP, man? Have you went crazy man, I need to get high right
now, man, why'nt you hook me up wit a peer-reviewed
journal?
Ice-Bear: I can hook you up with a feral chicken...
Clown: You done went crazy, man, you don't even know what time it
is, man, out here in academia an don't know what time it
is, man, you's a FOOL!!!
Ice-Bear: YO, home boy, YOU a fool, out here messin up your mind,
know what I'm sayin?
This is the ICE-BEAR talkin to you BOOOOooy, an
I'ma tell you what TIIIIIIIME it is...
Yo, it's time for you clowns to see
the light, an stop fightin gainst reality
so come on an step to me, an learn to deal
with the diffrence tween fiction, an what's real
c'mon develop some judgement, an the ability
to deal with mathematics, an probability
an infinity of zero-probability events
can nevah happen, you see, that's just common sense...
At any rate, you get the idea. THAT, I suspect, is the right way to
deal with evolutionists. Perhaps Ice-T and I will arrange some
sort of a combined revival and try to salvage the crack-heads and the
ideology freaks (evolutionists) together at the same time.
Ted Holden
www.bearfabrique.org
| . . , ,
| ____)/ \(____
| _,--''''',-'/( )\`-.`````--._
| ,-' ,' | \ _ _ / | `-. `-.
| ,' / | `._ /\\ //\ _,' | \ `.
| | | `. `-( ,\\_// )-' .' | |
| ,' _,----._ |_,----._\ ____`\o'_`o/'____ /_.----._ |_,----._ `.
| |/' \' `\( \(_)/ )/' `/ `\|
| ` ` V V ' '
Splifford the bat says: Always remember:
A mind is a terrible thing to waste; especially on an evolutionist.
Just say no to narcotic drugs, alcohol abuse, and corrupt ideological
doctrines.
Alan Lichtenstein
> The question about origins is not one of science but of morality. Those
> who cling to the hopeless theory of evolution do not want to be
> accountable to the Creator. They will subscribe to all sorts of feeble
> ideas, without scientific evidence, as long as God is left out. They
> develop their opinions in the face of truth(which is absolute) so anything
> goes they hope.
Your above assertion demonstrated that YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND Darwin's
theory of evolution. Darwin, as well as his successors DID NOT theorize
or speculate on the ORIGIN of life. Darwin's theory of evolution, as
well as in its contemporary form only deals with the method by which
living things which are already in existence, change over time.
Darwin said NOTHING about how life was created in the first place. If
that is the basis for your attack, then it is baseless.
> One scientific evidence that flies in the face of random accidentalism
> (evolution) is the formation of information. Al living things have codes
> of organized information that lead to function and purpose. Not only is
> this true in individual creatures and plants but it is further expanded
> into complete functioning ecosystems. Just to arrieve at the lowest stage
> of the evolved entity a whole supporting ecosystem must be in place first.
> So we are not trying to explain a single living thing, we must look, and
> find, evidence of coincident
> supporting living things(and this has never been done).
Biologists have documented that mutations, which are random occurences
take place with some regularity. Why these mutations are not all
evident is explained quite well by evolutionary theory: Those mutations
cause the organism to be at a competitive disadvantage, and therefore,
such organisms rarely live to reproduce, thus not passing on their genes
to successive generations. However, the mutations which are
effective....well that's evolution.
Had you been as knowledgeable as you think, you would have understood
that mutations are the mechanism of evolution. Something which Darwin
never postulated, because he did not know of genetics at the time he did
his research. Making his conclusions even more insightful as a
consequence.
That mechanism is seen in present day science through the appearance of
antibiotic resistent bacteria an the AIDS virus appearance.
As to your final comment that we have found no evidence of coincident
living things, I refer you to the plethora of studies of comparative
anatomy, morphology and biochemistry, all of which you likely are
ignorant of which provide you with that evidence.
> We worship and follow that which we wish. Don't try and couch this in science.
You worship beliefs which you hold to be true based on FAITH. Science
concludes what its beliefs are to be based on EVIDENCE. Quite a
different matter. I trust you understand this difference.
Alan
jj, curmudgeon and tiring philalethist
>"jj, curmudgeon and tiring philalethist" wrote:
>> In article <3AD5F5F8...@bcm.tmc.edu>, Alex <as69...@bcm.tmc.edu> wrote:
>> >Namely huge publicity given to the issue of teaching
>> >evolution at schools.
>> Yes, and that by its opponents.
>How many America newspapers and TV channels are controlled by the opponents of
>teaching evolution?
The question is irrelevant to your previous point. It is anti-evolution
people who bring the subject up all the time in the media. If there
is dogmatism, it is on their part.
>I've not seen a single article or TV show, against teaching evolution.
I can find one any night of the week on my cable TV set of channels.
>The mass media is virtually usurped by the advocates of the "survival of
>the fittest".
Just because you say it doesn't make it so.
>The statements we see here are product of the freedom of speech, not of the
>corporate dictatorship of the mass media.
Anti-evolutionists have no credibility at all in either the scientific
or logical camps. It's places like here, where their absolutely
ridiculous maunderings MIGHT get a hearing, that they can have
any effect outside of their attempts to ban the teaching of science,
and make no mistake about it, banning evolution is banning science.
fm
"Raymond E. Griffith" <rgri...@vnet.net> wrote in message
news:Y4lB6.16904$g_5....@ralph.vnet.net...
>
> "Whats Right" <heat...@kalama.com> wrote in message
> news:heatscan-120...@pm6-21.kalama.com...
> >
> > The question about origins is not one of science but of morality. Those
> > who cling to the hopeless theory of evolution do not want to be
> > accountable to the Creator.
>
> I can tell you that your statement is false. I know of several godly men
and
> women who use the theory of evolution as a scientific tool. Yet they
believe
> in a Creator, and they trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior.
>
> I can also tell you that you have a false definition of "evolution". Your
> definition is so skewed as to be completely worthless. The ideas you
attack
> have been so removed from context that even those who believe in evolution
> without God would likely be unable to recognize what you are railing
> against.
>
> When you take things out of context, you essentially produce a lie. You
> could take something in my life out of context and then attack me about
> it -- but your whole premise would be false. You would have built a "straw
> man".
>
> It distresses me to see how arrogant we often are, to speak with authority
> about an area in which we know so little!
Gee, you "speak with authority about an area in which [you] know so little",
and then complain that it distresses you? You can't claim that What's Right
is doing that, because he is 100% in synch with the teachings of the Holy
Bible. No wonder you're distressed--you expect us to place your "opinion"
above the fundamental teachings of Christianity.
>
> > They will subscribe to all sorts of feeble
> > ideas, without scientific evidence, as long as God is left out. They
> > develop their opinions in the face of truth(which is absolute) so
anything
> > goes they hope.
> >
> Uhh, do you know anything about peer review? No reputatable scientist,
> atheist or believer, would *dare* to subscribe to feeble ideas without
> evidence. One of the key notions in the scientific world is replicability.
> Another is observability. Those who put forward theories without
substantial
> evidence are laughed out of the community.
We are laughing them out of the community. Darwin should have been laughed
out of the community the day he got back from the Galapagos Islands.
American scientists should never have put their label on him. He didn't
know science, he wasn't educated, his work wasn't peer reviewed, there is
nothing at all observable about the notion that monkeys mutated into homo
sapiens, and all of the available DNA evidence refutes the bone robbers and
their century and a half attempt to make Darwin's "theory" fit the facts.
That's not to say that uneducated people aren't capable of making very valid
observations. But the more you read about the nutty observations he made,
the more you realize that even our *scientists* were hoodwinked by complete
nonsense.
>
> And the goal of science is to understand *how* things work, and *why*.
There
> is certainly none of the "anything goes" attitude that you ascribe to
them.
>
> > One scientific evidence that flies in the face of random accidentalism
> > (evolution) is the formation of information. Al living things have
codes
> > of organized information that lead to function and purpose. Not only is
> > this true in individual creatures and plants but it is further expanded
> > into complete functioning ecosystems. Just to arrieve at the lowest
stage
> > of the evolved entity a whole supporting ecosystem must be in place
first.
>
> Well, this is not quite true, either. Perhaps you are not up to speed on
the
> fact that life has been found in places where no one thought life could
> exist, under conditions in which life as we know it was thought to be
> impossible. Anaerobes, for example (if you care to look them up).
>
The report that was posted addressed single cell life and noted that their
DNA is not that much less complex than the DNA of homo sapiens. iow,
genetically, it doesn't require much of an improvement in DNA to go from
single cell life forms to homo sapiens. The difficult part of DNA is
creating life in the first place. Once that's done, the rest is a piece of
cake.
It is statistically impossible for this to happen by coincidence, no matter
how much time is involved. The natural tendency is to disorganize, not
organize.
> > So we are not trying to explain a single living thing, we must look, and
> > find, evidence of coincident
> > supporting living things(and this has never been done).
> >
> > We worship and follow that which we wish. Don't try and couch this in
> science.
> >
>
> You are correct in saying that we worship and follow tha which we wish. I
> worship God. I follow Him. And I trust His Word. Do you? If so, why are
you
> so frightened by those who wish to understand the processes God put into
> place in this world He created?
>
> The less I knew, the more confident I was that I knew it all. Now, having
> learned a great deal more, I understand that I know very little indeed. I
> will keep learning, but I will never know it all.
>
> Raymond
>
Raymond, wadr, you aren't even close. You are correct that science and God
coexist, but you are seriously in error to refuse to consider the awful
ramifications of accepting as "science" the childish ramblings of a
non-scientist like Darwin. If the "theory of evolution" was even close,
species have been on the planet long enough that there would now be only ONE
species--a conglomeration of every other species that ever existed.
DNA structure alone is proof that this can't happen. iow, there is only one
game in town--creation. Precisely the one described in the Holy Bible.
John Knight
fm
Hear, hear, Gerhard.
That is an excellent summary of what DNA has now proven to us. It seems
that this false notion that there is a scientific tendency towards order
began with the promotion of the theory that "enough monkeys with enough
typewriters and enough time will eventually produce a novel".
The fact is: the more these monkeys type, the less likely their chances are
that they could even type a single coherent sentence. It's complete
mythology that an intelligent work could be created this way, without divine
intervention.
In order for this to happen, an intelligent being would have to assemble the
parts that accidentally conformed to some language into a single document.
Monkeys can't do that. Every single "novel" they produced would be
gibberish, no matter how long that process went on.
The notion that multiple ecosystems could spontaneously evolve at exactly
the same time is like claiming that multiple universes of such monkeys with
typewriters would suddenly all write a million successful novels, and would
finish all at one time.
John Knight
David Brauning
think of negative ones...retardation,sickle anemia, etc.
Dave
fm
"Ray and Mary" <Droui...@home.com> wrote in message
news:gZaB6.169952$W05.32...@news1.rdc1.mi.home.com...
> > Evolution has been so thoroughly discredited at this point that you
> > assume nobody is defending it because they believe in it
> > anymore, and that they are defending it because they do not like the
> > prospects of having to defend or explain some axpect of their
> > lifestyles to God, St. Peter, Muhammed et. al.
>
> documentation?
>
> The only people who call it "discredited" are those who have some kind of
a
> compelling reason to believe that it isn't true - sort of like the case
> where a certain scientist was given a guided tour of the dungeon of the
> inquisition in order to induce him to retract the "herecy" that the Earth
> revolves around the Sun.
>
> Ray Drouillard
>
>
>
One of those "compelling reason[s] to believe that it isn't true" might be
that they just never accepted the giant leaps of faith that putative
"scientists" made in order to make the "theory" fit the facts. You may be
implying that this "compelling reason" is a religious belief, but there are
so many other questions raised by the "theory of evolution" that you could
reject it without relying at all on what your religion says about it.
Independent of the fact that it is a direct attack on the Holy Bible, it is
a truly childish and outlandish claim. Children without much knowledge of
either are naturally incredulous about the notion that homo sapiens
"evolved" from monkeys. You just have to admit that it plain flat does not
make sense to some people, no matter what their religious orientation.
John Knight
fm
> in article e52B6.7579$J8.56...@news1.rsm1.occa.home.com, fm at> > news:3AD4A3C3...@bcm.tmc.edu...
> >> "John D. Callahan" wrote:
> >>
> >>> But is it possible to be a Christian and fully accept modern science
> >>> (including biological evolution and the Big Bang),
> >>
> >> How one can accept "survival of the fittest" and "Love thy neighbour
like
> >> thyself" at the same time?
> >>
> >> Alex.
> >>
> >
> > These are not necessarly mutually exclusive, but it misses the point.
The
> > problem is that science itself has been unable to locate and identify
even
> > ONE "missing link" which demonstrates the "evolution" of one species
into
> > another. All "science" has as "proof" of this "theory" [and the word
> > "theory" here by no means fits the scientific criteria to be a "theory"]
is
> > childish speculation by IDIOTS (who aren't "scientists" at all) that the
> > bones of one species look similar to the bones of another species, so
one
> > must have evolved from the other.
> >
>
> Uhh, you really want to be careful here. Now I am a Christian, and I trust
> the scriptures -- but I don't believe in over-simplification either.
>
> You not only have not adequately defined evolution here, you have
completely
> misstated its methodologies.
>
> Many Christians like to claim that the evolutionary biologists are
> unreasonable, but very often we Christians are more unreasonable of the
lot.
> When you say that they aren't scientists, you employ an invective that not
> only is abusive to your adversary, but also ruins your own credibility.
>
> > That is not a "theory". That is childish speculation, at best. But
even
> > worse, to teach that this is "science", in the face of the fact that not
a
> > single bone of the millions of bones which have been found supports that
> > "theory".
> >
>
> Again, you really want to be careful here. Abuse given invites abuse!
>
> But what is worse than an unbelieving evolutionist? A "believing"
> creationist who employs bad science deliberately so as to make his point.
I
> have investigated many of the claims of the so-called "creation science"
> movement, and many of them are not only erroneous, but outright deceitful.
> This distresses me.
>
> I have seen proposed as "creation science" the wildest speculation and
> fabrications imaginable without any attempt for proof -- all trying to
make
> a point, and wrapped up in high-sounding words which the lay person cannot
> understand. This deceit is unworthy of being labeled "Christian" in any
> sense! And we have the gall to accuse the evolutionists of speculation
when
> they attempt to understand the world of the past by the way things work
> today.
>
> I have also seen Christians presented with credible evidence for processes
> that they have declared impossible, who resorted to name calling and
> ridicule. This also is unChristian.
>
> If you are going to make your point, do it without the invectives. Be
> willing to examine the opponents claims in depth, and be ready to offer
> reasonable alternate models. If you can't explain something, admit it. But
> don't simply dismiss as worthless the speculations or investigations of
the
> scientific community -- even if you believe that they are! You may not
agree
> with them, but you need to be willing to understand why they think the way
> they do. If their "theories" are worthless, you should be able to present
a
> much more reasonable and workable hypothesis, don't you think? After all,
it
> is God's world. Christians should be willing to understand science to know
> how God's world works.
>
> BTW, I know several people who are devout Christians, but who also believe
> in evolution. You might find this strange, but it would be a mistake to
lump
> everyone who believes in evolution into the unsaved camp.
>
> The subject is incredibly complex. There are a huge number of factors to
be
> considered in how the world works. God created the world and the way it
> works. I suppose then, that it is not unreasonable to think that he meant
> for us to understand those processes?
>
> I also suppose that is is not unreasonable to follow the scriptural
> directives as to how we speak and act?
>
> > John Knight
> >
> >
> Raymond E. Griffith
>
Dear Raymond,
I am a Christian too, but believe it or not, after years of just accepting
at face value what our "public schools" teach about evolution, it was my
scientific background rather than my Christian background that made me
overwhelmingly reject every word written by Darwin.
He was truly pathetic, but I never knew it, because I never looked into his
history--until the DNA evidence proved, once and for all, that Neanderthal,
Cro Magnon, and homo sapiens are not genetically linked.
The bones mean nothing. They can fit them together any way they choose.
The DNA proved that Neanderthal is extinct, Cro Magnon is extinct, and homo
sapiens survived.
That was the last gasp in the argument for evolution. Homo sapiens did not
"evolve" from anything else, and thus neither did a bird "evolve" from a
dynasaur, and neither did a fish become a turtle. DNA slammed the door shut
on "evolution".
You are correct about the best way for a Christian to approach this. But
when all of this sinks in (which assumes that you do the research necessary
to confirm the above), then you will realize that we as Christians must play
a completely different role than our "school system" teaches.
Sincerely,
John Knight
ps--this is the passage which made me reject Darwin:
===============================
On an average every species must have same number killed year with year by
hawks, by cold, & c.--even one species of hawk decreasing in number must
affect instantaneously all the rest. The final cause of all this wedging
must be to sort out proper structure.... One may say there is a force like a
hundred thousand wedges trying to force every kind of adapted structure in
the gaps in the oeconomy of nature, or rather forming gaps by thrusting out
weaker ones.
============================
fm
news:3ad52348....@news.fcc.net...
The
> >problem is that science itself has been unable to locate and identify
even
> >ONE "missing link" which demonstrates the "evolution" of one species into
> >another. All "science" has as "proof" of this "theory" [and the word
> >"theory" here by no means fits the scientific criteria to be a "theory"]
is
> >childish speculation by IDIOTS (who aren't "scientists" at all) that the
> >bones of one species look similar to the bones of another species, so one
> >must have evolved from the other.
> >
> >worse, to teach that this is "science", in the face of the fact that not
a
> >single bone of the millions of bones which have been found supports that
> >"theory".
> >
>
> You sure do have that one right. Glad to see more and more people
> figuring this business out.
>
> Evolution has been so thoroughly discredited at this point that you
> assume nobody is defending it because they believe in it
> anymore, and that they are defending it because they do not like the
> prospects of having to defend or explain some axpect of their
> lifestyles to God, St. Peter, Muhammed et. al.
>
> evolution, as a doctrine, is so overwhelmingly STUPID that,
> faced with a choice of wearing a sweatshirt with a scarlet letter F
> (for fornicator), D (Democrat), O (Other loser of some sort or
> other) or I (for IDIOT), you'd actually be better off sticking with
> one of the former choices because, as Clint Eastwood noted in
> The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly:
>
> God hates IDIOTS, too!
>
> The best illustration of how stupid evolutionism really is involves
> trying to become some totally new animal with new organs, a new
> basic plan for existence, and new requirements for integration between
> both old and new organs.
>
> Take flying birds for example; suppose you aren't one, and you want to
> systems, including wings, flight feathers, a specialized light bone
> structure, specialized flow-through design heart and lungs,
> specialized tail, specialized general balance parameters etc.
>
> chances of evolving any of these things by any process resembling
> evolution (mutations plus selection) would amount to an
> infinitessimal, i.e. one divided by some gigantic number.
>
> happening at once, you multiply the probabilities together. That says
> that the likelihood of all these things ever happening, best case, is
> ten or twelve such infinitessimals multiplied together, i.e. a tenth
> or twelth-order infinitessimal. The whole history of the universe
> isn't long enough for that to happen once.
>
> that. In real life, natural selection could not plausibly select for
> hoped-for functionality, which is what would be required in order to
> evolve flight feathers on something which could not fly apriori.
> In real life, all you'd ever get would some sort of a random walk
> around some starting point, rather than the unidircetional march
> towards a future requirement which evolution requires.
>
> And the real killer, i.e. the thing which simply kills evolutionism
> dead, is the following consideration: In real life, assuming you were
> to somehow miraculously evolve the first feature you'd need to become
> a flying bird, then by the time another 10,000 generations
> rolled around and you evolved the second such reature, the first,
> having been disfunctional/antifunctional all the while, would have
> DE-EVOLVED and either disappeared altogether or become vestigial.
>
> Now, it would be miraculous if, given all the above, some new kind of
> complex creature with new organs and a new basic plan for
> life had ever evolved ONCE.
>
> Evolutionism, however (the Theory of Evolution) requires that this has
> happened countless billions of times, i.e. an essentially infinite
> number of absolutely zero probability events.
>
> And, if you were starting to think that nothing could possibly be any
> stupider than believing in evolution despite all of the above (i.e.
> that the basic stupidity of evolutionism starting from 1980 or
> thereabouts could not possibly be improved upon), think again.
> Because there is zero evidence in the fossil record (despite the BS
> claims of talk.origins "crew" and others of their ilk) to support
> any sort of a theory involving macroevolution, and because the
> original conceptions of evolution are flatly refuted by developments
> in population genetics since the 1950's, the latest incarnation of
> this theory, Steve Gould and Niles Eldredge's "Punctuated
> Equilibrium or punc-eek" attempts to claim that these wholesale
> violations of probabilistic laws all occurred so suddenly as to never
> leave evidence in the fossil record, and that they all occurred
> amongst tiny groups of animals living in "peripheral" areas. That says
> that some velocirapter who wanted to be a bird got together with fifty
> of his friends and said:
>
> Guys, we need flight feathers, and wings, and specialized
> bones, hearts, lungs, and tails, and we need em NOW; not
> two years from now. Everybody ready, all together now:
>
> OOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.....
>
> You could devise a new religion by taking the single stupidest
> doctrine from each of the existing religions, and it would not be as
> stupid as THAT.
>
> But it gets even stupider.
>
> Again, the original Darwinian vision of gradualistic evolution is
> flatly refuted by the fossil record (Darwinian evolution demanded that
> the vast bulk of ALL fossils be intermediates) and by the findings of
> population genetics, particularly the Haldane dilemma and the
> impossible time requirements for spreading genetic changes through any
> sizeable herd of animals.
>
> Consider what Gould and other punk-eekers are saying. Punc-eek amounts
> to a claim that all meaningful evolutionary change takes
> place in peripheral areas, amongst tiny groups of animals which
> develop some genetic advantage, and then move out and
> overwhelm, outcompete, and replace the larger herds. They are claiming
> that this eliminates the need to spread genetic change
> through any sizeable herd of animals and, at the same time, is why we
> never find intermediate fossils (since there are never enough
> of these CHANGELINGS to leave fossil evidence).
>
> Obvious problems with punctuated equilibria include, minimally:
>
> 1. It is a pure pseudoscience seeking to explain and actually be
> proved by a lack of evidence rather than by evidence
> (all the missing intermediate fossils). Similarly, Cotton Mather
> claimed that the fact that nobody had ever seen or heard
> a witch was proof they were there (if you could see or hear them, they
> wouldn't be witches...) The best example of that sort of logic in
> fact that there ever was was Michael O'Donahue's parody of the
> Connecticut Yankee (New York Yankee in King Arthur's Court) which
> showed Reggie looking for a low outside fastball and then getting
> beaned cold by a high inside one, the people feeling Reggie's wrist
> for pulse, and Reggie back in Camelot, where they had him bound hand
> and foot. Some guy was shouting "Damned if e ain't black from ead to
> foot, if that ain't witchcraft I never saw it!!!", everybody was
> yelling "Witchcraft Trial!, Witchcraft Trial!!", and they were
> building a scaffold. Reggie looks at King Arthur and says "Hey man,
> isn't that just a tad premature, I mean we haven't even had the TRIAL
> yet!", and Arthur replies "You don't seem to understand, son, the
> hanging IS the trial; if you survive that, that means you're a witch
> and we gotta burn ya!!!" Again, that's precisely the sort of logic
> which goes into Gould's variant of evolutionism, Punk-eek.
>
> 2. PE amounts to a claim that inbreeding is the most major source
> of genetic advancement in the world. Apparently Steve Gould never saw
> Deliverance...
>
> 3. PE requires these tiny peripheral groups to conquer vastly
> larger groups of animals millions if not billions of times, which is
> like requiring Custer to win at the little Big Horn every day, for
> millions of years.
>
> 4. PE requires an eternal victory of animals specifically adapted
> to localized and parochial conditions over animals which are globally
> adapted, which never happens in real life.
>
> 5. For any number of reasons, you need a minimal population of
> any animal to be viable. This is before the tiny group even gets
> started in overwhelming the vast herds. A number of American species
> such as the heath hen became non-viable when their numbers were
> reduced to a few thousand; at that point, any stroke of bad luck at
> all, a hard winter, a skewed sex ratio in one generation, a disease of
> some sort, and it's all over. The heath hen was fine as long as it was
> spread out over the East coast of the U.S. The point at which it got
> penned into one of these "peripheral" areas which Gould and Eldredge
> see as the salvation for evolutionism, it was all over.
>
> The sort of things noted in items 3 and 5 are generally referred to as
> the "gambler's problem", in this case, the problem facing the
> tiny group of "peripheral" animals being similar to that facing a
> gambler trying to beat the house in blackjack or roulette; the house
> could lose many hands of cards or rolls of the dice without flinching,
> and the globally-adapted species spread out over a continent
> could withstand just about anything short of a continental-scale
> catastrophe without going extinct, while two or three bad rolls of the
> dice will bankrupt the gambler, and any combination of two or three
> strokes of bad luck will wipe out the "peripheral" species.
> Gould's basic method of handling this problem is to ignore it.
>
> And there's one other thing which should be obvious to anybody
> attempting to read through Gould and Eldridge's BS:
>
> They don't even bother to try to provide a mechanism or
> technical explaination of any sort for this "punk-eek"
>
> They are claiming that at certain times, amongst tiny groups of
> animals living in peripheral areas, a "speciation event(TM)" happens,
> and THEN the rest of it takes place. In other words, they are saying:
>
> ASSUMING that Abracadabra-Shazaam(TM) happens, then the rest
> of the business proceeds as we have described in our
> scholarly discourse above!
>
> Again, Gould and Eldridge require that the Abracadabra-Shazaam(TM)
> happen not just once, but countless billions of times, i.e. at
> least once for every kind of complex creature which has ever walked
> the Earth. They do not specify whether this amounts to the
> same Abracadabra-Shazaam each time, or a different kind of
> Abracadabra-Shazaam for each creature.
>
> I ask you: How could anything be stupider or worse than that? What
> could possibly be worse than professing to believe in such a
> thing?
>
>
> Ted Holden
> www.bearfabrique.org
>
>
>
>
raotflmao!! Great analogies );
What's even more revealing is that if everything you wrote above is correct
(and I don't doubt for a second that it is), why didn't the "mainstream
media" in this country PRINT IT?
Furthermore, as evidence of the "conspiracy for ignorance" that our
"mainstream media" is fully engaged in when their favorite "theory of
evolution" is challenged, they never PRINTED the fact that the DNA evidence
ruled out Neanderthal and Cro Magnon as ancestors to homo sapiens. Ten
publications around the world did that, but none in the US did.
Why do you think they are they so intent on keeping the big LIE alive?
Sincerely,
John Knight
fm
> in article 3ad52348....@news.fcc.net, med...@bearfabrique.org at
> med...@bearfabrique.org wrote on 4/11/2001 11:45 PM:
>
> > happening at once, you multiply the probabilities together. That says
> > that the likelihood of all these things ever happening, best case, is
> > ten or twelve such infinitessimals multiplied together, i.e. a tenth
> > or twelth-order infinitessimal. The whole history of the universe
> > isn't long enough for that to happen once.
>
>
courses?
>
> probability theory's influence on the subject?
>
>
> Raymond
>
A simple way to look at this is to consider a coin flip, where the odds of
getting a head are 1 in 2, and the odds of getting a tail are 1 in 2.
The odds of getting a head once are 1 in 2, or .5.
The odds of getting a head twice in a row are .5 x .5 = .25
The odds of getting a head three times in a row are .5 x .5 x .5 = .125
At 10 heads, it is .00049
At 20 heads, it is .000000477
His point is that, if you start out with a small probability like .000000477
and expect 12 of them to happen at once, you run out of universe );
The following number are the odds against getting four aces in straight 5
card draw poker 48 times within a 4 week span.
1 out of
5,500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00
0,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00
0,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00
0,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00
0,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00
0,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
John Knight
Adam Marczyk
news:3AD4A3C3...@bcm.tmc.edu...
> "John D. Callahan" wrote:
>
> > But is it possible to be a Christian and fully accept modern science
> > (including biological evolution and the Big Bang),
>
> How one can accept "survival of the fittest" and "Love thy neighbour like
> thyself" at the same time?
Easy. Believe that the first is a simple principle of what happens in nature
without human intervention and the second is a moral guide.
--
When I am dreaming,
I don't know if I'm truly asleep, or if I'm awake.
When I get up,
I don't know if I'm truly awake, or if I'm still dreaming...
--Forest for the Trees, "Dream"
To send e-mail, change "excite" to "hotmail"
Raymond E. Griffith
> >
> > It distresses me to see how arrogant we often are, to speak with
authority
> > about an area in which we know so little!
>
To which John Knight responded:
> Gee, you "speak with authority about an area in which [you] know so
little",
> and then complain that it distresses you? You can't claim that What's
Right
> is doing that, because he is 100% in synch with the teachings of the Holy
> Bible. No wonder you're distressed--you expect us to place your "opinion"
> above the fundamental teachings of Christianity.
>
No, no. Not at all. But I wonder how one can be "100% in synch with the
teachings of the Bible" if he is willing to be wrong on the facts in which
he accuses others. I wonder how he can be right if he won't get his
definitions correct.
God's Word does not teach us to be ignorant, nor to fight from ignorance. I
find none of the preachers in the Bible making rash and unfounded
accusations.
Nor does the Scripture teach us to use invectives. Rather, it commands that
our speech be with grace.
And if you are careful to look, I have not said that I am an evolutionist. I
have said that it produces useful models. What I am arguing against is not
creationism, per se, but rather the rash, uneducated drivel some propound
that makes people who believe in Creation look like fools.
I, too, used to charge in like a brave knight to destroy the foe and defend
the Lord. I quickly found out the scripture which says "My people are
destroyed for lack of knowledge" is true. I also was remonstrated for having
the gall to defend Christian teaching while acting in a patently unChristian
manner.
If you are going to fight the fight, know your subject thoroughly. Don't
resort to invectives. Remember that the end result is not to destroy the
foe, but to redeem.
How have my objections to rash statements and inaccurate ideas and data
removed me from the fundamentals of Christianity? I don't believe they have.
Rather, I want to follow the Lord in all honesty and humility.
> > You are correct in saying that we worship and follow tha which we wish.
I
> > worship God. I follow Him. And I trust His Word. Do you? If so, why are
> you
> > so frightened by those who wish to understand the processes God put into
> > place in this world He created?
> >
> > The less I knew, the more confident I was that I knew it all. Now,
having
> > learned a great deal more, I understand that I know very little indeed.
I
> > will keep learning, but I will never know it all.
> >
> > Raymond
> >
>
> Raymond, wadr, you aren't even close. You are correct that science and
God
> coexist, but you are seriously in error to refuse to consider the awful
> ramifications of accepting as "science" the childish ramblings of a
> non-scientist like Darwin. If the "theory of evolution" was even close,
> species have been on the planet long enough that there would now be only
ONE
> species--a conglomeration of every other species that ever existed.
>
Again, a rash statement without a shred of supporting evidence. Sigh. Can't
you see that statements like this only make people decide to ignore your
argument. Can't you see that if you have truth to offer, that rash and
unfounded statements will make people overlook that truth?
I believe the Scriptures. And in following them, I believe it is important
to be knowledgeable about your topics and wise in your speech.
Raymond
Adam Marczyk
news:3ad628d6....@news.fcc.net...
[snip]
To coin a phrase, probability is irrelevant. Since no one predicted any
result ahead of time, evolution is free to take whatever paths it wants. You
may buy a lottery ticket with 1 in 3 billion odds and discover you had the
winning numbers; would you throw it out because "I couldn't possibly beat
odds that large, so clearly I didn't win after all?" _Someone_ has to win.
mel turner
In article <3ad381dc...@news.lafn.org>, john...@faithreason.org
[John D. Callahan] wrote...
>
>God created the universe with laws (gravity, time, etc.) by which it
>operates; we are able to understand these laws and make discoveries
>about past and future events and phenomena, including evolution.
>Evolution is simply a scientific understanding of our origins. It does
>not make God unnecessary.
Right, that's a very common position. Lots of "evolutionists"
are theists who simply believe that natural evolution was the
method used for the creation of life's diversity.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-god.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/interpretations.html
http://www.religioustolerance.org/evolutio.htm
http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/dmd.htm
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Temple/9917/evolution/kevino.html
http://www.goshen.edu/bio/Biol410/Biol410SrSemPapers97/millerl.html
http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~ecolevol/fulldoc.html#fact
http://asa.calvin.edu/ASA/index.html
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/topics/Evolution/index.html/
http://homepages.tcp.co.uk/~carling/main_sci.html
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~newman/sci-cp/evolution.html
http://www.cco.caltech.edu/~newman/sci-faith.html
http://solon.cma.univie.ac.at/~neum/christ/creation.html
etc.
>However, it may mean we need to reevaluate
>Him and our place in the universe. Evolution may imply that the
>universe is bigger and more complex than we at first imagined.
Well, astronomy and cosmology will tell us that, even if
evolutionary biology itself doesn't.
>Many Christians, unfortunately, are reluctant to accept modern
>science. Creationists, rather than accepting the ever increasing
>mountain of evidence validating evolution, have developed a new
>tactic: in addition to their religious and creation "science" premise,
>they now spin complex and sophisticated scientific arguments debunking
>evolution ("Intelligent Design Theory").
That probably should be "complex and sophisticated-_sounding_
'scientific' arguments". There's arguably little valid science
to any of it.
e,g.,
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-creationists.html
http://biomed.brown.edu/Faculty/M/Miller/Behe.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/behe.html
>The Kansas Board of
>Education's 1999 decision removing evolution from their curriculum was
>a short-lived victory for such a strategy.
>
>But is it possible to be a Christian and fully accept modern science
>(including biological evolution and the Big Bang), and a valuable, yet
>non-perfect Bible? A Web site which addresses these issues -- and has
>a pretty good links page to related sites -- is
>
>http://www.faithreason.org (Faith & Reason Ministries)
Added to the above list of "theistic evolution" web sites.
cheers
mel turner
[fm] wrote...
>"Alex" <as69...@bcm.tmc.edu> wrote in message
news:3AD4A3C3...@bcm.tmc.edu...
>> "John D. Callahan" wrote:
>>
>> > (including biological evolution and the Big Bang),
>>
>> thyself" at the same time?
"Survival of the fittest" is a poor layman's description of the
principle of natural selection. "Differential reproductive success
among individuals in a population causes adaptive evolutionary
change" is much better. Selection may as often lead to greater
cooperation among relatives and neighbors as it does to antagonism
or competition.
Try the t.o. FAQs?
http://www.talkorigins.org/
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-qa.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-mustread.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-misconceptions.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-evolution.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-intro-to-biology.html
etc/
Or, maybe move this to the [more appropriate] newsgroup
talk.origins
[but there you can't crosspost to any moderated groups or to more
than 4 groups total]
>These are not necessarly mutually exclusive, but it misses the point. The
>problem is that science itself has been unable to locate and identify even
>ONE "missing link" which demonstrates the "evolution" of one species into
>another.
Wrong. There are plenty of such transitions known. Both ones at
the species level and ones involvign intermediates between much
higher groups than the species.
[Also, species-level "macroevolutionary" changes are observed
to occur today.]
That ["no transitional fossils"] is a very common antievolutionist
claim. It's simply false [although all the great many 'links' that
have been found so far aren't "missing"].
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/archaeopteryx.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/horses.html
http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/transitional_def.html
http://tallship.chm.colostate.edu/gray/miller_figs/Miller.html
http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/transit.htm
http://humanism.net/~schafesd/challenge.html
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/8851/trans-fossils.html
http://www.handprint.com/LS/ANC/evol.html
http://www.dinosauria.com/jdp/jdp.htm#archie
http://www.neoucom.edu/Depts/Anat/whaleorigins.htm
etc.
>All "science" has as "proof" of this "theory" [and the word
>"theory" here by no means fits the scientific criteria to be a "theory"]
Sure it fits.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-fact.html
http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~ecolevol/fulldoc.html#fact
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolphil.html
>is
>childish speculation by IDIOTS (who aren't "scientists" at all)
How calmly rational.
>that the
>bones of one species look similar to the bones of another species, so one
>must have evolved from the other.
Sorry, but you really, _really_ don't seem to know what you're
talking about.
>That is not a "theory".
Sure it is.
>That is childish speculation, at best.
Nope. Biology.
>But even
>worse, to teach that this is "science", in the face of the fact that not a
>single bone of the millions of bones which have been found supports that
>"theory".
That tired old assertion is still wrong on every point.
cheers
Ray and Mary
his
> history--until the DNA evidence proved, once and for all, that
Neanderthal,
> Cro Magnon, and homo sapiens are not genetically linked.
Where did you get this data? I vaguely remember some attempt being made to
do some DNA analysis on old bones, but I don't remember any results being
quoted. It sounds like it would make an interesting read.
>
> The bones mean nothing. They can fit them together any way they choose.
> The DNA proved that Neanderthal is extinct, Cro Magnon is extinct, and
homo
> sapiens survived.
Standard theory does not state that one evolved into the other. Some think
that perhaps some Neanderthal DNA ended up in our gene pool, but that is not
widely accepted. OTOH, I believe I have met some in other NGs :-)
>
> That was the last gasp in the argument for evolution.
For whom?
> Homo sapiens did not
> "evolve" from anything else,
I can accept that, but the matter is far from settled in my mind. God may
have made us using a different method than he used for the rest of the
Earth's living things, or maybe he didn't.
It doesn't really matter how he created the physical body. What matters is
that he made us in his own image, and that he breathed life into us. He
made us above the animals. God is a spirit being, he made the angels as
spirit beings, and he put a spirit into us.
Many of those who argue against evolution do so because they percieve that
it seeks to make us just another animal. That, by the way, is the problem
that the Church had against the heliocentric theory. It took Earth (Man's
home) from the center of the universe and put the sun there. (Later, we
have decided that there is no "center" in the universe.)
Evolution doesn't address the spirit, or the difference between us and the
animals.
> and thus neither did a bird "evolve" from a
> dynasaur, and neither did a fish become a turtle. DNA slammed the door
shut
> on "evolution".
Actually, DNA analysis on modern animals is used to indicate when (how many
millions of years ago) the lines split.
Ray Drouillard
med...@bearfabrique.org
<ebon...@excite.com> wrote:
>To coin a phrase, probability is irrelevant. Since no one predicted any
>result ahead of time, evolution is free to take whatever paths it wants. You
>may buy a lottery ticket with 1 in 3 billion odds and discover you had the
>winning numbers; would you throw it out because "I couldn't possibly beat
>odds that large, so clearly I didn't win after all?" _Someone_ has to win.
>
You're talking about winning the Maryland lottery. Sure, that's
poossible, just like having some sort of a mutation result in a lizard
gaining wings is possible. In fact, you could tell me you won the
Maryland lottery and I wouldn't automatically take you for a liar or
think you were stoned.
But, to become a flying bird, the lizard needs wings, flight feathers,
a special light bone structure, specialized tail, specialized balance
parameters, specialized flow-through heart and lungs...
That's like you winning the lotteries of Maryland, Virginia, Delaware,
both Carolinas, Georgia, and Pennsylvania all on the same day. If I
told you I'd just won all that, would you take me seriously?
Again, that's not even counting the little problem which says that, if
the lizard were to miraculously evolve the first such feature then, by
the time another 100,000 years rolled by and he evolved the second,
the first would have de-evolved, having been anti-functional all the
while.
Ted Holden
med...@bearfabrique.org
med...@bearfabrique.org
<dbra...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>Are there any positive mutations occuring in the human race? I can only
>think of negative ones...retardation,sickle anemia, etc.
>
>Dave
You seem to have noticed something which most evolutionists like to
avoid, i.e. the fact that in real life, these mutations they like to
talk about all have names, e.g. Downs' Syndrome, Tay-Sachs disease,
hemophilia, cri-du-chat syndrome, phoco-loci etc. etc.
Ever notice the Mothers March of Dimes people going door to door?
Ever notice that they are ALWAYS collecting money for research to
PREVENT mutations, and not to cause them? Ever wonder why that might
be?
Ever notice that in their literature, they refer to mutations as
"birth defects"?
Ted Holden
med...@bearfabrique.org
mel turner
gre...@ntlworld.com [greggi] wrote...
>Evolution is a fine theory
Yes, it is.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-fact.html
http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~ecolevol/fulldoc.html#fact
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-evolution.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-intro-to-biology.html
>but the maths does not add up.
Sure they do. Evolutionary theory is very heavily mathematical
[e.g., population genetics].
>Conservative
>estimates put the chance of life being created by natural means in the
>universe at 1/ 10 to the power of 28
(1/10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000).
1] Can you show us these supposed calculations, and describe
the many assumptions that must be involved? ["GIGO" likely applies]
e.g., often creationists assume things such as that there's
only one particular "right" result, and that it has to arise
all at once by purely random processes.
See:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob.html
2] Anyway, evolution isn't at all about the origins of the first
life, but is about how life changes and diversifies after it got
here somehow. What you're talking about is the subject called
"abiogenesis", not "evolution".
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-abiogenesis.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/apr98.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-definition.html
>Statistically we can only
>accept probability of 1/20 or 5%.
Meaning?
>The process of evolution is equally
>statistically unsound.
How so? No, it's not.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-misconceptions.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-evolution.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-intro-to-biology.html
>I agree that we should enthusiastically embrace
>science but remain wary of biased (atheist) interpretations.
Evolutionary biology neither requires nor implies atheism. Plenty
of "evolutionists" are theists who just see natural evolution as
the method that was used for creating life's diversity.
God created
>out of nothing (Creatio ex-nihilo) and God continues to create (Creatio
>Continua). Design is a very compelling argument.
And the process of natural selection causes the appearance of
"design" in evolving organisms.
cheers
Ray and Mary
matter
> how much time is involved. The natural tendency is to disorganize, not
> organize.
The power natural selection is that the natural tendency is to improve.
That's the crux of evolution. If you don't understand that, you don't
understand evolution well enough to craft an effective arguement against it.
> You are correct that science and God
> coexist, but you are seriously in error to refuse to consider the awful
> ramifications of accepting as "science" the childish ramblings of a
> non-scientist like Darwin.
What awful consequences? I could swear up and down and sincerely believe
that the Earth is flat, and that wouldn't effect my salvation or rewards one
tiny little bit.
Ray Drouillard
Ray and Mary
"fm" <j.w.k...@usa.net> wrote in message
news:_NqB6.8524$J8.65...@news1.rsm1.occa.home.com...
The only arguements that I have ever seen against evolution were made by
those who have religious reasons to disbelieve it.
>
> Independent of the fact that it is a direct attack on the Holy Bible, it
is
> a truly childish and outlandish claim.
I have already covered this, but I'll cover it again (said with patience and
a sigh).
The evolutionary theory does NOT contradict anything in the Bible.
Some of the atheistic scholars of the time made the claim that evolution
answers the question of where we came from, and we therefore don't need god.
Therefore, he doesn't exist.
The above arguement is logically flawed. The fact that I don't need
something doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.
It is that logical fallocy that we need to point out and debunk. Fighting
against a useful and internally consistent theory like evolution is a waste
of time, and ends up making us look like a bunch of idiots.
> Children without much knowledge of
> either are naturally incredulous about the notion that homo sapiens
> "evolved" from monkeys.
Really? I wasn't incredulous, nor was any child that I ever met. Where did
you get your data?
> You just have to admit that it plain flat does not
> make sense to some people, no matter what their religious orientation.
Why do I have to admit that?
Look, God made the entire universe, including us. How he did it is
generally something left for us to study and discover. He just gives the
barest set of hints in Genesis.
God made the Human species, and he made each of us individually.
We have studied how we are made. The two cells merge into one, forming a
zygote. They divide and divide again and again, forming a blasocyst, an
embryo, a fetus, and finally an infant. We don't know the nitty-gritty
details (like exactly how the protiens created by the DNA cause the cells to
form and specialize), but we have a very good overview.
In the Bible, we learn that God created us.
Psalms 139:13 For you formed my inmost being. You knit me together in my
mother's womb.
The Bible doesn't address all that other stuff about a zygote or anything
else. That is left for us to discover.
In the same way, he doesn't describe how he produced us as a species, or how
he produced any other species. That, too, is left for us to discover.
The silly thing about all of this is that there ore some of you who doubt my
salvation because I consider evolution to be a viable and useful theory.
I'm glad that God makes those decisions :-)
Ray Drouillard
Herman Rubin
David Brauning <dbra...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>Are there any positive mutations occuring in the human race? I can only
>think of negative ones...retardation,sickle anemia, etc.
How easy would it be to recognize a mutation which gave
superior intelligence? Also, a mutation can be good in
one situation and bad in another; the lungfish was a bad
mutation in the sea, but a good one on land.
There are some rare genetic conditions which show survival
advantage. Are these recent mutations? At least some of
them seem to be; there is a "family" in Italy very resistant
to cardiovascular problems, and this is not known elsewhere.
There are a few people who are double recessive on a gene,
and this seems to give them total protection against AIDS.
Recessive genes are usually not good.
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
hru...@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
Ray and Mary
That is why it is found in people descended from those who lived in
malaria-infested areas. It is therefore advantageous to have the trait (one
sickle cell gene), but not to have two of the genes. The trait for cystic
fibrosis produces a resistance to another disease that was common in Europe
(dysentery or something like that). Again, having two of the genes is a bad
thing. That's why they are fairly rare genes.
Since we all came from Adam and Eve, the entire genetic diversity of the
human race would have been found in Adam and Eve if mutations had not
occurred. Some mutations caused some of us to be smarter, some to be
stronger, some to be more resistant to cold, etc. Those are good mutations
that were kept in the gene pool. The bad ones tend to drop out of the gene
pool rather rapidly.
Ray Drouillard
"David Brauning" <dbra...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:9b5cm8$1el$1...@iac5.navix.net...
mel turner
Droui...@home.com [Ray and Mary] wrote...
>> He was truly pathetic, but I never knew it, because I never looked into his
>> history--until the DNA evidence proved, once and for all, that Neanderthal,
>> Cro Magnon, and homo sapiens are not genetically linked.
>
>Where did you get this data? I vaguely remember some attempt being made to
>do some DNA analysis on old bones, but I don't remember any results being
>quoted. It sounds like it would make an interesting read.
It's a bogus and confused claim.
First, Cro-Magnons _are_ modern _Homo sapiens_.
Secondly, there were indeed DNA studies done on neandertal remains
which showed that they were evidently a separate line of advanced
humans. They probably weren't part of the direct ancestry of any
modern humans, and might best be treated as a entirely separate
species from _Homo sapiens_. This is not at all the same thing as
being "not genetically linked". They are indeed genetically linked,
but just linked as very close cousins, not as direct ancestors:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/mtDNA.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/recent.html
>> The bones mean nothing. They can fit them together any way they choose.
>> The DNA proved that Neanderthal is extinct, Cro Magnon is extinct, and
>>homo sapiens survived.
Silly, Cro-Magnons are anatomically modern Homo sapiens.
>Standard theory does not state that one evolved into the other. Some think
>that perhaps some Neanderthal DNA ended up in our gene pool, but that is not
>widely accepted. OTOH, I believe I have met some in other NGs :-)
There is still controversy about whether the two human types may
have hybridized occasionally:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/lagarvelho.html
The DNA results suggest they didn't do it a lot, if they did
at all.
>> That was the last gasp in the argument for evolution.
>
>For whom?
>
>> Homo sapiens did not
>> "evolve" from anything else,
>
>I can accept that, but the matter is far from settled in my mind. God may
>have made us using a different method than he used for the rest of the
>Earth's living things, or maybe he didn't.
The evidence strongly indicates he didn't.
>It doesn't really matter how he created the physical body. What matters is
>that he made us in his own image, and that he breathed life into us. He
>made us above the animals. God is a spirit being, he made the angels as
>spirit beings, and he put a spirit into us.
IIRC, that's a popular approach among "theistic evolutionists"
and some theologians.
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~newman/sci-cp/evolution.html
>Many of those who argue against evolution do so because they percieve that
>it seeks to make us just another animal. That, by the way, is the problem
>that the Church had against the heliocentric theory. It took Earth (Man's
>home) from the center of the universe and put the sun there. (Later, we
>have decided that there is no "center" in the universe.)
>
>Evolution doesn't address the spirit, or the difference between us and the
>animals.
>> and thus neither did a bird "evolve" from a
>> dynasaur,
The evidence disagrees.
>>and neither did a fish become a turtle.
It did, but very indirectly. Turtles are related to other reptiles
and to mammals by a much more recent common ancestor than that whole
group [Amniota] has with any "fish". Fishlike vertebrates gave rise
to amphibianlike tetrapods which gave rise to early amniotes that
were ancestral to turtles among many other descendants...
>>DNA slammed the door shut on "evolution".
On the contrary. It powerfully vindicates it.
>Actually, DNA analysis on modern animals is used to indicate when (how many
>millions of years ago) the lines split.
And the analyses wonderfully corroborates the evolutionary
relationships among groups that were found using other data
from comparative anatomy, etc.
cheers
Ray and Mary
> >think of negative ones...retardation,sickle anemia, etc.
> >
> >Dave
>
> You seem to have noticed something which most evolutionists like to
> avoid, i.e. the fact that in real life, these mutations they like to
> talk about all have names, e.g. Downs' Syndrome, Tay-Sachs disease,
> hemophilia, cri-du-chat syndrome, phoco-loci etc. etc.
>
> Ever notice the Mothers March of Dimes people going door to door?
> Ever notice that they are ALWAYS collecting money for research to
> PREVENT mutations, and not to cause them? Ever wonder why that might
> be?
>
> Ever notice that in their literature, they refer to mutations as
> "birth defects"?
>
> Ted Holden
Anyone who knows much about evolution knows that almost all mutations are
bad. They harm the organism, and are therefore "selected out". The rare
mutation that conferrs some kind of advantage is passed on.
It's sort of like having a ton of gravel, but one pebble in a million is
made of gold. You pick up each pebble, and toss out the ones that aren't
made of gold. That is why evolution is such a slow process.
Ray Drouillard
mel turner
Brauning] wrote...
>
>Are there any positive mutations occuring in the human race? I can only
>think of negative ones...retardation,sickle anemia, etc.
There's one known example of people in Italy with a mutation
that protects them from harmful effects of cholesterol in the
bloodstream:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mutations.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mutations.html#append_2
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mutations.html#append_3
cheers
Philip Nicholls
Yes, well you are specifiying a specific outcome in advance. How does
this relate to evolution, which does NOT specify a specific outcome in
advance.
mel turner
Which ones should go?
In article <i6rB6.8531$J8.65...@news1.rsm1.occa.home.com>, j.w.k...@usa.net
[fm] wrote...
[snip]
>Dear Raymond,
>
>I am a Christian too, but believe it or not, after years of just accepting
>at face value what our "public schools" teach about evolution, it was my
>scientific background
Which is? Or, rather, what scientific evidence do you know
about that contradicts evolution?
>rather than my Christian background that made me
>overwhelmingly reject every word written by Darwin.
Evolutionary biology has come a very long way since Darwin.
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-evolution.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-intro-to-biology.html
>He was truly pathetic, but I never knew it, because I never looked into his
>history--until the DNA evidence proved, once and for all, that Neanderthal,
>Cro Magnon, and homo sapiens are not genetically linked.
That's just plain wrong, as mentioned in another post. Cro Magnons
_are_ modern Homo sapiens, and while neandertals may not be directly
ancestral to us they are still "genetically linked" in the sense
that they were still a very closely related type of extinct human.
Even chimps are strongly "genetically linked" with modern humans
in that their DNA sequences are reportedly 98% to over 99%
identical to ours, [e.g., refs in
<http://groups.google.com/groups?ic=1&th=d612105eb3cb4d22&seekd=925197601>
and the neandertals were _much_ closer kin than that.
>The bones mean nothing. They can fit them together any way they choose.
"The evidence means nothing" often seems to be a recurrent
theme among creationists.
>The DNA proved that Neanderthal is extinct,
No, it's the fact that we don't see any living neandertal
descendants around that shows that they are extinct. The DNA
results only suggest they didn't contribute mitochondrial
DNA to any modern human gene pools.
>Cro Magnon is extinct,
No, we essentially _are_ the surviving 'Cro-Magnons'
[= a word for early modern humans in Europe].
>and homo sapiens survived.
Yes, some species do go extinct while closely related species
survive. That's not any contradiction to evolutionary theory.
>That was the last gasp in the argument for evolution.
You may be confused here. It is nothing of the kind.
>Homo sapiens did not
>"evolve" from anything else,
Sure it did. Why wouldn't it? All the DNA sample data showed was
that we only shared a common ancestor with neandertals, that they
were our extremely close "cousins" who probably weren't directly
ancestral to any modern Europeans. That was already the mainstream
view, based on detailed studies of all those bones...
>and thus neither did a bird "evolve" from a
>dynasaur, and neither did a fish become a turtle. DNA slammed the door shut
>on "evolution".
You wish. Nope, instead it very strongly confirms it.
[snip]
>ps--this is the passage which made me reject Darwin:
>On an average every species must have same number killed year with year by
>hawks, by cold, & c.--even one species of hawk decreasing in number must
>affect instantaneously all the rest. The final cause of all this wedging
>must be to sort out proper structure.... One may say there is a force like a
>hundred thousand wedges trying to force every kind of adapted structure in
>the gaps in the oeconomy of nature, or rather forming gaps by thrusting out
>weaker ones.
It's a passage about the continual competition among organisms
and species in natural ecosystems.
What is wrong about it? Organisms in nature do often compete
for niches. Still, the "struggle" doesn't necessarily take
the form of violent death and destruction-- increase cooperation
among individuals of social organisms and symbioses between
species are often very successful 'strategies' in evolution.
cheers
Raymond E. Griffith
j.w.k...@usa.net wrote on 4/12/2001 8:14 PM:
>
> "Raymond E. Griffith" <rgri...@vnet.net> wrote in message
> news:B6FAAD18.1562F%rgri...@vnet.net...
>> in article 3ad52348....@news.fcc.net, med...@bearfabrique.org at
>> med...@bearfabrique.org wrote on 4/11/2001 11:45 PM:
>>
>>> In probability theory, to compute the probability of two things
>>> happening at once, you multiply the probabilities together. That says
>>> that the likelihood of all these things ever happening, best case, is
>>> ten or twelve such infinitessimals multiplied together, i.e. a tenth
>>> or twelth-order infinitessimal. The whole history of the universe
>>> isn't long enough for that to happen once.
>>
>> Well, a bit imprecise (to say the least!).
>>
>> Question, please. How much probability theory have you taken? What
> courses?
>>
>> Will you please elaborate on whether or not this is the whole scope of
>> probability theory's influence on the subject?
>>
>> Just curious.
>>
>> Raymond
>>
John, while I thank you for posting the following, I do note that the poster
I put these questions to has not deigned to answer them.
>
> A simple way to look at this is to consider a coin flip, where the odds of
> getting a head are 1 in 2, and the odds of getting a tail are 1 in 2.
>
I understand what you mean by "a simple way". But to my understanding, this
is not "simple".
> The odds of getting a head once are 1 in 2, or .5.
This will sound a bit cold. You are quoting probabilities, not odds. There
is a difference. Check it out. If you are going to play the game, learn the
rules. Those who will not work with appropriate definitions should not
presume to teach. Please remember that I am a mathematics instructor.
>
> The odds of getting a head twice in a row are .5 x .5 = .25
>
> The odds of getting a head three times in a row are .5 x .5 x .5 = .125
>
> At 10 heads, it is .00049
>
incorrect here. (1/2)^10 = 1/1024 = 0.0009765
> At 20 heads, it is .000000477
>
incorrect here. (1/2)^20 = 1/1048576 = 0.00000095367...
And, yes. I know probability. However, this suggests that you are
predetermining the desired outcome, as if a precise order must be obtained.
I might point out that recent work in genetics shows that precise order is
not always necessary. Although order within the gene is essential, where the
gene is placed is not always a consideration. This notation would change
your probability structure somewhat. For example, you note that getting
heads 20 times in a row is (with my correction), (1/2)^20 = 1/1048576.
However if you simply needed any 10 of those 20 coins to be heads, then the
likelihood of that happening is 17.6%.
> His point is that, if you start out with a small probability like .000000477
> and expect 12 of them to happen at once, you run out of universe );
>
I would really like to know where this number comes from. Is it a real
figure with backing, or a figment?
I know that people like to play with numbers to describe the absolute
impossibility of certain events happening. However, absolute impossibility
only occurs with a probability of 0. Even events with probabilities of very
close to 0 have been known to happen.
As for "running out of universe", that is a nice nebulous statement, isn't
it? It, too, depends on a lot of assumptions.
> The following number are the odds against getting four aces in straight 5
> card draw poker 48 times within a 4 week span.
> 1 out of
> 5,500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00
> 0,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00
> 0,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00
> 0,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00
> 0,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00
> 0,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
>
May I ask where the 4-week span comes in? AFAIK, it is meaningless. Also,
are you limiting yourself to the initial dealing of 5 cards? Remember that
returning cards and being dealt others would change the likelihood.
The probability of obtaining 4 aces in 5 cards in a single hand with no
replacement and redraw is 48/2598960 or 1/54145. Do you know how I obtained
this probability? 48 straight times in a row with no intervening hands
places this probability at approximately 6.15 x 10^-228. You record a 5.5 x
10^-336 value, which is massively too small, even under the worst conditions
for obtaining it.
On the other hand, suppose you get 3 aces first (probability about 1/576),
then return the other two. You then have a 2 in 47 chance of getting the
last ace, making it 2/27072 or 1/13536.
Of course, this is rather simplified....
Tell me, where did you get *your* values from? If you pulled this last
source from your calculations, you did poorly. If you pulled it from a
source, your source is bad. If you pulled it from your imagination, shame on
you. Please tell me. Remember, silence will assume the worst.
The point remains that probability is not a simple subject to be toyed with,
and you need valid assumptions before speculation with numbers.
Raymond E. Griffith
> John Knight
>
>
>
Alex
> > I am against indoctrination.
>
> Are you agant teaching? "Indoctination", for all of its bad connotations, is
> not a bad word nor a bad activity. It's primary definition is "to instruct
> especially in fundamentals or rudiments." I indoctrinate my students in the
> fundamentals and rudiments of mathematics.
A am against the second definition: "2. To imbue with a partisan or ideological
point of view: a generation of children who had been indoctrinated against the
values of their parents."
> So, with this definition, how would you indoctrinate people? You are
> obviously against evolution.
How is it so "obvious" if I am not?
> How would have people instructed in science,
> and how would you do it?
What evolution has to do with Physics, Chemistry, Astronomy, and huge chunk of
biology to that matter? In the USSR we had 5 years of biology, 4 years of
physics, 3 years of chemistry and one year of astronomy, and out of this only
half year was about evolution and paleontology. Americans have a miserable
fraction of this. Why evolution is such a perk?
You better tell me how do you teach chemistry and physics without division of
fractions and quadric equations. That is something I could never figure out for
myself.
> > No, I am against cannibalism.
>
> Good. Then along with what you would teach, you would graciously allow
> evolutionary views to be given?
I would definitely allow people to avoid imbuing their kids with ideology, that
is hostile to their values.
Alex.
Eowine Eomundsdottir
see http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html
Post this in talk.origin and answer Adams usual challenge.
Regards,
Eowine.
Philip Nicholls
>Dear Raymond,
>
>I am a Christian too, but believe it or not, after years of just accepting
>at face value what our "public schools" teach about evolution, it was my
>scientific background rather than my Christian background that made me
>overwhelmingly reject every word written by Darwin.
And what scientific background would that be?
>He was truly pathetic, but I never knew it, because I never looked into his
>history--until the DNA evidence proved, once and for all, that Neanderthal,
>Cro Magnon, and homo sapiens are not genetically linked.
You see, it's statements like this that demonstrate to all who do have
a scientific background that you do not have one.
>The bones mean nothing. They can fit them together any way they choose.
>The DNA proved that Neanderthal is extinct, Cro Magnon is extinct, and homo
>sapiens survived.
I hate to break it to you, but CroMagnon has always been assigned to
the species Homo sapiens and I don't believe that they are extinct.
For the last 50 years there has been a debate as to whether
Neandertals should be classified as Homo sapiens neandertalsis or Homo
neandertalsis -- that is an EXTINCT population that gave raise to
modern Europeans or an EXTINCT homind species. The only DNA evidence
on this comes down on the side of neandertals being a different
species.
So DNA didn't prove neandertals were extinct. That has been prettry
much established for many many years. The only thing your little
message proves is that you are ignorant of things scientific.
>That was the last gasp in the argument for evolution. Homo sapiens did not
>"evolve" from anything else, and thus neither did a bird "evolve" from a
>dynasaur, and neither did a fish become a turtle. DNA slammed the door shut
>on "evolution".
The DNA evidence demonstrates unequivocally that just the opposite is
true. I would site the papers to you but I see little point.
For those who are interested, I run a mailing list called paleoanthro
at yahoogroups.com. This group has a files section and the articles
on Neandertal DNA are in the files section in PDF format.
>You are correct about the best way for a Christian to approach this. But
>when all of this sinks in (which assumes that you do the research necessary
>to confirm the above), then you will realize that we as Christians must play
>a completely different role than our "school system" teaches.
>
>Sincerely,
>
>
>John Knight
Perhaps you should read Darwin's book.
Here is the last sentence from the last chapter:
"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers,
having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or
into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according
to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms
most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved."
If you wish to reject evolution on religious grounds, I for one would
not say word one, but if your going to venture into the sciences you
should come better armed.
Herman Rubin
mel turner <mtu...@snipthis.acpub.duke.edu> wrote:
>In article <e52B6.7579$J8.56...@news1.rsm1.occa.home.com>, j.w.k...@usa.net
>[fm] wrote...
>>"Alex" <as69...@bcm.tmc.edu> wrote in message
>news:3AD4A3C3...@bcm.tmc.edu...
>>> "John D. Callahan" wrote:
...................
>>These are not necessarly mutually exclusive, but it misses the point. The
>>problem is that science itself has been unable to locate and identify even
>>ONE "missing link" which demonstrates the "evolution" of one species into
>>another.
Suppose you were asked to show that Great Danes and Chihuahuas
had a common ancestor. Would you be able to find the intermediate
stages?
Darwin coined "natural selection" as an analog of the selection
process used by animal breeders.
Alex
> >How many America newspapers and TV channels are controlled by the opponents of
> >teaching evolution?
>
> The question is irrelevant to your previous point. It is anti-evolution
> people who bring the subject up all the time in the media.
Care to prove your statement?
Alex.
Whats Right
<alichtens...@erols.com> wrote:
. Darwin, as well as his successors DID NOT theorize
> or speculate on the ORIGIN of life.
> Biologists have documented that mutations, which are random occurences
> take place with some regularity. Why these mutations are not all
> evident is explained quite well by evolutionary theory: Those mutations
> cause the organism to be at a competitive disadvantage, and therefore,
> such organisms rarely live to reproduce, thus not passing on their genes
> to successive generations. However, the mutations which are
> effective....well that's evolution.
> That mechanism is seen in present day science through the appearance of
> antibiotic resistent bacteria an the AIDS virus appearance.
>
Alan
Darwin's book is fully titled "Origin of the Species-The Descent of
Man".Look it up in the library.
As far as I know there are no good mutations. They are all the result of
corruptions of DNA and therefore a loss of information. An increase of
inforamation would be necessary for an entity to improve. That is why
there is no such thing as evolution.
The mechanism you speak of for bacteria is not a change in antibiotic
resistance. A bell curve of any living entity will show that 5/10% of the
population on either end of the curve will have natural characteristics of
resistance in this case. These will survive antibiotic treatment. That is
why the next generation will show an even a higher resistance until
finally the antibiotic is ineffective in suppressing that bacteria. This
is what we observe.
And this is why more powerful antibiotics are used until the same thing
happens again.
Aids(actually the virus HIV) is not alive. It is a macromolecule or group
of them that can only replicate if located in a living cell. All it's
functions are preprogrammed chemically(by whom do you suppose?). Not being
alive it cannot mutate. It probably can be changed by reactions of other
chemicals however. This is not a case of it improving or evolving.
Gerhard
--
Recte Faciendo Neminem Timeas
Is it opinion? Is it fact? Is it truth?
Raymond E. Griffith
on 4/13/2001 12:57 PM:
Are we down to irrelevancies? Please remember that focus of the discussion
is on the scientific merits or lack thereof of the theory of evolution.
You are now engaged in a classic bait and switch procedure. Having failed to
produce credible evidence of your own, you proceed to attack much less
relevant points -- in areas BTW that you also failed to be accurate.
Sigh.
If you are a Christian, sir, then please start acting like one. If you have
not the evidence you desire, say so, and promise to study and obtain it. No
one is asking you to abandon your belief in Creation, or in Christ the Lord.
Rather, you are being asked to be accurate.
Now I am going to celebrate Good Friday!
Raymond
> Alex.
>
Herman Rubin
Philip Nicholls <pn...@nycap.rr.com> wrote:
>On Fri, 13 Apr 2001 00:14:48 GMT, "fm" <j.w.k...@usa.net> wrote:
>>"Raymond E. Griffith" <rgri...@vnet.net> wrote in message
>>news:B6FAAD18.1562F%rgri...@vnet.net...
>>> in article 3ad52348....@news.fcc.net, med...@bearfabrique.org at
>>> med...@bearfabrique.org wrote on 4/11/2001 11:45 PM:
......................
>Yes, well you are specifiying a specific outcome in advance. How does
>this relate to evolution, which does NOT specify a specific outcome in
>advance.
Example of this reasoning: how did nature know where to place
our ears so we can wear glasses?
Whats Right
(Herman Rubin) wrote:>
> >Yes, well you are specifiying a specific outcome in advance. How does
> >this relate to evolution, which does NOT specify a specific outcome in
> >advance.
>
>
> Example of this reasoning: how did nature know where to place
> our ears so we can wear glasses?
>
LOL...HA, HA! Always impressed by the wit!
But I bet you really believe that also.
Alex
> Are we down to irrelevancies? Please remember that focus of the discussion
> is on the scientific merits or lack thereof of the theory of evolution.
Scientific merit of a theory has nothing to do with teaching it at schools, as it
is amply illestrated by Phisics and Chemistry, which could not be properly taught
with the current state of math education. Teaching evolution theory at school is
pure ideological indoctrination, and has really nothing to do with sciece, or
scientific value of that theory.
Alex.
Herman Rubin
Whats Right <heat...@kalama.com> wrote:
>In article <3AD629...@erols.com>, Alan Lichtenstein
><alichtens...@erols.com> wrote:
>. Darwin, as well as his successors DID NOT theorize
>> or speculate on the ORIGIN of life.
>> Biologists have documented that mutations, which are random occurences
>> take place with some regularity. Why these mutations are not all
>> evident is explained quite well by evolutionary theory: Those mutations
>> cause the organism to be at a competitive disadvantage, and therefore,
>> such organisms rarely live to reproduce, thus not passing on their genes
>> to successive generations. However, the mutations which are
>> effective....well that's evolution.
>> That mechanism is seen in present day science through the appearance of
>> antibiotic resistent bacteria an the AIDS virus appearance.
> Alan
>Darwin's book is fully titled "Origin of the Species-The Descent of
>Man".Look it up in the library.
>As far as I know there are no good mutations. They are all the result of
>corruptions of DNA and therefore a loss of information. An increase of
>inforamation would be necessary for an entity to improve. That is why
>there is no such thing as evolution.
A change in DNA can be either good or bad. One can even have
a change in DNA causing a non-coding region to code, and there
have been genetic conditions caused by mutations in those
regions which do not code.
Also, regions of DNA get duplicated and/or moved. Look at the
articles on the evolution of the human Y chromosome. Some
diseases are due to "unnecessary" replication or even relocation.
This process, however, often produces more genes, and can even
be beneficial.
>The mechanism you speak of for bacteria is not a change in antibiotic
>resistance. A bell curve of any living entity will show that 5/10% of the
>population on either end of the curve will have natural characteristics of
>resistance in this case.
The mechanism often consists of a mutation, providing for
a gene which counteracts the antibiotic, or even the
removal of a gene which sensitizes to it. Also, the
bell curve is no such thing.
>Aids(actually the virus HIV) is not alive.
This is debatable.
It is a macromolecule or group
>of them that can only replicate if located in a living cell.
No, it is an RNA virus. It is true that the only ones we have
found NOW need to be in a cell to replicate. The development
of chlorophyll may be what ended free-living RNA.
All it's
>functions are preprogrammed chemically(by whom do you suppose?). Not being
>alive it cannot mutate.
It certainly can mutate. Since we can fairly easily get the
nucleotide sequence, we can detect the mutations.
Elephant
[snip]
> We are laughing them [evolutionists] out of the community.
The evidence suggests otherwise.
> Darwin should have been laughed
> out of the community the day he got back from the Galapagos Islands.
Well, a lot of folks were pretty skeptical about his ideas, and then the
evidence started to show up...
> American scientists should never have put their label on him. He didn't
> know science, he wasn't educated, his work wasn't peer reviewed, there is
> nothing at all observable about the notion that monkeys mutated into homo
> sapiens, and all of the available DNA evidence refutes the bone robbers and
> their century and a half attempt to make Darwin's "theory" fit the facts.
Darwin's theory has undergone substantial review and revision. Darwin was
unaware, for instance, of the work of his contemporary Mendel. He had no way to
know about specific gene pairs associating discretely with particular traits.
Darwin's notion of "countless intermediates" is an extreme case of phyletic
gradualism which has been superseded by a more fitting theory. Once again, the
theory must be able to adapt to the evidence, *NOT* the other way around as so
many creationists love to pretend.
>
> That's not to say that uneducated people aren't capable of making very valid
> observations. But the more you read about the nutty observations he made,
> the more you realize that even our *scientists* were hoodwinked by complete
> nonsense.
Got anything in particular you'd like to bring up? You seem to have a problem
with the Galapagos finches, care to expound on that? Darwin makes an
observation, proposes a theory that explains it, works with it a bit...sounds
kind of like Newton. Are you okay with Newton?
> [snip]
> The report that was posted addressed single cell life and noted that their
> DNA is not that much less complex than the DNA of homo sapiens. iow,
> genetically, it doesn't require much of an improvement in DNA to go from
> single cell life forms to homo sapiens. The difficult part of DNA is
> creating life in the first place. Once that's done, the rest is a piece of
> cake.
So you really don't have a problem at all with evolution, then. It's
abiogenesis that you quibble with.
>
> It is statistically impossible for this to happen by coincidence, no matter
> how much time is involved. The natural tendency is to disorganize, not
> organize.
Oh really? Can I ask how you describe a measure of organization? Is the
earth's biosphere an open system or a closed system for your explanatory
purpose?
Frankly, I don't think you know what you're talking about.
[snip]
> Raymond, wadr, you aren't even close. You are correct that science and God
> coexist, but you are seriously in error to refuse to consider the awful
> ramifications of accepting as "science" the childish ramblings of a
> non-scientist like Darwin.
So he's supposed to pay more heed to *your* non-scientific ramblings than
Darwin's? At least Darwin had some originality.
> If the "theory of evolution" was even close,
> species have been on the planet long enough that there would now be only ONE
> species--a conglomeration of every other species that ever existed.
Uh...no. This doesn't follow from anything in the theory of evolution. You
appear to be extremely confused.
> DNA structure alone is proof that this can't happen. iow, there is only one
> game in town--creation. Precisely the one described in the Holy Bible.
Can you say, "false dichotomy"? Very good, children, I knew you could.
--
~~to e-mail a reply, remove the obvious spam blockers~~
Alan Lichtenstein
>
> In article <3AD629...@erols.com>, Alan Lichtenstein
> <alichtens...@erols.com> wrote:
>
> . Darwin, as well as his successors DID NOT theorize
> > or speculate on the ORIGIN of life.
>
> > Biologists have documented that mutations, which are random occurences
> > take place with some regularity. Why these mutations are not all
> > evident is explained quite well by evolutionary theory: Those mutations
> > cause the organism to be at a competitive disadvantage, and therefore,
> > such organisms rarely live to reproduce, thus not passing on their genes
> > to successive generations. However, the mutations which are
> > effective....well that's evolution.
>
> > That mechanism is seen in present day science through the appearance of
> > antibiotic resistent bacteria an the AIDS virus appearance.
> >
> Alan
>
> Darwin's book is fully titled "Origin of the Species-The Descent of
> Man".Look it up in the library.
I have done something even better. I have READ the work. Had you done
so, you would understand that his book says NOTHING about how life
originated. His title Origin of Species refers to how one species
originates from those previously in existence, not how a species was
created from non-living material. Material points which you would know
had you actually READ the work.
> As far as I know there are no good mutations. They are all the result of
> corruptions of DNA and therefore a loss of information. An increase of
> inforamation would be necessary for an entity to improve. That is why
> there is no such thing as evolution.
Your combining your limited knowledge with your personal values of what
you think is "good" or "bad" further causes you to reach fallacious
conclusions. Regardless of whether or not a mutation is "good" or "bad"
is most irrelevant. The fact that mutations occur demonstrates that
change occurs. Darwin merely stated that organisms, given a competitive
advantage in the struggle for existence would be more likely survive to
reproduce than organisms which lacked that competitive advantage.
Hence, over long periods of time, species would change, reflecting the
change which occured long ago. Mutations are small changes which may
create a long term advantage over millions of years. What you think is
"good" or "bad" is most irrelevant. It is how the environment treats
that change which is all that matters.
Why are you not able to understand this simple premise?
> The mechanism you speak of for bacteria is not a change in antibiotic
> resistance. A bell curve of any living entity will show that 5/10% of the
> population on either end of the curve will have natural characteristics of
> resistance in this case. These will survive antibiotic treatment.
Excellent. And when you realize that antibiotics wipe out the majority
of the population of bacteria which do not have that resistance, leaving
only the resistant strains to reporduce, then perhaps you will
understand what Darwin meant by the term "natural selection."
As I said, evolution in action, proven by your own example.
That is
> why the next generation will show an even a higher resistance until
> finally the antibiotic is ineffective in suppressing that bacteria. This
> is what we observe.
> And this is why more powerful antibiotics are used until the same thing
> happens again.
You have just given an excellent example of natural selection.
Darwin would have been proud of you.
> Aids(actually the virus HIV) is not alive. It is a macromolecule or group
> of them that can only replicate if located in a living cell. All it's
> functions are preprogrammed chemically(by whom do you suppose?). Not being
> alive it cannot mutate. It probably can be changed by reactions of other
> chemicals however. This is not a case of it improving or evolving.
Did we not say that evolution occurs on the level of genetics which is
that of the molecular level? And does not the mutation of the molecules
of virus qualify?
It most certainly does, and it is further evidence of Darwin's theory.
Alan
Elephant
> On Thu, 12 Apr 2001 18:11:56 -0500, "David Brauning"
> <dbra...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >Are there any positive mutations occuring in the human race? I can only
> >think of negative ones...retardation,sickle anemia, etc.
> >
> >Dave
>
> You seem to have noticed something which most evolutionists like to
> avoid, i.e. the fact that in real life, these mutations they like to
> talk about all have names, e.g. Downs' Syndrome, Tay-Sachs disease,
> hemophilia, cri-du-chat syndrome, phoco-loci etc. etc.
Maybe the *beneficial* mutations don't get named as illnesses? Seems to me,
the ones you mention are the very same ones that would interfere with an
individual's continued ability to survive and reproduce. The beneficial
mutations could go unnoticed for centuries, maybe become a basis for some
noticeable racial trait like skin color, musculature, etc.
>
> Ever notice the Mothers March of Dimes people going door to door?
> Ever notice that they are ALWAYS collecting money for research to
> PREVENT mutations, and not to cause them? Ever wonder why that might
> be? Ever notice that in their literature, they refer to mutations as
> "birth defects"?
And this has nothing to do with the existence of beneficial mutations.
Nothing whatsoever. Heck, you might have a beneficial mutation or two
yourself.
Elephant
I don't know what schools you went to, but mine didn't have that problem. Physics
and chemistry were both taught quite adequately; frankly, the math one needs for
basic chemistry is not that complicated. More complicated stoichiometry is best
handled with matrices and linear algebra, but it's probably okay to put that on hold
until college. Same with physics; the math one needs to understand the basics ain't
that tough.
On the other hand, I wonder what introducing a young-earth model of creationism as an
acceptible theory would do for astrophysics. How did all that light get here in
10000 years?
I'm just not getting where this whole "indoctrination" thing fits in. I guess if
you're used to accepting what teacher tells you without any supporting evidence, then
it could be indoctrination. I'm pretty confident that any biology teacher worth
his/her salt is going to be able to present evidence for the theory of evolution.
Alex
Elephant wrote:
> Alex wrote:
>
> > "Raymond E. Griffith" wrote:
> >
> > > Are we down to irrelevancies? Please remember that focus of the discussion
> > > is on the scientific merits or lack thereof of the theory of evolution.
> >
> > Scientific merit of a theory has nothing to do with teaching it at schools, as it
> > is amply illestrated by Phisics and Chemistry, which could not be properly taught
> > with the current state of math education. Teaching evolution theory at school is
> > pure ideological indoctrination, and has really nothing to do with sciece, or
> > scientific value of that theory.
> >
> > Alex.
>
> I don't know what schools you went to, but mine didn't have that problem. Physics
> and chemistry were both taught quite adequately; frankly, the math one needs for
> basic chemistry is not that complicated. More complicated stoichiometry is best
> handled with matrices and linear algebra, but it's probably okay to put that on hold
> until college. Same with physics; the math one needs to understand the basics ain't
> that tough.
That illustrates my point nicely. While there is a big deal of fighting for evolution
nobody care that the department of education endorses math curriculum that doesn't cover
long multiplication or division of fractions, and leaves quadric equation for the 12th
grade.
So what is so special about Evolution, that makes it more important than Arithmetics?
> On the other hand, I wonder what introducing a young-earth model of creationism as an
> acceptible theory would do for astrophysics. How did all that light get here in 10000
> years?
Not surprisingly it is evolution, not young-earth what causes most objection.
People don't like the idea of "survival of the fittest".
> I'm just not getting where this whole "indoctrination" thing fits in. I guess if
> you're used to accepting what teacher tells you without any supporting evidence, then
> it could be indoctrination. I'm pretty confident that any biology teacher worth
> his/her salt is going to be able to present evidence for the theory of evolution.
I gave relevant examples elsewhere in the thread.
"Survival of the fittest" is used to justify all kinds of oppression, from Vietnam War to
the "need" for unemployment
Alex.
mel turner
heat...@kalama.com [Whats Right] wrote...
[snip]
>Darwin's book is fully titled "Origin of the Species-The Descent of
>Man".Look it up in the library.
Good advice. If you had taken it yourself you'd have found
those are two completely different books by Darwin, first
published years apart:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/origin.html
"On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or
The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life"
(1859)
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/precursors/evolinks.html
"The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex"
(1871)
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/darwin-precursors.html
has links
[snip]
cheers
Ray and Mary
> "Survival of the fittest" is used to justify all kinds of oppression, from
Vietnam War to
> the "need" for unemployment
Can you give me some examples? I don't recall that concept being used as
justification for anything.
OK... I remember hearing my history teachers talk about "Social Darwinism".
It was portrayed as a flawed concept that was used by those who wanted to
oppress the poor. I haven't heard of it being used in my lifetime.
Ray Drouillard
fm
"Herman Rubin" <hru...@odds.stat.purdue.edu> wrote in message
news:9b704o$3k...@odds.stat.purdue.edu...
> In article <9b5k35$ol9$2...@news.duke.edu>,
> mel turner <mtu...@snipthis.acpub.duke.edu> wrote:
> >In article <e52B6.7579$J8.56...@news1.rsm1.occa.home.com>,
j.w.k...@usa.net
> >[fm] wrote...
> >>"Alex" <as69...@bcm.tmc.edu> wrote in message
> >news:3AD4A3C3...@bcm.tmc.edu...
> >>> "John D. Callahan" wrote:
>
> ...................
>
> >>These are not necessarly mutually exclusive, but it misses the point.
The
> >>problem is that science itself has been unable to locate and identify
even
> >>ONE "missing link" which demonstrates the "evolution" of one species
into
> >>another.
>
> Suppose you were asked to show that Great Danes and Chihuahuas
> had a common ancestor. Would you be able to find the intermediate
> stages?
>
> Darwin coined "natural selection" as an analog of the selection
> process used by animal breeders.
> --
Dear Herman,
Great Danes and Chihuahuas are a great example, because they are both
members of only one species, but can't naturally cross-breed. If the
probability of the cross-breeds of all dogs surviving were equal to the
probability of each breed surviving, then over thousands of years, all else
being equal, there would be an equal number of all breeds and all possible
cross-breeds. This would mean that there would be an equal number each of
the 160 existing breeds and an equal number of each of the 12,720 possible
cross-breeds.
If the probability of breeds surviving is less than the probability of
cross-breeds surviving, then over that time there would be no breeds and
nothing but the 12,720 possible cross-breeds (with the exceptions of the
breeds like the Chihuahua and Great Dane which can't cross-breed).
If the probability of breeds surviving is greater than the probability of
cross-breeds surviving, then and only then could there be 160 separate and
distinct breeds of dogs, as there now are.
This is strong evidence that cross-breeds have a much lower probability of
survival than breeds. For some cross-breeds, the probability might be as
low as a mule, which is the cross between a horse and a donkey, but which
can't itself reproduce.
The only way Darwin's "theory" could work is if the probability of survival
of a cross-breed is, at any time in history, greater than the probability of
a breed surviving.
But if cross-breeding could occur that frequently, and if the probability of
suvival is higher than that of a breed, then all dogs today would be an
amalgation of all 160 breeds, which would be one single breed. That's
obviously not the case, which makes his "theory of evolution" mathematically
impossible, regardless of whether or not there are more or less breeds today
than there were thousands of years ago.
If the probability of survival of any of the 7,500 species today is just as
much higher than the probability of survival of a hybrid, as the probability
of survival of a breed within a species is higher than a cross-breed, then
"natural selection" is mathematically impossible. Because of extinction, the
number of species must be decreasing. Any hybrid or cross-breed which *may*
have been an exception to this rule would appear today as a species or
breed--but why would there be an exception to that rule? Where is the
evidence of that exception? Why is there not a single species on the planet
today which can be proven to be on the evolutionary transition from one
species to another? If any two species on the planet had one common
ancestor, then why can't those two separate species inter-breed to produce
an exact duplicate of that ancestor? Why can't the mule, a cross-breed
between the horse and the donkey, itself reproduce if evolution is so
common, or even possible? If ape and man had a common ancestor, then what
is it today which makes it impossible for them to cross-breed?
If the boundaries between species weren't firmly established, and if life
has been on the planet as long as evolutionists claim that it has, then how
could there be 7,500 separate and distinct species? There would be only
one, right?
Sincerely,
John Knight
Noelie S. Alito
"Whats Right" <heat...@kalama.com> wrote in message
news:heatscan-130...@pm6-25.kalama.com...
> In article <3AD629...@erols.com>, Alan Lichtenstein
> <alichtens...@erols.com> wrote:
>
> . Darwin, as well as his successors DID NOT theorize
> > or speculate on the ORIGIN of life.
>
> > Biologists have documented that mutations, which are random occurences
> > take place with some regularity. Why these mutations are not all
> > evident is explained quite well by evolutionary theory: Those mutations
> > cause the organism to be at a competitive disadvantage, and therefore,
> > such organisms rarely live to reproduce, thus not passing on their genes
> > to successive generations. However, the mutations which are
> > effective....well that's evolution.
>
> > That mechanism is seen in present day science through the appearance of
> > antibiotic resistent bacteria an the AIDS virus appearance.
> >
> Alan
>
> Darwin's book is fully titled "Origin of the Species-The Descent of
> Man".Look it up in the library.
Two of his most famous bookS are (On_the)_Origin_of_Species
(later editions took the "On the" part off) and the subsequent
_Descent_of_Man_(and_Selection_in_Relation_to_Sex).
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140432051/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0691023697/
I have no doubt that at least one publisher has at one time
combined these two works into a single physical book,
which may be the source of your error. As far as I know
Darwin never theorized about abiogenesis (life from non-life).
> As far as I know there are no good mutations. They are all the result of
> corruptions of DNA and therefore a loss of information. An increase of
> inforamation would be necessary for an entity to improve. That is why
> there is no such thing as evolution.
Duplication mutations (which happen a lot) can result in two
copies of a gene. When this is followed by any of a variety
of other classes of mutations in one of the copies, it can result
in two different functional genes where only one existed before.
Here is a mutations FAQ with a few specific examples:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mutations.html
Now that you know that there _are_ good mutations, please
correct anyone in the future who makes a similar mistake. Thanks.
> The mechanism you speak of for bacteria is not a change in antibiotic
> resistance. A bell curve of any living entity will show that 5/10% of the
> population on either end of the curve will have natural characteristics of
> resistance in this case. These will survive antibiotic treatment. That is
> why the next generation will show an even a higher resistance until
> finally the antibiotic is ineffective in suppressing that bacteria. This
> is what we observe.
The classic demonstration--which is suitable for high school
classes--is to start with a single bacterium and let it multiply.
Any variation which arises can only be through mutation.
Separate the bacteria into multiple cultures, set one aside for
later comparison. Take the target culture and apply a weak
functional antibiotic which ends up killing most of them. Then
let the target multiply and apply a stronger form of the antibiotic.
Keep repeating the last step until the strongest dose does not
kill the target culture. Take some of the original set-aside culture
and apply the full-strength antibiotic: Note that full antibiotic
will kill the original bacteria, which have not developed the
resistance.
Remember, all of the bacteria from the experiment came from
a single grandmommy of them all. Any variation which arose
came from mutation. Mutations happen in bacteria all the
time, and that's a source of your "bell curve" variation.
> And this is why more powerful antibiotics are used until the same thing
> happens again.
>
> Aids(actually the virus HIV) is not alive. It is a macromolecule or group
> of them that can only replicate if located in a living cell. All it's
> functions are preprogrammed chemically(by whom do you suppose?). Not being
> alive it cannot mutate. It probably can be changed by reactions of other
> chemicals however. This is not a case of it improving or evolving.
At some point during a viral "infection" more copies of a virus
are made. Even if copying of the genetic material is extremely
accurate, there are so many copies being made that errors (i.e.,
"mutations") are statistically inevitable. Natural selection does
the rest.
HTH
Noelie
--
Those who refuse to do the math are condemned to talk nonsense.
Those who only do the math are condemned to talk nonsense.
Some of the rest of us are condemned to talk nonsense, too.
Elephant
> Elephant wrote:
>
> > Alex wrote:
> >
> > > "Raymond E. Griffith" wrote:
> > >
> > > > Are we down to irrelevancies? Please remember that focus of the discussion
> > > > is on the scientific merits or lack thereof of the theory of evolution.
> > >
> > > Scientific merit of a theory has nothing to do with teaching it at schools, as it
> > > is amply illestrated by Phisics and Chemistry, which could not be properly taught
> > > with the current state of math education. Teaching evolution theory at school is
> > > pure ideological indoctrination, and has really nothing to do with sciece, or
> > > scientific value of that theory.
> > >
> > > Alex.
> >
> > I don't know what schools you went to, but mine didn't have that problem. Physics
> > and chemistry were both taught quite adequately; frankly, the math one needs for
> > basic chemistry is not that complicated. More complicated stoichiometry is best
> > handled with matrices and linear algebra, but it's probably okay to put that on hold
> > until college. Same with physics; the math one needs to understand the basics ain't
> > that tough.
>
> That illustrates my point nicely. While there is a big deal of fighting for evolution
> nobody care that the department of education endorses math curriculum that doesn't cover
> long multiplication or division of fractions, and leaves quadric equation for the 12th
> grade.
When I was in the public schools, it went something like this:
long multiplication: grades 2&3
division of fractions: grades 3 & 4
quadratic equation: grade 7+
Of course, the math program was pretty flexible. If you needed to concentrate on something
truly important, like football practice, you could postpone basic addition and grammar
indefinitely. [sarcasm]
>
> So what is so special about Evolution, that makes it more important than Arithmetics?
Who ever said it was? Like I said, my public education didn't neglect either.
> > On the other hand, I wonder what introducing a young-earth model of creationism as an
> > acceptible theory would do for astrophysics. How did all that light get here in 10000
> > years?
>
> Not surprisingly it is evolution, not young-earth what causes most objection.
> People don't like the idea of "survival of the fittest".
Fortunately for us all, that's a highly-reduced version of one aspect of evolution, and only
one of many ideas presented in a biology class covering of the subect.
> > I'm just not getting where this whole "indoctrination" thing fits in. I guess if
> > you're used to accepting what teacher tells you without any supporting evidence, then
> > it could be indoctrination. I'm pretty confident that any biology teacher worth
> > his/her salt is going to be able to present evidence for the theory of evolution.
>
> I gave relevant examples elsewhere in the thread.
> "Survival of the fittest" is used to justify all kinds of oppression, from Vietnam War to
> the "need" for unemployment
>
Well, I didn't encounter it when I went to school, except as a backhanded reference to the
failed notion of "social Darwinism". If evolution truly is being abused as a *justification*
for wars and unemployment, then whoever wrote the History curriculum needs a sound
thrashing. Evolution is not a system of ethics any more than creationism is a system of
science.
Raymond E. Griffith
on 4/13/01 10:10 PM:
> "Raymond E. Griffith" wrote:
>
>>> I am against indoctrination.
>>
>> Are you agant teaching? "Indoctination", for all of its bad connotations, is
>> not a bad word nor a bad activity. It's primary definition is "to instruct
>> especially in fundamentals or rudiments." I indoctrinate my students in the
>> fundamentals and rudiments of mathematics.
>
> A am against the second definition: "2. To imbue with a partisan or
> ideological
> point of view: a generation of children who had been indoctrinated against the
> values of their parents."
>
Hmmm, I recognize the first part of your quotation as similar to the second
definition in the dictionary. However, I do not recognize the example given.
Can you tell me which dictionary you are quoting from? It would be
interesting to note which dictionary has as an example "a generation of
children who had been indoctrinated against the values of their parents."
Thank you very much,
Raymond
BG
http://www.bartleby.com/61/15/I0111500.html
Not only interesting but quite to the point as definitions go
mel turner
[If so, remember no more than 4 total newsgroups, and
none can be moderated]
In article <7RKB6.9036$J8.73...@news1.rsm1.occa.home.com>, j.w.k...@usa.net
[fm] wrote...
>"Herman Rubin" <hru...@odds.stat.purdue.edu> wrote in message
>news:9b704o$3k...@odds.stat.purdue.edu...
>> In article <9b5k35$ol9$2...@news.duke.edu>,
>> mel turner <mtu...@snipthis.acpub.duke.edu> wrote:
[snip]
>> Suppose you were asked to show that Great Danes and Chihuahuas
>> had a common ancestor. Would you be able to find the intermediate
>> stages?
We'd find mid-sized dogs which will help connect these extremes.
[If the mid-sized ones were excluded or extinct, the two might be
behaving like fully separate species today]
>> Darwin coined "natural selection" as an analog of the selection
>> process used by animal breeders.
[snip]
>Great Danes and Chihuahuas are a great example, because they are both
>members of only one species, but can't naturally cross-breed.
[What's the old joke? "Well, someone must've put him up to it..."]
>If the
>probability of the cross-breeds of all dogs surviving were equal to the
>probability of each breed surviving, then over thousands of years, all else
>being equal, there would be an equal number of all breeds and all possible
>cross-breeds.
Dog breeds are kept separate by human intervention. That's
analogous to the geographic or ecological separation of
populations of a species that's undergoing speciation.
>This would mean that there would be an equal number each of
>the 160 existing breeds and an equal number of each of the 12,720 possible
>cross-breeds.
? Dogs interbreed more or less freely if it isn't prevented.
>If the probability of breeds surviving is less than the probability of
>cross-breeds surviving,
What probabilities? Breeds are maintained by human breeders
actively restricting dog matings.
then over that time there would be no breeds and
>nothing but the 12,720 possible cross-breeds
You seem to forget the crossbreeding among crossbreeds.
(with the exceptions of the
>breeds like the Chihuahua and Great Dane which can't cross-breed).
They can, by both of them mating with mid-sized dogs.
>If the probability of breeds surviving is greater than the probability of
>cross-breeds surviving, then and only then could there be 160 separate and
>distinct breeds of dogs, as there now are.
Where do probabilites come in? Breeders create breeds by
artificial selection and inbreeding, and maintain them by
preventing free crossing with other dogs. It's all a very
impressive display of evolutionary principles [they started out
with just wild wolves, after all, and turned them into Danes and
chihuahuas, bulldogs and dachshunds...]
>This is strong evidence that cross-breeds have a much lower probability of
>survival than breeds.
Well, in a sense, that's right. In the "natural environment"
of a breeder's kennel, an occasional cross-breed mutt would
have very low "fitness" and there would be strong selection
against it contributing to the next generation of the breeder's
dog 'population'.
>For some cross-breeds, the probability might be as
>low as a mule, which is the cross between a horse and a donkey, but which
>can't itself reproduce.
>
>The only way Darwin's "theory" could work is if the probability of survival
>of a cross-breed is, at any time in history, greater than the probability of
>a breed surviving.
You're not making sense. Species in nature don't freely
interbreed the way dogs do.
>But if cross-breeding could occur that frequently, and if the probability of
>suvival is higher than that of a breed, then all dogs today would be an
>amalgation of all 160 breeds, which would be one single breed.
Dogs would still be 'wolves' if they weren't domesticated
and selectively bred. The breeds are interfertile and would
be freely mixing if not for the continual intervention of
strong "environmental factors" in the form of the actions of
the breeders.
That's
>obviously not the case, which makes his "theory of evolution" mathematically
>impossible, regardless of whether or not there are more or less breeds today
>than there were thousands of years ago.
Dog breeds aren't species, but they are good demonstrations of
how imposed reproductive isolation and strong selection causes
dramatic evolutionary changes.
>If the probability of survival of any of the 7,500 species today
What 7,500 species are you talking about? There are millions
of species today.
is just as
>much higher than the probability of survival of a hybrid, as the probability
>of survival of a breed within a species is higher than a cross-breed, then
>"natural selection" is mathematically impossible.
?? You seem to be trying some unusual argument of your own,
which is commendable, but it doesn't make much sense. Species
become distinct and remain distinct because barriers to their
free hybridization can and do arise between the different
descendants of common-ancestral species.
>Because of extinction, the
>number of species must be decreasing.
No, because new species do arise. [Right now the rate of extinction
is probably much higher due to recent human activities]
>Any hybrid or cross-breed which *may*
>have been an exception to this rule would appear today as a species or
>breed--but why would there be an exception to that rule?
Which rule is that? Are you asking for evidence of recent
or ongoing speciations?
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/speciation.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-research.html
http://www.biology.iupui.edu/biocourses/N100H/ch17spec.html
http://www.sprl.umich.edu/GCL/Notes-1998-Fall/speciation.html
http://www.ultranet.com/~jkimball/BiologyPages/S/Speciation.html
http://www.lter.alaska.edu/~jirons/evolution/lecnote/chapter16.htm Speciation
http://www.intranet.csupomona.edu/~jcclark/rsa/grantrefs.html
http://mercy.georgian.edu/~wootton/biogeog7.htm
http://www.santarosa.edu/lifesciences/ensatina.htm
http://www.scar.utoronto.ca/~thompson/course/Speciation/
http://biomed.brown.edu/Courses/BIO48/23.Cases.html
http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~lindsay/creation/speciation.html
http://www.aloha.net/~releaf/species.html
http://cbc.ca/cgi-bin/templates/view.cgi?/news/2001/01/18/finch_evolve010118
Further, much of the geographical variation that is seen 'within
species' looks just like we'd expect for stages of speciation-in-
progress. There are always lots of cases in a broad gray zone
between "clearly local forms of the same species" and "clearly two
or more related but separate species". As we'd expect where
speciation is a gradual, ongoing process.
>Where is the
>evidence of that exception? Why is there not a single species on the planet
>today which can be proven to be on the evolutionary transition from one
>species to another?
Nothing is 'proven' in science, but sure, there are
plenty of such cases.
>If any two species on the planet had one common
>ancestor, then why can't those two separate species inter-breed to produce
>an exact duplicate of that ancestor?
Simple. The ancestor is of the past. Both descendant species
will have changed genetically each in their own ways in the time
since they were part of that common ancestor.
If some mad scientist were to make the human X chimpanzee cross
that's often been speculated about, it wouldn't be the same as
our actual last common ancestor.
>Why can't the mule, a cross-breed
>between the horse and the donkey, itself reproduce if evolution is so
>common, or even possible?
Huh? Evolution isn't about hybrids between related species.
[Well, some speciations do involve hybrids (e.g., polyploid
speciation in plants)]. Anyway,, some but not all interspecific
hybrids result in sterile offspring. Some are fully fertile.
>If ape and man had a common ancestor, then what
>is it today which makes it impossible for them to cross-breed?
Aesthetics? The ability of an annoyed female chimp to pull
someone's arm off? As far as is known, nobody's ever tried the
[horribly unethical] experiment. It wouldn't be all that surprising
if it worked if an evil someone were to try it [presumably using
artificial insemination]. Wider crosses have been successful
[recall that camel X llama cross?]
>If the boundaries between species weren't firmly established,
The point is the boundaries _become_ established over time. A
few million years ago there were no lions and tigers and leopards
and jaguars. Just their common ancestor. Now the different
descendant species don't interbreed. [Well, not in nature at least.
Some will cross in zoos, especially with artificial insemination].
and if life
>has been on the planet as long as evolutionists claim that it has, then how
>could there be 7,500 separate and distinct species?
Millions of species. [Where did you get 7,500? As I recall,
there are over 20,000 (or was it 40,000?) known species of
weevils...] How? Lots of speciations.
>There would be only
>one, right?
Wrong. You seem to have some unusual ideas in this regard. Species
commonly split, and isolated subpopulations can become new separate
species; separate species generally won't blend together to become
one species. You don't find lion X tiger crosses outside of zoos,
even though the two species locally co-occur in India.
cheers
Raymond E. Griffith
NoS...@home.com wrote on 4/14/01 10:32 AM:
Thank you for pointing out where the example came from. It is interesting. I
had used Webster's myself.
Again, my thanks!
Raymond E. Griffith
>
Michael S. Morris
Saturday, the 14th of April, 2001
Gerhard says:
Darwin's book is fully titled "Origin of
the Species-The Descent of Man". Look it
up in the library.
Please note that you have packed *three* errors
and one big moral fault into three lines.
First, there Darwin wrote two books (among many
others) which are titled (in short) _On the Origin
of Species_ and _The Descent of Man_. The first is
about natural selection as a mechanism of species
evolution, the second is about man.
Second, the title of that first book
is _On the Origin of Species_, *not*
_Origin of the Species_. Sticking
in the "the" in the wrong place is a
telltale error that non-readers of the
book consistently make, it alters the
meaning of the title, and implies that
the book is about something that it is
not. It also marks *you* out as a non-reader
of this book. In fact, this case
of Darwin's title is well enough known that in
_How to Read a Book_, Mortimer Adler and Charles
Van Doren use it as the example of the need for
first reading the title and table of contents of
any book carefully.
Third, the *full* titles of these two books
are _On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural
Selection_ and _The Descent of Man in Relation
to Sex_ (taken from the title pages of my facsimile
editions).
Now, the moral fault: False witness, if you like,
though lying is the way I would put it.
I mean, it's not just that you get some facts
wrong---ignorance can be fixed, in principle---
it's that you get these facts wrong in the context
of insisting that it is others who are in error
about it, and in the context of implying that you
have taken the trouble to look the facts up when
you plainly haven't. You are doing unto others
precisely what you are objecting that they shouldn't
do to you.
Now, I don't know you at all, Gerhard. I've
never read anything you have written other than
this one little thing, which I happened to encounter
while scanning this thread. But it *marks you out*
for me immediately as carelessly inaccurate and
intellectually dishonest. I would have little hope
of conversation with you.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Noelie S. Alito
"BG" <NoS...@home.com> wrote in message
news:uFOB6.1993$JV1.2...@news1.rdc1.va.home.com...
Most dictionary writers try to use excerpts of pre-existing
prose as the source of their examples. This one seems familiar,
but I can't remember if is about the Australian Aborigines (whose
children were taken and educated into the values of mainstream
Western Civilization) or Native Americans (who suffered a similar
fate).
Not only interesting but quite to the point as definitions go.
Noelie
--
Who wants group prayer in school? Not Matt 6:6ers.
Adam Marczyk
[snip]
> Teaching evolution at schools is mere indoctrination with the "survcival
of the
> fittest" ideology. Any way, nobody cares when long multiplication or
division of
> fractions are dropped from school curriculums,
Are there schools where this has happened?
> but should one dare to drop
> evolution there is a huge scandal.
Indeed. Mathematics isn't opposed by religious fundamentalists who want to
have their own ideologies taught instead.
--
When I am dreaming,
I don't know if I'm truly asleep, or if I'm awake.
When I get up,
I don't know if I'm truly awake, or if I'm still dreaming...
--Forest for the Trees, "Dream"
To send e-mail, change "excite" to "hotmail"
Adam Marczyk
news:rkrB6.8543$J8.66...@news1.rsm1.occa.home.com...
[snip]
> What's even more revealing is that if everything you wrote above is
correct
> (and I don't doubt for a second that it is), why didn't the "mainstream
> media" in this country PRINT IT?
Good question. Did it ever occur to you that it might be because it's not
correct?
> Furthermore, as evidence of the "conspiracy for ignorance" that our
> "mainstream media" is fully engaged in when their favorite "theory of
> evolution" is challenged, they never PRINTED the fact that the DNA
evidence
> ruled out Neanderthal and Cro Magnon as ancestors to homo sapiens.
Cro-Magnon Man _is_ Homo sapiens. Neanderthal isn't an ancestor to modern
man, but a separate species of human (another branch on the hominid family
bush) that became extinct. And just what is this DNA evidence you speak of?
Let's see a citation.
> Ten
> publications around the world did that, but none in the US did.
>
> Why do you think they are they so intent on keeping the big LIE alive?
Clearly it's an evil atheist conspiracy, bent on keeping people from finding
out the truth. Really, you read too many Jack Chick comics.