Famous quotes from famous evolutionists
J McCoy
"It is, however, very difficult to establish the precise lines of
descent, termed phylogenies, for most organisms."
(Ayala, F. J. and Valentine J. W., Evolving: The Theory and Process of
Organic Evolution, 1978, p. 230)
"Undeniably, the fossil record has provided disappointingly few
gradual series. The origins of many groups are still not documented
at all." (Futuyma, D., Science on Trial: The Case for Evolution,
1983, p. 190-191)
"There is still a tremendous problem with the sudden diversification
of multi-cellular life. There is no question about that. That's a
real phenomenon." (Niles Eldredge)
"The main problem with such phyletic gradualism is that the fossil
record provides so little evidence for it. Very rarely can we trace
the gradual transformation of one entire species into another through
a finely graded
sequence of intermediary forms." (Gould, S.J. Luria, S.E. & Singer,
S., A View of Life, 1981, p. 641)
"It should come as no surprise that it would be extremely difficult to
find a specific fossil species that is both intermediate in morphology
between two other taxa and is also in the appropriate stratigraphic
position."
(Cracraft, J., "Systematics, Comparative Biology, and the Case Against
Creationism," 1983, p. 180)
"Most families, orders, classes, and phyla appear rather suddenly in
the fossil record, often without anatomically intermediate forms
smoothly interlinking evolutionarily derived descendant taxa with
their presumed ancestors."
(Eldredge, N., 1989, Macro-Evolutionary Dynamics: Species, Niches, and
Adaptive Peaks, McGraw-Hill Publishing Company, New York, p. 22)
"Species that were once thought to have turned into others have been
found to overlap in time with these alleged descendants. In fact, the
fossil record does not convincingly document a single transition from
one species to another."
(Stanley, S.M., The New Evolutionary Timetable: Fossils, Genes, and
the Origin of Species, 1981, p. 95)
"Many fossils have been collected since 1859, tons of them, yet the
impact they have had on our understanding of the relationships between
living organisms is barely perceptible. ...In fact, I do not think it
unfair to say that fossils, or at least the traditional interpretation
of fossils, have clouded rather than clarified our attempts to
reconstruct phylogeny."
(Fortey, P. L., "Neontological Analysis Versus Palaeontological
Stores," 1982, p. 120-121)
"Indeed, it is the chief frustration of the fossil record that we do
not have empirical evidence for sustained trends in the evolution of
most complex morphological adaptations."
(Gould, Stephen J. and Eldredge, Niles, "Species Selection: Its Range
and Power," 1988, p. 19)
"The paleontological data is consistent with the view that all of the
currently recognized phyla had evolved by about 525 Ma. Despite half
a billion years of evolutionary exploration generated in Cambrian
time, no new phylum level designs have appeared since then."
("Developmental Evolution of Metazoan Body plans: The
Fossil Evidence," Valentine, Erwin, and Jablonski, Developmental
Biology 173, Article No. 0033, 1996, p. 376)
"Many 'trends' singled out by evolutionary biologists are ex post
facto rendering of phylogenetic history: biologists may simply pick
out species at different points in geological time that seem to fit on
some line of directional modification through time. Many trends, in
other words, may exist more in the minds of the analysts than in
phylogenetic history. This is particularly so in situations,
especially common prior to about 1970, in which analysis of the
phylogenetic relationships among species was incompletely or poorly
done."
(Eldredge, Niles, Macro-Evolutionary Dynamics: Species, Niches, and
Adaptive Peaks, 1989, p. 134)
"The Eldredge-Gould concept of punctuated equilibria has gained wide
acceptance among paleontologists. It attempts to account for the
following paradox: Within continuously sampled lineages, one rarely
finds the gradual morphological trends predicted by Darwinian
evolution; rather, change occurs with the sudden
appearance of new, well-differentiated species. Eldredge and Gould
equate such appearances with speciation, although the details of these
events are not preserved. ...The punctuated equilibrium model has been
widely
accepted, not because it has a compelling theoretical basis but
because it appears to resolve a dilemma. Apart from the obvious
sampling problems inherent to the observations that stimulated the
model, and apart from its
intrinsic circularity (one could argue that speciation can occur only
when phyletic change is rapid, not vice versa), the model is more ad
hoc explanation than theory, and it rests on shaky ground."
(Ricklefs, Robert E.,
"Paleontologists Confronting Macroevolution," Science, vol. 199, 1978,
p. 59)
"Few paleontologists have, I think ever supposed that fossils, by
themselves, provide grounds for the conclusion that evolution has
occurred. An examination of the work of those paleontologists who have
been particularly concerned with the relationship between paleontology
and evolutionary theory, for example that of
G. G. Simpson and S. J. Gould, reveals a mindfulness of the fact that
the record of evolution, like any other historical record, must be
construed within a complex of particular and general preconceptions
not the least of
which is the hypothesis that evolution has occurred. ...The fossil
record doesn't even provide any evidence in support of Darwinian
theory except in the weak sense that the fossil record is compatible
with it, just as it is compatible with other evolutionary theories,
and revolutionary theories and special creationist theories and even
historical theories." (Kitts, David B., "Search for the Holy
Transformation," review of Evolution of Living
Organisms, by Pierre-P. Grassé, Paleobiology, vol. 5, 1979, pp.
353-354)
Sudden Appearance and Stasis
"Paleontologists have paid an enormous price for Darwin's argument. We
fancy ourselves as the only true students of life's history, yet to
preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view
our data
as so bad that we almost never see the very process we profess to
study. ...The history of most fossil species includes tow features
particularly inconsistent with gradualism: 1. Stasis. Most species
exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They
appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they
disappear; morphological change I usually limited and directionless.
2. Sudden appearance. In any local area, a species does not arise
gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears
all at once and 'fully
formed.'"
(Gould, Stephen J. The Panda's Thumb, 1980, p. 181-182)
"Paleontologists are traditionally famous (or infamous) for
reconstructing whole animals from the debris of death. Mostly they
cheat. ...If any event in life's history resembles man's creation
myths, it is this sudden diversification of marine life when
multicellular organisms took over as the dominant actors in ecology
and evolution. Baffling (and embarrassing) to Darwin, this event still
dazzles us and stands as a major biological revolution on a par with
the invention of self-replication and the origin of the eukaryotic
cell. The animal phyla emerged out of the Precambrian mists with most
of the attributes of their modern descendants."
(Bengtson, Stefan, "The Solution to a Jigsaw Puzzle," Nature, vol. 345
(June 28, 1990), pp. 765-766)
"Modern multicellular animals make their first uncontested appearance
in the fossil record some 570 million years ago - and with a bang, not
a protracted crescendo. This 'Cambrian explosion' marks the advent (at
least
into direct evidence) of virtually all major groups of modern animals
- and all within the minuscule span, geologically speaking, of a few
million years." (Gould, Stephen J., Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale
and the
Nature of History, 1989, p. 23-24)
"The fossil record had caused Darwin more grief than joy. Nothing
distressed him more than the Cambrian explosion, the coincident
appearance of almost all complex organic designs..."
(Gould, Stephen J., The Panda's Thumb, 1980, p. 238-239)
"The majority of major groups appear suddenly in the rocks, with
virtually no evidence of transition from their ancestors."
(Futuyma, D., Science on Trial: The Case for Evolution, 1983, p. 82)
"Most families, orders, classes, and phyla appear rather suddenly in
the fossil record, often without anatomically intermediate forms
smoothly interlinking evolutionarily derived descendant taxa with
their
presumed ancestors." (Eldredge, Niles,
Macro-Evolutionary Dynamics: Species, Niches, and Adaptive
Peaks, 1989, p. 22)
"In spite of these examples, it remains true, as every paleontologist
knows, that most new species, genera, and families, and that nearly
all new categories above the level of families, appear in the record
suddenly and are not led up to by known, gradual, completely
continuous transitional sequences."
(Simpson, George Gaylord, The Major Features of Evolution, 1953, p.
360)
"The gaps in the record are real, however. The absence of any record
of any important branching is quite phenomenal. Species are usually
static, or nearly so, for long periods, species seldom and genera
never show
evolution into new species or genera but replacement or one by
another, and change is more or less abrupt."
(Wesson, R., Beyond Natural Selection, 1991, p. 45)
"All through the fossil record, groups - both large and small -
abruptly appear and disappear. ...The earliest
phase of rapid change usually is undiscovered, and must be inferred by
comparison with its probable relatives."
(Newell, N. D., Creation and Evolution: Myth or Reality, 1984, p. 10)
"Paleontologists had long been aware of a seeming contradiction
between Darwin's postulate of gradualism...and the actual findings of
paleontology. Following phyletic lines through time seemed to reveal
only minimal gradual changes but no clear evidence for any change of a
species into a different genus or for the gradual origin of an
evolutionary novelty. Anything truly novel always seemed to appear
quite abruptly in
the fossil record."
(Mayr, E. Our Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern
Evolutionary Thought, 1991, p.
138)
"The record certainly did not reveal gradual transformations of
structure in the course of time. On the contrary, it showed that
species generally remained constant throughout their history and were
replaced quite suddenly
by significantly different forms. New types or classes seemed to
appear fully formed, with no sign of an evolutionary trend by which
they could have emerged from an earlier type." (Bowler, Evolution:
The History of
an Idea, 1984, p. 187)
"Instead of finding the gradual unfolding of life, what geologists of
Darwin's time, and geologists of the present day actually find is a
highly uneven or jerky record; that is, species appear in the sequence
very suddenly, show little or no change during their existence in the
record, then abruptly go out of the record. and it is not always
clear, in fact it's rarely clear, that the descendants were actually
better adapted than their predecessors. In other words, biological
improvement is hard to find." (Raup, David M., "Conflicts Between
Darwin and Paleontology," Bulletin, Field Museum of Natural History,
vol. 50, 1979, p. 23)
"A major problem in proving the theory (of evolution) has been the
fossil record; the imprints of vanished species preserved in the
Earth's geological formations. This record has never revealed traces
of Darwin's
hypothetical intermediate variants instead species appear and
disappear abruptly, and this anomaly has fueled the creationist
argument that each species was created by God." (Czarnecki, Mark,
"The Revival of the
Creationist Crusade", MacLean's, January 19, 1981, p. 56)
"Eldredge and Gould, by contrast, decided to take the record at face
value. On this view, there is little evidence of modification within
species, or of forms intermediate between species because neither
generally occurred. A
species forms and evolves almost instantaneously (on the geological
timescale) and then remains virtually unchanged until it disappears,
yielding its habitat to a new species." (Smith, Peter J.,
"Evolution's Most
Worrisome Questions," Review of Life Pulse by Niles Eldredge, New
Scientist, 1987, p. 59)
"The principle problem is morphological stasis. A theory is only as
good as its predictions, and conventional neo-Darwinism, which claims
to be a comprehensive explanation of evolutionary process, has failed
to predict the widespread long-term morphological stasis now
recognized as one of the most striking aspects of the fossil record."
(Williamson, Peter G., "Morphological Stasis and Developmental
Constraint: Real Problems for Neo-Darwinism," Nature, Vol. 294, 19
November 1981, p. 214)
"It is a simple ineluctable truth that virtually all members of a
biota remain basically stable, with minor fluctuations, throughout
their duration..." (Eldredge, Niles, The Pattern of Evolution, 1998,
p. 157)
"But fossil species remain unchanged throughout most of their history
and the record fails to contain a single example of a significant
transition." (Woodroff, D.S., Science, vol. 208, 1980, p. 716)
"We have long known about stasis and abrupt appearance, but have
chosen to fob it off upon an imperfect fossil record."
(Gould, Stephen J., "The Paradox of the First Tier: An Agenda for
Paleobiology," Paleobiology, 1985, p. 7)
"Paleontologists ever since Darwin have been searching (largely in
vain) for the sequences of insensibly graded series of fossils that
would stand as examples of the sort of wholesale transformation of
species that Darwin envisioned as the natural product of the
evolutionary process. Few saw any reason to demur - though
it is a startling fact that ...most species remain recognizably
themselves, virtually unchanged throughout their occurrence in
geological sediments of various ages." (Eldredge, Niles, "Progress in
Evolution?" New Scientist,
vol. 110, 1986, p. 55)
"In other words, when the assumed evolutionary processes did not match
the pattern of fossils that they were supposed to have generated, the
pattern was judged to be 'wrong.' A circular argument arises:
interpret the
fossil record in terms of a particular theory of evolution, inspect
the interpretation, and note that it confirms the theory. Well, it
would, wouldn't it? ...As is now well known, most fossil species
appear instantaneously in the
record, persist for some millions of years virtually unchanged, only
to disappear abruptly - the 'punctuated equilibrium' pattern of
Eldredge and Gould."
(Kemp, Tom S., "A Fresh Look at the Fossil Record," New Scientist,
vol. 108, 1985, pp. 66-67)
"The old Darwinian view of evolution as a ladder of more and more
efficient forms leading up to the present is
not borne out by the evidence. Most changes are random rather than
systematic modifications, until species
drop out. There is no sign of directed order here. Trends do occur in
many lines, but they are not the rule."
(Newell, N. D., "Systematics and Evolution," 1984, p. 10)
"Well-represented species are usually stable throughout their temporal
range, or alter so little and in such
superficial ways (usually in size alone), that an extrapolation of
observed change into longer periods of
geological time could not possibly yield the extensive modifications
that mark general pathways of evolution in
larger groups. Most of the time, when the evidence is best, nothing
much happens to most species."
(Gould Stephen J., "Ten Thousand Acts of Kindness," Natural History,
1988, p. 14)
"Stasis, or nonchange, of most fossil species during their lengthy
geological lifespans was tacitly acknowledged
by all paleontologists, but almost never studied explicitly because
prevailing theory treated stasis as
uninteresting nonevidence for nonevolution. ...The overwhelming
prevalence of stasis became an
embarrassing feature of the fossil record, best left ignored as a
manifestation of nothing (that is, nonevolution).
(Gould, Stephen J., "Cordelia's Dilemma," Natural History, 1993, p.
15)
"Paleontologists just were not seeing the expected changes in their
fossils as they pursued them up through
the rock record. ...That individual kinds of fossils remain
recognizably the same throughout the length of their
occurrence in the fossil record had been known to paleontologists long
before Darwin published his Origin.
Darwin himself, ...prophesied that future generations of
paleontologists would fill in these gaps by diligent
search ...One hundred and twenty years of paleontological research
later, it has become abundantly clear that
the fossil record will not confirm this part of Darwin's predictions.
Nor is the problem a miserably poor record.
The fossil record simply shows that this prediction is wrong. ...The
observation that species are amazingly
conservative and static entities throughout long periods of time has
all the qualities of the emperor's new
clothes: everyone knew it but preferred to ignore it. Paleontologists,
faced with a recalcitrant record obstinately
refusing to yield Darwin's predicted pattern, simply looked the other
way."
(Eldredge, N. and Tattersall, I., The Myths of Human Evolution, 1982,
p. 45-46)
Large Gaps
"We have so many gaps in the evolutionary history of life, gaps in
such key areas as the origin of the
multi-cellular organisms, the origin of the vertebrates, not to
mention the origins of most invertebrate groups."
(McGowan, C., In the Beginning... A Scientist Shows Why the
Creationists are Wrong, Prometheus Books,
1984, p. 95)
"There are all sorts of gaps: absence of gradationally intermediate
'transitional' forms between species, but
also between larger groups - between, say, families of carnivores, or
the orders of mammals. In fact, the
higher up the Linnaean hierarchy you look, the fewer transitional
forms there seem to be."
(Eldredge, Niles, The Monkey Business: A Scientist Looks at
Creationism, 1982, p. 65)
"It is as though they [fossils] were just planted there, without any
evolutionary history. Needless to say this
appearance of sudden planting has delighted creationists. ...Both
schools of thought (Punctuationists and
Gradualists) despise so-called scientific creationists equally, and
both agree that the major gaps are real, that
they are true imperfections in the fossil record. The only
alternative explanation of the sudden appearance of
so many complex animal types in the Cambrian era is divine creation
and (we) both reject this alternative."
(Dawkins, Richard, The Blind Watchmaker, W.W. Norton & Company, New
York, 1996, pp. 229-230)
"All paleontologists know that the fossil record contains precious
little in the way of intermediate forms;
transitions between major groups are characteristically abrupt.
Gradualists usually extract themselves from
this dilemma by invoking the extreme imperfection of the fossil
record." (Gould, Stephen J., The Panda's
Thumb, 1980, p. 189)
"One of the most surprising negative results of paleontological
research in the last century is that such
transitional forms seem to be inordinately scarce. In Darwin's time
this could perhaps be ascribed with some
justification to the incompleteness of the paleontological record and
to lack of knowledge, but with the
enormous number of fossil species which have been discovered since
then, other causes must be found for
the almost complete absence of transitional forms." (Brouwer, A.,
"General Paleontology," [1959], Transl.
Kaye R.H., Oliver & Boyd: Edinburgh & London, 1967, pp. 162-163)
"There is no need to apologize any longer for the poverty of the
fossil record. In some ways it has become
almost
unmanageably rich, and discovery is out-pacing integration. "The
fossil record nevertheless continues to be
composed mainly of gaps."
(Neville, George, T., "Fossils in Evolutionary Perspective," Science
Progress, vol. 48 January 1960, pp. 1-3)
"The record jumps, and all the evidence shows that the record is real:
the gaps we see reflect real events in
life's history not the artifact of a poor fossil record. The fossil
record flatly fails to substantiate this expectation
of finely graded change." (Eldredge, N. and Tattersall, I., The Myths
of Human Evolution Columbia University
Press, 1982, p. 57)
"Gaps between families and taxa of even higher rank could not be so
easily explained as the mere artifacts of
a poor fossil record." (Eldredge, Niles, Macro-Evolutionary Dynamics:
Species, Niches, and Adaptive Peaks,
1989, p. 22)
"The fossil record is much less incomplete than is generally
accepted."
(Paul, C.R.C, "The Adequacy of the Fossil Record," 1982, p. 75)
"Links are missing just where we most fervently desire them, and it is
all too probable that many 'links' will
continue to be missing." (Jepsen, L. Glenn; Mayr, Ernst; Simpson
George Gaylord. Genetics, Paleontology,
and Evolution, New York, Athenaeum, 1963, p. 114)
"For over a hundred years paleontologists have recognized the large
number of gaps in the fossil record.
Creationists make it seem like gaps are a deep, dark secret of
paleontology..."
(Cracraft, in Awbrey & Thwaites, Evolutionists Confront Creationists",
1984)
"In any case, no real evolutionist, whether gradualist or
punctuationist, uses the fossil record as evidence in
favour of the theory of evolution as opposed to special creation."
(Ridley, Mark, "Who doubts evolution?" "New Scientist", vol. 90, 25
June 1981, p. 831)
"The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major
transitions in organic design, indeed
our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional
intermediates in many cases, has been a
persistent and nagging problem for gradualist accounts of evolution."
(Gould, Stephen J., 'Is a new and
general theory of evolution emerging?' Paleobiology, vol 6(1), January
1980, p. 127)
"The curious thing is that there is a consistency about the fossil
gaps; the fossils are missing in all the
important places." (Hitching, Francis, The Neck of the Giraffe or
Where Darwin Went Wrong, Penguin Books,
1982, p.19)
"If life had evolved into its wondrous profusion of creatures little
by little, Dr. Eldredge argues, then one would
expect to find fossils of transitional creatures which were a bit like
what went before them and a bit like what
came after. But no one has yet found any evidence of such
transitional creatures. This oddity has been
attributed to gaps in the fossil record which gradualists expected to
fill when rock strata of the proper age had
been found. In the last decade, however, geologists have found rock
layers of all divisions of the last 500
million years and no transitional forms were contained in them." (The
Guardian Weekly, 26 Nov 1978, vol 119,
no 22, p. 1)
"Given that evolution, according to Darwin, was in a continual state
of motion...it followed logically that the fossil
record should be rife with examples of transitional forms leading from
the less to more evolved. ...Instead of
filling the gaps in the fossil record with so-called missing links,
most paleontologists found themselves facing a
situation in which there were only gaps in the fossil record, with no
evidence of transformational intermediates
between documented fossil species."
(Schwartz, Jeffrey H., Sudden Origins, 1999, p. 89)
"Despite the bright promise that paleontology provides a means of
"seeing" evolution, it has presented some
nasty difficulties for evolutionists the most notorious of which is
the presence of "gaps" in the fossil record.
Evolution requires intermediate forms between species and paleontology
does not provide them. The gaps
must therefore be a contingent feature of the record." (Kitts, David
B., "Paleontology and Evolutionary
Theory," Evolution, vol. 28, 1974, p. 467)
"A persistent problem in evolutionary biology has been the absence of
intermediate forms in the fossil record.
Long term gradual transformations of single lineages are rare and
generally involve simple size increase or
trivial phenotypic effects. Typically, the record consists of
successive ancestor-descendant lineages,
morphologically invariant through time and unconnected by
intermediates." (Williamson, P.G.,
Palaeontological Documentation of Speciation in Cenozoic Molluscs from
Turkana Basin, 1982, p. 163)
"...I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct
illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I
knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them.
You suggest that an artist should be used to
visualize such transformations, but where would he get the information
from? I could not, honestly, provide it,
and if I were to leave it to artistic license, would that not mislead
the reader? Yet Gould and the American
Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no
transitional fossils. As a paleontologist
myself, I am much occupied with the philosophical problems of
identifying ancestral forms in the fossil record.
You say that I should at least 'show a photo of the fossil from which
each type of organism was derived.' I will
lay it on the line, there is not one such fossil for which one could
make a watertight argument. The reason is
that statements about ancestry and descent are not applicable in the
fossil record."
(Patterson, Colin, British Museum of Natural History, London, letter
10 April 1979, in Sunderland L.D.,
"Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems," 1984, Master Book
Publishers: El Cajon CA, Fourth Edition,
1988, p. 89)
Miscellaneous
"There are only two possibilities as to how life arose. One is
spontaneous generation arising to evolution; the
other is a supernatural creative act of God. There is no third
possibility. Spontaneous generation, that life
arose from non-living matter was scientifically disproved 120 years
ago by Louis Pasteur and others. That
leaves us with the only possible conclusion that life arose as a
supernatural creative act of God. I will not
accept that philosophically because I do not want to believe in God.
Therefore, I choose to believe in that
which I know is scientifically impossible; spontaneous generation
arising to evolution."
(Wald, George, "Innovation and Biology," Scientific American, Vol.
199, Sept. 1958, p. 100)
"All of us who study the origin of life find that the more we look
into it, the more we feel that it is too complex to
have evolved anywhere. We believe as an article of faith that life
evolved from dead matter on this planet. It is
just that its complexity is so great, it is hard for us to imagine
that it did."
(Urey, Harold C., quoted in Christian Science Monitor, January 4,
1962, p. 4)
"If living matter is not, then, caused by the interplay of atoms,
natural forces and radiation, how has it come
into being? I think, however, that we must go further than this and
admit that the only acceptable explanation
is creation. I know that this is anathema to physicists, as indeed it
is to me, but we must not reject a theory
that we do not like if the experimental evidence supports it." (H.J.
Lipson, F.R.S. Professor of Physics,
University of Manchester, UK, "A physicist looks at evolution" Physics
Bulletin, 1980, vol 31, p. 138)
"To the unprejudiced, the fossil record of plants is in favor of
special creation. Can you imagine how an orchid,
a duck weed, and a palm have come from the same ancestry, and have we
any evidence for this assumption?
The evolutionist must be prepared with an answer, but I think that
most would break down before an
inquisition."
(E.J.H. Corner "Evolution" in A.M. MacLeod and L.S. Cobley, eds.,
Evolution in Contemporary Botanical
Thought, Chicago, IL: Quadrangle Books, 1961, at 95, 97 from Bird, I,
p. 234)
"The more one studies paleontology, the more certain one becomes that
evolution is based on faith alone;
exactly the same sort of faith which it is necessary to have when one
encounters the great mysteries of
religion."
(More, Louis T., "The Dogma of Evolution," Princeton University Press:
Princeton NJ, 1925, Second Printing,
p.160)
"At the present stage of geological research, we have to admit that
there is nothing in the geological records
that runs contrary to the view of conservative creationists, that God
created each species separately,
presumably from the dust of the earth." (Dr. Edmund J. Ambrose, The
Nature and Origin of the Biological
World, John Wiley & Sons, 1982, p. 164)
"One of its (evolutions) weak points is that it does not have any
recognizable way in which conscious life could
have emerged." (Sir John Eccles, "A Divine Design: Some Questions
on Origins" in Margenau and Varghese
(eds.), Cosmos, Bios, Theos, p. 203)
"I am convinced, moreover, that Darwinism, in whatever form, is not in
fact a scientific theory, but a
pseudo-metaphysical hypothesis decked out in scientific garb. In
reality the theory derives its support not from
empirical data or logical deductions of a scientific kind but from the
circumstance that it happens to be the only
doctrine of biological origins that can be conceived with the
constricted worldview to which a majority of
scientists no doubt subscribe."
(Wolfgang, Smith, "The Universe is Ultimately to be Explained in Terms
of a Metacosmic Reality" in Margenau
and Varghese (eds.), Cosmos, Bios, Theos, p. 113)
"The origin of life is still a mystery. As long as it has not been
demonstrated by experimental realization, I
cannot conceive of any physical or chemical condition [allowing
evolution]...I cannot be satisfied by the idea
that fortuitous mutation...can explain the complex and rational
organization of the brain, but also of lungs,
heart, kidneys, and even joints and muscles. How is it possible to
escape the idea of some intelligent and organizing force?"
(d'Aubigne, Merle, "How Is It Possible to Escape the Idea of Some
Intelligent and Organizing Force?" in
Margenau and Varghese (eds.), Cosmos, Bios, Theos, p. 158)
"Life, even in bacteria, is too complex to have occurred by chance."
(Rubin, Harry, "Life, Even in Bacteria, Is
Too Complex to Have Occurred by Chance" in Margenau and Varghese
(eds.), Cosmos, Bios, Theos, p. 203)
"The theory of evolution suffers from grave defects, which are more
and more apparent as time advances. It
can no longer square with practical scientific knowledge, nor does it
suffice for our theoretical grasp of the
facts."
(Fleischmann, Albert, Victoria Institute, Vol. 65, pp. 194-195)
"The arguments for macroevolution fail at every significant level when
confronted by the facts."
(Haines, Jr., Roger, "Macroevolution Questioned", Creation Research
Society Quarterly, Dec. 1976, p. 169)
"The third assumption was the Viruses, Bacteria, Protozoa and the
higher animals were all interrelated...We
have as yet
no definite evidence about the way in which the Viruses, Bacteria or
Protozoa are interrelated."
(Kerkut, G.A., Implications of Evolution, Pergammon Press, 1960, p.
151)
"Scientists have no proof that life was not the result of an act of
creation."
(Jastrow, Robert, The Enchanted Loom: Mind In the Universe, 1981, p.
19)
"...we have proffered a collective tacit acceptance of the story of
gradual adaptive change, a story that
strengthened and became even more entrenched as the synthesis took
hold. We paleontologists have said
that the history of life supports that interpretation, all the while
really knowing that it does not." (Eldredge, Niles
"Time Frames: The Rethinking of Darwinian Evolution and the Theory of
Punctuated Equilibria," Simon &
Schuster: New York NY, 1985, p44)
"With the benefit of hindsight, it is amazing that paleontologists
could have accepted gradual evolution as a
universal pattern on the basis of a handful of supposedly
well-documented lineages (e.g. Gryphaea, Micraster,
Zaphrentis) none of which actually withstands close scrutiny." (Paul,
C. R. C., 1989, "Patterns of Evolution and
Extinction in Invertebrates", Allen, K. C. and Briggs, D. E. G.
(editors), Evolution and the Fossil Record,
Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D. C., 1989, p. 105)
"The rapid development as far as we can judge of all the higher plants
within recent geological times is an
abominable mystery." (Darwin, Charles R., letter to J.D. Hooker, July
22nd 1879, in Darwin F. & Seward A.C.,
eds., "More Letters of Charles Darwin: A Record of His Work in a
Series of Hitherto Unpublished Papers," John
Murray: London, 1903, Vol. II, pp. 20-21)
"An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now,
could only state that, in some sense, the
origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle."
(Francis Crick, Life Itself, Its Origin and Nature,
1981, p. 88)
"The number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed
must be truly enormous. Why then is not
every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate
links? Geology assuredly does not
reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps is
the most obvious and serious objection
which can be urged against the theory." (Darwin, Charles, Origin of
Species, 6th edition, 1902 p. 341-342)
"Often a cold shudder has run through me, and I have asked myself
whether I may have not devoted myself to
a fantasy."
(Charles Darwin, Life and Letters, 1887, Vol. 2, p. 229)
"The geological record has provided no evidence as to the origin of
the fishes."
(Norman, J., A History of Fishes, 1963, p. 298)
"None of the known fishes is thought to be directly ancestral to the
earliest land vertebrates."
(Stahl, B., Vertebrate History: Problems in Evolution, Dover
Publications, Inc., NY, 1985, p. 148)
"The pathetic thing is that we have scientists who are trying to prove
evolution, which no scientist can ever
prove."
(Millikan, Robert A., Nashville Banner, August 7, 1925, quoted in
Brewer's lecture)
"Evolution is accepted by zoologists not because it has been proved or
observed, but because creation is
incredible."
(Watson, D.M.S., Nature, August 10, 1929)
"Evolution is unproved and unprovable. We believe it only because the
only alternative is special creation
which is unthinkable." (Keith, Arthur, forward to 100th anniversary
edition of Charles Darwin's Origin of
Species, 1959)
"Not one change of species into another is on record...we cannot prove
that a single species has been
changed."
Charles Darwin, My Life & Letters
"The geological record is extremely imperfect and this fact will to a
large extent explain why we do not find
interminable varieties, connecting together all the extinct and
existing forms of life by the finest graduated
steps. He who rejects these views on the nature of the geological
record, will rightly reject my whole theory.
For he may ask in vain where are the numberless transitional (missing)
links which must formerly have
connected the closely allied or representative."
Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species
"If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which
could not possibly have been formed by
numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely
break down."
Charles Darwin, The Origin of the Species
"If numerous species, belonging to the same genera or families, have
really started into life all at once, that
fact would be
fatal to the theory of descent with slow modification through natural
selection."
Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species
mel turner
wrote...
>
>Lack of Identifiable Phylogeny
What "lack"? There's plenty of very identifiable
evidence for phylogenetic relationships among species
and groups, as most of your "famous evolutionists"
would undoubtedly agree.
[Snip of whole load of mined quotes] I doubt you understood
them, or that you found even one of them yourself. Or, can
you tell us what the next sentences said in each case?
A few links on creationist misquoting:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/
<http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/quotes.html>
<http://www.rtis.com/nat/user/elsberry/evobio/evc/sc_misq.html>
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/supernova/snrfab.html
<http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/ce/3/>
<http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/icr-whoppers.html>
<http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/2437/misquote.htm>
<http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/monkeyquote.html>
<http://home.mmcable.com/harlequin/evol/lies/index.html>
<http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/patterson.html>
If you simply copied and pasted it all from some creationist
web site's quote list, why not post just the link next time?
cheers
Frank J
> Lack of Identifiable Phylogeny
(snip)
Workin' in the quote mine, goin' down, down, down...
Lilith
I'm not impressed by a bunch of short, edited, out-of-context quotes.
It's already been established over and over again that out of context
quote-mining is creationist mental masturbation. I bet McCoy needed a
box of kleenex to clean up after that one.
Dave
<snip>
Do you really expect me to stop believing a theory because it is incomplete?
How many theories are complete, in the sense that "we" know absolutely
everything about them that we would like to?
--
Attack is not the best form of defense.
Lenny Flank
wrote:
Rather than listening to his regurgiquotes, I'd rather that McCoy
answer the simple questions that I've been asking him for weeks now,
without any response:
What is the scientific theory of creation/intelligent design.
What, according to this scientific theory of creation/intelligent
design, is the creator/intelligent designer.
What does the creator/intelligent designer DO, precisely, according to
this scientific theory of creation/intelligent design--what mechanisms
does the creator/intelligent designer use, and where can we see these
mechanisms operating today.
What scientific data or evidence is presented by the
scientific theory of creation/intelligent design to demonstrate that
there is only one creator/intelligent designer, and not, say, ten or
fifty of them.
Oh, and why should we not conclude, based on creation/intelligent
designer "theory", that the Raelians are correct, and humans were
produced by a race of space aliens with advanced technology who
designed us for a science project or something, and therefore no
supernatural gods are necessary or required.
I look forward to your evading these simple questions.
Again.
I can think of only three possible reason for your continuing refusal
to answer my simple questions. Either (1) there IS NO scientific
theory of creation/intelligent design, or (2) there IS a scientific
theory of creation/intelligent design, but you are too uninformed to
know what it is, or (3) there IS a scientific theory of
creation/intelligent design and you DO know what it is, but for some
unknown and unfathomable reason, you don't want anyone to know what it
is.
If you won't answer my simple questions, would you at least tell me
WHY you won't answer them? My money, of course, is on number 1.
=================================================
Lenny Flank
"There are no loose threads in the web of life"
Creation "Science" Debunked
http://www.geocities.com/lflank
Lenny Flank's Reptile Page
http://www.geocities.com/lflank/herp.html
Jerry Freedman
Your point being?
That evolutionary theory has a long history of debate, change,
re-evaluation is no surprise so what is your point. Creationist have
been taking quotes out of context for as long as there has been a
conflict between Creationism and Darwinism. Here is a question --- if
evolution is false, what theory replaces it? Why? What evidence is
there?
J. Freedman
John Thomas Grisham
I really want to try to believe you, but, your links are circular
arguments from mostly talkorigins or personal web pages. The most
obtuse Young Earther could do the same. You've done nothing, but,
leave me to my own means.
JTG
J McCoy
> wrote...
> >
> >Lack of Identifiable Phylogeny
>
> What "lack"? There's plenty of very identifiable
> evidence for phylogenetic relationships among species
> and groups, as most of your "famous evolutionists"
> would undoubtedly agree.
Please quote source and list the identifiable phylogeny.
>
> [Snip of whole load of mined quotes] I doubt you understood
> them, or that you found even one of them yourself. Or, can
> you tell us what the next sentences said in each case?
>
> A few links on creationist misquoting:
> http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/
> <http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/quotes.html>
> <http://www.rtis.com/nat/user/elsberry/evobio/evc/sc_misq.html>
> http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/supernova/snrfab.html
> <http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/ce/3/>
> <http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/icr-whoppers.html>
> <http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/2437/misquote.htm>
> <http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/monkeyquote.html>
> <http://home.mmcable.com/harlequin/evol/lies/index.html>
> <http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/patterson.html>
>
> If you simply copied and pasted it all from some creationist
> web site's quote list, why not post just the link next time?
If you're going to suggest that all the quotes were taken out of
context, even though all the quotes are self-contained, then point out
some that are taken out of context and put them in their context.
Otherwise your point is moot.
By the way, audience, an evolutionist, always accuses a creationist of
taking evolutionists out of contexts. Which is why I usually keep
photocopies of the original works so that argument can't be made. That
actually happened at a creation v. Evolution debate when Gish was
accused of taking out of context to which he then produce the work and
quoted till the evolutionist turned red. Rather unfortunate wouldn't
you say?
But the evolutionists around talk.origin are emotionally driven to
protect their cherished beliefs insomuch that after awhile of losing
arguments they post links that supplement but not prove their views.
Additionally some may changed the subject with stupid banter, or
inject sarcasm and forced (written down) laughter. But that's all
they can go. Even when I laugh at their stuff, I admit that I don't
mention it because it doesn't fit into this forum, nor should it
affect the debate, because it is not professional.
J McCoy
>
> cheers
J McCoy
>
>
> "It is, however, very difficult to establish the precise lines of
> descent, termed phylogenies, for most organisms."
> (Ayala, F. J. and Valentine J. W., Evolving: The Theory and Process of
> Organic Evolution, 1978, p. 230)
This is just one self-contained quote that can't be shown to had been
taken out of context. The author says that it is "very difficult to
establish the precise lines of descent, termed phylogenies, for most
organisms."
If the evolutionist is contending that this quote is out of context,
then what is he saying? He is saying that the above evolutionist is
stupid. Let me show you how. Supposing the evolutionist really had
said, it's "very difficult to establish the precise lines of descent,
termed phylogenies, for most organisms, but it is easy to establish
the precise lines of descent, termed phylogenies for most organisms."
The second sentence contridicts the first!
>
> "Undeniably, the fossil record has provided disappointingly few
> gradual series. The origins of many groups are still not documented
> at all." (Futuyma, D., Science on Trial: The Case for Evolution,
> 1983, p. 190-191)
Supposing that Futuyma really said, "Undeniably, the fossil record has
provided disappointingly few gradual series. The origins of many
groups are still not documented at all. But, I admit that the fossil
record has provided many gradual series. The origins of numerous
groups are documented."
The second part of this contridicts the first. It makes stupidity the
issue.
The fact is, these self-contained quotes from evolutionists are not
what the emotionalists on this talk.origin site want to hear about or
want you to know about. They may refer to links that purport that
creationists take evolutionists out of context, but they are wrong in
every case. One of them might write a letter to a famous evolutionist
and ask him if he was misrepresented and the evolutionist will write
back that he was. But he doesn't write any specific reasons, nor
clarify the statement. And if he does make a suppoed clarification,
it only sounds contradictory.
J McCoy
Lying for evolution, that is a game that is played all the time.
engelsman
> By the way, audience, an evolutionist, always accuses a creationist of
> taking evolutionists out of contexts.
Way better than claiming abiogenesis is part of the theory of evolution
after being corrected THIRTY-SIX TIMES!
> Which is why I usually keep
> photocopies of the original works so that argument can't be made.
Why bother, the whole world is free to read your drivel:
> That
> actually happened at a creation v. Evolution debate when Gish was
> accused of taking out of context to which he then produce the work and
> quoted till the evolutionist turned red. Rather unfortunate wouldn't
> you say?
Was that against another one of those unfortunate psycheteachers who
taught you evolution?
> But the evolutionists around talk.origin are emotionally driven to
> protect their cherished beliefs insomuch that after awhile of losing
'Emotional' and 'cherish' are not words which i would link to the
evolutionists' side of the discussion.
> arguments they post links that supplement but not prove their views.
right.
> Additionally some may changed the subject with stupid banter, or
> inject sarcasm and forced (written down) laughter.
The fact that you are so immensly ignorant is not funny.
> But that's all
> they can go. Even when I laugh at their stuff, I admit that I don't
> mention it because it doesn't fit into this forum, nor should it
> affect the debate, because it is not professional.
Reason didn't work, perhaps that is why people don't take you serious?
> J McCoy
Sufkut.
dandelion
>> [Snip of whole load of mined quotes] I doubt you understood
>> them, or that you found even one of them yourself. Or, can
>> you tell us what the next sentences said in each case?
>>
>> A few links on creationist misquoting:
>> http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/
>> <http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/quotes.html>
>> <http://www.rtis.com/nat/user/elsberry/evobio/evc/sc_misq.html>
>> http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/supernova/snrfab.html
>> <http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/ce/3/>
>> <http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/icr-whoppers.html>
>> <http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/2437/misquote.htm>
>> <http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/monkeyquote.html>
>> <http://home.mmcable.com/harlequin/evol/lies/index.html>
>> <http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/patterson.html>
>>
>> If you simply copied and pasted it all from some creationist
>> web site's quote list, why not post just the link next time?
>
> If you're going to suggest that all the quotes were taken out of
> context, even though all the quotes are self-contained, then point out
> some that are taken out of context and put them in their context.
1. No quote is 'self-contained'. ever. There is always a context to them
2. This is the cheapest bit of evasion I have witnesed in a long time.
Creationists have a long standing tradition of misquoting and
out-of-context quoting.
The assumption that you cannot provide a followup to *any* of these quotes
is therefore one I would like to put a little wager on.
> Otherwise your point is moot.
The challenge however stands. Can you provide the next sentence to *any* of
the 'quotes' you provided? *Any* at all?
> By the way, audience, an evolutionist, always accuses a creationist of
> taking evolutionists out of contexts.
Since they so frequently do. The site 'http://www.talkorigins.org' contains
entire sections of creationist 'quotes'. Anyone who'se lurked here knows
that.
I bet some people are busy looking up these quotes right now.
> Which is why I usually keep
> photocopies of the original works so that argument can't be made.
Ok. Then citing any 'next sentences' won't be any problem. Please. I'd be
*really* interested.
> That
> actually happened at a creation v. Evolution debate when Gish was
> accused of taking out of context to which he then produce the work and
> quoted till the evolutionist turned red. Rather unfortunate wouldn't
> you say?
Rather hearsay I would say. Coming from you, I find it rather less than
credible. Why does that gentleman not even *dare* enter in anything
resembling an equal debate?
Why won't this 'gentleman' debate here? Why the *absolute* lack of *any*
scientific paper coming from a creationist on this subject?
Why is a load of pseudoscientific bullshit which can hardly be taken
seriously in the popular press the *only* kind of creationist publications
we see?
> But the evolutionists around talk.origin are emotionally driven to
> protect their cherished beliefs insomuch that after awhile of losing
> arguments they post links that supplement but not prove their views.
> Additionally some may changed the subject with stupid banter, or
> inject sarcasm and forced (written down) laughter.
I find it quite irresistable to convey my initial reaction in an onomatopeic
form:
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAHHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Eventhough admittedly, it's a little exaggerated. Usually creationist
'arguments' are so silly one can hardly escape getting rather amused over
these 'parasites of science' as they were recently aptly dubbed.
> But that's all they can go.
But *you* on the other hand, have produced a wealth of evidence, haven't
you? Like... ummmm. Like.....
Remind me, what evidence, or indeed coherent hypothesis have you produced?
What, indeed, did you contribute, except from some idle chit-chat on you
and your imaginary pal?
Could you point me to 'The Theory of Creation' ane expound a little on the
evidence supporting it?
> Even when I laugh at their stuff, I admit that I don't
> mention it because it doesn't fit into this forum,
Yes. As the ancient chinese had it: 'If a fool did not laugh at Tao, it
would not be Tao'.
> nor should it affect the debate, because it is not professional.
Oh... well... The debate on this forum is indeed a mere public debate. As to
the scientific debates, they have long since passed the stage where
'creationism vs evolution' is a serious issue. That was back in the 19th
century.
--
What this country needs is a dime that will buy a good five-cent bagel.
Dick Hertz (Hey, who's Dick Hertz?)
> mc...@sunset.net (J McCoy) wrote in message news:<3f355ee.03022...@posting.google.com>...
>
>>Lack of Identifiable Phylogeny
>>
>>
>>"It is, however, very difficult to establish the precise lines of
>>descent, termed phylogenies, for most organisms."
>>(Ayala, F. J. and Valentine J. W., Evolving: The Theory and Process of
>>Organic Evolution, 1978, p. 230)
>
>
> This is just one self-contained quote that can't be shown to had been
> taken out of context. The author says that it is "very difficult to
> establish the precise lines of descent, termed phylogenies, for most
> organisms."
>
> If the evolutionist is contending that this quote is out of context,
What is an "evolutionist?"
Is that like a "round-Earthist?"
-----(crap snipped)-----
R. Baldwin
"I shall emphasize again: There is no theorem requiring mutations to
lose information. I can easily imagine mutations that gain
information. The simplest example is what is known as a back
mutation. A back mutation undoes the effect of a previous mutation.
If the change of a single base pair in the genome were to change to
another and lose information, then a subsequent mutation back to the
previous condition would regain the lost information. Since these
mutations are known to occur, they form a counterexample to any
conjecture that random mutations must lose information."
- Information Theorist and Creationist Lee Spetner, in "A Scientific
Critique of Evolution", 2002.
Mark VandeWettering
Dana Tweedy
"J McCoy" <mc...@sunset.net> wrote in message
news:3f355ee.03022...@posting.google.com...
> Lack of Identifiable Phylogeny
This seems to be the quote mine that McCoy used:
http://www.genesispark.org/genpark/phylo/phylo.htm
Original as always.
DJT
Lenny Flank
wrote:
>
>Please quote source and list the identifiable phylogeny.
>
Glad to, as soon as you please quote source and list your identifiable
phylogeny back to Adam and Eve. Afetr all, if you think it reasonable
to expect a complete lineage from us back to the beginning of life 4.5
billion years ago, it would seem rather easy for YOU to provide a
complete lineage form only 6,000 years (heck, that's only 150
generations or so, right?)
Oh, and when you're finished with that, would you mind answering the
simple questions I've been asking you for weeks now and gotten no
repsonse to? Forget them already? That's OK---I'll post them again.
And again and again and again. As many times as I need to before I
get an answer from you.
*ahem*
Again.
>
>By the way, audience, an evolutionist, always accuses a creationist of
>taking evolutionists out of contexts.
By the way, audience, creationists NEVER respond to direct questions
that are put to them, particularly when such questiosn refer to the
much-mentioned but never-prodiuced "scientific theory of creation". I
leave it to you to decide whether this is simply oversight on the part
of creationists, or a deliberate effort to be evasive and dishonest.
Lenny Flank
Indeed.
We should thank the good Mr McCoy for demonstrating to all the lurkers
once again that creationists not only can't or won't answer any direct
questions that are put to them, but also aren't bright enough to
string together enough original sentences or thoughts to put together
a post of their own, and must instead resort to brainlessly
cutting-and-pasting from creationist religious tracts.
Sverker Johansson
>
> mc...@sunset.net (J McCoy) wrote in message news:<3f355ee.03022...@posting.google.com>...
[snip]
> >
> > "Undeniably, the fossil record has provided disappointingly few
> > gradual series. The origins of many groups are still not documented
> > at all." (Futuyma, D., Science on Trial: The Case for Evolution,
> > 1983, p. 190-191)
>
> Supposing that Futuyma really said, "Undeniably, the fossil record has
> provided disappointingly few gradual series. The origins of many
> groups are still not documented at all. But, I admit that the fossil
> record has provided many gradual series. The origins of numerous
> groups are documented."
Instead of speculating about it, why didn't you pick up your photocopies
and look at what the _actual_ context?
I have the book here. The paragraph before your quote starts:
"Contrary to creationist claims, the transitions among vertebrate
classes are almost all documented to a greater or lesser extent."
and then Futuyma goes on to list numerous examples, ending
with "... and of course the hominids." right before the sentence
you quoted. This looks a lot like your paraphrase above.
The paragraph that your quote is snipped from goes on like this:
"But in view of the rapid pace that evolution can take, and the extreme
incompleteness of fossil deposits, we are fortunate to have as many
transitions as we do. The creationist argument that if evolution
were true we should have an abundance of intermediate fossils is built
by exaggerating the richness of paleontological collections, by denying
the transitional series that exist, and by distorting, or
misunderstanding, the genetical theory of evolution."
How come you didn't quote that part?
> The second part of this contridicts the first. It makes stupidity the
> issue.
>
> The fact is, these self-contained quotes from evolutionists are not
> what the emotionalists on this talk.origin site want to hear about or
> want you to know about. They may refer to links that purport that
> creationists take evolutionists out of context, but they are wrong in
> every case. One of them might write a letter to a famous evolutionist
> and ask him if he was misrepresented and the evolutionist will write
> back that he was. But he doesn't write any specific reasons, nor
> clarify the statement. And if he does make a suppoed clarification,
> it only sounds contradictory.
It's enough to actually read the quote in context, to see that
you misrepresented the thrust of Futuyma's argument. It's right
there on page 190-191 in his book (a few pages from the end of
chapter 10, if you have a different edition).
> J McCoy
>
> Lying for evolution, that is a game that is played all the time.
As usual, the CMB calling the flat spectrum black.
[snip quotes that are all ripped out of the context of debates
about the details of evolution, mostly the punk eek debate]
> > "The majority of major groups appear suddenly in the rocks, with
> > virtually no evidence of transition from their ancestors."
> > (Futuyma, D., Science on Trial: The Case for Evolution, 1983, p. 82)
This is from a context where Futuyma discusses both punk eek and
creationist abuse of it, as well as examples of groups that do
have evidence of transitions from their ancestors.
[snip more in the same vein]
> > "The curious thing is that there is a consistency about the fossil
> > gaps; the fossils are missing in all the
> > important places." (Hitching, Francis, The Neck of the Giraffe or
> > Where Darwin Went Wrong, Penguin Books,
> > 1982, p.19)
Whatever Hitching is, he is by no stretch of the imagination a
"famous evolutionist".
[snip more in the same vein]
--
Best regards
Sverker Johansson
--------------------------------------------------------
Humans breed pigs for a purpose -- making bacon.
Does that make a pig's life meaningful _for_the_pig_ ?
--------------------------------------------------------
Dana Tweedy
> mc...@sunset.net (J McCoy) wrote in message
news:<3f355ee.03022...@posting.google.com>...
> > Lack of Identifiable Phylogeny
> >
> >
> > "It is, however, very difficult to establish the precise lines of
> > descent, termed phylogenies, for most organisms."
> > (Ayala, F. J. and Valentine J. W., Evolving: The Theory and Process of
> > Organic Evolution, 1978, p. 230)
>
> This is just one self-contained quote that can't be shown to had been
> taken out of context. The author says that it is "very difficult to
> establish the precise lines of descent, termed phylogenies, for most
> organisms."
How do you know it's a "self contained quote"? You took the quote from:
http://www.genesispark.org/genpark/phylo/phylo.htm
So you didn't actually read the Ayala's book, did you?
>
> If the evolutionist is contending that this quote is out of context,
> then what is he saying?
he's saying that the quotation has been taken out of it's specific context
in order to change the meaning of what the original author actually said.
> He is saying that the above evolutionist is
> stupid.
No, he's saying that the person employing the out of context quote is lying
by omission.
>Let me show you how. Supposing the evolutionist really had
> said, it's "very difficult to establish the precise lines of descent,
> termed phylogenies, for most organisms, but it is easy to establish
> the precise lines of descent, termed phylogenies for most organisms."
>
> The second sentence contridicts the first!
The "second sentence" isn't what was written. Can you give the full context
of the quote? Since you never read the book and simply copied that quote
from a Creationist's quote mine, how would you know?
>
>
>
> >
> > "Undeniably, the fossil record has provided disappointingly few
> > gradual series. The origins of many groups are still not documented
> > at all." (Futuyma, D., Science on Trial: The Case for Evolution,
> > 1983, p. 190-191)
>
> Supposing that Futuyma really said, "Undeniably, the fossil record has
> provided disappointingly few gradual series. The origins of many
> groups are still not documented at all. But, I admit that the fossil
> record has provided many gradual series. The origins of numerous
> groups are documented."
>
> The second part of this contridicts the first. It makes stupidity the
> issue.
Again, you made up the second part of the quote. Why not give the quote in
context? Because you can't. You haven't read the book, you are just
repeating someone else's lie of omission.
>
> The fact is, these self-contained quotes from evolutionists are not
> what the emotionalists on this talk.origin site want to hear about or
> want you to know about.
Many of the people on this board have actually read the primary source.
They don't depend on out of context quoting from someone with an axe to
grind.
>They may refer to links that purport that
> creationists take evolutionists out of context, but they are wrong in
> every case.
Are they? Can you give full context to all of those quotes you repeated?
Have you read ANY of the books you supposedly quoted from?
> One of them might write a letter to a famous evolutionist
> and ask him if he was misrepresented and the evolutionist will write
> back that he was. But he doesn't write any specific reasons, nor
> clarify the statement. And if he does make a suppoed clarification,
> it only sounds contradictory.
So, the original author of a work is not an authority on what was meant by
the work? Are you trying to make another "sig worthy" statement of your
own stupidity?
>
> J McCoy
>
> Lying for evolution, that is a game that is played all the time.
Quoting out of context is lying. You are the one repeating another person's
lies. What does that make you?
DJT
Snip the rest of Dave Woetzel's lies
observa
"Dave" <d.philp.no....@mmb.usyd.edu.au> wrote in message
news:b3qnph$adu$1...@news.iucc.ac.il...
> J McCoy wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> Do you really expect me to stop believing a theory because it is
incomplete?
> How many theories are complete, in the sense that "we" know absolutely
> everything about them that we would like to?
Hey, you miss the point. This is the YEC problem. They're insecure, so
they want *complete theories*. Only then can they be secure. Scientists,
on the other hand love incomplete theories, it gives them stuff to play
with.
Alan Jeffery
>
> --
>
> Attack is not the best form of defense.
>
---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.458 / Virus Database: 257 - Release Date: 24/02/2003
4nobletruths
--> That
> actually happened at a creation v. Evolution debate when Gish was
> accused of taking out of context to which he then produce the work and
> quoted till the evolutionist turned red. Rather unfortunate wouldn't
> you say? <--
Here we see the typical 7% truthful solution the addicts to
creationism exist for. An anecdote always is to be taken as
indicative of their own disinterested brilliance. Brazen hypocrites,
pretty much always.
>
> --> But the evolutionists around talk.origin are emotionally driven to
> protect their cherished beliefs insomuch that after awhile of losing
> arguments they post links that supplement but not prove their views.
> Additionally some may changed the subject with stupid banter, or
> inject sarcasm and forced (written down) laughter. But that's all
> they can go. Even when I laugh at their stuff, I admit that I don't
> mention it because it doesn't fit into this forum, nor should it
> affect the debate, because it is not professional. <-- What a two-faced bastard you show yourself to be in this passage. Dishonesty is the only policy of someone who has empty intelectual pockets, I can see.
>
> J McCoy
>
>
> >
> > cheers
Lenny Flank
<lsj.h...@homo.sapiens.se> wrote:
<snip>
>> > "The curious thing is that there is a consistency about the fossil
>> > gaps; the fossils are missing in all the
>> > important places." (Hitching, Francis, The Neck of the Giraffe or
>> > Where Darwin Went Wrong, Penguin Books,
>> > 1982, p.19)
>
>Whatever Hitching is, he is by no stretch of the imagination a
>"famous evolutionist".
>
He's often quoted by creationists, who don't seem bright enough to
realize that he thinks creationists are idiots. From my "Creation
'Science' debunked" website:
Out of Context: Hitching and the Creationists
by Lenny Flank
(c) 1996
The creationists are very fond of quoting statements from prominent
evolutionary scientists, as well as science writers, in an attempt to
protray them as having doubts about the validity of evolutionary
theory. In every instance, these quotes are taken out of context and
distort the writer's meaning (prominent scientist Stephen Jay Gould is
but one scientist who has publicly complained about the creationist
mis-use of his writings).
One of the favorite sources of the creationist quote-miners is writer
Francis Hitching, the author of the book "The Neck of the Giraffe:
Where Darwin Went Wrong". Even the very TITLE of Hitching's book must
warm the cockles of any creationist heart. It is no wonder that they
fall all over themselves trying to quote portions of Hitching's book
as "proof" that evolution is wrong and creationism is right.
Those of us who have actually READ Hitching's book, however, know that
his opinion of creationists and their "science" is not as flattering
as Morris et al would have us believe. Here are just some of the
things that Hitching has to say about creationists and evolution:
"Evolution and Darwinism are often taken to mean the same thing. But
they don't. Evolution of life over a very long period of time is a
fact, if we are to believe evidence gathered during the last two
centuries from geology, paleontology (the study of fossils), molecular
biology and many other scientific disciplines. Despite the many
believers in Divine creation who dispute this (including about half
the adult population in the United States, according to some opinion
polls), the probability that evolution has occured approaches
certainty in scientific terms." (p. 12)
Indeed, Hitching presents an entire chapter of his book (Chapter Five)
which trashes the creationists and ridicules their "science". Some
passages:
"Why is the creationist argument, evidently plausible, open to
suspicion? First, because it is quite wrong to present creation v.
evolution as if they were the only two ways of looking at the
problem--as if they were two sides of the same coin. The current
_explanations_ of evolution may be scientifically puzzling or
unsatisfactory, but this is not to say that evolution has not
occurred. The evidence from every scientific discipline that has
touched on the subject shows consistently that the earth is old, is
part of an even older universe, and that evolution explains why we
have so many kinds of organisms and why they look so different.
Radiometric dating methods confirm Earth's antiquity. Geology shows
how rock formations were laid down. Paleontology shows how there were
different epochs with different life forms that ran their span and
became extinct. Genetics shows how living things are related to one
another, and have the potential for change. These patient researchers
do not "prove" evolution (strictly speaking, proof can be obtained
only in logic and mathematics). But taken together, coming as they do
from so many different viewpoints, they make an overwhelming case."
(pp 117-120)
"Scientists may get stubborn about their theories, hold on to them
long after their writ is run, and even conspire to present their
theories as if there was nothing to be said on the other side. But
history shows that in the end, as facts accumulate, a change of
thinking is inevitable. Not so with creationism. If you once become
committed to an unalterable explanation (the Biblical one), and you
are forced to fit all facts within this framework, allowing no other
possibility, you have by definition become unscientific. However much
sympathy we may have for a belief in a Divine first cause shaping the
forces that created the universe, and however well-meaning the
scientific creationists may be, the straitjacket of Genesis 1-11 is so
restricting that to make _all_ evolutionary facts fit within it
inevitably ends in a perversion of science." (pp 120-121)
Specifically talking about Morris's book "The Genesis Flood", Hitching
says:
"There is the selective quoting of cautious scientific doubts--a
confession of ignorance about a particular geological difficulty is
cited in order to throw doubt on geological knowledge as a whole. This
is a widely used technique in books and a rticles stemming from ICR
and elsewhere. Reading creationists on the subject of ancient man, for
instance, you would never gather that fossils available for study now
come from a wide variety of places, and however fallible, dubious and
self-seeking individual fossil finds may be (see chapter eight), they
fit into a general pattern of man having evolved from an apelike
ancestor at some point during the last six million years. Instead, the
evidence offered by creationists invariably consists of the most
obvious frauds and fossil fallacies." (p. 124)
"If there is no evidence at all in the creationist's favour, guesswork
takes its place . . . Elsewhere the abacadabra technique, which I
complained of among neo-Darwinists, is used openly." (pp 124-125)
Talking about the Ark story, Hitching humorously points out,
"Discussion of the problem of excreta disposal is notably absent from
creationist literature." (p. 131)
Hitching concludes by saying:
"The flight from reason, the nuisance and expense of court cases, and
the dogma returning to the classrooms may all be counted on the debit
side of creationism's growing influence. . . . If school authorities
intend genuinely to present students, in a neutral manner, with the
opposing claims of special creation and biological evolution, students
ought to be told about creation myths from other sources, some of
which are helpful to the Biblical account, and some of which are not."
(pp 135-136)
John Wilkins
> Lack of Identifiable Phylogeny
>
>
> "It is, however, very difficult to establish the precise lines of
> descent, termed phylogenies, for most organisms."
> (Ayala, F. J. and Valentine J. W., Evolving: The Theory and Process of
> Organic Evolution, 1978, p. 230)
Don't have it, but this is on a par with "crimes are not all observed -
film at eleven".
>
> "Undeniably, the fossil record has provided disappointingly few
> gradual series. The origins of many groups are still not documented
> at all." (Futuyma, D., Science on Trial: The Case for Evolution,
> 1983, p. 190-191)
"But in view of the rapid pace evolution can take, and the extreme
incompleteness of fossil deposits, we are fortunate to have as many
transitions as we do. The creationist argument that if evolution were
true we should have an abundance of intermediate fossils is built by
denying the richness of paleontological collections, by denying the
transitional series that exist, and by distorting, or misunderstanding,
the genetical theory of evolution."
>
> "There is still a tremendous problem with the sudden diversification
> of multi-cellular life. There is no question about that. That's a
> real phenomenon." (Niles Eldredge)
Unattributed, so I cannot check context, but see Eldredge's discussion
of this diversification in chapter 2 of Life Pulse, where he apprantly
sees no insurmountable difficulties.
>
>
> "The main problem with such phyletic gradualism is that the fossil
> record provides so little evidence for it. Very rarely can we trace
> the gradual transformation of one entire species into another through
> a finely graded
> sequence of intermediary forms." (Gould, S.J. Luria, S.E. & Singer,
> S., A View of Life, 1981, p. 641)
Don't have it, but see Eldredge's Life Pulse for an extended discussion
and the original punk eek paper.
>
> "It should come as no surprise that it would be extremely difficult to
> find a specific fossil species that is both intermediate in morphology
> between two other taxa and is also in the appropriate stratigraphic
> position."
> (Cracraft, J., "Systematics, Comparative Biology, and the Case Against
> Creationism," 1983, p. 180)
Don't have this either, but see Eldredge and Cracraft's Phylogenetic
Patterns and the Evolutionary Process, 117:
"The dearth of examples of continuous change within lineages, including
change within segments designated as nominal species. in the fossil
record has been recognized since Darwin's day... Adherents to the
neo-Darwinian theory of transformational speciation resort to the ad hoc
hypothesis that the fossil record is too poor to reflect adequately this
mode of evolution. And there is little reason to doubt that the fossil
record is indeed spotty."
They then argue that this is a real effect caused by a different mode of
*evolution* than the one proposed by neo-Darwinian paleontologists;
i.e., punk eek...
>
> "Most families, orders, classes, and phyla appear rather suddenly in
> the fossil record, often without anatomically intermediate forms
> smoothly interlinking evolutionarily derived descendant taxa with
> their presumed ancestors."
> (Eldredge, N., 1989, Macro-Evolutionary Dynamics: Species, Niches, and
> Adaptive Peaks, McGraw-Hill Publishing Company, New York, p. 22)
The view expressed here is that of G G Simpson's argument for variable
rates of evolution. They continue in the next paragraph:
"Theory led Simpson to conclude that the gaps between higher taxa [than
between species - JSW] must reflect unusually high rates of evolutionary
change."
>
> "Species that were once thought to have turned into others have been
> found to overlap in time with these alleged descendants. In fact, the
> fossil record does not convincingly document a single transition from
> one species to another."
> (Stanley, S.M., The New Evolutionary Timetable: Fossils, Genes, and
> the Origin of Species, 1981, p. 95)
"It is true that the fossil record of species is much poorer than the
record of higher taxa... The techniques that will be described in the
following chapters are aimed at circumventing problems traditionally
associated with the enumeration and biostratigraphic evaluation of
fossil species. These techniques provide a highly imperfect quantitative
picture of species and speciation, yet their application yeilds
provocative inferences." Stanley, S. M. _Macroevolution_ 1979, 1998, p.
8
>
<snip those I don't have access to>
> "Many 'trends' singled out by evolutionary biologists are ex post
> facto rendering of phylogenetic history: biologists may simply pick
> out species at different points in geological time that seem to fit on
> some line of directional modification through time. Many trends, in
> other words, may exist more in the minds of the analysts than in
> phylogenetic history. This is particularly so in situations,
> especially common prior to about 1970, in which analysis of the
> phylogenetic relationships among species was incompletely or poorly
> done."
> (Eldredge, Niles, Macro-Evolutionary Dynamics: Species, Niches, and
> Adaptive Peaks, 1989, p. 134)
"Even when trends are real (i.e., reflecting an actual directional
change of state within a system), perceptual error in characterization
of the trend may lead to an incorrect analysis of underlying cause. ...
With the caveat that many supposed evolutionary trends are artifacts of
analysis firmly in mind, it is important to stress at this juncture that
trends--directional accumulations of (presumably) adaptive change--are
nonetheless very much a real phenomenon of evolutionary history. Nor
need we rely strictly on the fossil record for empirical verification
that this must be so. <example of hominid encephalisation - brain growth
- deleted> There is no doubt that the trend--which we know from the
principles of comparative morphology _must_ have occurred--really in
fact _did_ occur." pp134-135.
>
<snip more I don't have access to>
>
>
> Sudden Appearance and Stasis
>
>
> "Paleontologists have paid an enormous price for Darwin's argument. We
> fancy ourselves as the only true students of life's history, yet to
> preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view
> our data
> as so bad that we almost never see the very process we profess to
> study. ...The history of most fossil species includes tow features
> particularly inconsistent with gradualism: 1. Stasis. Most species
> exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They
> appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they
> disappear; morphological change I usually limited and directionless.
> 2. Sudden appearance. In any local area, a species does not arise
> gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears
> all at once and 'fully
> formed.'"
> (Gould, Stephen J. The Panda's Thumb, 1980, p. 181-182)
Snipped in the ellipsis is
"We believe that Huxley was right in his warning. The modern theory of
evolution does not require gradual change. In fact, the operation of
Darwinian processes should yield exactly what we see in the fossil
record. It is gradualism we should reject, not Darwinism."
Following this passage is
"Evolution proceeds in two major modes. In the first, phyletic
transformation, an entire population changes from one state to another.
.... The second mode, speciation, replenishes the earth. New species
branch off from a persisting parental stock.
"Darwin, to be sure, acknowledged and discussed the process of
speciation. But he cast his discussion of evolutionary change almost
totally in the mold of phyletic transformation. In this context, the
phenomenon of stasis and sudden appearance could hardly be attributed to
anything but imperfection of the record; for if new species arise by
transformation of entire ancestral populations, and if we almost never
see the transformation (because species are essentially static through
their range), then our record must be hopelessly incomplete.
"Eldredge and I believe that speciation is responsiblefor almost all
evolutionary change. Moreover, the way in which it occurs virtually
guarantees that sudden appearance and stasis shall dominate the fossil
record." to p183.
>
<snip don't have>
>
> "Modern multicellular animals make their first uncontested appearance
> in the fossil record some 570 million years ago - and with a bang, not
> a protracted crescendo. This 'Cambrian explosion' marks the advent (at
> least
> into direct evidence) of virtually all major groups of modern animals
> - and all within the minuscule span, geologically speaking, of a few
> million years." (Gould, Stephen J., Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale
> and the
> Nature of History, 1989, p. 23-24)
A short while later, in the same paragraph, he says,
"Our fossil record is almost exclusively the story of hard parts. But
most animals have none, and those that do reveal very little about their
anatomies in their outer coverings (what could you infer about a clam
from its shell alone?). Hence, the rare soft-bodied faunas of the fossil
record are precious windows into the true range and diversity of ancient
life."
>
> "The fossil record had caused Darwin more grief than joy. Nothing
> distressed him more than the Cambrian explosion, the coincident
> appearance of almost all complex organic designs..."
> (Gould, Stephen J., The Panda's Thumb, 1980, p. 238-239)
Same page and paragraph:
"His opponents interpreted this event as the moment of creation, for not
a single trace of Precambrian life had been discovered when Darwin wrote
the _Origin of Species_. (We now have an extensive record of monerans
from these early rocks, see essay 21)"
>
> "The majority of major groups appear suddenly in the rocks, with
> virtually no evidence of transition from their ancestors."
> (Futuyma, D., Science on Trial: The Case for Evolution, 1983, p. 82)
Ironically, Futuyma immediately follows this with the observation of an
early example, by Gish, of quote mining. A little later he says
"The transitional forms that evolve so quickly, and in such a small
area, are very unlikely to be picked up in the fossil record. Only when
the newly evolved species extends its range will it suddenly appear in
the fossil record. Eldredge and Gould have suggested, therefore, that
the fossil record should show stasis, or equlibrium, of established
species, punctuated occasionally by the appearance of new forms. Hence,
the fossilr ecord would be most inadequate exactly where we need it
most--at the origin of major new groups of organisms." p83
>
> "Most families, orders, classes, and phyla appear rather suddenly in
> the fossil record, often without anatomically intermediate forms
> smoothly interlinking evolutionarily derived descendant taxa with
> their
> presumed ancestors." (Eldredge, Niles,
> Macro-Evolutionary Dynamics: Species, Niches, and Adaptive
> Peaks, 1989, p. 22)
See above.
>
<three don't haves>
> "Paleontologists had long been aware of a seeming contradiction
> between Darwin's postulate of gradualism...and the actual findings of
> paleontology. Following phyletic lines through time seemed to reveal
> only minimal gradual changes but no clear evidence for any change of a
> species into a different genus or for the gradual origin of an
> evolutionary novelty. Anything truly novel always seemed to appear
> quite abruptly in
> the fossil record."
> (Mayr, E. Our Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern
> Evolutionary Thought, 1991, p.
> 138)
"During the synthesis it became clear that since new evolutionary
departures seem to take place almost invariably in localized isolated
popualtions, it is not surprising that the fossil record does not
relfect these sequences."
>
> "The record certainly did not reveal gradual transformations of
> structure in the course of time. On the contrary, it showed that
> species generally remained constant throughout their history and were
> replaced quite suddenly
> by significantly different forms. New types or classes seemed to
> appear fully formed, with no sign of an evolutionary trend by which
> they could have emerged from an earlier type." (Bowler, Evolution:
> The History of
> an Idea, 1984, p. 187)
I only have the second edition, and this is on page 200f. But note what
Bowler then says:
"Darwin devoted a chapter of the _origin_ to explaining the
"imperfection of the fossil record," arguing that the fossils we
discover represent only a tiny fraction of the species that actually
have lived. Many species, and many whole episodes in evolution, will
have left no fossils at all, because they occurred in areas where
conditions were not suitable for fossilization. Apprently sudden leaps
in the developmentof life are thus illusions created by gaps in the
evidence available to us. Future discoveries may help to fill in some of
the gaps, but we can never hope to build up a complete outline of the
history of life."
>
<two don't haves>
>
> "Eldredge and Gould, by contrast, decided to take the record at face
> value. On this view, there is little evidence of modification within
> species, or of forms intermediate between species because neither
> generally occurred. A
> species forms and evolves almost instantaneously (on the geological
> timescale) and then remains virtually unchanged until it disappears,
> yielding its habitat to a new species." (Smith, Peter J.,
> "Evolution's Most
> Worrisome Questions," Review of Life Pulse by Niles Eldredge, New
> Scientist, 1987, p. 59)
I don't have this either, but it is self-defeating as a creationist
quote.
<dont have>
<bunch of don't haves>
>
> "The old Darwinian view of evolution as a ladder of more and more
> efficient forms leading up to the present is
> not borne out by the evidence. Most changes are random rather than
> systematic modifications, until species
> drop out. There is no sign of directed order here. Trends do occur in
> many lines, but they are not the rule."
> (Newell, N. D., "Systematics and Evolution," 1984, p. 10)
Let it be noted that almost everybody says this is true. But Darwinism
never *did* require "more and more efficient forms", right from the
getgo. That was *Lamarck's* theory.
By now I'm bored. I'll snip the rest, because every time I check a quote
I can check, they have deliberately misquoted in order to make it seem
like the problems are insurmountable or that the author thinks evolution
is false or flawed. In short, they lie.
--
John Wilkins
"Listen to your heart, not the voices in your head" - Marge Simpson
mel turner
wrote...
>mtu...@snipthis.acpub.duke.edu (mel turner) wrote in message
news:<b3qa1l$qec$2...@gargoyle.oit.duke.edu>...
>> In article <3f355ee.03022...@posting.google.com>,mc...@sunset.net
>> wrote...
>> >Lack of Identifiable Phylogeny
>>
>> What "lack"? There's plenty of very identifiable
>> evidence for phylogenetic relationships among species
>> and groups, as most of your "famous evolutionists"
>> would undoubtedly agree.
>
>Please quote source and list the identifiable phylogeny.
Well, first what do you think "identifiable phylogeny" should mean?
If we define it as something like "common-ancestry relationships
among groups of organisms that are well supported by objectively
identifiable scientific evidence", then they are far too many to
list. They are identifiable throughout life as we know it:
http://tolweb.org/tree?group=life
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/alllife/threedomains.html
http://tolweb.org/tree?group=Eukaryotes&contgroup=Life
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/alllife/eukaryota.html
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/alllife/eukaryotasy.html
http://tolweb.org/tree?group=Animals&contgroup=Eukaryotes
http://tolweb.org/tree?group=Green_plants&contgroup=Eukaryotes
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/phyla/metazoasy.html
http://tolweb.org/tree?group=Bilateria&contgroup=Animals
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/phyla/deuterostomia.html
etc.
For discussions of methods for identifying phylogenetic
relationships, see:
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/exhibit/phylogeny.html
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/exhibit/introphylo.html
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/clad/clad4.html
If by "identifiable phylogeny" you instead want a videotape showing
the "begatting" and full biography of every individual organism in
the entire evolutionary history of a group, then no such thing will
ever be forthcoming. But then no such thing is needed for scientists
to work out the phylogenetic relationships among species in
substantial detail.
Do you want to tackle some examples?
The phylogeny of the horse family has been worked out in
considerable detail, so perhaps you'd like to discuss it:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/horses/horse_evol.html
MacFadden, Bruce J. 1994. Fossil horses : systematics,
paleobiology, and evolution of the family Equidae. Cambridge
[England]; New York:Cambridge University Press.
And there have been recent dramatic improvements in our
understanding of the phylogenetic origins of whales from
early artiodactyls
http://darla.neoucom.edu/DEPTS/ANAT/whaleorigins.htm
http://www.talkorigins.org/features/whales/
Or you might like to discuss the ever clearer phylogenetic
story of the origin of birds from nonflying reptiles.
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/birds/archaeopteryx.html
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/avians.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/archaeopteryx.html
http://dinosauricon.com/taxa/avialae.html
Or, there's this one quaint little group of closely-related
species that seem to be of perennial interest here, whose
phylogeny has long attracted a lot of attention:
http://www.handprint.com/LS/ANC/evol.html#chart
http://www.emory.edu/LIVING_LINKS/r/taxonomy.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/species.html
http://www.mnh.si.edu/anthro/humanorigins/ha/a_tree.html
http://tolweb.org/tree?group=Hominidae&contgroup=Catarrhini
http://www.skarstein.no/frode/phyl.html
>> [Snip of whole load of mined quotes] I doubt you understood
>> them, or that you found even one of them yourself. Or, can
>> you tell us what the next sentences said in each case?
>>
>> A few links on creationist misquoting:
>> http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/
>> <http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/quotes.html>
>> <http://www.rtis.com/nat/user/elsberry/evobio/evc/sc_misq.html>
>> http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/supernova/snrfab.html
>> <http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/ce/3/>
>> <http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/icr-whoppers.html>
>> <http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/2437/misquote.htm>
>> <http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/monkeyquote.html>
>> <http://home.mmcable.com/harlequin/evol/lies/index.html>
>> <http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/patterson.html>
>>
>> If you simply copied and pasted it all from some creationist
>> web site's quote list, why not post just the link next time?
>
>If you're going to suggest that all the quotes were taken out of
>context,
They are not in context, and often may not mean whatever
you think they mean.
>even though all the quotes are self-contained,
How are they any more "self-contained" than any sentence?
then point out
>some that are taken out of context and put them in their context.
>Otherwise your point is moot.
>
>By the way, audience, an evolutionist, always accuses a creationist of
>taking evolutionists out of contexts.
And generally rightfully so.
Which is why I usually keep
>photocopies of the original works
Are you really claiming here to have photocopies of all the original
works your list of quotes came from, and that you didn't simply copy
the whole list directly from some creationist web page? Then you
should have no problem providing the immediately preceding and
following sentences for a few of them. By all means, pick a few, say
five, and wow us all.
so that argument can't be made. That
>actually happened at a creation v. Evolution debate when Gish was
>accused of taking out of context to which he then produce the work and
>quoted till the evolutionist turned red. Rather unfortunate wouldn't
>you say?
[shrug] Sounds like a wishful fantasy. Can you document any
part of this story? Can you give a place and date, name the
evolutionist and the work in question? Is there a transcript
of this amazing drubbing?
>But the evolutionists around talk.origin are emotionally driven to
>protect their cherished beliefs insomuch that after awhile of losing
>arguments
Don't recall seeing any such. Can you cite any especially good
examples of the evolutionists losing arguments here? Or is the
loss only to be found on your personal t.o. score sheet?
they post links that supplement but not prove their views.
>Additionally some may changed the subject with stupid banter, or
>inject sarcasm and forced (written down) laughter.
[begin stupid banter]
"Oh, no! He's using [shudder] sarcasm! Where's Dinsdale? I'd
much rather be nailed to the coffee table..."
[end stupid banter]
But that's all
>they can go. Even when I laugh at their stuff, I admit that I don't
>mention it because it doesn't fit into this forum, nor should it
>affect the debate, because it is not professional.
Can't have that...
cheers
mel turner
<1e9d6178.03030...@posting.google.com>, jgri...@scu.k12.ca.us
wrote...news:<b3qa1l$qec$2 @gargoyle.oit.duke.edu>...
>> In article <3f355ee.03022...@posting.google.com>,mc...@sunset.net
>> >
>> >Lack of Identifiable Phylogeny
>>
>> What "lack"? There's plenty of very identifiable
>> evidence for phylogenetic relationships among species
>> and groups, as most of your "famous evolutionists"
>> would undoubtedly agree.
>>
>> [Snip of whole load of mined quotes] I doubt you understood
>> them, or that you found even one of them yourself. Or, can
>> you tell us what the next sentences said in each case?
>>
>> A few links on creationist misquoting:
>> http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/
>> <http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/quotes.html>
>> <http://www.rtis.com/nat/user/elsberry/evobio/evc/sc_misq.html>
>> http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/supernova/snrfab.html
>> <http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/ce/3/>
>> <http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/icr-whoppers.html>
>> <http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/2437/misquote.htm>
>> <http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/monkeyquote.html>
>> <http://home.mmcable.com/harlequin/evol/lies/index.html>
>> <http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/patterson.html>
>>
>> If you simply copied and pasted it all from some creationist
>> web site's quote list, why not post just the link next time?
>>
>> cheers
>
>I really want to try to believe you,
Believe me about what? That there is evidence for phylogenies,
or that his quotes were untrustworthy? None of the above links
were about phylogenies, but were commentaries about creationist
quoting practices.
but, your links are circular
>arguments from mostly talkorigins or personal web pages.
In what way is people commenting on creationist misquotes or
misleading out-of-context quotes "circular"?
The most
>obtuse Young Earther could do the same. You've done nothing, but,
>leave me to my own means.
Doing your own homework is always best, but here's a start if you
want to investigate the evidence for "identifiable phylogenies"
[i.e., evolutionary relationships among groups of species that are
well supported by the actual scientific evidence]:
The evidence for phylogenies in general lies in the detailed patterns
of shared features among organisms. These shared traits can be found
by molecular studies [e.g. of DNA base sequences of particular genes],
and also in analyses of shared anatomical/morphological features, and
even in biogeography or behavior.
The generally found patterns are nested hierarchies [groups within
groups within groups within groups]; these are obviously "treelike",
and are the evidence for the phylogenetic history of the groups of
organisms in question. [Actually, it's the shared _changes_ in traits
that are the true markers of common ancestry, but details of
cladistic methodology is for another lecture...]
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-evolution.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-intro-to-biology.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/
http://www.talkorigins.org/features/whales/
http://darla.neoucom.edu/DEPTS/ANAT/whaleorigins.htm
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/archaeopteryx.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/horses/
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/molgen/
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/other-links-gensci.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/other-links.html#evolution
The "identifiable evidence" so far clearly supports phylogenetic
connections among all known life on earth:
http://tolweb.org/tree?group=life
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/alllife/threedomains.html
http://tolweb.org/tree?group=Eukaryotes&contgroup=Life
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/alllife/eukaryota.html
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/alllife/eukaryotasy.html
http://tolweb.org/tree?group=Animals&contgroup=Eukaryotes
http://tolweb.org/tree?group=Green_plants&contgroup=Eukaryotes
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/phyla/metazoasy.html
http://tolweb.org/tree?group=Bilateria&contgroup=Animals
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/phyla/deuterostomia.html
etc
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/exhibit/phylogeny.html
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/exhibit/introphylo.html
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/clad/clad4.html
To actually study the evidence, you'll have to get into more of
the actual scientific literature, but various of the above links
do give references to it. Next step is the library...
cheers
Steven J.
<www.anointed-one.net/quotes.html>
This is interesting. Note that we are both using homology to argue
for common descent of a sort -- McCoy obviously did not come up with
his list of quotes independently, but copied and pasted them from
somewhere -- but we disagree as to the exact "phylogeny" of his
plagiarism. Perhaps one of these sources copied from the other, or
both copied from the same source -- which might even have been the
same one McCoy used.
This is, of course, the point of many of the quotes he offers -- the
fossil record provides many examples of transitions, and evidence for
common descent, even though it is not possible to determine whether
any fossil species was the direct ancestor of any other species, or
merely a collateral branch.
Of course, many of the quotes also note the absence of gradual
transitionns between *species*. One might imagine that a creationist
like McCoy, who seems to accept speciation within created kinds (did
he not once offer a horned chameleon as a modern-day example of the
_Triceratops_ "kind"?) would note that these quotes concern the
absence of fossil evidence of the kind of evolution that he (and many
other creationists) call "micro" and admit happened.
There is also the curious separation between Darwin's quote saying
that the lack of transitional fossils might be urged as an objection
against his theory, and the quote (which follows immediately in
_Origin_) in which he notes the expected imperfections of the fossil
record.
>
> DJT
-- Steven J.
Dana Tweedy
"Steven J." <stev...@altavista.com> wrote in message
news:127ccf2e.03030...@posting.google.com...
> "Dana Tweedy" <twe...@cvn.net> wrote in message
news:<b3r2u1$1pglu4$1...@ID-35161.news.dfncis.de>...
> > "J McCoy" <mc...@sunset.net> wrote in message
> > news:3f355ee.03022...@posting.google.com...
> > > Lack of Identifiable Phylogeny
> >
> > This seems to be the quote mine that McCoy used:
> > http://www.genesispark.org/genpark/phylo/phylo.htm
> >
> >
> > Original as always.
> >
> Now, this is odd. When *I* googled for those quotes, I came up with
> <www.anointed-one.net/quotes.html>
>
> This is interesting. Note that we are both using homology to argue
> for common descent of a sort -- McCoy obviously did not come up with
> his list of quotes independently, but copied and pasted them from
> somewhere -- but we disagree as to the exact "phylogeny" of his
> plagiarism. Perhaps one of these sources copied from the other, or
> both copied from the same source -- which might even have been the
> same one McCoy used.
I think you are correct on the proximal source of McCoy's plagiarism, I
noticed that Woetzel's site had the same headings, but a different order to
the OOC quotes. I should have realized that McCoy was too lazy to even
change the order. "Annointed One" possibly stole his list from Woetzel, who
stole it from someone else. Manic plagiarism runs rampant in Creationist
circles.
Snipping the rest of a well constructed post.
DJT
catshark
<twe...@cvn.net> wrote:
>
>"J McCoy" <mc...@sunset.net> wrote in message
>news:3f355ee.03022...@posting.google.com...
>> Lack of Identifiable Phylogeny
>
>This seems to be the quote mine that McCoy used:
>http://www.genesispark.org/genpark/phylo/phylo.htm
Well, it is always hard to tell, since creationists are so apt to
plagiarize each other, but I'd say that the following site was the one
he copied, right down to the captions about "Sudden Appearance and
Stasis", "Large Gaps" and "Miscellaneous" (except he cut at least one
quote - about lung fish - but left an extra space at that point in his
post). <http://www.anointed-one.net/quotes.html>
It is by that nutty "Anointed One" who hung around here for a short
while . . .
Say, you don't suppose . . .
>Original as always.
The last original thought McNameless had was to cry when the doctor
slapped him on the butt.
---------------
J. Pieret
---------------
It ain't the parts of the Bible
that I can't understand that bother me,
it is the parts that I do understand.
- Mark Twain -
stew dean
> If you're going to suggest that all the quotes were taken out of
> context, even though all the quotes are self-contained, then point out
> some that are taken out of context and put them in their context.
> Otherwise your point is moot.
Context is your job. If you pick up a scientific text you get
references in order for the reader to check the validity of any
quotes. As it turns out you have copied some internet source (such as
http://www.genesispark.org/genpark/phylo/phylo.htm) and not referenced
it.
> By the way, audience, an evolutionist, always accuses a creationist of
> taking evolutionists out of contexts.
In the past quotes that have been put into context have often changed
the meaning of the quote - also quotes can be mined in a similair way
to whoever provided your quotes originally that offer up a counter
view.
> Which is why I usually keep
> photocopies of the original works so that argument can't be made.
Great - put them in context and provide references!
> That
> actually happened at a creation v. Evolution debate when Gish was
> accused of taking out of context to which he then produce the work and
> quoted till the evolutionist turned red. Rather unfortunate wouldn't
> you say?
Don't believe you.
Put your references where your mouth is.
Stew Dean
J McCoy
Since your contention is that these quotes are taken out of context,
my contention is that you're lazy and you have not idea as to what
you're talking about. You're making it up as you go along. You're a
evolutionist and you force your ideas on reality. Unfortunately,
reality doesn't always agree with you. Since all the quotes above
would make the author sound stupid if he posited a contrary view in
the context, it proves that those quotes are accurate.
Unless you can prove otherwise. I won't, and neither should anyone
else, accept your claim that any of these are out of context unless
you can provide the text that says they are taken out of context.
Since you won't provide the text, then you are lying and you're making
a guess.
And that's all that needs to be said.
J McCoy
J McCoy
> On Sat, 1 Mar 2003 16:22:42 +0000 (UTC), lil...@umich.edu (Lilith)
> wrote:
>
> >mc...@sunset.net (J McCoy) wrote in message news:<3f355ee.03022...@posting.google.com>...
> >> <snip barrage of out-of-context quotes>
> >
> >I'm not impressed by a bunch of short, edited, out-of-context quotes.
> >It's already been established over and over again that out of context
> >quote-mining is creationist mental masturbation. I bet McCoy needed a
> >box of kleenex to clean up after that one.
> >
>
> Rather than listening to his regurgiquotes, I'd rather that McCoy
> answer the simple questions that I've been asking him for weeks now,
> without any response:
Since your contention is that these quotes are taken out of context,
my contention is that you're lazy and you have not idea as to what
you're talking about. You're making it up as you go along. You're a
evolutionist and you force your ideas on reality. Unfortunately,
reality doesn't always agree with you. Since all the quotes above
would make the author sound stupid if he posited a contrary view in
the context, it proves that those quotes are accurate.
Unless you can prove otherwise. I won't, and neither should anyone
else, accept your claim that any of these are out of context unless
you can provide the text that says they are taken out of context.
Since you won't provide the text, then you are lying and you're making
a guess.
And that's all that needs to be said.
J McCoy
>
J McCoy
dandelion
<snip>
>> Oh... well... The debate on this forum is indeed a mere public debate. As
>> to the scientific debates, they have long since passed the stage where
>> 'creationism vs evolution' is a serious issue. That was back in the 19th
>> century.
>
>
> Since your contention is that these quotes are taken out of context,
> my contention is that you're lazy and you have not idea as to what
> you're talking about.
Of *course* am am lazy! I am a programmer, what do you expect? All good
programmers are lazy, impetuous and vain!
> You're making it up as you go along.
Nope
>This seems to be the quote mine that McCoy used:
>http://www.genesispark.org/genpark/phylo/phylo.htm
I made a little prophecy and it was fulfilled.
> And that's all that needs to be said.
Right.
--
Have an adequate day.
dandelion
See
<quote>
>This seems to be the quote mine that McCoy used:
>http://www.genesispark.org/genpark/phylo/phylo.htm
</quote>
Well... I think I *do* have a clue what i'm talking about. It seems I have
won my little wager.
> You're making it up as you go along.
As shown above (even the sequence of quotes is exactly the same) I am not.
> You're a evolutionist and you force your ideas on reality.
I'm a systems programmer and I made a little prophecy which has since been
fulfilled.
Wow.
> And that's all that needs to be said.
Right. You plucked your qotes off a creationist website and are now
desperatel wiggling.
I's amusing to watch.
--
You have a tendency to feel you are superior to most computers.
mel turner
>b...@news.wanadoo.nl>...
[snip]
>> The assumption that you cannot provide a followup to *any* of these quotes
>> is therefore one I would like to put a little wager on.
>
>Since your contention is that these quotes are taken out of context,
Not just a contention. It seems it's already documented in this
thread by others.
See:
Message-ID: <3E6138CC...@homo.sapiens.se>
Message-ID: <3e615ca4....@news.ij.net>
and especially
Message-ID: <1fr71qz.dsud1r1rzlttnN%john.w...@bigpond.com>
QED, it seems to me...
>my contention is that you're lazy and you have not idea as to what
>you're talking about.
Did you practice that in front of a mirror
[where it arguably would have been more appropriate]?
>You're making it up as you go along. You're a
>evolutionist and you force your ideas on reality. Unfortunately,
>reality doesn't always agree with you.
You seem to be reusing some of the sorts of things
people undoubtedly have said to you. Replace "evolutionist"
with "creationist" in the above, and it's a common comment
here in t.o..
>Since all the quotes above
>would make the author sound stupid if he posited a contrary view in
>the context, it proves that those quotes are accurate.
Except that they aren't.
>Unless you can prove otherwise.
Been done. See above.
>I won't, and neither should anyone
>else, accept your claim that any of these are out of context
They had no context provided. Of course they are out of context.
Maybe you'll wish to claim instead that putting them back in
their original context doesn't change their meaning?
unless
>you can provide the text that says they are taken out of context.
See above.
>Since you won't provide the text, then you are lying and you're making
>a guess.
They're your quotes, and I recall you said you had kept
photocopies of the originals. Can't you do your homework?
>And that's all that needs to be said.
Would you care to address the claims by those who say they
have found creationist quote lists on the Web identical to
your post,
Message-ID: <b3r2u1$1pglu4$1...@ID-35161.news.dfncis.de>
Message-ID: <127ccf2e.03030...@posting.google.com>
Message-ID: <b3s0pk$1pte88$1...@ID-35161.news.dfncis.de>
sites where you would have found the same lists of identical
quotes already without context, in view of your apparent
contrary statement in
Message-ID: <3f355ee.03030...@posting.google.com>
strongly suggesting instead that you claim to have taken them
yourself from the original source documents and to have even
kept photocopies of the originals? Or is that an unfair reading
of your words?
cheers
Steve B.
"J McCoy" <mc...@sunset.net> wrote in message
news:3f355ee.03022...@posting.google.com...
> Lack of Identifiable Phylogeny
....
McCoy, I don't know what you believe, but think about this. Regardless of
whether separate creation is true or not, either evolution works or it doesn't.
Even if separate creation is true, and God created everything according to it's
kind, in a million years, things are going to evolve anyway. So even if you're
right about separate creation (assuming that's what you believe) you might be
offending God by suggesting that evolution doesn't work.
Now if evolution is a lie of cosmic proportions, why not just take the
mechanisms and show everybody how that they don't work really work? Surely
there's a Nobel Prize waiting for the first person to do it.
--
Steve
Your signature here. 1 (800) GET-A-SIG
maff
>
>
[...]
Isn't bearing false witness a sin your religion, N***l***?
Creationist misquotes
http://www.rtis.com/nat/user/elsberry/evobio/evc/sc_misq.html
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/2437/misquote.htm
http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~lindsay/creation/quotes.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/icr-whoppers.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/ce/3/part5.html
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=creationist+misquotes&btnG=Google+Search
Quotations and Misquotations
http://home.mmcable.com/harlequin/evol/quotes/quotes5.htm
Lenny Flank
wrote:
>Since you won't provide the text, then you are lying and you're making
>a guess.
>
>
>And that's all that needs to be said.
Since you won't provide an "alternatvie scientific theory of
creation", then you are lying, and you are not even making a guess.
You won't provide any scientific theory of creation because there IS
none. Creationism is fundamentalist Christian religious doctrine,
nothing more and nothing less, and attempts to claim it is "science"
are attempts by Chrstian Taliban-wanna-be's to force their religious
opinions (and no one else's) into schools, nothing more and nothing
less.
And THAT'S all that needs to be said. <shrug>
Lenny Flank
wrote:
>Since your contention is that these quotes are taken out of context,
>my contention is that you're lazy and you have not idea as to what
>you're talking about.
Speaking of "lazy and has no idea what you are talking about" . . . .
.
Again.
engelsman
>>>><snip barrage of out-of-context quotes>
> Since your contention is that these quotes are taken out of context,
> my contention is that you're lazy and you have not idea as to what
> you're talking about. You're making it up as you go along.
Dude! You copied 'em from a creationist site! How's that for lazy and
'no idea what you are talking about'?
Seriously, how old are you? 12? 13?
Will the people in this NG please fill me in on what ages you are when
you go to highschool?
David Sienkiewicz
> lfl...@ij.net (Lenny Flank) wrote in message news:<3e60e346....@news.ij.net>...
> > On Sat, 1 Mar 2003 16:22:42 +0000 (UTC), lil...@umich.edu (Lilith)
> > wrote:
> >
> > >mc...@sunset.net (J McCoy) wrote in message news:<3f355ee.03022...@posting.google.com>...
> > >> <snip barrage of out-of-context quotes>
> > >
> > >I'm not impressed by a bunch of short, edited, out-of-context quotes.
> > >It's already been established over and over again that out of context
> > >quote-mining is creationist mental masturbation. I bet McCoy needed a
> > >box of kleenex to clean up after that one.
> > >
> > Rather than listening to his regurgiquotes, I'd rather that McCoy
> > answer the simple questions that I've been asking him for weeks now,
> > without any response:
>
> Since your contention is that these quotes are taken out of context,
> my contention is that you're lazy and you have not idea as to what
> you're talking about.
Look up "non sequitur," John.
> You're making it up as you go along.
It doesn't look that way from here.
It's quite normal for creationists to quote-mine as you have done,
John. It's quite another matter to understand the issues that are
being addressed by the quotes.
Now we all know that you did not pull the qouted material from the
original sources. They are all quotes that appear in other various
creationist sources that you, for some reason, chose not to identify.
I believe that you chose not to identify those sources because you
wanted to pretend to the audience that you derived them yourself.
We all know better, John. Most of us have been around long enough to
recognize these kinds of dishonest tactics from creationists in
general and YOU in particular.
You're not being believed, John, because you are KNOWN to lie and,
furthermore, you rely on the words of known liars for your assertions.
So no, no one's making up the idea that you quote-mined. You did not
draw the quotes from the original sources.
> You're a evolutionist and you force your ideas on reality.
Every evolutionist in my experience - which is much more extensive
than yours - draws his or her ideas FROM reality.
It's creationists like you who force reality to bend to your ideas,
such as they might be.
> Unfortunately, reality doesn't always agree with you.
Give us a specific example of such a thing, John.
> Since all the quotes above
> would make the author sound stupid if he posited a contrary view in
> the context, it proves that those quotes are accurate.
John, it is quite easy to pull short quotes out of a resource and make
it appear that they are saying something that they are, in fact, NOT
saying. Only a fool, an idiot or an ignoramus would make a claim such
as you do above with respect to context. Context is exceptionally
important, and is avoided generally by creationists who quote-mine.
> Unless you can prove otherwise. I won't, and neither should anyone
> else, accept your claim that any of these are out of context unless
> you can provide the text that says they are taken out of context.
You won't because you have a vested interest in rejecting the claim.
We won't accept YOUR claims because, as I said, it's quite clear that
you lifted the quotes from other sources and that they are likely out
of context AND you are known to lie.
> Since you won't provide the text, then you are lying and you're making
> a guess.
There is a difference between lying and making a guess, John; and it
is YOU who is responsible for providing the text.
> And that's all that needs to be said.
If that's all that needs to be said, why did you say it so many times.
The fact is, John, that it's not all that needs to be said. I am
often amazed at the gall you ignorant creationists demonstrate; but
the fact is that your word is not the last in these exchanges - nor
should it be.
Frank J
Except for the fact that you did not answer his questions.
>
> J McCoy
(snip)
John Wilkins
> dandelion <dand...@meadow.org> wrote...
Well, John, of *every single quote* I could track down (and that took me
around 2 hours of a Sunday afternoon), they were *all* out of context;
sometimes by omitting the text that made the difference.
But a number of the quotes lacked sufficient information to track them
down, so perhaps you could be a bit more specific about them?
So now, the onus is on you. I did a lot of work when I should have been
doing something else. If you have any honesty at all, you will now
retract those quotes and admit that the quotations as presented are
lies.
J McCoy
The question is not where these sources came from, but the fact that
these are quotes from famous evolutionists and they are documented as
to where these quotes originated. Therefore, since it is your claim
that these are taken out of context, all you have to do is to cite.
Since you won't do it, and have gone into a personal attack, I
consider that to be admission that these quotes are accurate.
J McCoy
J McCoy
> J McCoy wrote:
>
> >>>><snip barrage of out-of-context quotes>
>
> > Since your contention is that these quotes are taken out of context,
> > my contention is that you're lazy and you have not idea as to what
> > you're talking about. You're making it up as you go along.
>
> Dude! You copied 'em from a creationist site! How's that for lazy and
> 'no idea what you are talking about'?
The question is not where these sources came from, but the fact that
these are quotes from famous evolutionists and they are documented as
to where these quotes originated. Therefore, since it is your claim
that these are taken out of context, all you have to do is to cite.
Since you won't do it, and have gone into a personal attack, I
consider that to be admission that these quotes are accurate.
J McCoy
>
J McCoy
The question is not where these sources came from, but the fact that
these are quotes from famous evolutionists and they are documented as
to where these quotes originated. Therefore, since it is your claim
that these are taken out of context, all you have to do is to cite.
Since you won't do it, and have gone into a personal attack, I
consider that to be admission that these quotes are accurate.
J McCoy
>
>
J McCoy
> On Sat, 1 Mar 2003 22:30:09 +0000 (UTC), Sverker Johansson
> <lsj.h...@homo.sapiens.se> wrote:
>
>
>
>
> <snip>
> >> > "The curious thing is that there is a consistency about the fossil
> >> > gaps; the fossils are missing in all the
> >> > important places." (Hitching, Francis, The Neck of the Giraffe or
> >> > Where Darwin Went Wrong, Penguin Books,
> >> > 1982, p.19)
> >
> >Whatever Hitching is, he is by no stretch of the imagination a
> >"famous evolutionist".
> >
>
>
> He's often quoted by creationists, who don't seem bright enough to
> realize that he thinks creationists are idiots. From my "Creation
> 'Science' debunked" website:
>
>
> Out of Context: Hitching and the Creationists
>
> by Lenny Flank
>
> (c) 1996
>
> The creationists are very fond of quoting statements from prominent
> evolutionary scientists, as well as science writers, in an attempt to
> protray them as having doubts about the validity of evolutionary
> theory. In every instance, these quotes are taken out of context and
> distort the writer's meaning (prominent scientist Stephen Jay Gould is
> but one scientist who has publicly complained about the creationist
> mis-use of his writings).
In stead of rambling on, how about showing how these quotes are taken
out of context?
>
> One of the favorite sources of the creationist quote-miners is writer
> Francis Hitching, the author of the book "The Neck of the Giraffe:
> Where Darwin Went Wrong". Even the very TITLE of Hitching's book must
> warm the cockles of any creationist heart. It is no wonder that they
> fall all over themselves trying to quote portions of Hitching's book
> as "proof" that evolution is wrong and creationism is right.
Warmed the cockles of how you're not taking the time to prove that
these quotes are taken out of context?
>
> Those of us who have actually READ Hitching's book, however, know that
> his opinion of creationists and their "science" is not as flattering
> as Morris et al would have us believe. Here are just some of the
> things that Hitching has to say about creationists and evolution:
As in how you're not taking the time to prove that any of these quotes
have been taken out of context?
You failed.
J McCoy
J McCoy
> J McCoy wrote:
> >
> > mc...@sunset.net (J McCoy) wrote in message news:<3f355ee.03022...@posting.google.com>...
>
>
> > >
> > > "Undeniably, the fossil record has provided disappointingly few
> > > gradual series. The origins of many groups are still not documented
> > > at all." (Futuyma, D., Science on Trial: The Case for Evolution,
> > > 1983, p. 190-191)
> >
> > provided disappointingly few gradual series. The origins of many
> > record has provided many gradual series. The origins of numerous
> > groups are documented."
>
> Instead of speculating about it, why didn't you pick up your photocopies
> and look at what the _actual_ context?
>
> I have the book here. The paragraph before your quote starts:
>
> "Contrary to creationist claims, the transitions among vertebrate
> classes are almost all documented to a greater or lesser extent."
> and then Futuyma goes on to list numerous examples, ending
> with "... and of course the hominids." right before the sentence
> you quoted. This looks a lot like your paraphrase above.
>
> The paragraph that your quote is snipped from goes on like this:
>
> "But in view of the rapid pace that evolution can take, and the extreme
> incompleteness of fossil deposits, we are fortunate to have as many
> transitions as we do. The creationist argument that if evolution
> were true we should have an abundance of intermediate fossils is built
> the transitional series that exist, and by distorting, or
> misunderstanding, the genetical theory of evolution."
He has reaffirmed his statement that "But in view of the rapid pace
that evolution can take, we are fortunate to have as many transitions
that we do." That is his statement of the evidence. Next follows
opinion, "The creationist argument that if evolution were true, we
should have an abundance of intermediate fossils is built by
exaggerating the richness of paleontological collections, by denying
the trasitional series that exist, and by distorting, or
misunderstanding, the genetical theory of evolution."
When he says that "in view of the rapid pace that evolution can take,"
means that changes in evolution occurs rapidly insomuch that there are
no traces of records in the fossil record for that rapid pace. For
instance, if a turtle gave birth to a lizard, there would be no
transitional forms inbetween a turtle and lizard. So this is an
admission. But since this evolutionist is trying to prove that there
is a transitional series that exist, we'd expect those listed so we
could contend with them.
So far, not so good for the evolutionists.
J McCoy
>
> How come you didn't quote that part?
>
> > The second part of this contridicts the first. It makes stupidity the
> > issue.
> >
> > The fact is, these self-contained quotes from evolutionists are not
> > what the emotionalists on this talk.origin site want to hear about or
> > want you to know about. They may refer to links that purport that
> > creationists take evolutionists out of context, but they are wrong in
> > every case. One of them might write a letter to a famous evolutionist
> > and ask him if he was misrepresented and the evolutionist will write
> > back that he was. But he doesn't write any specific reasons, nor
> > clarify the statement. And if he does make a suppoed clarification,
> > it only sounds contradictory.
>
> It's enough to actually read the quote in context, to see that
> you misrepresented the thrust of Futuyma's argument. It's right
> there on page 190-191 in his book (a few pages from the end of
> chapter 10, if you have a different edition).
>
> > J McCoy
> >
> > Lying for evolution, that is a game that is played all the time.
>
> As usual, the CMB calling the flat spectrum black.
>
> [snip quotes that are all ripped out of the context of debates
> about the details of evolution, mostly the punk eek debate]
>
> > > "The majority of major groups appear suddenly in the rocks, with
> > > virtually no evidence of transition from their ancestors."
> > > (Futuyma, D., Science on Trial: The Case for Evolution, 1983, p. 82)
>
> This is from a context where Futuyma discusses both punk eek and
> creationist abuse of it, as well as examples of groups that do
> have evidence of transitions from their ancestors.
>
> [snip more in the same vein]
>
> > > "The curious thing is that there is a consistency about the fossil
> > > gaps; the fossils are missing in all the
> > > important places." (Hitching, Francis, The Neck of the Giraffe or
> > > Where Darwin Went Wrong, Penguin Books,
> > > 1982, p.19)
>
> Whatever Hitching is, he is by no stretch of the imagination a
> "famous evolutionist".
>
> [snip more in the same vein]
catshark
(John Wilkins) wrote:
[ . . . ]
>
>By now I'm bored. I'll snip the rest, because every time I check a quote
>I can check, they have deliberately misquoted in order to make it seem
>like the problems are insurmountable or that the author thinks evolution
>is false or flawed. In short, they lie.
Well, its a rainy Sunday and there is work to be avoided, so here are
a few more:
>"Instead of finding the gradual unfolding of life, what geologists of
>Darwin's time, and geologists of the present day actually find is a
>highly uneven or jerky record; that is, species appear in the sequence
>very suddenly, show little or no change during their existence in the
>record, then abruptly go out of the record. and it is not always
>clear, in fact it's rarely clear, that the descendants were actually
>better adapted than their predecessors. In other words, biological
>improvement is hard to find." (Raup, David M., "Conflicts Between
>Darwin and Paleontology," Bulletin, Field Museum of Natural History,
>vol. 50, 1979, p. 23)
"Now let me step back from the problem and very generally discuss
natural selection and what we know about it. I think it is safe to say
that we know for sure that natural selection, as a process, does work.
There is a mountain of experimental and observational evidence, much
of it predating genetics, which shows that natural selection as a
biological process works."
http://www.aetheronline.com/mario/Heretic/critical.htm
See, also, Troy Britain's "Feedback" article at
<http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/feedback/jun01.html>
Incidently, since this one comes up so often, and it is not anywhere
on online AFAICT, is there some way we can get a copy of the whole
article and permission to put it in the Archive?
>"Well-represented species are usually stable throughout their temporal
>range, or alter so little and in such
>superficial ways (usually in size alone), that an extrapolation of
>observed change into longer periods of
>geological time could not possibly yield the extensive modifications
>that mark general pathways of evolution in
>larger groups. Most of the time, when the evidence is best, nothing
>much happens to most species."
>(Gould Stephen J., "Ten Thousand Acts of Kindness," Natural History,
>1988, p. 14)
First, some context:
"Many people think that fossils, almost by definition, are rare and
precious. (Some are, of course . . .) . . . But most ordinary fossils
. . . are . . . abundant parts of their geological strata. . . . The
fossils are beautiful, and they are tempting. But they are also
plentiful. . . .
Then the quote with the unmarked deletion restored and the following
paragraph in its entirely:
"This extraordinary abundance of some fossils illustrates something
important about the history of life. Evolution is a theory about
change through time -- "descent with modification," in Darwin's words.
Yet when fossils are most abundant during substantial stretches of
time, well-represented species are usually stable throughout their
temporal range or alter so little and in such superficial ways
(usually in size alone) that an extrapolation of observed change into
longer periods of geological time could not possibly yield the
extensive modifications that mark general pathways of evolution in
larger groups. Most of the time, when the evidence is best, nothing
much happens to most species.
Niles Eldredge and I have tried to resolve this paradox with our
theory of punctuated equilibrium. We hold that most evolution is
concentrated in events of speciation, the separation and splitting off
of an isolated population from a persisting ancestral stock. These
events of splitting are glacially slow when measured on the scale of a
human life -- usually thousands of years. But slow in our terms can be
instantaneous in geological perspective. A thousand years is one-tenth
of one percent of a million years, and a million years is a good deal
less than average for the duration of most fossil species. Thus, if
species tend to arise in a few thousand years and then persist
unchanged for more than a million, we will rarely find evidence for
their momentary origin, and our fossil record will tap only the long
periods of prosperity and stability. Since fossil deposits of
overwhelming abundance record such periods of success for widespread
species living in stasis, we can resolve the apparent paradox that
when fossils are most common, evolution is most rarely observed."
(See Gould, Stephen Jay 1993. "Ten Thousand Acts of Kindness," in
_Eight Little Piggies, Reflections in Natural History_. New York:
W.W.Norton & Company, pp. 275 - 278.)
>"Stasis, or nonchange, of most fossil species during their lengthy
>geological lifespans was tacitly acknowledged
>by all paleontologists, but almost never studied explicitly because
>prevailing theory treated stasis as
>uninteresting nonevidence for nonevolution. ...The overwhelming
>prevalence of stasis became an
>embarrassing feature of the fossil record, best left ignored as a
>manifestation of nothing (that is, nonevolution).
>(Gould, Stephen J., "Cordelia's Dilemma," Natural History, 1993, p.
>15)
Note that the above starts with the unmarked deletion of "Before Niles
Eldredge and I proposed the theory of punctuated equilibrium in 1972,
the . . .".
The very next parageaph is, in its entirely:
"But Eldredge and I proposed that stasis should be an expected and
interesting norm (not an embarrassing failure to detect change), and
that evolution should be concentrated in brief episodes of branching
speciation. Under our theory, stasis became interesting and worthy of
documentation -- as a norm disrupted by rare events of change. We took
as the motto of punctuated equilibrium: "Stasis is data." (One might
quibble about the grammar, but I think we won the conceptual battle.)
Punctuated equilibrium is still a subject of lively debate, and some
(or most) of its claims may end up on the ash heap of history, but I
take pride in one success relevant to Cordelia's dilemma: our theory
has brought stasis out of the conceptual closet. Twenty-five years
ago, stasis was a non-subject -- a "nothing" under prevailing theory.
No one would have published, or even proposed, an active study of
lineages known not to change. Now such studies are routinely pursued
and published, and a burgeoning literature has documented the
character and extent of stasis in quantitative terms.
>"It is as though they [fossils] were just planted there, without any
>evolutionary history. Needless to say this
>appearance of sudden planting has delighted creationists. ...Both
>schools of thought (Punctuationists and
>Gradualists) despise so-called scientific creationists equally, and
>both agree that the major gaps are real, that
>they are true imperfections in the fossil record. The only
>alternative explanation of the sudden appearance of
>so many complex animal types in the Cambrian era is divine creation
>and (we) both reject this alternative."
>(Dawkins, Richard, The Blind Watchmaker, W.W. Norton & Company, New
>York, 1996, pp. 229-230)
While it can be gleaned from this quote, it needs to be pointed out
specifically that this is a discussion of Dawkins' disagreements with
Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge over Punctuated Equilibrium and
Dawkins is here discussing the fact that Gould and Eldredge would
agree with him that the "sudden appearance" of animals in the Cambrian
Explosion is really the result of the imperfections of the fossil
record.
The part in the ellipsis is an explanation for this, as follows:
"Evolutionists of all stripes believe, however, that this really does
represent a very large gap in the fossil record, a gap that is simply
due to the fact that, for some reason, very few fossils have lasted
from periods before about 600 million years ago. One good reason might
be that many of these animals had only soft parts to their bodies: no
shells or bones to fossilize. If you are a creationist you may think
that this is special pleading. My point here is that, when we are
talking about gaps of this magnitude, there is no difference whatever
in the interpretations of 'punctuationists' and 'gradualists'."
>"All paleontologists know that the fossil record contains precious
>little in the way of intermediate forms;
>transitions between major groups are characteristically abrupt.
>Gradualists usually extract themselves from
>this dilemma by invoking the extreme imperfection of the fossil
>record." (Gould, Stephen J., The Panda's
>Thumb, 1980, p. 189)
[Following right after]
"Although I reject this argument (for reasons discussed in ["The
Episodic Nature of Evolutionary Change"]), let us grant the
traditional escape and ask a different question. Even though we have
no direct evidence for smooth transitions, can we invent a reasonable
sequence of intermediate forms -- that is, viable, functioning
organisms -- between ancestors and descendants in major structural
transitions? Of what possible use are the imperfect incipient stages
of useful structures? What good is half a jaw or half a wing? The
concept of preadaptation provides the conventional answer by
permitting us to argue that incipient stages performed different
functions. The half jaw worked perfectly well as a series of
gill-supporting bones; the half wing may have trapped prey or
controlled body temperature. I regard preadaptation as an important,
even an indispensable, concept. But a plausible story is not
necessarily true. I do not doubt that preadaptation can save
gradualism in some cases, but does it permit us to invent a tale of
continuity in most or all cases? I submit, although it may only
reflect my lack of imagination, that the answer is no, and I invoke
two recently supported cases of discontinuous change in my defense.
[Snip discussion of boid snakes, pocket gophers, kangaroo rats and
pocket mice.]
If we must accept many cases of discontinuous transition in
macroevolution, does Darwinism collapse to survive only as a theory of
minor adaptive change within species? . . .
[Snip discussion of non-Darwinian theories of discontinuous change in
species.]
But all theories of discontinuous change are not anti-Darwinian, as
Huxley pointed out nearly 120 years ago. Suppose that a discontinuous
change in adult form arises from a small genetic alteration. Problems
of discordance with other members of the species do not arise, and the
large, favorable variant can spread through a population in Darwinian
fashion. Suppose also that this large change does not produce a
perfected form all at once, but rather serves as a "key" adaptation to
shift its possessor toward a new mode of life. Continued success in
this new mode may require a large set of collateral alterations,
morphological and behavioral; these may arise by a more traditional,
gradual route once the key adaptation forces a profound shift in
selective pressures.
http://www.evolutionary.tripod.com/gould_nh_86_22-30.html
>"...I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct
>illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I
>knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them.
>You suggest that an artist should be used to
>visualize such transformations, but where would he get the information
>from? I could not, honestly, provide it,
>and if I were to leave it to artistic license, would that not mislead
>the reader? Yet Gould and the American
>Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no
>transitional fossils. As a paleontologist
>myself, I am much occupied with the philosophical problems of
>identifying ancestral forms in the fossil record.
>You say that I should at least 'show a photo of the fossil from which
>each type of organism was derived.' I will
>lay it on the line, there is not one such fossil for which one could
>make a watertight argument. The reason is
>that statements about ancestry and descent are not applicable in the
>fossil record."
>(Patterson, Colin, British Museum of Natural History, London, letter
>10 April 1979, in Sunderland L.D.,
>"Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems," 1984, Master Book
>Publishers: El Cajon CA, Fourth Edition,
>1988, p. 89)>
This on has the honor of having its own Article in the Archives, at
<http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/patterson.html>
>"An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now,
>could only state that, in some sense, the
>origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle."
>(Francis Crick, Life Itself, Its Origin and Nature,
>1981, p. 88)
Again there is an unmarked deletion, this time at the end, following
right after "miracle,":
" . . . so many are the conditions which would have had to have been
satisfied to get it going. But this should not be taken to imply that
there are good reasons to believe that it could not have started on
the earth by a perfectly reasonable sequence of fairly ordinary
chemical reactions. The plain fact is that the time available was too
long, the many microenvironments on the earth's surface too diverse,
the various chemical possibilities too numerous and our own knowledge
and imagination too feeble to allow us to be able to unravel exactly
how it might or might not have happened such a long time ago,
especially as we have no experimental evidence from that era to check
our ideas against."
Like John, all quotes I checked were clearly taken out of context,
often without noting deletions, and distort the authors' intent. IOW,
the cretinist who put together this list is still batting 1.000 as far
as lying goes.
There are also all the usual suspects of Darwin quotes, but that is
enough for one day . . .
---------------
J. Pieret
---------------
Ellsburg's First Law:
"Anybody can be as stupid as necessary to keep his job."
- Daniel Ellsburg -
Coffey's Corollary:
"Replace job with dogma, and the law holds."
- Mitchell Coffey -
Jon Fleming
wrote:
>engelsman <bat...@hotmailnospam.com> wrote in message news:<3e62139e$0$49110$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl>...
>> J McCoy wrote:
>>
>> >>>><snip barrage of out-of-context quotes>
>>
>> > Since your contention is that these quotes are taken out of context,
>> > my contention is that you're lazy and you have not idea as to what
>> > you're talking about. You're making it up as you go along.
>>
>> Dude! You copied 'em from a creationist site! How's that for lazy and
>> 'no idea what you are talking about'?
>
>The question is not where these sources came from, but the fact that
>these are quotes from famous evolutionists and they are documented as
>to where these quotes originated. Therefore, since it is your claim
>that these are taken out of context, all you have to do is to cite.
>Since you won't do it, and have gone into a personal attack, I
>consider that to be admission that these quotes are accurate.
All the posting that you are doing in this thread, and you haven't
responded at all to the posts that point out exactly how your quotes
are out of context. Such as
<1fr71qz.dsud1r1rzlttnN%john.w...@bigpond.com> and
<b1p46vcnas6v58pp7...@4ax.com>.
I know you don't care how foolish you look and how few people you
fool, but this is a new low for you; you look more foolish than you
ever have before, and you couldn't even fool a die-hard creationist.
--
Replace nospam with group to email
engelsman
I thought you were going to ignore me mccoy? What happened? Just another
white lie?
<snip>
>>>Since your contention is that these quotes are taken out of context,
>>>my contention is that you're lazy and you have not idea as to what
>>>you're talking about. You're making it up as you go along.
You are calling people a liar again mccoy! You are not without sin
yourself mccoy!
>>Dude! You copied 'em from a creationist site! How's that for lazy and
>>'no idea what you are talking about'?
> The question is not where these sources came from, but the fact that
> these are quotes from famous evolutionists and they are documented as
> to where these quotes originated. Therefore, since it is your claim
> that these are taken out of context, all you have to do is to cite.
The quotes are accurate. The context is _missing_, as in not there.
You're not too bright now, are you?
> Since you won't do it, and have gone into a personal attack, I
You called someone lazy for not refuting 85 different quotes.
I call you lazy for producing 85 quotes by copying them off a website.
I call you arrogant for having the audacity to ask people to respond to
you in a serious manner.
Lazy and arrogant are not the True Christian(tm)'s way of life mccoy!
> consider that to be admission that these quotes are accurate.
Again, the quotes _are_ correct, but the interpretation is based on
nothing but these quotes, therefor WRONG!
> J McCoy
Seriously, how old are you?
<snip>
catshark
wrote:
>engelsman <bat...@hotmailnospam.com> wrote in message news:<3e62139e$0$49110$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl>...
>> J McCoy wrote:
>>
>> >>>><snip barrage of out-of-context quotes>
>>
>> > Since your contention is that these quotes are taken out of context,
>> > my contention is that you're lazy and you have not idea as to what
>> > you're talking about. You're making it up as you go along.
>>
>> Dude! You copied 'em from a creationist site! How's that for lazy and
>> 'no idea what you are talking about'?
>
>The question is not where these sources came from, but the fact that
>these are quotes from famous evolutionists and they are documented as
>to where these quotes originated. Therefore, since it is your claim
>that these are taken out of context, all you have to do is to cite.
>Since you won't do it, and have gone into a personal attack, I
>consider that to be admission that these quotes are accurate.
>
>J McCoy
Here are the Message ID #s of 4 posts in this thread that have done
just that:
Message-ID: <3E6138CC...@homo.sapiens.se>
Message-ID: <3e615ca4....@news.ij.net>
Message-ID: <b1p46vcnas6v58pp7...@4ax.com>
and especially
Message-ID: <1fr71qz.dsud1r1rzlttnN%john.w...@bigpond.com>
Most of the quotes are lies, because they intentionally misrepresent
the intent of the authors, through selective quoting and, often, by
mangling sentences.
A few may not be misrepresentations but only because they come from
creationists in the first place.
---------------
J. Pieret
---------------
Concerning the difference between man and the jackass:
some observers hold that there isn't any.
But this wrongs the jackass.
-- Mark Twain --
Sverker Johansson
You mean the creationist argument is built on any other components
than those he lists? If so, which?
So far, your activities here have only served to provide yet
more examples of denial, distortion, and misunderstanding.
> When he says that "in view of the rapid pace that evolution can take,"
> means that changes in evolution occurs rapidly insomuch that there are
> no traces of records in the fossil record for that rapid pace. For
> instance, if a turtle gave birth to a lizard, there would be no
> transitional forms inbetween a turtle and lizard. So this is an
> admission. But since this evolutionist is trying to prove that there
> is a transitional series that exist, we'd expect those listed so we
> could contend with them.
>
> So far, not so good for the evolutionists.
In your dreams.
Contrary to the impression you wished to create with
your original quote, Futuyma quite clearly states that we _do_
find many transitional series. The only thing left of the meaning
of your quote is that we haven't found quite as many as we
might have liked to. But it quite clear from Futuyma that
he considers those we have found as quite adequate as evidence
of evolution.
Not so good for the creationists, who are yet
again revealed as having to stoop to quoting out of context,
for lack of real evidence of their own.
[snip stuff JM had no response to]
--
Best regards
Sverker Johansson
--------------------------------------------------------
Humans breed pigs for a purpose -- making bacon.
Does that make a pig's life meaningful _for_the_pig_ ?
--------------------------------------------------------
catshark
wrote:
>"Dana Tweedy" <twe...@cvn.net> wrote in message news:<b3s0pk$1pte88$1...@ID-35161.news.dfncis.de>...
Here are the Message ID #s of 4 posts in this thread that have done
just that:
Message-ID: <3E6138CC...@homo.sapiens.se>
Message-ID: <3e615ca4....@news.ij.net>
Message-ID: <b1p46vcnas6v58pp7...@4ax.com>
and especially
Message-ID: <1fr71qz.dsud1r1rzlttnN%john.w...@bigpond.com>
Most of the quotes are lies, because they intentionally misrepresent
the intent of the authors, through selective quoting and, often, by
mangling sentences.
A few may not be misrepresentations but only because they come from
creationists in the first place.
---------------
J. Pieret
---------------
Only two things are infinite,
the universe and human stupidity,
and I'm not sure about the former.
- Albert Einstein -
catshark
wrote:
>engelsman <bat...@hotmailnospam.com> wrote in message news:<3e62139e$0$49110$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl>...
>> J McCoy wrote:
>>
>> >>>><snip barrage of out-of-context quotes>
>>
>> > Since your contention is that these quotes are taken out of context,
>> > my contention is that you're lazy and you have not idea as to what
>> > you're talking about. You're making it up as you go along.
>>
>> Dude! You copied 'em from a creationist site! How's that for lazy and
>> 'no idea what you are talking about'?
>
>The question is not where these sources came from, but the fact that
>these are quotes from famous evolutionists and they are documented as
>to where these quotes originated. Therefore, since it is your claim
>that these are taken out of context, all you have to do is to cite.
>Since you won't do it, and have gone into a personal attack, I
>consider that to be admission that these quotes are accurate.
>
>J McCoy
Here are the Message ID #s of 4 posts in this thread that have done
just that:
Message-ID: <3E6138CC...@homo.sapiens.se>
Message-ID: <3e615ca4....@news.ij.net>
Message-ID: <b1p46vcnas6v58pp7...@4ax.com>
and especially
Message-ID: <1fr71qz.dsud1r1rzlttnN%john.w...@bigpond.com>
Most of the quotes are lies, because they intentionally misrepresent
the intent of the authors, through selective quoting and, often, by
mangling sentences.
A few may not be misrepresentations but only because they come from
creationists in the first place.
---------------
J. Pieret
---------------
He may look like an idiot
and talk like an idiot,
but don't let that fool you.
He really is an idiot.
- Groucho Marx -
catshark
wrote:
>david.si...@attbi.com (David Sienkiewicz) wrote in message news:<35fa3772.03030...@posting.google.com>...
Here are the Message ID #s of 4 posts in this thread that have done
just that:
Message-ID: <3E6138CC...@homo.sapiens.se>
Message-ID: <3e615ca4....@news.ij.net>
Message-ID: <b1p46vcnas6v58pp7...@4ax.com>
and especially
Message-ID: <1fr71qz.dsud1r1rzlttnN%john.w...@bigpond.com>
Most of the quotes are lies, because they intentionally misrepresent
the intent of the authors, through selective quoting and, often, by
mangling sentences.
A few may not be misrepresentations but only because they come from
creationists in the first place.
---------------
J. Pieret
---------------
Stupidity, if left untreated, is self-correcting.
- Robert Heinlein -
engelsman
<snip>
> The question is not where these sources came from, but the fact that
> these are quotes from famous evolutionists and they are documented as
> to where these quotes originated. Therefore, since it is your claim
> that these are taken out of context, all you have to do is to cite.
> Since you won't do it, and have gone into a personal attack, I
> consider that to be admission that these quotes are accurate.
The quotes are accurate. The interpretation that follows is unfounded.
<snip>
How old are you mccoy?
John Drayton
<snip>
> ... all the quotes were taken out of context
<snip>
> J McCoy
But this quote may also be out of context :)
--
John Drayton
Sverker Johansson
Indeed there is no great question about where these quotes came from.
You did not find them in the works of "famous evolutionists" ---
you found them in a creationist collection of out-of-context quotes.
Some of them are documented as to where they are supposed
to be mined from, but unless _you_ have checked the original
for yourself, which I very much doubt, you cannot say it is a
"fact that these are quotes from famous evolutionists".
Because you don't know.
> Therefore, since it is your claim
> that these are taken out of context, all you have to do is to cite.
We already have cited the context of many of the quotes, and
demonstrated that the authors' full arguments did not match
the impression you wanted to create with your quote.
Why don't you deal with e.g. John Wilkins' post with full contexts
of several quotes, instead of whining about our discovering
that you haven't even mined these quotes yourself.
> Since you won't do it, and have gone into a personal attack, I
> consider that to be admission that these quotes are accurate.
Possibly some of us have better things to do than chasing down
third-hand out-of-context quotes and typing in the full original.
If you had had a reputation as a scrupulously honest quoter,
we might have been more impressed by your quotes, and
less ready to attack.
catshark
wrote:
>Sverker Johansson <lsj.h...@homo.sapiens.se> wrote in message news:<3E6138CC...@homo.sapiens.se>...
No, moron. That is *not* what he is saying. He does *not* say that
"there are no traces of records in the fossil record". He said, quite
clearly enough for anyone with a reading level above first grade, that
there *are* transitional series, just not as many as we would like.
(Science would like to know everything and have evidence for
everything, but the world just doesn't work that way.)
>For
>instance, if a turtle gave birth to a lizard, there would be no
>transitional forms inbetween a turtle and lizard. So this is an
>admission.
The only "admission" here is your display of an inability to read.
>But since this evolutionist is trying to prove that there
>is a transitional series that exist, we'd expect those listed so we
>could contend with them.
All right. Start with these:
http://www.origins.tv/darwin/hominid.htm#Transitionals
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/horses/horse_evol.html
http://www.origins.tv/darwin/dinobirds.htm#Birds
http://www.origins.tv/darwin/landtosea.htm#whales
When you are done "contending" with those, we'll give you some more.
>
>So far, not so good for the evolutionists.
Au contraire, Nameless. You being around displaying such mind
boggling stupidity is the very best thing for science. You are a
walking, talking billboard for the bankruptcy of creationism.
---------------
J. Pieret
---------------
Does it hurt having your fingers jammed so deep in your ears?
Or does the loud humming distract you from the pain?
gen2rev
[snip]
> "The main problem with such phyletic gradualism is that the fossil
> record provides so little evidence for it. Very rarely can we trace
> the gradual transformation of one entire species into another through
> a finely graded
> sequence of intermediary forms." (Gould, S.J. Luria, S.E. & Singer,
> S., A View of Life, 1981, p. 641)
But later on the same page is found:
There is an alternative, however. Perhaps the fossil record is
not so hopeless, and the observation of no change within species
and sudden replacement between them reflects evolution as it
actually occurs. Recall Chapter 26: Large, successful, central
populations are resistant to evolutionary change. Small,
isolated, marginal populations may speciate. The process of
speciation, though slow to a human observer (hundreds or
thousands of years), is geologically fleeting. In most geological
situations, and at most rates of sedimentation, a thousand years
translates into a single bedding plane, not a thick sequence of
rock. Thus, if speciation is the dominate mode of evolution, we
should expect to see exactly what we do see: the unchanging
species represents a successful central population; its sudden
replacement by a descendent records the migration into the
ancestral area of a descendant that arose rapidly in a small
population at the edge of the ancestor's geographical range.
Thus, it is possible that most evolution occurs in the mode of
speciation and that phyletic evolution is relatively unimportant.
So we see that Gould et al. don't reject evolution, but claim that
*phyletic* evolution takes a second seat to speciation.
> "It should come as no surprise that it would be extremely difficult to
> find a specific fossil species that is both intermediate in morphology
> between two other taxa and is also in the appropriate stratigraphic
> position."
> (Cracraft, J., "Systematics, Comparative Biology, and the Case Against
> Creationism," 1983, p. 180)
If McCoy really does have "photocopies of the original works", he
should be able to tell us what book this *article* is in. I challenge
him to do so. I have the book, and it isn't called "Systematics,
Comparative Biology, and the Case Against Creationism". But on to the
quote. Starting at the end of page 179, and into 180:
If the stratigraphic position of a fossil is an important
criterion for recognizing it as an ancestor, it should come as
no surprise that it would be extremely difficult to find a
specific fossil species that is both intermediate in morphology
between two other taxa and is also in the appropriate
stratigraphic position. This is no doubt the reason for many of
the quotes cited by the creationists about the prevalence of
gaps, but other citations are distortions, tailored to suit the
creationists own purposes.
Ironic, ain't it? And on page 182:
But the use of quotations is not an appropriate way to decide
scientific issues, and if one examines the fossil record
objectively, there is no doubt that intermediate taxa - mosaics
of primitive and derived characters – exist for many major
groups.
[snip]
> "Species that were once thought to have turned into others have been
> found to overlap in time with these alleged descendants. In fact, the
> fossil record does not convincingly document a single transition from
> one species to another."
> (Stanley, S.M., The New Evolutionary Timetable: Fossils, Genes, and
> the Origin of Species, 1981, p. 95)
A more complete quote would be:
Superb fossil data have recently been gathered from deposits of
early Cenozoic Age in the Bighorn Basin of Wyoming. These
deposits represent the first part of the Eocene Epoch, a
critical interval when many types of modern mammals came into
being. The Bighorn Basin, in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains,
received large volumes of sediment from the Rockies when they
were being uplifted, early in the Age of Mammals. In its
remarkable degree of completeness, the fossil record here for
the Early Eocene is unmatched by contemporary deposits exposed
elsewhere in the world. The deposits of the Bighorn Basin
provide a nearly continuous local depositional record for this
interval, which lasted some five million years. It used to be
assumed that certain populations of the basin could be linked
together in such a way as to illustrate continuous evolution.
Careful collecting has now shown otherwise. Species that were
once thought to have turned into others have been found to
overlap in time with these alleged descendants. In fact, the
fossil record does not convincingly document a single transition
from one species to another. Furthermore, species lasted for
astoundingly long periods of time. David M. Schankler has
recently gathered data for about eighty mammal species that are
known from more than two stratigraphic levels in the Bighorn
Basin. Very few of these species existed for less than half a
million years, and their average duration was greater than a
million years.
So we see that Stanley wasn't talking about the fossil record in
general, but the fossil record in the Bighorn Basin.
To quote Pagano: "More to follow as time permits."
mel turner
says...news:<b3s0pk$1pte88$1@ID-35161.
>news.dfncis.de>...
>> "Steven J." <stev...@altavista.com> wrote in message
>> news:127ccf2e.03030...@posting.google.com...
>> > "Dana Tweedy" <twe...@cvn.net> wrote in message
>> news:<b3r2u1$1pglu4$1...@ID-35161.news.dfncis.de>...
[snip]
>> > > This seems to be the quote mine that McCoy used:
>> > > http://www.genesispark.org/genpark/phylo/phylo.htm
>> > > Original as always.
>> > >
>> > Now, this is odd. When *I* googled for those quotes, I came up with
>> > <www.anointed-one.net/quotes.html>
>> >
>> > This is interesting. Note that we are both using homology to argue
>> > for common descent of a sort -- McCoy obviously did not come up with
>> > his list of quotes independently, but copied and pasted them from
>> > somewhere -- but we disagree as to the exact "phylogeny" of his
>> > plagiarism. Perhaps one of these sources copied from the other, or
>> > both copied from the same source -- which might even have been the
>> > same one McCoy used.
>>
>> I think you are correct on the proximal source of McCoy's plagiarism, I
>> noticed that Woetzel's site had the same headings, but a different order to
>> the OOC quotes. I should have realized that McCoy was too lazy to even
>> change the order. "Annointed One" possibly stole his list from Woetzel, who
>> stole it from someone else. Manic plagiarism runs rampant in Creationist
>> circles.
>
>The question is not where these sources came from,
That is one of the questions. So, are you now finally
admitting that you read none of these quotes in their original
context after all, and that you did just copy them from the
above creationist quote sheet?
In
Message-ID: <3f355ee.03030...@posting.google.com>
you made it sound like you might be claiming to have taken
your quotes from the original sources and even to have kept
photocopies of them. Or is that just a mistaken impression?
but the fact that
>these are quotes from famous evolutionists and they are documented as
>to where these quotes originated. Therefore, since it is your claim
>that these are taken out of context, all you have to do is to cite.
Not just a claim. It's documented in this same thread by others.
See:
Message-ID: <3E6138CC...@homo.sapiens.se>
Message-ID: <3e615ca4....@news.ij.net>
Message-ID: <1fr71qz.dsud1r1rzlttnN%john.w...@bigpond.com>
Message-ID: <1fr8gj9.1h21djl1yqgfx9N%john.w...@bigpond.com>
Message-ID: <b1p46vcnas6v58pp7...@4ax.com>
Message-ID: <f1129f9.03030...@posting.google.com>
>Since you won't do it, and have gone into a personal attack,
Personal attack, or apt criticism of your shoddy "scholarship"
methods?
>I
>consider that to be admission that these quotes are accurate.
They aren't accurate.
Is your weak attempt to declare victory an admission that you
can't defend any of these quotes?
cheers
Lenny Flank
wrote:
<snip>
>So far, not so good for the evolutionists.
How dreadful.
What again did you say the scientific theory of creation is?
How again did you say it can be tested using the scientific method?
I can think of only three possible reason for your continuing refusal
to answer my simple questions. Either (1) there IS NO scientific
theory of creation/intelligent design, or (2) there IS a scientific
theory of creation/intelligent design, but you are too uninformed to
know what it is, or (3) there IS a scientific theory of
creation/intelligent design and you DO know what it is, but for some
unknown and unfathomable reason, you don't want anyone to know what it
is.
If you won't answer my simple questions, would you at least tell me
WHY you won't answer them? My money, of course, is on number 1.
=================================================
Lenny Flank
wrote:
>The question is not where these sources came from, but the fact that
>these are quotes from famous evolutionists and they are documented as
>to where these quotes originated.
How dreadful. <yawn>
Does the scientific theory of creation, then, consist solely and only
of quotes from "fasmous evolutionists"? Is **THAT** the best that
creation "science" has ot offer? If so, it's no wodner everyone
thinks creationists are idiots. <shrug>
Harlequin
[snip]
> The question is not where these sources came from, but the fact that
> these are quotes from famous evolutionists and they are documented as
> to where these quotes originated. Therefore, since it is your claim
> that these are taken out of context, all you have to do is to cite.
> Since you won't do it, and have gone into a personal attack, I
> consider that to be admission that these quotes are accurate.
[snip]
1) John Wilkins has looked up number of quotes you provided
and found that your quotes had major problems with them.
2) Actually where the sources comes from is a very important question.
Indeed if you copied from another source then your citations
are all false. A citation is where _you_ got the information.
Indeed one creationist copying from another copying from another
is a major cause for gross misquotes. Now admittedly creationists
are not the only ones who have done this sort of faulty
"scholarship," but this practice seems to be omnipresent in
creationist circles.
And since anyone involved in the
evolution/creationism controversy knows of problem with
out-of-context quotes, it is nothing sort of irresponsible
not to deal squarely with that issue. If you want
to give these quotes then it is _your_ responsiblity
to look them up and verify that the text and citation
are accurate and that there is not a problem with the
context. If you cannot verify the quotes personally then
you should give a citation to work that you found
the quote in.
In any event, scholarship is not something that is done
with the copy and paste function of a computer.
--
Anti-spam: replace "usenet" with "harlequin2"
"...Everybody has opinions: I have them, you have them. And we are all
told from the moment we open our eyes, that everyone is entitled to
his or her opinion. Well, that's horsepuckey, of course. We are not
entitled to our opinions; we are entitled to our _informed_ opinions.
Without research, without background, without understanding, it's
nothing. It's just bibble-babble...."
- Harlan Ellison
Dick C
> engelsman <bat...@hotmailnospam.com> wrote in message
> news:<3e62139e$0$49110$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl>...
>> J McCoy wrote:
>>
>> >>>><snip barrage of out-of-context quotes>
>>
>> > Since your contention is that these quotes are taken out of
>> > context, my contention is that you're lazy and you have not idea as
>> > to what you're talking about. You're making it up as you go along.
>>
>> Dude! You copied 'em from a creationist site! How's that for lazy and
>> 'no idea what you are talking about'?
>
> The question is not where these sources came from, but the fact that
> these are quotes from famous evolutionists and they are documented as
> to where these quotes originated. Therefore, since it is your claim
> that these are taken out of context, all you have to do is to cite.
> Since you won't do it, and have gone into a personal attack, I
> consider that to be admission that these quotes are accurate.
Thank you for demonstrating once again why the people on alt.atheism
took away your name. Dishonesty and evasion so annoying that they
felt that you do not deserve a name.
--
Dick #1349
"Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it."
Andre Gide, French author and critic (1869-1951).
Home Page: dickcr.iwarp.com
email: crav...@msn.com
Dana Tweedy
Good grief McCoy, are you so lazy you have to produce a boilerplate
rebuttal?
> The question is not where these sources came from,
Actually, that is quite "the question". You gave the list of quotations
without any attribution, which is dishonest at best. The source of these
quotes was from a Creationist quote mine, which had already taken these
quotes out of context.
> but the fact that
> these are quotes from famous evolutionists and they are documented as
> to where these quotes originated.
Yes, they were taken out of context from the sources listed. You never
read the originals, so you have no idea what the genuine context of these
quotes really was.
> Therefore, since it is your claim
> that these are taken out of context, all you have to do is to cite.
It's already been established that the quotes are out of context. You were
too lazy to even change the order of the quotes you stole bodily from a
creationist site. Look at John Wilkins' reply where he shows conclusively
that all the quotes he can check were indeed taken out of context, and the
authors do not support your claims.
> Since you won't do it, and have gone into a personal attack, I
> consider that to be admission that these quotes are accurate.
1. I don't need to check every reference, to know they are out of context.
It's your duty to show the proper context in what you quote.
2. I didn't engage in a personal attack, I commented on your laziness in
"scholarship".
3.No one doubts the quotes are copied "accurately", however, they are out of
context, which changes their meaning. Quoting out of context is lying by
omission.
DJT
AC
> engelsman <bat...@hotmailnospam.com> wrote in message news:<3e62139e$0$49110$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl>...
>> J McCoy wrote:
>>
>> >>>><snip barrage of out-of-context quotes>
>>
>> > Since your contention is that these quotes are taken out of context,
>> > my contention is that you're lazy and you have not idea as to what
>> > you're talking about. You're making it up as you go along.
>>
>> Dude! You copied 'em from a creationist site! How's that for lazy and
>> 'no idea what you are talking about'?
>
> The question is not where these sources came from, but the fact that
> these are quotes from famous evolutionists and they are documented as
> to where these quotes originated. Therefore, since it is your claim
> that these are taken out of context, all you have to do is to cite.
> Since you won't do it, and have gone into a personal attack, I
> consider that to be admission that these quotes are accurate.
Quotes taking out of context are not accurate quotes. It's all lying for
god, Mr. McCoy. How do you think your god is going to feel about you
perpetrating falsehoods?
--
A. Clausen
David Jensen
<3f355ee.03030...@posting.google.com>:
>The question is not where these sources came from, but the fact that
>these are quotes from famous evolutionists and they are documented as
>to where these quotes originated. Therefore, since it is your claim
>that these are taken out of context, all you have to do is to cite.
>Since you won't do it, and have gone into a personal attack, I
>consider that to be admission that these quotes are accurate.
You have not looked up these quotes and you are not at all sure whether
they accurately reflect the ideas of the authors that you claim to be
quoting. Thanks for showing us so clearly how little personal integrity
you have.
Lenny Flank
wrote:
It should also be pointed out that, even if we were to accept that
every single solitary one of McCoy's regirguquotes is accurate, so
what. Science isn't decided by Joe Blow's say-so. If every one of
those scientists says that evolution is mistaken, then every one of
those scientists is wrong. Just as they'd all be wrong if McCoy
quoted them as saying that the sun is a cube or the earth is flat.
If McCoy REALLY wanted to impress us, he'd not bother with quoting the
holy words at us, but would just get off his ignorant ass and SHOW US
HIS EVIDENCE.
But he won't. he can't. There isn't any. <shrug>
Harlequin
[snip -- Flank quotes what I wrote]
> It should also be pointed out that, even if we were to accept that
> every single solitary one of McCoy's regirguquotes is accurate, so
> what. Science isn't decided by Joe Blow's say-so. If every one of
> those scientists says that evolution is mistaken, then every one of
> those scientists is wrong. Just as they'd all be wrong if McCoy
> quoted them as saying that the sun is a cube or the earth is flat.
>
> If McCoy REALLY wanted to impress us, he'd not bother with quoting the
> holy words at us, but would just get off his ignorant ass and SHOW US
> HIS EVIDENCE.
>
> But he won't. he can't. There isn't any. <shrug>
Yep. McCoy is dead wrong on just _so_ many levels.
1) The quotes are misquotes.
2) His citations are false since he fails to give the
true source of his quotes.
3) The argument from authority fallacy you mention.
4) That he is using selective quotations. If someone
does not provide quotes that sound useful to
him they get ignored.
It would not be hard to continue putting up more reasons.
gen2rev
> "Instead of finding the gradual unfolding of life, what geologists of
> Darwin's time, and geologists of the present day actually find is a
> highly uneven or jerky record; that is, species appear in the sequence
> very suddenly, show little or no change during their existence in the
> record, then abruptly go out of the record. and it is not always
> clear, in fact it's rarely clear, that the descendants were actually
> better adapted than their predecessors. In other words, biological
> improvement is hard to find." (Raup, David M., "Conflicts Between
> Darwin and Paleontology," Bulletin, Field Museum of Natural History,
> vol. 50, 1979, p. 23)
But on the previous page Raup writes:
We must distinguish between the fact of evolution — defined as
change in organisms over time — and the explanation of this
change. Darwin's contribution, through his theory of natural
selection, was to suggest how the evolutionary change took place.
The evidence we find in the geologic record is not nearly as
compatible with darwinian natural selection as we would like it
to be.
Note that Raup believes that evolution has occured; he calls evolution
a "fact". And on page 25 he writes:
What appeared to be a nice progression when relatively few data
were available now appears to be much more complex and much less
gradualistic. So Darwin's problem has not been alleviated in the
last 120 years and we still have a record which *does* show
change but one which can hardly be look upon as the most
reasonable consequence of natural selection. [Emphasis in
original]
And later on the same page:
So natural selection as a process is okay. We are also pretty
sure that it does on in nature although good examples are
surprisingly rare.
It should be obvious by now that what Raup is arguing against is not
evoution, but *gradual* evolution in all cases.
[snip]
> "In other words, when the assumed evolutionary processes did not match
> the pattern of fossils that they were supposed to have generated, the
> pattern was judged to be 'wrong.' A circular argument arises:
> interpret the
> fossil record in terms of a particular theory of evolution, inspect
> the interpretation, and note that it confirms the theory. Well, it
> would, wouldn't it? ...As is now well known, most fossil species
> appear instantaneously in the
> record, persist for some millions of years virtually unchanged, only
> to disappear abruptly - the 'punctuated equilibrium' pattern of
> Eldredge and Gould."
> (Kemp, Tom S., "A Fresh Look at the Fossil Record," New Scientist,
> vol. 108, 1985, pp. 66-67)
In the paragraph this quote is taken from, Kemp is criticizing the
claim that the fossil record is incomplete because it does not support
gradualism. But the full quote is more illuminating:
The fact that the fossil data did not, on the whole, seem to fit
this prevailing model of the process of evolution - for example,
in the absence of intermediate forms and of gradually changing
lineages over millions of years - was readily explained by the
notorious incompleteness of the fossil record. In other words,
when the assumed evolutionary processes did not match the
pattern of fossils that they were supposed to have generated,
the pattern was judged to be "wrong". A circular argument
arises: interpret the fossil record in terms of a particular
theory of evolution, inspect the interpretation, and note that
it confirms the theory. Well, it would, wouldn't it?
Spearheaded by this extraordinary journal, palaeontology is now
looking at what it actually finds, not what it is told that it
is supposed to find. As is now well know, most fossil species
appear instantaneously in the record, persist for some millions
of years virtually unchanged, only to disappear abruptly – the
"punctuated equilibrium" pattern of Eldredge and Gould.
Irrespective of one's view of the biological causes of such a
pattern (and there continues to be much debate about this), it
leads in practice to description of long-term evolution, or
macroevolution, in terms of the differential survival,
extinction and proliferation of species. The species is the unit
of evolution.
Note that Kemp states that the fossil record "leads in practice to
description of long-term evolution..."
[snip]
> "...I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct
> illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I
> knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them.
> You suggest that an artist should be used to
> visualize such transformations, but where would he get the information
> from? I could not, honestly, provide it,
> and if I were to leave it to artistic license, would that not mislead
> the reader? Yet Gould and the American
> Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no
> transitional fossils. As a paleontologist
> myself, I am much occupied with the philosophical problems of
> identifying ancestral forms in the fossil record.
> You say that I should at least 'show a photo of the fossil from which
> each type of organism was derived.' I will
> lay it on the line, there is not one such fossil for which one could
> make a watertight argument. The reason is
> that statements about ancestry and descent are not applicable in the
> fossil record."
> (Patterson, Colin, British Museum of Natural History, London, letter
> 10 April 1979, in Sunderland L.D.,
> "Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems," 1984, Master Book
> Publishers: El Cajon CA, Fourth Edition,
> 1988, p. 89)
A discussion of this quote is available in the talk.origins archive at
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/patterson.html
[snip]
> "If living matter is not, then, caused by the interplay of atoms,
> natural forces and radiation, how has it come
> into being? I think, however, that we must go further than this and
> admit that the only acceptable explanation
> is creation. I know that this is anathema to physicists, as indeed it
> is to me, but we must not reject a theory
> that we do not like if the experimental evidence supports it." (H.J.
> Lipson, F.R.S. Professor of Physics,
> University of Manchester, UK, "A physicist looks at evolution" Physics
> Bulletin, 1980, vol 31, p. 138)
However, in a later issue of Physics Bulletin, Lipson clarifies his
position:
Several people have given clear indications that they do not
understand Darwin's theory. The Theory does not merely say that
species have slowly evolved: that is obvious from the fossil
record.
- H. J. Lipson, "A physicist looks at evolution - a rejoiner",
Physics Bulletin, December 1980, pg 337.
Note that he claims that it's *obvious* that species have evolved,
something that can be seen in the fossil record.
[snip]
> "Scientists have no proof that life was not the result of an act of
> creation."
> (Jastrow, Robert, The Enchanted Loom: Mind In the Universe, 1981, p.
> 19)
A more complete quotation of would be:
Scientists have no proof that life was not the result of an act
of creation, but they are driven by the nature of their
profession to seek explanations for the origin of life that lie
within the boundaries of natural law. They ask themselves, "How
did life arise out of inanimate matter? And what is the
probability of that happening?" And to their chagrin they have
no clear-cut answer, because chemists have never succeeded in
reproducing nature's experiments on the creation of life out of
nonliving matter. Scientists do not know how that happened, and,
furthermore, they do not know the chance of its happening.
Perhaps the chance is very small, and the appearance of life on
a planet is an event of miraculously low probability. Perhaps
life on the earth is unique in this Universe. No scientific
evidence precludes that possibility.
But while scientists must accept the possibility that life may
be an improbable event, they have some tentative reasons for
thinking that its appearance on earthlike planets is, in fact,
fairly commonplace. These reasons do not constitute proof, but
they are suggestive. Laboratory experiments show that certain
molecules, which are the building blocks of living matter,
are formed in great abundance under conditions resembling
those on the earth four billion years ago, when it was a young
planet. Furthermore, those molecular building blocks of life
appear in living organisms today in just about the same
relative amounts with which they appear in the laboratory
experiments. It is as if nature, in fashioning the first
forms of life, used the ingredients at hand and in just the
proportions in which they were present.
Jastrow certainly isn't arguing in favour of creation.
[snip]
More to follow as time permits...
John Wilkins
> lfl...@ij.net (Lenny Flank) wrote in news:3e62b3c3...@news.ij.net:
>
> [snip -- Flank quotes what I wrote]
> > It should also be pointed out that, even if we were to accept that
> > every single solitary one of McCoy's regirguquotes is accurate, so
> > what. Science isn't decided by Joe Blow's say-so. If every one of
> > those scientists says that evolution is mistaken, then every one of
> > those scientists is wrong. Just as they'd all be wrong if McCoy
> > quoted them as saying that the sun is a cube or the earth is flat.
> >
> > If McCoy REALLY wanted to impress us, he'd not bother with quoting the
> > holy words at us, but would just get off his ignorant ass and SHOW US
> > HIS EVIDENCE.
> >
> > But he won't. he can't. There isn't any. <shrug>
>
> Yep. McCoy is dead wrong on just _so_ many levels.
>
> 1) The quotes are misquotes.
> 2) His citations are false since he fails to give the
> true source of his quotes.
> 3) The argument from authority fallacy you mention.
> 4) That he is using selective quotations. If someone
> does not provide quotes that sound useful to
> him they get ignored.
>
> It would not be hard to continue putting up more reasons.
We should mention that he claimed to have photocopies of all these
quotes, thus implying that he gathered them himself. For my money, that
is the worst lie of all. It's a technique used by any demagogue wanting
to sway people to do what he wants without thinking.
--
John Wilkins
B'dies, Brutius
gen2rev
I have a copy on hand, so that's one step out of the way.
[snip the rest]
Steven J.
> these are quotes from famous evolutionists and they are documented as
> to where these quotes originated. Therefore, since it is your claim
> that these are taken out of context, all you have to do is to cite.
> Since you won't do it, and have gone into a personal attack, I
> consider that to be admission that these quotes are accurate.
>
to make with them. Note that all those quotes on the rarity of
transitional forms say that there are few gradual transitions between
*species* -- that is, there is little fossil evidence of the sort of
change needed to turn, say, a donkey into a horse, a wolf into a
coyote, or a lion into a tiger (actual, the sort needed to produce
each pair from a common ancestor, but you should get the point). Now,
I'm pretty sure that you would regard these sorts of changes as merely
changeds within a "created kind," and insist you have no problem with
them. So what the fossil record *doesn't* show (usually) is the kind
of evolution you claim to believe in, while preserving transitions to
show the kind you claim not to believe in.
Also, why do you think we are obliged into putting more effort into
refuting your posts than you spent posting it? You put no thought
into this, showed no understanding, developed no arguments. Do you
deserve a thoughtful response? All these points have been addressed
over and over -- is it reasonable to answer them over (when you will
not consider the answers honestly if you consider them at all)? It is
worth noting that the paragraph from me specifically addressed the
quotes about the difficulty of establishing exact phylogenies -- why
do you not address my point, since I addressed yours?
>
> J McCoy
>
-- [snip]
>
-- Steven J.
Sverker Johansson
> > On Sat, 1 Mar 2003 22:30:09 +0000 (UTC), Sverker Johansson
> > <lsj.h...@homo.sapiens.se> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > <snip>
> > >> > "The curious thing is that there is a consistency about the fossil
> > >> > gaps; the fossils are missing in all the
> > >> > important places." (Hitching, Francis, The Neck of the Giraffe or
> > >> > Where Darwin Went Wrong, Penguin Books,
> > >> > 1982, p.19)
> > >
> > >Whatever Hitching is, he is by no stretch of the imagination a
> > >"famous evolutionist".
> > >
> >
> >
> > He's often quoted by creationists, who don't seem bright enough to
> > realize that he thinks creationists are idiots. From my "Creation
> > 'Science' debunked" website:
> >
> >
> > Out of Context: Hitching and the Creationists
> >
> > by Lenny Flank
> >
> > (c) 1996
> >
> > The creationists are very fond of quoting statements from prominent
> > evolutionary scientists, as well as science writers, in an attempt to
> > protray them as having doubts about the validity of evolutionary
> > theory. In every instance, these quotes are taken out of context and
> > distort the writer's meaning (prominent scientist Stephen Jay Gould is
> > but one scientist who has publicly complained about the creationist
> > mis-use of his writings).
>
> In stead of rambling on, how about showing how these quotes are taken
> out of context?
My point about Hitching is that he isn't a famous "evolutionist",
has no scientific credentials whatsoever, and is generally clueless
about both evolution and other stuff. Thus quotes from
him would carry no weight even by your argument-from-authority
logic, even if accurate in context. So in Hitching's case the
context doesn't really matter.
Best regards
Sverker Johansson
J McCoy
You've just proven yourself a liar. If you had a chance to look up all
those numerous quotes in these few days, you've could have posted
quite a few examples. By "most" you're saying 75% of the quotes are
lies and the rest are true. Well, I doubt if you've even looked up
one.
J McCoy
J McCoy
> On Sun, 2 Mar 2003 20:12:04 +0000 (UTC), mc...@sunset.net (J McCoy)
> wrote:
>
> >engelsman <bat...@hotmailnospam.com> wrote in message news:<3e62139e$0$49110$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl>...
> >> J McCoy wrote:
> >>
>
> >> > my contention is that you're lazy and you have not idea as to what
> >>
> >> Dude! You copied 'em from a creationist site! How's that for lazy and
> >> 'no idea what you are talking about'?
> >
> >these are quotes from famous evolutionists and they are documented as
> >to where these quotes originated. Therefore, since it is your claim
> >that these are taken out of context, all you have to do is to cite.
> >Since you won't do it, and have gone into a personal attack, I
> >consider that to be admission that these quotes are accurate.
>
> responded at all to the posts that point out exactly how your quotes
> are out of context. Such as
> <1fr71qz.dsud1r1rzlttnN%john.w...@bigpond.com> and
> <b1p46vcnas6v58pp7...@4ax.com>.
>
> I know you don't care how foolish you look and how few people you
> fool, but this is a new low for you; you look more foolish than you
> ever have before, and you couldn't even fool a die-hard creationist.
Sorry. I won't accept your response. Prove it. You've accepted by
faith that these quotes are out of context. So prove it. If you prove
it you've proven that each quote was produced by a double-faced lying
evolutionist.
J McCoy
>
>
>
>
> --
> Replace nospam with group to email
J McCoy
> mc...@sunset.net (J McCoy) wrote in message news:<3f355ee.03022...@posting.google.com>...
> > <snip barrage of out-of-context quotes>
>
> It's already been established over and over again that out of context
> quote-mining is creationist mental masturbation. I bet McCoy needed a
> box of kleenex to clean up after that one.
Quote-mining makes the evolutionist look bad. It's up for you to prove
that these are taken out of context. And if you do prove it, you've
proven that the evolutionist who said it was two-faced.
J McCoy
J McCoy
> On Sat, 1 Mar 2003 16:22:42 +0000 (UTC), lil...@umich.edu (Lilith)
> wrote:
>
> >> <snip barrage of out-of-context quotes>
> >
> >I'm not impressed by a bunch of short, edited, out-of-context quotes.
> >It's already been established over and over again that out of context
> >quote-mining is creationist mental masturbation. I bet McCoy needed a
> >box of kleenex to clean up after that one.
> >
>
> answer the simple questions that I've been asking him for weeks now,
> without any response:
Go ahead and start your own thread. Prove to me that these quotes are
taken out of context.
J McCoy
> What is the scientific theory of creation/intelligent design.
> What, according to this scientific theory of creation/intelligent
> design, is the creator/intelligent designer.
>
> What does the creator/intelligent designer DO, precisely, according to
> this scientific theory of creation/intelligent design--what mechanisms
> does the creator/intelligent designer use, and where can we see these
> mechanisms operating today.
>
> What scientific data or evidence is presented by the
> scientific theory of creation/intelligent design to demonstrate that
> there is only one creator/intelligent designer, and not, say, ten or
> fifty of them.
>
> Oh, and why should we not conclude, based on creation/intelligent
> designer "theory", that the Raelians are correct, and humans were
> produced by a race of space aliens with advanced technology who
> designed us for a science project or something, and therefore no
> supernatural gods are necessary or required.
>
>
> I look forward to your evading these simple questions.
>
> Again.
>
>
> I can think of only three possible reason for your continuing refusal
> to answer my simple questions. Either (1) there IS NO scientific
> theory of creation/intelligent design, or (2) there IS a scientific
> theory of creation/intelligent design, but you are too uninformed to
> know what it is, or (3) there IS a scientific theory of
> creation/intelligent design and you DO know what it is, but for some
> unknown and unfathomable reason, you don't want anyone to know what it
> is.
>
> If you won't answer my simple questions, would you at least tell me
> WHY you won't answer them? My money, of course, is on number 1.
>
>
>
>
>
J McCoy
> mc...@sunset.net (J McCoy) wrote in
> news:3f355ee.03030...@posting.google.com:
>
> > engelsman <bat...@hotmailnospam.com> wrote in message
> > news:<3e62139e$0$49110$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl>...
> >> J McCoy wrote:
> >>
> >> >>>><snip barrage of out-of-context quotes>
>
> >> > Since your contention is that these quotes are taken out of
> >> > context, my contention is that you're lazy and you have not idea as
> >> > to what you're talking about. You're making it up as you go along.
> >>
> >> Dude! You copied 'em from a creationist site! How's that for lazy and
> >> 'no idea what you are talking about'?
> >
> > The question is not where these sources came from, but the fact that
> > these are quotes from famous evolutionists and they are documented as
> > to where these quotes originated. Therefore, since it is your claim
> > that these are taken out of context, all you have to do is to cite.
> > Since you won't do it, and have gone into a personal attack, I
> > consider that to be admission that these quotes are accurate.
>
> Thank you for demonstrating once again why the people on alt.atheism
> took away your name. Dishonesty and evasion so annoying that they
> felt that you do not deserve a name.
There is nothing more dishonest than a personal attack which is what
you're doing.
I'm asking a simple request. Please prove to me that these quotes have
been taken out of context.
J McCoy
mel turner
>55u...@4ax.com>...[snip]
>> >The question is not where these sources came from, but the fact that
>> >these are quotes from famous evolutionists and they are documented as
>> >to where these quotes originated. Therefore, since it is your claim
>> >that these are taken out of context, all you have to do is to cite.
>> >Since you won't do it, and have gone into a personal attack, I
>> >consider that to be admission that these quotes are accurate.
>> Here are the Message ID #s of 4 posts in this thread that have done
>> just that:
>>
>> Message-ID: <3E6138CC...@homo.sapiens.se>
>> Message-ID: <3e615ca4....@news.ij.net>
>> Message-ID: <b1p46vcnas6v58pp7...@4ax.com>
>>
>> and especially
>>
>> Message-ID: <1fr71qz.dsud1r1rzlttnN%john.w...@bigpond.com>
>>
>> Most of the quotes are lies, because they intentionally misrepresent
>> the intent of the authors, through selective quoting and, often, by
>> mangling sentences.
>
>You've just proven yourself a liar.
Something seems a bit ironic here...
>If you had a chance to look up all
>those numerous quotes in these few days, you've could have posted
>quite a few examples. By "most" you're saying 75% of the quotes are
>lies and the rest are true.
Okay, "most _of the sampling that were checked in the above posts_
turned out to be dichonest misrepresentations". Better?
>Well, I doubt if you've even looked up
>one.
And how many have you looked up?
Any at all?
cheers
engelsman
>>>to where these quotes originated. Therefore, since it is your claim
>>>that these are taken out of context, all you have to do is to cite.
>>Here are the Message ID #s of 4 posts in this thread that have done
>>just that:
>>
>>Message-ID: <3E6138CC...@homo.sapiens.se>
>>Message-ID: <3e615ca4....@news.ij.net>
>>Message-ID: <b1p46vcnas6v58pp7...@4ax.com>
>>
>>and especially
>>
>>Message-ID: <1fr71qz.dsud1r1rzlttnN%john.w...@bigpond.com>
> Well, I doubt if you've even looked up
> one.
(how dumb can you be)
At least four mccoy! Or didn't you bother to check them? Not really what
you're after anyway, right mccoy?
Just trying to get a better spot in heaven mccoy? Think lying will get
you there?
> J McCo
engelsman
> Go ahead and start your own thread. Prove to me that these quotes are
> taken out of context.
It's already proven. Stop lying and pretending it has not.
How old ARE you, mccoy?
Bill Rogers
"...There is no God" Psalm 14.1
"... whoever believes in me will ..... die." John 11.26
"...I will no longer save you." Judges 10:13
"Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher."Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless." Ecclesiastes 1.2
"There is no resurrection..." Matthew 22.23
"..there is no resurrection and there are neither angels nor
spirits..." Acts 23.8
"For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's
sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared
righteous.....For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart
from observing the law." Romans 2.13-3.28
Get the point about quote mining?
Dick C
Try again, nameless. I was pointing out that your dishonesty is well
known. So quit trying to act like you are honest.
>
> I'm asking a simple request. Please prove to me that these quotes have
> been taken out of context.
People have done so. Which makes your continued claims rather dishonest.
gen2rev
Do you have any idea what "out-of-context" means?
> J McCoy
J McCoy
> On Sun, 2 Mar 2003 20:12:04 +0000 (UTC), mc...@sunset.net (J McCoy)
> wrote:
>
> >engelsman <bat...@hotmailnospam.com> wrote in message news:<3e62139e$0$49110$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl>...
> >> J McCoy wrote:
> >>
>
> >> > my contention is that you're lazy and you have not idea as to what
> >> > you're talking about. You're making it up as you go along.
> >>
> >> Dude! You copied 'em from a creationist site! How's that for lazy and
> >> 'no idea what you are talking about'?
> >
> >The question is not where these sources came from, but the fact that
> >these are quotes from famous evolutionists and they are documented as
> >to where these quotes originated. Therefore, since it is your claim
> >that these are taken out of context, all you have to do is to cite.
> >Since you won't do it, and have gone into a personal attack, I
> >consider that to be admission that these quotes are accurate.
> >
>
> Here are the Message ID #s of 4 posts in this thread that have done
> just that:
>
> Message-ID: <3E6138CC...@homo.sapiens.se>
> Message-ID: <3e615ca4....@news.ij.net>
> Message-ID: <b1p46vcnas6v58pp7...@4ax.com>
>
> and especially
>
> Message-ID: <1fr71qz.dsud1r1rzlttnN%john.w...@bigpond.com>
>
> the intent of the authors, through selective quoting and, often, by
> mangling sentences.
There are no misrepresentations. It clearly says that these are
quotes from "famous evolutionists". They must be evolutionists for
some reason. But the quotes say something about the nature of the
evidence.
Care to prove that these quotes were taken out of context?
J McCoy
>
> A few may not be misrepresentations but only because they come from
> creationists in the first place.
>
> ---------------
> J. Pieret
> ---------------
>
> He may look like an idiot
> and talk like an idiot,
> but don't let that fool you.
> He really is an idiot.
>
> - Groucho Marx -
J McCoy
If I found a quote that contridicted itself, that would prove that the
evolutionist is flimsey and two-faced. The quote is self-contained.
Care to prove that these quotes are taken out of context?
Still waiting.
J McCoy
>
> cheers
J McCoy
> news:3f355ee.03030...@posting.google.com:
>
> > engelsman <bat...@hotmailnospam.com> wrote in message
> > news:<3e62139e$0$49110$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl>...
> >> J McCoy wrote:
> >>
> >> >>>><snip barrage of out-of-context quotes>
>
> >> > Since your contention is that these quotes are taken out of
> >> > context, my contention is that you're lazy and you have not idea as
> >> > to what you're talking about. You're making it up as you go along.
> >>
> >> Dude! You copied 'em from a creationist site! How's that for lazy and
> >> 'no idea what you are talking about'?
> >
> > The question is not where these sources came from, but the fact that
> > these are quotes from famous evolutionists and they are documented as
> > to where these quotes originated. Therefore, since it is your claim
> > that these are taken out of context, all you have to do is to cite.
> > Since you won't do it, and have gone into a personal attack, I
> > consider that to be admission that these quotes are accurate.
>
> Thank you for demonstrating once again why the people on alt.atheism
> took away your name. Dishonesty and evasion so annoying that they
> felt that you do not deserve a name.
Once again, in order to evade defending your point - that is, your
contention that these quotes were taken out of context, you start
attacking me personally and now are accusing me of dishonesty and
evasion. Since it is your contention that these quotes are taken out
of context, and it is my demand that you prove your case, I don't see
how you can call me evasive since it is you who refuse to answer the
question.
You still have time. PROVE YOUR CONTENTION.
J McCoy
J McCoy
Please prove that these quotes were taken out of context.
J McCoy
>
>
> DJT
gen2rev
See my posts elsewhere in this thread, as well as those of several
others.
> J McCoy
>
> >
> >
> > DJT
David Sienkiewicz
> david.si...@attbi.com (David Sienkiewicz) wrote in message news:<35fa3772.03030...@posting.google.com>...
> > mc...@sunset.net (J McCoy) wrote in message news:<3f355ee.03030...@posting.google.com>...
> > > lfl...@ij.net (Lenny Flank) wrote in message news:<3e60e346....@news.ij.net>...
> > > > On Sat, 1 Mar 2003 16:22:42 +0000 (UTC), lil...@umich.edu (Lilith)
> > > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > >> <snip barrage of out-of-context quotes>
> > > > >
> > > > >It's already been established over and over again that out of context
> > > > >quote-mining is creationist mental masturbation. I bet McCoy needed a
> > > > >box of kleenex to clean up after that one.
> > > > >
> > > > answer the simple questions that I've been asking him for weeks now,
> > > > without any response:
> > >
> > > my contention is that you're lazy and you have not idea as to what
> > > you're talking about.
> >
Did you look up the meaning of "non sequitur," John?
Your comments prompt it almost constantly in this thread.
> > > You're making it up as you go along.
> >
> > It doesn't look that way from here.
> >
> > It's quite normal for creationists to quote-mine as you have done,
> > John. It's quite another matter to understand the issues that are
> > being addressed by the quotes.
> >
> > Now we all know that you did not pull the qouted material from the
> > original sources. They are all quotes that appear in other various
> > creationist sources that you, for some reason, chose not to identify.
>
> The question is not where these sources came from,
At the moment, John, that IS the question.
You see, you originally represented a number of quoted segments as if
you had found them yourself.
Of course, you didn't. It's quite clear now that you pulled them from
another source that you won't admit. You all but admit that above.
That's dishonest, John, it's a lie.
> but the fact that
> these are quotes from famous evolutionists
What is a "famous evolutionist," John?
For that matter, what is an evolutionist?
> and they are documented as
> to where these quotes originated.
No, you did not "document" YOUR source.
Given that any small segment of text can be made to appear to say
something it doesn't, we have no assurance that they are accurately
represented.
So far, we have had quite a few of your "quotes" examined and found to
be wanting with respect to honest representation. Are you truly
wanting to take responsibility for the dishonest representation? It
would seem not. One rarely has a chance to see someone such as you
expend so much effort to be so obtuse.
> Therefore, since it is your claim
> that these are taken out of context, all you have to do is to cite.
Are you actually willing to examine each quote, one by one?
I am quite willing to do that, John.
You say you have photocopies of original sources. I don't believe
that, of course, and neither does anyone else (of consequence) but I'm
certainly always willing to render the benefit of the doubt.
So far, you haven't fared well in the examination of some of your
quotes. So far you have failed to answer for any specifics, as well,
which shows me that you are deliberately avoiding them.
I really don't think you're interested in your own challenge, John.
So far, it is has been met by a couple of other writers here and
you've made it a point to avoid their messages.
> Since you won't do it,
You don't know that, John. I'm quite willing to debate you on this
matter and take up your challenge.
> and have gone into a personal attack, I
> consider that to be admission that these quotes are accurate.
You have a rather bizarre understanding of the English language, John.
That is not what is intended nor can it be reasonably assumed from
what was said.
If one who has such difficulty parsing statements in plain English,
how then can you judge what is accurately quoted or not and what is
proper or not given context?
< snip unanswered challenges >
Lenny Flank
wrote:
>
>If I found a quote that contridicted itself, that would prove that the
>evolutionist is flimsey and two-faced.
<yawn> How dreadful.
>
>Still waiting.
>
Speaking of "still waiting", what year did you plan on telling all of
us what this "alternatvie scientific theory of creation" is that you
want taught in school classrooms. There IS a scientific theory of
creation, right? You're NOT just lying to us in order to force your
particular religious opinions (and nobody else's) into school
classrooms, right?
Right?
Hello?
Hello?
<sound of crickets chirping>
Yep, that's what I thought.
Lenny Flank
wrote:
<snip>
>Once again, in order to evade defending your point
Speaking of "in order to evade defending your point":
Again.
=================================================
Lenny Flank
wrote:
<snip>
>There are no misrepresentations. It clearly says that these are
>quotes from "famous evolutionists".
<yawn> That's nice. So what. Science isn't decided by Joe Blow's
say-so. <shrug>
Do you have a scientific theory of creation to present for us? No?
Then what is it exactly that you want taught in school classrooms.
Your religious opinions? Why yours and not mine or my next door
neighbor's?
J McCoy
No, your saying anything doesn't make it so.
Please quit changing the subject and stick to the issue.
Your contention is that the these quotes from evolutionist are taken
out of context. PROVE THAT CONTENTION.
J McCoy
J McCoy
Please prove your contention that the above quotes were taken out of context.
Thank you.
J McCoy
J McCoy
> In article <3f355ee.03030...@posting.google.com>, J McCoy wrote:
> > engelsman <bat...@hotmailnospam.com> wrote in message news:<3e62139e$0$49110$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl>...
> >> J McCoy wrote:
> >>
> >> >>>><snip barrage of out-of-context quotes>
>
> >> > my contention is that you're lazy and you have not idea as to what
> >> > you're talking about. You're making it up as you go along.
> >>
> >> Dude! You copied 'em from a creationist site! How's that for lazy and
> >> 'no idea what you are talking about'?
> >
> > these are quotes from famous evolutionists and they are documented as
> > to where these quotes originated. Therefore, since it is your claim
> > that these are taken out of context, all you have to do is to cite.
> > Since you won't do it, and have gone into a personal attack, I
> > consider that to be admission that these quotes are accurate.
>
> god, Mr. McCoy. How do you think your god is going to feel about you
> perpetrating falsehoods?
Those are strong words. But they don't relate to the subject at hand.
Please prove that the above quotes were taken out of context.
Thank you.
J McCoy