16-05-2003 06:12									#91
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quote: Originally posted by Boris Godunov I'd think this was brilliant satire, if I didn't know you, Lincoln. Of course, nothing is said about the fantastic speculation one must make to believe in an invisible, omnipotent, omniscient being suddenly poofing everything into existence. Sure, that's so reasonable an assumption! One could also argue it is Religionists who are the ones who lack humility. After all, they are the ones arrogant enough to think the Universe was created for their benefit, and have the desperate need to have a god watching over them. It takes a real lack of humility to believe one is immortal, and that if one simply begs a divine power for something, that power will actually come to one's aid. Tell me, isn't arrogant for people to think god will answer/has answered their particular prayers, when countless millions have died horrible deaths, with their prayers unheeded? Why weren't those prayers answered? Were they lesser people than those who believe their prayers are answered? So how is it arrogant to seek a scientific explanation for things based on observation, yet perfectly humble to believe that one is the center of attention for an all-powerful supreme being who created the universe just for one's own salvation?

Yes, millions of educated scientists, physicians, engineers, statesmen, and wise people from all walks of life believe in God. I am sorry that you choose to call them "unreasonable." While an atheist who hides his head in the sand and pretends that he is the center of the universe is somehow the default position. Too bad your science is based upon the reasoning of theists who founded almost all the major fields of science. Unreasonable indeed!

And prayers answered have nothing to do with what you call "lesser people." For some reason you claim to be an atheist while also believing that you know the mind of God. An interesting insight to say the least.

Also, I certainly do not believe that people are the center of the universe or that God created the universe "just for one's own salvation." Where did you learn that doctrine?

	16-05-2003 14:42									#92
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quote: I wonder how I got to be the center of attention for posting some facts about a one hundred year lie that was perpetuated on innocent school kids? Oh, I forgot, only "creationists" lie.

Your article itself contained numerous lies, Lincoln. In my experience, this happens whenever ANY creationist (or creationist-sympathetic) source attempts to expose "evolutionist lies".

A summary of the main points:

1. Haeckel doctored his drawings to support his own theory of "recapitulation", NOT the Theory of Evolution itself.

2. His fraud was discovered by "evolutionists". The fact that Louis Agassiz also spotted it is irrelevant: many people did. And the author of that article has quite obviously read Gould, from which he quotes extensively: but he fails to mention that Gould and his secretary only recently discovered Agassiz's notes on Haeckel's drawings, thereby giving the false impression that the scientific community owes its knowledge of Haeckel's fraud to a creationist.

3. The fact that those diagrams were still in various textbooks a century later was also spotted by "evolutionists": the creationists completely missed that one.

4. The creationist claim that those diagrams were still being presented as fact in the most important textbook, Futuyma's Evolutionary Biology, was entirely fradulent.

5. The author was obviously lying when he claimed that "practically all" of the evidence that supports evolution has been shown to be false.

quote: I was talking about the so called abiogenesis of life from non-life. A debate you and Jack lost BTW.

No, we did not.

I have never sought to PROVE that life arose without intelligent intervention (such a claim is inherently unprovable), only to point out that it COULD have.

Whereas you failed to support your belief that intelligence was REQUIRED.

So YOU lost.

	16-05-2003 16:40									#93
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I posted the article because I did not feel like rewriting the factual information contained in it myslf. But you attack the article and ignore the whole point of my posting the information contained in it. You said that creationists never expose the frauds of evolution (or words to that effect). They obviously do as the article correctly points out. Your nitpicking does not prove that "all" creationists are liars. That only shows that you cannot accept any facts that a creationist discovers because of your own bias. Now do you and UR really believe that all creationists are liars? Yes__ No__

	16-05-2003 17:09									#94
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quote: I posted the article because I did not feel like rewriting the factual information contained in it myslf. But you attack the article and ignore the whole point of my posting the information contained in it. You said that creationists never expose the frauds of evolution (or words to that effect). They obviously do as the article correctly points out.

Since when have Stephen J. Gould and Michael Richardson been creationists, Lincoln?

Creationists do not "expose the frauds of evolution". This is done by evolutionists, and creationists then seek to exploit their work for propaganda purposes, as the author of that article was doing. Even Agassiz apparently didn't expose Hackel's fraud to the outside world: his comments weren't discovered until a century later.

quote: Your nitpicking does not prove that "all" creationists are liars. That only shows that you cannot accept any facts that a creationist discovers because of your own bias. Now do you and UR really believe that all creationists are liars? Yes__ No__

What "facts" have creationists discovered since Darwin (that weren't already known to evolutionists)?

And I have already pointed out that "many creationists are honest but ignorant", on this very thread.

	16-05-2003 17:25									#95
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How is that frontal lobe holding up, Jack? Takes a mighty strong forehead to make a dent in those walls...

	16-05-2003 21:09									#96
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quote: Originally posted by Lincoln No, it's called being fair and not calling them all "liars" etc. etc. Notice I also made reference to the honesty of Steven Gould. You might try to be objective instead of being so intolerant of views that oppose your own.

When people repeat the same fallacious objections to evolution, in spite of their being refuted in the past, they are being intentionally dishonest, Lincoln. If you then repeat their assertions and cite them as sources, you're perpetuating the dishonesty. It's not intolerant to call dishonest people dishonest.

quote: Yes, millions of educated scientists, physicians, engineers, statesmen, and wise people from all walks of life believe in God. I am sorry that you choose to call them "unreasonable." While an atheist who hides his head in the sand and pretends that he is the center of the universe is somehow the default position. Too bad your science is based upon the reasoning of theists who founded almost all the major fields of science. Unreasonable indeed!

See, this is more of the contextual dishonesty for which you're very guilty. Let's look at my preface:

quote: One could also argue

In your zeal to attack people on the other side, you seemed not to notice that this was a hypothetical statement. You posted a ludicrous assertion claiming atheists lacked humility by virtue of their atheism. It's a bullshit line of reasoning, and this was just an example of how that logic could be turned on its head against religionists. You assert again that atheists think they're the center of the universe--patent nonsense.

quote: And prayers answered have nothing to do with what you call "lesser people." For some reason you claim to be an atheist while also believing that you know the mind of God. An interesting insight to say the least.

Ah, the usual religionist cop out when confronted with the inexplicable absence of god from the world--"You don't know how God works!" But you do? Maybe God just set the universe in motion as an experiment to see what happened. He may never have intended life to arise at all--it could just be an unanticipated part of the experiment. So much for intelligent design. Maybe God isn't omnipotent or omniscient at all--maybe it's Zeus! Maybe it's an evil, malicious God! How do you know? Your belief system is based on what you think God thinks. So isn't the arrogance really yours, since I don't actually believe in God?

I don't know what Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny supposedly think, but I sure know what people say about how they're supposed to act.

quote: Also, I certainly do not believe that people are the center of the universe or that God created the universe "just for one's own salvation." Where did you learn that doctrine?

Judeo-Christian doctrine, perhaps? Considering the lengths to which their mythologies go to put mankind at the center of everything and as the total focus for creation, I'd say that your not believing this is certainly a minority belief among religionists.

	16-05-2003 21:36									#97
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quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger Even in a complex non-living system, even a small change will lead to a tremendous difference. Since small changes can and do occur randomly, I see that the roots of freewill is not in biology but in physics. Therefore, it has nothing to do with evolution at all.

Hadn't we covered this before? In your complex system, where does the 'small change' come from? There is no mechanism in physics to allow for this 'small change' and nor can there ever be.

	16-05-2003 22:36									#98
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Right now, I'm only "praying" that some mod will close this damn topic now that it's an irredeemable threadjacked flamewar. It's served its purpose, now it can die. Please, Ming? MarkG? MtG? Somebody?

	16-05-2003 22:45									#99
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NO!!! Now we'll never get this resolved once and for all!

	16-05-2003 22:49									#100
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Here's a way to visualize evolution:
1. Grow a colony of non-penicillin-resistant. E. coli bacteria in a petri dish, take a look at their genetic profile
2. Spray the dish w/ penicillin
3. Wait a few hours, take a sample of DNA from the bacteria now.
Those that survived have a different genotype than the original ones. As long as the mortality rate from the antiobiotic is not 100%, any will work.
What we perceive of evolution is an extrapolation of this kind of experiment.

I think the scientific frauds in the field of evolutionary biology are receiving too much attention to the point that those who forumulated meaningful hypothesis based on sound scientific principles aren't receiving their due. Yes, there were/are some shaky theories and evidence that have been thrown around, but it is hard to argue against the evidence of evolution shown by genetics, embrylogy, and to a lesser extent, the fossil record. My reason for accepting these are evidence for evolution is that the patterns and mechanims within these sources is consistent with what we assume to be evolution. Those who claim that evolution is 'just a theory' are correct; however, all of our mathematical principles and a majority of science are also 'just theories'.

I am an atheist and I do not consider myself to be 'the center of the universe'. In fact, I find religion to be too anthropocentric to be realistic (IMHO, please don't flame). It is possible that religion and evolution are both correct.

	17-05-2003 04:28									#101
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I knew the "easter bunny" and the "tooth fairy" argument would come sooner or later. Is that a scientific argument of some kind? I think the tooth fairy took the brains of atheists when they forgot to leave a tooth under their pillow. Yes the thread has gone to pot so we might as well start a flame war with the infidels and heathen.

Anyway, no hard feelings to anyone. It can be fun to go around in circles sometimes.