 | Date Posted: 1/8/2009
Posted By: Josh Hendricks
Member Since: 8/7/2008
Number of Replies: 38
Last Post: 1/15/2009 |
| | Interesting Quote | Consider this can of worms officially re-opened.
This comes from the senior paleontologist from the British Museum of Natural History when someone wrote to him about the mention of, but no pictures of, transitional fossils in his book about evolution.
"I fully agree with your comments on the lack of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly include them. I will lay it on the line - there is not one such fossil..."
Dr. Collin Patterson, Senior Paleontologist, British Museum of Natural History.
"I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody." Barack Obama |
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 | Date Posted: 1/8/2009
Posted By: Matthew Ratz
Member Since: 2/29/2008
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| watch the video!
Playing to Win is Playing for Fun - Matthew Ratz |
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| Date Posted: 1/8/2009
Posted By: Matthew Ratz
Member Since: 2/29/2008
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| Oh and Citation please.
Playing to Win is Playing for Fun - Matthew Ratz |
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| What video?
Here's the full letter.
British Museum (Natural History)
Cromwell Road London SW7 5Bd
Telephone 01-589 6323 ext
Department Of Paleontology
Luther Sunderland
5 Griffin Drive
Apalachin, NY 13732
USA
Date: 10th April 1979
Dear Mr. Sunderland:
Thanks for your letter of 5th March, and your kind words about the museum and my book. I held off answering you for a couple of weeks, in case the artwork you mention in your letter should turn up, but it hasn't.
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 asked 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 licence, would that not mislead the reader?
I wrote the text of my book four years ago. If I were to write it now, I think the book would be rather different. Gradualism is a concept I believe in, not just because of Darwin's authority, but because my understanding of genetics seems to demand it. Yet Gould and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say that there are no transitional fossils. As a paleontologist myself, I am much occupied with the philosophical problems of identfying ancestral forms in the fossil record. You say that I should at least ‘show a photo of the fossil from which each type 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. Is Archeopteryx the ancestor of all birds? Perhaps yes, perhaps no: there is no way of answering the question. It is easy enough to make up stories of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favored by natural selection. But such stories are not part of science, for there is no way of putting them to the test. So, much as I should like to oblige you by jumping to the defence of gradualism, and fleshing out the transitions betweeen the major types of animals and plants, I find myself a bit short of the intellectual justification necessary for the job.
Thanks again for the writing.
Yours Sincerely,
Colin Patterson
"I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody." Barack Obama |
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| Full letter:
British Museum (Natural History)
Cromwell Road London SW7 5Bd
Telephone 01-589 6323 ext
Department Of Paleontology
Luther Sunderland
5 Griffin Drive
Apalachin, NY 13732
USA
Date: 10th April 1979
Dear Mr. Sunderland:
Thanks for your letter of 5th March, and your kind words about the museum and my book. I held off answering you for a couple of weeks, in case the artwork you mention in your letter should turn up, but it hasn't.
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 asked 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 licence, would that not mislead the reader?
I wrote the text of my book four years ago. If I were to write it now, I think the book would be rather different. Gradualism is a concept I believe in, not just because of Darwin's authority, but because my understanding of genetics seems to demand it. Yet Gould and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say that there are no transitional fossils. As a paleontologist myself, I am much occupied with the philosophical problems of identfying ancestral forms in the fossil record. You say that I should at least ‘show a photo of the fossil from which each type 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. Is Archeopteryx the ancestor of all birds? Perhaps yes, perhaps no: there is no way of answering the question. It is easy enough to make up stories of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favored by natural selection. But such stories are not part of science, for there is no way of putting them to the test. So, much as I should like to oblige you by jumping to the defence of gradualism, and fleshing out the transitions betweeen the major types of animals and plants, I find myself a bit short of the intellectual justification necessary for the job.
Thanks again for the writing.
Yours Sincerely,
Colin Patterson
"True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written; in writing what deserves to be read." - Pliny the Elder |
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| Here's another interesting quote...
"Evolution is unproved and unprovable. We believe it only because the only alternative is special creation, and that is unthinkable."
- Sir Arthur Keith (he wrote the forward to the 100th anniversary edition of Darwin's Origin of the Species 1959)
"I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody." Barack Obama |
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| Date Posted: 1/8/2009
Posted By: william villis
Member Since: 12/24/2008
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| Isnt this a gaming site? My general question is who cares about any of these letters? It sounds like a bunch of guys talking about erelevant crap ( which on a gaming site that is what this whole conversation is, erelevant ) , just trying to prove how smart they are. |
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| Who the hell is this guy?
"I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody." Barack Obama |
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| "In several animal and plant groups, enough fossils are known to bridge the wide gaps between existing types. In mammals, for example, the gap between horses, asses and zebras (genus Equus) and their closest living relatives, the rhinoceroses and tapirs, is filled by an extensive series of fossils extending back sixty-million years to a small animal, Hyracotherium, which can only be distinguished from the rhinoceros-tapir group by one or two horse-like details of the skull. There are many other examples of fossil 'missing links', such as Archaeopteryx, the Jurassic bird which links birds with dinosaurs (Fig. 45), and Ichthyostega, the late Devonian amphibian which links land vertebrates and the extinct choanate (having internal nostrils) fishes." (Patterson, 1978, p. 130)
"True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written; in writing what deserves to be read." - Pliny the Elder |
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| Date Posted: 1/8/2009
Posted By: Hayden Smith
Member Since: 8/15/2008
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| I dont know, but he seems rather rude. I was enjoying the conversation myself. I mean its like this, if you dont like the conversation, get out of it. Dont pay attention to it. But most of all, william, dont dissrespect people that you dont even know! |
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| I agree special creation is unthinkable. It's also unproved and unprovable.
"True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written; in writing what deserves to be read." - Pliny the Elder |
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 | Date Posted: 1/8/2009
Posted By: Paul King
Member Since: 4/12/2008
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| ??????????
Sure its a magic site, but a lot of people know each other. So if they like to talk about science they'll talk. As for me I think that the theory of evoultion and the special creation are intermixed. I am Christian so I believe in creation but I also think that evoultion could have been part of the creation. Just an idea. Days don't have to be 24 hours but thousands of years.
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| I'm not sure how much of these examples are truly transitional fossils. The Hyracotherium is widely considered the first of the equine; however, this fossil really only applies towards species variation, which I'm not arguing. I don't believe the Archaeopteryx (why do they make all these names so hard to spell?) is a missing link between birds and dinosaurs. The same is true for the Ichthyyostega. In reality, these fossils paint interesting pictures of supposed evolution of simple organisms into more complex ones; however, there is simply no way of knowing if these are truly ancestors of more advanced life forms. If it can't be tested and isn't falsifiable, then it isn't science.
I guess that was the whole point of this thread. Can simpler life forms through natural mutation and natural selection evolve into more complex life forms? I posit that they cannot and it cannot be proved that they can. It is not testable nor observable and therefore not science.
"I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody." Barack Obama |
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| https://web.gsc.edu/fs/bhaag/images/cartoon.gif
"I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody." Barack Obama |
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| "Only a tiny fraction of corpses fossilize, and we are lucky to have as many intermediate fossils as we do. We could easily have had no fossils at all, and still the evidence for evolution from other sources, such as molecular genetics and geographical distribution, would be overwhelmingly strong. On the other hand, evolution makes the strong prediction that if a SINGLE fossil turned up in the wrong geological stratum, the theory would be blown out of the water.
Gap, by default in the mind of the creationist, are filled by god." (Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion p. 154)
"True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written; in writing what deserves to be read." - Pliny the Elder |
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| Date Posted: 1/8/2009
Posted By: Matthew Ratz
Member Since: 2/29/2008
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| Wow quotes from 30-50 years ago.
I have been conversing with an old dood (Picture at least) on the Facebook and his main argument seems to be that since we taught creationism since the inception of the country a few hundred years ago and we taught it for a long time then we should still be teaching it. As though we we're unable to make any kind of progress in science or education. Black people used to be property!
The video I mention is in the expelled thread but I will post it again here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVRsWAjvQSg
The man talking is a practicing Roman Catholic who sees no problem with having Faith and Accepting Evolution. It would seem that the Reverand who is Moderating is also Ok with it.
It is rather long, but very good. So if you have an hour to burn Watch it (with sound)
He talks about a lot of things and shows a lot of things. As far as transitions are concerned he goes into details about Whales and Dolphins elvolving from Land Mammals. He talks about Genetics and how they help prove. He talks about the Lawsuits he testified in to get ID thrown out of schools. Lawsuits that were presided over by Bush Appointed Super Conservative Judges (Who were then called radical liberals after the verdict).
A Quote that I love from the TV program about the Dover Trial (Discovery Channel I think) was a reporter who talked to one of the scientists testifying and asked "Why don't we know this?" 'We' being the everyday American. And 'This' being all the information / proof about Evolution.
If the video isn't enough for you then I need you to answer one very simple question.
What do you need to see to Accept Evolution?
Here is what I need. Evidence. Call me doubting Thomas. And right now there is Zero evidence (at least that I have ever come across) that supports ID. I keep asking and I get nothing. I get talk about how things couldn't have happened, but no one is actually testing to see that it couldn't have happened (Micheal Behe.) Show me evidence. Show the world. Change the way we all think, and win a Nobel Prize in the process.
But looking at something and saying "This looks to complex to have occured naturally. Godidit" Is just super Lazy. And more importantly not science or something we should be teaching our kids.
Like I said please watch the video. It is very informative.
Playing to Win is Playing for Fun - Matthew Ratz |
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| Date Posted: 1/8/2009
Posted By: Matthew Ratz
Member Since: 2/29/2008
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| now the picture is funny.... but just not true. Just because you don't Accept Evolution doesn't make it false. Just like me not Accepting my gay son doesn't make him any less gay. (He's not gay, or at least he is too young for us to know.)
Here is a nice descriptive picture.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30150148&o=all&op=1&view=all&subj=24093214725&aid=-1&id=1440790292&oid=24093214725
and another.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30172045&o=all&op=1&view=all&subj=24093214725&aid=-1&id=1440790292&oid=24093214725
Hopefully you can see them without having to log into the facebook.
Playing to Win is Playing for Fun - Matthew Ratz |
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| Date Posted: 1/8/2009
Posted By: Matthew Ratz
Member Since: 2/29/2008
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| Oh and my skill in programming is only good enough to actually hit 1 link per post! you'll have to cut and paste the other!
Playing to Win is Playing for Fun - Matthew Ratz |
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| I love the Magic, Alchemy, Astrology, and Phrenology as subjects. I wish I would have learned about Alchemy in school.
"True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written; in writing what deserves to be read." - Pliny the Elder |
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| Firstly, we need to throw ID right out of this conversation. I didn't bring it up and had no intentions of going there (except merely for comparative situations which may arise later). The sole intention of this discussion is to determine whether or not there is enough evidence to put portions of evolutionist theory into science classrooms. These portions include the origins of life, the ability for a single-celled organism to evolve in to a multi-cellular organism, more generally, for simpler functional systems to grow into more complex systems (e.g. a fin into a leg or arm), and other problematic areas of evolution (which I will list later).
A Question...
Does the whole primordial soup origins of life from non-life belong in a science textbook? If so, why?
"I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody." Barack Obama |
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| But looking at something and saying "This looks to complex to have occured naturally. Godidit" Is just super Lazy. And more importantly not science or something we should be teaching our kids.
I agree that saying "This is too complex to happen naturally, therefore God did it" is not evidence. But to be fair, for scientists to say, "Well we have a super complex system here, we can't explain how it got here, it must be evolution!" is equally ridiculous.
"I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody." Barack Obama |
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| Date Posted: 1/8/2009
Posted By: Matthew Ratz
Member Since: 2/29/2008
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| Yes I agree that "Well we have a super complex system here, we can't explain how it got here, it must be evolution!" is equally ridiculous. But no respected scientist has ever said that. That isn't what science is. They see the super copmplex system and try to work out its intricacies and details. And they do and have. they can and do explain how they got there. watch the video.... please.
And I'm not sure they talk about "Origins" of life in biology books. I think they stick with "Life is here, how did it get from point A to point B. Even if the books do deal with ambiogenisis, that isn't the same as evolution.
And if there is a reasonable natural explaination for the origins of life that can be seen in a fossile record or duplicated in a lab then yes It should be in a text book. And if their are multiple Hypothesis and they can all be seen and tested for then they should all be taught.
Playing to Win is Playing for Fun - Matthew Ratz |
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| "There are many transitional fossils. The only way that the claim of their absence may be remotely justified, aside from ignoring the evidence completely, is to redefine "transitional" as referring to a fossil that is a direct ancestor of one organism and a direct descendant of another. However, direct lineages are not required; they could not be verified even if found. What a transitional fossil is, in keeping with what the theory of evolution predicts, is a fossil that shows a mosaic of features from an older and more recent organism.
Transitional fossils may coexist with gaps. We do not expect to find finely detailed sequences of fossils lasting for millions of years. Nevertheless, we do find several fine gradations of fossils between species and genera, and we find many other sequences between higher taxa that are still very well filled out." http://www.toarchive.org/indexcc/CC/CC200.html - Also lists examples of fossil transitions.
"Some important factors prevent the formation of fossils from being common:
Fossilization itself is not a particularly common event. It requires conditions that preserve the fossil before it becomes scavenged or decayed. Such conditions are common only in a very few habitats, such as river deltas, peat bogs, and tar pits. Organisms that do not live in or near these habitats will be preserved only rarely.
Many types of animals are fragile and do not preserve well.
Many species have small ranges. Their chance of fossilization will be proportionally small.
The evolution of new species probably is fairly rapid in geological terms, so the transitions between species will be uncommon.
Passenger pigeons, once numbered in the billions, went extinct less than 200 years ago. How many passenger pigeon fossils can you find? If they are hard to find, why should we expect to find fossils that are likely from smaller populations and have been subject to millions of years of potential erosion?
Other processes destroy fossils. Erosion (and/or lack of deposition in the first place) often destroys hundreds of millions of years or more of the geological record, so the geological record at any place usually has long gaps. Fossils can also be destroyed by heat or pressure when buried deep underground.
As rare as fossils are, fossil discovery is still rarer. For the most part, we find only fossils that have been exposed by erosion, and only if the exposure is recent enough that the fossils themselves do not erode.
As climates change, species will move, so we cannot expect a transition to occur all at one spot. Fossils often must be collected from all over a continent to find the transitions.
Only Europe and North America have been well explored for fossils because that is where most of the paleontologists lived. Furthermore, regional politics interfere with collecting fossils. Some fabulous fossils have been found in China only recently because before then the politics prevented most paleontology there.
The shortage is not just in fossils but in paleontologists and taxonomists. Preparing and analyzing the material for just one lineage can take a decade of work. There are likely hundreds of transitional fossils sitting in museum drawers, unknown because nobody knowledgeable has examined them.
Description of fossils is often limited to professional literature and does not get popularized. This is especially true of marine microfossils, which have the best record.
If fossilization were so prevalent and young-earth creationism were true, we should find indications in the fossil record of animals migrating from the Ark to other continents." http://www.toarchive.org/indexcc/CC/CC200_1.html
"The idea that gradual change should appear throughout the fossil record is called phyletic gradualism. It is based on the following tenets:
New species arise by the transformation of an ancestral population into its modified descendants.
The transformation is even and slow.
The transformation involves most or all of the ancestral population.
The transformation occurs over most or all of the ancestral species' geographic range.
However, all but the first of these is false far more often that not. Studies of modern populations and incipient species show that new species arise mostly from the splitting of a small part of the original species into a new geographical area. The population genetics of small populations allow this new species to evolve relatively quickly. Its evolution may allow it to spread into new geographical areas. Since the actual transitions occur relatively quickly and in a relatively small area, the transitions do not often show up in the fossil record. Sudden appearance in the fossil record often simply reflects that an existing species moved into a new region.
Once species are well adapted to an environment, selective pressures tend to keep them that way. A change in the environment that alters the selective pressure would then end the "stasis" (or lead to extinction).
It should be noted that even Darwin did not expect the rate of evolutionary change to be constant.
[N]atural selection will generally act very slowly, only at long intervals of time, and only on a few of the inhabitants of the same region. I further believe that these slow, intermittent results accord well with what geology tells us of the rate and manner at which the inhabitants of the world have changed (Darwin 1872, 140-141, chap. 4).
"But I must here remark that I do not suppose that the process ever goes on so regularly as is represented in the diagram, though in itself made somewhat irregular, nor that it goes on continuously; it is far more probable that each form remains for long periods unaltered, and then again undergoes modification (Darwin 1872, 152).
It is a more important consideration . . . that the period during which each species underwent modification, though long as measured by years, was probably short in comparison with that during which it remained without undergoing any change (Darwin 1872, 428, chap. 10).
"it might require a long succession of ages to adapt an organism to some new and peculiar line of life, for instance, to fly through the air; and consequently that the transitional forms would often long remain confined to some one region; but that, when this adaptation had once been effected, and a few species had thus acquired a great advantage over other organisms, a comparatively short time would be necessary to produce many divergent forms, which would spread rapidly and widely throughout the world (Darwin 1872, 433).
The imperfection of the fossil record (due to erosion and periods unfavorable to fossil preservation) also causes gaps, although it probably cannot account for all of them.
Some transitional sequences exist, which, despite an uneven rate of change, still show a gradual continuum of forms.
The fossil record still shows a great deal of change over time. The creationists who make note of the many gaps almost never admit the logical conclusion: If they are due to creation, then there have been hundreds, perhaps even millions, of separate creation events scattered through time." http://www.toarchive.org/indexcc/CC/CC201.html
"True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written; in writing what deserves to be read." - Pliny the Elder |
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 | Date Posted: 1/9/2009
Posted By: Zack Strait
Member Since: 4/9/2008
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| 7
"The shit look like ya hand when you be doin a shadow puppet for a duck n shit nahmean. Shit be lookin like it jus caught a pop fly in center field n whatever whatever nahmean." re: Ghostface Killa on lil' kim's vagina. |
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| Gap, by default in the mind of the creationist, are filled by god." (Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion p. 154)
"Gap, by default in the mind of the evolutionist, is filled by wild speculation" (Josh Hendricks, 2009)
"I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody." Barack Obama |
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| Regarding origins of life in science textbooks. With a little research I found a high-school level textbook which does indeed teach that life originated naturally through in what is called "Spontaneous Origin." The book is called "Biology:
Principles and Explorations" written by George B. Johnson and Peter H. Raven and published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston (2001). You can see the exerpt yourself at http://www.godandscience.org/evolution/biology_holt_rinehart_winston.html
I will apologize in advance for the overtly religious nature of the website ;however, the author provides actual scans and makes some interesting comments throughout. There are also some quotes at the bottom which I'll list below...
# "Refers to the state of matter before life existed, which is hypothesized to play a role in the formation of life (the origin of life).Prebiotic chemistry would produce a wealth of biomolecules from non living precursors. But the wealth soon became overwhelming, with the 'Refers to the state of matter before life existed, which is hypothesized to play a role in the formation of life (the origin of life).prebiotic soups' having the chemical complexity of asphalt (useful, perhaps, for paving roads but not particularly promising as a wellspring for life)." (Steven A. Benner, professor of Chemistry at the University of Florida)2
# "There is now overwhelmingly strong evidence, both statistical and paleontological, that life could not have been started on Earth by a series of random chemical reactions.... There simply was not enough time... to get life going." Niles Eldridge (paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History).13
"I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody." Barack Obama |
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| Date Posted: 1/14/2009
Posted By: Matthew Ratz
Member Since: 2/29/2008
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| Your quote is only a display of ignorance. But ignorance in the face of knowledge quickly becomes stupidity.
I do not know enough about ambiogenisis or Life Origins in general to participate in this argument.
But again Ambiogenisis is not Evolution.
Also I don't understand the first paragraph, And I agree completely with the second paragraph about
- "life could not have been started on Earth by a series of random chemical reactions"
This seems to be one of the failures in comprehension The series of chemical reactions was not ever "Random."
Have you watched that video yet?
Playing to Win is Playing for Fun - Matthew Ratz |
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| Date Posted: 1/14/2009
Posted By: Matthew Ratz
Member Since: 2/29/2008
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| That is a nice write up. It is written in science-speak and tries to appeal to the intellectual capacity of the reader. But, it is making 1 gigantic misrepresentation. I don't know if there is a simpler way for me to say this but if you don't get it the first time read it again.
"POINTING OUT THE PROBLEMS IN A SCIENTIFIC THEORY DOES NOT EQUAL EVIDENCE FOR YOUR EXPLAINATION"
I am sure that there are rational explainations for everything listed on that page as there usually are, but even if there aren't it just means we haven't found the answers yet.
The only thing that I am interested in and the scientific community in general is EVIDENCE things that we can see touch taste smell and hear. And then we want to test those things and for hypothesis and theories that will predict what will happen in the future. Things change, New Evidence is uncovered and spheres of thought shift.
A long long time ago, people accepted a geocentric Universe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocentric_model
Believeing that the Earth was the center of the solar system and the universe. There were maps drawn and much evidence collected that supported it. Everything worked out great, the evidence could be used to predict the motion of the planets in the sky and was correct in its predictions. Ultimately Geocentrism was proven incorrect (With a backlash from the church. If we were god's special creatures and this was our special planet then of course we are the center.)
Copernicus gathered more evidence and thought a little differently about the problem and came up with a completely new idea about how the universe works. And guess what he was right. (At least mostly, he had perfect circle orbits when in actuallity they are ovals) But you know what he didn't do? he didn't start an unfounded campaign against geocentrism without that important little factor called EVIDENCE!
If there is one undeniable constant about the history of science on earth is that the Church will vehemently deny it. because it takes away their power, and without mysticism and the supernatural how are they going to get those dolla bills.
From declaring the earth isn't flat, to Gravity, to a heliocentric solar system, the Church is always fighting, and it is a losing battle. Just like Evolution and ID. The church has zero Evidence and more importantly isn't even looking for any. Eventually this will all pass too, and then the Church will start their campaign against the life found on other planets. The only problem is that in this process, you are trying to stop children from getting a proper science education which is ultimately bad for everyone. I want one of these kids to cure cancer, or build a warp drive, or solve the global climate crisis. You want them to go to heaven.
Playing to Win is Playing for Fun - Matthew Ratz |
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| Date Posted: 1/14/2009
Posted By: Matthew Ratz
Member Since: 2/29/2008
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| After reading this page from that website
http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/natural_evil_theodicity.html
I am obliged to post this quote from a gentleman I met on the facebook.
we no longer credit a deity with making it rain because we now understand why it rains. we no longer credit a deity with making people poor/rich and
sick/well because we understand (and are increasing our understanding) of factors that contribute to these conditions. i acknowledge that my finite
mind may not be able to comprehend some behind-the-scenes deity pulling the strings... some trans-material realm where unicorns guide viral forces and
pasta warlords dictate which countries are worthy of famines and others of gluttonous abundance. i can never be absolutely sure of un-falsifiable
fantasies. but since we have increasingly adequate means for addressing what happens in life, the mysterious interventionist deity is irrelevant.
he/she/it has done such a marvelous job of hiding it's actions, that i must compliment the magician by believing in the illusion of atheism.
- Joshua Deaton (Some guy on Facebook)
Playing to Win is Playing for Fun - Matthew Ratz |
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| Hey Josh, what's the deal with quoting scientists who are pro evolution? All of the quotes are either incomplete or taken out of context. Two of the scientists have even written books on evolution. A lot of these ID sites use the same strategy, quoting a scientist. They usually end up using the same ones.
"I want one of these kids to cure cancer, or build a warp drive, or solve the global climate crisis. You want them to go to heaven." Best two sentences I've read in awhile.
"True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written; in writing what deserves to be read." - Pliny the Elder |
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| I was just posting them as I went, I didn't do any massive background checks or anything like that.
"I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody." Barack Obama |
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| "I want one of these kids to cure cancer, or build a warp drive, or solve the global climate crisis. You want them to go to heaven."
What's wrong with doing both?
That being said, this conversation has become relatively futile. I made it clear that I was not arguing for ID, but rather discussing problems and debating the credibility of evolution and, more specifically, ambiogenesis. What I seem to be getting in return is a bunch of anti-ID/anti religion backlash. Let me spell it out in plain words. I don't believe that ID is even remotely scientific. There is no evidence for it, it is not observable and not testable. The point I was making earlier (and am still making now) is that science, in all it's indisputable glory, does not observe macro-evolution, cannot test macro-evolution, cannot prove macro-evolution.
On the flip side. Scientists have managed to scrape together a significant amount of evidence to support the theory. I realize now (after having read your posts and watched your videos) that we do indeed have transitional fossils. They paint a pretty picture, but I would like to do more research before I make a further conclusion. I have questions like...Did these fossils have any children that lived? Where in the fossil shelves or strata did they appear and in what relation to other transitional fossils? How do scientists explain the Cambrian Explosion? And so on.
This is a continuing education for me and my questions are not meant to stump or to elicit a "gotcha" response. I'm truly interested in the answers.
Matt, your video of Dr. Miller was truly interesting, especially his findings on irreducible complexity and the missing 2 human chromosomes. I would like to see more on that. Any idea where I can find the more technical (or at least expanded upon) findings?
Also Matt, you mentioned in an earlier post, “This seems to be one of the failures in comprehension The series of chemical reactions was not ever "Random."”
How are these chemical reactions “not random?” Even Ken Miller defined evolution as “blind.”
"I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody." Barack Obama |
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| Josh's 2 favorite words put together...apparently "truly interesting." I'm using them enough!
Let's have the 5th paragraph read instead. "Matt, your video of Dr. Miller was wholly fascinating..."
that's better
"I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody." Barack Obama |
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| I think you may have confused everyone by first starting this post with "Consider this can of worms officially re-opened." I'm sure both Matt and I were assuming you were referring to your last hotly-debated post about the movie 'Expelled'. You followed that up by quoting Arthur Keith, "Evolution is unproved and unprovable. We believe it only because the only alternative is special creation, and that is unthinkable." I see the words 'special creation' and I think ID. Further down, you mention evolution as "not testable nor observable and therefore not science." I can't speak for Ratz, but I reckon you don't want evolution taught in schools. The whole ID thing pops up again. You follow that by posting a .gif file of a cartoon making fun of evolution being taught in schools.
"True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written; in writing what deserves to be read." - Pliny the Elder |
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| "I was just posting them as I went, I didn't do any massive background checks or anything like that."
I believe that most anti-evolution sites hope and pray that people do what you have done Josh.
If you would like to a good read on evolution, let me recommend three books for you. Carl Sagan's "The Dragons Of Earth". This was probably the first book that I read that actually tried to explain evolution to me. Sagan is excellent at taking complex ideas and explaining them in laments terms. The introduction and chapter 4 Eden As A Metaphor: The Evolution Of Man are the specific areas where he goes into detail.
Also Richard Dawkin's "River Out Of Eden: A Darwinian View Of Life" is probably the best most concise, and sometimes difficult to follow, book on evolution. If Dawkins fails at anything, it is his lack of breaking down scientific jargon into something the lament can understand without a Ph. D in biology/ zoology.
Dawkin's "The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design" is another excellent book on evolution.
If you don't want to buy the books or lack a library card you can always check out http://www.toarchive.org/faqs/comdesc/ It's a good start.
Hey Ratz, Dawkin's "The God Delusion" is at http://macroevolution.narod.ru/delusion/index.html
"True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written; in writing what deserves to be read." - Pliny the Elder |
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| Thanks for the recommendations! As you know, I'm also a fan of Sagan, so I may pick up that book. Understand also that I never limit myself to reading one side of an argument (e.g. christian websites). I always try to read material from BOTH sides of the field. I believe it's important to understand opposing views. In case anyone wants to read from another angle, I recommend "Darwin on Trial" by Phillip Johnson.
"I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody." Barack Obama |
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| Date Posted: 1/15/2009
Posted By: Matthew Ratz
Member Since: 2/29/2008
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| The evolutionary process is random in the purest sense of the word, but not to the extent that the opposers statistics try to represent. Evolution remembers the hits and disregards the misses.
To put it in context, One may complain everytime they hit a red light, because it is easy to remember when you have to stop. But it is very easy to forget how many green lights you blow through. This is also the explaination for cold-reading / psychic "abilities."
Anyway what it means is that each generation builds upon the last. Much like everything in the world. You wouldn't try to coach a baseball team without checking out what winning coaches have already done. There is the metaphor about a tornado in a junk yard building a boeing 747 or something, and that it is true how ridiculous/fantastical that would be but again it is a diliberate misrepresentation of the process. There is also the monkeys typing Shakespear analogy where it would take forever to even type out "To be or not to be" let alone the entire book. But again, If Everytime a monkey got a letter right it was locked in, then the process goes much faster. It is not as though one bacteria grew into a person over 4 billion years. That is not the process.
As far as the children of the fossils are concerned, They are the fossils. Just as my children and your children will look "skeletally" pretty much just like me and you. I guess i'm not sure I completely understand the question.
The Cambrian Explosion. From what I know about it, is also a misnomer, similar to the word "Theory." it is not totally understood because of the conontation of the word. The first time I heard about the "Explosion" I thought presumably what other people have, Wow, lots of stuff in short period of time. But it isn't like that. It is an explosion because of the amount of fossils that have been found in that time period. The period lasted some 30-50 million years. A very long "Explosion."
Also an explaination for why there was the "Explosion" of fossils has to do with vetebrates finaly having bodies that could be fossilized and the locations to actually get fossilized.
One thing I read from time to time is how scientist are amazed that we have as many fossils as we do, because of how hard it is to actually make them. It obviously takes time, which can be screwed with by erosion or scavangers or just dying in the desert. Things have to die in wet, boggy or rivery areas to get properly fossilized. There are tons and tons of bacterial fossils found from ancient oceans and lakes and that is the biggest collection of fossils (I believe) we have.
Reading, I like PandasThumb.Org I like Carl Sagan also Micheal Shermer - "Why people believe weird things." (I mentioned it before) I enjoy the YouTube for both Evolution and amusing videos against. I am currently reading "Death by Black Hole" by Neil deGrasse Tyson. He has some nice YouTubes also.
And for my Quote, There is no problem with getting both, as long as one does not interfere with the other. My emphasis is on the science part.
Playing to Win is Playing for Fun - Matthew Ratz |
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| The "children of fossils" thing was a joke. I was goofing off a little there!
You make a good point about randomness building upon it's successes and abandoning its failures; however, it must be considered that evolution must make many more mistakes than triumphs. As we all know, a majority of mutations end up being detrimental and even fatal. This is especially true for mutations in genetic code, which may not adversely affect the organism, but almost always lead to the downfall of the offspring (unless of course 2 organisms with the exact same genetic mutation should happen upon each other and mate. Doesn't disprove evolution, but certainly makes evolution pretty impressive for pulling it off! It's almost as if evolution "knew" where it was going!
As I understand the Cambrian Explosion it was a relatively short period of time wherein a large group of fully formed and diverse organisms (nearly every modern animal phyla!) appeared abruptly and seemingly from nowhere. This is a hotly debated topic amongst scientists and even prompted the notion of "punctuated equilibrium" as dubbed by Eldredge and Gould.
"I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody." Barack Obama |
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| Date Posted: 1/15/2009
Posted By: Matthew Ratz
Member Since: 2/29/2008
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| Here is a good write up about the explosion
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/03/4/l_034_02.html
there are also some good links at the top of the page.
Playing to Win is Playing for Fun - Matthew Ratz |
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