The Official Perfection KOs Creationism Thread Part Four: The Genesis of Ire!

[Che Guava]

Exactly. Scientists are awful at storytelling/ fairytales. They should just stick with the hard facts. "The Plauibility of Life" written by evolutionists is an good example where you can tell these men know their stuff (biology) and when they don't. When they start speculating how evolution (nature) design something without an designer they sound very lame. Their "facilitated variation" idea doesn't address the problems it was suppose to solved and really didn't add anything new.

Bolding mine.

This is what I see as the major conflict between evolutionists and creationists: creationists see life on earth as having a specific function for which it was created, while evolutionists beleive that the only function of life is perpetuate life. A rabbit isn't a rabbit because it was meant to eat clover and be eaten by foxes, it is simply a rabbit, just like the clover is a clover and the fox is a fox. We see the rabbit around today because it was able to eat clover and avoid at least some foxes; its place could have just as easily been filled by, say, a tiny deer.

Here's an example of what I mean:

Over thousands of years, the water splashed up against this rock until it took the form that it has now: an elephant. You could make the argument that in order for this rock to take this shape, it must have gone through a very specific pattern of water-wear to reach that shape (and it did indeed). In fact, the specific conditions that make this exact shape would be something close to 1 000 000 000 to 1 (I'm making this part up, but you get the point ). Since its so unprobable that this rock would take the shape of an elephant, and yet it did, would you say that this is the product of human or divine design, or just a coincidence? Is it more likely that every rock in this desert has a specific shape all its own that could almost neer be reproduced, and we just remember this one because of its shape?

This is the way that I see natural selection. Out of the billions and billions of organic chemicals that were floating around in the primordial ooze, some stuck together in a way that allowed them to replicatethemselves. Unlikely? Very, but it only had to happen once. We see the end products of evolution, like a rabbit, and think 'how could something so complex have happened by chance?' without appreciating all the millions apon millions of 'mistakes' that died out long before we ever graced the earth. From our human eyes in the vast desert of life, we only see the elephant rock and ignore the pebbles that we are standing on.

I often hear that the chances of organic molecules spontaeneously organizing themselves into DNA is somthing in the order of 1 trillion to 1, and how could this have possibly happened on earth (as if we were all here beforehand waiting for it to happen)? I think the question is a little backwards: for all the stars in the universe with all the planets circling them, is it not likely that it would happen at least once? The odds of winning the lottery are virtually nil, and yet someone walks away with a jackpot nearly every week. The winner, from his or her own perspective, might feel like it was destined to happen. For the rest of us, we're pretty sure that was jsut luck.

Ok, too much rambling for me this morning.... need more coffee...!

 

[Phlegmak]

I belive in Creationism, it makes the world more magical dosen't it?
not some stupid thing about humans evolving from Dirt

Tekee is correct about the "making the world more magical" part. People LIKE believing in mysteries, or at least having mysteries exist. How many people believe in UFOs, or the Bermuda Triangle, or in the healing power of crystals? People like this crazy crap, so science will always be fighting an uphill battle to get into people's minds.

There are people on this forum that are the same way. Specifically, Bozo Erectus and C~G. Both want to believe in "mysterious forces" that exist in the universe. Search for Bozo Erectus's thread "Explain this you empiricists!"

 

[classical_hero]

Exactly. Scientists are awful at storytelling/ fairytales. They should just stick with the hard facts. "The Plauibility of Life" written by evolutionists is an good example where you can tell these men know their stuff (biology) and when they don't. When they start speculating how evolution (nature) design something without an designer they sound very lame. Their "facilitated variation" idea doesn't address the problems it was suppose to solved and really didn't add anything new.

Actually scientist have been very good at telling stories also. Anyone who can remember the whole mess around Pitdown man can remember what a stir is caused and how it was supposed to be the deathknell to creationsim, but it actually showed up a much bigger problem, because we now know that is it a big case of fraud. Perhaps we could talk about Embryonic Recapitulation?

Or how about this? Not at all a Whale
This imaginary creature shown here.
Was formed by the fossil fragments shown here.
Talk about a vivid imagine runnihere and yet this creature was supposed to show that whales evoled from. Obviously a few bone fragments can mean alot in the mind of an evolutionist. But latter on a few more bones were found and thi is what the creature looks like. Now that looks very much like a land creature to me.

‘All the postcranial bones indicate that pakicetids were land mammals, and … indicate that the animals were runners, with only their feet touching the ground.’

Wow, talk about a creature that seems to be a land dwelling creature, but things get even more interesting from here. A recent study in their inner ear canal shows that this creature shared absolutely no similarities sea based mammals, but they still cling onto the believe that Evolution happened, but now rather than gradual change, it was "intantaneous". More like fitting the beliefs around the evidence.

In fact, the paper affirms that the alleged change in canal structure happened ‘instantaneously’ and produced a ‘unique’ apparatus.

As you can see that scientists are very adapt at telling stories. Unfortunately they often fit the facts to suit their beliefs.

 

[The Last Conformist]

I believe I'm owed an explanation what obviously terrestrial traits that Remingtonocetus has that the sea otter has not.

 

[ironduck]

Che Guava - are you sure that's an actual rock formation? It's from a website that shows off people's skills at photomanipulation. Do you have a link to it or something? I know there are great rock formations, but I've never seen that one and the stamp makes me suspicious.

classical_hero - will you please answer my post #115?

 

[Che Guava]

Che Guava - are you sure that's an actual rock formation? It's from a website that shows off people's skills at photomanipulation. Do you have a link to it or something? I know there are great rock formations, but I've never seen that one and the stamp makes me suspicious.

Heh heh..busted. Actually, I was looking for this rock formation on google image:

It's a formation in PEI that has since collapsed. But when I looked up 'elephant rock', that one came up and I used it because, well, it looks more like an elephant I didn't actually look at the source.

In any event, the actual formation isn't important. You can use the natural one above for the argument if you like

 

[ironduck]

There are plenty of great formations, but using a fake picture is not exactly supportive of your argument

 

[Che Guava]

There are plenty of great formations, but using a fake picture is not exactly supportive of your argument

Sorry, I'll be a little more thorough on my next 10 minute break....

 

[ironduck]

Here are some good ones:

Enterprise:

Beehive:

Shoe:

Alien city:

The links are all in the sources for reference..

 

[El_Machinae]

Proof that Man was made in God's image (and that the true god is actaully Mars, god of war)

 

[Che Guava]

Here are some good ones:

The links are all in the sources for reference..

Nice!

But you know, there was some text below that pretty picture

 

[Erik Mesoy]

This is what I see as the major conflict between evolutionists and creationists:
<snip good post>
Ok, too much rambling for me this morning.... need more coffee...!

I wouldn't call it rambling, just long. And for a possibly easier example, shuffle a deck of cards, deal them out face up in a line, and work out 52!, which is a very large number.

Spoiler answer :

Around 8*10^67.
Two decks: 10^166.

Do you really think you got that particular arrangement by chance?

And before some creationist makes the argument from probability again, evolution works (by analogy) by picking up every card that isn't next to another card of the same suit and redealing them. Rinse and repeat. For a few billion years.

I believe I'm owed an explanation what obviously terrestrial traits that Remingtonocetus has that the sea otter has not.

Have some bonus popcorn.

I'll wait here with you while that explanation arrives. (That, and an answer to post #115.) The link appears to consist mostly of...

A prominent evolutionary whale expert, Thewissen, and colleagues, unearthed more bones of Pakicetus, and published their work in the journal Nature.7 The commentary on this paper in the same issue8 says, ‘All the postcranial bones indicate that pakicetids were land mammals, and … indicate that the animals were runners, with only their feet touching the ground.’ (See skeleton, right.)

...scientists correcting themselves with the scientific method in light of new evidence!
Scientist A: "Scientist B is wrong. Here's evidence."
Creationist: "Science is wrong, see previous remark for evidence."

Oh, and from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_cetaceans#Pakicetids:_the_earliest_Cetaceans.3F

The pakicetids are hoofed-mammals that are sometimes classified as the earliest whales.[1] They lived in the early Eocene, around 52 million years ago. They looked rather like dogs with hoofed feet and long, thick tails. They have been linked to whales by their ears: the structure of the auditory bulla is formed from the ectotympanic bone only, a feature shared by modern whales. It was initially thought that the ears of Pakicetus were adapted for underwater hearing, but, as would be expected from the anatomy of the rest of this creature, the ears of Pakicetus are specialized for hearing on land, and if Pakicetus is related to the ancestors of whales, underwater hearing must have been a later adaptation.[2] According to Thewissen, the teeth of Pakicetus also resemble the teeth of fossil whales, which is another link to more modern whales.[3]

For good measure,
http://www.google.no/search?q=ectotympanic+bulla

 

[Perfection]

Perhaps we could talk about Embryonic Recapitulation?

By talk about it do you actually mean talk about it or are you gonna do hit and run posting again?

I'm not going to answer every link you peddle if you don't actually have a debate!

Remember this post?
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4463768&postcount=233

Now answer TLC's question!

 

[ironduck]

But you know, there was some text below that pretty picture

What's that? I don't bother with words, I want piccies to explain everything to me!

 

[Phlegmak]

George Bush admits evolution!

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/09/25/tds-matt-lauer-and-bush/

At least, that's Jon Stewart's take on it.

 

[Cheetah]

I feel kinda sorry for Nelson.

In my admittedly biased opinion:

He got p0wned! He got KOed! He absolutely lost this debate!

Which was a bit of a surprise for me, I had expected him to do fairly well, and if not come out looking like a winner, at least come out on equal footing.

Short summary of the debate

1. The Great Hall in Samfundet, the student communitys building here in Trondheim, was more or less completely full. People were sitting in the stairs and standing along the walls. It was nice to see that so many people were interested in a debate like this.

2. The Debate Schedule
3. Paul Nelson gets 20 minutes to introduce ID.
4. Trond Amundsen gets 20 minutes to introduce evolution.
5. Then there are about 90 minutes of questions from the audience.
6. In the end there were 10 minutes of unplanned questioning between Amundsen and Nelson.

3. Nelsons Introduction
Paul Nelson started out easily and began by pointing out how few links evolutionists have found between different species, while evolution predicts that there should be many.

Next he tried to argue something that I had a bit of trouble following. He started to talk about a little worm, about 1,5 mm long, with a name I can't remember, and how evolution can't explain how it can grow from a single cell as an embryo and to a complete adult. He seemed to argue that any intermediate stage between the embryo and the adult worm would be incapable of surviving and carrying on it's genes. My guess is that he was trying to make an analogy to how organisms evolve from very few cells and up to 585 cells in this adult worm. Or maybe he was intentionaly being unclear and hoping the audience wouldn't notice. Or it's possible I simply didn't get what he was trying to say.

Next he mentioned a scientist named Wallace Arthur and a creature, Biston Betularia. The problem is that I can't remember what he was talking about on this point.

However, it might be related to the next point I remember. Nelson started to talk about an enzym that is needed to copy DNA without to many errors. This enzym again needs DNA to exist, and so on, and so on. In other words, some argument concerning irreducible complexity.

4. Amundsens Introduction
I've never been to any lecture by Amundsen before, so I have to say that I was unsure about how well he would do against Nelson, who had done a very good job presenting his points so far. Luckily, my doubts turned out to be unfounded.

In my opinion, Amundsen delievered a very good introduction. He explained what field he was an expert in, and what he was not an expert in. He pointed out roughly how evolution works, and gave examples like whales, different birds, dinosaurs to birds, etc. He also questioned the usefullness of putting science up against religion, and that evolution is accepted by most large religions. In the end he talked a bit about how he thought ID isn't a very good scientific theory.

5. Questions From The Audience
As the questions started coming in, it became clear that most of the audience who had showed up wasn't there to support ID, to say the least.

One question was asked to Amundsen to explain a bit more about how cells could evolve from dead material. Amundsen did his best to explain the current theory of Abiogenesis, that he is not an expert in that field, and how Abiogenesis is unrelated to the theory of Evolution.

The rest of the questions were mostly directed against Nelson. Not to Nelson, but against Nelson. Several of the questions were asked in a degrading manner, but Nelson did his best to answer them in a, for him, satisfactory way.

However, several times it was pointed out that he did not answer the exact, and often simple, core of the question, and was asked to clarify. At least two of the questioners stated that Nelson had misunderstood something fundamental, and one of them, who is a lecturer on NTNU, invited Nelson to come to his lectures so he could fix those misunderstandings.

6. Questioning Between Amundsen And Nelson
In the end Amundsen tried to state a few questions directly to Nelson about what exact opinions Nelson holds concerning micro- and macro-evolution, and particularly wether Nelson agreed that whales evolved from four-legged creatures, and that humans and apes have a common ancestor.

Nelson responded with several questions of his own, and wasn't particularly good at answering the questions he had gotten (Or he was somewhat good at not answering them...). This went back and forth a few times and Amundsen asked up to 4 times I think, wether Nelson believed humans and apes have a common ancestor. The final time Nelson almost answered the question.

All in all it was an ok debate. Even though I disagree enourmusly with Nelson, and felt that he stretched the facts a lot and didn't get most of his answers right, it was still unessecary of his opponents to come with the degrading comments.

As we went home after the debate, it was clear, from every single conversation that I overheard, that Nelson lost. Completly. Of course, this was far from an easy audience, but I would say that he lost. Good and hard.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Piltdown Man was not "supposed to be the death knell for Creationism". To the best of my knowledge, since evolution was already accepted by then, no one even mentioned Piltdown in the context of Creationism.

And Creationists are constrantly harping on Haeckl and Piltdown, and then say "these are just some of the many frauds science has perpetuated!!!11!!1!" But I would like to see more than these two examples.

 

[ironduck]

'Science' did not perpetuate any fraud. People perpetuate frauds. Doing so is not science.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Piltdown Man was not "supposed to be the death knell for Creationism". To the best of my knowledge, since evolution was already accepted by then, no one even mentioned Piltdown in the context of Creationism.

To be fair, we don't know the motivation behind the Piltdown forgery - it's not absolutely impossible that the perpetrator intended it as a club with which to beat creationism. (And yes, I can think of many much more likely motives.)

Now, if creationists believe that Piltdown is representative of the fossil record, they're free to try and demonstrate the fraudulent nature of other fossils. A few nutjobs like McCoy do try, but tellingly, those creationists who have approximately functional brains do not.

(Gish does insinuate that some of the Peking Man fossils are faked, but only those that were conveniently lost in WWII. One wonders why he bothers - he doesn't dispute that very similar remains from China, Indonesia, and Africa are genuine.)

 

[Masquerouge]

Actually scientist have been very good at telling stories also. Anyone who can remember the whole mess around Pitdown man can remember what a stir is caused and how it was supposed to be the deathknell to creationsim, but it actually showed up a much bigger problem, because we now know that is it a big case of fraud. Perhaps we could talk about Embryonic Recapitulation?.

The Piltdown man has been debunked SIXTY years ago. Since then we've masterized biogenetics, and the good thing about it is that it makes fossils redundant.

Since we apparently can go back as far as we want, why not bring Galileo back on the table?