Should evolution be taught in high school?

[Urban Cowboy]

Liam R wrote:

<quoted text>
But if your God was from another universe, then He had to have been created there, or by your own claim that nothing designs itself, He could not have existed there to be able to come here.
And (as usual) you are wrong about things ordering themselves. The second law of thermodynamics clearly states that that applies ONLY in a COMPLETELY closed system. Neither the Earth, nor the solar system are closed systems. As long as the Earth is getting energy from an outside source,(the Sun) things can INCREASE in order.

But that is not what we observe. Everything on earth is detereorating including the genome. It is accumulating mutations which are copy errors. The crap about us not being a closed system is a big lie. Your genome, your clothes, your car; everything is wearing down, waxing old, cooling down and deteriorating and consistent with the 2nd Law and entropy. There is nothing in this universe that is becoming more complex with time.

[Mugwump]

Urban Cowboy wrote:

<quoted text>
There is nothing in this universe that is becoming more complex with time.

Seed ---> oak tree ?
Zygote ---> adult ?

Now what do you think is happening here, will give you a clue it rhymes with smenergy

[KittenKoder]

Urban Cowboy wrote:

<quoted text>
But that is not what we observe. Everything on earth is detereorating including the genome. It is accumulating mutations which are copy errors. The crap about us not being a closed system is a big lie. Your genome, your clothes, your car; everything is wearing down, waxing old, cooling down and deteriorating and consistent with the 2nd Law and entropy. There is nothing in this universe that is becoming more complex with time.

Tsk tsk, changing the meanings of things to suit your own fallacy. Actually though, you do realize that you are asserting your own god is a moron each time you try to make this claim, right?

[Mugwump]

Urban Cowboy wrote:

<quoted text>
They may have been sought after for their fur. Koala fur is thick and very soft and luxurious to the touch. The ladies may have enjoyed Koala coats, purses and whatnot.

Your just so story needs a bit of work - care to address the following (have asked)

The bible suggests the 'kinds' made their own way to their destinations, so your idea about man taking them is blasphemous as the bible is always true, right

So we are back to how did they survive with no eucalyptus to feed on - unless you can prove that the trees grow up time to support the critters (few weeks ?- that is some fertilizer)- oh and the trees managed to sprout in the sea- or were these land bridges (another 'just so story') lined with eucalyptus trees

How come we don't find any evidence of them except in Oz

This is the problem with you URB, you are inconsistent, you insist that ToE is not science because it relies on the unobservable (wrong anyway - but bear with me)- then insist creation science IS real science even though

A) the creation event wasn't observed
B) you have to make up 'just so' stories to fill the gaps
C) and can provide no evidence or land bridges paved with the green stuff.

Your double standards are frankly remarkable - of course I pointed this out several times in the past - but true to form you refused to answer the awkward questions.

[Mugwump]

KittenKoder wrote:

<quoted text>
Tsk tsk, changing the meanings of things to suit your own fallacy. Actually though, you do realize that you are asserting your own god is a moron each time you try to make this claim, right?

Notice, how his argument works - its basically
A) earth is a closed system
B) inanimate objects deteriorate
C) genome deteriorates

Conclusion - he is right - now can you see what is wrong here I'll give you a clue .... A multiple choice in fact (that was the clue)

No, he is right - a deteriorating car is a perfect analogy - I am a convert - amen brother (sorry sister)

[appleboy]

KittenKoder wrote:

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Then you haven't even researched creationism, it's not me being dishonest, it's you. Hovind started the Discovery Institute here in Seattle, which is where ALL of your erroneous information is from.

Yup, Creationism IS Hovindism.

[Chimney1]

Urban Cowboy wrote:

<quoted text>
They may have been sought after for their fur. Koala fur is thick and very soft and luxurious to the touch. The ladies may have enjoyed Koala coats, purses and whatnot.

This is all very sweet, but there is a lot more to it.

Australia has a long fossil record of marsupials, with the same pattern of evolution as is universal for all creatures. The difference with Australia is that it was connected to other continents a VERY long time ago, when marsupials were everywhere, but then isolated,(consistent with plate tectonics) so that when placental mammals evolved, they had no way to Aust. So there, marsupials continued to evolve...as shown, of course, by series of fossils...but in the rest of the world, placentals out-competed them.

The sister continent of South America also had any marsupials in the geologic record, showing a very similar pattern independently...until a land bridge formed with North America which split from Europe carrying a cargo of placentals. With the new land bridge they overtook the marsupials in South America there but there is one last refugee, the opossum, which continued to survive and thrive.

All of this is in the fossil record. None of it makes sense with your YEC. All of it makes sense with evolution (and real geology). Its all a small part of the huge interlocking series of evidences that make a mockery of your fantasy.

[Chimney1]

MikeF wrote:

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Oh wow. Uppercase. How impressive.
Just what percentage of species do you think would get fossilized?

Don't be too harsh. I asked for his specific requirements and UC said:

IF EVOLUTION WERE REALLY TRUE (WHICH IT'S NOT) WE SHOULD BE UP TO OUR NECKS IN CLEAR, UNAMBIGUOUS SETS OF STEPWISE TRANSITIONS FROM ONE TYPE TO A DIFFERENT TYPE BUT NOTHING. WE WOULD ALSO HAVE AT LEAST SEEN A CLEAR CASE OF MUTATION PLUS SELECTION LEADING TO SOME NASCENT FUNCTION OR INCREASED COMPLEXITY BUT NEVER ONE.

Since we obviously have that in spades, he should become an "evolutionist" soon. Like, some time before the heat death of the universe.

[Chimney1]

Urban Cowboy wrote:

<quoted text>
But that is not what we observe. Everything on earth is detereorating including the genome. It is accumulating mutations which are copy errors. The crap about us not being a closed system is a big lie. Your genome, your clothes, your car; everything is wearing down, waxing old, cooling down and deteriorating and consistent with the 2nd Law and entropy. There is nothing in this universe that is becoming more complex with time.

Utter crap. If your understanding of the 2nd law goes this far, its merely a condescending indulgence to even continue to discuss anything with you. There is obviously a lot of benign condescension around. You should be embarrassed to be accepting such charity.

[Maccoat]

Urban Cowboy wrote:

<quoted text>
Why would they not be able to breed if they did not have accumulated too many deletereous mutations at that point? Please explain because that makes absolutely no sense.

Simple, if you get your sister pregnate there will be some genetic disorders. That is the main reason that most species kick out the males in the family after they are developed. So after the flood there will be two rabbits. After they mated there would be more rabbits, but the second generation can only mate will the rabbits in their family. Then their children would have severe genetic disorders that would kill them and the rabbit goes extinct.

[Urban Cowboy]

Maccoat wrote:

<quoted text> Simple, if you get your sister pregnate there will be some genetic disorders. That is the main reason that most species kick out the males in the family after they are developed. So after the flood there will be two rabbits. After they mated there would be more rabbits, but the second generation can only mate will the rabbits in their family. Then their children would have severe genetic disorders that would kill them and the rabbit goes extinct.

Not at all. That would not have been a problem back then close to the beginning because there would not have been too many mutations. TO have accumulated only a few hundred mutations in a genome that has 100s of millions of nucleotides. There would have been too few generations and too few accumulated deletereous mutations to come to the surface from a close family mix. It's a big problem now but no reason to believe it was then.

[Urban Cowboy]

KittenKoder wrote:

<quoted text>
Tsk tsk, changing the meanings of things to suit your own fallacy. Actually though, you do realize that you are asserting your own god is a moron each time you try to make this claim, right?

No, this is exactly what he said would happen. And He gave us ever lasting life. Ask yourself how ancient man would have known about the 2nd law of thermodynamics? Also ask yourself how they would have known about genetic mutations and the dangers of inbreeding thousands of years before science figured it out?

[Urban Cowboy]

Chimney1 wrote:

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Utter crap. If your understanding of the 2nd law goes this far, its merely a condescending indulgence to even continue to discuss anything with you. There is obviously a lot of benign condescension around. You should be embarrassed to be accepting such charity.

You poor fools are so hooked on the koolaid and pablum spoon fed to you zombies for so long that you can't tell right from wrong anymore.

[Urban Cowboy]

Mugwump wrote:

<quoted text>
Seed ---> oak tree ?
Zygote ---> adult ?
Now what do you think is happening here, will give you a clue it rhymes with smenergy

How is a continuously living organism, where it's core language is slowly deteriorating, defeating entropy?

[Chimney1]

Urban Cowboy wrote:

<quoted text>
You poor fools are so hooked on the koolaid and pablum spoon fed to you zombies for so long that you can't tell right from wrong anymore.

Really? well, the 2nd law is not violated by life, or snowflakes, or glaciers, or the formation of planets, or any number of examples where an increase in order occurs within a greater flux towards disorder. Never was.

[polymath257]

Urban Cowboy wrote:

<quoted text>
But that is not what we observe. Everything on earth is detereorating including the genome. It is accumulating mutations which are copy errors. The crap about us not being a closed system is a big lie. Your genome, your clothes, your car; everything is wearing down, waxing old, cooling down and deteriorating and consistent with the 2nd Law and entropy. There is nothing in this universe that is becoming more complex with time.

There are many situations where things become more structured or complex, espcially in situations that are far from equilibrium. Take, for example, a thin layer of liquid over a heating element (just make sure the liquid doesn't boil). it won't take much time for the nice, smooth liquid to break up into convection cells, often starting out hexagonal, and them becoming more complex over time.

You have a *very* simplistic idea of what the 2nd law says. First, entropy is NOT the same as disorder. There are situations where order increases even though entropy increases (water and oil separating spontaneously, for example). Also, order/disorder and complexity are very different things. The 2nd law says *nothing* about complexity. It says very little about disorder. It says something about available energy. In an open system, the available energy can increase when there is energy coming in.

[polymath257]

Urban Cowboy wrote:

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How is a continuously living organism, where it's core language is slowly deteriorating, defeating entropy?

What do you think the entropy is of the DNA? You do realize that there is no entropy in a 'core language', right? Entropy is a property of physical systems. It is also a distributed property: if you take two systems, the combined entropy simply adds up. So the entropy of a grown tree is many, many times that of a seed.

[Chimney1]

Urban Cowboy wrote:

<quoted text>
How is a continuously living organism, where it's core language is slowly deteriorating, defeating entropy?

Simple. Its core is not slowly deteriorating, as evidenced by laboratory tests. In fact the core can recover, by those lab tests. Violating the hypothesis of Mullers ratchet, and Sanford's insistence that the genome must be deteriorating.

Not only making a laughing stock of your future predictions, but your past assumptions. There was no point in time when the genome was "perfect" or nearly so.

[polymath257]

Urban Cowboy wrote:

<quoted text>
You poor fools are so hooked on the koolaid and pablum spoon fed to you zombies for so long that you can't tell right from wrong anymore.

Funny, I was thinking a similar thing about you. You claim to know what the 2nd law of thermodynamics says, but your actual arguments show you don't. A clue: it has little to nothing to do with 'order' or 'disorder'. Nor does it have anything to do with 'complexity'. It is ALL about available energy and its conversion to heat (*thermo*dynamics, you see).

[15th Dalai Lama]

Urban Cowboy wrote:

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How is a continuously living organism, where it's core language is slowly deteriorating, defeating entropy?

Too umuch of a puss to ansere me, arent't you?