Evolution vs. Creation

[MikeF]

KJV wrote:

<quoted text>
As stated earlier:
My opinion on the Tower of Babble is not required.

http://www.youtube.com/watch...

[Elohim]

TheBlackSheep wrote:

<quoted text>
I don't know who he knew, but if you were in the Military during the Reagan Era, you most likely love him! He took us from needing food stamps and dangerously low moral, to getting paid decently and a much more healthy moral.
He and Clinton could get things done. Like them or hate them, they got people moving. Neither G or GW or Obama has been able to do that.

I was in the USN during his term.. Never cared for his politics, but he was my respected Commander in Chief. Yes, I did enjoy the extra dough.

[Thomas Robertson]

HTS said:
"Evolution fits with your amoral view of the world."

Amorality on the part of Evolutinists is nothing more than a Creationist-made straw man.
I have often seen the words "anthing goes" put in the mouth of Evolutionists, but I've never seen those words documented.

If you read the works of Lorenz, Yinbergen, and Eibl-Eibesfeldt, you will see that animal life is orderly.

I don't see how you could ask for better proof that an orderly society is passed from generation to generation in the evolutionary interests of the species.

Are you contending that morality was introduced to our species by religion? I don't see how you can make such a claim. All religion ever did was write down the moral prohibitions which had already been instilled in our brains for millions of years and pretend that those prohibitions were delivered by God.

[Thomas Robertson]

HTS said:
"How about 22 millions years for Hualailai eruption of 1801?"

That study was on the xenoliths (foreign rocks) in the lava, not on the lava itself.

HTS said:
"How about 1.2 million years for Mt. St. Helens?"

Likewise for St. Helens.
That study was conducted by Creationist Steve Austin, who probably aimed his shots at the xenolits on purpose, just to prove doctrine.

[Thomas Robertson]

HTS wrote:
"I found an arrowhead once. I think I'll send a rock that I found next to it to a lab and then I'll know when the arrowhead was made. Does that sound like good science?"

It would make at least as good science as ignoring the distinction between lava and xenoliths--like you just did.

[HTS]

It aint necessarily so wrote:

<quoted text>
Rejected again, for reasons given ad nauseum.
There is no part of my defense of evolution that depends on the disproof of your god. They are separate arguments, and the argument against the possibility of a god stands alone.
If the odds of a cell arranging itself without an intelligent designer are fixed at 1 x 10E-40000 - and you were tickled pink to offer such ridiculous numerical flim-flammery when it suited you - then the odds of a god doing the same thing are not even worth considering.
You can't have it both ways.
And now you are looking for a way to undermine this statistical argument retroflexed back at you with nonsense about it being a religion, as if that were a criticism coming from a theist.
I don't like your dishonesty. It's all special pleading, which is dishonest. I am repulsed by the poverty of spirit that allows you argue this way - to think that you can have special rules and special arguments for Jesus, and that others will not notice. You offer arguments that you won't accept when turned back on you, and you do it shamelessly.

Your logic is fundamentally flawed ...
1. You accept an improbability of 10^-40,000, which is literally impossible.
2. You assign a probability to a divine creator by making religious assumptions, which you cannot make.

[HTS]

Thomas Robertson wrote:

HTS said:
"How about 22 millions years for Hualailai eruption of 1801?"
That study was on the xenoliths (foreign rocks) in the lava, not on the lava itself.
HTS said:
"How about 1.2 million years for Mt. St. Helens?"
Likewise for St. Helens.
That study was conducted by Creationist Steve Austin, who probably aimed his shots at the xenolits on purpose, just to prove doctrine.

And how can you guarantee that xenoliths aren't included in any sediment that is measured?

[Elohim]

HTS wrote:

<quoted text>Your logic is fundamentally flawed ...
1. You accept an improbability of 10^-40,000, which is literally impossible.
2. You assign a probability to a divine creator by making religious assumptions, which you cannot make.

The formula used was one supplied by you. Looks like you've been hoisted upon your own petard.

[polymath257]

HTS wrote:

<quoted text>Your logic is fundamentally flawed ...
1. You accept an improbability of 10^-40,000, which is literally impossible.
2. You assign a probability to a divine creator by making religious assumptions, which you cannot make.

The problem is that the calculation of 10^(-40,000) was based on incorrect assumptions: that the individual pieces were developed independently (in the probabilistic sense) and that the full development happened all at once. Neither of these assumptions is anywhere close to correct.

A much better estimate of the probability would be to determine the total entropy of a cell and that of the beginning materials. At least, that would give a baseline. Even that, though, would not be enough because we would still need to know the exact mechanism to determine the chemical potentials that need to be surmounted.

In other words, the calculation you quoted is badly wrong and any attempt to correct it is going to be impossible without knowing the specific conditions under which cells initially developed.

[Thomas Robertson]

HTS said:
"You just assume that all of the correct mutations will appear at the proper times."

An air-breathing mutation may have appeared in fish hundreds of times, but it never served an evolutionary function until amphibian times.

The nylon-digesting mutation may have appeared in microbes hundreds of times, but it never served an evolutionary function until after the invention of nylon.

And no, the correct mutation sometimes won't appear at the proper time. Whatever killed the tribolites wasn't resisted with a mutation. Whatever killed most of the dinosaurs wasn't resisted with a mutation.

I explained all this to you before, but it went in one ear and out the other, right along with everything else we try to tell you.

[ByronMoreno]

woodtick57 wrote:

<quoted text>New and improved ULTRA-GOD!!!
Order now and you can recieve three ULTRA-GOD!!!s for the price of one.(promotion not available in Salt lake City.)
ULTRA-GOD!!! can solve all your pesky theological conundrums and impossibilities.
Order now! Operators always have been, and always will be standing by...

Not to nit pick, but shouldn't ULTRA-GOD know that I'm going to call? I mean, it's preordained, so my shipment should arrive before I even place the call.

Otherwise, it's a scam, and I'm reporting you to the BBB.

[polymath257]

HTS wrote:

<quoted text>And how can you guarantee that xenoliths aren't included in any sediment that is measured?

A competent geologist can tell the difference. So either the creationist geologist was incompetent or was actively lying.

[KittenKoder]

HTS wrote:

<quoted text>Your logic is fundamentally flawed ...
1. You accept an improbability of 10^-40,000, which is literally impossible.
2. You assign a probability to a divine creator by making religious assumptions, which you cannot make.

You can formulate probability on the hypothetical. It's done all the time in science as a starting point for discovery.

[ByronMoreno]

It aint necessarily so wrote:

http://www.topix.net/forum/sta te/la/T9QUH2OMJGJK10DEH/post43 819
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If you aren't already aware, these aren't his arguments, and there is no evidence that he understands them, can defend them, or can answer any of your questions. This is a classic example of what happens when you answer somebody's cut-and-paste, made even more annoying when it is plagiarized. My objection to the plagiarism isn't limited to the stealing. It's also the lying - the implication that the poster must understand it since he wrote it.
Interestingly, he will give attribution when he thinks that his source will be received as authoritative, but at other times, he doesn't. He plagiarized (no quotes, no link, and no reference to another author) the one you are responding to: http://www.topix.com/forum/state/la/T9QUH2OMJ...

Sadly, I didn't bother to check. Thanks for the heads up.

As a (former) engineer who had to take thermo, I'm appalled at the lack of understanding by creationists. It *has* to be willful, as the truth is easy to find.

[ByronMoreno]

Subduction Zone wrote:

It is fairly obvious that Woofy knows nothing of the medical field. He claims two college undergrad degrees yet his skills with the English language are those of someone who barely got his high school diploma. He shows no interest in learning either. Anyone I know that had more than one degree got them because they had a hunger for knowledge. Woofy only shows a hunger for bullshit.

What about "Doctor" Kent Hovind?:)

[ByronMoreno]

polymath257 wrote:

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For decades that was true. It is no longer true with the discovery of string theory.
<quoted text>
Until the development of string theory, that is true.
Once again, the difficulties mentioned have been solved. They are no longer the obstacle they were 30 years ago. Greene knows that and was probably leading up to the development of string theory (or some of the alternatives that have been discovered recently).
YOU take the quotes out of context and misunderstand them and think they make *your* argument. They do not.

Remember, if *we* quote the bible, even in context, we're simply taking something out of context. If *they* quote a scientist, even out of context, it's evidence.

[TedHOhio]

HTS wrote:

<quoted text>Ted, all I've ever tried to do is engage in scientific discussion. All you can do is repeat the same recycled atheist BS that you've blindly swallowed. You will do anything except defend the evolutionary thesis with scientific logic.
So, you ignore ID and assume that mechanisms that you do not understand just evolved into existence without any intelligent force. That's not science... it's religion. You don't have any idea how a sea turtle navigates in open ocean... You just have faith that whatever the mechanism is, it didn't require intelligence to create. That is profound stupidity.

Let me get this straight. You come in here, make a bunch of unsupported proclaimations about evolution, accuse anyone who disagrees with you of being an atheist ... accuse a valid, vibrant, useful, and used scientific theory of being an atheistic theory, get extremely rude in your dealings with other people ... and you think this constitutes a scientific debate.

You're kidding, right?

Scientific debate first starts with science, which you have yet to offer.

Debate also involves allowing opoosing points of view -- which your behavior is an obvious effort to shut down.

It also involves paying attention to the supporting material presented. Which in your case you never present and when presented by those in opposition to you, you ignore.

When people opposing you get tired of all your foolish little word games and refusal to support your contenitons -- and they call you on it repeatedly -- you start claiming how you won all these arguments because of your science.

How do you look at yourself in the mirror after such blatant lies and misrepresentations?

[Subduction Zone]

HTS wrote:

<quoted text>Your logic is fundamentally flawed ...
1. You accept an improbability of 10^-40,000, which is literally impossible.
2. You assign a probability to a divine creator by making religious assumptions, which you cannot make.

You have never demonstrated that there is a "improbability of 10^40,000". Perhaps if someone did people might believe them. That is people who weren't complete fools. Creationists always make worse assumptions than IANS did in his simple "proof". You can't tell when someone is using sarcasm against you by using the same idiotic "proofs" that you try to use.

[Subduction Zone]

HTS wrote:

<quoted text>And how can you guarantee that xenoliths aren't included in any sediment that is measured?

Even if he did not date the zenoliths the reason he got nonsensical answers is that he tested material that he knew was too young to test. You can read about all he did wrong at Talk Origins, but this is what he did wrong in dating the rock of Mt. St. Helens:

Though Austin described himself as "an age-dating agnostic", he was eager to share with us the fact that he alone had radiometrically dated the Mt. St. Helens lava dome. Using potassium/argon dating, he determined a lava dome age of 350,000 years. His unstated conclusion was that radiometric methods are unreliable and give all sorts of bogus dates. There are, however, several other explanations of his results.

First, Austin sent young, low-potassium (and therefore very low in radiogenic argon) rocks to Geochron Laboratories, which specifically states in its advertisements: "We are not in a position to analyze samples expected to be younger than 2 M.Y." (Geotimes 1995-7). He did it anyway and specifically states in his paper that "No information was given to the lab concerning where the dacite came from or that the rock has a historically known age (Austin 1997)". This puts potentially large error-bars on the data and also opens his research to ethical questions. In response to the original post, Andrew MacRae replied "...all Austin has proven is that if you do something silly, and misapply K/Ar dating to rocks erupted yesterday, you get nonsensical age results" (MacRae 1998). Henry Barwood notes that "Bad measurements, like bad science, reflect only on the measurer (Austin), not on the measurement (the procedure)(Barwood 1998)."

Second, Austin may have dated some of the solid material that came up with the lava rather than the lava itself. Austin also mentioned that the lava contained xenoliths - pieces of solid rock that came up with the lava. Although Austin stated that he was careful to remove the xenoliths, we have no proof that he succeeded, and he apparently made no effort to date the xenoliths separately. Austin's date was published in a "peer-reviewed" journal (Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal) only in the sense that the journal was published by other creationists. The peer-review process of a mainstream geology journal would have demanded that he explain his unusual results more completely. Therefore, contamination by rock that is 350,000 years old or older remains a possibility.

Third, some of Austin's previous forays into the radiometric dating of rocks demonstrate that he is not an expert in this field. Austin is the head of the ICR's "Grand Canyon Dating Project". As such, he is committed to casting doubt on the radiometric ages of the lavas in the Grand Canyon. In a 1992 publication, ICR Impact #224: "Excessively Old 'Ages' for Grand Canyon Lava Flows", Austin asserted that he found Cenozoic (relatively recent) lavas that gave Rb/Sr ages of 1.34 billion years. These assertions are completely debunked in Chris Stassen's "Criticism of the ICR's Grand Canyon Dating Project" at the Talk.Origins Archive. Stassen points out that Austin's Grand Canyon lavas came from different flows, and the "ages" of the flows may actually represent a minimum age for the mantle that served as source material for the flows. Donald Wise notes that other geologists have determined consistent radiometric dates for these same rocks (Wise 1998:165). Despite the obvious problems with Austin's methods, Impact #224 is alive, well, and available at the ICR museum.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/icr-visit/bar...

One thing that is important about science is that the experimentation is open, honest, and repeatable. Austin's work fails all three of these demands.

[Subduction Zone]

ByronMoreno wrote:

<quoted text>
What about "Doctor" Kent Hovind?:)

At least "Doctor" Hovind never claimed to be a medical doctor. I have even heard him admit that the "college" he went to was a non-accredited one. In other words "Doctor" Hovind admitted that his degree was not worth the paper it was printed on.