Concern that the Catholic Church may backtrack on evolution

[Alonzo]

PARIS (Reuters) - Pope Benedict gathers some of his former theology students on Friday for a private weekend debate on evolution and religion, an issue conservative Christians have turned into a political cause in the United States.

Benedict, who taught theology at four German universities before rising in the Catholic Church hierarchy, has pondered weighty ideas with his former Ph.D students at annual meetings since the late 1970s without any media fuss.

But his election as pope last year and controversies over teaching evolution in the United States have aroused lively interest in this year's reunion on Sept. 1-3 at the papal summer residence of Castel Gondolfo outside Rome.

Religion and science blogs are buzzing about whether it means the Vatican will take a more critical view of evolution and possibly embrace "Intelligent Design," which claims to have scientific proof that human life could not have simply evolved.

But Father Stephan Horn, a German theologian organising the pope's meeting with 39 former students, said that reflected a misunderstanding of how the so-called "student circle" works and what the Catholic Church teaches about evolution.

"We've never drawn any conclusions in our student circle," he told Reuters by telephone from Rome. "This is an open exchange of ideas that does not aim for a conclusion.

"It has nothing to do with creationism," he added, referring to a fundamentalist Protestant view that God created the world in six days as described in the Book of Genesis. "Catholic theology does not endorse creationist views."

DARWIN UNDER ATTACK

Charles Darwin's theory of evolution has long been rejected in the United States by conservative Christians who want to have a Bible-based view of creation taught in public schools, where the church-state separation bars the teaching of religion.

More recently, Darwin's critics have campaigned to have "intelligent design" taught as a scientific alternative to evolution. President George W. Bush and other conservative politicians support this drive to "teach the controversy."

The "ID movement" does not name the designer as God, but its opponents -- including scientists who are believing Christians -- call this an unacceptable bid to sneak God into the teaching of science, which should only focus on empirical knowledge.

Catholic teaching accepts evolution as a scientific theory and does not read the Biblical story of creation literally. But it disagrees with what it calls "evolutionism," the view that the story of life has no role for God as its prime author.

"The possibility that the Creator used evolution as a tool is completely acceptable for the Catholic faith," Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, one of the two main speakers at the meeting, said last week.

Schoenborn, a close associate of Benedict, raised eyebrows last year with an article in the New York Times suggesting the Catholic Church supported the Intelligent Design movement.

He did not endorse it outright, but agreed with the ID movement's view that scientists who say evolution rules out God draw an ideological conclusion not proven by the theory.

Benedict has argued this way since his teaching days. At his inaugural mass after his election last year, he declared: "We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God."

Horn said Benedict and his students would probe further into this issue at their meeting: "We have to ask what is really scientific in Darwin's theory and its later development and where there are ideological elements that are unscientific."

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2006/8/30/worldupdates/2006-08-30T180806Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_-265455-1&sec=Worldupdates

[Technocrat]

Somehow, I find it difficult to get worked up about what the Catholic Church thinks of evolution. I find it sad, though, that they are slipping back into fundamentalist mentalities, but in the end, their approval isn't required.

[Rider]

While I don't believe in the biblical story of creation, over the years I have grown more skeptical of Darwin's theory also. I used to accept it as TRUTH as yet to be proven, but now consider it to be unlikely at best. It seems that the more knowledge is amassed in the sciences the more tenuous Darwin's theory becomes.

[Technocrat]

While I don't believe in the biblical story of creation, over the years I have grown more skeptical of Darwin's theory also. I used to accept it as TRUTH as yet to be proven, but now consider it to be unlikely at best. It seems that the more knowledge is amassed in the sciences the more tenuous Darwin's theory becomes.


How do you figure that? Could you explicate when you have time?

In my experiences, it seems a common myth circulating that Darwinian theory is getting weaker with time, and I do contribute some of that mythology to the origins of the Church, but more imporantly, to the propaganda efforts put forth by Protestant Fundamentalist groups.

One thing I have seen is that a lot of people are misinformed on what Evolution really is, largley due to the spread of misinformation. It's only natural to shy away from something if the information about it is wrong. On the contrary, Evolutionary theory hasn't gotten any weaker in the scientific community, but you're quite correct that it has in the non-science world. Most of Americans literally believe in the bible and the story of genesis; few and increasly fewer seem to believe in natural selection and it's product.


I chalk it up to being easier to accept in addition to misinformatino, but meh.

[Rider]

Technocrat wrote-...On the contrary, Evolutionary theory hasn't gotten any weaker in the scientific community...
Well, I certainly can't speak for the scientific community, but I have read some interesting arguments made by some of its members. Arguments that range from pretty complex discussions of the makeup of simple cells to the simple, such as- "why is there no evidence of giraffes with five foot necks?"
One thing that seems certain to me is that Darwinism requires a whole lot of faith to cover the gaps and fill in the holes.

[Technocrat]

Technocrat wrote-...On the contrary, Evolutionary theory hasn't gotten any weaker in the scientific community...
Well, I certainly can't speak for the scientific community, but I have read some interesting arguments made by some of its members. Arguments that range from pretty complex discussions of the makeup of simple cells to the simple, such as- "why is there no evidence of giraffes with five foot necks?"
One thing that seems certain to me is that Darwinism requires a whole lot of faith to cover the gaps and fill in the holes.


Well, I can only say consumer beware. Which scientists are these? Skepticism is a must when you at people's credentials, for there are many "scientists" out there who make a living from swindling people into thinking they are:

A. Actual scientists
B. Knowledgeable about Science.

For example, I give you Kent Hovind, the notorious Dr. Dino. The main claims he has a degree in science, but if you look at his credientials with a keen eye, his 'degree' is quite illusory. He got it from a creationist-funded diploma mill, and by that I mean he got one that's worth about as much as a degree from that fake school a recent movie parodied. I regret I cannot recall the name.

Essentially, they fabricate credentials from self-created, non-accredited universities. In those schools, they can teach whatever they want--I once found a school teaching "jesus math." And, no, I am not kidding.

I don't know why we would have to have evidence of 5ft long necked Giraffes. Is there some prediction in evolution that says there ought to be? I don't necessarily believe so. Sometimes, evolution doesn't move in even, predicable patterns, like the tides. For instance, there are several forms of snake in which there have been mutations of the spinal column. Several of the spinal segements have duplicated, making them longer.

The same holds true for Giraffes I would suspect. We might have original Giraffe population, let's call it population X, which has a neck Y length at Z time. As Z increases, and mutations occure, natural selection acts upon these mutations. If they are useful for survival to reproduction, they stay. Lets say the mutations affect the spinal column during the process of embryonic development. It doesn't necessarily follow from evolution that there be a step, inch-by-inch increase in the lenghth of a spine to another ending point at a specific. It might skip and duplicate vertebre enough so that there isn't an even flow of inch-by-inch vertebre increases. This is in addition to the fact that we don't have fossiles for every species at all times. Sadly fossiles don't form that well.

Suprisingly, there aren't that many signficant holes in Evolution; again, this is often said by the media or by non-scientists, and sadly, it's a meme that easily spreads. Would you mind mentioning any? From my analysis of it, it doesn't require that much faith--any more than knowing the sun will come up tomorrow.

[Rider]

Technocrat wrote- Well, I can only say consumer beware. Which scientists are these? Skepticism is a must when you at people's credentials, for there are many "scientists" out there who make a living from swindling people into thinking they are:

A. Actual scientists
B. Knowledgeable about Science.
I'm pretty well aware of those that you mention. However, skepticism is a two way street, no? The works of charlatans are pretty easy to detect if you've been an active reader for a few decades, too.

It's been said that Darwinism is the scriptural dogma of secular humanism and I believe that there is truth to that. Any scientist embarking on a career had better think twice about questioning the "scriptures".

...We might have original Giraffe population, let's call it population X, which has a neck Y length at Z time. As Z increases, and mutations occure, natural selection acts upon these mutations. If they are useful for survival to reproduction, they stay. Lets say the mutations affect the spinal column during the process of embryonic development. It doesn't necessarily follow from evolution that there be a step, inch-by-inch increase in the lenghth of a spine to another ending point at a specific. It might skip and duplicate vertebre enough so that there isn't an even flow of inch-by-inch vertebre increases. This is in addition to the fact that we don't have fossiles for every species at all times. Sadly fossiles don't form that well.
Arguments such as this one are part of the reason for my skepticism. What you have laid out here is quite rational and could very well be true, but with no evidence whatsoever to back it up, it's just a nice story. I'm getting quite tired of being asked to have faith in explanations like this by folks that have no faith in any other explanations.

Suprisingly, there aren't that many signficant holes in Evolution; again, this is often said by the media or by non-scientists, and sadly, it's a meme that easily spreads. Would you mind mentioning any? From my analysis of it, it doesn't require that much faith--any more than knowing the sun will come up tomorrow.
How about the Cambrian explosion? What about the almost total lack of any transitional links between species? Why have untold millions of species of simple lifeforms never evolved?

Also, there doesn't seem to be any attempt to describe the elemental force that animates organic material. Likewise, no attempt to explain just why living things struggle to survive and reproduce. The scientific community won't tough these issues with a 10 foot pole, yet has no problem with denying the religious concept of a supreme being that at least attempts to address these questions.

[Technocrat]

It's been said that Darwinism is the scriptural dogma of secular humanism and I believe that there is truth to that. Any scientist embarking on a career had better think twice about questioning the "scriptures".

I don't know where you would get that idea. Evolution has been the most intensely debated, and one of the most fought-over scientific theories in all of Human history. The very reason why it is so well respected today is that it has survived over 100 years of intense scrutiny in the scientific world. Scientists will, in the interests of self-preservation, egoism, and greed, attempt to debunk any competing theory in the system of peer review. That's how science works--through controversy and research. Hard science doesn't work like the politically correct social sciences, where someone can say anything and there's no penalty.

It's far from a scriptual dogma; it's simply been highly tested and unfalsified, but as I said, there are still many sub-constroversies about evolution, such as in the sciences of complexity, the tempo, etc.


...We might have original Giraffe population, let's call it population X, which has a neck Y length at Z time. As Z increases, and mutations occure, natural selection acts upon these mutations. If they are useful for survival to reproduction, they stay. Lets say the mutations affect the spinal column during the process of embryonic development. It doesn't necessarily follow from evolution that there be a step, inch-by-inch increase in the lenghth of a spine to another ending point at a specific. It might skip and duplicate vertebre enough so that there isn't an even flow of inch-by-inch vertebre increases. This is in addition to the fact that we don't have fossiles for every species at all times. Sadly fossiles don't form that well.


Arguments such as this one are part of the reason for my skepticism. What you have laid out here is quite rational and could very well be true, but with no evidence whatsoever to back it up, it's just a nice story. I'm getting quite tired of being asked to have faith in explanations like this by folks that have no faith in any other explanations.

Well, I am not a scientist. That's why I didn't provide any evidence. I don't know if the above is really how it works. I am only speculating based on something I read in Dawkin's "The blind Watchmaker." He described the above in much more detail, and with evidence, for snakes and the extension of the vertebra. It's a fact that mutations that affect evolution are found to occure in the germ line. Embryonic development itself is factually a critical point in evolution.

There's nothing speculative at all or just-so about the story I provided, but just not dealing with Giraffes. THat's in fact how it does work with at least some species of snake we know of. Snake spines have increased in length due to successive mutations of the spinal column vertebra number. I suggest the above book; it goes into it in far more technical detail than I can, since I am not a scientist, but it's well documented.

Faith isn't an issue; the evidence really does support the above, although I admit not my particular speculation. There's huge difference in the "alternatives" to evolution in terms of faith used to believe it.


How about the Cambrian explosion?

What about it? Wonderful, wasn't it?


What about the almost total lack of any transitional links between species?

The problem here is that I don't know what you mean by "transitional" fossiles. I did hit upon this earlier. The fossile record isn't complete. What do you expect from remains that must find the perfect spot, lay, and then get compressed and preserved due to sedementation. Not only does this take a long time, most parts of the body are not, in fact, preservable.

In addition, EVERY fossile found is a transitioal species. You don't jump from A to B. No matter what one you find, you will never really find a "missing link" since the concept is entirely invented. Also, as I said, there won't always be a slow, steady looking progression in the fossile record for a variety of reasons. One of which is above--the fossiles are scarce. In some cases, the fossiles that are found will not be slow incremental "transitionals" as you are thinking; remember the vertebra example?

But there is another problem; fossiles mix in different areas. One key debate in the scientific world is the tempo of evoultion. Have you heard of Eldridge and Gould? The Theory of Punctuated Equilibria? Well, this is a complex fossile issue that deals with just that--the reason why it seems as if there is not a steady, incremental fossile record.


Why have untold millions of species of simple lifeforms never evolved?

Well, that's not hard.

A. Evolution isn't directed by intelligence, but by a blind watchmaker. There's no prediction in Evolutionary Theory that states that large scale change in the morphology of an animal is absolutely necessary and inevitable, regardless of natural conditions. You see, natural selection only works when something happens that interjects a change in the environment in which the variation of genes in a given population must change to meet the new demand. If nothing really major changes in the enviroment in which an organism resides, there naturally won't be many changes. Mutations that are neutral will and still do make their way into populations, but if the environment doesn't change, organisms tend to specialize and find a niche. There's simply no reason to change.

But also, some organisms, such as some forms of bacteria, are quite efficient at what they do in their chosen enviroments already. Evolution is pretty good at doing that. Species can last millions of years without any major changes; in fact, many changes happen around extinction periods, since that usually interjects a major climatological or evironmental stimulus that the populations must adapt to or die from. But hundreds of thousands, and even millions of years are but a fraction of geological time, which is measured in billions of years. Earth itself, for instance, is over 4 billion years old.

There have been some species of sea-animals that have been recently disovered; they were thought to have gone extinct thousands of years ago, but they were wrong. Now, they have remained relatively unchanged for hundreds of thousands of years. This is not because natural selection or evolution is wrong. In fact, the theory predicts this is possible and will happen if an animal is in a static environment. It's called accepting a niche environment. Low and behold, the area of residence was a deep ocean region---that didn't change much since the age of the dinosaurs. That means that no major changes are likely to take place IIRC. Evolution is not hasty. It doesn't seek to "change" for no reason. If you got a good system, reality usually allows you to stick with it with few alternations.

Usually, organisms change when a part of the major group migrates into another region and becomes geographically isolated. This doesn't always happen, which means that change will not always happen. You see, when organisms migrate, they move from one enviroment into another. It necessarily follows that if the environment into which they move is different from the one in which they came, change will likely take place. Mutations will matter more. If the populations become genetically isolated, small changes will accumulate over time, major ones if there are significant environmental changes that can make mutations useful.

Some people ask: "if humans stemmed from apes, why are there still apes." That's another interesting, but easy question related to the above.



Also, there doesn't seem to be any attempt to describe the elemental force that animates organic material.

Well, I don't think that's a critique of evolutionary theory. Evolutionary Theory never professed to do that. It only describes how species and populations of organisms change over time. Evolutionary Theory doesn't even explain the origin of al life! Its not because it's a bad or wrong theory; it doesn't try to explain that.

That's abiogenesis, and a different scientfic theory. Some people confuse cosmology and abiogensis with evolution. But there is an explaination that's pretty good and follows all available evidence for how life first begain as well. It's not evolutionary theory. It's modern chemical abiogenesis.


Likewise, no attempt to explain just why living things struggle to survive and reproduce.

Because if they don't reproduce and struggle, they won't exist. Organisms are made up of packets of genes, which are really just DNA harbingers. Organisms replicate themselves. It's a biological urge directed by their DNA. Evolution DOES have an explaination for sexual reproduction as well as asexual reproduction.

I don't know the exact details of how reproduction came about. However, I do know it is a holdover from the early days of when evolution first began. You see, early early on, protolife was merely changes of polypeptide that came together, mutated, and one of those mutations was probably the ability to replicate themselves. They began to replicate purely by the consequence of the interaction of various chemical units. The reason why organisms strive to replicate is that their genes tell them to, excuse my anthroporphizing of genes.Organisms replicate because previous organisms from which they came replicated, and previous ones from them did. It makes sense, since all nature's life, the tree, the dog, the rat, and the human all have a common genetic ancestor. That "ancestor" was the only one that happened to survive--because it had some form of replicative ability. Naturally, those that replicated continued on. Those which were unable to replicate didn't.


"Why" isn't a think science looks at, though. Science is descriptive and asks "how" and "what."


The scientific community won't tough these issues with a 10 foot pole, yet has no problem with denying the religious concept of a supreme being that at least attempts to address these questions.

But they have and do touch them. I don't know where you have been, but these issues have been debated--many of them solved, in the last decade.

[/quote]

[Technocrat]

I highly recomend the following website for reliable information. It's entirely informative and quite an easy read.

http://www.talkorigins.org/

[PittsburghAfterDark]

Technocrat, your writings are excellent.

There are too many gaps for evolution to be be an absolute airtight theory with me. Yes, I can see how tadpoles and fish eggs evolved into frogs and reptile eggs. The gaps aren't that hard to follow. I can see how forms of life 500 million years ago evolved or went extinct. I don't question how species evolve, dominate, thrive or go extinct.

However origins of life are the holy grail of both debates. No evolution pundit I have EVER read has been able to convince me as to the origin of life as they see it. The creationist or intelligent design theory makes more sense to me.

I just don't see the proverbial primordial goo being hit by lightning and boom, single cell or multi celled life. There's just no way I can wrap my mind around such a set of random circumstances happening and then evolving into the full fledged ecosystems that have risen and fallen for the past billion years.

The main reason I don't see that as likely is I don't believe that life is unique to Earth. I don't even believe we're the only intelligent life that exists. Now, for that to happen the spark that created life here had to be repeated elsewhere. In the millions of galaxies, billions of stars that may arguably contain 10's of thousands habitable planets with intelligent life that means the circumstances that create life are not unique. That they happen quite readily by astronomical standards.

That's what makes evolution, to me, hard to swallow.

If the universe was created by the Big Bang, explosion or implosion depending on which astrophysicist you read, the ingredients for life are present in the resulting matter being scattered about creating worlds like ours. The thing is, we can't even fathom life's building blocks being sprung from such a burst of energy. Nothing we've created from fusion or fission brings forth unique life, to the contrary, it extinguishes life.

So, again, it's the origins of life that are key. Intelligent deisgn and creationism do far more to explain origins than evolution can possibly hope to imagine.

[Rider]

I don't know where you would get that idea. Evolution has been the most intensely debated, and one of the most fought-over scientific theories in all of Human history. The very reason why it is so well respected today is that it has survived over 100 years of intense scrutiny in the scientific world. Scientists will, in the interests of self-preservation, egoism, and greed, attempt to debunk any competing theory in the system of peer review. That's how science works--through controversy and research. Hard science doesn't work like the politically correct social sciences, where someone can say anything and there's no penalty. Any scientist that was unabashedly working on a proposal that denied evolution would be tending bar at night to pay the bills. Any University that hired him would see their grants drop off by about 90%.
I have never heard any debate at all over whether evolution actually happened, only details inside the theory itself.It's far from a scriptual dogma; it's simply been highly tested and unfalsified, but as I said, there are still many sub-constroversies about evolution, such as in the sciences of complexity, the tempo, etc.
Highly tested?


Well, I am not a scientist. That's why I didn't provide any evidence. I don't know if the above is really how it works. I am only speculating based on something I read in Dawkin's "The blind Watchmaker." He described the above in much more detail, and with evidence, for snakes and the extension of the vertebra. It's a fact that mutations that affect evolution are found to occure in the germ line. Embryonic development itself is factually a critical point in evolution. So what exactly have germs evolved into? Factually? How so?
There's nothing speculative at all or just-so about the story I provided, but just not dealing with Giraffes. THat's in fact how it does work with at least some species of snake we know of. Snake spines have increased in length due to successive mutations of the spinal column vertebra number. Still, the mechanisms you describe are unique to snakes and show nothing that would give credibility to the idea of species changes.
I suggest the above book; it goes into it in far more technical detail than I can, since I am not a scientist, but it's well documented.

Faith isn't an issue; the evidence really does support the above, although I admit not my particular speculation. There's huge difference in the "alternatives" to evolution in terms of faith used to believe it.
Of course faith is an issue. The evidence you site illustrates how changes occur in snakes or in germs, but the heart of the whole debate is change from one species to another. You have faith that the evidence shown in the example somehow explains what snakes evolved from and how they might evolve into something else.

How about the Cambrian explosion?

What about it? Wonderful, wasn't it? Shame on you. While it may have been wonderful, I recently watched a documentary on how a team of scientists were trying to reconcile the phenomonom with the theory of evolution.

The problem here is that I don't know what you mean by "transitional" fossiles. I did hit upon this earlier. The fossile record isn't complete. What do you expect from remains that must find the perfect spot, lay, and then get compressed and preserved due to sedementation. Not only does this take a long time, most parts of the body are not, in fact, preservable. The old bromide of "the fossile record is not complete" rears its head again. Not many theories get to slide out of so many controversies with such a pat answer.

As for the rest of your post, I would like to address each point individually, but I'm quite sleepy, so I'll just say that I've heard all of that before and it is a great story, but that's all it is. There's no proof of the theory because no proof is possible after millions of years. All of the usual dodges are stated, such as all species being transitional in nature. That's just a cop out since you then say that, once again the fossil record is incomplete so you don't actually have to show evidence of what you claim.
To sum it up, I'm not some bible thumping evangelical and in fact I used to be atheist and completely accepted Darwinism. It's just that age brings skepticism and an unwillingness to blindly accept explanations that are 99% reasonable, but with only 1% hard evidence.

It's been pleasant chatting with you. Have a nice evening.

[Technocrat]

Any scientist that was unabashedly working on a proposal that denied evolution would be tending bar at night to pay the bills. Any University that hired him would see their grants drop off by about 90%.
I have never heard any debate at all over whether evolution actually happened, only details inside the theory itself.

That's not true at all. It's actually quite the opposite. There is no cabal of EVILoutionists who sits around knocking down sockpuppets. That's not how it works; if, in fact, any actual evidence did exist, most scientists would pounce at the chance to utilize it for self-gratification. If they were able to debunk evolution, they would have, since they would have been very rich, very famous, and they all want that.

It's not realistic what you propose. It would honestly make a nice Tom Clancy novel, though.

You probably never heard any debate about whether evolution happened because:

A. You're not a scientist
B. I dout you have read many scientific peer reviewed journals
C. There's no contradictory evidence to evolution. It's no longer a case of "if it happened." That's factual already. The fact that it hasn't been falsified is a strength of evolution, not a weakness. I think you have some major misconceptions about how science works.


Highly tested?

For over 100 years, it's been one of the most hotly contested, highly tested theories in modern scientific history, rivaling that of the discovery of Copernicus.

It has survived because it is strong and a good theory, not because of some imaginary cabal of scientists who don't want change. Quite respectfully, that's so ludicrious I don't see how you can seriously entertain the notion.

In science, scientists vigoriously endeavour to falsify theories. If they can, they will make it big. That's how it works. Evolution was ridiculed like mad when it was first proposed, and even decades after. It wasn't untill intense debate finally settled the issue, with massive reasearch scientists found out "Hey, this is right afterall, oops, we were wrong." You seem to think Evolution simply "swam" into the scientific pond easily. It didn't. It had quite a rigorous academic fight.


So what exactly have germs evolved into? Factually? How so?

What do you mean? I really don't follow.

Oh wait...germs? The germ line you mean? The germ line doesn't refer to an organism. This is what the term germ line means:

But of course you knew that germ line doesn't mean germs, as in bacteria, right? You were pulling my leg. That's pretty good. I admit. You had me there for a second.

http://www.answers.com/topic/germline

germline (′jərm ′līn)

(biology) A lineage of cells from which gametes are derived. Also known as germ track.

I trust you understand now? My little mixup.


Still, the mechanisms you describe are unique to snakes and show nothing that would give credibility to the idea of species changes.

My mechanisms, though, are not unique to any species. Natural Selection is the mechanism of evolutionary changei in all species. That's universal and impacts all species, whether you are a duck, a frog, a hobbit (hehe).

What I described was simple mutation that has happened in MANY species and can happen (whether in a lab, or outside of one) in the germ line, which creates alterations in the organism. If useful,and if not harmful, these mutations spread through sexual reproduction to the rest of the population. This is more than possible or plausible. It happens. Snakes is just one single example in nature.

I can give you verified examples of evolution in fruit flies, bats, as well as even a recent shift in the allele freuqency of tusked african elephants. But mutation is not something unique to snakes, I am afraid. Not even snakes on a plane.


Of course faith is an issue. The evidence you site illustrates how changes occur in snakes or in germs, but the heart of the whole debate is change from one species to another. You have faith that the evidence shown in the example somehow explains what snakes evolved from and how they might evolve into something else.

What you are speaking of is the so-called dichotomy between micro and macro evolution. There is no such barrier. It's entirely artificial, invented by Creationists as the biological boogeyman.

If Micro evolution is true, and it is, then macroevolution (imaginary difference), is also true. The latter is simply a logical extension of the former. Many small mutations over time will, not might, WILL lead to major changes that simply declassify a population as the same species.

You see, new "species" are formed, at least for sexually reproducing organisms, only when they become sexually isolated (how lonely) from one another. This means they cannot physically breed. We already create "new sub-species" of dogs by artificial selection. It's merely a process that's quicker since it's done by intelligent design (heheh again). In reality, new species do not form quickly, nor do they form all at once. They form gradually with the accumulation of changes.

Remember the geographic isolation I mentioned above? That's one means by which this process happens and accelerates. It's called allopatric speciation. It's a predicted, verified, observed phenomenon. If you give thousands of generations of breeding, natural selection on traits, you will get divergent populations. The definition of evolution is simply a shift in the allele frequency of a given population. When a fruit fly species is unable to breed with another fruitfly species, it's declared a new species. Again, we have seen this. We have seen massive genetic changes in birds as well over periods of decades, which directly shows the vast, allpowerful force of the invisible hand of biology--natural selection.

There's no magic barrier that prevents small changes from accumulating, which evolutionary theory predicts and the fossile record, other forms of evidence show.


Shame on you. While it may have been wonderful, I recently watched a documentary on how a team of scientists were trying to reconcile the phenomonom with the theory of evolution.

I was joking. I didn't know what you wanted to know about the Cambrian exposion. There certainly is a good explaination for it according to evolution.

Could you be so kind as to tell me the name or direct me to the documentary? I do love documentaries. I would be most appreciative.


he old bromide of "the fossile record is not complete" rears its head again. Not many theories get to slide out of so many controversies with such a pat answer.

It may get boring, but the truth isn't always entertaining. It's a fact that, in paleontology, the fossile record isn't complete. Therefore, we wouldn't have fossiles describing every single change. That should be obvious to you.

Let's have an analogy. Let's say we have a language with a detailed written record. This written record shows the morphing of an early form of linear A script into another, modern language. There are various steps along the way in which every possible change is documented.

But then, the liberary burns down! Some are lost, some are found again due to pure happenstance. Woud you say that the language never evolved--the syntax rules, the morphology of the letters never altered, simply because the "fossils" record didn't show it perfectly step by step?

I don't think so.

Although, Evolution doesn't rest itself on the fossil record; there many, many more fields of science that contribute to evolutionary theory. Comparitive embryology, comparable geography, molecular biology and comparative genetics, etc. But there are many instances in which we can clearly see a gradual, slow accumulation of changes in the fossil record, or "transitional species" if you will. One of which is Archyeopterix, the partial bird, partial dinosaur. It shows a clear lineage of bird-like reptile development into birds.

However, as I said, the fossil record is much more complex than I let on. There are many reasons why it SEEMS incomplete, but really isn't always. Even if it isn't, it's not a problem, since as I said, there is no "missing link." Every fossil is transitional.



As for the rest of your post, I would like to address each point individually, but I'm quite sleepy, so I'll just say that I've heard all of that before and it is a great story, but that's all it is. There's no proof of the theory because no proof is possible after millions of years. All of the usual dodges are stated, such as all species being transitional in nature. That's just a cop out since you then say that, once again the fossil record is incomplete so you don't actually have to show evidence of what you claim.

To sum it up, I'm not some bible thumping evangelical and in fact I used to be atheist and completely accepted Darwinism. It's just that age brings skepticism and an unwillingness to blindly accept explanations that are 99% reasonable, but with only 1% hard evidence.

Well, I guess there's narry a thing I can do to convince you otherwise. I can't make you, and I surely won't beat you up over it. I do say though, it is one riveting story. At least it makes more sense than Genesis, which makes no sense.

[Alonzo]

Technocrat, your writings are excellent.

There are too many gaps for evolution to be be an absolute airtight theory with me.Â*Â*Yes, I can see how tadpoles and fish eggs evolved into frogs and reptile eggs.Â*Â*The gaps aren't that hard to follow.Â*Â*I can see how forms of life 500 million years ago evolved or went extinct.Â*Â*I don't question how species evolve, dominate, thrive or go extinct.

However origins of life are the holy grail of both debates.Â*Â*No evolution pundit I have EVER read has been able to convince me as to the origin of life as they see it.Â*Â*The creationist or intelligent design theory makes more sense to me.

I just don't see the proverbial primordial goo being hit by lightning and boom, single cell or multi celled life.Â*Â*There's just no way I can wrap my mind around such a set of random circumstances happening and then evolving into the full fledged ecosystems that have risen and fallen for the past billion years.Â*Â*

The main reason I don't see that as likely is I don't believe that life is unique to Earth.Â*Â*I don't even believe we're the only intelligent life that exists.Â*Â*Now, for that to happen the spark that created life here had to be repeated elsewhere.Â*Â*In the millions of galaxies, billions of stars that may arguably contain 10's of thousands habitable planets with intelligent life that means the circumstances that create life are not unique.Â*Â*That they happen quite readily by astronomical standards.

That's what makes evolution, to me, hard to swallow.

If the universe was created by the Big Bang, explosion or implosion depending on which astrophysicist you read, the ingredients for life are present in the resulting matter being scattered about creating worlds like ours.Â*Â*The thing is, we can't even fathom life's building blocks being sprung from such a burst of energy.Â*Â*Nothing we've created from fusion or fission brings forth unique life, to the contrary, it extinguishes life.

So, again, it's the origins of life that are key.Â*Â*Intelligent deisgn and creationism do far more to explain origins than evolution can possibly hope to imagine.


Well, to be sure, science does study the origin of life. But it is not central to evolution and, if the origin of life is divine, then that says little about evolution. Evolution is about how life evolved, not necessarily how it was created. Yes, they overlap and many use evolution to explain the origin of life, but they're different issues at their core.

[dsanthony]

It seems this thread has devolved into a critique of Evolutionary Theory (which I believe has a firm basis and is THE basis for all biological sciences).

The original intention of the post was to besmear Catholicism, however. I wonder if the author would care to explore how fully Islamic belief adopts Evolution, or rights for women.

As I've said, the left is NOT basedon moral relativism. It's based on attacking Judeo-Christian culture.

[Technocrat]

As I've said, the left is NOT basedon moral relativism. It's based on attacking Judeo-Christian culture.


Some types of leftwingers do that. I make a career of it, for instance, but not all.

I admit; I don't like Abrahamic religions, whether they are Islamic, Christian, Jewish, etc. I think they are extremely problematic.

Islam is clearly today's worst offender objectively, but Christianity isn't truely much better; in fact, both are quite bad in principle. I say because the true reason why Islam is percieved to be 'worse' is not something inherent to the religion at all, but in the mentality of the people who follow it and due to the structure of the nations/governments in which it tends to take root.

There are many key differences among those nations in the West and those in the Middle East. Western Nations are largely a product of the Enlightenment; this Enlightenment allowed Science and Reason to triump over the forces of obedience and darkness that ruled the Middle Ages. Humanism replaced Godism for the better. Instead of tyrannical absolute monarchies that were also theocracies, our governments switched to secular republics which increasingly liberalized over a period of a century.

Again, the same cannot be said of the Middle East. They still take their religion far more seriously than we do; that's one of the major problems-- the Seriousness of undertaking. Christianity and Islam are both bad, and neither have really changed since their inception during the Bronze Age when the first Abrahamic religion came to be. If you actually look at Christianity, it's not too pleasant in its primary holy text, as isn't the Quran. In fact, it's hard to tell them apart in many places. The problem is that in the Middle East, there are few, if any checks and balances that are secular on their religion; the West has these. The West also tends to have superior education, opportunity, so we don't look to religion as much as they do. In addition, we are in a much higher position on the totem poll of international poltiics. Muslims are not. This all (in addition to other socio-political factors) forces them to move evermore toward their religion; they take it more seriously--seriously to a point in which it becomes dangerous.

Whereas Christianity has liberalized, not in the core philosophy, but in the following. Largely, Islam in the problematic areas hasn't. The following has gotten more serious. We already see a resurgance of this problem in Christianity itself with the rise of the Christian Doministists and Reconstructions. They are very dangerous, and they have the same exact mentality of Islamic terrorists. Our would-be terrorists simply don't have the following, the power, or the means to carry out their plans to the extent that the Islamic nations allow.


But it's incredibly invalid to sack Islam, without applying the same logic to Christianity, which has maimed, killed, murdered hundreds of thousands, ifn of millions of people, and unlike Atheism, Christianity actually has a dogma which leads to this.


The Left is neither based on attacking Christianity nor Islam. There are many things a leftwing individual can believe that are not Christianity or to do with attacking religion or Christianity. Christianity, imo, just presents itself as an easy target, like Islam. It's a lot like choosing to beat up on an invalid who was once really "badass."

[dsanthony]

I can't argue too much with your historical analysis. Yes, the reformation, enlightenment and modernity have placed the state and society over religion for most people in the west.

But I CAN disagree with your statement that "The Left is neither based on attacking Christianity nor Islam". That is patently false. The left has waged an unending war on christianity and christian symbolism in american culture, while giving a free pass to muslims (and black christians) whose votes they covet.

I've made this comment in many other threads. Zo, Lily and others habitually attack any white christian individual or group which committs any transgression, however small. Then they sing the praises of, or bemoan the treatment of, any black or muslim group or individual whose crimes are MUCH greater.

It's pathological, actually.

[Technocrat]

But I CAN disagree with your statement that "The Left is neither based on attacking Christianity nor Islam". That is patently false. The left has waged an unending war on christianity and christian symbolism in american culture, while giving a free pass to muslims (and black christians) whose votes they covet.

I am left wing. I attack them all equally. Am I no longer leftwing then? Am I middlewing? Brokenwing? I wasn't aware that we have a giant cabal of leaders that tell us what leftwing must mean, or else we are not it. Leftwing is too general as well; it's an anachronism. People aren't "left" or "right." The political environment is far too detailed for that. It's has more dimensions. "Left" and "right" are inaccurate holdovers from the French Revolution when the Estates would be organized according to Left and Right alignment.

You would be suprised how many "leftwing" people are religious, especially Christian.

I think it has less intrinsically to do with "leftism" since there are a great many religious (Christian) leftwingers and groups (althoughout fundamentalists, who are typically found in rightwing circles).

The problem with Christian Symbolism in American culture is that, historically, it's not truely a necessary, major part of American Society. WE made it that way artificially. Our government, our original culture, was highly secular and deistic. Most of the Founders themselves were in fact not Christians.


I've made this comment in many other threads. Zo, Lily and others habitually attack any white christian individual or group which committs any transgression, however small. Then they sing the praises of, or bemoan the treatment of, any black or muslim group or individual whose crimes are MUCH greater.

Well, that would be wrong then, because Islam isn't any better. Due to its level of power and adherence, it's quite worse in practice now.

[dsanthony]

I don't know if you are leftwing or what. Don't really care.

You are guilty of confusing the individual with the set. You may identify yourself as left wing, but don't indulge in the logical fallacy of confusing your beliefs or actions with all left wingers.

And, I'm sorry to have to go back to logic 101 again...

Groups have norms and overall trends. It's called demographics. Spare me the Sesame Street speech about "stereotyping." Political parties are built on stereotypes. A few individuals on the fringe do not change the truth that m0st groups have remarkably strong identification with certain issues.

I hope we can be done with the PC argument now and discuss something more interesting.

[Alonzo]

The original intention of the post was to besmear Catholicism, however.

So, basically, whenever you criticize a policy you are attacking the entire group? Show me where I said something negative about christianity.

I'd also like to know why you think I'm not Catholic.Â*

I wonder if the author would care to explore how fully Islamic belief adopts Evolution, or rights for women.


Most Islamic scholars I've read, and most Muslims who concern themselves with science believe in evolution and that it is compatible with the Quran. The debate begins when you get to the question of whether humans evolved. The Quran is vague on creation, and genesis is viewed as corrupt, the sticking point being that Allah personally created humans. Though more liberal elements often accept human evolution to some extent. Some muslims argue that the Quran not only does not oppose evolution for non humans, but actually supports it.

Also, when comparing scripture, woman have a larger role in society in Islam than in Christianity. The culture is different and that's why it is much more patriarchal, but in a purely christian or purely islamic society, women would have larger roles in an islamic society. Fundemental Christianity would not allow a woman such as Aisha, who had massive influence in early Islam, likely more than anyone else.

The regional culture heavily influences how scripture is expressed and what is ignored.

Also, nice job on ignoring me.

[Technocrat]

You are guilty of confusing the individual with the set. You may identify yourself as left wing, but don't indulge in the logical fallacy of confusing your beliefs or actions with all left wingers.


Do not indulge yourself in the logical fallacy that most leftwingers are Christian. It's unsupported, a stereotype, and a hasty generalization. You should know better---or perhaps not. :rolleyes:

Other than personal anecdotes, which aren't evidence, you have provided no evidence at all that demographically, most leftwingers are anti-Christian. Assertions doth not an argument make. You merely assert it to be true, like Ann Coulter asserts Evolution is simply "false" while providing no data to suppor this other than her own personal belief.

Don't say "it's obvious." Don't say "I know." Say: "Ok, I will provide evidence using statistics, polls, research, etc." That's how you provide evidence.


And, I'm sorry to have to go back to logic 101 again...

Groups have norms and overall trends. It's called demographics. Spare me the Sesame Street speech about "stereotyping." Political parties are built on stereotypes. A few individuals on the fringe do not change the truth that m0st groups have remarkably strong identification with certain issues.

Yes, groups do have norms and trends, but your assessment of them is false, not to mention ludicrious. The overall "trend" of leftwingers isn't anti-christian, unless you can substantiate that. I am not sorry to go back to it, because it really does support my claims, and not yours. There are a great many 'leftwingers' that are Christian that make up a huge bulk of this nebulous 'left' you speak of. Some small groups of fringe leftwing groups are anti-christian. Some yet are both anti-christian and anti-islam. What you have done is confuse parts and whole. If some are, the majority must be generalized as such. You have no evidence other than personal anecodotes that the "generalized leftwinger" is anti-christian. If you want to talk about concepts such as demographics, trends, statistics, you ned to provide charts, polls, documents about these "statistics." So far, you only have personal anecdotes, and I hate to break it to you, the plural of anecdote isn't data.



I hope we can be done with the PC argument now and discuss something more interesting.


There's nothing PC here. What we do have is an attempt by your, as in another thread, to sew inaccurate claims about as if no one will catch them. Leftwingers, demographically, are not anti-christian. The burden of proof is on you to prove they are, by statistics, polls conducted by proper scientific authorities, etc.

I really couldn't care less about your "feeling" that they are, since actually, there are, as I said, many Christian leftwingers. Your concept of "leftwing" is also inaccurate.


Remember: assertions, anecdotes, and sterotyping (which you ironically defend in your argument) do not an argument make. Use something more substantial. You have had logic 101. I am sure you can handle the burden of proof. Otheriwse, your argument is merely wishful thinking used to discredit an entire group you simply don't like.

[sbannon]

dsanthony, I think you're throwing darts in the dark again and hoping for one to find the board. I'm socially liberal and considered from the left around here, yet I have no specific anti-Christianity agenda. I do oppose all organized religions equally--not for their spiritual dogmata as I myself am a very spiritual person--but for their human injected faults.

Of my 10 closest friends, 6 are liberals [from the left you speak of] and 4 of these 6 are Irish Catholics. The remaining 2 are practicing Protestants. Counting me, that's 7 out of 7 on the left who have no anti-Christianity agenda what so ever.

You can say one exists among the left, but it's just you saying so.

[Technocrat]

dsanthony, I think you're throwing darts in the dark again and hoping for one to find the board. I'm socially liberal and considered from the left around here, yet I have no specific anti-Christianity agenda. I do oppose all organized religions equally--not for their spiritual dogmata as I myself am a very spiritual person--but for their human injected faults.

Of my 10 closest friends, 6 are liberals [from the left you speak of] and 4 of these 6 are Irish Catholics. The remaining 2 are practicing Protestants. Counting me, that's 7 out of 7 on the left who have no anti-Christianity agenda what so ever.

You can say one exists among the left, but it's just you saying so.



Quite true. The primary flaw in his argument is that he isn't using any scientific polling or sociological studies to come to his conclusion. I tried to set this situation up so that he could have a chance to provide evidence, but I sincerely doubt he will step up and provide them, for it is far easier merely to assert something.

Often, people believe that a firm faith of assertion is just as good as evidence, and I fear he falls into that trap.

While his statements about demographics are correct, he has no statistics to substantiate his [i]assertion[i] that his demographic description is correct in the first place. Objective evidence is what matters. Generalizations don't cut it. I can't rightly say, without providing evidence, that all rightwingers are idiots. If I used his logic, though, I could simply assert it, repeated it often enough, and that would be that.

After all, demographics show rightwingers have lower IQ :P


On a seperate note, a common tactic people tend to use against people and groups they percieve as ideologically dangerous is to comment they are "anti-christian." This is typically propagated by Christians themselves because many of the most vocal fundamentalist Christians convince the mainstream ones that Christianity is persecuted, even though they actually are dominate force. I therefore call this phenomenon the "Perceived Persecution Complex."

The follow pie chart neatly describes the phenomenon:


http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e213/Technocratic_Utilitarian/lowe4084fe519c946523dn.jpg

[dsanthony]

The primary flaw in his argument is that he isn't using any scientific polling or sociological studies to come to his conclusion.

Your primary lack of logic is that you believe nothing is true unless it's found in a poll or scientific study. Luckily, you weren't around in 1776 or you would have "boo-hooed" the arrogance of Jefferson and co. to make statements without a scientifici study to back them up.

I've yet to find anything you say interesting...

[Technocrat]

Hopefully, everyone here can see the fallacy in the above poster's logic. He makes claim X. When called upon to provide evidence for claim X, he simply ignores all claims and attacks the character of the askee.

In logic, this is called the "Wall of Ignorance" due to inability to comprehend, or willfull ignorance, of the concept of the burden of proof. I divert the audience's attention to the follow link to understand this concept. More will be explained about his argument in relation to this requirement.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/burden-of-proof.html

According to the burden of proof: "[the] burden of proof rests on those who claim something exists." Notice that the opponent asserts that "leftwingers are demographically anti-christian." This is a positive claim about a set of statitics--a demographic characteristic. This means he is making an argument based on statistical evidence. My claim is that this isn't true, and he should provide evidence for this positive claim. The burden of proof is therefore on him, and it is incumbent upon him to provide such requisite evidence, for in the absence of concrete evidence there is no rational reason to assume the truth value of a claim, whether it be that Christians are all gay, monkies eat wigs, or liberals are anti-christian.

Now, what evidence is appropriate in this situation? Well, since he makes a sociological claim--group X is characterized by anti-christainity complexes--he must provide sociological evidence. This means statistics, polls, scientifically caliberated for accuracy, are both necessary and sufficient. You can find MANY of these statistics in such places such as the Pew Forum For Public Research, but I know he won't do that, since no such organization's statistics support his claim. In fact, iif you DO go there, you will find that the majority of the "left wing" of American government isn't very anti-christian at all. On the contrary, only a minority of the Demoratic Party is "liberal." There are many others, including the Populist and New Democrats, which, with other leftwing subgroups, outnumber the Liberals (who can fairly be said to be the least religious, although not anti-christian).

Secondly, at the heart of his argument rests a major logical fallacy; now that we know the burden of proof is on him, and not myself, did he satisfy that burden of proof? Well, let's assume he tried to provide evidence for the claim. What evidence did he offer? Let's observe. What he does is make a generalization, which he outright admitted is nothing but a sterotype of a party. Is sterotyping a logical action? No, it's a hasty generalization fallacy--by definition, a sterotype is invalid. It's not based on any sociological evidence. In relation, he judges the majority based on nothing but personal observations and small samples. These samples, again, are not statistically valid; they are not gotten through scholarly methods. They are simply his own anecdotal experiences extrapolated to represent the whole. Essentially, it's a biased sample, which is likely too small, too isolated, thus and unrepresentitive of the whole. Therefore, it's a generalization made to hastily, even if we accept that he attempted to provide evidence.

I tried to trap him on this by saying "I am leftwing." He did exactly as I thought he would. He countered, as one should, with a generalization and claim it is a sociological "trend." True, my individual experiences DO NOT MATTER sociologically. Statistical trends do, but statistical trend assertions require statistical evidence to support them. Absent of evidence, however, except for his personal observations and thoughts, we get something akin to a hasty generalization. Something akin to what I claimed orignally in reverse (I deliberately engaged in a fallacy of division). When I asked him to provide evidence for his claims, he outright refused! Still only appealing to his own personal experiences and supposed "observations of reality." This is nought but an appeal to a biased sampling methodology he's obviously employing (obviously, since he refuses to provide scientific polling, sociological statistics to support his claim). Observe the following quote, by him to substantiate my point: Your primary lack of logic is that you believe nothing is true unless it's found in a poll or scientific study.

Hopefully, the audience can see what this means. If you can't, I will clue you in on it. He makes claim X. He says claim X is a sociological "demographic" statistic. However, he refuses, as above, to provide any statistics to validate the demographic generalization. In fact, he says it's a logical flaw to require polls and studies to provide evidence for a claim that, by its very nature, requires such things. His argument is based on nothing but FAITH. Faith is irrational. He assumes something is true in spite of a lack of evidence. That's intellectually dishonest.

The spotlight fallacy might entertain the audience as well. It seems to relate to what he is doing (he likely get his "examples" from the media). You should read the link. It's very short.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/spotlight.html

Since he only has a very small sample of his own biased choosing, his claims represent what is called in logic a compositional fallacy, which ties into the fact that his argument is also a Hasty Generalization (that's unsubstantiated). He is seeing a few very vocal liberals or leftwingers who are anti-christian and then assumes that they are ALL anti-christian (or at least the majority are as a demographic). Note the lack and refusal to provide statistics.


For the audience's information, the Hasty Generalization is also known as the Fallacy of Missing or Insufficient Statistics. Contrary to his ramblings, you really DO need to provide evidence for a demographic claim a bit more substantial than "I say so, therefore it is, trust me." The form of this fallacy is as follows:

1. Sample S, which is too small, is taken from population P.
2. Conclusion C is drawn about Population P based on S. Enjoy.

In this case, the opponent uses only his own, limited (not statistically valid) "demographic evidence" (Personal anecdotes) to claim that leftwingers are "anti-christian." This means he's only looking at a small sample (if this sample exists at all) to make a sterotype about leftwingers.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/hasty-generalization.html

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/biased-sample.html


Third, for all to see, my opponent is now attacking me claiming outright in addition to refusing to provide any evidence. Observe the new ad hominem in lieu of an argument (note, that an ad hominem isn't merely an insult. It's an insult in lieu of evidence for a premise used to discredit or demark an opponent. He claims: I've yet to find anything you say interesting

Instead of providing evidence, like I ask, he says "no" and then attacks me as being "foolish and uninteresting" for demanding evidence for his own claim. Using his own logic, I can claim that, since vocal Christians hate gays, it is therefore demographically true that Christians in general hate gays. I do not need to provide "statistical evidence" or "polls" because "this is true because I feel so." Obviously, scientific studies are unnecessary, since they didn't have them around in 1776. ;)

I therefore conclude, without any evidence required, that all Christians hate children, eat babies, and molest gays. Your concession is accepted. Ta ta.

[Alonzo]

Kind of off topic, kind of relevant, but your link made me think back to a course in logic I took. It was kind of odd listening to him discuss the concept of "appeal to ignorance" when he, on multiple occasions, stated (and argued) his belief in intelligent design, the reason he gave was that things were so complex that there was no way for science to explain them or for the natural world to cause them.

[CheesyMuslim]

Sorry bout that,

1. Math freaks carry no weigh here on DF.
2. Who in their right mind try to reason that an argument can be boiled down to a math equation?
3. Well I for one don't reason with complex math equations.
4. But with numbering lists.
5. Very easy to understand, they are.
6. But to each their own I guess.

Regards,
SirJamesofTexas

[dsanthony]

For any lib who vocally attacked the very idea that there is a liberal bias and even war against christianity, I invite you to actually read your posts in the thread I began on that topic. As your types famously shouted in 1968... "the whole world is watching..."

It amazes me that you people, who so violently oppose the views of the "working classes" actually claim to represent them...

[Labrocca]

I believe in Darwin's Theories.

"The possibility that the Creator used evolution as a tool is completely acceptable for the Catholic faith," Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, one of the two main speakers at the meeting, said last week.

And the Catholic church doesn't have a problem with it either. The Catholic church imho has always been fair when it comes to science. They focus more on ethics and morality than just about anything else. I am a rather proud Catholic (ugh oh...deadly sin?..gotta work on that).

[dsanthony]

Um... you're forgetting Galileo and the inquisition, I think. But certainly, in modern times, the Catholic church is more accomodating of science than most christian sects.

[BoogyMan]

The idea of evolution demands a positive and ordered outcome to a cataclysmic event. The odds against Evolution are so enormous that it is mind boggling. People have belittled dsanthony for his discussion of the complexity and as such a requirement for intelligence behind such complexity, but sit and think about it. The interdependencies of the environment in which we live are so numerous as to make evolution a fools passtime.

Consider a simple example. If you have a box of billions of small plastic letters (abc.... etc) and you go outside in the yard, open the box, toss the box into the air, and go inside. You wait for a while and then go outside and find the letters have fallen in such a way to form Websters New Unabridged Dictionary. What are the odds?

Such are the odds for evolution.

[Technocrat]

The idea of evolution demands a positive and ordered outcome to a cataclysmic event.

No, it doesn't. I can see you haven't actually studied evolution.


The odds against Evolution are so enormous that it is mind boggling.

No, they aren't. The odds against a magic ski pixi waving his magic wand and poofing new species into existence or Noah putting all "God's" creatures onto a small wooden boat is far more improbable than anything in Evolution.


People have belittled dsanthony for his discussion of the complexity and as such a requirement for intelligence behind such complexity,

Because it's nonsense. It deserves ridicule, just as if someone said he had an metaphysical, but undetectable dragon living in his ear canal playing virtual poker with eargibblets.

It's simple-minded. The only reason people go for creationism is that it's easier to understand. Human's didn't evolve to think complexly. They are savanah and plains creatures. Thousands of years of evolution did not suit the Human Species either to logical or scientific thinking. We simply go for what's emotionally appealing or sounds simple.


but sit and think about it. The interdependencies of the environment in which we live are so numerous as to make evolution a fools passtime.

Um, no.


Consider a simple example. If you have a box of billions of small plastic letters (abc.... etc) and you go outside in the yard, open the box, toss the box into the air, and go inside. You wait for a while and then go outside and find the letters have fallen in such a way to form Websters New Unabridged Dictionary. What are the odds?

Such are the odds for evolution.


Sure, I'll consider it, but it's wrong. It's a false analogy. Evolution isn't random, in the first place. Mutation is. Any argument based on happenstance and thus evolution being impossible will fail for that reason alone. It's not Random. Natural Selection isn't random. The way chemicals interact isn't random. The way molecules bond and interact isn't random. They are governed by universal laws.

Your argument is based off a variation of the tornado and the boeing 747 assembling itself as the tornado moves through the parts yard. It fails because Evolution doesn't say that will happen. Of course it's improbably that a plane will be assembled by itself.

The simplest answer isn't always the correct answer. I don't think you have studied evolution, have you?

Here's a good, easy to understand article on Evolution and the argument from "improbability." Yes, it takes some understanding of probability in the first place.

http://creationtheory.org/Probability/

[dsanthony]

You're either ignoring the immense time which has passed since life began on earth, or cannot imagine it.

Your analogy is false in other ways. Evolution is a process, not an act. It was not a one-time random "tossing" of letters which gave us the breadth of life. Evolution has taken the letters and actively rearranged them over and over again. Some arrangements were successful and survivied, some were unsuccessful and died out. Actually, it's very much like the process of language development over time. Aint it?

[BoogyMan]

Well, no. That's a false analogy. Evolution isn't random, in the first place. Mutation is. Any argument based on happenstance and evolution will fail for that reason alone.

Your argument is based off a variation of the tornado and the boeing 747 assembling itself as the tornado moves through the parts yard.Â*Â*It fails because Evolution doesn't say that will happen. Evolution deals with the interactions of chemicals, and the interactions of these chemcials are governed by laws. Evolution is a directed force. The way in which molecules can assemble and interact, as can chemicals, are not random like chucking a bucket of letters into the air.


The simple example is simply inaccurate. I don't think you have studied evolution, have you?

Yes, as a matter of fact I have studied evolution. You make many assumptions in your response and prove that you truly don't have a clue about natural selection and genetic drift as core components of the theory of evolution.

The evolutionist teaches that the three domains of bacteria, archaea, and eucarya "evolved" from the same genetic material. This is purely hogwash as the prokaryotes of the archaea and bacteria domains are completely different at the cell membrane level from the members of the eucarya domain (animals, fungi, plants, paramecia, etc)

If this opportunistic process were in place and working, where did the scientific theory that species produce after their own kind come from? When did this genetic wall go up?

The are so many holes in the evolutionist teachings that it leaks like a sieve.

[Technocrat]

You're either ignoring the immense time which has passed since life began on earth, or cannot imagine it.

Your analogy is false in other ways. Evolution is a process, not an act. It was not a one-time random "tossing" of letters which gave us the breadth of life. Evolution has taken the letters and actively rearranged them over and over again. Some arrangements were successful and survivied, some were unsuccessful and died out. Actually, it's very much like the process of language development over time. Aint it?


In a way, it is somewhat simliar, yes. The genetic code of organism is based on "letters" representing key bases, which, in codons, form the genotype of organisms as a set of interacting genes.

You also have to note that not every combination will made something useful, and some combinations do the same exact thing as other combinations. For example, I think many codon possibilities are entirely redundant.

After hundreds of millions of years, some of these genes simply don't cut it in the environment. That means some move on and continue to replicate. The argument two posts above isn't really direced against evolution anyway; it can't. It makes no sense if it is.

What they really are trying to attack is abiogenesis, which people continually confuse with Evolution.

[Technocrat]

Yes, as a matter of fact I have studied evolution. You make many assumptions in your response and prove that you truly don't have a clue about natural selection and genetic drift as core components of the theory of evolution.



No shit Natural Selection is a major part of Evolution. But sorry, it's not "random" either. It's actually one of the more directed procuesses of evolution. It's the primary mechanism by which all allele frequency changes take place. Mutation is random. NS isn't.

Genetic Drift is a part of Evolution. Never said it wasn't. It isn't the most important process in the slightest. The blind Watchmaker is the most important.


If you "studied" evolution, you either studied it in some backwater creationist university or ignored what you learned, since no one would make your argument if he seriously understood evolution. That or you did study it for real and just bombed it horribly.


The evolutionist teaches that the three domains of bacteria, archaea, and eucarya "evolved" from the same genetic material.

Bacteria and Archaea are the two pimary branches of prokaryotic evolution, yes. Eukarotic organisms are a different sector of evolution.

All creatures, however, whether they are prokaryotic or eukaryotic, on earth evolved from a common ancestor. This doesn't mean that they all have the same exact genetic material as the common ancestor pr even each other. It doesn't even mean they will have vast similarities ovr time. The fact that all creatures, including the above, eventually evolved from a single ancestor doesn't mean anything.

First came the prokaryotics. Then the Eukaryotics from the former.



This is purely hogwash as the prokaryotes of the archaea and bacteria domains are completely different at the cell membrane level from the members of the eucarya domain (animals, fungi, plants, paramecia, etc)

Sounds good, but you're wrong.

Of course Eukaryotic cells are different from Prokaryotic ones. In fact, you forget to mention that many Prokaryotic organisms themselves differ dramatically among themselves--even MORE sometimes than between Eukaryotic species among themselves. The former are far more primitive than the latter. Evolution says that, over time, they will share some characteristics genetically due to common ancestry, but as time goes on, this changes. There will be differences, because they are not the same organism, thus: "they are different at the cell membrane level" is a meanginless platitutude. Since Eukaryotic organisms evolved from Prokaryotic ones, it follows they will have some similarities (which they do), but also many difference over millions of years of divergent evolution at the genetic level. The same holds for differences between prokaryotic organisms themselves.

Let's examine this in greater detail:

1. They aren't the same species of oganism genius. Do you expect them to be identical? Evolution doesn't, so I don't know where you plucked that idea.

2. There are massive genetic differences among various species of prokaryotic organisms. For instance, if you compare the ribosomal RNA in two particular variations of Escherichia coli, there are tremndous differences. Is this to say they didn't have a common ancestor? No. Is this to say they didn't evolve? No. In fact, it's predicted by evolution that different, isolated strains will become, often, increasingly different on the genetic level. In the above variation, there is actually more genetic variation between those two strains than between a human and a platypus. If true, it wouldn't be suprising that there would be genetic differences between prokaryotic bacteria and a human cell. There are, however, a great many similarities.

3. Eurkaryotic cells are fairly recent inventions of nature, while prokaryotic organisms have been around, mutating for billions of years. This goes back into understanding why the above E. Coli strains can have more differences between them than even between entirely different species, Human and Platypus. There will be more differences among the former because they have been around longer. Of course there will be genetic differences between bacteria and eurkaryotic organisms. Evolultion, through the mechanisms of Natural Seleciton, Mutations, and Genetic Drift, all predict that in a field called comparative genetics. You see, when eurkaryotic organisms separated from their parent prokaryotics, long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away....they began to accumulate changes.

On the "membrane level" they are different in many ways, yes. For examlple, Prokaryotes don't have membrane enclosed organells! Duh, they are simpler organisms! Eukaryotic do! OMg? Could it be...a product of evolution? Naw! Must be god's magic wand that later, more complex organisms evolved them!

There are, though, genes in various domains that actually intersect quite frequently, which reaffirms the three branch idea.

There are also other differences between prokaryotes and their later bretheren. For example, they thrive in different environments--expressly because they have gone through Natural Selection as isolated populations differently. They have not had all the mutations eukaryotic organisms have.

Eukaryotes evolved From SOME types of prokaryotic organisms, but not all. There are various strains, and nothing in evolution says that they have to be the same, genetically. They are in fact quite similiar. Similarity and juxtaposed differences is a common prediction of Evolutionary Theory. After all, they have a common ancestor, but mutations, genetic drift, and natural selection will change creatures. Comparative genetics predicts this.



If this opportunistic process were in place and working, where did the scientific theory that species produce after their own kind come from? When did this genetic wall go up?

Um, this makes no sense. Really, it doesn't. Well, perhaps to the infirm. It doesn't even logically follow from the former paragraph. Species do produce their own kind, yes. I am glad you noticed that.

Prokaryotes produce largely by binary fission. Many Eukaryotes by sexual reproduction. In the latter, a wall goes up when species become sexually isolated and cannot interbreed. This means that if the environment shifts, there are new selective pressures. Not having gene flow between the parent and the daughter population means mutations will build up and be selected by the various forces pressing on them.

In terms of Prokaryotes, I mentioned that they "breed" via binary fission. If you have parent population that all eventually had a common ancestor, they will all be very, very different when mutations form, fission takes place, especially if populations of bacteria, for example, float off into neverland to new environments that can put pressure on the mutational changes. The popluation that stayed in X will have different pressures from population that went to Y. This means they will, according to evolutionary theory, harbour similarities and differences. It predicts this. It's validated. It happens.



The are so many holes in the evolutionist teachings that it leaks like a sieve.

BWHAHAHAAHAHAHA no.


Again, for any who are interested in honest debate tactics, take a look at a complete, and accurate refutation of the bullshit "improbability" argument against evolution by...that's right...a real scientist.

Not pseudoscientists like the above character.

http://creationtheory.org/Probability/Creationist-4.shtml

I can only wonder from what creationist drivel spouting webpage you cut and pasted this information.

[BoogyMan]

BWahahahahahha, you believe that species can interbreed?

I think were done here, I wont argue with someone whose fundamental understanding is so flawed as to believe such hogwash. How you could type that crap without breaking out into uncontrollable laughter is amazing.

[Technocrat]

*Sigh*.

For those who are interested more in the argument than an ironically well-placed typo, (since I know this creationist isn't).

Being more clear, it means the species cannot interbreed successfully. Further, it means, species usually don't produce viable offspring. They can, sometimes, and we call that a hybrid. In fact, scientists have recently discovered evidence of early Homo/chimpanzee hybrids. There are also other instances of successful interspecies hybridization.

That's at true statement, but it's not at all what I intended anyway. As you notice, most of the time, I used the term "popluaitons." Separate species do not interbreed successfully most of the time. They cannot, since they are reproductively isolated. If they weren't, they would merely be other populations. When they do become different species? Populations do when cannot successfully interbreed. However, this isn't universally true, but "laughing" isn't a valid rebuttal, and neither is your purpouseful stupidity.

For example, you have species A popluation. Species A is the parent group. If it breaks off into, say, two separate population sub-units, and they move off into other areas, then it follows that if those areas have different environmental pressures, natural selection will "select" different mutational traits.

The "species" become different, as in the barrier rises, only when the populations become genetically isolated. As they become isolated, the populations differ increasingly as per the pressures of the environments and the mutations.

But actually, some different species can interbreed successfully and produce viable offspring. Most cannot, though, since they typically weak and infertile.



But of course, the doofus above likes to ignore arguments and appeal to ridicule when he really doesn't have the slighest clue he's an idiot. Obviously, God waving a magic wand and making eve from the penis bone (in some versions, the rib) of Adam is a far more reasonable explaination than the vast, peer reviewed studies of scientists. :rolleyes:

Notice how his arguments are easily debunked, yet ridicule that makes himself look more like a moron are all he has.

[BoogyMan]

BWahahahahahha, you believe that species can interbreed?

I think were done here, I wont argue with someone whose fundamental understanding is so flawed as to believe such hogwash.Â*Â*How you could type that crap without breaking out into uncontrollable laughter is amazing.




*Sigh*.

For those who are interested (since I know this creationist isn't).

Being more clear, it means the species cannot interbreed successfully. Further, it means, species usually don't produce viable offspring. They can, sometimes, and we call that a hybrid. In fact, scientists have recently discovered evidence of early Homo/chimpanzee hybrids. There are also other instances of successful interspecies hybridization.

That's at true statement, but it's not at all what I intended anyway. As you notice, most of the time, I used the term "popluaitons." Separate species do not interbreed successfully most of the time. They cannot, since they are reproductively isolated.Â*Â*If they weren't, they would merely be other populations. When they do become different species? Populations do when cannot successfully interbreed. However, this isn't universally true, but "laughing" isn't a valid rebuttal, and neither is your purpouseful stupidity.

For example, you have species A popluation. Species A is the parent group. If it breaks off into, say, two separate population sub-units, and they move off into other areas, then it follows that if those areas have different environmental pressures, natural selection will "select" different mutational traits.Â*Â*

The "species" become different, as in the barrier rises, only when the populations become genetically isolated. As they become isolated, the populations differ increasingly as per the pressures of the environments and the mutations.

But actually, some different species can interbreed successfully and produce viable offspring. Most cannot, though, since they typically weak and infertile.

Nice strawman attempt.



Nice attempt on your own part. Hybridization is NOT the same thing as breeding as hybridization requires outside manipulation.

[Technocrat]

Nice attempt on your own part. Hybridization is NOT the same thing as breeding as hybridization requires outside manipulation.


Um, actually, you're wrong again son, on three major grounds, not to mention this tanget is irrelevant, since my statement was actually meaning populations.

1. I never intended that, first of all, species can successfully interbreed normally. The operant term is "successfully." No, on average, species do not interbreed successfully in the wild. Populations of the same species do. Your question was: "when does the wall go up." Easy. With sexually reproducing organisms, this is usually the case when populations of the same species become genetically and reproductively isolted.

This doesn't mean that different species, though, cannot interbreed at all, nor that this criterion is actually universal. It's gray. In fact, in nature, some different species do attempt to breed and go through the mating ritual without human involvment. It's actually common. The key is successful interbreeding and hybridization isn't common, but it does occure. One unclear, but not actually incorrect statement, invalidates nothing regardless of how much you sputter otherwise.

Hybridization In Nature (http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0039-7989(195503)4%3A1%3C1%3AHBFSIN%3E2.0.CO%3B2-0/)
http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/LifeSciences/?view=usa&ci=9780195099751

Natural Hybridization (http://www.soa.ilstu.edu/anthropology/theses/laas/)

Here's a key quote from the latter: "Primatologists have been observing interbreeding in non-human primate species since the early 1960s. Often this interspecies breeding produces a mixture of morphological and genetic features in the hybrid offspring."

There are also modern examples of recent hybridization observed in nature between species in the latest edition of: BIOLOGY: Concepts and Connections by Cambell et all, second Edition. Most hybrids do not succeed, in nature, though. However, this is irrelevant, since I wasn't talking about hybrids anyway. Merely how a species is formed--when two populations become reproductively isolated. THat's the standard, but not universal definition. As you can tell, some hybrids are successful, and some have been formed naturally.

2. Hybridization doesn't in fact, require humans to go out and forcibly interbreed them at all, and yes, it does happen sometimes through natural breeding. Wrong you are on both accounts, but this "wrongness" is irrelevant, since the original statement was a mere typo. The information is quite valid, so it's logically fallacious to ignore it all because of a typo.

3. It's not a "strawman" anyway, since I never said you were arguing something that you didn't argue. That's a strawman, and I suggest you make sure you know what you are talking about before you prattle off fallacies. The above comment really meant that species "walls" come up when organisms of the parent species break off into separate populations, become reproductively isolated, and then can no longer interbreed with the parent species.



But for the audience, the entire purpose of this tanget, as well as the intentionally anal cherry-picking of a typo that's clearly understood as meaning population of a species, is done for the express purpose of interjecting a distraction into the debate. So BZZZZT. He's wrong, just as he's wrong about hisnonsense improbability argument he cut and pasted from creationist websites, hoping no one would notice. This isn't to mention how completely, mindnumbingly absurd his argument against evolution via differences in membranes is. He's acting like a desperate fool.

His actual points are thoroughly destroyed by basic textbook information (from which I am actually reading). His idea is to strawman evolution and make up this silly "probabiliy argument" based off of irrelevant differences in domains so he can supplant it with God's magical faerie wand of dust.

Truely an expert sophist. Attacking the man, ignoring the factual information. For studying evolution like he pretends he did, I again return to my earlier assessment: he's either lying or stupid.

[BoogyMan]

Ahhhhh, when you say species, you mean populations?Â*Â*I see now.

Go away and google some more stuff to cut and paste.

[Technocrat]

For those that are interested, I repeat: Typically, in biology, species separate by what is known as reproductive isolation. When two populations diverge from a parent population, or one from the parent, it interacts with a new environment (if it does). If it does, it then undergoes mutations that are not seeded back into the original parent population. With natural selection acting as a force, those populations become ever more separated.

Eventually, mutaitons in the germ line can lead to reproductive isolation. However, speciation is more complex than this. As I have shown, and proved boogy wrong, species intbreeding does actually occure in nature, regardless of his trolling otherwise. It usually doesn't produce healthy, viable offspring, but it many times can. It does. It happens. Therefore, speciation by reproductive isolation is only one type of speciation. It's the most prolific type for sexually reproductive organisms.

There are other mehcanisms that don't actually deal with genetic incompatibility. Merely different mating habbits that prevent species from donig it, or something that prevents them from comming into contact are also frequently used as a species-species barrier. THe first type I listed in which one population of a species becomes reproductively isolated from the other due to moving away and incurring some barrier is called Allopatric speciation.There's a thing called sympatric, but it rarely occures with animals. Mostly plants.

IN the case of Prokaryotes, the reproduction cycle is different. They produce via binary fission. This opens up a new can of worms, as sexual isolation isn't the factor.


My opponent will continue to Ad Hominem me and strawman my position in order to strenghthen his own. This is called a logical fallacy, and it was often used by a group of "philosphers" in ancient Greece called the Sophists. He knows his scientific argument has no bearing in the scientific community, but mine does, so he therefore ignores most of what I write, picks out a typo (that's not actually wrong), and appeals to ridicule. But please keep in mind folks, the core of his argument has bee this:

"Eukaryotes are different from Prokaryotes, therefore, evolution is improbable." "Evolution is improbable!"

Which is absurd itself. If you would like any information, I would be glad to give you some links to credible websites. I know of various studies on natural hybridization.

[BoogyMan]

I see you have chosen the intellectual path. Have a nice day.

[Technocrat]

I see you have chosen the intellectual path. Have a nice day.


Stylistic fallacy.

For everyone else, skip his post please, if you want an honest approach, and look at mine above if you want an actual, accurate explaination. I recomend a text called: BIOLOGY: Concepts and Connections. Also please read my links I posted above. They thoroghly refute my opponents arguments that:

A. Evolution is improbable. (He really just doesn't understand probability)
B. Natural Selection is random (It's not)
C. Hybridization isn't natural, doesn't occure in nature (unless done by humans).

Every single point he makes is categorically wrong according to basic science. He has no clue what he's talking about. The only thing he CAN do well, is argue fallaciously. First strawmen, then style over substance. Occasionally, we get the false analogy.

But it's cute, for a trolling creationist.


Just remember this folks: "Eukaryotes are different from Prokaryotes, therefore, evolution is improbable." ---Boogytard. :rolleyes:

[Newscaster]

I dont know why you folks get so darned uptight over Darwin. Most of what he described in his writing have been found to be inaccurate to varying degrees but most serious evolutionary scientists believe he was on the right track. It was just that he did his work at a time when little was known of how the world developed except that sketchy description in the bible. And back when that was written, I think even creationists will have to agree the authors didnt know much about it either.
The intelligent thing to do is to follow the work being done in real scientific centers of study where little by little they are uncovering the evolutionaryprocess, how it works, why it works and where it is going to take us. Those people in creationist centers are either of the wrong scientific mindset to do the research or simple not scientists at all. Their research cannot be verified and their "experiments" cannot or have not been duplicated by other unrelated scientists with confirming results. This blocks credibility. They are simply issuing statements based on personal faith and interpretation not testing in a well equipped laboratory.

[CheesyMuslim]

Sorry bout that,

1. But Darwin is the father of modern day atheists.
2. He has sucked many souls out of many bodies with a straw of an idea.
3. Many, many people who are learned folks, have been ruined due to his cr@p.
4. His cr@p has ended the happy lives on millions.
5. Even today they study his theory to propagate more dead.
6. Its a crime to encourage others to study his cr@p.
7. So if you believe even a portion of what Darwin has said, then you are a victim too.

Regards,
SirJamesofTexas

[Professor]

I don't see the problem with letting some scientists test both creation and evolution. I personally see some holes in evolution. Creationism is based on belief in a deity, if you don't believe in that religion it's not an issue.

I do think some things Darwin said are true, Christian or not. Social Darwinism is the idea of survival of the fittest in society. Adaptation of the species, if a species finds itself in an environment that requires it to change to survive it will change. Think of pale people moving to Florida, eventually they will become somewhat resistant to the sun, their children more so. This is gross over simplification, but it illustrates the concept.

My personal opinion though, I don’t care what the Catholics think. I am not a Catholic and I am going to think what I think anyway.


1. But Darwin is the father of modern day atheists.
2. He has sucked many souls out of many bodies with a straw of an idea.
3. Many, many people who are learned folks, have been ruined due to his cr@p.
4. His cr@p has ended the happy lives on millions.
5. Even today they study his theory to propagate more dead.
6. Its a crime to encourage others to study his cr@p.
7. So if you believe even a portion of what Darwin has said, then you are a victim too.


Please prove your claims.

[Newscaster]

Professor, yes, there are holes in Darwin's theories and there are gaps in the knowledge about evolution but those gaps are being closed on a regular basis as serious research continues. That we dont know it all, as Chess claims he DOES know it all, does not mean that the entire theory is wrong. It just means there is more to learn. But Chess has stopped learning on the theory that he now knows everything. Well, good luck to him. But I have a challenge for Chess. If he can explain this, I will not debate evolution with him again unless he brings it up.
Here is the challenge. In France, there are some subterranian caves inhabited by small fish, slightly larger than sardines. These fish are stone blind. They have NO EYEBALLS. Its the same with all of them in several dozen similiar caves. What the fish do have however are EYE SOCKETS IN THEIR SMALL SKULLS. This means that at one time, these fish did indeed have eyes. Chess, explain from your vast store of knowledge.....did evolution play a role in the disappearance of those eyeballs or did God say, "I think I'll strike them blind, just for the heck of it." and poof, their eyeballs disappeared?

[Newscaster]

i THOUGHT YOU CREATIONISTS MIGHT LIKE TO SEE THE CHAOS YOU CREATE NOT ONLY HERE BUT IN OTHER COUNTRIES AS WELL. THIS STORY RAN TODAY IN YAHOO NEWS ON 12-3-06.

************************************************** *

Scientist Fights Church Effort to Hide Museum's Pre-Human Fossils Kendrick Frazier

Famed paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey is giving no quarter to powerful evangelical church leaders who are pressing Kenya's national museum to relegate to a back room its world-famous collection of hominid fossils showing the evolution of humans' early ancestors.


Leakey called the churches' plans "the most outrageous comments I have ever heard."


He told The Daily Telegraph (London):Â*Â*"The National Museums of Kenya should be extremely strong in presenting a very forceful case for the evolutionary theory of the origins of mankind. The collection it holds is one of Kenya's very few global claims to fame and it must be forthright in defending its right to be at the forefront of this branch of science." Leakey was for years director of the museum and of Kenya's entire museum system.


The museum's collections include the most complete skeleton yet found of Homo erectus, the 1.7-million-year-old Turkana Boy unearthed by Leakey's team in 1984 near Lake Turkana in northern Kenya.


The museum also holds bones from several specimens of Australopithecus anamensis, believed to be the first hominid to walk upright, four million years ago. Together the artifacts amount to the clearest record yet discovered of the origins of Homo sapiens.


Leaders of Kenya's Pentecostal congregation, with six million adherents, want the human fossils de-emphasized.


"The Christian community here is very uncomfortable that Leakey and his group want their theories presented as fact," said Bishop Bonifes Adoyo, head of the largest Pentecostal church in Kenya, the Christ is the Answer Ministries.


"Our doctrine is not that we evolved from apes, and we have grave concerns that the museum wants to enhance the prominence of something presented as fact which is just one theory," the bishop said.


Bishop Adoyo said all the country's churches would unite to force the museum to change its focus when it reopens after eighteen months of renovations in June 2007. "We will write to them, we will call them, we will make sure our people know about this, and we will see what we can do to make our voice known," he said.


It was these comments Leakey termed outrageous. Calling members of the Pentecostal church fundamentalists, Leakey added: "Their theories are far, far from the mainstream on this. They cannot be allowed to meddle with what is the world's leading collection of these types of fossils."


For its part, the museum sounded like it was trying to walk a tightrope. It said it was in a "tricky situation" in trying to redesign its exhibition space for all kinds of visitors.


"We have a responsibility to present all our artifacts in the best way that we can so that everyone who sees them can gain a full understanding of their significance," said Ali Chege, public relations manager for the National Museums of Kenya. "But things can get tricky when you have religious beliefs on one side, and intellectuals, scientists, or researchers on the other, saying the opposite."

[CheesyMuslim]

Sorry bout that,

1. I believe Gawd made them that way in the first place.
2. Just so you would be asking that question now.
3. Yep, you have been baited.
4. And bought the bait.
5. Gawd used the same skeleton on seeing fish and non-seeing fish, but seeing it is pitch black in the caves, and He wanted fish down there, he created them without the eyes, simple really.
6. Why don't you put the small fish with eye balls down there and see if they shed the eyes?
7. Tag them first so as to know which ones are which.

Regards,
SirJamesofTexas

[Professor]

Professor, yes, there are holes in Darwin's theories and there are gaps in the knowledge about evolution but those gaps are being closed on a regular basis as serious research continues.


Can you provide some links?

I'm not proposing that because there are holes in evolution automatically Christianity is right. Parts of it can be correct. Evolution is after all just a theory since there are no eye witnesses we will have to wait a long time to find out if it is ALL true. The way to do this of course is by testing evidence.


Here is the challenge. In France, there are some subterranian caves inhabited by small fish, slightly larger than sardines. These fish are stone blind. They have NO EYEBALLS. Its the same with all of them in several dozen similiar caves. What the fish do have however are EYE SOCKETS IN THEIR SMALL SKULLS. This means that at one time, these fish did indeed have eyes.


Can you provide a link? I've never heard of these fish, this sounds really cool.

[Newscaster]

Simply use search engine for Blind fish. But first......evolution is not a random thing. Man did NOT come from monkeys or even great apes. Man AND Great apes came from a common ancester that is now extinct. Evolution occurs due to environment and need. Blind cave fish developed because of a lack of light. Their eyes disappeared because there was nothing to see and other senses strengthened.
Here is a brief description of Blind Cave Fish from Encylopedia Brittanica. 1973 edition. YOU WILL BE TESTED ON THIS MATERICAL :)

Blind Cave Fish
Astyanax fasciatus mexicanus
Scientific Name: Astyanax fasciatus mexicanus

Other Names: Mexican Tetra

Family: Characidae

Origin: Texas, Mexico, Central America to Panama Also central and Eastern European Caves.

Adult Size: 3.5 inches (9 cm)

Lifespan: 5+ years

The Blind Cave fish is named for what it lacks - eyes.

Although totally devoid of eyes, they have an uncanny ability to navigate adeptly, apparently by bouncing sound waves off objects around them. Originating from deep caves in Mexico, where the lack of light and predators has made vision un-necessary. Therefore, their eyes atrophied over the centuries and eventually disappeared. It is one of the more visible examples of evolutionary change.

Eyes are not the only feature this fish lacks, this unique fish is also without pigmentation, taking on a pink hue from the blood vessels beneath the skin.

Recently, studies have been conducted to see if eye development could be stimulated. Surprisingly, when lenses from sighted fish were transplanted to the Blind Cave fish, it began to develop an eye. It is hoped that further study of this phenomenon may prove useful in treating blindness in humans.

[Alonzo]

I saw blind cave fish at petcco a few days ago. Some of them looked like they had tiny eyes barely visible, but clearly useless. It may have just been a black spot on their scaled. About half of them had it.

Though you could tell they couldn't see, they bumped into things a lot in the tank.

[CheesyMuslim]

Sorry bout that,

1. Who's protecting the blind fish?
2. Seems the liberals have dropped the ball on this one, eye ball that is.
3. Makes perfect sense that Gawd would not make eyes on these fish seeing He knew they would be pointless where He was sending them into total darkness.
4. Send down normal fish and find out it they come back eyeless.

Regards,
SirJamesofTexas

[Buck Laser]

Sorry bout that,

1. Who's protecting the blind fish?
2. Seems the liberals have dropped the ball on this one, eye ball that is.
3. Makes perfect sense that Gawd would not make eyes on these fish seeing He knew they would be pointless where He was sending them into total darkness.
4. Send down normal fish and find out it they come back eyeless.

Regards,
SirJamesofTexas


As a part of my new program of existential negation, I am pleased to announce that CheeseWarsNow no longer exists. She is now only a figment of the corporate memory of this forum. Any attempt to resurrect her will be dealt with vigorously.

BUCK LASER, Potentate and General Factotum and part-time hegemon of the imperial force.

[Newscaster]

Buck, thats hilarious. I agree with you totally.

[Elrathin]

As a part of my new program of existential negation, I am pleased to announce that CheeseWarsNow no longer exists. She is now only a figment of the corporate memory of this forum. Any attempt to resurrect her will be dealt with vigorously.

BUCK LASER, Potentate and General Factotum and part-time hegemon of the imperial force.


You owe me a new keyboard and coffee :D

[Buck Laser]

As a part of my new program of existential negation, I am pleased to announce that CheeseWarsNow no longer exists. She is now only a figment of the corporate memory of this forum. Any attempt to resurrect her will be dealt with vigorously.

BUCK LASER, Potentate and General Factotum and part-time hegemon of the imperial force.


You owe me a new keyboard and coffee :D


So send me a bill. They can be existentially negated very easily.

[Professor]

Back on topic...

This is bit dangerous, but I think it might work. The catholic church needs to be ignored. When it comes down to it, they are a group of people unified by their religion. We'll assume for argument's sake that most Catholics tow the party line. It's a bunch of people with an opinion. Anyone on this forum is a person with an opinion. I think if we don't acknoledge them perhaps they won't act out like this. Acting out being taking evolution out of schools and putting prayer in, it's a way to get attention perhaps to get followers.

[CheesyMuslim]

Sorry bout that,

1. But ol man, I'm a dude.
2. Anyway, I been attacked better.
3. Look ol man, just stay off the sauce dude.
4. You get giddy very easy now days.
5. Sit back sip a bit of prune juice, and put your teeth in that favorite jaw.
6. I now know how old people pay their bills right before they die off.
7. They just let them all go to hell, then say sue me!
8. Try it after I'm dead and buried in the grave thou.
9. Hehehehehehe,..............

Regards,
SirJamesofTexas

[Buck Laser]

Back on topic...

This is bit dangerous, but I think it might work. The catholic church needs to be ignored. When it comes down to it, they are a group of people unified by their religion. We'll assume for argument's sake that most Catholics tow the party line. It's a bunch of people with an opinion. Anyone on this forum is a person with an opinion. I think if we don't acknoledge them perhaps they won't act out like this. Acting out being taking evolution out of schools and putting prayer in, it's a way to get attention perhaps to get followers.

'Fessor, I think you probably underestimate the strength of the Catholic Church. The church's views constitute a bit more than "opinion," because they are in fact backed up by a pretty comprehensive philosophical world view that's actually rigorously logical. When it comes to the church's views on evolution, they are unlikely to give way to this multitude of illiterate fundamentalists who are offended by the idea of evolution, simply because the Catholic Church has a comprehensive philosophy at its core.

However wrong I believe the Catholic Church to be be on such matters as contraception, a clergy open to men and women, married clergy, or recognition and affirmation of a variety of sexual orientations, they will not change because we ignore them, or because we beat up on them. I have close friends and relatives who are catholic--in fact, deeply spiritual catholics--who share pretty much the same views that I and other religious liberals hold regarding these matters. They are intensely frustrated by the church's intransigence, but they continue to work from within to change it.

But bringing the Catholic Church into the third millenium is going to take a revolution of even greater magnitude than the Second Vatican Council of 1961 (or was it 1962?). I think it will happen, but there will be a good many more painful episodes, and more people will find themselves alienated.

Finally, I guess it's strange that I, a liberal protestant, should be defending the Catholic church. But I believe it to be an integral part of the body of Christ, and I can't just sit by, not caring about its woes.

[piratemonkey]

The church's views constitute a bit more than "opinion," because they are in fact backed up by a pretty comprehensive philosophical world view that's actually rigorously logical.Â*Â*

Huh?

A world-view solely based upon unprovable mythology is logical?

e.g.
Exactly how is the Catholic Church's standpoint on condom use in any way/shape/form logical?




When it comes to the church's views on evolution, they are unlikely to give way to this multitude of illiterate fundamentalists who are offended by the idea of evolution, simply because the Catholic Church has a comprehensive philosophy at its core.

The Church had that viewpoint for years...


they will not change because we ignore them, or because we beat up on them.Â*

This is exactly the point.

They won't change their views for anything or anyone, despite the multitude of fact-based evidence.

That's the nature of faith.Â*Â*Those that believe think they are correct in spite of the evidence.

[Buck Laser]

Huh?

A world-view solely based upon unprovable mythology is logical?

e.g.
Exactly how is the Catholic Church's standpoint on condom use in any way/shape/form logical?

The topic of the original post was the catholic church's views on evolution, but let me see if I can address the question about contraception.

n the catholic world view, the purpose of sexual intercourse is procreation. Period. If you happen to enjoy it, that's OK, too. But you can't do anything that interferes with the basic purpose of intercourse, as a condom would do. The church will never be able to sanction the use of contraceptives so long as it holds as a basic premise that the purpose of intercourse is procreation.

This idea may be based on an unprovable mythology, but if you accept the premises, it proceeds utterly logically from there. A catholic biologist might realize very well the perils of overpopulation of the earth, and wish to promote stringent poplulation control, but he couldn't do that within the framework of the Catholic faith as it is now expressed. That's why I think the church needs a new reformation even more extensive than Vatican 2.

Of course, it would be easy for me simply to dismiss religion as myth. But I believe that ALL us understand our own existence ultimately in terms of myth, simply because no one possesses the language to explain or understand existence without the use of myth.

[piratemonkey]

n the catholic world view, the purpose of sexual intercourse is procreation.Â*Â*Period.Â*

Stop right there.

You initial premise (or that of the Catholic Church) isn't rational.

To say that sexual intercourse is purely for procreation flies in the face of years of psychological, biological and animal behavioral research.

You can't start from a false point and declare the sequellae logical.


Of course, it would be easy for me simply to dis