Ok my friend I raise my virtual glass to toast you and your friends. What can I say of some trolls from below the mason Dixon line. Their Momma's would whip 'em for their bad manners. Best wishes my friend.
Maybe the Big 10
- Thread starter Hutch 7
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Ok my friend I raise my virtual glass to toast you and your friends. What can I say of some trolls from below the mason Dixon line. Their Momma's would whip 'em for their bad manners. Best wishes my friend.
I love the focus on Darwin! It's so typically creationist, like seersucker suits, straw hats, and revival tents. No mention of the Modern Synthesis or the present understanding of evolution. It's like ripping the design of the Wright brothers first airplane while ignoring modern aerospace technology. Creationists don't dare touch disciplines like phylogenetic systematics, biogeography, parasitology, developmental genetics, and other sciences which overwhelmingly support evolution because they either don't understand them or cannot provide semi-intelligent counterarguments.
The point of Kitzmiller vs Dover is that Intelligent Design is strictly "god of the gaps" religious nonsense and has no place in a science classroom. Behe's Irreducible complexity was ripped to shreds by a simple review of the published science literature, illustrating creationists' bias and ignorance of science. Young earth creationists and intelligent design folks don't get published because they have nothing to publish and their science and logic is so poor when they try that they are usually rejected. That's what makes Creation magazine so much fun to read; all the silliness, straw man arguments, and attacks on Darwin that are irrelevant to actual science. Your arguments here are all based upon lacunae in our knowledge or "god of the gaps" reasoning, with ZERO ACTUAL EVIDENCE (like finding fossils of mammals in the PreCambrian or Cambrian, which should be easy to find if creationists are correct) that would overturn the theory of evolution. Very weak sauce.
I dumped religion years ago because it's fiction (at LEAST for N-1 religions), inseparable from other religions, and not grounded in empirical reality. Your religious beliefs are unimportant to me except when they interfere with science and constitutionally protected freedoms.
This topic should be moved to the Rant board.
The point of Kitzmiller vs Dover is that Intelligent Design is strictly "god of the gaps" religious nonsense and has no place in a science classroom. Behe's Irreducible complexity was ripped to shreds by a simple review of the published science literature, illustrating creationists' bias and ignorance of science. Young earth creationists and intelligent design folks don't get published because they have nothing to publish and their science and logic is so poor when they try that they are usually rejected. That's what makes Creation magazine so much fun to read; all the silliness, straw man arguments, and attacks on Darwin that are irrelevant to actual science. Your arguments here are all based upon lacunae in our knowledge or "god of the gaps" reasoning, with ZERO ACTUAL EVIDENCE (like finding fossils of mammals in the PreCambrian or Cambrian, which should be easy to find if creationists are correct) that would overturn the theory of evolution. Very weak sauce.
I dumped religion years ago because it's fiction (at LEAST for N-1 religions), inseparable from other religions, and not grounded in empirical reality. Your religious beliefs are unimportant to me except when they interfere with science and constitutionally protected freedoms.
This topic should be moved to the Rant board.
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I have to admit, he's right!!! Although I wish some wouldn't pick their teeth, showing off that they actually have a full set!
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Except NU grads have:
>more money
>faster cars
>larger genitalia
We thank you for your prettier women.
The three teams you mentioned were teams that overachieved during the year. Easier to handle talent differnences during the year than after a 45 day layoff.
I believe the lady on the left is wearing purple. Sadly she is missing half of her shirt, hence the unhappy look on her face. It is not entirely her fault. At the store the shirt was marked 50% off, and she thought it referred to the price.I have to admit, he's right!!! Although I wish some wouldn't pick their teeth, showing off that they actually have a full set!
I love this post. Very well stated and supported by loads of facts. I was asked to leave this board yesterday, in a civil and polite manner, since it wasn't 'My board'. I largely complied but did stop back in today and glad I did. This is non football post of the year on any board
>possible
>doubtful
>wishful
Haha, sorry, couldn't resist, I really do not want to get involved in any NU-UT oneupsmanship, this was just sitting there begging a smartass response.
typical. Still trying to slog along with pejorative word pictures. Straw hat? You forgot the watermelon Sunday socials. I'm disappointed that you haven't yet cast me in a KKK robe. Are you so overwhelmed with facts that you cannot refute your theory's shortfalls. You throw out various genetic theories. Logic blows your genetic analysis out of the water and here is why.
RANDOM MUTATIONS COUPLED WITH NATURAL SELECTION.
Every genetic theory advanced for evolution is based upon the odds of random changes in genetics called mutations coupled with natural selection. A thinking person has to swallow very hard to accept that. The reason is there is not enought time in any paradigm of any world view for there to be the diversity of kingdoms of life forms we see, be it bacteria, virus, plant, animal, etc.
Random deviations typically create disorder, not order. I found this example of the implausibility of genetic variations explaining biodiversity..
"Since random changes in ordered systems almost always will decrease the amount of order in those systems, nearly all mutations are harmful to the organisms which experience them. Nevertheless, the evolutionist insists that each complex organism in the world today has arisen by a long string of gradually accumulated good mutations preserved by natural selection. No one has ever actually observed a genuine mutation occurring in the natural environment which was beneficial (that is, adding useful genetic information to an existing genetic code), and therefore, retained by the selection process. For some reason, however, the idea has a certain persuasive quality about it and seems eminently reasonable to many people—until it is examined quantitatively, that is!
For example, consider a very simple putative organism composed of only 200 integrated and functioning parts, and the problem of deriving that organism by this type of process. The system presumably must have started with only one part and then gradually built itself up over many generations into its 200-part organization. The developing organism, at each successive stage, must itself be integrated and functioning in its environment in order to survive until the next stage. Each successive stage, of course, becomes statistically less likely than the preceding one, since it is far easier for a complex system to break down than to build itself up. A four-component integrated system can more easily "mutate" (that is, somehow suddenly change) into a three-component system (or even a four-component non-functioning system) than into a five-component integrated system. If, at any step in the chain, the system mutates "downward," then it is either destroyed altogether or else moves backward, in an evolutionary sense.
Therefore, the successful production of a 200-component functioning organism requires, at least, 200 successive, successful such "mutations," each of which is highly unlikely. Even evolutionists recognize that true mutations are very rare, and beneficial mutations are extremely rare—not more than one out of a thousand mutations are beneficial, at the very most.
But let us give the evolutionist the benefit of every consideration. Assume that, at each mutational step, there is equally as much chance for it to be good as bad. Thus, the probability for the success of each mutation is assumed to be one out of two, or one-half. Elementary statistical theory shows that the probability of 200 successive mutations being successful is then (½)200, or one chance out of 1060. The number 1060, if written out, would be "one" followed by sixty "zeros." In other words, the chance that a 200-component organism could be formed by mutation and natural selection is less than one chance out of a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion! Lest anyone think that a 200-part system is unreasonably complex, it should be noted that even a one-celled plant or animal may have millions of molecular "parts."
The evolutionist might react by saying that even though any one such mutating organism might not be successful, surely some around the world would be, especially in the 10 billion years (or 1018 seconds) of assumed earth history. Therefore, let us imagine that every one of the earth's 1014 square feet of surface harbors a billion (i.e., 109) mutating systems and that each mutation requires one-half second (actually it would take far more time than this). Each system can thus go through its 200 mutations in 100 seconds and then, if it is unsuccessful, start over for a new try. In 1018 seconds, there can, therefore, be 1018/102, or 1016, trials by each mutating system. Multiplying all these numbers together, there would be a total possible number of attempts to develop a 200-component system equal to 1014 (109) (1016), or 1039 attempts. Since the probability against the success of any one of them is 1060, it is obvious that the probability that just one of these 1039 attempts might be successful is only one out of 1060/1039, or 1021.
All this means that the chance that any kind of a 200-component integrated functioning organism could be developed by mutation and natural selection just once, anywhere in the world, in all the assumed expanse of geologic time, is less than one chance out of a billion trillion. What possible conclusion, therefore, can we derive from such considerations as this except that evolution by mutation and natural selection is mathematically and logically indefensible!"
Chasing every theory of genetics as a cause, without considering their plausibility is a non starter.
Are the larger genitalia the result of natural selection, or are they simply created?
I need to understand how my balls got so robust.
Pejorative word pictures? Have you ever been to a revival? I've been to several and that's from where I draw my imagery! By the way, I never saw the KKK at tent revivals. Maybe that's just a southern thing. The reason I mentioned such imagery is you only mention and cite Darwin, which is just as tacky and old-timey. Seems to me you're afraid of genetic terminology, the names of scientific disciplines, and other science terminology to the point where you won't bother reading these arguments. Instead, you pull up (more accurately...plagiarize) Dr. Henry Morris's badly flawed probability arguments that reveal his lack of understanding of how evolution operates. I'm sorry your faith has made you so uninquisitive and ignorant of the natural world around you. Fortunately, I graduated from a fine evangelical Christian College (Wheaton College) that didn't necessarily view Genesis 1 as an irrefutable treatise on origins.
Evolution is not a 'finished' theory by any means, but it explains the mountain of evidence we see around us far, far better than other theories, including Genesis 1.
Morris's deeply-flawed probability argument against evolution assumes complex organisms (in this case, one with 200 components) arise spontaneously like tossing 200 coins and getting all heads. It's a flawed creationist argument, lacking the critical component of natural selection, that is intended to impress the uneducated, and is NOT how evolutionists view evolution today. Aside from failing to add natural selection to his model (which is CRUCIAL) and presenting unrealistic probabilities (e.g., one billion evolving organisms per square foot...way too low; where are the other 100,000,000,000,000,000 planets?) he fails to understand that mutations don't have to be beneficial to an organism in a given environment to become stored in their DNA, an exact sequence of beneficial mutational events is not necessary for a complex structure, and genes for one task can become usurped for another task (which destroyed Behe's irreducible complexity hypothesis), Here are some points:
>Mutations can occur a variety of ways (duplication, deletion, inversion, recombination, phase shifts, etc.), do not have to be beneficial in a given environment; can affect multiple genes, therefore incorporating several of Morris's component steps in one mutation; and they can be stored as inactive genes.
>A tremendous amount of DNA is excess, inactive DNA loaded with accumulated mutations in various forms. Organisms hoard DNA, which can be useful with the proper mutation under a selective environment.
>An entire suite of genes can be turned on or off by simple deletions, recombinations, etc.
>Speciation doesn't have to occur by a gradual accumulation of mutations...read up on genetic recombination, developmental genetics and Hox genes.
>In fact, some speciation can occur almost instantaneously via polyploidy.
>Natural selection will prevent back slipping and loss of beneficial and potentially beneficial information.
>I suggest taking a two-year course on genetics followed by a year of developmental genetics, as well as courses in evolution.
Here are some responses to 15 arguments commonly used by creationists. Numbers 8 and 10 are relevant to your comments.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/15-answers-to-creationist/
This addresses some of the fallacies of creationist probability arguments:
http://www.sciencemeetsreligion.org/evolution/probability.php
Oh, and Lenski's Long Term Evolutionary Experiment is also GREAT reading. The failure of creationists to properly describe Lenski and Blount's research is an excellent example of either creationist ignorance or intellectual dishonesty.
General description of experiment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._coli_long-term_evolution_experiment
Response from creationists:http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Richar...i_evolution_experiment_and_intelligent_design
Response to Ham's criticism (excerpt posted below): https://telliamedrevisited.wordpress.com/2014/02/07/zachary-blount-on-ham-on-nye-debate-follow-up-3/
"This goes to the larger problem with how Ham, Ray Comfort, Michael Behe, Georgia Purdom, and others of their ilk approach evolution – they just don’t know much about it, and so what they end up arguing against isn’t the science, but a caricature of the science that exists only in their minds. Evolutionary novelty does not arise from genes just popping into existence. That is a silly idea, and one that no evolutionary biologist holds!
Instead, evolution innovates and creates through descent with modification of what already exists, a process that Nobel laureate François Jacob called “evolutionary tinkering”. This modification arises by random mutations: base changes, deletions, duplications, insertions, and so on – and, depending on the organisms, horizontal genetic exchange and sexual recombination. Natural selection then preserves and accumulates the useful changes – those that enhance survival and reproduction of the organism in its environment – across the generations. Often, such innovations are based on just what we see with the Cit+ bacteria – novel rearrangements of old components. Indeed, Jacob wrote that, “(Evolutionary) novelties come from previously unseen association of old material. To create is to recombine.”
So Ham and other creationists dismiss how evolutionary theory says evolution works as not being evolution, and then they demand the impossible. That strikes me as neither fair nor honest. But in the end, their lies, distortions, misrepresentations, and ignorance don’t matter, just as debates, entertaining though they may be, don’t matter, because nature doesn’t care. To paraphrase a bumper sticker I once saw, they may not believe in evolution, but nature does!
While they go on cycling through their old and ossified rhetoric according to their fixed and incorrect notions, evolution proceeds, MacGyvering the new from the old. Natural selection can’t do the impossible, but it is pretty darn spiffy at doing the improbable with the rare."
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Clinging to stupid arguments by creationist desperadoes while being ignorant of evolutionary sciences like genetics and developmental genetics, is a non-starter.
Whether you accept it or not, God's creation continues to change and diversify through the ongoing process of evolution.
I love the way that we humans flail away at the unexplainable. Creationists attribute this to God. Evolutionists (i.e. secular humanists) list torturous explanations of how we got where we are.
Sartre explained it better than I ever could, so I'm not going to waste time with my extrapolation. Me, I'm just a Tennessee fan with an Austin Peay education. I'm pretty sure you NU fans could set me straight...even though it really doesn't matter at the end of the day. Just enjoying this thread on a football board!
Sartre explained it better than I ever could, so I'm not going to waste time with my extrapolation. Me, I'm just a Tennessee fan with an Austin Peay education. I'm pretty sure you NU fans could set me straight...even though it really doesn't matter at the end of the day. Just enjoying this thread on a football board!
Flailing away at the unexplainable? Tortuous explanations? It's all straight forward science to me. The same science patients rely upon when they need radiation treatment.
You want tortuous explanations, look up creationists explanations for the fossil record, or their absurd rips on radioactive decay rates. Wanna see them really squirm? Ask them why we haven't ever found a mammalian or dinosaur fossil in the Precambrian or Cambrian, even though they should be abundant in the fossil record if their tortuous explanation of the fossil record and Noachian flood is true.
Tortuous? Creationists are like dogs barking at the circus when it parades through town. The show WILL go on regardless of their superstition-based yapping.
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I am not convinced that probabilities of outcome have any relevance at all in this argument. The species we observe today did not necessarily have to evolve in a very specific way in order to be "successful." A fundamental flaw in your assumption is that one mutation is either good or bad (binary outcome), and that it was predetermined that each successive mutation had to be "good" in order for the species to survive.
I do not see how this is at all the case. The recipe for genetic success is not preordained. It is determined by the environment, which chooses which traits are rewarded. Imagine a tree that you plant as a sapling. As it grows, you want to to shape it a certain way. The tree sprouts multiple buds, and they turn into branches. You prune a few branches that do not conform to your idea, allowing the remaining to grow. Then you prune a few more. Soon you have some big branches growing into a general shape. They produce buds and new branches. You prune some of those leaving others. Over time, you arrive at a mature tree with a shape you created by selective pruning.
In this example, the pruner is the environment, selecting the growth pattern that is rewarded.
In other words, there is a process of randomness--driven by trail and error--that leads to what we see today. One could plant a second sapling, "train" it (as gardeners describe it), and very likely produce a tree that has a very similar shape to the first one. In each case, the pruner is the environment that rewards some features and punishes others.
In short, the coin flip did not have to turn up "heads" 500 times in a row in order for the species to successfully evolve. What mutations survived was determined after the coin flip, not before it. Thus the randomness and disorder that resulted actually increased the probability of success. It is nature's hedge.
I come from a science background (father is a surgeon) but am quite spiritual. But ID just does not make any sense to me.
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Sorry I have not replied. I'm an attorney and have been tied up, hope to give a thoughtful response this weekend. Stay tuned.