The evolution thread

No, what you need is to pull you heads out of your asses and look around, there are other possibilities in life. You know, think outside the box (well in your case it's outside your ass).


I see no furthur point in talking to people who attck the messenger instead of the message.

It's not a fallacy to attack the messenger once the message has been thoroughly defeated.

It's not a fallacy to attack the messenger once the message has been thoroughly defeated.

So you think you defeted the message? With your space rock arguments and stupid assumptions?

Sure, whatever makes you feel better about yourself.

Quote from: "dysfunction"

It's not a fallacy to attack the messenger once the message has been thoroughly defeated.

So you think you defeted the message? With your space rock arguments and stupid assumptions?

Sure, whatever makes you feel better about yourself.

You didn't answer most of the points raised in this thread. You have no answer to the argument that the Earth would be too radioactive to allow life if it were only 6000 years old, or the argument that creationists cannot even agree on which kind various transitional fossils belong to, or the argument that tree-rings go back much farther than 6000 years, or that supernovae confirm the accuracy of radiometric dating, or that there is more genetic variation WITHIN many "kinds" than between some species from different "kinds", or that sightings of modern dinosaurs, even if true, do not do one bit to falsify evolution. No, you just accuse of us making assumptions. Let me tell you something; the way science works is it makes assumptions, then it puts those assumptions to the test. You claim that the Big Bang is based on assumptions, but your own viewpoint also requires an assumption; that the Earth is at the center of the universe. Yet, the Big Bang "assumption" made a testable prediction: that there would be a cosmic microwave background radiation, and that it would vary over a precise degree. When that radiation was later discovered, and shown to agree with the predicted variation, it was an assumption no longer; the theory was confirmed. There is, however, no such confirmation of your claim that the Earth is the center of the universe and all galaxies are moving away from it. Likewise, uniformity of radioactive decay rates may be an assumption, but it predicts that we should see gamma rays from very distant supernovae with the same properties as gamma rays from closer supernovae. Guess what- the prediction is true- and uniformitarianism is confirmed, and is no longer an assumption. Creationism makes assumptions as well, but it never tests them.

googleSearch, you gave up debating with me long ago (or at least, have been extremely selective as to which points you respond to) and I've never attacked your person, only your arguments.

However, now that you've opened up the door to talking about ways in which we argue, I'll give a brief description of your modus operandi.  Basically it boils down to the magnification of the minutiae of  the evolutionary theory and misrepresentation of its particulars in an intentionally ridiculous fashion.  When your misrepresentations are attacked you immediately (but temporarily) abandon them and either shift the discussion onto another (also misdescribed) feature of evolution, falsely accuse science of using the same methods as religion, or retreat into the cowardly foxhole of sarcasm and absurdity (see in particular your most recent post about space rocks and stupid assumptions).

If you really think that science is just another religion and you refuse to listen to reason to the contrary, then I'm forced to conclude that your notions of analysis and logic are irreparably flawed.

If on the other hand all you really want is for people to "pull their heads out of their asses and look around, [realize] there are other possibilities in life," well, congratulations, everybody's doing it, so you can go back to being a rational human being now.  You're an unusually lucid writer and it's a shame that the style of argument you've employed thus far is so devoid of merit.

googleSearch, you gave up debating with me long ago (or at least, have been extremely selective as to which points you respond to) and I've never attacked your person, only your arguments.

I know, message was directed to people who did: dysfunction and beast.

All the rest of you can keep your heads where they are.

There was no Mt.Everest, or any high mountains for that matter. Earth was a lot different back then.

OK, most Biblical scholars seem to put the flood at 2000 to 3500 BC.

I'm sure the Chinese were surprised to see such a big mountain appear to their West sometime after that, interesting that they didn't write about it.
That's about the time they started writing.

Quote from: "Curious"

How did the sea creatures not explode? (Most salt water fish can not live in fresh water, their high saline content causes them to absorb too much water and their cells rupture)

Again, you assume flood was fresh water for some reason, most of water came from under the crust, where its been sitting, dissolving a bunch of salts.

O.K, so why didn't the fresh water fish dessicate due to the higher saline?

Quote from: "Curious"

What did the cats and other meat eaters eat? (Out side of fairy tales, meat eaters do not do well on hay, they don't have the guts for it).  Sure, you can say "God changed them so they could", but if He's going through that much trouble, why not just let them breathe water?

You probably haven't been around animals much, have you? Or been very hungry yourself. When I was 15 my grandma had a cat, forgot the name of it, but that cat preferred cucumbers and bananas to meat, and was completely healthy.

OK, sure, your cat was a vegitarian.  I'm not saying they can't consume some veggies, but they can't live off of it exclusively (By the way, I have three cats living with me now, and have had several otheres in the past.  If we try to feed them too much dry food, they start dragging in their own meat.  Nothing more fun than cleaning half of a mouse out of the food dish)

And an adult elephant eats about 300 lbs of food a day, that would be 204000 lbs of food to feed the pair for 340 days.  And someone from 200BC, using hand tools built a wooden vessel the size of an aircraft carrier, that could house all the animals and food (and fresh water, since they were floating in salt water) needed? (the elephants need 70 to 200 liters a day, each)

Dear little EnCrypto, you claimed to understand creationism better than me, and yet you don't know answers to such simple questions? Fine, I will educate you.

It's one thing to be familiar with the traditional declaration, it's another to be confronted with new and crazy twists; I became quite familiar with FE, but that didn't prepare me for Dogplatter claiming that dinos built boats that could traverse the oceans.

Only if you assume preflood world' topography was the same as it is now. I assume it wasn't.

And how was it different? What caused the change? Why?

That's not true. There are dosens of flood legends in many cultures. Arc contained a pair of each kind of animal, not every possible variation.

If you had actually read what I wrote for content, you would have noticed that I was referring to cultures not affected by a a massive flood to inspire a flood myth. The fact that creation myths (of the universe, Earth, and life) are practically universal to all cultures, yet flood myths aren't suggests that some didn't hear about this great flood that wiped out nearly all life and all civilization in one fell swoop.

Hmm, Noah probably brought a couple of things with him to feed himself and animals, don't you think?

I think someone needs to put up a short list of the animals that would be on this boat so you can get an idea of how impossible it would be to A) build a ship that large and 3) store enough food and water to sustain that much life for over a month. Not to mention that many animals can't possibly survive in any other environment than their own.

This question shows that you have absolutely no knowledge of creationism. Most water came from under the crust, not in form of rain. Two years back in Portland Oregon it rained for 60+ consecutive days, non-stop, and noone drowned from breathing

No, it shows that nobody has explained that to me. I had a long day and my mind is winding down... are there really millions of gallons of water beneath the crust? I always thought it was molten rock...

And you didn't answer my question about Catholics.

I think someone needs to put up a short list of the animals that would be on this boat so you can get an idea of how impossible it would be to A) build a ship that large and 3) store enough food and water to sustain that much life for over a month. Not to mention that many animals can't possibly survive in any other environment than their own.

Somebody did.  Check out this link.

No, it shows that nobody has explained that to me. I had a long day and my mind is winding down... are there really millions of gallons of water beneath the crust? I always thought it was molten rock...

Millions of gallons?  Try hundreds of millions of cubic miles.  I did a rough estimate a while back and got 784,080,000 cubic miles which comes out to roughly 860 billion billion gallons (the post I linked asks where all the water went; hydroplate theory says "into ocean trenches", but I show that there's room for less than 5% of the flood water there).  You'd think we'd notice something like that.

Highlights:

Sanitation. The ungulates alone would have produced tons of manure a day. The waste on the lowest deck at least (and possibly the middle deck) could not simply be pushed overboard, since the deck was below the water line; the waste would have to be carried up a deck or two. Vermicomposting could reduce the rate of waste accumulation, but it requires maintenance of its own. How did such a small crew dispose of so much waste?

How did diseases survive? Many diseases can't survive in hosts other than humans. Many others can only survive in humans and in short-lived arthropod vectors. The list includes typhus, measles, smallpox, polio, gonorrhea, syphilis. For these diseases to have survived the Flood, they must all have infected one or more of the eight people aboard the Ark.

Other animals aboard the ark must have suffered from multiple diseases, too, since there are other diseases specific to other animals, and the nonspecific diseases must have been somewhere.

Highlights:

Turns out Noah had other problems on his hands:

'Twas when the rain fell steady an' the Ark was pitched an' ready,
That Noah got his orders for to take the bastes below;
He dragged them all together by the horn an' hide an' feather,
An' all excipt the Donkey was agreeable to go.

Thin Noah spoke him fairly, thin talked to him sevarely,
An' thin he cursed him squarely to the glory av the Lord: --
"Divil take the ass that bred you, and the greater ass that fed you --
Divil go wid you, ye spalpeen!" an' the Donkey went aboard.

But the wind was always failin', an' 'twas most onaisy sailin',
An' the ladies in the cabin couldn't stand the stable air;
An' the bastes betwuxt the hatches, they tuk an' died in batches,
Till Noah said: -- "There's wan av us that hasn't paid his fare!"

For he heard a flusteration 'mid the bastes av all creation --
The trumpetin' av elephints an' bellowin' av whales;
An' he saw forninst the windy whin he wint to stop the shindy
The Divil wid a stable-fork bedivillin' their tails.

The Divil cursed outrageous, but Noah said umbrageous: --
"To what am I indebted for this tenant-right invasion?"
An' the Divil gave for answer: -- "Evict me if you can, sir,
For I came in wid the Donkey -- on Your Honour's invitation."

An' the moral, lords n' lasses: whin some nutcase leads th' masses --
An' without a bloomin' reasin to be had or understood --
Be it Noah, be it Moses -- quit a-hinderin' th' process,
Cuz if Noah dosn't make ye, well the Divil serly would!

And you didn't answer my question about Catholics.

We have minor diagreements (mainly: they accept evolution and I don't) but overall same religion.

p.s. flood discussion seems to have been upgraded to it's own topic, so I'd go there for flood.

OK, sure, your cat was a vegitarian.  I'm not saying they can't consume some veggies, but they can't live off of it exclusively (By the way, I have three cats living with me now, and have had several otheres in the past.  If we try to feed them too much dry food, they start dragging in their own meat.  Nothing more fun than cleaning half of a mouse out of the food dish)

Extreme situations call for extreme measures. Most carnivores eat once a week or even month anyway, so a couple of months of veganism is berable especially if another alternative is death.

And an adult elephant eats about 300 lbs of food a day, that would be 204000 lbs of food to feed the pair for 340 days.  And someone from 200BC, using hand tools built a wooden vessel the size of an aircraft carrier, that could house all the animals and food (and fresh water, since they were floating in salt water) needed? (the elephants need 70 to 200 liters a day, each)

So than it is a good thing he didn't bring an adult elephant huh? Young animals take less space, eat less and sleep more, that's perfect for a 40 day boating trip.

Quote from: "Curious"

OK, sure, your cat was a vegitarian.  I'm not saying they can't consume some veggies, but they can't live off of it exclusively (By the way, I have three cats living with me now, and have had several otheres in the past.  If we try to feed them too much dry food, they start dragging in their own meat.  Nothing more fun than cleaning half of a mouse out of the food dish)

Extreme situations call for extreme measures. Most carnivores eat once a week or even month anyway, so a couple of months of veganism is berable especially if another alternative is death.

Quote from: "Curious"

And an adult elephant eats about 300 lbs of food a day, that would be 204000 lbs of food to feed the pair for 340 days.  And someone from 200BC, using hand tools built a wooden vessel the size of an aircraft carrier, that could house all the animals and food (and fresh water, since they were floating in salt water) needed? (the elephants need 70 to 200 liters a day, each)

So than it is a good thing he didn't bring an adult elephant huh? Young animals take less space, eat less and sleep more, that's perfect for a 40 day boating trip.

last time I checked, most carnivores do not have the required equipment for digesting plants. In the wild, if lions, birds of prey, spiders, etc etc, do not find the proper prey, they starve to death. They do not, as you say, "turn to veganism."

And many animals require the guidence of a parent to properly develop. I know this for a fact as I tryed breeding cockatiels a few years ago but they refused too. They simply had no idea that they were supposed too as they never saw how to do it when they were young. I had to show them pictures of cockatiels mating(yes, bird porn) it turned out that worked. Soon after they started popping out babies. This is just one example of juvinile animals requiring the guidence or observing the behavior of adults to properly mature.

Quote from: "EnCrypto"

I think someone needs to put up a short list of the animals that would be on this boat so you can get an idea of how impossible it would be to A) build a ship that large and 3) store enough food and water to sustain that much life for over a month. Not to mention that many animals can't possibly survive in any other environment than their own.

Somebody did.  Check out this link.

Quote

No, it shows that nobody has explained that to me. I had a long day and my mind is winding down... are there really millions of gallons of water beneath the crust? I always thought it was molten rock...

Millions of gallons?  Try hundreds of millions of cubic miles.  I did a rough estimate a while back and got 784,080,000 cubic miles which comes out to roughly 860 billion billion gallons (the post I linked asks where all the water went; hydroplate theory says "into ocean trenches", but I show that there's room for less than 5% of the flood water there).  You'd think we'd notice something like that.

Creationists all disagree where the water came from. Some believe there was an ice shield orbiting the planet up in space that God caused to melt and fall; however calculations demonstrate that the water that did not burn up in the atmosphere would have been so hot it would have scalded the planet. Of course the fact that would kill everyone doesn't much matter, as they would have died during the flood anyway; but it would have killed or horribly injured the Noah clan & animals as well.

So than it is a good thing he didn't bring an adult elephant huh? Young animals take less space, eat less and sleep more, that's perfect for a 40 day boating trip.

40 days?  I'm surprised at you, I thought you read the Bible.  

And the flood was for forty days on the earth with the waters lifting up the ark.
~
The waters prevailed 150 days on the earth.

The waters steadily decreased and after 150 days the waters were down.

And the ark rested on the 17th day of the 7th month on the hills of Ararat.

So 340 days.

Plus, since everything was dead, it would take another season for plants to bare fruit, if their roots survived.  And the meat eaters would have a long time to wait before they could start eating other animals.  Or is that why there's no more unicorns and dragons?

I believe that gradual changes, that microevolution produces, have limits.

You may have a bug that develops resistance to specific poison, but I don't think there can be a bug with resistance to a fly swatter. Or there are a lot of farmers who try to produce bigger pigs, I bet they can't produce ones the size of a whale. So if there are limits of what you can do within a kind, then surely there must be limits that prevent producing a different kind alltogether.

Limits on a pig's size or a fly's resistance to a swatter are more due to the laws of physics than biology. Try again.

I believe that gradual changes, that microevolution produces, have limits.

Where are these limits? Surely you aren't comparing artifical selection (hundred years) with natural selection (milion years)? I always hear from creationists that artifical selection (breeding dogs) as example of microevolution. But I think that natural evolution is more capable than humans (for once have plenty of time).

Quote from: "googleSearch"

I believe that gradual changes, that microevolution produces, have limits.

Where are these limits? Surely you aren't comparing artifical selection (hundred years) with natural selection (milion years)? I always hear from creationists that artifical selection (breeding dogs) as example of microevolution. But I think that natural evolution is more capable than humans (for once have plenty of time).

Artificial selection is demonstrably much faster than artificial selection, however humans have only mastered the principles in the last century or two, whereas evolution has had billions of years to work.

You may have a bug that develops resistance to specific poison, but I don't think there can be a bug with resistance to a fly swatter.

Interesting strawman argument.  I've never heard it put quite this way.

... whereas evolution has had billions of years to work.

Another thing evolution has on its side is geography.  When two populations within a kind a separated geographically and subsequently subjected to different environmental stresses, microevolution takes them sufficiently far away from one another that they are no longer the same kind.

It's not exactly a strawman, more of a non-sequitur.

Limits on a pig's size or a fly's resistance to a swatter are more due to the laws of physics than biology. Try again.

No it isn't, it's biology. Now you try.

No it isn't, it's biology. Now you try.

Gods, do either of you guys have any actual evidence that it's a physical or a biological limitation?

I don't think there can be a bug with resistance to a fly swatter.

Most bugs have a resistance.  Some due to speed, some from small size, some from being tough (Try using a fly swatter on a tick).  Some by not being around humans with fly swatters.

Resistance is the key word.  Not total protection, but the abiltiy to resist.
There are so many more bugs than humans, it's not a major survival trait, but does every bug you swing a fly swatter at die?

Every time one does not, it helps by some minute way to breed bugs that survive fly swatters.

Good point.

Quote from: "dysfunction"

Limits on a pig's size or a fly's resistance to a swatter are more due to the laws of physics than biology. Try again.

No it isn't, it's biology. Now you try.

A pig cannot grow beyond a certain point because its skeletal structure would be unable to support its weight- and if pigs were selected to grow a radically different skeletal structure, they could grow much larger- but such a change would take millions of years (perhaps less with cleverly implemented artificial selection). A fly cannot resist impacts with a certain amount of force because the materials it is made of possess a certain inherent strength, determined by their chemistry. Neither of the examples you listed have anything to do with limitations on the ability of evolution to create novel structures or body plans.

A pig cannot grow beyond a certain point because its skeletal structure would be unable to support its weight- and if pigs were selected to grow a radically different skeletal structure, they could grow much larger- but such a change would take millions of years

Indeed... weight grows with the cube of height whereas bone strength grows only with the square.  If chickens can be genetically engineered to have no skeletons at all, then I think it shouldn't be too much trouble to force pigs to keep producing growth hormone until they are crushed under their own bulk.

A pig cannot grow beyond a certain point because its skeletal structure would be unable to support its weight- and if pigs were selected to grow a radically different skeletal structure, they could grow much larger- but such a change would take millions of years (perhaps less with cleverly implemented artificial selection).

They don't need radical changes in structure, same structure only bigger, thicker and longer leg bones. There are decorative pigs that are no bigger than 50 lbs, and there are big ones 400 lbs ones, both have same skeletal structures, only difference - size. So if 50 pound one can be made into 400 pound one why stop there? Lets go to 40000 lbs. After all, elephants are bigger than pigs and they don't have radical differences in skeleton structure from pigs.

A fly cannot resist impacts with a certain amount of force because the materials it is made of possess a certain inherent strength, determined by their chemistry.

Did you just say that limit of fly's change is determined by the chemistry of their bodies? Sounds like a limiting factor to me, does it not?

They don't need radical changes in structure, same structure only bigger, thicker and longer leg bones.

That doesn't cut it:

There are decorative pigs that are no bigger than 50 lbs, and there are big ones 400 lbs ones, both have same skeletal structures, only difference - size. So if 50 pound one can be made into 400 pound one why stop there? Lets go to 40000 lbs.

Surely you don't think that a 50 lb. pig has just as much difficulty getting around and all the same weight-related health problems as a 400 lb. pig...

Did you just say that limit of fly's change is determined by the chemistry of their bodies? Sounds like a limiting factor to me, does it not?

Yes, but whereas evolution can change the chemistry of an animal's body, it cannot change the laws of physics which prevent animals from becoming arbitrarily large or resist arbitrary impact forces.