"There are huge lengths of time where the pre-human hominids and man coexisted. The superior form must destroy or replace somehow the inferior form, or you can't have evolution. Evolution is about death of the inferior form. No death, no evolution."
Not really. Otherwise, there would not be so many variations of the same basic creature. Look at how many kinds of dog there is. Each is a species in it's own right because of their differences, but all were once wolves. Evolving does not necessarily mean replacement, just often it does.
"Some processes can work a lot faster than we think"
yes, that much is obvious.
"If I sent out my Killer Robots to destroy all Chihuahuas, and as a result there was a general loss to the dog genome of small genes and yappy genes, and people instead bought more Great Danes, would that be evolution? Has any new information been added? Hasn't there been a loss of data? If a pair of little yappers survived my mad plan, and reproduced in plenty after the police hauled me and my bots away, and people got rid of their Danes because they were too big, would that be evolution? Or would it simply be variation in a kind?"
...no, it would not be evolution if more people bought Great Danes, it would be more Great Danes being bought. Death does result in loss of data, but evolution is all about the data changing. Sudden loss of the data denotes extinction due to various factors, such as your robot. That, in itself, is not a mutation. As for variation in a kind, that is evolution. Heh, and here I didn't want to argue about it. Oh well.
"There are roughly 200 independent stories of global floods in various national histories. Where did this come from? Were our ancestors clueless or liars? It took Noah a year to build the Ark. If it was a local flood, why didn't he walk ten miles a day for six months, and get 1800 miles away? It would have been easier."
uh huh. It is perfectly reasonable that there was a global flood, just like it is perfectly reasonable that there was a global freeze (ice age). Not arguing that.
what do you mean by determinism? Fate? what does that have to do with your argument? I thought we were talking about whether or not beings change over time to adapt to their environments, which believe they do wholeheartedly. What are you referring to by materialism? A rejection of metaphysical things? A belief in ONLY what can be absolutely verified? I am somewhat confused by many things you said, and thus reiterate that I am unfamiliar with the evolution v. creationism argument.
A question for all: why is that when most people talk about a soul, the very essence of your mental being, they tend to talk in religious terms? Why do people feel the need to justify their differences between the majority of other creatures? I don't; I am who I am, and whether or not I have a soul because of complex chemical interactions, or because some supernatural being made me, what difference does it make? Why should we pay homage to a being that made us? Are we a servant to this/these being(s) forever because they made us? I can understand gratitude, but why should we allow them to sit in eternal judgment on us (in some faiths)? Why do we feel the need to serve a higher power, a power we feel is greater than ourselves?
Let me try to clarify, and begin by muddying things up.
I don't like the term 'species'. Too many different definitions, too much imprecision of definition. I prefer 'kind' which means 'those creatures that can breed with each other, or A can breed with B, and B with C.'
There is a dog kind (wolf, chihuahua, Great Dane, coyote, fox) forex.
As to the many varieties of dog, I'd say that proves the use of an intelligent designer, the breeder, but not neccessarily random evolution. I'd also point out that if you sent a bulldog, a greyhound, and a little yellow dog to a dessert island, and came back a year later, the little yellow dog would be the only one left. And I'd point out that if humans got wiped out, the various sub-types of dog would revert back to their basic form, some of the more extreme would die out altogether, and others would breed and cross-breed. The only way you keep the Great Dane is to prevent it from undue competition, and keep it from breeding with other large dogs. In wild conditions, the only way to keep the Great Dane is for death to come for all the other dogs.
Variations=Evolution? Does the mutt result of a Dane and a Husky prove evolution? There's been change, there's been variation. But does that mutt prove that change it exhibited can be extended to the transformation of rat to bat? Let me suggest that you can build a tower, but that it is literally impossible to build a tower to the moon.
What happens when an animal is bred, and it gets too far from its basic form is 1)It goes sterile. or 2)It reverts to type or basic form.
Are breeders going to be able to get a poodle with wings even if they had a thousand years of effort?
I'm glad to see we agree on a global flood. And we agree on an Ice Age as well. But there are a couple problems...
1. Once you admit a global flood, a lot of the reasons to give the Earth a huge age dissappear. Grand Canyon? Oh, that was probably the result of Lake Bonneville, a remnant of the Flood, and it finally broke loose and dumped kajillions of gallons of water and mud into the Gulf in a week's time. The Great Salt Lake is but a minor remnant of Lake Bonneville.
2. There are about a hundred theories for why the Ice Age. For an Ice Age you need (contra to Day After Tommorrow) cool summers and warm winters. That ice has to come from somewhere, and that means evaporation from oceans. But if you go up into the Artic, you don't get massive snowfall, you get a few inches at best. Its too cold, no water in the air.
Also, you need cool summers so that the icepack doesn't melt.
Conditions after the Flood. Sky is probably covered with clouds for several years (which explains the Neanderthals and their rickets due to lack of Vitamin D) as the water evaporates off the land, and things like the GC are formed. Good conditions for an Ice Age.
As to determinism, I was attacking Darwin across many fronts. Determinism would be an unalterable fate. What you are was written when the Big Bang exploded. There is no free will.
Materialism is a belief that only material things exist. Your mind is an illusion. Darwin was a materialist. Most leading evolutionists are materialists.
Evolution was created to serve the purposes of materialist philosophers like Darwin. If you ask 'Why Evolution?', the answer is 'Materialism'. Evolution is the creation story for atheism just as Adam and Eve is the Creation Story for Christianity and Judaism and Odin using Ymir's body is the creation story for Asatru.
But I can stick to just science if you like. It took me quite a while when I was studying to grasp the philosophical parts. Once you've learned something, you forget how hard you had to study to learn it. It now seems obvious. Mea culpa.
I'd suggest we talk in religious terms because no other theory remotely works. You can't talk about your car in baking show terms very successfully.
Does the lion worry about committing sin, or social injustice?
Materialism very poorly explains the soul. I'd go back to my baking show example. It also opens the door to 'you're an illusion' philsophy which is very, very bad for humans (to go back to the original query, I'd say it was demonic. It is shattering to believe you're not real.)
Ayn Rand, Objectivist philosopher and atheist, wrote that man should have respect for himself, for the noble soul. She's right. You see someone acting with truth inside and outside, and that commands respect. If it doesn't, then there is something wrong with you. How much more so with those who are far above that standard?
If you see someone demonstrate great skill, an Olympic gymnast perhaps, it also commands respect. How much more so for those who juggle galaxies?
I am a parent, I give my children rules to protect them. 'No, you can't stay up all night, and eat all the ice cream in the freezer.' Sometimes they find my rules unreasonable (and no doubt sometimes I am so, but God is far above me, and is never tired.) God gives us rules for our own good. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll lifestyle may seem fun, but its actually better for you and for everyone to get married to a pretty girl, stay sober except for an occasional buzz, and not trash hotel rooms.
One does not allow God to sit in judgment on one. One has no choice in the matter.
Blaise Pascal, French mathmatician and later mystic, said 'there is a hole in the heart of man the shape of God.' That answers your last question.
You didn't want to discuss, you just wanted data, so...
1. One of the chief supports for Evo is radioactive dating. Unfortunately, there's been rocks formed by volcanoes that we know the age of (about thirty years) that got tested and returned with tens of thousands of years.
2. A once-living creature with radioactive dating dates on differing parts of its body that returned answers separated more than ten thousand years.
3. Collagen was found in a dino fossil. Collagen has a max lifespan of 30,000 years. In other words, sometime in the last 30k, not 75 million years, a dinosaur was alive.
4. Its been shown that sedimentary layers can be laid down rapidly.
5. Ice cores have differing layers of dark and light. It was thought this meant alternating seasons of summer and winter. About sixty years ago, a plane crashed in WW2. Got buried under the snow. There were something like 285 layers, but it hasn't been 285 years. It turns out that those layers are caused by changes in heat not nearly as dramatic as summer to winter.
6. One hard arguement is that light does not have enough time to reach Earth from a star a billion lights away if there are only ten thousand years in the age of the universe.
Good point.
A. One answer is that God made the universe with apparent age. Some say this is dishonest, but eh. God made Adam an adult, not a baby. I suspect that trees were full grown as well.
B. I like more scientific if I can get it. Starlight and Time by Dr. Humphries is a physics theory which I can't evaluate because its over my head. Basically, he says that the Earth was in the center or near, I'm not sure, a black hole during the days of Creation. Time dilation on a massive scale kicked in. Billions of years passed in the outer universe, and the time dilation was more severe as compared to Earth where days passed, the farther away you were.
And then when God stretched out the heavens as it says, well, thats a reference to this black hole being expanded??
==I can slap Big Bang a bit here too. There are megastructurs in the universe, composed of galaxies, great sheets of galaxies, that would take something like 300 billion years to form according to theory. Big Bang says we have 15 billion years. Now, who do I believe, the pretty theory, or my lying eyes? The theory is obviously wrong in some large point.
==Dark matter. In order for the Big Bang theories to work, we have to postulate (make up) Dark Matter. DM is 90% of the universe. Its invisible.
I've got a car. All you can see is the steering wheel. The rest is invisible. I'd like to sell it to you. Can you cut me a check for five grand?
If DM was gathered in one spot, or large clumps, it should have a detectable gravitational effect. Nope. If DM was spread thinly through the whole universe, it should have a detectable effect on the light passing through it. Nope again.
Just where is the Scarlet Pimpernel hiding?
If you want data, here's some. It might also get you more familiar with the "debate," especially if you check out the Index of Creationist Claims.
I think Brock's point about death is well articulated here.
"It should be pointed out that there is no requirement for intermediate organisms to go extinct. In fact, all living organisms can be thought of as intermediate between adjacent taxa in a phylogenetic tree. For instance, modern reptiles are intermediate between amphibians and mammals, and reptiles are also intermediate between amphibians and birds. As far as macroevolutionary predictions of morphology are concerned, this point is trivial, as it is essentially just a restatement of the concept of a nested hierarchy."
From this page, Part I, number 4, third paragraph.
(I still have no intention of arguing; I was just reading that on my own, was reminded of something Brock had said, and decided to be helpful. Edit: and on re-reading, I think perhaps that Brock's point was something different. Oh, well, no point in deleting it.)
Tad; to the direct question you asked of me, yes, because I respect that my professors know things I do not. For instance, if I was in a theology class and my professor said "Within the realm of this classroom, evolution is ignorant and Genesis is literal," I would be completely satisfied with that.
As to everything else, my mind is so baffled by the wealth of things I would want to correct that I can't take the time to bother drafting a response, so Tad, consider this your battle if it makes you feel better, because I'm apathetic after going through the motions so many times.
Wait why are we talking about dark matter?
But if you look under index of evolutionist claims you find...
1. Piltdown Man
2. Nebraska Man (a pig tooth that helped sway the Scopes Trial).
3. Java Man (the discoverer found something that discredited his discovery nearby, so being a good evolutionist he hid it under his floorboards for thirty years.)
4. Neanderthal Man--not liking the way this one bent his favored version of Evo toward another version, the lead evo on this propagated the public image of a stooped man which he knew to be false.
5. Haeckel's embryololgy was known to be false in the 18th century, yet another fraud, and it was taught in the latter part of the 20th century as true.
6.....You get the point. You can find Evo's claims under 'Fraud'.
If we're going to trade websites, may I reccommend ICR.org, and Post-Darwinist, Darwinian Fundamental...ism or ists...
I suspect P-D would be the most sympatico to Brock as the writer, a very bright and clear woman, is not a Young Earth Creationist. ICR is YEC, and it has a lot of good articles.
Dembski's website might be good, but too me its too technical, and his writing lacks sparkle.
Edit: There are of course, honorable evolutionists, but its surprising just how much fraud and bad science attends evolution.
And under Creationist Claims you find all of Tad's complaints and issues with 1-6 addressed, explained, and refuted.
But since the links were offered in the spirit of providing resources to a person seeking knowledge, I certainly don't mind that you're providing links of your own.
Thanks, that is very enlightening, and the sites really help. That should be enough info for my purposes. Thanks again!
Tad - It is my belief that the karmic effects of attempting to attack someone with magic would happen to you regardless of whether or not it worked. It was your intent to cause harm, and you acted upon it. The fact that it didn't work might make it easier for you to forgive yourself later (indicative of a slightly lesser karmic backlash) but you're still going to get what's coming to you. Also, it could be that the skill of the coachman stopping the bad things from happening is a manifestation of your spell simply not working at all, in which case, nothing would befall you, as you didn't technically use any magic. It depends on what you believe. I know from personal experience that the one time I used magic to 'curse' someone, I couldn't then do anything else for a period of about a year. In-game I use spells to do things like increase my attacks and damage. In real life, I mostly focus on helping people as inoffensively as possible. I believe, based on my experience with calling upon the divine, that it is much safer that way. As always, your mileage may vary.
If DM was gathered in one spot, or large clumps, it should have a detectable gravitational effect. Nope.
See, here you're just plain wrong. It does have such an effect. That is why we know it exists. The observed effects of dark matter include:
1. Bending of light by gravity that is ten times greater than the observed mass
2. Outer stars orbiting galactic centers at rates greater than would be expected
3. Those megastructures, given the observed evidence of the big bang and size of the observable universe.
Why else did you think we believe it exists?
On a different note, can you provide an actual motive for large scale fraud by scientists, the catholic church, and a large number of other religious figures and theologians?tive for large scale fraud by scientists, and a large number of religious figures and theologians? I've never heard such an explanation before, or at least not one that accounts for the original formation of the theory of evolution.
07,
Although most Christians don't reccomend 'imprecatory' prayers, I'm not sure its actually bad. And of course, there's the OT prophets who do things like call fire from heaven which definitely falls in the attacking others category. That's my mileage.
For the story, hmmm, I might go with some magic nullification which is not something I would have likely chosen otherwise.
Tadeusz
True. And there are cases when such things are called for. Didn't the Old Testament prophets do that in what was essentially a contest of divine power against the prophets of Ba'al (and happened to win)? That sort of thing, defense of the faith, I've never seen a religion that didn't make an exception for that, right up there with defense of self, except perhaps the most extreme of Buddhist philosophies.
Hmm, yes, my philosophy on the harming of others makes it only acceptable when thus: One must protect Life, Limb, and Livelihood. The livelihood one must be a very real threat to your ability to perform your chosen career, not lashing out at rivals.
As for protecting the faith, well, that is usually unnecessary, but should it be necessary, I would include it in Livelihood-the right to live your life as you choose.
Oh, and yes, I do believe in karma, though it doesn't necessarily come back threefold, and it usually is more covert than overt, no obvious connection to the action that precipitated it unless it it was an extreme action, or magic related.
I think the modern idea of karma is warped from the original idea; that actions made by intelligent creatures will always have consequences, creating a cause and effect chain. Not that you build up spiritual morality points one way or the other until something good or bad happens.
spiritual morality points? what? Of course it is a cause and effect chain!
Like, the people that say they're improving their good karma by giving to the poor, or when the tree smashes into their car, that it was karma because they yelled at an employee today. Forgive me if I was unclear, a points-based reward system was the best I could come up with.
Sow to the wind, reap the whirlwind...something like that, or just that is in the Bible somewhere. I've also heard the Law of Sowing preached, and one point is made...you get back more than you gave.
Now lets sow some discord...:)
JTM,
Big Bang needed a fudge factor was my impression. I'll look up your points later.
There are a ton of different reasons. I'll restrict myself to two. Read Leewontin's quote. Is this guy going to give a fair-minded assessment of the evidence? If this guy were sitting on your tenure approval board, and you were a young professor seeking tenure who had been incautious in confessing some Creationist sympathies would he vote thumbs up, or would he have you tossed to the lions as a heretic (mixing metaphors.)?
Guys, I think we seriously need to slow down on the posting here. MJ has to read through all of this. The longer he spends on the extra stuff, the longer it will take him to get to the games. I know, me telling people not to post is kind of hypocritical, but I'm trying to slow my posting down as much as possible. This has gotten to almost 60 posts in less than 24 hours.
Superstition: anything believed irrationally, that is, without a rational foundation of some sort. Religion is sometimes called superstition, but only by those who believe it inherently irrational; the evidence for religion can be as solidly rational as that for anything else. It thus is not superstitious even if you, personally, do not believe it, any more than that it would be superstitious to choose the Big Bang theory over the Microbangs theory or the Steady State cosmology--three competing theories of the "origin" of the universe, each of which can be shown to have some rational basis. In the same way, neither Darwinism nor Creationism is superstition, because both are based on rational and articulable reasons.
Coincidence: the etymology of this word, co-incident, gives the fundamental meaning: two events which may or may not be connected which happen to occur in spatial or temporal proximity to each other in a way that suggests a possible relationship. Thus if the First National Bank is robbed at one o'clock and the Second National Bank at two o'clock and the Third National Bank at three o'clock, that is coincident in the literal sense that the three events occurred in a way that suggests possible connection. It might be that there is an actual connection, such as that the same thieves are responsible for all three robberies and it's part of some larger scheme (such as that at four o'clock they will be robbing not the Fourth National Bank, which will by then be heavily protected, but the Federal Credit Union, which will be a pretty easy job with all the cops somewhere else), but there might not be any connection at all. The word is used frequently in a limiting way, to say that something "is a coincidence" is a shorthand way of saying that it "is just a coincidence". That is, it certainly is coincident if someone prays for healing and is healed; that's why it is interesting--it would not matter at all if the two events were not coincident. Saying, though, that it is "just coincident" means that they are not actually connected to each other, but that it merely happens that the person prayed about the same time he was healed, and would have recovered whether or not he had prayed. The problem is, it is very difficult sometimes to distinguished what coincident events are actually related to each other and which are merely coincident.
Thus things may be "coincidental" all the time, but it is much more difficult to prove that they are "just coincidental", that there is not some common cause or actor arranging such events to occur together.
Getting back to superstition, a lot of "superstitions" are "caused" by perfectly rational thinking being reduced to single statements. Here are a few examples:
- Black cats are difficult to see, and the more difficult in dark places. It is easy to trip over an object you cannot see. Thus if a black cat passes closely in front of you, there's a good chance that you could trip and be injured. Thus, It is bad luck if a black cat crosses your path.
- Mirrors are generally made of glass, silvered with heavy metals. We use them in bed chambers and bathrooms, both places where we are likely to go barefoot. If you break something made of glass, you will have a very difficult time sweeping up all the tiny sharp shards of glass, and it may be years later that your bare feet pick up a fragment, leading to a puncture wound and splinter that might become infected. Therefore, Breaking a mirror will bring you seven years' bad luck.
- Ladders are used by workmen, who carry heavy tools, buckets of chemicals, and other dangerous objects up these relatively unstable structures. If you happen to bump the ladder, you might destabilize it, and someone or something might fall. Even if you are careful enough not to bump it, it still might be the case that something could be dropped which might hit you. We conclude that it is bad luck to walk under a ladder.
From Brock:
In order for me to accept any part of someone's theory, it must be non-religious, because I view religion as a form of bias, a belief that a person has that won't be altered.Ah, but irreligion is also a form of bias. You cannot actually have an unbiased position on religion, and you cannot have an unbiased position on anything else, because your position on religion will inherently impact everything else.
As to Graham's mother, shame on her. I readily admit that I do not know whether evolution, Darwinian, theistic, or other, is a "fact", but I do know that the evidence for it has been pretty thin on the ground. Even people who are not at all interested in a religious answer recognize that the pieces we ought to have found are not there. For example, in one non-religious debate one person claimed that there was not a single example of a progression of forms through an evolutionary sequence. His opponent said of course there was, there was the equine exhibit at the Smithsonian. The first person said, no, that's not what that is; that is only a collection of related creatures from different places and times arranged as if they were such a progression. The opponent's answer? "Oh, yeah. I forgot." So many facts have been presented as supporting evolution that really don't, that it is difficult to identify which facts (if any) really do. Evolution is a theory that explains a great deal if it is correct, but which has not really been shown conclusively to be correct. There are some who believe that life on earth was intelligently designed by life elsewhere--not a "religious" position (in the traditional sense) at all, but an admission that the naturalist/materialist assumptions of traditional evolutionary theory are inadequate for at least some non-religious scientists.
Concerning the time travel theory--are you talking about the theory I actually hold, which I have come more recently to call "the replacement theory" and which I describe and defend at Temporal Anomalies in Popular Time Travel Movies, or the incomplete theory I was exploring here at gaming outpost under the title A Draft: Toward Two-Dimensional Time? Either way, I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but I am so accustomed to receiving e-mail from people saying either that they had never understood it before or that I really have everything all wrong and don't understand it at all. So it's actually refreshing to find someone who not only agrees but has already thought of this independently--particularly if you really did think of all of it already, as usually people who got it only got part of it.
Kirk is wrong about his glasses: the ones he was given were not broken, so the ones he is selling are not the ones he is going to be given. That is, at the moment he brings them to the past, there are two such pairs of glasses, one of which has a broken lens. McCoy will eventually acquire the ones with the unbroken lens and give it to him, and this other pair will wind up elsewhere.
As to the T-800's arm, that's a different sort of puzzle, but it's only really a problem if you're trying to make the story a fixed time story. It is very easily resolved in replacement theory, and not that difficult under parallel dimension theory.
That's a lot of disjointed stuff in response to a very disjointed thread.
Oh, I too am interested in the answer to Eric's question: if a Wiccan intends harm by magic, but some outside interference prevents the harm from being effected, is he still guilty?
--M. J. Young
And again I cross posted with a lot of posts--thanks for the answer to the question, Harry. This was a very long thread to read, but maybe I benefited from it.
--M. J. Young
"Ah, but irreligion is also a form of bias. You cannot actually have an unbiased position on religion, and you cannot have an unbiased position on anything else, because your position on religion will inherently impact everything else"
which is why I reconsidered and said, "Then again, science could be said to be a form of bias, so I think I'll just stop talking now, heh. Don't want an argument."
I reconsidered my standpoint, but it's hard to make that clear without the ability to accurately impart the sound of my voice. Sorry about that. I meant by that exactly what you said, I'm biased either way so I am shutting up.
"Concerning the time travel theory--are you talking about the theory I actually hold, which I have come more recently to call "the replacement theory" and which I describe and defend at Temporal Anomalies in Popular Time Travel Movies, or the incomplete theory I was exploring here at gaming outpost under the title A Draft: Toward Two-Dimensional Time? Either way, I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but I am so accustomed to receiving e-mail from people saying either that they had never understood it before or that I really have everything all wrong and don't understand it at all. So it's actually refreshing to find someone who not only agrees but has already thought of this independently--particularly if you really did think of all of it already, as usually people who got it only got part of it."
The replacement theory. I found that site before I came here, but I only just buckled down and started reading it.
As I said, it's the same basic theory, but outlined in more detail on your site, probably because it was your intent to share with people while mine was just to think about it. Also, you make a study of time travel movies, which I haven't done. It was the time travel itself that was interesting.
and as for the question: From what I recall, yes. In almost all divine things I have witnessed, the intent is what truly matters. But: A Wiccan won't intend harm by magic, it is against the Rede and makes them into a religion that is only similar to Wicca. True Wiccans follow the Rede, and new religions that do not but call themselves Wicca are just using the name, but not the spirit. It's a common misconception, made the worse by published books that disagree with the Rede but call themselves Wiccan. When a Wiccan must defend their faith, they do so passively. On the other hand, one could say that the meaning of Wicca is lost now, due to the people who claim to be Wiccan but are not. The term I hear for people who are very similar to Wiccan except the Rede is usually Neo-Pagan, which is also remarkably inaccurate, and can apply to a lot of people who are not similar.
Edited btw.
I think 'true Wiccans' call themselves White Wiccans or something like that nowadays. I'm a bit out of touch, I finished my year and a day apprenticeship and then went on to study other things.
Wodium,
Its not between lizard and fish, its between Lizard Ver. 1 and Lizard Ver. 1.00000001. You have two competitors for the same niche, one is minisculely more adapted than the other one, he survives, the other one dies. Evolution proceeds. Repeat process a thousand thousand times, and the lizard is now flying.
That's evo.
Hmmm...I may have poked a hornet's nest three times and tapped my foot with this thread.... (that is a very obscure reference, I wonder if anyone will get it)
eric
Actually, dark matter was initally used to explain discrepancies in different classes of data relating to gravitational distortion of light, but the plain fact is that the theories work at short distances regardless of dark matter, and not at long distances without it, and that effect can most easily be described by dark matter. It could also be explained by unknown physical forces, but the ultimate effect is the same and one is less complicated. I do recall that the LHC will be trying to generate dark matter, so if we're lucky a definte answer will come of that.
So a more accurate analogy would be someone sitting on a chair flying down the interstate at 60 MPH and otherwise seeming to be in a car.
Well, how about discussing world design? Any ideas on that you have? What about an alternate reality where the dominant religion is Wicca.
Would it split like Protestants do, or be unitary (mostly, but with a few major groups like the Moslems)? Would they develop constitutional gov't, or is monarchy or priest kings more likely?
Tad: try to keep in mind that evolution acts over populations, not individuals. I've forgotten what your objection was, but your lizard example is framed on a suspiciously individual level, and that misconception may be feeding others of your misconceptions.
JTM,
Or it could be like the Oort Cloud which has to exist because comets are here, and comets would have been swept up after 10k years. OTOH, maybe the Oort Cloud isn't there, and the theory that says it must be is just flat mistaken.
Maybe there is no car, and that steering wheel is actually a probe from a passing UFO.
At one time, everyone was sure Ether existed.
Edited.
Wodium,
I hoped I wouldn't have to be that precise, but yes, I had populations in mind.
The speculated source of superstition is that it's the result of a tendency for the human brain to err on the side of caution in detecting patterns, because seeing a lion where there isn't one will generally not kill you, while not seeing a lion where there is one often will.
But that's evolutionary neuroscience, which combines a lack of clear data with a quick-changing field, so no certainty there.
Eric
Well, the analogy with the Oort cloud is accurate, but only because we have even better evidence for the Oort cloud than the 10K lifespan comets. Namely, the 500 or less year lifespan comets we see around.
The thing is, dark matter explains things which are happening now, and was later found to explain oddities in big bang theory, which it actually predates.
I'm not going to count DM and Oort Clouds as superstition...
==Short-term Comets
+Somebody should thank him for reminding me of yet another piece of evidence for an ancient solar system. Some of the very shortest-period comets can degrade in as little as 500 years, yet we still observe them in the sky. Therefore, the "comet capture" theory is obviously correct, since we've definitely been around for more than 500 years so the young ones must be coming from an external source.
==Please notice that the author cites no reference for this figure and this author has seen no such figure before.
The above is part of a fisking from CreationWiki of a TalkOrigins claim by a Mr. Wong. I'm assuming Mr. Wong is your source for this claim?
Yup, and it seems he was incorrect, or possibly made a typo. Seems the lower end of comet lifespans is 1,500 years.
http://www.creationism.org/ackerman/AckermanYoungWorldChap03.htm
http://www.nwcreation.net/lycklama/young.ppt
http://williamsfamilyplayers.com/creation_revised2001.htm
http://www.biblicaldiscipleship.org/Creation_vs_Evolution/Young%20Earth.ppt
No, the choice of sources was not dictated by a sense of irony.
Our local Chinese restaurant is Wong Gardens which makes me want to crack wise.
Could be a typo, easy enough to drop a '1'.
If there are comets that are younger than 6,000 years, and I think everyone assumes there are, then that means there is some form of replenishment of comets. I'm hoping to revisit this later with you once I get down to some research, but for now, I'll say touche' on this one issue.
Which means Evos 1! and Creationists 20! or so.
....You're kidding right? A count? How can you keep that kind of count if you aren;t kidding? In debates as vehement as this subject often has, each side is already certain of their victory and a point is rarely conceded. Any vehement evo supporter could reverse that score and be totally correct in their mind. I hope you were kidding.
Yeah but creationist points are points like unicorns are horses, so I'm not really all that worried about it.
...Kidding
Remember that long list of things I put down in response to your questions, Brock? The ones nobody answered? Each of those is a devastating point.
Brock, I will concede a point because I like to think I'm more fair-minded and open-minded than many of my opponents. This means when I say "I won" it has extra validity because I've proven myself honorable.
The Oort Cloud qualifies as Wild Speculation with perhaps a glimmer of evidence. I gave the point to JTM since, unlike others, he was a gent, and because I had even less than Wild Speculation. But winning a poker hand with a four and a five tain't much. But it is a point.
Remember that long list of things I put down in response to your questions, Brock? The ones nobody answered? Each of those is a devastating point.
No. But I'm not arguing them with you.
Well maybe, you're 'not arguing' arguing when you're claiming that the TalkOrigins archive refutes my points. And there were a number of points that were actually raised and dealt with by both sides with my impression being of Creationists' victory on those alone.
Remember, I just wrote almost a whole first draft of a novel on Darwin, and making fun of him. Its not exactly a fair fight. How about we wait until you write a novel defending the honor of the Saint of the Galapagos, and then you can come back and clean my clock?
I did find one thing of interest in my research for the novel, 'Darwin's World'. There were very few jokes about Darwin. Lots and lots of jokes by Evos about Creationists and so on, but few japes and jibes coming the other way. It was not what I expected.
Tad, you're not going to bait me into an argument with your derision.
And there were a number of points that were actually raised and dealt with by both sides with my impression being of Creationists' victory on those alone.
I am intensely dissatisfied with nearly all of the attempts at opposition of your points in this thread, with the exception of posts by James (which even you conceded were strong). If I had the time and inclination, I would refute even those who have been attempting to argue against you.
I suppose the short version of that is that you might be winning an argument with some people, or you might not, but that has nothing to do with the validity of your points.
I doubt I could ever convince you personally, but I dearly wish I could take a month or two off and argue with you - right now. I am confident that any impartial judge would award me victory. It would be sometime in December, but I would carry the day.
Well maybe, you're 'not arguing' arguing when you're claiming that the TalkOrigins archive refutes my points.
No, I'm not. What I'm doing in that post is pointing out that being unopposed does not mean your arguments are 'devestating.' If I can't spare the time to refute you in public, the least I can do is point bystanders in the direction of the truth.