Post by StreetOn Sun, 27 Sep 2015 09:40:39 -0500, Christopher A. Lee
Post by Christopher A. LeePost by StreetOn Sat, 26 Sep 2015 19:50:25 -0700, Jeanne Douglas
Post by Jeanne DouglasPost by StreetPost by A***@yahoo.comPost by StreetOn Sat, 26 Sep 2015 15:02:09 -0700, Jeanne Douglas
Post by Jeanne DouglasOn Saturday, September 26, 2015 at 3:11:02 AM UTC-7, Tom McDonald
Post by Tom McDonaldPost by StreetOn Fri, 25 Sep 2015 18:58:24 -0500, Tom McDonald
Post by Tom McDonaldOn Friday, September 25, 2015 at 3:10:05 PM UTC-7, Smiler
Post by SmilerOn Friday, September 25, 2015 at 12:50:29 AM UTC-7,
<snip>
Post by hypatiab7Now you're being deliberately stupid. And a waste of
everyones' time.
fill in the evolution gaps.
They're your gaps. _You_ fill them in.
why should I do that if George Gaylord Simpson couldn't do
it, Carl Sagan couldn't do it, Richard Leakey couldn't do
it, Louis Leakey couldn't do it, Mary Leakey couldn't do
it, Charles Darwin couldn't do it, Thomas Huxley couldn't
do it, Ernst Haeckel couldn't do it, Colin Patterson
couldn't do it, Stephen Jay Gould couldn't do it, Richard
Dawkins couldn't do it, Neil deGrasse Tyson couldn't do it,
Ron Okimoto couldn't do it, Michio Kaku couldn't do it,
Jillery couldn't do it, Mark Isaak couldn't do it, and
apparently, you admit that can't do it.
Tons of gaps have been filled in. How many do you want before
you realize you're asking for what's already been provided?
There's where the fundies have us. Every time a gap is filled,
it creates two smaller gaps on either side of the fill, ad
infinitum.<j/k>
I am wondering if that common creationist line is where he's going
with this, or whether he's going for the idea that we don't know
for sure whether any specific ancient fossil, or even fossil Homo
species, is ancestral to us. Or, even worse, whether he's wanting
a generation-by-generation progression of every individual showing
that ancestry. I've seen creationists try all three tactics,
you reduce everything creationists, like myself, do as using
"tactics." "Tactics" implies a disregard for truth and that the
end, whatever that may be, justifies the means. So that lying, as
Christopher often accuses us of doing, is justified. This also
implies that I don't believe it myself. This also means that I'm
trying to gain something to which I would benefit myself from what I
say.
To answer that, I can say that I would not benefit at all, actually,
except that if you got to heaven, you would benefit. There is no
actual physical benefit that I could derive from laying out evidence
of the truth, and of the evidence for salvation. If I thought you
had evidence for evolution, and it was convincing, I'd truly be
stupid for rejecting that.
Thank you for finally confessing that you are stupid.
I'm compiling a collection of Asteroid7 quotes. This is one of the
best so far.
why don't you provide some quotes that prove evolution?
Are you kidding? I have volumes of them.
Quotes are irrelevant. The only thing that matters is the data, the
evidence.
Description of evidence and its interpretation was what I was
referring to.
Apart from the fact that it is the label for a set of observations,
originally in catalogued and collated fossil sequences, showing change
and divergence over time and which won't go away...
Dawkins pointed out that nowadays we have so much evidence proving
evolution that fossil animals aren't even required. Just icing on the
cake, so to speak. Cretinists just don't realize that their screaming
about gaps in the fossil record is strictly irrelevant.
That's right. Fossils are where the idea came from. The earliest
modern reference I have found was Leonardo da Vinci who saw fossils
dug up during the excavation for a canal. He recognised that they were
the remains of fish (AFAIR) similar but different from modern ones, I
don't think he took the idea much further, though.
Evolutionary thought goes back a long way to the ancient Greeks
(Anaximander) but it was "rediscovered" in the 1700s, with roots in
the late 1600s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_evolutionary_thought#Renaissance_and_Enlightenment
The word evolution (from the Latin evolutio, meaning "to unroll like
a scroll") was initially used to refer to embryological development;
its first use in relation to development of species came in 1762,
when Charles Bonnet used it for his concept of "pre-formation," in
which females carried a miniature form of all future generations.
The term gradually gained a more general meaning of growth or
progressive development.
Later in the 18th century, the French philosopher Georges-Louis
Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, one of the leading naturalists of the
time, suggested that what most people referred to as species were
really just well-marked varieties, modified from an original form by
environmental factors. For example, he believed that lions, tigers,
leopards and house cats might all have a common ancestor. He further
speculated that the 200 or so species of mammals then known might
have descended from as few as 38 original animal forms. Buffon's
evolutionary ideas were limited; he believed each of the original
forms had arisen through spontaneous generation and that each was
shaped by "internal moulds" that limited the amount of change
. Buffon's works, Histoire naturelle (17491789) and Époques de la
nature (1778), containing well-developed theories about a completely
materialistic origin for the Earth and his ideas questioning the
fixity of species, were extremely influential.
[..]
Between 1767 and 1792, James Burnett, Lord Monboddo, included in his
writings not only the concept that man had descended from primates,
but also that, in response to the environment, creatures had found
methods of transforming their characteristics over long time
intervals.
Charles Darwin's grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, published Zoonomia
(17941796) which suggested that "all warm-blooded animals have
arisen from one living filament.
By the time Darwin went on his famous voyage, the prevailing
explanation for evolution, was Jean Baptiste Lamarck's one of
inherited acquired characteristics, with one single-celled ancestor
for each family. Eg a single celled common cat, lion, tiger,
sabre-toothed tiger etc ancestor. Likewise a common dog, wolf,
coyote, fox etc ancestor.
But what Darwin found, could not be explained in a Lamarckian
framework so he developed his own, which has stood the test of time.
Post by StreetPost by Christopher A. LeeThey confuse the fact of evolution with the theory that explains it.to
President Reagan: "It's just a theory."
Never mind that so is every other well known scientific principle.
The Republican party then were a bit more sensible, and made sure he
didn't say anything more on the subject.
Post by StreetPost by Christopher A. LeeThe best evidence for the ignorant and uneducated, is the fact that it
has spun off whole new sciences and technologies we would not
otherwise have without it - like genetics and its applications in
biotech which have revolutionised food production and medicine (eg
bioengineered vaccines), forensic identification, etc.
Because they reject evolution and all the scientific effort that has
gone into understanding it, so they will reject all the volumes of
scientific evidence.
They're illogical fuckwits. They can't see the connection.
They can't. And when pushed on it, the usual response it that DNA was
discovered independently of evolution.
Post by StreetPost by Christopher A. LeeThere is no "creation vs evolution" debate or controversy - this is
manufactured by American fundamentalists who don't unmderstand or
don't care that it makes my adopted country look stupid to the rest of
the world.
Oh, so you remained here?
Yes.
I worked for a Silicon Valley computer company in England and got a
promotion to HQ. I sold my house in Manchester and bought a town House
in California. Because I was already their employee and it was a
change of location, they shipped a container full of my possessions
over here.
I tried to keep up a long distance relationship with my girlfriend,
but eventually this fizzled out because 5,000 miles is a long way.
But I settled down here and have had a girlfriend I met here, for the
last twenty years.
I can't go back without abandoning the things which make me who I now
am - the people to whom I have become close, my model railway
collection of decades of craft- and custom- built models of a specific
British railway company in 1900, my huge collection of books, etc
Besides which, my lung condition prevents flying because planes are
pressurised to an altitude of 9,000 feet.
Post by StreetWe need to look stupid because we are.
Aside: Shortly Europe will appear just as stupid because of the influx
of fundie muslims.
I don't think so.
The education system is much better and doesn't pander to the fundies,
although Tony Blair's expansion of faith schools to include them was a
backwards step.
And in Britain they don't hesitate to treat the religious loonies as
loonies - not to mention that the two major Christian denominations
there aren't literalist - Catholics and CofE.
So creationists are rare and get treated as the joke they are..
The US is the only developed country where they have any power - but
it's also the most religious and most fundamentalist developed
country.
Post by StreetPost by Christopher A. LeeAnd they get upset when they're treated as ignorant, in-your-face
idiots over it.
Intelligent and educated Americans have let them get away with it
because it's a "deeply held religious belief", and they've taken
advantage of this to the effect that half the population believes it
and attacks the other half over it. like a third world fundamentalist
hell-hole.
Yes! It's against the social mores to openly question somebody's
religious beliefs, and that's not good.
Especially when they push them inappropriately. Saying "Genesis
creation really happened that way" or "Noah's flood really happened"
is the same as saying "I'm an in-your-face moron".
I don't care what their beliefs are as long as they keep them inside
their religion, but they can't keep them to themselves.
If you treat them as the nonsense they are, which you wouldn't even
give a thought to if they kept them where they belong. they accuse you
of hatred for religion and the religious.
When they brought it up in the first place.
But in the real world, it _is_ nonsense - whether it is the more
extreme kind like Genesis creation, Noah's ark, etc or more mainstream
beliefs like the virgin birth, miracles, resurrection, etc which
simply don't happen.
In Britain belief isn't as strong as in the US and most Christians
aren't literalists in the first place. They understand why others
don't believe all that so they rarely push it. Many admit these things
don't really happen but it's part of their religion.
Besides which, they partition between Sunday mode where they suspend
disbelief and rest-of-the-week mode when they return to reality.