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Subject: 
Re: Evolution vs Scientific Creationism
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.off-topic.debate
Date: 
Fri, 12 Jul 2002 15:50:19 GMT
Viewed: 
5205 times
  
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Lindsay Frederick Braun writes:
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Bruce Schlickbernd writes:
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Koudys writes:

Once again, the difference is jumping species.  Whether it's 2 years or 2
thousand years, or 2 million years, a fish is still a fish.  Sure, it
adapted over the course of those millions of years to climate changes, grew
a new fin to help it swim, but it's still a fish.  What tells me something
right away is the substansive dismissal of any theory that doesn't fit the
required wordview.  'I believe that there is no god so I'm going to
interpret what I see today this way to prove there's no god.'  Sure, the
reverse is true 'Oh there *is* a god and here's why we can say that...'
Whatever.  I'm not a "Scientific Creationist", nor am I a scientist.  I'm a
guy who gets paid to fix computers all day.

Of course a fish is still a fish.  I mean, what else would it be?  If you
are trying to state (but not quite saying it) that a fish can never evolve
into another species, that's easy to answer: yes it can.  I think you are
really trying to say it can't evolve into another Genus, or Family, or
Order, or on up the taxonomic scale (in point of fact, we have bred things
that can no longer mate and produce viable offspring with the original
species but can have viable offspring with themselves, forming a new
species).  Anyway, we are talking about millions and millions of years.
Keep making small changes millenia after millenia after millenia after
millenia and you end up with something similiar but at the same time quite
different (say Chimps and Humans).

  Also, fish aren't fish.  There is no class, subclass, order, family,
  genus, or species known as "fish."  What we know colloquially as fish
  are in fact four (maybe five now) classes of vertebrates that happen to
  all share certain features that adapt them for life at sea.

*CRASH*!!!  Nobody expects the Taxonomic Scale Inquisition!  Our chief
weapon is surprise.  Surprise and anal retentiveness.....oooooooooo....two
chief weapons are surprise, anal retentiveness, and a ruthless devotion to
splitting scales....three!  Three chief weapons.....


  Lines between phylogenic categories are fluid because every member
  of a species is slightly different from all other members, and these
  divisions are convenient ways for human beings to group observed
  populations.  Evoution would never suggest that a fish would suddenly
  give birth to frogs. That's a major misrepresentation that creationists
  sometimes make about evolution.

As to the rest, evolution does not address God in any way, shape or form, so
you'll have to be more specific about your complaints.  Darwin's major area
of study in college was theology, by the way.

  And, of course, before evolutionary theory everyone was a Creationist!
  Darwin et al had to fight the battle against creationism entrenched
  in the academy--its evidence was so overwhelming that thinking men
  and women quickly came to the realization that special creation was
  not a viable scientific theory.

  (And, of course, Darwin started out a creationist too--but never
  went back; the "deathbed recantation" is a great urban legend.)

Darwin's writing on his views on God late in life and how they changed are
available somewhere on the web.


Chloresterol is good for you--oh wait, it isn't--oh wait it is, but only
certain types.  Science fudges many many things.

No.  Science changes its mind about things as new evidence presents itself.
Darwin's theories are hardly the state of evolutionary thought.
Creationists never admit that they could be wrong.  They just made up new
numbers out of the blue (site me why the firm date was changed and how the
new numbers (which never admit possible wrong with the 6000 year figure)
were arrived at).

  Evolution is a moving target.  It's easier for creationists to
  attack Darwin's 19th-century work with their own data, which are
  often 30 years or more out of date (and proven wrong, like the
  moon dust influx data from 1954).

Like their, "If evolution exists, where are the intermediary forms of
whales?"  (no, I'm not letting you make me say Cetaceans....dang!)  Lots of
those have been classified since the challenge was first brought up, but
they still tote it out through their own ignorance.

Give me the specifics as to why, then.  You are confusing changing due to
new information with dodging the bullet.

  Also, creationists don't change the theory.  They find a new workaround
  that allows them to claim Biblically literal truth is unviolated.
  (I still love the "water vapor canopy" thing--yes, they now feel they
  know where Flood water came from, but they can never quite grapple with
  the problem of where all that water *went*...)

Thor drained it when he drank from the cup that was connected to the ocean.
One can only suppose that being a god, he didn't need to urinate (or he's
looking *really* cross-eyed right about now).


If something is successful, it doesn't have to change.  Sharks have been
around for 100 million years, longer than Tyrannasaurus Rex.  There is no
contradiction.  You are seizing upon a half-understood concept and
extrapolating a specious conclusion from it.  This is typical of the
Creationist attempts to denigrate evolution.

  Actually, longer.  Sharks arose during the early Pennsylvanian,
  some 300-325 mya.  See my note about the pace of shark and
  crossopterygian evolution--they do still modify, just not
  visibly and rapidly.

*CRASH* Nobody expects that there's no such thing as sharks.  Condrichthys.

Oh god, I can't continue with this.  Sharks!  Sharks, sharks, sharks.  Fish,
fish, fish.  Nyahh, nyahh, nyahh.  Modern sharks (i.e. the very stable
format we see today) are more like 150 million years if you insist on being
absolutely anal-retentive (I was trying to stay with David's format of
"micro-evolution).  :-)

Bruce



Message has 1 Reply:
  Know Thy Python (was: Re: Evolution vs Scientific Creationism)
 
(...) If, for no other reason, you have to respect a man who knows his Python.... <okay, I just cracked *myself* up with that one!> -John (22 years ago, 12-Jul-02, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Evolution vs Scientific Creationism
 
(...) Also, fish aren't fish. There is no class, subclass, order, family, genus, or species known as "fish." What we know colloquially as fish are in fact four (maybe five now) classes of vertebrates that happen to all share certain features that (...) (22 years ago, 12-Jul-02, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

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