I'm sure you'll get plenty of pushback on this, perhaps starting with the idea that there is a single "theory of evolution" rather than a collection of many theories, constantly, er, evolving over time.

Anyway, I'll just point out that current evolutionary theory describes a slight variation on your analogy. Instead of just coming back after billions of years in cryogenic sleep, you'd wake up at regular intervals (or perhaps supervise all along). You would throw away the random garbage, leaving only the coherent works.

Because of that -- the "survival of the fittest" bit -- you wouldn't be surprised to come along a few billion years later and not see the rejects.

Of course, you might occasionally spot a reject in production in the form of mutations, but the monkeys type very, very slowly indeed.

Anyway, I'll leave to others who might feel more passionately about defending evolution; my cursory familiarity compelled me to point that out.

Like pretty much every anti-evolutionist, the author seems to think he's hit on some fatal flaws that will bring the whole theory crashing down.

There's a lot to dissect here, so for now I'll just start with the analogy of the monkeys - which again is far from original when applied to evolution.

It's not an especially good analogy because it ignores environmental factors. As Phillip hinted at, a better scenario would be if the pages the monkeys typed burst into flame whenever they failed to type a word or passage from Hamlet. This would happen rather a lot, but eventually a page would be produced which contained the words "Who's there?" (The first line of the play.) Subsequently, a great deal more pages would incandesce, until the monkeys typed the words "Nay, answer me" (the second line). You now have the first two lines of Hamlet - everything else has been immolated. And so it proceeds until you eventually have the whole of Hamlet, an extraordinarily large pile of ashes and some disgruntled and hungry monkeys.

It's still not a perfect analogy, but it describes the mechanism of evolution rather better.

"Dr Dreadful: Like pretty much every anti-evolutionist, the author ... "

This is all very "cutsie" stuff. But little substance. It refutes nothing the author has said.

Bear with me, Teano. I don't want to have to repeat myself. I said, "For now..."

What is "cutsie" when it's at home?

Actually, the author has a number of valid points.

One is the vehemence with which scientists will defend a flawed theory when it is challenged. The stones and bones that make up the geologic record that proves that life did evolve indicate that it evolved, not in slow orderly progressions dictated by random mutation, but by fits and starts, exploding all at once at various times in geologic history.

The changes were violent and massive, it appears, with large amounts of changes taking place all at nearly the same time.

What is indeed interesting is that nature settled on only two designs for picking up and translating visual signals. One is the multiplex eyelets found in insects, and the other is the eye, found in almost all life above an insect. A fish eye and a human eye have far more in common than they have in variance. Why only one or two designs in millions of species?

Carbon dating indicates that life did evolve over a long period of time, billions of years at least - from the way we count time, looking backwards. But the stones and bones point to something other than random mutation. So long as scientists refuse to look that fact in the face, they will continue to produce flawed theories to explain the facts.

This appears on the surface to be just another "creationist" trying to pick and choose what is theory and what is fact.

Anything that he agrees with is fact, anything he disagrees with is theory. A well thought out mind could post a valid thought here and the author would (and already has)just completely reject it-proclaiming with his nose up in the air "You haven't repudiated anything"

Fact-We now have telescopes that can see hundreds of millions of light years away. In the likely case that you're familiar with the term, light year-that's a measurement in distance... time

Fact-If this is indeed the only orb within tens of billions of stars in the universe that just happens to be in the right place and the right time to have intelligent life on it, that indeed means we've beaten 1-in-Ten billion odds. A 50 thousand years ago contitions on this earth were much different, as they will be 50 years from now.

God's creation is rather faulty here if you ask me.

The earth is in a decaying orbit, filled with millions of massive objects aimed at it that could completely destroy it at a moment's notice.

Fact-The sun will eventually burn out, expand and destroy all that god created.

We have a galaxy bearing down on our own that in a few billion years will collide with ours causing a vast cataclysm or a drastic rearrangement of gods work.

Compare the human man of today with the human man of Jesus' time.

If we were to bring the people of Jesus's time forward to our own, they couldn't breath our present day peasoup air, drink our chlorinated and flourided water, and wouldn't live past the age of 45 years.

Why

Because the human species has EVOLVED to adapt to the current conditions. Through selective breeding, and mutation every single animal, fish and even microbes have changed in order to either be able live in its current circumstances or die trying. That's called evolution.

Now that I've looked it over and read the whole thing, instead of think, I now know that this is indeed another "creationist" trying to pick and choose what is theory and what is fact.

Picking and choosing facts to fit theories and visa verse is not only foolish, but folly...

But of course that's only my...

theory

What's really interesting, is that neither side seems open to the possibility that their HYPOTHESIS is flawed. "Theory" has some experimental evidence to back it up, "Fact" is a fun word thrown around to impress pundits. The six most important words in SCIENCE is "I don't know, let's find out."
Both the Creationists and the Evolutionists have this comfortable little box that they both put the question in-it's just that their boxes have different labeling.

That box may as well be labeled "Faith" since nobody has a couple million years to run an experiment, all we have is circumstantial evidence and hypotheticals to explain it that we are only BARELY able to test. Without knowing how much Carbon-13, for instance, is in the environment at a given period, you have a limited ability to extrapolate...from existing percentages. Likewise for Uranium dating. Time-distances pre-dating the discovery of these elements in nature are "Best Guesses". This doesn't mean the process is actually inaccurate, only that it MIGHT be. In that, creationists might have a point. Further, the ability to generate "life" from samplings of hydrocarbons still hasn't been done in a lab, and the actual conditions of the earth at the time it is HYPOTHESIZED that life began still aren't well-known, and haven't been accurately measured-we just don't KNOW ENOUGH yet.


The Creationists and ID people have a point there.

But 'tis not just points to their favour. As of yet, there's no direct evidence of the EXISTENCE of a Supreme Being, Creator, Deity, grand snaggleopppogus, or Great White Hanky. According to most existing literature of the major religions, God isn't granting interviews, nor is Allah, Buddha, or Muhammed. What the Creationist misses, is that it's NOT THE JOB OF SCIENCE to prove God's Existence, or the Alien Space Brothers, or Odin. God is about FAITH. SCIENCE is about "How does it WORK". Good science doesn't address theological questions, it only analyzes physical processes and properties of the universe AS IT IS, or "Why does the sun consume Hydrogen and produce Helium?", "How did I get this sun-burn?" or "How do I travel to the moon?"

Questions of God are "Do I have a Soul, where does it go, how should I live my life?" SCIENCE does not answer these questions. Science doesn't tell you what is right, or wrong, it does not provide guidance on how to treat your spouse, or children, it doesn't provide a reason why bad things happen to good people, nor does it define good and evil.

This means, basically, that science will not tell you whether or not god exists, has existed, or will exist-it's like getting an anonymous machine marked up in a language you don't know- science can tell you what it's made of, what its parts do, how they interact with one another...but it can't tell you WHO made it, or why, only what it might be for, and roughly how its parts work.

Both sides of the debate seem to be obsessed with (mis)using science to answer a question that neither side can provide empirical proof to support.

Ask a Creationist some time, "What is a work-day for an eternal being who is, by your own definition,all knowing and all powerful?" The correct answer is "As long as he wants (or needs) it to be."

The next question is "What kind of shoddy craftsman has to interfere with the workings of his device at every stage?" If god is perfect (as most Christians and other devout folk maintain he is) then he's not a shoddy craftsman. Observably, the universe works a certain way, observably, animals adapt to their environment, and tend to breed with other animals who show traits that are successful. Experimentally, selective breeding has produced most of our domestic animals. Presuming an all-powerful, and all-knowing creator who doesn't slack on the small details, is it really reasonable to assume that said creator would build a system that requires HIS direct intervention to produce intelligent life on one mote-speck of a planet around an unremarkable G2 yellow dwarf star in the unfashionable end of the western arm of a spiral galaxy that is one of thousands just like it?

Is it not more reasonable to assume that a being capable of creating a universe, would build that universe to the highest quality standards as a stand-alone, able to maintain itself for the desired period of time without constant meddling by the creator?

To a being inside that universe, would it not seem, (absent spectacular insight on the part of the observer) that these "Natural" processes are, in fact, NATURALLY Occurring, and that the mechanism follows its own internal rules, and does so seamlessly and without leaving toolmarks?

Darwin believed in god. Darwinists try to erase god and use Darwin to try and prove Gods non-existence. Creationists use science and technology, but try to use it to prove god's existence.

Both are mis-using scientific observation for their own ends.

Cannonshop,

Has it ever dawned on you that both evolution (as corrected by reality on the ground) and the Bible may both be right?

True, it is not the job of the scientist to prove the existence of G-d. And it is not the job of the theologian to disprove physics or cosmology. But both might discover that they are headed in the same general direction of increasing understanding of mankind of the universe around him....

Further it must be noted here that once one gets to quantum physics, one largely leaves physics and skirts closely into the territory of metaphysics.

That question is not directed just at you but at all of the folks reading - particularly the author...

Indeed, Ruvy, it has. I have also found many similarities between various non-biblical texts and the bible, as well as features of Quantum Physics. The question of which truth is "truer" is one for Theologians. Physics, Quantum Physics, and various branches of science remain, for me, a path to finding out HOW the universe is constructed, and not paths to determining who, what, or whom might or might not be the motivating force. For the Bible to be right, the Vedas must be wrong, for the Vedas to be right, the bible must be wrong. This does not mean that the bible is entirely wrong, Things that are true observatiosn, or good hypotheses based on observations, or even lucky guesses don't stop being true simply because of where they are recorded. Conclusions can be tossed in science, but Data is Data, so long as it is not cooked or manipulated to support a conclusion, any scrap of data must be taken on its own merits rather than the merits of the source. If a Creationist, for instance, discovers a protein complex that he or she claims is proof of god, it may, or may not be proof of god, but it is definitely a protein complex that must be examined on its own merits. If a Physicist finds a particle that reacts to the mood of the observer, that particle must be treated as a particle, it is not proof of magic, or psychic powers on its own, and so on.

Really, there's been a degeneration of scientific ethics in the last few generations, it seems-the unfortunate cooking-of-data and manipulation of experiments in the Global Warming debate is just as much an example of dogmatism in 'science' as the Evolution/Creation debate continues to be. In both cases, both sides have a nasty habit of unquestioningly supporting their own point of view while ignoring any point of data that disrupts that point of view's conclusion. Both sides have a nasty habit of starting with a conclusion, then snipping information to fit, rather than the other way 'round, and both sides refuse to submit their hypotheses and experimental work to peer-reviewers holding the opposing viewpoint.

Science does not progress when it becomes dogmatic, whereas religion flourishes when it is rooted in tradition. Each has a place, neither should ever serve as a substitute for the other.

"...refuse to submit their hypotheses and experimental work to peer-reviewers..."

Right. Try sending anything against evolution to a science magazine. See how open-minded they are toward peer review. They're about as closed minded as fanatics get.

Try sending anything against evolution to a science magazine. See how open-minded they are toward peer review. They're about as closed minded as fanatics get.

Or - they recognize a complete load of bollocks when they see it.

Cannonshop: Darwin believed in god. Darwinists try to erase god and use Darwin to try and prove Gods non-existence.

Slight correction. Darwin did originally believe in God - he wanted to be a minister at one point - but his research led him to become agnostic.

As Ruvy points out, there's no logical conflict between accepting the theory of evolution and a belief in God. Most scientists don't believe in God not just because of evolution but because, well, they're scientists. The physical evidence, as you rightly observe, doesn't point to his active and ongoing involvement in the universe - so one might as well proceed as if he doesn't exist.

Statistically, I seem to recall that the percentage of cosmologists, astrophysicists and quantum physicists - those who actually deal with the origins and building blocks of the universe - who believe in God is even lower than in the general science community. To me this is interesting, because from my - admittedly lay - reading on these subjects, I do see quite compelling evidence for some sort of design.

I will note here that to Josh's credit, he does not attempt to bring God into the equation in his article.

"Dr Dreadful - they recognize a complete load of bollocks when they see it"

You don't sound very open minded yourself. You have a blanket staement for whatever is against evolution, regardless of what it says? That's really "scientific." I see why evolutionists believe in the lunacy they believe in.

And the Christian view of origins starts with a fable recorded by ancient goat herders, made up from their own imaginations (well actually the Jewish version is a revision of more ancient Sumerian and Babylonian versions).

Actually, Dr. Dreadful, what led Charles Darwin to his agnosticism was the passing of his daughter in 1851. His findings were being used by atheists and dissenters to attack the positions of the Church and Darwin did think that religion was a sort of "tribal" strategy because of some of his discoveries, so to speak, but it wasn't until later that his scepticism became his dominant philosophy.

#13:

Merely responding to yours in the same tone, Tenao.

The reason why creationist/intelligent design/whatever-you-want-to-call-them papers don't get peer-reviewed is that they're usually based on shoddy science. The ones that do get published either (a) are often literature reviews, not original research, (b) don't really address the topic of evolution anyway, or (c) appear in journals with sympathetic review boards or relaxed review standards.

Citation

#15:

Jordan, I stand partially corrected on the reason for Darwin's agnosticism. However, his observations in the field did lead him to question religious orthodoxy - for example, why God would have created exquisite creatures which lived in the deep ocean where no-one could see them.

Wow, what a completely incorrect article. Has the author actually done any study into evolutionary theory? Of course we don't see billions of failed "experiments" lying around, they died before reproduction, that's why they failed and hence didn't pass along their genes. Darwin hypothesized about evolution, publishing in 1853. We've come QUITE a long way in the last 155 years.

Actually learn something about the modern theory of evolution as supported by all the evidence instead of trying to knock down your cartoon idea of what you think it is. It's pointless to refute the author when the author doesn't even know what he's talking about. Evolution is a cumulative process. Geez, read a frigging book for a change and learn something before you think you know better than the whole of modern science. It's really not that difficult a concept to grasp.

Most of this article and discussion totally miss the point anyway. While there certainly has been much scientific evidence to overturn some aspects of assumptions about the details of prior evolutionary concepts, all of these scientific advances offer nothing but more scientific evidence for other naturalistic material mechanisms for evolution. In order for "Intelligent Design" to make any advances there has to be "evidence" AGAINST naturalistic material mechanisms. And this is where ID has failed, is failing, and will always fail. The real issue is an issue of naturalistic processes vs. "supernatural" processes. ID doesn't really just rail against "Darwinian evolution", it rails against all naturalistic mechanisms. If, for example, it were proven that "natural selection" didn't account for all of the shaping of the characteristics of an organism (actually this has already been shown), this may be evidence against a purely Darwinian model, but it isn't evidence against evolution in general or against naturalistic development.

What IDers propose (Behe and Dembsky) is that they can "scientifically determine" that a given thing is impossible to have been produced via natural processes. That is their claim, and the math and procedures that they use to support this claim (specified complexity) is thoroughly and irrefutably complete bunk and total garbage. Without the ability to determine that it is impossible for something to have developed naturally, there is no science behind "Intelligent Design". ID is nothing more that reheated Aristotelian philosophy cloaked in Christian theology. Its ancient Medieval nonsense.

Is the facade of evolution crumbling a little bit over a long period of time?

Who's tested it? Where can I read said tests??

Seriously. Seriously, rejecting it as medieval nonsense without testing the man's assertions is just as much medieval nonsense.

Test what, Cannonshop?

The burden of proof is on Josh (or on Behe. Not clear who you're referring to here). He's the one challenging the established theory here.

This is about as silly as the ones who say we never landed on the moon.

The facts can be placed right in front of their eyes and they'll still call evolution as a theory.

Well, evolution is a theory, Jet. The problem here is with the creationists'/IDers misrepresentation of what a theory is.

It's strange how all those who keep yelling the author is "missing the point" are the ones who are missing the point. Have you people not read the article, or have you all just not comprehended it? There's a study that he cites that proves his point and you people just keep rehashing the same old evolutionist nonsense.

"An article in a 2007 issue of Current Biology, also available on ScienceDaily.com, reports that a multi-national team of biologists has concluded that developmental evolution is orderly and not random ... " Darwin was wrong.

Here's are excerpts of the article:

"A multi-national team of biologists has concluded that developmental evolution is deterministic and orderly, rather than random, based on a study of different species of roundworms... These results demonstrate that, even where we might expect evolution to be random, it is not"

The researchers were Karin Kiontke, a post-doctoral fellow in New York University's Department of Biology, NYU Biology Professor David Fitch, researchers from the University of Paris, the Israel Institute of Technology, and the Max-Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Germany.

It takes some serious arrogance to keep throwing out the same tired old stuff when science itself proves, not just Greenberger, that Darwin was wrong.

To #25, see my earlier post.

Studies such as the one you cite don't actually disprove evolution at all or support ID, they actually strengthen the case for naturalistic evolution. Disproves certain assumption of Darwin doesn't undermine "Darwinian evolution", and really this study doesn't even do that. First of all, Darwin had no knowledge of genetics at all, so any of his ideas about how change occurred were of course nothing but educated guess. Secondly, Darwin used the term "random" in a different way than what it is being interpreted in the cited article. Darwin never described evolution as truly "random", he used the word "random" to mean "not directed by God". When Darwin said "random" he mean naturalistic and undirected. All that the study that you cited does is further reinforce materialistic determinism and further support the case for naturalistic evolution, it absolutely does nothing to bolster any case for ID. This is exactly the point I made in post #19.

That evolution is "predictable" completely undercuts the idea that it is directed by some other "intelligent designer". It is predicable because we can predict it the way we predict any aspect of physics, which is that it follows set laws of nature. ID claims that the development of life is outside the laws of nature. If ID were true we would predict that evolution would be unpredictable, because it would be based on the whims of the designer, which presumably we couldn't predict. Evolution is predicable because it occurs exactly as we would expect if there is no designer.

Well, of course Darwin was wrong - quite often. Quite where you people get the idea that Darwin is the be-all and end-all of evolutionary theory, I don't know.

As an earlier commenter pointed out, we've come quite a way in the 150-some years since Origin of Species was published. There was a huge amount of information Darwin didn't have access to which would have caused him to modify his ideas quite significantly - the existence of genes and DNA, for instance.

So of course he made errors. So did Copernicus. That's not to say that his model of a non-geocentric universe is entirely wrong.

In case you didn't notice, Kiontke and her team are describing a different mechanism for evolution - not that it doesn't take place.

All this "Aha! Gotcha!" nonsense creationists keep coming up with is really rather tiresome.

Evolution remains a theory until you can spend a couple million years watching a fallow environment and observing it. The problem is simply a matter of time-for Evolution to occur without external, intelligent stimuli, it's going to tend to take longer than most observers have. (in other words, it's based on extrapolation and comparison-but there is no experimental evidence of complex organisms spontaneously evolving.) This is why it's a THEORY (a Hypothesis with supporting evidence that's probably true).

Dr. Dreadful's right about Creationist misinterpretation as well-they misuse "Theory" where "Hypothesis" is the correct term. (It has not been subjected to, and passed, adversarial peer-review), however, this is not a flaw shared only among Creationists.

Teano (I think that's what it says, my screen's a piece of crap and the font's kinda small) points out that there are serious researchers arguing Darwin with the link posted. At this point, then, it's time to test (as far as is technologically possible) the claim, and test it without prejudice. After all, it wasn't THAT long ago that the consensus among Geolologists and Geophysicist stated that continental plates elevated and sank, but did not change position. Plate Tectonics was the "looney claim" that violated the common wisdom.

Cannonshop, organisms (whether complex or single-celled) don't evolve spontaneously but in response to their environment.

I point this out because it's at the heart of Josh's misunderstanding of how natural selection works.

#28 : Good call on Copernicus. What the IDers are doing is as akin to claiming that the idea that earth is not the center of the universe is undercut by the discovery that the sun wasn't the center of the universe as Copernicus claimed, because the whole solar system is just a part of the Milky Way, etc. The Christians claimed that the earth was the center of the universe (as did many others) and held this as a matter of faith. Copernicus argued that the earth went around the sun, thus showing that the earth was not the center and that instead the sun was the center. We since learned that even the sun is not the center. Showing that the sun is not the center doesn't support the claims of the Christian faith, it only further undermines them even more.

The same goes with new findings about evolution. The new findings about evolution may contradict certain specific claims of Darwin, but they actually bolster the case for naturalistic development of life, which was the primary claim of Darwin, they don't contradict it. None of these new discovers that change our understanding of evolution contradict evolution itself or support non-naturalistic development of life, they all actually support the case for naturalistic evolution even more than the case that Darwin himself made and they further undermine theological ideas.

After all, it wasn't THAT long ago that the consensus among Geolologists and Geophysicist stated that continental plates elevated and sank, but did not change position. Plate Tectonics was the "looney claim" that violated the common wisdom.

Indeed. But Wegener's apparently wacky ideas were eventually vindicated.

Meanwhile, creationists have been strenuously denying evolution for 150 years now, and the theory has only gotten stronger.

I guess what you evolutionist apologists are saying is that nature can be "predictable" and "orderly" but it's still science. I think this is what Greenberger is trying to point out -- to look into nature and say this is a what happens, that in itself doesn't make it science unless you can explain how. Nature can be "predictable" and "orderly", great. How does that happen? Let's forget about creationists and religion. Explain to scientifically how that happens. Please don't tell me "that's how." I know it happens. we all know it happens. The question is how. It's okay, leave God out of the picture. I'm looking for a scientific explanation. You people don't know what on earth you're talking about. You're all gong in circles.

Teano, you do a lot of talking about us not being open-minded, and yet you're guilty in spades of the exact same crime you accuse us of.

You are the terrified kid who is convinced there's a ghost in your bedroom closet because someone else told you it was there.

We are the ones who opened that closet door, looked saw nothing there, and you called us a liar because the person who told it was there would never lie to you-so by faith, no matter how many times we tell you the facts, you'd rather belief your faith instead.

The difference is we've looked OBJECTIVELY at both "theories" and chose which one makes sense to us. Science is a set of facts that can be proven in the laboratory, Religious faith is not, and the only proof is blind faith.

You walk around with blinders on, and if something doesn't meet the religous bliss fog you're walking around in, you just ignore it completely.

Sorry to tell you this, but you are a hypocrite to the n'th degree.

Since you completely ignore anything that disagrees with your bible, you are beyond reasoning with, and we should all just gently ignore your ignorance...



If it's not in the bible it didn't exist, like dinosaurs, several different versions of the same events in different parts of the gospels, and the fact that a lot of bible stories are passed on from yet older tales from the Chinese and other ancient peoples.

I feel sorry for you...

#33: Umm... that's what science IS, it is the business of making predictions based on natural observations. If nature weren't predictable then there could be no science.

Science is fundamentally based on materialism, the horrid foe of religion. Materialism states that everything happens for material reasons. Religions, especially Christianity, have always claimed that nature is not predictable, that everything in nature happens at the whim of God, and since we can't know "God's will", we can't predict what he will do next.

A hurricane, according to the traditional religious view, doesn't happen because of predictable material forces: heat, evaporation, etc., it happens because God got angry and he decided to create a hurricane out of nowhere to punish people for being bad or to harm the enemies of your tribe, etc.

According to longstanding religious views, everything happens at the direction of supernatural, i.e. unpredictable, forces.

Materialism on the other hand, says just the opposite, that everything happens due to purely natural, and thus theoretically predicable, forces.

Why are these forces predictable? Of course no one knows. It has never been an argument of any religion, however, that the natural world is predicable or that it operates via material forces. Materialism is older that Christianity, going back to about the 6th century BCE among the Greeks. When the Christians came to power they specifically denounced materialism, they specifically made the idea of atoms a heresy, they specifically stated that the idea that natural events were directed by the hand of God was heresy, they specifically declared that the idea, already developed among the Greeks, that animals developed from natural processes without a creator was heresy.

Teano:

You say you want a scientific explanation - of what, exactly, I'm not clear about. Evolution is a scientific explanation for the origin and development of species on this planet. Yet apparently it doesn't satisfy you.

So let's leave God out of the equation, as you request. That done, can you tell us, honestly, exactly why you are skeptical of the theory of evolution?

Let me repeat myself at the risk of being one of the few on this blog to make any sense. You people really are a bunch buffoons. You keep telling me about Bible and religion as if I used any of that in support of anything. The bible is not the problem here. Evolution is.

Observation by itself is not science. Explanation is. I can watch a dog all day talking a dump and then report to you a "rule of nature:" Dogs take dumps. Any idiot can see that. Explaining to me how the dog's esophagus works and how the dog's intestines work, that's science.

Telling me that nature shows an orderly production of life is not an explanation of anything -- any idiot can tell you that. Tell me how nature took the raw elements and created life -- the key is how, not simply that how it happens. You've explained nothing of the sort.

The random Darwinian theory made more sense than you guys. It was at least mystical enough to have been a possibility until the records showed it never happened that way. So now you're telling me what -- it wasn't random? Then how? You haven't said diddly squat about how it did happen.

You just keep telling me that Darwin is old hat and now we don't even have the random thing anymore -- it just happened. And then you accuse others of your own faults.

Tell me how it happened (not how the dog took a crap, but how the process works scientifically ). Don't give me the rules about how evolution says this or that. The validity of evolution is the question here. Tell me by what process one species formed another one without the deformities. Genetics doesn't explain it, as the article points out. After birth, there should have been many deformed organism. Greenberger has given some strong logical arguments of why they should've existed, and all you keep giving me are rules of evolution. Stop with the rules -- start explaining "nuts and bolts" how it happened.

Teano, just because you declare you are the only one making sense does not make it so, and there lyes our problem, which is unfixable apparently.

The very thought that you might possibly be wrong is such a foreign concept to you that you've deluded yourself into thinking your warped knowledge of the bible makes you God's spokesman of all things factual.

Are you related to George Bush by any chance?

"until the records showed it never happened that way"

If you dare... What records?

Mr. Greenberger:

Your monkey analogy is amusing, but wrong. natural selection operates primarily on the gene level, not the species level. You wouldn't have "failed" monkeys, you'd have monkeys with less-adaptable and less-selectable genes. This is one of the fundamentals of modern evolutionary science.

The most important and famous modern book on evolutionary biology, Dawkins' 1976 The Selfish Gene, is all about this.

Teano, you could just Google 'evolution'.

I really don't see why I or anyone else should have to hold you by the hand and talk you through it when there are literally billions of pages of data on the subject, but oh well.

This site should answer a lot of your questions.

Or this one.

Or - heck - even this one. Shit.

And if you don't like those explanations, why not actually read Kiontke's paper?

You really are extraordinarily arrogant. You basically ignore my request to explain why you don't think the theory of evolution is valid, and instead misrepresent the arguments of your opponents on the thread and accuse everyone else of obfuscating.

Again, we don't need to explain the mechanisms to you because the answers are all over the web and in any good library.

You seem to think you have some kind of special insight into why the whole theory is invalid; that you're the sole voice of sanity; to the extent that you don't even bother to check the literature and have convinced yourself that the only ones opposing you are a few folks on blogs.

Mr. Teano:
The answer to one of your assertions is the same: Not "deformed organisms" but less-selectable genes.

Leslie: I think you meant his cow analogy, not the monkey one. The monkeys were typing Shakespeare, they weren't coming out deformed.

:-)

There isn't a single scientist working in the field today that has produced a useful product in agriculture, medicine, or organic chemistry who uses the precepts of Intelligent Design in his or her research. They all assume evolution to be true; they work as if common descent with modification was the best-- indeed the only-- explanation for the varieties of biology with which they work.

And they give us miracles. BT corn, golden rice, modern antibiotics, obestatin (a drug for fighting obesity), orexin (a drug that fights sleep disorders), the entire field of oncogenesis (understanding why some genes cause cancer) are all products and developments that the researchers themselves say could not have happened without evolutionary biology.

Cheap food and long lives: this is what evolutionary biology gives us.

If any of the "alternatives" to evolutionary biology were useful, don't you think industrial laboratories would be using them? Don't you think they'd be publishing whitepapers that start, "Assuming these contra-Darwinian precepts to be true, we discovered the following and made billions of dollars"?

This is America. A capitalist country. No smart industrial biology lab is going to leave cash on the table. They use what works. And what works is evolutionary biology.

Until and unless Intelligent Design starts doing the three things evolutionary theory does (give an adequate explanation for observed phenomena; give new avenues of research that fail to overturn the theory; give us better control over our environment to produce new technological breakthroughs) it is nothing but a marketing campaign.

If my kids want to be architects, they would learn Newtonian physics, not Aristotelean, because Aristotelean physics doesn't work. If they want to be doctors, they need to learn evolutionary biology because, so far, none of the "alternatives" have been shown to work either.

...as me ol' pappy used to say: discovering the natural laws that provide the explanation which Teano is asking for (explaining evolutionary events that seem improbable) is what science is all about

Apologies.

Okay, okay, here's an example of how it happened.
By chance a small tropical female fish called a black mollie spyed another species of fish called a green swordtail. Finding him more attractive than her own kind she mated with him, producing green swordtails with black sides, known as "Tuxedo Swordtails"

The new fish was a completely different species from the two unrelated fish, and had become it's own species.

Now a little later a Red Platty mated with one of the Green tuxedo swords and produced red babies with black sides, and the were dubbed green tuxedo swordtails.

Meanwhile a green molly male mated with an attractive black mollie and she produced silver mollies. The subspecies were never created by God, they happened by natural evolution.

Later on nature produced a disease that was killing off the Green Swordtails, and only the strongest of them were surviving. A swordtail by then by random chance could mate with a much stronger yellow Platty, and a new subspecies EVOLVED.

God did not create these species of fish-they evolved long after God stopped his creating. It's happening right in front of me in my 80 gallon aquarium.

Back when the continents were not in the position they were in when God created them, a species of monkey had to learn how to survive using its wits and cunning. Female monkeys mated with other male monkeys that had learned to adapt by running faster and thinking their way out of danger.

As they learned these traits and passed them on to their offspring, their abilities were passed down, creating other subspecies that were stronger and smarter. They discovered it was better to stand upright, and eventually the only ones the females would mate with had smaller feet that weren't shaped as much like hands, and other traits were formed and evolved.

My Great grandfather was Black and his wife was a Cherokee indian, The child was black and he grew to marry my white grandmother, they produced my Father who appeared white, and he married a white woman and had me and my siblings.

We do not have traits of our black or indian forefathers, we are unique with the athletic abilities of my black slave ancestors who were bred for strength and speed-which is why most professional athletes are black, we also have the cheekbones of indians and their ability to survive, and we have the skins of our white mother and father.

THAT IS EVOLUTION, we are a separate subspecies than our forefathers and I'm sure my sisters will pick men who have other desirable traits and breed them into our future fathers.

My brother in the Navy married a Phillipene(sic) girl and now our family is going towards oriental leanings.

EVOLUTION-we are not what GOD created, we are animals who evolved with traits that allowed us to survive our conditions.

I doubt that you've even read down this far, as you obviously don't agree with that and will claim I haven't proven anything.

Again, you are a fool and need a better education rather than trying to push the clap-trap-crap you're trying to push on us as science.

But of course that's only my opinion...

Well... this is frightening. Did I get the last word or is everyone jusr reloading their weaponry?

Well, I'm not taking off my flak jacket just yet...

Ah damn it and I had this whole fantasy thing going in my head too...

"Leslie Bohn - ...natural selection operates primarily on the gene level, not the species level..."

This response is not necessarily to Leslie Bohn, but to all of you. It's that Leslie Bohn's statement hits the problem right on the head.

"natural selection operates primarily on the gene level, not the species level" -- who the heck says so?

I know it's all over the web, and I know it's in all textbooks, but it's nothing but an evolutionary "rule" based on observations that do not explain why. What if I told you a rule that shoes grow in prune bushes? Does it no longer need an explanation because it's a "rule?"

You can yell till your ears turn blue that it's not on the species level -- but evolution just doesn't explain why.

You're telling me the reason is because the deformed got wiped out on the genetic level, the article addresses exactly that -- it's trying to tell you that that simply isn't so. They should have existed, but they don't -- and there is no logical explantion for it.

If you disagree with that that's your prerogative. But no one here has yet even begun to explain why it's only on the genetic level, not on the macro level, and why ten-legged cows (before cows as we know them existed), who's genes were okay, were not born fifty million times before nature got it right. If you like believing in voodoo, that's fine. I know people who claim to travel by broom, I have no problem with that. But don't tell me that's reality.

The article doesn't necessarily deny the possibility of an evolutionary history. But it does disproof, logically at least, that there was nothing random about it.

You people keep repeating the same evolutionary rules that explain nothing. I couldn't care less how evolution "works." I want to know how nature works. Evolution does not explain it and neither are you cultists.

Teano, the moment you start tossing labels at the people you're discussing a serious topic with, you have lost the discussion. "Cultists" doesn't further your position, it just makes you look like a nut.

Fundamentally, the proper Scientific Method requires keeping an open mind, and accepting contravening evidence, whereby one adjusts one's conclusions rather than trimming the evidence to fit.

Okay, Teano, you tell us: what line of inquiry is most promising to telling us "how nature works?"

Obviously, the people who not only need to know how nature works, but know it well enough that they can manipulate, change, and profit from it, are using evolutionary biology.

What's your preference?

Well I have two theories here now. Either he's too closedminded to accept rational conversation, or he's just doing this because he's enjoying the attention.

Either way we've all wasted our time. Unless he is willing to come over and see my aquarium (I figured he didn't read that post) I'm done wasting my time on him.

Enjoy, the rest of you...

Since dealing with him on an adult level appears impossible, I leave you with this final thought...
(:^p~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PS, Josh's article is built on such shakey logic that he hasn't even bothered to defend it here.

"Cannonshop - the proper Scientific Method requires keeping an open mind, and accepting contravening evidence, whereby one adjusts one's conclusions rather than trimming the evidence to fit."

Thank you Cannonshop. That's exactly what you and your fellow evolutionists must to do. You've all been sticking to the same tired old story about "mindless" evolution, regardless of evidence to the contrary. You people have a wall around you not to allow anything to disturb your little comfortable "evolution cocoon." Please do have your fellow evolutionists take your advise seriously.


E. M. Sternberg - You make a dishonest and shaky association between biology today and evolution of yesterday. Whatever biological benefits we may have today, it says absolutely nothing about whether evolution was random or not. In fact, the experiment pointed out before shows it was not random. And that's the whole point here. And if it's not random, how did it happen? A mindless "It just happened," may be good enough for you guys, but to any thinking human being it's not. Whatever the answer is, is one thing. But "It just happened," is just plain stupid, I don't care how many degrees one has.

...so Teano - what's your hypothesis - ?

do you adhere to some variation of 'intelligent design' or do think that there are as yet undiscovered natural laws that hold the explanation - ?

I don't care if Teano says he's not a creationist or an ID proponent. He's behaving like one.

What he's doing is very reminiscent of that classic creationist tactic. You know, the one where they ask where all the transitional fossils are. Then, when you show them transitional fossils, they go all quiet for a bit. Then they come back the next day and demand to know where all the transitional fossils are. This goes on and on until you eventually get fed up and start ignoring them. Whereupon they conclude that you can't produce any transitional fossils and claim victory.

You see? If you simply repeat something often enough, it will become true.

All Teano has to do to find the answers to any of his questions is to go to his local library or type one or two judicious queries into Google. Yet he continues to insist that no-one has answered him and proceeds to put statements in the mouths of his opponents ("'mindless' evolution", "it just happened") just so he can shoot them down.

Not satisfied with that, he also moves the goalposts. It's not about evolution any more, apparently. It's about "nature".

Doc if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck....

I wrote an article about the Bible not being a reliable history text. One of my arguments was that the dinosaurs were never mentioned.

Someone came back with "That's because they never existed, God planted those bones there to make us think they did!"

You just have to know who you're dealing with...

Okay Teano, respond to each of these... if you dare.

> Somewhere between when God created the earth, and Jesus' time, we've got some dinosaurs missing, and I'm telling you right now, them thar things are kinda hard to miss! Now I've heard arguments about passages in the Bible about vaguely described great beasts, but anything as memorable as a Brontosaurus, probably would be not only described in quite memorable terms, it would have been described by name.

> Now we have Noah, who built that arc all by himself, and I'll grant you the thing was huge, but even if it was Titanic, that wooden boat wouldn't have floated for long if at all, with that amount of weight, especially with two of each of the other animals-baby animals or not.
And before you tell me he held it up with his mighty hand, I'll ask if God was so all powerful, why didn't he save the damned (excuse me-doomed) animals himself (You know, kinda set them off to the side, and then put them all back later when he was done destroying his perfect creation), or waited till Noah herded them all up onto the nearest mountain top; which makes more sense than asking the poor mortal to build an impossibly huge boat out of wood and expecting anyone to believe it'd survive fully loaded in a storm of literally "biblical" proportions.

> Moses broke his tablets, and God who created the world and everything in it, couldn't put them back together, nor could he create another copy for him, but then all he could manage was a burning bush afterward????

> Also in Egypt there are some tiny little things called pyramids that somehow got built without anyone noticing the construction crews milling around, and if HE put them up, that's one of God's miracles that you'd think might have rated at least an off-hand mention, if not at least a footnote, don't you? After all, the Tower of Babel got mentioned, why slight the Egyptians?

> Then Jesus zoooooooomed from being a baby in the manger to an adult preaching the gospels? Oh well those years weren't important. If we're worshiping the guy, you'd think it might rate a mention as to what he did in between the ages of say 15 and 30 in the Bible somewhere.

> Now try squirming out ot this one... Creation Scientists, maintain that according to their considered calculations, the world is only 7000 to at the most 10,000 years old. Now for the sake of argument, let's make it 15,000. Now stay with me here, except for a very few, most stars are more than 100,000 to millions, nay "billyons and billyons" of light years away. Now unless the speed of light has changed drastically since then, that makes it absolutely impossible for anyone in ancient times to have possibly seen any stars in the night sky!!! Why, because the light wouldn't have reached the Earth yet!!!! But they describe them all over the Bible....Huh?

Either someone did some powerful (and blasphemous) editing, (probably King James and his minions), or we've got a problem in logic here

As for evolution, vs creationism-which theory explains why men have nipples?

...but that's only my opinion

Mr. Teano:

Your questions are all good ones, but are based on faulty assumptions that a basic education in biology could correct.

For instance: Evolution is not "random" and did't "just happen" as you keep insisting scientists keep insisting. It happened, and happens, through natural selection.

And: Prunes are dried plums, so "prune bushes" don't exist.

I'm waiting Teano........

Doc, Better yet-What's this anti-science article doing in Science?????

"...a basic education in biology"

No no no, can't have anything like knowledge or fact infringe on the fuzzy logic of a believer.





God sez "I get all my science from Watchtower."

Comment 60 Teano, come on the Christian Science reading room isn't that far away. Let's hear it?

Give him time, Jet. Maybe that's where he is right now and they don't have internet access.

Oh.... of course... my bad

I think that the author has made one fundamental mistake which I believe is common to the ID core belief.

The author uses the analogy of a royal flush. Yes it's true, that a royal flush would only occur once every few hundred thousand occurences. But yo udon't always need a royal flush to win, sometime you can do it with just a high card......

For example, the eye wasn't designed, it started off a few million years ago as a patch of light-sensitive skin. But it was still good enough to beat those species without the light sensitive sking which were competing for the same resources.

I try not to believe in anything.

I think about many subjects, and know with certainty, very few things (that I love my wife for one)(I think she loves me, as she says so, but who knows truly the mind of another person?).

I regard "belief" is a slippery slope to mindless acceptance.

I think that few, if any, of the folks commenting on this post "believe" in the Theory Of Evolution. We think that it is the best explanation for what has been observed over hundreds of years, by scientists in many fields of research.

Whereas Creationists believe in the fables and religeous teachings that has been passed from generation to generation with strong disincentives to question its validity or accuracy (heresy).

I think the best definition of "belief" is "the suspension of critical thinking". This is what the author of this post is engaging in.

He believes what he has been taught and has no room for thinking critically about the topic. He is unable to argue his position based on fact and critical thinking.

Looks to me like the facade of this articles attack on evolution is crumbling.

Teano:

Then you misunderstand the point of science. All of the life sciences today assume that evolutionary biology is true. In order to make the discoveries I listed, evolutionary biology MUST be true; no other explanation fits all of the facts. The researchers who made those discoveries assumed evolution to be true and found it to be an effective assumption that led them to breakthroughs.

Evolution isn't random; it's stochastic, with an upward ratchet on complexity as novel coping techniques emerge that allow species toe exploitat previously unreachable or unrealizable niches. Until and unless you actually understand what the whole of natural selection and common descent imply, you're really not qualified to continue this discussion.

"Rob

The author uses the analogy of a royal flush. Yes it's true, that a royal flush would only occur once every few hundred thousand occurences. But yo udon't always need a royal flush to win, sometime you can do it with just a high card......

For example, the eye wasn't designed, it started off a few million years ago as a patch of light-sensitive skin. But it was still good enough to beat those species without the light sensitive sking which were competing for the same resources."


Finally, Rob (post 68), someone who actually put forth a decent argument and a position of some sort.

Most responses here, besides Bob, are of people who have no idea what their position is. Instead of presenting a logical argument they tell you to go read it somewhere else. There's plenty of literature disproving many aspects of an evolutionary past -- I haven't told anyone to read anything. My views are presented right here. You need me to read your views elsewhere because, like most evolutionists, you have no views. All you have is an emotional, fanatical, cultist mindset.

You have an article presented on this blog that gives forth an argument in a very logical and unique way. It made no mention of god or the bible, and you idiots keep talking about god, jesus, the bible. That's typical evolutionists copout from addressing the issue.

Stop telling people to read things elsewhere. You want others to do your homework? Why don't you just present a logical argument for something -- I haven't seen it yet. You're regurgitating the same old evolutionists nonsense as if no one ever heard your ideas before. I'm beginning to believe may humans do come from apes.

To Bob: You make a good point. The problem, though, is minor developments of life until the full organism comes into existence is not so much the problem as the idea that even in that case there would have to be many "mistakes" (on the macro level - in addition to the genetic level). The mutations eliminated on the macro level (unlike those on the genetic level) would have left massive traces littering the planet. It hasn't. Which means it never happened. Which means it was not random. That's the whole point.


p.s. If you don't hear from too often it's because I actually have things to do, unlike, obviously, many on this blog.

Teano, I will inarguably PROVE that evolution is fact, by asking you to answer me one EXTREEMLY important question, which you can't and will evade with very little tact or intelligence.

It sounds like a smartass question, but goes DIRECTLY to the heart of this entire discussion. You need look no further and need no more proof of Evolution than your own chest.

Why do male humans have nipples.

The answer is that at one point in human evolution, the human species evolved from a biolocically unisexual creature into one that has two sexes and that we share traits of both sexes, both physical and non-physical.

As to the rest of your drivvel-Nice attempt at trying to distract us from your feeble explanations Deano, or should I describe it as pathetic. I'm still waiting for that responce to #60....

Aside from having to publish an entire science book here in the comments section, which you'd say was theory anyway, so it'd be a waste of time, (though others have tried valiantly to no avail) you've yet to prove YOUR hypothesis.

Show us YOUR facts, instead of desparately trying to distract us from the FACT that you have none...

Again, explain the items in #60... plus any ONE of these...

Explain why God would create a perfect earth for his chosen to live on, then he would destroy it repeatedly by
1. The biblical flood
2. Several Ice ages
3. The asteroid collision that destroyed almost all life (and those pesky dinosaurs that don't exist)

4. Why would almighty God (our Holy creator)choose to flood the earth instead of just waving his mighty hand and making all that he disapproved of simply vanish from existance?

5. If God did indeed create this world, then left us alone to our own devices and will, why did he come back to

A. Destroy Sodom and Gamorra?
B. Save Moses by parting the red sea, and in the process Charleton Heston by parting the waters on that movie set?

We've wasted a lot of time here trying to open a closed mind. Some of us with serious discussings, others with humor and yet others by expressing their outrage at your ignorance.

All here will cringe as I once again quote Simon and Garfunkle...

"A man hears what he wants to hear,
and disregards the rest....."

Quote:
To Bob: You make a good point. The problem, though, is minor developments of life until the full organism comes into existence is not so much the problem as the idea that even in that case there would have to be many "mistakes" (on the macro level - in addition to the genetic level). The mutations eliminated on the macro level (unlike those on the genetic level) would have left massive traces littering the planet. It hasn't. Which means it never happened. Which means it was not random. That's the whole point.

I think I see where you're coming from, but bear in mind that each change is usually very gradual, hardly noticeable, and even if it is significant, may have absoloutely no impact on imperatives such as survival. For example different eye colour. I'm fairly sure that all the different eye colours didn't just spring into being through one generation. Perhaps they started off brown until a random mutation made one blue. As long as it didn't impair that person's ability to hunt or reproduce then it's a candidate for parrallell existence alongside brown. Neither really give an advantage, so sometimes you'll get brown and sometimes blue.

To address the other thread of your rebuttal, do you mean that you'd expect to see various types of skeleton as creatures evolved? Bear in mind that soft tissue from one generation to the next even with fairly hefty mutations, will likely leave no real evidence. Also skimming back on my earlier point, remember that many mutations do not have obvious symptoms. I think records do show some fairly obvious evolution in terms of skeletal types but I'd need to do some research to quote accurately.

Can I assume that you believe in Intelligent design / Creation (are they exactly the same thing?) and if so who or what designed or created us? Do you think that all evolution is nonsense or that a 'base design' was created and creatures evolved from there?

Tks, Rob (The Unknown Player)

Most responses here, besides Bob, are of people who have no idea what their position is. Instead of presenting a logical argument they tell you to go read it somewhere else.

I've been presenting logical arguments since my very first post, which was in response to Josh's monkey analogy and which you imperiously dismissed as 'cutesy'.

Why should I rewrite theory which is supported by masses of literature? I don't take my car to the mechanic because of a sticky transmission and demand that he build me a whole new car from scratch.

There's plenty of literature disproving many aspects of an evolutionary past

Then cite some of it.

I haven't told anyone to read anything.

The Kiontke research.

My views are presented right here.

You've been challenged several times to explain why you're dissatisfied with evolution and what your alternative theory is. No response so far. I've no idea what your views are, other than that you think evolution doesn't happen.

You need me to read your views elsewhere because, like most evolutionists, you have no views.

Where do you get your views from? Do you pluck them out of thin air? Or do you formulate them based on the knowledge available to you?

You have an article presented on this blog that gives forth an argument in a very logical and unique way.

I wouldn't say unique. I've seen every one of Josh's arguments before in one form or another.

It made no mention of god or the bible, and you idiots keep talking about god, jesus, the bible.

I can't speak for some of the other commenters, but at no point have I brought any of those things into the discussion. Actually, if you track back on the thread you'll see that I gave kudos to Josh for not invoking God in his article.

I spoke of creationist/ID arguments because your position seems to line up with that camp. Shit, I've got to call it something.

The problem, though, is minor developments of life until the full organism comes into existence is not so much the problem as the idea that even in that case there would have to be many "mistakes" (on the macro level - in addition to the genetic level). The mutations eliminated on the macro level (unlike those on the genetic level) would have left massive traces littering the planet.

Again, despite what you say, most mutations are copy errors on the genetic level that don't make it past gestation. As far as the ones on the macro scale go, well, firstly, the definition of 'mistake' is somewhat subjective. Is a fly with an extra pair of wings a mistake - or just a neutral mutation? As you'll be aware, the truly horrendous mutations - those involving major body deformities - are thankfully very rare and examples of such surviving to perpetuate their genes are few to non-existent. There aren't that many fossils of two-headed velociraptors (for example) lying around because two-headed animals generally aren't viable and didn't make it to reproductive age. Fossilization is also extremely rare and it would have taken an outrageous fluke for the very first two-headed velociraptor to have just happened to end up as a fossil.

Even with the billions of species that have existed over the history of the planet, it's not looking too good for your 'massive traces'.

And finally:

All you have is an emotional, fanatical, cultist mindset...
You idiots...
typical evolutionists copout...
I actually have things to do, unlike, obviously, many on this blog.

As Cannonshop reminded you earlier, name-calling and insults do not incline us to take your position any more seriously. It just makes you look like a nutball trying to defend the indefensible.

Did I miss a memo somewhere? Where is the almighty Mr. Rose, who has much to say of this subject?

To address one other point (apologies for doing this piecemeal but there's a lot of material in your article!). I think you're assuming that the vast majority of examples of each species yo usee are free from mutations? Not so. I wish I'd bookmarked the article which reported the number of genetic mutations on average in each newborn baby. The point I'm heading towards is that every example of every living organism carries a number of mutations. For most, this simply won't show at all, for others this could show as a gradual change, and for others (perhaps where several of these mutations have combined and compounded) these will manifest as obvious 'mutations' such as new traits/characteristics, or diseases such as cancer.

To address, and I hope succinctly sumarise what I hope will be a counter to your central precept - "why isn't the planet littered with these evolutionary dead ends":
I believe that it is.
We're all walking around as them. It's just not all of the dead ends exist in one person or one creature at the same time. All of us will carry tens or thousands of gene mutations which will probably come to nothing when we reproduce.

To counter the monkey theory, bear in mind that the old quotation was "if an infinite number of monkeys bashed away randomly at an infinite number of typewriters for an infinite length of time, eventually they would produce the complete works of Shakespear". But reproduction isn't truly random in the way the monkeys typing would be. The genes are templates - instruction sets. Sure they allow for some minor variation (hence the mutations) but they aren't the same as handing a monkey a blank sheet of paper. A more accurate analogy would be to hand the monkeys the complete works of shakespear but with a handful of missing letters. The keys the monkeys pressed would automatically be fed into the gaps where the missing characters would go. In this hastily thought-up example, let's say there were 1 million characters in the works, and there were 100 characters which could be picked by the monkeys, each of these would be a 1 in (102 keys?) of getting it right, but the net effect is a 100 parts per million deviation. Is that blue eyes or cancer? We won't know until the baby is born...chances are it's nothing and that same template is then used for the next generation with another 100 characters which can be randomly comleted by monkeys and so on.......

Apologies if my analogy isn't very clear, I can put it another way if I've confused everyone!

Ah peace at last........

Jet (#73), I came across a list of "odd things about humans" today that included male nipples, and that reminded me of this article, so I thought I'd check back in.

Sigh.

Anyway, male nipples actually probably have more to do with ontogeny than anything else. Whether we evolved from a unisex creature or not, we start out as physically unisex creature early in our embryonic development, and "settle" on a gender later in development, keeping the nipples. Still an interesting question for an anti-evolutionist, but not conclusive on its own.

The other oddities mentioned on the site were:

1. Subclavius muscle - useful for walking on all fours, but not for two-leggers like us. I don't know if it's useful in crawling or not, which could be an answer.

2. Appendix - useful for vegetarians still, rare as they are.

3. Male nipples - already addressed.

4. Wisdom teeth - again, still useful for vegetarians.

5. Extrinsic ear muscles - my father can wiggle his ears; none of his seven children can.

6. Neck rib - less than 1%! That's an odd one. Maybe David Icke is right about reptilians living among us!

7. Third eyelid - I think the common explanation from anti-evolutionist for traits like these is that a common designer reuses patterns that work well.

8. Palmaris muscle - 11% of people don't have them. I wonder if I do?

9. Body hair - I'm afraid this might lead to a completely different discussion, so I'll say no more!

10. Erector pili - I think goose bumps can be sexy, so they're not completely useless!

11. Plantaris muscle - 9% don't have them any more, but I'm sure I do. I grip things with my feet all the time; drives my wife crazy!

12. Coccyx - Useful for hurting like heck when you're learning how to skate!

13. 13th rib - Only present in 8% of humans (and 100% of chimps and gorillas).

The details of my view will remain my own, but I'll just say that we're unlikely to resolve this problem here. Much of science we owe to Christians and other people of faith who wanted to learn more about the world they believed God had create for them to explore, but that legacy has been largely abandoned, and Christians tend to find themselves on the anti-evolution and, coincidentally (?) anti-progress side of things these days. This doesn't have to be so, and wasn't so for hundreds, even thousands of years.

Anyway, these comments are unlikely to sway the views of either side, and I do think that people have a tendency to get their backs up when their pet theory isn't respected. In this case, Teano seems to be doing that a bit more than those he/she is accusing, but it's certainly been true on both sides. I think anti-evolutionsts are sometimes kept out of journals for reasons unrelated to the quality of their work, though not so often as most anti-evolutionists would like to believe.

And on it goes.

Phillip QUICK! Someone used your name to post a sensible intelligent comment on this string!!!

I'd love to address many issues here. I really would. But it's been so overwhelming, I'm going to need some time to answer.

Those who have "not yet taken off their flak jackets," don't -- I'll be back. I really need time to look it all over. If not respond to eac
h individual post, maybe one post that will address many issues.

Rob - I'd especially like to respond to some of your comments, to those that I can. You make some sensible, honest-sounding remarks.

Jet in Columbus - In all honesty, your long post #60 is one of the few I did not even read. When I browsed through it and saw Moses Jesus, Noah, I just moved on. First, this discussion is not about that. Even a discussion about God wouldn't necessarily be about those details. They are a totally different topic. On top of that, I'm not a rabbi, minister, mullah, or whatever. Even if one does believe in God, it doesn't make him an expert on all those details. But I'll give it another look to see if (big IF) I can answer any of it.

If I don't "speak" to you guys soon -- you all have a great weekend.

uh teano, your whole argument revolves around a creator, if not God, just who did you have in mind?

As I've said before...

Teano hears what he wants to hear an disregards the rest...

typical creationist

Again... What happened to Christopher Rose??? I'd have thought he'd be all over this by now??

Personally, I'm wondering where Duane's got to. He always has a thoroughly rational, well-worded and urbane take on this sort of thing.

And Jet, to be fair, although Teano does seem to align with the creationists he actually hasn't brought God into the mix - yet.

Although I'm still waiting for clarification on what exactly his argument does revolve around.

He's probably come to the same conclusion I have, it's not worth the bother, teano is more closeminded than all of us combined...

His whole argument Doc revolves, indeed depends on a creator, if not God who: Gene Roddenberry?

Arthur C. Clark?

"Thank you Cannonshop. That's exactly what you and your fellow evolutionists must to do. You've all been sticking to the same tired old story about "mindless" evolution, regardless of evidence to the contrary. You people have a wall around you not to allow anything to disturb your little comfortable "evolution cocoon." Please do have your fellow evolutionists take your advise seriously."

Actually, Teano, I'm not an "Evolutionist" as you seem to define the term... I'm also not a Creationist, or ID'er, as some of our fellow posters would define those terms.

I consider the whole question to be un-settled. That is, I keep an open mind and am careful not to fall for anything I can't test, or find reliable tests for that were done by others. that is, I'm skeptical. I tend to dis-believe any claim that includes words like "Absolutely" or "Truth" (as opposed to "truth"-one is a common reference for confirmable fact, the other is a philosophical ideal-I mistrust the philosophical ideal.)

Being skeptical does not mean rejecting everything, it means you accept both the possibility that something is true, and the possibility that it is horseshit, equally until you have sufficient evidence-and a skeptic applies a certain amount of examination to that proof, as well.

In questions of science, it is my belief that, as was discovered in the realm of Physics, an older belief system may be flawed, and yet be of use (Newtonian physics as opposed to Einsteinian physics, for instance) but one must recognize that even the most common theories are no more than Hypotheses with a bit more experimental weight (i.e. they've been tested more often and did not fail the testing), that 'Fact' is elusive and subjective, that 'Objective Facts' are hard to find and genuine treasures that can be evaporated with but the lightest wave of contravening evidence, and that God (if he or she or it exists) is likely beyond the comprehension of human beings, so we probably should not be humanizing it/him/them, or assuming that people are more significant to the universe (or the planet) than they really are.

I also have a tendency to believe that IF there is a god, a creator, a maker of the universe, THEN, it follows that we, being part of that universe, part of the creation, and limited by the mechanisms by which it works, are not equipped to find anything within that universe that does not follow the rules by which it functions. In other words, a Cosmologist isn't going to find god's fingerprints scientifically, if they even exist. It is reasonable that a Cosmologist or other student of fundamental processes, being human, is going to be rightly skeptical of any claims of outside involvement in the structure of the universe-one would have to be able to get outside that structure (without being destroyed) before such evidence could be obtained.

This does NOT mean there is no god, goddess, creator, whatever-it-is, merely that it's irrelevant to learning how things inside this universe work-ergo, Science is not a replacement for Religion, and Religion is not a replacement for Science, they are separate disciplines as different as carpentry is from auto-mechanics, or machine-work is from ballet dancing. Any resemblance between the two is purely coincidental at best.

I think I mostly agree with you Cannonshop. I'd like to believe there is something higher than us out there, but I also strongly believe that every living organism on this planet evolved. Science and religion can live together in harmony, people just need to be tolerant. I respect the right of people to believe in Intelligent Design but I don't agree with it and I don't believe it should be taught as a credible alternative. I'll keep an open mind; if someone can give me rock solid proof that ID happened - a microscopic text on every cell wall saying "Copyright Cosmic Design 4000BC" then I'll believe it, but currently I see ID as little more than a curiosity.

Gee, I guess Teano's still at the library... Not that I'm at all surprised of course, but it would have been interesting to read his snappy retort to all of our challenges...

The comment thread has more or less been interesting.... But the bottom line is rather simple. The basic concept of evolution has already been proven by the stones and bones. The fact that life is hundreds of millions of years old is reasonably clear from carbon dating.

What is not clear is this:

How did all this come about?

One can argue (and these arguments carry less and less conviction to me) that life came about "spontaneously". These arguments go hand in hand with a rejection by those making them of a Creator.

One can argue that there are no souls, no afterlives, no nothing. Life's a bitch and then you die.

That is one argument. But this argument, often espoused by "scientifically" minded people, ignores the fact that people do come back from the dead on the operating table and elsewhere, and of those who have memories of the time they were "out", about 20 percent, the overwhelming majority have memories of a white light, relatives and a great deal of love. A tiny minority have memories of a dark tunnel and of fear. From this there is evidence of an afterlife of some kind.

If these memories were mere hallucinations of a brain shutting down, the main argument made against this, then all (or almost all) those who "came back" would have these memories. All dying brains have to shut down and produce chemicals that may produce hallucinations to guard the dying body against shock.

But given that not all persons have these memories, it is unlikely that they are mere hallucinations.

And this is the point. There is more to existence than mere Matter. There is also Mind. This is a conclusion that many scientists are reluctantly coming to.

What is referred to as "afterlife" may merely be another stage in existence in a series of existences.

Ruvy, after studying most of the major religions, and with what my life has been for the last 4 years, I've come to the conclusion that life after death is exactly the same as life before death...

nonexistance.

That doesn't mean that I begrudge your beliefs if they give you comfort.

Jet

Jet,

I'd rather not answer you on-line about this. What I would say would seem to some vicious and hurtful, and it would not be meant that way at all. But contact me off-line, and I'll explain my thoughts to you.

Speaking of hereafters, sr, who used to comment here either under that screen name, or under the screen name, village idiot, died on 12 March. Contact me off-line and I'll forward you the note I received, if it interests you.

Ruvy

Ruvy, your "argument" for an afterlife is back to front and illogical. If there definitely was one, then surely all people who had near death experiences would have broadly the same experience, regardless of their beliefs?

The fact that some do and others don't actually supports the view that there is no such thing. Different people have differing biochemistry and beliefs, so it would be expected that the details of their demise or experience would vary. That is one of the ways that mind can affect one's understanding of matter.

Personally, I am willing to accept any explanation that makes sense or even manages not to offend reason. However, you and your ilk have never managed to come up with a coherent explanation or a single scrap of supporting evidence for your creed after thousands of years effort.

Hopefully, the world will continue to embrace the wondrous reality of our existence and the old superstitions will continue to fall away, as we have done ever since we evolved. If not, a return to a darker age than we have yet seen in all our existence may engulf us all.

...the afterlife is reserved for the 'chosen people'

You mean the Jews, Christians and Muslims?

lol!

yup

Unfortunately for you, Chris, I do not have to produce the "scrap of evidence" to prove my assertions. The studies that do so are already there for the reading, particularly one study in Lancet Magazine.

And here, it is your own logic that is faulty. All brains produce chemicals in response to dying, chemicals that either are endomorphines. These chemicals make you feel better - natural highs, I guess, designed to shield the body from the trauma of shutting down.

The question is - if all brains produce these endomorphines in shutting down, why do not ALL returnees from death in the OR remember some kind of experience? True, different religious bents would influence the nature of the experience - that is the only thing you have right in your comment.

The point is that the endomorphines do not cause the visions of light and love (or darkness and fear). The endomorphines may act on the mind, but do not produce visions. The visions are the product of something else entirely, something that cannot be pinned down to a chemical hallucinogen or even psychological causes.

That is the significance of the study published in Lancet Magazine.

In attempting to classify what these visions are, given that they are not chemically induced, they are NOT hallucinations. They are something else.

The scientists who conducted the study were reluctant to come to the reasonably obvious conclusion that they represented a Mind outside of the human mind.

For them (or you) to refuse to do so is the equivalent of rabbis insisting that dinosaur bones are really twisted by G-d to test the faith of the scientists in the "fact" that the earth was created a mere 6,000 years ago. Such garbage actually is put forth by the less educated rabbis who ignore (they would say "do not hold with") Ramba"m (Maimonides) in his dictum on Genesis - that the story of Creation is recondite and hidden, and the text as you see it is for those who can draw their moral lessons no other way.

In other words, you are no better than the closed minded rabbis who would shut out the reality of science.

Ruvy, I actually took the time to read this article (which I don't normally do for links you provide as your sources are usually ideologically loaded) and it doesn't actually support your point at all. No surprise there then.

You seem to be incapable of grasping the childishly obvious point that just because something is as yet unexplained doesn't mean it is unexplainable.

Your prejudiced perception is leaving you grasping at straws so tenuous they couldn't help a droning ant, let alone support you point of view.

One of the many flaws in your "reasoning" is the apparent presumption that all brains would react the same way to imminent death.

Similarly, I'm not refusing to accept the theory that there might possibly be an external greater mind shaping these events, I'm just not presuming it to be so, which is what you are doing.

I suspect you are never, ever, going to be able to present any coherent information as you aren't starting from a position of "I don't know, let's find out" but rather "I already know due to my prior belief system".

This is the thinking of the superstitious and the mystic, both of which are typical of the dark age of ignorance and fear that all theists have a vested interest in sustaining. In my book, that makes them the enemies of humanity and progress.

One of the things which seems glaringly wrong to me is the assertion that because there is lots of circumstantial 'evidence' of 'bright lights' and 'family' that this is 'proof' of an afterlife.

Assuming these people didn't all read the same books/articles, or, failing that, made it up, all it 'proves' is that lots of people have the same or similar experience.

This is like me saying that 20 people see an orange carrott and 5 people see a brown-ish carrot and that being proof that all onions are grown in Peru.

No one wants to take on my true test of evolution. It sounds stupid, but it is not. Why to men have nipples. It is the most glaring proof of evolution, because god would not give them to a "perfect creator."

It also contradicts the notion that man was "created" before women.

This is a very serious question that no one wants to tackle, which is sad.

Evolution is as plain as the nipples on a man's chest.

I'm sad to hear about the passing of SR. Thanks for sharing the news, Ruvy.

His... um... wisdom also appeared under the names 'Stinkey' and 'Billybob', among others. He projected himelf as an ignorant hick but only fooled those who were as dumb as his persona. For the rest of us, it was great fun to play along.

BC has certainly been lacking a certain je ne sais quoi since he stopped commenting.

The following is in memory of SR. All who knew him know he used to posts these in fun and with a little love

On a point of order, Ruvy, fossils can't be dated using radiocarbon dating. The carbon-14 isotope decays in about 60,000 years, which makes the technique useless in regard to most fossils because they no longer contain any carbon.

Radiocarbon dating is mainly used on organic material found at archaeological sites, and is impressively accurate.

Fossil dating involves a variety of methods including stratigraphy, radioisotope dating (if certain radioactive isotopes like uranium-235 are present in the rock where the fossil was found) and comparison with other fossils of the same species whose age is known.

I bring this up because, sooner or later, there's bound to be some young-Earth creationist on here invoking the limitations of C-14 dating as support for their beliefs.

Facts are just perverted opinions?

No, but they can be perverted in support of opinions.

Radioactive iso