Lord Dimwit: Uchiha_Cycliste: meat0918: Uchiha_Cycliste: No Such Agency: Uchiha_Cycliste:
Elzar: Scientists can play the devil's advocate and take the position of YEC for argument's sake at which point it quickly becomes apparent there is not a shred of physical evidence/proof for the existence of a Abrahamic god/Jesus/Holy Ghost.

what about the hummingbird?

Look, what I believe - what I believe is that the overwhelming majority of all life that has ever existed came about by the blind application of natural selection upon replicating entities. All God did was make the hummingbirds. Look, a scientist must take each case on its merits, free from prejudice. And I have to admit that hummingbirds.... Have you seen one? They're amazing! They beat their wings eighty times a second. They can fly backwards! They can't have just happened by accident, so in this extremely unusual case the most credible explanation is that they were formed by a superhuman creative intelligence.

Oh don't be ridiculous. One day a large bird that flapped its wings slowly had a bunch of eggs and one of them grew up to be a tiny bird that could hover. Amazingly, nearby, another big, slow bird had an egg that produced another tiny, fast bird just like the first except the opposite sex. This of course allowed them to mate and spawn the lineage we now know as hummingbirds. Checkmate, creationists.

I just find that to be too unbelievable, you know, as a scientist. It's just much more likely God made the humingbird. The oddest thing being I don't believe in God. But I think God having made the hummingbird is the exception that proves the rule that God doesn't exist.

Be careful of any zebra stampedes

Zebras get a bad wrap. I'll bet if they weren't half black people wouldn't think they were so dangerous.

I saw zebras mating once. It was like the Heimlich...with stripes!

I'll bet that would have kicked ass on shrooms!

\I'm so disappointed that so few people are familiar with John Finnemore. Especially with all the attention Benedict Cummberbatch gets.

I see IDW is in the thread and will probably hang around and badger people. I've prepared a disclaimer for these occasions:

IDW is, essentially, the ultimate troll (with the only difference being that he's not a deliberate one). He's not interested in discussion -- he just wants to dick you around.

His MO is to seize control of the discussion and keep it, and the most basic way to do this is to withhold information from others and never acquiesce to any questions, comments or requests. By claiming some hidden truth that is beyond everyone's insight but keeping it undefined, he places himself in a role as Teacher or Guru or whatever fantasy Authority he imagines himself as. He doesn't mind arguing in his own backyard, but he'd much prefer to constantly hop from backyard to backyard, forcing you to chase him through separate, discordant arguments and fallacies of distraction. If you corner him, he'll usually chop your post up into little pieces and then reply to each piece individually with one these responses:

1) a question attacking your line of questioning, turning it back on you
2) a loaded and nonsensical analogy which may include a dodge, misdirection, or introduction of additional and usually irrelevant subject matter or
3) a sarcastic snipe at the subject and/or you (sometimes with image attached)

And then the chase begins again. There's no knowledge or wisdom to gain here (from either you or him) and he has no insights to impart. His questions have no purpose. He just wants to control you and force you to jump through his hoops that he will constantly move around on you so that you fail and he can claim superiority. You are wasting your time.

For an example, in this three year old thread he concocted a logic game similar to the Wason Selection Task with rules that he could change at any time for any reason, foisted it upon the thread, toyed with the posters for a whole day while refusing to give the answer, and then eventually revealed that everyone was wrong.

It's part of his technique to constantly assume Authoritarian control. He gets off on giving people challenges and quests with no point other than so he can withhold the non-existent answers from them (like his "True Definition of Nature" theory -- he poses this riddle to everyone but there's no answer. He just enjoys watching people struggle). It's the old schoolyard power trip: "I know something you don't and I won't tell you what it is".

That he's been doing this schtick for so long is an indication that he will never stop and there's nothing new to be garnered from him, like he's stuck in a perpetual feedback loop, recycling the same arguments in every religion thread (he's probably already posted the Wason test that he so infamously failed at solving many years ago. It's his way of dealing with the embarrassment by mocking it).

Despite the fact that he frequently loses these discussions, he'll continue posting them as if they're unsolvable, ignoring repeated and consistent replies defeating them. He has never been the type to swallow his pride and admit when he's wrong so you'll never get anywhere with him (and he'll always mock you if you try). It is very likely that he has NPD and people replying to him on Fark is how he strokes his ego so he can never stop no matter how many humiliating threads send him down in flames.

In short: He is a complete and total waste of your god damn time. Reply at your peril; I suggest ignore.

meat0918: The Jami Turman Fan Club: Khellendros: [people.virginia.edu image 500x840]

Until a creationist has a reasonable rebuttal to this, I don't care what they have to say on the issue. Too many simply don't understand what it is they're saying, and don't understand the basics of what they're arguing against.

OK, I'll bite. #12 is wrong. This is not sufficient to explain differing numbers of chromosomes. Two creatures with a different number of chromosomes generally cannot produce fertile offspring, and any gain from that change is going to be offset by the lack of fertility. There must be something else going on as well.

/not a creationist.

Wouldn't the chromosome 2 fusion in humans be proof that chromosomes can, for whatever reason at least fuse and have enough viable offspring to eventually lead to us; and if they can fuse, it would not be that far out there to assume they can also split in a similar manner and have a new viable species come of it.

Indeed. It's not #12 that's wrong, it's that #5 is incomplete, or at least not clear enough that large-scale genomic changes (horizontal gene transfers, gene, chromosome, and even whole genome duplications, etc) do happen. Sure, while they are relatively rare (compared to point mutations), and many may not be viable, any of the few that inevitably are have a chance of being passed on and spreading in the population either by selection or drift.

IlGreven: "Evolution is Intelligent Design!"

Except it's not. Unless you think the "design" of making many many more items than can possibly survive and then killing off the combinations that don't work well, while keeping and reproducing the survivors is good design. :-/

In a way, evolution is a lot like throwing shiat and seeing what sticks, except the shiat can undergo some random changes, and the ones that stick can pass on their stickiness to their offspring. Not really a good design methodology, unless you a.) don't intend to mess with the system once you start it and b.) don't care how the system ends up (i.e. have no intended design goals).

B.) is kind of the antithesis of design, no?

Legios: There seems to be a lot of "Evolution vs. Creationism" crap going on.
But shouldn't it be "Abiogenesis vs. Creationism"? I mean, even creationism doesn't exclude evolution does it?

To them, it's all one thing: Atheism/Evolution/Abiogenesis/BigBangTheory/Science. They see values in terms of package deals (like "liberal" and "conservative") and if you subscribe to one you automatically subscribe to all. They don't differentiate from nuance and they don't understand how someone can pick and choose their valueset based on individual issues rather than blanket full-ticket "check all" subscriptions.

And it doesn't occur to them that the rest of us don't think that way.

IlGreven: Well, if you started with absolutely nothing (well, absolutely everything in a teeny tiny dot, but anyways), how would you go about finding out what works and what doesn't?

That depends... Am I an omnipotent being?

mamoru: IlGreven: Well, if you started with absolutely nothing (well, absolutely everything in a teeny tiny dot, but anyways), how would you go about finding out what works and what doesn't?

That depends... Am I an omnipotent being?

And, regardless, design implies a purpose or a goal. Evolution does not work that way. Evolution selects for what works now, with no foresight for what might best work tomorrow.

Y'all know exactly which threadschitting troll this is meant for.

Breathe Laugh Twitch: error 303: I know a guy with a Master's of Science degree in biology from the Univesity of Alabama who's a straight up young Earth creationist. It's really weird.

Not weird at all. Religious beliefs are strategic, so he thinks this belief will either get him approbation (parents, friends), or money (grants), or sex (religious girls). Figure out which it is and you'll understand his passion for religion.

Likewise political beliefs. Ever considered that? Your politics is a strategic choice.

I thought the form said "libertine party."

I love reading discussions about religious zealots on a site that protects its precious snowflake visitors from the f-word and nudity.

IlGreven: mamoru: IlGreven: Well, if you started with absolutely nothing (well, absolutely everything in a teeny tiny dot, but anyways), how would you go about finding out what works and what doesn't?

That depends... Am I an omnipotent being?

...does it really matter if God is for those who believe him and know that evolution is happening?

Me, I cut out the middleman. Since no God is required for literally anything, no God is used. But if you wanna shoehorn God into your business, I'll readily accept your view of things, and give you helpful slogans like mine. Just don't try and shoehorn your God into my business.

Wait, what? How did me pointing out that evolution is neither intelligent nor design count as me shoehorning a God (in which, FTR, I have no belief) into anything? Did we somehow switch sides in our discussion? Weren't you the one who said...

IlGreven: "Evolution is Intelligent Design!"

?

Design implies purpose or goal, of which evolution has neither (evolution is an emergent property of any system of replicators constrained by their environment). Intelligence implies some intelligent agent, which evolution neither requires nor implies.

So, I was merely refuting your statement. Evolution most certainly is not intelligent design. Not unless you want to stretch the meanings of the words "intelligent" and "design" beyond all usefulness. In which case, we already have one person in this thread, whom I thankfully cannot see thanks to the ignore function, who does that, and you can see what a laughing stock he is. ;)

IlGreven: ...does it really matter if God is for those who believe him and know that evolution is happening?

Oops, wait. Upon re-reading, I think I misunderstood with my previous reply. As I said above way above when I responded previously, it doesn't really matter, except that evolution gives every appearance of neither being intelligent nor following some design.

If people want to believe in a deity and evolution, power to them (so long as they stop trying to legislate their beliefs). However, it seems to me that it such a situation would mean that a.) the deity does not particularly specifically favor humans (sorry, folks, but I gotta go with the lithopic principle for this one: the universe seems to be especially suited for rocks) and we are not necessarily the goal but merely a side effect of the process, or b.) the deity is deliberately obtuse in creating a universe for us that has ever appearance not being created or guided. Chalk that up to "mysterious ways", I guess, but it has always seemed like a mind-boggling stretch to me. :-/

But, whatever. I see what you mean. I just disagree with your phrasing of "Evolution is intelligent design", for the same reasons I mentioned in my previous post: it stretches the meanings of those words nearly to the point of uselessness. :)