Great parady of antievolutionism via the periodic table

[harlequin]

Modern Periodic Table: Produced by the reDiscovery Institute (http://www.re-discovery.org/per_table.html) is a nice parody of the rhetoric of antievolutionism. The changes they point out as happening to the periodic table of the elements are all quite real.

They really should add the Victor Ninov affair to the table. He was the guy who made up data resulted in the "discovery" of elements 116 and 118. That two "piltdown" elements got removed from the periodic table only two years ago... And if one really wants to get trite the notion for the columns like VIIIA for the Noble gases (previously the inert gases) have varied too. So is it VIIIA or 0 or 18?

[Bilateralrope]

I want it on a T-shirt

[mopc]

Excellent! I'm also for teaching alternate theories on churches and temples. Why God when we can have Vishnu? Why Moses when there's Laotze? Why Jesus when we can have Zoroaster?

[Sticks]

I want it on a T-shirt

Get your self a plain colour T-shirt and a pack of iron on transfer paper that you can run through a printer.

Down load the image and print it on to a sheet of the stransfer paper and follow instuctions on how to iron it on and voila

[captain swoop]

I assume you are the Harlequin from T.O as well?

[harlequin]

I assume you are the Harlequin from T.O as well?

Oui.

[beskeptical]

T.O.??

[captain swoop]

Talk.Origins usenet group.

I am Shooty over there. I posted quite a lot about 10 years ago, I just Lurk and offer the occasional comment these days. 8)

[Ilya]

Modern Periodic Table: Produced by the reDiscovery Institute (http://www.re-discovery.org/per_table.html) is a nice parody of the rhetoric of antievolutionism. The changes they point out as happening to the periodic table of the elements are all quite real.

Unfortunately, the joke would be lost on anti-evolutionists. It would go completely over their heads.

[harlequin]

T.O.??

t.o. in this case is the talk.origins newsgroup. Though T.O. can refer to The Talk.Origins Archive (http://www.talkorigins.org/).

[Enzp]

Ilya is right, they wouldn't get it. And the sad thing is if you point out that gravity is "only" a theory, they will just say, "Well, that's one more thing they shouldn't be teaching the kids then."

[mid]

gravity is "only" a theory

Given that the General Theory of Relativity is less than a Century old, and we've yet to confirm or deny the existence of Gravitons, I'd say that it has to be at least as 'controversial' as the Periodic Table, too. Maybe they're right!

[Enzp]

We may not have discovered gravitons, but we pretty much have a handle on gravity in general. We as a rule can make accurate predictions as to how things behave because of it even if we are not sure why it exists. I was talking about things at the level of germ theory of disease, for example, not the esoterica.

Pick your own example of something everyday that is a theory. Once they find out it is "only a theory" they will find it objectionable. That was the point.

[mid]

Oh, I know, I was just pointing out that if you really want to get picky, there are at least as many 'holes' they could pick (if they were being fair and even in their irrationality) as they do with evolution, which we also have a pretty good grasp on.

[Sticks]

Gravity and periodicity and other things mentioned are falsifiable, i.e they can be tested, reproduced etc.

Evolution is not something that people normally see in operation, where one species gives rise to another, as given in those wonderfully reproduced family trees given in text books of how one form gave rise to another. The fact that we only have the fossil evidence for the tips of these branches and no evidence of transitional forms is somehow overlooked

Unlike the other sciences mentioned, evolution is inferred from the way findings are interpreted with out the chance of testing if that is how things were. Evolution happened and is seen as an event in the past. It also assumes that which has never been proven to exist, spontaneous generation. (Is that really the same as assuming that gravitons exist before accepting gravity)

Other areas of science must be subject to being tested by repeatable experiments or observations. Other areas of science have to be able to survive a falsifiable test. For some reason, Evolution is spared that and we are told to assume it has happened and is a fact, instead of a theory

[Maksutov]

We may not have discovered gravitons, but we pretty much have a handle on gravity in general. We as a rule can make accurate predictions as to how things behave because of it even if we are not sure why it exists.[edit]
According to Jerry and Lunatik (http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=377418&#377418), we have no handle on gravity in general. That's why the Huygens mission was such a dismal failure!

Let's see, Batman and Robin, Jerry and Lunatik, Rat Pfink a Boo Boo (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059637/),...yup, there's a pattern... :wink:

[Swift]

Gravity and periodicity and other things mentioned are falsifiable, i.e they can be tested, reproduced etc.

Evolution is not something that people normally see in operation, where one species gives rise to another, as given in those wonderfully reproduced family trees given in text books of how one form gave rise to another. The fact that we only have the fossil evidence for the tips of these branches and no evidence of transitional forms is somehow overlooked

Unlike the other sciences mentioned, evolution is inferred from the way findings are interpreted with out the chance of testing if that is how things were. Evolution happened and is seen as an event in the past. It also assumes that which has never been proven to exist, spontaneous generation. (Is that really the same as assuming that gravitons exist before accepting gravity)

Other areas of science must be subject to being tested by repeatable experiments or observations. Other areas of science have to be able to survive a falsifiable test. For some reason, Evolution is spared that and we are told to assume it has happened and is a fact, instead of a theory
I know what you mean, but I don't agree on two fronts.

First, chemical periodicity is "not something that people normally see in operation" either. People do not normally see atoms or molecules either. Yet I don't often see state legislators passing laws that chemistry textbooks be labeled with warning stickers saying "Electrons and bonding are only theories" Maybe they just haven't gotten around to it yet. :-? :wink:

Second, the fossil record is not the only evidence for evolution. The study of evolution is an experimental science. Read "The Beak of the Finch" for examples of field research, on live animals, studying evolution. Look at drug resistance evolution in bacteria.

Maybe we need to be teaching people the differences among speculation, hypothesis, theory, fact, and law.

[captain swoop]

Gravity and periodicity and other things mentioned are falsifiable, i.e they can be tested, reproduced etc.

Evolution is not something that people normally see in operation, where one species gives rise to another, as given in those wonderfully reproduced family trees given in text books of how one form gave rise to another. The fact that we only have the fossil evidence for the tips of these branches and no evidence of transitional forms is somehow overlooked

Unlike the other sciences mentioned, evolution is inferred from the way findings are interpreted with out the chance of testing if that is how things were. Evolution happened and is seen as an event in the past. It also assumes that which has never been proven to exist, spontaneous generation. (Is that really the same as assuming that gravitons exist before accepting gravity)

Other areas of science must be subject to being tested by repeatable experiments or observations. Other areas of science have to be able to survive a falsifiable test. For some reason, Evolution is spared that and we are told to assume it has happened and is a fact, instead of a theory

I hope this isn't your own understanding of evolution? You seem to have cobbled together all the standard dcreationist arguments into one post.

Evolution is just as falsifiable as any other scientific theory. What's that about no transitional fossils as well?
What is 'Spontaneous Generation'? What does it have to do with Evolution? How life was created has no bearing on how it evolves.
You are also conflating the Fact of evolution (Change of Allele frequency over time) with the Theory of why this happens, that's like conflating the fact that Things fall down with the theory of why they fall down.


I suggest www.talkorigins.org

SP edit

[Sticks]

What is 'Spontaneous Generation'? What does it have to do with Evolution? How life was created has no bearing on how it evolves.


If you can not get life started in the first place, how can it evolve in to anything?

We have had experiments down through the centuries that disproved the idea of spontaneous generation, yet this idea still persists. Even in the 1950's with the Urae and Miller experiments the popular press tried to claim that life had finally be created in the lab. Dr Urea and Miller to there credit squashed this claim as soon as they herd it.

Returning to the transitional forms, the late Dr Colin Patterson of the British Natural History Museum, in correspondence about why he did not put anything about transitional forms in his book (And I can get images of this correspondence if required), said of transitional forms "If I knew of any, fossile or living, I certainly would have included them"

There is a bit more to that quote, when I can get to my notes on it where reference was made to Dr Steven J Gould and his comments on the transitional forms.

As to the Bacteria resistance, if you wait a bit I will address that, but am pushed for time at the moment.

[captain swoop]

:o You must agree that once there was no life on Earth and now there is life. At some point life started whatever the mechanism.
Evolution followed the start of life.

Tell me why any of these (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional/part1a.html) aren't valid transitionals.


As for your use of selective quotes from people who support Evolution to support your anti-evolution position look here (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/)

[Moose]

What is 'Spontaneous Generation'? What does it have to do with Evolution? How life was created has no bearing on how it evolves.


If you can not get life started in the first place, how can it evolve in to anything?

Doesn't matter. Biogenesis (how life started) is not the same thing as evolution (how life changes).

[captain swoop]

Are you brave enough to make these statements on talk.origins? There they can be addressed by specialists in the field.

[Doodler]

Excellent! I'm also for teaching alternate theories on churches and temples. Why God when we can have Vishnu? Why Moses when there's Laotze? Why Jesus when we can have Zoroaster?


Heck, you can do that completely internal to Christianity.

The Tora versus The Books of Moses

King James versus Catholic bibles

The apocryphal books versus the ones selected for the bible.

The different versions of the nativity in the New Testament. After all, its in debate, the story keeps changing, shouldn't they be looking at alternatives?

[Jim]

Returning to the transitional forms, the late Dr Colin Patterson of the British Natural History Museum, in correspondence about why he did not put anything about transitional forms in his book (And I can get images of this correspondence if required), said of transitional forms "If I knew of any, fossile or living, I certainly would have included them"

There is a bit more to that quote...

Yes, there is (emphasis added):
"... I will lay it on the line, There is not one such fossil for which one might make a watertight argument. The reason is that statements about ancestry and descent are not applicable in the fossil record. Is Archaeopteryx the ancestor of all birds? Perhaps yes, perhaps no: there is no way of answering the question. It is easy enough to make up stories of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favoured by natural selection. But such stories are not part of science, for there is no way to put them to the test."

Patterson has more to say on this:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/patterson.html

(Always a good idea to check things like this out before throwing them around.)

[mid]

If you can not get life started in the first place, how can it evolve in to anything?

This is an Astronomy forum, so I'll give you an astronomy analogy. You'll see people arguing back and forth all the time in the ATM forum about the pros and cons of Big Bang Cosmology, the existence or otherwise of Dark Matter, Dark Energy and so on. None of this stops the process of stellar evolution being fairly well established. Getting enough gas together to form a star is a pretty complex task to explain as well, but we've a fair idea of what happens to it once it's there, and they're two rather seperate problems.

[Lurker]

Ilya is right, they wouldn't get it. And the sad thing is if you point out that gravity is "only" a theory, they will just say, "Well, that's one more thing they shouldn't be teaching the kids then."
Um, so.... if someone disproves this theory do we all just float away?? :o

[Swift]

Ilya is right, they wouldn't get it. And the sad thing is if you point out that gravity is "only" a theory, they will just say, "Well, that's one more thing they shouldn't be teaching the kids then."
Um, so.... if someone disproves this theory do we all just float away?? :o
<picture Einstein or Newton in the Uncle Sam pose>
http://www.doinggovernment.com/uncle-sam.gif
Gravity! It's not just a good idea, it's the law!
:lol:

[Richard of Chelmsford]

I'm reading a great book at the present,

'Why Intelligent Design Fails,'

by Matt Young and Taner Edis.

You'll get it on Amazon.

[harlequin]

Gravity and periodicity and other things mentioned are falsifiable, i.e they can be tested, reproduced etc.

Evolution is not something that people normally see in operation,

As others have pointed out people don't normally see chemical periodicity in action either. They don't see the center of the Earth. And so on and so forth for numerous other things.

And if you really want to get technical, people don't see the theory of gravity either. They see one aspect of what that theory is supposed to explain: things fall. People knew that things fell to the ground before the idea of gravity was invented. Gravity is the idea that any piece of mass attracts any other piece of mass. People don't see that. Most people are just taking scientists on their word on this matter.

where one species gives rise to another, as given in those wonderfully reproduced family trees given in text books of how one form gave rise to another. The fact that we only have the fossil evidence for the tips of these branches and no evidence of transitional forms is somehow overlooked

No matter how many transitional fossils are found it never seems to make a difference with antievolutionists: they just ignore them and keep blabbling their "no transitionals" mantra. Well that and producing out of context quotes (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/project.html) to support their false claims.

Someone else lined to the Vertebrate Transitions FAQ, well how about a simple challenge: Where do the apes stop and the humans begin (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section1.html#morphological_intermediates_ex3)? Do note that creationists don't agree where to draw the line (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/compare.html).

Unlike the other sciences mentioned, evolution is inferred from the way findings are interpreted with out the chance of testing if that is how things were. Evolution happened and is seen as an event in the past. It also assumes that which has never been proven to exist, spontaneous generation. (Is that really the same as assuming that gravitons exist before accepting gravity)

Evolution does not assume spontaneous generation. 1) Evolution actually assumes that life already exists. Abiogenesis is a distinct subject. 2) Most people think of "spontaneous generation" as "poof" life exists. Real ideas in the scientific community do not even remotely suggest that.

But in the end, we don't know how life started. And so what? That we don't know how life started does not change one iota the fact that humans and chimpanzees share a common ancestor. Saying that not knowing how life started is reason to doubt common descent is like saying that we don't understand gravitons therefor gravity does not exist. It simply does not follow.

Other areas of science must be subject to being tested by repeatable experiments or observations. Other areas of science have to be able to survive a falsifiable test. For some reason, Evolution is spared that and we are told to assume it has happened and is a fact, instead of a theory

Evolution is NOT spared this whatsoever. Indeed common descent has been subjected to many tough tests and continues to survive them. There are just so many things that can disprove common descent that it would be shocking that if common descent is false that they have not been observed. Many examples can be found in the Talk.Origins Archive article on evidence for evolution (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/).

[captain swoop]

All of Sticks arguments are seen repeatedly in Talk Origins, explaining why they arewrong doesn't have any effect, no ammount of evidence will change the POV if the evidence is ignored.

I would like to see solid reasons why the examples of Transitionals in the TO link I gave aren't valid. Not just a hand waved 'because they aren't. Tell my 'why' they aren't.

[mid]

I would like to see solid reasons why the examples of Transitionals in the TO link I gave aren't valid. Not just a hand waved 'because they aren't. Tell my 'why' they aren't.

Well, obviously they aren't transitionals because they're creatures in their own right. You need Transitionals between them for an acceptable answer. Then Transitionals between those Transitionals. I'm sure once you've got a complete set of every generation from yourself all the way back to some lichen they'll be perfectly happy.

Actually, I'm not.

[Sticks]

Sorry a number of things have all cropped up at once which has had me preoccupied a lot. It is on my to do list somewhere

I need a while to try and get round to studying it once all these fires have been dealth with :(

There is an answer about Lucy, I just have not had time to locate the CD-ROM I have my notes on. I do have a copy of Dr Donald C Johanson's book on Lucy in my library as well as Colin Patterson's book, both of which were facinating reads, especialy Donald's

[captain swoop]

There is an answer about Lucy

Don't forgetall the other 'Lucy' skeletons that have been found. Lucy isn't alone.

And what about all the other Transitionals listed in the link I gave?
Why do Anti- Evolutionsists always fix on Primates and ignore everything else? I think their 'slip' is showing.

[Sticks]

The material on "Lucy" (http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/52)

I do hope to get through that link on transitional forms, however it looks like I have a multimedia project to do this bank holiday weekend (amongst everything else in my proverbial intray ) :(

[captain swoop]

The material on "Lucy" (http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/52)



Colour me unimpressed. Seen it before, all old stuff.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/a_piths.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/knee-joint.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/lucy.html

[harlequin]

The material on "Lucy" (http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/52)



Colour me unimpressed. Seen it before, all old stuff.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/a_piths.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/knee-joint.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/lucy.html

Yeah, grossly out of date. This person has to provide us with an article written by Brad Harrub whose competence does not seem much better than of Kent Hovind. If anyone wants to go to bat on this, it is trivial to find horrid claims by Harrub.

This article in particular brings up the Lucy as a male claim which was refuted (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&li st_uids=9680468) before the article was even written and yet for some reason the refutation was never cited.

How about this:

Dr. Johanson insisted that A. afarensis was the direct ancestor of man (see Johanson and Edey, 1981). In fact, the phrase “the dramatic discovery of our oldest human ancestor” can be found emblazoned on the cover of his 1981 book, Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind. Numerous evolutionists, however, strongly disagree. Lord Solly Zuckerman, the famous British anatomist, published his views on the australopithecines in his book, Beyond the Ivory Tower. He studied these creatures for more than fifteen years, and came to the conclusion that if man did, in fact, descend from an apelike ancestor, he did so without leaving a single visible trace in the fossil record (1970, p. 64). Some might complain, “But Lord Zuckerman’s work was done before Lucy was even discovered.” True, but that misses the point. Zuckerman’s research—which established conclusively that the australopithecines were nothing but knuckle-walking apes—was performed on fossils younger (i.e., closer to man) than Lucy!


Younger fossils are not "closer to man" according to evolutionary biology. Harrub and Thompson either are intentionally misreprenting evolution to present a strawman or they are completely incompetent in the field. A younger fossil might be closer to man, but it might be a considerably more distant. The reason for this is simple: evolution is not a ladder of progress. If one only realizes that there are millions of species alive today, it should be obvious that evolution is not a linear process.

Zuckerman was wrong. Citing someone who was wrong decades after he lost the debate will not make it correct. 1) Scientists of his own time were not convinced by his arguments 2) Numerous relevant fossils have been found since Zuckerman's study clearly refute his ideas. 3) Zuckerman never worked with any actual australopithicine fossils. He worked with a cast. A cast of a single fossil half-pelvis.

Lucy was bipedal. No scientist doubts that today. Arguments today or whether or not Lucy also spent time in the trees in addition to walking.

[harlequin]

The material on "Lucy" (http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/52)


This article quotes Stern and Susman in an attempt to prove that Lucy is a chimp that did not walk bipedially. (Scroll to "LUCY: HOMINID OR CHIMP?" section.)

Funny how these YECs did not quote the same Stern and Susman article as saying:


Today the overwhelming preponderance of researchers view the short ilium
and valgus knee of australopithecines as adoptations for terrestrial
bipedial locomotion. That bipediality was a more fundamental part of
australopithecine behavior than in any other living or exptinct nonhuman
primate is not in serious dispute. Rather, controversy has centered on
the following questions:

1. Did forms of posture and locomotion other than terrestrial bipedality
comprimse a sufficently large component of the australopithecine
behavior repetoire to be reflected in their anatomy?

2. Was the terrestrial bipedality practiced by australopithecines in any
significant way (re joint excursions, speed, or cost) differ from that
of modern humans?


Or how about:


In our opinion A. afarensis is very close to what can be called a
"missing link." It possesses a combination of traits entirely
appropriate for an animal that had traveled well down the road toward
full-time bipediality, but which retained structural features that
enabled it to use the trees effiently for feeding, resting, sleeping, or
escape. Prior to the discovery of the Hadar remains, one could not have
predicted precisely what combination of traits would be found in a
transitional form such as A. afarensis. The more fossils that are
found, the more we are surprised. Excitement builds for the discovery
of specimens from the 4-6 million year range. However, we many speculate
that in a representive of the A. afarensis lineage from this time we
will not find a combination of arboreal and bipedial traits, but rather
the anotomy of a generalized ape. The challenge, we submit, may lie in
our ability to identify this ancestor as a hominid.

[harlequin]

I posted some stuff on this article last January in t.o.:

---
"LUCY DETHRONED" by Brad Harrub, Ph.D. and Bert Thompson, Ph.D.
states the following:

Some are asking if A. afarensis is more primitive than A. africanus, or if they are one and the same? Others point to the many chimp-like features, and question whether Lucy ever walked upright at all? But, in the March 1996 issue of National Geographic, Donald Johanson himself admitted: "Lucy has recently been dethroned" (189[3]:117, emp. added). His (and Lucy’s) "fifteen minutes of fame" are over. As Lee Berger declared: "One might say we are kicking Lucy out of the family tree" (as quoted in Shreeve, 1996). Fascinating, how often the hominid family tree is pruned!

Digging though I box in a closet I found the issue and sure enough what I suspected was true. Lucy was not loosing her place in human evolution, but rather her species was loosing its status as oldest known hominin.

EVEN TODAY A. afarensis -- and those of us who study them -- must adopt. Lucy has been recently dethroned. Last year Meave Leakey of the National Museum of Kenya announced that she and her team had found a human ancestor older than Lucy.

Do note that Dr. Johanson here is using the term "Lucy" to refer to her species, A. afarensis, and not merely the Lucy skeleton (A.L. 288-1). In popular-level sources such as National Geographic, Johanson and others sometimes are referring to the species and sometimes the skeleton when talking about "Lucy."

To repeat, Dr. Johanson has not given up on A. afarensis as a hominid and potential human ancestor but rather is merely noting that those fossils are not the oldest such fossils anymore -- something which should not give creationists confort. The article concludes:

Last November we celebrated the 21st anniversary of our discovery of Lucy. She may no longer be our oldest ancestor, but she remains the best known. Our return to Hadar has tought us much about she lived. At 21, Lucy has indeed come of age.
----

I made a later post when I received a copy of the Shreeve paper which quoted Berger:

---
The use of that quote mine is a bit lame. Dr. Berger was clearly exagerating. There is nothing in Shreeve article which in any way, shape, or form implies that Berger does not think Lucy is not a hominid. A more careful statement for Dr. Berger would have been that he thinks that Lucy is a hominin, but not a direct ancestor of humans.

I recalled that Dr. Berger wrote about the very research discussed by Shreeve in National Geographic. It was in the August 1998 issue (with photo of Mars Pathfinder mission on the cover). Examining it easily confirms that Dr. Berger does think that Lucy is a hominin, but one that is
on a branch that is not a direct ancestor of humans. This is a nice example of why one cannot replace examining what someone believes in their own original writings with a one-sentence quote quoted in a one-page news article quoting off-the-cuff statements.

Basically what Shreeve's 1996 article and Berger's 1998 National Geographic article describe is work by Berger and Dr. Henery McHenry on a then recently discovered partial skeleton of Australopithecus africanus showing that A. africanus has a more ape-like body proportions than the earlier A. afarensis (Lucy's species). This means that either Lucy was on a side branch not directly ancestral to humans (and A. africanus), that A. africanus had a temporary evolutionary reversal, or both. I might add either might be the case should be rather unsurprising to anyone who understands evolutionary
biology since both are rather common events in evolutionary history of life on Earth. Evolution rarely goes in straight lines: "lineages" often have many branches and evolution is not proceding straight towards a goal and thus often has "reversals" along the way.

Now since I have the issue out, I am going to break out my 3D classes that I keep on my desk for Spirit and Opportunity are relook at Pathfinder...
---


In t.o. I quoted the article as saying:

Having collected the fossils, Johanson and White were responsible for publishing their descriptions, as well as giving their interpretation of exactly how they fit into the hominid family tree. Not wanting to waste valuable space on the description of A. afarensis in one of the major science journals, they ultimately decided to publish it in Kirtlandia, a relatively obscure publication of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History....

My response: The detailed technical description of Lucy and other Hadar specimens took up an entire issue (April 1982) of multiple articles and hundreds of pages of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

[Sticks]

Channel 4 TV tonight at 9PM here in the UK are doing a piece about that "hobbit" they found

[captain swoop]

Nice posts. POTM stuff :)
Pity there isn't a similar comp on here.

[harlequin]

Hey Sticks, are you going to reply to my demonstration that the article you cited on Lucy did a bunch of dishonest quote mining?

Nor have you responded to my challenge on the transitional forms.

Which of the following are apes and which are humans and justify your answer:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/images/hominids2.jpg

Information on each can be found on the T.O. FAQ on the evidence for evolution (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section1.html#morphological_intermediates_ex3).

[Sticks]

I did say that I was busy on a multi-media project that came up, so this kind of slipped down the priority list. I need to look back through the posts to see what the challenge on the transitional forms.

One of the authors of the article I found where Lucy was dethroned seems to be not regarded because he takes a certain view point on origins. So only people who hold to atheism and organic macro evolution are deemed to be competent to speak and be seen as respectable.

[captain swoop]

So only people who hold to atheism and organic macro evolution are deemed to be competent to speak and be seen as respectable.

That's a terrible thing to say, it's about EVIDENCE, just the same as any other field of science. Also what has Atheism got to do with it? I am sure there are Biologists of all religions studying evolution. In fact I know that my girlfriend in her third year at UMIST relies on the the TOE as the underpinning of her entire degree. She would be quite offended to be considered an Atheist.

[mid]

Younger fossils are not "closer to man" according to evolutionary biology.

Well, no. The obvious example being that A. afarensis is almost certainly closer to man than my cat is, but it's fair to say Lucy is quite definitely older than Katy.

[Sticks]

That's a terrible thing to say, it's about EVIDENCE, just the same as any other field of science. Also what has Atheism got to do with it? I am sure there are Biologists of all religions studying evolution. In fact I know that my girlfriend in her third year at UMIST relies on the the TOE as the underpinning of her entire degree. She would be quite offended to be considered an Atheist.

Sorry I did not mean to offend anyone here, I was using a hyperbole to the very extreme position, (e.g Professor Richard Dawkins) to make a point. May be I could have phrased it better #-o

There are religious view points that do try to accommodate GTOE amongst all religions. I do recognise that. One would like to be able to accommodate everyone, so everyone is happy etc. :(

However, those of the atheistic pursuasion welcomed GTOE whole heartedly, because it removed all concept of any deity from the universe providing a mechanism for nature to do it all alone. If you remember the History of GTOE, Charles Darwin lost his faith, partly because of the death of a favourite daughter, and stories of a last minute death bed recanting of Evolution is false. Charles Darwin died firmly believing in his theory. Charles Darwin's chanmpion, Huxley invented the term agnostic, as GTOE fitted his ethos. From a historical perspective those who did not wish to subcribe to any religion, Evolution is a sort of "life Saver"

But one has to recognise that some people out there do not hold to this world view, and hold a different view on origins. Because of this, they are deemed not entitled to any credibility. Their value to the debate is discounted apriori.

It would be just as wrong for a theist to discount someone like Richard Dawkins say, apriori as well.

I found an article on H-Afarensis, and because he comes from a certain background, is value as an author is dismissed.

I still have yet to study the transitionals link, having recently been snowed under by other things getting in the way :(

[captain swoop]

Nothing is dismissed because of background or world view but because of the evidence.

I still don't understand how someone can dismiss so much science because of a 'world view' Evolution relies on evidence from Chemistry, Physics and Geology, do you discount them as well? You can't just ignore the bits you don't like because they happen to upset your mythology of choice.

[Maksutov]

Sticks,

Have you had your soup yet today?

8)

[Sticks]

Sticks,

Have you had your soup yet today?

8)

Yes thankyou - it was my favourite country vegatable

And I had the feeling it would be just before I even saw what it was

you have just entered the twilight zone - no loitering or stopping between the hours of dusk and dawn

[Melusine]

Sticks wrote:Sorry I did not mean to offend anyone here, I was using a hyperbole to the very extreme position, (e.g Professor Richard Dawkins) to make a point. May be I could have phrased it better
You mean, like when Dawkins said, "You, sir, are an ignorant bigot." (http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/002086.html#more)

Probably too loaded to discuss here, but more at Salon.com (http://salon.com/news/feature/2005/04/30/dawkins/index_np.html).

http://www.euv-frankfurt-o.de/icons/others3/fish.gif

[Gillianren]

I do get so tired of people claiming that the only reason Darwin could possibly have created his theory was that he was an atheist. according to http://www.aboutdarwin.com (I'm really bad at coding, so I'm afraid I can't do the fancy bit there--not to mention that my browser doesn't seem to like the buttons anymore),

Now, there appears to be a common misconception regarding the religious views of Charles Darwin. First of all, Darwin was never an atheist. While it is true that in his later years he was not religious to any extent, he never entirely discounted the existence of god. In his Autobiography, Darwin says he was a theist by the time he wrote "Origin of Species" and that he believed in an intelligent first cause. However, it was his view that the nature of this "first cause" was something beyond man's vision. The death of his daughter, Annie, on 23 April 1851 was a crushing blow to his religious beliefs, and from this time forward he stopped attending church with his family. It was only after a very long and slow process spanning his entire life that Darwin came to be an agnostic.

so. Darwin believed in God at the time of Origin of Species. I am both religious and an ardent supporter of evolution. as, it should be noted, was John Paul II. (I don't know Benedict XVI's stand, but under John Paul II, evolution was considered not incompatible w/Catholic doctrine.)

no, people's stances on fossils and such are not discounted because of their faith but because of their shoddy scientific practices.

[Sticks]

I never said Darwin was an atheist, I did say that he lost his faith due to his daughter's death.

I heard somewhere that originally he was going to take holy orders, but they may be an urban legend.

[Tensor]

Modern Periodic Table: Produced by the reDiscovery Institute (http://www.re-discovery.org/per_table.html) is a nice parody of the rhetoric of antievolutionism. The changes they point out as happening to the periodic table of the elements are all quite real.

Getting back to the OP, the Cobb county version is on the back cover of "The Skeptical Inquirer"

Unfortunately, the joke would be lost on anti-evolutionists. It would go completely over their heads.

If you look at the Cobb county version, they would have to be awfully dense to ..... Ok, you may be right. 8)

[Trebuchet]

Also returning to the Original Post, the street address given for the "reDiscovery Institute" is only a few blocks from my parents' home. So on my way into town for a Mothers' Day visit, I made a brief detour to check it out.

It's this place:
http://www.faithseminary.edu/

I haven't fully perused their site, but I've got a hunch they probably are NOT in favor of evolution!

Edited to add:
We believe that God created ex-nihilo and formed the universe in the six literal days as described in Genesis 1.

[HenrikOlsen]

Modern Periodic Table: Produced by the reDiscovery Institute (http://www.re-discovery.org/per_table.html) is a nice parody of the rhetoric of antievolutionism. The changes they point out as happening to the periodic table of the elements are all quite real.

Actually, after reading a bit more on their website, it looks like it wasn't made as a parody, but is instead meant as an actual argument for Intelligent Design.

[Trebuchet]

I don't really think so. I believe it's a parody, created by a young person, who used the Faith Seminary address as a joke.

[Maksutov]

Unfortunately this isn't a parody (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/creation_museum), but is certainly deserving of one. On it goes... :-?

[Gillianren]

"People will get saved here," Ham said of the museum. "It's going to fire people up. If nothing else, it's going to get them to question their own position of what they believe."

it wouldn't make me question mine. who knows--maybe it'll make people question their religious beliefs, which would also fit in a literal interpretation of his words.