Summations Only

And that point would, of course, be bollocks. Now that Dawn has told us that "direct evidence" for a thing means seeing that thing oneself, it is perfectly plain that no evolutionist is demanding that any creationist should have been an eyewitnesses to creation. We're not hypocrites and morons like Ken Ham bleating out "were you there?"; we have no need of stupid and dishonest arguments. If you can see it, perhaps you can describe it. No. We had a whole thread on this, you couldn't do it then either. ... like you can in geology and paleontology. ... like geologists and paleontologists have. So now were not allowed to use science to discover complicated things? Sheesh. OK, for starters let's say goodbye to the Krebs cycle. I never liked it anyway. Clearly this is one of the things that's too complicated to be the product of real science, so instead we should believe that ATP is produced by magic. No conclusion is inevitable if the person doing the concluding is an idiot. There are people who deny that the Earth is round, but that doesn't prove that this is in some way bad science, it proves that morons are stubborn. The people who discovered the helical structure of DNA were Crick and Watson. They, of all people, know exactly how they did that. So, let's hear from them, and 70 other Nobel laureates. Look, it's no good, Faith. You've decided what conclusion you want to reach, and now you're trying to fudge up some reasoning to make it look like you arrived at this conclusion by some process of actual thought. But you didn't. You know you didn't: the fact that after having announced your conclusion you are now struggling to rationalize your position must make that as clear to you as to everyone else.And you will never, ever succeed.

Well, Dawn hasn't done that. He just insists that there is design in nature. And that he can "see" it.You yourself haven't actually provided criteria that work; and what criteria you have supplied are an exercise in begging the question. And as geology is eminently testable, perhaps you should have said something else. For example, you could have said "The Cretaceous Period is in the past, like last Tuesday, and so believing in them is equally sensible and scientific", and then we would have had no disagreement. As I pointed out, all data are open to other "interpretations" if presented to a sufficiently stubborn idiot. The obdurate stupidity of creationists doesn't cast doubt on evolution any more than the obdurate stupidity of flat-Earthers casts doubt on the shape of the Earth. There are people who have an alternate explanation of this data, Faith. A photograph. As near to what you call "direct evidence" as they can get without personally going into space. Now, as with them, your "alternate explanations" are risibly stupid. And, in some cases, non-existent, unless you've come up with an explanation for the fossil record over the weekend. No? You were also talking about evolution. Your claim, so far as I understood it, was that people with expertise in the shape of DNA would know the difference between that, as being proper science, and evolution, which (as you think) isn't. But they think it is. I was constrained by the fact that I was answering your post, in which you lurch from one bad idea to another without consistency or system. Evolution is bad because science has tests! No, wait, evolution is bad because the answer is complicated! No, wait, evolution is bad because creationists deny it! No, wait, evolution is bad because ... you don't know, but "somebody who knows exactly what went into identifying the DNA molecule" would be able to tell me.Well, Faith, if you can produce a connected sequence of thoughts, then my reply to them will also be connected. My aim was actually to clarify things. If you are still confused, I suggest that you re-read the post until you understand it.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

To summarize: you like to tell yourself that the order found in organisms is the product of design rather than evolution.But do you have any evidence for this?If so, show me the evidence.

Well, what you said was: "Somebody who knows exactly what went into identifying the DNA molecule [...] could make this case a lot better than I can." So it is interesting to note the people who know best what went into that particular discovery think that creationism is bollocks and have said so at length and in public. Well, creationists can't do that either. Let us say rather that only creationists wish they could.

Whereas those 72 Nobel Prize winners are apparently not in any position to know what is and isn't science. Strange, isn't it, that all the understanding of science should be on your side, and all the actual scientific achievement on the other?

Well, I mentioned them originally because they include Crick and Watson, who discovered the structure of DNA, your own example of what constitutes true science. Let's look at some of the others. As there are 72 of them, I think for now we might confine ourselves to the ones who got their prizes in Physiology or Medicine.So, there's Axelrod, who discovered how the nervous system uses epinephrine and norepinephrine; Baltimore, Dulbecco, and Temin, who got their prizes for work on how tumour viruses interact with the genes of the host cell; Bloch, who got his prize for his work on the mechanism and regulation of the cholesterol and fatty acid metabolism; Brown and Goldstein, who also worked on cholestrol metabolism; Cormack, who invented the CAT scan; Cournand, who invented heart catheterization; Crick and Watson, whom I have already mentioned; Guillemin, who studied peptide hormone production in the brain; Holley, Khorana, and Nirenberg, who figured out the role of DNA in protein synthesis; Hubel, who got his prize for studying the processing of visual data in the nervous system; Kornberg and Ochoa, who discovered how DNA and RNA are synthesized; Luria, who studied the replication mechanisms and genetic structure of viruses; McClintock, who discovered "jumping genes"; Nathans and Smith, who got their prize for discovering restriction enzymes; Palade, who elucidated the structures of the cell and discovered the ribosomes of the endoplasmic reticulum; Robbins and Weller, who by learning to grow the polio virus in culture paved the way for the development of a vaccine; Snell, who discovered the genetic factors underlying the acceptance or rejection of transplants; Sperry, who pioneered the study of the lateralization of brain function; and Yalow, who invented the radioimmunoassay technique.These men and women fought disease, Faith, they unraveled the mysteries of genetics and the secrets of the cell. Yet to you they are dolts who are mentally unfit to tell a good biological hypothesis for a bad one. Meanwhile you, who understand the true nature of science better than all of them together --- you have done nothing. You have not even done the thing that you feel sets you apart from and above them: you have not in fact developed a criterion which successfully and consistently condemns as bad science those scientific facts that you hate, while sparing those that you like. You merely devoutly wish that you could do that. Your scientific superiority is not to be manifested by the smallest, slightest, least measure of actual success, but rather in the fact that you possess a prejudice which (unsurprisingly) you yourself approve of, and an ambition which you are utterly unable to fulfill.Well, there are other conclusions one might draw from all this, conclusions less flattering to your self-esteem but more in line with common sense. We might think that these 72 Nobel laureates are in fact better at science than you, and better equipped to know good science from bad. We might think that creationism is bad science, and such bad science that it can scarcely cohabit in the same skull as scientific ability. We might think that this is why, from its unequaled position as both scientific consensus and religious orthodoxy, creationism descended to become a laughing-stock and the province not of successful scientists but of cranks, charlatans, and convicted fraudsters, of the Hams, Gishes, and Hovinds of the world.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Faith, the stuff you and other modern creationists come out with isn't Biblical. There's nothing in the Bible at all about fossils or sedimentary rocks, nor about how the flood caused "accelerated radioactive decay", or how light sprinted most of the way from the distant stars and then slowed down when we started measuring it, or how entire families of animals were produced from just two ancestors in four thousand years by a feat of superdupermegaevolution such as no-one has ever actually witnessed. Your nonsense about genetics is not in the Bible, Faith, nor are your blunders about geology. This is all down to you.However, although your blunders are not Biblical, neither are they novel. AS I HAVE POINTED OUT TO YOU, FAITH. Could you please try to learn something from these conversations? Radiometric dating aside, there is hardly a single modern creationist mistake about geology that can't be found in Johann Scheuchzer or John Woodward. The tendencies in creationist thought which you criticize as "unbiblical" are revisions that creationists made subsequently as they tried to rescue as much as possible of their doctrine from the rising tide of scientific fact (the modern creationist expedient of ignoring the facts and making shit up having not occurred to them). But creationists started off as close to your views, as ignorant of the facts, and as removed from reality, as any modern-day YEC could wish for.

Well, again one could note that his "silly idea" is remarkably current among geologists and paleontologists.And small wonder. Your ideas cannot account for the sedimentary record, nor for the fossil record. And while you may be oblivious to the first of these failures, you have yourself admitted the second. How can the fossils record possibly be, as you claim, evidence for the Flood, when by your own admission you can't figure out how the Flood could have accounted for the fossil record?A man points at a jar of strawberry jam. "Look!" he says, "here is evidence for the Loch Ness Monster!" So we ask him: "How in the world could a lake monster have produced a jar of strawberry jam?" "I have no idea", he confesses candidly. Then why in the world does he think it is evidence?Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Well, that was gibberish.Do you have any evidence for design in nature?If so, please show us the evidence.Thank you.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

So you're not going to show us the evidence?Y'know, I'm beginning to think you don't have any.

But you remember how you made this up, how it's entirely contrary to observation, how it violates all the known facts about genetics, and how you've been unable to produce a single verifiable example of this ever happening?Well, if you don't remember this, it's a good job you have us here to remind you.

Where does the Bible say that? But it isn't in there. So calling it Biblical is a bit of an abuse of terminology. If I say that green aardvarks are playing cribbage in my backyard, then this contradicts nothing in the Bible, but I would hardly call it Biblical. If evolution that rapid was normal, there'd be some evidence of it taking place. Yes, those silly biologists base their ideas of evolutionary rates on their observations of reality, when they should instead have been observing the fantastic cloud-cuckooland inside your head, where they could have seen the process of superdupermegaevolution in all its glory.

OK, that's clearer.(I note that this is in fact a quality shared by aardvarks playing cribbage, it's a wide field.) Well, show me evidence of an entire family of mammals descending from two individuals in a couple of thousand years, then we'll talk. I concede that evolution is immensely powerful, but I should like to see some evidence that it's that fast. It is difficult to see inside your head because of the dense and obdurate matter of your skull, which is as impervious to the eyesight of scientists as it is to the facts they discover.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

So ... no evidence?

Hey, Faith, you remember how this is the exact opposite of what should happen in principle and what does happen in practice?That would be why you can't find any verifiable examples of this happening, and why people have been able to show you counterexamples of the exact opposite thing happening.