Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 63 (9161 total)
5 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,581 Year: 2,838/9,624 Month: 683/1,588 Week: 89/229 Day: 61/28 Hour: 3/4


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   How did the Aborigines get to Australia?
caffeine
Member (Idle past 1014 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 76 of 226 (647788)
01-11-2012 10:17 AM
Reply to: Message 73 by Percy
01-11-2012 9:21 AM


Re: Public vs Scientific Controversy
I've been assuming the Australian marsupials have always been native to Australia. Wither Australia went, so went they.
The original Australian marsupial is believed to have gotten there after Australia was already a seperate continent. Australian marsupials form a clade which probably originated from one dispersal event from Antarctica.
I'm a bit confused about all this now, though. An article on the origins of Australia's marsupials that I found while checking this contradicts what I said earlier about the marsupials out-competing placentals. It claims that Tingamarra is the only identified placental from Palaeogene Australia, and that it's been disputed whether it's actually a placental. I may have been wrong about that bit.
Edited by caffeine, : Broken tags. And of course this post is pretty irrelevant, having been substantially ninja'd

This message is a reply to:
 Message 73 by Percy, posted 01-11-2012 9:21 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
Portillo
Member (Idle past 4151 days)
Posts: 258
Joined: 11-14-2010


(1)
Message 77 of 226 (648071)
01-13-2012 3:58 AM
Reply to: Message 72 by Granny Magda
01-11-2012 9:08 AM


Re: Public vs Scientific Controversy
The problem is that public opinion (especially in the US) hasn't caught up.
One misconception is that the only people who doubt evolution are fundies from Alabama. Research shows that there is skepticism in other countries.
Poll reveals public doubts over Charles Darwin's theory of evolution
One in three Swiss thinks it is "definitely false" that humans developed from earlier species of animals, according to an international survey on evolution. How seriously should we take the news that only Austria is less enlightened among "old" European countries? Is it simply a reflection of Switzerland's religious history and dislike of change — or a serious failure of the education system? The journal Science recently published a survey by Jon Miller at Michigan State University which put the following statement to more than 34,000 people in 32 European countries, the United States and Japan: "Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals." In Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, and France, 80 per cent or more of adults said this was "definitely true", as did 78 per cent of Japanese adults. Only Turkey (25 per cent) saved the United States' (40 per cent) blushes. Sixty per cent of the 1,000 Swiss respondents agreed with the statement — putting them in 22nd position — 10 per cent were not sure and 30 per cent said it was "definitely false". "Thirty per cent is disturbingly high," Sebastian Bonhoeffer, professor of theoretical biology at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, told swissinfo. "It disturbs me for professional reasons, but what really disturbs me is something deeper that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with evolution. It is that people are obviously willing to believe things rather than critically assess evidence and look behind arguments — this eventually applies not only to science but also to other issues in society." Indeed Switzerland's system of direct democracy is especially vulnerable to an inability to separate fact from fiction. When Swiss voters approved a five-year ban on genetically modified organisms at the end of last year, Klaus Ammann from the Committee against a Gentech Moratorium and director of Bern's Botanical Gardens told swissinfo: "The pro-people had a very easy game to come with all sorts of pseudo-facts and half-truths because the population was ready to believe it." Not good for democracy Rolf Strasser, a Christian journalist focusing on the sociology of religion, also says many Swiss struggle with scientific evidence. "For many of [the 30 per cent] the mainstream thinking of evolution is not convincing enough, because ideology and science are mixed too much, especially in the writings of so-called scientific journalism and school books," he told swissinfo. "A better understanding of science is good for tolerance, but the scientific community should communicate better what is real science and what is hypothesis. Blind faith in religious or non-religious beliefs is not good for democracy." During a national vote on embryo stem cell research a couple of years ago, Interior Minister Pascal Couchepin, who is responsible for education (and who supported the research), said: "God gave us intelligence in order to use it and to understand nature." It's hard to measure how many of the two-thirds of voters who eventually backed the research thought likewise, but it's equally hard to imagine a French or British education minister making comments like that. Intellectual independence For Bonhoeffer it's not so much a question of science versus religion but rather of being able to make up one's own mind based on the evidence. "I don't want to blame the Swiss in particular here, but I think [the survey] does reflect bad education," he said. "There's certainly a community who cannot be convinced [of evolution], but I think there is also a large community who could be convinced if they were taught how to assess evidence. "We should not teach people that this is how the world works, believe it! We should teach them how to deal with evidence and how to critically assess different hypotheses. If we teach them this well — and in a way that is not dogmatic — they will come to the conclusion that there is overwhelming evidence that we did indeed derive from other animals." swissinfo, Thomas Stephens In brief The Federal Constitution lays down the right to education and the obligation to attend school, but cantons are permitted to take their own independent decisions when it comes to the structure of their education systems, syllabuses and the dates of school holidays. This means there are currently 26 differing education systems in Switzerland, although the system is set to be harmonised. The Swiss Conference of Cantonal Ministers of Education told swissinfo that the issue of pupils not accepting evolution has never come up for discussion as part of intercantonal coordination. Evolution All living organisms — from humans to mountain goats to edelweiss — are distant cousins and have evolved, through genetic mutations and the process of natural selection, from a single self-replicating molecule that popped into existence by chemical chance some 3.5 billion years ago. Natural selection is the non-random process by which organisms with favourable traits survive and reproduce more than rivals, thus genes that build successful survival machines get passed on more than less successful genes. Evolution via natural selection thus explains how simple organisms can, over millions of years, result in complex organisms seemingly designed for their environment without requiring any supernatural "designer". The evidence for evolution is overwhelming — not just in biology and geology, but also physics and cosmology.
In the Muslim world, creationism is on the rise - The Boston Globe
Russia: Creationism Finds Support Among Young

And the conspiracy was strong, for the people increased continually - 2 Samuel 15:12

This message is a reply to:
 Message 72 by Granny Magda, posted 01-11-2012 9:08 AM Granny Magda has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 78 by Dr Adequate, posted 01-13-2012 5:46 AM Portillo has not replied
 Message 80 by Larni, posted 01-13-2012 6:17 AM Portillo has not replied
 Message 85 by Granny Magda, posted 01-13-2012 7:53 AM Portillo has not replied
 Message 86 by Dogmafood, posted 01-13-2012 8:01 AM Portillo has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 274 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 78 of 226 (648077)
01-13-2012 5:46 AM
Reply to: Message 77 by Portillo
01-13-2012 3:58 AM


Re: Public vs Scientific Controversy
One misconception is that the only people who doubt evolution are fundies from Alabama. Research shows that there is skepticism in other countries.
404
http://www.swissinfo.ch/...knuckles_accepting_evolution.html
Page Not Found - Boston.com
Russia: Creationism Finds Support Among Young
And according to research done by Barnum et al, there's one born every minute!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 77 by Portillo, posted 01-13-2012 3:58 AM Portillo has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 79 by Chuck77, posted 01-13-2012 6:02 AM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Chuck77
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 79 of 226 (648080)
01-13-2012 6:02 AM
Reply to: Message 78 by Dr Adequate
01-13-2012 5:46 AM


Re: Public vs Scientific Controversy
Opps. Nice rebuttle. Insults as usual. Doesn't cut it Doc. You really are sloppy here. Stick to the political threads.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 78 by Dr Adequate, posted 01-13-2012 5:46 AM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 81 by Dr Adequate, posted 01-13-2012 6:20 AM Chuck77 has not replied

  
Larni
Member (Idle past 154 days)
Posts: 4000
From: Liverpool
Joined: 09-16-2005


Message 80 of 226 (648087)
01-13-2012 6:17 AM
Reply to: Message 77 by Portillo
01-13-2012 3:58 AM


Re: Public vs Scientific Controversy
Research shows that there is skepticism in other countries.
Did you know the average reading age in the UK is about 9 years? And we all know that less the less educated tend towards skepticism of science.

The above ontological example models the zero premise to BB theory. It does so by applying the relative uniformity assumption that the alleged zero event eventually ontologically progressed from the compressed alleged sub-microscopic chaos to bloom/expand into all of the present observable order, more than it models the Biblical record evidence for the existence of Jehovah, the maximal Biblical god designer.
-Attributed to Buzsaw Message 53
The explain to them any scientific investigation that explains the existence of things qualifies as science and as an explanation
-Attributed to Dawn Bertot Message 286
Well, Larni, let's say I much better know what I don't want to say than how exactly say what I do.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 77 by Portillo, posted 01-13-2012 3:58 AM Portillo has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 274 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 81 of 226 (648088)
01-13-2012 6:20 AM
Reply to: Message 79 by Chuck77
01-13-2012 6:02 AM


Re: Public vs Scientific Controversy
Opps. Nice rebuttle. Insults as usual. Doesn't cut it Doc. You really are sloppy here. Stick to the political threads.
Thanks for showing me how debate should be done with your insightful discussion of Australian fauna personal attack.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 79 by Chuck77, posted 01-13-2012 6:02 AM Chuck77 has not replied

  
Chuck77
Inactive Member


Message 82 of 226 (648091)
01-13-2012 6:50 AM


It's pretty simple. After the flood the continents split and whatever animals where on certain continents ended up there. Easy.
Evolutionist can't buy that but can buy everything poofed into existance by accident accompanied by chance and evolved into the miraculous life we see today, but can't buy this.
It's a mystery the things they can buy.

Replies to this message:
 Message 83 by Dr Adequate, posted 01-13-2012 7:19 AM Chuck77 has not replied
 Message 84 by Larni, posted 01-13-2012 7:37 AM Chuck77 has not replied
 Message 87 by Granny Magda, posted 01-13-2012 8:03 AM Chuck77 has not replied
 Message 88 by Percy, posted 01-13-2012 8:40 AM Chuck77 has not replied
 Message 89 by Coyote, posted 01-13-2012 11:03 AM Chuck77 has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 274 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 83 of 226 (648096)
01-13-2012 7:19 AM
Reply to: Message 82 by Chuck77
01-13-2012 6:50 AM


It's pretty simple. After the flood the continents split and whatever animals where on certain continents ended up there. Easy.
So, first all the kangaroos and wallabies and poteroos and thylacines and Tasmanian devils and wombats and koalas migrated to Australia without leaving a single one behind ... or any bones ... en route between Mount Ararat and Australia as evidence, and then the process of continental drift managed to occur squeezed into the space of a few thousand years again without leaving any actual evidence that this was the case?
Evolutionist can't buy that but can buy everything poofed into existance by accident accompanied by chance ...
Stick to telling us what you think, you're much more likely to be right about what your own opinions are.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 82 by Chuck77, posted 01-13-2012 6:50 AM Chuck77 has not replied

  
Larni
Member (Idle past 154 days)
Posts: 4000
From: Liverpool
Joined: 09-16-2005


(3)
Message 84 of 226 (648098)
01-13-2012 7:37 AM
Reply to: Message 82 by Chuck77
01-13-2012 6:50 AM


Run away continents.
Do you have any idea the amount of heat the continents moving to where they are from one land mass in a few thousand years would generate?
Does giving things a bit of thought before posting sound even remotely like a good idea?

The above ontological example models the zero premise to BB theory. It does so by applying the relative uniformity assumption that the alleged zero event eventually ontologically progressed from the compressed alleged sub-microscopic chaos to bloom/expand into all of the present observable order, more than it models the Biblical record evidence for the existence of Jehovah, the maximal Biblical god designer.
-Attributed to Buzsaw Message 53
The explain to them any scientific investigation that explains the existence of things qualifies as science and as an explanation
-Attributed to Dawn Bertot Message 286
Well, Larni, let's say I much better know what I don't want to say than how exactly say what I do.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 82 by Chuck77, posted 01-13-2012 6:50 AM Chuck77 has not replied

  
Granny Magda
Member
Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007
Member Rating: 3.8


(2)
Message 85 of 226 (648099)
01-13-2012 7:53 AM
Reply to: Message 77 by Portillo
01-13-2012 3:58 AM


Re: Public vs Scientific Controversy
Hi Portillo,
One misconception is that the only people who doubt evolution are fundies from Alabama.
Not a misconception that I hold, nor have I ever implied such.
You cite various articles and the only ones to cite actual data show that I was correct; creationism is stronger in America than in Britain or Switzerland.
Of course, that's not the point of this thread. This thread is about how the inhabitants of Australia got where they did. Do you plan to address that any further?
Do you plan to tell us what problems you might have with the position I've outlined?
Do you plan to cite any evidence for any Biblical version?
Do you plan to address the topic at all?
If so, the please go ahead and tell us what you think about marsupials, humans and Australia. If not, quit picking holes in irrelevant side issues. Address the topic! Put up or shut up!
Mutate and Survive

This message is a reply to:
 Message 77 by Portillo, posted 01-13-2012 3:58 AM Portillo has not replied

  
Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 339 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


(1)
Message 86 of 226 (648100)
01-13-2012 8:01 AM
Reply to: Message 77 by Portillo
01-13-2012 3:58 AM


Missing Links
3 of your 4 cites return a 404 error. The one that does work is about a 15 yr old who is sueing for creationism to be taught in school.
quote:
Schraiber is assisted in her lawsuit by her father, Kirill, and by three lawyers representing the Russian Orthodox, Muslim, and Jewish faiths.
quote:
The director of the Darwin Museum, Anna Klukina, is more diplomatic. But she agrees that those rejecting Darwinism do so out of gross ignorance.
"The masses understand neither the theory of evolution nor Darwinism itself. I witness this on a regular basis."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 77 by Portillo, posted 01-13-2012 3:58 AM Portillo has not replied

  
Granny Magda
Member
Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007
Member Rating: 3.8


(2)
Message 87 of 226 (648101)
01-13-2012 8:03 AM
Reply to: Message 82 by Chuck77
01-13-2012 6:50 AM


Hi Chuck,
Opps. Nice rebuttle. Insults as usual. Doesn't cut it Doc. You really are sloppy here. Stick to the political threads.
Are you taking the piss? Your evidential contribution to this thread has been precisely zero. If you were willing to address the topic with reasoned debate and evidence, then it might be appropriate for you to chide others in this way. As it is, you have added no reasoned debate to this thread, you have brought no evidence to this thread, you have made only the most half-hearted assertion, and even that you only managed to fit in after you had taken a childish pot-shot at Dr A.
I say the same to you as I did to Portillo; put up or shut up. Address the topic with reasoned argument and evidence or go away.
It's pretty simple. After the flood the continents split and whatever animals where on certain continents ended up there. Easy.
Yeah. Easy-peasy. Apart form the fact that there were no humans before the breakup of Pangea, nor many of the other animals mentioned in the Bible. Your charming little theory - for which, I notice, you provide absolutely no evidence - already stands falsified.
Evolutionist can't buy that but can buy everything poofed into existance by accident accompanied by chance and evolved into the miraculous life we see today, but can't buy this.
Your phrase "accident accompanied by chance", apart form being a tautology, is not an accurate summation of the ToE. It is yet another moronic creationist strawman.
It's a mystery the things they can buy.
No mystery. You don't understand the theory, you made up some nonsense and it was nonsensical, due to your lack of understanding. Pretty much par for the course really.
Mutate and Survive

This message is a reply to:
 Message 82 by Chuck77, posted 01-13-2012 6:50 AM Chuck77 has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.7


(1)
Message 88 of 226 (648104)
01-13-2012 8:40 AM
Reply to: Message 82 by Chuck77
01-13-2012 6:50 AM


Chuck77 writes:
It's pretty simple. After the flood the continents split and whatever animals where on certain continents ended up there. Easy.
Does it bother you at all that there's no evidence that anything like this ever happened in recent geological times?
Evolutionist can't buy that but can buy everything poofed into existance by accident accompanied by chance and evolved into the miraculous life we see today, but can't buy this.
Science "buys" what the evidence indicates. Your description of what science "buys" is a recognizable parody of what the evidence actually indicates, and what the evidence indicates is what science actually "buys".
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 82 by Chuck77, posted 01-13-2012 6:50 AM Chuck77 has not replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2096 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


(1)
Message 89 of 226 (648126)
01-13-2012 11:03 AM
Reply to: Message 82 by Chuck77
01-13-2012 6:50 AM


A little boo-boo?
It's pretty simple. After the flood the continents split and whatever animals where on certain continents ended up there. Easy.
Actually, not so easy.
First, "Pangaea... is hypothesized as a supercontinent that existed during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras, forming 300 million years ago and beginning to break up approximately 200 million years ago" [Wiki].
For your statement to be accurate humans and all modern critters had to be cavorting about some 200+ million years ago. That does not compute, as the earliest modern humans are some 200,000 years old.
So your dating is off by some 200+ million years. How do you explain this little boo-boo? Where did those 200+million years suddenly go?

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 82 by Chuck77, posted 01-13-2012 6:50 AM Chuck77 has not replied

  
Granny Magda
Member
Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007
Member Rating: 3.8


(1)
Message 90 of 226 (648268)
01-14-2012 7:22 AM


Chuck's CMI Lies
Chuck asked me to bring this drivel over to this thread, so here it is. Let's take a look.
CMI writes:
After the Flood, the marsupials left the Ark and dispersed around the world.
Evidence for the ark?
CMI writes:
They could have dispersed before many of the other mammalian varieties.
Why? How?
CMI writes:
As ocean levels rose at the end of the Ice Age, land bridges were eliminated and the migrant marsupials were stuck where they were.
What land bridges? Care to provide any evidence for these land bridges? During the Ice Age!? Really, this is spectacularly silly stuff. There is fossil evidence of Australian marsupials millions of years before the Ice Age.
There’s also evidence suggesting that human travellers introduced some of the marsupials to distant lands, which can explain conundrums of very similar marsupials in different parts of the world.
Care to explain how human travellers managed to introduce marsupials to Australia when the marsupials pre-date human presence?
This whole piece is nonsense, with a mass of unsupported and half-baked notions.
Mutate and Survive
Edited by Granny Magda, : No reason given.
Edited by Granny Magda, : No reason given.

Replies to this message:
 Message 91 by Percy, posted 01-14-2012 8:09 AM Granny Magda has replied
 Message 97 by dwise1, posted 01-14-2012 6:36 PM Granny Magda has not replied
 Message 102 by Chuck77, posted 01-15-2012 1:05 AM Granny Magda has replied

  
Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024