Why TOE is not accepted

I'm sorry but I really disagree. While it is perfectly all right for Faith to express her belief about evolution or geology, once the subject is brought up I see no reason that people should not refer to science or evidence to show that her belief conflicts with the reality. Faith is free to tell anyone that she is simply going to ignore the facts or pretend that they don't exist, even handwave them away, she can refuse to answer such questions because they conflict with her belief system, but the full picture needs to be displayed so that those reading the thread can make their own judgements.Religion does not exist in a vacuum. Reality is out there and when reality conflicts with someones belief system they can simply say, "Because I don't believe it!"

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Thank you. That makes sense. This is not a science forum and really we've been off topic for some time now. Perhaps it should be taken to the Theological Creationism forum where the science questions can be brought up but scientific rigor is not required and I can be as general as I am being here.

Having lasted some few weeks duly focusing on the spiritual side of the board, you have ventured back to science. Your argument is a nice capsule of your thoughts in the Sediments/Depositon thread.I should say at the outset that it is unfair of me to continue a science discussion that is not on thread and that you have been excluded from responding, yet I venture a one time short reply to your concerns in msg 165.We understand your "observation" as poor interpretation of geology. Large strata that form over large areas are there because stable environments accumulate much material in a fairly uniform manner over large areas ( ocean basins, deltic flats, deserts).The abruptness of change comes from a change in the depositional environment. At this point an understanding of plate tectonics is needed. As land masses come together, tear apart, and/or subduct the environment can change. Aplace that has been getting sediment for a long time (say a shallow sea), may dry up and have no deposition. It may even erode somewhat, until that part of the crustal plate moves to an area where net deposition occurs. This addresses the uniformity of strata part of your argument.As to the increasing fossil complexity argument of your first paragraph, this is a good time to understand some punctuated equilibria theory. In a nutshell, Eldridge and Gould proposed that evolution occurs by rapid steps after long periods of stability. This fits observed fossil data. The concept of slow continual change was popular but unsupported by the data. Reality shows stairstepped evolution more than an uninterupted line sloping up.This all seems obviously wrong to you. Its frustrating/funny how a few times during the sediment/deposition thread or in debate with Jazzns you would get close to the nub of this argument and back away.It boils down to your incredulity over uniform strata formation.If you care to understand why geology explains uniform strata you can first pick up a geology text and then secondly petition to get back on the science fora. A good start would be to show a basic understanding of some geology. As Percy said, 'you don't have to agree with it, just show you understand it."(paraphrase)After you get back on the science fora then perhaps you can communicate to us what we just can't seem to get. Why do different layers of uniformity preclude old time when geology explains them? You are struggling with concepts that science dealt with in the early 1800's. You hold large uniform strata as evidence against old time and yet cannot explain why this is and then complain that we are just to thick to get it.Some here consider you to be at the least verbally clever, yet at this point your ability of self expression seems limited.ABB

What an asinine post. Just so all lurkers know, I was banned and then immediately after their is this asinine post by adminosey here demanding I respond when I obviously could not, thus making it look like I was dodging the post.Nosey here has done this in the past, ignored unsubstantiated claims of those on the other side, and made absurd demands on me, which I have already spent hours and hours showing the same things he is asking me to show here.Yep, the more I look at it, evolutionism seems sort of like a cult to me.Haeckel's faked drawings being used as prima facie evidence for over 100 years after being exposed as frauds, and evolutionists even today making excuses for it is plenty of evidence alone.How could a purported scientific theory be treated as science for real if it took over 100 years to get this sham removed. It wasn't like no one was publishing it was a sham. I heard about in the 80s. Van Baer exposed it way back in the 1880s. Books, articles, etc,...denounced this sham for decades, but evolutionists missed nary a beat in promoting the sham.They just continued claiming the peer-review process would have already corrected such an error. The peer review process imo excludes criticism of evolution by creationists, never corrected the problem until finally it was so embarrassing that a study was done in 1997 and published, as if it was new finding, that the depictions were faked, and only then did evolutionists remove the faked drawings from textbooks, for the most part, although some may have earlier and some may for all I know continue to publish such junk.The slogan "ontology recapitulates phylogeny" was a false idea. It was never true, but evolutionists presented it as an observed fact and laughed at creationists who said it was wrong.Why?Why is there an apparent denial of fact with evolutionists, and then when confronted, an attempt to explain it away?Think about it. This was presented as one of the most major pieces supporting evolution all the way back from Darwin, but despite millions of students, and hundreds of thousands of evolutionists being taught this, why did not one of them listen to critics and look into the matter for themselves and see if embryonic evidence agreed with these depictions and claims?Heck, I looked into it in the 80s. It wasn't that hard to find the truth.How can you explain this?Ontology does not recapitulate phylogeny, and in fact, it doesn't even appear there is a phylotypic stage, but evolutionists have claimed for over 100 years that a phylotypic stage is a fact.How can you claim something is an observed fact when it was never observed? That's the key to understanding evolutionism.Basically, the MO is to declare something as fact even when it isn't observed.What Nosey and some others cannot seem to understand is I am not oppossed to evolution in principle. Heck, there are parts of Genesis which sound exactly like evolution.I don't buy it because the facts, imo, don't support it.This message has been edited by randman, 08-01-2005 01:39 AM

ABB,I think Faith write self expression well and writes well on religious and social science political science topics. The limitation I see is in handling abstract scientific concepts. I'd say it isn't "self expression" but rather conceptual expression that she needs to develop. A brilliant scientist might express concepts very well but write haltingly about his life for example. At least I think self expression and conceptual expression can be independent skills.I bring this up not to focus on Faith but to observe that this is a common problem among many of the more conservative religious posters who come here. They just don't seem to have a very good grounding in basic science but they have the idea that they understand science. It may be that television is the culprit here as t.v. shows give sketchy high level summations of science without really explaining how the data was gathered and interpreted. I don't know if it is t.v. but something is going awry in science education in the US at least.lfen

Well put. I agree with that amendment.ABB

Please substantiate that.Show the men that debunked Haeckel back in the 1800s, and show that they were evolutionists, please.Many biologists at that time were not evolutionists so I suspect you are wrong here.In fact, the concept of the biogenetic law predated Haeckel, and Van Baer, an anti-evolutionist, wrote against it extensively, and thus the idea was indeed first discredited by one of Darwin's biggest critics. : The oft-repeated claim that evolutionists are the ones to find and correct thier mistakes is a lie, one of the basic doctrines of evolutionism it seems.In reality, creationists long denounced this sham before evolutionists finally agreed with the Richardson study in 1997.This message has been edited by randman, 08-01-2005 03:17 AM

Do you sir, have any idea how it looks to someone like myself who was told, for example, that the embryonic drawings used in textbooks were fakes, way back in the 80s, and that I could look into for myself, and having experienced the utter contempt of people such as yourself for merely trying to bring the subject up, and then finally in 1997 an evolutionist publishes a study proving creationists were correct, and yet people like yourself still have the gall to insinuate that someone like me has rejected "your life's work" based on mere prejudice!!I am sorry, but if your life's work consists of publishing faked crap like Haeckel's drawings, then you maybe you need to reevaluate what you are doing.I suspect the reality is that your "life's work" and the work of the vast majority of scientists has nothing to do with something like Haeckel's drawings, and may not even be depandant on ToE.But irregardless, I would hope scientists who could easily have determined for themselves that Haeckel's drawings were faked, and prior to that, that ontology does not recapitulate phylogeny would be ashamed of merely accepting this dogma as correct, and perhaps insisted it was so, and failed to be open-minded enough to listen to the criticism of those that reject evolution.Can you not see how incredibly offensive it is to me and people like me, that have rejected evolution because of a diligent search of such facts or pseudo-facts, to be maligned by the likes of people as yourself claiming I did so out of a desire for political power or some such???Was I wrong back in the 80s to look into the matter of false data and believe Haeckel's drawings were wrong?It seems you would have me think I was wrong because nothing was published in peer-reviewed journals about it. The fact nothing appeared in evolutionist journals about this until 1997 when even a non-scientist could look into this tells me quite a lot about the vaunted peer-reviewed process and the "integrity" of evolutionist scientists.Sure, great work is done in a lot of areas, but prejudice seems to rule the day from my perspective, as far whenever the paradigms of evolution are challenged.If you feel I unnecessarily hold evolutionists in low esteem, please know I felt lied to, and then when I brought up the lie, and when I still bring up the lie, instead of remorse that your community perpetuated such a hoax and arrogantly shout down your critics, I and others like receive more derision for just speaking the truth. Why don't you tell me? I knew way back in the 80s humans did not have fish gills or gill pouches and that Haeckel's drawings were faked. Every person believing in evolution that wasn't a Christian laughed at the idea when I told them it was lie. They said it couldn't be; that scientists would have uncovered that a long time ago, etc, etc,....After years of watching the mentality and also this same mentality in some "Christian cults" or cultish churches, I began to see a pattern of thought, of a form of group self-delusion.Keep in mind I saw this with some of my fellow Christians in their churches, but I also see the same thing with evolutionists.It didn't matter that I was right, that Haeckel's drawings were faked. I had to be wrong because THE GROUP MUST BE RIGHT.Take some time to think about before responding because I am telling you the honest truth, and as much as it offended you, telling some Christian friends they were becoming cultish was offensive too, but facts bore out in both situations to a degree.This message has been edited by randman, 08-01-2005 02:11 AM

I have to consider myself a Theistic Evolutionist for the reason that I'm a Christian who is not a biologist and as a result I'm prepared to accept what the bulk of biologists agree on.It just seems to me that when you state that evolution occurs in "rapid steps after long periods of stability", it would suggest that there is more than random chance and natural selection going on. Logically I would think that if evolution was going on with just random chance and natural selection the evolutionary process would be one of "slow continual change".

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

Btw, please be specific if you want to know something. Show the specific claim and take some time to read the thread too. I don't think that's too much to ask.

Well this only considers the gross morphological changes observable in tissue preserved in fossils. Such features are by no means the be all and end all of evolution, they are just the ones that paleontologists happen to focus on. Apparent morphological stasis need not imply evolutionary stasis.TTFN,WK

So exactly when did mainstream evolutionism drop the myth of ontology recapitulates phylogeny, and when did they drop the myth of Haeckel's drawings?How long did it take before they quit using the myth?How about the phylotypic stage?What's funny about that is that evolutionists have said it was an observed fact for over 100 years, and yet when I showed evidence it was a false claim, an evolutionist responded that it could still be true,that the jury is still out basically.The evolutionist in that debate on the thread on Haeckel's drawings did not even seem bothered that evolutionists had told the public that something was a bona-fide fact when in reality it was never a fact, but a theory, and unverified at that and the evidence they used to verify it was faked drawings.That's not science. That's propganda, and imo, that's what evolutionists used to convince the public evolution is true.

I didn't answer because your question contains a lie, which I suspect you are aware of, namely that I have claimed Biology wasn't real science.In fact, as you probably realize, I have never claimed Biology was not real science. Since I did not make the claim, I do not have to defend it. The truth is I accept Biology as real science.if you care to apologize for being a jerk here and trying to suggest to lurkers and others that I made this claim, maybe we can have a discussion. Otherwise, I will consider your posts as nothing more than an attempt to distort what I say and have written, and respond accordingly.

Well, they want the power to mold society along lines suitable to their religious beliefs. I'm not sure power is their motive though except in that is an expression of security.I think what they want is certainty. The security of certainty. Or they want to avoid the tension of uncertainty. Whether they choose to find it by believing the Koran, the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Vedas it's the same process. Some one has an experience that convinces them of something and they impart it to others who are also convinced that the original person spoke to God, or channeled and anciet wise being, or recieved a prophecy or vision.This need for security of a religious form is something that has characterized the majority of humans for thousands of years. It won't disappear overnight.lfen

Unfortunately you guys seem to have lost at times the ability to see truth from error. One of the things creationists brought up and were "shot down" over for decades were that embryonic evidence did not reflect Haeckel's drawings that human embryos do not have fish gills, etc,...but evolutionists just took the same old attitude saying it was old news.But here's the thing. One reason critics of evolution continually bring up the same criticisms is not because the criticisms are invalid but because they are true.The MO of evolutionists is to stonewall criticism so that, in the example of Haeckel's drawings, it took over 100 years to get evolutionists to quit using them.So expect the same truthful criticisms to be heard over and over again until evolutionists correct their false logic and overstatements.This message has been edited by randman, 08-01-2005 02:27 AM