A Whale of a Tale

alas.i "won" the last thread. i think i'll sit this one out for a while.

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w - o - w. that is a whole new world of pseudo-intellectual wankery.hey randman, can you provide a non-hypothetical example of a causal relationship, where from our perspective the cause comes after the effect?

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not totally off-topic. it explains entirely why a clear succession of transitional forms means nothing to randman -- he doesn't believe in linear causality. it's immaterial. frankly, time can do whatever it wants. we still experience in a set direction and a somewhat uniform rate (unless you like doing relativistic calculations). things from our perspective still appear to move forward, causally.this is basically "last thursdayism" in disguise. how do we know the world existed on wednessday? maybe it's just a big hoax, designed to look older. -- it doesn't matter, it still appears to be old, and for all intents and purposes is old. maybe time doesn't go forward, but it still appears to do so, so for all intents and purposes it does.

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mod, where were you in the last pakicetus thread? we could have used that...

that's not the issue. you see, if we have a picture of burglar on one side of the door, and then the burglar on the other side of the door, the creationist would want the picture in between. otherwise, you can't prove he broke in.or if have a picture of the burglar walking up to a wall with a painting, and then walking away with the painting, the creationist would want us to prove that he took the painting off the wall.the issue is basically that creationists are unwilling to play "connect the dots." each individual picture could be a specially posed and created work of art, and in no way indicate motion. motion blur only establishes breif ("micro") motion, but not that the action as a whole was carried out.this proves two things:

1. no evidence of intermediaries will never satisfy a creationist. they start with the assumption that the bit you're trying to prove can't happen, therefore it doesn't. there are, in effect, an infinite number of half-way points between any two points, but only a finite number of organisms to populate that path.
2. if i ever rob a museum and get caught on camera, i'm hiring a creationist lawyer.

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well, since something like 2/3rds of american society are fooled by creationism, i'd probably be ok. besides, having a creationist lawyer would (hopefully) imply a creationist jury. you know they wouldn't let people with biases towards stuff like "evidence" in.

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it's only mildly off-topic. it explains why we're even having this debate, really -- different standards of evidence, and prior assumptions.we could line up all of the intermediatary whales that ever existed, and the adamant creationists will never see the connection.

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