Message 211 of 217 (524615) 09-17-2009 8:41 PM

Reply to: Message 210 by AdminNosy 09-17-2009 8:28 PM

Scientific vs Creationist Frauds and Hoaxes

Mutate and Survive

Message 213 of 217 (524635) 09-17-2009 10:47 PM

Reply to: Message 207 by Archangel 09-17-2009 7:57 PM

Do populations change over time?

I'll be happy to look at what you post demonstrating that life sciences are built upon a foundation of lies and fraud in whatever thread that winds up landing in. I hope you'll be able to defend that position better than the others who've tried it in the past.

Now, do me the same favor and answer the question I've asked:

Do populations change over time?

Message 215 of 217 (524704) 09-18-2009 7:41 AM

Reply to: Message 207 by Archangel 09-17-2009 7:57 PM

Curiously, there is already a thread covering this topic, one where you can try to defend your point of view against the facts. Of course that means you need to look at the facts, not just take some creationist website as evidence without any skepticism or lack of gullibility.

Scientific vs Creationist Frauds and Hoaxes

See you there.

Enjoy.

Message 216 of 217 (524712) 09-18-2009 8:04 AM

Reply to: Message 205 by Tanndarr 09-17-2009 6:45 PM

How can you tell when you are dealing with cognitive dissonance?

Cognitive dissonance – (Wikipedia, 2009)

Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously. The "ideas" or "cognitions" in question may include attitudes and beliefs, and also the awareness of one's behavior. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, or by justifying or rationalizing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.[1] Cognitive dissonance theory is one of the most influential and extensively studied theories in social psychology.

A powerful cause of dissonance is when an idea conflicts with a fundamental element of the self-concept, such as "I am a good person" or "I made the right decision." This can lead to rationalization when a person is presented with evidence of a bad choice. It can also lead to confirmation bias, the denial of disconfirming evidence, and other ego defense mechanisms.

Worldview

world·view –n (American Heritage Dictionary, 2009)

In both senses also called Weltanschauung.
1. The overall perspective from which one sees and interprets the world.
2. A collection of beliefs about life and the universe held by an individual or a group.

When everyone and everything that disagrees with you are lies and liars, and the number keeps expanding as the evidence grows.

Archangel is facing cognitive dissonance. There is no "second explanation" that comes close to explaining all the evidence in a consistent manner, so denial is the next tool.

Enjoy.

Message 217 of 217 (524803) 09-18-2009 10:20 PM

Reply to: Message 175 by Archangel 09-15-2009 10:27 AM

Curiously, and unfortunately for you, reality is completely unaffected by what you believe, what your opinion is, or what ad hoc explanation you can pull out of the air. Reality is what is shown by the evidence.

As noted in Message 185 the foraminifera fossils provide evidence contrary to this assertion of yours:

You attempted another hand-waving denial of the evidence in Message 187 where you again expressed an opinion rather than providing an argument supported by evidence:

Interestingly, the mark of cognitive dissonance is to regard any and all evidence that contradicts your pet belief as a lie, misinformation and the product of some conspiracy.

Fascinatingly, calling any evidence you don't like a lie is not a different interpretation of the evidence, as you claimed was the case for creationists, nor is it skepticism, common sense or rational thinking, it is just ordinary denial of inconvenient evidence.

Unfortunately, for you, denial does not make the evidence go away, or even affect it in any way. The evidence does in fact show an organized and sorted structure:

http://www.gomr.mms.gov/homepg/whatsnew/papers/biochart.pdf

Click to enlarge

The gray column on the left is the age determined by radiometric dating methods, the next set of columns are ages determined by relative stratigraphy (CHRONOSTRATIGRAPHY), the third set of columns lists the different species of foraminifera and other similar species (BIOSTRATIGRAPHY). The problem for you is that every time we find the same species of foraminifera, we find them in the same stratigraphic layers, and whenever we date those layers by radiometric methods we end up with the same ages for the layers.

Why is that true if the layers are not sorted and organized by the layers of sedimentation?

And yet your "real time video" is just something in your imagination, a made up attempt to explain away evidence that you find uncomfortable.

Once again, the fact is that the foraminifera evidence is not something that is scavenged by predators, it is the calcium shells ("tests") of the dead animals, shells that have rained down onto the bottom of the seas around the world year after year after year after year. No cataclysmic event required, nor does your proposed cataclysmic event explain the sorted and organized layers.

You need to explain how your flood model can produce these layers, not just assert some imaginary eventuality.

When you think you have a valid explanation, you can try an experiment: take a bag of diatomaceous earth (you can get it in a garden store and divide it into different piles that you then dye different colors; now mix them in a large container with water and get them to sort out by color.

If you cannot do this then you cannot explain the layers of diatoms and forams that are found all over the world, sorted and organized by sedimentary layers with a flood model.

Have fun.

So you keep preaching, but common sense to me says that the diatoms and forams are formed in layers and organized by age, because this is perfectly consistent with what we observe in the world today, while thinking that the colored diatoms can be layered and organized by a certain swirling agitation of some imaginary flood process is totally against all common knowledge.

But you could prove be wrong by doing the experiment. That, of course, would be the scientific approach to determining how the real world works, as opposed to relying on opinion and belief, eh?

The difference is that the "story" told by evolution matches and predicts the evidence and the pattern of evidence that we find, while your "real time video" fails to explain anything other than there are fossils. Curiously, that is not a useful explanation when we start with the fact that there are fossils.

Amusingly, I see that you have absolutely failed to take up the challenge I gave you in Message 167

You have not done this, and your continued prattling on about having trouble with the age of the earth is rather amusing denial of reality, without your even attempting to answer this challenge.

You made a rather insipid attempt in Message 187 to confront the first part of the evidence of an old earth:

Interestingly, we don't expect every living thing to live forever. Curiously there are three independent tree chronologies that agree with one another with 0.5% error over 8,000 years, as noted in Message 4 of the thread in question. Fascinatingly we can also measure carbon-14 levels in those tree rings, and we find the same levels in each of the three chronologies for the same year/s. Amazingly, the sun goes through an 11 year cycle of cosmic ray production that is responsible for making carbon-14 in the atmosphere, and the carbon-14 levels in the tree rings show this same 11 year cycle year after year after year.

What you fail to understand, is that evidence of young things in an old earth is entirely possible - common sense will tell you - that parts can be younger than formation of the earth.

What you cannot have - common sense will tell you - are parts older than the formation of the earth. Thus you cannot have formed features in a young earth that are older than the earth, and you certainly cannot have evidence of life that is older than any kind of valid concept for a young earth.

As already demonstrated with the foraminifera, no cataclysmic event is needed to explain the layers of foram shells, nor does a cataclysmic event explain the layering and organization observed in the foram shells.

Lake Suiketsu in Japan offers a similar pattern of organization and layering, but one with an additional element that your model is incapable of explaining.

From Message 5 in Age Correlations and An Old Earth, Version 2 No 1:

Note that the layers are formed by alternating precipitation of diatom shells and clay, with the diatom layers coming from the spring-season diatom growth, and the clay layers formed during the rest of the year (particularly the winter months when no diatom growth occurs). Clay settles slower in water than the diatom shells.

Now in addition to the previous experiment proposed to test your "alternate explanation" of foram layers, we can try this: mix clay and diatomaceous earth with water, shake and stir according to your proposed explanation, and see if you can get the results to be alternating layers of diatoms and clay.

Have fun.

Note that these layers are used to calibrate carbon-14 dating, so the carbon-14 dates are not measured to date the layers, they are measured to compare to the layers. Curiously, there is a good correlation between the two: your model also needs to explain that little detail.

But it doesn't end there. In Message 21 of the same thread you have an additional correlation that needs to be explained:

Common sense tells you that the only rational explanation of these triple correlations is that they are the result of the same process - the gradual deposition of diatoms and clay, year by year by year, for over 29,000 years.

Interestingly, I have no problem responding to your long and winding posts, sorting out the erroneous information from the made up fantasy, and rebutting it all with clear evidence of reality that is at odds with your opinion and your belief. Surely, if your beliefs, opinions, and assertions were remotely true, you should have no problem providing your "differences in interpretation" that actually explain ALL the evidence -- I can. I have.

Fascinatingly, I didn't claim that Mendel said anything about alleles, and indeed he studied the clear cut inherited traits that were later matched to genetic sequences and then identified as alleles. Curiously, the evidence of Pelycodus, Asian Greenish Warblers, Therapsids, Foraminifera and other fossil and living animals can also be compared in the same way, and when we look at the genetic evidence we see the same match between observed inherited traits and genetic sequences that we then label as the alleles for those traits.

And yet we still see a distribution of hereditary traits in these populations, we still see that this distribution changes from generation to generation in those populations. It is only since the science of genetics has developed that we have been able to identify sequences responsible for the formation of the hereditary traits observed in all species, whether fossil, dead, or living.

The question is whether you understand that identifying a hereditary trait means that there is a genetic sequence related to it, and that the genetic sequence is then labeled as the allele for that trait.

The hereditary traits in the populations demonstrate this. To claim that this relationship is not validly demonstrated because you don't understand the context of the reference to alleles just means that you are grasping at straws in order to deny the evidence. This is another symptom of cognitive dissonance.

Let me ask you a simple question: are you aware of a single observable hereditary trait that is not associated with an allele?

Have fun.

Not at all. What we must do is filter through all the explanations that are proposed for the ones that best explain all the evidence.

Science does that.

Your model/s fail to do that, and your model/s are contradicted by some evidence that you cannot explain.

So tell me again, then, why do you stick with falsified and hopeless explanations that are demonstrated to be wrong, that are invalidated by evidence that is contrary to it, and that can't even explain a fraction of 1% of the evidence that is explained by geology, physics and evolution?

Why don't you apply your alleged skeptical attitude to these failed models?

Message 197

Curiously, I don't need to come close to 4.5 billion years old, as a minimum age of 400,000 years makes your young earth concept impossible, while the maximum age can be greater still.

Fascinatingly, your absolute failure to address the issues of "dramatic assumptions" on the thread in question - content instead to fire blanks from the sideline, creating a lot of noise and disturbance, but accomplishing squat - means that you are still avoiding the issue of correlations and the consilience of all the different methods in demonstrating not only age, put consistent patterns repeated in each of the different methods.

Failure to confront the evidence that is contradictory to your pet beliefs and opinions is not skepticism, failure to provide a single different explanation that covers all the evidence is not skepticism.

Skepticism means questioning ALL concepts equally, and looking for actual factual evidence that supports the concepts.

You have failed to question a single creationist source that you have trotted out, content to use confirmation bias to select those that you think support your opinion and belief, while ignoring the ready evidence that such sites are full of misleading misinformation.

Cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias are NOT the tools of science.

Enjoy.

Edited by RAZD, : clrty

Edited by RAZD, : morclrty

Edited by RAZD, : evnmor