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Member (Idle past 93 days) Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
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Author | Topic: Your EvC Debate Dream Team - Fantasy Debating | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Buzsaw Inactive Member |
DrJones* writes: Dr Adequate, you and the pack who've received some ideological butt kicking in threads like the Exodus thread
"Ideological butt kicking"!!!? Excuse while I laugh my ass off for an hour or three.... ok I'm back, by the Exodus thread do you mean the thread where Admin repeatedly asked you to provide evidence for your position and you were unable to do anything more than repeat your initial assertions? I mean that rigorously debated thread where you people's massive team needed Admin debating and moderating on your behalf, as your attempts to refute cited evidence faltered, against lil' ole creation guy Buz, who single handedly kept the pack of you at bay for 35 or so pages. BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW. The Immeasurable Present Eternally Extends the Infinite Past And Infinitely Consumes The Eternal Future.
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xongsmith Member Posts: 2587 From: massachusetts US Joined: Member Rating: 6.4 |
Buzsaw writes: I mean that rigorously debated thread where you people's massive team needed Admin debating and moderating on your behalf, as your attempts to refute cited evidence faltered, against lil' ole creation guy Buz, who single handedly kept the pack of you at bay for 35 or so pages. ...well, Buzz, I guess you made it to my team. - xongsmith, 5.7d
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 312 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Dr Adequate, you and the pack who've received some ideological butt kicking in threads like the Exodus thread ... Earth to Buzsaw ... I did not participate in that thread. The degree to which you kicked my butt, "ideologically" or otherwise, must therefore have been minimal.
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slevesque Member (Idle past 4668 days) Posts: 1456 Joined:
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What did I just say about the criteria of just "finding someone" who demurs? I said that you should have no trouble finding such a person, didn't I? So what do you do? You find one guy who demurs. But even worse, your example of someone questioning whether gravity is fundamental or emergent is incredibly esoteric and is definitely on the scientific frontier. Let me repeat something else I just said: we're not talking about the scientific frontiers. We're talking about the basics. So do you now understand that in a world of 6 billion people that "finding someone" who believes something weird means nothing? And do you understand that we're talking about the broad scientific consensus and not stuff on the scientific frontiers? Sorry, but the ''broad scientific consensus'' is only seen when you're on the outside looking in. When I started off in studying physics, that is one of the first things I realized; it wasn't all black and white, the things we understand and everybody agrees on, and the things we don't that are on ''the frontier of science''. Reality within is that there are no point beyond questioning, and there are diverging opinion on a whole lot more points that a layman would figure out to be settled by now.
Again, that's the scientific frontier. Well, of course if you define 'scientific frontier' to mean 'every set of data who can be explained by more then one way' there's nothing to discuss since this is a self-serving definition. But then what I'm telling you is that, given that definition, almost everything probably falls under 'frontier of science' and only limited groundwork is considered established concensus
You're on a roll coming up with poor examples, but at least you seem to recognize it in this case. This one should have ended up on the cutting room floor. Please try again. Can you name anything basic about evolution like common descent or descent with modification or natural selection or random mutation and variation that more than 1% of biologists question? You'll have to give me a definition of who counts as a biologists. Does a creationist with a PhD in biology count as a biologist ? Anyhow, I guess I could give another example: which modern ape is our closest relative ? You'll find a wide range of opinions starting from chimpanzee all the way to bonobo's, going through with orangutans, etc. You'd figure that by now everyone would have come to an agreement on such a basic question.
The dichotomy I'm actually setting up is that if you base your thinking upon reality then you have an orders of magnitude better chance of figuring out what is actually going on than if you base your thinking on revelation. But now your changing the goalpost, because it never was about ''figuring out what was going on'' but ''everybody agrees on what's going on'', and the dichotomoy was: base youself on reality: pretty much everybody will agree on pretty much everythign bas yourself on revelation: nobody agrees. But the reality is quite different: even when everybody bases themselves on reality, only the basics are mostly agreed upon, the rest is an open game with diverging opinions flying. Of course, they almost all agree on the basics: evolution happened, and RM+NS is the mechanism. A general form of the common ancestry. What I'm saying is past that, you won't find general agreement on almost everything. When was humans and apes last common ancestor ? Who was that last common ancestor ? How did the neanderthals go extinct ? etc. etc. This is only considering human evolution, a boatload of question can be asked about every other aspect of the theory of evolution, which will garner just as much diverging opinions. You may chalk all that up under your definition of 'frontier of science' but you'll end up seeing that the majority of science is at the frontier, with a very limited center core being agreed upon. And then, you'll realize that is analog to what you see in creationism. A central core of ideas are agreed upon: God created man, a flood did happen, etc. etc. And then after that it's an open game of opinions on when and how it happened.
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 312 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Anyhow, I guess I could give another example: which modern ape is our closest relative ? You'll find a wide range of opinions starting from chimpanzee all the way to bonobo's, going through with orangutans, etc. No you won't. Orangutans aren't remotely in the running; and chimpanzees and bonobos are sister species, and so must be equally closely related to us. Who in the world denies this? Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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slevesque Member (Idle past 4668 days) Posts: 1456 Joined:
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What I think you were trying to do is whine about the unpopular light your particular departure from reality is viewed in. To try to counter this you are claiming that every Creationist is a unique snowflake of belief, regardless of the fact that an integral part of what leads people to be Creationists tends to divide them into easily defined groups with specific sets of beliefs. Well too bad; Creationism is going to be viewed in a poor light for good reason. Individual Creationists are often going to be lumped into subcategories based on their beliefs because it is a useful and accurate means of determining their beliefs. Get over it. Wow nice to know you didn't actually follow the discussion. No, the discussion was initially started when Percy offered an explanation on why we have less of the reasonable creationists brand, and more of the esoteric brand. I offered a different explanation for this, it is that creationists here nowadays are greeted as dumb idiots and that immediatly chases the more reasonable ones. I used my own personal experience from my very first post here, where I remember asking myself if I really had time to lose on this forum after being greeted by Dr.A as if I had an IQ of 50. So this has nothing to do with me whining about creationism being in a bad light. This is about if you want to have reasonable creos stick around here, don't approach them with a boatload of preconceived notions.
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slevesque Member (Idle past 4668 days) Posts: 1456 Joined: |
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 312 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Thank you.
Like Kipling, I am moved to "return thanks yet once more to Allah for the diversity of His creatures." Yes, there is indeed someone who at least suggests that Homo and the Hylobatidae form a clade, and in a strictly literal sense, he lives on the same planet as I do. Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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Dr Jack Member Posts: 3514 From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch Joined: Member Rating: 8.3 |
Anyhow, I guess I could give another example: which modern ape is our closest relative ? You'll find a wide range of opinions starting from chimpanzee all the way to bonobo's, going through with orangutans, etc. You'd figure that by now everyone would have come to an agreement on such a basic question. This example really doesn't support your premise. The number of people on the side of the Orang form an astonishingly small minority of professional biologists. And most biologists agree that the method he used to come to his conclusion is fundamentally wrong. There is most certainly "broad scientific consensus" on this.
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slevesque Member (Idle past 4668 days) Posts: 1456 Joined:
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This example really doesn't support your premise. The number of people on the side of the Orang form an astonishingly small minority of professional biologists. And most biologists agree that the method he used to come to his conclusion is fundamentally wrong. The point is this one: as Percy describes it, people who base their reasoning on reality will look at the same set of data, and arrive at the same conclusion. What I'm saying is: this is true only when the set of data forces a single interpretation. In every other case, and I contend that this is by far the majority in science, a given set of data will allow multiple interpretations, and each and every single time you will be able to find some people who hold unto diverging interpretations. This is to say, that to demand that all creationists come to the same conclusions is wishful thinking. A lot of them do come to the same conclusions, and there are conclusions that are universally agreed upon by creationists. But to demand that they all agree upon the same things, even in the details, is irrealist. Note that I am using a more restrictive definition of creationists, particularly thsoe that look at the Bible and Nature for answers. It should be obvious that someone who looks at the Quran and Nature for answers, would not come to the same conclusions even though he could be called a creationist.
There is most certainly "broad scientific consensus" on this. Don't confuse a majority with concensus. As I said, it is my contention that there is concensus on but a few things in science.
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ringo Member (Idle past 440 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Buzsaw writes:
It's true that you stood alone in that thread. Even the people who agree with you ideologically didn't support you. ... lil' ole creation guy Buz, who single handedly kept the pack of you at bay for 35 or so pages. You certainly make my point about creationists not being team players. Edited by ringo, : Changed "about the historical accuracy of the Exodus account" to "ideologically". "I'm Rory Bellows, I tell you! And I got a lot of corroborating evidence... over here... by the throttle!"
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1433 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Hi slevesque
Normally we don't debate by bare links, but you were asked to provide this information.National Geographic is not peer reviewed. quote: I could have predicted that Schwartz would be listed. He posted here twice - see Message 38 in the Dr. Schwartz' "MIssing Links" thread. Because of that thread I bought the "Sudden Origins " book. See my "Sudden Origins" by Jeffery H Schwartz book review thread. And my conclusions at Message 18. You can also read\download Do Molecular Clocks Run at All? A Critique of Molecular Systematics by Jeffrey H. Schwartz. Note that he has to question the molecular clocks to make his hypothesis seem more plausible, because current thinking is that orangutans branched off before gorillas which branched off before chimps -- so he has to do a lot of rearranging of data to get to orangutans. Oh, and the branch to chimps branched to bonobos and chimps after they branched from human lineage ... according to the genetic evidence. Enjoy. by our ability to understand Rebel American Zen Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)
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slevesque Member (Idle past 4668 days) Posts: 1456 Joined: |
It's true that you stood alone in that thread. Even the people who agree with you ideologically didn't support you. You certainly make my point about creationists not being team players. This is really your point ? That the three active creationists (and I consider myself semi-active, but still) here don't talk in the same threads ? Geez, then in that case I agree with you. But it reveals nothing about any imaginary ''creationist lone ranger'' mentality. Just that there aren't a whole lot of creos around.
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Dr Jack Member Posts: 3514 From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch Joined: Member Rating: 8.3 |
quote: In the specific case you present, the people claiming Orang similarity do it by refusing to recognise the majority of the available data. It's not a question of looking at the data and coming to different conclusions; it's a question of ignoring the data.
quote: I disagree; there is consensus on the vast majority of things in science. However there are also a large number of areas in which there is perfectly reasonable disagreement, normally due to lack of information. But...
quote: I agree. That Creos disagree with each other is not a particularly valid criticism in general.
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Percy Member Posts: 22502 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9
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Hi Slevesque,
You seem to be confusing two different things. On the one hand there's the theory itself, and on the other there's the interpretation of evidence within the framework of that theory. You said you were in math and physics, I think, so try on this example. Take Haley's Comet. The laws of physics, specifically of gravitational attraction and the pressure of gases sublimating into space due to increasing proximity to the sun and probably other lesser effects, tell us where Haley's Comet is going and where it's been. If someone discovers evidence that changes what we think are the past or future paths of Haley's Comet (maybe they discover more mass is lost on near approaches than previously thought) it wouldn't have any effect whatsoever on the laws of physics. So now let's look at your chimp/bonobo/chimpanzee example. Descent with modification filtered by natural selection is the theory of evolution. Descent of man from a common ancestor of chimps, bonobos or orangutans is interpretation of evidence within the framework of the theory of evolution. If in the end it turns out that the evidence tells us that man is actually most closely related to orangutans than to chimps and bonobos then it would have no impact whatsoever on the theory of evolution, just as discovering that the path of Haley's Comet wasn't what we originally thought wouldn't change the laws of physics. As someone else already pointed out, chimps and bonobos are very closely related species, sister species I think they called them. Just as you are equally related to all your sisters, so are humans equally related to chimps and bonobos. There is no disagreement within science about our degree of relatedness to them, because it is clear it is the same. Concerning whether we're more closely related to orangutans than to chimps and bonobos, this is a distinctly minority view within anthropology. You're talking, of course, of Jeffrey H. Schwartz, professor of anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh, and when he was here he lasted all of two posts, you can start reading at Message 38 in the Dr. Schwartz' "MIssing Links" thread. And of course let me repeat once again, nothing in any of this has any bearing on the theory of evolution. If you want to say there is a lot of debate about the specifics of human descent then I don't think anyone would argue with you, but unless we discover humans are actually descended from canaries it isn't going to affect evolution.
base youself on reality: pretty much everybody will agree on pretty much everythign And I said this where? What I said was (and I quote), "If you base your thinking upon reality then you have an orders of magnitude better chance of figuring out what is actually going on than if you base your thinking on revelation." No one on this side of the fence is moving any goalposts. Let me address this, just to drive the point home:
Of course, they almost all agree on the basics: evolution happened, and RM+NS is the mechanism. A general form of the common ancestry. What I'm saying is past that, you won't find general agreement on almost everything. When was humans and apes last common ancestor ? Who was that last common ancestor ? How did the neanderthals go extinct ? etc. etc. Ask yourself, and then tell us your answer, what would be the impact on the theory of evolution if we discover precisely who the last common ancestor was, and how the Neandertals went extinct? Don't confuse theory with interpretation of evidence within a theoretical framework. --Percy
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