Summations Only

No, I didn't say that nor anything like that. We weren't even talking about speciation. You had claimed the only differences between parents and offspring are due to recombination, completely forgetting about mutation.But given that you did mention speciation, you can't possibly be unaware that you're characterizing it incorrectly, because people have defined it for you. Speciation only requires that the new population be largely unable to mate with the original population. If you'd paused to think about this for a moment you would have immediately realized that new species don't have "totally different attributes" from the original species. For example, there are probably 20 or 30 different species of chipmunk, none of which have "totally different attributes." Mutations fall into three categories, neutral, deleterious and beneficial, but you knew this already, right? You're just playing dumb again. We already know how unreliable your quotes are, and anyway, they don't really fit the context, do they. Which is what happens when you're incapable of composing effective responses on your own and so must rely on cut-n-pasting whatever quotes you can find that you think might be applicable.By the way, your last quote appears to be not an expert but an IDist. He cites Behe, Dembski, Meyer and Remine, and his paper, though giving the external appearance of having been published in a journal, is apparently available nowhere but at his own personal website, not even at Research Signpost, the supposed publisher.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Change font size of subtitle, and the subtitle itself.

Disappear for a week, ignore the rebuttals, declare your assertions anew as if the prior discussion had never happened.Nice strategy.--Percy

Hi Eliyahu,This isn't a discussion if your responses ignore the rebuttals while repeating your position. It's witnessing or preaching, not discussion.--Percy

I've been a participant in this thread rather than a moderator, so I'll just respond as Percy.When I first started this discussion site there existed a serious and concerted creationist effort on the national level to reduce the teaching of evolution in public schools and to give more attention to creation science. It now exists more at a grassroots level. There used to be huge numbers of creationist crusaders joining EvC Forum, but this has dwindled to a trickle. So we take this into account.I also thought, when this site first began, that moderated debate would focus discussion on the relevant points and bring discussions to meaningful conclusions. While this sometimes happened, it was rare. Anyone knowledgeable wouldn't hold a YEC position (the OEC position is less common and extremely diverse, so I'll leave that aside), so that means that only the ignorant come here and advocate for YEC. Discussions here are not so much about different interpretations of data but more about remediation of ignorance, except that YEC's don't want to be relieved of their ignorance.And so Faith wants to believe that when she looks out across the layers at the Grand Canyon that she's seeing the result of a massive flood, and Eliyahu wants to believe that the scientists behind evolution actually reject it, and since there's nothing factual to support either belief they have to engage in some pretty fancy mental machinations and rhetorical footwork.These machinations look fairly ridiculous from a scientific perspective, and when the creationist is out of ammunition he's forced to just repeat the same arguments over and over again, making them appear more ridiculous, even farcical, and those on the science side quickly come to feel that their time is being wasted and that the creationist side isn't taking the discussion seriously. They ask for moderator help.I've discovered that the moderators ability to influence discussion in a positive manner is minimal at best. When throngs of creationists flooded ashore at websites like this we could simply suspend the most ridiculous or outrageous (after a few rounds of alerts and warnings), but if we did that today, if we pressured creationists to debate using real science and genuine logic, there'd be no one left to debate. Even the past few days there's been no creationist to debate any science topic, and I don't think a moderator has taken a serious action against a creationist in months.So yes, I agree with you about Eliyahu and many other creationists, but I thought the participants said all the same things that moderators would have said (I said some of them), and with just as great effect.I *would* like to give a shout out to Faith. I thought her performance in the Why the Flood Never Happened thread was outstanding. She gave her position far more of a ride than I would ever have thought possible.Would anyone object if I dropped this thread into summation mode?--Percy

Eliyahu arguing that his quotes are from people who reject evolution makes as much sense as arguing that the New Testament was written by people who reject Christ.Evolutionists could pull the same silly stunt on the Bible but will likely never do so for the simple reason that they understand how fallacious it would be. But creationists apparently think it's a meaningful exercise and are willing to expend days, nay, weeks and years, combing through the technical literature looking for quotes they can pull out of context.--Percy