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Now, the mistakes here are actually understandable, the way the media and critics publically defamed Pauling. Of course, Pauling never claimed that vitamin C would cure cancer. He only acknowledged the consistent findings of compassionate and open-minded cancer doctors that massive doses of vitamin C usually resulted in terminal cancer patients living longer, and in much greater comfort.
I fail to see how this is a contest between creos and evos. This sounds more like a doctor fighting against an entrenched dogma, a problem sometimes found in the health industry. However, doctors have been burned by what seems good surgical techniques only to find that the actual benefit was equivalent to placebo (
Sham operations show knee surgery no better than placebo). Also, when people start producing slick infomercials trying to sell me coral calcium I become a little skeptical. Is the skepticism warranted? Maybe, but I don't base my health decisions on infomercials.
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Ok, mis- or dis- information corrected, we can get to my point, which is that evolutionists are ugly people.
When have I been ugly? I may have attacked your theories, but to my knowledge I have never attacked you personally. I think we could have a great discussion over a few pints and still walk away without harsh words.
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But, Darwinsderrier, no terrier, sorry,
Hehehe, sorry DT, but that is kind of funny.
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Creationists argue that the Creator, in making primates, saw that they didn't need the gene to make vitamin C, and somehow biologically engineered its shut down. Evolutionists believe that the gene was zapped by a chemical or physical mutagen in some early primate, who got along so well without it, that it out-survived and out-reproduced all the other early primates around at the time. In either case, the primates then didn't need the gene because the food they were eating had plenty vitamin C.
God must have it in for sailors then. Scurvy was prominent during early nautical voyages. I would venture a guess humans, on average, ingest less vitamin C than any other primate due to our preferred diets. Perhaps our bodies have found ways to cope with lower vit C while other primates ingest enough fruits to where this never becomes a problem. The mutation in vit C synthase was probably not selected for, unless it was chromosomally linked with a beneficial mutation. Just like life, mistakes happen but they aren't always negative.
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I see little evidence that Nature have carefully examined scientific philosophy and methodology.
Cite some specific evidence then. Surely you can pick some out. Just one caveat, primary literature is not meant to be a complete expose on every single angle of a given problem/hypothesis. Usually they delve into small intricacies and try and relate it to the whole. That and I don't want to badmouth Nature in case I ever submit a paper to them (or Science for that matter)
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The theory of evolution, is a theory of an unobserved historical process.
You are wrong right off the bat. We can look at fossils that record historical species not seen today. The theory of evolution also ties into genetic distributions in populations that can be seen in real time in the present.
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The process is supposedly ongoing, and if we assume that history repeats itself, if we can find present day events that follow the process, we have evidence supporting our notion that similar sorts of things took place in the past, and got us where we are.
It is not "history repeating itself" anymore than gravity repeating itself today. The theory states that the same mechanism that causes speciation today caused speciation in the past, or the same gravity mechanism that keeps planets orbiting the sun today is the same gravity that kept planets orbiting in the past. Do we have proof that it was the same mechanism for orbiting bodies in the distant past? Not absolute proof, but plenty of evidence.
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But, we have to show that present day events are not driven by a Creator. This putative Creator has their own agenda, if He is really out there, and to show that current changes in species are evolving, and not an act of creation, we have to control, in some way, the hypothetical Creator. This, hypothetically, we are allowed to do through prayer. So, studies of, say bacterial adaptation in chemostats, need to be done with and without prayer. If there is no difference in the changes observed, we have evidence supporting natural as opposed to artificial selection. But, when these studies are done, there is a difference. (See references summarized by Dr. Larry Dossey.)
Show me the effect that prayer has on speciation. Any sources for this? It seems that you have decided to pin your hopes on a hypothesis with no support and excluding a theory that does have support, predicitive power, and a mechanism. Why? Is this personal preference or an objective analysis of the data?
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Humanity continues to find hope in the fact that evolutionary thinking appears to castrate those who adopt it, so that they don't reproduce very well, and we don't have to put up with their thinking forever.
Reproductive capacity is different than reproductive rate, you seem to be confusing the two.
[This message has been edited by Loudmouth, 01-27-2004]