Summations Only

CRR writes: Today the idea of common ancestry is widespread and most children know it at least in some form before they go to school, so it is for them a prior assumption even if they are taught natural selection first.

And this obsession about what order things were worked out in is important to you because....?

However as Dredge says it probably makes little difference since both ideas are integral to the modern version of Darwin's theory.

Both ideas were integral to the original theory too, but again, so what? Why are you obsessing about the way common ancestry was derived?

Dredge writes: I've got better things to do than speculate the repercussions of absurd impossibilities.

So you're just avoiding thinking about it.

You're the equivalent to a pre-Darwin creationist - you'll be in for a big shock when molecular biologists create the first life form and you'll spend an enormous amount of energy denying it. Then you'll try to rationalise it. If you're lucky you won't live long enough to see it.

quote:

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Scientists have announced that they have created living organisms using an expanded genetic code. That could in turn lead to the creation of entirely new lifeforms, using combinations of DNA that couldn't possible have existed before.

Two researchers created a bacterium that not only uses the four natural bases, but also uses a pair of synthetic ones known as X and Y. In doing so, the researchers say that they have been able to "lay the foundation for achieving the central goal of synthetic biology: the creation of new life forms and functions".

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http://www.independent.co.uk/...synthetic-semi-a7544056.html

Even this first step is problematic for your beliefs. This is an entirely new lifeform - one that your mythical creator did not create.

Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

Dredge writes: ToE was invented and is sustained by a philosophical position - atheism.

Crap.

The error of evolution will persist as long as the error of atheism will.

More crap.

It's not essential for the ToE that there is a single common ancestor.

Evolutionists would just say that there were at least two survivors from that initial origin of life. Creationists already believe in separate creation of different kinds.

Creationists don't know what they believe, you can't even tell me if elephants nd tapirs are different kinds or why pigs and cows must be different kinds.

Biologists are talking about common ancestors way down the evolutionary tree - billions of years ago - not in the top branches. Common ancestry is proven way below where creationists are required to put it and with billions of years difference. Don't pretend there's an equivalence.

Dredge writes: If creation be true, we would expect the fossil record to be characterised sudden appearance and stasis ... "The history of most fossil species includes tow [sic] features particularly inconsistent with gradualism: 1. Stasis. Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear; morphological change I [sic] usually limited and directionless. 2. Sudden appearance. In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and 'fully formed.'" (Gould, Stephen J. The Panda's Thumb, 1980, p. 181-182) "Every paleontologist knows that most species don't change. That's bothersome....brings terrible distress. ....They may get a little bigger or bumpier but they remain the same species and that's not due to imperfection and gaps but stasis. And yet this remarkable stasis has generally been ignored as no data. If they don't change, its not evolution so you don't talk about it." S. J. Gould, Lecture at Hobart & William Smith College, 14/2/1980.

And still they dishonestly quote mine despite it being pointed out over and over that Gould was a confirmed 'evolutionist'.

quote:

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Gould, in this article and many more over the next twenty years, consistently and extensively explained his position and the evidence for evolution, including transitional forms found in the fossil record. The constant abuse of the body of Gould's life's work in the face of this is not merely dishonest, it is despicable.

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http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/part3.html

Why not read the whole article so that you don't keep making the same mistake?

Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

Dredge writes: The whole story is, Gould clearly saw the evidence for creation, but as a committed atheist, he tried to explain it away with his stupid PE theory. Predictably, many other atheists accepted PE as sound "science" ... any tin-pot idea will do, as long as it isn't creationism!

Gould was what he said he was, an 'evolutionist'.

... Which reminds me of another committed atheist, Salvador Dali, who said, "I know from my study of science that there is a God ... but I don't believe it."

Now you quote a surrealist???

It's more important that you retract your statement that evolution=atheism.

What a pile of shite.

Evolution is a branch of biology. It's a scientific area of study.

There are millions of Christians that happily accept both the bible and evolution. If evolution=atheism then there are millions of atheistic Christians.

Dredge writes: This statement is at least an improvement on "Evolution is the unifying concept of biology" or "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution."

It's not an improvement on anything it's just a statement of fact.

Even better would be to understand this: Evolution needs biology, but biology doesn't need evolution.

Biology and evolution don't need anything. All biology and evolution do is explain things in the natural world. Try not to embarrass yourself further.

Dredge writes: The Father, Son and Holy Spirit demand honesty.

Yes it's a paradox isn't it?

Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

Of course god could have written the bloody thing himself and avoided 3,000 years of conflict and confusion.

Why didn't he?

.....and why did he use this preposterous method that was bound to go wrong and be disbelieved? Why not write them himself?

Faith writes: Bound to go wrong?" That's ridiculous for starters. The Bible has been believed by millions for the last two millennia, and been the cause of great changes in society, even the foundation of western civilization itself out of barbarian Europe.

Even after 2,000 years it's disbelieved by billions more than believe. And those that believe in it don't believe the same things. Why make it this way? Why not write it yourself? How is it possible to that the word of god is not capable of being understood equally by all?

Faith writes: But lemme see, how might I try to answer this? According to your reasoning the truth is to be found in the greater numbers of those who disbelieve in the Bible?

It was your point Chuck, not mine.

"The Bible has been believed by millions for the last two millennia"

But one imagines that the point of it was to persuade? If so it's failed. Christianity is not even a majority belief. And in the developed world it's in decline.

There are many here who think they understand it but don't.

Exactly my point. Why bother leaving this vitally important story in the hands of fallible man? Why not write it himself?

Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

Faith writes: It isn't exactly that the "point of it was to persuade" but that it is designed to persuade exactly those whom God wants to persuade, as Pascal's comment explains.

It is exactly that it's designed to persuade - it's god's marketing material. His PR sheep are supposed to market the 'good news.'

It isn't exactly that the "point of it was to persuade" but that it is designed to persuade exactly those whom God wants to persuade, as Pascal's comment explains.

Well that's convenient - if the bible doen't persuade me, then god didn't want to persuade me! What self-serving drivel.