TOE and the Reasons for Doubt

Hi Coyote,Re your last post I think it's much worse than sheer willingness to ignore all the science around them (the creationists I mean). I think it is pure arrogance. Scientists spend years, decades, in their chosen fields, first by laborious study of per-reviewed science papers/journals followed by the long years of field work. In the case of biological sciences,paleontology and archeology(such as your own field) this can invole years of physically challenging endurance. From steamy tropics to freezing polar conditions, from dry deserts to high altitude environments, we find scientists toiling away actually working in the field to uncover evidence, test theories and advance knowledge.......and then some fool who has no training, knowledge, or even an honest intent to learn spends a few hours trawling the Internet (and then only reviewing the retarded junk and scientifically valueless puedo-science that is the hallmark of Creationist litery efforts) and they feel qualified to declare by fiat, that they know all about the subject...no study of peer-reviewed material, no field studies to see in detail, and at first-hand, the nature of what they are debating, and no alternative scientific theories to rival or replace....just a continuous outpouring of PRATT's some of which were debunked by Darwin himself....and they wonder why we don't take them seriously.Darwin himself started life as a theist, and were it not for a passion in life sciences would have most likely ended his days as a county parson somewhere. As it was he endured (and endured is the correct word if you read up on his Beagle adventures)unpleasant conditions in his passion to go into the field and see first-hand what life really is like - and the realities of life 'red in tooth and claw' opened up his eyes in a way no preacher from a pulpit could ever have done...can anyone point to a single Creationist who has done similar (studied intensely in the field) - and maintained their Creationist stance afterwards - I'd be interested to know if so (with references for the citation included of course).Really! Would you go to a tailor to fix your car or to a mechanic instead? Would you go to a televangelist preaching from a pulpit to ask about evolution or to a scientist qualified by years of graft and experince?It really is as simple as that...a combination of abject ignorance and dismissive arrogance. Destroy the ToE? Well to do that you really have to know something you are talking about and Creationists fall well outside the level of knowledge needed. They may feel in their closed-off minds they have achieved this but if they really want to sabotage school lessons and replace science with religion they first need to understand the science...and there's little chance of that!!

Hi Coyote, I have to hold my hand up here and admit to being a Yorkshire-man from 'the old country'. In my native Yorkshire the phrase "to be a grafter" is a great compliment - it means the hardest of workers.My father often used to say "Come on lad put some graft in" — meaning, get working harder. Other typical Yorkshire sayings which are apparently unique to my area are "Come on lad - shape yourself", or "Come on lad - frame yourself". All these words (graft, shape, and frame) mean the same - pull yourself together and put in some seriously hard work.I suppose we use colloquialism so unthinkingly it is easy to see why readers half way across the globe get at cross-purposes. I hope you didn't think I meant that scientists 'graft' their work from efforts of others etc....I think we'll leave that to our Creationist friends to do....in case they think I am unduly mean here - grafting in the non-Yorkshire sense is precisely what the practice of quote-mining is all about - and we know who does those don't we?

Hi IzanaqiInteresting post: Am I right in assuming that in China communism has meant little religious infatuation? If so it would help explain their onward march in the sciences. It has to be remembered these guys invented paper, gunpowder and goodness knows what else hundreds of years before the West.I find it amusing that so many creationists in the West take their creature comforts such as cars, computers and medicine for granted, yet hold the underlying science in contempt.I have more sympathy for groups like the Amish in the USA. At least by living a true 17th century life (eschewing technology like the internal combustion engine, zippers, and electricity to name a few of our modern scientific technologies) they really practice what they preach....of course it won't stop them being overrun by Chinese
21st Century technology if the occasion should arise...!

Message 242: Do you think you can actually impress anyone here with drivel like this? (other than your creationist brethren of course). Science and religion are the complete antipathy of each other. In ancient Greece and Rome they had aqueducts, sewage systems, bath spa's and a good standard of education including mathematics, philosophy and science.Compare that with your Christian England 1500 hundred years later. In sixteenth century England faeces were thrown into the streets, infections, Black Death and ignorance were rife....and the Church was in charge of education and schooling. Fledgling scientists were put to death for heresy and in Spain the Inquisition prospered and science floundered and reversed. 1500 hundred years of Christianity wiped out many of the advancements made by the ancient Greeks and Roman empires.Have you read the Old Testament Book of Job? Where God challenges mere humans to rival his knowledge? God questions Job about a number of natural phenomena and Job has to bow in ignorance....but no longer my friend - science has prevailed in the 21st century and shown your God to be a scientific idiot...hammered by his own words:Job 38:22-23: "Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail, which I reserve for times of trouble, for days of war and battle?"Laughable isn't it! Storehouses of hail eh!Or:Job 38:25-27: "Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain, and a path for the thunderstorm, to water a land where no man lives, a desert with no one in it, to satisfy a desolate wasteland and make it sprout with grass?Sounds like Las Vegas to me! And no God put up L.A - that's for sure.Or:Job 38:34 "Can you raise your voice to the clouds and cover yourself with a flood of water?"We can do better than raise our voice to the clouds - I'm sure most reading these words have flown over them and looked down on them from above! And we dam up rivers, redirect them, create reservoirs...and oh so much more. Read the rest of Job 38 for more enlightening verses on God's true ignorance of science fact.Calypsis...we've outgrown your God - with the help of science. The same science that you despise - for despise it you do. To say the following speaks volumes of your ignorance. Gravity is an interpretation of scientific facts (in physics), plate tectonics is an interpretation of scientific facts (in geology), stellar formation is an interpretation of scientific facts (in cosmology) and Evolution is an interpretation of scientific facts (in biology).Are you really so ignorant that you don’t realise that ALL scientific theories are grounded first in observation, secondly by known scientific ‘laws’ and ‘processes’, thirdly by the generation of predications and fourthly by comparison of models to the observable world.This is how science works in case you don’t know. And guess what.in 150 years no-one has EVER falsified the ToE (and god knows.you lot have tried your hardest!).But scientists too try to falsify their theories.did you realise that? Probably not — but that is how science worksit isn’t a case of some yokel saying Oh look that must be how the world works — I’ll call it the ToE and defend it to the hilt no matter what True science is much more self-regulatory and inquisitional than that.Final challenge for you Calypsis: You say you have rejected Evolution on the basis of science evidence. So I’m asking for the answer to these two questions:1. Please define in words exactly what you think the ToE is — you should be able to do this in less than three sentences.2. Please provide the scientific evidence that disproves the above.if you can do this you’re a better man than those that have inhabited the last 150 years before you..

Ok guys I think we have been going about this the wrong way (trying to educate our Creationist friends over the ToE).Quote from Kaichos Man message 274: It's patently obvious from the above that Creationist understanding of the Toe is a laughable strawman of the accepted scientific stance of the theory.So in order to discuss/argue further first we need to find out from their own words what they think the ToE actually is. Once we get to that base we can continue.So this is a general question put out to all those who consider the ToE as 'wrong'...(please don't answer if you support the ToE/are an evolutionist as I want to see what comes in from the Creationist side first:Question: Skin colour in humans range from the very dark skin of continental Africans to the blondest of blonde skins in Scandinavians. What do you think the ToE says is the 'good' skin tone, which is 'bad' and why. What predications do you think the ToE even makes in the situation I have painted above - and why?There is only one correct answer and if you can answer correctly we can move on...let's see what happens...

Hi Kaichos - thanks for taking up the challenge - and a fair attempt. Yes, the ToE would agree with you here. The Toe predicts that species living in an environment and at equilibrium in that environment (i.e. not dying out) will have characteristics best suited to that environment.So the next question is what is it phenotypically that makes the individual suited to that environment?In my example we have dark skinned Africans and blonde Scandinavians. You have identified melanin pigment as being important to the Africans (correct) but then say the following: Why would you doubt this? On what grounds? Surely not because... This is classic Creationist closed-mind thinking. You look around at the planet as you see it today and project your thoughts only on what is now....not what was. We wear clothes now, have sun blockers, medical treatments for skin cancers etc.....yet a million years ago any African albino would die very quickly...are you aware that dark skinned Africans can produce snow white albino's every once in a while? Even today those individuals rarely make it to adulthood unless in one of the more technically advanced African countries whose medical and social welfare can offset the dangers of the intense African sun on such helpless skin?So a million years ago these albinos...which are more common than you think stood no chance of making adulthood...and adulthood and the ability to breed is the only thing that counts in the grand scheme of things evolution-wise. All this demonstrates, I'm afraid, is that you don't know enough about the underlying science facts before venturing your opinion on evolution...terrible mistake and exactly what I was saying to Coyote earlier in this thread when I said Creationists are arrogant in dismissing evolutionary theory on insufficient subject knowledge!Look up vitamin D production on Google, link it to skin colour and you'll have an answer to that question you posed.Next...see if you can now predict what the ToE itself predicts if dark-skinned Africans moved out of Africa a million years or so ago to cooler, darker climates. What do you think the theory predicts....and why?

i don't believe you've come back to answer the question i posted in message 304 Kaichos...."what do you think the ToE predicts if Africans moved out of Africa a million plus years ago with respect to the skin colour....and why? (hint, albino skin, vitamin D, darker climates).

Hi everyone...I visited the Natural History museum in London today...marvellous place. As I was wandering around I was wondering how many Creationists venture into places like this...to look at fossils by the score, stuffed animals, geographic distribution data etc...and a lovely statement by the museum (I don't know who it is attributable to) intimating that we have possibly only catalogued 10% of current Earth-living species let alone the vastness of past life-forms (I guess that Ark must have been even larger than we thought!!).Suggestion to creationists: Before you venture your doubts into public forum do yourselves a favour and PLEASE get out there and see first hand what you are arguing against. EVIDENCE is there for the taking...and you won't get that reading retarded creationist websites packed with lies - some of which Darwin himself destroyed!Nor will you get enlightenment kneeling in a church pew and avidly listening to the rants of know-nothings (AKA religious leaders, theologists, rapture evangelists).Try listening to the words of those guys who have sweated in the field, struggled with the difficult peer-reviewed literature and actually contributed to the subject....Really!