NEWSFLASH: Schools In Georgia (US) Are Allowed To Teach About Creation

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Originally posted by Ahmad:
I have not mentioned anything concerning any suoernatural agency.......yet.

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Don't be obtuse. Without an intelligent entity ID is sterile. ID requires an INTELLIGENT ENTITY. Therefore, you are arguing either supernatural forces or aliens. If not aliens, then supernatural agency. Which is it?

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How you can supposedly know the arts of telepathy is bizzare to me.

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... just makes you look bad.

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Getting back, we do know how complexity can be simplified or reduced but ONLY IN CERTAIN CASES. There are systems that are irreducible complex and it is evident.

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This, of course, is crap as I pointed out in my post #31. You cannot know this with haveing infinite knowledge of the universe.

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Behe outlined the example of a mouse-trap and demonstrated how a mouse-trap is irreducibly complex. Apart from that; the ATPase molecule, bacterial flagellum, the cilium etc are irreduibly complex.

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And Behe, has been refuted. There are ways to make more simple mousetraps out of Behe's IC mousetrap. And in fact there are bacterial flagellum which are less complex than Behe's IC flagellum.

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How do you know where do I draw the line for something to be recent?

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Sometime within the last century at least. But the real issue is that you phrased the assertation to imply that NEW discoveries were on your side. This is patently mis-leading and quite dishonest.

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Differing ways to see things is what really makes us unique and we see things differently in different ways.

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BS. You are trying to cover your error/deception, IMHO.

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Something that is recent for one may not be recent for another and vice versa.

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See above. [quote][b]It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history.[/quote]Notice that the phrase is 'it is as though... ' not 'they did in fact...'

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I doubt that. When Dawkins himself admits that the organism in the Cambrian era were "just planted there without any evolutionary history"

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No, actually he doesn't. You are twisting the quote. Dawkins is writing colorfully, for better or worse. This is a pop-press book, not a scientific paper.

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I really don't know how your asserted modern theory can describe "explosion" as "slow burn" since I am not aware of it.

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You seem to be pretty much unaware of the whole of modern evolutionary theory, so it isn't surprising that you are unaware of this.------------------
http://www.hells-handmaiden.com

[QUOTE][B]If you know, most of the popular science journals like Nature (John Maddox), Scientific American (John Rennie) and a host of others are[/QUOTE][/B]Scientific American is not a journal. It's a popular magazine like "Time" or "People" or "Byte" except with a scientific bent. Or it used to be scientific. The magazine is dumbing down for a less technical audience these days to boot."Nature" is a journal. However, "atheists" do not censor the scientific journals. What is published goes through an anonymous peer-review process. If Creationists are not being published it must be either (1) They aren't submitting papers or (2) they don't have any evidence. And I have never heard of a Creationist showing off rejection notices from the journals! *However*, Dr. Robert Gentry has published his work about polonium haloes in Science (I've read the paper myself). He met the standards of evidence for publication and so the paper made it through. Of course lots of people have found flaws in the geological assumptions he made (Dr. Gentry is a physicist). In fact you would probably be surprised at the things that occasionally do get published. I have books with excerpts from some of the more "interesting" papers that get published in the journals from time to time. [QUOTE][B]J. Bonner, "Book Review,"[/QUOTE][/B]Book reviews don't count because they don't go through peer review. The technical papers go through peer review, columns do not. This particular columnist was only stating his personal opinion, which is not of great import. Also letters to the journals do not contain great import either. I've actually read a pro-UFO commentary in Science by none other than J. Allen Hyneck, in the letters section. If they'll publish that they'll publish anything there. If somebody's opinion on Creationism there substantiates Creationism, then I guess the truth is out there... [QUOTE][B]National Review[/QUOTE][/B]Is not a peer-reviewed journal. In fact it has nothing to do even with science or technology either. It's another magazine. Here is their website: National Review: Conservative News, Opinion, Politics, Policy, & Current Events [QUOTE][B]Discover(Science Journal)[/QUOTE][/B]Discover is a popular magazine that covers science and technology, not a peer reviewed journal. SciAm is better, but is headed in that direction.A list of journals, off the top of my head:Science
Nature
Eos
Geochemica et Cosmochemica
Icarus
Journal of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists
American ScientistAnd many others. [QUOTE][B]Physics Bulletin[/QUOTE][/B]I think this is PR. The problem is that it is written in the first person. Scientific papers are always written in the third person. What we have here is obviously a letter or some similar commentary. [QUOTE][B]For counter-rebuttals and responses go to trueorigins.org, icr.org or harunyahya.com[/QUOTE][/B]I've visited all of these. I've rebutted many of their arguments probably more than a hundred times. It's always the same old thing. Pick any argument you like, present it to us, and we'll shoot it down. [QUOTE][B]The Law of thermodynamics is not BASED on the theory of evolution but the dynamics of heat and entropy. However, if the theory of evolution contradicts this Law, how are we supposed to reconcile and justify?[/QUOTE][/B]First you have to demonstrate that it does violate the law. Secondly you must come to grips that this is an interesting case because 2LOT is a law based upon probability. Somewhere in the universe heat might actually flow from a cold object to a warm object (breaking the law) but it's extremely improbable. [QUOTE][B]But the biosphere is enclosed in a closed system - The Universe. Should we not take that in account?[/QUOTE][/B]We are taking that into account. Energy to fuel the opposition to entropy in Earth's biosphere is being provided by the Sun. But as that energy is used and expended as heat it is no longer available. At the source of that energy, a non-reversible fusion reaction is converting two moles of hydrogen into one mole of helium. But that helium can never convert back to hydrogen -- some of the energy is lost forever as heat. Order on Earth is increasing. *But* in response, *disorder* in the universe as a whole is increasing proportionally, and the amount of free energy in the universe is also decreasing. Therefore you have a universal increase in entropy so 2LOT is satisfied.This process is really more common than it would seem. If all systems always progressed to decay, as you are implying Earth's biosphere should, life would be impossible. True, people eventually become decrepit with age and expire, but first they have to grow and reach maturity (increase in complexity). The fuel for growth is in the food they eat and the oxygen they breathe. Like the biosphere, individual organisms are not closed systems, that's why they require energy input from their surroundings.

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Originally posted by John:

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Originally posted by schrafinator:
If these old arguments were valid, and if they had stood up to the rigors of the scientific method, they would have been incorporated into mainstram science long ago. They haven't. This should tell you something.

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but.... but.... what about the conspiracy of godless atheist devil worshipping Darwinists?

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Oh, right, I forgot that Biologists are the root of all evil, and anyone who accepts the evidence for Evolution must therefore hate God.Wow, I think I just found the "fun" in fundamentalism.

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Originally posted by Ahmad:
[B]

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Really? How? Please be very specific, explaining what "the very essence of science" is, according to you (with references, preferably), and also exactly how the Theory of Evolution violates science in any way.

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Theory of Evolution contradicts the Law of thermodynamics. So if a theory contradicts a Law, which one would you go for?[/QUOTE]

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LOL! Another ancient argument that was refuted long ago but is still kept alive by the faithful.

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No, the 2LoT is NOT violated by Evolution. In a nutshell, the reason it isn't is because the 2LoT applies only to closed systems. The Earth is not a closed system because it is bombarded with energy from the sun. See more here:

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http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/thermo/probability.html

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Christian Fundamentalists have been using this argument to impress people who don't understand physics for many decades. Your Harun fellow is not big into original thought, is he? Oh well, I suppose it works, so why reinvent the wheel, eh?

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Really? Which developments are those, and why are religious fundamentalists the only ones who seem to know about these developments?

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Religious fundamentalists? You mean, Robert Shapiro, J.D Thomas, Fred Hoyle, William Dembski, Peter Russel, Michael Behe, Walter Bradley, Blaise Pascal, Philip Johnson are all religious fundamentalists?? They are very well-known scientists and have contributed quite highly in the realm of Science and technology.

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Robert Shapiro does not deal with Evolution. He writes about Abiogenisis, which is different altogether. As far as I know, he fully accepts Evolution.

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Fred Hoyle is an Evolutionist.

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William Dembski's book has been widely criticised as one big "argument from ignorance"; "because we don't unkerstan X, God must have done it."

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Michael Behe is an evolutionist. His book is also a "God of the Gaps" book.

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Philip Johnson is famous only for being an anti-Evolutionist, because he isn't even a scienctist. He is a lawyer.

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I have not heard of any of the others, other than Pascal, of course, but I am not sure why you bring him up.

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Did you mean to mention all of these Evolutionists to support your argument?

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Please cite peer-reviewed work from the professional literature, please.

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"The opportune appearance of mutations permitting animals and plants to meet their needs seems hard to believe. Yet the Darwinian theory is even more demanding: A single plant, a single animal would require thousands and thousands of lucky, appropriate events. Thus, miracles would become the rule: events with an infinitesimal probability could not fail to occur? There is no law against daydreaming, but science must not indulge in it."(Pierre-P Grass, Evolution of Living Organisms, New York: Academic Press, 1977, p. 103)

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This is a popular press book, not from a peer-reviewed, professional science journal.

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"The reason we specifically mention the senses of seeing and hearing here is the inability of evolutionists to understand evidence of creation so clear as this. If, one day, you ask an evolutionist to explain to you how this excellent design and technology became possible in the eye and the ear as a result of chance, you will see that he will not be able to give you any reasonable or logical reply. Even Darwin, in his letter to Asa Gray on April 3rd 1860, wrote that "the thought of the eye made him cold all over" and he confessed the desperation of the evolutionists in the face of the excellent design of living things.(Norman Macbeth, Darwin Retried: An Appeal to Reason. Boston: Gambit, 1971, p. 101.)

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This is also a popular-press book, not a professional journal of science.

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I thought you said you were training to be a scientist?

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"Since we astronomers are priests of the highest God in regard to the book of nature, it befits us to be thoughtful, not of the glory of our minds, but rather, above all else, of the glory of God.(Dan Graves, Scientists of Faith, . 51)

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This is also a popular-press book. It is, in fact, a collection of short biographies of Christian scientists.

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"Anybody who has been seriously engaged in scientific work of any kind realizes that over the entrance to the gates of the temple of science are written the words: Ye must have faith. It is a quality which the scientist cannot dispense with." (J. De Vries, Essential of Physical Science, Wm.B.Eerdmans Pub.Co., Grand Rapids, SD 1958, p. 15.)

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This is getting silly. This is a popular press book. Don't you know what a professiona science journal is?

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Besides, all of these books are at LEAST 30 years old!

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Um, no he doesn't. He just parrots the disinformation propagated, for decades, by the Protestant Christian fundamentalist groups in the US. They bear a striking resemblance to each other, really.

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Ah, the creationist conspiracy theory!

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"You will have to do better than baseless assertions and conspiracy theories to be taken seriously here, I'm afraid."

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Ah, but my assertions are not baseless. I can provide evidence. Have a look around this site and tell me how many arguments sound familiar:Five Major Misconceptions about Evolution

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It's the same old stuff wrapped in a Muslim package. What you don't realize yet is that these are all very old arguments that were refuted long ago.

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In accordance to my humble knowledge, the arguments raised in this era by potential as well as professional scientists are just warming up. They haven't been refuted, yet attempts were made.

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Read through the TalkOrigins site. You can do searches on any topic, such as "Thermodynamics". If you are truly interested in the truth about scientific theories, this site will be very useful to you.Your religious leader twists science for his religious purpose.

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If these old arguments were valid, and if they had stood up to the rigors of the scientific method, they would have been incorporated into mainstram science long ago. They haven't. This should tell you something.

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As a matter of fact of fact, they are being incorporated in mainstream science. The step to teach creationism in high schools,

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This is unconstitutional in the US and will not last.

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the recent dicovery of the Unjunk "Junk DNA",

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Cite from the PROFESSIONAL literature, please.

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the advances made in the study of the cambrian explosion,

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Cite from the PROFESSIONAL literature, please.

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observation of irreducible complexity in living organisms are all examples of this incorporation.

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There are no obsevations of irreducable complexity.Not one.This is just an argument from ignorance.Behe tried to say that the mechanism for bloodclotting was irreducably complex, for example, but only a few years since his book came out, an evolutionary pathway for blood clotting has been discovered.

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I do admit, that it will take a while for creationism to be the dominant approach in studying the origin of everything, but its worth it. May the Truth, triumph!!

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Tell me, how could your version of Creation Science be falsified? What evidence, if discovered, would make you abandon Creationism?If there is none, they you are not doing science. You are having a nice religious belief, which is fine, but has no impact whatsoever on real scientific inquiry. It is useless for that.

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OK, why don't you briefly explain to us how you think that science functions, and also give us a short explanation of the scientific method and how to tell the difference between real science and speudoscience?

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Science, as I understand it, is a tool to unravel, to decode, to discover, to advance, to ascend, and to eliminate the wrath of ignorance and superstition.

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That's what it does. HOW does it do that was my question.

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Science does not contradict Religion... nor vice versa.

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I disagree. Science doesn't HAVE to contradict religion, but religion contradicts science all the time.

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Real Science deals not only with the material world as we perceived by the five senses but also the root causes and effects of that perception. It is impossible for us to reach the physical world. All objects around us are a collection of perceptions. By processing the data in the centre of vision and in other sensory centres, our brain, throughout our lives, confronts not the "original" of the matter existing outside us but rather the copy formed inside our brain. It is at this point that we are misled by assuming that these copies are instances of real matter outside us. But ofcourse, that is my point of view of it. I hope I made some sense.

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You didn't answer the questions.I wanted:An explanation of the scientific method. What method of inquiry do scientists use to conduct science?How does one tell the difference between real science and pseudo science?Or, how does one tell the difference between pseudoscience and religion?I should have written, "how does one tell the difference between SCIENCE and religion?" above. That is the question I wish you to answer.------------------
"We will still have perfect freedom to hold contrary views of our own, but to simply
close our minds to the knowledge painstakingly accumulated by hundreds of thousands
of scientists over long centuries is to deliberately decide to be ignorant and narrow-
minded."-Steve Allen, from "Dumbth"[This message has been edited by schrafinator, 11-10-2002][This message has been edited by schrafinator, 11-10-2002]

Ahmad, you have been misled.This is the problem with reading only carefully-selected quotes instead of entire books or articles.This is the SJG quote you probably lifted off of some anti-science web site:

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"I can envision observations and experiments that would disprove any evolutionary theory I know."?*Stephen Jay Gould, "Evolution as Fact and Theory," Discover(Science Journal) 2(5):34-37 (1981).

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This is the entire quote, in context:

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I can envision observations and experiments that would disprove any evolutionary theory I know,but I cannot imagine what potential data could lead creationists to abandon their beliefs. Unbeatable systems are dogma, not science (Gould, 1983).

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Gould was not saying that he thought evoulutionary theory was suspect.He was making a comparison between the essential falsifiability of real science compared to the unfalsafiable dogma of Creationists.The quote was twisted to lead you to believe something which is not AT ALL what the author intended, and since they had to actually chop the end of the sentence off, this was not an innocent mistake.This was an edit which was specifically meant to deceive you and misrepresent Gould.I guess lying for God is OK, huh?[This message has been edited by schrafinator, 11-10-2002]

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Well, why not?

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Why not? So I have to base my arguments by the criterias you lay?

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If complexity requires a designer, and a designer is complex (by definition) then who designed the designer?

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How do you know that the designer is complex? To what definition do you ascribe that to? Do you believe in the [/i]designer[/i] in the first place, to ask such a question? Its like asking who created the Creator; which is an utter baseless question, since the Creator created His creations. He began the beginning.

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You mean that you don't understand them.

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No, I mean they are irreducibly complex.

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You mean Behe the evolutionist? Well, I guess that anything we don't understand must be magic.

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Yes, Behe is a theistic evolutionist. And I don't recall saying anything uncomprehensible to be magic.

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Okay, so a hundred thirty years ago is recent.

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Hmm... yeah.

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Yes, that would be advisable for you at this point.

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Why don't you quote my entire sentence instead of a phrase?

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And, this is important how? I want to know where the human fossils are in the Cambrian.

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I never claimed that human fossils were part of the cambrian explosion and I don't think there are any.

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Didn't anyone ever tell you the pitfalls of quote mining? Now, why is Dawkins still an evolutionist after this great epiphany? Seems to me that he probably said something else before or after this statement that would show us what he thinks of the Cambrian 'explosion.' Why do your professional creationists not give you the entire context of the Dawkins statement?

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That statement enters the criteria of an honest acknowledgements (confession) by Dawkins. Although he's still an evolutionist, the quote is to validate my argument about cambrian explosion. As I know, the statement is in context.

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Nope. He says 'as though they were just planted there' and then probably went into a discussion of why they appeared to be so. But your sources don't give you this part of the information.

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Oh but he did. Let me extend the quote Dawkins made in his book about the cambrian explosion for further clarification:"Eldredge and Gould certainly would agree that some very important gaps really are due to imperfections in the fossil record. Very big gaps, too. For example the Cambrian strata of rocks, vintage about 600 million years, are the oldest ones in which we find most of the major invertebrate groups. And we find many of them already in an advanced state of evolution, the very first time they appear. It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history. Needless to say, this appearance of sudden planting has delighted creationists." (Dawkins, Richard, The Blind Watchmaker," 1986, p.229).So now you get the full picture? The reason he applies here is "due to imperfections in the fossil record". Thats the only explanation he gives. Throughout his book, he does not describe the reason of the imperfections as he claims.

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Yes, so good that Dawkins is still an evolutionist! LOL!

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Not Dawkins quote, but the Cambrian explosion

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Just my point. You are not aware of a lot of things regarding evolutionary theory. You really should find other sources of information other than your favorite creationist websites.

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I don't know much I know, nor do I know how much you know nor do you know how much I know and ad infinitum. Lets just share the knowledge instead of pointing out how much anyone knows.

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Now wait. Is this recent recent or old recent? Sorry, but you've set yourself up for this.

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This is recent.

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Wow, you've just convinced me. Futuyama is now a creationist! Um, Ahmad, I think you kind of ingored a few 'ifs' in this quote. Really, you need to read ALL of the quote, not just the part that your professional creationists extracted for you.

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Futuyama is still an evolutionist and that proves my point. No matter how much empirical evidence is gathered against evolution, materialists will continue to cling to their flimsy thread of materialistic philosophy. All they can make is confessions which I applaud as a sign of their honesty.How long is that "ALL"?? Do I to quote the entire chapter here? I have taken the quote IN CONTEXT.

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Once again, please note the 'if' in front of the Darwin quote.

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I have and this "if" of darwin has changed into reality, a.k.a, Cambrian Explosion.

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Is this a quote from Darwin, too? What is the authority behind this statement? After all, you have backed everything else up so well.

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Notice the word "fatal" that was used by darwin in my previous quote.

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Really, Ahmad, if your quotes are so meaningful, then why are not Dawkins, Gould and Bengston known as creationists? Do you think that they perhaps had something else to say? Something that perhaps your professional creationists do not want you to know?

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My quotes can be verified for their accuracy. I really don't think the question you posed (although they are good questions) should be directed to me since I am not responsible for what Dawkins, Gould, or Bengston says. Ask them. I am just quoting them to validate my argument

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Well, I was just pointing out a few exceptions. I mean it seems like they should have been there right? Weren't they all created on the same day? And what about all of the complex vertebrates? Where were they?

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Lets hear from Gould:"The Cambrian Explosion occurred in a geological moment, and we have reason to think that all major anatomical designs may have made their evolutionary appearance at that time. ...not only the phylum Chordata itself, but also all its major divisions, arose within the Cambrian Explosion. So much for chordate uniqueness... Contrary to Darwin's expectation that new data would reveal gradualistic continuity with slow and steady expansion, all major discoveries of the past century have only heightened the massiveness and geological abruptness of this formative event..." (Gould, Stephen J., Nature, vol. 377, October 1995, p.682.)

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Actually, your statement is incorrect. You should say that 'most of the modern phyla are represented in the Cambrian System.' And, they have come a long way since then.

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I repeat: abrupt appearance of complex living organisms ALL AT ONCE.Regards,
Ahmad

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I doubt that. When Dawkins himself admits that the organism in the Cambrian era were "just planted there without any evolutionary history", ...

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Ahmad,& the next line reads "Needless to say, this appearance of sudden planting has delighted creationists." So, Dawkins clearly ISN'T saying that they WERE planted there, just that they appear to be, & this paragraph has to be taken in a wider context, also.This sort of misquote/misrepresentation is salt & pepper to the main creationist organisations.

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I repeat: abrupt appearance of complex living organisms ALL AT ONCE.

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You would be wrong, not all complex living organisms appeared ALL AT ONCE. There is evidence abungo of complex living organisms appearing in the Precambrian, such as cnidarians, & after the Cambrian, namely the bryozoans (Ordovician), & this is just the metazoans.Of course, your statement is patently incorrect if taken literally since the dinosaurs don't turn up until the Triassic, & humans until very recently, for example, but I'll assume you mean "higher taxa" when you say "complex living organisms".What are the implications for your paradigm when all higher taxa (phyla) DON'T appear all at once? If you are going to use the appearances of major taxa in the Cambrian in support of your argument, it seems reasonable that you should accept appearances of major taxa outside of the Cambrian, non?In fact, there are no out of order fossils at all, & there is a progressive increase in complexity during the Precambrian; prokaryotes, eukaryotes, & multicellular organisms. Of the multicellular organisms, major bodyplans appear before, during, & after the Cambrian explosion. How so?Please respond to message 45.Thanks,Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.[This message has been edited by mark24, 11-11-2002]

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None of the above have been DEMONSTRATED to be IC. Can you provide ANY scientific literature that concludes ANY genetic structure or sequence is IC? Do you know why?

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Your approach to respond to my argument is quite sarcastic. I provided scientific about how the presense of hsp70 in the genome is irreducibly complex. For scientific literature go here >> http://www.arn.org/docs/behe/mb_mg1darwinianpathways.htm

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You can believe in IC all you like, but without the ability to test the hypothesis it is merely wishful thinking.

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Once again, sarcasm. Why don't you respond to my arguments with empirical evidence instead of sheer sarcams which does no benefit to our dialog whatsoever.

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How can you have evidence for an untestable hypothesis? Answer; You can't, it's circular. Therefore IC isn't evident AT ALL.

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IC is not a hypothesis, it is evident. I gave you the examples. Its not circular either.... like natural selection

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Fine, you tell ME how long the Cambrian explosion took. I think you'll finfd it's a tad longer than you think.

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Hmmm....... 53 million years?

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Incorrect. http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/oct96.html

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E == early, M == middle, L == late
Silurian
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L. Ord. (Vertebrates, Fish)
M. Ord. (different trilobites)
E. Ordovician (different trilobites)
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L.Camb. (different trilobites)
(euconodonts (chordates))

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M.Camb. (different trilobites)
(non-"sea urchin" echinoderms)
(plenty of other invertebrates)
(halkierids, soft-bodied "transitional" chordates)

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E.Camb (first trilobites)
(small shellies, including
armoured bits of lobopods)
(trace fossils)

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Upper pre-cambrian (BEFORE THE CAMBRIAN EXPLOSION!!!)

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"worms", probable "flatworms", cnidarians
(i.e. jellyfish relatives), "segmented
worms", possible ancient deuterostomes
of the Ediacara fauna.

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Talk origins is behind date. Fossils recently found challenge the rapid animal evolution in the cambrian period as talk origins claims >> http://news.nationalgeographic.com/...7/0719_crustacean.htmlIn short, they are wrong

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(transitional fossils?)

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a few small "blobby" multicellular
remains (e.g., see Hofmann, 1985)
hard to tell if animal or plant
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more single and multicellular "algae"
and bacteria in mid Precambrian
sediments, including stromatolites
more metamorphic and igneous rocks
eventually unfossiliferous

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So there are no transitional fossils evidence for cambrian explosion. They haven't named any. Guess talk origins once again is gasping at straws.

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No one is saying that evolution never proceeded at a rattling good pace. Just that an "explosion" is seen by many creationists to be instantaneous, when in fact, many millions of years elapse, & that's before you factor in the Precambrian faunas.

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Once again, your argument is dated. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/...7/0719_crustacean.html

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On a related note, how do you rationalise the Cambrian explosion with your version of special creation, given metazoans exist before the "explosion"?

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existed before? The very first appearance of metazoans took place during the Camnrian era.

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If a new extant species is discovered tomorrow, did it appear abruptly?

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That would depend once we investigate the origin of the species

Erm - the article you link to shows that new fossil finds support the hypothesis that there must have been a lot of evolutionary activity before the "Cambrian Explosion".I don't see how anything in it indicates that ID is indicated. Perhaps you could be more specific as to what you are drawing our attention to?

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Don't be obtuse. Without an intelligent entity ID is sterile. ID requires an INTELLIGENT ENTITY. Therefore, you are arguing either supernatural forces or aliens. If not aliens, then supernatural agency. Which is it?

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Why are you placing words in my mouth? I said: I have not yet mentioned anything regarding any supernatual agnecy. Lets go step-by-step instead of jumping to conclusions and without putting words in my mouth.

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... just makes you look bad.

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huh?

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This, of course, is crap as I pointed out in my post #31. You cannot know this with haveing infinite knowledge of the universe.

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As far as IC is concerned, you haven't yet invalidated this argument. You don't need infinite knowledge to know IC but just a few scientific apparatus and knowledge. The strict co-ordination of organelles and systems working in harmony make them irreducibly complex. I did give a few examples like (to begin with), the cilia.

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And Behe, has been refuted

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I doubt that.

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Sometime within the last century at least. But the real issue is that you phrased the assertation to imply that NEW discoveries were on your side. This is patently mis-leading and quite dishonest.

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The real issue here is my argument of Cambrian explosion not how and when I use the word recent.

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BS. You are trying to cover your error/deception, IMHO.

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That may be your opinion but it surely is not true.

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Notice that the phrase is 'it is as though... ' not 'they did in fact...'

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So dawkins asks you the words he has to use to express his viewpoint? "It is as though they were planted there without any evolutionary history" >> this is the famous Zoologist atheist evolutionist speaking and I reckon all his viewpoints (regardless of 'as though' or 'in fact') is held in high regard in the atheist community.

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No, actually he doesn't. You are twisting the quote. Dawkins is writing colorfully, for better or worse. This is a pop-press book, not a scientific paper.

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You are trying to conceal this acknowledgement by Dawkins, IMHO. pop-press book or a scientific paper, Dawkins throughout the entire book (Blind watchmaker) does not mention one iota to elaborate what he said. Therefore, I think what I quoted is all that he really commented about the Cambrian explosion. He does not mention anything like "slow burn" or "rapid animal evolution" in his book.

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You seem to be pretty much unaware of the whole of modern evolutionary theory, so it isn't surprising that you are unaware of this.

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By modern evolutionary theory, you mean neo-darwinism? And yes, I am unaware. You don't expect me to know everything, now do you?Regards,
Ahmad

Hi Ahmad,It seems to me that Behe has been refuted many times e.g (from a v quick google):biochemistry:
http://biocrs.biomed.brown.edu/Darwin/DI/Design.htmlprobability (+thermodynamics):Page Not Found - The Skeptic Tankand you can find loads of refutations here:World of AkiraWhat interests me is:1) how you are so sure that Behe was never refuted
2) why you think Behe has never ever published his findings for peer review
3) why you think Behe's argument differs from the "we don't know why this is, so this must prove a designer" fallacy.PE

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I repeat: abrupt appearance of complex living organisms ALL AT ONCE.

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You DO realize that by "abrupt, Gould is talking about several million years, don't you?Have you ever heard of Punctuated Equilibrium? The Modern Synthesis?Tell me, have you ever read any complete work by Dawkins or Gould, or any other Evolutionist? Have you read The Blind Watchmaker in it's entirety??What we have been telling you is that you are arguing from ignorance . We have heard your arguments MANY TIMES before. They are all new and exciting and convincing to you, but they are OLD AND WEARY to us because we have refuted them over and over.We DO have more education in Biology and Evolution than you do. We have all probably read a great deal more Creationist literature that you have, which is why your arguments are so familiar to us.Go and read through TalkOrigins. Read Gould and Dawkins. Go and learn WHY we say your arguments are bunk and our evidence is better, even if you do not believe it. Do it for thsake of knowing what you are up against. This is why we read Creationist literature.Do the study and work to really write intelligently and show that you do understand, for example, a little bit about the second law of thermodynamics, instead of parroting what somebody else has told you is true without checking for yourself.------------------
"We will still have perfect freedom to hold contrary views of our own, but to simply
close our minds to the knowledge painstakingly accumulated by hundreds of thousands
of scientists over long centuries is to deliberately decide to be ignorant and narrow-
minded."-Steve Allen, from "Dumbth"

Ahmad,Please answer this question:By what method do we tell the difference between an Irreducably-Complex system and a system that;1) we do not understand yet but may in the future, and2) do not have the intelligence to understand?How does one tell the difference?If there is no way of telling the difference, then there is no way of telling with any level of certainty what is IC and what we simply don't understand yet, or do not have the ability to understand.Just because we don't understand something does not mean Godidit.People used to think that the sun was driven around the earth in Apollo's firey chariot. They didn't understand about planetary motion, so they decided that Godidit.The IC argument is using exactly the same "God of the Gaps" argument as the ancients used to explain the apparent motion of the sun across the sky.------------------
"We will still have perfect freedom to hold contrary views of our own, but to simply
close our minds to the knowledge painstakingly accumulated by hundreds of thousands
of scientists over long centuries is to deliberately decide to be ignorant and narrow-
minded."-Steve Allen, from "Dumbth"

Firstly, what criterias do you use to distinguish between a scientific magazine (as SCIAM, discover) and journals?Secondly, why don't you accept quotes from scientific magazines or even medias like national review? Do they lie?

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"Nature" is a journal. However, "atheists" do not censor the scientific journals. What is published goes through an anonymous peer-review process. If Creationists are not being published it must be either (1) They aren't submitting papers or (2) they don't have any evidence. And I have never heard of a Creationist showing off rejection notices from the journals!

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And I have never seen any creation articles in Nature journal. For the sake of fairness, Nature should have at the least taken the step to publish one creation article or hold debates. They don't do that now do they?

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*However*, Dr. Robert Gentry has published his work about polonium haloes in Science (I've read the paper myself). He met the standards of evidence for publication and so the paper made it through. Of course lots of people have found flaws in the geological assumptions he made (Dr. Gentry is a physicist). In fact you would probably be surprised at the things that occasionally do get published. I have books with excerpts from some of the more "interesting" papers that get published in the journals from time to time.

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Well yeah... Science is another magazine like SCIAM. Here's their website >> Science | AAASHowever, I did a search on the site (if I have it correct) regarding Dr. Gentry's article but the result yielded null.

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Book reviews don't count because they don't go through peer review. The technical papers go through peer review, columns do not. This particular columnist was only stating his personal opinion, which is not of great import. Also letters to the journals do not contain great import either. I've actually read a pro-UFO commentary in Science by none other than J. Allen Hyneck, in the letters section. If they'll publish that they'll publish anything there. If somebody's opinion on Creationism there substantiates Creationism, then I guess the truth is out there...

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Agreed but I doubt of the presence of any creation-related article in journals like Nature. Its hard to find any since its dominated by Maddox.

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Discover is a popular magazine that covers science and technology, not a peer reviewed journal. SciAm is better, but is headed in that direction.

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Discover does review and verify its articles and checks the credentials of the authors. Its quite unbiased unlike Nature, IMO.

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A list of journals, off the top of my head:

​

Science
Nature
Eos
Geochemica et Cosmochemica
Icarus
Journal of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists
American Scientist

​

And many others.

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I am only subscribed to Sciam, discover and Nature currently. But I will try to look uo the journals you mentioned Insha Allah.

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I think this is PR. The problem is that it is written in the first person. Scientific papers are always written in the third person. What we have here is obviously a letter or some similar commentary.

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Its not a letter or a commentary but a statement by H.P Lipson, a physicist.

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I've visited all of these. I've rebutted many of their arguments probably more than a hundred times. It's always the same old thing. Pick any argument you like, present it to us, and we'll shoot it down.

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Really? Have you sent rebuttals to the author of the site?

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First you have to demonstrate that it does violate the law. Secondly you must come to grips that this is an interesting case because 2LOT is a law based upon probability. Somewhere in the universe heat might actually flow from a cold object to a warm object (breaking the law) but it's extremely improbable.

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It does violate the Law. Have a look at the essay by Timothy Wallace as he rebuts and clarifies how evolution violates the 2LOT >> http://www.trueorigin.org/steiger.asp

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We are taking that into account. Energy to fuel the opposition to entropy in Earth's biosphere is being provided by the Sun. But as that energy is used and expended as heat it is no longer available. At the source of that energy, a non-reversible fusion reaction is converting two moles of hydrogen into one mole of helium. But that helium can never convert back to hydrogen -- some of the energy is lost forever as heat. Order on Earth is increasing. *But* in response, *disorder* in the universe as a whole is increasing proportionally, and the amount of free energy in the universe is also decreasing. Therefore you have a universal increase in entropy so 2LOT is satisfied.

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The fact that a system has an energy inflow is not enough to make that system ordered. Specific mechanisms are needed to make the energy functional. For instance, a car needs a motor, a transmission system, and related control mechanisms to convert the energy in gasoline to work. Without such an energy conversion system, the car will not be able to use the energy in gasoline.The same thing applies in the case of life as well. It is true that life derives its energy from the sun. However, solar energy can only be converted into chemical energy by the incredibly complex energy conversion systems in living things (such as photosynthesis in plants and the digestive systems of humans and animals). No living thing can live without such energy conversion systems. Without an energy conversion system, the sun is nothing but a source of destructive energy that burns, parches, or melts.So a thermodynamic system without an energy conversion mechanism of some sort is not advantageous for evolution, be it open or closed.

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This process is really more common than it would seem. If all systems always progressed to decay, as you are implying Earth's biosphere should, life would be impossible.

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No, it won't. An influx of heat energy (from the sun) into a system would not decrease entropy. The entropy continues operating. Actually, the added heat energy would increase the rate at which the breakdown of systems occurred. This is because oxidation is increased, and chemical actions speed up.But, we might ask, does not added energy ever slow down entropy? Yes, but only when carefully applied by an outside intelligence.It takes energy to build a house out of planks, pipes out of galvanized steel, windows out of glass, and then apply paint and maintain it all. By so doing, we slow entropy for a time. An intelligence higher than the house constructed it and keeps it in good shape. Eventually, the higher being steps back and stops the endless repairs and replacementsand entropy takes over. The house falls to pieces. The living organism is like that house. It requires continual maintenance to keep it in proper shape."The cosmological arrow generates randomness or disorder, whereas the evolutionary arrow generates complexity. A fully reductionist theory of evolution must demonstrate that the evolutionary arrow can be derived from the cosmological arrow."*Jeffrey S. Wicken, "The Generation of Complexity in Evolution: A Thermodynamic and Information-Theoretical Discussion," in Journal of Theoretical Biology (1979), p. 349.

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Like the biosphere, individual organisms are not closed systems, that's why they require energy input from their surroundings.

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Actually, the 2LOT also includes open systems. "Ordinarily the second law is stated for isolated systems, but the second law applies equally well to open systems."*John Ross, Chemical Engineering News, July 7, 1980, p. 40 [Harvard University researcher]. Regards,
Ahmad

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By modern evolutionary theory, you mean neo-darwinism? And yes, I am unaware. You don't expect me to know everything, now do you?

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No, you are not required to know everything, but you are required to know something about what you are attempting to refute.How do you know it's wrong if you don't understand it in the first place?You know, like the second Law of Thermodynamics. Or that "Law" and "Theory" are not levels of certainty in science. Or that you say that Evolution violates the "essensce of science" when you don't have a clue about what the scientific method even is. And so on.Arrogance and ignorance are so often found together.