Creation Vs. Evolution = Free will Vs. determinism

And yet you seem entirely unfamiliar with either the findings or the practices of real science. Since all you have offered by way of argumentation is philosophical ponderings with no scientific basis I have replied in kind and offered some possible avenues of actual scientific debate on the subject, which you have ignored. Give me some science to discuss and we can do it properly, but until you do there isn't even anything for me to rebutt. This seems to be the only even remotely relevant thing in that entire post, and even that is stretching it a bit. Did you not see the title of Darwin's book? 'The Origin of Species', heard of it? The fact of the matter is that we can't calculate the probabilities of a particular extant species evolving in any meaningful way. It is like all those calculations of the probabilities of abiogenesis, they are only meaningful if you know enough to make some really valid assumptions in the first place, and we just don't. If you could show somewhere where it is acknowledged as a valid principle of investigation I would appreciate it, rather than your usual vague statement that it is something that 'everybody knows'. What would you use it to investigate? What would it add?It is certainly possible to study the probabilities of specific mutations arising in experimental populations, such as the many microbiological experiments on evolution. But as always these are based on a large number of repetitions and we just can't do that with the entire evolutionary history of the Earth, or even one species.As I pointed out to you in a different thread the appearances of novelty in evolution are due to mutation not creation. If you think that mutations happen outside of the context of material interactions then, once again, you are showing how little you know about biology in general and evolutionary biology in particular. Since biologically incompatible species are the result of some genetic incompatibility we can attribut this to mutation in one or more genes.Behavioural reproductive isolation is another question, in cases where behavioural isolation precedes biological isolation we have to ask ourselves what the origin of the differing behaviours is, in some cases it may have a genetic basis but it may be a learned behaviour such as birdsong. At present we cannot explain the basis of many of these behaviours, is this somewhere you might expect your 'creation' to be operating.TTFN,WK

Ah so now you leave it in the middle whether or not in your daily life you trace back the likelyhood of things happening. That is simply obstinacy on your part. Let's remember again that the rigorous application of the belief that things can't turn out one way or another would destroy science. The belief is not supported by science, since it's application would destroy science. How you can keep on deluding yourself, and others that science supports the belief is a mystery.It's not a particularly good argument to say that the science of tracing back likelyhoods to where they were set is underdeveloped. Of course the science isn't welldeveloped in an environment where people are accused of arrogance when they assume something as being able to go one way or another, but are not accused when they assume something to be cause and effect.If we begin to systemize the knowledge about tracing back likelyhoods, then I'm sure you would be able to get a better handle on big questions such as the likelyhood of appearance of kinds of organisms. Interesting basic knowledge about how determinations relate to one another. All this is basically surpressed by a science discipline hijacked by materialists and atheists.Why don't you reconsider your position in the creation vs evolution controversy? Just let the blinders fall and see that it is just as well an ideological conflict on the part of evolutionists as it is on the part of creationists. And ideologically creationists are simply protecting common religion, common sense about choices and creation, common humanity, where evolutionists have historically promoted bizarre materialist, atheist, social darwinist doctrines in the conflict.Admitting that tracing back likelyhoods is a valid scientific principle, which you do in everyday life also, there is no real scientific conflict between evolution and creation anymore, and only the associated ideologies are left standing against each other in the conflict. Obviously evolutionists lose the ideological conflict IMO. So yeah, I declare victory.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

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You take the philosphical debates about everything being predetermined as real science, I take the daily practice of science as the real science. The grounding of my argument in science is adequate enough, while your argument carries no significant authority from science.

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You have no concept of the daily practice of science as you have never bothered to inform yourself but rather repeat ad nauseum that you opinion is fact. Wounded King on the other hand, is a practicing scientist, interacts with other scientists, has an education in the principles of science, reads scientific publications...so if anyone carries no significant authority from science it is you...ignorance is not a path to wisdom.

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but there is no study in biology to trace the likelyhoods of the main kinds back to their origin.

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This is patently false...there are thousands or researchers in multiple disciplines dealing with the origin of species and a smaller though not insignificant number of researchers with different scientific backgrounds engaged in the research of the origin of life.Again, you declare victory when you have failed and claim knowledge on subjects in which you constantly demonstrate ignorance.I declare victory for Wounded King not least because you are to intellectually dishonest to actually learn about the subjects that you debate.regards
Mam"ignorance is not bliss"muthus

A big round of applause for Syamsu, wasn't he great folks! You must have set some sort of record, even for you, for the number of baseless assertions in that last post. No I don't, I don't even see where you think you asked me to opine one way or another on the subject. See this is what comes of you not actually reading and understanding my posts, you missed out the bit previously where I already said and I would gladly add that I make those choices based upon my evaluation of a situation in the light of my current knowledge, or at least that is how I experience it. The fact is that one of the major advantages of science is that it allows us to obviate many of the preconceptions we inescapably have as part of our evolutionary and cultural heritage. You seem to want to enshrine the preconcieved notions that the human mind throws up as if they were some sacred absolute truths when in fact they would be better treated with a great deal of skecpticism. My subjective experience of choice is not evidence of a funfamentally indeterministic universe, but it is liable to predispose me to believe in one, in fact I would generally suggest that arguing on the basis of what is 'common sense' and 'commonly known' is a very good way to entrench yourself on the side of preconceived ideas. You already said that, and it didn't explain anything the first time. That has to be the funniest thing I've read this week. Another patented Syamsu unsupported assertion followed by the patented Syamsu declaration of victory in the face of reason.If you didn't want to talk about things scientifically all you had to do was say so, but if you ever do feel the urge to put forward an argument based on something specific in science, rather than vague and unsubstantiated generalisations, then be my guest.TTFN,WKP.S. Any progress on your own attempt at your challenge?

I think the misunderstanding in our debate is caused by you being prejudicial, combative. It's not the point to contest everything I say, the point is to arrive at the truth of the matter. You asked me to validate the practice to trace back likelyhoods of events to where the likelyhood was set, with a reference. What would it add you questioned? Obviously I took this to mean that you leave it in the middle whether or not you trace back likelyhood of events yourself. It's combative, prejudicial, narrowminded, boring.Apparently you have no intellectual curiosity in events where the likelyhood of kinds of organisms coming to be is set, you have obstinacy, combativeness, accusations of arrogance for that pursuit. So for instance there is an event which makes the likelyhood of intelligent creatures coming to be a relative 100 perecent certainty, within a scope of say 1 billion years, where before the determination, this likelyhood was negligible. Obviously magical events where in it's effects, humans are created whole in an instant, eventhough they appear a billion years later, are not good for the materialist, atheist prejudice. I have to convict you of being anti-science for failing to to muster up the intellectual curiosity to support investigation into events like that.In stead you point to Darwin for origin. Now what does Darwin say, something like, organic soup, fish, rat, monkey, human. That is origins according to Darwin, descent with modification. We might as well say the origin of this post is that I got up in the morning, had breakfast, and sat behind the computer.I'm just interpreting mainstream science on a straightforward limited and practical basis, not enshrining anything. You are the one who advertises the philosphical belief about absolute predeterminism as science. Or to put it in Willima Jennings Bryan's kind of words, if not crucify science, you want it at least to carry the heavy cross. You don't go as far as to kill of science by rigorously denying that things can go one way or another, yet you want it to carry the heavy burden of this extremist belief in every aspect of it's pursuit.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

This is total nonsense Syamsu. I am not being combative, I am just getting frustrated. I open up these discussions because I am interested in something you say and want to understand your reasoning and what it is based on. Sadly, you consistently fail to actually give any basis for your thinking and instead fall back on tired repetition of your original position.What I am trying to be is discursive, but you seem either ill prepared or unwilling to actually discuss anything. At least in some of the previous threads we have debated on you have made some effort to bring some actual evidence to play or at least put forward some sort of thought experiment to demonstrate your point. In this case the extent of your effort has been to say that a dropped rock will either bounce left or right.If you look back over this thread you may notice that to all intents and purposes I have been debating with myself. I have proposed several possible avenues of discussion to you and rather than actually discuss them you simply restate your original position and tack on some of the actuall scientifically relevant things I have mentioned. If you have to convict me of being anti-science for failing to consider the possibility of 'magical events' then I think we all have a pretty clear picture of how sound your grasp of science is.Your proposed study is impossible, without the ability to re-run evolution, you are never going to be able to get a meaningful probability because there are just too many unknowns many of which are quite probably unknowable. No you aren't because you don't seem to have any mainstream science to interpret. You haven't shown us anything which you have interpreted all you have done is assert that SCIENCE agrees with you and expect us all to kowtow to the authority of your friend who assured you that the rock example was sound SCIENCE. I do no such thing, I merely point out that your belief in indeterminism is no more sound than a belief in determinism. Even if I were to do such a thing it would have no effect on the operation of science. As I have had to point out to you repeatedly, the fact that a phenomenon has a deterministic basis does not ensure that we can identify that basis and accurately predict the behaviour of that phenomenon. So even if one believes in a wholly deterministic universe one would still need to perform science in exactly the same way because of the limitations on what information we are able to gain from any specific phenomenon. We would not have any extra knowledge to allow us to ignore apparently probabilistic phenomena, but we could easily reconcile these phenomena with a fundamentally determinist model such as the Everett-Wheeler no-collapse (Many worlds) theory.TTFN,WKThis message has been edited by Wounded King, 08-10-2004 11:41 AM

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Obviously magical events where in it's effects, humans are created whole in an instant, eventhough they appear a billion years later, are not good for the materialist, atheist prejudice.

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The observable Fact of reproduction by pairing of a male and female followed approximately 9 months later by the appearance of an offspring/multiple offspring via the birth canal is not good for hypotheses invoking magic or creation ex nihilo.

Well it's fine if you say that determinism is no more sound then indeterminism. That leaves it open to trace back likelyhood of events as proper science. The main definition for determination in a common dictionary is synonym for decision. It's rather curious to essentially use the word decisionism for a theory that things can't go one way or another.In general, as sometime before in another thread, in common language cause and effect are always said to be from the past, and chance and outcome are always said to be from the future. Accepting that as true, it must be mistaken to say that cause and effect move toward the future, or that chance and outcome move toward the past, in stead they move toward the present. Because we can't have a model where causes end up in the future, or chances in the past. The passage of time is this way related to determination (decision), which sets a new cause from the outcome of a chance, although common language is a bit vague at this point.There are computermodels of evolution, so in a limited way it is possible to rerun evolution. But evolution is deceptive in regards to this issue, because it implies gradualism. As before, in all likelyhood much of what we see was created in an instant somewhere near the start of the universe, which is why we can predict the development from the universe so accurately. In broad scopes we can guess that there would certainly be organisms with eyes, from the point there was light, and relative certainty of abiogenesis. Something like that is how the discipline would operate. Of course some basic theoretical work needs to be done on how to handle uncertainties, with possibilityspace and information and so on.But the basic creationist principle that big complex things are created in an instant, and appear over the years, seems valid by the fact of much else of what we see being predetermined from the start of the universe, so we would assume that much of evolution is predetermined within some scopes of certainty. If that is true much of evolution theory is deceptive, and certainly it is wrong to deny creation with evolution.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

My point has always been that whether the universe is fundamentally deterministic or indeterministic is unknown. This does not make your proposal any more feasible however. I think you mean one definition is that, they aren't ranked in order of importance. Which dictionary was this anyway, you seem to have a phobia for giving anything approximating a useful reference. You keep trying to use different definitions of a word as if that changes what the science is about, this was pretty much the basis of your whole argument against natural selection as well, all you are doing is constructing strawmen. I son't know anyone who has said this, yet another strawman. It may be said that past causes determine or influence the effects we see in the present and that those effects in turn will become causes which will determine future effects or at least influence them. The causes are always in the past and the effects may become causes as they move into the past. Outcomes are not always in the future, you can discuss what the outcome of something in the past was, indeed neither is chance commonly reffered to as ponly being in the future, people often speak of having had a chance for something. No, this is not the same thing. Now all you are doing is shifting the question to whether the random number generation of the computer is deterministic or not, and you still cannot tell this without being able to rewind the universe to run the program under exactly the same conditions. This could mean almost anything, do you mean that matter was created then or that the majority of extant animal species were. It is this sort of vagueness which makes meaningful debate so hard. Eh? What are you talking about, how can you know how accurate our predictions for the universe might be? Many predictions span billenia from now, how can you possibly know that there predictions are accurate? They may be highly specific but you surely can't know that they are accurate. And if you are talking about the various models of the development of the universe up until this point then you may want to look up what the word 'predict' means. Hang on, just what the hell is going on here? You are now arguing that because most things in the universe are predetermined this somehow supports your acausal creation model, how on Earth does that work? You are saying that if predetermination is true the evolution is false because of something, but you don't say what? Possibly because of the stochastic approaches to evolution whcih exist, but as I pointed out on numerous occasions science resorts to statistical methods to study things not because those phenomena are fundamentally stochastic but because we are not able to know enough about the system to study them as a deterministic system, even if they are fundamentally deterministic.As to denying creation, it depends what creation you mean. If you mean some first cause creation of the universe then evolution says nothing on the subject although certain proponents of evolution may have strong feelings on the matter. If you are arguing for some 'special creation' scenario where god, or whatever cause from nothing you wish to choose, pops new species fully formed into the world in just such a way that the fossil record gives a pattern wholly consistent with evolutionary theory, then again there is no argument against this as it is by its very nature unfalsifiable since the initial premise is that it would be indistinguishable from the results we would expect to see from evolution. Evolution doesn't deny either of these things because these things are totally untestable and unscientific and therefore far outside the remit of evolutionary scientists for consideration.Exactly what parts of evolutionary theory would be deceptive, and why?TTFN,WK

The definition of determination is from dictionary.com.If people had a chance, then they no longer have the chance. People are viewing the chance from the present to the point where the chance was in the future. They are still saying that chances are in the future. I mean to say there are no things happening in the future which causes something in the present, in common language. I'm not sure it's true that an effect can bring on another cause without a determination. The next cause may just as well be said to be an effect of the first cause, without there being any kind of determination.I thought you said that assuming indeterminacy was just as ok as assuming determinacy, but now you seem to disallow reruns on computers for them not being really random.I mean that in broad scopes much of everything behaves according to laws that were set near the beginning of the universe. All the broad scopes design information of the universe was contained in the event(s) at the beginning, so to speak, with a high degree of certainty for some things appearing, but lesser certainty for smaller details in the design, leaving much room for variation.The parts of evolution theory that deny complex creatures are created instantaneuous would be deceptive, if it were found that there are single events which result in the eventual formation of complex creatures. It would not be so much deceptive, if very many determinations were found to be neccessary to make complex creatures, and if the likelyhood of the complex creatures coming to be accumuluated very gradually through many determinations.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

Ok, lets look at this. You suggested that computer simulations allow us to perform reruns of evolutionary experiments, this is true. It is no more an exact re-run than running the same microbiology experiment more than once would be. It does not help us determine whether the universe is fundamentally deterministic or indeterministic and whether we get the same result from the experiment/program will not therefore tell us whether the evolutionary history of the world would be different if the universe were rewound, even being able to recreate the climate and chemical constitution of the Earth around the time abiogenesis is hypothesised to occur and following the evolutionary history of that world would not do so, although if the evolutionary history turned out to be very similar it might cause us to doubt that it was the case. I don't disallow re-runs on computers because they are not really random, I dissallow them because we cannot know that if we could actually rewind the universe then the random number generator would generate a different number. You make it sound very much like a giant probability waveform. Do you mean things appearing suddenly from nowhere or appearing as in developing out of that which had gone before? This sounds like the sort of picture many theistic evolutionist posit where God is responsible for establishing the initial conditions of the universe in such a way that certain things are destined to happen, i.e. the evolution of humans. I had some trouble understanding exactly what you are saying here Syamsu. You seem to be saying that if a single 'event', I assume this would be a mutation unless you are thinking of an ex nihilo creation event, could produce a complex creature then it would be a blow against evolution, this doesn't seem unreasonable, in fact it sounds like a fairly standard formulation of intelligent design (ID) theory.I am not sure of how important your use of the word eventual is here, are you saying that evolution would be deceptive if some event occurring before the origin of life made it inevitable that life would develop and evolve complex organisms? Or are you saying it would be deceptive if it could be shown that some novelty inexplicable in evolutionary and biological terms appeared at some point in the organisms lineage which was vital for its evolution as a complex creature, the argument similar to ID that I discussed previously.If it could be shown that an irreducibly complex pathway, or a vital component of such a pathway, suddenly appeared with no previous antecedents or after some sort of change inexplicable by genetics, i.e. the gain of a highly specific and required stretch of totally novel DNA, then this would be suggestive evidence for intelligent design.Similarly your suggestion that if many small changes were found to be neccessary for the development of complex creatures it would be supporting current evolutionary theory tie in with arguments concerning ID.Is this what you were saying? If so then you have only shown that the current teaching evolution would be deceptive if certain things turned out to be true.TTFN,WK

Back to square one again. Where before you said that it's unknown things are is really indeterminate or not, now you want to disallow computer reruns of evolution because of them not being really indeterminate.As argued before all determinations are ex-nihilo.Right, the initial conditions of the universe make it a relative certainty that humans would evolve, is basicly the same theory.So now the view of the creation vs evolution controversy that develops is of evolutionists surpressing and denying a legitimate discipline of something like creationism. A generalized creationism would likely make evolutionist desriptions turn out to be deceptive. The associated common and religious creationist knowledge, which is more or less essential for people's daily lives, and religious lives in general, is suppressed. The suppression serves to promote materialist / atheist / and social darwinist doctrines, which have historically been unusually prevalent among influential evolutionist scientist, intermixed in their main works of science to a high degree.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

We wouldn't be back to the beggining if you actually understood what I said. This is a complete misrepresentation of my position, not unusual for you, I pointed out that there are many valid uses for computer simulations of evolution, and you could indeed use them to show that a program will, or will not, tend to produce the same solutions in different runs. But this would still not avoid the issue that the conditions under which the runs are performed will vary with time. Even ignoring the question of an entirely deterministic model it would still not be an exact replication of the program. I'm not saying they should be dissallowed as evidence about the nature of evolution in particular, or even as a tool to allow us to estimate the probability of similar solutions occurring in different runs. None of this will ever show that if you rewound time to some exact point and then let it run on things would turn out differently, because that isn't what the program does! Please stop it with the confusing of terminology already. Don't switch to using determination instead of choice when we are discussing determinism and indeterminism, it is just rank idiocy, what was wrong with the word 'choice' which you were using quite happily until a couple of posts ago. If you mean that all choices are ex nihilo then you didn't argue it, you just stated it, one of your trademark baseless assertions. That is a perfectly valid point of view, but not one that is currently, or perhaps ever for us, testable scientifically. As I said before this is a view held by a large number of theistic proponents of evolution. How on earth did you get there from what we were saying previously. This is a totally bland restatment of your initial objectino and it has as little support now as it did when you first made it. Since we have no such description and there doesn't seem to be any way to produce and verify one it hardly matters that if one existed it would mean modern evolutionary theory was deceptive, and it certainly wouldn't suggest that the deception was intentional. How can common knowledge be suppressed? You have not shown that this is essential for peoples daily lives. I would agree that a fatalistic attitude which may be engendered by a deterministic belief can be a bad attitude to have, but arguably a similar bad attitude could result from a belief in indeterminism, after all what is the point of striving to achieve something when any second some arbitrary ex nihilo event could undo all of your work, and you would be powerless either to stop it or even to predict its occurence. Well there are a whole slew of assertions there, lets take them one at a time.1) Evolutionary teachin actively suppresses some theoretical legitimate theory of creationsism.This is pretty much what we have been discussing all along and you have yet to show that such a theory even exists let alone that it is currently being suppressed.2) Atheist/ Materialist/ Social darwinist views have historically been unusually prevalent amongst prominent evolutionary scientists.This is a huge assertion, some evidence, other than your usual tired rantings about the holocaust, would probably be a good thing too use to support this. Don't forget now, you are trying to show that these views are more commonly held be evolutionary biologists, I assume rather than just scientists who believe in evolution, who do you think would be a good control group, physicists or chemists?3) Evolutionary biologists use their scientific works to push atheist/ materialist/social darwinist agendas.It is certainly true that certain people do clearly have their own viewpoints which they believe evolution supports, i.e. Dawkin's vehement atheism, but popular science books are not scientific works. Please show some published scientific papers which promote atheism, social darwinism or materialism. The mere fact that scientific papers nearly all assume materialist principles does not count as this is equally true for chemistry,physics etc... I appreciate that some of the more historical figures published their original works in books but if you are needing to go back more than half a century or so for your evidence all you are doing is once again showing that you are unable to show the failings you ascribe to modern evolutionary biology.TTFN,WK

So why bring up that whole everything is predetermined debate again in respect to computer reruns? We talk as tough it is not predetermined all, that is the startingpoint. If or not it really is, is an unresolved question, which is mostly irrellevant currently.I argued this before, and then someone insisted on the use of the word determination over choice, for the point where things can go from one way or another, to the one way. This because the word determination doesn't have so many subjective notions attached to it, as does the word choice. (it is a bit strange to talk about a rock choosing to go left in stead of right, in stead of saying the determination made the rock go left in stead of right) And basically I agree with that, although I'm forced to use the word choice sometimes or otherwise people don't understand I'm talking about things going one way or another.I did argue that choices are ex-nihilo several times before. This is because material always predetermines outcomes, and therefore it can't be the basis of choice, it must be nothing, no material, zero.I think to see my argument you have to drop your bloody blinders, and consider why and how Konrad Lorenz got to be involved in ethnic cleansing in the Sudetenland (Poland), and why this was found out only 50 years later. It's not much of a point that the science papers are free of prejudice, when the associated advertisement of the theory is full of prejudice. I think you are mistaken about the influence Darwin, Galton, Haeckel, Dawkins books continue to have on evolution theory. Are you saying that Dawkins is a higlhy influential evolutionist because of the papers he wrote, or are you saying he's not a highly influential evolutionist?Also there are no full-texts available of important science papers online, so I haven't been able to verify if or not the important papers are generally free of prejudice. There also aren't any important papers on natural selection in general as far as I know, except Darwin and Wallaces paper, which is ignored in favor of Darwin's books.By reasonable and equal standards of evidence, my points are a straightforward reading of the evidence. There was a slump in evolutionist ideology after the holocaust, but now with evolutionary psychology we have the beginnings of a credible new movement again. Basically you ask me to exclude evolutionary psychology (Dawkins), and everything before the holocaust as evidence. You are obviously attempting to exclude the most incriminating evidence.As before that there is no developed general theory of creationism, no developed theory about tracing back likelyhoods of the appearance of things, is because of the surpression by evolutionists. Evenso there is well developed common knowledge about creation, and well developed religion about creation. It is evident all round that religious creationists feel their beliefs are surpressed by evolution theory. It is shown that common knowledge of creation is surpressed and ignored, when I ask about a description of events turning out one way or another, and the answers are not very good.regards,
Mohammad Nor Syamsu

If the computer reruns are not relevant to the question of indeterminism Vs. determinism then why did you bring them up in the first place? This is simply you restating your initial position once again, you have yet to give any evidence supporting that position. The entire second sentence is based upon the premise that things aren't predetermined, which you just agreed was an unresolved question. Our choices we experience in everyday life may not be your idealised 'choices' with an ex nihilo component, do you agree? You don't think that actually showing some flawed reasoning or idealogical propagandising in modern evolutionary scientific papers, would be a better way for me to see your argument? Its the entire point when discussing the scientific validity of evolutionary theory. The public perception of evolution is a totally different area, if all science was judged on the basis of public perceptions we would be as welling giving up on it here and now. I'd suggest that given your total unfamiliarity with modern evolutionary theory I am considerably more aware of the continued influence of these writers, most of which is due to their position in the historical development of evolutionary theories rather than their views leading new developments. Personally I would say that Dawkin's isn't a particularly influential evolutionary biologist. What he is is a hugely influential populariser of some particular evolutionary theories, consequently his standing in the public perception of evolutionary science is considerably greater than his actual contributions to the field in terms of research. Arguably the greatest benefit Richard Dawkin's work has had to evolutionary biology is to engage young minds and draw people into studying the field. This pretty much says it all Syamsu, you don't think there has been an important paper published on natural selection since Darwin. Pubmed documents 6290 papers with natural selection in the title or abstract, of these you think that none has had anything important to say about natural selection which may have advance evolutionary theory in the more than a century of time since Darwin.What criteria are you using to determine importance? Have you looked at all of the freely avilable online full-text articles on pubmed central and been able to determine that not a single one of the 429 papers returned for 'evolutionary theory' alone is not important?Once again all you show is your ignorance of modern evolutionary biology, and worse than that your absolute refusal to actually try and acquaint yourself with it. 'evolutionist ideology'? What the hell is that? If you want to debate the social and moral merits of social Darwinism take it somewhere else, it has nothing to do with the scientific merits of evolutionary theory. Please show in what way the scientific standing of evolutionary theory was adversely affected by the holocaust. Evolutionary psychology is a highly speculative offshoot field of evolutionary theory, it has little to do with the merits of evolution as an explanation of the diversity of life. All I am attempting to exclude is your repeated conflation of social darwinism and eugenics with the fundamental precepts of modern evolutionary theory, which has advanced considerably since the end of the second world war and the elaboration of the mechanisms of molecular genetics. Your evidence, not that you have presented any this time round but assuming it is the same as on your previous thread touching on social darwinism and eugenics, is not incriminating as far as modern evolutionary biology is concerned,it is simpy irrelevant. Care to back that up with some evidence? The anti-evolutionary movements in the US have been funding money to supposed research institutes for decades now, how have none of these been able to develop some general creationist theory? Are you seriously suggesting that 'evolutionist' spies having been sneaking in and sabotaging their work? All of the current scientific research and data out in the public domain, and probably commercially for that matter, is as available to them as anyone else. The fact of the matter is that scientist working with evolutionary theory use this data to make meaningful predictions and refine usable models while all the creationist institutes do is rehash centuries old arguments from design and spread misleading interpretations of the second law of thermodynamics in terms of information. I don't know about common knowledge, I doubt you would find many people who would say they commonly see things appearing from nothing, or would even say that their thought processes come from nothing. As to the religion, well its religion, it isn't science, it is a total abbrogation of any attempt at meaningful debate that you suggest that the existence of the concept of creation in religion automatically lends it some sort of credence in science. It is clear that a small vocal minority of fundamentalist christians, mostly in the United States, feel this way, that is about all I would be prepared to agree to. Your understanding of the word 'shown' is clearly patchy, the word you were looking for was 'claimed'. You have yet to give us an example of what you would consider a good answer. All you have done so far is ask us to provide answers and then say 'no good', it may be that there simply isn't a good answer to your challenge because it is based on a fundamentally shaky assumption.TTFN,WKThis message has been edited by Wounded King, 08-16-2004 06:51 AM