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Member (Idle past 1685 days) Posts: 504 From: Juneau, Alaska, USA Joined: |
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Author | Topic: A Critique of the "Evolution Essay" A GREAT DEBATE S1WC and anglagard ONLY | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Someone who cares Member (Idle past 4505 days) Posts: 192 Joined: |
Where? I didn't catch it...
"If you’re living like there is no God you’d better be right!" - Unknown
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anglagard Member Posts: 2250 From: Socorro, New Mexico USA Joined: |
I have read and reread your essay and volunteer to engage in a great debate.
Please let me know if this is acceptable.
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Quetzal Member (Idle past 4626 days) Posts: 3228 Joined: |
Here: linky
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Someone who cares Member (Idle past 4505 days) Posts: 192 Joined: |
Thanks, I already found it right after reading your post.
"If you’re living like there is no God you’d better be right!" - Unknown
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Someone who cares Member (Idle past 4505 days) Posts: 192 Joined: |
Please check here to see what our next move is: www.evcforum.net/cgi-bin/dm.cgi?action=msg&f=5&t=640&m=159#159 -->www.evcforum.net/cgi-bin/dm.cgi?action=msg&f=5&t=640&m=159#159">http://www.evcforum.net/cgi-bin/dm.cgi?action=msg&f=5&t=640&m=159#159
"If you’re living like there is no God you’d better be right!" - Unknown
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AdminJar Inactive Member |
This is a Great Debate between someonewhocares and anglagard.
Please restric any posts to those two participants.
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AdminJar Inactive Member |
Thread moved here from the Is It Science? forum.
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Someone who cares Member (Idle past 4505 days) Posts: 192 Joined: |
Ok! Here we are now. So, I would like this to be between anglagard and me only, relating to my essay found here: www.freewebs.com/noevolutionguy/ .
Anglagard, can we start fresh with the questions? "If you’re living like there is no God you’d better be right!" - Unknown
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anglagard Member Posts: 2250 From: Socorro, New Mexico USA Joined: |
Start fresh with the questions? OK, do you want to start with my questions, prefer a different set, or do you have something to say to start?
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Someone who cares Member (Idle past 4505 days) Posts: 192 Joined: |
Well, I would first like to say that I wrote my essay and considered it to be correct. But then, as I grew in knowledge of evolution more and more, I learned some new things. As I looked over my essay, I saw things in there that I had used that were incorrect or not precisely correct, and so I updated it. So I'm just saying that if we do come across a point and I figure out I was mislead by my sources or just mislead, don't be surprised if I apolegize and change some things in my essay. This is a normal process for getting closer to the truth. Besides, we're all human, we all make mistakes, and none of us know everything about every subject there is, so when we learn more, we figure out how foolish we once were or that we were using wrong information. I hope you will understand this, so we may both learn something from this debate. Let the debate begin!
I would like you to copy your questions or write up some new ones, and put them under numbers in order, so that it will be easier to respond to, and less quoting will be neccessary. Ok? "If you’re living like there is no God you’d better be right!" - Unknown
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anglagard Member Posts: 2250 From: Socorro, New Mexico USA Joined: |
S1WC writes:
I'm glad to see that you are open to suggestions.
As you know, I disagree with most of the content of your essay. However, I only seek to ask questions and discuss the assertions made within, not to criticize you personally. I believe you are showing a very proper perspective in this post and must agree completely with your statement here. We both have reasons for our beliefs concerning this matter, and an unemotional examinaton of such beliefs can only lead to a better understanding of each one's position. I think I should let you know that I also believe in God, just not in quite the same way as you do. What we primarily differ on here is the method and manner in which God relates to life in a general sense after creation, not how God created life. I would also like to clarify that it is actually the Theory of Evolution rather than the concept of evolution we are discussing. After all, your essay, by being modified through time, is by definition, evolving. Therefore, for purposes of this discussion, I will use the term evolution to mean the Theory of Evolution as first comprehensively explained by Darwin, as I believe you also mean in the essay.
I would like to examine your essay in the order you have created with this exception. First, I would like to discuss your sources. Many of the resources you cite in the essay are over 40 years old and much has changed in the scientific understanding of evolution in the meantime. This is particularly true in the case of theories concerning hominid evolution. Just to let you know, I intend to debate using current scientific conclusions, not conjectures from 40 years ago. Should you use discredited conjectures from the past to argue your position, I will point out what is being done. Additionally, you appear to be relying upon a very narrow area of the relevant literature. This is somewhat understandable given the relative lack of scholarly material in support of your position. Just to be upfront and fair in this I believe you should know that as a librarian, I am a professional researcher of the written word and will use all resources available to me in this discussion, including evaluations concerning the quality of such information and public knowledge about the integrity of the source. Please feel free to comment upon this post if desired. Within the week I intend to examine the essay in order by first discussing the concept and nature of transitional fossils. Edited by anglagard, : speling and punkuation
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Someone who cares Member (Idle past 4505 days) Posts: 192 Joined: |
quote: I used the internet for my research, so of course, when typing keywords into the search engine, I only typed up that which would support my thesis. To you this amount of sources may seem narrow, but I'm not a librarian like you, and I didn't want to spend lots of money to buy books for research, so I hope you understand. But I may want to purchase some books later and maybe even have a personal mini-library! :) quote: Yes, when I say, "evolution" I will be referring to macroevolution, not microevolution. And I think that we will mostly be discussing biological evolution, right? Ok, whenever you get to it should be fine, but like we both said, we have our lives outside of forums, so it may be slow responding. But I hope we will clarify much information, and learn something while we are at it! "If you’re living like there is no God you’d better be right!" - Unknown
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anglagard Member Posts: 2250 From: Socorro, New Mexico USA Joined: |
From the Essay:
Apparently there are several sources that dispute this assertion. Here is one from Kathleen Hunt at Transitional Fossils FAQ at http://www.holysmoke.org/tran-icr.htm:
The lenghty list of transitional fossils from Kathleen Hunt may also be found at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html This partial list fits in well with other sources I have examined. Transitional fossils have been covered many times in this forum as well. My purpose in this large pasting from the above source is to let you know that the vast majority of bioscientists and geoscientists believe, with reason, there are not only a few examples of transitional fossils but rather hundreds, if not thousands. Of course, according to evolution, virtually all fossils are to some degree "transitional" as they exist at a point in time between what once was and what exists now, unless the fossil was at the terminal end of an extinct line. This is because all fossils exist as part of a continuous line that is discretly defined by points along that line, the points being individual or groups of fossils that show highly similar distinguishing characteristics. It really amounts to simply believing one can interprolate a line, curve, or series of lines from a series of points. Under evolution, when one looks at transitional fossils in this manner, in order to deny the existence of transitional fossils one must deny the existence of all fossils. One common assertion I have noticed from those who claim that there are no undisputed examples of transitional fossils is that each transition creates two gaps in the fossil record, as though every thing that ever lived should be continuously found in the fossil record. The concept that every thing that ever lived should leave a fossil does not appreciate the rarity of the fossilization process in the geologic record. However, the concept of interprolating continuous lines and curves from a series of points is considered mathematically valid. In fact, if one is not allowed to interprolate in such a manner from the data, far more than the sciences would be disallowed. Taken to the extreme, it is as if I could not prove paternity because there are no transitional fossils between my daughter and myself. So I guess in this vein, my question to you would be what disqualifies all the listed examples in general from being considered transitional? And if such fossils are not transitional, what is the explanation for their existance? After the discussion of the above is concluded, I would next like to examine the remainder of the third paragraph of the essay concerning other aspects of transitional fossils. PS - Sorry for the long cut n paste, I felt that if I chose to examine each example of every transitional fossil, we would never get past this point to examine the remainder of the essay. I do not forsee anything near this large a paste in the future. Edited by anglagard, : interprolate not extrapolate! Edited by anglagard, : speling
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Someone who cares Member (Idle past 4505 days) Posts: 192 Joined: |
I'm sorry, my computer is freezing up and going real slow right now. I won't be able to completely reply right now, I want to figure out what's wrong with my computer and try to fix it, so there may be delays between my replies, just so you know.
One quick word though, I think we forgot one IMPORTANT step,that is defining what we mean when we speak of "transitional fossils". I'll start with mine: What I would consider a transitional fossil, a real one that would mean anything to macroevolution, is a fossil that has evolving parts, like a scale/feather fossil, or bones that are evolving from one kind to another, more complex kind, partially evolving body parts, that look almost deformed, because they aren't complete, etc. This is what would be a real transitional fossil. But what many evolutionists seem to bring forth are fossils of creatures that have features from several animals, like a creature that is a reptile, bird, or mammal; and has features of a different kind of animal. But this is NOT a transitional. The platypus, for instance, has bird, mammal, and reptilian type features, this doesn't mean that birds, mammals, and reptiles evolved from it though! See? There are creatures with features from several animal groups, such as the platypus and others, but this does NOT make them transitional. Birds that have claws and teeth are still birds, just wilder, mostly extinct kinds, not a transitional from a reptile to a bird though. This is not correct to assume. A real transitional fossils should have evolving body parts, and we do not find this. And also, you cannot prove that a certain fossilized creature evolved into another one just by looking at certain common features and putting the creatures on your evolution diagram. The fossil just tells you that a certain creature lived and grew and died eventually. The fossil does not, however, tell you that this creature evolved into another one, or that this creature lived a certain amount of years. This is all for now, I will try to get back to the rest later, hopefully when my computer starts working properly again... "If you’re living like there is no God you’d better be right!" - Unknown
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Someone who cares Member (Idle past 4505 days) Posts: 192 Joined: |
Ok, my computer is back to normal, I think I can still use this 10 or so year old computer, and squeeze some more life out of it...
Now, I would like to respond to the rest of your post, what I didn't get to respond to in the above post. I see that in the eutherian mammals to primates part of that list, there were a few examples that my essay deals with and refutes, it's a little later on in my essay, the hominid part. And I also saw some other examples like archaeopteryx and pakicetus that we could debate about, in fact, there's a topic in Biological Evolution about archaeopteryx where I replied. quote: Well then, those are some pretty wide goal posts for transitional fossils according to evolutionists... If you say that virtually all fossils are transitional, then what is the point of the argument? And the point of that list? I know you only meant to say this as a "by the way" kind of thing, but really, my definition of a transitional(in above post) and yours are very different. We first need to clarify what we speak of when we say "transitional." Otherwise this whole argument would be in vain. I say they have to have evolving parts, you say virtually all fossils are transitional, we'll never get anywhere this way. So I believe our first matter to settle is what we consider transitional and why. quote: But if you look at it this way, are you saying that the "links"(evolving creatures) between any two creatures and between the so called transitionals don't have to be existent, not even one? Because that's what we see in the fossil finds, we don't find any REAL transitionals, the creatures with evolving parts. All we find are complete creatures, just as Creationists predict. quote: Diversity among God's amazing Creation. quote: Oh, I don't mind, really, I used to do it a lot myself. I understand that we as humans cannot know everything off the top of our heads, and sometimes we just can't find the right words to get our message across, so I consider quoting ok, as long as the source is given. Peace. May we continue to debate with peace and understanding. "If you’re living like there is no God you’d better be right!" - Unknown
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