Frothingslosh; "Are you aware that Jerry Coyne is an evolutionary biologist whose biggest selling book and blog are both called 'Why Evolution is True'?" "
"Wow, did you screw the pooch on this one."
Bladerunner: Yes, but the article was written by Jonathon Wells about Jerry Coyne and explains in detail why what Jerry puts forth is false... Bet you did not read it did you? Oh, how cocky are we?
Ah, you're right on one part - I was in a hurry and operated under the assumption that you would at least quote the appropriate part of the article. You know, as opposed to 'my point is somewhere in these 20,000 words, but I can't be bothered to show you'. So I mistakenly assumed you were quoting the relevent point, which what any normal person would have done.
Going through the article, even I, a non-biologist see nothing but misrepresented facts, unsupportable leaps of 'logic', and straight-up lies.
For example, the idea that we have an extensive, continuous fossil chain going from the first life form to today is born out of pure fantasy. Fossilzation can only happen under EXTREMELY rare circumstances. We have so many fossils simply because in a place the size of Earth, over a period of billions of years, there are lots of places and times where creatures' corpses can settle into sufficient mud to get preserved from decay. You don't get fossils from critters that die and get eaten on the forest floor, or on the Serengheti. That means the fossil record is sporadic, and virtually non-existant in certain places and times. Also, note that virtually 100% of the time, only bones get preserved, and land plants and bony creatures didn't appear until after the Cambrian Explosion.
Your author then tries to provide the Cambrian Explosion as proof evolution doesn't happen. Rather than bore everyone to tears, I will simply provide a
LINK to a web page which utterly destroys this ridiculous assertion.
Your author then tries to operate under the theory that for every species that arises, another must die, but that's just not how evolution works. Just because some members of a species change, it doesn't mean every member changes. Let's say one species of mammal likes to eat a certain other species. However, only larger members of the predator species are guaranteed to pull down the prey species reliably. That leaves the smaller members needing to either find something else or starve. Now, let's say these smaller members find a DIFFERENT source of prey, but it's challenging to get that prey unless without, say, digging it out of a hole. So those smaller members who are better able to dig, say by having bigger front paws, will do better hunting that second prey. They, in turn, pass on their tendency for bigger paws and the knowledge to hunt those burrowres. Perhaps, over the eons, the smaller versions of that predator species develop an even smaller stature, a more elongated body form, and a number of other changes to help them deal with their new prey, until they have become a new species. Meanwhile, the original, larger predators continue hunting their bigger prey unchanged - viola, evolution that left the predecessor alive.
I am not going to go through the remaining 15,000 words or so of that article here. It would turn this reply into an article large enough to require full-on publication, and no one wants that. Instead, I will simply way that from reading it, the author is disingeuous at best, and lying and deliberately misrepresenting facts in order to decieve people at worst.
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Frothingslosh; "The oldest biblical-related documents in existence are the Dead Sea Scrolls, which are approximately 2200 years old. So you're saying that the people living 2200 years ago were drooling imbeciles, incapable of complex thought? Then how, pray tell, do you explain the following:"
Bladerunner: The Torah is 3,313 years old at least. Your wrong again! Contains the laws ,etc. written by GOD himself and given to Moses. Just in case your are interested, the Torah equates to the first five books of the bible. Please read the following, it might just open your closed eyes before it is too late.
http://www.beingjewish.com/mesorah/ageoftorah.html
Wrong again, as usual. The oldest copy of the Torah known to exist has been dated to between 1155 and 1225 AD. The books themselves are believed to have been written between 600BC and 400BC, but there are not even fragments that old to confirm this. It is only Jewish and Christian tradition that maintains that these books are older, not fact.
Your 'proof' link doesn't provide any facts. It presents oral tradition as fact, and then falls into the same old circular reasoning trap - that the book has to be old because it says it's old. Then it, at the end, says:
Our Tradition tells us that Hashem created the Torah, both the Written and the Oral, 2,000 years before He created the universe.
They even ADMIT it's tradition and thus not fact. (See what I did there? I quoted the relevent portion, not just a link to the introduction!)
Also, you never answered my question. How do you explain all those things I listed in my previous reply if ancient people were too stupid for complex thought?
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Frothingslosh; It's what it's called. If you were to actually study the philosophies of Christianity, you'd find there are tons of differences between sects, and conventions have to be named to keep track. Young-Earth Creationism is the belief that the world was created by God 4,000-10,000 years ago. Old-Earth Creationism is the belief that the world was, indeed, created billions of years ago by God. It generally works as a theistic twist on the Big Bang Theory.
Bladerunner: Yes and there are Christians who believe the bible tells them to dance with snakes. God's word,the Bible, interpreted by man. The same man that interprets the science that says there is no God. The same man that twist and leaves out relevantt information on evolution.
(
http://www.discovery.org/a/10661)
That presupposes there is anything but lies and distortions in that link, which there is not.
The same man that scews the information of Global warming in order to herd a world of people into their way of thinking and oh make a bunch of money doing it. OH, Yes, there is proof... Ohh,,, by the way, it is hiding in the ocean these days don't tell no body.
Yeah, we'll just ignore all the data that indicates that is exactly what is happening, what with the oceans literally warming up, every single one of the hottest 25 years in recorded history being in the last 30 years, the wildly changing weather patterns, the weather growing more and more intense as more and more engery is dumped into it, carbon dioxide levels being higher than at any time in the planet's history, etc.
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Frothingslosh; Ugh, if you're going to argue against evolution, at least learn enough to be coherent. There is only one species that has ever been named Homo sapiens - modern humans. All other branches of the genus 'Homo' have different species names.
Bladerunner: I believe that the correct nomenclature is Homo Sapiens sapiens!
Nice try. H. s. sapiens is the name for the subspecies, while H. sapiens is humanity. However, my point stands - you claim modern man only arose 10,000 years ago, and my point was that we have found fossils of modern humans - whether you want to refer to them as homo sapiens as is done >99% of the time, or h. s. sapiens, which is done less than < 1% of the time - dating back to around 190,000 years ago. Quibbling over whether it's more correct to refer to us as h. sapiens or h. s. sapiens doesn't change that fact.
I see there is no sense in me continuing this debate with this person Frothingslosh since in his opinion I am dumb as a box of rocks and cannot carry on any type of reasonable debate.
Actually, you've shown you cannot. You never present facts, rely on distortions and logical fallacies, and when presented points you cannot answer, you simply either pretend they were never made or try to twist the discussion away from them, such as with the species name quibble above.
So, if the shoe fits, wear it.
