(not really) intelligent design

[alf]

Mul
War is clearly not a Christian value.

But too many have gone to war in the name of the Christian God and other Gods for that matter. Our political leaders are doing so now; as i said before every time i hear one of our politicians use God as a war cry i am shamed.

Every Christian that supports *any* war is making a mockery of their own faith. I am afraid there are many of those around in our nation today and they are standing on the mountain top spewing their hypocrisy.

WWJD?

[rsNINESOOPER]

what Indians?

[rsNINESOOPER]

Do I need to quote Bush?......... shame on you

[Victor]

Originally posted by Mulhollanddose
edit: The Christians, in America, have been the greatest force for good the world has seen...Nobody compares to our generosity, compassion and willingness to lay down our lives for oppressed people, here and abroad.

..........so there are no opressed people left "here" (i.e.: the USA)? Well that makes sense then.

Notice the "opressed people" you have layed down your lives for all seem to spit in your face?

What is wrong with these people??

[jyl]

According to Pat Robertson, God's generosity, compassion and willingness for the good people of Dover PA has run out:

"I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city," Robertson said on his daily television show broadcast from Virginia, "The 700 Club."

"And don't wonder why He hasn't helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I'm not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just voted God out of your city. And if that's the case, don't ask for His help because he might not be there," he said. http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/11/10/religion.robertson.reut/index.html

[IROC]

I started typing several responses and ended up giving up.

The theory of evolution does not represent an attack on any religion. It is merely the best theory we currently have to explain the mountains of evidence and observations of the diversity of life in the world around us. If you have a better theory, bring it forward and subject it to the same scrutiny the theory of evolution has endured and see if it holds up. ID and creationism have already failed in this endeavour as they are religious beliefs and not scientific theories - they don't support the evidence and you can't use them in the laboratory. They're worthless in that regard.

All of these straw man arguments (a giraffe turning into a lizard?!?) and blatant misunderstandings of basic science (the 2nd law) merely represent the vast amount of ignorance and insecurity that permeates this society.

Mike

[Z-man]

Originally posted by island911
Ah yes . . but it can be misunderstood. . . .and misapplied.

oh, and; Statictically, in this vast expanse of a universe, we are the anomaly. Is an anomaly order, or disorder?

Maybe we're just a miracle... That would explain a lot!

-Zoltan.

[Nathans_Dad]

Originally posted by LubeMaster77
The taxonomy of specie alignment is needed to place order only. I am not sure that you will see an actual transition of one species to another because the very "specie" that is transitioned is in fact specie in itself. But then again, maybe you will.

If you drop the classifications and just look at all the various animals that say graze on greens the degree of complexity is pretty wide. They have all adapted to the environment and when that environment changes so do these animals.

At some point, that grazing animal may actually start ingesting protein and fat due to a drought lets say. The teeth of these grazing creatures evolve into being somewhat sharp (for tearing purposes) but they still have the intestinal tract of an herbivore. The evolution is slow but deliberate. This is driven by success and not much more. What works stays, what doesn’t is dropped out. Keep in mind, the changes are gradual but also keep in mind that when something works in terms of change, it won't take long for that to become a dominate trait. Here you have examples of lemar from a rodent and an ape from a lemar. Now you have an herbivore that eats decaying flesh from time to time and eventually learns to kill and eat raw flesh. Why? Because is provides the protein its body requires. The veggies are not lost but are now a secondary supplement when the protein and fat is unavailable. Welcome to mankind…

That's a great story Mike, and certainly logical. Proof that it occured please.

[Nathans_Dad]

Originally posted by IROC
I started typing several responses and ended up giving up.

The theory of evolution does not represent an attack on any religion. It is merely the best theory we currently have to explain the mountains of evidence and observations of the diversity of life in the world around us. If you have a better theory, bring it forward and subject it to the same scrutiny the theory of evolution has endured and see if it holds up. ID and creationism have already failed in this endeavour as they are religious beliefs and not scientific theories - they don't support the evidence and you can't use them in the laboratory. They're worthless in that regard.

All of these straw man arguments (a giraffe turning into a lizard?!?) and blatant misunderstandings of basic science (the 2nd law) merely represent the vast amount of ignorance and insecurity that permeates this society.

Mike

Ah, see you prove my point. You start by saying that evolution is not an attack on religion...which I agree with.

You then use the words worthless, ignorance and insecurity in the rest of your post to describe those who might think there was a higher power in the universe. The theory does not attack religion but those who believe in it sure seem to...

[M.D. Holloway]

Originally posted by Nathans_Dad
That's a great story Mike, and certainly logical. Proof that it occured please.

Rick,
I'm afraid I don't have the techno chops to site references or spout the evidence. Given a little time I am sure I could provide a very plausible argument with work that has been done. I guess I am still at a loss. What actual proof do you need? Do you want fossil evidence that shows the transition of one specie to another? Do you want to see proof in the lab? The events that take place for the manipulation of the DNA are dramatic and gradual at the same time. Are you looking for that animal that rests between say a chimp and a human? I know every little about this subject matter but what I do know is that it is not linear by any means. If a dominant specie evolves, the inferior species is quickly extinguished or assimilated into the new making a sub-group or DNA garbage for future genetists to ponder.

[IROC]

Originally posted by Nathans_Dad
You then use the words worthless, ignorance and insecurity in the rest of your post to describe those who might think there was a higher power in the universe. The theory does not attack religion but those who believe in it sure seem to...

If you re-read my post, you'll notice that I never said that anyone who believes in a higher power is ignorant. Why did you make that up? Insecurity perhaps?

I said that anyone who thinks that the theory of evolution predicts that a giraffe will turn into a lizard is ignorant. I stand by that statement.

Mike

[island911]

wait, did someone just say that science has the better model of how it all works?

If so, please explain why the universe is expanding.

w'wait ...before you pull Einstein (or more simply Newton) out of the closet; tell me why the universe is expanding . . . and accelerating in it's expansion.

[Nathans_Dad]

Ah...you do yourself proud.

Add insecure to the list.

And just for fun...here are the words that have been used in this thread by evolution proponents to describe those who believe in religion and/or creation:

religio-freak, dishonest, nut jobs, lazy, stupid, suckers, ignorant, silly, egocentric, crap, afraid, dumb ass, nut, crackpots, A-hole, worthless, ignorance and insecurity.

I have seen a lot of good arguments for and against evolution on this thread, but Lubemaster seems to be the only one (so far at least) who can argue his point without resorting to insulting those who think there might just be a higher power in the universe. In fact, after reading all the pages of this thread, you (IROC) seem to be of the distinct opinion that anyone who believes in a higher power as the source of man is an ill informed idiot. Here are a few cuts and pastes from your posts:

It astounds me that in this day and age, we actually have people who believe in things like "Intelligent Design".

IMHO, the vast amjority of all people who oppose the theory of evolution know little or nothing about it. You can't intelligently argue about something that you know little about. That's apparent from some of the posts in this thread.

Evolution has been verified, proven and observed! Where have you been? No one (with any credibility) disputes this.

Your primary error is that you have decided to reject something that you know very little about based solely on what other people have told you to believe.

But your logic only applies to people of your faith. The rest of us require more proof than "the Bible says so". Hence the resistance to teaching religious mythology as science in public schools.

I think it is more exciting to try to understand the universe with an inquiring open mind (science) and be wrong on occasion that to assume that you already know it (religion).

I do believe, though, that *most* religious people struggle when science points to different conclusions that what their particular religion teaches (history is littered with examples of this).

All of these straw man arguments (a giraffe turning into a lizard?!?) and blatant misunderstandings of basic science (the 2nd law) merely represent the vast amount of ignorance and insecurity that permeates this society.

My point here is very simple. I do understand and agree with the theory of evolution as it pertains to individual animals. If all you want to say in science class is that animals evolve over time to adapt to their surroundings then I am A-OK with that. However, children should NOT be taught that evolution can account for the vast array of life that we have on our planet because it simply can't.

To Lubemaster: Yes, that is what I am looking for. A scientific publication that documents the discovery of ANY fossil or other records that can link two species together in evolution. Doesn't matter which two...ANY species. The fact is that the fossil record is very interesting...if you really look at the emergence of fossils, there seem to be an "explosions" of life in relatively short geologic periods of time. Evolution can't explain these explosions as the intermediate fossils have yet to be found. If those fossils are found then I certainly would re-evaluate my thoughts on the topic.

[IROC]

Originally posted by Nathans_Dad
In fact, after reading all the pages of this thread, you (IROC) seem to be of the distinct opinion that anyone who believes in a higher power as the source of man is an ill informed idiot.

And yet in spite of your substantial effort to perform quote mining you still demonstrate that you know nothing about the theory of evolution. The theory of evolution says nothing about the origin of life on this planet. The origin could have been god for all I know, but that's irrelevant to the discussion.

This whole thread was about the validity of teaching ID in the science classroom. It does not belong there because it is not science. You're right, though, that it is my opinion that people should not allow their religious beliefs to cloud their judgement on this subject, but that's just my opinion and I'm surprised that it bothers you so badly. If you are comfortable in what you believe, then my opinion should not matter. You should take comfort in knowing you are right and I am the idiot. It does not bother me in the least if you think I am wrong.

If you'd like to try and convince me that I am wrong, I would welcome that. This just happens to be a subject that I have an interest in and I would welcome the opportunity to learn more.

Mike

[Nathans_Dad]

Wow, interesting that despite my 10+ posts on this thread you still don't understand my position. I am NOT a strict creationist. I also DO think that evolution occurs. I just don't think that evolution accounts for the origins of life. I understand that many evolutionists say that it doesn't try to explain that, ok fine...then stop teaching that it DOES in schools. Again, as per my previous posts (and even the one you just replied to) if you want to teach evolution in science class as how species change over time then fine. I do not think that it should be taught that evolution explains the origins of life because it doesn't. Personally I think that evolution SHOULD be taught in schools, just along with a caveat that it cannot explain the origins of life and that it is still under heavy debate in the academic community.

I disagree with the creationists that want to take the age of the earth out of books and such, that is just not scientifically accurate. However, I do not understand why many seem to think that just talking about the flaws and questions that surround evolution and the origins of life is a bad thing. Seems to be the ultimate scientific lesson to me, learning to question.

Oh, and my "quote mining" as you put it, was simply to provide support for my assertion that the evolution supporters on this thread have tended to resort to name calling, a decidedly unscientific thing.

[Nathans_Dad]

Oh, and a little quote from a site on evolution:

"Biological evolution, simply put, is descent with modification. This definition encompasses small-scale evolution (changes in gene frequency in a population from one generation to the next) and large-scale evolution (the descent of different species from a common ancestor over many generations). Evolution helps us to understand the history of life.

Through the process of descent with modification, the common ancestor of life on Earth gave rise to the fantastic diversity that we see documented in the fossil record and around us today. Evolution means that we're all distant cousins: humans and oak trees, hummingbirds and whales.


Link:

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0_0_0/evo_02

So, it seems that some of those folks over at Berkeley would disagree with you that evolution does not talk about the diversity of life coming from a common ancestor. What was that ancestor? Bacteria? Virus? Fish? And if you say that it was a fish or some other higher life form...where did that one come from?

[Moses]

So little has changed. Some Christians cling so desperately to the concepts of biblical creation despite mounting evidence of another process. It was much this way in the days of Galileo. He was persecuted by a faith that that believed that if the world knew the earth was not the center of the universe it would shake the very foundation of Christianity and bring the church to it's knees. It didn't happen that way. Insightful Christian leaders incorporated new knowledge into their faith. The same thing will ultimately happen with evolution and the origins of the species. It will be accepted one day...and Christianity will not crumble.

[Mulhollanddose]

Originally posted by rsNINESOOPER
what Indians?

How can you blame Christians for Indians...Where Indians were mistreated I would betcha those doing the mistreatment were more philosophically like your liberal bretheren. Christians are the ones who fought for their protection...Well done on the mindless regurgitation.

[creaturecat]

Originally posted by Mulhollanddose
How can you blame Christians for Indians...Where Indians were mistreated I would betcha those doing the mistreatment were more philosophically like your liberal bretheren. Christians are the ones who fought for their protection...Well done on the mindless regurgitation.

During the 19 th century and into the 20th century, American Indian children were forcibly abducted from their homes to attend Christian boarding schools as a matter of state policy. The policy of boarding schools again demonstrate the links between sexual violence and state violence. Sexual, physical and emotional violence was rampant. This system was later imported to Canada in the form of the residential school system. Recently, the International Human Rights Association of American Minorities has issued a report which documents the involvement of mainline churches and the federal government in the murder of over 50,000 Native children through the Canadian residential school system. The list of offenses committed by church officials include murder by beating, poisoning, hanging, starvation, strangulation, and medical experimentation. In addition, the report found that church clergy, police, and business and government officials were involved in maintaining pedophile rings using children from residential schools. The grounds of several schools are also charged with containing unmarked graveyards of children who were murdered, particularly children killed after being born as a result of rapes of Native girls by priests and other church officials. While some churches in Canada have taken some minimal steps towards addressing its involvement in this genocidal policy, churches in the U.S. have not. Because the worst of the abuses happened to an older generation, there is simply not the same level of documentation or vocal outcry against boarding school abuses.

[M.D. Holloway]

Originally posted by Nathans_Dad
I have seen a lot of good arguments for and against evolution on this thread, but Lubemaster seems to be the only one (so far at least) who can argue his point without resorting to insulting those who think there might just be a higher power in the universe. ...Evolution has been verified, proven and observed! Where have you been? No one (with any credibility) disputes this.

...All of these straw man arguments (a giraffe turning into a lizard?!?) and blatant misunderstandings of basic science (the 2nd law) merely represent the vast amount of ignorance and insecurity that permeates this society.

...To Lubemaster: Yes, that is what I am looking for. A scientific publication that documents the discovery of ANY fossil or other records that can link two species together in evolution. Doesn't matter which two...ANY species. The fact is that the fossil record is very interesting...if you really look at the emergence of fossils, there seem to be an "explosions" of life in relatively short geologic periods of time. Evolution can't explain these explosions as the intermediate fossils have yet to be found. If those fossils are found then I certainly would re-evaluate my thoughts on the topic. [/B]

Thanks for the compliment!

I will have to go back and check it out, but I remember reading an article in Scientific American that did have a fossil that depicted the transition of a small dino to a bird. It was ground breaking to say the least because of the rarity to find fossils during various times is difficult. Fossils are created under unique circumstances and only when the climate is just right and the environment experiences a very drastic change. Let’s face it. Anything that dies will not remain whole very quickly. Dead things don't put up much of a fight and omnivores pretty much rule the roost.

One point of transition that is commonly found is in the insect world. There was a recently discovered insect that was a cross between a spider and a scorpion. It was a new specie but not a new genus and I think that’s were we have to begin our understanding.

When things change from one specie to another it is gradual. In fact, I think it is actually changing from one sub-specie to another. I think what you are looking for is the change from a family to a genus or a genus to a specie and that is a tricky one for sure due to the way in which our taxonomy is structured. Remember in grade school, it went sort like this for mordern man:

Kingdom = Animalia
Subkingdom = Eumetazoa
Grade = Bilateria
Subgrade = Deuterostoma
Phylum = Chordata
Subphylum = Craniata
Class = Mammalia
Subclass = Eutheria
Order = Primates
Suborder = Haplorini
Infraorder = Catarrhini
Superfamily = Hominodea
Family = Hominidae
Genus = Homo
Species = Homo sapiens
Subspecies = H. sapiens sapiens

Each one has a defination that falls neatly. The problem with mutation is that it doesn't fall neatly into any catogorie but rather in between. New subspecies, suborders and even subclasses are being discovered on an annual basis. Keep in mind. This taxonomy has not been around for that long. Not long ago things were lumped into fish, reptiles or mammals. Don't be surprised if the taxonomy used to day doesn't expand another 2 fold in 50 years.

Note - the chance to discover something is the driver for increased strata in taxonomy. The more we find, the more defined it becomes and the more evolution and mutation makes sense.