Creationish Vs Evolutionism? BE POLITE!

What do you believe? (private)

  • Biblical Creationism (please explain)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Christian Evolution (please explain)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Non Christian Creation (please explain)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Non Christian Evolution (please explain)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Non Christian Science (please explain)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Christian Science (please explain)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • inexplicable (creation cannot be explained through current science or religion))

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Other. Please explain in your post! :)

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    0
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I hope I am being one. But I made a mistake even getting involved. It seems a little hypocritical for me to say I'm tired of the noise while simultaneously taking part in it.
I dunno, there is some value just in the discussing of these things. The hard core on either side are unlikely to be swayed but perhaps some of the spectators gained some insights from the discussion. Besides, people get to vent a bit and that is never wrong. :D
 
Elkins 45, im confused. You are a middle aged K _ 12 science teacher with 20 plus years experiance in evolutionary science? You are an expert.? And for the record im not attacking your opinion. I am however attacking your arrogant start. How about you answer 1000 responce then my second question. Or do you only respond off topic. And for the record if your experiance in this debate is 20 years debating twelve year olds, you might want to stop claiming you are an expert. Its my experiance when someone comes into a room claiming they are an expert 9 times out of ten, they are frauds.

So tell us, what are your qualifications in this matter?
 
Gwashington, I did not claim to have twenty years as a proffecional on this topic. I did not start my post with a comment stating that If I read all the posts I would feel obligated to respond to them all. But to respond directly, I have self edjucated on this topic. My interest really grew watching the Intellegence squared debates with stephen fry.
 
There are no transitional evolutionary evidence. Look at the Celeocanth prehistoric fish, that is still the same as it was current day.

Haven't read the whole thread, but this one struck me. The Coelacanthid fishes that live today are in the same family, or perhaps even genera as their fossil counterparts, but they are NOT the same species.
Sharks that swam around millions of years ago are often not the same species that swim around today, eventhough they might be related.
Or as an example with birds: A common Chaffinch is closely related to the Brambling, but they are not the same species. Same counts for their ancestors. They look alike, but there are plenty differences as well. Same thing with Coelacanths. The ones that swam around millions of years ago, are not the same species as those that still roam the oceans today.
 
Gwashington, I did not claim to have twenty years as a proffecional on this topic. I did not start my post with a comment stating that If I read all the posts I would feel obligated to respond to them all. But to respond directly, I have self edjucated on this topic. My interest really grew watching the Intellegence squared debates with stephen fry.

If you're going to call someone a fraud, and indicate that their experience is useless, then you'd better have some expertise of your own that doesn't involve TV shows.

For the record, I study ecology, I have experience in conservation biology, both of these are strongly linked to evolution, I read scientific journal articles on these topics in my free time. And also, I learned much of what I know, and gained an interest in the topic from teachers, so, does that make my experience useless? I learned a lot from people whose entire experience is with, "debating with twelve year olds." Perhaps before belittling people's experience with a topic, you should think a bit about it first, no?

Haven't read the whole thread, but this one struck me. The Coelacanthid fishes that live today are in the same family, or perhaps even genera as their fossil counterparts, but they are NOT the same species.
Sharks that swam around millions of years ago are often not the same species that swim around today, eventhough they might be related.
Or as an example with birds: A common Chaffinch is closely related to the Brambling, but they are not the same species. Same counts for their ancestors. They look alike, but there are plenty differences as well. Same thing with Coelacanths. The ones that swam around millions of years ago, are not the same species as those that still roam the oceans today.

Fish taxonomy is a messy subject and probably not the best way to talk about transitional forms or living fossils. Living fossils do exist though, there are some species that are so well adapted that they does not evolve much. Horseshoe crabs are an excellent example, they've change very little in millions of years because they're damn near indestructible, and they are long lived, and have an excellent immune system. There are transitional fossils for other species though, look at archeopteryx, just because a few species have seemingly stopped evolving, doesn't mean none do.
 
G washington, The person I called out responded, and I offered an aplogy if he would claifify his first statement. He hasnt, and I left it alone. You however have apparently either a reading comprehension problem or have chosen to pervert the conversation I had to start poo flinging. Internet credentials are a joke. What you say and do are your cedentials on the internet. I said I self edjucated, my interest grew watching the debate. Again, reading comprehension.
 
G washington, The person I called out responded, and I offered an aplogy if he would claifify his first statement. He hasnt, and I left it alone. You however have apparently either a reading comprehension problem or have chosen to pervert the conversation I had to start poo flinging. Internet credentials are a joke. What you say and do are your cedentials on the internet. I said I self edjucated, my interest grew watching the debate. Again, reading comprehension.

Whatever, I'm not discussing you or ejucashuns anymore, I wouldn't want to damage my precious internet credentials. :rolleyes:


Back to the topic of transitional fossils.

Here's a decent literature review of the transition from dinosaurs to birds. I wanted to post this earlier but my laptop was about to die.

To clarify, a literature review is not original research, it's... well it's exactly what it sounds like. This one's from an educational journal. It's citations are listed in case anyone feels like an exciting adventure through the world of boring scientific journals.


http://pds19.egloos.com/pds/201005/27/62/Downsized_Dinosaurs.pdf

If the link doesn't work I'll send the PDF to anyone that wants it.


I had typed a long winded review of archeopteryx but my computer went haywire for a second and it all got erased. If anyone was just dying to read it, I might retype it when my laptop gets back from Mars. :grumpy:
 
As for atheists, I think Dawkins puts it nicely here:

“We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further."

Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

Heh, Dawkins forgot about polytheists.;)
Thor, Odin, Thoth and others are still going strong with some folks (silly atheist, making pronouncements like that...)
 
I dunno, there is some value just in the discussing of these things. The hard core on either side are unlikely to be swayed but perhaps some of the spectators gained some insights from the discussion. Besides, people get to vent a bit and that is never wrong. :D

I don't see any value in discussing this. How do you deal with someone who believes that the universe is only about 6000 years old and can prove it?:rolleyes:
I stopped trying to discuss this subject about 25 years ago when a born again christian tried to get me to come to a meeting. I started asking question about
things in the bible. Within 20 minutes he ran out of the room crying.:p
 
I don't see any value in discussing this. How do you deal with someone who believes that the universe is only about 6000 years old and can prove it?:rolleyes:
I stopped trying to discuss this subject about 25 years ago when a born again christian tried to get me to come to a meeting. I started asking question about
things in the bible. Within 20 minutes he ran out of the room crying.:p

I know the feeling. I attended a meeting where someone was pushing a creationist agenda (It wasn’t called creationist back then, but it was the same stuff.) He kicked me out of the meeting.

On the other hand, no population avoids the bell curve. We aren’t talking about all scientific rationalists on one side and all religious fanatics on the other. Most people are in the middle. Some of them might learn something.
 
Fish taxonomy is a messy subject and probably not the best way to talk about transitional forms or living fossils. Living fossils do exist though, there are some species that are so well adapted that they does not evolve much. Horseshoe crabs are an excellent example, they've change very little in millions of years because they're damn near indestructible, and they are long lived, and have an excellent immune system. There are transitional fossils for other species though, look at archeopteryx, just because a few species have seemingly stopped evolving, doesn't mean none do.

I never said there were no transitional fossils or anything, I'm totally on your side :). I just wanted to point out that saying something like "THE Coelacanth still lives today" is biologically flawed.
 
I never said there were no transitional fossils or anything, I'm totally on your side :). I just wanted to point out that saying something like "THE Coelacanth still lives today" is biologically flawed.

I know, I was running out of time on by computer's battery and rushed my response.

So let's talk about living fossils a bit more. A living fossil does not necessarily mean that it's been the same species for millions of years, it means that the species did not change into multiple new forms. The coelacanth is not the best example of a living fossil because big chunks of the fossil record are missing as is the case with a lot of fish, especially sharks, since they don't have real bones. The horseshoe crab is a great example, because arthropods fossilize well. A horseshoe crab from 200 million years ago will look pretty much like a horseshoe crab from today. The differences are very minor between ancient horseshoe crabs and the different modern horseshoe crabs but they're all easily identifiable as horseshoe crabs and most people won't be able to tell the difference. The reason they haven't differentiated much from their ancestral form is that there are no pressures on them to change, they are only killed by birds when they come on the beaches to spawn, and by people, and not much else eats them. Go walking on a beach barefoot during a spawn and you come to the painful realization why, firsthand (seriously don't do that, it sucks :p). Add to that their immune system which is pretty near perfect, and their long life and there not really too much to improve on. So a living fossil is not necessarily the same species as the ancient one, it can be, but it's more that the species has changed so little over millions of years, that it's pretty much the same animal.
 
GWashington1732

Help me out here.

A living fossil is not the same species as the ancient one.

We know this is true because

The species has changed so little over millions of years, that it's pretty much the same animal.

This looks to me like a distinction without a difference.

What am I missing?
 
I know the feeling. I attended a meeting where someone was pushing a creationist agenda (It wasn’t called creationist back then, but it was the same stuff.) He kicked me out of the meeting.

On the other hand, no population avoids the bell curve. We aren’t talking about all scientific rationalists on one side and all religious fanatics on the other. Most people are in the middle. Some of them might learn something.

Yup, following the debate is educational for the onlooker.

Also, I feel it is a testament to a functioning society when people with contrasting world views can sit down and share their thoughts, and then walk away from it agreeing to disagree. It humanizes those on the other side of the debate and is almost therapeutic in a way. Talking is good, it's when people stop talking to each other that tensions flare in earnest.
 
GWashington1732

Help me out here.

A living fossil is not the same species as the ancient one.

We know this is true because

The species has changed so little over millions of years, that it's pretty much the same animal.

This looks to me like a distinction without a difference.

What am I missing?

It's not necessarily the same species, it can be though.

Sorry I wasn't entirely clear, let me try to clarify. When the species change it's small changes and it doesn't create an entirely new animal, more of a variation of the same one. Modern horseshoe crabs look much like ancient horseshoe crabs with a few small differences, they've had very little change in about 200 million years, and there have been animals recognized as horseshoe crabs for over 400 million years, they're not the same species though, or even the same genus. The term "living fossil," is a pretty misleading and inaccurate since it can technically refer to anything from a the family level down to the subspecies. It's more of a way of describing a form that's been around for a long time without much change. Think of it this way, a mosquito lands on your arm, unless you're a mosquito guru and short of doing some very tedious work with a microscope, you're probably not going to recognize that specific species of mosquito, but it's still obviously a mosquito. "living fossil," isn't really a taxonomic term, think of it more as a term like "mosquito", or "bee", or "fish".
 
I fully understand what the question was, which was why I specifically commented on the fact it is a flawed question. I will confess that I didn't read all 24 of your other posts in this thread. Were they all your same answer to the OP's question repeated 23 times? Or did you perhaps share some of your opinions? I ask because you seem so concerned that I didn't answer the question but shared an opinion instead.

except it is not a flawed question. you pointed out in your first response that science and religion can go hand in hand. This is true. However, that is not the question. The question is scientific evolution, versus biblical creation. By definition these go against each other.

Sure, there are plenty of enlightened religious folk who understand the old testament is mostly stories to try and teach an ancient people. but there is still a huge percentage of people who view Genesis as fact, despite the mountains of evidence refuting it.
 
gwashington, good posts. your talking points on crabs got me thinking about H.G. Wells' Time Machine. If I'm not mistaken, didn't the protagonist travel to nearly the end of the world and all he saw were crab like creatures? I wonder if that was mere coincidence that he put a creature which has stood the test of time as one that remained until the end?

Sorry, it doesn't have much to do with the actual subject at hand.
 
gwashington, good posts. your talking points on crabs got me thinking about H.G. Wells' Time Machine. If I'm not mistaken, didn't the protagonist travel to nearly the end of the world and all he saw were crab like creatures? I wonder if that was mere coincidence that he put a creature which has stood the test of time as one that remained until the end?

Sorry, it doesn't have much to do with the actual subject at hand.

Well remember that horseshoe crabs aren't really crabs, or even close relatives, they're more closely related to scorpions. They've been so successful for a number of reasons. Their immune system is near perfect, they have a copper based, as opposed to iron based, blood that reacts very quickly to foreign organisms, which is why it's used to test medical supplies for contaminants. Due to their spiky nature, very few things eat them, other than birds when they get flipped over during mating. They are long lived, 50+ years. And they are pretty near indestructible I've seen them with most of their shell gone, missing legs and tails and still getting along just fine. It's not surprising that an animal that can take so much abuse has survived millions of years without too much change.
 
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