Originally posted by WraothAscendant
Funny how those who refuse to see any opinion other than one that agrees as anything other than ignorant generally tend to have blinders on as well.

That's a pretty large assumption. I think most of us here arguing against your position have seen these same opinions time and time again. And the unfortunate fact is, we've compared your opinions to facts and data, and your opinion is sorely lacking. Perhaps you should provide better facts and data yourself to support your opinion.

It was about self-rightous *beep*s going on and on about how everyone else is ignorant. Especially in the light that the ultimate answer on how we got here is yet to have been found.

Frankly I think it's more self-righteous to accuse those who don't agree with your opinion right off the bat as wearing blinders. If you're ignorant of the facts on a subject, then you're ignorant. It's just that simple.

If you have some proof as to it having been found PLEASE show me and something that has DECISIVELY shown that it was chance or a creator.
u2u me with it.

Trouble is, Evolutionary biology doesn't look for some sort of biological grand unification theory. I'm not sure any of the life or earth sciences do, tell you the truth. Odds are, whatever rocks harbored fossils of the earliest blobs of life have probably been subsumed into the mantle by now, so it'll likely remain a mystery. Thankfully, only the people unconcerned with facts tend to worry overly much about it.

Now, just to make a point, evolution is not based on "chance." It's not a random crapshoot. Evolution is nothing more than a highly likely by-product of the law of natural selection.

That being said I shall now abandon the thread to the jackals.

You'll be back, they always come back.

Evolutionists are not gullible it is the opposite. Religious people tend to be stereotypically more gullible because in the end you are just following guidelines that were set when the human race were at their dumbest. Evolutionists use science, common sense and evidence to support what they now know and have found studying the universe in which we live.

Environment and evolution go hand in hand they create each other, you have nature shaping the way a species needs to evolve and then you have us, changing nature (killing it) and possibly changing our evolution path to be robot dependent short, bald muscleless bags of internal organs. Evolution is proven by interracial children, if you have an african mum and a chinese father their genes roll together to create a new subspecies of human. Just like the bats in Australia, to the African bats to the American bats they are all just different subspecies of bats just like the different subspecies of humans but we like to call ourselves different races.

Environment and evolution go hand in hand other wise you Americans wouldn't look like you americans do. You would look and sound like british people because you are,but obviously over the last couple of hundred years EVOLUTION has giving you a more sharper toned voice and a significant height advantage. Same with Australians, they are english as well but environment once again changes the gene structure of our voices to the today's "How ya goin mate". "Where the bloody hell are ya". I am a witness. I am greek/creole and my family has only been in Australia since the 1960's, my pop has a full on french accent but mine is full Aussie.

I know it may be hard for religious people to get out of the tunnel that they live in and stop being so hypocritical because evolution is everywhere, everything is constantly evolving it is what the gene structure does. Aging is an evolving process, the evolution from sperm to rotting matter 6 feet under.

Religion suppresses knowledge which in term has causes the world to be full of ignorance. Religion is the only thing that has not evolved and will continue to be the root cause of the narrow mindedness that plaques us. Change is evolution.

Ash stated she does not believe in 'macro-evolution'. This implies that she does believe in micro-evolution, right?
It's really simple. A creature creates millions of sperm. Each one is slightly different from the others. You have 400 children, they are all different. This is the variable. Some of those children are going to have characteristics that will enable them to operate more effectively in their environments. Those survivors that have naturally beneficial traits will breed, and those traits will be passed on; But with another 400 variatations. This means some of those children will survive even better.
That's micro-evolution in a nutshell. Now, macro-evolution is the exact same thing, but it is over a time period of thousands, if not millions of years. Now how can you accept mico, and not macro??? It's the exact same thing but longer duration. Yes, macro is very theoretical, but we've been studying it for less than 200 years. We really only have 100 years of data, at best.
As for 'evolutionists' being gullible, the scientific process and empiricism means that facts derived from the scientific method have to be validated by other independant sources, otherwise it is not accepted. Even if someone falsifies data to mislead people, eventually the experiment will be scrutinised and proved to be false. The theory of evolution is one such hypothesis that is under constant review, modification, experiment and testing. The theory itself is always evolving, and becomes more and more robust. Unlike creationists, whose sole evolution over the past 2 millenia has been to disguise itself as intelligent design. Intelligent design, and for that matter, creationism, sees to be solely aimed at the gullible. Yes, it made perfect sense back then, and indeed, it made sense when I was a child, but I, and a good section of humanity have grown up. As a scientist I still believe in God, simply because I don't understand how something could have come from nothing. He fixes that probem for me.
My 2c.

Wow Ash what a great job you did not turning this into an argument. You start a provocative thread that's been done to death (by your own admission), say that it doesn't need to be debated, prattle off a bunch of things to debunk the evolutionists........ but no, you're not looking for a battle.

In the end however, you have your beliefs, and we, who do not believe in creationism have our own. That's fine and perfectly acceptable. It is one of those subjects that is pointless to discuss. Neither on either side will make any headway trying to convince the other party, so in the end, what's the point? It's just conflict for the sake of conflict.

As I said both sides are entitled to their own beliefs.. and it should be left at that. My only strong opinion on the matter is that creationism needs to be kept out of public schools. You can disagree with the evolutionary theory all you want but in the end separation of church and state exists for a reason. I'm sure that it's all good if it's your religion running the government, but if it were someone else's, you'd be as pissed as the rest of us.

Ok.
Calmer now........

Ash has stated she somewhat (a little) agrees with evolution minus macroevolution
meaning she believes in changes of an existing speices over time. And has stated that as such though I doubt many has seen beyond her religious convictions to see that.
Evolution covers (I think) changes to a speices over time.
NOT how the speices got there because that is a great big black area we may or may not be able to penetrate. Even if time machines were created and you could go back and see the very start of life happening here on Earth you could still argue a guiding "force". Panspermia Theories not withstanding.
I am not ignorant of science, sorry to inform you.

But as I stated a few times now.
She did not start the thread as an attempt to discredit the theory.
Merely as a comment on how a particular bunch likes to use it as a crudgel to beat everyone else over the head with.

Rather than treat it as what as far as I can see it is a attempt to call a group on their continued bad behavior they treat it as another attempted descreditation of their crudgel.
With continued chanting of the tired old slogan "Religion is ignorance and bad, BAD I tell you!". Which doesn't stand up to falsification no matter how much you try to rationalize it that way I might add.

Otherwords look beyond your damn projections and see what she is TRYING to say.
There is bad behavior to be had, on both sides that is very true, but that is not what this thread was about it was about the bad behavior of one side. A side that while I respect their right to believe what they want. I UTTERLY deplore their continued attempts to claim that science is their tool and their tool alone and everyone else is stupid monkies.



[edit on 2-3-2008 by WraothAscendant]

Originally posted by Osiris1953
Wow Ash what a great job you did not turning this into an argument. You start a provocative thread that's been done to death (by your own admission), say that it doesn't need to be debated, prattle off a bunch of things to debunk the evolutionists........ but no, you're not looking for a battle.

That's it. I'm, like, totally starting a sock puppet account. Anyways, if my interest was in 'debunking' evolution, I would have put more effort into my arguments and not have ignored those who requested even more specific examples. The point of this thread was not to debunk evolution or prove creationism. It was to point out the fact the 'science' isn't as solid as many claim. If you want to get an even hand at how other evidence (proven by secular science nonetheless) conflicts and negates certain aspects of evolution, I will leave the research up to the individual.

As usual, the intent of a 'provocative thread' is lost on the pseudo intellectuals who would rather swallow the status quo before even considering some of the science is perhaps flawed.

Ok, before I hit the sack, I'll leave this for Ash to digest and, hopefully, respond to.

Some guy brings a new group of fossils to a lab. He found them on his farm. A scientist goes there and find where he extracted them. There is evidence of a few more related fossils.

They appear to be a completely undiscovered species of elephant (don't ask me why, heh). Dating puts them between two previously discovered species.

What should she do with them?

The scientist wants to write a paper about the discovery. Should she? What happens now?

Say she writes them up. Other scientists disagree and point out some issues with the finds. She tries her best to show other scientists why she think they are a good find, others ignore her. 5 years later, after much more detailed study, irrefutable evidence that they are a hoax is produced.

The damned farmer and a few of his buddies faked a few bones, but they were good fakes and she was completely taken in by them. She's embarrassed like never before, her career is now essentially crippled.

So, what could have been done better? In this case, for 5 years a paper from one scientist suggested the fossils were legit, others were not so sure, she eventually retracted the article (and left science to take up professional knitting).

So, Ash, help us gullible evolutionists to improve science. Speak manana.

Originally posted by AshleyD
As usual, the intent of a 'provocative thread' is lost on the pseudo intellectuals who would rather swallow the status quo before even considering some of the science is perhaps flawed.

And where have these 'pseudo-intellectuals' suggested that all the science is perfect? You make these claims, ash, but I think you must be reading some other thread on a parallel ATS.

[edit on 2-3-2008 by melatonin]

Originally posted by cruzion
Each one is slightly different from the others. You have 400 children, they are all different. This is the variable. Some of those children are going to have characteristics that will enable them to operate more effectively in their environments.

Because of genetic variable maybe??? They are all different due to genetics. Genetics = evolution = environment

[edit on 2/3/2008 by xion329alpha]

Edited to remove the non cohesive ramblings of a person too tired to engage in any type of real conversation. Also to remove any bad grammar, punctuation, or incomplete thoughts.

[edit on 2-3-2008 by Osiris1953]

I just don't see how someone can understand and agree with micro-evolution, and then deny macro-evolution. Does not make sense. It's like saying you believe in micro-economics, but not macro! The micro is just a process of macro.
I also haven't seen any argument that supports the idea that believing evolution makes you gullible.
Now, if someone told me that it was the flying spaghetti monster that made everything out of pasta and imbued it with life, and I just blindly believed it, then I would be gullible. But there's no scientist saying that to me. All they're saying is "here's this data, and these conclusions".

Originally posted by WraothAscendant
Mel.
Mayhap your the one that needs to come off your high horse?
Considering the fact she has stated that she believes in evolution to a extent and you continue to praddle on like she has not?

Oh, wraoth...when did I say she didn't 'believe' in evolution? She made some criticisms of how the science is undertaken in evolutionary theory. I sort of asked how we might go about it better. Is that an issue? It was an attempt to move the thread forward in another way. She thinks we do stuff wrong, so how does she think we could do better? I don't see any high-horse in sight.

However, now you mention it, Ash actually plays cute on this. She doesn't 'believe' in evolutionary theory, she plays the creationist shell-game:

You can assume correctly because I have openly admitted to believing in micro while not believing in macro. And thanks for the quickie science lesson but some of your explanation is lacking.

Evolutionary theory is common descent by natural selection. If she doesn't accept the validity of 'macroevolution', then I would assume she thinks that 'kinds' (or whatever) were created de novo.

That's not evolution. That's creationism.

So, now I have said it. But we're not going there are we? This is a 'provocative' thread about the gullible scientists.

[edit on 2-3-2008 by melatonin]