What is evolution, not what some think

originally posted by: tsingtao
a reply to: borntowatch

[LEFT OUT A QUOTE]

so did space expand faster than light?
how much faster?

does anyone know how or why it did that?

is it still expanding?

The expansion of space after the big bang, also called inflation, occured at a speed of approximately thirty million billion times the speed of light in a vacuum. Keep in mind that we're talking about the expansion of spacetime, and not matter. As an analogy, think about blowing up a balloon with dots on its outside representing matter. It is due to this that we think a technology like the warp drive may be possible.

Nobody knows why it did that, even though there are numerous hypotheses. For example, some think that we live in a multiverse and a new universe is created (pun not intended) when two universes collide. There are many variations to the multiverse hypothesis. No credible scientist will claim to know the answer to that question without providing some serious evidence. However, if I may add: I like the multiverse theory.

The expansion slowed down dramatically, but is still continuing. We can measure that due to (but not only) a phenomenon called stellar drift. Basically, everything is moving away from each other. This occurs due to of a lack of an absolute referance frame in special relativity.

I hope that I helped and provided accurate information. If not, please PM me or reply directly so that I may alter this post.

a reply to: ReturnofTheSonOfNothing
I starred your post because you are right . . . however, as Frog pointed out that simply doesn't fly in the U.S.

I've personally sat in school board meetings on curriculum in AZ and TX where members were trying to change textbooks to include religious dogma and have misleading (or just plain false) info included. In fact, groups like the Discovery Institute actually seek out and fund candidates for local school boards, in order to push psuedo-science and religion into the education system.

The Discovery Institute's year "promotion" budget is in the millions. The National Center for Science Education's budget for promotion of science is around $500k. Also, the D.I. only focuses this large amount of money on trying to demote Evolutionary Theory and promote Intelligent Design (creationism), whereas the NCSE is a non-profit made up of ex-educators (science teachers) who promote all fields of science and the quality of the educational system at the elementary and secondary levels. So, they can actually only spend a small amount of that budget defending legitmate science from groups like Discovery Institute. Speaking of profits . . . in addition to the amount they spend the D.I. also brought in an additional $4.9mil in revenue according to 2012 tax records. A little blurb about their expenditures . . .

However, line 4a says they spent $3,218,867 (it was $2.995 million the year before) on what they call “Production of public service reports, legislative testimony, articles, public conferences and debates, plus media coverage and the Institute’s own publications in the field of science and culture.” That’s more than three million bucks on what we interpret as blogging, lobbying, holding revivals at various churches, public relations, and publishing their own “peer-reviewed” material.

Oh yeah, they also started their own journals, with a review board made up of I.D. promoters, to publish articles on psuedo-science and claim they have "peer-reviewed" evidence for their claims!

The problem we've seen in the U.S. over the last couple decades is a direct result of the scientific community and those that are literate in science have "ignored" these people.

It's currently estimated (based on polling and such) that about 50% of Americans "don't believe in evolution". The internet has done wonders for the fundamentalists who "teach" through deception.

originally posted by: ReturnofTheSonOfNothing
a reply to: GetHyped

WTH has this BS gone on for 16 pages? The OP was never interested in honest answers or debate.

Why even bother with these people? They have their minds made up, and nothing will change that save perhaps their own personal journey of discovery. That's just an unfortunate fact of human existence - you can't change minds, people need to change their own mind through their own discovery.

This debate was settled a long, long time ago, at least as far as the the scientific community is concerned. That does not concern the OP - they will just continue to put their fingers in their ears and shout "I can't hear you!"

They only have a problem with evolution (and with some of them, climate science). They don't put all of science up to the same standard, they just pick on the parts they do not like and which do not conform to their worldview.

Let the baby have their bottle. The OP wants to believe in fairy stories, let them.

OTH - there are people reading this who may be on the fence, and in this regard many of the answers here have been very relevant. To those people I implore you to honestly seek out the evidence with a truly open mind. Don't listen to the creationist propaganda, do your own research independently, the truth of it is there for you to find out, but only if you have the courage to confront your own preconceptions.

The truth really is out there, but you are going to need true courage and intellectual honesty to find it.

I was not interested in debate
I gave a reason why I didnt agree with evolution, any type of evolution

Maybe get some definitive answers, obviously not.

I wanted to see if the evolutionists could just accept I had valid reasons not to believe.

Evidently not.

I have my bottle and will drink my full, if those answers are your best

originally posted by: solomons path
a reply to: ReturnofTheSonOfNothing
I starred your post because you are right . . . however, as Frog pointed out that simply doesn't fly in the U.S.

I've personally sat in school board meetings on curriculum in AZ and TX where members were trying to change textbooks to include religious dogma and have misleading (or just plain false) info included. In fact, groups like the Discovery Institute actually seek out and fund candidates for local school boards, in order to push psuedo-science and religion into the education system.

The Discovery Institute's year "promotion" budget is in the millions. The National Center for Science Education's budget for promotion of science is around $500k. Also, the D.I. only focuses this large amount of money on trying to demote Evolutionary Theory and promote Intelligent Design (creationism), whereas the NCSE is a non-profit made up of ex-educators (science teachers) who promote all fields of science and the quality of the educational system at the elementary and secondary levels. So, they can actually only spend a small amount of that budget defending legitmate science from groups like Discovery Institute. Speaking of profits . . . in addition to the amount they spend the D.I. also brought in an additional $4.9mil in revenue according to 2012 tax records. A little blurb about their expenditures . . .

However, line 4a says they spent $3,218,867 (it was $2.995 million the year before) on what they call “Production of public service reports, legislative testimony, articles, public conferences and debates, plus media coverage and the Institute’s own publications in the field of science and culture.” That’s more than three million bucks on what we interpret as blogging, lobbying, holding revivals at various churches, public relations, and publishing their own “peer-reviewed” material.

Oh yeah, they also started their own journals, with a review board made up of I.D. promoters, to publish articles on psuedo-science and claim they have "peer-reviewed" evidence for their claims!

The problem we've seen in the U.S. over the last couple decades is a direct result of the scientific community and those that are literate in science have "ignored" these people.

It's currently estimated (based on polling and such) that about 50% of Americans "don't believe in evolution". The internet has done wonders for the fundamentalists who "teach" through deception.

A great many of the troubles plaguing this world are a direct result of the wise being timid while the fools are bold.

originally posted by: chr0naut
Some people make the choice to refuse immunization (which I personally believe is irresponsible to the community).

Many of the people who make this choice may, for instance, believe that immunization contributes to, or causes autism (I have yet to see a study rigorous enough to clearly indicate that such is the case).

This topic thread is now quite large and it is easy to loose track of each point and who said it. As you have not quoted what Borntowatch has said, or provided any indication of what you were implying by your comment, I might easily assume that it is a personal attack, which would make it off topic (amongst other things).

Please clarify your post if it was on-topic.

I haven't been vaccinated since I was a kid. I was asking him about vaccines, because they are a direct product of evolution. So if he's been vaccinated in his lifetime, the scientific study of evolution has benefited him directly. Viruses and bacteria evolve, and vaccines and antibiotics have to be updated to stay ahead on par with many diseases and infections.

'Biological Evolutionary Theory, as it is currently defined, is insufficient to account for biodiversity and change rates that are observed; and that, therefore, factors outside that theory must be invoked'?

Where do you see evidence that it is insufficient?

www.pnas.org...

I posted this before in another thread, but according to the study, there is plenty of time to account for evolution and the diversity of life on earth right now.

Creationism is a possible method of abiogenesis. Evolution is a possible method of bio-diversification.

Evolution is the ONLY method of bio-diversification that has objective evidence behind it.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t

originally posted by: Agree2Disagree

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: Prezbo369

The simplest refutation of the "defies the 2nd law of thermodynamics" dispute is to just say that Earth isn't a closed system. It receives much of its energy from the sun. The 2nd law applies to closed systems where no new energy is being supplied to the system.

But the universe....now what kind of system is the universe? (this could get tricky!)

A2D

The universe's system is undefined.

Awww....you don't want to play with me?

It'd be fun to speculate...but you shut me down...thank you fun killer!

A2D

originally posted by: Barcs

originally posted by: chr0naut

Where do you see evidence that it is insufficient?

www.pnas.org...

That paper was rebutted as summarised below:

Wilf and Ewens argue in a recent paper that there is plenty of time for evolution to occur. They base this claim on a mathematical model in which beneficial mutations accumulate simultaneously and independently, thus allowing changes that require a large number of mutations to evolve over comparatively short time periods. Because changes evolve independently and in parallel rather than sequentially, their model scales logarithmically rather than exponentially. This approach does not accurately reflect biological evolution, however, for two main reasons. First, within their model are implicit information sources, including the equivalent of a highly informed oracle that prophesies when a mutation is "correct," thus accelerating the search by the evolutionary process. Natural selection, in contrast, does not have access to information about future benefits of a particular mutation, or where in the global fitness landscape a particular mutation is relative to a particular target. It can only assess mutations based on their current effect on fitness in the local fitness landscape. Thus the presence of this oracle makes their model radically different from a real biological search through fitness space. Wilf and Ewens also make unrealistic biological assumptions that, in effect, simplify the search. They assume no epistasis between beneficial mutations, no linkage between loci, and an unrealistic population size and base mutation rate, thus increasing the pool of beneficial mutations to be searched. They neglect the effects of genetic drift on the probability of fixation and the negative effects of simultaneously accumulating deleterious mutations. Finally, in their model they represent each genetic locus as a single letter. By doing so, they ignore the enormous sequence complexity of actual genetic loci (typically hundreds or thousands of nucleotides long), and vastly oversimplify the search for functional variants. In similar fashion, they assume that each evolutionary "advance" requires a change to just one locus, despite the clear evidence that most biological functions are the product of multiple gene products working together. Ignoring these biological realities infuses considerable active information into their model and eases the model's evolutionary process.

(Winston Ewert, William A. Dembski, Ann K. Gauger, Robert J. Marks II, "Time and Information in Evolution," BIO-Complexity, Volume 2012 (4).)

Now back to you -

Evolution is the ONLY method of bio-diversification that has objective evidence behind it.

All scientific theories relating to biodiversity have objective evidence behind them. If they don't have objective evidence, they are scientific hypotheses.

Several posts back I offered a list of theories and hypotheses that affect biodiversity. I assure you Evolutionary Theory does not stand alone.

a reply to: SuperFrog
a reply to: solomons path

Yeah I know, you guys are right and I do agree with you. It's just sometimes I think we give them too much oxygen, especially when all they want to do is go "la la la" & troll bait their own threads.

I absolutely agree with the fight to keep creationism out of science class - but that fight will happen out there in the real world, in the courts and in the school admin board meetings etc.

As far as BBS like ATS goes, most of these people will never change their minds so the utter futility of it seems hopeless - except for those few people who still have an open mind to the topic, and I guess for me they are the only glimmer of light in an otherwise dismal dark hole of willful ignorance.

originally posted by: ReturnofTheSonOfNothing
I absolutely agree with the fight to keep creationism out of science class - but that fight will happen out there in the real world,

Trouble is, the 'fight' only happens in two places - USA and S.Korea (well, maybe AU). South Korea now teach creationism in schools, which will destroy them eventually. It's also possible it will happen in the US... to every US citizen's peril. I sincerely hope it doesn't happen.

As to the fight continuing in the 'real world', that stopped 150 odd years ago. The 'real world' has made up it's mind to support truth over ignorance. Irrespective of the 'hurt' to the backward lot amongst us.

originally posted by: chr0naut
That paper was rebutted as summarised below:

Lol nice try!

This is the mission statement of the "journal" that "rebuttal" was published in:

BIO-Complexity is a peer-reviewed scientific journal with a unique goal. It aims to be the leading forum for testing the scientific merit of the claim that intelligent design (ID) is a credible explanation for life. Because questions having to do with the role and origin of information in living systems are at the heart of the scientific controversy over ID, these topics—viewed from all angles and perspectives—are central to the journal's scope.

To achieve its aim, BIO-Complexity is founded on the principle of critical exchange that makes science work. Specifically, the journal enlists editors and reviewers with scientific expertise in relevant fields who hold a wide range of views on the merit of ID, but who agree on the importance of science for resolving controversies of this kind. Our editors use expert peer review, guided by their own judgement, to decide whether submitted work merits consideration and critique. BIO-Complexity aims not merely to publish work that meets this standard, but also to provide expert critical commentary on it.

Riiiiight.


Edit: More to the point, why are you citing creationist resources? What's your true agenda here?

a reply to: wyrmboy12

I have heard people explain how evolution contradicts the 2nd law of thermodynamics but i confess I'm not smart enoug hto understand how exactly. My understanding is that physcial things cannot and will not get better over time as evolution suggests, everything physcial declines overtime is what I think they are trying to say via entropy. I've tried and still don't quite understand that part but im sure someone here could explain it.

The 4 "Laws" of Thermodynamics (as described in Wikipedia):

Zeroth law of thermodynamics: If two systems are in thermal equilibrium with a third system, they must be in thermal equilibrium with each other. This law helps define the notion of temperature.

First law of thermodynamics: Heat is a form of energy. Because energy is conserved, the internal energy of a system changes as heat flows in or out of it. Equivalently, perpetual motion machines of the first kind are impossible.

Second law of thermodynamics: The entropy of any isolated system almost never decreases. Such systems spontaneously evolve towards thermodynamic equilibrium — the state of maximum entropy of the system. Equivalently, perpetual motion machines of the second kind are impossible.

Third law of thermodynamics: The entropy of a system approaches a constant value as the temperature approaches absolute zero.[2] With the exception of glasses the entropy of a system at absolute zero is typically close to zero, and is equal to the log of the multiplicity of the quantum ground state.

The first law explains Global Warming. Heat is energy; as the Earth retains more of the Sun's energy due to 'greenhouse' gases dumped into the atmosphere by human activity, it warms up. That simple.

The second law describes what happens to an isolated (closed) system over time.

In thermodynamics, entropy (usual symbol S) is a measure of the number of specific ways in which a thermodynamic system may be arranged, commonly understood as a measure of disorder.

More simply,

In a physical system, entropy provides a measure of the amount of thermal energy that cannot be used to do work.

The important word here is isolated system. 'Isolated' means that it is 'closed to input'; it does NOT gain energy from outside sources. An open system gains energy from an outside source.

The problem with the idea of evolution 'violating the second law of thermodynamics' is that it considers the earth as a closed system. The earth is NOT a closed system. The earth is bombarded 24 hours by solar energy; that energy that powers all life. Solar energy REDUCES entropy.

There is another form of entropy that is sometimes discussed as being antithetical to evolution - entropy in Information Theory. In this argument it is said, that random mutation and natural selection (the engine of evolution) can never "add information", only take it away, and that for a single cell animal to evolve to dog, there must be an awful lot of information added.

The problem with that line of reasoning is again that that view of entropy involves closed systems. Wikipedia explains Information Theory entropy thusly:

Entropy is a measure of unpredictability of information content. To get an informal, intuitive understanding of the connection between these three English terms, consider the example of a poll on some political issue. Usually, such polls happen because the outcome of the poll isn't already known. In other words, the outcome of the poll is relatively unpredictable, and actually performing the poll and learning the results gives some new information; these are just different ways of saying that the entropy of the poll results is large. Now, consider the case that the same poll is performed a second time shortly after the first poll. Since the result of the first poll is already known, the outcome of the second poll can be predicted well and the results should not contain much new information; in this case the entropy of the second poll results is small.

Do you see the closed system there? No new information was added between the two polls and the polls came out almost the same. However, what if you introduced new information between the two polls (lets say it becomes known that the new simplified school curriculum dictates that pi=3.00000 exactly). It is much more likely that the poll will come out differently, we will get more information from the poll. The existence of the new information ensures that this is no longer a closed system.

Some would say that random mutations don't 'add new information'. Any given organism has only so many DNA strands of any particular size. But what if a cosmic ray his a piece of DNA in a spot that can binds with 2 different proteins to do some job or the other and now it can bind with 3 different proteins? Same DNA 'size' but it can carry much more information. What if the cosmic ray hits at just the right time and place to cause two strands to join end to end? All of a sudden some primitive primate has an evolutionary 'fork in the road' - one fork leads to Chimpanzee, and the other fork, the one with the fused DNA strand, leads to Homo Sapiens.

Entropy, whether thermodynamic or informational, is not the enemy of evolution because evolution is not functioning in a closed system whether thermodynamic or informational. Simple as that.

This is not a case of "well, that's just your opinion, man" (apologies to "The Dude"). This is an absolute deal breaker for communication between "those who believe that entropy rules out evolution" and "the entire rest of the planet". No one who honestly believes that line has even an inkling of the meaning of what entropy means. They have either picked up the idea from someone else who doesn't understand it, or from someone who does understand it and believes that he/she can trick more people by lying about it.

a reply to: GetHyped

Very nice catch, GetHyped - that is exactly the kind of devious, morally ambiguous, intellectually dishonest rat-bastard bumfuggery that solomon was talking about just above that post.

originally posted by: wyrmboy12


The fossil record - Where's the transitionary species? I don't mean the start and then the finsihed new species, I mean where is the dinosaur thats starting to grow feathers ? Where is the mouse that is starting to protrude wings? Why do humans have " vestigal " organs if we " evolved" Something like that. From what I can tell from limited research, there aren't any which deals a big blow there, but also not saying there aren't any

There are a lot just not what you envision. I suggest if your are truly interested then do real research on it. Take us, in a million years we will be a different spices, one that can not breed with todays humans. So where will that fossil be that shows 1/2 us and 1/2 future us, the answer is that there will be none. Small changes over millions of years will not provide that transitory species you want to see.

Why do humans squint in the sunlight when the neanderthal had the rigid browline and sturdier bones and other physical adaptations that made them physically superior to us living here on THIS earth? Yes i understand the word is we " evolved " alongside them and had better brains which is why we " won " out as it were. Basically we are unfit to live on this planet is the sum of that part.( Lloyd Pye had some interesting observations if you care to pay attention )

Neanderthals were most likely superior to us. They had a good 300 thousand year head start on us, and it wasn't until resent times 30k years ago that "we lived together". If it wasn't for the ice age they would most likely be still here, and maybe we would be the sub group. The ice age extinct them and almost extinct us. The only difference was we were more primitive hunter gathers and followed the herds south, and they did not....


What part of unfit to live on this planet are you talking about? Seems our eyes work just fine, I'm not squinting all day long, are you? We also share DNA with all life, even grass, this tells us at some point there was a starting connection. Life closer to us on the evolutionary track also have more like DNA, that makes sense, doesn't it?

Look deeper... If we didn't evolve on this planet then the oxygen levels we need would be different. All the minerals we need to survive are because that is what earth has provided during our evolution. Why do we need a lot of iron, what if we came from an iron deficient world? Maybe we would need lead instead and iron would be poison. All the nutrients we need are all very earth centric, our diets are very earth centric and even small changes is not good for us as we see in our own manipulation of our food sources. This is millions of years of evolution staring you right in your face.

Why for the last 100+ years have scientists not been able to make Methusulah flies, bacteria, worms, and other organisms spawn new species to overcome the dozens of challenges they have imposed on them? We're talking 1000's of generations of incredibly short lived organisms. Surely 1000's of generations of organisms exposed to some environmental hardship would start to show

Well they have....BTW why is it that when you breed a horse with a donkey you get a sterile mule? The answer is they are on the very edge of different species.

I have heard people explain how evolution contradicts the 2nd law of thermodynamics but i confess I'm not smart enoug hto understand how exactly. My understanding is that physcial things cannot and will not get better over time as evolution suggests, everything physcial declines overtime is what I think they are trying to say via entropy. I've tried and still don't quite understand that part but im sure someone here could explain it.

They are either confused or they conveniently arrange it to fit their beliefs. They assume earth is a closed system, which in a closed system you have a set amount of starting energy, and as the energy branches off into a disorder state, entropy, it can only be less with each branch. If this was the case then evolution would contradict it since more energy than what you started with is needed for evolution to work. The problem is that earth is not a closed system, all the radiation from the sun adds extra energy to your initial starting energy and so it is an open system, and evolution works just fine.

I see all kinds of evidence of God around but no evidence of evolution. I don't feel dumb for feeling I'm a created being. Evolution is still a theory, I think after almost 200 years thats all its going to be. Charles Darwin was a Eugenicist, so was his brother, Aldous Huxley and their whole gang. He was also not a scientist so I am mostly confused as to why anyone would take advice about their car from someone who knows nothing of a car ( bad comparison I know )

Can you name one God evidence? And please do not say the banana....

The problem with the God evidence is that we always look at the finish product then follow it on a single path backwards and say there must be intelligent design to do that. But the reality is that evolution started and had millions of paths going forward with most ending as bad evolutionary traits. When you have million of paths to constantly choose from they all end up into a single path looking backwards, but we still have a million paths ahead of us as we continue to evolve, but in a million years we will once again look back and see only a single path.

a reply to: chr0naut

Please give the link to the so called "rebuttal". I guarantee it's not a science site and can pretty much guess which anti evolution site it's from. You do realize that the paper was peer reviewed, right?

All scientific theories relating to biodiversity have objective evidence behind them. If they don't have objective evidence, they are scientific hypotheses.

No kidding. Evolution is a theory. There aren't any other scientific theories of biodiversity!

Several posts back I offered a list of theories and hypotheses that affect biodiversity. I assure you Evolutionary Theory does not stand alone.

Can you post the theories for me? I'd like to see a scientific theory with objective evidence behind it that suggests anything other than evolution to account for biodiversity. Don't get me wrong, one day we could discover other mechanisms to account for bio diversity, but when we do, it won't negate evolution, it will just add to the theory.

originally posted by: Barcs
a reply to: chr0naut

Please give the link to the so called "rebuttal". I guarantee it's not a science site and can pretty much guess which anti evolution site it's from. You do realize that the paper was peer reviewed, right?

Here: bio-complexity.org...

The journal in question is a creationist (sorry, "intelligent design") ahem "journal". Oh, it's been peer-reviewed alright... by creationists

Cargo cult science at its best.

a reply to: Barcs

In addition, scientists open to debating the question of design in biology have established the open-access peer-reviewed biology journal BIO-Complexity, which publishes original research related to the origin and development of biological information.

BIO-complexity is one of the Discovery Institute's inventions to fool people into thinking that ID has any scientific support. The above quote is from the DI's website . . . discovery.org.

It is open-access (which means NO peer review) and is nothing more that articles trying to say why "evolution can't be true". No actual research is published in this journal, outside of assertion and incredulity.

originally posted by: Barcs
a reply to: chr0naut

Please give the link to the so called "rebuttal". I guarantee it's not a science site and can pretty much guess which anti evolution site it's from. You do realize that the paper was peer reviewed, right?

All scientific theories relating to biodiversity have objective evidence behind them. If they don't have objective evidence, they are scientific hypotheses.

No kidding. Evolution is a theory. There aren't any other scientific theories of biodiversity!

Several posts back I offered a list of theories and hypotheses that affect biodiversity. I assure you Evolutionary Theory does not stand alone.

Can you post the theories for me? I'd like to see a scientific theory with objective evidence behind it that suggests anything other than evolution to account for biodiversity. Don't get me wrong, one day we could discover other mechanisms to account for bio diversity, but when we do, it won't negate evolution, it will just add to the theory.

Unified neutral theory of biodiversity - Wikipedia

Neutral Theory of Species Diversity - Nature

The multitude of biodiversity: methods, theories and applications - Oxford Journals

The Wikipedia article on Biodiversity (not quoted) includes a section on Evolution but there are other noted factors (and related theories).

I think you are defining Evolutionary Biology very loosely.

originally posted by: GetHyped

originally posted by: Barcs
a reply to: chr0naut

Please give the link to the so called "rebuttal". I guarantee it's not a science site and can pretty much guess which anti evolution site it's from. You do realize that the paper was peer reviewed, right?

Here: bio-complexity.org...

The journal in question is a creationist (sorry, "intelligent design") ahem "journal". Oh, it's been peer-reviewed alright... by creationists

Cargo cult science at its best.

I originally missed that the rebuttal was from an ID promoting source. Probably because I referenced the initial details from here which I also did not initially identify as an ID promoting source.

However, if the rebuttal had come from a particularly intelligent shade of the color blue*, but its content appeared valid, I would give it some consideration.

That being said, I am human and may not understand every nuance or inference, so peer review is a valuable tool in evaluating a theory. I was unaware that this paper was not peer reviewed (in fact, aside from your assertion that it is not peer reviewed, I have been unable to find support for that view and every reference has explicitly said that the paper was peer reviewed), thank you for enlightening me, anyway.

I shall do further exploration into the credentials of the authors and will also look for refutations of the rebuttal paper.

originally posted by: GetHyped

originally posted by: chr0naut
That paper was rebutted as summarised below:

... (snip for brevity) ...

More to the point, why are you citing creationist resources? What's your true agenda here?

In the first case, the sources I quoted, quite clearly, are in favor of Intelligent Design. Why are you re-defining them as Creationist?

Secondly, my agenda in this topic thread is conveyed openly in what I have posted. If you are you trying to deflect argument by implying that I am actually obfuscating what I want to say, you have to realize that other readers will see through it pretty quickly.

(Could you have an unspoken agenda in this thread that is a reaction against the Christian faith, rather than a discussion of science? - I know, unfair, but if it's good enough for you to do it, shouldn't I be able to play by the same rules)?

originally posted by: GetHyped

originally posted by: Barcs
a reply to: chr0naut

Please give the link to the so called "rebuttal". I guarantee it's not a science site and can pretty much guess which anti evolution site it's from. You do realize that the paper was peer reviewed, right?

Here: bio-complexity.org...

The journal in question is a creationist (sorry, "intelligent design") ahem "journal". Oh, it's been peer-reviewed alright... by creationists

Cargo cult science at its best.

Ahh so peer reviews can only be done by sources that support evolution

Now I can see why we dont deny ignorance.

I get it all evolutionist anti evolution papers must be peer reviewed by evolutionists.
I thought the idea was to challenge peoples opinions of science to find the truth
You just want people to agree with what you think the truth is or argue what you think the truth isnt, and
get your side to review everything.
Science needs to be tested and questioned.
Its a terrible state of affairs when it isnt and turns in to a faith, its supposed to be science, not religion.