New whale fossil represents intermediate stage between foot-powered and tail-powered swimming

a reply to: Raggedyman

You are the epitome of religious brainwashing.

So absolutely deluded by a demonstrable fabrication that you are now incapable of the flexibility of thought to accept any idea that does not align with your embedded world view. You are now in a place of cognitive dissonance that does not allow for an objective evaluation of evidence, and as such dismisses from a standpoint of unassailable righteousness any answer that doesn't align with your confirmation bias.

You are literally like talking to a broken record now... the break being your religiously founded bias's.

The whole construct that allows this type of irreversible life-long thought-captivity is an evil that will be abhorred by future generations.

You are the religious typology that I truly feel sorry for.

a reply to: puzzlesphere

Think the same of your kind
Isn’t that interesting

Why not get some science to back up your faith and end mine

Pearls before swine.

And yes I do appreciate the irony.

originally posted by: Puppylove
a reply to: peter vlar

It's all they have. Just walk away.

I have been on many of these threads and I can honestly tell you that Most of the vilest things ever directed towards me,on ATS, have been from "Evolutionist". I love the political threads as well and even they don't get as bad sometimes.

originally posted by: strongfp
a reply to: Quadrivium

This is the problem a lot of people have when it comes to evolution.

For one, it's a very complex and broad subject that spans from basically physics all the way to our complex brains. To understand it fully it takes quite at bit of dedication and understanding of several fields of science, the best way to start is physical traits and similarities, this is why I kept bringing up taxonomy.

Second the language you use to describe how people view science with 'faith', is all based on the context, if I am part of a team of people playing hockey, I have faith in my teammates that they will fulfill their dedication to play at their highest peak of physical fitness to win the game. In the context of science I will have faith that my hypothesis will be correct and the experiments will go according to plan. If they don't I don't loose my faith in science, it actually stregnthens it even more that perhaps the mistakes made I learned from and I build upon them, the faith I am putting in is in ME and other people who contributed to such scientific finds.

You are giving it a religious context, and that's it. It's not the same.

But lets go back a bit and see why evolution still stands the tests of time, to even back when Darwins natural selection was first presented.

www.nationalgeographic.com... is a good article that built off the principles of evolution and added more data and niche finds within the evolutionary theory.

A few quotes from the article:

Question:

A 2009 headline in the British magazine New Scientist said “Darwin was wrong” and was immediately seized upon by creationists. Explain the issues and how the latest science is rewriting the idea of natural selection.

Answer:

It’s not rewriting the idea of natural selection. Rather, it’s rewriting our understanding of evolution, of which natural selection is still a very important part. There are two phases in classic Darwinian evolution. First, there is the arising of variations from one creature to another or one individual population to another. That was thought to occur incrementally, in very slow stages, by mutations in the genome. Once there are variations among individuals, natural selection, the survival of the fittest, acts upon those variations.

What is new, and caused New Scientist to run that over-stated and provocative headline, “Darwin Was Wrong,” is that we now understand there is another, hugely significant form of variation. It’s not just incremental mutation, but horizontal gene transfer, bringing entirely new packages of DNA into genomes.

One of the axioms in Darwin’s day, natura non facit saltus, which your good Latin training [laughs] will tell you means nature does not make leaps; things happen incrementally. But horizontal gene transfer has revealed that nature does sometimes make leaps, whereby huge lumps of DNA can appear in an individual or population quite suddenly and then natural selection acts on them. That can be a very important mechanism in the evolution of new species.

Another interesting quote:

We now understand that we humans, along with most other creatures, are composites of other creatures. Not just the microbiome living in our bellies and intestines, but creatures that have over time become inserted in our very cells. Every cell in the human body contains, for instance, little mechanisms that help package energy. Those are called mitochondria. We now realize that those mitochondria are the descendants of captured bacteria that were either swallowed by, or infected, the cells that became complex cells of all animals and plants. Likewise, 8 percent of the human genome, we now know, is viral DNA, which has come into our lineage by infection over the last 100 million years or so. Some of that viral DNA is still functioning as genes that are important for human life and reproduction.

You can see even when evolution seems to be at the end of it's road, it just becomes stronger and stronger.

Is that because of religious faith or what?

Strong, I see what you are saying but it does not change the fact that some see Evolution as a religion.
People will not admit there are REAL problems with the Theory.
It has become a world view to them and many treat it just as "Evolutionist" claim others treat religion, yourself included from what I have seen.
I never said "Evolution is wrong" I just have a differing opinion about where the evidence leads.

originally posted by: puzzlesphere
a reply to: Raggedyman

You are the epitome of religious brainwashing.

So absolutely deluded by a demonstrable fabrication that you are now incapable of the flexibility of thought to accept any idea that does not align with your embedded world view. You are now in a place of cognitive dissonance that does not allow for an objective evaluation of evidence, and as such dismisses from a standpoint of unassailable righteousness any answer that doesn't align with your confirmation bias.

You are literally like talking to a broken record now... the break being your religiously founded bias's.

The whole construct that allows this type of irreversible life-long thought-captivity is an evil that will be abhorred by future generations.

You are the religious typology that I truly feel sorry for.

Why do you care to prove to others that we are descendants of mutant apes spawned from random pond goo?

a reply to: cooperton

Where did I try to prove anything?

You're the one taking offense at the fact we may have come from pond scum at some distant point in the past.

Sad that you can't accept or entertain any other possibility than the one embedded in your brain through decades of external and internal mental abuse.

originally posted by: strongfp
a reply to: Quadrivium
What dogma? Science? Are you seriously suggesting science is wrong?

Are you seriously suggesting science couldn't be or has never been wrong?

originally posted by: puzzlesphere
You're the one taking offense at the fact we may have come from pond scum at some distant point in the past.

It would be a tragic fate. If evolution is true and all life is random and meaningless, then we were born to die... and we inevitably return back to eternal non-existence forever. Have you really thought about what it would be like to never exist again? Eternal void and emptiness. Lights out permanently. Great bed-time story to tell the kids.

originally posted by: cooperton

originally posted by: puzzlesphere
You're the one taking offense at the fact we may have come from pond scum at some distant point in the past.

It would be a tragic fate. If evolution is true and all life is random and meaningless, then we were born to die... and we inevitably return back to eternal non-existence forever. Have you really thought about what it would be like to never exist again? Eternal void and emptiness. Lights out permanently. Great bed-time story to tell the kids.

Incentive to not waste our time.

You are very pessimistic for someone who has staked their soul on a promise from an alien ghost who claims to be a god.

a reply to: cooperton

If evolution is true, why does it mean theres no spiritual existence?

a reply to: cooperton

Far more comforting than the idea of being the plaything of a being that could create the horror that is the natural order. Nature is beautiful only because it is many beings overcoming the horror and making something beautiful despite it.

Any being that would create the natural order when looked at without rose colored glasses would be terrifying. I don't believe in a God for two reasons. The evidence does not support it being the main reason, the second being that, if it does exist, it means it created the reality we all live in today, if ever there was something to pray for, it would be the void of nothing over being that monstrosities play thing.

originally posted by: TzarChasm

Incentive to not waste our time.

It doesn't matter though if evolution and atheism are true - because regardless of what you do you return back to nothingness with no trace or memory, and so will every other human on earth. All of your loved ones and their children. Even worse, you are spreading such a nihilist nightmare as if it is fact. Just stop. You don't realize how devastatingly toxic your philosophy is to the hope of humankind.

originally posted by: Akragon
a reply to: cooperton

If evolution is true, why does it mean theres no spiritual existence?

If there is a greater intelligence that is responsible for creation then we would see an ordered universe behaving according to meticulous physical laws. This is exactly what we observe. A universe created by something intelligent.

But if we go with the evolution fairy tale, and all biological life was created by random mutation, then that insists that there is no higher intelligence. If there is no higher intelligence that created us, and evolution is true, then we are an accident of randomness that will return to eternal nothingness, never to have another conscious thought again. This is a tragic story to teach children... Especially since intelligent design is the far likelier explanation given the order we observe all around us.

originally posted by: Puppylove
a reply to: cooperton

Far more comforting than the idea of being the plaything of a being that could create the horror that is the natural order. Nature is beautiful only because it is many beings overcoming the horror and making something beautiful despite it.

The evidence does not support it being the main reason, the second being that, if it does exist, it means it created the reality we all live in today, if ever there was something to pray for, it would be the void of nothing over being that monstrosities play thing.

Cultures explain that earth was once a paradise without death. Death came into the world from human negligence towards the divine order. You blame God for what people did. It was people that perverted the natural order, which resulted in all sorts of miseries and pains.

a reply to: cooperton

It doesn't matter though if evolution and atheism are true - because regardless of what you do you return back to nothingness with no trace or memory, and so will every other human on earth. All of your loved ones and their children. Even worse, you are spreading such a nihilist nightmare as if it is fact. Just stop. You don't realize how devastatingly toxic your philosophy is to the hope of humankind.

If the past is any indication, trillions of lives doesn't make much difference in the grand scheme. They all lived beautiful, tragic, even majestic stories and some of that was recorded. But behind all of history is 1% of the human race that has existed so far and that is just recorded history. The other 99% is unheard of even as their ripples join the ocean of cause and effect. Some fish are famous, the rest are food. But just because you are food doesn't mean you are a bland tasteless dish if you catch my meaning.

a reply to: cooperton

If there is a greater intelligence that is responsible for creation then we would see an ordered universe behaving according to meticulous physical laws. This is exactly what we observe. A universe created by something intelligent.

But if we go with the evolution fairy tale, and all biological life was created by random mutation, then that insists that there is no higher intelligence. If there is no higher intelligence that created us, and evolution is true, then we are an accident of randomness that will return to eternal nothingness, never to have another conscious thought again. This is a tragic story to teach children... Especially since intelligent design is the far likelier explanation given the order we observe all around us.

We don't see an ordered universe, its a chaotic one... including what happens on this planet...

this still does not mean that evolution precludes the spirit or soul... we evolved to what we are... evidence shows that "God" came into the picture a few thousand years ago... which also doesn't mean that God didn't exist before hand either... with countless possibilities of planetary life.

Theres literally nothing that shows we just popped into existence as the bible proclaims... perhaps said spirit enters with increased intelligence and self awareness...

a reply to: Akragon
And here lies the crux of the argument.
There is no direct evidence that everything evolved from a far distant relative either. We can speculate, we can assume but there is no was of knowing, as of yet.

a reply to: Quadrivium

except there is... see we dig down a little and we find human remains all over the earth... dig a little more and we no longer find the same kind of remains... similar but not quite the same...

what else do you suggest when we can find a point where homo sapiens did not exist in the strata?

a reply to: Akragon
That they were not there.

originally posted by: Quadrivium
Excuses?
For what?
I saw proof it is the ancestor of any whales living today. Just an assumption and speculation or at best a Hypothesis.
Nothing to Deny,

Baaaahahaahahahahahahahahaaa!!!

Thanks for making my day I got to read some of the funniest ignorance I've read to date from you guys in this thread. Cultists through and through. LOL @ hypothesis. Stop lying, bro.

originally posted by: Barcs

Baaaahahaahahahahahahahahaaa!!!

Thanks for making my day I got to read some of the funniest ignorance I've read to date from you guys in this thread. Cultists through and through. LOL @ hypothesis. Stop lying, bro.

Settle down. The whale fossil that you are using as demonstration barely had any cranial remains. It's a pathetic grasping at straws to support a theory that has no actual evidence.