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Comments · 17

  1. Re:No. by Zeek40 · · Score: 2 · on Is Science Just a Matter of Faith?
    1. The Big Bang is testable through mathematical models. They may or may not be accurate, but we can extrapolate based upon how the universe currently operates and its laws how it began, and make adjustments to the model to compensate for newly discovered knowledge. This stands in stark contrast to the non-science, faith based "god made it, bible says so."
    2. Wow, evolve a mouse into an elephant. Really? Your understanding of evolutionary theory is so fucking terrible that you think that evolution occurs on individual animals, rather than entire populations over time? Again, that's a sad testament to the terrible quality of your education. I'd suggest reading a bit of this http://www.pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/Encyclopedia/10mut10.htm for examples of how the theory of evolution is tested, and perhaps re-taking high school biology at a decent school.
    3. Recreate the moon? What the fuck? What are you even saying here? Do you dispute the scientific accuracy of the moon's existence?
    4. woah, it gets crazier..., I'll stop answering you point by point.

    That which is not reproducible or testable is not science. Simply because you choose not to (or can't) learn the complex math necessary to validate a theorem, or even accuratley critique it, doesn't mean it's not a testable hypothesis. Simply because you choose not to re-produce an experiment does not mean it's not testable, or not reproducable, it just means that you don't have the means or desire to do so. There is nothing faith based about peer-review or re-creating experiments, I really don't understand how you could develop such a bad understanding of the scientific method to think so.

  2. Re:Where is your proof... by rah1420 · · Score: 1 · on Paranormal Investigations and Belief in Ghosts

    Then what good is the Bible? Is it a history book? A science book? A how-to book? Or merely another work of fiction? This is precisely why strict constructionists (those who believe in the exact wording of the Bible to define their faith) will never get any serious traction. Let's take it a step further: which Bible should you believe? The King James version? The New International version? Douay-Rheims? How about the versions in Greek, or better still, in the original Aramaic?

    My thought regarding the bible -- worth exactly what you pay for it -- is that it IS the inspired word of God, but that God gave that word to relatively uneducated (albeit contemporary) men. They very well may have had a "vision" that told them what to write in Genesis, but to avoid their dying of old age while the vision unreeled, God sped up the film a little. Therefore, there was some 'creative license' taken with the vision, which is why the writer said the world was created in 7 days. It probably wasn't created in 168 solar hours.

    After all, even Bryan himself said during the REAL Scopes trial, "I believe everything in the Bible should be accepted as it is given there; some of the Bible is given illustratively. For instance: 'Ye are the salt of the earth.' I would not insist that man was actually salt, or that he had flesh of salt, but it is used in the sense of salt as saving God's people."

    So back to your original question: the answer is "Yes, the Bible is all of these things, written through the lens of the contemporary writers of the day."
  3. Re:Ah ha! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1 · on Pillars of Creation Destroyed
    You can't argue with science. From 4,000 BC to 2,007 AD is just a little over 6000 years.
    Evolutionary estimates of the age of the earth have constantly changed and lengthened with the passing of time (it currently stands at 5 billion years). But the scientific evidence remains constant and, as new authentic evidence emerges, it only fastens down the dates even more firmly. It all points to a beginning for our planet about 6,000 years ago. Some may see it as 7,000 to 10,000 years, but the evidence points most distinctly toward a date of about 4,000 B.C. for the origin of our planet. The evidence for an early earth is not only solid, it is scientific.
    The Age of the Earth

  4. Re:65 million? by mikael · · Score: 1 · on Study Provides Compelling Evidence of Single Impact Extinction Theory

    But the problem is that some highly respected bible scholar decided to do this study. Because of his seniority and respect in the community (he went to university, they didn't), nobody could really prove otherwise. So this belief becomes common wisdom (and now a website.

  5. Chromosome comparisons by PIPBoy3000 · · Score: 2, Interesting · on The De-Evolution of the Ocean
    There's a fun little site where you can compare chromosome counts. Some highlights:
    Homosapiens - 46
    Duck-Billed Platypus - 70
    Common carp - 99
    Aphid - 5
    Trapdoor spiders - 80
    Amoeba - 30 to 40

    Now, you can't compare "complexity" to chromosome counts, but I'd suggest that there's some rather complex little critters out there.
  6. Re:Theory needs work by susano_otter · · Score: 1 · on Vatican Rejects Intelligent Design?

    The top Google result for 'fruit fly experiments + evolution' seems dedicated to the proposition that not only have these experiments been conducted at great length, but that the experimental results strongly suggest that mutation does not produce new species. However, other Google results (see below) indicate that the fruit fly experiments were not actually experimenting with induced mutations, so this result might completely beside the point.

    The second and third top links seem to be irrelevant to our discussion.

    The fourth Google result indicates that the fruit fly experiments focused on applying Natural Selection to existing mutations.

    The remaining results on the first page seem to fall into two main categories: They either use the experiments as a basis for arguing against evolution, or they describe the experiments as being concerned with selecting for existing traits.

    This process by which existing traits are tested by the environment for viability, and only beneficial traits are passed on to the next generation, is natural selection, and I don't have any problem with that.

    But this process is not the process by which new traits are introduced into a species. For this, we need random mutations. Natural selection filters existing traits. And the fruit fly experiments demonstrate its mechanisms quite clearly. But only a constant influx of new, random, traits can give the process of natural selection something to filter.

    My question is, have there been any experiments done with induced mutation, combined with natural selection, to establish benchmarks for the end-to-end evolutionary process under controlled conditions?

    For example, has anyone bombarded bacteria with cosmic rays in a laboratory, and made a note of how long it takes for speciation to occur? (For that matter, has anybody been able to trigger speciation in a lab at all?)

  7. ID is falsifiable by LovedByGod · · Score: 1 · on Kansas Challenges Definition of Science

    First I would like to point out that ID is falsifiable just as Evolution is falsifiable; as a matter of fact they are opposites of each other, in other words, if you prove one you disprove the other, this has been stated by many atheists.

    Quote:
    Evolutionist Quote of the Week

    "Christianity has fought, still fights, and will fight science to the desperate end over evolution, because evolution destroys utterly and finally the very reason Jesus' earthly life was supposedly made necessary. Destroy Adam and Eve and the original sin, and in the rubble you will find the sorry remains of the son of god. Take away the meaning of his death. If Jesus was not the redeemer that died for our sins, and this is what evolution means, then Christianity is nothing."

    - G. Richard Bozarth, The Meaning of Evolution, American Atheist, p. 30, Sept. 20, 1979.

    For all of you who have not taken the time to actually delve in to the finer points of irreducibly complex systems here is an article that might help:

    Notice the credentials of the author:
    Joseph W. Francis
    Associate Professor of Biology
    Cedarville College, Ohio

    http://www.arn.org/docs/odesign/od201/peeringdbb20 1.htm

    I believe this man is no different than you or I in that he is in all security doing the best job he can and following the facts as he sees them.

    Scientists speak about evolution:

    "As by this theory, innumerable transitional forms must have existed. Why do we not find them embedded in the crust of the earth? Why is not all nature in confusion [of halfway species] instead of being, as we see them, well-defined species?"--*Charles Darwin

    http://www.pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/01-evol1 .htm#top

    More information about evolution the atheists don't want you to know:

    http://evolution-facts.org/

    More links:

    http://www.icr.org/
    http://www.trueorigin.org/ca_rh_03.asp
    http://www.setterfield.org/simplified.html
    http://www.origins.org/
    http://www.trueorigin.org/

    One of my favorites: "The Origin of Language and Communication"
    http://www.trueorigin.org/language01.asp

    I understand you will dismiss the authority of these scientists because the day they admit they are a Christian they all of a sudden become blabbering idiots. It reminds me of a friend of mine who teaches hand-to-hand combat to the special forces, he upset his teacher and his teacher demoted him from 7th degree black belt to white belt, like all of a sudden his knowledge was sucked out of him by magic, he is still one of the toughest guys I know, LOL.

    BTW - Having a formal education in physics, and three engineering disciplines I was very skeptical when I came across this information. The problem was, as a scientist, I was curious and the more I studied the more I realized these other scientists weren't a bunch of crackpots. These scientists felt so strongly about what they had learned they sacrificed their careers in order to pursue alternate scientific postulations of the given data.

    Given limited resources, they have driven discoveries in the field of science that the current university system has totally ignored because of the atheistic agenda. This is the very system that puts boundaries on scientific study based on personal beliefs and the ACLUs control by amending our constitution with Thomas Jefferson's unofficial letters to justify their atheistic position.

    I think it is a sad state of affairs when an atheistic or

  8. Re:As an evangelical Christian and creationist... by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1, Troll · on Imax Theaters Demur On Controversial Science Films

    > What specific parts do you think are unproven?

    There are many problems with biological evolution.

    The main one: That the lineage can be traced back to a "root."

    Who came from who? Because there is a problem with chromosome count and comparisons. It's all OVER the map with plants & animals. Species can't reproduce if one partner has a different number of chromosomes -- so how do we get (both male & female) offspring of a new generation that either GAIN or LOSE _multiple_ chromosomes?

    http://www.pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/15sim03. htm

    Unfortunately the article is supported by "Creation Science" (which is another type of junk science.) but that doesn't change the question.

    Peace

    --
    5 Years driving without a "Driver's Licence."
    3 times being pulled over by the Police.
    ZERO tickets for "driving without a license."
    ANSWER: ALL [Man-Made] Law is Contract Law. (Admitted VERY grudgingly by a Lawyer friend.)

  9. Er, that's Mathematicians by leonbrooks · · Score: 1 · on Happy Darwin Day!

    It's the Mathematicians who don't think evolution is possible.

    Mostly because it isn't, if you set the boundary anywhere less than about 1e300,000 in a universe 1e18 seconds old and containing 1e81 atoms recombining 1e12 times a second. (-:

    PS, is this day for Erasmus Darwin, or really for Charles? Erasmus has a better claim on having "invented" evolution.

  10. Re:Actually, evolution has religious backing by leonbrooks · · Score: 0 · on Instead of Revamping Hubble, Replace It
    It does not attempt to make claims about life's origins, nor should it.
    Without chemical evolution preceding it, you're building castles in the sky.
    Besides, in my personal opinion anti-evolution is a political tool. It's a form of misdirection designed to keep people in line inside their religious community, and focus their attention in manageable ways so they wouldn't start asking themselves why the core principle of Jesus' teachings (helping those in need) is so ignored by today's political establishment
    Ah! Now we're getting to the core of the discussion.

    You'll be pleased to know that as a general rule the Christian organisations where the gap between haves and have-nots is largest are also the ones happiest about biological evolution. Or to put it another way, there is a positive correlation between the influence of evolution on a faith community and the degree to which they're inclined to let natural selection sort things like poverty out.

    What this means in practical terms is that to find people who are more interesting an thwarting natural selection, avoid the evolutionists.

    A key phrase to watch out for is "The ends justify the means". More evil is papered over with this phrase than any single other thing on the face of this planet.
    Same thing with abortion. It's all politics.
    "Pro choice" dogma is directly traceable back to Atheism, where by some dodgy atheology the baby is decreed to be sub-human or somehow less evolved so mummy can have him or her murdered with a clear conscience.

    Here you will find idiots of murderous intent still promulgating gross stupidities like Earnst Haeckels' "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" charts of "similar embryos" in early stages of development.

    You will also find murderous idiots on the other side blowing up the doctors who do the in utero murders. It's difficult to say whether it's just or not, but it's certainly inappropriate, generally not well thought out, and anti-social.

    This is not founded on politics, it comes down to whether you regard a child in utero as somehow sub-human, and the same child half an hour later, having taken his or her first breath, as human - or not.

    Atheist dogma requires that you do regard any child as a wiggling lump of meat or a kind of auxiliary appendix until birth, and calling it "just a fish" or some other complete bullshit along the same lines is simply an aide to the execution of this dogma.

    Any politics devolves from this, and the reaction to this.
  11. Actually, evolution has religious backing by leonbrooks · · Score: 0, Offtopic · on Instead of Revamping Hubble, Replace It
    evolution is the only theory of biological diversification over time that has significant scientific backing
    It's not "scientific" backing when conflicting evidence is discarded or reinterpreted to suit. Nor is it "scientific" backing when any suggestion of an alternative is shouted down, ruled out of order and used to frighten small children. That kind of support is religious support. The religion in question is Atheism.

    Given that 44% of the US population do not accept evolution, and that persecution is their lot if they enter most scientific fields, is it any wonder that interest in science is flagging? The US is suffering the same fate as France after the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre and similar religious persecutions. France drove out their best and brightest and fell into a scientific and industrial malaise as a result, now the USA (most Western countries too) is beginning to do the same.
  12. Carbon dating is inaccurate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on Carbon Dating & The Shroud of Turin

    The whole practice of carbon dating shouldn't really be used anyway as it is flawed to begin with.

  13. Massive number of chromosomes by RobertB-DC · · Score: 5, Interesting · on Woof! Dog Genome Assembled

    I had heard that the biggest problem with either sequencing the dog's DNA or cloning a dog (the Missyplicity project) was the comparatively large number of chromosomes. In fact, a National Geographic article titled "Wolf to Woof" (tiny excerpt available here) notes the dog's 78 chromosomes (compared with our measly 46) as one of the reasons you can group a Great Dane and a Pomeranian as part of the same species.

    I'm a cat person, myself. Cats, being contrary by nature, allowed themselves to be cloned, but then came out looking completely different because coat color and pattern is determined after conception.

  14. Archaeology, prophecy, slander by leonbrooks · · Score: 2 · on Science a Mystery to U.S. Citizens
    the archaeology in the silly stories is better than outside them

    a whole heap of archaelogists would disagree with you.

    Undoubtably. The vast majority of those would be starting from a philosophical position of materialism, which of course blinds them to a wide range of investigation.

    It's worth noting that many materialist archaeologists still regard the Bible as an extremely accurate source of archaeological facts; their dissenting brothers are often in the position of allowing their philosophy to override any pragmatic judgement of the dataset.

    physical copies of texts from before 2k years ago have been found, and despite claims of babelfishing, they're still accurate.

    Examples???

    Before starting in on the examples, it's also worth noting that NT texts have been found dated (by concrete and well-proven benchmarks like style, materials etc) to within less than a decade of the events they report.

    There's a reasonably clear exploration of the issues at Apologetics Press. There are many others (Google is your friend), but most of them are either totally lightweight or get bogged down in blow-by-blow descriptions of whether certain pluralisations and word divisions in the Masoretic text agree more closely with the LXX or these scrolls.

    Ask Steve Gould and the other punkeekers to show you why Darwinian evolution doesn't work, and he will. Ask their Darwinian opponents to show you why punkeek doesn't work, and they will. End of story.

    Neither side has disproven the other, they are argueing about details not the fundamentals.

    No, on two counts.

    First off, the `details' that they are arguing about are foundational and mutually exclusive. At most one of them can be right, and in that case evolution by the other method will not work. It is possible that they are both wrong; in fact, if you listen to their debate, it is certain that they are both wrong.

    Second off, the place where they do agree is not `the fundamentals' but `the fundamentalism' - they both assert that materialism is the only arena for discussion. Because of this, neither of them will attack the other's fundamentalism in public. The same holds true between disciplines as between factions within a discipline. In less public circumstances the bankruptcy of that position becomes more obvious. It's akin to the idea of watching Popes declare each other to be antiChrist, in detail, during the Greast Schism(s).

    Another thing to bear in mind is that this zone of evolutionary `detail' is just one of the many levels at which materialism, and evolution in particular, is demonstrably and completely infeasible.
  15. dork.origins by leonbrooks · · Score: 2 · on e-Denounce
    Sorry, these so called sources are so discredited, it isn't even funny. Just a bunch of raving loony creationists. Go to http://www.talkorigins.org [talkorigins.org] - there is plenty of info refuting these crackpots.


    The depends; does `refuting' mean `saying lots of things I agree with, even if it is talking past the issues, erecting strawmen, arguing from false premises and fudging results' or does it mean `reasoning from the data to a contradiction'? Talk.origins is gunwhale-down with the former, and kind of deprived of the latter. They sometimes can't even tell who said what.

    Then again, who needs Creationists to disprove evolution?
  16. You do live a sheltered life, don't you? by leonbrooks · · Score: 3, Funny · on Still More Evidence for Evolution
    The details might not be correct, but essentially, there is no known counter-evidence, and no reason to suggest it is incorrect.

    Gentry's haloes are a good start; the absence of intermediate fossils launched Punctuated Equilibrium (which otherwise has no leg to stand on); simple maths shows that it's impossible anyway and the list of ``reasons to suggest it is incorrect'' rolls on towards the horizon.
  17. Friend by leonbrooks · · Score: 2 · on Windows XP Embedded
    (War over religion) You're basically killing each other to see who's got the better imaginary friend. - Richard Jeni

    Or, in the case of the Reign of Terror and/or sundry ``Communist'' regimes, killing each other for having an ``imaginary friend.''

    imagine that... or that... or that...