Slashdot Mirror
Earthlife 2.7 Billion Years Old
Dodja writes "Just as Kansas decides there's no reason to teach evolution, Aussie scientists are announcing signs of life a billion years older than previous findings."
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
Genes and chromosomes have been shown to duplicate and "jump" (the latter esp. in plants). Many genes and even chromosomes are through to be mutated and changed versions of previous duplications and splices.
Kevin Christie
kwchri@maila.wm.edu
"He (and most evolutionists) define science as to exclude out of hand any theory that includes or implies a belief in God. Thus, creationist arguments are a priori disallowed. Clever way to win an argument. "
Then why not explain all new and confounding scientific discoveries (nuclear fission?) with "God energy". Bringing magical forces into science defeats the purpose. Sheesh...
Chris
Religion assumes the existence of non-repeatable phenomena.
I don't understand your assertion. Would you elaborate on this? Can you provide examples of 'non-repeatable' phenomena (which religion assumes exists)?
Further, the Church teaches that speciation through evolution is not inconsistent with Christian faith, though that evolution was (at least in the case of man) directed by God.
:-)
Just a few years ago that was changed to say that evolution had actually happened. The distinction is that before it was OK for a good Catholic to believe in evolution. Today they are supposed to believe in evolution. I call that progress.
Cheers,
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
I can't believe I'm reading this kind of nonsense on Slashdot. At one time I actually thought most people here were relatively well-educated and intelligent. Given the spelling and grammar of people like yourself, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I just assumed those types of people were lazy, not stupid and ignorant.
First of all, YOU'RE the one with the fucked up terminology. Evolution is not a "theory". It's a FACT. Evolution exists in exactly the same way that gravity exists. The two concepts are analagous. If you attempt to refute it you're just being an idiot. On the other hand, Darwin's theory of natural selection, which is an EXPLANATION of evolution, is an example of a theory. If you want an example of a hypothesis, look no further than creationism. In summary:
Evolution = fact
Natural selection = theory
Creation = hypothesis
i am not flaming, i enjoy these types of conversation. But my question to you is: How do you know there isn't life on any of those billions of planets out there? We have no way of knowing the answer to that question. We may not be exclusive:) I agree with what you said about God being the big bang...i feel that the Universe and everything in it IS God. Just think of the biggest of big pictures. God is everything.
certainly things may be proven true. thats why we have the category of "law". i agree that most of the creationist babble is just that. and highly uninformed at the leaast. but i also see the circular logic used to defend the "scientific" point of view. longstanding belief in something does not make it more "true". its usefulness does not make it more "true". ive read both sides of this argument for 20 years now, and there are enough major holes in both arguments to place both on a shelf.
Ex Libris Veritas
While there is evidence for evolution, there is NO evidence for creation. We would never dream of teaching a SCIENTIFIC theory with as little basis as creation. The Bible's creation story ought to be taught also, perhaps, but with a disclaimer. I'd like to see other creation myths too. How much do you know about the Zoroastrian Creation?
>not teaching evolution is probably a smart move until Evolution can be proved beyond a shadow of a doubt.
No, it is still a very important thing to learn. And we do still call it a "theory", don't we? No sneaky underhandedness here.
Yes, you are missing something. It's gray and squishy and weighs a couple pounds.
void post { post_random_comment("slashdot.org"); karma--; }
Saying that creationists do not seek publication in public journals is quite a blanket statement,wouldn't you say? Not one creationist has ever tried to get published in a peer-reviewed journal?
While you do have a point here I took his point to mean "in general". He is correct in the vast majority of cases. Or if they do try most of the time their papers get rejected because they are not based on scientific principals.
He (and most evolutionists) define science as to exclude out of hand any theory that includes or implies a belief in God. Thus, creationist arguments are a priori disallowed. Clever way to win an argument.
Actually I'm starting to lean toward the creationist methods here. You just created that statement out of absolutely nothing at all. How easy that would make life, redefine what others say at will to make a point. Science says nothing AT ALL about deities. What it does is explain how the world and the cosmos works. The laws of physics don't apply in the first few instants of the universe. How you choose to believe it started is not dictated by science, unlike with religion.
In other words, no matter how many times facts are encountered that invalidate "evolution", we'll just change the theory to fit the facts.
Please give an example of one single solitary fact which invalidates evolution. While facts have come to light forcing a change in certain methods or specific details in evolutionary theory, if you believe in seedless watermelons, chihuahuas, or drug resistant bacteria you believe in evolution. Again please note this says nothing at all about creation.
And yes, when new facts appear theories are changed to fit them. That is known as many things some of which are:
The Scientific Method
Common sense
Lack of blind obedience to some dogma which worked at some point to explain things, yet now goes against the direct evidence of your own eyes.
(This is directed more towards the strict creationists who believe the earth is only about 6000 years old.)
Earlier he says scientists no longer consider non-evolutionary theories (paraphrase). So who's preaching to the choir?
Well no reasonable non-evolutionary theories have been put forward. If one did which could explain as well or better what we observe around us it would be considered. Again that is the way science works.
actually darwins entire argument comes from aristotle. it was neither new nor unique.
Ex Libris Veritas
"The refute to that is:
Apply it.
I am perfectly comfortable with the concept of micro-evolution, evolution within a species can be demonstrated in a lab, or observed in the real world. Speciation or Macro-Evolution can not. I challenge ye, turn any given species into a significantly different species. "
Speciation? Would you believe that a dog is related to a wolf? A bonobo monkey contains 98% of our genetic make up and refelect that in many ways. The 2% deviation occurred probably 8 million years ago, are you expecting someone to synthesize that within your lifetime? Boy are creationists weird...Everything has an explanation in science, although we may not have found it yet. If you want to ask a question, ask *WHY* the big bang ocurred (another theory you hate). That, in my eyes, does not preclude the existence of a god. Like fish in an aquarium we could be...
Chris
As I stated in the parent "It is more important to teach students how to think critically and the scientific method rather than teaching theories per se." Or stated differently if you teach theories just to be teaching theories then you are not learning to think but only to recite by rote.
As for the comment challenging beliefs the earlier the better. I disagree, human development limits what can be taught when. If you disagree, there is plenty of information (and theories) concerning human development, look under the education section at your local library. In rare instances, there are those that can be taught at an advanced pace but those are usually anomalies. Unfortunately it can be seen (even on slashdot) that there are those who do not have enough maturity to disagree respectfully with another person. You are welcome to your opinion but it works better to learn about theories if you know how to analyze what is being taught rather than just excepting as gospel (pun intended) what the professor/author/preacher/anonymous coward is teaching/writing/saying.
And finally, conformity of thought (or teaching for that matter) does not really promote advances. If everyone always thinks the same way we would be still be where we started. So saying that this is the beginning of the end of the advances for the last fifty years is FUD. It might be the beginning of greater understanding of the Universe, for all we know. At this point, no one can say that the decision by the KSBOE is good or bad, except by inferring a great deal. As a firm believer in the scientific method, lets see what happens rather than saying it is a time of doom and gloom.
Needless to say, from what I have read of your postings, you have made up your mind about evolution and expect everyone else to agree with you. Although you talk about challenging beliefs early, I would like to ask if you have read anything about creation theory in the last week? Month? Year? 10 years? Oh, it can't be written by a evolutionist or be an attack on reationism. Understand the other person's point of view and you can go alot further than just characterizing them as the 'philistine'. BTW, I have read from both camps.
Anyway I have spent enough time on this subject for the day, hope all goes well with those of you reading this, especially himi. Time to go be productive.
They can teach creationism all they want, in the History or Religion classes, but not on Science classes.
Religious beliefs are all well and good, but they have no place in a science curriculum.
"Be nice, veer left, and never stop thinking" Iain Banks - Walking On Glass
I doubt they used carbon dating, but it isn't as flawed as you may think, Even though I can only go back a few thousand years, when scientists need to go back further, they just a different isotope that has a longer life time. Of course the accuracy goes down but then again whats the difference between 12.x billion years and 12.x+1 billion years, in terms of geological time, not much
why? so punctuation nazi's like yourself can be happy? get a grip.
to any others, i apologize for my poor spelling and punctuation.
I will try to do better.
Ex Libris Veritas
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
Many races believe that it was created by some sort of God, though the Jatravartid people of Viltvodle VI believe that the entire Universe was in fact sneezed out of the nose of a being called the Great Green Arkleseizure.
The Jatravartids, who live in perpetual fear of the time they call The Coming of The Great White Handkerchief, are small blue creatures with more than fifty arms each, who are therefore unique in being the only race in history to have invented the aerosol deodorant before the wheel."
It's all there in the Book, perfectly well documented. The Great Green Arkleseizure Theory (fit the fifth, Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy). Slashdotters, we must make ourselves heard in this disrespectful age. How can it be fair and scientific not to give this side of the argument equal status and consideration ?
Relax, there is about a 90% chance the original poster was trolling in the first place.
I'm glad to see that some Christians are capable of scientific thought.
(By the way, I am a devout Athiest. Christianity is the least disturbing explanation for the facts, so I might believe it right before I die.)
void post { post_random_comment("slashdot.org"); karma--; }
However, economic success is not necessarily related to population growth rates.
Actually (and excuse me while I pull this out of my ass) I seem to recall that economic success causes a reduction of population growth. That's just a vague memory so if anyone has some hard references, it'd be appreciated.
Generic Man
>Or, and this is my personal view, the means that
..., the list goes on and on ...)
>science condones (randomness, mutagens) are the
>tools of the divine, omniscient but non-
>conscious universe that just plain IS.
>
>It's been said that mankind is the universe's
>attempt to comprehend itself. That all of
>creation is God made manifest. That we, being
>part of creation, are each a different face of
>God.
My sentiments exactly! That we as humankind are a single part (an organ?) in an amorphous, pantheistic but non-partial, and at most only partially sentient entity, is the only conclusion that I can adhere to without behaving like an over-religious zealot that craves for confrontation with other like zealots (Serbs vs. Kosovars, Pakistani vs. Indians,
One's beliefs can't be contradictory to science in any realistical ways, by any larger margin. Of course the science as conducted in the West might be even fascistically narrow-minded in perception, but as it evolves, it must take into consideration the full depth of the phenomena in Universe. I believe that the Universe genuinely has such physical capabilities which can be utilized by higher cultures in some godlike characteristics. Remember the A.C.Clarkian principle that any sufficiently high technology is undistinguishable from magic! And consider godlike but not divine beings like the Q in ST: TNG! Gods are not needed, but they might exist nonetheless. Gods are not omnipotent any more than your parents were when you were an infant.
if you think evolution is ridiculous its for one of two reasons
1. You dont truly understand it because you have been misinformed or not researched it engouh.
2. Your dumb
its okay to be dumb, but at least know that can keep your mouth shut. If your number 1 please try harder.
-I go to Rice, so figure out my email address
Mathematics has the interesting distinction of being both purely abstract, and one of the few entirely provable pursuits out there. Pi cannot be seen, but it's existence can be proven. Actually starting from basic axioms all of mathematics can be proven. If you pick different axioms, sometimes you can arrive at another, but consistent and sometimes usefull number space. Once the axioms are accepted, all else can be proven.
Science is unfortunately different. Proof is impossible. Even gravity cannot be proven; sure you can observe that every time you throw a ball into the air it falls back to the earth, but you cannot prove that it will the next time! However, what you can do with science, is gather a mountain of evidence. Then you have a very strong theory. Sometimes these strong theories aren't quite right(i.e. Newtownian Mechanics was replaced by Relativity), but they are still the most supported available theory. That's what makes it science, we grudgingly assume whatever has the most evidence is true... until there is new evidence to consider. Evolution does have a veritable mountain of evidence behind it. We have done tests on populations with various allele characteristics, and the results consistantly match the predictions derived from assuming evolution to be true.
I'm a gnu world man.
I've been degenerating on summer break for a while now, and i'm a little rusty on my molecular bio, but don't prokaryotes have lipids, too? or was it the specific type of lipids they found that indicated eukaryotic life? If anyone not busy debating evolution vs. creationism and the true nature of what we call Randomness has some more detailed info it'd be appreciated.
wisconsin does not exist.
Yes you most certainly are missing something.
/.)
You are like a few hundred other posters who seemingly don't read before they post. (No offence intended - it's just that this point has been made and refuted several hundred times in the past few days on
The word "theory" colloquially has a meaning of something which may or may not be true, just an idea that someone is throwing out, etc. etc. This is *not* it's meaning when speaking of scientific theories.
A theory in science is a hypothesis which has made so many correct predictions about observations that it has become generally accepted by all reasonable opinion.
Evolution qualifies 100% as a theory because it has made so many predictions that have then been observed to be true. Quantum theory, the theory of reletivity are other theories of which you may have heard. Evolution has the same standing in science as these theories.
Creationism does not qualify *at all* as a scientific theory. It has made no predictions which have been observed to be true. It is not falsifiable. It cannot have any status within science at all because it puts forward supernatural explanations. Science by its very nature restricts itself to the natural world. It has nothing to say about religious belief.
If you wait until something is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt you cannot teach anything about science at all. Science does not "prove" anything. In science nothing can be *absolutely* proven. There is always room for doubt that we may not have the 100% correct answer. That is fundamental to the nature of science. If you don't want to teach science at all that's your perogative but you would be mistaken in my point of view.
One other thing that may deserve repeating is there is *no* debate in science about whether or not evolution occured. The only open debate in science is *how* evolution occured. Misquoted scientists arguing about the *how* are not some sort of anti-proof of evolution, they are simply misquoted scientists! And please allow me to drive home the very American-centric nature of this "debate" over evolution. This sort of thing isn't happening outside of the USA (except maybe in a few rural towns in western Canada). I think the fact that the US is the only western country with this powerful extemist Christian movement and the only one with this peculiar "debate" is not mere coincidence.
Anyway good luck rational American people!
[We don't come from a planet. We come from a grid sector.]
Surely posts like yours are intended only to annoy people.
---
None of these theoies are presented as 'fact'. Not in university, nor in scientific publications.
Exactly my point. There is no point in present ANY scientific theory as 'fact'; rather, they should be presented as tested models which have produced useful results.
However, I would dispute the accuracy of your statement. Are you saying that in all of this century, in all schools and universities, in all scientific publications, there has never been any implication that these theories are true and factual? You speak of the ideal while I address the real. Regardless of what abstract science does, real flesh-and-blood people tend to make asses of themselves, regardless of the situation.
Mabe they reverse engineered it?
There have been too many people distorting the use of terms like proof, fact, axiom, theory, and theorem. It's nice to hear from somebody who has things sorted out.
How dare you drag that smelly bait through here, especially after yesterday's feeding frenzy. You did post this in jest, right? ... I hope...
If you have read both sides and claim that there are major holes in both, perhaps you would be willing to state a half-dozen major holes in evolution? Note that I said evolution, not abiogenesis (which is a *much* harder problem) - being so well-read you do know the difference?
Please be very specific. After all the devil is in the details and I would not want to wind up pointing out basic things to you that you should have learned decades ago.
So - fire away. Be specific. Be detailed. Pointers to the literature are appreciated. A half-dozen major holes hitherto missed by biology coming up.
I am waiting...
Ben Tilly
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
I read this wrong and thought it said 'EarthLink' 2.7 billion years old...
Gah.
3) Starting with data of any complexity, mutations destroy (garble perhaps is a better word) data
Actually, even in complex organisms, constructive mutations can occur. They are much more improbable that destructive mutations, but they are reinforced by natural selection.
Energy available for work always decreases. Therefore, eventually - despite the best efforts of man - all life forms will eventually degenerate into randomness.
According to this, I should be degenerating right now. I would be, except that I consume orderly food while increasing the entropy of my environment. Obviously, life can keep on living as long as it has a supply of useful energy and a way to dissipate useless heat. Under these conditions it can also evolve with no problem.
Your "intelligent energy" is BS. My air conditioner creates localized order in my house, it just uses up energy to do so.
Just because the energy available for work always decreases does not mean work cannot be done, and in fact it constantly is, on the cellular level and elsewhere.
Many others have posted links to articles debunking the entropy argument. I would direct you to them, except that by typing the information on the page, I would accelerate my inevitable heat death.
void post { post_random_comment("slashdot.org"); karma--; }
Well, just to put my two cents in, I am an avid Linux user (Debian, thank you very much), was a science geek in high school, and, last but farthest from the least, am a born again believer in Jesus Christ and the Bible. As a disclaimer, I don't have a Southern drawl, I don't own any shotguns, and I'm half way through a college education in a respected college in Boston.
I want to set straight my own personal opinion on the evolution-creation debate, an opinion which I share with many educated and theologically experienced Christians. I should note however that there are different opinions within the Church regarding the creation of the universe.
I believe that God created the Earth as well as the entire Universe. That much is without question. I would however take with a grain of salt the supposition that the entire creation of the Universe, the Earth on which we live and every living thing on it was completed within six days. I believe that the language used in the book of Genesis chapter 1 is often times figurative, especially in referring to time.
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Genesis 1:1.
I believe that this simple phrase encompasses the entire series of events theorized by astronomers, physicists and such. Seriously, who better to produce a "big boom" than the Almighty Sovreign God? Over the next six days of time listed in this passage, Moses, the actual author of the book of Genesis (BTW, I believe that all scripture, in its original language, is the inerrent, inspired word of God given through the mouths and hands of mortal men.) describes the creation of 1. Day and Night, 2. the sky, 3. land, seas, and vegetation, 4. the Sun, Moon, and stars, 5. animals of the sea and air, and 6. animals of the land and Man. By now, 9 out of 10 of you are thinking "this sounds like any other ancient tale of the beginning of the world," and indeed it does. I believe though that this explanation of the beginning of the world is a figurative one, with figurative times as well. I DO believe that if God had wanted to make the entire universe and the modern world appear over the course of one Earth week, He could have easily done so, just as He could have also done it in one billionth of a nanosecond (or even less : ). The fact of the matter is that if God is all powerful, He can make things happen in any way that fits his will. I believe that He did not create the Earth in one week, for a good reason. Physicists are amazed at the way in which our entire world and universe fits together. Scientists have realized that if the position between the Earth and Sun were not precisely the way it is, if the composition of the atmosphere was even slightly altered, if any one of billions of variables were not as they are, life would not exist on this planet. We recognize this, but we just as quickly then chalk it up to a freak occurance of "nature," the infinitely small chance that one special chemical reaction in a puddle of ooze would produce all living creatures on the earth. In my opinion that's a very shaky assumption on which to base a theory of the creation of the world. From another perspective, however, if God designed this perfect set of enviromental variables and set up the physics just right so that the natural world would work as smoothly as it does, would He not want to follow His own perfect rules to create the world? I believe that He would.
As far as the theory of our alleged primate ancestors are concerned I am without opinion. I don't know whether we were created as a seperate species or are direct ancestors of monkeys through some yet to be discovered missing link. What I do know is that, either way, anything that we have become in terms of our status above the animals and our dominance above all other creatures on Earth has been through the power and grace of God and not through any ambition, talent, or ability of our own.
"He [Jesus Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created; things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together." Collosians 1:15-17.
In short, as well as I understand the theory of evolution to date, I believe that all discoveries and theories used to explain the evolutionary process can be much better used as signs of the awesome sovereign power of God.
Hmm. This is flamebait if I've ever seen it. Please keep your replies on an intelligent level and feel free to question my theories or my beliefs. I would be happy to take a crack at any question as best my knowledge allows. God Bless.
Will Meyer
If the monkey evolved into a human then why is the monkey still here? If it evolved it would be a human not a monkey. Or have I missed something?
If anything evolved wouldn't it be something else instead of its current status?
-Andrew Cummins
If 2 comes before 1 in your part of the galaxy you were.
I think this is more commonly understood although the media may not portray it that way. Just look at the health news: Every new study makes the news.
Check out: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn
He show's quite nicely that the questions asked and answers found by science are focused by the paradigms that are currently accepted.
"In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion." -- Carl Sagan, 1987 CSICOP keynote address abe zuckerman
Lipids eh? nice to know that fatty acids werent a problem back then (looks at ponch). This just goes to show. Despite governmental ignorance and religious paranoia science moves on. Im glad these findings were published so soon afterwards that entire Kansas headache was. Sort of throws it in their face. Truth be told, i leanred about evolution despite my schooling so im not worried. Kids will leran about it one way or antoher. Charles Darwin comes up more than once in studying science in addition to poping up in many diffrent concentrations. Im worride about stuff like this not getting to children. Findings like these stimulate minds and even if they arent too keenly interested, they at least know what is going on.
Please read the relevant FAQs before spouting off again. Evolution does not contradict evidence, logic, religion, or the second law of thermodynamics. Evolution and abiogenesis are different issues, and Behe's book is about the latter, not the former. Punctuated Equilibrium, whatever caricatures you may have heard notwithstanding, is really Darwinian evolution. And please don't say, "It is just a theory" or "What evidence do they really have?" until you have actually looked at what evidence has been uncovered from the combined efforts of several scientific fields for 150 years.
Oh, and those who claim that there is a debate, there is not. The last serious scientific challenge to the theory of Evolution was in the first decade of this century. (Brownie points to anyone who knows the substance of the challenge and/or the resolution!) If you think that you can turn up quotes contradicting this, check the original reference for the quotes before repeating them. There are a lot of out-of-context quotes which are spouted that do not - in context - mean what Creationists claim that they do. And there are a lot of upset scientists who are good and tired of being misquoted.
So please, read those FAQs before posting.
Thank you,
Ben Tilly
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
Wasn't this common ancestor a monkey too? Just a species of ape that no longer exists.
---
Why is every piece of evidence found that is linked to evolution always treated as proof. It's evidence, they even call it that, but then they treat it as proof.
Science is not the end all of everything. I think that the scientific world as a whole is quite arrogant.
Many people would say, "that's not logical. science is the system of logical truth finding, and is the basis of solid understanding."
That's true from the perspective of us looking out at everything, but in the perspective of everything out there and then how small we are, we are far to meek.
It's cool to search for truth, but don't think that you know.
Please help! I'm stuck inside my virtual reality headset!
I think it is a great idea of expose kids to the strongest scientific arguments from both sides. In fact, I would love to hear strong scientific arguments from the creationist side. So far I haven't heard many. I'll keep an open mind, but unless I hear some scientific arguments in favor of creationism I'll have a hard time accepting it.
You claim that scientists change the theory to fit the facts. That seems to me to be an excellent straw-man argument. Please come up with concrete examples.
At issue in particular is Darwin's theory of evolution, which states that there is descent with modification where those traits that are beneficial to having plentiful surviving descendants will spread. And this ongoing process, visible today, is responsible over time for the modification and branching of the species.
I maintain that this statement of Darwin's theory has been accurate since The Origin of the Species was published in 1859. Our understanding of that theory has changed significantly. For instance the discovery that inheritance is discrete rather than continuous was a significant change. Likewise there have been ongoing changes in thought about such details at rates, pacing, etc. And there have been many specific examples that have modified, for instance Darwin initially thought that lungs evolved from the swim-bladder of a fish, but later research and fossil evidence shows that the connection is the other way, the swim-bladder of the "higher fishes" evolved from a lung.
But through the entire history of the theory, the basic statement has never changed. Our thoughts and understanding of details have changed, but not the basic theory!
Oh, and do some reading on the history of biology will you? Darwin's theories did not win instant universal acceptance by a long shot. In fact they continued to face serious scientific challenges for 50 years, and I assure you that the critics were not gentle with the theory.
And being fair, we need to examine Creationism fairly. I maintain that Creationism is a belief maintained in spite of all facts and evidence. If you doubt me then explain how one can seriously believe today in a global Flood that purportedly happened 4000 years ago in spite of there being lake bottoms that have been undisturbed in longer than that, Chinese history going back farther than that, ice cores that have survived undamaged for well over 30 times that long, and a distribution of species around the world that is absolutely impossible based on the story of Noah's ark? Wilful ignorance of the facts is not a reason to respect a position!
Moving on to your apparently rhetorical question of mutations, yes, detailed studies have been done on mutation rates. And yes, the numbers do add up. In fact mutation rates have been used to form a "molecular clock" of how long populations have been seperated, and the time-lines that result are in generally good accord with the independent evidence from other lines such as fossil evidence.
Surprised? You should not be! It is characteristic of normal science that it constantly finds new ways to test its basic beliefs with more and more sensitive tests. Evolution is the product of normal science and has survived a century and a half of tests. I strongly doubt that there is any test you can think of which can be carried out in under a decade that has not been performed!
Sincerely,
Ben Tilly
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
you are = you're Christ you're sad. - Lurene (Proud Subgenius)
Stop that! Stop that! It's just silly! You there - yes, you, DEC VAX boy! You stop that this instant! We're all having a stupid argument abouth te meaning of life and you're trying to turn it into a stupid argument about obscure digital OSs!
- Lurene (proud Subgenius)
There's a lot more than fossils to account for. Astronomers can observe objects that are billions of light years away. To believe (like the hard-line Creationists) that the world is new, you have to believe that either (a) God is faking the far-off light to test our faith or that (b) all science is bunk.
And yet I recently saw a poll that showed around 40% of people (I'm sorry, American people) believe that God created the world as it is a few thousand years ago. Just ten percent take a secular evolutionist perspective: life took care of itself. The rest believe in divinely guided evolution, which I think is Catholic Church doctrine.
Marginally relavant but interesting is this chart from a recent Scientific American on church attendance. America is topped only by Poland and Ireland.
Stop that! Stop that! It's just silly! You there - yes, you, DEC VAX boy! You stop that this instant! We're all having a stupid argument abouth te meaning of life and you're trying to turn it into a stupid argument about obscure digital OSs!
- Lurene (proud Subgenius)
Dodja writes "Just as Kansas decides there's no reason to teach evolution, Aussie scientists are announcing signs of life a billion years older than previous findings."
Why does everyone assume that if we prove the earth is old, that proves evolution, and that creationism can only be applicable if the earth is young -- e.g. created at 9:15AM on March 4, 4004 B.C. (obviously absurd).
Just because the creationist-extremists who get on the news are all "young-earthers" does not mean that all people who believe that the universe itself and life on earth were created as the result of direct intervention of a higher being, share the young-earth view. In fact, the young-earth view is mainly promoted by one activist organization, the Creation Research Institute. If you're a lazy reporter, you'll go to one source with a recognizable name, and assume that you've done your job. Most reporters are lazy.
I thought Slashdot readers were more astute than to assume that the media stereotype of a group applies to all members of that group.
:) /. post after all, i chose #9, (reptile to birds). I'll get back to that in a moment.
Long example page. lots of links. i'll read it. For brevity here, it is a
first.
re dating methods:
c-14 dating (like all of the other dating methods i have seen.) assume perfect linearity in the decay rate of the sample. (they also assume to know its original composition.). works only on organic materials, works only within the range of 50-100,000 yrs or so. It also works only if the samples have not been submerged in water (leaching), or exposed to fire. While i see no evidence that fossil bearing layers have been exposed to fire. (except in areas of magmatic activity or catastrophic event) there is a great amount of evidence of water having existed within those layers, and possibly the covering of it with water was the cause/contributor of the fossilisation. given this data, and the fact that c-14 does not work within the real of geologic time, it is useless for dating fossils.
next we have
K-40
U-Th-Pb
Rb-87
only the last two are useful within the time range we are discussing, but they are succeptable to the same leaching effect as c-14. Water is a powerful solvent. Water can/will absorb lots of material, and is quite capable (by thermal transport and other methods) of carrying even more material than it may hold at any given time.
While these methods are at least useful within the time scale, they must be used only within the areas of samples of known histories, or the results are useless.
The dozen or so other radiometric dating techniques... same problem.
Essentially i see this as the broad problem with any and all radiometric dating method and as the strongest argument against the validity of such dating.
Dating by analysis of magnetic orientation of molecules with the structure?
yes it works.
but it assumes the same linearity as radiometric dating does. and assumes more knowlegde of the history of the specimin than is actually to be had.
I hold these to be invalid assumptions.
Im sure there are many other dating methods.
they dont come freshly to mind.
This is not my field, but i do have a great interest in rocks, and in how our planet came to be in the condition its in.
back to the birds.
As I understand birds, they first appeared in the jurassic, some 150 million yrs ago +- 50%.
On chapter 9 of your example page where this is discussed, We get all the way down to the bottom of the page before we meet our very first birdlike transitional friend Archeopteryx. seemed to have lived within the right period. (if the above mentioned dating methods worked ) the problem here is the complete lack of anything that points to a reasonable ancestor outside of its own era,or outside of its own species. nor do we have successors. my guess is it died of "survival of the fittest". but that it was simply a variation of "bird".
Ill read the rest of the chapters.
I do hope they offer more conclusive evidence than this though.
later
steve
Ex Libris Veritas
You are right that various parts of certain creation myths are falsifiable if taken literally but since no "Theory of Creationism" generally accepted by creation "scientists" has been put forward we can't count on any particular detail to be in any particular account. Creationism as defined by "a supernatural being created the universe" is pretty much an unfalsifiable statement best left to philosophy and theology. (At this point in history anyway). How can modern science try to disprove such a "hypothesis"?
The further we go back in time the murkier the scientific method gets (until we hit the greeks I guess and things clear up for a bit). When Europe was basically a corrupt theocracy the majority of scientists probably considered God to be part of the natural world - the distinction hadn't been clearly made yet. We begin to see rationalists making the distinction when we see the rise of deism and the concept of the "Watchmaker God" among the leading figures of the Enlightenment.
[We don't come from a planet. We come from a grid sector.]
We're finally getting to some of the core issues! Great!
You oppose changing the theory to fit the facts???!!
I oppose deciding beforehand not to consider certain theories. Saying that "evolution" is fact, and not falsifiable, then saying that evolution is scientific, because the theories that have been presented over the years as evolution have been falsifiable, is another neat trick. The reason evolution can't be falsified is because those defining evolution reserve the right to change the definition in the future.
Religous people, of course, have done similar things over the years. Redefining core beliefs but calling it by the same name.
So how can we evaluate creationist/evolutionist beliefs fairly? One way to do this is to look at the creation of life as a tractability problem. The algorithm for evolution is to generate new genetic combinations through mutation, then pare those down through natural selection. But do the numbers add up? Are there enough mutations? Is there enough chance that a mutation can cause an change that's interesting? I mean, I know I've never seen a typo in a program I've written make a better program. How much time would all of this reasonably take? I know that there have been computer simulations where interesting creatures come about through similar processes, but are the parameters of the real world close enough to those of the program for a comparison to be meaningful?
-jimbo
If you did you might know that it is called Newton's Theory of Gravity. And you have the Theory of Quantum Mechanics.
Your ignorance is showing...
Ben Tilly
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
I'm not sure if it has been proven that a random mutation has added new information to a genetic structure- but it is certainly possible and (depending on what you believe the rate of random mutations to be) even likely that a given trait came into existance from a mutation.
Of course, it is not likely that a particular random mutation will produce a favorable trait. It is much more likely that a mutation will cause a gene to become random garbage and cause the death of the organism. Life has evolved many mechanisms to prevent mutations from ever occuring. And, if a mutation does occur, there are mechanisms in place to detect and repair the mutated gene before it can be passed on to offspring.
Even so, some mutations inevitably get through and become a part of the genome. Most will cause death (cancer maybe) or reduce the ability of the organism to breed effectively and thus not get passed on from generation to generation. However, when a beneficial mutation does occur it is passed on very rapidly. (Ok, so "rapidly" means hundreds or thousands of years :)
You know, this sounds a lot like, "given enough monkeys banging on typewriters you can produce the complete works of Shakespeare". And I guess it is. Mathematically, both are reasonable. It just takes a really long time!
2^5
But random mutation creates new - some better suited, a lot more worse. The worse suited dies off, and the better suited lives. Thus, in effect, new and better genes are "created".
What I would like to see is observation of one species producing another spontaneously... and observations of that new species as it begins.
So far the only evidence of evolution I have read about is moth pigmentation in the industrial revolution, and beak sizes changing. Also there are changes in species over time, like a horse slowly getting larger. None of these show a different species coming from another, they are just simple adaptations, like the stronger appearance of a recessive gene.
The only "evidence" of species being linked together is some similarities with the look of an embryo in different animals, and similar bone sturctures in some different animals. That, IMO, is like saying because I look like someone, I must be their brother, or if I wrote a book that had the same plotline as another author's book, we must have both been inspired by the same book.
Evolution should be testable in a laboratory, or at least under observation in more than saying since there's some simple adaptation or because one animal looks like another they must have come from the same animal.
Please quote Aristotle chapter and verse on that!
Nice troll...
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
There is no proof that Evoltion is true. Darwin himself later in life admitted that he was wrong. There is only evolution with in a class. Every "ape man" ever found has been proved wrong. The bones that they found where hundreds of feet even miles apart and in different layers of the earth. In evolution you only evolve to have what you need. So since we don't need a third arm that is why we don't have a third arm. Well then how come we only use 10% of our brain. Why did we "evolve" to have such a big brain? If Evolution is real then there would be hundreds even thousands of transition fossils and yet there isn't even one! Evolution is a theory and all it takes is one thing to prove it wrong and then it should thrown out. There are to many things that prove evolution to be wrong and not enough to back it up. To me it is easier to beleive that a living God made the earth and it didn't just happen. Have you ever seen a tornado go through a junk yard and assemble a perfectly working car. No! So what makes you think that something as big and complex as the earth and every living thing on it can happen by chance. If you just look around you you will see that there is someone out there that is bigger than each and everyone of us. Just open your eyes and you will see.
- Andrew
What?
...in this case, if the original post-er really had any interest in educating (or informing) themselves they would have gone that route rather than spouting off a silly comment like that in the first place. After all, it really is more of a rhetorical comment. There is a way to change opinions for those who seek with an open mind other information in which to make/form informed decisions/beliefs/values. Speaking without thinking (or rational thought) would be more indicative of a desire to have others doing your thinking for you, or that you are so self-confident in your own personal line of reasoning that, even though you have a biased opinion, others will want to know about it or even read it. Given that I have now constructed a lengthy post, sometimes the most simple advice (or response) is the most direct. Therefore, the previous response was on-the-mark and will most likely be ignored anyway. Of course, everyone could be typing with tongue-firmly-planted-in-cheek (for that matter--how do you know I am not doing the same).
All too ironic. My theory (which is only based on my observation ;) is that many of the people shunning those who do not believe in evolution were probably also shunned for their belief in evolution, or were responding to the fact that others have been shunned for the same thing... and in the same way those who have shunned those who believe in evolution were once shunned or were responding to the fact that other's have been shunnded for not believing too. However there are also those of us who want peace.
Please help! I'm stuck inside my virtual reality headset!
Heh. Having been born and raised in a Catholic country, I find that the Catholic Church is evil, but not stupid.
:)
For stupid, you have to look at some other Christian denominations...
"Be nice, veer left, and never stop thinking" Iain Banks - Walking On Glass
One of the test I know of that shows C-14 assumptions are wrong is when they tested material from a living mollusk and by the C-14 method it was found to have been dead for over 10,000 years. (I can get you a reference, but I will have to dig through material at home(I am not at home at the moment)).
The basic assumptions of radiometric dating are:
1) The amounts of radioactive particles in the atmosphere has been relatively constant.
2) The ratios of radioactive to nonradioactive within given materials are always the same when created (or if organic material -- at death).
3) The rate of decay is constant.
The first is obviously flawed as volcanoes emit lots of radioactive particles and the amount in the atmosphere fluctuates constantly.
The second is flawed and an example is already given that shows this for C-14.
The third assumptions is based on the fact that the evidence we have is that the decay rate fits an equation that includes the speed of light. There have been a couple of researchers that have discovered evidence that the speed of light has slowed over time. I have looked at evidence both for and against this finding and have not been able to come to a conclusion on this. This puts assumption 3 in question.
There are a lot of facts that can be interpreted either for a long age of the earth or a short age of the earth or at least short age of life on the earth. Not all creationists believe that the earth was created X number of years ago (the most common is 6000), but some believe that the earth was here before that, but that life was created at that time.
Evidence is clear that the magnetic field of the earth has been weakening. The best mathematical models of the data show that if (big if) the magnetic field has been weakening constantly fitting the same equation, 10,000 years ago life forms we know could not have existed and 40,000 years ago the earth would have had a magnetic field equivalent to a magnetic star.
The amount of dust on the moon (approx. 1/8"), according to the current rate of collection of dust, only allows for a time frame of 4000-40,000 years for dust to have been collecting on the moon.
If you want references, I can get them, but I am currently not at home were I can get them.
The purpose of most of the efforts such as the one in Kansas (I cannot speak of that effort specifically as I don't have first hand knowledge of what is going on in that state, but I do have first hand knowledge of some similar efforts in some states), is to have the evidence both for and against evolution presented, and not have evolution presented as a fact. It currently is presented as a fact in schools and most scientists, in high school as well as colleges and universities and elsewhere, do not look at all of the evidence and many times evidence that does not fit evolution does not get published. (I am sure you would agree that establishments, i.e. media, government, medicine, science, monopolies(MS), industries (tobacco, power, agricultural), etc., often cover up evidence that contradicts or threatens their theories, ideas, way of life, means of making money, etc.) Most people never hear about the evidence that gets covered up or that journals and magazines among other forms of media, refuse to print or cover. There are too many examples to list. If you want to see all of the evidence you really have to dig. You can't be content with mainstream press and text books.
I used to be a high school math & science teacher and have studied lots of evidence on both sides of many topics. (You have to if you want to actually know what you are talking about and have informed answers for teenagers, who often see through things that most adults can't).
If you are interested in studying all of the facts and want to discuss the facts and their possible implications intelligently, (no flames, can agree to disagree and still study facts together, provide references (which I couldn't do from work--writing this on lunch break), let me know, I would be glad to carry on ongoing discussions with you regarding this.
Randy
randy@nospam.hesscomputers.com
I was having dinner with a friend last night, and our discussion turned to the whole Kansas Issue. He looked over at the fish tank, and said, "I dont know, I just cant believe we came from that..." understanding what he ment by that reference, I replied, "I cant believe that we came from nothing..." - Desire is the cause of all suffering -
Religious people are morons!
Please tell me you're being sarcastic.
-brain
Was I unfair? Jimbo asked how one could treat evolution and Creationism fairly. The doctrine of Creationism as espoused by the ICR and other such groups indeed does say that the Earth is about 6000 years old, and there was a global flood about 4000 years ago. This is not a straw-man argument, this is a direct statement of the mainstream Creationist position as believed by a significant portion of the US.
Very few people describe themselves as Creationists and simultaneously do NOT subscribe to this belief system.
I feel that responding this was is, in fact, particularly appropriate in this case when responding to someone who is accusing scientists of changing their theories. Creationism is a well-defined position and it comes with a considerable theological baggage. If scientists are criticized for modifying theories produced by humans, then how much more disingenous would it be to modify theories purportedly laid down by God?
No, I don't feel that I was at all unfair in what I said.
Sincerely,
Ben Tilly
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
oooh, i think i am going to enjoy this. you are correct, the universe does in fact seek to balance itself out, energy must balance with matter and vice versa. thing is the universe at large has ALWAYS been balanced. if there was no balance there would be no such thing as math, we would not be able to use the scientific method, we wouldnt have VCRs or computers or anything else along the lines of technology. basically we would be living in prehistoria still. and life would most likely be pure chaos, if not for balance, wait, there wouldnt be life, life needs a defined set of laws to base itself apon, even if we dont understand them all, they are still there. basically, there is absolutely nothing, and i mean NOTHING that we currently capable of that could unbalance the universe. its just not possible. we can theorize on how to make black holes in our living room, there are currently mothods in writing on how to do that. and that would probably be a step in the right direction, but we cant, it would take more energy then is contained within our sun!(check out a book titled hyperspace if you dont believe me.) just for the record: i believe in evolution, it makes sense, creationism doesnt, you dont. my father is a minister for the methodist church, as far as i know he believes in evolution as well, or a combination of both. i did enjoy that.
Not that I saw! And you didn't even have the guts to sign it.
Let me take this bit by bit.
There is no proof that Evoltion is true.
You cannot even spell Evolution! As for evidence, you did look in the FAQs that were pointed to above?
Darwin himself later in life admitted that he was wrong.
The infamous Lady Hope story. Known to be a lie.
There is only evolution with in a class.
It seems that you have a common confusion about what macroevolution is and isn't.
Every "ape man" ever found has been proved wrong. The bones that they found where hundreds of feet even miles apart and in different layers of the earth.
You clearly don't have a clue what you are talking about. In a word, "Lucy".
In evolution you only evolve to have what you need. So since we don't need a third arm that is why we don't have a third arm. Well then how come we only use 10% of our brain. Why did we "evolve" to have such a big brain?
Warning, warning, urban legend alert! Do do have a reference?
If Evolution is real then there would be hundreds even thousands of transition fossils and yet there isn't even one!
Funny, the scientists seem to think otherwise.
Evolution is a theory and all it takes is one thing to prove it wrong and then it should thrown out. There are to many things that prove evolution to be wrong and not enough to back it up.
May I hold Creationism to the same standard?
To me it is easier to beleive that a living God made the earth and it didn't just happen. Have you ever seen a tornado go through a junk yard and assemble a perfectly working car. No! So what makes you think that something as big and complex as the earth and every living thing on it can happen by chance.
And that is a straw-man argument.
If you just look around you you will see that there is someone out there that is bigger than each and everyone of us. Just open your eyes and you will see.
Is closing my eyes also a pre-requisite? So far your batting average is pretty darned pathetic...
Sincerely,
Ben Tilly
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
Given that you have an omnipotent, omnescient being doing all the work, anybody can easily see that the earth can be 6000 years old, despite any evidence to the contrary. How? Simple. God created everything in-situ 6000 years ago, fossil records, decayed carbon isotope ratios, meteor impact evidence, geological drift stress fractures, everything. Of course, by this logic, the Earth could have been created JUST NOW.
As in, right now, including your memory of reading the previous paragraph.
Gee, it must be nice to have God to explain everything for you folks. Zero thought required. How marvelously convenient.
"Dad, how does a car work?" "God makes it go."
I don't believe in the separation of church and state. I believe in the separation of church and science. Believe anything you want, but trust me, God is of absolutely no use in research or just about anything technical.
(gasp) a...a...a rational, noninflammatory discussion on slashdot? (swoon)
:)
email me at dillon_rinker@hotmail.com, as I'd like to continue the discussion beyond here.
Science does not assume that non-repeatable phenomena do not exist.
I would have to respectfully disagree. Given the same initial conditions, the same result will occur; this is the bedrock of the scientific method. Correct me if I'm wrong. If an observation is nonrepeatable, you can't really do much science with it.
Instead it deliberately tries to work with and extrapolate from repeatable phenomena wherever possible.
Unrepeatable phenomena yield no information. HOWEVER, what is at first glance a unique event may, upon sufficient abstraction, be found to be like lots of other events. If you drop a rock, it will fall to earth. This exact event will never happen again, as you will have aged, the earth will have moved, friction will have sheared off a few molecules, etc. Regardless, I still maintain that science is in the business of drawing conclusions from repeatable events.
Even in such cases science will try to figure out what happened according to rules that themselves come from repeatable phenomena.
Sure. This is where science is useful. On a some level, as I indicated, I don't think that any event is repeatable. But given a particular event and a high enough level of abstraction, you can ask if current theory could have predicted it, or if the event violates current theory.
The start of life.
Isn't there some hypothesis that given the number of galaxies, and the number of stars, and the number of planets, there should still be 10^? planets with life on them? And if we nuked the earth and dropped a few asteroids on it, doesn't current theory suggest that the return of life (possibly very different life) is at least possible?
The extinction of the dinosaurs.
If they existed again, they could be made extinct again. See previous bit about nukes and asteroids
The Big Bang
I don't know much cosmology. My understanding is that current theory can't predict what existed before the big bang - it's a singularity or something. My impression was more that the Big Bang was a conclusion, rather than a piece of evidence, with the logic going something like this:
- the stars are all moving away from a point; reverse the motion far enough and all matter was at that point.
- Do lots of other complicated math using other cosmological observations and quantum and relativity and chaos and other cool words and it quantifies this.
- Let's call that point (or rather the events that involve it) the Big Bang.
- If there were a Big Bang, there'd be background microwave radiation. There is; ergo there was a big bang.
Even if the Big Bang was a cosmologically unrepeatable event, it doesn't matter, because the big bang was not observed; it was predicted. Science can perhaps predict non-repeatable events, but it can't draw conclusions from them. You can't extrapolate from a point.
As for religion, I agree that some religious beliefs are contradicted by scientific findings. However evolution itself does not imply atheism, and there are many people who both are devout Christians and who believe in evolution.
Sure. I mainly meant to address your rather broad original statement "evolution does not contradict religion".
It is not silly of scientists in general to suggest that their epistemological beliefs are of greater value than others when there are several hundred years of evidence suggesting just that.
The scientific method excels above all else at increasing knowledge of the physical but fails dreadfully where the metaphysical is concerned. That may not even be an issue to you; I don't know.
The priests used to say that faith could move mountains, but nobody believed them. The scientists tell us that science can level mountains and nobody doubts them.
Reflect on that for a while...
Ummmm...Ok, done. Campbell was wrong; millions believed them. Scientific American this month says that science can't build an effective natinal missile defense system. Does anyone doubt that? And I would ask "Should we level the mountains?" To me, that is the point of this particular discussion. Science can answer some questions, but it cannot answer all questions. I believe it is foolish to believe that the only important questions are the ones science can answer, or that science can answer all important questions. Reflect on the following...
Is there a god?
What is right and what is wrong?
Is there life after death?
When does life begin?
Are people happier now than they were before modern science existed?
Should we map the human genome?
What will humanity be like in 10,000 years?
What do women REALLY want?
Well, I don't know about a pure blod foobar, but I'd bet you could get a mutant one, just have lots of sex! even if you don't end up with one, you still have lots of sex. it's a win win situation!
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Christ your sad. Brad or maybe just glad? could it be a fad? I think being first is rad. actually, that guy made me mad. wanna crash at my pad? damn that microsoft ad. this is getting bad.
Intel transfer the difficult from Hadware to software, for get more power, programmer need more technology. -- chinaitn
..is out..
:))
This story is to damn big. I'll put it online when the server isn't screwed up.
YOU SUCK
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
... your existence is the proof of it. You never made it out of the ape ...
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
I dunno about completely.. some people, as seen on slsahdot, take things so out of perspective. I' mean c'mmon...take a minute, and think.
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
Computers are now so fast that we can quickly simulate millions of years of evolution. Theoretically, we should be able to start with a core program, feed it some /dev/random/, compare it with the selection criteria, select the closest and repeat until we arrive at Linux 3.0. Why isn't anyone proposing this as a valid method of development? Because it doesn't work!
Obviosly, it *would* work, it would take a very long time (like a few billion years, maybe), and we would need a working copy of Linux 3.0 to compare it with.
If you had a clue, you would relize that what's created by man, and what's created 'randomly' would be completly diffrent. Computers do *not* have the speed to go through 'millions of years' of evolution very qickly. as far as 'evolutionary' computing there is no reason that you couldn't end up wiith somthing pretty intresting, but you won't end up with linux 3.0, beacuse that's a spasific set. it's like throwing paint at a canvas, you might get somthing pretty but you are not going to get a exact copy of somthing for a long time
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
You re-iterate the question whether I am willing to consider evidence that people with religious beliefs might be right. Thereby insinuating that I have shown myself not ready to do so. Well the fact is that I answered that question. If someone comes up with novel evidence for me, I am willing to think about it. When people come up with evidence of a path that I have been down many times before, and which I know both sides of better than they do - no, to that I won't be very open.
As for how I approached religion, that is a different question. I do not see that I have any need to spout my personal experience with religion here. The narrower question that was asked is whether people with those beliefs are right, IOW it is the evidence for the beliefs that is in question. And that is not a question of trying to approach religion like science, that is a question of taking claims that are made and putting them through a BS detector.
As for the charlatans - yes, you are right that they are out there. Most people are aware that such exist. What I wish is that more religious people would be aware that charlatans exist and have their BS detectors open. And in particular investigate both sides of the story before repeating information from a possible charlatan.
Sincerely
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
I find it interesting then that Satan quotes scripture himself. Satan is also a creationist. Did I miss something there? I don't remember the verse where he quotes scripture, but if need be, I can find it for you.
What?
Glad to maintain your respect.
Your original statement, and my reply, had to do with non-repeatable phenomena. This is a major issue in any historical science. Sure, theoretically, if you set them up the same way, perhaps it would turn out the same way. But we do not have the freedom to do that. We know that the phenomena happened, but we cannot repeat it.
Therefore, non-repeatable phenomena both exist and are part of science.
As for repeatability, even in the strict sense that is not true. For instance in quantum mechanics the same set-up can result in different outcomes. Does that prevent the subject from being dealt with scientifically? Allow me to quote Feynman,
"Philosophers, incidentally, say a great deal about what is absolutely necessary for science, and it is always, so far as one can see, rather naive, and probably wrong...What is the fundamental hypothesis of science, the fundamental philosophy? We stated it in the first chapter: the sole test of the validity of any idea is experiment.
(The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Vol 1, 2-3.)
This is as true in a historical science as in any other. To name but one example, Astronomy all of the time has to deal with fundamentally non-repeatable observations. A supernovae in this galaxy is not something that happens on demand, and we cannot choose when to observe it.
As for the limits of science, they are very strict. Within its limits science has tremendous explanatory power. Outside of its limits there are blank areas that it simply cannot address.
What gives rise to the feeling of being aware? We cannot even address this problem. Science is useless.
When the germanic tribes (the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes) invaded England, did they displace the Celts or merely take over leadership? Science can address this, the two racial groups have recognizable phenotypes. (The germanic tribes displaced the Celts.)
The former question, science will never address. The latter it gives an answer to that there is simply no real point in doubting.
Cheers,
Ben Tilly
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
Loved the, "Clap, clap" part, do it again!
Its kinda funny. Its not really evil (imho). I find that it has people just like the techno (whatever its called) community. There are the zealots, the conservatives, the newbies and the momos, the good guys, the intelligent and the misled. Guess its experience based =)
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
Actually the Hebrew word for 'day' in Genesis *does* mean a literal 24 hour time span.
Some people argue the "day-age" theory which means a day == millions of years. Who knows, it could happen, but I tend not to agree with that philosophy.
Okay, "simulate millions of years of evolution" was probably not a good choice of words. I didn't mean "simulate the entire process of evolution for all living things throughout the history of the planet", I meant iterations or generations. Evolution in large mammals can only take place so quickly because each generation takes a certain amount of time, usually at least 1 year. On the other hand, a random computer program could go through several iterations a minute, clearly going much faster than evolution normally could.
I didn't say the goal was Linux 3.0 bit-for-bit. Perhaps I should have been more clear. The selection criteria were supposed to be generalities (like powerful multi-user system with good security and stability). The idea was that by selecting for these characteristics you would eventually arrive at the ultimate OS, Linux 3.0. I guess my attempt at humor failed :-)
Here are some references on problems with K-
Ar dating methods.
http://www.icr.org/research/as/as-r01.htm
http://www.icr.org/research/sa/sa-r01.htm
And here is one that looks candidly at problems with both the models of long age of universe and short age of universe.
http://www.icr.org/research/df/df-r01.htm
I am reading the site that was posted, some arguments are well founded and some definitely are not. I will continue studying it and when I can, I will look up the other research again. You should also be aware that there have been more recent studies on moon dust that support the earliest measurements much more than some in-between have, as well as evidence that much of the dust on the moon would have come from the moon itself as a result of meteorite impact rather than just the dust from space. I believe that this is mentioned in the article above.
A fundamental question about your criticism of dating, do you accept that the Earth is more than a few thousand years old, but wonder about how we can know any particular age, or do you deny that there is evidence that the world is more than a few thousand years old? If the latter then there is no need for any sophisticated method. Ice sheets lay down layers similar to tree rings. You can literally take a core, and count back. There are cores from the Greenland sheet that go back over 300,000 years. (The value in these cores is in things like pollen, and in the fact that there is "fossil air" trapped in them.) Clearly the Greenland sheet has existed for that time and not been disturbed by untoward events such as a world flood.
Therefore I will assume that you accept that the world is more than a few thousand years old, but you question the exact dating mechanisms.
One of your criticisms, the linearity of decay, is on the face of it ludicrous. The decay rate is an outgrowth of the laws of physics. Unless you believe that they are changing, the linearity of decay is a given.
The next issue has to do with water and fire. The effects of water and fire are not to be discounted. However they also leave obvious traces. We can assume that geologists are sufficiently aware of their samples to identify when these things have had an effect! Trust me, geologists are very aware of a variety of external effects and take them into account.
It seems that you are more interested in identifying reasons to NOT accept anything they have to say than in examining the evidence! For instance one question that you refuse to consider is this, if every method of dating is independently bad, then why do they all agree on the relative dates of different layers of rock? Reflect on that and give me a straightforward explanation of this basic fact...
Moving on to your treatment of the transitional FAQ, I have to really wonder. You are reading a long FAQ, with a tremendous number of examples, and the one example that you JUST HAPPEN to pick is the one listed as being particularly bad for gaps. Your original claim was that there were no transitional fossils known. Well why not look at the transition from synapsid reptiles to mammals?
Your original claim is clearly false, even if you just went on a fishing expedition for one of the weaker transitions listed in a large number of transitional sequences.
But even so, the example you picked, Archeopteryx, itself clearly is neither a reptile or a bird. It could be labelled one or the other, sure, but it clearly is a mix. Whether or not it is an ancestor of modern birds (not at all clear), it shows that transitional forms that are midway between what we now think of as very distinct groups did indeed exist!
Sincerely,
Ben Tilly
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
You can really never know anything for sure. But at some point, as you find more and more evidence to support a theory, you eventually come to the conclusion that is very likely to be true. But before I can be convinced that some other theory is very likely to be true, I'll need to see evidence in support of it.
Actually I don't think creationism qualifies as a hypothesis.
Doesn't a hypothesis have to be falsifiable to be considered a valid scientific hypothesis?
I don't believe creationism is falsifiable.
Since creationism rests on supernatural explanations for natural events it puts itself outside the realm of science as science limits itself to the strictly natural world.
[We don't come from a planet. We come from a grid sector.]
There are things called urban legends. Remember telephone, well this is the internet.
http://www.talkorigins.org/
My only point was that s/he should not point to examples of losing complexity as evolution. True, they may be better adapted for their environment, but I would hardly call losing complexity and features progress in the evolutionary sense (maybe it would be Win2K :-)
I still have yet to hear of a mutation that actually improves a species' genome. The only cases in which mutations have ever been shown to be helpful is when they disable some feature that was being attacked or was causing grief. I have never heard of a mutation that actually created a new feature that was not previously present in the genome.
The only "evidence" of species being linked together is some similarities with the look of an embryo in different animals, and similar bone sturctures in some different animals. That
There is a lot more evedence then that,
As far as new species coming from old ones, I belive there have been exaples of this in bacteria, although I don't know for sure. in larger animals, I don't belive it could happen in more then a few tens of thousands of years, never in your life time. (the homo sapian race is 30,000 to 40,000 years old, i think)
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Nobody in Europe believes in Creationsm. Only a country like Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan or the USA can come up with such a fucked up, outdated, biggotic, outrageously stupid idea as creationism.
The whole Europe is laughing loudly at you.
Hopefully you have the third amendment and you'll get killed by one of your neighbors soon.
I said that economic success is not neccesarily related to poulation growth rates. I chose my words carefully.
In the modern world, it may cause a reduction. In other parts of the world, economic success translates into lower infant mortality rates. If you can feed a population, it can survive to breed.
I don't know much about population studies-- but I suspect this negative correlation comes from several sources-- urbanism, and feminism. There's also a moralistic component.
I may be blowing smoke here, but the pressure to have kids is probably stronger in a agricultural society, where labour is important. Richer societies tend to have less subsistance agriculture.
Feminism will obviously bring about a reduction in the birth rate, and is connected to female education and literacy-- something that is neglected in poorer societies. A host of other things follow, including birth control, less time forsex, etc.
I'd love to see a rock 12.x+1 billion years old! 12.x, though i can belive :)
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
do they go to hell?
:)
aaaaahahahahahahahahahahhaahh
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
All possible combinations of energy forming matter. Energy is a finite commodity in the universe. We are moving toward equalibrium, but more importantly, there are a finate number of states that life can exist in. I suggest most of you take a look at "variation within kind" logic for a better take on who/what we are. Could support creationism, and is much more sound logic than evolution without boundries.
This is nonsense
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
you would still have a problem, the y1.6k problem, any centry switch would cause the same problem in programs written by idiots who used two bytes to store 100 posiblitys (instaid of a short int witch would store 65,000 posiblitys in two bytes. if they had we would be ok up to the y67k...)
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
The wording in the article is very poor, indicating that it was written by somebody with little background in biochemistry. I think what they are saying is that the molecular signature indicates Eukariotic cells, which would be the newest one of the three forms of life, including yeast and all multicellular life. The 3-billion year old fossils you remember reading about were likely archeabacteria, the oldest branch of life, which was chased off of most of the world's surface by prokariotic bacteria. Archeabacteria is still found in exotic locations with high heat, acid content, or pressure where other life cannot survive.
Indeed Snelling's article looks reasonable. However search down for Snelling's name here to find a rather detailed rebuttal.
As for Falkner's article, the evidence against a global flood is so overwhelming that traditional geology had abandoned that theory before 1820. The evidence is even stronger now. For one instance I have never seen any creationist explain the ice sheets. Ice sheets lay down annual layers, very similarly to tree rings. You can date ice cores by simple counting. (Although this is tedious and so short-cuts are usually taken.) We have cores from Vostok, Antartica, and Greenland that are both well over 100,000 years and clearly show that no global Flood affected them in that time.
Today "Flood geology" is clearly an attempt to shoehorn the world into a pre-determined religious model. Basic facts are ignored, thrown away, abused, and mutilated. There is no attempt at intellectual honesty, and no attempt to take into account even basic facts.
All of which makes the second paper even more galling. What it does is walk through a series of topics, and try to point out potential problems in the very detailed current scientific theories. This is truly a case of ignoring the beam in your own eye while complaining about the mote in your neighbour's. What is even more ironic is that their job is practically done for them. The normal process of science includes a constant self-examination and highlighting of all potential issues. Those issues are not hidden, but are instead explored in detail. So all the creationist has to do is go to the scientific literature, and look for articles that raise these issues, and make a list. Throw in a few mis-understandings, and some mis-information, and voila! A list of problems in the current scientific world view!
Of course a similar self-criticism is never turned towards the Creationist's own views. And the reason is simple, any sincere Creationist with the self-discipline and honesty required to do that long ago ceased to be a Creationist!
Sincerely,
Ben Tilly
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
At least in the literal form, the version with an Earth that is a few thousand years old and with the global Flood abour 4000 years ago.
That is both falsifiable and it was falsified before Darwin. Creationists today don't like admitting that, but it doesn't change the facts.
Another point, today science does not hold much stock with supernatural explanations, true. However modern science evolved from the science of Newton's time which most definitely sought to demonstrate God's hand in creation. And this bias strongly shaped the initial theories of history and geology. The current lack of supernatural explanations is a result of the scientific process, and not just an a priori refusal on the part of scientists to consider supernatural explanations.
Regards,
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
I'm shre this poster was being sarcastic, however the dinosaur bones being placed there by god is a common statement made by crationists (dispite the fact that this leads to 'last tuesdayism' and other such idiocys)
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
interesting...
will give it some thought.
Ex Libris Veritas
As for your references, if this is the kind of misinformation that they have, keep them. And go out and double-check their sources, and look for rebuttals as well. You have to examine both sides of the problem!
As for your being a high-school math and science teacher, I don't doubt that. Need I tell you my opinion of high-school math and science teachers?
Sincerely,
Ben Tilly
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
Nope...we're all hominids - I mean mammals - I mean vertebrates - I mean...
Names and categories are a useful for communication, but they prove nothing.
I'll correct that subtly and say that there are some atheists who are saying that no god or gods had any part in evolution. However, you are correct insofar as evolution itself does not exclude god(s).
--
Do I look like I speak for my employer?
If you look at the link for Aristotle you will see that he is listed as being an early biologist. But he is not listed as a precurser to Darwin's theories on evolution. This FAQ will give you a better picture of that.
As for whether or not Archeopteryx is a bird, I find it amusing that the first 2 links explain why some people don't call it a bird, and the third stresses the non-birdlike features. As I said, it is a transitional form.
And if, as you suggest at the end of your post, you want my suggestion for an example to look at, why not use the one that I gave you? The rising of the mammals from the therapsid reptiles? Remember that your original claim was that there was "a complete lack of transitional forms". Do you still maintain that claim?
As for dating, I recommend that if you are truly interested you either follow some of the references in the Isochron FAQ, or else show up on talk.origins and ask politely for more information.
If you want to see multiple dating methods giving the same value, you could do worse than to go to:
Dalrymple, G. Brent, 1986. Radiometric Dating, Geologic Time, And The Age Of The Earth: A Reply To "Scientific" Creationism, U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 86-110. 76 pp.
Moving on to your criticism of scientists, I am the first to admit that scientists are human, and no human endeavor is as idealistic as science is often made out to be. However don't dismiss it so simply as that! The scientific process as a whole is designed in such a way that the truth will out (in time). And as it does, the case for that truth is laid bare for investigation by anyone who is truly interested. So whether or not you trust individual scientists, you can still evaluate the products of science for yourself.
Please do that before dismissing the conclusions of the entire enterprise out of hand.
Sincerely,
Ben Tilly
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
To cap this little trhed off...i would need to explain my experience. I went to a catholic grade school. I remeber my science teacher like it was yesterday, i really loved him (get your mind out of the gutter and into the sewer where it belongs!). Yet, i also can remeber bringing up evolution one day in class and he got real quite and said he couldn't talk about it, he had to proceed with class. This was even though it had to do with the subject matter. This really got my spirits down. Now what some ppl have spoken of is the seperation of church and state. Some are in favor of theching creationism on schools to give a well rounded education. As good as it sounds...its wrong. We already get a healthy dose of what religions have done in hisotry classes, lord knows i have. I can tell you...until i grew up...to phathom what those wars were really like was alien to me. Fact being children often times aren't ready to visualize or absorb such atrocities. In addition to the fact that many children arent able to handle these things, it is against our consitituion. Anyone remember seperation of church and state? Well, to tell the truth...that seperation has been blown away. When mayors and govenors are best buds with cardinals for votes...and they are influenced by those cardinals or religious figures...i dont see that seperation. When i see Jerry Falwell commenting on what the president has done and the media letting such biased and closed off individuals have such a voice...that seperatiion is dead. All i can say is lets at least keep that seperation clean and clear where our children are concerned. Kids are very impressionable. They soak in everything you tell them, wether you know it or not. Keep crationism in the chruch..synagogue...mosque..whatever. please?
As long as we're debating this issue by knocking the advocates for the other side, I'd like to point out some traits of evolutionists that rub me the wrong way. From the above quote:
- Saying that creationists do not seek publication in public journals is quite a blanket statement, wouldn't you say? Not one creationist has ever tried to get published in a peer-reviewed journal?
- He (and most evolutionists) define science as to exclude out of hand any theory that includes or implies a belief in God. Thus, creationist arguments are a priori disallowed. Clever way to win an argument.
- Even if evolution turned out to be wrong, it would simply be replaced by another scientific theory. In other words, no matter how many times facts are encountered that invalidate "evolution", we'll just change the theory to fit the facts. Another clever way to win an argument.
- Much of their output is "preaching to the choir". Earlier he says scientists no longer consider non-evolutionary theories (paraphrase). So who's preaching to the choir?
-jimboor "Evolt" one if you prefer,
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
You certainly seem to be getting hostile over this, and you seem to believe that i have some hidden and dastardly motive for the things ive said. No. I just want an honest unbiased evaluation.
Now. In reference to your opening remarks...
I believe I stated pretty clearly that I had never seen this creature prior to locating it on your website in chapter #9 I also stated that this was NOT my field. What I have looked at for so long are rocks. specifically geochemistry as it relates to crystal formation, not fossils.
re: the links I provided... I did a web search looking for pics of the fossil. none are provided in your site. (would be a nice addition). What i found were what I provided.
point 1. I do not yet see that all dating methods consistently agree.
point 2. Your paragraph 3: You believe that and your an idiot. Believe it about me and your still an idiot.
point 3. Archeopteryx.
I still believe its a bird. I may change my mind. I may not. Off the top of my head, I would guess that it tasted a lot like chicken.
point 4. NO i did not dismiss your data. Im sure I will continue to read it and continue to evaluate it for years to come. Yes I see some problem areas in the things we have discussed. Yes, I did feel the need to point them out to you, in the event that you had not seen them.
Maybe I should have given you a pat on the back for such an informative page instead of questioning the weak points I see there. Sorry, but I always look for the weak points first. Once I find them, I am in a far better position to judge the data.
I guess where we differ on this critter, is you believe that because it was a dinosaur, it wasnt a bird. I dont agree. I see no reason that this animall could not have been a dinosaur and still be a bird. I understand that you have them under different classifications and they are therefore, in your eyes, different. I dont blindly accept that premise.
Point 5: the preponderance of the evidence
Thus far the "proponderance of the evidence" from both your self and your website is that your far more interested in carrying on your private little war with the creationists, than you are in openly looking at the evidence in an discussion that you initiated.
Im sorry if i dont believe what you say simply because you said it. I rarely believe anything from anyone simply because they said it.
That is a matter of trust and quite frankly, I have no reason to do so yet.
You are right. There may not be any point in talking to you further unless you are willing to reconsider your attitude, but if you care to continue this. im nospamsruyle@nstar.net
remove nospam and we can move it off of slashdot.
sorry i missed this post earlier. I left early and was at the paluxy river all day. nice place. water was a bit too warm to really be enjoyable in the shallows, but it was nice at the blue hole.
yes. I did see "man" tracks at the paluxy river. They were located maybe 1/4 mile south of the blue hole. They were pretty easily identifiable as a man track because of the word "adidas" written in the middle of instep.
later
steve
Ex Libris Veritas
Christ your sad. Brad
I was told that the universe was created only 6000 years ago and that anyone who claimed otherwise was part of a satanic conspiricy to discredit the Bible
I've just re-read my original post, and I'm beginning to doubt my sanity. I didn't actually say anything nasty, argumentative, offensive, or disrespectful - all I did was disagree with your argument, in a fairly clear and calm manner. I was not being immature, unles they have changed the definition of maturity in the last few days.
Getting to your points:
"Or stated differently if you teach theories just to be teaching theories then you are not learning to think but only to recite by rote."
Please enlighten me: where did I suggest that people should be taught theories for the sake of teaching them theories? I advocated teaching theories as a means of exposure to the thought processes behind them - this is about as far from "rote learning" as you can get. As a side effect, in the teaching of science, the pupil comes out of the teaching with knowledge of scientific theories, which can be extremely powerful tools. How can anyone argue sensibly against that sort of teaching?
"As for the comment challenging beliefs the earlier the better. I disagree, human development limits what can be taught when."
Once again you miss the point I was trying to make. I wasn't advocating teaching kindergarten kids relativity (unless they ask for it), I was advocating that they be exposed to as many different kinds of ideas as possible. Human development might limit what can be taught, but it doesn't limit the flexibility of the young in dealing with a broad range of experience and ideas. In fact, children are generally _far_ more flexible in this than most adults, even the least anomalous of them. And if you can give them that broad experience of ideas, there's a good chance that they'll develop to the point where they can deal with the more complex things much earlier. Saying "Oh, that's too hard for the poor children, we'll leave it for a year or two" is almost certainly underestimating their capabilities.
"And finally, conformity of thought (or teaching for that matter) does not really promote advances."
Straw Man Alert! Straw Man Alert! I didn't say anything like that - in fact, rather than promote conformity of thought, I was advocating _exactly_ the opposite.
"Needless to say, from what I have read of your postings, you have made up your mind about evolution and expect everyone else to agree with you."
Well, yes, I have made up my mind about evolution. In fact, I made it up so long ago that I can't even remember when it happened, though I was probably seven or eight at the time . . . And yes, I suppose I do expect everyone else to agree with me, at least provisionally, because the evidence for evolution is so _convincing_. Pretty much the only way to argue with the validity of evolutionary theory is by rejecting chunks of it outright, generally on the basis of little or no evidence. That's what creationists do, and that's what those scientists who have a problem with evolution do ("Macroevolution is different from Microevolution!" How?). It's a bit of a generalisation, but the scientific community in general doesn't even wonder about evolution's validity any more, the evidence is so strong.
I realise you've probably read at least half a dozen equivalent recomendations, but go have a look at the talk.origins web site, and read the FAQS. There's a hell of a lot more about evolution there than I can carry around in my head, and they list very good references.
Oh, and I have read about creation "theory". What's more, I've read the bible (admittedly a long time ago, but even so). The problem is, the kind of thing that creation theory claims is extraordinarily hard to accept, for someone with training in physics - unless you distort the words to the point where it's an exercise in semantics, rather than science, there is nothing in them that presents a more coherent, consistent explanation of the origin of the universe and our planet than that presented by science. Given that, and using the famous "Ockhams razor", I am pretty much forced to discard creation theory in favour of science's explanations. It would take some very powerful evidence to shift me, and I haven't seen anything that even approaches that coming out of the creationist camp.
I'm sorry if this seems unreasonable and immature to you, or even (god forbid!) disrespectful, but I can't help how you react to my honest and deeply thought out opinions. I'm not going to stop expressing them, particularly not for an AC on Slashdot.
himi
Australian Science Rules!!! Yay! Yay!
My very own DeCSS mirror.
Out of the entire article, it never mentioned what method they used to determine the age of the findings. One could assumed that they are using carbon-dating technology, which has in recent years been proven to be EXTREMELY flawed. This just goes to show that its easier to believe what someone tells you, then it is to do the work yourself. The media just eats this crap up, spews it out, and moves on. Sad. Very sad...
As I was taught.. the time between creation and Christ's birth.. the dates between that were never recorded well.. so it can be fesable. But then again, I'm just a Catholic boy. (For those of you interpreting that teaching evolution means when the earth was 'born'.) ---- It's a hard knock life.. for me.
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
The strange thing is that the religious people themselves agree with you. Something about "The Lord is my shepherd" comes to mind.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Well, that's the official Catholic Church position - theistically guided evolution. So there are indeed some religious people that agree with you. Opposition to evolution remains mostly among the fundamentalist American protestants.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Evolution does NOT say that humans evolved from apes or monkeys -- it says we evolved from a common ancestor. How many times does this have to be said? If people want to argue against a theory, please make sure those arguments are valid to begin with. HTH
Fast forward a few decades and you'd end up with Applied Theology as a hard science! 8-)
For this and other mind-stretching concepts, read Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep. Good book!
"You've crossed my Line of Death!" "What? No! Where is it?" "Here in the fine print...."
You claim that we see no evidence of cross-species evolution. Do you need a list of examples? That will also give you a list of transitional forms as well.
When it comes to dating, I find your comment about the geologist unbelievable. If you had any interest in dating I am sure that over 2 decades you could have satisfied yourself on the techniques in use.
In any case the resolution to your puzzle is quite simple. There are specific types of fossils that are used as indicators. For instance tribolites. The mark of a good indicator species is that it had to be common, fossilize well, and change rapidly. For each indicator species there are specific finds from which we have independently determined what time-period they existed in. (Usually through radioactive dating of some sort.) Given that we know when the indicator species actually existed, it can in turn be used as an easy dating mechanism for rocks. (It is easier to see a fossil in the field than it is to date rocks with sophisticated equipment!) Then the fossils that you are really interested in, which you don't have a date on, can be dated from the dating for the rocks.
The pattern here is a bootstrap where our conclusions from reliable but difficult dating methods about common species allow those species in turn to be used for a less precise dating of rock layers, which in turn allows us to date fossils.
Don't knock it! The geologists knowledge of indicator species (primarily tribolites) is central to exploration techniques for fossil fuels. (Coal, oil, natural gas.)
Sincerely,
Ben Tilly
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
Math logic:
All possible combinations of energy forming matter. Energy is a finite commodity in the universe. We are moving toward equalibrium, but more importantly, there are a finate number of states that life can exist in. I suggest most of you take a look at "variation within kind" logic for a better take on who/what we are. Could support creationism, and is much more sound logic than evolution without boundries.
Yes, this argument has been put forth many times, and is sometimes called Last Tuesdayism. The world could have been created, as is, including all your memories, etc. Just Last Tuesday. Or, how about this morning, or ten minutes ago. Come to think of it, how do you know your short term memories of reading this post are real? You could have been created right in the act of reading it. Anyway, most creationists reject such reasoning, because it implies that God is trying to trick people. Apparantly God does not play games with His loyal subjects. All I can say is that people who can say that have either never actually read the bible (God demands that Moses sacrifice Isaac, the Forbidden Fruit [probably not meant to be an apple], and didn't I read somewhere about God intentionally hardening the hearts of various biblical antagonists so that they would play their part in his little dramas?), or rely on a heavily "interpreted" version of the same.
The main problem with religion is it for listeners. Other people do the interpretation for you. The 6000 year number was done many centuries ago, and has never been revised. 4004 BC, (9am?) No scholarly discussion, the first person to do this, was just right. Not likeley.
Challenge you to go backwards (or forewards) in the bible, and post a timeline. Convice yourself that you can do it.
Now, convince yourself that all the assumptions about radiocativity and it's hazards are wrong. Physics is wrong, chemistry is wrong, except when it suits your needs. Then like CS folks, you can come up with how dating which releys on radiocative decay rates can be wrong. Then, don't worry about the radiocative nuclear power plant, 10,000 years is really 10 years in CS time.
Evolution simply stipulates that the alleles in a population will change over time towards other alleles which will give a life form a competitive advantage. It's the same process whether speciation is invloved or not. Usually what determines whether speciation occurs is whether a population is separated into different segments for an extended period of time. Read nobel lauriate, Christian DeLuve's book Vital Dust, or for a quick explaination, check out this link .
I'm a gnu world man.
Disclaimer: any of the following may be slightly in error, I welcome any corrections You're thinking of something called teleology (if I remember correctly) which Aristotle DID come up with several thousand years before Darwin was born. Teleology is the belief that animals exist in certain forms because they "evolved" to do the things they do.. ie. a bird has wings because it needs them to fly. This is kind of like evolution in that species change, but very different in the important fact that evolution is based on random mutations in a population, which may turn out to be good, hence produce a species which thrives, etc. Teleology is more of a purposeful change - there is no randomness involved, species change only because there is a need for them to. Anyway, I don't know how far Aristotle believed these changes could take species - ie. whether humans and birds could have evolved from the same thing, or whether these changes were just within certain genera, or whether there was any change going on at all or if creatures just sprung out of nothing. This is, though, different from (current) creationism, because Aristotle was around before the great monotheistic religions had made their mark on the western world.
You make it appear that I was saying that few describe themselves as Creationists. In fact in the US over 40% of the population believes that the Bible is literal truth, including its description of Creation and the Flood. Even more believe that what it says is roughly true, and there are more like Jimbo at least feel that Creationism is a belief system that deserves equal consideration with Evolution.
Yes, there is a spectrum, I grant you that. For instance the official position of a number of religions (eg the Roman Catholic faith) involves theistic evolution, which is to say evolution but with some divine prompting. But by and large things are pretty darned polarized. It is difficult for people who have never paid attention to realize how polarized they are. But that does not lessen the real polarization out there.
Given how strong the evidence is against traditional Creationism as believed by these people, is there any reason that we should mince words? It is very easy in ignorance to say that you think that Evolution is implausible. It is much harder for someone with any real knowledge of the processes involved to point to anything implausible in the standard scientific picture in, say, the last 300 million years. Wilful ignorance does not make for an opinion that is worth equal time with an educated one.
And the next time that you quote me, please don't take my sentence so clearly out of context. It really makes you look stupid to anyone who goes back and looks at the original sentence in context.
Sincerely,
Ben Tilly
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
by a "gentleman" from the South while having a conversation in a bar about spirituality, etc. He came across the bar and said "Ah accept Jesus Chrast as mah Savioor, ahm in the 82nd Airborne and from North Carolina. What religion are you?". Our offense was we were discussing Buddhism and Hopi Indian beliefs over a fair amount of really good tequila. He got really loud and just stayed in our face for almost an hour. We had to leave the place to get away from him. Isn't religion fun? Israeli's and Arabs, Catholic and Protestant in Northern Ireland.... yeah, it does so much good in the world.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
Why do you assume that someone who believes in evolution has never examined the evidence given for Creationism?
The person you are responding to asked "Are you willing to consider evidence that people with religous beliefs might be right?" Are you?
I have, in fact, considered such evidence in then past.
Approaching religion on the basis of scientific evidence strikes me a lot like approaching science by praying to Einstein, Feynman, and Bohr and being disappointed when they fail to answer.
Is that the act of a moral, honest, and straightforward person?
So you've discovered that there are charlatans who will take advantage of gullible peoples' religious beliefs. Too bad more people don't take the time to do that.
That would be the Lamarckian hypothesis (now known as the Lamarckian fallacy) - that learned behaviours or post-natal adaptations are inheritable.
The Lamarckian explanation of the giraffe's neck, for example, is that generation after generation of giraffe would stretch their necks to reach food on trees, and their offspring would inherit the subsequent stretching.
This idea obviously preceded the discovery of DNA.
Since no human was there to see how the Earth began then noone knows exactly how or when it was made. So every man has a choice to believe what ever he wants to believe. While I believe that God created the world and all that is in it and the next guy believes that with a big bang and evoltion over billions of years we have what we see today. We can argue all we want and throw out facts like crazy and that isn't going to change anyones opion on how we began. I am not going to attack anyones own opion because everyman has the right to one. It all just comes down to... Would you rather die believing there was a God and find out there wasn't or die NOT believing in a God and find out there was? I think the safe bet is to belive that there is a God and that He sent his Son Jesus Christ to die on a cross for your sins. If you believe that Jesus died for you and rose again on the third day and defeated death. Than you will have eternal life in Heaven. It a simple choice!
That has to be about the worst written article I have read in a long time, as far as actual writing goes. The sentences were so janky that by the time I got to the end, I had forgotten what the beginning sed. Wahahaaaa
Four-digit slashdot ID. Recognize.
The question that you are getting at, how life started, is called "abiogenesis" and is properly quite a different topic from evolution. An appropriate analogy would be to think about driving. Figuring out evolution is equivalent to figuring out how the driver controls the car. Figuring out abiogenesis is equivalent to figuring out how the car was being built, except that cars are not being built any more and the factories were long ago torn down and destroyed!
We have very good evidence for the last several hundred million years of evolution. We know that life got started well before that. We have very little evidence of what happened when life got started, and we know much less than we would like to about the processes that were involved.
All of that said, the problem is not absolutely hopeless. While little concrete can be said, there is research progressing, but that said, it all is pretty tenative.
Now I am not positive which professor you are quoting, but you should be aware of common mistakes that are made. The fact that we have much less that is concrete to say about how abiogenesis probably happened is not equivalent to saying that it was an impossible event!
In fact we do have good evidence that the process involved was very long. It turns out that ammino acids can appear in 2 configurations, left-handed or right-handed. On the surface it would appear that the two are (up to a mirror symmetry in what they interact with) chemically equivalent. However there is in physics a very slight asymetry, and theoretically the left-handed version should be slightly more stable.
When I say slightly, I mean slightly! The theoretical difference is too small for us to actually measure. However over millions of years the difference could possibly be significant. It is then potentially significant there there is a strong bias in life towards left-handed ammino acids...
Anyways, the short answer is that we don't really know how abiogenesis happened, but it does not seem (at least to many in the field) to be a fundamentally impossible event. In any case questions around abiogenesis do not compose evidence against evolution per se.
Cheers,
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
They can handle the reasoning behind 1 and 1 makes 2. But evolution? it's algebra to them. 1 + x = 2 and x is ... Creationists: y?
That must have been hard for that one monkey that did evolve, what with all those non-evolved monkey brothers and sisters running around the house making a mess. Not to mention the embarasment of bring home a friend from school and having your entire family jumping around, smelling each others butts and craping on the living room furnature.
Let me see, a clear lie about the Paluxy river (hint to the wise, even the ICR has admitted for over a decade that those tracks are fake), a clear (and lame) attempt to try to reverse what I said about Archeopteryx (please note that I was the one who said from the start that it showed both bird-like and dinosaur-like characteristics, and hence classifying it is somewhat arbitrary), and you then blather on about trust.
You have established to my satisfaction that I can trust you to not be fair-minded.
Oh, another point that I let you gloss over before. You claim to be unconvinced that evolution does not contradict the second law of thermodynamics. Unconvinced on a point of basic physics? If you were sincere you would have understood this decades ago!
Here is an explanation in case you really do want to pay attention. The second law of thermodynamics applies to closed systems. The Earth is definitely not a closed system, we get a large influx of energy from the Sun at a high temperature, and radiate it off into outer space. This makes us an open system with a force driving levels of entropy down at an easily calculable rate. That is basic physics.
Now were the Earth to magically become a closed system then evolution would indeed run afoul of the second law of thermodynamics. In fact you don't even need to do any calculations to see that. Cut off the Sun and put us in a reflective shield and rather quickly the plants would die, animals would then quickly starve, and before long evolution would come to a quick and nasty end because there would be nothing living left to evolve.
Luckily for us that outcome is extremely unlikely. We remain an open system, life gets a chance, and evolution can continue as a natural by-product of life continuing to exist in an ever-changing world.
Really, as I said before, this is pretty basic information for anyone who is truly open-minded and investigating the evidence. If you actually understood the science then this would not require any explanation - it is simply obvious. And yet you claim to be "unconvinced" on this basic point after 2 decades? That simply does not wash!
And with that said, I do believe that I am done talking to you.
Sincerely,
Ben Tilly
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
Your argument may be valid if there was in fact only 2 choices. You conviently ignore the shitload of other religions and gods who have been postulated and worshipped throughout the ages.
I hear Zeus is not to be trifled with, and Wodin would have your balls as soon as spit on you. As for Quetzalcoatl....
So how can you be so sure YOU have made the right choice??? (Hint:the bible on its own is not a convincing argument. see http://www.sonic.net/~jhuger/kisshank.htm)
As soon as you can convince me why I should not beleive in all these other gods, then you will know why I don't believe in your's.
MrCreosote Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump! "You're right! There isn't enough room to swing a cat in here!"
If Mosaic evolved into Netscape and Explorer then why is Mosaic still here?
Or am I missing something?
Usually, am I in front of a computer at this time and don't watch the 5 o'clock news. But it's Friday. KRON had a news story about IPOs, those .com sites. In the end the anchor, mentioned 2 IPOs that's doing well this week Juniper Networks and our most_feared_but_will_not_be Microsoft replacement, Red Hat Software. He didn't say the Linux word though. But, I thought that was cool. Just a year or 2 now. Those mainstream news network will be all over Linux. This is the SF Bay Area.
Queen Maeve, by the way, is the divine cat that created the universe last Tuesday. Go to talk.origins for more info.
--
Do I look like I speak for my employer?
The theory that God created Earth last Tusday, made it look old and implanted our memories. And you stupid scientists can't disprove it can you? You know what that mean: it's right, and my website and national campaign to get last Tuesdayism put into schools in every field of science will soon help to open the minds of our youth!
Then we can all glorify God, since there is no point to life other than worshiping Him for creating evil humans and then punishing us for being evil(I'm sure glad he does that). He must be praised for his goodness.
Only when everyone in our godless society speaks from the book of last Tuesdayism will we be saved by the allmighty lord Christ Jesus! Halleluyah brothers, halleluyah!
is not intended to be used that many times in a paragraph :)
The very critter that the "bouncing Bonobo" release was named after! :-)
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
Just for those of you who don't know, or beleive in that crap called Christianity (that should cause some nasty replies):
There have been forms of life (bacteria mostly) found that date back more than 3.4 billions years. Give or take a few hundred thousands years.
As far as Kansas... wasn't there some court case a while back that had to do with teaching evolution in schools? Didn't they use the bible against the argument for not teaching evolution? LOL... sure, science lost that trial... but we won the war. Or at least I thought we had.
Science IS a religion, don't get me wrong. I must have faith in the scientific method and in the laws that I beleive govern the universe in order for science to be valid. But I choose to logically deduce our universe, not just assume that there is some supernatural being doing all the stuff.
No one will ever win the science VS christianity debate... but at least I will die knowing that I don't know everything. While that scares some people, it gives me a sense of purpose.
I shall leave you with a quote from one of my role models, Trent Reznor:
"he sewed his eyes shut because he is afraid to see
he tries to tell me what i put inside of me
he's got the answers to ease my curiosity
he dreamed up a god and called it christianity
your god is dead and no one cares
if there is a hell i will see you there
he flexed his muscles to keep his flock of sheep in line
he made a virus that would kill off all the swine
his perfect kingdom of killing, suffering and pain
demands devotion atrocities done in his name
your god is dead and no one cares
drowning in his own hypocrisy
and if there is a hell i will see you there
burning with your god in humility
will you die for this?"
or perhaps this suits you better:
"slave screams he thinks he knows what he wants
slave screams thinks he has something to say
slave screams he hears but doesn't want to listen
slave screams he's being beat into submission
don't open your eyes you won't like what you see
the devils of truth steal the souls of the free
don't open your eyes take it from me
i have found
you can find
happiness is slavery
slave screams he spends his life learning conformity
slave screams he claims he has his own identity
slave screams he's going to cause the system to fall
slave screams but he's glad to be chained to that wall
don't open your eyes you won't like what you see
the blind have been blessed with security
don't open your eyes take it from me
i have found
you can find
happiness is slavery
i don't know what i am i don't know where i've been
human junk just words and so much skin
stick my hands thru the cage of this endless routine
just some flesh caught in this big broken machine"
Be well... enjoy your religion, whatever it may be.
Someone help me out here. From my geology classes I remember numerous discoveries of cyano-bacteria fossils that were over 3 billion years old. Isn't the point of this new article that "organic material" has been found that is 2.7B years old? All the media coverage seems to imply that we had no evidence that life was older than 2.7B years.
Can someone confirm/deny this?
I'm a devout Christian and am open minded one too. There is going to be no way for anyone to exactly decipher how this world was created or where the heck we came from, but I believe science and God go hand in hand. Since I believe so strongly there is a God, he was the creator of science. The only problem I have with evolution is the fact that many scientist are saying we evolved from such lower life forms, when the bible quotes us being created in the image of God. This disturbs me and many other Christians, because I believe we were set apart from the animal kingdom. Anyhow, those are my thoughts for debate. oh and another thing, I hate people who put God in a box, he is so big that no one can say how we became about..
later
A bunch of white guys in trenchcoats that all look like Darth Vader create the world anew each Midnight, along with all our memories.
The rock it is in is 2.7 Billion. Its a 99% chance that the sample is that age, and they did a couple of ages, and they can out the same, within error (this is the second time they did it).
It a excellent chance that these chemicals are also lipids. Not 100.00% but 99.999 or something like that.
But when we talk like that, we get accused of talking an obscure scientific dialect. Damn if we do, damn if we don't.
And of course, there is no other better theory, presented. CS just points out the problems, not the solution. Dog is not the answer to everything, otherwist the McCoys would have never has 7 kids.
Well, a chihuahua and a wolf are different species, sharing a common ancestor. Chihuahua probably weren't around 3000 years ago. So this solves your mystery of "cross-species evolution".
i live in Kansas and according to the bible the Earth is 6000 years old. Anyway at least we won't have a Y2K problem in KS now as next year is apparently 1600 not 2000
It's quite simple. Firstly, there is no scientific evidence to support creationism, or any form of religion, because God exists through faith and with proof there is no faith, so without faith God is nothing. (Quid pro quo) Secondly, the powers that be gain nothing from teaching you evolution, they gain from teaching the masses that they are to be humble and turn the other cheek, believe what they are told if it comes from authority, and not draw their own conclusions from evidence. If no one told you anything, but showed you all the evidence, would you think that we evolved, or that some large invisible man with a hebrew name poofed us all into existance on a whim at some indeterminant point in time. And don't even start with the argument that God put all the fossils here to fool us, because by that line of rationale, I didn't write this post, God did, to fool you, and the earth came into existance only 30 seconds ago (continuously - those memorys of the past 40 seconds were planted)
- Lurene (Proud Subgenius)
I showed this article to someone I know (fundamentalist), and they claimed it was "probably faked".
They also believe that dinosaur fossils you see in museums are faked too.
Must of went to school in Kansas
-brain
Wasn't this an X-Files episode? Or several?
I direct your attention to the title.
No Christian will deny that dinosaurs existed (except the ones that claim that god put them there to fool us, but think about this - could he have created the earth 30 seconds ago and placed all your memories there to make you think it's older?) however, why isn't their creation (or existance!) mentioned in the bible? Also, why does it only mention animals common to middle eastern trade routes of the time? Why no lemurs, or whales, or squirrels, or penguins, or buffalo, kangaroos, fruit bats, marsupials of any kind, or (or were they expigated to fool us?)
- Lurene (Proud Subgenius)
Note that this report is pushing back
the time for the origin of _eukaryotes_ (i.e.
cells which have a nucleus)
Cells without a nucleus are thought to have
arisen billions of years earlier still
(apparently very shortly after the Earth
was capable of supporting life).
Would it be asking too much for anyone
who wants to seriously discuss this to first go
and read the actual article in Science magazine
rather than relying on a second hand
report in the mainstream press???
since we're on the topic of which religions views to teach in highschool (highschool being a degree granting institution...), I would like to quote a religious source and request that it be taught, otherwise we might be taking sides with religions and it seems to me like there's something, somewhere in that old yellow piece of paper that the wig-wearing guys wrote that says that's bad....
The Jatravartid people of Viltvodle VI believe that the Universe was in fact sneezed out of the nose of a being called the Great Green Arkleseizure.
The Jatravartids, who live in perpetual fear of the time they call the Coming of the Great White Handkerchief, are small blue creatures with more than fifty arms each, who are therefore unique in being the only race in history to have invented the aerosol deodorant before the wheel.
However, the Great Green Arkleseizure Theory is not widely accepted outside Viltvodle VI.
- Lurene (Proud Subgenius)
I am a member of that Satanic (note: please spell Satan with a capital S, thank you) conspiracy endeavoring to discredit the bible. Please consider joining us! Our members have an active social life that includes bi-weekly scheduled activities such as bicycling, canoeing, skiing, and bible discrediting. Membership dues are not unreasonable an it's a great place for singles looking to meet that special someone!
If you teach creationism in school does that mean that public schools endorse christianity over other equally (in)valid "theories"? Should the theories of ALL religions be given a chance? I propose we start with this one...
The Jatravartid people of Viltvodle VI believe that the Universe was in fact sneezed out of the nose of a being called the Great Green Arkleseizure.
The Jatravartids, who live in perpetual fear of the time they call the Coming of the Great White Handkerchief, are small blue creatures with more than fifty arms each, who are therefore unique in being the only race in history to have invented the aerosol deodorant before the wheel.
- Lurene (Proud Subgenius)
C dating compares the ratio of the C14 and C12 isotopes of carbon in the sample to the ratio found commonly in nature. Nitrogen never enters
the picture.
Actually, nitrogen DOES enter the picture. C14 undergoes beta decay (change neutron to proton and electon) to become N14. However, this nitrogren would then float off and become part of the atmosphere, or do something else insignificant. C14 never changes to C12.
The point is that C12 is stable, while C14 is constantly being changed to N14. Since you know the typical ratio of C12/C14, given the ratio for a sample, you can determine the age.
ElJefe
Well right now I don't clearly remember the dating T of known Life... It has been some time since I looked through my Biology stuff and I don't have it at hand. But if I'm weel remembered we know that traces of Life on Earth are as old has 3.4 or even 3.8 billion years! The first dating is referred to Greenland's discoveries, the second if I'm well remembered comes from some study of rocks in South Africa.
Besides I know that there are already data on complex organisms as old as 1.1-1.5 billion years. Ok, that makes us 1 billion away from what the posting says. HOWEVER! The article is speaking about eucaryotes. That is, it is speaking about highly complex cells. Cells that possess nucleous, "organs", and specialized functions. The same type we are made of. Moreover the article talks about a 3.5 billion year mark for bacterial Life (bacterias are already very complex organisms).
Btw CNN wrote an article carrying the same error as this posting. People be careful on writing about these things. Life on Earth is one of the most heaten questions. It may look that 2 billion or 3 billion does not make a difference. However consider that Earth is 4.6 billion years old. And reconsider this question taking into account that, presently, the "theoretical barrier" for Life is just 4.2 billion...
YOURSELF.
The main problem with religion is it for listeners. Other people do the interpretation for you. When conforted with a problem, change the subject, ignore the problem with your theories,and point out the problems with others.
Someone could teach you how to calculate the age of the rock, given the results. But can you do biblical math?
The 6000 year number was done many centuries ago, and has never been revised. 4004 BC, (9am?) No scholarly discussion. The first person, ArchBishop Usher, to do this, was just right. All his guesses about the gaps in time were right. Not likeley.
Challenge you to go backwards (or forewards) in the bible, and post a timeline. Convice yourself that you can do it.
Now, convince yourself that all the assumptions about radiocativity and it's hazards are wrong. Physics is wrong, chemistry is wrong, except when it suits your needs. Then like CS folks, you can come up with how dating which releys on radiocative decay rates can be wrong. Then, don't worry about the radiocative nuclear power plant, 10,000 years is really 10 years in CS time.
We are the product of alien genetic engineering upon apes millions of years ago to preserve some ancient race (possibly from Mars) or for some other unknown purpose. When the Pangia broke up the altered intelligent apes were seperated and evolved according to their climate and and environment. This is intuitive knowledge we all possess.
"The fossils were found in the vicinity of other fossils tentatively identified as the idealogies of the Kansas educational authorities."
"Old man yells at systemd"
We are like cousins split for a common species. Like all the billions of directories I have on my Linux machine, all can be trace back to / (root) hehe :)
The Drake Equation gives an estimate for the number of planets that currently support intelligent life, in our own galaxy, given guesses about various quantities. There are a few pages around that will do the calculations for you (ok, it's not exactly difficult, but they do suggest "good" values too).
Of course, that's only for this galaxy. So I guess you can multiply any number you get by a few billion ...
--
Repton.
Repton.
They say that only an experienced wizard can do the tengu shuffle.
The main problem with religion is it for listeners
Here it is:
The main problem with religioin is it's for SHEEP!
A position I most emphatically agree with.
I'm not an atheist, I'm a religious moron!
The scoop is that eukaryotes, like plants/animas/yeast/etc.---in other words, the more complex organisms that we see around us---are older than previously thought, 2.7 billion years instead 1.7 billion. The simpler prokaryotes like bacteria are still thought to have originated between 3.5 and 3.8 billion years ago. See the New York Times article for a better scoop. (free login required) -zook
I would hardly call point mutations that eliminate a receptor evolution (in the macro sense).
This is little different than calling the peppered moth "proof" of evolution. No one (who's been somewhat educated on the issue) doubts that natural selection occurs. But it's just that: selection. It doesn't create new genes, it just selects among ones already in existence.
How long would it take /dev/random to create a program that could, given the correct stimuli, evolve into Linux?
From what I recall of these evolutionary computing techniques, all the basic functions were already provided. The computer just tried random combinations until it got something that worked, something more akin to natural selection than macroevolution. I have yet to hear of a program generate totally new capabilities for itself. (Like only having the ability to print to the console and then suddenly being able to partition a disk.)
Even if someday they are able to create truly evolutionary programs (I doubt it), that will only show how much intelligence it took.
Programming is a very good example of the difficulties of evolution. How many times have you come to a very difficult problem that required a complex or completely different solution. How likely is it that that solution would have come about by chance? It required intelligence on your part to design an efficient solution. There are so many efficient and clever solutions in nature that it is very difficult to believe they came about by chance.
Computers are now so fast that we can quickly simulate millions of years of evolution. Theoretically, we should be able to start with a core program, feed it some /dev/random/, compare it with the selection criteria, select the closest and repeat until we arrive at Linux 3.0. Why isn't anyone proposing this as a valid method of development? Because it doesn't work!
At the bottom of my screen:
The bogosity meter just pegged.
Appropriate.
You claim to have been studying this subject for 20 years and have never once encountered the opinion that there are people who think that Archeopteryx is better classified as a dinosaur than a bird? Given that this opinion was stated in 2 out of the 3 links that YOU provided, I do not find that even remotely possible.
Also your ongoing refusal to accept anything about dating is getting simply silly. Your defense essentially comes down to saying, "Well we cannot know anything, no point in trying, and no point in my listening to people who have spent years figuring this stuff out." And then when it comes to uncomfortable facts such as having independent means of dating consistently agree with each other, you just ignore that.
If I wished to take a position that was similarly "open - I just want to see all of the facts" I could happily maintain for years that Bill Clinton is not really President. After all how do the people who tell me that he is know that? They heard it on the TV. Have they met anyone on the TV? Do they know the TV is real? No! The TV could be some evil manipulation plot! They can't prove otherwise! And if they can't prove otherwise, I can ignore them!
Seriously, it really looks like you decided what reality is and cannot hear otherwise. You heard that Archeopteryx is a bird, you cannot conceive of something half-way between a bird and a dinosaur, and so you refuse to hear the constant descriptions of how it is exactly that. Then once you have conveniently made it impossible to accept the common description, you can claim that it is not really a transitional fossil, and there are not really any transitional fossils.
I am seriously beginning to wonder whether there is any point in talking to you. You claim that you would have an open mind, you just want to see all of the facts, but with every word you clearly look at data for just long enough to figure out how there is a possible way that you could theoretically dismiss it, and once you have found that way you then dismiss it. And given that you dismiss everything that you find out of hand, you never have to worry about such alien concepts as, "the preponderance of the evidence".
Please, prove me wrong, but that pattern seems pretty consistent so far.
Ben Tilly
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
If you actually knew anything about dating you would know that the criticisms of C-14 dating that Creationists like to spout are very well understood and have long been accounted for within the scientific community. Secondly C-14 dating only works back at most a few tens of thousands of years and could not possibly be used for measuring a date that is a couple of billion years old.
But what does it matter if we are out of range by a factor of a hundred thousand or so? You probably only know the one tidbit about C-14 dating, that it can be wrong, why dig up facts to get in the way of spreading your misconceptions?
Or you could have at least tried to learn something...
Regards,
Ben Tilly
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
The key words are, "complex life". Meaning something more complex than cyano bacteria.
Their evidence is organic materials (specifically lipids) that are not found in "simple life".
Cheers,
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
Carbon dating (using the ratio between [I think] carbon 14 and nitrogen 14[?] to determine how long it has been since atmospheric carbon was deposited in the sample) is only useful for samples up to about 40-50,000 (4e+4 - 5e+4) years. These lipid traces were found in rock that is 2.6-2.7 BILLION years (2.6e+_9_). That is _five_ orders of magnitude greater. I think we can rest assured that they didn't rely on carbon dating for these figures.
What is far more likely is that they dated the _rocks_ that the traces were found, which could be done quite reliably (using a number of independant methods). That sort of dating (probably using some form of radioactive decay) is reliable, when done correctly, and if the methodology is published that correctness can easily be established.
I would suggest that you refrain from trashing this research until you've actually found out what they did, and how reliably they did it. But that's a bit unreasonable, isn't it? You might have to do some research, and maybe even learn something (heaven forbid).
If you want to make it painfully obvious that you really are an idiot, then go right ahead and post more crud like this. If you want to seem even moderately intelligent I'd recomend not posting anything that you haven't at least thought for a few minutes about.
Of course, you did put your name to it, which puts you at least one rung up from the bottom feeders that all too often plague this place.
himi
Think before posting. And _always_ preview . . .
My very own DeCSS mirror.
I just want to know what we are evolving to? What's next? Bigger eyes, smaller noses and ears? Sound familiar? lodgikal
In the original message it was said:
"Aussie scientists are announcing signs of life a billion years older than previous findings."
Not quite. Current thinking is that life showed up on Earth around 3.5 Billion years ago (give or take). That 3.5 billion year date has not changed. What this discouvery appears to do (and will do if confirmed) is push back the date that complex life appears to have shown up on Earth. If the origin of life were pushed back a billion years we would be talking about life started starting about the time the solar system started (that would be a cute trick :-) ).
Now, as some one who was educated in government supported religious schools (outside the U.S.A.), I am viewing what has happened in Kansas as absurd if not obscene. Children need to be taught "this is the best explanation science has to date for how the world works.". Creationism may have a small place in a religious studies class, a history class and/or a psychology class (looking at belief systems), but to suggest it belongs anywhere near a science class is crazy.
This analogy would apply to the directory structures of most operating systems.
Anyway, it's a shame Linus didn't base his operating system on VMS. Then he could have called it OpenLimus and it probably would have been even better (not because of the name).
Gladiator
The kids in Kansas won't learn about science, so they won't get good jobs, and won't have a good life, and will reproduce less than other states' kids.
It's quite fitting.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I personnally tire of the religion vs. science debate. I my mind there is no debate. True Religion will Never Never Never contradict True Science.
I am not going to go into all my beliefs, but this one I will share with you... and it is more than a belief. It is TRUE.
God did NOT create the world EX-NILIO... that is He did not create it out of nothing. God formed the earth out of already existant matter. The scriptures prove it. Those that say He created it in 4004 BC out of "nothing" misinterpret the bible. The bible itself, Jewish texts, Egyptian texts, Early Christian texts, eg. Pistis Sophia, The Dead Sea Scrolls, and many many more all say the world was formed from unorganized matter.
So , If the matter existed.....
Sure, life can be found in rock that is 2.5 billion years old. The rocks themselves can be billions of years old.
This does not preclude the possibility that this matter, these "things", could not have been organized into a world at 4004 BC.
The two Ideas are not mutually exclusive.
So the whole problem with this debate, is that neither side has all the facts. I am an avid "student" of the sciences... And also very rooted in my religion. In my mind, there is NO conflict.
And what I feel about Kansas: I would not ever deny the schools the opportunity to teach the THEORY of evolution. (it is a theory). I would also not forbid them to talk about creation theory also. It's just too bad they can't see that they really go together. We really have no idea what method God used to form this earth, or what state the matter that He used was in... obviously, it had previously supported life.
If God had His hand in the previous "usage" of this matter, and used evolution to place life on it, it does not shake my faith in the least. I don't care HOW He did it. I just know that He did... and for a very good purpose: for us.
By the way, so that your flames can be properly aimed, Yes, I AM Mormon... Member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
And for the rest of Christendom that accepts some truth, and disregards the rest, I would encourage you to open your mind.
_____
Reality is Relative.
Subject says it all.
Rumours that the brain cells of one of the passengers were amongst the find were hotly denied. "We have never had any brain cells, here!" said one spokesperson.
Further investigation shows that, throughout history, a mysterious figure has always lurked in the background, getting people to make dysfunctional products. Speculation that these figures may be one and the same person, and that they may be a robot, made from primeval sludge and controlled by microbes in the cranial region, is intensifying.
An intrepid reporter, on the scene, reports that the people from Redmond felt the fossil remains were too complex for whatever function they intended. More, on this story, as it happens.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
What about you? Are you willing to consider evidence that people with religous beliefs might be right? Why should our kids be indoctrinated with what you believe rather than what a bunch of religous people believe? Maybe we should expose kids to the strongest scientific arguments from both sides and let them decide. And by the way, why does the discovery of organic material a lot older than any we found before invalidate belief in a sentient creator? Except for those who believe the Universe was created 7,000 years ago... -jimbo
Yeah, the english is basically right -- but you might want to say "primates" or "hominids" instead of "apes" -- but there's no real difference.'
Examples of events currently believed to have happened that are non-repeatable (at least on a practical scale):
The Big Bang.
The start of life.
The extinction of the dinosaurs.
As for religion, I agree that some religious beliefs are contradicted by scientific findings. However evolution itself does not imply atheism, and there are many people who both are devout Christians and who believe in evolution. This fact puts a damper on those who claim that people believe in evolution only as a way not to believe in God.
On the existence of a debate. All opinions are not created equal. It is not silly of scientists in general to suggest that their epistemological beliefs are of greater value than others when there are several hundred years of evidence suggesting just that. To quote Joseph Campbell from memory:
Reflect on that for a while...
Ben Tilly
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
I got into an argument last night on IRC about who the "father of geology" is. Someone settle this, is it Steno or Hutton? I say Steno.
You didn't. Apes and humans are both primates. Modern apes and humans evolved from a common ancestor which may have resembled an ape more than a human, but was neither.
void post { post_random_comment("slashdot.org"); karma--; }
Why is it that religious people have a hard time believing evolution? Could it be that evolution was God's way of creating life? Doesn't it say in the Bible that 1 day to him could be any amount of time? To someone/something with such comprehension, 3 billion years of Earth time could be experienced within a matter of seconds. frame
Why is this so hard for people to understand?
I want a cute widdle baby foobar. They sound positively charming, especially the part about the foobar with the big brain wandering off to an isolated place with his foobarish mate.
Awww... *snif* touching, ain't it?
I want a baby foobar, dammit!
--Corey
Not only will they not deserve liberty or safety, Mr. Franklin, they will be DENIED both!
Evolution (or more correctly the Theory of Evolution [ie, the theory that uses evolution driven by natural selection and genetic drift to explain the development of speciation(sp?)]) has been considered a sound theory for so long that almost all of modern biology is based on it. The only people who don't think it's up to scratch are the people who's world view is destroyed by it: fundamentalist christians, young-earth christian scientists and probably one or two more obscure groups. The scientific community as a whole actually considers evolution in general to be one of the most successful theories ever.
I would recomend that you read the talk.origins FAQs to get a bit more insight into the current state of things. It is a really good resource.
Oh, and another thing: creationism doesn't even rate as a hypothesis. You see, it isn't actually falsifiable (it isn't even a coherent hypothesis, really), and if you can't prove a hypothesis to be wrong it's essentially worthless to science. You can never prove something _true_ in science, so if you can't prove it false then there's nothing much to work with.
And, of course, an experiment to verify something is boring - it's much more fun to set out to find clear evidence _against_ a hypothesis (and it generally makes you more famous).
In any case, the only point of comparison between evolutionary theory and creationism is the fact that they both try to explain part of how the world works. Other than that, creationism just isn't in the same league.
himi
My very own DeCSS mirror.
Please dont turn this into an off the topic subject, but maybe I'm missing something here. Evolution is still a *theory*. Creation is a *theory*. In my opinion, I think they should both be taught in a non-biased manner. These findings hint no reason what-so-ever that evolution should not be taught. In fact, not teaching evolution is probably a smart move until Evolution can be proved beyond a shadow of a doubt.
--
Dave Brooks (db@amorphous.org)
http://www.amorphous.org
Just want to remind everyone that "apes" isn't one group and "humans" a different group. We are all apes.
(hope I got the English terms correct)
Your exercise is to go to the FAQs that I pointed out and find a dozen concrete tests of evolution. Let me make life easier by doing half of your work for you. Here are a half-dozen concrete scientific challenges to evolution that were actually raised historically, if you want you can look up the resolutions:
All serious scientific challenges in their day. All challenges that Evolution faced and passed over a 50 year period.
How about Creationism? Did you know that British geologists had disproven the Flood to their satisfaction before Darwin? Yup, the mostly Anglican community believed at the start of the 1800's that they had clear evidence for the Flood, but only a few short years later had proven that the marks were made by glaciers and not by water!
As the saying goes, "There is none so blind as he who will not see." Are you enjoying your blindfold?
Ben Tilly
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
Why do you assume that someone who believes in evolution has never examined the evidence given for Creationism? In my case that is a very bad assumption.
Yes, I have been willing to consider evidence that people with relious beliefs might be right. I have, in fact, considered such evidence in the past. All that I could put my hands on at the time. The fact that I did that is part of why I am so strongly convinced that Creationists are wrong, and that prominent Creationists by and large know that they are wrong and are liars!
Before you get too upset, go to Gish et al, and look up the quotes that they like to spout from scientists. Find a half-dozen quotes, and track down the original passages. Read them in the original and ask yourself what kind of person it would take to plough through reams of material from those scientists for snippets that could - out of context - make those scientists look like they were saying the exact opposite of what they are clearly saying.
Now imagine someone who can not only find those quotes, but find them, print them, and ignore the inevitable outrage from the misquoted scientists! Is that the act of a moral, honest, and straightforward person? I thought not!
Sincerely,
Ben Tilly
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
There are several problems with this argument. First and foremost, they'll need to learn this stuff at some point, and the earlier the better. If your early beliefs aren't challenged until you get to university then you're going to have a much harder time of it than if you had people throwing different theories at you left right and centre for most of your life.
Commensurate with that is the fact that people learn how to think by example, as with everything else. Learning theories, and how those theories were developed, is one of the best ways out for you to learn to think. If you look at the development of physics, it's really easy to learn Newton, and it's very instructive to learn about how he arrived at his theories. This makes it easier to learn about later theories that built on Newton, and it introduces the type of thought process that goes into scientific endeavour. So you can't really separate learning to think from learning theories about the world.
And finally there's the precedent in this: if one place decides to take this path, then more will follow, and once that starts happening you'll end up undoing a large chunk of the good work done in the last fifty years to raise the general public's awareness of this sort of thing. That ain't good . . .
himi
My very own DeCSS mirror.
Oops, that's already been evolved.
Now, bow down to the awesome power of my sphincter-regulated quantum ramjet! I am your daddy now!
MUAHAHAHAHAH!!!
--Corey
Not only will they not deserve liberty or safety, Mr. Franklin, they will be DENIED both!
The facts. If you are willing to wade into the mountains of evidence collected over 150 years by scientists in multiple fields, you would quickly learn that evolution was long ago "proved beyond a shadow of a (reasonable) doubt". Of course if you sit on your arse and never bother trying to learn, you may not realize that there are mountains of evidence out there. But that is your fault, and not the fault of scientists.
There is nothing so irritating as those who refuse to learn who then say, "But there is no evidence!"
*sigh*
Ben Tilly
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
There is no evidence that God didn't put the world together last Tuesday and planted all of these false memories. Nothing can disprove it. Is it very reasonable?
Your version of the creation myth would have the world put together several thousand years ago with implanted memories of a very organized world existing for billions before that. Granted, nothing can disprove this theory. Is it very reasonable?
Ben Tilly
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
> Or have I missed something? Yeah, it's called Biology. Dickhead Flame-Troll...
Humans did not evolve from monkeys . No one has said that . Well , no scientist has ever said that humans evolved form monkeys . Early on those who objected to the theory of evolution characterized evolution as insinuating that humans evolved from monkeys .
...
In most scientists view Humans and other modern primates evolved out of a common ancestor that was not so much more primitive as it was well adapted to it's environment at the time . Often we think of evolution as a move forward . Nature however isn't concerned with such things and simply selects for the organism best suited for continuation under constantly shifting circumstances .
SO : once upon a time there was a primate species that looked nothing like a monkey nor yet did it look anythign like a human . Various branches ( you can think of them the same way you think of breeds of dogs , different but the same ) began to gain advantages in different niches ( a niche is a circumstance --- environment that includes a spoecific method(s) of survival ) . After significant time Human ancestors began to develop such significantly different tratis form the monkeys ancestors that they could no longer be considered , strictly speaking , the same species . Further time exagerrated these differentiations etc etc
The only central theme to evolution ( and the one that the religious object to ) is that all species differentiation has resulted from natural mechanisms over periods of time .
see :
http://www.peorialinux.org/news.html
in the "Misc." section for more information
is that here on /., the plethora of geeks, programmers and students who witness evolution each and every day, fail to make the mental leap and apply it to human evolution.
Let's look at software. We start with a conceptual framework of a program. Code it, run it, refine it... Evolve it until it solves the problem it is intended to solve. Then the problem domain changes, and we revise the code. The bad or ineffective changes we make result in 'dead' programs - ones that can not survive the environment of the problem. The good changes we make result in the 'fittest' solution to the problem. This is the same process as human evolution.
Now, the nature of the programmer is what is really the question. It is not rational or reasonable to question evolution. But who spurrs the changes in our DNA? Is it random mutation that just happens to hit it right, in a few of the millions of delta's in each generation? Is it cosmic radiation, radon exposure, valium consumption in teenage mothers who smoke and drink while pregnant?? Or is it a divine force which escapes our reason?
Or, and this is my personal view, the means that science condones (randomness, mutagens) are the tools of the divine, omniscient but non-conscious universe that just plain IS.
It's been said that mankind is the universe's attempt to comprehend itself. That all of creation is God made manifest. That we, being part of creation, are each a different face of God.
That part of the universe that is not us, has read each of the messages posted here about religion and evolution, and is, right now, laughing hysterically behind our collective back.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
... of eukaryotes but, by the way ... does it run linux ??
It is interesting that the comments and news articles I have read, imply that schools in KS will not be teaching evolution anymore. Actually the decision by the state board of education takes the decision making process down to the local school boards on how much evolution to teach or whether to even teach evolution. My personal opinion is that in 10 years you will see evolution still being taught in KS.
An interesting point to note on this topic though is that those who have a very strong belief in evolution are making statements which if you reversed into the creationist perspective would lead to all sorts of calls about fundementalists and fanatics.
As an example, I have read several comments about this effecting high school graduates getting into college since the ACT/SAT scores would be effected. I have only passing knowledge of the SAT so I will not comment on it. The ACT though has math, english, reading and science reasoning. There is not specific questions about evolution per se. Science reasoning would be the closest and it is organized where you read and then use deduction and inference to obtain the correct answers.
It is more important to teach students how to think critically and the scientific method rather than teaching theories per se. If you teach students how to think and then present the theories, the students can make up their own minds.
This is not intended to insult ANYONE'S intelligence but I find it suprising that you would jump down someone's throat without even knowing the concept yourself.
C dating compares the ratio of the C14 and C12 isotopes of carbon in the sample to the ratio found commonly in nature. Nitrogen never enters the picture.
The premise is that a living organism ingests, inhales, or otherwise absorbs carbon into itself with the ratio of C14 to C12 being relatively constant. Over time, the natural ratio of C14 to C12 changes, hance dating can only be done within a window of several tens of thousands of years. (Volcanic eruptions, meteorites and other non-linear evens tend to change this natural ratio).
Anyways, when an organism dies, it stops absorbing carbon, and the C14 starts to break down into C12. This process has a well known half-life of 5730 years, and so by measuring the ratio of C14 to C12 in-sample to the current natural ratio, the age of the sample can be estimated.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
These kind of comments do nothing to relieve people of popular myths surrounding controversial topics .
Zealotry is the enemy of informed decision making .
Your squire
squireson
The raw stuff of rapid change is existing genetic diversity. Mutation creates genetic diversity, sexual reproduction allows for combining, recombining, and rapid spread of successful traits. But when you try to breed a population faster than mutation will carry them, you are working entirely off of genetic diversity.
What happened was that while they were breeding for traits within the range of genes in the original population, things went well. When they used up that original range, things halted and would stay that way until mutation replenished the genetic diversity.
At that point virtually all of the genetic diversity in the population was for traits that they were trying to breed out of the population but which still existed, and so the direction that it was easiest to breed back to was the original phenotype.
The recognition of the key role that genetic diversity plays central to understanding a lot of things, like why sexual reproduction exists, and is also central to conservation efforts and modern breeding techniques.
Cheers,
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
i think you have read too much philip jose farmer.
:-)
world of tiers, behind the wall of terra, and so on. exactly your theory
Meme of the day: I browse "Disable Sigs: Checked". So should you.
That if one was to ask a religously devout person a similar question, they would know that there is a god, and that all statments to the contrary would be false.
Stephen Jay Gould wrote an interesting book titled "Full House" which examines common fallacies associated with evolution. He debunks the commonly held notion (which Darwin never stated) that biological systems evolve towards more complexity over a period of time. He asserts that the human species is an anomaly which would probably not arise again given the same conditions because evolution favors simplicity as much as complexity. Anybody who is interested in evolution should definitely check out this book (as a bonus he gives you a lengthy explanation for why .400 hitters do not exist in baseball anymore). http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0609801406/ o/qid=934570185/sr=8-2/002-9200994-41682 10
>The main problem with religion is it for listeners.
No, that's the second problem. The main problems is that - (brace yourselves) - it's for brainless imbeciles. Otherwise, I very much agree.
void post { post_random_comment("slashdot.org"); karma--; }
It seems that people won't bother trying to search them before posting. If they did they might turn up a thing or two...
Sincerely,
Ben Tilly
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
That was a challenge to Darwin's theories. And one that Darwin was personally very sympathetic to. But it was not the last.
The last challenge was the observation that if you bred a population in one direction there was a sort of "inertia" where they changed swiftly at first, and then slowed down. At that point they could be bred back to the original phenotype more easily than they could be bred in any other direction.
The answer to the puzzle is the role of genetic diversity. Short-term changes in populations depend upon traits that are already present changing their frequency. Mutation only sets in over the long-haul. So breeding proceeds well while there are traits already present to select, and then it grinds to a halt. At that point you can still easily breed back in the original direction since you still have some individuals with those traits.
Cheers,
Ben Tilly
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
I was mixing up alpha and beta decay there . . .
Aside from that, I was not mistaken in my understanding of the concept.
Thanks for the clarification, though.
himi
My very own DeCSS mirror.
I can't believe I'm reading this kind of nonsense on Slashdot. At one time I actually thought most people here were relatively well-educated and intelligent. Given the spelling and grammar of people like yourself, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I just assumed those types of people were lazy, not stupid and ignorant. First of all, YOU'RE the one with the fucked up terminology. Evolution is not a "theory". It's a FACT. Evolution exists in exactly the same way that gravity exists. The two concepts are analagous. If you attempt to refute it you're just being an idiot. On the other hand, Darwin's theory of natural selection, which is an EXPLANATION of evolution, is an example of a theory. If you want an example of a hypothesis, look no further than creationism. In summary: Evolution = fact Natural selection = theory Creation = hypothesis