...which is why the rovers already there can do quite a bit of steering themselves, and I guess they would stop and wait for instructions if they encountered anything too complicated.
The most reasonable exchange rate I'm aware of is in Singapore dollar, which is worth about 0.7 USD.
Exchange rates are just numbers. What matters is how (un)stable they are over time. And in this case, how many currency-units per time-unit people make. In Scandinavia you need 5-7 units of currency to get a single USD, but even burger flippers make the equivalent of 15 USD an hour...
I've read Adams say that what he hated about writing the last couple of books was that it took nearly half the book just getting everyone together again, having been scattered in the previous book. But writing a sixth one would be a lot easier. For once he knew exactly where everyone was: They're dead...
(Personally I think Ford's grinning at the end could be him seeing some bizarre way out...)
Anyway, as someone else pointed out, these things would be docked in a port. Frankly I think they'll find it would make just as much sense to just put up a building next to the ocean...
TFA does indeed mention something about being of shore, but not in international waters. Reasons being property tax. I'd say the same reasons could hold true for a ship in port. Depending on local regulations, you could probably build a small harbor to provide cheap parking for your vessels and in that way avoid property tax, while still being to go home in the evenings.
And while we're at it, have they thought of the possibility of terrorist attacks? If they're outside any jurisdiction, they also have no military power to protect them from planes, boats, subs and whatnot.
Don't think blowing up a few barges would give the same level of attention as killing loads of civilians in a major city. I wouldn't expect Google to put all their serves in one place anyway, so even if a few barges went offline, it wouldn't drastically hurt their services.
As they say, the devil is in the details. Gradual change sure looks nice on the surface, but it's the genetic level that causes issues.
You say "predictions" quite a lot, but don't forget that it's all been done *after the facts* no matter how you look at it. With several (slightly, or not so slightly) different forks of evolution kicking around, it's easy to have enough to choose from, so that there is always one that fits newly uncovered evidence reasonably well. Whenever something disagrees with the currently accepted model, someone will present another theory that fits the evidence. If said theory matches the next evidence to be found, "hooray, we predicted it!", if not, there will be modifications to adapt. (So in a sense, even if the world doesn't evolve, the theory of evolution surely does.)
Too lazy to look into the Grand Canyon in particular at the moment, but I think its almost funny that whenever something like Mount St Helens does something that is supposed to take millions of years right in front of our eyes, it's written off as the exception to the rule, rather than considering that it just might in fact be the rule.
As for the ice-cores. Well, everyone agrees that the world has been pretty stable the last few millenia, which also it pretty much the time frame for fairly accurate contemporary written accounts, so no surprise that you identify volcanoes in it. However, there seem to have been made assumptions about the deeper layers, and that is where a global flood theory comes in.
One thing I will give you. You certainly seem to have spent time looking into both sides, before making up your mind (even if predetermined). (Which is partly why I'm not bothering to look for arguments you've probably already seen.) That is more than can be said for a lot of people in both camps. You sir, are a worthy foe.
But doesn't even remotely explain a birds wing. How having a semi-hollow/fragile limb that neither gives any real advantage for flying, yet gives major disadvantage for anything that requires strength.
Nope, feathers are useful before flight. They are useful for keeping warm.
Feathers for warmth are different from feathers for flight. Unless perfectly shaped in the minutest detail, (and that's changes along the wing) they will give no advantage. Chances of all those consecutive changes happening and surviving without giving any benefit defy math.
There are dinosaurs with feathers. Just google it.
How does the existence feathered dinosaurs in itself prove evolution anymore than a Jackalope would?
I'll just address the famous Archaeopteryx.
First of all, you spend a lot of time saying it's "fully dinosaur" rather than "fully bird", which really doesn't move the argument much at all... And it seems you're already read any counterargument there is on that one, so I'll just leave it.
There are tiny animals in the ocean called Foraminifera.
I'm sorry, but I haven't read much about those at all yet, so I can't comment.
And oh, ID without YEC makes absolutely no sense at all. Without a global flood, ID isn't anything more than pointing out flaws in evolution...
Since the topic became "origins of the universe". If you're not a clearly supporting evolution and making fun of creationists, the best you can hope for is that people leave you alone.
How you're supposed to encourage constructive arguments that way is beyond me.
While a very good description of "science" indeed, you should look into the personal lives and believes of several of the "greatest evolutionist" through history. Terribly many of them haven't merely been "noble scientists", on the search for "thruth", ready to accept whatever that might be, but rather been die-hard anti-christians, searching for something to justify their believes, (and having realized better than most christians where to best attack Christendom.)
(On a side note, of course Creationism isn't "science", by science' definition. The Bible says there is a spiritual realm as well as a physical one. But science can't deal with anything beyond the physical one. As a result scientist easily conclude that as they can't "put God in a box", He cannot exist.)
The only thing on the first page of google results for "fruit fly genetics" that was remotely readable at 2am was a page with pictures of various common mutations. They sure looked pretty, but every single one of them was stated as being caused by a *defective* gene. They *lost* a feature, rather than developing new ones.
Antibiotic resistance? Pretty much same story. The bacterias usually loose the ability to attach themselves to the antibiotics. (In the body a few of these are present before the antibiotic is introduced, and if the immune system fails to kill those the antibiotics can't deal with, they easily multiply back to old levels)
I don't want "equal time" as such. But a good beginning would be to stop teaching kids things that even leading evolutionist have admitted to being mistaken about decades ago. (Like those little drawings of fetuses that was still featured in textbooks several decades after actual photographs proved them to be nothing but fiction.) Would also be nice to tell them where the gaps are at the moment, rather than pretending there aren't any.
That is indeed a neat experiment. (And thanks for actually providing something specific, even with a link, unlike a few others...) However, a guick googling for a respons, gave me this. I'll freely admit that I don't know that site much, but then, the results are quite new, so there hasn't been much time to analyse their findings properly.
The main arguments are that 1) the E.coli used can metabolize citrate under other conditions (so it's not completely new to them), 2) there was an abundance of citrate present compared to other "food". 3) the time it took (in generations) was way too long for even a minor change to explain anything on a larger scale.
I might have used the wrong word, as I was mainly just listing a few types of arguments of the top of my head...
And transitional forms? Looks like someone needs to take biology 101 again.
I know things are gradual, but how please tell me how something like a birds wing is supposed to evolve? "gradually glide a little longer" sure looks nice in picture books. But wings are completely differently built to any other bone, (and pretty useless without feathers, feathers of course being pretty useless unless perfectly tuned as well.) That's the kind of transitional forms I'm talking about, not the "dog" creatures gradually becoming bigger and stronger ending up as a wolf, while others turn into little things that fit in a handbag...
The vast majority of the "evidence against evolution" is like yours - evidence against some other theory of evolution that only creationists know about.
Would you seriously expect die-hard evolutionist to point out the known flaws in their theories themselves? Why does the news always put it on the front page whenever someone find a "missing link", yet barely mention it when someone admits it was a hoax half a year later?
one where a one species gives birth to a "transitional form" that has the body of the old species and the head of a new species
Anyone seriously claiming anything like that, I wish would shut up, as they are doing more damage than good to their own cause by their outright stupidity.
The rest of the evidence is outright falsehood or "the bible doesn't say evolution is true so it isn't" or even "I wouldn't want to be related to a monkey, so I'm not".
As above, there sure are lots of arguments being thrown around, that leading creation scientists seem to spend nearly as much time telling people not to use, and they do spreading their latest findings.
It's actually interesting to see how often non-christians realize that christianity is worthless without literal creation, while so many christians are eager to "adapt/compromise"...
And even if there were evidence against evolution - that doesn't make it evidence *for* creationism.
I know. And I myself pointed that out in another (very brief) post, and got modded down for it.
No, I didn't study biology. (But what do you mean by the part "or study"?)
But if you could provide a link to some info about said fruit flies, rather than saying "it's there", I'd be more than interested in reading about it.
If you by "all living things" basically mean "we're here, so that proves evolution", then you have to do better. If you mean something else, could you be a bit more specific? It's one thing to say there is massive amounts, but something different to actually point to even a little bit of it.
Again, a scientific theory has evidence to support it. It is falsifiable. It can be tested.
Just how to you suggest we test evolution? Chisel some complete DNA-sequences in rocks for whoever are here in few million to compare to see if they have any species that are similar, but has *new* genetic information in them? (All mutations witnessed so far, have been removal of information, which sometimes can in fact be beneficial.)
When dealing with the past, there isn't much you can do for repeat experiments. As the collected data stands today, both camps can get some of it to fit their views. Difference being that the serious creationists (as opposed to the "Bible says so" parrots) admit that they have a "view", while the evolutions deny it.
By saying God couldn't have created life through an evolutionary mechanism is essentially placing limitations on His power. Something we Christians generally don't do.
What would be more awesome, to watch a building crew spent months constructing a high-rise, or a single person erect a big red cloth over an empty field and reveal fully stocked shopping center from it 2 minutes later?
1. It's not all static anyway. New breeds of dogs and strawberries have been made for quite some time. (Difference between "evolution" and "natural selection".)
2. Several million/billion years of death disease followed by "it was all good" contradicts God being good, and the whole thing about first sin, and Jesus redeeming people...
If you mean evidence supporting "void to earth in 144 hours", then no. There isn't any.
The arguments used to support creationism are mainly arguments *against* evolution. (information theory, transitional forms, etc.) The only "original" arguments mostly involve a global flood some 1600 years later...
According to wikipedia, there seems to have been 24 leap seconds in the last 36 years. For solar noon to move a single hour away would take over 5 millenia.
Of course, they do give the news something harmless to report on every once in a while...
Speed: Suppose this train actually achieves the stated 236 miles per hour. Without making any stops at all, you're still looking at about 13 hours to get from New York to San Francisco. With five or six stops (that's not even one per state), it would approach 20 hours. This is a 6-hour flight. Anywhere farther than 600 miles is going to be faster by air.
I had a brief look on the map some time ago. New York - L.A. is about 4500km by Interstates. (Just to take the longest domestic route.) Assume rail tracks make it 5000km. Get trains that run at 320km/h. That is just under 16 hours of travel. Add one stop per 3-4 hours. (If going somewhere in between, change to regional trains. If you are clever, these can match the high speed stops fairly well.) That gives about 5 stops.
For instance L.A. - Phoenix - Albuquerque - Dallas - Atlanta - Washington - New York. or L.A. - Las Vegas - Kansas City - Chicago - Washington - N.Y. (Just having a quick look at Google Earth for big cities about 1000km apart.)
Say you loose 20 minutes at each stop. (10 minutes at the station, and 10 minutes to break/accelerate.) That adds 2 hours for the full trip, so 18 hours total. What that of course can't compete with flying for speed in the same way 4 hours for N.Y - Chicago can when you factor in airport security, who says everyone has to take it the whole way?
And don't forget the comforts a train can offer. Even economy class can have plenty of legroom, arm-room, and space for your laptop. Not to forget overnight trains. Heck, 18 hours doesn't seem that unreasonable, if you can enter the train in early evening and arrive next morning (westbound), after a good nights sleep in a decent bed?
Trains are not only useful for passenger transport. (While they certainly are a lot more comfortable than planes, and can compete on quite some distance, if done properly.) Cargo is possibly/probably even bigger. It is a lot cheaper to send one train with 100 containers, than drive them one or two at the time with trucks, and it would improve capacity on the road as well.
The problem is that nobody wants to build a transport network it's going to take decades to pay for. Much cheaper in the short term to buy more trucks, and hire more drivers.
(OK, so cargo runs on regular rails, not high speed, but why not build both at the same time, at the same routes?)
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...which is why the rovers already there can do quite a bit of steering themselves, and I guess they would stop and wait for instructions if they encountered anything too complicated.
The most reasonable exchange rate I'm aware of is in Singapore dollar, which is worth about 0.7 USD.
Exchange rates are just numbers. What matters is how (un)stable they are over time. And in this case, how many currency-units per time-unit people make. In Scandinavia you need 5-7 units of currency to get a single USD, but even burger flippers make the equivalent of 15 USD an hour...
I've read Adams say that what he hated about writing the last couple of books was that it took nearly half the book just getting everyone together again, having been scattered in the previous book. But writing a sixth one would be a lot easier. For once he knew exactly where everyone was: They're dead...
(Personally I think Ford's grinning at the end could be him seeing some bizarre way out...)
Anyway, as someone else pointed out, these things would be docked in a port. Frankly I think they'll find it would make just as much sense to just put up a building next to the ocean...
TFA does indeed mention something about being of shore, but not in international waters. Reasons being property tax. I'd say the same reasons could hold true for a ship in port. Depending on local regulations, you could probably build a small harbor to provide cheap parking for your vessels and in that way avoid property tax, while still being to go home in the evenings.
TFA actually doesn't mention *international* waters at all. It only mentions them not having to pay *property tax* because it's off shore.
And while we're at it, have they thought of the possibility of terrorist attacks? If they're outside any jurisdiction, they also have no military power to protect them from planes, boats, subs and whatnot.
Don't think blowing up a few barges would give the same level of attention as killing loads of civilians in a major city. I wouldn't expect Google to put all their serves in one place anyway, so even if a few barges went offline, it wouldn't drastically hurt their services.
As they say, the devil is in the details. Gradual change sure looks nice on the surface, but it's the genetic level that causes issues.
You say "predictions" quite a lot, but don't forget that it's all been done *after the facts* no matter how you look at it. With several (slightly, or not so slightly) different forks of evolution kicking around, it's easy to have enough to choose from, so that there is always one that fits newly uncovered evidence reasonably well. Whenever something disagrees with the currently accepted model, someone will present another theory that fits the evidence. If said theory matches the next evidence to be found, "hooray, we predicted it!", if not, there will be modifications to adapt. (So in a sense, even if the world doesn't evolve, the theory of evolution surely does.)
Too lazy to look into the Grand Canyon in particular at the moment, but I think its almost funny that whenever something like Mount St Helens does something that is supposed to take millions of years right in front of our eyes, it's written off as the exception to the rule, rather than considering that it just might in fact be the rule.
As for the ice-cores. Well, everyone agrees that the world has been pretty stable the last few millenia, which also it pretty much the time frame for fairly accurate contemporary written accounts, so no surprise that you identify volcanoes in it. However, there seem to have been made assumptions about the deeper layers, and that is where a global flood theory comes in.
One thing I will give you. You certainly seem to have spent time looking into both sides, before making up your mind (even if predetermined). (Which is partly why I'm not bothering to look for arguments you've probably already seen.) That is more than can be said for a lot of people in both camps. You sir, are a worthy foe.
The "trees down" path is pretty obvious
But doesn't even remotely explain a birds wing. How having a semi-hollow/fragile limb that neither gives any real advantage for flying, yet gives major disadvantage for anything that requires strength.
Nope, feathers are useful before flight. They are useful for keeping warm.
Feathers for warmth are different from feathers for flight. Unless perfectly shaped in the minutest detail, (and that's changes along the wing) they will give no advantage. Chances of all those consecutive changes happening and surviving without giving any benefit defy math.
There are dinosaurs with feathers. Just google it.
How does the existence feathered dinosaurs in itself prove evolution anymore than a Jackalope would?
I'll just address the famous Archaeopteryx.
First of all, you spend a lot of time saying it's "fully dinosaur" rather than "fully bird", which really doesn't move the argument much at all... And it seems you're already read any counterargument there is on that one, so I'll just leave it.
There are tiny animals in the ocean called Foraminifera.
I'm sorry, but I haven't read much about those at all yet, so I can't comment.
And oh, ID without YEC makes absolutely no sense at all. Without a global flood, ID isn't anything more than pointing out flaws in evolution...
Since the topic became "origins of the universe". If you're not a clearly supporting evolution and making fun of creationists, the best you can hope for is that people leave you alone.
How you're supposed to encourage constructive arguments that way is beyond me.
The fact that one requires blind faith [...]
"Blind faith", ey? Now, which side is it that has a book called "The Blind Watchmaker" on it's reading list...
While a very good description of "science" indeed, you should look into the personal lives and believes of several of the "greatest evolutionist" through history. Terribly many of them haven't merely been "noble scientists", on the search for "thruth", ready to accept whatever that might be, but rather been die-hard anti-christians, searching for something to justify their believes, (and having realized better than most christians where to best attack Christendom.)
(On a side note, of course Creationism isn't "science", by science' definition. The Bible says there is a spiritual realm as well as a physical one. But science can't deal with anything beyond the physical one. As a result scientist easily conclude that as they can't "put God in a box", He cannot exist.)
The only thing on the first page of google results for "fruit fly genetics" that was remotely readable at 2am was a page with pictures of various common mutations. They sure looked pretty, but every single one of them was stated as being caused by a *defective* gene. They *lost* a feature, rather than developing new ones.
Antibiotic resistance? Pretty much same story. The bacterias usually loose the ability to attach themselves to the antibiotics. (In the body a few of these are present before the antibiotic is introduced, and if the immune system fails to kill those the antibiotics can't deal with, they easily multiply back to old levels)
I don't want "equal time" as such. But a good beginning would be to stop teaching kids things that even leading evolutionist have admitted to being mistaken about decades ago. (Like those little drawings of fetuses that was still featured in textbooks several decades after actual photographs proved them to be nothing but fiction.) Would also be nice to tell them where the gaps are at the moment, rather than pretending there aren't any.
I know. I never tried to say anything else. I merely stated "how it's done", yet I got modded down for it.
(The only arguments "for" creation is actually for a global flood, as the two depend on each other.)
That is indeed a neat experiment. (And thanks for actually providing something specific, even with a link, unlike a few others...) However, a guick googling for a respons, gave me this. I'll freely admit that I don't know that site much, but then, the results are quite new, so there hasn't been much time to analyse their findings properly.
The main arguments are that 1) the E.coli used can metabolize citrate under other conditions (so it's not completely new to them), 2) there was an abundance of citrate present compared to other "food". 3) the time it took (in generations) was way too long for even a minor change to explain anything on a larger scale.
Information theory?
I might have used the wrong word, as I was mainly just listing a few types of arguments of the top of my head...
And transitional forms? Looks like someone needs to take biology 101 again.
I know things are gradual, but how please tell me how something like a birds wing is supposed to evolve? "gradually glide a little longer" sure looks nice in picture books. But wings are completely differently built to any other bone, (and pretty useless without feathers, feathers of course being pretty useless unless perfectly tuned as well.) That's the kind of transitional forms I'm talking about, not the "dog" creatures gradually becoming bigger and stronger ending up as a wolf, while others turn into little things that fit in a handbag...
The vast majority of the "evidence against evolution" is like yours - evidence against some other theory of evolution that only creationists know about.
Would you seriously expect die-hard evolutionist to point out the known flaws in their theories themselves? Why does the news always put it on the front page whenever someone find a "missing link", yet barely mention it when someone admits it was a hoax half a year later?
one where a one species gives birth to a "transitional form" that has the body of the old species and the head of a new species
Anyone seriously claiming anything like that, I wish would shut up, as they are doing more damage than good to their own cause by their outright stupidity.
The rest of the evidence is outright falsehood or "the bible doesn't say evolution is true so it isn't" or even "I wouldn't want to be related to a monkey, so I'm not".
As above, there sure are lots of arguments being thrown around, that leading creation scientists seem to spend nearly as much time telling people not to use, and they do spreading their latest findings. It's actually interesting to see how often non-christians realize that christianity is worthless without literal creation, while so many christians are eager to "adapt/compromise"...
And even if there were evidence against evolution - that doesn't make it evidence *for* creationism.
I know. And I myself pointed that out in another (very brief) post, and got modded down for it.
No, I didn't study biology. (But what do you mean by the part "or study"?)
But if you could provide a link to some info about said fruit flies, rather than saying "it's there", I'd be more than interested in reading about it.
If you by "all living things" basically mean "we're here, so that proves evolution", then you have to do better. If you mean something else, could you be a bit more specific? It's one thing to say there is massive amounts, but something different to actually point to even a little bit of it.
Again, a scientific theory has evidence to support it. It is falsifiable. It can be tested.
Just how to you suggest we test evolution? Chisel some complete DNA-sequences in rocks for whoever are here in few million to compare to see if they have any species that are similar, but has *new* genetic information in them? (All mutations witnessed so far, have been removal of information, which sometimes can in fact be beneficial.)
When dealing with the past, there isn't much you can do for repeat experiments. As the collected data stands today, both camps can get some of it to fit their views. Difference being that the serious creationists (as opposed to the "Bible says so" parrots) admit that they have a "view", while the evolutions deny it.
By saying God couldn't have created life through an evolutionary mechanism is essentially placing limitations on His power. Something we Christians generally don't do.
What would be more awesome, to watch a building crew spent months constructing a high-rise, or a single person erect a big red cloth over an empty field and reveal fully stocked shopping center from it 2 minutes later?
1. It's not all static anyway. New breeds of dogs and strawberries have been made for quite some time. (Difference between "evolution" and "natural selection".)
2. Several million/billion years of death disease followed by "it was all good" contradicts God being good, and the whole thing about first sin, and Jesus redeeming people...
If you mean evidence supporting "void to earth in 144 hours", then no. There isn't any.
The arguments used to support creationism are mainly arguments *against* evolution. (information theory, transitional forms, etc.) The only "original" arguments mostly involve a global flood some 1600 years later...
Where is the evidence to support Creationism?
It's called "evidence that contracts evolution". Creationism is then offered as an alternative.
According to wikipedia, there seems to have been 24 leap seconds in the last 36 years. For solar noon to move a single hour away would take over 5 millenia.
Of course, they do give the news something harmless to report on every once in a while...
I'm a level 5 vegan -- I won't eat anything that casts a shadow!
Time to start a farm in Antarctica during the winter, or in a dark cellar.
Speed: Suppose this train actually achieves the stated 236 miles per hour. Without making any stops at all, you're still looking at about 13 hours to get from New York to San Francisco. With five or six stops (that's not even one per state), it would approach 20 hours. This is a 6-hour flight. Anywhere farther than 600 miles is going to be faster by air.
I had a brief look on the map some time ago. New York - L.A. is about 4500km by Interstates. (Just to take the longest domestic route.) Assume rail tracks make it 5000km. Get trains that run at 320km/h. That is just under 16 hours of travel. Add one stop per 3-4 hours. (If going somewhere in between, change to regional trains. If you are clever, these can match the high speed stops fairly well.) That gives about 5 stops.
For instance L.A. - Phoenix - Albuquerque - Dallas - Atlanta - Washington - New York. or L.A. - Las Vegas - Kansas City - Chicago - Washington - N.Y. (Just having a quick look at Google Earth for big cities about 1000km apart.)
Say you loose 20 minutes at each stop. (10 minutes at the station, and 10 minutes to break/accelerate.) That adds 2 hours for the full trip, so 18 hours total. What that of course can't compete with flying for speed in the same way 4 hours for N.Y - Chicago can when you factor in airport security, who says everyone has to take it the whole way?
And don't forget the comforts a train can offer. Even economy class can have plenty of legroom, arm-room, and space for your laptop. Not to forget overnight trains. Heck, 18 hours doesn't seem that unreasonable, if you can enter the train in early evening and arrive next morning (westbound), after a good nights sleep in a decent bed?
Trains are not only useful for passenger transport. (While they certainly are a lot more comfortable than planes, and can compete on quite some distance, if done properly.) Cargo is possibly/probably even bigger. It is a lot cheaper to send one train with 100 containers, than drive them one or two at the time with trucks, and it would improve capacity on the road as well.
The problem is that nobody wants to build a transport network it's going to take decades to pay for. Much cheaper in the short term to buy more trucks, and hire more drivers.
(OK, so cargo runs on regular rails, not high speed, but why not build both at the same time, at the same routes?)