Kent Hovind Gets Taken Again
Oh, this is just too precious.
The April 2005 issue of Scientific American included an editorial entitled “Okay, We Give Up” and subtitled, “We feel so ashamed”. The editors said they were contrite for ignoring creationism and ID, simply because there’s no evidence for either one.
That’s what makes ID a superior scientific theory: it doesn’t get bogged down in details. Good journalism values balance above all else. We owe it to our readers to present everybody’s ideas equally and not to ignore or discredit theories simply because they lack scientifically credible arguments or facts.
This was clearly an April Fools joke. Perhaps not the funniest ever, but still pretty blatant. But Kent Hovind fell for it anyway.
Go read his response. I’m not reading so much as a twitch on the Clue-O-Meter. No wonder he’s a laughingstock, even by creationist standards.
This isn’t the first time this has happened, either: in 1999, New Mexicans for Science and Reason awarded Hovind the P.T. Barnum Award for showing a Philadelphia audience evidence of humans and dinosaurs coexisting. He didn’t realize it was NMSR’s April Fools prank.
Anyway, here are some selections from Hovind’s reply to Scientific American. Those of you who are familiar with him may recognize a lot of it. Those who don’t will discover new depths of kookiness.
The magazine treats evolution as if it is a part of science, when there’s nothing further from the truth. It is a religion, masquerading as science. But there is no scientific evidence that would tell us a dog produced a non-dog, let alone that a dog came from a work 4.6 billion years ago.
There’s actually overwhelming evidence that dinosaurs have always lived with humans. We simply called them dragons. Man killed most of them, and there may be a few still alive today.
As for the flood carving Grand Canyon, why don’t they explain to us why the top of the Canyon is 4,000ft higher than where the river (Colorado River) enters the canyon? Why don’t they explain to us how rivers miraculously flowed up-hill for millions of years to finally cut the groove deep enough so they could flow downhill?
The simple answer is uplift, of course. But Kent doesn’t accept continental drift, so presumably the idea of mountains growing is anathema to him as well.
There’s no such thing as a “fossil record”; there are simply fossils in the dirt.
Thanks for clearing that up. In other news, there’s no such thing as the free market; there’s just people buying and selling stuff. There’s no such thing as the National Archives; just a government building with a lot of old papers.
And if you can’t get your point across any other way, compare your opponents to Nazis or Communists:
Try to get a creationist article into a magazine like Scientific American, and see what happens. Ten years ago if a professor in the Soviet Union tried to submit an article to any Soviet magazine claiming that communism didn’t work, and capitalism is a better system, he would be shipped off to Siberia if he survived. Today, if a teacher in a public university, or a writer at any major science magazine (such as Scientific American) dares to suggest that evolution is not true, and maybe Creation is true, he will be sent to academic Siberia in a heart-beat.
One thing, though: ten years ago was 1995. The Soviet Union had formally become Russia four years earlier. I doubt anyone would have been sent to Siberia for saying that the old regime didn’t work.
I can’t believe these guys think there are scientifically credible arguments for the idea that all life came from nothing, 18 billion years ago. What are they thinking?
I agree with Hovind on this point: you’d have to be crazy to think that life on Earth started 4 billion years before the Big Bang. (For those unsure of the timeline: the universe is roughly 14 billion years old. The Earth is roughly 4.5 billion years old. Life appeared somewhere on the order of 1 billion years after the Earth formed, or about 3.5 billion years ago.)
The truth is that many scientists have come to understand who butters their bread. They have to support the evolution theory or lose their grant money. Ask any number of scientists who have not kissed the sacred cow of evolution and have lost their job, grant money, or position at a university. The list grows every day. See video number 7 for much more on this.
Ah, I love a good conspiracy theory!
The Bible says, “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” Anyone who believes they came from a rock is a fool.
Hovind doesn’t think he came from a rock. He thinks he came from dirt.
You can download MP3s and videos of Hovind’s unique brand of stand-up comedy here.
Update, Sep. 16, 2005: Fixed URL to Hovind’s response. Thanks to alert reader Jamie for the correction.
September 16th, 2005 at 3:38 pm
The URL for Hovind’s response has changed. It is now at http://www.drdino.com/articles.php?spec=72&kws=scientific%20american
Thanks for your great summary. I enjoyed reading it. Nicely put. Hovind really lacks a sense of humor.
October 7th, 2005 at 9:52 pm
“Nicely put. Hovind really lacks a sense of humor.”
Maybe his whole career is his sense of humor.
February 7th, 2006 at 9:18 pm
i can’t believe how idiotic this is. not kent hovind. the so called scientists, and people who subscribe to their daydreams and fantasies as verbatim fact.
” But Kent Hovind fell for it anyway.” - he never said that he believed that scientific american was going to do what they said in the article. in fact, he never once says anything to order of “look, scientific amrerican is finally admitting that they were wrong”. there is nothing to “fall” for about that article.
“One thing, though: ten years ago was 1995. The Soviet Union had formally become Russia four years earlier.” - hovind’s comment about “ten years ago” is a figure of speech, not a date specific fact. get out of your mom’s basement, meet some people, and get a clue.
“the idea that all life came from nothing, 18 billion years ago” - he isnt refering to LIFE beginning 18 billion years ago. he’s refering to the “nothing” being 18 billion years ago.
here is a brief rundown of the evolutionist belief: life began on earth 3.5 billion years ago, where a primordial soup begat a simple single cell organism. where did that soup came from…? oh yes, it was formed what the earth was formed, by the swirling clouds and debris of elements and gasses caused by the big bang. where did that come from? all the matter in the universe (read: rock) came together and super-imploded (or whatever term you prefer to use these days), and exploded into what we call the big bang. and in another 18 billion years (i dont know the actual number that is being thrown around, so dont bother correcting me) it will happen again.
speaking of which, can you prove to me that life began approximately 3.5 billion years ago? no? can you make a time machine, and take us both back in time 3.5 billion years, and show me the beginnings of life? no? so then, this big-bang/evolution stuff is all just a theory then, yes? why then dont you treat is as such? just a theory. why is it, that scientists — who claim to be open minded (thats the point of science, isnt it?) — automatically regect all other theories that come to light? they say “these ideas are absurd, and are of no scientific value. only an idiot would believe something like that.” do they realize how “absurd” their own theories are?? scoffers = people who are willingly ignorant. in otherwords, dumb on purpose.
idiotic
February 7th, 2006 at 10:51 pm
I like this juxtaposition of “I don’t want to learn” and “betcha can’t make me learn.” You may want to rewrite this and use the same phrase in both clauses, for greater rhetorical effect.
…says the person who scoffs at honest scientists and refuses to learn.
All in all, thank you for this charming and amusing little tirade.
February 9th, 2006 at 1:25 am
When looking at the glaringly obvious mistakes that certain people, such as Hovind, have made, it becomes too easy to “write off” all creation theories, for lack of a better
term, as absurd. However, the principles of a theory that claims all things in this universe evolved into being is equally difficult, if not impossible, to prove. Unless I remember incorrectly, Darwin himself originally studied theology, not science, and I am not aware of any formal scientific training he received. I know that the evolutionary theory did not begin with Darwin, but he is generally regarded as the father of modern evolution. My point is, many regarded him as an untrained man making absurd claims and theories. In response to arensb, mocking a previous writer for the dates is petty, since many scientists disagree with the exact date, by .5 billion years or so. As to there being no proof of creation theories: in previous archaeology classes that I have taken (for the record, my degree is from a div. I, four-year, accredited, state university), a specific point is made, time after time. It is impossible, without first-hand historic accounts, to prove that anything happened EXACTLY in a certain way. What archaeology, anthropology, and other related sciences (such as paleo fields) can prove is that it is POSSIBLE, even likely, that a certain event happened in a certain way. It is also unfair to say that someone who doesn’t believe in evoluion “scoffs at honest scientists and refuses to learn.” It simply means that the person disagrees with that scientist’s views on evolution. And not all “honest” scientists believe in evolution: there are many theories out there, with many strengths and weaknesses. In the future, we all would do better if we focus on the theories, and not the people proposing them.
February 9th, 2006 at 2:54 am
I’ve never asked for proof. I know that science never proves anything, at least not in a mathematical sense. All I’ve asked for is evidence. And I note that you haven’t provided, linked to, brought up, or even alluded to any evidence for anything that supports any flavor of creationism.
Reread the last paragraph of whatanidiot’s comment and tell me he’s not scoffing at scientists. I wasn’t making fun of him for having an honest disagreement about a bit of fringe speculation. I was making fun of him for being monumentally, awe-inspiringly, Everest-dwarfingly ignorant despite the ease with which he could have educated himself, and the seeming pride that he took in his clue-proof skull. That, and accusing scientists of being guilty of his own sin.
I suppose that’s true: there must be a bunch of scientists who are utterly ignorant of biology. There are, however, no sane, knowledgeable scientists who honestly believe that evolution doesn’t occur or hasn’t occurred.
I guess that’s why you included the part about Darwin, as if it mattered to modern biology what Darwin thought.
PS: Paragraph breaks are your friends.
February 9th, 2006 at 8:14 am
In response, while you speak of “scientists who are untterly ignorant of biology”, you disregard several credible scientists who raise serious
points concerning the creation/evolution issue (for example, Martin Lubenow has a good book, Bones of Contention). And it is true that no
“sane, knowledgeable scientists” will argue that “evolution” has not occurred. Organisms do progress, or evolve, over time. Adaptation also
occurs, as everyone knows.
However, the issue is whether or not a centralized theory of evolution, that all we know now evolved over billions of years. To disagree does not make someone incorrect or utterly ignorant.
I really cannot tell you what whatanidiot was thinking; maybe he was scoffing at scientists, maybe he wasn’t. What I was referring to was the fact that many creationists follow scientific research closely; we don’t simply ignore that with which we disagree.
You are correct that in my first statement I did not provide any citations; that was not the purpose of the statement. I had no illusions
that anything I did or did not say would change your mind; you do not seem to have an open mind concening this issue
In reference to Darwin, I was not implying that many, if any, of his ideas are followed religiously by modern biologists. I was merely pointing out the fact not all those who propose theories are “qualified”, if you will–this occurs on both sides of the argument.
Finally, in response to the ad hominem criticism of whatanidiot, perhaps you take this a little seriously. “Making fun of him”, “clue-proof skull”?
Seems a little vicious; yes, whatanidiot did the same thing, but that does not make amends. Once again theories, not people.
P.S. Yes, I am aware of what paragraph breaks are; thank you for pettily pointing out that error. I correspond via email frequently, so I tend you type for speed, instead of paying attention to grammar as much as I should. However, I did not forget to pay attention to common courtesy, as some seem to do. So, in advance, there may or may not be grammatical errors in this piece. Is that better? And, in rebuttal, contractions are not your friend in writing, although acceptable in everyday speech. I may have used them, and may have neglected my paragraph breaks as
well; all apologies.
February 9th, 2006 at 2:45 pm
Jim,
I confess that I haven’t read Bones of Contention. However, one reviewer quotes him as writing:
Other reviews (e.g., here and here) say that this is a major theme in the book.
Is this accurate? If so, how can you call Lubenow “credible” or say that Bones of Contention is a good book? Claiming that ancestral and descendent species cannot coexist is just “if humans evolved from apes, why are there still apes?”, which is as stupid as “if my ancestors were Russian, how come there are still Russians?”
I’m having trouble parsing this, mainly because the sentence seems to be missing a verb clause. I think what you’re saying is that there is dispute as to whether all life on Earth descended from one or a few common ancestors. If so, then no, that’s pretty much been established. How else can you explain the multiple nested hierarchies of living beings (e.g., morphological and genetic)? How do you explain the residual telomeres and centromeres on human chromosome 2?
It’s not that I don’t have an open mind; rather, it’s just that to date, creationists have failed to present any evidence for creationism that withstands close scrutiny. If you run across any, please let me know.
If by “qualified” you mean “has a fancy degree”, then you’re right. But in science, evidence trumps degrees every time, and Darwin did collect, organize, and present solid evidence for his ideas. Creationists don’t; or if they do (e.g., the Paluxy man-tracks) the evidence doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
I’ll end by referring you to a message to creationists that I wrote a while back.
February 9th, 2006 at 3:03 pm
I apologize for the missing words in the sentence, it does make it difficult to read.
In Lubenow’s book, the point he was making with that statement is not one of the main themes; in actuality, he was summarizing several quotations from several scientists concerning basic principles of evolution. One of them is that if a “superior” species, B, evolves after species A, then eventually A will die off and B will remain. I said the book was good because of a number of issues addressed by the book. Regardless, if you would read the book, it would make it easier to comment on those issues. Quotations and reviews are not necessarily accurate.
Yes, Darwin did collect and organize “evidence”, although it was mostly visisble; much of what he used as basis for his claims was incorrect. Such is the way with science. Claims, hypotheses, and theories are made, and evidence either supports or falsifies them. Much in the way of evidence is ambiguous, and “scrutiny” can be used to attack numerous theories, not just creationism. If there was an evolutionary theory that was “air-tight”, there would be much less debate. For the record, most credible creationists don’t refer to Paluxy, although I believe Hovind does.
February 9th, 2006 at 8:52 pm
This is likely true if A and B are in competition with each other, but this is by no means always the case. A lot of times, speciation occurs because part of a population becomes isolated from the main population (allopatric speciation). In this case, the two aren’t in direct competition with each other.
If “B replaces A” were the rule, with few or no exceptions, then we’d see populations evolving, but we wouldn’t see speciation. Yet we do.
Unfortunately, none of the libraries in my area seem to have it.
The best kind of evidence, wouldn’t you say?
Okay, so what evidence, if any, supports creationism?
You’ll notice that there is no debate among biologists over the broad outlines: that evolution occurs; that it has occurred througout the history of life; that all modern species (including humans) are related by common descent; that natural selection, sexual selection, genetic drift, etc. drive evolution. If you’re interested in a list of deficiencies in modern evolutionary theory, I’ll refer you to this post by biologist PZ Myers.
The only “debate” is by people who, usually for religious reasons, don’t like evolution. What does this tell you?
I didn’t know there were credible creationists. Who are they, and where have they been hiding?
February 9th, 2006 at 9:48 pm
My intent in scoffing scientists is born only of my frustration for the dismissal of other theories. Setting aside creation, I do happen to believe there there is overwhelming evidence of a much younger Earth than is more popularly touted by science today. It doesn’t mean that it is true, but like many things it is possible. I do not have any direct links available at the moment as I am not at my regular computer. Here is an example, and while I am not “educated” with a university degree in physics, biology, archeology, paleontology, etc. I am more than intelligent enough to know that it is at least feasible:
Have you ever looked at the gutters in the road after a rain storm, and noticed the little canyons the rain carved? It reminds me alot of the satellite images of North America you see on Google Earth. Evidence? Or coincidence? I say evidence.
If the earth was flooded, where did the water go? Well, it’s possible that it retreated back into the oceans and subterranean caverns. The continents are part of much larger techtonic plates. If you push on one spot on a water bed, another part rises, yes? Would it not be possible then for one part of a techtonic plate to rise (bringing up mountains and land) while another part sinks becomming ocean? It could be that the plates were much more flat before the flood, and thus the water would have been spread out more equally. Well, difficult to imagine on a micro scale, but then again, a world flood isn’t so micro.
Also, what would the tides be like with all that water covering the earth? I think they would be huge. There would be immense amounts of water erosion, with the tides washing up mass amounts of soil into concentrated places (mountain ranges).
It would also cause the soil to hydraulically “sort” itself. More dense material would sink lower. It’s like those sand art frames you see sold in the malls where it is full of water and two colors of sand. You turn it over, and it forms layers.
Geologists have uncovered forests of petrified trees that were standing up. Why would they be standing up? If the layers are millions of years old, the trees could not have been growing through them. Hmm… I say evidence of something hydraulic in nature. How about the fossils in the layers? Well, the fish-like fossils are at the bottom, yes? Aren’t fish more dense, and would therefore sink? And the flying critters seem to be found on top. Maybe because they are less dense. Or, maybe because they drowned last.
Both evolutionists and creationists agree that there was an ice age. But the causes are only speculation. Three theories on the creation side: the massive amounts of water caused the oceanic currents to shift, causing deadly storms and freezing. That theory has been around a long time, and yes I know, they made a Hollywood movie about it. I think it’s doubtful that that happened. In Genesis it says that water burst forth from the earth. Taking this litterally, water could have shot out of underground caverns (Genesis also says that God created the earth above the waters and below the waters.) This water could have shot into the atmosphere (immeasurable weight would have been on these suggested caverns, and thus a great deal of pressure). The atmosphere would have super cooled the water mist into instant snow. Sounds far fetched, but then again, we dont know what was under the earth 5000 years ago.
The third theory would be that a comet hit the earth. I am putting this theory into a new paragraph because there are more details about it. An object that enters the atmosphere doesnt always burn up. In the case of a comet, it would surely break apart, and much of it burn up. But in the center of that object burning up, the air would cool into a cold-channel. (I’m my own words here, so please forgive me if my terminology is incorrect.) Remember back to the photos of Jupiter when it was impacted by a comet. The comet in that case broke up, and left dark spots on Jupiter for quite some time, indicating an cataclysmic temperature change, and volumetric change to those areas. So far, it sounds very unlikely. Recently there was a test performed that indicated that the Earth was wobbling a few inches. If you bump a spinning top, it wobbles, and eventually re-balances itself out. The Earth is a spinning top, and according to the formulas that the scientist came up with (based on how long it takes a gyro to re-balance itself, and based on it’s spin etc), they placed impact of something large on Earth at approximately 5000 years ago. A comet perhaps? Maybe, maybe not. But that 5000 years coincides with the flood supposedly taking place around the same time.
All of that being said, maybe thats what really happened, and maybe not. I don’t know, because I wasn’t there. I didn’t see the flood. I also didn’t see the big-bang, so I don’t know if that really happened either. I guess what I am trying to say is, the creationist theories (specifically about the flood — you dont have to believe in God to believe in a world flood) are very much snubbed out of hand and are not given alot of valid attention. Using only their analytical minds, and setting aside their biases of evolution (thats what they study, so that is always going to give some bias to their efforts), I would love for some scientists to honestly put some research into this. And not just reading white papers from creation theologists either. Do the honest research themselves, and get the results themselves. The only people who seemingly HAVE done any research on the subject is the creationists such as Dr. Kent Hovind, Martin Lubenow and the like.
February 9th, 2006 at 11:16 pm
whatanidiot:
Not only have I noticed this, I’ve written about it before.
You haven’t actually done the math on this, have you? How much water are you talking about? How many millions of tons of rock are you talking about moving, and by how much? How much energy is necessary to move that much stone? Over what period of time? Where does this energy come from? What happens once it’s dissipated into the planet and its atmosphere as heat?
In case you didn’t know, this is colloquially known as the “grass outran velociraptors” theory.
By the same reasoning, you don’t know whether your father was born normally, or emerged fully-grown from a radiant spacecraft. You don’t know, because you weren’t there.
I confess that I laughed out loud at this. The man’s a buffoon.
(southpaw: whatanidiot’s comment contains a lot of arguments that don’t stand up to scrutiny, in case you were wondering what I meant.)
February 10th, 2006 at 1:14 am
When I said Darwin used visible evidence, I was referring to his observations of external, physical traits, as opposed to things that you have referred to, such as chromosome 2.
And yes, there are credible scientists who believe in creation theories, of which there are many variants. Just because you disagree does not mean that they are “absurd”, although I will admit that the pseudo-scientists “hurt the image”, so to speak. They (credible creationists) do exist, however.
February 10th, 2006 at 1:24 am
“Not only have I noticed this, I’ve written about it before.” - Did you take into account other forms of erosions that would shape the rough surface?
“You haven’t actually done the math on this, have you? How much water are you talking about? How many millions of tons of rock are you talking about moving, and by how much? How much energy is necessary to move that much stone? Over what period of time? Where does this energy come from? What happens once it’s dissipated into the planet and its atmosphere as heat?” - It would take alot of computing power to do the “math” on this. Obviously it would take alot of force. Perhaps the force of a comet or meteor impact (craters found all over the world) while obviously not large enough of a force to move a continent, it could possibly be enough to start a chain reaction underground in subterranean chambers. Period of time would be months, and there would be earthquakes such as no body has ever imagined. Imagine the tsunamis, and add that to the theory of washing up soil and sediment. As for heat, it may have been in the form of cold, and triggered the ice age. Again, supporting the idea of a comet. Or as I said, if water shot out into the atmosphere and froze… you get the idea.
Look at the evidence for the ice age. Wooly mammoths, frozen standing up, food still undigested in their stomachs, and plants still green, in their mouths. They would have to be frozen VERY fast. In order to freeze an elephant sized mammal in for example 5 hours, it would take temperatures of -300 centrigrade. Tell me you don’t see that.
“In case you didn’t know, this is colloquially known as the “grass outran velociraptors” theory.” - Thats cute. I like how you dismiss it out of hand without thought.
Grass huh… What happens to grass when you throw it in water? It floats, yes? Does it seem reasonable then that the grass could have washed back into the oceans? Or more likely, it just stayed closer to the top and decayed.
“By the same reasoning, you don’t know whether your father was born normally, or emerged fully-grown from a radiant spacecraft. You don’t know, because you weren’t there.” - On the contrary, my grandparents were very fond of moving pictures and recorded his birth. Not that we have any equipment in the family to play it back anymore, when I was younger, I did indeed witness the birth of my father. Not something I wish to see again, nor would I wish ANYONE to see…. although a radiant spacecraft would have been much cooler.
“The man’s a buffoon.” - He comes across this way without a doubt. But if you look PAST that part, he brings up some interesting ideas. I know it can be hard to get past that though. It took alot of laughing and time, but I got over it. And now it is somewhat interesting (once you pick out the cheese). All Im saying is step outside the box, and actually examine everything. Every detail. Not, “well, thats not true because we know this and that.” No fossilized grass? What are the properties of grass when exposed to conditions that could possible be imposed?
“(southpaw: whatanidiot’s comment contains a lot of arguments that don’t stand up to scrutiny, in case you were wondering what I meant.)” - What scrutiny have you applied to them? 2-3 minutes of reading, or several hours of actual research? Did any of this stuff happen? Who knows? But for you to instantly dismiss it with a blatant “NO”, then that’s what is colloquially called “a one track mind”.
Anyways… Hovind apparently has a live radio show on his website that you can call in and… debate or whatever. http://www.drdino.com
February 10th, 2006 at 1:41 am
southpaw:
On the basis of what evidence do they believe these theories? I keep asking for evidence, and you keep not providing any.
February 10th, 2006 at 2:05 am
I can’t help but wonder why, if yeasts are now evolving, as bacteria did, my doctor just gave me the same old oral tablets for a systemic fungal infection, and how it worked. Or how, now, the doctors have any hope of using antibiotics to cure the many bacterial sinus and bladder infections out there, since now that drug resistant strains have evolved, the old ones clearly cannot exist.
But that’s really beside the point nitpicking. Clearly, fungi and bacteria have evolved drastically, even in my lifetime. As have (as any homeowner trying to use any older bait trays knows) many household pests, such as ants, roaches, and the like… all of which, no matter how odious I find them, I believe are beloved of God as God’s creation. If you find that disturbing, take your petty “Daddy loves you best” grievances up with your creator, not me, it’s not my problem.
If your God is so small that said God has to follow the rules of ANY of us down here, OR, if your God’s rules can’t hold up to the scrutiny of the brains said God supposedly created, then that God needs to be chucked, and a new one looked at. If God has to do things MY way, and I can’t allow for any other way for it to happen, I am kinda specifying God’s agenda. In that case, um, really, who’s trying to play the God, here? Yes, you could say then, I should be open minded enough to see it MUST be your way, but sorry, the brain God gave me says otherwise, and I get the feeling you’re not really reciprocating.
The problem is that if we admit we’re all descended from apes, then well, we can’t be any better than they are, can we? How can we compare to such lowly life forms as the aomeba? This all stems, IMO, from 1) an inferiority complex, and 2) a real lack of acceptance of God’s grace. God chose to elevate us out of the rest of creation, no matter HOW, and that makes us incredibly special- I think even MORE special if we consider “There, aomeba, but for the grace of God, slither I.”
Take that to your philosophy class and chew on it, get unbent, take delight in creation, and in the wonderful way God made it all work out, down to the little potassium-argon decomposition and all the other really cool stuff. It’s an amazingly fascinating universe, the more I learn of how evolution works, the more in awe I am of my creator. The bigger and more complex it gets, the more incredible it seems that I am important enough for all my hairs to be counted. Creationists: Stop putting all these STUPID limits on my Creator, making God more simplistic and less interesting. So what, you can’t understand it all. Neither can any other people. That’s the limitation of being human. Live with it.
February 10th, 2006 at 2:37 am
whatanidiot:
I’m not asking for a detailed computer model; just a back of the envelope calculation, which you can do by hand or with a pocket calculator and some High School physics. Here’s something to get you started (Google and Wikipedia are your friends):
For simplicity, assume a continental (or ocean, I don’t care) plate covering 1/10 of the Earth. You wish to raise it by 10 m over a period of, say, six months. How much work is required to do this? (Alternately: how much work will be done by gravity if the plate simply falls 10 m?)
You won’t tell me, because you’re a creationist and creationists, especially young-earth creationists, can’t do math.
Bzzt! You lose. Absolute zero is -273 degrees Celsius. A temperature of -300 C is impossible.
And by the way, even Answers in Genesis says the “flash-frozen mammoths” argument is bogus.
Not without thought. Rather, BTDTGTTS, and the idea that animals and plants ran for higher ground from a putative flood doesn’t pass the giggle test. Look at the news photos from post-Katrina New Orleans or the Indian Ocean tsunami. Notice lots of dead people, animals, and plants, all jumbled together, even though humans and animals could, theoretically run for higher ground. Now consider that you’re talking about a cataclysmic event far worse than either of those, and explain to me how it’s possible that not a single human skeleton has been found side by side with a dinosaur (not counting birds, of course); why ferns appear so much lower than grass; why Basilosaurs are never found in the same stratum as modern dolphins or whales.
So no, I haven’t dismissed the “grass outran velociraptors” because I haven’t given it much thought, but simply because it’s patent bullshit. You believe it not because there’s any evidence for it, or even because it’s plausible, but because you want it to be true, and because a snake-oil salesman told you it’s okay to believe that.
February 10th, 2006 at 10:01 pm
“You won’t tell me, because you’re a creationist and creationists, especially young-earth creationists, can’t do math.” - Is math really necessary when merely expressing an idea. It’s only an idea at this point. And just because I haven’t given you all this in thesis format with detailed mathematical results, doesnt mean that something is impossible. Or does it?
“Bzzt! You lose. Absolute zero is -273 degrees Celsius. A temperature of -300 C is impossible.” — Again, I was being general here; I was only trying to get across an idea, not a verbatim fact. Either way, it’s bloody cold.
“And by the way, even Answers in Genesis says the “flash-frozen mammoths” argument is bogus.” — Indeed they do, because elephants stomachs act as storage areas for food, and only begin digesting when it needs to. Well enough, but wouldnt that food begin to decay and rot, even without stomach acid? There must have been SOME bacteria and micro-organisms that would be decaying it, right? And the food still in the mouths was said to be fully intact, with no signs of decay.
“Now consider that you’re talking about a cataclysmic event far worse than either of those, and explain to me how it’s possible that not a single human skeleton has been found side by side with a dinosaur (not counting birds, of course); why ferns appear so much lower than grass; why Basilosaurs are never found in the same stratum as modern dolphins or whales.” — I dont know what the density of a live basilosaur is. Also, we don’t know if humans covered the entire planet either, of if they were concentrated in a more centralized area. Animals migrate a lot, as is still observed today. Before the flood, they probably did too, while humans stuck very much together for sharing of food and resources. And we don’t know the exact geography of the earth pre-flood, so it could also be that the ocean floor contains the vast majority of all earth fossils. You don’t see alot of archeologists digging on the ocean floor, do you? Who knows whats down there? I mean, it covers something like 70% of the planet, yes? Thats alot of un-explored area. As for ferns appearing lower, maybe they uproot more easily than grass, maybe they are more dense and are less likely to float. Maybe maybe maybe. Again, not facts, just ideas.
Rather than trying to find reasons for something to be wrong, why not try to find reasons for something to be right, or at least possible? I dont mean this from an evolution/creation standoff either. Just in general, “They found this, what could possibly make that happen? What else could make that happen?” I mean, how are we as human beings supposed to discover new things if we don’t question everything else around us? Instead it seems we come up with one explanation, call it truth, and drop all other explanations like yesterday’s garbage.
Either way, thanks for humoring me. It was a fun discussion, if not frustrating.
To AnneB: I don’t understand where you see these “STUPID limits” I am imposing on God. If anything, what I’m suggesting makes it even more incredible. There is nothing simple about a global flood, which is all Im suggesting at this point.
February 11th, 2006 at 4:58 am
You know, in the time it took you to type that, you could at the very least have figured out the mass of the hypothetical tectonic plate I asked you to consider. Why are you making excuses instead? I guess I was right: creationists can’t do math, not even at the High School level.
Except that this sort of sloppiness shows that you have no idea what you’re talking about, any more than if you had mentioned the 90 planets of the solar system, or the 500 oceans. Like words, numbers mean things. And even if you don’t happen to remember the value of absolute zero, it’s the work of a few moments to Google it.
What if I told you that I once walked from New York to Los Angeles in a day? Let’s estimate about 3000 miles from NY to LA. Dividing by 24 hours, you would find that I would have had to “walk” at 125 miles per hour the entire time, which is two orders of magnitude greater than normal walking speed.
So do you believe that I could have walked across the North American continent in a day? Is it worth trying to find ways for my claim to be right, or at least possible? If you believed my claim, would that make you open-minded, or just gullible?
It’s good to keep an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out, or that someone stuffs it full of garbage.
While I can’t claim to read her mind, I believe what’s she’s saying is that you’re telling God that he had to have done things in accordance with your interpretation of a particular book written by and for bronze-age nomads. You’re telling God that since you can’t cope with the idea of a universe billions of years old, that he has to acquiesce and make it a million times younger. That you want to be the purpose of the universe, rather than just one voice in a symphony that includes every insect on every planet, and therefore God isn’t allowed to have used evolution.
You have no idea. Go read Pat James’s article, Torpedo Ye Arke. You don’t realize it because you haven’t thought it through (and you don’t know math, so you can’t even do simple reality checks), but if you think that there was a flood and an ark as described in Genesis, then you must also believe that Noah was a better shipwright than anyone in the British Navy, that you fit 3000 tons of food into a 1500-ton boat, and that evolution proceeds thousands of times faster than any evolutionary biologist would dare to suggest.
And yet you have the gall to bad-mouth scientists because they’ve thought it through, they’ve done the math and the legwork and the experiments, and they tell you that sorry, that nice story you grew up with as a kid isn’t actually literally true. Then, instead of trying to figure out why they’ve reached the conclusions that they have, you pout and stamp your little feet and say “Is not!”
Go learn something. You can start here. Try to understand why scientists say the things they do, and maybe you’ll find that you live in a world more complex and wonderful than you have ever imagined.
February 22nd, 2006 at 3:46 am
About the only thing I’ve gained for this is the knowledge that arensb is an asshole who can’t resist showing everyone what a tedious pedant he is with regard to grammar and syntax. Of course, all his grandstanding clearly displays his superiority. How could anyone pose a valid argument without perfect grammatical skills?
Better yet, why are all you people wasting your time arguing with an asshole when there might be someone who is genuinely interested in what you have to say?
February 22nd, 2006 at 3:50 am
Now, find my mistake and prove me right.
April 6th, 2006 at 12:20 pm
“Now, find my mistake and prove me right.”
I’m looking for the part where you proved any of his arguments wrong. And since those are the important bits of the discussion, and you’ve missed them entirely, then I’m thinking that that was your mistake.
That or spelling the word “arsehole” wrong.
April 19th, 2006 at 3:52 am
arensb I admire your faith in evolution. Despite the lack of evidence, you seem to make it look as if evolution is a fact when in fact it’s a hypothesis. Creation too is a hypothesis but a much better one. Evolution can’t explain the origins of life. Life can only occur from life as life begets life! Evolution seems to skip this observable fact and thus becomes nothing but a fairy tale. Unless you believe in a form of theistic evolution, your evolution hypothesis becomes a joke. Don’t tell me that scientists have accepted evolution as you understand it for that itself is part of the debate.
April 19th, 2006 at 4:24 am
I’ll ask you the same question I’ve asked the other creationists, above: what evidence is there to support creationism?
April 21st, 2006 at 7:32 am
There isn’t any. Everyone can go home now. Actually, after reading both sides of the argument, I’ve decided to believe in neither “hypothesis”. Instead, I’ve decided to believe in the “Lord of the Rings” and its teachings. It’s a book that was written before my time, and tells of tales before anyone alive can remember. So it must be true. Long live Middle Earth!
May 6th, 2006 at 6:12 pm
Paul L. “Evolution can’t explain the origins of life. Life can only occur from life as life begets life! Evolution seems to skip this observable fact and thus becomes nothing but a fairy tale.” The origins of life are explained via the theory of abiogenesis. Evolution explains how life come from life, abiogenesis explains how life might have come frome no life.
May 9th, 2006 at 2:12 pm
right now, i’m too effin tired to argue with either of your sides, so i’ll simply say that kent hov-whatever is no moron. is is one of the more intelligent people that i have seen. of course, not in matters that concern science or reilgion, but he is quite adept at maniuplation and solicitation. he quotes from adolf hitler in his conferences, suggesting to me that he has read mein kampf. he has been charged with assault and tax evasion. he runs a multi-million dollar company which invites children to have fun from his back yard in the middle of a slum, without proper permits to run the business or care for the children whom attend at a whopping rate of less that 50 per day.
evolution is proven to me by the fact that if i need cheddar cheese, and all i have is mozzarella, i improvise and make do with what i have. (now, some may argue that this is not proof of evolution, but of adaptation and to that i say: prove the difference to me)
May 10th, 2006 at 2:01 am
Clearly this is proof not of evolution, but of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, who has provided bounteous cheese to go with your spaghetti. QED.
June 4th, 2006 at 2:43 pm
kent hovind has disprooved evolution and u guys r deperately hanging on to the dumbest theory in history
June 20th, 2006 at 9:37 pm
So my choices are 1.) I came from a concoction of random chemicals that gathered together after a random spark brought them to life. And this all came from the random formation of a planet that is just situated at the right location from a light and heat source to allow that life to propogate and of course the planet came from a huge explosion in which nothing created everything which also randomly created the galaxy I sit in and the planet I live on or 2.) I was created by an intelligent being, call him God or whatever you choose to and he made me and everything on this planet through some grand design known only to it.
I’ll tell you what, when I win the freakin’ lottery which would seem to me to be a far easier prospect than being born of a bunch of goo coming to life, I’ll buy you all a car. Until then, I think I’ll believe in something a bit more positive… a supreme being.
June 20th, 2006 at 9:49 pm
You forgot option 3: that you were born of human parents, like every other person on the planet. If you want to call your parents “God”, that’s your prerogative, of course, though it’s likely to cause confusion when you try to communicate with other people.
Is there any evidence to support your belief?
If your argument boils down to “I can’t imagine… therefore God exists”, that says a lot more about your imagination than about God.
June 23rd, 2006 at 5:43 pm
Option 3 is rather unthinkable in that its obvious my parents, nor yours, created the world we live in so I’m speaking in a larger sense rather than just of myself. To attribute the creation of the galaxy to anything other than the Big Bang or to a Supreme Being makes no sense. Is there really another option? In your statement you don’t imply a third option either, you literally provided it as ones parents; as if the beginning point is simply that, your very own birth.
I think this line of thinking provides more limits to your own imagination rather than mine. Why you ask? Well, simply because you’re thinking only takes you as far as a humancentric (assuming that’s a real term and I’m too lazy to look it up) view and no further as if to say that’s it… there’s nothing else to your existence or your life beyond your own existence. From this I deduce that you are probably a humanist in your world view and its obvious you have a greater appreciation for scientific belief than theistic belief because you seek evidence.
I’ll happily admit there’s no evidence to support a supreme being who we’ll call God for lack of a better label. If someone truly has belief, evidence means nothing to them; it’s what they believe via their own rationale. And, providing evidence sounds like a court case that must be won by one side convincing the other of the fallacy of their argument and the correctness of their own. The better question would be: does it really matter in the end? From your philosophy it really doesn’t matter because you have no one to answer to but yourself, but from a theistic point of view it matters to God and that’s all that’s important to a believer who actually has a God.
Let us suppose for a moment that there is no God. Well then we have to take the natural or evolutionary explanation for the existence of all life as we know it in all of its various complexities and its beauties not to mention all of the awful, ugly things that happen to the world and to its inhabitants day in and day out. At that point it seems that life or, to put it more precisely, mere existence has no purpose but rather it is a random effect within the universe without cause or reason. That means that since we merely exist there’s no point in creating rules or social morals or standards to live by as we have nothing and no one to answer to and nowhere to go when our time is up. It also means there’s not much in life to look forward to since its merely an existince with the preclusion that it will end in your death and anything that might make you unique is simply lost to time unless you have left behind some legacy of yourself, and then again if its a human legacy how long will humanity really last… by your line of thinking.
We can presume that God does not exist all day long but our presumption does not make it so. We can presume that science is correct all day long but our presumption does not make that so either. Everyone on either side of that particular debate is simply wasting their time as there will always be those, like yourself, with a third option who believes neither is true and yet provides no meaningful alternative to explain this other option. The so-called evidence of the Bible, or of God if you prefer, is manifest in the writings of people who lived thousands of years before you and I. The evidence of science is manifest in the writings of people who live hundreds of years, sometimes thousands of years, before you and I and who continue to extoll their own beliefs.
Is science the new religion then, attempting vainly to convert new followers to its own dogmatic view? Are the scientists the new prophets who are proselytizing to the masses? If so, then who do you worship? Who is your God or do you have a pantheon of Gods instead whom you revere? How is it that you worship them and how do you pray to them? What do you offer of yourself to them in exchange for their divine influence since its obvious in your belief you’ve made Gods of men.
I ask you then, where is the evidence to support your belief? Assuming you truly have a belief. And is this evidence simply the evidence of man and nothing more? And if it is the evidence of man implying a belief from what he can observe, is that evidence really good enough for everyone?
June 24th, 2006 at 1:21 am
Far From Goo!:
You said “I”, which led me to believe that you were speaking of yourself.
Sure. Why shouldn’t there be? But I must ask: you started out by talking about either embryonic development or abiogenesis. How did the formation of the galaxy creep into the discussion?
If this is how you think, then doesn’t it follow that you’d believe in God whether or not God existed? If evidence means nothing to you, that means you could be completely and utterly wrong, and you’d have no way of knowing.
That doesn’t follow. One can be an atheist and still not accept evolution. Granted, such an atheist would have to be as ignorant as the typical Christian literalist creationist, but it’s still possible.
There are literally tons of evidence for evolution (by which I mean biological evolution; if you think it means something else, such as “origin of life” or “origin of Earth” or “origin of the universe” or “atheism”, then you’re wrong).
That doesn’t follow either. “Random” is not the same as “purposeless”. To a first approximation, “random” means “unpredictable”, and it’s clear that much in nature is not random: the planets revolve in their orbits according to the laws of gravity and mechanics, and not because there are angels pushing them along. And yet their motion is highly predictable, and not at all random.
And even if there is no grand, overarching, externally-imposed “purpose” to human life, so what? Are you saying that you can’t come up with something good to do with your life on your own?
That doesn’t follow either: just because there are no gods doesn’t mean that we can’t or shouldn’t come up with rules to live by. I happen to like getting along with other people: a lot of them are smart, and funny, and charming, and generally a pleasure to be around. Most of the others I’m generally indifferent to, but I’d still like to be able to walk around without worrying (too much) that I’ll be killed or robbed or assaulted.
There’s at least one hidden assumption here: you’re assuming that if there’s a god, it has to be the Judeo-Christian-Islamic god, with all the attendant baggage: life after death, judgment, heaven and hell, and all that.
But the possibilities are endless: there might be a god, but it created the universe by accident, and isn’t even aware of us. Or else it created the universe to see some pretty black holes, and the existence of life on our planet is just a side effect; there
“preclusion“?
You do know that words have meanings, don’t you?
But anyway, you’re arguing that I should believe in a god because the alternative makes you uncomfortable. Sorry, but I’d rather face an uncomfortable truth than a soothing lie.
Ditto Zeus, Brahma, Xenu, the IPU and the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
That would be missing the point. Science is not a dogma that one take on faith; in fact, it’s quite the opposite.
Since I just wrote an article about this, I’ll refer you to it. In particular, see the middle section and the two questions that every scientist must ask himself.
The way you’re asking this, I think you mean “if you don’t have a belief in God, what takes the place of that belief in your life?” This is a lot like a drinker asking a teetotaler, “If you don’t get drunk on whiskey, what do you get drunk on?”
Atheism and science are not different types of religion, any more than water and lemonade are different types of alcohol.
At any rate, you haven’t given any reason to believe in your or any other god. At best, it seems you’ve said that you’re afraid to face life without someone telling you what to do. I hope you’ll forgive me if I’d rather not join you.
June 26th, 2006 at 6:54 pm
Thanks for correcting my diction. If a word sounds good why not throw it in there, I’ve always said.
I’ll let you get back to your tons of evidence and your convictions and quit wasting your valuable time then. I do however appreciate the commentary and the conversation; it’s always educational to see how different people feel and what it is they believe in their hearts.
So… like every other ignorant, Christian literalist creationist, I’ll pray for you anyway… even though you might not want me to.
June 26th, 2006 at 8:39 pm
And thus another creationist slinks away rather than try to back up his assertions.
June 29th, 2006 at 3:15 pm
arensb, have you had an opportunity to read Matt Ridley’s The Agile Gene? It’s an interesting take on the complexity of the human genome. I have difficulty reconciling the obvious complexities of what Ridley points out about the human gene with the idea of evolution. As well, I was also confused about something you had mentioned earlier about Darwin. You said that it didn’t matter to modern biology what Darwin thought. I find that statement confusing because it seems to me that modern biology might not be where it is today if not for the principle of natural selection so well put together by Darwin. His observations of the natural world are well reasoned concepts for someone of his time. I am often amused at the fact that he never obtained a degree in science and that his degree was in theology instead in the scientific field. I do feel that Darwin tends to get alot of the credit for the principle of natural selection when he wasn’t the only one with such ideas. His contemporary, Alfred Russel Wallace is so often overlooked though I can easily understand why because he so much doubted his own theories, as I understand that Darwin doubted his own later in his own life. I do not think that modern biology or any naturalistic science can simply discard Darwin. If one can overlook the racism that permeates his Origin of the Species, Darwin is otherwise a brilliant individual.
July 20th, 2006 at 8:36 pm
Creationists hate to admit this, but the world is full of evidence for evolution!
Evolutionists hate to admit this, but the world is full of evidence for creation!
This is simply because the evidence for both models is exactly the same. We live in a material world, and all material (matter) is available for scrutiny. It is all here for both sides to examine at leisure. If you are a creationist, you see the evidence as supportive of your view. If you are an evolutionist, you see the evidence as supportive of your view. Thus, it is pointless to ask an opponent of your view for evidence of his view (and vice versa). It’s not the evidence; it’s how you view the evidence.
How is this possible? Simple!
The evolutionist hates to admit that his is a faith-based model of origins. He likes to defer to science, and uses evolutionary scientists to back up his views. History records many notable scientists who subscribe to the evolutionary model.
The creationist hates to admit that his is a faith-based model of origins. He likes to defer to science, and uses creationist scientists to back up his views. History records many notable scientists who subscribe to the creationist model.
Each side comes to the table with a pre-conceived view of origin, and views the evidence through the lens of their own background and beliefs.
Can a person switch sides? Sure, but not generally on the basis of evidence. More often than not, the switch occurs on the basis of faith. When we change our basis of faith, we change our view of the evidence. And by the way—it goes both ways. Some have changed from evolutionist to creationist; some have gone the other way.
Which am I? Doesn’t matter. If I were to say, you would immediately invalidate my view. Let’s just think about what I’ve said, and let that be a matter of discussion!
July 20th, 2006 at 9:27 pm
Can you please provide the creationist explanation for the multiple nested hierarchies observed in nature? What about homologies? The lack of mammals with feathers? Just to name a few.
“God did it” or “God wanted it that way”, since it explains everything (it handles both the existence and nonexistence of centaurs equally well), and therefore explains nothing.
In the same way that a Fortune 500 CEO hates to admit that he runs a charity: it just isn’t true.
Evolution is science, and science is based on doubt: experimental facts are considered in doubt until they’re replicated by someone else, preferably by several other teams. Articles are submitted anonymously to reviewers (to help prevent the reviewers from privileging famous or popular researchers at the expense of unknown ones) before publication.
Heck, even as we speak, I’m running some computer simulations because I didn’t want to take someone else’s word for the power of natural selection. If you want a copy of the code, let me know and I’ll share. If you find any bugs, I’ll be glad of it.
More importantly, evolution produces results: Tiktaalik was discovered in the place it was predicted to be found, using results from paleontology and geology. When’s the last time creationism advanced human knowledge?
How many of them work or worked after the publication of The Origin of the Species? How many of them are biologists? How many are named Steve?
I’ll defer to Glenn Morton, a geologist in the oil industry, who used to be a young-earth creationist, and wrote “research” papers for ICR:
Can you name anyone who understood the theory of evolution and was familiar with the evidence for it who switched to creationism?
The fact that you think evolution is faith-based says that you don’t know what it is, or how science works, or what the evidence for evolution and common descent is. Your performance here is on a par with someone who says, “Sure, this Republican administration got us into a pointless war in Iraq, but the Democrats want to confiscate everyone’s property and strangle kittens. Betcha can’t guess which party I’m in!”
But hey, I’m open to the possibility that creationism might be true. If you have any evidence for it, why don’t you bring it out and show us?
I also strongly suggest that you learn what evolution is, so that you don’t make a fool of yourself by misrepresenting it. Call it “know thy enemy” if you like.
July 23rd, 2006 at 11:43 pm
Of all of Kent Hovind’s intellectual sins, his biggest is stating that evolution is a religion. I am a practicing Christian. I beileve in God. I don’t “believe” in evolution; it is merely the scientific theory that most credibly explains the origin of life. Kent Hovind would tell me that I do not believe in God, since I “believe” in evolution. What gall he has to tell other people what they do and do not believe!
Science and religion can coexist. Science is based on doubt (as arensb said), and religion is based on faith. Science will never “kill” religion. No matter how far science goes into understanding the nature of life, the universe, or even the multiverse, God still can (and I believe does) exist on a level never accessible to science. This does not marginalize science for people of faith, rather it makes science an integral part of understanding God’s Creation.
Furthermore, I think creationism, not the theory of evolution, degrades the Supreme Being. To say, “Oh, God couldn’t have done it that way, it’s not it Bible,” is to impose human restrictions on God. The Supreme Being could have made things literally the way it is described in Genesis if it wished, but the evidence clearly doesn’t point to that. To ignore emperical evidence in order to believe two parables (the first developed to counter the Babalonian creation myth and the second to teach about humanity’s chosen fall from grace) on a literal level is not only bad science, but bad theology.
If creationists like Kent Hovind would realize that understanding the thoery of evolution and believing in God are not mutually exclusive, and if they truly examined the evidence for evolution, without the agenda of proving a coulple of parables to be historically and scienctifically correct, I think they would understand evolution as the best thoery for biogenesis.
July 24th, 2006 at 8:38 pm
Ummm. I’m not trying to be difficult here, arensb, but you never answered my earlier questions. See above comment from “crew” dated 6/29. Any insight or comments you might have is most appreciated. Thank you.
July 24th, 2006 at 10:27 pm
crew:
Sorry about that. Your message fell off of the current page in my mail inbox, and I forgot.
Sorry, no. I’ve read his Genome, though.
Why? Is it just “I can’t imagine that all of this could have happened naturally”? If so, you may want to consider whether the problem lies in your imagination. Personally, I find that my intuition doesn’t work very well in many areas. That’s why I prefer to see what the data say.
At any rate, complexity of the type that we see in nature is an argument against intelligent design. A good design is one that is simple. For instance, compare Google to the Windows search utility. Henry Ford revolutionized manufacturing by introducing the assembly line, a drastic simplification from earlier, more “artisanal” manufacturing methods. (Obviously, it still has to work. A simple design that doesn’t work is a bad design.)
In living beings, we see all sorts of unnecessary complexity: redundant genes, genes that need to be spliced together from different introns, genes that control multiple unrelated systems (e.g., the distal-less gene in certain butterflies controls both the edge of the wing, and eyespots in the middle of wings. PZ Myers has an interesting post that shows that a lot of the genes used in the development of arms and legs are also used in the development of penises and clitorises. If you’ve read Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box, he’s provided examples of complicated molecular pathways.
These are signs not of a brilliant designer who could hold in his mind the intricate dance that these thousands of molecules would execute, but rather of a blind process that’ll use anything available, no matter how stupid, as long as it works, and then propagates its “decisions” to the next generation.
September 12th, 2006 at 8:19 pm
This thread has been most interesting. I’ve been reluctant to add my opinion, because I know how much both sides of this issue are going to hate me. Evolutionists are going to hate me because I believe in a six day creation, involving a Creator. Creationists, on the other hand, are going to hate me because I will freely say that the pulpits of America’s churches are filled, for the most part, with yellow bellied gutless wonders: hypocrites that shop around for a church that gives the best salary and health benefits, then preach sermons on living by faith (to pick on just one issue, out of many). I cannot condemn anyone who choses the Theory of Evolution as a saner alternative.
I have no problem with the Theory of Evolution being taught or believed. I simply believe that there is an alternative, and the alternative is true. The alternative is that God created the universe. This world is well designed. Where ever their is a design, there needs to be a designer. A single human cell is incredibly complex. More complex than a space shuttle. If a human cell evolved, then why didn’t other, simpler things evolve, like windup wrist watches? I firmly believe that if evolution was true, we’d be digging up wrist watches all the time: why not, as metal doesn’t break down quite as quickly as flesh.
Scientific facts, such as the second law of thermodynamics, show me that I was indeed created. If there was not a system in place that blocked, or slowed down, the second law of thermodynamics on our bodies, we would all cease to exist. For evolution to be true, not only would substances have to evolve, a system would have to evolve along with it that would prevent the substances from break down immediately. The system and the substance evolving at the same time at the same place is totally improbable . Compute that.
Some people refuse to believe in God until they see hard proof of his existence, such as photographs, or other physical evidence. This is not a logical position: basically saying that if science can’t prove it, then it can’t be true. This is not reasonable, and I will not believe something that is unreasonable.
September 12th, 2006 at 10:44 pm
proclaimliberty:
Because wristwatches don’t reproduce. If they made copies of themselves with less than 100% accuracy, they would.
You’re using Paley’s watchmaker argument, which is basically “I can’t imagine how this could have happened naturally, therefore God was involved.” But the universe isn’t limited by your imagination. I suggest you read Richard Dawkins’s The Blind Watchmaker, which addresses this very question.
No, they don’t. Whoever told you that was either misinformed or lying.
You seem to have a lot of misconceptions about science in general, and evolution in particular. I suggest that you browse the Index to Creationist Claims, which may dispel a lot of your misconceptions.
This is a misrepresentation of the skeptic’s position.
Tell me: do you believe that there is a teapot orbiting Neptune? Do you believe that there’s an invisible pink unicorn in my back yard? Do you believe in Zeus, Shiva, or Thor? Do you believe that Dionysus died and was reborn?
If you’re a normal intelligent person, you don’t, because you’ve never seen any good evidence for these things. And even if you’re willing to consider the possibility that they might be true, you don’t live your life as if they were real possibilities: you don’t dress like a pirate just in case the Flying Spaghetti Monster really exists, right?
So given that there’s no good evidence for the existence of any god (if there were, apologeticists would’ve told us by now), why believe in any of them? (And please don’t say Pascal’s Wager.)
September 20th, 2006 at 10:13 am
It is pretty funny, I mean you guys had to start a website to make fun of a good guy because you are scared… scared that he might be right; scared that there is a God who made everything like the Bible says, and one day you will have to answer to Him for the things you have done. Not to mention you have nothing better to do with your time than talk about there being no meaning to life (that’s pretty depressing). Tell me, why even fight I.D. and creationism if when you die in a few years you’ll just go back to nothingness. Someone or something had to create a beginning. Think about it, who made the Laws of the universe(gravity, thermodynamics, etc.), how did O2 come aboutW/out which nothing can survive,and how could anything create itself spontaniously out of nothing, grow, find food and reproduce itself? how did fish survive before they “evolved” gills? The truth is your religeon(you have to believe there is no God, there is no way to know that) is no different than mine, except i have peace and reassurance that Jesus is God and He died for my and your sins. All we need to do is believe He is God and He will save us. Read Romans 3:23 6:23, John 3:16 and romans 10:13.
If you pride yourselves in being open-minded check into these verses and decide for yourself, because i was a loser once, but i found a Savior who loves me no matter what. P.S. i know you will want to delete this opinion because it’s something you don’t agree with, but don’t do it. let other people think for themselves. if what i believe is so dumb that noone with intelligent thought would ever believe it, what will it hurt? Dr.C
September 20th, 2006 at 3:57 pm
Dr. Clayton:
Here’s an atheism FAQ. And here’s Mark Isaak’s Index of Creationist Claims.
Go learn. Come back when you have a comment that hasn’t been refuted a thousand times yet.
September 21st, 2006 at 9:18 pm
this is very simple….it takes more faith to believe that nothing created everything than to believe that God created everything. the laws of thermodynamics tell us that it is impossible for something to come from nothing. there are cells in our bodies that look and run like motors. its absolutly amazing. if you were to remove or alter just one part of the cell, we would not be able to exist. so how in the world could a monkey turn into a human? how in the world could a species survive if its building blocks are changed? alot of time is never a good thing. things get worse never better. should i expect to start changing into a super human soon or some really intelligent gorilla? seriously! there must be some animal somewhere in the world that is changing into something else before our eyes. i guess we were just born from nothing at the wrong time. we all come from a rock i guess. or a rat. we came from nothing and we are going to nothing. oh i praise you nothing! you are so quite and wonderful. your non-existence is so rewarding in my life. thank you for sending that big bang that you created. i praise you for that rock that you directed towards that ball in the vast nothingness that you created from your vast knowledge of all things,which came from you. oh nothing, you are worthy of honor. for by the rat you eventually made me. im so glad i was made in the image of your monkey. thank you nothing. GOD MADE YOU,HE KNEW YOU BEFORE YOU WERE BORN. HE FORMED YOU IN YOUR MOTHERS WOMB. YOU ARE FEARLESSLY AND WONDERFULLY MADE(PSALM 39)WE ARE THE ONLY ONES ON EARTH THAT HAVE BEEN MADE IN HIS IMAGE. WE ARE THE ONLY ONES WHO CAN WORSHIP HIM. WE HAVE ALL FALLEN SHORT BEFORE GOD. NOONE IS RIGHTEOUS,NOT EVEN ONE. I HEAR PEOPLE SAY EMBRACE YOUR OWN TRUTH,BE TRUE TO YOURSELF. THERE IS ONLY ONE TRUTH AND HIS NAME IS JESUS CHRIST. BLUDGEONED TO DEATH TO BRING YOU TO GOD. FORGIVENESS IS AVAILABLE FOR EVERY MAN WOMAN AND CHILD ON EARTH. NO MATTER WHAT YOU HAVE DONE. IF YOU EXCEPT THE ATONING SACRAFICE OF jESUS CHRIST AND PUT YOUR TRUST IN HIM AND TURN FROM YOUR SIN, THE BIBLE SAYS YOU ARE SEALED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT, AND ETERNAL LIFE AWAITS YOU. BE WARNED NOW WHOEVER IS READING THIS…NOW YOU ARE WITHOUT EXUSE. YOU HAVE HEARD THE GOSPEL MESSAGE. I PRAY MOST EARNESTLY THAT YOU RESPOND. ITS NOT BY CHANCE THAT YOU ARE READING THIS. gOD BLESS YOU OR…..NOTHING BLESS YOU. YOU DECIDE
September 22nd, 2006 at 12:34 am
Greg:
I’m afraid you’ve got a lot of work ahead of you to unlearn all of the nonsense you got from Hovind. You can start here.
Learn, and then come back if you have any substantial comments or questions. But leave the strawmen at home, m’kay?
October 17th, 2006 at 11:01 pm
arensb:
This has been a fascinating read thus far. I am curious however about the big bang theory. Did everything come from nothing? Is this phenomenon observable, since science is all about what is observable. If all of the matter in the universe did not come from nothing, where do scientists suppose it came from? Where do YOU suppose it came from? Can you please provide evidence to irrefutably substantiate your claims in this matter? I know you ask this of Creationists, but are you exempt from providing evidence to support your claims?
“You forgot option 3: that you were born of human parents, like every other person on the planet.” Is that the chicken, or the egg? Because that smells like chicken to me, and according to that statement by yourself, it’s poultry to you as well.
Finally, how did you like my use of big words? I know how much you like to use them, perhaps in an effort to make yourself seem more intelligent, and superior. To all of the followers of the church of evolution, go forth and give the Earth a nice hug! After all, it is your ancestor!
October 17th, 2006 at 11:44 pm
evian wrote:
No, you’re not. That “I’m curious” nonsense is just a rhetorical device to allow you to pretend that you’re not just trying to score points by repeating tired old creationist talking points.
If you were really interested in the Big Bang, you’d read one or two of the many fine science books on the subject written for laymen.
Yes, but not the way that you mean: scientists can’t create a Big Bang in a test tube, or travel back in time to take color pictures. Then again the war of 1812 isn’t observable in that sense, but we have plenty of evidence that both the war of 1812 and the Big Bang happened.
To begin with, there’s Hubble’s observation that the universe is expanding, which implied that everything used to be much closer together than it is now. Then there’s Penzias and Wilson’s discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation, which had been predicted as a consequence of a singularity. If you check the science news, you’ll see that in the past few months astronomers have made new discoveries that shed more light on the Big Bang.
I don’t know. Why don’t you ask them?
I’m pretty sure, though, that if you do, they’ll tell you that the way you’ve phrased it is an oversimplification. I don’t claim to know what happened in the first few instants after the Big Bang, but I do know that matter behaves in funky waves at those temperatures and densities, and at those scales. This may be, in fact, one of those times when relativity (the physics of the very big, very massive, and very fast) and quantum mechanics (the physics of the very very small) both apply, and give inconsistent results.
Neither. Far From Goo was asking where he, personally, came from. I can only assume that he’s a human, and not a chicken, so I gave an answer appropriate to humans.
Eh? What big words?
Has it ever occurred to you that maybe I use whichever word is most appropriate in a given context? If I use a word you’re not familiar with, you can look it up in a dictionary.
WTF are you talking about?
Seriously, do you really believe that anyone actually believes the strawman caricature of evolution that you’ve just presented? Do you really think that every biologist on the planet is a blithering moron?
October 30th, 2006 at 11:08 am
I have just seen this web site, with the usual assortment of strawmen and misinformation from the creationists, together with their complete inability to actually present anything in support for their views (and I don’t want to hear a reiteration of Bronze Age mythology).
Whatanidiot said in an early post
No, a young Earth is not feasible, that is if we exclude the possibility of a devious trickster for a god.
You do not need to have a degree to understand the current theory of evolution. However, if you wish to criticise it and have your views taken seriously, you need, as a minimum, the knowledge equivalent to a degree in biology with more advanced courses in biochemistry, genetics, statistics, physics, biogeography, geology and paleontology. Anything less and you are like the man who went to the Paris Air Show and told aircraft designers, manufacturers and flight crew ‘I topped my class in Grade 8 Math and I’ve been able to prove that it’s impossible for aircraft to fly.’
It might be easier and do as arensb suggests by actually producing some evidence that actually supports creationism. However, as no-one has succeeded in the last 150 years I doubt if you will either.
October 30th, 2006 at 11:21 am
Some numbers: 1, 2, 4, 8 ,16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024.
What’s the connection?
A creationist argument:
Well, i believe ALL numbers are multipled by FOUR each time.
How comes?
Well, if i PICK these numbers…1, 4, 16, 64, 256, 1024, look what i get!!! Multipled by 4 each time! Seee, see, it must be true!
A scientific argument:
Here our or numbers: 1, 2, 4, 8 ,16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024.
The only logical argument is that they are powers of two.
Question. Which one is the correct answer?
November 22nd, 2006 at 8:56 pm
I am sorry, I am too stupid to understand what this is all about, who shall I blame, God or Evolution?
Thank you in forward for a devoted and passionate answer.
November 28th, 2006 at 4:34 am
I can’t stop laughing at all the narrowminded, brainwashed, faithless, shallow people trying to attack Kent Hovind with mindless dribble and inacuracies. I’m only talking about the professors, and teachers, and doctors and all the other “educated” people out there that have given their two cents worth on Mr. Hovind. I’m not even talking about the common lay person, like myself, writing responses to all the comments before mine. People. There is a reason why Mr. Hovind offers $250,000 to anyone that can prove evolution. It can’t be done! There is not one shred of factual evidence that proves evolution or any part of it. Wake up! Mr. Hovind can’t get anyone to debate him, because it would ruin careers, putting them in awkward positions, not being able to factually explain something they have been teaching or “preaching” all their “educated” lives. Whether you believe in creation or not. Doesn’t matter. Bottom line is, evolution is a “theory”, not a fact, just like religion is a “theory” to the evolutionists. Gee. That makes sense. End of discussion.
November 28th, 2006 at 10:02 am
wegs:
I’m curious: what’s your explanation for the multiple nested hierarchies seen in living beings?
Also, what mechanism prevents small changes (what you’d probably call microevolution) from adding up to become large changes?
In the exact same way that gravity is a theory, or the germ theory of disease, or atomic theory.
December 4th, 2006 at 1:55 am
wegs, seriously, stop it.
Go to http://www.kent-hovind.com
Look at (especially the ‘Quacky Quotes - Science’ pages) and look at some of the things Hovind has said. He know less about science (and especially physics) than a high school graduate, yet he manages to talk about science as though he were an expert.
Here are some examples:
The electromagnetic spectrum contains all the different wavelengths. Radio waves, microwaves, X-rays, radar, sonar, including a small piece in the middle called light.
December 4th, 2006 at 2:15 am
oops, anyway, as I was saying….
sonar is sound, not light. I learned this in meddle school….
Another one:
If you are traveling down the highway at sixty miles an hour, and turn your headlights on, how fast is the light going from your headlights? Compared to you, it is going at the speed of light. Compared to someone on the sidewalk it is going at the speed of light plus sixty miles an hour.
I’m sorry, but this is false. No scientist has ever been able to calculate the speed of light to be anthing but exactly c (~ 3 x 10^8 m/s)
The car’s motion WILL affect the light, though. The light (from the perspective of the person on the sidewalk) will have a blue shift…
Since Hovind uses ‘facts’ that are so easy to demonstrate to be incorrect, he’s making it more difficult for real scientists (who are Christian) to have any meaningful conversation about our faith with non-Christian scientists.
Hovind does not know science, but worse than that, he slanders scientists. This is his biggest mistake. If you really want to bring people to Christ, calling them names, telling them they’re going to hell, and the other tactics Hovind uses to ‘entertain’ his crowd, are not the way to do it.
As a Christian, I am appalled that someone like Hovind has gained so much popularity.
I’m pasting this in from the above website:
Evangelical churches have made great progress in this country by demonstrating God’s power over evil and by living out a message of self-sacrificial concern for those in need. Hovind’s videos would undoubtedly energize some Believers in this country, but would also fill them with easily refutable misinformation, and would further an injustice against many nonBelievers. I predict that the net result would be to hinder further progress of the work that has been done here, and to re-create the situation that we face in the United States: determined, well-organized, well-financed opposition from educated, articulate people who view us as hypocrites for calling them tools of Satan while we sinfully misrepresent them and their beliefs.
Oh, yeah, and wegs, you should be aware that NO scientist will ever try to PROVE any theory; it can’t be done with any of them.
Theories can only be falsified, or be given more corroborating evidence - that’s all.
If a theory is falsified, it is thrown out. If it’s been given more evidence, more scientists will accept the theory.
One very good example is Einstein’s theory that light is bent by gravity. In the late 1920’s (I think) there was a great opportunity to falsify this theory. Scientists looked at the (apparent) position of a star during a solar eclipse (the light would be bent - or not bent - by our sun’s gravity. They found that the light was, indeed, bent. Result? Einstein’s theory gained some evidence.
IT WAS NOT PROVED!
Not falsified either, though, and many more scientists came to accept the theory.
January 3rd, 2007 at 1:42 pm
I was reviewing a debate Hovind did several years ago and this idiot actually suggested that Tyrannosaurus rex was a herbivore! How else could they be on the Ark without making Noah into a dinner? I gave his whole view a good thrashing in my blog.
January 7th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
Did anyone here about “Dr.” Hovind’s arrest for tax fraud? I cannot believe so many people buy into his bullcrap about morals and ethics.
January 7th, 2007 at 4:58 pm
Excuse me. I accidentally used the word “here” instead of “hear.” Like when Kent Hovind accidentally didn’t pay taxes on the millions of dollars he has made, off of soft minded creationists, in the past few years.
January 7th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
zack frisbee:
I noticed. See here.
February 27th, 2007 at 2:56 am
I suppose that I, too, could lower myself to the level of an anti-intellectual thug by misspelling someone’s moniker as ‘ErrandsBoy’, or by proving that my comp has spell check programming, but I shall not bother. Instead, while conceding that I am a Pro-Trinitarian Pentacostalist (whew!), I shall challenge arensb to provide some evidence of his own, to support his rather obvious belief in the hypothesis of Evolution. Please do not waste my time with some secondary educational level intro about multiple nested hierarchies-I am not in any particular need of such- but rather, demonstrate for us , as to how they provide some scientific proof/evidence of Evolution. Indeed, my studies seem to convince me that multiple nested hierarchies provide evidence of and for Intelligent Design, not to disprove it in any manner. At any rate, I shall look forward to discovering whether or not you are equal to the challenge, with which I have presented you. Good day, sirs.
February 27th, 2007 at 8:22 am
john farley:
I haven’t seen this argument before. How exactly are nested hierarchies evidence for ID? Is the designer limited to tinkering with what she’s already done, and unable to take a winning design from one lineage and reuse it in another?
March 4th, 2007 at 10:41 am
Wow - the backflap marketing of breakfast cereal packing is getting quite complex! What kind of suprise toy did you get with that?
March 11th, 2007 at 11:13 pm
My question to the evolutionists, umm where is your proof, not your therory but honest proof, like Brother Hovind says “evolution is a religion not a science”
March 11th, 2007 at 11:23 pm
Fox57:
Proof is for mathematicians and bartenders, but here’s some evidence.
March 12th, 2007 at 11:45 am
Fox57 (and others from the peanut gallery):
Why this push to denigrate evolution by calling it a religion? If religion is such anathema to you, why are you a Believer?
June 28th, 2007 at 6:07 am
It’s a pity I wasn’t able to join this discussion earlier (I admit it may even had ended by now, at least here) but I have something to say on topic:
I think both fractions (”the creationists” and “the scientists”) misunderstand the consept of the question “how it happened that the world is as we know it?”.
All I’ve read here was about what was at “the beggining”. First thing is this was not “the beggining”. For each event in the timeline there is an earlier period. I think, nobody is able to imagine that. “The beggining” is a limit of the human mind. The same resembles to the borders of space (or universe or whatever you call it). Concluding from the above I think it is beyond human mind capabilities to answer those questions.
The “Supreme being” theory is called forth to explain everything what current level of science cannot explain (in earlier periods of human history the “God’s will” was an explanation for almost everything).
The creationists’ point that the world is too complex to be created “by chance, evolution or whatever” is worth taking into consideration. I partly agree with that. But that is not the evidence for a creator, for the next question (which I’ve never seen to be asked, so, I’m going to be the first) occurs: “How did “The creator” appeared?”. In that case, “The creator” is much more complex than his creation (any doubts on that?).
And that puts an end to the theory, as this logic can be translated further and further on without any limit. Actualy the God’s existance is denied by this very argument. The circle has closed.
I know I’m going to be blamed for what I’m going to say, but all that “Creation” and “Supernatural” stuff is summoned to cover the blanks of human ignorance and limitness (if such word exists). The proof of that is A LOT of logical mistakes in every religion which can be explained only by human’s hand not God’s. So none of those holy books (The Bible, Koran, Thora and other) is a God’s creation. They all written by humans. And assumption that human is created by God’s likeness (sorry, if I use the wrong word, English is not my first language) is a proof for that.
First: even if there is a God and he created the universe, for what reason shoud he favor the humans most of all? For what reason should he care for them? Because he created them at his own likeness? And who is the author of that idea? Humans (what a miracle coincedence)!
The humans cannot be God’s likeness because they are of different gender. God cannot be of different gender at one time. Or, maybe someone whant to say that female is not a human? Also humans have legs, hands, hair, nails an so on. Do God need all those devices (he is a supreme being, remember?)? I doubt that. What else makes humans close to God? Intelligence? Ha-ha! I think no comments needed here? So, it seems to me, humans have nothing in common with God. The creationists blame “the science” or “Satan” that they are making gods of humans. I think everything is exactly the opposite: it is the creationists who thries to give humans a divine status.
Second: life after death, souls, heaven and hell and other crap… All souls go to either haven or hell? Then from where all new ones are generated? And if God created all the universe and its inhabbitants doesn’t in any way sign at any “afterlife” existance. All “afterlife” nonsense is invented by humans under stong “fear of death” and “fear of unexistance” feelings. These parts of human nature explane a lot.
So, I think, we can leave those “evolution”, “big bang”, “creation”, “the Flood” and other small questions aside. They don’t give answers to the topic discussed here.
I’m ready to hear your replies and answer them. Just try to be less emotional and stay to the topic.
September 6th, 2007 at 2:33 am
I wish I had stumbled upon this debate earlier, just found it the other day. I myself have been in this very discussion numerous times and I wondered if anyone wants to keep this discussion going.
I myself am a Christian, however I’m not a literalist in terms of the Genesis theory. Now, understand me. I’m NOT saying the Bible is false, or lying. Remember that the first 5 books os the Old Testament was written by Moses, many years ago. Okay, he may have received (and probably did) receive special insight (he did meet God) but why would God have to disclose how He made the universe and all its inhabitants? Imagine this. 1 Gen. 1: In the beginning there was a huge expansion of time and space conforming to the laws of e=mc^2, ensuring that pure energy transformed into matter over time.. Now imagine the entire evolution theory fitting into the Bible.
My view is this: God certainly did create the cosmos and everything else BUT the book of Genesis carry a much simpler version to fit in with the people of the time. Remember that 3000 years ago even the most basic physics and maths theorems was not yet devised and in the peoples’ minds at least, did not exist.
Phew. What a mouthful. I hope I get a reply guys.
Cheers
September 6th, 2007 at 10:59 am
Ou rooie:
Given a sufficiently-contrived exegesis, you can make the Bible say anything you like. For instance, I’ve heard people interpret “and God said, let the earth bring forth animals” (emphasis added) as implying abiogenesis through natural processes.
But then you have to wonder what kind of person would write it that way, if that was what he meant. Was God (or Moses, or whoever wrote the passage in question) such a bad writer that nobody understood what he meant until after the scientific discoveries of the 19th and 20th centuries? If so, then presumably there are other bits of the Bible that appear to say one thing, but really mean something else, something that won’t become apparent until after we learn something else about the world by other means. In other words, if the Bible can’t be relied to mean what it seems to say, then it’s unreliable, and we should just chuck it.
September 18th, 2007 at 5:31 am
Hey arensb sup
You certainly touch on some very delicate points there, but I would concede that you are right about the bible not being 100% historically correct. Remember that the Bible was written by people.
However, calling the entire Bible unreliable is very harsh. I do not know what your knowledge is about the Bible, but the Bible is a compilation of 66 books (testimonials, songs, stories, letters and chronicals) written over thousands of years by many different people. Also, the most important point conveyed by the Bible is not the creation, it is the gospel.
I would like to know whether you argue against Christianity or against religion in general and what your views on those topics are. As for me, I got work to do.
Cheers
September 18th, 2007 at 8:58 am
ou rooie:
Harsh perhaps, but am I wrong?
For one thing, there’s a difference between “incorrect” and “unreliable”. To take a different example, there’s a book out there called Sixteen Crucified Saviors that argues that the story of Jesus is in no way original, that there were several other myths of gods born of virgins, who performed miracles, were crucified for humanity’s sins, etc. Gods like Mithra, Dionysus, and others. This book has been criticized — by Bible skeptics and atheists, mind you — as having very poor scholarship. That is, while much of what the author says is true, some of it isn’t, and he often misquotes his sources or draws the wrong conclusion from them. In other words, you can’t just read a passage from the book and trust that it’s true, because it might be contaminated with bad information, or incorrect conclusions, or conclusions drawn from bad premises.
As to how this pertains to my point above: go visit some atheist or skeptic sites, like Internet Infidels, and read some of the critiques of the Bible. Like, say, a list of Biblical contradictions. Then visit some apologetics sites and see how they respond to these criticisms. Invariably, you’ll find explanations like “this word means X in common parlance, but in this passage it means Y”, or “this passage is metaphorical, and doesn’t mean what it appears to mean”, and various other explanations (some might say excuses) for why a passage’s “real” meaning is completely different from its surface meaning.
Assuming these explanations are correct, it means that you can’t read a verse or a chapter and trust that you’ve understood what it means. For instance, one common way of reconciling the two creation stories in Genesis 1 and 2 is to say that Gen. 1 is the overall story, and Gen. 2 is a sort of close-up view of the sixth day, concentrating on Adam and Eve. But if that’s true, then Gen. 2:4 (”This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created.”) doesn’t mean what it seems to mean. The more apologetics you read, the more such passages turn out to have “non-literal” meanings. You can’t remember every bit of apologetics at once, so when you’re reading passage A, you can’t be sure that its meaning isn’t affected by passage B, which makes the Bible unreliable.
Now, I won’t deny that many things in the Bible are true. A lot of the peoples and cities mentioned in the historical books probably existed. Herod and Pontius Pilate really existed and ruled over Judea. But Hebrews were never enslaved (at least not in large numbers) in Egypt, the flood never happened, the dead didn’t walk around Jerusalem after Jesus’ crucifixion, etc. So some things in true, some things are false, some are patently ridiculous (e.g., talking snakes), and you shouldn’t trust what you read in the Bible without external confirmation.
October 1st, 2007 at 7:04 am
arensb:
Seems like you do know your history. And yes, it is my opinion that the Bible is not entirely accurate historically. But to completely discredit it as spiritual guide is another matter. I would like to know whether you argue solely against the Bible, Christianity or spiritual or supernatural beings (eg. do you believe in a god)
G2g for now. Cheers
January 8th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Hey guys,
I just found this site and in all honesty I haven’t read all of the comments posted yet but I just wanted to make my mark on the page. I believe in God and I also believe that he created the world in 6 literal days. I believe that anyone who believes other than that is mistaken and that in the end when they come to meet God face to face that they will be sorry they ever believed such a obsurd idea as evolution. In the words of Martin Luther: “Here I stand I can do no other.”
January 8th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
James,
You are more than entitled to your beliefs. Others are just as entitled to evaluate available evidence and draw differing conclusions.
January 8th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
…..I just wanted to make my mark on the page.
Well, I’ll give you credit for being a well-behaved puppy.
April 8th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
One of the big problems id that creationists do not understand the meaning of the word “theory”.
In laymans terms, a theory explains facts eg Einsteins general theory of relativity explains gravity.
The Theory of evolution explains evolution.
November 26th, 2008 at 6:07 am
What matters is the message of Christ. Love your niegbour and your enemy. Repent your sins ect ect.. All this about how, who and when is not important or at least should not be important to ones faith in God. I think mixing science and religion is as bad as mixing polotics and religion is. Faith that the God of Abraham created everything is whats important. Jesus did not speak in parables for nothing. God bless.
January 2nd, 2009 at 7:33 pm
Sometimes we tend to make things more complicatd than what they really are. “Hmm, maybe if I put in a word whcich noone has ever heard of…hmm, perhaps that will make my theory look more right”. I may not be the smartest man walking around (IQ of only 132), and I admit, there are a lot of these words in this page I do not understand (you see my native language is not English). But imagine playing Yatzee (or Yahtzee or whatever you English call it). Wouldn´t you rather be the winner than the one leading during the game? There is no way I can prove to you that God created the earth (it is all down to faith), but I do not care, cause soon God will come to this earth and he will prove me (and all other Christian) right. So, I don´t mind being behind you guys at this point of the game. I only care about winning it, and I know that in the end I will.
January 3rd, 2009 at 5:50 am
Shorter Ravenghost:
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about, but Magic Man will save me!”
January 3rd, 2009 at 9:13 am
Hmm, arensb, perhaps it is like this: Simple (me) may not undertand complicated (you), but complicated for sure do not understand simple… I believe in something simple, you believe in something complicated. Cause that is what it is; something you believe in.It is all down to faith, not evidence or science. And yes; Magic Man will save me. As the matter of fact, he already has (2000 years ago).
I understand that you not believers (in God), are provoked by the simplicity of Christianity, but the simplicity is the beauty of it.
January 3rd, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Ravenghost:
What exactly are you talking about? The original post, about how Hovind mistook an April Fools prank for a serious article? One of the topics mentioned in the >70 comments before yours? What?
Having said that, I agree that “goddiddit” is a simple explanation for anything. That doesn’t mean it’s correct.
And if you think that evolution is a matter of faith, then you are sadly mistaken. Go educate yourself.
January 3rd, 2009 at 6:35 pm
I am trying to behave correctly in this discussion, but now you are making things personal. You are entitled to have your opinion, so please let me have mine. I do not like people, (whether they are believers in God or evolution), who say: I am right, you are wrong. I think what s political correct is to say: I believe I am right and I believe you are wrong. I think that a discussion between an “evolutionbeliever” and a believer in Christianity can not come down to evidence, simply because the whole thing about Christianity has nothing to do with evidence. We do not need evidence, we need faith. Faith is our language, and assumptions, not evidence, is your language, and we all know that a discussion is heading nowhere when those who are in the discussion have different languages. I hope that if you reply this, the reply will not be of the mocking kind. I prefer that, you see…
January 3rd, 2009 at 10:36 pm
Ravenghost:
If you are not interested in facts or evidence then do the rest of us a favor and stay out of discussions involving them KTHX.
January 4th, 2009 at 8:03 am
Fez: I said that I would like a discussion without any mocking (after all we are not kids), but you are certainly behaving childish when you are mocking me because of my view. I am trying to keep this discussion on a level with respect. I respect your view, so please respect my view. What is evidence? Evidence in this case, is something subjective. People have different conclusions based on what they see, hear, discover etc. even if what they see, hear or discover is the same.
If you are not interested in having an open mind and a healthy discussion, please get out of here.
January 4th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
Ravenghost:
There’s a saying around here: people who don’t want their beliefs ridiculed shouldn’t have such ridiculous beliefs. If you think that a god created all life on earth 6000 years ago, then you are just as wrong as someone who believes that the sky is held up by Yggdrasil.
And that’s a big problem with Christianity. You want to believe in a god, but have no good reason to do so. So you use “faith” to give yourself permission to believe in that god anyway.
If you’re asking me to give ignorance and superstition the same respect as evidence and reasoned argument, then no thanks.
January 4th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
Ravenghost:
That’s your problem right there: you don’t have any objective evidence, nothing tangible that you can point at and say “See? This is what we’d expect to see if there were a god.”
Either there is such a thing as a god, or there isn’t. You’re making a statement about the world, which is either true or false. But you can’t back up your statement with anything concrete, so why should anyone take your subjective feelings seriously?
January 4th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
Ravenghost:
Bullshit. You stormed in here with your fragile little ego, waving your battle-flag of willful ignorance, and started tossing demands in every direction. You’ve acquired yourself a highly dysfunctional working definition of “respect”.
January 5th, 2009 at 2:02 am
Arensb: First of all, thank you for keeping this professional, unlike what Fez is doing…
Secondly I want to say that: yeah, you are probably right. My only evidence is my book, The Book, and that is what I believe in. Like I said; We do not understand each others language. You do not understand what faith is all about, and I do not understand the words of your science. Perhaps the reason for that is that we are not really giving it a go, because we feel to attached to what we already believe in?? Well, anyway, my agenda is only that everyone should know that there are two (at least) possibilities concerning whats right…
January 5th, 2009 at 8:11 am
Ravenghost sez:
You’ve confused yourself again. The agenda you’ve demonstrated thus far is not about correct vs. incorrect, it’s about being either too scared or too intellectually stunted to seek the answers. It’s not about opening a dialog it’s about stomping your feet and demanding that you be allowed free reign to redefine terms in any way that suits you.
Your blind faith must be a great comfort to you. No mysteries to solve, no fault to assign to yourself and your actions, no real sympathy for those who may be suffering because, hey, “My big invisible sky-friend willed it to be so.”
January 5th, 2009 at 8:35 am
Ravenghost:
Which book? The Quran? The Kalevala? The Three Little Pigs?
Or, more likely, you mean that collection of bronze age fairy tales, the one with the talking snakes and donkeys, the one that condones slavery and mysoginy, the one that says that you shouldn’t have a retirement plan or health insurance, and that if there’s mildew in your basement, you should sprinkle birds’ blood on it.
So if that’s the only book you’ve ever read, it’s not surprising that you’re a superstitious ignoramus. What I don’t understand is why you seem proud of it, or why I should accord your views any kind of respect.
Sure I do: as Mark Twain put it, “faith is believing what you know ain’t so”. You have a nice comforting fairy tale about a magical sky-daddy who loves you and won’t let you die. You don’t have any good reason to believe in him, but you really really want to, so you tell yourself that it’s okay to believe anyway, and call that process “faith” and say that it’s a virtue.
When little children believe in Father Christmas, it’s cute and charming. When grown-ups do, it’s scary. I just hope that you’ll eventually grow up.
January 5th, 2009 at 9:59 am
Hmm, I understand now that neither of you can perform the art of discussion, and I understand that this will lead nowhere, no matter what I write. We could go on like this forever. Well not forever, only until Jesus returns to the earth and saves me. You on the other hand will possible get a different encounter.
Another thing I find strange is that hmm, maybe you two are the same person. Looking at the time when you posted your last two posts one might wonder..
Fin
January 5th, 2009 at 10:14 am
To the responsible of the stupid spam filter in this page: come on!!!
To you (arensb and Fez - or maybe you are the same person. Quite possible when looking at the time of your posts…): Clearly you do not know how to perform the art of discussion. One are to respect the view of others. In a discussion you are to defend your view, rather than attack the view of others. You guys/guy are like politicians. This could go on forever, well not forever, only until Jesus comes to save me (and the others whos faith is true). Imagine - what if it is true, then you will spend forever (forever is much much longer than forever in this life) burning.
Fin
January 5th, 2009 at 10:15 am
To the responsible of the spam filter in this page: come on!!!
To you (arensb and Fez - or maybe you are the same person. Quite possible when looking at the time of your posts…): Clearly you do not know how to perform the art of discussion. One are to respect the view of others. In a discussion you are to defend your view, rather than attack the view of others. You guys/guy are like politicians. This could go on forever, well not forever, only until Jesus comes to save me (and the others whos faith is true). Imagine - what if it is true, then you will spend forever (forever is much much longer than forever in this life) burning.
Fin
January 5th, 2009 at 10:16 am
To the responsible of the spam filter in this page: come on!!!
To you (arensb and Fez - or maybe you are the same person. Quite possible when looking at the time of your posts…): Clearly you do not know how to perform the art of discussion. One are to respect the view of others. In a discussion you are to defend your view, rather than attack the view of others. You guys/guy are like politicians. This could go on forever, well not forever, only until Jesus comes to save me (and the others whos faith is true). Imagine - what if it is true, then you will spend forever (forever is much much longer than forever in this life) burning. Fin
January 5th, 2009 at 11:18 am
I was wondering when you were going to get around to the threats. It always comes to threats with you people.
January 5th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
That is no threat. That is just a “what if”…
And you keep telling me that I am stupid. Well I`d rather be stupid or whatever than burning alive forever.
January 5th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Hmm, I wonder who is the moderator here. Seems I´ve been spammed away from this forum. Nice one, arensb…
January 5th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Ravenghost spouts: [reproduced from the comment RSS feed since the original appears to have been marked as spam or trolling]
You are truly clue resistant. And paranoid. Seek help.
Meanwhile, don’t let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya!
January 8th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Well, only time will tell. I am looking forward to it!
January 9th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Fez & arensb: You are trying to prove that I am stupid by poiniting at so called evidence from the past and now. Well I will prove you wrong by pointing at the future, and there are no ways that you can say anything against that. Perhaps you will laugh in my face now, and I do not care, cause I will have the final laugh. Not only will it be the final laugh - the laugh will last forever.
January 9th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Is this spam as well?
January 10th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
Hmm, I can see that all my posts are gone away from here. So I was right then moderator (Fez/Arensb)… Good luck with your false teachings
March 27th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
Is this page not up and running?
March 27th, 2009 at 11:08 pm
Ravenghost:
Looks like a bunch of your comments got eaten by the spam filter. This tends to happen when someone posts too often or too quickly, since it looks like spam.
I’ve pulled your comments out of the spam bucket. Please don’t make me regret it.
March 28th, 2009 at 10:11 am
Astounding.
March 28th, 2009 at 10:43 am
The way I read this, you’re saying, “Eventually, you’re going to be tortured forever, and I’ll enjoy watching your unending pain and suffering, because you made fun of my ideas.”
Nice sense of proportion there. Do you also firebomb the restaurant when the waitress messes up your order?
March 28th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Almost 3 months and Jesus hasn’t saved you yet, Ravingghost? Guess it was decided you weren’t worthy.
June 4th, 2009 at 9:33 am
Looks like I may have missed the fun over the last few years of debate here, but both sides are talking about making things up to fit their view etc. Here is a topic to ponder.
Would you be willing to be tortured (whipped, stoned, beaten, hung, run through with a sword, etc) for a lie that you made up yourself? Sounds a little far fetched not? I can see maybe being convinced by someone else that a lie they made up is truth and worth dying for, but if I made up the lie and then was told to recant or die, I am recanting for all I am worth.
Here is the point: the apostles (Peter, Paul, Andrew, Matthew and the rest) ALL (except for John who was “only” banished to an isolated island called Patmos) were all tortured and killed for something. Either it was a lie they made up about seeing Jesus risen from the dead or they saw Jesus risen from the dead.
I am college educated with a science and engineering background. I know that this debate will never be settled by “facts” because it is a heart and faith issue. The “facts” are the same for both sides. Interpretation will be the only convincing fact we can have. Fossils will not and can not prove anything. For example, if I find a dodo fossil can I claim it is a transitional fossil from a chicken to a turkey? or a hummingbird to an ostrich? or a t-rex to a chicken? Yes, I can make any interpretation of it but the fact remains, it was and always will be a DODO fossil. Any fossil can be “claimed” to be a transistional species, or just an extienct species depending on what you want it to be. (within reason of course)
As to the origin of life, think on this: Put a frog (or better yet for increased odds 10 frogs) in a blender and mix them up real good. You will have a goo. A very special goo, because it has carbon, DNA, RNA, Cellualr structure, all the necessary building blocks and pieces to make life. EVERYTHING!!! even blood, brain matter, nerve cells, bones. Now just try to make it come alive with sunlight, darkness, lightning, or even use unnatural processes like centrifuge, electroshock stirring, shaking what ever. AINT GONNA HAPPEN. No Frogs will come jumping out of the goo.
Try the same thing with some single cell organism like a bactiria or virus cell. First kill it without changing the chemical or biological formulation then try to spontainiously bring ti back to “life” Now you want to tell me that somehow NATURE all by its self brought all the pieces together and created life with some jumt start process. As Lucy Ball would say “buddy you got some ’splaining to do!”
Consider what changed Peter from a man who denied even knowing Jesus before his death and then returning to his fishing boat to the man who challenged the Sanhedren (sp?) and endured prison, the stoning of his friend Stephen and his own death crucified upside down on a cross. He SAW and TALKED to GOD Jesus Christ after he came back from the Dead. Or He made up a lie that he did and died for his own lie.
May your day be full of blessings.
June 4th, 2009 at 10:51 am
PCDR:
And how do you know that these things even happened? Because you read about them in a book that also has talking animals, magic spells, and zombies walking around Jerusalem? Got anything more convincing?
June 4th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
How do you know that Barack OBama is really in the Middle East right now? Because you see it on TV? There is more evidence external to the Bible for Jesus Being a real person, for the Missionary Journeys of Paul, and Peter, and Andrew, and John, and the rest doing what they did then there is evidence for Plato or Socrates or even Julius Cesear. Do you also doubt them too? Interesting research for you may be “Evidence that Demands a Verdict” by Josh McDowell.
Don’t reduce your argument to silliness either. I could just as easy turn around and say, “How do you know that animals don’t talk? Maybe the evolution of your brain is not as advanced as other so you just can’t hear them?” That would be silly.
Other science questions for you. Why do some of Jupiters Moons have magnetic fields showing they have a liquid core. At that distance from the sun, they should have frozen solid with say 5-8000 years of existance. Why are their comets in our solor system. The way they lose material from their tail they should be gone within say 8-10000 years. (and don’t use the made up Oort Cloud as some comet factory that shoots them off) If our moon was broken off from the earth by some collision, where is the hole? Why is it round? Where is the thing that hit us? Layers on the surface. Where did the material come from for each layer? Why did we get millions of years of Cambrian Stone, then suddenly it changes to millions of years of Shale, Then suddenly to millions of years of Limestone?
Why are there fossilized Clams on the top of Mt Everest. Still Closed? When Clams Die, they open. When they are buried, they stay closed. How do you bury a clam on Mt. Everest? The Earths magnetic Field is getting weaker meaning it used to be stronger. Go back about 10000 years and it is too strong for life. Don’t tell me it reverses because that lie has been disproven too.
Why do we find Cave paintings and Pottery with pictures of dinosaurs on them? Have you ever tried Alchemy? How does Gold get Spontaneously formed from hydrogen and helium? or oxygen, or silver, or lead?
Some faith questions for you. I believe in the beginning God existed, you believe in the beginning Nothing Existed. I do not claim to understand God because by His Nature of being God I can not. You claim to believe in Science, but science can not take nothing and make it explode into everything. Have you seen the latest claims? Watch National Geographics video on the Big Bang and the fact it was silent. It quotes “within a trillioneth of a trillioneth of a second the universe expanded to billions of light years across.” In fact it goes on to say, (paraphrase here) that rather than an explosion from a point, everything just appeared everywhere at once.
Now, you believe that everything appeared everywhere at once and is expanding, I believe that God Created everything where it is and stretched out the heavens as the bible says. We have the same facts. The Universe Exists, it is expanding. You believe nothing started it, I believe God did it 6000 years ago and wrote about it 3500 years ago in the bible. Which takes more faith? Your belief in nothing or my belief in a written word?
June 4th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
PCDR said a second time:
tl;dr, skimmed, nicely formatted, punctuated, and the spelling doesn’t make my head hurt, overall a cut above the usual.
So are you going to answer arensb’s question? He asked if you had anything more convincing to refute observed behavior than your opinion. Consider it a question I’m asking now as well.
June 4th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
FEZ, See “Evidence that demands a verdict” by Josh McDowell for the sources of all these.
What happened to the apostles?
Matthew - sufffered martyrdom in Ethiopia, killed by a sword wound.
Mark - died in Alexandria, Egypt, after being dragged by horses through the streets until he was dead.
Luke - was hanged in Greece as a result of his tremendous preaching to the lost.
John - faced martydom when he was boiled in huge basin of boiling oil during a wave of persecution in Rome. However, he was miraculously delivered from death. John was then sentenced to the mines on the prison island of Patmos. He wrote his prophetic Book of Revelation on Patmos.The apostle John was later freed and returned to serve as Bishop of Edessa in modern Turkey. He died as an old man, the only apostle to die peacefully.
Peter - was crucified upside down on an x-shaped cross.,according to church tradition because he told his tormentors that he felt unworthy to die in the same way that Jesus Christ had died.
James the Just - the leader of the church in Jerusalem, was thrown over a hundred feet down from the southeast pinnacle of the Temple when he refused to deny his faith in Christ. When they discovered that he survived the fall, his enemies beat James to death with a fuller’s club. This was the same pinnacle where Satan had taken Jesus during the Temptation.
James the Greater - a son of Zebedee, was a fisherman by trade when Jesus called him to a lifetime of ministry. As a strong leader of the church, James was ultimately beheaded at Jerusalem. The Roman officer who guarded James watched amazed as James defended his faith at his trial. Later, the officer walked beside James to the place of execution. Overcome by conviction, he declared his new faith to the judge and knelt beside James to accept beheading as a Christian.
Bartholomew, also known as Nathanael - was a missionary to Asia.He witnessed to our Lord in present day Turkey. Bartholomew was martyred for his preaching in Armenia when he was flayed to death by a whip.
Andrew - was crucified on an x-shaped cross in Patras, Greece. After being whipped severely by seven soldiers they tied his body to the cross with cords to prolong his agony. His followers reported that, when he was led toward the cross, Andrew saluted it in these words: “I have long desired and expected this happy hour. The cross has been consecrated by the body of Christ hanging on it.” He continued to preach to his tormentors for two days until he expired.
Thomas - was stabbed with a spear in India during one of his missionary trips to establish the church in the sub-continent.
Jude, the brother of Jesus, - was killed with arrows when he refused to deny his faith in Christ.
Matthias - the apostle chosen to replace the traitor Judas Iscariot, was stoned and then beheaded.
Barnabas - one of the group of seventy disciples, wrote the Epistle of Barnabas. He preached throughout Italy and Cyprus.Barnabas was stoned to death at Salonica.
Paul - was tortured and then beheaded by the evil Emperor Nero at Rome in A.D. 67. Paul endured a lengthy imprisonment which allowed him to write his many epistles to the churches he had formed throughout the Roman Empire. These letters, which taught many of the foundational doctrines of Christianity, form a large portion of the New Testament.
All of this is from Non Biblical sources. Feel Free to respond to this with rebuttals or any of my science questions.
This is fun.
June 4th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
PCDR Says:
Ah.
As rebuttal see http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/jury/chap5.html as it covers the highlights with far greater knowledge of the subject material and far greater detail than I posses.
As for your “science” questions…ugh. Have you never encountered plate tectonics in your studies to receive your “science and engineering” background? Hope you aren’t involved in any building, bridge, or other infrastructure construction. I could answer your question regarding the oblate spheroid shape of the moon with, “because all bodies above a certain size are oblate spheroids” but that would be engaging in the same deflection tactics used…elsewhere. Instead I’ll rhetorically ask if you have never encountered gravity nor conservation of angular momentum in your studies to achieve your “science and engineering” background?
Moving on…why are you so dismissive of the Oort Cloud’s existence? Been there and seen the lack of evidence for yourself? What about the unicorn herd existing at the liquid/gaseous interface boundary in Neptune - how can you prove to me they don’t exist?
June 4th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
PCDR:
I was about to point you at the same critique of McDowell as Fez did. As for your assertion that
In the case of Julius Cæsar, we have books that he is said to have written (such as his history of the gallic conquests). We have contemporary accounts that talk about him, from multiple sources, both praising him and criticizing him. We have statues and likenesses of him made during his (alleged) lifetime. Nothing similar to that exists today. The best we have is copies of copies of manuscripts dating to the 2nd century CE.
But that’s really beside the point: the question isn’t really whether there was an itinerant cult leader named Yeshua in Judea at that time who thought the end of the world was near. Those were a dime a dozen, so it’s quite possible that he existed. The question is, was he a god? Did he perform miracles? And for that, there is no extrabiblical evidence.
You may want to look up Sai Baba who is, according to his followers, performing miracles today. No need to look through ancient manuscripts in dead languages; this guy’s on YouTube. Does that evidence convince you that he’s a god? And if not, why should I be convinced that Jesus was one?
June 4th, 2009 at 9:13 pm
Mormonism has some tens of millions of members. Scientology has at least some tens of thousands (reliable numbers seems to be hard to come by). Many of members of both those religions have sacrificed a great deal for their devotion, in some cases even their lives.
And yet we know beyond all reasonable doubt that the founders of both sects were con-men who made the whole thing up.
In 1978 over 900 members of the Jonestown cult commited suicide. In 1993, 76 people died when the Branch Davidian compound burned down. In 1997, 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate cult commited suicide, believing they would be reincarnated as something better.
The moral of this story is that devotion — even martyrdom — in the followers is very poor evidence for the truth of the teachings.
Oh, and this: Don’t tell me it [the earth's magnetic field] reverses because that lie has been disproven too.
That would be news to almost every geologist on the planet. Disproven by whom? Ignoramus and crackpot Walter Brown, perhaps?
June 5th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
Great Replys, I have to be quick today, but I will be back on Monday.
First off Fez, The extra biblical sources each by its self not provide 100% proof, but taken all together make a very strong argument. Did we land man on the moon? Well a photograph can be faked, and moon rocks can be fabricated, and space ships can launch one place and land another, and people can lie, but add all the evidence together and the case becomes very strong. So, taking the biblical account with the vast array of other accounts, It is pretty certain that Jesus the man did exist as a real person in Jerusalem in the time frame of 30 AD. So the next question is - still unanswered by both arensb and Eamon Knight - did his followers see him rise from the dead or did they make it up. Don’t give me the the second hand follower example of mormonism and scientology or Jonestown or even Christian Martyrs, respond to the Direct Followers, the ones who gave their lives for the claim that THEY started. If they lied, why would they die for it? Would you die for a lie you made up? I can see dying for a lie someone convinced you was real because you wanted to believe, but not for my own lie. You mention Sai Baba, IF he said go ahead and Kill Me, I will come back in 3 days, then His followers said “yep he came back to life, I am willing to be stoned and left for dead, beaten 3 times with 39 stripes, shipwreaked, chained to a soldier, put in prison, watch my friends and fellow believers be beaten, stoned, beheaded, burned at the stake, crucified on a cross, thrown to lions, pulled apart by horses, and many other heinous ways to die, THEN I may consider him to truly be back from the dead.
Besides as eager as the Jewish leaders were to suppress this “cult uprising” why did they not just go to Jesus grave, open it up and say “Here is the dead guy these “christians” are lying about. Oh yeah, I forgot, the fishermen stole his body from an armed trained Roman Guard.
Plate Techtonics explains movement at the cracks in the crust, it does not explain the accumulation of layers of materials.
Conservation of angular momentum does not explain why Jupiter has moons that spin in opposite direction or why Jupiter has moons that have moons that spin in opposite directions or why the sun has planets that spin in opposite directions.
I thought we were going to talk science and proof here not an Oort Cloud with no direct or even indirect evidence. It is only 2000 - 50000 AU away. Hubble should be able to see that before breakfast considering it is staring “far in the reaches of our past millions and billions of light years away”
So, FEZ, I find your dismissiveness of real observed science to be childish and petty. Answer the questions if you can or move on to a different topic. Don’t patronize me with Unicorns and “have you heard of gravity”
So ARENSB, I find your arguments well crafted but not answering the questions. All the Deaths of the Apostles are recorded in extrabiblical sources. The only one killed in the Bible are Stephen and unnamed ones that Paul pursued when he was Called Saul. What could have possibly changed his mind? A Lie he helped make up? Come on!! Get real.
And Eamon Knight, I am not talking about the followers of cult leaders, I am talking about the Ones starting the “cult” (not my word) of Christianity being willing to be not just killed but brutally killed. And the Magnetic Field is supposed to protect us from radiation, but since no major extinctions can be timed to the supposed reversals it must not protect us, something else does. Science want to have their cake and eat it too is seems to me. It is also funny that for some reason the last “reversal” 780,000 years ago, but they happened very frequently before that. Also some scientists even claim they happen every 2000-20000 years. How does it happen? Why does it happen? When will it happen? Science is about Facts. Theories are just opinions until repeated testing observation proves them. I saw a tree that grew some wierd shaped branches that were made of iron and shaped like a tractor. That is a theory. Facts are a tractor was left in a grove and a tree gree up through and around it and incorporated the tractor into the tree. We see portions of the ocean floor with patterns (stripes) of magnetic field strength differences ( highs and lows not reversals). My Opinion is the ocean floor was wrinkled by ejection of molton material and the wrinkles have sediment in them in places, cracks in them on the peaks, and were cooled at different rates causing regulars stripes of differing magnetic fields. Others opinions are that the magnetic field changes direction at random unpredictably. The facts are the same the opinions are different and no one was around 780,000 years ago to know the truth 100%. One theory fits the bible, the other theory confilts with other science. We get to choose which to believe because of our world view and neither can PROVE the other side wrong. Unless we see the magnetic field reverse again with the corresponding results or Jesus Returns with the corresponding results. Agree or Disagree?
Actually, I stayed longer than I thought. Have a good weekend. (Maybe check the Dead Sea Scrolls for some of the over 200 distinct prophecies fulfilled by Jesus the Man written long before Jesus the Man Came to earth. Could be food for thought.)
June 5th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
PCDR:
I’ll repeat:
PCDR continues:
It explains perfectly your expressed puzzlement regarding, “Why are there fossilized Clams on the top of Mt Everest. Still Closed? When Clams Die, they open. When they are buried, they stay closed. How do you bury a clam on Mt. Everest?” The answer is that enclosing material was not Mt. Everest when said clams were deposited but I shouldn’t have to explain that to an educated person with a science and engineering background.
Yes it does, in conjunction with other physics that I’m not going to bother going in to and I’m even going to explain why. Let me explain via analogy: you’ve just asked me to explain to you how to replace the valve body in a GM THM350 transmission after explaining to me that not only do you not own a car the only maintenance procedure you know of was you once read that cars require periodic refueling and there’s this “battery” thing that you’ve heard about but haven’t seen. You’re demonstrably lacking in the fundamental knowledge necessary to make use of this other information you desire.
So why don’t you explain to us where comets come from.
The existence of the Oort cloud explains all observed phenomena to date and the physics necessary for such a construct to exist are well understood and have withstood centuries of experimental and observational efforts. It’s quite hypocritical of you, after making such an ignorant display, to accuse anyone of being “dismissive” thus you’ve earned the right to pass the Unicorn test:
I know what unicorns look like, you probably know what unicorns look like, in fact millions of people can explain without hesitation what unicorns look like. I can provide you with a wealth of literature, both historical and contemporary, where unicorns are mentioned or featured. I can provide you pictures of unicorns. From where do you get the arrogance to (metaphorically) stand there and tell me that there are no unicorns on Neptune? I’ve even provided you specifics of where on Neptune they can be located so what’s your problem?
June 5th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
PCDR:
First of all, your last comment got caught in the spam filter for some reason. If you leave a comment and it doesn’t show up, don’t panic. If I see it, I’ll fish it out.
Secondly, I thought I’d try my hand at argument mapping. As far as I can make out, your argument looks like the tree below, with the conclusion at the top, sub-arguments that support the conclusion (in a form resembling a syllogism) underneath that, sub-sub-arguments that support the sub-arguments, and so forth. Arguments in red weaken the arguments above them, instead of strengthening them. So:
Conclusion: Jesus was a god.
I’m sure you can see problems all over the place with this argument. It relies heavily on the reliability of eyewitness testimony. But as any detective, judge, or stage magician can tell you, eyewitness testimony is far from reliable. If I’m ever on a jury, and on one hand, ten people swear that they saw the accused rob a liquor store, while on the other hand a single security tape shows him getting gas at the time of the robbery, I’ll side with the security tape over the eyewitnesses every time.
Your argument also begins with the existence of eyewitness accounts of Jesus after his death. Okay, where are the gospels of Peter, Paul, Andrew, and any other extrabiblical eyewitnesses you had in mind? Or are you asking us to accept a second-hand claim that these accounts once existed? Given that you won’t accept video testimony that Sai Baba is a god, you may want to rethink this.
You’re asking us to accept as reliable two sets of accounts: a) the “eyewitness” accounts saying that Jesus rose from the dead, and b) those that say that the alleged eyewitnesses maintained their beliefs. If either one is false, that weakens or destroys your argument. Furthermore, you haven’t given any references to either set of accounts.
You’re also making a false dichotomy: that either a person is telling the truth, or that person is deliberatly lying. The person could instead be misremembering, or mistaken, or confused, or passing along a legend. In addition, we don’t have any originals of the New Testament. And we know that errors have crept in between manuscripts, sometimes significant ones.
In short, your argument is full of weaknesses. Go back and fix them.
June 15th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Sorry for the delay, I have been out of town to a very interesting Robotics trade show. More on that later. I am busy trying to catch up so I just have one question.
Where did you come from? Prove it.
June 15th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
pcdr,
You’ve had lots of questions thus far and they’ve been answered. It’s your turn now. Answer the questions above that you’ve bypassed.
June 16th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Fez,
You use Jeff Lowder as a source of rebuttal.
As rebuttal see http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/jury/chap5.html as it covers the highlights with far greater knowledge of the subject material and far greater detail than I posses.
In summary for those reading, here is his rebuttal.
Paraphrase “Yes there are eyewitness accounts, but eyewitness sometimes lie so any eyewitness account can not be proof.”
Paraphrase “Yes there are unaffiliated persons writing the same thing, but their writings could have been faked or altered by aformentioned eyewitness so the outside accounts can not be proof.”
Paraphrase “Yes there are accounts of the apostles and disciples being tortured and killed, but there are also stories and legends of other non biblical heros suffering. The apostles stories could be copies. Therefore, no proof”
The same type of argument could be used to disprove anything.
Nasa said we landed on the moon but sometimes people lie - no proof
We have pictures that men were on the moon, but sometimes pictures are fake - no proof
We have space capules that launched and landed in the ocean, but no one saw them on the moon - no proof.
We have astronauts that say they were on the moon but they have a vested interest - no proof.
We have moon rocks but they could have been rocks altered in a lab - no proof.
There is a flag planted on the moon, but that could have evolved in place - no proof.
Another way to put it is “Jeff Lowder was not around when any of the sources were written so HE (and his argument) is unable to be proof for or against them.” However I am not arguing that. I am simply saying any one point - including Videotape can be picked apart, but sometimes the preponderance of the entire volume of evidence makes the proof unmistakable.
I could go on and on:
Fez types reponses with his “name” but anyone can put the characters F E Z in the name box - no proof that Fez Exists
Fez sees unicorns on neptune - everyone knows that is false so Fez is not grounded in reality - therefore Fez must be insane.
Fez argues his points on this board, but no one reading here can see him typing so He Must not have done it. His words probably just evolved here by chance arrangement of the bits and electrons over time.
So Fez you answered my questions with “You are to stupid to understand the science so I am not going to answer your questions.” Brilliant Response.
You want to know where comets come from. I have two possibilities both backed by the evidence.
First the facts
1. Comets exists.
2. Comets lose material out their tail as they fly.
3. Comets melt as they approach the sun in their orbit.
4. Any comet that passes through the interplanatary system has its orbit changed “deflected” by the sun and the planets it passes by leading to destabilization of the orbit eventually causing it to fly into space or collide with something.
Any arguments with facts 1-4?
Study of the physics and properties of comets leads the scientific community to conclude the lifespan of a comet at the top end is about 10,000 years.
Any disagreement with this conclusion (this is not my conclusion by the way, I just agree with it)?
So ANY observed comet must have been formed less than 10,000 years ago by some process. (agreed? or Not?)
The bible says that God created the Heavens and the Earth and All that is in them about 6000 years ago.
Answer one is that God created the comets about 6000 years ago, this fits the facts.
Answer two is that When the Earth was flooded 4400 years ago the fountains of the deep broke forth. This could have caused Water and dirt to be ejected from the Earths gravitational pull. Viola - a new comet. Consider that Oil and Natural Gas deposits have been found with pressures of 20000-30000 psi and it becomes not too hard to imagine this happening.
Now Can you disprove either of these with SCIENCE or OBSERVED FACT?
Fez Writes:
The existence of the Oort cloud explains all observed phenomena to date and the physics necessary for such a construct to exist are well understood and have withstood centuries of experimental and observational efforts.
This is all good except for the lack of proof of its existance there fore it is just as big of a leap of faith as saying God did it. In other word, it can NOT be seen, observed, touched, felt, measured, or proven.
One other thing about all bodies above a certain size are “oblate spheroids”. Fine, but when you break one “oblate spheroid” off of another “oblate spheroid”, the original now is not an “oblate spheroid” but an “oblate spheroid” with a chunk missing. Try this with a 5 year old.. Take an apple, ask what whape it is. Round will be the answer. Take a melon baller and remove a ball from the apple. Ask what shape the ball is. Round will be the answer. Ask them if the apple is still round. NO will be the answer. There is a chunk missing.
Your turn.
June 16th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
PCDR:
The first problem I noticed was with claim #2: comets don’t lose material from flying through space: there’s no air in space to blow material off of a comet, like snow from a car. Rather, when comets get close enough to the sun, they get warmed up, and the ice sublimates and escapes the comet.
You’ll notice that the tail of a comet doesn’t follow the comet’s motion; rather, it always points away from the sun.
Citation, please. The only person I’ve ever heard claim this is Kent Hovind.
Sorry, comets are chunks of ice, not string instruments. Thanks for playing.
Well, sure. Once you posit a magic man who can do anything, you can explain anything. I could reply that the Flying Spaghetti Monster formed the world to look the way it is. This explanation fits all the facts, but I bet you don’t find it very convincing. So why should I take your magic man more seriously than the Flying Spaghetti Monster?
I think we may have found a source of your confusion: your science consultant is a five-year-old who thinks that apples are round like balls. Have you considered going to scientists when you have science-related questions?
At any rate, your central assertion, that Jesus existed and did magic, is still backed up with nothing more than nth-generation hearsay. You haven’t presented any new evidence, just tried to argue that that should be good enough. I’m sorry, but it isn’t. And it’s not good enough for you, either: otherwise you would have to accept that Joseph Smith was visited by the angel Moroni and that the Quran was dictated to Mohammed by the archangel Gabriel. But you don’t. So you’re engaging in special pleading.
Face it. You don’t have anything.
June 16th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
“The way they lose material from their tail they should be gone within say 8-10000 years. (and don’t use the made up Oort Cloud as some comet factory that shoots them off)
Answer two is that When the Earth was flooded 4400 years ago the fountains of the deep broke forth. This could have caused Water and dirt to be ejected from the Earths gravitational pull. Viola - a new comet.”
The amount of brainwashing that comes from Kent Hovind is amazing. With his water shot up from the deep and into space to make comets and form water on other planets. Do you even know what the Oort Cloud is and why is it made up? Because it flies in the face of your so called contradiction of the age of the universe you disbelieve it. The Oort cloud is a huge mass of Ices (water, ammonia, and methane) along with dirt and rocks that come together to form billions of comets that orbit far outside our solar system. How is that any different than your water and dirt being propelled into space to create comets? It’s not, it’s like saying that the free market economy doesn’t exist, people are just buying and selling things with little government regulation.
June 16th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
“I thought we were going to talk science and proof here not an Oort Cloud with no direct or even indirect evidence. It is only 2000 - 50000 AU away. Hubble should be able to see that before breakfast considering it is staring “far in the reaches of our past millions and billions of light years away””
Yet another example of your ignorance showing through. Pluto is approximately 30-49 AU’s distance from sun, or 30 to 49 times the distance from the sun than the earth is. That’s about 47 Billion KM’s. The Oort cloud is hypothesized to be 2000 to 50,000 AU’s from the sun. That is 40 times the distance Pluto is from the sun at it’s nearest and 1,000 times at it’s farthest. Now imagine looking for something smaller than pluto at that distance even with the Hubble telescope, which btw, a telescope works by collecting light from an object. A comet isn’t going to give off any of it’s own light, it’s going to reflect all the light from other sources. Which means that only a fraction is going to be reflected towards earth. Combine that with the fact that even the few photons that a comet at that distance would reflect and as well as those that could possibly reach hubble might not even register (there’s only so much the human eye can see in a photograph).
Google Hubble Deep View and you might get an understanding of just how massive the universe is and how ridiculous your statement is. It would just as easy to find gold atoms spread out over several hundred or even a thousand football fields using binoculars.
June 16th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
So using Arensb argument Prove the Oort cloud exists or don’t use it. Or at least have some shred of evidence other than Comets exist so they have to come from the Oort Cloud.
June 16th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
“Viola - a new comet”, just copying science “Big Bang - a new universe”
June 16th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
PCDR:
The sum total of your statements above boil down to this: the only acceptable proof to you is that which you can directly observe and/or participate in.
Congratulations, you’ve just invalidated every claim you’ve made here, spending two weeks and a few thousand words to say absolutely nothing.
What, to you, was the purpose of this exercise?
June 16th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
And you still haven’t taken the Unicorn test.
June 16th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
Not the only acceptable proof, ANY PROOF will at least make it usable. NOT just Theory!
June 16th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
Unicorns are like transition fossils. Figments of your imagination.
June 16th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
FEZ says “The sum total of your statements above boil down to this: the only acceptable proof to you is that which you can directly observe and/or participate in. “
Isn’t that the criteria that Science is supposed to use?
June 16th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
I am gone till Friday. Enjoy.
June 16th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
PCDR,
Come on, you can do better than that. I’ll even do you the courtesy of restating it here so you don’t have to go back for it.
June 16th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
Unicorns are like transition fossils. Figments of your imagination.
Well then, you can explain why none of the fossils referenced here, and in the linked pages, are transitional. In particular, you can tackle Wes Elsberry’s Transitional Fossil Challenge.
Or you can just admit you’re making stuff up, and do not, in fact, have a clue what you’re talking about.
Your choice.
June 17th, 2009 at 12:06 am
PCDR:
According to this site, Hubble’s angular resolution is 0.1 arcseconds, which means that it can resolve an object 241 miles across that’s as far away from us as Saturn is.
According to Wikipedia, Saturn is between 8 and 10.5 AU away, depending on where it and Earth are in their orbits. The Oort cloud is roughly 2,000-5,000 AU away. If my math is correct, an item 2000 AU away would have to be over 90,000 miles across for Hubble to resolve it. But comets are only up to 40 km across. (Yes, it can resolve galaxies that are much, much farther away than the Oort cloud. But those galaxies are also brain-manglingly large.)
See also this discussion on whether Hubble could take pictures of the lunar landers (short answer: no).
At any rate, you said that there was extrabiblical evidence for Jesus’ existence. Are you ever planning on presenting this evidence? If not, you should at least have the grace to admit that you don’t have any, so that we can move on.
June 18th, 2009 at 10:56 am
PCDR:
You seem to be under the impression that scientists just pull stuff out of their asses. You should really do yourself a favor and listen to the June 17 episode of the 365 Days of Astronomy podcast (MP3 here), which is all about the Big Bang. It’s only about 10 minutes long, and provides a nice layman-level introduction to the Big Bang.
While you’re listening, take note of two things: first, the narrator isn’t shy about pointing out areas that aren’t well understood yet, and unanswered questions. Second, he mentions evidence that leads astronomers to their conclusions, like the current expansion of the cosmos, and the cosmic background radiation. Not as much as I’d like, but there’s only so much you can do in ten minutes.
At any rate, it’s a good introduction to the subject, and might help you to not mischaracterize it in the future.
June 18th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
PCDR:
After you’re done with Eamon Knight and Wesley Ellsberry’s challenge, you may want to explain why this isn’t a transitional fossil.
Or rather, why that isn’t a transitional fossil in the sense that evolutionary biologists use the term. I already know that it’s not a crocoduck, which is the only thing that would convince Ray Comfort that evolution occurs, but is also something completely different from what people who know what the hell they’re talking about mean by “transitional species”.
June 18th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
“Isn’t that the criteria that Science is supposed to use?”
Can science directly observe how DNA is used by the Human body to reproduce? How about directly observing a hydrogen atom fusing to form helium? Do you really need to see a virus for yourself before you believe that it is what makes you sick? Of course not, but based on the facts that we know about these systems along with other facts that are known, a hypothesis can be pieced together eventually with enough reproducible examples leads to a theory.
“Not the only acceptable proof, ANY PROOF will at least make it usable. NOT just Theory!”
Besides the fact that you sound like an idiot when you say that. As shown above scientific theories are based on facts and observations. Not just someone such as yourself that spouts something out and calls it a theory (which really means a guess). I don’t think that any proof will be acceptable to you unless it happens to be one of the many impossible and unrealistic ideas that make no sense and therefore would never happen. These include fish with feet and or fish with lungs. Sorry you just won’t find those, the same way you won’t find monkeys and gorillas giving birth to Homo Sapiens. It’s just an impossibility that creationists use to deny evolution to themselves and other people. You know there are some people today that still think the earth is flat? No matter how much proof you give them, they continue to deny that the earth is round. Some people believe that the earth is round, yet they deny that the earth orbits the sun. The list goes on and on, but in the end there is sufficient proof for all these things, yet they refuse to believe it because they are stuck in their belief and refuse to change.
You speak of transitional fossils being a figment of someone’s imagination, but what do you really expect to find in a transitional fossil??? Ignoring the fact that transitional fossils have been found. What kind of fossil would make you realize that maybe there is something more to evolution? I can answer that for you. There won’t be any kind because you will find some way to rationalize how it’s not really transitional, or it’s a hoax, or it’s still not real proof. Because you are stuck in your beliefs, for whatever reason, any outside view of origins is going to be rejected no matter how much proof you have been given. If you would only open your eyes and your mind you would see how many transitional animals are alive today much less that are found in the fossil record.
June 18th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
menes777:
Not to rain on your parade or anything, but what about Acanthostega and its feet, or lungfish and their, well, lungs?
June 19th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
First Question, what criteria is used to determine what is a “transitional fossil”?
Second Question, for all evolutionist here, You are a human. If you have Kids (and grandkids), I assume they are human. I would also place a high dollar bet that your parents are human. And your Grandparents. And their parents. And Their Parents. I would bet they all have 23 pairs of Chromosomes. Explain to me when in your family tree you would expect your decendents to not be human and not have the same 23 chromosomes or when in your ancestory they were not humans and did not have 23 chromosomes. When was this http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/05/19/human.ancestor/index.html?iref=mpstoryview part of your family background?
June 19th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
“Not to rain on your parade or anything, but what about Acanthostega and its feet, or lungfish and their, well, lungs?”
Nope, not raining on my parade.
I think those are excellent examples of transitional evidence.
June 19th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
Menes:
In response to your direct proof of viruses, DNA, etc. That is at least some proof. We may not understand it all, but we can observe viruses, we can measure and analyze DNA, That moves it into the Science Realm from the Theory Realm. Give me ONE measure, observance, test, anything showing any sign of an OORT Cloud other than the fact that Comets are flying through space and they have a limited life span so they must have come from somewhere.
Then speculate back 17 billion or so years for the age of the Universe and Theorize how big the Oort cloud would have had to have been in the beginning of the solar system, then thoerize where the ice and rock came from to form it, then you really start to have a problem with the whole concept of a billions of years old Oort cloud “creating” comets.
June 19th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
PCDR:
You have no fucking clue what “theory” means in science, do you?
This fragment is a mishmash of poorly-understood ideas, and illustrates one of your big problems (and of creationists in general): you’re not in this debate to find out what the truth is. If you were, you could’ve taken a few seconds to google “age of the universe” and “age of the solar system” and found out that while the universe is about 13 billion years old (not 17 billion), the solar system (and the Earth, and the Oort cloud) is only 4.5 billion years old.
There’s no shame in being ignorant. Hell, I’m ignorant about any number of things. But you seem to have no interest in correcting your ignorance. And in this information age, that’s far less forgivable.
You’re not in this to figure out what’s true. You’re here to push your dogma. That’s why you never respond to criticism, and just jump from one point to another, trying to find something that’ll stick. Your approach is purely tactical: you don’t care whether an argument or claim is true, only whether it works rhetorically. Look at how quickly you forgot all about your claims of extrabiblical evidence for Jesus’ miracles.
You’ve shown no evidence of having read any of the resources people have pointed you at, above. Or, indeed, of any willingness to learn. If you ever decide that you’re interested in debating the truth of a given proposition, you’re welcome to come back, but in the meantime I have no desire to trade rhetorical points with you.
June 19th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
You’re not in this to figure out what’s true. You’re here to push your dogma. That’s why you never respond to criticism
Indeed. I was thinking of asking an online geologist or two for some references on paleomagnetism to rebut some of PCDR’s silly claims, but it hardly seems worth bothering busy people for the sake of an ignoramus who won’t listen.
June 20th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
PCDR wrote:
That’s like asking when Abraham’s descendants will stop being descended from Abraham.
This is a common misconception, so I’ll recycle something I wrote elsewhere:
Oh, and here’s one of those “something interesting”s.
So anyway, when are you going to get around to answering the questions you’ve been asked?
June 20th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Explain to me when in your family tree you would expect your decendents to not be human and not have the same 23 chromosomes or when in your ancestory they were not humans and did not have 23 chromosomes.
That’s two questions in one.
If by “human” you mean Homo sapiens then IIRC we’ve been around for something like 250kyrs. Genus Homo goes back another few hundred thousand years (maybe a million or so?).
Chromosome number is a separate question, as that does not define species boundaries, ie. some of our ancestral species may also have had 46, and not even all humans have 46 (and the exceptions are not always pathological, either. Google “robertsonian fusion”).
But if you’re asking when our lineage achieved its current chromosome count, that would presumably be sometime since we split off from the chimpanzee lineage, IIRC ~6Mya. Here is a paper discussing the genetic differences between us and them, in particular that human chromosome 2 appears to be the result of a fusion between chimp chromosomes 12 and 13: http://overtexplorations.com/Bill/2qFus.pdf
June 20th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
PCDR,
Seems that pretty much everyone contributing to your resurrection of this thread has done you the courtesy of answering your questions. When are you going to demonstrate an equivalent level of politeness?