Creation

[Saipan]

Faith is to believe in what one can not see or fully understand..

I firmly believe I'll have a drink and go to bed. Amen.

[WIP]

Cite!

The macroevolution definition I put up in giant letters is right from wikipedia...your usual source...I thought the reference number would tip you off. The basic definitions and explanations can also be found in wikipedia, or on the Talkorigins page that covers some basic proofs of evolution contained right in the study of genetics and proteins. The origins of transposons is unclear, and may have several causes, but viral code inserts or ERV's, are not the same thing. The diagram in the ERV article shows several viral gene insertions in the same chromosonal locations, from ancient ones that all primates carry, to newer ones that fewer species share. And that's why the author - Douglas Theobold, considers them a proof of evolution from common origins....trying to explain the gene insertions in the same locations, occurring to uniquely created creatures who have no common ancestors, would be extremely improbable.

Either the Talkorigins page or Wikipedia articles show that your source conflated the two categories, and besides this huge error, he also misrepresents the findings that transposons...or at least some transposons, may play a role in gene regulation (worth noting that it is real scientists who are discovering these features about retrotransposons...not the so called creation scientists). The vast majority of them do not, and certainly dormant retrovirus genetic codes do not perform any such function, so he has no leg to stand on by making his outlandish claim that everything in our genome has a role to play....besides making copies of themselves.

The page also covers other junk DNA categories like pseudogenes -- which at some point in the distant past, did perform the function of coding proteins and then through mutations, were shut down and became dormant, non-coding genes. So they also have no purpose besides making copies of themselves. The only purpose served by the vast majority of non-coding genes is, as previously mentioned, they lessen the likelihood of mutations that could cause deformities or cause cancer.

Support your claim. Because you've given an incorrect claim before. In the Bible topic, you've said this:

http://www.mapleleafweb.com/forums//index.php?showtopic=18914&st=525

Compare your source (Wiki) with my source (university)!

Furthermore I don't think your source said anything about Mesopotamians' belief as you claimed in your statement...at least I didn't see it. So, if it's not there in your supposed source you shouldn't insert that information like as if it's been supported as fact....when clearly, it is not!

That is mis-leading!

Therefore, I don't take your words with no back-up support from credible sources.

Do you ever read your own sources? The diagram about that Mesopotamian cosmology is six levels only in the sense that it has a three level heaven. Now, I believe I mentioned that the ancient Hebrews believed stars were suspended from the firmament, and the abode of Yahweh was above that of the angels and lesser heavenly creatures, so what is your point? And why are you bringing this up, unless you believe in a three story heaven above a flat earth and an underworld? Here is a better, more descriptive map of the ancient understanding of the Cosmos.

[Oleg Bach]

I firmly believe I'll have a drink and go to bed. Amen.

Once you have that drink you will believe you understand when in fact you understand less but THINK less is more. Booze grants great faith to many -What do you think that group of mere teenagers that hung out with Jesus were all about - They were drunk half the time...we percieve his folowing as being old men with long white beards - Most of these rebels were nothing but mere drunken boys raging against the machine. After a few jugs of wine - they believed. Nothing wrong with that...I suggest that at some of the church services they should not serve a sip of wine but a jug per person - They would all become true Christians ....and speak their inner most thoughts - that would cause the state to rally against them.

[betsy]

Rationality and faith together make on oxymoron

That's why there's no rationality in evolution. What with all that's been pointed out from page 26 of this thread, it's now clearly all based on faith.

[betsy]

betsy has never met her God. It's like writing letters to violent inmates doing life with all the desperate drives that involves.

It's all a big nothing! What makes you think you're so special?

---Livia Soprano

For over a century, you've never even had a single clear evidence of evolution, and science just practically annihiliated your theory to boot..... yet here you are talking about me never having met God!

Boy, you're like those who go to seances by quack psychics - psychic Dawkins perhap? - trying to communicate with the deadwood. It's time to let go!

And I don't know what the Sopranos had to do with this unless they want to clean up the mess of evolution or maybe you've mistakenly posted that quote in the wrong forum?

It's all a big nothing!..

Evolution.

..What makes you think you're so special?

Richard Dawkins.

Yup. The message is meant for Dawkins. Post it on Dawkins' site.

Anyway, you offer no refutation....and yet you still avoid answering the question,

Explain why after all that's been pointed out in the last few pages of this thread, why do still cling to evolution? WHY?

You desperately need closure on evolution, so answer that! Maybe by doing so things will click in the right places.

Edited July 10, 2011 by betsy

[betsy]

I'd like to see him step up to a geneticist...or Richard Dawkins for that matter, and try to make this argument.

Don't you read?

Well, here's what a reputable geneticist/biologist has to say about your Dawkins:

Excerpts from Lewontin's article, "Billions and Billions of Demons"

As to assertions without adequate evidence, the literature of science is filled with them, especially the literature of popular science writing. [Carl Sagan's list of the "best contemporary science-popularizers" includes E.O. Wilson, Lewis Thomas, and Richard Dawkins, each of whom has put unsubstantiated assertions or counterfactual claims at the very center of the stories they have retailed in the market.

Did you read that underlined part? Dawkins made unsubstantiated assertions or counterfactual claims at the very center of his stories!

Dawkins's vulgarizations of Darwinism speak of nothing in evolution but an inexorable ascendancy of genes that are selectively superior, while the entire body of technical advance in experimental and theoretical evolutionary genetics of the last fifty years has moved in the direction of emphasizing non-selective forces in evolution. . . .

It is certainly true that within each narrowly defined scientific field there is a constant challenge to new technical claims and to old wisdom. In what my wife calls the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral Syndrome, young scientists on the make will challenge a graybeard, and this adversarial atmosphere for the most part serves the truth. But when scientists transgress the bounds of their own specialty they have no choice but to accept the claims of authority, even though they do not know how solid the grounds of those claims may be. Who am I to believe about quantum physics if not Steven Weinberg, or about the solar system if not Carl Sagan? What worries me is that they may believe what Dawkins and Wilson tell them about evolution.

http://darwinianfundamentalism.blogspot.com/2007/02/richard-lewontin-what-worries-me-is.html

Those are very serious accusations by Lewontin! And for him to come out in public and in print, making those very grave statements - with no legal repercussions from all named culprits - means these are no idle, malicious or slanderous accusations! It means Lewontin speaks the truth and he can back them up!

Richard Lewontin

Richard Charles "Dick" Lewontin is an American evolutionary biologist, geneticist and social commentator. A leader in developing the mathematical basis of population genetics and evolutionary theory, he pioneered the notion of using techniques from molecular biology such as gel electrophoresis to apply to questions of genetic variation and evolution;

Edited July 10, 2011 by betsy

[M.Dancer]

That's why there's no rationality in evolution. What with all that's been pointed out from page 26 of this thread, it's now clearly all based on faith.

You are not a sane, rational person. You are a "true believer" ...not for from a bone on the nose, scared of the thunder gods, don't anger the spirits, cave man....

...you are an atavist

[betsy]

Rationality and faith together make on oxymoron

Betsy:

That's why there's no rationality in evolution. What with all that's been pointed out from page 26 of this thread, it's now clearly all based on faith.

You are not a sane, rational person. You are a "true believer" ...not for from a bone on the nose, scared of the thunder gods, don't anger the spirits, cave man....

...you are an atavist

Oooops. I must've stepped on a nerve.

Edited July 10, 2011 by betsy

[betsy]

The macroevolution definition I put up in giant letters is right from wikipedia...your usual source...

I have given numerous, various sources! From universities, to science, newspapers to creationists, etc., Anyway, it's the credibility of the content that's important.

The basic definitions and explanations can also be found in wikipedia, or on the Talkorigins page that covers some basic proofs of evolution contained right in the study of genetics and proteins.

Yeah. Your only 2 sources, Wiki and of course, TalkOrigin.

Either the Talkorigins page or Wikipedia articles show that your source conflated the two categories,

Yup. As I've guessed. 29 Evidences by Douglas Theobold. Again.

That's old news! It's been slammed.

A Critique of Douglas Theobald’s

“29 Evidences for Macroevolution”

by Ashby Camp

http://www.trueorigin.org/theobald1a.asp

Camp Answers Theobald

Reply to Theobald’s Response to Part 1 of Critique

By Ashby L. Camp

Copyright 2002 by Ashby L. Camp. All rights reserved.

http://www.trueorigin.org/ca_ac_01.asp

Furthermore, this critique has been approved by reviewers!

He tested universal common ancestry against the impossibly unlikely hypothesis that these genes independently arrived at highly similar sequences via blind, unguided convergent evolution. Given his outlandish null hypothesis, no wonder common descent came out looking so good.

Again, if you don't believe me, consider what reviewers of a critique of Theobald's paper had to say (approving the critique!):

Cogniscenti cringed when they saw the Theobald paper, knowing that "it is trivial". It is trivial because the straw man that Theobald attacks in a text largely formulated in convoluted legalese, is that significant sequence similarity might arise by chance as opposed to descent with modification. Ignoring the strength of the universality of the genetic code and the commonality of central intermediary metabolism among cells as evidence, Theobald construed a non-issue that the referees of his paper, whoever they may have been, found convincing and novel (!).

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/11/douglas_theobald_tests_univers041021.html

Did you read that? His papers even made them "cringed!"

It must be that awful!

And furthermore (again)....

Excerpt from:

Douglas Theobald Tests Universal Common Ancestry by Refuting a Preposterous Null Hypothesis

Casey Luskin November 29, 2010

The paper makes no official claim to be a response to scientific skeptics of universal common ancestry, but given Theobald's notoriety as the author of the widely criticized "Talk Origins Common Ancestry FAQ," his motivation is clear. If there were no doubts about universal common ancestry ("UCA"), his paper would be unnecessary. This becomes especially clear when you see the trivially obvious point his paper actually establishes as part of his "test" of universal common ancestry.

And speaking of your favorite site, Talk Origin. Here's an article accusing it of deception.

Talk.Origins:

Deception by Omission

Jorge A. Fernandez

http://www.trueorigin.org/to_deception.asp

Given the negative reviews he got plus the above quotes, clearly your source(s) is highly questionable....to say the least.

Now, after wasting at least half an hour responding to an article that doesn't even describe the subject properly, can I have my half hour back Betsy?

That's what you get for relying on questionable sources!

Go sue them.

Edited July 10, 2011 by betsy

[betsy]

Do you ever read your own sources? The diagram about that Mesopotamian cosmology is six levels only in the sense that it has a three level heaven.

Never mind the song and dance! You posted this:

The truth is that ancient Hebrews, like ancient Mesopotamians, had a three level cosmology as described here.

Betsy:

Apparently, your statement is incorrect. Mesopotamians believed in a 6-level universe!

http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/ast123/lectures/lec01.html

http://www.mapleleafweb.com/forums//index.php?showtopic=18914&st=525

As this source explains:

Cosmology in Mesopotamia was much more sophisticated. Babylonians believed in a six-level universe with two heavens above the sky, the heaven of the stars, the earth, the underground of the Apsu, and the underworld of the dead.

http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/ast123/lectures/lec01.html

Clearly, Mesopotamians had a 6-level universe as opposed to the Hebrew 3-level universe as explained by your own source.

According to the Genesis creation narrative, the cosmos created by Elohim has three levels, with the habitable world in the centre, an underworld below and the heavens above.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_cosmology

Which part of that is hard to understand?

Now, I believe I mentioned that the ancient Hebrews believed stars were suspended from the firmament,

So?

Mesopotamians believed in the heavenly bodies too! In fact, Babylonians had a detailed record of eclipses, positions of planets etc.,

What's that got to do with this....unless you're desperately grasping.

and the abode of Yahweh was above that of the angels and lesser heavenly creatures,

No, you didn't mention that.

Assuming that's correct, that makes 4. That's 4-level then? Mesopotamians had 6!

That still doesn't add up. You're still short.

You need 2 more!

so what is your point?

That you're full of bs? Pardon my french.

And why are you bringing this up, unless you believe in a three story heaven above a flat earth and an underworld?

To show that I'm on to your bull!

Edited July 10, 2011 by betsy

[cybercoma]

That's why there's no rationality in evolution. What with all that's been pointed out from page 26 of this thread, it's now clearly all based on faith.

You're trying to debunk evolution by turning it into religion? Do you even understand what that says about religion?

[betsy]

You're trying to debunk evolution by turning it into religion? Do you even understand what that says about religion?

EH?

It is you who's clinging to evolution! Without any evidence. Therefore, your belief is all based on faith.

Therefore, it is you who turned it into religion!

[cybercoma]

If you think there's no proof for evolution, you're either really stupid or have no idea what evolution is.

[GostHacked]

That's why there's no rationality in evolution. What with all that's been pointed out from page 26 of this thread, it's now clearly all based on faith.

Thanks Betsy.... I do believe from the posters in this thread, on this post alone, you either got a or a

[GostHacked]

EH?

It is you who's clinging to evolution! Without any evidence. Therefore, your belief is all based on faith.

Therefore, it is you who turned it into religion!

Actually you are the one clining to evolution. Time to just let it go Besty.

[DogOnPorch]

For over a century, you've never even had a single clear evidence of evolution, and science just practically annihiliated your theory to boot..... yet here you are talking about me never having met God!

Boy, you're like those who go to seances by quack psychics - psychic Dawkins perhap? - trying to communicate with the deadwood. It's time to let go!

And I don't know what the Sopranos had to do with this unless they want to clean up the mess of evolution or maybe you've mistakenly posted that quote in the wrong forum?

If you're too daft to understand the Sopranos, I suggest you pray to your god for meaning.

[betsy]

If you're too daft to understand the Sopranos, I suggest you pray to your god for meaning.

I don't watch the Sopranos - only watched the first few episodes. But I do know it's supposed to be a FICTIONAL family.

Do you know what that means?

Livia Soprano is a fictional character. She is not real.

Her words of "wisdom" didn't actually come from her, since she's just a figment of the writer's imagination.

I think there's a disclaimer somewhere at the end of the credits explaining the standard, "all characters are fictional. Any similarities blah-blah-blah...."

I do understand they're bigger-than-life...but I assume you're an adult? Correct me of I'm wrong.

So if you see this actress in person, it will be....naive...to come calling her Livia, and asking about her mob boss hubby! You could land yourself featured in the entertainment show, The Insider. In cuffs. With a restraining order.

Let's see that quote again...

It's all a big nothing! What makes you think you're so special?

---Livia Soprano

Yup. Quite profound. I guess we've got different views on this. I find the statement so inane, actually.

Yet surprisingly, the quote is fitting to say to Richard Dawkins! Boy, it's like she's talking to him directly about evolution...and Dawkins' book, The God Delusion!

Anyway, to each his own.

You should quote the show's screenplay writer instead if you're so wowed by such...uh....profound statement - after all, Livia's dialogue came from the scriptwriter.

I may be "daft" from not following the saga of the Sopranos....but I surely am not daft enough to go around in forums, giving lectures by quoting, especially quoting uh....."profound" dialogues... from fictional characters like they're real.

Edited July 11, 2011 by betsy

[betsy]

Let's see that quote again...

It's all a big nothing! What makes you think you're so special?

---Livia Soprano

Yup. Quite profound. I guess we've got different views on this. I find the statement so inane, actually.

Yet surprisingly, the quote is fitting to say to Richard Dawkins! Boy, it's like she's talking to him directly about evolution...and Dawkins' book, The God Delusion!

Holy Guacamole!

The Sopranos, too?

This sounds like another pressure for Dawkins to step up and face Craig, one-on-one! Could it be? ...the Sopranos are keen to see that debate too? They're putting in some muscle?

You think Daddy Soprano will make an offer that Dawkins can't refuse?

Edited July 11, 2011 by betsy

[g_bambino]

That's why there's no rationality in evolution. What with all that's been pointed out from page 26 of this thread, it's now clearly all based on faith.

The fossil record and DNA are tangible. Faith is not.

[DogOnPorch]

Livia Soprano is a fictional character. She is not real.

Her words of "wisdom" didn't actually come from her, since she's just a figment of the writer's imagination.

I think there's a disclaimer somewhere at the end of the credits explaining the standard, "all characters are fictional. Any similarities blah-blah-blah...."

Do you wish to spout something stupid about Shakespeare next?

[Oleg Bach]

Don't you just hate that "Your GOD" and "MY GOD"...routine?

[bloodyminded]

I don't watch the Sopranos - only watched the first few episodes. But I do know it's supposed to be a FICTIONAL family.

Do you know what that means?

Livia Soprano is a fictional character. She is not real.

Her words of "wisdom" didn't actually come from her, since she's just a figment of the writer's imagination.

I think there's a disclaimer somewhere at the end of the credits explaining the standard, "all characters are fictional. Any similarities blah-blah-blah...."

I do understand they're bigger-than-life...but I assume you're an adult? Correct me of I'm wrong.

So if you see this actress in person, it will be....naive...to come calling her Livia, and asking about her mob boss hubby! You could land yourself featured in the entertainment show, The Insider. In cuffs. With a restraining order.

Let's see that quote again...

Yup. Quite profound. I guess we've got different views on this. I find the statement so inane, actually.

Yet surprisingly, the quote is fitting to say to Richard Dawkins! Boy, it's like she's talking to him directly about evolution...and Dawkins' book, The God Delusion!

Anyway, to each his own.

You should quote the show's screenplay writer instead if you're so wowed by such...uh....profound statement - after all, Livia's dialogue came from the scriptwriter.

I may be "daft" from not following the saga of the Sopranos....but I surely am not daft enough to go around in forums, giving lectures by quoting, especially quoting uh....."profound" dialogues... from fictional characters like they're real.

Fictional/narrative art--at least when it's good--is "the truth behind the lie." The stories are about us.

[Saipan]

If you think there's no proof for evolution, you're either really stupid or have no idea what evolution is.

Name calling won't explain anything.

"Nowadays everybody knows......" (and other such approaches) is not very scientific.

As far as evidence goes both evolution and creation are BELIEFS.

[Saipan]

The fossil record and DNA are tangible. Faith is not.

Fossil record shows what creatures exited, not evolution.

[M.Dancer]

Fossil record shows what creatures exited...

and arrived....and arrived....and arrived...each time wearing something new