The Bible

[betsy]

Errr...what is 'valid evidence' for evolution? I've already asked you why some dinosuars had feathers.

Yeah, you always ask too many questions - which I answered or rebutted btw - but you never answer any of mine!

Ahhh...you're giving the "feathered dinosaurs" as your evidence for evolution, are you?

You must've really swallowed the Piltdown Chicken so hard - hook, line and sinker - that you can't dislodge all three from your system even though it's already been exposed as a hoax!

Here, let me show you:

" 'Piltdown Chicken' — Another Evolutionary Hoax"

In 1999, National Geographic published a photograph of a creature which "proved" that birds evolved from dinosaurs. Named Archaeoraptor, it was discovered in China and trumpeted as "a true missing link in the complex chain that connects dinosaurs to birds" (Sloan 100). The photograph displayed a creature "[w]ith arms of a primitive bird and the tail of a dinosaur" (Ibid.), accompanied by statements like, "It's a missing link between terrestrial dinosaurs and birds that could actually fly" (Ibid.), and "This fossil is perhaps the best evidence since Archaeopteryx that birds did, in fact, evolve from certain types of carnivorous dinosaurs [dromaeosaurs]" (Ibid. 101).

Criticism has been harsh. In an article on the twenty greatest scientific blunders in the past twenty years, Discover magazine listed "Piltdown Chicken," its term for the fraud. The label derives from Piltdown Man, an artificial composite of a human skull and an ape jaw "discovered" in 1912 (Newman 80). Just as earlier paleontologists embraced Piltdown Man because they were dying for evidence of human evolution, contemporary scientists embraced Archaeoraptor because of their desperation to prove that birds evolved from dinosaurs.

References:

Newman, Judith. (2000). "Twenty of the Greatest Blunders in Science in the Last Twenty Years." Discover 21, no. 10.

Simons, Lewis (2000). "Archaeoraptor Fossil Trail." National Geographic 198, no. 4.

Sloan, Christopher (1999). "Feathers for T. Rex?" National Geographic 196, no. 5.

Stephen Caesar holds his master's degree in anthropology and archaeology from Harvard University.

http://www.newiberiacoc.com/focus3.htm

Btw, since posting pictures is one of your signature style on this forum, you might want to post the photo of that cute dino-cuckoo for us all. Please.

But since we all lived together...dino and humans as per the Flintstones...and they all mysteriously fell off the Ark, apparently (even the flying and swimming variety), I'm really quite dubious that any such 'valid evidence' could exist for you.

If there is anything dubious at all, it's all these evolution "evidence(s)" and so-called findings coming from your camp!

Edited June 2, 2011 by betsy

[betsy]

Errr...what is 'valid evidence' for evolution? I've already asked you why some dinosuars had feathers. But since we all lived together...dino and humans as per the Flintstones...and they all mysteriously fell off the Ark, apparently (even the flying and swimming variety), I'm really quite dubious that any such 'valid evidence' could exist for you.

You must've missed this since I'm still waiting for your input:

So what do you say about this comment by Lewontin that shows what a lot of us are saying about the un-reliability of some scientists - Dawkins among them! And of course how can we take theories such as evolutoon seriously?

By the looks of it, some evolutionist (pseudo)scientists are a big joke! Vulgarly funnier than the Flintstones!

As examples he cites three influential scientists who are particularly successful at writing for the public: E. O. Wilson, Richard Dawkins, and Lewis Thomas, each of whom has put unsubstantiated assertions or counterfactual claims at the very center of the stories they have retailed in the market.

…..however, it seems that admirers of Dawkins have as low an opinion of Gould as Lewontin has of Dawkins or Wilson. According to a 1994 essay in the New York Review of Books by John Maynard Smith, the dean of British neo-Darwinists, "the evolutionary biologists with whom I have discussed his [Gould's] work tend to see him as a man whose ideas are so confused as to be hardly worth bothering with, but as one who should not be publicly criticized because he is at least on our side against the creationists.

If eminent experts say that evolution according to Gould is too confused to be worth bothering about, and others equally eminent say that evolution according to Dawkins rests on unsubstantiated assertions and counterfactual claims, the public can hardly be blamed for suspecting that grand-scale evolution may rest on something less impressive than rock-solid, unimpeachable fact

http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles/JohnsonMaterialism.php

Was it you btw who mentioned, "snake oil-men?"

Edited June 2, 2011 by betsy

[betsy]

HOAXES and FRAUDS by evolutionist scientists

History of modern man unravels as German scholar is exposed as fraud

Flamboyant anthropologist falsified dating of key discoveries

Luke Harding in Berlin The Guardian, Saturday 19 February 2005 Article historyIt

Yesterday his university in Frankfurt announced the professor had been forced to retire because of numerous "falsehoods and manipulations". According to experts, his deceptions may mean an entire tranche of the history of man's development will have to be rewritten.

The scandal only came to light when Prof Protsch was caught trying to sell his department's entire chimpanzee skull collection to the United States.

An inquiry later established that he had also passed off fake fossils as real ones and had plagiarised other scientists' work.

His discovery appeared to show that Neanderthals had spread much further north than was previously known.

But his university inquiry was told that a crucial Hamburg skull fragment, which was believed to have come from the world's oldest German, a Neanderthal known as Hahnhöfersand Man, was actually a mere 7,500 years old, according to Oxford University's radiocarbon dating unit. The unit established that other skulls had been wrongly dated too.

Another of the professor's sensational finds, "Binshof-Speyer" woman, lived in 1,300 BC and not 21,300 years ago, as he had claimed, while "Paderborn-Sande man" (dated at 27,400 BC) only died a couple of hundred years ago, in 1750.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2005/feb/19/science.sciencenews

Missing links and planted stone age finds

Piltdown Man

The most infamous of all scientific frauds was unearthed in 1912 in a Sussex gravel pit. With its huge human-like braincase and ape-like jaw, the Piltdown Man "fossil" was named Eoanthropus dawsoni after Charles Dawson, the solicitor and amateur archaeologist who discovered it. For 40 years Piltdown Man was heralded as the missing link between humans and their primate ancestors. But in 1953 scientists concluded it was a forgery. Radiocarbon dating showed the human skull was just 600 years old, while the jawbone was that of an orang-utan. The entire package of fossil fragments found at Piltdown - which included a prehistoric cricket bat - had been planted.

The devil's archaeologist

Japanese archaeologist Shinichi Fujimura was so prolific at uncovering prehistoric artefacts he earned the nickname "God's hands". At site after site, Fujimura discovered stoneware and relics that pushed back the limits of Japan's known history. The researcher and his stone age finds drew international attention and rewrote text books. In November 2000 the spell was broken when a newspaper printed pictures of Fujimura digging holes and burying objects that he later dug up and announced as major finds. "I was tempted by the devil. I don't know how I can apologise for what I did," he said.

Piltdown Turkey

The supposed fossil of Archaeoraptor, which was to become known as the "Piltdown turkey", came to light in 1999 when National Geographic magazine published an account of its discovery. It seemed to show another missing link - this time between birds and dinosaurs. Archaeoraptor appeared to be the remains of a large feathered bird with the tail of a dinosaur. The fossil was smuggled out of China and sold to a private collector in the US for £51,000. Experts were suspicious and closer examination showed the specimen to be a "composite" - two fossils stuck together with strong glue.

David Adam

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2005/feb/19/science.sciencenews

" 'Piltdown Chicken' Another Evolutionary Hoax"

In 1999, National Geographic published a photograph of a creature which "proved" that birds evolved from dinosaurs. Named Archaeoraptor, it was discovered in China and trumpeted as "a true missing link in the complex chain that connects dinosaurs to birds" (Sloan 100). The photograph displayed a creature "[w]ith arms of a primitive bird and the tail of a dinosaur" (Ibid.), accompanied by statements like, "It's a missing link between terrestrial dinosaurs and birds that could actually fly" (Ibid.), and "This fossil is perhaps the best evidence since Archaeopteryx that birds did, in fact, evolve from certain types of carnivorous dinosaurs [dromaeosaurs]" (Ibid. 101).

Criticism has been harsh. In an article on the twenty greatest scientific blunders in the past twenty years, Discover magazine listed "Piltdown Chicken," its term for the fraud. The label derives from Piltdown Man, an artificial composite of a human skull and an ape jaw "discovered" in 1912 (Newman 80). Just as earlier paleontologists embraced Piltdown Man because they were dying for evidence of human evolution, contemporary scientists embraced Archaeoraptor because of their desperation to prove that birds evolved from dinosaurs.

References:

Newman, Judith. (2000). "Twenty of the Greatest Blunders in Science in the Last Twenty Years." Discover 21, no. 10.

Simons, Lewis (2000). "Archaeoraptor Fossil Trail." National Geographic 198, no. 4.

Sloan, Christopher (1999). "Feathers for T. Rex?" National Geographic 196, no. 5.

Stephen Caesar holds his master's degree in anthropology and archaeology from Harvard University.

http://www.newiberiacoc.com/focus3.htm

20 of the Greatest Blunders in Science in the Last 20 Years

Discover Magazine

What were they thinking?

by Judith Newman

From the October 2000 issue; published online October 1, 2000

In the last two decades, glorious scientific and technical achievements have altered our lives forever. Try, for example, to imagine the world without the existence of those two little words personal and computer. But there have also been how can this be put delicately? blunders. Some were errors in concept: Bad science chasing a bad idea. Some were errors in execution: This would have worked so well if only it hadn't blown up. Others were cases of deliberate fraud, out-and-out hoaxes, or just dopey moments that made us laugh. Perhaps Albert Einstein said it best: "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the universe."

Piltdown Chicken

The finding was initially trumpeted as the missing link that proved birds evolved from dinosaurs. In 1999 a fossil smuggled out of China allegedly showing a dinosaur with birdlike plumage was displayed triumphantly at the National Geographic Society and written up in the society's November magazine. Paleontologists were abuzz. Unfortunately, like the hominid skull with an ape jaw discovered in the Piltdown quarries of England in 1912, the whole thing turned out to be a hoax. The fossil apparently was the flight of fancy of a Chinese farmer who had rigged together bird bits and a meat-eater's tail.

Rock of Life

In 1996, scientists at NASA declared that a 6.3-ounce rock, broken off from a Mars meteorite discovered in Antarctica in 1984, contained flecks of chemical compounds polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, magnetite, and iron sulfide that suggested the existence of bacteria on the Red Planet 3.6 billion years ago. "August 7, 1996, could go down as one of the most important dates in human history," intoned one newspaper report. But within two years the theory began to crack. Traces of amino acids found in the rock, crucial to life, were also found in the surrounding Antarctic ice. More damning, other non-Martian rocks rocks from the moon, where it is clear life does not exist showed the same "evidence" of life. By November 1998 an article in Science declared "most researchers agree that the case for life on Mars is shakier than ever."

Evolution? What's That?

In 1995, it became official: Colorado students would not be tested on evolution, Charles Darwin's theory that, through an endless series of genetic mutations, we all developed from single-celled organisms. "I believe in divine creation," said Clair Orr, Colorado's chairman of the state's board of education. Colorado is not alone. Kansas removed evolutionary theory from its tests in 1999. Mississippi and Tennessee do not teach the subject at all, and curricula in Florida and South Carolina touch on it only lightly. Given the trend of treating all theories of how we got here as equal, Marc Abrahams, of Annals of Improbable Research, has a suggestion: Why not teach the theory of Chonosuke Okamura, a Japanese paleontologist who became convinced that patterns of water seepage in rocks were "mini-fossils" and that life was descended from mini-horses, mini-cows, and mini-dragons. "It's kind of like forming an evolutionary theory out of cloud formations," says Abrahams.

http://discovermagazine.com/2000/oct/featblunders

Edited June 2, 2011 by betsy

[betsy]

With all the hoaxes, frauds, unsbstantiated and counter-factual claims being made for the theory of evolution.....what else is falsehood that haven't been exposed?

With these shady and very un-scientific conducts by so-called men of science - therefore that puts question to the validity of everything that has been presented so far. It is safe to conlude then that the Theory of Evolution is based on nothing!

It is actually proving to be the myth!

[BubberMiley]

If there is anything dubious at all, it's all these evolution "evidence(s)" and so-called findings coming from your camp!

Since your faith was not strong enough to acknowledge that god didn't say anything specifically about evolution in the passages you cited, I will ask you of what "kind" is the duckbill platypus? It lays eggs and has a beak, but is considered a mammal.

God is waiting for you to tell him what to say.

[GostHacked]

Since your faith was not strong enough to acknowledge that god didn't say anything specifically about evolution in the passages you cited, I will ask you of what "kind" is the duckbill platypus? It lays eggs and has a beak, but is considered a mammal.

God is waiting for you to tell him what to say.

That's a pretty good example. Gets me thinking, any other animals that are like this? I mean in terms of having one obvious trait from one group and obvious traits of another group, but don't really seem to fit in either? I am sure the platapus is not the only example like that.

[GostHacked]

Just something to think about. This is not meant as an insult to you atheists/skeptics....but there is this interesting irony about the wholehearted acceptance of the theory of evolution and the outright rejection of anything that even remotely suggests of a Divine or an Intelligent Designer.

Hey there thick skull. Science cannot deal with the divine, there are no scientific parameters or repeatable tests to prove the divine.

The words "myth," "sky-daddy" or anything similar that describes something not true, or "hokus-pokus" are used to mock the Christian belief. These words of disdain are freely and loosely thrown at the Christian belief.

It's also used to mock all sorts of other religions who support a sky-daddy.

And yet, when we really take a good look and compare the theory of evolution to the Bible, which comes up short as far as scientifically-proven results is concerned?

Science can't deal with divinity. Never has, never will. The end.

Nothing seems real.

That's a perfect explanation of what is described in the bible.

[bloodyminded]

That's a pretty good example. Gets me thinking, any other animals that are like this? I mean in terms of having one obvious trait from one group and obvious traits of another group, but don't really seem to fit in either? I am sure the platapus is not the only example like that.

Apparently, entomologists have a hell of a time with classification, too.

[betsy]

Since your faith was not strong enough to acknowledge that god didn't say anything specifically about evolution in the passages you cited, I will ask you of what "kind" is the duckbill platypus? It lays eggs and has a beak, but is considered a mammal.

God is waiting for you to tell him what to say.

God must have a good sense of humor!

The more I contemplate on Genesis (and other Books in the BIble that tell of origin/creation), the more I tend to think that all these information were not meant for the people during Moses' time, but instead aimed at future humanity - including us - of a world with science.

Because God knew what's to happen in the distant future - the clear emphasis He's given on each passage of each Creation - plants, sea creatures, birds, land creatures, and man - all of which clearly punctuated with the emphasis of the term, "...according to its kind,"

God must've been addressing future mankind in the far distant time when the theory of evolution is going to be around. Like more than a century ago, and like now, the present time!

God gave macro-evolutionists a real puzzle!

10. Distinct Types

If evolution happened, one would expect to see gradual transitions among many living things. For example, variations of dogs might blend in with variations of cats. In fact, some animals, such as the duckbilled platypus, have organs totally unrelated to their alleged evolutionary ancestors.

The platypus has fur, is warm-blooded, and suckles its young as do mammals. It lays leathery eggs, has a single ventral opening (for elimination, mating, and birth), and has claws and a shoulder girdle as most reptiles do. The platypus can detect electrical currents (AC and DC) as some fish can, and has a bill somewhat like a that of a duck—a bird. It has webbed forefeet like those of an otter and a flat tail like that of a beaver. The male platypus can inject poisonous venom like a pit viper.

Such “patchwork” animals and plants, called mosaics, have no logical place on the so-called “evolutionary tree.”

Figure 5: Duckbilled Platypus. The duckbilled platypus is found only in Tasmania and eastern Australia. European scientists who first studied platypus specimens thought that a clever taxidermist had stitched together parts of different animals—a logical conclusion if one believed that each animal must be very similar to other animals. In fact, the platypus is perfectly designed for its environment.

There is no direct evidence that any major group of animals or plants arose from any other major group.a Species are observed only going out of existence (extinctions), never coming into existence.b

http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences13.html

Edited June 2, 2011 by betsy

[Sir Bandelot]

Apparently, entomologists have a hell of a time with classification, too.

Same with anthropologists, but for quite different reasons...

[DogOnPorch]

In contemporary academic parlance: "The Problem of the Satanic Anti-Hero in Milton's Paradise Lost"

I'm begining to think betsy pushed all the dinos off the Ark, anyways...

Out, damned spot! Out, I say!

Edited June 2, 2011 by DogOnPorch

[bloodyminded]

I'm begining to think betsy pushed all the dinos off the Ark, anyways...

Somebody must have. Or maybe they rejected monotheism, and committed mass suicide.

Edited June 2, 2011 by bloodyminded

[BubberMiley]

God must have a good sense of humor!

You mean, let me understand this cause, ya know maybe it's me, I'm a little f--ked up maybe, but I'm funny how, I mean funny like I'm a clown, I amuse you? I make you laugh, I'm here to f--kin' amuse you? What do you mean funny, funny how? How am I funny?

- God

[bloodyminded]

Tommy as God?

It's all starting to make a little more sense to me, now.

[Jack Weber]

Somebody must have. Or maybe they rejected monotheism, and committed mass suicide.

A Jurassic "Jonestown"???

I wonder if they had Kool-Aid back then?

Edited June 2, 2011 by Jack Weber

[betsy]

Having said that God must have a good sense of humor....

To whom did I say God gave the puzzle of the duck-billed platypus? Macro-evolutionists.

The right flow of logic would then be: the joke is on the macro-evolutionists. Not God.

That kind of humor somewhat along this line:

Psalm 37:13

The Lord shall laugh at him: for he seeth that his day is coming.

Anyway, why is it not possible for God to feel amused by His creation?

Even the great matriarch Sarah could be vain and act like other women. Sarah, who was eighty-nine years old when she heard that she would have her first child, laughed because she felt Abraham was too old -- He was ninety-nine. Apparently, even at her advanced age she was reluctant to admit to herself that she was old. Thus, the text states (Genesis 18:12): "Sarah laughed to herself saying...My husband is old." What is more, God lied to Abraham, so as not to cause friction between husband and wife (Genesis 18:13): "Why did Sarah laugh and say... I am too old."

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/economic/friedman/bibhumor.htm

Genesis 18

10 Then one of them said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son.”

Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, which was behind him. 11 Abraham and Sarah were already very old, and Sarah was past the age of childbearing. 12 So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, “After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I now have this pleasure?”

13 Then the LORD said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child, now that I am old?’ 14 Is anything too hard for the LORD? I will return to you at the appointed time next year, and Sarah will have a son.”

15 Sarah was afraid, so she lied and said, “I did not laugh.”

But he said, “Yes, you did laugh.”

Genesis 21

5And Abraham was an hundred years old, when his son Isaac was born unto him.

6And Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me.

The name "Isaac" means laughter in Hebrew.

Edited June 3, 2011 by betsy

[cybercoma]

Here's one...

http://www.bhagavad-gita.org/

...and a list of others...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_text

It doesn't count unless you create reply after reply of cut and paste jobs with large fonts and bold text.

[jbg]

With all the hoaxes, frauds, unsbstantiated and counter-factual claims being made for the theory of evolution.....what else is falsehood that haven't been exposed?

I am a proud and practicing member of the Jewish faith. We have the Creation story in our Old Testament as well.

I don't think that people of faith are well-served by denying the power of the human mind to reason. The fact is that we now know roughly the chain of evolution, and roughly the timeline of development of life, human and otherwise. This knowledge is constantly subject to revision based upon new facts. The fact is that G-d gave us this power of reasoning. No believer in the Bible can reasonably deny that.

What science has not yet told us is how the original earth came to be with apparently unique abilities to sustain life as we know it. Yes, there are likely similar such bodies around the universe. We do not know. And if we do get visual evidence of them, we do not know, light years away from when the visual images are created, if they still exist.

I believe that G-d has a role as the original creator. I would say there may be some "play" in the chronological numbers and details.

[GostHacked]

FFS people, science does not deal with creation. How the earth came to be is still a mystery to scientists. As with how the universe came to be. How life started on the planet is still a mystery. BUT regardless of how it started, we do know a good deal of how things evolved afterwards.

[Smallc]

FFS people, science does not deal with creation. How the earth came to be is still a mystery to scientists. As with how the universe came to be. How life started on the planet is still a mystery. BUT regardless of how it started, we do know a good deal of how things evolved afterwards.

Well, actually, we pretty much know how the Earth was formed and how life started here. We're just not sure about the question of the universe.

[segnosaur]

Well, actually, we pretty much know how the Earth was formed and how life started here.

Actually, we know some of how 'life started here', but there are still some details to be filled in.

Of course, that doesn't mean that "creationists are right". Having unanswered questions doesn't make what you do know "false", so its possible to say "we don't know the chemical details of the first 'organisms'" without throwing out the entirety of evolution.

[Smallc]

Actually, we know some of how 'life started here', but there are still some details to be filled in.

Well, yes, you're correct, but we learn more about it every day.

[cybercoma]

God can not be explained away by mere logic

He can't be explained by logic either then. Kind of like the Santa. Either you believe in the jolly gift-giver or you don't. He's not real by logical standards, but *queue pro-wrestling guy video* "He's still real to me dammit!"

[cybercoma]

Because clearly God is saying there is no macro-evolution! In fact, He really emphasized that!

Well, this God you believe in is wrong then because "macro" evolution is real, whether you choose to admit it or not.

[cybercoma]

there is this interesting irony about the wholehearted acceptance of the theory of evolution and the outright rejection of anything that even remotely suggests of a Divine or an Intelligent Designer.

Asking for evidence is not outright rejection. Although it's easy to see how you think it would be, since you have absolutely no evidence of an intelligent designer. You seem to think "science" is a closed book. That's the irony here. Science is open to new ideas that improve upon old ones. Idiots that take things on faith and refuse to pick up an elementary textbook on evolutionary science because it contradicts some bastardized work of fiction written by knuckle-dragging cave-dwellers, those are the people that outright reject everything that even remotely suggests anything different from their completely absurd beliefs.

Edited June 3, 2011 by cybercoma