Antievolution.org - Antievolution.org Discussion Board -Topic::The Bathroom Wall

Posted: Aug. 05 2007,01:35

Quote ("Rev Dr" Lenny Flank @ July 26 2007,19:05)

Most Americans, of course, don't even know that there ever WAS any such thing as a non-Leninist Marxism . . .

Most americans don't know that meat comes from animals.

Sorry. Very low humanity opinion index today.

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Who said that ev'ry wish would be heard and answered
When wished on the morning star
Somebody thought of that, and someone believed it
Look what it's done so far

The Daily Wingnut

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Joined: Feb. 2005

Posted: Aug. 05 2007,21:41

[Graffiti moved to Bathroom Wall. -Admin]

Quote (RedDot @ Aug. 05 2007,21:35)

I didn't say I had any authority to interpret the Bible (or translate it for that matter).

Then shut the fuck up. (shrug)

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Posted: Aug. 05 2007,23:01

[Graffiti moved to Bathroom Wall. -Admin]

Quote (RedDot @ Aug. 05 2007,22:27)

As far as science courses, I have taken plenty - but so far, no one has asked. �You have merely assumed that all of my assertions are gleaned only from "kooky", "fringe" websites or publications. �That my science education can be boiled down to the rantings and ravings of a lunatic few.

You would be mistaken in those assumptions.

Well, you ARE a young-earth creationist, right?

That is certainly "a lunatic few". It's also "kooky" and "fringe".

Indeed, I've seen enough YECs in action over the past 25 years to also know they are "dishonest", "deceptive" and "evasive" too. Just like you.

So I think I'm not mistaken at all.

(shrug)

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Posted: Aug. 06 2007,19:25

[Graffiti moved to Bathroom Wall. -Admin]

Quote (Occam's Aftershave @ Aug. 06 2007,18:51)

Damn Lenny, did you have to nuke him with facts like that? �Now we'll never get him to come back and play.

YECs need to be lured in slowly and played, like a tricky old largmouth bass. �Most of the fun is in the catching. �You just dropped a stick of dynamite in the pond. �:angry:

Sorry.

As you may have noticed, I don't go for their jugular ---- I go for their balls. My tactic is to kick 'em, kick 'em again, kick 'em till they're down, then kick 'em in the head as they lie there groaning.

Then run 'em over with a truck just to make sure.

I don't like fundies very much. And I like self-righteous holier-than-thou pride-filled pricks like RedDot (with all his faux "humility") worst of all.

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Editor, Red and Black Publishers
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Pastor Bentonit, FCD

Unregistered

Posted: Aug. 07 2007,09:28

<quote author="Undead hypertroll redux">My own position is well known and need not be summarized here.</quote>
"Must...eat...brain..."

David Stanton

Unregistered

Posted: Aug. 07 2007,09:28

realpc wrote (again):

“Neo-Darwinism does not present a testable theory. Experiments have not been done to support it. It’s only claim is that given long enough periods of time anything can happen, however improbable. No one can test or deny that claim.”

OK, let's try this again. If you admit that evolution did indeed occur, then I guess the only thing left to argue about is how. If by "neo-Darwinism" you mean "random" mutations and natural selection, then I guess you are claiming that no experiment has ever been done to test whether mutations are random with respect to the needs of the organism. Is this your position? Really?

John wrote:

"I cannot imagine a serious biologist who could still support a purely autonomous evolutionary scenario, guided only by natural selection, yet that seems to be the position still held by the neo-Darwinian faction. Am I wrong in this evaluation and if so where am I in error?"

Your lack of imagination has no bearing on what others believe. Your statement reduces to nothing more than the assertation that "the neo-Darwinian faction" is not serious. Well I cannot imagine that anyone would care what you can or cannot imagune. Your error is that you lack the ability to evaluate the evidence objectively. So what is your evidence that there is something else guiding this process? What are it's goals? What mechanisms does it use to accomplish these goals? What will be the end result of all of this guiding? Vague assertations that evolution cannot account for this or that because you can't imagine how it could possibly work are not evidence of anything. And by the way, ther is no such thing as the "law of conservation of information" or any other such nonsense.

Apparently these guys failed to note the topic of this thread. The topic is the difference between creationism and ID. Which are they advocating? What is the difference? Why spout nonsense about unrelated topics? I guess they just can't stand anyone believing in "neo-Darwinism" regardless.

ben

Unregistered

Posted: Aug. 07 2007,09:28

<blockquote>It is absurd to deny one or more creations.</blockquote>Unsupported assertion.<blockquote>It is equally absurd to assume that it is intrinsic in the nature of matter to self-assemble itself an unknown number of times into living evolving organisms.</blockquote>Unsupported assertion attacking a strawman.<blockquote>I cannot imagine a serious biologist who could still support a purely autonomous evolutionary scenario, guided only by natural selection, yet that seems to be the position still held by the neo-Darwinian faction.</blockquote>Assertion "supported" only by an argument from personal incredulity, attacking a strawman.<blockquote>My own position is well known and need not be summarized here.</blockquote>
What is well known is that 99.99% of people on all sides of the evo-creo issue think you're a crackpot. Claiming you've made a persuasive argument somewhere else without even linking to it isn't going to change that much.

hoary puccoon

Unregistered

Posted: Aug. 07 2007,09:28

John A. Davison says, "It is... absurd to assume that it is intrinsic in the nature of matter to self-assemble itself an unknown number of times into living evolving organisms."
That's nice, John, but matter assembling itself into living organisms isn't evolution, it's development. Believe me, it happens all the time, whether you believe it's absurd or not. Ask any obstetrician. (And don't, whatever you do, use that line on the witness stand if you're the defendant in a paternity case.)

George Cauldron

Unregistered

Posted: Aug. 07 2007,13:45

<quote>Posted by Skicklgruber on August 7, 2007 12:53 PM (e)

JA! Evolution provides the complete scientific basis of my views!

I am vindicated!</quote>

Here's another. This dirtbag is 'Legion'. Please delete him and block his IP address.

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Joined: May 2002

Posted: Aug. 07 2007,13:47

Quote

Please delete him and block his IP address.

Yeah. How? He doesn't have AN IP address.

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"You can't teach an old dogma new tricks." - Dorothy Parker

Cedric Katesby

Unregistered

Posted: Aug. 08 2007,11:21

(Hat tip to wÒÓ†)

Originally from http://oneblogaday.com/web/2007/04/15/pharyngula…
“wÒÓ† Says:

"I’d really hoped to engage you in a meaningful dialog, Mr. Davison, but it appears that you’re dangerously close to being just another crank with a dialup connection.

With regard to this “I love it so” business… you may not be aware that in some south Tibetan dialects there’s a phrase that sounds to the Western ear like “ah laffet show.”

It can be broadly translated as “My vagina hurts.”

Crackpots who endlessly re-post deserve only re-postings in reply.

Ah laffet show. :)

David Stanton

Unregistered

Posted: Aug. 08 2007,11:21

John wrote:

"The primary role for sex is to stabilize the species and allow only minor fine tunings of its genome. In short, sexual reproduction is anti-evolutionary. Furthermore, with very few exceptions sexual reproduction leads now, as it always has in the past, to extinction. Without that extinction there could have never been evolution. Creative evolution is a phenomenon of the distant past."

I am afraid that your assertations are contrary to known facts. First, the "role for sex" is to generate genetic variation through recombination. This does not "stabilize the species" but allows for the exploration of an adaptive topology. It is true that lineages that reproduce sexually can go extinct. However, all the available evidence indicates that asexual reproduction usually leads to extinction much more quickly. In fact, lineages employing sexual reproduction have been much more successful, by any objective measure, than asexual lineages. All species are doomed to extinction, the question is whether or not there is sufficient time for speciation to occur prior to extinction.

As for "creative evolution" being a "phenomenon of the distant past" this is clearly not the case. The majority of species now reproduce sexually. Speciation continues to occur and there are now more species and families of organisms alive than there have ever been at any time in the past. This is like saying that volcanoes only erupted in the past because I don't see one erupting in the United States today. (Even that isn't true by the way). Why do you think that sexual reproduction, which supposedly causes extinction, no longer allows for evolution, when you claim that extinction is necessary for evolution? According to your logic there should be more evolution now, not less.

As for creativity, innovation comes from mutations. Sexual reproduction allows for beneficial mutations to be dispersed to a variety of genetic backgrounds which increases the probability of survival and change. So, once again, the fact that most species now reproduce sexually undoubtedly promotes "creativity" and diversity.

We seem to have brought the world to the brink of a precipitious climatic change due to our short-sightedness. It would appear that in the very near future we will see if evolution can be creative enough to allow for the continued existence of life on earth. If creativity is indeed a thing of the distant past, then we are even less justified in our actions.

David Stanton

Unregistered

Posted: Aug. 08 2007,11:21

John also wrote this:

"Sexual reproduction is incompatible with creative evolution. It can only generate subspecies and intraspecific varieties. No organism reproducing purely sexually has ever become anything very different than what it was when that became its sole reproducrive means."

Gee, that sure sounds a lot like "there is no evidence for macroevolution" to me. Well, let's see:

Artiodactyls are exclusively sexual. Cetaceans (whales, dolphins, etc.) are demonstrably derived from Artiodactyls.

Reptiles are almost exclusively sexual. Aves (birds) are demonstrably derived from reptiles.

Primates are exclusively sexual. Humans are demonstrably derived from other primates.

Need I go on?

Your statement assumes that no major group of organisms has arisen since the evolution of sexual reproduction. That simply is not true. It might be closer to the truth if you were talking about asexual reproduction, but only in a limited sense. Now, are you assuming that all of this evolution occured in bacteria? Or are you assuming that "poof" is the real answer?

raven

Unregistered

Posted: Aug. 08 2007,11:21

<blockquote>davison:

Sexual reproduction is incompatible with creative evolution. etc..</blockquote>

Quite a collection of false statements.

The purpose of sexual recombination is the exact opposite of what you stated. By allowing adaptive mutations to reshuffle into the same organism, it facilitates evolution. This is thought to be why it even exists. It certainly isn't necessary for reproduction per se. Even higher animals like lizards can reproduce asexually.

Sexual reproduction and evolution is responsible for all that came before us and all that exists today, and all that will exist. Despite your disrespect and antipathy for sex, without it, the lineage leading to you would still most likely be a single bacterial cell.

Bonus factoid: Shuffling of alleles is so important that most organisms do it including bacteria and even viruses.

k.e.

Unregistered

Posted: Aug. 08 2007,11:21

Raven falls for Davidson's taunt.

<quote>The purpose of sexual recombination is the exact opposite of what you stated. By allowing adaptive mutations to reshuffle into the same organism, it facilitates evolution. This is thought to be why it even exists. It certainly isn’t necessary for reproduction per se. Even higher animals like lizards can reproduce asexually.

</quote>

Or the reproduction of gods, especially in the case when humans have sex with gods. The Greeks were absolute buggers for having sex with gods (as were their gods of course) and there was Mary, who was a virgin you know. This form of sex is called Devine sex and the most recent case of it has recorded it happened through the window of a rental BMW in Hollywood with Hugh Grant. It was in all the papers. It's not known exactly when Mary stopped being a virgin and she may still actually be one. Gods work in mysterious ways and there are recorded instances (in Hindoo scripture) where mythical yogis have had sex with mortals who remained virgins after the act, which adds a new twist to birth control. Obviously with DNA testing nowadays establishing paternity with a surety approaching the cruelness of vice grips on your short and curlies that kind of spoils one of my favorite pick up lines.

Glen Davidson

Unregistered

Posted: Aug. 08 2007,11:21

Not...feed...troll.

JAD is among the worst of the trolls, and he'll repeat the same refuted BS over and over until he dies (note: he has nothing else to do).

Refuting it all yet again is worse than useless, it feeds his martyr/Luther-standing-against-the-pope (leave it to him to bring in a religious "martyr"---not the lie-about-your-religion IDist, the only virtue I've found in him) delusions. Even he doesn't fully believe that horseshit, but a snort of booze and some anger, and it'll work well enough for hours.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

Glen Davidson

Unregistered

Posted: Aug. 08 2007,11:21

<quote>Raven falls for Davidson’s taunt.</quote>

Not Davidson.

Evolution was a phenomenon only of the distant past (so says JAD), hence it is not allowed for Davison to evolve into Davidson. In this case alone I agree with Davison's prohibitions against present-day evolution.

Glen D
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Posted: Aug. 09 2007,07:10

[Graffiti moved to Bathroom Wall. -Admin]

Hi RedDot. Welcome back.

I have a few questions that you've neglected to answer. I'm sure it's just an oversight on your part, and not an evasive attempt to avoid the questions. So I'll ask again. And again and again and again and again, every time you post anything here, as many times as I need to, until you either answer or run away.

*ahem*

How did the alleles on Noah's Ark increase from 16 per locus to over 700 per locus, in the space of just 4500 years, without any being added by mutations?

When all those creationists testified under oath that creationism is SCIENCE and is NOT based on any religious views or religious text, were they just lying to us?

Why do old-earth anti-evolution creationists think all the young-earth arguments are full of shit?

When did witches, uh, stop having supernatural powers. (snicker) (giggle) And how can you tell.

How did oak and pine trees get above Velociraptors in the geological column?

Why are leatherback turtles found only at the TOP of the geological column, and not at the BOTTOM as predicted by all the precepts of "flood geology"?

Where are the pre-Flood layers, and why don't we find the remains of all known organisms living simultaneously in them?

Why are the remains of human cities found high in the Flood sediment layers, and not in the bottom?

Where are the dead buried remains in the pre-Flood layers of all the humans whoi died before the Flood happened? Did the corpses all run for the high ground too?

Why don't coal, oil and gas companies hire Flood geologists to find coal, oil and gas deposits?

What is a "created kind", and what objective measures can we use to determine whether any two given organisms are or are not the same "kind"?

Geisler, Hovind and Ross all think that flying saucers come from the Devil. Do you agree with them?

If, as you say, no new species ever form, then why have we OBSERVED trhem forming, directly, both in the lab and in the wild, over 100 times?

How can creation "scientists" tell that the Cambrian layer is pre-Flood?

We find fossils in the Cambrian layer. Why don't we find any pre-Flood humans, dinosaurs, mammals, reptiles, birds and plants living happily side by side in the pre-flood world?

If buried humans decayed to nothing in just a year in the pre-flood world, why didn't they decay to nothing in just a year in the POST-flood world?

Why is it that we find fossilized dinosaur nests in the Flood sediments, which had time for the eggs to HATCH?

How did the flood waters become condensed into liquid water without releasing enough heat to boil Noah and his Really Big Boat?

Why is it that only fundamentalist Christians and fundamentalist Muslims conclude that the earth is 6,000 years old? Why don't Buddhist scientists in Japan or Taoist scientists in China examine the scientific evidence and conclude that the earth is just 6,000 years old?

You are a coward as well as a liar, Dot.

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VMartin

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Posted: Aug. 09 2007,11:13

David Stanton polemizes with John Davison:

Quote

Speciation continues to occur and there are now more species and families of organisms alive than there have ever been at any time in the past.

I don't know what kind of species and families do you have on your mind, but it is not the case of mammals. No mammalian order has aroused since Eocene - as Broom observed.

http://www.mun.ca/biology/scarr/Mammalian_Adaptive_Radiation.htm

But it's only a chart. One of the best preserved location when the phenomenon can be observed is John Day Fossil Beds National Monument.
These fossil beds contain a rare continuum of 50 million years of plant and animal history, compared with 2 million or 3 million years at better-known fossil beds.

Even if we accept a claim that mammalian Orders are only naming convention we can neverthenless see that greatest diversification of mammalian Families and even Genera(!) occurs:

The periodof 39 to 20 million years ago (John Day Forma-tion) seems to harbor the greatest diversity inknown fossils of families and genera. Current diversity of families and genera of the basin assess-ment area does not match that of this period...

Qutation and other interesting graphs is at:

www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/gtr_410/pg069-79.pdf

Perissodactyls were once much more diverse...
Only seventeen species of perissodactyls remain on the Earth today, a shadow of the group's former glory.

etc...etc...

So I see Broom's observation that "evolutionary clock has so completely run down" the well supported claim nowadays. Interpretation of the fact that no new mammalian Order aroused for great time period from Eocene and that mammalian diversity �seems to be fading �suggests some "predetermined internal factors" behind evolution.

So the John Davison's claim is well supported by scientific research, even if you think otherwise.

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I could not answer, but should maintain my ground.-
Charles Darwin

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Posted: Aug. 09 2007,11:36

<satire>
Golly, as long as we're going to turn paleontology into anecdotes, why not go whole hog?

Trilobite diversity (see figure near bottom) that shows peak diversity occurred in the late Cambrian, and extinction of the group occurred in the end Permian mass extinction. Obviously this supports Davison's thesis, and evolution actually stopped at the end of the Permian period. Nothing of particular interest happened after that.

</satire>

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"You can't teach an old dogma new tricks." - Dorothy Parker

stevestory

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Posted: Aug. 09 2007,11:43

Quote (VMartin @ Aug. 09 2007,12:13)

David Stanton polemizes

he whats?

VMartin

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Joined: Nov. 2006

Posted: Aug. 09 2007,13:04

I adressed only the first part of Broom thoughts quoted in John Davison's Manifesto. Broom continues:

Quote

What is equally remarkable, no new types of birds appear
to have evolved in the last 30,000,000 years. And most
remarkable of all, no new family of plants appears to have evolved since the Eocene. All major evolution has apparently come to an end. No new types of fishes, no groups of molluscs, or worms or starfishes, no new groups even of insects, appear to have been evolved in these latter 30,000,000 years.

Finding the Missing Link
(1951), page 107

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I could not answer, but should maintain my ground.-
Charles Darwin

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Posted: Aug. 09 2007,13:40

I see lots of inane cherry-picking and taxon juggling in the stuff VMartin is quoting. I'm not seeing anything that leads to Davison's grand conclusions, though.

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"You can't teach an old dogma new tricks." - Dorothy Parker

VMartin

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Joined: Nov. 2006

Posted: Aug. 09 2007,14:07

I suppose it is not correct to call quoted Robert Broom opinions as "cherry-picking and taxon juggling". Robert was South Africa's most prestigious paleontologist of the early 20th Century. He is also widely regarded for his discovery of the first robust australopithecine specimen in 1938, and, in 1947, a partial skeleton instrumental in establishing bipedality in Australopithecus africanus.

From 1903 to 1910 he was professor of zo� and geology at Victoria College, Stellenbosch, South Africa, and subsequently he became keeper of vertebrate palaeontology at the South African Museum, Cape Town.

Quote

I'm not seeing anything that leads to Davison's grand conclusions, though.

It is not only Davison's conclusion. He quoted Julian Huxley correspondence with Broom:

Quote

And a few zoologists are beginning to recognize that evolution is slowing down, if not quite stopped. In a letter I had from Professor Julian Huxley only a few months ago he says, �I have often thought about your idea of the fading out of evolutionary potency, and though I cannot pretend to agree with some of the philosophical corollaries which you draw from it, I more and more believe that it is of great importance as
a fact.

�Evolution � Is there intelligence
Behind It?� (1933), page 14

According Julian Huxley slowing down of evolution is a fact.

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I could not answer, but should maintain my ground.-
Charles Darwin

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Posted: Aug. 09 2007,14:23

Authorities are authoritative, I suppose, if the evidence continues to support their conclusions. In science, though, the evidence is primary, not the credentials.

We know a bit more about the state of the evidence these days than they did in the early 20th century. It doesn't support the notion that evolution has stopped.

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"You can't teach an old dogma new tricks." - Dorothy Parker

stevestory

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Posted: Aug. 09 2007,15:02

Quote (VMartin @ Aug. 09 2007,14:04)

I adressed only the first part of Broom thoughts quoted in John Davison's Manifesto.

I recommend hearing that word the way Charles Nelson Reilly pronounces it in the x-files episode "Jose Chung's From Outer Space".

"Man-ih-fesss-towwwwwwww"

VMartin

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Joined: Nov. 2006

Posted: Aug. 09 2007,15:05

Dobzhansky about Pierre Grasse:

Quote

Now one can disagree with Grasse but not ignore him. He is the most distinguished of French zoologists, the editor of the 28 volumes of Traite de Zoologie, author of numerous original investigations, and ex-president of the Academie des Sciences. His knowledge of the living world is encyclopedic.

Pierre Grasse, the man of the encyclopedic knowledge came to the same conclusion 30 years ago:

Quote

Facts are facts; no new broad organizational plan has appeared for several hundred million years, and for an equally long time numerous species, animal as well as plant, have ceased evolving. � At best, present evolutionary phenomena are simply slight changes of genotypes within populations, or substitution of an allele with a new one.

Evolution of Living Organisms
(1977), page 84

----------------------

Especially instructive is also this observation of Grasse . We discussed �with some people here also "incipient speciation" of dogs in another thread btw.

Quote

The genic differences noted between separate populations of the same species that are so often presented as evidence of ongoing evolution are, above all, a case of the adjustment of a population to its habitat and of the effects of genetic drift. The fruitfly (drosophila melanogaster), the favorite pet insect of the geneticists, whose geographical, biotropical, urban, and rural genotypes are now known inside out, seems not to have changed since the remotest times.{2}

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I could not answer, but should maintain my ground.-
Charles Darwin

IanBrown_101

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Posted: Aug. 09 2007,17:38

Quote (VMartin @ Aug. 09 2007,15:05)

Dobzhansky about Pierre Grasse:

Quote

Now one can disagree with Grasse but not ignore him. He is the most distinguished of French zoologists, the editor of the 28 volumes of Traite de Zoologie, author of numerous original investigations, and ex-president of the Academie des Sciences. His knowledge of the living world is encyclopedic.

Pierre Grasse, the man of the encyclopedic knowledge came to the same conclusion 30 years ago:

Quote

Facts are facts; no new broad organizational plan has appeared for several hundred million years, and for an equally long time numerous species, animal as well as plant, have ceased evolving. � At best, present evolutionary phenomena are simply slight changes of genotypes within populations, or substitution of an allele with a new one.

Evolution of Living Organisms
(1977), page 84

----------------------

Especially instructive is also this observation of Grasse . We discussed with some people here also "incipient speciation" of dogs in another thread btw.

Quote

The genic differences noted between separate populations of the same species that are so often presented as evidence of ongoing evolution are, above all, a case of the adjustment of a population to its habitat and of the effects of genetic drift. The fruitfly (drosophila melanogaster), the favorite pet insect of the geneticists, whose geographical, biotropical, urban, and rural genotypes are now known inside out, seems not to have changed since the remotest times.{2}

Rad! Hey, guess what? That new "disco" music is really cool, now lets strap on our skates and hop in VMartins TIME MACHINE.

Dear lord alive.

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I'm not the fastest or the baddest or the fatest.

You NEVER seem to address the fact that the grand majority of people supporting Darwinism in these on line forums and blogs are atheists. That doesn't seem to bother you guys in the least. - FtK

Roddenberry is my God.

carlsonjok

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Posted: Aug. 09 2007,18:08

Quote (IanBrown_101 @ Aug. 09 2007,17:38)

Rad! Hey, guess what? That new "disco" music is really cool, now lets strap on our skates and hop in VMartins TIME MACHINE.

Dear lord alive.

Is there a resemblance? You be the judge.

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It's natural to be curious about our world, but the scientific method is just one theory about how to best understand it. �We live in a democracy, which means we should treat every theory equally. - Steven Colbert, I Am America (and So Can You!)

Arden Chatfield

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