News you won't see in controlled mainstream media.

I have been considering a response to the post from Russ here called "The evolution of man scientifically disproved in 50 arguments." It's also been regurgi-posted by Claythrow. A conscientious response would take quite a while to write up and I'm wondering who would read something so ponderous.

To be fair, the document is almost 80 years old and it shows, and the author's own ignorance of science also shows. There have been many discoveries and new theories in many different branches of science and knowledge since then, laying bare a large number of glaring factual inaccuracies in the document. A few of its ideas have already been refuted in other posts and threads here. If no one really wants to engage in a good discussion I might go back to it, but what I'd really like is to talk about something more contemporary -- if it's possible for the creationists to give it. I've seen several assertions here that have been known to be false for so long that even some creationist organisations advise against attempting to use them in any debate.

Here is something more succinct to start with perhaps -- a set of assertions posted by Russ that purport to explain how evolution is a deception. He wrote:

"Virtually ALL genetic mutations are harmful and destructive, not beneficial. This alone should give thinking persons an idea about how incredibly unlikely—virtually impossible—evolution really is.

The theory of evolution contradicts the established second law of thermodynamics.

If evolution is true, we would have found a myriad of transitional forms by now.

Common sense completely refutes that evolution could occur, even in the most fundamental stages.”

OK first, about mutations. Most mutations occur at a molecular level. Most of the time they have no perceptible effect at all, or are fatal (thus the animal would not survive to reproduce). Occasionally a beneficial one occurs. Sometimes this benefit can sweep through a population quite quickly. If you take a large population of organisms over a period of time, then it's not so surprising that beneficial mutations can eventually occur. Indeed this has been seen to be the case with, as an example, bacteria that become resistant to antibiotics. This process has been observed from start to finish in lab cultures. Many creationists seem to accept microevolutionary events like this; without a limiting factor, what is to stop microevolution from becoming macroevolution over time?

Back to mutations -- almost all mutations which aren’t “silent” and which aren’t eliminated immediately are neither completely advantageous nor deleterious. The mutation produces a slightly different protein, and the cell and the living organism work slightly differently. Whether the mutation is helpful or harmful depends on the environment. It could be either.

Russ said,
"The theory of evolution contradicts the established second law of thermodynamics."

Difficult to know how to answer this without knowing where it's coming from -- this is one that's gone many rounds, many years, in creationist circles. There appears to be a misconception here about thermodynamics. I take it that this statement applies to the law when it is stated thus: "The entropy of a closed system cannot decrease." Entropy is an indication of unusable energy and often, but not always, corresponds to intuitive notions of disorder or randomness. Creationists appear to misinterpret the 2nd law to say that things invariably progress from order to disorder.

However, they neglect the fact that life is not a closed system. The sun provides more than enough energy to drive things. If a mature tomato plant can have more usable energy than the seed it grew from, why should anyone expect that the next generation of tomatoes can't have more usable energy still? Maybe a creationist could try to get around this by claiming that the information carried by living things lets them create order. However, not only is life irrelevant to the 2nd law, but order from disorder is common in nonliving systems, too. Snowflakes, sand dunes, tornadoes, stalactites, graded river beds, and lightning are just a few examples of order coming from disorder in nature; none require an intelligent program to achieve that order. In any nontrivial system with lots of energy flowing through it, you are almost certain to find order arising somewhere in the system. If order from disorder is supposed to violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics, why is it ubiquitous in nature?

Russ said:
"If evolution is true, we would have found a myriad of transitional forms by now."

And indeed we have. It's just that the Creationist Overlords have drummed it into their flock that we haven't. The evidence is all out there guys. I was recently discussing the transitional forms of whales here. Are there other transitional forms anyone would like to discuss? The fossil record is not complete, fossils are only produced under certain conditions and then they have to survive intact long enough to be found by lucky chance -- but given those difficult circumstances, the fossil record is rich and diverse, and is becoming more so all the time.

Russ said:
"Common sense completely refutes that evolution could occur, even in the most fundamental stages."

Would you like to give some evidence to support this? Because when evolution is clearly understood, is makes beautiful sense. It's just that some people want to listen to what the Creationist Masters say and won't listen to what science says; couple this with their determination to believe every word in the Bible to be literal truth, and it's perhaps understandable that their "common sense" radars need tuning.

If you are interested in reading, Russ, or anyone else, the following post is a fascinating article that discusses some metaphors that have been used to illustrate some of the ideas I’ve seen here: that certain things could not have evolved because they are “irreducibly complex,” that evolution itself is highly improbable, etc. I love metaphorical language and I loved this. Maybe this will help dispel a little more of the incredulity here? (I doubt it but why not be positive about these things LOL.)

Metaphors on Trial
or, How did the Groundhog Cross the Road?
by John Pieret
Copyright © 2003

Arguments by analogy or metaphor, when used correctly, are both valid and illuminating. For example, a crucial argument made by Charles Darwin in support of evolution was the analogy between 'artificial selection' by breeders and 'natural selection' by the environment. But such arguments must be internally valid and consistent, as well as carefully crafted so that the analogy truly corresponds to the points purportedly being made.

Analogies and metaphors have long been a staple of creationists, especially in regard to the supposed "gulfs" between species, which they claim gradualistic evolution cannot bridge. More recently, the proponents of "Intelligent Design" have taken up the practice with a vengeance. Michael Behe, in particular, is fond of this style of argument and has extended numerous analogies and metaphors in his book, Darwin's Black Box [1], not least of which is his famous (or infamous, depending on your viewpoint) metaphor of "the mousetrap." Much has already been written on that analogy and Keith Robison's article in the Talk Origins Archives, "Darwin's Black Box, Irreducible Complexity or Irreproducible Irreducibility?" [2], is a good starting point for those wishing to explore the mousetrap metaphor more fully. This article will be looking at other analogies used by the advocates of Intelligent Design.

Recently, William Dembski has responded with an argument by analogy to an online article by Kenneth Miller [3] which, ironically, attacks one of Behe's (at least ostensibly) non-metaphorical arguments: namely, that the eubacterial flagellum is "irreducibly complex." The actual details of Miller's article and Dembski's counter argument are not crucial here. Briefly, Miller points to the "type III secretory system" (TTSS) of bacteria as evidence that the flagellum may not be irreducibly complex. One way disease causing bacteria attack their hosts is by the production of protein toxins. However, in addition to producing the toxins, they must also efficiently inject them across cell membranes into the hosts. The TTSS is a specialized protein secretory system that allows the bacteria to move proteins directly into the cytoplasm of a host cell.

Miller points out, though, that "the proteins of the TTSS are directly homologous to the proteins in the basal portion of the bacterial flagellum." In other words, it is not unreasonable to suppose that, even if the flagellum had major portions removed, the basal portion would still be able to operate as the TTSS presently does, leaving it with a function having a distinct evolutionary advantage. In other words, the flagellum is reducible without losing its benefit to the organism.

Dembski, in his online retort, advances the following metaphor:

. . . [F]inding a subsystem of a functional system that performs some other function is hardly an argument for the original system evolving from that other system . . . What's needed is a complete evolutionary path and not merely a possible oasis along the way. To claim otherwise is like saying we can travel by foot from Los Angeles to Tokyo because we've discovered the Hawaiian Islands. Evolutionary biology needs to do better than that. [4]
Not surprisingly, this bears distinct similarities to two of Behe's metaphors from Darwin's Black Box. The first of these is Behe's "backyard canyon" [5]:

Suppose a 4-foot-wide ditch in your backyard, running to the horizon in both directions, separates your property from that of your neighbor's. If one day you met him in your yard and asked how he got there, you would have no reason to doubt the answer, "I jumped over the ditch." If the ditch were 8 feet wide and he gave the same answer, you would be impressed with his athletic ability. If the ditch were 15 feet wide, you might become suspicious and ask him to jump again while you watched; if he declined, pleading a sprained knee, you would harbor your doubts but wouldn't be certain that he was just telling a tale. If the "ditch" were actually a canyon 100 feet wide, however, you would not entertain for a moment the bald assertion that he jumped across.

But suppose your neighbor -- a clever man -- qualifies his claim. He did not come across in one jump. Rather, he says, in the canyon there were a number of buttes, no more than 10 feet apart from one another; he jumped from one narrowly spaced butte to another to reach your side. Glancing toward the canyon, you tell your neighbor that you see no buttes, just a wide chasm separating your yard from his. He agrees, but explains that it took him years and years to come over. During that time buttes occasionally arose in the chasm, and he progressed as they popped up. After he left a butte it, usually, eroded pretty quickly and crumbled back into the canyon. Very dubious, but with no easy way to prove him wrong, you change the subject to baseball.

This little story teaches several lessons. first, the word jump can be offered as an explanation of how someone crossed a barrier, but the explanation can range from completely convincing to totally inadequate depending on details (such as how wide the barrier is). Second, long journeys can be made much more plausible if they are explained as a series of smaller jumps rather than one great leap. And third, in the absence of evidence of such smaller jumps, it is very difficult to prove right or wrong someone who asserts that stepping stones existed in the past but have disappeared.
Before going further, it should be noted that both these metaphors have a number of problems. As Miller states in his article (in anticipation of the counterattack by the Intelligent Design proponents), the arguments advanced by design advocates boil down to an 'argument from ignorance,' as well as an 'argument from personal incredulity.' They start with a claim (not always correct) that we do not presently know how evolution could account for a particular structure or function and then proceed to allege that the situation (which is often manipulated to make the "problem" seem more intractable than it is) is such that there is no conceivable way for biology to 'get here from there.' It is a double dose of logical fallacy.

Worse, their thesis, that we must posit an unknown "designer" every time we do not presently know of "a complete evolutionary path" for some structure labeled as "irreducibly complex", not only commits obvious logical errors, but is, in fact, a recipe to insure that any such gaps in our knowledge are never filled. If science were to adopt the "design hypothesis" as a methodology, what reason would there be to continue looking for the missing evolutionary path, since the answer already lies in an unknowable "designer"? To forgo the search for such answers, merely because of the failure of the imagination of a Dembski or a Behe, would be a tragedy.

Now that it can be seen that these analogies contain their own internal faults, let us turn to the larger question of how well crafted these analogies are and whether they truly correspond to the points they are purportedly making.

Neither Dembski nor Behe is engaging in novel arguments here. Stephen Jay Gould, in his article, "Hooking Leviathan by Its Past" [6], discussing the then recent discoveries of Pakicetus attocki, Indocetus ramani and Ambulocetus natans, pointed out:


Every creationist book on my shelf actually cites the absence of and inherent inconceivability of transitional forms between terrestrial mammals and whales. Alan Haywood, for example, writes in his Creation and Evolution [Haywood, Alan 1985. Creation and Evolution. London: Triangle Books]:
Darwinists rarely mention the whale because it presents them with one of their most insoluble problems. They believe that somehow a whale must have evolved from an ordinary land-dwelling animal, which took to the sea and lost its legs . . . A land mammal that was in the process of becoming a whale would fall between two stools -- it would not be fitted for life on land or at sea, and would have no hope for survival.
The only "novelty" to Behe's approach in Darwin's Black Box is that he has moved the contention from the macro- to the micro-world. Despite the attempts of Intelligent Design proponents to distance themselves from creationists, it is clear that the analogies of Dembski and Behe are carrying on in a grand old tradition of creationist rhetoric.

Of course, as Gould was pointing out in the above article (with more than a little glee), such arguments are subject to having the alleged "gaps" filled by new discoveries. Amusingly, in addition to whatever discomfort the TTSS may cause him, Behe previously had fallen prey to the whales. Shortly before the announcement of the finds of the intermediaries between the land dwelling ancestors of the whales (then thought to be the Mesonychids) and the previously known intermediary, Basilosaurus isis, Behe wrote:

. . . [I]f random evolution is true, there must have been a large number of transitional forms between the Mesonychid and the ancient whale. Where are they? It seems like quite a coincidence that of all the intermediate species that must have existed between the Mesonychidand whale, only species that are very similar to the end species have been found. [7]

It must have been disconcerting to Behe when, within just a few months of that statement, a trio of just such transitionals were disclosed (and which have been added to since). As shown by Dembski's defense to Miller's article, however, the Intelligent Design adherents are as immune to embarrassment as their creationist compatriots. Indeed, as noted by Miller, in his online article:



. . . [T]he response of anti-evolutionists to such discoveries is frequently to claim that things have only gotten worse for evolution. Where previously there had been just one gap, as a result of the transitional fossil, now there are two (one on either side of the newly-discovered specimen) . . . The TTSS only makes problems worse for evolution, according to this response, because now there are two irreducibly-complex systems to deal with. The flagellum is still irreducibly complex – but so is the TTSS. But now there are two systems for evolutionists to explain instead of just one.

Clearly, Dembski's implication that discovering the link between the TTSS and the flagellum is like discovering the Hawaiian Islands, halfway between Los Angeles and Tokyo, is intended to imply just such a second gap.

Whatever anyone may think about their arguments that such irreducibly complex gaps may exist, the creationists' analogies are disingenuous because they build conceptual gaps into their very premise. Whether it is Haywood's "stools", Dembski's "islands" or Behe's "buttes", all these metaphors carry, within their own structure, the concept that evolution must proceed by "jumping" between one discontinuous living form and another. However, if the analogies were really intended to correspond to what evolution posits, they would model life as a continuum extending, without break, from the earliest living thing to what we see around us today. The fact that they do not, demonstrates that it is these metaphors that are "designed." They are specifically fashioned to imply the very discontinuities the proponents want to see; the "barriers" Behe talks about. They fail as demonstrations of conceptual problems within evolutionary theory, as they purport to be, because the analogies do not fairly model what evolutionary theory proposes. This is a form of the logical fallacy of 'begging the question'.

Another example of this is Behe's analogy about groundhogs crossing a road [8]. This analogy is a little subtler than his first one. Here he does not propose an analogy that already obviously contains the very "gaps" he is arguing for, as he did with the buttes, but, instead, talks of contiguous "lanes" of a highway. In the end, though, is there any difference?

Robert T. Pennock, in his book Tower of Babel [9], deals extensively with Behe's groundhog analogy and its failure to correctly model the actual underlying mechanisms of evolution. Thanks to his kind permission, Dr. Pennock's analysis will be quoted at length:

In a chapter entitled "Road Kill," Behe replays the story of unbridgeable chasms [raised in his "backyard canyon" analogy], this time with a tale of a groundhog trying to cross lanes of traffic, which purportedly illustrates a problem for evolution. He begins with a description of the automotive dangers groundhogs face even on a quiet rural road.
Usually you're driving along . . . when all of a sudden a small, round shape waddles out of the darkness into your lane. At that point all you can do is grit your teeth and wait for the bump. . . . The next morning all that's left is a little stain on the road, other cars have obliterated the carcass. Nature red in tooth, claw, and tarmac.

In Behe's next image the road has turned into the Schuylkill Expressway which is "eight or ten lanes wide in certain stretches" with thousands of times the volume of traffic. One can predict the next extension of the metaphor.

Suppose you were a groundhog sitting by the side of a road several hundred times wider than the Schuylkill Expressway. There are a thousand lanes going east and a thousand lanes going west, each filled with trucks, sports cars, and minivans doing the speed limit. Your groundhog sweetheart is on the other side, inviting you to come over. You notice that the remains of your rivals in love are mostly in lane one, with some in lane two, and a few dotted out to lanes three and four; there are none beyond that. Furthermore, the romantic rule is that you must keep your eyes closed during the journey. . . . You see the chubby brown face of your sweetie smiling, the little whiskers wiggling, the soft eyes beckoning. You hear the eighteen-wheelers screaming. And all you can do is close your eyes and pray.
This supposedly illustrates a basic problem for gradualistic evolution, which would maintain that the highway was not crossed all at once but one lane at a time. Behe says he has a better explanation -- God's intelligent design. Better? Let us put it in terms of Behe's story to see how the intelligent-design "theorist" must imagine how the groundhog crossed this uncrossable highway. According to IDCs, God's design is necessarily for a purpose, so we must suppose that the groundhog and his sweetie must literally have been a match made in heaven. Taking Behe's metaphor to its logical conclusion, what his alternative "explanation" comes to is just this: God must have sent down Cupid to fly the lovesick little fellow over to his sweetie. Even if we were to agree that the odds were greatly stacked against the groundhog's crossing the highway on his own, surely this is still a more reasonable working hypothesis than to jump to the conclusion that he got across by some divine airlift. . . .

Up to this point, I have accepted Behe's analogies and criticized them as presented, but I now want to suggest that they are not just misleading but also betray a fundamental misunderstanding of Darwinian mechanisms. Behe has made a terrible blunder in both of these two critical analogies.

Remember, his analogies are intended to function as criticisms of gradualistic Darwinian evolution. In both stories Behe describes a single organism who has either just purportedly crossed or is about to try to cross a seemingly impossible evolutionary gap -- the neighbor by jumping from one temporary butte to another across a canyon, the groundhog by setting out to meet his sweetie. However, according to evolutionary theory it is not individual organisms but populations of organisms that evolve. As we have seen previously, it is this mistake that makes some people think that evolution is wrong because we never see dogs changing into cats. We cannot think that Behe's groundhog is supposed to stand in the analogy for a population, for in the story we see others from his population, his sweetie waiting on the other side, and the carcasses of his dead rivals that litter the first few lanes of the 2,000 lane highway he must cross to meet her. One might forgive Behe this minor infidelity, but he compounds it by inexplicably leaving out of the analogy all of the very elements that do the explanatory work for Darwinian gradualism. Keeping in mind that it is a population that evolves, recall how the Darwinian processes operate: on the average those individuals in the population who are even slightly more fit to their environment will have a better chance than others to survive, reproduce, and thus pass on those fit characteristics to their offspring, who will then repeat the process, followed by their slightly fitter offspring, and so on. So how should Behe have told the story to make it a fair analogy?

Instead of having our groundhog prayerfully inching out where angels fear to tread, toward his sweetie, and past the dead bodies of his unsuccessful rivals strewn about the first few lanes of the superhighway, to represent the Darwinian picture correctly Behe should have had Mr. and Mrs. Groundhog and the whole great population of groundhogs striking out en masse. Behe is right that most would not survive even the first lane and if they continued straight on then fewer and fewer would be left after each lane. But wait . . . gradualistic evolution does not claim that a population just heads across a gap in this way. Rather it observes that Mr. and Mrs. Groundhog and those of their fellows who have successfully made it past the first lane (perhaps because they stepped just a little quicker than those who failed to make it) stop to have a bunch of kids. With the population now more or less returned to its former numbers, Ma and Pa then retire and leave the second generation to tackle lane two. The casualties still will be legion, but this time the whole group starts off being on average a bit fleeter of foot than the previous. Again, those whose slightly fitter characteristics allow them to survive the second lane and reproduce yield the race across lane three to the third generation. With each generation, new variations arise, and though in many cases these will hinder rather than help in the race, those few with useful new traits (not just increased swiftness but perhaps also sneakiness, better hearing, larger litters, and so on) will likely carry them forward to their offspring and in this way each generation -- naturally selected by the traffic -- will turn out to be better adapted to their dangerous environment. Mr. and Mrs. Groundhog never themselves cross the entire superhighway; it is their distant descendants, now quite modified, who will be found on the other side. If these descendants were to look back after their journey at the descendants of other groundhogs from the original population who never moved out into the highway environment, many would no doubt find it hard to believe that they are related as cousins to those slow and dim-witted creatures. However, one of them might, if he could, write a daring book like Behe's and argue that they are in fact descended from a common ancestor, but that their journey across was literally, and not just metaphorically, miraculous.

So, in this second case, Behe tilts the analogy not so much by building in multiple gaps for evolving organisms to cross, with some or all of them having to land at "irreducibly complex" states (and, therefore, unable to get "there" from "here"), but by making it appear that evolution has one, and only one, chance to cross an exaggerated gap in a single leap. The outcome is the same, however: a gap that cannot be bridged by "evolution" because it is not the theory of evolution that the analogy sets out to represent but, rather, a caricature. Giving Behe the benefit of all doubt, his analogy is, at least, so inept as to have, as its only virtue, its rhetorical effect. Unfortunately, Behe, Dembski and the other Intelligent Design advocates have had much success in this regard, out of all proportion to the value of the analogies and metaphors themselves.

These are, I believe, along with "the mousetrap," just the tip of the misleading metaphor iceberg Intelligent Design has calved. There are myriad examples Behe, Dembski, et al. have provided that can, and should be, shown for what they are: intellectual three card monte games.


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

[1] Behe, Michael 1996. Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution. New York: The Free Press.

[2] See, <http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/behe/review.html>.

[3] See, "The Flagellum Unspun, The Collapse of 'Irreducible Complexity'" at <http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/design2/article.html>.

[4] See, "Still Spinning Just Fine: A Response to Ken Miller", at <http://www.designinference.com/documents/2003.02.Miller_Response.htm>.

[5] Behe, Darwin's Black Box, p. 13 - 14.

[6] Gould, Stephen Jay 1995. "Hooking Leviathan by Its Past" Dinosaur in a Haystack. New York: Harmony Books, p. 361-362. Also, see online at: < http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_leviathan.html>.

[7] Behe, Michael, "Experimental Support for Regarding Functional Classes of Proteins to Be Highly Isolated from Each Other." In Darwinism, Science or Philosophy? (Buell, J., and Ahern, eds.). Richardson, TX: Foundation for Thought and Ethics, 1994. Also, see online at: < http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/fte/darwinism/chapter6.html>.

[8] Behe, Darwin's Black Box, p. 141.

[9] Pennock, Robert T. 1999. Tower of Babel: The Evidence Against the New Creationism. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, p. 168 - 170.

Note the absence of any answers from the local anti-science troll.

They tend to behave like that. Always on the offensive. Never have anything to back their crap up.

If you would like to continue believing that rocks turn into complex, symmetrical, self-reproducing organisms given time, you can certainly continue to do that. You simply need to consider that this is exactly what the evolution magic-myth is asking you to believe and it is not supported by science.

When you finally do your homework and research each argument that supposedly supports evolution, you will discover that they are empty, hollow and baseless. They are speculation and what is really amazing is that people continue to parrot these superstitions and myths.



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I notice that you did not say what you think evolution is, nor refute any points made in the two posts above. Instead you just made a bland assertion that

and then posted a video as if it is evidence of reality?

SO, let's cut out some of the malarky that's going on here: define evolution in your words, so we can see if it is correct. We'll start there ... it is the topic after all eh?

Enjoy.

Quote:You simply need to consider that this is exactly what the evolution magic-myth is asking you to believe and it is not supported by science.

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

And creationism is supported by science?¿

Let me put it this way...


One of the most important points I've been attempting to convey all along is this:

When people attempt to tell a lie that is so obviously a lie, the only intellectual tactic they can resort to is "distraction". If they are desperate, they will often resort to character assassination as well.

This distraction—in order to be effective—must be so overwhelming in quantity so as to cause the one being deceived (the target) to completely forget the basic facts of the lie—the fundamentals. The target must be continuously distracted from the obvious fundamental truth because if they were allowed to think about it for enough time, they would realize how obvious it is that they are being lied to. Of course, this is much easier to accomplish if the target is a willing subject, in which case you only need to appeal to the predispositions of the victim, and these predispositions themselves can be shaped through youthful conditioning.

This tactic of "distraction" is what I call "magic" because it is the same tactic used my magicians.

Magicians (illusionists) make you look over "there" so you don't consider the obvious thing that must be going on over "here". They do this to create an illusion. The marketing of evolution uses this very tactic to promote it's wares for the ultimate profit of its promoters (covered in another thread).

With this in mind, let's reexamine is the fundamental truth in this entire discussion about evolution.

Here is the distraction:

We have been told about about butterflies and moths and cosmic molecules and signaling molecules and transitional forms and mutations over and over again, but the simple, fundamental problem with the logic behind both rock-to-cell and cell-to-man evolution is this:

Science—being at its core, the discovery of the rules of nature—has not discovered rules that would facilitate the formation of complex, symmetrical, self-reproducing machines from known matter. In fact, science has not even begun to approach the level of discovery that would be required to facilitate even the smallest steps of evolution.

Let me give you an example and attempt to make this concept clear.

There are rules that exist in nature that consistently cause hydrogen and oxygen molecules to bond. These rules are well-known and act very consistently. (See Hydrogen Bond)

They are relatively simple rules (to the chemist anyway) that cause many known reactions to occur between hydrogen and other compounds. These rules are so well known that it is possible to predict how hydrogen will react in a given chemical environment.

Now, we also know the resulting condition brought about by these rules, and that is—these rules that cause these simple bonds do not cause the formation of complex machines. We know this because our level of understanding of these rules—which is so thorough that it allows us to make accurate predictions about hydrogen bonding—understands what their limits are.

To attempt to simplify this concept even further, lets say you have a lego set, and in this set there are only 20 types of blocks. Now there are most certainly rules associated with each type of block that dictate how these blocks join together.

With these rules in place, there are many wonderful things that you can make, but you will never be able to make a book with turning pages and intelligible type on each page. It's impossible to do because you are limited by the rules that govern how each type of block can fit together, and by the block shape, size, and color itself.

Now, we have to bring this example into a more biological scope.

We would all agree that the pieces of matter that are the building blocks of a human body can be fit together to make a human body. We all would agree that this is so because we can see human bodies and we can see that they are made of of all these natural "lego" blocks.

But then, when we translate this example from the realm of the lego to the realm of biological life, we are no longer asking the question:

Can these building blocks be put together to create a human body?

Instead, we are asking the question:

What is the process that put these building blocks together?

And so, that is the subject of evolution: the process.

In our example about the lego blocks, there was clearly an intelligent being assembling the parts together and anyone who would see a small toy house built out of lego blocks would have to agree that this house did not form in the lego shipping container while the container was being delivered to someone's house. It was assembled by an external intelligence—an intelligence external to the house itself.

We would all agree that no matter how much the shipping container was shaken, even if it was shaken for decades, a beautiful toy house will never self-assemble.

Now, the really interesting part to consider is this following idea:

The rules that allow a house to assemble are already in place, they do exist.. In other words, we know that you can create a toy house from the parts, and we know this because the rules that allow the pieces to come together will allow this (we've tried it and seen the house we've built), but what we learn when we shake the shipping container for decades and never see a house form teaches us that these rules which cause the pieces to come together are simply not enough in-and-of-themselves to form the house. This process—shaking—just doesn't do it. There must be something more.

So we have to ask ourselves:

What kind of rules would have to exist in order for this shaking process (a "random" process) to form something complex, like a toy house?

Well, we might need to make legos that have some kind of special snapping hinge on them so that certain types of the 20 lego blocks only join together a certain way. Of course, this hinge would have to be perfectly designed to work and join and not break under the conditions of the shaking. There might also need to be another kind of connector on another kind of lego block that allows a different kind of block to join together a certain way, again, carefully designed so it will work in the particular environment it is in but without breaking.

Now this process of developing these hinges and connectors in just the right places and at just the right angles to allow lego blocks to join together to form a toy house when they are all put into a shipping container and shaken together would be a daunting task, in fact, it may be very nearly impossible because not only do the legos have to fit together the right way to make a house, with the random process of shaking their container, there is no guarantee that they will join in just the right places, in the right order, with the right force to form the toy house, and all this without breaking.

However, you say, with all these hinges and connectors, you would certainly end up with something that has some degree of complexity, and this is most certainly the case. You would likely end up with something that is agreeably complex to some degree, but you would virtually never end up with something that is complex and symmetrical. Yes, you may end up with 3 or 4 parts (simple) that join together in a symmetrical fashion, but the probability that the 5th or 6th part is going to join together in just the right fashion so as to make the resulting structure symmetrical diminishes exponentially with each new part.

Now, lets say we were really smart and wanted to join parts together using random processes (shaking) that would end up with a structure that would be able to reproduce new items just like itself. Well, this would be no easy task.

We should be able to see that one approach to solving this reproduction problem would be to build a toy house that contains a device that shakes a shipping container that contains lego blocks that eventually comes together by itself to form a toy house that contains a shipping container that contains lego blocks that eventually comes together by itself to form a toy house; and so on.

Now, using this demonstration using simple lego blocks that have a few associated rules, any intelligent person can see that accomplishing the task described above is virtually impossible. But even while we view the impossibility of this task, we have to consider one thing that was necessary to make this valiant effort possible:

We have to consider the fact that, throughout this entire process, there was an intelligence outside the device that was designing and then building the whole thing, and even with all this intelligence, this was a virtually impossible task.

At this point, an evolutionist would likely say that increasing the number of the types (or shapes) of lego blocks and increasing the number of hinges (rules governing processes) would increase the likelihood of producing a complex, symmetrical, self-reproducing machine.

The fundamental problem with this assumption is this:

Increasing the number of hinges actually decreases the likelihood of symmetry because now lego blocks can be joined at many more angles than before. This makes naturally-occurring symmetry far less likely.

But what if we increased the number and types of lego blocks that are in the shipping container. That would surely increase the likelihood of symmetry, right?

No. In fact, this also dramatically decreases the likelihood of symmetry because now there are even more chances that each block will be joined in a non-symmetrical way, and on top of this, each new block that is joined creates more opportunity for asymmetry (non-symmetry).

So, if you follow this example to the biological level and apply many types of elements and many type bonding rules for these small parts, the chance of symmetry occurring decreases exponentially and rapidly fades into oblivion.

The clear and simple conclusion is that it takes a very intelligent being to take building blocks that have numerous and flexible connection options to make complex, symmetrical, self-reproducing machines.

But now for the fun part: Magic.

The countless arguments that attempt to pull us away from these basic, fundamental truths—as contrived and inaccurate as so many of them are in reality—don't matter because of this simple premise of logic:

If it takes 3 steps to get from A to D (A->B, B->C, C->D) and if you can never take the first step (A->B), then all the other steps you dream about, wish for, or imagine don't matter one bit. The fact is, you're never going to get to B, much less D.

Because of the lack of bonding rules that support those that would be required for self-assembly, evolution could never even get off the ground. The only explanation is an intelligence that is external to the machine.

People who fall into the trap of evolutionary thinking are generally what are called emotionally-based—that is, they make a higher ratio of decisions based on emotions than do intellectually-based people. These emotionally-based people are just the kind of people who are able to be distracted by the magic of evolution's so-called details, and this causes them to forget the fundamentals.

Don't forget the fundamentals.

Now, there are so many other fundamental problems with evolution that people don't often talk about because they're caught up in the magic. One of them is transitional forms.

Fossils clearly show an abrupt appearance of complex, symmetrical, self-reproducing machines. This is crystal-clear evidence of intelligent design.

If evolution is occurring, then all fossils are transitional forms, and if this is the case, and if symmetry formed over time, why is there an ominous lack of non-symmetrical complex animals. How on Earth can you explain all this amazing and abrupt symmetry.

You can't because there is no natural explanation. There is only extremely frail speculation by emotionally-based evolutionists who continue to attempt to drown themselves in the magic to help themselves forget about the logic and reason staring them bluntly in the face.


"In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes: even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight."
—Luke 10:21


Children often see logic that evades the aged soul.

Why are you posting the exact same post over and over even though it has been refuted -- some of the points in it a number of times? Do you think you can win us over through hypnosis?

Y'all really are fuuun!


It's refreshing when someone is so open about creationist tactics. This manifesto describes the basic creationist modus operandi very well it seems. Tell me, Russ, you seem to post a number of repeated large posts, are you trying to give us a hint?

Now, the most common lie creationists tell is about the definition of evolution. This is persistent and pervasive, and it is done in quantity by the proponents of creationism, and they continue to repeat the lie even after they have been corrected. I have to wonder why - if creationism were true - would the proponents need to lie so often, so persistently and so pervasively and in such quantity. Of course it also helps when the target audience is so willing to believe they never check the facts or challenge the liars.

So the question is, do you want to talk about - reveal - the real definition of evolution -- the one (GASP) used in the science?

• Darwin's original statement in the Origin of Species, where he first described “descent with modification” ...
• the berkeley university definition, “evolution, simply put, is descent with modification” ...
• the university of michigan definition, “changes in the genetic composition of a population with the passage of each generation” and the “gradual change of living things from one form into another over the course of time, the origin of species and lineages by descent of living forms from ancestral forms, and the generation of diversity” ...
• the modern synthesis definition, “evolution consists primarily of changes in the frequencies of alleles between one generation and another as a result of genetic drift, gene flow, and natural selection” ...
• my definition: “evolution is the change in hereditary traits in populations from generation to generation” ...

... and what they all have in common ... and how they are radically different from your straw man statement? How none of them mention the evolution of man from single cell life in those definitions.

Perhaps once we have determined what evolution is, then we can move on to what the theory of evolution is, and see if rocks, cells and humans turn up there?

Keep it short and sweet, no distraction eh?

Enjoy.

ps - modified policy: [color:"blue"]My time is limited, but I have time to answer more than one response it seems. Therefore, I will continue to post on threads that interest me, but may reply to more than the first response if they discuss the issue(s).[/color] I expect other people to do the same. Thanks for your consideration.

The Evolution of Man Scientifically Disproved in 50 Arguments by Russ Tanner, quoted from

The Evolution of Man
Scientifically Disproved
in 50 Arguments
Copyright, 1928 REPUBLISHED 1928.
By REV. WILLIAM A. WILLIAMS, New Jersey, USA


Even though it is 80 years out of date. Is it that hard to find modern evidence to refute evolution? Why not try 1858.

Let's look at the kind of evidence that Russ thinks is important enough to paste in here:


The problem, Russ (and anyone else interested in the truth) is that mathematics cannot tell the truth.

Numbers will make pretty pictures, but no matter how much you figure and calculate and postulate and formulate, there is no relation to reality. Mathematics cannot invalidate reality, and thus the only conclusion - the only valid rational conclusion - when you have evidence of reality that directly contradicts some mathematical calculation is that the mathematical calculation is in error, there is some mistake in calculation, in formulation or in assumption that was wrong in the math. From this simple fact comes the inevitable conclusion that math cannot prove a single thing one way or the other about reality.

Math is a model, and models are only good or useful as long as they model reality. When a hurricane prediction program crashes because it can't model the [url=http://www.usatoday.com/weather/hurricane/2004-03-26-brazil-hurricane_x.htm>first hurricane in the South Atlantic[/url] on record, the meteorologists don't go out to the hurricane and say "you can't be here, our model does not allow you to be here" ... they fix the model by looking for and taking out the failed assumptions (ie - that all hurricanes are north of the equator). When a model fails to model reality it is a good indication that some aspect of reality has been missed in the model.


If you don't believe me see if you can show that 1+1=2 has validity in the world of objective reality. Start by finding two absolutely identical things.

Einstein used the mathematics of general relativity to predict that a result that would occur if it was true, and would not if it wasn't (a falsification test), was that light would be observed to bend in a gravity lens even though a light particle has no mass. When this was found to be true it wasn't because the math made it true, it was the fact of the light traveling in curved space that showed that the mathematical model (and the theory behind it) was sound. Facts can validate theory, but theory, including mathematical calculations or logical constructions can never invalidate fact.

Now I bet if you looked hard enough you would find an 80 year old refutation of this argument that deals with this conceptual fallacy, funny how creationist frauds never go away eh?

Just like the tornado in the junkyard "calculation" proves nothing.

Now if it was me, I would just be embarrassed to post something as obviously in error as this is.

Enjoy.

Note: [color:"green"]My time (too) is limited, so I post on threads of particular interest to me, but I cannot guarantee a reply to all responses (particularly if they do not discuss the issue/s), and I expect other people to do the same. Thank you for your consideration.[/color]

funny.

comprehension problem.

I like this the best:
If you don't believe me see if you can show that 1+1=2 has validity in the world objective reality. Start by finding two absolutely identical things.


umm... ok.

I hope this guy doesn't come around and start telling everyone dinosaur bones are 100 million years old next.

it would be kind of difficult for someone who can't make it to 2 to get to 100 million.

I think he may have missed the line that said 'things to which mathematics can be applied'.

I wonder if he knows how old he is.

I'm glad he noticed that theory can't invalidate fact though.

here's a fact RAZD:

The theory of evolution is... a theory.

yessir that's a fact. please remember it.

They should have listened 80 years ago and then we wouldn't have to teach RAZD how to count his fingers today.

Thanks again SoSick for showing your grasp of the argument.

Of course that would be silly seeing as the age of dinosaurs ended 65 million years ago, and then there are still some dinosaurs existing today (I had a dino-chicken for dinner last night).

BZZZT! error error.

First, no two years are exactly the same (one of the conditions), certainly not in our experience of them, and second they are not objective facts, but an intellectual abstraction based on planetary orbits. Do you have trouble comprehending simple statements or in distinguishing abstract concepts and fantasy from objective reality?

The irony is killing me.

And that COULD be related to the fact we CALL it a theory ... of course, being a Scientific Theory it is also based on evidence of evolution, the facts of evolution (as you said "life evolved").

Enjoy.

Note: [color:"green"]My time (too) is limited, so I post on threads of particular interest to me, but I cannot guarantee a reply to all responses (particularly if they do not discuss the issue/s), and I expect other people to do the same. Thank you for your consideration.[/color]

I agree. I deem the evolution theory a weak theory because these types of tactics have to be resprted to in order for a evolutionist to keep control over a debate that he or she is losing.

If not, would an evolutionist be so kind in explaining how name calling, personal attacks, and categorizations actually prove evolution? And where is such scientific methods in proving a theory written?

The way I see it. Science has exalted evolution to a level in theories (scientific theory) that it cannot maintain or acheive. But in their attempt to keep it at that level when evidence will not do. Is to attack any challenger by using the tactics listed above. Why else do it unless there is nothing else to resort to?

Example: If a school put a B,C student on the A,B honor role. They would have to break the rules in order to exalt that student to that level, correct? And if the person doing to did not want to admit to any wrong doing. How would they stop any challengers to their decision until a higher up person takes notice?

They would start by saying: You don't understand how the school grading system works. You are not as educated as I am so shut up. You are ignorant. You are stupid. You are an uneducated moron.

And all that was the only thing they could resort to, to defend what they did because no arguement can be made by the rules of how the A,B honor role works because they broke them all by exalting the one student to a level they did not belong in, or did not achieve.

So when these tactics are used by evolutionists to defend the theory, this is what I see. A theory that cannot be defended on the bases that it has been exalted to. And therefore, it's defenders have to defend it by other means.

Now I'm not claiming that evolution is not a theory. I am claiming that it's exaltation to a scientific theory was a bit premature. And this is why there is such debates where such tactics are resorted to. Because the higher a theory goes on that scale, the more scruntiny is required. Those tactics often resorted to prove that the theory cannot stand up to this scruntiny. Or the challenges a theory most be able to withstand to hold such a position.

If I'm wrong. Then explain why such tactics are needed in these debates, that are not even remotely scientific?

Hello and welcome, ikester7579! You're absolutely right about what you've said here. It's for this reason that you will never see posters CTD or SoSick use any insulting, derogatory or otherwise rude comments. Their posts are filled with factual evidence and nothing more -- which is precisely all that is needed in a good debate. For this reason I strongly encourage that you vote 5 stars for them. Their commitment to politeness and courtesy proves that they are on the winning side of the argument. People only resort to name calling when they have a weak argument, which is exactly why you will not find one single rude comment in any of their posts. Not a one! Just read through them and you'll see what I mean.

Hello Ikester and welcome to the forum!

Hmmm, Pwcca's sarcasm aside (which he resorts to frequently). Not many of us could claim perfect posting and total ongoing kindness/respect on this forum. However, I have been on the end of (and seen other creationists have too): false accusations, provocations and arrogance, bitter sarcasm, putting words in the mouth of the opposition (that were never said or insinuated) etc etc.....which I have found very difficult not to retaliate to and I'd challenge anybody else to resist the same (after awhile it does get to you).

I'm sure you've read enough through the past posts yourself to be familiar with some of it and no doubt you may have experienced it yourself. It can be very stressful and draining to find yourself having to constantly expose this in order to restore (hopefully) ones reputation (which some seek to undermine).

When they finally get retaliations from their baiting provocations, they start jumping onto what they perceive as "unfair, childish insults"...(even referring to CTD having apparent "temper tantrums", which I have never seen yet, in fact, quite the opposite!!). If they cannot find anything in the post to make enough of a meal out of, they may resort to putting words in ones mouth instead. Most of us have experienced that one quite often. I'd go so far as to call it bordering on slanderous (some would say it IS slanderous).

I'd challenge most people to deal with them in a manner that is constantly, mature, kind and respectful. One maybe able to resist it for awhile, but sooner or later, they usually get one to retaliate or at least leave the forum. Remaining and tolerating it is admirable admittedly, but breaks maybe necessary, depending on your health/resistance and interest/dedication in the subject itself.

Cheers!

We have all learned from the greatest masters in the field. And we do it when we are provoke.

In fact, why don't we do a forum comparison? Let's take the forum named FSTDT and compare it to 2 Christian creation forums. Which forum do you think will out do the others combined in using these tactics? In fact we would have to add a third Christian creation forum just to make it almost even.

So try as you might to bring us down to that level. The facts and results of those comparisons will speak the truth about the situation. One you cannot change by sarcasm or finger pointing.