”Vote against Bradley Byrne because he believes in that thar e-vo-lution thing”
Cidu Bill on May 13th 2010
Molly sent me this evidence that ignorance is now a requirement for a politician:
Filed in Bill Bickel, YouTube, politics | 64 responses so far
NitricAcid May 13th 2010 at 12:13 pm 1
What makes it even worse is that he denies what he considers slander:
” I believe the Bible is the Word of God and that every single word of it is true. From the earliest parts of this campaign, a paraphrased and incomplete parsing of my words have been knowingly used to insinuate that I believe something different than that. My faith is at the center of my life and my belief in Jesus Christ as my personal savior and Lord guides my every action.”
http://byrneforalabama.com/news/byrne_says_untrue_attack_about_his_faith_is_an_affront_to_all_believers/
“You can’t vote fer Byrne! He ain’t quite as ignerant as us!”
“Dat ain’t true!! I’m even more ignerant as y’all!!”
Nicole May 13th 2010 at 12:17 pm 2
Don’t you remember during the Republican presidental primaries, the candidates were asked whether or not they accepted evolution. There was much discussion afterwords which was a more politically advantagous answer. The general consensous was that not accepting evolution was better, since they were pandering to the religious right.
Sad to say, a large percentage of Americans do not accept evolution. They have a poor understanding of what the theory is (and what the word theory means in scientific context) that is compounded by vast quantities of misinformation (read lies) being told by the religous right.
Sadder to say Bradley Byrne is backpeddaling furiously denouncing evolution and is now proclaiming that the every single word in the bible is literally true.
Charlene May 13th 2010 at 01:34 pm 3
I always point out that gravity’s “only a theory” too, so why aren’t they floating?
Chyron HR May 13th 2010 at 01:54 pm 4
Yeah, but Charles Darwin is fat, so there.
El Cucui May 13th 2010 at 02:23 pm 5
Charles Darwin once said, ‘Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than knowledge,’
It’s the Dunning-Kruger effect in action:
Transcript:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2010/2893602.htm
Audio:
http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/2010/05/ssw_20100508_1237.mp3
Excerpt:
* Those who failed the task seemed to be completely oblivious to what a good result looks like. Context didn’t make them more aware of their stupidity, it acted to reinforce their delusions.
Igelino May 13th 2010 at 03:08 pm 6
Yes, Nicole. It seems to me a safer vote would be for a pronounced atheist than for a pronounced Christian who backpedals on beliefs.
I’ve always wondered why the “anti-evolutionists” don’t argue that the world was created with fossils, and that the mixtures of carbon isotopes were created in percentages to conform to what we currently measure in our carbon dating.
I guess saying that dinosaurs and man existed at the same time is more appealing to the modern worshipper?
El Cucui May 13th 2010 at 03:29 pm 7
Igelino: “I’ve always wondered why the “anti-evolutionists” don’t argue that the world was created with fossils”
I have frequently encountered that flavor of “anti-evolutionist”. They claim that God created this planet out of in-tact leftovers of other planets… so all these fossils are actually the remains of ET life forms (don’t laugh, they take this very seriously…. well it’s OK to laugh I guess, but they still take it seriously).
It’s an admission that other worlds existed before this one, but it allows them to preserve a belief in a 6-24-hour-day creation and/or a ridiculously young planet. They have no explanation for (nor interest in) the complete lack of asteroids which are very thin, many miles wide, and are composed of sedimentary rock.
paperboy May 13th 2010 at 04:19 pm 8
I hate those anti-evolutionists; they’re like Holocaust-Deniers. As a Scientist myself, I’ve gone over the data, and declare they are Religious Nuts.
Detcord May 13th 2010 at 04:52 pm 9
This is why the founders wanted to keep religion out of politics. I wish they had had better luck.
mitch4 May 13th 2010 at 05:34 pm 10
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omphalos_hypothesis . The 19th Century advocates of this did not know about radioactive dating, but the principle could be extended easily enough.
NitricAcid May 13th 2010 at 06:30 pm 11
Igelino- that kind of argument has been made, along with the idea that the light now reaching us from distant stars was created part-way between the stars and us, so that we’d be able to see them constantly. The universe was created 6000 years ago, but we can still see stars that are 12000 light-years away by the light that was created half-way between the star and us. So the world was created to look exactly as if it was 4 billion years old, in a 12 billion year old universe, even though it’s not.
The best answer I’ve seen to this hypothesis is, “How do you know that the world wasn’t created last Thursday?” It just has the appearance of being older, and you were created with false memories of anything that happened last Wednesday or beyond.
Tim May 13th 2010 at 06:45 pm 12
I’m a trained scientist, and evolution is so anti-scientific, there’s only one reason people believe it, and that is that they begin with the assumption of atheism, and need a belief to fit it. Evolutionist Sir Arthur Keith said, “Evolution is unproved and improvable. We believe it because the only alternative is special creation, and that is unthinkable.”
Cidu Bill May 13th 2010 at 06:54 pm 13
So essentially, Tim, the Sherlock Holmes reasoning.
Andrew McGrae May 13th 2010 at 07:35 pm 14
@Tim There is no evidence that Arthur Keith ever said that, and it goes against everything he is recorded as saying on the subject. See quote #81 on this page http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/part1-4.html :
“The quote that is attributed to Sir Arthur Keith is a figment of the creationists imagination. I researched that quote a month or two ago and could not find a trace of it. No library in the Atlanta metro area has this particular edition and neither Amazon nor Barnes and Noble has this edition. I am in nine newsgroups and no one in these NGs had a copy or had ever seen one. A search of the internet showed many references for this quote but every one of them was from a creationist site. It is also amazing because that Sir Arthur died in 1955 and the 100th anniversary edition would not have been issued until 1959. Tell me, did “God” write this for Sir Arthur from heaven?”
Charles May 13th 2010 at 07:57 pm 15
@Tim
I take it you don’t believe in dog breeding either?
Mark in Boston May 13th 2010 at 08:06 pm 16
What I don’t understand is how you can be anti-liberal and still claim to be an American. Do you disavow everything in the Declaration of Independence? That’s one of the most liberal documents ever written.
And don’t tell me “I believe that all men are created equal but I ain’t a Liberal.” That’s like saying “I believe that there is no God but I ain’t an atheist!”
furrykef May 13th 2010 at 08:51 pm 17
I’m a trained scientist
What kind of scientist? Paleontologist? Zoologist? Geologist? Or just another scientist whose field of study has nothing to do with evolution?
evolution is so anti-scientific
On what grounds?
there’s only one reason people believe it, and that is that they begin with the assumption of atheism
Uhhh, no. Charles Darwin did not begin with the assumption of atheism, nor did the other scientists who first came to accept evolution. He came up with the theory of evolution because it was the simplest explanation for phenomena that he witnessed himself. He applied Occam’s Razor, believing it simpler for evolution to be real than for an imaginary being in the sky to make all these contrivances to make evolution merely look real.
You could say that so far all we have is a hypothesis, and you’d be right. But microevolution has been proven to exist by repeatable experimentation in, say, fruit flies — you can’t get more scientific than that. And you can’t have microevolution without macroevolution, because you add up tiny changes over such a period of time and that’s just what naturally occurs. It’s just statistics. It’s been observed in fields other than biology, too: I hesitate to correlate the evolution of language too strongly with the evolution of species, but it only took a thousand years or so for Latin to evolve into Spanish, Italian, etc., and it arrived there through “microevolutionary” processes. Small changes add up.
Winter Wallaby May 14th 2010 at 12:07 am 18
@Tim. The idea that evolution is a way to justify atheism has always struck me as a bit weird. If evolution were discovered to be false tomorrow, it’s not like I’d be suddenly believe the Christian creation story, any more than I’d suddenly believe the Mayan creation story, or the infinitely old cyclical universes of Hinduism and Buddhism. I’d just think there was a new unsolved scientific problem for scientists to work on. And, conversely, if you want to claim that evolution is false, and therefore attribute complex life forms to an act of God, then why focus on evolution? Why not just pick any of the 10,000 phenomena for which science currently genuinely doesn’t have good explanations for, and “explain” them by saying “God did that”?
El Cucui May 14th 2010 at 01:33 am 19
Furrykef: And you can’t have microevolution without macroevolution, because you add up tiny changes over such a period of time and that’s just what naturally occurs.
See, I don’t think creationists will buy evolution until somebody performs an insanely ambitious breeding program that starts with, let’s say a fish, and ends up with, say, a monkey. Most creationists I’ve encountered call “microeveoluion” breeding… or if they accept that it occurs in nature they’ll claim that’s simply natural variations within species which could never ever become as drastic a change as going from one taxonomic rank to another (i.e. start with something in one genus or family and end up with something that is obviously and undeniably of a completely separate genus or family). And even then, if it’s done within the confines of a lab they might still call it breeding, or simply taxonomic trickery (since only Adam was allowed to name everything?)…. or claim that it’s humans committing what some claim to be the worst sin: “playing God”. If inter-taxonomic-rank change can ever be shown to happen naturally without any human intervention then that might be convincing enough for a lot of creationists.
Which brings me to two items I’ve never quite had the time to look up:
1. What are the estimates for how long (maybe expressed in the number of generations) inter-taxonomic-rank evolution supposed to take (which, I know, is a very complicated question because it depends on the somewhat arbitrary taxonomic classification system in the first place).
2. Has any inter-taxonomic-rank evolution been documented, either in the lab or in the wild, i.e. at least from one genus to a different genus? I know that from one species to a different species has been done, but that’s simply not convincing enough for most creationists because all that huge variation in dogs still has them all in the same species and that’s “breeding”, not “evolution”. It’s got to be at least on the genus-to-other-genus level because things get re-classified into different species every day so simply evolving a new species is just taxonomic re-shuffling. Even genus-to-genus “evolution” could be considered taxonomic re-shuffling by some, but it’d stand a better chance at being convincing. In order to have that chance at being convincing the at-least-genus-to-other-genus inter-taxonomic-rank evolution has to not only show as much or more change than has been accomplished through domesticated animal breeding, it has to create an organism that cannot possibly breed with the “ancestral” organism, not just breed and make sterile offspring as separate species can do (some separate species can even make fertile offspring, for example “prizzlies”: polar bear + grizzly bear. http://www.slate.com/id/2253332/
And the genus-to-other-genus organism in question probably has to be a chordate. Everything else is probably too “alien” or too “simple”. Plants won’t work because even family-to-other-family level changes might be dismissed as simply “aggressive breeding” or agricultural genetic engineering. Arthropods are too misunderstood (a bug’s a bug) and everything else is even more alien than those. Although going from a single-celled organism to, say, a jellyfish might do the trick.
And transitional fossils won’t work ’cause the creationists don’t believe in them. It all has to be live evolutionary development.
I’m not saying that this has to be done in order to make evolution scientifically valid. That ship sailed a long time ago (and it was named the HMS Beagle). I’m saying that’s where many creationists and evolution-agnostics have set the bar. The hard-core creationists might not ever be convinced even if God Herself shows up to introduce Sir Darwin’s TED talk. I’m just saying that the creationist masses might need some rather excessively concrete evidences. After all it took the Catholic Church some 500+ years to officially admit that Galileo was right.
Speaking of TED Talks, this guy has a great idea that’s kinda sorta related to all this:
http://blog.ted.com/2007/09/theo_jansen.php
Inadvertently makes a great case for intelligent design, no?
spiritcatcher May 14th 2010 at 04:19 am 20
don’t focus on evolution, just skip to “i believe in the rest of the bible, too”. there’s so many interesting stuff in there, if you think about it. for example the difference between the god of the old and the new testament. the lord really mellowed out after he finally lost his virginity.
Blinky The Wonder Wombat May 14th 2010 at 08:52 am 21
I’m a Christian and frankly I am dismayed by the sub-group that vehemently attacks evolution. It doesn’t really matter how we got here; it’s what we do now that we are here that matters.
I think I understand why the anti-evolutionists are so et in their beliefs- if the Bible is not literally true, they will be forced to actually think, examine, and apply God’s message everyday instead of just looking it up in the user’s manual.
Nicole May 14th 2010 at 10:03 am 22
Tim @ 12
Ken Miller a biology professor at Brown University, is a devout Catholic and a staunch defender of evolution. While you may not agree with his religious choice he certainly is not coming from the assumption of atheism. If you care to look at his evolution page you can find it here
http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/
There are of course, many theists who accept evolution. Charles Darwin was an agnostic. So you are mistaken in your assertion that “that is that they begin with the assumption of atheism”, it is simply not true.
Nicole May 14th 2010 at 10:06 am 23
Detcord @ 9
“This is why the founders wanted to keep religion out of politics. I wish they had had better luck.”
Something else we totally agree on
Nicole May 14th 2010 at 10:14 am 24
Igelino @ 6
“I’ve always wondered why the “anti-evolutionists” don’t argue that the world was created with fossils, and that the mixtures of carbon isotopes were created in percentages to conform to what we currently measure in our carbon dating.”
Actually I have heard this argument. Sometime refereed to the “last Thursday argument”, which is basically the earth could have been created by god last Thursday to look just as it does today and we would never know the difference. This is the explanation they use to explain the disparity between their belief that the earth is 6000 years old and the evidence that it is billions of years old. The reason god would do such a thing would be to test our faith.
A similar explanation for the facts is that the devil has placed fossils and other evidence to tempt us away from god.
Of course there is no scriptural back of for these claims, but you have to say something when all evidence proves you wrong.
Nicole May 14th 2010 at 10:18 am 25
oops … as I catch up on postings I see that NitricAcid @ 11 said much the same I did — my apologies for being repetitive
Mark in Boston May 14th 2010 at 11:01 am 26
There have always been atheists. Atheists were enough of a problem in King David’s time that he had to write a song about them making fun of them and calling them names. Psalm 14, “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.”
zharris May 14th 2010 at 11:58 am 27
Evolution is evidence of the divine as it creates more-highly organized systems in complete contravention of the physical law of entropy. So there.
Scott May 14th 2010 at 11:59 am 28
@Mark, I’ve heard that quote continued as “and the wise man says it aloud.”
Whenever I run into an anti-evolutionist, I always ask him what they think the theory says. They usually have no clue, mumbling something about molecules to man, or that it says dogs turn into cats, or something clueless about the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Nicole May 14th 2010 at 12:20 pm 29
zharris @27
Here is an article explain why evolution is NOT in complete contravention of the physical law of entropy. So double there
.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/thermo/entropy.html
Winter Wallaby May 14th 2010 at 12:30 pm 30
zharris, while I’m sure that Nicole’s article is excellent, here’s a short explanation that your understanding of the 2nd law is faulty. Ice has a lower entropy (i.e. is “more-highly organized”) than liquid water. Yet water can freeze without divine intervention.
Igelino May 14th 2010 at 12:33 pm 31
Nitric Acid #11: don’t be silly! It couldn’t have been created last Tuesday. The bible indicates very clearly that it was created some 6000 years ago.
: )
Why doesn’t the “mitch4″, “nitric acid”, “nicole”, “igelino” theory get any press? It’s a lot more appealing than saying dinosaurs and humans existed together. And it doesn’t disagree with evolution - 6000 years has been long enough for that.
Are you required to turn off your brain to be a creationist? My religion profs in college insisted that we didn’t turn off the brain. But isn’t that what anti-evolutionists are saying?
Igelino May 14th 2010 at 12:41 pm 32
Oh, and thanks mitch4. I’ve never seen the “Omphalos hypothesis”
Elyrest May 14th 2010 at 01:40 pm 33
Interesting discussion. I was raised Catholic and was educated by nuns. They taught us that the bible was full of allegorical tales to help people better understand things. If evolution was ever mentioned they were for it. There didn’t seem to be any creationists around 40 years ago. Have people gotten stupid?
And I think Tim is a hit & run troll. I might not have agreed with Basil a couple of weeks ago, but at least he stayed to talk.
Detcord May 14th 2010 at 01:44 pm 34
The contortions that the so called Creationists go through to explain natural phenomena is consistent with the Catholic (not Christian) faith. The Catholic New Testament is a construct of 4 gospels (out of about a hundred) selected by the Roman Emperor Constantine to shore up his dying empire. Any gospels that didn’t meet his particular requirements were rejected and Christians supporting them were ostracised (and sometimes persecuted). The result was a fabrication designed to unite various factions - and especially Christians (who despite persecutions, were still in the ascendant) - under one banner. From an Empire shoring-up exercise, it worked for about 85 years.
The sad part is that the concepts of Religion and Science are not antithetical at the philosophical level. I would be much more impressed with a “Supreme Being” who, with a single thought, initiated the Big Bang and all of its fascinating results. The many writings of our collective ancestors make for a captivating perspective on history and culture, but contrary to the apparent Creationist doctrine, they are no where near the last word on the Order of the Universe. I, for one, vote no for turning off our brains.
Jay May 14th 2010 at 01:56 pm 35
For some reason, Tim @12’s post reminds me of Ghostbusters, where Venkman says “Back off man, I’m a scientist.”
Does anybody remember Dr. Science? He knows more than you do; he has a degree … in Science! Maybe Tim is Dr. Science.
El Cucui May 14th 2010 at 02:07 pm 36
Igelino: “Are you required to turn off your brain to be a creationist?”
Maybe.:
“Brain shuts off in response to healer’s prayer” New Scientist 4-27-2010
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627574.200-brain-shuts-off-in-response-to-healers-prayer.html
But faith healing and creationism aren’t the same thing.
Full disclosure: I’ve performed faith healings, but not necessarily the kind most people are familiar with. I’m not a creationist. I am devoutly religious. I have a degree in geology. I like evolution and hope to use it some day (unless something even better shows up).
NitricAcid May 14th 2010 at 06:35 pm 37
Elyrest- most Catholics are just fine with evolution (including the last couple of popes). It’s the evangelical branches of Protestantism (and fundamentalist Islam) that reject evolution and anything else that contradicts anything that’s mentioned in the Bible.
Ted in Fort Lauderdale May 14th 2010 at 06:53 pm 38
Igelino@31 - I believe the “the world was created last Thursday” theory is less popular with the YEC crowd than the Flintstones theory because it basically requires God to intentionally be tricking mankind (to be making things look different than they really are), and in their theology, that behavior is reserved for Satan…
Igelino May 14th 2010 at 07:26 pm 39
Ah, yes, interesting point, Ted. You may be right.
I never thought to second-guess God’s intention in creation. I mean, creating everything as it is is more impressive than evolution and big bang.
: )
But yeah, the idea of trickery could spoil it.
Tim May 14th 2010 at 08:45 pm 40
Elyrest,
I didn’t “stick around and talk” because the rest of these comments came in a matter of about 24 hours. I didn’t have a chance.
As far as “breeding dogs,” you start with live dogs and end up with live dogs. That is no evidence for “macro-evolution,” just “micro-evolution.” NOBODY disputes “micro-evolution.” If you breed dogs together for a billion years, you won’t end up with anything except dogs. It is not the case that there cannot be “micro-evolution” without “macro-evolution.” If macroevolution were true, then either two non-humans produced a human being, or a non-human became a human being. Both of those ideas are against science.
Darwin started with atheism as his assumption; he was trained as a preacher (not a scientist), and looked for some other explanation when a personal tragedy made him reject the Bible. He followed the geological book of Charles Lyell, who was trained as a lawyer (not a scientist), and whose work has been rejected as false.
I’m not planning on getting into a long discussion here, because I know I’ll be attacked and not answered.
Every time “evolution” comes up, the majority of the people here pat themselves on the back. Examine the evidence, and you’ll see that it’s greatly lacking.
Elyrest May 14th 2010 at 09:01 pm 41
Tim - 24 hours around here is a long time when it comes to discussions. You say you are a scientist, but I nothing you have written reads as such. Examining the evidence is what has given rise to the “Theory of Evolution”. Nothing I have ever seen or read shows that evolution is lacking.
We may pat ourselves here, but it’s not often on the back.
Igelino May 14th 2010 at 10:01 pm 42
New Scientist is a fun site, El Cucui. That post is interesting, might even apply to all authority figures. The linked article that appeared on the same page is relevant to this discussion too:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18912-fat-lips-evolve-at-record-speed.html
: )
Winter Wallaby May 14th 2010 at 10:35 pm 43
This is completely untrue. There are loads and loads of evidence for macroevolution. Many of the patterns seen in biology, phylogeny, biogeography, embryology, archaeology, and other fields, make lots of sense under macroevolution, and are completely arbitrary and unintelligible otherwise. Evolution is one of the most wildly successful scientific theories of the last 200 years. Perhaps you meant to say that no one has observed macroevolution in the lab, which is true, but direct observation isn’t the only way to garner evidence in science. No one’s observed a bare quark either, but we can be pretty sure they exist.
furrykef May 15th 2010 at 12:17 am 44
If you breed dogs together for a billion years, you won’t end up with anything except dogs.
Dogs came from wolves, you know. And yes, there is evidence for that. You could take some wolves and breed ‘em into dogs probably in a matter of centuries. Some scientists in Russia did it with foxes… they decided to domesticate the fox. The foxes started out like ordinary foxes, and over the course of 50 or so years, the foxes became considerably more dog-like. They’re probably still the same species, but if they kept at it, they probably would become an independent species, just as dogs became a separate species from wolves.
Speciation has been observed in laboratories, by the way. It’s part of “microevolution” too.
It is not the case that there cannot be “micro-evolution” without “macro-evolution.”
The burden of proof is upon you to demonstrate that. The argument you made is insufficient:
If macroevolution were true, then either two non-humans produced a human being, or a non-human became a human being. Both of those ideas are against science.
You know what else is unscientific? Making a false dichotomy between “human” and “non-human”.
Since when is there a sharp line between “human” and “non-human”? Division between species has never been a sharp line. A horse can mate with a donkey. A lion can mate with a tiger. True, the results don’t work very well, but it demonstrates that there is some degree of compatibility even between different species. The difference between a horse and a donkey is far greater than the difference between your “human” and “non-human” would be. You are drawing a line where no clear line exists.
I’m not planning on getting into a long discussion here, because I know I’ll be attacked and not answered.
I don’t think anybody here is planning on attacking you personally, and if they are, they’re morons. Argumentum ad hominem is no way to make an argument.
If you’re worried about your ideas being attacked, then yes, that may be a problem. But then it would be better to just hold ideas that can stand up to scrutiny, and you needn’t worry.
Winter Wallaby May 15th 2010 at 03:08 am 45
I guess it’s a matter of perspective. To me, settings things up so that they “create themselves” seems a lot more impressive than just making them and putting them there. The latter approach is kind of inelegant and hacky. (Though, to be fair, creating the universe is pretty impressive no matter what approach you take.)
Cidu Bill May 15th 2010 at 03:16 am 46
I agree with Winter: programming the universe to “create itself” is like designing the ultimate Mousetrap set-up.
Andrew McGrae May 15th 2010 at 06:32 am 47
That is no evidence for “macro-evolution,” just “micro-evolution.” NOBODY disputes “micro-evolution.” If you breed dogs together for a billion years, you won’t end up with anything except dogs. It is not the case that there cannot be “micro-evolution” without “macro-evolution.” If macroevolution were true, then either two non-humans produced a human being, or a non-human became a human being. Both of those ideas are against science.
This is essentially the same as saying that micro-aging is true, as people get gradually older each day, but macro-aging is impossible as it would require someone to age several decades overnight.
Andrew McGrae May 15th 2010 at 07:18 am 48
A few figures to put the micro/macro false dichotomy into perspective:
The human and chimpanzee genomes have been sequenced, and we now know that there are roughly 40,000,000 mutations separating the two species.
The base rate of mutations is about 75 per generation.
The average generation time for humans is about 20 years, for chimps it is about 15.
Based on the mutation rate, this means that in one century, chimpanzees will accrue about 500 mutations, while humans have about 375, for a total of 875.
At a rate of 875 mutations per century, we reach 40 million in 4.57 million years. (Selection pressures mean that the actual rate of evolution is a bit slower than this, the most recent common ancestor of both species lived about 5-6 million years ago).
mitch4 May 15th 2010 at 07:22 am 49
Winter tells us, aside:
Classic joke: old bearded Jehovah-resembling figure looking abashed in front of the Earth floating in space. Beside him an even older and lengthier-bearded figure says “For this you expect a Ph.D.?”
Igelino May 15th 2010 at 08:08 am 50
Winter and Bill (45 & 46): if there was a knowledge at the time of creating the mousetrap, as to what would result, yes, that would be more impressive.
The minor theology problem for me is that it kind of implies that everything is known up front. But for bible to work for me, we have to have a choice. God’s knowing in advance what choices we will make ruins it for me.
Igelino May 15th 2010 at 10:26 am 51
In respect to Tim’s assertion that macroevolution does not stand up under scientific method, he is correct.
No one has devised experiments demonstrating it, nor documented the procedure. Not to mention that the (nonexistent) experiments have never been reproduced by other experimenters.
Don’t be so hard on him. 24 hours isn’t that long in real life, and some of the posts to him are rather negative. It’s not in the spirit of the rules here is it?
Powers May 15th 2010 at 10:36 am 52
There is more to the scientific method than direct experimentation, Igelino!
Winter Wallaby May 15th 2010 at 11:04 am 53
Igelino #51: Ditto to Powers #52. To elaborate, in astronomy and geology, we can virtually never engage in controlled experimentation - it’s all based on observation. Do those entire fields “not stand up under the scientific method”? Would you say that we’ve only observed “micro-plate-tectonics”- the tiny shift of plates under earthquakes - but have no scientific analysis to support “macro-plate-tectonics” - the larger shift of plates over millions of years?
As someone who virtually never comments while at work, I do side with Time on the 24 hrs thing, though.
Igelino May 15th 2010 at 11:07 am 54
I realize that, you guys. I’m just saying that Tim isn’t way off base. And especially if (and no offense here) if he has only had high school science.
Elyrest May 15th 2010 at 12:26 pm 55
“I’m just saying that Tim isn’t way off base. And especially if (and no offense here) if he has only had high school science.”
Igelino -The problem here is that Tim says he is a trained scientist. That implies a college education and most likely post-college work.
As for 24 hours - I know it isn’t long in regards to life, but in regards to discussions here it often is. Some comics/ideas will post out in a day. Some last longer, but it is the rare one that lasts longer than just a few days. If someone wants their ideas known and wants a give and take on them there is generally a time limit on how long they can do that.
Dave in Boston May 15th 2010 at 02:11 pm 56
It is my experience that people who doubt that a million years of small changes can stack up to big changes… don’t really grasp just how long a million years is.
(It’s also my experience that most people do not really grasp just how quickly a small amount of material can produce vastly complicated phenomena. Spend time fixing bad software and you get an entirely different perspective on evolution…)
John in Tronna May 15th 2010 at 05:11 pm 57
I am not a scientist. I don’t even play one on TV. I am also a conservative Catholic.
I also believe in evolution.
My academic exposure to science ended in 2nd year university when I declared an arts major (”Would you like fries with your degree?”). So, basically, I’ve got freshman chem and physics, and absolutely NO biology — weak tummy.
So I leave science up to the scientists. They crunch the numbers, do the tests, prove or disprove the hypotheses, do peer reviews, and eventually come up with a workable theory. To which I then say, “Way to go, God!”
To me, when it comes to the universe, life, etc, religion tells me “Whodunnit”, science “HowHedunnit”.
And I find the more complex and intricate the answer, the more it speaks to the power of the Creator. I mean, *I* certainly wouldn’t have done it that way.
John in Tronna May 15th 2010 at 05:31 pm 58
Changing species — or genera, or phyla, or whateva — over time reminds me of my colour classes in art school. When you look at a colour wheel — or a spectrum — at what point does one colour become another? At what point does what is clearly green become clearly yellow? Or are there then “transitional colours” — yellow-green, say? Well, at what point does the colour cease to be yellow and actually become yellow-green?
Trying to determine the generational point at which one species “evolved” into another — bang! — is trying to find a dividing *line* between two colours in a spectrum. So for humans and their tree, for example, over here is Australopithecus, over there, Homo erectus. In between, you got your Homoish Australopiths, your Homo-Australipithicusses, your Australopithihomos, your Homo with Australopthicusesque tendencies, etc.
To the pro-evo’s out there — am I close, or have I the wrong end of the stick?
furrykef May 15th 2010 at 05:50 pm 59
John in Tronna — I was actually considering making the same argument. The main reason I didn’t was because you could technically find an exact, definite point that is, say, 50% green and 50% yellow, and draw a line through that point, when I was trying to argue that no clear line exists at all. Of course, there is still the fact that right next to it is 49.9% green, and, on the other side, 50.1% green, both utterly indistinguishable to the eye from 50% green.
El Cucui May 15th 2010 at 07:51 pm 60
Dave in Boston: “Spend time fixing bad software and you get an entirely different perspective on evolution…”
Ah, if only that were true. I work with a brilliant software programmer who deals with insanely complex software all the time, as well as the associated horrific messes that can occur. And yet last week he sends me this:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2949640/Noahs-Ark-found-in-Turkey.html
He’s very hopeful about the expedition, but doubts the carbon dating results because, he claims, carbon dating cannot be relied upon because of all the above ground nuclear testing that occurred in the mid-20th century.
I responded with this headline that I think came from “Nature” a few years ago:
“Noah’s ark found earlier than usual this year”
… and this article in National Geographic (complete with video!).
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/04/100428-noahs-ark-found-in-turkey-science-religion-culture/
El Cucui May 15th 2010 at 10:10 pm 61
Winter: “Would you say that we’ve only observed “micro-plate-tectonics”- the tiny shift of plates under earthquakes - but have no scientific analysis to support “macro-plate-tectonics” - the larger shift of plates over millions of years?”
Best plate tectonics video ever (covers 650 million years, including 250 million years into the future):
http://boingboing.net/2009/07/16/time-lapse-sim-of-ea.html
Strangest plate tectonics theory ever (Earth used to be a LOT smaller, about the size of Mars. It’s been expanding):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzgdwBpDokk
I’ve not heard the audio on that second link. I’ve read about this idea on other sites though. I’ve seen a few creationists latch on to this theory, especially Intelligent Design types who are OK with an old Earth. They like it ’cause it can kinda agree with the waters welling up from the deep narrative from the Noah story. They also like it ’cause it pokes the plate tectonic guys in the eye. Plate tectonics elegantly explains orogeny, or mountain-building, and volcanism I’m not sure how this “expanding Earth” handles those concepts. I don’t know if the audio gets to that.
Funny story: On that very same HMS Beagle voyage the crew of the ship noticed an earthquake (which has got to be an interesting experience, to feel an earthquake while at sea). When they came to shore, near where the earthquake occurred (which just happened to be very near to where that latest big one in Chile happened) the first thing they noticed was a terrible stench. That appeared to be coming from the large expanse of dead and dying sea creatures that were on the shore. Darwin realized these were creatures who’s undersea home had been uplifted out of the water by the quake. Then he looked up at the Andes and realized that could explain how mountains are formed, via gradual uplift and the occasional large quake ever few years over the course of millions of years. It’s not quite plate tectonics (that came about 50 years later) but it was a new and fundamental idea that underpins modern geology.
And ever since then the geologists have been jealous that the biologists hold the leading claim on Mr. Darwin.
Dave in Boston May 16th 2010 at 11:11 pm 62
El Cucui: oh well, I guess one has to be open to the idea first or something…
Hunt May 17th 2010 at 10:19 am 63
“Actually I have heard this argument. Sometime refereed to the “last Thursday argument”, which is basically the earth could have been created by god last Thursday to look just as it does today and we would never know the difference. This is the explanation they use to explain the disparity between their belief that the earth is 6000 years old and the evidence that it is billions of years old. The reason god would do such a thing would be to test our faith.”
As Groucho said, “Who are you going to believe–me or your own eyes?” I do kind of like the idea of God as a practical joker. But for me–a pretty much evangelical Christian–I’ve never understood why anybody actually read the Biblical creation story as meaning the earth was created in 6 actual days 6000 years ago. Have any of these people actually read the Bible and observed how it is written?
Igelino May 18th 2010 at 04:28 am 64
John at #58: as far as I’m concerned, if you can read your post out loud, without stumbling or smirking, you’ve got the right end of the stick.