The debating skills of evolutionists

Discussion in 'Science & Society' started by Carico, Oct 10, 2008.

  1. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    No I totally agree, this WHOLE forum is a waste of our time, we are wasting or time, yet we are doing dispite knowing this fact, so let us waste are time gloriously by finding a solution to one for the greatest philosophical conundrums: how to get around the denial of reality argument.
     
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  3. NGM Registered Member

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    First one has to define absolute reality. Since no one can do so, denial of something yet undefined isn't in itself practical.
     
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  5. (Q) Encephaloid Martini Valued Senior Member

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    One is a direct result of the other, and for good reason. The church reinforces the very same beliefs theists were indoctrinated in the first place, hence they aren't personal beliefs at all, but beliefs handed down over the centuries, indoctrinating generation after generation.

    They perpetuate this nonsense while raking in millions of dollars, tax free, at YOUR expense.

    You should be outraged at those so-called 'personal beliefs'.
     
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  7. (Q) Encephaloid Martini Valued Senior Member

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    Perhaps a good doctor could fill us in.

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    http://www.victorious.org/whygo.htm
     
  8. NGM Registered Member

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    (Q): One is a direct result of the other, and for good reason.

    I disagree. One is a result of legal status and the other is a belief system. They have organized religion as a common factor, but one is not created as a direct result of the other.

    The church reinforces the very same beliefs theists were indoctrinated in the first place, hence they aren't personal beliefs at all, but beliefs handed down over the centuries, indoctrinating generation after generation.

    The logic of what you've said is lacking in continuity. The church exists because of personal beliefs, not the other way around. Those who attend a church for honest reasons are gathering in a location that makes them feel better. It's not a conspiracy. Do they try to propagate their belief system? Sure they do. Just as you are attempting to propagate you own with your post. This is a natural event that people do every day.

    They perpetuate this nonsense while raking in millions of dollars, tax free, at YOUR expense.

    It's nonsense to you because you are not a member of their group. Your beliefs are nonsense to them because they are not a member of your group.

    The laws are what enable them to benefit from exemptions that result in monetary profits. Change those laws if you can find enough people in your own group to overturn the effects of the votes the group you oppose. If you can't, then they win. It's that simple.


    You should be outraged at those so-called 'personal beliefs'.

    I strongly disagree with you on that. Personal beliefs are not inherently harmful.
     
  9. (Q) Encephaloid Martini Valued Senior Member

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    Nope. it is the other way round, personal beliefs exist because of the church. That can be evidenced quite clearly from the lack of children growing up in Christian families with Islamic beliefs.

    At YOUR expense and mine. I gather in places too that make me feel better, yet those places pay taxes.

    WTF are you talking about? What belief system am I propagating?

    Yes, and you appear uninterested in helping. Thanks for doing nothing and taking it bent over.
     
  10. CutsieMarie89 Zen Registered Senior Member

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    Evolution seemed a little sketchy to me at first (mostly because I went to a Christian school for jr. high and they didn't teach evolution only that Charles Darwin was personally sent by the devil, that was far fetched even for the brainwashed Christian they had made me into) but I realized that I didn't truly understand and still don't just how long a period of a billion years is. Humans have changed quite a bit in just the several thousands of years that we've been here. And watching bacteria rapidly evolve in front of our eyes, is pretty convincing of some kind of force at work. Call it whatever you want, evolution or God or the magical 6 foot tall talking cookie.
     
  11. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    Certainly one can't say there isn't a conscious destiny driving evolution and the universe, their very well could be, but to say the the bible is factually accurate and there is an abrahamic god is to deny reality. Evolutions happened, it happens and its been observed happening, if this conflicts with your believes either adapt your beliefs, drop them or become an crank and deny reality.
     
  12. Carico Registered Member

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    You're oprating on the presupposition that humans lived earlier than 6-10,000 years ago. So no one can know if humans have changed at all since no one has seen earlier humans nor have any ancient tribes talked about these fictitious creatures at all. But one thing is for sure; humans haven't changed at all since the beginning of recorded history. I wonder why that is, especially since evolutionary scientists claim that we're evolving. We still do things right and wrong, adopt myths, act on our desires of greed, lust, envy, sloth, gluttony, anger, and pride. "There's nothing new under the sun."

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  13. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    I guess people back than had guns, and nuclear weapons, and computers and cars, etc? human society is evolving (although its evolution is Lamarckian not Darwinian) although human's them selves genetically aren't going to evolve rapidly with are present population growth.
     
  14. Carico Registered Member

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    Yeah and look what guns and nuclear weapons do; kill people. So what is helpful about them?

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    So we're not evolving, we're in a state of decay since we're getting better at killing each other.

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  15. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    And yet are population still go up exponentially! Because we have gotten even better at living and breeding then killing our selves. If we were in a state of decay population growth would be negative.
     
  16. CutsieMarie89 Zen Registered Senior Member

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    What do you mean assuming humans lived earlier than 6-10,000 years ago? Isn't that several thousands of years? You haven't noticed that we've gotten larger as a species. Haven't you ever gone to a museum or seen clothes worn by people of yesteryear? They were little people compared to the average size of people now. I believe it was only 30 or 40 years ago that average height of women globally was somewhere around 5'3 and now it's 5'6. That's what I was referring too. But humans aren't going to evolve rapidly because we don't reproduce often enough. How could we compete with bacteria since they create a new generation every 20 minutes, while it takes us 20 years. But one evolutionary thing a teacher of mine pointer out is that we're loosing teeth. So I asked two different dentists about it and they said it was true, many young people today are missing one or two of their wisdom teeth. I thought that was interesting.

    What fictitious creatures are you talking about? Neanderthals or "Lucy"?
     
    Last edited: Oct 11, 2008
  17. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    That's not a presupposition, but a discovery and consequent assumption
     
  18. (Q) Encephaloid Martini Valued Senior Member

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    Agriculture originated 13,000 years ago along the Tigris, Euphrates, Nile, Indus and Yangtze River valleys.

    Sorry, but human fossils have been found dating back some 200,000 years.

    That's what happens when you cling to medieval religious myths and superstitions.
     
  19. NGM Registered Member

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    (Q)Nope. it is the other way round, personal beliefs exist because of the church. That can be evidenced quite clearly from the lack of children growing up in Christian families with Islamic beliefs.

    Your speaking of religious beliefs that are imposed and demanded by parents on children, not the church. Parents can and do deny the teachings of the church every day in every place. Children think what their parents tell them to think. The parents are the ones who created the church. Churches didn't pop out of the ground on their own. Very real human beings built them and filled them as a result of their own beliefs.

    At YOUR expense and mine. I gather in places too that make me feel better, yet those places pay taxes.

    I've already stated that I don't think that is the way it should be.

    What belief system am I propagating?

    The lack of belief in formal religious beliefs. I've known religious people who didn't attack their opponents as fanatically as you are. You've turned a lack of belief into a belief system of your own. Your talking like the local minister of non-religion to his congregation. Pastor Q.



    Yes, and you appear uninterested in helping. Thanks for doing nothing and taking it bent over.

    What a childish statement to make. You accuse me of being homosexual and allowing another man to put his penis into my rectum because I dare to disagree with Pastor Q.

    That type of statement is made by people who have no real argument, so they resort to making unfounded, snide, nasty, little minded comments that are intended to portray their opponent as something negative.

    Is that the best you can do? Make childish comments? Have you no real argument that supports your viewpoint?

    Your basis for the childishness is even wrong. I dislike the way that the church is exempt of taxes and other laws, so your little tantrum wasn't even based in truth.

    If you want to continue talking to me, change your method to that of an adult. Use logic to present your argument, not childish insult.
     
  20. Carico Registered Member

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    How is losing teeth evolving into a new superior species? And diet and medicine is what is making us live longer and be taller, not our genes mutating into a new species.

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  21. NGM Registered Member

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    Sorry Mods, I had to re-post this to make a point. Carico seems to be avoiding even answering a post I made to him. He hasn't even answered the reminder of that post that I made to him. I've copied it and posted it here again in an effort to get him to reply. I won't do this again. It's a one time event to put it right smack in his face, so he won't have any excuse about how "he might have missed it", as he's said in another post of his.

    Thanks, Nat.


    Hey Carico, I know you're awful busy answering a lot of posts, but you seemed to have missed answering mine. If you don't want to answer it, just ignore it again this time and I'll know that you really don't want to think about how wrong you actually are. I'll know that you just want to come here and preach a bunch of mumbo-jumbo to the non-believers. Here is what I posted to you earlier in the thread and you have so far ignored:

    Hello Carico. I'd like to discuss some of the parts of this difference of belief that is evident between you and those who are arguing with you.

    Please be patient with me. I promise not to get angry with you or use any cursing. I know that you'll do the same.

    First, we have to come to a common understanding of what the word "evolution" means in the context of this discussion.

    When I say "Evolve", I mean that some part, perhaps incredibly tiny, of the characteristics of a particular creature has changed in some way through a bunch of generations. Perhaps it's hair has become longer or shorter over many hundreds of documented years of observation. There are many, many examples of this throughout history.

    An interesting, modern day example of obvious evolution of a creature is the Italian wall lizard study only 37 years ago. It's well documented by living people, with photos that show the actual changes that took place in the lizards. Please read the following with an open mind and realize that this is only one example of how evolution takes place in living things. After discussing this example, we can move on to more complex examples of evolution.

    Here's the information I'd like you to read:

    In 1971, biologists moved five adult pairs of Italian wall lizards from their home island of Pod Kopiste, in the South Adriatic Sea, to the neighboring island of Pod Mrcaru. Now, an international team of researchers has shown that introducing these small, green-backed lizards, Podarcis sicula, to a new environment caused them to undergo rapid and large-scale evolutionary changes.

    “Striking differences in head size and shape, increased bite strength and the development of new structures in the lizard’s digestive tracts were noted after only 36 years, which is an extremely short time scale,” says Duncan Irschick, a professor of biology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “These physical changes have occurred side-by-side with dramatic changes in population density and social structure.”

    Researchers returned to the islands twice a year for three years, in the spring and summer of 2004, 2005 and 2006. Captured lizards were transported to a field laboratory and measured for snout-vent length, head dimensions and body mass. Tail clips taken for DNA analysis confirmed that the Pod Mrcaru lizards were genetically identical to the source population on Pod Kopiste.

    Observed changes in head morphology were caused by adaptation to a different food source. According to Irschick, lizards on the barren island of Pod Kopiste were well-suited to catching mobile prey, feasting mainly on insects. Life on Pod Mrcaru, where they had never lived before, offered them an abundant supply of plant foods, including the leaves and stems from native shrubs. Analysis of the stomach contents of lizards on Pod Mrcaru showed that their diet included up to two-thirds plants, depending on the season, a large increase over the population of Pod Kopiste.

    “As a result, individuals on Pod Mrcaru have heads that are longer, wider and taller than those on Pod Kopiste, which translates into a big increase in bite force,” says Irschick. “Because plants are tough and fibrous, high bite forces allow the lizards to crop smaller pieces from plants, which can help them break down the indigestible cell walls.”

    Examination of the lizard’s digestive tracts revealed something even more surprising. Eating more plants caused the development of new structures called cecal valves, designed to slow the passage of food by creating fermentation chambers in the gut, where microbes can break down the difficult to digest portion of plants. Cecal valves, which were found in hatchlings, juveniles and adults on Pod Mrcaru, have never been reported for this species, including the source population on Pod Kopiste.

    “These structures actually occur in less than 1 percent of all known species of scaled reptiles,” says Irschick. “Our data shows that evolution of novel structures can occur on extremely short time scales. Cecal valve evolution probably went hand-in-hand with a novel association between the lizards on Pod Mrcaru and microorganisms called nematodes that break down cellulose, which were found in their hindguts.”

    Change in diet also affected the population density and social structure of the Pod Mrcaru population. Because plants provide a larger and more predictable food supply, there were more lizards in a given area on Pod Mrcaru. Food was obtained through browsing rather than the active pursuit of prey, and the lizards had given up defending territories.

    “What is unique about this finding is that rapid evolution can affect not only the structure and function of a species, but also influence behavioral ecology and natural history,” says Irschick.

    Results of the study were published March 25 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This research was supported by the National Science Foundation and the Fund for Scientific Research in Flanders. Additional members of the research team include Anthony Herrel of Harvard University and the University of Antwerp, Kathleen Huyghe, Bieke Vanhooydonck, Thierry Backeljau and Raoul Van Damme of the University of Antwerp, Karin Breugelmans of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences and Irena Grbac of the Croatian Natural History Museum.

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    Do you agree that these lizards have changed from what they were, into what they are now?
     
  22. Bells Staff Member

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    He won't reply. No matter how many times you re-post the question. He will not reply simply because you are challenging his steadfast beliefs in creationism.
     
  23. D H Some other guy Valued Senior Member

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    No, you are not wasting your time. Some of those brainwashed with creationism will always go "LA-LA-LA I can't hear you" when you confront them with fact and logic, but not everyone. Evidence:

     

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